The Jordan Harbinger Show - 822: Is a Hefty Health Professional a Hippocratic Hypocrite? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

At your new job in healthcare, you're surprised that so many of your colleagues — also well-educated with doctorate degrees — constantly complain about their desire to lose weight while simultaneously snacking on bear claws and eschewing basic exercise. Is there a delicate way to mention that they should be setting a better example for the people they've been tasked to keep healthy without being that annoying new person? We'll try to help you find an answer to this and much more here on Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your peers in the healthcare profession complain about being overweight while scarfing down donuts and eschewing basic exercise. Is there a delicate way to mention to your colleagues that they should be setting a better example for the people they've been tasked to keep healthy? How do you work with somebody you once intensely loved and thought was "the one" but now can't stand? Additionally, how can you trust in future relationships that seem to develop as intensely without worrying they'll similarly disintegrate? As a woman who aspires to raise a family of your own someday, how do you ensure that your future partner is equally invested in taking care of the children — unlike your friends' useless husbands who can't survive a night without calling for backup? You and your partner of over a decade used to do everything together, but now you sleep in separate rooms and haven't had sex in a year. How worried should you be about the person to whom they're frequently texting "I love you" and whose parents they've taken to referring as "Mom and Dad?" When you're unhappy with the inauthentic version of yourself you've been presenting to the world for as long as you can remember, can you re-learn how to be? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/822 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the former Sad Sack High School poet himself, Gabriel Mizrahi. By the way, so many people commented like, Fallout Boy sucks. Oh, really? I didn't see the Fallout Boy comments, but that makes sense. Well, they didn't want to tell you, but they're like, that guy can't sing. Everything was all the credit due to, I don't know, like the lead guitarist. And I'm like, this is way too much of a deep cut for me. I could not disagree more, but I believe you guys directed those messages to Jordan and not to me, because that would have really ruined my Friday. But I'll take the sad sack thing. Yeah, that's fair. That much at least can stick. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

We want to help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave. and our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening, even inside your own mind. If you're new to the show, on Fridays we give advice to you, we answer listener questions. The rest of the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. This week, we had Bradley Hope talking with both Gabriel and myself on the wackiness that is North Korea.

We did a little update about what's going on in the Hermit Kingdom and why they're still in power. We talked about that crazy embassy raid on their Madrid embassy. And we also talked with Lieutenant John Norse on something called trespass marijuana grows here in California. Turns out drug cartels are sneaking into national parks and large ranches here in California, stealing water, killing wildlife, using all kinds of crazy chemicals and growing marijuana for sale on the black market. I just never knew about any of this. So definitely check those episodes out. Gabe, funny story for you.

I'm not sure how I remembered this, but when I was a kid, I was in latchkey, which is basically like daycare after school. And this super beautiful woman worked there. Her name was Michelle Bone. Michelle Bone? B-O-N-E? Yeah, Bone. Oh, what a name. I know, right?

That makes me wonder if it's one of those things that gets translated from German, and it sounds less weird in German. I don't know. Anyway, she was super cool, super fun, and she had this really memorable bright red hair that was totally. natural. I had a huge crush on her because I was probably, I don't know, like nine. And one day, I got a really gnarly bloody nose. And she helped me fix it. And I remember blowing my nose into a Kleenex that she was holding. And out came this massive, like my stomach's turning just even now talking about the massive, disgusting bloody booger clot or clot booger, whatever. And it was so gross. To this day, I can just remember how nasty this thing was. She, she dried.

heaved. Oh, no. And it was awful. Oh, no. I was so embarrassed. That's not the point of the story, though. The point of the story is eight years later, maybe even longer. I was working in a movie theater, and she walked in.

And I was like, damn, there's Michelle Bone. And she's still gorgeous. I was tearing tickets. And I said, hi, you probably don't remember me. But, and before I could finish my set, and she goes, yeah, I remember you. You had a bloody nose, and you blew out a huge bloody booger right into my hand. It was so gross. Oh, my God.

One of the odds of her remembering. It must have been terrible. Yeah, it was pretty bad. So I just want everyone to know that, you know, most people, they're not thinking about you. They don't remember any of the embarrassing stuff you did. But sometimes that one super embarrassing thing you did that you figured everyone forgot is still just fresh in someone else's mind every time they see you and they will never forget it. So, fun times. Just want to confirm everybody's worst fears.

That's your takeaway from the story is you're giving everybody needs. nightmare fuel over the most embarrassing thing they've ever done after we've told everybody no one's thinking about them in these moments. Hey, no one's thinking about you. Except that one will ever forget. Except for the worst thing. Yeah. The worst thing. No one's ever going to forget that. But you're off the hook for all this minor stuff that you didn't even remember. Shout out to M. Bone. Ah, M. Bone. You know, I remember meeting her and she's like, this is my husband or whatever. We just got married. And I remember being like, you lucky son of a bitch. You think she took his last name or? You know, when your last name is Bone, it's tempting to keep that.

Or you hyphenate it and, oh gosh, Bone something? Like her name is like Michelle Bone Harder. Yeah, that's what you don't hyphen, or you have to hyphen. I don't know. You have to, yeah. Yeah, Bone Harder. Oh, gosh, that sounds, well. I think you should add her on Facebook.

Michelle Bone is on Facebook, I promise you. You know what? I'm going on Instagram right now. You know what? We're going to pause the show. I'm going on. I'm going to do this right now. Hold on.

There's so many Michelle Bones. Nope, there's two. God, there's so many. These are like Michelle, bad to the bone. I always wonder about people who are not on Instagram or Facebook. I'm like, did you die? Yeah, you never know, right? Man, what happened?

I don't know. That is definitely not, no. This looks like, no. All right. Anyways, we've got some fun ones. We got some doozies. Can't wait to dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I work in health care and some of the people I work alongside complain daily about their appearances, usually about how they need to lose weight. In the next breath, though, they'll also make comments like, and that's why I don't go to the gym. They'll eat a burrito for breakfast, French fries for lunch, and all the sugary snacks in between. These are educated people. We all have doctorate degrees, so it's not as if they don't know what kinds of foods are nutritious.

It's especially irritating because we work with patients every day, who have preventable diseases caused by neglecting healthy habits, but also they're complaining about a problem they are actively choosing to perpetuate. I want to have a positive relationship with these people since we spend so much time together, but I find this negative and hypocritical on multiple levels. I also don't want to be interpreted as fatphobic, rude, or antisocial. Plus, I'm new to the organization, so I do need their help throughout the day. So how should I handle this?

Signed, School in These Docs. on how to walk the walk without getting cold-cocked. Ooh, boy, do I feel your pain. This is a really hard thing to watch in other people, especially when you spend eight or ten hours a day with them, and especially when they are literally complaining about their health, and especially, especially, when you work in health care. So if I were you, yeah, I'd be silently screaming in my head, too.

So this is tricky. On the one hand, you don't want to be that person in the office who's like, yo, Kathy, put down the bunch of crunch, take a friggin' walk, or you're going to be injecting yourself with insulin at 60 freaking 3. On the other hand, if you don't say anything, you could be indirectly enabling their very real health problems. And it's a super interesting question. How much responsibility do you have for these people?

Is it on you to give them a kick in the pants? Or is it on them, especially as doctors, to take care of themselves? Right. And also, if this is how they want to live their lives on some level, is that okay? Honestly, I don't really know the answer to that question. I really do see both sides. And maybe it comes down to personal values, what our friend here believes is more important. You know, this actually reminds me, my middle school health teacher and gym teacher,

she was a super competent and very nice woman, but she was multiple hundreds of pounds overweight. And every day she came in with a super big gulp soda, and she'd come back from lunch with another one. And I remember when we were swimming in the pool, some kid was like, where's the life and she's like, I'm the lifeguard. And then somebody probably was a smart ass was like, can you swim? And she's like, no, you're out of luck. I can't. So don't drown or something along those lines.

And we were all kind of like, is she being funny? But we were like, I don't know if she can actually do that. She could barely walk, literally. Again, very nice, very competent woman. But we were like, what the actual hell is going on here? She's our gym teacher. She's our health teacher. That does not sit well with me.

You know, I'm sure these people are both ignorant and maybe dealing with some stuff through food or whatever. But like, you kind of honor your profession a little bit. Yeah. Right? Like, it's like a cop who commits crimes. Like, you're a police officer. You're not supposed to break the law.

You're a health teacher. You're a gym teacher. You're a doctor. You're not supposed to treat your body poorly. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Okay, so here's another story. I knew this guy years ago.

He was a personal trainer. And when this guy was out in public and he would see families, like, eating terrible fast food at, like, the food court at the mall or whatever, he would go up to the parents and he would, say, look, I'm really sorry to be that guy, but I'm just going to tell you what you're doing to your kids is not okay. Like, this is low-key child abuse, what you're doing. You want to stick around, you want your kids to have better lives. I'm just going to tell you, you got to stop eating this stuff. Wow. Are you serious? He would actually do that. That's wild. Yeah. The balls.

I know. He just couldn't sit there and drink his protein shake or whatever while these parents gave their eight-year-old high cholesterol. And when I heard that, I cringed, kind of like you did. I was like, How could you actually say that? And he said, they need to hear it. They're hurting their kids. This is not okay. Which, again, is that really his place? You could argue?

No, not at all. You are nobody to these people. But if they go home that night and reconsider some things, was it maybe worth it? Eh, it's possible. I mean, it's a fair point, maybe, but man, that takes real stones. And it definitely feels a little oversteppy.

It is very oversteppy. Who is he to them again? Yeah, nobody. This woman writing in, she works with these people. They have a real relationship, right? I see. Maybe the answer is, how much do you care for these people? Is there a friendship here that's deeper than your work?

And does that imply some kind of obligation to tell them the truth? I think that's right. The relationship determines whether she's obligated to speak up at all. And also how receptive they are to her help. Right. Okay. So here's my idea. If you ever find yourself in conversation with one of your colleagues and they're like,

I feel gross, I'm tired, I just had to buy new pants again. But also, did you see there's a new season of Love Island out? That's why I don't go to the gym. Then that might be a great moment to speak up. And maybe you just say something like, listen, Kathy, I want to share something with you, and I really don't mean to overstep or sound like a know-it-all. I say this with nothing but love.

I hear you talk about your weight quite a bit, and I hear you talk about feeling, oh, feeling tired. And I can't hope but notice that, yeah, you're not putting the best stuff in your body. I mean, you're a doctor, you know that. And as your colleague, who frankly, I really enjoy working with, I got to say, I'm a little worried about you. And I feel like I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't say that you need to look at your lifestyle and take a little better care of yourself. And hey, if you don't want to do that, that's your choice.

Of course. But when I hear you complain, what I'm really hearing you say is, I can do better. So that's what I'm saying to you. I want you to do better. I know you can. and if you ever want to talk about how to do that, I'm here for you. If you say something like that kindly, respectfully, from a place of genuine concern, it'll be really hard for somebody to turn around and call you rude or fatphobic.

And look, if they do, then it's because you hit a nerve and they're defending or they're projecting, and that's just not on you. That's on them. Because ultimately, this is not about appearance at all. Appearance is a byproduct of lifestyle in this case. This is about pouring sucrose down your freaking gullet and clogging your veins with saturated fat. This is about living up to the standards of your profession. Going back to what you said earlier, Gabe, nobody reasonable can argue with that.

Not for long. Absolutely. I love that approach. I also like the idea of doing this one-on-one like that instead of as a group because then it's more personal, right? And then the other person probably won't feel as attacked or as embarrassed because even if she delivers this perfectly, flawlessly, it is a sensitive conversation. And also, maybe she feels more connected to Kathy and one or two other people at the office than she does with all of the others.

And maybe Kathy's the one who especially deserves her help. Exactly. I'm just picturing her giving all her colleagues a lecture at once in the break room when she hears them complain about the elliptical for the 38th time. And that is just not going to work. Nope, not going to work. Also, if she gets through to Kathy and Kathy does start taking better care of herself, their colleagues will probably notice that. And, hey, that might inspire them to turn the ship around, too. be even more effective than trying to give them all a lecture as a big group.

Yeah, that's a good point. Kathy could be the model for all of them to get better, and our friend here won't even have to do very much. All that said, I would be prepared for some of your colleagues to not want to get better at all, which, again, super hard to watch, and then it's on you to learn how to let this go, release your frustration, your very justifiable frustration, and make peace with the fact that Some people just can't or won't take care of themselves, which is really sad. But these people, they have to decide to take better care of themselves.

They're lucky to have a colleague who even cares at all or cares this much, and I hope they can hear you. Good luck. You know what you will want to shove down your gullet? The crazy deals from the sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps the lights on. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. they're all in one place, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals, or use the AI chatbot on the website to get any promo code from anywhere on the show.

So, consider supporting those who support us. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm an officer in the U.S. military, and this past year, I fell in love, hard, with another officer. We had two and a half months of sheer bliss and said, I love you after only a month. After every date, she texted me paragraphs of poetry about how we would be in love forever. She told me that she never felt so strongly about anyone, that before me, she never liked to be touched, and that I had changed her into a warmer, more loving person. Then we both got orders to move across the country to the same place.

Just before we left, in a charged conversation, she told me that she wanted me to perform a certain sexual act on her. I loved her, so I said yes, but I expressed that I didn't consider myself. very good at it, and I asked her to be patient with me. She implied that she was okay with my answer, and then we went on our separate road trips. What she didn't tell me for nearly a month was that not only was she not cool with my answer, she took it as absolute rejection, and chose to stew on it until her resentment grew. Separately, we had a miscommunication over text about something incredibly trivial during our time apart. I was dismissive, but I immediately and profusely apologized. After

waiting a full day for a response, which sent me into a full-blown panic, she replied that it was fine, but that she had some thoughts about it, but wouldn't say anything more. When we finally reunited, we were passive-aggressive, snippy, and sometimes downright mean to each other. Even when we got along, things just weren't the same as before. Finally, over Christmas, as we were joking around, I made a reference to the scene in the movie Deliverance, where a man is sexually assaulted by a hillbilly. While I knew that she had been sexually assaulted in her past and my joke was in poor taste, she had never shown any indication that she was able to be triggered by anything or that she had PTSD in general. She has a very macho-feminine, I am strong personality, which I respect.

Ooh, okay, I am trying really hard not to play my favorite deliverance sound bite. The dana-n-n-n-n-ing-n-n-n-ing-n-n- I knew it. I knew you were thinking that as soon as the deliverance thing. It's not appropriate here whatsoever, but continue. Just everybody play that in your mind. Yeah. If you can bear it, go watch that movie. I mean, we do have it. No. No? No. No, I think not. Maybe not. Maybe not. I think best not. Yeah, best not. I apologized, and we talked about our issues, but she said being reminded of her trauma sent her to a dark place. She ghosted me for a week, then suggested we go on a break for a year so she could work on herself. After three painful weeks, I couldn't take it anymore. I told her I needed to know that day

if she wanted to be together. She didn't even have to think about it. She said she had to choose herself. In fact, she sounded annoyed that I had the nerve to make her communicate with me. To say that I was absolutely devastated would be an understatement. I've cried almost every day for the past two months. I respect her choice, but my heart is broken. I've been seeing an awesome therapist who has been helping me work through the grief.

I've come to realize that this girl I thought was perfect, was actually very toxic and cruel. and I'm lucky things ended before I got in too deep. The problem is I now have to work with her for the next three years. We mostly ignore each other, but seeing her is awful, and I now feel a powerful hatred for her. She's also a charming, attractive person who knows how to make people like her, so my peers all think she's an angel, which is beyond infuriating.

I'm doing better now, and I no longer want to get back together, but the pain of losing the person I thought she was is still very hard. how do I deal with the stress and anxiety that I might bump into this person every time I go to work? How do I move on? How do I avoid developing trust issues in my next relationship? And how can I identify and avoid people like her in the future? Signed, private heartbreak, recovering from this earthquake, and avoiding another mistake. Ooh, okay.

Quite a whirlwind of a relationship. There's a lot going on here. And we could talk for hours about every nook and cranny of this. It sounds like there's drama addiction. on the part of this woman and she's got trauma and all this stuff. Since we only have a few minutes, I'm going to dive right in. First off, I'm really sorry this happened to you. This relationship was obviously very stressful, very painful.

You're still working through it. So, again, I'm sorry. But your ex, man, wow, I just don't quite know what to make of her. There are a lot of interesting signals in your letter. We don't even have time to get to all of them. But the one that stands out the most is this push-pull thing that happened between you. the falling in love really quickly, the I'm going to send you poetry telling you how crazy I am about you thing, the rapid intimacy followed by the poor communication, the emotional distancing,

the unpredictable emotions, and finally the year-long break, which is just a breakup at this point, and hold the phone, Gabe. We've got to talk about the bed stuff for a hot minute. I mean, it's very interesting. She asks him to do this sort of edgy thing that he wasn't entirely comfortable with, which is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that. that probably trying to get him to prove his love or something like, oh, the extra mile. But then she interpreted his hesitation as rejection, and then she couldn't or wouldn't talk to him about that at all, seemingly. And then it turns out she has this very significant trauma in her past, which, by the way,

very common to hear from women in the military, far too common, which is just incredibly tragic. And I've read books about women in the military and the amount of assault where it's like you're just supposed to accept that you're going to get, whatever, it's a whole thing. But it's just a dangerous place for women. And then he triggers her with this dumb joke. And it's like, okay, there's something very clearly complicated going on here. Very complicated. It's impossible to know exactly what is going on with her. And I don't want to speculate too much. But it sounds to me like she's wrestling with some pretty intense shame, which is heartbreaking to your point, given how it might have slash probably did develop. And she's encountering that shame at every

turn, it sounds like, especially in the bedroom. But yeah, that is her stuff. He triggered it, yes, sometimes in totally innocent ways, sometimes in perhaps more overt ways. But that doesn't mean it was his fault. He was definitely a little tone deaf with that deliverance joke. But based on what he shared, it really does sound like his ex was kind of a minefield of triggers. And that is so hard to navigate in a relationship. Yeah, Gabe, am I the only one? And I know this is just going to sound like I'm a purve here. And that's not where I'm going with this.

But am I the only one who's dying to know what she wanted in bed? Is that weird? I mean, it can only be a small handful of things. Yeah. It's like, the joky side of me wants to be like, ooh, what was it? Was it bondage? I mean, those knots are really hard. I'd struggle with those two.

And I'm an Eagle Scout. But I... I mean, yeah. I'm guessing that you're in the vicinity with that one. I'm struggling to say this on the show, just because I know it's going to get misinterpreted and we're going to get e-mail. about it, but there's a part of me that's like, okay, she was sexually assaulted. We know that trauma survivors often want to reenact what their trauma was. And so was she like, I want this really

sort of violent sexual encounter. And he's like, wow, I don't really know how to do that. It could be. That's my guess. And it's all super tricky. The healthy response to these conflicts is to stop and go, I'm feeling really triggered by what you just said. I'm feeling really gross, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling scared. Whatever it is, can we talk about it? Which he would have gladly done, right? But that's clearly hard for her. And if you're in pain and you have unresolved trauma, it can be extremely difficult.

Very daunting to do that. For sure. All that to say, I do feel for her despite how she's acted. And yes, your ex might be very toxic and cruel, but you don't become toxic and cruel if you're not in pain. And her charming persona, that gift she has for winning people over, I wouldn't be surprised if that's partly a response to the things she's gone through in her life. And it might even speak to some personality issues on her part.

Let's just put it that way. So, you're right. You dodged a huge bullet here. Your ex didn't treat you very well. And it's true that she deserves some empathy. So, all right. How do you move on? Well, you're doing it, man.

It's a process. It's only been a couple months since the breakup. It might take a couple more before you get your bearings again fully. but more importantly, you bringing all this into therapy, I think that's really the best thing that you could be doing. Sure, moving on is nice, but you can only do that by moving through and insert joke about me being, you know, like a sense, zen monk here. And you have to do that.

If you want to learn from this relationship and avoid these mistakes in the future, I think maybe take a little pressure off yourself to move on in a certain timeline. All you need to do is sit with these feelings, keep unpacking them, keep resolving what they brought up. And one day soon, you're going to go, okay, wow, that threw me for a loop. I'm a little raw about it, but okay, I'm mostly over it. I had to go through that to get here. As for the anxiety you feel about bumping into her, again, that feeling will ratchet down more and more as time goes by. But it's possible you'll always feel some type of way when you see her. She did a number on you, and it's hard to watch her win people over. You know more about her than they do. I just, it's got to be

hard. But you know, the overwhelming feeling I get from your letter is anger. You're angry. It makes sense. And you're in touch with the anger, which I think is healthy. And the more you can explore the anger in therapy, where it comes from, why she activated it the way she did, the more it'll start to ease up. And over time, it'll evolve into other things. Sadness maybe, or compassion for both of you. In the meantime, you need to develop a little practice when you run into her, almost a form of like meditation. You bump into her, your heart pounds a little faster, your nostrils flare a little bit, you get kind of hot behind the ears, whatever it is.

Just notice that response. Feel it in your body. Notice how it conjures up the whole narrative of your relationship in your head and that sense of being aggrieved. And just let those thoughts and feelings be. Don't act on them. Don't indulge them. Just let them be.

And notice how you settle back down. And remember that these mental, emotional patterns, they're real and they're worth exploring, but they don't have to run your life. Ah, well said, Jordan, could not agree more. As for avoiding trust issues in your next relationship, well, look, you're much better equipped now to choose a partner who doesn't exhibit some of these red flags. And if you ever did get to a point in a new relationship where, yeah, some of that distrust crept in again, or you didn't really know where you stood with the other person, you now know that you can stop and say, hey, I'm feeling a little distant from you right now. I'm not

sure how you're feeling, maybe this is my old relationship stuff creeping up, or maybe there really is something going on. But look, either way, I would really love to talk about it with you. Just being willing to say that to a partner, that can transform a whole relationship. Because we're not just talking about your ex anymore. I mean, yes, she was definitely a void in. She let things fester. But you also let her let them fester. You avoided them in your own way. And again, this is always a dynamic, right? So when you talk about avoiding trust issues, you're not just talking about trusting the other person. I think you're also talking about trusting yourself. Trusting yourself to speak up when something bothers you or to honor a feeling you have that something isn't quite right or to have the conviction that, yes, you deserve somebody who's willing to talk to you fairly and to talk to you honestly. All of that can change the dynamic with a new person instantly. Great point, Gabe. He gets to control all of that, which is yet another gift that he got from this tough relationship. Right, exactly. And as for identifying people like her in the future, well, I think you already know how to spot a few important signs, things like moving extremely quickly. Although, look, that's not necessarily a bad thing by any means, but if it's coupled with some of these other signals like getting really caught up in the relationship and then pulling away very hard, it could be. That could be a red flag. Other signs to look for, things like going in and out of touch, not feeling consistently connected to the other person. That's also a very important signal. But maybe the most important. important signal given your story is how you feel in the relationship. If you feel a little

unsteady, a little like unmoored, if you feel super connected to the other person and then kind of cast out, if you feel like a new partner has gotten under your skin in a way that you can't quite put your finger on, and I don't mean like in a fun way they get under your skin. Like they rile you up and you're kind of, it's not pleasant. And all of a sudden you're holding all of these feelings that you're not even sure really your feelings. Those are all super important signals. And I'm not saying that you should run from that person immediately, but I would definitely try to talk about that stuff with your partner and see if they would be willing to dig into that with you. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, Gabe, because a lot of times

people look for red flags in someone else, but oftentimes the first sign that something's off is that you feel kind of weird and you don't know why. And that's actually really important data. Again, I'm really sorry this happened to you, but in another way, I'm not sorry this happen because this relationship actually taught you a lot about yourself, about how you operate in relationships, about what to look for in a partner. And the fact that you're working with a therapist, exploring these great questions, that tells me that you're willing to learn and grow from this, which is ultimately all you can do. And I would argue the reason this woman had to enter your life. So hang in there, be patient with yourself, and know that this situation will get better.

or if it doesn't, that you'll only have to deal with it for, I don't know, throw it three more years. And I know that seems like an eternity, but it might fly by, especially if you're using that time to really work on yourself. And when you find a new partner, this is all going to start to feel like ancient history. So wishing you the best, stay safe in the military and when you run into your ex. Hard to say, which is scarier at this point. And good luck. You can reach us Friday atjordanharbinger.com. keep your emails concise, use the descriptive subject line.

If there's something you're going through, any big decision you're wrestling with, or you want a new perspective on life, love, work, what to do if you're wrestling with your sexuality and you still miss the young lover who mistreated you, whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday atjordanharbinger.com. We're here to help, and we keep every email anonymous. Okay, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a single childless 27-year-old woman, and I've noticed that a lot of my female friend's husbands

don't carry their weight when it comes to parenting. For example, my best friend recently said that if she were to die tomorrow, her husband would have no idea how to care for their six-month-old. Soon after, he was alone with her baby for the first time, and sure enough, he called her at work in an angry panic because he didn't know where they kept the bottles. He also once complained to her about the number of bottles in the sink needing to be cleaned. When she asked him how many he'd washed since their baby was born,

He said, uh, none. When we go on a girl's trip for more than one night, my friend's mother-in-law will go to her house to stay with her husband to help him take care of their kids for a few days. I found out from other friends that this isn't that uncommon. Some of my friends will even fly their mom or mother-in-law in from another city because their husband can't handle it. My best friend's husband suggested that they have another baby, but he barely helps take care of the one they have.

I've always pictured myself having a family someday, but I don't want to be in the same. this situation. What advice would you give someone whose partner has this mindset? How can I make sure that my future partner understands the importance of sharing parenting responsibilities equally? Signed, refusing to find myself bitching about a husband who won't pitch in. Interesting. Well, look, the reality is a lot of the primary parenting in most families traditionally falls to women, at least in conventional relationships. And yes, that means a lot of fathers out there, they don't know how to do basic things. They don't know how to feed a baby.

They don't know how to change a diaper because it's just not their domain slash they've decided that they don't want it to be their domain, which honestly I agree. It's a little sad because they're missing out on that experience too. And I change diapers every day. I get bottles ready. Every day. It's so easy, by the way, to do that stuff. And it makes you feel more connected to the babies.

But my dad, he never changed the diaper in his life. And he brags about it. It's like, okay, but I'm not sure that's a bragging point that you've never actually had to clean up baby poop. I think it's kind of the opposite. It's a little sad. So is this a little unfair? Yeah, a little. I can definitely appreciate why a mom might be annoyed.

Like, hey, dude, I birthed this baby. They're attached to my body virtually every second of the day. You can't find a freaking bottle. You can't do a couple dishes, man. I get it. I really think it's a little pathetic. And I think it also really depends on the expectations of the day. the parents involved. If dad is working 70 hours a week in some office and he's the primary breadwinner

and mom agreed to stay home and be with the baby and they've both openly discussed that and they're comfortable with that arrangement, then maybe that's fine. It's between them. I also still kind of think that expectations can change once babies are born and you can't be like, well, you said before and it's like, well, it's way harder than I thought. Well, tough Kishka, you still have to do this. And you can still find a freaking bottle and change a diaper here and there, right? When you get home, you can't be like, oh, well, you agreed. I'd never have to touch diapers. I mean, it's ridiculous.

But what I actually find the most meaningful here is that you feel annoyed on their behalf. And I think what you're really saying is that you don't want to be in a marriage like this. And fair enough, those are your values. And I largely agree with them, I guess. So if you're wanting to make sure your future partner shares parenting responsibilities, then the answer is to talk to them about it and make sure you guys are on the same page in advance and tell them why it's important to you that they pitch in, that they know how to take care of a baby, get clear on what you guys can reasonably expect of each other.

And maybe you even talk about some of your married friends, what you've noticed in their relationships, how you each feel about the way they co-parent or don't co-parent. And I think you'll know from their response whether they share that value too. It's really as simple as that. And yes, that's a crucial conversation to have in advance rather than waiting until you have a baby and then fighting about how unequal the responsibilities are when your newborn is screaming at 3.30 in the morning. As for advising your friends about this, again, I can't quite tell from your letter whether they're actually angry about this too.

Maybe they're fine with this arrangement or they find it mildly irritating. The answer is obviously for them to talk to their partners and help them get up to speed on this stuff. I mean, if your friends want their husbands to do more on their own, then the only way is to tell them why this matters, teach them how to feed a baby, change a diaper, run the dishwasher, whatever it is that they're not doing. But again, your reaction to your friend's stories, I really do think that's revealing something about you. So more than anything, I would focus on that information and use it to guide your own conversations and decisions with future partners. there are definitely men out there who will be pumped to be involved, and maybe this is helping you realize that you want to find one of them, which is great.

So good luck. And Gabe, you know what makes for a great gift for your mother-in-law when she flies out to pick up the slack because your useless husband can't do it? Products and services that support the show? Yeah, you got it. The products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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And now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, over the past couple years, my partner of over a decade has slowly distanced herself from me. We used to do everything together. Cook, eat, sleep, watch TV, go on excursions, and now we don't do any activities together. A few months ago, she bought a second bed and now sleeps in another room. We haven't had sex in over a year. When we first started dating, I was very depressed, and I was messaging other women in inappropriate ways. What I did was not okay, and I've never done or thought about doing anything like that again.

Almost a decade later, she still throws this back at me in every argument. Even when I think things are going smoothly, I can feel her hatred, and she will say the most hurtful things to me. We're seeing a therapist, and even in therapy, I'm afraid to speak. If I do, she'll talk over me, or refute what I say. About six or seven years ago, she told me that she didn't think things were going to work out between us, because she was in love with her manager at work. A woman she believed was her soulmate.

I was very hurt and felt betrayed, but the whole thing seemed to blow over after a while. I forgave her and never held that against her, and we never really talked about it again. I mentioned this event recently when she brought up my unfaithfulness again, and she said that what she said and how she felt was not infidelity, and that I'm delusional if I think that it was wrong. Now, more recently, she's made another new friend. She spends almost all of her time texting this girl, first thing in the morning and usually late into the night. She's very secretive about their relationship, but I've heard her refer to this woman's parents as mom and dad and have overheard her say, I love you too, while talking on the phone. I once asked her what was going on with this girl, and she blew up at me, calling me delusional and jealous. I feel bad for invading her privacy, but a few days ago, I quickly looked at her phone and saw that they frequently send each other hearts, say, I love you, and refer to each other as my love.

They also talked about how I'm a problem. Am I really delusional for thinking that they're more than just good friends? Is the way I feel about this relationship just feelings and not actually the reality of the situation? Signed, reeling, concealing, and not really dealing with the fact that I've got some feelings about my gal's secret dealings. Wow. Okay, this is just brutal. A tale of two girlfriends today. What a smorgas board of WTF. There's a lot going on here, man. Seriously. And also a lot. Not going on here.

Yeah, tell me about it. Okay, and so many of these stories I find myself thinking, it's the things you don't say that kill you. But we'll get to that in a second. So you don't need us to tell you this, but this relationship is deeply problematic. Your partner, who certainly does not seem to necessarily want to date men, but whatever,

has distance herself from you in several ways. You don't spend meaningful time together. You're not physically intimate. You don't really talk. You don't even sleep in the same room. she freaking fell in love with her manager at work three or four years into your decade-long relationship. She might be doing that again now with this new woman certainly sounds like it. And overall, it sounds like you guys are harboring some very negative feelings about each other.

Your communication is charged. It's largely broken down. And even though you're sort of working on things in therapy, which I applaud, it doesn't sound like you're even getting much out of it. So this is a cluster. It's not what a loving, healthy, supportive relationship looks like. It's just, it's not. So are you delusional for thinking that your partner and this new woman are more than just friends?

Honestly, I don't know. Look, you saw the text. You're certainly not crazy to wonder, especially given her history. There's an obvious pattern here. And you certainly deserve to understand what role this new person plays in your partner's life. That is not unreasonable. So, Gabe, I'm just going to come out and say it. Clearly his girlfriend is gay or buy or something, right?

I'm assuming yes. But does she know that and she's hiding it? Or is she out and he knows this about her? Or is she just totally in denial? And she's like, oh, okay, yeah, we're just friends except for I'm gay, obviously. Unclear. Are you thinking that that might be part of the reason she's being so secretive? I mean, it did occur to me.

It's possible that she's cheating on him with women, even if it's just emotional cheating, but she's using the same-sex thing to justify infidelity, which, to me is really obvious. You know, like, hey, I'm not actually cheating on you. She's a woman, even though I send her hearts and call her parents, mom, and dad, and they love with her. It's just, it's kind of ridiculous to me. Could be. Or she's still coming to terms with her orientation, and these relationships with these women are just a way for her to, you know, gently, casually explore that.

Sure. Either way, whatever's going on with this latest woman in the pattern. Doesn't sound good. No. Not good. No. They text all the time late into the night. They refer to each other as my love.

when you try to talk to her about it, she turns around and projects all over you and gaslights you about all this. They consider you a friggin' problem? Yeah. That was the worst part. Oh, so brutal. I mean, it's just, imagine if two guys were doing even 10% of this. It would be so obvious that they're gay to me. Right.

And it's really sad and hurtful, even if they aren't romantic, full stop. So the feelings you're having now, maybe they accurately reflect the reality of the situation. Maybe they don't. But that doesn't mean your feelings are irrelevant. They're coming from somewhere. They're legitimate and they're trying to tell you something about this relationship. Absolutely. And the notion that his feelings are only valid if his partner really is having an affair,

that's important too. I'm kind of getting the sense that it's hard for him to fully own his experience. You know, I'm feeling this way. I'm thinking these things. Is that legitimate? I don't know. Should I say something? He can't do that unless she is doing something objectively terrible.

which, by the way, that might be part of the reason that he has stuck around for so long. Yeah, 100%. So from where I am sitting, it doesn't matter whether your partner is actually having an affair with this woman. No. That's a huge issue, of course, but it's just one aspect of a much deeper problem. Yes. That problem being, your partner doesn't seem to care about you very much, to put it bluntly. I mean, she's not taking her feeling seriously.

She's not being kind to you. she's being deceitful, she's being manipulative, and she's being hurtful. My question is, why are you still in this relationship, dude? That's a question you have to answer for yourself, but I think you're already on to the answer here. And as you can tell, I definitely think it's time to leave. You have way more than enough information to know that this partnership, if you can even call it that at all, is not working. Not only is it not working, but it's actively harming you and holding you back from a

healthier life, a stronger sense of self. And I just have to say that unequivocally, you got to get out. Getting out is clearly the answer. But the thing he really needs to understand to your point is, why did he do this for the better part of a decade? Because obviously, it takes two to tango. Right or to not tango is the case maybe. You know what? Jordan, there's some fascinating parallels with the couple in question too, right? Those two were also avoiding some difficult conversations. But this couple never really talked about that manager she fell in love with. It just kind of, as he put it blew over. He says he forgave her. Then you never held that against her. Yeah, which by the way, if you don't even talk about it, can you even really forgive someone? Well, right. Are you really not

holding that against her? Or is there a part of you that feels that that never really got resolved? And there's some resentment still buried deep down. There's got to be. I mean, he brought it up with her. Yeah, he brought it up again after saying that he was totally over and threw it back. Like, hey, remember when you fell in love with that woman? What about that? And even when things are going relatively smoothly, there's this nonverbal aggression between them, just this unspoken rage, which is just so uncomfortable. And even in therapy, he's afraid to speak because she's just going to talk over him or refute what he says. So... Yeah, that makes me wonder if their therapist is even up to snuff at all. I mean, that's a fascinating dynamic to bring into couples therapy. It's potentially very useful.

But if she's just dominating him in every session and he can't even express himself, it's like, hello, is this therapist even really helping? Are they onto this? Who knows what's happening in there? But you're really, but you're really, right, if he can't even speak, either because the therapist isn't making space for him when she railroads him or because he's censoring himself, then I agree. I just, I don't know how helpful the therapy is going to be. So that is what he needs to work on, this avoidance piece, because, again, that's the main way that he has co-created this dynamic. And I'm sure that quality shows up in other parts of his life, and it'll definitely reappear in other relationships after

this if he does not work on it now. Yeah, amen, Gabe. So you know what you got to do, but it's time to get curious about your side of the street here. That's just as important as why your girlfriend is carrying on with other people and treating you so poorly. Ugh, my heart just hurts reading this letter, man. You deserve better. More importantly, you deserve an opportunity to get some distance from this mess and just be on your own so you can work on yourself. And as for your girlfriend, she needs to work on herself. But that's her business. I would just focus on your business. And I'm wishing you the best, man. Good luck and get out of there, man. Just get out. All right. That's up. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I recently realized just how much energy I spend being somebody I want the world to see me as. I've always

suffered from social anxiety and self-consciousness, but I've picked up strategies along the way to become a fairly successful and likable person. I try to show people warmth, even when I'm uncomfortable, and I've been told that I come across as confident and laid back when I'm not. I'm also a people pleaser, prone to being a pushover and not completely honest when it comes to my thoughts and feelings. I find socializing exhausting, except when I'm with people I am extremely close to, and I don't have to think about or prepare for our exchanges. Even seeing good friends leaves me needing to recover from the effort. I want to be seen as friendly, interesting, interested, open-minded, cool, and kind. But I have some pretty unappealing personality traits, and no amount of acting is ever

going to change them. I now feel an underlying anxiety around people realizing what I'm truly like, and I'm not so sure that I want to continue carrying that burden. I see people who are unapologetically themselves, and where once I would have pitied them for not having more self-awareness, now I envy them. I've considered dropping the act as a sort of social experiment and seeing what happens if I only act and speak 100% authentically, but I'm afraid of the repercussions, and that isn't exactly easy to do. How do you relearn how to be yourself? Should I strive to be 100% authentic?

Or do we need a limit to our authenticity if we're going to have any hope of people wanting to be around us? And what is that line? Signed, dropping this crutch without losing my touch and being too much. Ooh, okay, such a good question.

What you're describing, it's something everyone listening right now deals with to some degree, including me, including Gabe, I'm sure. Absolutely. And it happens to be one of my favorite topics. So let's dig into it. First of all, this point you're at now, where you see this anxiety and self-consciousness clearly, where you're fed up with the mask you've put on for years, that is actually a great place to be. That is the first step towards re-learning to be yourself. So well done there. At the same time, let's just take a moment to appreciate that this

persona you've developed, yes, it's a burden, but it's served an important function for you up until now. So when you said you show people warmth even when you're uncomfortable, I definitely know how exhausting that must be. But in a way, I actually kind of admire that. What it tells me is that you're a kind person, you're aware that your anxiety might come off the wrong way, you're making a real effort to be sociable. And you know, we all have to do that sometimes. You don't want to go to a party and be the friggin ghost at the feast, right? You want to get on with people. You want to make them feel comfortable, you want to be part of things. So ideally you don't have to fake it, but let's just appreciate that the qualities you value the most, they say a lot about you.

And this is actually a very adaptive way of dealing with the anxiety. So here's my take, my little spiel on authenticity. Trying to be more authentic. It's a fool's errand in a way, because as soon as you're trying to be more yourself, you're already admitting that you're not yourself, which means that any attempt to be more authentic is just another mask that you're putting on. So instead of trying to be more authentic, it's usually more helpful to stop being inauthentic.

In other words, don't try to be something you wish you were. Try to stop being something that you were not. And again, I know I sound like some annoying Zen master wannabe right now, so let me just be more specific. Yeah, let me just deconstruct this. Let's say you go to a party

and you want to be seen as friendly, and you want to be seen as interesting kind, great, all wonderful qualities, all things you should aspire to. Although, look, just as a side note, I genuinely believe that you have those qualities in you already. I really do. It's just that your particular brand of friendly or interesting or kind, they're being covered up right now, and they're being covered up by this impulse to convey them in a certain way to achieve certain goals. And again, I'll get back to that in a second. So you go to this party, right? And you want people to see you this way. So you put on a face, you put on a role, the role of the friendly,

interesting kind person, and maybe it kind of works. But even if it does work, it leaves you with some difficult feelings. It's a hollowness, maybe some depression, and oftentimes this underlying anxiety that people will realize what you are truly like. But you could also go to that party and say, I'm not going to work so hard to be all these things that I'm not. I'm not always the friendliest. I'm not always the coolest, whatever. Maybe I can just let that be okay and see what happens. So I'll give you an example. This is something I started doing like 15 years ago and honestly I still do this sometimes where if I'm at a party or a conference or an event or whatever and I'm not feeling super outgoing, I'll literally just say to somebody, hey, sorry if I'm a seem standoffish. I wasn't really in

the mood to be socializing today. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, a little anxious, maybe a little self-conscious, whatever the feeling is. I'll just say it. And man, when I tell you that nine out of ten people respond to that by saying, oh my God, me too. Thank you for saying that. I'm not even kidding. Everyone feels this way to some degree. Even people who are great at parties. And those who aren't, they'll shrug it off and go, that's all right. We all get in those moods. And it's fine. What happens when you say something like this, what happens next is, well, first, you're carving out a little room for you to be yourself, which is a freaking relief, big time, of course. And when you do that, you can calm down a little bit. You can physically feel

yourself relax. You might still be a little anxious, but you've removed one huge layer of conflict, which is trying to be something other than what you are, which is often where most of the anxiety comes from. And the other thing that happens is you give the other person permission to be more themselves, which puts them at ease and reduces even more pressure on you to please them. I remember one night, another quick story, I was at this dinner party years ago. I'm sitting at a table with 10, 12 other people. I had just broken up with somebody. And I was just miserable, just hating every moment, and I could tell that people were kind of thinking, like, who's the serial killer, not talking to anybody, just scowling into his brocolini? And finally, I turned to the

woman sitting next to me, and I did the thing. I was like, hey, I'm sorry for being the absolute worst person you could sit next to tonight. I just ended a relationship, and I want to be home watching a movie in my pajamas. And I swear, this woman's whole demeanor changes. And she goes, me too. My boyfriend just broke up with me. It sucks. This is the first time out of the house in three days. And we ended up having a really nice conversation about our relationships. And I even surprised myself. I managed to be kind of funny, a little self-deprecating, a little bit charming,

dare I say. But it wasn't because I was trying to be charming. It was because I stopped trying to not be Debbie Downer in the corner table. And then this more spontaneous organic part of me was just able to pop out. So that's what I'm talking about. And I know it feels like a huge risk. Because it's like, well, if I'm not trying to be better, aren't I just settling for being kind of meh? But you're not.

What you're actually doing is clearing the debris that's covering up all those qualities that you wish you could express in that moment or that you wish you had. Wow. What you're actually doing is clearing the debris that's covering up the qualities she wishes she had, which she does have already. But she's trying to overplay them or compensate with other qualities that are not really the point at all. Exactly. That's so important. Yeah. I love that.

You can still work on yourself. You can always be better. I'm not saying you don't need to grow anymore or whatever, but you can't really grow until you get in touch with these parts of yourself. And you have to slowly start inviting them out to play a little bit. Ah, Jordan, I love that. I've had the exact same experience in my life. So yes, 100%.

I think you nailed it. But listen, while you do everything Jordan just described, I would also explore the roots of this inauthenticity. because struggling to be authentically you, that's always the product of certain messages we get early on in life, you know, from our culture, from our friends, but more than anything, spoiler alert,

just saving you like three years of therapy right here. It usually starts with our parents. And you're already on to that. Like you said, you're a people pleaser, you're prone to being a pushover, not being completely honest when it comes to your thoughts and your feelings. So my question for you is,

when did that impulse begin? When you want to please people, Why does that feel so important, so urgent? What are you really trying to accomplish by doing that? Here's an interesting question. If you were honest with your thoughts and feelings, what do you think would happen? Are you afraid that people might turn on you or run away, reject you, maybe make you feel kind of silly for having those thoughts and feelings?

Because look, when we feel the need to be someone we're not, it's often because somebody early on was not able to really accept and validate who we were. That's just what it is. And that means like all the parts of us, not just the qualities or the needs that were convenient to them. Then what happens is we develop this persona, this persona that's designed to get us what we want, which often means in early childhood just to stay alive, to stay safe, keep people happy. Because our true self, that feels too risky. And that's when the mask starts to develop. And that's when the shame also starts to develop and the anxiety.

So like if you have a meltdown when you're a kid and your mom kind of like, like, recoils and withdraws from you or maybe even gets mad at you for being upset, you learn pretty quickly that you can't bring your fear or your anger or your anxiety to mom. And you don't want to alienate your parent, right? You need them. So you put those feelings away or you try to. And you can see where I'm going with this. You can imagine how that plays out with all sorts of qualities and needs and impulses, spontaneous

impulses. But the price you pay for that persona to Jordan's point is often depression and anxiety and self-consciousness and again, a lot of shame because that true self is still there. It's still underneath the surface. It wants to come out. And it actually needs to be acknowledged and accepted, but it can't as long as you keep up the act. So I know all of this is pretty intense, but my invitation to you is to get in touch with that true self as much as you can. And you can do that on your own at first. You know, you can journal about it. You can talk to your friends about it. you can experiment here and there with opening up a little more.

You don't need to be 100% authentic at first. You can be 10%, 20% more authentic. See how it goes. But even better, I would talk to a therapist about this because this true self, false self theme, that is often one of the greatest things you can explore in therapy. And it's kind of the point, I think. One of the big points of going to therapy is getting back in touch with that person. And listen, you might not believe me right now, but the funny thing is those unappealing

personality traits that you talked about, those are often the best parts of you. Yes, they're a little risky, but they're also kind of amazing. And they're the pieces of you that other people usually end up relating to the most, because you got to remember, most people you interact with, they're working really hard to deny those same qualities in themselves. So this is kind of your superpower, if you can get in touch with it. Wow. Well, you nailed it, Gabe. It's the dinner party all over again. Right. The thing that made me feel like a leper that night was actually the one thing that allowed me to connect with that woman. Yeah. And that's just a dumb dinner party. What we're talking about now is a way of moving through life and bringing all of yourself to your relationships,

which frankly could be really exciting. As for the limit to authenticity, you're going to find that for yourself. You'll feel it. But honestly, I'm not worried about you turning into a monster. You're so far in the other direction, it's basically impossible. You're not going to be like, I'm going to be authentic. Dot, dot, dot, Harvey Weinstein. Okay, it's not. The limit to authenticity in my view is when your honesty, your likability, your humor, when those qualities start to come at somebody else's expense.

And by that, I mean, you're hurting someone's feelings or you're dominating the conversation. You're making people feel uncomfortable. And the Harvey Weinstein example is real, right? He was one of the most authentic leaders of our time. That's not what we want, you know? And what you're talking about, when you go so far in that direction, it's not necessarily even authenticity.

It's being a narcissist. It's being a terrible person. And by the way, you can still keep an eye on that without driving yourself crazy. There's a difference between being self-conscious and being self-aware. That's important to remember, too. So I hope that gives you some new angles here. I love your willingness to work on this. I really do.

I know that it's scary. But it's such important work, and it's something we all have to do. So don't beat yourself up for struggling with it. I know there's a lot more of you to appreciate in yourself, and that's where authenticity starts. So dive into that, and I know it'll bring you into some really great relationships, including the one you have with yourself. So putting down my yoga instructor hat here, hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week and everybody who listened.

Thank you so much. Go back and check out Bradley Hope on North Korea and Lieutenant John Norse on illegal weed growing in California, if you haven't done that yet. If you want to know how I managed to find and book these amazing guests, It's always, always, always about my network of amazing people. And you should build your own network, even if you don't have a podcast. Our six-minute networking course, which is free, we'll teach you how to do that. It's on the think-ethic platform at jordanharbinger.com slash course.

Build relationships before you need them. Dig the well before you get thirsty. They take a few minutes a day, those drills. It's not fluff. It's really been life-changing for me. Again, free, Jordanharbinger.com slash course. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. transcripts are in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show are all

at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals, are constantly upgraded GPT chatbot with all promo codes and all feedback Friday answers ever and every guest, every question you could possibly think of to ask one of us, well, maybe, could be answered by this AI chatbot over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash AI. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and of course Gabriel Mzrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own and I'm a lawyer, but I ain't your lawyer. Do your own research before

implementing anything you hear on this show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. Here's a trailer from my interview with Layla Ali, daughter of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali. She's got a great story about how she ended up the only other boxer in her family and how she carries her father's legacy.

Whether you're into sports or not, I think you're really going to dig it. You have to have it in you to want to be a fighter. It's not something that you just go, I think I'll just try boxing, you know, because you're going to get your ass beat. If you're going to hear and you don't have it in you, when you get that opportunity, it was a brawl. I mean, it was bloody. It was like crazy. And I was like, I want to do that. You would think anyone punching you would hurt, right? Yeah, sure. But as fighters, it's like, oh, that person can punch, that person can't tap, tap, tap, tap. And then every once in a while that

bam, that hard way, and oh, okay, I felt that. If you're listening to your camp saying, she's nothing and she this or she that. And then you have to get your ass in there, and then you feel that punch. Like, no, she can punch. And no, she's not just a pretty bad. You see me across that ring looking at you. Like, yeah, remember all that stuff you talk? Now it's about to happen. It's just me and you. Nobody else can get in there with you, you know? And it's like, I'm going to remind you of all the things you said, they didn't know that street side of me. Not everyone has that. You don't have to.

Sure. But I do. Now you get to meet someone. You say how they walk. See how they hold this stuff. See if there's any fear in their eyes. What was your father's reaction to you wanting to box? He didn't like it.

No? No. You guys were sparring before you even put the gloves on. Oh, yeah. He supported me, though. He came to a lot of my fights. He couldn't be at all of them. I could always see that glare in his eyes with him being proud.

And just to come into that arena and having everyone chanting, Ali, Ali. Did you just see him light up to see him light up. To see me in that ring and him just remembering himself, our boxing styles were similar, the way I'm shaped, my body shaped. So just seeing all of that had to be a super crazy experience for him. For more with Layla Ali, check out episode number 309 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time.

If you like the Jordan Harbinger Show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical. useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star

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