The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Skyrocket Your Net Worth By Building an Amazing Network with Jordan Harbinger

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

92. How to Skyrocket Your Net Worth By Building an Amazing Network with Jordan Harbinger  Links:  Check out Jordan's Free 6-Minute Networking Course!  Listen to The Jordan Harbinger Show!  FREE GUIDES: ============== -Check out the free guide on where to put your money in what order!  https://www.mastermoney.co/stairway-to-wealth -Here is the free How to Ask for A Raise ebook! https://www.mastermoney.co/get-a-raise-ebook -Get Access to the 75 Day Challenge: https://www.mastermoney.co/75daychallenge  ============= We have a YOUTUBE channel! Check it out here!  Our Latest Videos:  5 Index Funds to Hold for Life!  What Would Happen If You Maxed Out Your Roth IRA By Age?! (These Results Will Amaze You!) How to Become a Millionaire With a Small Amount of Money (Is it Really This Easy!?) ============ Got questions? Ask me on Instagram Here. @mastermoneyco This is the fastest way to get in touch with me.  ============ Sponsors:  Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring the show! Check them out at betterhelp.com/pfp Thanks to Policygenius For Sponsoring the show! Check them out a Policygenius.com Thanks to Mint Mobile for supporting the show! Cut your phone bill to $15 a month by going to https://mintmobile.com/pfp Thanks to Ladder for Sponsoring the Show. Go to Ladderlife.com/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate for as little as $10 by going to fundrise.com/personalfinance Thank you to Hello Fresh for sponsoring the show! Go to Hello Fresh and use code PFP16 for 16 free meals and 3 free gifts.    ============   Want to Support the Show? Follow on Spotify or Follow and Leave a 5-Star Review on Apple Podcasts! ============ Today We Discuss:  How he does it in just 6 minutes per day.  The exact tools he uses to network.  How to take the awkwardness out of networking.  What skills you should focus on building.  How to negotiate your salary to increase your income.  How to build genuine relationships when networking.  Jordan's daily routines.  What wealth means to Jordan.  ============ Episodes Mentioned More Episodes You Will Love:  The Stairway to Wealth 2.0 (The Order You Should Put Your Money in!) How to Track Your Net Worth How to Set Money Goals You Will Actually Achieve How to Read a Book Per Week (My Unbelievably Simple System!) How To Prevent Lifestyle Creep (Lifestyle Inflation) ============ Check out all the Stuff I Recommend!  USEFUL RESOURCES: Best Place to Open a Roth IRA: https://m1finance.8bxp97.net/5vzD1 My Favorite Free Net Worth and Budget Tool: https://fxo.co/905L Best Online Bank: https://bit.ly/3ENRIDu Get a $10 Free Bonus with Acorns: https://bit.ly/3lV0LLE Best Bank and Debit Card for Kids: https://bit.ly/3pJeI09  Get $5 Free Bitcoin at Coinbase: https://bit.ly/3oIQOml Best Personal Finance Books: https://kit.co/MasterMoney/best-personal-finance-books  ============ DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser. This Podcast is for educational purposes only. Investing of any kind involves risk. While it is possible to minimize risk, your investments are solely your responsibility. It is imperative that you conduct your own research. I am sharing my opinion.  AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links on this channel are affiliate links, meaning, at NO additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase and/or subscribe. However, this does not impact my opinion. ============ Check us out on social fam!  Twitter Dollar After Dollar Instagram www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com www.dollarafterdollar.com www.mastermoney.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Chill But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray Countertop wipes and fly traps Hey fruit flies your baby boom ends here Save the Everyday with Amazon On this episode of the personal finance podcast, we're going to talk to Jordan Harbinger on how to become an incredible networker. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast.

I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.com. And today on the podcast, we're going to be talking to Jordan Harbinger about networking. If you have any questions about this episode, hit me up on Instagram at Master MoneyCo. That's Master Money CO. And follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast. And if you want to help out the show, leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to check us out on YouTube as well at Master Money on YouTube. So today, we're going to be talking to Jordan Harbinger, who is the host of the Jordan Harbinger show.

And if you don't know who Jordan Harbinger is, his show gets 11 million downloads. downloads per month and is one of the top 20 podcasts in the world. And he has interviewed people from Ray Dalio to Kobe Bryant, to Matthew McConaughey, to Mark Cuban, to Malcolm Gladwell, to Dennis Rodman, to Dwayne Wade, just to name a few. And today what we're going to be talking about is how he built up a business as large as his. And the way he did it was through networking. Now, you've heard me talk about networking on this podcast before because networking is one of the fastest ways to start to increase your income. The more people you know and the more people you surround yourself with

means the more opportunities that are in front of you. That goes for your career. That goes for your wealth building. That goes for everything in between. And we all have that one friend who seems to know everyone. And that one friend always seems to get the most opportunities. And the reason why is because typically that person has spent time networking. You always hear people talk about your net worth is in your network.

And that's extremely important to understand. So today, Jordan is going to teach us exactly how he built up this amazing network. Because you can't interview people like Mark Cuban or Matthew McConaughey or Malcolm Gladwell or Kobe Brian or Ray Dalio if you don't have an amazing network. And he's going to talk about how he did it in just six minutes a day. And he's going to talk about the exact tools he uses in his network and how to take the awkward out of networking. And one other thing we wanted to focus on was what skills you should focus on building when you're trying to build out this network. work. And we even go into how to negotiate your salary and influence and how to build genuine relationships when networking. And then finally we dive into his daily routines and of course

what wealth means to Jordan. So this show is jam packed with information that you can use today, that you can use right away to start furthering your path towards wealth and increasing your surrounding network. So if that's something you're interested in, let's get into it. So Jordan, welcome to the personal finance podcast. Hey, thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it. So you are the networking and relationship guy. So I wanted to dive into your story and tell us about yourself and your background and what you do now. Yeah, so my background is I used to be a Wall Street attorney.

And this is like 2007, 2008 is when I stopped. So used to is kind of like a really, really long time ago. Finance attorney, you know, not a guy you'd want to hire for like a lawsuit or anything. But I've quickly realized I was in over my head. And, you know, 2020 hindsight, or I should say 2022 hindsight, dad joke of the year, I think, by the way. I'm going to say that I had imposter syndrome where I was really convinced that I was kind of like the lowest guy on the ladder. You know, of course I was a junior associate, but I thought everyone else is pretty smart. You know, and they stay focused more and they're better able to pay attention.

This doesn't bode well for me at this firm. Like, I know I got hired because it's a hot market. I know I kind of squeaked by the interview process because I didn't even sign up to, get interviewed by that firm. You're supposed to sign up for interviews at Umish law. You are supposed to, and this does dovetail into networking, you were supposed to sign up on this sheet. Well, what I did was I went, screw that, I'm just going to hang out in Europe all summer. So instead of planning for interviews, I hung out in Europe all summer. And then I came back and my friend goes, oh, are you going to on campus interviews tomorrow? And I went, oh, is that tomorrow? And he's like,

dude, are you kidding? Yes. And it was way too late to sign up for interviews, but I was like, if I'm on campus, I'm not just going to sit around downloading movies. Like, I'll feel really dumb if I miss OCI and I'm not abroad. You know, I thought, oh, I missed all the stress. No, I was like right there. So I drove up there and I'm walking around. You know, you can't just walk into whatever interview room you want. There's a list.

So I just put a word out and I go, hey, if anybody knows shows, I'm ready. Here's my phone number. And I had a cell phone. So they were like, okay, great, because they want to fill in these New York law firms. They want to fill in as many interviews as they can. So a couple people walked by that I knew and they were like, hey, you know, go say hi to Jeremy. He's in room 432 with his firm. So I was like, whatever, go say hi.

Okay. So I walk in there and he go, Jordan, give me your resume. And so I gave him my CV. And he goes, can you do an interview right now? And I was like, I guess. I don't even know that what's your firm called? Like I'm looking at the placard on the door, you know, very unprepared. And he goes, don't worry about it.

You know, the dude who is supposed to be here finished early, we're doing lunch. just do it right now because they get like a Rolex if they refer you and you get hired. So I was like, all right, well, cool, whatever, he's my friend anyway. So I do the interview while this dude is eating like a subway sandwich in, granted, these are little hotel rooms. It's fine. It's a little unprofessional, but also like, I'm the unprofessional one. I didn't even sign up for the interview in the first place.

He's like, don't mind me if I eat. He's like, so you know Jeremy, huh? Yeah, we used to hang out back when I was an undergrad. Cool. Oh, well, yeah, do you want to work in New York? Yeah, New York's awesome. All right. What do you like about our firm?

Hey, man, I literally didn't even know about your firm until I watch. walked in here and he goes, oh, that's right, you didn't sign up. So that was a huge advantage, right? No prep needed. I'm not supposed to be here. So I was like, yeah, I don't know. And he goes, you know what, cool, thank you. And I thought, I know what it feels like to do really well in an interview. And I know what it feels like to not do really well in an interview. I'm pretty sure this dude's just being polite. Before I even left the hotel that day, they were like, we're flying you out to New York for round two. Because round one was make sure you're not a psycho and have decent enough grades to not completely be hopeless by the time you get to New York.

That's the bar. Okay. And hire as many people as have a pulse that will work for us is also that was the market then. So the lesson here is you create opportunity for yourself sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. But the more open you are to opportunities like networking, for example, the better off you're going to be. Because I could have schmoozed every New York firm that I could find and I might not have

ended up with that same job. The reason I got that job was because a friend of mine said that another friend of mine was in a room. And when I showed up, there was nobody else there doing an interview because it was a lunch period. So like that sort of social connection got me at least my foot in the door and then my round two interviews did the rest. And that's kind of a big deal. And people hear that and they go, oh, serendipity, you're really lucky. There is an element of luck. I'm not going to front like there isn't.

But the truth is the element of luck was secondary to me following through on those networking. connections, which at the time, I didn't even think about networking. I was like, networking's for old people. It sounds boring. Cocktail mixers sound like a nightmare. That's what I thought networking was. You know, call me when you need a used car. You know, like that guy. I don't want to be that guy. But this was go say hi to Jeremy, translation. Jeremy's here recruiting. So I go say hi to Jeremy. Jeremy says, oh good, a guy that I know isn't going to embarrass me if he works here and make me look bad. Cool. That's already... I'm one. foot in the door with a major Wall Street law firm at that point for literally showing up and not

being a weirdo. Okay. That's great. And there are lots of opportunities like that in the world where you want to hire someone for a director or a junior associate whatever position at a company and you go, we really need one. And it's between a guy who looks qualified on paper and a guy that looks, qualified-ish on paper, but you know isn't going to drive you insane working together for eight hours, 12 hours a day, you're picking the guy who you like, period. So the more opportunities like that that you can create for yourself and be open to, that's really how you end up getting better offers in your life. And we can dive more into this, but that's my sort of origin story.

Because that was when I went to Wall Street and worked there, it was kind of like, oh, that was really lucky. And then I was like, wait a minute. What if there's more luck like this even inside my career and I just have to look for it? And I remember talking with partners and being like, how does this firm get business? Oh, yeah, just be cool and like keep in touch with people. And I was like, okay, just be cool. I'm in law school.

If I could have just been cool, we would not be having this conversation. Just be cool has been non-actionable advice for me since first freaking grade, okay? I need something more. So the networking stuff was really where I was like, oh, if I'm not the smartest guy in the room and I think maybe I'm going to get canned because I slid in here by the skin of my teeth, my survival technique is going to be having people knowing me, liking me, trusting me, that might get me not fired for enough years to figure out which end is up and then maybe I have a career in law.

That was my whole logic. That was my whole rationale at that point. And I can't imagine walking into an interview without having any preparation. That's probably a pretty cool experience though because, you know, any interview beyond that can't go any worse than preparation-wise. Right. And I had an excuse. I didn't just walk in like, I'm cocky,

me a job. I walked in like, hey, you weren't expecting me to take this slot. I wasn't expecting to take this slot. All I know is Jeremy says he likes it here. He told me that in front of you 20 seconds ago, and you're in New York, and that is all I got. Oh, yeah, you want to do real estate finance? Sounds fascinating. Okay, come on over to New York next week for round twos. I mean, that's the process. The market's not always like that, but it's not too far from that, depending on the industry and the market that you're in and how badly they need someone. Absolutely. And to show the audience, if you guys don't know who Jordan is, Jordan has created this amazing network. And just to put into perspective, he's interviewed people from Ray Dalio to Kobe Bryant to Matthew McConaughey, Mark Cuban, Malcolm Gladwell, Dennis Rodman, just to name a few. And so today we're going to be talking about how to build a network like that, how Jordan built up these networking skills. And Jordan, I hear people say all the time, your net worth is in your network. And I see that being true in a lot of ways. Have you seen that to be true in your own life? I have. I mean, I kind of hate things that rhyme that are slogan-ish because they're often used in fake businesses like multi-level marketing or scams where they go, only losers quit and only quitters lose. You're not a loser or quitter, are you? And it's like, well, that sounds clever, but no, many successful people quit things really fast, especially if they realize it's a freaking scam, you know? So, like, I don't usually like stuff like that. But, yeah, your network in many ways can healthily contribute to your net worth. And I will say this.

I don't know anyone at the top of anything who doesn't have a great network and that network helped them get there. I will say with cryptocurrency and stuff like that, now there's some sort of exceptions to that. Like, I don't know if you know about Ethereum or whatever, but I don't think Vitalik Buterin had like a great network before. He's a brilliant genius that invented something that like the top 0.001% of humanity can even wrap their mind around the math involved. So he's an outrageous talent of the likes of Beyonce when it comes to mathematics and cryptocurrency. So yes, there are exceptions. Try not to worry about those when you think on the whole about a concept in general. So yeah, I don't know that many people who have made it really far in life, whether it's business, politics, even sports,

who don't just have a really good network in place beforehand. It's really easy to make a mistake in analysis of successful people where you go, well, they built a network after they got to the top. That's what I thought. I thought, oh, of course law partners all know each other. They're all law partners on Wall Street. They probably go to like the same country club. And to an extent, there are opportunities like that that are true.

But really, those people had a network in place on the way up, and the network pulled them up. You know, if you look at somebody like Shaquille O'Neal, a lot of people knew who he was because he was an outstanding talent as a young basketball player. And I don't know crap about the NBA, so correct me if I screw this up. But he didn't go, oh, yeah, the thing is my uncle's the coach of the bulls, so he's going to draft me. That's not how that works. So he ended up having to work his way to the top, and he ended up with a network on the way down. And now that he's famous, we know that.

So everybody like me will look at that and go, yeah, you just get really good at your job or you get famous, and then your network spans down from there. That's an exception to a process. That's an exception to a rule. Usually your network is in place beforehand, and it gets you the opportunity to be on a specific project that takes off inside a company that gets you in front of the C-suite. That then gets you working with them on more important projects as well. And it's true in the military. It's true in corporations. It's true in most every industry.

Unfortunately, it's only marginally true in some of the industries that we pay the most attention to, like sports and things like that. But when you look at the meta of an entertainment industry, that's all about relationships. You think the people you see in films are the most talented people in America. Some are somewhere in the right place at the right time. A lot of them worked really hard. A lot of them made a ton of connections over a long period of time. And those people got a chance based on whatever luck, talent, something else, and put on their friends. Like it's something like Saturday Night Live.

Those guys all knew each other in the comedy scene. Then they networked with each other. They pull each other in all the time. And when one of them makes a movie, the cast is half S&L people, right? So there's a reason for that. And it's because comedians and people in those entertainment industry type things, they really know the value of a network because they would not have any career of any kind without one. Exactly. Every single wealthy person I know, every single person

who owns a business or whether they're a big real estate investor, whatever it is, they have a huge network. So if someone wanted to get on this path, they wanted to start building wealth, and you drop someone into a middle of a city with zero network whatsoever, what would you do to start building that network? So a lot of people will ask me questions similar to this, and it's a good question it's a fair question but really in a way it sort of presupposes the wrong thing like okay i'm moving to a new town how do i meet people in that new town where do i go great yeah if there's a real estate meetup.com group where everybody's sort of successful then fine show up a personal rule of mine is don't go to anything that's not curated and what i mean is if i get invited to a

conference and let's say i'm not a speaker at that conference i get invited to a conference and i go oh great what kind of people are going to be there and they're like uh anybody with four $400 to buy a ticket is going to be there. And I go, no, thanks, I'm good. But if it's, this is the top 100 people that we know that are in digital media entertainment or whatever it is. And they're all going. And that's why we're inviting you because you have the 20th most downloaded podcast

in the United States or whatever. Great. Okay. Then there's probably going to be other hitters there that make sense for me to go. But other than that, it's not where you go and it's not what you do at that point. that it's external, I would say you start internally. What I mean by that is this is an exercise called layoff lifelines. Imagine that you get laid off, your business goes bust, whatever collapses tomorrow.

Who are the 10 to 15 people that you would call for advice? Yeah, okay, maybe your parents. But like, aside from the really low-hanging fruits, make that list right now. And the reason I say 15 is because the first five are like, my brother, my cousin, my uncle, my dad. Once those are gone, the next 10, it's like, oh, man. Well, when I was growing up, my best friend's dad, he was a successful business owner. He did something with commodities.

I don't even know what that is. I'd probably call him. He was really smart. My old boss that I haven't talked to in five years. My college guidance counselor, he was really well connected and he runs the alumni association. Those are the people that you want to reach out to. So you make that list of people that you'd reach out to, like in the case of a catastrophe, reach out to them now while you don't have an agenda.

Because if you do, if anybody's ever had to search for a job when they're unemployed, it's hard. You reach out and you go, hey, Andrew, and you go, dude, Jordan, I haven't talked to you for like three years. What's up? And I go, hey, man, I'm good. Wow, really raining out a lot. Do you have a job that I can have? I'm broke and my kids are going to be homeless in a week. And you're like, whoa, I'll keep my ear to the ground for you.

Sorry to hear about your difficult situation, man. I got to run. I got to go put gas in my hair, you know, whatever it is. Like, you're just running for the hills because even if you had a job in your own company right then that you desperately needed to fill, it's like, well, I haven't talked to you in three years. Why are you unemployed? Do I know you anymore? I'm just going to put this on monster.com and see who applies. You know, you're not going to call me in unless you're really trusting and you still remember me really fondly. Maybe we were best friends in college or something. But other than that, it's not going to happen.

But let's say that I've been in touch with you once every six to eight months, 10 months, 12 months. And then in two years, I call you and go, hey, man, my update now is not so good. I actually have lost my job and I have been looking and I don't know anything. You go, you know what, I'm going to put my ear to the ground. I also know a couple people who might be hiring. I know you're good at this, this, and this because we talked once, twice a year for the last three years. You know that I'm not a crazy person. You know that I'm not a useless bag of whatever.

And you kind of have a feel for me. You're going to go to bat for me a lot more. And it's not going to be that. So you only called me because you need a job, but you don't really care about this relationship. Otherwise, it's going to be, yeah, you obviously cared about this relationship before. You weren't planning to get fired three years ago when we first got. back in touch. So there's a little bit more of a desire to help because now you know I value the relationship and I'm not just trying to get something from you. Yes, it's out of sight, out of mind

when it comes to networking. Like, of course you're not going to just call everybody you know randomly and keep in touch all the time. But it doesn't feel good to be reached out to by someone and then they butter you up for half an hour and then they go, so the thing is I have a great opportunity selling protein vegetable shakes and you're like, damn it. So then you think the first half an hour was all just them buttering you up and you actually resent them for wasting your time because you realize this person never cared about me they're trying to get me to sell freaking you know herbal life or whatever so you want to make damn sure that you don't come across that way and the way that you do that is to reach out to people now with no agenda other than reconnecting and then later on

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Just go to Indeed.com slash personal finance right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash personal finance. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring. Indeed is all you need. Absolutely. And I think that is, I've heard you talk about this a bunch of times in the past where it's giving first before you do anything else in networking. It's giving to people first before you actually, you know, are asking for something. There's always giving, giving, giving, ahead of time. It's dig the well before you're thirsty. Look, I'd love to be able to give to everybody in my network and we can talk about that in a second. But sometimes it's just, hey, I keep in touch with you every, like I said, once a

year just to see how you're doing. Could be a quick email. Could be like, oh, yeah, you're working on this. I actually know somebody. This happens all the time. Here's a real example. I reach out to somebody every single day. I call it Connect 4 because I reach out to like four people every morning via text that I haven't talked to in a long time. And some of them are in a CRM that I use, but others of them are just at the bottom of my phone, right? So if you open up the text app and you scroll all the way to the bottom. Those are those dead conversations where it's like, oh yeah, that's a guy who I've had lunch with at a financial conference in 2015 and I've never kept in touch with them. I'll send them a script and the script is in the course. I don't know if we're let me plug it later, but we can.

It's a free thing anyway. Absolutely. But in six minute networking. So the script is basically just like, hey, Andrew, we met in 2016 at FinCon. We had lunch at Cafe Gratitude. I never really saved your number or kept in touch or I never kept in touch I've since had two kids I'm growing the Jordan Harbinger show now I live in San Jose I don't know where you're at now shoot me an update no rush I know you're busy would love to hear from you that's a really low pressure situation right and so I do that four times a day usually only during the week and I get like three to four responses sometimes too and those people and I have a very brief conversation with I be like yeah dude oh my gosh yeah I

remember you it's funny you should send me this text Three months ago, somebody told me about your Kobe Bryant interview and I downloaded it. It's really good. I really liked it. You're doing cool stuff. I'm in San Diego still doing real estate. Here's my new house. I also had a kid.

That's enough, okay, for six months to a year. You're not trying to be best friends. You don't have to go out and have a lunch date with every single person that you're connecting to. Those relationships might be deeper and better. But all you're trying to do is stay top of mind with as many people as possible and give them a decent impression of you and also see where you can help them. Another real example would be, yeah, thanks for sending me his text. I just checked out your website because I was curious what

you were up to. It looks really good. I need a new website. Who's your web designer? And I'll refer my web designer out to people all the time. And so my web designer loves me because he's like, man, I've made like $50,000 in clients from you over the past six months. You know, here's a bunch of chocolate for Christmas. And anytime anything is on my website, he's like, we're fixing it on the house, don't even think about it, right? I'm like, how much? No, don't even think about it. So my web designer loves me and all these people who needed websites are like, Greg is amazing. I really love my site. I can't believe how affordable it was. You're awesome. So I get a bunch of cred, social capital from the guy I referred to and the guy I referred. And all I did was connect

people a need to a need meter, right, to somebody you can provide, a need to a provider. So that is major social capital that is very scalable. You know, a lot of people, when they're networking, they worry, I don't have time to help other people for free. I'm busy making my own business. I'm not asking you to design someone's website for free. I'm not going to give someone free podcast consulting for three hours a day. What I will do is connect them to somebody who can edit their show for them with my producer, give them a new website, my web designer. Like that stuff, I could do that a hundred times a week before it even starts to take a dent out of my productive work week time.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, connecting people like that is a way to make it authentic. Because I think what you really want to do when you're doing this is you want to systematize it. And I know that's a word that people think is not authentic when you talk about systematizing something. But I think that that is a way that you can actually systematize it and make it authentic, making those connections. Yeah, the systematizing is an interesting word, right? because when people think about that, it depends. If they have systems for a lot of stuff,

like if it's for me, I'm like, oh, I want to systemize everything, right? Oh, you have systems for this and for that? Yeah, I want systems. What a lot of people think is, they think you mean automate. And that's very different. Something should be automated.

If somebody adds me on LinkedIn, I'll call it automation because it's a virtual assistant. That sends them an opening message to make sure that they're not going to reply with some nonsense and it's a bot. But as soon as they turn out to be real, I take over the conversation and I connect with them on LinkedIn

like a normal human person. But where a lot of people, get confused is they'll go oh well you're using a CRM to keep in touch with people that's ridiculous I can remember if someone's important in my life and I go once the last time you talk to your mom when's the last time you talk to your grandma or your uncle or your cousin oh yeah it's been a while well why you're literally related to them imagine somebody who you had a really good interview with six months ago you're never reaching out to that person again you're reaching

out when you need something which doesn't work dig the well before you get thirsty I don't have to remember everyone So I have a couple of layers for systems. Let's say I'm on Instagram and I see that you just got a new dog. I'll go like, oh, hey, Andrew, cool new dog. Have fun with it. It's going to be peeing in your house for a month, whatever. I'll send you that as an email or a text or something like that because if I just comment,

I'm just another commenter on IG, right? But if I DM you or send you an email or a text, you're more likely to see it start a conversation. I call it above the fold where instead of like below the fold where like if someone clicks like a photo. I never know who they are. If they comment and there's 300 other people there, I'm not not going to even notice. They DM me, they text me, they email me, that's very different and I'll notice. So you want that sort of above the fold comms, but also that's a system. The algorithm of Instagram has said, hey, an important event happened in Andrew's life. You should maybe react to it in some way that's interesting. Another system that I have

is the CRM. So it'll just pop up and go, it's been 90 days or it's been 180 days since you emailed this person. And I'll reach out to them and go, hey, been a long time. Are you still working at Rogers and Cowan publicity? Are you still in L.A.? A lot of people escape the city because of the pandemic. Let me know where you landed. And of course, if you have any clients that are fit for the Jordan Harbinger show, let me know. And that's how I get stuff like, oh, hey, I don't suppose next week you could fly down here and interview Kobe Bryant, could you? And it's like, yes, I could. And I'm really glad I checked in to see if you were still alive, because that was huge. You know, that kind of thing is actually a really, really big deal.

And it happens all the time that's serendipitous stuff. So there's systems there that are not inauthentic. Is it inauthentic that I wouldn't have thought of a random publicist that I talked with once six months ago? That's what normal people are like. I don't have a Rolodex in my head like that. But if something reminds me of somebody, look, another system, and I put that in quotes, if I drive by a bakery and it's like, Giancola's bakery, I'll be like, oh, I wonder what Andrew Giancola is doing, right?

I will use that as a trigger, send you a quick email and be like, what's up, man? And nobody has to know that that's why you popped into my head. And even if they did, no, who cares? Really, who cares? You're competing with people who don't keep in touch at all. And also, remember, I'm not reaching out and going, can you have me on your show again? I just saw a bakery with your name on it. All I'm doing is checking in and secondarily seeing if there's something I can help you with.

And if there's nothing, I leave it there and I move on with my life. And if you do that with a hundred people a month or whatever, and again, it takes like four minutes a day, that's a ton of people who you're thinking about, you're checking in with, you're helping. And also the other side of this coin is now your top of mind. So if you're in a place where you want deal flow for real estate or VC, or in my case, like speaking gigs or advisor stuff, I'll get a text from somebody that I haven't talked to in three or four months. And they'll go, hey, do you still speak on stages? And I'll go, yeah.

And they'll go, great. I'm walking into a sales meeting right now. we need a keynote, you were top of mind because of our conversation a few weeks ago. Great. Now I've got a $15,000 speaking gig at an event from a guy who I'd talk to once a year, but I'm still a little bit top of mind because of our recent-ish interaction. But remember, on top of mind for like a thousand people a year or 500 or whatever my scale is, that's a lot of folks.

So you don't have to pick the people that can help you that you know about because you don't even know who those people are and neither do they. So the trick is kind of playing the numbers game. There's nothing in my opinion that's inauthentic about it at all. Inauthentic is reaching out when you need something and then being like, hey, dude, can you hire me? That's inauthentic because now you're pretending you give a crap about them when you don't. Exactly. And I think that is so cool because I have a friend, for example, who reaches out and does the same type of system where I can tell it's from a CRM,

but it doesn't feel inauthentic just because it's a conversation. And I actually enjoy having that conversation with them every time he reaches out. He's a very successful person because of that, because he reaches out. reaches out. And people can see this as you listen to Jordan here. It doesn't take a lot of time. I mean, he's texting four people every single day. And it doesn't take a ton of time to be able to do this. Now, for tools, besides just using something like triggering your memory on Instagram or something like that, is there a specific CRM that you can recommend to people? Or is there anything that you use tool-wise? Yeah. So I use Connection Fox and Full Disclosure. I actually own that company with

another couple of people. And the reason I built that was because if you want to get like, I don't know if you use sales force if you want that you're paying like the minimum installs like $16,000 a year and it connects with like payment process there's just it's way more than you would need and even sort of low end CRMs that have free levels they don't really do what I want them to do and I don't want to configure like Zoho to keep track of 800 people in my life I just don't right you know or 1200 or whatever your amount is I use connection Fox and it just says hey it's been this long since you've texted this person, it's been this long since you've emailed this person. And boom, done. And there's all kinds of improvements there. And the other reason I like it,

and I'm comfortable recommending it, not just because I own it, obviously, but the reason is because we don't sell your data. And what I found with a lot of these CRMs is they can't freaking wait to sell your data. And the data of the people that you put in there that aren't even like opting in. You know, they want everyone's data. And I'm like, no, this is for me to keep in touch with friends, family, and business contacts, not for you to spam people to sign up. So we don't do any of that and we're pretty serious about data privacy. So connectionfox.com is where you can find it. Also, there's like a free tier, which a lot of these CRMs do not have.

So I use that to keep in touch. It's purpose built for this and we're still improving the crap out of it all the time. So I use that, but also the best CRM really is going to be, or the other best CRM, I should say, is going to the bottom of your texts. you can archive the ex-girlfriends or whatever in the boss that threw a beer can at your head at the last Christmas party before you quit. You can skip those folks. But I would not skip most other people.

Because I'll get people that say, oh, this person, we weren't really that close. And I'm like, good. That's exactly the type of sort of weak and dormant tie that you should be reconnecting with. Yeah, he was three cubicles down at your last company and you barely talk to him. Good. Where is he now? What is he or she doing?

and maybe now is the time to reconnect because remember you're not asking for anything so as soon as they get over their initial suspicion and then you contact them again six months later six months later now you have a loose acquaintance and then if they need something you can help them and if you need something they can help you and that is a powerful kind of army to have

once you start stacking these people on top of each other once you get to like hundreds of these people you're never going to have a lack of opportunity because there's going to be more coming at you that you can really deal with and every sales guy knows this but people who aren't in sales, they don't really think about any of this. And even people that are in sales,

they rarely think about using their personal network and their professional network the same way that they use and keep in touch with sales leads because it's almost like a different compartment in your brain. When I was in sales, I was like, this is so great, I'm getting really good at this. And then it was like, why don't I apply this

to my personal life again? Oh yeah, I just never thought about it because I'm not trying to sell anything to my second cousin. But once I was like, wait, it's not about me. It's about me helping them and get what they want. Then it was like, well, now I have a lot more people that it makes sense to contact. Absolutely.

That's amazing. And I'll link Connection Fox down in the show notes as well because that's something I'm going to definitely look into as well. Because for me, I use a spreadsheet and it gets clunky. That gets clunky fast too. It does. You know, 50, 100 people, no problem. Use Google sheets.

300, 400 people, you're sorting that damn thing every time you're using it. It's like, and then forget about it if you're at 1,000. It's just like you can't even keep track of anything. Exactly. It's a huge pain in the butt. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction.

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and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out-of-office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. I've heard you say that networking is a skill that's teachable and learnable. So how do you become the person that people know like and trust? And what social skills would you

work on to build up that talent stack? Yeah. So when I first started, I was really concerned because I thought like, oh, one, you know, I mentioned this earlier, I don't want to be the guy who throws business cards in people's faces and is like, call me when you want to invest your retirement fund. Like those people suck. That's why we think networking is obnoxious because of people that are obnoxious doing it. It's just like sales. You say, oh, I hate salespeople.

But that's because the guy you remember the most was the stupid, annoying car guy who was like, oh, I only got one left. Oh, I can't come down on the price. Oh, she's really great. Oh, yeah, it's slightly good. Those people, you can't stand. You don't remember the person

that sold you something you really like because it didn't even feel like a sale. They just pointed you gently in the right direction, gave you a couple of options. You think you made a choice, but they guided you nicely into buying one of those things from them. And then they kept in touch with you after the sale

to make sure you were happy with it. So you're like, no, he's just a great guy. Well, he's a really good salesman. He didn't pull one over on you. And so a lot of us equate sales with being able to persuade or pull one over on someone else when really good sales is relationship-based

and is also a more collaborative process. And so I was at first, really concerned because I thought I don't have natural charisma and outgo. I can't walk into a room and be like, yeah, Jordan Harbinger here, double gun finger wink, you know, I can't do that and I won't do that and I don't want to do that. So it really, when I say it's a teachable, learnable skill, what I mean is the systems come first. Most of it can be done on your phone or online. Yes, in person relationships are better, but you don't have to be Tony Freakin Robbins in the room to get people to know like and trust you in person.

You just have to not screw up your existing relationships. Yes, people who are really good, extroverted folks might shine more at a mixer or another event that you think is for networking. Fine. Those are once every three months. You can network every single day from your phone and you don't have to be an extrovert.

You don't have to be charismatic. You don't have to be attractive. You don't have to be funny or interest. You really don't have to have those things. you have to be willing to help other people get what they want and willing to converse with people. It's a lot easier than I thought. I would like try and just sack up and be like, all right, I'm going to go out there and do it. It's like approaching a girl at a bar or something in my 20s.

It was like, okay, I need three shots of Jack Daniels. I need to slap myself in the face, do 10 jumping jacks in the bathroom, and then like tie my shoes up really tight and then I'm going in. You know, that's what I thought networking was. I didn't realize it was just reach out to somebody who you lost touch with from a decade ago and see if they're still kicking and where they're working. Like, really, that's it. That's fantastic too, because I think I'm actually naturally, I'm an introvert and sometimes it can just feel super awkward networking, especially if you're face-to-face with someone. Is there any other tips that you have to take the awkward out of networking?

I know a lot of it can be digital and that's a much less awkward, but if you're face-to-face with somebody, is there something to take the awkward out of networking? Yes, here's a trick. You're trying to figure out what you can do for them, not what you're trying to get for yourself. That maybe comes later, but maybe it doesn't come at all. So I was going to make a tasteless joke, but I decided not to. So what you do in that case is it's a lot less pressure to ask how you can do something for someone and figure out what they're doing. Like, oh, yeah, you know, right now I'm working on this cannabis dispensary business and, oh, okay, cool. Well, let me know if you need a really good web designer.

I just read it. My website is really good. I'm happy to refer you. You probably got this handled. Actually, no, our web designer's been flaky as hell. Or, yeah, I think we're good, but I'll call you. you're just helping them. It's awkward to go, hey, so what are you doing? Great, you want to be on my podcast?

Or, hey, do you want to teach a free hour of consulting to my class that I'm teaching online? Like, that's awkward because you're asking for something. It's very rarely awkward to offer to someone else. And so that, I think, takes a lot of the pressure off socially. The other trick, though, sort of half measure, because a lot of people will go, okay, I get it. I help other people a lot. but I just, when it comes to asking for something, I just feel weird about it.

Congratulations, you're probably not an asshole because you are afraid to ask people to do something for you. Not that only A-Holes do that, but a lot of A-Holes only do that. Does that make sense? Exactly, yep. A lot of people are like, I don't want to be mixed in with the takers,

so I'm just never going to ask for anything and just praise someone offers. That's not a good strategy either. You're ignoring the other half of the equation. I will often ask for help. But I understand in the beginning, it can be kind of tricky. So here's a little hack. The first few times you're asking somebody to help you with something, don't ask for something that you want. Ask for something on behalf of someone else

because I do this all the time. In fact, this is, again, what I mentioned before. Maybe I don't need a new website, but somebody else does. So now I'm asking my web designer to contact that person and that person to contact the web designer. That's a different kind of referral. I don't need anything, right? I just want to help that person and that person. So when I'm asking for something sort of for myself, If I'm doing this in the beginning and I just want to shake the rust off, maybe my mom is the person who needs help with something. She's got a heavy thing in the basement. I'm asking somebody who lives near my parents in Michigan to help her get that. She's 80.

She can't do it. Would you mind one day just stopping by? I know I live close to you. Or they live close to you. Just grab that stupid chair out of the basement so my mom doesn't break her neck taking it up the stairs, please. And that's really easy because who wouldn't want to ask for help for their parents, a neighbor, a friend of theirs, a kid who they know who's in. college, their little cousin, their little brother. It's so much easier to ask on behalf of someone you care about than it is to ask for someone to help you with something that you personally need.

For some of us, that's the case. And now I have no problem asking for help myself, but in the beginning I was like that. I was like, I'm not going to ask anybody for anything. I don't want to look like somebody who needs help or like that wants to take from other people. So if you need to do that little hack in the beginning, go for it. And then you'll find that people are really happy to help you with things. And then it's like, well, okay, if that was that easy for that person, maybe I can ask about how to do a better interview at this person's company. Or maybe I can ask them advice on getting ahead in their industry, whatever it is. It starts to get a lot easier when you have practice. But a lot of people kind of need that nudge. They need a little bit of a

push off the ledge. That makes complete sense. Because for me, it's always about getting reps in. And once you get those reps in, it becomes so much more comfortable. And I think one of those things to build that confidence is to figure out what skills you need to kind of build up. And I know you're a huge fan of how to win friends and influence people. It's a book I recommend all the time to people. What lessons did you draw from that book that helped you in your everyday life? You know, I would say it's kind of hard for me to remember everything in that book, but some of the basic ones that are clichés now for a good reason are like, and I get confused now as is Dale Carnegie or is it like Brian Tracy or some other like Zig Ziglar guy. You know,

I used to be like super into the self-help stuff like 10 years ago. Helping other people get what they want and be interested in other people is the key to being interesting. So I've got a little bit of a distaste for, it's so unfortunate because Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People is such a good book for a lot of folks. But the guy himself was such a sheister. And it's just like, it's hard to get away from that. You know, he's sort of into like the equivalent of like MLM back in the day.

And it's just sort of sex. But a lot of those tips about being interested in other people and that's how you be interesting yourself. Like those kinds of things have really helped. People used to go, what do I say? How do I impress people or like get people to like me or think that I'm great? None of that crap matters. The key is to elicit what people need and help them get it. Or if they're talking about a project they're stoked about, just ask questions about it. People will love talking to you. There's an old quote about, I'm going to butcher this. It's like Buckminster Fuller or, you know, Benjamin Disraeli or one of these guys. And there's a woman who says this,

anecdote about him and it says when I first went out with Lord so-and-so, I thought he was the most interesting man in all of Britain. And then I went out with Benjamin Disraeli and I thought I was the most interesting person in all of Britain. What she's saying is, man, this guy's charisma is not about regaling me with stories and swashbuckling in the high seas or whatever, all the amazing things this guy's done like that Lord did. The key was making her feel like what she did was really interesting to someone else. And that made her feel really good. So that's a concept that I take with me. And unfortunately, it's a concept that gets used by con artists all the time. So a lot of people are going to be on their guard, which I think is one of the best reasons

to dig the well before you get thirsty, because you can be interested in other people and they will think you're really great. But if you follow up by asking them for something, they're going to be like, ah, so that whole thing was a bunch of nonsense BS. I had to butter me up. If you are interested in them for a sustained longer period of time, that's when the magic starts to happen. Absolutely. And when you start to dig that well before you're thirsty, you start to surround yourself with people who you need to be around. And I've heard your interview with Ben Hardy, where you guys talked about the environment and the people you surround yourself with and how that can impact your success rate. How can networking level up your career in person's development by surrounding

yourself with the right people? So you're right. I think, you know, that quote, you're the average of the people you spend the most time with or whatever. That starts to be really true. As I get I find it to be really true. However, you don't have to be physically present anymore. You used to really have to. I mean, when else are you going to hear a speech by someone? Maybe on the radio. Now we've got podcasts and we've got all kinds of digital engagement. It's not a replacement for social engagement in real life, but it really is when you start learning from the habits of what people are doing and people are pretty intimate in like the podcast realm. I mean, people who listen to my show, they'll go, I feel like I know you and I'm like, you definitely do know me better

than most of my friends. You've listened to 300 hours of me talking with someone else. You know me really, really well. So that's valid. Those relationships, I think they're called like parosocial relationships. I may be butchering that or getting that wrong. I think those are real and they help. So reaching out to those weekend dormanty is great.

Going to events that are curated. If you can't get into one, look for one and try, apply. That does work really well. helping other people that are really, I guess you'd say winning at life, accomplish their goals as good. People will say, well, if you had to do it all over again, you know, what would you do about law school or something like that? I think if I had to do it all over again, the best boss move for someone in their 20s right now is to literally be the in-person executive assistant to someone else. When I went to Twitter like six years ago, I went there for, I don't know, I guess you'd say it was a tour. I went there to meet Jack Dorsey for something.

Very cool. Yeah, it was cool. I was trying to do that in a humble, bragy way, but it's kind of unavoidable. So I went there to meet Jack because he's part of the story. So I went there to meet Jack Dorsey for something. And there's a couple of people that were working with him. Like he had his EA, he had his admin, he had a couple of people. And I was like, these guys have unfettered access 24.

Like he handed one of them his phone. He's like, can you text so-and-so and let him know that. And I was like, this person is trusted, sorry, with Jack Dorsey's like phone. you know, and probably has all kinds of personal interaction with him all the time. Who knows, they might even drive him around. I have no idea they're with him most of the day, I would imagine. And then that guy probably works 14, 16 hours a day. So imagine spending 14 to 16 hours a day with somebody like that.

You hear their phone calls. You're in their meetings. There are people a notch or two below them in the C-suite and people on the board of that company that's been nowhere near the amount of time you are with somebody like that. Okay, and it doesn't have to be Jack Dorsey. You can be the assistant to the vice president of somebody who runs the electric company in Detroit. And that is a really good position to learn how really go-getter professional people operate. You're going to see how they run their calendar.

You're going to see how they run their meetings. You're going to see how they run their phone calls. You're going to see how they network with people or don't. How they treat people, how they get people's attention. Those are skills you don't really learn anywhere else but on the job. And talented people who are at the top of their industry typically do that. And so, you know, there's all this talk like, oh, you got to get a mentor and people will DM me. Can you be my mentor?

And it's like, no, I don't have like a mentorship program. And frankly, anyone who does is probably a little sketch. You got to be very careful with that. Yeah, $2,000 a month and I'll mentor you, aka here's an online video of me and a phone call. No thanks. Right? You want to be with these people when they're teaching you things that they don't even necessarily know they know. Those are the skills you need.

They're not going to go, I'm going to teach you how to negotiate a deal. They might say that, but really you're going to learn that from watching them negotiate a deal and then go, so how come you did this when they said that? That didn't make any sense to me. What was the deal? Oh, well, I said that because I wanted them to say yes to that first and then we could move on to the other thing. Oh, okay. So ask for some of the lower stuff first and get that out of the way and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you might come up with a principle or a working rule. But you're not going to find that by asking them that directly. How do I negotiate a deal? How do I negotiate myself? Like, you have to see it and be around it a bunch. So that's what I think people should do. If they're in that position to put themselves near folks like that, do that. And, you know, if that requires you taking a pay cut, people will say, oh, yeah, I got a job as an EA, but it pays $32,000 a year.

And I had another job offer for $40,000 a year. I know $8,000 is a lot. But if it's a difference between learning a ton on the job with an absolute boss for a year or two and then moving on with all that experience, or starting with a higher starting salary, I would not take the higher starting salary, especially if you're young. Absolutely. Just foregoing that $8,000, and it is a lot, but just foregoing that $8,000, you can learn more than going to college just by being around somebody like that.

And also, there's a lot of different perks that this is neither here nor there, but this is a real example. Somebody was coming in about, I think it was $5 or $8,000 lower on the salary scale, by being an EA to like a Silicon Valley badass. It wasn't $32,000 versus $4,000. It was something higher, but I just can't remember what it was. So the $8,000 means less when it's 80 versus 72, first of all. Right. But when you're with somebody like that, you're probably never paying for lunch or dinner, possibly not even breakfast, because you're working with them and they're going somewhere.

They're not going to be like, what are you eating? Here's the check. You know, they're paying for that stuff. So you save on that. You are working a ton so you don't need to live in a really nice spot. You need a spot near the dang office if you're not, you know, you might even be sleeping like on the floor, right? So you have stuff like that that ends up sort of evening out. Your quality of life is different, but you're in a learning phase.

This is a total tangent. But I don't believe in work-life balance for younger people, and by younger, I mean like under 40, or at least under 35. I don't believe in it. It exists, but there's a major difference between people who are super successful economically, age 40, 50, and people who are middle of the road, nothing wrong with that or below the average. And the difference is almost always, oh, yeah, I had no life from age 27 to age 35, but now I make $2 million a year in finance. Well, great, that is what got you there because you had no balance that first 10 or even

15 years. That's why I don't think people should get married very young if they plan on doing that, because you are going to forego a lot of experience that you probably shouldn't and a lot of marriages can't withstand. But I don't really believe that for most people, yes, there are exceptions, whatever. assume you're not that person for most people they do have to dedicate a full decade decade and a half to just busting their ass living eating and breathing their career six seven days a week in order to get ahead to where they are in the one percent later on

if that's your goal it's not your goal forget what I said but I want to pop that bubble because there's so much sort of quality of life work-life balance stuff out there that people aren't telling the truth about it you know they're trying to pretend like you can be 27 work 35 hours a week four-hour work week your stuff all the way to the top and then dot, dot, dot, you're going to be making 800 grand a year, 500 grand a year in some hedge fund. It's total nonsense. It's just not true. I completely agree. It's just something you have to put in the time, especially early on. You have to make the sacrifices early on. And then once you get to that point, once you start

making that money and you're in a place where you can start to delegate, then obviously you can have the extra time if you need it. But that's later on in life. It's not early on. Yeah. You don't even want to delegate stuff. This is a whole tangent. But like you don't even, and I won't go into it. You don't even want to delegate stuff early. You want to learn how all those people do their job. So, like, things that have gotten me where I am now are I didn't have a good salesperson early on. I had to learn it from a salesperson who was like, I'm quitting.

And he was a very talented sales guy. And he's like, I can't stay working with you guys for longer. I'm being pulled in different directions by actual real money, not from your startup. So I learned sales sink or swim. I learned how to balance books. I learned marketing. I learned all of these things because I had to. And then when I had the ability to delegate it, I was like, nah, I'm going to spend another

year or two, like in it. And then I started to innovate in those spaces. So now I delegate stuff that I want, but the reason that I've been able to grow 100% year on year at the Jordan Harbinger show is because I know how every single person in the company does their job. I don't know it as well as they do, but I know how to do it. And I've done it at some point myself for years, not twice, not once on last Monday, for years I did it by myself. So when there's a problem or when something needs to get done or when something is an innovation in the space, I actually understand it and know how to do it. And I recommend people do that. Even if you don't run your own business, you need to know how that works.

And that will get you a lot further. And you just can't do that by punching in and punching out 9 to 5 at a regular job. You can't. It's not possible. Absolutely. And if you do that, even if you are working at a corporate job or something like that, you will outperform everybody around you because there's no competition. I mean, the competition is terrible out there. and you can make so much more money by doing that.

And speaking of increasing your income, that's one of the biggest things we talk about here on this podcast because I think it's one of the biggest catapults to building wealth. And one of the places we always tell people to start increasing their income is at their day job because we think it's the easiest part. You know, you're already there every single day. But you can't just walk into your boss's office and say,

I want to raise, I want to get that promotion. You have to persuade them, basically. And that's another thing that you're an expert in is the art of persuasion. So can you talk a little bit about the art of persuasion? and how you can persuade people like your boss to do something. Yeah, I mean, negotiation is a whole probably 10, 20 hour long. I'm sure you've talked about it before.

But I will tell you that I don't want to nitpick your words, but I think you'll be with me on this. It's not even persuasion coming from a law background. What I want to do is present very clearly that you cannot afford to not have me working in this particular position. I don't come in and go, look at these comps. I'm leaving if you don't pay me 5% more everyone else in the whole industry is making more money than me wah wow wow something something right

that is what most people do they don't whine like that but they'll go uh i need a 5% raise everyone else in the industry got a raise and maybe i could go somewhere else that's your last resort for a boss who doesn't care right you go i'm getting a lot of offers for like 5 10% more i kind of want to stay here but like hello i got kids to feed right that's your last resort the way that you get a raise and i'll tell you just what's worked right in front of my very eyes sometimes even on me is, okay, Jordan, here's what I'm going to do for you in the next six months. I'm thinking about doing this. I'm thinking about doing this.

I'm thinking about doing this. Of course, I'm going to be doing my regular job. But I want to sort of see if I can make these three things work a little differently. And maybe I'll bring in an intern. A guy who works for me is like bringing an intern from UCLA. And I'm like, well, great, if you're going to manage an intern. So then he did that. And then he goes, okay, six months, whatever later.

He goes, okay, this worked out really well. I can do what they're doing. I'll bring in another intern for some other lower level stuff, but I can do what this person set up. But it is an additional, I'd say three to five hours a week. So I'm wondering if that's worth it to you that we continue that. Not if you'll compensate me for it. If it's worth it to you in the business to continue to do that. And if the answer is, what do you mean?

Of course it's worth it to continually have X happen. I can't have that stop happening. Oh, okay. Well, it's five hours. and, you know, I basically calculate my rate at $100 an hour, which is why I make this. So, yeah, if you're able to get close to that, then we're in business. And I go, deal, here's $500 more every month. Because I don't want you to do less work, right?

So they don't go, I'm going to do more if you pay me more. They start doing more and they go, okay, I can only really afford to keep doing this if compensation starts to approach that. They don't say I need $500 more. They're saying I'm spending $500 more of time invested in doing this. Can you get there? And instead of negotiating, I usually just go, yes. Because what I don't want is them to go, man, been here for like five years.

I bet you that since he's negotiated half my raise away over a year, I bet I can get $10,000 more doing it somewhere else. I just meet them right there, especially if it seems fair and reasonable. And I will just say yes to the whole thing. And most good companies will get permission to do that. Because if you are the all-star performer and you're doing this and you're doing this on the side and the boss is like my life so much easier because of the X, Y, and Z, the last thing they want is for you to go, well, I'm probably going to leave because now they have to do all that crap. Or it doesn't

get done in upper management's like, how come we're less efficient than we used to be? What happened? Oh, we lost Jordan because I decided I didn't want to give them an extra $300 a pay period. So now no one does that job and it's cost the company $80,000 in revenue this year. You know, you're fired. Right. That was terrible judgment. So you want to show how worth it you are, not by making a bunch of promises and then filling them, but by actually doing something and then presenting what it is you have done, that's persuasive. The work speaks for itself, not some set of like magic words that get people between a rock and a hard place and then figure out that they have to pay you that because they can't find anyone cheaper on short notice. Right. That's not where you

want your boss. Exactly. And that's exactly how we teach. We tell everybody, it's like a six month to a year process where you're going to walk in with your boss, figure out what extra things you can do. You talk it through, tell them this is kind of what you're looking for. Perform, do it better than everybody else and then that would allow you to deserve that compensation and get those promotions and those raises and get those increases one note by the way i'm sure you've mentioned this on your show before to your people when you teach it but don't in january tell people and talk it through like you mentioned with the boss and then in december go all right so i did that all year no every time you go in i mean whatever if you have a performance review every three months or something that's

fine um but ideally a little more often you might want to even send update emails like every other month or every month besides that and go, hey, F-WI, side project A that I've been working on that we talked about in January. It's going really well. Here's the progress I've made. It's only February. We're just getting started. Thanks, Jordan. Cool. Next, March. All right, da-da-da. I'll come in with a couple slides to show you how this is working. I'll run you through the process when we do my performance review. Great. Then, by the time it's raised time in November or whenever people negotiate this, it's not like, what was that thing we talked about? The thing I talked to you about, every single month is now a snowball that is this big not an idea that you forgot about nine

ten months ago it's a giant thing that's got momentum and it's happening and you know about the returns that it's producing already you know it's not a surprise for them because they need to know that when you come in saying and okay I did all this and if you want to keep it going did they can't go oh I got to bring that up to management because that what were you doing all year when I was doing all this extra stuff you just didn't tell anyone else that this was successful. If you want to keep me around, like, people will say this, they'll go, oh, I got to float it up the flagpole. Fine, if they're going to come back down in two weeks or a month with a yes or a no. If it's been three months and they're like, oh, you know,

the gears move slow. Well, that's why we started this in freaking January. I don't expect you to ask management for a raise for me in January. But maybe by like July, when this has been returning month over month, you would have said something to somebody. Then their excuses are limited. And then if your boss is like making excuses for you then, then it's a boss problem. It's not a you problem. And then you move on. Absolutely.

And it just ties back into the principles we talked about with networking where you're staying top of mind with your boss. I mean, that's exactly what you're doing on that. So you maintain that communication throughout over time. And it's going to make a major difference. So Jordan, you're this person who's built this massive business and brand. Plus, you're a father. And congratulations.

You just had another child. What is your daily routine and how do you optimize and balance at all? Yeah, you know, I'm not a morning routine guy. I don't like meditate three times a day and go for a jog. I wake up at a decent hour, but the key to waking up at a decent hour is to go to bed at a decent hour. And I probably don't need to tell too many people about this, but I assume there's some 20s, early 30s guys and gals listening to this. And it took me a really long time for my sleep habits to kind of age with me. You know, now that I'm older, I can get up at like 6.45, and I'm like, great.

10 years ago, I'm like, oh, it's only 9.45. Get out of here. Turn the light off. Part of its age, but a lot of it is I'm not working until 2.30 in the morning every night now. You know, that's part of it. I go to bed at 10, and I fall asleep in 45 minutes. You know, that's the way to do it. And kids will make you do that.

But the idea is to get on a good sleep schedule so that you can get up and you're arrested. You don't have four and a half hours of alcohol sleep under your belt. that'll make me productive. I also am really, well, we mentioned it before, but systems are a big thing for me. I do also use my calendar a lot. So if something is on my calendar, it gets done. I don't go like, oh yeah, that was on my calendar, but I decided to play Xbox and not look at my calendar all day. Look, if I need to make a break or something, I will, but I move things around on the calendar. So a lot of people, what they do is they keep a to-do list. I also have that. But the problem is the to-do list has crap on it like write book proposal what is that that's not an action item that's a

month three weeks whatever of time eight hours a day on your calendar that you know when are you going to fit that in never is the answer so i put stuff on the calendar like 15 minutes check spam folder that's on there and that's why my spam folder is empty because every week i check it i don't need to figure out when i'm going to fit that in that time is in there people will say how do you read two books a week for the Jordan Harbinger show, for the people I interview. Well, I have nine plus hours of reading time every week to do it, so it's not that hard. That's how you read two books a week. Oh, well, how do you have inbox zero and take care of all your business stuff?

You must have a huge team. No, I just have a task block every day of 90 minutes, and in that 90 minutes, I return phone calls, I handle email, and when that 90 minutes is up, I am done with those things for that day. And if I need extra time, I have to drag that over something else, and that other thing has to go in another hour. The reason that you are able to do that is because now you have, remember those wood puzzles

where you'd slide something around and you had to move the squares around so that you could make the picture? That's what my calendar is like. I can't just add something to an infinite space to-do list and be like, that's on the list now. That makes no sense. It's on the calendar.

There's only so much room to put everything. So when things run out, unless I want to work over the weekend, which is a good rule to not do when you have kids and a wife, You can do it when you're in your 20s. You can work seven days a week if you want and burn out like I did. But you have to move it to another time.

My showers are on there. And if I work through that shower slot, I move it to another part of the day or sometimes, and I hate to admit it, it just doesn't happen. Okay. Workouts are on there. Because I used to be like, get up whenever. Oh, I should eat. Oh, man, I got to work out. Two PM rolls in and I'm like, I guess I should start working.

5 p.m. comes and I'm like, that's 5. I'm done. That was not a recipe for success. Now I start off with a bang. I use zero cognitive decision-making time or process thinking about what needs to get done next. It's already showing up. There's an alarm in the corner that says,

now it's time for you to shower. Now it's time for you to go to the store and do this. Now it's time for you to answer email. I'm not spending time switching between tasks, procrastinating on shit. I don't do that. I use my calendar. It's a system.

It's like a religious thing. The only time things run over is when I decide or if something is important and is running a little bit over, and then I have to move things. And that's really been a game changer for me, because now I get more done in one day than, frankly, than I used to get done in a week. And I think probably more in one day than I'd say

an average person gets done in three days. And it's not magic. I'm not wired on caffeine all day. I just know what I'm doing in advance, and I actually do it, and it's actually planned. That's exactly what I started doing, and that's what changed my life. And this concept that Jordan's talking about is called time blocking.

And if you've never heard of it, look it up. There's a guy named Cal Newport that I think blogs about it and he talks about all the time too. He has some great stuff on it. But it will absolutely change your life because even if there's things that you don't want to do, if it's on your time block, you're just going to do it because you want to get it done. You want to make sure that everything stays order. And there's nothing else to do in that slot because unless you're going to find some crap off of your to-do list, which has a bunch of nonsense in it, you have an hour to go work out.

You put it there. It doesn't matter if you don't want to. It's there. Exactly. It's happening. You know? Absolutely. And you mentioned that you read two books every single week for the Jordan Harbiger show.

What are the best books that you've read recently? Oh, man. I mean, I read a lot of stuff that's like biographies, those are good. I guess if I had to recommend something, it's not something that I read recently, but I loved extreme ownership with Jock Willink because not only does it have sort of like war stories in it that keep you interested, you get a concept that extreme ownership concept really can be a game changer. A lot of people go, oh, I can't believe it.

Take responsibility. This guy's made millions off that. when you're running a business especially, if you're willing to take ownership of everything that works and does not work, it really changes everything. Because I used to be in a business where one of the partners, even if something was obviously his fault, he would look for anyone he could blame to deflect. Even if it was no one's fault and it was obviously no one's fault, he would pick someone and blame them just to make them feel crappy. But then what happened was nothing was ever his fault, even stuff that really was. So he was never able to learn a lesson other than,

well, my lesson is, you're a freaking idiot. You know, like I'd say, what's the lesson we can get from this? And the lesson would be fire the intern or John's an idiot, you know? And I'm like, this isn't working. So we would run into the same problems over and over and over again. And it was never his fault. It was always someone else's fault. But then there was nothing would ever get solved because it's like, well, I can't solve the problem if so-and-so's the one screwing everything up. So when I started the Jordan Harbinger show, I was like, okay, the buck stops here. If something is someone else's fault, I'm going to be upset about it. But at the end of the day, why did that happen?

Real example, a call to action in an advertisement that I was running, it was wrong. We were supposed to say like 40% off for the holiday sale, but we didn't. We ran the regular one. Was it my producer's fault? Yeah. I mean, he didn't check the CTA. He got it wrong. He probably was tired, whatever.

But did I go, you're an idiot. You lost me $5,000. I hate you now, you're fired. No. I said, how can we make this easier so that there's like a check or a balance on this without me listening to all the ads again every week? You know, because this happened once in five years or something. Like it's, you know, is there anything that we can do that's easy and requires almost no effort? And he goes, well, if you paste all of the CTAs at the top of the ad script, instead of me having to go through the whole thing, which is like 15 pages, I'll just glance at all of them and just make sure that that's the right one. I'll just listen to it when I'm editing the ad script. I'm editing the ad script. I'm just going to be. I'm going to the end. I'm. I'm and I'll just make sure it's the right one. And I was like, shit, that's so simple. It's literally a cut and paste. And now we will probably never make that mistake again, which is good, because every time it happens,

it's like a $6,000 mistake. Right. I love that book as well. I can definitely vouch for that book. It's one of the best books I've read in the last five years. And you look at situations in your life, and you're like, how can I take ownership of this? There's just so many situations where you can do that.

It's really a great book. This is a question that we ask all of our guests, Jordan. So what does wealth mean to you? You know, it's pretty funny to think about this. I was literally just, because it's a new year, I guess, probably. I never wanted to be wealthy financially. I didn't care. I know no one believes me when I say that, because no one believes anyone when they say that.

But my goal, like stated and written down when I was a teen, it funny, I was such a nerd, I did that. But written down was, I want to earn the equivalent of $100,000 a year. Probably wrote this in like 1996. So what is that? Like 120 grand or something? My first job out of school was on Wall Street. I made way more than that. So I was like, oh, I've made it.

So when I had to take a pay cut to do a startup, my own company, it didn't matter because my goal was not, I need to make money now. It was, I just need to be comfortable later and I didn't care about being rich. So I optimized for doing things that I really enjoyed. So now I do the Jordan Harbinger show and I love it. And it doesn't even feel like work most days. There's a third times, but most days doesn't feel like work. And so now that I'm making just far more money than I ever dreamed of making in my entire life,

and I'm scaling up and things are going up and up and up. I had to check myself this year because I was like, yeah, this year we're making this, next year we're going to make that. And then the year after that, we're going to make that. And my wife's like, I'm just fine where we are. And I was like, yeah, I am too. Why am I even? Like, it's cool to be excited about the future.

But if it doesn't happen, it really doesn't matter at all because my lifestyle has not expanded with my income. So it's really like, am I going to invest this heap of cash or am I going to invest this smaller, but also substantial heap of cash, or am I going to invest a normal person heap of cash? And it's like, okay, fine, whichever it is. Even if I were making less than I thought, I'm doing a job that I really enjoy. So if I made less than $100,000 a year or the equivalent thereof, I would still be happy doing what I'm doing. It would just be a little harder to take care of two kids at friggin' Silicon Valley.

I'd probably move. There are things I know I can do to make a lot more money. You know, oh, you got to do live events and you got to have merch and you got to be hard selling this course and hard do this and you got to be speaking. But I don't want to do that. I don't want to travel around all the time being at a Howard Johnson near the airport and speaking at some convention and then flying back home and having missed my kids soccer practice to make extra money. No shade on people that do that. Go for it. Awesome.

And if that's how you earn a living, I'm not judging you. What I'm saying is if you make friggin' $2 million a year and you can make an extra. 500,000 never seeing your kids because you're speaking at MLM conventions. I'm picking on MLM a lot today. Why do that? You know, oh, here's my 13th book that's just like all my other books, but slightly different cover and also I made up some nonsense I stole from a guy on the internet because I need a cash grab and I'm selling it to my email list.

Why are you creating that crap? It's worthless. Oh yeah, everybody buying my mugs and t-shirt, it's cool. It's all going, congratulations. You've polluted the environment even more with your stupid shit that nobody really wants. that people will buy from you because they want to support you, but it offers no value. But congrats on the extra 50 grand a year in merch, you knob.

You know, so I'm like, I won't do any of that. When I want to make more money, I do it only in the way that I enjoy, which is growing the Jordan Harbinger Show. I'm not going to do something I don't want to do. Because what happens is, and you know this from Econ 101, right? Marginal value of money starts to shrink like crazy. Like when you're broke, you get a grand.

You're like, yes, rent. If you are making a million bucks a year and someone's like, I'll give you five grand if you do this really annoying thing, you're like, no, you don't even have to think about it. You're just like, no way, I'm not doing that. And the reason that you do that is because you don't need that five grand because it's worth almost nothing to you. And so why do people take on massive projects

and entire wings of their business that make them add, like they cut directly into the free time that you spend with your family, they cut directly into the time doing things that you know you really enjoy, and all you're getting in return is money. It's like it's the worst trade ever. Exactly.

I could not agree more. It's freedom with your time and your energy and having all of those, making enough, but then at that point, it's having that freedom and being able to do whatever you want with that time. Exactly.

Yeah. Freedom. Exactly. So where can people learn more about you, listen to your show and check out your courses? Sure. The courses are all free. Well, there's only one. So all.

All that are available right now, all one of them. It's called six minute networking. It's free. I don't need any payment info. It's really, honestly, just free. It's at Jordan Harbinger.com, H-A-R-B-A-N-G-E-R dot com.

And my podcast is The Jordan Harbinger Show, Jordan Harbinger, whatever you want to say. And it's on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you're listening now. I just love more listeners and people want to learn from that. And the course, yeah, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

Again, it's free. And it's got all the drills and the scripts for all the networking stuff. And, yeah, like I said, no upsell. That's amazing. So we'll link those up in the show notes. as well. So everybody, make sure you go check those out. And that free course is amazing. I've taken it before. And it will absolutely help you with your networking and everything that we talked about today.

So Jordan, thank you so much for coming on. This was amazingly valuable. Hey, thank you for having me on, man. I appreciate the opportunity. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers. For CGs, national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.