The Jordan Harbinger Show - 955: Romance Twister: My Mister Once Dated My Sister | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

How do you get over the icky discovery that your boyfriend briefly dated your sister before she kicked him to the curb? 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: How do you get over the icky discovery that your boyfriend briefly dated your sister a couple of years ago before she kicked him to the curb for character flaws he seems to have developed past? You don't regret cutting off ties with the drug-addicted mother who traumatized you your entire life, but how can you help your teenage siblings who are currently subjected to her abuse without backtracking into the darkness yourself? It turns out you don't really love the field for which your degree prepared you, nor the company you've been with for the past four years. How can you get a fresh start in another career without beginning back at square one? Is there a socially acceptable way to intervene when you overhear an MLM scammer trying to recruit a stranger into their diabolical web of nonsense? How do you get your employers to see you as indispensable while cultivating the resilience to persevere even if you do get laid off? 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/955 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...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 checkout 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. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer. A guy I realized looks a little bit like the long-lost triplet to those creepy twin cousins and Breaking Bad. You know those guys who crawl in the ground

and their shark skin suits towards the witch doctor? You're not the first person to point that out, by the way. The Salamanca cousins, I think, is who they are. Salamanca twins, whatever. He's related to the Salamanca's. I've gotten that from a couple of people, so. Yeah. Not the most original roast, but I will take it.

It is very accurate. But it's also kind of funny because, I mean, you would be a good assassin. People would be like the yoga guy? Yeah, yeah, slit their throats, clean down the middle. Thank you for that incredibly weird compliment. That actually fits with the one-star review. We got a couple weeks ago that said, I'm definitely a serial killer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's a person who listens to every episode of the show and then writes a one-star review after it, and it comes in every single week. What's great about it is she uses her real name or what looks like her real name, and I just don't think she knows that that shows up in every review. I don't know, but you know what? She's probably listening right now. For sure. Shout out to that person.

Hi, I'm not going to tell your name because I don't want you to feel like you're getting attention, but you probably know who you are. All right, 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. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, arms dealers, drug traffickers, neuroscientists, rocket scientists, generals,

tech luminaries, music moguls. On Fridays, though, we take listener letters, offer advice, share stories, and stumble into digressions about the weird stuff we've gotten into in our lives. Speaking of which, I was actually thinking about a funny story from my childhood this week. Oh, great. And I wanted to share it with you guys. I love these. Let's hear it. I did this on purpose because I just got a review that's like, Jordan inserts himself too much in the conversation and like, oh, how can I do that immediately again? Q 10 minute digression into weird childhood memory.

That's right. Go figure on a show called the Jordan Harbinger show, the host, Jordan Harbinger, occasionally inserts himself into the conversation. Yeah, when I was around 13, I used to love the old dial-up modem, right? I would call bulletin board systems and what these were was before essentially everyone had internet. You'd call this local place and it would have like one, two, three, ten phone lines. And you could chat if there were other people there, but you could also post messages

and then people would log in later and read those messages and all kinds of stuff like that, download software. Like a proto chat room? Proto website plus chat room plus file server plus discussion board in one that you used. And it was local. This is even before my time, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That makes sense. We're talking like earlier 90s and then later 90s was AOL and then like the web took off for everybody kind of after that. That was when I got on the internet. Right. Yeah. So if you're 40 plus like me. Okay.

So you would go on these bulletin board systems. Yeah. I would be on the pirate runs, like with the hackers and the software pirates and stuff like that. I used to call this one that had a free chat, totally above board. It was like a real business, basically a bunch of people in a chat room that probably had like 25, 30 phone lines. I talked to all these people from all over the place locally in Michigan, or so I thought. And it didn't require me to dial an area code or anything. It wasn't long distance or anything like that.

And this is important. So after a few weeks, the phone bill came, and it was like $234. And my dad hit the roof, right? Of course, he yelled and screamed because that's how he knows that to handle problems. But then he made me pay for it, which is fine, I guess. I mean, I understand. And I had saved up for a year because I think about it. I'm like 13 years old.

I'd squirled away $240 to buy a radio control car or a boat. And I was so excited. It took all my money to pay the phone company this bill. And I would understand if I was dialing long distance or screwing around with 1,900 numbers, I was not. The reason we got that bill is because the phone company, and I think this is illegal now, It's something that I think was called a local zone call, which means they charge you long distance, even though they don't require you to dial the area code. So they were charging me, I don't know, 20 cents a minute instead of a flat rate for a phone call or two cents or whatever it is for a phone call.

And they were billing us for that, even though there was no indication that they would do that. And I was so angry. I was like, this is so unfair. And I stude and stude and stude. And I remember complaining about it to people on IRC, which is a chat where I had a lot of hackers. This is like true internet. Oh, I remember IRC. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was like, I am going to get even with the phone company. This is when I got into like the phone hacking thing. This is one of the reasons I was so interested in figuring out the phone system. It was kind of the beginning of me figuring out how to screw with them. So I started finding bugs in pay phones that cost the phone companies tens of thousands of dollars. So what I mean by this is I would try and call those numbers that had like chat rooms that would bill like $3 a minute. Normally those are $1,900 numbers. but sometimes those were blocked, and they were certainly blocked from pay phones.

Maybe they weren't, but you'd have to insert a bunch of money. What I would do is I would call the ones that would call you back, and they would charge you for like a collect call that was billed at a high rate. So I did that from pay phones, and nobody expected you to do that from pay phones. So the phone company came and they took the phone number off of every pay phone in my area after a month of me doing this because you needed to type the number in. Well, that was a really dumb way to try and thwart somebody like me, because then I just found a number, which is not hard to do,

that tells you the number you're calling from. And it's a free number, and you can dial it from any payphone. So then I would just do that from the payphone, and I would continue billing the phone. Then they figured out how to make it so that you had to insert money to make any call from any pay phone in my area. You couldn't just dial free numbers anymore,

unless it was a 1-800 number. You couldn't do it at all without inserting money. So what I would do is I would insert like a nickel, and then I would bill them hundreds or even potentially thousands of dollars by calling these things and leaving the phone off the hook, biking to the next one and doing that all day on Saturday with my friends. I love the idea that there's some poor guy who worked at Pacific Bell

whose life was being ruined by some 13-year-old who has a grudge about the $240 the company stole from him. That is hilarious. I know. I feel kind of bad because you know that some low-level person was like, are you kidding me? You have to drive to every phone again and do this other stupid tweak to the thing. I hate this person. But then I shared the techniques widely all over.

the internet IRC. So I know people were doing that in other places because they also thought the phone company was kind of jerks. And I shared it with every teenager that I could find, like, all the kids at school. My thing was I wanted to cost them 10 times what they cost me, but I probably overshot the mark a little bit. I can't see any way in which I cost them any less than a thousand times what they cost me, at least in my area. And it was so satisfying and petty. And yes, now that I'm older, again, I realize they pass the cost down to consumers probably at some or post the loss and like don't pay taxes on it. But at the time, I was a kid taking a pound of flesh

from a giant corporation that screwed me over in a very unfair way. So I didn't really understand the rest of that. Fair enough. But to this day, I still have this policy that if a company, not a person, if a company messes with me or they mess with my money, I will cost them 10 times what they cost me,

as long as I don't have to put myself out too much or do anything illegal recently. There was this company that did some online storage, very popular name brand cloud storage company, millions of people use it. They mess with me on this stupid recurring billing thing where they basically raise the price without notifying me properly.

They wouldn't refund me the difference. And I told the chat agent, I was like, look, you know this is unfair. She's like, I can't do anything about it. I'm like, my policy, I'm just telling you, is to make this cost your company 10 times what it cost me. This cost me $600.

I am going to make it cost your company at least $6,000, but I'm bad at this. It's probably going to cost you like $60,000, because I'm really bad at stopping at a mere 10x. And I suppose you don't believe how I'm going to do that. So let me tell you. Oh, look at you.

Getting on your high horse right now. I can hear it in your voice. You're like, you're such a Karen when you get into these situations. I know, I am. I'm like, I've got a large podcast. I'm going to tell everybody how you do business. And she was like, hold on, hold on. She escalates this.

A manager comes in and is like, oh, what's your podcast? I'm just curious, like trying to be friendly. I was like, the Jordan Harbinger show. And I'm spelling it. This is a live chat, right? And he's like, a weird number of digress. You talk about yourself way too much. I know.

I just want to excuse to say my name over and over and over, right? This is Jordan Harbinger Inception, right? I'm talking about myself in a story where I'm talking about myself on a podcast named after myself because somebody wrote a review saying I talk about myself too much. No, but I hate being like, Google me. But of course, that was the point. Like, get this manager on, somebody who can change things. And he Googles and he's like, well, you had Kobe Bryant on the show.

And he's like, I'm refunding your $1,600 for the past two years. I was like, no, no, I just needed refund for the difference in price. And he's like, no, no, no. You're getting last year free and you keep your membership and this year's free. And I was like, okay, I kind of feel a little bit bad. And I hate being belligerent. Nobody likes a bully. But if you're going to do people dirty and if you're going to act like a-holes as a company

and think like, what are you going to do about it, chump? I am going to rake you over the coals. And you're going to encourage a-hole behavior if you act like an a-hole. And I don't appreciate that from a company. I want to be nice to people. It's easier. So anytime a company screws with me and I'm talking about, Like I said, not individual people.

With individual people, you get sucked into this toxic mess, and that's key. I wasn't like, I'm going to make my old boss pay ten times what he took from me. It's a waste of time. You're going after somebody in a vindictive way. But if it's a company, this can make you feel better, and it can cause them to change their behavior. And if you tell them what you're going to do, and it's completely legal, that's important, you can often avoid the consequence in the first place.

And you can even get that manager's number, the email address, you can converse with them when you have a problem. So this policy has actually worked out really well for me. I'm still really pissed off at the phone company. By the way, they're a bunch of dicks. I haven't had a landline since cell phones, like, were invented because I'm like, no. They're still annoying, by the way. They're still constantly doing weird stuff.

Yeah. The reason we have spam calls coming in from, like, all known countries in Asia, is because the phone company's like, yeah, we could do something about this, but it would kind of cost us money, so we're just going to let people lose billions of dollars instead. They don't care. They don't care at all. Now, look, this doesn't work for everyone. having a public profile, you know, helpful with this so they can sort of literally see Google

who they're messing with. But I am going to give you a tip. Even people who do just small Zoom calls or talks inside their industry can leverage this. I also had another problem with an email company and I wasn't like, I'm going to talk bad about you on my podcast. I was like, every keynote I give or every Zoom call that I run and I run calls all the time, I'm going to dedicate the last 30 seconds of telling people not to use your service. And they were like, here's your $1,600. Because they just do the math and it's real easy math. Oh, you're talking to hundreds of people every week on a Zoom call. Yeah, we don't want somebody with that level of an imprint pissed off.

You could do this if you just run HR in your company. Be like, hi, everyone, just want to let you know, such and such company, don't deal with them. I mean, they lose more money than they screwed you out of, always. When it's sort of personal, companies start to do the math. Whoever they escalate this two just knows you're going to be a headache. And of course, they also know their refund policy is hot garbage in the first place. But I wanted to pass that along for anybody who's being messed about by a company. You might not have a podcast.

You might not have an audience to leverage, but you probably have more influence than you realize. And that's just a little dose of baby Dark Jordan to take into your life, especially if you feel like you're getting the short end of a stick. The origin story on your pettiness is a 10 out of 10. Yeah, it's my villain origin story for costing companies money when they're bad actors. But also, there's probably part of why I became a lawyer, right? It was like my sense of justice was just like thrown into overdrive. And I was like, you mean to tell me I could sue companies for a bad acts and they have to show up and they have to pay? All right, Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Dear Jordan and Gabe, about two months ago, I started seeing a guy. We had similar goals, careers, and personalities. It was easy to do simple things like cook and spend time together. Conversations were stimulating and everything was going well. For the first time in a while, I could really see the relationship going somewhere. One day, I posted a picture of us together in a group chat. My sister asked, who is this guy? I told her.

she asked if I was home, which I was. Then she asked if I was alone, which I also was. Then she called me. What happened next totally threw me off. Ooh, what feedback Friday hell awaits? My sister informed me that she met the same guy a couple years ago for a few dates, and they slept together. Oh, man.

Now, Gabe, normally in a moment like this, I would do, but I don't want to overuse that soundbite. So I'm just going to say, wow. Oh, my God. Your boyfriend slept with your sister before you met. What a freakish coincidence this is. That is very odd. It's so odd, but this must happen more than people realize, right?

I'm sure it does, but it's still got to be fairly rare. It's pretty rare. Yeah, this sounds like a Reddit question is what it sounds like. For sure. I just found out my boyfriend slept with my sister before you met. Now I can't bleach my brain. Help. Help.

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, but man, that's so. Yeah, it sucks. There's no getting around it. Here she meets this guy she really clicks with and through seemingly nobody's fault. There's suddenly this huge weird thing in the relationship. If this happened to me, I'd be a little thrown off to. All right, now I've got to know, Gabe. What happened? It didn't end well because, in her words, he was egotistical with no empathy or respect for women and didn't shy away from mentioning how easy it is for him to get girls, that he was dating more than one girl at a time, and things like that. My sister isn't someone who would say that about every person. person, so I trust her in her judgment. But I've been getting to know the guy, and yes, he is straightforward sometimes, but he's never made me feel uncomfortable in the way that she described. I'm aware that he has a promiscuous past, but that's all that is, the past. Now he wants a family and isn't interested in this party lifestyle anymore. Interesting, right? Okay, I mean, fair enough. I don't think a girl I met in my

20s would have necessarily liked my attitude all that much. And when I was in my 30s, especially my mid-30s or whatever. I would have just hated to have that baggage, follow me around. Yeah, I mean, there's got to be some room for this guy to grow. And also, he might have been one person with her sister and a different person with our friend here. So, who knows? Okay, so the letter goes on. I told him about my sister and said how uncomfortable this makes me feel. He remembered that they went out, but doesn't recall anything bad that happened. He said she was probably looking for love, but he was in a different place in life and was honest about it. And that if it's necessary, he can apologize to her if he said something. that hurt her. Yeah, again, very encouraging, I think. I agree. I mean, even if he handled things poorly

or he was a little callous or something, he might have grown since then, and he's saying, look, I'll talk to her, I'll apologize. That's fair. I think that's definitely a point in his favor. I am so confused because I like the guy and see a future here. At the same time, I can't imagine how we could ever have a normal family gathering knowing the situation between my guy and my sister and the fact that she never wants to see him again. I also don't like that. I don't like that. the mental image of the two of them together. Yeah. That's going to be the hardest part, I think, probably.

Just getting over the ick factor of that. Even if everyone were cool with one another, it's still undeniably weird. I mean, just thinking about how the same pillow you're drooling on at your boyfriend's house, your sister was drooling on just two short years ago. Oh, and you know it's the same pillow, too. Of course it is. Yeah, there's no way a single dude is replacing a pillow unless something absolutely just catastrophically disgusting has happened to it.

ladies, if you marry a guy, burn all of the sheets and pillows on day one. Do not even let those things into your house. And then go to bolandbranch.com and use promo code Jordan for 15% off your first set of sheets. You might need more than one set. Oh, can confirm, by the way, Boland Branch. Great sheets. That's satiny feel. Can't replace it.

Letter goes on. But then I also don't think it's fair for me to break up after such a short time. I don't believe in the one and only love. so I don't think that I would lose a soulmate here, but it is very rare for me to meet somebody I could see myself spending my life with. I've never been so confused, and I hate that I'm in a situation

that they are kind of responsible for. Is it okay to prioritize my relationship with this guy over my relationship with my sister? Is that even normal? Signed, get in the ick and unsure whether to stick with this guy with whom I click when my sis was one of his old chicks.

Wow. Well, this is quite a twist. What a bizarre situation to find yourself in, seriously. Oh, man, for all of them to find themselves in. It's like wild. We joke a lot on the show about how, you know, what's this Thanksgiving dinner going to be like? But this is a new one. If our friend here settles down with this guy, he'll be passing the Brussels sprouts to one that he used to sleep with and holding hands under the table with the one he's with now.

Like I said, it's weird. It is weird. There's no way around it. It's really bizarre. But I don't know, man. I don't know if it necessarily has to be catastrophically weird. I know what you mean. It's like, yes, it's awkward.

It's vaguely gross. It's uncomfortable. But it's not like here the sister did this knowingly. At least that's what it looks like so far. He didn't cheat on our friend here with her sister or sleep with the sister years ago and then lie about it or like try to go after the current girl because he already got the sister. Although we don't know that for sure, I guess. Yeah.

Well, we don't. I don't think that's what's happening. But I am wondering why this is only coming to light now. I was wondering that too, like did he just not recognize the last name or connect the dots? Is he playing dumb to avoid the whole situation? But maybe their last name is like Smith and he's like, whatever, you know, why would you put that together? Or was he in the middle of such an epic trampage at the time that he can't even remember people's names? But then when she told him who her sister is, he said, oh, yeah, I do remember that, but I don't remember anything bad happening.

So that makes me think that maybe their relationship was, I mean, didn't she say they only went on a few dates and they slept together? So it sounds like it wasn't very serious. So maybe he truly didn't remember or even know her last name. Yeah, it's totally possible. And hey, I hope that's the case. Otherwise, he did do something wrong by not telling her from the get go, hey, I hooked up with your sister. Just want to get that out in the open.

Are you okay with that? Although I also understand why he wouldn't do that. Like, you're on a great date with somebody. You're like, oh, I just want to let you know. This has been amazing. But I did bang your sister two years ago. Anyway, we're still on for Friday, right? Still on for Friday?

I mean, you're just, you're not going to do that. But it's also possible that. he didn't connect the dots because of the person he was back then or the mode he was in back then, partying, sleeping with a lot of people, maybe not always being the most thoughtful about other people's feelings. I mean, that is precisely what the sister doesn't like about this guy. Right, yeah, good point. So that raises an interesting question, which is, is he kind of cavalier and thoughtless, has he really changed? Our friend here is saying, yeah, the guy's changed. He was kind of a hoe before. Now he's ready to settle down. And that is completely normal and fair. Most

people do that at some point. They date around. They sew their wild oats, especially dudes as much as possible. And then they mature a bit. And at a certain point, they're like, all right, I'm ready to settle down, find my person. So even if he was a little careless with the sister's feelings, it doesn't really make him a monster, in my opinion. And again, the fact that he's willing to talk to her and apologize, kind of says it all. He's not like, oh, get over it. It's weird. What a weirdo. He's like, oh, man, let me straighten this out if it's going to bother you and impede our relationship. That's a mature way to handle this kind of thing. hold all of that alongside his theory that her sister was probably looking for love, but he was in a

different place, and he was honest with her about what he wanted. If that's true, then it's possible that the sister's feelings really were hurt, and hey, that's valid. But does that actually mean he did something wrong? Or does it just mean that she really liked him? She had high hopes, and he actually did the right thing by saying, hey, this is where I am in my life, this is what I can offer you, and she was kind of injured by that, but now she's holding that against him forever. My sense is that the sister has a certain narrative about this guy based on her experience, which I can understand. But right now, it seems like she's being fairly rigid about it. She knows him as the party guy who wouldn't commit and was possibly a little callous in how he handled things with her.

Although, again, I can't tell if he actually was. But if he was, then he did play a part in that. And based on that experience, she's now telling her sister, hey, dude, this guy's bad news. And that does seem a little unfair. I get how that opinion formed, but it feels like it's very limited. Yes, that, what you just summed up, I think that's actually the real challenge here. It's less to me the weird fact that two siblings slept with the same person, although that is a very real thing. To me, it's more the sister's unwillingness to appreciate why her sister likes this guy and to consider meeting him in a new context and giving him the opportunity to demonstrate what kind of person he really is now.

Exactly. So assuming that your guy is telling the truth here, I totally understand your conflict, your confusion, your anger, it all makes sense. it's wild that this happened with the one guy you really connected with when that doesn't happen. That's the worst part. Yeah. It must feel like the universe is playing a cruel joke on you. And so that sucks. But the one big upside to this bizarre coincidence is that it is forcing you to ask yourself,

do I really like this guy? Is he being truly honest with me? Is the future I see with him worth pursuing? Do I see these qualities that my sister sees in him? Or is she just wrong? So my feeling is, if you really like this guy, he genuinely believe he's in a different place and he's treating you well

and you guys have something special. I agree that it would be a shame to break things off. Now, you are going to have to decide what to do with the weird mental image of him and your sister together, whether that's an insurmountable obstacle. I can't tell you how to feel about that.

Me personally, I think I could learn to accept something like that and make peace with it, knowing that it was in the past, that their relationship was not super intimate from the sound of it, and that at the end of the day, I mean, I'm sorry to be crude,

but it's just holes, right? parts and holes. I'm cringing saying that, though. Ugh, but yeah. Yeah, sorry, that was gross. But, like, that's kind of what it is. That's why I'm trying to be very clinical about it, maybe in a crude way. I mean, especially in this case where it sounds like he and his sister, they didn't have a super meaningful relationship, at least for him. Right. Actually, that would have been the bigger obstacle. If they were madly in love and had this, like, very significant relationship, then it's a different story completely.

But, no, you're right. You're making a good point. And how much should the aforementioned parts and holes matter? when you might just be falling in love with somebody great. You know, that's my point. Look, I'm fully on board with this take as long as you do not say parts and holes again. Okay. I think I can manage to get through the rest of the episode without saying parts and holes again, no problem.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, look, I'm with you on this, Jordan. And to our friend here, if you do decide to keep pursuing this, then I think you need to have a good talk with your sister. I would probably start by inviting her to tell you what her relationship with this guy was really like in detail. maybe not all the crude sexual detail, but I mean get her to open up about this relationship, how she felt when he didn't commit to her, how that informed her opinion of him.

And I would really try to appreciate how she got here. And then I would share with her why you like this guy and what you've learned about him and how you see him now. And also the position, the weird position that this coincidence has put you in and how hard that's been. And then I think you guys need to really dig into whether there's a way to hit the reset button and try to move forward in a new way. I say that knowing how hard it might be.

It's definitely weird. But if all three of you are willing to open up your ideas about one another and what this whole situation means, mainly your sister, because she's the one who has the biggest problem with him, then I do feel this is something you guys could work through. And I do think it would be a good idea for your boyfriend to talk to your sister at some point if you guys keep dating, probably before you all get together for the first time or maybe when you get together if this is a, is this a group conversation? I can't tell.

Might be just him. I don't know. He's willing to hear her out. He's willing to apologize for whatever he's done. And like Jordan said, I'm also very encouraged by. that. If he's genuine, then this comes down to whether your sister is willing to consider a new narrative here, a narrative that's bigger than just her injury about being broken up with way back when. And that narrative would have to now include you and your feelings for him and his feelings

for you and how you guys could form a new relationship that's respectful and loving, even if it's pretty unconventional. Totally agree, Gabe. But, you know, another possible challenge just occurred to me, which is if the sister's really angry because she loves... like this guy, will she now be envious that he chose her sister over her? And maybe is that part of the reason she's badmouthing him? We don't really know. Interesting theory. It's possible. And look, if she does feel some envy, that's fair too. I think that's normal. But that's also part of the narrative that she has to consider. Do I want to be locked into this opinion of my sister's boyfriend and be driven by my envy that they have this relationship and I didn't get it? Or can I work through that feeling and

ultimately be happy that my sister found somebody she really likes? Right. But that's a process she has to go through. I guess I'm just flagging it because there might be more to this than just like, hey, sis, I want to warn you about this guy. I also thought it was interesting when she said that she wouldn't feel like she's losing a soulmate. She doesn't really believe in that idea anyway. I would be curious to explore that a little more. Does that actually speak to your view of love? Does that mean that you're actually not that crazy about this guy? Or is that a clever way to justify breaking up with him by saying, you know, like, oh, the cost isn't really that high. I'll find somebody else I click with when you also said that that doesn't happen for you very often.

Yeah, I think there might be more to that statement for sure. The situation, it might just be so stressful she's looking for a way out or she feels that's the only option. So she's trying to make it less painful. I mean, I agree, though. I also don't believe in like, do you have one love out there? I don't believe that at all. Right. So I'm on board with the logic, but also like, why suddenly are we leaning on that?

So perhaps some self-protection then. Yeah. Yeah, possibly. I mean, look, when you're really excited about somebody, you don't usually go, I'll find another one. I mean, you might intellectually believe there's no such thing as soulmates like I do, and you can find somebody else. It's possible. But you probably won't view that person as disposable or, you know, fungible.

Okay, so I think the question she's really driving at is, what if her sister just cannot get on board with us? Does she prioritize this relationship with this guy, or does she choose her sister? So hard. Right. I mean, tough one. But my gut is saying that you always choose your sibling, of course. Unless you and your sibling have a bad relationship or you're estranged or something. but if it's a good relationship, you've got to prioritize your sibling, right?

I mean, you can't choose a guy that you just met over your sister. It's not like you're married and your sister's not getting along with your husband. This is not that. I hear you, and I guess I agree. I would just hope that the sister at least considers giving this guy a chance if he is a good guy now so that our friend can be happy. I don't know. I'm very identified with the woman writing in because she's saying it doesn't happen for her very

often. So the stakes are actually kind of high. But then again, I don't have a brother. I've never had a brother sleep with a girl I'm dating. So, you know, what do I know? Maybe this really is insurmountable. But like we said, they get to decide how insurmountable it actually is. Agreed.

Yeah, I agree. So there you have it. Undeniably weird, but not necessarily fatal. And I'm really sorry that you're in this bind. I really do understand how awkward it is. Maybe you ultimately decide that it's just too weird. Or your sister comes first and you guys part ways. But I wouldn't do that just because of the logistics or to make your sister happy

slash spare her difficult feelings, at least not without trying. I think that's important. If this relationship is great, I do think it's worth exploring, but it'll take some honest and vulnerable chats with him and with your sister. And if all else fails, just remember, sorry, Gabriel. Parts and holes, parts and holes. You had to do it, didn't you? You had to.

I did, yeah. Good luck. And maybe ask your mom to put you and your sister's place cards at opposite ends of the Thanksgiving table this year. Might take a couple family holidays to get over the weirdness of gazing into your erstwhile booty calls eyes while you refill your girlfriend's champagne flute. You know, who wants to fill your parts in holes, Gabriel? And I mean, of course, the ones in your home and the holes in your heart.

The amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers does keep the lights on around here. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up.

Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I come from a family with many complicated issues, and I was the black sheep. I experienced a lifetime of emotional abuse, witnessed the physical abuse of my younger siblings, and watched my mother's struggles with addiction. She often played the I'm going to kill myself hard whenever I tried to address my frustrations with my childhood or her behavior towards me and my siblings. She would also deny that things ever happened. Finally, two years ago, I cut ties with my mother. Oh man, that's really sad, but it sounds like it might have been necessary. I'm sorry you had this childhood. This was an incredibly hard decision to make, and it came with great sacrifice and guilt,

not only because I was losing my mom, but also because I wouldn't be able to have much of a relationship with my younger siblings who are over 10 years younger than me. When I went no contact, my younger brother texted me saying that he couldn't believe he ever looked up to me, and that it's, quote, not like mom beat you or anything, unquote. He then proceeded to block me. My brother was physically and emotionally abused as a young child and didn't get to know his biological dad because he went to prison, which is a whole other story. Jeez. So your brother is traumatized in a number of ways, and he's weirdly taking the side of the parent who abused him, which is just incredibly sad. He's troubled. He's very troubled from the sound of it.

At the time, I viewed him as a victim, and while this is still true, he's 17 now, and he goes to endless lengths to defend my mom. He also uses a variety of drugs and alcohol, got expelled from school in seventh grade for beating up a kid until he was concussed and never went back to school. Whoa, he never went back to school after seventh grade. Apparently not. Oof. So he's like a 12-year-old dropout who's using at that area. It's so sad. I didn't even know you could do that.

I guess if your mom doesn't pay attention to you, you can't. So he's angry. He's working out his rage and is hurt by hurting other people. He's self-medicating. Your mom must have done a real number on this poor kid. Which makes it even more fascinating that he's taking her side. I mean, I think that's actually fairly common. He's probably protecting her and idealizing her because she was not a good parent.

And it's more devastating to acknowledge at a young age that your parent is terrible than continue with the delusion that they're great. But it's also an interesting question whether at 17 years old he's still a victim or now he's becoming a perpetrator. I mean, he's still a child in a sense, but he's almost an adult, legally speaking. Hard to know where that line is. Well, that's at any age, right? I mean, you could argue that most criminals and toxic people are trauma victims or something like that.

I know that's a common stance among criminal justice reform folks, and that's legit. But at a certain point, you got to address the wound yourself. You know, okay, I dropped out at seventh grade, like I got to get my stuff together. Nope, I'm just going to continue committing crimes. All right. Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, you have to take responsibility at some point. But, okay, so she goes on.

My younger sister is 14 now. And she recently reached out and wanted to see me. I was, of course, elated, but also very nervous. When we met up, she confided in me that my mom has gone for days at a time doing cocaine and isn't present in their lives except to yell at them or demean them. This is after my mom went to rehab for the second time in my life. Oh, man. My sister also told me that an 18-year-old boy had been texting with her,

and my brother got violently angry about it. He threatened my sister until she agreed to invite this boy to meet up. My brother then proceeded to beat him up until he was unconscious. And he ended up in the hospital. Oh, wow. Oh, holy smokes. Okay, so this is dark. I mean, I do appreciate that he was protecting his 14-year-old sister from an 18-year-old

probable predator, or legally speaking, definitely a predator. But it's definitely overkill to put some dude in the hospital and trick your sister into getting him to meet up. I mean, he went from zero to 60. Didn't warn the guy, stay away. I mean, he staged an ambush and violently assaulted the guy. And there's a pattern of this. This is like seventh grade all over again.

worse. Yeah. The guy's scary. He's bad news. Now my sister is facing potential charges for second degree assault, and so is my brother. Law enforcement has made quite the case against her for luring this boy out into the woods so my brother could beat him up. The evidence is extremely incriminating. Yeah, it's all written down, first of all, in text messages. Oh, God. I hope she has a decent attorney representing her, not both of them at the same time. Her. Man, I really feel for her. This is just awful. boyfriend, who is the only sane part of my family, is doing everything in his power to help these kids. He also let me know that my mom probably doesn't have much time left, as the alcohol and drugs have

finally caught up with her, and he thinks that she'll OD or her body will give out. He tried talking to her about it, but he says that her brain is fried, and she's not there anymore. Oh, man. It just gets sadder and sadder. It does get sadder and sadder. I mean, this makes sense. It's got to be so hard to watch something like this. Brutal. So she goes on, all of this has brought up a great deal of pain for me. Yeah, no kidding.

While I thought I had processed these past two years in most of my childhood, I now feel completely suffocated by all of this information. It disturbs me, it makes me angry, and it makes me feel completely depressed. It's been several years since my last panic attack, and I've been struggling to breathe through these big feelings. I wish I could scream at my mom and tell her that this is a product of her abuse and her negligence, but that wouldn't change anything or even be worth it. No, it wouldn't, but I absolutely understand the impulse. The rage you must feel, the justifiable rage you must feel toward your mom is significant. Yeah, I can't help but be furious at this mom too.

She's not even my mom, and I'm seeing red over here. Why people like this have children and then treat them this way, it's not a product of logic, obviously, but it's still beyond me. It's so infuriated. It's trauma plus addiction, man. So she goes on, I know there's no. nothing I can do to fix my mom or my younger siblings, but I'm struggling to find ways to cope. I also want to be there for my younger sister, but I don't want to sacrifice the progress that I've

made. I want to talk to my brother too, but I'm afraid of him. He doesn't know how to work through his anger without hurting people. Sometimes I just want to uproot my life and move as far away as possible and never look back. I know I should seek out therapy again, but is there anything else I can or should do, signed a black sheep trying to protect against these creeps without getting in too deep. Oh, boy, what a family. Wow, I'm a little stunned. There's just so much trauma and tragedy here, and my heart goes out to you and your siblings. Having a mother like this is just terrible. Cutting ties and putting distance between you and your family was probably the best thing you could have done. And I know being the black sheep can be very lonely, but it probably

helped you see things more clearly and it probably saved you from being even more impacted by your mother's addiction and mental health stuff. And I know that it came at a huge cost to you, which must be heartbreaking. But I really commend you for taking care of yourself in a family that was definitely not looking out for you. So first of all, everything you're describing, it makes perfect sense. The pain you feel, the anger, the depression, the anxiety, the sense of being disturbed, the fantasy of screaming at your mom for all the damage she's done. Your mother is obviously deeply unwell. And she's left you and your siblings with a very painful legacy to work through. Yeah, I'm very sorry you're dealing with all this, man. This is just terrible. I am too. I got to say,

though, the fact that you understand that there's nothing you can do to fix your mom at this point, that is extremely evolved and insightful of you. I think a lot of people in your shoes would probably be clinging to the hope that they can still save a parent like this. Jordan, I'm just thinking about that letter from last week from the woman whose mother was abusive and had that personality disorder. and she felt responsible for protecting her mom in her old age. You remember that? Yeah, interesting counterpoint. So our friend here is not doing that,

and I actually think that's very encouraging, clarifying. For sure, because she knows that the main thing she needs to do is take care of herself. Yes, herself, and I would argue her little sister. And that's where I was heading, too, because I think there's still hope for your sister, this legal case notwithstanding. I mean, that's not going to help,

but she deserves your help, given her age, her personality, her vulnerability in this family. She reached out to you. She wanted to tell you how she's being neglected by your mom, how she's being manipulated by your brother. This was a cry for help.

You're probably her only lifeline. Well, you and your mom's ex-boyfriend. Oh, and by the way, it's wonderful that that guy is a sane presence and that he still cares about your siblings, which is really bizarre because he dated such a troubling person, but it does sound like this guy is an ally in all of this and somebody you might want to stay close with.

Truly a remarkable person. who goes and dates somebody who turns out to be a severe addict and then sticks around for what seems like years later to be available to her kids, most people would never do this. So bless this man. But my feeling is that your sister deserves your friendship and your protection as much as possible. Her mother is off railing lines of blow for days at a time, then comes home and yells at her and tells her she's worthless, right? Her older brother is kind of a monster. He's forcing her to commit violent crimes for which she's now getting prosecuted. This girl needs help. She needs an escape patch. And having an older sister who understands what this family is like and made it out, that is a

huge gift. So my advice is stay close to your sister, keep checking up on her, make sure she's safe, listen to her, comfort her, try to guide her as much as you can. Maybe you give her a place to stay if she needs it. Maybe you help her find good legal counsel. Maybe you protect her from her brother. Now, I hear you. You don't want to sacrifice. the progress you've made. And I'm really encouraged to hear that. I think it's so important. But my hope is that you can find a way to be there for your sister without backsliding or being exposed too much to your family's crazy. And there's a limit to what you can do here, given how chaotic they are. I know that being in contact with your sister will put you in touch with your mom and brother again,

if not directly, than by talking and thinking about them more than you already do. But man, I'm just picturing this poor 14-year-old girl who's literally being abused and exploited and compromised in so many ways, and there's one bright spot in her life, and it's you. Okay, I'm starting to tear up over here. So maybe you open the door to your younger sister, but in a very thoughtful and boundyed way. For example, I would not visit her at the house.

Obviously, that is too risky. Maybe you pick her up from school, you rock over to Starbucks, you meet her on the weekends for lunch, whatever it is. When you spend time with her, I would just keep checking in with yourself, make sure you're staying connected to your independence, your peace, your sense of self,

and not getting overly enmeshed in the family and the dysfunction again by taking care of your sister. It's a really hard line to walk. You might not always get it right, but I do feel that there's a way to be there for her and to take care of yourself. I think if you were more established, if you were older and you had a more secure foundation for yourself,

I would say you need to have your sister come and live with you and become her guardian or she needs to be emancipated. But I'm very hesitant to tell you that because I don't want you guys to snowball together down the hill after all the progress you've made because you're taking on all that responsibility prematurely. Does that make sense? Right. You don't want our friend here to become her mother. Right.

And that's a really hard thing is how to be loving and present for her without becoming her parent. But, you know, maybe building your relationship with her will be part of your healing too. I think you guys could be good friends to each other. You could maybe help each other get through this really dark period in what sounds like, possibly the last chapter of your mom's life. Maybe a closer relationship with your sister would give this whole tragedy with your mom and your brother some new meaning

and give you both so much-needed support. That's a good point. They'd probably both benefit here. It's not just a one-way thing. And sadly, I do think your brother sounds a little bit like a lost cause. I hate saying that, but he's unhelpable at this moment. He has to decide to really look at himself

before you can truly help him. And I'm afraid he's going down a similar path to your mom, which again is incredible. But you're right, he is objectively dangerous. And being around him might put you at risk. Physically, emotionally, legally. I'd stay away and I'd advise your sister to do the same as much as possible. Oh, for sure. They need to be very careful with him. But my heart also breaks for that kid. I know. Because he's 17 and he doesn't understand what happened to him. And he's probably pretty messed up from the drugs and alcohol himself. So he deserves help, but I just don't know how to help somebody like

that unless they're somewhat open to it. But look, just to return to this theme of how to take care of yourself, I just want to say, first of all, continuing to stay away from your mom and your brother, yes, kind of a no-brainer. They're both dangerous in different ways. The distance that you've put between you and them, both physically and psychically, is very healthy. I think it's extremely important. Also, all of these feelings that your family situation is brought up, and there is a lot going on in here. You're going to have to work through those in some way. Part of it is just being in touch with and bearing the deep sadness and anger you feel about your mother and not trying to suppress it too much. I think repressing those feelings might be why you suddenly feel suffocated, as you put

it by this information. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's also playing a role in the return of these panic attacks. But there's also a helplessness and a mourning that comes with those feelings. I mean, you are essentially watching your mom slowly kill herself. You're watching your brother hurt people badly. And part of your job right now is. is to feel that sadness and feel that rage, which again are profound. And yes, of course, going to therapy would be huge for you. I'm so glad you were there before. I do think you would benefit from going again. You deserve a space to talk about all of this. Because look, this situation is getting worse. And if slash when your mom does die, that is going to be a major

event in this family. It's going to bring up even more big feelings. It could destabilize your brother even further. It sounds like it's going to leave your younger sister without a parent, without a home, and you will probably have to help decide where she lives and who takes care of her. So I want you to have that support. Yeah, wow, that is a lot to deal with on your own. Yeah, it is. And this whole question of how to be there for her without sacrificing your own progress is such an excellent question to navigate with a professional. So really, try to prioritize therapy if you can.

I just don't know how you go through something this heavy without that place to work through it. But whether you do that immediately or not, please keep taking care of yourself on your own. you have made remarkable progress here. The fact that you've escaped from the childhood in the state that you are is incredible, and I'm so proud of you for doing that. It's so hard to do, but you're doing it. And in a situation like this, coping with these feelings means nurturing healthy relationships outside of your family, talking about what you're going through with people you trust.

Hopefully you have a couple good friends in your life, getting outside, moving your body, making time for hobbies and experiences that are meaningful to you and that have nothing to do with your family, all of that. but if you want to do more than just cope, if you want to make sense of these feelings and work through these losses and continue to grow from all of this, again, I don't mean to beat a dead horse,

but I do think that's going to happen in therapy. Agreed, Gabe, but also if you want to move far away and never look back, you're allowed to do that too. It might be helpful, but I do wonder if that fantasy might be a way to protect yourself from more pain because engaging with your family

in a boundaryed way has been extremely hard. Working on the boundaries. That might help you stay close, without being sucked back in. And ultimately, moving across the country or across the world, that might help in one way. But I think your family will continue to take up psychic room in you wherever you go.

That's going to haunt you. We carry our family with us in some form all the time, right? You've got to address the ghosts. You can't just move farther away from where they live. So I wouldn't look into a big move. Take it from a guy who's made a lot of big moves thinking that they were going to get something new and start over and then wherever you go, there you are.

I would not look to a big move to secure the freedom that you want so badly. I would start by finding that freedom by prioritizing yourself while being there for your sister appropriately. And again, I'm so sorry you grew up with this mom. You and your siblings, you deserved so much better. As you can see, I'm furious with your mom,

too, and candidly, I am very heartbroken by your story. But unlike your brother, you avoided addiction, you avoided violence, you avoided the enmeshment that keeps this dysfunction going. And that is something to protect at all costs. and to be very proud of. So we're sending you a big hug. We're wishing you and your sister, all the best.

Gabe, I need a little release here. We just never had to deal with this kind of stuff growing up. This is so sad. I was worried about putting gas in my car. I was not worried about whether my single mom was going to come home from her bender or if she was going to cut us down because she's in so much pain and she's out of her mind. It's so tragic.

The extent of your problems was how to bilk Pacific Bell out of $240. to get even. That's right. I was concerned with defrauding the phone company to the benefit of nobody other than my personal entertainment. I didn't have real problems. This is a real problem. They're way too young to have a problem this big that they're handling alone. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your stepdad's got your nudes, or you just found out your colleague is a sociopath who completely made up all the tragedies, you're

went through in order to secure your kindness. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Okay. What's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm 30 years old and I have a degree in material science engineering. I went to school for engineering because it had the highest pay coming out of college and I thought I would figure things out. I've been working for a Japanese company in the semiconductor space for four years. I'm running into problems now like management withholding information. from the American workers, and I've received little to no training over the last four years.

I also genuinely don't like engineering. I've been struggling with my job, and I want a career change. But I'm struggling to figure out where I could transition to. I've talked to people in sales within my company, and that sounds more interesting and appealing to me than engineering, but I don't want to work for this company. Transitioning out of my company while doing a career change feels impossible based on any job posting for a sales role. Anything else I see wants five plus years of experience. It feels like I'm job searching like I'm fresh out of college again, and I feel overwhelmed.

What advice would you have for somebody who wants to break out of a career rut but doesn't know where to start? Are there better job websites than others? Are there recommendations for optimizing a resume in my case? Signed, trying to run and make sure I've won in the land of the rising sun. It's a good question. this is something a lot of people deal with, right? Career transitions happen to a lot of us. It sounds like you're going to, I won't say a unique position. Actually, it's kind of the opposite

of a unique position. You just want to get into something new. When I was an attorney, I thought, oh, yeah, you know, I'll just do this for a while and I'll figure out what I want, and then I'll switch careers. So this is very familiar to me. The thing that got me to switch careers was a massive crash where they laid off the entire first year class and then the firm later went out of business. So that decision was largely made for me, which turned out to be a blessing, because it really forced me to dive into something else in very short order. The Japanese company that you work for not sharing information, that is deeply concerning because it seems like there's two classes of workers, two tiers, the Japanese and everybody

else. That sort of checks out and tracks from what I've heard from other people. I'd be interested to hear, though, from other listeners, both Japanese and American expats abroad if this is common. Is it a cultural barrier? Is it in this guy's head? Or is it kind of like, eh, the Americans don't matter as much as the locals, so we're not going to treat them as well. I don't know. Yeah, that's a fascinating wrinkle to this. The cultural thing at this company sounds complicated. Sales might actually be more interesting in terms of a position. I mean, I get why that would be interesting. It's more people-based. There's probably a lot more different

relationships involved and things like that. But I can see how it might be tough to transition to something like that or look like it's tough to transition to something like that, you're making a lot of changes at once. I would start to narrow things down. It's kind of like, should I move away from Japan and move to a different department and learn a new skill set? And it's like, well, look, you need to decide, are you going to stay in Japan? And if you're not sure, which one are you leaning to? Are you leaning towards leaving? Are you leaning towards staying? That's going to help you narrow it down. Are you staying in the semiconductor industry? Or are you leaving the industry entirely to go into a different type of position? You don't have to make firm decisions based on what those are,

but you should sort of think, like, oh, I don't really need to stay in Japan. In fact, I kind of want to move back to the States. And it would be nice if I stayed in semiconductors, but I don't have to, right? You need to sort of get an idea, not just like, I'll do whatever, because then you're going to end up

with way too many possibilities. I know it doesn't seem like that now, but I have a feeling that's what's going to happen. I would lean on your network to figure out what you are going to do. This is networking, not job hunting, and that distinction is really key. Six-Minnitnetworking.com is a course on this, of course, that's free. And I encourage you to jump into this because it teaches you how to reach out to old colleagues or

contacts inside and outside industries, ask what they're up to, get a feel for the industry, get a feel for whether or not they might be able to help you with what you are doing. Again, you're reigniting relationships, you're building relationships, you are not, quote-unquote, job hunting. That's a different mindset. It's a little bit more of a take than a give. and this is so much better than any website, any resource, any resume tip. That stuff is the mustard on the job search career change sandwich.

The resume, you can do that in an hour with somebody on Upwork.com or whatever, who's a professional. Any HR person that you know could be like, yeah, I'll take a look at this. Eh, move this here, the da-da-da-da-done, right? There are online tools that can help with it. That really is not your concern right now. What you need to be doing is creating, reigniting, building, strengthening those relationships. So six-minute networking.com.

It's free. It's all unlocked now. You can just dive in there. Start doing those drills now. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Sounds like you're already getting thirsty. So now's a great time to do that. Second piece of advice, I would say, is see if you can shadow a salesperson officially

or maybe take a few of those guys out to lunch to find out what their job is actually like. In fact, you might want to start with the lunch thing. And then they'll be like, oh, this guy's cool. And then you're like, can I shadow one of you guys for, like, a day, you know, that might really open your eyes to what sales is actually like. You might be surprised. The best way is always going to be to work in the department for some time. It's like doing a summer at a law firm to decide if you want to be a lawyer, but knowing some sales guys well is going to be pretty close. They might even be willing to train you up a bit and loosen up the requirements

because you have experience in the company, in the industry, just not in sales. You know, they might say, oh, we need somebody with five years of experience in sales. But what they mean is, we don't want some dumb kid who doesn't know how to do anything. And you come in and you go, hey, I show up on time. I know the company. I don't have to be trained on any of that. I just have to go to the third floor instead of the fifth floor. And you guys have to teach me how to talk to prospective customers.

They might be like, hell yeah, we would love that. You know, that might be a door that isn't even on the roadmap because I'm mixing analogies here. But whatever, you get what I'm saying. They might just not be doing that because companies probably don't. love it when one department poaches from another, but you're trying to move. That's a different scenario. And they might not need you to have a ton of sales experience to get you started. They might just want to make sure that you are not a knucklehead and you should be at that point already. Third piece of advice, resume consulting. Some show fans have done this pro bono. We could make that

connection for you. But like I said, I really think that's the mustard on the sandwich and you don't even really need to worry about that right now. You might not even need the resume thing if the interdepartmental switch works in the first place. So shift your lens, focus on relationships, conversations instead of traditional job hunting methods, keeping valuable, keeping collaborative, keeping in helpful. And hey, good luck. I have no doubt you're going to land on your feet. You know, it'll take your mind off your career dissatisfaction. Mindless consumerism. 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 amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all clickable and searchable at Jordan Harbinger.com or email me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I am happy to dig up any code for you if you can't remember the name of the sponsor. You want to see if it still works. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, I was at Barnes & Noble the other day, and a total stranger struck up a conversation with me. Okay, Barnes & Noble. So funny.

I started taking the kids there to look at books and toys, but until I had kids, Barnes & Noble was basically dead to me. I was surprised they still existed. They're way fewer than there used to be, but they are still around. You see them every once in a while.

I actually love Barnes & Noble. I love that smell when you walk in there, that paper book smell. Yeah, same here. I don't know if it's nostalgic or what. But more importantly, super clean bathrooms. I do have super clean bathrooms. But you know what?

You know you're using the bathroom upstairs and you're just not buying anything. thing on your way out. That's just how it is. That is a pro-level move. Yeah, that's probably why they're going bankrupt, though. I mean, that and Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos, yeah. Well, for anyone listening in another country who's totally confused, Barnes & Noble is a bookstore chain with surprisingly nice bathrooms. So the letter goes on. He seemed like a friendly guy, and the small talk was pleasant until he asked me if I wanted to hear something crazy, to which I replied, yeah. Okay, what is about to happen? He looked at me and said, I slept with the

your sister two years ago. What? I don't know. I don't even know why that would happen in a Barnes & Noble. Yeah, I mean, call security if that happens at Barnes & Noble. No, no, no. What he wrote is, before he could get to the end of his sentence about meeting a couple that was able to retire early, I immediately cut him off and said, I'm not into MLMs, dude,

and I stormed away. Yeah, obviously he was recruiting you into some bullshit. Tail is old as time. Such a ridiculous pitch. Arguably worse than sleeping with your sister somehow. So he goes on. He replied with something along the lines of, well, it was nice to meet you anyway.

I didn't even turn around to acknowledge him, and I barely resisted the urge to flip him off. A part of me wanted this person to feel socially punished for imposing harmful scams on unsuspecting bookstore shoppers. I felt that if I turned him down nicely, it would only normalize the behavior. I knew there would be no convincing this guy

that he's representing a cult that will never deliver on its financial promises no matter of the effort. What's more, I later overheard the same guy chatting up another shopper, and I was tempted to butt in and warn them that the smooth talker was trying to recruit them into an MLM or some kind of scam. I resisted the urge, but I wonder if I should have intervened or told a manager that there was a guy harassing and hustling people trying to shop. Was this cold of me? Could there have been a more productive way to handle the situation?

Signed, avoiding the hook of a skeezy crook while I'm just trying to look at these nice smell and books. And that sign-off had me on tenter hooks. Huge missed opportunity there, by the way. Dude, you're constantly giving me grief about the sign-offs being too long, and now you're pitching me on more rhymes. That's right. Which one is it, bro? Yeah, I do need to make up my mind. Look, I totally get your anger, not yours, Gabriel, the person at the bookstore at Barnes & Noble. Sure, sure.

These scammie people drive me up the wall as well. I have this reaction when people come at me with scummy stuff like this. I'm pretty blunt about it, to be honest. I don't make a scene, but I have no problem telling people, sorry, this is not interesting to me. And honestly, it sounds super suspicious. I would stay away from it if I were you as well. And you're talking to a guy who responds to spam emails by replying, hey, stop spamming me, you prick.

So I understand the impulse to tell people up. That said, I don't know if you need to treat people like this with total disdain. I don't think you necessarily need to punish them. What they're doing is damaging and irresponsible and gross. But you have to remember that most people caught up in scams like this, even the ones who have achieved supposedly achieved, some cred or power or quote-unquote success on the organization. they are often just victims too.

They've bought into the scam, hook line and sinker. They often don't even know that they're part of something dumb and malicious. Now, where it gets complicated is that oftentimes their job is to make other people fall for the scam too, which makes them both the victim and the perpetrator. And that's one of the confusing things about scams and cults and coercive organizations. It's hard to know how accountable these people really are. Right. Do you get mad at them or do you just kind of feel bad for them? I mean, it's both, right?

You encounter someone like this, and part of you goes, get the hell away from me. You're annoying and dangerous, and I'm just trying to pick up a copy of the Britney Spears biography for a friend. And another part of you goes, I feel really bad for you that you're caught up in this. And over the years, I've just learned how to make room for both. You mean you're referring to the biography or caught up in the scam? Yeah, I am caught up in that biography. No, you're caught up in a scam.

And I've just learned to make room for both of those things in my life over the past few years. No, fair. I mean, interesting parallel with a brother from question two. the 17-year-old who's assaulting people, right? Yeah. I mean, is he a victim? Is he a perpetrator? Hard to know. Yeah, again, the cycle of trauma. It's tricky. There's that phrase, hurt people, hurt people. And when it comes to scams, you could easily say exploited people, exploit people. Right. So my take is protect yourself. Have strong boundaries. Tell people you are not interested. Walk away. All fair. But also, yeah, you don't need to be unnecessarily tough or cruel because the

reality is you're not going to convince this person they're wrong anyways. No, no way. Not in Barnes & Noble. anyway. No, definitely not. Chipotle maybe. Barnes & Noble, never going to happen. Those burritos kind of open you up, make you vulnerable. That's right. To convince somebody to get away from some crap like this, you'd need to go upstairs to the cafe, which is always right by those weirdly nice bathrooms. You need to buy them a cup of coffee, sit down at a table for three hours, and walk them through everything we talk about in our deep dive on how to avoid scams and cults. Ridiculous. You're not doing that. And even then, you're probably not going to succeed because this person doesn't know you. They don't trust you. There's no.

history there. They're at Barnes and Noble to recruit targets, not to interrogate whether their shampoo MLM is actually on the up and up. Exactly. And it's not worth the effort. It's not even entirely appropriate for you to do that either, of course. So no, I don't think it was cold of you. I totally get it. But in the future, you can just take a deep breath and end the conversation and know that your anger isn't really going to help matters. I do think you could have told a manager that there's an annoying guy from Amway or whatever trying to rope somebody into buying laundry detergent and supplements. And if that manager is good, he's probably going to tell that person to cut the crap or leave. And give you a discount on that Britney Spears biography. That's right. And you might

even get a manager's discount on that woman inside me book or whatever it's called. I think that's the title. If you really wanted to, when you saw him praying on that other customer, you could have said, hey, sorry to butt in here. This is not my business. But I am very suspicious about what this guy is selling and I just want to warn you to stay away. Good luck and leave it at that. Takes 10 seconds. You might save someone. But again, not really your responsibility. just a nice thing to do. I totally get your feelings, though. These scammers, they make my blood boil good on you

for knowing your stuff and having your guard up. It gives me hope that one day, these scams will be harder and harder to keep pushing on decent people. Gabe, maybe we should just have our listeners randomly accost people at various retailers, warning them about the dangers of scams. Save these souls one at a time.

Least you could do, really. At least we can do. All right, what's next? Hey, guys. I'm a steadily rising middle manager type at a major international company. I now lead a team of 15 and report to several higher-ups. I'm responsible for meeting quarterly targets and delivering on big projects throughout the year, which I do fairly successfully, although my track record isn't perfect.

We recently underwent a round of layoffs, and while I'm grateful that I was spared, I can't help but feel that my job situation is a little precarious. I hear you talking about digging the well before you get thirsty, a lot, So I'm trying to take that idea to heart and do everything I can to protect my position starting now. The problem is I'm not quite sure how to do that within this environment. I've heard a lot of career coaches say that the key to securing your job is to become indispensable to make sure that your colleagues need you so they can't fire you without taking a big hit. I've tried to do that and it works to some degree, but I find that that mentality just makes me put in a

bunch of hours trying to remind everybody how necessary I am, and it's extremely stressful. I'm also not sure that it's translating into tangibly better results. I also hear you talk about resilience from time to time, usually when you're hearing from somebody who's been through a huge trauma, and they discovered their resilience along the way. But I want to make sure that I'm resilient now so I can weather any storms that might be coming. How can I make my superiors and even my subordinates view me as essential. And how can I cultivate resilience before I get laid off or some other challenge arises? Signed, weathering the storm when I can't predict the weather. Great questions. And since we only have a few minutes left here, I'm just going to get right down to it.

So yes, in a way, the key to becoming unfairable is to become essential. No doubt about it. If a company can't operate without you, they're not going to fire you, or they'll take a huge risk if they do. I have been in the situation of being unfireable and then you get fired and then it's like, okay, and they go down the drain, but that's a different story. So that idea of becoming necessary, it's a decent one. And broadly speaking, that's a good goal for any employee to pursue. If you're not necessary, then it's like, why are you there? Right? But like you said, that principle can often make you engage in the kind of surfacey performance and politicking that makes you look essential rather than becoming a truly valuable employee. I'm guessing you've been staying late,

putting in FaceTime, speaking up a bunch in meetings, getting involved in more decisions, stuff like that. inherently bad, but maybe more performative than substantive. And like you said, not really moving the needle. So I'm actually going to steal shamelessly from Adam Grant here. Adam Grant, who was just on the show, always a fascinating conversation with that guy. He's just a wealth of knowledge. I'm going to quote a tweet. He posted a while back where he said, in everyday life, it's better to be valued than needed. Being needed creates dependency and others and obligation for you. You feel worried and guilty about letting them down, being valued Grant's autonomy. Your help is appreciated but not expected on their road to self-reliance. Ooh, that's a good one. Right? Yeah, it's so Adam Grant too, just the way he writes

those little nuggets. I mean, he's got such a great way of distilling this stuff. And I think there's something in that tweet for you to take into your job. Rather than working so hard to be needed, which is a hard metric to measure, really, if you think about it, it's a little squidgey. It depends on perception as well as objective results. I would just focus on being valuable. And I'll let you decide what being truly valuable means. You know your company best. I'm pretty sure it's not being in every freaking meeting and staying till 8.30 p.m. every day to prove your loyalty. But on the other hand, showing up to every meeting prepared and making meaningful contributions and yeah, maybe staying till 8.30 p.m. when you're actually working on something that will deliver real

result, that would be value, right? Exactly. But the other thing I love about this tweet is that this isn't just a good way to be valuable. It's actually good leadership. A lot of ambitious leaders, they think they need to micromanage and be involved in every decision because that's going to make them relevant, it's going to make them essential. But what usually ends up happening is your employees start to rely on you or they're forced to rely on you. And they don't have to learn how to be leaders themselves and your workload triples. And then when you can't be there, you're anxious, you're stressed, you get scared, you feel like you failed them. Whereas being valuable means they can come to you when they need your help, your approval, resources, guidance, whatever it is, but not because they can't function without you.

And since you're leading 15 people now, you said you feel stressed. I wonder if that applies to you too. As for how to develop resilience, you're right. It can be hard to develop that grit without walking through fire. And that's part of it. But you can start to develop resilience in advance or the conditions for resilience, and you do that by building skills and strengths before you need them. In my experience, resilience isn't just about reacting to challenges that come your way

and then trying to be strong and patient. That's important, but that's not enough. resilience is about preparing for challenges as much as you can by taking stock of the skills and the knowledge and the qualities and the assets you know you'll need if shit ever hits the fan and then working backward to cultivate them now of course you can't always do this nobody prepares for cancer nobody prepares to be taken hostage by terrorists nobody prepares to get locked up in prison for a crime they didn't commit like Amanda knocks a lot of life is unpredictable but what we can do is build things before we

we need them. We can take care of our minds and our bodies. We can build good relationships with our friends and family. We can familiarize ourselves with the law. We can learn how to stay safe abroad, how to act in a crisis, like that guy who wrote in a couple months ago, who almost got kidnapped with his wife in India and made it out safe and sound because he had listened to our episodes on kidnapping. That was pretty awesome. These are all versions of digging the well before you get thirsty. That idea is not only about networking, although relationships are always going to be your best asset in a crisis. So my advice to you is build your knowledge and skills before you need to use them. Imagine you get laid off tomorrow. Go to that dark place now while you're actually safe and

write down all the things you'd want to know or understand or have done and all the people you'd want to talk to and ask for advice and then start working toward that and reaching out to those folks. I would also build an emergency fund, of course, long before you need it. I realize, hey, everyone's financial situation is different. But even a small amount of savings, that can be the cushion that helps you weather a storm. Case in point, I got a buddy. He owns a chain of gyms and his daughter ended up getting leukemia. And one of the things he said was, yeah, I can't give this advice to everybody, but just making sure that we had emergency funds for the business and our personal lives made us able to focus on just getting her through that. That is also a form of building

resilience. You give yourself an asset that helps you survive so you're not fighting a battle on multiple fronts. So, hey, that's my take. We can control to some extent the pressure we put on ourselves. A lot of us put way too much pressure on ourselves in ways that aren't constructive. Other times we put too little pressure on ourselves, especially in areas that really matter. Since we can ratchet this up or down, control this in some ways, we can let that internal pressure drive us today. Get us out of bed. Get us studying. Get us project managing. Get us saving. Get us in the gym. Get us back to school. Whatever it is so that we can handle any unexpected external pressure heading our way in the future when we do not maybe have this control. So I hope

that gives you a new lens here. I love your work ethic, your self-awareness, your willingness to try things in a new way. I know these ideas will help you build on what sounds like an awesome mindset. So good luck, man. You got this. Hope you all enjoyed that. Thank you everyone for writing in and for listening this week. Thank you so much. Go back and check out the guest. Don't forget about six-minute networking.com speaking of digging the well before you get thirsty free over there on the think-ific platform. If you haven't signed up yet, our wee bit wiser newsletter is 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 900 plus episodes and apply it to your life,

come and check it out. Jordan Harbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Show notes on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's also on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1.

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 yes, I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer, so do your own research before implementing things you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could 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. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about the evolved strategies of human mating. So I'm an evolutionary psychologist and I'm very well known in my scientific communities.

I talk to people about mating all the time and I learn something practically every day from people. So our predictions of what is going to make us happy are known to be off base. Sometimes people pay a lot of attention to the mate attraction process and not enough attention to the main attraction process and not enough attention to the mate retention process. Men and women have overlapping mating psychologies, but in some domains, dramatically different mating psychologies. It's become fashionable to try to argue that men and women are really identical in their mating psychologists and their sexual psychologists, but they're not. I think that's one of these kind of ideologically driven agendas, and we know scientifically that the areas in which they differ. You know, I think one of the myths

is that somehow we're supposed to meet the one and only when we're at a very young age and live perfectly happily ever after for the next 50 years with no bumps in the road. And I think that's just naive. There's a new body of research that talks about the dark triad, and the dark triad is also more likely to cheat. Dark triad is high narcissism, high Machiavellianism, and high psychopathy. people who are both men and women who are high on these dimensions are much more likely to cheat. You want to avoid those in a long-term mate for sure.

Avoid emotional instability and avoid narcissism and potential mates. To learn more about what people want in a mate, successful tactics of mate attraction, and more with Dr. David Bus, check out episode 758 of the Jordan Harbinger show. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop, mid-d dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to what was that like. It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives, and they're not just giving you the highlights. They're walking you through it from the inside as a person who actually

lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is a sous parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing. Do what you think? So if you want to hear some wild and inspiring firsthand stories, I invite you to check out what was that like. Every story is verified. Their site even has photos so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to what was that like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever app you're using right now. 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.