236: How to Quit Your Dream Job Gracefully | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How to Quit Your Dream Job Gracefully | Feedback Friday (Episode 236)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:03] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFillippo. On the show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant and interesting people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

[00:00:19] This week, we had Seth Godin. He is a master. What do you even call a guy like Seth Godin? He's one of the most prolific marketing thought leaders, thinkers around. He's written bajillion bestselling books. Everything he puts out turns into basically cannon in the marketing industry. He's talking about the future of influence with us this week and whether we can make a living doing what we love and the answer might actually surprise you because it's kind of yes, but kind of also not in the way that you think, or at least not in the way that you choose.

[00:00:49] We also spoke with my friend David Roeske because he's constantly trying to push the edges summit mountains like Everest and K2 without oxygen. When we go around New York, sometimes he'll climb scaffolding outside of skyscrapers, not like all the way up to the top, but he'll just horse around and climb up some scaffolding, which you know is dangerous. He's a great guy. Obviously, he is just the right amount of crazy. And I also write every so often in the blog. The latest post is about how to bring value to a business or personal relationship. How to make a solid introduction and how to stop making excuses for not creating and maintaining relationships. That's at jordanharbinger.com/articles. So, make sure you've had a look and to listen to everything we created for you this week. Our primary mission on this show 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 here is to have conversations directly with you or as direct as possible. And that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com.

[00:01:53] I got to say baby Jayden, we went to Jayden. I don't know if I announced that on the show before we had to get a J name. Those of you on the newsletter helped us choose the name, which is pretty cool. If you're not on the newsletter, you can get on there by going to jordanharbinger.com. It's right on the homepage. Or you can sign up for Six-Minute Networking. And if you don't unsubscribe, you'll get the newsletter and it's mostly relevant. I’m not going to make too many promises because I did ask you for the baby name in it, but he looks like an old Chinese man.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:22] Don't all babies look like that though?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:24] Yeah. I mean, he is half Asian so he's hapa. That's a word I've recently learned, mixed baby. He is cute for a newborn though. And I know that everyone thinks that about their own newborn, but I've had a lot of people send me like, “Hey, your baby's really cute.” And I'm like, “Yeah, well, I mean, aren’t all newborns cute?” And they're like, “No, here's a picture of our kid.” It's funny. People have been sending me pictures of their own kids and being like, “This was our kid. We thought he was cute at the time, but after about eight months, we realized he's cute now, but when he was a newborn, well, here's what he looked like,” and it's like a hairy gremlin or like a, maybe a shaved, some kind of gizmo. Yeah, a shaved gizmo or a hairy gremlin sort of in-between. And yeah, I mean all he does is cry, poop, eat and sleep. I love every minute of it even though I'm constantly in need of a nap. Jen's a champ. She already recovered a lot. She's already more or less back to work. I mean, we work from home, so she's on email. I'm not making her set up the video equipment these days and carry the 50-pound case. But yeah, she's a natural mom. I am pretty fortunate with that. It's funny, she never held a baby before, so I had more baby experience than she did at the birth of our child.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:38] That's crazy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:39] Isn't that crazy?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:40] Never held a baby once. Wow!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:42] Yeah. Like what human hasn't held a baby? What adults have not held a baby before ever?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:48] Well, Jen, there you go.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:50] Now we fixed that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:51] You found one.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:52] It's just crazy to me. I don't know I just assumed everybody's been holding babies since day one.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:59] At least at family functions, you always get passed off the babies as they come around,

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:03] You would think. Yeah. I don't know. It's funny. Her dad will come over and I'll hand him the baby and he holds it like he's holding a Ming vase and then he just hands it back to me. It's like, “Hey, thanks.” Like okay, he’s your grandson, but whatever. Anyway, we won't bore people too much with this. A lot of people don't, they don't care. They be gaff about the baby. They just want Feedback Friday, so let's give it to them. What's the first thing we've got out of the mailbag?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:27] Hey, Triple Jay. I have two family members highly involved in a multilevel marketing or MLM company. I won't say which one because I feel that it doesn't really matter. In my opinion, these programs rely on their employees exploiting their relationships with friends and family for profit. The company's product is always second fiddle to getting people signed up as an associate sales rep, consultant or whatever nomenclature they prefer. I've watched these people actually interested in buying a product or asked to instead sign up for a wholesale account where they can buy the product at a better price. What real company would do this? When I'm approached by people about these programs now, I tell them I don't support MLM companies and I won't host their parties or buy their products. My family members will often state that they own their own business or work as an entrepreneur and it really bothers me. I feel as though they give a bad name to the people who are actually running their own businesses and work hard to create something of their own. They've even tried to convince my wife to sign up for an account and get on the sinking ship with them. Are my views too hard on the MLM industry? Is there a more polite way of telling people that I won't get involved? Are there any good resources or techniques for discouraging participation in such programs? Keep up the great work. Best regards, Party Hosting Pooper.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:39] Ooh, you've hit one of my triggers. Big time here. I cannot stand MLM. I really cannot. I know every time we talk about this I field emails from what I consider to be irrationally angry people who don't understand the math of how a business works, especially a multilevel marketing scheme or a pyramid scheme. And you know what's funny about this, Jason, is I get the angry emails from people that --and I'm not going to try to insult their intelligence. I mean they do that just fine on their own a lot of the time, not everyone-- but people will write in and they'll say, “Oh, here's why you're wrong.” Or they'll just write in, you know, expletives. “I used to love your show until you said negative things about Herbalife,” or whatever and it's like, “Oh my god, really? That's what pushed you over the edge.” Your organized religion of your MLM. But what's funny is I know a cup just sort of tangentially, I know a lot of people at the very, very top of a few MLMs. I didn't say we're friends or close friends. I do know them. Some of them are very nice to me, et cetera. But you know, I have to you all know what I think about this or you will in a second, but they're never mad and I think that's interesting

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:52] Because they're rich.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:53] Right, they're rich. And also they say things like, “Yeah, I mean, you know, I can't really argue with the things that you say about MLM. I mean it's not for everyone.” And I was like, “Well by not for everyone, you mean, I don't know, 99.8 percent of people, it's not for them.” And they'll laugh and chuckle and be like, “Let me get you a drink.” Because they know this is not something that's debatable. They won't tell you that if you sign up for their quote-unquote business, they won't tell you that. But they don't care. They really don't care. I'm going to do a show about this at some point, but in the meantime, let's not sugarcoat this. Multilevel marketing organizations are in many ways like cults. Yes, that is not hyperbole. This is actually what I mean and I will back it up. In fact, next week we're going to back it up big time because we're doing a special on cults. They use tactics to prey on vulnerable populations --that's very culty-- so poor, immigrants, single mothers, retirees, people with chronic illnesses or other health problems. They promise them the world. Yes, they tell them, “You're going to have to invest a little money, but that's normal when you start a business, right? If you work hard, you can live a life of leisure. You can rake in cash while you stay at home with your kids. You can bequeath it to your kids, your children, even though it will be worthless because it's not a real business. You constantly have to push other people to join the business to get more on your downline and you have to pay the company usually every single month to buy more quote-unquote products that you then throw away or whatever or try to use. But if you want to maintain your status, you've got to pay the company. So it's not a business, it's usually a money-losing venture. No business in the world would saturate one geographic area with as many suppliers as possible, all buying of course at wholesale, unless of course the company's primary revenue source where the wholesalers themselves, so I'm going to sort of repeat this.

[00:08:46] No In-N-Out Burger. No. McDonald's wants to have seven McDonald's on the same block, right? For very obvious reasons. Even things like Starbucks, which you see across the street from one another, you don't see them multiple on the same block most of the time, unless there's a massive, massive population density. They've done the math on this and often they'll close one after they figure out which side of the street converts better and you've seen this or they buy another coffee shop, they make it into a Starbucks and then they shut it down. You've seen that too, right? But nobody would have 20 wholesalers in the same apartment building. MLMs don't care because when you join an MLM, you are not a seller. You are the customer, you are the product. In fact, the business would operate the same way if there was no product at all. Think about this. You don't even need the product. If you're in some sort of MLM, most of the time you're just funneling upward. You're funneling money upward to the organization. It's wholesaler sending money to the corporation in exchange for the ability to have money sent to them from below. If you get rid of your essential oils or your health shakes or whatever it is, the business still operates the exact same way. You just throw away less stuff. Your garage has more space in it. That's really it. There are tons of reasons. An MLM is not a real business for the people who are not at the top. I'll save that for a later show.

[00:10:07] At the end of the day, it's pointless to talk logic or argue with people who are invested in an MLM. Look, if they're early and they just bought it and they're going, “Hmm, this is kind of weird.” Sure you can. You can talk some sense into some of these people, but for most people, they have drunk the Kool-Aid. They went to the convention, they flew out there, they got all their stuff. They're wearing their tee shirts, they got their backpack, you know, on. All we can really do is ask clarifying questions about how profitable the business is for them personally. Most people will never give you this information because the answer is almost always statistically, always zero. Something like 99 percent --it's actually higher than that-- of people involved in an MLM. Lose money, net-net lose money. The MLM shills, the people who are shilling this stuff, they'll tell you it's because, “Oh, those people didn't work hard enough. They didn't have the motivation. They didn't have patients. They didn't do it right, whatever it is,” but it's largely because the math simply does not work. In fact, if you start going, --we had an expert on the show literally like five-plus years ago. I got to have him back on Jason-- but he did the math and it was something like after seven or 10 orders of magnitude down the pyramid, you run out of people on earth. It's crazy. It happens so fast and that's why people who run one MLM, they'll often jump into another one or they will run multiple and that's why you also see people who are high up in MLMs but not the founder. They will jump off the MLM that they're in and they'll start another one. That's basically the exact same thing with different branding and different materials because then they're at the top of the pyramid and they don't have to pay corporate to then get their paycheck. That's why you see guys were like, “Yeah, I sold my business for $50 million.” You didn't have a business. You were at an MLM and you sold your downline to corporate or you sold your downline to another person who's giving you a buyout. It's total BS. The math just doesn't work. The best approach when somebody sucked into one of these things is to be positive. Not encouraging, but positive, not negative, I should say. How about neutral? Not negative, ask questions that will get them thinking. I'm actually going to go into some depth on this next week during a special two-part series I'm doing on cults with Steven Hassan. He's great, super knowledgeable. We're going to be talking about regular calls, business calls being one of them, and MLM is what he means by that.

[00:12:32] If you're skeptical, if one of your friends in an MLM, maybe you can help them keep a spreadsheet of expenses and sales. See if they'll let you do that. You'll soon see they have to spend money each month to keep their status, their status so that they can get paid a certain amount, et cetera, et cetera. They spend that money ostensibly to get product, but really they're just spending money to keep the status. They have to keep recruiting other people to try and recoup the money that they have to spend each month. And it gets increasingly more and more desperate. These people do to recoup their losses, which then causes them to rely, unfortunately, on their closest relationships for that money. See, I wouldn't really care as much if people were just getting ripped off because eventually, you'd figure it out, right? And a lot of people do. But the problem is usually with MLMs, you figure it out after you've really desperately tried to sell your sister, your brother, your mother, your father, your aunt, your neighbor because you're going broke and you need the money and you need to keep your status. So you see people who are ruining their personal relationships in order to basically dig out of a hole because there's no way that they're going to be profitable. MLMs are very toxic to the people involved and to everyone around them. And this is why I think they're there a step beyond a scam. They delve into cult territory. They use emotional control. They use manipulation tactics. Everybody's got a script about why everything that you might say against an MLM. In fact, I'm going to get this on Twitter. I'm going to get this in my email. I'm going to get scripted stuff from people that say, “Oh, well it's not, you know, it's not their fault that these people don't have the drive and the motivation and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” I'm going to see that come in. Every time I talk about MLMs, I see a bunch of very, very similar emails come in from people involved in similar groups. And there was a time a few years ago where, depending on where the email came from, I could actually pinpoint with some accuracy what the group was. I'd get something and I'd say, “Oh, how long have you been doing Herbalife?” And they'd be like, “Huh?” And I go, “Yeah, you don't even notice that you're just a parent of the crap that you hear at the convention. For people who say, ‘Hey, this doesn't work.’ It's like, ‘Oh, you're just repeating this,’ and you don't even see it.” These people also have to put the business before, before friends and family, and they have to put the business before themselves. That is unhealthy. It's all about the company. It's all about the people at the top. Now, they won't say it's about the people at the top. They'll say, “It's about business and drive, and it's about creating a lifestyle that you want.” That's not what it is at all. It's about the people at the top getting rich and there's so much to this, but I will say that we shouldn't abandon or isolate these people who are sucked into this because what it'll do is it causes them to go deeper into the MLM network for support. “Oh, none of my friends understand me, my friends, they ghosted me. They want to hang out with me. Now I'm just going to post in a doTERRA Facebook group every five minutes.” Okay. This is one reason, one, why there are so many conferences. There are so many events. Those are also, by the way, a great moneymaker for the company itself. “Oh, but they do it at cost.” No, they don't. You pay fees to go, of course, you pay for your own hotel, you pay for your own travel, but you always pay a conference fee and people won't tell you that. They'll say, “Oh, I got VIP status.” Cool. How much did you pay to keep that status all year? “Oh, $10,000 okay, so the fees built-in,” and they keep the emotions at these things. They keep your emotions and buying temperature really high. All the attendees, especially as those people become more and more isolated, this is all they see. They have after a while, so don't isolate them, but also do not enable them. Don't loan them money. Don't let them use your house for recruiting and have their little parties there. Don't let them recruit at your parties or your gatherings. Do not join their fake business. Do not go to those meetings. You'll just resent them for it. And these people, they need real friends desperately because, after a few years, the strain on their personal and financial lives can really be staggering. It's really, really sad and shameful, especially because they do target vulnerable people in the first place.

[00:16:29] I can go on forever with this I wrote, I really recommend watching Betting on Zero. I think it's still on Netflix. It's a documentary about a hedge fund that shorted Herbalife and tried to expose that company and it, you can really see it's an ego battle between these two hedge fund guys. These companies are very powerful. They're very insidious. They lobby and in fact, there's one in the government right now who made a bunch of --Jason, what does Betsy DeVos maker money does? Amway. Was that what she made her money doing?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:58] I think that was hers. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:00] Yeah, and people sometimes don't even know that they're what their friends and family are doing, or even some of the products that they see are an MLM. In fact, there's a Reddit group that I'm in and people will go, “I'm at CVS right now and look what's on the shelf, and there's all this Amway stuff,” and it's like, “wait, you can't sell that at CVS.” So, what they're thinking is like maybe the manager or somebody at a mom-and-pop, sometimes drug store will be in this and they'll go, “How do I get rid of all this shampoo?” And they'll sell it to the drug store for like 10 cents a bottle and the drug store sells it as quote-unquote store brand or cheapo for two bucks because they're just giving it away. It's crazy. There's so much wrong with this man. It's so toxic. I really do feel for you and I feel for your friend, I feel for everybody involved in these sorts of things because they go after people that need the money. I don't know anybody who's like upper middle class successful has a regular good job and is involved in this for a long time. I know people that dabble and then they go, “Oh wait a minute,” and then our out. The people that I know that are neck-deep in this, I hear about it cause they're my Uber driver. I hear about it because they're talking about it in Spanish at the hair salon while they're sweeping on the floor. I mean, these are people that can't afford to lose $1,000 a month or whatever it is. It's just a shame. Shame on these companies and shame on anybody who's encouraging people to do this.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:18:24] Yeah. I had a friend of mine who got sucked into it and she posted on her Instagram one day, all of her Herbalife stuff. And I'm like, “Who sold that to you? Because whoever that is, is not your friend, you know?” And, of course, that's not how you do it. That's not the proper way to do it. And so then she called me an asshole and never spoke to me again because I was just trying to tell her. I laid it out in a long paragraph and I'm like, ”Look, this is not good for you. You, you're on a budget. You cannot be, you cannot afford to be diving into this cause it's just going to make you even poorer. And she'd already drunk the Kool-Aid and then she ended up losing probably $10,000 on it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:01] Oh man, it sucks. It really sucks. And it's again, these people that are doing this, they're sold, “Hey, this is the secret way out of the day-to-day.” Look, man, you can make money after work doing this and stuff.” The reality of MLM, oh my gosh, going on Reddit, it's just been so educational when it comes to the MLM. You see people's real stories and if you go, if you look on the right forum on online, you find MLM dissenters and they'll be like, “Yeah, when I worked for such and such, whatever MLM I was working like 16 hours a day, sending text messages, Facebook messages, Instagram. It was tedious. Every lunch, meal, breakfast, everything. Every friend I had was me pitching, everybody that I sold. I felt guilty and everybody that I, you know, I didn't sell, didn't really want to hang out with me ever again because everything was always under false pretenses or if it wasn't under false pretenses and it was a sales meeting.” I mean, how many people want to take sales meetings with their friends over and over, you know, not many. And it's just, it's just absolutely crazy to me. And even when people say, “Look, the products are kind of good.” It's like, well, when you do, when you look at lab tests and stuff like that, or when you look at the price of that product compared to something that's actually market price, it's never even close. You get something that is 300 percent as expensive from the MLM and then the store has it for a dollar. It's $3 from the MLM or more. And when you kind of say, “What's going on with that? Why would anybody buy that? I want the cheap toilet paper that's more affordable at Costco. Why would I pay you $3 a roll?” They say, “Well loyalty, because people below you are going to do it.” And I'm like, “So, I have to trust it. They're going to do it and then I have to do it so that the people above me, they do it.” It just doesn't make any sense. It's a lot like communism. “Oh, well, you've got to do it this way because that's what's good for society and as long as nobody cheats, it works.” Except for even an MLM. It doesn't. Communism would if nobody ever cheated and MLM, it doesn't because there are still people at the bottom and then you run out of people. You run out of humans, so yeah, whatever. I don't want to bore everybody with this. I get worked. I get triggered with this.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:12] I can tell. I can tell.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:14] Yeah, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:16] Dear You're Triple Jay. I recently broke up with my girlfriend at 15 months because the relationship wasn't satisfactory to my standards. However, when we met, she was about to start an MBA in Rotterdam and gave that up to be with me. I was really clear that I didn't want a long-distance relationship as we live in Asia. I didn't manipulate her into staying, however, and insisted that she make her own choice knowing the risk that relationships are always a gamble. Now, that we're separating, I have guilt that I can't shake, that I ruined her life. Now, she's on her way to 35 and it's increasingly harder to find MBA positions the older you get. I know I couldn't have known at the beginning that it wouldn't work out, but I still feel I should've stopped the relationship then and I think I'll do that in any future relationship that will come along. Do you think it's a wise decision? PS, your Six-Minute Networking is great too. Best regards, Guilty About The Gal.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:06] I feel for you, man. We all make decisions that we regret and this wasn't really your decision to make. You didn't make it. She made it or you made it together. I understand that and she can still get an MBA. Yeah, she's probably a few years behind. It's not like she didn't grow as a person in your relationship. It's not like you wasted her time. I know that she might feel that way. She might even be telling you that you don't owe people your happiness or owe them a relationship just because they committed to you or because you committed to them in the past. You just don't owe them your happiness and you don't owe them a relationship. Who's putting the guilt on you? This is what I wonder, is it her putting the guilt on you or is it you putting the guilt on yourself? It's always ourselves and in some way, right? Because sometimes we just feel really bad. We feel really guilty. We're good people, but sometimes we're encouraged by the other person and I'm wondering how much of that might be happening here. She's saying, “You ruined my life. You wasted my time. I can't get my MBA now. I counted on you.” When people make us feel guilty and they won't let it go, you got to. Remember this is about control. If somebody is trying to make you feel guilty and they won't let it go, it's not just about them. It is about controlling you, in an attempt to control your behavior. You need to move on with your life. You need to forgive yourself. She needs to move on as well. But if you're feeling guilty and you're entertaining all of her kind of conversations with you about how you ruined her life, it's prohibiting you from moving on. But also it's prohibiting her from moving on. So if you're going back and forth on this, you need to stop so that both of you can get on with your lives. The fact that you're feeling bad right now, it shows me that you're a caring person. I understand that, but you can't keep beating yourself up because of this or you will never be able to settle in with someone else again because you'll be afraid that you're going to hurt them. That's going to take a heavy toll on you emotionally. Breakups are not easy for anyone. There's a lot of baggage in both directions, but I would say you should be getting therapy.

[00:24:06] Definitely, betterhelp.com/jordan is a really good, convenient place to get therapy, get therapy. Breakups are always, always hard. This is part of the game. A good therapist can help you with that because once we clearly articulate our feelings, we can clearly articulate our thoughts, usually in conjunction with a good therapist that's helping us do this. We can understand and process those thoughts and those feelings much better. If they're just sort of nebulously floating around in the back of your brain, you've got a problem because that will, that will never quite get clear enough for you to let it go. You won't be able to refute it logically. You'll just be sort of feeling bad. That's not good. You need to articulate it, get really clear on it, process it logically so that your emotional brain stops nagging you about this stuff and this is in part what therapy does for us, so I highly encourage it. Again, Better Help one of our sponsors, betterhelp.com/jordan. Better Help again, one of our sponsors, I’m a really big fan of them. Just go get some therapy and remember this is not necessarily all about you and it's certainly not all about her. It sounds like she's trying to make you feel bad in order to control you. She's maybe not doing that on purpose. She's not thinking I'm going to control him by making him feel bad, but what's the effect it's having on you. That's what you got to examine and it doesn't sound like you're able to move on or be happy and that is destructive for both of you.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:28] This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:32] This episode is sponsored in part by Calm. If you're struggling to sleep these days, you're not alone. I certainly am with you. I just had a kid as you know, so I'm not getting enough sleep. If you're not sleeping enough, it can affect your cognitive functions during the day, like learning problem solving, decision-making, broadcasting. So if you know that you are short on sleep, I recommend calm. They are really good at this. Sleep efficiency does serious damage. Calm has got a whole library of programs that will help you get to sleep that your brain and body need. They got soundscapes, sleep stories narrated by Jerome Flynn from Game of Thrones, Stephen Fry. Seize the day, sleep the nights and get some Calm in your life. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:10] Right now our listeners get 25 percent off Calm premium subscription at calm.com/jordan. That’s C-A-L-M calm.com/jordan. 40 million people have downloaded calm. Find out why at calm.com/jordan.

[00:26:25] Support for The Jordan Harbinger Show comes from our friends at Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Home is so much more than a house. It's your own little slice of heaven. That's why when you find the perfect place for you and your family getting a mortgage shouldn't get in the way. Finding the right house isn't easy but finding the right mortgage can be. Rocket Mortgage is doing more to help you understand the home buying process so you can get exactly what you need because it's not just a mortgage, it's your mortgage and they found a better way. Their team of mortgage experts is obsessed with finding a better way, which means that their number one goal is to make the home buying process smoother for you. They make the home buying process work for you. In fact, Rocket Mortgage is there with award-winning client service and support every step of the way. Quicken Loans has helped millions of Americans achieve their dream of homeownership. And when you're ready to purchase the home of your dreams, they can help you too. When you work with them you get more than just a loan because Rocket Mortgage is more than just a lender. Visit RocketMortgage.com/JORDAN and take the first step towards the home of your dreams. Equal Housing Lender. Licensed in all 50 states. NMLSConsumerAccess.Org #3030. Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Push the button, get mortgage.

[00:27:33] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts from our amazing sponsors and to help keep this show going, 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, just head on over to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions on Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:02] Okay, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:28:03] Hello, Sirs. I've recently been given an ultimatum by my wife. I definitely agree with her perspective, but now I'm struggling to decide the best route in career decisions moving forward. We moved to the Washington DC area almost three and a half years ago after I finished my bachelor's degree. We chose this area because I work in technology and I landed a great job with even better benefits right out of school. It was her first time moving away from home and it's been a struggle for her this entire time. She really doesn't like the area and to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the area myself, but I really do like my job. She wants us to move back home to rural Pennsylvania. She has a handful of reasons, but I've already decided that I think they're compelling enough to agree. Now that I've agreed to move back, I have to decide the best route to take with this unplanned redirection of my career. My biggest concern is that I've never had to quit a job before, let alone leave a job I love with a great company. How do I go about gracefully separating while causing the least impact and most importantly, without burning any bridges? Another major concern is that I'm currently going to school for my master's degree in work is reimbursing me as it's relevant to my job. One of the great benefits I'll likely be losing. I have at least another year to go and I've gotten my wife to agree that we won't move back until I finished. I really feel like I'm taking advantage of my employer’s investment in me since I know that I'm not going to be staying once I finished school. Should I feel that way? Are there any legal concerns with leaving? Is there any way to go about this without any bad blood from my employer when I decided to leave right after finishing school? Lastly, there's very little hope that I'll find a job back home with benefits that match what I'm currently getting in. And I likely have to take a significant pay cut. Even though that is expected as the cost of living is significantly lower than it is here. I'm still expecting a pretty big cut compared to my current income, so I just can't help but feel that I'm taking a step backwards in my career since there are significantly less options in this field back home. I never planned on staying forever at my first job out of school, but definitely wasn't seeing any reasons to leave so soon. Is there anything I can do to mitigate this feeling or any perspective I can gain here? How do I even figure out how much I should ask for and how much are my skills worth back home again? Again, any feedback would be greatly appreciated since my head is spinning just thinking about all of this. Thank you, guys. Signed, Love My Job, But Love My Wife More.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:22] Aw man, I do feel for you here, this is a tough situation. You're really caring, obviously, for your wife making this huge shift, a downshift, some might say in order to help her sanity and her mental health. I really get it. I feel like you're between a rock and a hard place, but you're going to make the most of it and I think it's going to be good for you in the end because what do they say? Happy wife. Happy life. I like that. I sort of like that. It depends, depends on the context, but before leaving any job, make sure you have something else lined up back home. You do not know if they're going to want you to leave in two months when a project is over or if they're going to want you to leave immediately in two weeks. So you're going to want to try to line up a job and they're going to say, “When can you start?” And you'll say, “I'll have to let you know when I resigned from my previous position. Is that okay?” And they might say, “Sure,” because you need to sort of negotiate this. What you don't want is, “Oh, well, I'm going to put in my two weeks and you know, they're probably going to want me to finish this project and then I'll go home and dah, dah.” They might just be like, “Oh, you're going to leave in two weeks. Well, we have all these projects and I know you think you're going to finish them, but actually, why don't you just pack your stuff right now?” You just don't know how they're going to handle this. So once you've secured another offer in writing, by the way, back home where you're going to move, then talk to your supervisor and let them know why you're leaving and that it's because of your wife's health. Make sure you're really clear on that because you don't want them to think like, “We just gave this guy a promotion and a bunch of projects that he asked for and now, now he's still not happy.” You know, tell them exactly what's going on. I know it's private, but they'll understand much better if you're very, very candid with them. Otherwise, they might even try to retain you with incentives and all that stuff. That's a waste of everyone's time. It's going to confuse the situation and you don't want them to go, “All right, three more weeks of paid vacation and $10,000 raise because we really need your help.” That's problematic because then you're tempted and then you've got to redo that calculation of, “Oh, how long can my wife really deal with this and is she going to be happy or is she going to be sad?” I mean you just don't want to have to keep doing the math on this. You've already made your decision so you got to pull the trigger. Tell him your timeline and if you're flexible and you should be, offer them the option of keeping you on for the next several months or weeks, whatever, to finish the projects, do the transition, train the new guy, whatever it is, minimize the impact to the company. If you're worried about the impact on the company like you say, you got to make sure that you just are ready, your head is on a swivel. You're there every morning with bells on to make this transition for them because you need a positive referral from them. You should get one anyway and you should make sure you don't burn those bridges.

[00:32:53] The fact that you're going to school and that they're paying for it. Ooh, that is a, that is a huge wrench in this one because not only are they going to be angry, not only are they going to be disappointed, there's almost surely some fine print in your agreement or your contract that says you have to stay with the company for X number of years, years after you get your degree and if you leave before that, expect, expect to have to reimburse your company for the tuition at the very least. There might even be some sort of penalty. I don't know if that's legal or if that's in there or what. The very least you're going to have to pay the company for tuition. If not last time because maybe you left early to go to school. I don't know how they handle that. I do not see a way around that. Definitely, have an employment attorney look at any and all agreements you have with your company about your school, your employment, everything. Go see a lawyer immediately because you're going to want to be prepared. There might even be a clause in there that you can only pay that back in a lump or that you have to pay it back within a year, and then you've got to do some serious math with your new job to see if you can survive while you're paying 10 grand a month in tuition or whatever at five grand a month in tuition. As for taking a pay cut, this is exacerbated now, of course, by the fact that you're surely going to owe that tuition money back to your employer and at the end of the day, the amount of money you make, of course, it's always relative to where you live and your standard of living. So if you feel like your standard of living will stay the same, I would say worry a lot less about this, but if your standard of living is going to take a nosedive, you're going to have to come to terms with that. Otherwise, it's going to cause strain on your relationship. You know you're going to be at home and eating beans out of a can for a while or living with your parents cause you can't afford a place yet and that's going to put some strain on your relationship. Your you and your wife need to be on the same page. You can't have somebody be like, “Oh I picked out the house. We're going to buy,” and you're going, “What are you talking about? We're going to be living in my dad's basement for at least three years because I got to pay this tuition back.” Make sure everybody knows what they're getting out of this one. I know this is hard and our ego, especially as men, I think our ego, our sense of self-worth is tied into our income. It may be the same for women. I just know my own experience is or was especially when I worked on wall street, I was like, all right, I'm important now look at the money I make. I mean it's just ridiculous but you got to let that go because the burden of paying tuition, the student loans, that's always going to be there. And you got to let the income thing go if your wife and you are going to be happy living in another area.

[00:35:22] It's just, there's no way to sort of say I want the DC experience in rural Pennsylvania. Not going to happen. It sounds like you're happy to leave the city, but you're also taking a kick from the lifestyle perspective. This is the unfortunate price we put on our mental health and our relationships. But I would say again, it's, you're probably making the right choice. If your wife is really sad and you know somehow that she's going to be better back home or she's going to at least have a better chance of getting better and you think you're going to have a more sane and productive family life, well then yeah, you're doing the right thing, man. I can't really say for most people that they should live somewhere that they don't want it. Their spouse doesn't want to live for the money. It's a really tough argument to make. If you were looking at poverty wages, where you live, if you are from South Sudan and you said, “Well, I, my wife really misses back home, but when I'm in America, I'm an engineer.” I would say you got to adjust, but if you're talking about another place in the United States, you're probably fine moving back to where you grew up, but I don't envy the fact that you have to make this choice. All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:36:30] Hi Jen, Jordan, and Jason, congrats on being new parents. I love your discussions on how many scams exist in the self-help industry and some of your personal tales of classes you attended. You're so passionate about it. Have you considered doing a documentary on this? It would be amazing and such a useful resource to help people that are considering jumping into one of these. Anyways, my question is about social media. I did a digital detox after listening to Cal Newport and many others you've had on about the manipulation by the companies and associated mental health issues. Wow, did I find out I was wasting my life with that crap? As any parent, I always want to do what's best for my daughter. I've always said that I would never get my daughter a phone until she was paying for it herself, but I'm starting to realize this might not be realistic. My first thought was to get one of those phones that parents can limit to make sure my daughter stays off social media, but I'm wondering if this is the right call. I know Jonathan Haidt and others talk about limiting kids’ contact with screens and particularly social media. However, I know this is something you can't keep away from kids forever and I’m worried that it'll be like the kid in high school who had strict parents and went absolutely crazy partying in college. I'm almost thinking it would be better to introduce my daughter to social media earlier and talk about it rather than trying to keep it away. At least that way she might come off with a better understanding of what she's seeing. My daughter's only seven in a long way off from a phone, but already she's familiar with social media from seeing others use it. Sadly, myself and her mom included. I know you spent a fair amount of time talking with experts in these areas and any insights you can provide would be much appreciated. Cheers, Trying to Do Right by my Daughter.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:05] For those of you wondering, Cal Newport was episode 159 and Jonathan Haidt was episode 90. We'll link to those in the show notes for this so you can go have a listen if you want. But look, I think this is a great idea. Wow. I love to do a documentary about self-help scams. This would be epic. I'm reaching out to some friends now who do documentaries. Has anyone seen a good self-help scam documentary? I'd love to see what else is out there. Jason, you might've seen some, what do you think?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:38:33] Well, there's always Penn & Teller: Bullshit! which was a classic and they covered a lot of self-help in there. So I highly recommend going back through the archives and checking those out. But man, it would be good to resurrect that show. Do it all fresh and new.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:46] Oh my gosh, that's right. I remember that's actually where I saw Tony Robbins do the fire walk and they were like, “Cool. Are there any measurable results from this?” And these scientists and social scientists were like, “This raises endorphins.” It's really interesting. You get these experts that are like, “Here's what this is doing to your brain and here are the long term results.” Nothing.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:39:05] Nothing. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:06] Yeah, so interesting. Yeah. I would love to do this. When I went to some of these self-help, scammy seminar things, I would love to sort of secretly record or secretly film or whatever and then have like Robert Cialdini or Steven Hassan break down the things that they're saying and say this is this kind of manipulation. This is this kind of double bind. This is this kind of hypnosis trap, or whatever.” That would be so interesting because there's tons of it out there and it's really apparent when you're there if you know what you're looking for. Most people, of course, who go there, and have no idea what they're getting into, which is the whole point.

[00:39:41] Anyway. Yes. I hear you on social media, Instagram. I started that in late 2017, I was just never interested in it. I am still not interested in Instagram. I'm on it to interact with you guys and I post the occasional photo, but I can actually feel myself getting more and more down, comparing myself more, getting more irritated whenever I use it. It's a real drag. I do love interacting with you guys on social media. It's fun to share. The feed itself though, so toxic, so toxic, and I know influencers, they're on their six hours a day. Most of them are not happy. They're on there all the time. The rest of their time is spent figuring out how to curate some photos. “I'm on vacation and somewhere look at me.” It's like, “Oh, I got to use this filter. Here's my girlfriend. It's ridiculous.” These people are just trapped. Anyway, as for the phone, I think you're on the right track. It's hard to say you won't get a phone until she pays for it because you're to want to reach your daughter in middle school and high school, but you can likely restrict screen time and other things. And you're right though. It's going to be the kid who goes nuts in college and then you go, “Wow, James is a party machine. You know? Well, how did he grew up?” “Oh, he's a Jehovah's witness.” “Oh, okay. That explains it or what?” Right. No offense. The Jehovah's witnesses, of course. I just mean like the more structured your life is when you're younger. Those were always the guys in college that just were bonkers. They were just crazy. And you're like, “Wow.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:05] you don't want her to get a flip phone for her daughter. And then she turns into a stripper because she didn't have, you know, a touchscreen.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:11] Ugh, yeah. I mean, that's a jump. Right, but it's not, it's not ridiculous. I remember, this is so funny, dude. When I was dating, I was dating, I have a really conservative girl in college and she would invite me to these church things. I never wanted to go, but some of them you kind of have to because it's like, “The Christmas party and everyone's calling and now I'm the only one whose boyfriend is not going.” So I would go and I remember one time we ran into a couple there and I was like, “Oh hey.” And this girl, she looked super familiar. You know where this is going. She looked super familiar and then my girlfriend was like, “Oh, we've hung out with her before.” And I was like, ”Oh, okay. That must be why.” And then like two or three months later, my buddy was turning 18 and so we took him to Deja Vu in Ypsilanti, which was like this trashy strip club that college kids like me at the time could afford. And there she was on the pole on an amateur night doing her worst and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” This is like a Lutheran campus crusade for Christ member who is on the pole. It's, it's really funny because these were the people that couldn't wear two-piece bathing suits on their beach outings. Like this is what I'm talking about. It was just nuts. So anyway, I don't know why we got off on that tangent. You don't want your kid to go nuts in college. Your best bet in my very non-professional opinion is to routinely meet with your kids, find out what's going on with her social media, what she sees on there, what she's posting on there, and more importantly, what she feels when she's on there. How do people react to her there? When she posts something and it doesn't get a lot of likes. How does she feel? When she posts something and people say mean stuff. How does she feel? This is important because often I think kids and adults for that matter, we don't even realize when we're getting depressed. We don't even notice it happening. The process is slow. It's the boiling frog that that overused and false metaphor. We don't see it coming. We wake up one day, we feel a little more down than usual. It spirals from there. That's how it sometimes goes with me anyway. Like I don’t know about you, Jason, but--

Jason DeFillippo: [00:43:14] You don’t need any help.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:15] Yeah, but Instagram is really easy to, you know, you go on there, “Oh this happened. This other person is so much further ahead of me wah.” You know, that happens all the time and this is really bad for kids. She might not even know why she's feeling down. She's not going to connect it to the fact that she was on Instagram yesterday and a hundred other kids are posting super fun vacation photos. They're new toys, they're new clothes and that she's at home raking leaves. Or she's not going to connect it that she got mean comments on her photos and that's why she suddenly wants to lose weight. Unfortunately. I think this is something you have to monitor by having very open dialogue about social media, how she's reacting to it. In fact, I think you can open this dialogue and this is again, I am not a counselor, but I think you can tell her how you use social media, why you like it and why you do not like it. Explain what you feel when you use it. Like, “I was using Instagram today and it made me sad and it made me feel I got some FOMO, fear of missing out. I didn't like this. This made me feel like I don't have enough things,” or when it made you happy to give a fair and balanced view of this. This way, when she has those feelings herself, she might be able to say, “Oh, well, I was on Instagram and I did start feeling bad when I saw all my friends on vacation together and I'm not there because I couldn't afford to go, so I feel left out.” That type of trigger, that awareness of that, that is very powerful and kids are smart. They're going to get the message. What you want to do is make sure that she understands that feeling sad or feeling FOMO about someone else. That's normal. It's not about her, it's not about them. Then you can explain that taking a break from these things helps and can prevent us from comparing our blooper reel to someone else's highlight reel as it were. You've heard me say that on the show before. That's what we end up doing when we look at somebody who's perfectly cropped photo color filtered with a professional photographer while they're on vacation in their brand new clothes and we're at home having just gotten back from raking leaves, picking up the grass trimmings. I'm curious how this has worked for other parents because if anyone has any really good ideas, shoot me a message about this. I know you can't just say kids can't use social media. That's kind of like saying you're not allowed to have a bicycle. It just doesn't work.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:28] I also recommend checking out Google's Be Internet Awesome. It's like a school that they've set up for kids to learn the ins and outs, kind of how the Internet works, and like how to stay, stay alert for sharing and how fake news works and how to be secure and like who to talk to and talk to your parents, that kind of thing. I highly recommend checking it out. They've done a pretty good job with this and it's just for kids to learn how the Internet works.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:52] That's a good idea. I had no idea that existed. I think a lot of people don't get, they don't really understand that the Internet is not just the apps they use online and we'll link to that in the show notes as well.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:46:04] We'll be back with more Feedback Friday right after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:08] This episode is sponsored in part by Highline Wellness. A lot of people don't know what CBD is. Essentially, it's derived from hemp. It is supposed to calm you down and relax. Anxiety and things like that. I have been using this in combination candidly with a THC, my tiny, tiny doses because I don't like the psychoactive effect of it all. I'm not a fan of like feeling high or anything if it drives me crazy, but not all CBD has made the same. Highline has hundreds of five-star reviews and they use broad-spectrum CBD, no THC, and they've had third party tests to confirm this. This is important because a lot of CBD brands, they'll have trace amounts of THC and if you take a lot of it, those can add up and then…You get drug tested and it looks like you've been smoking pot, which is not good depending on your employer, so you have to be pretty careful. But CBD doesn't itself doesn't get you high. It's non-psychoactive. It's legal to consume and travel domestically, which is good as well. Highline Wellness, you can order it on their website at highlinewellness.com. They'll ship it to your door. They also have drops, dog treats. Pet CBD is huge now, Jason, I don’t know if you've messed with that at all.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:47:20] Yeah, I've thought about getting this stuff for my little guy, Dino. He's a little hyperactive and could use a little calming at the end of the day because you know when I want to chill, he wants to play, so maybe I'll give this stuff a shot.

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[00:48:27] 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 those amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:44] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:48:46] Hi all. I have an education and work experience, but a couple of years ago I moved to another country just for fun. Here I had to start everything from zero. All this time I've worked rather low qualified jobs, but at the same time I've learned the local language fluently and picked up some university courses to compliment my existing education. I'm ready to go back to better jobs, but how should I address my last five years with those simple jobs? Should I pretend that they didn't exist and just traveled all this time? It bothers me that someone can judge me of that, although I feel stronger and more confident than ever before. With regards, Stuck in the Middle.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:21] Wow. This is a little tricky. I would say don't focus on the jobs you had, but focus on the fact that you were studying another language to fluency and trying to assimilate to a culture. You can say you were looking to challenge yourself. Use another skill, learn another skill to fluency. Obviously, of course, you got to mention the jobs you had, but explain that you were focused on learning the language to a professional fluency, which is why you made those sacrifices. So, bear in mind, you're still going to have to start at entry-level in a career, but you can likely move up quickly if you work your butt off and make sure you leverage your skills, you're going to have to drop any ego or sense of entitlement that comes with age and experience because it's a little humbling to have five years or whatever of experience and then have to start over. I know that I get it. Bear in mind, that's not the end of the world. You're going to have to work your butt off at that entry-level. You're going to have to make sure you leverage your skills. I think this type of thing would look great to any employer, especially an employer who needs to leverage your language skills because that's going to be the big skill stack that you've got. “Oh, I speak fluent.” Check. “Well, okay.” Or “I speak fluent, whatever it is.” Hopefully, you didn't just learn something where there's a bajillion bilingual people that have the same language. If you did not the end of the world, but yeah, hopefully, it wasn't like Spanish or something. Hopefully, you learned something niche enough that's going to be really useful. And if it were, you know what? That's fine. Try to get a job maybe in that the United States with a company that does a lot of business with them and then maybe they'll send you back there again, don't focus on what you lack.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:00] Focus on what you've gained from that experience. It's a lot more forgivable to say, “Oh, you were just doing bookkeeping even though you want to do full-blown accounting for our company. Why are we doing bookkeeping?” “Well, I was working in Mandarin Chinese.” “Oh, well, all right, that makes sense.” “And now I speak fluent Chinese and I'm fluent in the business environment of Southeastern China and now I want to work in an American company that does a lot of business with that region.” That's much more compelling than, yeah, I just wanted to travel and work and now I'm ready to face reality. That's not a good sales pitch. Let me know how this goes. I know this is a tricky situation, but I think knowing that you'd spent your time doing something very productive that whole time is going to aid you in this process. All right, what's next?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:51:46] Hey Jordan. I'm 24 years old and up until last year, I'd always been an enthusiastic, motivated, hardworking overachiever who enjoyed going above and beyond in school at work and in my relationships. I worked hard in school to get good grades. Graduated as the salutatorian of my high school class, went to college on a full-ride, landed my dream internship, which eventually segued into my dream job over a year ago. Things in the company turned south and I was placed on a team with poor culture in a manager who manipulated and micromanaged us. Eventually, I lost my motivation and noticed myself backing off and falling into the trap of just doing good enough. I turned bitter and became someone who lacked motivation and enthusiasm and started receiving feedback about having a poor attitude. It finally became too much and two weeks ago I put in my notice. I don't have another job lined up. I'm living in my parents' basement literally and my depression that I was diagnosed with six years ago has gotten much worse. I've lost my motivation, confidence, and self-esteem. All my dreams of landing my next job and my dream city have died after being rejected from hundreds of job applications. I don't know what I want any more with my career and life in general. My question for you is how do I give myself the huge kick in the ass, tough love, stop feeling sorry for yourself, hardcore talk that I need.? All my friends and family are congratulating me on getting out of that bed environment, but no one seems to be questioning my obvious self-destructive behavior. I'm worried that I'm just feeling sorry for myself and am too weak-willed to pull myself out of this. How do I get the wake-up call I know I need when being motivated has never been an issue until now? Sincerely, Needs Her Ass Kicked. PS, I have been working with a therapist to address the obvious mental health issues.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:28] So sorry to hear about this. For what it's worth, you did the right thing leaving a bad situation even if you didn't have another job lined up. Of course, ideally you have a job before you leave the previous one, but if you're dealing with mental health issues, you have to change your environment no matter what and you did that which was brave of you. Your friends are right to commend you for leaving a bad environment. You're asking for a tough-love kick in the butt. I don't think you need that. I think a lot of people who are depressed, they feel like all I need is some motivation or some tough love or a kick in the butt. That's not it. You're not a lazy teenager who's not driven because you're having fun sitting at home playing Xbox.

[00:54:07] You've got an actual mental illness in depression that needs to get handled. Now I know it's tough, but what you don't want to do is put yourself in a situation where you beat yourself up about your depression because you think it can be fixed with a kick in the pants or some get up and go. That's not fair to you to do that and it's going to result in a loop of disappointment as those things fail you and you wake up every morning with this same malaise that was there before. It almost sounds like you want your friends and me for that matter to punish you or get on your case and that's not going to help you. I'm really glad to hear that you're in therapy as well. That's crucial, of course. Always have a professional on your side. Now get back into exercise. I think that's going to be hugely helpful. This is going to help with endorphins. It's going to help you get some wins under your belt. If you haven't gotten in shape already, there's nothing that gets the momentum going, like starting the day off with a good workout. If you feel kind of crummy, you're going to go, yeah, but I've already hit the gym. I had a protein shake, I weighed myself. I'm feeling good looking good. Small wins. Build momentum. It'll let you feel your oats a little right? Get that swag back. Also, I would volunteer somewhere. It's a lot easier to get a gig volunteering than it is to get a job and it gives you a reason to get out of bed. It adds purpose to your life and it helps you put your own situation into context and so it kind of, it's a little harder to feel bad. Look, depression's depression, but it's harder to feel bad about yourself if you're routinely tutoring homeless children who have left their house because their dad or mom is abusive or their grandpa, whatever is abusive, and now they don't have a place to live, right? It's a lot harder to feel sorry for yourself in those situations. Again, depression is depression. It's not going to necessarily cure the underlying thing, but it's going to give you a lot of perspective, and further then you'll be able to say, you took time off to work with a non-profit, which certainly sounds better than I live in my parents' basement because I hated my job and I had to quit, so there's not an overnight fix to this. There's no motivational speech. There's no Instagram or YouTube video that you can watch to transform your mindset. I know that that's blasphemy. Right now influencers everywhere on gasping and clutching their pearls on Instagram TV.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:56:21] Two million Instagram images just wept over and cried.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:25] That's right. That's right. I know Instagram stories the world over just made sad emoji faces spontaneously explode. The magic pill to pull ourselves out of a funk doesn't exist. It's all step-by-step. It's all brick-by-brick and you can do it. You've got your family, you've got your friends, you've got to get your endorphins in your body on your side now, by getting in shape or at least starting that process, and once you do that and you're getting out of the house every day to help others and get to the gym, you're going to be more than ready and able to help yourself get back on your feet and get your groove back and you're going to have a little bit of an excuse as to why you took a break because you were working with that non-profit and getting things back in order and you had that problem with your old job and you had to quit, but you quit to go work at the non-profit, not you watched a lot of reruns of Sex in the City. Keep in touch and let me know how this goes. All right, Jason, what else? We got

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:17] Hello to the three J’s. Listening from the UK and love the show. I started blogging back in 2006 and built up a relatively successful blog. I've always hated my previous office-based jobs and knew that I wanted to have my own business. Eventually, after a few years of accepting sponsored links and posts, I ended up stumbling into owning my own link placement agency. This is now what I do full time and I earn more than I've ever done previously in the jobs I hated. I know I'm very much in a gray area here as Google more than frown upon this practice. I'm enjoying the freedom of choosing my own hours, working from home, and having time to spend with my family, but I'm worried about the rug being pulled out from under my feet. Ideally, I'd like this to be a stepping stone towards another online business, but running an agency demands my attention in time, so starting a new business hasn't been as easy as I would have hoped. If you guys have any advice for me, I would very much appreciate it. Regards, Stuck Enjoying Objectionable Practices.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:14] Ump, yeah, all businesses have this sort of expiration date on them. The problem is when your business relies a hundred percent exclusively on a loophole in someone else's business, that is a problem, especially if that business strives to close those loopholes by hiring some of the most brilliant people they can find everywhere in the world, you know Google. So, yeah, your days are numbered in this space. I'm surprised this even still exists. I know that back in our old company we had all this black hat link placement crap and then a few years later…What was it like the Pandora update or something Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:58:52] Panda update.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:53] Panda update. We had to go and disavow all like 50,000 links and you know what's funny, the old business, I looked at this, the old business still does that cause I get reports for their lengths and they have like they get my SEO teams like, “Yeah they got a thousand new links this month.” 900 of them were from like mail order bride and adult websites and I'm just thinking like who is doing this? Who is, who did you will hire you knuckleheads. So yeah, days are numbered in this space. This is an important realization. You've got to take some action and get another revenue stream going here. You can either motivate yourself by fear or by the upside of doing something that you really enjoy. I suggest doing both of these types of motivation. The carrot and the stick. Literally, visualize, sit down and set some time aside, whatever. How are you going to feel if you wake up one day and Google has another algorithm change and your business is completely torpedoed? This is going to wipe out your business. Now you're starting from zero with no warning. Trust me, you don't want that. Been there, done that. No thanks. Alternately, if you even spend one day a week, half a day a week working on a new business or a new venture, then by the time the algorithm change happens, if you've got, let's say, a couple months or a couple of years, you might actually be relieved that you're free from the other business entirely. That's kind of how this worked out. When I got canned from the last company, I was panicked. “Wow. Oh my gosh.” And then everyone was like, “This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you because you already have all these other resources. You have all this brand equity, all this stuff.” You got to build that. You got to dig that well, man. You've got to build that. When I left the old company, I was terrified. What I realized though was I had been building relationships. I had been building a personal brand. I'd been building trust with a huge audience over a period of over a decade. This is why The Jordan Harbinger Show and the team here, this is why we were able to start over again and rebuild so quickly. We had a great team. We had all of these relationships. We had all this brand equity. That momentum was what carried everyone through. If we didn't have any momentum and we ran into the same issues, we would all have been in serious, serious trouble. Even right now with a new baby. Ugh, not a good place to be. What a nightmare. And I know that you're busy, but I think allocating time to work on something new before you need to jump into a new industry is the corporate version, the career version of digging the well before you're thirsty. You need to do this before you wake up one day having buried your head in the sand on this, you already know this is going to happen. So instead of being surprised, you should be ready. And so you want to, you don't want to wake up one day and instead of being relieved, you end up taking a shovel to the face. And if that's not the motivation of whichever kind you choose, I don't know what is. In that said, look at this like an opportunity to do something you've always wanted to do business-wise while you're in this safe embrace and income stream of your current business. This time right now, this is priceless. It's like this is when I worked on Wall Street and I started the last business. I was getting that lawyer money, but I was also running a startup. I was making tons of money, never going to be hungry, able to bank a ton of cash, able to live the way I wanted to in Manhattan, and then I would come back and work on the business from like 7:00 p.m. to 11 or 2:00 a.m. or whatever it was, and those are glorious times. By the time, I left Wall Street because of impending layoffs at the down market, we had a ton of momentum on the other business and it wasn't like, “Oh my god, what are we going to?’ It was like, “Great, I'm all in baby. That was a hit. That was a great place to be. You've got this, you've got to do it though. You got to take action now and not wait. Last but not least.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:31] Dear Triple Jay. I've been listening to your show for several months now. During this time, I've been battling depression after a tragic event, but I'm doing so much better through the help of counseling and going to my doctors for antidepressants, something that you guys gave me the bravery to do. I also pursued a career in real estate only to realize that although I achieved what I set out to do, it didn't bring me satisfaction when I got there. Something that you also helped me with coming to terms with the fact that I didn't fail. I also still use my entrepreneurial skills and other areas which helped me to finally find a new career that I really feel blessed to be in and the challenges me to better myself in a healthy way. All this time your show is inspired me, encouraged me, educated me, and entertained me, so thank you. I would really love to start my own podcast and YouTube channel. I have a great topic, lots of ideas and contacts for people I could have on the show. Should I focus on both a podcast and YouTube or should I just focus on one? I don't have any experience in either medium, however, I'm feeling fairly knowledgeable based on the great example your show brings to your audience. I really want to get off to a strong start. I've already got a pile of books that I've acquired over the past few months to help with topics for the show, et cetera, and I have a possible cohost in mind to help me get this launched if I needed it. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Best wishes, Pursuing Victory Through Love.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:50] There are a lot of things to consider with this. What's the point of the channel? What's the point of the content? If you're trying to have conversations with somebody, like an interview format type deal or an individual conversation, let's say with the consumer of the content, I would say podcast. Is it a long-format? Podcast. Are you trying to be instructional on a very specific topic? YouTube. Is it going to be a highly searchable instructional topic? YouTube. If you're teaching people plumbing stuff, how to install a showerhead, YouTube. Is there a video element that's absolutely required like gardening or something? YouTube. Or at least you know installing a shower head is pretty clear because I had to look at that myself. That's YouTube. But if you're just trying to have good conversations with people, start with a podcast. There's another consideration here. Another set of considerations. Video is not twice as hard to produce. It's 10 times as hard to produce and it's 10 times as expensive, maybe eight. What do you think, Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:04:50] 8.67.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:51] 8.67 it's an order of magnitude more expensive and difficult. You can, and you probably should start with a podcast. You can film yourself recording the podcast with guests. You can get some GoPro cameras. See if you enjoy it. Get the hang of the tech. You can always use squadcast.fm. Full disclosure, I advise this company. They got the best gear in the biz, squadcast.fm to record with guests remotely, but you can't do YouTube remotely because the other person at best is going to have a crappy webcam, which is not going to be lit well. Podcasting is a great dry run for YouTube. You're able to edit it so much more easily. You can record anywhere. You can get equipment at a steal from a podcast or that's already quit, right?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:05:33] There's a lot of those. I got half a studio full of that.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:36] eBay has to have so many zoom recorders. It's got to just be absolutely bananas.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:05:40] Oh, it's ridiculous. Yeah. You can get stuff for so cheap.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:43] If you search for podcasting kit on any used gear thing. Oh my gosh. It's probably like, “Yeah, made it to episode nine we're out.” You can get the equipment at a steal. YouTube requires cameras, lighting, and by the way, you can't just buy the cameras in the lighting. You've got to know how to use that stuff and it's pretty complex. Oh, I mean it's not complex. It's just there's a stronger learning curve there with microphones. There's a learning curve, but I'm telling you, you'll get the hang of it. Hell of a lot quicker than you will with lighting in different scenarios and setting up cameras and angles and cuts and everything. If you're going to compete with pros on YouTube, you're going to have to get good at it. Competing with a podcast is a lot easier. Some of the biggest podcasts, they're a dude with a cheap mic and a Zoom recorder. It's embarrassing but it still sounds good enough. People listen to it all the time.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:28] Dude, be honest. It's because Tim has a fine team behind him with thousands of dollars of software, but you can still start with a cheap microphone and a zoom recorder.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:35] Right, he does have a production team behind him. But look at, I mean Sam Harris, also has a production team, but he's just doing Skype and folders a lot of the time. So you will still need somebody who knows what they're doing at some point in the workflow, but you don't need to get a $4,000 microphone and a professional studio and all that stuff. So the key is to get started creating and see if this is even for you. And then you can take it up a notch and film it. Once you get creating, you get the hang of it, then add in more technically challenging elements. A lot of people go, “I'm going to start a YouTube thing.” I remember, uh, some old buddies of mine and Jason, you'll know who I'm talking about. They were like, “We're going to get famous on YouTube.” They made like 10 videos. That sucked. They got like 87 views and they gave up. They spent so much money producing those videos.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:07:24] Oh, I know exactly who you're talking about.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:26] Yeah, of course, you do. They spend thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars producing these videos. If they knew that they weren't going to be too lazy to create that, they could have started with a podcast. They already had the gear for that and they could have just kept going on that. The last thing you want to do is have the challenge of hosting and creating content while you're also dealing with lots of new tech hurdles. Recording voices is just, again, an order of magnitude more simple than figuring out the cameras, the angle, the setup, the lighting, the editing, the cutting, even transferring the data files is faster. You're going to end up with like a 40-megabyte MP3 file. You can upload to somebody on Fiverr or you're going to end up with 5 gigs of freaking video that's going to take you three days to upload to an editor who then screws it up. Right? So take it one step at a time. Take it one step at a time. I suggest starting with audio before you add in any more tech.

[01:08:15] Ah, well that's it for this week, by the way. I want to know what are the most interesting experiences that you ever had. Is it as Safari? Did you do a helicopter tour of a waterfall in Venezuela? I'd love to know. I'm making, I know this sounds so cliche, but I'm looking at bucket list type stuff. Not making one for myself, but I love some of these experiences. People have been sending me spontaneously and they're just so interesting. And I go, wow helping of a village in the middle of the jungle. Dig a well actually looks much more interesting than a week at the beach and the books on this, they're all lame. Oh, a hundred things to do before you croak or whatever it is. And I'm not taking a shot at that particular book. I don't even think I've looked at it. But a lot of these books, they're just trying to fill 200 pages. So, they put in like, you got to stay at this snorkeling resort. It's like, that's not what I'm talking about. All right. I want to hear what you think is amazing and why you think it's amazing jordan@jordanharbinger.com.

[01:09:12] Life Pro Tip of the Week. By the way, if you have to cancel plans with somebody immediately on that same text or call, ask them when they're free again in the future and make replacement plans. I noticed that when people cancel and they don't make replacement plans, I feel blown off, but when people make replacement plans, then it makes me go like, “Oh, this is a legit cancellation.” By the way and you appear less flaky. If you cancel and it's, I don't know. Some other time I just go, “Ah, you're a flight, you're disorganized.” If you'd reschedule, you look like you at least are a functioning human being that I should stay friends with, so make sure you create those replacement plans right away.

[01:09:50] Recommendation of the Week. We mentioned it earlier, Betting on Zero dives into the complex world of Herbalife, which is an international nutritional products company accused of being a pyramid scheme. And it's definitely multilevel marketing. I mean, I think even they admit that that's on Netflix and we'll link to it in the show notes.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:10:08] It is so good. My roommate and I were watching it this weekend. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:12] Oh really. Just coincidentally, we're watching it this weekend. That's pretty funny.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:10:16] Well, no, I saw that you had it in the show notes and I want it to check it out. As soon as I saw it was about Herbalife, I'm like, I'm in. Trust me. I hate these guys as much as you do. So anything I can do to just make me happy that people are going after them, I'm all in.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:29] Yeah, I would love to see all of these get outlawed, but the lobby is way too strong and you know, it's a bummer. But I also get that the government can't protect stupid people from everything. But here's the problem. It's not just stupid people that get roped into this, it sounds very convincing unless you sit down and you do the math. You won't find legit business people doing it because they just run the numbers and they go, “Umph, no.” You just won't. What you do is you find people who want to start a business and they're like, “I'm going to be an entrepreneur or a hashtag boss babe,” and then they go, “Wait a minute, this math isn't working.” And then they find out their friend who wrote them in, they're kind of exaggerating a little bit on how much money they made.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:11:07] Mmhm, a little bit.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:11:08] And where the money came from. Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to go down that road again. Hope you all enjoyed this week's episode. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com and a quick shout out to Fabio who spotted me parking my car before a show in San Francisco the other day and I got out and I went, “Hey, can I park here?” And he said, “I don't know. I'm waiting for a job interview. And by the way, are you Jordan Harbinger?” So, I hope you got that job man and um, I got to say again, nothing makes me feel more cool than being spotted in the wild. A couple of people send me messages like, Oh, were you at this restaurant? I didn't want to bother you. No, please bother me. Please bother me. I know I will go to bed with a smile on my face. If someone goes, “Hey, are you that guy from that thing? Yes, that is me. Maybe, hopefully, hopefully. And you're not just confusing me with somebody else who's actually a well-known person or some Instagram. Don't do that. I will go to bed crying myself to sleep. If you're like, aren't you that guy that does those videos online about motivation? No.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:12:13] And if you want to have some fun with Jordan, make sure when you see him and you go up to him, it's like, “Hey, aren't you producer Jason?”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:18] Yes, exactly. Works every time. Go back and check out the guests this week, Seth Godin and David Roeske if you haven't yet. If you want to know how we managed to book all these great folks, manage our relationships, manage that network, I've got systems, I've got tiny habits. I'm teaching you to them for free in our course, Six-Minute Networking, jordanharbinger.com/course. That course replaces any other course you have seen from us and the problem with people doing it later. You got to dig that well before you get thirsty. You can't leverage relationships when you need them and I see people making this mistake all the time. I'll do it later, I'll do it later and then, whoops, you need them and it's too late. These drills take a few minutes per day. You can ignore this at your own peril. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. This has just been crucial in my life, jordanharbinger.com/course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at @JordanHarbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show and videos of our interviews are at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:13:12] I'm on Instagram at @JPD. I'm on Twitter at @jpdef and you can also check out my other podcasts, which is a tech-related show called Grumpy Old Geek.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:13:20] This show is produced in association with PodcastOne. This episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger, show notes for the episode are by Robert Fogarty, and music is by Evan Viola. Keep sending in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com, and our advice and opinions and those of our guests, those are their own opinions and our own opinions. And yes, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so do your own research before you implement anything that you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those you love and especially probably also with those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. I'm very excited for some of these upcoming shows. Special on cults next week. Tune in for that. 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: [01:14:05] One a podcast, got a podcast, then check out LaunchPadDM, powered by PodcastOne. LaunchPadDM is a totally free platform and service for anyone who wants to podcast, offering unlimited hosting and access to a dashboard with all of your show’s analytics. You own and control everything, including subscribers, and it's a great discovery tool to help people find your podcast. You may even get invited to join the official PodcastOne roster with even more perks like access to producers, marketers, sales teams, and more. Sign up today at launchpaddm.com.