191: How To Deal With a Friend Who Dominates Conversations | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How To Deal With a Friend Who Dominates Conversations - Feedback Friday (Episode 191)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger and I'm here with producer Jason DeFillippo. Here on The Jordan Harbinger Show, we love having conversations with our guests. And this week, we had Humble The Poet talking about how to pick the right influences in your life and filter the right influences and Guy Kawasaki discussing traits from leaders like Steve Jobs that we should seek to emulate and the qualities we should not seek to emulate, especially in light of all this Elizabeth Holmes drama. Also, I write every so often on the blog. The latest post is how to talk about yourself without sounding like an a-hole. A lot of us have trouble talking about ourselves and are afraid to sell what we've got as far as our skill sets, which can be career-limiting as we don't want to seem insufferable like those folks that aren't afraid to talk about themselves and do so nonstop. We'll also show you how to strike the right balance and have some techniques on how to talk about yourself in the right way. That article and more at jordanharbinger.com/articles. So make sure you've had a look and a listen there to all of that from this week.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:56] Of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guests' insights and experiences and our experiences and insights along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have these conversations directly with you more or less, and that's what we do today and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us on friday@jordanharbinger.com. Questions, comments, engagement are always welcome. And I got to say, Jason, a lot of people, many people were really helpful and really understanding about us trying to book more women on the show. And we have a lot of good leads. We've got a lot of women lined up that are going to be great. I was surprised though, how many people were outright jerks about it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:33] Oh, the people are jerks on the Internet.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:36] I just couldn't believe it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:37] I do declare.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:38] I'm clutching my pearls right now. There were a lot of people that were like, "Well, you're just not trying hard enough because there are tons of women that want to be on it." And I'm like, "Whoa, we've talked about this. We addressed that." It just seemed a little unfair. "Oh, you're doing something wrong. The reason women are seeing no or the reason you're not able to schedule them is because you're non-inclusive or you're too masculine or the audience isn't diverse enough." This is all BS.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:02] Seriously, kiss my ass.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:04] That's right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:05] We work our ass off to get a decent balance on this show, so kiss my ass that we're not working hard enough. No, seriously.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:13] Taking it personally but --

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:14] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:14] I mean, look, it is, it is baloney. We had an Edison research survey. The audience is extremely diverse, especially for podcasts, which are really a bunch of white dudes still listening and we have a hugely diverse audience. We can back that up. We have the stats to prove it. So to imply somehow that like I'm too bro or too manly man, to be able to invite a guest on the show is not only insulting to the team here, it's honestly insulting to the women that we invite because it somehow implies that competent women would be intimidated or uncomfortable talking with us, which actually makes zero sense given the caliber of women we have had on the show in the past. So if you want to help, I'm all ears to show pitches for guests. If you want to imply though that we aren't trying or you want to whine in my inbox about how he must be doing something wrong, please just take your triggered nonsense elsewhere. And I normally don't get all riled up either do you, Jason, like this, but it makes me regret sharing things like this and opening the kimono about what's going on in the show because for as many people as we're super helpful. I feel like sometimes we just encourage the most ridiculous people to reach out and bring their daddy issues to the forefront here. It's just insane. And my inbox is not a platform for you to complain about how hard you have it in life because of toxic masculinity. If you want to help, I'm all for it. Seriously though, this victim shit is just out of control and I'm a bit surprised to see this from some of you. I think it's a self-selecting group that gets all self-righteous about things like this. But holy moly, I just expected a little more, you know, I expected a little bit more than sort of like partisan BS and inclusion porn. Is that a term that makes sense? Inclusion porn

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:00] Kind of yeah. You just made that up. But I like it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:02] Yeah, it really seemed a lot like that. It was a lot of socks and sandals in my inbox if you know what I'm saying.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:08] Oh yuck. Yuck.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:09] Yeah. And I just thought like what the heck is going on? And what's funny is I got a lot of awesome emails from people that really wanted to help and they were like competent women that listen. They are military officers or competent women that are incorporated that were like, "Hey, I've got all these great ideas." The people that seem to get all kinds of upset about it, you could just so see in the language that they were using. It's like this really hit a chord with their childhood or their early career that they just haven't let go in the chip on their shoulder or was really palpable.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:42] Let me guess. Most of the people that complained were dudes.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:45] It was like, I'm offended on behalf of dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But then you get like some corporate C-Suite woman who's like, "Totally get it. Your theories are right about this. I had a career in XYZ for a long time." Or we had a reporter who was like, "Look, I'm a stay at home mom now, but I was a reporter for a while," and there was all this stuff. And I just thought, wow, people who have been really capable and have fought through this, they seem to get it. The people that I don't know read a hell of a lot of blogs about, again, inclusion porn. Those people were just like, "Waah, I'm going to throw a bottle through the window of the Starbucks." I don't know what their deal was. Just sort of surprising. I'm starting to get a feel. I'm just glad we don't do a show about politics. I can only imagine what's in like Ben Shapiro or Rachel Maddow or whatever Dave Rubin's inbox, like holy screech. That must just be a full time job.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:39] Oh man. We did a lot of politics when Trump got elected on Grumpy Old Geeks and you have no idea how bad it can get. And yeah, that's why we don't touch politics here with a 10-foot pole. But I just want everybody to know that I mean, we're a safe place for women to come on the show. We treat everybody exactly the same and we want to hear what you have to say. It has nothing to do with gender. It's just we want to give the knowledge that people have back to the audience. That's it. That's really all we care about. So bring it on.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:11] All right, Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:12] We're starting a little serious note here today.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:15] Hey guys, seven years ago I was young and stupid and had a fling with a coworker. He told me he wasn't married, but a week later I got a call from his wife and I answered all her questions truthfully. When I went to work, I mentioned the situation in passing to another work friend who told the guy to watch his back. Out of nowhere, he came trying to attack and strangle me. He was pulled back by three guys yelling, "I'm going to kill you, bitch."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:39] Wow.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:40] Yeah. Seriously. That's insane.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:43] Long story short, he got fired. I attempted to file a police report but I didn't know his date of birth so I never completed it. I've avoided him since. My problem is I recently went to lunch at a restaurant co-owned by my uncle where my sister works and recognized him as one of the new employees. I asked my sister about him and she said he had mentioned he knew me from when I'd gone in previously. She didn't know the story because she was young when it happened, but the rest of my family did and it was a big deal when it happened. I broke down and told her the entire story and swore her to secrecy because I didn't want her inadvertently bringing me up in conversation. I have two kids now and one on the way. I don't need nor want any unnecessary drama in my life, but seeing this person still makes me terrified and sick to my stomach.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:29] Understandably.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:31] Yeah. I, this is creepy. Let's continue because I'm like getting goosebumps right now.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:39] Yeah. Yeah. I think we both have a lot to say about this one.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:42] I was shaking for hours after recognizing him. My family goes to this restaurant regularly for meals, parties, et cetera, and I've even picked up shifts here and there. I know if I mentioned it to my uncle or anyone else in my family, they'll likely fire him. We live in a right to fire state, but I don't want that because I feel I'd be unnecessarily bringing the wrath on me. Honestly. I just want to let bygones be bygones. He's beaten other women and even gone to jail for it in the past.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:09] Okay. That's something. We're going to put a check mark on that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:13] My sister says he's a nice guy, but today he jokingly said, "Watch your back to her."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:18] Ha ha ha. I might, I might do something horrible to your sister. Lol, whatever dude, creep city.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:26] Violence callback right there.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:28] She didn't feel he was doing it threateningly but I still worry in the back of my mind that he holds a grudge after all these years and he's going to snap one day. Do I tell the family? Do I continue to avoid the restaurant and if so, how do I explain it to my uncle? Any other opinions on the situation or how would you approach it? I know this isn't your niche, but you guys always have such great advice and I feel like anyone I talk to who I would know would react, not respond. Thanks. Can I Get a To-Go Bag for My Psycho Ex.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:56] Dude, this is nuts.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:58] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:59] What? Wow. You have to say something.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:03] Absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:04] Your sister works there. Your sister works there. The longer he stays, the more opportunity he has to do something to her or to your uncle who owns the restaurant. He obviously holds a grudge and he's clearly a violent person. He's gone to jail for abusing other women. This isn't something where he gets out and goes, "You know, I've got to just leave all that irrational violence explosion in my past. That wasn't working for me." This is somebody who is severely damaged and is hurting other people and getting caught doing it. This isn't like, oh, he got in a bar fight when he was 20 and now he's 35.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:39] No, this guy went to jail for beating women. And the fact that he remembers what you said to him and threw it out as a callback to your sister. That is an incredible, huge red flag that you need to be cognizant of.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:53] Yeah. People who are sorry about this kind of thing, they go, "Hey, look, I'm so embarrassed by my past conduct. I don't expect you to believe me, but this is horrible." And he would say to your sister, "Look, I know you probably know some things about me, some history between me and your sister and I'm really sorry about that. I don't expect you to believe me, but I've turned over a new leaf." They don't go, "Ha-ha-ha. Watch your back. I'm going to be creepy and scary." Look, maybe he's just a terrible communicator. Are you willing to gamble with your life on that note? I'm certainly not, I think you can tell your uncle about this but there has to be a strategy behind it. Don't just shoot him a text or roll in or give him a phone call like, "Hey, by the way, that guy grabbed me by the throat and tried to kill me a couple of years ago. Maybe you should let him go." I think it's good that you're in a right to fire state. I never thought I would say that because that's sort of like an employee rights out the window. But I'd say Google him and if there are records of his crimes then your uncle can say, "Look, I googled all my employees. This came up, we got to let you go. You can't be around the customers." If there are no records in Google then maybe it's time for your uncle to do a cursory background check on his employees. Now, you might have to consult an attorney on this because I don't know if you can just go ahead and run background checks on your employees without any sort of consent. But printing off legal consent for a background check cannot be that complex and there are many services that can do background checks for like 20 to 30 bucks per employee and yeah, that can add up. What if there are 10, 20 employees at the restaurant? Yeah, that could be like $400 to $600 but it's possible.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:27] But he also doesn't have to do it for all the employees. He just has to do it for this guy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:31] Well, it depends. You have to consult your attorney and see if you can simply order a background check on someone you suspect of something.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:38] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:38] Or if it's going to be like, "Let me get this straight. You conducted a random background check on one guy, came up with domestic abuse in jail time, fired him, and didn't do background checks on everyone else. That's a little negligent."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:50] It's not negligent if she puts in an anonymous about the guy who serves her or she sees him in the kitchen.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:56] Right. That's true.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:11:57] Which you can obviously do and say, "Look, this is a complaint about the guy that you have in your kitchen that assaulted me once in front of several people." Obviously they were witnesses to the original assault so that this is not an issue where it's like he said, she said. She was assaulted. She has witnesses from the guys who actually dragged this guy off of her. She can file an "anonymous complaint" to her uncle who can then do a background check on this guy and go from there. He doesn't have to do the whole restaurant

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:24] As long as it's truly anonymous because if he sues the employer for a termination, which I don't know if you can do that in a right to fire state and they do discovery and then they find out, "Well, the anonymous complaint was actually this note from this woman." That's why I say do it in person so he can say, "Someone left a note that I don't have any more with a cashier. That's all I know." Something like that. Otherwise, it will get back to you. Look, worst case, even if you have to check the whole restaurant, just pay for it. 10 employees, 20 employees, 400 to 600 bucks. That is well worth the peace of mind in my opinion. And the lawyer probably will tell you that you could just check the one person. I just want you to cover your butt on this one. And once the background check comes back and his record is on there, your uncle can let him go saying, "Look, I'm not comfortable having someone with a violent past around customers. My family works here." It's 100 percent true. It shouldn't come back to you and it's a reasonable dismissal and termination and you live in a right to fire state so you can fire without because from what it sounds like. And sure he might suspect you, but honestly, do you want this man working in a building with your uncle? Do you want this man working in a building with your sister? Do you want this man walking your sister back to her car at night? Do you want this man in a stock room alone with your sister? Do you want this man to have access to your sister's personal belongings while she's at work serving customers, her phone, her wallet, her keys, her identification with her address in? What do you want? I mean look, you got to evaluate all these things. I am legitimately scared for you and especially for her. You have to get your sister away from this guy and you have to get him away from your family. Right now, he's in a situation where -- I mean, I look, I hate to say it. Did he know that your sister worked there? I don't know. My paranoia is going through the roof now.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:12] I think what happened, the way she described it was she came into the restaurant and her sister was there working and her sister probably said or they saw each other and they talked and then that's how he got the information that they were actually related.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:28] But like he clearly remembers her and then the sister probably has the same last name, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:33] Yeah. It seems like a small town type of thing because --

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:36] Yeah maybe.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:14:36] You know, I mean this guy goes from working with her at a different job and now he's like slinging pizzas or whatever. I don't know, but it just seems like it's a small community and that's even worse. That means that you have to be doubly careful because he doesn't have any place to go and he can be backed into a corner if he does get fired and he doesn't have any place to go.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:56] Yeah. This is so weird. I'm sorry that you didn't file a police report. I get it. I totally understand why victims don't do that. It's more of a pain and it's kind of easier to let it go, especially if nothing's happening and the guy got fired and blah, blah, blah, but wow, this guy's dangerous.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:13] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:14] Yes. I believe in second chances. This guy's done this repeatedly and gone to prison for it. This isn't a guy who got caught robbing a liquor store at age 16 because he needed something. This is a guy who habitually routinely abused women and gets away with it and then sometimes it doesn't. That is not going to change without serious therapy and rehabilitation. So what's going to happen here? I wouldn't want this person anywhere near anyone I cared about.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:42] Yeah. Scary. I mean there's so many other options they can go with forcefully getting them out and letting him know that everybody in the restaurant knows and not to come after my family because we know it's going to be you if anything happens to us. But that's the kind of thing that happens in movies and in real life somebody gets killed. So you don't want to go down that route.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:01] Yeah. It's funny because, you know, when you're watching a movie and somebody doesn't say something and you're going, "Why are you not saying anything? This is going to blow up in your face. Oh my gosh. You have to tell someone what is wrong with this person." I'm not trying to get down on her because I understand her situation, but I feel like if I were watching a movie and this was happening, I'd be yelling at the screen. Does that make sense?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:25] Yup. Absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:26] You know where somebody where they don't kill the villain and it's like he's learned his lesson and you're like, "No," he's getting up in slow motion as he's walking away. Like I feel like it's that kind of situation.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:37] Yeah. Because this guy has not been rehabilitated from his time in jail. He's going to do it again and you don't want him to do it again to your family.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:45] Yeah. And even if he's not going to do it again, why do you have to lose sleep over this every single day for the rest of your life?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:51] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:52] This is a situation where if you didn't know this was going this is the same guy, you wouldn't be worried and maybe you should be, but maybe not like. Frankly, your uncle should be doing background checks on employees. They cost like 20 or 30 bucks. I get that it's a restaurant and maybe there's high turnover but have them pay for it. That might not be legal actually to make them pay for it but dang, I don't know. Your family works there, you know?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:19] Yeah, so it's a tough situation for sure.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:22] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:22] You need to be proactive here and you need to let them know that this is the guy and not be not pussyfoot around the situation because something bad will happen. Because I still go back to the fact that he did a callback to what you said to him when he was attacking you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:37] That's the freaky part.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:37] That's the part for me that says that this guy is holding a grudge and something bad is going to happen, so get him the F out is as soon as you possibly can.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:48] My heart is really fast right now. I'm like, oh God, I'm getting the creeps on this one big time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:55] Told you we were starting heavy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:57] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:00] This is feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:03] This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:55] This episode is sponsored in part by Better Help. Better Help, this is a genius concept, people. Essentially, it's therapy, but it's all on your phone slash I guess essentially online. And this takes a lot of the objection out of getting therapy because, of course, trying to find someone that's near you that has open seats or open availability and then you've got to get there and you've got to measure the traffic and you know, time. All of that is out the window. Better Help offers licensed professional counselors who specialize in issues like depression, stress, anxiety, sleeping, trauma, anger, family stuff, grief, self-esteem, whatever. Connect with your professional counselor. It's all safe and online and confidential. And the thing for me is it's convenient man. You know, you can get up at any time, get your own help at your own time, at your own pace. You can schedule a secure video or phone sessions, you can chat, you can text with your therapist and if you're not happy with your counselor, you can request a new one at any time. You don't have to find someone else on Yelp and drive halfway across town during rush hour to make it happen. And best of all, it's really affordable. And Jordan Harbinger Show listeners, get 10 percent off the first month with the discount code JORDAN.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:07] So get started today. Go to betterhelp.com/jordan. Simply fill out the questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you'll love. That's betterhelp.com/jordan.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:17] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and 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: [00:21:41] All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:43] Hello, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. My girlfriend and I love each other dearly, but like all couples, we have our problems. We both understand that crystal clear communication is a vital skill for a successful relationship and for the most part we are able to talk and communicate our thoughts and feelings. However, when it comes to deep topics that might spiral into conflict or challenge our values and beliefs, I find it very difficult to make sense of how I feel about a particular topic or how to express my opinion clearly leading to confusion and making a simple situation far more difficult than it should ever have been. I've been able to address my feelings well on a personal level. I was a wallflower in social situations and struggled to tell my closest friends and even my family how I was feeling, but I've learned in recent years how to come out of my shell more. Thanks to my social groups and more recently, Six-Minute Networking.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:31] How about that?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:31] Yeah. Nice.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:22:32] The thing I struggle with the most is when I'm asked to explain myself or to provide my side of the conversation. My mind goes blank and I can't even think of any words to say that would appease her. I don't like to make excuses and I'm not trying to be deceitful, but sometimes I even feel like I'm just saying things she wants to hear, whether I believe my own words or not. And when questioned on what I've said, I can't explain my position well enough leading to frustration and myself thinking I should just have kept my mouth shut. I want to be as open and honest as possible, but I just can't make sense of my own thoughts at times. And as comfortable as I am with that, she's the type of person who needs straight answers, no ambiguity. Her personality is very strong and she will voice anything that comes to her head. And oftentimes, our conversations are extremely one-sided with her telling me how she thinks things should be and me naturally playing defense, quiet, and reserved of opinion. Any advice as to how I can be more open about how to express myself and feel more actively would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Tongue Tied.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:33] So my first recommendation here is you should probably get therapy together with her about this because it's a communication issue when it comes down to it between you and her. But you've obviously got something else going on that's kind of all you on this one and is being triggered by your relationship with her. But that's probably going to happen with anyone that you're with. So you got to get down to the foundation of it. It's hard to articulate your issues. I get that. Maybe you didn't grow up doing it. Most of us didn't. It can be hard to figure out what your feeling as a man all the time. And self-awareness doesn't come automatically for most of us, myself included. It's a very manual process of thinking about situations retrospectively and going, "Oh, that's what happened there. Okay, why did this happen? Well, this might be the reason. Let's test that theory." That kind of thing. The good news is you already seem quite self-aware, just having written to me here, explaining the problem, you're being hard on yourself as you've articulated the issue really clearly to us like we get it. So it leads me to the idea that you may need to take time to process things while you're not feeling anxiety around that situation and then maybe write about those situations or those circumstances. So try that next time you're in a discussion and she demands your opinion. Explain that you're not sure how you feel. You want to be as open and honest as possible and that you can process things and pick the discussion back up later. This will buy you time, your emotions or your anxiety will subside a little bit. And then I suggest writing down what you're feeling because having to write things actually forces us to logically process the thoughts we're having.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:07] And this is why journaling is so powerful. It's why people who write books about subjects can explain them so much more clearly than somebody who simply reads books and watches videos about a subject and studies it on their own. There's more to that, of course, but that's one reason for it in once you've written down your best attempt, then use those notes to pick the conversation back up again with your girlfriend. And if nothing comes to your mind at first, try to press through and write as much as possible. If you're still having a hard time, try again in a few hours or try again the next day. Just don't wait too long because you'll lose motivation to do it. But I think Jason, you mentioned something about anxiety and I think you might be right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:43] Yeah. When you're in these situations, see how your body's feeling because I bet your shoulders are tight, your muscles are clenched. And I know this is going to sound a little gross, but I bet your butthole is puckered up inside your belly button. So it's funny because I was going to start writing a joke self-help book called Unpucker.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:03] Nice.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:03] The way to get through anxiety. But I think in this instance, you can actually just think like, "Oh wait, am I clenching? Is this anxiety?" You will self-actualize the fact that you're very anxious and when you're anxious you can't think right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:19] Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:20] You are thinking about every scenario that's coming through your head. I think this guy's a fast thinker and he's literally going through all of these different scenarios in his mind saying, "If I say this, what's going to happen? If I say this, what's going to happen? If I say this, what's going to happen?" And he gets in that loop and he can't say anything. So you need to take a breath, relax and writing things down will let you retroactively understand where you are at, but pay attention to your body language when these conversations are happening and see how you feel in the moment and that is going to give you some introspection on if this is just you not having the words to articulate your situation or the fact that you are overthinking the situation because you haven't been in this many situations before with your girlfriend. And I think slowing down and just taking stock of that will give you the time to breathe and actually articulate what you want to say. Does that make sense?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:15] Yeah, it does. So try the writing, try the breathing, try the unpuckering, and let us know how it goes. I think these exercises might help you a lot and you might consider a couples therapy for this so you can learn more communication skills in concert with her for when this happens and she sounds a lot like me in fact, and she must be a real pain in the butt.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:34] All right. What's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:27:36] Hi, guys. My older sister was the best big sister my whole life. We were great friends and she moved to LA seven years ago. She's come home to visit one to three times a year and in more recent years with a new political ideology, entitlement issues, lacking accountability, et cetera. She's been a bad house guest resulting in kicking her out three separate times. One time after actually coming to blows. She disregarded my girlfriend being sick during your visit by inviting friends over to party without first asking our permission. She then made me out to be the bad guy to her friends when I told her no and to call it off. When she comes home to visit, I avoid her now. I've turned down invites from my mom for her to have all the kids together in order to avoid my sister and her rapacious leftism. Mind you the last time her and I communicated, she shamed me for not having a woman as my top hero. I don't like making my mom feel like she needs to be in the middle of sibling issues. Do I accept my mother's invites and keep from talking to my sister during these family events or do I continue avoiding her like the plague? Sincerely, Younger Sister Gone Estranged and Astray.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:41] Dang. Yeah. This is bizarre in a way.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:28:44] It's kind of not the LA thing is really what strikes a chord here. You've been to LA.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:50] Yeah, but I didn't come out like that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:28:52] I don't think you were there for seven years. She's been here for seven years. LA changes people big time.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:59] Yeah, I mean this is -- I would say the short answer is get together with mom. This is part of caretaking for your mom. You can roll your eyes all you want at your sister. You can hold off on that for your mom's sake. Your sister sounds super annoying, but yeah, don't, don't make your mom suffer as a result of this because you've got to dig in your heels then you're just part of the problem. You know, you don't want to ruin a holiday because Angela sucks. But it does sound worse than entitlement. It sounds like narcissism or a little bit of drug abuse. Because look, I get LA changes people, but so maybe you're entitled, maybe you're a lefty, but you're slapping your sister and getting kicked out of her house three times. That's just extra weird.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:38] Yeah, I mean, I think this person is definitely right-wing because the way that it was stated in the actual question, her rapacious leftism, she called out, which means I think that she is very annoyed at her rapacious leftism and LA is definitely a lefty city and she's going to come out of here living with people here with leftist views.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:02] You still don't get enough fighting and get kicked out of your sister's house. Like that's where that's what's weird.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:30:07] I don't know, man. I've known so many people that have been here for so long and they went back to their home, because what it does is it brings out those latent feelings that they've always had. It's like this person was probably a liberal her entire life. She went to LA and she's around a lot of people that are just feeding her that it's okay to be that way and not listen to anybody else's views. So she goes home and she turns into a total asshole thinking that she's right all the time. I'm not saying that her sister is right in any of this. I'm just saying that I think the LA quotient is part of it because I've seen it time and time again living here for 25 years and it's one of those things where yes, she needs to sit with her mom and say, "Look, she's going to come back. She's going to talk about this stuff. We want to be a family, but we just need to have a plan." You know, you have to have the LA plan for this jerk sister. And I think you can make, you can still make it work. And if you sit down with the sister and say, "Look, we don't believe the things you believe and we want you to be part of the family, but if you just come in and preach at us, nobody's going to listen to you and you're just going to make enemies. And that's not how families work." So I mean that's just my two cents about it. There needs to be a middle ground found.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:20] There's something weird though because the sister invited her friends over at a party when somebody was sick and then got in a fight. I don't know, I just think LA is toxic, but I've lived, I lived in a freaking Hollywood for five years. I'm weird, but I'm a pretty good house guest and I'm only insufferable on occasion. This sounds a little different.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:31:37] Yeah, I live there, like I said, 25 years off and on. So I've been in Hollywood a lot longer than you and I've seen it come and go. And some people, some people embrace it more than others. They're just like, "I've found my people," and they just become these weird ass people who just think that they're right all the time and they think that they're like movie stars and everybody should listen to them. They get this sense of entitlement and they think that everybody else is just beneath them. And this is a problem with her sister.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:05] Yeah, it's possible. It depends what scene she's in. If she's in that whole like Instagram influencer, actress, singer model, but works at Equinox type scene.

New Speaker: [00:32:15] Yeah.

New Speaker: [00:32:15] There's nothing wrong with that, I mean, but, but it can do a lot of damage to your psyche because you're constantly comparing yourself to other people and it's a losing battle as you get older. I also wonder if something maybe happened because it almost sounds like this is a response to trauma.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:31] Yeah. Yeah. It kind of does. Well, LA can be traumatic.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:34] Yeah. Well I mean you can get assaulted, you can get, you can run into depression and not have anyone to turn to. You can start using drugs and self-medicating. Like there's all kinds of weird stuff that people do in that scene.

New Speaker: [00:32:46] Absolutely.

New Speaker: [00:32:47] In any scene in cities especially like. The whole Hollywood area is full of like guys and girls that are trying to do something, not doing well at it. Medicating with things like cocaine, it's just weird. Especially cocaine, super prevalent in LA and makes you mean and I can see somebody who's high on blow being annoying as hell and getting in fights and then getting kicked out of the house. I can certainly see that happening.

New Speaker: [00:33:14] For personal experience maybe.

New Speaker: [00:33:15] I mean I'm just saying it's not too far-fetched.

New Speaker: [00:33:19] It's not too far-fetched. No.

New Speaker: [00:33:21] So I don't know. See if your sister's using something or if something happened

Jason DeFillippo: [00:33:25] Or ask her if she was taken advantage of while she was here because LA is like the hornet's nest for people who are willing to take advantage of people like her who came to LA to get in the scene. So she may have been traumatized. I mean, this is like there are people waiting for the girls getting off the bus at the Greyhound station. It's a joke. Everybody talks about it and like the "porn industry," but it is absolutely 1,000 percent true.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:50] Yeah. It is kind of creepy that it is true. There are those sort of dudes that lurk around bars and clubs that are like, "Hey, you just moved here from Minnesota. Cool." "Yeah, I do some production stuff." And then they just kind of keep in touch with you until you're about to lose your shit and then invite you to do something. And then dot, dot, dot, porn

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:09] Predators. We have prep. We have more predators here than probably any other city in the country.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:14] For sure. I watched the documentary. What was that called, Jason? You probably saw this too. It was popular. It was, it was something like Hot Girls Wanted. That's what it was called.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:24] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:24] Hot Girls Wanted. Did you see that?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:25] I have. Yeah. I watched it for the first five minutes and I had to stop it because I'm like, "I know these people. I've been around these people and I can't watch this because this is 100 percent true and I'm going to get very depressed when I watch this."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:37] Oh dude, you live in the Valley, your neighbors might be doing this stuff. So basically in Hot Girls Wanted, it was like this guy who was a dishwasher basically and worked at a restaurant. He decided, "Screw this, I'm a loser." And he rented a house somehow in the Valley and he put all these ads on Craigslist that are like, "Hey modeling Los Angeles." And he put them in all of these sort of like meth market type cities, like small towns across California and Nevada elsewhere. And women answer the ads and they're like, "I'm interested." And then he basically lures them, says, "Live in my house for the beginning until you get your own place. We do some of the production nearby." And then they get there and it's like, "So you're going to be making porn in the house." And then he sells it to like these porn websites and it's him and eight girls and they interview the girls and it's not a good situation. They can't go home, they don't have enough money. They live there. He's kind of just pimping them out and he goes through new women every month because they burn out, get upset, go home. And the ones that have been there like the longest anyone had been there was a few months and that was kind of like the house mom and he was just filming porn and selling it and paying the bills and giving them an allowance essentially. I mean it was basically prostitution. It was pretty horrifying.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:35:59] Yeah. And that's why I didn't watch it because I know people that have done that and I know the girls, I know a lot of the girls that have come through that and it's a horrible situation. You know, some girls get out, some girls don't and some girls become stars, a few girls become stars. But then they burn out and go check out the life after porn series when you want to see what happens after that. But I'm just saying that there are a lot of predators out here. I'm not saying her sister got into porn, but she may have. But you need to find out if there's some trauma going on with what happened to her while she was out here to kind of change her so dramatically.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:35] Yeah, I would, I would look into that. I don't know how we get off on that tangent. Anyway, what's next out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:40] Hey, Jordan. Can you give me some tips on being less stubborn? How do I try to be more understanding? And if so, how? Stuck in This Stubborn Rut.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:49] I don't know if interesting is for you because you're the most stubborn person I know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:52] I know. I know. And there's no context, so it's really hard to answer. I understand. You don't want to be too hard yet. You don't want to be too soft. And stubbornness comes down to being confident in your own abilities and knowledge. But you also need to be able to recognize when you're wrong and acknowledge someone who may know better. And often stubbornness is a response to being walked down and abused. So ask yourself if that's happened to you. If so, you need to address the root causes before you'll really be able to stop your stubbornness habit. And sometimes we're stubborn because we feel powerless elsewhere. Teenagers do this with their parents because they're asserting their independence. I have no context here from your question because it's like one line, but stubbornness happens in relationships. It usually isn't a universal trait that someone has in all of their relationships. And there are some people who have a holy self-centered point of view and they simply don't view the people around them as being capable or able to perform at any standards that they desire. So they look at an action or the choices of the other person and decide that they can do it better themselves. They think they're perfect, they think they're infallible. And it's kind of like why bother trying to work with or understand another person's point of view when they're not going to get it right anyway. That's some people's view and this extreme of stubbornness may point to some personality issues in the person like narcissism, but this is actually not most stubborn people and it's probably not you if you're writing in and asking how to fix it. Narcissists very rarely give a crap about how to fix the problem because they don't see a problem in the first place.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:38:20] Yeah. They generally don't ask for help.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:22] Yeah, yeah, they don't. Unless their whole life is falling apart and then I feel like we would have more context and then it would be, why are people so bad to me? You know, something like that, not how am I responsible for this? And then you've got people simply need to feel like they're in control and that can point to a number of different problems such as mistrust, insecurity, generalized anxiety and the lack of control can feel upsetting because it ties to a mental process that you're subconsciously trying to eliminate by exerting control over a situation or over your surroundings. And again, this all goes back to the cause of your stubbornness. You have to figure those causes out and tackle those with a therapist ideally. If it's anxiety, if it's a relationship issue, any therapy you undergo should focus on that stubbornness as a symptom of something else. It is not a cause of the other problems and that's the key that you have to remember.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:18] We'll be right back with more Feedback Friday or right after this.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:16] By the way, a lot of people have been writing and saying, "Hey, do you know anyone who teaches the dating skills and that sort of thing?" Single guys are emailing about this. I don't do this myself anymore, but thankfully I've got a friend doing it who is honestly just born to do this. He's one of the best coaches I've heard from doing this. The people that I've referred to him are getting crazy rave reviews about it, so I'm happy to refer anybody over there. If you just want to email me. If you're interested in learning these sort of single guy dating skills and you want to take that direction with the coaching, this is the best outfit to do. Just email me at jordan@jordanharbinger.com. That's jordan@jordanharbinger.com. I'll happily have Jen refer you over to that outfit, so if you're looking for that then you have found the right place hopefully. Looking forward to hearing from everybody who's interested in that. Now, that I have a place to send you,

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:07] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air and keeps us going. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of your questions here on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:23] All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:42:24] Hi, Jordan. I have a friend that I've known for a couple of years. Some of the positive characteristics about her is that she's friendly, outgoing, and can talk to anyone, but there are many times when she is too talkative, often to the point where she dominates the conversations and turns to the topic to be just about her. This becomes particularly problematic when we are within a group of people. A few things that make this situation difficult is that my friend doesn't have the self-awareness to notice that other friends have lost interest in what she has to say and when other friends try to be honest with her, she becomes very sensitive and defensive. I wish the conversations weren't so one-sided and I find myself feeling drained in wanting to cut the meeting short or not to meet with her at all. How do you propose dealing with a friend that dominates conversations, lacks self-awareness, and is overly sensitive? Thank you. Signed, Not All About You.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:16] It sounds like you need to have a heart to heart, but also it's time for some tough love here. I think if people have tried to tell her this, but she gets defensive and sensitive, then you're probably striking a nerve, which means she probably knows that you're right about this. So she's getting value from the attention. I think there's something in her past, it's making her crave attention and it's not your job to provide that attention. So she's getting value from attention. Something in her past is making her crave the attention, but it's not your job to provide that attention. It's not anyone else's job, honestly. And if she's not open to feedback on this, then you've done all you can do and you should just find a new friend. I know that sounds cold, but if someone is friendly and outgoing but insufferable and annoying, then they're not somebody that you need in your life. Friendly and outgoing is table stakes for some people, right? I guess you don't have to be friendly or outgoing. It's not exactly like this person saved my life and donated a kidney. It's like they're nice. So what? Especially if they're not interested in fixing the problem and it's a real problem, life is too short to deal with people like this. So I'd say give it one more go. Don't bring it up in the moment when she's doing it. You know, you sit through that one, bring it up when you're meeting and you're having a good time or another conversation that's private. Don't gang up on her with somebody else or anything. Don't be there with five friends at a birthday party. You'd be like, "By the way, Angela, everyone hates you."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:44:38] Don't do that. I bet this person's a latchkey kid. And from a single-parent family or a single child from a single parent family that was on their own a lot and didn't have anybody to talk to.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:51] Interesting.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:44:51] Most of the people I know that go to this behavior, because I used to be one of them, that was their background. Latchkey kids didn't have anybody to talk about parents who were separated and didn't really have any kind of support structure and nobody paid attention to them when they were kids.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:07] Oh yeah, that totally makes sense. Because I sort of went through this in college, like I have a feeling, have you talked to people that knew me in college? There'll be like, "Oh God, that fucking guy." Because I think I did a lot of that. Like, "Oh, I want everyone to like me and let me talk about how great I am," because I was insecure about it because I was an only child. I spent a lot of time alone and I was like, "Oh, the best way to handle this is to make sure everyone knows that I'm cool." It's like, no, that's not how this works.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:32] Yeah. Because you're worried that nobody's going to care about you and everybody's going to leave because your parents were too busy to deal with you when you were a kid. I see this over and over again with people that were like us. You know, you and I both come from the same type of background. You had both parents, but your dad was always working at Ford. Your mom was a teacher and dealing with kids and you had time to yourself to think about things like this. So I can see where this would come up with a person like this. And just me, personally, like when people would bring that up to me, I would get introspective about it and try to like fix it ongoing. I would take their advice and try to ask questions about the other people, get to know them more. And over time, that kind of clicks and it really starts to take hold and then you stop thinking about that everything is all about,

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:21] I've had that. And I've had friends. I mean, Jason, you and I both know someone at the old company, he'll talk right over you. Like you're not even there.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:46:29] Oh yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:29] And that's, that's some narcissistic stuff. Like at first I was like, wow, he's really rude and he's interrupting. But then I realized he's so not listening that, it's like you're talking, it's like you're not even there. He'll just start talking. And I figured it out because I realized he's not even interrupting. He just starts talking and you're like, "What is that? What?"

Jason DeFillippo: [00:46:51] He's waiting for a break in the noise so he can make some. That's kind of it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:54] Because nothing that anybody else had to say was important at all. And I was just like wow. And that comes from, you know, he had a really crap childhood and mom abandoned him and stuff. So it was like everything was always about him. And that was, that got old. I put up with that for way too F-ing long. I'll tell you that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:47:15] I'm going to tell you one of the tips that I got was, if you can't repeat the last sentence that somebody said to you, you're not listening.

New Speaker: [00:47:21] Oh that's good.

New Speaker: [00:47:22] Yeah. That was one of the tips that a friend gave me who was a really good listener and he's like, you need to be able to repeat back what just said to you. Otherwise, you are not listening well enough and then you're not part of the conversation. You are just to "fight club" waiting for your turn to speak.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:37] Yeah. Yeah. Look, don't gang up on her. Remember if she starts getting defensive, stop her, tell her, "Hey look, wait, let me, let me finish here. I'm telling you this because I care about you and I want to stay friends with you. Like serious talk." And then you say, "I'm telling you for your own good because I know other people feel the same way and we all care about you, which is why we're bringing it up. I wouldn't bring it up if we didn't care about you." And if she listens, great, and if not, then she doesn't care to change. And you're never going to get past this. At least not right now, you're not going to get past this problem, which means you should not have to put up with it. I'd say just move on with your life in that case.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:17] Definitely. If she's not willing to change then move on. There's a lot of people out there.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:22] Exactly. So I actually reached out to National Car Rental to sponsor the show cause we use their cars all the time and I'm a huge fan of their Emerald Club because of the benefits of that. And they were kind enough to actually sponsor a question on Feedback Friday, which is kind of unique and cool the way that it worked out. So all thoughts and opinions are, of course, my own is always, and it matches this question perfectly, Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:44] Since I often have to travel for work, how do I negotiate with my boss on staying a few extra days for vacation?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:50] Okay. So first of all, bleasure is a term that I just learned. Have you heard of this? Or maybe it's bleisure.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:57] That's actually a real term.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:59] Yeah, so it's business. I guess it's bleisure.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:02] I would go with bleisure.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:02] Because it's business and leisure. Although bleasure also makes sense now that I think about it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:07] But bleisure rolls off the tongue.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:09] Bleisure travelers report significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their quality of life overall compared to non bleisure travelers. So 93 percent versus 75 percent of the numbers there and their work life balance as well. So 87 percent versus 64 percent. So if you take bleisure trips, you're happier with your work-life balance and with your life overall. And what I thought was interesting was 46 percent of bleisure travelers think telling their boss about taking time for fun or personal activities while traveling is no go and should not do that. Which I thought was kind of silly. Last, and perhaps the most counterintuitive is that a majority of bleisure travelers, so 62 percent also report that they felt more focused while on business trips, which I think is interesting and probably something you can use to tell your boss, "Hey look, I've read this data, I'm going to get more done. I always get more done on these trips." So there's some tips for negotiating this time on vacation in sort of appending or prepending into a business trip. And the first tip is don't hide the ball. It's completely reasonable to ask your boss to allow you to append or prepend PTO or vacation days after a business trip before a business trip. Don't try to finagle it. Don't try to try to like get some sort of like, "Oh, well this is happening and I don't know if I can make the flight." Just be straight forward. You're in Orlando so you want to hit Disney World instead of coming back on Friday during the afternoon is not ridiculous. Even if your boss says no, at least you tried. Look, you'll have to pay for lodging and food, of course, but your company's already paying for the flight and you'll find that even if the return flight is more expensive because it's on a different day or at a different time. Companies, especially bigger ones, they'd not going to care. They likely won't even notice in the first place. Certainly your boss is not going to notice and even if she did probably wouldn't care. They're not probably booking your travel when it comes to bigger companies. So don't hide the ball.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:57] Second, if you're low on vacation days, ask if you can work remotely from the location, especially if the trip is near or adjacent to a weekend. Sure. If you're supposed to come home Friday and yes to come home Sunday instead, you should be good no matter what. But what happens if the trip has you coming back on Friday or Thursday? See if you can stick around work remotely because you're still going to lose a day. If you're flying back on a day, see if you can work remotely and then fly back on the weekend. They should jump at the chance to do that because then you're actually working more and then you're doing your vacationing over the weekend. And of course, you know, you clock out a little early on that day if you can. Companies often recognize that a travel day is exhausting and it would be just as glad to have you telecommute or work from a hotel that day versus sitting on a plane and they actually get more productivity out of you if you're working versus half sleeping on a plane while watching Impractical Jokers reruns or something.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:51] And three, if you're always chronically low on vacation days, like a lot of people are, take a page out of last week's Feedback Friday episode or the week before. I can't remember now. See if you can actually negotiate more vacation days in the coming year. Most of us negotiate for more salary or for more cash, but for the company, cash and time off can sometimes be interchangeable. So for many of us, more time off is worth much more than the extra cash and we'll raise our work life satisfaction significantly more than the extra three or five grand or whatever. Not everyone can do this, but if you find yourself burning out in a career that you otherwise love, I highly recommend trying to negotiate more time off instead of just a raise. So you can learn more about the survey where I got those statistics on my LinkedIn profile, which we'll link in the show notes, linkedin.com/jordanharbinger.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:40] I highly recommend also signing up for National's Emerald Club. You can do that at nationalcar.com. We use the app. I love going to the airport, not having to wait in line. You don't have to take the shuttle, you just grab a car and leave the garage. You basically just sort of check in with your app and it's much faster than going through the whole rigmarole. And if you rent-in cars they'll park one for you right next to the airport terminal so you don't have to take the stinky shuttle bus and everything. You basically just walk to the lot where people go to pick people up and your car is sitting there. It's awesome.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:10] That's nice. That is so nice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:12] It's really awesome. And then if you have high enough status, they'll drop you at the airport and then take the rental car back.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:18] Oh God. Okay, nationalcar.com. I'm in.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:19] It's awesome. I found this because I thought like, "Oh car rental. Nah, I don't care." And we were using it and I was like, this company is awesome because if you go and you wait in line, you get to take the shuttle. You're sitting there for like 40 minutes because it's not fast. But if you can just show up and jump in a car and go, you save like an hour every time.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:40] At least, at least an hour.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:43] And then, of course, they don't have the car you want because you're number 20 after getting off the plane.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:47] I wanted an economy car. Why do I have an Escalade? Yeah, happens all the time.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:54] That's if you're lucky. Usually you wanted an Escalade and they have a Yugo or something and you're like, "What the hell?"

Jason DeFillippo: [00:53:59] Yugo old school callback.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:01] Yeah. Yeah. Well with National, what I liked is at a certain level of status, they auto upgrade you. So you rent like an economy and you get bumped up to sedan or you get a regular sedan and they bump you up to a deluxe SUV.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:14] Nice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:14] So you just, yeah, you don't pay more, you end up renting a crazy huge ass car that fits all your gear for like 80 bucks. It's really awesome. That's why I chased these guys as a sponsor, I think they're the best at this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:26] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:27] Hey, Jordan and team. I'm in my early 30s and a real estate broker. I bring home amazing money, get asked to speak on stages all across the country, have won tons of industry awards, and I'm miserable most days. The problem is I have an expensive lifestyle and a large family to support. So taking time off to find myself isn't exactly a walk in the park. My goal is to find meaning in my work or find work that has meaning. Any advice would be appreciated. Signed, 24-Karat Problems.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:56] Yikes. But I get you. You got the golden handcuff, son. So people try to compensate by trying to buy happiness, right? You get a high paid job, but you're miserable. So you get a house, vacation house, and then you've got to pay that off. So you stay in a job longer than you want and then it's, well, I got to get a boat, keep up with the Joneses, feel good, make the wife feel good, whatever, and then you get that and then a couple of years later you go, "I'd love to leave, but I've got two houses in a boat," so you ain't going no place. Right? You don't need time off to find yourself. This is a myth. People travel, they go somewhere to find themselves in a place where they can't even read the freaking menu. Been there, done that, does not work. Find purpose and meaning outside of work. It actually reminds me of that FBI agent we helped a few months back, Jason, who was like, "I got 10 more years to go and I hate it and I'm not going to move up. What do I do? That my work is devoid of meaning." And we said, "Look, volunteer or work with a non-profit." You've obviously got some great sales skills, so maybe try raising money for the non-profit or training people to raise money for the nonprofit and get your hands dirty. That can be very rewarding if you're working with the non-profit helping kids learn to read or something like that. Volunteer to teach some of the classes yourself. Look, I get it, man. You're super busy. Yes. Whenever you're at this level of success though, you have more flexibility than you think. You're making great cash. Hire a personal assistant or hire an executive assistant to do some of the heavy lifting. You're traveling too much, raise your fees, turn down the less desirable gigs, you're probably going to have a little FOMO. So what you've got to prioritize. If you're working too much, hire someone to work under you or do less work. There's probably a lot of stuff you can outsource or that doesn't even need to be done in the first place. I will wager to say you don't need all of the money that you are earning. I bet you don't. You think you do because you're spending a lot to attain a lifestyle that's not making you happy, that you're trying to achieve because you're not happy. That's a vicious cycle, that golden handcuffs. That said, I think you can keep your income where you want it and lighten your load at the same time by learning how to say no, and learning how to delegate better. And both of these are challenges that business owners and entrepreneurs face all the time.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:11] One of the biggest traps, especially if you own your own business, is thinking that you have to do everything yourself. People are afraid to hire somebody to go do grocery shopping or run errands because they're like, "Oh, but I can do it." You can, but how bad do you want two extra hours a day? "Oh, I can do my own invoicing or my own taxes or my own dah, dah." You can, but what if you just didn't have to do that again and somebody else spent four hours a week handling that and it costs you 100 bucks.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:37] Yup.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:37] You know, you can really raise your lifestyle by spending on what's right and hiring someone to help you part time. It's a huge, huge deal. This is one of those levers that most people don't know exists because they're like, well, my company is not going to pay for that. Who cares? Hire someone yourself if you're allowed to, of course. Or when they're like, "Hey, you're doing really great." You're like, "You know how I do even greater. I need a part-time assistant." You'd be surprised how many bosses will be like, "Hey, if this is going to help you get one percent more productive this year. Sure. Hire whoever you want part-time. Here's your budget." I know if people in my office told me they need help with something. It's like, "Where do we sign to make you more productive?" It's an easy lever to push except for you, Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:58:19] We'll talk about that off the air. If that's the case.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:23] Except for you.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:58:23] It's funny, I know so many people that have done this same thing and have burnt out when they just could have just pulled those other levers and got people to do things for them and I'm going through this right now with my business. I fired my bookkeeper. I'm like, I can just do bookkeeping myself. That's easy. Well, three weeks of not sleeping right, going, "Did I put that in the right column? Did I put that in the right column?" I'm like, "Screw it." And yesterday I called my old bookkeeper and I'm just like, "Will you please, pretty please come back and help me because I don't want to think about this stuff. I like sleeping at night." And I think that 24-Karat Problems can actually take that stuff off his plate, have the time to actually, you know, sit down and think about what he wants to do. I think you're right. I definitely think outsourcing the mundane is really what's going to help him get that space where he can then think to figure out what he wants to do with the next phase of his life.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:13] Agree. I think that's good advice. All right, last but not least.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:59:17] Hello, Jordan, Jason and Jen. I'm struggling on how to tell my family. I'm no longer religious. I grew up in a very religious home with church several times a week. I've been in doubt about my religion ever since I was a freshman in high school, but lived the same religious lifestyle and even led a small Bible study group and worked at my church throughout high school in order to avoid awkward conversation. The fact that I'm no longer a believer will become obvious to my family as I'll be moving in with my girlfriend of more than two years soon and my wedding, won't be in a church. It will be administered by my gay uncle. I feel like I owe it to them to explain that. I simply don't believe anymore. Is it better not to tell them? I usually only see my family on holidays. So would it be appropriate to bring it up then or is a phone call better as to avoid the conversation on a holiday? Thank you for all the help and advice and congratulations on the success of the new show. Signed, The Avoidant Atheist.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:11] I would say you should tell them.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:00:12] Yup.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:13] And is it appropriate to bring it up on a holiday? Yeah, it is. If you only see your family on holidays. Don't do it on a phone call. Do it in person. This is a big deal. They're going to try to talk you out of it probably. That's fine. You've already made up your mind. You don't have to get defensive about it. You can just tell them this is in a spur of the moment decision, et cetera. You will regret doing this wrong if you do it wrong. And if they don't understand and they're like, "Oh my gosh, your uncle is gay and he's going to hell and we're not going to the wedding." That's their choice. But what you don't want to do is say, "Hey, I didn't invite anybody cause I thought you might get upset." You think they're going to be less upset if you don't even invite them to the wedding. You know, like if they want to boycott it or be unreasonable, let them decide to do that now and then get over it in time for the wedding. That's my advice. I would get this out of the way.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:01:04] Yeah, get it out of the way. And most of the time, I mean, I'm a devout atheist myself. I've told my family, we grew up in a very religious home and most of them did not care and a lot of them just grabbed me around the side and said, "Yeah, I don't believe either." So it's about community for them that's all they really care about is the community. So it's not as big a deal as I think you think it is, but I mean it depends on your religion. It depends on how embedded they are in the church, but for the most part, when I came out as it were, nobody really batted an eyelash.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:42] That makes sense. Yeah. They might already know and they just haven't said anything.

New Speaker: [01:01:46] Life Pro Tip of the Week. Make a great impression at any new job by documenting the whole training process in detail. One, it's good for you because it forces you to remember the training and write everything down. You can always refer to it later, but you'll also understand it better having documented it. It's often really, really valuable to startups and smaller companies that don't have in depth training documentation and whenever I started new jobs back in the day and here's how I would do this now actually let's forget what I did 10 freaking years or more. The way that I do this now, start detailed notes in a Google Doc, make it really organized, make it pretty. Put a table of contents in there and then once you're trained up, have a meeting with your manager, or it could come up naturally I suppose mentioned that you documented your training and that you'd be happy to share all of the notes. Then they can polish it up to make their new training program and all the credit will theoretically go to you for that. Even something as simple as a doc, like where do I get the password for the new accounts? Or here's how you use these equipment at work, or here's how you log into these email things that often have a little bit of a tricky situation. Any sort of tip or trick that you learned from other employees that's safe to put in there should also go in there. I think that could be really helpful. Look, if it's a larger established company and they have a really detailed process and you get this binder on your desk or whatever, you can create a tip and trick or tip and hints document that goes above and beyond the training that they provide and that might also be really valuable because you'll probably learn something extra that's not documented or there might be changes in that manual that haven't been documented yet. You can create workarounds for that and people will love you for that. That's a really good way to make a great, great first impression on the bosses and the other staff for that matter and everyone that comes after you, they'll look up to you and look to you for that. That's a great way to establish yourself in a company in a way that's not invasive and doesn't step on anybody's toes.

New Speaker: [01:03:45] Recommendation of the Week. I watched Saudi Arabia Uncovered. First of all, I didn't know you couldn't go there as a tourist at all, apparently.

New Speaker: [01:03:54] Say what?

New Speaker: [01:03:55] You can't go there as a tourist. I didn't even know that.

New Speaker: [01:03:57] I had no idea.

New Speaker: [01:03:59] And so they also don't allow filming in public. So if you go there and you film, you're not allowed to do that unless you have a certain kind of visa and a permit to do so, which is, I mean even North Korea lets you film stuff, not everything certainly, but they let you in as a tourist and you can film.

New Speaker: [01:04:20] Cray cray.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:21] Yeah. And so there's a lot of hidden camera footage of journalists going in and filming secretly. This camera crew from the UK, I think they posed as a technology business and they went there for a conference and they drove around and they were filming kind of secretly using hidden cameras and they caught like executions and public floggings and all this stuff. And they shine a light on some of the dissidents in Saudi Arabia that are in prison for things like blogging, women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia. I found this really interesting and eye-opening. And I feel bad because I know we have listeners from Saudi Arabia that are really patriotic, but geez, that was a side of that country that I just had never seen before. And I thought that was kind of interesting. And I'm curious because I have a female friend who's from Saudi Arabia. She gets so mad when I say things like, "Women aren't allowed to drive." She's like, "That's not even true." And she'll go off on me. But then everything I read and everything I see is like, "Yeah, women can't drive. And women have gone to prison for driving and women have been beaten for driving." And it's like, "Well what's true here? I just don't know." So I thought this was an interesting documentary for me. It's on Netflix, Saudi Arabia Uncovered.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:05:31] I'm going to have to check this one out because I have never been a fan of Saudi Arabia. I mean, they still have public beheadings and which is just disgusting. And yeah, they did let women start to drive. Women can get their driver's licenses now but that doesn't mean that there's still bias inherent in the system. They're going to get pulled over more. They're going to get harassed more. But it's a place that, yes, we do have listeners there, but it's a place I just never ever want to go. I'm putting that on my list with Pakistan.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:00] Yeah, Pakistan, I'm not going there.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:01] You'll never see me in Saudi Arabia because the public beheading thing really gets me. I cannot get behind that. I don't care what somebody did. It's ridiculous. And the fact that it feels stadium's worth thousands of people to come out and watch that. That's just so disgusting in my book.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:19] Yeah. Look, I would love to go to Saudi. I would love to go to Pakistan. I'm just a little nervous to do so.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:24] You think, a crazy, white boy from Michigan showing up in the Middle East. Oh, what could go wrong?

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:30] Yeah, I mean it could be really fun if you go with the right people and like if I went with a company that had a fixer that was going around with us everywhere or like diplomatic or something like that, I think it'd be fine. It'd be great.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:41] In a private army.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:42] Eh, I just don't know. Hope you all enjoy that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us at friday@jordanharbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. We'll always keep you anonymous. And I have some live events coming up at some point soon. We're doing a lot of corporate training right now. We are training executive protection specialist for Silicon Valley and tech companies and foreign governments, so that's been pretty cool. We've been working and doing some private training for them and man, that's a fascinating industry. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:16] Quick shout out to Cameron. He is Mike Posner's aide-de-camp. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thanks for all the guests suggestions as well. Thanks for being a fan of the show. And go back and check out Humble The Poet and Guy Kawasaki and the article on how to talk about yourself without sounding like an a-hole if you haven't checked that out this week.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:33] And if you want to know how we managed to book all these great guests, well, I've got a great network. I manage my relationships using systems. I've got tiny habits. It's about daily consistency. Check out our Six-Minute Networking course, which is free. That's at jordanharbinger.com/course. The course replaces the old Level One course. It has a bunch of upgraded drills and tech and systems in there. I no longer do Level One. I no longer have anything to do with Advanced Human Dynamics because I'm doing a lot of this other training now. And the problem with kicking this down the road, I know you think, "I'm going to do that Six-Minute Networking thing later." You can't make up for lost time. When it comes to relationships and networking, the number one mistake people make is not digging the well before you're thirsty. So go and grab those drills. Take a few minutes per day, hence the and it's the type of habit you really ignore only at your own peril. So find it all at jordanharbinger.com/course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with me and the show videos of our interviews are also at jordanharbinger.com/youtube and we have YouTube only content that you don't get inside the interviews. So go and subscribe to our YouTube at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:08:40] my personal website is at jpd.me. I got a bunch of stuff coming up and a bunch of gear reviews on our podcasting side of things and you can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks where we talk about the underbelly of the Internet and how things have gone wrong over at gog.show or your podcast player of choice.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:08:57] The show is produced in association with PodcastOne and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger. Show notes for the episode are 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. Got a lot more in the pipeline. Very 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: [01:09:24] If you like our show, you're going to love Off Beat with Ricky Anderson and Mir Harris on PodcastOne. Join the head of A&R for the Kanye West founded label G.O.O.D. Music and the music executive turned activist as they sit down for strange stories and offbeat conversations with some of the biggest names in music, comedy, entertainment, and more. Download new episodes of Off Beat with Ricky Anderson and Mir Harris every week on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.