831: The Harrowing Hunt for a Housecat Houdini | Feedback Friday

831: The Harrowing Hunt for a Housecat Houdini | Feedback Friday

[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Special thanks to Starbucks for sponsoring this episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:00:08] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. And is it Friday, Gabe, or is it Dues Day?

[00:00:14] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, I see what you did there.

[00:00:16] Jordan Harbinger: Because you really do be serving up the dues. As always, the dues, indeed.

[00:00:21] I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, my dues day deputy, Gabriel Mizrahi.

[00:00:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: Reporting for dues-ty, I guess.

[00:00:31] Jordan Harbinger: On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We want to help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what is really happening even inside your own mind.

[00:00:56] Now, that I say that, it sounds a little conspiratorial. You all know, we don't play like that.

[00:01:00] If you're new to the show on Fridays, we give advice, we answer listener questions. The rest of the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. This week, we had the one and only Terry Crews on growing up rough, abused, mindset, and being one of Hollywood's favorite people. Really good conversation with him, a lot of fun actually. We skipped the Thursday episode this week. Kept things a little more chill around here. I've just been so busy getting sick and then getting sick and then getting sick again. I need a new hobby. Shout out to my kids for getting me sick constantly. I think this is just part of having two young kids. Anyway, make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything that we created for you here this week.

[00:01:41] Gabe, I know you've got a little something different for us this week. You just went through yet another Feedback Friday nightmare yourself. I applaud you going the extra mile for the show, by the way.

[00:01:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: I did.

[00:01:53] Jordan Harbinger: Creating your own life trauma. I was getting a play-by-play as it happened, but most people listening, they don't have any idea what went down. So you want to tell us?

[00:02:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Oh my God, I have been through the wringer. It's been about 10 days since this happened, so I've had a chance to kind of look back and process it a little bit. But my God, it was the weirdest four days of my life.

[00:02:12] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: Jordan, you know that I have this cat named Drake.

[00:02:16] Jordan Harbinger: I do.

[00:02:16] Gabriel Mizrahi: I adopted him 10 years ago. He was just like a very special little cat and it was one of those things where I went to the shelter, I found him, I really connected with him. And on the drive home, I fell in love with him. You know what I mean? Like just he was so sweet, affectionate, just a really cool cat. We bonded really quickly and I've always just felt really connected to this cat. But the thing about Drake is they found him in a dumpster behind a dog grooming salon, and he was not properly weaned from his mother.

[00:02:47] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:02:47] Gabriel Mizrahi: And I think that might be why he's so affectionate because he like doesn't know how to, he's like so sweet but he doesn't know how to control it. So if he likes you, he kisses your face. And he would do that to me all day, all night. He would wake me up in the middle of the night kissing me. He would crawl on top of me while I was working. I mean, it was like a real problem. And I couldn't get any work done. And I had this big project when I adopted him and I asked my mom. I was just like, "Hey mom, can you take him for a month so I can get some work done?" And she said, "Of course." In that time, he bonded with all of her animals and he just really settled in there and he was happier there. And so I just decided he'll live with my mom, I'll visit him and it was great. And he just lived at my mom's house happily for 10 years.

[00:03:27] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:03:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: So a few weeks ago, my mom decided to renovate her bathroom and there's a contractor at the house. He's actually a friend of our family. He's done some other stuff around the house before. He's a really sweet guy. He just works in a little bathroom. The cats hate it, they hate him, they hate the bathroom. Drake, especially whenever he sees this guy, he runs away and just stays far away from this guy. And he won't come out until half an hour after the guy leaves. So a couple of weeks ago, it's Thursday night, I'm out. I went to go see my friend's movie and I went to dinner with some friends and my mom texts me and she's like, "I'm really worried I can't find Drake."

[00:04:03] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:04:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: And I'm like, well, every time a cat goes missing, they're always in some weird place. Right? They're always hiding in a closet or they're whatever, freaked out. I mean, he's never done this before, but I just thought, surely he's not missing. But Friday morning, he was still gone and we really started to worry. My mom went over every inch of the house, cannot find him. I go over there, I can't find him. And suddenly, it's obvious that my cat is gone. Obviously, this has something to do with the contractor, right?

[00:04:31] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[00:04:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the only new variable. But we cannot, for the life of us, figure out how he figures in. Because we looked at the bathroom and there were no open holes like we thought maybe he must have gone into the wall or he went into the floor or whatever. But my mom and the contractor, they both insist that the holes on the floor and the wall had been closed up for days before Drake went missing. So there is no chance whatsoever that he somehow went into some hole. There have been no open holes for days. The balcony doors were closed. My mom is a hundred percent sure of that. The only conclusion that we can come to is that he somehow ran out the front door when the contractor left that day.

[00:05:09] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:05:09] Gabriel Mizrahi: And he didn't notice somehow, which is really bizarre because Drake hates the outside, hates new things. Like he would never do that. But it's the only thing that makes sense. He ran out when the guy left. I should say that my mom lives in an apartment building on the fifth floor. These are indoor cats. They've never been outside in their life. But somehow we think Drake ran out the front door, jumped onto the ledge of the outside hallway and then jumped down to the street level.

[00:05:34] Jordan Harbinger: Augh.

[00:05:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: And there are security cameras that are pointing at that area of the building. I want to go look at them, but the problem is the only guy in the building who has access to the security system is out of town, of course. So I can't watch anything and corroborate this until Monday. So my cat is missing. I've never been in the situation in my life. I don't know if you've ever had this feeling, but I would walk around the neighborhood sometimes and see like missing cat photos and I'd be like, that is the saddest thing I can ever imagine. I'm so glad I will never have to do that.

[00:06:01] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: Because I have indoor cats. Suddenly, I'm just like, well, I have to spring into action and figure this out. And I just go into pet-hunting mode. I'm printing posters. I'm searching the neighborhood, I'm calling his name. I'm shaking treats. I'm like calling the microchip company to update him, which it turns out his microchip wasn't updated.

[00:06:21] Jordan Harbinger: Ugh.

[00:06:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: It wasn't registered. And that made me freak out even more. And then, you know, I'm posting on website, social media. I'm looking in pet databases. I'm putting out food and water and laying out like clothes of mine by the front door and downstairs to attract him back to the house. I mean, it's hard to explain, but it's that real sense of panic and dread.

[00:06:40] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:06:40] Gabriel Mizrahi: And you don't know what's going to happen. So finally, I'm like, well, maybe somebody found him and brought him to the shelter. So I go to the local shelter by my mom's house, and I walk into the cat room and there's a woman there, her name is Kelly. And she's like, "Hey, what's up? How can I help you?" And I'm like, "Hey, so my cat is missing." And like I get one sentence into my story and I break down crying.

[00:07:02] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, man.

[00:07:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: In the cat room at the shelter, which I'm not always crying all the time, certainly, not in front of strangers. This woman is like so nice to me and she's like, "Listen, I will post Drake's photo and I will post the missing poster on our Instagram. I will do whatever I can." Like she is the sweetest person. Thank you. I leave. There are no leads. I am devastated and I'm really starting to worry that my cat is just gone forever. This cat doesn't know how to survive on the street, as far as I know. And I look it up online. How long can a cat survive without food, without water? And it says that cats can go two to three days without water.

[00:07:37] Jordan Harbinger: Right, it's already been a few days.

[00:07:39] Gabriel Mizrahi: It's been a day and a half. So time is ticking. Saturday morning, 9:00 a.m. we get a call from our neighbor on the first floor and she's like, "I saw him, I saw Drake. He was outside my window." She went out to go to grab him, but he was gone by the time she got there. So I have hope again. I'm like, he is alive and he is downstairs, which means he did jump five stories, which is insane. So now, I'm like in this weird place where I'm kind of hopeful, but I'm also really still worried. I'm just imagining my poor house cat like living on the street. And I realize, well, if he is down there, the only thing I haven't done yet is set traps that now seems like the best way to catch him. So I start looking for cat traps. And I don't know if you've ever searched for cat traps before.

[00:08:22] Jordan Harbinger: I have not.

[00:08:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: I know you had a cat go missing one time, but it didn't come to that.

[00:08:26] Jordan Harbinger: It didn't occur to me to trap them though. I mean, it's kind of a good idea.

[00:08:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: So no hardware store in the area carries cat traps. They're actually really hard to find. I go to Petco, they don't carry them, but a woman there says, "Listen, if you go to the animal shelters, most people don't know this, but they'll often lend you one." And I'm like, well, guess where I broke down sobbing yesterday."

[00:08:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:08:46] Gabriel Mizrahi: I know just the place.

[00:08:47] Jordan Harbinger: They'll remember me.

[00:08:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally.

[00:08:49] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:08:49] Gabriel Mizrahi: So I go back to the shelter and Kelly is there working again, and I tell her I need a trap. And she's like, "I got you." And then she comes back a few minutes later and she's like, "So, the shelter won't let us give out traps unless you have a trapping license," which I obviously, don't have a trapping license. I didn't even know there was such a license. But she says that she has a trap at her house and she lives like half an hour away. She can give it to me when she gets off work. In the meantime, go to this shelter. They might have one. I go to this other shelter where another woman named Kelly, for funny, weird coincidence is at the front desk. I tell her my whole tale of, whoa, I start crying again in the lobby of this rescue place, except this time there are like eight other people standing around watching this happen, which is about as fun as it sounds. And she's like, "Yeah, we can help. We got you." They give me a trap, they show me how to use it, and later that day, I pick up the second trap from Kelly number one. I'm just driving around with my car full of traps from all these different people and I set the trap that night. Both traps in the area where my neighbor saw Drake.

[00:09:50] Jordan Harbinger: Who has a license for trapping? I mean, I guess animal control, but they have their own trap. That's such a weird thing. Like yeah, I'm actually a professional cat trapper.

[00:09:59] Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean—

[00:09:59] Jordan Harbinger: I'm just all out of my own traps.

[00:10:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: I think there are people who like trap raccoons and squirrels.

[00:10:04] Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah.

[00:10:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: Like—

[00:10:06] Jordan Harbinger: They don't need cat traps.

[00:10:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I don't know. I think it's all the same trap, but it all works for different animals or something. But I don't know, maybe it's a California thing. Like they regulate a lot of things and this is one of—

[00:10:16] Jordan Harbinger: That's true. That's true. You don't want any unauthorized trap.

[00:10:19] Gabriel Mizrahi: No you don't. Well, I was just lucky. I'm like, I don't care about the license. Just give me what I need to get my cat back.

[00:10:25] Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, taking an online course to get certified in cat trapping.

[00:10:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Furiously signing up. And by the way, let me just say while I'm doing all of this, I'm still casing the neighborhood multiple times, five, eight, 10 times a day. Like looking through bushes, looking through laundry rooms, scaring people in the adjacent buildings because they don't know why this person is skulking around in their backyard calling for Drake like, It was a whole production and I've never been in the state that I've been in. It's insane. So that night, my mom's neighbors downstairs immediately below her call and they're like, we hear a cat meowing in the ceiling. And I go downstairs and they show us where they heard like footsteps on the ceiling. Somebody, they're like, we heard something walking and we heard some meowing through the vent. I'm just now realizing as I tell you this story, Jordan, that there is a weird parallel between this moment and the Josh story.

[00:11:15] Jordan Harbinger: That's right.

[00:11:16] Gabriel Mizrahi: Both of my nightmares involve somebody walking across the ceiling, which is just bizarre, except this time it's good news.

[00:11:22] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:11:23] Gabriel Mizrahi: But confusing news because a neighbor saw him downstairs, but now he's upstairs and like, is there some passageway up and down the building, or is one of these neighbors crazy? Like, what is happening? I don't understand. Now, I'm like, it's like Schrodinger's Drake. Like he's in two places, he's in no places. I don't understand. All I know is we have to pursue both theories because they both seem equally plausible, which is again, a very strange place to be. I go home that night, I've never been sadder and more excited in my life. It's so hard to explain, but it was a very bizarre mental, emotional state to be in. I cry for like 45 minutes nonstop in bed. It's the worst feeling I've ever experienced. I realize that makes me very lucky that this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

[00:12:05] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:12:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: But here we are.

[00:12:06] Jordan Harbinger: Someone right now is like, you're privileged.

[00:12:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: I know.

[00:12:09] Jordan Harbinger: It's true though.

[00:12:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: But you know, if you've ever lost a pet, you know how terrible it is.

[00:12:13] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:12:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: I've never been through it. And I'm imagining him on the street. I'm imagining him stuck on the walls. I'm imagining him in some other weird scenario that I haven't even contemplated. None of it makes sense. It's interesting. It's not just the sadness about my cat that's so hard now that I think about it. It was the not knowing, you know, like your mind just starts spinning out and it doesn't have a place to rest because there's no answer, there's no closure. And I was actually thinking to myself at various points, honestly, at this point, I'd rather find him dead in the apartment somewhere than here that he might be alive on the street.

[00:12:45] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:12:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: But we can't have him back. It's just agony. So in the middle of the night, my mom texts me and she's like, "There's someone in the trap, but I can't tell if it's Drake because it's dark and I can't see." And I'm like, "Oh my God, it's him. Thank God it's him. It's over." Right? So I sleep a few hours, and then I wake up super early and I go over to my mom's house and it's not him.

[00:13:04] Jordan Harbinger: Augh.

[00:13:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: What's in the trap is this beautiful black cat that is not happy to be in a trap.

[00:13:10] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:13:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: And my heart sinks. It's like the highs and the lows and the highs and lows, and I'm just devastated all over again. And now I have this new cat I have to deal with somehow. And I'm like, well, this is somebody's cat. And they're probably going through the same thing that I'm going through. And so I post this cat on next door like I did for Drake, and I just wait to see if anyone claims him. And like an hour or two later, the contractor comes over and I sit down with him and I'm like, "Claude, I need to understand. Tell me again what happened. Because our neighbors are saying that they heard him in the ceiling, which means he might be in our floor, and that means I just have to understand were there any open holes the day he went missing." And basically, long story short, the whole timeline of the work being done in the bathroom collapses and my mom and the contractor realized that there was an open hole in the bathroom the day Drake went missing. And they're both like really upset and freaked out. And the contractor dude is like, this guy is on the verge of tears. He's so upset. He has a cat. And he's like, "I can't believe I might have somehow trapped this cat in the floor. I didn't even realize."

[00:14:13] Jordan Harbinger: Phew.

[00:14:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: So my mom calls the neighbor who saw Drake downstairs, and she's like, "Actually, the cat I saw was gray," and Drake is brown and black. So that lead is now out the window and suddenly the floorboard theory seems like the most plausible theory, and I'm like, "Holy sh*t. My cat somehow went down this hole and was underneath the floorboards and it took us four days to realize this. Are we going to even reach this guy in time?"

[00:14:34] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:14:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: I turned to the contractor and I'm like, "Open the floor now."

[00:14:39] Jordan Harbinger: So is it just boarded up or is it like he poured whatever concrete or whatever.

[00:14:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: He poured concrete on top of the hole that was open in the bathroom floor.

[00:14:50] Jordan Harbinger: Oh no. And it's cured by now and hard.

[00:14:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh yeah. It's four days.

[00:14:55] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, no.

[00:14:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: So he's like, "I'm on it. I'm going to do this. It'll take me two hours." And so now I have two hours where I can't do anything.

[00:15:02] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:15:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: So I'm like, let me go see if I can meet that guy about the security footage. And also, let me see if I can get this cat scanned for a microchip and reunite him with his owner. I'm not going to tell you the whole story of what happened to the black cat. This is a whole bizarre subplot. But basically, I go back to the same shelter where they gave me the trap to go see if I can get this cat scanned. I'm now trying to solve two cat mysteries, but the shelter is closed on Mondays, but a security guard comes out of the office at this place. And they're like, she's like, "Yes, can I help you?" And I'm like—

[00:15:31] Jordan Harbinger: Trapped a cat, unlicensed though. Let's not go there.

[00:15:34] Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, I was like, "Yeah, I'm looking for my cat. And I accidentally trapped this other cat and I'm hoping to reunite him with his owner if he has a microchip." And she goes, "You trapped the cat." And I'm like, "Yeah." She's like, "Do you have a trapping license?" And I'm like, "Uhm—"

[00:15:49] Jordan Harbinger: I just finished my online course.

[00:15:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: No. Totally. I just had to tell her no. And she's like, "Well, that's illegal. And you're going to have to talk to a police officer." And I was like, "Okay." And in my head, I'm like, "Well, thank God I didn't say one of your volunteers hooked me up with this trap."

[00:16:04] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:16:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: But basically she gives me a whole lecture about how cats have a right to roam free. She's like really advocating for cats' right to live on the street. And I'm like, "I'm not trying to debate with you right now the rights of cats. I just want to reunite this cat with the owner, turn the whole thing.

[00:16:17] Jordan Harbinger: Right. I got to stop you for a second. That is such a dumb, not intelligent place to have that argument with you. She just doesn't understand persuasion at all. Like, "Hey, this is going to get you in trouble, so I want you to go to the guy who's going to get you in trouble. Or we could actually do the right thing for the cat, but in the meantime, I want to cause you all this inconvenience to the point where you might just never do that. And who knows what's going to happen to the cat." If you weren't a good person, you might just be like, "Hmm. I'm not going to get a ticket or arrested, so I'm just going to drop the trap somewhere and never tell anyone."

[00:16:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. And halfway through this conversation, I look at the badge on her shoulder.

[00:16:55] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:16:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: And I realize she's not a security officer. She's an animal control officer, and she's not messing around.

[00:17:00] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, never mind. Yikes.

[00:17:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: I wiggle my way out of this, she gives me that lecture. I run across the parking lot. I go to this clinic that happens to be there. They scan it. No microchip. Everybody in this situation, including the people who are not being very nice, are all like, "Just let this cat go where you found him. Trust me, he's not astray, he's not in trouble. He knows his way around. If nobody claims him in two or three hours, just let him go where you found him.

[00:17:23] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm like, okay, I can do that. So I now drive home and I call my sister Zara and my brother-in-law, Johnny. And who by the way, this whole, for the last three days have been like my 911 dispatch and also my very own personal Better Help because they've just been helping me through this whole situation.

[00:17:40] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:17:41] Gabriel Mizrahi: They make me realize that we now have to do everything we can to find Drake if it means tearing apart my mom's house, every wall to get in there, like we're going to do it. So I needed to hear that and now I'm like springing into even more action. But that hole is in the process of being opened. So, in the meantime, I'm like, I'll try to find some other ways. I go around looking for equipment to find Drake. I'm trying to find like plumbing cameras, microphones, a sledgehammer. All I manage to find is a stethoscope at this weird medical supply store, which I plan to just like hold to the floor in the ceiling to see if I can hear Drake through the floorboards or something. I don't know. I'm desperate at this point, as you can tell.

[00:18:15] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:16] Gabriel Mizrahi: The black cat is still in the car with me. This cat is having a whole adventure with me on this day. It's absurd, and I go back to my mom's house. I release the cat where I find him. He takes off running. He seems to know where he is going. That's the end of that story. And I reset the trap just in case Drake is somehow downstairs. I try the stethoscope like it was the most ridiculous moment of my life, was crawling around my mom's floor, holding a stethoscope to the floorboards and the walls hoping to hear something. I'm just painting a picture of how insane I am.

[00:18:42] Jordan Harbinger: It is crazy though, but at least the contractor's opening the floor and he's not like, "Come on, man, you don't even know if he's in there and I got to rip open the floor," because I might be like that if I were in his shoes. Like, it's not in the floor.

[00:18:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: No, he was cool and he felt terrible for not realizing sooner. So the hole in the bathroom is now open and I go and look at it and it is 100 percent big enough for a cat to slip through and in through this hole there's a crawlspace that's probably three to four feet high and a compartment within that crawlspace that seems to lead to the next floor down. This floor, it looked like the hole they found Saddam Hussein. If you're like, this is all making a lot of sense now, but I can't see him and I can't hear him, so I don't know if he's alive. I am shocked. My mom is like, she's like a zombie. She's just like, I can't believe I miss this. And I'm kind of mad at her, but I'm also mad at the contractor. I'm also mad at myself, like a lot of feelings flying around as you can imagine, I put food and water down in the hole. And we would just wait.

[00:19:38] And in the meantime, I go downstairs to review that security footage, which turns out to be a total red herring. It's the worst security camera footage I've ever seen. It's like from 1997. I'm in the worst true crime podcast ever if you can imagine. It's like the dumbest caper turns out to be a waste of time. And I go back upstairs and my mom is like, "I heard him. I heard him," and she's like freaking out. My heart starts pounding. I'm freaking out. I go inside and I call his name. And I'm like, "Drake. Drake." Like I walk into the bathroom and I'm calling through a whole like, "Drake boy," you know?

[00:20:09] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: And I wait and there's nothing. And there's nothing. And then, all of a sudden I hear meow.

[00:20:15] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, no way.

[00:20:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: I am going out of my skin

[00:20:23] Soundbite: Ta-da.

[00:20:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Exactly. That was the effect playing in my mind.

[00:20:26] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:20:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: I look down in the hole and there's nothing, and I can't see him, but I can hear him a little bit, and then all of a sudden I see his little head pop up in the hole and he's like, "Meow."

[00:20:36] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my gosh.

[00:20:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: And I reach down into the hole, like it's like up to my elbow, down into this crawlspace, and I put my hand down there and he rubbed against my hand. And then I just like moved it around his back and I grabbed the fur on his neck and I don't know why, but I just went into like Liam Neeson and taken moan, I was like, "There's no way. I'm letting go of this cat and I just pull him up through the hole from the fur on the back of his neck and I hold him tight and we're reunited and I'm just like—

[00:21:02] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man.

[00:21:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: —dude, I start tearing up. I'm like laughing. I'm like, I haven't slept more than four or five hours for days. He's lost a lot of weight.

[00:21:09] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:21:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: He's a little skittish.

[00:21:11] Jordan Harbinger: Dehydrated as hell probably.

[00:21:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: He's dehydrated. He's like a little bit weirded out, but he's really like sweet. He's the happiest I've ever seen him. He's meowing, he's purring. He is rolling over. He's just so happy to be back, but not that much worse for where which is incredible. It's a real moment. I just can't even describe it. I was like, I can't believe this saga is over. And it was so sweet. You and Jen were some of the first people I texted with the news and Jen DoorDash us some cat treats, which he loved. He went crazy for them. And Drake has just been extra clingy and affectionate ever since. Like he's still acting sweeter than he usually does and I feel like he got a whole new lease on life. It's really something.

[00:21:50] So anyway, what we think happened is the contractor walked out of the bathroom and like took lunch or went to the bathroom or something.

[00:21:56] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:21:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Left the door open and Drake snuck in and I think he was curious and went down into the hole, or he got scared when the guy was coming back and freaked out and didn't know where to go. So he just ran into the hole. Either way, the contractor didn't know and then covered over the hole with cement and just trapped him underneath the floorboards, which is just really crazy and sad to think about. Must have freaked him out.

[00:22:17] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man. He's just in there exploring and then it's [kadoink] and it's just pitch black.

[00:22:23] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

[00:22:23] Jordan Harbinger: And he's like, wait a minute.

[00:22:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:25] Jordan Harbinger: There's a board where I was going to leave. And then it's like, oh, that's not opening.

[00:22:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: Here's the hole. I know. And now I'm just trapped. He's like in the stranger world upside down, you know?

[00:22:33] Jordan Harbinger: I was just going to say, it's like he's in the upside down where it's just totally black. Can't see anything. Hears other people.

[00:22:39] Gabriel Mizrahi: He can't reach us.

[00:22:40] Jordan Harbinger: He can't meow out loud enough. Can't find the way out. And then, oh, it's so sad. He must have been so sad.

[00:22:46] Gabriel Mizrahi: I've replayed this four days in my head. I mean, he's fine. But anyway, look, I learned a lot from this experience. It was the craziest, weirdest, saddest thing I've probably been through. And you know, I've lost people and that's been very hard and I've cried. But you know, there was something uniquely messed up about this situation and that's actually why I wanted to tell you guys the story. Because I learned a few things that are so connected to the other stuff that we talk about on the show. And one of them is in a situation like this where you don't know what is going on, I've now realized that you have to investigate every single premise.

[00:23:18] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:19] Gabriel Mizrahi: Every single assumption in a situation. My mom was convinced. She was like, "There is no way Drake went down in some hole. There was no hole." That turned out to be 100 percent false.

[00:23:29] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:30] Gabriel Mizrahi: We didn't investigate that assumption ourselves. We just took the contractor's word for it and it took us four days to realize what actually happened. So there's that whole concept of like garbage in, garbage out if you can't trust the data.

[00:23:41] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I will say, when you called me and said, do you have any theories, I was like, he probably crawled into a hole because the contractor's doing something.

[00:23:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:23:48] Jordan Harbinger: And it was like, "No, we're sure that didn't happen because there was no hole. And I'm like—

[00:23:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:23:52] Jordan Harbinger: "Well, if there was no hole, there was no hole at all?"

[00:23:55] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:23:55] Jordan Harbinger: Like he didn't move a board. Nothing? No nothing? Okay. Like if you say so.

[00:24:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: It's so interesting. You just can't trust the data you inherit.

[00:24:03] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:24:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: And you have to do your own research and you have to pressure test every story if you want the real truth. And also this neighbor sent us down this other thing with this other lead and that turned out to be false and—

[00:24:12] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:24:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: —if we had questioned her more closely, she might've said, actually I think it was gray and we would've known. So I think that's true in our world now more than ever. Just these inherited opinions and these inherited perspectives are usually limited and potentially very dangerous.

[00:24:25] The other thing I've learned is that when you're in a crisis, you have to act, and I think a lot of people's instinct and including mine for a couple of hours in the morning on that first day was you just kind of want to collapse and you just want to kind of wait around, which it's sort of natural. You're like, it'll just work itself out and I'll have to be sad and uncomfortable, but I'll be happy with whatever the outcome is. But you have to spring into action. You have to pursue every lead. You have to do everything humanly possible to help, especially if someone precious is missing like a pet or a family member or friend or whatever. But it's bizarre because you also simultaneously have to surrender to the situation and understand your own limits, like what you can actually do. Like you can't be on the street at 2:30 in the morning calling your pet's name if you need to sleep, so you can do it again the next day. So it's a very intense back and forth in that way. But I do think that springing into action also helps with the grief. I noticed that when I was doing something, it gave me a little reprieve from the pain.

[00:25:24] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: And it gives your sadness and your anger some shape. You don't just collapse under it and just, it's kind of like amorphous and just, ugh. It's so hard. It puts it towards some goal, and that really helps.

[00:25:35] The last thing I learned about this situation, Jordan, is that I think this is the first time in my life that I've dealt with ambiguous loss, and we've talked about ambiguous loss on the show a few times. I've never lived it before. Now, I know a little bit about it. It is awful. And so, if you guys don't know, ambiguous loss is basically when there's been some kind of loss, but you don't really know what happened. You don't have the closure or the answer you want. And this is what happens when somebody goes missing, for example, and you don't know where they are or when you break up with somebody and they don't want to talk to you anymore. So you can't have that final, "let's put this to bed' conversation. Not having closure drives your mind insane. And like I said, in many ways, it's worse than what you would consider the worst-case scenario to be. You can grieve a death as painful as that is. But it's really hard to grieve a mystery. My mind was ping-ponging among different scenarios.

[00:26:27] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: And obsessing over situations that I hadn't even considered. And you're just like, there's a movie reel in your head of everything that could be happening, but you don't know which one to trust. And it is torture, that kind of pain. And again, I know that I've experienced a relatively mild form of it. It's for an animal, it's not a child or a spouse or a parent. And it was only four days, which is like, some people—

[00:26:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:26:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: —go through this for months or years—

[00:26:50] Jordan Harbinger: Or years.

[00:26:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: —which is just crazy—

[00:26:52] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:26:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Or the rest of their lives. But this kind of pain has a really interesting way of forcing you to accept what is happening. And it really clarifies what you can and cannot control. And it makes you do whatever you have to do the thing that's in front of you at that moment and not dwell on a bunch of other thoughts. And it's so hard to explain, but it just like narrows your world down to the things that matter and everything else becomes secondary or irrelevant. And that's not a fun experience to go through. But I don't know, there's some spiritual lesson in there somewhere that it just really forces you to realize what you can't do and what you can do and just to do that, probably the worst thing I've ever experienced. Again., and I know that makes me fortunate forsooth, but I just wanted to share that with you guys in case it helps.

[00:27:40] And I also just want to say before we wrap up here, if you ever have a pet missing, please hit me up. I will do everything I can to help. So many people gave me tips for finding Drake, including a lot of you guys. You guys are the best, just you were amazing. I posted about this on Instagram and a bunch of you reached out, and I will absolutely pass that along to anybody else who ends up going through this. Losing a pet is terrible. It's the worst. It's one of the worst things, but there is a way to maximize your chances of finding them, and I will help anybody, whoever needs it, the way people help me, I'm more than happy to do that.

[00:28:13] So just do me a favor. If you ever do any work on your house, put your pets in a separate room, give them food, and give them water, and just do not let them near the site. You'll avoid a lot of heartache that way. Also, make sure your contact information on their microchips is up to date. I found out that Drake's microchip hadn't even been registered until after he was gone, which was crazy. And we should have been on top of that. And most importantly, if you do have a pet, hug them extra tight.

[00:28:37] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:38] Gabriel Mizrahi: You know how precious they are, but they're even more precious than you think. And I've been doing that every day since Drake went missing, and I feel very lucky. And it's a wild thing and I just wanted to share that with you guys.

[00:28:51] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Quite the saga. So glad he's back, but also good job turning this into a learning lesson for everybody else on the show. Unfortunately, that happened to you, but thank God for the happy ending, eh?

[00:29:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I know. I feel very lucky. Thank you.

[00:29:04] Jordan Harbinger: Well, you know who won't disappear on you? The amazing sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back.

[00:29:12] This episode is sponsored in part by Angi's List. Angi's List is now Angi, that's A-N-G-I. They've made it easier than ever to get all your home projects done right. My 80-year-old dad stubbornly refused to hire people to do the yard work, which is driving me nuts. He was getting sunburned every weekend, spending hours mowing the lawn, made absolutely no sense. I'm all about leaving these types of projects to professionals because you know, econ 101 hiring professionals ensures the project's going to be done correctly, safely, efficiently, little less sunburn, potentially saves more time and money in the long run. Thankfully, he finally came around when I presented the numbers. If you're in need of a plumber, electrician, HVAC, cleaning, home renovation, or more, get your next project done with the help of a pro from Angi. Angi has over 20 years of home service experience, and they've combined it with new tools to simplify the whole process, just bring them your project online or with the Angi app, answer a few questions and Angi can handle the rest from start to finish. Or help you see ratings and reviews, compare quotes from local pros and connect instantly, which means you can cross things off your to-do list in just a few taps. Because whether it's routine maintenance or a dream remodel, Angi makes it easy. Download the free Angi mobile app today or visit angi.com. That's A-N-G-I.com.

[00:30:22] This episode is also sponsored by Starbucks. Life moves fast. Starbucks' ready-to-drink coffee delivers an uplifting boost that helps you tune into the moments that matter wherever you are. Starbucks coffee, conveniently packaged for life on the go. As a dad of two, my hands are full, usually of, well, you don't want to know, and I'm always on the go. I ain't nobody got time to whip up a fancy coffee beverage to kickstart the day. But you do need that caffeine bump. I got diapers to change. I got little teeth to brush, tiny butts to wipe, a lot of wiping. Anyone with kids knows how chaotic mornings are. That's why I love that I can grab a bottled frappuccino chilled coffee drink and have my favorite Starbucks coffee ready to go. Lubricate these vocal cords right before my podcast interview, like the one you're listening to right now. We love the range of Starbucks, ready-to-drink coffee, plethora of options, depending on what mood you're in. My go-to is the classic chilled cafe latte. I usually don't sweet tooth it up with the frappuccino, honestly, but it is fun to say for frappuccino. And if I need an extra boost to conquer the day I go for the nitro cold brew but that stuff makes me vibrate. So I use it like a weapon. We stock our drink fridge with Starbucks ready-to-drink coffee, so it's within arms reach and it's a perfect treat whenever we have guests over. People raid that ish.

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[00:31:57] Now, back to Feedback Friday.

[00:32:00] All right, next up.

[00:32:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: Hey, Jordan and Gabe. Five years ago I moved back to my home state after almost a decade. I didn't know anyone, aside from my family and high school friends, and I had zero connections outside of my small town. At the time, I had just gone through a train-the-trainer coaching program, which turned out to be a scam and wanted to start my business as a certified coach based on the skills that they taught. I did what they recommended and started going to networking events and having coffee dates with people I met, and everything about it felt gross and overwhelming. Finally, I got to the point of having a mental breakdown in my car after one of those meetings and gave up on the business idea entirely. I ended up accepting a $5,000 loss on that program and focused on healing from everything I'd gone through up to that point, and I am so happy I did. I've since discovered that the majority of my past experiences, including that coaching program, drilled in the idea that I needed to be a chameleon of sorts to be who I thought the person in front of me wanted or needed me to be, and tailoring my pitch and my entire self to be that person. Sadly, many of my relationships had been transactional, and I was treating those connections that way, or felt like I needed to have something to offer to even feel relevant to them. It was all very inauthentic and exhausting. These days, I have a much easier time showing up as myself because I have a more solid idea of who I am. Everything I've learned in the last five years has brought me to a new field and I want to get out there and connect with people again. But I still have fears and reservations, especially because I'll likely run into many of the people I met before and I wonder if they have a weird taste in their mouth about that not-me person from years ago. Do you have any advice on how I can rekindle past connections and make new ones in a non-gross way? Would it help to reach out to some of the people I met before who I'd like to meet again? And be like, "Hey, we met a while back and it was probably weird. I was going through some sh*t. Just wanted to say hi again" Signed, Rewriting this Toxicity With My Brand New Authenticity.

[00:34:06] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. This tracks with these shady coaching programs—

[00:34:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yep.

[00:34:11] Jordan Harbinger: In addition to being lame and BS-y, they also tend to encourage people to view their friends. The whole world really through the lens of what they can get. It's like a multi-level marketing scam.

[00:34:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:22] Jordan Harbinger: How they make people like them so they can achieve something, which is obviously a recipe for inauthenticity and transactional relationships. And it's really gross. It's incredibly shortsighted. And to your point, it is a great way to become totally disillusioned and frankly friendless. I love that you understand how your past experiences created the idea that you need to be a shape-shifter to attract people. That's actually a terrific insight, and that's precisely the quality that these coaching programs tap into because most people are conditioned that way, and that's the principle that allows the virus of these coaching programs to perpetuate itself.

[00:35:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: Hmm.

[00:35:04] Jordan Harbinger: So I'm really proud of you for seeing that, for what it was, and reconnecting with yourself. It's not easy to do that. In fact, a lot of people get to the point where you did, where they have a breakdown and they just wonder why they're not happy or rich or popular or whatever the program promised them, and instead of doing what you did, they go deeper into the program. They doubled down on the curriculum, which only makes it harder to heal and grow. Gabe and I actually talked about the reasons for that in our episode with Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames about the NXIVM cult. That's episode 770 and 771, and we'll link to that in the show notes. We also explored it on our deep dive about scam psychology, which is episode 395. I think that stuff is always super interesting.

[00:35:47] Anyway, all that to say, I'm proud of you for all this, and I love your mindset these days, so about rekindling past connections, making new ones in a non-gross way. I think you're already 80 percent of the way there just by showing up as yourself, knowing who you are, not needing an agenda or a product or certain qualities to be worthy of someone's interest. When you get rid of these ideas, and that's some deep work right there, when you put that stuff aside, then you're already in a position to build relationships in a non-gross way because you're not operating from that fearful and needy place. You're not putting your interactions through a lens of what does this person need from me or what can I get from them. Plus, given what you've been through, you know what real relationships actually feel like. You're humbler. Now you're more vulnerable, you're more human. That's a wonderful quality and that's the quality that attracts the right people for the right reasons. And you really can't fake that. I've had friends who tried it doesn't work. I put friends in air quotes because I don't know who they are. They're a fake person all the time. And they're kind of like an onion with unlimited layers so far. It's very odd.

[00:36:55] As for rekindling old connections, I actually like the script that you pitched. You know, "Hey, we met a while back. Sorry if I seemed a little weird back then. I was going through some stuff. It probably came through in our chat. Just wanted to say hi again and see how you're doing." Nothing wrong with that. If people engage, great. You can hop on the phone, you can grab coffee, you can stick to texting, whatever it is. You can tell 'em a bit about what was going on at the time, what you learned, why you're reaching out. Again, totally fair game, but it's also possible that some people won't respond. They just don't want to go there. They're too busy. Life has moved on. That's also totally fine. You understand why. You know, it's not even necessarily a reflection of you. It's maybe a reflection of that, not you that you were back then, or completely unrelated, which again, it just confirms that you're on the right path.

[00:37:44] Gabriel Mizrahi: Ah, such a good point. And I agree with all of that. I would only just add that I would be very thoughtful about the people you try to reconnect with, and I would probably only pursue the people you actually enjoyed talking to and you actually want a real friendship with, rather than contacting everybody you met back then as some kind of huge PR blitz, you know, to set the record straight for your own comfort. Because when you look back, it's just too cringe to think about how you were back then.

[00:38:09] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's interesting, right? Because then she might be slipping back into that old mindset where she's trying to get something from other people. Even if that's something is just, I don't know—

[00:38:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:38:19] Jordan Harbinger: —approval or forgiveness or whatever.

[00:38:21] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. Yes. And not, I'm not saying you're necessarily doing that or even that's entirely bad. I totally get it. But if there's a part of you that needs these people's approval in order to forgive yourself, hmm, I would think twice. Part of this journey you're on, I think, is accepting that some people might have had that impression, and that's okay, and you don't need to win everybody back over. So if you're going to rekindle these connections, I would do it in order to build authentic relationships, the ones that are aligned with this person you are now. And do it with people you like, not just to manage their perception of you, you know, retroactively or make yourself feel better.

[00:38:56] Jordan Harbinger: It's a fair point, Gabe, because that's how she ended up here in the first place, right?

[00:39:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:39:00] Jordan Harbinger: So funny how this stuff can creep through in the back door, so to speak.

[00:39:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:06] Jordan Harbinger: So keep doing what you're doing, keep moving forward and keep an eye on all this inauthenticity stuff because it does have a way of creeping in for all of us in different ways. And if you ever notice those old thoughts or those old patterns returning, just notice them, appreciate why they've popped up again and come back to home base, which is, you know, "I'm a solid person, I'm good. I'm not here to get anything from this person. I'm just here to get to know them." Be real, have fun, let the relationship take care of itself.

[00:39:33] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:34] Jordan Harbinger: That's really all you have to do. And yes, when it's appropriate, you can tell people the story of what happened to you with this program because it is fascinating and humanizing. And I think that'll go a long way too. Also, if you want to learn more about how to become more authentic and which is a word that I know also is kind of cringe. It's one of Gabe and Mine's favorite topics, check out a Feedback Friday we did. What? A month and change ago. That was episode 822—

[00:39:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:58] Jordan Harbinger: —where we talk about the best way to become more authentic without falling back into the trap of pretending you're someone you're not or pretending to be authentic, right? I think that would be a great listen for you right now, and I'm so proud of you for doing the work and coming so far. You're absolutely on the right track and good luck.

[00:40:15] You can reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a lot easier. If there's something you're going through a big decision you're wrestling with, or if you just need a new perspective on life, love, work. Whether you should leave your wife to gallivant around the world with men half your age? Uh, that beach shack in Bali. Whatever's keeping you up at night lately, hit us up friday@jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous.

[00:40:43] Okay. Next up.

[00:40:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, my son is married to a beautiful, smart, talented half-Korean woman and they have two children. Before they had kids, we all seemed to get along well. After they're first born, though, we apparently said or did something wrong every time we got together, and that's when we first started noticing the tension with them. Since then, every time we visit, there's been some blow up between our son and his wife. She accused him of, quote-unquote, "taking our side" and threatened that if he didn't side with her against us, she was leaving. These issues have never been addressed in the moment and never with us. For example, a couple of years ago, we watched the kids so that they could have some couple time. We thought everything went splendidly only to find out that we couldn't watch the kids, quote-unquote, "for a long time." I was so deeply hurt and confused. I confronted her directly that didn't go well.

[00:41:36] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:41:37] Gabriel Mizrahi: Our son knows that many of these accusations aren't true. He just doesn't want to have World War III with his wife. He's told us that she has anger management issues and has been paranoid about other things he doesn't understand. There are also in-law difficulties on all sides in their family, anger, not speaking, throwing things. This all seems to be acceptable behavior. Separately, their oldest child has always been emotionally challenging. I have begged our son to get counseling to sort all of this out. He'll go for a couple of sessions, but when things settle down to a dull roar for a couple of days, he quits because it's expensive and doesn't change things. I'm so distressed about being accused of things I didn't think or do and about seeing my son suffer this emotional abuse, but we stay silent and just keep telling him to get counseling, but then he's a grown ass man and needs to figure this out himself. Recently, I read a book about understanding cultural differences. One paragraph specifically talked about how Korean women can sometimes view American women as aggressive. I admittedly have a thick skin and a more pragmatic and realistic approach to life situations. So maybe that's part of this. How can we have a relationship with our grandkids without adding to our son's stress? Is there a cultural difference we can learn to manage better? Signed, A Laidback Ma in Absolute Awe At My Daughter-in-Law's Chutzpah.

[00:43:05] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, boy, this is tough. Your daughter-in-law, look, we don't know what's going on in her head and we only have your side of the story here, but I'm getting the sense that this is a very difficult person.

[00:43:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: Hmm.

[00:43:17] Jordan Harbinger: Very difficult. And the fact that this sort of thing is happening in other parts of the family, that definitely paints a picture of a family that has probably always struggled to talk.

[00:43:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:27] Jordan Harbinger: Communicate fairly, resolve conflicts. It's not just you guys. I mean, when they said throwing things is normal, that's not normal.

[00:43:34] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

[00:43:35] Jordan Harbinger: No.

[00:43:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: Not good. Not normal. Yeah. Because if there's a legitimate problem, it doesn't have to be extra complicated because you're yelling and or not talking. I also think it's interesting that their oldest child is having some emotional challenges. Something's going on there.

[00:43:47] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I'm not surprised by that in the least. I'm sure their kids are absorbing all sorts of stuff from parents like these, especially from a mother like this.

[00:43:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

[00:43:56] Jordan Harbinger: It sucks. We know kids act out when there's trouble in the household like this. You know, they do things like they bite themselves when they want to feel something other than the stress in the house. I mean, it's really sad. So this definitely falls into the situations you can't fix overnight or maybe ever category. So much of this is out of your control, but Gabe and I like taking questions like this from time to time because it really is a good question.

[00:44:22] How do you work on things that you can't just change on your own? So to cut to the chase, you have a few levers here. Lever number one, your son, in my view, he's the one perpetuating the situation. Yes, his wife might be the primary aggressor, but he's definitely giving her a wide birth in enabling her to some degree. Until he decides to step up a little more, have some real conversations with her about why these conflicts keep coming up, why they're so severe, how they can get on better. I just don't see the situation changing. He basically needs to man up here and yes, therapy would be super helpful for him, but it sounds like he either hasn't found the right therapist yet. Or he's just not really engaging with the process and it sounds like, "Oh, I went once and it was expensive and it doesn't change anything." It's like, what do you mean? You went, what are you talking about?

[00:45:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: Three times. Yeah. And then you gave up. Mm-hmm.

[00:45:13] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. He finds it hard to stick with it or put what he's learning into action. And it sounds like he's just a big old whisky, in my opinion.

[00:45:19] Gabriel Mizrahi: Which, yeah, to your point, might be another aspect of the same pattern that is happening in his house, right? He's shrinking from conflict. He's sidestepping tough conversations.

[00:45:29] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I'm just getting an image of a guy who is wilting and that's the image that comes to mind.

[00:45:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: Hmm.

[00:45:36] Jordan Harbinger: His face is kind of blurred in my head, but his shoulders are hunched over and his wife takes up all the space and when he wants to say something and she doesn't want him to, he doesn't, he's not allowed. It's sad.

[00:45:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: He sounds scared and he sounds defeated.

[00:45:49] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's just like, whatever, I'm tired, I'm scared of you. And I'm tapping out—

[00:45:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:54] Jordan Harbinger: —which is precisely why he needs to be in therapy. But the problem, as you know well, is that it's just not clear that he's going to do the work. So we're back to this old chestnut. You can't make your son do anything that he's not ready to do. If I were his dad, I would absolutely invite him to talk about what's going on. I would make it safe for him to explore this stuff with you. I would help him get clear on whether he's happy with his relationships, with his wife, with his kids, with you. And yes, I would definitely encourage him to find a good therapist and actually stick with it. But the really frustrating thing is accepting that this is the person your son wants to be. Regardless of what he says, actions are saying everything here. This is who he wants to be for now, anyway.

[00:46:37] So lever number two, your son's wife. It sounds like is probably where most of this stuff originates, but sadly, I don't have a whole lot of high hopes here. You already tried to talk to her directly and it imploded and look, I don't know how that went down exactly. You said you have a thick skin. You're pragmatic, you're realistic. I don't know if you cornered her in the laundry room one day and you're like, "Look, jackass, I think we both know you're not a big fan of ours. I'm not crazy about you either, but let's nip this in the bud. What the hell is your problem? I mean, also, why are you using Tide? You should be using Seventh Generation. It's non-toxin.

[00:47:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: You know, this woman is a Tide person too. Tide Pods.

[00:47:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, a hundred percent. This is a Tide Pods lady to the core.

[00:47:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yep.

[00:47:19] Jordan Harbinger: And we have Tide Pods. Anyway, it's impossible — or at least imitation Tide Pods. I don't know. I don't eat them though, like the kids do these days.

[00:47:25] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's still happening.

[00:47:26] Jordan Harbinger: I don't think so. That's one of those things that probably never really, it was probably in two TikToks and it's like, "Oh, a slow news day. Let's write articles about this."

[00:47:34] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sure.

[00:47:35] Jordan Harbinger: It's impossible for us to know — not the detergent thing, but it may, maybe the way you approached her, rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe it activated her defenses and that made things worse. Or who knows, maybe you handled this perfectly well and she still blew up at you because she unable—

[00:47:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: I think that's what happens.

[00:47:51] Jordan Harbinger: That's what it sounds like. It sounds like—

[00:47:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what it sounds like to me.

[00:47:54] Jordan Harbinger: —they were reasonable. And she's like, "Oh my God, I'm totally messed up, and all my patterns got triggered and the only thing I know now know how to do now is break plates and hold a grudge."

[00:48:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, think about what we know about her, right? She's paranoid. He doesn't even know half the stuff she's paranoid about and she flies off the handle, just like at the smallest thing. This woman is difficult to talk to, but I love that she tried to do that. I really do.

[00:48:17] Jordan Harbinger: Same here. Yeah. But because the big theme in the story is avoidance, right?

[00:48:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:48:22] Jordan Harbinger: Everybody in this situation will be walking on eggshells. At least she tried to resolve this with her directly.

[00:48:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: I really commend her for that. That could not have been easy.

[00:48:31] Jordan Harbinger: With a personality like this lady Tide Pods, she of the screaming and the paranoia and with their grandchildren at stake, I mean, yeah, it takes cojones.

[00:48:40] So lever number three, yourselves. If they're not going to change, you guys have to change. And that change, it could mean a few things. It could mean pulling back a little or not getting as involved in their lives or just accepting the relationship they want on their terms and letting them work this out. It could mean taking another look at how you guys interact with them, how you might be contributing to this dynamic. Candidly, it's just hard for me to see how you guys could be responsible for a lot of this stuff. It honestly sounds like your daughter-in-law is out of her freaking tree, but even with crazy people, maybe we always play some role, right? Even if it's not our fault, so to speak. Maybe you roll your eyes when she says something annoying. I don't know. Maybe it is walking on eggshells around her too, and that makes her notice that. I have no idea. Maybe it's overstepping, sometimes not stepping in enough. I'll let you decide what piece of this you guys actually do control, but whatever happens, this is my advice. Stay close to your son. Don't meddle too much in his marriage. Be a friend to him. Invite him to talk. Encourage him to get some support. Stay close to your grandkids as much as you can. I know it's complicated, but if their mom is nuts and their dad won't stand up to her and that's just the house they grow up in. They're going to need other good family members around. And as they get older, mom and dad aren't going to be the gatekeepers as much. You know, you'll be able to visit without them around. You might, they might have phones they can talk to you on. You guys can make plans on your own. You can talk to them more as young adults. That's what I do. Preserve your connection with them.

[00:50:14] Gabriel Mizrahi: Excellent advice. And as for the cultural differences aspect of this, I really appreciate that you're so curious about that. It's obviously a very real thing and yes, it could be playing a role here for sure, but honestly what you're describing does not sound like a cultural issue to me. It sounds to me like your daughter-in-law is all the things we've been saying, controlling, paranoid, angry, kind of vindictive. Could that be informed by culture? Sure. And you trying to understand that might help you make progress with her, but to me this, this really, this isn't culture, right, Jordan? This is personality.

[00:50:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's a personality issue. She's just kind of a nightmare.

[00:50:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:49] Jordan Harbinger: I wonder how her relationship was with her parents. I mean, didn't they mention throwing and breaking things was normal?

[00:50:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally.

[00:50:55] Jordan Harbinger: It sounds like she probably had a wild slash crappy childhood and is maybe projecting that onto her in-laws or working something out through them, right? She can't yell at her own parents because it's going to be a whole world of drama. So she's like, I'm just going to be mad at your parents instead, I mean something that might actually have little or nothing to actually do with them at all.

[00:51:15] Gabriel Mizrahi: The thing that really jumped out of me was that she accused her husband of taking his parents' side and then threatened that if he didn't side with her, she was going to leave. I mean, unless these grandparents did something truly awful that they haven't told us in this letter, that's a very troubling position to take. To me, that paints a picture of somebody who. Is very rigid, very black or white. I think this woman probably has trouble living in the gray area of healthy conflict where, you know, you acknowledge that the other person might have a point, or you might be somewhat wrong, or both parties are right. I mean, she didn't arrive at this position thoughtfully, slowly after trying to talk to them kindly and figure out what the problem is with their in-laws. This is a person who, from the sound of it, interprets any kind of challenge or disagreement as a threat and is actually looking for those problems where they might not exist. That's a very tough obstacle to overcome.

[00:52:08] Jordan Harbinger: That's a really good way of putting it. There's no give here.

[00:52:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:52:11] Jordan Harbinger: You're either on this woman's team or you're the enemy—

[00:52:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:14] Jordan Harbinger: —which is, obviously, a dysfunctional way of going through life.

[00:52:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yep.

[00:52:18] Jordan Harbinger: And it's a great way to make enemies wherever you go, but like we said at the top, that's not a partner, that's a dictator. And you can't reason with dictators, they're not interested.

[00:52:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:27] Jordan Harbinger: So the biggest part of this for you guys, will be working through that sadness in the meantime. And yeah, don't add to your son's stress, but I also wouldn't work too hard to spare him that stress either because he has some important things to confront himself and that's not always going to be fun. So be kind, be patient, be available, and hope for the best. Sending you guys good thoughts. Little Miss Tide Pods, I mean, she's got her own stuff to work on.

[00:52:53] Gabe, stories like this make me feel so lucky to have married into Jen's family.

[00:52:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, I get that.

[00:52:58] Jordan Harbinger: We all get along great. I know that's probably the exception. There's never any drama or maybe they secretly hate me and they're just good at hiding it. I don't know.

[00:53:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, you know, you guys got that Seventh Generation vibe, right? You're non-toxic, you're gentle on the skin.

[00:53:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Weirdest compliment ever. But I hear you. I appreciate it.

[00:53:14] You know what won't alienate you from your own family? The amazing products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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[00:54:37] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by Better Help. Life's unpredictable. Sometimes we need a little extra support to navigate through stuff that's where Better Help comes in. Now, I want you to imagine having access to your own licensed therapist from the comfort of your own home without ever having to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room, you know your eyeballing people like, "I wonder what that guy's going to talk about," or get in the car and you don't have to drive and park, especially when you don't even want to get out of bed. You've had those days. That's the beauty of Better Help. It is professional online counseling that is tailored to your needs. And one thing I love about Better Help is that they have a network of over 20,000 therapists with a broad range of expertise. So, whether you're dealing with anxiety, stress, depression, or relationship issues, they got you covered. The process is very simple. Fill out a questionnaire. They assess your needs. They match you with somebody who's a good fit. If you don't click, get a new one. No worries. Better Help makes it easy and free of charge to change counselors until you find the right one. Better yet, communicate through secure video, phone or messaging. Choose whichever method works for you. Plus access to your counselor 24/7 via messaging so you're never alone in your journey. Now I know what you're thinking. It's probably super expensive. Not really. It's more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and they even offer financial aid to those who need it.

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[00:55:58] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is sponsored in part by Scotts Turf Builder. Grow Grass Fast with Scotts Turf Builder Rapid Grass. It's a revolutionary mix of seed and fertilizer that grows full green grass in just weeks. It helps you solve your lawn's, large problem areas, and establishes new grass in no time. Seed and feed your lawn back to the top of its game fast so you can speed your way to enjoying it. Pick up a bag of Scotts Turf Builder Rapid Grass today. It's guaranteed or your money back. Feed your lawn, feed it.

[00:56:24] If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our sponsors. To learn more and get links to all the discounts, all the codes, URLs, they're all in one place, jordanharbinger.com/deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Thank you so much for supporting those who support the show.

[00:56:49] Now back to Feedback Friday.

[00:56:51] Okay, what's next?

[00:56:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a recently single lesbian, and I was with my ex for 10 years. We didn't date before we got engaged because lesbians. So it's been a really long time since I dated anyone.

[00:57:06] Jordan Harbinger: There's that U-Haul thing again, Gabe. That's a thing.

[00:57:09] Gabriel Mizrahi: Did you see the movie Tár, by the way?

[00:57:11] Jordan Harbinger: No. What is it about dinosaur fossils or something?

[00:57:16] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sorry for that weird laugh. I just did. That really was hilarious. Uh, no, it's not about dinosaur fossils. It's a movie with Cate Blanchett that came out last year. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, there's this part where she refers to herself as a U-Haul lesbian in front of everybody, and it just made me think of that question we took from that woman whose girlfriend was still talking to all of her exes. Do you remember that?

[00:57:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's a great term. Apparently, it's a very real thing.

[00:57:40] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:40] Jordan Harbinger: And I've heard Tár is super interesting, but I'm just worried about getting sucked into something disturbing. I mean, Cate Blanchett, man, intense.

[00:57:46] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, she goes there. She takes you there. Okay, so the letter goes on.

[00:57:51] I joined some dating sites because I don't know how else to meet people, and I've met a few women so far. One of the women I met is substantially younger than me. I'm 43 and she's 31. We have a lot of fun together. We're both pretty dorky. We went to a club a few weeks ago for ladies night. She kissed me. It was good. The next day, she told me that was her first kiss. I completely freaked out, obviously, if that was her first kiss. She's a virgin. I've been with a few first timers and afterwards they thought they were in love with me. I'm afraid that if I have sex with her, she'll think the same. I really do care for her, but I'm not ready for a relationship and I don't want to really teach someone how to be a lesbian. Am I being selfish? Do I get over myself and just go for it? Or do I let her go before I break her heart? Signed, Getting Delirious About This Inexperience Before It Gets Too Serious.

[00:58:45] Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, this is the greatest humble brag I've ever heard on the show. "Help! All these new lesbians fall in love with me after we sleep together once. Life is so hard, weh."

[00:58:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Weh. Yeah, totally. What's the lesbian equivalent of dickmatized?

[00:58:58] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, good question. Climatized? That's a little dirty.

[00:59:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a little, I like it though. Or maybe snatched.

[00:59:06] Jordan Harbinger: That's worse, but I like it. Okay. Well, there goes our clean rating on Apple Podcasts, at least for this episode. All right, so you have a bit of a reputation for snatching these women. These women be straight snatched after you all get together.

[00:59:20] So I can certainly understand your concern here. You're not being entirely selfish if you don't want to teach people how to be a lesbian and you're not ready for a relationship. I think that's fair. I think there's nothing wrong with that. But this woman does sound pretty great, and you guys are compatible. You're both dorky. You have fun together. The kissing was good, and that maybe doesn't come around too often. So I'd hate for you to write something off or someone off too quickly and miss out on something great.

[00:59:46] So honestly, I think this problem gets solved with some basic communication. I wonder what would happen if you just told this woman, "Hey listen, I really like spending time with you. I'm having a lot of fun. I think there's something exciting here, but I want to be open with you. I'm not quite ready for a relationship yet, and I'm not sure where you are in your journey, but I'm not too keen on teaching somebody how to be gay. So I just want to be very upfront about that and see how you're feeling about all this and make sure you're okay with that before we continue." I mean, is that so bad? I think those are fair feelings and goals in a relationship. Gabe, am I missing anything?

[01:00:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: No, I don't think so. I agree.

[01:00:24] Jordan Harbinger: Two straight dudes talking about being a lesbian though.

[01:00:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I know. Like let's coach the lesbians on how to talk. I think they know how to talk well enough. And I do think it's way easier to say something like that after a few weeks. Then after a few months, once the other person has caught feelings and settled into the relationship and they're already, you know, they're already snatched.

[01:00:44] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, this is definitely a pre-snatched conversation.

[01:00:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: Post-snatched gets a lot more complicated.

[01:00:50] Jordan Harbinger: That would be a good way to word off the whole snatch syndrome in the first place.

[01:00:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, absolutely. But what I'm curious to know is I get that she's not ready for a relationship. Totally fine. But what's difficult for her about teaching someone how to be a lesbian and also when she says that she means she doesn't want to teach her how to like go out in public together and how to talk to people about it and just how to get comfortable with the whole dynamic, right? That's what she's referring to.

[01:01:14] Jordan Harbinger: I think so. Unless she meant more like. Bedroom mechanics, but I don't, I mean, there's probably a learning curve there for first-timers.

[01:01:21] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, okay.

[01:01:22] Jordan Harbinger: There certainly was for me.

[01:01:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, that's true.

[01:01:25] Jordan Harbinger: But I also didn't, never mind, you all don't need the details. You understand why that's the case. But yeah, I think she means more like, okay, you know, do you tell your friends and then you have to come out and then you have to explain this.

[01:01:37] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[01:01:37] Jordan Harbinger: And then there's all these different rules that obviously two straight dudes don't know anything about. Maybe that's what they mean.

[01:01:43] Gabriel Mizrahi: Although she did say that means she's a virgin, right? So then, there's that whole thing.

[01:01:47] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Yeah, that's part of it.

[01:01:47] Gabriel Mizrahi: So maybe she means all of it, both of these things, which I can definitely appreciate.

[01:01:51] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[01:01:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: But then again, everybody is on different points in the journey, right? Our friend here is 43, this other woman is 31. She's obviously still coming to terms with her orientation and yeah, she's a bit of a late bloomer, but I'm guessing that's not entirely her fault. I mean, who knows what her life story was? It's just different timelines. So I guess I wonder what helping this woman settle into the relationship is bringing up for you? Does it annoy you? Are you getting impatient? Do you maybe resent having to play that role for somebody else? Like what? What's going on underneath that?

[01:02:24] Jordan Harbinger: Right. That's the question. Because if she's just like, "Ugh, I want somebody who's already there. I don't have time to teach somebody how to be my very own personal Cate Blanchett, that's not my problem." I might say, uh, hang on a minute, you really like this woman. She's just catching up. Maybe take a beat and be a little more understanding. But if what she's saying is more along the lines of, "Okay, this role of initiating somebody makes me kind of uneasy. It's not really my place. I just want to settle down with somebody who's closer to what I am in this journey." And then I would say, okay, those are more fair concerns. I would dig into that. What makes you uneasy about it? What makes you feel like it's not your place? What are you looking for in a long-term partner? And if you can get to the heart of that, then I think you're going to answer your question pretty well.

[01:03:09] So are you being selfish? Do you need to get over yourself? That depends on what you do with all this information. Nothing wrong with being self-oriented in a relationship. You got to take your own needs seriously.. But maybe the better question is, are your needs the only ones that matter? How do they fit with those of this woman? And do your feelings for her change any of that? Because again, it sounds like there might be something promising here. Totally up to you. But I wouldn't just let this woman go just because she's newer to this, just to avoid some heartache down the road or headache in the short term, it feels a little premature.

[01:03:44] So your best bet is to talk to her. Keep checking in with her and yourself about what you both really want right now. But you don't need us to tell you that you guys are lesbians. All you guys do is talk. So that's what got you into this mess in the first place, remember? Have fun, stay open, be fair. You'll be fine. Good luck. And too bad there's no masterclass on how to be a lesbian, Gabe. Who would teach that? Is that a Rosie O'Donnell course, or is that a Kara's Wisher course? Look, if I'm going to learn how to be a lesbian, I probably, I'd probably roll with Kara Swisher, but this is a matter of personal preference.

[01:04:15] Gabriel Mizrahi: Can you imagine if you just meet a woman who's just coming to terms with this, and then you're like, "Look, I need you to catch up. I'm just going to buy you a year subscription to Masterclass." Just—

[01:04:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[01:04:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Watch the one with Cate Blanchett. Watch the one with Rosie O'Donnell. Watch Kara. You know, just like—

[01:04:29] Jordan Harbinger: And the Malcolm Gladwell one will help you with your writing career, but stick with, here's the one about being gay. Start with that one.

[01:04:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: We'll go on a date in three months when you do all those worksheets.

[01:04:37] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Exactly. Exactly.

[01:04:39] Before we wrap up here, we wanted to share a great email we got from a listener recently. So, as you might remember, a couple of months back, we took a question from a woman who had been ghosted by multiple recruiters after going through several rounds of interviews at a bunch of companies. No rejection, no feedback, just crickets. She was starting to panic that it was going to happen again and again, and she wanted to know how to handle it. That was episode 800, by the way, if you want to check it out. A lot of people seem to be going through this, by the way. So we shared some thoughts about how to work through the anxiety, prepare for the interviews, but after the episode aired, one of our longtime listeners who works as a recruiter for one of the big tech companies, she sent us an email with some absolutely killer advice. If you're interviewing for jobs right now, which a lot of you are, or you're thinking about how to set yourself up for a job search or you're an employer on the other side of this equation, I think this is money.

[01:05:30] Gabe, you want to read that for us?

[01:05:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sure.

[01:05:33] Hey, Jordan and Gabe, I just listened to that Feedback Friday episode about the woman being ghosted by those companies and just could not help myself from emailing you guys to add some color because I am fired up. I've been a recruiter for five years and have been recruiting at one of the big four tech companies for the last three and a half years. I thought your responses to the question were totally valid and covered everything I would've said. I would love to add a few things though to further validate this person's awful job-hunting experience, and hopefully help them identify companies with better processes in the future. It sounds like this person has been a victim to multiple horrible candidate experiences, which is unacceptable and unlucky. A company's interview process is closely tied to their employer's brand and public image, and if it's awful, word will get out. In my experience, any company worth interviewing for should prioritize candidate experience above all else. But this listener's industry could also be playing a part in the consistently bad experiences. For example, in tech, most companies have invested resources into providing a generally good candidate experience. Other industries might not have the funding for or see the value in having established recruiting operations, which is unfortunate and doesn't really excuse the bad experience. A good candidate experience should definitely include, but is not limited to one, the recruiter setting expectations around when you're going to hear back. Two, actually following up with the decision, and three, providing feedback as to why you didn't get the job depending on the company. Long story short, good recruiters are empathetic and have great follow-through, but there are unfortunately just as many bad ones out there as good ones, and they give the entire recruiting population a bad rep.

[01:07:18] So my advice for this person is, number one, I would advise sending a thank you note to the hiring manager or whoever interviewed you over LinkedIn or email if you have it, saying something along the lines of, "Thanks so much for the interview. I enjoyed speaking with the team, et cetera, et cetera. I never heard back from recruiter regarding your decision, so I assume you decided to go with another candidate for this role. I appreciate your consideration and would be interested in exploring future roles within your company." Something simple, probably a 50/50 chance that they'll reply, hopefully, to at least give you some closure. A good manager would be mortified if they ever found out that you were just left hanging and would try to rectify the situation.

[01:07:55] Advice number two, be honest with future recruiters about your experience with past recruiters. I recommend being upfront at the beginning of the process by telling the recruiters something like, "I just want to share that I've recently had a few poor experiences with recruiters and I've been left hanging after my second or third round and never heard back. I'm not saying you're going to do that, but I would really appreciate it if you could just get back to me after my interview with the decision as soon as possible. I'm exploring a number of other opportunities. I just want to ensure that our timelines align, and if I don't get the job, I would love to know what I need to work on in the future."

[01:08:28] Good recruiters are here to shepherd candidates through the interview process and get you the job. We want you to get the job. Oftentimes that comes down to building a good relationship with the candidate and earning their trust, which will increase the likelihood of them accepting the offer. Building trust. That starts in the first conversation and being a partner to candidates throughout.

[01:08:50] And the last piece of advice, use Glassdoor for your research and share your experience. Warn future candidates about these companies' horrible recruiting practices. Hopefully, somebody at the company will see the review and actually make a change. And at the very least, other people will have realistic expectations going into the process. I'm crossing my fingers for you for company number four that you just interviewed with. On behalf of all recruiters, I'm so sorry you had such horrible experiences. It is unacceptable. If you want to vent or you have any questions for me, you can definitely reach out.

[01:09:19] And by the way, Jordan and I are happy to make that connection if you have any questions.

[01:09:22] Signed, A Decent Recruiter Trying to be a Straight Shooter With All These Shooters.

[01:09:28] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. So that was, first of all, that was great. I know that was kind of long. I hope that wasn't too much to get through, but I think this is a fountain of great advice and I feel like we've got a masterclass in how to be a good candidate and a good recruiter in this environment. Obviously, when we get letters like this, we got to share them with you guys. We get tons of stuff, but we only have so much time on the show.

[01:09:48] Gabe, what I really love about this letter, I love a lot of things about it, but I really respond to this whole idea that treating candidates well is good business and that it actually benefits both parties. It's not actually in a company's interest to treat candidates like garbage and then leave them hanging because it saves you a few seconds of time or a few minutes of time.

[01:10:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:07] Jordan Harbinger: Building trust and rapport with them from the jump actually increases their chances of doing well in the interview and accepting the offer if it comes. I think it's so shortsighted of some of these companies to just be like, "Nah, we don't want to hire them. It doesn't matter. Screw them. They can email us all they want. Delete, delete, delete. I got to go to lunch."

[01:10:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally. The thing I love the most from this letter is this idea that recruiters want you to get the job. I think it's so easy to treat these people as antagonists in the process. You know, maybe because the job hunt is so stressful and we automatically think that the odds are stacked against us, and you know, they're on the other side of the table. But this reminded me that if they're calling you in, they're psyched about you and they're hoping you get the job so that they can deliver on all the work that they're investing in you. I think it's great.

[01:10:50] Jordan Harbinger: For sure. And how much better are you going to perform with that thought in your head as opposed to, "Ugh, this recruiter's going to make my life harder. They're not really on my team."

[01:10:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:59] Jordan Harbinger: "I've just got to get over all these hurdles if I have a shot." It's a great reframe. So thank you for sharing all that with us, and thank you for listening for so long since the old show, in fact, and thanks for sharing your wisdom with the rest of us.

[01:11:10] I hope you all enjoyed that. A little bit of a weird format this week, but I want to thank everyone who wrote in and stuck with us. Thank you so much. Go back and check out our episode with Terry Crews if you haven't yet.

[01:11:19] By the way, a lot of you have complained to me about the numbers going away in Apple Podcasts. That was not us. That was Apple. Thanks a lot, Apple. Making sure that nobody can search any episodes other than manually thumbing through the feed of 900 or whatever's in there. It's fixed now. It's fixed now. We did a little workaround. The workaround may break later, so no guarantees there, but we did a little workaround. The episode numbers should be back. Some apps may have numbers twice. Sorry, can't do much about that and I fully expect that Apple is going to revert this annoying ass change in six months or a year and break it again. So do keep me posted. Some of you lowered your reviews or gave us one-star reviews because the numbers were gone. Folks, that wasn't my doing. That was Apple. Please revise your review if you like the show. The numbers are back. Anyway, hopefully, that makes things easier to search and find because we do run trailers where we tell you to search for an episode number. And now we actually have episode numbers, so fingers crossed.

[01:12:19] If you want to know how I managed to book all these great folks, it's all about my relationships, my network, my tiny habits that involve getting back to people in a timely manner. Check out our Six-Minute Networking course. The course is free over on the Think If platform at jordanharbinger.com/course. It is a great way to dig the well before you're thirsty, not spend a ton of time doing it, and really treat people well in a non-sort of transactional network-y gross way. So again, jordanharbinger.com/course.

[01:12:48] A link to the show notes for the episode is at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support this show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Our AI chatbot is at jordanharbinger.com/ai. You can find anything we've ever done on any Feedback Friday or any interview, and any promo code should show up as well. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and you can find Gabe on Instagram at @GabrielMizrahi, or on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi.

[01:13:18] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the advice we gave here today. 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.

[01:13:50] We've got a trailer of our interview with Malcolm Gladwell, which is pretty timely right now. We'll discuss why the information we gather from face-to-face human interaction isn't as uniquely valuable as we think it is and why television can actually make us worse at reading other people.

[01:14:06] Malcolm Gladwell: Young African-American woman is in Texas, just has a job interview in a rural Texas town, Sandra Bland, and she's pulled over by a white police officer.

[01:14:13] Police Officer: Hello, ma'am.

[01:14:14] Malcolm Gladwell: They have a conversation.

[01:14:15] Police Officer: Do you mind putting out your cigarette, please?

[01:14:17] Malcolm Gladwell: It quickly escalates.

[01:14:18] Police Officer: I will remove you. I'm giving you a lawful order.

[01:14:20] Sandra Bland: Okay. You going to yank me out of my car?

[01:14:22] Malcolm Gladwell: Drags her out of the car.

[01:14:23] Police Officer: I will light you up. Get out now.

[01:14:25] Sandra Bland: Knock my head on the ground. I got epilepsy, you motherf*cker.

[01:14:27] Malcolm Gladwell: She's put in prison and three days later she commits suicide in her cell. If she's in Audi, her chances of being pulled over are lower. And if she's in an Audi with Texas plates, she's fine. Most of all, if she's white, there's no way he's pulling her over. And as I described in the book, all of those inferences are deeply problematic. We have enormous confidence in our ability to draw meaningful conclusions about people based on very superficial evidence.

[01:14:54] Even though the plots of Friends are absurdly complex, no one in history has ever watched an episode of Friends and said, they lost me.

[01:15:01] Jordan Harbinger: What is going on at this show?

[01:15:03] Malcolm Gladwell: Yeah, never happened. They do that because they're trained actors. If you watch a lot of TV, you can come to the false impression that that's what's going on in your face. But truth, that's not true at all. And a significant number of people are what are called mismatched. And that is that their facial expressions under certain circumstances do not match the way they feel on the inside. The Amanda Knox case, an American teenager goes, does a year abroad in Italy and gets falsely accused of murdering her roommate. And that case is all about the fact that Amanda Knox is mismatched. They have another guy who clearly did it, and they drag her in. Why? Because she doesn't behave the way the Italian police and the British tabloid press think someone whose roommate has been murdered ought to behave. We're sending people to jail for years and years and years for crimes that had nothing to do with.

[01:15:50] Jordan Harbinger: Kids, I mean, she was like a college student, right?

[01:15:52] Malcolm Gladwell: A college student, yeah.

[01:15:53] Jordan Harbinger: For more from Malcolm Gladwell, including how the misunderstandings between people and cultures invite conflict, I told you this was timely, check out episode 256 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[01:16:06] This episode is sponsored in part by 12-Hour Sound Machines podcast. 12-Hour Sound Machines podcast was actually created by a dad who couldn't find any sounds that would play long enough to last through a whole night of his baby sleeping. And lucky guy, apparently the baby sleeps 12 hours and his desperation to get his baby sleeping through the night he created the podcast. Parents out there know that we would do pretty much anything to get our kids to freaking go to sleep — sort of drugging them. I Googled it. You're not supposed to do that — but other people quickly discovered it, used it for themselves, and now it's been downloaded over 80 million times by people all over the world. There are episodes of 12-Hour Sound Machines that mask outside noise. They promote deep and restful sleep — not just for your baby. I tried that even for adults like you and me. That stuff works — brown noise for the win. Also, sound machines that help slow down your brain, reduce anxiety or aid in thoughtful meditation. Join over 1.3 million listeners that tune in every week to zone out of the increasingly busy, distracting world around them. New episodes twice a week. You can visit 12hoursoundmachines.com and click on the episode index if you want to narrow down sound machines for your specific situation. You can also sort by type like different noise colors. I said brown noise wasn't a joke. City ambience sounds in case your kid can only sleep on Sixth Avenue in New York City, water sounds, or sort by use, like sleep, anxiety management, meditation, sound masking, et cetera. 12hourssoundmachines.com.