The Jordan Harbinger Show - 711: Prankster Precariously Pushing Partner's Patience | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Your prankster partner is precariously pushing your patience by habitually heaping his hazardously humorless hijinks on you. How can you reclaim some peace before he ends up deceased? We'll help you find a way 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/711 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: How can you stop your prankster partner from precariously pushing your patience by habitually heaping his hazardously humorless hijinks on you? Have we ever regretted the advice we've given in past episodes of Feedback Friday? Are there any interviews we wish we could take back? As extensive travelers who have been to some pretty hair-raising places, are there any countries we'd think twice about visiting now? Your friend's husband drunkenly said some unforgivable things to her at a party. How do you support her while making it clear you never want to see him again? Can Jordan please stop saying "doozy?" We don't know. Can he? How is a modern family expected to stock the home without products that have microplastics, endocrine disruptors, and other harmful relics of short-sighted manufacturing processes? What are the pros and cons of interviewing actual friends on this show? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our conversation with Somali pirate hostage Michael Scott Moore? Catch up with episode 115: Michael Scott Moore | What It’s Really like to Be a Pirate Hostage here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday, producer, the web telescope helping me capture these never-before-seen galaxies of life advice, 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 these amazing people think and behave. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. So you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening, even inside your own mind. If you're new to the show on Fridays, that's today, it doesn't matter when you're

listening. We give advice to you. We answer listener questions. The rest of the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with the variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, thinkers, and performers. This week, we had Dr. John Abramson. This is about Big Pharma and is terrifying. This guy's an insider and talks about why you just, why Big Pharma is not only impeding innovation, but why Americans have terrible health care outcomes, worse than even people who are lower middle class or even poor in other Western countries. This episode will keep you up at night. We also had Sebastian Younger. He is a former war photographer, great writer, great thinker. That's one from the vault.

I think y'all really enjoy. As you all know, I write every so often on the blog, my latest post, The dangers of toxic positivity and how to avoid it. In this article, I talk about the huge downside to only looking at the upside and the damage that relentless positivity can actually cause in your life. And most importantly, how to cultivate the right kind of positivity so you can make the best decisions for meaningful relationships and process your experiences good and bad in the most productive way.

I highly recommend checking this one out. It's one of those topics that gets me a little bit worked up, kind of like hustle culture, and I think it's especially important to be talking about right now. You can find that article and all of our articles at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. Make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything that we created for you here this week. Now, today we're doing something a little different from our usual feedback Friday. This is one of our semi-annual sort of WTF episodes where we take some of the weirdest or funniest or most unusual questions. that ended up in our inbox over the last few months.

Gabriel, I've got to say, it's probably not even the most. It's just the ones that happen to be towards the top when we were making the... Could we get some weird stuff in there? We do. So if you're looking for a more traditional advice show, one where Gabe and I don't talk about ourselves quite so much, maybe start with one of our other feedback Friday episodes first.

Although we do have a few normal questions in the mix here, of course, to keep it valuable. So this episode won't be a total circle jerk, I promise. Gabe, since we're letting our hair down... Oh, sorry about that. since we're letting, I'm letting my hair down a little bit here today. Fair enough. Yeah, I don't have it anymore. A DM doesn't apply.

I do have a crazy story that I haven't told before, and I just sort of got clearance to talk about it because the guy, well, you'll know why in a second. So a show fan, here's the Daniel Levin episode. If you haven't heard that one yet, super interesting. He runs an NGO that does a lot of business, if you can call it that, in the Middle East. And he gets called upon quite often to help negotiate high. hostage situations. And that's one of the stories that the episode that we did was about. Well, a show fan texts me, a guy I've known for a long time, a few months or a few weeks after the show

and goes, you're never going to believe this, but I need help with a kidnapping. And I'm thinking something U.S.-based, and he says, no, my girlfriend's cousin got kidnapped in Nigeria. He was abducted from a train. And I'm like, really? Does that sound legit? And he's like, Google it. So I Google it, sure enough, 42 something people, whatever it was on a high-speed train, train gets blocked in, they shoot it full of holes of the machine gun, a bunch of people, I think, die. They run off into the jungle or something like this with like 42 people, and they let some of the locals go, like some of the poorer, probably folks, they let them go, and they keep this guy for months and months.

Wow. And the whole time, I'm sort of back channeling between Daniel Levin, my show fan buddy, and she's using that information. Because Daniel Levin's like, I've heard something about this specific incident. You want to talk to like this sheikh in Nigeria. And I'm like, this is crazy good useful info. Wow. And basically her family in Nigeria used some of the information to ransom.

We think, at least they let him go. They're not talking about really much more than that. But they helped use that information to find the guy, find out he was still a lot. and that he was kicking and they let him go. But if he was captive for something like four and a half, five months. Wow. So he's home now? He's home.

Well, he's in the hospital. He's in the hospital. Yeah. Oh, wow. He was shot and he recovered, but, you know, he recovered in a hut in the jungle while being moved around by terrorists. Oh, my God. That is insane.

That is like a crazy travel story. Yeah. So Daniel Levin, shout out to him for helping handle this kidnap situation. that we had on the show. Because my buddy, the show fan, he had no idea what to do. And his girlfriend was like, what do I do? My family in Nigeria is like, we don't even know where he is. So I said, I'm like, I know guys who know stuff about kidnapping.

And sure enough, Daniel's like, I heard about this. The guy who's going to know where these guys are is this check. You've got to reach this guy. And it's just absolutely wild. That connection was able to be made. Amazing. Another example of the Jordan Harbinger show, saving lives. Yeah, because you're right.

I guess you're right. Indirectly, very indirectly. But I'm just glad the guy's okay. because when I talked to Daniel Levin, he was like, these are not good guys. These are like freelance jihadis that probably took him, sold him to somebody else in the jungle. They kill people regularly. If they get attacked, they're probably just going to kill the hostages and move on, or the hostages are going to be used as shields.

I mean, it's just not, this wasn't like highly organized situation where there are professionals involved. It's like they just blocked in a train heist, but of people in a jungle. It was not a good situation at all. So, yeah, yikes. Well, luckily, all's well that ends well, I suppose. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. My husband will do this thing where we'll be on our way to a party and he'll ask me what I brought for the potluck. I'll be immediately dismayed and panicky because I didn't know it was a potluck. I'll say, you're kidding, right? A number of different ways and he'll just stare at me like he can't believe I forgot. Then, finally, he'll start smiling and I'll realize that he's joking. He does this kind of thing regularly. I don't think this is funny, but he gets a kick out of it and pulls little pranks like this all the time. For me, it's really frustrating and stressful, but then he gets his feelings hurt if I seriously tell him I don't think it's funny.

Am I being overly sensitive? How do I get him to stop? Or do I just need to lighten up? Signed, a wife in strife trying to keep it light without reaching for a knife. Okay, I'm not going to lie. This one did make me laugh a little bit. It's totally messed up, and I get that it gets corny after like the 50th time, but it's also kind of hilarious.

It's also funny to me that he pulls this prank or pranks like this all the time, and she still just doesn't know that he's kidding. That probably just makes her a really easy target. This reminds me of a question we took last year from that guy who couldn't stop hiding in the closet and jumping out and scaring his wife half to death. Do you remember that? Yes, I remember that guy. And his wife kept asking him to stop scaring the crap out of her, and he just didn't

want to do it because he's like, it's too funny. It's so dumb. It was like something your nine-year-old tries to do to you. Yeah, it's her husband. Exactly. Yeah, because he couldn't like channel his mischief in normal society. So this was his way to be sneaky and he didn't want to give that up. By the way, that was episode 490, if you guys want to give that a listen. So if I remember correctly, our response in that one was that the pranks were probably innocent, but that he should take another look at his motivations for wanting to scare his wife so badly. Yeah. I would never do that to Jen, for example. And also, if it's really upsetting her and she's asking him to stop, he should probably just stop. Yeah, just lay off. She hated it and he wouldn't take it seriously.

So we were like, listen to your wife, bro. Right. It's interesting. This whole pranking your partner thing, I feel like it's guys who mostly do this. Of course, on YouTube, it's the couple getting back at each other, but that's all fake, right? We've never heard on this show from a woman who just couldn't stop terrorizing her husband by jumping out of the hamper or whatever. I do wonder if maybe women are more naturally empathetic, so they don't take as much pleasure in messing with other people like that? Or, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe we just need a bigger sample size. Hey, if you're a woman listening to this and you like to scare the crap out of your partner, drop us an email. We could use the research. You could use the case study. Anyway, this letter's interesting

because it's the inverse of that other letter from last year. We're actually hearing from the victim's perspective here, not the prankster. And the victim apparently hates it. And to be Fair, I get it. You get to a party, or you're going to a party thinking all you got to do is show up. And your husband's like, wait, where's the lasagna you signed up to make or that I signed us up to make? And your heart just drops. It's like that dream you have about being back in high school and there's a test and you didn't study for it, except it's real life. It's just so stressful. Gabe, do you get those, by the way? Mine's either college or getting caught with a brick of cocaine in my luggage at an airport. Oh, I don't get that one at all, but I definitely get the studying one or like trying to find the classroom and I can't remember which classroom it is or whatever. Yeah, it's, It's been like 15 years. I'm still having that dream.

Yeah, my mom says she has him and she's 80. So it just never goes away. It's like a thing you have when you're stressed about pretty much anything. So I, look, I said it's kind of funny, but I feel for her too. I don't know. I think you're both right. He's just having a laugh. You're fairly gullible.

You aren't catching on. This is a thing he does. Somehow that makes the prank even funnier, at least for him. And joking around with your partner, you know, gently making fun of their weird little foibles. it's cute. I think it's healthy. It's part of the joy of a relationship. But at the same time, this is clearly very stressful for you. And he just, he doesn't seem to be sensitive to that. And when you try to tell him, it sounds like he takes that very personally and his feelings get hurt, which to me sounds like an overreaction. If you can't take it, don't dish it. If you can't,

what is it? Like, come on, man, you're going to stress someone out and they're like, hey, that's not funny. You're like, wham, my feelings. I mean, come on. You just pulled a joke on somebody. You have to be able to take a little bit back. Right. And also, it's kind of like he's making it about him again, which is maybe what bothers her so much about it. Yeah, I think that's a good point. This prank is ultimately designed to give him pleasure at her expense. And when she tells him that she doesn't like it, he just pulls the wang, you hurt my feelings card. Okay, maybe that hurts your feelings a little bit. Maybe we could stay with my feelings for a second. I'm the one who had a freaking panic attack on the way to Jill and Steve's anniversary party because of your stupid,

like, dad joke prank. Can you maybe try and understand what that's like for me? Exactly. I have a feeling that that's what bothers her the most about this, not just the stress of the prank itself, but the dynamic between them that the prank reflects. Yeah, reflects and maybe even reinforces. Yeah, good point. That's exactly right. And if that dynamic taps into a larger thing in their marriage, like maybe how he doesn't take any of her feeling seriously, or maybe even earlier experiences she has of not being treated the way she wants, then something as simple as a silly prank can suddenly dredge up all of this other stuff that's, you know, very painful or hurtful or whatever. So maybe that's what she needs to explain to him for him to really get it, why this prank is bothering her so much on a deeper level,

what it says about their relationship, also what it makes her feel about the way he views her. That might be how you get him to stop if that's what you want. Yeah, it's a good point. I definitely think there's more going on beneath the surface here. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be so upsetting. But at the same time, maybe it couldn't hurt to lighten up about this a little bit. I was going to say, this can be true, and she can learn to laugh about it. Exactly. Like I said, it is in some ways it's funny, even though I think it's really dumb. That's kind of what makes it funny. And for her sake, I hope she can learn to laugh about it a little, because I think that would make it easier to cope with the stress or at least reduce the stress. And you know, just remind yourself,

okay, my husband is a prankster, the jokes are dumb, he likes to mess with me, maybe let's not freak out if he throws me a curveball next time we get in the car. And maybe if he sees that he can't throw you as much, it won't be as fun, and he'll eventually stop pulling this prank on you. That's a possibility. Or maybe he'll invent even more diabolical ways to get through her defenses. You know, like, they're going on a trip and he's like, y'all packed for the Alps? She's like, what do you mean? We're going to Mexico. Uh, no, we're going skiing in Gistad. You brought your skis, right? Oh, God, so corny. Yeah, you packed an avalanche beacon, right, honey? The color just drains from

her face and she starts crying. I don't know. I mean, uh, putting nail a little. in the side of that relationship every time you pull one of these. Like I said, I don't do this stuff to Jen because she just rolls her eyes. It's not fun. And then she gets mad. So, yeah, the juice ain't worth the squeeze. You know who won't ask you to bring anything to the party except your credit card? The amazing sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. It is your support of our advertisers that keeps us going. All the deals, all the discount codes. I know the code changes and there's URLs everywhere. We put them all in one place, one very searchable place.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the search box on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. All right, Gabe, what's next? Hey, guys. Have you ever given any bad advice to someone or advice that turned out poorly? And are there any episodes you actually regret doing?

Signed, Always Right, or a 2020 hindsight? Yeah, good question. So regret? Not really. That's too strong a word. Are there episodes I wouldn't do again? Yes, for sure there are, especially some that maybe treated certain psychological conditions in delicate ways. Definitely some Feedback Friday stuff. I think we could have done differently or better. One example that comes to mind, I think this is one of the first feedback Friday episodes that I ever did is probably even before you got on the show, Gabe. It was somebody had said, hey, this person's parking a handicapped spot. I see them walk into the store and

walk out against, drive me crazy. And I was like, confront those people. If they can walk there or not handicapped, that's a terrible idea for a lot of reasons. I got a lot of email about that. Basically, because you can't always see a disability. You can't see pain. People have good days. They have bad days. The last thing somebody with, I don't know, arthritis needs on one of their good days is some sanctimonious asshole berating them because their arthritis doesn't seem obvious and they didn't need their cane that morning, but they still didn't want to walk 100 yards to target. So the last thing they need is me walking up and be like,

you're fine, you can't park here? I mean, what a Karen move that is. Now, if somebody is doing it and you know them and they're not disabled, then you should say something because they're a scumbag. That's a different story. Right, they're a scumbag for doing that. But if somebody just looks like they shouldn't be,

that's just not your place. You have no idea. You should not do that. Their heart's probably in the right place, but you just shouldn't do that. Another interesting challenge with Feedback Friday is how hard it is to get things absolutely right when we're working with only limited information.

We often have to take people at their word, we're aware that we're only getting one side of the story. There's always more we wish we could know about a situation. So sometimes that's a bit tricky. We also don't have all the answers, which is why we work with so many experts here on the show. Sometimes we miss something, or we don't have the direct experience

to be super nuanced or specific think about a certain situation. Like, for example, when somebody from a specific community writes in about, I don't know, coming out to their parents, or wrestling with their faith, or managing a difficult parent within the parameters of that culture, that's something Gabe and I don't have firsthand experience with, and we're always trying to get better at that. Yeah, by the way, that's why I love when listeners write in with their thoughts after a certain questionnaires, because they can often speak to something we can't. Maybe they've been through this, or they have friends who have been through this. That really helps us. And we forward most of those along anonymously, of course,

to the people who write in and then they get to hear from us and two or three other people who have actually been through something similar. And that's amazing. Just one of the many things I love about the show and the people who listen to the show, just you guys are so generous with your ideas and you guys care about one another. It's awesome. It's very special. The other constraint we have with advice is that we also have to be careful to operate inside the law. Of course, sometimes I want to tell someone, like, record every phone call or pose as a headhunter from Google and interrogate your sister's fiance about his employment history. I want to do that stuff.

We're like, go in there and you pack that guy's stuff while he's not in the apartment and throw it out on the road. Of course, I want to do that. But we have to remember there are different recording laws in every state. There's different resident eviction laws. Sometimes it can be illegal or dicey to pose as somebody else to extract information. You can't, I don't know, open somebody else's mail or. correct their Gmail password or whatever it is. So we try to be fairly responsible about that stuff,

too. And I know some people get frustrated. They're like, you should have said this. You're just trying not to get sued. And it's like, well, one, duh, I have a business, you dumbass. And two, I don't want to get the person who's writing in in trouble. Because if I say, go do this and they do that, and they're like, wait a minute, I got sued for 20 grand. Now I'm out the rent and I have to pay for all this guy's stuff. That was terrible advice. They're not wrong, right? That was bad advice, even if it would have made them feel good and solve the problem in the short term. I don't know. Gabe, any episodes you regret? I don't really regret any, but there are a few questions I wish I maybe handled a little more thoughtfully. One that comes to mind is the guy

who had lost his faith and wasn't sure how to tell his wife because she was still very committed to Christianity and he thought she would leave him if she knew. And in my response, I think I offered a script that he could use when he told his wife how he felt about God these days. And in that script, I presented a very simplistic Mickey Mouse version of God. I think I said something like, well, honey, I don't believe there's an old man with a beard in the sky anymore, something like that, you know, just like trying to articulate this guy's position for him. But I guess it sounded like that's how I felt about religion.

And afterward, we got some emails from pastors and other people who believe who pointed out that Christianity is so much more than that simplistic idea that, you know, it's about values and how to treat people and how to move through life and how to deal with grief in this really important way, all this beautiful, important stuff, which was absolutely correct. And I wish I had been more clear about what I was saying. I'm not religious myself in a conventional sense, but I would never want to condescend to somebody who believes in something that I don't or that I don't have experience with or take something away from them that's helpful just because I don't personally happen to use it in my own life. Yeah, I'm with you there. But you're getting at another

interesting thing about doing this show, which is how some listeners react very strongly to advice we give and how that's not always a reflection of what we meant or even what we said. And it's always a little bit funny to me because people who tend to get upset about something we said or didn't say, it's never the person who wrote in. It's never them. It's always one or two people who get upset on behalf of other people. And I'm always just amazed when we take a difficult question, especially a question that involves trauma, or something sensitive and were very honest with the person who wrote in. And then they write an email afterwards like, wow, I really needed to hear that.

Thank you. I knew you were right in the back of my head and my mind, but not, you know, I helped to hear it. Meanwhile, some stranger halfway across the world with no direct experience of the issue whatsoever and no connection to the person writing in is like, how dare you? You're victim shaming. One star. Unsubscribe. It's just a funny thing about the internet, I guess.

But it's like, we did help the person who wrote in some rando who just wants to get offended because they're extra woke that day or their situation that we weren't even talking about. They got triggered by our answer and now they're mad at us. And it's just kind of, I kind of want to be like, sit down and this is, it's amazing, but it's not about you. Go figure. It's not about you. Shut your pie hole.

But I can't do that because they've already unsubscribing, giving us a one-star review. It's also interesting when we offer advice to listeners that I think, lands with them in some way, but they're not quite ready to hear it or they don't know what to do with it yet. Like, for example, a few months back, we took a question, I don't know how much detail to go into because I don't want to, yeah, I want to keep this person somewhat anonymous, but somebody wrote in about something very personal. He was trying to figure out how he felt he had like feelings for other men and he wasn't sure if he was gay or if he was by and he was also in a relationship. And anyway, after the episode aired, a bunch of listeners reached out to him through us with their

own stories and their own resources about this exact thing. And they came from the same religious community that he came from and they had to go through the exact same process. And we shared those emails with him. And he sort of wrote back saying like, you know, respectfully, I don't know if I agree with you. And these feelings exist. But I'm not gay. I'm convinced of that. And I can't tell my parents and I do believe it's a sin even if it's legitimate or something like that. Yeah, he basically said I successfully prayed the gay away and I don't care what anybody else says, even if they're also the exact same situation as me in the exact same religion. Exactly. It was almost like hearing it confirmed by so many other people made him cling to his ideas even harder. So that's also tricky, you know,

like everyone's on their own journey, on their own process and on their own timeline. And that timeline doesn't always line up with what we hope for them. And sometimes our advice can be a little intense or a little threatening to what they already believe or how they want to do things. So that's always a tricky thing, finding the balance between being direct and being honest with people, but also being patient and compassionate when they're not quite ready to make a big change. I think that also happens when people write in and they don't really want advice. They want permission to do something or confirmation that they're right. You know, we didn't really talk about this in our show prep here, but I've addressed this before

where people will say, should I start a clothing line? And I'm like, no, it's a terrible idea. You have no experience in the business. And then they get really mad at me for being. They're like, you shattered my dreams. I'm like, well, you freaking ask me. Oh, wait a minute. You just wanted me to go, yeah, you can do it, which you can.

Right. You're 22. two, we have no experience in any element of clothing manufacturing, you're almost certain to fail. You should have just gotten a different job. But they don't want to hear that, right? And they don't even want to hear it when it's sugar-coded. And I think a lot of times people will write in and go, just tell me that I successfully prayed the gayaway and we can still be friends. And we're like, actually, you're probably wrong. Here's all these people that have been in the same situation who say that you're going to be happier if you do this other thing.

And then that person's like, well, actually, now I'm just mad at you. To this guy's credit, he wasn't, he didn't write in and say he was mad at us. But other people in similar situations have done just that. Definitely. Yep. As far as interviews go, I don't really want to mention specific guests, but there are a few that have given me pause, especially I don't want to say anything, because some of them are dead now. And it's like, well, that's a dick move. They can never defend themselves. They're probably not the people you'd think. You know, I've interviewed controversial people, questionable people, some straight up despicable people, depending on your politics and ethics and all that. But my view is that talking to most of these folks is a net good. If,

they have real and meaningful insights about life or the world. I don't have to agree with them or approve of them or even like them. But if I can learn from them, the show's doing its job. I had on Sammy the Bull. And him and I are acquaintances. He's definitely killed a bunch of people. Most of them were mobsters. He tries to sort of sugar. I think all of them were mobsters. Maybe there's a few exceptions. And people are like, why are you glorifying this? And I'm like, we didn't do that. We did not do that. You're upset about that. These are YouTube comments, by the way. They're meaning brain dead people, but I do want to highlight that that topic's handled delicately. I'm not sitting there being like, awesome, bro, you were a mob hit man. You know, that's what YouTubers do when they

interview people. I've seen those types of shows. We are very careful not to do that. And he gave us a lot of insight. And one of his chief takeaways was don't join. It's a terrible life. You kill all your friends. It's horrible. You should do literally anything else. I think that's valuable in an age where kids think being a gangster is awesome, cool, tough, blah, blah, blah, Snitches get stitches, and it's like, no, they just go to prison and stay there, and their lives are screwed up forever. You know, I think that's an important message. Honestly, the episodes I regret are ones that just weren't interesting, weren't valuable, maybe I got hoodwinked by the guest. My number one priority is making sure the show is a value ad for you. I'll do interviews

with folks that seem promising. They turn out mediocre. I just don't air them. To me, a subpar episode with a quote-unquote top expert is far worse than an amazing episode. with some political operative you hate or no-name first-time author with an incredible story who's objectively fascinating and understands the laws of power and persuasion or whatever, but, you know, hey, maybe I'll regret this whole answer down the road, so feel free to ask me this question again in a year or two. You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line. If there's something you're going through or you're wrestling with a big decision, maybe you just need a new perspective on life, love, work, how to tell your friends and family that the love of your life served time in prison,

whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. All right, what's next? Hey guys, I know you've been to some pretty crazy places in your life and even got into some sticky situations as a result. Given the state of the world and what you discuss on the show, are there any countries you're afraid to go to now? signed Blocked Up Abroad. Definitely. Gabriel, this has to be true for you, for sure. My list is quite long and getting longer. My, off the top of my head, Syria, Iran, China, Belarus,

Russia, North Korea. There's probably some places in Africa that are so close to the Chinese Communist Party's intelligence apparatus that I should stay out of them. When I'm thinking about going to a new place, I call my friends in intelligence circles, FBI, people that also deal with the Chinese Communist Party or Russian state, and I kind of say, like, am I going to be safe here? And they will tell me, yes, but not near the border. Or you'll be fine in this city, but not in that city. And I have to be kind of careful about that stuff. Syria is just a dangerous place. Nobody should go there. Even if you're

with an NGO, you better go only under the auspices of that NGO and know what you're doing. Iran, kind of the same deal. I can't go there. I mean, I would love to go to Iran. I missed my chance in 2010. I can't go there now too close to China in terms of politics. I've said too many things about Iran. I'm not going to be welcomed by the government there. Iranians are awesome people. I meet a ton of them. I talk to a ton of them. There's a lot of Iranian show fans. It's just that I wouldn't be safe in that country with that country's Secret Service operating in it. China, if you've heard this show for the past few months at all, you know I can probably never go back to or even fly over China. Belarus and Russia, I've done too much about this. And we've seen journalists get

their plane escorted down to the ground in Belarus for fake bomb threats and then the people on there, you know, the journalist on there are arrested. Russia, you see Brittany Griner. Yeah, maybe she brought some cannabis in there. Maybe she didn't. We don't know. There's people languishing in Russian prison for being American. We've seen Canadians get arrested in China because Canada held a Chinese executive who is guilty of sanction busting. I mean, there's just a lot wrong. In North Korea, we've interviewed far too many defectors to be safe now. By the way, Bill Browder, the famous Putin critic, the guy who helped architect most of these sanctions on Russia these days, he's been on the show twice now. He won't fly anywhere near any of these places or over

Russia or Russia allied airspace at all because of the Belvoir thing that I mentioned. And if you want to know more about Bill's story, it's absolutely amazing. Check out episode three and episode 680 of the Jordan Harbinger show. Gabe, what do you think, man? I mean, I've done episodes on China with Lao Wei. We did a two-part interview with him on how the Chinese social credit score system works. That was episode 643 and 644. North Korea, though, man, talk about that. We've opened the door. It's just too risky, but I don't know. You have anything to add to that? No, I mean, Jordan and I have been a bunch of times between the two of us in North Korea. We've never gotten into any explicit trouble there, but we've pretty much decided that we're not going to go back until there's real regime change,

if that ever happens in our lifetimes. It's just gotten so intense over the last few years. I mean, just look at the whole auto-warm beer situation, that young guy who was sent to a labor camp for stealing a poster or something like that, and then he died. It was so freaking sad. We've written articles, and we've done interviews with defectors, like Jordan said, and talked very publicly about the dark sides of North Korea too much now. I just don't think it's worth it. But also, Jordan, I feel like North Korea is one of those countries that you just kind of get it after a few visits. At least for me, my appreciation of that country didn't deepen all that much after the first two or three visits.

It's just so controlled and repressive. And most places are off limits to foreigners even now. Things don't really change there. It's just so stable. And there's a huge barrier between you and the locals. So, yeah, it's just not that interesting after a while. But more importantly, why poke the bear by going back? after trashing Kim Jong-un and interviewing Charles Rieu and his insane story at this point,

I don't need to see a labor cap. I'm good. Yeah, exactly. But man, when that regime falls, and of course we're all praying that it does, I'm on one of the first flights out, or I should say one of the first tour groups to go back in. For sure. Gabe and I are determined to do, I don't know, podcast series or documentary or something like that when the country opens up.

But until then, I'll just interview defectors from the safety of my studio where I will not get smothered with poison gas at an airport freaking pizza joint. Thank you very much. Speaking of which, if you want to hear some wild stories from North Korean defectors, check out the two-part episode I did with Charles Rue. That's episode 84 and 88. And we did an episode with Yonemi Park. That was episode 578. And we'll link to those in the show notes as well. So yeah, there's plenty of other places we can go. And you know, now that I'm older and I have kids, I'm like, I'm good. I'll go to Greece, Spain, Italy. Yeah. Let's have a nice time.

You know, those places were too expensive for me when I was younger. I was hanging out in Bosnia and stuff, which also was beautiful, by the way. But yeah, I liked going to cheaper places that were a little rough around the edges because you'd have an adventure and it would be all on 30 bucks a day, if that. Now I'm like, no, no, no, no. I will be having breakfast at the hotel overlooking the ocean. Thank you very much. And the Wi-Fi needs to be rebooted in my room.

Thank you. I'll be at the hot tub when you're done. I've lost a lot of my edge, man. A lot, a lot of my edge. I'm still going to Mongolia next year. I'm going to Morocco this year, too. So it's there. There's so many good places, though, in the world.

There are. Yeah, there are. And so we don't have to go to places where we might end up in a gulag for having a frigging podcast. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan and Gabe. This past weekend, I went on a trip with a group of friends. One of our friends, let's call him Joe, was heavily intoxicated and making an ass of himself.

His wife, let's call her Jane, went down to remove him from the situation. and it did not go well. They come back into the house where a few of us are hanging out, they go into the bedroom, they close the door, and he starts screaming at her. We hear him yell at her, and I quote, Why are you mad? Your only job in life is to fuck men.

Wow. Whoa. Oof. Meanwhile, she's completely silent or calmly talking to him. We're all obviously shocked, disgusted, and appalled. The rest of the night, he continues to tell everyone his wife is a bitch, and he isn't even drunk at this point. point. Oh man, just no excuse, just a terrible guy. Oh, man. Fast forward a couple days,

and we're back home and wondering what we can do, if anything. We love Jane, but none of us want to be around Joe ever again. We want Jane to know we're here for her and that she's so much more than what her husband said, but neither of them has acknowledged what we heard, and they seem fine now. How do I handle the situation moving forward? How can we support Jane while also making it known that we're not okay with Joe's behavior? signed spurred by the absurd words I overheard. Gabe, it's funny. Anytime an email starts with the words,

I recently went on a trip with my friends or I just vacationed with my family. My sphincters all clench up a little bit because, you know, I'm still thinking about that family that got into a physical altercation. It was like a sandals resort or whatever a couple months back. Yeah. It's never, my family and I went to Mexico and it was great. Any tips on face tuning our beach selfies, right? It's always my family and I, we went to Mexico and my brother threw a bottle of mescal at the nanny's face,

and now my dad's in a Mexican prison. Help. Y'all are whiling out on vacation. I'm just saying, you guys are crazy out there. But seriously, this one, this is really sad. This one is pretty dark. And it is awkward. If I overheard something like this on a group vacation, yeah, I think it would ruin the whole trip.

It's hard to enjoy a few cold ones with the boys when one of the boys. when one of the boys is screaming at his wife that her only job is to have sex with men and then banging on about how much he hates her even after the alcohol is worn off. Like, whoa, man. Put it in neutral, Rob. This Airbnb is not the place

to hash out your weird-ass anger issues. You know, I came here to do some hiking and play Scrabble without Wi-Fi, not listen to you, reenact your childhood in the living room, man. I'm also puzzled by this comment, though, Gabe. Like, your only job of life is to fuck men. And so Joe's being a dick, or is she actually a sex worker and that was just left out of the letter?

I mean, I guess it's possible, in which case, I suppose he would be factually correct, but I feel like the guy writing in would have mentioned that. Yeah, I think he would have told us, yeah. Yeah, not a job at her career choices, just your guard variety misogyny. Right, just some old-fashioned woman hating. Okay, I got it. So look, Joe's obviously got some real issues. He doesn't think very highly of his wife, to put it lightly. Sounds like he drinks too much. he's making an ass out of himself in front of everybody. Jane sounds more even-keeled, but honestly, who knows how she's showing up in their marriage, how she's contributing to this dynamic, if she's contributing to this dynamic.

No one deserves to be insulted like that. And to be frank, yeah, I'm a little worried about her, but they're obviously wrapped up in some very toxic stuff together. Her being super calm with him while he exploded. That might have been her not escalating, being thoughtful about you guys, or maybe that's her way of coping with his tirades, managing him when he gets like this, maybe even enabling him him on some level. I'm sure they've had many fights before this one. You probably saw just the tip of the iceberg. And the fact that neither of them has acknowledged what happened, that they both

seem fine now, that just makes things more awkward and more difficult. Maybe they talked it out and resolved it and it really is all good. Or maybe they're sweeping this whole thing under the rug and keeping up appearances for you guys, which again would speak to a highly dysfunctional dynamic between the two of them. But it sounds to me like you've made up your mind here. You're cutting Joe out, you're supporting Jane. Fine, fair enough. I'd probably do the same. So if you want to help her, I would just reach out to her. Maybe you write her an email. Maybe you pick up the phone. Ask her to coffee with a couple of you. Whatever it is, I would just be careful about how you do that so you don't set Joe off again. I know that it sucks to manage this, but I'm just imagining what a guy like this

is going to think if he hears his wife is having coffee with one of his friends behind his back. Maybe a phone call when she's alone is best, or you can grab a few minutes alone with her the next time you guys are all hanging out. I don't know. However you do it, touch base with her and just say, you know, I know this is a little uncomfortable. I hope I'm not overstepping here. But we were really concerned about you after our trip last weekend. The guys and I were just not okay with what Joe said to you. And I just wanted to check in on you.

Are you all right? do you want to talk about anything? Are you safe? Something like that. And then, yeah, just follow her lead from there. Right. She might be super relieved to hear you guys confirm that what Joe said wasn't okay. She might jump at the chance to talk to somebody about what's going on in the marriage. And then you can have a real conversation about exactly what is happening, why she's sticking around, whether she actually needs help. And you can tell her what you told us, which is that you want her to know that she's so much more than what her husband said, that would probably make a big impact on her. But then again, you have to be prepared for the possibility that Jane will clam up or deflect. You know, she might be like,

what, that, that was nothing. You know, Rob gets in these moods. It's just a thing he does. You know, I'm used to it. We're fine now. And then you have to decide how much you want to keep pushing it. Maybe you give it one more try. Like, okay, I hear that you don't want to talk about it. I respect that, but I just want to go on record and say that I'm worried about you. I don't think any of this is okay and I'm here if you ever want to talk. And then maybe down the road, that becomes a lifeline for her when things really get bad. Or you let it go and you just accept that Jane is in her own process right now. Maybe she's not ready to stand up to Joe. Maybe she doesn't even recognize that this is a form of what sounds like emotional abuse. Or maybe they really are working

on it and you just have to let her figure that out for herself. It's kind of funny, Jordan. I'm just going back to what we talked about earlier about listeners being on their own timeline, you know. My only caveat is that if you ever feel like she's in serious physical danger, like if Joe is hitting her or putting her life at risk or something, then you should probably escalate this even more. Maybe you and the guys intervene or you call the police. And I know that emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse, maybe even more damaging in some ways. But it's complicated. You have to balance your concern with her with a fair respect for her choices as problematic as they might be. though, I think you're probably right to distance yourself from this guy. He sounds like a troubled

dude, not to mention a huge buzzkill. This is not the guy I want in my Airbnb, or in my, round my campfire or in my camper with me and my wife, just harshing the vibe with his like weird in-cell logic. Unless he apologizes to Jane and to you guys and shows a real commitment to working on this stuff, it's just not somebody you want to keep close. And as for Jane, I hope she accepts your offer to talk. I hope she learns to stand up for herself, or even, even better just to leave. But as we talk about all the time on the show, that is ultimately her business. All you can do is be a good friend to her as she figures this out on her own. So I hope you get through to her. I hope she's all right. And we're sending you both good

thoughts. Gabe, that was definitely one in the WTF category. I hope the, maybe the next one's a little more humorous, please. I will do my best. All right. What's next? Hey, Jordan. Great show. But can you please stop saying the word doozy? signed Wuzi from the doozy. Wow. That gave this question. It's a real...

Don't say it. Are you going to say it? It's a real conundrum. Oh, okay. Eh, it's a doozy. Yeah, this guy... This guy's had just exploded. Exactly.

I hope so. I hope it did. The question honestly made me laugh. I didn't even realize that I say the word doozie that often. Look, it's at the top of the episode. But I think I say we've got some fun ones and some doozies and I can't wait to dive in a lot. Yeah. Okay.

Maybe that's what he's referred. referring to. I don't know what to tell you, man. We do be getting a lot of doozies on the show, but I'm open to other words if it bothers you so much, but nothing's really coming to mind. Humdingers? Oh, yeah. Yeah, if we're doing this podcast in 1925, that would be perfect. How about Cracker Jack? Also very old-timey. And some, maybe vaguely racist somehow, not sure, can't put my finger on it. Wopper? Uh, we've got some fun ones and some woppers, and I can't wait to dive in. I don't know. It sounds like a lie or that I'm ordering something at Burger King. You're making me hungry.

Okay, how about Lulu? Lulu? Never heard of that one. You're sitting there on Thesaurus.com or something right now? I am. I'm on Thesaurus. Because Lulu is not something you would even naturally come up with. Vocabulary, even like yours, you wouldn't have said that.

I'm not saying Humdinger. I'm not saying Whopper. I'm definitely not saying, we got some real Lulu's this week. So I guess you're just going to have to live with doozy. Although watch Humdinger is totally going to catch on and people are going to start saying that in the emails. And then we got to use it. This guy will be happy, though.

Sorry about your woo's from the doos, bruh. But I think doozies here to stay. You know whose products are always crackerjack? Gabriel. The amazing sponsors who support their show? That's right. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show.

Really appreciate that. Of course, your attention and your support of our advertisers. That's what keeps us going around here. If you want the codes, all the URLs, we put them all in one place. It's usually slash Jordan, but not always. and you'll find out at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also, if you're extra lazy, you can email me. I'll find the code for you.

You can check our support. You can search the search box on the website for the code. Please do consider supporting those who support this show. All right, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hey, Jordan. It seems every day something new comes out about how a product that we use is harmful for you

or for the environment or to someone else in the production of it. endocrine disruptors in fragranced soap, microplastics in seemingly every type of food container, all the harmful things in toothpaste, shout out to that skeptical Sunday episode you did, plus the manufacturing of things that are made from slave labor and wanting to support American economies, or at least not countries with a dictator in power.

But with inflation the way it is, it's becoming tougher and tougher to purchase things that don't have a sinister manufacturing process or effect on the human body. how do you decide what to focus on changing for you and your family? Signed, looking for a diatribe on how to circumscribe the stuff we imbibe. Well, the short answer is that it is tough. It is definitely one of the hard parts about modern living.

It's just impossible to control every variable. And you could easily torture yourself trying to avoid every toxic thing out there, even though that's probably what we should be doing. So I don't know if I have a perfect answer here. Here are a few thoughts. After our episode with Dr. Shana Swan, friends told me they were cleaning out their home because they wanted to have kids and they had all these endocrine disrupting chemicals all over their house and they were having trouble conceiving, so they wanted to take that out of the equation.

I try not to buy harmful stuff, but I don't go through my closets and toss three bottles of body wash that I bought because maybe it has thallites in it. I just figure, okay, I'm going to use that eventually. I'll put it in the guest bathroom. Gabriel will use it when he's here. Fine. Not the problem. You know, I buy stuff at farmers markets, which is healthier, I think, and often the same price

are not that much more expensive. Check out episode 713. That's Marion Nessel. It's all about how food companies lie to us. They sponsor research on nutrition. They get us to put things in our body that are not necessarily good for us and might even be bad for us or just don't do anything other than regular-ass food. Plus, I mentioned earlier, Dr. Shanna Swan, that's episode 658, that was specifically about endocrine disrupting chemicals in things that we put on our body, cosmetics and things like that. So just be aware of it, try and buy things that don't have it on there, but I don't think you need to go through and dump 100 pounds of plastic into a landfill from you and your entire family's house because of the stuff you've been using

for the last 10 years is still in a container. You know, just switch to something better next time you make the purchase. And I think that's where we make the big changes. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan, you interview so many fascinating people each week. Are there any guests on the show your homies with to this day because you just clicked? And how do those friendships develop? Signed, looking for a lens on your friends. Well, I am actually friends with a lot of guests from the show,

sometimes before they come on the show. And to clarify, it's not because I wanted to be friends with a guest from the beginning. That actually leads to terrible interviews. If you want to hear a great example of a terrible interview, well, go find any influencer who has a podcast that interviews celebrities, but is always on TikTok and Instagram. All that is, is an influencer stroking that celebrity or that big name so that that celebrity will promote the episode on their social media and get them more likes. It's bad interviewing.

It's pretty cringe. It's fairly transparent. Usually those people don't add much. You know, it's, whoa, bro, every time the guest says something. You know the shows I'm talking about. recent guests I'm friends with in real life, Peter Santinello, Lauai, who talked about the social credit score system, Robert Green, the author, Benjamin Hardy, the psychologist, Chris Voss, the hostage negotiator, Vanessa Van Edwards, the body language expert, Danny Gold, who's a journalist

and talked about the underworld stuff. That guy's really interesting. Dr. Rachel Zoffness is real cool, the pain doctor. Daniel Levin, the among other things, hostage negotiator who helped get my friend's cousin out of Nigeria, out of a jungle in Nigeria where he was being held, Josh Peck. I mean, that's just off the top of my head. If I go way back, there's a ton. Those friendships often develop because we met on the show or with the idea of doing a show. And usually they're like, wow, that was a good interview. I was better than I expected.

And often that will keep in touch, right? Because they'll stay in touch to talk about podcasting or follow-up interviews or they have a question. And I often help people and I don't expect things in return. So people will ask me questions. and I often, I try to be generous with my time, especially with a show guest because they were generous with theirs as well. This is all sort of six-minute networking stuff at work.

Check out Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Six-minute networking is our networking course. It's free. This is where I explain all these principles. But yeah, a lot of the folks that I meet through the show are friends before or after the show, usually after. And I think it's because they've done a bagelion podcast. And then, you know, I have you guys to thank too, because they get a ton of engagement and DMs and messages from people that found them through the Jordan Harbinger show, and they're like,

wow, this is a really special audience. Because it's not like a media hit where they do a 15-minute show. The journalist hasn't read the book, and they see one tweet that's shaming them about their NPR appearance. You know, it's a real interview. So that's what I'd like to think makes the difference, and I have y'all to thank for that. Hope you enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week and everybody, of course, who listened. Thank you so much. Go back and check out Dr. John Abramson and Sebastian Younger, if you haven't yet. If you want to know how I managed to book these folks, well, go back to that six-minute networking course, teaching you how to dig the well before you get thirsty. It's all free on the thinkific platform at jordanharbinger.com

slash course. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discount codes, all at jordanherbinger.com slash deals. Please support the show if you can. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. I do like to hear from you. You can find Gabe on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi or on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie O'Campo, Josh Ballard, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. I'm a lawyer. I'm not your lawyer, 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. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. Here's what you can check out next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. You're in Somalia trying to track down pirate gangs, and I'd love to kind of hear what this felt like. We went with the big security team, and we paid the security team a lot of money. And it was this one portion of a clan in Central Somalia that was supposed to protect us. So how did they get you?

My partner Ashwin flew off to Mogadishu. I drove him to the airport, and then we saw him off. He got on the plane safely. And then on the way back from the airport, back into town towards our hotel, there was actually a truck waiting for us. It was a truck with a cannon welded in the back. These are very common trucks. They're called technicals. At first we thought it was there to watch over us or protect us or something.

But actually it stopped our car, and 12 gunmen from the flatbed came over to my side of the car. And they actually fired in the air and then opened the door and tore me out of the car. They were waiting for me, and they were probably waiting or hoping for both of us. I think they were a little bit disappointed that there was only one journalist. They beat me. They broke my glasses, and I was wearing glasses at the time. And they had another car waiting, and they bundled me into it. And off we drove into the bush for about three hours, something like that.

Hard to keep track of time. But at some point, we stopped. They blindfolded me, and they took me a few steps over to a mattress. So there was a mattress waiting for me in the middle of nowhere. There were other people there, other guards and other hostages, and I sat down, and for the next two years and eight months. I was a hostage. For more on life and captivity under the thumb of Somali pirates and how he made it out,

Check out episode 115 with Michael Scott Moore here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. 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.

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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.