The Mello Millionaire with Tommy Mello - What's Your Relationship ROI? with Social Dynamics Expert Jordan Harbinger

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Jordan Harbinger is a former Wall Street lawyer turned social dynamics expert and the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show, a top-ranked podcast downloaded millions of times each month. Dubbed “the Larry King of podcasting,” he’s interviewed everyone from Kobe Bryant and Malcolm Gladwell to CIA agents and whistleblowers. Jordan is known for decoding the hidden skills of connection, influence, and persuasion—helping listeners build stronger relationships in business and life. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and Time, and his podcast regularly tops Apple’s charts. With a knack for making complex ideas actionable, Jordan teaches how to network authentically without the sleaze. At his core, he believes relationships aren’t optional—they’re the lifeblood of success.Meet me at Home Service Freedom 2025 ⟶ https://homeservicefreedom.com/Check Out My Social Media:Tiktok  ⟶ https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymelloInstagram ⟶ https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/Facebook ⟶https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/My other podcast:Home Service Expert ⟶ https://open.spotify.com/show/4WHQ3ldGThHsP1cfzNF33GLive Q&A submission form:https://homeserviceexpert.com/questions00:00 Building Relationships Before You Need Them02:17 From Wall Street to Podcasting: A Career Journey12:24 The Importance of Personal Branding18:38 Understanding Relationship Dynamics24:44 The Crisis of Male Loneliness29:56 Finding Purpose in Life and Work33:34 Closing Thoughts and Key TakeawaysTMM Director / Series Creator - Elaina SlaytonExecutive Producer - Jim Leslie Producer - Bianca Zhou Editor - Paul McAleavey Camera - Cullen Fleming

You really need to dig the well before you get thirsty when it comes to relationships. Build relationships before you need them. Because if you're trying to execute on this, when you are desperate, you're going to wreak of desperation. And people are going to be like, what do you want? So it's a massive, it's such a tiny investment. And it's such a massive return. Insightful. Resourceful.

Approachable. Our guest today is the master of conversation. A relentless relationship builder who spent decades decoding human behavior influence and connection. To succeed inside a system, I had to work outside the system. Jordan Harbinger is a top-ranked podcast host, former Wall Street attorney and social dynamics expert, who specializes in the science of networking. Do not quit that part-time job that you have until you're the bottleneck in whatever it is and you can't outsource anything else. In his last business venture, he built one of the world's most recognized training platforms for developing business relationships, social intelligence, and personal charisma. This has to do with leaving something comfortable behind, and that's what entrepreneurship is.

That's what starting any career is. He now teaches to millions through the Jordan Harbinger Show. With a background in law and international negotiation, Jordan's career has taken him from high-stakes courtrooms to the world's most dangerous places, including North Korea, earning him a reputation as someone who can talk his way in and out of just about anything. He's built a global network through a meticulous system for cultivating authentic, long-term relationships, one conversation at a time. you don't have opportunity coming from your connections, you will always run into problems.

From everyday professionals to elite performers, Jordan's work has helped countless people upgrade their career trajectory. Get ready. This conversation will challenge how you think about trust, persuasion, and the hidden architecture of great relationships. Welcome back to The Mellow Millionaire. Today is an awesome guest. It's Jordan Harbinger. And Jordan Harbinger is a former Wall Street lawyer turned master interviewer, social dynamic strategist and one of the most downloaded podcasters on the planet, known by many as the Larry King of Podcasting. He has been dominating the top 50 for the last decade.

He now hosts the Jordan Harbinger Show, another widely popular podcast that explores the minds of elite performers. Jordan, it's a pleasure to have you on today. Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it. It's going to be great. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your previous life in Wall Street, where you're at today and where you're headed?

Yeah, so I used to be a finance attorney, which sounds fancier than it is. I mean, I didn't, my career was like two years long because I got immediately into mortgage-backed securities, which is funny because we kind of all saw the writing on the wall, but it was like, look, there's so many jobs in this niche. They're paying like crazy and who cares if you have to, I didn't really care about being a lawyer at the time, and I still don't, I guess, but like, since I'm not practicing for 20 years. But it was a good move because it was. went in, I learned a bunch of stuff, I worked on Wall Street for a couple years, had no work for like the last nine months of my career, but still got paid. And then they said, who wants to take a buyout for the next, you know, 10 months, full salary and benefits? And I was like, sure. So I basically got to be a lawyer for a couple years with a really light workload and then get paid for an extra almost year for doing nothing, which allowed me to launch my business. Really? I mean, I started the business This is like a hobby kind of, but it really, once you're getting paid lawyer money for not doing anything, you get a hefty. It's like having an investor that doesn't take any equity.

It's pretty cool, actually. But yeah, our clients were like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. And so I didn't have any contact with them, obviously, but they went out of business. And that's when the partners at this firm that I was at started really sweating because they were like, those are our two biggest clients. So what are what's going to happen? So it went from this is going to bounce back in May to, I don't know. know what's going to happen. Maybe another bank will pick up the slack, but it doesn't look good. And then it was just like, you don't have to come in anymore if you don't want to, you know, that kind of thing.

And there's, you know, who wants to transfer to the White Rock office from the Manhattan office? No, thanks. There was a lot of that. And then I just used the money as a runway to start my show or to do it as, run it as a business instead of a hobby, which is great. And then that turned into a coaching company, which I ran for 10 years or so. And I got kind of sick of that because coaching is really intensive. I mean, you know this, like mentoring, leadership, hiring, managing people. Like, if you don't love it or thrive on it somehow, it really just eats away to you. And I, so when I started the Jordan Harbinger show off the back of my previous company, I was like, no live events, no online sales. I'm not going to shill email list, affiliate

stuff. I'm not going to run live programs. And it's great because I was able to ride the podcast wave on the way up. Because I was kind of of like, okay, I'm going to make a tenth of my income because back then podcast ads were occasional and you might make like 10, 20 grand a month doing it. And then it was now it's like you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month doing running ads on podcasts because the market has matured in a way that was great for me because I again, I kind of rode the wave, right? The show was popular and it was like, hey, people are experimenting more with ads on podcasts. And then it became like, oh, your show does well. And so that was the way.

wave that I wrote it now. So now I don't have to do other things that I don't want to do. And of course, everyone says, you're leaving money on the table. And I'm like, good, you know, good. The more money I leave on the table, it means I'm living my life instead of just working to catch every single dollar, which I think is a good way to live, especially when you have little kids. My buddy was just here, Joe Polish, and he talks about this life of elf. It's got to be easy, lucrative, and fun. And if it's not, get out of it. Yeah. Yeah. I know Joe. I've known Joe for a really long time. And, you know, you know, Yeah, easy, lucrative and fun.

And I'm with that. Like it has to, of course, lucrative, you got to pay the bills. But I would trade a certain amount of money for more fun and more easy. So I know a lot of people who are wealthy entrepreneurs. And it's crazy to me. They'll be like, hey, man, can I ask you a question? I'm like, yeah, sure. And they're like, how do you edit your social media posts in Canva?

And I'm like, I don't. Are you doing that? You should not be doing that. There's no reason that a guy running a seven-figure business should be trying to figure out how to make videos of his whatever, you know, day job thing because they can't let go of control. And they're miserable, dude. I started working with Dan Martel. And he's like, dude, you got one of the best business brains, your processes, systems checklist, the accountability and really the way you delegate. Why don't you run your personal life?

And I'm like, well, I feel kind of guilty, hiring a chef, hiring a driver. He's like, dude, you're looking out of the wrong lens. And now we have a chef. Now we have a driver. Now we have all the people. So now my house runs like the business. And I got to tell you, I was an idiot because I was looking out of the wrong lens. Yes.

Some people are sick of hearing this, but buying back time is a real thing. It is a real thing, dude. And it's funny because, yes, if you come from like a middle class background, there's a part of you that says quietly slash like invisibly. I can't hire a chef. That's for, like, celebrities or I can't hire a chef. My parents will think I'm wasting money. Yeah.

Or, you know, something along those lines. And it's really upset. It's not a good way to run things, right? Would your dad look at you and be ashamed of you for hiring a chef if he knew that you were making $5,000 during that hour every week instead of cooking or making, like, no, he'd be pretty excited for you. I would think that you had made that trade. But that part's invisible, right? It just looks like you're lounging around the pool, drinking a martini at 9 o'clock in the morning, and your chef is like, breakfast is ready.

That's what it looks like to the outsider. So we have to kind of get used to that as guys who are on maybe a different level than where we grew up. But you have to get over that because it's bad for your business, and then it's bad for your life, even if you've got your business under control. So you can fix that. And not fixing it is negligent. It's reckless. It is, I don't know, what's the opposite of a businessman?

Is it unbusiness-like behavior? And a lot of these guys won't do that. And so they're stuck making like $200,000 a year instead of $2 million a year or $20 million because they won't outsource things that they don't have time to do. I get it because a lot of coaches are like, dude, they don't listen. Like if you got all the answers, why are you here? So it's like the world, the vibration, whatever you want to say, just, dude, you're sitting here. You're wondering why nobody wants to pay you.

I got this article that somebody sent me yesterday. I wanted to get your take on it. Okay, so breaking. PayPal is hiring ahead of CEO content. This is what you need to know. The job pays over $200,000 a year. The mission is simple. Make sure the CEO, Alex Chris, is visible and consistently posting. This is not about getting likes. It's about building trust with investors, inspiring employees and keeping PayPal top of mind against competitors like Apple Pay and Google Pay. PayPal is proving that in 2025, the personal brand of the leader is important as the brand of the company. Here's the takeaway. Visibility is no longer a nice to have for leaders. It's part of the business strategy. If you're audience cannot see you, they will forget you exist. If they can see you often enough with the right message, you shape how they think before they, before you ever speak to them. The difference between a CEO who shows up online and who does not can be millions in talent attraction, customer trust, and deal flow.

Totally. Yeah, I 100% agree. One of the guys who did really well with this early in the game was T-Mobile CEO. You remember that guy? Yeah, yeah, I don't know his name. Everywhere. And he was all over the place. I mean, Richard Branson, of course, also like,

with the Virgin Group and everything, but this guy was everywhere, and he was repping T-Mobile, and I have no idea what other companies he ran or anything, but he was really, really good. He was, I remember he was, like, in clubhouse rooms,

calling out fraudsters, and he, like, there's, like, a famous call, uh, with him confronting, Grant Cardone. Yeah. Yeah,

and, and like, it was, it's just poetic. And then there's him talking about things that his company, and T-Mobile was always the underdog, right? They had, like,

the smallest network or whatever it was, or when it was, like, underpriced or, of price lower because of that. But it was like they did all these little sort of clever things to make their brand really well known. If you got on a flight, you could basically use T-Mobile login to get free in-flight

Wi-Fi on like every airline. They just negotiated that. And that was really smart. It took a long time for other company CEOs to try to do this. And it happened a lot kind of by accident. You know, like, you know, this is the CEO of sales. Fals, for example, Mark Benioff, like he became a really big brand. You still see other companies, big companies.

Their CEOs are really not that famous, and with a few exceptions, like Tim Cook from Apple. And the reason you know that guy is because Apple does those big announcements that Steve Jobs pioneered, where they show the new products, and he comes out on stage and shows you personally why it's really cool. That's why we know who that is. It's great branding. It makes you trust Apple more because you associate it with a person that you know, like, trust, whatever. And it's really funny because podcasters, this is like the whole game. Like the reason I get paid to endorse PayPal or progressive insurance or whatever it is

is because people know like and trust me as a host. So it just seems so obvious to a little tiny company like me compared to Apple that this is the way to do it. So even folksy companies are not doing a great job of this. But like look at Berkshire Hathaway, who runs that? Well, Warren Buffett, obviously. So this branding works really well. It's just such a good investment. You could spend hundreds of millions or even tens of whatever,

maybe tens of millions of dollars in your CEO's personal brand or your founder's personal brand. Oh, by the way, 48 out of the 52 people here next door training. This is their first month. We got 52 in the new training class. And these guys, 48 of them have said, we've been following you. We want to come work here because of you. So that's just like, we know what kind of leader you are. We know you're going to take the time.

You're doing the orientation. So I think the main thing I wanted to say is personal brand matters. A1 helped grow my brand. I help grow A1. It's kind of like we're plugged in together. When you were coaching, what were you coaching on? Like, help me understand for those 10 years. Yeah.

So I actually, I don't do this anymore and I don't necessarily think it is the right thing to do for me now, of course. But I traveled around the world and I taught men how to meet and attract women as a completely different niche. and it wasn't sort of a gross like pickup artist stuff that you saw back then. Yeah, that I read the black book or whatever. Yeah, it wasn't really about that. It was kind of more like the intro beginning of men's self-help stuff.

Guys would walk in and be like, I don't understand why women don't like me or I, you know, women only want this. And I would be like, you need to lose 60 pounds because you want an athletic girl like at your CrossFit class, right? You need to go on a diet. Okay, fine. And you want a girl with her own career so she's not mooching off you? Yeah, okay. What's your career?

Well, I'm kind of like between stuff right now. So that's the main problem. So it's not about like finding clever things to say or whatever. And so I did a lot of coaching around that. And then of course we did actually videotape men interacting with our coach, female coaches, worked on their body language, nonverbal communication, eye contact, the things that they did, the way they sat stood, walk, talk, everything. But that was all like a secondary layer, right?

And then a sort of a third tier of client was, which was actually one of the largest team. years are guys who are like, I kind of just woke up one day and realized I've only worked and I've never really tried to date. It's actually kind of hard now that I'm not in college and I've been working for five years. I'm 30 years old and I'm like, holy crap. Darren Hardy wrote a book, The Compound Effect and he said, he wrote down everything he wanted in a woman. So he wrote down 50 things he needed to become to be deserving of a woman like that. And I think that's really important. My cousin called me up now two years ago and she said, you know, the family's so

proud of you, you're writing books, you're talking on stage, your company's a success. She goes, why don't you love yourself? And she's like, are you proud of what you see in the mirror? And I'm like, Rachel, I'm busy. Like, I've always avoided it. Then all of a sudden, tears came down my eyes. And I'm like, I'm better than this. I've made excuses for myself. And that was, I was on a quest. So I went from 24% body fat to 10% within like six months because I was like, this is bullshit. I'm not walking and talking the way I want to lead. Yeah. Yeah, man, losing weight was, was a huge thing for me too. I looked at my, I was, I had my son, he's six now, he was probably almost two. I was on the floor playing with him. He has this like little train that he would ride

and made noises. And I got up off the floor and it took me like a good 20 seconds. I was like, crack, crack. And I was like, I feel old. And then it was pandemic. So I was eating like Chinese takeout every night and shit like that. And my friend called and was like, how you doing? He runs the second largest chain of gyms in Canada. And I was like, I'm okay, just starting to feel old. And he's like, how old are you? It's like, 40. He's like, oh, you're not that old.

And I'm like, I don't know. And he's like, I'm the same age as you and you could be in good shape. I was like, I'm not really like a natural athlete. He's like, yeah, you are. You just don't try. And it was like one of those same similar conversations, right? Where he's like, I'm going to give you a trainer online from one of my gyms because they're all closed because of the pandemic.

I've worked with that trainer for almost five years. It'll be five years in November. I went from 38% body fat to, I don't know, 12 or 13 or whatever. I'm in better shape than I was anytime even during my 20s. And it's crazy what that does for you as a man. And that's not easy for most people to do. I look at Jeff Bezos when he started Amazon to where he is now. And the money actually affords you better doctors and better, you know, stem cells.

I don't know. I'm just curious from your perspective with the different women and the men you've interacted with. Men are like they're successful. They're good at relationships. I'm not saying physical is not important, but what are the differences between what a man wants and a woman wants if you had to just sum it up. Yeah, I mean, it really depends because each person is an individual

and it depends on the patterns you were raised with. So there's a huge difference in, say, there's plenty of women that are going to be interested in looks and money, right? But there's also plenty of women that are going to be interested in somebody who's a secure or emotional person that also hits a base. level of being able to say provide for them and above that doesn't matter as much. And there's also like baseline level of physical fitness that a woman kind of expects. And then above that is sort of gravy.

Like if you have a healthy, secure relationship with somebody who's well adjusted, they're not going to leave you because you don't have a six pack, but they might lose attraction for you if you are 30 to 50, 60 pounds overweight. And that's not something we should shame people for. That's biology. Nobody owes you to be attracted to you just because you're married. Like they love you and they should support your weight loss journey, but you can't like tell them to tell their biology to overlook that.

So it really depends. The trick is going to be finding somebody who is well adjusted, has good patterns that they were raised with, is able to look at you and go, you know, I love this person so much that I don't really care that they don't have, you know, 8% body fat in veins on their abs. anymore. I still find them attractive. But it's also your job to maintain a good physical

appearance as much as possible. But, you know, a lot of guys, what they do is they let everything go and they sacrifice their relationship. They remove their emotional cushion and their provision from their relationship because they're busy with work. They bring home their stress. They let themselves go physically. And then they act all surprised and indignant when the woman's like, this isn't working for me. And they're like, oh, I see. I gain a little bit of weight. And you're just like, I'm going to divorce you and take half your stuff. And it's like, ah, bro, I don't think it's the weight gain.

I think it's the fact that you literally just gave up on the relationship and brought home your stress and you provide nothing other than a paycheck and you're making yourself and her miserable. I don't think it's fair to say like women look for money and looks only. That's some people do that. And I feel bad for those people because they are going to inherently be disappointed in almost every relationship that they're in. What you should be looking for is somebody who's compatible with you.

And that's like something that we don't learn it in school and guys tend to just never really think about it. And that's a big problem. I love it, man. I love this conversation. I got three questions I ask on every podcast. These are repeats. What's one piece of game changing a device you wish you knew in your 20s? Oh, man.

Dude, I mean, I learned this later in my 20s, if that counts. But you really need to dig the well before you get thirsty when it comes to relationships. There were so many times where I networked kind of accidentally. or somebody was really proactive with me and created a friendship. And I got a ton of opportunities from those relationships. And then later on in my 20s, like at the end of my 20s, I was like, wait a minute, I can be pretty intentional about the people I meet, the events I go to, the people I keep in touch with. I can systemize getting in touch with them using a CRM, right?

And at the time, a spreadsheet and just reach out to them like every couple of months. So I'm top of mind for them. They remember me. They know what I'm interested in, things like that. So I teach a course. I have a course called six minute networking. It's free. It's not like an upsell thing.

And it's at six minute networking.com. And people can just sign up. And it's basically like 13 or maybe it's 12 drills of really simple things that can build a network for you, dig the well before you get thirsty. Because if you don't build relationships before you need them, it's too late if you need to rely on those. So I meet tons of people that are like, I don't really need to network. I work in, I don't know, like health care. And then like six months later, they're like, oh, I got laid off. from Kaiser Permanente, any tips on the job hunt?

And I'm like, I thought you didn't need to network. You should, if you did network, you would know everybody in your industry. I mean, not everybody. It's a health care industry. You'd know everybody locally in your industry that could help you hire, you know, you'd know people inside Kaiser, you'd know people outside Kaiser who are at other hospitals that are working in the same field as you. Why don't you call them?

Oh, you didn't fricking bother doing any of this because you imagined that you had job security in 2025, which is delusional. and now you have nowhere to begin. So when I left the law, I was like, oh my God, how do I get a job in law? And I started calling all my lawyer buddies from law school. I had a built-in network. And I was like, wait a minute. This is how I kind of figured it out because I ended up getting my first job through networking

and I ended up getting a bunch of other jobs through networking. And then as I got older, I was like, wait, you can do this in any niche. So if something happened to my podcast today, I would have a hundred job offers. I guarantee you. by the end of a couple of months, because I'd just make a few phone calls, or I should say a few dozen phone calls, and I'd be like,

I'm on the market, I have these skills, and people would snap me up because they know me, they like me, they've reached out to them for years and years and years about things I can do for them

or just to check in. It's like if you call somebody, you haven't talked to them in 15 years, they're going to pick up the phone and be like, why do you want to chat now? Is this about Scientology or Herbalife or whatever? Like I'm not interested. did in your multi-level marketing, you know, alien cult, get off the, like, what do you want?

But if I call somebody that I've talked to twice a year for the last 20 years, even if just a short text check-in, they're going to be like, hey, man, what's going on? Hey, look, I'm calling because I just lost my job and I'm wondering if you have any opportunities in the following fields. Yeah, let me get your resume. Or I'd love, you know, I'd love to work with you again or something like that. That would not be a challenge because I dug the well before I got thirsty. So I really hope most people out there pay attention to this.

Build relationships before you need them. Because if you're trying to execute on this when you are desperate, you're going to reek of desperation. And people are going to be like, what do you want? As opposed to how can I help you? And so it's a massive, it's such a tiny investment and it's such a massive return when you need it. It's basically an insurance policy that money could never buy. And again, I teach a bunch of this stuff at six minute networking.com. And there's no, you don't have to like enter your credit card.

It's actually just free. What about, so is there a CRM? Because literally at the end of the day, I was really good buddies with John Ruling's Giftology. And, you know, I've never, I'm building something out to be able to do this. I've already got it for my coworkers that I'm able to reach out via text, via video. And I look at their KPI, just tell them how proud I am of them, birthdays, anniversaries, kids' birthdays, because I needed to really systematize it.

But do you, do you have anything that you use, that is like the best practice tool to use for that? Yeah, I use the tool. called Relatable. It's not free. My friends V band makes it. It's relatable.1. And it remembers, yeah, it helps you and your team stay in touch, business, career, life stuff. Awesome. And it is a CRM that looks at your email, like, hey, when's the last time you talk to this person? Here's a tag. Here's their birthday. All that stuff. I love it. I'm going to check that out. What are your millionaire habits? What set you apart? What's stuff in your routine? set you apart from the rest.

I mean, of course, the first thing, reaching out, creating relationships before you need them, that's the main one. The other one is, and we just touched on this for a while, the physical fitness, it really, everyone's like, I'm just so tired. I get it. I'm tired at the end of the day, too.

I'm not tired during the day, though, because I'm in good shape. And so people really underestimate how much of a change you get when you're taking care of your body because your body and your mind and all that stuff. I mean, I'm not going to get all woo-woo, but they're very, of course, intertwined. Those are my millionaire habits, really. Those are like the two probably most important

things. The other thing in this kind of is networking adjacent is don't deprioritize your social circle. I've got a bunch of dude friends especially. We go on trips together. We catch up on the phone every month or so. And it feels really good, man. There's this like crisis of men not having any friends. Have you heard about this? Like, It's not the male loneliness epidemic. This is like guys having zero friends. Yeah. I can't remember the stat, dude, but it's something like 60% or like some huge,

maybe it's even 25, but it's some huge number of guys report having zero close friends. Zero. Not like zero best friends ever. Zero friends. Hey guys. Chiming in here with the exact stat. LA Times reported in 2023 that 15% of men have no close friends. That might sound like a small percentage, but that actually is one in seven men.

To make that digestible for you, that statistic would mean that 27 million men in America don't have close friends. That is crazy to me. And that's not good for you, man. And it's not because you're a giant loser that nobody likes. It's because you worked your ass off at Amazon and kept your head down for 80-hour weeks for 10 years. And you woke up and you've realized you have coworkers that honestly you could take it or leave it with these people. And you don't have any friends. And because you haven't seen anybody for five freaking years, aside from, you know,

your neighbor who you don't really like. He just happens to live next door to you, right? Like that's a big problem, man. We know from science, social science, people who have good relationships and social circles, they live longer, they're happier, their levels of depression are much lower. Their zest for life is much higher. You basically need like one or two friends. And it's a life-changing, life-extending benefit.

to your longevity. And that is really crazy because you both get it. If you make friends with one or two guys that also don't have any friends, you have eliminated the We Have No Friends problem for all three of you.

That's a really good net gain for having lunch every month once or twice. That's all you need, man. You don't need to hang out every day. You don't need to play three hours of Xbox with them every night. You just need to have the ability to call them when some shit is happening

and have them be like, dude, I got you. That is all, right? That is a blow, that's a low bar. And most guys have not been able to get across that because of negligence, because of letting things atrophy. It's like getting out of shape. You let your body get out of shape. You let your social circle get out of shape. It's possible to rejuvenate all that stuff.

You know, I would tell you one caveat is when I was a kid, I didn't pick my friends. They were my neighbors who I went to school with. So I think instead of sharing a common past, share a common future. Yeah, I like that. Some of the people I've hung out with, and I've got great friends. but I will say the circles have changed. And I would say that they inspire me and they don't bring me down. It's something about when you, everybody wants you to win until you start going past them.

And that could be religiously, physically, with money, whatever it might be. And then it becomes a little bit of a, and I'm not saying this is the rule, but sometimes it's animosity. Sometimes I've seen that with even families. There's some crab bucket stuff going on with people. But you know what? you here's a way to here's a good way to look at this yes you might share a common future but please don't be afraid to have friends who can do absolutely nothing for your career oh 100% yes I agree with that you get you need at least one or two of these people in your life it is you need

more of those because then they're not like oh man I'm competing with Jordan in podcasting they're like Jordan's my rich friend and he's still cool and this guy is my shooting buddy and he's cool and it's just a non-issue, man. So let me ask you this. If you had to start over with $10 million tomorrow, what would you do with it? No, I just put it in an index fund, and then I realize my retirement's totally taken care of.

And then if I can't, if I make $40,000 a year doing my podcast, fine. I don't have to save any money. I have $10 million in index funds, right? So, like, I would just do the same thing. If I had to start over. And I don't think I would end up making $40,000 a year podcasting. I think somebody tells me, I did have to start over six years ago when I left my old show.

I had business partners. You know, there was a litigation involved. I had to start my show essentially from zero, but I had that personal brand that we talked about at the top of the show like CEOs are supposed to have. And my audience came with me. And if I lost my podcast tomorrow, I would have the Jordan Arbinger show, you know, part two, whatever you call it.

And I would bring a huge amount of that audience with me again. So like, again, I have that insurance policy that you can't buy with money because I've actually invested in the people that learn and listen to the Jordan Harbinger show. Like, that's, if I didn't have that, $10 million, I'm just going to retire. You know, I probably still do a podcast that nobody listened to because I enjoy doing it. But, yeah, I think I would be able to build a seven-figure business again in like a year. Have you ever heard of the book, A Man Search for Purpose? The guy was going through the Holocaust.

I forget his name. Victor Frankel. Yeah, Man Search for Meaning, yeah. A Search for Meaning, yeah. It was like, men need a purpose. You ever hear about Gino Wickman when he sold his company? He wrote the Sunshine or The book because there's this purpose. Like we've got to have a purpose.

We've got to have a goal. We've got to have something we're going towards. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I agree. I mean, you see tons of guys with no purpose all the time and they're directionless and it's really a crisis. The whole premise is that they are depressed as shit because they're not doing anything. They have no purpose.

Even if they're like, I live with my parents and I'm going to inherit their Airbnb rental business and I manage their. properties. They're directionless and they're miserable because that doesn't give them any purpose, even though they're financially fine. It's like their life still sucks. So you definitely need something to work towards. You know, guys like you and I are probably lucky. Like my purpose is, you know, running the show and educating people and I get paid handsomely for that. You're running a business you're really proud of. You like educating people. You're paid handsomely for that. You can get your purpose or your passion elsewhere, but you should bring it into your career and

work with you. You don't have to follow your passion. That's some shit that people say during commencement speeches because they don't know what else to say. Like the guy, Scott Galloway says this more eloquently than I do, but he says something like, the guy who's telling you to follow your passion made his billion dollars in iron smelting. Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs always talks about this too. He said, you don't follow your passion. You just have to bring it with you. Yeah, he says, don't follow your passion.

Yeah, he's like, that bullshit. No, there's no money in that, right? Like the guy who's cleaning porta-potties and, like, fixing really gross plumbing issues, he is bringing his passion to his work. He enjoys solving these complex problems, but at the end of the day, he is covered in shit, okay? But he's making a really good living, and his passion is actually creating that lifestyle for his family.

He doesn't care that he's caught in the giant poop explosion every now and then. It's just part of what's just part of the job, okay? But he's also not miserable doing it because he realizes it's in pursuit of a larger goal, which is stability, financial security, things like that. So he brings his passion with it. I love that. Is there a favorite book in business that you have on like social dynamics

or any book? You know, I read so many books, but to pull like a favorite business book, I mean, it doesn't need to be business. I like, I like atomic habits by James Cleaver. He's been a buddy of mine since forever. The reason it's the best selling book of the decade and the nonfiction is because that shit works. I also like to jockewarm. I also like to jocke Rocco's original book, Extreme Ownership, because there's like a crisis of personal responsibility or lack thereof, especially among, I'm an elder millennial, which sounds gross. But our generation and lower, it's like, I remember when I was younger hearing kids be like, the teacher hates me. And I was like, that's stupid. You're just an idiot and you don't try hard.

But like, as I got older, those same people were saying the same thing. And I'm like, maybe it's a you problem. Okay. And so extreme ownership kind of goes through like, oh, if you got really, you got dealt a bad hand, you know, good. And a lot of the things that I saw in my life and business that were like, this is the worst thing that ever happened to me turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me besides like meeting my wife and having kids was losing my previous business because now I own 100% of it. It's way more profitable than my previous show. I get to do whatever I want. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. And at the time, it was so

stressful, I lost like 20 pounds and wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping, you know, and my wife was like, holy crap, my husband's going to like die a skeleton in the guest bedroom. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And when people told me that at the time, I was like, I want to punch you in the throat for telling me this is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me. But they were all right. They were all 100% correct because I rose to the challenge and with my team and my wife and everything and made it through that. And I think Jocko's book, Extreme Ownership kind of tells you that you can, if you look down the chain for the things that you can control,

then you can rise to that challenge. But if you sort of abdicate responsibility and control to like the universe or fate or whatever, like your hand that you were dealt, you can't do anything about it. Of course, you're not going to make any changes. You're not going to make any of the changes that you need to succeed in the environment

that you happen to be in. And so that realization was really important for me and it helped me get through some pretty heavy duty shit, I think. I love it. This is awesome. Jordan, how do people get a hold of you if they want to reach out? Yeah, the Jordan Harbinger Show. Definitely just check out the Jordan Harbinger show.

I know you already listen to podcasts. I'm not much. Very few of my episodes go to YouTube, but, you know, everything's on Spotify, Apple. I don't focus on YouTube as much. That's probably a conversation for another podcast. And then, yeah, I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter, Instagram. So I have everybody from mobsters to innovators and writers, journalists, everything, so it's quite a variety of shows.

Hey man, I really appreciate you coming on today. I had a blast. And next time I'm in Man, Jose, I'll reach out. Please do. Yeah, it's good talking with you. Thanks, brother. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. Like always, we're going to close it out with the Tommy Truth, which is a little slice of wisdom for me to you that can help guide you in whatever you're striving towards right now.

If you want to win big, stop giving and start asking. In 1969, psychologist tested this effect. They rigged the contest where everybody won money. One group was personally asked by the experimenter to give the money back. The crazy thing is, the people who gave the money back actually liked the experimenter more. Their brain thought, if I helped him, I must like him. They proved that asking for help creates a mental connection. It's called the Ben Franklin Effect.

The coolest thing about this concept is you could use it to. Authenticity is key here. People know when you're being genuine. use this to build connections and mutual respect. And that's it, guys. We'll talk to you next week.