The Jordan Harbinger Show - 77: Feedback Friday | How to Build Good Financial Habits from the Ground Up

Episode Date: August 3, 2018

Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason DeFillippo (@jpdef) banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now, let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: If you're a lightweight, how can you pace yourself on a night out with heavily drinking coworkers without getting blackout drunk? What resources do we recommend for building proper financial habits from the ground up? How can you accept a new sales job that will have you directly competing with your old coworkers in a small market without feeling like a jerk? If you're replaying negative feelings and thoughts of lost relationships in your head during moments of weakness in an otherwise fulfilling life, how might you break this habit and move on? When you're dating someone of high value who gets a lot of attention from the opposite sex, how do you keep your feelings of jealousy at bay? When you're the sole breadwinner for the family, how can you take time out for yourself to cope with internal struggles without disrupting the lives of your loved ones? When you're the boss' kid, how do you prove to your coworkers that you consider yourself equal to everyone and capable of doing the job on your own merits? How do you approach your competitors in a small market when doing market research? Recommendation of the Week: How to get free Sunglass Hut cleaning spray refills for life. Quick shoutouts to Diana and Zach! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week, we had Barbara Boxer, who, man, tons of people loved this one, Jason. And then a couple of people were like, how dare you, which we expected.

But I expected, honestly, the inverse ratio of that. I thought it would be even more controversial, but maybe the people who really hated it are just being really polite right now. She was talking about growing up tough and dealing with, well, being a woman in a man's world, certainly for her whole career, among other subjects. And she's just a fascinating character. She's a super, can you use the word charismatic for somebody who's sort of sweeten? She's really just sort of sweet enough to get her way on a lot of things, but also kind of a badass. I'm not really sure how else to stir the pot on this one.

She really is that kind of mix. What vibe did you get from her, Jason? Oh, she is completely charismatic. You can say that. But she is a sweetheart and a force to be reckoned with. She is basically a force of nature. Yeah, there's something like that that comes from dealing with a lot of people who are used to getting their way for your whole life. And she's just mastered that.

And of course, we also had Alex Coots Part 3, the third and final part in our negotiation series, which has been a massive hit. I just kind of want to have him back every week. But, you know, he's got a life and stuff getting in the way. Oh, yeah. Kind of. He's got some stuff going on. He does. And man, that negotiation series has just been on fire. It's been one of our most popular set of episodes ever done on the show. And it is not just useful for negotiating everything from a mattress to a salary increase, but the concepts, the psychological concepts in there for getting what you want and making sure that it's a win-win situation. And being a cutthroat negotiation ninja has been pretty enlightening. really, really good at that. And of course, our primary mission on the show is to pass along our guests' knowledge and our experiences and insights along to you. So the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you. And that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Try to keep them concise.

If you can, it makes things a lot easier for us. And I'll just tell you from a personal perspective, when I go through these questions, if I see a wall of text that's like the whole screen, I usually just mark it as red and I go, I'm going to come back to this later. And I'll give you one guess when later is. So maybe the next life, but not this one. My plan is like someday I'm going to have an intern who goes through the inbox and reads everything and parses it for me. But here's the problem with that. There's tons of people that want to help out with the show. But I'm like, here's a bunch of people's really personal stuff. I just can't do that. You know, I can't, I can't do that. So I have to find somebody that I know, that I trust. And

So I've been having Jen go through it, and she is even slower than I am at parsing it because she cares a lot about everybody who writes in. So I'm like, hey, if it's super long, please don't spend 45 minutes reading it because you have to read like 50. So basically we need to find somebody you trust who can keep their mouth shut, who has no empathy to be faster doing what we're doing. So, yeah, I think you might find Bigfoot faster. Yeah, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. I need a sociopath that we can trust. Exactly. So yeah, damn it.

Right, exactly. So that's where we stand on that. So keep them concise. That's just long and short of it. And let's see. What else, Jason? What's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan and Jason.

I enjoy going out drinking, but I'm a bit of a lightweight in an office of heavy drinkers. I often decide beforehand to only have two or three pints, but my resolution fades the more I drink. That's kind of how that works. And I end up losing my memory of parts of the evening. Do you have any ideas or tips for conventional? controlling the amount or pace of drinking on a night out that even a tipsy person can follow. At 38, am I just too old for this shit? Thanks.

Lightweight Larry. Yes. You're too old for this shit. That first and foremost, yeah, we're all too old for this stuff. But even two to three drinks, in my opinion, you know, is a large-ish amount of alcohol on a weeknight especially. Especially if you're doing it, quote-unquote, socially and you don't have, like, a mission to accomplish. if you know what I mean like Jason and I had our days in our earlier years I won't label us as to when but where it's like yeah we can look how much we can and it wasn't even the thing we were proud of we were just dummies to put it lightly and I would say if I drink two or three pints on a Tuesday Wednesday might end up a little sluggish period and as we get older and we'll hear more about this from some sleep doctors we've got coming on the show it depends on the person of course but when I drink one or two beer with dinner, my sleep is disrupted, period.

I will wake up at 2, 3 a.m. I think that's probably happening to a lot of us, even if we don't wake up. It's obviously changing what our brain is doing, and we're going to get into some of the science behind that in a future show, but this is not good for you. And bear in mind that any time you're losing memory of the evening,

this is a really bad sign, and that could indicate some brain damage or the potential for brain damage or that alcohol is affecting your brain in a way that's a little bit not so good. remember Jason when you were like 22 and you could drink your body weight in anything and you could get up and go to the gym the next morning or like run around or go to class you didn't have a hangover you remembered the whole thing you laughed at all the stupid stuff you did that doesn't happen to me now now

i'm like oh i think i remember talking to john for like three hours i wonder what happened and i'm like hey john what's up man and he's like you're you're a terrible person i'm like oh okay we should probably recap what happened last night because i actually just thought we like got tacos and he's like yeah there were two and a half hours prior to that you might want to like check the tape and I'm like oh I might not want to you know so I got to be careful with that stuff and I'd like to think I'm not a bad person when I drink in fact usually it's it's kind of like you were hilarious last night and I'm like oh geez I thought I went to bed at seven right so yeah so that's that's not good and I would say try starting with one pint and then holding a soda

water for an hour and then you can drink another pint and look by the time we've had that much liquid the bathroom trips will naturally slow you down and the fact is once you start seeing how sloshed everyone else is getting and you're kind of keeping a much slower pace you're probably not going to want to go gee i need to catch up with everyone you're going to go okay i'm i've had it this is enough for me and they're not going to remember that you weren't doing that because they're going to be annihilated by 9 p.m so you just don't have to worry about that and jason you've got pretty good drink pace skills when you want to that is what i want to yeah It's a lifetime of practice that brings me to this.

But you can definitely, if you're going out for pints, you can ask for a soda back when you order your pint. And it's commonly used when you're getting like a whiskey, but most bartenders will still give it to you for free. So that's an easy way to get like a free club soda with your pint or just a water even. And just alternate between the two to slow down because you definitely want to keep hydrated, which is a big thing that a lot of people don't do. You want to have at least one glass of water for every drink you have. And that's going to come back into the bathroom bit for sure. but that's going to keep your brain basically soggy enough where you won't forget the evening. You're not going to be as buzzed, but that's kind of the point.

You don't want to get too buzz where you're just like, oh, screw it, shots for everybody. And then you wake up in Tijuana, which has almost happened. I've been there, done that. And you also want to eat a big meal before you go out. You know, even if you're like doing it on the down low, like, you know, sneak a couple protein bars or something like before you head out just so your stomach is full because it's going to slow things down just a bit. because the food in your stomach will absorb the alcohol,

and that will let you pace yourself a little bit better. You're not really going to be wanting to pound a ton of beer when your stomach's full, because it's just like, you know, liquid bread anyway. Yeah. But if you do switch over to shots, you're definitely screwed. Yeah. Yeah, the other way to do this is, you know, you can go to club soda with a lime, and then if people are giving you crap about, like, you know, not pound in pints,

you say, oh, I'm just having a gin and tonic. When it's just club soda and a lime, nobody knows the difference. So if that's part of what you're feeling when you go out and you're feeling pressure from your, you know, super drunk, you know, office mates. That's one way to get around it. Also, I've seen this one in a movie. Basically, you just spit your beer back in the bottle if you have a bottle of a beer. And then you just have the same bottle all night.

Nice. Or if you have to do, if they give you shots, you do the shot, and then you pretend to take a swig of beer and then you spit the shot back in the beer and then go to the bathroom and empty out the beer. There's a lot of ways to be crafty about this. But for the most part, just slow down, dude. You know, you're 38. I'm 46 going on 46.

and I can tell you it doesn't get any better at all. The key, though, is really you need to get comfortable telling your colleagues that you're slowing it down. And if you do this in a way that's not judgy and you're resolute in your decision, you'll be fine. People will play along. I think people overthink the idea that people just aren't going to like them or something if they don't drink.

And I've never encountered that. Me neither. Even among, like, hardcore alcoholic type people, and I don't mean that in like a funny way. I mean, even in people who are drinking, like, really, they're just hammering it down. They don't, they're absorbed with their own stuff. They don't care if you're drinking or not. Like, some people might try to get you to do it if they're really insecure, but your colleagues are just like, whatever, as long as you're hanging out with us, like, who cares?

You know, it doesn't matter. So I think it's important to your productivity and your future because it's your health. And I think it's also important to make sure that you're comfortable just telling people, yeah, I just don't drink that much, but I'm happy to be here. And that way, you're not like the stiff who's like, oh, you're. you're having another one, right? You're not that guy, but you're also not like, well, I guess I better get wasted and ruin my week because my friends are doing it.

I mean, this isn't high school. You know, you have to be comfortable saying, in fact, some of the most fun people, Jason at bars are the people who are like, yeah, I don't drink anymore. And then you're just like, oh, okay. And they're the riot, right? Because they're the people who are like, yeah, I used to maybe do a little bit too much of this. And their brain is still sharp so they can remember all the jokes instead of screwing them up halfway through and slurring their way through.

Yeah, and they play along. Again, some of my funest friends are the recovering alcoholics or like, yeah, I don't touch the stuff, but they are hysterical. I mean, they're just, they're the people who have many years under their belt. So you can be that person if it's really bugging you that you feel like a stick in the mud without alcohol. This is Feedback Friday.

Stick around and we'll get right back to your questions after these important messages from our sponsors. Thanks for supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. We're rebuilding the show from scratch, so a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice

would really go a long way to helping us out. It only takes a minute or two, and if you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hey, team, what would you recommend

for someone who sucks with finances to learn to kick butt at it? I'm a 28-year-old man, and despite huge strides over the years, there's one thing that hinders all my success. Finances. To be frank, I suck at budgeting and living within my means. At my very worst, I nearly bankrupted myself three years ago by doing all the wrong things.

Life coaching school that cost $1,800 Canadian a month, quit my job to go all in, you know, all the cliches. Since then, I've worked my butt off and crawled out of debt. Multiple jobs, 80-plus hour weeks, moved towns for better jobs, studied and did tests to let me practice where I live now. It was brutal and humbling, but my hard work paid off and life is amazing now. I love my career as a medic and I'm moving up fast. However, the same old habits that got me into debt in the first place are creeping back in. More than happy to live slightly outside my means, then try to make up for it by doing back-to-back shifts. But there's only so many hours in the day to work.

It's time to sort this out. During a prior feedback Friday episode, you guys spoke of a financial book that helped Jason a ton and it got me thinking, What would you recommend in terms of advice and resources for building proper financial habits from the ground up? Thanks for any and all advice. Signed, heroically broke. All right. Heroically broke? Not bad.

Yeah. So what I would say is you should start with something simple that creates systems. So I love Ramid Seetis. I will teach you to be rich. I know the book title says I'll teach you to be rich. But really what that means is I'm going to teach you systems and habits that are going to automate the process. of saving enough for retirement. And that's less sexy title decidedly.

But the underlying issue here is that you're probably stressed and you're not managing it. It doesn't require a whole lot to get good with money. It's not just discipline systems so that your paycheck immediately gets a chunk taken out of it that goes somewhere else and a place that you won't touch and then gets invested. It's not really complex. It doesn't sound like you're depressed as much as it sounds like you're stressed. and spending gives a dopamine hit that you then crave. So I would say using your own psychology against yourself, Rameet's book will show you how to do this.

We'll link to that in the show notes. Things like, oh, you don't even see your income come in, having separate checking accounts that are automated and moving money around from you so that you already have the amount that you need each month taken out, and then you can just spend the rest on whatever you want. And when it's gone, it's gone, but you haven't spent your entire check.

You've already invested, you know, $1,000 in your return. retirement. And this stuff has helped me and a lot of my friends. It's really not too complex and it's easy to set up. The real issue is why you keep spending or living above your means. Like I said, stress compounded by more work to make more money, which then causes more stress. So you can see the vicious cycle here. And I'm wondering, are you staying fit? Are you getting enough sun? Are you eating right? Are you sleeping? Probably not because you have all that work. All of these things, if you do them right, will keep stress at bay and you'll get dopamine from go. and out on a walk and getting some sun,

making sure that you're going to the gym, that will help you retain some of your willpower and hopefully keep you from overspending just to make yourself feel better. So there's a lot of things going on here. Yes, you need systems, but it's not only a lack of knowledge that's putting you in this position.

It's the fact that you are probably getting a dopamine hit from ordering something online or going shopping or buying something or living above your means. And that's what we've got a sort of short circuit. Oh, that midnight sitting in front of the TV because you can't sleep because you work too much and you're stressed out,

and then you buy things on the shopping channel late at night, and it just compounds itself and goes and goes, that kind of thing? Oh, maybe. I don't know. By the way, can I borrow your slapchop? I know you have like nine of those. Yeah, I actually do. Oh, my God.

It's fortunately not mine. I didn't buy it. My roommate bought it, but yes, I know that cycle. And if you can't get the willpower yourself, and I had a problem with this for a long time, what you can also do is instead of trying to tackle this on your own, Get a business manager and an accountant. All the money goes to them.

They write you a check every month and says, this is how much you can spend. Do they take care of the bills? It's expensive because they take their cut from it, but it will get you back on track if you're in debt and trying to pay that down. It saved my bacon. Really?

Yeah, yeah. I had a business manager for a couple years now, and that's why I'm slowly climbing out of the debt hole because they take care of everything for me. And it works. You hired like a money nanny. Yeah, basically. It sounds like a good idea.

Yeah. It really works. Where can someone find someone like that? You can just search for business manager or talk to your, find it. If you don't have an accountant already, you should always have an accountant to do your taxes. And that person can generally put you in touch with a business manager as well, or they can take over that if they have a full service shop. Yeah. Because some accountants will do that for you, but talk to your accountant first or friends who have business managers.

I mean, it's not a standard thing. I'm in Hollywood, so, you know, we know a lot of people with business. managers. So I got a recommendation from a friend, but they're out there. They're definitely out there. And your accountant will definitely be the first place to start looking. Yeah, that makes sense. What you should not do is hire a random person online and give them access to all your bank accounts. Absolutely not. That's bad. Definitely not. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and team, I work in medical device sales and I'm in the final stages of interviewing with the new company. If I'm offered and accept the new position, it will blindside and screw over the two reps I

currently share a territory with. They won't be able to cover business because in this field, we have to be at each surgery where our product is used. Can you offer any advice as to how I should announce or handle my departure? It's a better move for me in every aspect. That's not the issue. The issue is my fear of angering and screwing over two co-workers with whom I have a great professional relationship. It's just not my style. Thanks. How to move on without being a dick. Nice. How to move on without being a dick. Great, very catchy. I understand your situation and I respect the problem. I think it's admirable that you don't want to screw over your workmates. I think a lot of people probably don't think as much about that and then they leave people in the lurch and it does damage

relationships. Obviously telling the current gig you're interviewing elsewhere, that's a great way to get fired. And then screw over your colleagues anyway because you're gone because you got fired. So what I would do is this. Do the interview and go out and go grab the job that you, want, ask for the job, whatever. If you get an offer, accept the offer, but tell them you need X number of days or a couple of weeks before you start because you want to make sure that you don't leave your workmates and your current company in the lurch because you never want to do that to anyone and it's important to keep your reputation intact. And you can literally say, because I don't want to leave my workmates in current company in the lurch because I never

want to do that to anyone or any company and it's important to keep my reputation intact because they have to respect this. That's what they would want for themselves if they found you in that same situation. You were working for them. That's how they would want to be treated. So if they say, no, we really need you right now, screw your old company.

You might want to question whether or not that's the kind of place that you want to work because if they're willing to sort of chew you up and spit you out or have somebody else do the same to somebody else, that's probably how they're going to treat you later. So bear that in mind. I think most reputable companies would say, okay, respect, I understand. We really need you ASAP,

but I understand that you might need a week or two to wrap this up. And then you immediately, without delay, sign something. First of all, don't just get a verbal. Sign something. Take the offer. Then immediately notify your company and your workmates what's going on and do everything in your power to make sure that you don't leave them totally screwed. Because I understand how that could be. you really want to make sure that these relationships are intact. So have personal talks with your colleagues, treat them well, keep in touch with them after you leave, and make sure that they're taken care of. And if your current job is so good, then maybe you can bring these colleagues with you in a few months or a few years,

and you can keep those relationships for decades to come. So handle it that way, make sure that everybody's taken care of. And if your old company is really upset by this, it's understandable, but I think that giving them enough time for you to wrap up current projects and make sure that they can find someone else. Maybe you can even refer someone else for your position or recommend somebody be put up for promotion that you've seen showing potential inside the current company that you're with.

All of that is helpful. Congrats on the promotion, by the way. All right, what's next? Jordan and Jason, I've been through a couple of breakups in recent years and I keep replaying in my head the negative feelings and thoughts that were present in the months that followed. This doesn't happen all the time. If I'm busy at work with friends or with family, then I'm fine.

It's usually in solo moments like when I'm driving, running, or having a rest period at the gym. The relationships in question ended two and a half years and seven months ago, respectively. Both by text message, by the way. And with how my life is panned out, I'm aware they never would have lasted. I also know that I'm a better man for them coming to an end and I live a busy, enjoyable life. I coach soccer part-time, work as a teacher, I spend time with friends on a consistent basis, have a side hustle at Foundationagecoaching.com, thanks to your hostgator discount, run races, travel, and I'm part of a weekly improv group.

I know that what happened is nothing that I can control and nothing that can be changed. I wouldn't go back to those relationships, and I believe that what is happening is nothing more than a habit I've gotten into that needs breaking. Unlike when I stopped smoking a few years back, when I could avoid certain triggers, it's not practical to stop driving or going to the gym. My question is, do you have any tricks, tips, or practices to help break this habit and continue to move forward in my life? Thanks for all that you do, signed Trouble Letting Go.

All right, trouble letting go. This is trauma. The feelings of guilt, the what-ifs, all that negative self-talk, all that stuff is normal with trauma. And the way that you handle trauma is with therapy. Don't try to do it on your own. I know that you're trying to be tough and it's part of life and all that stuff, but there's such a huge value here. Treat this like you were in a car wreck or you witnessed something awful because trauma is really trauma. When it comes to a thing that strongly affect us emotionally, it's your brain kind of doesn't have

a big differentiator between, oh my gosh, I saw this person get hit by a car, and oh, my gosh, I got dumped by text message after a two and a half year relationship, right? The driving, the resting at the gym, that's not really a trigger, in my opinion. And again, you're going to want to see a real therapist here, a real doctor, if possible. But the trigger is not resting at the gym. The trigger is not driving in your car. I don't think that's what's starting it. I think it's that your default mode network is sort of deactivated, kind of like, when you're showering because much of your subconscious brain is busy doing something else. You're bench pressing, you put it down, you're kind of tough, you're catching your breath.

So these underlying feelings and thought patterns become conscious to you. So it's not that the activities like driving and working out trigger the feelings. It's that those feelings are almost always there, but you just don't notice them most of the time. So fear not, these feelings and emotions and self-talk, these are your brain trying to deal with a difficult situation. You're doing all the right things by moving forward and realizing that, These are all just feelings and they're temporary. But I'd say getting professional help minimizing these types of feelings and self-talk would really go a long way to making sure that you're thinking about soccer while driving

instead of thinking about something bad that happened five years ago. One of those is much more fun than the other. And punishing yourself over and over isn't going to help you get closer to the life that you want. Props to you for getting this handled and growing so much in the process, though. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday after these, brief but important messages from our sponsors. Thanks again for supporting the show. Checking out the sponsors is what keeps us on the air.

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or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan, Jason, and team. I'm 24 years old and began working on myself two years ago, surrounding myself with high-value people in doing everything I could to improve the parts of my personality that needed some reinforcing. I recently began dating a gorgeous Brazilian woman who is amazing. Here's the issue, though. She gets a lot of male attention, and since this is the first high-value woman I've dated since beginning to work on myself, I'm not used to processing jealousy in a healthy way.

I don't want to blow this all because I was overly needy or subconsciously destroy the relationship because I feel like I don't deserve her or that I'm possessive. Any tips on how to deal with this? Sincerely, a whole new set of problems. All right, whole new set of problems. First of all, take it as a compliment. Realize, look, this says good things about you. It doesn't say bad things about you. You jumped all those guys that are giving your girlfriend all that attention.

Realize that she's dating you for a reason. Women always have a choice. We all have a choice. Would you want someone who has no choice but to be with you? Well, I've got nothing else going for me, so I guess I'll pick this guy. No, you would never want someone like that. They'd be super needy. It would drive you crazy.

You wouldn't even be attracted to them. When you catch yourself being jealous, don't try to hide it. Just call it out even to yourself. Making jealousy conscious tends to weaken its grip on our mind and in turn on our actions. So if we say, oh, you know, I'm going to get mad at Angela today because that guy looked at her and it made me feel insecure. You can literally go, oh, I'm jealous, so I'm in a bad mood, which is causing me to give my girlfriend the silent treatment over lunch, even though she didn't do anything. If you say that to yourself, you might be like, oh, this is stupid. And then you

can move on with your life. So I like to do that. I like to just call it out, even out loud, it depends on your relationship, but do it to yourself, definitely. Anytime you're about to do something that might seem controlling or jealous, ask yourself why you're doing it. So why are you tempted to check her phone if you're doing that. Why are you tempted to see where she is and when she left last night? Why are you worried about who she's with right now at some brunch? Remember, it's totally okay to have these feelings. It's totally normal.

It's okay to have them. Dwayna Welsh talked about this in her episode with us just recently. And these feelings will pass, especially if the relationship is new, the first six, eight months, that honeymoon phase, anything you, you know, oh, this is my ex-boyfriend from high school and you're 35 now. oh that guy he's a threat to me like you're going to feel that way it's completely normal that stuff goes away you just have to be conscious of these feelings and then not act on them to the detriment of your relationship because jealousy kind of is a self-fulfilling prophecy in this case right you act jealous

you act jealous you all these actions and mindsets go out towards being jealous and your girlfriend's like geez I want to spend less time with this person oh look there's this other guy that's not a total basket case let me hang out with him for a minute oh wow compared to this person that I'm dating now, this guy's really cool. Maybe I will. So you end up pushing people away and then you get more jealous and the actions get worse and then that's how your relationship implodes. I would say congrats on the success. And you know, go ahead. Send me a photo of you and your beautiful girlfriend. Or, you know, if you just want to send me a photo of her, that's fine too. See that feeling you're getting right now? See that feeling? Call it out. All right. Next step.

Hey, Jordan and Jason. I'm 24. I work a full-time career. I have a husband and a husband and a four-year-old son, and I'm about a year away from finally getting my bachelor's in engineering. Needless to say, I'm quite busy and ambitious. But over the last six months or so, I've been struggling internally with myself, mostly revolving around what kind of person should I be and what should I be doing with my life? These seem like silly questions because, bottom line, I need to support my family. But I'm just so unhappy with myself right now for not figuring this out. After a lot of thought, I think I need to just talk to someone and get this out of my head.

But there's my real problem. I can't open up to people. Even with my best friends and my husband, I just always feel myself holding back when it comes to talking about how I feel. Heck, even writing this email is difficult. And besides sitting alone in a room blasting sad music, I've never had much of an emotional outlet, nor do I have much alone time to do so. This time, though, I really want outside help rather than being the one coaching myself back to normal as I usually do. So where do I start if I really need to open up. Can I do this on my own or with family and friends? And if therapy is needed, can I justify spending that money? My family depends on me completely for financial support, so it's very hard to spend that much on myself, but I know I need to do something. Thanks for

listening. Any advice is much appreciated. Regards, bottled up mess. Well, sorry to do this again, but I'm going to recommend therapy twice here in this episode, because as you can tell, I'm a big fan of actually talking to a professional and hashing things out over a longer period of time. First of all, it's super important to get this stuff handled for your own good and for the good of your family. So if you're not good at opening up, you need someone who's a professional at getting other people to open up. The reason you're supposedly not good at it is because you're probably worried what other people will think, how that will affect your life. You know, oh, I can't tell my brother this. He's going to judge me and then he's going to tell mom and then mom's going to say,

why do you feel that way. You have better things to do. And then she's going to say, you have a kid. Stop being so selfish, right? That's why you're not opening up. that vulnerable, you're afraid of the consequences. Maybe you were raised that way, I don't know. I mean, you're 24, you have a four-year-old kid and you're an engineering school. All right, you're not exactly some kind of schlep, right? You've got a lot going on and you're managing all of it. A therapist doesn't really react to the things that you're telling them in an emotional way, of course,

so you don't have to worry about their reaction or their thoughts, right? And that's a huge win. They're not going to go, you know, I always knew that you were such a selfish little weiner, You know, how dare you? You have a son. That's not going to happen at therapy, whereas it might happen if you open up to your husband, brother, mom, sister, whatever. So you don't have to worry about that.

And don't think of this as spending money on yourself, at least not in the traditional sense. This isn't a handbag. You probably wouldn't think of spending the money on yourself if you needed to have a broken wrist taken care of. You do it because you need to be able to work and provide for your family. So this is an emotional broken wrist. If you're not set up for success here,

your entire career and in turn your family will suffer as a result you need to be in tip top shape for your hubby and your son so ask your school also for resources on this i think if you're at a school engineering school with a campus they almost for sure have therapy resources that are free or close to free so ask about those otherwise ask therapists about a sliding scale where they'll essentially charge you what you can afford up to a point when i was starting my old company i was i was on that side and scale. Those were invaluable for me. I went pretty much every week. I never spent a better dollar than that. I really didn't. So good luck. Keep in touch. And let us know how this goes. I really think this is something that you can and should handle. All right, next up.

Hey, Jordan. I'm a college student who will be graduating in December and have a job that I'm starting in January. My family owns and operates one of the largest companies in the area and my dad wants me to start working there right away. I'm starting off as a commercial underwriter. I'm wondering what your advice is for showing my coworkers that I'm not spoiled or entitled in that I have this job because of my own merits, not just my name. I also want to know how to show them that, even though I will likely be their boss someday, I want to be treated like all of the other new underwriters and learn from their valuable experiences in the industry. Thanks, not into nepotism. Well, here's the problem. You kind of do have the job because of your name. That doesn't mean

you're not qualified. It doesn't mean you're not qualified. It just means that they're not totally wrong about how you get the job, right? And that's going to be hard for people to shake. It doesn't mean you're not fit for the job. It doesn't mean you can't overcome it. I just, I don't want to, I don't think we should sort of pretend like you applied and got picked out of a lot of people and had to interview. Maybe it did have to interview. I don't know. What do I know? But I would say, look, the way that you start to get over this is, one, ask for advice a lot. The way that this works, or the reason this works, the Ben Franklin effect, we've talked about this before where people find an affinity for you when you ask them for advice.

As long as this is authentic, don't be like, hey, Bill, I really want to hear your opinion on how Lotus 1, 2, 3 changes the way that we work in the office. Like, that's stupid. But if you say something like, hey, you're the top salesman here, I'm wondering, like, what habits you have that make you so effective. Everyone talks about how effective you are. That person will then want to help you. It'll go a long way towards, one, giving you concrete knowledge, creating opportunities.

is endearing you to your coworkers, and it shows humility, right? Because if you came in and you were like, I know all this stuff, I'm good, that's not going to endear you. But if you come in and you say, look, I realize I don't know really anything. I'm the new guy. And you're asking for advice, you're going to eventually find that people respect that. I would also be super grateful and thankful for everyone's help because they're spending time, energy on you. Make sure they know it. Thank them in front of others. What is that, that phrase, Jason, it's like, congratulate publicly chastised privately it's something like that criticize privately i think it's a del conniegie thing um praise publicly criticize privately something like that so don't criticize i'm just saying

thank them publicly in front of others you don't have to lay it on too thick it's going to seem disingenuous but you know sending people emails in a group thanks for all your help everybody that stuff goes a long way right it it does go a long way and you're not going to like this part but i would say do as much shit work as possible seriously Like, clean up the freaking break room, if that's not inappropriate. You know, take projects other people just don't want. Be the low man on the totem pole. Drive the car to appointments and park it.

The more you're in the trenches, the less anyone can argue that you're some privilege prick that's just here because of daddy. You know, if you're the guy who is busting butt first in, last out of the office, no one's going to say, oh, yeah, you have to leave at 2 p.m. every day because your dad's the boss, that kind of thing. it's better just to be, it sucks for you because you really have to work harder than everybody else, be nicer than everybody else, and be the best. Otherwise, and you're still going to have people that are like, yeah, well, you know how Tim got here or whatever. And finally, there's just going to be some people that never get the message and they insist you've got it easy. Too bad for them. You can't please everyone.

So make allies with people that will be valuable to the company and to your career and play the long game. Those that decide to hate you just because you're the boss's kid, they're limiting their own career at the end of the day. I'm going to complain and make sure that I alienate myself to the guy who's eventually going to be the boss. Fine, go ahead. But at least you know you tried everything, and it's not your fault that someone's trying to undercut you or be a jerk. And if you have other allies in the company, then if something bad happens and they're like, yeah, it's the freaking boss's kid. And everyone else is like, eh, it's really not, though. It's really this guy who's jealous and it's kind of a prick.

then you will have enough people who have your back that you don't have to worry about the one or two exceptions. And congrats, man, you've got a bright future. That's really exciting. Something else I've noticed in people who get jobs because of the family, and you definitely want to keep this in mind and don't do this. Don't rat on your coworkers, because your dad at some point is going to say, hey, how's it going with this person or that person? Don't be a jerk to the people who are jerks to you to your dad, because then that will roll back down to you, and then you will lose trust with the people who you are actually building the relationship. And I've seen that happen before, and then they just get ostracized from everybody and sit alone at the lunch table.

That makes sense? Yeah, that does make sense. I can totally see why it would be tempting to do that. Like, oh, yeah, you know, Tim was late last week every day while you were gone on that trip. Oh, okay. Hey, I heard you were late every day. Let me guess who told you. Your stupid kid, you'll never come back from that.

It'll be impossible. All right. What's next? Dear Jordan and Jason, I have a question about how to approach your competitors when you do market research. I want to start a business in hiring out high-end meeting rooms in my hometown. I know that in bigger cities my idea could work since I know several locations in our capital city that are always fully booked. In my hometown, a city that's not really big but also not small, there's only one other company that's doing more or less the same thing, and I'm not sure how well they're doing. I would like to know whether they're often fully booked or whether they're struggling.

They're an amazing company in my opinion, and if they can't really do it well here, I'm sure I won't do much better. So if business in my hometown isn't that good, I'd just rather pick up and start in the capital of the country. So how do I approach this local business to ask them whether business is good? Should I just walk in, make some friendly talk with the receptionist, reveal myself as a possible competitor, and simply ask how their bookings are? This feels honest, yet awkward. I can imagine not all companies would want to share how they're doing with possible competitors. Do you have any advice on how to go about this? Thanks so much.

Not so stealthy Sven. Wow, you are the worst spy ever. Seriously. Hey there. Sure looks like rain out there. I'm starting a competing business. Do you mind telling me your top line revenue? Not going to work.

Hey, Putin, what are you doing in the Crimea? Yeah. It reminds me of when we were looking for bin Laden. And I think some general was like, look, we can't just drop Gary Busey at a bar with a Hawaiian shirt and have him say, sure would like to meet this bin Laden, fella. right like yeah i don't remember what that was from but it was or maybe it's from some stupid movie anyway you can try asking how business is going but it's not going to yield anything spectacular obviously the person you ask there especially to receptionist not going to have any idea what's going on

inside the company for the most part i would imagine especially not from a revenue perspective long term yeah you could befriend tons of people there you could find the info it's going to take so much time and effort and possibly not be any better than your original strategy. The best way is to get a job with the competing company, learn how their business works from the inside out, get some experience in the industry, find out about the space, discover the problems you'll face, and how they're being solved effectively and mistakes that you can avoid. You also meet qualified people who you might want to bring with you when you leave, so employees to poach. Not a nice thing to do, but I'm giving you the real deal. And you might

even find out that you hate the work, you hate the industry, there's no money in it, and it's a big mess, no idea. And you can find all of that out before you start a new company and invest in something that you end up hating. It's always better to start from the inside than to start from scratch on your own. The learning curve is so much better that way and your exposure is just much more limited. So that's my recommendation. That's how you spy on a company. You get a job there. And then you upload all the documents and you get caught and sued. Don't put them on Dropbox. Don't put them on Dropbox. Yeah, don't steal anything from the company.

Just gain experience. And honestly, you might find that you really don't want to do this. People ask me this all the time. How do I get experience? How do I do this? How do I become a thought leader? Work for one. Oh my God, this sucks.

I hate every minute of it. Yep, welcome to the real world. Everything's a job when you're actually doing it. Recommendation of the week, you know, this isn't a documentary, but I went and got a cleaning spray. I go to Sunglass Hut because I bought a pair of shades there. in like 95 and I keep going in there to have my glasses clean because they'll do it for free. And I was like, yeah, you know, I wish I could do this in my car.

And they went, you know, you could buy a bottle of this lens cleaner. I was like, six bucks for a little bottle of what's probably alcohol. I'm good. And they said, well, that's fine, but we'll refill it for the rest of your life. And I said, what are you talking about? They said, you can bring this bottle in any time to any sunglasses hot anywhere in the world and we'll just open it up and fill it up again. And I went, that's not a bad deal.

Yes, I could probably order gallons of the stuff off Amazon, store it in my house and try to do that myself. But it's kind of nice to be roaming around some mall and go, oh, yeah, go grab the bottle from my car and have it topped off in freaking Mexico at an airport or whatever, right? It's actually quite convenient. And you'll end up with clean glasses. And I found that, Jason, you probably know this is a glasses wear. But when I wear sunglasses, sometimes I'm like, oh, I got a headache. And I realize it's not from wearing the glasses. It's because they're freaking filthy.

Yeah. They're just so dirty, and your eyes have to do a ton of work to focus through that goop. So you actually should be cleaning your glasses regularly. I got two tips for you here. First, I've been wearing glasses since fourth grade. And a long time ago, I went to a lens crafters, and they were, you know, spray my glasses to clean them when I was getting new ones. And I'm like, what's in that stuff?

And the girls told me, she, like, looked to the left and the right to make sure nobody was listening. She's like, it's just distilled water. Oh, that's amazing. We don't put any chemicals into the lens cleaner because all, of the coatings on the glasses can get deteriorated if they put chemicals in them. So they literally just use distilled water. So if you're buying, you know, a lot of those lens cleaning solutions are literally just distilled water.

So check the ingredients on your sunglasses, hot one because you want to make sure that it's also, if it does have alcohol or some kind of thing in there, then you don't want that to be able to eat away at the coatings on the glasses. Because my glasses cost, like, the lenses in my glasses cost $800 because of all the crazy coatings for non-glare and computer stuff that I do every day. and I'm like, I don't want anything that's going to mess with these. Yeah. Mine's got dihydrogen monoxide.

Ooh. Yeah, that's H2O. I don't know if you've heard of it. Yeah, for those people catching up at home. The other trick that I found is I went to Amazon and I bought a pack of these microfiber little towels for like six bucks for a pack of 50 of them. Oh, yeah, I got those. Yeah.

You don't need a lens cleaner if you use these. The microfiber towels, and they're almost disposable. They're so cheap. will actually clean your glasses, sunglasses, any kind of glass I use it on my laptop, my screens and everything without any solutions. And they work great and, you know, you can wash them or throw them away. Just keep one of those in your pocket when you're out and about. And they also work to dab your forehead if you're out on a sweaty hike.

Nice. Multi-purpose. I love it. Yeah, I did get those cloths. Those are super useful. And the spray bottle, I probably just ended up buying a bunch of distilled water. I'm going to have to check. It is pink, though.

So it's distilled water with some food coloring in it. So I definitely got my money's worth there. Either way, keep a spray bottle in the car, buy some of those microfiber cloths, save yourself some headaches, and keep your glasses looking fly. All right, hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. Happy to keep you anonymous, of course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com.

Quick shoutouts to Deanna. She said she saw our conversation on Impact Theory. We're going to be releasing that as an episode because that just got a ton of feedback. And she said she grew up in East Germany and I'm the first American that she knows who was an exchange student in East Germany. And I will tell you, I was there. I also don't know any Americans that were exchange students in the former East Germany. So Christish, Deanna. And Zach, who gave us a heads up to get on something called Podchaser, which is the IMDB of podcasts.

So thank you, Zach for that. I appreciate that. We are now on there. At least we submitted our show there. So let us know if you can find us. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. And frankly, it's not just like, here's a picture of me and my cat.

Maybe there's a couple of those. There's a couple of those, yeah. I'm also like, hey, here's how I get over a rough day. Here's how I focus. Here's how I take a really effective break. Here's a shake that I make that I really like. I really do give a lot of recommendations there. I'm going to be dropping a lot of little tips there.

And for those of you who remember minisode Monday, where I gave little drills and exercises on Monday, we stopped doing those shows. I'm actually going to be just doing them as videos on Instagram. So I'm at Jordan Harbinger there. And so there's going to be real content there, not just me smiling and taking selfies. Jason, where can they find you? You can find links to all my socials at jpd.mee. And you can check out my other podcast, grumpy old geeks where every now and again a drunken Jordan will show up. So for more information on that show, just go to gog.com for how to subscribe.

Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember, keep them concise if you can. It makes things a lot easier for us. And share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. 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.

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