The Jordan Harbinger Show - 80: How to Befriend Celebrities Without Being Awkward | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 10, 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: Do we find ourselves with the partners we deserve, or do we find ourselves with the partners we think we deserve? How do you act normal and make friends with celebrities, athletes, or well-known people without being weird? Interviewing your grandfather before he passes away is a brilliant way to preserve a piece of family history. What questions would prompt the best stories, and what equipment would yield the best results? How do you manage 10k+ network contacts and still have time to run a business? How can you excel as a sober, designated wingman and not be a creep? What can you do to politely dissuade neighbors from making idle chit-chat when you're trying to listen to podcasts while doing yard work? What's the best way to prepare for amicably quitting your job without burning bridges? Recommendation of the Week: Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones WH1000XM2 Quick shoutout to Kat! Hope your Army move is going smoothly! 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. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! 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 mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

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

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and 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 Kathy Heller talking about branding yourself as a creative and marketing yourself as a creative and how to talk to non-creatives and pitch to them, sell to them, and understand what clients want. That's a great one, whether or not you're actually in the creative field.

And we had Carter Thomas talking about cryptocurrency and blockchain, And we recorded this so long ago. It'll be kind of funny to give it a listen because, of course, he is one of the sharpest minds in the industry and collects a just very rational thinker. It's a great intro to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, which regardless of what the price of Bitcoin might be right now is still a very, very hot topic and industry. And of course, our primary mission here on the show is to pass along our guests and our experience and insights along to you. In other words, 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 really increases the chance of your question getting answered on the air and getting read in the first place because I'll tell you, the wall of text when we're going through hundreds of things in the inbox, it's a little bit intimidating and kind of makes us feel like we're suffocating. So the shorter, the better as long as there's enough detail for us to actually get to the media of the question. So I was on the road all week filming something special. for you guys doing a really cool online course. I'll let all of you know more about that soon,

but yeah, that was really a lot of fun. Really had a good time doing that, designing that, filming that, letting that go. That should be getting chopped up and ready for later this summer. So that's fun. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan, Jason.

I'm a college student with a faulty mindset. My mind decides that any possible relationship won't work. Despite being shy, I've practiced my social skills a lot, and I'm always attentive during conversation. The problem is that I'm less experienced at dating than most. A few awkward first dates and a couple rejections are all I have to my name. I'm putting too much significance on these few events and have decided that I'm undatable when I know that I'm not.

I managed to convince myself that each conversation went poorly or obsess about something I could have said better, even if things went well. It fits neatly into a narrative that I know isn't true, but I forget this in the moment. Then I reject myself in my head, and that feels worse than the real thing. Plus it squanders an opportunity. Great conversation. She's just friendly. Got her number?

She's just being polite. Things felt fine in the moment, but an hour later, that changes. Even if she's into me, I start assuming I like her only because she likes me. What steps can I take to recognize and disrupt these thoughts? Sincerely, doubting Thomas. Yeah, I totally understand that if you start assuming that I like her only because she likes me, oh man, this is a miserable train of thought to go down. And there's a saying that says, we find ourselves with a.

partners we deserve. I don't actually believe this. I think we find ourselves with the partners we think we deserve. And the problem isn't that you don't deserve what you want. It's that you think you don't deserve what you want. And if I were you, I do some serious exploring to find out why you have this mindset in the first place. I know from talking to Dr. Drew about this very subject that our self-esteem is sort of set in place by age five or six. But that doesn't mean we can't gain some understanding about that, what influences that, and work on our sense of self-esteem, and re-examine what we want out of life and how to get it. In fact, I think that's a very worthwhile pursuit. It's obviously more than I can get into here, but I suggest getting a good

therapist that specializes in this sort of thing and diving deeper into what has shaped and continues to shape your sense of self-worth. You're working on yourself at the gym, you're getting an education, yet you're rejecting people before they reject you in order to defend, you, in order to defend yourself against what you consider to be the inevitable pain of rejection coming at a time when you're not expecting it. So you're instead rejecting yourself so that it doesn't come to you as a surprise later on down the line. This is a very human defense mechanism and it's unfortunately very effective at keeping us isolated and lonely. So thanks for working out with us in your ears for so long, brother. Go ahead and work on this particular set of awareness and you're going to want to

dig into why this is set up the way it is and work on the cause because you're not just able, there's no sort of magic trick to stop you from downing yourself. You've got to find the root cause and then attack that and rebuild the foundation on which your self-esteem relies. All right, next up. Hey, fellas, I've been a listener for over two years. Love the show. Keep crushing it. My question is, how do I act normal and make friends with celebrities, athletes, or well-known people without being weird? I live in a big city and my best friend is in the hospitality industry and he invites me to everything he's involved with so I get to constantly hang out with and interact with athletes, musicians, well-known restaurant owners, etc. There have been times I try to

have normal conversations with the celebrities, but the elephant in the room is that they are famous. They know it. I know it. They know I know it. And there must be a vibe I'm giving off that I'm trying to act too normal. Hell, I've hung out on one of the guys' boats for hours and it was still kind of weird, maybe because I wasn't one of the models in a bikini. We see a lot of these people often and it's not unrealistic to strike up a friendship, but it'd be nice to start to make normal conversation. Any tips or pointers? Thanks.

Hopeful elephant tamer. Yeah, this is great. This is so interesting. I wonder who exactly he's talking about, right? Because I don't know, despite the industry that we're in, I almost don't know who anyone is. I remember running into A-Rod in New York, and people were going crazy, and I was like, what's his name?

A-Rod. Oh, is he, what does he do again? And they're like, he's a freaking athlete. And I'm like, oh, okay, is it like, he's like a basketball player or something? I had no clue. Yeah. I had no clue. And that allowed me to act completely normal.

Didn't, no big deal. And I thought that was kind of funny. And my friends were just going bananas. Forgetting the people are famous once you know about it, it's impossible. Especially if you're actually a fan of what they're doing. So don't pretend or try to pretend that you're at ease too much or it'll definitely be awkward, like you said. And don't make the mistake of being like, oh, I'm so comfortable. I'm going to make fun of you all the time.

I've seen that happen. It happens to a lot of people that I'm with or when people find out that I'm sitting next to somebody well known, they didn't recognize. It's a little embarrassing. And I've seen this happen over and over again. It's universal. It's uncomfortable.

It's completely uncomfortable to watch. You just want to just shake them and say, don't do that, man. Yeah, like, oh, I get it. You don't want to be Starstruck. So you're like, no, it's Todd, bro. Where'd you get that baby gap? And it's like, oh, that was just rude.

and he's not laughing, and now you're like the guy who's trying to tool this preacher? No, I mean, like, whoever it is, whoever the well-known person is, it's not a good look. So feel free to compliment their work and then move on quickly, right?

So you can say something like, hey, yeah, great performance in Game 7, I really love the new album, especially track, you know, this track or whatever, love that stuff, really, really solid. Whatever you want to do, you don't have to go fan boy, fan girl it. compliment their work and move on quickly.

This way the cat's out of the bag. It's flattering instead of idol worship. That's the line we have to sort of toe here. I like it when people say, oh, I really like what you're doing with this and that. That's great. But when someone's like, oh my gosh, this person's amazing, they never make a mistake and you're up on this pedestal,

then that's highly uncomfortable. And then you can move on to being more at ease since the scoreboard is up and everyone's on the same page. So you don't have to pretend like you don't know who they are. Call it out. express your admiration or whatever it is for what they've got, and then you can go from there, and it will really release a lot of the steam.

It'll release a lot of the tension in the interaction. Because remember, everyone's either trying to pretend that they don't know who that person is or that they don't care, and it comes across as really, really obvious. And I remember there was a girl that I went to law school with, and she was a waitress in Miami or something like that.

And she kept running into celebrities all the time in the place where she was working. and she said she kept recounting these stories. We're in law school in Michigan, right? Midwest, not exactly a celebrity hotbed. And she'd be like, oh, and then I said Cuba, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't even know what you're talking about. Like as if you're on a first name basis with Cuba Gooding Jr.

And I'm just thinking, this is so pretentious and ridiculous. Obviously, if you're talking to him like that, it's probably awkward because he has no idea who you are. And he's used to it, but the people around him feel weird, which is going to make him feel weird. So just you have to get it out of the way. You have to make sure that you treat these people like normal, but you don't have to pretend like you have no clue who the hell they are, unless, of course, you actually don't, which is also fine. All right, next up. Hey, guys, my grandfather is a very intelligent man that's unfortunately starting to go down, and it seems

that the end may be near. His mind is still sharp, but multiple cancer diagnoses, chemo treatments, and life-changing surgeries have really taken a toll on him. I've talked to him about doing an interview so my family can have something to look back on and he's open to the idea. Do you guys have any suggestions of what I should ask him? Also, this is my first time conducting an interview. What are some tips that I could use to get the most out of them?

Is there any equipment that you would recommend? Thanks for all that you do, and I really hope to hear from you all soon. Family historian to be. Okay, so I have a list of questions here that I think might be really interesting. And I think this is a great idea. I've wanted to interview my parents for a while. I think interviews on video would be really cool. And you can also just import the audio separately.

or you can record it separately, or you can record a video and an audio, it doesn't matter. But I think from a tech standpoint, a couple of cameras, one or two, even just wide angle, it's totally fine. You could use a GoPro for this, and just a separate audio source would be great. A couple lava lager mics would be good. Or you can even buy a Zoom recorder and set it down on a table. So I would say, what is your earliest memory from childhood? Like, what's the first thing you remember is a good starter?

What is your favorite memory from childhood? So it'll probably be some sort of birthday or something like that or Disneyland. What did you do for your birthday as a kid? Who was your first girlfriend? Was it grandma or someone else? How did you meet grandma? What did you do on your first date? How did you know you wanted to marry grandma?

What was your first job? How did you decide what you wanted to be when you grew up? How did you pick your career? In other words, what was the worst thing you did as a kid? You know, what kind of got you into trouble and what happened? What was the craziest thing you ever did with your friends? what do you wish you knew back then that you know now what do you think is wrong with this generation that should get him talking and I would also if he's been in any wars or anything like

that that's always interesting like has he ever been overseas has he ever lived overseas that kind of stuff you know if he was in World War II or something like that or you know whatever Vietnam depending on how old he is you could start you could just get him going on some crazy stories. I would say don't be too attached to the questions and you have to let the conversation flow. Naturally let the topics flow from one to the other. So don't say, what was your earliest memory from childhood? And he's like, oh, I remember going to the store with my aunt and, you know, she used to pick fruit and we used to help carry the fruit home. And then you're like, instead of asking about the neighborhood or what your aunt did or why you, you were with your aunt a lot,

but you just move on to the next thing. Get the stories out. You're not on a timeline here other than, you know, yes, you have limited time, but you don't have 45 minutes, right? You can do this in multiple sessions. If you see he's getting tired, you can stop and come back later. You can just pick it up after 20 minutes. You can do this in little bursts. There's so many good things that you can do with this. Jason, have you ever done anything along the lines of this project? I actually have. I've done this interview with my dad before. And I was asking about my grandfather because I, you know, I was 18 when my grandfather died, so I didn't get to really know him as an adult where I could really, like, get into the stories. So I interviewed my dad and said, hey, tell me about Grampy. And we sat down at the,

you know, table outside. I had my Zoom H6 with some microphone set up, which is a great recorder that we both use. And also as far as equipment goes, nowadays, everybody's got like 4K video on their phone. Just get a tripod and point your phone at them if you need video. But what I found is my dad didn't like video because then he got really self-conscious. So we just did audio. And that way he relaxed into it and forgot the microphone existed. But, you know, just asking my dad about his parents and then his grandparents, because they don't really, you know, everybody asks about somebody they might know, but it's like, go back as far as you can in the family tree and tell me, you know, what's your oldest memory of our

family and get them talking about that? And, you know, that really got my dad lit up, though, when he got to talk about his dad, because my dad was very proud of my grandfather because he worked in the coal mines and supported the family. and then that moved into him telling the story of my, you know, my great-grandparents who came over from Italy and like the, my great-grandfather came over and did all the stuff and went back and married my great-grandmother. They came over on the book.

All those types of stories kind of naturally come out if you're doing an interview, not an interrogation. So going back to what you said, Jordan, it's like you don't want to just ask rapid-fire questions. You want this to be a free-flowing interview so they can just tell the stories that are going to randomly pop in their head because they're going to remember things that they probably haven't talked about for years, and it's going to be pretty freeform. And then, you know, if you want to put this out somewhere for the family later, you can edit it down. But, you know, just make, make your grandfather feel as comfortable as he can be. Get decent audio so it's there forever,

and everybody can enjoy it, and just go as deep as you can. 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 this show from scratch, so a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice would really help us out. It only takes a minute or two, and if you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions. All right, next up. Hey, all, I've recently started following your advice around building and cultivating my network with the tips and tricks at advanced human dynamics.

I've even signed up for Contactually, which is an amazing CRM, most intuitive one I've ever tried and I've tried a lot. My question is, how do you manage your time? I have 1,300 active contacts in contractually, and I spend hours following up and reinitiating contact. It's consuming way too much of my time. I've since stopped reinitiating and have increased the length for follow-up in the buckets, but that's really just delaying the inevitable. How do you manage your 10,000-plus contacts and still have time to run a business?

Thanks, contactually challenged. Sure. So when you're using a system like a CRM to maintain your network, and by the way, thanks for signing up for a level one. And that's our sort of free course on networking and relationship maintenance stuff I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago that I threw into a series of videos. That's at advancedhuman dynamics.com slash level one. And really, people always, when I say, hey, are you doing this? And a lot of people go, no, I'm going to do it in three months.

The one thing you can't make up for with this relationship and networking stuff is lost time. You can't just speed it up later when you have time. The whole point of level one is it's done in minutes a day. So go and do it. Stop making excuses that you'll do it later. That's actually the number one mistake people make with networking is they do it when they quote unquote have time instead of digging the well before they're thirsty.

So then they go, oh crap, I really need to reach out to my contacts because XYZ is happening. Too late. So go and do that ASAP and reengage those weak and dormant ties. AdvancedHumanDynamics.com slash level one is where it's at. So now for contactually challenged here, any CRM, you've got to prioritize your contacts. Most can be hit yearly.

or even every six months. Also, contactually has automation. I don't actually use it, but you can if you need to. I don't get what's going on, though. If you have 1,300 contacts, and I've got almost 10 times as many, I contact people about every 45 to 90 days, and it only takes me about an hour a week. So I'm not sure what type of messages you're sending,

but most of mine are quick check-ins, quick notes. It's not a Christmas letter. You know, it's not multiple paragraphs long. it's and I give scripts for check-ins in level one as well, which I'm sure you've seen. But at 1,300 contacts for you, I'd be shocked if you needed more than 90 minutes a week. And that's the largest amount of time you'll ever spend in the networking space other than going to conferences. Everything else that we have is like five minutes a day. So I'm not sure what's going on there.

I recommend batching all of this at once inside the CRM so it just gets done. You know, this Monday, I'd skip the previous week's outreach because I was at a conference. I was at podcast movement. And so I spent maybe 45 minutes incontactually instead of what I assume is usually less than that. And so I budget 90 minutes a week. I almost never use all of that. It's very, very worthwhile investment of time. Extremely worthwhile.

So I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but it sounds like maybe you're reaching out to everybody all the time instead of prioritizing 45 to 90 day buckets. So make sure you're doing that and make sure you're not writing a Christmas letter that nobody's even going to read to each one. A quick check-in, something useful for them. That's all you really need. All right, next up. Hi, Jordan and Jason. I'm a 21-year-old male college student who's had terrible luck with women when intoxicated. The past four years I've been slapped, had beer cans thrown at me cussed out and most recently charged with simple assault. This charge was an eye-opener to one, stay the hell away from women well-intoxicated, and two, to improve my game. I'm going to see a therapist at my university to figure out what the hell is wrong with me, but in the meantime, I want to improve my

sober game, as none of these things ever happen when I'm sober. To do this, I'm going to be my crew's designated driver for the school year and be a better wingman for my friends as I find it easier to talk about other people than myself. Any advice on how to excel as a wingman and not be a creep. Thanks. Mr. I hope I don't go to jail for this. Wow. Well, definitely never drink at all. If you're having this stuff happen, that is really bad. I mean, I've had friends when I was younger be like, I'm going to go out tonight and try to get a drink throw it on me, try to get slapped. I still didn't even see anybody ever have that happen. So whatever you're doing is terrible.

And who gets charged with assault? What are you doing? He's 21 years old. He's talking about for the past four years. So he was doing a lot of underage drinking before that. Good call. Yeah, I didn't even get that. So he's not even equipped to go out and have a beer back then.

No. Yeah. Yeah, this is bad. You need to stop drinking entirely. You're not missing anything anyway, as you know, and you've already. and you've already hit on a great plan. Be the wingman for other people. This puts you at a huge advantage.

First, you get to talk with anyone you want with virtually no agenda, which allows you to become outcome independent. This is a confident and easy place from which to start a conversation because you're not like, how do I get in this girl's pants or whatever the heck you were doing to get slapped

and charged with assault. You also get to talk to people about how great your friends are, which makes you feel good and it makes you look good for being super positive and having a bunch of great friends. And what will happen as you get better and better at this

is that you'll make your relationships with your buddies a lot stronger. You'll also meet a ton of new people. You'll meet a lot of men, you'll meet a lot of women, especially as you have to actually meet and talk to more guys to meet more women. That's inevitable, unless you're just completely creepy and ignoring guys and conversations and only talking to women. And the happy side effect is that you'll be the one

that a lot of the women end up chasing because you're the one that isn't chasing them, you're not being needy and trying to grope or, again, whatever it was that you're doing to get slapped. And you're still going to be fun. You're still going to be social, which is a powerful combination. And I love being the wingman for my friends. I think it's some of the most fun you can have when you go out with single people. So enjoy this and you just don't even touch the stuff.

Clearly you are not the type of person that can drink in moderation. And when you do drink, you're not just a fun drunk. You're doing something seriously wrong. So I would say don't just stop drinking when you go out to meet people. but just don't drink. There's some of us that just can't and shouldn't drink, and I feel like you're probably in that camp. You can revisit that in a couple of years after you've gotten a chance to sort of discover what sobriety is like, because if you've been drinking since you were 17, you need to take a few years off, not only for the health of your brain, but also for your

emotional, personal growth, because this is not a good sign. 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. For a list of all the discount codes and links, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. And if you have an Amazon Alexa, check out our Alexa skill. You can get clips from previous shows in your daily briefing, and it's completely free. Just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash Alexa or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hey, guys, thank you for continuing with your show. A lot of people need your

help, including me. I feel like you're making me a better person. I've got an issue. that should be right up your alley. I help my parents and sister by doing routine maintenance on their houses. The problem is when their friends and neighbors try to talk to me when I'm working. If I'm doing something noisy, I wear earplugs. Most people are used to this. When I point to my ear and shake my head, they just nod and walk away. No problemo.

When I'm doing something quiet, I listen to podcasts. Here's a typical situation. Someone says something to me. I motion for them to wait. I set down the paint and paintbrush, pull out my phone, hit the pause button and unplug my earbuds, just to hear someone say, I see that you're painting today, or I like that color. The only time I show my irritation is when they make repeated attempts at chit-chat

while I repeatedly plug and unplug my earbuds as I try to get back to work. Even if I just tell them, I can't hear you. I still have to stop and rewind what I was listening to. It's typically the same people, so I was hoping they'd get used to this by now. I genuinely like these people and don't want to be rude, but is there a better way to handle this? Most of them are older than me, and I'm in my early 50s. signed no time for chit-chat. I got to ask if this guy lives in the Midwest

because this is such a Midwest. This is such a Midwest thing, right? Like, people are friendly, but they're also just constantly making observations out loud. I remember my grandpa used to read highway signs while driving, so it'd be like, oh, I-75, I-75, I-75. Yeah, my grandparents would be like, I see you put butter on that toast.

Yeah. That's butter. That looks like rain. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a new brand there that you got there. Yeah. Oh, it looks like the neighbor got a new mower.

I mean, it's just constant stuff like that. Neighbors say all those. I remember even when I hang out with my parents, sometimes I'll be like, oh, they got an escalator over there. Oh, there's a sign here that says they'll be close to the 4th of July. Oh, yeah. My friend Natalie's actually doing a comedy sketch about this. She's from Minnesota.

And she's just, a lot of it's like based on her mom and dad. and they'll say something like, oh yeah, it looks like rain. I mean, it's every day to look out the window, weather report, every day, oh, there's a red car over there. I mean, it's just constant. Ironically, most people want to learn how to start conversations, but people don't know how to end conversations, which makes sense. In fact, one of the things we're actually training a lot of our executive protection guys on. We train a lot of bodyguards at Advanced Human Dynamics. They're a number one client base.

we actually have the second largest executive protection company as a client. And one of the things that we train them on is how to end conversations. And we have a different system here that we use for them because obviously they're in a car with a billionaire or something like that. So it's a different scenario than your neighbor bugging you while you're painting. But what you can do is reply the first time. And after they make their comment, you can say something like, hey, it's really hard for me to hear with these headphones in.

Were you talking for long? Didn't mean to ignore you. and then when they talk to you again, you can just totally ignore them. Or you can just smile, and they'll assume you didn't hear them, and ideally they'll give up. You can also get another pair of giant headphones

that will indicate to people that you can't hear. I find that wearing something like AirPods or tiny in-ear buds, earbuds, they're so low profile. A lot of people don't realize that you can't hear them, so they just keep talking, and then you've got to take them out and pause and da-da-da. If you get something bulky,

then they'll know that you can't hear them. even if you kind of can and you're just trying to get on with your life. So I appreciate that you're trying to be friendly, but after the first polite comment, I think it's fine to just get on with the job. You know, looks like it might rain there, Jason. What do you think, eh? Oh, yeah, them clouds over there on the horizon. He's going to be a barnstormer here today.

Oh, yeah, garbage truck down there. All right, next up. Hey, Jordan and Jason. I'm soon 29 working as the first employee with a growing industrial technology company in Canada. My academic background is in business and industrial engineering, and I'm on my way to finishing my CPA. Given the role, background, and skill set, I run the company's finances as well as participate in engineering projects

from a perspective of design and computer programming. Outside of work, I've maintained favorable, dormant ties through various extracurricular activities like rock climbing, improv, and et cetera, and my two alumni groups. How would either of you begin positioning yourself now for the time when you choose to break off from this startup, which is several years from now, in a manner that's amicable? My employers are great.

I have immense respect for them. However, I know there will come a day when I will want to call the shots and make my own path within this industry. Thanks for everything you and your team give to the world. Regards, Captain Conflicted. I totally get where you're coming from here, Captain Conflicted. So you should be generating good relationships with the company's clients, and you need to learn a sales skill set, because you'll eventually need to learn how to sell if you're going to go off on your own. You should also start thinking about the types of projects and clients that you like working for

and the ones that you don't. And you should develop connections and deepen those relationships in the industry with the type of client that you want. Because the one thing you can't make up for in relationships is lost time. And I mentioned that earlier on the show. You have to dig the well before you're thirsty.

And the way to do that is to create those relationships now and not later when you need them. And again, we did that whole course on this, Advanced Human Dynamics.com slash level one. We'll help you get started with that. And bear in mind that in any given industry, the industries are really small. So when you do end up leaving,

you need to make sure your employer is well taken care of, not leave them in a lurcher in a tough spot. And I think we touched on something similar last week. And you should also train someone in your company that you have a good relationship with. Maybe someone who will eventually take over your job when you leave. This way your company's like, oh, okay, this guy who's in the job now

has been trained by the guy who left and they have good contact, even though you've left. So if there's questions or issues, this guy's not figuring it out for themselves and his performance is suffering, and they're thinking, thanks a lot for leaving us with this guy, Captain Conflicted. Your company will thank you for that.

The guy who takes over your job will thank you for that, and you'll have a strong ally of your own creation. And I would also make friends with other people in your same industry that have your same job. So say you're the accountant at Nike. You should make friends with the person who's the head of accounting at Reebok or whatever, because these are the people that will probably give you business later

when you go off on your own. And it seems strange, right? Because you're kind of competing with them. They're in this other company in the same niche. You might end up working with them. And if you start your own company, you might end up hiring those same guys or gals. So you want those people in your industry as your ally instead of as a competitor, even if they currently compete with your company.

So you have to separate the fact that you compete with them in a company level and create relationships with them inside the industry because you never know where you're going to shift. and you never know what side of the coin you're going to be on, especially if you go off on your own, these are going to be possibly your clients. So you want to make sure that you're not just like, hey, I worked sort of invisibly near you in the same niche

in the same position for a decade. Nice to meet you. Let's do lunch. You want to be like, hey, Bill, good to talk to you. I've been talking with you for five years. You know me well. You trust me. I no longer work for Nike.

Let's get something going. That's what you want. That kind of reminds me of the Barbara Boxer episode, how she played the long game with relationships because she knew that, you know, in the same industry of politics, she's going to be around these people for a very long time. So don't, you know, cut your nose despite your face and make everybody in the same industry your friend,

even though sometimes you have to, you know, compete with them, but you can still be civil and know that I might work with you in the future. Exactly. Yeah, she's good. She's been good at that. She's working with people that probably at one point or another have wanted to strangle her and vice versa, for sure. Recommendation of the week.

I know I recommended some cleaning fluid last week, not the biggest winner probably for a lot of people, not as exciting as a cool documentary. But this week I've got a little gadget. I don't really recommend gadgets ever, but I just got noise-canceling headphones, and they are unbelievable. So I got these Sony noise-canceling headphones.

They are the W-H-1,000 XM2, because they have a knack for naming things really catchy way, apparently. Rolls off the tongue. Really rolls off the tongue. Sony W.H. 1,000 XM2. But the reason I got these is that I love these,

they were rated super highly. The noise canceling is the best on the market. They have touch controls on the side. And what I think is really cool is they have an ambient noise microphone that you can turn on and use an app to have sort of a shift like, oh, I want to hear a little bit because I'm walking, I want to hear a little bit more because I'm running. I don't want to hear anything because I'm on an airplane.

And it can use your phone's accelerometer to decide whether it knows that you're running, whether it knows you're on an airplane, whether it knows that you're walking around somewhere, and it will automatically adjust those settings for you if you want it to. So you can be sitting at home, full noise cancel, you get up and you're like, I'm going to go for a walk or take a phone call.

It turns that down a little, so you can still hear like a car horn when you're crossing the street, but you can't hear other people in Manhattan chit-chatting on their phones or whatever. And another thing that I love about these is if someone talks to you, you put your hand over the ear cup,

and it turns on the ambient noise microphone automatically so you can hear what somebody's saying. If they're like, sir, would you like something to drink? You just put it over the ear cup and you can talk in here, and then you take your hand off and it goes right back to noise canceling. That's very cool.

It's very cool, yeah. And I just really fell in love at these things. Also, it automatically adjusts for atmospheric pressure. So when you're in a plane, it adjust the noise canceling for the pressure in the plane. I didn't think that would make a difference, but it makes a huge difference, that automatic calibration.

So I really love these, and they were on sale at Best Buy for actually cheaper than Amazon. So a really worthy purchase, and that link is in the show notes. Sony 1000XM2 wireless noise canceling headphones. Huge, huge win. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget you can email us at Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. Happy to keep you anonymous, of course.

A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. quick shout out to cat i hope your army move is going smoothly and thanks for the kind words on my voice as well and a lot of people run and listen to the show so if you're out there jogging it up right now consider this your shout out jogging i just picture people jogging by some body of water being like i'm learning right now while they're while they're working out i like that i like that visual i'm on instagram and twitter at jordan harbinger it's a great way to engage with the show and recently I started putting up little knowledge bombs. I don't like doing inspirational quotes and stuff like that.

I don't like that type of Instagramming. That's why we can still work together because if you did, we would have a problem. I know, I just can't deal with that. So I decided to go, okay, here's a concept from the show that I've been thinking about. Here's a quick lesson that I learned and here's, or here's some sort of life pro tip or hack that I've learned that I really like that I want to deliver. And I do those on Instagram instead of trying to drop them into what we used to do, which is Minnesota Monday, or I would stuff feedback Friday with it.

I'm just going to do those on Instagram at Jordan Harbinger on Instagram. Jason, where can they find you? You can find links to all my socials at jpd.me, and you can check out my other podcast, grumpy old geeks. And for more information on that show, just go to gog.com to find out how to subscribe. All right, keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember to keep them concise if you can. It really increases the chances your question will get answered on the air. And share the show with those you love and even those you don't.

We've got a lot more in the pipeline. We're excited to bring it to you. and in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format.

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