1095: Ali Abdaal | The Hidden Economics of Creative Success Part One

1095: Ali Abdaal | The Hidden Economics of Creative Success Part One

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life. And those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional neuroscientists, four star general or music mogul.

If you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, and I always appreciate it when you do that, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime, and cults and more.

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today. Actually, another interview with me from my friend Ali Abdal. This was quite involved. A lot of you. I wasn't originally gonna air this in the feed because I didn't even think about it, but a bunch of you saw this on YouTube.

And then said, Hey, this is so good. How come you don't share this on your own podcast? So here we are. We talk about imposter syndrome, building relationships, financial freedom and values, prioritizing happiness, balancing career and family, the role of money in parenting and really prioritizing things like experiences and children.

It's really kind of a lifestyle ish episode. Goes into a bit more of my values and, and of course Ali sharing his values as well on this topic. So I thought, look, all of you who wrote in said you really enjoyed it, so I thought I would put it in the feed and I hope y'all enjoyed as well. Now here we go with me and Ali Abdal.

[00:01:37] Ali Abdaal: Who was Dave and how did Dave have an impact on your life?

[00:01:39] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, Dave. Yeah, so Dave was the, was a partner at my old law firm. So I used to be an attorney, just like you used to be a doctor. We've, good thing we did all that schooling, huh? Yeah, that was, that was nice. Those student loans are fun. And I was at one point just like fumbling through, figuring that they were gonna fire me at any point working at this law firm.

Because I had imposter syndrome, but back then I didn't know what that was. Right? I didn't think that everybody thought they were gonna get found out as a fraud and fired from every first job that they had or every school they went to. And it turns out that's something that high performers deal with all the time.

And I am not saying I was a high performer. In fact, I really thought I was at the bottom of the barrel, barely got into law school, was not in the, you know, those bars on websites that show like this is what our average scores are. I was like the bottom of that or below that, right? So that's not a great way to start law school or medical school.

You just go, oh, I'm like below the average person that gets in here, not a good feeling. So when I got to the law firm after graduating law school, Dave was never in the office. And I thought, okay, if I also figure out how to never be in the office, they won't find out that I'm secretly a moron and fire me.

I can work from home and it'll take them longer to find out that I'm a total fraud and shouldn't be, have ever been hired in the first place, by which time I may have figured out how to do this job and be useful enough that they won't fire me. It still sort of makes sense when I put it like that. Yeah, I hope so.

Dave was also supposed to be my mentor, which is basically at that point a checkbox on a form that human resources makes them sign. So other people's mentors were like, let's go out for drinks once a week and talk about your career. And again, Dave is never in the office, so I, HR is like, how is your mentorship going?

And I'm like, I don't even, I've never seen the guy. I saw him one time and so they, I think they made him come into the office, which he loved by the way. And take me to coffee at Starbucks in the basement of our building. Meanwhile, other, like I said, other people are going out for drinks, they're going to the steakhouse, they're gonna see Blue Man Group, like they have a real relationship with their so-called mentor and I don't.

And Dave's like, ask me anything you want. And he is typing away on his Blackberry. Like, sure, ask me anything kid. And I'm like, how come you're never in the office? But people say that you're one of the highest paid partners. And he is like, wait, people are saying I'm never in the office. So now I'm like, cool.

I'm definitely getting fired now because I stepped in it at a Starbucks in the basement of this office building. Well, he wasn't thrilled with that, but he didn't shoot the messenger and he told me, well, I'm usually out generating business for this law firm. Being in the office is, it's a waste of my time.

Billing hours is kind of a waste of my time. Yes, I need to do it, but I just oversee projects. So I was like, are you working from home? He's like, yes and no. My job is to go play racquetball or squash with clients that, or people that might become clients, cycle with those people. Do juujitsu with those people, play golf with those people, go on fancy dinners with those people and he is like.

Then I bring in business and he goes, candidly, if I bill 2000 hours a year, which is a ton, that's not every hour you work, that's just like billable hours to clients. You're working 4,000 hours to to get that done, which is a ton. You get a bonus of, I can't remember, it was like X percent. If you bring in a new client, you get a percentage of the total billing and it might only be 5%, but what if you bring in a $2 million client?

So you bring in a couple of those, or $10 million client or 20 million. So you bring in a couple of those, your compensation's massive. So he was just focused on that. And a lot of the guys that were like workhorse lawyers who would keep their heads down all the time, they made bonus. And they were in the office on Sundays and Dave was never in the office and he made more money than those guys.

So I was like, whoa, I've accidentally stumbled onto the cheat code. And I thought, why doesn't every lawyer do this? And I started asking the other partners and they were like. Man, you know, some people are relationship people and other people aren't, and I thought that's definitely not really true. They just didn't want to do it because it was kind of scary or they weren't that great socially, or they found that keeping their head down and being a workhorse was easier.

But I think that's because overachievers who go to law school are naturally disciplined heads down kind of people. So if you get out of that situation and, and you can be a salesman also, you just have disproportionate rewards. But if you just stay in your habit of grinding all the time, you end up a workforce lawyer.

Nothing wrong with that. However, in 2008, when the economic downturn hits, everybody gets forced outta this firm. The firm closes 140 year old law firm, closes. Dave goes to another law firm 'cause he's got all the clients. He's got a whole book of business. They hire him right away. Maybe the dude even got a raise.

The other workhorse lawyers, nobody really wants those guys. There's no work anymore in real estate finance at that point in time. They worked for a firm that's no longer around every other partner views them as competition because they essentially are, except for Dave who brings in more business. So I thought, okay, not only is this true inside the legal realm, this relationship thing is like an insurance policy.

So I tripled down on that right

[00:06:52] Ali Abdaal: away. This reminds me of something I've been hearing a lot recently around entrepreneurship in that like having a job is where you're being trained to do the work, but being an entrepreneur, really the value add is in winning the work. Mm-hmm. This sort of distinction between winning the work and doing the work.

Up until a few weeks ago, I hadn't quite had it clear in my head that those are two very different things that require two very different skill sets and really school and the education system and everything trains us to do the work. Whereas really the value is, is added in these like law partners. Yeah.

And consulting partners in actually winning the work. How do you bring in new business?

[00:07:26] Jordan Harbinger: I agree with that a hundred percent. I mean, you and I are in a, a slightly different kind of field, right? 'cause we're creating things. So you can probably stretch into that if you, if you think about it, but a lot of CEO type people are great at making decisions and they're managing people and they have great ideas.

We have to kind of do some of that, but also I can never, at least me, I can never run my business. I can't automate myself or do it because I'm having conversations. It's a podcast, right? It it, you can't automate like this part of your business. It's not possible yet. And so I do agree though I think school clearly has failed most of us in that way, especially in the United States.

I don't know if you know this, but school in the United States is generally, it was designed for like an agricultural revolution back in the day, and now it's industrial revolution where it's like the bell rings, it's sort of factory assembly line. Everybody do the same thing. Lowest common denominator is where the work line is.

So if you're intelligent and you're in a public school or a regular school in the United States, it's very hard for teachers to serve you. Because they have to catch everyone. And that is a terrible way to create innovative thinkers, for

[00:08:38] Ali Abdaal: example. Yeah. It was broadly the same in in medical school as well.

Like I went to a fancy medical school. Mm-hmm. And even then, most of my friends and me, we taught ourselves using the internet. Because even in the, in the university system, the people who lecture, they're not lecturers because they're good at lecturing, they're lecturers because they have good research output and lecturing is their side hustle that they happen to have to do to tick a box and keep the paycheck for research coming in.

'cause really they care about the research. Whereas the dude on YouTube, if you just fricking loves making YouTube videos about physiology. Wow. How incredibly useful is that? Whether or not they've got like a research background

[00:09:13] Jordan Harbinger: That is definitely the same in the United States. You'll get somebody who, I remember taking a math class, I'm not good at math.

I'm never going to be good at math and I don't care. But thank God now, but in college I took calculus and the person who taught calculus was a German guy with a really strong accent. Nobody knew what was going on. There were kids that were so good at it, they could just do these crazy math problems in their head and they were like, this is so stupid and easy.

Then there were people like me who are like, I don't get it. And you'd go talk to that teacher and he would just be like, it's so hard for me to explain this. I'm like, it's literally your job to explain this man. I'm like, try it in German. 'cause I had spent an exchange here in Germany, so I'm having this guy tell me in German and he is like, oh, I'm so glad I can tell you this in German.

And I'm thinking, holy crap. The requirement to understand the teacher is knowledge of a foreign language. This is the University of Michigan, man. I should be able to take this class and understand it. And he's like, he was very candid because he was German and he is like, look, I'm here because I'm doing research with this well-known professor.

They're making me do this. It sucks. And I thought, hmm, really glad I'm paying $40,000 a year to learn from somebody who resents the fact that they even have to teach.

[00:10:22] Ali Abdaal: Okay. So final tangent before we go back to the law story. You mentioned. Every high performer goes like suffers from imposter syndrome.

[00:10:28] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:10:28] Ali Abdaal: Can you elaborate on that, what you mean by

[00:10:30] Jordan Harbinger: that? Yeah, I can. So imposter syndrome is essentially thinking I'm a fraud. Everybody else is better than me, who's around me at this particular time. So low performers are average people, like if you talk about this concept at a high school, they won't know what you are talking about because teenagers are young and they haven't really hit this yet.

And also it's just a high school. So they're like, whatever, I don't have this problem. When you go to a place like Harvard or Apple or an Ivy League school or an advanced law school or a medical school, when they do sort of hand raised polls, how many of you think I don't belong here? Maybe it's only a matter of time until somebody finds me out.

You'll see like 95% of the hands go up. How can that be true? How can 95% of these people think there was a mistake made in the admission of this person? And it's because a lot of high performers, they're grinding really hard. They feel people breathing on their heels right behind them at all times.

They've always been that way. That's why they have excelled. That's why they were the valedictorian of their high school, right? They just felt someone's right behind me. The truth is, maybe there was one person right behind them and everybody else was not paying attention or was way behind them and couldn't even see them at that point.

But these people always feel a fire lit under their butt. So when they all get into one room, they're like, oh crap. Everybody is intelligent and hardworking. I'm not special anymore. And that heat is hot. That's hot. That is really hot. So then you're looking around and you're like, oh, I thought I was kind of hot, hot ish because I was valedictorian and president of this and the chess club and on the football team.

Then you get there and someone's like, I was all that and I speak five languages and my dad was a diplomat and I spent years in various countries and I also founded this organization. And you're just like, oh crap, I'm, I'm a big fat nobody. So you have that imposter syndrome, and of course, that guy who grew up all around the world speaking five languages and yada yada, somebody else next to him, they're a child star from a television show.

So they're like, oh, look at them. They were on full house, you know, or whatever. So everyone feels that weird sense of lacking, and it's unhealthy because what it does is it can cause some people to check out and put so much pressure on themselves that they become depressed. The problem is you don't really outgrow it.

Let's say you feel that in medical school. Well, when you get to the hospital, then what? Oh, that doctor has a decade of experience. This person's been here longer. Wow. This person has so many other advantages over me. I, I don't know much about the medical industry, but in law it's just like that too. You, you feel like, oh, finally I got through law school.

You get hired at a firm that takes the top 10% of law schools great. Now I'm at the bottom again. Right? So it's just never ending. Yeah. And you end up feeling that imposter syndrome for years and years and years and years. It's just, you're basically your own worst critic.

[00:13:10] Ali Abdaal: Yeah. What do you do about it?

[00:13:11] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, what do you do about it? The first step is always awareness. Right? Okay. Everybody feels this way, and if they say they don't, there's a really statistically good chance that they're lying about that. And if you drink enough whiskey with enough lawyers, you'll find out that everybody kind of thought, holy crap, I didn't even think I was gonna pass the bar exam.

How did I get hired here? Right? It's only a matter of time and everyone has that. So when you realize that that's a universal feeling, it makes it a hell of a lot easier. And as you gain experience and you realize that everybody is winging it, and you start to specialize in your area, it starts to go away gradually as you build professional competency in whatever you are doing.

I wouldn't say it goes away. Entirely for a lot of people. I mean, I'm 44. That ship sailed a long time ago. For me, however, I've been in podcasting for 17 years. A lot of people, it's new, right? And they'll go, oh, I'm never gonna be able to do this. And I'm like, I remember thinking that exact same thing. So as you build real skills and you get actual real life feedback on something, you realize you're not faking it.

Right? If you're a doctor for a decade and people are like, you saved my son's life, eventually you start to think, maybe I do know what I'm doing. I did take out that kidney and that person survived. You know, there's a lot of objective feedback that says you're doing it right, but it takes a long time.

[00:14:28] Ali Abdaal: It does.

Yeah. Like I've been doing YouTube now for seven years and teaching for way longer than that. And still, you know, as you were saying that, I was thinking, I still often have that feeling even in the world of YouTube, where my channel is fairly big in the personal development world. Yes. Massive. Yeah. But it's like, oh damn, that these new kids, that 21-year-old living in New York, ah, the vlog style is just so good.

Oh man. Right on my heels and it's like, I didn't consciously think of that, but it's still that same feeling of like, oh shit. Mm-hmm There's some sort of race here and I've gotta keep on grinding to stay even vaguely in the running because who knows, like whenever, you know, the algorithm or whatever or like people might just realize that I don't, I actually dunno what I'm talking about.

And they might realize that shit after seven years and 800 videos, that's when he's run

[00:15:09] Jordan Harbinger: out of things to talk about, right? He's uh, he's done, he's cooked. That's that comparison is also that sort of pure fuel on the fire for imposter syndrome. The comparison thing off almost never ends. However, once you start gaining professional competency in something, you start comparing yourself a little bit more.

Fairly un, unless of course this has just gone wild in your head, in which case it's helpful to like literally talk to a therapist. But the comparison is so much easier now, especially when there are metrics. Like you can look at someone's engagement or YouTube subscribers and you can go objectively, that person's doing better than me.

In that particular area, but you don't really know what's going on in their life. I do this with podcasts. I still do it with podcasting. I'll go, man, how does that person have so many reviews? Maybe I'm not getting an, ooh, does that mean my engagement is lower? Well, how is that person's engagement so high?

Let me figure out what they're doing. And sometimes they're doing something really cool and innovative, like asking for reviews in a certain way, or their social media is really taking off. But other times, and I always have to remember this lesson, you know those guys that DM you and they're like, do you want new subscribers for your whatever?

What I started doing is I started saying, can you show me proof of results? And what some of these brilliant individuals will do is send you screenshots of them talking with another popular podcaster. And they're like, this is, look, I've worked with this guy for years. And I'm like, so what you're telling me is this popular show is buying downloads from you, A dude in Bangladesh who runs a click farm.

And I'm like, oh, I spent a lot of time feeling pretty bad about how I was doing in comparison to that person. And they are cheating. Not everybody who's doing better than you is cheating, but some people are, you know, and it's important to sort of remember, I've seen plenty of people who aren't cheating and they're doing really well with something.

And again, you meet that person in real life, you put a couple whiskeys in 'em and they have a chat and you realize, oh, they're a complete workaholic. I would not want their life. This is not just cope. There's something I've learned from, I think Ryan Holiday and I, I, I should really pinpoint where I picked this up.

If you want to trade something about your life with someone else, you really kind of have to trade your whole life with that person. You can't just be like, I want to be as successful as Tom Brady in this area and as successful as Barack Obama in that area, and as successful as LeBron James in this area.

Like it's total. That's ridiculous because nobody is, all those people put together. Even the people that you just mentioned who are world class, why are you doing this to yourself? So if you are willing to trade one area of your life, look at this guy. He's got 15 million subscribers and I only have 5.6 or whatever it was this morning when I checked your channel.

You have to be willing to trade your life. Say goodbye to your beautiful fiancee. Can't I have that? You gotta be this guy over here who all they do is live, eat, and breathe YouTube. Is that what you want for yourself? Probably not. This person still grinds hardcore like they've, like it's day one, why they're miserable secretly or not secretly do you want that person's life?

Because if you do, you'll get those 15 million subscribers. But at the cost of your sanity and the fact that you have work-life balance, there's a reason people achieve certain things. It's because they have their, their whole life is geared towards those things.

[00:18:24] Ali Abdaal: You've interviewed a lot of high performer type people in your podcast.

Mm-hmm. Have you found many examples of, because I guess when someone's being interviewed on a podcast, usually it's once they're already successful. Yeah. And then they'll say, work-life balance is the most important thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But usually like what I interview them, I find that like, okay, well there was a huge period of grind at the start and maybe they were very imbalanced in their 20% or whatever the thing might be.

Is that broadly the pattern you found as well?

[00:18:47] Jordan Harbinger: It is. So you find varying levels of delusion and or self-awareness among these people. I don't mean all successful people are delusional. Hear me out here. The person who says you need work-life balance, to your point, often had absolutely no work-life balance whatsoever through their twenties and likely their thirties.

And the cold truth is, if you look at statistics, I think Scott Galloway, who you may or may not know, he goes through this, I think he's the one who told me this, you should not seek work-life balance in your twenties and probably your thirties. If you want to be financially successful and at the top of your game in your forties and fifties, it's just not realistic.

There's nothing wrong with seeking work-life balance in those early years. That's great. Live a good lifestyle. You will not have the same career results. As the person who worked 60, 80 hour work weeks at the law firm. That person will become a partner. You will either be transitioned out or you'll hate it enough to where you transition yourself out.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it is a choice. It's delusional to think for most industries. Again, if you're an entrepreneur, maybe it's literally impossible. If you're a wall streeter or a surgeon, maybe it's impossible For most careers, there may be a varying degree of what you can get away with and do.

But for a lot of high performing careers, no, you're not gonna have work-life balance in your twenties and thirties. You're just going to grind really hard, sacrifice a lot. Maybe go out on the weekends sometimes, but maybe not. And then you are going to be wildly successful in your forties and fifties because of what you put in early in the game.

Another sort of trope that I hear a lot that I think is nonsense, as people will say, follow your passion. None of those successful people barring maybe a few artists and creators have followed their passion. Again, Scott Galloway, I think is is one who said, the person who told you to follow your passion made billions of dollars in iron smelting, and that could not be more accurate.

I hear these guys say, follow your passion and And I don't think they are lying. I think they think that's what happened. I don't wanna throw anyone under the bus. I've heard billionaires say, follow your passion. That's a great commencement speech. They didn't do that. Or their passion was sleeping on a floor while they started a clothing company.

Was that all passion? That's debatable. Hmm. It's debatable whether that's all passion. They made billions of dollars in clothing, or they made billions of dollars in a tech thing and then in investing, maybe they were passionate about that. You have to ask yourself if you are passionate about that. The answer is usually no.

[00:21:10] Ali Abdaal: Yeah. I've been, uh, over the weekend I went on a binge of podcasts that Scott Galloway's been on and Oh yeah. That was like, I'd heard his name, but I hadn't really heard any of his stuff until like two days ago, and then it turns out he lives in London, so he does, I wanna get him on the PO at some point.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about this followed passion point. One thing that, for example, the philosopher Alan Watts would say is when kids ask him, what should I do with my career and stuff, he asked the question, well, what would you like to do if money were no object? And then waits for their answer and then says, okay, well, so go and do that thing.

Yeah. The thing that you would do if you weren't being paid for it, or if, if you had a hundred million in, in the bank. Maybe the thing that you wanna do with your career mm-hmm. As well, which sort of overlaps with the advice of follow your passion to an extent. I wonder what's your take on that?

[00:21:50] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, so I'm completely okay with that.

Here's the kind of cold truth according to me, so take it or leave it. You can follow your passion and you will probably be happier than somebody who just gets a lucrative career. You probably will, but you can't expect to follow your passion and also have a lucrative career. Not impossible. I certainly followed mine into podcasting and creating audio and it's a very lucrative career.

I am really freaking lucky that that worked out. I was early to market and podcasting. It's been 17 years. Like I said, this is how early I was when I was interviewing authors and, and deconstructing like high performers and talking about that stuff with Tim Ferriss. He hadn't written his book yet. No one was interviewing successful people and talking about what they did.

That was a novel concept. Now, if you say, I'm starting a podcast and I'm gonna talk to successful people and break down what they do, people are like, oh, really cool. We need another one of those. Right? It's just like ridiculous at this point. My show's evolved over time, obviously, but it was novel back then.

That's how early in the game this was, and I expected to take a massive pay cut from being a lawyer. I was a Wall Street finance attorney. That was one of the best sort of banky jobs that you could get. I remember the conversation with myself saying, am I comfortable making like 30% maybe if I'm lucky of what I was making on Wall Street and just loving what I do.

And then I had to budget and see if I could afford it and talk to my parents and see what that was like. And they were like. You can still live a decent ish lifestyle if your wife has a good job as well and blah, blah, blah. Now of course I make in two weeks what I thought I was gonna make in a year, but that's largely due to luck and timing and that's not a strategy that anybody should seek to replicate.

[00:23:33] Ali Abdaal: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I like that way thinking about it. I often also arrive at this crossroads between essentially money and passion. Mm-hmm. Where, you know, for example, this podcast is no longer a podcast that we're taking that seriously from a monetization perspective. 'cause I decided, well, you know, I started off being one of those podcasts that was de uh, that was uh, trying to deconstruct successful people, et cetera, et cetera.

I then sort of, as the podcast grew, we sort of over optimized it. So we'd have batch filming days and we'd get people in and authors be promoting Turns your hobby into a job. Yeah. Sucks. Exactly. Sucks. And it was like the sponsor revenue's going up and stuff, and I'm like, why am I doing this again? And then a few months ago, I came to the realization that when it comes to certain areas of my life, including the podcast.

I'm actually totally comfortable with leaving money on the table. Yeah. In return for following my curiosity, IE, you're in town and so let's just do a pod in the middle of the day. Got another friend who's in town from Miami this evening, so we're gonna do a pod and just have some dinner and maybe the conversation's too niche for it to go viral or whatever, but I don't really care because it's just a cool conversation that I would've wanted to have anyway.

[00:24:34] Jordan Harbinger: I appreciate that. And two, I, I agree with that turning. It's funny 'cause in my notes to talk with you about, I had turning your hobby into a job. I almost always think that is a mistake because, and again with podcasting, I happen to be really, really interested in it and love the conversational element.

You can tell there are a lot of podcasters that really, they're not that curious. They just want a lucrative business and they are really good at social media or something like that. That's fine. That works for them, but it's definitely working. You can tell. For me, it doesn't feel like work, which is so fortunate and lucky, but I don't, again, I do not think that's a strategy most people can replicate.

I think a lot of people rush to turn their hobby into a job, and they ruin it. They ruin it. If you love painting, the last thing you should do is try to make a living, being a painter, sell your paintings all you want. Once you quit your day job and you have to paint and they have to sell, and you have to market them, you are gonna enjoy 10% of that job.

There's a lot of bad advice out there. Again, I won't throw anyone under the bus, but you see these influencer guys being like, go all in. Quit your day job, and then you ha, you know, burn the ships, and then you have to have your business succeed. That is a terrible piece of advice because what happens is you then have to do whatever it takes to quote unquote succeed.

But what that usually means is pay your rent. Now you have to either cut corners, maybe do some sheisty sales stuff, sell a product that's not ready. There's absolutely no reason to burn the ships and go all in. If you're starting a business, and I'm wondering if you kicked off this way when you were a doctor, if you're starting a business, you should outsource everything possible that you cannot do yourself.

And then, and only then, once your time is the bottleneck on the business, should you even think about resigning your actual day job. What I see is a lot of folks that they quit their day job and then they're like, okay, I guess I gotta do social media now. And they spend all their time tweeting and doing, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Someone else could have made all you're editing these little videos. What are you doing? You're spending three hours editing TikTok videos. You can outsource that crap into, you could have kept your job designing semiconductors that paid you $400,000 a year. Hmm, no. Now you're struggling to make $40,000 a year selling sheets on the internet.

What did you do that for? You are listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. This is me with Ali Abdal. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Shopify. You know all those household names? Hinz Mattel. Allbirds. It's tempting to think their success is just about having amazing products, but the truth is, it's not just about what they sell, it's about how they scale.

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[00:29:32] Ali Abdaal: When you've got a day job and then you're having to side hustle the business in the evenings, it sort of forces you to only do a high value things.

Yes. And it forces you to cut corners on things that you, it's okay to cut corners on. Like, for example, making YouTube videos, it's like, well, you could always put more hours of editing into a YouTube video, but if you literally have a day job where it takes an hour to commute, to work and pack, and you've got the evening, maybe like an hour in the evening to edit and you wanna do a video a week.

That means you've only got a few hours to edit that video, assuming you can't outsource it, which is something that took me way too long to do. Oh, yeah. Well, and two years into it, join club, when I outsourced, it was like, oh my God, this is incredible. Yeah. And I find that, you know, when people ask for advice around the quit job thing, I'm always like, no.

If you are going to succeed in business, then you should find a way to succeed in a business as a part-time gig. And then, yeah, I agree with you. When your time becomes the actual bottleneck and now the value of your time working on the business is actually worth more than the value of your time working at your semiconductor job or your doctor job at that point.

Okay. Let's think about cutting down the hours I. Most employees are okay with you going part-time. 'cause they'd rather keep you if you're actually good. And then once we've got a very, very, very comfortable business going along at that point, cool. Let's think about quitting the job. Yeah. But I also don't like this advice of like, quit the job.

Go all in. Well, I dunno, in some, in some cases, if you're like, I know 22 fresh out of uni, you know, taking a bit of a gap year to have a go, assuming you've got, you can live with your parents for, for a year or something like that. Mm-hmm. Sure. Why not? But I think especially if you have rent and you have bills and stuff, yeah.

It's very, very stressful to rely on a fledgling business.

[00:30:56] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It doesn't make, to make that money, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Look, startups or something like that. Totally different case. You're then, you're getting investors, they're essentially paying you to live or you're living in the couch in the office.

That's a very San Francisco type thing, but you're not. Quitting your day job, you're just going all in on a really piss poor slash unpaid startup. That's a different scenario. You see these influencer guys being like, quit your day job and go all in. So you get a guy who's a waiter and is making enough to survive and then is, I don't know, let's say flipping something on the side, e-commerce.

Then they quit the server job. Okay? So now you're just gonna have to imagine what to do with those extra hours. You're working a ton, but you're still getting basically the same results outta your e-commerce thing. So you're not getting enough to survive your stress as hell. Your back is against the wall.

Some people need that motivation. That's unsustainable though. So if you need that level of motivation to just work on your business, is that the right business for you? I don't know about that. I think if you're gonna run away from your day job, you should be running to something like, I can't wait to edit my YouTube video after work.

'cause oh, I have so many great ideas for my next video. I love this podcasting thing. I can't wait to do that. I love this. I wish I could do this all day, every day, but I've gotta go to this job. That's what you should be running to. What most people do is they are running from something. I hate my boss, he's terrible.

He makes my life miserable. I hate my job. It makes me feel insignificant. So then they start a business, that's their escape hatch. So they can't wait to flip that shit open and dive through there. Right. They're running away from something that is not a good idea.

[00:32:29] Ali Abdaal: Hmm. Nice. Okay, so let's get back to Dave.

Yeah, sure. So you realize that Dave's making all this money, he's never in the office and he's bringing in the work. Rather than doing the work, how does that realization change the way you approach your career?

[00:32:43] Jordan Harbinger: So I start realizing that bringing in business is a relationship game. And it's not like a hardcore, I, I literally at that time thought, huh, I guess people don't find lawyers by just looking in the phone book and looking up law firms and hiring them.

Of course they don't. These are super high trust deals. An investment banker gives the deal to his roommate from law school because that's how it works. They can't afford to have this screwed up. They know the guy's really smart. They can trust the guy, they can call him at home if they need to. They're not gonna trust this to some random schmo.

This is a multimillion dollar deal or or more that's gonna go on for years at a time. So you have to build those relationships. And I remember asking Dave, so how do you build those relationships? And he was like, just be cool man. It'll all be fine. And I was like, let me tell you something, if just be cool was actionable advice.

Do you think I would've become a lawyer in the first place? Lawyers are known for a lot of things being cool. Not one of those things. Okay? So this guy was not giving me something that I could really use. He was really just giving me platitudes and the more people I asked for their networking, a relationship advice, the more platitudes I got.

I even took Dale Carnegie courses and stuff like that 'cause I was like, these guys have it figured out. And a lot of that was principles that were useful, like be interested in other people. But if you are not getting a job or a deal or whatever it is, it's not because you didn't look 'em in the eye and have a firm handshake.

It's because they liked and trusted someone else more than you. Like and trust stuff that's not built off of like, oh, he looked me in the eye and he gave me a firm handshake. Mm-hmm. That's getting a minimum wage job at a supermarket and the owner takes a chance on you. 'cause he looked me in the eye and he had a firm handshake.

Nice kid. That Ali, right? That's that. No one's giving you a million dollar deal because of your handshake. Yeah. So you have to do more than that. And so even these Dale Carnegie courses where they're teaching you like the memory palace, to remember that some guy's kid played tennis. Those people come across really fake and you just can't actually fake being interested in somebody.

It doesn't work very well. At least I'm terrible at it. It's hard to do. I have to actually be interested in somebody. So the quickest way I found to develop relationships is to help other people without the attachment to getting anything in return. And it's scalable and it's very tough to do that over time because most people want something and you have to help other people thinking this person may never be able to help me with anything ever.

And that I just have to be okay with that. And I'm not talking about. Designing websites for free, for everybody who asks. I'm talking about making introductions to other people who can help them. That's the only way this is scalable. So let's say that you're like, Hey, I want some interesting podcast guests when I come to California.

I don't have to book those guests for you, but what I would do is introduce you to people that live near me in, in the cities where you're going, that I think are interesting. That I think would also say yes to doing your podcast. And I can just do that kind of thing, right? And I can do that for somebody who's looking for a job in a field.

I might know somebody who runs a business in that area and I can ask them for advice. Or I could say, would you hire this person as an intern? They're actually pretty cool if I can vouch for them. Right. I do that kind of stuff every single day. It's usually done by email. The difference is what I hear from and, and I thought, this is not rocket science, but what I hear from other folks when I give this advice is they'll go, yeah, I know people have asked me for this, but I just kind of never responded.

I'm thinking, what a missed opportunity this is. But yeah, but I'm really busy and I get a lot of email. I believe you. However, I'm pretty sure that you don't get more email than I do. It is not a contest, but you and I get a lot of email. I'm sure I will help any random person that reaches out to me if I can with advice or with an introduction, and that has earned a crap load of social capital and goodwill.

Those people I normally assume will never actually be able to do anything for me in return. Mm-hmm. However, I'm wrong at least 1% of the time. And that 1% of the time turns out to be kind of a big deal. I helped somebody the other day with something completely insignificant in my opinion, and he goes, let me know if you ever need a guess for your podcast.

I thought he was talking about himself. I was like, thanks, I appreciate that. And he's like, yeah, 'cause I'm working with a-list celebrity on a project. And I was like, really? Uh, that person would be amazing. And he goes, oh yeah, I'm literally seeing him tomorrow. I bet you he would do your podcast. I'm gonna ask him.

[00:37:01] Ali Abdaal: Hmm.

[00:37:02] Jordan Harbinger: And that blew my mind because this person was asking me to introduce them to my web designer, so I earned my web designer a referral. He was very stoked. Yeah. And this guy was like, thank you. I've gone through five web guys and the first three ripped me off and the other two did a crap job. I'm like, oh, you're gonna be taken care of.

Now I might get this really, really interesting guy for my podcast because he has a good relationship with him. I had no idea that he had that relationship. That is not why I helped him. So when you help a hundred people, if 99% of them never do anything for you, but you're helping them in a scalable way, you are kicking ass.

You get the short end of the stick, 99 out of a hundred times, collect all those short sticks.

[00:37:42] Ali Abdaal: How did you apply this in your day job back when you were a lawyer?

[00:37:46] Jordan Harbinger: I tried. It was quite difficult. But what I did was I realized going to those like meetups where you drive across town and you're like, lawyers, happy hour, that was a nonsense way to do this.

It's all a lot of takers at networking events because they go to network. Most people, again, only build relationships. The the phrase I've stolen is dig the well before you're thirsty.

[00:38:05] Clip: Hmm.

[00:38:05] Jordan Harbinger: Usually people don't do that. They are dying of thirst before they decide to network. And what that means is they go up to you and ask you for a job and if you can't help them, they move on to the next person or whatever they ask you for something.

You don't meet good connections or network or build relationships at networking events most of the time. So what I started doing was applying the help other people without the attachment of anything in return. And how I applied that during my very short-lived legal career was when people were asking me how my law firm job was, I was brutally honest with them, the positives and the negatives.

I asked other lawyers in the firm for their advice or opinions on things people were asking me who were still in law school or other lawyers who were thinking about joining our firm. I arranged groups of people to meet up and go out that were maybe thinking about switching jobs. And I just facilitated those nights of drinks where we would walk all, go hang out, and just turn turned out to be just like a clique of dudes that liked each other and a few women.

And I helped people who were moving to New York regardless of what industry they were in. Because when I first, this is sort of probably a problem that doesn't exist anymore with the internet and all the websites that are out there, but back then. You could look on Craigslist and maybe find an apartment that wasn't a scam, but most people didn't know where any of the neighborhoods were, how quick it they needed to move around the city, none of that.

So I sort of translated a lot of those things and said, you're working on Wall Street, don't live above whatever, 14th Street, 'cause it's gonna be a pain in the ass during rush hour and yada. And I would say, these are the neighborhoods you should be looking and here's the abbreviation for those neighborhoods that you'll find on Craigslist.

And I just continued, I, in fact, I still do that. When I moved to LA I still did that. I got a call from a friend who grew up with my next door neighbor when I was in law school and he, he's like, yes, so-and-so said I could call you. I helped him move to LA and years later. I ran into him. He goes, Jordan, I was like, do I know you?

He goes, yeah, you helped me move out here. I said, oh, right. I remember that call. He's like, I'll never forget how much you helped me when I moved out here. And I said, so what do you do here? And he is like, I'm in charge of booking all these studios. And I said, really? And he is like, yeah, anytime you need a studio, I will make sure you get one.

And you're never, you're not gonna pay for it. Yeah. I'm always gonna comp it. And that wasn't something I could have planned. Mm. Right. And it's really easy to do this stuff. This is not a massive time investment per person. Somebody sends me a text. What is UWS again? Upper West Side. Oh, thank you. Don't go there.

It's too far from where your office is. Oh, okay. Good to know. Hey, this person says this. That sounds like a scam. Don't bring them into cash. You're gonna get mugged. Okay, thanks. I mean, that's what I was doing.

[00:40:38] Ali Abdaal: Yeah,

[00:40:39] Jordan Harbinger: you could do that a hundred times a week and it's no skin off your nose.

[00:40:41] Ali Abdaal: That's very cool.

Have you come across a book called The Go Giver?

[00:40:45] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Is that Bob Berg?

[00:40:46] Ali Abdaal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah, it's amazing. On audio, if anyone's not listened to it or read it, would a hundred percent recommend. I've been on like three road trips with friends where we were like, what audiobook should we listen to?

And three times I've suggested this and everyone was just absolutely blown away. Yeah. 'cause it's whole thesis is that like if you give stuff and help people without the expectation of something in return, crucially, all of the good things will happen.

[00:41:08] Jordan Harbinger: So it's funny, the reason I said give without the attachment to getting something in return is because I used to say give without the expectation of getting something in return, and I was having dinner with Bob Bergen.

He goes, well, the attachment is better because Expecta, and he had this whole reason. So I just switched to saying attachment, because you can expect something in return, but if you're not attached and you don't get anything, it's fine. But if you are attached to getting something in return, now you're keeping score.

And I don't know how philosophical you want to get on this, but if I drive you to the airport and then I drive you to the airport, again, I'm a good friend. But if I drive you to the airport a bunch of times and then I ask you to drive me, and you go, Hey dude, I can't. I've got a podcast and I can't help you with this one.

If I'm attached to getting something in return, I'm like, I'll leave such a selfish prick, man. I've driven that guy to the airport three times. I asked him once and he's got a podcast. Suddenly he can't do it. He doesn't feel good. So now I've poisoned the, well, I'm mad at you. You have no idea why. Because it's unreasonable.

There's a covert contract, right? In my mind, I decided you owed me that. That's not really a good way to have to go through life, but you can expect that at some point you'll drive me to the airport or do, or maybe you pick up dinner once or something like that. Yeah. And hey, we're good. So you don't wanna start keeping score.

That's one of the big no-nos of. Any sort of relationship

[00:42:26] Ali Abdaal: in your life. Yeah. Someone might be thinking, well, people are just gonna take advantage of me then Do, do. Yes. I don't wanna be a doormat.

[00:42:33] Jordan Harbinger: Right. I agree with that. I think if somebody is asking a lot of you and they're not entertaining any requests from your end, there's a good chance that they're taking advantage of you.

The only way to know that is over time, you should definitely not drive somebody to the airport and then they don't pick up your calls and never hang out with you or do anything for you unless they need something and they call you these people out themselves eventually, because you never hear from them unless they need something from you.

There's a lot of people like that in the world. Some of 'em are very selfish, others are just unaware. You get to decide what your boundary is, but it's not always that person's taking advantage of me. Sometimes people are just self-centered. You get to decide what you will tolerate. Of course, there are reasonable limits.

But again, you get to decide what those are. I hate to prescribe something like if you drive somebody to the airport three times and they never drive you, they're not your real friend. Eh, I wouldn't go that far. I. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show. It's me with Ali Abdal today. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Audible Audible's.

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Now for the rest of part one with me and Ali Abdal,

[00:45:52] Ali Abdaal: one thing that I have often gotten a lot of value out of is A, and being the organizer of things in the sense that, you know how you are organizing these kinda meetups and things. Yeah. I found that like everyone kind of wants to hang out, but everyone is really bad at organizing things.

And so if I can be the one to organize the things, then great. You know, that's like a, yeah, a value add to the, it is to the people, bringing people together and stuff. And the other one is sort of having a low threshold for having random coffees with people, which has become a lot harder over time. But even then sometimes I'll see a coffee on my calendar and think,

[00:46:26] Clip: Ugh,

[00:46:26] Ali Abdaal: the ROI of this is like, oh, the time value, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I could be working on X, Y, Z. But then I think no, like it's actually useful to have some amount of time carved out for things that don't actually have a clear, immediately obvious. ROII wholeheartedly

[00:46:40] Jordan Harbinger: agree. That's what I'm doing here in London. By the way, there's something called the podcast show that's going on right now, and I'm giving a talk or two there.

However, I've carved out the whole week. I've got interviews and stuff like this one. However, if someone's like breakfast tomorrow, I'm not like I. What company is this person at? Do I wanna spend that time? What else could I be? I'm like, yes, right? Because I'm saying no to the random coffee that's next week when I'm off, when I'm hanging out with my family.

So I carve out time to do that. It's almost always at events because those, there's people from Spotify and Apple and other companies in town, but there's also people that are working for companies I've never heard of that might be doing something. And I will spend time with all of those people all week long.

It will be exhausting and fun. And then I don't feel bad about saying no. When they ask me in a month. I say, no, I'll catch you at podcast movement in Washington DC in August. What's your take on hopping on random Zoom calls with people? I don't do that. Well, actually that's an overstatement. I usually don't do that.

Uh, there has to be a certain bar that gets met. If you introduced me to somebody and they were like, let's chat, I would say yes. If somebody emails me cold and is like, I would like to get to know you, let's hop on a Zoom. I will probably say no. And the reason is. Because they haven't told me what this thing is about.

Even if they were like, I really need to learn about this and you're the only person who can teach me, then I would probably say yes. Hmm, yeah. But if they just seem to have passing curiosity, that is not enough for me to justify that kind of thing. But if they wrote to me and they said, I know you can't do zooms, but I, I don't understand how this works and you're one of the only people who can explain it, I'll probably send them a message back and explain it.

So I try to accomplish that without just saying yes to every sort of random request.

[00:48:24] Clip: Yeah.

[00:48:25] Ali Abdaal: Yeah. This is something that I've, I'm trying to figure out the balance of, because I guess over time my willingness to help someone who has not done the work. Yes. It really is start like plummets. Yes. Like if someone messages me and they're like, Hey, I'm on a hundred thousand subscribers.

I'm really struggling with like scaling my team. You know, I know you talk about this. Can we hang out sometime? I'm like, dude or gal, like, hit me up anytime you're in London, let's grab a coffee. Let's go for a walk around the park. Uhhuh, I'll give you hours and hours of my time because. If someone's like, Hey, I'm brand new YouTuber and I've made three videos, I wouldn't even respond to the email.

I wouldn't even see the email because it's just, there was almost a bar of

[00:49:01] Jordan Harbinger: like a proof of work kind of idea. I agree with you. I agree with you. People will say, what are some, and these are well-meaning people, so I'm not trying to be a dick. They'll say, what are your, some of your tips on starting a podcast?

And I tell them the truth, which is, I am the worst person to ask about a launch because I launched my show 17 years ago and then I started a new one seven years ago on the back of that one when I was already well known in the space. I am the last person. You should ask for advice on how to launch when you don't have that done.

But you're right. If somebody goes, Hey, I'm getting this many downloads and I'm wondering how you do X, Y, Z, then I, yeah, I understand that there's not many people that can do that. Here's a, a hack and feel free to take it. What I do now is I offer consulting to anyone who asks. That money goes to charity.

So what happens is you have to put down your, that's $1,000 an hour. That's, yeah, you have to pay me a thousand dollars an hour. However, that money's not going to me. So I'm not a selfish jerk for asking you for a thousand dollars an hour, that money's gonna go build a school in freaking Africa or whatever I choose to do with the cash.

You cannot write it off though. It's going to me. I am using it for what I want later on. It's charitable, but I'm using it for the charity that I want. So then when my friend says, Hey, can you buy a table at the Charity Gala for children with leukemia? I go, here's $8,000. And I don't have to think about it because I earned that money consulting.

What this does is everybody who is like, your value is zero, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, and I'm probably never gonna take your advice. That person is never going to pay you a thousand dollars an hour. And if. You've wasted your time, but at least you made a thousand dollars an hour. Mm. They're never gonna do it.

I likewise will do any podcast that anybody asks me to do. I won't evaluate if it's big or small. I just say, here is the charity honorarium that I require. If you pay me this, I will go on your show. I don't care if it's the first episode and you never air it because you have paid for my time. And I donate that money to charity and I That's really good.

It's a bar that you can cross with money. That's a really easy thing. I don't have to spend any time evaluating this.

[00:51:06] Ali Abdaal: My thing for podcast requests is I would love to be your 51st episode. Yeah. Which cuts out 99% of people. Right. 'cause they never make and well yeah. 'cause they make it's 51 episodes. And so, so sometimes I get, I get emails three years later being like, Hey, three years ago I DMed you on Instagram back when you were a student.

Yeah. And you said you'd be my 50. And I'm like, okay, fine. Yeah, fine. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, you've done the work. Good thing

[00:51:24] Jordan Harbinger: you saved the email. Yeah. So that's a great bar as well. And I, I totally agree with that. I used to do that same thing. Now I'm like, there'll be people who pay for consulting time and I'm shocked when they use the advice that I give them.

I'm impressed, I should say, but I'm, I'm very surprised there's other people who pay for consulting time and never use it. But again, I don't have to worry about that now. I can ask anybody for that. I can help anybody that I want because if it's that important, well, they know how to make it happen. But again, you, you don't feel like a jerk because you're not just using the money to like buy a new iPad or whatever.

[00:51:58] Ali Abdaal: How do you keep track of your, I look at my WhatsApp and it's like freaking hundreds of unreads and I feel really bad because like, no

[00:52:05] Jordan Harbinger: wonder I stood

[00:52:06] Ali Abdaal: outside for, or my iMessage even worse because it's not like synced with text.com. So my system can't see the iMessages or like emails and it's just like, wait.

[00:52:13] Jordan Harbinger: Synced with text.com? What's this? Oh, texts.com.

[00:52:16] Ali Abdaal: Yeah. What is this? Oh, it's an app that like, it's like superhuman, but for your messages. No need do that. So it brings together WhatsApp, iMessage, Twitter, Instagram, you can, whichever ones I, oh my God. And you can delegate access to that to an assistant. So my assistant looks through my WhatsApps and flags up anything that's like time sensitive, it's game changing.

[00:52:32] Jordan Harbinger: I need

[00:52:33] Ali Abdaal: this so good. Yeah, I'll send you an invite. Yeah, please. Because I'm, I've never heard of this.

[00:52:37] Jordan Harbinger: That's amazing. Um, but how, how, I have 18 inboxes.

[00:52:39] Ali Abdaal: How do you keep track of things? Do you have like a work number and a personal number? How do you do it?

[00:52:43] Jordan Harbinger: So basically nobody has my nu well you have my number, but basically nobody has my number.

They have my wife's number. Mm-hmm. Which is a little bit weird now that I say it out loud. Um, but, uh, she works with me and she screens a lot of this stuff and, and helps keep it private. Honestly, I dedicate about 40 minutes per day to communicating just with show fans. So that's email, Instagram, dms, LinkedIn messaging, and I just do that myself.

And then when that timer is up, I am done. And it depends if I'm slow, I'll often just use this counter app on my phone that's like a ticker and I'll go, all right, I'm gonna do 20 LinkedIn messages each day. And if I, once I hit 20, I don't care if there's a hundred more in there. I'm doing 20 a day and I do 30 fan mail messages and I take those down and there's 200.

In there that are for later, I'm a month and a half behind on fan mail. Oh, well most people ignore their fan mail anyway, so people can wait a month. That's just how it works. But I'm getting back to them in a systemized way. Sometimes if I'm just like bored to tears in an airplane lounge and the book I'm reading is not doing it for me, I'll be like, you know, I gotta burn off some nervous energy and I'll just plow through like 80 fan mail messages and it's, it feels good and it gets done.

I realize I'm never gonna chip this Mount Everest down to zero. 'cause it's always refilling, like you're just bailing buckets of water out. But it's not hopeless either because it's enjoyable. Yeah. So if you give yourself a finite goal, then it's fine because you're getting back to people in a systematic way.

It's not just building up and building anxiety. I dunno about you. You get anxiety. You're like, I've got 75 unreads now. This is making me feel awful. I just go, I don't, it doesn't matter how many you are in there. A thousand or a hundred or 10, all the same system, away this much every single day.

[00:54:29] Ali Abdaal: And what about keeping in touch with like friends and family and people who do have your real number who are messaging you?

Like do you carve out admin time to look through messages each day or are you always on your phone or, yeah. How does that work?

[00:54:38] Jordan Harbinger: I'm not always on my phone. No. But like most people in our line of work probably do. I silence my phone and then at the end of the day when my kids are coming, my wife goes, I'm going to pick up the kids from school.

And that's like five 30 or something like that. I go, okay, I wrap up whatever I'm doing on the computer and I go to my phone and unleash the beast, unleash the torrent of incoming texts and stuff that was silenced all day. And I just reply to everyone. It doesn't take that long. I don't have that many people that like me, Ali.

It's really, yeah.

[00:55:09] Ali Abdaal: Beverly. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Um, so what was the transition from law to not having a real job?

[00:55:16] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Abrupt man. What happened was I in law school, started the podcast. When I got to New York, I kept doing the podcast and a friend of mine was supposed to go and do a guest spot on Sirius XM Satellite radio, but he was driving in from Virginia and he's like, I can't make it.

It's the traffic. Something happened, it's gonna be like five hours. Mm-hmm. And I need to be there in three. So he called the show that he was supposed to be on and said, I can't make it. You should interview these guys. They're really good. And they were like, well, we're screwed. We don't have a guest. So they invited us to go to Times Square.

I did a guest appearance on that show. The station manager happened to be Air checking the show, which means listening at the time. This is why I say a lot of stuff comes down to luck.

[00:55:54] Ali Abdaal: Yeah.

[00:55:55] Jordan Harbinger: He was really blown away by the novel things that we like of what we're talking about now, which 15 years ago were quite, or more than that, almost 20 years ago, were novel concepts.

And he's like, that was so interesting. And I said, I have this crappy podcast. Do you know what a podcast is? He's like, actually, I've heard of those. So I gave him a. Cheapo business card that I probably printed up on an inkjet. And I said, here's our show, check it out. And I followed up like 4 billion times.

'cause he was terrible with email. Uh, he, it was actually vision impaired, which is why he wasn't created email, but I didn't have his phone number. So finally he got back to me and he is like, I checked out your show. We're building new talent for the network. Do you want to have your own radio show on satellite?

And I was like, uh, yeah, that sounds amazing. He's like, the pay is garbage and time slot is gonna be, you know, not primetime. So I ended up doing a satellite radio show. So I was moonlighting with law and radio. That was when it was like, one of these things is really lighting me up. And the other thing is sort of drudgery and scary and not interesting.

So when the economy tanked in two that, well, it was before the economy tanked when the banks started to close, those were major clients of the law firm that I worked at. And they said. So there's not gonna be any work for a while. It's February by May. Well all this will be fine and we'll be back to business as usual.

That obviously didn't happen. More banks started to close and then they said, Hey everyone, we hired 63 of you we're probably gonna have to let go of most of you. Does anybody want to go? We'll give you the rest of the year. So like nine months at that point, full salary and benefits, but you're gonna have to find another job.

And before they even finish that sentence, my hand was up. And meanwhile my friends were like crying, right? Yeah. They were like, oh my God, my life is over. And I was like, nine months salary and benefits. Holy smokes. Where do I sign? Can I get it today? And they were like, yeah, you don't even have to come back.

And I was like, this is absolutely amazing. They're like, you can use the office for anything you want for your job hunt. You can use your computer, you can use the printers, the copy machines. So I was like, so let me get this straight. I've got an office in World Financial number two that I can do anything I want with, and you're gonna give me like a hundred thousand dollars for doing jack shit.

And I have health insurance, which is like, you know. In America, you kind of need that. And I thought, no way is it gonna take me nine whole months to get my show and business off the ground. By the way, that was delusional, but it took me like years plus that nine months, but whatever. I lived like a college student, so I used that money.

I paid off my student loans, which having no debt equals freedom, especially in the United States. And I just lived frugally and I took that savings and I just dripped that for years and years and years. It was abrupt and it was, was it traumatizing? No. For other people it was, and it was all because I had something that I was running to, even though I had gotten my butt kicked right on the way out.

Like, don't let the door hit you in the ass, but also here's a hundred grand. Can't really beat that. So it was a, an abrupt transition and it could have been traumatizing, but since I had this iron in the fire of something that I really loved. I was excited about it.

[00:58:59] Ali Abdaal: And you still enjoy podcasting 17 years later?

[00:59:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I do.

[00:59:02] Ali Abdaal: How do you keep it fun for

[00:59:03] Jordan Harbinger: yourself? This is gonna sound remarkably simplistic, but I follow my own interest. Let me qualify that when I see YouTubers and you, you, you know way more about this than I do. When I see YouTubers. I've got a few friends who are big YouTubers like yourself. They'll tell me things like, I have to talk about this because this is what gets views.

And at first they didn't mind that. I've got a friend who's a great journalist. He started a channel and he's really good at what he does. And then he did a video about, I think Scientology and it got a lot of views. And then he did another video about Scientology and it got a lot of views. And then he did a video about Tom Cruise in Scientology, and it got a lot of views.

Then he did a video about something else, and it was dead. And he went, oh, I need to do videos about Scientology. Mm. But I really am getting sick of this topic. Maybe I'll do a video about other celebrity related stuff. So he was like, well, I'm British. Let me talk about Harry and Meghan. And it got a lot of views.

So he did another one about Harry and Meghan, and he got a lot of views. And I remember the text where he goes, I absolutely wanna ram my head through the wall knowing I have to do another video about Harry and Meghan. And he goes, but I'm also making like 10 times more money than I was doing this other thing that I really enjoyed.

Mm. So with podcasting, there is no algorithm that you have to please. So I'll do a show with a guy who steals tanker ships back from dictators that commande the ship in a port. And then the next episode is an episode with Ray Dalio about investing. And then the next episode is a dissident from China.

And then the next episode is a celebrity that I'm interested in or I've created that I'm interested in. And since it's a podcast, an audio podcast, primarily people just see it in their feed and they download it and they listen YouTube, they don't even see that crap if they haven't clicked on the last one.

Right? So like my most popular video is a guy named Mosab Hasan Yusef, who actually Caesar Milam the dog was the most popular, but Mosab is anti Hamas. His father was one of the founders of Hamas, and he talk speaks out against Hamas. That video got like 1.5 million views. The next podcast I did was with an an an Israeli who is anti-Zionist, that did really well on my podcast feed.

Guess how it did on YouTube? Not so good because I had this massively like Zionist audience listening to the anti Hamas guy. Yeah. And the guy who was like pro-Palestine. Well, that didn't jive well with the last viewers of the last video, so it was my most disliked video. My YouTube team goes, wow. I've actually never seen this ratio of dislikes this quick.

And they were like, I guess because you can't do this and then run it into this next thing with podcasting, I was getting like emails like so interesting how you had the anti Haus guy and then you had the pro guy write one after the other. What a cool variety of viewpoints. Really interesting dichotomy on YouTube.

It was just like the algorithm just went, I don't know what to do with you. You're not gonna create something that I understand. Go into the closet and never be seen or heard from again. It's very frustrating. You have to create for this invisible God, the algorithm, and if you do it wrong, you're screwed.

[01:02:16] Ali Abdaal: So then you also would've had this choice between follow my curiosity versus follow the dollars. Yes. How do you navigate that?

[01:02:23] Jordan Harbinger: So I only follow my curiosity and I don't worry about the dollars at all, but this is a privileged position to be in. Because if you have a small podcast and you follow your curiosity, you better hope other people are curious about the same things.

Mm. If you have a big podcast, then you can be rest assured that a decent sized percentage of your audience is also curious enough about that same thing, or you've built enough trust with them that they will indulge you on something that looks like they might not be interested in it. And I get emails to that effect all the time.

Jordan, I did not think that ship Guy was gonna be interesting. I did not think that that such and such guy was gonna be interesting. But you've surprised me over and over throughout the years I've been listening to your show and oh my God, that guy was so interesting. YouTube, you don't get that luxury at all, most of the time anyway.

Mm-hmm. At least in my experience, again, you know way more about this and my sponsors don't get to choose what kind of episode they go in either, so I don't have to worry. Podcasting discoverability is hot garbage, right? If you have a new show, like no one's gonna surface it unless you sign up with Spotify and they like you and they put you in everybody's device, you're screwed.

Otherwise, that's also a blessing because what it means is there's no algorithm to favor you or disfavor you. So you can create whatever you want. And if your listeners listen to it, you make a living. And if they don't, they don't. On YouTube, I thought naively, oh, they subscribe, so they'll see all my stuff.

That's maybe how it worked like 10 years ago. But now if they don't engage, it's over. So you end up making Harry and Meghan videos and hating your job. You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with a top sleep expert about why we dream, what happens when we sleep, and why chronic lack of sleep and driving while tired is more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol.

[01:04:13] Clip: Sleep is not an optional lifestyle. Luxury sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. Sleep is a life support system. It is Mother nature's best effort, yet at immortality. And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is now having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, as well as the safety and the education of our children.

It is a silent sleep loss epidemic, and I would contend that it is fast becoming the greatest public health challenge that we now face in the 21st century. The evidence is very clear that when we delay school, start times, academic grades, increase behavioral problems, decrease. Truancy rates decrease.

Psychological and psychiatric issues decrease. But what we also found, which we didn't expect in those studies, is the life expectancy of students increased. So if our goal as educators truly is to educate and not risk lives in the process, then we are failing our children in the most spectacular manner with this incessant model of early school start times.

And by the way, 7:30 AM for a teenager is the equivalent for an adult waking up at four 30 or three 30 in the morning. If you are trying to survive or regularly getting five hours of sleep or less, you have a 65% risk of dying at any moment in time. When you wake up the next day, you have a revised mind wide web of associations, a new associative network, a rebooted iOS that is capable of divining.

Remarkable insights into previously impenetrable problems, and it's the reason that you have never been told to stay awake on a problem. Instead, you're told to sleep on a problem

[01:05:59] Jordan Harbinger: For more on sleep, including why we dream and how we can increase the quality of our sleep. Check out episode 1 26 with Dr.

Matthew Walker on the Jordan Harbinger Show. All right. That's the end of part one, part two coming in just a few days. If it's not already out yet, everything we mentioned that's linkable will be linked in the show notes over@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals.

Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, we call it wee bit wiser. The idea is every Wednesday we give you something specific and practical that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions and your psychology, your relationships. In under two minutes. It's not a long read, and if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out.

It is a great companion to the show. Jordan harbinger.com/news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six Minute Networking as well over@sixminutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with Podcast one.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

So if you know somebody who's interested in balancing a little bit of their lifestyle with their money and figuring out how to be happy instead of just grinding all the time, definitely share this episode with 'em. 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.