transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. Running a small business means every hire matters. A bad hire can cost you time, money and momentum. A good hire that can help you grow your business, this gives me flashbacks to a nightmare hire in my previous company that really stunted the business. And even talking about it now makes my blood pressure go up. But the right hire is the exact opposite, somebody who takes ownership, solves problems, and helps the business grow faster. And when you're small, that kind of impact is massive. But finding great talent isn't easy, especially when you don't have the time or resources to sift through piles of resumes to find the right fit. That's why LinkedIn built Hiring Pro, your new hiring partner that screens candidates for you so instead of sorting through applications, you spend your time talking to candidates who are actually a good fit. With Hiring Pro, you can hire with confidence knowing you're getting the best talent for your business. In fact, those hiring with LinkedIn are 24% less likely to need to reopen a role within 12 months compared to the leading competitor.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com/harbinger. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 3:
[01:00] I sold my car in Carvana last night.

Speaker 2:
[01:02] Well, that's cool.

Speaker 1:
[01:03] No, you don't understand.

Speaker 3:
[01:04] It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny.

Speaker 4:
[01:07] They're picking it up tomorrow.

Speaker 1:
[01:08] Nothing went wrong.

Speaker 2:
[01:09] So what's the problem?

Speaker 1:
[01:11] That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly.

Speaker 3:
[01:13] I'm waiting for the catch.

Speaker 2:
[01:14] Maybe there's no catch.

Speaker 3:
[01:15] That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

Speaker 5:
[01:18] Wow, you need to relax.

Speaker 3:
[01:20] I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

Speaker 5:
[01:22] I think it's laminate.

Speaker 1:
[01:23] Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's close enough.

Speaker 4:
[01:25] Car selling without a catch.

Speaker 5:
[01:26] Sell your car today on Caravana.

Speaker 4:
[01:29] Pick Up These May Apply.

Speaker 1:
[01:30] This episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show is brought to you by booking.com. Here's the thing. Most vacation rental hosts don't even realize they can list their properties on booking.com. And if you're not on the platform, your rental is basically invisible to millions of booking.com travelers worldwide. After all, they can't book what they can't see, right? Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen. Get booked on booking.com. This episode is brought to you by Lufthansa. Lufthansa Allegris is an innovative, elevated travel experience across all classes, focusing on each person with their own individual and situational needs. Look forward to your own feel-good moment above the clouds. Visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. Lufthansa Allegris. All it takes is a yes. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the lazy Susan helping me pass these morsels of life drama around this voracious table, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Speaker 3:
[02:28] Lazy Gabie.

Speaker 1:
[02:29] Lazy Gabie. That's right, which I guess makes me that metal thing that holds the three types of Chinese hot sauce. You know the one you pick up with your index finger and they got these tiny little spoons? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[02:38] The condiment caddy.

Speaker 1:
[02:40] Yes. Is that what that's called? That makes sense.

Speaker 3:
[02:42] I think so.

Speaker 1:
[02:43] Lazy Gabie and the condiment caddy has a nice ring to it.

Speaker 3:
[02:46] Sounds like the name of our future children's book.

Speaker 1:
[02:48] Yes, or premium content tier. Premium colon, Lazy Gabie and the Condiment Caddy, part one.

Speaker 3:
[02:54] Weirdest Harry Potter installment ever.

Speaker 1:
[02:56] 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. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, arms dealers, former jihadis, astronauts, money laundering experts, Russian spies, hostage negotiators. On Fridays, though, we take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, compare Gabe and myself to various, what are those, small wares? That's a word I think I probably have never used.

Speaker 3:
[03:28] Neither have I.

Speaker 1:
[03:29] Gabe, you're in New York this week, bouncing all over, I don't know, touring hot yoga studios and getting ready for Brazil.

Speaker 3:
[03:34] By the way, because I'm in New York, there are nonstop sirens going down Seventh Avenue by my friend's apartment, so there might be some sirens in the background of today's episode, and sorry about that.

Speaker 1:
[03:43] If you're driving while you're listening to this, neurotically check your rearview mirror every 30 seconds because it may be you or it may be the podcast. Sorry about that.

Speaker 3:
[03:51] If you're riding dirty, sorry to stress you out.

Speaker 1:
[03:54] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[03:54] But it's just your two pals on the show.

Speaker 1:
[03:56] To all of our listeners carrying drugs in their car right now, we apologize. Well, I'm in Northern California prepping interviews and battling this weird plague I've had for weeks. Gabe, I realized I've been sick for 2.25 months of this entire year, that has been three months long. Insane.

Speaker 3:
[04:14] Brutal, dude. I don't know what's going on with you. One of us is visiting Petri dishes, and one of us is a Petri dish.

Speaker 1:
[04:21] That's right. I'll let everyone decide which is which. I hear we have a lot to talk about today, so let's dive right in. Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Speaker 3:
[04:28] Hi, Jordan and Gabe. My fiance recently wrote you about not being invited to a stepbrother's wedding. That was question two on episode 1274. Just to remind everyone, this was the guy who hadn't gotten an invitation to his stepbrother of 20 years wedding, since his fiance and his brother's fiance had a falling out over what he described as mostly stubbornness, but also a few low blows here and there.

Speaker 1:
[04:51] Right. The brother refused to explain the situation and just ignored all of his texts and calls. His wife wouldn't explain the situation to their mom and would just shut the conversation down. Now, we're hearing from one of the ladies.

Speaker 3:
[05:03] How often do we get to do this? This is amazing.

Speaker 1:
[05:05] Yeah, not very often.

Speaker 3:
[05:06] So good.

Speaker 1:
[05:06] This is great. Because when we took that letter, I kept going, what else could possibly have happened between these gals that would cause somebody to not invite his own brother to the wedding? What is going on here?

Speaker 3:
[05:17] Well, here we go. Strap in, papa.

Speaker 1:
[05:19] All right, Life Fest is on. You know that meme of the guy standing around the corner where he's looking around the corner wearing like a weird colored suit and he's rubbing his hands together like, hmm, yeah, can't wait for this tasty tea. That's how I feel right now.

Speaker 3:
[05:31] Your advice was great and I was hoping you could shed some light on my dilemma. My friend and I have been close since I was 16 and she was 13.

Speaker 1:
[05:39] So just to be totally clear, her friend is the bride to be in the original letter.

Speaker 3:
[05:42] That's right. A few years ago, we started dating brothers, which was great and a dream come true. And it still is as they are married now and we are engaged.

Speaker 1:
[05:51] So the wedding happened.

Speaker 3:
[05:52] The wedding happened. I forgot to mention, I exchanged a few emails with the guy who wrote in. So her fiance, he ended up writing his brother a letter, which is more or less what we proposed. And he said that his stepbrother basically said, Yeah, you can come if you want, but your fiance cannot. And that was all he was able to get out of him.

Speaker 1:
[06:09] That is such a lame response. I'm just frustrated with these two all around.

Speaker 3:
[06:14] So she goes on, Then a couple of years ago, I noticed the weirdness starting.

Speaker 1:
[06:18] Okay, well, pouring that tea, sipping that tea.

Speaker 3:
[06:21] One day, some friends and I parked at their shared family cabin and walked to the lake nearby. Stacey doesn't own the lake nor the path to get to it. So I didn't think it would be a problem to just park in the driveway. When we got back, the family friend living at the cabin was home. And I asked him if it was okay that I parked there. And he had no problem with it. But Stacey blew up at me for bringing my friends, saying she didn't want me bringing random people there.

Speaker 1:
[06:45] I could maybe see that being a little annoying, especially if you don't know the other people coming. Maybe you want a heads up or a polite request, and you have someone staying there. But to blow up at your best friend since you were kids for that, it seems a little uncalled for, like you're looking to make a big deal out of nothing kind of behavior.

Speaker 3:
[07:01] Fast forward to last spring. Stacey's been my hairdresser since she was in school for it. There have been a few times where she hasn't done exactly what I wanted, but I lived with it.

Speaker 1:
[07:11] I see where this is going.

Speaker 3:
[07:13] This time, she absolutely botched both my color and the haircut.

Speaker 1:
[07:17] No.

Speaker 3:
[07:19] She could immediately tell I didn't like it. I was very uncomfortable expressing my concerns because normally she would just wave them off. I cried for days afterward. My God, it was horrific. An absolute chop job. The top of my hair was longer in spots than the underneath layer. I will attach a photo for your viewing pleasure and she did.

Speaker 1:
[07:38] Yeah, well.

Speaker 3:
[07:39] I have very fine hair and it was super frizzy from the cut, which it's never been before.

Speaker 1:
[07:43] At least you're ready for the dog show. But I can't be the only person.

Speaker 3:
[07:48] Straight to Westminster.

Speaker 1:
[07:49] I'm wondering. I can't be the only person wondering if she did this on purpose.

Speaker 3:
[07:54] Damn, you think? I just assumed she was a bad hairdresser.

Speaker 1:
[07:57] Occam's Razor says she's probably just a bad hairdresser, but I do find it out that she can sometimes do what our friend here wants at the salon. And then all of a sudden does a D- job on her best friend's hair, turns her into an animal from The Muppets. Come on, this has to be payback or like a passive aggressive thing.

Speaker 3:
[08:15] Payback for what? The lake?

Speaker 1:
[08:17] Oh, presumably whatever led up to that, all the other imaginary grievances that she's found herself dealing with, who knows?

Speaker 3:
[08:24] Be hilarious if she etched no lake access into our friend's undercut.

Speaker 1:
[08:27] Literally. One side of her head says private and the other side says driveway.

Speaker 3:
[08:35] Dude, if she did this on purpose, this woman is truly out of her tree.

Speaker 1:
[08:39] I think so. I mean, it would track and I'm grossly speculating, but good hairdressers make minor mistakes, not massive mistakes with both the color and the hair. Come on.

Speaker 3:
[08:48] Passive aggressive Sweeney Todd over here.

Speaker 1:
[08:50] Yeah, Edwina Machete hands.

Speaker 3:
[08:55] I told her I needed the color fixed and she offered for me to come in three weeks later. I said, no, that's not going to work for me. And I'm proud of myself for standing up for myself. She reluctantly found a spot for me to come in two days later. When I went in to get my color fixed, I mentioned the concern about the long spots and the cut. And she just did a quick touch up. This in no way fixed the cut.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but mentioned the concern. More like made it impossible to go out in public for 90 days. That's deliberate. Come on, man.

Speaker 3:
[09:26] I was so traumatized by the haircut, I still haven't gotten my hair touched in nine months. I just lived with it in a ponytail or clip. I was in two weddings over the summer, and both hairdressers who did my hair immediately asked me what happened.

Speaker 1:
[09:40] You know it's bad when Marcy, the wedding hair person from The Knot, who graduated cosmetology school six weeks ago, is like, gee, who did this to you?

Speaker 3:
[09:48] Who's responsible? Later, Stacey accused me of telling people that she stole my wedding date. Ma'am, I don't have a wedding date yet, nor have I even started thinking about it. She really ripped me a new one for that. She said it was so embarrassing for her. I assured her I never said anything of the sort. She didn't respond nor apologize.

Speaker 1:
[10:08] So this goes back to my previous speculative theory here, is that she's just making up grievances out of whole cloth or imagining them. This is high school shit? Actually, I don't even know. I think it's middle school and high school stuff. Really, it is. This is pathetic.

Speaker 3:
[10:23] We invited her and her fiance, now husband, the brother, over for a little 4th of July barbecue and neither of them responded. Then she invited me to her bachelorette trip out of town for a few days. I was so excited to reconnect. I felt like we were out of touch. I did feel like something was off leading up to the weekend.

Speaker 1:
[10:41] Beside your bangs.

Speaker 3:
[10:43] Besides the rat tail peeking out, that is also somehow uneven.

Speaker 1:
[10:46] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[10:46] I was worried something was going to happen given the strangeness recently, and my fiance had a bad feeling about the trip too. He insisted that I drive myself and not carpool in case I needed to leave.

Speaker 1:
[10:56] Smart. Let me guess though. She stayed, had a great time, nothing petty or ridiculous happened at all.

Speaker 3:
[11:01] Yeah. How did you know that? Signed, happy as could be. No. That is not what happened. She goes on, on day two after the beach, the group wanted to go to town and walk around, and I wanted to go back to the house because my skirt was wet, I was overstimulated, and I just needed a break and some time to myself. This is a normal thing that I do. When I asked if I could go back and change, I was told no. I asked the girls I was riding with if they didn't mind dropping me off so I could take a moment to myself. They were understanding and did just that. I curled up in my top bunk taking a moment for myself and, lo and behold, I got a text from my friend saying she heard what I said at the beach, I was making people uncomfortable, and I should just leave if I'm not having a good time. I assured her I was having a good time and just needed a breather. She came back with some horribly twisted version of a comment I made and insisted it was best for me to go.

Speaker 1:
[11:54] Wow. Okay. So it wasn't, you should leave if you're not having a good time, it's leave now because I don't want you here.

Speaker 3:
[12:01] Obviously, I was going to leave at this point. Yeah. I was so upset. I was in a full-blown panic attack. I was shaking. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could before anyone else came back and this whole situation got even more embarrassing. I had a four-hour drive home. In my haste, I forgot some of my belongings in the bathroom. I didn't calm down until I was an hour away from home. It was the quickest four-hour drive of my life. That was the line for me. I arranged to get my things I left behind and then I blocked her. I have never felt so small and stupid and worthless in my life. I felt like no matter what I did, she would find a problem with it and assume the worst, and I don't need a friend like that.

Speaker 1:
[12:42] Amen. You're exactly right. That's what's been happening from the look of it.

Speaker 3:
[12:46] I feel guilty for how this decision has impacted my fiancé and his relationship with his brother. Family gatherings are going to be a little awkward, but I think I did what was best for me. It wasn't an easy decision and it's not something I've ever done before. But I keep going back and forth feeling guilty because this decision has had ripple effects for my fiancé including not getting invited to the wedding. Are my reasons justified? Do you think I should try to make amends? Signed, something old, something new, something borrowed, now we're all blue. Because I can't imagine acting like this if I were in her shoes. Remix!

Speaker 1:
[13:21] Glad you brought that one back, Gabe. I like that one. This is bananas. Gabe, I gotta say, I do feel a little vindicated here because when we took that original letter, we were both like, this is so sad, so petty, even if the bride had a legitimate problem with her friend, she needs to come right out and address it. You don't just not invite your brother to your wedding and ghost. These people are lame and avoidant, but honestly, anybody who acts this way, they've got to be just a nightmare.

Speaker 3:
[13:45] And voila.

Speaker 1:
[13:46] Yes, she is a nightmare. If our friend here is to be believed, of course, which I mean, I find her story pretty credible. They'd be really going out of their way to sound reasonable to strangers on the internet, if this isn't the truth. Stacey sounds petty and avoidant at best, and paranoid, combative and frankly vindictive at worst.

Speaker 3:
[14:06] Agreed. The only mitigating factor that I can think of is if our friend here did anything inadvertently that upset Stacey, I don't know, communicated poorly, gave the wrong impression, let things pile up in a way that cast other little comments in a weird light, whatever it was. That's the only thing I can think of. Even if she did, it does not warrant this response.

Speaker 1:
[14:26] No, and also you've known each other since you were 13 and 16, and now you're in your late 20s. So like, you kind of know someone, like Gabe, if you ghost me for a few days, I don't go, oh, he hates me now and he's being mean. I'm like, okay, either something happened or he's like at a retreat, some sort of weird yoga retreat with his phone off. I'm not assuming you're trying to ruin my vacation by not responding to my text or whatever stupid, petty, all about me kind of thing I could invent in my head. Come on.

Speaker 3:
[14:55] I am trying to get clear on this timeline. She said that this kind of started two years ago. So what changed in the last two years? Was it getting engaged? What was going on? But also was Stacey always this way? Did she become this way more recently? And if she did, why?

Speaker 1:
[15:09] Yeah, I don't know. It's bizarre to me. The whole thing, I do suspect that she's always had it in her. Because you don't become this way overnight. Maybe she's become more emboldened over time. Maybe getting married or getting engaged, whatever had made her feel more secure, bossing people around. Either way, if I were in our friend's shoes, I would just be so done with Stacey. I'd be done with all these people. So based on what you've told us, yes, I feel your reasons for pulling back are justified. This does not sound like a healthy relationship. I can't imagine how it could continue or why. But I understand your guilt about how it's impacted your fiance and his brother. I'm not saying you should feel guilty. I'm just saying I understand why you do. The ripple effects are real and they're tough to live with.

Speaker 3:
[15:48] But who created those ripple effects? I mean, I guess they both did.

Speaker 1:
[15:51] Yeah, sort of. Interesting questions. You can see how things escalated over time, but I'm not really sure our friend's guilt is entirely warranted. Yeah, sure, they both created this situation in parts, but it really does sound like Stacey was largely the aggressor here and has allowed it slash made it spiral into something way more serious than it ever had to be. And it also doesn't change the fact that Stacey and her husband both decided to not try to repair things with you or with your fiance. So they're not only letting it get worse, but it's spreading to other people in the family in this way that is totally ridiculous.

Speaker 3:
[16:26] Her fiance who is totally uninvolved in many of these shenanigans, by the way.

Speaker 1:
[16:29] And it's his brother. I mean, it's totally... Imagine telling your own brother, you can call my guest, but like, your fiance, I mean, my future sister-in-law, she has to stay home, even though it's her best friend getting married. I mean, the whole thing is totally insane.

Speaker 3:
[16:41] Okay. I'll do the chicken, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] I'll do the chicken. So to me, the guilt, it's... Never do the fish at a wedding. The guilt, it sucks. I wish you weren't feeling it, but it might also be an indication of just how badly things needed to change here. Look, misunderstandings totally happen. Conflict is normal. It's important even. Big fights between friends totally happen. But refusing to say how you feel and giving everyone a chance to talk and repair when multiple close family relationships and a major life milestone all hang in the balance is not okay. I understand it's awkward, but you can awkwardly sit down with your BFF and say, Hey, I'm really hurt. I'm really angry. This is hard for me, but I know we have to talk about it.

Speaker 3:
[17:23] And by not doing that, she's saying that she would rather live with all of this tension at family gatherings potentially for the rest of her life.

Speaker 1:
[17:30] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[17:31] Than have a couple of tough conversations with someone she's known since she was 13 years old.

Speaker 1:
[17:35] Exactly. Which I don't mean to repeat myself, but that just paints a picture of an emotionally stunted and very petty person. And yet you're the one left holding the guilt because you're not an a-hole. So I feel you've come to the right conclusion here. You do not need a friend like that. If I mean, it's more complicated by the situation, but holy smokes, I would just never talk to this person again.

Speaker 3:
[17:55] Of course, you're right. And all of this makes me feel that Stacey is probably not somebody she needs to stay close with. She's going to continue to be this way. At the same time, though, I also do think Stacey has brought out certain qualities in our friend or revealed certain qualities about our friend that are super interesting.

Speaker 1:
[18:09] Like the terrible haircut?

Speaker 3:
[18:12] That's the main one, is that she revealed that her hair can look terrible when she ruins it. No, the terrible haircut is super upsetting, of course, especially for a woman. I got a bad haircut once when I was like 14. It was a scene, ruined my month, so I get it, you know?

Speaker 1:
[18:26] Oh my god, you guys, lazy Gabie and the uneven Fady.

Speaker 3:
[18:32] The prequel to the Condon Vincati, that was my favorite installment, actually. But she said she was traumatized by it.

Speaker 1:
[18:41] Well, I feel like maybe ruined my month is also you being traumatized by it. You don't even have hair now, you get so mad at it, it left. Your hair has ghosted you.

Speaker 3:
[18:52] My hair goes to be worse than Stacey and her friend. When you're 14, everything's horrible, but there's more to that story. Who cut it and how I had to go into super cuts and the guy looked at it and said, what happened to you, sir? But my point is just that to be traumatized by it, I guess I can understand clearly, but it's been nine months. She hasn't gone back for another haircut. I don't know, maybe if I were a woman, and I would love for you guys to write me and explain, maybe I would understand this better. But that is an intense reaction. And then at the bachelorette party, she got overstimulated, needed a break. Some people get overstimulated, totally understandable, but I do wonder why she got overstimulated that day, and by what exactly.

Speaker 1:
[19:31] Yeah, and how she communicated that to the group, what signals she might have inadvertently sent.

Speaker 3:
[19:36] Totally, I'm not blaming her for Stacey's frankly insane interpretation based on what she's shared with us, that she made everyone uncomfortable and didn't want to be there and all of that. I'm just curious about how it was framed and if she might have unintentionally given off a vibe of something, but then they got into this big conflict and that sent her into what sounds like kind of a tailspin. She had a full blown panic attack. She was shaking.

Speaker 1:
[19:57] Which lasted for hours.

Speaker 3:
[19:58] Hours, what a ride home that must have been.

Speaker 1:
[20:00] I know, dangerous.

Speaker 3:
[20:01] And then she said that afterwards she's never felt so small and stupid and worthless in her life. Those are powerful words.

Speaker 1:
[20:07] Yeah, that really jumped out at me. That's actually quite a response.

Speaker 3:
[20:10] Yeah, so I'm with you. I mean, it sounds like Stacey's the main problem and I'm kind of getting the sense that Stacey's behavior lands with our friend here in a certain way and our friend here's behavior might land with Stacey in a certain way that produces particularly painful and destabilizing feelings. This fear around the hair, the activation around conflict, and then of course, most importantly, this diminishment, this feeling of worthlessness when someone she is close with doesn't have good feelings toward her. Where Stacey's difficult words and behavior end and our friend's feelings and reactions begin, I do think there's a ton of information in there and that would be good stuff for our friend to understand.

Speaker 1:
[20:47] Right, because another person, somebody with a different personality, different personal history, they might find themselves in conflict with Stacey and go, okay, this really hurts, but also, screw you, this is ridiculous, I'm out of here. They might get riled up, they might get hurt, but not completely fall apart, and then just stay away from any super cuts in the general area for the next year or so. So why does Stacey hurt her so much? In a way, the fact that Stacey is so dramatic and big, that almost magnifies our friend's role in all this, because Stacey's making it pretty easy to go, okay, you're unhinged and ridiculous, so I'm just gonna pull away.

Speaker 3:
[21:22] Yeah, that's more or less what I'm getting at. Look, our friend here might just be more sensitive than the average person. Some people are. I also suspect that she's not very comfortable being in conflict with people. Like she said, she was so proud of herself for standing up for herself at the salon, which suggests that this was very new for her. She hasn't had a lot of practice with that, which by the way, that makes me proud of you too. That's a very big deal.

Speaker 1:
[21:42] And being sensitive and easily overstimulated, that makes it harder to seek out opportunities for conflict because you know, why would you want to overwhelm yourself in the pursuit of learning how to not be overwhelmed, right?

Speaker 3:
[21:53] Good point. So I get that. But so much of the story is about what it actually takes to accept that someone else just doesn't like you right now, doesn't have positive feelings toward you. And then what do you do about that? If you're a healthy person, that's never going to be fun. That's never going to be pleasant, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[22:08] Yeah, but it also doesn't have to send you into a three-hour-long panic attack.

Speaker 3:
[22:12] Totally. The panic might be many things, but one of them I think is probably a very basic feeling of fear and overwhelm at an experience with another person that is foreign to her.

Speaker 1:
[22:22] So the question is, why? And how has that made this whole thing with Stacey even harder?

Speaker 3:
[22:26] Yeah, we don't know. That's a great question for her to ask. But I also wouldn't be surprised if injuries built up in their friendship over time, like I said, and then they fell into certain roles without even realizing it. One of those roles might be that Stacey is generally right and in charge, and our friend here is generally agreeable and compliant, and that's probably made it even harder to understand each other and communicate well.

Speaker 1:
[22:50] I can think of one or two friendships I had like this where the roles get cemented, and then when you stop playing that game, the other person struggles with it. And then you guys either revolve and get closer, or more likely you just outgrow the other person.

Speaker 3:
[23:02] Yeah, totally. Anyway, I'm with you. I'm not sure that this friendship makes sense anymore, but I also wonder if our friend's decision to block Stacey was born from this same struggle to be in conflict.

Speaker 1:
[23:13] So you think blocking her was a mistake? I know we've talked about this on the show. I'm not a blocker, but sounds like you think blocking her might have been a mistake.

Speaker 3:
[23:19] Hard to say. If Stacey was harassing her by text nonstop for days or something, then maybe it was necessary. But I also wonder if blocking her was a way of saying something to Stacey that she didn't have the words or the ability to say.

Speaker 1:
[23:32] Yeah, it was a message.

Speaker 3:
[23:34] A message, yeah. Blocking someone, even someone who might deserve it, that is easier than going to them and saying, like you said, Jordan, hey, you've hurt me in these ways and maybe I've made mistakes along the way too, and I feel we have some big stuff to talk out. I'd like to give us a chance to do that. I would probably want to at least try that before deciding to block someone, although I completely understand why she was so fed up with Stacey at this point. But when it's someone you go this far back with, I think it's important, and so I guess I just wonder why that didn't feel like an option.

Speaker 1:
[24:01] It's a hard one to acknowledge when the other party has acted so egregiously and that's just kind of why I feel pretty comfortable saying move on. Ain't nobody got time for that. But you're right, this could be a friendship worth ending and blocking her might not have been absolutely necessary or the ideal move, especially given the wedding.

Speaker 3:
[24:22] Maybe what she feels is some reasonable conflict and some mild regret on blocking her not fully leaning into the conflict and that is manifesting as something that feels vaguely like guilt.

Speaker 1:
[24:33] So are you saying she does need to make amends?

Speaker 3:
[24:36] That I am not sure. I don't know if there's a right answer.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] Me neither. I don't know. Now I'm confused.

Speaker 3:
[24:40] I know. It gets confusing when you stop blaming the other person entirely.

Speaker 1:
[24:44] Yes, I know. Sucks to be evolved even a little bit. I guess my feeling there is in an ideal world, Stacey would approach you to work on this, but knowing that she probably won't. I guess you have to ask yourself if A, you feel like there's still a friendship worth working on, B, you feel you own a meaningful enough piece of this conflict and you want to communicate that to her, and I guess C, if you might feel good about being the bigger person and giving this a shot in the interest of having a somewhat harmonious family until the next thing happens.

Speaker 3:
[25:14] Slush, not regretting doing more when you could.

Speaker 1:
[25:16] Yeah, because unfortunately, you have to live with the consequences of this in a way that most friends don't because you guys are marrying these two brothers. But honestly, I can't imagine dealing with being close with somebody like this and you might just have to deal with this tension from now on. So whether you like it or not, you're about to get some exposure therapy like Gabe was just talking about. But man, you think you have it hard, your fiance's brother has to live with this woman presumably for the rest of his life. He's gonna have to deal with this nonsense constantly. You think, no one is immune from Stacey. You're just dealing with part of her nonsense, I'm sure.

Speaker 3:
[25:48] I think it's likely that he's taking her side because A, he's married or he kind of has to, I guess. I mean, I don't know if he has to, but that's very common. And also, he doesn't want to be across from her either.

Speaker 1:
[25:58] 100 percent. He's been co-opted into this, but he's also an active participant by not inviting his own brother and future sister-in-law to his wedding, which is just crazy to me. I mean, I like to think I would put my foot down here, but he's gonna have to come to terms with that in his own way.

Speaker 3:
[26:13] What's the over-under on them getting divorced in the next five years, do you think?

Speaker 1:
[26:17] I was thinking the same thing. It depends on this guy's capacity to endure misery and petty nonsense and being isolated from his family and friends because his wife has made up an imaginary reason to hate them.

Speaker 3:
[26:29] All that and terrible haircuts.

Speaker 1:
[26:31] That's right. If she starts trimming his sideburns, it's over. It's gonna be an interesting marriage. No gracias, no thank you for me. Anyway, I'm very sorry about how this all played out. Very sad, stressful, but ultimately useful and probably necessary in some way. Sending you a big hug and wishing you and your fiance all the best.

Speaker 3:
[26:50] I would love to keep hearing from everyone in this family. How great would it be if we got a letter from Stacey next?

Speaker 1:
[26:55] Yeah. Oh, God. Would I love that? Maybe our friend here can send her the episode and be like, all right, write in and tell them your side. We can just do family therapy one person at a time until the full picture emerges.

Speaker 3:
[27:05] That would be so great. We'll see about that, though. Stacey doesn't seem like the Feedback Friday type.

Speaker 1:
[27:09] No, the self-reflective, self-aware type. No, I know. I feel like she'd just scrub through for the wrecks of the week, but we can always dream. You know who won't cut your hair with a weed whacker? The amazing sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and AMD. I think one of the biggest mistakes companies make is treating cybersecurity like it lives in its own silo because it really doesn't. It touches everything that keeps a business moving. That's a big reason I like the cybersecurity tapes. It takes all the stuff that can sound overly technical on paper and turns it into stories that make the stakes feel real. You're not listening to abstract theory. You're hearing how a small vulnerability, a bad process, one overlooked decision can ripple across an entire organization. And for businesses thinking seriously about resilience, that matters. Because cybersecurity isn't just about catching threats. It's about building environments that are secure by design across servers, networking, storage and data protection. So when pressure hits, your business isn't trying to improvise in the dark. Stephen Maxx, who are cybersecurity specialists, they also do a great job of stepping back after the story and translating everything into plain English. What happened? What failed? What could have prevented it? And what leaders should be thinking about now? It's a smart listen for anybody who wants to understand how security issues become business issues and why getting ahead of them matters more than ever. Check out the cybersecurity tapes wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show is brought to you by booking.com. Look, if you got a vacation rental and you want to grow that business, you got to make sure people can actually find you. That's where booking.com comes in. It's one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world. Since 2010, they've helped more than 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find places to stay. That's an enormous number of people looking for places like yours. But here's the thing. Most vacation rental hosts don't even realize they can list their properties on booking.com. If you're not on the platform, your rental is basically invisible to millions of booking.com travelers worldwide. After all, they can't book what they can't see, right? Once you list, your property gets in front of a huge global audience of travelers, which means more visibility, more bookings, and more chances to build real momentum with your rental business, and the barrier to entry is low here. You can register your property in as little as 15 minutes, and nearly half of hosts get their first booking within a week. So if your vacation rental isn't listed on booking.com, it could be invisible to millions of travelers searching the platform. Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen. Get booked on booking.com. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are on the website searchable and clickable at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up.

Speaker 3:
[29:47] Dear Jordan and Gabe, Last year, my husband and I welcomed our son. Early on, his parents were unhappy with my decision to quit my job and stay at home with him. In short, my salary did not make a financial impact on our family's well-being while staying at home with my son did. Especially given a heart condition he had at the start. Luckily, he's totally fine now. But my mother-in-law kept passively aggressively sending me daycares with openings after my husband told them I would be leaving my job. Like the true Sheila she is, she continued to check in with us on where we planned to take him for daycare, even putting her own timeline on the plan.

Speaker 1:
[30:23] Okay, let's get this done by Thursday so that I can stop harassing you. I'm getting tired.

Speaker 3:
[30:28] During his first year, our son constantly cried at my in-law's house. To be fair, he was easily overstimulated. Interesting theme on today's episode. He was easily overstimulated, but my husband and I both noticed that he cried a lot more while he was with them than with others. I think he could feel the tension in their home, and I'm also tense when I'm in their presence. If my son cried while my mother-in-law was holding him, she became upset and sometimes gave him dirty looks. She's called him a mama's boy and a wuss, and she consistently calls attention to his attachment to me in a negative way.

Speaker 1:
[31:01] This is a baby, right?

Speaker 3:
[31:03] Yeah, he's an infant.

Speaker 1:
[31:04] That's an unhinged take. You're supposed to be a mama's boy and a wuss and have attachment to your mother when you are a baby.

Speaker 3:
[31:11] One time, I calmly and clearly told her that it's never okay to call my son names. She started to cry and quickly redirected, saying she felt like she just couldn't please me. She frequently pouts when she doesn't get her way and does not take accountability for her actions.

Speaker 1:
[31:27] Yeah, this is some Dr. Romany type stuff.

Speaker 3:
[31:29] My in-laws also have a history of overstepping our boundaries. For example, they dropped by our home to visit our son after my husband and I repeatedly said that we didn't want visitors that day. At every family gathering, they ask if my son can have sweets, even though they know we aren't giving him sugar yet. They watched TV with him after we told them we weren't allowing that. I know pushing boundaries can be normal for grandparents, but they have a clear pattern of directly contradicting our requests if they disagree. I also recently learned that my father-in-law choked my husband when he was growing up and even punched his brother in the face at the dinner table in front of their entire family.

Speaker 1:
[32:05] Wow, dude, this is so int- that's abusive. I mean, this is intense and crazy.

Speaker 3:
[32:11] This makes me incredibly sad for my husband and his siblings and makes me worry about my own son's safety. My in-laws have encouraged spanking, and my mother-in-law has repeatedly told me a story about how her husband spanked their daughter before she was even a year old.

Speaker 1:
[32:26] Oh my God, come on.

Speaker 3:
[32:28] When my son was four months old, my husband and I left him with them for a few hours to go on a date. When we returned, my mother-in-law told me that her husband raised his voice at him while he was crying and it seemed to quiet him down. If he's comfortable yelling at an infant and choking his own son, I don't plan on leaving my son alone with him.

Speaker 1:
[32:46] I've been pretty annoyed with my kids. I've never hit my kids. I've never yelled at my kids for real. In fact, to illustrate this, yesterday, Juniper was not getting ready for bed and I yelled. I yelled, hey, you better get ready for bed now. She turned to me and she just started laughing because I never do that. So she immediately knew I was just joking.

Speaker 3:
[33:09] Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1:
[33:10] Yeah. When I yell at my kids, they immediately laugh because I've never done it in a serious way ever even once in their whole life.

Speaker 3:
[33:18] What is this? Who is this person?

Speaker 1:
[33:20] They just know that I'm screwing around, like I'm just being a monster. In their mind, there's no universe where dad gets that angry at them for real. It's never happened.

Speaker 3:
[33:29] That is kind of sweet actually.

Speaker 1:
[33:31] Yeah. But I'm just saying, I'm not a patient person who's soft in any way, but the fact that... I guess my point is, how could you yell at and choke your own son and yell at a baby? You would have to be less patient and more aggressive than me, and I am not a poster child for gentle parenting or any of that crap at all. I'm not a very calm person generally. So this guy is out of control if he's losing it because a baby's crying. You can't be around kids, dude.

Speaker 3:
[33:58] I shared my concerns with my husband because he's adamant that we should let his parents babysit our son more frequently so that we can have more time together or alone. He also loves to dream about vacations he and I will go on in the future, leaving our son with them for even 10 days at a time.

Speaker 1:
[34:12] Hell no.

Speaker 3:
[34:13] After I told my husband that there was no way I'll be leaving my child with them for 10 days, he shared my worries with his sister and her husband, and they're all convinced that his parents would never harm their grandkids or spank our child if we asked them not to. Their rationale is that their own grandparents never spanked or harmed them, even though they spanked their own kids, meaning my husband's parents.

Speaker 1:
[34:35] One, you don't know that. You don't remember that necessarily. And two, these are different people. I just, there's no reason you should trust that.

Speaker 3:
[34:42] I have strong beliefs about my in-laws, don't we all? But I can't seem to shake the idea that they may be narcissists. My husband has seen my point of view on some of these issues, but like many people, he cannot or does not want to admit that his parents are narcissists. I've called them narcissists in front of him out of anger and have sent him podcasts on the topic to see if the dots connect. I've realized that this is not a successful approach and am now sticking to talking about their observable behaviors and how they make me feel.

Speaker 1:
[35:12] Yeah, smart.

Speaker 3:
[35:13] Meanwhile, my husband was very impacted by my son's crying during the first couple of months and still becomes angry sometimes when he cries. He used to shout, oh, he's fine, or raise his voice at him, but I've told him he needs to leave the room when he's distressed instead of taking it out on our son. When this first started, I pleaded with him to go to therapy because I know his reaction has something to do with his upbringing. My husband agreed to go and I can tell he's taking each session seriously.

Speaker 1:
[35:41] Good for him. That's huge. I feel like that's not usually how this conversation goes at all.

Speaker 3:
[35:47] Not at all. It's really good indication. She goes on, he's shown a lot of progress when our son is sick and crying, but he still has more work to do. While he goes through this journey, I'm limiting my discussions about his parents with his family and working on finding spaces to share my struggles with people who will understand. That's thoughtful. It's been hard to realize that my husband is not my ally or advocate when it comes to his parents. He also has work to do to unlearn the behaviors he learned from them at a young age. I know it's not intentional, but he doesn't see how their actions and behaviors impact me and him, and it's incredibly hurtful. Even though I've worked out my feelings about my husband's parents, I still have anxiety about all of this. I do believe I have more power over the situation than I did a year ago. I've stood up to my in-laws on multiple occasions and know how to hold my own with them. I also take comfort in the fact that they might be making digs at me or picking on me because they're not getting their way, and have turned to lashing out to retake control in the only way they know how. How could I continue setting healthy boundaries with my in-laws? What kind of relationship and contact should we have with them? How do I keep taking care of myself and maintain my sanity? And most importantly, how do I keep protecting my son, signed Wanting Your Two Sons on how to stand up to these rents in the unfortunate event that they put a dent in my greatest present?

Speaker 1:
[37:11] Ugh, man, what a situation. What a pair of in-laws to have. Very sorry to hear about all of this. Your son's complications at birth, although I'm very glad he's fine now. Your in-laws, your husband struggles to see his parents clearly. You know, the narcissist label is over-usely. It's used very liberally these days. There are definitely details in your letter that absolutely scream narcissism. The big one for me is when you told your mother-in-law not to call your son names and she cried and redirected and sort of blamed you. Crazy response. And how she never takes accountability for things. That's pretty textbook. That's like covert narcissism for people who don't know what that is and think that it's only grandiose narcissism. This is kind of the covert narcissism element here. Other details, maybe narcissism, maybe something more like presumptuousness, disrespect, tone deafness, lack of empathy. But whether your in-laws live up to some clinical label, everything you're describing, the yelling and the spanking especially, it's obviously very concerning. It sounds like you have some real data points here. Your own observations of your in-laws, your child's reactions around them, your mother-in-law's own admission about shouting, your husband's behavior with your son, his stories about his father's abuse, his sister's account of their grandparents' abuse. I mean, your mother-in-law has straight up said, you should spank your kids. We did it to our daughter when she was not even a year old, 10 out of 10 do recommend. I mean, that's weird as hell.

Speaker 3:
[38:33] I'm just realizing that that might have been the sister-in-law who was defending them.

Speaker 1:
[38:37] Yeah, right. They wouldn't hit your kid because our grandparents didn't hit us. They only hit their own kids, meaning our parents.

Speaker 3:
[38:43] I just, like, no. Not reassuring, Marcia, but thank you for the confidence.

Speaker 1:
[38:46] Yeah, so you have real evidence that they'd be impatient and shouty at best, and at worst, yeah, they could hit your kids.

Speaker 3:
[38:54] And when you couple that with their general oversteppiness, I don't know, man. If I were in your shoes, I don't think I could leave my child alone with them.

Speaker 1:
[39:00] No.

Speaker 3:
[39:01] Alone, alone, honestly.

Speaker 1:
[39:02] Not for an extended period of time. I mean, imagine coming back and you find out, oh yeah, he was good. We spanked him every single day a bunch of times, and he's an anxious mess in the corner, so of course he's not talking and yelling.

Speaker 3:
[39:12] Yeah, we cure the crying out of him, you're welcome.

Speaker 1:
[39:14] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[39:15] Hand you back a catatonic baby.

Speaker 1:
[39:17] Exactly. So as much as I hate that you might have to dig in here, I think your approach is largely the right one. The most important thing is just not leaving your son alone with them. I know that's gonna be uncomfortable to enforce. I know it's gonna be hard to explain. But I just don't see how you could do that in good conscience. Now, how much you need to explain and defend these boundaries to them, that's a separate question. A lot of narcissism experts would probably say, don't explain yourself at all. It's pointless. Just set the boundary and enforce it and they're probably right. But if your in-laws ask you, hey, why can't we hang out with the baby alone? Or why don't you let us babysit? You're gonna have to say something. You could lie or evade and hope they get the message or don't push. You could say, I'm sorry, but we just don't feel comfortable right now leaving him alone and hope they drop it. Or you could tell them, hey, sorry, guys, but we clearly have different views on discipline and how to respond to the baby, and that's making it impossible for us to leave him alone with you. We're open to reconsidering if we see something different in the future, but right now, we're just not comfortable with the idea.

Speaker 3:
[40:14] Oof, tough message to deliver, I have to say.

Speaker 1:
[40:17] I know, I wouldn't want to have to say it. And I also, there's a part of me that's like, if you say that, they're gonna-

Speaker 3:
[40:22] They're gonna fly off the handle. You don't understand how to raise kids.

Speaker 1:
[40:24] Or they'll just do it to your kids to show you who's boss. Like, look, we told you we weren't gonna do it, and then you left your kid with us for the weekend, and we spanked him 58 times just to teach you a lesson.

Speaker 3:
[40:34] I hope not, but Jesus, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[40:36] Narcissists be narcissistic. That didn't quite work, but you know what I mean? Narcissism. So, maybe you say as little as possible, and then you work up to the full explanation only if they push.

Speaker 3:
[40:49] Honestly, Jordan, I think the hardest part is not being in alignment with her husband on this huge thing.

Speaker 1:
[40:54] I agree. I mean, if they present a united front, this just gets way easier. They might even reconsider some things if they feel like they're pushing away their own son. But if she's the only one pumping the brakes, it's really easy for them to be like, she doesn't like us, we're the in-laws, she's difficult, always has been, I can never please her, weh, cry, whatever it is. I mean, that's what her mother-in-law is doing already.

Speaker 3:
[41:14] I have to say though, like we said during the letter, her husband's process around his parents is extremely encouraging. I think it's fantastic that he threw himself into therapy, he's engaging, he's showing a lot of progress.

Speaker 1:
[41:24] Same, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:24] That gives me hope.

Speaker 1:
[41:25] I am heartened by that. We don't hear that very often. I just think it's gonna take him longer to arrive at the conclusion that our friend here has come to already.

Speaker 3:
[41:33] I feel for him though. It can be very painful to confront this kind of thing about your own parents. It's not just making the intellectual leap to, oh, my parents are narcissists, wow, just didn't realize it. It probably means confronting a lot of difficult facts about his own childhood, including his father's abuse, contending with sadness, anger, all of the things. Probably also some shame around how their upbringing influenced his own behavior with their son.

Speaker 1:
[41:58] Good point, this is a big deal for him.

Speaker 3:
[42:00] It's a very big deal. We all have the impulse to protect our parents. We want them to be mostly good, kind, effective. It hurts to realize that they might have done some real damage. His parents have done some real damage, all the more so if they are in fact narcissists. Because if they are, there was probably no room in their house growing up for the possibility that they could be anything less than perfect. There was probably no being angry or disappointed in mom and dad, and them being able to bear that and listen to him and make things right, if there was something to make right. There was just upholding this unspoken assumption, I assume, that they were perfect and in charge.

Speaker 1:
[42:36] While they simultaneously punched and choked their kids in front of everyone else. I mean, this is again a Dr. Ramani case study.

Speaker 3:
[42:45] So all that to say, I understand her frustration with her husband. She has the benefit of walking into this family, seeing how they are and going, yo, wake up, these are narcissists.

Speaker 1:
[42:53] Right.

Speaker 3:
[42:53] But her husband is in a different process and he's on a different timeline. The stakes are different for him. So coming to her conclusion, even taking a few steps toward it is probably very complicated and intense for him. I think it takes great courage on his part to even look at all of this. And I commend him for that. So my thought here is just, I would keep encouraging your husband to engage with therapy. It sounds like he's doing good work. I would also make room for everything therapy is bringing up for him, not just his conclusions about his parents that align with yours, but also his doubts, his sadness, his conflicts. What I imagine is a lot of grief around all of this, even if that might feel like taking a step back for you, because that's going to be part of his process. And be patient, which I know is hard. And I know that the breakthrough you're hoping for might not come as quickly as you would like. And that's tough. But supporting your husband while he works through all of this, in the end, my hope is that that will be the most efficient route, because just pushing him to go, okay, you're right, they're narcissists. We can't leave the baby with them. I mean, he can say the words, but that might not be what's true in his heart of hearts. If he doesn't go through this process, he has to work through this in his own way. He has to come to this conclusion on his own, and then he has to decide what he wants to do about it with you.

Speaker 1:
[44:02] It's a really important point, Gabe, and maybe it would be helpful for her to tell her husband that, look, honey, I know this whole thing with your parents is harder for you than it is for me. I get frustrated. I want you to see things the way I see them. I think I'm right to be concerned, but I also think you're in your own process, and I appreciate that you're looking into this with your therapist, and I'm here to talk about all of it.

Speaker 3:
[44:21] I love that. That would probably mean a lot to him, actually, to hear.

Speaker 1:
[44:24] As for what kind of relationship and contact you should have with the parents, I would say until you see something different from them, they can hang with the baby when other people are around, that's fair. And if you don't feel like they're truly listening to you or taking you seriously, then you guys probably don't need to be super close and see each other three times a week. But that doesn't mean you can't be kind and gracious and polite to them, of course. Honestly, though, it's hard. They don't sound like easy people in a number of ways, and you and your husband are gonna have to have some real talks about what kind of relationship is possible with them, given their personalities. That might be an ongoing thing.

Speaker 3:
[44:58] Jordan, the more we talk about this, the more I'm appreciating just how alone she feels in this, and there's really no easy solution for that.

Speaker 1:
[45:04] Yeah, what did she say about that? It's been hard to realize that my husband is not my ally or advocate when it comes to his parents. I mean, that's tough.

Speaker 3:
[45:12] Yeah, as long as her husband can't see this behavior as concerning, she might always feel alone in this and somewhat distant from him. And that's really challenging, but that might be a phase she needs to go through while he digs into this with his therapist.

Speaker 1:
[45:24] I agree. I appreciate that she's also saying, I know it's not intentional, he just can't see it.

Speaker 3:
[45:30] Yeah. But then she's also saying it's incredibly hurtful.

Speaker 1:
[45:33] Yeah, what a tough paradox. What are the hard parts about being married, I think?

Speaker 3:
[45:36] I know you don't mean to do this, but also you're hurting me. I'm just, I'm trying to figure out how they work through that.

Speaker 1:
[45:42] I think it goes back to what we're talking about, what process they're in together. Do they have the kind of dialogue where she can go, hey, I know you're in the middle of figuring out how to feel about your parents. I want to give you time and space for that. But when you don't see how their behavior impacts you, impacts me, impacts the baby, I know you don't mean it, but it can be hurtful. Can she say something like that and can he hear it? Can he use that to understand her better, validate her? Can he use that to see his parents more clearly?

Speaker 3:
[46:08] I think, Yudelda, I think that process is what's going to get them through this period even when they're not totally on the same page yet.

Speaker 1:
[46:14] I mean, that kind of is the process of getting on the same page, right? And that can allow them to stay connected even when they disagree, and they're allowed to disagree. Even though I'm on her side here, their son deserves a dad and grandparents who don't yell at him when he cries. But look, in the pursuit of protecting your son, which is priority number one, you might have to get comfortable with the idea of provoking or disappointing your in-laws. And that might, in fact, be the hardest part of this situation, just burying their feelings about you, just like our friend from question one. Yes, that's way harder if your husband isn't in that with you. And that's one big reason I hope he gets there soon. But this might also be an opportunity for you to develop these muscles for yourself. So your in-laws might not be your biggest fan. That's not easy, but it is survivable. And if it's to protect your son from being yelled at or hit, I'm sure you'd agree that that's worth it. So I'm sending you, your husband and your baby a huge hug. Again, so glad he's okay and wishing you all the best. By the way, you can reach us friday at jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, or your neighbors are eavesdropping on your therapy sessions through the wall, or you're struggling to draw boundaries with family members who keep using your home as their very own Motel 6, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Alright, now we're going to smack you in the face with some amazing deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp. I'm around high-level performers all the time, people who've built massive companies, launched huge platforms, sold businesses for millions, and created things that change their industries. I'll catch myself comparing, why isn't my show as big as Joe Rogan or whatever? Why didn't I build some multimillion-dollar podcast software company on the side? That kind of financial and career stress can sneak up on you. The comparison, the pressure, feeling like your worth is somehow tied to the scoreboard. That stuff can affect your mood, your sleep, and your relationships a lot more than you realize. Therapy can help with that, not because it's giving you business advice, but because it can help you manage the anxiety, the stress, and the shame that can come with constantly measuring yourself against frankly impossible standards. BetterHelp matches you with a licensed therapist based on a short questionnaire, and if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime. They have over 30,000 therapists. They've served more than 6 million people worldwide, and live sessions have an average of 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/jordan. That's betterhelp.com/jordan. This episode is brought to you in part by Lufthansa. When people talk about travel, they usually focus on the destination, the hotel, the restaurants, all the stuff that happens after you land. But the flight is part of the experience too. Just like a great hotel can shape an entire trip, so can a great flight. That's exactly what Lufthansa Allegris is built around. On a long haul route, comfort matters more than people realize. If you're cramped, tired, and can't relax, you feel it the second you land. But when a flight is comfortable, you can actually stretch out, rest, work, or just enjoy the ride. It changes the whole trip. I was thinking about that on my recent Intercontinental Lufthansa flight. I got so comfortable, I honestly didn't want the flight to end, which is not something you say very often after a long international trip. That's why Lufthansa Allegris stands out. It's built around the idea that people travel differently. Lufthansa Allegris' business class has five seat options. You've got the suite, the privacy seat, and the extra long bed, the extra space seat, and the classic seat so you can choose what works for you. And that's what I like most. It feels elevated but still practical. More privacy, more comfort, more thoughtful design for the way people actually travel now. Visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. Lufthansa Allegris. All it takes is a yes. Limited availability on select routes. More routes coming soon. In case y'all don't know, there is a subreddit for the show. A lot of cool discussions on just about every episode and a meme thread that is tasty fire over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. And if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. Little nugget of wisdom delivered right to your inbox on most Wednesdays. You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com/news. Okay, what's next?

Speaker 3:
[50:11] Hey, no nonsense, Papa Ernie and hippie grandpa Bert. Before I ask my question, I just want to say I love the show, love the advice. I live for this fair and balanced, homoerotic doos grooves each week, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Speaker 1:
[50:25] Homoerotic? Not sure what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:
[50:27] No clue.

Speaker 1:
[50:28] Gabe's relationship is super conventional.

Speaker 3:
[50:30] Straight down the middle.

Speaker 1:
[50:31] Straight being the operative word there. We must be talking about chicks and football, American football, not European. European's gay, bro. Gay? Just read the letter.

Speaker 3:
[50:42] Just read the letter, bro. Recently, you took a letter from a Christian woman who had an abortion because she was afraid of having a special needs child, and the genetic test results didn't arrive in time. That was episode 1287, by the way. First question on that episode.

Speaker 1:
[50:56] Yes. That letter still haunts me and is so sad.

Speaker 3:
[50:59] I found your response overall pretty thoughtful and fair, but toward the end, Gabe said something along the lines of, talk to a therapist, but not a Christian one. Yeah. I think what I said was I would look for one outside of your community.

Speaker 1:
[51:12] I think I remember that and I think I see where this is going.

Speaker 3:
[51:16] This advice seems to be a refrain on the show. You guys often steer people away from religious therapists and subtly and sometimes not so subtly question religious beliefs. To be fair, you often call out this bias, Jordan especially, and I appreciate that. I don't expect podcasters to be free of any bias, but I like when they acknowledge their biases because then we can factor them in. Plus, points for self-awareness. But in the case of that listener, I was bothered by it. You were hearing from a woman who was clearly connected to her faith, had just gone through a major trauma, and was trying to reconcile what she had done with her closely held beliefs. I'm sure you would say that you just want her to get an objective opinion, but I wonder what value there was in encouraging her to step away from her faith at exactly the moment she might need it most. I was also a bit surprised to hear Gabe say that, as I know that Jordan is probably an atheist and non-religious, but Gabe's numinous experiences and beaded bracelets tell a different story. Despite my obvious religious beliefs, please know that I have no complaints about your shirtless hotel picks.

Speaker 1:
[52:21] Will we ever live this down? Good thing those did not end up on Shutterstock.

Speaker 3:
[52:27] I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe I'm missing something. Signed, a person of faith trying to get this straight. With the overall take, you definitely ate. But with this hot take and this larger point you were trying to make, I think it was a mistake to encourage this person to become an apostate.

Speaker 1:
[52:43] Fair question and a good question. So I think I've been pretty open about this bias of mine. I think it's important to call it out even though it is quite obvious. Because a lot of my advice, yeah, it's informed by my spiritual beliefs or lack thereof. So I'm always open about that. The reality is that there are certain ideas and institutions that I just don't put as much stock in as other people. And so my opinions are going to be different from other people's. At the same time, and I feel like I say this a bunch too, I genuinely don't mind when people hold religious beliefs, as long as those beliefs are healthy, fair, sound, they don't cause overt harm to the person or to anyone else, then I have absolutely zero problem with it. And if it helps people, if it gives their lives meaning and purpose, if it gives them comfort and guidance, yeah, wonderful. Also, despite my skepticism and atheism and all that, I also know that faith can be extremely helpful. For example, the data, it just clearly shows that people who pray in hospital rooms, for example, who have people around them, they have better outcomes, they live longer. So just because they don't subscribe to a certain system, doesn't mean I dismiss all the benefits. Community, love, faith, all of these are super valuable. And to me, they just don't necessarily depend on believing that there's an omnipotent being out there. But since you listen to the show regularly, you know that we get letters from people who have very real religious trauma, or whose beliefs are holding them back in some big way, or who come from communities that are, I don't know, you name it, intolerant, repressive, manipulative, closed-minded. Yeah, that gets my goat, man. It upsets me. And if someone's writing in for advice, I'm just not going to shy away from saying, hey, I think your beliefs are making it hard to see this important thing, or I don't think your community has your back in this or that way. But I can also separate those stories from stories about people whose lives have been enriched by religion. I don't think all religion is bad or evil or dumb just because some organizations are corrupt or misguided. Humans can ruin anything. I mostly blame the humans. But in the case of that woman who wrote in, and Gabe, I want to hear what you have to say about this, there were a few things going on in that letter. There was the obvious grief and trauma of terminating a pregnancy for no reason, or rather she had a reason, and the reason turned out to be unnecessary because she didn't get the results in time, which still breaks my heart and just makes me so angry. But then there were these other fascinating problems around that grief, how her passionate belief in the value of life, as she defined it anyway, how that was in conflict with her desire to not have a child with special needs, and how she wasn't able to talk about what she had done with people in her community because it was taboo. Those are really interesting and complicated topics, and they involve asking some pretty hard questions. I don't want to recap our whole take there. If you guys haven't heard it, go check it out. But with a letter like that, I think it's fair to ask, either your beliefs are right and you were wrong, and so how does your religion help you work through that, or you were right and your beliefs were wrong, and so is this experience rewriting your beliefs, and what does that process look like?

Speaker 3:
[55:35] She was suffering because she was tied in knots in so many different ways, and she couldn't reconcile these parts of herself, which is not just a question of like doctrine, right?

Speaker 1:
[55:44] Exactly. The other problem was that she didn't feel it was possible to even talk about this with people in her community for fear of being judged, and that was also concerning to me. I just found it curious that a community designed in part to help people wouldn't allow for a conversation like that. I also think that's fair to point out, even if I were religious.

Speaker 3:
[56:02] I also remember her saying that it was possible she was judging herself and then projecting that onto her community. Maybe they were willing to talk about this, but she was too afraid to even try. We were not necessarily blaming her religion. I think we were also inviting her to say, could you maybe find a different result with these people?

Speaker 1:
[56:19] That's right. Anyway, as far as I can tell, I truly don't have any agenda in that segment. I wasn't trying to convince her to leave Christianity or trying to belittle her faith. I'm not trying to soap box about religion literally ever. I was just asking, do your beliefs need revising? Is your community taking care of you? Stuff like that. I think in those stories, not subscribing to the same beliefs can be helpful just because we're not beholden to the same system. But Gabe, I think he's really calling you out here, candidly. I mean, you want to say anything maybe about those beads?

Speaker 3:
[56:48] I do. Yeah. First of all, beaders on Ocean Park in Santa Monica. If you need to get some beads, get your bracelets fixed, pick up some dank incense. Mike and Shannon at beaders, they're your people. I love those two.

Speaker 1:
[57:01] Every time you mention your bead guys, I can't help but think, beaders, beaders, beaders, beaders.

Speaker 3:
[57:08] They went to the beaders.

Speaker 1:
[57:11] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:13] That's so good. Shout out to Mike. He is a gem and Shannon is a gem and she just fixed this bracelet that you can see in the shot flawlessly. So shout out to that.

Speaker 1:
[57:22] No one can see in the shot because we're not filming.

Speaker 3:
[57:24] I was talking to you. Yeah, correct. But I was showing you which one she fixed and she did a perfect job on it.

Speaker 1:
[57:30] That is one bracelety bracelet you're wearing.

Speaker 3:
[57:32] It is.

Speaker 1:
[57:33] I can vouch for that.

Speaker 3:
[57:34] Second though, I totally agree with everything you just said, Jordan. That was very well put. I'm sure you would agree that all of our beliefs, including our secular beliefs, whether it's politics or culture or science for that matter, they all need to be interrogated and revised over and over again, or at least our relationship with them does. We talk about religious beliefs like they're a different class of belief. But when you listen to people talk about who they're voting for, what they will believe is important in life or whatever, it can often sound like a religion. So I think we can get snagged around almost anything. So it's important to be open to reconsidering pretty much everything. But about what I said on that episode, the reason I thought it was important for her to see someone outside of her community was not that I was trying to steer her away from Christianity. It was that I felt she needed someone who could be more objective and non-judgmental given how afraid she was to talk about this really big thing she had been through. And also someone whose primary interest would be in treating her and facilitating a process where she could work through this pain and these very big questions she had, rather than someone whose main goal might be interpreting what she had done through the lens of their system. Or trying to keep her in the fold or get her to double down on her existing beliefs or whatever. I can see how that sounds a lot like, I don't want you to believe what you believe. I want you to see someone who's going to poke holes in your beliefs, but that is actually not what I meant.

Speaker 1:
[58:52] Although to be fair, Gabe, I think you'd argue that somebody willing to challenge her beliefs in an appropriate way, that might be a beneficial person to work with.

Speaker 3:
[59:00] Theoretically, yes, in an appropriate way, if it's done in the spirit of following those questions wherever they lead and helping her come to her own conclusions, even if those are different from the therapist. But it's not like I was hoping that she would end up with someone whose goal would be to get her to leave her faith.

Speaker 1:
[59:15] Yeah, I hear that. Good distinction.

Speaker 3:
[59:17] Also, a lot of this, by the way, is informed by some letters we've gotten from people who have seen counselors in their religious community, and they have shared some really concerning stories with us. They went to a quote unquote therapist at their church or an imam who does counseling, and often these people are not licensed or even really trained, and the person brings something really intense to them. It doesn't happen every time, but a lot of these counselors have said to our listeners, well, the Bible says this or God wants you to do that, or you shouldn't think about this thought anymore, or here's what you need to do to make this right. I just can't see how that is truly therapeutic, even if that's what some people might want out of that experience.

Speaker 1:
[59:58] Yeah, I'm with you there.

Speaker 3:
[59:59] So if that listener happened to end up with a licensed therapist who was also a Christian, great, and it's totally possible that they could do good work together. I'm not opposed to that at all. But just given how attached she was to her community and how much distress she was clearly in after what she had been through, I felt like the likelihood of her finding someone who could truly help her and somebody who could maybe give her a more objective point of view, that was higher outside of the community.

Speaker 1:
[60:24] So this is not totally related, but interesting in context. A lot of these sort of faith-based counselors, like you said, are not trained, not licensed. They're also not bound by the same confidentiality requirements or professional ethics. There was a story I was reading the other day where a woman was suing her former pastor because she went and told him, hey, I was unfaithful to my husband and I want to figure out how to get right with God and what I should do about it. And that pastor was like, cool, thanks for telling me. He goes to the gym, sees her husband and just tells him everything.

Speaker 3:
[60:59] Oh, damn.

Speaker 1:
[61:00] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[61:00] Perfect example.

Speaker 1:
[61:01] Right, exactly. Like a therapist would never dream of doing this, but he was like, I'm going to do what I think is right because I don't have any training and have no idea how to handle this. And I'm not looking at what's best for her. I'm looking at what I just really want to do according to, I don't know, whatever his interpretation is of morality and the scripture. And he just straight up told the husband who came home and was like, what the hell? And she was like, that was supposed to be, I'm working through this. And he's like, yeah, right, I'm divorcing you.

Speaker 3:
[61:28] That's bananas.

Speaker 1:
[61:29] Yeah, it's bananas. Now, look, did she just reap the consequences of her own actions? Probably, but you know.

Speaker 3:
[61:35] But that's different. I mean, we don't know, like, what could she have accomplished in legitimate therapy? You know?

Speaker 1:
[61:41] Sure. Well, also, what if the situation isn't, oh, I cheated on my husband and I told the pastor, what if the situation is a teen goes, I'm gay and my dad's going to throw me out of the house and I don't know what to do. And the pastor goes, I know how to handle this. Hey, Tom, your son's gay. He just told me.

Speaker 3:
[61:55] Send him to conversion camp.

Speaker 1:
[61:56] Yeah, go pray it away. That's a very real risk.

Speaker 3:
[61:59] I mean, look, I would hope that most religious counselors or people in counseling roles would not do something like that. I have to assume or I want to believe that those are the outliers, right? And also like we have experts we talk to regularly who are chaplains, pastors, priests, rabbis, you know, we turn to them and we value their advice deeply. And when they meet with people, they often bring their whole experience. And a lot of their beliefs to those sessions. And I know because I've worked with them over the years that they are good people and they have, you know, the person's genuine interest at heart and they don't have too much of an agenda. And many of them say, I'm not here to judge them or guide them to any specific conclusion. I'm here to listen and make space for whatever they want to bring to our session. And I appreciate those people. So I also do not want to paint with too broad of a brush here. But the reality is, yeah, if somebody in this position is not licensed, is not bound by the same ethical obligations, the same standards, as a true clinician, it can get dicey. And that creates some risks. And it's not that they can't be helpful to some degree. But if you are in this listener's shoes and you're fundamentally questioning your worldview, your community, your beliefs, where do I belong? Can I move forward after I've done this thing? Did I make a mistake or was I in the right? And if I am in the right, what does that mean about the philosophy I subscribe to for all these years? I mean, these are really big questions. And I'm just not sure that sitting down with the person who leads your community is the ideal venue for that. So that's all. It was not about Christianity or religion. In fact, there are so many aspects of Christianity I find incredibly meaningful and sort of universally true and totally compatible with mainstream therapy. It was literally just about what is therapy really? And how can you avoid falling into somebody's agenda or somebody's confirmation bias?

Speaker 1:
[63:42] 100% could not agree more. There's so much to say about this topic. Maybe one day we can do a deep dive on it. But thanks for your question and the spirit in which you asked it. I always appreciate it when you challenge and prod us. I think it really helps me stay honest as well. And now we're going to put the fear of God into you. If you don't take advantage of the unholy deals and discounts on the products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments you plan. And the ones you don't. They're for those all night study sessions. The moment you're working from a cafe and you realize every outlet's taken. The times you're deep in your flow and you can't be interrupted by an auto update. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to you. Built with long lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for an outlet. And built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. Find technology built for the way you work. At dell.com/dellpcs. Built for you. This episode is sponsored in part by Little Sleepies. We've actually been huge fans of Little Sleepies for our two kids for years now, long before they ever became sponsors of the show. So this is one of those brands that was just already a real favorite in our house, which always makes it really easy to talk about. What we loved most was the material. It's incredibly soft. It's really breathable. It just feels comfortable right away. And as any parent knows, something can feel great out of the package. But the real test is what happens after wash, after wash, after wash. And Little Sleepies really do hold up. But honestly, the biggest win for us is how much our kids love the matching prints. They get genuinely excited about them. It makes for really cute photos, those little matching moments, whether it's bedtime, a lazy morning or a holiday, they just end up being the ones you want to remember. They also make great gifts, especially if you know somebody who's expecting or has little ones at home, because it's one of those things that feels both adorable and actually useful.

Speaker 2:
[65:34] If you're expecting or dressing little ones, check out Little Sleepies. You can visit littlesleepies.com and use promo code PODSPRING26 for 15-personal full-price products. That's P-O-D-S-P-R-I-N-G and the number 2-6 for 15-person full-price products.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] We love Little Sleepies.

Speaker 5:
[65:54] Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter, from plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com.

Speaker 1:
[66:25] If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. That is take a moment, support the sponsors who make the show possible. All of the deals, discounts and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com If you can't find a code, you need help with the code, the code is not working, we'll smack them around for you. Email me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, for the rest of Feedback Friday. Okay, time for the recommendation of the week.

Speaker 4:
[66:59] I am addicted to Lit filler.

Speaker 3:
[67:02] Ever since I started nomading, luggage and the general topic of packing, being able to move around easily and move lightly, all of that has become a huge priority for me. My favorite luggage brand that I found is this brand called Briggs & Riley. If you don't know, Briggs & Riley is just this excellent middle tier of luggage. They're like several cuts above those very basic cheap suitcases you can find, but they're not like designer luggage that costs you a month's rent. The material is super solid, the designs are excellent, tons of compartments, attachments, zippers, all of these bells and whistles that don't get in the way of the luggage. They put that thing, I don't know what it's called, the thing that allows the handle to slide up and down, you know that thing? Whatever it's called. They put it on the outside of the bag, not the inside, so there's more space for your stuff. It doesn't take up room inside the bag. It looks great, it moves great, just like sliding these bags across the floor in the airport is so satisfying and like smooth, it just feels good. And I just bought a new bag from them. It's my second or third. I just bought the ZDX medium expandable spinner, which might be the perfect long-term travel bag. It's just like right in the right size and the right features and all of that. But my favorite thing is, Briggs & Riley bags come with a lifetime guarantee. So if a wheel breaks or the handle gets damaged or anything like that, you can bring it to any affiliated retailer in the world and they'll repair it for free, or Briggs & Riley will ship you the parts and the tools anywhere in the world and you can repair it yourself, which is apparently very easy.

Speaker 1:
[68:28] So your bag breaks and you're just like, hey guys, hey, we don't have a store near you in Hunan and you just get a duffel bag with wrenches and screws in it.

Speaker 3:
[68:36] You get a DHL with a little Allen wrench and a new wheel, basically.

Speaker 1:
[68:39] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:
[68:40] I haven't done it myself, but they said it's super easy to put it on. So there's that. This has happened to me, by the way, with a wheel twice on the older bag I have, and I've had it for years, but I was dragging it across Cobblestone in Europe over and over again and a wheel broke and it was just so money. I just went into a retailer in LA. They hung on to it for a week or whatever, too, and then it was fixed and that's it.

Speaker 1:
[68:59] Nice.

Speaker 3:
[68:59] It was just so money. Well, no money. It's free, but that's money.

Speaker 1:
[69:04] Penny saved is a penny earned when it comes to the warranty.

Speaker 3:
[69:06] Huge fan of this brand. They've changed my life. You can check them out at briggsriley.com, and we'll also link to them in the show notes.

Speaker 1:
[69:13] Nice. Use the links. Sometimes they're affiliate links, sometimes they're not, but it does help. It keeps Gabe flush with his beads. It goes towards his beta budget. All right, next up.

Speaker 3:
[69:23] Dear Gabe and Jordan, I'm a 28-year-old woman who's about to defend my Ph.D. in the social sciences. When I was younger, I was positive that I wanted to be in academia. I'm really good at it. I finished my BA at 19 years old and my MA at 21. I still love what I do. Wow, graduated college at 19. So she either started super young or she took a bunch of classes and just finished early. Impressive.

Speaker 1:
[69:48] Yeah. And then had a master's before most people finish undergrad. Very impressive. That does not happen by accident.

Speaker 3:
[69:54] But in the last year, I felt so unsure of myself. I got married very young, also at 21 and divorced at 25. During that marriage, I got pregnant three times, but each time ended with a miscarriage. I always wanted to be a mother and now I've had to come to terms with the fact that if it ever happens for me, it's likely going to be a very expensive and draining process.

Speaker 1:
[70:17] That's tough. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3:
[70:18] I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 22 after a manic episode.

Speaker 1:
[70:24] That's a big thing. It's interesting. A friend of mine, more than one, but a specific friend of mine has bipolar disorder and he tries to work with it as best he can. One of the things he talks about is how he uses his mania deliberately to code apps and start companies. It's chaotic, but he will get in this manic thing and he'll build a bunch of software and make a bunch of money. It's like this weird superpower sometimes. I wonder if her diagnosis had anything to do with finishing school so quickly.

Speaker 3:
[70:52] Interesting. Yeah, very curious. If you feel like telling us, I'd love to hear about that. She goes on, and the pandemic was very rough on me. I'm normally very extroverted, but I had just moved to a new place and had no social circle for the first two years. I got so depressed during that time, right after my first miscarriage, that there are about nine months of my life I can barely remember. The stress from all of this contributed to going from heavy drinker who should probably cut back, to serious alcoholic pounding hard liquor every day.

Speaker 1:
[71:22] Rough combination.

Speaker 3:
[71:23] My current partner, who I've been with for almost two years, convinced me to go to rehab about a year ago. Other than a few slip-ups in the first couple of months, I've been sober since then.

Speaker 1:
[71:33] That's huge. Well done. Very proud of you for that.

Speaker 3:
[71:36] After rehab, I started working with a psychiatrist and therapist to make sure my mood is stable and on self-love and self-care, both of which were pretty foreign concepts to me a year ago. I've started practicing Buddhism since I got sober and regularly attend refuge recovery meetings, which by the way is an amazing alternative for people who don't like AA.

Speaker 1:
[71:57] Yeah, it sounds like you're really putting in the work, finding support, finding answers, quite remarkable.

Speaker 3:
[72:01] I feel like a completely different person in a good way, but it's really shaken up my sense of self.

Speaker 1:
[72:08] Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 3:
[72:09] Now that I'm at the end of my PhD, I'm kind of blowing in the breeze. I won't have my degree conferred until August and I'm teaching a couple of courses over the summer, but after that I have no idea what the hell to do. Nobody told me I had to complete my degree this semester until a month ago, so I missed all of the academic job applications in the fall. I'm not an American citizen, so if I can't find a job in the US., I'll have to move back to Canada, probably with my parents, because I don't have any money. A cautionary tale of being in university for 12 years. I would be okay with that outcome, but my partner is American and I really don't want to be long-distance. I'm not even sure if I really want to be in academia anymore or if I want to find a job in the private sector, but I don't even know where to start. Being in academia has been my path since I was 16, but I don't know if I'm doing it because I'm really passionate anymore or because it's just easier than thinking of something else. I spent so long unable to get out of my head because of these dual diagnosis issues, and now that I'm doing better than I ever have, I don't feel like I really know who I am anymore or what I want. How do I figure that out? How do I find myself when I don't even know what I'm looking for? Signed, hoping for a compass before I wander into the wilderness.

Speaker 1:
[73:27] Wow. Okay. Big questions.

Speaker 3:
[73:29] Yeah. NBD, we got this.

Speaker 1:
[73:31] What should my life be about? How do I look for the key when I don't even know what the key is?

Speaker 3:
[73:35] Easy peasy.

Speaker 1:
[73:36] Sounds like a job for a couple of Yankee podcasters. The first thing I want to say is you have been through a lot, my friend, the divorce, the miscarriages, the many griefs associated with that, the mood disorder, moving to a new city, the pandemic, being isolated, the drinking. I mean, God, this is a lot to work through. You've come such a long way the last few years between earning your degrees and getting your diagnosis and seeking help and getting sober and really engaging with your life and your support. It's awesome and it's super inspiring. It really is. I'm happy for you and you should be really proud of yourself. And I also know that evolving this dramatically in a relatively short period of time, like you said, it's shaken up your sense of self. You feel like a completely different person and you are. I don't know how you make all of these positive changes and not feel a little disoriented. I know it's unsettling. I know it brings up a lot of stuff, but it's also the flip side to growing. Whenever you evolve, you also have to deal with the implications of that evolution. Interests, values, goals, needs, relationships. They're all in flux when we change. You change, the world changes, what you want from the world, what you want to give to the world. That all changes too. And that can be kind of terrifying for most people. Because yeah, it's great to be stable and clear-headed and in touch with some big questions and feelings, but once you are...

Speaker 3:
[74:56] Yeah, what are you going to do about them?

Speaker 1:
[74:57] Exactly. When you really sit with the anxiety of these big questions, you realize why people drink and do drugs, or engage in compulsive behavior, or self-sabotage, or throw themselves into relationships, or work, or just general chaos. There are so many good ways to hide from yourself and to quiet your mind, and you're not doing that anymore. So one of the things that that's bringing up for you is this question of, do I even want to be doing what I'm doing anymore? Do I still care about it? Or is it the path of least resistance, and I just don't want to have to figure something else out? Again, excellent question when we all need to ask ourselves from time to time, and it's a daunting one. We talk about this all the time. We humans, we don't do well with uncertainty. We're all preoccupied to a large degree with safety, questioning if you're on the right path, not being able to see another path. That, to the brain, it just feels unsafe. Suddenly things are precarious, and then we feel this pressure to figure it out and find something else that will make us safe.

Speaker 3:
[75:54] Or so we hope.

Speaker 1:
[75:55] Right, no guarantee that it will. Tale as old as time. So my first thought for you is, I think you owe it to yourself to really engage with this question and see where it leads. You're 28 years old, you're still very young, you're way ahead of the game with your degrees. If you were having this crisis at 58 years old, I would still encourage you to lean into it, but practically speaking, your options would probably be very different. The benefits of switching careers would be different. The opportunity costs would probably be a lot higher. The timeline would look different. But at your age, you have a ton of time on your side. You have a lot of life to live. I know it's intense, but it really is exciting. But when I say engage with this question, what I mean is you got to live this question. A lot of people, they have these questions and these doubts, and they just go, yeah, I'm in a professional crisis, feeling super anxious, guess I'm just gonna put up with this feeling until it goes away or something changes. I mean, sometimes life has a way of doing that. Maybe you end up landing a job in academia and you go, okay, yeah, that was just the end of dissertation blues. I love teaching, I like doing research. We're back in business. That could totally happen. But really, the best way to work with this doubt and really learn from it is to work it into a handful of practices. The best one, no surprise here, is your relationship building. If I were in your shoes, I would be talking to as many people as I can, people I already know, new people I'm reaching out to, and literally be like, yeah, so I'm really driven, I'm a passionate academic, I'm 28, I'm about to finish my dissertation, and I'm having a little crisis around my career. I don't know if academia is my path. I'm open to other ones. I have a lot of skills and a lot of questions, but not a ton of answers. So I'm trying to talk to people that I trust, people that I admire, people doing cool stuff, get some new perspectives, and then just tell them your story, what you're good at, what lights you up, what fields or problems or roles you're excited about, what they make of all of this, what they'd advise. See if they have any interesting ideas about industries or companies or projects you should look into, maybe other people they think you should meet. I wouldn't necessarily ask them that right out of the gate, but if you have good conversations with people, that stuff usually tends to result on its own. And of course, you should probably do the same thing for them. If you want a little course on how to get this process started and how to manage it, sixminutenetworking.com has been around for, geez, almost a decade now. And yeah, a lot of people in there doing exactly this.

Speaker 3:
[78:10] So basically she needs new people and new inputs.

Speaker 1:
[78:13] Yes, lots of them, as many inputs as you can find. That means peers, that means mentors, that means people with a similar background who are walking paths that excite you. The more of these conversations you have, the more doors are gonna open for you. And the more doors that open for you, the better your questions and ideas are gonna get, the more conversations you're gonna have, and the more doors are gonna open. It's just a virtuous cycle. And this question is causing you so much distress. I promise you it's gonna start to feel less like a problem, and more like a scavenger hunt, and more like a journey.

Speaker 3:
[78:45] Right. Instead of just making you anxious, it's gonna give you some kind of North Star to follow. And you won't know where that North Star is gonna lead you. Nobody does, but you don't have to know. All you need to do is get clear on what that North Star is, and you can keep adjusting it as you learn more, and just keep following it. I find, my experience anyway, the destination tends to take care of itself.

Speaker 1:
[79:04] Yeah, hard agree.

Speaker 3:
[79:05] I know it's a little abstract. I know it sounds a little woo woo, but really it's not. I think what we want in these crises is a roadmap, right? We want someone to come along and say, here you go. Like, here's the path. Here's the template. Here's the rubric. Here's a formula. Just execute.

Speaker 1:
[79:18] Wouldn't that be nice?

Speaker 3:
[79:19] I wish. A, impossible, and B, not ultimately that satisfying. You know, one of the crazy things about life, and having to learn this again and again and again, we have to forge these paths ourselves. Every single one is unique. Nobody can do it for us. And that means both tolerating this uncertainty, the uncertainty of not knowing exactly who you are or what you want, and choosing to get curious about it. You know, you got to be more curious than afraid. If we can't have the roadmap, then all we're left with is these habits, these practices, these mindsets. So I'm with Jordan. Nurturing your relationships is very powerful. I think openly acknowledging this healthy crisis you're having and inviting other people into it is brilliant. Opening yourself up to help and being helpful in return is really just one of the greatest practices you can do. It could change your life. It's changed mine. I honestly think that's like 80% of the game.

Speaker 1:
[80:08] I totally agree. The other ones are, you know, the usual suspects. Reading, listening, seeking out books and talks and podcasts and stuff like that about your questions, whether it's fields you're interested in or psychology or sobriety or Buddhism. I would carve out a few hours a week to spend time with those. Take notes, apply what you learn in everyday ways, share what you learn with other people. That's a great little relationship building hack. Taking care of your body, moving, exercising, go to some hot yoga classes with Gabriel. I don't know whether it's going for walks.

Speaker 3:
[80:38] Open invite, by the way. Open invite.

Speaker 1:
[80:40] Open invite, yeah. Better you than me.

Speaker 3:
[80:42] Bracelets, optional.

Speaker 1:
[80:45] Then you can go to fetus afterwards. Listen to your audio books or hit the gym a few times a week. Pop some shirtless handstands for the Graham like Gabe does, that unrepentant narcissist.

Speaker 3:
[80:56] You're laying into me this week.

Speaker 1:
[80:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[80:58] I am guilty. That's my North Star. How many followers can I get?

Speaker 1:
[81:01] How many likes? That's right. I know what drives you. What can I say? Fortunately, look, it sounds like you're taking good care of your mind and spirit. Therapy, meditation, Buddhism, recovery meetings. I have a strong feeling those worlds will play into all this as well. I mean, just riffing here, what if you talk about this with people at your meetings, meditation classes, maybe through the lens of sobriety or Buddhism? Like, hey, did you ever start questioning your career after you got sober? I know we're all supposed to be non-attached and all that, but I also want a fulfilling career. What do you do? How do you think about all of that?

Speaker 3:
[81:33] I love that idea. That's great.

Speaker 1:
[81:34] You never know where those conversations are going to go. Every single one tends to be a brick in the wall. I mean, I found podcasting through the most convoluted path that makes absolutely no sense to this day. I'm super thankful for that.

Speaker 3:
[81:46] What was that? Tell me.

Speaker 1:
[81:47] I was giving talks about networking stuff, and then I got really into the whole dating and picking up girls and body language stuff. And I was teaching a little bit of this, and I ended up teaching it at a bar, and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. I ended up meeting my former business partner, and I remember one day we were just having a drink, and I was like, I wish I could record my talks because I keep repeating myself. And he's like, what do you mean record them? I'm like, I can record them, but I want to distribute them over the Internet. And I'm burning them to CDs, and it's just not efficient. People need to be able to download it. And he's like, I just read a blog about podcasting. It's brand new. It's this thing where you can upload an MP3 file to the Internet. And I was like, whoa, that's really awesome. Let's do that. And instead of giving a talk, why don't we make like a little talk show? And we were one of the first podcasts that existed because, well, we came up with the idea of recording my talks and then turning it into a show. And I remember we came up with the original title of the show, not the Jordan Harbinger Show, but the old, old one that night, like three drinks in.

Speaker 3:
[82:48] That's so cool. I didn't realize it came through him, the idea. Yeah. That's really cool.

Speaker 1:
[82:51] I'd never heard of it.

Speaker 3:
[82:52] Exactly. Like you never know what seed someone is going to plant. But you ask a question, you talk to them, you open yourself up to those opportunities. It's brilliant.

Speaker 1:
[82:59] So that's my advice. I think it's very easy to be overwhelmed by these big questions. And like I said, they're good ones, they're real, they're potentially very helpful. But at the end of the day, they're only helpful if you do something with them. So this is what I would be doing. And trust that it's going to lead you where you want to go, eventually.

Speaker 3:
[83:16] Man, spectacular advice, Jordan. So well said. Irvin Yalem, I think we've talked about him before, he's the founder of Existential Psychotherapy. One of his main ideas was that there are four givens. In life, he calls them givens. And these are things that we cannot escape. And one of them is freedom. Freedom and the crushing responsibility that freedom creates.

Speaker 1:
[83:36] Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3:
[83:38] So like, yeah, we all want to be free, in theory, but then that freedom can feel like groundlessness, like uncertainty, chaos, whatever, it's terrifying. So most people, like you said, Jordan, do all sorts of things to avoid that anxiety, right? And he writes about this. He talks about how we blame other people, deny responsibility, become indecisive. We let other people choose for us. We avoid these big questions, or we self-medicate, or we find a system, and then live very rigidly by it so that we don't have to cope with the freedom. The list goes on and on, all of which I have to say, I have engaged in at various points in my life, so I'm familiar.

Speaker 1:
[84:13] Sure, probably me too, honestly, not easy.

Speaker 3:
[84:15] So Yalem's thing was, all of these are ultimately defenses. We try to escape the anxiety of being the author of our lives in so many different ways. Anyway, I think you've covered the most important part of this, Jordan, but I was just thinking about a couple of other things in her letter. One was she mentioned that nobody told her she had to complete her degree this semester until a month ago, so she missed the window to apply for jobs.

Speaker 1:
[84:36] That to me is weird. Like how did that happen? Did someone screw up? Was she asleep at the wheel? Was she so absorbed by all these other things that she was distracted? Like how does that happen? With somebody who can write a PhD dissertation, how does that happen? Like I expect that kind of thing to happen to me. Oh yeah, that deadline everyone's been mentioning hundreds of times, I wasn't listening. But like this person is actually responsible, so what gives?

Speaker 3:
[85:00] I don't know, and that's something she should get clear on. It's possible that she is just so disenchanted by academia, so tired of this dissertation process at this point. I mean, every single grad student I've ever spoken with says that the PhD program becomes a slog and toward the end, you want to kill yourself. So I get it. She might just not be engaged with her program or her career path, but that's either a sign that she needs to lean in and relight that fire so she can take care of herself and figure out a job, or it means that this might not be the path for her. I also wonder if being asleep at the wheel might itself be part of the sidestepping of responsibility that we've been talking about, and or a way to maybe unconsciously create a situation in which she ends up with no job prospects in academia so she can't go into this field, she might not love anymore, and the choice has been made for her, so to speak.

Speaker 1:
[85:48] Interesting. Funny how that works.

Speaker 3:
[85:50] Just a theory. Either way, I don't think it's totally an accident unless her department somehow literally forgot to tell her something that only they could possibly know. Like we don't have a space for you in the program, sorry, we forgot to tell you or like your visa is running out or something, but even then, I do wonder if she were more engaged, would she have found out sooner? I don't know, I just find it curious.

Speaker 1:
[86:08] But the cost of that is moving back to Canada, probably with her parents being very long distance, breaking up with her partner, so she has some good reasons to take this seriously.

Speaker 3:
[86:16] Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, maybe the possibility of moving back home with her parents is figuring into this too. We don't know what her childhood was like, what her relationship with her parents is like. She says she wouldn't mind so much, so maybe it's good. But given that she has these various diagnoses, she's in recovery, she's worked so hard to create a life in another country, which is no small feat. I guess I'll put it this way. I do wonder what going home means for her, what it would bring up, and whether that is really the best move at this point in her life. Maybe her parents are amazing and they could be a soft landing until she saves some money and finds her way. If so, great. Maybe home is more complicated and potentially triggering. Maybe she would take a couple steps back by doing that. Just something to consider, really consider before she just says, I guess that's what I'm going to do. I don't know. Now that we're talking about this, I'm wondering, is there a part of her that is craving that soft landing away out of this anxiety of freedom, and not being on top of her job obligations? Is that a way to put her on a path to going back into the nest? That might be a place of safety at precisely the moment she's feeling most exposed and confused.

Speaker 1:
[87:19] Maybe. Fascinating theory. The question before her is, if her mind is trying to create these outcomes in some way, which path does she truly want? If these outcomes did come to pass, how would she feel about them, and what would she wish she had done earlier to influence them?

Speaker 3:
[87:34] Yes. Great questions, and I would write down the answers and then work backward from there.

Speaker 1:
[87:38] Yeah. There's another practice. Carve out some dedicated time alone and with people you trust, to really get clear on what direction you want ahead and then create a system to stay engaged with it. Sending out the job applications, reaching out to people in the fields you're interested in, finding an interim job so you can at least stick around after your program, whatever that is. Also, just a thought, just because you missed the window for academic recruiting, don't let that stop you from looking for jobs in that world if that's still what you want. You never know what might fall into your lap. Somebody drops out of a position, somebody turns down a job last minute, a university department suddenly gets a bigger budget, they can hire another lecturer. You just never know. You might have missed the traditional window, it's amazing what you get plugged into when you work your relationships. You're asking such a huge question, who am I now and what do I want? One answer to that is you are what you do. So it's time to get clear on what you're gonna do even if you don't know where you're ultimately gonna end up. And like we said, the destination sorts itself out and the journey is determined by your goals, your habits, your systems, your mindsets. Are you doing a couple of tiny things every single day to get you closer to the answers you're looking for? That's ultimately all you can do. Hot take, I guess, but you don't need to necessarily know what you're looking for in order to find yourself.

Speaker 3:
[88:52] That is a bit of a hot take. But yeah, if you knew what you were looking for, you wouldn't be asking this question in the first place. So there's that.

Speaker 1:
[88:57] Exactly. The opportunities that arise along the way, the way you feed them with your time and your talent and your hard work. That is what's gonna help you find yourself as barfy as that phrase is. That's really it. So get to it, my friend. You don't have any time to waste. I know that's stressful, but it's also a huge gift. Write us in six months and let us know what happens. I have a good feeling. I really do. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tadis Idlouskis and of course Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own and I am a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview about the biggest threats to health that most people never see coming, from microplastics in the brain to everyday habits that quietly chip away at your energy, focus, and longevity.

Speaker 4:
[90:18] I think microplastics are a problem. Most people know generally what they are. I mean, these are like small pieces of plastic that come off larger pieces, and they get into our bodies mostly through what we're ingesting, and they're in the air as well. So they get smaller and smaller and smaller, they're called nanoplastics. And the smaller they get, they become more dangerous in a way because we can absorb them easier. It's in our water sources, it's on the plants that we eat, so vegetables and fruits, because it's in the soil and they get on the plants, so it's in the plants, it's in meat, it's in every, it's all over the place. Air is a big source of microplastic pollution as well. It's getting everywhere in our organs, but dietary fiber seems to prevent absorption in a couple different ways, particularly soluble fibers, fermentable fiber, prebiotics, right? Those are all sort of interchangeable ways of saying soluble fiber. Fruits, fruits is a big one, the skins of fruits, some vegetables as well, but you can supplement with it, like inulin, you know, there's a lot of these prebiotic fibers people take as well. Beta-glucans is another one. The point is, is that if there's something you can do to prevent your body from absorbing it, that's the best and try to eliminate these microplastics as much as they can. The number one thing you can do is get a water filter for sure. Air filters in your house, water filters in your house, those are the two top things that you can do. The reality is, is that microplastics, it's just everywhere.

Speaker 1:
[91:45] Catch the full conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick for the science behind it all and the practical changes that can actually make a difference on episode 1267 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Conspirituality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis. Basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspirituality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future, to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspirituality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast. If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, it's something that will make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what? That actually happened? You've got to subscribe to What Was That Like. It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives, and they're not just giving you the highlights, they're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing. Don't you think? So if you want to hear some wild and inspiring first-hand stories, I invite you to check out What Was That Like? Every story is verified. Their site even has photos so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to What Was That Like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or whatever app you're using right now.