The Jordan Harbinger Show - 5: Faux Gravitas Your Way to Success | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

Jordan (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason (@jpdef) are back to banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday on The Jordan Harbinger Show! 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! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: New beginnings! New excitement! New puppies! New levels of sleep deprivation! Here's a trick to convey contemplation rather than grumpitude if you've got one of those resting faces. How do you turn from a Fibbing Freddy into a Trustworthy Terry? How do we prepare for a show? (If you're interested in the longer story, tell us!) Do you like this show? Please tell your friends about it -- we're starting from scratch and need your help! Why should a woman who has more in common with her boyfriend and his friends be forced to hang out with the girlfriend group at social occasions? Sometimes people who are stuck in a rut don't even realize it. Is there a delicate way to tell them? There's something to be said for having the confidence to make mistakes (or dress like a kangaroo at the bar) without being embarrassed. Recommendation of the Week: Somm Quick shoutouts to Rick Higgins, Eric Onesto, and George Taylor! 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, and check out Jason's (@jpdef) other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. You can also find him on Instagram at JPD. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Full show notes and resources can be found here.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. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, yes, Jason is excited. Jason got really excited about this. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, as much as we love having conversations with our fascinating guests, our primary purpose is to pass along there and our experiences and insights, of course, to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you.

And that's what we're going to do today and every Friday here on Sunday. feedback Friday. Before I forget, you can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Of course, that contact info is a little different. Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. And if you were a fan of the other work that Jason and I were doing for the past decade and change, I don't know, man. It's an exciting start. It's a new brand. It's a new type of show that's all going to have the same quality level that everyone is used to, unless you screw it up, Jason. Hey, hey, hey, don't blame me, man don't blame me but unless unless you guys make a huge mistake this should be a great show that's all i'm saying and and jordan before we get going today i have a quick little something i'd like to say would you

would you hold my beer for a moment oh yeah i will sure all right we're starting a new show right now from scratch we know how to podcast tell tell me about it man i'm scared but yes continue sorry yeah but i mean but we haven't started from scratch in a very long time me and you you know this is a thing that we've been doing for a while. Now, I've got a quick little story I want to share. I'll make this brief. Now, I always wanted a big boy Rottweiler since I was a kid. I love the omen. I snuck in and got it on HBO in my mom's room and I always wanted my own hellhound. So two Christmases ago, I got the opportunity and I rescued a beautiful little girl Rottweiler, even though it wasn't ideal. She had some problems and I always wanted a boy. But it turned into one of the most amazing experiences

of my life and I learned how to raise a fantastic Rottweiler. So I'm good at Rottweilers, right? Talking about Bambam right now, got it. I'm talking about Bambam. I didn't want to name drop anything, but yes, Bam Bam Rottie on Instagram, if you're so inclined. All right, all right. Keep going. Hey, you left the door open, man.

So two years later, I got the call and there was a boy Rottweiler available for rescue, and I jumped on it because Bam Bam Bamb needs a playmate, and I'm a glutton for punishment, and I thought I was going to finally get my little boy Rottweiler. Well, as any good Malcolm Gladwell article ends, turns out they gave me a Doberman. Okay. Same color, but that's about all they have in common. I mean, completely different temperaments, completely different, everything. And this little guy has some serious issues that are going to take a long time to fix, but I'm all in.

I'm all in. And I got this dog about two weeks before we learned we'd be starting this show from scratch. So not exactly ideal timing, right? Yeah. So I'm starting from scratch in two completely different areas of my life. But what I've learned time and time again is that starting over is good. It could be why I've moved so many times. I mean, we talked about it on the old show.

I've moved over 100 times. It cleans the slate. It gets rid of old habits and it opens up new opportunities. So thanks to you, Jordan, for including me in this show and bringing me along for the trip. Even, you know, yes, I'm your whipping boy. I mean, I'm a producer. Yeah.

But I'm glad to be along for the trip. And thanks to the amazing feedback we've gotten from. the audience so far and for sticking with us. This has been, I mean, the turnout has been fantastic. And I'm going to be honest, this is a difficult transition, but I think in the end, it's going to be worth it. And we're going to work our asses off to make great shows because Jordan, that's what we love to do. Yeah, you know, that is what we love to do. I'm looking forward to the future, too, you know, for people who are new to the show or have only found the Jordan Harbinger show and didn't listen to the stuff we did before, they're going to be like, wow,

This is overly sentimental. But I think the majority of our early audience here is slash our fans of our previous work. So I want to just say thank you to everyone who rushed this week to get their questions into the mailbag, Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. All the support we received on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I can't even use the old company Twitter, but there's people who are emailing me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com to express sympathy, condolences for the loss of the last show and just excited. for us to move forward. And you know what I've noticed, Jason, as stressed as I am and everything and as much work is ahead of us to rebuild this massive audience that we had collected before, everyone's really excited for us. And when I look at it, the only person, I'm the only person

who's excited, let me put it this way. Everyone's way more excited than me, probably because I'm seeing a lot of the work ahead and they're seeing the possibility. But there's magic. It's kind of like, there's some magic to the people who only see the possibility, whereas my vision is clouded with, holy crap, I've got to climb this mountain again that I never thought I, that I thought I was at the top of already. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, you see the work that's ahead of you. I see the work that's ahead of us.

But, you know, everybody else is like, thank God I don't have to say, no, no, but honestly, the show's not what you think it is. Go subscribe. Now we have the Jordan Harbinger show that we are going to be proud of and make it our own and make it amazing. Yeah, man. I'm excited for the future and nobody has to. caveat telling your friends about the show because it's the Jordan Harbens your show and Jordan's a

Jordan's an okay guy I'm an okay guy right he's got kind of funny hair but you know what are you going to do at least he has hair I don't have any that's right you didn't even have any hair now I feel like you're just going off the rails here let's give these people something to chew on here look let's do it there's some dozies in here as usual I can't wait to dive in let's give him the mailbag Jason hi Jordan I have a problem with my face I'm a happy guy a great socializer and all around okay at life. I had a pretty troubled youth where I didn't really show emotions as a coping mechanism. But now I'm doing okay except for one glaring problem. Whenever I have to really concentrate on something or someone asked me a question I have to really think about, I get asked, what's wrong?

What's troubling you? Sometimes people even tell me to stop judging them. All I'm trying to do is answer the question, but my facial expressions tell a totally different story than what's going on in my mind. It's not affecting my life so much, but it keeps happening. So how do you think I should handle this or fix it? Appreciate your feedback, signed neither grumpy nor frumpy. Nice. Well, the reason that this sort of resting frowny face happens, my friend Matthew Kimberly, good friend of mine, he has a grumpy cat face. And we just made it into a joke.

When he's not paying attention, he's got this deep, deep frown. But what's really funny about Matt is he's not a frowny, grumpy guy at all. He's actually a really positive and funny guy that everyone loves. It just happens to be his natural sort of not paying attention right now, facial expression. Maybe he was a grumpy kid, I don't know, but I don't think so. He's otherwise super positive. So we kind of made it into a joke. We got used to it being a little bit of a juxtaposed anomaly where he had this weird facial expression,

even though he's a really positive guy. And he could do the same, right? He could sort of be this really funny, outgoing, fun dude, and he could really lean into. I got my grumpy cat face on. it's hard to reshape what we do by default with our own facial expressions. In other words, it's hard to train our face to smile instead of frown. But we can be mindful of this and we can try overtime if possible by just sort of checking in with ourselves and thinking, okay, what's on my face right now? Now, that's a very tricky thing to do.

So I'm not going to rely on this. We can't really rely on just remember to smile instead of frown. That's not really how muscle memory is going to work here. But in the short term, until you're sort of getting through the mindset of fixing this. in your own way or trying to reshape the habit if you can. A pro tip here is when you're thinking, it seems like when you're concentrating on somebody asks you a question, you can cover your mouth with your fingers or something similar. You don't have to cover your whole mouth. You can literally put one finger or so over your mouth. And what that does, it does a couple of things. It's harder

to read facial expressions with part of the face obstructed, even just a small piece. So even if you have a couple fingers over your mouth, it's harder for people to really focus on that part. so they might look at your eyes, your face, wherever you're gazing. Number two, mostly what this is, what this finger over the mouth sort of situation is, it's a stereotypical, I'm thinking position. It's a much clearer signal than whatever you're putting out right now, which might look judgy, grumpy, whatever. Even if you look super judgy or grumpy with your finger or fingers over your mouth,

you'll just look like you're deep in thought, and it'll be a much clearer interpretation to other people. So if people are misinterpreting your body language and your facial expressions, what we want to do is have a really clear slash obvious different interpretation that's more palatable than the one people have. So if you want people to think you're not judgy, but just think you're thinking, you've got to sort of look more like, hmm, I'm thinking right now. So you got to kind of lean into that. Does that make sense so far, Jason, or am I just off the rails here? Absolutely. No, I think that's a perfect life hack. I wish I had known this a long time ago because I do have thinking grumpy bee face, as they say.

Yeah, a lot of people do. And it's really strange because I know a lot of really positive fun people that have this and it's just like it's just something that happens in their face. I don't, I don't necessarily think, ooh, deep down, these people secretly harbor resentment so they fall asleep and they're frowning that. I mean, it's just, look, faces are built in different ways and people have muscle tension when they're thinking about things. It just isn't even worth figuring out. But seriously, try this.

This is for grumpy nor frumpy or anybody with resting frowny face, we'll call it that. Try bending your index finger, putting your index finger middle knuckle over both of your lips. So you've got kind of like the coat hanger thing over both of your lips. lips. Now put on your grumpy slash judgey face. Notice how much more this looks like you're thinking instead of judging. And as a bonus, and this is a little bit of like dubious science here, but we'll work for the sake of appearances. It'll work for the sake of appearances. As a bonus, look upwards with your eyes instead of downwards. I'm not sure why this works. Somehow it makes people look more like they're thinking or trying to access information rather than

judging. And there's, I don't have any scientific evidence for this, but try it both ways. Try covering your mouth with your finger and looking up like you're thinking and then try covering your finger over your mouth and then looking down. One of them looks much more, in my opinion, like you're thinking and it's an easier interpretation. And these eye accessing cues, you know, these hypnosis like, oh, if you look up, it means you're remembering. Things like that have been widely debunk. However, this trick of looking upward at nothing with your eyes will still make you look much more like you're just thinking instead of passing judgment. And if that's what we're trying to avoid here, then you can have a different

default go-to thinking face that won't get you in trouble. I hope that helps. I think what you're talking about is faux gravitas. It's pretty much what this is because it's like you're doing the same thing you always do, but it makes you feel and look like, you know, you have a little bit more gravitas because I was doing it when you were talking about it. And I felt like I was important when I did. I'm like, I put my, I put my knuckle over my, the middle of my lips and I looked up and I'm like, I feel like Winston Churchill right now. This is pretty cool. I like this.

I'm going to use this. All right. Well, you're leaning into it a little. I appreciate that, Jason. You know, you don't have to go full Churchill. You can go half Churchill. But I think what grumpy nor Frumpy's trying to do here is he just doesn't want people to think he's judging them and he has this automatic reflex that makes his face look like he's a jerk,

you know, and that he's judging. So I'm like, just change your face into another stereotypical. I'm just thinking about this. and then people will interpret it another way. And it sucks that you have to do this, but it's certainly better than having people go, well, you know what? Screw you then, grumpy, frumpy.

You're just being a judgy jerk when that's not really what you're doing. Next up. Hey, Jordan. I met my long-distance ex when I was in an all-boys high school, so I was never a liar or a cheater just out of circumstance.

But that all changed when I got to college. Ooh. Yeah, here we go. I had my long-distance relationship but was dating girls at school on the side. I broke up with a few of them, but they never really knew about my out-of-state girl, and she never knew about them. All of that required a lot of lies, and I felt like a total scumbag. Yeah, there's a good reason for that. But yeah, continue. My mom always knew I was a

liar. Kids always lied to their parents, but she'd always find out. She was a lot harder on me than my father, so I didn't want to feel her wrath, so I lied to her basically all the time. Yeah, how'd that workout, I'm sure. Yeah, geez, this is not good. Go ahead. Yeah. Yuck. I lied to the people I care about the most, and I also can't stand up to people very well either. I'd rather take on extra work than make a scene. So how can I stop lying and start standing up for myself? Signed fibbing Freddy. So here's what's really interesting about this question. My initial response was, this person is a jerk. What a scumbag. But he admitted it. So I got to be like compassion. I get it. And then we get into this whole, my mom always knew I was a liar, kids lied to their parents, but she'd always find out.

That's different. Kids lying to their parents and then having your mom know you're a liar, there's more to this. And that is, what I'm reading here, what I'm seeing here and hearing is that he set up a reputation among his family that he just is a total BSer. And that's a really big problem. The other thing is he doesn't have his boundaries set up properly. It says, I lie to the people I care about the most, and I also can't stand up to people very well either. So he's making short-term decisions about what he should be doing, right? Like, oh, I could tell my mom I didn't do well on this thing, and then she might be mad, and I don't want to risk disapproval, so I'm going to lie about it.

Or, huh, well, I've got this thing at work I've got to do or this thing at school I've got to do, but I'm not ready for it. So I'm going to lie and say that I'm sick and then get caught when I'm at the library later working on it, and I'm not sick. know, just stupid stuff like that. Yeah, dog ate my homework. Yeah, but I understand this because what he's trying to do, what fibbing Freddy's trying to do here is he's trying to avoid hurting feelings in the short term or trying to avoid some sort of responsibility in the short term, and then it bites him in the long term because you can't sustain the lies.

So I want to just sort of back up and just say, look, lying doesn't make you a scumbag automatically. You're only acting like a scumbag because you're playing short term. So lying is done to deceive others for one's own gain. Here, though, your gain, Freddie, is that you're protecting yourself against having to face immediate consequences of facing someone's disapproval. So your intent is to protect yourself against this disapproval. In other words, you're lying because it's easier. And you don't just need to work on not lying.

That isn't really possible. You've got to work on the root cause. You're using lies to cover up something or to avoid something else. So here are your root cause, in my opinion, based on. on this two-paragraph email here, so take it for what you need to. Your root causes your fear of disapproval. And Freddie mentioned Jason that his mom is strict. So it seems to me like Freddie's lying so that you don't have to face your mom's disapproval in the home. And since your patterns with your girlfriend are modeled after the pattern you have with your mother, now you're

lying to your girlfriend as well because you know she would disapprove of what you're doing. So seek out the disapproval. Stop avoiding the disapproval. Seek the disapproval out on your own. And I don't mean do things to piss people off, get them to hate you. But I mean, look forward to the opportunity to do something that you want to do and that you think is right so that you can examine the consequences up close. Does this make sense so far, Jason? Like, basically just go ahead and do what you want to do so that you can actually see the outcome. And soon I think Freddie will see that the consequences of an adult taking adult actions are his and his alone. So, Freddie, the consequences of these actions are yours and yours alone.

But the consequences don't come from your mom and they don't come from your girlfriend. They come as a result of your own actions. And once you wrap your mind around this, this is going to be a huge realization. So the consequences aren't disapproval from your mom. The consequences come as a result of what you are doing. They're not imposed from the external. Your mom might continue to try and be strict and control you with disapproval. Get used to that.

that's never going to change. Well, I'm just saying in this letter, you know, I know we redacted some stuff, but it seems a little bit like she's kind of controlling him with disapproval. It's not just there like she doesn't just want him to stop lying. She wants him to do other things. She wants him to stand up and is what I got from it. Yeah, I mean, that's possible. But it's also possible that his whole life, she's been kind of, hey, I'm going to meet you

with disapproval. And I'll say it's because you're lying. But really, it's because you didn't do what I wanted you to do. But that's just what this is. This is a form of control. So she wants theoretically, mom does what's best for you because she's your mom, but she's delivering it in a way that's actually putting you in a position where lying is easier than telling the truth because you know

she's going to meet out punishment slash disapproval right away. So why not just take your chances and blow some hot air and see if you get away with it, right, which is kind of what you're doing with the whole lying thing. And to be clear, I'm not blaming your mother for your habit of lying. Let me get that off the table right now. I'm letting you sit with those consequences. But what I am saying is that you're choosing to face one set of consequences over another. And I think if you practice not lying and facing the consequences right away, you'll find, number one, that the consequences aren't that bad. And I think you'll find that number two, the known immediate guilt trip from your mom or the disapproving look from your girlfriend is much better than worrying for a week about them finding out something you'd rather they never learned because you lied about it. That is so profound, honestly, because, yeah, the problem with lying so much is that you just have this anvil hanging over your head all the time.

And once he comes to grips with this, it starts like telling the truth and dealing with the consequences. I think he's going to be happier. Yeah, of course, because there's this whole scary unknown that comes from, oh, I lied. Am I going to get caught? If I get caught, am I going to say this? Am I going to lie about this other thing? Now what loose ends do I have to tie up? Or are you just like, hey, look, I really don't want to stay together exclusively anymore with you because I'm in college, but I still like you and I'd still like to hang out.

But I don't want to lie to you about this. I'd love to sort of open up my social circle and see other people. Your girlfriend's going to be upset, man, but she's going to be really upset if she thinks she's your exclusive girlfriend. And then you can't go to certain places because other girls that you're shagging or hooking up with might be there. And then she finds out the hard way. and she's mortified, but it's midnight and she's had three drinks, and now she's got to sleep in your dorm room with you. She's going to want to kill you, right?

And you're going to have to worry about this whole thing. So take the opportunity to lean in and tell the truth and just get it over with. And doing so will also help you be more resolute in your decisions because you won't have to think about how to cover up your actions after you do them because you won't be doing that crap anymore. And I would also recommend as a bonus for people here, check out Sam Harris's book on lying. I think it's actually called lying.

It changed the way that I look at untruths, white lies, and now I look at truth and untruth in a totally different way. I look at lying like self-defense in a way that you would use physical self-defense. There's a lot in that book that I thought was really good. It's a quick read. We'll link it in the show notes. And I really hope this helps, man. Look, I understand the temptation to lie.

It is easy, but it is an immature, non-adult way to get out of problems that ends up creating more problems. There's no reason that you should do this. this as a strategy. Trust me. I've been there. And I know it's hard to believe, but telling the truth is, it's such a cliche, but it is always better unless you're facing consequences where you would actually use physical force. Does that make sense? Totally makes sense. I mean, I grew up as a pathological liar because of everything that you just said in the past five minutes. And I wish I would have had this episode back then because, you know, you have to stand up and just take it, take it on the chin and get over it, it's going to be easier in the long run, I think.

Dude, when I was a kid, I lied about all kinds of stuff. Yeah, man. When I was a kid, I lied about all kinds of stuff. And then when I would get caught, I would be like, well, I'm a kid. But then I had some doozies, some whoppers, and they really hurt my parents' feelings and stuff like that. Yep. I'll get into those in other shows.

But I think I might have told this story years ago on another show, but I did this thing where I'd, it's a long story, but it basically involves a prank and I lied in my parents and said I didn't do it. Man, did that make the situation so much. worse. It took years to rebuild their trust. My mom was like crying. I couldn't, oh, man, it's just totally not worth it, man. It's so much better. I want to talk about exactly what you just said. It took years to rebuild their trust. So if you're, if this, you know, he's lying to his family and the people he loves the most. He is going to burn those bridges and it's going to take him years to

build them back. And that's, I went through that too. I went exactly through what you went through. And, you know, my parents didn't trust me for years. And it took a long time, like, you know, like over a decade to build that trust back up. Because I did the same thing. I just made stupid decisions and I lied. And they knew I was lying. And I was, and I knew I was lying. But it's like one of those things where if I would have just took it on the chin and just said exactly what I'd done and took responsibility, we would have, we would not have wasted a decade of our relationship.

together. And that's what I, that's what I'm pissed off about the most is I lost a decade of a relationship with my dad that I didn't have to because I was just weak and did not want to own up to the things that I'd done. And it's, it's sad to see this because I really, I know the point where he is right now where he's like, I know that I'm screwing up my long term relationships, but it's so much easier short term to just bullshit that he's, he's really having a hard time wrapping his mind around what he knows is the right answer, which is to knock it off, because it's easier short term. And that's what really that question was about to me, where he's like, he knows the path he needs to take, but he's essentially saying, but it's so much harder than just

lying. Yeah. As soon as he said he was a scumbag, you know that he knows exactly what's going on and he needs to fix it, but he doesn't, he needs us to tell him to just take care of it. Well, anytime you're saying, I'm a scumbag, you're taking a toll on your emotional health. And when you're saying I'm a scumbag because of things I've done in my relationships, now you know that you're damaging yourself and those around you, except it's so damn easy to just do one more line, rail one more line of lies, right? Yeah. It's really what it is. It's a short-term fix. It's an addiction. And I totally understand it. And I'm telling you right now, you got to stop, even if it's hard. Yeah, and I'm rooting for them. You know, it's hard. It's really hard,

especially that first time. But once you get past that, it gets easier. And it gets easier. And then you tell the truth. And you just own up to the shit you do. And then as your life goes forward, you stop doing the stupid shit that people, that you don't have to lie about for. And you become a better person. That was deep, bro.

That's all I'm saying, man. No, it's true, though. It really, honestly, it's true. I think, I don't, is it every guy that goes through this or Jason and I just also scumbags from back in the day? I think it's just, it is, it's something that people who go down this path where they're like, I can get away with this. Yeah. We always hit this wall.

We always hit this wall. And then we got to realize, because even people I know, I promise I'll drop this in a second. No, no, this is good. Even people I know that are amazing liars, like professionally could juggle anything and make anyone believe anything. And I'm talking about, like, folks that we've had on the show where you're just like, this is a superhuman level of persuasion. even those people, if everyone believes them, it still takes a toll on your mental health

because you start to wonder who you're surrounding yourself with. And then, of course, if you get caught, then you start to feel anxiety around that. There's just any short-term gain you get from lying will be outweighed 100-fold by the long-term consequences. And I think that's my point. And I think we can leave it there. Okay, absolutely. Let's move on to the next one.

Yes, that's a great idea. Let's move right along. Hey, Jordan. I heard you on another podcast, and you mentioned that you have a unique method. of preparing your interview with Google Docs using colors and other aides. I also prepare for my podcast using Google Docs, mainly because I have co-hosts, and it helps us organize our thoughts and gives us a storyline to work with. Even after 120 episodes, I'm still looking for ways to streamline things.

So any tips and tricks about how you prep would be great. Graziez, streamlining Steve. You know what's funny about this? We start a brand new show. We have one episode of Feedback Friday. Not even. I mean, this is the first episode. And we're getting questions from people being like, you guys are experts in podcasting. And it's like, well, yeah, okay, I'm glad you still see us that way because if you look at the scoreboard right now, I've got a thousand hours of audio and a show that I don't

have anymore. And then this one is brand new. But I'll tell you right now, I'd love to go over the prep in a more in-depth way another time. Maybe you can do like a webinar on this or something for podcast interested people because I, yeah, we do have 11 years of experience. In between you and I, I got 20 years of experience doing this. But the way that I prep is I will read the whole book from the guest or read everything that I can about that particular guest. Some people have more things than others. Like if I were interviewing a celebrity or if I were interviewing Barack Obama, I couldn't possibly read everything about it. But I would read their book or whatever they're promoting.

And then I do highlighters inside Google Docs using highlight tool. Highlight tool is a free add-on. I will highlight things that should go in the show intro. in one color. I highlight things that could result in them, the guest, telling a story in another color. I have another color for practicals, because on the Jordan Harbinger show, one of the main things that we love to do is make sure that you all come away with practical tips. So I will highlight those in a different color to make sure that we do them. And then I have things that are highlighted in green, which I think are important. And then after I've done something and I've heard

something or the moment has passed, I highlight it in yellow so that it's done. You never told me that you do it in yellow because I'm watching you like highlight in real time and you never told me that yellow means, oh, we're done with that. We can move on. Yellow means we're done and I could just unhighlight it. But the problem is if it's unhighlighted, my brain wants to read it again to make sure that it's not like, oh, did I just forget this? So if I highlighted in yellow, I can just ignore it. And then I use the green because if there's a bunch of yellow and then something that's unh highlighted, I might not see it. So I use green because it contrasts so well.

but this isn't just about show prep. So if you're listening to this, you're like, I don't give a crap about how you do the show. This isn't just about show prep. This is about how I organize things in my brain, right? Because whenever I'm going through anything content-wise, I'm always thinking, how am I going to present this to the Jordan Harbinger show audience

in a way that they're going to learn and understand? So if I have cool stories, great, I need some, but I need practicals too, for sure. And I need stuff that's going to give context for the intro, for the guest, or background information. If I'm missing one of those things, the show is not going to be a Jordan Harbinger show.

It's going to be a random podcast. It's going to be a fun story only or a how to only or a context-free conversation where people go, who is that? Oh, what? That was the governor of Maryland? How the hell did I not know that?

It's got to be something that's clear that we outline in a proper way. And that's why I have those particular highlights. But I go over the content in the book. I dump all my notes into a Google Doc. I use those highlights to structure the show. And honestly, if people are interested in this, send me an email Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com, and maybe we'll create a list of, you know, the 50 to 100 people who are interested in this.

And then in six months or eight months, Jason, maybe we can run some sort of Facebook live or a webinar about this kind of thing just for people. Because I know we have thousands of podcasters that listen to the show as well. Right. Yeah. And we might as well tell them what's up. Because whatever we're doing here, The world is, you guys are welcome to know how the sausage is made if you want to. But the rest of the Jordan Arbinger show audience doesn't give a crap.

That's what I'm convinced about that. Yeah. Right. So I think we should move along here, even though streamlining Stevie is curious. Speaking of podcasting, we really need the Jordan Harbinger Show family to share the crap out of these shows, not just this episode, but the show in general. Tell former shows fans of the other show that Jason and I were working on. Shout it from the rooftops because we are basically starting from scratch. And I think I am not out of line when I say this is like the scariest thing that we've gone through as a business ever, or at least in the last 10 years.

And it's one of the scariest things I've ever had to face because I went from everyone listens to this show to, oh my God, I can't even talk to my old audience anymore because it's under the control of the company that I've since left. And I just have to freaking sit here and hope that people find us. And that's an intimidating task, which means that we've got to up. our podcast game. We've got to up our interview game. We've got to up our feedback Friday game. But we are relying on you as family to spread the word as far and as wide as possible. Because if we're going to rebuild this audience and this is going to be a survivable project for us that we can continue to do, we need your help. This isn't just like tweeting it. You know, I need people to be ambassadors of this and get this into people's hands and ears, rate and review

the show in iTunes or this is just not going to last. We had a last. We had a 11 years to ramp up the last one. Now if we want to survive, we've got to do this same thing in six months. And that's freaking intimidating. It is. It is. It is. And with the help of the audience, I think we'll get there because.

I think we will too. I just know that when I hear somebody say like, we really need you. I'm always like, well, well, you don't need me. You really don't. You really don't. We actually do. You know? Yeah.

No, we do. We do. We do. I mean, looking at our stats, we had an amazing first. week and change of this show. I've never seen a show grow like that. We are a single digit percentage of the last show that Jason and I ran professionally. And we need to not be that.

We need to be a high double digit percentage. Preferably triple digit if we can get there. If we can get to triple digit, but that's more long term. But in the meantime, it's like if people want to eat, then on our side of the fence, then we need to help. I like food and I like my roof. So, yes, please, with as much humility as we can muster, please just tell everybody about the show because we really, really need it and we appreciate it. I mean, you have no idea how much we appreciate it. I mean, look, this is what I love to do, Jason.

And I know this is what you love to do because you do it for fucking pittance. But I'll tell you, I want to continue to make this my full-time living before I was, we were crushing it. We were bawling, dude. And now it's like, thank God I got my rainy day fund, you know, and I didn't live too large because holy cow. Yeah. I'm glad you didn't live too large. I may have. So, hey, look.

It's my own fault. Now's not the time to beat yourself up over that. Let's move right along. I want to give people stuff to chew on here. I feel like I've just been pissing and whining for the first few minutes of this. And I want to make sure that people understand where we're coming from. Because if they are not former fans of the show and they're new, they're like, these guys are just, winers. Okay. I don't want people to think that.

So let's go. Let's move right along. Dear Jordan and Jason, I have a new take on being friends zoned that I could really use some help with. For starters, I'm a 24-year-old woman who co-parents, my three-year-old daughter with her father, who I split up with two years ago. When we were dating, he didn't like any of my friends, so I ended up spending most of my time in his social circles and let my own friends fall away. When we split up, I found myself all alone. I reconnected with old college friends and started to go out again, which was great, and it was nice to be part of a group for being myself and not because of who I was dating.

Here's the rub. Most of my friends were from engineering school, so they were mostly guys. The women we hung out with were girlfriends of the guys. The trouble really started when I started dating one of the guys in the group. Almost instantly, I was put in the girlfriend group. When the guys would go out to talk, I was left to talk to the girlfriends, who I didn't really have anything in common with. I'd still talk to them, but it was exhausting since I had to carry the conversation. My boyfriend and I started getting invited to parties as couples, but on the nights I couldn't make it, my boyfriend was still invited.

When he couldn't go, my invitation was nowhere to be found. I pointed this out to him, and he said he'd noticed that too and thought it was weird. This has happened before when I was dating, and it just keeps repeating. Is there a way for me to get out of the girlfriend zone and back into the friend zone? Or should I just start over and find new friends somewhere else? And if I need to do so, where would you recommend I start? I'm still young enough where I like to go out and have a good time, but I have to balance it with my job and my daughter.

And not a lot of people my age are in this situation, so it's difficult to know where to find people who I can relate to. Thanks so much. Signed, not just a girlfriend. I feel bad for her, Jason. not just a girlfriend because she seems like one of those gals that's one of the guys, but she's sort of being relegated by the social situation into the girlfriend box. And she's like, no, I don't want to sit around and talk about this with the girls.

I like the guys. But the guys can't really say, now you get a pass because the girlfriends might get annoyed. And like, why don't I get a pass? Right. So clearly she's used to being one of the guys. She was a female in an engineering school. think I need to explain to everybody that a female in an engineering school is pretty damn rare. And so they're used to being the only girl in the room or one of five percent or something

of the whole school, if that. So now, not just a girlfriend, she's just one of the girlfriends. And this is not because of something she's done, but because the guys can't or won't risk bringing her into the circle as one of the guys, even though that's how it started, because the other girlfriends will see that as strange, it'll cause friction. And there's this sort of unspoken, I would wager, rule that, oh, crap, now you're not allowed to be one of the guys anymore. Even if the other women in the group would not have an issue with her being one of the guys, the guys would likely assume their girlfriends would, and so here we are. So this is an effort

to keep the peace inside the group, unfortunately, at her expense. And, man, I feel for her, because I guarantee the guys don't see this as strange. And the problem is that if you, and speaking to not just a girlfriend, if you try to enforce your status as one of the guys, you follow them outside to talk, you're going to look needy in the eyes of the guys and the other girlfriends could potentially see that as a rebuff of their friendship and their camaraderie.

And then you're really stuck because then the guys are like, oh, why does she always come out and follow us around? Oh, that's so weird. You know, and then the guy's like, oh, man, I'm taking peer pressure from my guy. and the girls are like, oh, why does she always go out? Are we not? You don't want to talk with us?

You want to go hang out with your boyfriend? You're just going to look so bad doing this. So I know this isn't the answer you want to hear, but I would try making some other friends as well. I don't think the toothpaste can go back in the tube on this one very easily. I would make a list of skills and activities, things you want to learn. Take classes for those things. I realize you have a kid.

I realize you got a boyfriend, so this might be tough. And I think you should resist the earth. to bring your boyfriend to these classes all the time because you might end up in a similar situation once again. And there might also be things that you can do with your child. Maybe there's like single parent meetups. Maybe you could meet some other moms with kids and use your kids as an excuse to have a play date where you also get some social time.

Last but not least, don't blame yourself for the situation that you're in. You really had no way to predict that dating this guy would lead to a change in your friendship status. I mean, that, I don't even know if I would have thought of that. And I feel like I'm always sort of gaming out social chess moves here in a way to see how things are going to work because I'm an experimenter. Duh, that's like what we talk about here. But when you outline it for me, it makes total sense. And I can also see how this came out of nowhere.

So don't be too hard on yourself. Because I know, Jason, in her letter, she's kind of beating herself up. We redacted a lot of it because it was almost extraneous. But it was just, there was a lot of her just being upset with herself. And I don't think that's helpful. You know, this is something you couldn't have predicted. get out there, start making connections so that you don't feel isolated once again, because this process could repeat itself if you're not careful. So please spend absolutely zero time beating yourself up for this and spend as much time as you can figuring out where you want to go, what you want to learn, and starting to make new connections through classes and activities so that you don't end up in a situation where maybe you break up with this guy and now you have no friends and no social contact because that will be actually, that will be bad for your mental health.

and I think we're in a place where we can still prevent that. All right. Next up. This guy was like the first one we got. This guy was so fast off the ball. I don't even know why it ended up in the fifth slot here, but this guy was so fast. This came in minutes after he must have listened to the previous show. I love it.

Hi, Jordan and Jason. So my sister got married recently, and that's fantastic. Unfortunately, it's who she got married to that's not so great. this guy has some serious problems. He's got zero spine, totally lazy, childish, can't control himself, and eats like a pig and is completely obese. Wow. Sounds like a winner.

Yeah, this guy is a huge fan of his brother-in-law. Wow. Okay. Continue. To put in perspective, why it's so great my sister got married, she's exactly the same. Oh, okay, got it. Not really a catch. Zing.

Okay. Not really a catch if you catch my dress. Unfortunately, this dynamic doesn't work too well. The rub is that the whole family lives together and they're incredibly lazy and messy, unlike the rest of us. We all try and pull their weight, but with them, it's not even trying to change. So we help out and we're getting really frustrated. But it's my sister, and she helped me out when I had a rough patch.

So I'd be a real asshole to not try and help her through this and try and fix it. So how do I get them to try adulting for a change and great? grow up and act like the rest of the family who take care of themselves. Seriously, help. Signed Sick of the Slob in law. Oh, man. This is a tough one because it involves family and everybody's got everybody's so-called best interests at heart and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, you know, you can't force change or force people to value the same things as you, like a clean house. You just can't, especially if they don't seem to value themselves. themselves. Bad habits are enabled by other people with bad habits. So these people, your sister and her husband, are a good match. They're a good match and a bad match, right? Because they're sort of enabling each other and they set a bad precedent for each other. And the problem is, I just thought about this too. It's hard to grow when your significant other is comfortable and they're in a place where they might almost not even want you to grow because they'd be

insecure about you getting better. I mean, there's a whole, there's a whole dynamic that goes into holding other people back in your circle. And this is a problem, oh, man, there's so much, we could do a whole show on this, but there's an example from a million years ago where Oprah had lost a bunch of weight. And do you remember this, Jason? She was like going through the weight thing. She lost a bunch of weight. And then she started to talk about how her friends actually were mad at her. And they were like, oh, you know, we should go to this place. We should eat. You should have this.

Oh, are you too skinny now? And they kind of used social pressure consciously slash subconsciously to get her to be overweight again. And I know that people. I totally remember that. Yeah. I know, like, we shouldn't blame other people for our behavior and blah, blah, blah. There's all kinds of stuff like this. But the point is she's stuck now because even if she was like, you know what, I'm going to get in good

shape and I'm going to live in a clean house. She not only has to do that for herself. She has to have this other guy do it. And it doesn't sound like they're empowering each other. It sounds like they're really disempowering each other. But I don't want to go down that road because that wasn't really what was asked here. But I think what you can do is have a family sit down, like almost like an intervention. Because they're probably thinking that they're okay, just living like that.

And maybe they don't realize how it affects other people. Maybe they just think, yeah, I mean, you know, this affects us. It's fine. We're cool with it. We're married. We can get away with this. Maybe they don't realize it negatively affects us. others and I don't think you should use guilt or shame to control them or you know you guys need to

do this I think showing them the effect it's having on you and how it's hurting you may be motivating for them because I still think they probably care deeply for you one thing though it sounds like you've got a close family you know she helped you in hard times your sister did that was great that was supportive right now you also want to be supportive but she and her husband they may not see it that way they might see it as nagging controlling, et cetera, while you view it differently, you may need to be open to her perspective here. Otherwise, you guys might just drive each other crazy, even though you're only trying to help her out. So I think the situation has to be handled with some delicate hands. I think

it requires multiple people in the family to commit to outlining how this is affecting the family and not to cave as soon as she's like, we're trying. It's just really hard. And everyone's like, oh, okay, this is awkward and uncomfortable. So I'm just going to give up now. We don't want that. You know, we want to make sure that this is something that everybody's on the same page here. And it's going to be slow going. But if she's going to shake this habit now, especially that she's married somebody who has a set of bad habits, the same ones, you guys might have to help her along. She may need a helping hand.

And it might not be something that happens overnight. But if she was there for you during a hard time, I think she could probably use your help here too. Because it sounds like she's stuck in a rut. And just because she married somebody who's in that same rut doesn't mean that they're happy about it. All right. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan.

When I was a kid, I was totally. shy and nerdy, but made a conscious decision to emulate the confidence I saw in other kids. It worked most of the time, but in high pressure situations, I would lose my nerve and go back to hiding in the corner. So, I tried my own version of a life hack. I dyed my hair neon green. Since I was in high school, I could get away with it. I put myself in the limelight so I was forced to be outgoing, and it made the whole fake it till you make it philosophy much easier to live by, and it worked completely. I became a lot of it. I became a little bit. I became a lot of it. I was forced to be outgoing. I was outgoing, great at public speaking and making friends, the whole ball of wax, all by emulating

others and not being able to run away when it got tough. I'm telling you this story because I know a lot of people who are shy and are afraid to get themselves out there and fall back to old habits all the time. Not leaving yourself that option to hide worked for me and it might work for some of your audience who are stuck. Dying your hair is probably not the way to go for everyone, but small changes to your environment, wardrobe haircut, or even getting a tattoo could be that small reminder that gives you the strength to keep moving forward. And I think the most important thing I learned from watching confident people was to be able to make mistakes without being embarrassed. Be comfortable with being wrong and laughing it off and laughing at yourself. That simple but powerful

trick helps you get through the times when you do screw up. Just laugh it off and don't sweat the little things. Cheers. Living in the limelight. It's kind of a cool piece of feedback here. I wouldn't necessarily say dying your hair in the young green is a life hack per se, but I understand what living in the limelight was doing here. And I always can appreciate when you're trying to shake some stuff up amongst yourself or whether or not you're trying to shake something up in your life or you've moved to a new place to change your environment.

And sometimes changing your environment, especially if you've moved to a new place, has already been done. Sometimes changing your environment also can mean reinventing yourself a little bit. And I've told this story before on the show. I also told it recently on the Kevin Rose show. But when I was really shy back in law school, one of the things I decided to do was go out a bunch and get over my shyness. But here was the problem. And Jason, don't let me go too long on here.

But the problem was that I would go out. I was fine, even just mustering the courage to go out by myself and talk with people. But I would go out by myself and I would go, I need to get a drink before I can talk with people. And then I would nurse that drink. And then I would psych myself out and get shied. shy and then some days I would talk with people and get over the hump and other days I wouldn't. So what I did is I actually got this Halloween costume. It was a kangaroo suit.

And I wore the kangaroo suit to this fancy bar that I always went to. I mean, I'm probably talking it up to this bar slash restaurant that I went to all the time. It's Michigan. How fancy can it be? Yeah, exactly. But what this did was, it was a kangaroo suit. It didn't have a mask on. And the owner and I were friends, so he always let me hang out, the bartender staff,

they were all like, Jordan here, ridiculous. today. And I wore the suit and people were walking up to me. They were high-fiving me. They were giving me hugs. Girls were coming up and taking selfies. I mean, there was all kinds of stuff going on with this kangaroo suit. I was getting free drinks when I go to other places or people would, you know, the bartenders would make fun of me. And we would do things like they would try to throw ice in the pouch. And I would, if I caught it, I would get a free, you know, Marischino chair. I mean, it's just funny, right? It's just fun. But I got so much attention doing that. And I kept wearing that suit out because I thought, if I just get used to this attention,

then it won't be as scary when I get the attention. I didn't wear the suit because I wanted attention. I wore the suit because I was scared to death of attention. And wearing the suit made it unavoidable that I would get attention and have people look at me and talk with me. So it changed the way that I felt about going out. So eventually when I took the suit off a few days later, I went out in normal clothes and I would talk with some of the same people.

and some of them recognize me as the guy from the suit. Most people didn't care, didn't notice, didn't worry about it. How many bartenders tried to throw, like, ice down your pants? Oh, I still, yeah, of course. For years after that, the bartender would be like, hey, Keg-Roo. And, you know, these are guys that I knew well, guys and gals that I knew well at that point. So it was, it was always something that was fun, but I got rid of the crutch, right? And I got used to people talking with me, and I got used to starting conversations.

And sure, when I got rid of the suit, I had to do more work starting the conversations, but I had no problem other people talking with me, whereas I used to clam up and be shy and weird when I didn't have that. So that's the reason why this works. You can't hide from attention. You're forced to reinvent yourself socially. I don't think you have to wear a kangaroo suit. I certainly don't think you have to reinvent yourself completely

or even dye your hair neon green. I think what you can do is just do a little tiny thing, even if it's an environment, wardrobe, haircut, whatever. I wouldn't get a tattoo. I'm going to disagree with that piece of advice there. anything that can get you a little bit outside of your comfort zone socially, especially something that calls attention to you that you can get rid of later, which is why I don't love the tattoo idea, will get you used to different types of social contacts. Even if you don't think you're shy, this is a very useful exercise because what happens is you start to realize that you are a high status individual that has attention from and can talk to anyone. and that will change the way that other people treat you,

and it will inform the way that you treat yourself and the way that you behave in public, and it will up your level of charisma, sociability. It'll make you feel more outgoing, even if you feel like you're a natural introvert. There's a lot of benefits that come from something silly like this. And if you really do want to buckle down, go get yourself a Halloween costume that does not have a mask.

No glasses, no mask, no eye patch, no hat, nothing. Do the body thing, and it'll be something that you learn to deal with, and then get rid of it. Don't be the guy who's got bagpipes everywhere or something, right? Get rid of it after a few days. That's the trick. All right, Jason, that's it for this week. We need as many people as we can participating in Feedback Friday.

You can write us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Note the address change, the other inbox, no longer at the other company. Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com is where you can reach us. The recommendations for the week, I saw this movie on Netflix. Jason, have you heard of this? It's called Psalm. S-O-M-M. It's about the Master Somalia exam. Just ring a bell at all. It's in my inbox, or my cue, as they say on Netflix. Yes, I definitely wanted to check this out.

But since you're not a wine guy or weren't a wine guy until recently. Why the hell did I watch this? Now that you've been indoctrinated by the guys at Wine Access, I was really surprised to see this in your recommendation. Yeah, it's, it was kind of weird because I didn't care about wine at all. And I watched this movie Somme because I thought, oh, we're going to meet this Master Sommelier. Actually, we met a Master of Wines, which is even more rare than a Master Sommalié from Wine Access. And anyway, this movie Somme, it follows these candidates for the Master Sommelier exam. And I mean, this is one of the hardest exam on the planet.

I was looking at this and I thought, I'd take the bar exam three times before I took the Master Sommalié exam. It's just so much harder. You've got to be able to identify these wines, what's in them, the flavor profile, the acidity, the region it comes from it. You have to get it right. Who pooped in the dirt that week? Really? It's kind of what it gets down to. It does. It's an interesting inside look at one of the hardest exams on the planet. There's something like 200 of these guys in the whole world. And it's just amazing. And Wine Access was the sponsor that sort of sparked my interest in this. At first, I was one of those guys like, oh, wines for pretentious debags. It's just that I hadn't had

good stuff until I gotten with Wine Access. I've been dealing with this for you for five years. I love wine, and now you finally get it. So it's great. I do get it. I'm glad you're on the bandwagon. I'm not going to be one of those people who's like super into it, though. I promise everyone. And I promise everyone on the show that I won't talk about it a lot.

But now a good glass of wine at night you recognize it's pretty okay. Fair enough. Once again, I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. I'm a little bit, I wouldn't say I moved to tears or anything, but I am very impressed because these are the letters we got from our, our first week of shows that we weren't even able to promote anywhere. I mean, I think we posted it on our Facebook because that's all we could do.

And we had friends tell other people. But we weren't able to broadcast this out. These are just people who found us immediately. Well, and on Grumpy Old Geeks.com. Oh, right. And of course, on Grumpy Old Geeks. So these are hardcore fans of our former show and hopefully some new folks that just dove in here. And I really appreciate that.

I've really appreciate the engagement. And all the well wishes and letters that we've been getting from people as well. Oh, they're fantastic. It's what keeps us going. It really is what keeps, especially in this early phase of rebuilding. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. Again, please share widely. Tell other fans of our other show about this new show. Shout it from the rooftops. We're basically starting from scratch. It's intimidating. It's scary. We need all the help we can get from you. And quick shout out to Rick Higgins. He was the first review on the Jordan Harbinger show.

So thank you. That's going to be so important for us over the next few years. The past show had over 10,000. And now we're just starting from scratch. Also, shout out to Eric Onesto. I'll catch you next time when we record in L.A. And a shout out to George Taylor. He's traveling in Ukraine, and then he's going to Korea for the Olympics. So he's there right now. He's a fan of the show.

He's in Korea for the Olympics. Amazing. Enjoy that. I'm on Instagram at Jordan Harbinger. I'm on Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. You can also write to me directly, Jordan atjharbinger.com. And you're on social media now, how, Jason?

Of course I am. I'm on Instagram at JPD. and always you can check out my other show, Grumpy Old Geeks, now available on Spotify and other podcast players as well. Oh, great. Oh, and also the Jordan Harbinger show, we just got approved for Spotify, so we're there again finally.

So if you know people that listen on Spotify, because a ton of people listen on Spotify, and they keep asking, of course, they might not hear this because it's on Spotify. But we're on Spotify now. All right. But if you check us on social, then you'll know that we're on Spotify.

That's how it works. That's right. And keep sending in these questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. We will see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way.

Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. recently they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think the benefits of laughter why sports fans get so invested and what makes people like you or not the through line is always the same smart ideas you can actually use in real life something you should know has been featured in apple's shows we love and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting so if you want another show that scratches that i want to understand how people in the world really work itch search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts look for the bright yellow light bulb and start Start listening. You can thank me later.