1300: As a Cop You’re No Stranger to Pal’s DV Danger | Feedback Friday

1300: As a Cop You're No Stranger to Pal's DV Danger | Feedback Friday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the spooky amulet, helping me ward off your nefarious existential ghouls while we get to the inner sanctum of your most pressing life conundrum, Gabriel Mizrahi. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

And 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, national security advisors, extreme athletes, cold case homicide investigators. This week we had Matthew Tye, AKA C-Milk, host of The China Show.

We talked about China, the Chinese internet censorship there on, and the secret language that the Chinese use on that internet to talk about political topics. On Fridays though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, and generally turns some of your lives around while.

Driving others of you to write page long [00:01:00] negative reviews because we let you down in one very specific and borderline bizarre way.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, that's podcasting, baby.

Jordan Harbinger: All in the game. Yo, before we dive in today, a listener wrote in with an interesting correction on a a somewhat recent episode, so I wanted to quickly share that with you guys.

This one is especially interesting if you're tech geopolitics nerd like me, Gabe, you want to read that for us?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm a professional in the semiconductor industry and I just listened to your episode with Chris Miller. That's episode 919, which is a great resource for anyone interested in the details on chips.

You guys talk directly about Taiwan's dominance in the industry and China's struggle. I loved his book and the interview just as much a really good rundown for both layman and enthusiasts. I just wanted to offer a correction. Dr. Cole stated that most chips are made in China. This isn't quite the case unless one considers Taiwan as China,

Jordan Harbinger: not me, but I hear you.

I think he, he probably just misspoke, but that is a good correction.

Gabriel Mizrahi: A chip is a piece of processed silicon that is packaged. This packaged chip is then integrated into the rest of the electronics of the device, [00:02:00] which is then connected to all the other components. Then it's all housed together in plastic, metal, et cetera, to give the final form factor.

Electronics are often made in China, but this refers to the final manufacturing. Let's consider an electronic kids toy. A company like Fisher Price designs it likely in the US and sources all the components. These are either from purchasing off the shelf or contracting a manufacturer. This includes all components, chips, plastic housing, PCB, board screws, et cetera.

The final assembly into the plastic is often done in China, but the components will be sourced globally for chips. Most will be manufactured in Taiwan, mostly by TSMC. TSMC has 35% of the total chip manufacturing market globally. No Chinese company is above 5% of the market share. This includes all chips produced for so-called fabs companies, meaning companies that design microchips, but contract out their production to a company like TSMC rather than owning their own factory like Nvidia, A MD, Broadcom, et cetera, [00:03:00] and integrated device manufacturers.

These are companies that design and manufacture chips in-house like Intel, Texas Instruments and Samsung. So it's clear that most chips come from Taiwan, followed by the us, Korea, and Japan. The security hazard is still the same for PRC, made electronics, they can, and with 99.999% certainty do modify these devices to spy and gather data, but it's not at the chip level, it's the electronics as a whole, if that makes sense.

If you're interested in TSMC's history, Acquired podcast did a great two and a half hour episode about it, and we're going to link to that in the show notes. The founder of Morris Chang was surprisingly not Taiwanese. He was actually Chinese and escaped Mao by immigrating to America and eventually leading divisions at Texas Instruments in its heyday.

He didn't become CEO there, so he took up Taiwan's offer to build his vision for TSMC. There. Great episode as always, and thanks for bringing attention to this [00:04:00] issue.

Jordan Harbinger: Great. Well, thank you for sharing all this. I think that's cool and helpful when we get stuff like this. I just, I like to pass this stuff along because obviously it's impossible to fact check everything a guest says, especially in real time.

And I like to be as accurate as much as possible, so I appreciate when y'all chime in, especially if you happen to know a lot about a certain space like our friend here. But I also wanted to share this because these semiconductors, they're turning out to be such a cornerstone of modern geopolitics, not just the economy and our relationship with China specifically, which we talk about on the show quite a bit.

I mean, these chips sit inside AI data centers, precision weapons systems, satellites, EVs, the supply chains around them are strategic vulnerabilities, especially when it comes to Taiwan. A lot of what the US is doing is trying to limit China's access to cutting edge chips. So semiconductors are now a huge economic weapon.

That's also driving a lot of onshoring of manufacturing and whoever controls computing power controls AI and AI capability means military, economic, and informational power. So it's just an incredibly important and fascinating topic, and I want to be accurate about it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You know, what's [00:05:00] simultaneously smaller and more controversial than a semiconductor?

Jordan Harbinger: Let me guess the first thing outta the mailbag.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's actually the wreck of the week. But yeah, we can I see. Start with the first thing outta the mailbag. Let's do that.

Jordan Harbinger: Let's do it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, over the past couple of months, I've been supporting a close friend who's been experiencing ongoing conflict and concerning behavior at home from her spouse.

From what she shared and from what I've personally witnessed, he often deflects responsibility, becomes verbally aggressive during arguments, and has punched holes in walls, or made threatening comments. Despite this, he insists his behavior is not violent toward her.

Jordan Harbinger: How fun and how Not terrifying or stressful this must be for you.

Geez, guys like this are just, it's a time bomb.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's always weird to me when people punch holes in their own walls. It's like, you know, this is your house, right? Dude? Like, like you're, mm-hmm. You understand? You're the one who's going to have to be on Angie's List later tonight, like hiring a contractor to patch that thing up.

Jordan Harbinger: For real. Yeah. Break a plate. Go to the batting cage. It's just cheaper. It's just good at economics

Gabriel Mizrahi: to create [00:06:00] some distance and feel safer. My friend has occasionally stayed at our house or spent more time with us, however, she recently told me that she's considering reconciling with him.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh boy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This has created tension between my husband and me.

I told them that if they do reconcile, I'm not comfortable having her spouse in our home for gatherings or social events due to safety concerns. My husband feels I should set my personal feelings aside to support my friend and worries that setting this boundary could damage the friendship,

Jordan Harbinger: not to jump the gun, but I think it depends on what it means to support a friend.

If a friend is about to do something reckless and that thing also impacts you and you go along with it, is that really supporting them? I'm not so sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Great point. And if drawing a line damages the friendship, is that maybe a fair price to pay for protecting yourself from a potential maniac?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I would say probably, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Complicating things further, my husband is still frustrated about a different friendship. I ended earlier this year after repeated toxic behavior during my bachelorette party. This ended a close friendship between [00:07:00] him and that female friend's husband.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. So he's going, Hey, we're not going to have any friends if you keep cutting people off who do stuff you don't like

Gabriel Mizrahi: making your spouse stay friends with somebody toxic or dangerous, assuming this other friend she's talking about was toxic.

Just so you can like keep grabbing drinks and playing basketball with her husband.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Love that. It's kind of absurd. And also you can still be friends with somebody if the spouse is, I mean, it's not that hard. Like the girls don't hang out anymore. Who cares? Let's play ball. You know, the end.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think a lot of couples do care.

Jordan Harbinger: They do. Like I'm sure they clearly they do. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Apparently. For additional context, all four of us are police officers, and we know firsthand that domestic violence within law enforcement often goes unreported until situations escalate.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Okay. Interesting layer to all this. So that might explain some things.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You would think that police officers would be more sensitive to domestic violence given the things they probably see on the job, but I guess that's not the case.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Right. But maybe the husband is protecting this friend's husband and maybe he knows what the guy's going through [00:08:00] and I don't know.

Doesn't think he's actually dangerous. Maybe he doesn't want things to be weird at the station. I don't know. Gabe, I wonder what the incidence of domestic violence in the law enforcement world is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, so I just looked into this actually, and it does seem to be higher than in the general population.

Jordan Harbinger: That doesn't surprise me.

Unfortunately.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The thing is the numbers vary a lot 'cause the data is not systematically collected. Research is limited, blah, blah, blah. Some of these studies define violence broadly. Some narrowly, some ask for like self-reported data, so obviously that's going to skew the results. But

Jordan Harbinger: sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: A lot of studies cite this estimate of 20 to 40% of law enforcement families and significant others experience domestic violence compared to 10% in the general population.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Some people make a good case that the 40% number is wildly inaccurate, but others are like, no, that's probably true, especially because some of these studies now define abuse more broadly. They include, for example, coercive control as a form of abuse, whereas older studies didn't do that.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. So before it's like you had to hit somebody and now [00:09:00] it's like no.

Exactly. You're not letting them have money and do things and call people is also abusive. Got it. Okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Precisely.

Jordan Harbinger: That might be the right thing to do. That's how this stuff often starts.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There's another study that found that the rate in law enforcement was 28% versus 16% for the general population. Another one of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, and that one indicated that domestic violence is 24 times more common among police families than American families in general.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. So it's either twice as bad or 24 times as bad, depending on which study you choose to believe. That's,

Gabriel Mizrahi: it's hard to know

Jordan Harbinger: that is

Gabriel Mizrahi: dark. I think they all seem to share the view that it happens at a higher rate.

Jordan Harbinger: There's a stereotype, at least when I was growing up in my part of the country that cops beat their wives.

It, I feel, it feels kinda like a 1970s, eighties trope. But maybe not entirely unfounded given what we just learned anyway, carry on.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I genuinely want to support my friend, but I also want to maintain firm boundaries to protect my home and my own peace of mind. Should I prioritize supporting my [00:10:00] friend by allowing her spouse into our social circle if they reconcile?

Or is it reasonable to set a clear boundary that he is not welcome in my home? Signed a woman in blue trying to break through to a friend on a dangerous avenue. Am I making much ado or do I need to renew my efforts to protect myself before real violence ensues?

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, you don't want a violent armed man in your house.

How unreasonable.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, like what's going to happen if this guy has a few drinks and gets angry or he escalates from this? Is he, you know, if it comes over to their house, he's going to flip a table, start yelling at the other guest, brandish his weapon. I mean, you don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: I mean, I don't know. I it something tells me that since these guys actually do know better, they're often on their normal behavior until they get behind closed doors.

But you can't guarantee that. And also what happens when she's like, yeah, he punched me in the face and I'm meant tell everyone I fell, but you know the truth and now they're both in your living room. Like that's just weird and dangerous. Anyway. First of all, I don't think you're crazy whatsoever to be concerned about this guy.

And I'm sorry you're in this position. It's awful to be close with somebody who's going through this [00:11:00] kind of thing at home. I understand it could be a lot worse. I understand he might just be like a hothead or whatever, but that doesn't mean this is not concerning, and it doesn't mean it couldn't easily escalate into something more.

If you're punching holes in the walls and becoming verbally aggressive and not taking any accountability for that, there's obviously something wrong and you need to figure it out.

Gabriel Mizrahi: To your point, the fact that he's a police officer does make this even more concerning. Yeah, because first of all, he must have a weapon and he has more training and because generally you don't want somebody with a temper and poor impulse control patrolling the streets, that's just a recipe for disaster.

Jordan Harbinger: No, this person is a liability. But I would not be surprised if a lot of cops wrestle with similar demons and who knows, maybe the job is activating a lot of this stuff. We all know that job can be super intense and it's dangerous. So as I said a moment ago, I think we needed to find what supporting a friend in a situation like this actually means.

If your friend is going, I've made up my mind. I'm reconciling with him. Yeah, I think you probably have to accept that, or at least accept that she wants to, but you can still say, okay, I [00:12:00] hear you, that you want to reconcile with him if that's what you feel is right. I can let you make what you feel is the best decision for yourself, but before you do, as your close friend who's seen, you go through this cycle a few times now I want to do my best to make sure that you're safe.

I want to understand how you're making that decision. So talk to me. Are you and your husband talking about this stuff? How have those conversations gone? Is he doing anything to address the anger and the violence? What's making you want to work on things? What's making it hard to leave? Catch me up here. My hope is that you can get her to really reflect on this decision, share what she's going through, see her situation as clearly as possible.

If you can be a loving and concerned, but safe and nonjudgmental space for her to talk through all this, that'd be great. That's what I call true support.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think a crucial piece of information is what he is doing to work on himself. If anything, I mean, if this woman is getting back together with her husband and he's done absolutely nothing to change, like she moved out and he's just the same person, then I would say, what makes you think things are going to be safer this time?

And if she's like, oh, I don't know. He just [00:13:00] promised he'll never do that again, and he's begging me to give him another chance, then I would probably say, look, I'm very worried about you. I can't say I'm on board with this. I'm not hearing that anything meaningful has changed here. As your friend, I want you to really think about what you're walking back into

Jordan Harbinger: and if he is in therapy or some other program,

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, I guess it would depend on how committed to it he is.

You know, how long has he been at it? Is her friend seeing any changes in him? If so, I guess that's encouraging. Maybe then there's cause for some cautious optimism or at least openness.

Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, by the way, I meant to tell you this the other day I went to REI, 'cause I needed like a Garmin GPS device for my trip.

Mm-hmm. That works with satellites and the whole parking lot was roped off and Jen's like, oh, that there's two helicopters overhead. I wondered why they were overhead from far away. They're over here. And then we saw a news van and I walk into R Re n I'm like, what's up with all the cops? There's like 10 squad cars here more.

And he is like, I don't know, something's going on. Well, we found out that a couple was arguing in their car and [00:14:00] one of them pulled out a gun and shot the other one and then shot themselves. Oh my God. Jesus Christ. There was essentially like a double, I don't know if a murder suicide, oh my God. In the parking lot at REI in our area

Gabriel Mizrahi: that's so dark.

Jordan Harbinger: I bring this up because this stuff happens with civilians all the time. Why wouldn't it happen with cops as well that are also armed all the time and have a higher incidence of this? And you know, I don't have the details on this couple, but who knows? Has this been going on for years and everybody knew about it?

Or was it, oh, it's just fine. He punches holes in the walls. Like you just don't know like this, when it escalates, it's not always slow escalation. Sometimes it goes zero to a hundred or 10 to a hundred as the case may be.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Good point. Yeah. That's terrifying.

Jordan Harbinger: But so I also think she, the friend, I mean, she needs some support too.

Is she in therapy? Is she in a support group of some kind, or is she just naively walking back into this relationship with no support or perspective?

Gabriel Mizrahi: If neither of them is doing any real work on this, then I think it's fair for our friend to say, I can see that you want to give [00:15:00] this another shot. I'm sure you have your reasons.

I'm happy to talk them out with you and yeah, I cannot stop you, but like I said, I'm very concerned. I have seen you come over to my house because you wanted to spend time away from your husband. I've protected you when you needed space from him. So I can't say I endorse this, but I am still here for you if things get bad.

Jordan Harbinger: The tricky thing is if they don't let the husband into their social circle, he's going to notice. He might get angry about that. Her friend might take her husband's side. Who knows? He might even take it out on her like, oh, you told them all this bad stuff about me. I mean, who knows?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Unfortunately, these are all risks, but I don't know how much control they have over that stuff.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, me neither. I'm just appreciating how tricky this can be.

Gabriel Mizrahi: One way to mitigate some of the risk might be to draw this boundary more quietly. Like you agree with your husband not to have this guy over at your house, and maybe you don't engage with him as much in the friend group when you guys are out somewhere else, but you don't necessarily come right out and say, Hey, you're not welcome in our home anymore.

Maybe that way you don't antagonize him unnecessarily and you don't drive away your friend, and then you buy yourself a period of time to see how they do [00:16:00] this time around.

Jordan Harbinger: I like that. That seems like a smart move. It sounds like she wants to formally announce her stance with this guy, which I kind of respect in a way.

Maybe that's also a cop thing, like there's no gray area here. Here's how it is. But this is a good question for her. Do you actually need to do that in order to achieve your goals here?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is now making me think about the backstory again with that other friend, the toxic one at the bachelorette party.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There's another person she took a firm stance with.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. She ended that friendship very formally. So maybe that's the interesting thing that these two stories have in common, and maybe this is part of what her husband struggles with. I don't know that when something does not sit right with her, she can be very official about it.

Very firm.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Which to be fair, maybe she has some good reasons to be that way with that person.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Could totally be, I'm not saying she was wrong to end that friendship, but it's interesting because I wonder if that's also paralleled on the supporting this friend thing. It sounds like in her mind she either has to support her friend entirely by, you know, approving of her getting back into this marriage, or she has to set a clear boundary and this guy can never step foot in her home again.

Jordan Harbinger: Good point. [00:17:00] That is a bit binary. I wonder if viewing things that way is just easier for her. So there's less ambiguity, less confusion,

Gabriel Mizrahi: yeah. Could be. And therefore less tension on her end, so then she doesn't have to feel this anxiety as much

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. As possible. Look, we're speculating here a bit. I know she can decide if this is true, but I think whenever we notice this tendency to view things in a black or white way, or we feel the need to take a very public or firm stance, I mean, sometimes that's necessary.

Absolutely. But in some situations, and this might be one of them, she might be in a phase of this thing with her friend, where that overly formal slash rigid approach doesn't actually accomplish very much other than maybe giving her a sense of control. Over a chaotic situation,

Gabriel Mizrahi: maybe a sense of comfort in a situation that's probably very distressing to watch,

Jordan Harbinger: which I completely understand.

'cause let's remember, this is all born from her love and concern for her friend. I think we'd all want to step in and save somebody who's being abused all the more. So if you're a cop, or at least that's what I would hope. I'm still a little confused by her husband's response to all this, but the best thing you can do, in my view, is [00:18:00] support and empower her to make the best call for herself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You know, one good way to do that is to look into some resources designed for people like your friend and for you. One of them is the National Center for Women in Policing. There's another called Badge of Life. They apparently offer confidential peer support, referrals, stuff like that. And these are great in addition to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which we mention all the time.

So we'll link to a bunch of those in the show notes for you.

Jordan Harbinger: Also, if this guy continues punching holes in the wall and yelling at his wife and stuff, I, I think if you think he's really a danger, I know it's intense, but you might want to report him to the department. My understanding is that Internal Affairs can investigate domestic violence complaints and handle them administratively, even without criminal charges.

I would also encourage you to keep talking to your husband about this. I know I'm kind of giving him a hard time for not taking this more seriously. I do find that odd and honestly irresponsible. I also wonder if he might be nursing some resentment over that previous friendship that you ended. Maybe he struggles to make a lot of guy friends, so he might be looking at all this and thinking, here we go [00:19:00] again.

Another friendship cut off because my wife has a problem with someone. That doesn't mean you're in the wrong here whatsoever, but I do think there's more for you guys to know about how this impacts him, how he's making sense of the situation. I'm so sorry for your friend going through this. I'm sorry you have to stand by and watch.

It's a really tough place to be, but I hope you can influence the situation in some way, and I hope you can find the stands you need to help her stay safe and protect yourself. Good luck. And now we're going to punch a hole right through the prices on the fine products and services that support this show.

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Jordan Harbinger: thank you so [00:22:00] much for listening to the show and supporting the sponsors.

They're all searchable and clickable on the website at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, in 2023, after seven years of trying, my husband and I finally managed to get pregnant during a single Hail Mary, round of IVF.

But when I was about 20 weeks pregnant, my husband ended up in the ICU sedated and on a ventilator in an attempt to save his life. He had long-term lung damage from COVID the year before and had a recurrent pneumonia that had become horrifically acute.

Jordan Harbinger: Geez, that's scary.

Gabriel Mizrahi: A week later, my water broke and I was rushed to the same hospital.

I didn't go into labor immediately and the baby was still straight vibing in there, so I stayed there inpatient,

Jordan Harbinger: that is, uh, a funny way to put it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Five days later my husband coded and I had to make the call to compassionately extubate him. He died [00:23:00] about half an hour later.

Jordan Harbinger: My God, I'm so sorry. This is a, that's a nightmare.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This is next level stuff. Dude. I can't even imagine what this must've been like.

Jordan Harbinger: She has to go down from labor and delivery to the ICU to take her husband off a ventilator. There's, oh my God, I'm so sorry my friend. Wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: By midnight I was at a hospital in a city an hour and a half away because they had a NICU that could potentially save a baby.

Born at 22 weeks

Jordan Harbinger: and Wow. Just right on into the next thing outta the frying pan into the fire. This is, oh, you poor thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I sat shiva in my hospital room. Not enough family members came to make a minion, so strangers came to mourn with me.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh. For anyone who doesn't know, Shiva is the morning period in Judaism.

It goes for seven days, and a minion is a essentially a quorum of, I believe like 10 people required for certain prayers and events. For example, saying the mourner's prayer, you need a certain number of people.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Interesting thing about the concept of a minion. I was just reading up on this. This law exists in Judaism because certain acts are understood as communal, not [00:24:00] individual, so they require like a, a coming together or a dialogue with other people.

They cannot be done alone. Mourning is one of those things.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally. So you need people around you, you need witnesses. It's kinda like Feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, exactly. It's the dues cruise, not the, uh, dues canoe.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. So carry on.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My son was born at 23 weeks and three days. His lowest weight a few days after birth was one pound, two ounces.

Jordan Harbinger: My God.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He was the size of a disappointing burrito and he wasn't expected to make it.

Jordan Harbinger: Can you not make us laugh while we're talking about horrible things that actually do because we need it? This is really intense, but disappointing burrito is really a really funny way to describe your newborn child, I suppose.

Oh my God.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And if he did make it, he was expected to be seriously disabled.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God. This is every parent's worst nightmare.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He was in the NICU for six months and I lived at a Ronald McDonald house the whole time.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, wow. So that's interesting, again, for people who don't know because, uh, hopefully many of you don't and will never find out firsthand, but a Ronald McDonald house is [00:25:00] a free or low cost place where families can stay.

When their child is going through medical treatment at a nearby hospital. So they're usually near children's hospitals.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's right. It's a really sweet program. 'cause when a child is going through treatment, it can be hard for families to find a place to stay nearby and afford it if they have to be in town for a week or two or a month or whatever.

People were like sleeping in hospital rooms and waiting rooms for a very long time before they came up with this idea. So that, apparently that's where it started. There's actually a movie that came out a couple years ago about the doctor who helped found this organization. It's called Audrey's Children.

My friend Suzanne produced it. It's a very sweet and solid movie. Actually,

Jordan Harbinger: I just found out they have these all over the world actually. That's amazing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, interesting. I thought it was an American thing.

Jordan Harbinger: So did I. I just assumed it was.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She goes on. Fast forward to today. My son is two now, and he is a fricking miracle.

He has some minor delays, but he's expected to catch up fully.

Jordan Harbinger: Thank God.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Jordan Harbinger: I truly did not know which direction this was going at first, although disappointing [00:26:00] burrito now makes sense because I feel like you wouldn't say that if something you wouldn't say that went the other way.

Yeah,

Gabriel Mizrahi: that's right.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm so happy for you guys, the things you've just been through. To go from an underwhelming Chipotle DoorDash to a perfectly healthy child is really a miracle. Indeed.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He's smart and sweet and funny, and he has the most amazing zest for life. He's obsessed with cows and the musical Hamilton,

Jordan Harbinger: so Jesus.

I name him more iconic duo cows than the musical Hamilton.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know. Cows and Hamilton both underdogs, I suppose.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. This kid is not thrown away. His shot.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I tell you the story to give you some context for my reactions and trauma. I'm not using them to excuse anything just to explain. I have two friends, I'll call them Morris and Sadie.

I met them when I was teaching Hebrew school and I adore them. They are amazing people. They really showed up for me when my life exploded. They took me to dinner on the night. My husband was intubated when my water broke. Morris came and sat with me in the hospital for most of the night and advocated for me the day my husband died.

They helped me pack up and move my things to the other [00:27:00] hospital. Sadie brought me some new clothes because I didn't have anything from home. When it was time to be discharged, I had to have someone else who lived nearby who could learn to place my son's nasogastric feeding tube. I have no family in the area, and Sadie agreed to come and learn.

Jordan Harbinger: That's amazing. Very solid friends.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This is why I feel guilty and torn back When I first got pregnant, I was afraid that I would be forgotten and that no one would think to offer to throw me a baby shower. I have a big thing about being forgotten and having my life milestones pass by without note. I've got a history there with other big life events, and it's a huge source of pain for me.

My husband asked Sadie if she would organize one for me, and she agreed after my son was born. She said she was still planning on doing it, but she never did. The ball got dropped and it wasn't really acknowledged until I brought it up more than a year later. The fact that I never had a baby shower is still painful to me.

It's not about the stuff. I don't care about that. It's because I didn't get any of the joy that surrounds having a [00:28:00] baby. I never got to see my husband holding our son. I didn't even get to hold him until he was two weeks old. I spent most of my time absolutely alone. When he was in the nicu, people forgot about me pretty quickly.

It felt like almost no one came out to visit me. Maybe they didn't forget, but the absence felt the same. Nevertheless, I'm crying while writing this. I didn't think I would,

Jordan Harbinger: man. Okay, so this is very painful, which I completely understand. I'm sorry you felt alone in all this. You were alone in many ways, and that this is a theme in your life.

Apparently.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My day-to-day life is a constant struggle. I have a physical disability and deal with PTSD, and I don't really have any help with my son on a day-to-day basis. It's a bit better now that he's in daycare, but I struggle to get things done and I am perpetually burned out. It's hard to experience these wonderful milestones without a fresh wave of grief.

I feel inadequate all the time because of my limitations.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh man, this is a lot. You are really going through it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So [00:29:00] I have a lot of resentment towards Morris and Sadie. I have a hard time feeling empathy for them when they can't help with something because of their son. My brain says they have two parents in the house.

They don't need both people there all the time. At synagogue events where both parents are present, they often also have a babysitter. And when Morris tries to commiserate with me, when I express my exhaustion by saying, yeah, I've been there. I get upset. I struggle with finances. I'm behind on my utilities constantly.

Meanwhile, they constantly claim to be broke, but eat out all the time and go on vacations. I quietly judge them. I know it isn't fair. I know it isn't right. Sadie is pregnant now with her second child. After a few years of trying. I am genuinely happy for them. I really, really am. But receiving her baby shower invitation in the mail was a gut punch.

I knew it was probably coming and I know it's not about me even a little bit. I feel selfish for feeling this way, for feeling that it would've been kind to talk to me one-on-one. Given the sharp specific pain point in [00:30:00] our relationship, I chose to throw the invitation away and try to forget about it. I don't want to make this about me.

I don't want to detract from their joy. I want to celebrate with them in other ways.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so she's really tied up in knots.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: There's so many conflicts here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm angry. I don't deserve to be angry. This hurts. But then I feel selfish for feeling this way.

Jordan Harbinger: It's interesting. I appreciate the self-awareness. I really do.

I think that's going to make it easier for her to make progress here, but I, I do wonder if it's hard for her to even feel like she's allowed to feel her feelings

Gabriel Mizrahi: or which ones and how often and which ones should lead. Yeah, totally. So she goes on. Then yesterday, Morris texted me asking if I received the invitation.

I replied that I wasn't trying to make things about me or sent her my nonsense, but that I was still in my feelings about it. I fear that I over explained and that this was the final straw in our relationship. But then I also feel like I'm being more considerate about their feelings than they've been about mine.

But then I feel that those feelings are unfair.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, there [00:31:00] it is again.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't want to feel this way, but I don't know how to stop. And yes, I am in therapy and I have been since before this all went down, so I've had that support throughout this whole journey. But how can I work through these feelings?

Am I on the wrong here or are they, what's the way forward here? Signed a heartbroken widow. Struggling with these echoes and wondering how much to bellow at these inconstant fellows.

Jordan Harbinger: What a saga there. This is such an intense story on so many levels. There's so much going on here, losing your husband, and so suddenly raising a premature baby who almost didn't make it, dealing with a disability, feeling alone through a lot of that, then being disappointed at, at least with this baby shower thing, by close friends

Gabriel Mizrahi: and then this earlier wound or wounds, whatever they are around being forgotten.

Jordan Harbinger: Clearly a huge part of her story. It's a lot, man. It's a lot. No one deserves to go through even one of these things, but to go through all of them at once, I mean, this is just a degree of trauma that I can't really wrap my head around. If this happened to me, I'd, [00:32:00] I'd be flattened by something like this.

So from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry that you've been through all this and that you're still wrestling with all of the thoughts and the feelings that these losses have brought up. So, okay, let's start with Sadie and Morris. So clearly wonderful humans in so many ways. The way they showed up for you after your husband died and, and the baby was born, and then even after the baby came home.

You know this. That's pretty extraordinary. The people who show up when you need them, not just say the right things, not just offer kind words and all that, but actually show up and do things. Those are the real ones. So I'm very moved by all that. I know you are too. Then there's this baby shower thing, and honestly, Gabe, I am not quite sure what to make of that Look, maybe Sadie really did drop the ball and was being a bad friend when it came to this event.

That sucks. But then, given how present and loving Sadie and Morris were to not follow through on this one thing, I don't know, I if, I just wonder if there's more to the story.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. If we could somehow talk to Sadie and ask her about this. I, I do wonder what she would say.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, who knows. I mean, she might say, oh, I can't sleep at night because of this.

I feel [00:33:00] terrible. I don't know how to bring it up now. It's so awkward. Or she might say, and I'm totally making this up by the way, but she might say something like, Hey, I helped her for so many months after that. I did not have the energy to throw a big event. I didn't know how to tell her that, so I just let it go.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or did something happen in that period? Like maybe she was already feeling things fraying and didn't feel like throwing the shower anymore, but didn't know how to communicate that, which I do think is, you know, whatever her reasons, if they're fair, she could have probably talked to our friend about this much sooner.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I do wonder about that from our friend's perspective. Things began to fray because of the baby shower thing, but maybe things were getting a little tense before that for some reason. You know, again, I'm, I'm not saying at all that I. Even think they were or suspect that it's true or whatever. I'm just illustrating a point, which is that we just don't know what Sadie's reasoning was.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm with you that there's probably more going on here than just being, I don't know, absent-minded and dropping the ball. And that would've been great to suss out when you finally brought it up to her over a year later.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I'm curious about that too. 'cause she shared so much with us, but she didn't tell us what Sadie said in

Gabriel Mizrahi: response.

She didn't tell us what Sadie said. [00:34:00] Yeah. That's odd.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That kind of feels like important information. So here's my read on Sadie and Morris. Based on what you've shared with us, I'm getting the picture. These are very dedicated, big hearted, solid friends who really showed up for you when you needed them in a variety of ways, big and small.

And I also think that Sadie and Morris, like all people are not perfect. And one way that they didn't show up for you is following through on this promise to throw you a baby shower. And that hurts. But I also suspect that this baby shower, because of everything that went down, because of this wound, I think it was just a very loaded event for all of you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: It doesn't let Sadie off the hook for not talking to you about the shower. Ideally, she would've come to you at some point and said, look, I know I said I'd throw you a baby shower. I want to honor my promise to you. I'm having some reservations and then she could have just told you what they were and then tried to resolve that with you or elegantly bow out whatever, or ask for help or found someone else to take over.

I'm sure that would've avoided most of this,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but I also think the fact that she didn't do that is interesting as well.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Is she avoidant? Is Sadie not very attuned?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Possibly

Jordan Harbinger: doesn't [00:35:00] seem like it given how much she showed up for our friend here when it counted, but I don't know. Who knows? Maybe.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

But you know what? She might be one of those people for whom doing things for someone is easier than sitting down and talking about something vulnerable.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But yeah. Does Sadie find it hard to talk about her stuff? And if so, why might that be?

Jordan Harbinger: We'd only be speculating, but I think it's fair to say that our friend is fairly fragile these days.

There's a lot of big emotions flying around. Maybe Sadie intuited that, or straight up knows that about her, and she was like, yeah, I don't want to go near this. I'm just going to ghost and hope she gets the message.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Uh, so what you're getting at is, did Sadie maybe see aspects of our friend's personality and maybe feel the intensity of her grief?

And that was just very challenging and overwhelming for her. So she's maybe pulling back a little bit.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's possible. She might also be sensing our friend's resentment and judgment around their lifestyle and finances, for example. And that might also be making her want to pull away whether she consciously realizes it or not.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, let's talk about those judgments for a second. On one hand she's going, I know it's not fair to judge them like this. I know that it isn't. Right. On the [00:36:00] other hand, she might not be entirely wrong to be frustrated when they say they can't help out, but they have two parents, they got a babysitter, or when they complain about being broke and they try to empathize with her about that, but they're spending recklessly it.

It's tricky because she knows it's none of her business, but I think it feels like it becomes her business when it impacts her,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but it impacts her because she has these expectations of them. Mm-hmm. So one interesting question she might want to be asking is, which expectations are fair and which ones are not?

Do these entitle me to opinions about their lifestyle and how they should be managing their household and stuff, or not. I mean, how much can I reasonably ask of these people? How much can they reasonably give? And like, what am I asking them for? You know, do I want them to come over and watch my child for a couple hours so I can take care of stuff?

Or am I looking for something deeper from them?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I want to point out something that might be a little difficult for our friend to hear, but I think it's important. Sadie and Morris, yes, they're friends, good friends even, and good friends show up for one another, but Sadie and Morris aren't obligated to be there for her in every way that [00:37:00] she wants forever.

And I think on some levels she knows that, right? Mm-hmm. But I also get the sense that she's kind of struggling to come to terms with that because her needs are so great. She's largely alone. She's grieving. She desperately wants community and support, which of course she does. She deserves that. But that can be true, and it can be that it's a lot for Sadie and Morris to always be there for her after really being there for her when it counted.

So drawing some boundaries with her and prioritizing their own family that just, it doesn't make 'em jerks. The reality is she doesn't know what their son needs at home. She doesn't get to tell them how to parent or manage their house or spend their time with their money. Again, I say this with so much compassion.

I get why this is the story her mind wants to tell, but she also needs to investigate that story, all of these stories, and see if they're actually accurate and if they're making things easier or harder.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's such a good point, and also it's possible that the stories can be wrong, but the needs that they reveal, like her need for love and support and connection, those can be legitimate

Jordan Harbinger: and that's why her letter is so complicated.

Like how do you take your needs seriously [00:38:00] without tipping over into unfair expectations of other people?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, good question. I think we're both feeling the same thing, which is that her grief about her husband and her pain over what sounds like many decades are making it hard to appreciate Sadie and Morris for what they did do.

She's probably looking for something from them. Love reassurance, a recognition of the value of her life and her life's milestones that for whatever reason, they cannot fully provide her. And that is really, really hard for her to accept in her current state.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally agree. That's a good summary. So maybe we need to take a big step back here and talk about what is our friend here stuff and what is Sadie and Morris's stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And then she goes on to have, I assume, a number of experiences that confirm that or are further challenging, including this physical disability and everything that brings up and everything. It probably makes harder, even impossible to do. And then her husband goes through this very serious illness and then he dies on the day that she gives birth prematurely.

Then she has to watch her baby fight for his [00:39:00] life. And then, yeah, she was surrounded by some really good friends back then, thank goodness. And then she spent most of her time alone when her son was in the NICU and almost no one came out to visit her. Now she has to raise her baby alone while she's also grieving her husband's death, which is heartbreaking.

She struggles to get things done. She's exhausted, depleted. Money is tight. She has this ongoing sadness about her husband, about raising their son without him. She also feels this inadequacy and shame because of her limitations. I mean, my God, the things she's dealing with. I know we keep saying this, but this is profound stuff, so I can't understand why somebody going through all of that would look around at the world and other friends nearby and say like, can someone just help me here?

Can someone save me? Can someone just come over and be with me more often, so I'm not alone in all of this?

Jordan Harbinger: Right. So feelings like resentment and hurt and anger and shame and feeling abandoned. They're all very normal responses to a super tragic and chaotic situation.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. And it's pretty clear that all of these wounds and losses are [00:40:00] shaping the meaning she's making out of all of this.

They're echoing this earlier wound and that earlier wound amplifies the pain in a really big way around each individual event. And I think it's just feeding these narratives one stacked on top of the other, whether it's, they're wrong for not prioritizing me, or they owe me this support, or I can't function without their help, or nobody really has my back.

So my life's milestones really don't have meaning

Jordan Harbinger: for sure. And those, they construct a whole worldview,

Gabriel Mizrahi: a whole identity and a whole worldview. Yeah. I also have a hunch that a lot of her painful feelings, especially the shame, which seems to be born from the sense of inadequacy, she described. They're probably getting projected out in part, especially at Sadie and Morris.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. I'm ashamed that I can't seem to do all of this well, becomes I resent them for not stepping in and saving me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is such a good way to put it. Exactly. I think we all know that. It's usually easier to locate something in somebody else, like a friend who dropped the ball when they said that they would do something than it is to say, okay, so why [00:41:00] does this hurt so much for me specifically, or what other ways can I go about getting this need met?

Or should I really write off an entire friendship with people who are amazing to me when they did one thing wrong, and then to take responsibility for that? So when she asks, how do I work through these feelings? Like who's right? Am I right or are they wrong or what? You know, these are good questions.

They're fair questions, but the key might be to ask some other questions first. Like, which pieces of this overall experience are truly mine? How do these feelings and judgments get created? 'cause it's not as simple as they did this thing and therefore it's like this. I think it's going through a whole process in her.

How do I take an event or the absence of an event, like people not showing up for me in the hospital, how do I make sense of that and what do I do with those feelings and those judgements? You know, what stories do they reinforce? Where's that getting me? Is it helping? Is it hurting? Do I feel like I'm in more pain or am I, am I healing somehow?

I think those would be good questions to ask,

Jordan Harbinger: man. Huge questions. Ones she might be asking for the rest of her life.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I guess I just want to invite her, and [00:42:00] she's already doing this by interrogating these feelings, but I want to invite her to get more curious about this painful experience, which, if I had to boil it down, does seem to come down to this abandonment, because I think if she can get to the roots of that and unravel her responses to it now, even a little bit.

She'll have a much better grasp of how to work through this pain and it might not even cause as much pain in the first place.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed. So like let's talk about one of those situations specifically.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Great. Let's do it.

Jordan Harbinger: For me, the hospital visits are a huge one

Gabriel Mizrahi: for sure.

Jordan Harbinger: She said people forgot about her pretty quickly, which I look, I believe her.

We all know when someone goes through a huge loss or a huge challenge, the world keeps turning. People have their own lives, they move on and they forget. But people who are grieving talk about this all the time. Mm-hmm. It sucks. But then she said, well, maybe they didn't forget,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but she also said the absence felt the same nonetheless.

Jordan Harbinger: So right there, she's circling exactly the thing you were just describing. The story she wants to tell is they forgot me, but the only thing she knows for sure is they weren't there a lot of the time. Those are, those are the facts. Now, is it still lonely to be alone when your baby's in the nicu? Of course it is.[00:43:00]

Is it still painful to not have people around you when you're freaking out and grieving like this? Yes. Is it as painful as feeling that everyone forgot about you or that you were abandoned, that this means no one loves or cares about you at all? I mean, I'm just none. I'm not so sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I see what you're getting at.

And the same thing with the baby shower, right? She's going, Sadie Lowkey abandoned me by not hosting the baby shower. But there are several other possible stories that might explain why she did that. And like she said, her anger and her sadness around the baby shower really has to do with the fact that she didn't get any of the joy that surrounds having a baby.

Although I do want to point out that she got one huge joy around having a baby, which is that this baby survived and thrived, which is like, that's the headline, but I understand what's feeding this narrative. She never got to see her husband hold her son again. Heartbreaking. But also that's not anything Sadie and Morris did to her.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So at least some of her resentment toward her friends is actually anger at the whole situation.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I think she's well within her rights to be angry at life and the world, this whole situation, I think she's allowed to feel scared, overwhelmed, even [00:44:00] ashamed. These feelings are not the problem. But taking those feelings to Sadie and Morris and transmuting them into these like specific grievances, especially when they did so much else.

Right? You can see where that starts to get tricky in one way. Sadie and Morris are logical objects of your anger. They let you down on the baby shower thing. Yeah, it really does sound like they could have handled it a lot better. In another way though, they're just like convenient objects for your anger because they're nearby and because you've invited them into your life and they're involved now

Jordan Harbinger: and because the way they manage their lives is so different, they seem to have different values and certain departments, but also maybe not even the departments that really count.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, good point. So I, I cannot tell you exactly where this line is between your stuff and their stuff. It's tricky and you're going to have to find that for yourself. But just slowing down and asking yourself, why am I having this response? Is this really a Sadie Morris thing, or is this a me thing? Or is this just kind of like a, this situation really sucks thing.

What is this tapping into in my mind, in my past that is making this so [00:45:00] painful? Just doing that is a huge step forward,

Jordan Harbinger: right? What piece of this can I control myself and see what happens coming back to her side of the street there? So I want to get a little practical here before we wrap up. Whether all of this is fair or unfair, she obviously needs support.

So I think one of her tasks is to start being more resourceful about finding the help she needs from a variety of people, a variety of places, and maybe communicating that a little differently so that people can show up for her in a way that she truly needs.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And one example of that might be bringing something up sooner if it bothers her so she can resolve it with a friend before it festers and becomes this big issue.

Yeah, I totally agree with all of this,

Jordan Harbinger: and obviously I'm so happy to hear she's in therapy. That's gotta be crucial support for her right now. So we've gone deep on this. We could obviously talk about this for hours, but I hope we've given you some new angles here. Again, you have been through a lot. You are up against a lot.

Honestly, my heart breaks for you that your story played out this way. In your letter you called your baby a miracle. He definitely is. But I also think you're kind of a miracle, 'cause Mike, ah, look at what you're going through and [00:46:00] you're still standing. It really is extraordinary and you've just been dealt a really shit hand in a couple huge ways.

You've also been given a huge gift here with your son, and I know that you know that, but I just want to make sure that you're making plenty of room for that fact too. And I know it's easy to forget when you're in pain. This could have gone a very different way, and I know it's easy for me to say, but you have to stay connected to your gratitude for your healthy baby, for your friends like Sadie and Morris, while you also make room for your pain.

You have to do both.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well said, Jordan, and you know, if you want, that could be a really lovely thing to say to them. If you need to repair this relationship, if you want to make things right with them, maybe you say, guys, I'm really sorry if I drove you away recently with the baby shower invitation thing.

As you can see, I have a lot of sadness. I have a lot of grief. I don't always know where to take it or what to make of it. I was a little confused about the baby shower thing. I'm sorting through that. But if I gave you the impression that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me, I'm sorry. And thank you again.

I'm sure that would go a very long way.

Jordan Harbinger: It's probably the start of a really nice conversation. So while you work on all [00:47:00] this, keep pouring your love and gratitude into your baby. Keep asking for what you need while also taking care of yourself, sending you and your little burrito, baby a big hug and wishing you all the best.

You know what makes a great gift for the baby shower, you're not going to the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by HIA Health. As a parent, I think about how much ultra processed food kids are surrounded by now. Our kids, unfortunately, often live on hot dogs, chicken nuggets, macaroni, and that's a big reason we use hia.

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Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, I have a four month [00:50:00] old daughter, my first baby, she's also the first grandchild on both my and my husband's side of the family.

So everyone is very excited. On my side of the family, we have my mother who insists on being called Glam, insert rants on grandparent shows and nicknames here. Glam is, is that glamor? Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like glamorous grandma, but she picked it herself, so it's a little cringe. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm picturing a sequined fanny back in my head right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah,

Gabriel Mizrahi: GL is obsessed with Facebook. She falls victim to rage bait, enjoys keeping up with the local drama, and especially loves posting her happenings on Facebook because she enjoys getting likes and comments on her photos. When I'm with my mom, I'm hyper aware that any photo we take will probably end up online.

I've learned how to change my settings to require my approval, and I've decreased my digital footprint so much over the last year, even more so since I've had a baby. I think it's creepy that someone could see a photo of my baby, click my name, and learn a lot of important things about us without even being my friend.[00:51:00]

Two days after I delivered my baby glam was asking for pictures to post on Facebook. I've explained my concerns to my mom, and she said that none of her Facebook friends are weirdos and they're all people she knows, so it should be fine. I've also explained that my fear is of ai. Did you see the clip of Boris Johnson saying, ai ai?

Have you seen this one?

Jordan Harbinger: No. That's ridiculous. Somehow,

Gabriel Mizrahi: the way he says ai, I don't know why it's so funny, but he's like, do you know what AI is? It's like people have like remixed this clip over and over again, and now whenever I see ai, I hear Boris Johnson going, ai, ai. Anyway, I've also explained that my fear is of ai.

I feel terrible that my daughter already has a digital footprint and she can't even walk or talk while she's playing with her baby toys. AI bots are scrubbing the internet, collecting photo data. Everything about it freaks me out from using our photos to train generative AI to the disgusting dark web to the collection of data.

As soon as everyone in my circle is using chat GPT for [00:52:00] advice on things like what type of account should I open for my granddaughter, or what does a seven month old baby want for Christmas? AI knows my daughter has assets, her approximate age and probably her name. I've also run into this AI concern with my husband's parents, Nan and Grumpy Nan and Grumpy Love Instagram and fall for absurd AI slop constantly.

Jordan Harbinger: What is going on with the grandparent Names of this question. Are these, this is ridiculous. Did you make these up or is this in the letter?

Gabriel Mizrahi: This is just a letter.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Nan Grumpy and Glam. This is quite a circus.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Recently, Nan sent me a video of a little purple monster blowing fire and grinning at the camera, and I realized that this little monster was an AI generated version of my daughter.

This means she had to upload a photo of my baby into some random app or website that now owns that photo. Meanwhile, I'm using one of those private family photo apps where only people I invite can see the pictures, they can comment and react, and I post almost daily for everyone since we're long distance.

So I feel like that [00:53:00] reduces the need to post on Facebook even more. I want to tell everyone that they cannot upload photos of our daughter anywhere, but how do I go about this? A big text in person out of the blue. Also, am I spiraling? Should I back off of glam and just let her post to Facebook? Are nana's videos harmless?

What are new parents doing to set social media boundaries signed? Feeling like the Charing is reckless and now meriting some parenting that's against my kids inheriting an embarrassing amount of editing.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting question. So full disclosure, Jen and I, we don't worry about this that much. We post photos of the kids on Facebook and Instagram.

Look, the settings make them all private so it's only approved followers that can see them. You, you won't see it on my Facebook or my Instagram, for example. But yeah, we're probably inadvertently training AI models and creating a digital footprint for them, and that's just kind of the trade off we've made to be able to easily share stuff with our friends and family.

I'm not saying it's the right choice necessarily, I'm just saying I'm kind of the wrong guy to give you tech privacy advice in this [00:54:00] particular area. We were curious about this and we did some research, so here's what we found. First of all, you're not entirely wrong about this. Pew Research says 95% of parents report posting their kids publicly.

81% of children under two already have a digital profile online. According to the UK Children's Commissioner. Different sources say different things, but several say that the average child has over 1300 photos of them on the internet without their consent. By the time they're 13, so a hundred per year.

Basically, as you say, AI scrapes billions of images every single day. UNICEF has written about this, these photos, they can be copied. They can be stored, they can be sold. You just never know where they end up. Corporations obviously use them to train ai. Target advertising governments use them for surveillance and recognition systems.

The UK Commissioner and ChildNet both say that facial recognition software can recognize a child from one photo. The World Economic Forum says that by 2030 children could represent a third of the global facial recognition database, and Barclays projects that [00:55:00] by 2030 as well, two thirds of identity fraud cases will trace back to data shared during childhood.

So, yeah, I just want to be super clear. Uh, by the way, we can't fact check all that. There's a huge range of stats out there. A lot of it is shared in kind of these alarmist charing circles. So just please keep that in mind. But even if the numbers float around, I think we can all agree there's obviously some risk in posting your kids publicly online, especially if you don't have privacy settings on, to restrict it to friends and family and the upshot of all that.

Well, it's a little unclear. I don't know if we really know what all this means or how bad this is or where it's all going. I mean, five years ago, most people didn't realize AI was coming, especially not the way it is. So who knows what this all means for our kids' futures. But basically what critics of posting online say is the upshot of all this way less privacy, less freedom, fewer choices, and no agency or choice on the kid's part about how their data gets used.

People on the opposite side of this argument would say, yeah, the whole idea is kind of risky and sus, but documented harm from [00:56:00] normal family sharing, apparently pretty rare. A lot of this risk depends on privacy settings once again, which you know what's actually shared, what data. The photo includes AI training on large data sets.

It's not the same as targeted surveillance of your kid. We might in fact be moving to a world where the, the whole idea of what's private and what's risky is up for debate, which, you know, that probably doesn't put the naysayers at ease, but it might change the definitions and calculus here. And then there's the whole question of trade-offs.

Like, yes, posting your kids on social media. It entails less privacy and less choice, but there are clearly upsides, bonding with family, investing in support systems, having fun, all of which do increase joy and intimacy and connection. Also, my feeling is in all likelihood. My kids are going to want to be on social media one day, so I'm not sure what I'm sort of protecting them from.

Maybe I'm just naive here and I know the counter argument. Yeah, but what if they don't want to do that? Then you just force them to be on social media and create a footprint before they could really choose. And I get that. I really do. I'm just saying statistically they're [00:57:00] probably going to get out there anyway, so I'm not sure how much good it's really doing to keep them off of it.

Especially once again, if it's my wife sharing stuff with an account that has family and friends following it. So bottom line, most people in this camp, they seem to be making the argument that thoughtful digital participation is better than total digital avoidance. They're also making the argument, and I think I largely agree with this, that this is much more about values, privacy, consent, autonomy than it is you know, about measurable risk.

In other words, is this just philosophical or are we talking about real world harm? What do those values mean, and are those values worth protecting at all costs? When it comes to Charing, if negotiating on them doesn't necessarily, or even usually lead to bad outcomes? I think I know what you'd say and I think you can tell what my answer is, but we all have to come to our own conclusions about that.

So are you spiraling? I mean, in my humble opinion, not entirely. Maybe a little. You're not crazy clearly, but I think some of your concerns are more legit than others. For example, [00:58:00] posting thousands of pictures of your kids on Facebook is obviously leaving a digital footprint. Your mother-in-law, creating an animated dragon outta your kid's face on some random low security AI app, that image could end up and slash is already on a server in Shenzhen or whatever.

My understanding is that China's probably hoovering up all this data anyway. They're also getting it from places other than meta and social media. For example, your kids' school photos, they're likely going to be saved someplace and that's eventually getting leaked. And God knows what China's doing with all that data.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. What are they doing with all that data? I don't fully understand. They're like constructing some huge AI database. Yeah. They're can recognize people across

Jordan Harbinger: a hundred percent. They're training AI models and they want facial recognition that works with the whole planet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But the whole chat, GPT, and therefore like the whole internet will know my daughter's name and her future net worth argument.

I'm not so convinced by that. Are you Jordan? I don't know. I mean, it's possible, but someone would have to literally type. How can I open up a custodian account with Schwab for my granddaughter, violet, so and so in Rapid City, South Dakota? Yeah. So when she's 18, she can pay for college and she wants to go to [00:59:00] college at this place, like even then chat, GPT and any other legitimate platform that is not based in China anyway.

I mean, they're still governed by some privacy laws. Not that those are perfect, of course. I mean, Google, Facebook obviously have played fast and loose with privacy in the past, so I'm not naive about that. But I think we can all agree that that's different from posting the same thing on deep seek or whatever.

So you might be adding low probability fears on top of some legitimate concerns here.

Jordan Harbinger: But look, if you decide no photos of my kids on Facebook, no Instagram, that's your choice. And it's not a completely unreasonable choice. I'm not saying that it is my advice. Don't make this a huge debate or conflict with your family.

Just get together with your husband. Let your parents know the stance. You can literally say, we've thought a lot about it. We've been doing a lot of homework on this. We've decided not to post any photos of her on public social media or third party apps. We love that you guys love her. We love that you're proud of her, but we're going to ask you to use the private photo app only from now on.

Please don't post or upload her image anywhere.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I probably would not get into the nuances [01:00:00] of AI data scraping, which I doubt they can even wrap their heads around.

Jordan Harbinger: Imagine explaining the dark web and AI LLM training to to nan and Grumps.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think just as simple, here's our rule and we appreciate you guys working with us on this.

That's all you need.

Jordan Harbinger: And if they're like, relax, what's the harm? Our friends aren't weirdos. I wouldn't get into all that. I would just say, Hey, we understand it's not about that. It's about her choice about whether to be out there. It's about her long term digital footprint. We are choosing to minimize it.

And you can do this in person, you can do it over text, but maybe both for good measure. Maybe when you do, you can also give the grandparents an aura frame. They used to sponsor the show. I'm, somebody will tell me if the code still works 'cause it seems to be on and off. But the aura is, it's, this is great.

It's a digital picture frame. It displays photos and videos and you can send them from your phone from anywhere in the world to the person who has the frame. And there's this collaborative sharing with family members so you don't text or email photos to the family. And then they're like, cool, I'm going to download this and put it on Facebook.

The photos just go into the frame. [01:01:00] So maybe that's a good compromise. They're a sponsor. Once again, they're on our sponsor page. You can get 35 bucks off@auraframes.com code. Jordan will link to that in the show notes. So look, I appreciate that you want to protect your child. I appreciate that you are thinking about these big values, even though I'm kind of going a different way here.

I really do understand that and I'm sure your child will. Thank you for caring about them so much. And when your kid becomes the leader of the resistance, 'cause they're the only person who doesn't have an instant facial recognition, you can shove that in my face, but I, I really do think this is partly new parent brain talking to some degree.

Your first kid. You're concerned about everything. You go way outta your way to protect them. And then a few years pass, you see what's actually an issue. You come up against the realities of the world and you just readjust. And then if you have a second kid, you're like, okay, here are the things worth worrying about.

Here are the things not worth worrying about. Here are the things I don't have time to worry about, and your positions will kind of evolve. Look, I'm not saying that always leads to the best outcomes. I'm not saying you're wrong to be thoughtful here, but I would also give yourself some room to evolve when it comes to these policies, and that's okay too.[01:02:00]

It's great to be principled as a parent, but you, you don't always have to be militant sending you your husband and your daughter, a big AI generated hug and wishing you all the best you can. Reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. That does make our job a whole lot easier.

If you're doing battle with an unstable colleague, you're trying to stop your sister from moving to a murder cabin in the middle of nowhere with your abusive spouse, or you're trying to save your sibling from going down an alt-right rabbit hole, or even something more mundane in those stakes. We love those too.

Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up friday@jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. You know what GLAM is going to want to shove in her bedazzled fanny pack, some of the fine 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 that is take a moment, support our amazing sponsors. All of the deals and discounts and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at [01:03:00] Jordan harbinger.com/deals.

If something's not working, you can't find a code, please email us, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. And now for the rest of feedback, Friday. Now for the recommendation of the week, I am

Lip Filla Clip: addicted to lip filler.

Gabriel Mizrahi: A couple weeks ago I gave a shout out to Libby, the app where you can borrow digital eBooks through your library for free. A bunch of you wrote me after that recommending some other great library apps. One of them is called Hoopla. I had completely forgotten about Hoopla. Apparently Hoopla has some big advantages over Libby.

The best one is that there's no wait list and everything is available instantly. That's a huge plus. It also gives you access to a bunch of other platforms, apparently, courses, TV shows, foreign streaming services, stuff like that. It does have some downsides though. For example, you can't read on Kindle and it has a smaller selection of bestsellers, I guess, and I believe that there's a monthly borrowing limit, usually five to 10 items depending on the library and the interface some [01:04:00] people say is not as good, but between Libby and Hoopla, you could easily have all of your borrowing needs met and still not have to pay really anything for books and movies and stuff, which is amazing as long as you don't mind switching between the apps.

So that was a great wreck and thank you for sending me that. And then one of our listeners, Ian told me about another amazing app you can use with a library card. It's called Press Reader. So Press Reader is an app that gives you access to thousands of newspapers and magazines from around the world in their original print layout.

Local newspapers, foreign newspapers, premium magazines, publications in, I guess more than 60 languages. You can get current issues, back issues. You can download issues for offline readings, so you can like take it on the plane with you without wifi. You can listen to articles with, they have like a text to speech feature.

I've been playing with this app this week. I am obsessed with this app. It's kind of changed my life. Now. I can read all of these cool magazines I never used to read because you know, I didn't want to pay for 12 different subscriptions when I only read a few articles from each one. So [01:05:00] big. Thank you, Ian, for this one.

That's my record The week, actually, two for one this week. Hoopla and Press Reader. Enjoy.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, next up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hey, Jordan and Gabe, you recently published a newsletter on the subject of forgiveness. I think one of the hardest aspects of forgiveness is forgiving yourself for past indiscretions, the things you dwell on from the past that you can't change, like regretting having said something to family or friends.

Or friends. A conversation that you should have had, but now you can't because the person is out of your life. How do you forgive yourself for that kind of stuff? Is self-forgiveness, truly possible? Signed, hoping you can shake me of these regrets that still plague me.

Jordan Harbinger: Damn. Great question, hard question. So first of all, for anybody who didn't catch this wee bit wiser newsletter, and shameless plug, if you haven't signed up yet, Jordan harbinger.com/news.

We're getting great responses to this thing. It is so much fun to write and y'all seem to be enjoying it. So what we said in that newsletter was that forgiveness as a concept, it's slippery, right? It's, I think we all know that [01:06:00] forgiving somebody for doing something, forgiving ourselves, not always easy.

And oftentimes we think we've forgiven and moved on and then something else happens, or time goes by or a certain mood sets in and suddenly it's like, nah, I still resent this person for that thing they did, or, no way I can let myself off the hook for what I did. So what we suggested in that newsletter was, if you can't forgive, then maybe you need to do something else, something potentially easier, which is accept Acceptance means I acknowledge what happened, what they did, what I did.

I'm not arguing with reality, I'm not wishing things were different. I think a lot of the time just that acceptance brings us the peace and clarity we're looking for. And sometimes when we really accept something, we go, oh, I don't actually need to forgive. This is enough,

Gabriel Mizrahi: right? Sometimes acceptance is its own kind of forgiveness,

Jordan Harbinger: and oftentimes acceptance brings us closer to compassion.

And compassion can be more attainable and often more productive than forgiveness. My thought for you is if you're struggling to forgive yourself for something you did, something you said. I don't see why the same principle can't apply to you. If you can't forgive yourself, can you try to [01:07:00] accept? Can you say to yourself, yeah, I said that careless thing to my friend, or, yeah, I really wish I had that conversation with my ex before we went our separate ways and instead of then saying, I have to forgive myself for that, can you try going, I have some regret about saying that thing.

I have some sadness that I didn't get to express such and such to my ex. See what it's like to invite those thoughts and feelings in and just sit with them without doing something else with them. Like trying to turn them into something else or trying to push them away, or even trying to forgive yourself for them.

I think sometimes when we try to forgive, there's nothing wrong with that. Of course, it's a beautiful experience and if you can get there, amazing. But I think sometimes when we try, like really try to forgive, we're actually doing something else.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hmm. Just something to make it less painful, you mean?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Like if I can just forgive this person or if I can just forgive myself, then I won't have to feel angry, or I won't have to feel sad, or I won't have to feel embarrassed or whatever it is. Because look, I forgave, it's over. It's behind me. Ideas, concepts. They're tricky, man. 'cause the mind can argue anything it wants to it.

It rarely knows what it truly [01:08:00] believes. Buddhism, I guess, I don't know, acceptance in a way, it's easier. All you have to do is allow something to just be there, and in a way it's much harder because then you have to sit with the thing you did or the thing someone else did, and all the feelings that come with it.

You don't have that forgiveness concept as a buffer anymore. So that's where I'm at with all this. Yes, self-forgiveness is possible, but trying to work toward forgiveness without taking these necessary detours through acceptance and curiosity and compassion, I think that usually doesn't work. So you almost have to commit forgiveness indirectly.

It's more the byproduct of acceptance, curiosity, compassion rather than the goal. Kinda like how if you try to be happy, you'll never be happy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: But if you focus on helping other people, if you engage in things that are fulfilling, then happiness will result. It is kind of like that. Gabe, you have any thoughts here?

Did I just, did I just smash that? And thanks everyone for coming to my TED talk.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The best Ted talk I've heard in a while for it goes Sir Ken Robinson, uh, Brene Brown, and then you for what you just said. I agree. I agree with all of that. [01:09:00] Great. Solid. So our friend here regrets having made some comment to a friend or a family member.

He can't change what he said, but he can learn from it. He can use it to handle a similar moment in the future differently. He can figure out why he said what he said, or he can work that into an apology if that's appropriate. He can go to this person and say, you know, I really regret that thing I said to you way back when.

And I've been asking myself why I said it, and here's what I've realized. And I don't actually feel that way. Or, Hey, maybe I do feel that way, but I wish I had expressed it differently. I hurt you, I disappointed you, or I was just confused at the time and I apologize for that. Hopefully all of that leads to more insight on his part, more skill, maybe even more closeness with the person he hurt or disappointed or whatever.

Same thing with the conversations that he regrets not having. That person is out of his life now. He can't tell them what he wanted to say, but he can decide, okay. I don't want to wait to tell the people I love how much I love them, for example, or if I have questions for someone in my family. I want to ask them while I can so I don't end up with this regret again in [01:10:00] the future.

Jordan Harbinger: Right? I'm going to speak up when something bothers me sooner so I don't sit on it and miss my window, whatever. It's.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So I think when you do something constructive with a wound or a regret, it does start to shift. It often doesn't hurt as much, or it doesn't only hurt, right? It hurts and it takes on new meaning, and that meaning is the real reward in my view.

It's actually probably why these mistakes have to happen. I'm putting mistakes in big air quotes, you know, why they have to happen to generate opportunities for this kind of meaning making so that we can have that experience and then hopefully evolve, at which point forgiving yourself becomes a lot easier because it's like, okay, I can forgive myself for what I did or what I didn't do because I have this meaning now because it showed me something important, something that had I known it in advance, I wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place.

Right? So this had to happen, and yes, it hurts, but in a weird way, I'm kind of grateful I made this mistake and so now I can forgive myself for that.

Jordan Harbinger: Absolutely. The more we talk about this, the more I wonder if forgiveness is really [01:11:00] as important as we tend to think it is. I'm not totally sure about that.

I, I want to think about that some more, but I agree that all these other processes are probably more productive than just going like, okay, yeah, I'm over it. The more fruitful question is, what is this thing I can't seem to forgive myself for, designed to teach me? So I hope that gives you some new angles here.

I love how thoughtful you're being about all this. Just keep going inward, keep inviting this stuff in. Keep trying to learn rather than tucking something away. And I think you'll find what you're looking for. Go back and check out Matthew Tye, AKA C-Milk, if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life, in business have come through my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust.

And I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for yourself in our Six Minute Networking course. It's free. It's not gross, it's not schmoozy. You can find it on the Thinkific platform at Sixminutenetworking.com. The drills take a few minutes a day. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Folks, build relationships before you need them.

Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers discounts, ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. [01:12:00] You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Instagram, 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 I'm 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. What if Earth isn't the exception, but one of millions of planets that could host life?

Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger takes us on a mind bending journey through the cosmos revealing how close we actually are to answering the question. Are we alone?

JHS Trailer: We have found more than 5,600 planets or other stars, but we haven't seen most of them, and that's what we are looking [01:13:00] for, that we live in this incredible time of exploration because with bigger telescopes, with more time looking, we can find smaller worlds.

We can find worlds that take more time to whi around their star, but we have actually changed our whole understanding of the cosmos in this respect. That there are so many other stars out there, so we don't have to ships to get there yet. We can catch the light and read it. There's hope and there's wonder, and there's our human curiosity that gets us to investigate our search for life.

Comes down to the question, can we find it? And that I think is what it takes to figure out how we fit in this beautiful cosmo and science is so much fun, and I think this is what we sometimes don't get to convey. This research [01:14:00] is not just about are we alone in the universe, it's also about understanding our planet, getting a glimpse in our potential future when we look at older Earth and using all that knowledge to safeguard our pale budah.

Jordan Harbinger: If you've ever looked up at the night sky and wondered who might be looking back, check out episode 1050 with Lisa Kaltenegger.