The Jordan Harbinger Show - 885: No Need to Be Chummy with a Grandad So Scummy | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Are you right to cut ties with your grandpa now that his sociopathic, incestuous, and pedophilic history has come to light? Welcome to 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: Some people in your family disagree with your decision to cut ties with Grandpa now that his sociopathic, incestuous, and pedophilic history has come to light. What should you do? [Thanks to  Maria Socolof and Brad Watts for helping us with another heavy one!] Six months off weed during a manic period brought you artistic success and closeness to your wife and kids. Now, in a 'down' time, an urge to resume communion with the righteous herb has returned — much to the chagrin of your wife. Is it worth it? Your father gave you and your siblings each $100,000 to use for investing in real estate. While you did use much of it to put a down payment on a house, you wasted about half self-soothing while dealing with a depressing, friendless work assignment in the middle of nowhere. Though you know your dad would be disappointed, should you come clean? Management at your company has become toxic since a recent merger, and they want you to jump through the hoop of finishing your bachelor's degree to make an extra $10,000 in your current position. Unfortunately, a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis has you worried you might not be up to the challenge. What's your best move?[Thanks to HR professional Joanna Tate for helping us with this one!] Is there value in platforming divisive figures like RFK Jr. on this show? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/885 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

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

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Well, we're laughing already because of shenanigans prior to hitting the record button. We had to hit record or we're not going to be serious this old day. I'm here in studio with Feedback Friday producer, a guy who's literally wearing a hat today that says, que bonito.

Are you trying to make it embarrassingly easy for me to roast you? Mm-hmm. Because it's working. Yes. Yeah. It's working. When I put on this hat, I knew it was a choice. Is that a brand, K Bonito, or is it just like, hey, this is how I'm feeling?

If you want to hear the whole story, I can tell you how I came by this hat. I don't know about the whole story. What's the Abreave version? I just found out, because I did not know this until I looked it up online. It's a coffee roasting company that makes merch, and a friend of mine bought it at my suggestion, and it did not look very good on her. So she just gave it to me, which was the correct decision. And I've been wearing it ever since, and it seems to be a...

hit. I love this hat. I'm really into this hat. But yeah, it's a coffee company. Cabonito in the pink font, we're going to find out in two or three years or right after the show that that means something that neither of us are aware of that's either horrifyingly sort of gross or possibly a subculture reference that we're just not picking up. Because a lot of people are giving you attention because that I refuse to believe it's just because those beans are that popular. Well, the problem is that, okay, so it's Cabonito, which means like, how beautiful, right? But I thought it meant like, how beautiful is life? You know, that was how I was going out into the world with this hat.

Okay. But then about halfway through my trip in Spain, a bunch of people kept stopping me and asking where I got it. And then I realized, like, maybe I'm wearing a hat that suggests that I think I'm Cabonito. And so now I've been a little bit self-conscious about it because I was trying to express something very different. Got it. Well, you know.

It hits on a few levels. It hits on a few levels. 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. you can use to impact your own life and those around you. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from cold case homicide investigators to four-star generals and Hollywood filmmakers. This week, we had Annie Iqpa on Child Sacrifice. She's an activist that got a law

passed in Uganda about child sacrifice. Can you believe, not that it was legal, but there was no law against it, so it was kind of hard to prosecute this kind of thing. Which doctors were killing children or having parents killed their own children. It's a horrifying story. But if you want that horrifying story, Annie Iqba from this week, actually a really great episode, moving, and she's just such a gem of a human. Gabe and I also did a deep dive on envy, unpacking this complicated emotion, learning how it operates in your life, figuring out what your envy is trying to teach you about your goals, your needs, your life, some super interesting and hopefully very useful general life stuff in this one,

all inspired by some conversations Gabe and I have been having lately about how to take so-called negative emotions like envy and make them your teacher because they ain't going anywhere. And finally, another skeptical Sunday last Sunday on homeopathy with Michael Regulio, an episode that I fully expect is going to fill my inbox with even more kooky crazy hate mail. So if you want to send me something nice, I'm all ears.

On Fridays, we share stories, we take listener letters, we offer advice, we play obnoxious soundbubes, and obviously one of the key activities is mercilessly roasting Gabe for his appearance and life choices. Speaking of which, I did get a few DMs from people over the last couple of weeks going, dude, why are you so mean to Gabe, lighten up, he's not that bad. You know, your friends aren't going to stick around if you treat him like this. And I was just thinking, wow, I notice a lot of these people have really, obviously,

foreign names. And I wonder if they can't tell that I'm joking or maybe I can't tell that they're joking. I'm open to that interpretation. But do you guys not know that making fun of Gabe's weird work out? and veganism and silly hats. That is my love language. So, Gabe, are you just over there trying not to cry and I'm too self-absorbed to notice?

No, I love it. Are you kidding me? Okay. You're just saying all this stuff I think about myself. So it's great. It's hilarious. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I overdid it one week or something.

So you can relax guys, you know, you're listening to two men who express their love through insults. That's right. As is the custom of our gender, frankly. Correct. We can't communicate on any sort of open, reasonable level. That would require a lot more therapy than even, either of us plan on getting.

So awkward. Yeah. So that's 13 years of friendship you're hearing in those roasts. Exactly. That's the sound of history. Guys, sit back and enjoy. Now let's hear the sound of the first thing out of the mailbag. Okay.

Before we dive into this next one, just want to give you guys a heads up, that this is a difficult one. It's about sexual abuse and it goes into some vivid detail. I just want to let you know now. Yeah. All right. Dear Jordan and Gabe, last fall, my mom sat my siblings and me down and said that,

we needed to have a difficult talk about Grandpa, her father. She then told us about how he molested my aunt, my mom's youngest sister, since she was 10 years old. My mom went into graphic detail, how on a hunting trip when they were alone, my grandpa exposed himself to his daughter and grabbed her hand to touch him, how he would walk in on her while she was in the shower, how he would come into her bedroom at night

and put his mouth on her genitals and want her to do things to him as well. So gross. Rough start to this life. It's really dark, super sad. This guy's a real predator. Ugh, this poor woman. My grandparents, my mom, and her siblings have known about my aunt's abuse since she told the family in the early 90s. By the time she opened up about it, she was grown, married with children, and didn't want to report anything. The siblings agreed not to tell their children,

which includes me and my cousins, and my grandpa said that he would seek counseling. After a year or so of counseling, my grandpa said that he was quote unquote cured. Then, last year, all of my mom's siblings agreed to spill the family secret about my aunt's abuse, because she's an author and is writing a book about her experiences. Since then, so much more has come out about my grandfather. Two granddaughters and one great-granddaughter have come forward with experiences of my grandpa exposing himself to them, and one granddaughter was forced to perform oral sex on him. Oh my God. One incident has been reported to police, but they said there wasn't enough evidence to pursue it. Other than that, he's faced no consequences for his actions. Dude, I'm getting angry.

This is the problem with keeping this sort of thing secret is people don't know to keep their kids away from these predators. I understand there's a shame element here. Obviously, this guy's not cured whatsoever. Is it an absolute monster. This is horrifying. If you think about it, you take the shame element out, which is really hard. If your kid falls into a hole in a vacant lot, you tell everybody that there's a hole in the vacant lot. Good point. But when somebody in your family or close to you is a predator, a sexual predator, you don't tell anyone because it might reflect poorly on that person or you, but then other people get victimized as a result. I just can't understand this calculation. I can't.

It's hard to know how many variables there were in that decision. Maybe they had other reasons, but you make a really, really good point that I had not thought about. So the letter goes on, My family forced my grandfather to attend therapy and had him sign papers so that they could legally speak to the therapist about what they talk about in their sessions. Other things that came out during these sessions include the fact that my grandfather began having oral sex and giving hand jobs with his own brother around the age of 13, that he's had a porn addiction since a young age, and that he's frequented sex workers and massage parlors for several years.

He claims he stopped when he was 70 years old after one of the sex workers turned out to be an undercover police officer. He's also forced my grandmother to watch pornography against her will. The sexual stuff aside, my grandpa can also get very angry, very quickly, and has slapped my mom on a few occasions recently. Wow. Yeah, wow. Okay, so this addiction slash compulsion is basically running this guy's whole life.

Sounds like it. Plus, he has other issues. This is intense. It reminds me a long time ago I dated a gal who was a police officer. And one of the things, you know, she's young and cute. So they put her undercover as a like a street walker sex worker. I don't know what the PZ term is for that. I guess I'll just leave it there.

Sex worker, I think, yeah. The ones who hang out literally on the street. Sure. And she caught this old guy and he was like 70 years old. And he's like, oh, I'm so embarrassed. I'm so embarrassed. And she felt guilty, right? Because it's like this old guy and he's like, oh, my wife died.

I'm very lonely. And she felt horrible about it. And then after a few days, one of her other officers came in and was like, hey, you need to not worry about that. That guy was a terrible person. And she's like, I don't know. He's just an old lonely guy. And they go, no, in the trunk of his car, he had rope, a shovel, and a bag of line. He was going to murder you.

Yeah. No, he's not like an lonely old man. Like, that was just BS. He was a psychopath. Wild. Yeah. That's terrifying. Yeah.

Cool story. Yeah. Anyway, so about him and his brother fooling around. Yeah, I mean, we don't know if this guy's worse than this, but this is enough to work with on its own. Right, yeah. I just, you know, because I thought like, oh, 70, he's embarrassed. It's the, I don't know, man. I got you.

So about him and his brother fooling around. It sounds like we don't know who initiated that, right? If it's not clear from the, okay. No. So we don't know if this woman's grandpa was the victim there or the perpetrator there, or if they were just so young that they're, it's kind of like ambiguous. Yeah, I can't tell if that backstory is part of his, like, villain origin story or just the first chapter. in what sounds like a long history as an aggressor. I see. Yeah, interesting.

We'll come back to that, I guess. Okay. So sad. The letter goes on. My grandpa's therapist said he's quite sure he has antisocial personality disorder, aka sociopathy. Since finding that out, I haven't seen or spoken to my grandfather. But many of my family members, including my mom,

see him on a regular basis. They bring him meals several times a week and invite him over to their homes for dinner. They take him to doctor's appointments and therapy appointments. They do his grocery shopping for him. Some of my cousins even still go to his house to visit with him. Although I have a hard time with it, those who want to maintain a relationship with him

have the freedom to do so. What I don't like is that some of them are now gilting those like me who have cut him out. My aunt, the one who was abused, has kept a close relationship with him through the years. She says that if she can forgive him, then others should be able to forgive him too. I wasn't abused by him, at least that I have any memories of.

but I feel like my family is dancing around what my grandfather really is, a sociopathic, child-molesting, pedophile. Am I a bad person to not want a relationship with this abusive, violent man who isn't at all who I thought he was? Signed, choosing the right camp when it comes to this twisted gramps.

So, man, I'm a bit stunned, Gabe. I am too. We've heard a lot of very difficult stories on Feedback Friday, but this one is definitely up there. Way up there. I don't know if there are really words, for this kind of abuse.

It's just, oh, it's really gross. Your grandfather's hurt a lot of people very badly. And by the way, I think this is maybe the most important part. He's still hurting them. So it's unclear, in my opinion. I mean, I'm no professional here, but it's unclear if he can really be helped. I personally find this guy terrifying and disgusting and unsympathetic,

although, you know, I'm trying to hold my anger alongside the fact that somebody who does this is maybe also in a lot of pain himself, but, you know, or is just a terrible. psychopath that doesn't give a shit about anybody else. I don't think you become a sociopathic child abuser in a vacuum, but in my book, what he's done is absolutely unforgivable. And it's important, again, to remember that he is still very dangerous, as proven by his actions. So my heart goes out to you and to the rest of your family, because this is deeply painful stuff. We wanted to talk to an expert

about your story. So we reached out to Maria Sokoloff, president and co-founder of fivewaves.org, a nonprofit offering resources to survivors of siblings, sexual trauma, and their families. Maria's also a survivor of childhood abuse, so she has a personal and important lens on stories like yours. And by the way, Maria hates our jokes on these feedback Friday episodes. And so Maria, thanks for your help.

You're going to send us an angry email after this. But again, we're trying to keep it 100. The first thing Maria wanted to unpack was the sibling sexual trauma angle here. Your grandfather's passed with his brother. Again, it's unclear whether he instigated the abuse or he was coerced into it, who knows. But Maria pointed out that if he caused harm to his sibling

and went on to be an abusive adult, he's actually in the minority. In fact, Brad Watts, the sibling sexual abuse expert we consult with from time to time on this show. In his book, Brad quotes some researchers who found that, and this is a quote from the book, there is no empirical evidence to support that once a child has engaged in sexually abusive behavior,

the child will continue to engage in sexually abusive behavior throughout his or her lifetime. Right. In other words, if you're abusive as a child, there's no evidence that you will definitely continue to abuse as an adult. Right. Of course, some do go on to abuse, just to be clear. Now, if your grandfather was the one harmed by his sibling or anyone else, that also doesn't mean that he'd be destined to become a pedophile or abuse other people, but Maria said that it is certainly a risk factor.

She told us about another study that found that the majority of child sexual abuse survivors do not go on to harm others, which is actually really good news, but it is estimated that around a third of survivors do, which was actually quite a bit higher than I guess I would have thought and is pretty heartbreaking. But here's the really good news.

Maria also reminded us that when children receive early treatment for their harmful sexual behavior, only about two to five percent go on to reoffend. Two to five percent. Brad talks about that in his book too, and I find that really remarkable.

That actually gives me quite a lot of hope because you can break the chain with the right therapy or treatment. So this tragic case of your grandfather, it really paints a picture of a person who's been shaped by a number of tragedies, has gone on to perpetrate many more, and probably didn't get the help he needed early on. And if nothing else, Maria said,

your grandfather's story is a cautionary tale, just one of many reasons we are all very grateful you shared your story with us. So let's talk about your family, there are different responses to all this news. Maria explained to us that different reactions from various family members. That's very common with intrafamilial sexual abuse,

such a complex family dynamic. In her experience, some people remain in denial. Some people will do anything to appear as a quote unquote normal family. Some will keep the secret to hold the family together. Some will forgive. Some can't forgive. Some people may break off all contact. These responses can be all over the map,

and I imagine that can be very chaotic and very confusing sometimes. So are you a bad person for not wanting to have a relationship, relationship with your grandfather. I mean, Gabe, I don't know about you. Every fiber of my being is screaming, no. Call me crazy. Nope. I do not think you have any obligation to take the unrepentant sociopathic pedophile

abuser in your family to freaking Marie calendars every week for slice of pie. No. Or drive him to his therapy appointments where he doesn't seem to be making any progress. Exactly. Swinging by Trader Joe's on your way home to drop off a bag of snacks on this monster's doorstep. Oh, why? Why would you?

Oh, yeah, seriously. Enjoy the popcorn in a pickle, Grandpa, you know? Hoping absolute human garbage is going well. Yeah, see you next week, Pop Pop. I'm not trying to fear too far off from the tragedy at hand, but popcorn in a pickle, what is that? Do you just catch up with that reference? Yeah, I was like, what?

Is that a joke I didn't get? I don't know. I saw it at Trader Joe's the other day, and I think it just lodged in my brain for some reason. But it can't be literally popcorn inside of a pickle because pickles... I think it's... No, I think it's popcorn with pickle seasoning, which now that we're talking about it sounds so gross,

Yeah, but that's pickle on popcorn. I don't even, I'm not sure why that's a snack. All right, let's not split hairs. Right. I don't know what's going on with the fine folks at Trader Joe's and why they name their snacks the way they do, but that's what it's called. No, it's misleading.

But also, don't you hate popcorn, Gabriel? Isn't that one of your things? Oh, I hate it. I hate it. Well, actually, I'm sort of more or less neutral about it as a food. I mean, if you want to go to town on like three gallons of hot, salty air, that's fine. What I actually hate is the sound of people eating popcorn,

just to be clear. Ah, yes. You did have a meltdown on Twitter about this, I remember. I'm not calling it X, by the way. I just feel very strongly that popcorn and movies should not go together. Like, I know that's as American as apple pie, but they just get in the way of each other, in my opinion. The sound of people eating popcorn, which apparently no one knows how to do quietly. I don't understand why. That's what drives me up the wall. I'm really glad you're volunteering all this. Normally I have to think of ways to make fun of you, and you're doing all the work today. Honestly, I'm happy to do it. Sorry, we're way off-topping now, but I have to tell you.

I was in Lisbon a couple weeks ago, and I went to go see Oppenheimer, and the woman sitting next to me was eating popcorn so loudly I was going out of my skin. But also, I just come back from a retreat. I think my senses were very heightened. So that's on me, I guess. I just didn't think things through. And I actually couldn't finish the movie, which I have to go back and buy another ticket and finish the movie because it was just too much.

It was a disaster. Anyway, shall we get back to the real villain? Yeah, I think a lot of listeners are screaming, yes, slash hitting the forward 15 seconds button. Let's get back to the other pickle here. What I was trying to say was, I don't see what you have to gain by being close with your grandpa. In fact, I see a lot of pain in continuing to be part of his life. To say nothing of what it signals to his many victims, which are your family, if you tow the family line and play nice. Maria feels similarly, although she's much more diplomatic than I am, of course.

To quote her here, you definitely shouldn't feel bad as. it's your choice. Well, Maria also explained that anyone's response here would depend on where they are in their own grieving process, in their own healing process, right? Your aunt, the one who was abused, she's apparently forgiven her father,

but that doesn't mean the rest of you have to. I mean, maybe you'll get to that point. Maybe not. As Maria put it to us, discovering this kind of information is shocking, and everyone's on their own path to understanding it and processing it in their own way. Candidly, Gabe,

I'm just having a hard time believing that this aunt has forgiven her father, I'm probably going to yell that by people who are like, it's not your place to believe that, you know, but... Interesting. No, tell me. After what he's done to her, the fact that he then continued

to do this to the granddaughters in the family, who I would hope she identifies with in some way, a young girl being molested by the same guy, probably the same or similar way. Is she really that empathetic and enlightened? Or is she maybe suppressing some stuff? Yeah, or bypassing it. Look, it's possible to,

get to this point if you do a ton of processing, you've got a lot of therapy, you're a very compassionate person. Which, look, to be fair, maybe she has. I mean, she did write that book about all this, so maybe that was her big healing experience. Okay, maybe. I get it, and I think it's remarkable she's written a book about all this. I could see that as being very healing, but dude, her father did a real number on her. This is where I'm having a problem with it, okay? Not just how could you ever forgive anyone? That's not what really where my beef is. It's not like he went to therapy. He had this big breakthrough where he was like, oh my God, I have serious trauma. I can't believe I've done all these horrible things. I need to go to therapy every day for three years and set boundaries so I don't

reoffend and this is, I need to heal all this stuff and do everything of my power to repair things with my family. Please tell me how to make this right. That's not what happened at all. He just goes on to reoffend and besides maybe this aunt forgave him for abusing her. Okay, let's be super charitable. She did forgive him for abusing her and we're believing her 100%. How do you then forgive him for abusing the granddaughters and great granddaughters, which that's not her place to forgive him for. That's a good point. I mean, if you're so empathetic and enlightened, right, because you can forgive somebody who did this to you, then you know what it took to get to that point of empathy, enlightened, forgiveness,

whatever you want to call it. So I cannot imagine that you'd expect another person who's a little girl in your family, young ones who maybe haven't done this work at all, to be in the same place as you. Why would you expect them to have that same level of work done that you have done? Right. Again, that just makes me wonder if she's trying to hold the family together in some artificial way because under no reasonable circumstances would you expect a child where you go, hey, look, I know I've processed this for 40 years, got married, had kids, and just buried

it and wrote a whole book about it. But, you know, can't you just forget last summer? You're 11 years old already. I mean, that's ridiculous. So I just, plus, he's forcing his wife to do stuff. He's forcing grandma to watch porn. That is not normal. That is, I've kind of forgot about that detail.

until we just brought it up again, and that is a very loaded phrase. Yeah, he's making Grandma Watch porn against her will. Yeah. Plus, he has this anger issue. He slapped our friend here's mom several times, and that was recent, right? So this is, again, to your point,

it is still happening. Yes, look, if I were the child whose kids were also abused by their grandfather, I'm feeling mad at everyone. I'm not going, oh, well, I guess my sister slash cousin, whatever, she's okay with it, so I can't be mad about my own kid being sexually assaulted by her grandfather.

No. I can pretty confidently say if my kid were abused in this way, I would murder the person who did it. I'm not, I guess I'm kidding, but I'm kind of not. Don't get me wrong. I'd make it look like an accident. I pretend to be upset. But he would collapse in the backyard and die of natural causes if you catch my drift. There's just no way I'm letting that go. There's no chance in hell. So I don't believe that everybody is on the same page and should forgive this guy. And like our writer is just the one holdout who's not going to tow the line. I don't buy that. I hear you. Dark Jordan is activated by this story. But this, this is. speaks exactly to Maria's point. Our friend here can have her stance and her experience, and she can allow everyone else, like her aunt, to have theirs, which to her credit she's already doing. And when they go, you know, how can you cut grandpa off? You're heartless. He's just, he's an old man. He's confused. He's troubled. Whatever they're saying, I think you just have to let it roll off your back. Or you can say, well, I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't. I can't have a relationship with this guy. And I struggle to understand why you can. But if you want to do that, I respect that you want to go a different way. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Dad, but Dark Jordan says I have to murder you now. I would have a hard time not chewing out my family members who are eating lasagna with a guy who literally molested them or people they love and are supposed to protect. It's a fair point. But that's me. I'm just not a lasagna guy. No, I'm kidding. This is what I'm talking about, Maria.

I'm sorry. She's typing the email already about how offensive this is. Bottom line, this is not unreasonable or cruel in our view. You've given this a lot of thought. You're not looking for a fight. You're just pulling away from a dangerous person in a heavy situation. And I think that's absolutely fair.

And I'm so sorry that this is your grandfather. This is supposed to be a kind guy that you can look up to and the family circles the wagons around. And that is sort of happening but in a gross, undeserved way. And there's a deep wound in this family that just might never fully heal.

But it sounds like you're being very clear about all of this. While still being respectful, She didn't say that she unloaded all the dirty laundry at the Christmas dinner, right? Right. This is a hard line to walk, and I admire her for doing it.

Big thanks to Maria Sackala for her wisdom here. Five Waves also has a terrific information hub that we'll link in the show notes. Siblingsexualtrauma.com is where you can find it. We'll also link to some articles. Maria shared about this topic in the show notes. Highly recommend giving those a read. I think they'll be very eye-opening for you right now.

And we're sending you and your family a big hug, and we're wishing you all the best. And we adore you, Maria. for putting up with us. You know what? Won't tear your family apart? The crazy good deals on products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors keeps the lights on. All deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for sponsors using the AI chatbot on the website as well. We're working on getting that more up to date. A lot of people are

like, it didn't work. And I asked it this. And, you know, unfortunately, we have to manually ingest the transcripts. I'm getting inside baseball, but we're automating that at some point. It's just, it's not always up to the minute, unfortunately, but it will be soon. So anyway, please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a father of three married for 12 years, and I'm six months free from smoking weed. It started with a one-month challenge, and I was feeling good and accomplishing some big artistic goals that I had neglected for a while. I'm a musician, painter, writer, and performance artist. So I continued. This is my longest break from smoking in over 20 years. Wow. Okay. That's a big

deal. Congrats on that. That can't be easy, by the way. I think that I have some manic qualities where I feel fantastic at times and in a trough at other times. Sometimes that's pretty dark, but I feel these ranges of emotion that give me a lot to work with artistically. I went to see a therapist, during one of my up periods and told her how I work with myself, that I will look at some aspect of my life that needs a change, I will sit and breathe with it,

feel my body, find the resonance points, witness any potential memories or other sensations that arise, follow those around my body until they feel complete, shake and make any sounds that come to me, finish with a shavasana

and thank myself for these moments. Stop. Did he say that? Mm-hmm. I thought this is your morning routine, Gabriel. You thought I was just... I thought this is what you do after your bowl of kashi every day. It's actually before the kashi, but yeah.

Fair enough. Pre-kashi routine. Pre-kosh root. So the letter goes on. The therapist said that this is exactly what she would be doing, minus the shaking, vocalizing, and shavasana. So everything. Got it. No, no, no. She's leaving the rest of the body routine that he'd just grabbed her. Oh, I got. Okay.

Because I was in an up phase, the only thing I really had to work on in my life was making money, so we both agreed that there wasn't much for me to work on with her. But now I'm in a down period. I feel like smoking, but I also don't want to unless I can be in my creative zone for four to five hours. My next challenge with smoking is to take one hit and put it down. I enjoy self-discipline and I can see that going really well.

But then I don't want to turn to Ganja when I'm feeling down. As it is, I've been drinking during this break from smoking. One drink at the most and I don't drink every night. My wife does not like that I smoke and gets very charged around it, calling me out for being in a bad mood, which makes me become more agitated with her. She's been loving this break. My eldest child has also said that I wouldn't laugh at her jokes when I was high,

and that now I do. Oh, it makes me sad. But I'm worried about what I feel is a judgmental part of my wife, and that if I continue with weed and do what I feel is best for myself, it could lead to an unbridgeable divide. Am I wrong here? Is there a way to enjoy weed responsibly and still have peace in my marriage? Is being functionally manic a thing?

Signed, is the ganja a keeper, or do I need to give up the reefer? Okay. There's a lot going on in this letter. But since we only have a few minutes here and Gabe took up an unconscionable amount of time with his weird popcorn rant, I'm going to cut right to the chase. Fair. Yeah, you're wrong here. Given what you've shared with us, I do not think that smoking weed is a good idea for you.

At least not right now. and let me mirror back to you why. And before anybody's like, oh, Jordan's against weed. That's not what's going on here. You describe yourself as manic, definitely not my place to diagnose you, but you could have undiagnosed bipolar disorder or something similar or you might just experience mild mood swings for other reasons.

But either way, generally not a good idea to self-medicate and the weed could be interacting with these mood swings in ways that you don't even realize. Also, since you stop smoking, you've accomplished a ton by your own admission here. I mean, go figure, right? It sounds to me like taking a break from weed really brought you back to yourself.

It reconnected you with your art. It gave you fresh inspiration, renewed drive, made you more available to your family, who, by the way, you've said are loving this break too. Your wife feels closer to you, something most people strive for and spend years trying to accomplish that. She likes you more when you're not smoking.

Your oldest child said that you wouldn't laugh at her jokes when you were high, and now you do, which I think, said that was sad before, but as a dad myself, I got to say, hearing that was like a punch in the gut. I mean, laughing with your kids, it's one of the greatest joys of life. It's so important for kids to experience this. And that detail really painted a picture for me of a guy who's been, well, not completely present with his children for so long to the point where one of them, a kid who's probably still very young, is literally saying, dad, I like you more when you're sober,

which is kind of heartbreaking in any way you slice it. And when your wife points out that your mood and the weed are a bit of a problem, you get agitated, which, look, who knows what your dynamic with your wife really is. But what I'm hearing is that she's appropriately calling you out for being intoxicated or not totally on top of your mental health, and you're getting mad at her for not just letting you do what you want without any feedback. And on top of all that, you've switched to drinking, which, you know, maybe a drink every couple nights is not as damaging as the weed was at that level.

But frankly, I'm just hearing some signs of dependence here in your life. Because between the smoking and the drinking and the whole, my next challenge is to take one hit of weed and put it down. I don't mean to piss in your Cheerios, dude. I would love for you to be able to moderate your weed intake. But that sounds like a slippery slope, if I've ever heard one. I could see that undoing all of the amazing work that you have done. So I've got to ask you,

Why do you want to keep smoking weed? I mean, really, ask yourself that. I understand that it's fun. It can be pleasurable. It can be useful creatively. It can help you sleep or whatever. It's weed. I get it.

But at what cost to you and your mental health and your family, I would really, really sit with that question and answer it honestly. Gabe, am I being a total square here? I mean, maybe this guy needs to stay away from the reefer. I'm not... He needs to stay away from the reefer, yes. I'm not a teetotaler. by any means.

No. Again, I'm not anti-weed on principle. I've been known to take an edible if I need to go to sleep and I can't or something like that, a light dose, I'm a lightweight. But this is just setting off a bunch of alarm bills. Well, also because it sounds to me like it might be getting in the way of him doing some very important work on the mood component, which is another huge issue. Yeah, please tell me you're going to talk about therapist stuff.

I could just feel you tensing up while you read that. I was like, oh, God, Gabe's going to have a popcorn-induced aneurism. Yeah, well, I am pretty mystified by that part. So he goes to see a therapist during a manic phase, knowing that he's feeling manic, right? And he tells us therapist that he has this, I don't know exactly how to put it. We could call it a kind of meditation. A pre-Cash route, I think is what it's called. Yeah.

He's got his pre-Cash route, right? His bodywork, performance therapy ritual, which, look, I think it's interesting. And if it helps him, I'm all for it. I'm not going to take that away from him. But following resonance points until they feel complete. Okay, good, because I don't even know what that means either. I don't know either. I'm sure it has some basis in body work or physiology or something,

but shaking, making sounds, doing a shavasana, and then just like calling it a day? Yeah, I needed to check in with my own resonance points after hearing that. And look, not that that's complete nonsense. Maybe that's part of a long list of other things you do. That doesn't sound like the beginning in the end of a therapy session from any qualified therapist. I can't see this addressing something like mood swings or possible bipolar disorder in a meaningful way.

And in fact, it hasn't because here he is writing to us and he's still struggling with the mood swings. But the most worrisome part about all of this for me is that this therapist hears all of this and she's like, cool, that's exactly what I would be doing. Like minus the shaking and the vocalizing and the shavasana. I don't know. Yeah, no, that's where I go. How do these people even get licensed? What sort of crackerjackbox-ass therapist is this? Again, I want to be respectful because I don't want to dismiss someone who might have helped him

or, again, take something away from him that is useful. Trust me, I have done some far-out shit in my day. Like, I will try anything. So I'm not saying that he can't work with himself creatively if he wants to. But I'm listening to your letter, man, and you're literally telling us, I was manic when I went to therapy. So the only thing I really had to work on in my life was making more money. So my therapist and I agreed that there wasn't much for me to work on with her.

and that is just not true. At a minimum, you have these mood swings to understand, but you also have a lot of other stuff to explore. The substance use, your relationship with your wife, your kids, your art, your career. So I'm just a bit confused by this conclusion. Although, Jordan, you know, I guess there's a world where what that therapist said was true

if she just did not have a lot to offer this guy. Well, this could be his version of what his therapist's opinion was. We obviously can't know what was actually said. Maybe she said five different things. and he remembered that one thing. Who knows? What I do know is, weed isn't your friend, man.

Sobriety is definitely your friend right now. The evidence is all around you, and I would listen to that evidence. And I would seriously consider giving therapy another try, maybe with a different therapist, somebody who specializes in mood stuff, so you can talk about these manic phases in more depth. I'm not necessarily saying

you need to get on medication immediately or whatever. I'm not saying that you can't take care of yourself in other ways. I'm not even saying you can never smoke weed again in moderation. All of that is completely up to you. All I'm saying is that from your letter, it is clear that you have a lot to gain by not smoking. And trust me, it's way more fun to be a loving and peaceful husband with your wife and dad with your kids than to be zonked out at the dinner table staring into your bag of popcorn and a pickle while they talk about their day. Don't miss your life, dude. You have a lot of beautiful

stuff to enjoy from the sound of it. And thanks for being open to looking at things in a new way and for letting us keep it real with you. This is out of love. I'm not trying to shame you on my show here. I want you to enjoy your family and your life. And I wish you good luck with this. And we're rooting for you. I really am. I hope that this is the kind of thing that's helpful. I know we went a little hard. And I mean, damn, Gabe, after that, I need a, I need a joint and a stiff drink. You know what I mean? You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please keep your emails, Try to use the descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your neighbors are eaves dropping on your

therapy session through the wall, you slept with your best friend's girlfriend while he was out of town. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbinger. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Okay, what's next? Hey guys, I'm a 33-year-old guy and I have an amazing relationship with my family, especially my father. He's always trusted me to make my own choices while never being a

afraid to share his opinions and concerns. We've always worked out small kinks in our relationship, and in recent years, he's even told me that he has learned a lot from me, and that he looks up to me, which meant a lot. A couple years ago, my father told me and my siblings that he wanted to help us out financially now, rather than making us wait to receive help after he died. He gave each of us $100,000 Australian dollars, which is about $65,000 U.S., so that we could get into the property market. This was a shock to me, and such a beautiful surprise. It was also something that allowed me at 31 years old to leave the law, which was not a good fit. I was accepted into the Teach for Australia program and completed my master's of teaching on scholarship, making me a fully

qualified teacher. The only catch was that I was placed in a desperately underfunded school in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the brutally hot Australian desert. I'm ashamed to say that living in that destitute lonely place, steeped in the trauma of Australia's most underprivileged kids, almost broke me. I had no friends there. The town was rough. I ate more meals in my car than I did at home. I ate poorly, didn't exercise, drank, took up smoking, and I was soon on antidepressants. In that time, I whittled away nearly half of the money my father gave me, just by being sad and stupid and self-soothing. I think it would break my father's heart if he, knew. He hinted very strongly early on and how upset he would be if one of us didn't use the money

appropriately. Thankfully, I made it through that chapter. I'm now a teacher in Melbourne, and I was still able to use the other half of the money to put a down payment on a house. But I feel so damn guilty. It eats away at me. I really dislike my own weakness. Do I tell my father the truth to ease my mind, or is that selfish too, and this is a burden I just need to bear on my own? How do I make this better. Signed, coming clean about frittering away this green. You know, this is interesting. I hadn't thought about this, but he went to go teach in this underprivileged area, picked up fast food, compulsive spending, smoking, and drinking. And it's like, well, that's interesting. He did that just by being around these people in this environment, and then it makes you think, ah, don't we usually

fault these same people who literally are born into and live their whole life in this environment for doing those exact same things? Hmm, interesting. I mean, I don't know the science behind this, but obviously there's a reason that that happened, and it doesn't happen maybe to every single person who's in that environment, of course, but if he was there for a year or two or three or however long it was, and that happened to him, imagine when you are born into and grow up around that. It seems like whatever effect is causing you to do that, or vulnerability in human programming

that gets you there is obviously going to have much more time to work its effects on that group of people. Interesting theory. Yeah. I mean, it's not even a theory. I don't even, there's just obviously some correlation there. Causation is still up in the air for scientists to uncover and decide and hopefully educate us on. So anyway, it's an interesting question. First of all, you sound like a very thoughtful guy, which is probably why the law wasn't

necessarily a fit, depending on what practice area of law, I should say, you were in. Congrats on transitioning to something more meaningful. I think that's brilliant. You're obviously super grateful for the gifts in your life, namely your dad, who sounds like a special guy and this very generous help that he gave. you, and you went through a difficult experience at that school. And I appreciate that you're not letting yourself off the hook from mismanaging your life, your money. I'm not going to do that either. And unfortunately, that meant that you made a huge mistake with the money. And that's just part of

your story now. So I hear you that you carry a lot of guilt. Your dad is super loving. He says he looks up to you in some way. So of course you're sitting there thinking about 45 grand Australian that you blew on McDonald's and Lucky Strikes and Jack Daniels. Although side note, Gabe, how do you actually spend that much money on junk food and booze and cigarettes? I was wondering the same. That's a lot of money to spend. You could put down a down payment on a McDonald's franchise, I would think, with that amount of money, maybe not quite. But part of me wonders if there's more to it than this, like, are there strip clubs, is there online poker? Is there some other thing? Who knows? Or is that stuff just super expensive in Australia? That's also possible.

Hell of taxes on all that stuff? I really don't know. The point is, I can understand why you're over there going, oh, I'm a total piece of crap. I've let my dad down. I've let my dad down. and this does kind of corrupt our whole relationship. I mean, that's a painful thought. So my answer to your question is, well, it might be a little frustrating, actually. On the one hand, the fact that your father told you to use the money responsibly and you didn't,

and now that's eating away at you, that part makes me feel like you should come clean. You know, sit down with him one day and say, look, dad, this is really hard for me to admit. I'm so sorry for what I'm about to share with you, but here's what I did. Here's why I did it. I let you down.

I let myself down. I deeply regret it. I've grown a lot since then, but I don't want there to be this big secret between us. So there it is, and I'm so sorry. And then just see how he responds. Maybe he understands and forgives you.

Maybe he gets angry and chews you out. Maybe a little bit of both. This might be a process, but then it's off your chest. On the other hand, I don't know, man. Your dad gifted you the money. He asked you to be a responsible steward of that money, but at that point, that was your money.

And if you wanted to spend it numbing the pain for two years, that was a poor choice. A very poor choice. And it did not honor your dad's wishes, but it was your money to waste at that point. Plus, you didn't waste all of it. You still managed to put the down payment down on the house,

which is what your dad wanted. If you'd blown 100% of it, I feel like there'd be a different story here than you might have had to tell your dad because at some point he's going to be like, so buying that one bedroom like you promised? So, look, in a way you mismanaged this, but in another way,

you still fulfilled the essential purpose of this gift. And I'm not trying to help him rationalize this Gabriel, but I don't know. There's a part of me going like, does dad really need to know now? It's a very fair question. And I do see your point. I think where it gets tricky is that he and his dad have this special connection. And like you said, this thing he did is sort of infecting the integrity of their relationship now. Right.

That part's a lot harder for me. And for him, I would guess. He might not need to come clean to his dad for ethical reasons, but he might still want to come clean for the sake of their relationship. to be on honest terms with him, to be on open terms with him, and maybe to invite his dad to help him work through some of this guilt and shame that he feels about all of this. I do think that might be appropriate and potentially very helpful, because let's remember, his dad has always given him the freedom and the trust to make his own choices.

They've always worked out the kinks in their relationship. Yes, this is a much bigger kink than the ones they've had in the past, but there it is. So his dad might ultimately respond to this fairly well. I'm not saying he won't be mad or disappointed or hurt. I'm sure he'll feel a lot of things. But he sounds like the kind of guy who might hear this news and eventually land in a place of, well, yeah, this is really unfortunate and I'm disappointed in you, but I can see that you were struggling and you learned a lot from this and you came clean

because you want us to have a good relationship. So, yeah, I forgive you. And if it means that they're going to have a more authentic relationship as a result, I think this could be a really important moment for them. Very painful, but important. You know, that's a good point. The moral dimension to this money is hazier to me. the relationship part of it, that is becoming clearer to me.

So I think I'm with you. I do want to throw out one other option here, which is if you want to, if you can, you could try to repay your dad the other 50K or you could offer to do that. I know that that's no small chunk of change. I don't know what a teacher in Australia makes. I hope it's decent. I'm pretty sure it's not investment banking money. Maybe it's unrealistic, but it is one way that he could do right by his dad.

Or he could offer to make it up to his dad in some other way. So, yeah, I'm sorry things played out this way, but like most things, it kind of had to play out this way. This half of the money taught you some very important things, and in that sense, it might not be entirely wasted if you use it to become a more thoughtful and responsible person going forward, which is really the only thing you can do at this point. So I'm wishing you the best with your dad and your teaching career and, of course, the real estate market in Australia, which seems to always go up.

So good luck. You know, it's a great way to blow your inheritance, Gabriel. The amazing products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com

slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor, almost any sponsor, using the AI chatbot on the website. You can even email me, Jordan atharbinger.com. We'll have somebody dig up the conference. code for you if you're feeling super lazy. It's that important that you support our advertisers. So thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 26-year-old woman with an associate's degree in business

marketing, and I've worked for two years as an accounting assistant in a 12-person company. I genuinely love accounting, but my office has been an absolute hellhole lately. We recently merged with another company, and I would describe the new owner as a man-sperson He's made me cry on three separate occasions. Since I started, I've had three different direct bosses come and go, and my new boss is from a different state working remotely. Also, I've never had a formal review. The only time I had a conversation about my performance

was when I was offered another job at a different company. They quickly panicked, gave me a $3 per hour raise, and an additional week of PTO. Then, recently, HR posted my exact job, job on Indeed.com, twice now, at almost $10,000 more than I am currently making. When I confronted them about it, they said that the posting says that the candidate needs a bachelor's degree, so it isn't the same position. In reality, the posting didn't say that, but that's besides the point. My husband wants me to go back to school and get my bachelor's degree, but I was

diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six years ago, and I genuinely don't know if my brain can handle that much anymore. What would you do? signed an accountant trying to tick and tie amidst all these lies. All right. Good question. And Gabe, it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent and unnecessarily dysfunctional companies seem to be.

Seriously. Sometimes I hear these stories and I'm like, are you guys trying to make it harder to keep your best people? Because this is literally a matter of just communicating decently with a strong employee and, you know, like not making them burst into tears in the break room because you guys have zero emotional intelligence? Give that a try.

It's so dumb. It's like, Have we hired any sociopaths recently? We need to up our game. Gabe and I have been out of the corporate world for a long time, and we wanted to get an actual expert's opinion on your story. So we reached out to Joanna Tate, friend of the show, an HR professional for almost 20 years.

No relation to Andrew Tate, by the way, in case anyone was about to get triggered on that one. And right off the bat, Joanna said two things that I think are important for anyone, employees and employers, to remember. And the first is that an HR team or HR professional, they have a real effect on an organization. especially after a major event, like a merger,

when managing expectations and communicating key messages, like about the vision or the mission or how the organization is changing, when that's really crucial. And the second thing is that performance reviews are so important. And Joanna's view, a yearly review should not be the only time a supervisor talks about employee performance. So she wasn't surprised that you're feeling a little lost and she really feels for you.

That one bright spot, though, is when you put in your notice, they panicked and they were like, wait, here's more money and take another week at PTO. That's a really good indication that these people need you. Unfortunately, very common with companies, although Joanna pointed out that that's a way less effective and much more expensive talent retention technique. Now, about the job posting, Joanna said it's possible that this is an additional accounting position, but then HR could have easily told you that. And they did give you more money to stay. So that raised an interesting question for Joanna. Are they trying to replace you, but then just keep you?

until they make an offer to somebody else, or are they trying to keep their heads above water during this merger and fight fires until things settle down? The $10,000 difference in pay, that could mean they're looking for a higher level accountant, or it could mean that your pay over time didn't keep up with the labor market and that you're, frankly, worth more.

It's impossible for us to know, at least from the letter. So I would definitely do some sleuthing and or study the market right now and ask around to find out the answers to those questions. But the more pressing issue here is, You said this office is a hellhole. It's changing a lot. You need to figure out what's really going on over there. Right. So Joanna's other idea, which I am also a really big fan of, is just do some recon and get the goss about what's going on in your office. You know, who are the leaders you know well, maybe from that time when the company was actually a good place to work.

These could be senior people who are still there or it could be previous bosses who left, really anybody. Joanna's recommendation, hit those people up, find out why they left or how they're feeling about the company. and ask them for their opinions on what's happening with this organization these days. Either everyone at this company does have good intentions, but the stress is running super high, so everyone's being kind of a temporary a hole, or this really is just a toxic,

disorganized group of people. If you book a few calls and you take a few people out for coffee or you take a lap around the parking lot with a few folks, I think you'll get the information you need to decide what to do. But for what it's worth, Joanna said that her gut is telling her get out and use this experience to find a company that has a better culture and a team that actually values HR leadership. I mean, even if they offered you another $3 an hour, when the gap is potentially $10,000 or more, that's probably not worth it, right? But Joanna also said, this doesn't necessarily have to be

the answer for you. A lot of this depends on your tolerance for this kind of environment and your patience and waiting for changes to happen and just your general ability to handle these relationships effectively. And that's something for you to decide. Although from your letter, it really does sound to me like you're kind of getting to the end of your rope here. I agree. I think she's like six weeks away from screaming in her car on her lunch break. Right. So whatever you do, Joanna wanted to share a few practical recommendations. First off, from now on, be a duck for a while. Paddle super fast below the surface, but above the water, you appear super chill. Do your work, quietly gather information. Try to let this BS roll off your back. Remember,

you are not stuck in this place forever, and do some prep work for your future. Also, definitely get your resume updated and visible on Indeed. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date. You have a nice smiley, appropriate photo of yourself and indicate that you're open to work. Although interesting, Jordan, pro tip there, make sure you select, I think it's called share with recruiters only so that the whole office doesn't see that she's about to bounce. Yeah, I always wondered about that because I can see people on LinkedIn. They're like, open to work.

And I'm thinking like, okay, can your bossy that? Right. So good call there. Also, you can absolutely go back to HR and ask if they filled that role. And if they haven't, you can say, hey, cool, I'd love for you to keep me in mind. I think I'd have a lot to offer, which you do. And Joanna felt that too. You have a genuine passion for accounting. Your skills are attractive. I mean, let's not forget that you got that job offer after all. You are valuable, probably much more valuable than these people are making you feel right now. As for going back to school, Joanna said getting a bachelor's degree is a great long-term goal. definitely add value to your career, as you've seen just from these job postings. We totally understand that your medical condition adds an additional layer of complexity, but one benefit of changing employers as you can find out which ones offer things like tuition reimbursement and professional development opportunities and whether they actually value employee growth. So Joanna recommends looking into either a local accredited college that offers online courses or seeking out an accredited online college program.

Or if you're close to a college campus, you could do it in person, maybe night maybe weekends, you could even earn your bachelor degree one class at a time. There's no timeline here, unless there is from the university, but usually that's a super long time. And Joanna reminded us that you might even be able to get credit towards your degree from your job. So make sure you ask about that. It's kind of a great hack for working professionals.

But I'm with Joanna. I think there are some strong signals that this place is not for you long term. And at a minimum, it's worth looking around. You're 26 years old. 26. You are still so young. You're still building the foundation for the rest of your career. I know MS is intense. I've got a couple friends who got it. It's no joke. But I am so confident that you can balance taking care of yourself with being ambitious. So please don't let this stop you any more than it has to. And I say that not to brush aside a very real disease,

but to remind you that with the right approach, a solid plan, your awesome mindset, your career can be bigger than this diagnosis. So good luck. There's exciting stuff ahead and way less crying in the kitchenette because your boss doesn't like your Excel formatting or whatever. And we're rooting for you. All right, before we wrap up here, I want to touch on something.

I've been getting a lot of emails and tweets and whatever about lately, which is whether to have RFK, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and guests like him on this show. And so for those of you who don't know or listeners outside the U.S., in this specific example, RFK Jr., he's an environmental lawyer,

a politician, author, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, he's worn a lot of hats. He's had an objectively fascinating career. And he's gotten a lot of attention in the last few years for some of his unorthodox stances on hot button issues. And depending on your point of view, he's either a brilliant free thinker

or he's a reckless peddler of misinformation and conspiracy theories, especially around COVID and vaccines and public health, among other topics. And the reason he's in the news lately is that he's a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination, in the presidential election next year, and a lot of people are responding to his message.

I get why, I do. So a lot of people have been hitting me up saying, hey, this guy's saying some really important stuff, even if some of it is wrong or a lot of it is wrong. It's still interesting. You should have them on the show. It'd be amazing. And you can push back on stuff if you don't agree.

So I've thought a lot about this, and I've read and consulted with a lot of people that I respect, a lot of them smarter than me. And I just, I don't believe that I could, ever responsibly have RFK Jr. on this show. And for me, this comes down to the issue of platforming, giving a platform to a highly questionable figure on some incredibly important issues. Not saying he's a bad guy or whatever. By the way, this is a topic that Sam Harris, also a former guest on the show, recently talked about on his podcast, and he did so insanely eloquently in that way

that only Sam Harris can. And I credit him for really helping me clarify some of my thinking around all this, and we'll link to that episode in the show notes. So in short, would it be kind of interesting to have a guy like RFK Jr. on the show? Sure, it would. But not that interesting and not that valuable to you as a listener, frankly, because RFK Jr. is not going to engage in a rigorous debate with me. That's not what the show even is in the first place. He's not going to give me good faith answers on a lot of things.

I should say, if he does, a lot of it will be based on. on misinformation or disinformation. So to really engage with somebody like that, to appropriately hold their feet to the fire, I would need to be an expert with deep knowledge of these topics. And even though I can read a decent amount, the reality is I can't become a vaccine expert overnight

or a gun safety or COVID policy expert overnight, even if I were interested in doing so, and I'm absolutely not interested in doing so. So I can't responsibly combat a lot of the misinformation or false conclusions or data that's been misinterpreted or doesn't exist. I can't contradict that stuff in real time as it's presented on the show. And that's what's happening with a lot of people who have had people like this, RFK Jr., especially on their programs.

They simply aren't qualified for the discussion. And they don't want to admit that because their agenda is not to create a responsible and rigorous debate, they're just in it for the likes and the clicks and they'll say something like, you know, oh, it's better to have all ideas present in the market of ideas and RFK delivers likes and clicks and controversial ideas. Now, some show hosts out there and even listeners, they say, okay, fine, maybe we don't fact check him. We can't fact check him on every point, but the audience, they should be smarter than that. They'll figure it out. But my response to that is, okay, then what you're essentially saying is that the audience shouldn't necessarily trust you

or trust me in this instance. And if they're listening to the interview, then chances are they don't have the time, the information, the tools to arrive at the best conclusion. And that's one big reason why they are listening to a show host like me or like any other podcast host in the first place. So when somebody comes on my show, look, we're not necessarily endorsing everything they say.

I've had some people on this show that I definitely don't agree with. I'm very open about that. And yes, I've had some very controversial and polarizing figures on this program over the evening. but the basic bar for me is that a guest is saying something that isn't going to potentially hurt or kill other people with wanton disregard for the truth and go unchallenged in doing so. So if you know Paul Hutchinson, investor and Sound of Freedom producer, that show got a lot of pushback. If that guy comes on the show and says, child trafficking is a huge problem,

and we go, yeah, but most of that child trafficking is done by families. And he says, oh, well, you're right. Well, that's one thing. But if RFK Jr. comes on and goes, hey, vaccines cause autism, and I'm not straw manning here, I've heard him make that case. Okay, I'm not, people go, you're just straw manning him. That is not what this is. If he says vaccines cause autism, and I say, well, no, they don't. There's tons of peer review data that says otherwise, and he spouts off a bunch of total malarkey that I can't possibly counteract in real time because I'm not a vaccine expert with the data at my fingertips at that moment. Who's going to be more persuasive who are people going to believe at that time?

Because that's what a lot of these talking head media appearances are about. It's not about who's right. It's about who is more persuasive. And you could argue that that's one of the fundamental problems of our entire media culture right now. But that's a whole other rant. Now, some of you guys have clapped back at me saying, got it, so you're basically just censoring alternative points of view

or you're trying to become some sort of moral authority on what we're allowed to hear. And to that, I just want to say, no, I'm not censoring anyone. I'm not the government. I'm not telling RFK Jr. to be quiet or that Facebook or YouTube should be platformed him or that he shouldn't be allowed to post videos online. All I'm saying is, I won't abuse the trust that I have built with you all to propagate this type of message.

Nobody is entitled to this platform that we have created. And that's what I don't understand when people, they say, well, you should have him on and pick his message apart. Even if I did, personalities like this, who are very clever, very experience, very media savvy, they just move the goalposts, or they shift the terms of the debate, or they bring a firehose of misinformation that would take 10x the amount of airtime to debunk. This isn't a coincidence with people who spout disinformation. it is a deliberate strategy and tactic of people who spout disinformation. That's what people like this do when they won't argue in good faith in the first place.

So I'm not accusing RFK Jr. of all these specific things to be clear, but that's where I am with all this. And I believe quite strongly that this matters just as a principle of, you know, public discourse. But when it comes to public health, when it comes to science, I think it is absolutely crucial because, as we all know, scientists, doctors, they argue all the time. They argue in peer-reviewed publications that have citations and data and studies attached, right? They don't argue in subreddits, in Instagram comments, in a debate on a podcast with somebody who is unqualified to moderate a debate. They don't come to truth in a series of talking head interviews on CNN between commercials. Because it doesn't matter who's more persuasive when it comes to science, when it comes to medicine.

It's about data. And as much as we like to think that we can all make decisions based solely on that data and not who presents that data or their interpretation of that data, time and time again, society has proven that we cannot. So the last thing I want, the last thing that any of us should want, is a person who is a skilled debater, who's made it their livelihood to go up against an unqualified amateur like some schmucky podcast hose like me, because then you're not finding out whose science is stronger. You're just finding out who has the best spin, who's more polished, who's delivered this information more times in a more convincing way, which all well and good when the topic at hand is about entertainment or culture or even some political stuff or whatever, but when it's about

something as consequential as medicine, as people's ability to stay alive and keep their children healthy and alive, the implications are huge. The stakes are too high. Getting it wrong is too easy, and the consequences are potentially life-threatening. And if Sam Harris is outright stating that he is not qualified to have this conversation, and he's one of the most responsible and skilled debaters alive today, then it would be the height of arrogance for me to assume that I could do a better job, that I could do that justice. And if you want to dig a little bit deeper

into critical thinking, battling disinformation, how crazy theories spread online and what to do about it, then I invite you to listen to a few episodes I did with other great experts who incidentally don't believe that COVID-19 targets certain races and gives others immunity, although, you know, given my mixed heritage, that would explain why I got COVID more than once. One is Cindy Otis, ironically a former CIA agent on how to spot fake news.

That's episode 715. Another is Renee DeResta on how tech platforms and algorithms proliferate disinformation. That's episode 420. And then I would check out Andy Norman on how to inoculate your mind against damaging ideologies. That's episode 520. We've actually done quite a bit on disinformation. There's a whole starter pack on that at Jordan Harbinger.com slash start. Anyway, look, RFK actually seems like quite a nice guy.

by all accounts. I've been offered to be introduced to him many times. This was not an easy decision for me to come to. And I share all of this with total respect for you guys as the audience, even the ones who send me insults about how I'm mishandling these types of situations. And I say this with as much humility as possible around my own expertise and just a general desire to put as much good, helpful, responsible stuff out into the world. Because that's, always been and always will be my North Star when it comes to the show. Hope you all enjoyed the show this week. I want to thank everybody who wrote in and everybody who made it through that rant there. I really appreciate that. Go back and check out Annie Iqpa and our deep dive on envy, if you haven't

yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people that I know like and trust. And I know a lot of people say, well, I'm a teacher. I don't need this. I'm retired. I don't need this. There's a happiness dividend to connecting and having strong relationships. We've talked about that many times on the show. Tell you what, don't go through the six-minute networking course. Just do the first two drills. And if they don't change the way you communicate

with friends and family for the better, then unsubscribe. I get it. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And if you haven't signed up yet, definitely check out our relaunched newsletter for the show. It's called We BitWiser. It's a bite-sized gem from a past episode

from me to you delivered to your inbox once a week. If you want to keep up with the wisdom from our 800-plus episodes and apply it to your life, I invite you to come check it out. You can sign up at Jordan Harbinger.com slash news. Show notes and transcripts at Jordan Harbinger.com, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show,

all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals or ask our AI chatbot 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, 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 Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto, Joanna Tate. 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 can use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time. I wanted to give you a preview of one of my favorite stories from an earlier episode of the show. Megan Phelps Roper, she used to belong to one of the most hateful religious cults in America,

the Westboro Baptist Church. She was born into this church and she later escaped. To hear her tell the story firsthand, it's really incredible. I started protesting when I was five years old, but even at that first picket, there was a sign that said, gays are worthy of death. So God hates facts is what Westboro's message. that we became known for. We were the good guys, and everyone outside the church was evil and going to hell, and we had the only message that would bring the world any hope. We had to go and warn people.

These terrible things are happening, and if you want this pain to stop, then you have to change because God isn't going to change. After the September 11 attacks, we had the sign that said, thank God for September 11. What were we thinking? This massive crowd comes down. We were at this corner of this intersection of these three streets. By the time they actually reached us, we're just enraged. There was no space between us and them.

It got really dicey. One of my cousins gave his signs to somebody else and started standing on top of a trash can pretending like he wasn't with us. They were, again, incredibly intense because obviously the circumstances are so sobering. It brings me incredible sadness to think about now. I can't do this forever.

My family, they would refuse to have any, contact with me at all once I left. Somebody that we had confided in, sent a letter to my parents and told them that we were planning to leave. And then that email came in and we left. For more with Megan, including the details of her harrowing experience and escape, check out episode 302 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

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