The Jordan Harbinger Show - 899: Jennifer Cohen | Live the Life You Want, Not the Life You Get

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Bigger, Better, Bolder author Jennifer Cohen helps us develop the confidence to pursue the life we want instead of settling for the life we get. What We Discuss with Jennifer Cohen: Even the innately shy and introverted can develop a skill set of boldness to fearlessly pursue relationships, careers, and whatever bounties life has to offer. Why boldness is more important than intelligence when it comes to taking advantage of opportunities that come your way. How you can craft personal and professional connections without being schmoozy about it. Even Beyoncé needs to adopt an alter ego to pull off her legendary, larger-than-life feats of performance — so imagine what miracles adopting your own alter ego can work for you. How someone at rock bottom can still find ways to exercise gratitude and remain hopeful for better times ahead. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/899 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. A lot of times in life, just doing something got them to a place where an opportunity or a place that they otherwise never would have even known about because they were at least like doing something, right? Something in motion stays in motion. Something stagnant stays stagnant. So that's why if you just pick a direction, right, not the destination. You're at least on the path of motion, on the path of action, to get you a little closer to whatever or whatever that is. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-formations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional undercover economic, hitman, astronaut, national security advisor, or tech luminary. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends,

about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, and cyber warfare, crime and cults, and more. To help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show, just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, this episode is a little bit more self-helpy than usual. I took a conversation that two friends had, that's me and my friend Jennifer Cohen, and we turned it into a podcast. It's a bit of a different format, a bit of a different topic or set of topics. If you're not into the self-help stuff,

start with one of our other episodes. I won't be mad at you. But if you're new to the show, this isn't our usual beat, usual format. So maybe start with a starter pack. My friend Jen is a real go-getter. She's really punched above her weight, so to speak, in a lot of different areas.

And it's all about being bold, creating a really great network of people around you. A lot of the six-minute networking stuff that I've developed comes from a lot of the stuff that I've learned from her. She's really, really good at crafting connections, but not being schmoozy about it and essentially being bold instead of trying to be the smartest person

or the most talented person in the room. She is both smart and talented. But I think we can all admit, I think we can all admit that smart and talent don't always get us where we want to go. And Jen Cohen today is going to help us fill in some of the gaps. All right, here we go with Jennifer Cohen. You're actually the perfect person to teach boldness as a skill

because it is in large part how you've gotten a lot of the things that you've gotten in your life. And I remember when I first met you, you just go for what you want, but I guess you weren't always that way. Well, it's not that I was, I think maybe what the problem is that people assume that you're either born bold or you're not. And I really believe this is that it's an acquired skill that anyone can get better at. And so I may have had a little bit more boldness than let's say somebody else. But I think that what happened in my life, and I'm sure it happens, something gives you a kernel of confidence or a reason that you want to be bold and that goes from there. With boldness, I use the analogy of fitness. I'm not going to give you a squat routine or a lunge routine. I promise. But what I am going to do is give you an analogy, okay? So if you want to get better at fitness or you want to get stronger, right, you have to be consistent and go in the gym and work at it, right? I think of boldness the same way. I think with boldness, it's a skill or a muscle that if you

want to get better at it, if you're not naturally inclined to be bold, you have to practice it. You've got to be more consistent and you do little things daily to make yourself more bold. And if you stop doing it, it atrophies, just like anything else. So if you want to get good at karate, fitness, Spanish, whatever, you have to be doing something constantly to get better. And so I don't think you necessarily have to be someone who was just naturally born bold or naturally born a certain way. I think that we have the ability to create that in us. And that's my point. I know this to be true because I've done this myself for a lot of different skills.

And I'll tell someone like, oh, yeah, I used to be really shy. And they're like, no, no, no, no, really. And they'll be like, no, your version of what's really shy is someone else. version of normal or outgoing. I'm like, oh, you don't understand. I really couldn't even look people in the eye and at school. I wanted to, like, be invisible. And they're like, what?

People don't really even necessarily believe that because I'm so different now. Not only that, you created an entire life that you have to be talking to people and engaging with people. Yeah, it's a job that you don't get when you're shy. Exactly. And what the backstory is also, it's not even the interview itself, right? It's to have the boldness to go after those interviews. right? And so you can't be shy. And then your other stuff that you've done, it's all about networking

and socializing. That doesn't make sense with the whole shy thing. Basically, every job business industry that I've been in the last 20 years requires me to be bold, confident, outgoing, and well-connected, which when I was a kid, I was none of those things. Exactly. It's honestly the antithesis. I still get these questions on Feedback Friday. Like, how do I build up the guts to get what I want? When I was younger, it was always dating related. Now it's more like, how do I get a promotion or get set up this business or ask for something that I want to do. And part of it is what you call the good enough trap, which I think is really insightful. What's the quotes? Like, the good is the enemy of the great or something like that. Just having something where you're comfortable is the killer of

ambition. And I think it was Nicholas Nassim Taleb who said something along the lines of the most addictive thing in the world is heroin and a steady paycheck. I'm butchering the quote. You could just even say something like golden handcuffs at a law firm, right? Because you make enough money, when you get too comfortable or things are good enough, it gives you the permission to not push yourself and to do anything about it. That is the problem. So, like, actually good enough or comfortable or being okay is probably the worst nightmare if that someone can have for, like, really getting the life that they really want. And so what I say is that I stay on my book title, like, chase what you want. Don't just take what you get. Because a lot of times that's what we do,

acquiescing. We acquiesce to the life that we are given that's available that's in front of us, as opposed to curating and designing something that's much more authentic to us. And if my entire point of doing this and writing the book was to tell people this is not rocket science, you don't have to be the most talented. You actually don't have to be that smart. You don't have to be anything. But what you do need to be is you have to have the desire to put yourself out there and ask. You mentioned you don't have to be that smart. And it's funny that you say that because I think smart people are really good at coming up with systems and overthinking things and not doing anything. And some of the smartest people that I knew,

especially when I was working as a lawyer, were always paralyzed with an decision, would almost never take actual risk, which is funny because the whole law thing is very risk-averse in many ways. Yes. But it was also a metaphor for their whole life. I remember friends being like, don't go ask that person out. What if she says no? And I'm like, are you actually my internal dialogue? This is not what you're supposed to be telling me. Whole groups of guys would be like, you should definitely not do that. And it's like a stranger where if they reject me

it makes absolutely no difference. They're like, you're going to feel bad for months if you get rejected. No, 100%, but this is a reframe, right, for your brain. I did this head talk actually where my whole hypothesis, right, was be bold, not smart.

Because bold is a secret sauce, not intelligence, right? That doesn't say that you can't be smart and bold or bold and smart. But the secret sauce, how you get from point A to Z, Z, depending on what country you're in, right, is being bold. And you and I, we've had hours and hours of talks about all the bubbleheads and bozos that we know. Yeah, it's a favorite topic.

Right? As our favorite topic in the world. People who are way less than even mediocre, but they had one thing that other people didn't have. They had the audacity to believe in themselves or to go after it, whatever that is. That's the only difference between the people who are so successful in people who are barely getting by is they had the audacity to believe in that and just go for it over and over again and be bold. And I can give you a million different examples that's been documented or you and I knowing people like that. So my entire premise of this all is that it's not rocket science. It really is just a reset and a reframe of how you perceive yourself and how you show up in the world. And then from that, you can literally change your life

by just doing something as simple and as bold as asking for what you want and putting yourself in that situation, not just accepting what you get, but also not just being a passenger in your own life. Something that you wrote in your book that was quite interesting and obviously super simple is that personality traits can be changed over time if you take actions specific to those traits. And I am a firm believer in that as well. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I think a lot of people don't truly believe that.

They really think they're stuck with their knowledge. nature. And when you believe that, then it's really hard to think I can change what might be a core part of my identity over time. Yes. So I think that this could be a controversial topic, but there's a lot of science behind the fact that as you do something over and over again, it becomes a new habit habitually. You do change a neuroplasticity in your brain. So I believe in this research documenting, you can tweak and change your personality. You may have a baseline that you're always comfortable at through habits and different routines and things that you're doing over and over again, it changes what you do and how you act just by the sheer act of

doing it over and over again. And the way that you act also influences the way that people treat you, which then reinforces the new way that you're acting. So if you decide like, I'm going to be friendly, of course, easier said than done. But you manage to do that in certain context or whatever. Like you force yourself to do that. People view you as this outgoing friendly person and they treat you as such and then reinforces your decision to be a friendly outgoing person until you actually don't know the difference between faking it and making it. Absolutely. Like I hate this fake it till you make it nonsense. Gets a lot of people in trouble. But I will say. Ferranos. Yes, exactly right. By the way, she's going in jail. But yeah, anyway. She is going to jail. See, don't fake it to you making it in a federal

prison. But there's different levels and degrees, right? But the truth of the matter is, it becomes like a ripple effect, right? If you believe you're a certain way and then go through life that way, there is like a reaction action thing, right? People are going to treat you differently, therefore you're going to be different. If you go into a situation, awkward, uncomfortable, very meekish, it makes other people uncomfortable. And so it becomes a back and forth versus if you come into the room with a big chest very much like out there, confident alpha, people treat you very differently. Alpha is such a gross term. But I know what I mean. We can go through the fake it to the make it alpha.

Yeah, pull out every personal self-help cliche. Pet peeve. Put them all in one place. Exactly. These are all just pet peeve talking point. But what I was going to say is every action does have a reaction. And so if you walk into a room differently, you get the different response. In general, the thing is to get from A to Z or A to B and to get the life slowly that you actually are trying to have, it's about the ask. It's about putting yourself in that situation being a little bit more impulsive sometimes and not overthinking.

because the overthinking is so paralyzing. And you think of all the things that can go wrong versus if you're bold, you think of all the things that can go right. I thought about this, and where did I start to change my personality or start to build this skill as a kid? My mom doesn't ask for what she wants, right?

She's just not that kind of person. She's, like, very passive a lot of the time, depending on the situation. So when I used to go buy video games, if I didn't like it, this store called Babbage's, which doesn't exist anymore, had a return policy. And I would be like, Mom, I want to take it. this back and she hated doing that. So what she did is she made me do it. And so I'm 10, 11, 12,

going to the store and I'm like, I don't want this game anymore. And without fail, the salesperson, depending on who it was, would be like, sorry, sales are final. And then my mom would go, is that true? And I'd be like, it's not true. Your policy is. And they'd be like, no, not really. And my mom's like, well, what does it say on the receipt? And I would have to read the policy to this chump at Babbage's and be like, your receipt set. And they'd be like, okay, fine. But I just thought, this is so funny. My mom loved it, right? She's like, my kids giving this guy hell to try and return and exchange a video game. Yeah. And I didn't know until I was an adult that the reason my mom made me do that was because she didn't want to do it herself.

I thought she was trying to help me develop a skill, whatever, but no, she just didn't want to do it herself. So then as I got older and I started not getting things what I want or had a problem with something or I would send back the food that arrives ice cold. And my mom's like, where did you learn to do that? I'm like, you told me to do that. My mom, meanwhile, would eat frozen freaking soup if it was up to her. Exactly. So in a way, your mother actually taught you to be bold. In a way, yeah, but not through example, not by example, but through practice. Yeah. Because she didn't want to do it. So then when you grew up, you're eating the nice hot soup and your mom's having the cold soup because she didn't want to practice that skill. Right.

Which is to the point, right? It can't just be something theoretical that you read about. You have to practice by doing it over and over again. It makes me want to teach my kids to do this stuff. Raise your hand when you know the answer. Ask for what you want. Tell people when you don't like something. That's exactly a good point because I try to role model that for my kids. And I think that's a really big point that you just made.

Because I don't want my kids to be okay with okay. Or just getting stepped on and not standing up for themselves, which is a real fine line. A lot of people go, oh, I don't need to be bold. Okay, but where's the line for you? If you don't want to be bold, fine. But I feel like a lot of folks who don't want to do that. Not that if you're not bold, you're a dormant, but I think it's really easy to let people walk on you if you're not asking for what you want. Boldness can have a negative connotation, right? You could be called pushy, too aggressive.

Those are euphemisms that are pretty negative. I think also for women, we were taught that we should be much more soft and more accommodating and not make waves. So when you see a woman who is actually like, you know what, actually, can I get salad dressing on the side, right? When I get vegetables instead of potatoes, these are like simple examples. Other people who are in shock and awe and uncomfortable with the ask of that, something as basic as that. How are you supposed to go after something big and ask for something big if you can't even get comfortable asking for something small like sauce on the side? Have you thought about something as basic as that? And then you teach these kids like when you have dinner with your children or go to a restaurant, you're like, oh, no, I'll just have frozen soup like you're saying about your mom.

To me, it's like you're doing a disservice. Think that there's something wrong when you're putting something out there where it's not okay to design a life and stand up for what you want. There shouldn't be a negative connotation with that, especially if you're a parent, right?

You should be teaching your kids. You know, if this isn't good, you should stand up for it. If you want this, don't ask for that or don't just accept. Don't just be okay with accepting just because it's easy. The path of least resistance

is not always the best path. I think at some level, most people realize that recovering from rejection is easier than trying to recover from regret. Yes. That's a huge pillar of my entire philosophy, right? Rejection is always better than regret. This whole book, right, it's not rocket science, right? I really wanted to write something that was very actionable for people.

The whole point of this was to give people these like simple solutions, simple ways that they can better their life, even by a percent or two percent. Give them some like easy tools. where they're not just okay with okay. A lot of times we're so fearful of rejection that we don't even make an attempt at something. We don't even try. We count ourselves out before we even give it or try.

If you try something and you don't get it, so what? It's going to hurt for how long? That rejection is going to sting for maybe a few hours a day, maybe a week, depending on the size of this thing. But the idea of not even going after something and not even self-actualizing or using your potential. at all, that regret lives with you forever. That's like a feeling that you have in your gut,

right? You always will think about it. You'll always think what if. If I did this, if I did that, who wants to live in that way? Yeah, I actually did an episode about regret with Dan Pink. It was episode 625. We'll link to that in the show notes. I think a lot of what he says matches that. There's probably a little bit more in there because the whole episode is about regret. And it's Dan Pink and he's a friggin genius with that stuff. Yeah. Are you telling me that I'm not? Let's move on. One of the practicals that I love the most was the Batman effect and the alter ego. Can you take us through this? This is so good. Alter ego, sort of practical stuff that doesn't cost anything that people can use right out of the box.

Always goes down well. Something as simple as Beyonce, she has Sasha Fierce is her alter ego. Funny that Beyonce needs an alter ego. She does. A lot of people do it. I'll tell you why. Because Beyonce is naturally very shy. If you met her in real life, she's extremely shy. She probably won't look you in the eyes. She's very quiet. She's not what you see when she goes on the stage. Yeah, she's like the antithesis of what she really is when she performs. I'm surprised to hear that. But look at Britney Spears.

Brittany Spears, she's so awkward in real life. Also, nervous, anxious, shy. It's interesting to people that you see who are usually that way in real life, they have to create this alter ego to be who they are when they go on stage and be these amazing performers. It's usually the opposite of who they really are inside. And the only way they can get the courage and the bravery to be that person is to create this Batman effect or alter ego.

Tell me about the Duckworth study. The Duckworth study, the kids were wearing a cape when they were younger, gave them the confidence and they were able to work longer, harder, persevere way more than the kids who didn't have the Batman cape or a cape of some kind, because they felt much more confident, self-assured, this alter ego you create so you can actually pursue and do the things that you otherwise wouldn't have the courage to do.

I did a whole show about the alter ego with Todd Herman in episode 163. It's funny to hear how popular this is. I think the example you gave in the book was also, well, besides Beyonce and Britney Spears, posh spice, I guess her alter ego is probably posh spice. You mean Victoria Beckham? Yeah. Yes.

Most actors that you meet, look at Christian Bale, look at all these people who create characters that they can then perform, right? It's because they have to put themselves in a different mindset, a different frame of mind. That's like taking it from one level, but you can take it down to the granular level, which is with the kids and wearing the capes or Posh Spice or Sasha Fierce, Britney Spears, all of these people who want to create or be a different persona to achieve what they want to achieve. the research that you're talking about is based around the what happens with people wearing that cape or doing that versus not. And the ability to stay focused on a task and persevere at a task while they had this alter ego is extraordinarily higher than when they didn't. I love this exercise where you record your negative self-talk with the reasons that you can't do something and then you play it back to yourself using your alter ego. This is kind of genius.

I've never heard that before. And then arguing against yourself essentially. So your alter ego would be like the angel on your shoulder being like, you can do this. What are you talking about? Because your alter ego would never accept that level. And Martin Seligman, who's essentially one of the greatest positive psychology, scientists of our time, said that's one of the things that successful people do

who are really resilient is they find reasons to argue against, not just negative thoughts, but rationale that's bad. is more about ways to reframe an idea. So you're not thinking about something in a certain way or you're not allowing that negative talk to stop you from the start. So if you do those things and hear how you're saying it, you're coming back to it with a different twist

where that becomes your new voice and your new talk and your new reframe. I know for many self-acceptance means rationalizing, not doing something or not having been able to accomplish something. What is a better version of self-acceptance that can actually drive us forward? So I think a lot of times we have things that get us stuck and we don't know what to do with it. So we're stopped in our tracks, which doesn't allow us to propel forward in any direction that we want to do.

I create these three buckets and I call it the three Fs, which is fix it, forget it, or farm it out. And the reason why I create these like different buckets is because then you know what to do with whatever that thing is that gets you stuck from moving forward at all. And once you figure out where to put it, that should give you the green light to then move forward. I use a silly example. We get really stuck and fixated on something that we believe is why we cannot get to what we want. We're laughing about like, I always hated my nose. So I never thought I would ever be able to get things that involved like appearance stuff. Wouldn't be able to do this or that. It's really not that bad. See what you set yourself, not that bad. You got to reframe that. You got to reframe the way you hear those. But because I've reframed it and put it into a certain bucket, I'm not offended by that comment. But if I didn't, and it kept me stuck now.

And then I heard you say, no, it's not that bad. Yeah, you'd be thinking about it for three weeks. I'd be like, what the f-so rude? How can he say them? It was rude. Oh, my God, it was rude. But I've moved past it is my point. And the three buckets, like I says, one is fix it.

So you either fix what it is that's really bothering you that you really can't get over. I could have fixed my nose. Yeah, plastic surgeon. And got myself a nose job like most other Jewish girls that we know. Or? Oh, man. I did not say it. Jennifer Cohen, everybody.

Cohen. being it real here, guys. I can get someone else to fix it for me. That's a point. Or I could forget about it and put that in the bucket and not think about it. It is what it is. I'm not going to change it. Move on with my life. Sure. And so that's a silly, very superficial example. Yeah. But it could be any other example in business a lot of times when we can't move forward. We get really stuck and paralyzed because something's not working in our business. I do see a lot of entrepreneurs who get stuck being like, we don't know how to do this particular thing and we don't have the money to hire it out, well, then don't do it at all right now.

Right. So either you forget about it and you move on with other pieces of your business, right? Or you farm it out and delegate it to like an outside vendor. Yeah, if you can afford to do that. If you can afford to do it. Or you fix it yourself. And you find some way to do it internally by hiring an intern or doing a cheaper version of it. I think the point is because people are like, yeah, fix it or find someone else to fix it or forget about it. Like, why is this deep? The point isn't actually handling the problem. The point is making a decision moving along from there. It's the indecision that stops us.

It's the analysis paralysis of really smart people that we talked about earlier, right? What comes along with being super smart is that you overthink everything. Better at rationalizing indecision. Better at coming up with reasons not to do something that you're scared of. And figuring out systems that you won't allow yourself to sit there and overthink it to a place of analysis paralysis where you don't do anything. And then time goes by and life goes by and you're nowhere better off, you're nowhere further along. Again, these are simple systems and solutions. This is not supposed to be of war and peace here.

This is not Noriel Rubini's economists, mega threats. Everybody's the same at the end of the day, right? We have certain goals we're trying to achieve, we're trying to live the best life. We're trying to live a life that's rich, which is, to me, a rich life isn't just about having a lot of money. It's about really having, like, meaningful relationships and being satiated with the time you have on Earth.

So let's not count ourselves out. Let's figure out simple systems that can get us there. And that's why I did this. You've got an interesting gratitude story exercise. And normally I hate stuff like this because it's so cheesy. But this one's from Andrew Huberman. Everybody loves Andrew Huberman. Everybody loves Andrew Huberman.

That's why I included it. Yeah, tell me about this because most gratitude stuff is barf and cliche. I agree with you. But this one seems to be scientific or at least from a scientist. Yeah, at least from a. neuroscientist. Yes. You know, it's funny.

I always ask people, what are the habits? What do you do every day to optimize your life and optimize your health? Tell me what you do in the morning, right? Nine into ten people say either meditation or they say a gratitude journal, right? I've heard it so many times. I almost don't believe people do that. At nauseam, I hear the same things. I actually truly believe that people are saying a lot of these things because it sounds good.

For sure they are. And because it's a very popular habit. You know, I journal, I meditate. I don't think there's any real authenticity to the majority of that. I think it's baloney. A lot of the guys who say make your bed in the morning, I'm like, you're a billionaire. You're making your own bed? I don't believe you.

Exactly. First thing you stopped doing when you got rich is make your own bed. 100%. But maybe they mean their bed is being made. I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Yeah. My point of saying all this about the gratitude journal is like, A, I don't necessarily believe that people actually do it.

Right. And B, I'm not necessarily convinced that is the reason for people who do it that actually changes their psychology and their mental idea and doesn't really create more productivity for them. Yeah, yeah, sure. But I do believe there's something to be said about being happy with what you have and feeling like fulfilled. So I saw this thing with Andrew Huberman and he like made some really good points about what is a thing that make people feel full. And he had a spin on it that I thought was very interesting, which was like when you. you talk to people and do something for somebody, it gives you a sense of gratitude or fulfillment. So when you do something for someone else? Yes. Okay. And say, I'm doing this for you. And therefore,

I feel gratitude for that. It lacked the writing in a journal like 10 things that I'm happy for. And by the way, when you write something today, I wrote, I'm happy for my children. I'm happy for my podcast with Jordan. What do I write tomorrow? I feel it's a little trite. That's why it never really got into that. But how do you feel? I'm just going to like take it to a human level. If I was able to do something for you that really helped and benefited you in some way and it makes me feel good. Of course. That makes me feel like, oh, I actually made a difference. I like help so and so. And that's like a true feeling, an emotion that I can live with that kind of carries me further. Okay. That's the point of why I wrote it. Huberman's gratitude exercise is not think of the things

you're grateful for, but do something that someone else should be grateful for? Do something that makes you feel grateful by doing something for somebody else. It's certainly better than just thinking about why your life is good, I suppose. Over time, it would seem like it may get a little repetitive in your brain. I'm a big habit person, and maybe it does change, maybe the neuroplasticity. But I think that to me is a very overused, one-dimensional way of feeling grateful. And a habit that's been talked about a lot. And that I'm not really necessarily sure that just because people say they do it all the time, that it actually is that beneficial. Yeah, I agree with that. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jen Cohen. We'll be right back.

If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing thinkers, creators every single week, it is because of my network, the group of people around me, the stuff we're talking about in part today on the show. I've got a free course on this. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where you can find it. It's not schmoozy. It's not cringy. It will make you a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer, and more effective at work. Or just enjoy that happiness dividend that you get from creating and maintaining connections over time. And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us.

You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course once again at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Now, back to Jen Cohen. We do have the challenge of beating our brain at negative thoughts. I think you said we have 6,200 thoughts per day, 80% of which are negative. That's a lot of thoughts and that's a lot of negative thoughts. it's a little depressing to think that's how many negative thoughts I have per day, 4,500 or whatever the math works out to be.

Just think about just between now and when you had your sugarfish lunch, how many thoughts you were thinking of. Just like little things that you didn't even think about, like how you had five crab had rolls and you were going to be cut off. Sugarfish is a sushi place nearby here in Los Angeles that I always go to. And I usually get cut off on the amount of blue crab hand rolls that I'm allowed to order because apparently there's a shortage and they don't. want some schlub eating like 10 in one sitting. I've never heard that in my life. Apparently my money's

not green enough for sugarfish to have unlimited blue crab hand rules. But it's true. I'm pretty good at catastrophizing. I'm pretty good at negative thoughts. It's definitely been a journey for me. You give the example in the book of Amanda Knox, episode 386 of the Jordan Harbinger show. This is a girl whose roommate got murdered. She went to prison in Italy for I think four years. And then it turned out that she didn't do it. But she did some sort of negative visualization that was somehow different. Yeah, here's a girl who has been exonerated for the murder of those two people in Italy. And by the way, she was very young. She was, what, 18 years old. And so she was kept in an Italian prison. And so my question to her was, how did you get through it? And she had this exercise

where she thought of the worst thing that could have happened or where she could be and then compare it to where she was right there in life. And it made her feel better. And so, When she was telling me the story, I was like, this is really interesting because here you are in jail. Like, how much worse can it be? But you can always find a situation that's way worse than where you are at that moment. And when you do and you think of that and then you come back to where you really are in life, it's a calming effect. And so when she told me that story, I went like down the rabbit hole and started talking to different psychologists and different people and asking them about this. Is this actually a thing?

Is this something that people can do? It sounds like the opposite of what you should be doing. What's the worst thing that can happen? Don't think about that. That hasn't happened yet. Why are you worrying about that? Yeah, especially if you're in jail, right? In an Italian prison for murder that you didn't commit.

Right. I was riveted by it. I'm like, how much worse can it be? And then she started talking about these things. She says, I could be getting raped into jail. Like, whatever it was, you can take whatever your situation is, and it could always be so much worse that when you come back to the regality, it doesn't seem as bad.

Basically, when I went down that rabbit hole and I spoke to different psychologists and they told me this was actually a thing that really helped and worked. I was fascinated by it. Yeah, it's surprising because it almost seems like you should not necessarily be thinking about the worst things that can happen. What it does is contrast your actual situation with something else. You have to have the ideology of, you can go into a situation of what is the worst that can happen?

It should preempt you to at least make the attempt at whatever it is that you want. Tell me about limbic friction. I never heard this term before. Oh, you never did? No. Oh my God. So putting certain habits in place so that you can do the things that you need to do. For example, if you want to work out in the morning, right, put a yoga mat in front of you,

put your shoes and your shirts on the floor so it's a reminder or a habit so that it will cause a reaction for you to do what you need to do. Sleeping in your running clothes. I wouldn't be sleeping in my workout clothes. But yeah. You don't need to. Yeah. Some people do.

Do you sleep in workout clothes? No, I don't need to. But I remember when I started running in Michigan in the, winter. I was like, oh, God, I really don't want to go. It's still dark outside. This sucks. So I slapped in my running clothes, and I would get up and go, well, I don't even have to get cold until I go outside because I don't even have to change. So then I would just go, put my shoes on and walk outside. And I gave myself permission to go walk outside. And if it was too cold, come back in. But then you're already outside. Yeah. The idea is to do the hard things first so you can get other things taken care of.

What happens is the things that you have to do later on is a lot of brain energy. So if you can do the hard things first or do something hard in the morning, it really helps you with your productivity later on. Interesting. So what's that book, Eat That Frog, where you do the hardest project in your day first? It builds momentum. And the other thing about the frog, we are the most alert and we have the most energy first thing. As the day goes on, it gets harder and harder to have the motivation to do these things.

if you take it off your checklist, compounds in different ways. If I don't know how to do something, I always have to figure it out in the morning. Because if I go, I'll do that later, I'll do that later. Then it's 4 p.m. and I have time to do it. I'm like, I don't want to figure this crap out right now. I'm freaking tired already. And you're exhausted. But if you do those things, it gives you feeling of accomplishment to help you get through

to the next thing. And then it doesn't take up the brain power of what you need to get done later on. Yeah, this is like some James Clear stuff. A little bit. In one of the bestselling books of the decade, James Clear episode. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that book is still number one. It's crazy, right?

Yeah, he's eating down on that for the rest of his life. Oh, 100%. Although, like, the subtle art of not giving a book is still is up there too, right? It is. Yeah. It's like, 20 million books sold. Yeah, crazy. Yeah. It's crazy knowing those guys before they even wrote those books and being like, oh, these guys are pretty smart. Now I'm like, dang.

I know, right? Look at that. Knowing all these super smart people. Usually you meet people after they're famous. Yeah, that's true. You don't meet people when they're not doing any. Did you think they were so smart before? I did.

Both of them? They were like, they're bloggers. They're bloggers. By the way, still bloggers. Yeah, I was like, yeah, they're interesting guys. They're all really, really good dudes that deserve their success, in my opinion. Anyway. We digress.

Yes, but we digress. Choose a direction, not a destination. This is a really good point because it's very easy to get demotivated if you choose an outcome versus choosing a direction to go in. To use weight loss as an example, if you say, I'm going to lose 30 pounds and you only lose 10, then you're like, oh, crap, I failed. But what I did was decided I was going to. lose a little bit of fat. That was it. Line go down. That was all I was thinking. It didn't matter how long

it took. As long as the line was going down every week by 0.1 pounds. Yeah. Most weeks, I should say, over an average of each month, then I'm happy. And I did that and I lost 40 pounds of fat in eight months. I wasn't fat before, but I just had weight to lose. So the idea was choose a direction and not a destination. And then you don't get demotivated. It's the same thing with a business. Yes, you need goals or something to shoot for, but you do mostly need a direction, especially when it comes to personal goals that are hard to measure. Like, I didn't know I was going to lose 40 pounds, but if I'd said 10, I could have stopped way too early. I just chose the direction and not the destination. 100%. And that's where people get stuck again, right? Because they don't know exactly what it is

and then they put a lot of pressure. The momentum piece is so huge, right? Something in motion stays in motion. Something stagnant stays stagnant. So that's why if you just pick a direction, right, not the destination. You're at least on the path of motion, on the path of action, to get you a little closer to whatever or whatever that is. A lot of times in life, just doing something got them to a place where an opportunity or a place that they otherwise never would even known about because they were at least like doing something, right? Versus just sitting still and not making anything. Luck favors the prepared type of thing. Fortune does favor the bold. I put that on my Facebook back in law school.

It was very 2006 dude bro finance guy. Fortune favors the bold. And my wife saw that. She's like, can you take that off? That just looks douchy. I mean, but I don't think it's very douchy at all. I think it's factual and true. And the funny thing is, I believe it.

And I think it's actually something that is accurate. The other way to translate is luck favors they're prepared. I think it's the same quote in Latin that just gets translated differently. This is a bingo card of, do you self-help No, no, I'm saying. Isn't that the same

buzz words? Isn't this about being bold? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I love that's also in your book, by the way, is connecting the dots with our experiences

and seeing how they have led to good things. Tell me about this. Oh, connecting the dots. So good because I realize most of recognizing victories and things that motivate me is me looking backwards and thinking like, oh,

actually this led to this, all of which I thought were bad things at the time and turned out to be some of the best things that ever happened to me. essentially getting fired, oh my God, what am I going to do? I have to start over. And now it's like, oh, thank God, I got fired and started over. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Exactly. Usually, a lot of times your biggest failures or your biggest letdowns

become your biggest successes. And so you don't know at the moment how all the dots connect, but they all find a way to connect at the end or when you look back. And it's not just cheesy, the universe gave you everything you needed. It's more like as you get better at connecting the dots, you start to realize that experiences that maybe didn't turn out the way you wanted them to will have better outcomes than you could have hoped for. And that's very general. Or you needed those things not to work. So another opportunity will present itself that you never knew existed.

That's really the point, right? I think the skill is instead of losing momentum in the moment, you have to realize at that point that, okay, whatever that is, maybe a dot later that leads to something great. If I ever have to start this show again, God forbid, because something horrible happens, or something similar to that, I will now be able to go, all right, I just don't know what this means yet.

There's a Chinese proverb where I told you about this. The Chinese farmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I say or do you want to say? I'll say it. So the Chinese farmer, his son falls off a horse, breaks his leg, everyone feels bad for him. Chinese farmer says, we'll see.

Army comes by recruiting. They don't take his son because he's got a broken leg. Everyone says, you're so lucky. He says, we'll see. And onward from there. There's more things that happen, but you get the idea. He doesn't know what to make of the event. in the moment because it could be lucky or unlucky,

only time we'll tell. That's the TLDR on that one. Yeah, you didn't have passion and emotion with that. I did not. But I don't want people to listen to the show and go, I've heard this eight billion times. A lot of people have it. You know what times I've told people at the story

at different dinner parties and no one's heard it? They're like, wow, Jen knows Chinese progress. She's so so profound. Yeah. Anyway, I love the idea of looking at the dots only in retrospect knowing what they mean. That's, I think, very insightful. and comes with life experience.

The other thing that occurred to me when reading this was a lot of people want to protect us from failure, so your mom might not want you to go out and do something because if it fails, then you'll feel bad and she wants to protect you from that feeling. And the same thing can happen. Good friends, parents, spouses can try to convince us not to do something because they don't want us to fall on our faces because they'll feel bad for us, not because they don't think we can do it. and because they don't want to see us get hurt. But it can really keep us from achieving our goals or doing something.

A lot of people told me not to start my own business. They were like, you are a lawyer? What are you doing? Right, right. Do the safe route. Do the safe thing. You know how many businesses fail? You've one in three chance of even making it a few years doing this, let alone making money.

You already have a Wall Street job paying more than you ever thought you were going to make. What are you doing? And that was actually pretty good advice. I just didn't follow it. Thankfully. Thankfully. We don't know the people's motivations who tell us not to do something. Yes, that's absolutely. And sometimes they also don't know their motivations. They might have selfish motivations where they don't want to see us succeed because it means something for them.

Or maybe because they're too chicken to be bold themselves or haven't found the willpower or because they don't want to see us fall on our face. So since we can't guess that their motivations, the best thing to do is to be bold in your words. No, you got to be very careful of who you seek advice from because you don't know what their reasons are. they can have the best intentions a lot of times, but some people don't have the best intentions. But you don't want to seek advice from people who, A, don't have the experience or the wherewithal to even know what that would be like. And a lot of times in life, we seek advice from someone who's never done it themselves, who have no clue. And then we decide on our direction and what we're going to do based on somebody else's inexperience. Insecurities or inexperience, yeah.

Fear or whatever. And then our life is now created based on that thing. So the idea of creating this bold of directors around you, as opposed to the board of directors where... No, we get it. Just for those at home who don't know, where the idea, of course, is to create a group where, A, you're confident that they have the right reasons, they have the right experience, they want to see you succeed and win, they already done it before, and you're curating this group of people who you seek advice from versus just randomly nilly-willy, nilly, willy,

just asking people. Willie-nilly, yeah. Willie-nilly is the... I wonder if you make fun of all the guests like this. No, but I should. This is a lot of fun, actually. Did you make fun of Kobe like this with the... They did not.

It was too busy running the cameras, the photos, and the audio at the same time because the freaking kid who I hired was in the shitter. Because of me. That you recommended playing candy crush. I'll put that story at the end of the show, folks. And checking out ESPN news. Okay.

Yeah. So yeah, the point is the bolder directors is basically being much more... It's having a panel of folks around you whose advice you can trust and know that their intentions are usually going to be good because you've curated them in the first place instead of just asking random people that you're close to give you. But also people have had the experience before. A lot of times they'll have good intentions. Like my mom would have a good intention, but she's so scared of her own shadow in a lot of ways. She would never take a risk. Like for you, when you left law and you did the stuff that you're doing now, You did it even though people told you not to. Everyone told me not. So then why did you do it?

Was there one person that said, go for it? Gary Vaynerchuk, which is funny because this is way before he was famous. Way before he was famous. Okay, what happened? YouTube didn't exist at the time. What year was this? 2007. Okay, and what happened?

I went and met him somewhere and I was like, who's this guy, the wine guy? And we were just talking and hanging out. And he was like, you know how Gary Vaynerchuk is now. He was not even close to how he is now. He said, you can do it. Come on, guys. F-bom, every third word. He was not like that.

But he just told me that digital stuff was really going to be on the come-up and that influencers were going to exist at some point. He told you that? Yeah, he didn't put it in those exact words. But he's, look, you have the nascent beginning of this. Podcasting's going to be huge. Digital's going to be huge. There's going to be a way for you to make a full-time living doing this.

We're talking about 16 years ago now. Really? Yeah. I love some of these examples of you being bold and getting something that most people would probably not bother doing. The email mix-up story and how that essentially got you a job at Forbes, before Forbes was a joke of a ClickFarm. Yes, it wasn't what it is now. Back then, it was a real magazine that didn't care. And it was a real job. It was a staff writer job. It's funny how we have to say that now. But tell me about this, most people would never do this. I let us start by saying,

this is a testament to curiosity more than anything. I think curiosity is a sister or a brother to being bold. When you're curious, it opens up your mind to opportunities and communication and all sorts of connectedness. And so when you combine the curiosity with the boldness, it's a really nice blend. And with the story that you're talking about is I got an email randomly from some guy who was trying to email another Jennifer Cohen. Who knew there was more than one Jennifer Cohen? Definitely not one of the world's most popular names. It's not common at all, right? Especially in showbiz. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Using publishing, really? Yeah. I hope people know that we're tastefully joking about this. We'll see. Yeah. We're both yids. Yeah. So,

what happened was he was trying to send an email to a Jennifer Cohen, but he forgot a dot. Really? That's how easy that was? That's how easy it was. And so I got the email instead of this guy who was sending it to his agent who had a manuscript. He was handing in. And so when I got this email, instead of just deleting it like most people would do, I was very curious about who he was. And I was like, who is this guy? What is he standing me? And I was looking at it. And then I very interested in what this was. And I can tell it was an important email. And so, I called him and I said, hey, my name is Jennifer, you sent me an email by accident. I think you meant to send it to somebody else. We ended up having a 45-minute conversation where I was asking him about his manuscript and blah, blah, blah. He was answering me. We started talking about what I do and I gave him an idea. One of the things that he did, he was like a New York Times political author and was an analyst, but he also worked for Forbes. And I pitched him this idea that I thought of of where I could write a wellness topic

or wellness column for entrepreneurs and executives for Forbes. And I pitched this random dude, this idea. And he was like, who's this girl, whatever? The conversation led me to him giving me his editor at Forbes with a little conjoling and whatever else. I ended up talking to the editor.

It was a hard sell. Again, these are very conservative people who I was speaking with. It was a young adult who's never really written that much at all in my life. Your last job was at the Olive Garden. Yeah. when I was 12, but close. Yes. I had a few jobs in between, but close enough. But I was very

audacious and I basically just pitched this idea, even though they thought I was weird and completely not experienced. I said, I will do it for free. Let me write one column for free and see how it does. And you know, you don't have to pay me, blah, blah, blah. And he gave me a shot after a lot of conjoint like I said. And that article ended up being like the most viewed online of that week. of that month, maybe still, who knows? And one article turned into two that turned into three, and then I got my own column in leadership at Forbes, which then, of course, opened a lot of other doors and opportunities that I would otherwise never have gotten if I didn't respond to that one email. That wasn't addressed to you. That wasn't addressed to me. But A, that's about

connecting the dots, right? Because I had another thing failed where I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that if that was not even the case. But more than that is about creating your own opportunities through curiosity. What percentage of that is I'm bold and what percentage of that is I'm naive enough where I don't understand that this might have negative consequences. Not that there were in this particular case, but in some cases, it's better to almost be blissfully ignorant of, like, you can't do this. This could be bad for you or whatever.

Yeah. I'm not putting myself at any situation where it's dangerous. But I will say, I have a whole chapter on naivity because naivity is a strength in my opinion. I believe that naivety, it is a superpower because the less you know, the better. Because the more experience you have, the more seasons you are doing something, that's when you really tend to overthink of all the things that, like, have been done already, or how you don't make a difference or like you can never really figure out different ways of systems because it seems like why can you make a difference or why this or why that.

Again, you talk yourself out of all the reasons why you should not do something. Well, it's like start a podcast. Why not? Well, it's never going to get anywhere. But you don't know that because you're naive. so you just do it. Suddenly, it's one of the biggest podcasts in the world. Absolutely.

And you don't know all the work that goes into it. You learn these things while you're doing something. And so that's the whole idea is let naivety be your superpower. If you don't know something, don't let that stop you from at least attempting and trying. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jennifer Cohen. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors,

all the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. That should have pretty much everything from every episode that we've ever created. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now, for the rest of my conversation with Jennifer Cohen. Not knowing what you're getting into can be good because you don't then talk yourself out of that course of action. Basically, yes.

Yeah. There's something too that I still research things a lot, obviously, for the show. But sometimes I stop. And you steal people's lines. Yeah. Okay. Get over it. Sometimes I stop doing it though because I don't want to know the workload necessarily

that's going to be involved in something or all the pitfalls. I want to just solve the problem when I get to that. Usually I'll hire like a vendor to get me through something and I'll like, do you want an outline of the whole process? And sometimes I don't because I don't want to get overwhelmed with all the things that can go wrong. I don't want to lose three nights of sleep thinking about my YouTube change. channel. If they know they can get me through that, then I'll just trust them to do that in the

moment when the problem arises. Basically, you don't know why something is supposedly impossible, and so you simply go and do that. Exactly. And that's sometimes when the best projects, disruptors happen. Was it Jewel that was in your book? She was known as somebody who, like, tell me the story. She was bold. She was curious enough to research a way where they offered her a contract. She was young and very inexperienced. And she didn't like the way a contract was. She was curious. and she figured out a better way around it, where she was bold enough to recreate a contract that they offered her, where she would end up making way more money. People usually get taken advantage of in the music industry, right? Because they like prey on people who don't know what they don't know and who really want something bad enough.

That's what happens. When you are so desperate for something to happen a lot of times, that's when you get away with a lot of things. And she refused to do that. And so she figured out a way to create a contract that was way monetarily, way more beneficial. for her. And she was curious and she was bold. And so I used her as an example of someone who really utilized these strengths. Isn't Branson got to?

He starts to marry-bult. Yeah. He just... Oh, let's create like a rocket. Like, I mean, a spaceship. Hey, you can't do that. It's too hard. Dot, dot, dot, got a space company. Right. To my point, the people who know the least about something are the ones who succeed in it a lot of times because they're not letting the idea of not knowing bog them down. What's that thing? Like, ready, shoot, aim.

Ready fire aim? Yeah. Ready aim, shoot. Ready, aim, fire, ready, fire. Yeah, we can do this all day. One's right and one's just not. No, ready, shoot, aim. Nobody says shoot.

You say fire. Oh, we say shoot in Canada. No, you don't. I'm going to get email from Canadians that are like, she's lying. Nobody says shoot. They don't? No. Oh, I do.

Okay, well, you've done really well at finding which talents you have and carving out a niche using those same talents. And there's more about this in the book, so we don't have to break down the whole thing. but training celebrities to stay fit for music tours specifically is a really interesting narrow niche that you basically invented, didn't you? Basically, yeah. So the truth of the matter is I'm a big believer in creating your own opportunities and not letting what's in front of you be your stop and start.

This is why you always order off the menu when we go to dinner. This is like a metaphor for your whole life. This whole thing is a metaphor for my entire life, right? I was not somebody who was ever a fitness person. I wasn't somebody who went to school to be in nutrition or fitness, right? That wasn't what I was doing. At the time, I was working at a record label and I moved to L.A. Based on I got a working visa through Sony because I was fast tracking in the marketing.

Right. I'm Canadian. I was at BMG. I got a great job offer to come here to Los Angeles. And I was like running marketing at a very young age and creating all these like marketing initiatives, blah, blah, blah for bands. And I got burnt out. I didn't want to be in the music world anymore.

And so because I was here young, very young, and on someone else's visa, I couldn't make money any other way. So I figured, okay, what am I going to do to make some money so I can live in the state and I'll get kicked out? I thought, I'll become a personal trainer. That way, I can make some extra money. I like working out, didn't know anything about it. I'm like, I like to ride my bike and I like aerobics.

So let's do it. Putting a timestamp on this. That's why I said it. Spinning didn't exist. That did actually exist. Yeah. It's had a resurgence. But anyways, I'll just do that.

So I quit my job. Got like my first training certification. And I'm like, all right, maybe I'll just do this. And while I was going through my training certification, it dawned on me. Listen, I have all these relationships in the music world, right? I've been there for five years working in the music world. I know a lot of different people. There's transferable skills that you can use.

It doesn't matter what industry you're in. These are transferable like use in somewhere else. So I thought to myself, okay, I know all these people. I got a meeting with the head of MCA Universal, a friend who I knew. And I said, listen, you know what? I have a proposition for you. I want to become a trainer for the record label. I was like, put me on retainer, give me a certain amount of money.

And I will train all the different talent for when they go on tour or when they do a music video. And I will train them. You looked at me. He's like, what the hell do you know about training, personal training? I'm like, I got my certification. I know how to do a lunge. I know how to do a pushup. Give me a shot.

The bar is so low. But it's about having the audacity and the boldness to think, why not me? Why not? What's the worst that can happen? He kicks me out and says, sorry, we're not going to give you the money. We don't want to do it. Move on, lady. He finally said, okay, you know what? I'll give you a shot. Let's do it for a month. Let's see what happens. From that opportunity, one month turned into many months and one label turned into multiple labels, turned into multiple people working underneath me to an entire fitness business and industry that, kind of wasn't really there at the time. And I was training literally everybody for tours and for videos. And now I became this like fitness influencer. The first celebrity trainer. No, no, no, I don't ever say that. But what I say is I created this position for myself that otherwise wouldn't have existed. I would have been basically shipped back to Canada if I didn't think of this opportunity for myself, which then by the way took me on an entirely different trajectory of my life, where then I became a health and fitness person,

which, by the way, was nothing that I would have ever thought five years before then. We've been friends for a long time, and you've done a lot of really incredible things in your life. And I know we've been wanting to do a show for a while. It's been hard to put what you do into a container. So it's actually really appropriate that you wrote a book about taking all of these random things that don't fit into a container

and turning it into your career and your strength and your talents and stuff like that. Does that make sense? 100%. It's like the perfect thing for you to do. Because I'm like, what are you going to write a book about? You have all these disparate skills and talents that don't really necessarily neatly fit together. Hey, the book is about fitting all these disparate talents and skills that don't really neatly fit together and turning it into something special, a catalyst for something special.

It's like Seinfeld, but a book. Okay. I mean, I guess. It's just random things that kind of work together. Yeah. If you would look at my career, there is a lot of zig and zagging. It doesn't make a lot of sense, right? But at the same time, it makes a lot of sense because what I've done is,

is really lean on the things that I'm really good at and figure those things out quickly and then compensate for the things I'm not good at. I really believe that people need to figure out what they're good at, really lean hard into those strengths, and then go all in. I do believe that to be true. Yeah, but you do it in a smart way that's not just as reckless. Put your job and burn the ships. Never. I appreciate that.

I want to end with your Keanu Reeve story because I think it's really funny. It's a good example of just doing something that is completely ridiculous and surprisingly getting a result. Absolutely. So when I was young, I loved music when I was a kid. Loved it. That was one of my big passions. And I knew a lot about every band and everything else. And I really wanted to be like a video disc jockey, like a Carson Daley. A VJ. Yeah. We call it. Video disc jockey sounds super 90s. Well, what? It was like the TRL, remember? So we had our own version in Canada, much music. And that was like the job that like every young teen wanted, right? It was the coolest job in the world. And they were having an open. and call for it at much music. And so I was like, oh my God, I need that job. And at the time, Keanu Reeves was at the precipice of his career. He guess he still is. Keanu Reeves never went out of style. He never went out of style. It's unbelievable. But at the time, I was like, wow, this guy just did speed. He was like the biggest thing since sliced bread.

And he was coming to Winnipeg to practice his acting chops with Shakespeare. He always wanted to do Shakespeare. Oh, that's so random. Random. And I found out, and I'm like, this is my shot. This is my chance. I'm going to get Keanu Reeves to be on my demo tape. And that way, they are going to look at that demo tape. If I can get Keanu Reeves on that demo tape, they're going to be blown away. They'll be blown away. And I'll for sure get the audition and get the job and blah, blah, blah. And so I told all my friends, I told my family, I went to school. I was like, I'm going to do this. Everyone, of course, laughed at me. And I'm like, oh, God, here she goes again. And what did I do? I coerced a girlfriend in mine to come with me. And by the way, Winnipeg in the winter is minus 45.

It's so cold. And I didn't care. I put on my warmest jacket and boots. And I sat outside of the theater, the Manitoba Theater Center for 45 minutes. My friend came with me. She lasted seven minutes. She went home after seven minutes. She's like, screw this.

This is too cold. You're on your own. And I waited and waited. And he finally came out. And at the time when this was happening, it was like, do you remember like her an affair and hard copy and Entertainment Tonight magazine? They were all waiting for her.

him, right? And all the other shows, too. And all the girls were waiting for him. And I was so determined. I saw him come out and I walked right up to him. I went through the crowd. I tapped him on the shoulder. And he finally looked at me and he's like, I know you want an autograph. And I'm like, no, I don't want an autograph. I really need your help. I need to make this demo tape because I have this job that I really want. He must have been like, oh, for crying out loud. He looked at me, confused. What are you talking about? And I'm totally stunned and said it again. And this girl's pushing me out of the way. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about,

but write down your phone number on a piece of paper and I'll call you. And I was like, come on. You're not really going to call me. I'm not that, like, naive. Right. And he's like, just do it. And so some girl gave me an eyeliner. I found a gum wrapper.

I wrote my phone number down. Really? Gave it to him. Went home. He's like, you expect me to put this soggy eyeliner gum wrapper that's covered in Manitoba snow in my pocket? He did. Yeah, and he did, Lord.

I went back to school. I told my friend. Everyone was laughing at me. I was like the laughing stock. I'd walk around. They're like, oh, do Keanu call? One day, two days, three days go by. On the fourth day, come home. My mom says, hey, did you check the answering machine today yet? Because at the time, we had answering machines. And I was like, no, why? She's like, well, you should check it. And so I go and press play. And the first message, I hear, hello? And I hear my mother picking up on that last ring, like, who is this? And then I hear, hi, is Jennifer home? And my mom's like,

Who's this? She's at school. Either call back or leave a message and she hung up. And then I hear the machine being like, beep again. And hi, this is Keanu Reeves calling. I met Jennifer five nights ago. You came up to me. You're asking me something. I don't know what it was. Blah, blah, blah. Here's my phone number. Call me back. You can imagine. I can't even. This is ridiculous. I was 18 years old. I was freaking out. I was like, oh my God. He left me a phone number. I called the phone number. Cut to The guy from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure called me back. Cut two. Two days later, picking up Keanu Reeves and my mom's Cutlass Supreme.

Stop. He didn't get a ride on his own? This is a different era. I pick him up at his hotel and my mom's Cutlass Supreme. I drive him back home to my house. My mom has lunch prepared for him. I have my friends all in different corners

of my living room with their different like camcorders to fill me. basically interviewing Kianneri's. I'm sure he had no shortage of volunteers to come and film. No shortage. And I had my boyfriend at the time or whatever. I wouldn't have included him. I didn't want to, but he was insistent.

And I interviewed this guy for two and a half hours. Wow. And he was so gracious. What a legend this guy is. He's a legend. And then I, with no technical chops, go through two different VHSs and edit this tape together. My God. Send it into much music.

Got the audition. Promptly do it. And what? Then promptly blew it and to get the job. It came down to between me and another girl after thousands and thousands of people. And then the other girl got the job. But it doesn't matter. Like the job was so irrelevant.

You still have this VHS tape? Of course I do. I talk about this in my TED Talk. How big is your hair in the tape? Oh my God. You have to watch it. You got to watch my TED Talk. No, I'm just going to watch the key in a week.

You're going to watch it. It is hilarious. I think it's great that you got that. Oh, my gosh. And to me, it's just. showed me it wasn't about the job. Who cares about the job? It was that moment, pivotal moment where I'm like, you know what? You never know unless you ask. And that to me was a sign of being bold is way more important than being smart because it was so easy for me and my friends and my family to be like,

you shouldn't do it. Why would you? He's not going to help you. It's too cold outside. Why would you wait? What was it going to happen? If I listened to all of that chatter, I would never have gotten that opportunity to prove to myself that it really is boldness. That's the secret sauce. It's not how much talent you have. It's not about how smart you are or how pretty you are. It's about just going for it. That's the lesson that I learned. And throughout my life just went through that with gusto every time. I would always think, what's the worst I can happen? You never know. And to me, that's why that story was such a huge turning point in my life. Sure. So here's the thing. Everybody up to this point was, I'm not sure if I believe this story. And even I was like,

If I didn't know you, I wouldn't be so sure about the story. But you have the tape. Going to your TED Talk where you have a piece of the tape. Yeah, I had me talk to him on my mom's sofa. That's incredible. I also knew it was true because I met your mom and she verified it because I asked her about this a long time ago when you weren't in the room. So how was Keanu Reeves?

And she wasn't like, what? Who? I'll tell you, my life, honestly, weird combination of lots of stories like that. I've got some thoughts on this one as usual. but before I get into that, behavioral economist Dan Ariely shares the hidden logic that shapes our motivations and helps us understand what makes us tick.

Here's a preview. I think that we used to think that the big mysteries of life is what's in the stars and maybe microbiology and of course these are big mysteries. But the human mystery is wonderful. And even though it's just in front of us, there's so much we don't know. We operate as if we know how the world works,

but because our model is wrong, we inflict more pain and increase suffering. I think it's true for lots of things. What is our understanding? Think about how we waste our time, think about how we waste our money, how we waste our health. My mission is to do kind of good social engineering.

And I think there's just a ton of progress to make. And sadly, we're not doing it in the right way. I think we're actually going backward. And the process of social science in which we try different things and try to measure objectively what's going on and attributing and trying to improve things over time, I think it's a wonderful process. So when people read or listen or think about those topics,

I think the real benefit is to say, what can I take for my life? What are the things about my life that I'm not observing? Can I be a bit better in observing my own life? Can I try to implement something? and then hopefully also can I try to experiment with something? Is there something I would like to try out in a few different ways and see what leads to a better outcome?

For more with Dan Ariely on one of the best productivity tools around, what will help you utilize the most productive hours of the day, and why even the best of us lie and cheat sometimes, check out episode 417 on the Jordan Harbinger Show. There's a lot of practicals in the book, negative thoughts, getting stuck in negative thought loops, getting away from negative thoughts by changing our environment. but of course, what if we can't just up and move out of the country for a few months?

Environment does trump willpower. We talk about that a lot on our James Clear episode, which is episode 108. Jen's got a lot of crazy stories. Scrappiness, boldness, a little bit of luck here and there, but definitely in combo with all of the other skills. I've lost count of the number of times that people have tried to hire her to manage or be their agent or something like that. In fact, I think she did work in an industry for a little while in L.A.,

but, well, she had bigger plans. All things, Jen Cohen will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger. or ask the AI chatbot. Also on the website, transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com

slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, the newsletter every week, the team and I dig into an older episode of the show and dissect the lessons from it. So if you are a fan of the show,

you want a recap of important highlights and takeaways, or you just want to know what to listen to next. The newsletters are great place to do that. Jordan Harbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. I'm constantly working on that. I'm trying to make it funnier,

more entertaining, more insightful. So please reply with your feedback. I do appreciate that. Six-minute networking also on the site at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

And my team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millio Campo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

If you know somebody who needs a little bit of boldness in their life, definitely share this episode with him. 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 should play these outtakes at the end of the show. I think so. It's a great addition.

It's the story about one of the guys that you recommended for me to hire when I interviewed Kobe Bryant and what happened. You recommend me this guy, and I meet him and he's a schlep, whatever. I buy him a hotel room. We fly him down to soap. Cal. Everybody's going to meet Kobe Bryant the night before. We go to bed early. Next day, get up, get there early, set up all the cameras. Everything's ready to go. He goes, hey, I got to go the bathroom before the show. Okay, fine. Humans have needs. Kobe walks in. I'm like, I got to start.

So I'm starting. I get the audio going. My photographer's there. Thank God. This guy's supposed to handle all the video. Five minutes going, 10 minutes going. I'm like, to the photographer. Can you go find this guy, where is he? Comes out, starts the cameras late, so my videos cut, right? So then afterwards I go, what the hell was that, man? And he goes, oh, I had to go to the bathroom. I just figured you guys would come get me when Kobe came out. You think that when Kobe Bryant comes out and sits down in the set that we have made in his office,

that I'm going to get up and go to the men's room and knock on the stall door and be like, hey, man, get off your phone. Kobe is waiting for you now. Kobe will see you now. The best part is, like, he had like a stomach, like, like, Not even a stomach bug. He had like some kind of runs. So this is what he said.

Yeah. But here's the thing. Not true at all. Oh, how do we find out? Afterwards, he apologized. He had no excuse. He said, sorry, I thought you guys were going to come get me. I got lost in my phone.

I was on Instagram, whatever it was. Then we all went to lunch and he ordered like a meatball hokey. Right. Later, his boss called and was like, I am so sorry. He got sick. Oh, he said he had stomach pains and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no. He apologized.

He didn't have any excuse for an hour afterwards. We all went to lunch. He ate a ton, stuffed himself, had three drinks and a rib hoagie. Then he went home, sent me a text about how he screwed that up and he apologizes. He just randomly thought to tell you he was sick. He's not sick. He's just a dumb ass. So basically he was just sitting in this doll, scrolling Instagram.

The boss will come out and get me when Kobe Bryant is ready to be interviewed. So I can turn the cameras on. I hate the fact that I'm the one who actually set you up with him. But that was all I knew at the time. You were in a bind. and he was very cost-effective from what I remember. He was. In fact, they offered to do the next one for free.

I kindly passed on that opportunity, though. Kindly. I love it. That story, for whatever reason, is a classic to me. 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 reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.