The Jordan Harbinger Show - 493: Should You Sue Uncle Sam for Allegation Sham? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Your promising military career was derailed when former colleagues falsely accused you of wrongdoing to cover their own misdeeds. Even though the timeline proved that your alleged malfeasance would have been impossible and you were cleared of all charges, you missed promotions, eligibility cutoffs, special pay, and accompanying bonuses over the course of the lengthy investigation. Adding insult to these injuries is the message that your higher-ups have elected "not to go forward" with reinstating your qualifications and reimbursing you for your losses. So now you're wondering: should you sue Uncle Sam for this allegation sham? And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/493 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your military career was derailed by accusations of misconduct proven untrue, but you've been denied back pay or promotions due. Should you sue? [Thanks to attorney and friend Corbin Payne for helping us with this one!] In an out-of-character lapse of judgment, your girlfriend got drunk, drove, hit a car, and got arrested. As a result, she may spend a year in prison. While you feel bad for her, you don't want to be pulled down by her bad choices. Should you stay or should you go? In spite of the pandemic, your new business is thriving. Unfortunately, your mental health isn't, and establishing self-care boundaries with your workaholic business partner isn't panning out. Should you try to navigate the partnership for the sake of all you've built, or let it go for the sake of your sanity? What's the best way to get your child to learn a second language at a young age? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today, I'm here with my Feedback Friday, producer, my compatriot and counsel, Gabriel Mizrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills are the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We want to help you see the matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave. And our mission here on the show is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening even inside your own mind. If you're new to this show on Fridays like this, we give advice to you, we answer listener

questions. The rest of the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. And if you're joining us for the first time or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about the show, we have episode starter packs. These are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash start. They're collections of your favorite episodes organized by topic so that you can get a taste of everything we do here on the show or share the show with somebody else

and they can pick something that they're actually interested in instead of the thing that you're shoving down their throat. Not that I don't appreciate you shoving this show down people's throats, just to be clear. Just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash start to get started. This week we had Ray Dalio back on the show talking about the changing world order. where are we in the cycle of boom and Boston?

Where are we in terms of stability here in our democracy, here in the Western world, especially in the United States because of the gap between rich and poor and a whole host of other factors that Ray gets into here on the show? We also had Michael Shermer back on the show. This one is from the vault. We discuss why people believe weird things. Why do people see patterns where there aren't any?

Why do our brains do this to us? This is especially pertinent right now in the era of conspiracy theories and Q&on on all this other craziness. Again, a rebroadcast with Michael Shermer and Ray Dalio. So make sure you've had to listen to everything we created for you here this week. Also, I write every so often on the blog. The latest post is about morning routines.

I think they're overrated. I think that as a productivity tool, they're a bit of a hard sell. I think a lot of times they work against you. So in this piece, we talk about the right way to create a morning routine that really serves your unique needs and interests, drawing on the latest science, all around this. Some wisdom from the interviews here on the show are included, of course, as well as my own experience designing a routine that actually worked for me. So make sure you've had a look and listen to everything that we created for you here this week. The articles, by the way, are also at jordanharbinger.com

slash articles. For advice, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise, make a descriptive subject line. Don't just write advice in it that drives us freaking crazy. If there's something you're going through, a big decision you're wrestling with, or you need a new perspective on stuff, whether it's life, love, work, whether you should stop jumping out of closets and scaring your girlfriend, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, or keeping your girlfriend up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help. We keep every email anonymous. Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailback? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 20-something guy serving as an officer in the military. I had a very

solid start to my military career for the first five years. I was commissioned on scholarship. I passed several military schools and training courses with distinction. I held several positions above my pay grade during my first operational tour, and I received several awards on that tour. I was then selected for a prestigious high visibility position in the Pentagon to top it all off, beating out several other candidates, most of them senior to me. The training I completed and the positions I held entitled me to certain special pays and bonuses. Then things went off the rails about two years ago. I lost my high visibility position and was called in for questioning when it came out that former peers of mine had incriminated me for violating the uniform code of military

justice. These accusations were coming from peers who I knew on my first tour and were leveled many months after I had already moved away from that duty station. I found out later that this all stemmed from one individual testing positive in a routine drug test, the implications of which pulled several officers into an arduous investigation and, based on the evidence package I was finally able to read on redacted, a snowball of people looking to cover their asses and cut deals. I was initially questioned by the authorities and my hair, urine, and fingerprints were taken. The process was not fun. My most vivid memory of the day I was pulled in was a federal law enforcement agent telling me I couldn't leave yet, simply because I was quote unquote kind of under

arrest. And that was after I had asked for counsel for the third time. I stood my ground that these accusations had no basis in fact and refuted the allegations. I had no recourse to get my position back and could only watch while they stripped away my special pays and bonuses. The investigation took nearly two years until I could finally get in front of the correct board of administrative proceedings to adjudicate it all. The board ultimately found no basis in the accusations leveled against me, essentially clearing me of any suspected wrongdoing and closing the case. Due to how long this process took, I missed my screening dates for promotion, not to mention that I still have not had special pays or bonuses reinstated or reimbursed. I also missed my eligibility to sign on for additional bonuses

if I had continued my projected career path, effectively ending my career in the military. Furthermore, I have about six months until I can get out, and all they have said to me is that they have elected not to go forward with reinstating my qualifications and reimbursing me. The amount in question is about $30,000. If I were to consider how my career track likely would have gone and extrapolate to the contracts I would have been eligible for, there would be an additional $75,000. Is it worth it to hire a lawyer and sue the government over the roughly $100,000 plus possible pain and suffering? Am I even eligible to do so? or should I just be glad I made it through to the other side and move on? We're also concerned that it could affect our employment opportunities if we bring a case forward.

I love the show, and I appreciate all that you guys do, signed Throwdown and Spar or Accept that it's Fubar. Wow, this is such a sad and infuriating story. It's yet another example of government bureaucracy bullshit, causing a guy to lose $100,000 and the country to lose a good man from the ranks due to their own inept crap. Right? This really grinds my gears. I feel for you, man. I really do. You sound like an incredibly smart, thoughtful, upstanding person who wanted to serve his country, and then he got swept up in some shitty situation created by a bunch of schmows,

and you were the one left to take the hit because everybody else wanted to save their skin. It's like a real-life version of a few good men, minus the awesome ending, just deeply uncool. I get why you're angry. I would be too, and I also get why you're considering suing. A hundred grand is nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure the emotional toll is actually even higher. So, look, we wanted to make sure we had a good handle on the legal aspect of your question, so we consulted with none other than OG friend of the show, Corbin Payne. C. Payne did some great homework, as per usual, and helped us think through your situation here. So, first of all, the most important thing to remember here is that you're dealing with

a massive, indifferent, ultimately self-interested government agency that will be extremely difficult to deal with. You already knew that based on the ordeal that you've been through and having worked there, right, in the service, been in the service, but it's worth remembering as you consider this lawsuit. Everything we talk about from here on out, every decision you'll have to face down the road, all of it should be informed by the fact that the military is almost certainly going to make things difficult for you,

far more difficult than they should be. And Corbyn, he actually has some military contacts who have experience interpreting and applying the Uniform Code of Military Justice or the UCMJ. And the consensus he got from them is to spend very little time getting the military to voluntarily cough up these bonuses or admit wrongdoing. Corbyn told us that the term closing ranks was literally invented to describe the military's standard response to situations just like this. The likelihood that they'll be

team players if you try to resolve this amicably is basically zero. So if you're going to get what you deserve from your former employer, it's almost certainly not going to be by playing nice. based on our research, it sounds like a lawsuit is actually the best strategy. If you're determined to get your money and balance the scales here. Now, I do think there are some good reasons to just walk away and build a new career, and I'll get back to that in a moment, but there are also some good reasons to bring a lawsuit and fight for what you deserve, especially since the facts of this case seem to be so stark.

Now, if you do decide to sue, the best thing you can do, always in any lawsuit, no matter what, is hire a great attorney. Corbyn's advice, the attorney has to be a very, former JAG officer who's now on private practice. That's a lawyer who was in the judge-advocate General Corps. That's the branch of the military that deals with military law. The UCMJ, it's a weird mix of regulations, civil law, criminal law. No one outside the JAG Corps is going to be able to make heads or tails of it. To find somebody like that, I'd start with the awesome legal counsel who defended you against these charges before the board. They sound great. They can probably point you in the

right direction. They can advise you as to your odds of recovery and the feasibility of a lawsuit. Corbyn's take was that you seem to have a pretty strong story here. In fact, he said that if you had received similar treatment from the organization he was representing, he'd recommend settling generously with you ASAP and firing the ass hats who did this to you without hesitation. He believes most attorneys looking at the facts of your case would reach a similar conclusion, but like we just said, the U.S. military is another beast entirely, so you just never know. Now, if you decide to move forward with the lawsuit, then I would start thinking about what outcome you're going to be happy with. Corbyn told us about an old saying among attorneys that basically goes,

when one party sues, everyone loses. Lawsuits are expensive, they're time consuming, they take a big emotional toll. Take it from me personally. This is so true. If you decide to sue the government, you have to be prepared to pay those costs, both the tangible costs and the intangible ones. A competent, experienced attorney can help you identify and budget for those costs so that you know what you're getting into. Our hope is that the military doesn't force you to take them to court and just reasonably settles with you. Corbin's advice there, if they make a fair offer, take it and leave those idiots in the dust. Depending on what you feel is acceptable, and that's different for everyone. But since you're financially stable, you do have some flexibility here.

Depending on what you can live with, I would just take the money and run. Kind of whatever settlement isn't insulting. Save your time and energy and freaking headache, heartache, pushing for more, just get on with your life. That's what I would do. anyway. Yeah, I would too. For a guy like this, duking it out with the government for six years to get just a little more cash out of them, that probably isn't worth it. If he gets most of what he wants here and he can use it to fund his next chapter, I would say that's a win. Beyond that, though, I would start thinking about all of the exciting things you can do with your life now, because based on what you've shared, you have a ton to offer any organization. If I were you, I would bring your considerable skills,

your emotional intelligence, your work ethic. I would take all of that to the private sector, where you'll probably be better compensated and not have to deal with people ratting you out for smoking a j when they were on the base one night or something. I know it's probably frustrating to cut your losses. It might sting a little bit when you think about this for the rest of your life. But leaving this chapter behind as soon as possible, whether you sue the government or not, that's probably the best move you can make. I know that $100,000 is a lot of money. I obviously hope you recover as much of it as possible. But the reality is you have a real shot at making a lot more than that in your career. And I would imagine pretty quickly too.

Start building relationships in the civilian world. If you're not already doing that, capitalize on your financial stability to interview and find a great role for yourself. And trust that going all in on yourself right now will probably pay much bigger dividends than spending the next decade or so trying to get Uncle Sam to cough up more cash. I know that's a tough pill to swallow and I'm not saying that they won't give you that money at some point. That you don't need the government to pay you back for the rest of your life to be great. Then I think you'll find a little more freedom, a little less stress, and any money you do end up getting, that'll just be a nice bonus alongside the awesome life you're building now. That's the real victory in my book anyway. Yeah, I agree, because it's not just time and money that goes into a lawsuit.

It's also a ton of emotional energy. Your thoughts and identity get wrapped up in it. It's easy to attach a ton of importance to the outcome here. I've been there. It's exhausting. It's such a waste of brain space. He'd be much better off taking a decent settlement as soon as possible and then just investing all those resources in himself in the rest of his life. My last thought here, And I just want to say this before we wrap up. It sounds like you handled this whole ordeal like a friggin' champ. You get thrown under the bus by your peers. You're being held in question by the military without a lawyer.

You're going through a long government investigation. In terms of the most stressful events you can go through in life, that's got to be up there. You sit up to the interrogation with a ton of strength and conviction, even though it didn't go your way. Not yet, anyway. You totally held your own. You should be really proud of that, man. I mean that.

Most people, they just crumble in the face of something like that. In fact, we actually talked a lot about that in an episode on false confessions with Laura Naira recently. That's episode 4, 5, 6. If you want to give it a listen, we'll link to it in the show notes, of course. A lot of people who are being questioned, they end up admitting to something, even if it's totally false, just to get out of a stressful situation. But you didn't do that. You held firm in a situation that was probably super painful, embarrassing, annoying, scary. You were exonerated, and the military review board affirmed your integrity. If nothing else, that's a pretty good. a huge accomplishment in itself. I think so anyway. Corbin actually said it best when he weighed in here.

He said, as a defense attorney, my hat is off to you. As a U.S. citizen, I regret that we're losing such a competent and courageous officer. His words, not mine, but I wholeheartedly agree with him. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It's tough that your life has taken this unexpected turn, but as corny as it sounds, I really do have a feeling that it's pushing you to do something even better. The faster you can find out what that is, the better. Take your skills, your experience, your obvious resilience, bring them to a place that truly values you and will compensate you accordingly, and know that you'll probably never have to face anything as terrible as this again in your entire career. But if you ever do, you know you have the goods to survive. And frankly,

that's a huge asset. So best of luck, my man. As always, we're rooting for you. You're listening to Feedback Friday here on the Jordan Harbinger show. We'll be right back. And now, back to Feedback Friday on the Jordan Harbinger Show. All right. What's next? Hey Jordan and Gabe. My girlfriend and I have been together for almost a year now. She got divorced at the beginning of last year and spent the rest of the year trying to put her life back together. So far, she's done a decent job managing life with two young kids at home who are doing online school all day, and two senior parents living next door who rely on her as well. Last week, though, after having a bad day, she decided to go out with her friends and had way too much to drink.

I got a call to come pick her up from the bar because she was so drunk she couldn't drive. Just as I got there, I saw her pulling out of the parking lot, so I followed her, but before I could catch her, she hit another car. Luckily, no one was hurt, but she did get arrested and cited for a DUI and reckless driving. This is the first time she's ever done anything like this. She's never gotten a speeding ticket or been in an accident, and this is not normal behavior for her. But now she may lose her license and go to jail for a year. I've never been in a situation like this, so I'm kind of at a loss as to how to handle it. Do I run?

Do I try to stay and work through it with her? I feel for her and I don't want to drop her when she's at the worst point of her life, but I also feel I owe it to myself to not let her bad choices pull me down or hold me back. What would you do? Signed, D-U-I have no idea what to do here. Man, that must have been a rough night. And I'm not trying to make light of this. I'm sorry your girlfriend decided to drive home. That is extremely unfortunate. It's embarrassing. It's probably a huge legal and logistical headache now. I'm just glad nobody else was hurt. That's the great news. It's kind of a miracle. especially since it sounds like she was pretty blasted,

you were right there to pick her up and she decided to freaking Shia La Buffett all the way home. I mean, or at least try to get home anyway. That's a bummer. So look, I find your question really interesting because based on what you've shared, your girlfriend, she's had a very rough year between the divorce, raising young kids,

taking care of her parents. That's a lot for one person to handle. And like you said, she's doing a good job of managing her life. She's on top of it. This is the first time she's ever done anything like this. I'm assuming she's not getting blackout drunk on the regs or driz driving every other weekend. This sounds like it really is a one-time thing that unfortunately ended badly.

Or fortunately ended badly enough to hopefully stop her from doing it again, but not badly enough to have lifelong consequences. I get why you're a little concerned here. What she did was reckless, it was dumb, it's going to be an albatross around her neck for a while, and now you're going to have to have a front row seat to her legal drama, probably a lot of emotional stress. I imagine she's pretty angry right now. She's probably disappointed. She's obviously embarrassed. Maybe she's lashing out at you sometimes. And this whole thing will probably create financial stress and other headaches for a while. The average DUI costs around 10 grand, all told. That's not a

trivial amount of money for most people. It might be hard for her to get certain jobs with a DUI on her record. If she loses her license, it'll be a lot harder for her to get to the office, to run errands, to get her kids to and from school or their friends to houses, whatever. And if your finances are commingled in any way, like if you guys share a bank account, or you're on the same car insurance policy, or you're helping support her, then this DUI could affect you more directly,

all of which could be creating more obligations for you, more stress for you, if she's expecting you to pick up the slack. So on one level, I understand why you feel the urge to cut and run. Your girlfriend's life, it's about to get a lot more complicated, at least for the next year, probably longer than that. You guys aren't married, you've been together less than a year. That's not an insignificant amount of time,

but it's not exactly a life partnership either. And depending on how you feel about your girlfriend and her kids, how invested you are in her life, I don't think you're some kind of monster for wondering whether this is something you really want to take on. That said, the truly defining factor here is how your girlfriend handles all of this. If she's super remorseful about what she did

and she's not drinking excessively, she's not drinking and driving, she's doing everything in her power to be a good mom, a law-abiding citizen, she's not making her problems, your problems now, then I think that counts for a lot. That's really hard to do in the middle of a legal nightmare like this, and if she's going through all of this responsibly, conscientiously, then she deserves a lot of credit. Like I said, if she were driving drunk regularly before she got caught

and getting blackout drunk every weekend, and if that behavior were continuing now, and suddenly you just realized you've been dating a hot mess who's actually some huge liability for you, then I would definitely encourage you to reconsider this relationship. But if your girlfriend is a decent person who's made a big mistake and is working hard to fix it and contain the damage, which it sounds like she's doing, well, that's a very different story. Yes, I agree completely. Her character, her personality, the quality of their relationship together. That matters a lot. I also think it matters where this guy is in his life.

You know, if he's trying to build up his career in a big way right now or he's trying to finish a degree or he has some important obligations of his own right now, like, I don't know, taking care of his own family or just making room in his life for himself. And his relationship with his girlfriend is now getting in the way of those things. That's something to consider as well. Whereas if he's more settled or maybe he has some more money to absorb any financial costs associated with the DUI, maybe he has more time on his hands to pick up the slack for his girlfriend for a little while, then he's in a better position here. But if he feels like supporting her is going to compromise his own needs, then I don't think it's unfair for him to prioritize himself,

even if his girlfriend is a good person, even if she is doing her best. And I wonder if that might be what's going on here, if that's why he's feeling this urge to leave, because he's not sure if he can support her fully and take care of himself at the same time. Good point. Her needs, his needs, how he feels about her, how she's handling all of this. He has to consider all of that. It's probably tough to think about breaking up with his girlfriend when she might be doing a really good job of handling this DUI. But it's also not fair to himself to stay in this relationship if he feels like he's freaking drowning. So, yeah, it's a tough one.

Yeah, well, here's how I think about it. If you do decide to break up with this woman, then I would make sure that you're breaking up with her for the right reasons. Not because you're scared of the responsibility or you resent her for needing help right now or you're unfairly holding this mistake against her. You want to make sure that your impulse to leave, that it's not just a conditioned response to a stressful situation. I would talk to your girlfriend, talk to your friends, maybe talk to a counselor, and get a good handle on what you're thinking and feeling here before you make a decision. Because I do think that this DUI is clearly bringing up a lot of stuff for you. It's probably tapping into some very deep-seated old stuff

about how you respond to your partner's needs, how you function in a relationship. So I would explore all of that before you jump ship. An interesting question to ask yourself would be this. If the situation were reversed, if you got that DUI and you had your girlfriend's life, how would you want your partner to respond? What would you expect of her? What wouldn't you expect of her? I'm not presupposing the answer here. Any answer you arrive at is totally valid, but if you put yourself in her shoes, you might realize a few things that you hadn't considered before. Good question. I like that. That's a great way to get clear on his values here, to imagine if the tables were turned. Right. And by the same token, if you decide that you do want to stay together,

I'd also make sure that you're staying for the right reasons, not because you're too afraid to leave, or because you feel an unhealthy need to take care of someone else or because you feel maybe guilty, but because you actually love your girlfriend. You want to be there for her. And she's doing everything she can to help herself along the way, and you're just there as a little bit of extra support, someone to be there for her while she goes through this. Totally, yeah. He needs to have good reasons either way. But if you do stay, then you need to know what you will and will not take on as this DUI plays out.

I'm talking logistically, financially, emotionally. For example, to be specific here for a sec, do you want to help your girlfriend pay for the cost of this DUI? Do you want to co-parent with her to make sure her kids are getting what they need? when she unloads on you about how stressful her life is, are you going to take those feelings on yourself, or are you going to listen, find some ways to support her and allow her to take care of her life?

I'd think through what you would say to your girlfriend if she asked you those questions and how you'd handle those decisions if they come up. And I'm not saying like, you know what, screw you, they're your kids, I'm not taking them to school. Like I get you don't want to do that. But I also don't think you should say, well, I have no choice in the matter

because I have to do what's best for the kids. Now, that may well be true, but you have to think about how you feel and what you're going to do. Because if you just sort of let this happen to you, it might slowly grind you down. Yes, because that's what he's really worried about, right? Like he said in his letter,

he feels he owes it to himself to not let her bad choices pull him down or hold him back, which is exactly what good boundaries are designed to do. My guess is that drawing those boundaries isn't very easy for him. Maybe he's not even aware of how those boundaries operate. So his mind is going,

well, I better bail now because that's the only way I'm not going to drown here. But there's another way to not drown in a relationship. And that's by saying, this DUI, it's your mistake and it's your job to take accountability for it and move through this. And I'll be here for you as much as I can, but I can't take on your entire life for you. You know, basically support her without subordinating his entire life to hers. Exactly. He's jumping straight to we got to break up, which I understand, because he doesn't realize there's another way to be in this relationship. Or maybe he's realizing he doesn't feel as strongly about this woman as he thought he did, which is completely fair, by the way. And if that's the case, breaking up is the right thing to do, probably. I mean, look, if I were

married to this person, let's say Jen gets a DUI, right? I'm going to stick with her. We're going to work it out. I'm going to think she's a freaking idiot for a while and I'm going to get over it. But if I'm dating somebody, even if it's for a while and they get a DUI, I'm going to be like, are you the dumbest person that I just didn't know? What else are you capable of doing? Like, what other stupid crap are you capable of doing that is just going to blindside me later. I don't know if I want to roll those dice. Right. Or just the crisis is so big that it makes you really question whether you want to be there for this person through thick and thin. Exactly. My last piece of advice, because you know I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, is to encourage your girlfriend to hire a DUI attorney

ASAP if she hasn't already. DUIs are super stressful, as you now know, but dealing with one without a lawyer is lots, dealing with anything like this without a lawyer is always so much worse. A good lawyer can help your girlfriend make the best possible case for avoiding jail time, get her license back, who knows? Maybe they can even avoid a conviction here. Unlikely, but possible. I know it's an expense, but it's absolutely worth it, and it'll reduce a lot of your girlfriend's stress, which will help you with your relationship. And don't worry, it's still going to be stressful enough that she's going to learn a lesson from it. Of course, unless she's not going to learn a lesson from it at all, which I doubt. But that's the most important thing here, right? You don't want to make it

so easy that you end up, like, she's like, oh, thank God, I got away from that on You want this to be a defining moment where she's like, holy smoke, that was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. Whatever you do, though, do it thoughtfully, do it respectfully, and do it for the right reasons. Good luck, man. All right, next step. Dear Jordan and Gabe, three years ago, I took a leap of faith and opened a fine food grocery business with a relative stranger. Since then, we've had the good fortune of being in one of the only industries that is thriving post-COVID. Our annual sales have increased by 3 to 4x.

We are in the black, and we have a lot of opportunity to grow. the business. Despite all of this success, however, I'm struggling to take care of myself. Up until this year, I was struggling with depression, I had terrible self-esteem, and I had a drinking problem. I now understand that the root of much of that was a pattern of serious self-neglect that I am now eager to walk away from. The only problem is that I feel like I'm constantly budding heads with my business partner, because I want to take the time to prioritize my health, and he is still completely wrapped up in the business. Last year, I attempted to set a boundary around work, telling him pretty frequently that I would not take on additional projects. I had just built an online storefront. I was dealing with an increased workload, and I was working on training staff now that we could finally afford to hire.

But he didn't take me seriously, and it fell on me to support him through a project that he took on without consulting me or really considering what would be involved. This has been a consistent pattern with him, and he has done it again since. It made me realize that I might never really have control over my time as long as we're in a partnership. and so now I want out. We talked about it and we agreed that I would aim to leave by the beginning of the next fiscal year. Fast forward to today, our business is doing extremely well with daily sales skyrocketing. I feel like I would be a fool to walk away now, but I also don't know how to own myself or be myself within this partnership. I can't control my business partner and I can't make him be sensitive to my struggles. Fortunately, I am financially secure and I don't need to worry about money right now. I would definitely have the resources to start something new or find another job. But I feel

torn. Do I stay and try to navigate this partnership for the sake of everything I've built, or do I let it go in favor of addressing my mental health as quickly as possible? Signed, the sober grocer losing his composure. This is an interesting one, Gabe. You can hear how conflicted this guy is in his letter. He's really stuck between hanging on to this amazing business and taking care of himself, and they both seem to hold equal weight in his life, which is really unfortunate. Right. I also find this question interesting, because I really do get both of these perspective, the guy who wrote in, he obviously has good reasons to be frustrated with his business partner. And that business partner, it sounds like he's not particularly strategic. He's not being

very sensitive to what our guy here is going through. He's not being thoughtful about how their work gets distributed. But if we could talk to his partner, I bet we'd hear a different version of events. From his perspective, he's riding this amazing wave with the grocery business. He's trying to grow sales by taking on new projects. And just as the business is really popping off, his partner, the guy who wrote in, he's pulling away. And he's pulling away for reasons that are obviously important, but probably sound kind of vague, like self-care or prioritizing my health. Right. Plus, there are probably some major personality differences between these two guys. They were relative strangers before they got into business together. And as we know,

partnerships of any kind, right, they're usually pretty complicated. Almost always. So I could see how they both have some fair points. Yeah, being in a partnership like this is basically, it's basically business marriage. The problem is that each of them is locked into their own point of view. They're both convinced that they are the one who is right. And they're probably not communicating very well, which is only making things worse, of course. Plus, they've managed to build this super successful business in the middle of a pandemic. They've got their own little Dean and DeLuca happening here. It's exciting, and they should be proud of that. But success just breeds more problems and ups the stakes on every decision. So there's a lot going on here. I feel for this guy.

I really do. I've been there. So the main thing that stands out to me is how binary this decision is for you. In your mind, either you stick with this amazing business and your health suffers, or you leave the business and you get better, maybe. Now, that might actually be the trade-off here, and I believe you when you say that's how it feels. But my question is, is that actually true? Or is there some black and white thinking going on here?

A way for your mind to avoid doing the work of balancing these competing needs in your life? because there's one thing that jumped out at me in your letter. When you talked about setting boundaries with your partner, you told him, look, I can't take on any more projects, my plate is full with the online storefront and the new staff and all that. Please don't give me any more work. So, okay, fair enough. Boundary drawn, right?

But then your partner went ahead and started a new project, and then to use your words, it fell on me to support him. So he dumps the whole thing off on you. And as you put it, that's been a consistent pattern with him and he's done it again since. And it made you realize that you're never, really going to have control over your time. I know that feeling very well. Now, I see how that played out, and I can definitely understand why it upset you, but let's unpack that a little. You told

your partner what you wouldn't put up with. You said you would not do any more work on another project. He went ahead and did it anyway, and you swooped in and you saved him. What a nice thing to do, right? Maybe it was even the smart thing to do, but that's not boundary setting. In fact, that's the opposite of boundary setting. You set a boundary, the moment he violates it, you fold. And now you're talking about it like that was something that happened to you, right? It fell on you to support him. But the truth is, you were the one who decided to give up and pitch in. Then you say that it's a consistent pattern with him, which is probably true.

I believe that. But I would argue that this is also a consistent pattern with you. The pattern being, you draw a line with your business partner, he pushes it, you cave, you pitch in. And then you complain that you'll never really have control over your time when you're the one giving your time away to this guy, when he doesn't honor the. the very fair boundary that you put in place. So what would it look like if you had handled that differently? Well, you could have said, hey, sorry, man, my dance cards full, no new project. Then he would

have come to you and said, well, listen, I started this new project. I know I didn't mention it to you, but I'm totally underwater now. I'm kind of freaking out. And then you could have said, man, I'm sorry to hear that. But we talked about this. Remember, I told you I couldn't take on anything else right now. I wish you'd talk to me about it before. And then maybe he would have gone, well, can you at least help me out, be a good partner here? And you could have said something like, I'd love to help you. I really would. But this is why I told you I couldn't take on anything else.

I'm training the staff. I'm doing the storefront. I have to make time for myself because I'm going crazy and falling apart. This is your project. I'm sure you had good reasons for starting it. I have total confidence you can finish it. And then you would have protected your time and he would have gotten the chance to step up to the plate

and take ownership over the project that he started. And yeah, he might have got angry with you for saying that probably would have. He might have felt a little abandoned by you in that moment, but that's okay. In fact, that's good because that's what drawing healthy boundaries actually looks like. Yes, totally. It's not going, here's my boundary unless you push it and then it doesn't really exist and I'll passively aggressively resent you for violating it, right? Actual boundary setting is going, here's my boundary and if you push it, I'll respectfully defend it because I promise myself that that's what I would do even if it makes us both a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah, good point. The passive aggressive

stuff is always kind of circles back around. And boundaries are only useful if you uphold them when they're challenged. Otherwise what? They're like a, it's like a chalk line on the ground. Doesn't mean anything. Right. So given all that, my question for you is this. Is it possible that you're contributing to the dynamic with your business partner? Is it maybe the case that the freedom you're looking for actually is possible inside the business? Because if you did assert those boundaries in a real way, if you did communicate with your business partner more openly, I wonder if you'd be able to create the flexibility that you need to take care of yourself right now. And let's be very specific here,

because we're being kind of vague. It's easy to feel stuck when you're dealing with something as general as taking care of yourself. What would you do if you were free of this business? Maybe you'd sleep an extra hour each day, maybe you'd hit a therapist up at BetterHelp.com slash Jordan,

or you'd go to some AA meetings a couple times a week. Maybe you'd be working out. Whatever it is, I would be very specific about what you need right now. what you feel you can't have as long as the business is in your life. And I wish I did this when I was thinking about my previous business. I would have done that first and then I would make a list, and I recommend you do this,

make a list of all the things that are standing between you and those things that you want, right? Your schedule, your workload, your partner when he comes asking for help. But when you do this exercise, you might find some obstacles you didn't expect, like the fact that you're not blocking out an hour on your calendar to talk with a therapist or at betterhelp.com slash Jordan. or you're coming home and binge watching Master Chef instead of going for the run that you wanted to do. Or you're just too angry and you're too tired to take any of these small steps towards getting better.

And I'm not blaming you for any of this. This is exactly how our minds tend to operate when they're under extreme stress. Trust me, I have been there. But I'm challenging you a little here so you can get a good handle on what the problem really is. Because when you're unhappy, it's really tempting to look at the biggest thing in your life, which for you is this grocery business and say, well, that's the thing that has to go before I can be happy and healthy. It's like being in a bad relationship. You're like, I need to break up with this person. They're driving me crazy. And then you break up with them. And you're like, shit, all these

problems are still there. Turns out wherever you go, there you are, right? When really, a lot of the time, it's how you manage yourself, how you relate to your business partner, how you use the business to understand yourself better. Those are the things that will make you feel better. It's possible you've been kicking the can down the road with your health because in your mind, you can't take care of that as long as you're wrapped up in this business, when in reality, you might be wrapped up in this business so that you don't have to take care of yourself. I know that might sound a little weird, but I'll let you decide for yourself if that's true, if that fits. What I'm really asking you is whether this situation is as black and white as you seem to think that it is. So I would take time to explore that. Take some time,

see how it all fits together. You might want to try some of this stuff, especially the boundary setting with your partner and the carving out time for your specific commitments, see if anything changes. Give it six months. Think of it like an experiment. The next time your partner comes to you for help and you feel that it's unfair, tell him that. See what happens. See if he steps up and learns something. See if it makes you feel more in control of your time, more proactive, less reactive, whatever. Start moving your body a few times a week. Maybe talk to a therapist. See if your self-esteem improves. See if your mood lifts. If you try all of of that and in six months you're still miserable and you're drinking too much and you hate your business,

you can leave. At least you'll know that you gave it a shot instead of just going immediately and pulling the rip cord on it, right? And you'll know it really was the business and not just you. So I hope that helps, man. You're never going to go wrong by looking more closely at yourself. I truly believe that. That doesn't mean everything you're going through was all in your head. It doesn't mean you're going to be stuck in this business for the rest of your life. It just means is that if you're going to get better, the change has to start with you, as cliche as it might sound. If you can rewrite a few of those patterns, if you can communicate a little better with your partner, if you can start prioritizing some of your needs now, instead of waiting for some

hypothetical future when you have more time, which believe me, never comes, then I think you'll set yourself up to make a much better choice. So good luck, man. This is the Jordan Harpinger show, and this is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us going. Who doesn't love some good products and or services? You can always visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals for all the details on everybody that helps support the show. And now for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

All right, last but not least. Hey guys, both my wife and I are teachers, but neither of us are bilingual, and we want to give our daughter a chance to learn a second language. Even though she was the lone white girl, we enrolled her in her elementary school's Spanish immersion program, which means that she spends half the day in each language. As you can imagine, kindergarten during distance learning was difficult, but the immersion parts were an absolute disaster. The teachers were nice, but my daughter was just hopelessly lost and a behavior nightmare for my wife. So we decided to homeschool her instead, which, even after a couple

weeks, has made a major difference. I'm actually thinking about trying to find some really simple videos on Chinese and Arabic, since neither my wife nor I will be able to get her to fluency in any foreign language, and our daughter can at least learn how to differentiate and speak those unique sounds before her tongue and her ears fossilize, making it much more difficult to learn. Do you have any suggestions to help our daughter learn another language from a young age, signed Stuck in a Rinkle, becoming bilingual? I think some language teaching would be fun. Immersion is usually way too hard if everyone else is speaking Spanish at home. I kind of got the idea from this question, Gabe that when he said lone white girl, that the immersion is everyone else is actually a native

Spanish speaker with their parents and she's the only one that's not, which means yes, yes, it's immersion, but it's not just immersion like, hey, let's teach all these kids Spanish. It's, let's have first language instruction for a bunch of native Spanish speaking kids. So those kids are actually an English immersion. Right. Right. Whereas she's in Spanish immersion and they're not on the same page, which means they're not going at the same speed, which means it's, in my opinion, and I'm no expert teacher here. That's not really immersion. That's English as a second language for the first half of the day and Spanish as a second language for the second half of the day. And there is a difference between the way that those things are taught. There's a big difference. So I don't want to get in the weeds on that.

Teachers who are listening right now are probably shaking their heads. Well, in one direction or the other, maybe I'm wrong. But if this is her second language and it's everyone else's first language, that puts her to a major disadvantage. It compounds the problems that you mentioned in your letter. Your daughter could easily get one-on-one lessons twice a week or more in one or even two languages. All the kids do at this age, by the way, and I've asked this of my Chinese teachers and my German teacher, all they do at this age is play games. They just have fun. They're doing word games.

They're watching stuff talking about it with the teacher. You can get free language lessons in any language just about using this link. If you go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash language, we'll link to that in the show notes. That links to a company called LiveLingu up. My friend owns the company. I think they're great. I use it for some of my foreign languages. You could even try several teachers in each language

and see which ones your daughter likes the best. That school, though, doesn't have Chinese. So if you're aiming at Chinese, I can happily refer my own Chinese company that I use, and I've been using for like eight years. They also teach little kids sometimes. Everything's one-on-one. It's great.

It's affordable. I think it's less than $20 an hour, or it's around $20 an hour. You get a native speaker. Again, one-on-one. These are real teachers. They're not just like rando-e. internet people trying to freelance. These are trained teachers. So anyone can just hit me up.

I'll happily refer you to any language company, Chinese or otherwise. I think it's great that you're getting her started on languages early. As we learned from Lisa Feldman Barrett and David Eagleman, kids trim neurons, kids' brains, trim neurons that they're not using at her age and up until, I don't know, age 8, 10, whatever. So even if all she does is learn some sounds, some basic sentences, some numbers, colors, whatever, she's at a major advantage if she wants to pick up the skills later. So don't sweat it if she can still only count to 10 and ask for the bathroom and say, I like red cars after a few months. It just doesn't matter. Right now, this is a game of activating that part of her brain and exposing her to new things, not getting her to write children's

stories and poetry and sing operas and Moroccan, freaking Arabic or whatever, right? The more fun these lessons are, the more likely she is to stick with it over a longer term and build real fluency later on. So let her just watch some cartoons and stuff with her teacher, and then the teacher says, did you understand what the bunny rabbit said? I mean, that is totally fine. And keep me posted. I'd love to hear how this goes because I'm teaching my own kid both Chinese and English. And he's also actually going to be starting at some point at a bilingual school,

which is obviously much easier to find here in California than you might imagine. I don't know how you find a Chinese English school outside of California. But I think if you throw a stone from my house, you hit two or three Chinese English immersion schools with native Chinese and English speakers here in Silicon Valley. So it may be trickier elsewhere. But I think these are useful. You just have to be careful that your kid is getting immersion language and isn't just, like you said, the lone non-Spanish speaker in a Spanish speaking class because that means that you're

going at the same pace. All the students are going at the same pace. And she won't end up getting discouraged and then left behind. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget to check out the guests from this week, Ray Dalio and Michael Shermer, some power-packed into this week's episodes. If you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships, it's about systems, software, and tiny habits.

Check out our six-minute networking course. It's a free course. It's over on the think-giffic platform at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Don't kick the can down the road. You can't make up for lost time when it comes. to relationships and networking. And the number one mistake I see people make is postponing this, not knowing or claiming not to know how to do this. And you got to dig that well before you get thirsty. Because once you need those relationships, you are way too late to make them. Jordan Harbinger.com

is where it's at. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts are also in the show notes. There's a video of this feedback Friday on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. or just hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi or on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jay Sanderson,

Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, though. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear

on this show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody who can use the advice that we gave here today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time. We've got a trailer of our interview with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and an investor in one of Silicon Valley's top VC firms. He drops by the show to discuss how we can tell when we're informing our intuition with the best available data or if we're just procrastinating to avoid making important decisions and why never give up is terrible advice and how to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas. That's coming right up after the show. The pivotal moment when I realized

that I wanted to work with the internet was the first time I tried Napster. And for someone who's really into music, it was phenomenal. And when it got shut down, this was Daniel's opportunity. There's always luck. There's always timing. The game is not so much, can I be one of the heroes that's written about in the next hundred years, but the game is, can I do something that where I started from, I can make something interesting? You're playing your own game. At just that moment, another email popped up on Marissa's screen. The subject line was just three words, work at Google. So Marissa took the plunge and became Google employee number. Number 20. We hear about analysis, paralysis, and things like that. How do we strike a balance? When I'm confronted with a decision, I say, what would my decision right now be?

What are the key things that might change my decision and then inform this decision? It's pretty amazing, if you think about it, that I started one of the first three social networks, and I managed to fail. MySpace, Tribe, LinkedIn, high five, Friendster the year before, Facebook, the year out. after, of those only half are still around today. Instagram was an Insta hit. On its first day in the App Store, 25,000 downloads. Within 10 weeks, 1 million users, Instagram had entered multiplayer mode. For more with Reid Hoffman in a two-part mashup that includes cameos by the founder of Spotify,

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