56: How to Avoid the Psychic Con | Feedback Friday

Transcript for Feedback Friday - How to Avoid The Psychic Con (Episode 56)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFillippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger Show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests, and this week we had Barry Katz. He is one of the most iconic comedy managers around. He's discovered everyone from Dave Chappelle or Whitney Cummings, and interesting stories of course, and also had a lot of insight into not over complicating winning, which I thought was an interesting point. And we ran a little bonus episode on Thursday with Mary Lou Jepsen who talks about neural imaging and how that's going to change everything. That's going to be just crazy. I still can't get over that. We're going to be able to read people's dreams and stuff like that. Oh, I can't wait. Anyway, our primary mission, of course, is to pass along these people’s and our experiences and insights to you. That's the point of the show. In other words, the real purpose of this show is to have conversations directly with you, and that's what we're going to do here today on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at friday@jordanharbinger.com and of course we've got our Alexa skill. If you want to get little bits of the show with your breakfast in the morning, your little daily brief, you can go to JordanHarbinger.com/alexa and it will install there. So Jason, speaking of reading the dreams from Mary Lou Jepsen, does that freak you out? Are you excited about that?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:14] I am kind of on-the-fence with that because I know what privacy laws are and I also know how big companies in Cloud data actually protect your data. I think that basically once this becomes a thing and you put your dreams in the Cloud, everybody's going to know who you are. Let your freak flag fly and everybody's going to know what everybody's into. The problem with that is if you're into something that nobody is really into, like, “Oh, I don't know kids”, then you might have a problem. That's where this comes into play or murder, or “I'm thinking, I'm dreaming about killing my wife”, but we also know that dreams don't actually mean anything because that's the brain’s cleanup process during the evening, and it's not anything that really matters that much. So it's going to be really interesting when this stuff goes out there because dreams in the Cloud is what I'm terrified of. Yeah. So yeah. So to answer your question, yes, I'm actually terrified of that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:18] But I still want to see my own dreams, you know?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:20] Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. I want to be able to go back and I'm like, “What was I going through? I want to scrub back and see that”, because then you can write a really good screenplay from it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:29] It reminds me a little bit of James Fallon where he finds out he's a psychopath during a brain scan. Imagine watching your own dreams. You're going to be like, “Oh man, I am a weird mofo, dude.” No, thanks!

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:40] Yeah. “Oh god, why was I screwing a donkey? Oh god, that's just not right. That's not right.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:46] We'll be like, “So Doc, these don't really mean anything, right? They're just, I heard, it's the brain’s cleanup process. It just doesn't mean anything, right?”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:54] It doesn’t mean anything.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:56] Right. It just means I'm watching a lot of anime, right? Okay, cool. Okay. Just checking. Just checking. All right. What's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:05] Wanted to know if there was any part of you that believes in fate. I realize how odd this question sounds. I ran into a nutty palm reader over a decade ago who had no idea who I was, and who told me, I'd be very successful one day and then I would have something to do with cars. She went on about how she never does this, blah, blah, blah, but had to tell me. It was completely unsolicited. She proceeded to tell me, “I needed you to know that you're going to be very wealthy and successful. Just count on your path.” I don't know what that means, but do you know?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:41] No, it just doesn't mean anything. This is, I mean, a sort of cold reading. It just means whatever the person interprets it to be. I'll get into that in a second.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:49] It's like a low rent fortune cookie, kind of.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:51] Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:53] Of course. I was weirded out. Well, here's the thing. I don't really care about cars and even weirder, my brother eventually went on to become a huge success in, you guessed it, cars -- like biggest salesman in the world successful in cars. I'm not exaggerating. He's closing in on the world record again this year. My question, do you believe aversion of our path is set the day we were born? Or can it be possible that one small step left, instead of right, can change everything? I know it sounds strange to pontificate about something like this. You guys aren't experts necessarily in this field, but I do respect your opinion. Sincerely, Mr. Fate Debate Is At Stake.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:38] Nice. I can tell you thought of that one. I am, however --

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:40] I actually didn't. Actually, it wasn't mine.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:43] Oh, was it? Oh, okay.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:44] You know that one's not mine, but yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:47] I am an expert in this. Namely in –

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:49] We're both experts in this. Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:51] In BS. Yeah. Because I went to law school and I've been doing the show for a really long time. So I am an expert in balony. Look.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:56] You have a PhD and BS.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:59] That's right. This is fake. Anytime anyone is giving you a cold read, it's fake. Okay. So a long time ago, I'll illustrate with an example. There was a kid who was coming to one of our events, his name is Rajesh. And he said, “Hey Jordan, I think that the psyche thing might actually be real.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” And he goes, “I went to a fair at college and they had a palm reader and she said, all these things that are true about me.” And I said, “Oh really? Okay, well don't tell me what they are. I'm in -- by the way, we were talking on the live chat on our website, so I've never met this guy. All I know is his name is Rajesh. Okay. That's all I knew about him. And then he was registered for one of our events. So I said, “No, this is fake.” And I said, “Don't tell me what the palm reader had told you, but I'm going to tell you the following,” I said, “all right, well,” – Sorry, I also knew he was a graphics designer of some kind. That's all I knew about him. Okay.

[00:05:58] So I said, “Well, you know, your parents are a little bit more conservative. They're from the old country. They don't really understand what you do. They don't understand what you do and why it has value and they don't understand your urge or your need to be creative in your life and then your work and you know, they actually wish that you were maybe leaning towards a profession, like an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer or something along those lines. Preferably, I don't know, maybe preferably engineer, but actually, doctor, I feel like your mother really wishes that you were a doctor. Your mom might be a little bit more supportive than your father with what you do, but not by a whole lot. And your siblings are having similar problems, although your siblings have maybe done, if you have any, do you have siblings?

[00:06:39] Yeah. Okay, you have siblings, maybe they've done a little bit better, or maybe it's cousins that have done a little bit better and they're comparing you to them.” And he goes, “Oh my gosh! I can't believe it.” And then I thought for a second he was going to say, “Are you psychic, Jordan?” But what happened was he's an Indian dude who's a graphic designer. Of course your parents want you to be a doctor. Everybody knows that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:59] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:00] Okay. But when you're in it, you don't think, “Oh gee, there's some clearly readable cultural signals here.” So, and yes, he has a sister. I don't remember what she did, but she was being compared with him a lot. Or vice versa, I should say. He was being compared with her a lot. And of course the parents were like, “Your cousin's a lawyer, your other cousin's a doctor. Why are you a graphic designer? I don't understand what you do.” But of course his mother being his mother, was a little bit more compassionate, but not by much. And his father was really always giving them stuff about it and he just could not believe how well I read the situation. It's not hard. If you have a little bit of cultural background, if you've got a little bit of idea about what a culture wants or what parents typically want for a kid in a certain area or of a certain ethnicity, you can do this so easily. And in fact, Jason, I don't know if you want to run this clip, but I was on Eric Bigger's podcast and also on PodcastOne and he was talking about astrology or something like that and I was like, “No, it's all fake.”

[00:08:01] And there was a female co-host that he had and we're going to include a photo in the show notes if you want to see her, but I basically gave her this cold read where I said something like, “Oh, you're of mixed heritage and you know, your parents, this and that.” If you want to take a look at the photo, it's not 100% obvious, but it's also not exactly psychic of me to have made the guesses that I made and I've done this with lots of people in the past. It is really easy for someone to cold read anyone else, even over the internet. So, beware of these things, it's not always a scam. Some people genuinely believe they can do this because they have some kind of powers, but their only power, like the photographer at the wedding who prompted this letter, their only power is a little bit of self-delusion combined with a lack of awareness that their so-called intuition is really just, this is her subconscious brain putting together readily observable facts that are right

[00:08:56] in front of her eyes. And I'll also note that in the above example that you read earlier, Jason, that woman didn't get anything about the question right or correct? Not one thing. She's sort of touched on something his brother did, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:09] His brother exactly. There are cars in his ?zeitgeist [00:09:13] and it's like, “Oh there's a car.” And how many people deal with cars? Everybody.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:21] Well, yeah, but if you think about it like this, she was a photographer at a wedding. Okay. What's a wedding? A family event -- Was his brother there? Was this his family? If this is his family, she just overheard a conversation, honestly or knew something about somebody else. And if he's the world record holder in car sales, do you think maybe she knew that before she came to the wedding?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:40] You know what, pre-selecting the audience is one of the things that these people do. Back in the day, I got suckered in to John Edwards. Do you know who he was?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:49] One of the candidate, presidential candidate? Senator from a --- I’m just kidding.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:53] That’s a different one. John Edward had his show on sci-fi where he would read everybody every night. And I got suckered into this thing because I was a kid and I didn't know any better and I'm like, “Holy shit, this guy can talk to the dead.” Because he's doing all this stuff, because I didn't understand how – Editing worked. I didn't know how pre-selection worked. I didn't know that magic was the thing. You know, there's so many things that went into this sci-fi show that made him look like he was a magician talking to the dead. You know, we talked to Penn on our show previously before this show, and he talked about James Randy who, by the way, is the master debunker of all time.

[00:10:40] So if you want to know what's going on, follow James Randy, and you can follow Michael Shermer, that will be linked in the show notes. These guys will teach you how these people do that stuff, and it's bunk. It's total bunk.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:56] Yeah. If you ask an, I should say, actual magician, so-called mentalist, right? Somebody who performs this stuff, during their show, they won't tell you this, but they will tell you that this is fake. This is a skill they practiced. It's a set of trickery. There's no supernatural powers going on here. There's nothing that says your fate is predetermined. Nothing actually happened here at all. This is just a woman who either deliberately or accidentally overheard something, selected an audience, came up and told you something and wasn't right. Frankly was not right. She was right about your brother either by accident or on purpose, so, and the fact that I can do this without any prep to somebody that I'm staring at should be testament to the fact that anybody who's really planning on doing this and does it for a living to scam people out of their money is going to be much better at it than me.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:47] Go check out Penn and Teller's Bullshit! Season one, episode one that will give you that you need to know about this field.

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Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:19] Producer didn’t go.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:20] Producer didn’t go. You were in Chicago. What are you going to do? I'm not going to not worry about it. That's what I'm going to do. But I fell in love with all the stuff they were teaching us. It was really cool like I kind of get it a little more now. You know now, I can enjoy it with friends. I can enjoy it at restaurants. I never want to spend time researching what I'm supposed to be drinking. It just seemed silly and that's what I love about Wine Access. They do all the work. I've outsourced my wine-ism. They make it so easy. You can just drink great handcrafted wines and they get a lot of these small batch things you can't get at stores. They buy from all these small wineries. I was really impressed. I met Matt Deller, their Master of Wine, and this is a guy who's got kind of like a PhD slash way harder than a PhD in wine. There's only 45 of them at Master of Wines and I think the whole or 42 in the whole United States.

[00:14:13] So that was kind of a cool thing to be able to spend time with someone like that. And Wine Access has a whole team of these guys, the best tasters in the business with access to delicious limited batch wines from all over the world. And these are wines that tastes like they should cost hundreds of dollars, but they're available at Wine Access for as low as 15 bucks a bottle. They share the full story with you, where the wine comes from. What makes it great, and I'm spreading the word because I want you to discover these fantastic wines as well. I've arranged an incredible deal for our listeners. 30 bucks off your first purchase, but to get that, that's a couple of bottles for free and they ship it to you. You don't have to worry about, you know stuff getting smashed. They do it right. So to get this great offer and for details, go to wineaccess.com/Jordan. That's wineaccess.com/Jordan. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:00] Just finished listening to episode 50, Woohoo! Love the future-oriented focus of the recent episodes. It was nice to hear Jason Sanderson's POV on some of the questions in episode 50. You're putting together quite the panel of different answers. I liked the broadness of answer so I'm interested to hear what all three of you have to say about this question. I've noticed lately in both professional and personal situations that Person 2 will repeat what Person 1 just said. If I'm Person 2, I know that I'm repeating either, A. to share some slight nuance that they missed, or B. to share an example to agree and support their point. But if I'm Person 1, I’d get frustrated at the repetition and think that Person 2 either, A. wasn't listening to what I just said, or B. is working through what I just said out loud and is internalizing it, or C. wants to take credit for the idea I just shared. I realize both of these sound extremely biased towards my own position, which I'd like to avoid. What is your take on how to navigate these situations in conversations? Thanks. Supporter Or Subtractor.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:09] Interesting. So she's thinking that someone says something and the second person who says something is either trying to take credit for the idea or potentially, of course, that if she is the other person, she's just internalizing it. And this sort of is the story of everyone's life, right? We judge other people by their actions. We judge ourselves by our intentions, right? That's so common. So I totally get this when your Person 2, I would say preface your comment with, “Well, I agree with Person 1 and I'd like to add X.” Or, I agree with all, but the following point, and then contrast your addition with the previous point. This way it doesn't just sound like you're saying the same thing as the person before you, which I agree it could be annoying, especially in a workplace where it's like, “Oh great idea, Jim.”

[00:16:57] It's like, “I just said that”, right? So you want to contrast it, you want to add to it, but if you do so, you have to make sure that you point out that the person before you said it that way, it's not just you repeating something and trying to make it sound novel. And I think this is an easily solvable problem. But you're right, it is very common. This happens all the time, especially in meetings. What do you think, Jason? I feel like this is something that happens consistently and is really easily avoidable, but most people are only thinking about themselves.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:30] I do. And I agree with what you said. You have to add something on to the comment after you say it. You know, they can say something, you can repeat it back to them and then go into your piece on the piece.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:42] I'm pretty sure that's what I just said. Thanks for stealing my idea.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:46] I’m pretty sure that's exactly what you said. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. Hey man, I'm taking your advice. Come on. Don't be harsh, bro.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:55] All right. What's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:56] First of all, I love the show. It's my absolute favorite podcast and it has helped me in so many ways. I'm just finishing my junior year of high school and I've run into a repetitive problem. Throughout the school year, I formed really good relationships with my teachers and we often become very close. However, if I don't have any other classes with those teachers the following year, I feel like I don't have any reason to talk to them. I understand that good rapport with my teachers is important for a lot of practical reasons, such as recommendation letters and mentorship, but I also genuinely enjoy interacting with these people who have such a huge impact on my life. How do I maintain these good relationships outside of the classroom without making things awkward and while also keeping things semi-professional because they are still my authority figures. Thanks so much. Puzzled Pupil.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:46] So this is a really good idea. Actually Puzzled Pupil’s onto something. I wish I had done more of this back in my high school or even college career for that matter.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:55] Yeah, me too.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:56] Yeah, right. It seems like such a good idea to keep in touch with these people and yet we kind of just “Alright, next. What's next?” Granted when you're that age usually you’re so excited to get done with whatever.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:19:06] Get the hell out. You’re like, “I want to leave so bad. I just want to get out of here.” Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:11] But it is good and yeah, you can't really add the teacher to Facebook. You can't get their phone number and text them. It's super inappropriate. So what I would do..

Jason DeFillippo: [00:19:19] Well, now at their age, once you graduate you can. One of my best friends is my photo professor from college, but I can't find my photo professor from high school and my radio teacher from high school. Those are the two people I really want to connect with and I can't find them anymore. And I feel bad that I didn't keep connections with them because they really built who I am and it kind of sucks that you don't keep those connections. So definitely, I think we're going down that path where you should definitely kind of keep connections outside of the classroom.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:53] Yeah. I liked this idea Puzzled Pupil has. So what I would do is I would pop in every other month after school and ask for advice. Just, you know, every 60 days, ask for advice on something. It's a good excuse to talk to them and keep in contact with them. And then once you leave school, then yeah, you can probably add them on Facebook. You can use email. It's not inappropriate anymore at that point. It would definitely be inappropriate now, I don't even think they would add you, I don't even think that you'd be able to find them on there to get that sort of personal contact. But I would pop in every other month, ask him for advice on, “What should I major in when I go to college? How should I decide what school to go to? What courses should I study in, in my electives from my senior year?”

[00:20:34] Things they do differently if they were your age again. Just get some general advice. Getting advice creates the Benjamin Franklin effect, which creates an affinity for you and also is an easy, very appropriate topic. So if anyone's like, “Oh, what were you talking to Mr. Hart about?” It's like, “Oh, I wanted some advice on which colleges that you know, he thinks might be best because he's familiar with that or what? I was talking to Ms. Antique because I wanted to see what she thought of these particular electives for my senior year.” There's nothing weird about that. It's not weird to start that conversation. It's not weird for them to engage in that conversation. It's going to naturally lead to some small talk as well. And it's going to be totally fine. It's much better than, “Hey, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

[00:21:17] And they're like, “Oh, Am I going to get in trouble for this? Because I would get in trouble for everything because we're teachers and you know, am I going to hear about this from your mom?” Like you want to take that off the table, right? So yeah, every other month, probably not a whole lot more than that. Maybe every month whatever, pop in, ask for advice. You're all good.

[00:21:27] This episode is sponsored in part by DesignCrowd. Crowdsourcing. It's a buzz word, but it's how busy people get stuff done in the 21st century and thanks to DesignCrowd, you can focus on running your business while handing over the reigns for your company's logo, web design, tee-shirt, you name it, to a pool of over 600,000 professional designers from around the world. They crowdsourced the work DesignCrowd does based on your specifications. You pick the design you like best. It really is that simple. So the details look a little something like this. Visit designcrowd.com/Jordan. Post a brief describing what you want from the art you need. For example, you could say, “I'm looking for a book jacket design that evokes the profound sense of loss a ballerina feels when she gambles away her heirloom tutu in Vegas. Title should be in Comic Sans.” Then DesignCrowd invites over 600,000 designers from Sydney to San Francisco to respond and within hours, your first designs are rolling in. Three to 10 days later, a typical project will receive 60 to a hundred or possibly even more different pieces from designers around the world. You pick the one you like, you pay the designer, and if you don't like it, DesignCrowd offers a money back guarantee. Check out designcrowd.com/Jordan. That's D E S I G N C R O W D.com/jordan for a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners or simply enter the discount code JORDAN when you post your project on DesignCrowd.

[00:22:52] This episode is also sponsored by Policy Genius. If you have a car, you have car insurance, unless you're a total scumbag. If you have a home, you have home insurance. Unless you're a total knucklehead. If you're alive, you should probably have life insurance. Four out of 10 people don't have life insurance at all. It's not even their fault. It's life insurances’ fault. Shopping for life insurance is confusing. It takes forever. It's super irritating. Policy Genius makes it easy. Policy Genius is the easy way to compare life insurance online. In five freaking minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers to find the best policy for you. And when you compare quotes, you save money, right? It's that simple. In fact, Policy Genius has helped over 4 million people shop for insurance and placed over $20 billion in coverage. They don't just make life insurance easy.

[00:23:38] They compare disability insurance, renter's insurance, health insurance. If you care about it, they cover it. So if you've been putting off getting life insurance, don't put it off any longer. It's never been easier to buy and rates are at a 20-year low. I just grabbed some of myself. Policygenius.com, the easy way to compare and buy life insurance. This is something that is a personal favor to me and the show. And I know it's not everyone's favorite activity, but I promise it will make the show better. Help our show. Stay free to download with the right type of ads with minimal ads. Not this like, “Oh, I need 17 now because they're not a good fit.” We've got a survey. It's no one's favorite thing, but responses will help align the appropriate advertisers to our audience. The survey is short. It is completely anonymous.

[00:24:24] It will take literally four or five minutes, so I would say look, go to JordanHarbinger.com/survey. JordanHarbinger.com/survey, if you filled out a survey in the past. Yes, thank you. We still need you to do it again. You do all of us at the Jordan Harbinger Show a huge favor by filling it out. You do all of us a favor at PodcastOne by filling it out. Thank you for supporting my program, for taking the time to complete the survey. No, I didn't create it. PodcastOne created it. It will make the show better. JordanHarbinger.com/survey. Please just go and do it. You can do it on your phone. It is simple enough and it makes a huge difference for us and I really appreciate it. JordanHarbinger.com/survey. All right. What's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:07] I'm writing in as a follow-up to my first time I emailed Feedback Friday on the old show. In summary, I'm Chinese. My parents are both physicians and I'm an MD PhD student, an aspiring professor and researcher. My now ex-boyfriend had flunked both his culinary school and bachelor's degree. Also important details, I'm 27 and he's 32. I really appreciate your candor on the show stating it could potentially be a values mismatch. -- I remember this girl. Do you remember her?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:37] Yes, I do remember her. Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:39] Well, in the ensuing months as I discussed with my therapist and really thought about our relationship, it became clear to me that it was indeed a values mismatch. He was spending 50% or more of his time pursuing golfing and not focusing on his career. Meanwhile, 90% of my time goes towards my career. Additionally, many times I felt that when we discuss topics, he didn't understand the time and depth required to really know a topic and adamantly debated topics with a surface level understanding.

[00:26:10] My therapist also brought up the idea whether I felt our intelligence was matched. As a person who struggles with imposter syndrome and just believing that I'm intelligent, this was not something I thought was an issue in the beginning, especially during the honeymoon phase. Well, as time has told, it became a problem because I realized I couldn't speak to him about all the things I wanted to be able to discuss. I broke up with him recently and he's not understanding why. Although he's accepting my breakup. What I essentially told him was that I didn't see myself marrying him because I felt our values weren't matched when it came to career and work ethic and I felt we were on different pages. I didn't want to delay because he's told me marriage is a priority for him and it just isn't for me right now. After the breakup, he keeps wanting to talk and insisting that he's indeed career-driven. He's been waiting to get his bachelor's degree and hasn't gotten around to it for a decade and just isn't understanding the reasons I broke up with them. How do you explain your reasons to someone who just doesn't view things the same way or can't seem to understand where I'm even coming from. Sincerely. Mismatched Match.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:21] Okay. All right. Well, so unfortunately, Mismatched Match, you have to explain why this is over. This is not going to be super comfortable conversation. You can spare his feelings like you have been. You don't have to say, “Hey, I think you're not as smart as me”, or something like that. You don't have to do that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:41] You're a dumb ass. Get her done!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:43] Yeah, exactly. I would, maybe, leave that part out, but I would say, “Look, you know, we have different priorities. We have different values. This is only going to get worse in the long run. I really care about you, but this is an irreconcilable difference that I don't see getting any better and you know, I'm not able to continue. I'm not able to wait any longer to make this happen. For this to happen. It's going to cause a lot of problems in the future”, and then you have to set firm boundaries and keep them and keeping them is the tricky part because unfortunately you literally, at least for a little while, you have to cut them off. There's no need to reply or indulge all of his “but why texts” that are inevitably going to come in. The emails that are like, “Here's this whole tirade about how you made me feel bad.”

[00:28:30] You know you're going to get that stuff. You've already explained yourself. He's not going to be convinced by you to understand, okay? He has to accept what he's being told. He's not going to come around in any other way. He's just got to accept what he's being told. In fact, actually he already understands. He's just not accepting it because he doesn't like the outcome. There's a big difference between, “I don't get why this is happening. I don't get why we're breaking up.” There's a huge difference between that and refusing to accept reality, which is where it sounds like he is now. It sounds like he just doesn't want to accept it. Not that he doesn't really, “I don't understand what you mean.” And look, if he doesn't understand conceptually why, then maybe you're proving yourself right and maybe he isn't smart enough here because he's just going to be in denial here.

[00:29:21] I would say feel free to put your concerns in an email or a note in writing very, very clearly. And then you don't have to reply to his communication for the next couple of months. Yes, it'll be hard. But he's literally told you that he doesn't intend to leave you alone. So if you string him along at all, even unintentionally like, “Oh well, here's what I mean by this. Here's what I mean by that.” You're just going to set the process off all over it again and that's not what you want. You're not winding it down. People think they're winding it down when they reply to all this stuff. They think that’s setting it down easy? Right? You're just hitting reset on the clock, the countdown clock, every single time you have contact. You're not clearing it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:30:04] It’s like in Lost, when the clock is coming down, you have to like press the button over and over again. It doesn't work that way.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:09] Right. Yeah, it doesn't work this way. You're not setting them down easy by let gradually explaining everything. You're just hitting reset on the clock and keeping the wound fresh. That's not what you want. Last but not least, and I hope it doesn't come to this, but if you so much even get a freaking whiff of anything dangerous coming from him, like some kind of threat of violence or him hinting and that or him showing up at school or work after you've told them not to -- notify the school, notify your place of employment, notify your family, notify the police, and if you're close enough to them, and I mean that in like the emotional sense, notify his family as well because you don't want to let this escalate. If he starts showing up or won't leave you long, you got to tell everyone about this. So best of luck and let us know how it goes because this is not an easy situation. I feel for you because you care about him but you're going to have to set firm boundaries and if you don't, you're going to regret it. All right. Next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:04] I have a daughter who graduated from a notable journalism school last year and is working a dream job in New York. She recently asked for my advice and I'm not sure how to reply. There's a rather high profile harassment case, both sexual and verbal, of a professor from her school. More than 20 female students and co-workers have filed complaints against the professor and my daughter was deposed as a witness last week. She's been given the option to remain anonymous or put her name on her testimony. She told me that she was deposed because one of the primary targets of this verbal abuse was her lab partner and she did witness his abhorrent behavior. When questioned, she confirmed a lot of aspects of the complaint and she told me that she felt the accusations were not unfounded. She works for a nationally known TV show and her manager told her that she ought to put her name on her testimony. My first thought was, as an honorable family, our word is our bond and she ought to put her name on it too, but then I started to have second thoughts. Most likely, this story is going to blow up and her name might forever be attached to it as a witness. At this point, I told her not to reply immediately since she has two weeks to decide. What are your thoughts? Thanks. Daddy With The Dilemma.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:21] All right, so I am a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer. How's that to start? I would say you should get a lawyer to check this. First and foremost, get a lawyer to check this because this is something that I'm not sure how it plays out in practice. This is something that you can't really just Google because you're not really sure how this is going to go. You just need to make sure that you have a “real lawyer” checking this. Jason, you mentioned something pre-show about how this had to do with TV.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:50] Yeah, yeah. She works for a TV show, which means the producer who's saying, “Don't be anonymous and put your name on it”, I mean he's looking out for his interests, which means that, “Oh hey, we've got somebody on staff who was in this story,” which is going to be great for him, but long-term, is that really going to be great for you? I don't think it might be.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:12] And again, I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer and I'm not a litigator either. I would ask, will this affect the testimony if it's anonymous? Because I'd imagine that an anonymous testimony may have less weight. However, it might also be something where you can have the credibility saying, “This is a lab partner”, but it doesn't have your name on it. If it doesn't negatively affect this and it's not material on the case, stay anonymous because court proceedings are public record. Period. Yeah. And that said, if it will negatively affect the testimony in some material way, it's hard, but you probably then should put your name on it because I feel like we all owe it to each other in a civil society to stand up for one another. That said, if there's any other hope of doing this without having your name on it, you got to stay anonymous. This is not something you want showing up in Google results for the next 10 years of your life even though you're doing the right thing.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:07] I don't know, I mean maybe if that's where she comes from, it might be, it’s like, “Look, I stood up for my lab partner and I stood up for the people in my class.” You know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:16] Yeah, you’re doing the right thing.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:18] [inaudible] the other, but I think that, you know, on the safe side, be anonymous. But if you really have like, you know, a dog in the game, then put your name out.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:30] Jason, screw it. What do you say we get a real lawyer who actually knows what they're talking about on the line?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:34] How about we call our friend Corbin Payne from Tennessee?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:37] Good call. Yeah. Corbin Payne, friend of the show, a defense attorney working out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Corbin, can you help us out with this?

Corbin Payne: [00:34:43] Yeah, I'd love to. So for those who aren't familiar with the law and the legal system, a deposition is something that you come in, you testify under oath, just like you're in a regular trial in a courtroom setting. However, you're not in a courtroom setting. So there's no judge, there's no jury and there is no courtroom audience, but there are attorneys and there's also a court reporter. So there's less of an audience, so less people looking at the witness. But it can be intense and it is very one-on-one. And I've literally seen witnesses and even parties to a lawsuit break under the pressure of a deposition. So I want to start off to say that Daddy With A Dilemma has a very brave daughter. Testifying in a deposition is not something that is easy. So congrats to her. So, [inaudible][00:35:38] this question over, there are three factors that kind of jumped out of me. One is the legal considerations and the main question there is, does anonymity hurt the case? And I'm going to say based on what he has said, probably not. And the reason I say that is the plaintiff's attorney would have made it very clear if anonymity would weaken the case. They would have probably sat down with the daughter and just said, “You've got this option, but we think it would really be helpful to us if you put your real name out there or please do put your real name out there.” So the fact that they're not doing this, makes me think that they're probably fine. She's probably fine as far as the case goes with remaining anonymous or putting your name on there. So from that perspective, I don't think it matters too much with her choices. Probably the second consideration would be reputational slash professional. And that's because her involvement will be a part of the public record. Where the public record, this might not be something that would pop up on Google, unless it's like really newsworthy and someone puts her name in an article or something, but anyone could walk over to the courtroom, request those documents related to that case and see somewhere that the daughter had given this testimony. So it will be out there and you cannot un-ring the bell, as they say, once this gets out. You can remain anonymous now and go public later, but you cannot go public about it now and become anonymous later. So any decision that the daughter makes here really needs to be well-considered before she takes the leap to going public if that's what she decides to do.

[00:37:31] And it's an unfortunate fact, but many whistle boat blowers face backlash for being, you know, I'm saying on air quotes, “snitches or rats”. It's also a well-known fact that, or excuse me, an unfortunate fact that women who call out sexual predators in positions of power also face their own unique backlash. The Me Too Movement has been empowering women all over the world to call out these predators. But time will tell whether or not it will change our culture so that those who speak out are not penalized for doing so. And the third and final factor to take into account is personal safety. So we've got a professor here who has apparently abused his power to harass the women around him. Being named could result her becoming a target of his vindictiveness. Now she's got some very important legal protections that prevent her from being harassed by him for a testimony she gave.

[00:38:30] But it's still something that she's got to take into account. And there are some pros to these cons. One is, this could conceivably help her career as a journalist because she publicly and courageously took a stand against harassment and made sure a story got out. And this is an important story. And additionally, the more people who show they're not afraid to take a stand against harassment, are not afraid to testify against this behavior, the better it is for society. I think it's very important that we all take a stand and do what we can to call this out to rightfully demonize it and make sure that the perpetrators don't get away with their bad behavior and they live with a fear that they could get called out and be in trouble for their bad behavior. Finally, I would also say that what she did is worthy of respect and admiration.

[00:39:29] Having this out in the public should be a matter of pride for her, not something that gets treated like this shameful secret. So in the end, my recommendations are that first, she trusts the legal team. They know what is best for the case and it sounds like they think they'll do just fine whether she remains anonymous or whether she's named in this. I would also say realistically assess whether the benefits outweigh the costs as to career and reputation. Now I noticed in the question submitted by Daddy With A Dilemma, her manager thinks it's a great idea for her to put her name out there. I don't know what this manager's motives are. This manager could just be making small talk, could be trying to angle for a story, or have her best interests in mind. I don't have enough information there and I don't know if this is a man or a woman.

[00:40:27] So I would advise talking to some other women in her profession. They will have a better grasp of what this could mean for her future and be able to advise her a little bit better on this than I could. And above all, this is a pretty cool thing that she's done. I think she should try to figure out a way that she could use this whole experience to help others out. This is a pretty compelling story and I think it could be cool if she talks about it and hopefully encourages others to do the right thing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:05] Corbin, thank you so much for the help, man. Really appreciate it.

Corbin Payne: [00:41:08] Jordan, you're very welcome. I am very glad to be on here. Thank you guys for addressing this question.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:13] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:15] On Feedback Fridays, when reading the letters, is it possible to preface each letter with who is writing it? Sometimes we're halfway through or longer before we have a clue to whether it's a guy or a girl writing the letter. I'm often waiting for a clue, but because people write in the first person, they only use pronouns that designate the other people's gender. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen at times where I finally hear who wrote the letter at some point and have to reframe the whole conversation in my mind. Thanks. Not Really Gender Confused.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:48] Yeah, I think this makes sense actually. Maybe Jason, we start each letter with “a woman from Indiana”, right? Or something like this.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:56] Don't say female.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:58] I won't. I will be careful not to, but if we can start the letters like that, because I do often think, “Oh yeah”, so if I'm confused, I know people listening at home are sure as heck confused too.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:08] We will definitely do that. But I don't know if it matters all that much because these are just people problems that we're doing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:14] It probably doesn't matter, but I think people want to envision who it is in her head. Yeah. They want to relate to that person as much as they can.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:24] No, I totally get that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:26] All right. Keeping it short. Recommendation of the week. Jason, this one's all you.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:32] Survivor's Guide to Prison. This was an interesting one. It came out in 2017 and it was executive produced by Susan Sarandon. And it's funny because when you go look at the reviews on Netflix, it is a huge bunch of one stars. Huge bunch of one stars because people apparently out there don't like Susan Sarandon and her topics. But I found it actually engaging and enlightening and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's not so much a how-to because that's what you'd think when you start watching and it's like, “Okay, how do I not get raped on my first day?” That's great. You know? But a lot of it is like, I think two thirds of the documentary is just about how our justice system in the United States is so screwed up and you know, it's a call to action to get your representatives to do something about it. That's really what it is. So, but I enjoyed it quite a bunch.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:38] Yeah. It's funny how many people don't like her. Is it her voice or what? Did she do something politically that pissed everyone off?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:43:44] I have no idea. No idea. I have a friend who's really good friends with her and he loves her to death. So I don't know. I really don't know what's up with it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:56] All right, well you heard it. Survivor's Guide To Prison also on Netflix and I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us friday@jordanharbinger.com. That'll get your questions, well in theory, answered on the air. We're happy to keep you anonymous, of course. Keep them short. That ups your chances of getting your question answered.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:44:16] Short, short, short, short.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:17] Yes, just enough detail to do the trick. Not the whole. If I have to page down, not getting on the show. Too hard, too hard. I won't even make it through the initial read. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at JordanHarbinger.com and don't forget our Alexis skill, how you get that is you go to JordanHarbinger.com/alexa and it'll give you a little snippets of interviews with some practical takeaways. We're going to be putting some other drills and exercises in there as well and it becomes a part of your daily briefing, JordanHarbinger.com/alexa or you can search for it in your Alexa app and it will install itself.

[00:44:52] Quick shout outs to Rana Batyske, DJ Mick’s wife, it's funny, DJ Mick, who I asked that question about the mixed tape a couple of weeks back. He's like, “You'll never guess what happened, man. I told my wife that I was on, you know, talking to this guy and then he has got the show and my questions on the show.” And she goes, “Yeah, I've been sending you that guy's podcast, the Jordan Harbinger Show for months and months and you just never bothered to listen to it.” So it turns out his wife was already a listener and he had never heard of us. Typical husband and wife relationship somehow. Also shout out to John Raynaud. He's a GM at Pizza My Heart. He listens to the show up in the Bay Area. Eventually I will come to you for free pie. Just be ready for that. I will come to you and say, “Feed me”, and hopefully [00:45:39][inaudible].

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:39] We need a secret like, you know Jason Bourne word, that’s right. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:44] Free pizza code. All right. I'm on Instagram and Twitter, @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. Jason, where can I find you?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:52] I'm on Instagram, @JPD. Twitter@jpdef and you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks. All of those are linked at JPD.me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:01] Alright. Keep sending in those questions, those short, concise questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. We are excited to bring it to you and in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time.