215: How to Invest Wisely and Crush Student Debt | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How to Invest Wisely and Crush Student Debt | Feedback Friday (215)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:03] 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 LeVar Burton --that's right, the Reading Rainbow guy-- talking about education learning and, of course, about reading and about being, well, the black Mr. Rogers actually. And we also had Gabriel Weinberg talking about mental models and that episode was chockfull of new ways to think about problems and Gabriel is just such an intelligent guy, which really comes through in this episode as well. There's a lot of practical application in that one.

[00:00:37] I also write every so often on the blog. The latest post is a deep dive about confidence and it's not remedial actually. A version of this was published on success.com as a pillar post about confidence. It's pretty long. It's a beast, Why Confidence Matters (How to Get It) and we really go into a lot of it. This is like a 15-page article. It's a good read. Gabriel and I worked a lot on that so you can find that at jordanharbinger.com/articles and it's worth a read. Even if you don't struggle with confidence, it's worth the read to understand more about confidence and help others and if you do struggle with confidence at work or in your personal life, it's just going to be a beast and hopefully helps you out quite a bit. So make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything we created here this week.

[00:01:18] Of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guests’ insights and our experiences and insights along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations more or less directly with you and that's what we're going to do today and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at Friday@jordanharbinger.com if you want to get your question here answered on the air and if you can make a concise, couple of paragraphs that should do. It does increase the chance your question will get answered on the air if we don't have to cut out three pages from it. We actually had a few financial questions in this one later in the episode and I had our all-star money ninja accountant, Matt Rzepka come and pinch hit for us this week. There's a lot of stuff in this episode about investing, getting rid of debt, student loans, credit cards, stuff along with the usual questions about everything else that we get here on Feedback Friday. Jason, what's the first thing we got this week?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:11] Hi all. I tend to judge people very quickly, often before I've ever actually spoken with them. After seeing them interact with other people or observe the way they carry themselves, I quickly form opinions that affect my further interactions with them unless it's for my own personal gain. For example, from a sales or networking perspective. Additionally, I can't or won't suck up to people and stroke their egos to be seen as worthy of their time in an interaction. This is hurting me professionally in the past by coming off as standoffish superior, better than others when that's far from the truth overall. In many instances, I can be seen as unapproachable, but that's far from the truth. I will engage anyone in conversation and in networking type environments I welcome it. It all seems a little messed up. Any suggestions? Thanks, Judge Superior.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:55] Well, there's a couple of things in here. One, we all judge it is normal. So evolutionary psychology shows a security-based need for us to judge others and sometimes it's healthy enough, sometimes it's not. So if you're walking down the street and you see someone and you're like, “Oh, attractive,” another person “Oh scary, maybe I should cross the street,” or, “Oh, this person doesn't look right in the head, I'm going to, I'm going to move along.” Or tall, short, fat, athletic, not athletic. We all do that. That's a security-based process. You can't shut it off. Nor should you even try. I think what this writer here, Judge Superior is saying is he or she judges to the point where it then clouds your judgment of the other person when you get new information about them when you interact with them. So what we know about that, I think we talked about that with Gabriel Weinberg as well, but Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's investing partner over at Berkshire Hathaway, he wrote an article about how quickly you have to change your mind and how changing your mind quickly in the face of new information is actually a massive advantage because cognitive bias says, “Oh well I'm going to decide this isn't a good person.” And then even though they're doing all these good things, it's going to take a while for me, more, more time, more information for me to then change my first impression of this person. That's a disadvantage. You should be able to change your mind pretty quickly when you get new information about a person or any idea for that manner. So the advantage is taking new info, changing your opinion quickly. And as for the sucking up part, I get not wanting to do that. But reading between the lines here, it also sounds like maybe you resent people who you think are the type of person that you're supposed to suck up to. So they're not saying suck up to me, I'm the boss, I'm important. You're getting triggered by something and you think, “Oh well this person thinks they have authority over me. I'm not going to suck up to them.” And then you overcompensate and that's not good. So you overcompensate and deliberately, or maybe unconsciously you act aloof, which then confuses them is they've actually not done anything to earn your ire. Your insecurity gets triggered. You go so far in the other direction that you're just kind of being a jerk or you're being cold. And I think what you say is sucking up is likely just turning you into a bit of a grouch and you tend to treat people as less than because you're overcompensating.

[00:05:15] And the reason I'm reading between the lines here is I totally used to do that. If I'm way off, this is based on my own experience of doing the exact same thing. So I'm not judging you, I'm telling you I get it. I get it. It's kind of like a rebellious teenager thing. “Oh, you're going to be in charge of me. I'm going to deliberately not do what you say to do, even though I already wanted to do that. Now, I have to think of another thing that I didn't want to do and do that instead because I don't want you to think that I'm doing what you said because you're the boss of me.” Like it's a very human thing that we all kind of have to manually shake off. I would say in our twenties maybe as some of us never get over it, the quicker we get over this, the better honestly. The key is to be aware of when you're doing this, at least at first, and then ignore someone else's perceived status, especially if you feel it triggering you somehow. So this problem as you seem to realize by including both in your letter here is really two sides of the same coin. You see some people are not worth your time and you see other people as higher status than you and one group triggers your insecurity. And so you marginalize them or ignore them and the other group triggers your insecurity and you overcompensate and treat them in a way that honestly they probably don't deserve to be treated because you don't want to seem like you're sucking up. All of this stems from some of your own insecurity about where you are on the social hierarchy. Again, very normal, especially if you feel like the new guy in the office, the low man on the totem pole, whatever. This is a very normal reaction. It's just not very, it's not going to serve you very well. But kudos to you for even being aware of it at all. And then having the guts to write in and ask about it. Because when I was in this situation, I think I thought, “I'm just right about this. Screw everyone. I don't need help with this.” Even though I went, “Jeez, you know, this isn't, this isn't really getting me the result I want.”

[00:07:06] If you can start by treating people the same way and ignoring as best you can, the triggers you feel in yourself, you'll learn more about other people and you'll begin to control your emotional reaction to others instead of having your emotions control you instead. Now to clarify, if you get a gut reaction--if you're at a bar and you get a gut reaction that somebody is being creepy, pay good attention to that. I'm just talking about someone new comes to the office to work with your group and you go, “Well, I don't like this guy's good looking. Screw him.” You want to ignore that. That's your insecurity getting triggered. “Oh, this person thinks they're going to be my boss. They think they're so smart. I've been here for two years.” Ignore that instinct that's not serving you well, but if you're walking down the road and someone's mean-mugging you and it's 9:00 p.m. and you're the only one there along with them, then yeah, listen to that gut instinct. Your gut will serve you well a lot of the time it just sounds like in the office or wherever you're doing this particular knee jerk stuff, sales or networking perspective type of business stuff. That's where you've got a chip on your shoulder and you can get rid of that chip by ignoring your gut at first and taking in new information without this chip, this issue tainting all of the incoming information that you're getting. Eventually, you'll learn that you're better served by doing this and hopefully, you'll be able to ditch the old habit. That's what I did. I got rid of it. It was really, really helpful. Jason, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:31] Hey, Triple J. I'm a doctor who's been practicing for six years and can only afford income-driven repayment for my student loans. I went to reapply for income-driven repayment and saw that they had added another $30,000 to my student loans over the last three years. I worked and got my MBA while in medical school, which added another 13,500 to my med school tuition. I also ended up having too much money in income from working well in med school, so didn't qualify to have the interest rates on my loans deferred while I was in school. My undergrad is in physical therapy and my friend opened his own business and needed my help with his super busy practice. I now know working during med school was the stupidest financial decision I've made. Just during residency, another $100,000 was added to my loans while I was making $30,000 a year as a resident. I'm up to about $300,000 in student loans at 6.8-percent interest and make $150,000 a year. I would need to make over $400,000 a year to be able to repay my loans at 15 percent of my income. There's a loan forgiveness program after having income-driven repayment for 25 years, which is 19 years away. Do I try to add any extra income I can to the principal of my loans, which seems like a lost cause at this point, or do I just keep paying the income-driven amount and hope to get the loan forgiven after another 19 years? I currently have a 10-year-old car, have a roommate and only pay $800 a month in rent, don't have the newest iPhone, et cetera. I don't live the fancy doctor lifestyle. I'm 37 years old already. Med school and residency take so long and I'm single and don't have any kids. I would like to have a family in the future and don't know if I should put all my money into saving and investments or toward extra loan repayment. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Sincerely, The Drowning Doc. PS, anyone thinking about medical school, please realize the crazy student debt you'll be getting into. Insurance doesn't pay doctors like it used to and now med school costs are outrageous. It's a broken system.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:24] This question makes me feel bad because I get it student loans are insane. This is criminal –criminal is an overused word-- this is extreme. And if you can't pay your student loans as a doctor, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:38] Seriously and starting at 37 now with 19 years to go, oh man, that's just a slog.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:45] I mean doing the math on that. You're basically looking at another 10 years before you retire. I guess maybe a little more in today's day and age before they get forgiven, which to me is bananas. Like this just sort of dominates, your whole life learning and getting there and in the first place and then paying these loans. I mean, I don't know. It's a shame. Definitely a broken system. That's crazy to me. So the income-based repayment, I don't know if a lot of people know what this is. I had to look it up. It didn't exist when I went to school, but, or at least I don't think it did. Basically, if you make more money, your payments will go up. I opted out of this because I just thought, screw it. I'm just going to keep paying my student loans. I'm just going to deal with it. But if you have to live you can't really do that. I was lucky in a way because I was doing the entrepreneur thing so I just live like a college student in a way. Anyway, I was making like no money and so I just diverted a ton of money to student loans because what's the difference? I didn't have a car, you know, I wasn't doing anything. I was reinvesting all the money in my business. I was barely getting paid. I basically took a salary just to pay these loans and 6.8% isn't horrible, but it's also not great. An investment that you make will be equal or better to that rate of return.

[00:12:04] So I got Matt Rzepka, our ninja money accountant here to pine on this. What Matt said was that you want to maintain a position of control. In other words, investing, you can control the money and then you write one check later to pay it all off. So instead of funneling like I did, let's say $2,000 a month to your student loans, you funnel these $2,000 to an investment that has a pretty static or relatively predictable rate of return, like an index fund for example. If you keep the money in the index fund and it grows, let's say at 6 percent and your loan is 6.8 yes, you're losing 0.8 percent on that return per year because your interest is accruing faster than your investment is, chances are the index fund will actually grow faster than 6.8 percent. And so you control the money, you save it all, and then when you have the full amount or close to it, you pay off that loan. And the reason that this is important is because if you do pay a loan and then the loans not gone, and then you, let's say you lose your job or you become disabled, then you're still in debt. That loan still has interest. It's still accruing. There's all this stuff happening to you and you have no money. But if you control this, if the money's in an index fund, then your money should be accessible. So let's say you keep investing in index funds and we have all these crazy returns, you just made a bunch of money on top of this. Or let's say you have an opportunity to buy a house or you get sick, God forbid, and you need the money, you have it at your disposal. Yeah, that loan will then come and smash you because the interest will be going up. You know, you're making your minimum mandated payments or something like that or no payments. If you can get away with it. Your money is still accessible though. You just never know. And so control is worth a certain amount of money as well. So even if it returns less than 6.8 you're paying for the option to do whatever you want with the money later. So if the loan cost 6.8 even if you invest the rest of the money into something with let's say 2 percent interest, like a CD, you're netting out at 4.8 percent. Then if you improve your cash flow by starting a side hustle or you start your own practice and that starts to take off, then you can pay it down quicker. Also, if you're refinancing, if you decide to refinance this loan, let's say the market gets really competitive and you can take a private loan at less than 6.8, you can walk into a bank with money, with cash, and they can loan you money and use the cash as collateral. Cash collateral is a real thing. I didn't even really think about this, but it is true. You can walk into a bank with a bunch of money and say, I want to borrow more money against this. You can sit on this cash for a while knowing that you at least have that and they'll give you a deal. If you don't have anything like a house, other property, they can't loan you any money. If you have cash, they can. And so if you walk in with nothing, bank really can't do much to help you.

[00:15:01] There are other ways to generate cash flow. For example, let's say you saved up a bunch of money that would've gone towards alone, but that now you can sort of go in on a rental property that's owned by, let's say you start a corporate entity. This way you've got access to the money from that rental property that's owned by a corporate entity that you control, but it doesn't have to go towards your income-based repayment because it's not your income, it's a corporate entity’s income. So they don't go, “Oh, you made a bunch of rental money. We want a piece of that.” They don't touch it. It's not yours. It belongs to the company. You just happened to control the company. That's a pretty cool tactic that Matt Rzepka had thought of here. I would never have thought of this. This way if you increase your salary or income, your loan payment goes up. You can't get ahead. The corporation shields you from this a little bit and this keeps your income lower while allowing you to invest the other money that you might have. Let's say you get an inheritance, they're going to go, “Oh good, give us a bunch of that.” No, you can use that and build your life without the loan payment increasing with your income and essentially just keeping you underwater for two more decades. Then weighed out that 19 more years. The loan balances get forgiven and you can actually invest in something and go for retirement.

[00:16:15] What I worry about right now for him, Jason, is he can pay off these loans for 20 years and then what? He starts saving for retirement and finally doesn't have roommates and he's like 58 years old. That angers me that that might be the situation. That makes me angry that a doctor or anybody with a career would have to do that. I'm getting triggered here. It's BS, it's BS. That people are that underwater. Look, I get it if you borrowed a bunch because you wanted fancy cars and you overspent when you were in your 20s and now you're digging out like, okay, we all have learned hard lessons. This is the guy who did everything right. Now he's screwed. That pisses me off.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:56] Yeah. It's a really sad situation, so I think that he should definitely try and game in the system any way he possibly can.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:03] Yeah. It's not even a game. Look, the system is set up for this. There's a reason corporate entities that you control are, are set up in certain ways, and it's so that you can do more creative things with your money. Look that bank--it's not like you're going to go, “Huh, I never had to pay him back.” You're paying them back. They're getting interest on the money. You are profitable for them. It's just that you're not profitable for them at the expense of ever being able to own a house, a car, and like, you know, not live with roommates and share freaking bathroom doctor. Come on. It's, it's ridiculous. So it's not a weird trick that the IRS is going to go, “Oh, you're using a loophole.” This isn't a loophole. It's a strategy. There's a difference.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:42] Yeah, there's definitely a difference.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:43] Yeah. So power to you. And by the way, if you're going, “Ah, cool, I want to do a corporate entity and do this, but I don't want to go to jail. If the IRS catches up with me.” Yes. Get an accountant to do that. I'm happy to refer people to Matt Rzepka by the way. He's not free because this is his job, but he's also not ridiculously expensive. He's actually up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, so it's not some sort of like fancy Manhattan accountant that bills six hundred dollars an hour. You know, his team is very reasonable. If you're interested in retaining Matt, if you're in a similar situation, I'm happy to refer you to him. Just please be serious because I don't want to refer a bunch of people to him who are tire kicking and then he's like, “Oh I, I regret ever helping you on Feedback Friday.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:27] This is feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:30] This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator.

 

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:16] This episode is also sponsored by Blue Diamond Almonds.

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[00:20:46] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals and if you'd be so kind to please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. And now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:10] All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:11] What's up Jays? For someone like me who has student loan debt and is just starting out in their career, what's the best move for financial freedom? Should I pay off debt, invest, build, savings, or acquire assets? Since graduating a year ago, I've built a savings of $30,000. I've really enjoyed watching my savings grow in the feeling of security from knowing that if I needed money or I lost my job, I would have cash available to live. However, I have a lot of student loan debt. I'm recently starting to learn more about finances and realized that if I wait until my student loans are paid off to start investing, I'll be missing out on the time factor for increasing my returns. I like building my savings and would like to be able to put a down payment on a house sometime soon. What should I do with my money so that it works best for me? I make $4,644 a month. I pay $1,344 a month as my student loan payments, car payment and insurance $380, rent 500 currently, but would like to move to a nicer place or buy property eventually. I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction. Signed, To Save or Not To Save.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:11] Wow, you're such a great saver, so pat yourself on the back for that. That is really impressive. I don't know how much I saved my first few years out. I mean graduating a year and building a savings of 30 grand during that time. Wow. If your student loan debt isn't too high, you can start putting cash into retirement and savings accounts and you should, in my opinion, what's that? All that is you pay yourself first. I agree with that and what that means is max out those rot IRAs or those IRAs, just do that. It's going to build tax-free. There's maybe different strategies right now since taxes are so low, but you'd want to consult your accountant on that one. If you have one tonight, I suggest getting one. You're so young somebody might even throw you some advice for free just to get you as a customer in five years. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[00:22:55] Divert savings into an accessible capital source. And again, this comes from Matt Rzepka. Divert your savings into an accessible capital source. So that means something like a CD versus an index fund or a home because it's harder to borrow against an index fund or a home. You're probably only at 50 percent of the value because the lender always has to hedge their risk against the market going down. And you might even get like 25 percent of what your home is worth say if you bought one. So let's say you got 10 percent on your student loans, that's pretty high. Pay it off because nothing's really going to compete with that. But what if your student loans are 5 percent, well, you can get more than 5 percent return elsewhere. So pay the loan minimums and put your money into a vehicle that returns more than 5 percent and that's not going to be too hard to. Financial freedom is your goal you said, so you need to generate income quote-unquote passively. I hate that term because it's abused, but you need to generate income that you don't have to work to earn to pay the majority of your income or half your income. So let's say you have a rental property or something like that. That's that sort of financial freedom sounding. Paying loans depletes the assets that you can use to purchase assets that will then give you financial freedom or give you that other, that other income source. So unless the interest is high, you want to pay the minimum here because of the opportunity cost. Let's say you've got 30 grand, you want to buy a car. If you finance and interest is 5 percent then you invest the 30K and you get 5 percent your cost is the same except you have control of your money if you invested in some sort of financial vehicle that returns 5 percent instead of just giving the dealership a check every month. If you pay them 30K outright, you have the asset and you saved the interest on financing. But then you don't have any money, although you have the car, but borrowing against the car, you get less because of depreciation and because of risk like we mentioned before.

[00:24:51] So the key here is to always remember opportunity costs, which here is compound interest. That's which, that's what I think what she means when she says I'm going to miss out on the time factor. Compound interest is what she means. So it's efficient and important to control your money and let the returns grow quicker and faster and have flexibility in what you do with them unless your interest rates are just so stinking high that they're drowning you. So if you, if you have student loans that are at 10 percent, try to refinance those if you can, because that's extremely high. If you go and you get a car and negotiate the crap out of that financing interest rate. You should be able to get it pretty low. It shouldn't be 5 percent maybe since you're young it will be, but see if there's anything that can be done about that. And frankly, what people don't realize, you can shop around for financing just like you shop around for the car. What I think a lot of people don't get is they'll go to a dealership, they'll get a good price on a car, and they'll go, “Oh yeah, you know, I, I really like this dealer and this guy's really nice and they gave me $2,000 off and it's really great.” And then you go to the financing department and they're like, here's the 7.5 percent loan. Well, what you don't realize is the dealership down the street that couldn't match the price of the car, they might give you a 6% loan. You're saving a ton of money on lower interest rates even though you're paying a higher price for the car. Does that make sense, Jason? So a lot of people don't realize they can shop around for financing just like they shop around for them throwing in an AC or a stereo in the car.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:20] Totally makes sense.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:21] And you got to do that because what happens are people, there's a reason that the finance department is a different department. One. It's a different set of skills, but also because they figure as soon as you buy the car, you just sort of stroll into financing and they go, “All right, so it's a 7.5 percent loan, compounded it, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Here sign here.” And you're like, well I'm done because I just decided where I was going to buy the car and the rest of this is just a formality. No, that's what they want you to think. They want you to think that the rest of it is just signing some documents and they're all the same. It is not. It is part of the sales process. They're just pretending like you have no leverage because they'd make a lot of money on financing. You have all the leverage you want. The salesman wants that deal. He's going to walk into the financing department and go, “You can't go down half a percent you dick.” You know you actually have more power to negotiate at that point. So make sure you're negotiating that too. That's just a little side note for people shopping for cars. I didn't realize you could negotiate with the finance department. I found this out because my dad worked for Ford for so long and I got these pin numbers where Jason, you use one of these where you could get a good deal on a car that even the dealer couldn't get. And then I remember going to the financing department and the guy goes, “Well there's not anything we can really do here because our financing guidelines are set because you use the pin number so I have to give you the lowest rate.” And I was like, “Wait, you have to give me the lowest rate. I didn't know that there were different rates.” And he's like, “Oh yeah, there are different rates. It depends on who you are or your credit. It also depends on kind of like what the dealer or the underwriter can get away with.” And I was like, “Wow, you are really candid.” And he's like, “Yeah, if somebody walks in and we know that they're not a credit risk, but we can still give them a pretty high rate if they don't negotiate it, we'll give them that.” I was shocked they will take you to the cleaners because why not? They're making money off of it. It's part of the sales process. I have really had no idea.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:28:11] Oh absolutely. My dad did my first negotiation with Ford credit finances long, long ago and I saw how the sausage was made because they saw me as a lifelong customer because my dad was a Ford customer for his entire life. Like, my dad talked this guy down to like a 0.1 percent finance rate when it said clearly like, you know, a couple of percent on the, on the sticker. And he's like, “No, you can do better. You can do better.” And he just kept saying that until they did better. So there's always room to wiggle.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:38] Look, if you have bad credit or you're really young, they probably have a cutoff where they go, “Look man, we got no background on you. This is all the underwriter's going to do. But if you walk in there and you're 26 or 27 and you've been paying your credit cards off on time and all that stuff, they're going to give you the retail quote-unquote interest rate unless you say something because why not? You're safe. They're going to make that money no matter what. So they might as well jack it up until you walk away. And they already know that you're going to buy the car if they don't screw with you. So they're balancing that. So yeah, you can at least negotiate a half percent or more. Anyway, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:18] Hi Jordan. I just finished listening to your interview with Ramit Sethi and was absolutely blown away with the conversation. So many interesting points and valuable content that we can apply immediately to make considerable changes in our lives for tomorrow and for 30 or 40 years down the road. I wanted to get your take when it comes to automated banking in hitting that exponential phase of compound interest as soon as possible. I'm 23 years old and just my first year of medical school in Arizona. I understand that I'm going to be fiercely in debt by the time it's over around $225,000 and I'm wondering if it's still in my best interest to deposit $100 a month into an index fund per Ramit’s recommendation. I know I need to start as soon as I can and I've done a fair amount of research into what online resources I can use for this transaction. What I really want to know is with the immense financial strain I'll be under through school and for years after paying back my loans, is it still worth it to be locking my money up and committing to this monthly index fund? Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time and keep up the great work on the podcast. Signed, Who Should Get my Cash.

[00:30:20] And tell the guy to hopefully he listened to the previous doctor and gets the hell out of the doctor business.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:24] I know a lot of doctors looking to invest if they can. A lot of people want to chase return early and as Matt Rzepka also said here--we consulted him on a lot of his finance stuff so that I'm not just talking out of my behind. For younger people, it's all about accumulation. If you're cool not touching the money until you're 60 index or retirement funds is fine, but if you need to withdraw money early, you get a penalty for this. It usually also means that there's a bad economy or a bad market, so what you don't want to do is like in 2009 people lost their jobs. The market was down because of the crash. A lot of people had to liquidate their IRA right at the bottom and sell at a loss, and that's really, really bad because you pay a penalty and then you sell everything that you bought at a loss because you don't have any cash. That's not good. You're losing money after you just lost your job. It's not a good situation.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:18] I was in that situation and it sucked.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:20] Yeah, it's horrible.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:21] Yeah. I had to liquidate all of my savings and my IRAs and I got penalized for everything. And it's like you just watch that money drip off into the ether and your soul sags when it happens. So you don't want that to happen.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:32] Yeah. Because you're basically broke and you're looking at your portfolio and it's in the toilet and then you go, well I guess I'll sell everything at 50 cents on the dollar cause I need to eat tomorrow. Yeah. It's just not good. So the question is can I access the money without a penalty or selling in a down market and yes, keep putting in the hundred dollars cause you're not going to miss 1200 bucks a year as a doctor. As far as paying off the loan, well, that depends on the interest. A single check is always the best way to pay off a liability because you have control over the money until you cut the check. And we kind of discussed that in the previous questions here. You want to control that sort of the theme of this is control the money, control the money, control the money. Bank the money in something that gets interest at or above the interest of the loan, if possible, then cut one check for that alone when you've got enough money. If you can't find those returns, you have to value how much it's worth to control your funds. It's worth a couple of percent at most to control your funds and avoid even bigger problems down the road so it's worth like a percent or two even if you're paying in interest than you are in and getting in savings so that you have control of the funds. That's really the bottom line here. And I know that this is a similar question to the other ones, but I think it's worth highlighting because what you want to make sure you're doing is not handing over all of your disposable income to somebody who—because if you pay off that loan and then you go, “Man, I am in dire straits. Hey, I need to get that loan money back out.” They're going to go, “Well good luck. Good luck with that. We're not going to hand your money back. Now that we know you need money, that's a big risk for us. Not only that, we might even accelerate what you owe us at this point.” And then he paid off half the loan and your interest rate doubles and then you owe your money's going down the toilet faster than you can make it. You don't know what's going to happen. So it's always, always, always good to have control. And so that's what you want to do and this will, you know, want to make damn sure you're doing.

[00:33:25] And so thanks to Matt Rzepka for this as well. I liked the idea of control. I hadn't really thought about the idea that we need to control our money. I hadn't thought about that before and Matt really kind of delivered that to me when I was going over this and that. That for me is new and it's something I'm going to keep in mind and I highly suggest everyone else do the same. All right. That's enough financial stuff for now. Jason, what else do we have?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:33:53] Hey gang, I have a person in my network that I think could be beneficial to my fledgling company. They'd be a good connection to get my foot in the door with potential clients and I have no issue with compensating them for making these connections. My concern is that they'll want to participate in the work as a condition for making the connections. One of their personality traits I've observed is that they're used to getting their way when they want it. I've worked with them on similar projects and I'm not thrilled with their performance. Essentially, they can't produce but can open doors. What are some tips to emphasize? I only want to use them for their networking and opening door's ability without damaging the relationship. Thanks, Networking With No Strings.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:30] You'd need to frame this as a sales job on his part. I think with him getting a commission for helping close the deal, so you also have to be clear that you want to handle the deal internally after he does this. So you can tell him he's great at networking and sales, leaving out the fact that he can't actually produce and as a hindrance once the deal is actually closed. You can make a company policy if you want. That actually prohibits you from working with contractors when the work could be done internally and then you can refer to that policy. When he asks why he can't work on the deal. He might not care though. He might go make an exception for me, you know, it'd be pushy. Make sure you then negotiate with him on what he will earn from closing the business. This way you could keep him focused on getting business and maintaining relationships and let him feel the value for that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:15] So you, you basically would say, “Look, I'll give you 10 percent if you bring us a deal. And then if you want to work on the deal, that's fine, but you don't get paid anything additional for that.” And he'll be like, “No, I want to get 15 percent.” You say, “All right, well, if you want 15 percent, we're still going to pay you that. That's what you get for bringing in the deal but not for working on it.” You know you got to just structure it so that the money is for a commission for him bringing in business and he doesn't get anything additional from working on the deal and you incentivize him properly. Make sure you then negotiate with him on what he will earn from closing the business. This way you can keep him focused on getting business and maintaining relationships and let him feel the value for that. And it sounds like he craves that value. He needs a win. So he wants to do the work because he gets validation there or he really enjoys the work. But if he's doing a bad job, that seems unlikely. So instead you want to give him validation and that ego boost, you know, the mister, I get whatever I want--You want to give him that validation from finding and closing the business, not from working on the deal itself. If he keeps asking you to do the work, you can continue bringing the conversation back to a sales and lead gen role and just not budge on it.

[00:36:30] In the end, if you're compensating him for this and he's getting validation from it, he probably will not actually want to take part in the work. He probably knows that he's not good at it, but he doesn't want to admit this because he's getting value and validation from being a part of the deals. He doesn't want to leave money on the table. He doesn't want to leave ego points on the table. So you have to provide that value and validation elsewhere. Turning him essentially into an all-star salesman and lead generator whose time is quote-unquote better spent outside the office generating business than inside the office pushing paper. In fact, you can literally use that phrase to convince them that generating business for you as a higher status role than him coming in and working on the deals. A lot of salesmen actually love sales because they don't want to do the pencil-pushing. They want to be out crushing business. Salesman or kind of like athletes in the corporate world and you've got to treat them as such, and it doesn't mean that they really view everyone else's unimportant. It's just that they know that what they do is very unique and so get them focused on. It's actually inefficient to have a salesman who's good working on a deal, most of the time in any industry. Anybody who can generate and close business should not also be drafting deal memos. It's just not a good use of their time until they've maxed out the amount of business that they can bring in. Even lawyers do this. If you got a lawyer that goes out and generates a lot of business, you want them out generating business. Even if they're fantastic at structuring deals, that might be like five, 10 percent of their time. There are definitely attorneys who never go to the office and they just go to the country club and golf and do jujitsu and go to charity galas that was like the guy who hired me back when I worked on Wall Street. I barely ever saw him and I thought he was working from home and it turned out he was just out crushing business and bringing it in, bringing in millions of dollars for the firm. So they paid him a commission on everything he brought in and he didn't get an hourly billable hours bonus. He didn't hit it. He didn't hit his billable hours, but he didn't care because that was 30 grand a year and bringing in deals in him. Getting a chunk of those is probably 300,000 a year. So you want to incentivize them properly and someone's someone who's insecure and craving validation like this guy sounds like he is. He will almost certainly jump at the chance to take a role that he views his higher status and is equal or higher compensation as long as he doesn't get in your way. Because he's going to rationalize that he's doing the most important work. And for you, he might actually be, especially if he's not stepping on everybody's toes and pissing off everybody else that you work with. So it's all about incentives and digging in your heels on that and making sure that he views this as something that is essentially a promotion and not you keeping him away from the deal because he's not good at it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:15] We'll be back with more Feedback Friday right after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:18] This episode is sponsored in part by Better Help. This is an amazing online counseling company. I'm stoked about it. I love the idea that this exists. I'm just, the only thing that makes me sad is that it didn't exist earlier because I would've used the crap out of this throughout my entire 20s and early 30s. Better Help offers licensed professional counselors who are specialized in issues such as depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, sleeping, trauma, anger, family conflicts, grief, self-esteem and more. And I'm pretty sure that I have all of this. So you know, I would have used this a lot. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. So anything you share is confidential. Everything's convenient because it's on your freaking phone so you get help at your own time, at your own pace. You schedule a secure video or phone sessions, you can chat, you can text, you don't have to drive across town and find a parking space and set an appointment. But then that one gets canceled cause she's got to go to the dentist, whatever. If you're not happy with your counselor, you can also request a new one at any time. There's no charge for that. And I just think it's a great affordable, convenient option for people that need therapy. And otherwise couldn't or wouldn't go and get it. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:40:24] Best of all, it's a truly affordable option and for our listeners to get 10 percent off your first month, use discount code JORDAN. So why not get started today? Go to betterhelp.com/jordan. Simply fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you'll love. I got my first counselor in about seven hours, but it's not under 24 hours for your first match with a counselor and it's fantastic. Betterhelp.com/jordan.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:48] This episode is also sponsored by NetSuite. If you don't follow your numbers in your business, then you don't know your business, but the problem growing businesses have that keeps them from knowing their numbers is this hodgepodge of business systems. So you get a dashboard for accounting, you got another one for sales. There's an inventory system. There’s a big inefficient mess. Even the small business like what we have, we've got like our accounts receivable, our outgoing stuff, our ad stuff, everything is just in a different place. It takes up a ton of time. We have to set aside time, let's say every month or so in sort of reconcile everything. It just, it's annoying. It takes time. It takes resources. That hurts, the bottom line. There are many other things that I could do rather than having people, Jen and others get stats so that I can see that we're not sinking the boat here. NetSuite by Oracle is business management software that handles every aspect of your business in a cloud platform, just like you'd expect. It's easy to use. So you get visibility and control which you need to grow. With NetSuite, you save time, you save money, there's a lot of unneeded headaches you don't have to have any more with sales, finance, accounting orders, HR. It's all instant right from your desktop or your phone. Cause let's be honest, you're probably using your phone in the back of an Uber checking this half the time. And that's why NetSuite is the world's number one cloud business system. And a lot of entrepreneurs I know are really big on this. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:09] And right now, NetSuite is offering you valuable insights with a free guide. Seven Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits at netsuite.com/jordan. That's netsuite.com/jordan to download your free guide, Seven Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits, netsuite.com/jordan.

[00:42:26] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air, so to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:41] Okay, next.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:42] Hi, Jordan. I'm a conservative truck driver who's just discovering podcasts. I have a few I really enjoy. It's good entertainment and sometimes very informative. My problem is when the podcast or shows their liberal bias and takes shots at conservatives, I really believe entertainers should not show their political leanings and try to keep the biggest audience possible. I'm not sure what to do. Should I stop listening? Should I send them a polite email expressing my thoughts? I'm pretty sure you won't read this on Feedback Friday, but thanks for your time. Sincerely, Conservative Who Doesn't Like Being Kicked in the Nuts.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:14] This to me sounds like a passive-aggressive letter and I actually wrote this guy back and so I was like, “Hey, what's going on in your life?” And it turned out, a lot of stuff going wrong. And so I thought at first, what the heck is the deal here? I hope I'm wrong. You're actually asking me a question. You're not just shooting an arrow at me over email. But it turned out it was a little bit of, it was a little bit of both. So this might not be the best question, but this is a good opportunity for me to express my reasoning. I don't express political leanings on The Jordan Harbinger Show. We really don't. It's actually wiser to keep an open mind and not avoid listening to other people's perspectives just because it's against my own. So we don't have a political message on the show. You'll have Chelsea Handler on one episode who is a very liberal if you haven't noticed, and then conservative Arthur Brooks in another episode. It's funny because I get along fine with those people. There are just a bunch of listeners that go, “I can't believe you're siding with,” and that's just not the case. I think that this goes along with what you were saying earlier about being able to change your mind in the face of new information. If you block, if you close your ears and go la, la, la, la when you hear new information because it doesn't match your political beliefs, that's a problem for you. I think when people feel attacked politically especially, it's often rooted in their own insecurities. For example, you'd have to try pretty hard to read political bias into this show and then let it affect you emotionally. I suggest taking the same advice that most conservatives seem to recommend here, which is realizing that not everything someone says about you, especially political commentary is about you and realize that dialogue and different ideas is what America is founded upon. We talked about that with Arthur Brooks this week. I recommend all perspectives and stay away as far away from actual politics as I can here on the show. Most of the time for those that have listened for a while, you'll know I'm mostly libertarian, not liberal, lefty, libertarian, and I lean in all sorts of different ways politically, depending on whether it's fiscal or social policy that we're discussing.

[00:45:16] Let me ask you this, would you be as offended if a podcast or had a bunch of conservative views that they were pushing on other people or that we're not well hidden or is it just opinions that you disagree with that trigger and offend you? That's always the question here. I have a feeling I would not have gotten this email if I was a little bit more conservative because I would, he would agree with me, but since he disagrees with something that he thinks I said or thinks that I believe now he's angry. That's something that you should explore yourself. And I will also say that there is a distinct irony in the amount of email I actually get from really conservative folks saying, “Everyone on the left is a snowflake,” and then two paragraphs later they talk about how their feelings are hurt by a random podcast or who unintentionally offended them somehow completely by accident while talking about something else. So who's the snowflake in this scenario? And thankfully most people on the left and the right are not doing this. And I think a lot of conservatives, I tend to agree with a lot of what is said there. And I do think the left in many ways eats its own tail and that's another subject for another time.

[00:46:21] But that said, I'm very glad that you listened to this show. I sleep very well knowing that 99 percent of the time this show is a very reasoned conversation with people from all over the political spectrum. I would go so far as to say that anyone who gets offended by what is on this show here is reaching pretty far. And hopefully, you're talking about other podcasts and not this one. Although I did email him back to get clarification and it turned out that it was this one, but there was no example he could point to. It was just a quote-unquote general feeling that he got about this. But look, if you're offended by this show, and I don't mean him, I just mean in general, if you're offended by what we talk about in this show, I'm scared for how you will react to something that is actually offensive.

[00:47:00] So thanks to everyone who is a fan of this no matter where you fall politically. And I like hearing about this because I do get insight into how people think. But Jason, I got to say, there's not a week goes by where we don't get an email from somebody on the left who says, “I can't believe how conservative you are. You bastard.” And then someone else on the right. He goes, “I can't believe how liberal you are you snowflake, libtard.” And I'm like, wow, there's so much bias in coloration going on here that these people will hear the exact same thing from me. And one will go, “Oh, he's a left-wing nut idiot.” And then somebody on the left will go, “I can't believe this guy is a douchebag right-wing turd.” You know, there's just all kinds of interpretation going on here that isn't really present in the opinions expressed on the show. It's kind of funny. I just, it makes me worried about the discourse because it's almost like these people can't hear anything that's not through their own lens. You got to be careful with that, people. You've got to be careful about filtering things in that you think you're hearing that are not there. You're going to start to generate enemies and ire all over the place and it's not going to do you any good. Fortunately, in this case, it turned out that the writer is actually having a tough time in life, so he's angry about everything and I get that. I feel you and I feel bad for you if you're having a tough time in life and you're taking it out on political pundits, it's not completely misplaced. Arthur Brooks and us discussed how those people are deliberately trying to divide America and build tribes so that they can make money. We are deliberately not doing that. Our tribe here is people that want to get better at whatever they're doing left or right, grow a career, get a great group of friends and be emotionally healthy. That's our tribe. If you're in that tribe, I don't care who you vote for. All right. What's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:46] Hello Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I'm going to be 25 next month and from listening to your show, I realized the best way to spend the second half of my 20s would be to build skills and build my network. My problem is that I spend almost all of my free time on things that will give me instant gratification and won't add any real value in my life, like playing video games, watching YouTube or The Office for the millionth time endlessly scrolling on Facebook, watching porn, et cetera. Activities that instantly feel my brain with dopamine, but add no real value in my life. And yeah, I smoke weed almost every day. I know I'm a stereotype. It's like I'll be actively doing them and enjoying them, but have this feeling of guilt in the back of my mind because I'm not doing what really needs to get done. I've read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and I know that I should be spending time focusing on activities in the first and second quadrants, but I just seem to be perpetually trapped in the fourth quadrant. I think I'm just not disciplined enough to make myself do the hard things, but I don't know how to build that discipline. Also, on the rare occasion when I'm doing the hard things, there's a part of me that's constantly thinking, what's the point? By the time I'll see the results from this climate change or in nuclear war will have ended the world as we know it, so why am I not enjoying the little time I have left? I don't know. I want to be a productive person and actually get somewhere in my life, but there's something about my lazy personality that's holding me back. I was hoping that you could give me tips or courses on how to not give in to instant gratification so I can actually be productive and find fulfillment in my life. Once again, thanks for all the amazing work that you guys do. Sincerely, Dopamine Fiend.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:17] Well, I hear you in a way, but let me dispense of a couple of miss here. Climate change and nuclear war are creative rationalizations. That's all they are here. There's no real truth here. You're these as excuses. I think you know that there's not going to be a nuclear Holocaust. Climate change isn't going to kill you. It's going to kill your grandkids most likely you're just going to screw up your life in the meantime, not building what you want and be miserable, and then you're going to be rooting for nuclear war and climate change because you're not going to have invested in yourself. Now, I'm being, I'm catastrophizing here just like you are, but look, you're 25 you're, you're fine.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:50:51] I think when I was 25, I was low [indiscernible] too thinking the same things too.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:58] What’s he’s lacking is purpose. That it's so clear what he's lacking his purpose. He's 25 and he's going, what's the point? This is all a bunch of BS. I don't know if he found something that you really wanted to do, he'd be doing that. You would, yeah, you'd still watch porn cause you're a dude and you're 24, 25 years is extra just through the roof. But you're going to The Office at night, you're going to use too much social media. You're going to check out YouTube, but you're also going to be driven to do something right now I think that drive is missing. And also, look, I'm not anti-cannabis far from it actually, but if you're feeling demotivated, stop smoking weed. I'm not saying weed makes you lazy. What I'm saying is it's that much harder to motivate yourself when you're super relaxed cause you just inhaled a bunch of freaking Indica and you're taking a bunch of naps. You know, get your butt to bed early. Don't look at your phone, use blackout curtains, get a night mask. You will wake up at 6:00 a.m. if you go to bed at nine or 10, then go to the gym. Use the techniques from Atomic Habits with James Clear. That's episode 108 by the way of this show and get to the gym four-plus days a week. This is going to hard reset your body, the sleep in the gym into feeling more energetic. You won't want to eat crap food. You won't want to go on Facebook and sit there and waste your time. You probably won't even want to smoke as much weed. You'll feel more motivated to do other things. This sounds like a funk induced or at least maintained by self-medicating. You know you're, you're getting dopamine from weed, then you're sleeping. Then you're getting up. You're feeling guilty. You're procrastinating, doing what you need to do on social media. Then you'd fire up porn hub. Then you smoke weed and you'd take an app. That's not a good cycle. It's going to make you feel depressed.

[00:52:41] There's a lot more you can do, but rather than attack the symptoms, you need to stop the negative habit loop before you go any further. When I needed to stop drinking too much and go to the gym and work harder, all I did was get more sleep, which made me able to go workout, which made me want to eat well, which made me want to drink less positive feedback loops like this. A few months later I was kicking butt at school. I was on the way to have a good career. Not having disciplined, that is BS. You create discipline. Some people might've had it younger than others, but read Atomic Habits if you need to and go from there. It's not a matter of discipline. It's a matter of putting systems in place so that the path of least resistance is the path that's actually good for you. So if you're waking up naturally at six and you have a bunch of weights downstairs, instead of having to get in the car and drive to the gym, you can work out at home. And then so the path of least resistance is the path that's good for you. Oh, well you don't have any junk food in the house because you only bought healthy food. Good. The path of least resistance is going downstairs and getting a protein bar instead of eating a freaking cupcake. Once you do this, you'll start skill stacking and building relationships that will further your career later down the line. If you're addicted to Facebook—Jason, you quit Facebook, right? You stopped it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:56] I completely quit Facebook. It was the best thing I've ever done. I've quit almost all social media. I only use Twitter occasionally when I need to find some funny news articles for my friends. But getting off of social media almost altogether has been one of the greatest things I've ever done. And we've talked about this before. You're watching other people's highlight reels and your blooper reel is all around you all day long and that is a demotivator. That is one of the greatest motivators in the world. You know? Listen to more podcasts. If you need to kill some time, get the hell off of Facebook, get off Instagram, get off of Twitter, get off all that crap, And you will find, you'll have more time and you'll be more motivated to actually see your friends in real life and have conversations. And that is going to motivate you because you're going to see the good stuff that they're doing. Social media is just a wasteland. And especially when you're sitting there waken one out every five hours on porn hub, hitting a bong and not doing anything except watching TV. Yeah. You're going to get in this downward cycle. I think that everything Jordan said plus just destroy your social media accounts.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:55] And besides, look, if there is a nuclear war, we're going to be picking who gets to come into the compound bunker based on how useful you are, not how many bong reps you can handle or how good you are at jamming on the Xbox. So, build a skill, learn how to bow hunt, man. I'm just kidding. But you know that those aren't real skills. And that's, that's what's depressing. I don't mean to say that pro gamers or something don't have real skills. Those guys are amazing. Those guys and gals are amazing. But you aren't doing that as a career. You're doing it to waste time. There's a huge difference. Jason, do you know any pro gamers? Those guys are intense. They're working out, they're training, they're doing stuff that's not necessarily fun at all. It’s like a sport.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:55:38] Oh, it is a sport and it is just like actual sports where only like one-tenth of 1 percent actually even get to play. And out of that one-tenth of one percent, one-tenth of one percent of that are the ones that actually make the money. I actually got to hang out with Fatal1ty back in the day and got to play some games with him and he will train over a weekend. He'll train like 20 hours when he comes who's coming up for a tournament, he goes to the gym which is surprising for an E-sports athlete to keep his mind focused. But these guys train hard.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:09] That makes sense because if you feel like crap and your back hurts, you're not going to want to sit there and you're going to be distracted. You've got to sit there and focus. You don't want jitters to and working out. We'll get rid of that. Gaming is so interesting, man. My buddy Mic is a DJ and he sent me a photo of a huge arena and I go, “Whoa man, you're playing a show? Who's, what is that?” And he goes, no, this is the Overwatch World Championships or something in Brooklyn,” and he's like, “There are 20,000 people here. It's Taiwan versus Philadelphia,” or something like that. And I was, I was just in awe. They had uniforms on, it was a coed team. It was so cool to see. And they were playing some game that I hadn't seen Overwatch. I know it's huge. It's just not my cup of tea I guess. But these people were amazing at this. The moves that take me—when I play Xbox, I'm like, okay, L trigger pulls the bow back and then I push and then I aim and then I push R right trigger like that's me playing. They're like, phew, phew, phew. They can do it so fast. It's insane. It's really is a skill. I want my dad to see it because he used to be like, ”You’re playing this damn video games.” Now, I'm looking and I go, okay, you're really, this is a real--it's like if golf is a sport, video games, E-sports are real sports. There's no way they're not breaking a sweat and thinking super, super fast.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:33] Did you know that I was a semi-pro Quake player back in the day?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:37] No. No, I didn't know that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:38] Yeah. Quake III back in the day. I was in a couple of clans that were pretty highly ranked and I would leave work at 5:00 p.m. on Friday and I'd show back up at work on Monday at nine in the morning and in that like time span, I would have played at least 24 hours straight every weekend for years I bought like the best computer that I could get and I would just play it all the time and I got into a couple of really good clans and it is a massive amount of work and even with all the work that I put in, I still wasn't even that good compared to like the really high-end players. When you meet the high-end players in a match, it is mind-boggling how fast their brain works. They know where you're going to be, you know 20 seconds before you're even going to get there and then when you come around the corner there's a rocket in your face because they just know where you're going to go. It's insane.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:32] That's too much. That's why I tried playing Halo once multiplayer and it was like spawn dies, spawn die, spawn die, spawn die and I'm like who are these kids? And they're about 14 if that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:58:44] Like I said, I played against Fatal1ty who back in the day, this is like the early 2000s was the highest-paid gamer in the world and we played Halo at my friend's house and it was ridiculous. We were playing four on him or like three on him. It was a four-person game and all we tried to do was kill him and he got killed once in the middle of this match before he killed us all like 20 times and he got so mad when he got killed once that he was just like okay. Then he like shrugged it off and like really started to play because he was only playing like half-assed and killing everybody. But when he got killed, once he turned it on and we could not get a shot on him. It is insane how good these guys are when they get it to the top. But that is the top of the top of the top and you're not going to be doing that sitting there winking on Pornhub, hitting the bong.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:33] Yeah, exactly. Life pro tip of the week. If you decide to give up your seat on an overbooked flight, you know, they go, “We need volunteers, you're going to get a $200 voucher.” Sometimes people run up there, other times they don't. And if you go up to the gate agent, if there's not a huge line of people waiting to do that, you can say, “Hey, toss in another 200 or more or less depending on your best judgment. And I'll go for it.” If you tell them, “Hey, if you can you up this by a hundred bucks and I'll do it,” they almost always will say, okay, because a willing volunteer is more worth it than having to bump someone who then gets angry and is pissed off and they're dealing with it. It's not their money. So a lot of times it's negotiable. The amount that you can get for this. And if they say, “Oh, we'll give you a meal voucher,” instead say, “Actually, can I get a day pass to your first-class club or whatever those things are called your lounge.” There's better food there or at least there's food there anyway. Not necessarily better, but there's food there any way in the lounge and they've got nice seating. They usually have Wi-Fi, they've got televisions. You can put your stuff down and use a cleaner bathroom. It's better. And they have the option a lot of times to give you one of those too if they have a lounge in that terminal or at least a near the airport. So if you're stuck somewhere for like eight more hours, don't just get a 15-dollar Burger King voucher asks for a day pass. You can sit there and eat and have some drinks the whole time and you can negotiate the amount of the voucher. It's worth it. Try it. I've done it before and it's a good idea.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:03] In the old days, they used to give you a free roundtrip ticket anywhere in the Continental United States. And I've done this a couple of times when cause it was when they would come through the cabin. Remember when they used to do that and say, “Is anybody willing to give up their seat?” And if nobody raised their hand, I would raise my hand and say, “Yes but make it two round trips and I'm off.” And I did that three or four times and I always got two free roundtrip tickets anywhere in the Continental United States.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:26] That's awesome. I didn't know that. I'd never been on a plane with, they're like, who's going to get off the plane right now?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:30] Oh really? That's used to happen to me all the time. I don't fly that much anymore. But I've had that happen a lot.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:36] Is that like before they had the scanning of the boarding passes because how do they not know that they've oversold the flight before they've oversold the flight? Like now they know before anybody gets on that it's oversold and that there's somebody that they need to get on the flight.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:50] Yeah. It could have been, could have been cause it was a while ago cause I was young and I could get off the plane cause I had nowhere to be. So I was probably in my, you know, 20s early 30s. So yeah, it was probably before everything was so automated.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:00] Yeah. This is paper ticket time. It has to be.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So somebody would show up at the gate with their tickets and there'd be like, you know, a family of three trying to get on and they needed to find three spots on the plane to get them on, but you still, you can still negotiate. They're definitely open to negotiation because like you said, it's not their money. They just want to get the freaking plane in the air.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:23] Exactly. They just don't want somebody throwing a fit who's got diamond status or whatever.

[01:02:28] Recommendation of the week. Dawn Wall. Have you seen this Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:31] No, I have not. What's it, what's it about?

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:34] So you've seen, you've seen that Free Solo movie right? Where the guy climbs up. Okay.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:38] I refused to watch that movie. I can't do it.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:41] You'll have nightmares.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:41] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:42] This is about a climb and it's a climber but he doesn't do it with like no ropes, but he is free climbing this mountain and inventing new. It's a really interesting story. I mean there's, he ends up getting kidnapped in another country, which is near and dear to my heart, so I thought that was interesting. Just a really, really well-done movie. It's on Netflix, it's called the Dawn Wall, and if you like those crazy rock climbing movies or just an interesting story, I highly recommend the Dawn Wall. It's on Netflix and it's with Tommy Caldwell who is also in Free Solo. He's just not the main guy and Free Solo.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:19] Yeah. You know how you can't watch those videos of like that I pointed out where like people are getting trapped under the ocean. That's how I feel about people climbing big things.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:29] Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. No, I don't like people drowning and underwater caves. I just I can't even play video games where you have to swim in an underwater cave. It just makes me—I can, but it just makes me nervous.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:40] Yeah. Sweaty palms.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:42] Yeah. I 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. We'll always keep you anonymous that some live events coming up soon. Well, we will right now we're doing corporate training and that's always fun and exciting. And a link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. And if you join Six-Minute Networking over at jordanharbinger.com/course or you sign up for our newsletter, you will find out about our live events when we announced them because we'll do it on the email list, not on the show, most likely. Simply because by the time you hear about it on the show it'll be sold out. Our last one sold out in four hours. So I'm very cognizant of the fact that there's no point in announcing it on the show because I'll just be fielding emails about there are no seats left.

[01:04:26] Shout out to a, I don't know if this is the name Malak Firaas, but he found the show. This is ironic he said, “My story of how I found the show was I was missing my home country Jordan, which is Jordan, and I was curious about what people on the internet said about the country. So I typed in Jordan and there was the podcast on Google.” He clicked on it and Feedback Friday was the best conversation he had ever heard. Since then, he's been recommending the show to all his family and friends and he's listened to all the episodes. That's amazing. It's so funny. Someone googled Jordan looking for the country, found our show and was like, yeah, I'll dive into this.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:05:00] That's kind of great.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:01] Yeah, totally. I never heard anything like that and never heard anything like that. Go back and check out the guests LeVar Burton and Gabriel Weinberg if you haven't yet, and if you want to know how we managed to create amazing networks for ourselves, well check out Six-Minute Networking. I just talked about where you can find that jordanharbinger.com/course. Don't do it later. The mistake people make is not digging the well before they get thirsty. If you need those relationships and you haven't made them well, you're out of luck. The drills take five, six minutes a day, hence the name. Ignore this at your own peril. I wish I had known this stuff 20 years ago. It's crucial to business and personal success network. It's all about who you know. They say. You can find that at jordanharbinger.com/course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show and videos of our interviews are at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:05:51] My personal websites over at jpd.me where you can find links to the few socials that I'm still on and you can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks over gog.show or your podcast player of choice. And like I always say, keep the kids out of the room because we do get a bit adulty on that show.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:06] The show is produced in association with PodcastOne. This episode was co-produced by Jen harbinger and show notes for the episodes or by Robert Fogarty. Keeps sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. And remember, we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. 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.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:31] If you like our show, you're going to love the GG Podcast with Rick Fox, Jace Hall, and Todd Roy on PodcastOne. Log in to see the world behind the E-sports you love and find out what good game really means from a trio who's taken the business by storm, including the three-time NBA champion behind team Echo Fox. Download new episodes of the GG Podcast every week on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.