221: How to Meet the Parents Without a Meltdown | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How to Meet the Parents Without a Meltdown | Feedback Friday (Episode 221)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:01] 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 Adam Savage of MythBusters fame and his new show. Savage Builds talking about the process of hands-on creativity. It's an interesting show. I'm not much of a maker myself. My wife is. I know you kind of are, Jason. Adam Savage is a creative dude. I mean he's just, he's got a really, his mind works in a way that I'm just not really, you don't see that very often. You just don't. And Gabriel Mizrahi and I did a Deep Dive on generosity and abundance. I know, I hate that word and I'm not using it in a woo-woo BS way, but I mean that in a way that shows you can actually build your allies, your network, you can help others, you can generate social capital before you're rich and successful and at the top of the corporate ladder. A lot of people think, well, I can't help others get what they want. I need to work for myself right now. I got to focus on my own goals. If you're working on building relationships at work or in your business or in your personal life, definitely don't miss that episode of the show that we did that Deep Dive with Gabriel Mizrahi.

[00:01:05] Also, I write every so often on the blog. The latest post is about how to deliver bad news in a way that actually helps, not harms your relationship to the person that you're talking to and this is clutch for those of us that have to occasionally or even regularly deliver bad news and that's at jordanharbinger.com/articles. So make sure you've had a look and a listen there to all of that.

[00:01:25] Of course, our primary mission is to pass along insights and experiences to you directly, so we want to have conversations directly with you wherever possible and that's what we do today here on Feedback Friday. We do that every Friday and you can reach us on friday@jordanharbinger.com. I'm back from the East coast. I give a talk at TravelCon. It was fun meeting all of you there. A lot of you, man, a lot of you came to TravelCon to see, well, to see a lot of things, but also to see me talk, which is flattering and I had a fun talk on the art of interviewing and I think I'm going to turn that into a product of some kind because a lot of people had a lot of questions about it, about how to interview and how to create a great show and it just, it was fun to deliver that. So I'm going to be looking at creating something like that in the future, who knows maybe I'll have some downtime while I'm changing diapers because Jen is about three weeks away from D-day here.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:15] Ready to pop!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:16] That's right. Ready to pop out a kid.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:18] I think it's B-day, not D-day.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:20] What's that B-day? It is B-day. It’s B-day.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:23] Literally, literally.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:25] Literally the birthday. So that should be, that should be interesting. We're doing a lot of shows in advance because I'm going to be knees deep in dirty diapers in about a month.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:35] Can't wait for that. That should be interesting.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:38] Yeah. That should be fun. Life-changing experience. I'm gearing up for it. All right. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:44] Hi Jordan. Jen and Jason. My boyfriend and I of about six months are planning to go on vacation together. My parents have a vacation home that they said they weren't going to be using for a weekend, so they said it was open for us to use, so we booked the trip in a recent turn of events. My parents now say they'll be at the house while we're there.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:01] Huh, in a recent turn of events and my parents don't want us to bang the whole time in their vacation house. Got it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:06] Exactly, exactly. We don't want to be disinfecting for a month, so we're going to show up.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:10] Right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:11] I'm working on preparing to integrate these two parts of my life. I talked to my mom about it, just setting expectations and she made it clear that it would be disrespectful to her and my dad if we slept in the same room. And I understand their traditional, but we go on trips together all the time and stay at each other's apartment often. I want to make sure we're still ourselves while being respectful while in their house. My boyfriend is great and I don't have any problem introducing him to my parents, but I wish I had more of a grasp on the situation. Do you have any tips for preparing to meet the parents? Thanks. Party of Two Turned a Party of Four.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:45] That's so funny. It's so not an accident that they’re going to be there.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:49] Not an accident at all.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:50] Yeah, yeah. “Oh, I told Angela,” –or whatever her name is— “She can go to the cottage with her boyfriend,” and the dad was like—

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:59] “Hell no!”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:00] “That reminds me of getting rail on the kitchen counter. We're going. Pack your crap.” Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, this is funny cause I remember when I stayed over at Jen's house the first time. In a show of respect for her traditional time and her parents, we slept in separate beds obviously in a different room. In fact, bed is kind of a loose term. I slept on an air mattress in the living room and the cat spent the entire night snuggling with me. I slept horribly because the cat just wouldn't stop nuzzling with me, which is funny because, you know, now it's my cat, but back then it was just a strange cat that I thought it was going to end up biting or scratching me. My tip is though, don't come empty-handed. You can bring a special treat, you can bring something small like a game. The family can play together and that'll be a good chance to bond. Seriously bring UNO. It's easy. Everyone likes it. Even if they don't really like it, they're going to play a few rounds and then you have UNO for the next time, 10 years later when it's raining. The whole time that you're at the summer house with your kids. So put a note inside the pack that says so-and-so brought this deck of cards over on our first time staying at this house when meeting my parents for the first time. That'll be a cool thing to find in a few years. And if you unpack it in 10 years and you're not together, it'll, you can throw it out and you still have UNO. So bonus.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:16] Bonus, total bonus.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:18] Jason, what do you think?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:19] I've been in the same position and you just bite the bullet. You sleep in separate rooms. It literally is a respect thing and you can still sneak over for a quickie if you can't handle it or make time when the parents are out of the house. But it really is a small price to pay to keep the peace in my opinion. You should also try to have a meal with the family all together before you go to the summer house. So they're not meeting for the first time at vacation spot because it's just going to break the ice ahead of time. So like when you show up that like everybody's not going to be nervous and like, “Oh my god, we're going to meet and we're going to be stuck here for so long.” But if you meet each other over dinner or drinks, just get to know each other a little bit before you go on this vacation, your life is going to be so much better.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:00] Yeah, I think that's wise. There's, there's something to be said for that. It's going to be easier on your boyfriend if he's not like, “Okay, first impression has to be really good because I'm going to be there for a week and I can't avoid them.” You want to be able to have him work out a little bit of the nerves. Get a feel for your mom, you especially your dad. And then, he's seeing them the next time and he can say, “Hey, how are you doing there?” And he's not like. “Mister, I mean Jim, uh, I mean, Mister, ahh.” You know, like get that out of the way first. There's enough pressure for him having to behave himself and be cool during a whole week with your parents that he wasn't really expecting to have. You really got to give him a little bit of a warmup and you've got to give your parents a warmup so they're not eyeing him suspiciously the whole time because they got to get a chance to get to know him and then your dad has to go through all the catastrophizing. Your dad and mom have to go through all the catastrophizing that they're going to do in their head before that sort of salts up the whole trip. So I think, that's a pretty good call, but it should be fun.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:02] Yeah, you just want to give him a little bit of rapport building before they get a chance to go get shoved in a prison cell in the woods together for a while because you don't want it to turn into a horror movie. You want to turn it into a rom-com, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:14] That's right. You know, you could also do something really funny and play a trick on him. Like, maybe you give a heads up to your parents when you guys are arriving and your dad's like chopping wood and sharpening a hatchet in the front yard. And it's like, “Hey there. Hey there, Tom. Nice to meet you. Oh, this is a sharp ax.” I feel like I would do that. And I've also had girlfriends play tricks on me like that back in the day too, where like, you meet the dad and he's like, “You ever go hunting?” And I'm like, “No, not really.” And he's like, “Yeah, we got a lot of guns in this house.” And I was like, “Oh, so you like guns?” And he's like, “I'm just kidding, man. Relax.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:53] You got punked.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:54] Yeah, basically just get punked because somebody has got to call out the pressure of meeting the parents for the first time. I remember an ex-girlfriend, I went over to her house for dinner and her mom, she made a big deal out of my elbows being on the table and she just went off and I was so embarrassed. And then everyone started laughing. And I was like, “Oh, I get it. You're being funny.” And I was like—

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:19] Being jerks.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:20] Yeah, but they were like, “Oh, it's fine.” All her brothers were in on it and stuff and they were like, “Ooh, you put your elbows on the table. Oh man. Oh no. Oh man, mom saw you do that. Huh?” Just over and over. And it's a little hazing, but it also breaks the ice in a good way because he's worried as hell right now. It's not the sex thing. I think, yeah, he's a little bummed that you're not going to have a free for all during the whole week. But I think he's more concerned about making a good impression on your parents. Every serious boyfriend always wants to do that. Every significant other always wants a good, because if he's thinking about a long-term future with you, he's worried that this is going to be the story that gets told at the wedding about how they used to not like him and then they grew into him. Nobody wants that. You know, they want to hit it off right away, so definitely a, an icebreaker meal beforehand, ideally a couple of weeks beforehand so that you can all get settled and then, yeah, you'll have a great time while you're there. I have no doubt, especially if your parents are not super paranoid, although I think they planned this specifically because they were a little worried about you. That's what I think. It's unlikely to be a pure coincidence that they just needed to use the vacation home at the same time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:33] Yeah, especially if they haven't met the boyfriend yet. The dad is just like, “I'm clearing my calendar, get in the car. We’re on our way.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:40] “Pack your crap. We’re getting out there.” They're going to get there the day before you two, I guarantee you that. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:48] Hello, Triple J. How can I build a healthy cleaning schedule or routine? My parents are both packrats and extremely messy people. When I was very little they were better. But the older I've gotten, the worst they've gotten. Other than that, they have both been excellent parents, but I have no frame of reference for what realistic expectations are for cleanliness in the home. I've been living on my own for a while now and it's been a struggle. Some of it's just down to laziness on my part, but I genuinely want to be better and be a functional adult. I've tried to research on my own, but everything I found online seems like toxic self-help like you've talked about. It just makes me feel bad and overwhelmed and like I can never meet those standards. I don't know how realistic I'm being though. I just have no idea what's normal. I feel like this is such a weird, specialized problem. I don't know where to find resources to educate myself. Is it just about learning how to establish new habits? I'd appreciate any direction or help you can give me. Sincerely, How Clean is Normal Clean.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:46] This is so interesting. So what's happening here is you know something is wrong or unusual about the way you grew up, but you're not sure how to fix it because you don't have an example to follow. And the fact that you're aware of this problem and the cause of the problem is really interesting. Most people are absolutely not this self-aware, so congrats for being able to put a finger on this, and I'm sure some of it is laziness, like any other human, you know you're supposed to wash dishes after you use them, but yeah, that's, you're going to throw them in the sink and leave them there for a couple of days. I get it. But what you don't need to do about this is obsessed over disinfecting surfaces or making sure things are all parallel and perpendicular in stacks are in drawers that are labeled, et cetera et cetera.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:29] I've got to say though, and unless you're cooking raw food in the kitchen, then you've got to disinfect the hell out of it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:33] Right. Yeah, that's true. Yeah if you're throwing chicken around or something.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:38] A tub of those Clorox disinfecting wipes is just God sent. It's cheap, it's easy. You wipe everything down. You don't even have to think about it because you really don't want that raw chicken juice. Just sitting there festering in the cracks, getting on yourself and your guests and getting a trip to the hospital.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:52] No! What is that Listeria?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:54] Yeah, we talked about that on I think the last episode or two episodes ago. You don't want that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:59] Yeah. That stuff is really dangerous actually. It can kill unborn babies. That's how dangerous that stuff can be. So if you're doing that, yeah, disinfect the kitchen, you're good. But what I would do if I were you as simply ask yourself the following question, so one, in what level of clean am I comfortable personally? And that's going to be skewed, right? Because you grew up with kind of a messy situation. You're living by yourself. The second question is in what level of clean am I comfortable having friends over. That's going to be a different bar most likely and that's what you've got to pay attention to. And the third question is in what level of clean would I be comfortable having a date over to my place. That's going to be a different bar most likely. So if the gap between these first two things is enormous, the personal cleanliness and the having friends over cleanliness, then you have a disparity between what you're used to and what you know consciously or subconsciously is socially acceptable. So if the gap between the second two things, the level of clean having friends over and the level of clean having a date over, then it might be more of an anxiety thing than an actual cleanliness problem. We're often able to shove aside cleanliness for ourselves, but we're not going to do it for our friends to the same degree. And we really want to impress people that come over for dates. So, of course, we're going to throw the throw extra potpourri on or whatever when that happens. But that's an anxiety-inducing thing. If you're always like that, that's a bit much. If the gap between the third one having a date over and the first one, how comfortable you are when you're alone, then if that's a huge gap, well you're normal. Congratulations. I don't know anyone who doesn't clean up when they're having someone over that they want to impress, so don't worry about that gap.

[00:13:38] The real magic question here is how wide is the gap between your personal comfort and what you know to be socially acceptable? And there's no single answer here because everyone is different, but asking this of yourself matters because otherwise you're either being your normal, sloppy self all the time or you're in a constant state of anxiety about what other people might think when they set foot in your place. So you're trying to get the bar to what level you are comfortable having friends over. Don't exist in the whole, “Ooh, I got to impress everyone like you're having a date over,” and don't settle for “what am I comfortable with personally?” Because as you mentioned in your letter, you're comfortable with a really low bar of cleanliness because you, you grew up in a dirty place.

[00:14:17] When I was a kid, I had friends who would never let me come over because their house was such absolute chaos and they knew it and I lived with actually one of these guys in college. The guy who would never let me go to his house where he lived with his mom. He was fine, totally normal. It was his mother and him combined who are really messy. I'd been in his house, this child at home, it had a lot of boxes everywhere. She was kind of a hoarder, but it wasn't disgusting. He just felt anxious about it. He had no problem adjusting to life with roommates and you'll be similar. You have no good example that you've lived in in-person to live up to, but know what other people live like and you can work to get closer to that average.

[00:14:56] So when you end up living with a significant other or roommates or something in the future, explain your situation and ask for feedback. It's not hard to adjust to these things because I think we all know that leaving a pile of clothing on the living room floor for a month next to seven half-eaten bowls of Cheerios, that's just weird. Beyond asking the questions I just discussed. Don't overthink it. The last thing you want to do is to become anxious about the state of your place. We've all got enough to worry about already.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:22] And I would recommend if he doesn't have any kind of baseline, get a cleaning lady to come over every two weeks and while she's not there, keep the place as close to what it is like when she left. And that's going to give you just kind of a baseline that you don't even have to think about it. It's like, “Okay, this is what it looks like when a professional cleans my house and this is what I want to keep it at.” And that's really kind of just a hack for knowing what clean actually is.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:47] That’s good. And if you're kind of like 80 percent there because, of course, you're going to unstack the magazines and read one and put it down and maybe it's on the top of the stack, but the stacks not straight anymore. Or like she wipes down the table and takes away all the placemats and puts them in the drawer and maybe you like the placemats at the dining table. So you're kind of 80 percent there. But then you're not thinking, “Oh, I better disinfect the kitchen Island again for the third time today.” You don't have to do that. You can sort of let it deteriorate a little over time, but you'll see what it looks like when it's clean in the eyes of somebody else.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:17] Yeah. I mean there's, he doesn't have to go OCD on it, but you know, a clean house that is always ready for visitors is something that as you get older is just something that you tend to maintain. That's at least what I do in my house. You know, I'm almost, I'm closing in on 50 so whenever I'm done with the dishes I clean them that. That's it. I cook, I clean everything has kind of a stasis set if things are out of place. There's also a difference I want to mention between cleanliness and tidiness. You know, you can leave the magazines laying around. That doesn't mean you're dirty. That just means things need to be tidied up. You don't have to, like Jordan says, disinfect everything. You just stack it when people come over. But you don't want to have like, you know, three inches of grime on your living room table because you haven't dusted in six months. You know, there's a definite different level between that stuff. But if you could afford it, just get a cleaning lady for the first time. You don't even have to have every two weeks. But when she's done, that'll give you a baseline on what a really clean, nice house is supposed to look like since you don't have that baseline that's really going to like put you in line with where most people actually are.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:21] Perfect. Great answer.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:25] This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

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[00:20:03] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts from our amazing sponsors and help keep us on the air, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. 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 helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:28] All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:29] Dear Triple J. My niece is only four years old and was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of three. My sister-in-law and her partner had been doing all they can to help her, but it's still a daily struggle. They're doing everything they can to help her condition through both Western and alternative medicine. After a recent conversation, we believe her condition could have been caused by the chemicals HOA sprays on the grass in her area. Glyphosate has been linked to causing Crohn's and we think this could be a possible reason why my niece has it. Question one, how should she approach the HOA to get them to stop spraying the chemicals and raise her concerns? Question two, is there any way for us to get proof that her condition was caused by these chemicals other than Internet research? Question three and do they have a right to pursue legal action against the chemical company? I just want to be able to support them in the best way I can and figured I would reach out to you guys to get your feedback. Best wishes, Looking For Justice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:24] So I'll actually start with question two here, which is, is there any way for us to get proof that her condition was caused by these chemicals other than Internet research? I would get a note from a doctor or a professor in toxicology. You can go to the Children's Environmental Health Network and get some advice from them as well. I would note that studies have also shown issues with pregnant women exposed to the chemical, which is not good obviously, but I've spoken with some Crohn's experts just offhand, I mean, sorry, not doctors, but people that have it that have done a ton of research and written books about this. So to be fair, they are not doctors. They expressed a lot of disbelief that Crohn's would be caused by glyphosate. Now it's possible that they're wrong, but I think the Internet will tell you that every chemical causes every ailment if you look for it. And I think that's the problem. That's why you want to go to a doctor who is a toxicologist or a professor in toxicology and find out if there's actually anything to that. Because if you, if you try to then Sue a chemical company for this, you're going to end up with one of those plaintiff's lawyers. They could be a little bit shady, they might not have a real claim, and then you're actually just part of a scam for the attorney to make money. So you have to be a little bit careful there.

[00:22:36] Question three. There are several lawsuits against Bayer who makes Roundup and they say it causes cancer and I think in Mother Jones, we'll link to the article here. Bayer lost another lawsuit claiming Roundup caused cancer. I'm not saying you can or even should do this, but it's something to track for sure. Crohn's is nasty and if something caused it, then yes the company should be held liable but it's not really going to help make your condition her condition better. So, as for the first question, I would say the best bet is for them to go to these HOA meetings, you or the parents of your niece. Go to, the HOA meetings, the homeowners association meetings. Present what they find when researching this, especially with respect to what they learned from the Children's Environmental Health Network. And when it comes to the HOA stuff, most neighbors are not evil here. They're going to be concerned even if they're not convinced by what you say. Even if they say, “Look, this is just fruity ball Internet research. It's akin to anti-vax, whatever you might get somebody cranky doing that.” You can still find other chemicals to spray on lawns. You can find healthier alternatives. You can find green and non-toxic alternatives if people are willing to pay for that. You can send your notes and research to them by email. You can ask them to kindly vote to stop spraying the near the home. In the end, you help them organize this for the next HOA meeting might be all it takes. I just don't see neighbors wanting to fight over a chemical that even has the slightest chance of making their neighbors' children's sick. That would be crazy to me. Nobody cares about their lawn more than they care about their neighbors' kids. This is not really a hill most people are willing to die on and even the worst neighbors who might hate you are going to feel bad that the local toddler is sick and that might be their stinking weed killer that's doing it.

[00:24:15] Also, keep an eye on the latest Crohn's research. There's a lot that goes into this terrible disease and there are a lot of treatments, many of which are frankly scams. So be on top of this. There's a lot of sort of like Internet solutions to a lot of incurable diseases. Unfortunately, this could be a lifelong problem and if not treated properly, it can get worse and really affect the quality of life. So the best thing you can do is stay on top of the research, help by being an advocate for them as well as provide emotional support or just be a sounding board when they need to vent. I'm always hesitant to immediately go, “Oh, there's some random chemical that they're spraying that probably caused it.” Some of this stuff is just genetic flukes. It could be caused by almost anything. It could even be random and there's just not enough conclusive evidence here. But yeah, if the, if you find out that they're spraying a toxic chemical on the lawn, even if it didn't cause Crohn's, stop spraying it on the lawn because it's bad for kids. It's bad for pets. I mean there's, you don't want it—

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:13] Bad for everybody.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:14] It's bad for everybody. You don't want a toxic chemical on the lawn, even if it's not the reason that she's sick, because it can make you sick later. So, yeah, that should be one of the first steps. Go to the HOA meetings and say, “Hey, this stuff's bad for you. Let's get rid of it.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:27] Yeah. My friend of mine has Crohn’s, he's had it since he was like 22, his was triggered by food poisoning in Mexico. It wasn't a chemical issue, so it can be triggered by all sorts of different things. And he's a molecular biologist and he knows a little bit about this stuff. He's lived a very healthy life by treating it and staying on top of the research. So there is good stuff out there. So definitely, don't listen to every charlatan on the Internet. There are ways that you can live with this disease and still live a very happy and healthy life. But just don't go down the rabbit hole too far because you don't want to listen to Alex Jones when it comes to picking your Crohn’s treatment.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:08] Right. Right. You listen to him when you find out, “They're putting chemicals in the water that are turned the freaking frogs gay.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:14] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:15] Isn't that what he said?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:16] Yep.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:16] They're turning the freaking frogs gay. That guy is just a crazy person. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:20] Hey Jordan and the gang.

[00:26:22] We're like the Scooby gang.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:23] Like the Kool and the Gang.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:25] Yeah. Or the bloodhound gang. I'd prefer them.

[00:26:29] I'll keep this short and awkwardly sweet. I'm a single man in my early 20s and my best friend recently broke up with his girlfriend of two years. I know I should be helping him, but the only thing I can think about is that I like his ex-girlfriend and want to be with her. What be the best way to go about this situation? I can't stop thinking about it. Thanks for all your time and all that you do. I love the show and love you’s. P.S. Get Jen on the show.

[00:26:52] That never going to happen.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:53] Never going to happen. Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:54] Kindest regards, The Lost Best Friend.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:57] Whenever there's trouble, we're there on the double, we’re the Bloodhound Gang. That's how that goes, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:01] That's right. You nailed it. That's right. That was on 3-2-1 Contact.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:05] If you've got the crime, we've got the time where the Bloodhound Gang. That's I believe, but like every other episode of 3-2-1 Contact like the Bloodhound Gang will not be seen because they don't have the time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:15] Drove me crazy. Drove me crazy when it wasn't on.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:17] I know I would wait for the whole episode to be over and I'm like, Bloodhound Gang, two-minute clip, let's do it. Three months in a row, none of it, oh, anyway.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:25] What were we talking about again? Oh yes, yes. The Lost Best Friend wants to get with his best friend's ex-girlfriend.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:32] Yeah. Here's the problem. This is always touchy and I'm inclined to think, Ooh, you like his girlfriend. Yeah, because you know her well. There's plenty of fish in the sea. The reason we say this, we tend to get an affinity or of course a dislike also people that we're close to because we're familiar with them. This is just a common cognitive bias. So maybe you like her, but really there's no reason to do this. Going after this will absolutely affect your friendship. He will also always suspect you are into her and possibly had something to do with the breakup depending on the circumstances of the breakup. If you try to go for his ex. The other thing is he might give you permission because he feels like he has to, to be cool. He doesn't want to seem like he's hurt. He doesn't want to seem like he's being unreasonable or emotional and then he'll just get pissed after and be passive-aggressive and/or just stop being your friend. So you have to assume that you will lose your friend if you do this. And you also should assume that any relationship that you're in until you get married and have kids and sign on the dotted line, you should assume that any relationship with somebody is temporary. So the math doesn't usually work on these types of things. What's most likely to happen here? If we're going to do mathematical probability, you will date her for a few months and you will lose your friend forever. That's the most likely outcome. And if you really like her and he's moved on and it's been a year or something like that and he's dated other women or he's dating someone else, you could then say, “Hey, you know what I really liked Angela. I mean, would you mind like if I saw what she was going up to like you know, you're my friend and everything.” He might still be a little annoyed but he'll probably be okay cause he's dating someone else at that time. But again, do you really need to do this? There are so many people out there. I don't think you really need to go for your buddies ex. It's just, it can be really, really touchy and it has a high probability of blowing up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:28] It definitely has a high probability. But on my side, I have been through this in, in my early twenties, the same as The Lost Best Friend. And I asked my friend and I said, “Hey, you mind?” And he's just like, “No, no, I'm into this other girl already so I'm moving on.” You know, you have to wait for him to move on. He can't still be emotionally scarred from it. And it also depends on the situation of the breakup. You know, if she had dumped him, you don't want to do that right away. You want to get some time under your belt there. If he dumped her, well then you, you have a little narrower of a time window there. You can kind of jump in and go. I did this with one of my best friends who at the time was literally my best friend. He broke up with his girlfriend and we'd all been like hanging out together. So it wasn't a weird thing, but I asked him first, I'm like, “Hey, can I ask Jill out?” And he said, “Yeah, go for it man.” And we were like, she and I were together for a year. We all remained friends and my friend is still one of my best friends to this day. It didn't ruin everything, so it's not always going to ruin the friendship. There is a high probability that it might, but it's not always going to happen. So it depends, you know, it's a gray area. I think it's a gray area, but you got to feel it out. You definitely have to feel it out. You have to know your friend well enough to say to like judge what his reaction is going to be because some people will be like, “You're backstabbing me dude. What are you doing?” And other friends that might be like, “Yeah, yeah, you guys might be happy together. We just weren't a fit.” But it worked out for me and I had a great relationship with her until it just didn't work anymore. But we still remained friends for years.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:10] Yeah. I think that the key is he has to move on and it can't be like he had a first date with somebody else. He should just sort of more or less be in a relationship or like you said, if he broke up with her, he probably doesn't really care, but you need to make damn sure and let time go by cause he might've broken up with her and then you start dating her and then he changes his mind and he goes, “Oh no. And now I feel real,” I mean you just got to be careful, man. You're, anytime you do this, no matter how much permission you've got, no matter how much the other person's moved on, you are playing with your friend’s emotions and it's out of your control. He might be outright unreasonable. “How dare?” “Why would you get mad about that? It's been three years,” and he goes, “I don't know. I just feel that way.” He's still going to be mad. He might have no control over it. It's not about his level of reasonableness, certain maturity. It might. It's just how he feels. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:59] Hey team, I'm 30 and have no interest in kids at all and I know I don't want them for myself. When dating, when is the best time to disclose something like this? If a girl dreams of having children, I don't feel it's right that I waste your time when I know that it's a non-starter for me. But I also feel like it's a bit too in-depth for a first date conversation. When is the right time to dive into this topic? Thanks. No Kids in The Hall.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:25] Look if you're in your 20s yeah, half the time you don't even need to talk about this because someone's like, “Ah, dude, I'm not getting married for like 15 more years and I don't care. And I'm not even thinking about that.” If you're in your 30s do it on the first date or right after the first date. You don't have to pick her up and your car and go to dinner and be like, by the way, I don't want to have kids. So just get that through your head. You know you have to do that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:45] Before you put your seatbelt on. Do you want to breed? Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:49] Do you want to have kids? What religion are you? Do you think you want to have a big wedding? Okay, no, this isn't going to work. Nice meeting you. Shake hands, kick her out of the car. No. That’s not, that's not how this is going to go. But first date or right after the first date, don't hide the ball. You can call out any awkwardness of being too forward so to speak by saying something after the date like, “All right, at the risk of sounding presumptuous and being awkward. I had a great time on our date yesterday. I want to make sure that we're looking for the same thing potentially. For me, I'm down for a relationship, but I know that I don't want kids and I'm pretty sure about that. And I know this is a deal-breaker for a lot of women, so I wanted to throw it out there. I'd be disappointed if this is the end of things for us, but I won't be offended by that if that makes sense.” So if you say something like that, it's pretty chill. And she might go, “You know, yeah, I do want to have kids, but how sure are you that you don't?” And then it's like, “I can't believe we're talking about this. It's so crazy.” Or she might say, “You know, I'm really not sure either. I would just kind of want to play by ear.” But then you double down and you go, “Okay, we can play by ear. But I know that I'm sure that I don't. I am 90 percent sure. So if you don't match that, I don't want to waste your time, even though I love hanging out with you.” That's as honest as it gets. Everybody's got to respect that. Yeah, it's heavy, but it shows maturity shows emotional maturity, which is a good sign. It shows you don't play games. It shows you don't hide the ball about awkward conversations. You don't avoid conflict and that you don't want to waste anyone else's time. You don't want to get your hopes up for nothing.

[00:34:14] Jen and I talked about whether we wanted to get married and have kids on our, maybe our first date, maybe it was a second date or something. Literally, and it was kind of crazy and we started laughing. We are at the Cheesecake Factory. It was our second date. We are at the Cheesecake Factory and we were talking about the wedding size that we would want and whether or not we wanted to have kids where we wanted to live. We were like, this sounds nuts. I'm glad nobody's listening that we know. But we said we're both influx in our lives. We don't want to jerk each other around. You know you're moving. I was thinking about moving and it was do I want to move to San Francisco? Where do I want to go? So if this is going to be something, then we need to make sure that she wanted to make sure I wasn't going to go date a bunch of other girls for the next few years. And we had to talk about religion. We had to talk about how close we were to our families. All of that stuff got knocked out and we were also flirting and goofing around and it was a funny conversation. We acknowledged openly that this was crazy. And then we sort of put a pin in it and then we enjoyed the rest of the night. We just had to get it out of the way because in your early 20s that might be awkward, but when you're in your 30s it just seems more normal to be on the same page. It makes sense to do it. You are otherwise just wasting each other's time and the older you get, the less time you have to screw around.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:35:28] We'll be right back with more Feedback Friday right after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:31] This episode is sponsored in part by Better Help. I love this company. This is online/phone therapy and the counselors that are licensed by the way and professional. They specialize in issues like stress, relationships, anxiety, depression, sleeping, trauma, anger, family stuff, self-esteem, grief, anything you can think of, they've got a specialist for you so you can connect with them in what is obviously confidential, safe, private, online. Everything's convenient. No finding parking, no driving across town. Get help at your own time and at your own pace. You can schedule the video or phone sessions, you can chat, you can text with your therapist, you know, it's like 21st century therapy. Obviously you can switch therapists at any time if you don't like the one that you get and so no more drive in trying to get an appointment sitting in the waiting room, getting coughed on or whatever by everybody else. Go ahead and try Better Help. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:23] I've been trying Better Help for a while now and I've actually moved on from my anxiety therapist because he's done such a great job. Now I've moved on to family matters and I've got a new counselor to go through some of the family issues that I have that I've talked about on the show before and it's really, really helping me out. And best of all, it's a truly affordable option for our listeners. You can get 10 percent off your first month with discount code JORDAN, so get started today. Go to betterhelp.com/jordan. Simply fill out the questionnaire to help them assess your needs and then they will match you with a counselor that you will love within 24 hours. And if you don't, it's free to swap up in. That's betterhelp.com/jordan for 10 percent off your first month. I can't recommend this enough.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:03] This episode is also sponsored by Express. I used to frigging live at this place when I was working on Wall Street. I would go buy all of my stuff there because it was affordable. It fit really well. It was high quality and of course, they basically had a ton of stuff that was relevant but not looking like too trying hard or too stodgy. It's a really good mix. So if you're a professional and you live maybe in your jeans normally, well they've got new genes that are comfortable, that fits important. Express hyper stretch jeans of the new ones. So there's a lot of stretch, maximum comfort if you need stretch. If you're making moves that require a little stretch, you'll love the hyper stress stuff. And they got more sizes, more styles than before. So Express jeans will have the perfect pair for you and if not, well you'll just have to stretch and fit in there, won’t you? Find your fit now at express.com

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:57] Find what fits you. Get to an Express near you or go to express.com to find your perfect pair of jeans.

[00:38:03] Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air and to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard so you can check out our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:20] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:38:22] Jordan. I noticed that when you interview guests, you use a lot of leading and compound questions rather than the director open-ended questions. For example, you ask, do you do X or do you do Y? Rather than asking, what do you do? What is the advantage of approaching your question this way? Curiously yours, New Listener in Training.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:41] Interesting question for me. I don't get a chance to think about this that often. I don't actually use compound questions very often so unless I'm missing something. I'm not sure which episodes you've heard, but I deliberately avoid this most of the time because it constrains the answer. But when I do leading questions, for example, do you do X or do you do Y? It's because I don't want a seven-minute preamble or a soundbite that I've heard them give elsewhere or something I've read in their book. Bear in mind the amount of content you're getting in an hour-long or 50-minute Jordan Harbinger Show interview would take other interviewers two to three hours to elicit, and I'm not saying like, “Oh, we're so good at this.” Often we're editing things down from an hour and a half, hour and 15. I want the guest to get to the point because that's the most value for the listener. That’s you guys.

[00:39:29] So the reason that guests you hear elsewhere on other podcasts seem like they're more focused when they're on this show is because of a few factors. One rapport. We have good rapport with the guests most of the time. We're in front of one another because our interviews are always in person, almost always in person. I've done some groundwork to develop the rapport before the show starts. Two, we out prepare other interviewers. You all mostly know this already, but I spend between 10 to 20 hours prepping each guest. I found out recently that most journalists spend between 15 to 45 minutes prepping for interviews, which is sort of horrifying and yet explains a lot about what we see on TV and what we see written elsewhere honestly, And three, I already know what I want out of the guest most of the time. Sure. There's plenty of room for me to be surprised, but mostly I already have the answers to a lot of the questions I'm asking beforehand. Yeah. I'm curious how they'll deliver that story or that answer. Yeah. I'll dig deeper and go down the rabbit hole if it's interesting. Yes, but usually I'm trying to get the guests to teach you something as a listener and I don't want to leave it open-ended. I want them to give me the good stuff to give you the good stuff. And some of the time I'm asking them about something they wrote years ago and I actually have to remind them of what they wrote and then edit that part out of the show so that their answer is concise because sometimes they don't even understand what I'm referring to and I'm going chapter two, page two 75 dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then they're going, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that. Okay. Because I'm reading a book they wrote 10 years ago or 12 years ago or 20 years ago.

[00:40:58] So it's important for me to lead so that they know what's going on and you see other hosts not leading and you can really tell because they end up meandering. They ended up joking around a little bit too much. They ended up having a lot of small talks and it's because they don't do this, in my opinion, properly. And so it's like a cross-examination. Right? It's fun to think about this. I'm, I asked the leading questions like I'm cross-examining a witness in court. I not quite the same. I lead the witness regularly. I lead the guest where I want them to go there. The reason that this is allowed at trial in a courtroom is because that attorney is illustrating a specific point that they already to get to and they're trying to get to something specific, which is usually what I'm doing during the show. I rarely ask questions to which I don't already know the answer and that is a key commandment of cross-examination in court. You never want to ask a witness something if you don't know what they're going to say. On this show, I will ask them to tell a story, tell me how this happened. I probably already know the story or I know the bones of the story or I know the results of the story. I want to hear that and the fact that this show then sounds like a normal conversation is because of Jason's editing and because of the fact that we have that literally thousands of hours of practice making things sound conversational.

[00:42:12] So I'm not rehearsing something I've already said before and I don't want to get them to say something they've rehearsed before, but I'd also don't want to say, so how did you get to where you are now? And then they start rambling and the first half hours about their college education. I don't care. I want the Syria story. How did you get kidnapped in Syria? Did you do this when you found out about that? I want a specific takeaway and I don't want the fluff and that is, that's what takes so many hours. I've got to find out not only what I'm going to ask, but what they're going to say, whether or not that's valuable for you as a listener, and then I've got to figure out how to get it out of them in a conversational format. That's a whole, that's a whole art. That's a whole science/art and you can't do that if you're just sort of winging it and trying to be quote-unquote conversational. You just want to end up with the same results.

[00:42:59] A lot of people have asked us about probiotics and gut health and that seems to be all the rage. So I wanted to get my friend Matt Gallant from BiOptimizers. Matt, you own the company. I trust you. You're a knowledgeable person. Give us some straight truth on the probiotics thing. Cause even in your own ad copy for BiOptimizers, it says 99 percent of probiotics never make it to colonizing the gut through the digestive tract. So like if they're not doing that, then what are they? What does this stuff do for us?

Matt Gallant: [00:43:28] Yeah. So there are two types of probiotics. First, there are colonizers and then second, there are transient strains. So colonizers mean the theory would be that they actually attached to themselves to the intestinal lining and build a colony. The transient strains mean it would go in, do whatever they're going to do, and then leave the body. So what the research is showing almost unilaterally is that nothing colonizes. The strains go in and they leave. That's what the data's showing, including, you know, there is a great test, you can do Viome a great gut test that I recommend everybody does, gives you some good information as far as which foods you should eat and wish you shouldn't eat based on your personal gut biome. But I talked to Naveen who's the founder of that company and he said that almost nothing colonizes.

[00:44:21] So we've known that for a while. We have a probiotic formula called P3-OM which is a transient strain. So while they're in the gut and there go in the body, they can do different things, depends on the strains. Certain strains, for example, would produce neurotransmitters which in some people that are depressed, they feel better taking those strains are strained for an example, we know it kills bad bacteria, so it will eliminate a lot of the destructive strains. We know that for a fact because if you have food poisoning, you can take it and feel good within about 20 minutes. We've repeated that experiment unwillingly many times.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:03] Well, yeah, I would imagine you're just like, all right, so eat this raw shellfish and come back when you can't. When you can't see straight and you can't walk,

Matt Gallant: [00:45:11] believe it or not one of our vendors actually gave himself food poisoning to test it and it worked really well.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:19] How do you do that on a consistent basis? What do you like eating? You're just like, I'm just going to go to Chipotle until I get food poisoning. What do you do?

Matt Gallant: [00:45:27] I actually don't know what he ate. He just said, yeah, I gave myself food poisoning and it worked. So I'll have to ask him next time I see him. But yeah, that's the story. So again, different strains do different things. Our strain is also proteolytic, which means it will help break down proteins. So kind of like a similar to enzymes. So again, different strains do different things, but you want to have a good strain. You know, one of the big things misconceptions is a lot of probiotic companies put a mishmash of maybes in a bottle. So it's like, Hey, let's put 12 strains. Those put 15 strains. Let's put 20 strains that's not necessarily better. What you're really looking for is a special strain that's going to do what you want it to do. So whether it's antiviral, antiretroviral, different qualities, but more strains aren't necessarily better. That's another one. And I think another big thing too for people to be aware of is yogurt. So you know, I'll thank the yogurt industry for making probiotics a lot more popular thanks to their marketing budgets. However, almost every yogurt has no live probiotics in it and is a really simple way for you to know if they are alive is if the live is going to be really tart and acidic. So for example, there is a company called Bio-K and they do make a legit yogurt that is quite expensive. It's tarts acidic because the probiotics will actually consume the sugar in whatever medium they're in to multiply. So they're eating sugar and multiplying and at a certain point there's no sugar left and that's when it's really acidic and tart. So if people that have fermented things know that, so that's one thing to look for as well. You really want acidic yogurt.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:17] It's like kombucha. If it's really sweet, you're just like, okay, this isn’t working right.

Matt Gallant: [00:47:20] Well, it hasn't been fermented long enough. I used to make kombucha at home and like the first week or two it's still pretty sweet and then you, you'd give it more sugar. They multiply even more and then it gets really acidic and that's when you know it's ready. So,

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:41] So basically what we're looking for is something that since we know it's not really going to colonize the gut, we're looking for something that doesn't promise to do that necessarily. We're looking for somebody that's just going to aid digestion. So, we don't take this in the morning like a vitamin. You take it with food because since it's not colonizing the gut, it only works if you've got something in there that needs metabolizing.

Matt Gallant: [00:48:02] Yeah if you take it on an empty stomach. It'll do more of a house cleaning type of action. So I'm going to share a personal and perhaps a little bit disgusting story, but the best colonic I ever had in life, I fermented P3-OM in coconut water. I did about a gallon of it. I brought it to the colonic and she mixed it in. And that was by far like the, what came up the next day was the only time that ever happens. I'll just leave it at that. But it was fantastic. I got the desired results.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:39] That was graphic.

Matt Gallant: [00:48:40] Yeah, it was, well, I kept it PG, but the point is that it will go and clean house if you take it on an empty stomach, whether rectally or orally.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:50] Just for the sake of our listeners here, we at The Jordan Harbinger Show, strongly recommend only taking your BiOptimizers orally until further research has been conducted.

Matt Gallant: [00:49:04] Yeah, some of us are a little more extreme than others, but yeah, I mean, our, our friend Ben Greenfield's a big fan of that move.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:12] Oh yeah. Ben Greenfield, as I joke with him often we'll stick pretty much anything in any hole as long as it will achieve some sort of biohacking results.

Matt Gallant: [00:49:21] Yeah exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:22] Yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you very much. This has been useful because a lot of people ask about this and the answer I always have is, I don't really know because of course with stuff like this, all these supplement manufacturers, they're kind of incentivized. You just say whatever's going to sell what's in the bottle. And that's not really what we're looking for. Like people have told me to take probiotics. Oh yeah. Just take them whenever you want. And it's, I took them for years not knowing that I was just digesting these things and they were completely wasted because they're not cheap. This stuff is not cheap. You don't want to take it if it's not going to do anything at all. So Matt, thank you very much for coming on the show. And of course, you can find BiOptimizers at p3om.com/jordan is where you can get your discount on that. Thanks to Matt for coming on and clarifying all that for us.

Matt Gallant: [00:50:10] You're welcome. My pleasure.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:11] All right. Last but not least.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:50:13] Dear Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I've run into a situation that I'm totally stumped on. I'm 29 years old and this question is about my mom. My mom is a new empty-nester. All my siblings and I are in our 20s and starting our lives well occasionally visiting home. My mom's been caring for my grandma for five years and my grandma lives in our childhood home. My mom is only 46 years old and my grandma's in her 70s and she's a lot different than most grandmas. My grandma has some sort of mental disability that's never been diagnosed. She's a compulsive liar and always seems to be in another world. This might seem crazy, but we're from a very small town on the East Coast and health care and mental care is harder to come by. My grandma was also mentally and emotionally abusive to my mom as a child. My grandma is mostly healthy besides diabetes and she has a colostomy bag from previously beating colon cancer. I only mentioned the bag because it's one of the problems. My grandma will mess with her bag and we'll smear feces in the bathroom or random spots in the house. My mom is a full-time nurse and we'll have to come home and deal with cleaning this up. Besides that, my grandma has a hard time socially in public. She'll walk up to strangers and talk to them until they've had enough and walk away. She calls people on the phone and talks for hours, which mostly consists of non-sensical rambling and even sometimes bashing my mom who cares for her the most. These things embarrassed my mom and my family. Things have gotten so bad that my mom is looking for other options. This situation is hindering her life, but it also makes her feel insanely guilty that she feels this way towards her own mother. She confides in me about these issues and I have no answer. I told her I would ask my favorite podcast and she encouraged me to reach out. My mom recently looked into a nursing home, but my grandma did not meet the criteria. Do you have any suggestions or options for my mom or even different ways to approach this situation so that my mom will not have to feel this burden or guilt while trying to live her life? Thank you for any advice that you can suggest. Sincerely, Help For Mom.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:16] Jason, I know you had some thoughts on this.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:52:17] Yeah, I've got some experience with this kind of thing. Get her diagnosed immediately. I know you said you live in a small town. Go for a road trip, go to your next biggest town, get her diagnosed. You may be able to find some meds that can calm her down. So she's not flinging poo around the house, which is just random and disgusting. I think there may be other issues with that. And if she's not mentally ill, this is a real possibility that she's just a jerk to your mom and then your mom has the completely justifiable position of not helping her as much. She can pull back her care and see if your grandma learns to straighten up and fly right. Because it sounds like she has been abusive to your mom her whole life and this is just a continuation of it. And in that case, your mom is under no obligation to keep taking this abuse. When I was mentioning the poo on the wall situation, and there's a real good chance that your grandmother is contemptuous of her mom because maybe your mom came at the wrong time in her life and she had to spend her life raising your mom instead of going off to do the things that she wanted to do. So over the course of, you know, your grandmother's life, she became abusive to your mom because she sees her as a hindrance to actually going out and living her life. I have some experience with this and it does happen, but I think you definitely need to get her diagnosed as soon as possible to find out if this is actually a mental illness or if your grandma's just an a-hole.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:38] Yeah, I think there's something to that. There's definitely a value to getting her diagnosed simply so that you can understand the problem better. And I do think that the abuse might be because of whatever mental illnesses going on here. And I think Jason, you're right that this might be a continuation of control and abuse. She's controlling your mother's behavior by doing this. Your mother has a right to get help for this and the guilt that she feels is actually a program that is running in her mind that she's had her whole life. So ask your mom how often she's felt guilty with respect to her mother in any form. And I bet the answer is since always forever. Because this is what abusers do, they make the other person feel guilty and like it's their own fault and thus they deserve to feel bad or put up with the abuser.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:22] I come to the table here with actual personal experience of this. That is exactly what they do. That is exactly what they do. They make you feel guilty. They make you feel like it's your fault and you should be feeling awful even though you've gone out of your way to do everything to make their life better and help them but still you're the bad guy. That's why I get kind of chills reading this because it mirrors my situation with my mother exactly the same way.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:48] Hmm. Yeah. I can see that. It completely makes sense to me. I don't know what nursing home she said doesn't fit the criteria. I'm not sure. Maybe she has to be like on Medicaid for that particular place. I guarantee you there's a home somewhere that fits the criteria. In fact, it might not be that nice of a place and I'm not saying you should stop your grandma and a horrible place to teach her a lesson, but maybe she needs to visit and see how good she has it at home if especially if it's not just mental illness because you've got to get her diagnosed first because if she has dementia or something, then punishment by banishing her to a place she hates isn't going to work. If she's just a jerk who's abusing your mom and always has done the exact same thing, then she can deal with those consequences. Your mom doesn't have to spend her late-career/golden years putting up with somebody who wants to make her miserable. She doesn't deserve that and she's under no obligation to endure that just because someone is related to her. I think there's something going on here just because of the odd social behavior. Something is wrong with her possibly has always been wrong with her and more importantly, your mother needs some self-care. I wonder if she's in therapy at all. That would be a huge help. Better Help is what we've been recommending for therapy. Jason, is it betterhelp.com/jordan?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:56:00] That would be it. Yup.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:01] Yeah, so your mom can get the therapy literally in the car on the commute to work, whatever she needs to start taking care of herself. Maybe do some yoga, maybe some running. Just go for a walk with your mom to get her into the habit of doing something for herself. Encourage those good habits. She needs an outlet as well, especially if she's just sort of going to work, cleaning up people's poop at the hospital, coming home cleaning up your grandma's poop at home, rinse, repeat seven days a week. That's not good for her. I think therapy for your mom is a good bet. She needs to see the patterns of guilt and control that have resulted in this situation before she can break them. Because your mom might not even see that she's felt guilty for 46 straight years and been controlled by your grandma for that same amount of time. She might just not even know and a therapist can highlight that. Point that out. Find instances of it happening and give some advice for what she can do in the moment. I see this a lot. You're just not under an obligation to be locked in a prison with somebody that is making you miserable simply because they gave birth to you. They want you to feel that way for sure, but you are under no obligation to help someone who won't help themselves. That's not how this has to work at all.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:09] No, it's not and walking away is hard. Trust me. I know how hard it is. I deal with it every day and that's why I actually have therapists at Better Help to get me through this stuff and deal with it and they're helping me quite a bit. But it is hard because you are programmed from a young age your entire life basically that this is something that you have to do. You're the child. You're there to take care of them because they quote-unquote can't take care of themselves, which is absolutely untrue. Absolutely untrue. But like I said, if she has mental illness then you can maybe find a medication that'll work to help bring her back to center. But you have to get her diagnosed and your mom definitely needs therapy. I can, I can tell you that 100 percent that she needs therapy

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:52] Life Pro Tip of the Week. When arguing with somebody, try restating the main point of the other person's argument back to them and then have them do the same with you. So believe it or not, the vast majority of arguments are based on miscommunication. And with arguments, there are often a lot of things happening at the same time that result in miscommunication, conflict, et cetera. You might feel the other person doesn't understand your argument. You might not understand their argument. There might be a bunch of other issues involved in this that are causing it. There might be, you might be talking across purposes, so you're having different arguments and you'd think you're talking about the same thing or there's an unwavering belief that you are right, the other person is wrong and so you don't need to hear what they have to say. So next time you're arguing with somebody, pause the argument in, restate their argument back to them. Something like, “Hold on, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that XYZ is broken and the only way to fix XYZ is to get QRS to modify Y so that it'll fit better into Z.” Now that has several benefits. First and foremost, it helps identify exactly what you are even arguing about in the first place. And this is huge because most arguments get so convoluted that the people arguing don't even know what they're arguing about and this goes double for emotional and relationship type arguments when the people have a history together. Secondly, the technique demonstrates you are making an attempt to understand them and it will have a calming effect, which is great for heated arguments. Third, it forces you out of the frame of mind that you are automatically right and enables you to actually listen to what they have to say and you actually hear them. Four, it helps you step outside the argument. You can see both sides, you can be more objective and able to see more solutions here. And you can also do the reverse pause, the argument and ask, can you tell me what you think my argument is? Can you explain the problem as you think I see it? And this forces them to pause process what you are saying. And it helps break the momentum and out of control death spiral that arguments can often descend into. And again, it helps to actually define the exact problem. So if you see things getting heated, you can sort of pause and curiously ask, “Hey, what do you think I'm saying? Let me see if I know what you're saying.” It takes things out of the emotional brain and sort of puts them in the thinking brain, the logical brain. And you go, “All right, let me dissect this.” So it calms emotions down and it makes sure that you guys are actually talking about the same thing because I feel like half the time arguments are about something different and a lot of times people will tend to agree at the end and you go, “Oh, it turns out we agree. Who knew?” And the reason is because you never bothered to clarify the argument.

[01:00:26] Recommendation of the Week. It's Vice News, it's called They Come for Us at Night: Inside China’s Hidden War on Uighurs. And if you don't know what Uighurs are, they are Muslim populations in Western China. And there is, over the past two years, an estimated million Muslim Uighurs had been rounded up and placed in reeducation camps, which should sound freaking scary because it is. And they're taking parents from children, children from parents. There are these lockup kindergartens and it's extremely difficult to report from Xinjiang. It's impossible. Journalists are not allowed. Their tourists are highly regulated. This year, Jason, or last year, they hired 100,000 new police officers. for this region. Not, not the total number. New police officers.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:13] Wow. That's insane.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:15] Yes. And there is surveillance everywhere. My friend went there. She works for Vice News. Her name is  Isobel Yeung. She works for Vice News. She just did a report on this. That's what we're recommending. We'll link to it in the show notes, but if you have HBO or the app, you can find it on Vice News. Journalists are, they're followed wherever they go. They can't visit certain places. They're not supposed to talk to locals. So she posed as a tourist. They snuck in wearing hidden cameras twice. They got a lot of footage. I don't know what's up with, I got to ask her. I'd meant to email her. I don't think she can ever go back to China.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:48] Oh yeah, no, definitely not now. Wow. No.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:51] And she was, she, I don't know if she grew up or, she spent a lot of years in Shanghai, so she's mixed. She's a British Chinese. I don't think she can ever go to China again now that I think about it. Wow. It's a very dangerous mission she went on. I mean they just were one Google search away from going to prison in China.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:12] Yeah. Or if they'd have found those hidden cameras. Oh, man.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:16] Yeah. She's got guts man. I'm telling you. And so interesting special report. We'll link to the article in the show notes, but if you can watch it on HBO, go look for They Come For Us At Night. It's Vice News. It was fascinating. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. A link to the show notes for this episode can always be found at jordanharbinger.com.

[01:02:38] Quick shout out to Mario Scian from Denmark. He loves Feedback Fridays. He has been listening since episode one. He's taken improv to be quicker on his feet, which is helping incorporate negotiation. He's doing Six-Minute Networking, which has helped a lot. Got a lot of old contacts, re-engaged great results. And he's taking Skype language lessons because he lives in Denmark and he is not from there and that's been super helpful. Done 30, 40 lessons. So this is the guy who takes my advice, our advice, Jason. Takes our advice and actually does it.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:3] Wow! There's at least one. We found at least one of them.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:09] Yeah. He said he did the trans-Siberian, trans-Mongolian from Moscow to Beijing said he loved it and highly recommended.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:14] Man, I can't wait to do that.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:16] Yeah, I know. I feel like we should do that. I would do that.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:20] Yeah. I think I need a raise. It's like $26,000 a ticket.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:23] Oh my god. It is. That's got to be the fancy one.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:26] Of course. It's the fancy one. If you're going to do it, man, do it in style.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:30] I'm down for style. Yeah. Maybe we've got to figure out a way where the company is like, we give you the media rate of 50 percent off because you have a podcast. That's not going to happen.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:39] Not going to happen because I don't think—

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:41] Now that I say it out loud, not likely.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:03:43] Yeah, not very likely.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:45] No. Who knows? All right, go back and check out the guests Adam Savage and we did a Deep Dive on abundance if you haven't heard that yet. And if you want to know how we managed to book great people and how we've created such a bastard of a show where we manage our relationships using systems and tiny habits, and I'm teaching you how to do that for free in Six-Minute Networking. That's at jordanharbinger.com/course. There's a lot of updated drills and tech in there. If you were doing the old one, this replaces that. The problem with kicking the can down the road, doing it later, I know you think you're going to do it later. You cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. So the number one mistake people make is postponing this, not digging the well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are just way too late and it takes six minutes a day, dammit. So stop fluffing around. Do it, jordanharbinger.com/course. Again, it's free so quit crying. I'm an Instagram and Twitter at @JordanHarbinger. Great way to engage with the show. Videos of our interviews are at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:04:42] My personal websites over at jpd.me and you can check out my tech news podcast where we talk about what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame over at Grumpy Old Geeks at gog.show or your podcast player of choice.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:53] This show is produced in association with Podcast One and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger and show notes are always by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you and 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: [01:05:19] It's time to get fired up and Brad Jenkins is here to help check out the new show Fired up with Brad Jenkins on PodcastOne. Join the former White House staff as he sits down with some of the biggest names in politics to tackle the most important issues of the day. Download new episodes of Fired Up with Brad Jenkins every week on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.