209: How to Trick Your Teenager into Following Good Advice | Feedback Friday

Transcript for How to Trick Your Teenager into Following Good Advice | Feedback Friday (Episode 209)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:02] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFillippo. Here on The Jordan Harbinger Show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week, we had Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, partner at Greylock and myself hosting the commencement episode of his podcast, Masters of Scale. We dissected clips of wisdom from Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify; Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo as well as loads of others including Reid Hoffman himself. It was a Two-Part Episode that will go down is one of the most in-depth interviews Reid Hoffman has ever done.

[00:00:34] I also read every so often on the blog, the latest post is about How to Use Embarrassment to Your Advantage. It's not just, "Take a lesson every time you get embarrassed." I have real tactics for what embarrassment is, the function, the positive results that can come from it. I gave results that are pretty clear and how we can reframe and use embarrassment to our advantage. Whether it's something small or whether it's something fairly serious. And that's at jordanharbinger.com/articles. So make sure you've had a look and to listen to everything we've created for you this week.

[00:01:04] Of course, our primary mission on the show here, we always want to pass along our guests’ insights and experiences and our insights and experiences along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you and that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us on friday@jordanharbinger.com. Try to keep them concise if you can. It does increase the chance your question will get answered on the air. And we do love hearing from you. We've had some really fun questions recently and this week is no exception.

[00:01:31] For me, man, Jason, I'm getting ready for this baby coming in, coming in hot.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:37] Oh my God. Coming through lady with a baby.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:39] That's right. That's right. Coming in hot. We’re making sure we have everything in order. We're trying to schedule all kinds of crap around it. My friend the other day goes, "Hey, so you’re kind of like staying home now, like winding your travel schedule down so you can be with Jen?" And I was like, "Dude, are you kidding me?" This week LA, next week New York, the week after that Boston. So winding down my travel schedule, yes, but if I wind down, you mean going on all the trips I would normally go on in the next four months, in one month, then yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm winding it down.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:16] Winding it down by ramping it up. That's how you do it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:19] Right, attacking it, the hell in hard. But we're really excited. I mean, we're having a baby. It's going to be amazing. And my parenting so far has been me getting used to a cat, which I will say is pretty good practice for not caring about your stuff as much. When we first got cats, I was like, "This cat is in my food and it's on my table. And it knocked something off and it ruined the windscreen on a microphone." By the way, do not keep a microphone windscreen around a feline. There's nothing they like more than a boom arm with a little fuzzy foam thing on it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:54] And the big panels that you used to have in your studio in San Francisco -- I remember Momo would always be jumping up in climbing on those. And when I came over the first time, I saw the claw marks, I'm like, "Oh my God, completely shredded."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:05] They're all here in the studio. And a lot of them have like brown cat butt stains on them and like shredded. They’re all peeled, you know, from cats jumping up and being like, "I bet I can hang on that for a minute."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:17] Yes, spider cat.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:18] Climb up. Yeah. Yeah. So look, I want to get to the doozies here because the first question today -- by the way, the first question, not safe for work. So if you're listening to this at work, you got young, young kids in the car, you might want to go ahead and turn it off. I would say this is a 12-and-up question. It's not like horrifying, but it's definitely not something you want blasting out of the conference room.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:44] Yeah, definitely. There are a few S bombs in here as they say.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:47] Yeah, yeah, but they're used literally, so it's fine. All right, Jason, what do we got here?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:03:52] Hi guys. I've been with my boyfriend for just over a year now. I live alone and he frequently spends the night at my apartment. We have a healthy trusting relationship. However, I'm aware that his previous girlfriend cheated on him. Prior to this week, he has never expressed any lack of trust in me. My apartment is fairly old, so it takes a while for the water to heat up. Sometimes while I'm waiting for the shower to get warm, I take a dump. I don't want to flush the toilet and screw up the water temperature, so I'll take a dump, shower, and then flush the toilet. A few days ago, I spent longer than usual washing my hair--

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:24] Let me back it up. That logic completely checks out by the way.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:27] Yeah, absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:30] The only thing -- it's funny because when Jen and I were going through this, she's like, "I'm angry." I was like, "Why?" She goes, "You know, how much water she's wasting?" And I'm like, "You're right because you know, she's not like, 'Oh I bet it's hot now. I better finish up.' She's like, 'It's just running. I'm not done yet.'" Gallons of wasted water. Then Jen's like, "I can't let it go. She's wasting so much water." I feel you though. All right, continue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:04:50] But maybe she has her poos time just right. She knows it takes like two and a half minutes to get it up to speed and then she's just like, "I got about two and a half minutes in the tank. Let me just release the crack in here."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:03] All right. Continue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:04] A few days ago I spent longer than usual washing my hair and just completely forgot to flush when I left the shower. I know I'm a wild animal who deserves to live in a barn. Let's move on. Anyway, my boyfriend came over later that night. He went to the bathroom, stayed in there for a few minutes without making any sound, and then emerged with a completely dead look on his face. He asked, "Who’s shit was in the toilet?" I was mortified and explained that I'd forgotten to flush, but he just kept asking whose shit it was to the point where it became obvious, he wasn't trying to tease me. Then he said, "What guy shit in your toilet?" By now, I was completely bewildered. I told them again that I had just forgotten to flush. He replied that I was a liar and that no girl could take a dope that big.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:51] How do you react to that? They're like, "Oh, oops." Continue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:05:46] Chipotle that’s how you react to it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:58] Yeah, the answer is Chipotle.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:06:00] He was completely serious. I couldn't believe I was in this conversation. I couldn't even get upset or angry. I just said like an idiot, "But it's my shit." My boyfriend walked out without another word and ignored my calls for the rest of the night. The next day he agreed to meet for lunch. He apologized for leaving in such a rush but said he still couldn't believe me when I said it was my own poop. He said he was willing to give me a second chance if I could prove it. I didn't really understand what he was getting at, so he elaborated that he wanted to see me take a dump in front of him to prove that my shit actually looked like that. That was yesterday. I have absolutely no idea what to do. I guess we could compromise and I could take a dump in the toilet and then call him in to see it, but this is just too weird and bizarre and gross. I seriously love this man, but I'm honestly in a complete loss. He's made it clear that this is a deal-breaker for him. So my boyfriend is going to dump me if I don't take a dump. How on earth do I handle this? Thanks, Stuck in a Crappy Situation.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:03] Oh my gosh. Okay.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:07:04] Best question ever.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:06] Serious though. Yes, amazing, but also, yes, we're juvenile and we're 12 years old and this isn't the normal format of the show. However, this is a real problem because I get where this guy's heads at. I understand what he's thinking, but it's coming from a place of deep insecurity and other people who had opinions on this where like, "Oh, just do it. You’re living together or soon enough if your relationship goes that route or eventually, it'll happen." That sort of avoids the real issue here. Literally, one of the weirdest questions I've ever gotten, but the larger issue is that he is insecure. He doesn't trust you. He's insecure about the relationship. Yes, it could have been triggered by something else, but it would have gotten, this would have gotten triggered eventually most likely buy something. He didn't just look at that and go, "Oh, she's cheating on me." This has been brewing for a while.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:08:00] No pun intended.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:01] No pun intended. He had to have been thinking about this for a while with other -- something else or a past relationship has triggered this. You need to address that. That is the real issue here. He's in his head about this, he's ruminating on this. He's thinking about this a lot, especially now, and he's just thinking, "Oh, this person did this on purpose to sort of mark their territory." I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that's probably going through this poor guy's head. Even if you do set this up and go in front of him, he literally won't see the proof. I said proof required to placate him. There are all these studies that show -- in fact, I think we did a show that mentioned this, where police officers, for example, will actually quote-unquote see a weapon in someone's hand if they expect one to be there. And these are cognitive biases and cognitive phenomenon that are pretty commonplace where we see in large part what we expect to see, confirmation bias, things like that. So even if you sit down and you go to the bathroom right in front of him and he looks in there -- he's going to go --and you could measure the dang thing. Let's not even go down that road. You could do that. And he'd go, "Well, the other one, it was bigger and this is different." He's not going to be able to see what you want him to see. He will imagine that this is a different scenario. There's still something going on. He will probably then move the goalposts and say, "Well, okay this, but then there's this other clue where I came in the other day and there was a sock on the floor that wasn't yours and wasn't mine and it was a man's," and you'll go, "Well, I went to the laundry mat and it ended up in my basket because it was in the washer, the dryer." And he's going to go, "No, there was a guy here and he left a sock." I mean, you know, there's going to be something else later. So you've got to address the root cause of this. You can do both. You can address the initial occurrence, but you really need to address the root of the issue here. Or this problem will keep popping up like no -- just next.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:03] Yeah. I'm just wondering how she -- he's going to have to be in the bathroom with her, otherwise, there's no chain of custody as it were.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:10] That's right. Yeah, right.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:13] She might have a bag of poo under the sink that she just pulls out like a drug test, plopped it in there, and goes, "Huh, huh," plop, "Here you go, Joe."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:22] Right. You literally, yeah, you literally can't even go, "Hey, come over. You got to see this." Like you can't even do that because he will then go, "Oh, well you planned this or the guy just left and you took a photo and send it to me." I mean, you can spend all day doing this kind of ridiculous gymnastics and it's not going to help because you have an underlying issue.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:46] Okay. Well, thank you very much for the best question. We've ever had.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:49] Yeah. Unbelievable. Whew. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:10:53] Hello, Jordan and Jason. I'm currently in grad school and I'm taking a course with a professor who's very stringent on attendance over the course of the semester. I've missed class twice. The same amount she's missed by the way, yet she requires documentation from a doctor in order to excuse my absences or it will drop my final grade by a whole letter. I have provided her with the required notes for both days. I was not ill but still managed to get a doctor's note. She's not excused the absences and has never replied to my email. Frankly, I find her stance on this to be childish and hypocritical. Given that both times that she's miss class, she has not provided any reason. It's her doctor's note. Anyway, because my job provides tuition reimbursement for the course on the condition that I get no less than a B in the class. I need to ensure that the absences do not drop my grade. Would you suggest emailing her again in pointing out her double-standard regarding attendance or should I just wait and raise the issue with the department? I cannot believe this is actually an issue in an adult setting. Sincerely, Done with Double Standards.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:53] This actually reminds me of Scott Galloway who was on the show last week. His response that went viral. This is an email from I think 2013 and this kid had written, you know, "I can't believe you're angry with me or you locked me out." I can't remember what it was. But this kid came to class late and then wrote a scathing note to Scott Galloway because he basically got dropped or kicked out of the class or something like that. And the kid wrote, "Well, here's why I was late. I was auditing different classes," and Scott Galloway wrote this email response to him that got something like a million views on Business Insider and we'll link to it in the show notes here. But essentially it was a rationalization of why the kid was late. And I think that your approach here, I know you want to point out the double standard and be like, "You don't even follow your own advice." You need a softer and more respectful approach because what I'm seeing here is an ego issue most likely from the professor and there's probably more to it, right? She's just sick of people taking liberties. She's sick of people not showing up. Maybe she doesn't like you for another reason, but either way, if she's not replying to your email, she hasn’t excused the absences in the face of a doctor's note, she doesn't like you. She doesn't like you. She might not know you. She doesn't like you. You've got to take a softer tack. You've got to be more respectful. If you try to go head to head, you're going to butt egos against a professor who's got more power than you, not a good situation to be in even if you're right.

[00:13:17] Here's the things, schools are run like corporations most of the time. Most schools are at least the ones I went to. And students -- you're the clients, you're the customer -- you have some power. In real life, of course, having some humility will be crucial in order to get along with your peers and succeed. But I wanted to see what Scott had to say about this, and I took this from his piece here and Scott Galloway says, "Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a life-work balance -- these are all really hard. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility -- these are all relatively easy. Get the easy stuff right in and of themselves. They will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential, which by virtue of you being admitted to Stern" --that Stern is the school -- "You must have in spades. It's not too late." So what he means here is get the easy stuff, right? That's what he's talking about in this letter. He says, "Look, getting to class on time, being respectful, respecting the institution, the class, whatever. That stuff is easy." There are all kinds of stuff that's hard in your life. This is not one of those things, so don't create a conflict or create a battle here that doesn't need to be created.

[00:14:30] Now that said, this professor does sound like she's on a power trip. It's kind of weird if who cares, so someone missed two classes and then they got a doctor's note just to let it go. Who gives a crap? That's where I would stand on this as a teacher. It's just whatever. It's not a big deal. Something else is going on here. I would be very respectful and humble about what that might be. If she still lowers your grade after you speak with her after you tried to get ahold of her. If she won't speak with you, yeah, you have no choice but to go to somebody else in the department. But you should be trying to get her attention and respectfully have a dialog, not just go over her head. But if she still lowers your grade, then what I would do is absolutely go to the department, let them know you are playing by the rules set forth by the professor and that you literally now may have to leave the institution and not finish your program because your company won't reimburse tuition if your grade is of is lower than a B, and since she lowered your grade in a way that is unfair because you did play by the rules, they will lose all of your companies money forever and you will not graduate because they want you to graduate. Schools want to keep you there really bad. Not only does it look bad because they have a lower percentage of graduation, they want your money. They want your money much more than they want to let this professor play games with her students or be cocky or arrogant. They want that much more than they want her to feel good for five minutes about the power that she has over you. They might not care about your grade, but they sure care about your cash. You can bet on that. You can take that to the bank and you can take it to the regents. What I would do is make an official complaint with the regents, not just her department, her department. She could be the leader of that. And the department goes, "Hey boss, what should we do about this person complaining about you?" And she goes, "Light it on fire and throw it out the window." But if you go to somebody above the professor and they say, "What is this about you screwing with your students who have doctor's notes? Let it go. What is your problem? We're going to lose this student because you need to be right." There's always a chance and a good chance that professors who do this, they do this with a lot of stuff. You're not the only student that she's done this to you. You're not the first person who's going to complain. And so if there's a track record of her being difficult, somebody over her head might see this. Somebody at the -- what is it called, Jason, like the registrar's office or something?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:16:54] Like the administration.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:55] There might be somebody at the registrar's office. Yeah, yeah. Who just goes, "Oh, Professor Diane over in the humanities again. Okay, we're just going to add this to the pile of grades that need to be changed because she decided to screw with somebody or like pretend to cheat and see their email in time even though we have a printout." There were professors like that at the University of Michigan who did stupid stuff like that where they'd say, "Come to me in confidence if you have any problem with your project." And I remember I went into my Spanish class and I said, "I'm the only one who did any work on this group project." And it was really obvious. I had all the files, I had all the versioning from everything that we created and the other students, they didn't present it all. I did all the talking and then she goes, "Oh, well I'm still lowering your grade because you didn't finish your presentation." And I go, "Yeah, you took way too long and half the class never even got to go up and talk." And she goes, "Oh, well you should have brought printed handouts of all your slide," and it's like, "What? What are you talking about? This doesn't even make sense." So she lowered our grade by a whole letter and I was like, "All right--“ and then when I went in to complain about that and to complain that I was the only one who did work, she called the other students or emailed them and was like, "Jordan said, 'You didn't do any work. I'm lowering your grade.'" So I got all this, all this harassment from these people that I worked with. So I complained to her and she was like, "I don't see anything wrong with what I did." Just a total idiot. And then I went to the head of the Spanish department and they were like, "Ah, yes. Okay." And I went, "What's going to be done about this? I need a good grade on this and I, this is BS." And they were like, "Nothing. Nothing, nothing. Because it's the Spanish department. And we would rather go eat to eat food and like have a margarita and laugh because this is a language department at a big school and nobody cares. None of us have tenure. We don't really care." So then I finally went to the languages, something administrative level. Thankfully, I'd had a connection through my German professor who was sort of higher up in the food chain and she was like, "Yeah, that's not cool." And I said, "Yeah I need a hearing about this." They just canceled the hearing and changed my grade. They didn't even want to go and do the hearing because they just knew they had nothing. "Oh yeah, we changed your grade because we made up new rules on the spot. And then also we didn't keep your information confidential." Like nobody wants to get that on a written record of a meeting. So they just changed my grade. It was just so stupid. And it made, I did end up going through with a complaint because I was like, "Don't hire this professor full time. She's an idiot." I don't want other students to have to deal with this BS. She is a moron.

[00:19:19] And normally I don't bother with that. But you're doing everyone a favor by getting someone like this on record as being difficult and making people's lives harder. You don't need this from the administration in a school. You're a student. They should be helping you. And I get why she has a strict attendance policy that might help you learn some of those small things, but to screw with you on this, just to sort of mess with you on this ridiculous. You're adults. If you miss class, it's on you. You miss information. That's the punishment, not some arbitrary penalty by a professor who can't take her own advice. So go the polite route, go the humble route. And then if that doesn't work, then and only then do you go over her head and you always stay humble and you always stay comfortable with this because what your arguments should be later is, "Look, even if you don't change my grade, you need to make sure that this isn't happening again to someone else. And also you're going to lose me from your school because I can't afford to pay for this tuition." That's what you need. They need to be going, "Oh, this isn't just a B and the kid feels bad." This is we're losing a student that changes the equation for them. And once that's really clear to a person in power who cares more about you as a successful student and the money that the university gets from your company versus just being right, somebody high enough on the food chain will care about this. This professor has a chip on our shoulder. You just need to get around it and, and you know, you ever know could have caught her on a bad day. You could catch her in the office and she could go, "Oh yeah, sorry I meant to do that." And then you're done and you're good. So always, always, always start out relaxed, comfortable, cool and humble. And that will go a long way even if she is wrong.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:59] And step one, make sure she got the email.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:01] Yeah, make sure she saw the email seriously. Go, go speak to her in person. And just super politely go, "Hey, I know you're really busy and you probably don't have time to go back and forth on this. I just wanted to make sure that you got my doctor's notes and that my grade will reflect that because my company won't reimburse the tuition if the grade is low enough and I can't continue with the program." She might even go, "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that. Okay, well look, don't do this again. Okay," and then you're done. You don't know. This could be so easy to get handled or she could dig her heels in and then, yeah, you go to battle on it, but you should win on this one. This is ridiculous.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:37] This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:40] This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:23] This episode is also sponsored by Calm. This is one of my favorite apps and they've recently gotten in this whole sleep kick and I am on board because the meditation thing, okay, I dig it but there's a lot going on there. Sleep though -- I know people are talking about it, but it is the number one game-changer in my entire life. When I get enough -- people always go, "How do you get so much done?" "Enough sleep." "Are you able to keep your energy up during all of these shows?" "Sleep." "Oh, why do you think you recover so well?" "Why you heal from this so quickly?" "Why do this surgery--?" "Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep." 100 percent getting enough sleep. So if you're struggling to get enough sleep these days, you're not alone. I think one in three US adults doesn't get enough sleep. And I'm surprised it's not even more than that. I feel like everyone I know is under-rested. Yourself included. Jace and you feel like you're always like, "Crap. I didn't sleep enough." Like not through your own fault, just people ain't sleeping.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:24:17] No. I'm surprised as this number should be higher. It just from anecdotal evidence from every crabby ass person I know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:23] Yeah, maybe just cause we're on the coast here, but I struggle to think of even a couple of my friends that sleep enough and it's not just because everyone's an entrepreneur. I mean friends and family. I think the only people that sleep in it was probably my parents who are retired. Anyway, if you're not sleeping enough, it can affect your cognitive functions throughout the day. Obviously learning, problem-solving, decision making, all that stuff goes out the window pretty damn quick if you're not sleeping enough. And a good night's sleep is great for the brain and the body. When you sleep well, you're focused, you're relaxed, it makes you happier. This is science. It's not some Instagram, memes and Calm is great for sleep now. Like I said, they're just all in on this and your body and brain are more prone to accidents, weight gain, depression -- if you're under-rested. With Calm, there's a whole library of programs that will help you. Soundscapes, you can sleep there. Sleep stories that are just basically, I'll be honest, kind of just boring, calm stories for sleeping. They have Jerome Flynn from Game of Thrones. Stephen Fry, if you want like a really cool sort of epic voice journey and then crash. Go to Calm. Jason,

Jason DeFillippo: [00:25:30] so if you want to seize the day, sleep the night with the help of Calm. And right now, our listeners get 25 percent off a Calm Premium subscription at calm.com/jordan. That's C-A-L-M.com/jordan. 40 million people have downloaded Calm. Find out why at calm.com/jordan.

[00:25:48] 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 on 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: [00:26:14] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:26:15] Hey guys. I had been supporting me and my fiance while he finishes his bachelor's degree. It will be four years by the time he graduates, which is in one year. In his first few semesters, he had some major social anxiety issues and got some D's and F's. He since switched majors, sought therapy for anxiety, and highly improved his grades. The past few semesters he's gotten A's and B's and a rare C. Unfortunately, those D's and F's are really weighing down his GPA. Even if he got all A's for his last year, his GPA will still be 2.7. In his field of actuarial science, he really needs to have at least a 3.0 to even get an interview in most places. Now, he's looking into getting his master's degree, but only to get a higher GPA. In his field, he has no better chance of getting a job or higher pay by having a masters, but he thinks he'll not even get an interview with this low GPA, so this is the only option. It was suggested to us that he could put actuarial GPA on a resume, which would be much higher, like a 3.4 or 3.7. And then, of course, disclose it with HR and the interviewer. But is this dishonest? I really don't want them to waste time, money, and energy getting a master's degree. If there's another way around this GPA issue, plus I'm paying most of the bills while he's in school, so that means another two years of paycheck to paycheck and not being able to save money. Is it unethical to put actuarial GPA on a resume and then explain the situation in an interview? By the way, we've already checked and he cannot retake the class as he got a bad grade in because he needs to declare the other major. Also, if he were to take some easy classes just to fluff up his GPA, it would end up taking at least two years to get him up to that 3.0 which in that time he might as well have just done the masters. Sincerely, Past Mistakes Holding Us Back.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:56] Well, for me, there's always an alarm bell going off when somebody writes on behalf of their significant other. Jason, I don't know. Whenever I see, "Hey, my husband this or my girlfriend that," I'm always a little skeptical. Not of the questioner, but I just wonder is the other person committed? Are they owning this? Also? Sure, if you're writing because you're having a problem with your significant other, that's one thing, but if you're writing on behalf of your significant other, why didn't they write?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:28:23] Well, I think Past Mistakes is just kind of at the end of a rope with having to pay for everything and she's just like, "Is there a way around this that we don't have to spend another two years of me working my ass off to pay for this guy to go to school because he had a really rough first year or two?" It seems to me that she's just looking for answers so she doesn't have to pay for another two years of this Yahoo to go through school.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:41] Yeah, I get it though. I mean she's supporting him. Maybe he doesn't listen to the show, maybe that's why. I just want to make sure that we've all got buy-in on this. Maybe he's not fully committed to making this happen, but it sounds like in this case he is -- but I'm always just a little skeptical when it's like, "Oh yeah, my husband wants to do this, but we can't." It's like, well where's he?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:04] Well, it seems like -- I mean he went to therapy. He turns his grades around and is actually making the effort. He just has this screw up over his head from when he just came into school and was unable to perform because of social anxiety. But it sounds like he's done the right thing by getting therapy, getting his grades up, changing his major. So he was in something that he wanted to do. So it sounds like he's done the work.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:24] Yeah. Yeah.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:29:25] The screw up was at the beginning so they have to kind of deal with that side of it now. And I understand where she's coming from. So I don't know if he doesn't have buy-in because it sounds like he does from the work that he wants to do and spending another two years in school to get his GPA up is actually a lot of work to actually get the job that he wants in the field that he wants.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:44] Yeah, good point. That's, that's a good point. So I think in this case maybe I just got a little triggered by because someone wrote in on behalf of someone else. I often have this thought when I see somebody writing in about their significant other. This case, you're probably right. So with respect to your question, remember, we're going to have to work our generation. We're going to have to work in our career for like 50 years. I'm not exaggerating. Jason, I think you and I -- I mean it's unless things really change with AI or something, we're going to have to work for like 50 years. Your career is going to last a half-century. None of us are getting pensions also, I assume. So make sure --

Jason DeFillippo: [00:30:24] I know I'm resigned to work until I'm dead. It's like, "Okay, stop, record, upload the show, put me in the box, take me to the cemetery. That's it. I'm done."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:32] Exactly. Yeah. I feel like that's, that's the case for a lot of this. I would make sure that you are comfortable and that he is comfortable with this little fib of the GPA for the next half-century. It might be fine, it might be fine, but think about this long term and I mean very long term. Don't think about this in the timeframe of your new job and once the interview is over, you've taken a deep breath, you exhale and this is all behind you. We don't know the types of things they'll be doing with our schooling and transcripts in the future. I have a feeling that there's going to be HR software that does background checks. There already is this software, by the way, that does background checks. They do like criminal background checks, credit checks. Why not add in schooling and transcripts at some point if they don't already have that? "Oh yeah. Let's just go ahead and you know, we have a way to sort of privately download transcripts directly from schools so we don't have to believe resumes anymore and it's just a cursory check and you know, if you're off by 0.1, no big deal," that kind of thing. That could just be a random checkmark. HR could never see your grades unless there's a discrepancy. But what happens in five years when they get this software, 10 years when they get the software at your job and they run everybody through and they say, "Screw it, we'll background check all your current employees for free if you, when you install us, when you take a three-year contract with us," that kind of thing. And your resume shows up as off by a whole point, that's a big problem. And this is not something, I'm just imagining this is very, very possible and very likely in my opinion, you just don't know what your company's going to be doing in the future. And then what? You go to another company and you have to keep that on your resume or you change it, but then you've got the experience and they're going, "Huh, they took you at, at this bank or this insurance company with that GPA. That's weird." So are you going to leave the fib on there and then do that every time you switched jobs? I mean, what are you going to do? People I've been fired from jobs, most notably academic institutions. I'll caveat it with that after like 20, 30 years, right before retirement because they lied on their resume.

[00:32:37] Now, the example I'm thinking of, the case I'm thinking of was a woman at a university in an admin position who had lied about having a degree she didn't even have.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:46] I remember that story. Yeah, that was, that was kind of heartbreaking. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:50] Yeah. I mean, she was beloved and she worked there for like 25, 30 years. She was about to retire. I think she was going to retire in like a year or two.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:57] Yeah, it was really close. And then she just got busted for that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:00] Something happened. Yeah. I don't even remember how they did it. I think they were -- I really don't even know how they caught her.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:33:06] Yeah, that was a tough one. It was just like, you know, they were just doing like regular checks to get their records up to date and it just came through like somebody made a phone call like, "Oh, we just want to check on this." And it came back, "No, she never attended this school." And it's like, "Oh no."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:21] Yeah, like, "We can't find it." "Oh, that's so weird. She must have gone there." Didn't go there and then they had to fire her because she worked for a public institution. You know what happens when you're working for an NGO or a big company and they have to regulatory whatever says they got a background check everyone and you come back as the somebody who can't be trusted. That's not good. So keep this in mind and think long, long term, not just, "We'll get past it once we get our interview or our first job." Also, this isn't just any job, this is actuarial science. This is literally the science of using accurate statistics and numbers to get a result somehow--

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:00] True that, true that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:02] Right, like somehow using that creative math to get a different GPA. It's either genius or very dangerous. And I have a feeling a potential employer will go, "Wow, that's really creative and you did plenty of fancy math to get that, but you did it to deceive us. And we're not sure how we feel about that."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:34:17] So it depends on the firm that he's going to interview for. If he's like if he goes to a firm that's looking for that kind of quote-unquote creative accounting, he might find a nice new home there.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:26] Yeah, and I don't think that they are, I think they're looking for the most accurate result because it's insurance. It's an actuarial science. So actuarial science for those that don't know there are different things you do with it, but largely it's okay, this person wants insurance. What's the probability that this random thing is going to happen? And then the actuary says, "Okay, well they're 38 years old and they've had this record and this ethnicity and they're this a nationality and they had these many years of experience and they worked for this company in this region and this weather pattern. So the probability is 0.001 duh duh duh. Okay, we can have a premium that works like this and we'll cover it up to this amount." That's what they're looking for and if you get, if the actuary gets it wrong, if this complicated math, it can be very costly for the insurance company, very, very costly. So they want accurate. That's why they hire people who are math geniuses here. So if you do use this creative GPA, make sure you explain what this is by noting very candidly that you changed majors and your grades in actuarial science are a three-four but your other grades are a two whatever. Just be as honest as possible. If you're going to pull this little stunt, you know, you put that actuarial GPA on there, put a little asterisk and then at the bottom of the resume you can say based on the actuary science major courses, you know, and then when you go in for the interview and they're like, what's that? What's that all about? You can go, "Yeah, I did really bad when I took anthropology and I had some family stuff going on." I would not mention the social anxiety because if your employer does not know what this is, they might not believe you. They might think that you're unwell, that you have mental health issues, that you're a liability. You don't need to disadvantage yourself even further over here, you can just say in your old major you had some family stuff, go down some personal stuff, go down, whatever. That derailed the semester because you had to focus on other things and that personal stuff has concluded. There's no need to elaborate. I don't even know if legally they can ask about that. So I would not try to hide it. I would try to be honest about it. But I wouldn't go into too much detail and I would say, "Look, when I study actuarial stuff, I got all these great grades. When I studied all this other stuff in a major that I wasn't really interested in, I did poorly and it was because I wasn't as interested and because I had some personal stuff happen. None of that reflects on my actuarial stuff," and they might give you a shot you don't know. Hopefully, they do. In the end of the day, going for a master's as opposed to outright BS in your way in is probably a better idea if you run into trouble. I would try to get interviews first using the above strategy and just make sure that you're honest and forthcoming about it so that it doesn't bite you in the ass later on the line. Remember you think about a 50-year-time span, not a five-month-time span.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:21] We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:24] This episode is also sponsored by Luminary.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:37:27] If you loved How I Built This by Guy Raz, then you'll have to listen to his new podcast called the Wisdom from The Top, which is only available on Luminary. From Guy Raz, the creator of How I Built This, come to chance to slide your chair into the boardrooms, C-suites, and the quarters of the top brass. Wisdom from The Top brings listeners into conversations with the leaders helming today's most powerful corporations and organizations offering direct access to the secrets, mistakes, regrets, and winds that define modern leadership. And along with Wisdom from The Top, Luminary gives you access to a bunch of other original shows from innovative dynamic creators you can't find anywhere else. The Luminary app is free to download and you can use it to listen to thousands of podcasts, including the ones you already love. All enhanced by an easy to use interface with personalized content recommendations. Whether you're into news and politics, comedy, business, and tech or more, Luminary has the right show for you. If you love podcasts, then you need to check out Luminary. Get your first two months of access to Luminary’s premium content for free when you sign up at illuminary.link/jordan. After that, it's $7.99 per month. That's luminary.link/jordan for two months of free access, luminary.link/jordan. Cancel anytime, terms apply

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:26] This episode is sponsored in part by Better Help. You've heard me talk about this before. Therapy counseling -- I'm a huge, huge fan. And Better Help offers professional counselors who are -- not freaking coaches. Okay. There's a huge difference here. Look, if you're a coach, I don't mean any offense, but you are not a therapist unless you are also a therapist. But a lot of people think, "Oh, I'm a good listener." You need the licensed professional counselors like they have at Better Help and you need ideally someone who specializes in the issues that you have. So depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, sleeping, trauma, anger -- you know what I'm going with this. Better Help lets you connect with a professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. So everything's confidential and everything's convenient because it's on your phone. You're, you're doing video or phone sessions, you're chatting, texting with your therapist. You can always switch your therapist if you're not getting along if you're not clicking. And best of all, no driving across town. No trying to find parking. No, trying to get an appointment with somebody who's always booked up and for Jordan Harbinger Show listeners, you're going to get 10 percent off your first month with discount code JORDAN so go to betterhelp.com/jordan. That's betterhelp.com/jordan.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:52] This episode is sponsored in part by brother.

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[00:40:46] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air and we really mean that. So to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard and check out our sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday.

Jordan Harbinger:  [00:41:02] All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:03] Hi guys. How do I impart some of the knowledge I've learned the past few years from your show to my teenage son of 17? He's not likely to listen to the podcast himself. So wondering if you have any advice on how to encourage kids to learn these valuable life lessons earlier or do we let them stumble along and make the same mistakes we did when we were younger? Signed, Do as I Say, Not as I Do.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:26] 17 is tough.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:27] Yeah. 17 is tough. If he won't listen, man, he's got to make his own mistakes. I when I knew everything glorious times. Indeed.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:41:35] I don't know if you had this in your high school counselor’s office, but the poster was in mind. It said, "Move out, leave home while you still know everything."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that and I get it now. I remember thinking like, "Ha-ha-ha, stupid adults, whatever you don't realize--" and now I'm like, "Oh my God, kids." I get questions from kids and the premise is always -- "I know I'm going to have a hundred million dollars and have private jets and fly all over the place," and I'm like, "You won't even want that in five years, man. You will not care about that in 10 years at all. You'll laugh at yourself." You can't convince him because the time span of a 17-year-old life is so short. You don't have an accurate representation of how your views changed because your views changed from liking GI Joe, Beanie Baby, whatever, My Little Pony, whatever it is, cartoons to, "Oh, I'm an adult now." You don't see that being an adult is also just as malleable as what you when you were going through the different phases of life as an adolescent and a child, you don't realize it. You just think, "Oh, I'm grown up now."

[00:42:44] And when I was 17, I did not have the level of maturity to be able to learn that much from other people. I did a little but not a ton and I certainly didn't have the level of maturity to go, "You know what, I should start downloading podcasts and learning from all these adults." I listened to some self-help tapes, mostly out of boredom and because my dad had them in the car and they were unused. I think it takes some stumbling along to know what you don't know and to be open to feedback. That's why it's really hard to sell personal growth or learning products to people in their early 20s generally. It's really hard because not only do they not necessarily have the economic ability to purchase a lot of those things, they don't feel like they need them. I remember when we were teaching social skills and dating stuff, like 10 years ago, I remember guys being like, "I don't need this. You know, I'm in a frat. Everything is awesome." And then one of the most common customer basis we had were guys that graduated from college and went, "So turns out I can't just invite 50 drunk girls over to my house every Friday and try to hook up with them. And then dot, dot, dot girlfriend," and I'll go, "Yeah. Rude awakening, huh? How's cubicle life? Remember before when you told me that what we taught was stupid and you didn't need it and you're awesome. And how's that cubicle life going where you go home and you're alone." It's rough. It's a rough realization.

[00:44:11] Of course, you can also listen to the show while your son is in the car with you and you can ask him what he thinks about certain points that we're making and he'll probably just say, "I don't know. I'm not listening. I'm on Instagram. Dad, you're boring." You never know. You never know. He might be sort of silently listening and going, "Huh, there's something to be said about that," and you can just continue to play it and talk about things you find interesting. I have a feeling he might resist you just because you're his dad. It doesn't even mean he's not interested. It really doesn't. I remember very clearly my parents showing me things that I thought were really interesting and not wanting to give them the satisfaction. Did you do that, Jason?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:44:49] Oh yeah. Yeah. This is where some reverse psychology might come into play. Like, start playing the show around the house and go, "Oh you wouldn't want to listen to this. It's, it's adult stuff." And maybe then he'll kind of come around because anything my dad said that I should do, immediately and instantly I was against it. It doesn't matter what it was at no bearing on what it was if my dad said you'll like this, I hated it immediately and irregardless of what it was, period. Because at 17, I wanted to ride my skateboard and try and find some boobs. That was it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:19] So yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. It wasn't something I was interested in. I remember so many things like this when I was a kid. I remember not wanting to do any work around the house, not wanting to help out with anything. And then I'd go to my friend's house or something and the parents would go, "Hey, can you guys come out here and help bag these leaves?" And I'd run out, like be super helpful and work for like three hours dripping sweat. I remember my parents would come to pick me up or something and they'd go, "Man, your son's a real workhorse." And my mom or dad would just laugh because they're like, "What are you talking about? Workhorse? You're insane."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:45:56] Yeah. "He just wants to sit in his room and play video games."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:59] Yeah. "He's asleep when he's not watching TV. What are you talking about? He's a workhorse." And then I come out like dripping sweat and drinking a bottle of Paco or something. And my mom's like, "What did you do?" And I'm like, "Eh, we dug tension, bagged leaves and then chop down a tree with my bare hands. And this hatchet that I crafted." It's like, "What are you talking about? What are you doing? Who are you?" Yeah, this is the thing that you're going to have to, to just get used to. Maybe have a friend of yours who he respects, bring it up instead.

[00:46:31] By the way, I wanted to clarify something. This Scott Galloway episode. Scott said something like, "If you want to be economically successful, you have to realize that in your 20s and 30s you might not have work-life balance." And I think what he said was more along the lines of if you do want balance in your 20s and 30s you ha you have to get comfortable with the idea that you may not be economically successful later on in life or as economically successful as some of your peers. And a lot of people wrote in and they're like, "This is so depressing. I'm 32 and I don't have it all figured out yet." Or, "Oh my God, I'm not wealthy and I'm 36 there's this ever going to happen for me." That's not what he meant. He didn't mean you have to have it figured out by the time you're 40 or that you have to be getting wealthy in your 30s already. What he meant was you have to be busting your ass in your 20s and 30s now that could be, you're in HR and you're pulling crazy hours in your 20s and 30s or in your 20s you worked in construction and you work 60 hour work weeks and you've learned the business and you'd spend a lot of time not having fun and learning the ropes. And then in your 30s you were managing stuff and you worked a bunch and you working your way up the ladder. You don't have to have the trappings of success by 40. You have to put in the groundwork to get the skills you got to be skill stacking, which we've talked about on the show. You have to be working your way up the ladder. You have to be generating a network of people that will help you later, getting mentorship, helping other people, pulling them up to generate connections and relationships. That's what you need to be doing in your 20s and 30s and that's not something that can be done working 35 hours a week, calling in on a lot of Fridays to go off with your friends taking all your vacation time. It can happen that way, but it's unlikely. What's more likely to happen is everybody who busted their ass and was obsessed with work by the time they hit their 40s and they start to get that balance, they're just so much more valuable to their company by that time. That's what he means. He doesn't mean if you don't have a jet by 38, you're screwed. That's not what he meant. So I just wanted to sort of placate everyone here because I got a lot of sort of scared emails and tweets and Instagram messages from people that just thought, "Dang, I'm screwed. I don't have my own business with 700 employees. Is it really over? I don't like this," and that's an uncomfortable thought and that's not at all what Scott meant and I know that to be true cause I asked him about it myself. All right, next up.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:49:00] Hi team. It's important to me for me not to say Triple J or any sort of corny intro. Can you offer any advice on how to deal with one-sided friendships? There are certain, let's call it narcissistic friends who seem only interested in talking about themselves and their problems. It's in my nature to provide thoughtful, objective feedback, but anytime I bring up my own problems or issues, they have nothing to say back and mostly make it about them. It's to the point where I'm becoming resentful and honestly, don't enjoy talking to them. I think you can understand the details and I imagine this question resonates with the bulk of your listeners who surely all know this type of person. Thanks. Triple J. I couldn't help myself. Sincerely, Tired of Talking to Myself.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:39] My thoughts on this are that and I've had so many one-sided friendships, I, I get it. I don't know if they're narcissists, maybe they're a little self-centered. I get it. Some friends just do not have the capacity to help other people because they're so wrapped up in their own issues. Is that narcissism? Maybe. I don't necessarily think it's narcissism though. It doesn't mean that they're bad people or that they are completely self-absorbed. I think some people just don't have the bandwidth because they're only talking and thinking about themselves. Think of it this way, imagine you're the type of person that's really wildly insecure about everything in their life. You think my work isn't working out. My relationship life isn't working out. My career prospects are grim and someone says, "Hey, I really need your advice. Should I move to this other part of town?" They just, if they're really anxious, they just don't even have the processing power to kind of go and think, "Oh, you know, let me think about this problem this other person has." They are completely self-absorbed and that could be a negative quality, but it can also just be a function of their anxiety. Some people just can't do it and there are plenty of better folks to speak without there. You just can't bang your head against the wall with people who just make everything about themselves. You can't do it. They literally don't even have the ability to put themselves in your shoes because they're so firmly locked in their own problems. It doesn't make them bad friends. They can be fun, they can be interesting, they can be smart people. It just means you can't really lean on them for emotional support. So I would stop leaning on them for emotional support and find other people who you can lean on and if you're sick of them and they're not giving you anything, then just, yeah, I've cut them out. I mean if, if they're fun and they're great, but you can't talk about certain topics with them, just stop trying to do that. You're just going to drive yourself crazy. It's a bummer to have to cut people out, but sometimes it is necessary to move on. You can't change this with them. They have to change for themselves on this. And often it's a personality trait where they're going to feel insecure no matter what. So again, my advice, stop banging your head against the wall. You're only going to drive yourself nuts. You can't change these people. You have to either accept the way that they are and enjoy the relationship that you have with them, which is maybe they're fun to go out and have a drink with and maybe they're fun to play sports with, but they're not good to talk about real stuff with. And maybe that's the kind of friend they are. And if you don't need those kinds of friends, then make some new ones. That's really the only thing you can do. There are certain people in my life that I know I cannot count on for certain things. I'm still friends with them. It doesn't make them bad. It just means that that is not something that they can provide. And I get it.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:52:19] This is actually a topic you and I have talked about on the show a few times before and a lot of people that have this quote-unquote syndrome are single children. You know, who didn't have any brothers and sisters and we're just the only child. Because I think you and I both struggled with this for a long time, but we came through the other side and a lot of people don't. I'd be curious to find out how many of his friends that he's having problems with are actually only children because that is a thing that really is – it’s kind of endemic to our situation.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:50] It is a thing. Yeah. I'm an only child. And I remember for a really long time somebody would ask me something and I'm talking like back in college, somebody would ask me something about themselves or a problem they were having. And I remember like, not-not listening, but thinking, no one's ever asked me for anything like this because I'm around adults a lot or I'm around childhood friends. We don't talk. So I remember when I had real stuff and somebody shared something, I was like, "Jesus, be vulnerable with somebody. I'm not doing that. Are you crazy?" Or I'd go, "Hey, you know, you know, let me tell you about this thing I'm having." And then suddenly I'd realize I'm still talking and didn't talk about, I'm not even talking about their thing, I'm just talking about me and I was a little self-absorbed and that's because that's how I grew up. But yeah, I realized after a while, "Ooh, I need to start really radically focusing on other people's stuff and helping other people." That's why we do the Six-Minute Networking stuff where it's all help other people before you worry about what's in it for you. Because for me, that was a habit that I had to form by brute force. This is not something that came naturally where I went, "You know, I'm going to help lift other people up and get what they want so that they--“ No way. It was all about me for my whole young life. It was. You're right, I had to really manually make this adjustment and it wasn't easy.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:54:05] No, it's not easy. And it took me until like what my mid-30s before I even realized what I was doing when enough people were going away and like a few friends actually tapped me on the shoulder. It was like, "Dude, it's not about you. Stop it." And finally got some help and figured out what was wrong with me. But you know, we can through it. I mean I know we've had many nights at the bar where we've talked about this exact thing and you can't bring it up in conversation if you want to like try and salvage the friendship instead of just like kicking them to the curb. Because I know the friends that came to me and said, "Hey dude, you just keep an eye on this because it's a thing." And then once enough people said it to me, then I actually worked on it and fixed it and I still find myself falling back to it every now and again. But then I catch myself and I'm like, "Oh shit, I'm doing that again. Stop it."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:51] Yeah, you'll notice it. You can catch yourself; you can audit yourself at the end of the night. If you find this to be something that you're doing. You can go, "Yeah. That was a fun conversation we had at the bar where Angela talked about her divorce and then I talked about all my relationship problems for two and a half hours," and then, "Oh yeah, we kind of never went back to Angela's divorce," "which is why we met at the bar." "Oops, I'm a dick." You know, like I better call my friends and go, "Hey, I realize I made that about me. Do I do that a lot? Because I should have tried to change that and I'm not used to doing that and I really value your guys' friendship and I would love it if you all would sort of let me know with this polite tap on the shoulder when I do that because I want to be there for you guys and I'm not used to that. It's a habit I need to build and trust me, I really would love to work on this, so thank you." And people will be like, "Dang. He finally realized he only talks about themselves." Or they'll go, "You know, I didn't really notice that. I think you're being too hard on yourself." And then you go, "Oh, okay, thanks."

[00:55:51] I had my college roommates who are also just children tell me this. And I remember being really defensive about it in the moment. And then years later when I saw them, I remember going, "Yeah, that was me." And they're like, "Oh my God, you knew?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I know now." And they're like, "Oh my God, it was insufferable. We love you, man. But Jesus, man, it was awful. It was awful." And I go, "I know I was really insecure." And they're like, "Yeah, we all were. We all were. Don't worry about it. And it's fine." But it'd be great to solve that problem as an adult or in the moment rather than later on, you know?

[00:56:23] All right, Life Pro Tip of the Week. Jason, you turned me on to this because I think you had said like, "Hey, when did you back up your computer last?" And I was like, "Uh, I don't know. Never."

Jason DeFillippo: [00:56:32] Yeah, we've been round and round over the years about this. I'm like, you don't have the show that we just recorded last week. You're like, "Nah, I had a crash." And I'm just like, "What? What, what?"

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:43] Yeah. And that's been years because I set up time capsule but then it was like what happens if the -- that backup doesn't work or how quickly can you restore from a time capsule backup if you're not around. And I was like, "Oh that's, that's ugly." So I got Carbon Copy Cloner and we'll link to it. This is your recommendation, right? I think you told me about this program.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:57:03] Yeah, absolutely. It's a Mac-only program though. So this is for the Macs.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:06] Ah, okay. So there are plenty of other opportunities. I don't know what they have for Windows. I'm sure there are some easy ones, but it does surprise me. People forget to make backups of their data or they just don't do it. I just have a calendar entry that says first of the month and the 14th or the 15th of the month, just plug it in and Carbon Copy Cloner runs in the background. A hard drive crash can happen anytime. It doesn't have to be your old ass junky computer. You can have a defective solid-state or hard drive in your laptop easily. You can drop your stuff and it breaks. You can lose the computer; it can get stolen. Cloud-based storage, so cheap now for a couple of bucks. You've got tons of gigs of storage. Save yourself a lot of trouble and backup your data, but don't just do the cloud backup because if you lose your stuff and you've got a terabyte, you know how long that's going to take to download on a home internet connection. Oh my God. There could be weeks. It could be weeks. It could just not be worth it and even if you have an office connection, it could take forever or just fail halfway through. So Carbon Copy Cloner you essentially plug it in. It runs in the background. It runs on an $80 two terabyte or four terabyte Western digital drive. I got off Amazon every time before I go on a trip, I will back up my drive. That way if I lose my laptop on a trip, I've got a copy of everything I had prior to getting on the plane. And so, of course, the hard drives at home, so when I get home and I get a new computer, I can just plug it in and restore. But in a real pinch, someone could go in my house, grabbed the hard drive. It's always in the same place, in the same drawer. They can FedEx it to me. If I had to buy a new MacBook on the road, because say I'm doing a presentation or something or I'm doing a show, I need it. I'll go to the Apple store, buy the computer and I'll say, "Hey, walk into my house, go upstairs, grab the yellow hard drive that says Jordan laptop back up and shove it in an envelope and send it to me." And then I plugged the thing in and in a few hours I've got my old computer back. Essentially it just sort of clones your drive, hence the name. Jason, you've got more, more data specific stuff because you've got critical, critical stuff on your computers.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:59:11] I am so about to up your game right now. It's crazy. So for the house, I have three rotating, eight terabyte hard drives. I have one that I work from, that's the workhorse. Every day I walk into the office, I plug one of them in with the secondary and during the day my main hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner every four hours is cloned to the secondary drive. In the house, I have the third drive every day I swap out the secondary and third drives. So when I come to work every day, I've got another backup of what I've just been working on in case the master dies, I have another backup always pretty much ready to go. The worst it's going to be as 24 hours out of date. Now, some people might think that's overkill, but for what we do, we have very critical data that we need to protect because these shows cannot be replicated takes us a month to get a guest on and we get the recordings and then, "Oh my God, the hard drive dies." That's just not the way that you do professional work. So that is my rotation with just the stuff at the house.

[01:00:09] Now when you go on the road, you leave that hard drive at home. I recommend having two. You keep one at the house and you keep another one with you. Those little tiny Western digital like a two terabyte drives under 100 bucks, do a Carbon Copy Cloner of the entire system right before you leave, throw it in your luggage. It's not a lot of weight. And so you just have it in your luggage. If your laptop dies while you're on the road, go to the store, pick up another one, plug it in, you're back in business. Don't have to wait for FedEx. You're good to go. And also when you're on the road, always use Cloud Storage for your documents. Use either Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever One Drive, whatever your flavor is. So anything new that you create while you're on the road is always going to be in the Cloud so you can restore your hard drive, get all your data back and then pull anything that you've done recently back down from the Cloud so you do not miss a beat. That is absolutely the best way to go.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:04] Yeah, you're right on the documents thing. That's another thing that I didn't really mention because I kept talked about cloning the drive. I don't have anything on the computer itself. That's an important document. All the show prep, any sort of file that anyone's working with is almost always in the cloud. Now. Yes, I'm going to have some images or whatever on my computer or some notes or something that is on maybe not cloud backed up, but nothing mission-critical. There's not going to be anything mission-critical on the computer itself. I just don't want to have to read, download and install freaking to-do list and Chrome and Sound Studio and iTunes and Skype. I want to go back. But no information, data files, those should all live in the Cloud because the Internet was designed to withstand nuclear attacks, so Google Drive, I mean with the exception of earlier this week when it went down and that was a big deal because half the internet was down. Your files aren't going anywhere and that was back up in hours and nobody lost any data because they had backups. They've got backups of these things literally in glaciers. Okay. There's not just a copy in Mountain View at Google. There's these are more secure than they could ever be. Your house could burn down, your entire city could get hit with a warhead and you'd still have your Google docs and your Dropbox.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:02:19] Exactly. That's why you use, use the Cloud for anything that you need. Especially if you're going to a conference, you need your show prep, you need your slides, all that stuff. That stuff should be accessible from any laptop that's connected to the internet. But yeah, getting your apps back up to speed and all your settings and all your personalization and tweaks, that's what you want that hard drive for. Yeah, and on the final stage is like, I've got all my photography, all my family photography, all of my personal documents -- that's on another drive, which I have a set of two for one of them I keep locally, I back it up every three months and then I ship it to my dad's house. When my dad gets my new drive, he ships my old one back to me. Then in three months I do another clone, put everything on that, ship it back to him. So in a worst-case scenario, like I live in Southern California, there's a chance that I will either die in an earthquake or a fire or some other crazy natural disaster that I want all of that stuff to be somewhere that's safe and offsite. Offsite backups are key, but everybody has so much data nowadays. You can't do it just in the Cloud on your home connection because a lot of people, especially here in the United States, we have bandwidth caps. We can't use more than one terabyte a month. But you may have five or six terabytes of family photos, especially once you get kids. Oh my God, it's crazy. So you always want to have that offsite backup going as well. Just a rotation. Three months is fine. You know you're not going to really lose that much if, if you lose the main drive for three months cause then you'll have at least the entire span of your lifetime still backed up somewhere else because I know I have photos going back from in 1986 on the hard drive that's at my dad's house. So you know, if anything happens that is at least safe.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:00] All right. Do you have a really good strategy here? Don't, don't be the person who goes, “Eh, nothing's ever happened." It can be a real problem. I mean it can really be a problem and one of these small hard drives and a $30 copy or whatever of Carbon Copy Cloner can save you hours and hours and hours and this isn't just like, "Oh, I'll fix it this weekend." This stuff happens when you have a presentation in four hours after you get off a plane. That's when this happens, right? It happens in the middle of a conference when you are like up next or up soon and you just had to go to the Apple store in Las Vegas when you're staying there for a conference and you had to buy a new Mac book and you're going, "Crap, I don't even have a freaking keynote." That's when this stuff happens. So get it done. It's really just going to save you a lot of pain and it takes very little time each month.

[01:04:49] Recommendation of the Week, The Business of Being Born. This is a film from about 10 years ago, but it's really interesting, of course, for me, I'm looking at this stuff. The US has one of the most advanced healthcare systems in the world and has the second-highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation, which is ridiculous. The film criticizes the American healthcare system with its emphasis on medication, costly intervention. It's view of childbirth as essentially a medical emergency rather than a natural process. And it's starring the infamous Ricki Lake is in this one to give you a kind of a blast from the past. And it offers a really probing look at childbirth in the United States, explores the history of obstetrics, the history and function of midwives and how many common medical practices are actually doing new mothers more harm than good. And yes, it's 10 years old, but this process of kind of treating babies like little plugs in the matrix, it's only gotten worse over the last 10 years, not any better. And so that I recommend people watching if they're interested in this at all. Healthcare and/or birth has kind of an interesting watch. If you're not interested in that, we also watched Good Fortune, which is the true-life story of the billionaire and philanthropists, John Paul DeJoria who founded co-founded Paul Mitchell hair products and Patron Tequila. Really interesting guy, really sort of crazy fun entrepreneur story and that's called Good Fortune. And we'll link to The Business of Being Born and Good Fortune in the show notes.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:06:15] I have seen Good Fortune and I thought it was a fantastic documentary. I really liked this guy a lot, so it is definitely well worth the watch.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:22] Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week and don't forget, you can email us at friday@jordanharbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air. We always keep you anonymous. We're going to be doing some live events soon, doing a lot of corporate training right now. I wish I could tell you who because some of it is really cool. Let's just say Silicon Valley giants. I won't make any other commentary because you know, no need, no need. And I don't want to get in trouble. I've always got to -- working with big companies, Jason, you've got to check with everything because they never know what you're allowed to say even if they're in the company, they always have to run everything up the flagpole and it's a long flagpole. So kind of funny work experience for me to be back in big corporate doing what I've done for so long non-corporate.

[01:07:05] A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com and a quick shout out to Jackie Jones who said, "Don't read the bad emails. Read mine. I love your podcast. It's a must. Listen to pod. Not a lie. I commute an hour and 40 minutes each way, five days a week from my job." That is a long-ass commute.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:07:22] Oh God, that's terrible.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:23] "And over three hours a day on the road," over three hours a day on the road. So she listens to The Jordan Harbinger Show after hearing about us on Adam Corolla. And she said, "You have a great radio voice with natural timing." I wish it was natural, but it's not.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:07:37] Nothing natural about that. Lots of hard work.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:41] A lot of hard work. It reminds me of Wayne's World, Jason. Remember when they go to see Handsome Dan?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:07:46] Handsome Dan?

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:47] Yeah. They go in and they're like, "Oh, we're going to meet Handsome Dan." He's like their favorite radio guy and he's got this great voice, but they show up and he's in this disgusting tracksuit. He has disgusting hair and he looks just like totally gnarly and they call him ugly. And so now they find out it's ironic that his name is Handsome Dan, and he's like not listening to anything they say. He's just being a radio guy. I don't know. Whatever Handsome Dan. I'll Slack you a little link to that video. Jason. That joke just died on the vine. But anyway, shout out to Jackie Jones. Thanks for listening. Wow. Three hours a day. She's looking forward to the commute every day now she said. So thank you for that. And you're welcome for providing the content.

[01:08:24] Go back and check out the Reid Hoffman Part One and Two if you haven't yet. That was all what we released this week. If you want to know how we managed to book all these amazing people and manage relationships -- Reid Hoffman included was got through the network and he founded LinkedIn. He's big on networking. We're teaching you this Six-Minute Networking. It is a free course, jordanharbinger.com/course. It replaces any old course that we have. It's all upgraded, all new tech, all new drills. The problem with kicking the can down the road and saying you'll do it later is you cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships. Once you need a relationship and you're too late to leverage it. You got to dig the well before you're thirsty. Six-Minute Networking is designed to take five to six minutes a day. You ignore these habits at your own peril. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. Again, jordanharbinger.com/course.

[01:09:09] 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 and we have a great Reid Hoffman set of videos up there right now. Jason.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:09:22] I'm over at Instagram at @JPD. You can go look at pictures of my puppies. If you want my personal websites is jpd.me and you can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks at gog.show or your podcast player of choice and make sure the kids aren't in the room because we are a little bit salty.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:09:38] Yeah, salty is a good word for it.

[01:09:10] This show is produced in association with PodcastOne. This episode is co-produced by Jen Harbinger. Show notes for this episode are by Robert Fogarty. Keeps setting in those questions to friday@jordanharbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. And in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.

Male Narrator: [01:10:09] Coming soon to podcast one the GG podcasts with Rick Fox, Jace Hall, and Todd Roy. Log on to see the world behind the E-Sports you love and find out what good game really means from the trio who's taken the business by storm, including the three-time NBA champion behind team echo Fox. Download new episodes of the GG podcast every week on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.