1387: Romance in Rome Ends with Lien on Your Home | Feedback Friday

Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the vegan sorbetto-to-my-tradish gelato, Gabriel Mizrahi.

On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. 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, organized crime figures, war correspondents, neuroscientists, extreme athletes.

This week, we had Sean Wisswesser, former CIA spy, on the bungling KGB. Are they super spies, or are they just kind of corrupt buffoons, or is it maybe a little bit of both? This was a fascinating look inside the KGB.

Well, from the perspective of the CIA, of course. We also did a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on food deserts, which was quite surprising to sort of left-leaning Jessica and myself, who'd heard of these and just assumed it was a thing everybody agreed existed. Anyway, on Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, and compare ourselves to various European desserts, because we're both tasty international snacks, Gabe.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Also, I'm in Italy, and the topic of gelato cups coming up, so yeah, you've got to do it. You know you've got to do it.

Jordan Harbinger: My backup option was the cream-colored Vespa to my matte black F-150, but the one I don't own an F-150, and the ice cream one seemed more apt somehow. That's right. You drive a Tesla, so who are we kidding?

We both do, actually. The chow to my what-it-do-bra. Hello, show fam, it's Jase here.

Jase Sanderson: If Gabe's movie news isn't quite your box of popcorn, we'll give you the full Hollywood treatment and roll out the red carpet, and you can skip to the first question at 26 minutes and 30 seconds.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Enjoy the show! So you're in Bergamo, huh? Yeah, I've got here last night.

I'm visiting some friends in the area, and then I'm going up to the mountains tomorrow, which are supposed to be really beautiful. And then a week after next, oh, you're going to love this, I'm doing a silent meditation retreat at a Benedictine abbey near Lake Garda. Color me shocked.

Jordan Harbinger: You know what? There is some irony to a podcaster doing a silent meditation retreat.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I actually mentioned that on the intake form, just so they could roll their eyes harder at me.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, a podcaster doing silent meditation, that's like a hot dog-eating champion celebrating Ramadan.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm not going to lie, I'm actually a little scared about this one. I think I'm more scared about this than when we went to North Korea. We were dumber then, but also, like, you know, you could be silent there, but at least you can talk on the bus.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Like, we might throw you in prison and roast you over an open fire with a hook, but you're allowed to scream.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: You can. My friend Olivia Fox Cabanas, she's this author of the charisma myth, and she used to do these week-long silent meditation retreats, and she's like, you've got to do it, and I'm like, I can't think of anything more, I mean, maybe being stuck in a pipe or an elevator filling with water or like an underground cave that's flooding is scarier, but only by a little. I really don't want to be in a place where I have to stare at a wall not talking or looking at any input.

That's just, no, it's a nightmare for me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You can't talk at all? I don't think so, unless there's an emergency or you need to ask the meditation teacher or something, but you just invented a whole other problem. It's not sitting and staring at the wall for 12 hours a day, like, it's a beautiful place, I'm sure you can walk around, you just can't talk.

Jordan Harbinger: But can you read a book? Can you write?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think so.

Jordan Harbinger: I think so.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm not totally clear on the rules. I know at some silent meditations you can't even do that. No reading, no writing, you just have to be with yourself, but I think at this one, you can.

Jordan Harbinger: Any time that I only have myself for company, it just sounds like a nightmare. Now I understand my wife a lot better, but yet, no, I would never want to just be alone with myself. I can't think of anybody I'd rather be with less than myself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If only they had a practice for coming to terms with that, what is it called? Meditation. How long is this thing again?

Four and a half days. Oh, just. Just four and a half.

Oh my god, no. Vipassana retreats are 10 days, I believe, so this feels doable.

Jordan Harbinger: Yuval Noah Harari, he does like a month a year or two months a year silent, and when he told me, I just had this visceral stomachache reaction, and I was like, wow, I'd rather do those body modifications you see on Reddit. You know what I'm talking about. And your goal is what?

Do you have one or it's just like a cool thing to try?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I want to learn more about meditation. I'm very inconsistent with it, and this teacher is apparently very good. I guess I'm just curious, like what is it like to be in silence all day for four days in a benedictine monastery in Italy?

It just sounds cool. Yeah, there's a horror movie somewhere in there. You mean the horror movie of being stuck with yourself for four and a half days, but the setting as well, right?

It's like a quiet place except the aliens or the monks trying to make you happy.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. I've also had some experience. You ever seen Backrooms?

Have you seen that movie yet? Have you talked about this? I haven't seen that, no.

Yeah, we talked about it, but I haven't seen it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what I imagine it's like in there, just with myself alone, just back rooms. I've also had some experiences with silence that were really cool, like when I did yoga teacher training last year, they had this rule that you couldn't talk during the meals, and I found it really interesting because it ended up being a mix of incredibly awkward and also kind of profound, and you realize how much talking covers up your awareness of some obviously very important things, right, like your thoughts and your mood and the sound of nature, whatever, even your appreciation for the moments when you can talk. And I love that. So I guess, yeah, I guess I want to go more deeply into that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's probably why I talk so much and even do it for a living. I don't want to hear any of those things. My internal voice?

No, thank you. Quite annoying. Yeah, no, it's, I'm mostly kidding, but I think I would still, I still think I'd go out of my skull.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Going out of your skull is part of it, I think, but I'll report back and I'll give you, I'll give you the post game wrap up and we'll talk.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm so curious. I need a little field report after. A lot of people, my friends have done these silent retreats and they're always like, oh, it was hard.

Yeah. And they never really want to talk about it. Probably.

Maybe it's hard to articulate.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'll try. It'd be funny if that episode were just an hour and a half of Feedback Friday, but it's just silence.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, you know what? My production costs would be lower.

So I'm okay with that. Our listeners can't hear the letter. The only thing they hear is six minutes of silence and then me going, well, I'm sorry to hear that your mother-in-law stole your dog and ran away to Mexico so they can still play the drinking game.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's right. And then more silence. And then you roasting me for something that they don't understand and silence and then some dark Jordan pitches.

And then the ad breaks.

Jordan Harbinger: There was an episode I did years ago where for some reason my audio just didn't work. And now it makes sense because she was like, can you repeat that? And I was like, this lady needs hearing aids.

And she had a producer who just didn't tell me that I was unintelligible the whole time. So it was unarable. And Jase is like, you're going to hate this idea, but the way to do it is you listen to what you said, you try to reconstruct it as best you can, and you just rerecord that thing for the whole show.

So the entire show was pickups of me listening to like it. And then I would go, oh, wow, that's really interesting just to record. And he took all of those and manually inserted them.

I'm not doing that. No, sorry. If you take a vow of silence because of this nonsense, we are going to have words, one-sided words.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You'll have words. I'll just nod along and be very happy.

Jordan Harbinger: Before we kick off your game, I wanted to thoroughly embarrass you and ask you about the big announcement last week.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Crazy. It's a crazy thing.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay. So you're driving from Barcelona to some seaside town or whatever, and we're trying to chaotically coordinate a recording.

And then all of a sudden I see this article saying that one of your movies otherwise engaged is happening next year. And it's like, okay, might be happening. There's a lot that needs to happen for this, but yeah, but some of the things that apparently happened ish in the movie business, it's Halle Berry, Zoe Kravitz, Colin Firth.

So like not too shabby, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Bananas and Jack Whitehall, right. Amazing comedian. So crazy.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. No big deal. Just kind of a movie dream team of award-winning actors.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a mix of things, but mostly it just feels surreal. I know that's so cliche, but that's the only word I can come up with after everything that's happened. It's just weird to see that in print.

Jordan Harbinger: But it's been freaking years. And you give me little updates about the script for, I don't know, as long as I can remember, like a decade or something here and there. No, no, no.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This is a later one. Oh, thank God. Yeah.

Which is the reason this is happening, which we can talk about. But yeah, I know what you're talking about. This one is like five, six years ago.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, only. Okay. So half a decade ago and change, but you didn't mention it for a while.

So I don't know. I just kind of assumed it does what most movies do, which is like sit in a shelf and go nowhere. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Well, given what happened in 2020, I learned not to get too attached to these things. You just never know.

Like I said, I still don't know. Nothing is real until you're on set.

Jordan Harbinger: Even then someone, I don't know, could die or the studio just runs out of money or a global pandemic happens and filming never starts. Thank you for bringing that up. For example.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. So this news was exciting, but I'm also like, okay, you know, like we had to get to this point and it's a huge point, but there's still a long road ahead and nothing is guaranteed. So we'll see.

That's the stance I'm taking. Cool. And we'll see.

Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: I suppose that's the only way to be part of this circus and not go insane.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I think so. It's new for me though. A few years ago, you remember, it was just like a constant rollercoaster up, down, up, down.

Great news. Cool. This person's interested.

It's all worth it. Bad news. They've changed their mind.

This person won't read. What's even the point? Why am I doing this?

And yeah, I have a very different lens on it now. And I have to say, doing Feedback Friday has been a huge part of that for me, just being able to be part of this thing that is intimate and immediate and ours, you know, it's not like depending on all these people to give us permission or money or time or anything and getting to talk about problems and questions that are real has saved me.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, you mentioned that and that makes me happy. I imagine travel has also helped massively, really puts things into perspective, I suppose.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'd say with travel, the canvas got a lot bigger and my relationship with the industry changed a lot for a lot of reasons, but one of them was not just living in LA and being so attached to it, but you know, things falling apart and having my heart broken many times. That's kind of the reason this movie happened, is happening. So that's interesting.

Jordan Harbinger: I think I know what you mean. I think a lot of people don't really know what went down and most people are probably, if they even heard in the first place, have forgotten by now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So, okay, this is a, this is a long and very weird story. I'm going to compress it. March, 2020, a script I wrote called give or take went into production.

That's the one you were just thinking of Jordan, right? Huge actor in the lead role, big budget, my first movie that was going to get made. And then this thing called COVID happens and literally 24 hours before I'm supposed to fly to Montreal to join the team and start prep, the studio says, really sorry, but we have to shut the movie down.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that's I know that's so it's like a death in the family.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It was a massive blow, but honestly, I don't remember being super worked up about it at the time because it was completely out of our hands. No one did this to us. It was just this huge thing.

Everybody was dealing with it. So there was nothing to do. But I also thought like, oh, it's fine.

This is only going to last a couple of months, you know, tops the news always overplays these things. This is just remember bird flu. No one cares about bird flu.

Like this is fine.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: We'll be back in prep by the summer is kind of what I thought, which yeah, not true at all.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh man. I don't remember that part of the story that COVID played a role. I guess I well, I wish I'd known that for an interview.

Dr. Fauci could have.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That would have been nice. There are a few things I would have loved for you to ask him.

Jordan Harbinger: Do you know what you did to my friend's career?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, exactly. What? What do you hate?

Romantic comedies. You hate Joy Fauci. Anyway, a couple months later, the actor drops out of the project and then the studio lets the project go and it basically dies for several years.

It's still kind of somewhere in between life and death. Unclear.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. This part I remember. So this is like a career making thing because of the people that were attached to it, which we can't mention, I guess.

And then she bounced and ruined your life. Yes and no.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Because right around that time you asked me if I wanted to come be your producer on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. I was like, oh, this pathetic character. I really need to do something for him.

Yeah. No, I, I got you in the depths of your despair. Very deliberate on my part.

I was like, you know what's going to be really cheap? Somebody who is desperate, purposeless.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Do I know any screenwriters in Hollywood right now? Well played dude. You bought, you bought at the bottom of the market.

That's how I put it.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. It's like crypto. It's called psychology.

It's called strategy. Should try it out sometime.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I accepted gratefully because honestly I needed a job, uh, now that I wasn't going to be a successful screenwriter. And I also thought it would be cool to learn about podcasting. Yeah.

That's where all the money is. That's it.

Jordan Harbinger: Clearly.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Honestly, for me, it probably was. That was more true.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, not true.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. But I had, I just had no idea it would blossom into this amazing thing, but that's how that started.

Jordan Harbinger: Isn't that wild. So funny. And by the way, I'm kidding.

Podcasting is the worst way to make money. You are, you actually are more likely to become a famous something in Hollywood that you are to have a good podcast. Now I've run the numbers.

It's actually, that's actually true. We should look at them together one day. Cause I have, I don't know if that's still true in this environment.

It might not still be true, but basically there's way more people starting podcasts and there's way less of them actually making enough money to break even versus people making money in the movie industry. And I don't mean famous actors though. I mean, I guess you'd have to count like somebody who does prop and set design is actually making a living doing it.

You know, it's, it's going to be somebody like that. You have to throw those numbers in there. I had AI do this, so it was the laziest calculation ever.

Okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And it was to say to you, this is getting a little sweaty. This is a little un-PC.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like, well, you should really, some people don't care about money, Jordan, you should count their joy as being successful. And I was like, look, chat, no, I want people who can pay their rent.

Thanks. Anyway.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Anyway, a month or two after that, in the middle of the lockdown, my, my friend and my collaborator, Suzanne, the person I developed Give or Take with the other movie, I texted her one day, like, I just can't, I cannot sit around being mad at she who must not be named and bored out of my mind. I want to do something like, let's make good use of this time.

Jordan Harbinger: As you put out a cigarette and do a headshot of her on the wall.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's right. Yeah. While I hurl kombucha bottles at the TV playing her Estee Lauder commercial.

Exactly. So I had this idea for a romantic comedy. Basically, the idea was what would happen if a young couple got engaged.

And then the guy's dad, who's this disgraced, like white collar criminal, you know, like a small time Bernie Madoff, but funny that guy gets out of prison early and shows up out of the blue and he has nowhere to stay. So he has to crash with them. And then the father meets the girl's mother and they hit it off and then they start dating.

And so basically the parent's relationship creates all these problems for the kids and basically turns their dream wedding into a nightmare. Wow. Okay.

Well, solid idea. I can see it. I'm glad.

That's rather the idea. So we've got to work, went through many, many versions of the movie, just countless drafts. And we kept working on it up until a few months ago, really.

And yeah, here we are. The other great thing that came out of the pandemic and this movie start crushing my dream was I wouldn't have made my short film if that hadn't happened because I was waiting for years and years on other people to make one of my movies. So I could just finally have that experience of like producing something and I would learn from them.

And then the horizon just kept receding in front of me, like it would not happen. So I realized that other project was going to take a while to get made if it ever got made. And I just got to the point where I was like, I'm doing it myself.

I've written something cool that I care about. I'm going to put my own money into this. I'm going to ask for help and put together a team and I'm going to give myself this production experience that I've been waiting for other people to give me.

And that was one of the best things I've ever done. Kind of changed my whole lens on filmmaking and storytelling and how to run a team and really on life in general, I would say.

Jordan Harbinger: I love that. Yeah. This is, well, something I learned early on.

You can't sit around waiting for people to do stuff for you. You just've got to do it. Charlemagne, the God kind of calls this putting yourself on because, you know, he was a radio DJ.

So people would send him their tracks and put me on, put me on. And he's like, you've got to put yourself on in life.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, you've got to put yourself on. Damn. That slaps.

Yeah. You know what that reminds me of? There's this great screenwriter named Terry Rossio.

He was one of the writers on Aladdin and the first Pirates of the Caribbean, among many other movies. And he wrote this essay I love called Never Wait, which is basically this exhortation to break the poisonous habit of waiting in life. Yeah.

That's a hard one to rewrite. I think it's the Charlemagne idea, but yeah, his whole thing is like never wait in the small picture. He gives this example of being stuck on hold on the phone.

Like you call your bank and they put you on hold and he's like, don't just sit there. Make a list of 10 people you haven't spoken to in a long time and you'll be annoyed when the customer service rep finally picks up because they interrupted you while you were doing this. You weren't waiting.

You were doing something.

Jordan Harbinger: Bro's been practicing sixminutenetworking.com since I was singing Disney movies in my living room.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's right.

Jordan Harbinger: Literally. Yeah. sixminutenetworking.com.

Just saying. If the guy who invented Captain Jack Sparrow believes in it, it works.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Just shamelessly piggybacking on this guy. You don't know his wisdom. I love it.

Jordan Harbinger: Coattail riding, baby. To push a hundred percent free course that requires no credit card. Yes.

Hey, Hollywood's got to work for somebody. Might as well be me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But he also means this in the big picture. Waiting on people's approval. Waiting on their permission.

Waiting to be in the right mood for something. Perfect conditions. In the essay he calls waiting a tiny little bundle of death.

Jordan Harbinger: A tiny little bundle of death that hits. That sounds like one of those Buddhist things that's like, isn't that what the French call an orgasm? This is so often we're going to have to edit this out if I'm wrong.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Very different. You're thinking of le petit mort. Yeah.

The little death. The little death. Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm not that far off. A tiny bundle of death. Yeah.

A little death.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Come on. French orgasms and waiting for Hollywood to give you a shot are very closely related. Yeah.

Yes. But this is how I was in a lot of ways for a very long time. I was just waiting and a lot of screenwriters are like that because you're so disempowered by the system and you're lost and you're at the whim of these absurd forces.

Whether it's whether a movie star wants to stick around or an executive wants to take a chance on your script or whatever the market, it was just terrible. And so I read that essay and this whole giving up waiting as a state of mind thing planted a seed in me. It also kind of chimed with a lot of books I was reading at the time, spiritual texts like Charlotte Beck, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Eckhart Tolle, but it took me a while to really put it into practice, especially in my career.

Jordan Harbinger: So I completely agree with this. That's kind of how I am too. Just keep plowing ahead.

Whatever happens around me, steal little moments here and there to respond to texts or knock out some show prep, whatever I've got to do. It's amazing what you can get done when you do that. But I like the larger concept a lot, which is never wait in the cosmic sense either, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, it's so true. I just found the essay, by the way, there's the section I had highlighted the last time I read it. He writes, life is short.

You think you know it, but you don't act like you know it. And since you don't act like you know it, it means you in fact don't know it. Because if you didn't know it, you would go out and act like you knew it.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you know what's funny? I think about this kind of stuff all the time. So first of all, facts, this guy's not messing around.

But that's so correct. Like life is short. Oh yeah, no, I know.

I live that. Do you? Because you are spending a lot of time playing Candy Crush or, you know, ignoring your family or whatever.

So especially when you have little kids, people are like, it goes by fast. Don't mess this up. And you're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I really've got to do this thing. And like, that's why this is a tangent. But like, that's why I'm not writing a book right now.

My agent hates me for it because she's like, no, no, no, we can have a ghostwriter do this and it's minimal time. And then I talk to people like Mark Manson and Ryan Holiday and they're like, no, they're lying to you. They just want you to make the money.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This is a really big, big project. Yeah. So how much life do you want to give up for that?

Jordan Harbinger: Right. And I'm like, zero life because I already don't have enough Lego time with my kids. I already don't have enough swing my daughter around in the living room time.

And like the idea of spending it on Zoom calls with ghostwriters and even even if you and I write it, no offense, but the idea of spending Lego time on a Zoom call with you while you're like yawning because you're in a different time zone. No, thank you. This shit can wait.

So maybe I do know it a little and I act like I know it a little. But yeah, you're right. Nobody knows it knows it until they're like 80 and they go, where did the time go?

I blinked and I was 80. And then you're like, oh, God, don't blink. Anyway, the guy's not messing around.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Never wait. Yeah. I guess all that to say that's what we were doing by writing that script after being stuck at home and getting our hearts broken.

We're just like, we're not going to wait.

Jordan Harbinger: So that movie star who dropped out, she's basically your guru. She set you up for this massive fall and she's like, you're welcome. I think so.

In a way. Now you don't need to go to some dumb ass silent meditation retreats.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Saved you four days and a lot of boredom. You're welcome. I love that.

But you're not wrong. I mean, it's funny now. Okay.

There was a time when I was like very frustrated and upset at this person. I don't even know. But now I can't help but kind of love her.

I mean, it's complicated, obviously, but she ruined so many people's lives by deciding to drop out of this project. And I would not have it any other way now. And it's not just because of the article.

I've been feeling this way for the last couple of years. In fact, it's a little scary to think about what would have happened if that movie had gone forward and I didn't have another piece of material under my belt. Some experience directing, Feedback Friday, travel, all these things.

It actually, in a weird way, might've been the worst outcome.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You could have been rich and famous by now. That would've been terrible.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Terrible. Awful. I wouldn't have to be sitting or talking about it.

Yeah. In a youth hostel in Spain. It's what I...

Yeah. I know. Isn't that incredible that I'd rather have that than have that movie?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That is incredible. And a lot of people are like, nice copium.

What flavor is that? But I've talked about my business breakup a ton and I'm like, no, people are like, it's going to be the best thing that's ever happened to you. And I wanted to punch them in the face.

Now I'm like, no, no, no. You were right. Now I wish it happened earlier.

I wish it happened five years before, but then I wouldn't have paid attention. Right? I had to be at the end of my dang rope and then had it happen.

I needed to be fully backed into a corner in order to lash out and have the energy to do what I needed to do. Totally. That's really what it was.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's exactly right. You're bringing up such an interesting question. Is meaning making and appreciation just another coping strategy?

Maybe you could say that, but it feels categorically different. Like, I don't think you're coping with the loss by saying, well, it's really great because I start my own business. You're like, no, no, no, this is really the better path.

But I had to go through all of that. That perspective is real. It's not just a way of like feeling okay about difficult facts.

That's how I feel. So much so in fact, that in the special thanks, in the credits of my short, I mentioned all these people, right? My friends, family, people who helped make the movie happen.

And then I was like, you know, I've got to put, she who must not be named in the special thanks. I have to do it because without her, this wouldn't have happened. So in the credits of my movie, it's like my sister, my colleagues who gave me notes, you know, who's in our special things, our friend TD or the police officer who consulted on the script for me because he helped with some of the cop stuff.

And then it's like one of the most famous people on the planet.

Jordan Harbinger: They're like, people are going to be like, not that one though. That must be a different person with the same name. Oh, making dinner reservations for her must be so funny now.

But does she know about this? I doubt it. Yeah.

Well, she gets an IMDB alert. Like, what is this movie? I'm not in this movie.

Delete. Oh, I could have been in it, but I blew it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, this is my short film. You understand? Not the movie that she dropped out of.

Jordan Harbinger: Who cares?

Gabriel Mizrahi: She's going to be upset. She is in the movie though. You're in every frame, girl.

If you're listening to this, which you're not. Thank you for ruining my life. Maybe she listens to this podcast.

Who knows? That would be incredible. I figure plenty of A-list celebrities are super bored and have nothing to do.

She's in her Malibu beach house as he sinks into the ground. Like, yeah, he really does need to talk to his mother-in-law.

Jordan Harbinger: It's these two pedestrian idiots that really keep my life on track.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She doesn't even realize that I'm the guy who wrote the movie.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, well, I really do feel this way. I'm thankful to her for ruining my life as it was then, so I could invent a better one.

Jordan Harbinger: Yep. Everything falls apart. You end up doing all these other things, including the show.

Dot, dot, dot. Now this movie's finally happening.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Well, like I said, it's a big step. Getting the cast.

There's still a long road ahead. The sales company is taking it out to buyers now, so we'll see what the response is. I don't really know, and I'm not involved in that part, but then you still have to set it up, and there will be more development on the script and casting conversations and budget conversations and all the production stuff, so I'm not just saying this.

Like, I really am not getting ahead of myself, because I've seen this movie before. I'm prepared for anything.

Jordan Harbinger: I hear that. I suppose that's wise.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If it happens, it'll be amazing, and if it doesn't happen, I'll be okay.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's funny, because I remember when your whole mood and your whole identity depended on this happening, and it's kind of wild to see you take this stance now, like, meh, okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know. It was funny for me as well to get the news in Barcelona, which was the last place I expected to see an article about something I wrote come out and be like, oh, cool. This is exciting in the sense that it's really cool to see these amazing artists come on board, but I'm not, like, losing my shit, reconsidering everything, like, okay, done with the nomading, better move back to LA, like, no, I much prefer it this way.

Also, I know I keep saying this, but I really, it's like, I love feedback, like, I love what we get to do here, and I love traveling, and that helps put the industry stuff in the right place in my mind.

Jordan Harbinger: It's wild how that happens, and it's also a great Feedback Friday theme, I think. I'm trying to figure out what lessons to take away from this story. There are a few in there.

Well, never wait, I think, is one of them. There's never wait. There's the worst thing that can happen to you can easily become the best thing.

Often does, I think. I believe that wholeheartedly. But then if you hadn't done stuff, written another script, directed a short, jumped into Feedback Friday, these things wouldn't have happened, so it's not just about acceptance and surrender and letting go, it's about what you do after those setbacks and what you do with them.

Gabriel Mizrahi: For sure. No, you're right. Which, again, I guess that's another version of never wait.

Yeah, never flip and wait. Amen. All right.

I also have to say, I do hesitate to, like, gloat about this and draw all these big life lessons because, like I said, truly have no idea where this is going, anything could happen, et cetera, et cetera. Also, there's a huge element of luck in all of this, huge. So I don't think it's as simple as, well, if you just do these things, one day you will be successful because this could have easily gone a different way for me and still could.

Jordan Harbinger: I hear that and I appreciate that, but still, that luck could not have kicked in without the work. So there's that. That's true.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That I definitely agree with.

Jordan Harbinger: I've shared this before. Hard work, consistent work. It just increases your surface area for good things to happen, for luck to play a bigger role.

Yes. Well put. There's like an ancient Greek quote, right?

It's something, fortune favors the prepared. I mean, that's that whole concept. Maybe that's the real takeaway.

There's no substitute for the work. I know it's far from a done deal, but there's something to be said for celebrating the wins as they come. And this is a win, man.

Congrats. Thank you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Thanks, man.

Jordan Harbinger: I know you're all jaded now. Hollywood jaded. Maybe not entirely in a bad way.

So I get why you're not getting ahead of yourself. But man, seeing a script you wrote move forward at the level where they're actually making a movie with A-list celebrities, it's a big accomplishment. Congrats to you and Suzanne.

Thank you, dude. That's very sweet. Should we just start the show?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Kick off with an actual nightmare that is actually happening to somebody who actually exists?

Jordan Harbinger: You know what else you should never wait for? The deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

Jordan Harbinger: All right, back to the show. Fun ones, doozies. Let's dive in.

Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I recently met a guy through a mutual friend of ours who was the chief of police's wife. I trusted them, and they set me and this guy up after a charity event that we attended.

He works for a judge in Stockton, California. Sometime later, he invited me on a trip to Italy. I was between jobs, so it worked out nicely.

Before the trip, he asked me my budget. I said $3,000, thinking that was plenty for a romantic getaway. He said he'd plan everything, and we'd quote-unquote figure it out later.

In hindsight, that phrase should have been my red flag. But I was too busy packing cute outfits and imagining us kissing under the Tuscan sun. Meanwhile, he booked everything.

The trip was magical. Gelato, sunsets, cobblestone streets. I thought I was in a rom-com.

That Gabe wrote and never got made. But I added that. But when we got home, instead of a sweet, had a great time text, he sent me an official invoice from his company for $21,000.

Turns out, I was actually in a financial horror film.

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, this is so insane. What a weirdo.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Bananas.

Jordan Harbinger: I know we're about to get into all this. I'm just blown away again by how bizarre and brazen and frankly bat-shit crazy this move is. Like, oh, yeah, the date was fun.

Here's your invoice. Like, what happened on this trip? I thought it was a typo.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I thought maybe he added an extra zero by accident. I thought maybe he meant lira, but no. He meant $21,000 American dollars for a trip to which I told him I could contribute three.

I stared at the invoice, dumbfounded. It states meals, hotel stays, car rental, and shopping. Bro kept receipts.

So this was planned. Wow. So he billed her for the Peugeot they rented to visit a vineyard and he also billed them for like candlelit dinners in Rome.

That is terrible.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, dude probably billed her for the seven Pellegrinos they bought at a bodega too. What a low life this guy is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I genuinely believed I was dating this man. Not talking, not vibing, not maybe, no. This man was pursuing me like he was trying to win a trophy.

There was never any documentation before the trip. No contract, invoice, estimate, reimbursement agreement, or other document. I didn't sign or verbally agree to anything.

He made me believe that this was a personal trip and I never agreed to any of the additional expenses. These conversations took place over Apple messages and WhatsApp, but he later deleted them. Well that's sus as hell, okay?

Yeah. And there is no business relationship between me and his company. So I disputed the invoice in writing via email.

But he was out of town and we never spoke after that. I tried to pay what I could, but unless I suddenly became a Kardashian, there was no universe where I could casually drop $21,000 on a vacation I didn't even know I was being billed for. I paid him $7,000 because I felt obligated to pay, since I did some shopping.

And I told him that I would pay him back $5,000 once I received my commission check.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh no, okay, I want to get clear on this. So she disputes the invoice by email, they never spoke afterward, but then she did pay him $7,000 and then told him she'd pay another $5,000. Correct.

Because in her mind, she did some shopping, but I'm guessing it wasn't $12,000 worth of shopping. I guess I shouldn't assume that, but I'm guessing it's like $502,000 max given her budget. This is really unfortunate.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Ugh. Yeah. But then, because apparently this man loves drama, he sued me in small claims court in San Joaquin County, California.

After subtracting my payments, the remaining balance fell under the $12,500 limit for small claims court. I appeared and defended myself. I put together a book of evidence, but the judge never saw it.

The guy I thought I was dating won. Now he has a lien on my property. A lien.

From a romantic trip. Oh my God, infuriating. My God.

How did this happen?

Jordan Harbinger: How did a judge hear this story and not look at her documentation that clearly shows there was zero contract, written or oral, and rule in his favor? I mean, I'm getting, I have some ideas, but I do wonder if paying him what she paid him in the judge's eyes basically established that they had a contract and she owed him the money. That's the only thing I can think of.

Like, you basically acknowledge the debt when you do that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I appealed the decision and lost. He had an attorney present.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's the problem with going pro se, no attorney. A lot of times you don't have a choice in small claims court, but if you have a choice, you'd need to, you can't bring a knife to a gunfight.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But he had an attorney present, so it was one of those states where you can do that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, and she was like, well, I can't, I don't want to do that or I can't afford one. But now you have a lien on your property and you have to pay. So it's really, legal advice is expensive.

Not having it is way more expensive.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The deadline to appeal or otherwise challenge the judgment has passed. I'm talking to an attorney soon to see what next steps to take. At this point, I'm considering suing him for fraud and misrepresentation because I'm pretty sure romantic vacation should not secretly mean surprise business transaction with a side of property seizure.

What is the psychology behind this? Is this the kind of case where pursuing legal action makes sense? Or should I just accept that I accidentally went on the most expensive date in modern history?

Signed feeling like a sap and wondering whether to clap back after this manipulative scab straight up stuck me with the tab.

Jordan Harbinger: This is awful and gross and quite baffling. Honestly, before we dive into this game, I have so many questions about this. Same.

Let's get into it. Is this guy is straight up professional scammer and this is just what he does. He invites women on fancy vacations and then sticks them with the bill.

Or did he actually want to take her on this trip and then something weird happened that she either isn't telling us or isn't maybe more likely is not aware of like he didn't end up liking her or that but or something happened on the did she reject him super hard or his feelings changed that not that that excuses any of this. But then when they got home, he's just like, I don't want to pay for that. I'm going to make her pay.

I'm super mad about it. My ego hurts. I don't know what's going on here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Somehow that feels more probable to me, but that is still so despicable and weird. Just it's different from an intentional scam from the start, but still bizarre.

Jordan Harbinger: I agree. Because what I don't understand is if this was a scam from the jump, it's an incredibly crappy inefficient scam. Totally.

You've got to fly to another country. You've got to spend all this money on yourself. You've got to burn potentially relationship you have back in California because now the police chief and his wife are going to hear about it.

They're probably not going to want to introduce you to anybody again. They're going to be like, well, there's two sides to every story, but wow, that's pretty bad. And then you spend all this money on yourself and then you try to collect it later.

And most people are going to be like, no way. And then you've got to sue them and then you've got to win and then you've got to get a lien and then you have to wait for your money. I mean, you might have to wait.

You're going to have to wait months or years to see that money. And then having to do this to multiple women when you have a normal job. OK, so then you don't have a normal job and you just go on vacation.

I mean, it just does not make sense. I'm trying to imagine all the scenarios here. It's like such a crap scam.

It's terrible.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If he's not a professional romance scammer, that would help explain why he's friends with the chief of police and his wife and attends charity events and stuff like he's not a total scumbag.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe. Well, or he's really good at being a con man, but then the con itself is not lucrative and totally sucks. So I don't know about that either.

Right. So that's interesting. I think the first lesson to appreciate there is that trust transferred through a respected person is borrowed trust.

But it is not the same thing as evidence.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Meaning just because this guy's friends with the chief of police doesn't make him a good person or a trustworthy person.

Jordan Harbinger: No. In fact, shady people do this all the time. Oh, I'm friends with the mayor.

I sit on the board of this charity. I post photos on Instagram with the chief of police. Cool.

That's a fig leaf. It gives them social currency. I mean, wasn't that basically Jeffrey Epstein's playbook?

He was on charities. He donated. He hung out with all these people.

How could this guy possibly be doing all this evil stuff if he's friends with all these amazing people? Now we're like, oh, the billionaires are gross, too. In the end, it means very little, perhaps nothing other than the person's ability to politic and move in certain circles and donate money or something.

I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So true. It's a great point, which sadly, people like this can do extremely well.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's just important to remember. You've got to do your own research.

I hate that phrase, but you've got to know people on your own. Even the chief of police can make a mistake or just be in the dark. I mean, yeah, I met him through my wife and he donated to her cause and he seemed nice.

The end. Right. That's all the vetting they did for this guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There's a third possibility, which is that he's not a professional romance scammer, but he did plan to do this the whole time.

Jordan Harbinger: It's true. It's just a weird thing to want to do one time. But I guess it's possible for a person like this to conceive of that idea.

Some combination of antisocial tendencies and narcissism and entitlement and a failure to empathize with other people. And I have to assume a fundamental inability to relate normally to other people and feel you're deserving of real relationships and real experiences or just the naked self-interest of a criminal or shady person. That's got to be the psychology behind this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, at some point it's kind of a mystery, isn't it? Like, how do you reduce the psychology of something like this? Something this bizarre?

I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm sure something awful happened to this guy when he was a kid or he was just born weird and his brain is broken. I don't know. Reduced gray matter in the prefrontal cortex or wherever that psychopathy, antisocial, whatever stuff resides.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Famously the best predictor of whether you're going to stick a woman you met at a gala with all of your Ryan air flights. That's what I had science.

Jordan Harbinger: It's neuroscience and, you know, he upgraded them to enhanced economy or whatever. Ryanair calls the premium tier. Flexi plus, right?

The only thing flexi about Ryanair is whether your plane's going to land on time, whether it will land at all. Really, it's all up in the air. Literally, it's a coin toss with Ryanair.

You save 70 euros, but you might not make it to whatever the second tier airport in Prague is called. That's right. That's their model.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I just flew them from Barcelona to Bergamo and it was it was actually fine, but it does kind of redefine bare bones. It's not easy. I feel like Ryanair is a great deal.

Jordan Harbinger: If you travel with only like a middle school or backpack, you don't care if the plane's delayed and you don't mind sitting in a middle seat with no beverage service. It's kind of like, well, it's faster than the train. That's right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And you don't mind paying to use the bathroom or you're just like, oh, that's right.

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, Ryanair wanted to charge passengers to use the bathroom? Wasn't that them? They did the whole thing about that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think it was just like an internal discussion of can we do this? But they never did it.

Jordan Harbinger: I feel like that's just asking for terrible PR. You know, someone's going to crap themselves in the seat and be like, I didn't have a coin to go to the bathroom. That's right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It costs you more to implement the revenue stream than to just forego the money. Dude, the seats on Ryanair are the most uncomfortable seats I think I've ever sat in. It felt like I was being wheeled around on a dolly for two hours.

That's how I can describe it.

Jordan Harbinger: That's the business model. Exactly. You get what you pay for.

I remember meeting Ryanair pilots in places like Odessa, Ukraine, where you're just like, hey, what are you doing? And they're like, we travel, we're pilots, we travel around the world. And they're like, we work for Ryanair.

And I remember being like, wow, that's such a good gig. But they were 25. You know, like these are not guys that were going to get a job with American.

They were getting their hours on Ryanair so they could get a job with like another national airline.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Interesting. I will say, though, it was the most streamlined check-in and backdrop service I've ever had. I guess that's because it's automated and self-check-in.

But it was like, usually you have to stand there for a while and it's annoying to get there. Like I was 10 minutes and I was at the security line. But also, I was so tired when I got to the airport because it was six in the morning.

I barely slept the night before. I kind of lost track of time in the lounge. And suddenly I looked at my time and I was like, oh, my God, I'm super late.

Like, I just got confused about the time. So I ran to the gate, but they had closed the door, which is like, oh, that feeling is so terrible. And the last time I missed a flight was probably like 12, 15 years ago.

But they opened it for me. They called the plane like, yeah, he's here. An extra heavy bag and underneath.

So like, and they opened the door and I got on just in time, which is really cool of them. Not a lot of airlines would do that. So thank you, Ryanair.

Jordan Harbinger: That is very true. Definitely a point in Ryanair's favor. I didn't even know they were allowed to do that.

Me too.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It wasn't the door of the plane itself. It was like the boarding gate.

Jordan Harbinger: The jetway door?

Gabriel Mizrahi: The jetway door.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. But Gabe, what are we even talking about? This guy probably flew our friend here business class on KLM being like, it's not my money.

Whatever. That's right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He's like, I'm going to invoice her for the champagne and warm towels.

Jordan Harbinger: Not my problem. The dude does not strike me as a Ryanair. I really want to impress and woo her.

By the way, you might want to bring your own pillow to sit on because the seat has no padding. All that to say, I'm so very sorry this happened to you, my friend. Take that shot, everyone.

We've taken a lot of letters over the years from victims of scams of all kinds. And I don't know, man, the feelings a scammer leaves you with, confusion and embarrassment, sadness, and the impotent rage is often the worst part. More than the money, which is significant, especially in this case, being conned or just manipulated like this.

God, it's got to be a terrible feeling. It's just so maddening.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Then you have to go to court and face this person for this amount of money on top of all that and then lose and then have to hire a lawyer to fight back. That's a low-key nightmare.

Jordan Harbinger: It is when any normal person who gets asked to go on a romantic trip to Italy would just go, yeah, yeah, sure. Sounds great. Well, yeah, Google spreadsheet final Venmo you at the airport later, whatever.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what I was thinking. This is what I would do. I could have easily been in our friend here shoes.

I would never in a million years see a scam like this coming.

Jordan Harbinger: No, same. And I mean, as a man, no woman has ever invited me on a vacation and put everything on her card. But if she did, for some reason, and that invitation is open, well, actually, Jen might not appreciate that.

And look, if I assumed we were dating, no part of me would be like, oh, I better get this. And I better screenshot those conversations we've been having. She might drag me to small claims court in a few months if I don't put out.

I just hate that you're going through all this. And I'm very sorry. Based on the facts, it's possible that you're out of moves here and you just need to pay this a-hole and move on.

But given what he's pulled, if I were in your shoes, I think I would have to hit back at this guy. However, I could. I just don't see how you could take this lying down.

Let a financial predator get away with something like this. The idea of sending him another $12,000 makes my blood boil. He should be happy he got $7,000 out of you.

But I don't know exactly what legal options are available to you at this point. That's a question for the attorney you meet with. Maybe you sue him.

That's a civil matter. Maybe you do file a police report to make it a criminal matter or attempt to. Maybe both.

Or maybe the lawyer is going to tell you, yeah, procedurally, you're out of moves. You missed the window. You let this deadline lapse.

I'm sorry. This is mostly over. The thing is, I hear a few potential crimes in all this.

Depending on the full facts, of course. And a good lawyer would have to prove these things. There's fraud and or theft, depending on whether this guy obtained your property, including money, through deception, rather than merely obtaining a judgment against you.

There's forgery or use of a false document if, of course, the invoice for supporting records are fabricated or altered or falsely authenticated and so on. But it sounds like he might actually have a company. So maybe that doesn't apply.

But you can't just have a company and make false documents either. There's perjury if he testified under oath in the small claims proceedings and knowingly made a materially false statement. Again, that one's hard to prove.

Also kind of besides the point. Okay, so he spends a weekend in jail. You still owe him 21 grand.

I mean, come on.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Based on what you've shared, it sounds like your case mostly hinges on the $3,000 conversation and the messages that you exchanged about all of this and the invoice and then whatever representations he made in court. It sucks that he deleted the messages before you could screenshot them, though, because I feel like that kind of hamstrings your case without that.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, the fact that he did that obviously makes him way more sus. To me, there's no genuine misunderstanding if he deleted the messages. He did that deliberately to obfuscate your original agreement.

But you can't have those messages admitted into evidence now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Other than like the string of deleted message, deleted message, deleted message, which I'm guessing you can't bring a lack of a message into evidence, can you?

Jordan Harbinger: Well, it depends. I mean, you probably can, but it doesn't prove very much. It's circumstantial at best.

He could have said anything in those messages. And you'd be like, yeah, these are the messages that he deleted. And he admits that this is all like going to be a date and he's going to pay for everything.

And it's like, well, no, no, we have to go based on the actions because that stuff's all gone. Did he delete them? It's suspicious.

And then he goes, I deleted them because they were sexually explicit. And it was embarrassing for me. And I didn't like her anymore.

And I wanted to get rid of it. And the judge is like, OK, I'm just going to weigh these at zero. What she wants to prove is that they had an agreement such as it was.

And that agreement was very different from what he's claiming. But if those texts were the only documentation, I just don't know how you prove that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I wonder if that's why the case did not go her way. And the judge couldn't even look at the document.

Jordan Harbinger: It must have played a big role. Yeah. In addition to the history of making payments.

I mean, that's the big one is like if somebody says you owe me this and you're like, I absolutely do not. But here's some money anyway. It's like, well, OK, then you obviously.

Which one is it? Some level felt that you did my advice. Talk to your attorney first.

Get their take on whether you should go to the police, if that would help a potential case in any way and go from there. If you do go to the police, I would bring them that binder of evidence that you created and I would describe what happened succinctly, clearly, factually. Don't go in there like, yeah, my ex is a romance scammer.

You need to arrest him. Dates, exact representations, the stated three thousand dollar budget, invoice payments, company information, court records. That's what they're going to care about.

Not this general story and not the romance scammer label. I would just be prepared for the cops to look at the invoice, partial payments to completed small claims proceedings and go, yeah, sorry, civil matter. We can do here.

But if they say that you and your lawyer could respectfully push back, show them evidence you created, tell them which statutes you believe apply and hopefully get them to listen.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There's an interesting wrinkle here, which is whether there's an attempted theft or fraud crime concerning the judgment itself. OK, tell me more. Say more.

If the theory is that he deliberately fabricated a debt and then used judicial proceedings as the mechanism for obtaining money from her. I don't know. I do wonder if your lawyer could make that case that that's fraudulent.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm with you, but that's highly fact dependent, super hard to prove.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. And I imagine a lot of work to really dig into this guy's whole strategy and do forensics on the invoice and the billing and make the look at his track record. If this has happened before, if that applies, it's a whole thing.

I'm just throwing it out there.

Jordan Harbinger: What still confuses me, why is his company the creditor in all this? And what legal basis did the company claim for invoicing somebody with whom it apparently had no previous business relationship?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's got to be relevant to this case. But maybe that's also hard for them to prove. It's weird that the judge didn't look at all this and go, and why is your personal loan out corporation billing your supposed girlfriend for a personal trip?

Like what? This doesn't make any sense.

Jordan Harbinger: He's probably claiming, oh, my company does travel plans for tourism. But this guy who works for a judge in Stockton and then took his girlfriend to Italy, like that doesn't... Good point.

Oh, my side hustle company is I'm a tour guide in Italy. I mean, that's, it sounds more and more ridiculous, the more you sort of have to explain it away, right? Oh, then you must have other clients.

No, this is the first one. Oh, actually, I had three more clients and they all went to small claims court saying that this is a bunch of bullshit, right? Come on, man.

Again, the most damaging fact is that she paid seven grand and then she said she would pay five more. I mean, the judge probably just took those payments as her acknowledging the underlying debt. That's what I would do.

And I'm afraid that's going to be so hard to walk back. I hate to say this because I know you can't go back, but I really wish you'd had an attorney from the start. I know you probably do too.

I wish you'd appealed when you had the window and not let it lapse. I'm sure you also wish that too. And it sounds like you try to do this yourself, which I admire in a way.

It's just always so risky, even in small claims court. If I, I am on, I'm an attorney. If I had the ability to get a lawyer for small claims and I knew the other party had one, I would absolutely get one myself.

And I wouldn't even try to represent myself even with a law degree. It just sounds like you either weren't aware of the deadline to appeal. Maybe you kind of slept on it.

Now you're in a much worse position. So yes, obviously you do have to accept that you accidentally went on the most expensive date in modern history. That's non-negotiable.

There's nothing you can do about that now. And actually that's an important phase of this, accepting that fact completely and coming to terms with it. But that's different from completely giving up, right?

Yes. I totally get why some people just pay these scammers and move on with their lives. It's so unpleasant.

I might even consider doing it for that amount of money. And in your case, given the lien, you might kind of have to, he could theoretically initiate legal action or a court proceeding to compel a forced sale of your property if the underlying debt remains unpaid. So you might have to pay him this money at this point to just avoid having to, what, sell your house or something like that to pay this jerk back.

But I also want this guy to get some comeuppance so bad. I want you to have the satisfaction of standing up to this guy and take some of your power back, fighting for some justice, exposing this weirdo. So if there's a path forward, maybe some extenuating circumstances because you can prove that there might be fraud at play, I would pursue it with your attorney.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Jordan, I'm just wondering if he's done this to other people. I was thinking if he's ended up in lawsuits with people often, like if this is a regular strategy for him, that would show up on a standard consumer background check, right? I'm pretty sure small claims court filings and financial judgments are part of the public record.

And those sites that charge you like 30, 40 bucks to pull somebody's history, they routinely scrape that data. Now, I don't know how much you care about this guy's history, but if he has like eight small claims lawsuits with women on his record, that might help your attorney make the case that this is his MO and this is fraud. And it might give you some comfort to know that you are not the only one.

I also wonder, and this is a little out there, but it's just an idea I'll throw out. These reports usually show the date of a case, the county where it was filed, the name of the court, and I believe the names of the plaintiff and the defendant, although that could differ from state to state. There are some laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act that limit what information gets shown over what period of time.

But if you can find those defendants' names, in other words, any other people he's done this to, what if you reached out to them? You find them on social media, you find their email address, and you ask them some questions and ask them about their stories. And if you guys connect and you have similar experiences with him, I don't know, could you get other people to file police reports too?

And could that be the start of a criminal investigation? Just a thought. Maybe it also helps with any more civil litigation as well.

Jordan Harbinger: Dark Gabriel, I like it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It might also give her some support and validation, you know, as she makes sense of all this, which is the whole other part of her story.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm sure it would. Victims banding together, obviously very powerful. You just have to be very careful that you don't all start defaming this guy, especially in writing.

He scammed me. Did he scam me? He's a scammer.

Let's tell everyone. Let's put it on Facebook. And then somehow he finds out or he gets a hold of those records and he sues you for defamation on top of all this, which I mean, this guy sounds like he would love the chance to do that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I guess my final question for you is, did you see anything in this guy along the way that looking back now was kind of a red flag? I know you said the whole we'll figure it out later was the red flag. But to me, that is not really that I would have missed that red flag because there's nothing unusual about somebody you're dating saying, I'll just put on my card and we'll sort it out later.

But is there anything, even a curious data point that now you see in a different light, something he said or didn't say, a small reaction he had, an opinion that somebody else you who knew him had or whatever. Maybe it's just a feeling that you didn't know to take seriously at the time. I just ask you this not to blame me for what happened.

Obviously, I just think it's important to do the forensics on this stuff so you can make more sense of what happened so you can appreciate the breadcrumbs that you maybe didn't realize were important at the time. And yeah, if you ever find yourself meeting somebody like this again, maybe you're more equipped. Although I highly doubt that this particular scam will ever happen again.

Jordan Harbinger: And if it ever does, you know, now call an attorney immediately. Do not hand over any money, not one cent. But yeah, good question.

As we talk about sometimes that can also help with the healing to know that some part of you did pick up on some signals you didn't understand at the time or you didn't know to listen to. Again, very sorry this happened to you. It's so weird and it's awful and despicable and it just sucks.

But whether you fight back or you just eat the cost, I'm sure you've learned a lot through all this and you have a wild story to tell now. I wish it never happened, but it sounds very revealing. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best.

You know what's tastier than a $21,000 gelato? The delicious deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. Buon appetito, y'all.

We'll be right back.

Jordan Harbinger: Thank you for listening and supporting the show. All of the deals, discounts, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

Now, back to Feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay, next up. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm the guy who wrote in a little while back.

That was episode 1355 about my difficult marriage and the woman I recently met at a conference in Indiana with whom I had been texting since.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, yeah. So he and his wife, they'd grown apart over the years. They had two kids.

He said their needs were very different at this point in the marriage and the other woman just kind of brought him back to life, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's right. And our advice was basically this new woman in Indiana is revealing some important stuff about you and what you really want. And if you don't want to be married anymore, that's a fairer choice.

But things are going to get a lot messier. If you have an actual full blown affair with this woman before you make that decision. So maybe don't do that.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Like listen to the data, but don't pursue the person at least until you get clear on some big stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. So he goes on. I wanted to say a huge thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

I've listened to the segment a few times now and hearing your take really helped me process things. It gave me a lot more to think about regarding my own actions and what I was really trying to ask you guys. I realized after hearing it that my original email definitely underplayed the reality of my marriage.

It's tough to fit an entire decade into a short email, but I wanted to provide a little more context because things aren't exactly what they appeared to be. My wife struggles with traits consistent with borderline personality disorder, particularly with intense explosive anger. I spend every single day walking on eggshells around her just to keep the peace.

Ooh, okay. She also has extreme OCD, which got significantly worse after COVID. It has made living together almost unbearable.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, man, that's really unfortunate. I can't hold that one against her as much because, you know, I'm sure she hates it even more than you do, but I hear you. That's made things a lot more challenging.

Gabriel Mizrahi: More importantly, it's really starting to impact our kids' mental health. I saw a few comments on the Reddit thread about my story saying that I should have offered to do marriage counseling before looking elsewhere. For the record, I have offered and pushed for counseling multiple times.

It has always met with total dismissiveness. A few times, she explicitly told me, quote, you should go get counseling so you can come back and be a better husband. I don't need it because there's nothing wrong with me, unquote.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, that detail definitely changes things for me. So she either can't or won't work on things, and you want to, and that, well, that changes everything.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a tough reality to face, but you simply cannot help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Regarding the woman from Indiana, you guys made some very fair points. But even if this relationship is an escape hatch for me, connecting with her genuinely woke me up to what I actually want in a relationship.

It put things into perspective and reminded me of what a healthy, peaceful dynamic is supposed to feel like after years of chaos.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally get that, and I think we said as much. I think we were just saying understanding what you want in a relationship is probably more important than this specific person.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, especially at this stage, or what we thought was this stage. It sounds like things are more far gone than we assumed.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, so correct. You and your wife are in a more difficult spot than we knew, but I also understand that it's, man, it's hard to meet someone amazing who's completely different from your very challenging spouse. You're thinking about leaving and go, well, thanks for the great data points.

See you in three years. Maybe never.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If the data is useful, then you probably feel the person is very important too.

Jordan Harbinger: So right. We were just saying, be very careful, very thoughtful, because if you start up with this woman, then you're technically having an affair, no matter what the particulars are or how you feel inside. And that's definitely the narrative your wife is going to subscribe to if and when she finds out, and it might impact your divorce proceedings, custody conversations and relationship with your kids, all that stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So I have officially decided to move forward with a divorce. Wow, big news. Okay.

All right. The paperwork is currently in the hands of my attorney, though my wife has not officially been served yet. Oh my God, that must be such an intense feeling.

Over the past few weeks, we had three serious conversations about the state of our relationship. Unfortunately, these conversations were followed by more intense, classic BPD style meltdowns and explosive arguments, leading us to agree that we need to separate.

Jordan Harbinger: Dude, this guy tried in every conceivable way. I mean, we don't know what the nature or quality of the conversations is, but it sounds to me like he didn't just jump from, ah, things are bumpy at home to I'm going to run away with this woman from Indiana, which is kind of what we initially feared.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Since those blowups, she's calmed down a bit and started talking about a cool off period. I can tell that she's trying to control her temper, but her old OCD and BPD patterns are already creeping back in. I know this cycle all too well, and I am firmly committed to seeing the divorce through.

Jordan Harbinger: Super sad, but I understand. I wish you were willing to talk about this stuff with someone.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My attorney's general advice is that the more we can work out ourselves outside of court, the better. In a normal divorce, that makes total sense. But trying to collaborate with someone with untreated BPD is a minefield.

I'm already walking on eggshells when things are relatively peaceful. I cannot fathom what living under the same roof and trying to raise our kids will look like once she's served with divorce papers.

Jordan Harbinger: Oof, yeah, that's going to be tricky.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But I can't just move out right away because of the kids. I know a massive, toxic meltdown is coming. How do I manage living in the same house with a volatile spouse while the divorce settlement is in progress after she's served?

Do you have any strategies to handle it and keep the environment safe for my kids and me? And if things get intolerable and I need to step out and live outside the main house, will that negatively impact my standing when it comes to child custody?

Signed, knowing it's time for me to say no, but trying to figure out what to do and say, though, when I'm heading into this tornado.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, this is intense. So first of all, thank you for sharing this update with us, and sorry that it's come to this. Candidly, it sounds like the right decision.

You said you both agreed that it's best to separate. It doesn't sound like there's a way forward here, especially if she straight up refuses to go to therapy and work on anything, if she truly believes that this is all your fault. So as sad as it is, it does sound necessary.

That said, I really appreciate that you tried in all these ways to talk to your wife and seek out support and fix things. I think that's crucial, both to give your marriage a real shot and for you personally to know that you just did everything you could. But yeah, this is just the beginning of what I assume is going to be a pretty bumpy ride, especially with a spouse with these particular challenges.

So my first thought for you is I would get very clear with yourself about your objective during this period. Obviously, the main one is to separate from your wife. But at this point, that's a legal process.

You've already filed the papers. By the time this comes out, I assume she'll have them. So now that that part's underway, what do you hope to accomplish?

If I were in your shoes, I think my goals would be to treat my soon-to-be ex-wife with as much kindness, peace, and respect as possible under the circumstances, to take really good care of my kids and secure my relationship with them, especially if mom might have some strong reactions and just try to recruit them as allies in the separation. I'd want to protect myself, to take care of myself emotionally, to not be any more affected or hurt or manipulated by my spouse than is absolutely necessary, and to continue understanding what happened in your marriage, what you truly want and need now, how you're dealing with all this. Those would be my top three.

Maybe you have others or slightly different ones. Whatever they are, I would get clear on them. I would talk about them with a couple close people.

I would write them down. Everything you do and say should reflect those goals and those intentions and those values. And when things get intense in the house, which it sounds like they probably will, I would work really hard to stay kind, respectful, and even-keeled as much as you can.

Your wife is going to have whatever reactions she has. She's going to turn to whatever strategies feel best in the moment, which I'm guessing probably means yelling, blaming, guilt-tripping, avoiding, shutting down, retreating, generally being volatile, as you put it. And I think you're basically going to have to let her do that.

You know, whether she has BPD or not, those meltdowns and the tactics, they sound like her way of responding to shame and hurt and abandonment. So when she does that, you can, well, first of all, validate her. I'm sorry this is so painful.

I can see that you're really upset. I understand why. If you want to take a breather and have a productive conversation about how we can move through this chapter together peacefully, I'm here for that.

I wouldn't patronize or condescend to her, but I would offer some basic support. I would also know when to simply back up and disengage. If you see that she wants to rage at you or make you feel guilty or ashamed or rant and rave unproductively or just create a scene, you can say, I can see you're really upset right now, but we're not having a conversation, so I'm just going to go in the other room.

And if you want to try talking in a new way in a little bit, we can. Or if this continues, you can literally say, I don't think there's much more for us to say, so I'm just going to go in the living room now and let you take care of yourself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's a really nice approach. You can also try saying things like, I can see how hard this is for you. It's also hard for me.

So how can I help? And see what she says. That can be a nice question sometimes because it kind of forces the other person to reflect on what exactly they do want from you and what they might be trying to accomplish when they become volatile.

Basically, you'd be asking your wife to be more thoughtful and take some accountability for the feelings that she has. So maybe she responds by saying, well, you know how you can help. You can go to therapy and work on yourself so we can stay together.

And then you can say, well, that's not my understanding of why we're here, but I hear you that you think I have work to do, so okay. Maybe she says nothing. There's nothing you can do to help.

And you say, okay, I hear you. I'm sorry. That's tough.

Or maybe she surprises you and says, well, I want you to explain, you know, why you want to leave and why we have this problem, that, you know, something more productive. And you guys actually have a real conversation. But asking her the question might be a good way of bringing her back to a shared plane of reality when her instinct, based on what you shared with us, is to go into her story basically and just kind of, you know, emote.

Jordan Harbinger: I like that, Gabe. The other thing I would do is stay very close to your kids. Check in on them often.

Ask them how they're doing with this transition. If they have any questions, anything they want to talk about, listen to them, engage them, keep the door open, make sure they know it's okay to talk to you about all this. Also, just keep hanging out with them in general.

Keep doing dad stuff, whatever that is for you guys. Going to the park, making dinner, going to the movies, hanging out. I'm sure that continuity will mean a lot to them.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And if they're ever around for any arguments with your wife, that's even more reason to stay calm, both so that they don't get exposed to any more pain than they have to and so that they also see dad as kind and respectful and they have a good example of how to navigate conflict in the house. I think that's really important.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed completely. I think they're going to pick up on that. And if your wife does try to poison the well with them, those data points are probably going to count for a lot.

As for how moving out will impact custody, that's a question for your attorney, and I think it depends on the unique facts. My understanding is, generally, moving out does not by itself mean that you give up custody or that you're somehow legally presumed to be the less favorable parent. In fact, in California, for example, there's a statute aimed directly at this problem.

California Family Code Section 3046 literally says that a court should not use a parent's absence or relocation from the family home against that parent when the absence is relatively short and the parent continues trying to maintain custody, visitation, and contact with the child and shows no intent to abandon the child. How that actually plays out in practice, that's another question. Maybe your state has different statutes or traditions, but tons of parents move out of the house during a separation and they still get custody.

I'm pretty sure this has less to do with whether you physically live in the house and more to do with what custody arrangement develops after you move out. So, for example, if you get an apartment, your kids stay in the house with your wife, and for the next six months, she gets them up every morning, takes them to school, does homework with them, takes them to the doctor and soccer games and sleepovers and puts them to bed and all that, and you see them every other weekend, that's a common arrangement. If you guys end up in litigation over custody, theoretically, she could point to a functioning arrangement in which the kids primarily live with her.

Again, in California, I think the courts, they really primarily care about the children's existing custodial relationships and stability quite a bit. Other states might be different. So moving out can indirectly create a disadvantage by establishing a status quo.

But the act of leaving the house, that itself isn't disqualifying. Again, your lawyer should absolutely be part of that decision, and they will advise you best.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I just want to take a quick moment to acknowledge that we're only hearing about all of this from his point of view, right? His wife sounds very challenging. BPD or not, these reactions that she is having are immensely difficult.

It's kind of impossible to have a real conversation and work on things with somebody who is saying, you're the problem, I'm perfect, I have nothing to talk about. And that kind of says a lot and makes me think that his story is pretty credible. But that does not automatically mean that all of her anger and disappointment, frustration with him is meaningless, irrelevant, right?

She might have some very legitimate grievances about their time together. And even if our friend here is a good person and had good intentions, he might have also done some things along the way in this highly imperfect marriage that genuinely upset her. Now, if she's genuinely upset about something, then I would think she would want to go to therapy to talk about it.

So that still is a very curious stance that she's taking and probably says a lot about her willingness to dig into some really intense material for both of them. But I just want to kind of like acknowledge this because I don't know, I find myself like you, Jordan, tell me if you agree, kind of largely on this guy's side based on what he's saying. I mean, to be married to somebody who behaves this way is really, really difficult.

And he's obviously being pulled to this other woman because she's so different from his wife. And I understand those feelings. I really do appreciate his difficult position.

But there are two people in this marriage, and I'm not saying that he needs to stick around and work on it with her, but it doesn't mean necessarily that he was flawless the entire time. And I just kind of want to put that on the table so that we're not missing anything huge by saying, well, here's how you can divorce perfectly, and you've done nothing wrong because she won't go to therapy.

Jordan Harbinger: So again, really sorry you guys had to go your separate ways. But given the facts, I think it was kind of inevitable and probably necessary given that you know you want something very different.

Gabriel Mizrahi: One more thing here. Unless you left something big out of your last letter, we don't know if you're still talking to this woman in Indiana, what those conversations are like. But generally speaking, it sounds to me like you are doing more or less what we recommended last time, which is you're saying, I now know what a harmonious relationship looks like.

That's what I want, which means I don't want to be married to a volatile spouse, and I don't want to start cheating on her with this other person by really pursuing this affair. So I'm going to separate because it's the right thing to do. To her credit, it sounds like your wife feels similarly.

I'm sure she also feels that something is not aligned here. A few people in our subreddit pointed out that her needs are probably also not being met in this marriage, and that's also relevant. And she's not happy either.

Although what your wife needs or rather what she thinks she needs and how she goes about getting those needs met, that is a bit of a complicated question. But point is, I think you're doing the right thing here. You're redefining the marriage.

You're making things clear, and then you're deciding what kind of life you want to build and with whom, whether it's with this woman in Indiana or someone else. Again, it might in fact be messier than that in practice if you're still talking to her, which I'm assuming you are. But officially separating is a crucial step.

Obviously, legally, it's a crucial step, but also emotionally so that you can be as clear and fair and clean as possible, all things considered.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed. And if he can collaborate with his wife on deciding these big things as peacefully as possible, if her wounds don't cause her to act in ways that are more painful and counterproductive, maybe they can get through this relatively unscathed. I certainly hope that's the case.

But keep your eye on the prize, your emotional safety, your relationship with your kids, your independence, your freedom to pursue a different kind of romantic relationship honestly and fairly, as honestly and fairly as possible. That's why you're doing this. And how you respond to your wife, how you relate to your kids moment to moment every day, that's going to determine a lot of your outcomes.

Sending you, your kids, even your wife, a big hug and wishing you all the best. By the way, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise.

Try to use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your stepdad's got your nudes, your neighbors are eavesdropping on your therapy sessions through the wall, or you ended a relationship with an amazing woman abroad after she said she couldn't move to your country, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up at Friday at jordanharbinger.com.

We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Also, folks, the subreddit is fire lately, as you heard from the question above. There's a lot of people commenting on Feedback Friday especially.

Come join us on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. You know how to lure your kids into visiting you when you move into your own place. Grab some of the killer products and services that support this show.

We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. Take a moment, support our amazing sponsors.

They're all searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you have a problem with anything or you can't find something, email us, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig those codes up for you.

It is that important that you support those who support the show. And now for the recommendation of the week.

I am addicted to lip filler.

So mine is once again protein related. Meathead. Hashtag Meathead.

This is isopure protein drink. It's not a shake. It's not like what you're thinking.

It's not one of those milk-based whey protein drinks. It has whey protein in it, but somehow, and I had to look this up because I was like, how is this possible?

It's transparent and it tastes like Gatorade. But it has 32 grams of protein in it. So they did something with the whey where it just isn't milky.

It doesn't have that powdery chocolatey kind of texture. It's a really good shift if you're sick of protein shakes or you already drink a shake, but you need another one. And the idea of drinking another shake makes you feel disgusting inside.

And I know that feeling well. It's also really a lot easier to drink during a workout. Because again, it's more like Gatorade than milk, which you don't want to bring to the gym.

Generally, it tastes good. Or I should say fine. Warm.

Unlike basically every other protein shake. Obviously, everything like this is better cold. It's got 32 grams of protein in there.

So it's as protein rich as even some of the best of shakes. I drink Core Power Elite, as I mentioned before. That's 42.

But that's heavy duty milk tasting stuff. It really is amazing. I found this when I was in Hong Kong because we were walking a ton.

And I wanted to try all the weird beverages. And I saw something that was called Pro T Plus. And I was like, what is this?

It's got 20 grams of protein, but it's tea. I don't understand how this works. They had a ton of varieties of it.

So I looked for it because I loved it. I looked for it on Amazon. And the only thing they had was this particular shake.

I've only tried the apple flavor so far. But I bought cases of it because I just think this is a really interesting new category of beverage that I had never seen before two weeks ago. It's really a great product.

We'll link to it in the show notes. They don't sponsor the show, as is the case with everything on the recommendation of the week. And that link, again, is in the show notes, which are always on the website for people who go, it's never in the show notes.

Yes, they are. That's just not the thing you click on your phone. It's on the website at jordanharbinger.com in the actual show notes.

All right. What's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 45-year-old man, and I've been married for almost 20 years and have four children.

I worked for a small family business since 2004 as a middle manager. My cousin and I grew the company from $1 million in revenue a year in 2005 to over $40 million in 2020.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, that's incredible.

Gabriel Mizrahi: As a warehouse manager, I was responsible for a team of a dozen people, which was stressful but also rewarding. In 2016, I realized I was overweight. Heart disease is also rampant in my family, so I started to go to the gym and get in good shape.

I cut about 40 pounds of fat and was able to accomplish a 4-3-2 lifting goal, i.e. 4-plate deadlift, 3-plate squat, 2-plate bench. This was a huge boon to my mental health. Life felt great.

Jordan Harbinger: Yolked. Amazing. Well done, man.

You've got to get that isopure stuff I'm talking about earlier.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Then I noticed a problem. Sometime in 2018, my wife came home late in the evening, and instead of going to greet her and give her hugs and affection, I just stayed in the kitchen and felt nothing. This was not me.

I sat and pondered this new feeling and felt an incredible dark spot in my mind, like a black hole that was gross, dark, and vile, and I got a sudden urge to start crying. Wow, intense. I've been told that this could be a sign of Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

I was now starting to forget names, birthdays, and special events that my wife told me about, and I just got that feeling like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. I have no memory of this place.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, your sense of humor's intact, so that's something. But yeah, this sounds pretty scary. A black hole, forgetting important stuff?

I mean, that's not good.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm going to admit that I will never win husband or father of the year. I'm also starting to lose my temper more easily and make compulsive and irrational decisions and purchases.

Jordan Harbinger: Huh. Interesting. So the symptoms are all over the place, so it's kind of hard to know what's going on here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But I've never turned to drugs or gambling. I keep plugging away at my gym, keep up the family and work routine, keep the inner demons at bay, and do my best to uplift others. Life is good.

It's not perfect, but I'm keeping it together. But deep inside, the cracks in my mind are getting worse. In the summer of 2020, the family business got sold to a global corporation, and I got laid off in 2024.

It absolutely devastated me.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, I'm sorry to hear that. That's obviously tough.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It was all I knew. I never experienced unemployment in my whole life. I did find a new warehouse job within two weeks for about the same pay, but I was only responsible for one person.

Me. Meanwhile, I'm having a harder and harder time remembering names, dates, new policies. Now I'm verbally fighting with my wife.

I'm starting to get mean. Then last year, just before my 44th birthday, I found out that I had an aortic aneurysm and a severe valve regurgitation in my heart. My aorta was three times its normal size and was going to rip at any moment.

This absolutely broke me to think that the gym time that kept me alive mentally almost killed me physically.

Jordan Harbinger: Damn. So was this caused by lifting super heavy? No, no, no, that can't be.

But it can be exacerbated by lifting super heavy. I would imagine.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I would assume so. I mean, I did a quick Google on this and heavy lifting and intense training can do this apparently, but he said his family has a history of heart disease. So I'm assuming that played a role.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, like it's probably the raw materials all there and you're like, let me try super hard and push really hard to lift super heavy stuff. And it's like, oh, we're not designed for that. You just made this a million times worse.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And he was much more overweight before.

Jordan Harbinger: So who knows how that played a role? That's a really good point. Oh, that sucks.

So he was just hitting it way too. I mean, a lot of this is just bad luck. Usually people find out about this stuff because they die suddenly on a basketball court or something.

So the lucky part is you found out about it in time to not die from it randomly while you're bench pressing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I underwent open heart surgery in September 2025 and got the aortic stem replaced as well as a mechanical heart valve. I then had a complication a week later when I got home that almost killed me for a second time and required a pacemaker to fix.

Jordan Harbinger: What a nightmare.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Sorry, man. I'm now back to work and working out, but at a much lower capacity. And now I have to do cardio.

Yuck.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's the worst thing I've heard all episode. I hate that for you. But I don't know.

Maybe it's good for you. I don't know. Everyone hates cardio except for the people that love it.

But those people are freaking weirdos.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And I'm finding that it's now much harder to remember things. I forget how to get to places. I don't remember important upcoming events like I used to.

And just last month, I lost it with my wife after being nagged about so many things I don't do right. I told her that I hated my marriage and went off on an angry rant. This isn't me.

I really don't like making others feel horrible, especially my wife. But I'm so quick to get mad. Most of the time now, I just don't feel anything.

To be clear, I'm not suicidal. Far from it. It just feels like the train of my identity is leaving.

And I'm trying to keep up so I can get on board before it takes off.

Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, that's an intense metaphor. Wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Is this depression? Is this early-onset dementia? Or does this just come with the territory of being in my mid-40s?

Most importantly, where do I go for help?

Signed, feeling drained like I'm circling the drain and wondering whose domain it is to suss out what's in my brain when I find myself complain, struggle with the mundane, and more and more struggle to retain.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, such an intense letter. Obviously, my heart goes out to you. You've been through a lot here.

Health problems, mental health challenges, marriage and family difficulties, a professional setback. Although it sounds like you roll with the punches pretty well. It's a lot.

So this goes without saying, we can't diagnose you, you know, medically or anything. It's impossible for us to know if this is depression or dementia or signs of a midlife transition. But these symptoms sound pretty specific and pretty intense.

They're clearly concerning to you, and they have been for a long time. Years, it sounds like. If I were in your shoes, I would book the following two appointments immediately.

One is with a neurologist. I would tell them what you've been experiencing, the irritability, the struggle to remember things, all these symptoms, see what they say. You might have to go to your GP first, probably a good idea because it might not be something for a neurologist, might be something for a neurologist and somebody else.

Anyway, they'll probably take a medical history, do some physical exams, order some cognitive tests, maybe order some scans, do lab work. If the neurologist and GP say, no indicators of dementia. Great.

Then you have a lot more confidence that these are symptoms related to mood, outlook, situation, health challenges, existential 40 something dude stuff. If there is something physical going on in the brain, your doctor can advise on next steps, probably medication and other lifestyle changes that will help slow the progression. But you'll cross that bridge when you get there.

This is crucial. Do not sleep on this, man. Reversing this stuff is really hard to do.

Pausing it is or slowing it is really kind of the game with a lot of this brain stuff. The second appointment I'd make is obviously with a therapist falling on the sword two weeks in a row.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Thank you for that.

Jordan Harbinger: Happy to do it. Even look, even if this turns out to be neurological, it sounds like you could really use a place to talk about all these changes in your life and the feelings and get more insight into your situation. This is just as important as seeing a neurologist.

In my view, you're in a lot of distress. Everything you've shared is a symptom worth investigating with a good professional.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Like you said, we can't diagnose this guy, the outbursts, the shifting mood, the struggle to remember things, especially how to get to places and major events in their lives and all that. Obviously, that would raise alarm bells for anybody. It could also be some other health thing besides dementia.

I don't want to speculate because there's no reason to freak him out unnecessarily. He just has to talk to a doctor or it could be some other injury, some other condition. But I also wonder if these could also be more garden variety symptoms of depression, dissociation, not being present and content with the structures of his life, whether it's his job or his marriage, maybe even this phase of life, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I suppose that that's true. Look, also, how's he sleeping? Because a lot of this could be explained by not sleeping or not sleeping well and all his other challenges and stresses might be making it hard to rest.

I mean, that's natural. It's just another possibility.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Like you said, it's also possible that he's smack dab in a kind of midlife crisis slash transition that is doing a real number on him. I think this period usually brings up a lot of stuff for people. You can also make things that were repressed or ignored for a But it's just really interesting.

In one part of his letter, he describes this extreme anger, right? But then in another part, he says, most of the time, I just don't feel anything.

Jordan Harbinger: Which does sound a lot like depression, but could also be him white knuckling it and dissociating a little bit.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm also curious about this whole black hole thing that was gross, dark and vile.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that is super intense. I've never heard dementia described that way. I mean, I could be wrong, but that just it sounds like maybe something else.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So what happened that night? His wife came home late, he said. And instead of going to greet her, he stayed in the kitchen and then he had the black hole moment.

He seems to be describing some kind of very old pain, which who knows, might be tied to something in his past. Maybe was triggered in the moment by his wife being away most of the evening. I don't know if that's a relevant detail, but it seems maybe the two are connected.

And when that thing is activated, it can easily become rage or terror, basically, is what I'm hearing. And if it is rage, it sounds like it's especially toward his wife. And so I agree.

I'm not entirely sure that I would go, oh, that's probably dementia because somebody said that could be dementia. But of course, it could be part of what's going on. But the fact that he got a sudden urge to start crying afterward, I don't know.

That to me suggests that there's some pain there, something very tender. And I feel for him. But in those moments, he might be in touch with something difficult to name or put words to, right?

And that's very significant. It might even be the key to all of this. Again, we just cannot know whether it's a midlife existential thing or something that goes back to childhood, whether it's a physical health problem or a mental health one or circumstantial, like losing his job or in some sense chemical.

There are just so many variables.

Jordan Harbinger: This could easily be more than one thing, like he might have dementia and have depression and be struggling with his mood after being laid off.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But I guess what I'm trying to get at is the fact that he's kind of chalking all of this up to something medical, neurological, like this thing in his brain that would be out of his control. That might be interesting in context. Our friend here is wrestling with a bunch of symptoms and a bunch of challenges, and he's going, I think it's dementia.

What do I do if it's dementia? Well, maybe it is dementia. There do seem to be some concerning memory things going on.

The loss of identity is concerning. But maybe chalking all of this up to dementia is also preventing him from really taking stock of what he is dealing with and how he got here. He might not want to really look at the stuff and dig into it.

So he's going, well, it's got to be medical. My hope is that a good therapist can help him start talking about some of this stuff. But he has to get a lot more curious about himself than he currently seems to be.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed. There's so much more here, even if he does have something neurological. And if there is something neurological, that's also going to affect his mood, outlook, relationships.

So the two are related. He can't afford to neglect this. That said, though, I do think it's somewhat encouraging that he's saying, hey, this isn't me.

I really don't like making people feel horrible, especially my wife.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, true. He's a decent person. You can hear that in his letter.

But I also wonder if that's entirely accurate. I mean, you could argue that these thoughts and feelings are him in the sense that, well, first of all, they're happening inside of him. So there's that.

But also they might reflect some legitimate feelings, unpleasant feelings, but legitimate ones about parts of his life that he is not happy with or relationships and responsibilities that are difficult for him. Sometimes I think any feeling, any symptom is usually a sign pointing to an area that we need to invest some time in and potentially make some changes. All of this might also be a response to the terror he feels about what is happening in his body, both with his heart and potentially his brain.

And all of that would make them very valuable indeed. So I hear him. He doesn't feel like a naturally angry person.

He doesn't like to be cruel. But I also wonder if by saying, well, this isn't me, he's denying some of these feelings or distancing himself from them. And if that might make it that much harder for him to invite them in and say, okay, this is going on for me too.

I don't like it, but these feelings are here and I need to take a look at them and see what they're trying to tell me.

Jordan Harbinger: It's a good point. There's a difference between saying I'm doing these things, but this isn't me. And I'm doing these things, but I don't want to be this kind of person.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Exactly. But the only way to not be this kind of person, if you don't want to be, is to become friendlier with the parts of you that are causing the shame and distress. I don't think there's another way.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally agree. And yeah, look, a lot of this can come with the territory of being in your mid forties. It's a massive transition that comes with a lot of change and a lot of feelings.

But I wouldn't say it just comes with the territory. So like, you know, it's nothing to worry about. I'm just in my forties.

I absolutely think you need to take these symptoms seriously and follow them to a neurologist or the therapist's stat. I would be very open with both of them about what you're experiencing, these conflicts and the moments you're finding yourself in, what concerns you and just listen to what they have to say. And then go from there.

I'm sorry for all the stress and uncertainty you've dealt with lately. I can only imagine how hard that's been, but I'm confident that with the right support, you can use all of this to learn and grow a ton and take good care of the people around you, including your wife. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best.

Don't forget to check out our episode with Sean Wisswesser on Russian intelligence services. Are they corrupt buffoons or super spies or a little bit of both? And our Skeppy Sonny on food deserts, if you haven't done so yet.

Show notes and transcripts are on the website at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, discounts, ways to support the show also on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe 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, and I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show.

Remember, we rise by lifting others, share the show with those you love. And 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.

You'd never obey a stranger who called you and told you to commit a crime, right? Javier Leyva uncovers how ordinary, intelligent people were manipulated by fake authority into doing the unthinkable, and why the certainty that you'd never fall for it could make you the perfect target.

Jase Sanderson: This is the con. Because I interview a lot of con artists, what they do is they overwhelm you. They raise your sense of urgency, which now you're bypassing all your common sense.

Things that would normally make sense to us, we're not even thinking about that, right? Because we're like in a state of alarm. We're hardwired to trust people.

People obey because we're taught to respect authority. I found case after case of people impersonating ICE agents and doing all kinds of stuff. Not just rape or violent crime, extortion, like all kinds of stuff.

And I was like, you know what? You could go to a Bass Pro Shop and buy your ICE uniform, right? And you could pull off whatever you want because people respect authority.

People are afraid of authority, and they will most likely do what you say. And you might fall for it. This is just the tip of the iceberg, man.

When somebody causes a sense of urgency and you bypass your logic, just slow it down. Pause it. Give yourself some time to think.

Because when you're acting out of fear, you're making bad decisions. And I think just doing that will save you a lot of grief. This stuff is insane and it's probably the most extreme examples.

But I think that you just have that in the back of your mind that some people are looking to take advantage of you. And just have a healthy dose of skepticism.

Jordan Harbinger: Find out how to recognize the trap before your judgment and your life unravels on episode 1330 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.