The Jordan Harbinger Show - 731: Why We Owe People Honesty | Deep Dive

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Jordan (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabe (@GabeMizrahi) take a deep dive into the pros and cons of candor, how honesty is a core element of all healthy and productive relationships, and why we owe it to others — as well as ourselves. What We Discuss: Honesty deepens relationships. It requires a great deal of trust and confidence — in ourselves and in our friends — and it implies a whole new conception of what friendship actually is. Honesty attracts people who share your values. You’ll draw people into your life who also value candor, and you’ll distance yourself from people who aren’t interested in an authentic relationship. Honesty secures honesty in return. When you’re honest with the people in your life, you also signal to them that they can be honest with you. How to be honest — without being honestly the worst. Deciding to be honest with a friend doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily right. It just means that you’re willing to share an authentic response, and then explore it with the other person to arrive at the best possible conclusion. How to recognize that there are times when it’s okay to not be honest. For all the benefits of radical honesty, it's wise to be aware of situations in which honesty will not serve you well — or where total candor just isn’t appropriate. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/731 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss the show we did with James Fallon — the psychiatry professor who can teach you how to spot a psychopath because he is a psychopath? Catch up here with episode 28: James Fallon | How to Spot a Psychopath! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!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 do. get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional organized crime figure Russian spy, undercover agent or neuroscientist. Each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better thinker. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about it, I appreciate it when you do that.

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Today I'm here with Feedback Friday producer Gabriel Mizrahi, and we're doing a deep dive on why, you owe people honesty. And of course, what that honesty looks like in practice, how to embrace more of it in your life, and how it can transform your relationships and your outcomes. So let's get to it. So, Gabe, there's a lot of talk out there these days about radical honesty, extreme candor, radical candor, honest candor. Yeah. Speaking in your mind. Saying whatever the hell you want and then labeling it with a pop psychology term so that you can say, I'm not being rude. It's become kind of a staple of contemporary self-help, the whole saying it like it is and not self-censoring.

In fact, just the other day, someone sent me an objectively rude comment on LinkedIn, and then went, sorry for keeping it real. And I was like, no, you don't have to be sorry for keeping it real. You should be sorry for acting like a jerk in my inbox. Right. And then being like, this is just feedback. And if you can't handle it, maybe you can't handle it. And I'm like, no, you're just insulting me in my inbox.

There's no feedback here that's valid because to think that your opinion is the Arbative truth, eh, I digress. But whether it's your friends, your family, your boss, your colleagues, people you date, this whole self-censoring thing or not self-censoring, it's a, it's trending up. And given how much deceit there is in the world now, whether it's big lies or little lies, it's a really important shift to make. Obviously, the world would be a lot better if we were all more honest. But honesty is a tricky concept. On one level, we all crave honesty, but on another level, we kind of dread it. We dread receiving it. We dread giving it. And I'm convinced, Gabriel, that's one of the reasons people send kind of the rude thing is they go,

I'm going to rip off the Band-Aid. And then they just say it in this brutal way because it's easier to do that. And then they almost feel like, well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to lean into it. Getting brutally honest opinions from people is a source of great anxiety for a lot of folks, myself included. We often feel threatened by them, injured by them, betrayed by them. Case in point, my example earlier, maybe he meant well. We know how difficult it is to be on the receiving end of difficult feedback. So we often withhold it from other people in turn, and then we justify this as some kind of act of kindness or respect, when in reality we're contributing to a dynamic that is often inauthent, deceitful, avoidant, even when our intentions are

originally good. And I was reminded of that when we re-aired my old interview with Sam Harris a couple months ago. Sam Harris, of course, the philosopher, author, podcaster, really interesting guy, great mind, great thinker. In that interview, Sam talked a lot about being more candid with people and how important that is for their growth and for our own integrity. And also how not telling the truth creates far worse outcomes than a few ruffled feathers or some hurt feelings. So we'll be drawing a lot on Sam's wisdom in this episode, connecting it up with what Gabe and I have come to learn about this topic over the years.

So that's what we're talking about today. Why leading with honesty is so important, especially with friends. We're going to be talking mostly about friends in this deep dive, but all the same principles apply to family, colleagues, partners, anyone you have a meaningful relationship with, really. We're also going to be talking about the limits of radical honesty, which is something that honesty evangelists don't talk about very often, when it's okay, and maybe even smart to just not be totally honest. And we're also going to talk about how leading with honesty can genuinely transform your relationships if you lead with the right intentions and approaches. And I think

the best place for us to start is to recognize that honesty is actually a form of kindness. So for most of us, including me for a really long time, being brutally honest with people seems like the opposite of kindness. Sometimes, giving your uncensored opinion can feel aggressive or even straight up cruel. And that's because from the time we're young, we're generally taught to hold back on our true opinions to protect other people's feelings or to protect ourselves from our own feelings if we really let people know the truth. And to be fair, there are some good reasons for that.

We have to get along in society. We don't want to alienate our friends and family. We obviously shouldn't be monsters to other people even if they kind of need to hear it. But the price of that self-censorship is depriving the people we care about of meaningful criticism. And when we do that, we elevate their short-term feelings above their long-term success. We assume a weaker version of them, a version that can't handle a challenging conversation. We then confirm that weakness by withholding, sometimes even create that weakness by withholding, And then our worst assumptions about our friends kind of become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By holding back the truth, we also put our own need for comfort above our friend's need for guidance. We prioritize our desire to avoid conflict over their desire for growth. We censor difficult messages to make things easier for people, but in the process, we almost always make things harder. Sam Harris touched on this in the interview that I mentioned. When we talked about the value of real feedback, he questioned the whole making it easier for the person by holding back idea. Take a listen to this clip. It's often making it easier in the sense that you're telling them what they want to hear or telling them something more pleasant than is in fact what's true, but you might also be causing them to waste a tremendous amount of time or encouraging them to

waste a tremendous amount of time where you could be helping them to get their life on track in a way that other people around them aren't. So I think what Sam was getting at there was when we talk about protecting our friend's feelings, we tend to think very narrowly about what protecting them really means. It's an interesting question. Is our job to protect our friends' feelings in the short term or to protect their chances of success in the long term? And if we spare them some difficult feedback now, are we really protecting their feelings

or are we just, you know, coddling their vulnerabilities, validating their lesser work, maybe even enabling their mistakes. The older I get, the more I appreciate that true kindness is candor. It's the opposite of what we're taught our whole lives, which is that being kind usually means being dishonest to some degree. When we're honest with people in our lives, we're implicitly saying, I value you, I take you seriously, I want to see you succeed. That is a powerful message to send.

And if you've ever been on the receiving end of it, you know how kind, truly kind, that can be. Man, that is so true. I mean, it can be a little bit wounding to get criticism. We all know that feeling. But when the feedback is good, when it comes from a genuine place, when it's delivered in a respectful way, it hits different. It might sting a little sometimes, but you can feel the kindness underneath good feedback. And that is so much better than, you know, empty compliments or half-truths. But on a more practical level, being honest also helps people avoid even more pain down the road.

because when we withhold honest feedback, we're usually just setting the other person up to struggle even more sometime in the future. So again, Sam Harris brought this up in your interview, Jordan, and he gave this example. Imagine that your friend writes a manuscript for a book and asks you to read it and you read it and you think it's terrible. Now, obviously, as he put it, it would be really nice for both of you if you loved it. Then you could just give them props, say congratulations, and you could just rest assured that your friendship is intact. But Sam has a different take. Listen to this. If a friend of yours comes to you with something that's spent a lot of time working on and you think

it's terrible, if you think you're helping them by sparing them this momentary discomfort of you not supporting their rosiest conception of themselves, I think you really need to look more closely at that because I've been on both sides of this. and I can tell you that the people who didn't give me honest feedback or just didn't have good critical feedback to give were far less helpful to me than the people who said, listen, you have to tear this thing down to the studs. This is awful.

You're lucky only I saw this. Other people who aren't their friends are not going to spare them their criticism. I remember that. That was one of my favorite moments in the interview, especially coming from such a prolific author, somebody who's really at the top of his game, multiple bestsellers, to know that that guy produces subpar work sometimes that people go,

actually, this is crap and you're lucky only I saw this. Even he needs people to tell him when it sucks so he can push himself to do better. I don't know. I find that encouraging. It's weirdly comforting. Totally. And I'm sure inviting honesty is part of the reason that he does such good work. And to his point, if you don't give a friend your unvarnished opinion when they really need it, somebody else eventually will. And probably somebody who doesn't have the same allegiance to them. also somebody who probably has way less sensitivity to their feelings and the consequences of that feedback in the future, those are going to be much tougher. For sure.

You might want to spare their feelings by saying, oh, it's really good. I liked it. I don't have any notes. But their agent is not going to do that. Their publisher is not going to do that. The public definitely will not do that. Yeah. As you found out with that email, you just got from a listener.

And as Sam pointed out, there's probably little or nothing your friend can do to improve it at that stage, like once it's out in the world. it's too late. Then at that point, you've actually contributed to a worse situation for your friend. And now you either have to break the news when it's too late to be useful or you have to comfort them and tell them, you know, oh, it's not so bad, neither of which is really serving them. Yeah, you got a pile another lie on there. So it's like which one is actually worse, hurting their feelings a little bit now or accidentally creating a situation where their feelings are really hurt down the road and maybe there's other damage to boot.

Yeah, and when they might be even more surprised that that was the reaction and they might not even understand why. Right. But look, this is not just about career stuff or creative projects. No. This also applies to major life decisions, values relationships, including your friendship with the person in question. So let's imagine a very different scenario.

A friend opens up to you about their tumultuous relationship with a toxic person. And you just kind of sit there and you bite your tongue. By not telling them that they're in a dysfunctional relationship and need to leave, you're essentially validating them. You're maybe even enabling. their poor choice. Eventually down the line, yeah, they're going to get the message, but when it comes from a police officer or a divorce attorney, or they've just wasted three freaking years on this person, or they have a kid with them, whatever, the costs are so much higher. Here's another

example. Imagine a friend tells you about an obviously shady self-help program that they're involved in, the kinds we talk about here on the show. They're caught up in a scam. You know it. You don't say anything because you don't want to seem judgmental even like you just heard our podcast on whatever scam, MLM thing. At some point, though, probably after they burn through a ton of money, they burn through a bunch of time, energy, self-worth takes a big hit, they're going to come to that conclusion themselves. But you could have saved them a lot of that trouble by being forthright with them from the jump. So being honest with a friend when they can benefit from your feedback the most, that's the best way to avoid more negative experiences, whether

it's failure, regret, resentment, confusion, disillusionment, whatever it is. Again, you're risking short-term discomfort to give someone the gift of greater success down the line. But everything we're talking about is getting at a bigger theme here, which is that honesty actually deepens relationships in general. Because when you self-censor to spare a friend's feelings, what you're doing is really chipping away at the intimacy of your relationship, right? You put distance between the two of you by treating certain topics as off limits, you build a relationship that's designed to protect their ego and your comfort rather than empower the both of you to grow. You also create a dynamic in which you let yourself off the hook for difficult conversations instead of leaning into

those meaningful exchanges. That is a really important point. The relationship then becomes a way to sort of service you and your friends' vulnerabilities or your fears or your discomfort around certain topics not to actually build each other up. Exactly. And, And that makes you even less likely to speak up when you have an opinion in the future. And that in turn deprives the other person of even more valuable feedback. On some level, they might even resent you for not helping them in the way they truly need, even if they can't consciously articulate that in that particular moment. Sam talked about this in our interview as well, how being honest with people signals

that you're on the same team. Honesty doesn't have to be adversarial. This is how he explains it. you're trying to have a better relationship. There's a psychological cost that you are paying for having to conceal how you really feel about something in this person's presence. And you don't want to pay that cost anymore

because you want to have a better relationship with them. You know, you respect them too much or you love them too much. Or you're like, this is intolerable that this is so weird that you can't talk about how you feel about X, Y, and Z with your mom. So that psychological cost of dishonesty, he's talking about, it's actually a lot higher than most of us realize. We tend to avoid honesty

because it's uncomfortable, but what we're really doing is trading one form of discomfort for another. Instead of possibly hurting someone we love by being honest, we settle for the disappointment or inauthenticity of a weakened relationship. The resentment and awkwardness that build up in these relationships, it's almost always worse than the temporary discomfort of just being open. But that's a tradeoff that most people make on a daily basis. In Sam's view, what you're really doing when you shy away from honesty is avoiding a relationship with another person. When we shy away from being open, even to spare ourselves, we're really shying away from the

messy, difficult, but more important work of intimacy. The more you censor yourself in a friendship, the more the friendship shrinks. You're implicitly saying, there are certain things we just can't talk about because they're too difficult or overwhelming for you or for me, or maybe for both of us. But the more you lead with candor, the more you open up new territory for the relationship to explore. You signal to the other person that they are deserving of your honesty. Yeah, that they're deserving of your honesty. And also that you have confidence that the relationship can withstand the temporary discomfort of a very honest exchange.

Because there's something more important at stake here, which is you and the other person being real with each other and having each other's backs, even when it's a little bit difficult. And that brings us to another important point, which is that honesty attracts people who share your values. So there's an interesting thing that happens when you start being more honest with your friends. You tend to draw people into your life who also value candor, and you tend to distance yourself a little bit from people who just aren't as interested in having an honest relationship. And the reason, as Jordan just explained, is that being honest with a friend, that assumes that they are equipped to receive that honesty, that you have that confidence in them. And it really invites them to rise to the occasion of your candor. And it also pushes you to stick with people

who can tolerate that healthy discomfort. Now, look, it's perfectly natural to seek out people who prop us up, who make us feel good, who make us feel safe. The healthy narcissism in all of us craves that recognition, right? And there's nothing wrong with validation. We definitely need that too. Actually, in my view, being radically honest means being radically honest in both directions, you know, about what you like and what you don't like, about what works and what doesn't work. So when you commit to candor, that doesn't automatically mean that you have to be a critic 100% of the time. I think that's important to remember too. In fact, some people tend to withhold in the other direction, right? They don't give any positive feedback when it's appropriate because they're so fixated

on offering criticism. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. This is a deep-dive on honesty. We'll be right back back. By the way, we talked a lot about relationships in this episode and of course the value of honesty in relationships. If you need to build and maintain more relationships, I'm teaching you how I do that. It's our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Networking, but not the gross kind, the non-shmoozy kind, the kind that doesn't make you feel icky like you need a shower after. It is life-changing for business and it'll do great for your personal life as well. Again, all free at jordanharbinger.com slash course. And many of the guests you hear on

the show, they subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now back to our deep dive on honesty. That's another thing people kind of overlook in the whole radical honesty conversation. Yeah. I would argue that only offering criticism and withholding meaningful validation, that's just as harmful as only validating somebody, maybe even more so. Yeah, definitely. And it's funny because I see that all the time with my writing. In my experience, it's just as important for me to know what is working in a story as it is to know what isn't working. And I have to really work to seek out difficult feedback a lot of the time. But I also really need people to reflect back to me like, yeah, that joke is funny. This scene is working. I like what you did with this character. Whatever it is,

I need that feedback to come in both directions. I need to know what's good. And I also need to know what's not working. Right. Because sometimes you need someone else to get excited about what you are excited about or to validate a good choice. Yeah. Or just to give you props for what you are doing well before they help you see what you are not doing well. It's not just, you know, being artificially inflated or coddled or whatever. That's someone seeing you or your work or your choices for what they are

and holding up a mirror to what you're doing well. I agree. That is super important. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. But that's different from selective praise or unqualified validation. That's just designed to stroke your ego. That's the kind of censorship that we've been talking about. That's what truly doesn't serve us.

What we need, what everyone needs, is meaningful criticism, unvarnished opinions. Those might sting, but we need to choose to seek that out from the people we trust. Once you start doing that, your relationships tend to become a lot clearer, and they also become a lot more productive. So it's interesting. Being more honest, inviting honesty, that's actually a way to instantly elevate your relationships in general. Yeah, absolutely.

And also a kind of litmus test for your relationships. Like which ones are actually strong? Which ones are actually authentic? Which ones can tolerate the healthy conflict of disagreement? Oh, let me find out. Let me tell this friend what I really think of their problematic partner. Let me ask this friend to give me notes on my article. Are they really willing to go there?

Or are they just going to shut down or get mad or pull away? Yeah. And their response will tell you a lot about whether that friendship still serves you, if it still lives up to your values. The more you step into honesty, the more you'll begin to appreciate that candor in other people. And also, the less you'll seek out people who would rather spare your feelings than really help you grow. And that's how you tend to attract people who share your values. And not just the value of honesty, but all of these related values, right?

Like growth and transparency and generosity, curiosity, curiosity, kindness, passion, all the stuff that makes up this experience we call honesty. Yeah, that's powerful for sure. Because when you find people who do value honesty the same way you do, a virtuous cycle kicks in where that honesty secures even more honesty in the turn. When you're candid with the people in your life, you're signaling to them that they can be candid with you. There's no implicit agreement that both of you were going to tiptoe around uncomfortable facts or withhold important feedback. You create a space for the other person to reciprocate your candor. Sam Harris talked about this in our interview as well, how being honest with other people fundamentally changes the

dynamic of a friendship. Sam put it this way. You train the people in your life. They know what to expect from you. I don't find people coming to me anymore who don't actually want to know what I think. And that's also very helpful. And then people return the favor. If you're someone who was really honest in criticizing what somebody was doing and then you need criticism of your own work, well, then you can get it. You know, there are people who are locked and loaded and ready to return in time. I love that one of the things Sam values. about honesty isn't just that people return the favor when he needs it. It's that they don't waste his goddamn time anymore. Classic Sam Harris somehow, but it's also huge. You don't spend two weeks

reading someone's manuscript who's going to turn around and get freaking mad at you for telling them that it needs work or sit through a three and a half hour lunch with somebody who complains about their awful partner and then refuses to engage when you're like, hey, I think you might want to rethink this relationship. I mean, it's a secondary benefit of honesty, but it is so important. When you're candid and your candor self-selects for people who appreciate that, the value of your time just instantly goes up. Of course, because when you tell someone the truth, you create a tone, you set the tone for the relationship overall, right? You're basically saying, I take you seriously enough to share my honest opinion, and I trust that you're ready and willing to hear it. And I'm also making

it safe for you to treat me the same way. That's what our new relationship is going to be about. That's a healthy dynamic in a friendship. It's also a very powerful, those for companies, families, any kind of community, although I would say that most of them still struggle to embrace it. The ones that do, though, they tend to generate remarkable results. I'm thinking about places like Ray Dalio's hedge fund where he's basically institutionalized radical candor in a way that avoids a lot of dysfunction and exposes people to the tough feedback they need to get better. It might also be a little bumpy sometimes, I understand, but the net result is a higher performance workplace, and also one with more accountability, where people learn to

tolerate the discomfort of direct confrontation. So right now, you might be thinking, okay, cool, I agree with everything you guys are saying in principle, but can I really be brutally honest with everyone in my life 100% of the time? Can I really be that person with my friends and my family and my colleagues without hurting them or driving them away? And that is a fair question, because as we all know, honesty is powerful, but it's not always, easy, and it's also not always possible, given the circumstances. So what's the line between honesty and sensitivity? How do you balance your need for candor with the practical realities of power and politics, and just not wanting to be an a-hole all the time? Well, the first step

is to make sure that you are being honest in the right spirit. So it's important to recognize right off the bat that deciding to be honest with somebody, it doesn't mean you're necessarily right. it just means that you're willing to share an authentic response and then explore it with the other person to arrive at the best possible conclusion. There doesn't have to be a presumption of superiority. You can be honest without claiming the intellectual high ground, so to speak. But we all know that a lot of the so-called honest people, they're not like this at all. A lot of the people who describe themselves as radically honest, they're just being dicks, right? They use their radical honesty to justify being harsh, they're smug, it's unconsored,

kind, there's an air of superiority about them that's totally unnecessary. Right. Or they let themselves off the hook for being sensitive and appropriate or tactful at all. And obviously that brand of honesty is not going to generate the benefits we've been talking about in this episode. In fact, it'll most certainly work against you. I've met some of these authors in real life who write books about this kind of thing. I'm obviously not going to mention any names.

And I'm not talking about a show guest or anything. But I remember being like, oh, super radical, uncensored honesty. And just being like, this person is a prick. There's no, nobody asked him to be honest about this or that. Or he just speaks his mind. And then look, you could tell, he had to tell. He would look for your reaction every time. And you could tell he got a little bit of joy how to just like poking everyone's balloon,

popping everyone's balloon, raining on everybody's parade. And then he's like, well, I'm the guy who wrote the book on da-da-da-da. And it's like, yeah, but nobody asked you for this. You just gave yourself a license to be a jerk everywhere. and then you use it to hawk your book, like, go screw yourself, dude. And it's on them if they're getting upset because they clearly are not involved enough to receive my radical honesty. And it was just the most, it was just the most Santa Monica thing ever.

So being productively honest means sharing your candor in a helpful spirit in a way that's kind, supportive, and most importantly, it's got to be flexible. You can give a friend tough notes on their manuscript, and you can still be respectful. You can offer a friend some tough relationship advice, and you can be compassionate. You can tell a friend how they upset you and stay open to looking at the conflict from another perspective. Honesty doesn't imply righteousness or superiority. It just means speaking up when you have a point of view and then using that point of view

to get to a better one. And I know, Gabriel, it's kind of funny. People will send us kind of angry notes. They'll be like, on Feedback Friday, you let that person off too easy. Yep. Because we're doing exactly this and they wanted to see us shred that person. like a FM radio talk show, call in. And I'm like, I'm not going to pull an Adam Carolla on this person.

That's not necessary right now. And we do take some flack for that. But there's a reason that people come to us with sensitive topics. Nobody's going to do that if we're like, all right, step one, you're a freaking idiot for getting yourself into this situation. Two, might as well jump off a bridge now, buddy, your life is over. I mean, that's what a lot of these shows are like. These FM shows, for example.

And it's not really helpful. It's just entertaining for people listening, but people won't call with sensitive stuff if they think they're going to get that, and that sort of works against our mission. Again, Sam talked about how to share an opinion in the right spirit. Take a listen to this.

But if you're still in a position to give them some help by giving them honest feedback, then you really should give that feedback, and you can always give it in a way that acknowledges that it's just your opinion. You're not omniscient. You're not the ultimate arbiter

of what is good in the world. What a concept, huh? Another word for that position? Humility. So as you become more honest, balance your candor with an appropriate degree of respect and thoughtfulness. Don't assume that your radically honest opinion means that you're automatically right or that you're somehow better than the other person. Be willing to revise your position in light of new information. And remember that your opinion, it is just one perspective on the issue at hand and that other viewpoints, they might be equally true. They might even lead to better opinions. And I have to say, Joe, and I also see that play out in the feedback Friday

inbox when we get some of those brutal messages from people who are like, you guys miss this whole point, or you completely like let this person off the hook for this terrible thing they did or whatever it is. Oftentimes, they are making an interesting point. Their only mistake is assuming that their point of view is the answer. So we'll usually say something like, yeah, that's a really good point of view. And by the way, we're going to pass that along anonymously to the person who wrote in. And if it helps them arrive at a better conclusion, great. And, almost inevitably, and this is a huge credit to our listeners, people will write back and be like, oh, wow, I didn't, did not expect you to say that. Thank you. You know what? You're right. There are

probably a few angles on this. I'm happy to contribute mine. You know, it's like, it's just such an interesting point. It's hard to go wrong when you're not completely identified with the one opinion that you're sharing, but you're more interested in the potentially better opinion or decision that being honest can help lead you to. And that brings us to another important principle, which is to get very clear on your intention. In other words, why you're being honest in the first place and what direction you're trying to head in by leading with candor? Because, as we all know, honesty can be used in a lot of different ways.

You can use it to empower someone, or you can use it to cut them down or kind of make them feel bad for a decision you don't agree with. You can be honest and try to build somebody up, or you can use honesty to kind of build yourself up, which, again, as we all know, is unfortunately very common, especially a so-called radically honest people. Now, there are plenty of good reasons to be candid with a friend, right? You might want to validate them. You might want to help them. You might want to critique them.

You might want to acknowledge a problem or an injury or resolve a wound or repair the relationship. Or you might just want to get something off of your chest and clear the air and just go on record and say, this is how I feel about this decision you made or this thing you said to me or whatever the case is. But whatever your reasons are for being honest, there are a few intentions that will always serve you, well, no matter what, to arrive at the best possible answer, to deepen the relationship with the person in general, and to help the other person succeed. If you're always embodying those intentions, if you're trying to share your honesty with that spirit, it's really hard to go wrong. I agree completely in that. My experience says, just from doing the show and advising companies

and stuff like that, I find that the best type of honesty, it really opens up a conversation where both parties collaborate to arrive at the best conclusion. It's not, this is how I see things, and that's the answer, so you better fall in line. It's more like, this is my take right now based on my experience, and what do you think? Let's see if this is true or helpful to you in this moment, and let's figure it out together. And sometimes, yeah, I'll nail it from the start, less common than I would like, of course, but I'd say more often the conversation leads me to some better angle that I hadn't even considered before. And that approach works in all kinds of situations, by the way.

Instead of convincing a friend to immediately break up with their partner, you can share your perspective on their relationship in a way that helps them get more clarity and make the right decision for themselves. Or if a friend pisses you off by doing something hurtful, instead of insisting that they apologize right away, you can just share your experience of the injury and invite them to explain why they did what they did. And then you can appreciate what's going on for both of you.

I like that a lot. Or to go back to the earlier example about the book manuscript that Sam talked about, instead of sitting down with their manuscript and just letting somebody have it and being like, you need to rewrite this novel in a way that would please me, you can share your impression as a reader so that they can appreciate how their writing is coming across to somebody who doesn't have all the same associations, who's new to the material. And ultimately, after they sit with that feedback, they might disagree with you. They might even double down on their original choices. But now they have a better grasp of their work. They have more insight into what they're trying to do or how it's landing with

different audiences, and that is even more valuable than just telling them what you think it should be and expecting them to fall in line. Totally. You do not have to be 100% objectively right to be helpful in these situations. Yeah, exactly, which is a huge relief, right? For me, anyway, it takes so much pressure off of the need to be, quote unquote, right, which what does that even mean, especially when it comes to more subjective stuff like creative projects? And it helps me focus on something much more attainable and much more valuable, which is, am I understanding this person? Am I helping them arrive at the best opinion for themselves? This is the Jordan Harbinger show.

This is a deep dive on honesty. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Really love the fact that we get to have these kinds of conversations, do these kinds of deep dives. All the sponsors for all the shows are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. If you're going to make a purchase or you want to support the show, head on over there. 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 for the rest of our deep dive on honesty. Those ideas also have to be solid, which means a big part of becoming more honest is also making sure you're sharing high quality ideas in the first place, because let's be real here. Being honest is not enough to elevate your relationships. You also have to have informed opinions, meaningful perspectives, valuable thoughts. We all know tons of uncensored people who are straight up wrong. In fact, somehow it's usually the wrong ones who love to be uncensored and blast their crap everywhere.

Being candid doesn't do much good and can actually do real harm if your candid opinions. They just don't hold any water. And we all know somebody like this. Right. We don't go to them deliberately for their opinion because it's always a bunch of nonsense. They just want to hear them there's bloviating. So as you increase your capacity for candor, keep investing in the quality of your ideas. If you're going to become more vocal with your boss at work, make damn sure you have a solid understanding of your industry, an appreciation of what it would actually take to make your recommendation succeed. If you're going to weigh in on your friend's relationships, make sure you understand their needs, the implications of your advice, why they're

doing what they're doing. If you're going to give someone notes on their presentation or their novel or whatever, make sure you have a good understanding of their subject matter, their goals as a presenter or artist or whatever, and what they're trying to do with the story. Yeah, right. In other words, know what the hell you're talking about to some degree before you let somebody have it. Yeah, or if you don't, qualify your opinion and balance it with some humility. Again, most opinions would benefit from saying, hey, there might be some things I don't fully understand yet, but here's my honest take at this moment, just gut reaction, we can talk it out. That's a great way to begin any conversation.

Such a good way. I think that's an excellent point. But there's another tricky element we have to talk about here, which is whom you're speaking to in this moment. Because, look, being more honest is great, but you have to consider the nature of the relationship. Different relationships and also different circumstances call for different degrees of honesty. Your best friend for 20 years, for example, that person probably deserves a pretty high level of candor from you. If you deprive them of your honest opinion or if they deprive them, or if they deprive them, view of their honest opinion, that would be a betrayal of the understood terms of that friendship. But if you're just getting to know somebody for the first time, you might not want to hit them

with your most unfiltered opinions right off the bat. It would probably be inappropriate, for example, to tell somebody you just met at a party to like quit their job tomorrow or to stop talking to their mother because she sounds terrible in the 20 seconds of conversation you had about them, like, or to, you know, leave their boyfriend or their girlfriend because they complained about being late, whatever it is, you need a foundation for that kind of candor. And if you assume that foundation too quickly, it'll probably come across as presumptuous and a little pushy. So I'm not saying you shouldn't be authentic with new people, but it takes time to build

the trust and also just gather the basic information necessary to support certain kinds of honesty. Yeah, Gabe those people, it's like a Reddit post where someone's like, my mom brought tuna casserole to Christmas again after I asked her not to go no contact right away. It's like, toxic mother. Toxic. Yeah, here's a forum. for people who are raised by narcissists, like,

okay. Look, I do agree with you. I do have one caveat to that, which is that taking a chance in being weirdly honest with somebody new, that can sometimes deepen a relationship really quickly. And that can be powerful, too. Like being unusually open on a first date, that can really accelerate intimacy,

skip that weird phase in dating where you're low-key, just trying to pretend you're someone else for the first, I don't know, eight dates, whatever. Fair point, yeah. Or being a little more direct than you, quote unquote, should be in a job interview, that can really cut through the pretense of an interview. It can make a hiring manager see you as somebody who can speak their mind and run towards

problems. And that might be why you land that job. So I guess my point is, sometimes you have to be honest in ways that seems sort of to contradict the nature of the relationship in order to make the most of that relationship. But it seems also like one of those where you need to know the rules really well before you start breaking them. Yeah, no, that's a really fair point. Sometimes it's a entirely appropriate to take that risk if it serves the relationship. But again, I think it's just confirming that you just have to take into account what the relationship is. But at the same time, you also have to take into account people's unique personalities. Some people, as we all know, have a naturally high tolerance for candor. They can engage in difficult conversations. They can

metabolize difficult feedback. They can process their feelings around criticism pretty easily. Other people have a harder time with candor. They're more easily demoralized by criticism, or they're so deprived of honesty in their life that they just don't really know how to respond when it shows up. With these kinds of folks, you might have to move a little more slowly, or frame your comments in a more digestible way, or just wait for the right moment to speak up. So you have to consider all of the variables at play in a relationship, the person's mood, their outlook, their capacity for healthy conflict,

their willingness to change, their ability to make decisions, and maybe most importantly, what they need most at this moment. Which again, goes back to the intention thing. What do they need? What am I trying to do here? Right. But Gabe, I think we should pause here for a second because I can imagine people listening to this and going, wait a minute, this whole time, you guys have been saying that you

have to be radically honest. Now you're saying you have to tailor your message to different people. Isn't that kind of self-censoring again? Isn't that holding back to protect people's feelings? Okay. So great question. And my answer to that is not necessarily. Because like we talked about, being radically honest doesn't let you off the hook for being

thoughtful, right? If you want your opinions to land the right way, you have to take into account how other people are going to receive them. Because ultimately, it doesn't do you any good to inflict your radically honest opinion on another person if they're not in a place to make good use of it, or if they happen to have a personality, or they're in a position or a circumstance that makes it hard for them to really hear you. But you're bringing up a good point, Jordan, which is there is a very fine line here. Once you find yourself biting your tongue to protect somebody's feelings or you're withholding deliberately and very often to spare yourself some discomfort, then you're in dicey territory again. That's when being artful and delicate has probably

tipped over into dishonesty once again. And that's when you have to check in and really ask yourself, am I being tactful or am I being untruthful? I like that. Tactful versus untruthful. That's a good one to keep in mind. But I think what you're also getting at here is there are times where it's okay not to be honest. For all the benefits of radical honesty, there are definitely situations where honesty will not serve you well. Or where extreme candor just is not appropriate.

Let's take work, for example. If you're part of a large organization with established politics and rules, letting your uncensored opinions fly in a meeting, probably not a good look. Your boss might benefit from your no-holds-barred opinion, sure, but that does not mean you should give them feedback in front of the whole team.

Obviously, you have to pick the right moments to be candid, frame your message carefully, know that your opinion might not always win out. Another interesting scenario that comes to mind, helping a friend get through a tough breakup. You might have some very strong opinions about their relationship, maybe even their choice of partners in general, but it would be, it would probably be pretty hurtful to start dissecting their mistakes while they're grieving. They're sitting on the couch with a box of Kleenex and you're like, I told you so, Angela. I just want you to know. I told you from the jump that he was a jerk. He's not going to play well.

Yeah. In that moment, what your friend needs most is compassion, solidarity, comfort. In a few weeks when they have a little more perspective, yeah, then your candid opinions will probably be a lot more helpful. They will already know that you told them so. In other words, sometimes you got to pull back on being radically honest in order to do something more important, which is, in this case, yeah, be there for your friend. Yeah, absolutely. It is such a good point. We don't have to be radically honest right now, every single moment, every single moment, every single time in order to be helpful. Sometimes what a situation calls for isn't honesty. Another scenario we have to talk about, because it comes up all the time on Feedback Friday especially, is spending time with family. That's where a lot of people get tripped up when it comes to honesty, because when it comes to family, your impulse to be radically honest, that will often conflict with something else, which is usually the need to keep the peace. Yeah, maybe you want to tell your uncle why his political views are insane, or you want to hash out your childhood trauma. with your mom or you want to put your weird cousin in his place when he starts, I don't know, pushing you to sign up for his creepy supplement MLM. I'm just naming examples we've heard on

feedback Friday over the last few months. But you also don't want to blow up Mother's Day by creating unnecessary drama, right? So when it comes to family, where's the line? Well, I know what Sam Harris would say, which is that there are some circumstances where radical honesty just isn't practical. Like to your point, doing Mother's Day or Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Take a listen to what he says here. I acknowledge that there are circumstances where this is just not practical. Basically, you know, you have one Thanksgiving dinner a year with these people and your job is just not to ruin it. You know, you're not going to change anybody. You're not going to perform an exorcism that's going to make your aunt or uncle a fundamentally different person. But in those cases,

I think you can just be tactful. You can change the topic. You can just simply not comment on things that you might have a lot to say about. So being political in that sense and just being wise to avoid specific issues is not the same as lying. Even keeping a secret is not the same as lying. I'll say that again because I think that's a really great point. Being political and being wise are not the same thing as lying. What Sam's getting at is there's often something more important than speaking your truth all the time. It's usually more important to have a pleasant Thanksgiving giving dinner with your family once a year than it is to have a spontaneous family therapy session with Crazy Uncle Frank especially. Being radically honest in moments like this can be aggressive,

it's going to come across as rude, not to mention totally unproductive. Sometimes your need for authenticity, even when it's legitimate, it has to take a back seat. Yeah, that's a really nice way looking at it. But I would also add that if you embrace more candor in your life on a regular basis, you probably won't feel as much of a need to really let your family have it once a year over the holidays. That's another benefit of being more honest just as a matter of policy. You deal with conflicts as they crop up. You speak up when something bothers you instead of letting the resentment build to the point where acknowledging it becomes super chaotic and disruptive because it's happening once a year. Yeah, that's also a really good point. Why let the dam build up

until it bursts, if you can just be a little bit more candid on an ongoing basis. But the other thing Sam talks about is you have to balance your need to be honest with a realistic grasp of other people. Because sure, you can lecture your uncle about why he voted for the wrong person or trash your cousin's dumb conspiracy theories on Facebook. But is that really going to help them change? Is being radically honest in that context the best way to help them reconsider their views? Probably not. So if your brutally honest opinion isn't even going to do much, much good. And there's a more important goal at stake, which is just having a nice time, making sure everybody's happy, then yeah, the answer a lot of the time is to actually bite your tongue

and let things roll off your back, censor yourself a little bit, because sometimes what people need most from us is not radical honesty. Sometimes what they need is empathy, they need comfort, they need a little recognition, or just some freaking peace and quiet, a healthy space to be themselves and get through this darn meal together. Although if you think about it, those might be forms of honesty too. You're being honest about the fact that there's something more important than unleashing on everybody. So that's our take on honesty, why it matters so much, how to give it, when to give it, when not to give it. And let's just acknowledge, this is a really tough thing to embrace. It doesn't come naturally to most human beings because

it flies in the face of so many impulses in a lifetime of conditioning to not provoke people, to not hurt people, to not hurt ourselves. In fact, that tension between the impulse to be authentic and the impulse to protect, that's one of the hardest parts of relationships. The key to resolving it is stepping into more and more honesty while balancing that approach with what a specific person or situation requires. But as Sam Harris captured so well in that interview, honesty is a core element of all healthy relationships. We owe it to other people to be candid, and other people owe it to us. When we're not candid with other people, we miss out on more authentic relationships and we tend to settle for less authentic ones.

We miss out on the gift of empowering our friends, to be honest with us in return. But most importantly, we fail to cultivate integrity. The integrity of being able to say, this is what I believe, and I trust you to hear it, and the integrity of saying, I need to hear the truth, and I trust you to give it to me. That simple dynamic, that is so powerful. So given all that, it's kind of crazy we'd settle for anything less than that. in total honesty, but that doesn't make it easy. That's why we have to practice this. We have to work up to the levels of honesty that we feel are right to us. We have to experiment and see what

works and discover what doesn't and constantly recalibrate. And that's a lifelong process. So that's my invitation for you to start embracing honesty a little bit more each day in indifferent circumstances. You don't need to become an uncensored maniac who doesn't care what other people think. And you don't need to be brutally honest in every single encounter with every single person, every single day, you just need to step a little bit more into honesty in your interactions, in your relationships, and then see what it does for you, see what it does for the other people in your life. I can't tell you exactly what'll happen. You're going to have to find that out for yourself. Everybody is different, of course, but I can promise you that it'll put you in touch

with ideas and feelings you've probably avoided or missed out on in the past, and it'll change your experience of your relationships and of yourself. And it will almost certainly lead to better outcomes in the long run, whatever those are. And that is huge. And if you want to hear more from Sam Harris and his views on honesty and lying, check out our interview that was episode 698. We'll link to that in the show notes for you. All right. Well, that's it. And hey, I look forward to hearing only positive feedback about this episode because otherwise I'm going to get really upset and fire off a really nasty email and response to your. So, but seriously, though, I think this is a really important concept. Thank you everyone for listening. Links to everything

that you need from this episode will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes, videos up on YouTube, advertisers, deals, and discount codes are all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or you can just hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. I'm teaching you how to connect with amazing people and manage relationships using software systems and tiny habits. That's our six-minute networking course. The course is free.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where you can find it. I'm teaching you how to dig the well before you get thirsty. And hey, many of the guests on the show, they subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you got somebody you want more honesty from or you want to give more honesty too in your life or you think they could benefit from hearing our little spiel on honesty, definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you

listen and we'll see you next time. We've got a preview trailer of our interview with Dr. James Fallon on how psychopath brains function differently from the rest of us and why psychopaths thrive in modern society. So stay tuned for that after the close of the show. I'm a neuroscientist since about 1989. I've studied the brain imaging scans of killers, serial killers, really bad murders. And you should did one or two a year for many years. And then in 2005, 2006, I got set a time.

ton of them. And I analyzed them. I said, oh, my God, there's a pattern. So I saw this pattern that nobody had ever described. But at the same time, we were doing a clinical study on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. And we had all the Alzheimer's patients we needed. So we needed normal, just normal controls. And so I asked my family, that was kind of my first mistake. I said, look, guys, you want to all get in. I have my brothers, my wife. I said, we'll test you. And the idea being that on my side of the family, there was no Alzheimer's at all. So we did it. And the two technicians walked into my office. And on my right side, I piled all these murderers, brain scans. And they handed me, the pile of my family scans. And they were covered up so I couldn't

see the names. And so I went through, I went through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I was really relieved that they looked at the first pass, normal. And then I got to the last scan and it looked at it. I said, okay, guys, they said, this is very funny. You kid around with each other, right? And I said, okay, you switched him. You took one of the worst psychopasts from this pile of murders, and he has switched it into my family, ha, ha, ha. And they go, no, it's part of your family. I said, you've got to be kidding. I said, this guy shouldn't be walking around in open society. It's probably a very dangerous person. So I had to tear back the covering on the name of it. And there was my name.

For more with Dr. James Fallon, including how to spot a psychopath in the wild, check out episode 28 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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