20: There But for the Grace of Cryptocurrency Go I | Feedback Friday

Transcript for There But for the Grace of Cryptocurrency Go I | Feedback Friday (Episode 20)

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:00:00]  Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFillippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger Show, as much as we love having conversations with our fascinating guests, our primary purpose really is to pass along their and our experiences and those insights along to you. So 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 as always friday@jordanharbinger.com. So last week, Jason, looks like we dropped my old email address at AOC. Obviously, if you've emailed me there in the last two or three months since really in any time in 2018 I have not gotten it. So go ahead and resend that to friday@jordanharbinger.com which is where you can reach us. And of course I'm jordan@jordanharbinger.com.  But don't be sending me Friday stuff to my personal inbox. All I do is forward it. It goes in the back of the line because I want to, I don't know, it's sort of like, I don't want people jumping the queue thinking because it just screws up my inbox. Come on people. It's not that hard. friday@jordanharbinger.com. All right Jason, what's the first thing out of the mail bag?

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:01:08]  Dear Jordan and Jason, I'm a 25 year old single male. I'm overweight and what I mean by that is that I weigh 350 pounds. This is down from 425 pounds three years ago. I currently work two jobs. One is a pastor at a local church and the other is a secretary. My professional life is going well, I'm doing fine financially. By the end of 2019, I should have my Master’s Degree finished and should be totally debt-free. To most people it would seem like I'm doing fine, but my dating life is terrible and by terrible I mean non-existent. I have a dark past marked by great losses, depression, suicidal tendencies, self-harm and the like. I had a policy that I would not start a relationship with anybody until I was reasonably certain that I wouldn't decide to kill myself the next day. I made that decision when I was 15 and it wasn't until I was 23 that I was healed enough psychologically to consider dating.

[00:01:57]  That was two years ago and I still have not successfully been on a date. I have plenty of female friends, most of whom are great people. I've asked them multiple people out on dates, several of whom told me no or that I'm too much like a brother.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:02:09]  Yikes! Friend-zoned. So hard. So hard. Yeah. That's all right though. That's all right.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:02:14]  I have no issue putting myself out there. The real issue comes up with this one particular girl, let's call her, The Best.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:02:20]  Groan.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:02:22]  Yeah, collective groan. Ah, come on. We're calling her that because she really is the best. She helped me as I was coming out of my depression. She used to like me and she's my favorite person in the world to spend time with and she recently started liking somebody else. We never had a defined relationship and she doesn't have a defined relationship with this other guy who we will call Bill.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:02:42] Because that's his name.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:02:45]  The Best and Bill met about five months ago at college. So I did what anybody else does who has feelings for somebody. I told her about it. I went for a walk with her one evening, something that we used to do whenever she or I were struggling with depression and over the course of the walk, I brought up her dating history.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:01] Yeah. Okay. This is not going well. No, continue.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:03:05]  It has not been a good one. The last guy she dated ended with a restraining order and I had to physically hold back her ex one day when he was drunk and coming to “take her back”. We waited on the police to arrive. Lawyers were involved. I had to testify in court and now he's in prison on other charges. So yeah, she has a dating history during the walk I said, “I know you like Bill”, to which she blushed and it was super cute and I said, “I know that he kind of likes you back, but he isn't the only person who likes you.” She then directly asked who else liked her and I told her that it was me.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:03:36]  It sounds like middle school somehow. I'm not trying to be rude here, but I think the root of the problems here is this is being handled in a way that's very inexperienced, but I guess that's the question. So yeah, continue.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:03:50]  When I said this, she began interrogating me as to when I started liking her, how I knew that I liked her, if I was playing some sort of joke on her and so forth. Her questioning lasted about 45 minutes and it ended up with her getting a phone call, walking to her car and leaving. Now it's been three weeks since this interaction and I can't get it off my mind. We've talked since then, but she won't talk about our relationship or lack thereof. I think she still likes this other guy, but she won't say one way or the other. I want a relationship with her, but more importantly than any potential relationship, I want to  be able to talk to my bestfriend again.  She isn't really talking to me since this incident and I guess I'm hoping that you have some suggestions about how to rebuild a friendship or about fostering a romantic relationship with her.

[00:04:30]  I have basically zero experience with dating and right now it just feels like I'm losing a friend. What can I do at least to keep her as a friend? And do you have any advice for how to approach wanting a romantic relationship with somebody when they like somebody else? Am I a total jerk for telling her that I have feelings for when I knew she liked someone else? Am I just a generally terrible person? Am I overthinking the situation and should I just be happy that I'm 25 with decent pay and a plan for the future? Should I encourage her to date Bill? Okay. I actually like him. If I didn't like her as well, I would totally support them having a relationship. Partially, I'm afraid that if she date someone who isn't me, they could end up hurting her again and I don't want to see my best friend hurting.  In the past, when she would tell me that she likes me, I would tell her that I'm not ready for a relationship and that she should look for somebody else. Now that I'm ready, she's taken that advice. I know it's my fault that I'm in this situation, but anything would be helpful. Sincerely, Big Guy With a Big Heart.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:05:24]  All right, so the end of the question here really is telling, because he's got some very deep questions about himself and I don't really think he wants a relationship with her. I think it's more of a fear of loss. But I'll get into that in a second. The best way to get into any kind of healthy relationship is to work on yourself. And it sounds like you're working a lot, man. You know, congratulations on losing 75 pounds. That's no small feat. You basically lost a small child. Not even a small child. You lost a regular-sized child. That's really impressive and so you're already working on yourself, but you're still 350, so unless you're seven feet tall, you've got a ways to go. You're working on your mind, you're working on your body. It's going to take a while before you're ready for a mature relationship because the stuff that you're working on emotionally, it's going to take a lot longer, I think, than just losing the weight itself.

[00:06:16]  You're going to have your same mindset for months or years after that. So in the meantime, keep working on yourself. Keep your chin up. Here's the immediate red flag though, you're putting this girl that you call The Best, which was why we said groan -- just way up on a pedestal. This is a problem because you're idealizing her. She's probably not comfortable with that. First of all, you're going to make her uncomfortable. She's also in a place where she cannot possibly fulfill the expectations that you have of her. This is going to cause a huge problem if you ever do end up together because in your mind she is the best. She's somehow infallible other than her terrible dating history, which you know these are things that you should keep in mind. This is going to cause a problem because the mismatched expectations here are going to be unfair to her, but you are unable to get them out of your head and I feel like anytime you have no experience, you can't expect your first date to end up to be the perfect person together.

[00:07:20]  I think you're risking the deeper and better friendship that you have with her by trying to start a relationship with her, that's going to be bad for you guys both. I really think you should just stay friends with her. Yes, you like her, but I kind of feel like maybe that's because she's accessible to you and because you’re friends, I don't think it's because you've made some sort of mature evaluation that this is a person that you should be romantically involved with especially since you have no experience doing that, I think that that's more likely that you're just doing this based on your desires or impulses or the fact that she's accessible or gettable in a way for you other than the fact that she likes this other guy, Bill, now. Now the reason she's angry, in my opinion, is because in her mind, you guys were friends and now she's not sure.

[00:08:05]  This is why you're not talking. You've lost some of her trust. So you can fix this later on. But you need to stop hiding your intentions with women, a.k.a. pretending you’re friends when you're really interested in them. Don't lie to yourself. The reason you don't want to see her with someone like this guy, Bill or someone else who could potentially hurt her, is because you're the only guy in the universe that exists in your head who fits the description as somebody who wouldn't potentially hurt her. So I'll clarify that. He says in the letter, Jason, I don't want her to be with someone who could potentially hurt her. But that's because that effectively and very cleverly subconsciously of course, because I don't think he's doing this to himself on purpose, eliminates every other human male on the planet, right? It's like, “Oh, I don't want her to be with someone who had hurt her.

[00:08:54]  I would never hurt her. And I know that because I know my own intentions.” But you can't be so sure about all these other guys. So subconsciously, what's going on is he really just wants her for himself, which is totally normal. I'm not saying this is selfish or bad in some way, I get it. There's no shame in it. Just realize this is the reason that you're saying you don't want her to be with someone who could hurt her. It's not because you're trying to protect her or something else. That's a rationalization. That's your brain lying to you to make your course of action okay. And this is totally human and totally normal. So don't beat yourself up about it. We all do this. But the more aware of this process we become, the better off we are because we can gauge our true intentions instead of blindly following our emotions.

[00:09:38]  So whenever you see yourself rationalizing, well, you know I'm doing this because it's for her benefit. Here's this weird abstract way in which this works -- Just realize you're probably rationalizing an emotion and that emotion is going to lead you in the direction of whatever, of course, your feelings want. And generally, your feelings are shortsighted. They're based on things that are not logical. They're not meant to last long.  So they're not really that good to follow in the moment when you're talking about deciding what to do with a friendship that you've had for years. So there are mistakes here, but you're not a bad person and you're also not really overthinking it. You're just thinking about the wrong things. So stop pursuing her for now. Keep working on yourself. You've got a long way to go. It's not going to happen as fast as you would like, but it's not going to take as long as you think either.

[00:10:26]  So you've come so far, man. Don't stop now. You're 25 and in my experience, you're just getting into the fun part of life. So don't be in such a rush to get everything nailed down just because you feel like you're behind the curve. This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator. Everybody's a brand nowadays. On social media, it's getting harder and certainly more expensive to get yourself noticed and since those social media sites come and go, friendster, myspace, anyone? 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 create a professional looking but not professionally made because you're doing it in a feature-packed website when the best part is there's no coding. There's templates.

[00:11:11]    It's going to look good on your phone, on your desktop, your smartphone and your tablet. Okay. On your iPhone and your iPad, let's be real. Okay, and on your computer. And HostGator gives you a ton of add-ons. You can do things like increase your search engine visibility, PayPal integration, shopping carts, all that jazz, 99.9% uptime and support 24/7, 365 cause if something's going to go wrong, it's going to be on that day number 365 for sure, at four o'clock in the morning and HostGator's given us up to 62% off new packages for new users, so go to hostgator.com/jordan right now to sign up. That's hostgator.com/Jordan. This episode is also sponsored in part by SmartMouth. This is something that we love. What can I say? I don't know. I say it all the time. I love this stuff. It's not just a minty cover-up.

[00:11:59]  It is the best mouthwash around it does a little science in your mouth and it stops bacteria for 12 hours from producing sulfur gas, volatile sulfur compounds. That's what primarily produces the foul-smelling breath that you have when you don't use something that cleans out the mouth. Look, you should never have to worry about this when you're at a conference, when you're at work, when you're giving a presentation, the first impressions really matter. I remember bad hygiene. I think it's gross. It's just, yeah, I don't want to get into it, but you're working on yourself every day. You're working out, you got a nice little job going for you. You got your side hustle, you're fun to be around. That's great -- your math stinks. Fail. So try SmartMouth. It's the only activated oral rinse, clinically proven to stop bad breath for 12 hours and I can say that I dig it, I bring it with me. They have these little travel packs. I'm a fan. If you want to solve a real problem, you need real science, not just that minty cover-up. Nobody wants to be that guy or gal with bad breath. So try SmartMouth. Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Target, Amazon or visit them online, SmartMouth.com. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:13:04]  Jordan and Jason, First off, I want to say thank you for the shows. You all have been the best workout buddies and road trip companions a girl could ask for. Listening to your show has helped me to face harsh realities about myself and the people I surround myself with. Yay for self-improvement. Also, I like that this show has a more welcoming vibe to women. I'm a first year special education teacher living in South Carolina. I love my job and find it super rewarding. I have a good group of coworkers, live with a fun roommate and I'm active in a local church. I'm a Christian. However, I'm open- minded and get along with the majority of people I meet. In college, I was always down for going out and having a good time. Here's on the side -- She says she can shot a can of beer in under five seconds, which is pretty impressive.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:13:44]  That sounds really fast. Yeah, and dangerous.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:47] But I held onto my morals when it came to physical relationships. Through my friends, I've been able to see how emotionally damaging having casual sex can be.  In college, I dated a few guys who all basically told me that I was someone they would want to marry but not date. What is that supposed to mean?

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:14:03]  Well, I'll tell you in a second.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:14:04]  As the majority of my friends continue to seriously date and get married, I'm always asked to be a bridesmaid. During these special times like bachelorette weekends, showers and parties, I get asked if I'm seeing anyone special or when will it be my turn. I am honest in saying I'm not seeing anyone and I'm somewhat content with that. Then they reply with, “I'll set you up with one of my boy friends, fiance, husband's friends.” Most of my friends have great significant others who also question why I'm single. Most of the time, I roll my eyes and agree to meet the guys and go on dates. The dates are usually okay. Nothing special. To be honest, I like the effort and attention these fellows show me, but I'm not really interested in them enough to want a relationship which usually hurts the guys' feelings and irks the mutual friends.

[00:14:45]  Sorry, not sorry. There's never a balance. I'm too wild for the church guys because I enjoyed drinking and I'm too for the guys who want to be super physical and intimate. The few guys that I've been interested in want to get physical right away. How do I say no without offending the guy? What can I say to the people who constantly asked me about my relationship status and not liking any of the guys I'm set up with? I'm really not a straight-laced prude, nor do I judge people for having sex before marriage. I just want a real committed relationship before getting intimate. Is it bad to hold onto my morals and not have casual sex? Thanks for your help. A Southern Belle Screaming, What The Hell?

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:15:20]  Oh nice. I liked that. She didn't choose -- Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride. That would have been the low hanging fruit of new names for this one. So first of all, welcome to the new show. The clean break was good for a lot of reasons and embracing our unisex audience, which every time we did a survey it was like 10% more women for the next six months. So embracing this unisex audience instead of bros trying to pick up chicks has been really good to us so far. So the reason people are saying that you'd be great to marry but not date, I would say that signals to me that you're good, you're stable, you're kind. You'd seem like you'd be a good mother, but you're not as fun to date because you don't put out. That's basically what that means, in my experience.

[00:16:02]  And don't apologize for not liking the guys that you're set up with by friends. Those friends sound sensitive. The guys sound sensitive too, that's their problem. That's their problem. Rejection is part of dating. You are not obligated to marry guys you're set up with. So what your friend feels like they missed, they whiffed on that one? So what? This is your life. Forget what their feelings are. They're trying to help you, but it sounds like they're being a little selfish with it if they get upset. It's not like I would imagine she's not going out with these guys, Jason, and being like, “Yep, you're fat and ugly…next.” I mean, if that were happening, yeah, you know, that would be a little rude. But if you're going out with them and you're like, “Eh, not my thing.” Fine. I mean, you have no obligation. You've already fulfilled your obligation.

[00:16:43]  You went out with a random stranger that your friends set him up with.  You're definitely in the middle ground though with your Christian or just conservative I would say values, as you say, straight-laced prude values.  But it sounds like you love to have fun. That's actually important. Lots of people settle. They put that whole, “Well, I want somebody who's fun.” They put that aside so that they can settle down. And my wife Jen, she used to say, “Oh, I'm so glad that we met because I used to think that if I found someone stable enough to marry, they would be boring”, because she dated like some other boring guys that had really good jobs and stuff like that and were, you know, straight-laced guys but they were boring. And then she also realized that if she married somebody that was exciting and fun, that her life might be full of turmoil. So far,

[00:17:32]  Turmoil, one. Stability, zero.  But still, you know, at least we have fun. But a lot of people put the fun stuff aside so they can settle down. And I always see relationship problems as a result of that. There's so much of that in my inbox here at friday@jordanharbinger.com, at least I got it right that time. So how do you say no to getting physical right away? Though if you want to date somebody who's normal? I say normal, fun and I say normal societally -- societally is not a word, but you know what I'm saying here. How do you say no to getting physical right away? Let guys know early. Don't act surprise when they put the moves on you. I don't, it doesn't sound like she is. So don't be surprised when they put the moves on you, but also don't make them feel ashamed.

[00:18:14]  And if they tried to put the moves on you and you're cool about it and then they get angry, that is on them. That is some childish temper tantrum. Hashtag me too stuff right there. And look, when I was in college, when I was younger, when I was dating in my twenties I had this happen a lot. You put the moves on or you, you know, you go to escalate the situation after the date or something like that. And if someone says, “I’m sorry, no.Nnot right now.” Or “No, thanks or never”, you know, “go fly a kite”. Whatever their objection is usually quite polite or usually more like, “Wow, that was fast.” It happens. And since I'm not a child, it's not hard to respect women's boundaries. My middle name was practically Blue Balls in college. That's another story. You know, I'm a boundary respector.

[00:18:57]  All right? But this is something that all guys have to deal with. And I'm going to go back to the top of the letter where she said, “Well, you know, the Christian guys, they don't want to get physical right away”, and I'm calling BS on that. They want to, they just aren't. Right? But the other guys who are not religious are just like shameless. And that's how we roll because we're dudes. Okay. So you've got a screening problem. This is what the problem is. You've got a screening problem. You've got a screen in the right type of guy, and you have more work to do because of your unusual combination of screens or filters. One, they got to be fun. Two, they've got to respect your conservative beliefs. So this is not impossible. It's a bit more work, but it's certainly not impossible.

[00:19:38]  Had we met, you know, back in my dating days, this is exactly the type of girl I would've dated. I dated a ton of girls that were like kind of church girls, which is weird because I am so not, as you all know. Or just conservative or like they grew up in an area that wasn't a big city so they're like, “Wait a minute, you know, I've had one boyfriend in my whole life”, or something like that. And that was fine. I mean it was, like I said, my nickname was basically practically Blue Balls in college. But I had longterm relationships and it was fine. I really didn't care. It was totally fine. There's a middle ground, you know there's a middle ground here, so that's what the guys mean when they say that they want to marry you but not date you, but honestly you just have a little bit more screening work to do.

[00:20:14]  Luckily, you only need to find one. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:20:16]  Hi guys, I'm a longtime listener of the show-that-must-not-be-named. Congrats to both of you for breaking out on your own and good luck with the new show. So down to business, I need your help to stop myself ruining one of my closest friendships with frustration and destructive envy and dig myself out of a depressive hole. For context, my friend is more like a brother. I'm 27 now and we're knocking on nine years over the course of which we've been housemates, sounding boards, emotional and even financial support for each other. And if it came down to it, I'd take a bullet for the guy. The problem

[00:20:48] as usual, it comes down to money. In 2013, we both got involved in the cryptocurrency market and bought Bitcoin at knock down prices. Long story short, just before the market crashed, I pulled out and put a deposit on an apartment with the proceeds. I walked away happy, intending to get back in when the market come down, but then before the ink was dry on my newly minted mortgage, my life collapsed. I lost my job and broke up with my first serious girlfriend of eight years. Then Q3 years of struggling to make ends meet, working in soul-crushing tech support to pay for an apartment I could no longer afford nor sell since it's now worth about 40 grand less than the mortgage I have on it. At the end of 2016, I was in a decent financial position and after moving in with my fiance, rented the apartment to my friend to help him out of a jam.

[00:21:32]  He's been a fantastic tenant and caused no stress whatsoever and it was great to have him nearby. Last year, completely turned everything on its head. The crypto boom turned my friend into an overnight millionaire and I lost two of my biggest clients and took a huge income hit. So now my best friend is loaded, living in the apartment I can't afford. While I'm newly married and being slowly crushed by my mortgage and reminded every day that, but for one dumb decision I could've been in the same position that he's in now and it's getting harder and harder not to resent him for it. So my question is this, do you have any advice on how to stop myself from poisoning our relationship with toxic jealousy or reversing the depressive spiral that is slowly throwing me into. Signed, Grumpy Over Green.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:22:13]  Okay. I'm really glad that he said, “Do you have any advice on how to stop myself from poisoning our relationship with toxic jealousy?” Because I was just thinking, “Wow, I really hope he's not blaming the guy for hanging on to Bitcoin and not buying an apartment.” You know, because everything, this is all you, Grumpy Over Green. You're mad at yourself for the decisions you made, these weren't dumb decisions by the way. They only looked dumb in hindsight because of the unpredictable crypto boom combined with the market crash in real estate, which was more predictable. I get it. You know, you're mad at yourself. Your friend is doing you a favor renting that place from you. Offer to sell it to them maybe, I don't know, you could go for that. Talk to your friend about this. So here's the problem.

[00:22:57]  When you start to hang around successful people, you'll always have an element. Well, you have a choice about whether or not to be jealous of them. One of my friends is just, well actually a lot of my friends are killing it, selling things online. They import products from China. Another friend of mine has a TV show. The people that we interview here on the show often become friends of mine. These are all successful, interesting people. It would be really easy to be pissed off about how everybody else has something that I don't. That's a choice though, to look at those things. It really is. And you got to talk to your friend about this because when you start competing with your friends in your own mind, you always will poison the relationship. I've got a friend, Alex Coots, who's been on the show. He's coming back on the show as well to teach us some negotiation tactics and he's like 32 and he has four companies and he's super smart.

[00:23:48]  He's one of the smartest people I know. He's like six four and he models on the side and I'm like, F-- you man. You know, seriously, come on. And every time I see him, I'm just like, I love this guy, which is good because if I didn't, I would hate this guy because he just highlights -- this could have been you, but you're not good enough -- right? Like you can look at it that way, or not, here's the thing, we're friends. This is your friend. He likes you. He's not looking down on you. You're looking up at him and you're mad about that, right? He's not choosing to look down on you. You're choosing to put him up there. He's looking at you like his buddy. I would talk to him about this. Admit what you're telling me and that you're starting to resent him for something that he has not done because of your own stuff.

[00:24:33] It'll be a little embarrassing and he might even be like, “That's screwed up, man. Why you doing that?” And it's brave to do this and you can get it out on the table that you're being unreasonable and that you know it and he'll probably understand because he may actually be wondering secretly if you resent him for this in the first place and then go out for a beer with him or whatever, go for a beer with your friend who's done nothing but be good to you and have a laugh about how our emotions just mess with us. Because I think if you get this out, it's going to feel a lot better and you're not going to feel like, “Oh, I have to hide this”, which I think is forcing you to focus on it. This guy doesn't deserve to have a best friend who's angry with him for being successful and you know this. And the best thing you can do is be supportive of your buddy. Friendship with him is much more important in my opinion, than the money you could have maybe possibly had. Even if you could really use that money right now because that situation, this situation is temporary. But if you get rid of a friend because you're jealous about him investing in Bitcoin at the same time as you, which is, that's a really dumb ass reason to lose your best friend.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:25:35]  Seriously. Yeah. I mean we both have rich friends like you talked about before and I've gone down that path that he's on and I know the feelings that he's having. But yeah, you need to realize that it's you and look inward and talking to your friend is definitely the best way to go about it because I've had to go through that and it is a little embarrassing. It's uncomfortable because you know, last week you guys were both, you know, sleeping on the same ratty ass couch and now he's got a mansion. But once you get past it, I mean, a lot of those people are still my friends after all this time and I've gotten past it by, you know, looking inward and talking to them about it and you know, now I can call them on the phone and hang out and have beers with them and I don't have that feeling anymore. But you have to really embrace it and you know, just get past it.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:26:17]  Yeah. Otherwise, I mean, imagine if as soon as you had a friend who got jealous and you pushed them away.  That is a great way to surround yourself with losers. That is probably the best way to surround yourself with losers and make sure you get rid of everybody who likes you that might actually get better than you at something and make you feel bad about yourself, right? That's really, that is the opposite of what we're trying to do to be around great people and make connections and great friendships. So keep that in mind and don't beat yourself up over it. Your emotions, what you're feeling is normal. It's just that totally normal. The actions you need to take are going to be a little bit awkward and embarrassing, but they're going to relieve some of the pressure. I think, they're going to release some of the steam. You've got to open that valve. The best way to do that is just to tell him, “Look, I'm feeling jealous of you and it's so stupid. You know I love you man. I just feel like I'm a dumb ass.” And he's going to say, “Dude, if you need..” --I guarantee you you're going to have a heart to heart with him like you've never had before. It's going to feel awesome. Yup.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:27:18]  This episode is sponsored in part by Organifi. Organifi -- organic superfood supplement line. In other words, Green Juice among other things, but that's what I really like. The Green Juice, they got the Red Juice. It solves the problem of juicing greens, especially on the go because you can fit these little pouches in your pocket. You add water, your drink. You don't need hot water, you don't need to blend it up in a blender, drink it in. Let your body soak it up. That's right. It's a struggle to stay healthy while we're addicted to success. And if you travel a lot, Oh man, you're not getting fresh juice. You just, you've got to bring that Organifi and drink it on the plane. That's what I do. And Organifi Red Juice is a superfood red juice powder that has tons of antioxidants, immune boosting herbs like OSI and Cordyceps. And Jason, you're a fan of the red stuff, right? You use the red more than the green.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:28:04]  Yup. I've actually got me some red right next to my desk right now. It kind of just gives me that big pep and it tastes so good. I really just like it alone for the taste because it's that delicious, but it's got all the great berries that you need.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:28:15]  Great berries and you are peppy. I'll give you that. It's organic. It's upgraded with 11 superfoods. So visit organifi.com, O R G A N I F I.com and use discount code harbinger at checkout to receive 20% off your order. That's O R G A N I F I.com discount code harbinger at checkout. This episode is also sponsored by Rhone. I love these clothes. They got shorts, they got shirts. Their new thing right now is the salient running short sleeve shirt made with a seamless construction, so there's no seams. That's what seamless means. It's got great venting and salient, I didn't know what that was, but it's the first FDA determined fabric to promote blood flow, increase energy, endurance, performance. The shirt really goes the extra mile. See what I did there, so go to rhone.com, R H O N E.com and Jordan Harbinger listeners -- that's you -- receive an exclusive offer of 15% off their first purchase with the use of the Jordan promo code at checkout. That's J O R D A N, and this offer is only available to my listeners, so go to rhone.com, R H O N E.com, promo code Jordan at checkout. Thanks for listening and supporting the Jordan Harbinger Show. For a list of all of our amazing sponsors and the discounts, visit JordanHarbinger.com/advertisers. Now back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:29:32]  Hi Jordan, Jason, and Jen. Hope things are getting better for you guys after the recent changes. I'm a 29 year old male, moved to the US five years ago for grad school and I've learned a lot from your podcasts in the past years. One of the areas I would like to improve myself is my tone of voice. Generally, I have a high pitched and excited and happy tone. However, I'm not happy with it because to me, my voice sounds not very confident. Eventhough I consider myself not shy and a moderately confident person. After reading The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane, I noticed that one reason contributing to this problem is that the warmth aspect of my behavior is stronger than presence and power. I've listened to your podcast on vocal tonality, watched videos of diaphragm breathing techniques, recorded my voice giving presentations or talking to friends, et cetera, but none of them had the long-term effect that I was looking for. If I focus on my voice while talking, I can sound more neutral, confident, less excited and warm. However, being a non-native English speaker, I have to focus on grammar, vocabulary, how to be funny in a different language, control my body language, be present and so on. And there's not much attention left to focus on my tone. So I think I should make it more of an unconscious habit. Any help on how to achieve this would be appreciated. Keep up the good work. High Pitcher in Oregon.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:30:46]     He's right on here in that he has to make this an unconscious habit. I was just thinking that, wow, you know you’re non-native English speaker. You've got to think about the grammar, the vocabulary, how to be funny if that's what you're trying to do, which often doesn't work when you're focused on it and you've got to maintain and control your body language, be present. Anything you can do to get this in, delegate these things to the level of unconscious behavior would be great. So do the doorway drill. I've gone over that in a previous show so I won't do it again here. Do the doorway drill so that you can handle your body language without losing presence.  Grammar, vocabulary, being funny -- that's going to happen naturally through practicing English. So make sure you're talking a lot. Of course it seems like he is and yeah, there's not much attention.

[00:31:30]  I'd love to focus on your tone. I totally understand that. You also want to relegate that to the level of unconscious behavior and the best way to really do that, I've tried everything, get a voice coach. There's always a benefit to coaching here. There's so many things, breathing techniques, all these different, use the cork and do the vocal tonality thing. Watch these videos. I've done all of that for years and years and years. I taught vocal tonality for crying out loud at the programs that we used to run. I taught a bunch of this stuff. I still have Darcy. We still have voice coaches for the show because you really need someone to go up that thing that you're doing with your tongue. You got to put it on the roof of your mouth. More tried saying this, that way you got to change the way that you pronounce things.

[00:32:09]  You're going to get some accent reduction from her or from any coach, most likely you're going to find that she's going to tell you, stop worrying about this and start focusing on that. Here's a weird exercise you got to do with your arms. That's going to change the way that you breathe, which is going to change the way that you talk. There's all kinds of crazy stuff we do that has nothing to do in theory with talking. I mean there's all kinds of, Jason, our vocal warmup is bizarro, right? It's like reach up to the sky and throw the ball of sound and what all this weird stuff, right? But it works.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:32:40]  9Yeah. I feel ridiculous every time I do it, but when I'm done I sound better. Go figure.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:32:56]  Yeah. Yeah. I mean some of it's magic, like the cork that I shared a week or two ago and some of it is just bizarro like that kind of thing, times a million and then reaching up in the sky and all this.

[00:32:56]  It's important though and it all works. It really stretches out everything that you need to stretch out and it's just a worthwhile exercise. Consider it a part of learning the English language in a way that's effective and it will spill over into your native language as well. So accent reduction. In fact, if you want to be referred over to Darcy, I know she's not cheap. But she is very effective. Just email me, I'm jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Got it right that time and I will refer you -- gladly refer you over to her and I think this is exactly where I got my email wrong last week. And so I will gladly refer you to her. So if you tried to get a referral to Darcy and you emailed my old AOC email, just go ahead and send me JordanHarbinger.com. I will refer you. She's great. I mean she really knows her stuff and she's got some accent reduction stuff.

[00:33:46]  You just can't do this watching YouTube. You can't. It can't be done. It needs to be tailored to the problems you are trying to solve. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:32:56]  Hi Jordan. You had me worried when I refresh my podcast and didn't see any new episodes from that other show. Glad to see you and Jason are still at it. Here's my question for you and Jason. I'm starting a side business where I help men dress and groom better. As a way to gain clients, I'm initially targeting their wives or girlfriends. However, I'm faced with a question, how do I get the men, who may not be that interested in dressing better, to buy into this concept? I've seen how dressing better in my own life has brought me some level of professional and personal success. So how do I hit upon a similar vein with these men? What questions can I ask them that will evoke some sort of emotional response from them and make them realize, “Oh crap, this whole dressing better thing could be useful.” Thanks for everything you guys do and best of luck with the new endeavor. Signed, Dapper Dan.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:34:39]  Yeah, this is a sales question. I actually used to teach sales a little bit and I obviously did a ton of it in other companies that I worked at and including the previous AOC. So this is hands down is an obvious sales question. Here's the problem. You can't force people to be interested in something they don't prioritize. Take it from me. Someone who made a living for years trying to get people interested in something they didn't prioritize. It is very difficult to do. You have to get them to realize the consequences of not doing something. People avoid pain more than they seek pleasures.

[00:35:14]  So you can't say something like, “Well, this looks so good, don't you feel better?” What you have to do is say, “If you don't do this, you're going to be missing out on the following things, right? The dating or the job promotions, or people are going to view you in this other way that is not as desirable.” And this is a slippery slope because you can get really into hyperbole and be like, you're going to die alone if you don't dress right. You know, and you see that on online marketing where people are like, “if you don't know this, you're never going to fix this mistake in your business.” 99.99 right? You have to get them to realize the consequences. So create content around your business and your line of work that shows the consequences. Also highlight the benefit of course, but only after showing the consequences, and this of course uses the brain science from the show and things that we learned from a lot of other guests here to apply to sales, so create content around it that shows what could happen and also the benefit later on.

[00:36:08]  If I were you, I'd create videos that explain things like this. You can write articles that do so. Search YouTube for this and just copy the format that a lot of other people have. Don't copy the content itself obviously, but there's a lot of great stuff out there from friends of mine, like Aron Merino, Antonio Centeno, Real Men Real Style is one of those guys. They have great content. They have really good format, really, really popular YouTube channels. So good call, going after the women in their lives. That sort of influence is great. It's just limited. If you want repeat customers, first of all, you have to find someone with a woman in their life. A lot of guys don't. If you want those customers to come back, you've got to use the content that you create and nurture your customers by sending it to them directly.

[00:36:51]  Email, texting them things, multimedia messages, stuff like that can be highly effective, but I think the problem here is you're just trying to get their wife or girlfriend to say, “Don't you look good in this? This is great. You should do this,” and that is not using the proper brain triggers, namely the idea that there's consequences to it because most guys are going, “I have a woman in my life. I don't have to dress well. I have a good job. I don't have to dress well.” You have to show them what they're missing first and then highlight the benefit and that's true for any sort of persuasion or sales. All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:37:24]  Hey, Jordan, long-time listener and loved the shows. As soon as I heard you guys parted ways, I jumped ships and came directly over. Today's dilemma is that I've been in an on and off long-term relationship with an amazing girl for eight years. We've been together seriously for two years now. However, it feels like I'm always having to pull her up to want to develop herself. She lives a fairly normal life and a 40-hour work week scenario and lounges in the evenings and on the weekends. On my side, I work away in the oil field bush camps for 24 days on and two days off. Meanwhile, micromanaging a towing company that I'm bootstrapping, so when I have days off I either have paperwork to catch up on or it requires my time physically. This is where I run into conflict. She wants to see me and just watch movies and I don't want to. She has no interest of being involved or helping with anything in the company, so I struggle to fit her into my day.

[00:38:11]  I have priorities that I need to get done. I've told her a couple times that I don't think we should be dating each other since this is the lifestyle that I live and I can't maintain the proper attention to the relationship that she needs and deserves. She then tells me that she's fine with it. I'm the only one she wants and that she doesn't want to end things. However, she isn't very independent and constantly mentioned. She needs attention. Since then, we've grown distanced emotionally and it feels like she's back to just another friend, but tied to me. It's something I've been constantly thinking about and I'm confused. Am I delusional for working so much in prioritizing what I see that I have to do to achieve my envisioned life or am I just making excuses to avoid the pain of walking away from her? Sincerely, Delusional Workaholic.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:38:51]  Nice. All right, well this person is clearly not a good fit for you. Yes. Pretty much. Wow. I get it though. You know he's away a lot. He's got a company, he doesn't want to look for someone else. Ask guys, man. You know, we're kind of like, got a girlfriend? Check the box. Done looking. Next. Next task that I have to complete, but this person is not a good fit for you. Man, she's needy. It really sounds like she's needy. This is going to implode almost for sure. She was fine with it. I'm the only one she wants. She doesn't want to end things. Oh man, that is not good. You're working hard because you're hungry and she's not a priority for you. That's okay for you. But she's going to try and control you with guilt from the sound of it.

[00:39:34]  So I think you should break up with her. I very rarely make blanket statements like this, but man, this is just -- she's already starting with the whole, “Hey, you know you're de-prioritizing me”, and then you know it's true, but you don't want to make her feel bad so you're leaving her on the side. This is just, uh, this is going to be such a mess. You're probably just making excuses to avoid the pain of walking away from her and I understand that too. It's normal. I feel like you've answered your own question here. This is just a blanket black and white situation for me where this is just not a good fit for you and I would end it soon. Rip that band-aid off, man. It's got to happen. Be kind of course and do it in the right way, but this person is not good for you and you are not good for her. All right, last but not least.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:40:17]  Hi guys, Long time fan. I can't wait for the tell-all book. It's so exciting for you to be able to build a new house on your own land. What do you do when your new wife says she's not sure she's turned on by you anymore? Yeah, she lost 99 pounds in 12 months for the wedding. Looks amazing and I'm so proud of her, but now I'm the less fit one and she's lost physical respect for me. Couple that with a bad business decision I made last year, which means now I'm working about 70 hours a week to get back on track. She's taken up the organizational slack and has really taken care on the home front so she doesn't see me handling my own business. She's a brilliant overachiever and is working on her PhD and some tutoring. I love her to the end of the earth, but what do I do when I've lost her respect? Add to this, we're moving to Europe this year, which adds some more tension. We do love each other and I know we'll get through this through communication and compassion, but I'd like to avoid these pitfalls in the future and get through this sooner rather than later. Signed, Got a Shituation.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:41:12]  Oh, I see what you did there. All right. Shituation. It seems a little unfair of her. I don't know. I don't think she's lost respect for you physically, but maybe she hasn't seen you make an effort in that area and she's disappointed. That seems so harsh for someone to lose a bunch of weight and then go, “You know what? You're fat. I'm not attracted to you anymore.” It's like, “Oh, what the hell? I haven't changed, right? You were attracted before, but now you're better than me? Come on.” That seems unfair. I almost don't really believe that that's the case. I bet if we asked her, she would be like, ‘Well, it's not that. He's just not trying and I tried so hard and I'm doing it, you know, and I care about him.” I feel like maybe her saying that is she's trying to motivate him.

[00:41:50]  It just comes across as kind of her being crappy about it. Yeah, but on the other hand, who knows? It's tough. Maybe you're just lucky she was honest with you. The good news is lots of people work done and they're still losing weight. No time to workout. The good news is that losing weight is more than 80% diet, so get on an eating plan that leads to a calorie deficit and you can get a nutritionist, you can get a trainer or somebody who's going to help you with this. I'm not going to get into fitness and nutrition stuff here. On my own, but I wanted to take this excuse off the table because you don't have to be a gym rat to lose weight. That might've been what your wife did. That might've been how she lost her, and your friends lose weight, but most people who really lose weight, they do it by eating less.

[00:42:33]  You don't have to work out more. I do all my phone calls while walking. I lost 35 pounds in a few months and I wasn't fat before. I was just a little bit fatter than I needed to be and I lost 30-35 pounds just from walking outside and doing phone calls. But I also stopped eating burgers and fries for lunch or you know, grabbing a little pastrami sandwich and some side of this that for dinner. I mean, I just trimmed down my eating a ton and now I'm hungry. Damn you. Me too. I've want some hash browns and [inaudible][00:43:05]  right now.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:43:07]  Yeah, but the old adage is -- abs are made in the kitchen.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:43:09]  That's right. Yeah, I forgot about that. Exactly. Abs are made in the kitchen. I still have, I have one ab right now. And it's just that some fry outs going to stay.

[00:43:17]  Look, your wife is probably just trying to motivate you. Like I said, I don't approve of the method here. I much prefer the carrot over the stick. However, when you're trying to sell somebody an idea, it is better to highlight the consequences. So there is that, but especially in close relationships, the carrot is better than the state generally, but that's something you'll need to work out as your relationship grows. If I were you, I'd get ahead of this one. Get yourself into shape, work on your relationship, communication style so that you don't have to put each other down to bring each other up. All right. Recommendation of the week. Jason, did you ever watch seeing AllRed, the Gloria AllRed documentary?

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:43:51]  I recommended it to you as a matter of fact. So yes, I have seen it.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:43:54]  Well, there you go. Yeah, I liked it very good.

[00:43:56]  She seems kind of scary. I would not mess with her, that's for sure. Fine. Yeah, but I like tenacious, I think. Yeah, I like her. She's a bad ass and there's something to be said for that, right? She's kind of like, in a way if Hillary Clinton warrants so dislikable in so many other ways, she has like a lot of the positive qualities I think you would say. Another people would say she has all the negative qualities probably. But yeah, since I'm not sitting on the other side of the table from her in court or something like that, then I don’t know, I'm a fan. Seeing AllRed, A L L R E D it's on Netflix. Hope you all enjoy that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us friday@jordanharbinger.com. Delete your other contacts for us. Order it will just go to the wrong place.

[00:44:39]  We'll answer your questions on the air and we're happy to keep you anonymous. Of course, a link to the show notes for this episode can be found at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast. Quick shout out to Jane Miller and her son Bryce. He's a senior in high school and a web designer. That's awesome. I did that as a senior in high school. Although I was coding and HTML, it was a pain. My sites definitely did not look as good as Bryce's, I'm sure, and she said her son, Bryce says, “If people don't listen to things like this show that better themselves and aren't motivated then they aren't people he wants to hang out with in high school.” That's pretty cool.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:45:13]  That is pretty cool. He's got a good head on his shoulders for high school students.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:45:16]     Yeah, he does. His mom, Jane is a super fan of the show and they're all entrepreneurs and that's how entrepreneurs roll. I'm on Instagram and Twitter @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. Jason, tell them where they can find you.

Jason DeFillippo:  [00:45:30]  I'm on Instagram @JPD and I'm on Twitter as  @JPDef. That's J P D E F and you can always check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:37] So keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com and we'll see you next time.