The Jordan Harbinger Show - 71: How to Be an Introvert in an Extrovert’s World | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: July 20, 2018

Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason DeFillippo (@jpdef) banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday! 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: Getting caught up? Make sure to check out our episodes from this week with Adam Carolla and Alex Kouts! You always take steps to improve your life with the best of intentions, but soon regress to old, bad habits. How can you break this pattern? Now that you're a free agent after enduring a difficult and draining marriage, are you wasting mental energy better spent on your career by trying to get into another relationship? When you've been raised on the "if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all" philosophy, how do you get along with your in-laws who only seem to know how to complain about everything? How does an introvert get better at bantering with others and building social value? Is there a way to get your mean grandparents to treat your awesome mom more kindly without making it seem like you're acting on her directive? Resource recommendations for people who want to develop sales skills (which are applicable to so much more than sales, by the way). What is the best purpose for having your own website without looking like you're trying to find new opportunities? Advice for aspiring podcast hosts new to the job. Quick shoutouts to Loretta "The Aussie Pilgrim" Kreet and the kind fellow who sent Jordan and Jen the Best of the Bone bone broth! 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 Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests,

and this week we had Adam Carolla. Adam talked about, well, coming up in comedy, some of the lessons he learned along the way, taking advantage of opportunity. There was a lot about staying relevant and compartmentalizing our knowledge and just really interesting guy, obviously a great storyteller. So be on the lookout for that.

And we had Alex Kutz come back and just start an amazing masterclass on negotiation that is going to be three parts long. And it is next level negotiation stuff that you have not heard anywhere else for the most part. Even if you've read all the books, he has innovated in the space as well. He's been teaching it for years and years and has been doing it at very high levels as well. So be on the lookout for the Alex Kutz episode as well, starting that master class on negotiation. Really, really solid deep dive. Of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guest's wisdom and knowledge and experiences along with our knowledge, wisdom, and experiences to you.

In other words, the real purpose of this show is to have those conversations directly with you wherever possible. And that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Try to keep them as short as you can while giving us enough to work with. That makes things a lot easier for us. Once things are like three paragraphs long, I just kind of have to skip it. It's too hard. It's too much.

Your chances of getting on the show are much better if it's a short question. If there's anything below the fold that's not your email signature, we got problems. How's that? And we're old, so make sure you're not using eight-point font single-spaced, because that just intimidates us, right? We get scared. Some of us are blind in our old age. That's right. All right. What's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan and Jason. I'm a 28-year-old working professional who doesn't have very much relationship experience. I've had two serious partners. The first was long distance while I was young and decided it was in my best interest to work on myself as opposed to nurturing a long distance relationship. The second lasted three years where I felt like I was the only one working on the relationship. It finally ended in her moving away to be with an old high school crush that reconnected with her, which left me dealing with my own emotions. It's been eight years since that breakup, and I have found it tough to approach women romantically. I seem to be able to create strong friendships with women I encounter, and I don't find myself.

attracted to them until they're romantically involved with someone else. Since the breakup, I've been involved in a rebound relationship in a devil's three way, both of which I got emotionally connected and hurt in the process. While I was completely unaware of what the outcome was going to be, I still put myself in a position to get hurt. Why am I attracted to self-destructive habits? While I try to put myself out there, I find I get discouraged easily and I'm afraid of coming off as desperate or creepy. Historically, I tend to move from subject to subject, whether it be work, school, interests, until I get bored of them and begin the self-destructive behaviors again. Cleaning the house will become a daily activity for me,

where I wash my dishes regularly, throw things out, clean the washroom, make my bed, etc. But after a while, I'll start leaving the cups out, wrappers on the table, clothes wherever I decide to take them off. I live alone so the mess doesn't bother me, but then I'll decide to be in the cleanup mode and just do it all in one day. I start waking up at six every day and go for a run. But again, it lasts for a few months.

Then I fall into the snooze habit, setting the alarm at six and snoozing until seven. How can I break this habit of inconsistency in my life? I get fed up with it, decide to change, then get fed up with the change, and decide to go back. Ultimately, I want to find a significant other, but how can I justify bringing someone into a life that I can't even keep consistent for myself? Thanks for taking the time to read this, consistently inconsistent. So this is a brilliantly insightful little piece of self-awareness. How can I justify getting a significant other when I can't even keep things consistent for myself? You do absolutely need to get your ducks in a row

before you can bring and keep someone of quality into your world. So here's the problem. A lot of people, and I've seen this with guys back when I was doing like dating, coaching stuff a million years ago, we as men often think, as people, as humans, often think once I get a girlfriend, things will change because I'll be happier, which means I'll be more motivated to get in shape, which means I'll be more motivated in my job, which means I'll clean the house because I'll have this girl. It's just not true.

Okay. the people you get in your life when you're a mess, they're people who are looking for a mess, consciously or unconsciously. You don't want that because then you have to stay a mess to keep them. How do you think that's going to work out for both of you? But of course, they're not really happy with the mess. It's just where they're comfortable,

so then you're fighting all the time because you're a mess, but any efforts to become less so are going to make that person feel insecure and cause fights. Oops, huge problem. So you're just not going to get great high-quality people to stay with you if your own world is in disarray. So you have to get yourself together. It starts with baby steps.

Habit change is one element we cover often on this show, so I'm not going to dive too deeply into that. But you're not really stuck there. I don't think you're really stuck there. Where you're stuck is the self-sabotaging behavior. At some level, you don't believe you're worthy of living in a clean place. You don't believe you're worthy of taking care of yourself and being in shape. This might stem from that breakup that put you through the ringer, but it might also have roots earlier on that possibly even contributed to that breakup, and honestly, it probably does.

What I would do, if I were you, is start looking for those roots of this issue, the self-worth thing, with a therapist. I really think you've got some issues here that you need to uncover with a professional. The good news here, though, is you already see the pattern, and we have a good idea of where the self-sabotage stems from. So what we need to do now is find the root cause and address that emotional damage. And the best, and frankly, the only way to do this is with a qualified therapist. Don't skimp on this.

This is your life we're talking about here. There's no shame in going to the emotional barber shop for a trim up every now and again if you catch my drift. I think you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find in discussions with a good therapist, especially as you seem self-aware enough to point them in the right direction, And instead of spending three months on the couch, stabbing in the dark, well, you know, this is going on, that's going on. I think if you say, I'm not able to get my stuff together, but I think I need a significant other. But I think the root cause is probably this breakup. And it seems like maybe there's a self-worth issue because I can't get motivated to take care of myself.

That's going to give them a lot to work with. And that therapist is going to love you because they're going to go, oh, thank God, somebody who's finally acknowledging, aware of and acknowledging the issue that we're going to have to eventually address. I mean, you just saved them three or four months, right, of time. So in the end, you got this. I wasn't much at age 28 like yourself. You know, it was through things like introspection, therapy, coaching, working experience that I came through the other side,

just like I'm confident that you will as well. Just don't skimp on the therapist. Go just get that handled. It's not worth trying to figure it out on your own. You're not going to be able to do it as well. And the one thing you can't get back is time. So the best and quickest way to do this is to find somebody who's done it before with other patients and clients.

All right, next up. Good day from Australia. I listen to your show before I sleep, drive to work, and at the gym as well. The content you deliver with critical questions in your interviews keeps me constantly engaged and I'm definitely addicted to listening to your podcast. Keep up the fantastic work, Jordan and Jason, as I look forward to listening to more fantastic interviews. I'm 23 years old living in the hustling city of Melbourne, who has been trying to discover a

career to commit to. I worked many jobs from hairdressing with my mom, cabinet, making with my dad, bartending, waitering, real estate salesman, charity person, karate instructor, etc. Now at this point in time, I'm working as a bell attendant in one of Melbourne's most reputable hotels and entertainment complexes. I married when I was 20 to a girl I met here in Melbourne and wanted to sponsor her citizenship. But things took a turn after two years and now I'm single. I realized she was a psychopath and I couldn't leave her earlier because she wouldn't let me by saying she would commit suicide. After two years had passed in our relationship, she finally had the courage

to move on and we split paths. Now it's been eight months past, and I'm having trouble with getting out there dating. Every day I think about women and getting into a relationship are just one night of fun. I feel like I'm wasting my mental energy on such things.

And should I really put my mental energy into these thoughts with finding myself a nice girl? Should I rather put this mental energy into my career? Totally confused and a little frustrated with where I'm putting my mental energy. Kind regards, mental roadmap required.

All right. Well, first of all, Thanks so much for being a fan of the show and for the kind words, man. I totally get why, one, you were hurt by the breakup, especially since the relationship sounds so awful and controlling. And two, why you might be having trouble getting back out there again. But here's the thing. You're not wasting your mental energy thinking about women or going out and being social. You're 23, man.

And you were married. So, of course, you've got to get some things out of your system. You have growing to do. I know it seems a little remedial. After all, you've been married, so dating seems like this big step backwards, but it really isn't, especially not at your age. This is, for you, it's an evolution. And the sooner you see yourself as evolving instead of trying to make up for lost time, the better off you're going to be. When we first started the Jordan Harbinger show from scratch, we initially felt like we needed to get back to the same size we were overnight or we're just going backwards and look at all these things that we have to start over again.

Now, I, Jason, and I think you're probably on the same page as me here. I look at the whole process as an evolution. And I think you can hear and see the difference in the shows we do now versus the shows we did in the past. This is really good for you. Even if it seems like a waste of time or you feel guilty thinking about it, put the mental energy into your career, but don't use your career as an excuse to be antisocial. You need to keep growing in all of those areas. And when you do, you'll find that the dating issues start to solve themselves. as you develop yourself both socially and in other aspects of your life,

as long as you strike a balance. So don't be too hard on yourself, man. You're 23. You're ahead of your time. You've got a bunch of experience under your belt, good or bad. Don't be in such a rush to get to the destination. Just keep evolving, and you'll get where you need to be when you need to be there. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show, and this is Feedback Friday.

Stick around, and we'll get right back to the show after these important messages. Thank you for listening and supporting the Jordan Harbinger Show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. And don't forget to check out our Alexa skill. Go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash Alexa or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. Now let's get back to your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan and team.

I have a little problem with my in-laws. I've been married to my wife for over a year, lived with her for over five years, and dated for over eight years. The only thing that I have in common with her family is our love for the Green Bay Packers. and the lack of common interests is starting to irritate my wife. They love golf, cooking shows, and watching other garbage reality TV that raises my blood pressure. I usually work 50 to 60 hours a week and love my job. When I'm not at work, I always have a side project like a car, motorcycle, or something in my garage.

My wife works in the garage with me after work on her own stuff or learning and seems to enjoy it and our time together. When her family is around, she reverts back and watches TV with them all day. I get it. They live out of town and don't get to see them all that often. But I can't sit still. I've gotten better the older I've become, but it's still a problem. I can do it for a day, but not three straight days when we visit them. I've seen every museum or tourist attraction in their town. They have all relatively new things because they would rather update than maintain.

The best trip was when it was snowing and they couldn't get their blower running, so I spent an hour fixing it than blowing their driveway. Now, that says something if somebody wants to blow, like snow blows somebody's driveway. You've been in Michigan. You know what it's like. Yeah, I don't really know why anybody would want to do that. but hey, go, you know, whatever you need to do. Sets the stage, I think.

What really gets me is the negativity. Nothing is good enough for them. For example, when we go to a restaurant and they order something, after they are done eating, they will say, it was terrible. We shouldn't have gone here. It's been downhill for years. My steak was too well done or not done enough, etc.

It drives me nuts. I've had plenty of meals I didn't care for. It doesn't mean the meal was bad. I just didn't care for it and I won't eat it again or go there again. But it is no good talking about it hours after we leave. We've been at busy restaurants and it's taken over an hour for our food. Her family has asked for a check for our drinks, paid for them, and left without the food or paying for it, just to go somewhere to get quote-unquote better service.

I've worked in restaurants and I understand they can get busy and short-staffed, and it blew my mind normal people would do that. My wife has now started telling me to let it go and quit poking the bear. She especially hates when I do this when her brother is the one complaining, and it's because it's usually him, because he gets angry very fast and says stuff like, you just don't know good food or good service. I've never heard my wife join in on the complaining, but she would rather just live with it. As the night goes on and complaining continues, and it always does, I just shut down and don't say much, then get accused of being antisocial. I don't know if this is

because I come from a lower middle class blue collar family, and they are upper middle class white collar. I was always taught, if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all. I've tried taking up their interest in golf by learning the players, the sport, and even playing a little bit, and trying to watch cooking shows on my own, but I usually. end up falling asleep. I love my wife and we'll do anything for, but I really have no idea what to do, and I can see this becoming a bigger problem. Thanks for the help, signed, trying not to hate the in-laws. Oof. Wow. Yeah. Yikes, man. I don't envy you at all. I love my in-laws. They're awesome. But I, you know what's funny how the upper-class folk think blue-collar people are the ones that complain all

the time and blah, blah, blah. And it's really, it's the opposite. Totally the opposite. Yeah. For these people, you just can't buy class. And unfortunately, negativity bias, which is a lot of what we're seeing here and just negative attitude in general, it's really class independent. You know, it happens to everybody no matter what their social status. I am seeing in your words here that your wife is playing out her family issues with you at home. So she probably grew up placating her older brother, who's a, you know, crab apple, and her parents and playing peacemaker in the house all the time. I do think you should talk to her about it. I know you've already probably tried that,

but it's not fair for her to call you antisocial just because you don't want to complain. It depends how you're shutting down. I don't know what's going on there, so it depends how you're shutting down. She just wants everyone to get along, and she probably always has. But in my opinion, it doesn't mean you have to drive yourself insane doing it. In the end, it depends on how often you see your in-laws. You might find that it's better to just ignore their negativity while trying to shift the topics to things they actually like.

think of it as a game trying to steer every negative conversation into something more positive, gradually and skillfully, sort of to distract them, kind of like dealing with kids. Oh, the kid's crying because the balloon popped. Oh, look, a dinosaur. I have a dinosaur in the glove compartment, right? That kind of thing. These people sound unhappy, but I think they've probably spent the past few decades relating to one another by complaining. I get that, right?

If you've got certain friends and your M.O. with them is to just complain about stuff, you'll do The problem is if you're around that all the time, it's all you can do. And Jen actually pointed out this pattern. When I got together with my parents, she'd be like, why do you guys just complain about everything? You don't have to do that. You know, you could talk about other things. And I realized, oh, I'm usually pretty positive, but for some reason when I go home, what we do is like I complain to my dad and my dad complains about stuff to me. And that's like how we relate. It's dumb, but it's a habit. My family kind of did that too. What I found is that if we stay positive or my wife, Jen, forces me to stay positive. then my family just kind of follows suit. And this might be a game of frame control and whoever has the strongest frame wins. So the more you do this, the better you get at that skill, which will come in plenty handy later down down the line as well. But I think, one, talk to your wife, let her know what's going on.

She probably knows I see her dilemma. And two, try to redirect the conversation. And look, if that doesn't work and you only see your in-laws three times a year, just let them complain. And then you're antisocial. end oh well right it's i just feel bad for your wife because she's the one who's trying to make everybody happy but it's actually impossible because her family doesn't want to be happy they want to complain so that's that's the dilemma and uh go packers all right what's next hello jordan jason and jen

i'm a 31 year old architect and struggle with social interaction i find small talk difficult and can barely get through the whole hey how are you stuff i'm a no BS straight to the matter kind of guy and an introspective person who values having time alone to think and work. I often get anxiety when I'm in social situations and know that my anxiety can be felt by those I'm conversing with. I wish I could just relax and shoot the breeze. What are some tips for bantering with others? I wish I had witty, interesting things to say. Additionally, a large portion of people that I know and work with are obsessed with college football and sports. I simply cannot garner enough shits about any given sport to even want to talk about it or even worse,

spend time watching it. People often attempt to strike up conversations with the assumption that I watched the big game last night or how I feel about fill in the blanks performance. I come across as a downer when I decline my interest in sports and lose social value due to my disinterest. I frequently encounter that dreaded awkward silence, though I always think of the perfect thing that I could have said hours later. I struggle with being articulate when talking on the fly and much prefer to converse via email where I can pre-plan and edit every word. To further conversation issues, struggle to find interest in what others are talking about and regularly discover that my mind has quickly delved into deep thought in even the shortest interactions. My girlfriend correctly calls me out

on this constantly, and I'm sure others notice as well. Paired with that, I typically forget people's names upon introduction. How do I become interested in people and their conversations? How do I tastefully add to a conversation to keep it going and build social value? I know that I'm exhibiting self-centered behavior and feel guilty about it, especially when others notice that I'm not interested in what they're saying. Best regards, without words. So without words, from the sound of it, you are a classic introvert, which I get, right? The positive qualities of an introvert, though, outweigh the negative, if you can even

say they're negative. We've talked about this before on the show. New science shows that introverts are actually, in a way, better at relationships, maybe not extroverted social situations, but relationships and relationship management. because we think before we talk, we take other people's needs and feelings into consideration, we have deeper relationships because we have deeper conversations. There's a whole list here. It doesn't mean, though, that you can't learn some extrovert qualities or build extrovert

skills. You don't have some sort of medical excuse for not being social because you're an introvert. I say this all the time, but you really can learn different skills. It's only a matter of that. It doesn't mean that you're going to feel like becoming an extrovert for the rest of your life, most likely, because being introverted or extraverted has to do with how we relax. Do we relax at a party or do we relax with a book? That's sort of the main oversimplified difference here. Learning extrovert skills, though, is a must for any introvert, just like learning introvert skills is a must for any extrovert.

So what I would say for you, if you want to learn to attack the banter problem, take an improv class. This helps with banter. It helps with thinking on your feet. It's really great for introverts because it's really uncomfortable and it really gets people out of their shell. It gets you thinking quickly. Otherwise, I don't think you should try to change your personality type. Remember, you're learning skills here. You're not trying to change who you are.

You should, however, pay attention to people's names. There are some basics for this, like using it early in a conversation or mapping their name to an object or concept in your head. They're a little cheesy, but those work quite well, and you can Google stuff like that. I don't want to go over 10 cheesy ways to remember names here, but I'm not convinced that you're actually uninterested in people's conversations in general. I think you just don't give a crap about sports, but you're surrounded by it. I think that's normal. I'm the same way.

I don't care about that stuff, but if you're in a culture where it's like, oh, did you see Manning the other day? No. Oh, crap. I'm out of ideas on how to make small talk with Jim. Guess I just won't. Right? And then Jim feels dumb and I feel dumb and so we avoid each other.

Right? That's kind of the phenomenon you're dealing with. because that was like my one, everybody saw that yesterday. Everybody did that. So when you're trying to get interested in people and subjects, the key isn't to think of something witty to say, to chime in and add value that way. The key is asking questions to keep them talking

and steer the conversation to something that you are interested in or that you both find more interesting. So no matter how fun or witty you are, people mostly enjoy talking about whatever they want to discuss anyway. So the pressure is off of you to be some kind of performer, but the pressure is on for you to ask questions that keep people talking. And the simplest way to do that is to become interested, at least on a surface level, about what they're talking about. You don't have to get interested in sports, but you can say, you know, what is it about football that keeps everyone here so engaged? I didn't grow up around it.

And I just, I don't know. I just don't get it. And they'll go, well, it's America, man. Everybody watches football. And you go, like, yeah, I guess what's American about it? You know, yes, it's an American sport, but what do you really like about it? What do you like watching it? Do you like, do you bet on it?

Do you just like eating pizza and drinking? What is it that you like about it? And they go, well, you know, it's really the only way I talk to my brother and my family because that's all they really like to do. I mean, you'll get into real conversations. You just got to scratch deep a little deeper than the surface of, do you see that crazy fourth quarter pass? Right. Of course, it's also a good idea to make friends with people you actually like.

But that's another topic for another show. People you actually like. What a concept. I know. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday after these really short but also necessary announcements. Thanks for listening and supporting the Jordan Harbinger Show. Your support keeps us on the air. For a list of all the discounts from our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice.

It really helps us out. And if you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. Hi, Jordan and Jason. Right now my mom has a really tough relationship with her mother and father. They're pretty old, in their 80s and their health is declining, but are almost verbally abusive to my mother. The last time I saw her, she was crying because of something mean they had said to her after she came to check in on them and bring them some food when they were under the weather. It's really tough for me to see her like this with people she loves. My mom is a tough cookie and doesn't cry over the little stuff. Right now I have a pretty good relationship with my grandparents and feel like they would listen if I said something to them about treating. my mother a bit kinder. I know the first thing they will try to do is blame my mom for complaining

about the problem to me, but I feel like it would be worth sabotaging my relationship with them to get them to consider treating their daughter more kindly. They see her almost every week, and me maybe only three times a year. I look at everything she's done for them over the 25 years of my childhood and their obstinate response to her warm actions, and it's hard for me to just let it pass. The reason I hesitate, though, is because I genuinely wonder if I'm one of the last people in their life that they look forward to spending time with, because they have alienated everyone else by being mean. They're also very fearful people in general and don't trust easily. They seem to talk bad about everyone else behind their backs. Maybe they do this about me too, and my family shields me

from it. Who knows? But I feel like it's time for me to say something, since it seems like they really value my relationship with them, so I hope they would listen. But in reality, the person they should be valuing is my mother and they just never see her as good enough no matter what she does. So I guess my question to you is not how to fix this, but if I say something to them about being nicer to their family, how might I phrase it in a way that leaves little to no blame on my mother? Honestly, if they just tell her they love her more often, that's all it would take. Thanks for your suggestions, angry old people problems.

Well, this is a sad situation. I'm sorry to hear this. I think it's hard to get older folks to change their ways. I wish I had some sort of foolproof method for doing so. I think you can let them know you've seen the way they treat your mother firsthand. You can even say she's tough and she doesn't complain, but I see it. I see how deflated and sad she is when she comes back from visiting you, and that it seems like they treat her poorly and you know it.

And it's damaging their relationship with you and your mom because you love your mom. And I think that needs to sink in. And I also think you could bring up the idea. this should be done in person, by the way, that this is how they're going to be remembered when they go if they don't change their ways now. Even so, it's going to be how they are remembered when they go. But is this how they want to be remembered when they go as difficult old people and then have your mom feel guilty that she feels good that they're gone? I mean, that's really what's going to happen. Or do they want to be remembered fondly? And other than some sort of sit down

like that, it might be a lost cause. But I think you're right. A heart to heart is in order. And yeah, you know what? Maybe they'll get mad at you. Maybe they'll even say mean things to your mom about how she supposedly complained to you about it. But is it going to be worse than it is now? I would say you've got to sit down and have that conversation with them because your other option is do nothing. And I think you already know the answer to this question. I don't have so much by way of tactics other than this should be done in person and done with a –

the idea that you're doing this in a caring way, right? this isn't how dare you this is hey you know i don't know if you're know you're doing this but this isn't right and this is going to cause problems and it is causing problems let us know how it goes i think they're sad people and that's probably why they're acting out but it doesn't make it okay and i think that they can either work on it or you can facilitate this but if this doesn't work it just might be an old person thing when it comes to to these grandparents and that just might be it. And that's sad, but it's not the end of the world.

It's just, it's a sad situation. So keep in touch and let us know how that talk goes with them. All right, next up. Jordan, on one of the episodes you mentioned that you thought everyone should have some training in sales. As a geeky software developer, I've definitely seen where that lack has hurt in my own life. Can you recommend some good books or other resources for a crash course in sales for those of us who haven't developed those skills?

Thank you from software to sales. There are a few good resources. I don't have a ton of books. One was Dan Pink to sell as human. I love that one. Jason, do you, I know your dad was a salesman. Yeah, my dad's a lifelong salesperson. And he said this is the best book on sales that he's ever read. So yeah, so to sell as human is definitely something to pick up. There's also a podcast done by a really good salesman, friend of mine. It's called The Brutal Truth About Sales and Selling. It's really good. There's a lot of good wisdom in there from the trenches, not from some academic who studied sales academically in a business school. and has spreadsheets to prove it. It's from a guy who does a lot of them in his car because he's selling things. And I did take the basic Dale Carnegie sales course.

It wasn't amazing because I was already well-versed in sales, but for people who had never sold anything, I think it was really good. And it was not expensive either. The best teacher, of course, as always, is experience, even if you're selling something on the side. And so my idea for you here is to volunteer at a nonprofit where like on Saturday afternoons or something where you solicit donations and or even a Thursday

night, whatever it is, solicit donations from people. They'll train you a little and that's selling. I know it doesn't seem like it because you're not getting someone to buy a product, but really you kind of are. You're selling goodwill for a charity. You're getting money in exchange. You're overcoming objections. And the good news is you don't have to be fantastic.

They're not going to fire you, right? I'm sure they fire people who are terrible at soliciting donations. but if you're going into it with the idea of getting good at this, you'll learn from the other people who are in the office, doing the sales, doing the training. You're a volunteer. They're not going to go, all right, it's Friday. Who hit their quota? All right, Sandy, you're fired.

Get your crap and leave, right? As long as you do your best and work hard, they're going to be glad to have you. And it's a really good way to ease into it because I do think everyone should have some training in sales, but I don't think you have to go door-to-door selling vacuums for three years to get it done. Another thing that I'd throw out is that this person's a software. developer. So theoretically, their company may be doing trade shows and booths at trade shows. And I know that when I was in my startups, I would have to sit there on the floor and sell the company. And so what you can do is volunteer if they have a booth somewhere. So say, hey, look, I know you guys are

going to have to go to lunch. You want to hit some, you know, some of the courses or anything, the meetings. I can man the booth while you guys are gone and you can start to pitch the company. And the first 10 are going to be gut wrenching. You're going to be terrible at it. But after that, you're just going to get better at it and better at it. You're going to hone your pitch. you're going to get more familiar with people coming up to you. You're not going to be like, oh, my God, I hope nobody comes. I hope nobody comes. And by the end, you're going to be like, oh, come on over here.

Check out our software product. And let me tell you about all of the gizbang widgets we got here going on. And that kind of environment, because it's like, you know, low impact, but you get to be in front of people and you get to start honing your pitches. And you become comfortable talking to people as a first step. I think one of those types of things also would definitely get you a leg up. Good ideas. All right.

Perfect. it. Next up. Jordan and team. So I hear every episode you talk about claiming your space on the web with your own website. What am I supposed to do with it? I love my job and see a huge potential for growth. Most of my job doesn't involve creating a ton of visuals or anything you would typically

find in a portfolio. I maintain large partnerships, manage ROI on sponsorships and organization participation, handle events for six branches and education communication for the brand partners, etc. I'm looking to claim my space online soon, but what would you suggest? is the best purpose for a website without looking like I'm trying to find new opportunities. Yes, I know marketing is my job and should know what to do, but I don't, and it's embarrassing. Signed, webless Wendy. Ah, okay, this is interesting. She does have a good point.

When we talk about claiming your space on the web, what we're talking about is making sure that you have a domain that's for your name or at least as close as you can. You know, it's going to be tough to get everyone's name, especially if you have a common name. but it does help because you just don't know in the future and Jason you and I can sort of discuss this here in real time. You just don't know in the future what you're going to need, right? Yes, you don't want to create something where your boss goes, hey, Wendy, notice you have your resume up on a marketing website. Are you looking for other opportunities?

Do we have to have a talk in the office? Do I have to fire you? You know, what you could do is make sure you've got your domain. Make sure you've got something up there where maybe it links to your Instagram, your LinkedIn, your Facebook page, and things like that. And it's got a little brief bio about you, but it doesn't have your resume. It doesn't have your work projects. It doesn't look like you're seeking other opportunities. It's just sort of a parking place for some of the things that you like. You could also even do some of your interests there, like, oh, fitness stuff, or here's my blog about training for a Spartan race.

And I just take a photo every month to show you how my training's going. I mean, that stuff can really be what it is. Because in the future, you don't know. You know, you might leave your company. Or you might say, oh, I'm doing this side gig making baskets, and I need a website for that. And you don't have to start from zero with no SEO and find out the name that you wanted is taken and that you don't have anywhere to link all of your other stuff. And you spent so much time on your Facebook, but now you're more of LinkedIn person. You know, you can just have a one-size-fits-all redirection. So that's why we recommend the hostgater website builder because you can claim that domain,

you can claim that space, and you can sort of set it and forget it. You don't have to make a professional website that gets updated every three days. I think what it really comes down to is having your own domain and your own email because everybody's got a Gmail account, but it's much more professional if you have at your name.com or dot edu or whatever, domain. That ninja, you know, dot pizza, whatever that TLD might be. You want to have that because in the future, Jordan's right.

You never know what's going to happen. You might have all of your stuff on LinkedIn, but you never know if LinkedIn's going to go down because it just got sold to Microsoft a couple years ago. You never know if they're going to shudder that. And you never know if Facebook's going to go away because these things do have life cycles to them. But your own website won't. You will be in control of it. You'll own that domain. And from here on out, you can say, like for me, all my stuff is at jpd.com. Me. I've had that domain for 10 years now. And everybody knows, just go there. So I've got my email there. It's not a Gmail address because maybe someday Gmail will go

away. You just never know these things. So it's just a good, it's future. prep is all it is and it's a good thing to have in your back pocket just in case. Agree. All right. Last but not least. Hi, Jordan. I'm a new podcast host and I want to learn how to smartly train myself to become a fantastic podcast show host like you. Oh, here we go. Such as how to prepare for a show once the guest accepts the invitation. How to prepare good questions so the guest enjoys talking with you. How to listen carefully and respond naturally instead of going through scripted questions one after another. What are the process and steps you guys do to prepare for each show? Because I'm a young podcast host, I tend to pay more attention to what you say rather than the

guests. I'm amazed how smoothly you throw speeches and how fast you respond. I know it's 10 plus years of practice, but still, it's a jaw-dropping skill. In addition, I also enjoy the ads in the show. They are very convincing and touching. No idea if they are scripted or not, regardless, well done. Sincerely, teach me, oh, master. I know you made up that name, Jason. These are not scripted. the ads. And yes, a lot of it is 10 plus years of practice. I would say, first of all, we're going to, Jason, you and I are going to have to do some sort of product on how we prep for the show, how we host, how we go through the whole thing, because we get this email every other week. This one just happened to make it into Feedback Friday. But the way we prepare for the show,

once the guest accepts the invitation, is sort of not even necessarily in that order. Sometimes the guest says, I want to be on your show and we say, show us the prep. And so we have a prep document that people can look at, and it asks for basic ideas of what they want to teach, practical drills and exercises, and then we usually send it back and say, hey, buy my book is not a practical exercise. Watch this movie that I think is interesting is not a practical exercise. We want real drills, real practicals. If you can't think of any, let's jump on the phone.

Some of it's an exercise in prodding people to go, oh, I've got to actually step up my game for this show. All right, all right, all right, I'll find. I'll sit down and do this. and we just don't book anything until that person has done that. If it's somebody who we know we can prepare for ourselves by reading their book, I'll read the whole book. And I've said that before. I go through and try to figure out what sort of practical drills and exercises they might use.

And if there's no drill, I might make one up that has to do with what the skills they're teaching are, or I might tease one out based on their experience and then talk to the guest about it. I also prepare the questions because I'm trying to think, of what the audience wants. I'm not trying to make friends with the guest. I'm trying to think of what you as a listener would want to know. So I'm not like, ooh, I have this really smart observation about how your work is similar to Kant or whatever. Look, I'm not trying to get them to go, ooh, you're so smart and well read.

What I'm trying to do is have the audience, that's you, say, you know, I wonder if he, what was the first thing he bought when he got rich? And I'm like, hey, look, what was the first thing you bought when he got rich as a rockster? They're like, oh my gosh, that was the question I was going to ask. If being an advocate for the audience, that's so much more important than trying to make friends with the guest or sound smart. So if you're thinking from the audience perspective as much as possible, you will have a much better time hosting than you would if you're just trying to figure out how to achieve some other goal, like look smart or make the guest talk about how great you are or something like this. Also, listening and responding naturally, instead of going through scripted questions, don't write a bunch of scripted questions is the easiest way to do that. If you write a bunch of questions, read them before the show and then toss them out, and then you don't have this document to stare at while the person is talking.

So how to listen and respond naturally? The way you do that is by listening and then responding naturally. Because remember, you are the best advocate for the audience. Pretend you're an audience member except for you're the lucky SOB who gets to talk into the mic and have the other person hear you. Right? You don't have to think of clever questions to ask. You're already listening to the answer so you can,

already have the conversation. And there are many more steps and processes that we do to prepare for each show. I really appreciate the kind words. A lot of it is practice. But really, if I'd done the prep properly early on, I think my skills would have developed a lot quicker than 10 years. What do you think, Jason? Absolutely. And a lot of it comes down to practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. And then when you're done with that, practice some more. There you go. All right. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. Happy to keep you anonymous, of course.

A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to Loretta Crete, the Aussie Pilgrim. She signed up for the We Are Podcast Convention down in Australia this year. She wants to meet me there, and I'm looking forward to it. She's also traveling to Spain on her own to walk over 500 miles from Irun to Santiago. She's 50. and 50 is not old, but 500 miles is far. I'm just going to throw both of those things out there.

That's incredible. That sounds like an amazing adventure. Loretta, I'm looking forward to hearing all about that. That just sounds. I hope you're back by then. You only have a few months. 500 miles is a long way. My goodness.

And look, somebody sent me this bone broth called Best of the Bone, Bone Broth. It's got this Italian herbs and garlic flavor. It's so delicious. I can't remember who you are. I'm sorry. I know we talked on email or was it social. media or was it Instagram, was it Facebook, was it Twitter? I don't remember. This bone broth, best of the bone is really, really, really good. Jen and I both really like it. So whoever you are,

thank you very much. Reach back out to me via email if you would so I can properly thank you you in person. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. Jason, tell them where to find you. I'm on Instagram at JPD. Twitter as J.P. Def. And you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks every Monday. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember, try to keep them concise if you can. Makes things a lot easier for us on our end. Share the show with those you love, even those you don't. Got a lot more in the pipeline.

Very excited to bring it to you, as always. And in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. 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 listening. You can thank me later.