149: How to Find Balance with so Many Irons in the Fire | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How to Find Balance with so Many Irons in the Fire - Feedback Friday (Episode 149)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer, Jason DeFillippo. Here on The Jordan Harbinger Show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests, and this week we had a two part series with Erik Aude. This guy got thrown in prison for a crime he didn't commit in Pakistan and he spent three years there being tortured and he's a stuntman and an actor. So he was able to use his stunt man skills to survive in there because you know he's tough and knows martial arts and all of a sudden -- it's just an absolutely bat shit crazy story. I mean there's no kind of other way around it. It's really incredible. While inside he learned how to play professional poker because he couldn't really talk with anyone. So he played poker with these literal hijackers everyday all day, came out pro poker player.

[00:00:45] It just an unreal story. So go back and check out part one and part two with Erik Aude. I know you're thinking, “Wow! That's really long.” Trust me, it's worth it. And of course our primary mission in the show here is to pass along our guests insights and our experiences and insights along to you. So in other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you and that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Try and keep them concise if you can. It does help us get your question on the air if it's not six screens single-spaced you know long. It does help. It's kind of nice to just have a nice concise question. And I just got back from London, which by the way, great town. I remember working there like 10, 13 years ago. I hated it and I went back -- I hated it. I just couldn't stand it. Everything closed at like seven and the food was bad and I just hated it. I went back now, I love London. It is awesome. It has changed so much. I've changed so much. I think that's more likely. It is just, it's what a great place that is. The food was great. I went to some of the right places. The people were lovely. I even had good weather, it was great.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:56] What? You did not go to London. I don't think you went to London.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:59] Oh shoot. I was in Barcelona. No --

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:01] Oh, that was I going to say.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:02] I was in London. It was amazing. It was like sunny. I mean sure it got overcast later, but it was, it was great. And one of the highlights, no, the highlight, one of the highlights.

No, the highlight of the trip was going to Derren Brown's house, and if you don't know who Darren Brown is, he's one of the best magicians and that word doesn't quite cut it, but he's one of the best magicians, illusionists whatever in the world, and it was just incredible. First of all, he's awesome. We did an interview. I've been trying to get him on the show for like 10 years. He's just an amazing, amazing person, and he turned out to be the coolest guy. He was just super nice, super friendly. He's brilliantly interesting. I just wanted to be his best friend, like right away, and his house, Jason, I didn't really tell you much -- you walk in the house. First of all, it's this really unassuming London flat. You go in the house, there's all these skeletons and taxonomy everywhere, so there's like a giraffe on the wall, a real one just the neck and head. It's like something somebody caught in Africa. There's all these animals. They're stuffed everything. Taxidermy. Did I say taxonomy?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:12] I think you've been taxidermy, but yeah, we'll let you slide on that one.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:16] Oops, yeah. I think I said taxonomy when I meant taxidermy obviously. Yes, there is taxidermy and I do know the difference, and so there's all these skeletons too in cases. There's like two headed snakes and all this weird stuff that you're just like, “Wow! This is house of oddities.” All this antique furniture, all of it in great condition. He's got the dummy, the Bernie guy, the fake dead body from his Netflix special The Push. If you haven't seen that, you got to go see that. He's got a two headed calf like baby cow that's fully stuffed on one of the, you know, most people have like a piano on their landing. He's got a stuffed calf with two heads. It's real, it's not fake. These are real mutants. He's got a six legged piglet and I'm just like, “Where do you even find this stuff?” And the whole house is like that. He's got secret passageways and books everywhere and a huge whiskey collection. When you walk in, you think you’re Sherlock Holmes’ house or office. That's what it looks like, and it's amazing and it was worth the trip. And what else did I do while I was in London? I thought --

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:18] Oh, I was going to say, you're not really a swaging my jealousy here with all of that because I am so bombed, I didn't get to go there. I'm such a huge Derren Brown fan and I would have loved to have seen that house. But yeah, I can't wait for people to hear the episode that comes out on Tuesday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:32] Yeah, it's just really good. So he's going to have a new show in New York on Broadway as well. Let you guys all know about that. I might even try to like bring a group or something because I definitely want to fly out there for that. Jason, you and I should go see the opening nights of that show.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:46] That would be nice. That would be very nice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:48] That would be great. And otherwise I took a great class and I'm going to be co-teaching some classes with some CIA types, if I can say that, which I just did, and maybe some KGB types in the near future, both to military and intelligence and to civilians. So that's a development and stay tuned for news on that. That's enough housekeeping for now. Just wanted to give you a sneak preview of what was coming up. The first thing out of the mailbag I will say is not safe for work. Normally we don't start shows like this, but if you're listening to this and your kids are around, skip ahead like a few minutes. Don't listen to it in the office. Again, we don't usually have questions like this, but I thought this one was really interesting. Jason, take it away.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:29] Hi Jordan. I'm a 24 year old guy and my wife is 25. She's having sex with her friend who is a 27 year old woman.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:35] See I told you. I told you to turn it off before the kids but you didn't listen.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:40] She thinks it's totally okay because we had a few threesomes, so basically my wife and I had been together for three years when we got married five months ago and everything was great. She's only been with me sexually her entire life. I can't quite say the same, and she's been very open sexually. Before we got married, she told me she was bisexual. I didn't have an issue with this and eventually she said in a random conversation she wished she knew what sleeping with a girl was like. I mentioned we could try a three-way and she actually was really into it. We didn't talk about it much for the next four to five months, but then on my birthday we were all really drunk and brought the party back from the bars to our house. Things led to the other things and we ended up having a three-way with her friend. Happy birthday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:20] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:22] I'm not going to give details as they are unnecessary, but she wasn't mad or jealous at all the next day. That was over a year ago and she never showed even a sliver of jealousy. She said she really enjoyed it and had a great time. Well, we ended up doing it a couple more times over the next six months or so, while we are sober and she seems to really enjoy it. I'm indifferent really as I don't like her friend that much and I love the hell out of my wife. It happened like five or six times. Fast forward to today, and I just found out while she is at work, that she's been sexting her a lot and slept with her by herself a couple times without my knowledge. She forgot her phone at home and asked me to check an email for and I sought in just delve as deep as I could. I feel betrayed and hurt and know that something is wrong here for her not to tell me. I don't know how to confront her or move forward. She's at work currently and I haven't said anything to her, mostly because she doesn't have a phone, and I don't know where to start. I feel like this is my fault for allowing what happened to happen to begin with. I know this sounds ridiculous and I'm a moron, but I love this woman with everything I have and don't know what to do. Any advice would be appreciated, Three-way Gone Wrong.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:26] So what's interesting here is he says, I feel like it's my fault for allowing what happened to happen to begin with. If you replace her friend for a female friend with a male friend, it's totally different, right? It's like really, really clear that this shouldn't have happened. Like suppose you had your buddy and you're into some kinky stuff and you all sleep together and then she's sexting him and sleeping with him separately. You would be like, “You're cheating on me,” but since the girl, you're not really sure what to do. Look, your wife is cheating on you, just the same as if she met a random guy at work, and you should address it from that perspective. If you two don't have an open relationship, then this is not something that is within the bounds of your relationship. This is not acceptable. You may feel you brought this on yourself somehow, but it doesn't sound like him and his wife discussed any ground rules for this threesome and whenever you do anything like that, you should always do that. You should always set the ground rules first and even if you didn't do that, this is still a betrayal. If she's hiding it from you, it means she knows better. She knows it's a betrayals and also it's pretty obvious, right? I can't tell you how to handle this, but I think you should approach it as cheating and she might rationalize it differently, but it's still cheating. You need to tell her for sure that you don't consider this unacceptable the part of your marriage and see what she says. At the end of the day she went behind your back to sleep with someone else without your consent period, cheating. That's what it is. She might not see it as such. You got to call her out on that. Look, this is not your fault. Having some kinky three-way thing is not an invitation to start a separate relationship with that other person even if that person is same sex.

[00:09:11] So let her know your feelings, have a conversation, draw your lines, set those boundaries and you might even want to see a therapist about this, a marriage therapist because this is cheating just like it would be if that was another guy. And you know what I mean? That it sucks too, because in theory all your friends are probably like, “Oh right.” And you're like, “No,” and it's really going to screw with your relationship and it's certainly messing with your confidence inside your marriage, which is not something that you should deal with long term. All right, next up. This part by the way, the rest of the show say for work, you're good.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:44] Everybody come back, bring the kids back.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:45] That's right. Call the kids back in the room.

Jordan Harbinger: [09:48] Dear Jordan and gang, I'm currently in the wedding planning stages and have hit a small dilemma. My fiancé and I are in our 30s and through our jobs have been fortunate enough to have a large network of people that we enjoy being around. Kicker, I'm Hispanic, so everyone in my large family is already planning how they're going to lose weight for the wedding. We're funding this ourselves and are going to stick to our budget. We want to stick to about 100 people, but our initial list we put together is 200 people. What is the best way to approach leaving people off the guest list, but also the future awkwardness of them being upset. I love listening to the show on my long commute and thanks for all you do, Cutting The Fluff.

 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:24] Hi, Cutting The Fluff. All right, wedding hack. Do a destination wedding. I know these can be more expensive in some ways, but they're cheaper and others, for example, if you have your wedding, let's say in Mexico, right? It seems legit because it's a cheaper destination and no, I didn't say that because you're Hispanic, calm down everybody. It's because it's cheaper, all right? That said, you're going to find a lot of relatives and friends can't make it, so even though Mexico is a little cheaper in some ways, then it's more expensive because you got to travel, but a lot of your friends and relatives can't make it or won't go. Since you expect that to be the case, you can tell those people that you're also having a small reception at a restaurant in your hometown as well. So the restaurant reception, that's kind of like the overflow for people who couldn't buy a ticket to Mexico or wherever else for the quote unquote real wedding. This is what Jen and I did for our wedding. We had one in California, but then we also had a reception in Taiwan for people who couldn't make it to California. And then we had another reception in Michigan from my family, most of whom could not or would not make it out to California for the other wedding. This was great because everyone felt included. Nobody felt like, “Oh, I didn't get invited to the real wedding. This is BS.” We ended up with smaller gatherings, which were more intimate and more fun and we saved a ton of cash on the wedding expenses themselves because we didn't have to have a bunch of people coming in from Michigan that didn't really want to fly in to felt like they had to and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. We were just able to have it at the Polish American Club in Michigan and everybody was happy that, and they, you know, drove 15 minutes from their house. Hopefully, you can do something like this because I think destination weddings are a great hack that lets you avoid massive expense while still being able to celebrate with friends and family at their convenience. So it's kind of win-win all around if you can get away with it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:10] Man, you should've told me about the Michigan when I could have saved a bunch of cash instead of going to California. Sheesh.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:15] Oh that's right. You live in Chicago at the time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:17] Yeah. It cost me a boatload to come see you guys get hitched. I would have much probably preferred the Polish American Club. Those are my people.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:24] They are your people. Yeah, that one was kind of like open bar and food and not a whole lot else. We had a DJ and I felt bad because like they had this huge dance floor. Literally it was like five little kids just running around like throwing things at each other and then--

Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:37] That’s what usually is.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:39] Yeah, it’s what usually is, but it was good to have you at the ceremony though you know, you were welcomed at that. It was good for everybody to be able to meet you there too.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:48] It was fun. I met a bunch of new friends there. It was a ton of fun.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:51] That’s good.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:52] I do, I do like your destination wedding idea for sure.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:55] Yeah, yeah. Trust me, you’ll be grateful that all of these sort of sideline relatives are at a restaurant thing for three, four hours instead of at your actual wedding and you're like, “Crap. All my friends from college are here. I want to hang out with them,” and Aunt Edna's like, “Tell me when you're going to have kids.” It's like, “Ugh.” Compartmentalize it, man. Trust me. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:17] Hello Jordan. Thank you for reentering the podcast game and helping thousands every week.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:21] Never left the podcast game. Didn't even miss one single episode, but hey, welcome to the new show, I guess.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:26] Appreciate it. Welcome back. I have epilepsy and I'm unable to drive due to unpredictable flareups. I've avoided spending time with friends and especially going on dates due to the fact that I'm extremely embarrassed that I'm not able to drive. I feel like a nuisance in that I'm not able to be there for people in the way I would like to be. Any advice on how I can work to overcome this? Thank you very much, The Lonely Road.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:48] All right, so I hear you on feeling self-conscious about the epilepsy. Thankfully self-driving cars are basically going to eliminate the problem of you not being able to drive because it nobody who's going to really be driving. But for now in our current century and our current decade, most people take Uber and Lyft already in cities, and I've got a friend with epilepsy, unfortunately a condition that is still not something you can just cure with some simple procedure. But interestingly my job, I feel like, Jason, tell me what you think. But most of people that I know, especially those that live in cities, nobody even wants to drive. It's cheaper not to own a car. It's cheaper not to have insurance. You know, it's just like a lot of people don't want cars, especially if you live in an area, urban area.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:32] No, I mean show notes Bob, who works with us, I don't think he's had a car for 15 years.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:37] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:38] It's just one of those things. If you don't want a car, you don't want a car. So it's not a big deal. You can live nowadays without owning a car. Lyft and Uber are right up there. I would stay off the bird scooters though because you don't want to have an episode on a bird scooter. Yeah, but you know and taxis still work, they're still a lot of those things called taxis.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:56] That's true. Although those bring some hand sanitizer. If you go in a taxi, just spray the whole thing down with a power washer. I would say that I don't know much about epilepsy, but I do know that I've got friends with it and they get these new medications now where as long as you take it once per day, they've had zero episodes since then. So if you're really worried about it being sort of unpredictable, that may be your particular brand of epilepsy. I'm not sure. But there may be alternate medications that you should look into. And my friend also suggested the epilepsy sub Reddit. So reddit.com is essentially the Reddit website. There's a sub forum about epilepsy. There's a lot of support in there. There are meetups in there. Most people are simply uneducated about it. So it's actually kind of up to you to change your mindset on this. I would say don't go into every date or interaction on the defensive, but allow people to learn about it at their own pace, and in that time they're going to find some qualities about you that are appealing rather than just defining you for having epilepsy. And I would consider if you can, a city we're driving your own car isn't necessary. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, any major metro area, you really don't need a car. And anywhere else for the global metro and good public transit, you're good. Seattle, for example, is where my friend lives. There's no need at all for a car, and they've also got a lot of resources for people with epilepsy as well. So in the end, this is like any other condition that you can't let it define you and a lot of your stigma sounds like it's pretty self-imposed.

[00:16:24] It's important to work around it. And fortunately nowadays, this isn't something that'll keep you at home or be glaringly obvious due to a lack of a car. In fact, doing the math on Uber versus owning a car, you're going to find that you saved money not owning one in most areas. And so once you sort of wrap your head around that and you can reframe that is you choosing not to have a car instead of I can't have one because I might have a seizure. You're really going to not have to put so much brain power into worrying about this problem.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:57] This is feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:00] This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator. Every week it seems like I'm reading something about a social media platform, changing the terms of service or leaking all of their users private data. But since none of us can control anyone else's website, it's time to focus on what you can control, your own website. You want to have your own home on the Internet and don't want to worry about eviction or your data ending up on the dark web. Let our friends at HostGator handle all of your website needs. It's never been easier or cheaper and the best thing is you can start today. Your site is either for yourself or your business and you'd rather not worry about learning how to code, how to optimize a plugin. You'd probably rather focus on just about any other thing in the world and that's why we recommend HostGator's website builder.

[00:17:39] HostGator lets you choose from over a hundred beautiful templates. That way your site will look great and it will look good on any device, smartphone, tablet, desktop. They've got tons of add-ons, lots of bells and whistles. Don't worry, you don't need SEO webinars. They got to plug in for that. You can have unlimited email addresses, you can ditch your AOL email and if that sounds more advanced in that you'd like, you can start off with some WordPress, you can just use their control panel. It's all up to you. 99.9 percent up time. That customer service is there 24/7, 365, and HostGator's giving our wonderful listeners up to 62 percent off all packages for new users and they even offer a 45 day complete money back guarantee. So go to hostgator.com/jordan right now to sign up. That's hostgator.com/jordan.

[00:18:27] This episode is sponsored in part by Tommy John. All right, listen up. Life is way too short to spend a single moment of it being uncomfortable. So when it comes to something you wear every day, like your underwear, don't settle for anything less than Tommy John. Tommy John has the most comfortable men’s and women's underwear on the planet, keeping men neat and nestled and women panty line free and both their men's and women's underwear sport a no wedgie guarantee. They've got comfortable stay put waistbands that's a problem I've had and I didn't even know there was a solution to that, stay-put waistband, and a range of fabrics that are luxuriously soft, designed to move with you and not against you. That means there's no bunching, there's no riding up, and they've got a life changing women's line, so I've heard. So I've heard, right? Luxurious hibernation approved launch wear for men and women. Their latest innovation, the first ever stay tucked dress shirt for men. And Tommy John is so confident in their underwear that if you don't love your first pair, you can get a full refund, but the best pair you'll ever wear or it's free guarantee. So what have you got to lose, before you spend another dime on multipack underwear, remember there's a better way to stay comfy Tommy John. No adjustment needed. Jason, we got a deal for him, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:19:36] Of course, we do, Jordan. Everybody heard the tommyjohn.com/jordan now for 20 percent off your first order. That's tommyjohn.com/jordan for 20 percent off. Only at tommyjohn.com, tommyjohn.com/jordan.

[00:19:50] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals, and if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and if you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:12] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:14] Hi, Jordan and the team. Thank you for continuing to bring such a great show together. I've been listening for a few years and since the reboot have been telling way more people about it. Keep up the excellence. Also, thank you for not highlighting the praise that you received from listeners such as myself during your broadcast.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:29] You're welcome, and I think we just highlighted that, but we tried to keep it to a minimum.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:33] I'm 40 years young with a daughter and a wife. We moved three years ago to Salt Spring Island off the coast of British Columbia. When we got here, we knew one person in the name of the game was survive. I'm happy to say that we're doing that. I took up survival work as a landscaper and it'd become a property manager as well. In our second year, I started a small farm, which my family helps with. Food is an important part of our life and nothing beats picking something right before it goes on your plate. This past year I decided to take some of my writings and turn them into a book so that I could feel like my creative self had an outlet beyond my own satisfaction. I'm also beginning to speak at schools here about the health of the environment and the health of ourselves. As part of the farm, I'm introducing a monthly event called Ecosensual Farming as a way to introduce people to the multifaceted relations that are in occurrence when farming or gardening.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:22] Ecosensual farming sounds like naked tomato picking.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:26] It just might be that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:27] Yeah, in fact, now I'm wondering if it is that, yeah. Multifaceted relations, okay. Yeah, got it. All right, continue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:35] I'm also in the process this year of turning this event into a book of practicals. I'm also converting a building on the farm to be a cricket farm for people consumption.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:44] Okay. I assume you means for people’s consumption, for people’s consumption, unless he plans on eating people in that building which would be pretty horrible.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:52] Or he's making zombie crickets that are just going to come and kill us all.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:54] Oh, yeah, or the crickets there for consuming people. Yeah, that's possible too. All right, well this is just keeps going down. Continue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:02]When I brought this idea up, many people are interested in some wealthier acquaintances have asked me to show them the numbers from my small scale project to see if it's worth scaling this operation. For these past few years, I've been the financial foundation for my family while my wife gets her business up and running, which seems like this could be the year for some big breakthroughs with your work in producing finances that are reliable with so many irons in the fire, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed because I support my family and need to keep my survival jobs going. I'm wondering what you think are healthy ways to balance. Also, I find that I make friends rather easily, but I noticed that I'm the only one reaching out. My family attends regular events, mostly dancing and interpersonal game nights so we aren't a shutting kind of family. Thank you for the wisdom, Tight Rope Walking.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:45] All right. There's lots going on here.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:47] Zombie crickets, The Carters.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:50] zombie crickets, dancing, all kinds of stuff.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:52] Naked tomato picking.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:53] Naked tomato picking. That's right, yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:55] This is a rock and Island.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:56] Yeah, seriously. What I would do is sit down and make an annual plan and break it down by months. For example, this year Jen and I made the whole annual plan and all of our projects are in one document. I've got all my personal development that I want to do, all the travel that I want to have. All the business projects are listed in there. Then they're broken down month by month, so it's like we're going to go to these events and no more. We're going to do X number of shows. We're going to do this kind of stuff. We're going to hire this particular position. We're going to work on this. We also outlined who's responsible for what in the areas of personal and business, and then we put all those items into the calendar and if something doesn't fit, it either doesn't get done this year or it gets moved elsewhere to next quarter.

[00:23:40] And this way I don't have more projects than I have hours in a given day. And I think that's the problem you're having here. Also with all the projects, the speaking gigs, personal development and travel all in one document. I know that I get to say no to everything else. “Oh, you should do this thing this year.” “Nope, don't have time.” Can do it next year. Can throw it in the plan. And this is great because I don't have to decide in the moment if I want to do something. It either fits into the plan or it doesn't fit into the plan. And also each part of the plan has monthly objectives that are getting chipped away week by week. I'm still super busy, but I'm no longer overwhelmed. I still get stressed. I still feel FOMO, fear of missing out, but I no longer have to question whether I'm moving forward towards my goals or not, and that adds to my level of freedom which is priceless.

[00:24:25] And I highly suggest everyone plan out their year like this. It'll save you from chasing shiny objects during the year, getting distracted, and then feeling like you got 20 hour work days and you're still only treading water. So sit down and make that annual plan, break it down month by month. And it's really easy because you should err on the side of conservative, right? Like I'm going to go to four events this year, not 10. And so when you do the conservative thing, you can if you need to add things later if you really, really, really want to do it, but chances are you don't need to do all of the things you think you have to do. So pick the most important things and realize that you're going to either need more time, in which case you can trim down the plan or you can add a little bit more to it. If you find that you're really blowing through it and you have too much free time, but let me tell you, you're not going to have too much free time. That's not how this works.

[00:25:16] So make that plan. Sit down and write it out, and then put it on the calendar and you will feel that you have time to get everything going and the stuff that doesn't make it, you pushed to next year. You might do four speaking events, you might not do your book this year. You might just write stuff down, throw it in Evernote and not try to assemble it. You know this is what's going to let you maintain sanity while getting more done than you've ever gotten done in your life. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:40] Hello, good sir. I'm a longtime listener to both The Jordan Harbinger Show and Grumpy Old Geeks podcasts, and now a first time writer. I'm a bit of a biohacker. I read all the books I can get my hands on and follow a lot of podcasts on the leading edge of science. There's one thing I haven't come across and that's how to calm your mind when something happens and you can't stop thinking about it. For example, if I had a recent issue at work or fight with the significant other, sometimes my mind will lock and I will go to sleep early, but feeling like my heart rate is a little higher. Oftentimes that translates to either being up for five hours dwelling on it or waking up at 1 a.m, and then being up for four hours dwelling on it. Of course, later it turns out to be a small issue or nothing life altering. I've tried breathing and listening to audio books to take my mind off the issue, but so far none of this worked. It seems like when this happens, I have to power through a sleepless night. Do I need to spend two years in silent meditation camps to cure my mind of this? Is this something you've dealt with? I'd love to hear from you. Thanks and keep up the excellent shows, Sleepless In New York.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:39] Okay, so box breathing will help with stress. I know you said you've done breathing. I know you said that. Box breathing is for acute stress. We learned this skill when I took a counter kidnapping course. Jason, I told you about this, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:53] I think we both took it. You're talking about the urban escape innovation class with Kevin Reeve?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:56] Yeah, that's right. That's right, yeah. If you get kidnapped twice, you need this class. If you don't want to get kidnapped at all, I still recommend it. We'll link to that in the show notes and it was, it was cool. It was a good time. That graduation is they throw you in the back of a van, handcuffed and blindfold and you pick the locks and escape and you've got to get, not just out of the van but out of this area of the city and they're chasing you the whole time. It's pretty cool.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:22] It was fun, yeah. It was scary too. At least our guys were pretty scary.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:25] Yeah. They're like throwing water on you and yelling at you and stuff, and driving around in this van so that you're disoriented, yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:32] They threw us out or they actually, they parked the van in the middle of a Home Depot parking lot with all of the day laborers around us. And so we get out and we're like pulling our hoods off and getting out of the handcuffs and all the day laborers looking at us like, “What the hell is going on?” And then we all scatter and take off running. I mean what they were thinking had to be hilarious.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:51] I know they were probably like, “Should we still stand in this parking lot?” And also, you know it's funny, not one called the police, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:58] Oh, definitely no.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:00] Not one. So basically don't get kidnapped in real life, but yeah, Box Breathing, you can look it up on YouTube. I'm sure it's really easy to find. Basically it's like inhale four seconds, hold four seconds, exhale four seconds. It really slows down your heart rate. It slows down that adrenaline response and mindfulness practice. If he know how to control the chatter, you can use this when you need it. It is far less useful and effective to try to develop a mindfulness practice under stress. It is far more useful to develop it beforehand through practice and I prefer Calm. I've been using it for years. I chased them down and now we've got them as a sponsor. The deal is calm.com/jordan for 25 percent off. They've also got sleep stories. They've got guided meditations. I use the sleep stories occasionally. They're really cool. They help your body relax. They help your mind relax and you can do this stuff in five minutes a day, the meditation, the mindfulness. Get up five minutes a day, bank the minutes, one of the biggest life changers for a lot of people and something that helped me get through a chaotic year starting The Jordan Harbinger Show again from scratch here with Jason and Jen and the team was being able to bust out Calm in the morning and just do like five minutes of mindfulness. Have you done mindfulness stuff, Jason? I know you have.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:17] Oh, absolutely over the years. I am in the life hacker clan too and I've done lots of stuff like this. But yeah, the Calm stuff is fantastic and I actually enjoy the Stephen Fry sleep story. I've listened to it at least like 20 times so far. It's awesome.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:32] Nice. All right, what else though? You use like poses, I know you've got tons of apps and stuff you've been doing.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:37] Yeah, yeah. I want to, I want to talk about the initial part with the anxiety though. I've had a lifetime of dealing with anxiety and I've always been scared of conflict and conflict resolution and podcasting actually got me over a lot of that because you and I have had a lot of conflicts over the years and I had to get past that. So it's been fun. But you know, you know when you're going into one of those situations that when you leave it, you're going to have that anxiety and you're going to have that terrible sleepless night and you need to hit that head on. You have those conversations immediately. I mean like right then if you know something is wrong, try and have the conversation, turn it on its head, apologize if you have to apologize and sometimes even if you don't have to apologize, apologize, use that as leverage to get the conversation started to get the issue resolved immediately. Don't let it fester because you know in your gut when these things are happening and if you can't do it the same day and just know you're going to have a crap night's sleep. Now, I'll give you some tips in a second on that, but resolving the problem should be the first thing you do the next day. Even if you don't come at a resolution, at least start on the path and write down what you need to do to get the problem fixed. Things left to themselves tend to go from bad to worse. Even if it's a little thing that's going to just be like itching you in the back of your head, get it taken care of, because those are the ones that wake you up at 4 in the morning because they're not huge, but you know the darkness and the sleep makes it huge. Don't you think so Jordan?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:59] Yeah. I think that's why they say never go to bed angry. Now that you mention all this, because you're right, if you go to bed angry or worried about something, it will F up your sleep so bad, so bad. And so if Jen and I have any sort of stuff, we always work it out before we go to bed. But other things, work stuff, whatever. It's really, really tough. That's the stuff that keeps me up at night. If I'm like, “Oh man. I left that sort of open loop. I feel guilty about it.” That stuff sucks.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:29] Yeah, just get that. You know, make that a priority to get to get it taken care of because sleep is the most important thing. And if it's messing up your sleep, terrible. Calm, great for getting to sleep. Like I said, I've listened to the Stephen Fry.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:41] Sleep story.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:42] Yeah, at least 20 times. I love it because Stephen Fry has just the greatest voice in the world, but I've definitely got a few other arrows in the quiver and for adults, white noise generators. I use the Marpac dohm, which is just this little box, it looks like a fan in a box and you can turn the vents on the fan to change the pitch and the resonance of it and it's great for going to sleep because there's so many studies that show for adults. White noise will help your quality of sleep period, and if you've got that white noise in the room when you wake up, you know you're probably not let your mind run away and you'll go back to sleep faster. But it will also keep you asleep longer so you don't actually wake up to let your mind go crazy.

[00:32:21] If you don't want to get like a white noise generator, fans are good, humidifiers are good on full blast. Just something that's making noise in the room. I'm not a fan of electronic white noise generators, like the ones you can get on your phone. I just don't like them because there's something really nice about just having the air move in the room. Even if it's very subtly, it really makes a difference from just like some noise on your phone. Have you ever noticed?

Jordan Harbinger: [32:45] Yeah. A lot of people can't sleep without fans. It's probably something evolved, honestly. Because think about it, if you are asleep, and this is a half cock theory I'm coming up with right now, if you're asleep, if we're talking caveman your eyes are closed and you're laying down, you're pretty defenseless. All you have are ears and skin sensitivity, right? So if something is amiss outside of our immediate area, all you've got is air currents and sound. So if you're taking away air current and all you're doing is playing sound on your phone, I think your body and subconscious brain defense knows that. It knows that you don't have the ability to deal with that. So I think that's probably some primate stuff right there.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:33:31] Yeah, and for other apps I use one called Pzizz is, which is great. You can find that at pzizz.com, P-Z-I-Z-Z.com. We'll link it in the show notes. I actually use the free version because it's got the old classic sleep and nap narrations. I've been using this program since back when it was on Mac on System Nine this was like before you know OS 10 and all that stuff. It's just been around for ages and it just works. The guy who originally did all the narrations was a big NLP guy and they still have those in the free version of the current app. You can get all the fancy new features with updated soundscapes and narrations, but the old version, the free version works fantastic. That's all I use. It's not for meditation, that's what Calm is for, but if you have Calm, Pzizz, and a good white noise generator, that's the perfect trifecta. It is the total perfect trifecta. We'll have all that stuff linked in the show notes, but those are the main tools to stop the voices in my head. You know, there are other ones, but I've relied on these for years.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:28] That's great.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:30] We'll be right back with more Feedback Friday right after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:33] This episode is also sponsored by Athletic Greens. This is a company run by a buddy of mine. I've been using AGs, I call it for a long time. I actually got busted at an airport once with a giant bag of Athletic Greens and they were like, “What is this?” Because there's all these little travel packs in there and they're going to give you some of those as well. I love this stuff because it tastes good. In fact, it was suspicious for a while and I had asked my buddy, I was like, “What's really in here? Why is this actually good and not disgusting?” Because the green supplement with 75 whole foods sourced ingredients I kind of thought would be gross and it's not. It was developed over 10 years, doctors, nutritionists, natural pass. It's got all these vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes, adaptogens, greens and super food complex. They've got you covered in five key areas of health, energy, immunity, digestion, guy health with adaptogens, and those antioxidants that will manage the stress, the mood, healthy aging, and one scoop has the antioxidant equivalent of 12 servings of fruits and vegetables. I ran out here in London and now I'm like, “Oh my God, I'm slowly wasting away.” I love stuff. And we've got a special deal for listeners where they're giving you 20 free travel packs, valued at 79 bucks with your first purchase. Jason, tell them how to get it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:35:46] Getting into a daily routine with Athletic Greens will really be the single best thing you can do for your health and success this year. We can't stress this enough, so jump on over to athleticgreens.com/jordan, and claim your special offer today. That's athleticgreens.com/jordan for those 20 free travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase. You definitely don't want to miss out on this one. Thanks for listening and supporting the show, your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals, and if you're listening to the show in Overcast, please click the little star next to the episode. We really appreciate it. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:26] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:28] Hi Jordan, Jason, and Jen. In my new job. I've been asked to coach a squat challenge, and I'll have to give a presentation. I'm worried about telling people why I got into fitness. When I was in high school in college, I lost 80 pounds enough weight that I needed surgery for the loose skin. There's some shame and embarrassment about admitting that I let myself get to that point. You couldn't tell from looking at me now though. I'm a power lifting coach, UX designer, and martial artist and I really didn't know UX designers were kind of known for their buffness apparently.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:55] Yeah, that's a funny list. It's like, “Oh, a power lifting coach, martial artist and yeah, customer support specialists like, “Wait, what? Hold on.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:03] I actually share that I used to be overweight with people when I can sense they see me as a meathead. I always want to explain why, but I'm more embarrassed about that reason. I was born prematurely and not all my organs were finished developing, my brains, lungs, and liver, which I have trouble admitting to anyone. Growing up I was labeled as learning disabled, but I ended up being pretty resilient. I went from being a poor Midwestern janitor and farmer's kid to a senior level designer at a great company in California. I'm just deathly afraid that people will think of me as abnormal or that it will be held against me in some way. I should also say that I'm very grateful for my parents' support growing up and I love the way that I am. So with letting people know the basic facts be oversharing or a bad idea in a corporate environment? Thanks, Afraid of being Judged.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:47] So first of all, I am super impressed as I hear this, and I think, I think that's the idea here, the message here. Someone who had all that stacked against them then decided to take control and is now in great shape. That's really inspiring, which is probably the goal of getting everyone to do the squat challenge in the first place. If I had to guess.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:38:07] Yeah, definitely.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:08] So I would own all this. It's all in the delivery and when you discuss your situation, you can let people know in a way that's endearing and shows humility about it. If I were in your shoes, what I do in front of the room is say, I know what you're thinking, Meathead Mike, the fitness guy is here to shame us into doing squats. Well, you're partially correct. I wasn't always in shape. In fact, when I was born I had some medical issues that were life-threatening and as I got older I let myself go. I figured since my body was already sort of broken, what was the point of trying to make myself better? Finally, I knew I had to decide whether or not I was worth it. This is a decision we all have to make and I'm inviting you here to make it now with me for the squat challenge. Once I decided to treat my body better, I lost nearly a hundred pounds and I've been trying to make up for lost time ever since with power lifting and martial arts. Those changes in working here with all of you have been the best decisions I've ever made in my life and I would love for you all to join me in this challenge and see if we can all spark some lasting change.

[00:39:08] Now look, I'm spit balling here. You don't have to use that word for word obviously. I think that sort of information strikes a balance between letting people know all the personal details that might stick in their heads in a way that you just don't need at work while inspiring people to make the change and join the challenge in a way that shows you weren't always some naturally gifted athlete who just doesn't understand how hard fitness's for normal people. Everyone loves an underdog and I think you were cut out to inspire other people to start some good habits. So you should be really proud of yourself. Losing 80 pounds is no joke. Jason, you've lost bunches of weight before, haven't you?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:48] Yeah, I lost 70 pounds in two months after I left high school and sadly I found them again years later, but I never felt embarrassed about it and how I got there. I was a kid and so I was afraid of being judged. Everyone's situation is different and anyone who judges you for that is probably too young to generate an opinion worth caring about, honestly. What you need to be proud of is that you did it. Don't ever feel shame or embarrassment because you did something that 99 percent of people can't or won't do. It's part of the story of you. So say it loud and stay at proud man.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:18] That's right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:40:18] You know, own it. And take Jordan speech, man, that was a good speech. Bravo.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:23] Yeah, I think, I think the key is you're inspiring people, but you don't need to be like, “Yeah, it was premature and had all of these liver prob -- like you can really just say, I had medical problems and it caused me to have a crap mindset and that's what I've changed and I want help to help you change it. That's just as effective without having people be like, “Oh man, I know too much about this guy now at work.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:40:42] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:43] So I hear you. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:40:45] Dear Jordan, Jason and Jen. I just started a new career and a successful sales company. I've been working with a small team which includes me, another sales person and my boss. So far I've been enjoying my work. It's fulfilling and I love the work life balance I get to have. As a newbie, I've already managed to bring success to the team and establish myself as a fierce salesperson. However, my boss, whom I work with closely has been going through an awful divorce that involves cheating and more. How do I know this? This is exactly the issue. The problem here is that for the third time now when it's just the two of us in the office, she stops what I'm doing and start to immediately venting about her exactly, crying and giving me literally every detail of her relationship. Also, she has used that time to share details of her past relationships and her severe health issues. Every time this happens, I lose valuable work time and my mood affected to the point where I don't feel like talking to prospects and just need a break. Ideally, I don't want to become my bosses therapist and I don't want this to become a habit. I'm a highly sympathetic and empathetic person, so of course it's hard for me to not want to listen. It's in my nature to want to help. When she starts venting, I do my best not to give her advice and just listen because I don't know her that well to be even in a position to say anything. Plus, she's my boss. This is so inappropriate and I don't know what to do anymore. How do I establish boundaries? Please help. Sincerely, Over the Oversharing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:05] This is super inappropriate.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:07] Dude.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:09] And it's affecting your career, not to mention your sanity, which is like a really bad combination here. I do feel for her, she's obviously going through a rough time. She has no one else to talk to about this, I assume. I'm wondering, does she do this to anyone else? It sounds like the company is so small. There's no one else to do it too, but you need to have a frank talk about this and maybe recommend some therapy here. First though, use the kid gloves. You did tell her you totally understand her need to vent. You're super empathetic about it and when you -- let her know, you're very empathetic about it and when you talk about this with her, you can't stop thinking about how horrible it must be for her and then after you've told her how you take on her stress a little bit, add that you'll happily discuss this type of thing after work, maybe you may not, may not be totally true that you'd do it happily. But during work, let her know during work, it's tough because you need to be in a peak state for sales and not worried about your good friend who you know, why you're trying to close sales. It is insane that you have to do this, but the kid gloves will ensure that she doesn't think you don't care about her, but it also sends her the message at the same time. Now, ideally you could talk to HR about this first, but only if you think they can keep it confidential. Just so you have this documented, if you can't rely on HR, because I'm worried that you're going to end up with some knucklehead in HRP and like, “Yeah, let me call her right away.” “Hey, your subordinates are complaining that you're talking about your personal stuff.” Then she's going to be embarrassed and hate you. Say goodbye to your job, right? Or at least say goodbye to having cordial interactions with your boss.

[00:43:43] Put the info in a document yourself, document all this yourself. Put the information in an email to your family attorney if you have one. Keep a journal, electronic or otherwise about what she's doing, when it's happening and how you're handling it. In this way, if she gets angry with you and you need to leave, or worse, you've got the whole situation documented, and I hate to say this, but it may help to record some of her venting and carrying on, if this is legal in your state. Look at eavesdropping laws in your state and see if you're allowed to record conversations without the other party's consent. It's state to state. Even if you're not, you may want to record some of it anyway by accident of course, because you're also recording your sales calls or at least your half of the sales calls, maybe using your phone, so that you can get better at your job and it just happened to catch your boss having a crying fit three times a week at your desk because you weren't expecting to pick that up. You were just recording your half of a sales call by setting your phone on your desk and recording.

[00:44:45] Now, hopefully a conversation with her will take care of this. I do feel for her, obviously she's going through something horrible, but you have a right and a duty to yourself and to your company to make sure that you can perform your job free of distraction and outside stresses like this. She really needs a therapist and she's trying to get you as her therapist during work on company time and that, that is not going to fly. It's not just bad for you. It's bad for the whole company. All right, last but not least.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:14] Dear Jordan, Jason and Jen, my problem is my ego is getting in the way of my closest friendship. My best friend and I started off as college flat mates eight years ago and have been close ever since. Despite long distances and moving countries, we still visit each other about once a year and stay in touch regularly. She's my closest friend and we've been there for each other through life's up and downs. Recently she's had a rough few years with an abusive relationship, being broken in debt, and being in environments that were bad for her mental health. My life during this time has been pretty stable with a long term relationship, secure financial position, and career growth. She's been coming to me for advice and support, which I'm more than happy to give and she supported me through rough patches too. The problem is I've realized I'm no longer keeping my ego in check. I've always had a know it all streaked in my personality and honestly have come to love the feeling of being trusted and knowledgeable. She's a very warm person who will often express how she's grateful for my advice, which makes me want to lean into the role of an advisor even more. I feel this has been shifting our relationship from an equal footing to a mentor mentee situation. It starting to drive a wedge between us though. On our last visit, she asked why I don't ask for her advice anymore and it made me realize just how far this has gone. Now I rarely share with her things that I'm struggling with or my own failures as being vulnerable feels like a threat to my now overinflated ego. How can I put my ego aside, so I can get back to a genuine equal relationship with my friend while still giving her advice and support while she gets back on her feet? Thanks for everything you do and congrats on the new show. I'm glad I can finally recommend your show without having to caveat it with, I know the name is sketchy, but the show is good, I promise. My best, Ego Is Not My Friend.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:52] So this is awesome self-awareness. I love it. If I were you, I'd tell your friend some version of this, whatever you're comfortable with, maybe leave out the part about how you feel like you're above her because her life is a mess, but definitely include the bits about how you find a lot of personal value in giving advice to her and you're often afraid to share because you don't want her to look at you as someone who is imperfect because you're afraid it'll hurt your sense of self-worth. I guarantee that someone who has had a lot of rough patches ask you for advice all the time and looks up to you. She probably spends some significant of time comparing herself to you and I know everyone likes to be puffed up a bit, but you're right. This is affecting your friendship. Even if there aren't any symptoms of it showing up just yet on her end, it is definitely affecting your friendships.

[00:47:42] So coming clean with this will not only help you fix the behavior, but it will really go a long way to strengthening your friendship and if you've got a visit coming up, do it in person. If not, this is a great subject for a longer phone call or a FaceTime or whatever the kids do these days, that's fine, but good on you for caring enough about your friendship to prioritize it over your ego. You can never go wrong opening up to those you trust. This type of self-disclosure leads to the type of relationships that last a lifetime and make us all better as people because I'm excited for you, let us know how it goes. Jason, you've got a recommendation for us this week.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:18] I do. I watched the Clinton Affair.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:21] What's that?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:22] This is a six part series on the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky scandal way back in the day.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:28] Oh my gosh.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:29] You remember that, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:30] I do, yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:31] There's so much going on in that entire scenario that I never knew about because I didn't really pay that much attention to it. I'm like, “Ah, I don't care about these people, whatever.” You know, I was in my 20s, I'm busy getting work done and I'm like, “Okay, president got a blow job. Who cares?” Well, it's a lot more than that. It turns out.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:48] Oh man!

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:50] Yeah, it's a really fascinating look into the entirety of the situation. And I thought it was fascinating. My roommate and I binged it in two days and it was a really, really good series. It was on A&E here in the States. I think you can get it off the website, but if not, it'll probably be on streaming somewhere. But if you're even at all interested in that whole story, what happened back then and all of the coverups and who did what. I mean, it makes what's going on today look like nothing. But it's still a fun look into history to see what was going on behind the scenes way back when in the White House.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:26] Wait, do you mean what's going on today? Makes this look like nothing or the other way around?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:30] Yeah. No, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:31] Okay. Because I was like, wait a minute. This is much worse. What's going on now that an affair?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:36] Oh yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. What we've got going on today is a train wreck that we're just all watching in slow motion, but the Clinton Affair, like we can look at this in retrospect and go, “Well that's entertaining.” “Oh man. Some of these people were horrible,” and it's a really interesting look in how cover ups work inside the White House. And yeah, maybe the current administration should watch it because they're kind of failing on that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:58] On their cover up?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:59] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:59] Maybe. Okay, so a lot of people on Twitter and Instagram where we engage a lot with you guys, and even some email have been pretty vocal about the Erik Aude interview. A lot of people loved it first of all, but of course, understandably some people, especially Pakistani Americans or people in Pakistan who listen to this show, and thanks for listening by the way, all the way over there, we're understandably a little bit upset because Eric doesn't like Pakistan after being falsely in prison there for a while. And people said, “Why didn't you push back?” If this happened, if he was saying these things about any other country, you would have pushed back. And I'm saying to you that I would not have done that. And the reason is not because I agree with him on Pakistan. I've never been there. I don't know anything about it. The reason is because when somebody is telling a traumatizing or traumatic experience, a story of a traumatic experience, what I don't want to do as a host and as an interviewer is say, “Well, let's pause right now and let me be politically correct so I don't hurt anyone's feelings.” Not everyone in Pakistan is a gang raping, false imprisoning torturer like I felt like that was kind of obvious just in general and I wouldn't have to clarify that and I'm bummed that people's feelings were heard about it. But I'm also a little bit surprised that people expected me to sort of take a political correctness break in the middle of this really harrowing story, and part two was out yesterday. So I understand a lot of people hadn't even heard that.

[00:51:29] But bear in mind, Eric's best friend in prison and one of his closest friends ever was also Pakistani. So you can see the difference and you can see the tension there. And I felt like that was self-explanatory, but people still managed to get offended about it. And I get why, I get it. If you're a Pakistani American, you feel like this reflects on you and that you're already dealing with a lot of crap.

Why didn't Jordan, who I trust to get good information and interviews out there sort of stick up for me on there. That's why. It didn't seem appropriate to pause, just to sort of correct his perception and make it politically correct for the listener. It just didn't make any sense. It's like if someone says Americans are a bunch of idiots, I'm not going to stop and be like, “Well there's plenty of people that aren't.” I mean it's just obvious that there are plenty of people that aren't and it doesn't really need to be said in my opinion. I don't know, Jason. You've got your own issues with Pakistan.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:52:21] Yeah. I'm personally not a fan of Pakistan.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:23] That's because you're going to go to prison if you show up there.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:52:25] Exactly, yes. I ran a global blogging network for many years and we had three cities in Pakistan where we had writers, we had people in Lahore, we had people in Islamabad and we had people in Hyderabad and we had to go to great lengths to keep those people anonymous because if they said anything that was off kilter or could be deemed by even the neighbors as you know, just out of bounds, they could be killed and they were terrified of that. Some of our writers were gay, which was a definite no, no, we had to definitely keep them under wraps and we went to great lengths to do that and we got great work out of them. And sadly, you know, the site no longer exists but when one of our writers was covering the corruption in Pakistan, we got sued in Absentia by basically a criminal organization who ran what was essentially the Adobe of Pakistan. It was all corrupt. And so we were sued in Absentia, found guilty of course, and have arrest warrants out for us, which as far as I know, are still in effect. So if I step off the plane in Pakistan, I'm getting arrested. So guess where I'm not going? Pakistan ever.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:31] Well, that aside. I hope this sort of clarifies the situation. I've got no issues with -- I haven't been to Pakistan. All the people that I know from Pakistan are super nice because they're people that are friends of mine here in the States or that work at restaurants or businesses that I patronized. So I don't have any sort of balanced view of the country. I just think if someone gets in prison, they're falsely and has a bad time, they're not going to like the place, and I just felt like I didn't need to then sort of smooth that over. And a lot of people were saying, “Well, he was committing a crime by importing these leather goods.” Yes, that's for sure. And I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't, Eric wouldn't disagree with that either. I just think when you're 19, 20 years old, and you're taking free trips to Turkey with leather jackets in a bag, which the reason I was so drawn to this is that's totally something I would do. I'd be like, “Ah, this is a victimless crime.” You know, Now I know better and I get it. But when I was that age, I'd be like, free trip to Turkey and get a fine maybe, or some tax stuff. Big freaking deal. That's what's scary about it. That's what was really scary about it for me is I can totally see my young dumb ass doing the same thing.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:44] Yeah, and I'd like to point out though, that the crime that was being committed was not a crime in Pakistan. It was a crime in the United States for importing goods and not paying taxes on them.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:52] Good point. So he wasn't exactly, yeah. So if he'd gotten caught for that in Pakistan, would have been a nonissue. That's a good point. I didn't even think about that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:59] Yeah. They were like, “Oh, thanks. You bought some jackets. Appreciate it. Thanks for your patronage. Bye”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:02] Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. So yeah, so the people on Twitter that are being really cool about it, I totally appreciate you engaging with the show. To the people that emailed me and were like busting out conspiracy theories about how I must be paid by all the guests to promote their anti-Pakistan agenda.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:55:19] Oh God.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:19] I would just take a quick step back and maybe take a breath and like, I don't know, think about that for a minute.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:55:25] Yeah. Really.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:27] I think if we had a real add to Pakistan agenda, we probably would have gotten somebody else. No, love your--

Jason DeFillippo: [00:55:34] And after a thousand plus shows. I think we probably had more than two episodes about Pakistani, if we were getting paid by the anti-Pakistani lobby, you know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:43] Probably, yeah. If we were a mere too, what was it? What was the phrase? It was like a puppet of the Israeli Zionists, you know, it was one of those. And I was just like, “Okay, okay buddy.” But anyway, that's normally we don't make statements about shows like this. But I wanted to clarify this because I thought it was important. It's just not, it's not good for rapport between interviewer and interviewee to stop and make everything PC all the time. It destroys the interview and it only needs to happen if somebody is going to be hurt by this. And I don't think anybody reasonably is going to go around being like, “See, now everyone knows where all gang rape is. How dare you. This is terrible.” You know, it's pretty obvious that if you're a Pakistani doctor living in Illinois that people aren't like, I heard this podcast and said, “You all are gang rapists.” I mean it's just not, it's not something normal smart people would conclusion that they would jump to.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:56:34] Right. I understand their point of view because they love their country and you know, the people who wrote for us, we're terrified all the time, but they still love their country. And I can understand that because it's their country. They just wanted to point out the flaws in their country and every country has flaws. Pakistan has more than others in some regards.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:53] By, by -- well, all right. We don't have to dig in deeper hole than we're already in.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:56:58] Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:59] Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget you can email us friday@jordanharbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. Happy to keep you anonymous, of course, a link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Shout out to everybody that I met over in London, ran into some show fans here and there. I ran into some other new friends at some of these courses that I was, at so quick shout out to everybody there as well. It was great meeting you. London is a great town. If I couldn't meet with you while I was there because I did get a lot of messages and I didn't have time for everyone. I will be back. Really had a great time there.

[00:57:34] Go back and check out the Erik Aude part one and two for this week. This was just an absolutely incredible set of episodes, so if you haven't heard that, go back and check those out. If you're wondering how we manage to book all these great guests and leverage our network, well we've got systems, we've got tiny habits in a few minutes a day. This course is free that we made for you. Go to jordanharbinger.com/course. You cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and when it comes to networking, so dig the well before you're thirsty. This is not fluff. This is not like you don't need to put your credit card number in or something like that. I just want people to know these skills because it makes the world a better place, and it shows you some of the highest leverage stuff that we do over here. Jordanharbinger.com/course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show, and jordanharbinger.com/youtube, that's where the video interviews are on YouTube. We film a lot of the interviews we do now and they're all on that YouTube channel, jordanharbinger.com/youtube. Jason, where are you at?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:58:34] My personal website is over at jpd.me and you can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks at gog.show or your podcast player of choice. And I'm over on Twitter @jpdef. That's J-P-D-E-F.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:45] The show was co-produced with Jen Harbinger. Show notes for this episode by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. 2019 shaping up real nice. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. So have a great weekend, and we'll see you next time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:59:08] If you like our show, you're going to love The Producer's Guide, Todd Garner and Hollywood's elite on PodcastOne. Join host and accomplished Hollywood Producer Todd Garner, as he shares his thoughts and stories on the movie business and chats it up with his A-list industry pals like Kevin James, Rebel Wilson, Adam Sandler, and so many more. Download The Producer's Guide every Thursday on PodcastOne or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.