74: How to Land Your Dream Job in the 21st Century | Feedback Friday

Transcript for Feedback Friday | How to Land Your Dream Job in the 21^st Century (Episode 74)

Jason DeFillippo: [00:00:00] Well. Hello, everybody. This is Jason here. I just wanted to let you know that you should stick around at the end of Feedback Friday because we have a special bonus interview with Ian Siegel, co-founder and CEO of ZipRecruiter. Ian has some amazing tips on how to get a job in this crazy new data-driven society that we live in. So definitely you want to stick around and check that out. But for now,

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:19] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger and I'm here with my producer Jason DeFillippo. Here on The Jordan Harbinger Show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests and this week we had Dr. Drew Pinsky talking about how he developed that sixth sense by which he just dissects people on the phone over the radio. Just amazing and, of course, addiction behavior and all kinds of other fascinating topics. He's my number one radio influence, so I highly recommend you check that one out. I really liked that one and Alex Kouts, part two, talking about negotiation. If you heard Alex Kouts’ part one, his course or our course on negotiation. Highly recommend it, if you haven't. And part two is also this week, part three coming next week as well, which will wrap up that series. A lot of good feedback on that so if you've ever negotiated to anything or you want to know how or you're afraid to and you have any desire to learn about human behavior in negotiation, highly recommend going to the Alex Kouts negotiation series.

[00:01:18] Of course our primary mission is to pass along our guests’ knowledge and our experiences and insights to you. In other words, the real purpose of this 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 friday@jordanharbinger.com. Try to keep them concise if you can. It makes things a lot easier for us, and Jason, what's going on in your world by way of housekeeping, anything?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:41] Oh man, I'm just enjoying the summer.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:43]  For me, I just got back from Podcast Movement. Shout out to everybody that I met and spoke with over there. That was a fun event and I look forward to that kind of thing -- to seeing all of the fans of The Jordan Harbinger Show, colleagues and contemporaries, and learning a little bit more about podcasting because there's always something going on in the space. Alright. What's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:03] Hello, my question is what's the best way to get to yes while negotiating with someone via email. I can't convey body language, tone or inflection in these types of negotiations and getting in front of a.k.a. face to face with the other side is not an option in the line of work I'm in. I'm in the legal and personal injury business. Although I'm not an attorney, what I do is negotiate and settle outstanding health care liens on the attorney's behalf for the injured client after their cases have settled. Keep up the great work respectfully, The Ego-tiator.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:35]  Ah, nice, The Ego-tiator. Well, this is a great question because negotiation really isn't just something you have to do face to face. Of course, it helps to do these things face to face because you can read tells and all these other things that Alex Kouts and I had talked about in the negotiation series. But in this case, I would say it's mostly about clarifying questions. Drill down to their motivations and find out what they actually want. Remember, negotiation should be a cooperative mindset, especially in this type of case because it sounds like there's not a ton of leverage. You're just trying to make the other side realize, “Hey, you're either going to get paid never or you're going to get paid a little bit if you are more reasonable about this.” So remember, anything you communicate via email, of course as written communication has to be clear, especially for legal purposes, but you can still be very positive.

[00:03:26] You can still be very polite. I don't really get why you can't do this on the phone, but I think that if you're stuck only doing email, give some other advantages you should keep in mind. Everything is asynchronous. In other words, they're not waiting for you to reply right away. So you have a lot of time to think about and construct your answer, which I think is beneficial. You're not going to be using a ton of emotion here. You're not going to be stuck on deer in headlights. “Oh my gosh, I don't know the answer to this”, or “what do I say right now?” Go grab, Alex Kouts part one and part two both out in the past couple of weeks. Good timing on this question because those will address this concern for sure and all the same principles really apply. Of course, you can't read the other side's non-verbals so it becomes even more crucial to communicate clearly. Make sure you understand their motivation and those clarifying questions that Alex discusses with me on the show are the way to get there. Again, I highly recommend negotiation part one and two and part three comes out next week where we talk even more about clarifying questions among other things. This is a life-changing skill set, so go grab those episodes. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:32] Jordan and Jason, I'm dealing with a ghost. My best friend of 10 years has vanished and I need your help. We were very close, like talking-on-the-phone-for-hours-a-week close. She canceled plans on me last minute a few months ago and said that her mother was sick. Being concerned, but respectful, I gave her space. I called and texted over the course of several weeks to check in on her mom and since then she's texted me one word responses and ignored my phone calls. She says her mom's fine and according to social media, my friend continues to be social, hanging out with other people but hasn't reached out to me at all. So do I reach out and ask her point blank, what's up? She's almost 40 which is older than me and I wish she had the guts to speak to me like a grown ass woman or do I just fall back? Maybe our friendship reached its end or did I not do enough to support her when her mom was sick? Help. Casper, The Unfriendly Ghost.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:29]   So this is weird, man. I don't get it. There's something going on here that we don't know about.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:31] We're missing a puzzle piece here, I think.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:33] Definitely, at least one puzzle piece because look, this is a WTF situation. People can be weird. You'll never know what's up unless you ask. So yes, go ahead and ask your friend what's going on. You have nothing else to lose. So definitely ask, right? Because you already lost your friend, so maybe if you're going to have any shot at repairing this, you've got to figure it out. Sounds like she's having a pretty immature reaction to something, but we really don't know what that is. I'm sorry that you're going through this. I just can't believe how weird this situation is. Best friend of 10 years, not of a year. This isn't a moody person. We're obviously missing some pieces here. I'm curious myself actually. So yes, call and ask or if she's just going to ignore you, try and meet up with her in person, but it seems like she's not going to be open to any of that.

[00:06:17] But what's weird here, Jason, is if someone's blown off your phone calls, but they're still answering your texts, they're still wanting to engage. They're just being passive aggressive. You know, because I ignore people. I've got people who've, you know, stolen from me or something like that or like you know, or people from the old company and I just ignore it. I don't respond with passive aggressive stuff. I literally just either block and I don't see it or I just don't answer it at all. I don't try to sit here and be like, “I'm going to say one little word and I'm going to say this other thing.” I don't do that. That's ludicrous and immature. And so that's kind of why I think maybe this person's trying to communicate to you that they're mad at you in a way, but I just don't get it. If she still won't respond after you tried a bunch of contact and outreach, I'm sorry for your loss, but it sounds like she's not handling things well and perhaps you should just move on. This is super strange way to end a friendship though. What the heck?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:13] It really is. It's just out of the blue it's like, “Oh, I just don't want to talk to you anymore, but I'll still text you?” What the hell is up with that?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:20] Yeah. So unless she did something really terrible, something that you would obviously know about if you did it, then I think the friend is way off her rocker, you know. I think she's just probably being really dramatic and this is all just kind of, she's taking something else out on you. I don't know. We don't know and you might never find out. You kind of have to be cool with that, you know? Because your ex-friend might just be like, “I'm going to give you the cold shoulder because F-you”, like who knows? And you may never know, which will drive you nuts if you let it. So yeah. Hail Mary and if not, forget about it. Move on. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:56] Hi guys. I'm 32 and a certified accountant for the family business. I've been here for 10 years now and it smacked me in the face how unhappy I am in my work life. During the first few years at the company, I was very busy learning about the business whilst simultaneously studying for my accountancy qualifications. Now that I'm fully qualified, my personal growth within work has come to a halt and I've realized how unfulfilling, unchallenging and lonely my work is. Although I've realized this a little on the late side, I've decided that if I want to be happy, then I need to move on from this job and go after something that's going to fulfill me. My friends and family are not in favor of this as they see that I'm well-paid, have no pressure on me at all, and receive many benefits such as a car, phone, medical insurance, and 60 days paid annual leave on top of the very generous salary. --  60 days? Oh my God!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:45] Yeah. Nice.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:48] They think if I move away from the business that I'll regret it immensely and say things like, “No one really enjoys their job that much anyway.” Well, I see differently. I want to feel alive as though I'm going after something I truly care about with some fire in my belly. I could still stay in the family business within a different role, but I have a real desire to get out there in the wild and push myself. Similarly, I could pursue an accounting-based career outside of the family business, but I feel I know the accountancy path well enough to know it's not something that's going to get me excited. How would you recommend identifying what your passion is, which you can then turn into a career? Or, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way? Should I be looking at what my strengths are in trying to tie that in with the skill requirements for occupations that I find interesting. Thanks for the great show. With best regards, Passionately Unpassionate.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:36] So I think that Passionately Unpassionate kind of nailed it with the latter. First of all, she does or he does –whoever, has a great gig right now with 10 years in the business, 60 days paid leave, the good pay. Yes, you have a good deal, but I totally get being restless. There's no point in suffering if you will. And I think it's ridiculous that your family says nobody really enjoys their job that much anyway. Project much? I mean that is completely untrue. And what they might as well have said is, “Look, it's going to be just as bad somewhere else, but please don't quit because we need you.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:13] Yeah, we're all miserable and we want you to stay within our little misery circle. So don't go, don't go.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:17]  Exactly. Yeah. Nobody enjoys their job that much anyway. Well, no. You're wrong. And F--you also. But that's completely ridiculous. That's complete projection. I believe that you should not follow your passion. I know I talked about this with Mike Rowe on the show before. You should bring your passion with you and I've talked about this a bunch of times. Concepts like skill stacking, where look you're getting a bunch of different discrete skills that are making you the number one X, you know, because you speak Mandarin and you also have 10 years of accounting experience and you are an expert fisherman like there's some sort of confluence where the Venn diagram overlaps on each of those things that makes you more rare and valuable. In this case, I think you've built plenty of bricks, right? This isn't just skill stacking, but you've built plenty of bricks.

[00:11:04] You've got a great skill set, a decade of experience that's legitimately good. You’re 32 which means you're young enough to bring energy into something new, but you've got enough experience to be useful to pretty much everyone. So that's huge. This is a great time to make a leap for yourself right now. And strengths are developed and created. They're not usually in born for most of us. So if you are really feeling something, you're really keen to go after something, but you don't feel like you're naturally good at it, cultivate that even if you do so while you're still in this job and build another brick, right? So it's much more exciting to go, “All right, well I don't love this job that I'm doing, but I got them to get me trained up in learning Russian and they're paying for that. And I'm getting a lot of experience and they'd transfer me over to their Moscow office for a year and my long-term maybe sort of secret goal is to stay here and work in a different field, but in the meantime I'm getting inches or miles or thousands of miles in that case, closer to my goal.”

[00:12:04] So I think you can develop strengths. I think you can make micro movements or even macro movements toward something you really like by looking for what you're already good at and looking for what you want to be good at and developing in that direction as well. And frankly, I'm a little surprised I'm recommending this, but career counselors are actually good at this type of thing. Well, if you get a good career counselor, they're actually good at this type of thing and they're worth looking into, don't take an online test. Those things are ridiculous. I remember I took one and I got like, “Do you enjoy stamping metal? You should be a machine metal stamper.” It's like, “No”. I want this to be based on more than some bulbs I fill in. Or there's something in a multiple choice. But if you see a career counselor, they're going to have a lot of options.

[00:12:44] And I've mentioned this kind of concept before, when we were kids, we only think police. We think about jobs you think policemen, firemen, army man, nurse, doctor, right? We've got maybe teacher in there because we have teachers and then we have whatever our parents do. And that's the whole world for us. So it's no surprise that you filtered into accounting, it's your family business, but figure out what you might want to do based on career options. Career counselors will be able to help with that. And if you don't have the necessary strengths, requirements, et cetera, then develop those either while doing something you love or while doing this current job, which will be a lot more tolerable if you feel like you're moving forward in a direction, in a positive direction. So I'm not one of those like, “Go quit your job and do what you love.”

[00:13:27] I don't think that's good advice. I think that's internet self-help bullshit.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:30] It's terrible advice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:32] Exactly. So I'm not going to say, “Quit now. And do only what you love.” I think you can move in that direction in a way that's strategic so that you don't have to eat ramen for five years and then regret every minute of leaving your other gig. So hopefully this is helpful and I would love to hear about where you end up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:13:50] You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show and this is Feedback Friday. Stick around and we'll get right back to the show after these very short but very important messages.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:58] This episode is sponsored in part by Onnit. One of my favorite companies, I've got a ton of their stuff. I've got everything from their kettlebells. I live on these new elk bars that they have that are ridiculously amazing. Imagine Jason, if you will, a Slim Jim that is not terrible for you and is kind of juicy and really large and awesome and keeps well and is all grass-fed and organic and everything. It's just awesomeness and…

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:25] Snap into an oak bar.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:26] Snap into an oak bar! Yeah, exactly. And it's awesome. It's like all of the bomb flavor, and I know that this is a matter of opinion, of a Slim Jim but like really delicious and anyway, everything Onnit makes food-wise is awesome. They have these protein bites that taste like I am housing the most delicious vanilla cake anywhere except it's actually got acceptable nutrition content and protein and Onnit, a health and fitness juggernaut owned by my friend Aubrey Marcus, dedicated to delivering human optimization. So they've got everything from vitamins to kettlebells, like I said, and they really focus on fitness folks and entrepreneurs.

[00:15:05] So it's not just like, “Hey meathead, want some meat for your face, try this.” It's like, “Okay, we've got Alpha Brain and nootropics and things like that.” And it's not just like, “Hey, I read this article on some blog that says this, so here's the supplement with a bunch of sawdust in it.” You know, Aubrey and the team over there really work hard making sure that this stuff is legit and up to the cutting edge and they're always re-jiggering their formulas and making new stuff. They've even got like Star Wars and Gorilla kettlebells and stuff, which here's my theory, Jason, if I have cool ones, I'll keep them around visible, which means I'll see them, which means I will use them more and so far that has actually worked for me.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:44] Well, good for you because when I see them, I just generally feel sad because I can't lift them because they're really heavy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:50] Really heavy. Yes. That is the idea.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:52] I know lifting weights, that's the point of it is that they're heavy and you're supposed to lift them, but you know, I'm a delicate flower.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:59] That's right. That's right. So I'm a fan of pretty much everything that Onnit makes and they've got a great deal for everyone listening, of course, as I requested. Jason, where can they get that?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:08] Head on over to onnit.com/Jordan and receive 10% off all foods and supplements and for a limited time. If you go to onnit.com/Jordan, you can receive a 14-count bottle of Alpha Brain to try for free. That's onnit.com/Jordan.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:22] This episode is sponsored in part by Wine Access. I used to think that I didn't like wine. In fact, I didn't use to think I didn't like wine. I used to just not like wine, but it just turns out that I didn't like the one I was drinking and I didn't know there were better options out there because I didn't think, “Oh, let me just go buy a bunch of expensive stuff and then try to like it.” That's not going to work for me and I didn't want to acquire a taste for anything else. You know, I'm 38, what's the point? And Wine Access really changed all that?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:50] You're so close to dead. Why do anything new? Just give up.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:54] Why do anything on new? Just give up on life. But Wine Access really changed all that. They make the wine easy to drink because they picked great handcrafted wines and I went to a tasting with their Master of Wine, which is like even above Master Sommelier. It's like this essentially like a post doc in wine. There's 42 or 45 of them in America, period. That's it. And WineAccess has two of them and they know everything about wine. That's kind of the idea. Those are the guys that can like smell the dirt and then go, “Hmm, this is from Bordeaux”, right? It's that kind of craziness. And they've got at Wine Access access to these limited batch wines from all over the world. That's the point. And they over deliver in value and these wines tastes like they should cost hundreds of dollars. In fact, when we did the tasting, he's like, “Here's a $150 bottle of wine.” I was like, “Oh, it's okay.” And then he's like, here's a $38 bottle of wine that we have because we don't carry the $150 bottle of wine. And I'm like, “Oh, this one's better.” And he's like, “Exactly.” So they also include this one sheet where the wine comes from. What makes it great? And so we've arranged this exclusive limited time offer with Wine Access that Jason will tell you about now.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:03] So to get 20% off these incredible wines that already over deliver on price and you can order as many bottles as you like, by the way. Go to wineaccess.com/jordan and this offer won't last. So order now to get this fantastic 20% off deal. That's wineaccess.com/Jordan. Thanks for listening and supporting The Jordan Harbinger Show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit JordanHarbinger.com/advertisers and don't forget to check out our Alexa skill, go to JordanHarbinger.com/alexa or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. It's just that simple. Don't forget, at the end of this episode, we do have our special bonus interview with Ian Siegel, CEO and co-founder of Zip Recruiter. Now let's get back to your questions here on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:46] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:49] Hi Jordan and crew. Thank you so much for continuing to do the great work despite having to rebuild. I'm about to enter my senior year of college and recently became interested in going out on weekends. However, for both daytime activities and nighttime ones, I've always run into the problem of getting friends to come along. There's been an interesting phenomenon I've noticed, asking if people are interested in coming along becomes a catch 22 cycle because they want to go in a group. They wait to say yes to an invite, but because they wait to say yes, no one makes definitive plans with me and so because no one says yes, other people are hesitant to join me hiking or hitting the bars, et cetera. Often I have to go alone or decided not to go at all. How do I avoid this issue? Thanks. Wannabe Ringleader.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:33] Wow, that sounds super annoying.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:19:35] Oh, so annoying.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:36] Can you imagine that? Oh my gosh, that must be some sort of young college thing. I can't imagine adults doing this. That sounds super irritating. I used to have that issue with people around me and I've really just got sick of it, much like yourself. I ended up going out with one or two other people a bunch and I was just social that way. I just stopped inviting the other people out and I let them sit around, far around, and waste their life. And I think you can meet people in a place and you can make friends there in the moment. You can go to a venue and whoever's there you start chatting with and that's a skill set. It's one I've been teaching for a really long time. I just wonder what are these people doing? You know, they have to go eventually do something. So my gut here says maybe there's another issue that we're not seeing.

[00:20:22] I hate doing this, Wannabe Ringleader, but you got to investigate a little bit. Are they avoiding plans or are they avoiding you for some reason, right? Because if you find out that after you go out alone, they all go somewhere else without you. Maybe they just don't want to tell you something or maybe they find you a little overbearing. I don't get that vibe at all. I think they're probably just a bunch of lazy, non-committal kids that don't want to make a decision and can't bear the thought of going somewhere where not everyone else has already going. So it's like risk aversion, but you should just make new friends. If these boring kids don't get it together, man, you're going to waste your whole life waiting for somebody to take charge. And here's the thing. You've already tried to take charge and they still won't commit.

[00:21:05] That's just so irritating. There are people that actually get off their butts and those people, in my opinion, you know, my opinion is those people tend to be more interesting anyway. Honestly. Your current group of friends is going to be like, “Oh man, I wish we could travel. Yeah, me too. Oh, let's plan a trip. We'll all plan a trip. If Jenny plans a trip. Well, okay, well I'll plan a trip if Monica plans a trip. Okay, cool.” And then you try to get everyone together and then someone's like, “Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know.” Right? You're just going to be dealing with their BS, non-committal loser mindset for the rest of your life. Just get rid of these people. There's tons of people around that like to go out and do stuff. As this makes my skin crawl a little bit. Hearing about this.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:47] 100% agree. There are so many people out there that you can hang out with it actually do want to go out and do the things you want to do, so why try and herd cats who are just not into it? They're like, ‘Well, I'll only go if Joey goes. No, I don't want to go if Bobby goes.” Yeah, screw those people. Do what Jordan said. Find some new friends.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:02] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:03] Jordan, Jason. I'm a 22-year-old man, fresh out of college. Over the last five years, my mother has ballooned in size and weight. She's teetered right around healthy and slightly overweight most of my life. Once my sister and I left for college, she let herself go. She seemed to not even want to work on herself. She's probably gained a hundred plus pounds in the last five years. It's getting embarrassing and worrisome. My dad is a super healthy guy, great shape, ultra marathoner, et cetera. Her laziness and unwillingness to help herself obviously bothers my dad. It also bothers me as an athlete and observer of nutrition. I want my mom to be healthy and stop this self-destructive behavior for herself and her family. Any advice? Thanks. Fat Mom.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:46] Yikes. I mean there's a deeper issue here.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:49] Oh yes.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:50] Yeah. This is not about physical health. Anytime someone gains that much weight, they're eating emotionally and I suspect there's a little bit of depression here and it's interesting that the timing coincided with you and your sister leaving the house. There's a little empty nest syndrome possibly happening here. I don't really know. I'm wondering if she's seen a therapist and I think that's the first move because you could be dealing with empty nest syndrome. You could be dealing with all kinds of stuff. I remember when I was in high school, one of my friend's mom, she was just kind of nuts. And I remember at one point just point blank saying, “Hey, you know what? What's going on with your mom?” And he's like, “Yeah, I don't really know. We don't really know if she's got something called empty nest syndrome.” And it was really bad because you heard me correctly, I was at my friend's house with him and that was what she was diagnosed with.

[00:23:43] And his brother had left the house too, but his sister who was highly successful, she had left. And that was what coincided with her mom's sort of weird mental issues. The brother was not doing so well. He also was, I think, living at home. And of course my friend and I were in high school. So imagine how it feels to have somebody who is suffering from empty nest syndrome and you're not out of the nest. So yeah, it's kind of like, “What's wrong with us?” And it was like his sister was like a Hollywood graphic designer and dating Kevin Costner and all this stuff but the brother was like a waiter, a server and I know that that's not a big deal, but he was like 40 so he kind of had an, and again, nothing wrong with that if that's kind of what you choose to do. But he had had let's say sort of a rough start and that was why it wasn't like he was happy with the simpler life. It was just that he had made a ton of different mistakes. And then, you know, my friend is just sort of coming of age and it's like, “Oh man”, so therapies where it's at to figure out what's going on here.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:24:48] Also, what do you think about maybe marriage therapy because now that Fat Mom is out of the house, maybe the relationship with the husband is not really where it needs to be and that's where the emotional eating comes in. It could be just a relationship with her mother and father that is causing this eating because since she's not there to actually like take the place, it comes back to the empty nest. But I think that there might be a deeper issue with the relationship between the mother and the father that is actually causing the emotional eating. What do you think about that?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:18]  Yeah, I think you're probably right. So it's a little confusing because we say Fat Mom was out of the house, but really Fat Mom was the daughter who wrote in the question. So the mom is still in the house. The mom actually herself is still in the house and I think you're probably right. It's probably something that was, here's what I think, they probably had lingering marriage issues that were going on for a long time, but since they had kids in the house, it was like, “Well, we can't freaking mess with this stuff right now. We got kids.” Then the kids left and they were like, “Oh, we're just ‘just us’ here alone with our problems that we haven't solved for 10 years, just hanging out.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:50] Where's the éclair?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:51]  Right. Where's the eclair? And the dad's like, “Well, I'm going to go run an ultra marathon and get obsessed with fitness

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:57] and stay out of the house because I don't want to talk to you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:59] Yeah, possibly. I mean, we're kind of jumping in conclusion on that one, but yeah, you never really know. But large swings in weight, especially a hundred pound plus weight gain, that is no joke. That is a mortal threat. And your mom knows this. What does your dad do though? Does he talk about this? Does he ignore it? I wonder how your parents communicate. Going back to your original point there, Jason, my bet is that they aren't good communicators right now, and they probably weren't in the past about certain things either, or there's something else going on. So here's what I would do, I would ask your dad and your mom separately what the issues are and how their relationship is separately. Privately. It might be weird they’re your parents, you might not get a real answer. You probably won't get a real answer honestly. But if you have aunts and uncles on your mom's side that you can ask, that might also be helpful because look, this isn't one of those like, “Oh, I want to avoid an awkward conversation.” This is a serious mortal and threat to your mother's life and probably an indicator of a bigger issue. So the time to fix this is now before diabetes, organ failure, joint pain, further depression, anxiety, marriage issues that are irreconcilable, keep us posted. But I would dive into this if you have the bandwidth to do so, I think it might be worthwhile. And I think you're right, Jason, there's something else going on here.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:20] Yeah, I bring this up because that's what exactly happened to my mom. She had a terrible marriage. She got morbidly obese and it was the marriage that did it. And once they got divorced, she started to lose weight and was much happier. But it was the exact same issue. That's why, you know, from my side, that's why I brought that up, because that could be the issue that they just don't get along anymore. And he's retreating to marathoning. She's retreating to the refrigerator and she's probably doing that just to piss him off because he's so fit.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:48]   Oh, there might be something there to like some sort of subconscious thing going on.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:52] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:53] Totally. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:55] Hey Jordan, Jason and Jen. I'm a senior in college and I have a question about friendship. I live in an apartment with two of my friends, one who I've known since my freshman year in college and the other I've known since high school. We live with another guy and his girlfriend. Ever since I moved into the apartment, this other guy and I have had tension. He was super aggressive when he thought that I insulted his girlfriend the first week I moved in. It's important to note that my two other friends were aware of this tension and they've warned me before of his aggressive behavior. This guy actually punched one of his old roommates in the past before I moved in because they had an argument. A couple months living in the apartment and one evening I come home from school and my housemate out of nowhere was actually waiting for me to come home and he rushed me.

[00:28:39] I barely stepped into the doorway before he was all up in my face. He was yelling and trying to start a fight with me while I was backed into a corner. At this time, I was practicing effective and calm communication and not feeding the fire. The yelling and pressuring went on for about five minutes and all this time, my two other friends just stood there doing nothing. I made eye contact with them and all they did was stare. They didn't back me up or try getting between me and my other housemate. If it had been them in that situation, I don't know if I would've swung and fought or broke up the fight, but I definitely would have done something. My question is, what is a friend supposed to do in this situation? Ever since that day, I've had trouble seeing them as my friends and I have no idea if I'm being overly dramatic, but I expected them to back me up in that situation because that's what I would have done. Just a Guy With No Backup.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:27] So, this sucks. But first of all, yeah, your friends are wimps who didn't know what to do. That's for sure, but it doesn't really mean they're not your friends, you know? I would ask them privately, what the heck is going on here? You do deserve answer for that, but the real problem is not them. You know? What do you expect? I would love it if you were like, “And then my friend went to the liquor cabinet, grabbed a full bottle of cheap whiskey and bashed it over the guy's head and now he's in the hospital”, like that would be awesome because that guy deserves it. He sounds like a bullying, A--hole who needs to be taught a lesson and I don't advocate for violence, but look, if you're going to use violence, then you get violence. If that's the language you speak, I'm happy to speak with you, you know?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:30:05] Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:08] But that doesn't mean they're not your friends, really. The real problem is not these guys. The problem is you live with an insecure deep shit who can't manage his emotions and his violence because I don't care what it looks like. From right now, he didn't punch you, et cetera. That's called assault. It's not battery. It's assault though. Full on. That is a jail time offense that this guy is doing to you and it doesn't seem like this is his first rodeo. Now he's got aggressive behavior. It wasn't like he was just wasted one day and did something that was totally out of character and was like, “Wow, I can't drink again.” This guy is just like that, randomly?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:30:44] He punched the guy that was, you know, there before him. So he has a history of violent behavior.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:49] Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do? Wait to get punched? He's going to do it to you. Obviously, it's going to happen. He would have done it before if he didn't think he was going to get triple teamed by your friends who now he knows aren't going to do anything. So I'd move out if I were you and call the police. Again, this is assault and you have two witnesses who can be essentially compelled to testify about this and they should. They should at least do that for you. Now, make sure you can get out of there before you do that because I have a feeling if you call the cops on this guy, he's going to be unpredictable. But I think he deserves a lesson as do many bullies. And even if you don't have the police confront him, document what happened by writing it all down.

[00:31:25] Times, dates, everything and record an audio version of your two whinny friends accounts of what happened as well. Like if you have to record the conversation and look into your local wiretapping laws, but chances are if you live in a one party state, you can record a conversation with yourself and two other people and you say, “What was that all about?” And they go, “Yeah, I don't know. Steve just came out of nowhere and attacked you”, and you could say, “Just what happened? I don't even remember exactly what happened. Can you tell me the story from what happened from your perspective?” And they'll say, “Oh, what do you mean you came home and he just ran after you.” And you're like, “But I didn't do anything, right?” “No, you didn't do anything. You walked in the door and he attacked you.” I mean, that's what you need to get on tape.

[00:32:03] Use your phone or whatever. Then file that away with an attorney and someone at school administration if you live on campus and the cops, because that way, if this a-hole does anything else, you've got it documented and you'll have a stronger case because of course when he does inevitably beat you up or punch you, he's going to be like, “Oh, well he did this thing first”, and you can be like, “No, he's got a documented case of attacking me”, and he's going to go, “I do not, and nothing ever happened”, and you'll be like, “Great. Here's all this evidence that I filed beforehand when I was actually worried about my safety and witnesses and also this guy punched this other guy.” And look, even if the cops are like, “Look, we can't prosecute this. It was all sort of privately in the dah--dah--dah location and the prosecutor's really busy. The school's going to go, “You know what? We don't want violent assholes in our school. We're going to expel this guy. We have enough evidence for an administrative disciplinary action here.” And this guy doesn't belong in school. He sounds like he belongs in jail. Honestly, he needs to get therapy for himself.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:57] And you might also want to invest in a few cheap security cameras for inside the house and let the other roommates know they're there because that will get around the two party rule. If you're in a two party state for recording, if they know that there are security cameras in the house and you're recording, next time this happens, you will have video evidence.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:13]     Yeah. You know what? That's not a bad idea. Go and grab like a nest cam or something like that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:33:20] I preferred the Logitech circle cameras because they're much cheaper and they give you 24 hours of free recording.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:25] Oh there you go. Go grab that. And there's some that are like, we have one in our bookshelf and it's like a battery operated USB chargeable. The battery lasts freaking like three weeks and you can grab one of those and yeah, the next time he rushes you or does something, you're going to have a video of the whole thing. So when he goes ahead and denies it, you're like, “Nope, here's him assaulting me.” And they're like, “Oh, okay, you're going to jail now.” Because I think the guy's blowing smoke and he's a bully who's just massively insecure and probably has an abusive past. I mean of him being abused. We already know he's abused other people. And what's up with him dating, who's the girl that you guys live with or whatever that, I mean, she's clearly dealing with this too. There’s really, and I'm drawn to generalization here, there's probably no such thing as a guy who abuses other people but doesn't abuse the people he lives and works with.

[00:34:14] Sorry but you're dating somebody and he abuses all these other people, but he never mistreats you? Come on, give me a break. That's not true at all. She's probably just not saying anything. So you've got to make sure you're handling this properly. But yeah, give your friends a break, man. They were obviously scared out of their minds. It sucks. I get it. I'm picturing The Big Bang Theory, Jason. None of those guys would have stuck up for each other. You think of Sheldon's getting yelled at in the corner freaking what's the guy, Johnny Galecki or whatever you think he's going to run up and attack the guy? You think Howard's going to run up there and…

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:46] Actually Howard would do it. I think Howard would do it. He's the one with the balls in the group.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:50] Probably. Yeah, you're right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:52] He is the only one. He's been to space.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:54] That's right. He has been to space. So maybe him, but you're not friends with him. You're friends with these two yetis. You know, cut him a break. Like I get it, you're in college. They were terrified and you weren't getting punched. I'd like to think that if you were getting punched, they would've done something. But you can't count on that. You can't count on other people. People are not always cut out for combat. That is a fact.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:35:16] That is true. That is absolutely true. Yes. We'll be right back with more Feedback Friday after these really, really, really short, but Oh, so necessary announcements.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:26] This episode is also sponsored by Simplisafe. This is an amazing new sponsor that we have. It's a really great security system. And I like it. I didn't think I would care about security systems, but I was in the market for one, I tried to get, you know, the big brands and I was looking around for competitors that had stuff that was made in like the last two decades and I couldn't find anything and I was just really annoyed by that. So I gave up and then I found Simplisafe. No drilling. Everything's wireless. You don't need tools. You plug in the base station, you place your sensors on doors, windows. In a few minutes, your whole home is protected. It's not like PC load letter. This thing doesn't pair with that thing. It all came pretty much paired. It's got key fobs. Everything looks modern.

[00:36:05] The thing talks, it talks to each other. It talks to you. There's no contracts as well, so they don't get paid unless you're happy, which is the way it should be. There's no hidden stuff. There's no like, “Oh there's a tax on this and you have to pay to use our app.” Like some of the other companies, none of that crap. They've got power outage protection. You don't need a landline. That was a huge thing with this because with Simplisafe, they've got a little cellular chip in the base station, which is like, “Hello, how has that not been a thing for the last 30 years?” But they have that in there so you don't have to have the landline that you need with every other security system to call the freaking police when somebody throws a brick through your window, for crying out loud. And power outage protection -- there's a battery in there. Gee, who would have thunk it? Other security systems, half the time, that's an upsell which is so ridiculously irritating and this backup battery lasts a full 24 hours. So unless you get a power outage longer than that, then you're unprepared for it. They're going to have you covered, which is great. So go and grab a Simplisafe. If you're on the market for security system and I highly recommend that you get one because this thing is so unintrusive and easy to set up. There's really no excuse. How do they get it, Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:12] Simplisafe, now protects over 2 million people and it’s sweeping up editor's choice awards from places like CNET, PC Mag and Wire Cutter. So go to simplysafe.com/jordan to learn more, that’s simplysafe.com/Jordan, S I M P L I S A F E.com/Jordan. This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator. Look, everybody is a brand nowadays and on social media, it's getting harder and harder and more expensive to get yourself noticed. And since those social media sites come and go, you need to have a stable place on the internet you can call home. A place you can send people to find you no matter what website is popular this week. That's why we recommend HostGator's website builder. You can easily create professional-looking and feature-packed websites, and the best part is no coding. Like I've said before, I coded for 20 years and I never want to do it again.

[00:37:59] So that's why I choose HostGator. You can choose from over 100 mobile-friendly templates. So your site will look great on any device -- your smartphone, your tablet, your desktop, your car someday. Look at those Teslas with the big screen. You want your website to look good in somebody’s Tesla, of course you do. HostGator gives you a ton of add-ons so you can do things like increasing your search engine visibility without being an expert in SEO and come on who wants to be an expert in SEO? Stick a fork in my eye. I'm glad they do this for me. Or you can integrate with PayPal and allow customers to buy directly from your website. So easy, just point and click and go. You'll also get a guaranteed 99.9% uptime and their support team is there to help you with any issues that you experience

[00:38:39] 24/7 365, that is basically all the time, if you don't get what I mean there. HostGator's giving you guys and gals up to 62% off all their packages for new users. Just go to hostgator.com/jordan right now to sign up. That's hostgator.com/jordan for up to 62% off. Thanks for listening and supporting The Jordan Harbinger Show. Your support keeps us on the air and for our list of all the discounts from our amazing sponsors, visit JordanHarbinger.com/advertisers. 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 I really do mean really helps us out. I'm not joking there, so if you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to JordanHarbinger.com/subscribe. And now for the nail-biting and conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:27] All right, next up. Hi Jordan and Jason, I'm a 27-year-old woman. I recently questioned my boyfriend of five years, who's a 28-year-old man, on what is his stance on his health, his career, and his finances along with his family and friends and our love life. I've been unsatisfied with his actions after this and I will try to do better, which was basically his response. He has many health issues but won't go to the doctor to treat them. He'll take advice from our friends but not me to take the steps to go to the doctor. He uses physical pain and depression often as excuses for the following two points. He wants to make big purchases like a car to drive to work and an international holiday with me, but he can't stop buying small items like the newest game with his casual retail assistant rate.

[00:40:10] He admitted buying things, gambling and gaming give him temporary enjoyment through his depression. He says he wants to go back to tertiary education for the last four years, but his financial situation gets in the way. He wants the romantic spark of the past to come back, but the above irks me and makes him unattractive. I tried letting him plan dates one month and I do the other month, but his dates always resulted me driving to pick him up from his parents' home and then driving to a restaurant he didn't book and settle for fast food as the restaurant was full. Friends have told me to stick around because he's a good person and he just hasn't grown up. Do you believe you can still care and love someone but no longer be compatible with them to be their partner? Kindest regards, Dating a Man Child.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:52]  Yeah, of course. I believe that. Are you kidding me? That's like, yes, I absolutely believe you can love somebody but not be a good partner for them. That is like the story of everyone's life. Like goodness, I'm getting deja vu. Remember the doctor who wrote in and was dating a guy who couldn't get it together and made a bunch of excuses and only played golf?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:11]  I mean, this is a very similar situation. He wants to make big purchases. Okay, that's a dream. He wants to take an international vacation. Okay, that's a dream. And by the way, Jason, I never put together that tertiary education was what you take after secondary school. I've never heard that term before. Tertiary education.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:27] Me neither.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:28]  Yeah, but it makes sense. So university, things like that. Okay. So he's doing any of that and he's living with his parents, which is, you know, fine. Whatever. You're young, it happens. He wants the romantic spark of the past to come back. Okay. Cart before the horse. First of all, he's got all his personal health stuff. He's not really trying to clean it up. He's not trying to make you happy. So yeah, you can love someone that's an emotion, but you can be a terrible match for them, which is where the logical side of things kicks in and the clear solution is to leave and move on. You don't owe him anything if you're trying and he's not, you don't owe him anything. Especially if it's been awhile and it really does just remind me of that doctor. You deserve better. You deserve better. I see this in my inbox all the time. Women and men who deserve more but are sticking in something because they've been in it for a while. It's just like, “Well, I've been in it for a while.

[00:42:21] My friends say he is a good person. Okay, then they should date him.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:25] Exactly. That's what I was thinking. I'm like, “Well, if you like them so much, here he is.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:29]  Yeah. I mean, that's so weird. “Oh, he's a good person who just hasn't grown up yet.” Cool. Call me when you're a freaking adult because I'm an adult. What the hell? I mean, yeah, that's ridiculous. Do they not think you can do better? Because if that's the case then a few friends come on, seriously, you know like geez, that's really ridiculous. I can't believe anybody would say that. I think, look, if you've been married a decade, someone's going through a hard time. That's one thing. If you're dating and the other person is mailing it in, it doesn't really matter why, especially if they're not going to take your advice. They're not going to put any effort into doing better.

[00:43:08] You deserve more. And sometimes people need a kick in the pants to get their own stuff together. I really believe that, you know, and yes, he’s always got these issues maybe, but he hasn't gone to the doctor so he's not addressing them. He basically has no incentive to do anything because he has what he actually wants, Jason. He has a girlfriend, he has video games, he has junk food. He doesn't want a better life. Sure. He wishes for some things to be better in some vague way, but he doesn't actually want it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:43:39] He's a professional settler. He's going to settle for the good things. He's got a girlfriend. He's got the games. Yeah. It's like, he's got a job. Not a great job, but he's got a job. He's, you know, mooching off the parents. Why? Why change? God! Why would you have to get up in the morning and like make your life better when you have all of that great stuff because it's going to last forever. We all know that, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:57] Yeah, sure. If he did really want to change things, he would be making an attempt to change things. It's not like he's so disabled with depression that he can't do that. If he's holding a job, he's otherwise functional. There are people with real depression and they can't do stuff. They can't get out of bed. They've got real issues. Those people need medical attention. This guy needs to go to a therapist or a doctor and address this stuff for sure, but he's able to do a lot of these other things. He's just not actually doing any of it for himself and for you. He's doing what he wants to do. Mailing it in to keep the going, buying video games and playing them, go into the job to earn money, et cetera. But he's not doing anything for you because he's not really doing anything that you want him to do for himself. So give him a chance to go to a therapist and get himself together. But if he can't do that, he does not care enough about your quality of life. You should move on to somebody who does. All right next.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:44:51] Hey Jordan and Jason, I found out a friend of mine is getting involved with a Landmark organization. He's done the intro and solo course and is now about to do the couple's course with his girlfriend and is starting to invest significant money. I've done Jordan Harbinger courses before so I'm not against spending time and resources on self-improvement, but there are cult-like elements of Landmark that don't sit well with me. People who have been known to only associate with Landmark people once they're in and investing significant amounts of money into furthering their Landmarkness. And I've seen it in practice from a friend of my sister who drank the Koolaid. I think if his friends just tell him it's a cult and push him too hard, it's going to backfire. I recall Jordan's interview with Christian Picciolini a while back and was wondering if there's any practical approach you can think of to help him think critically about this and really do the research before investing more time and money. Thanks. Signed, Can The Cult.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:45]  So normally I would be like, “Oh my gosh, cults are so bad. Here's what you've got to do.” But I will say Landmark, I haven't done it. I've gone to some of their intro stuff. It doesn't interest me because I've been to similar things and I'm not a fan of a lot of that stuff, but Landmark's not really a cult. People get really into it, but in general, it can be okay. It's what you make of it. Again, I'm not a huge fan of it. There's high pressure sales tactics. I don't have three or four days to listen to really repetitive stuff from many times kind of an unqualified teacher who's sort of, I don't want to go down that road during this answer here either. But that said, a lot of people love it. They may be getting real value from it. The good news is that most of the people who go through something like this, they just lose interest after a while.

[00:46:31] They've done a bunch of it. It gets old or the organization inevitably tries to rope them into doing free work all the time, which is pretty common. I've seen it a thousand times. There's people who are so into this stuff, Landmark or the other zillion things like this. And then they're like, “I'm doing the doctorate program”, which by the way is not a doctorate program. It's just them working in the office doing sales and they're like, “You're going to learn so much about yourself”, and then they make you do free work. And eventually people go, “What the hell? I just have a job for which I am unpaid. This is such BS.” Right? And people lose interest. So that said, it's not a cult. Real cults are far more dangerous. Landmark depends on who is running it. It mostly is okay. It's a little overzealous in their sales.

[00:47:11] It's overhyped in the results for most people, but they're not necessarily trying to isolate you from your family. They're not trying to isolate you from your friend. Sure. You're going to spend tons of time with other people in that. But if you're doing this in a healthy way, I know plenty of people that went to Landmark and were like, “Yeah, it was all right. It was good.” And then we went to another thing and they're like, ‘Yeah, it was fine.” And we stayed friends and everything was totally cool. I know other people that went to Landmark and it's like they only hang out with Landmark people. Where are your family now? And then a year later they're like, “Oh yeah, I went through that weird phase. Yeah, that was so weird. I don't go to their stuff anymore. I kind of regret doing a lot of it.” I mean, whatever, you know, he's going to lose some time. He's going to lose some money, but you don't have to alienate him. You're not going to be able to save him from this. They've got a very powerful sales and persuasion organization, and if he's getting what he thinks is value from it, fine. So don't panic and you can wait it out if need be. Especially while they go through their insufferable phase of only talking about Landmark stuff all the time, and you know, in the end…

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:05] I just think about the Americans, because Landmark is basically asked and asked is what they talked about all the Americans all the time, and I was watching those episodes and I'm like, “Oh God, shut up about it already.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:16]  Yeah, that's 100% of what it is. In the end, look, if they're trying to better themselves, you can be supportive because after all, it's not Scientology. They're not going to lose their kids. They're not going to lose their family. They're going to spend a bit of cash. They're going to waste some time. They might even spend the time wisely. Who knows? They might resent it, they might not, but that's pretty much it. You know, you're not watching somebody join a cult that requires them to move to a trailer park in the middle of Idaho and not have a phone, right? That stuff is freaky. The Wild Wild Country. They're not becoming Rajneeshes, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:48] Yes. Seriously.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:49]   He's just going to some courses after work and taking some time off. That's pretty much it. Recommendation of the week. Go see a roller derby match. You know, these things are funny. It's like, how would you describe it, Jason. And it's kind of like a, there's people roller skating around in circles. It's like rugby kind of. And is it always women? It is, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:08] Well, no, it's not always women, but the bulk of it nowadays is women doing roller derby. I know my friend Michael Burns is one of the big bouncers over at the Derby Dolls here in LA. If you don't know the rules, then it's just like, “Okay, why are they, I'm looking at rollerskating traffic”, but you got to learn the rules before you go. So you've got to know where you know the people need to be and who's doing what with whom and it is actually fascinating to see how much of a real sport it actually is. It's pretty cool stuff.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:36] Yeah, I've been to Derby Dolls in LA. I actually witnessed a pretty awesome up set. I can't remember what the teams were, but one team was just clearly smashing the other team and everyone left and there was a handful of kind of like fans and drunk people and I stuck around and then the tide just started to turn and then in the last few minutes of the match, the massive underdog came back and won and people were screaming their heads off. It was really cool, really exciting. And we're talking like taco trucks and beer and it's just fun. You know, it's a fun time and you're going to see these people who are not paid anything slash that much to go do something. They love it. It's just a fun night out.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:50:17] And it's not super crowded. You get in for cheap and it's a bunch of people who are just really there for the experience. You know, I used to do wrestling stuff when I was living in Chicago. I'd go to like, you know, homebrew wrestling shows out there and I think this is kind of like it. It's like dinner theater with violence, with a beer. That's really kind of what it is. It's really fun.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:38] And so to be clear that roller derby stuff oftentimes is kid friendly. Like it kind of depends, you might want to check it out for yourself first before you leave the babysitter. But like a lot of times it's just a funny thing. It's kind of like a monster truck rally kind of deal, but it's not dangerous. You're not going or up against a bunch of like low class thugs. Nobody's throwing glass bottles and at least not at Derby Dolls.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:51:00] You know, it's WWE on wheels.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:01] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. 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. Quick shout out to Mind Pump. They run an awesome show. They have been supporting us from the very beginning. I heard they mentioned us a few times on their show. Just good dudes all around, really love those guys. Go check out Mind Pump fitness podcast as well. And a shout out to American Dream University, a charity I work with along with Robert Falton to help veterans readjust to civilian life, get things moving for them, get things moving for their business. If you're looking for a good charity to support, check them out. AmericanDreamU.org. I'm on Instagram and Twitter, @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. And Jason, tell them where to find you.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:51:52] You can find links to all my socials at jpd.me and you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks. For more information on that show, just go to gog.show for how to subscribe.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:03] Keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Try to keep them concise if you can. It makes things a lot easier for us on our end. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. We're excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:52:20] And now for our special bonus interview with Ian Siegel of ZipRecruiter.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:26] ZipRecruiter's kind of a novel concept. There's plenty of job sites except most of them just funnel resumes and kind of a buckshot fashion. So tell me what problem ZipRecruiter was solving for you and why you started the company.

Ian Siegel: [00:52:41] Well, the idea for ZipRecruiter came to me when I was working at multiple startups and I was required to do my own recruiting because those companies were too small to have their own HR department. And so as a result of that, I was literally posting the same job to Monster, Career Builder, Craigslist, LinkedIn, over and over, and again, the same job. And it was so onerous and it was so time-consuming and I just kept thinking, this is exactly the kind of thing the web is designed to solve. This is the problem. The technology is built for it. And I constantly imagine this one button push solution and that's what we built. So at ZipRecruiter, you can post to over a hundred job sites with a single submission. And the response to that from the day we launched was overwhelming. And I think the only, you know, real improvement that we've had to make over time is, you know, when you post to a hundred job sites, you deliver a lot of candidates. And what's really become our focus as we've evolved is delivering not just candidate volume, but candidate quality.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:46] How do you do that? I mean, I know there's a complicated algorithm that's involved and everything, but how does it essentially in a nutshell work because it seems like it's really hard to actually evaluate those things. I've tried hiring people from other websites, Craigslist and stuff like that. And you're like, “All right, my plan is to make them jump through these seven hoops.” First of all, 99% of people can't do that, which I guess is a good filter. But then you get these people that will jump through like the first two hoops and you go great. And then they blow it everywhere else because of just sheer laziness and incompetence. So like, are you able to filter those people out? Because I think that's a huge pain point for anybody hiring anyone, especially entry level.

Ian Siegel: [00:54:27] The answer to the first part of your question is technology has come into play over the last two years. That has allowed things to happen from a matching perspective that were literally impossible throughout the course of human history until now. And it's this technology that people sometimes refer to as machine learning or deep learning or even AI. But fundamentally computers are really, really good at discrete problems. Like take the qualifications that are required in a job description and match it to the qualifications that are listed in a resume far better than human beings ever will be. And it's the evidence bears out and we have a really simple mechanism by which we can measure satisfaction, which is there's a thumbs up and a thumbs down on every candidate that applies to a job on ZipRecruiter and we can just see whether employers like these candidates or not.

[00:55:19] And fundamentally the thumbs up rate has gone up a double digit percentage ever since we let computers start doing the matching and there's a really fun angle on this, which is -- the truth is that we've received so many job descriptions for the same job over time that we effectively already have a superset of what the requirements would be for any job. So if you just give us a job title and a geography, we can immediately start showing you candidates before you even write a job description. And that's in fact exactly what we've started to do. And that's not just good for employers. It's actually proven to be really good for candidates. We are a marketplace, so we serve both sides of the market. So the moment that you enter a job to it, I want to location on zip recruiter now. We just start showing you candidates who are most importantly actively in market looking for work and to meet all of the qualifications that you have listed. Now the question of whether or not when you actually talk to them, they are a culture fit or a personality fit. That's a step no site has been able to solve yet. But the truth is that the solution to that is imminent.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:28] So how can a job applicant on the other side of this equation make him or herself stand out? Because this is a question you get a lot but not usually pose to somebody who has hundreds of thousands potentially of data points.

Ian Siegel: [00:56:39] I think the thing that has been the conventional wisdom for a long time and is now exactly the opposite of what you as a job seeker want to do is make your resume stand out, make your resume special, put a lot of time into the design of your resume. Be really thoughtful about when they look at that resume, have done something to it that makes that employer stop and say, “Wait a minute, what is this?” And the reality is the majority of candidate applications now are reviewed by a computer before they're reviewed by a human. And computers are linear thinkers. So the most important thing for that computer is that you have structured the information in a way that is easy to parse and you have clearly listed your skills and the number of years of experience you have with those things. So I advise people to use the simplest possible resume template that they possibly can spend a lot of time thinking about formatting to make sure they're not using anything nonstandard, no special characters. And then these algorithms are really good at picking up things like misspellings or grammatical mistakes. So the basic advice of proofread your resume has never been more important than it is right now.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:53] Interesting. So the computer, does it know to ding you if you've got some sort of grammar or spelling error in the resume?

Ian Siegel: [00:58:00] You know, the nature of the new technology that we're using is something called deep learning. And the really fascinating thing about deep learning algorithms is fundamentally you let the computer develop its own algorithm. You give it a general rule construct of what the problem is you're trying to solve. And then it tests many different hypotheses and rapid sequential order to figure out which one is deriving the best result. And it's using so many dimensions of information that it's actually impossible for us to reverse engineer exactly why it's making the matches it has. The way we evaluated is on the response from the employers who are receiving these applicants. Are they happy? Are they giving thumbs up? Are they reaching out and contacting them, which is something else we can see. So we look for all these positive data signals and what we have found is that computers are astonishingly better at finding the right matches. It used to be that when you posted a job, you were effectively posting and praying. You were just hoping serendipity would bring you the right candidates. And now it's a science. It's really amazing what the computers are capable of doing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:10] So we can't sort of say, “Look, I need somebody, this is a writing job. They misused, their and there, ding it.” Can we do something like that? Can we tune it like that or not really?

Ian Siegel: [00:59:22] Oh, I love this question because I often speak about the hiring market in general and I always pose two questions to any audience I'm speaking to. And the first question is when you write a job description, do you want my service to automatically correct your spelling and your grammar? And 100% of employers raise their hands and say, “Yes, I want you to do that.” And then I say, “Okay, do you want me to correct the spelling and grammar of the applicants who apply?” And I'd say 80% of employers say no because they consider that to be a signal, useful signal that they can use in determining whether they like a candidate or not. So this question of like how important are misspellings is a really interesting one as far as whether the algorithm is using that data or not. Here's what I can tell you -- the algorithm is using every piece of the animal.

[01:00:17] It has 64 different dimensions of data that it's looking at at any candidate. And it's not just looking at the information you've put in a resume, it's also looking at your overall behavior. How many jobs have you applied to? How qualified are you for those jobs? Was the response from employers to your other applications, et cetera, et cetera. So we have all these data signal that's really rich. It may be that you will get a candidate who has misspelled the word there, but they will have checked every other box that you could possibly have wanted. And so what I can tell you is the algorithms at this point are nearly twice as good as human beings at finding the right applicants.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:57] Huh. That's so interesting. I feel like that mirrors my desire, right? I would want it to correct my spelling and grammar. I need a good impression. I'm in a hurry. But yeah, I don't want somebody to slip through the cracks and then have it be like, “Oh, well the computer made this intelligible before that it was jibberish and they spent three hours fixing it”, because it is signal, it is useful signal. So is there any criticism that one might voice upon a service like ZipRecruiter and I realize I'm asking you to sort of out your own service here that one might say, “Look, I'm getting skewed results because I actually want to know if this person is going to be able to do this themselves”, or as the benefits obviously I would say of course outweigh the disadvantage. You know, me getting a right candidate that has some qualifications versus it spellchecking, I'll take that any day but is there some, I would say weak criticism that can be placed on an on a surface like Zip Recruiter if machines are really doing a lot of the presentation.

Ian Siegel: [01:01:54] I mean, I think you're hitting what I would consider a low level issue with the matching algorithm. There is in fact pretty high level issues that we spend a lot of time worrying about, thinking about and trying to factor into how we build technology because fundamentally whether it's machine learning or deep learning, the information that the algorithm is using to determine which candidates are good and which are bad is based on the training data that humans are providing. And one thing that's absolutely true is there is a tremendous amount of subconscious bias within our society and that has been proven over and over again. If you have an African or American or a Latino name, your probability of getting an interview is 20% lower than if you have a traditional Anglo Saxon name. And if you are a woman, there are definitely biases particularly in certain job categories against you. And so the question is if we just fed the algorithm all the data we had, arguably it could potentially be perfecting the subconscious bias that exists. It'll definitely give you candidates that you would love, but it would be refining that bias. And so we have to be thoughtful about what information we do and don't give it access to to try and eliminate that bias from the hiring process.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:20] Interesting. So you actually have to not tell it certain things. Otherwise the service would actually probably program that bias into its machine learning algorithm.

Ian Siegel: [01:03:32] 100%. you can look at some of the most forward thinking organizations in the world like Google. Google did its own internal survey where it found that the subconscious bias that I already articulated existed in its organization and then it actually went to, it's African American and Latino managers and then looked at their behavior and discovered they exhibited exactly the same bias as the overall population. So that's how powerful subconscious bias is and there is no organization that is free of it. Our society as a whole is guilty of it. And therefore, you know, when people talk about how do you create more diversity in workplaces, I think simply trying to train out the bias is a long term solution. It will take multiple generations to get rid of it. But interestingly because algorithms are doing a lot of the matching and it's where I've said before that the dawn of robot recruiting is here. It's just so much better at predicting the right candidates for a job. Interestingly, the short term solution is actually moving to these algorithms because then we can control the information which is considered.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:45] That's man, that is really fascinating. I wish we had more time to go down that thread, go down that road. Because I think it's kind of like, “Opp, surprise.” Everyone's sort of kind of racist and also there's not a whole lot we can do about that in terms of programming, but what we can do is maybe fix it with computers.

Ian Siegel: [01:05:01] Exactly. Exactly. That's right. That's exactly right.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:05] So we're kind of like, “Oh your computer's racist. Yeah. But we can tell it not to be. Try that with your uncle, not going to work.” Right?

Ian Siegel: [01:05:11] Exactly. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:14]  All right, so what are mistakes that a lot of people are making when they apply for a job because of course we know like coming in on camp and all that, like all of the look them in the eye and have a firm handshake. That's great, but you've got data that might show us something surprising, right? Like maybe people who apply in the afternoon don't get as many jobs as those people who apply in the morning. Do you have any kind of counterintuitive data points that have arisen from the research that you've accidentally had by running ZipRecruiter?

Ian Siegel: [01:05:40] I mean, it's not accidental research. We do a lot of research on this and the number one insight that we've gleaned is that, you know, there's really two different job seeker types. There are job seekers who kind of a spray and pray, who apply to every job they can possibly find in the hopes that they'll get at least one call back. And then there are job seekers who are highly selective about which jobs they will apply to. And what we've discovered is that the response rate in terms of the number of contacts that these two populations get is there's almost no difference. And the reason why is that the selective group is actually researching the companies that they are applying to and putting time and attention into the applications they submit often also including a cover letter which is a dying art.

[01:06:26] And they are also often speaking directly about the business to the business. So one of the things a lot of job seekers miss is five minutes of research about a company can give you the sentence that will start a conversation with the company that lets you stand out from all the other applicants. So it might be something like, “You know, I was reviewing what people said about you on Glassdoor and your culture sounds like something that's just right for me.” Or it could be, “I was looking at how you differentiated from your competitors in your marketing and I think it's really compelling and it's got me interested in coming to work for you.” Anything that you can say that is specific and complimentary is something that will help you stand out from the crowd.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:09] So that kind of extra five minutes of, “Hey, I did look at the website and your bio on the site says that you use to work in -- when I was an attorney -- like white collar criminal defense”, that little type of, “This is the one of the reasons I'd like to work here”, instead of just sort of, “I want to work here because I want to work anywhere.”

Ian Siegel: [01:07:27] If I only got to get one piece of advice to every job seeker that is looking for work right now, it would be to remember this sentence. Okay. The first sentence you either want to put in your cover letter or the first sentence you want to utter when you sit down in that job interview is, “I'm so excited to be here. Insert a compliment. I'm so excited to be here because I love what your business is doing for X population. I'm so excited to be here because your marketing makes me laugh every time I see it and I feel like it would be a pleasure to work at a company that has that kind of culture. I'm so excited to be here because of the great reviews I read about your business online. This is a place where I feel like I could contribute and grow.” Something, specific, talk about them.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:08:17] You know, that's interesting because it seems so common and yet obviously people are not really doing this all the time because they're batching or they're lazy or maybe they don't know this, but chances are they're just in a huge hurry because they filed 78 job applications in the last two hours and this isn't part of their workflow.

Ian Siegel: [01:08:36] That's right. And it's the demonstration of availability that signifies interest. By saying, “I'm so excited to be here.” You're making yourself vulnerable. You're saying like, “I want this job, I'm ready to fight for this job.” And I think a lot of people innately are a little more standoffish and they like to protect themselves a little more. But if you really want to capture the attention of the person you're speaking to or if you really want to capture the attention of the person reading your cover letter or your resume, put in the sentence, “I'm so excited to talk to you. I'm so excited to be here”, because that is a sentence that only takes you to good places.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:09:15] So how can a small company then be competitive against a large company for talent? Because if we're looking at larger companies, typically they pay more. They've got maybe more room for upward mobility, hard to say. How can a small business using a tool like ZipRecruiter to hire, how can they really get the best folks when it seems like a lot of those people would inherently be looking to work at a Fortune 500 company instead?

Ian Siegel: [01:09:41] Well, I think there's an assumption in your question that the best people want to work at the biggest companies, right? And in fact, you know, roughly half the people in the country are employed at businesses that have a hundred or less employees. And just like there are some people who want to live in large apartment complexes and there are others who want to live in sort of boutique spaces that fit their personality. That is true of the job market as well. And in fact what you find is that a lot of the people who are really talented have more of an entrepreneurial streak and prefer to work at smaller companies. But I don't think the question is black and white like that. I think that the good question that you asked in there is how does a small company that may not be able to offer all the perks that a larger company has to offer, compete for talent.

[01:10:37] And I think that one of the real strong emerging trends that we see with the nearly million new job postings a month that are posted to ZipRecruiter is this notion of workplace marketing. For a long time, employers treated the job description like, “I'm going to give you a list of requirements and then you got to sell me on convincing me that you should work here.” And what really has happened as a result of a lot of the rating sites for employers that have come out and a lot of this sort of shared knowledge around best practices of how to recruit is that employers are putting a lot of time and attention and to describing what it's like to work for them and what the benefits are of being there. So while you may be a small business, you may be located in the heart of an interesting area and that geography puts you close to restaurants and shops and great places to live. You may be a dog-friendly space, you may have a family-like environment. There are things you can say that no Fortune 5000 company would ever say or ever allow. And it gives you a great opportunity to differentiate.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:11:46] What type of job trends are you seeing given that you probably have one of the most complete pictures or at least wide or broad pictures of job trends right now given the scale of ZipRecruiter, what sorts of trends are you seeing in the market?

Ian Siegel: [01:12:01] What's clear right now is that there's tremendous demand in three categories -- technology, construction and healthcare. These are three of the fastest growing categories in America. And there's a real dearth of talent in all three of these. And all of them require some sort of specialized skill that usually takes a few years of training in order to become proficient. So if you're a student or you're someone who's contemplating a second career, those are all great categories to invest in. But I think one of the really interesting problems that we're seeing in the job market today is there's a real disconnect between the jobs that are available in large quantities and the overall populations’ general desire to do those jobs. For example, there are a few million different forms of driver jobs that are open right now, whether it's Uber, Lyft, FedEx, UPS, over the road, trucking, livery service, taxi service. There are so many driving jobs and yet, I assure you that less than 1% of all job seekers come onto any job site and search for driver as a job that they're actively looking for. So you have between driver jobs and between construction jobs, a lot of mismatch between the demand in the market and the desire of the job seeking population

Jordan Harbinger: [01:13:30] For the generation about to enter the job market, what advice would you give them? We talked about standing out a little bit, but that might be for somebody with a little bit of experience or something like that. What if we are fresh out of school and we need to get an entry level position? Are there specific tips or ideas that you would share with those people?

Ian Siegel: [01:13:47] The number one piece of advice I have for kids who are in school right now and who are about to enter the job market and feel somewhat insecure about the amount of experience they have is that study after study right now is showing that it's EQ over IQ in terms of predicting success in the workplace and what does that mean? It means look, people in the eye, shake their hand, be accountable, show up on time. It's all the basic best practices that encourage someone to invest in you, whether it's in giving you training or giving you responsibility or giving you autonomy. These are the basic skills that most employers are looking for with entry level positions. They know that you do not have a work background and therefore the only way you can stand out is with your sincerity, your enthusiasm, and your attentiveness. So I implore you to look people in the eye, put your phone down and do everything you say you are going to do.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:14:48] Thank you very much, man. I really appreciate it. I know you're really busy. If you like this show, you're not going to want to miss No Excuses with John Taffer. Shut it down and listen to John, the award winning hospitality legend as he brings his straight talk and unapologetic approach to daily topics and current events. You don't want to miss his latest interviews with Adam Corolla and RJ Bell, the host of Dream Preview on PodcastOne. So download No Excuses every Tuesday on PodcastOne, podcastone.com and Apple podcasts.