The Jordan Harbinger Show - 526: What to Do When Your Teen Attempts Suicide | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

While you're beyond grateful she survived, your teenager's attempted suicide came as a heartbreaking shock. Now what can you do to address the root causes and make sure she doesn't try again? We'll try to find answers to this and more here on Feedback Friday! 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/526 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: While you're beyond grateful she survived, your teenager's attempted suicide came as a heartbreaking shock. Now what can you do to address the root causes and make sure she doesn't try again? [Thanks to clinical psychologist Dr. Erin Margolis for helping us with this one!] After listening to our episode with Thomas Erikson, you think you've got a psychopath or two in your life. How can you really be sure, and how should you handle the situation? [Thanks to Thomas Erikson himself, who was kind enough to help us answer this one!] After finding out your significant other (with whom you have a child) had a Tinder account for nine months of your relationship, you're not completely on board with trusting him. Now his ex-girlfriend (with whom he also has a child) has offered him a job. Should you be concerned? You're a bit burnt out after traveling for work five days a week for the past two months, but you've been with your company for a few years and you don't want to leave. How might you ask for a new job within the company without being completely sure what you want to do (or initiating your own layoff)? An amazing job opportunity means you may be moving your family to another country in a few months, but it means leaving behind the network and support system you've had for years. How do you start and grow a new network from scratch, and is there anything you can do to give you a head start in the months before you move? 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 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 sidekick and salvation, Gabriel Mizrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of 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 amazing people think and behave. And our mission on this 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. Now, if you're new to the

show, on Fridays we give advice to you and 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, performers, mafia hitmen, astronauts. 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've got the starter packs. Those are on the website. Those are collections of favorite episodes, organized by popular topic to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start to get started. This week on the podcast, we had Nicholas Christakis.

He described something called the network effect, how habits and behaviors of our friends and our friends' friends end up affecting us. This is fascinating social science, which y'all know I love to do on the show. Gabriel, this is kind of amazing. It turns out that if your friend's friend who you've never met smokes, you're X percent more likely to smoke or to overeat. Yeah. So it's interesting. It's interesting and it's also a little bit depressing because it's like, well, of course I have some friends that are doing bad things, smoking, eating too much, overweight, whatever, right? And I've got my own vices and bad habits. Well,

turns out that all of my vices and bad habits and all of their vices and bad habits, they basically pollute the entire social network that we have, even if we don't freaking know those people. So you can be friends with zero people that are absolutely perfect in your estimation and you're still getting screwed unless everybody around them is also doing the same thing. And it goes like four degrees. That is wild. So yeah, it's really crazy. Super useful. Good to know. Yeah. Good to know. Yeah. We also had Robert H. Frank, who studies successful people and success in general. And he described the role that luck plays in our lives, not just in business, but in our lives in general, as well as why many of us are so reluctant to acknowledge the role of luck when we're successful. So this is one from the vault.

seems especially timely somehow. Gabe, we all know people that think, this is all due to my hard work. And it's kind of like if you zoom out far enough, there's some lucky shit happening in your life. I mean, even... Always. I can find numerous examples of being extremely, like, just lucky as hell. Even in the most unfortunate seeming events in my life, like having to restart before the pandemic and having this fallout with the business partners and having the contract negotiations go the way that it did. Now I'm like, wow, that was so fortunate.

that I didn't get what I thought I wanted at the time, right? Getting laid off from my job on Wall Street, well, they asked us all to leave, right? And I didn't get the layoff. But I got the payout. It was 2008. I thought, my life is over, my career is over. This is terrible. Start this dot, dot, dot, amazing success to it, right?

So it's just unbelievable luck in many people's lives when you are successful. And you can always find it. But of course, people don't want to admit that. So we discuss that in depth on the show and how we can do better. and also what we can do when people refuse to acknowledge that. Anyway, I also write every so often on the blog, the latest post is called six things that seem like a waste of time, but actually are not. Really enjoyed this one. It's all about the activities we think are indulgent or useless, like daydreaming or making friends with random people that are outside of our industry that we may never

meet online or going on vacation, cleaning the house. I don't know how many people think cleaning the house is a waste of time. I kind of do, but, you know, whatever. These are activities that, well, look, we draw on the latest scientific research, my own experience, we talk about the important benefits, physical, mental, creative, even spiritual, dare I say, the benefits of enjoying experiences that a lot of hustle bros and self-help gurus are saying that are a waste of time. So turns out those things are quite the opposite, and if we want to get ahead, we actually have to waste our time more effectively. So you can find that, Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles, are where the articles are on the blog. Make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything we created

for you here in the past couple weeks. All right, some fun ones and some doozies. As usual, we got a doze for number one. So let's dive right in. Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 32-year-old mother of three. My oldest girl is 12, turning 13 in a couple of months. My middle daughter is almost 11, and my son is 7. I run my own business as a massage therapist, and I spend a lot of time at work. I had my first two children with a boyfriend from high school. I had my son with someone else. That was a pretty short-lived relationship. I now have a fiancé who is amazing to me and my children. My son's father, he's very involved in his life, but my daughter's father only visits them at his mother's house. I don't have a lot of respect for him, as he has no responsibility for his two girls. In fact,

until the other night, I didn't even know his phone number, because we never talk. My girls think that my son had an easier life because when they were little, I was in college, a broke single mom, and busting my ass to get to where I am today. They had to do a lot for the themselves and helped me out a great deal when my son was a baby, getting him ready for daycare and stuff like that, and they definitely hold all of that against me. Fast forward to today, and my 12-year-old has been spending a lot of time alone in her room. I try to give her her space while also trying hard to have a connection with her and to talk to her about school.

But if I come in or I try to talk to her or I try to get her to hang out with us, she just barks at me to go away. She's also always enjoyed hanging out with the misfit types. She likes cosplay and drama class. She doesn't like sports. She's very smart in science and math, and she's very talented at drawing. What's cosplay again? Cosplay is like dressing up as characters.

Oh, right, right, right, right. So you dress up like Star Wars or something like that or whatever, or like anime. Yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. Right. Then a few days ago, while my partner and I were at work, she decided to take 18 Tylenol after lunch. She was doing school at home with her sister.

She was tired all evening, didn't say anything. And then she passed out in bed. I just assumed that she had been up late the night before, but by midnight she was throwing up. I thought she had a stomach bug, but she continued to throw up for several hours until she finally told me that she had taken all those pills. I called poison control, and I took her to the hospital, and she's still there now. My heart is broken, and I'm not sure what to do or where to go from here. I just want to make sure that I can keep her safe and help her get back to a healthy state of mind. How do I bring my daughter home?

Signed, Rebuilding the Nest. So this is very sad. How old is she 12, right? She's 12 about to turn 13. Goodness. I just, you don't even think about, well, I didn't even think about until very recently, young kids having this much emotional distress. You know, you usually think about suicide and those kinds of self-harm as either

teenager stuff or like young adult or adult stuff. I mean, seldom do you think that somebody that age would feel that strongly and do these kinds of things. But I think it's becoming more and more common. And I'm sorry that you're going through this. I'm so sorry to hear that your daughter is suffering in this way. As a parent, that could only be just absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking. And your daughter, it sounds like she's dealing with a lot of stuff here. There are some very complex dynamics at play in your family. I say that was zero judgment.

I'm not trying to say that you set up a mess here. I'm only noticing what you've brought up in your letter. The distant relationship with her father, having to pseudo-parent her brother, being on her own a lot, probably having some complicated feelings in general. Your daughter's wrestling with a lot, just even the age on top of just being preteen slash teenager, she also sounds like a very sensitive person. She's into drawing, she's into cosplay, she's into drama. So I'm guessing she's especially vulnerable to everything that's been going on and going on around her. Obviously suicide, especially teenage suicide, is a complicated topic. I wanted to make sure that we had a good grasp of things here. So we consulted with Dr. Aaron Margolis,

clinical psychologist and friend of the show. And the first thing we learned from Dr. Margolis was that any suicide attempt, that always, and very unfortunately, increases the risk of future attempts. So the priority here as you bring your daughter home is to keep her safe. And that begins with increasing supervision of your daughter. If she still has any suicidal ideation, then Dr. Margolis doesn't recommend ever leaving her at home alone. I know that sounds like a tall order, but you got to be safe here. She also recommends locking up all medications, literally buy a lockbox. Make sure you're the only one who has the key, not a code, a key, unless you can keep a code safe, which I don't know about you gave. I feel like teenagers just, they can get stuff,

right? They can get stuff. I'm also writing that down on a post-it and putting it on the fridge or something. Yeah, just like, oh, she doesn't know how to get in my phone. She won't find it. You know, that kind of thing. So if your daughter has any self-harming tendencies like cutting, you got to lock up the sharp objects too. This is just sort of baseline safety plan stuff. Then, once your daughter is home, you should start checking in with her frequently. And that means popping into her room, keeping tabs on her and being annoying, make sure she's okay. Dr. Margolis recommends avoiding the temptation to pepper her with a lot of questions or get too deep into the why of her suicide attempt. As a fellow human here, I can see why that would be tempting for a parent to do, but also highly

annoying and invasive for somebody who probably doesn't want to talk about that all the time. So as a parent, you're probably going to want to find an explanation here. You're going to want to solve the problem. But in these early days post-attempt, Dr. Margolis recommends focusing on practical crisis management, making sure your daughter is stable and safe, validating whatever your daughter is going through. Once she's more stable, then you can start exploring the why of it all. But not too soon.

And when you check in, don't be afraid to ask. ask very directly about any suicidal ideation. Things like, are you thinking about trying again? Are you making any plans? Some people worry that if you ask someone directly about suicide, you're somehow planting the idea in their head, but you are not. If your daughter is thinking about this, then she's thinking about this. And you acknowledging it and you inviting her to talk about it, that's actually very crucial to keeping her safe. A lot of experts also find that using a zero to 10 distress scale is the best way to check in. So I would establish an advanced with your daughter what the ratings mean, of course.

Like, zero means super chill, no suicidal ideation. Five means struggling but able to cope on her own. Ten means not safe, got to go to the hospital right now, that sort of thing. And everything in between. Now, I know that your daughter has been pushing you away when you try to talk to her. Good old teenagers, right? But you cannot let that stop you from checking in on her right now. And the fact that she's been pushing you away, I know that this is confusing and counterintuitive.

But that might actually be a sign that she wants to keep you close. Again, teenagers, right? Dr. Margolis pointed out that all children, they need containment. They need an adult, usually a parent, a key person in their life, someone who can accept their distress, relieve their anxieties, make their feelings and experiences safe for them. A child will prickle or rebel if you contain too much. We've all experienced that if you've ever had a teenager or been one.

But they also need that structure and that support. They need a balance of containment and autonomy. So your daughter might continue to react when you check in with her, but as her mom, you just have to tolerate the discomfort of that resistance. If you knock on her door and she's like, go away, mom, I hate you. That doesn't mean you have to go away. You can pop your head in anyway and say, I know you're mad at me right now, sweetie, and I know you want me to go away. But before I do that, I need to know if you're okay. How are we doing?

Zero, five, ten. Make her check in with you. make her engage in this very basic way. She can just throw a number out. She doesn't have to say anything else, right? Because right now, it sounds to me like your daughter's kind of running the show here, and you want to respect that, which I get. But the fact is, you're the mom here, you're the adult.

You need to be around. You need to be in tune, especially right now, because this is a fragile time. So if you're going to make sure your daughter is okay, you're going to have to tolerate your daughter getting mad at you, rejecting you sometimes, saying crappy stuff, even though it hurts. But Dr. Margolis also pointed out that your daughter, yeah, she might want you to go away on one level, but on another level, she might be testing you.

You've been away for a lot of her childhood. And I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty. You've been working nonstop to provide for her. Now she might be really craving your presence. So when she says, Mom, go away and then you go away, you might feel like you're respecting her autonomy when really it's you kind of confirming that you're not going to be. be there when she needs you the most. Complicated stuff, I know. And again, I have a two-year-old, so take it with a grain of salt. This is from Dr. Margolis, not from my very, very limited-nil

experience parenting. So I want to throw that grain of salt out there that I am not the source of all these what I think are really great ideas. And that's also why the next thing you should do, and I would be working on this right now, is get your daughter into therapy ASAP. She has a lot of work to do, a lot. And you need to give her the space to do that starting now. father basically abandon her. There's not much of a relationship there. I'd have words with that guy if I were standing in front of him, but you know what, for now, he's in a relevant POS. You were physically present and doing your best as a single mom, and I can only imagine how hard that is, but you were away a lot, you were studying, you were working. Maybe you weren't really available to her,

and again, Gabe, I'm trying so hard not to point fingers, right, because, or to sound like I'm pointing fingers, because I can only imagine how hard it is to be in this woman's position. So I don't want it to be like, oh, well, you weren't there and this is all your fault. But it is possible that your daughter felt and still feels emotionally abandoned to some degree, even if that wasn't your intent. And maybe she doesn't feel like she has the space to be heard and to process everything that that brings up for her. Dr. Margolis pointed out that whether she meant to or not, your daughter is communicating some significant distress through this suicide attempt. This might have been the only possible way that she could think of to communicate her pain. And let me be clear about this.

I'm not saying that this was just attention-seeking behavior or whatever. That's not what I'm saying at all. We all feel that that's a pretty dismissive read of the situation. She might have been trying to get your attention, but that doesn't mean that there's not a real legitimate need here. Whatever her intention, she was desperately communicating something, basically how much pain she's in. That's what your daughter needs to be working through with a professional. And if you can swing it, then going to family therapy together would also be huge for you guys. And if you can go to therapy on your own, I also realize this is a ton of therapy. It adds up, but I'm just throwing it out there. If you can get some support for yourself, that would be great. You guys are all going through this

and you shouldn't have to deal with it on your own. But therapy for your daughter, I feel like that is not even optional, right? That's just, it has to be a top priority. Dr. Margolis also pointed out that intervening at this stage is extremely important because she's still so young. if you can get her the help that she needs, it'll prevent her from developing more severe issues down the road. So don't wait, don't kick it down the road. Don't think, oh, I think we're past the worst of it. Find a good therapist right now.

Make it work. Find a way to make it work. It's essential. Gabe, I'm resisting the urge to analyze the family too much here, but some of the facts that she mentioned, they kind of do paint a picture. I'm not trying to make the mother feel bad, like I said, because I know she was doing her best.

She's probably done a lot of things right. But the family dynamics, they've got to be playing a role in what her daughter is going through. It does sound like kind of a mess. Oh, definitely playing a role. I mean, all family dynamics play a role in everybody's life. And Dr. Margolis picked up on this as well. I mean, just having three different men rotating through this family,

even if they're good people, even if they're great people, that can create a lot of instability. I mean, even if their house itself isn't chaotic or loud or abusive or anything like that, just having a revolving door of parental figures, I could see that being very inconsistent. There's lots of attachment traumas and triggers here. It could be a minefield. Definitely. And then her daughter is looking at her younger brother, the one who has the good dad, and I can imagine her going, you know, why does he get the good parent? Why don't I have a dad like that?

You know, what I wonder if she was internalizing the message, what's wrong with me that I don't get to have that parent? Right. Yeah. Her daughter can't help but compare herself to her little brother because he's right there in the same house. And it just kind of, there's a compare contrast, right? It just makes the abandonment even more vivid in contrast. Like, oh, you forgot that maybe your dad sucked? Let me highlight what a good dad looks like right in front of you in the same freaking room with somebody that you're related to and close to. This is what you should have had. Bye.

I really feel for her. Plus, she had to take care of him. She's playing mom to her brother when she's still a child. That's definitely problematic, even if it was necessary. It makes me wonder if she feels like she didn't get to just be a kid, right? Who doesn't have to worry about parenting somebody else when they're eight years old or however old she was. And like you said, Jordan, her daughter does sound especially vulnerable, given her personality, the fact that she's so passionate about art and drama and cosplay.

But, you know, that's interesting too. Drama, drawing cosplay, those could also be, I could see those being powerful forms of escape. Yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. I'm, although I am resisting the urge to be like, if you dress up as a character, you're escaping from your life. You know, I think there maybe there is some of that. But, yeah. Yeah, maybe there is some of that. Yeah, I'm also resisting that urge, but it did jump out. that this girl's reality is so intense that it feels pretty intolerable sometimes. Maybe when she dresses up or she plays a character, what she's actually doing or saying is, get me out of here, right? And this suicide attempt was just one more attempt to escape. Just one more reason that mom needs to be a consistent presence for her daughter right now. Yes, absolutely. That will be very grounding.

And that's not on mom to fix by herself. This is the stuff that her daughter needs to work on with her therapist. And, you know, given your daughter's interests, maybe you consider certain forms of therapy that would be especially helpful for her, like art therapy. I know very little about this, but I know that this can be very powerful. Just make sure you're not seeing some quack who makes her draw a few pictures of a house and calls it a day. Make sure she's seeing somebody with real credentials, somebody who understands child development, adolescent issues, who has good rapport with your daughter, who can get deep and make the appropriate interventions with her. Gabe, I'm thinking of some of those animal therapy places where like some of them are really great and they have

these great success rates and other people are like, yeah, go ride the horse. Congratulations, you're not an alcoholic anymore. Like, it makes no sense. There's a huge range of therapies. So bottom line, you need to show up for your daughter right now in a new way. Come up with a safety plan. Get her into therapy ASAP. Strongly consider family therapy as well. Start being more present and consistent with your daughter. Be firmer with her. Be more attuned. Basically be the mom she really needs right now. And for you, I'm sure you're dealing with some serious anxiety after all this. This is truly traumatic stuff. So I strongly encourage you to start individual therapy as well. You just all need a lot of support right now. Also, in advance, well, hopefully not in advance,

hopefully nothing happens. But I would pull together a list of crisis hotlines. If you ever can't reach your therapist or you need some emergency help, you're going to want to have those numbers handy. You're not going to want to be freaking Googling it in the moment. We'll link to two great lists of phone numbers and resources in the show notes, print them out, put them on the fridge, and screenshot them. And I would add them to your phone. I would add them into your phone so you can just click it. You're not dialing with shaky hands if something goes wrong. Whatever it is, keep them close by, share them with everyone in the house. You know, now that I think about it, Gabe, I'm on the fence. If you put it on the fridge, is it just going to be like a red flag to the

girl like, ooh, we need this because you're trouble? Or is it helpful to have there? That's a good question. I wonder if it would say, like, let's talk about it if we ever get into a tough situation. And if we do, let's pick up the phone and I'll be here with you and we'll call them together. I think the more they can destigmatize it, probably the better right now. Yeah, because I would feel kind of, it would be kind of embarrassing if, you know, friends come over and it's like, oh, why do you have crisis hotlines in every room? Oh, well, you know, my mom thinks I'm an unstable crazy person. So. Fair enough. Maybe the phone is the best place for that. As long as it's close by, I think is the point. If you can do all that, this whole crisis could be actually, could be a huge inflection point in your family.

and I'm so sorry that it came to this. But this could be a chance to repair your relationship with your daughter, give her a different kind of support from what you thought she needed, maybe find some healing as a family. I hope you get to do that. I really do. We're thinking about your daughter. We're rooting for you,

and we're wishing you all the best. By the way, y'all, you can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line that does make our job a lot easier. If you're asking for any sort of legal advice, you know, even if you're not, include the state in the country that you live in, that can help us give you more detailed advice. If there's something you're going through any big decision you're wrestling with, or you just need a new perspective on stuff, life, love, work, what to do

if your alcoholic mom is totally spinning out, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help. We keep every email anonymous. 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. I'm fairly convinced that my boss is a psychopath and I work closely with another colleague, a woman in her 40s, who also seems to be a psychopath.

I know more than 100 people, at least as well as I know these two. So it's not statistically unlikely that there could be two psychopaths in my life. I am so grateful for your episode with Thomas Erickson. He was actually the one who provided the model of psychopathy that made everything click. With my coworker in particular, much of the time she's polite and charming. If she needs something or there's a financial situation to be settled between our different departments, she is, as Erickson said, always trying to leave me with the bill. She will fight me over cents that she thinks I owe, but insist that I pay hundreds

for an item that could be charged to either department or shared, without batting an eyelid or acknowledging the hypocrisy. Otherwise, she's friendly, smiling, she even offers to take my rubbish out sometimes. Recently, she actually had to perform CPR on someone suffering a heart attack, and afterwards, she seemed very much unperturbed. I've been subtly setting boundaries and not sharing too much about my mental health and so on, which was my first inclination in order to build rapport. My question is this.

How can I be sure that my assessment of my coworker is correct? Does psychopathy always manifest as predatory behavior? Are all psychopaths assholes, or are some not so bad? And how should I deal with this person going forward? signed, Gaging the Ferocity of all this psychopathy. Man, Gabe, we're getting a lot of psychopath questions lately, huh? We're even getting yelled at for using that term, but, you know, whatever. There does seem to be a little uptick.

Maybe people are on the lookout now, I'm guessing. Or maybe we've all been stuck inside watching true crime docs for the past 18 months and we're all super paranoid. Also, okay, it's also possible. The Thomas Erickson episode was fascinating, though. That was episode 465, by the way. And surprise, surprise, we actually consulted with him on this question. and figure we might as well get the guy who literally wrote the book about psychopaths to chime in here.

And Thomas, his first reaction was this. Whenever he hears someone say that they're encountering multiple psychopaths, like, my neighbor's a psychopath, my boss is a psychopath, and the guy I met on plenty of fish is a psychopath. He usually thinks that's highly unlikely. But it doesn't mean it's absolutely impossible. It's just statistically it's not super common. So this colleague of yours, she could be a psychopath, but she could also just be a narcissist. meaning she's highly self-centered in a non-charming way without being evil the way a psychopath might be.

According to Thomas, the psychopath is always much cannier and definitely more non-emopathic. There's usually not much of an emotional life there at all. So how can you tell? Well, Thomas shared an interesting way of finding out if somebody in your office might be a psychopath. And that is to track whether they perform any actual work. Psychopaths, they like to dump loads of work on other people, and they often, have an excuse for why they can't do it themselves. Then, of course, they'll turn around and take credit for just about anything that they can. So if your colleague is exhibiting that kind of behavior

on a regular basis, maybe you do have a psychopath on your hands. If not, it's possible she's just your garden variety asshole. Right. Maybe she's just kind of slick and manipulative. I mean, for all we know, Jordan, she just doesn't want to explain those expenses to her boss. So she's charging them to the person who wrote in just to cover her own ass. Yeah, like plot twist. Her boss is an asshole and a psychopath, so she's like, oh, I need to figure out how to offload this, so I don't get the ax. These terms, even terms like narcissists, they get thrown around a lot these days. We've got an email like, hey, you're using this term too much, or you're using the term psychopath, and we don't use that anymore. I'm probably guilty of that more than I'd like to

admit. And obviously, there are degrees here of narcissism. Someone can be narcissistic, even toxicly so without meeting the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder or NPD. So we have to be careful about the language we use. And I say that as somebody who's only mildly careful about the language that we use. Good point. Good point. As for your question about whether all psychopaths are assholes, Thomas did have an interesting response to that as well. He said the more interesting question might be, are all assholes psychopaths? I thought that was an interesting way to look at it. Some people just aren't very kind. They're not very friendly. They're rude. They're jealous. They're greedy. Whatever it is. A lot of people just think of themselves. But to Jordan's

point, that doesn't make them clinical. So if you want your dynamic with this person to change, Thomas recommends trying to set some limits, which it sounds like you're already doing, but you could go a little farther. You could point out that not everything can go in this colleague's favor and then demand an answer to that. Obviously, you'll want to do this in a non-antagonistic way because psychopaths, I mean, if this person turns out to be a psychopath, they don't react to that kind of thing the way normal people do, so you might just want to be careful there. But I would try that and see what happens. If she explodes on you or backstabs you in a meeting later or leaves a, I don't know, a dead squirrel in your trash or something like that, then yeah, I don't know why

I thought of squirrels. I think I'm thinking about the psychopath question from a few weeks ago. That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not to make light of that, but that was pretty terrifying. But, you know, if she retaliates in some serious way, you're probably dealing with a more serious case here. If you just ruffle her feathers and she quickly backs down, then she's probably not a real threat, but at least you'll have changed your relationship for the better. But Thomas did, say that if she's truly a psychopath, then she'll probably have allies in the office. There are a lot of useful idiots who do errands for this kind of personality, so you should know that she might go after you for even daring to challenge her, as Thomas pointed out, sometimes

even with an implicit okay from management. So be careful, consider all the risks here, because part of me wants you to put this piece of work in her place, but part of me is also afraid you're going to end up as a lampshade in her bedroom or something. Yeah, I suppose that's always possible. Tread carefully. I know we're going to get letters like, not all psychopaths are murderers. You guys are terrible. Whatever. This is why I like Thomas's final piece of advice. If this person turns out to be a psychopath for real, just walk away. Literally, like, forget it, change jobs if you can, stop working with her, whatever it is. She will not change. And I would maybe take that a step further and say, if this person seems like trouble, just keep your guard up, minimize your contact,

stay the hell away. She's bad news regardless. It's not on you to change her. Good luck. All right. next. Hey guys, my boyfriend and I have been together for two years. We lived together and just had a baby. I recently moved States and my older children to be with him. He broke up with his ex-slash-baby mama to pursue our relationship, which I know is a red flag. I now have a superficial but decent relationship with her. Separately, I also caught him having a Tinder account for nine months during our long-distance relationship. Fool me once, am I right? Still, I don't want to give up. My boyfriend is now looking to change jobs. Today, his ex called him to say that she had an opening as her clinical specialist and she wants

him to take the job. It would be a step into a field that he's wanted to be a part of and more money. But my knee-jerk reaction was hell no. She would be his boss and they would work together as a team. In the past, she's expressed her desire to get back together with him so they could be a family again. Am I missing something here or is this a horrible idea? I want to be supportive of his career aspirations, but really?

Signed, feeling like a mama bear about this baby mama scare. All right, so I'm going to be pretty blunt here. This situation calls for some pretty direct advice. This is super freaking dysfunctional, the situation you're in. Gabe, let me make sure I got this straight. So to the writer, your boyfriend left the mother of his children to be with you, and it sounds like you did the same, maybe, left your significant other to be with him. So I guess it's not inherently bad.

Obviously, that can happen for good reasons. But you're the one who thinks this is a red flag. But then he's cheating on you while you guys were officially together, or at least he considered cheating on you. Let's be honest, you don't just have a Tinder account to kill time. You caught him doing that, but it doesn't sound like you guys really resolved anything. And then you had a baby together after that. So you know, this might have been a mistake on your part, but you don't want to give up on him,

so you said. So now his ex-girlfriend slash co-parent, who clearly wants him back and has said as much, she's offering him a job, and you don't trust him enough to support him and taking it. So this, yeah, this is a freaking mess. Ideally, you and your boyfriend would have sorted out the infidelity stuff long before you committed to him. You would have decided whether this is somebody you trust before you had a child together. And when his ex offered him this job, if you guys had all these healthy boundaries and

appropriate relationships, no lingering trust issues, then you could have supported him and taking it, knowing that it would be good for his career. That's how this situation should look, or at least how it could look, but it doesn't look like that, because you guys aren't really addressing any of this stuff. So my advice to you is this. If you can't trust your boyfriend enough to take this job without starting up again with his ex, then there are deeper problems in your relationship. I would focus on resolving those first.

I would figure out why you're so eager to overlook this stuff. I would strongly encourage your boyfriend to get to the root of his infidelity, And I would start communicating much more openly about your concerns, about your values, about your expectations for each other and for your relationship. I'm not saying you're crazy for being suspicious about this woman's agenda. She literally said that she wants him back and this job offer may just be a way to get back in his orbit. And I get that they're already in each other's lives.

They have a child together. That ties them together pretty much for life. But you chose this guy knowing his baggage. Now it's on him to define the nature of his. his relationship with his ex, tell her what will and won't happen between them and set the boundary. If you can work with your boyfriend to do that and hopefully address the other issues that you have, then you got a shot at making this unconventional situation work. But it's going to take some conscious effort and a lot of growth.

I hope you get to do that. Gabe, was that too dismissive? This is a cluster fuck, if I'm just being blunt here. I'm 100% in agreement. I mean, we're not trying to be rude, but it's just kind of like, it sounds like you already know that this is a problem and you're acknowledging it that it's a problem, which is a good thing, but you can't just acknowledge it if you're not going to do something about it. You can't just sit back and complain that the situation is dysfunctional.

I think you know that there are issues here. I hope you get to work on them. And look, I do wish the best for you. Obviously, you're going through some stuff. You've got kids in the mix. I hope you solve it. I really do wish you luck. All right.

What's next? Hey, y'all. Before COVID, I worked as a full-time audio-visual technician, providing sound, lighting, and video services for live events. When everything shut down, I nearly lost my job, but was fortunate enough that my company put me in a new role. I now work full-time as an audio-visual installation technician permanently installing video conferencing systems. It's a pretty cool job, and I do like it quite a bit, but the company was recently awarded

a series of jobs that has required me to be away from home five days out of the week for the past two months and for the next five to seven months, with a ton of overtime every week, which has taken a pretty big toll on my mental and physical health. The problem is, I don't know what else I would do. I don't think I want to move on from the company as I've been with them for over five years, and I like them and my co-workers a lot. There are a lot of new roles I could go after within the company, but the person I would talk to about this has a tough personality that I don't always know how to handle. I fear their rejection and I don't want it to lead to me being let go, or worse, being stuck in the position I'm in now and then not being offered new opportunities because they think I hate my job. Is there a good way to go about asking for a new job within my current company without knowing exactly what I want to do? Or is there a way to make myself feel less burnt out when I'm clearly sick of traveling all the time for work?

Or should I be searching for a new job elsewhere? Thanks, guys. I love your show. Signed, Audiovisualizing a new future. This is a good question. And it sounds like you're seriously burned out and ready for a change. So here's how I would do that. First things first. I think you're putting the cart before the horse here a little bit.

You're looking for a change, but because you don't know exactly what you want, you don't know how to ask for it, which totally makes sense. So my first piece of advice is to do some homework. Study the other departments and roles at your company. Reach out to a few people doing those jobs now and book a quick call with them. Ask them what they do, what their lifestyle is like, if they're happy. Get to know your options in more detail. If you do this legwork, you'll also be doing something else that's super important, which is building relationships within your company. That way, when you ask to be transferred to another division, you'll already have some allies there. Who knows, maybe these people can even put in a good

word for you when you make the request. They can ask for you to be part of their team. This is clutch. It's something I recommend to people in any company and any industry who want to transfer to a new team. Start by getting to know the people that you want to work with. Build those relationships in advance. Let the relationships open the door rather than the other way around. And while you do that, ask yourself if you can enjoy doing those roles more than your current one. And this isn't just a grass is always greener kind of thing. If not, you need to know that changing departments, it's not going to solve your problem. But if you would be happier, great, you got a good next step. Then and only then, would I go talk to this guy, the gatekeeper of

new roles with the tough personality? And I think a nice way to frame this would be, thanks for making some time for me. First of all, I just want to say how much I love working here. I'm super grateful that you guys gave me a new role when COVID hit. That was huge for me. You saved my bacon. I really appreciate that. As you know, I've been doing this AV installation technician role for a little over a year. I actually really love it. I've learned a ton. It's interesting work. But as you can imagine, being away from home five days out of the week with a ton of overtime every week for months on end, it's starting to take a bit of a toll. I'm not feeling great. My body's run down. I'm exhausted. I need a change. I've been looking at some of the other open

positions here. And I'm just wondering if you'd consider me for one of those roles. I'd love to keep working for you, and this is how I can make that happen. Something like that. You don't have to follow the script. You know, it's just a rough outline. But you you got to highlight the good. I love that outline, Jordan, actually. I think it's pretty much perfect. Now, this supervisor, he might say yes, in which case your problem is solved, or he might say no, or just be a dick about it and be difficult about transferring you, in which case, you know, you have a choice. Either you look for a new job or you stay in this role, but find a way to make it more sustainable for you. You know, Jordan, I worked in consulting for four years. It was four or five

days every single week at the client, usually pretty far away from home. It was 10, 12, 14 hour days, sometimes longer. Those were brutal days. And those projects, they could last for months. So I know how brutal this lifestyle is, but there are definitely things you can do to make it better. For example, if you're not doing this already, you could carve out a little time at the beginning or the end of every day to do 20 minutes of exercise, just 20 minutes to start if you're not already working out. And you can make sure you're eating well, you know, walk to the market a few blocks away for lunch instead of, I don't know, piling onto everybody's McDonald's order just because it's easier because it's the thing to do. You could cut back on drinking if that's something you are into,

which is... No thanks. Which is... It's not for you, Jordan. It's for the guy. Oh, okay. You can keep boozing it up over there. I'm not going to take you away from your white claw. But this guy, this guy needs to know that it is super tempting when you're stuck in a town you don't know and you're on the road and you're bored as hell. I get it why you would hit the bar and have a few beers before you go to bed. But if you can skip that or keep it to once a week or something like that, if you can commit to just a few small changes, that could be a game changer for this whole situation. The hours, they'll still be intense, but you'll have more energy, you'll feel better, and maybe most importantly, you'll feel more in control of your life, which is one of the biggest contributors

to burnout, by the way, just feeling like you're not in the driver's seat. Give that a try. Do it for two months, three months. See if you feel better. And if you're still miserable, then you'll know that it really is this job and it's time to make a change. But then you'll be better equipped to make that change because you'll also be, you know, truly taking care of yourself. It's good advice from life coach, Gabe, over here. And I just, I want to defend myself. I don't drink White Claw exclusively. Show fans send me lots of different mixtures.

And that's right. I drink, I consume things that strangers send me over from, that I know over the internet. And I put them in my body. Hashtag wellness. Oh, great. Okay. Equal opportunity drinker. Just mixing up different forms of alcohol.

I didn't mean to. I don't even know what this is, but it smells like alcohol. I'm drinking it. It's ethanol. It works. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not a life coach, bro. I'm just speaking from experience.

You know, I was on the road and I was friggin miserable and exhausted and run down. And then I was like, oh, maybe I should go to the gym a few times a week. Yeah. And it helped. I assume it did. The only thing I would add is maybe you should start looking around at other jobs anyway. Couldn't hurt. Maybe you stumble across an amazing position and you take it.

Or maybe you get an offer and you go back to this tough personality gatekeeper guy. Like, hey, this other company really wants me. I want to, of course, keep working for you. Can I switch to a new role? And can you match their offer? And then he really has to keep you happy. and it doesn't matter if he has a nuclear meltdown because you've already got another job offer.

Also, just knowing you've got your eye out for a possible change, even if you're not really gunning for a new role, that might make you feel like you've got the keys to the prison, so to speak. It can take a lot of pressure off if you're just exploring other things. You'll be doing that overtime and you're going, yeah, but I'm not going to be stuck here forever

because I am looking at other things. And just that thought alone can kind of get you through the week sometimes. But whatever happens, I definitely find ways to take care of your physical and mental health because that will always be important no matter what role you end up doing. Good luck, man. This is the Jordan Harbinger 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 Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals for all the details on everybody that helps support the show. And now for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hi, Jordan and Gabriel. I'm a 42-year-old South African interviewing for an IT position in the Netherlands. If everything works out, our family of four could very soon be starting a new life in a different country. Unfortunately, this also means that I will be leaving a well-established network of friends, confidants, colleagues, and mentors behind. I have to build a new support structure as soon as possible. How does one start and grow a new network from scratch? And is there anything that I could start doing now about four months in advance to give us a little bit of a head start.

Signed, trying to attach to a new batch from scratch without hitting a rough patch. Well, this is exciting. I'm sure it's a little overwhelming to think about moving across the world, but this adventure could be super exciting for all of you guys, especially for the kids. It's going to be cool. You're asking a good question. It's all about tapping into your first few communities and doing the legwork to piece together your network very deliberately.

So here are a few tips. Once you officially get the offer, I would start reaching out to your new colleagues. Tell them who you are, that you're moving from South Africa, that you're excited to start with the company and experience a new country. Start up some correspondence, make some friends. Then, once you join the company, I would invite them to coffee or lunch or just jump on a Zoom hang. Find the people you vibe with.

Your new job will be your easiest and most built-in network when you start. So you've got to start off at the bang. The other way to build a network from scratch is to get involved in communities around your interests. So, if you're a cyclist or you play golf or you're really into wine or you love reading, whatever it is, you can join a group for anything. That'll give you common interest to bond with people. And if a group doesn't exist, then you can start one. In fact, I highly recommend doing this a lot in your first year. If you find a few other people at the office who love cycling, create a Sunday morning bike ride.

If you like reading, and honestly, even if you don't, start a book club. Book clubs are money, by the way. They pull together a ton of different people. They force you to read a bit, socialize. It's great. Now, you might already speak Dutch or something resembling Dutch coming from South Africa or you're 80% of the way there with Afrikaans. But if you're learning the language, then you can also make a ton of friends through your classes. Maybe you form a conversation group with the people that you like. Maybe you find a Dutch person in the Netherlands who will Skype with you a couple times a week to practice and that person becomes another friend with their own network. If you want to get more serious, you can look for technical or accent reduction classes designed for executives where you'll have more in common with the other students. I highly recommend that, by the way, for anyone who is moving to a foreign country. Most people don't realize they can actually use the fact that they don't speak a language to make even more friends versus being isolated because of it. I would also look on Facebook and see what groups already exist in your new city. A lot of these are going to be super welcoming. There's these couch surfing groups full of internationals. That might be.

be a younger crowd, but you can jump on there now, start leaving comments, posting that you and your family are moving there soon, just see who responds. As you do all of that, I would be very deliberate about investing in your network in the first year. If you meet two people who have something in common, introduce them. If you can help someone out, offer your time. Basically, follow the six minute networking playbook starting now. It's no different from networking anywhere else. but when you're trying to build a network from scratch, going the extra mile is even more important. And if you're still lollygagging on six-minute networking,

go to Jordanharbinger.com slash course. That'll take you there. It's free. You've heard me say that a million times. So yes, there's a lot you can be doing to build your network in advance, but a lot of this will happen organically once you're on the ground as well.

Just don't wait until you're on the ground because you can really get a huge jumpstart by not waiting. Once you settle in, you can start a monthly dinner or a coffee thing with other foreigners in Amsterdam, maybe even other South Africans specifically. Super fun way to stay connected to home, make a ton of friends quickly. My only advice is to just don't get stuck in the expat bubble. That can easily become a way to avoid venturing out of your comfort zone. I will say when I lived

in Germany, I had very few expat friends and they didn't live in the same town. So when we met up, we spent the weekend together and it was great. But then I went back to my German life. When I lived in Serbia, I hung out with expats all the time. My Serbian is nowhere, near as good as my German and I was there for almost twice as long. Bottom line, I think you're going to be great. Moving to another country can be intense. Maybe you'll feel like the odd man out sometimes, but it's also a huge advantage. You're interesting, you're exotic. I mean, you're South African, dude. You don't see that every day. Plus, you have a cool story. People will be drawn to that. So don't be afraid to own it. You know, like, hey, I'm the new guy from Cape Town. I'm still figuring out

how the bike lane works. Sorry for my super weird accent. If that's your calling card for a while, great. That was more Denmark than anything, but, you know, whatever. That was more the guy from the Netherlands who's there already than the South African. Right, yeah, that was more gold, what is it, gold finger from, not gold finger. Gold member? Gold member, yes. Overall, this sounds like an, this sounds like an amazing adventure. Best of luck with the interviews, man. I do hope you get the job.

Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week and everyone who listened. Thank you for that. I love all of you. Well, 40%, 50%, it's hard to say. Go back and check out the Nicholas Christakis and Robert H. Frank episodes, if you haven't yet. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts, always in the show notes. A video of this feedback Friday will eventually be posted to our YouTube channel, which has a bunch of other content, Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. We also have a Clips channel. You can find clips that are not available of the show anywhere else. Those are on YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash clips. It's a brand new channel. Please, even if you're not much of a consumer of YouTube content, please go to Jordan Harbinger.com

slash clips and subscribe there. The first thousand subs are always the hardest. That's what they tell me. So we're trying to get there. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both 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 amazing team is Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo,

Josh Ballard, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions, those are our own. I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else

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 leave everything and everyone better than you found them. Here's a preview of my conversation with Danny Trejo, An ex-con turned icon featured in over 350 films and TV shows. You've seen them everywhere in machete, Breaking Bad, Desperado, and much, much more. He's never been through acting school, which doesn't matter when you're a legend slash icon.

Before becoming such a prolific star, Danny Trejo was a drug-addicted criminal hooked on heroin at age 12, who spent more than a decade in and out of prisons. Here's a quick preview. Once you start doing robberies and you're, you're, you. using heroin, the robberies become addicted. You don't know whether you're doing robberies to support your drug habit or doing drugs to support your robbery habit. I read you robbed a store with a hand grenade. This was later on. This was like we did a robbery and we ended up with this hang grenade. So I tried it and it was very simple. You know, when you hold a hang grenade and you got your hand on the pin and you

ask somebody for some money, they think twice. Prison, there's only two kinds of people in prison. predators and they're prey. That's it. And you've got to decide every damn morning, what are you going to be? And I know a lot of people that decide I'm brave. I don't care because I'm tired. I know a lot of people that took an elevator off the fifth tier.

There's no elevator. I know a lot of people that cut their wrists. I've seen guys with all the muscles in the world get stabbed by a short Mexican in tennis shoes with a big knife. You're fighting. I don't fight you. That's prison. Prison has a lot of people.

a taste. Put one of those fake pennies, the lead one in your mouth and keep it there. That's the taste of pressure. That's the taste of anxiety. That's the taste of fear. That's the taste of everything. You feel it. You know, that's to walk around with. And when you finally lose that taste, you've decided whether you're going to be predator prey. That's the only way you can lose it. For more, including how Danny Trejo walked onto a Hollywood movie set as a drug counselor and left is a bona fide actor, and how Danny Trejo has managed sobriety for over 50 years and continues to help others maintain theirs. Check out episode 398. 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 or something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.