The One You Feed - Jordan Harbinger

Episode Date: October 30, 2014

[powerpress]  This week we talk to Jordan Harbinger about the power of awareness and intentionJordan Harbinger is the founder of The Art of Charm. The Art of Charm helps men to improve their social skills so that they can succeed in business and life. The truth is that I originally turned Jordan down twice to be on the show because I thought he was a "pick-up" artist. I clearly didn't think that was a good fit for our show. But as I learned more about him and what he does I realized that his focus is to help men become better people. The success follows from that. One of his core principles that he teaches is to leave everything and everyone better than before he was there. That's a pretty good way to feed the good wolf. In addition his podcast has really excellent guests and he is a great interviewer. I'm glad we had him on because it was a really good conversation.   In This Interview Jordan and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.Being intentional in all aspects of life.How if your not feeding the good wolf you might be feeding the bad wolf.Not making a decision is a decision in itself.How good our brains are at rationalizing things.How systems can help in all aspects of our lives.Being excellent is a matter of habit.Being more aware of our choices.How being too busy is the best excuse we have.Try replacing "I don't have time" with "I'm not prioritizing that right now"Feeding the good wolf is about being intentional.How feeding the good wolf takes time and consistency.Discipline is doing the right thing when it is hard.Changing perspective.How bad our mood is as a decision tool.Doing what we planned, not what we feel like.The pitfalls of comparing ourselves to others.Comparing our insides to other peoples outsides.Jordan Harbinger LinksThe Art of Charm-Jordan HarbingerJordan Harbinger on TwitterArt of Charm on Facebook  Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

That's discipline. It doesn't count when you feel like doing it. It only counts when you don't. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Jordan Harbinger, creator of The Art of Charm.

Through Jordan's book, website, and podcast, he teaches men to harness the power of social dynamics, to win friends, earn the respect of their peers, and get the girl of their dreams. And it all comes down to one simple plan, becoming a better man. Here's the interview. to one simple plan, becoming a better man. Here's the interview. Let's start the way we always do with the parable. So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and says,

Well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, The one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It's so good because when you first mentioned that you were going to go through the parable, I had this moment of panic where I was like, oh my God, I don't know how to do anything highbrow like that. I don't even, I'm not even sure I get it. And then I thought about it for like 12 seconds and I realized it applies directly to what

we do in that we're all about being intentional with everything at the art of charm, at least, I mean, within reason, right? And being intentional about personal growth and self-development because a lot of people, and the reason I created the show with AJ back in the day is self-help slash personal development is so weird and woo-woo and kind of lame. And so if you decide that you're going to get better at something and you look on the internet, you find all this crap that's like, well, just focus on it. Then the universe will drop it on your doorstep.

And it's like, nah, I don't think so. And also everybody I know who's successful kind of thinks that's a bunch of crap too, right? Right. So being intentional with yourself, being intentional with everything from your body language and the way that you communicate with other people and the way that you build relationships, the way that you network, the way that you build business relationships, building

businesses and careers that you enjoy, getting people in your life in terms of friendships, or maybe if you're a guy or a girl, people you're dating, I guess you would fall into one of those categories. Typically, most people listening would. Except Chris. Except Chris. He's non-identifying. You laugh, but we're going to get email about this. You laugh. But, you know, and so it's all about that intention. And so you've got to feed, you've got to feed the wolf, the one that's the good one, I guess, the one that doesn't have the sharp, jagged teeth and terrifying eyes in your show arts. And the reason is because if you don't,

I guess people don't really realize this. They're kind of like, well, I'm fine where I'm at. And it took me years to realize this for myself, but if you're not feeding the good wolf, you're really feeding the bad wolf. You just might not be paying attention to that. And I'll give a really clear example because a lot of people don't understand sort of the salmon swimming upstream concept of personal growth.

But let's look at it in terms of like physical fitness. And if you aren't working out regularly, building habits that help you eat right, if you're not, just like in my line of work, if you're not building good relationships for yourself, for your business, building good romantic relationships with your partner, building a strong family with your kids, you're actually doing the opposite. It's just that you're doing it passively, so it feels like you're not doing anything. So people who neglect, whether that's their business, they're neglecting their family or they're neglecting their friends or they're neglecting themselves, their health, et cetera, they don't realize they're actually feeding the

bad wolf because they're thinking, I'm just not feeding the good wolf because I don't have time, because I'm just so busy with X, Y, Z. They don't realize that there's this bad wolf behind them chomping up everything in sight. Yeah. There's so much good in what you just said there. And I think that one of the things that that made me think of is that old phrase that not making a decision is sort of a decision in itself. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's like a lie by omission. Well, I didn't, I didn't tell him that the car wasn't parked in his driveway the whole weekend. I mean, you know, I didn't tell him I didn't take the money out of his wallet. I mean, there's no real difference except that our brains are really good at rationalizing. And

I think our whole lives are a constant battle against especially things like rationalization where I can sit here and I can tell you very believable reasons and vice versa about why you didn't go to the gym yesterday and why you ate fried chicken for dinner for three nights in a row. And most people would probably go, yeah, that makes sense. Am I hitting too close to home? Chris is sitting here with an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. That's probably why. Here's the thing. He'll finish it all today, so the story doesn't apply. If I eat it in one sitting, it's not talking about me. So, you know, you can rationalize that and it's okay sometimes.

It's totally believable. But the extent to which your brain decides that that's the truth is what sort of separates the winners from the losers. And if you look at people who are really extreme, I've got a buddy named Ben Greenfield and he's like this badass endurance athlete and he's got his own show on iTunes as well. It's really popular. And he's like the kind of guy who goes, I'm going to wear a weight vest to Whole Foods and I'm going to carry a backpack with like a 50 pound plate in it so that when I walk home with my groceries, I'm getting a workout. Like, all right, I don't need to do that. But on the

other hand, if he doesn't do things like that, he feels like he's not getting good workouts in and he's always sort of training. He's very, very intentional about it. And I bring him to focus because people can really relate to, wow, okay, you're bringing weights with you to the grocery store. Man, you really are hardcore. But if I'm systemizing my business networking, for example, I'm looking in my CRM that I use for customers of

the Art of Charm. And I've got you in here and it's like, remind him, there's notes going back several months, like check up and see if he's interested in talking on the Art of Charm. Check it. And it's like, said no, you know, September 1st or whatever. And I systemize this. And sometimes when people find that out, they're like, whoa, man, that's weird. And I'm like, well, And sometimes when people find that out, they're like, whoa, man, that's weird. And I'm like, well, not really, because it otherwise will never get done. It has to be done. It has to be intentional.

It has to feed the good wolf. Otherwise, the bad one's what's really getting fed. And the reason is because if I'm not actively chasing that relationship and trying to figure out how you and I can help each other, then what? I'm relying on you to remember, and you're relying on me to remember. And let's see how that's worked out for either of us in the past with other relationships. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. And so it's funny because when we look at things

like fitness and eating right, people go, yeah, man, that's it. You're disciplined. And when you look at it in your personal relationships, people go, oh, that's weird. Or, oh, I don't want to have to learn that stuff. I just want to be myself. And it's like, well, yeah, you're being yourself when you're eating an entire bucket of KFC for

dinner. But if you do that every day, where does it put you? And so if you can learn to bring out the best parts of yourself, if you're constantly feeding that good wolf, then being excellent is a matter of habit. Who said that? It was like Aristotle. Excellence is a habit, not an action or something like that. You know what I'm talking about? I do. Exactly. And I agree. I think that we talk on the show all the time about that very idea that it's all about awareness and not being on autopilot. And that's the reason, part of the reason I started the show, Chris and I started the show was simply to make sure we couldn't go on autopilot in our lives, that we sort of got consistently reminded about these things, because it is so easy to get busy. And the next thing you know, a week, a month, a year has gone by, and you haven't really done the things that that matter to you,

you haven't done the things that are important. Exactly. I mean, in being busy is the best excuse ever. And it's it's a societably acceptable excuse to not do stuff. I mean, in America, if you're too busy to go to the gym, people are like, yeah, me too. But we all have the same amount of time in the day, and I won't go down that cliche road. But think about how many fathers in America don't have time to spend with their kids. And then it starts to become kind of more of a sad excuse rather than a reasonable one. And, and one of the things that I heard from somebody else who was, you know, brilliant was try replacing. I don't have time with, I'm not prioritizing that right now and see how it changes your actions. And it's, it works so

well because instead of thinking, have you ever heard of that? Like when you're not leaning on, man, I'm just too busy and you change that to, I am just not prioritizing that right now. It's like, oh, maybe you will go help your friend. Maybe you will go to your friend's wedding that's really far away. Maybe you will go ahead and take care of your health. Maybe you will clean up your basement, whatever little thing it might be, because you can't then say, man, I'm just so tired. I'm so busy. You say, I'm not prioritizing that. And then it leads sort of, sort of leads to the question, what are you prioritizing? Oh, um, well, other people's crap, you know, like your boss and other people that are leaning on your time, um, and being lazy and watching Homeland on Blu-ray or whatever the latest thing is.

And it kind of gets, it'll shake you up a little bit because you think, geez, this is something that's pretty frigging useless. Why am I, why is that taking priority over my kids? Right. Yep. I resisted Homeland last night, uh, on recorded Homeland to make sure I kept working on getting a post out for the show. So, uh, a victory on that one for me, but I agree a% that and that is a really profound way to look at things to that that turn of phrase that you just gave there to say, you know, what am I? What am I prioritizing? And the thing that I started thinking a couple years ago when it came to exercise was I was like, you know what, the President of the United States works out? Yeah, every day. I can't for a a possible minute think that I've got less time than he does or that the things I've got to do are more important.

And so it doesn't mean I've always been working out since then, but I know that I'm making an excuse. And awareness is the first part of feeding that good wolf, right? It's the first part of the process is going, oh, there's a good wolf in the corner. It looks pretty hungry. feeding that good wolf, right? So first part of the process is going, oh, there's a good wolf in the corner. He looks pretty hungry.

Because if you don't do this, if you're, you know, like you said, are you busier than Barack Obama? And everyone would laugh because nobody can say that. I mean, Richard Branson works out every day. Mark Cuban works out every day. You know, why can't you? Oh man, my shifts are just really long.

I looked at Elon Musk's schedule, or at least what one of his assistants had said he does all the time. And he's actually got a lot of time to do a lot of things, even though he works like 100-hour work weeks. Because he just doesn't watch TV. He doesn't go grocery shopping and do his own laundry because he's got people for that and stuff. And that's always helpful.

But he doesn't have to worry about stupid things like commuting all the time and blah, blah, blah. I mean, he just, you know, he's eliminated that because he wants to do world changing stuff. And then I'll talk to somebody about coming to the Art of Charm here in Los Angeles. And I've got a bunch of people in other parts of the US and they're like, man, it's just so far. It's oh, man, I can't get a week off. And then I look in my classroom, I'm looking at my classroom right now and I've got three guys from the Australian and slash British, because there's a little mix here, of the special air service, which is like the Navy SEALs of those countries. I actually had a bunch of guys from SEAL Team 6, US military green berets. These are guys who came

from Afghanistan. They had a week of leave. They went and they visited their families and then they came to the Art of Charm. And I thought, that's pretty interesting that these guys came from Iraq, Afghanistan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. And there's a guy in Arizona that I talked to this morning. He said, man, you know, I just don't have time. And I told him who was in the classroom. And I think, you know, there was like an awkward silence on the other end of the phone because it's like he probably even believed that it wasn't just a bunch of BS that he gave me. Or I should say it wasn't only a bunch of BS that he gave me,

but he's actually telling himself he doesn't have time. So I remember, you know, quizzing myself on this and I asked him straight up, what else don't you have time for and he was like yeah you're right there's a lot of areas of my life that are lacking and so in my work feeding the good wolf is all about being intentional if you're not being intentional you're feeding the bad wolf even if you don't know it and that's really bad news exactly I think that it's it's not always as easy as simply saying, oh, I can just simply drop everything and do that. But I think there are always steps that we can take. And you're right. If we're intentional and we're aware, there are always steps we can make in the direction that we want to go. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

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Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

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Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. One of my favorite phrases is, you know, use what you have, do what you can start where you are. I think I might've gotten those in the wrong order, but it's about, you can do something no matter where you are, what circumstances you're in to take steps in the direction you want to go. Yeah, of course. And yeah, it may be very true. Like you might, there's people right now who are taking screenshots of their calendars so they can show you and I how they really don't have time.

taking screenshots of their calendars so they can show you and I how they really don't have time. And the reply to an email like that, and yes, I have gotten those before. The reply to an email like that is, I noticed that you start your day at 7 a.m. Why don't you start at 5? Well, then I wouldn't get enough sleep. Well, you would if you went to bed earlier. Well, I can't because at night I got to do X, Y, and Z. And that's why, even if that's, that's when I spend time with my family. I mean, if you're intentional enough over time, you just change for the better. Well, if that's what your intent is, right? Because sometimes people say, well, gee, you know, I just don't have enough time to do that. I know a guy who was the senior developer at Apple for a product that everyone uses. I mean, everyone uses. And he quit and went to work for a startup because he went, you know,

I want to spend time with my wife before I'm old and I can't. And I thought, wow, that's really forward thinking from some guy in your mid-30s who is really at the top of the peak. Apple has like security clearances or something. And he was one of those guys who was like, you know, up there. That's kind of an enigma. And he's just like one of the best

programmers that they had. And he was probably making several hundred thousand dollars a year, plus his stock options were probably worth a ton. And he went, you know what, I just, nah, I'm good. And you don't do that type of thing by leaping and hoping that the net will appear. You do that by taking calculated risks. And I'm sure he planned that over a longer period of time. And now he's doing fine with reasonable hours and a new bride. And that's really, really important. I mean, that is really, really important to do. And that's intention over time. It's not, well, tomorrow I'm going to get up earlier. So I have an extra hour of time. It's not, well, tomorrow I'm going to get up earlier so I have an extra hour of time. It might mean rearranging your whole life.

But if that sounds hard, try not spending any time with your kids and having them be distant from you when you grow up and see if that's any harder. Or try dying early because you didn't have time to work out and see how that works out for you. Like I said, you can start wherever you are and head in the right direction.

And if you start an hour earlier every day and you do that long enough, you are going to accumulate a bunch of good things in your life. And more likely, everything else starts to fall into place as you begin to get that clarity and priorities right. Again, it's feeding the good wolf takes a long time. You can't just sort of dump a whole ton of food in there

and be like, I'm good. I mean, it would be like going to the gym for eight hours every Saturday and then not working out for the rest of the week or whatever you want to do, right? You can't just work out for one day a month and like limp out of the, get wheeled out of the gym in a wheelchair and then hope it's going to be fine.

Just like you can't go on a 24-hour miracle diet no matter what you see on television and lose 30 pounds and be healthy again and then try to keep it off. It's just not realistic, right? So you have to constantly spread that intent out over time. And that's what's really tough is because people get really motivated and they go, yeah, intentional living. And then they do a bunch of stuff for three days, whether that's building a business, getting healthy, whatever it might be. And then it sort of wears off and they don't really feel like it anymore. And it becomes kind of tedious. And then they snap back into their old ways. Discipline only counts when you need it. If you're feeling stoked on life,

and you feel healthy, and you just got back from a run, and you want to eat a salad, that's great, but that's not discipline, really. Discipline is when there's a spread, there's a bucket of fried chicken in front of you, and I'm sorry, I'm just ruining your dinner over there. You get chicken on the brain a lot. We really have chicken here. We really don't. There's no chicken around here. Oh, okay. That was, that was, that was a lot. We really have chicken here. We really don't. We don't. There's no chicken around here. Oh, okay. That was, that was a joke.

Yeah. Neither of us really eat meat. So I was just, I was just making fun. I was totally, I was just making fun of Chris. No, he's okay. Gotcha. Good. So if you've got, if you've got a bucket of chicken in front of you and everyone else

is eating it and there's nothing else to eat and you're hungry, but you know it's going to screw up your gluten free thing or whatever you got going on. That's when discipline counts. Discipline doesn't count when you wake up after a good night's rest. You've got a full day of work ahead of you and you jump into everything cheerful and clear headed. Discipline counts when you couldn't sleep all night because something happened with your kid.

You're worried sick. Your business is in the toilet and you're up at six o'clock in the morning. Nothing's going your way, yet you still have a 12-hour workday in front of you and you plow through it. That's discipline. It doesn't count when you feel like doing it. It only counts when you don't. And that's why, again, intentionality is so clutch because, again, it doesn't matter if you're doing it when it's easy. It only matters when you're doing it, when it's hard, when that, when the evil wolf is gnawing on your left foot and you've got to choose which wolf to feed, you still have to choose the good wolf. That's when it really counts. It doesn't count when they're both sleeping in the cage in the corner. Am I

taking the parable too far? If there's both sleeping in the corner and you just decide which one to sort of passively leave the food in front of, that's not discipline. And so it becomes harder as you go along and it becomes easier to rationalize. What are some of the tricks you use to push through in those moments of discipline? What are some of the ways that you've learned to, all right, here it is. It's the hard moment. The decision is difficult. How do you make the right decision? You know, it has to do with, and not is. It's the hard moment. The decision is difficult. How do you make the right decision? You know, it has to do with, and not that I always do the right decision, that's for sure, but it has to do with clarity of vision, which took me years and years and years,

even in my own business, to sort of get. And so if it comes down to something like, my girlfriend's mad at me, and my cat is scratching up the office chair and I don't have any food in the house and I'm really tired and I didn't sleep that well the night before and I could blow off a day's work, but I've got some stuff that I think is probably important and I know that I can sack up and do it. I will sack up and do it because I know it's going to take my company further, which is going to take me further, which is going to ensure my happiness and that of my family. And that's what's going to allow me to put food on the table, right? It's something that has to do with looking at the big

picture and sort of taking a moment, even when things aren't working out for you that well, taking a moment, stepping back and going, all right, yes, these are all little things, which is something that people say when I'm mad. I don't really know why they think that helps. But yes, they are all little things. But the truth of the matter is, in the big picture, if I just keep pressing forward, things are going to work out. I have tons of evidence in my life of that being the case. And all of these sort of crappy negative situations, and all of these sort of crappy negative situations, not only are they of my own making in some respect, which means I can fix them,

but they're always so temporary. They're never over right when you want them to be, but they never last as long as you think they're going to either. And having that clarity of vision, that's what sort of says, oh, this is like a blip on the radar. This is a zit. This isn't a hole in your face. It's a frigging zit. Just get over it. It'll be fine. And it always is. And if you're

really having trouble with that, think of all of the things that went wrong this month, last year, and you probably won't remember anything unless something catastrophic happened in October or whatever of the year before you're listening to this, there's a darn good chance you have no idea. But in the moment, it was the end of the world. And there's probably people who can't remember what went wrong last week that didn't go their way. And I'm one of those people. I certainly don't really know. Unless it's a big event, I have no idea. And if you think about that, then you'll realize that anything going on right now doesn't really matter. But all I know is that last year when the chips were down, I obviously did what I needed to do because I'm here right now. Yeah, that idea that what we were worrying about last year, last week is not important,

is so critical. And I've been doing a lot more of that lately, when I start to get stressed, just reminding myself, like, you know what, I've been in this spot 100 times. And every single time it worked out, I got through it, I'll figure it out. And being stressed about it is not going to help. It's not going to make the situation any better. And I think that so much of what we're talking about is perspective. It's about being able to take a different perspective. And we talk about that from time to time. And I think there's different ways you can take perspective. One is simply kind of what you're doing, which is like time. All right, let me look at this from a different time perspective, not the next five minutes or the next five hours. Let's look at it five days, five weeks, five years. I think anytime we reframe things in that way,

it gives us a very different picture of what we're looking at. You know, that's good. You're right. This is what I do. I use the time thing to sort of shift out. But if you're really good at abstraction in your own head, you can say, hmm, in the events scale, this is small.

And for me, it's always like in the moment, it's a big deal. You know, and I'm like, first world problems, my internet's slow or whatever. And I can't go, oh, first world problems. I'm like, God darn it, scream, right? I mean, maybe not that bad, but sometimes. But I have to look at it over a temporal type of thing because I can see the time.

I can really do the time thing. But yeah, I would say experiment. You know you know for example if you have a great memory you might be like oh man October 2013 that son of a bitch Chris Forbes he spilled my chicken all over the place I hate that guy you know and like yeah so the time thing might not work for you you know but if you can look at events in it sort of, or if you're really good at that, then you probably don't need my advice in this area anyway. But I would say, yeah, you're right. Shift the perspective around in any way that you can and look at it that way. I mean, I'm still the guy who's like, damn, I wasted $10 on that. And then I'll like accidentally

spend like $3,000 on something else that's for business. And I'm like, eh, win some, lose some. It's really weird. I'm fickle like that. It depends on a lot of other moods, but the time thing has consistently worked for me. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, Not Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I think so much of what we're talking about is mood. I always say, if you're counting on your

mood to help you make your decision, you're going to be in trouble, particularly if you have the kind of moods that I have or a lot of people have, because a mood is a terrible decision-making tool. That's for sure true. And yet it's the most powerful one that we have as long as we're counting emotions, quote-unquote, as mood, right? Because we know that we buy because of emotions. We know that we make most of our decisions in life based on emotion. But moods, as defined by maybe the fickle changes in the wind of your emotions,

yeah, that's a terrible way to make any, especially an important decision. Yep, yep. We had a guy very early on we talked to on the show, and he said something that really stuck with me, and he was like, you know, I start my week off by making a plan of what things are important, and come Thursday, when I'm debating what I should be doing with this time, I trust the old version of me that came up with the plan on Sunday, not the version of me that's tired or the version of me that's hungry. I go with what I, when I had a moment to collect myself and really think about what was important to me.

Yeah, that's a good idea too. That's what I want to do is I want to stick with that. Figure out, plan in advance, especially for big things that aren't going to shift with little changes in your environment or work week and keep think keeping things sacred. Right. Because if you, and I don't mean that in a way, I mean, like if you've got gym time, I've got a trainer that I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays right after this. In fact, I'm going to go see my trainer and I can't reschedule. You know, I can't do it at another time. It's on my work schedule. Nothing gets planned over it. My assistant knows not to do that. I don't plan dinners during this. I don't look for excuses around it. It's already

prepaid. Then I know that's an anchor. Like unless I've got swine flu or Ebola. I'm going to see that trainer, you know? And that's just the way it is. And so being able to do that and plan things around what's really, really important, which, you know, taking care of myself is up there, that is the type of thing that allows you to really stay disciplined. And also to make sure that you're not making emotional decisions.

If you ask me at any given point in time, do I want to go work out? The answer is probably no. But if it's on the calendar and it's in advance, the answer might be no, even as I'm walking into the gym to get punished by my trainer. It's still no when I'm working out, but when I'm done, I'm always glad that I did it.

That is always, always true. One of the things I heard you talk about, and I don't know where it was, whether it was on your show or somewhere you were being interviewed, but I wanted to talk about was, and it's one of my favorite themes, is this idea of comparing ourselves to others and what a losing battle that is. Can you share a little bit about your views on that? Yeah, this is something that's really hard not to do, especially for people who run businesses and who are competitive, because losing battle that is. Can you share a little bit about your views on that? Especially for people who run businesses and who are competitive because you see people that you know that your business

produces, say, a higher quality product than theirs. They're doing better than you. You see people who you know and you don't like. They're doing better than you. You see people that you judge as not being as good as you in some area doing better than you. You see people that you know are better than you in a lot of areas doing better than you, and it still makes you angry. And it's really easy to constantly compare yourself to others. And it's funny because

I get email from young entrepreneurs all the time that are like, well, you know, I'll be lucky if I ever get as good at this as you. And I'm thinking, why would that be lucky? I'm not naturally talented at this. I'm not that great at this. I don't have a lot of knowledge. I don't know how a lot of the technical things work. There's a lot that these young guys have on me and they're just not monetizing it

or whatever their issue is. And then I look at myself and I'm like, well, wait a minute. I do the same thing a lot of the time. I might look and be like, well, Tim Ferriss, X, Y, Z. I, that sucks. Meanwhile, it's like this guy has worked his butt off. He's done a lot, right? I'm sure he's tested a ton of stuff. He's got a great team around him. I mean, there's reasons he's doing well. And also there's reasons that you never really compare yourself. This is the thing. You never really compare yourself. And I'm using. You never really compare yourself.

And I'm using Tim as an example because everybody knows him and he's an easy guy to like or not like but unarguably has done a ton. Everybody compares an unduly harsh, critical version of themselves to a false ideal version of whatever they're comparing themselves to. So if I'm comparing myself to, I don't know, somebody with a huge, let's stick with the Tim Ferriss example. It's really easy for me to be like, wow, he's got more listeners than us.

And it's easy for somebody of even lower rank to go, Jordan, that guy, that show sucks. Why is art of charm so popular now? And it's really easy to look and say, well, you know, I'm never going to be that good because this guy's taller than me. He's smarter than me. He's got more friends than me. He's got more money than me or whatever. You can always find reasons that somebody else is doing better than you. And you can always unduly contrast that with something where you perceive yourself as failing. But you just have to bear in mind, everybody else is doing the same thing with you at the same time. And there is no absolute truth when it comes to it. And so if you realize that you're constantly comparing yourself, and you're not even really comparing yourself. You're comparing your worst traits as perceived by you, which most people don't even see, to someone else's best traits, again, as seen by you, that also is not objectively true and completely subjective.

So even if you are a good-for-nothing couch potato, you could still compare yourself to somebody who has done amazing things in their life. And if you really couch potato, you could still compare yourself to somebody who has done amazing things in their life. And if you really wanted to, you could find a ton of reasons why you're better at everything than that person. And vice versa. You know, you could really, it all comes down to what's inside your head.

It's all mindset. And so at that rate, why bother at all? Because it's going to be so subjective that it's never going to be useful. It's either going to inflate an ego that doesn't need to be there in a way that's unjustified, or it's going to beat yourself up. Why would you bother? It's never a real comparison. So that's why it's always a losing battle. Yeah, that's exactly right. The phrase I use sometimes is comparing your insides to somebody else's outsides, you know, how I feel

inside to how you look on the outside. And it's, it's a terrible idea. And, but it's one of those things I'm fascinated by right now, because we all know it's a terrible idea. And it is so hard not to do it. It's just it's wired into us to some extent. But I'm always curious how people, how people deal with that in their own life because i do think that not doing it is a real is one of the things that successful people to some extent learn how to get over they may that there may be some degree of competition that that pushes them but but i think comparison is not not the agenda right exactly so for example a winning mindset, in my opinion, is to, sticking with our previous example, look and go, wow, you know, Ted Ferris has a popular podcast and he's got popular books

and he's got a popular website. I can do all of that. You know, I can do everything that he's done. This is amazing. Look at the potential here. And he's teaching other people how to do it. So I can ask him questions and I might be able to get a response and get help with working on these things. That's incredible. And a loser mindset goes, oh man, I could never do all that. That's just, there's so much there. And I just don't have the potential in me to do that. And you know, he's so lucky. And so it really comes down to how you interpret the data, right? Again, which wolf are you feeding? And so for me, it's always really inspiring to see people really crushing it because I

know that I can get there because I have no evidence that says that I can't do it. Other than the evidence I might make up in my own head, which doesn't serve me at all. So I stopped. Well, exactly. And we have a tendency to compare ourselves. So I'm starting a blog and I compare my blog to Tim Ferriss's blog. Well, that's, that's insane, right? I just started and he's been doing it for how many years, right? And so that you're right. It's always this false comparison. All I can do is start where I'm at and do the best I can. And in five years, I will probably be in a, you know,

we, you will definitely be in a whole different spot if you keep doing it. But if we give up, because that gap looks so insurmountable, then it's, and it's easy to do, then we never make the progress we want to. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, we usually keep the show to around 30 minutes. So we're a little bit over but this has been a really fun conversation i'm glad we finally did it um any last words on the parable you want to you want to throw in before we wrap up you know i think it's just a matter of staying mindful of it a lot of people go how do i be more intentional which is kind of you know it's tough it's saying, remember to notice things.

It's impossible, right? But I think as long as you're paying attention to which wolf you're feeding, now that we know that if you're not feeding the good wolf, you're feeding the bad, I think it becomes a little easier. Because it's not just about making choices in the moment. All right, I have a choice here.

Is it the good wolf or the bad? You know you're feeding the bad when you're not feeding the good and that should not only help you stay more mindful but motivate you to do the right thing when it comes time. That's an excellent way to wrap up. Well, thanks so much for being on the show, Jordan. Thank you.

This was fun. All right, we'll talk again soon. you can learn more about Jordan Harbinger and this podcast at one you feed.net slash Jordan