80: How to Befriend Celebrities Without Being Awkward | Feedback Friday

Transcript for Feedback Friday | How to Befriend Celebrities Without Being Awkward (Episode 80)

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 Cathy Heller talking about branding yourself as a creative and marketing yourself as a creative and how to talk to non-creatives and pitch them, sell to them, and understand what clients want. That's a great one whether or not you're actually in the creative field. And we had Carter Thomas talking about cryptocurrency and blockchain, and we recorded this so long ago. It'll be kind of funny to give it a listen because of course he is one of the sharpest minds in the industry and collects -- it just very rational thinker. It's a great intro to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, which regardless of what the price of Bitcoin might be right now is still a very, very hot topic and industry. And of course, our primary mission here on the show is to pass along our guests and our experience and insights along to you.

[00:00:54] 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 today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Try to keep them concise. If he can't, it really increases the chance of your question getting answered on the air and getting read in the first place because I'll tell you the wall of text when we're going through hundreds of things in the inbox, it's a little bit intimidating and kind of makes us feel like we're suffocating. So the shorter the better, as long as there's enough detail for us to actually get to the media the question.

[00:01:24] So I was on the road all week filming something special for you guys, doing a really cool online course. I'll let all of you know more about that soon. But yeah, that was really a lot of fun. Really had a good time doing that, designing that, filming that, letting that go. That should be getting shopped up and ready for later this summer, so that's fun. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mail bag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:45] Hi, Jordan and Jason. I'm a college student with a faulty mindset. My mind, besides that any possible relationship won't work. Despite being shy, I've practiced my social skills a lot and I'm always attentive during conversations. The problem is that I'm less experienced at dating than most. A few awkward first dates and a couple of rejections are all I have to my name. I'm putting too much significance on these few events and have decided that I'm undateable when I know that I'm not. I managed to convince myself that each conversation went poorly or obsess about something I could have said better. Even if things went well, it fits neatly into a narrative that I know isn't true, but I forget this in the moment. Then I reject myself in my head and that feels worse than the real thing. Plus it squanders an opportunity, great conversation, she's just friendly. Got her number, she's just being polite. Things felt fine in the moment, but an hour later that changes. Even if she's into me, I started assuming I like her only because she likes me. What steps can I take to recognize and disrupt these thoughts? Sincerely, Doubting Thomas.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:44] Yeah, I totally understand that. If you start assuming that I like her only because she likes me. Oh man, this is a miserable train of thought to go down and there's a saying that says we find ourselves with the partners we deserve. I don't actually believe this. I think we ourselves with the partners we think we deserve. And the problem isn't that you don't deserve what you want, it's that you think you don't deserve what you want. And if I were you, I do some serious exploring to find out why you have this mindset in the first place. I know from talking to Dr. Drew about this very subject that our self-esteem is sort of set in place by age five or six, but that doesn't mean we can't gain some understanding about that, what influences that, and work on our sense of self-esteem and reexamined what we want out of life and how to get it.

[00:03:30] And in fact, I think that's a very worthwhile pursuit. It's obviously more than I can get into here, but I suggest getting a good therapist that specializes in this sort of thing and diving deeper into what has shaped and continues to shape your sense of self-worth. You're working on yourself at the gym, you're getting an education, yet you're rejecting people before they reject you in order to defend yourself against what you consider to be the inevitable pain of rejection coming at a time when you're not expecting it. So you're instead rejecting yourself so that it doesn't come to you as a surprise later on down the line. This is a very human defense mechanism and it's unfortunately very effective at keeping us isolated and lonely. So thanks for working out with us in your ears for so long, brother. Go ahead and work on this particular set of awareness and you're going to want to dig into why this is set up the way it is and work on the cause, because you're not just able, -- there's no sort of magic trick to stop you from downing yourself. You've got to find the root cause and then attack that and rebuild the foundation on which your self-esteem relies. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:35] Hey fellows, I've been a listener for over two years. Love the show. Keep crushing it. My question is how do I act normal and make friends with celebrities, athletes or well-known people without being weird. I live in a big city and my best friend is in the hospitality industry and he invites me to everything he's involved with so I get to constantly hang out with and interact with athletes, musicians, well-known restaurant owners, et cetera. There've been times I try to have normal conversations with the celebrities, but the elephant in the room is that they are famous. They know it, I know it, they know I know it, and there must be a vibe I'm giving off that I'm trying to act to normal. Hell, I've hung out on one of the guy’s boats for hours and it was still kind of weird. Maybe because I wasn't one of the models in the bikini. We see a lot of these people often, and it's not unrealistic to strike up a friendship, but it'd be nice to start to make normal conversation. Any tips or pointers? Thanks, Hopeful Elephant Tamer.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:26] Yeah, this is great. This is so interesting. I wonder who exactly he's talking about, right? Because I don't know it, despite the industry that we're in, I almost don't know who anyone is. I remember running into A-Rod New York and people were going crazy and I was like, “What's his name?” “A-Rod.” “Oh, is he? Um, what does he do again?” And they're like, “He's a freaking athlete.” And I'm like, “Oh, okay. Is it like he's like a basketball player or something?” Like I had no clue. I had no clue. And that allowed me to act completely normal. No big deal. And I thought that was kind of, and my friends were just going bananas. Forgetting that people are famous once you know about it, it's impossible. Especially if you're actually a fan of what they're doing. So don't pretend or try to pretend that you're at ease too much, or it'll definitely be awkward like you said, and don't make the mistake of being like, “Oh, I'm so comfortable, I'm going to make fun of you all the time.” I've seen that happen. It happens to a lot of people that I'm with, or when people find out that I'm sitting next to somebody well-known, they didn't recognize. It's a little embarrassing, and I've seen this happen over and over again.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:31] It's universal. It's uncomfortable. It's completely uncomfortable to watch. You just want to just shake them and say, “Don't do that, man.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:37] Yeah. Like, “Oh, I get it. You don't want to be star struck,” so you're like, “Nice tie, bro. Where'd you get that, Baby Gap?” And it's like, “Oh, that was just rude.” And he's not laughing and now you're like the guy who's trying to tool this preacher. No, I mean, I was like, whoever it is, whoever the well-known person is, it's not, it's not a good look.

[00:06:56] So feel free to complement their work and then move on quickly, right? So you can say something like, “Hey, oh great performance in game seven, or I've really loved the new album, especially track, you know, this track or whatever. Love that stuff, really, really solid.” Whatever you want to do, you don't have to go fanboy, fangirl it, compliment their work and move on quickly. This way, the cat's out of the bag. It's flattering instead of idol worship that's aligned, we have to sort of toe here. You know, I like it when people say, “Oh, I've really liked what you're doing with this and that.” That's great. But when someone's like, “Oh my gosh, this person's amazing, they never make a mistake and you're up on this pedestal,” then that's highly uncomfortable. And then you can move on to being more at ease since the scoreboard is up and everyone's on the same page. So you don't have to pretend like you don't know who they are. Call it out, express your admiration or whatever it is for what they've got. And then you can go from there and it will really release a lot of the steam. It'll release a lot of the tension in the interaction. Because remember, everyone's either trying to pretend that they don't know who that person is or that they don't care, and it comes across as really, really obvious.

[00:08:00] And I remember there was a girl that I went to law school with and she was a waitress in Miami or something like that, and she kept running into celebrities all the time and the place where she was working and she said she kept recounting these stories were in law school in Michigan, right? Midwest, not exactly a celebrity hotbed. And she'd be like, “Oh, and then I said Cuba blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” you don't even know what you're talking about. Like as if you're on a first name basis with Cuba Gooding Jr., and I'm just thinking like this is so pretentious and ridiculous. Obviously if you're talking to him like that, it's probably awkward because he has no idea who you are. And he's used to it, but the people around him feel weird, which is going to make him feel weird. So just -- you have to get it out of the way, you have to make sure that you treat these people like normal, but you don't have to pretend like you have no clue who the hell they are, unless of course you actually don't, which is also fine. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:51] Hey guys, my grandfather is a very intelligent man that's unfortunately starting to go down and it seems that the end may be near. His mind is still sharp, but multiple cancer diagnoses, chemo treatments, and life changing surgeries have really taken a toll on him. I've talked to him about doing an interview so my family can have something to look back on and he's open to the idea. Do you guys have any suggestions of what I should ask him? Also, this is my first time conducting an interview. What are some tips that I could use to get the most out of him? Is there any equipment that you would recommend? Thanks for all that you do and I really hope to hear from you all soon, Family Historian To Be.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:25] Okay. So I have a list of questions here that I think might be really interesting, and I think this is a great idea. I've wanted to interview my parents for a while. I think interviews on video would be really cool and you can also just import the audio separately or you can record it separately or you can record a video and an audio, it doesn't matter. But I think from a tech standpoint, a couple of cameras, one or two even just wide angles, totally fine. You could use a GoPro for this, and a just a separate audio source would be great. Couple lavalier mics would be good, or you can even buy a zoom recorder and set it down on a table. So I would say what is your earliest memory from childhood? Like what's the first thing you remember, is a good starter. What is your favorite memory from childhood? So it'll probably be some sort of birthday or something like that, or Disneyland. What did you do for your birthday as a kid? Who was your first girlfriend? Was it grandma or someone else? How did you meet grandma? What did you do on your first date? How did you know you wanted to marry grandma? What was your first job? How did you decide what you wanted to be when you grew up? How did you pick your career, in other words? What was the worst thing you did as a kid? You know, what kind of got you into trouble and what happened? What was the craziest thing you ever did with your friends? What do you wish you knew back then that you know now? What do you think is wrong with this generation? That should get him talking, and I would also if he's been in any wars or anything like that. That's always interesting. Has he ever been overseas? Is he ever lived overseas? That kind of stuff. You know, he was in World War II or something like that or you know, whatever Vietnam, depending on how old he is. You could start -- you could just get them going on some crazy stories.

[00:11:02] I would say don't be too attached to the questions and you have to let the conversation flow. Naturally, let the topics flow from one to the other. So don't say what was your earliest memory from childhood? And he's like, “Oh, I remember going to the store with my aunt and she used to pick fruit and we used to help carry the fruit home.” And then you're like, instead of asking about the neighborhood or what your aunt did or why you were with your aunt a lot, da, da, da, you just move on to the next thing. Get the stories out. You're not on a timeline here other than, yes, you have limited time, but you don't have 45 minutes, right? You can do this in multiple sessions. If you see he's getting tired, you can stop and come back later. You can just pick it up after 20 minutes. You can do this in little bursts. There's so many good things that you can do with this. Jason, have you ever done anything along the lines of this project?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:46] I actually have. I've done this interview with my Dad before and I was asking about my grandfather because you know, I was 18 when my grandfather died. So I didn't get to really know him as an adult where I could really like get into the stories. So I interviewed my Dad and said, “Hey, tell me about Grampy,” and we sat down at the table outside, I had my Zoom H6 with a microphone set up, which is a great recorder that we both use. And also as far as equipment goes nowadays everybody's got like 4K video on their phone. Just get a tripod and point your phone at them if you need video. But what I found is my Dad didn't like video because then he got really self-conscious so we just did audio and that way he relaxed into it and forgot the microphone existed. But you know, just asking my Dad about his, his parents and then his grandparents because they don't really, you know, everybody asks about somebody they might know but it's like go back as far as you can in the family tree and tell me what's your oldest memory of our family, and get them talking about that. And you know that really got my Dad lit up though when he got to talk about his Dad, because my Dad was very proud of my grandfather because he worked in the coal mines and supported the family. And then that moved into him telling the story of my great grandparents who came over from Italy and like my great grandfather came over and did all this stuff and went back and married my great grandmother. They came over on the book. All those types of stories kind of naturally come out if you're doing an interview, not an interrogation.

[00:13:08] So going back to what you said Jordan, it's like you don't want to just ask rapid fire questions this once, you want this to be a free flowing interview. So they can just tell the stories that are going to randomly pop in their head, because they're going to remember things that they probably haven't talked about for years and it's going to be pretty free form. And then if you want to put this out somewhere for the family later, you can edit it down. But just make your grandfather feel as comfortable as he can be. Get decent audio so it's there forever and everybody can enjoy it and just go as deep as you can.

[00:13:39] This is Feedback Friday, stick around and we'll get right back to your questions after these important messages from our sponsors.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:45] This episode is also sponsored by Fin. Fin is a new breed of personal virtual digital assistants. So essentially it's like the best assistants. Fin knows your preferences, the numbers, the people you interact with, and integrates with your email and your calendar. They can make calls, emails on your behalf, pay bills, remember important dates, get things done for you essentially automatically. This weekend, Jen and I were looking for a new carpet cleaning service, so we had Fin get us some quotes and we asked Fin to get quotes on carpet cleaning services with at least four to five stars on Yelp or higher. And within a few hours we add five plus quotes to choose from and they even helped book the appointment. Now, the carpets are a brighter shade of white, can't really beat that. We're also using Fin to do research on upcoming guests and possible guests for the show. And that's what makes Fin a little bit different than a lot of these other sort of outsourcing services because Fin is a hybrid of actual humans and machine learning from previously completed tasks. So the more tasks they do, the better Fin actually gets in. And all the humans are college educated and based in the US. You're not going to be like, “Hey, I need a list of this.” And then somebody sends you like some crappy spreadsheet that's essentially Google results. Or what I've actually -- I mean I've done a lot of these services before where you ask for something and they'll send you a screen cap of what whatever they got from Google in whatever country they're in and you're like, “I literally could have just typed in this into Google myself and got better and more relevant and clickable results.” So that's not what you're going to get from Fin, you're going to get something useful from these folks. They have critical thinking skills and if you're someone who doesn't have 40 hours of work for an assistant to work full time every week, but you just want a handful of things done. Here's the best part. Fin is always available. It's on demand and you only pay for what you use

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:27] And it's really cool too because I'm using fin for actually checking into my flights when we're at the Fireside Conference, this coming up, because we're going to be in the woods and I'm not going to be able to get the seat I want so I can tell Fin, “Hey, check in, I want an aisle seat as close to the front of the plane as possible,” and they will check in for me and then they will email me my boarding pass so when I get to the airport I'm already checked in, got my seats set up and have my boarding pass already. That's pretty cool.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:51] That is cool. Can you tell Jen about that, I want to make sure I don't get bathroom seat on the way back from Fireside.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:56] I'll do what I can. And once you try Fin, you're going to love it as much as we do, and as a listener of our show, we've arranged for all of you to try Fin for free. Just go to fin.com/jordan, you'll get 60 dollars in credit, and Fin is waving the standard 20 dollars a month subscription fee just for us. That's fin.com/jordan to try it for free. Fin.com/jordan.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:16] This episode is sponsored in part by Wrangler. Everybody's got their favorite pair of jeans or you know, if you rock no pants, you still probably even have a favorite pair of jeans. Just kind of a default here in American society.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:27] That's court ordered by the way, favorite pair of jeans.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:29] The court ordered by favorite pair of jeans, that’s right. You know, if I'm going to have a court ordered pair of jeans, I want a pair that fits perfectly and always looks great. The pair that I wear out at night, one for at home on a couch, at work, wherever, or in my case, just the one that's fine. They're the go to sometimes by law, by operation of law, but do not underestimate their importance. No one knows this better than Wrangler. They're going to love this ad. They're going to love this spot, Jason. They're the authority on jeans and they use their expertise in comfort and durability and applying it to a new line of modern fits and styles. A Wrangler jeans are made for the modern day adventure, the go getter, the ad home podcaster. Folks who like to keep moving, whether you ride a bike, a bronc, a skateboard, or you're the type who walks the Earth in search of something like Caine from Kungfu, I think is what they're aiming at there. These jeans are for you, classic modern styles, a range of fit. They even got some retro stuff going on. Rereleasing the old school stuff. Jason, take it away.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:26] Hey man, don't forget that iconic patch and their stitched W. American icons for over 70 years. Visit wrangler.com and check out their great selection of jeans, shirts, pants, outerwear for men and women. Wrangler, denim made for the modern world.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:40] Bang.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:40] Thanks for supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com/advertisers. We're rebuilding the show from scratch, so a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice would really help us out. It only takes a minute or two and if you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:00] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:02] Hey, you all. I've recently started following your advice around building and cultivating my network with the tips and tricks at Advanced Human Dynamics. I've even signed up for Contactually, which is an amazing CRM. Most intuitive one I've ever tried and I've tried a lot. My question is how do you manage your time? I have 1300 active contacts in Contactually, and I spend hours following up and reinitiating contact. It's consuming way too much of my time. I've since stopped reinitiating and I've increased the length for follow-up in the buckets, but that's really just delaying the inevitable. How do you manage your 10,000 plus contacts and still have time to run a business? Thanks, Contactually Challenged.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:38] Sure. So when you're using a system like a CRM to maintain your network, and by the way, thanks for signing up for Six-Minute Networking, that's our sort of free course on networking and relationship maintenance. Stuff I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago that I threw into a series of videos that's at jordanharbinger.com/course, Six-Minute Networking, and really, people always -- when I say, “Hey, are you doing this?” And a lot of people go, “No,” I'm going to do it in three months. The one thing you can't make up for with this relationship and networking stuff is lost time. You can't just speed it up later when you have time. The whole point of Six-Minute Networking is it's done in minutes a day, so go and do it. Stop making excuses that you'll do it later. That's actually the number one mistake people make with networking is they do it when they quote unquote have time instead of digging the well before they're thirsty. So then they go, “Oh crap, I really need to reach out to my contacts because X, Y, Z is happening.” Too late, so go and do that ASAP, and reengage those weak and dormant ties. Jordanharbinger.com/course is where that’s at.

[00:19:37] So now for Contactually Challenged here, any CRM, you've got to prioritize your contacts. Most can be hit yearly or even every six months. Also Contactually has automation. I don't actually use it, but you can if you need to. I don't get what's going on though. If you have 1300 contacts and I've got almost 10 times as many. I contact people about every 45 to 90 days, and it only takes me about an hour a week. So I'm not sure what type of messages you're sending, but most of mine are quick check-ins, quick notes. It's not a Christmas letter, it's not multiple paragraphs long. And I give scripts for check-ins in Six-Minute Networking as well, which I'm sure you've seen. but at 1300 contacts for you, I'd be shocked if he needed more than 90 minutes a week, and that's the largest amount of time you'll ever spend in the networking space, other than going to conferences. Everything else that we have is like five minutes a day. So I'm not sure what's going on there. I recommend batching all of this at once inside the CRM. So it just gets done. This Monday, I'd skipped the previous week's outreach because I was at a conference, I was at podcast movement, and so I spent maybe 45 minutes in Contactually instead of what assume is usually less than that. And so I budget 90 minutes a week, I almost never use all of that. It's very, very worthwhile investment of time, extremely worthwhile. So I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but it sounds like maybe you're reaching out to everybody all the time instead of prioritizing 45 to 90 day buckets. So make sure you're doing that and make sure you're not writing a Christmas letter that nobody's even going to read to each one. A quick check in, something useful for them. That's all you really need. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:16] Hi, Jordan and Jason. I'm a 21 year old male college student who's had terrible luck with women when intoxicated. The past four years I've been slapped, had beer cans thrown at me, cussed out, and most recently charged with simple assault. This charge was an eyeopener to one, stay the hell away from women, well intoxicated, and two, to improve my game. I'm going to see a therapist at my university to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. But in the meantime, I want to improve my sober game as none of these things ever happened when I'm sober. To do this, I'm going to be my crew's designated driver for the school year and be a better wing man for my friends as I find it easier to talk about other people than myself. Any advice on how to Excel as a wing man and not be a creep? Thanks, Mister I Hope I Don't Go To Jail For This.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:59] Huh! Wow. Well definitely never drink at all. If you're having this stuff happen. That is really bad. I mean, I've had friends when I was younger it'd be like, “I'm going to go out tonight and try to get a drink throw it on me, try to get slapped.” I still didn't even see anybody ever have that happen. So whatever you're doing is terrible. And who gets charged with assault? What are you doing?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:19] He's 21 years old, he's talking about for the past four years. So he was doing a lot of underage drinking before that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:25] A good call. Yeah, I didn't even get that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:27] So he's not even equipped to go out and have a beer back then.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:30] No.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:31] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:31] Yeah. This is bad. You need to stop drinking entirely. You're not missing anything anyway as you know, and you've already hit on a great plan. Be the wingman for other people, this puts you at a huge advantage. First you get to talk with anyone you want with virtually no agenda, which allows you to become outcome independent. This is a confident and easy place from which to start a conversation because you're not like, “How do I get in this girl's pants?” Or whatever the heck you were doing to get slapped and charged with assault. You also get to talk to people about how great your friends are, which makes you feel good and it makes you look good for being super positive and having a bunch of great friends. And what will happen as you get better and better at this, is that you'll make your relationships with your buddies a lot stronger.

[00:23:14] You'll also meet a ton of new people. You'll meet a lot of men. You'll meet a lot of women, especially as you have to actually meet and talk to more guys to meet more women. That's inevitable, unless you're just completely creepy and ignoring guys in conversations and only talking to women. And the happy side effect is that you'll be the one that a lot of the women end up chasing because you're the one that isn't chasing them and you're not being needy and trying to grow up or again, whatever it was you were doing to get slapped and you're still going to be fun, you're still going to be social, which is a powerful combination. And I love being the wing man for my friends. I think at some of the most fun you can have when you go out with single people, so enjoy this and you just don't even touch this stuff.

Clearly you are not the type of person that can drink in moderation. And when you do drink, you're not just a fun drunk, you're doing something seriously wrong.

[00:24:02] So I would say don't just stop drinking when you go out to meet people, but just don't drink. There's some of us that just can't and shouldn't drink, and I feel like you're probably in that camp. You can revisit that in a couple of years after you've gotten a chance to sort of discover what sobriety's like because if you've been drinking since you were 17, you need to take a few years off not only for the health of your brain but also for your emotional personal growth because this is not a good sign.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:24:28] We'll be right back with more Feedback Friday after these brief but important messages from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator. Look, everybody a brand nowadays, and on social media, it's getting harder and harder and more expensive to get yourself noticed. Instead of those social media sites come and go, you need to have a stable place on the Internet, you can call home. A place you can send people to find you no matter what website is popular this week. That's why we recommend HostGator's website builder. You can easily create professional looking and feature packed websites and the best part is no coating. Like I've said before, I coated for 20 years and I never want to do it again. So that's why I choose HostGator. You can choose from over 100 mobile friendly templates, so your site will look great on any device, your smartphone, your tablet, your desktop, your car someday. Look at those Tesla’s with the big screen. You want it, you want your website to look good in somebody Tesla, of course you do.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:00] Oh Hey, by the way, I'm going to Fireside Conference in Canada here in September. It should be a lot of fun. Jason's coming with me, aren't you Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:08] Yes, I am. I cannot wait.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:11] And Jen's coming with me. It's kind of like entrepreneur camping. I don't really know how else to explain it. It's a conference, but it's kind of an unconference. Imagine campfires and probably some beer and some good food and stuff like that and a lot of goofing around. No cell phones. It's not too late to register. This is not my event. It's the Fireside Conference. It's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of entrepreneurs and business folks, and they've got 50 spots left. It's the final 50 as they say, and I just think it's going to be a really fun time. It's going to be sort of unplugged. It's going to be taking place about hours from Toronto, Canada, on 750 acres of private green space on a beautiful lake. So should be a lot of fun. Lot of mindfulness slash mindless stuff like water skiing, canoeing, rock climbing, yoga, fitness boot camps, meditation, real campfire chats, not the fake fireside chats that are on a stage. I mean they'll probably be some of that too, but also lakeside keynotes and stuff like that, so should be really fun. A lot of cool people going. There's no VIP, there's no restricted access. Everybody's sort of hanging out together, and you get a 500 dollars discount if you apply and you're accepted. That's 500 dollars Canadian. So it's September 6th through 9th, and I'm looking forward to it. You can find info at firesideconf, C-O-N-F.com/jordan. Firesideconf.com/jordan.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:30] Thanks again for supporting the show. Checking out the sponsors is what keeps us on the air. For list of all the discount codes and links visit jordanharbinger.com/advertisers, and if you have an Amazon Alexa, check out our Alexa Skill. You can get clips from previous shows and your daily briefing and it's completely free. Just go to jordanharbinger.com/alexa, or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa App. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:55] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:56] Hey guys, thank you for continuing with your show. A lot of people need your help, including me. I feel like you're making me a better person. I've got an issue that should be right up your alley. I help my parents and sister by doing routine maintenance on their houses. The problem is when their friends and neighbors try to talk to me when I'm working, if I'm doing something noisy, I wear earplugs. Most people are used to this. When I pointed my ear and shake my head, they just nod and walk away. No problemo. When I'm doing something quiet, I listened to podcasts. Here's a typical situation. Someone says something to me, I emotion for them to wait. I sit down the paint and paint brush, pull up my phone, hit the pause button, and unplugged my earbuds just to hear someone say, “I see that you're painting today, or I like that color.” The only time I show my irritation is when they make repeated attempts at chit chat while I repeatedly plug and unplug my earbuds is I tried to get back to work. Even if I just tell them I can't hear you, I still have to stop and rewind. When I was listening to, it's typically the same people, so I was hoping they'd get used to this by now. I genuinely like these people and don't want to be rude, but is there a better way to handle this? Most of them are older than me and I'm in my early 50s. Signed, No Time For Chitchat.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:02] I got to ask you if this guy lives in the Midwest because this is such a Midwest--

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:06] Totally.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:07] This is such a Midwest thing, right? Like people are friendly, but they're also just constantly making observations out loud. I remember my grandpa used to read highway signs while driving, so it'd be like, “Oh, I75, I75, I75.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:23] Yeah. My grandparents would be like, “Oh, I see you put butter on that toast.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:26] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:0:29:27] That's butter.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:28] Ah, it looks like rain.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:29] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:0:29:29] Yeah, that's a new brand there that you got there? Yeah. “Oh, it looks like the neighbor got a new mower.” I mean, it's just constant stuff like that. Neighbors say all this -- I remember even when I hang out with my parents sometimes it'd be like, “Oh, they got an escalator over there.” “Oh, there's a sign here that says they'll be close to the 4th of July.” “Oh yeah.” My friend, Natalie is actually doing a comedy sketch about this. She's from Minnesota and she's just, a lot of its like based on her mom and dad, and they'll say something like, “Oh yeah, it looks like rain.” I mean, it's every day to look out the window weather report. Every day, “Oh, there's a red car over there.” I mean, it's just constant. Ironically, most people want to learn how to start conversations, but people don't know how to end conversations, which makes sense.

[00:30:15] What you can win -- in fact, one of the things we're actually training a lot of our executive protection guys on, we train a lot of bodyguards at Advanced Human Dynamics, our number one client base. We actually have the second largest executive protection company as a client. And one of the things that we train them on is how to end conversations. And we have a different system here that we use for them because obviously they're in a car with a billionaire or something like that. So it's a different scenario than your neighbor bugging you while you're painting. But what you can do is reply the first time and after they make their comment you can say something like, “Hey, it's really hard for me to hear what these headphones in, were you talking for long? Didn't mean to ignore you.” And then when they talk to you again, you can just totally ignore them or you can just smile and they'll assume you didn't hear them, and ideally they'll give up.

[00:31:02] You can also get another pair of giant headphones that will indicate to people that you can't hear. I find that wearing something like AirPods or tiny in-ear buds, ear buds, they're so low profile. A lot of people don't realize that you can't hear them, so they just keep talking and then you've got to take them out and pause and dah, dah, dah. If you get something bulky, then they'll know that you can't hear them, even if you kind of can and you're just trying to get on with your life. So I appreciate that you're trying to be friendly, but after the first polite comment, I think it's fine to just get on with the job. You know? Looks like it might rain there. Jason, what do you thinking?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:35] Oh yeah, them clouds over there on the horizon. It is going to be a barnstormer here today.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:39] I have garbage truck down there. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:42] Hey, Jordan and Jason. I'm soon 29 working as the first employee with a growing industrial technology company in Canada. My academic background is in business and industrial engineering, and I'm on my way to finishing my CPA. Given the role, background and skillset, I run the company's finances as well as participate in engineering projects from a perspective of design and computer programming. Outside of work, I've maintained favorable dormant ties through various extracurricular activities like rock climbing, improv, and et cetera, in my two alumni groups. How would either of you begin positioning yourself now for the time when you choose to break off from the startup, which is several years from now in a manner that's amicable? My employers are great, I have immense respect for them. However, I know there will come a day when I will want to call the shots and make my own path within this industry. Thanks for everything you and your team give to the world. Regards, Captain Conflicted.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:32] I totally get where you're coming from here, Captain Conflicted. So you should be generating good relationships with the company’s clients and you need to learn a sales skillset because you'll eventually need to learn how to sell, if you're going to go off on your own. You should also start thinking about the types of projects and clients that you like working for and the ones that you don't, and you should develop connections and deepen those relationships in the industry with the type of client that you want because the one thing you can't make up for it in relationships is lost time. And I mentioned that earlier on the show, you have to dig the well before you're thirsty and the way to do that is to create those relationships now and not later when you need them. And again, we did that whole course on this jordanharbinger.com/course. We'll help you get started with that.

[00:33:14] And bear in mind that in any given industry, the industries are really small. So when you do end up leaving, you need to make sure your employer is well taken care of, not leave them in alerts or in a tough spot. And I think we touched on something similar last week and you should also train someone in your company that you have a good relationship with. Maybe someone who will eventually take over your job when you leave. this way, your company's like, “Oh okay, this guy who's in the job now has been trained by the guy who left and they have good contact even though you've left.” So if there's questions or issues, this guy's not figuring it out for themselves and his performance is suffering and they're thinking, thanks a lot for leaving, leaving us with this guy, Captain Conflicted. Your company will thank you for that. The guy who takes over your job will thank you for that and you'll have a strong ally of your own creation.

[00:34:01] And I would also make friends with other people in your same industry that have your same job. So say you're the accountant at Nike, you should make friends with the person who's the head of accounting at Reebok or whatever, because these are the people that will probably give you business later when you go off on your own. And it seems strange, right? Because you're kind of competing with them, they're in this other company, and the same niche. You might end up working with them. And if you start your own company, you might end up hiring those same guys or gals. So you want those people in your industry as your ally instead of as a competitor, even if they currently compete with your company.

[00:34:37] So you have to separate the fact that you compete with them in a company level and create relationships with them inside the industry because you never know where you're going to shift and you never know what side of the coin you're going to be on, especially if you go off on your own. These are going to be possibly your clients. So you want to make sure that you're not just like, “Hey, I worked sort of invisibly near you in the same niche, in the same position for a decade. Nice to meet you. Let's do lunch.” You want to be like, “Hey Bill, good to talk to you. I've been talking to you for five years. You know me well, you trust me. I no longer work for Nike. Let's get something going.” That's what you want.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:35:11] That kind of reminds me of the Barbara Boxer episode. How she played the long game with relationships because she knew that in the same industry of politics, she's going to be around these people for a very long time. So don't you know, cut your nose to spite your face and make everybody in the same industry your friend, even though sometimes you have to compete with them but you can still be civil and know that I might work with you in the future.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:34] Exactly. Yeah, she's good -- she's been good at that. She's working people that probably at one point or another have wanted to strangle her and vice versa, for sure.

[00:35:43] Recommendation of the week. I know I recommended some cleaning fluid last week. Not the biggest winter probably for a lot of people. Not as exciting as a cool documentary. But this week, I've got a little gadget. I don't really recommend gadgets ever, but I just got noise canceling headphones and they are unbelievable. So I've got these Sony noise canceling headphones. They are the WH-1000 XM2 because they have a knack for naming things really incredibly catchy way apparently.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:12] Rolls off the tongue.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:14] Really rolls off the tongue. Sony WH-1000 XM2. But the reason I got these that I love these, they were rated super highly. The noise canceling is the best in the market. They have touch controls on the side and what I think is really cool is they have an ambient noise microphone that you can turn on and use an app to have sort of a shift like “Oh I want to hear a little bit because I'm walking. I want to hear a little bit more because I'm running. I don't want to hear anything because I'm on an airplane, and it can use your phone's accelerometer to decide whether it knows that you're running, whether it knows you're on an airplane, whether it knows that you're walking around somewhere, and it will automatically adjust those settings for you if you want it to. So you can be sitting at home full noise cancel. You get up and you're like I'm going to go for a walk or take a phone call. It turns that down a little. So you can still hear like a car horn when you're crossing the street, but you can't hear other people in Manhattan chitchatting on their phones or whatever.

[00:37:06] And another thing that I love about these is if someone talks to you, you put your hand over the ear cup and it turns on the ambient noise microphone automatically. So you can hear what somebody's saying. If they're like, “Sir, would you like something to drink?” You just put it over the ear cup and you can talk in here, and then you take your hand off and it goes right back to noise canceling.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:24] That's very cool.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:25] It's very cool, yeah. And I just really fell in love with these things. Also, it automatically adjusts for atmospheric pressure. So when you're in a plane, it adjust the noise canceling for the pressure and the plane. I didn't think that would make a difference, but it makes a huge difference, that automatic calibration. So I really love these and they were on sale at Best Buy for actually cheaper than Amazon. So a really worthy purchase. And that link is in the show notes. Sony 1000 XM2 wireless noise canceling headphones. Huge, huge win. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us at friday@jordanharbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. Happy to keep you anonymous, of course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Quick shout out to Kat. I hope your army move is going smoothly and thanks for the kind words on my voice as well. And a lot of people run and listened to the show, so if you're out there jogging it up right now, it consider this your shout out, jogging. I just picture people jogging by some body of water being like I'm learning right now while they're working out. I like that. I like that visual.

[00:38:33] I'm on Instagram and Twitter @jordanharbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show and recently I started putting up little knowledge bombs. I don't like doing inspirational quotes and stuff like that. I don't like that type of Instagramming.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:38:44] That's why we can still work together because if you did we would have a problem.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:47] I know. I just can't deal with that, so I decided to go, “Okay, here's a concept from the show that I've been thinking about, or here's a quick lesson that I learned and here's -- or here's some sort of life pro tip or hack that I've learned that I really like that I want to deliver,” and I do those on Instagram instead of trying to drop them into what we used to do, which was Minisode Monday, or I would stuff Feedback Friday with it. I'm just going to do those on Instagram @jordanharbinger on Instagram. Jason, where can they find you?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:12] You can find links to all my socials @JPD.me, and you can check out my other podcasts, Grumpy Old Geeks, and for more information on that show, just go to gog.show to find out how to subscribe.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:21] All right, keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Remember to keep them concise if you can. It really increases the chances that your question will get answered on the air. And share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. We're 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.

[00:39:43] Hey, if you like my show, you're going to love the Dr. Drew podcast here on PodcastOne. He's one of my favorite radio slash podcast guys, just favorite people in general. Join Jersey takes listener calls and talks to experts on a variety of topics relating to health, relationships, sex, drug addiction. Listen free each week on PodcastOne, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and in honor of self-improvement, you may also like The Good Life with Stevie and Sazan. Of course, this show, you're already got that on lock, or Revenge of the Jocks with Martellus Bennett only on PodcastOne.