1236: Bedroom Blame Game Sparks Consent Shame | Feedback Friday

1236: Bedroom Blame Game Sparks Consent Shame | Feedback Friday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the dude helping me stay in the saddle as we fight these life battles live from The Big Apple, Gabriel Mizrahi. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from cold case homicide, investigators, hostage and negotiators, gold smugglers, and rocket scientists.

This week we had Dr. Layne Norton, PhD in nutritional sciences, we talk protein, diet soda, nutrition myths, the truth about seed oils and more. I also interviewed Oobah Butler, author, filmmaker of social media provocateur, Oobah. If you don't know, he basically creates stunts that reveal larger truths about societies.

Created a fake restaurant, gone undercover at an Amazon warehouse, and more fascinating guys. Got a new [00:01:00] project in the works that is top secrets. We're looking forward to that as well. We also had a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on OnlyFans. On Fridays though, we share stories, take listener letters, play obnoxious sound bites, and generally wander into the dark thicket of your gnarled and gnarly life conundrum.

So Gabe, I ran to a dude with a sign this morning. You know that guy? Mm-hmm. Who's this? Oh, uh, A dude with a sign. It's a character essentially created by a guy named Seth Phillips. It's brilliant, right? He got famous for standing around random places in New York. Holding up cardboard signs with funny messages.

It's stuff people think, but don't say out loud. Like there'll be a sign that just says "Stop replying all to company wide emails" or something like that. Okay. Or "Seinfeld is way better than Friends" stuff. Just stuff like that start

Gabriel Mizrahi: Like hot takes, but kind of funny.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like maybe a Facebook status, but instead it's on a old box lid.

And so it's brilliant. 'cause he needs like a Sharpie and box lids.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's insane that he has built a successful brand on that.

Jordan Harbinger: It's probably a multimillion or at least seven feet close [00:02:00] to it brand. And he needs a Sharpie and box lids and himself. And when you look at the photos, you get the impression that he's standing there all day getting reactions.

No, he stands there. Someone takes a picture and he is like, all right, I'm done with my work for the whole day. And then like goes and I don't know, has a beer or something. Wow. What a life. He, it blew up. It used to be part of F*ck Jerry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, um, pardon me for, but that's the name of the company.

Mm-hmm. It blew up. He has millions of followers and now he's, he's basically a meme himself. Got it. It was funny watching him do it because he was doing some sort of like corporate thing, but people on the street were like, oh, and he would like, can I hug you? I'm like, oh, he's an actual real celebrity in New York.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So what was the sign today?

Jordan Harbinger: It, I, you know what? It didn't make sense to me because I think it was a sponsored gig.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh,

Jordan Harbinger: okay. So it was like, "Schooner's is delicious." It is like a beer or something, or at a place. It, you could tell he was being managed by somebody that he was mildly annoyed by. I just blew it for him.

But whatever it looked like he was mildly annoyed by whatever guy was managing him, and there was a guy taking pictures and it was probably just like some sponsored thing where [00:03:00] he probably makes money where like. A restaurant says, stand in front of our restaurant and then take a picture like, this place has good dumplings.

And it's like, all right, gotta pay the bills. That's that guy's business model. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. I can't really throw shade on somebody for being like, eat these dumplings when I'm like, Hey, buy this $3,000 mattress. No. So another thing that was interesting, he had three pieces of cardboard. The guy who was doing the photo shoot basically took them and put them behind the table and dude with a sign, Seth, he grabbed them and took them with him and he basically like hauled ass outta there.

And I was like, why do you take those? That's weird.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Like he doesn't want people to know what the collabs are or

Jordan Harbinger: maybe, or he doesn't want to give away what he is promoting. Or maybe he doesn't want people to keep them and then them off. Like, Hey, this is one of the dude with assigned signs maybe. Although at that point it's like, cool.

I don't know, maybe he sees himself getting really, really big and he is like, one day I'm gonna auction off these things and give the money to charity or keep it whatever.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or maybe he just didn't wanna litter. Maybe he's just being considerate.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe he just doesn't want a litter.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So, Jordan, before we dive in, I'm not sure if you noticed this is our 400th Feedback Friday [00:04:00] episode.

Jordan Harbinger: I did notice that and I was gonna say, wow.

Jase Sanderson: Happy 400th episode everyone. Hello, producer Jason here. If you'd like to skip Jordan and Gabe's anniversary celebrations and move swiftly to the first question, you can do so by skipping to 12 minutes and 20 seconds, give or take, if you heard an advert at the top of the show.

But of course we'd love you to stick around and celebrate with us. Did somebody mention cake? Enjoy the show everyone!

Gabriel Mizrahi: What a

Jase Sanderson: milestone.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Huge milestone. I should actually say your 400th Feedback Friday. I came on board, I just looked this up before we recorded, I came on board Feedback Friday 119 and that was on May 29th, 2020.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, my god. That sounds not long enough ago, doesn't it?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know. I have no sense of time. The last five years are kind of a blur.

Jordan Harbinger: So we've done 280 some odd Feedback Fridays together. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: 280, 281 dooze cruises.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Didn't capsize once. No. Uh, debatable. Yeah, maybe a couple times, but mostly we've kept this baby afloat.

Man, that is wild. So that was [00:05:00] five and a half years ago.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Five and a half years. It has been,

Jordan Harbinger: so much has happened for, so the show has evolved so much since then. It's almost hard to wrap my head around. I think back then, Feedback Friday was producer Jase would read the letter and I would give my, like off the cuff, not researched, not thought about.

No expert commentary, answer.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, it's really been fun to develop this whole format. I was actually thinking before we recorded about where I was when we started. I don't know if I've ever told this story fully. I actually don't even know if you know what was going on in my life when you invited me onto the show.

But basically it was a month or two into the pandemic. Yeah, it was March or April, 2020. Yeah, that sounds

Jordan Harbinger: about right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I had a movie, my first movie was going into production. It was going to be, you remember this part? I think it was gonna be like a very big movie and it was my first big break.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, I remember this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I was literally 24 hours away from flying to Montreal. This movie, I think had already been in prep for two or three weeks. So they were already dead offices and the movie was already kind of getting off the ground [00:06:00] and I had sublet my apartment to my friend Michael for two months. 'cause I was like, oh, I'm gonna be in Canada making this movie.

And he needed a place to stay, so he took my apartment. I stayed with my mom for a couple days and then we got the call saying, yeah, COVID is a thing, and they're shutting the movie down.

Jordan Harbinger: Ugh,

Gabriel Mizrahi: heartbreaking.

Jordan Harbinger: That was like a funeral, right? I mean that

Gabriel Mizrahi: It was pretty brutal. And then shortly after that, the actor dropped outta the project and that project floundered for a while.

It's taken a long time to get it back on track. But in that time, Jase left the show and you needed a producer to come on board. And I was like, yeah, I really actually Right. Need a job. This is amazing.

Jordan Harbinger: Jase somehow got, also got a killer offer. Mm. It was like, start your own studio and work on all these big projects.

And he was like, Hey dude, I don't wanna leave you in the lurch. Can you like triple my income to match this other? And I was like, no, you should do that. That's like one way more in alignment with what you wanna do. And two, like, I can't afford to do that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, I thank him every day because he opened up this beautiful spot and I, but I did not know that it would turn into this collaboration that it's turned into, you know?

I, [00:07:00] and also in my mind, dude, back then I was like, COVID V two, three months tops and then this will blow over. It needs

Jordan Harbinger: to flatten the curve, y'all deal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, exactly. Even it was, I don't think flatten the curve was even like a phrase. Yeah. It was like, I just thought it was gonna be like bird flu. Like remember bird flu came barely, it's like never became a thing.

Yeah. I like, this is overblown. My movie's gonna get right back on track. I'll just do this for a few months and pay the bills and hang out with my friend and it'll be cool. And then the pandemic went on for quite a while and the movie did not get right back on track. Um, I would say it took us six months to a year to kind of find our real groove and then the show really just started to build from there.

And I gotta say, man, when I think about the handful of things that changed my life, getting to do the show with you was one of them. And I never thought that podcasting would be part of my career in a real way. I never podcasted before and now I love it as much or probably more than a lot of filmmaking.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Congrats on being another white guy with a [00:08:00] podcast.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm sure I'm pouring out with my heart here and you're making fun of me for pot. Calling the kettle white. Uh, I'm just saying, but uh, but, um, I gotta say, uh, when I think about this chapter, it kind of reminds me of a lot of the Feedback Friday themes that we talk about, and one of them is like, how amazing it is sometimes when you just say yes to something without knowing where it's going to go.

Because I couldn't actually say no 'cause I really needed a job at the time, but also like I did not think that this would open up a whole new path for me, and it's kind of changed my life and opened my world in all these ways. Also, I remember in the first two weeks of coming on the show with you, I had never really been behind a microphone.

We got an email from some, well, I got an email to the Feedback Friday inbox from someone saying, Hey, um, you need to get rid of Gabe because he does not know what he is doing. And this person was not wrong. And I actually listened to a couple minutes of that first episode and I was like, my God, dude, like speak up, get better equipment.

Jordan Harbinger: I just think no one stays bad at something for a [00:09:00] long time when they're working with an expert on that thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And this is actually what I was getting at. I see. It's such a beautiful thing to be able to practice and develop and make mistakes with somebody who is giving you space course to develop. And I don't know if you consciously did that, if that's just kind of part Of course.

No, of course. It was such a gift to be able to learn how to do this and to have your patience in your space, which you know, is really hard to find without making stake super high.

Jordan Harbinger: I figured the listeners, except for that one person apparently are not gonna go, oh, this person tried a new thing that they've never done before to replace someone else.

They didn't hit home runs the first day. Fire them. Like that's an unreasonable take. It's different if someone expresses zero talent for getting something done, like if they're unable to do the most basic task. But like staying on unlike is not intuitive. Most people talk in the direction of the person.

They don't talk in the direction of an inanimate object while looking at the other person. And being able to go off of notes and improvise things is like a learned [00:10:00] skill. It's different. If someone's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard, that's different. They, that's hard to change, especially if they don't know that, then you gotta tell them that and they don't believe you.

Like that's a person you don't wanna work with. But if somebody just needs mic technique, okay, you need a week. Yeah. To get it down.

Gabriel Mizrahi: To be fair, I think I obviously needed the mic technique stuff, like the more technical stuff, but I also just needed time to like get comfortable talking. Right. And being with you in this new Yeah, and, and also our relationship has grown since then.

And so we were still kind of finding each other. But the other thing that I was thinking about is, for so many years, Jordan, I thought of myself as like a screenwriter. And if I am not making a living, and if I'm not achieving things only as a screenwriter, then I'm not succeeding. And actually I don't know how I'm gonna feel about myself if I build my career on anything else but this.

Then this happened and it was like, it started as just like a nice little gift and then it kind of became something closer to

Jordan Harbinger: mm-hmm.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The other half of my career.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And now it's really [00:11:00] in a way bigger than the other stuff. And I'm just kind of marveling at how sometimes when you think of yourself as only one kind of person, it can close you off from being a number of people.

And that can be so much more rewarding and so much more interesting. And that was really the first time I learned that lesson. So yeah, Feedback Friday 400 is just a little opportunity for me to reflect on that. And you inviting me into the show is just one of the best things to ever happen to me and it means the world to me.

And I, I love doing this project and thank you for having faith.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm looking forward to you making a movie sometime. But I'm also really proud of what we built here. I truly had no idea how the partnership would go when you came on board. I didn't think the show would evolve as much as it did. Obviously that's been a really cool experience for me as well, just to see how something develops with a collaborator.

Kind of takes on a life of its own. And our listeners are also a huge part of that. Of course, that every letter you guys send, you know, except for the one where they told me to get rid of your, and you opened it because you were the one checking that inbox. Sorry about that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, I'm, it's kind of an amazing thing, like, I'm glad I got that.

You will. Do

Jordan Harbinger: you have, I wonder if that person still listens and is, [00:12:00] I have no idea that

Gabriel Mizrahi: person is over there cringing. Like, oh, I told, told you to get rid

Jordan Harbinger: of it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Everything. Her opinion has not changed. Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: no. Every joke you guys make, every letter, you guys send the bits, just keep building the, the themes, the questions we're all grappling with just, they just get clearer.

The show gets richer and richer. So thank you all for that. Yeah, man. Happy 400th. What a ride. I do wonder where the DOS crews will be at 500. That's always good. That is insane to think about as always. We got some fun ones. We got some doozies. Let's dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mail bag?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hello, Jordan and Gabe. While going through my divorce from my wife, I asked her, was I really

Jordan Harbinger: that bad? Oh, don't do this. Don't ever, by the way, don't ever do, I'm not divorced, but don't ever do that. I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She went on about how I never forgave her for things and made her miserable, which is somewhat fair.

While most days were okay, there were times I would just shut down and be unable to fully function.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm, that's tough. I'm well, I'm glad you see that clearly. Now,

Gabriel Mizrahi: I then said something along the lines of, you told me that in past relationships, you had ex-boyfriends take advantage of you [00:13:00] against your will or when you were intoxicated, and I never did that.

Whoa. Wow,

Jordan Harbinger: that's intense. So basically he was like, yeah, I wasn't perfect, but at least I never assaulted you. Right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Damn. As you can tell, I was grasping at straws and trying however I could to inject some life into our relationship. That comparison was a desperate one, and in hindsight, I shouldn't have brought it up.

She responded that I had taken advantage of her. When I asked her how, she said something like, when you attempted to have sex with me and I turned you down, you would get upset. So I felt I had to do it against my will.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, well, well, let's see where this goes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That floored me as it was somewhat true, but something I never considered toward the end of our marriage.

Sex wasn't a priority to her, and it rarely happened when I tried to initiate. There were times, but not always when after a rejection, I would say something like, fine, whatever, and go about my business. Sometimes she would come back later and initiate. Sometimes she would say, fine, let's do it, and we would.[00:14:00]

And sometimes when I would touch her thigh sitting next to her, or when I made a comment while she was getting dressed, she would just tell me I was disgusting and that all I wanted was sex. That was pretty common.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh man, this is tough. So she's straight up shaming him for his desires. Not sure what to make of this yet, but it sounds like this part of your marriage was, huh?

It's fraught to say the least. There's just a huge misalignment here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: To be clear, I never used this as a tactic. It was a product of genuine frustration. I've tried to look inward and see my actions clearly to the best of my ability, and I never tried to coerce her into anything, but she seems to have felt that I did.

Jordan Harbinger: Hmm, this is complicated.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Then while I was thinking about consent, both in marriage and in general, I remembered a couple of instances where I was asleep and woke up to her on top of me trying to figure out where I was and what was going on. As a young man, I dreamed of that, but when it happened, it felt strange and wrong.

Jordan Harbinger: I did not see that [00:15:00] plot twist, bro.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Granted, once awake, I finished the job, but it wasn't the same as when we both consciously agreed to the activity. It feels strange writing this as I'm not sure how I felt then, and I'm not sure how I feel now as a man. What should I feel about that situation?

Signed, navigating this weird climate when I'm feeling alexathymic.

Jordan Harbinger: It's funny how you phrase that. Once a awake, I finish the job. Yeah. Like I do not cons. Okay, fine. Yeah. That we're here. Um,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but still also has some odd, complicated feelings about it. This is, yeah, that's normal.

Jordan Harbinger: Um, by the way, what? Well, so what does do Alexathymic.

I feel like we talked about that a while ago, but what

Gabriel Mizrahi: it's like when you, when you struggle to recognize or describe your emotions. Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: But it's interesting in one way, he's extremely clear about his experience and where he stands. Like he said, I've looked inward. I've tried to see myself clearly. I never tried to coerce her into anything.

But then in this other area, he doesn't know how to feel about what happened. I do wonder if that's part of what he struggled with by his own

Gabriel Mizrahi: admission. Yeah. There were times I would just shut down and [00:16:00] be unable to fully function.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. You know, I get the sense that our friend here. Isn't always in touch with his feelings or clear about what they mean, and that that theme is kind of in the, it's in the background of the whole story,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but to be fair, we are about to wade into territory that is extremely ambiguous.

I also don't quite know what to make of all this.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And that's what makes his story so interesting and also so confusing for me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: For me as well. They both feel like they were taken advantage of, but in very different ways.

Jordan Harbinger: So he's saying, I never consciously tried to manipulate her into having sex with me.

That was never my intention anyway. I was just frustrated and expressing that. Right. It was I, I mean, I can believe it, but she would see him get upset and that would stir up some response in her, which we don't fully know. Distress, obligation and Gelt resentment. Discomfort, whatever. We can only speculate, but I can, you know, I can sort of imagine.

And then she would do something with that. Sometimes she would ignore him, sometimes she'd reject him. Then just come back later. Sometimes she'd cave in the moment. Sometimes she would, it sounds like, reject him [00:17:00] outright and it, it sounds like kind of be really insulting about it and then shame him. Yeah.

But when they did have sex, her experience of that is you would get upset. So I felt I had to do it, thus I had sex with you against my will.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. And so you did take advantage of me, just like my old partners did, which is a very intense thing to hear if you did not think that you were doing that

Jordan Harbinger: right.

I don't mean to repeat myself, but this is extremely complicated. When a woman says, I felt pressured, I felt manipulated. There's clearly something important going on and it's hard for our friend here, for anyone really to say, well, you might have felt that way, but that's not what actually happened. Right.

I never forced you to do anything. It's painful and invalidating to, you know, like argue with her experience around something as loaded as consent. But what happened between them based on the information that he's given us. Of course, what happened between them is in a very different category from, say, a husband who holds his wife down in the bed and forces her to have sex with him.

Or even a husband who consciously manipulates and Gelt trips his [00:18:00] wife into having sex when she doesn't want to. I am not saying their dynamic was entirely fair or healthy or whatever. I'm not saying he did nothing wrong. I'm not blaming victim here, whatever. I know people are getting upset, but I, I do find her read on their sex life, you know, when I turned you down you would get upset.

So I felt I had to do it against my will. I just, I find that to be a very simplistic summary of how these exchanges would go. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It is skating on the surface of what must be a much more complex process. Right. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Look, if she had said, when you would get upset that I didn't want to have sex, that was really hard for me.

It made me feel bad. It made me feel guilty. It made me feel pressured, whether you intended that or not. Whatever feeling, you know, which, whatever feelings came up with her. And often I had sex with you even though I didn't want to, and that's left me with some really tough feelings and it feels similar to what I went through with my past boyfriends that,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but that is a very different understanding of this situation.

Yeah. I take your point

Jordan Harbinger: then I would say if that were the case, I would say, okay, she's bringing up fair points. She's making room for her experience and [00:19:00] your experie. There's an important conversation to be had here about who's responsible for this and to what extent. Yeah. But to say, oh, you basically assaulted me, or You did something adjacent to that by getting frustrated with me.

I find that very simplistic,

Gabriel Mizrahi: rather conveniently. So I would say, and kind of, I mean, look, we don't have her side of the story. He's summarizing, blah, blah, blah. We all know that we only have his side of the story to go on, but it does seem a little bit uncurious on her part to just pin this on him and say he made her have sex with him.

End of story.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's ultimately very unfair to our friend here who's then left to wonder, am I basically an accidental rapist?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Am I in the same category of all these other men who really did take advantage of my life?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I just want to pause here again and acknowledge that this is kind of hard to talk about.

It

Jordan Harbinger: is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Right? What you're doing here, which I really appreciate, Jordan, is you're saying, hang on, there's more nuance here. Mm-hmm. Right? Which even though we do not have all the information. And by the way, I'm sure if we talked to her, she would have a lot to say about their dynamic and who knows, maybe that would complicate [00:20:00] the picture even further.

But even without that information, I think we can still be pretty confident that there is this nuance, because there always is. But it's hard to say. I wanna make room for the fact that you husband communicated some difficult things to your wife and behaved in a way that might've made sex very fraught for her.

And I also wanna make room for the fact that you wife also had some agency in the way that you interpreted those words and behavior and then acted on them. It's hard to say that without sounding like you are doing what you said, which is invalidating or minimizing her experience when in fact, I think you appreciating all of that is actually doing the opposite.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Thanks for laying it out that way, because that's exactly my intention. But I know there are people who hear stuff like this who are probably firing up their keyboards right now. It's

Gabriel Mizrahi: probably the person who said, fire Gabe.

Jordan Harbinger: That, yeah. That per especially look coming from a man or two men and their kneejerk response is gonna be, how dare you question a victim.

But I also don't think it's controversial to say, well, hang on a minute. Your husband didn't hold you down and force himself on you. He didn't berate you, he didn't attack [00:21:00] you. If he had, this would be a totally different story. What I am hearing is that he had a challenging and maybe probably unproductive way of communicating his feelings.

It sounds like you two were just not compatible on this dimension of sex and intimacy in the first place, and you responded to his feelings in a certain way, which sometimes meant deciding to have sex with him. If he could take accountability for the way he behaved when you didn't want to have sex.

Isn't it only fair for to ask you to take accountability for how you behaved in response?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, that's a really nice way to put it. I also just wanna say though, I think what's also complicated about the story is we're hearing about a person who probably has some trauma, possibly a lot of trauma. I'm talking about his wife.

Mm-hmm. And who probably has some, let's just say, tricky templates with their partners. Mm-hmm. I say this because she apparently had ex-boyfriends who it sounds like assaulted her, which is heartbreaking if that's what happened. It also sounds like that happens sometimes when she was intoxicated, which kind of adds another variable into the mix, and also raises some questions.

Again, we do not know her side of the story, but how [00:22:00] often was she intoxicated? Why was she intoxicated? What exactly went down with those boyfriends? More importantly, what meaning has she made of those interactions since then? So what I'm getting at is I agree with everything you're saying, Jordan. I also understand that the idea of agency, of really having a say in what you do and having enough of a handle on yourself to read a situation clearly.

To be able to say, yes, I want to have sex with you, or, no, I don't wanna have sex with you, and I'm sorry if that makes you angry. The agency to even pick healthy and safe partners in the first place, all of that gets more complicated when there's trauma in the picture. Again, we do not know what happened to her in the past, but there's a high likelihood that something did because look at her history and look at how she feels about these ex-partners.

So I just say that because if we don't acknowledge that, then I think we might be at risk of being a little overly simplistic too.

Jordan Harbinger: No, I, I totally hear that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Maybe our job is to hold these two contradictory ideas at the same time that his wife doesn't feel she has full agency in the way that she relates to her partners, especially sexually, [00:23:00] and that she is partly responsible for how they related to each other sexually in

Jordan Harbinger: their marriage.

Bingo. That's exactly right. And so the upshot of all this is for me, you might have some important stuff to look at after this marriage, how you manage your feelings, how you understand your needs, how you communicated with your wife, how that created a difficult and confusing dynamic with her probably in a number of ways.

And you're clearly already doing that, and I commend you for that. I, I would keep going and I just do not fully buy into the narrative that you took advantage of her. I think this was a co-production between the two of you and the real work of relationships is taking a real interest in that co-production and parsing out the responsibility of the two parties in a way that's accurate and fair.

I'm not letting you off the hook either, Brian. I don't get the sense that you're letting yourself off the hook either. I'm just saying let's be totally accurate here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: We still have not talked about the huge plot twist here. Yeah, yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Which is that she might have taken a advantage of him actually.

Yeah. It

Gabriel Mizrahi: twice pretty fascinating.

Jordan Harbinger: So, okay, now that we've been all fair and evolved, [00:24:00] do I have permission to say, oh, okay, so you felt you didn't have a choice when it came to having sex with your husband, but meanwhile you were literally having sex with him in his sleep. Did you ask for consent then? Come on, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It is at a very interesting part of the story. What's even more fascinating though, is that he now knows it didn't feel right to him, but he also says he doesn't know how to feel, and his question, by the way, is not just how should I feel about this, but how should I feel as a man?

Jordan Harbinger: Well, I think that speaks to how confusing certain sexual stuff can be for men, especially when it comes to consent, because he probably doesn't feel totally secure going.

Yeah, I didn't like that. That was kind of violating or whatever. Presumably, because it might be embarrassing or emasculating to say that as a guy. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or as a guy, he thinks, no, that should be awesome. I should enjoy that. Full stop. Right. And like he said, he probably would've found this idea exciting when he was younger, but then the reality was very different.

And so that's confusing.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm, you know, sorry, I'm having a giggle. 'cause it reminds me of, what's that movie where Jennifer Aniston and Jase Bateman, she's like a dentist and he works in her office and she's sexually harassing him.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, is that horrible bosses? It is

Jordan Harbinger: Horrible bosses. Yeah. And the [00:25:00] joke is like, dude, Jennifer Aniston's sexually harassing you.

That's awesome. It's not

Gabriel Mizrahi: harassment, but it's, that's the joke.

Jordan Harbinger: But it is. But it is. Right. It's like really uncomfortable. And Jase Bateman is really good at being like the most awkward human beings alive,

Gabriel Mizrahi: right? Yeah. So yeah, you swap the genders and it gets weird. Right? And complicated. It does, right?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

But if Jase Bateman were a dentist harassing Jennifer Aniston, we'd be watching

Gabriel Mizrahi: it for, we know it. His guy, right? Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: So I'm really struck by the fact that they both feel sexually taken advantage of. Or manipulated. Or coerced, but in very different ways.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I mean, the picture I'm getting is that they were both creating situations where they were engaging with each other in ways that were very confusing and upsetting, and they were not communicating openly about it.

At any point in their marriage, she could have said, Hey, when you get upset, when I turn you down, that makes me feel like I have to have sex with you. Mm. And at any point he could have said, I am not sure how I feel about you initiating sex while I'm asleep. I, I actually don't know if I really like it. It feels strange, it feels wrong,

Jordan Harbinger: but that's hard to do if you don't actually know how you feel about

Gabriel Mizrahi: something, of course.

Or if you don't even think that you have the right to feel a certain way. So [00:26:00] I would say that's also part of his job to figure out why it's hard for him to know how to feel about some really important things in his life. Obviously talking to a therapist can be very helpful. It sounds like he might need to process some of these events, but really the bigger project is how do I feel and why is it really hard for me sometimes to articulate that?

Jordan Harbinger: To figure out what in his past or his personality, makes it hard for him to be in touch with his true feelings. To speak up about what bothers

Gabriel Mizrahi: him. Yeah. To make more room for all of these different reactions. This is the real question in his letter, in my view, and it's such a fundamental question. It goes beyond what played out with his wife, but I suspect that it was also at the root of most of what played out with her.

Because if you struggle to understand yourself, I mean that that affects everything in a relationship. I,

Jordan Harbinger: yeah, absolutely. And I think we'd also have to point out that their respective dissociations, their respective struggles to feel their feelings and communicate, those probably fit together like puzzle pieces.

And that must have contributed to this whole consent debacle. So what a story, man. There's so much to talk about. [00:27:00] I'm sure we could go on for a long time, but that's kind of long and short of it for me. I'm sorry that your marriage was so challenging. I do hope there were some bright spots too. But all of this is an opportunity to look at these parts of yourself and grow and just do things differently in the future.

And good luck. And now we're gonna wake you up in the middle of the night with some explicitly consensual deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by BiOptimizers. It's Black Friday saving season. This is huge.

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Go right now to buy optimizers.com/jordan. Use code Jordan and grab your favorites before this deal disappears after December 3rd. It is gone. Don't miss it. This episode is also sponsored by BetterHelp. This time of year can feel a bit heavy. I've been more intentional about reaching out lately, texting friends I haven't talked to in a while.

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Jordan Harbinger: This episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb.

I've been so burned out cranking out content lately that all I can think about is travel. There's just something about stepping outta your routine that hits the reset button like nothing else. I got a trip to Patagonia coming up, which I'm ridiculously excited about. It's that magic of meeting new people, trying foods you can't pronounce, exploring new cities.

That's really what travel's about, frankly, not the checklist or the perfect itinerary, but the experiences and connections you make along the way. Those moments end up being worth more than anything you buy, which got me thinking while you're off exploring, your home is just sitting there empty. Why not host it on Airbnb while you're away?

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Your support of our advertisers keeps the lights on around here. Keeps Gabe caffeinated and on mic. To learn more and get links to all the discounts you hear on the show and support the podcast in the process, go to Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to Feedback Friday.

All right, next up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 19-year-old from Switzerland, currently studying music and English at a university in the uk. For the past five years, I've had no idea what I want to do with my life. I've always known that I wanted to avoid the horror of working a nine to five until I'm 65 and then retiring and knowing me subsequently becoming very bored.

Mm-hmm. What I haven't known is what I wanna do instead, I've ping ponged between ambitions like [00:31:00] writing, filmmaking and music, hence my current program. But I never committed to pursuing any of them properly. Instead, I spent my teens procrastinating and making grand plans with zero follow through. This might sound like a typical way to spend your teenage years, but for me it was torture.

I spent five years hating myself for never taking that crucial first step towards something bigger.

Jordan Harbinger: I know the feeling, I think a lot of people do, but honestly, part of growing up. Is wrestling with exactly this kind of thing. I would not beat yourself up too much. You're learning.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Recently though, I had a stroke of inspiration.

I've been reading Noah kagan's Million Dollar Weekend. Mm-hmm. And it convinced me that what I actually want is to start a moderately sized business doing something. I enjoy something that makes enough money and grants me the freedom to invest in creative projects without financial constraints or the pressure of making a living from them.

This revelation has been absolutely gripping. I'm spending hours every day working on business ideas, reaching out to people to understand their problems, and finding little motivation for much [00:32:00] else, including my studies, unfortunately.

Jordan Harbinger: That's exciting. You sound lit up about this. I, I love it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: However, I've hit a major roadblock.

The UK student visa I'm on explicitly prohibits me from being self-employed or even as they put it, quote, engaging in business activity, unquote. I've looked deeper into the visa restrictions, and they're clear no starting a business. Mm. The university's international student office basically confirmed that I would be risking my entire education if I got caught running one.

Yikes. I feel absolutely devastated just when I finally found something that genuinely excites me and gives me direction, I'm legally prohibited from pursuing it. The thought of going back to that limbo of procrastination and self-hatred is genuinely terrifying. Part of me wonders if I should transfer back to Switzerland or another EU country where I'd have more freedom to pursue business ventures while studying.

But my parents have invested a significant amount in sending me here, and I'd hate to disappoint them by essentially throwing that away.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: At the same time, is it really [00:33:00] worth spending two years going through the motions on something I feel a little passion for? Only to have them spend even more money on my final year, force myself through a degree I'll never use, and then pursue what I could be doing right now?

Do I put this new found passion on hold for the next two years until I graduate and could potentially get a different visa status? What if this momentum I finally found completely evaporates, and I find it infinitely harder to get motivated about starting a business after graduation. Should I be patient and focus on my studies knowing I can pursue business later?

Or is there a way to channel this energy productively within my current limitations? Signed a uni student humbly asking how to be hungry without getting kicked outta the country.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. So there are actually two or three things going on here. Let's try to separate them out. First off, like I said, super exciting that you found something you're genuinely passionate about.

I know that feeling well. I know how awesome it is to find something you deeply care about, something you can spend hours and hours doing to the point that everything else falls away from me. That was podcasting. It's just, it's a sign. You're on the right path, and if you can [00:34:00] execute, it'll probably lead you to some really exciting stuff.

Honestly not legal advice, but I wouldn't worry about this visa thing right now. You're still in the research phase. You haven't even settled on an idea yet. It could take months, a year or two or more before you hit on an idea that's actually workable. That can make money. You're just talking to people and reading and brainstorming.

Come on, you're a student. I promise you. Again, not legal advice. No. UK immigration officials is gonna knock on your dorm room door like, Hey, we heard you were asking people about their pain points at work, and we saw you've been using chat GPT To find B2B business models, you're gonna have to come with us.

This thing about not running a business on your student visa, I am 99% sure that only kicks in if your name is on some founding documents for a company. Or you open a business bank account or you launch a website with your name on it and it's got an e-commerce shopping cart generating revenue, even then, well, they'd still have to catch you, which means they'd have to be keeping a close eye on you, which they probably aren't.

And anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and guess the, uh, metropolitan [00:35:00] Police in Scotland Yard have bigger fish to fry. Okay. Yeah. There are people who are lying about, entirely lying about being enrolled in a university to work illegal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. People overstaying their visas. Yeah. Yeah. People

Jordan Harbinger: engaging in literal organized crimes stuff.

Yeah. Those are the people they're going

Gabriel Mizrahi: after. Right.

Jordan Harbinger: So my take is, this is not a problem yet. It'll probably never be a problem, and if it did become a real problem, it's just a good problem to have. Frankly, there are ways to deal with that too. Like don't incorporate until you graduate or get a different visa or put the company in your business partner's name, or if the company's really that promising and crushing it, you drop outta school and you move to a different country and run the thing, but you have no idea if any of that's gonna come to pass, right?

So my advice here is actually even broader. It's something you're gonna have to learn. If you wanna be an entrepreneur, be very disciplined about what you worry about. There will be no shortage of obstacles in building a new company. The whole journey is obstacles. You don't need to invent new ones or worry about ones that haven't come to pass yet.

Speaking to Noah Kagan. [00:36:00] He's big on only focusing on things you can control. That's one of the biggest bits of advice that he's talked about on my show before. Many times. Uh, don't project yourself so far in the future and then you find problems there. Yeah. Stop you from even trying it doesn't, doesn't make sense.

Gabriel Mizrahi: An interesting thing I keep learning over and over again the things you think are gonna be problems that usually never happen. No. And the things that you can't even anticipate. Those are the things that become problems.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Right now you're essentially worrying about overpopulation on Mars when you should be worrying about what idea you're gonna have to sell to people in the first place.

So what I would do is stay where you are. Keep doing your homework, keep talking to potential customers. Keep being curious and focus on finding concrete problems. You can actually solve specific needs you can meet until you land on an idea that you think you can reasonably pull off, and then keep taking baby steps towards that.

By the way, if you do hit on an idea before you graduate, building a minimum viable product, informally offering a product or service to people to just [00:37:00] test the waters, especially if you aren't even charging for it at first. I still think that wouldn't violate the terms of your visa. If anyone's like, Hey, what's that thing you're doing while you're still a student?

You can say it's a side project, something I'm testing and playing with. There's no company, there's no revenue. I'm just making stuff. Mm-hmm. Again, I could just almost guarantee you, no one's gonna care.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Super solid advice. Jordan. I'm just thinking about where she started this letter, which was I've ping ponged among all these different things.

I never committed to any of them. I procrastinate. I made grand plans with zero follow through. She has a lot of regret and a lot of self-loathing around that.

Jordan Harbinger: I don't know, you're 19 isn't the name of the game. Great. I mean,

Gabriel Mizrahi: she's ahead of the curve if she's already working on that pattern, but now she's landed on this idea to start a medium sized business that makes her enough money to casually invest in creative projects without worrying about making a living from them.

So it is a beautiful goal. I am all for it. I would love to see you do this. Let's also remember that this is not a business yet. This is still just a broad ambition. It's a general direction, which is great. This is how it starts, but I would just encourage you to keep an eye on the tendency [00:38:00] to get distracted by the next shiny thing if that's what's happening here, especially when that thing is very abstract.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So what you're getting at is, is this desire to start a company. Just one more thing. She's ping ponging to it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's just a question. You know, back when I was working in consulting, I came up with two or three business ideas that I got excited about. One of them was like this corporate blog thing.

Another one was an ad tech project. Another one was a, so I wanted to develop software for restaurants and I did what she did. I interviewed business owners and restaurant managers, and I tried to apply what I knew how to do, which at the time was very little. I partnered with a couple guys I worked with back then, and then, you know, we looked into these things and over time I realized that the businesses were not feasible or I didn't have the skills to pull 'em off or, and this was the hardest lesson.

I realized that I was more in love with the idea of starting a company than I was with the problem that the company was supposed to solve.

Jordan Harbinger: That is, by the way, that is so common. Yeah. I've been there too. Honestly,

Gabriel Mizrahi: just to be clear, I'm not questioning your motivations. I'm not trying to sow any doubt if you wanna make this happen.

I believe that you [00:39:00] can, but I think the real question of your letter is, how do I really commit to something, you know, how do I rewrite this pattern I have of jumping from thing to thing? How do I avoid backsliding? And the answer is, you gotta keep checking in with yourself and make sure that you are still genuinely passionate about starting a business and you're making some kind of progress towards specific problems or opportunities or insights.

You're not just finding something else to chase because it's the new thing. Also, you gotta keep an eye on your relationship with this project and make sure that you are doing it because you genuinely care about the problem or the product or the customer, not just because you want to be a business owner in some abstract sense.

Mm-hmm. And you also gotta stick with it long enough to find out what it's like when it is not fun. You know, when you are not as inspired when that initial burst of motivation fades away and the real problems start to pop up and teach yourself how to stay in a relationship with your goal through all of those phases, which actually means being in a relationship with yourself that can survive these uncomfortable feelings, which I'm just gonna guess are like frustration and disillusionment and confusion.

Even boredom, [00:40:00] these same feelings are probably the ones that made you want to jump from thing to thing in the past. You've gotta work to stay connected to what you truly care about when those feelings are in the mix.

Jordan Harbinger: Spot on Gabe, she's in a parallel process right now. She's hunting for a good idea, but she's also learning how to stick with something.

Yes. Those are two different skills, but they're obviously gonna inform each other. Yeah. As for school, I, I don't drop out yet. Don't put the card before the horse. If you land on an idea and a business takes off before you graduate, then you can decide jumping the gun and dropping out. That might be focusing on a problem that doesn't exist yet.

It might be another ping pong move. You know what it reminds me of, Gabriel, is a lot of people will write in and go like, oh, I watched a video from like some influencer, and they say, burn the ships and go all in on my side hustle. And it's like, why? Something, motivation, something sounds good on TikTok and it's like, no, don't quit your day job or the thing that you are doing to pay the bills until that is the absolute bottleneck.

Like you can't scale your business because you don't have enough free time because you are working at a restaurant. Right? Then quit your restaurant.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Not because you [00:41:00] want to put yourself in a manufactured position of desperation, right? To pursue this thing that you might or might not actually be connected to, right?

Jordan Harbinger: That just doesn't make any sense. That's a weird Mimi Instagram, TikTok like business influencer piece of advice that they themselves would absolutely never follow, right? So don't do that, but I also wouldn't put this newfound passion on hold. Do both, man, it could take you two, three or five years, 10 years.

I don't wanna scare, take a while to find a business that succeeds. That's just how it goes. And you might be very happy to have that degree in the meantime, or at least have it be behind you or have your parents off your back or whatever it is. I'll tell you, I have a lot degree that I, I don't use. And when I become an advisor for other companies, they'll say, oh, Jordan Harbinger is a podcaster and an attorney.

And then inevitably we'll be on an investor call or something and they're like, Hey, uh, where'd you go to law school, Michigan? And they're like, oh, whoa. You know, it's their general counsel's like, wow, that's pretty good. You're not gonna be like, I'm so sad. I have a degree. It's gonna be an asset at [00:42:00] some point.

Or at least you're gonna look like somebody who can obtain a degree and therefore you're gonna have credibility when you start your business. So just, there's no reason to drop it right now. The only reason to drop outta school now, in my view, is if you absolutely hate every second of it. You just can't find it in you to do a decent job.

You know when your bones school is not your path, it makes you wanna barf thinking about doing it, then I might say, okay, don't waste another two years and a ton of your parents' money, even if you don't have a business idea yet. But there goes your visa too, by the way. It just doesn't sound like this is the case.

What you need is just some balance and some systems to stay on top of school while you also nurture this business dream. And you know, C'S get degrees, bro. You don't have to ace everything. You just have to try hard enough to pass. I, that's terrible that, that's not the parent in me talking, but like,

Gabriel Mizrahi: no, but that's real.

Also, I think that's probably especially true in music when your degree is music. Like do you have to get an A in music?

Jordan Harbinger: Like if you want to go to law school, then you need good undergrad [00:43:00] grades. Yeah. If you wanna get a degree from a music school, you just have to get a degree from a music school. So I'll let you do the math on that.

But if you focus on these systems balance, this path is just gonna start to unfold on its own or it won't and you'll know what to do next. I promise you that much. Love your passion. Love your mindset. Some exciting things ahead my friend, and good luck. You can reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise.

Try to use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier. If your parents are financially and emotionally supporting your unfaithful, absentee ex-husband, your agro colleague is caught up in a romance scam and you don't know whether to savor or your polyamorous partner won't prioritize you over another partner, whatever's got you staying up at night lately.

Hit us up friday@jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. By the way, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter. Wee bit wiser. I love the engagement here. Every time we send one of these out, we get a lot of responses. It's a two minute read, comes out most Wednesdays, a lot of wisdom from the episodes, a lot of [00:44:00] things to chew on for the rest of the week.

I'm really just impressed with how much engagement this thing gets, how much people love reading it and replying. So go ahead and check it out. Come join us. You can sign up at Jordan harbinger.com/news. Okay. What's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Jordan and Gabe. My girlfriend is having communication issues at work. I'm about 10 years older than her, so I'm kind of of a different generation.

She's incredibly intelligent, but I've noticed that her younger millennial style of speech is getting an abrasive reaction from her Gen X boss. At 43, I straddle the two generations, and I can see how millennial speech patterns can seem condescending and maybe even confrontational to an older man.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. It can't be worse than the Gen X, gen Z divide. Oh,

Gabriel Mizrahi: no way. That's an

Jordan Harbinger: abyss. Even millennials are like, man, these kids are on some other shit. I don't get it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's hard to give you examples because a lot of this has to do with inflection. Let's say it's a Monday morning meeting and the boss asks how something is going with a specific client.

She'll reply, I haven't heard back yet, but I don't check my [00:45:00] email on weekends because you know, like boundaries

Jordan Harbinger: That strikes me as incredibly annoying and reckless.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, you're upset. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. This is probably set in a sing-song. Tone. Probably meant to be a bit sarcastic, but also trying to assert the fact that she is not paid to work on weekends.

So she's not being circuit, she's saying the truth in a way, like with a tone that's supposed to suggest it's not as big of a deal as it is, but she's actually saying it. Okay? Mm. Another example when asking if it's okay to work remotely, she almost always feels like the approval was given hesitantly and or was forced.

I'm not sure what was said in that exchange, but I imagine it probably went something like, I can get more done if I work from home today without all the distractions. I wasn't there in person. But I do think that the expectation for young professionals to work seven days a week or at least be on call, is growing.

Even though few job descriptions will state that,

Jordan Harbinger: that's different though. Work remotely doesn't mean work seven days a week. Yeah, [00:46:00] it sounds like she's staying home.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, he introduced a new idea there. But yeah, but

Jordan Harbinger: also like I'd love to work home from home today with all the distractions, you know, like my annoying colleagues, annoying boss meetings and calls you.

I'd rather just watch Netflix in one tab while pretending to answer my Slack message.

Gabriel Mizrahi: All those distractions, my phone keeps dinging when the client wants to get in touch. So

Jordan Harbinger: yeah, I really, yeah, but I, I will say, I just heard all of our European listeners, I'm envious that they can't wrap their heads around this because a lot of EU countries have that.

To disconnect law. Yeah. That basically, it basically makes it illegal to force employees to answer emails after like 5:00 PM or whatever. Having just giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars for an hour

Gabriel Mizrahi: having just returned from the continent can confirm these people are not on their iPhones after 5:00 PM Right.

Jordan Harbinger: But like here in America,

Gabriel Mizrahi: you're on call. Yeah. You better be. You're at least expected to not be behind the ball during the Monday morning huddle.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm pretty sure that high performers in Europe are still checking their email. They stay past the court. They have to be right. Like, Hey, Johann, can you check your email later when you get home?

Because I think there might be info about this. Like, yes, I will glance at my phone once it's [00:47:00] around 7:00 PM and if it's in there, okay, come on. It can't really be, forget about everything.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know talking is complicated, but I wanna share this insight with her because I think it might shed some light on the matter.

The problem is that I don't wanna send the signal that she needs to alter patterns of speech that are basically her in order to succeed.

Jordan Harbinger: But what if those patterns are holding her back in her career that it's important for her to know this,

Gabriel Mizrahi: right? Yeah. Is this just her or is this being a bad employee?

Like what if her is not someone suited for any level of serious responsibility?

Jordan Harbinger: What if her is a barista? You know,

Gabriel Mizrahi: not no shade on

Jordan Harbinger: baristas.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No. But you do not get emails about the client needing an oat milk latte.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. If you work weekends, it's because you're on the schedule.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So he goes on Or are we at that point where spoken language needs to be refined a bit in order to maintain respectful conversation?

Um, I don't know if there was ever a point where that wasn't the case. No,

Jordan Harbinger: that is, that has been the case. Congrats. That's been the case since the dawn of spoken language,

Gabriel Mizrahi: bro just discovered [00:48:00] corporate

Jordan Harbinger: right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I would never suggest this to a person who doesn't have English as a first language. So why would I care about a native English speaker's tone and inflection.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, okay. Because they're totally different. Me completely. Yeah. Am I missing something? 'cause why am I explaining this? A native speaker has a much better grasp of the language. They can hear this stuff differently, or they should. They should. Yeah. Gabe, I mystified by this argument. What does this have to do with anything?

She's a native English speaker. She's overtly communicating that she doesn't give a crap about this job. She's covering it with like faux sarcasm. The fact that our friend here is even entertaining this objection in advance. I don't know man, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but I feel like he's not totally in touch with how reckless,

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think he's slowly starting to get it, but he's, yeah, he might not realize this is a really big deal.

So you're saying, is he letting her off the hook in advance? I'm getting

Jordan Harbinger: that sense. Yeah. But to go back to the other example, like if you have a, a colleague from China or Russia and they say something and you go, that sounded kind of rude. Your next thought is [00:49:00] probably, oh, but he's foreign. So like maybe he doesn't realize how rude that sounds.

Maybe I'll say something if he does something like that again, 'cause he would love to know. But if a native speaker says that you don't go, gee, she doesn't have enough grasp of the English language. You're like, no. That was deliberately kind of a shitty thing to say. I'm going to judge her for it. And it's fair to do that.

Yeah. I mean, that's how this works.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And if it's not deliberate, then you're at least being obtuse.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. And then, and then it's like, do I want somebody with low EQ in my office handling clients? Not really. So which one is it?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Would you have this conversation? If so, how? And do generational differences matter?

As much as I think signed wondering how to convey that my girlfriend needs to pay more attention to how she plays with these older folks who would probably say that they're a little bit dismayed by this attitude she's displaying.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. So, okay. Yeah, of course generational differences matter, but honestly, what you're describing in my opinion.

It has much less to do with generational differences and more to do with just [00:50:00] not being able or not being willing to read the room. Very,

Gabriel Mizrahi: yeah. This is not a Gen X millennial divide.

Jordan Harbinger: No. This is a disrespectful kind of, yeah. Interaction. You said you have a feeling that her speech patterns can seem condescending, maybe even confrontational, especially to an older man that is not a millennial Gen X thing.

That's a human being thing. A millennial Gen X thing is. That guy wore what looked like jeans to the interview. They were nice, but they weren't, there wasn't a suit and a tie and you're like, oh, they interviewed at a bunch of tech companies. That's kind of fine. This firm, it's different, eh? It's a generational

Gabriel Mizrahi: thing.

Or like my Gen Z subordinate wants to text instead of call or something like that. Right. Which is also, I would argue, kind of something they need to work on. Yeah. But like that's more of a generational thing. This just sounds like being a bad colleague.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. I would find a lot of this abrasive to what she said earlier.

I would find that abrasive, even if I were the same age as your girlfriend or younger, the age thing for sure heightens it. Now I gotta state the obvious. None of us are in the room with her. We don't know for sure how she's saying these things, how they're landing. We just kind [00:51:00] of have to take your word for it.

But I think your read on this is probably generally correct, and because you straddle both generations, you're probably more sensitive than most, and that's an asset. But I hear you that you don't wanna tell your girlfriend how to talk at work. You don't wanna take away a style that's essentially hers.

But if this, you know, super authentic style is rubbing people the wrong way. Like I said, I think that's crucial feedback. She's not a comedian, she's not Bill Burr. This is not your line of work. You're handling clients. It's up to her. Whether she wants to take all this into account. If I were her, I would certainly wanna know.

I get that you don't want be presumptuous, you don't wanna be a know-it-all. You don't wanna make her self-conscious. You also don't have all the information because you weren't there. She's 33, she's not 23. Good point. If someone's 23, when I was 23 and I was working in law offices, I remember they, you're kind of clueless.

I was clueless. My dad was an auto worker, my mom was a teacher. So I, I came in and I remember they were like, Hey, this is a British law firm. You don't have to wear a suit, but we expect [00:52:00] like the top buttons to be buttoned and not show like the undershirt. And I was like, oh crap. I didn't know that. I met it from enough from the UK and in New York it was okay, did not have a tie.

And you a little bit of your white church oil, like no big deal. So people tell you things, they don't go, what an idiot you got, we gotta get rid of this guy. If you are 33 and you're talking to your boss that way, it's like, hey, oh, here's a better example. And when I was in New York, I made another gaff, I think it was also 23.

One of the partners, his initials were on his cuff of his shirt and it was SOB. And I went, oh, you, your initials are SOB, just not thinking. And he was like, yep. I remember going, oh. And I like had nothing else to say that. 'cause I was like, what do you say? Like, I was like, oh, I better not say anything.

Mm-hmm. And I paused and he paused and he was like offended by that a little bit. He told HR about that and they were like, Hey, don't try to be funny at work. And he was like, yeah, I wasn't trying it. You didn't even make a joke. It was just a gaff. Like, it was just a stupid thing. But they were like, don't worry about it.

It's, he's not mad. It's like, be careful about that

Gabriel Mizrahi: guy. He wasn't [00:53:00] mad, but he went to HR about it. He

Jordan Harbinger: was a little short shrimpy guy. Yeah. And he was a little bit like a, he was the guy who would say, no problem, and then go to HR and be like, he asked to leave the office early.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But your point is, when you're 23, you're not attuned to that stuff.

Right. And

Jordan Harbinger: they, they're aware of this, but when you're 33, you get way less slack. Because now it's like, why are we teaching you how to behave in an office environment? What is wrong with you? You've been in the corporate environment for a minimum of like 10 years. Right? What's wrong with you? What is your deal?

Either you're clueless or you're doing it on purpose. Mm-hmm. Which one is it? So in order to talk to her about this, what, what if you kicked it off by saying, so, hey, I was thinking about that story you told me the other day when your boss was like, Hey, how's it going with such and such client? And you said, I haven't heard back yet, but I don't check my email on weekends.

'cause you know, like boundaries, I understand you feel the need to protect your time. Maybe you feel you don't get paid enough to work on weekends. We can talk about that. But I was just wondering, how did your boss respond when you said that? How do you think he took

Gabriel Mizrahi: that? Mm, nice. [00:54:00] I like that

Jordan Harbinger: I would start there and invite her to get curious about that.

And here's the thing, Gabriel, I think she already knows because how does this guy know that that happened? Surely he reacted poorly or she suspects he did and then came home. She came home and told him she's gonna have to start taking an interest in her colleague's opinion of her before she can really make a change here.

If she engages with you, then you can move into questions like, so how do you think your boss felt when you said that? Is he cool when you ask to work remotely or do you feel like there's tension around it? How are you making that request? Do you feel like they trust you to work at home and get stuff done?

I know that sounds a little interrogation. I wouldn't bombard her with all these questions in a row. I'm just giving you a few ideas for how to start the conversation. I like it. And then see how she responds. If she's like, sometimes I feel like he's just annoyed with me or they don't love it when I work from home, but I gotta do it.

That's a good sign. That's a way in if she's like, my boss gets a note of me, but I don't even care. I'm not answering emails on weekends. They don't pay me. That's on them. That's a sign that she's not open to talking about this. Frankly, that's a [00:55:00] loser mindset, but I digress. And then you gotta decide, do I press this issue and give her the feedback anyway?

Or do I just let her figure this out on her own by falling on her face.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I hear that. I would say though, even if she responds that way, he could still say, huh, interesting. I hear that, but why don't you care what he thinks of you?

Jordan Harbinger: True. He could keep digging. He could keep asking.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Or he could say, yeah, it would be nice if you were paid to work more on the weekends.

Have you thought about asking for a raise?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's clever. 'cause then she'd probably be like, hell yeah, I'd love to get paid more. And you could say, he could basically say, yeah, me too. Do you think you've earned it? Do you think your boss would go for it? How does he feel about you?

Gabriel Mizrahi: And there's your window back in.

Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: I like that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So I think we're on the same page here. The more we talk about this, the more, I think this is about much more than just communication style. The way she's communicating is just the top layer of a deeper thing that she needs to look at. A way of being with her colleagues, her values around relationships and work and yeah.

This is not just about inflection or whatever. This is really about her mindset.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So to go back to that conversation about the client for a moment, whether she should be checking [00:56:00] email on weekends or not, whether she should be enforcing boundaries with her bosses or not, I'm sorry.

Jordan Harbinger: She should be checking her email on weekends.

Yeah. I know. To a client, I know this is a no brainer, dude. You're telling me you're servicing a client, which is like real responsibility. Mm-hmm. I mean, you're the, you're the front lines of a firm who services clients. There's a way to be across this stuff without sacrificing your whole weekend. Really.

Just look at it on Sunday night at 8:00 PM and be like, email from client. Yes, bro.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Look at it in the elevator on the way up. Like it's not that hard. This is your job. So that's actually where I was going with this. I see. Which is, even if she's right to draw boundaries, let's just say, which I'm with you. I think part of being a good employee, certainly being in client service is being on top of this kind of stuff in a very basic way.

But even if she's right to protect her time. There's a much smarter way to say this. Yes. And a more helpful one, which is, yeah, overall things with the client are good as far as I know. I don't think I've heard back from them yet, but I'm gonna go check my email after this. Let me check in with them, see how they're doing.

I'll let you know if there are any big updates to talk about. It's simple. Why is she even bringing up the fact that she doesn't check her email on weekends?

Jordan Harbinger: Right. [00:57:00] Well, here's the thing, it's like she's looking for an excuse to just remind them that she doesn't wanna do more work. Which again, I'm not convinced that it's more work, but you know, that's not important.

It sounds like it's just work she's supposed to be doing at times that she doesn't like doing it. That's right. She could shift that to a time she does like by, I don't know, waking up five minutes earlier and checking her email like you said in the elevator before the Monday morning huddle. But I feel bad.

I don't want this guy's nice. He's writing in, but this is like petulant child stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So it sounds to me like your girlfriend really actually does need to reconsider her whole approach to her job. Yeah. Or actually needs someone to point out that she's looking at all of this in a concerning way. Yes. What signals is she sending by putting up a roadblock or finding a point of conflict as opposed to framing things in a productive way?

With an eye toward like the solution as opposed to another problem, which is one of the greatest qualities in a colleague, in my opinion,

Jordan Harbinger: a hundred percent being combative and abrasive like this, it's the kind of thing that can tank your career candidly, or at least keep you [00:58:00] stuck.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So I don't envy our friend here because I think his job is actually even bigger than he thinks.

It's not just, you know, you need to maybe modulate your voice a little, maybe a little less millennial, a little more Gen X speak. You know, this is how are you showing up to these interactions? You know, how are you caring for your relationship? So that's a more intense conversation, but I'm actually worried about her if she does not get this feedback.

Jordan Harbinger: Same if I'm working in an office environment and someone signals that they're lazy or uninterested in responsibility. I don't even want to be associated with them. I don't want that stench on me. This sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I literally, I don't wanna be in the elevator with you while you're scrolling TikTok instead of your inbox, because I don't want people to associate us together.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dude, to your point, she's responsible for clients, so this is a liability even beyond the company. Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: Thank you. Good point. I I, it just, it's not a good look. I can't highlight that. I can't overstate

Gabriel Mizrahi: that. I feel like we we're kind of beating a dead horse here. I think we've made our point, but I just, I'm really confused by this psychology.

If you don't feel you're getting paid enough to do certain work, which isn't not even [00:59:00] that much additional work, it just sounds like it's your job, but whatever, instead of saying, yeah, I'm not doing that because boundaries, why aren't you doing the work? Showing your boss how valuable you are using that to secure the salary you would want to be paid to do that same work and then being happy that you got promoted and got compensated more.

It's just, I just find this to be such a strange way of looking at things.

Jordan Harbinger: You know what this reminds me of a long time ago, this guy and I are still friends. He's a good dude, but we hired a kid who was pretty young back in my old company. It was hard to manage him. Like you'd tell him, we need this to get done.

And he would do like no work on it for three days in a row. And then you'd say like, what's your ETA? And he is like, I don't know. You'd basically get him to like crap out this draft version of it and you'd go, okay, what do you think of this? And you'd go, well, I wouldn't put my name on it, but done. And you're like, bro, what?

So we finally had a a talk where we're like, Hey, you can't operate like this. And he goes, if you guys want me to work harder, you need to make me a partner in the business. So we were like, if you wanna be a partner, you have to absolutely blow us away and [01:00:00] make it so that we are like, oh my God, we can never afford to lose this guy.

A raise isn't gonna cut it. We need to give him an equal equity stake in the company. Man. We're not gonna give you an equity stake in the company to motivate you to, to actually do the job we already pay you for.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Right? Why do you think that works? Why would people want to give you that responsibility and that money?

It doesn't make sense just because

Jordan Harbinger: he's never had a real job and he's never had a boss. Ca Gabe, you're running polite circle, so you probably haven't heard this. Among a lot of the rough ruffians that I hang out with, there'll be a kid or a guy that you talk to and they'll leave the table or, or whatever, and the guys will go, you can just tell that's a guy that never had his ass properly kicked.

And what that means is like you just never had a group of friends, guys, colleagues, a drill sergeant in the military, a dad who went, this is bullshit, and just knocked some freaking sense into you. Mm-hmm. And you can tell because they're like those little smug guys that'll make like a snide comment. And you're like, you realize the [01:01:00] person you're mouthing off to could break you in half with their thumbs.

Right? What are you doing? What is this weird disrespect where you're putting yourself above other folk? This, there's a lot of guys like that. They need to have life knock them around. If they don't have a person to do it, it's much better to get knocked around by. A parental figure or a boss than it is to actually have life hand you your ass, generally speaking.

Mm-hmm. Because it takes a lot more failure for life to hand you your ass and then you are in trouble. Right? Like, oh crap, I ruined my career path at this tech company because I couldn't get it together. This should have happened in high school. So there's a lot of people like that out there. Mm-hmm. And this guy was one of those people, and this is why he did that.

I don't wanna give this away. 'cause like he, again, a good guy in many respects. He basically had to go work for a public entity that is kind of well known for if you can get a job here, you basically never have to do any real work and you work banker's hours, you just make a middling quality of life. But no one is ever gonna give you [01:02:00] real responsibility and your check is always gonna be on time.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You know, not the worst outcome, but also like this kid was smart and talented. Probably could have worked at a real solid tech company and had a really nice lifestyle if he could just get out of his own way. And that's what I'm smelling here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well it's interesting because our friend who's writing in, just to bring it back to him, is also kind of dancing around this.

He's afraid he's not doing or anything. No, he is not. That's the thing. And I think he probably senses that this might be a bit of a difficult conversation. Yeah. But if he doesn't have this conversation, is she gonna end up like this guy? Or worse? Right. Maybe

Jordan Harbinger: like, why gee, I got fired and now I can't get a letter of reference.

I wonder why. Well maybe because your boss, uh, was tearing his hair out after every interaction with you and no, you can never work in your industry 'cause it's too tight knit and they can't stand you. It's like you don't need to get to that level and have that consequence if somebody can just say, Hey, stop being an asshole at work.

So if you frame this as I wanna see you succeed, I want to give you all the information you need to thrive. I think I'm seeing something that might [01:03:00] be hard for you to see. Is it cool if I share something with you? Let's explore this together. That kind of thing. It's hard to go wrong. That's

Gabriel Mizrahi: a really nice way to put it.

Jordan Harbinger: It's a tough conversation, man, but it's a really important one. And if your girlfriend makes some adjustments and starts to see better results, I really think she's gonna thank you for it. Maybe not right away, but eventually, so good luck. All right, we'll be right back. I, I need to take a break 'cause you know, like boundaries.

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Now for the recommendation of the week.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My recommendation of the week is a star projector. I think this is also called a Galaxy Light, or sometimes it's called a planetarium projector. So this is one of those devices that projects cool images on your ceiling, like stars and planets and kind of milky galaxy type images, all kinds of colors and shapes.

This was one of my favorite things back home. And then I ended up getting a new one in Germany and traveling around with it, and I would plug it in wherever I went. It just made every hotel room or Airbnb or random guest room I ended up in more. Interesting. So these things used to be kind of cheesy, but in the last few years they've gotten really good and they're just an awesome way to create a fun vibe in your living room at your bedroom.

And they're great for parties, and they're great for movie nights and decorating. I hear kids love them. Oh, they could be great in a kid's bedroom or nursery. They also make for [01:08:00] great gifts.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. My kids. We have one of these. Jen bought it. She's like, trust me, this is gonna be cool. And I was like, Ugh, these stupid thi It's awesome.

So you have one? We have one. That's

Gabriel Mizrahi: amazing.

Jordan Harbinger: My kids love it. It has like galaxies and stars. They're probably not accurate. No. Astronomically not at all. Whatever. But it doesn't matter. It also doesn't rainbow colored lighting and like, almost like a smoky looking thing. That's, that's why I say galaxies.

But I'm a big fan. It's super cool. It, it's a really cool nightlight mood light. It gets the kids thinking, asking questions about space, thinking about the universe,

Gabriel Mizrahi: and they're very reasonable. You can get a good one for like $30 or something like that. Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: like with a remote and a timer and a music thing and a different, a zillion of, it's basically just a cheap light.

I mean, but it's, yeah, it's very cool.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I've had a few models over the years. They all basically do the same thing, but some of 'em have cool features, like a special moon or certain colors and a motor that moves the stars around or whatever. I've had that

Jordan Harbinger: worked. Yeah,

Gabriel Mizrahi: so we'll link to three or four options in the show notes.

Enjoy.

Jordan Harbinger: Good one. Gabe. Also, in case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for the show, if you wanna jump into discussions with other listeners [01:09:00] about specific episodes, recommendations, and the like, it's over on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. All right, what's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I had a successful business for 20 years.

I'm a planner and a saver. I recently closed my business and am now able to live off of investments.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Nicely done. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you did not do this by not answering your emails after 5:00 PM

Gabriel Mizrahi: Not that we're hung up on this at all.

Jordan Harbinger: No, definitely not. Still worked up about this person.

I don't even know. I don't

Gabriel Mizrahi: have to manage. My dilemma is that I live in the wonderful but complicated Midwest and in my local area. It is unfathomable to most people that I am able to do this. I know when I'm honest with people, I get negative reactions, questions or an awkward silence

Jordan Harbinger: interest. So I'm from Michigan as y'all know.

I can totally see this happening. Really? Yeah. I'm from near Detroit. The path for most people. Look, the path for most people, at least in my parents' generation, was. You work for Ford, or as we call it, a Michigan Fords. [01:10:00] I don't know why they do that. Yeah, they, they make everything possessive. Do you know

Gabriel Mizrahi: that?

That's one of my biggest pet peeves. I

Jordan Harbinger: can only imagine.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I hate when people put in a possessive after a thing that doesn't when they're like McCormick and Schmick or whatever. Yeah. Is that, I'm making that up, but is that, I don't think that's a No. That's

Jordan Harbinger: about right. Yeah. I don't know why we do that. I don't know if that has to do with like the, the Slavic and Polish immigration and language stuff, or if it's just like,

Gabriel Mizrahi: oh, maybe.

But they do in LA too. They'll be like, we're going to Palominos. I'm like, is Palomino be,

Jordan Harbinger: anyway, stop saying that. So you work for Fords. You retire at 65, you get a pension. In my area growing up, the only entrepreneurs were immigrants. There were two Chinese families on my street. One of them owned a dry cleaner.

The other one owned a Chinese restaurant. There were Greek people. They all owned restaurants. Every, almost every single one of them that I knew. So anyone who does it differently, it's like it. It's just confusing. It took years for my dad to wrap his head around what I do for a living. For years after I left the law, he was like, I don't really get how you make money.

I just don't understand it. I'm like, [01:11:00] yeah, dad, you're from Michigan. There are other ways to live. Like I get paid by average. He's like, he, I guarantee you, he still doesn't fully understand. That's so funny

Gabriel Mizrahi: how this all works does not compute. No. This goal that I worked hard for has left me in an awkward social situation.

I'm proud of this accomplishment and this ability to spend more time with family, but I don't know how to address it when others ask, what do you do? Or Where do you work? Maybe if I lived in an area with different socioeconomics or I was in the military, it wouldn't be so weird. It would be weirder if you were in the military and you were retired at 47 years old, right?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I don't know how. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Anyway. What advice do you have on how to approach this signed, navigating this insecurely? When I managed to kick back early,

Jordan Harbinger: I think you just lie to everyone and tell them you were in the Special Forces. Problem solved,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but like famously, do those people retire wealthy early?

No. No. That doesn't work. Tell '

Jordan Harbinger: em you do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: OnlyFans. There it is.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, there you go.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Definitely won't end up with more questions after that. No, but do

Jordan Harbinger: we? Is this a man or a woman

Gabriel Mizrahi: by the way? It's a woman.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, okay. [01:12:00] Definitely go with only fan,

Gabriel Mizrahi: actually, you know. Interesting. Do you think she's getting these reactions because she's a woman?

Oh. That could be part of it. Because that could be part of, because if it were a man, they'd be like, oh yeah, you're a man. You do investments. I got it. Yeah. And she's a woman. They're like, what? They don't know how to make, she sold a business. What? But can't What a knitting business. Yeah, exactly. You own three properties, but you got long hair.

Yeah, I don't get it.

Jordan Harbinger: I understand. How do you have a checking account if you're a woman? Um, hats off to you for being so enterprising and disciplined and being able to retire relatively

Gabriel Mizrahi: incredible.

Jordan Harbinger: It's awesome and super inspiring and I'm quite fascinated and intrigued by this response you're getting.

Honestly, I wonder if these people are more surprised and intrigued by your situation than they are skeptical and judgmental. Sometimes they can, those things can look similar if people aren't coming right out and saying like, damn, I can't believe you're 48 and retired. I didn't know that was possible.

Please explain. Maybe you're interpreting their response in a certain way. I don't know. But anyway, I will take you at your word that you're getting negative reactions, so let's assume that at least some of these responses are in fact kind of weird. [01:13:00] My first thought is so stinking. So what if people are judgy, skeptical, or have questions or don't know what to say?

You're killing it. Cool. Anyone who doesn't hear this and go, holy smokes, that's amazing. Congrats. How'd you do it? They're just missing the point. Also, any negative reactions you get from people, any judgment about your financial situation, it's ultimately your reflection of them. Their ideas about how people should live their lives, their feelings around money, their insecurity, their envy, their fear, their lack of curiosity,

Gabriel Mizrahi: their weird feelings about women being good with money or whatever it is.

Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Yeah. So I guess my take there is I just think you need to learn to worry less about other people's reactions to this. Hmm. Because A, whatever the reaction is, it sounds like it's ultimately a reflection of the same discomfort or judgment, and that just has nothing to do with you. And B, it literally just doesn't matter.

The only thing that matters is how you take care of yourself and what you think about yourself, whether you find your life rewarding and meaningful.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Although maybe it does matter to her in the sense that people [01:14:00] might treat her differently, and so she has a different standing in her community or something because of us.

Yeah. It's harder

Jordan Harbinger: to make friends. Yeah. It's a weirdo job maybe. Maybe that everyone feels like you look down on them, even though it's not true.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It also might be interesting for her to consider why these people's reactions affect her so much.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe that's part of the Midwestern thing too. Or just coming from a certain background or a certain community or a certain size town.

Again, coming from the Midwest, I do think there's an impulse to want to be seen a certain way, wanting to fit in, not wanting to come across as a show off

Gabriel Mizrahi: all. Uh, like if I do well, then people are gonna think I'm like high and mighty or

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Australia has this thing too, Paul Poppies Pop syndrome.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally. Yeah. And it's like, oh look, you started your own business. Well smell you. Right. It's like, what did I do? It's not fair. Really

Gabriel Mizrahi: what's interesting though is that she's lived her life in a very intentional way. Mm-hmm. And that has put her on a very different path from most people. So of course she's gonna get some unusual reactions.

If she didn't want unusual reactions, she could have lived her life the way most people in her area do. And she probably would not be retired at 48.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. [01:15:00] And that's why I think she needs to let go of this need to be responded to in a certain way. Because you're right. That's only confirmation that she's done something remarkable.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's also possible, and I think you were circling this a moment ago, Jordan, it's possible that she's projecting a little bit some of her own judgements onto these people. I'm not saying that she's making all of this up. These people might in fact be awkward or turned off or nosy or whatever, but she might be bringing her own stuff to these conversations and what's actually just shock or befuddlement or confusion, intrigue on their part that might end up feeling to her like something worse.

Jordan Harbinger: That's probably true. Otherwise, why would these people's responses affect her? Something?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, they would have to chime with some part of her that is kind of vulnerable to those opinions.

Jordan Harbinger: I strongly suspect that's playing some role here, but there, there might be a few things going on, including maybe some shame about doing so well and getting to live life on her own terms so much earlier than most people.

But look, you do not need to be ashamed about that. What you've done is hugely impressive. It's inspiring. You didn't [01:16:00] luck into the money, you didn't win the lottery. It wasn't handed to you. You saved and planned and invested, and now you get to enjoy that. So my hope for you is that you can learn to tolerate these responses a little bit better.

Put them in context a little more. Notice the parts of yourself that might be feeding these negative interpretations, and then maybe have a little more fun with these conversations. Maybe it can be a little game. How weird is this person gonna act when I tell them I don't have to work anymore? And I haven't hit menopause yet?

I don't know. May and maybe even say to them, I know it's crazy. I'm living the life of a pensioner at 48. I get to enjoy my investments without osteoporosis and dementia at this. Maybe you just need a little humor to disarm people and show them that you're down to earth. You could even say, I know it can be an awkward subject.

I honestly can't tell what reaction you're having right now, but this happened 'cause I scrimped and saved and invested, which is my goal to enjoy all this. If you have any questions about it, I'm happy to talk and basically just invite these people to follow their curiosity more than their judgment. I think that's what I would do.

And if you really can't stand these conversations or you live in an area where [01:17:00] people truly don't wanna know how well you're doing, you can always just not talk about this and keep it vague. That's an option too, but I wouldn't do it to spare other people their complicated feelings about something that assuming you're not being a total a-hole about it, which I doubt you are, is objectively awesome.

You should be proud of it. Congrats my friend. Enjoy your life. Use this financial freedom to keep learning about yourself and keep growing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. And to support our sponsors.

Jordan Harbinger: Of course. You clearly have enough money to buy a new mattress and some bougie protein pasta. All right, y'all go back and check out Dr.

Layne Norton, Oobah Butler, and our Skeptical Sunday on OnlyFans. If you haven't done so yet, the best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our Six Minute Networking course.

It is free. It's not gross, it's not schmoozy. You can find it on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com. Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks, build relationships before you need them. Again, it's all free Over at sixminutenetworking.com. Advertisers discounts ways to [01:18:00] support the show on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's over on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tadas Sidlauskas, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own.

I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.

Imagine a world where money, religion, and nations are shifting under the rise of ai, capable of making decisions beyond human control.

JHS Clip: Humans are very good in solving problems, but they often focus on the wrong problems. The idea that information is truth, people will have more knowledge, everything will be okay.

This is extremely [01:19:00] naive. Most information isn't truth. It is fictions and fantasies and delusions and errors and lies and so forth. The truth is a very rare and costly kind of information, which is why if you flood the world with information, the truth will not float up. It'll sink to the bottom.

Democracies all over the world are currently in crisis. They are undermined because of manipulations by ai. The one thing everybody should know is that AI is not a tool. It is an agent. AI can make decisions by itself. We already have autonomous weapon systems. It can even invent new weapons. Social media algorithms are currently the most powerful editors in the world.

They increase user engagement by manipulating billions. The easiest way to capture people's attention is by spreading outrage. I'm not saying, oh, we should stop [01:20:00] all development of ai. No, of course there is enormous positive potential, otherwise, we wouldn't develop it. The key question is how do we enable the positive potential of AI to flower while avoiding the really existential risks this technology poses.

Jordan Harbinger: Join me on episode 1068 as Yuval Noah Harari explores the risks and responsibilities we face as AI transforms our society.