1104: Rich Abuser Admits Crime But Won't Spare a Dime | Feedback Friday

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Default terms at mintmobile.com. Welcome to Feedback Friday.
I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, my co-conspirator and consultation cutting through these cosmic life conundra gabriel mizrahi on the jordan harbinger show we decode the stories secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people sorry i'm just laughing at the guy who said i looked like a middle-aged lesbian with my new haircut this was yesterday right right? Oh yeah.

I don't even know.

Actually,

it was just somebody who was like trying to be a jerk on my Instagram profile. And I just thought,

wow,

that was actually really funny.

He was annoyed that I found it funny instead of insulting,

but whatever,

that's his problem.

I do love that.

Our,

our fans are roasting you a little bit.

No,

I think this is actually an unfan.

Who cares?

Whatever.

You're here for my entertainment.

Now,

you don't get called a PE teacher in the 1980s very often.

No,

I'm not going flag skids. That was special.
On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, alliterate way too much. I feel like I should have alliterated there.
And generally stand in awe of the strange and profound ways that life slaps us upside the head. Speaking of which, Gabe, you live in LA, my former home, a place I, well, I would say I love.
I have mixed feelings, but I feel like I have to say now that I love it. But for the past 10 days, you guys have been experiencing these absolutely insane wildfires.
I'm trying to find the right words. It's been heartbreaking to watch from a distance and i can't even imagine what it must be like to live in la right now to give people uh if you haven't seen the news as of this recording the palisades fire on the west side which is the is that the one that's nearest to you by the way yeah that's the one that's about a mile mile and a half from me so that's like 20 contained and by the way people think that means it out.
No, that means there's a trench or a gap or whatever around 20% of it. So it's still burning and it's just not even close to contained.
The Eaton fire on the east side, that's still going as well. Last I checked, that was something like 11% contained, maybe slightly more now.
The winds have picked up again and I hear that everybody's essentially prepared for this to get worse because the wind spreads the fire. And I know a lot of our listeners have been following the news as well.
So I just wanted to take a few minutes to check in, talk about what's happening. Everybody thinks that I live in LA or that California is small.
So they're asking me if I'm okay, but you're the one that is kind of in the middle or close to the edge of, I should say, the danger zone. So how are you holding up? Yeah, I'm okay.
I'm okay, bud. Thank you.
It's been probably the weirdest week in LA, as far as I can remember. Things are, yeah, they're very scary.
It is apocalyptic. It is just, it's just a lot of trite cliches, you know, like no words.
It's just, yeah, the fires do not affect me directly. I'm okay.
But everyone here is deeply shaken by what happened in the Palisades and Altadena. When I saw the Palisades, I've got a bunch of friends that live there.
It looks like something out of saving Private Ryan or whatever. They're wiped out.
I was like, this can't be real. I was like, what? That's just a part of the Palisades.
i never thought something like this would happen the whole thing it's just gone no one did it's insane the palisades for anyone who doesn't know is a really beautiful neighborhood it's just north of santa monica it's super charming and it's like tucked into the hills and now it's just it's gone it's just steel and ash dude it looks like the donbass region of Ukraine or something. it is it's extremely eerie yeah i was gonna say before it looks it looks like mariupol i was trying to remember the the word it really does look like a war zone it's a super nice area and several of my friends had well they had their homes there and they're all gone now and they're just like yeah we're in san francisco staying at a hotel'm like, you better buy that hotel room because where are you going to live? Yeah.
So my cousin Cece and Bob live there. Their house is gone.
My friend Patty, she and her family had a house on the beach in Malibu. That's gone.
My therapist lost her house. One of my colleagues lost two homes in the Palisades.
A couple of friends of mine, their house was saved by the firefighters, but it's unlivable and their neighborhood is like decimated. It is devastating.
There are no words. I can't even imagine what this must be like for people who have lost their homes and also not just the people, all of the animals who are affected by these fires, you know, they're displaced and hurt and confused.
Honestly, that I, I have a hard time sitting with and thinking about because it's so sad. Yeah, it really does defy words.
Like I said, like many of you know, I lived in LA for a while, so I can kind of wrap my head around what it must be like. But for people who don't live there, the Palisades Fire alone has burned 23,000 acres so far.
It's going to burn a lot more, of course. The entire island of Manhattan is about 14,600 acres.
So that's just to put this in perspective, more than the entire island of Manhattan has burned, and it's going to end up being a multiple of that. And all the fires in LA put together have burned more than 40,000 acres, which is just slightly bigger than Washington, D.C.
And at least 24 miraculously. And I say this in sort of radio air quotes, only 24 people have died, but 12000 homes have been destroyed.
And it's just the scale of this is biblical. Yeah, it is biblical.
It's very primitive. You know, my sense is that a lot of people in L.A., at least the ones on the West side where I live, we've kind of been woken up by this fire in a really interesting way, at least for the moment, you know, obviously a natural disaster or a tragedy always shocks people.
It puts things in perspective. It makes you realize what matters most and all of that.
But a lot of us live in a very happy bubble. Most of the time, you know, it's so peaceful, it's comfortable, we feel secure.
Look, our city has tons of problems, clearly, but in the decent parts of town, it functions more or less okay, we're all going to work, we're going to the gym, we're going to the beach or whatever. It's just we're lost in how lovely it is to live in Los Angeles a lot of the time.
But this fire is laying bare some very disturbing facts. And not just about how our city is run, which is going to be a huge conversation, not just about, you know, why these natural disasters are increasingly common, which is a whole other conversation, but really about, you know, how fragile and vulnerable our lives actually are.
Yeah, that's what I've been thinking about a lot this week. Just how incredibly exposed we are as human beings in ways that we frankly just don't really want to admit.
No, not at all. I mean, like, dude, just wrap your head around this.
Like one second, you're chilling in your house. Everything's fine.
It's a beautiful day. You know, you paid your fire insurance that month or whatever.
And a few hours later, you're ditching your car on the side of the road and literally running down the highway, you know, with your cat or your child and one arm and a duffel bag with a couple outfits in the other because the fire is moving toward you so fast that you will die if you sit in traffic. And then a few hours after that, like everything you own, your home, everything is gone.
Oh man, that's so intense. And it doesn't, doesn't matter how much money you have, how safe your neighborhood is, how nice your car is.
It's nothing. It's nothing compared to nature.
What, one of my friends, I said, how are you doing? He's like, I'm trying to find my house is still there. Uh, our friend, Kevin Rose lost his house and he's like, yeah, well, I'm trying to find someone who will go to my house, like drive through the Palisades fire, go to his house, get a pump, shove the hose in his pool and try to save his house.
I don't know if he succeeded. I'm afraid to check in with some of my friends because I don't want to be the 100th person today being like is your house still there? I doubt that he managed to do that on short notice using his phone.
It just seems like an impossible task. It's just crazy.
I don't know. I do think that most people have been through this appreciated check-in, so don't be afraid to do that.
But the fire just takes whatever it wants. It doesn't care about your pool or your career or your insurance policy or whatever.
You are just powerless. By the way, those photos of the cars left on the side of the road on Sunset Boulevard, these bulldozers had to push them out of the way to create a fire lane for the firefighters.
And that was one of the most haunting images that I've ever seen. This is like a scene from The Last of Us or something.
Just imagine everybody getting out of their cars to run from, you know, the pandemic or the aliens or whatever, and the military just bulldozes them out of the way so they get emergency vehicles through. It's absolutely nuts.
Tell me about it, dude. I know.
There are crazy stories of people trying to drive away and then they look over and all of a sudden there's fire next to their car and there are policemen like banging on their windows, yelling at them, just get out, run, just run. They have to run.
It's surreal. We're not, our brains are not wrapped around this level of discomfort in emergency here in the United States.
So you're okay. I know a lot of our listeners have reached out asking the subreddit, had multiple threads asking if we were okay, especially you.
Which has been so sweet. And I cannot tell you guys how much I appreciate that.
Thank you so much for your DMs and your emails. They really, really, really mean a lot to me.
I'm okay. I'm in my apartment.
I'm good. The air the air is not good.
This episode sponsored by Jasper air filled. No, truly.
Yeah, seriously. It's gotta be like 200 level.
That Jasper would be coughing if it was over there right now. Yeah.
Are you stuck in a biblical conflagration? Um, no, but it's, it's creepy, man. There's ash raining down.
I haven't been outside very much cause I don't want to breathe the air, but I'm OK. I'm OK.
Thank you. I'm just heartbroken.
You know, I can only imagine. I'm curious to see what the recovery process is going to look like for L.A., how many years it's going to take to rebuild.
Do people even want to rebuild knowing what can happen in these places? How are the insurance companies going to pay out? And also the permitting process in L.A. is a nightmare.
Are they going to speed that up at all? Or is it just going to take 15 years for people to rebuild their house? You know, I am really not very educated about that stuff. I'm starting to read more, which I, this whole thing is also making me rethink what I consume and how I need to educate myself about LA if I'm going to live here.
But yeah, that's a really interesting debate that's playing out right now because people are going back and forth on whether they need to relax the restrictions around rebuilding so that people can rebuild their homes and get their neighborhoods back and hopefully do it quickly. There's another camp that's saying, no, we need to make these restrictions even more stringent.
We need to raise the standards so that if there's ever a fire again, we can build in a way that doesn't cause as much destruction. I don't know what the answer is, but that is one thing people are debating hotly at the moment.

So yeah, the complexity of this problem is staggering. And the insurance piece of this is going to be huge.
That is a hot mess. The state is already getting involved in all that.

I think they are going to rebuild at least the Palisades as quickly as possible because the

city can't have Kharkiv right next to Malibu. It's just not going to happen.
I did see that they already have construction equipment arriving there, which is encouraging, I guess. But it is going to be a very, very long road back.
I mean, I'm afraid so. Yeah, I'm afraid.
And I also think heads are going to roll. And L.A.
is definitely getting a new mayor. I mean, bye bye career after cutting the fire budget and then being abroad when the fire started after saying you weren't going to go abroad.
Good. Not a great look.
Bye bye job. And maybe we'll get a new governor as well.
But we'll see. I don't really follow local politics, especially down there.
But it doesn't seem like this is well managed. And I think there was an interview I saw where somebody asked her a question like, what are you going to do about this? And she just paused and stared at the wall.
And I was like, you are finished. It was such a strange moment.
I was like, is she freezing up because she doesn't want to play this game with the reporters? Or is she so freaked out about what's happening? She's just dissociated. I don't know what to make of that.
That was the opposite of a person you want in a crisis is somebody who has fight, freeze and just freezes it's like hey man this is the easy part you're answering questions for journalists this isn't really like real work pal you need to get on it so okay we're gonna get to the letters here in just a second but any big takeaways from this experience so far or is everybody just in survival mode right now i'm still wrapping my head around it to be. It is hard to know what conclusions to draw, frankly, but I can say that these fires are monumental.
And they're monumental not just for LA, but I think for our planet, for our civilization. Again, I really do not, I'm not educated enough to know precisely why they happen or what to do about them or what the solution looks like.
But the planet is obviously speaking to us in some way that we have to at least try to understand. I don't think that's a controversial statement.
And obviously, a lot of good people are trying to understand it. But this week has made me sit up and pay attention to how we take care of this land that we live on, because it is everything.
For sure. I mean, look, LA was always a crazy place to build a city in the first place.
But if you're going to have a city there, it's got to be done responsibly. And that just does not seem to be what happened at all.
No, but there's also another argument to be made for the fact that you might be able to prepare perfectly and make sure there's enough water and all the right resources. And it's still not, might not be enough to contend with what seemed to be the effects of climate change in major cities.
But I do think all of this is going to affect the way people vote, the way people donate, the way they make plans, at least I hope it will. But really today, while we talk, what I'm most in touch with is just this feeling of powerlessness in the face of events like this.
You know, things get really bad sometimes, and there's just no choice but to surrender to them, which is something we talk about on Feedback Friday all the time, and then do whatever you can. It's like you said a moment ago, we are so vulnerable, you know, and we don't know it, or we don't want to admit it because it's terrifying.
But it is so obvious this week that we operate, most of us, including me, under this illusion of control. But that is just denial, right? And it takes a tragedy, whether it's a natural disaster or a terror attack or an accident, whatever it is, to puncture that illusion.
Right. Or that delusion.
I imagine it's kind of like how New York felt after 9-11. They're very different tragedies, of course, very different, but that feeling of vulnerability and then what it brings out of people, it's just, it's powerful.
It is very profound. And that's the flip side of the pain that people here are in right now.
Everybody is being so kind. I mean, everywhere I go, people are being uncharacteristically gentle, respectful.
People are looking each other in the eye more. They're asking, how are you? Were you affected? Are you okay? People are speaking more softly, which is interesting.
They're driving a little bit more slowly. They're volunteering and donating which is very very touching to see but it

is this weird twin feeling of like this pit in your stomach you know anxiety and and anger and deep sadness and then this feeling of surrender and connection and love and they're like right on top of each other that's my experience anyway not to be a wet blanket but i'm curious how long that lasts in LA.

I know.

I know.

I was thinking about that too.

I am pre-sad about how quickly people are going to forget about all this and move on. I really want to try to hang on to this, this renewed awareness of how the world works and what really matters because the other way doesn't feel right.
That's the cultural equivalent of when you go to like Europe or Argentina for, and you're like, I kiss people on the cheek now. And then like for a month, you're doing that.
You're trying to force it among your friend circle. And everyone's like, what are you doing? We're not kissing.
We don't kiss. This is America.
So look, I don't, I don't want to, again, I don't want to be a sourpuss, but it's just one of those things that these events bring people together. And then eventually people treat each other like crap again in cities.
That's just how it rolls. I hope not.
Look, I, I don't know about you, but I'm looking at a lot of this and I'm thinking you are not your stuff. You are not your stuff.
Which is easy for me to say because my house didn't burn down. Well, same, but you're right.
You are not your stuff. You are not your house.
You're not your money, your body, your mind and your heart. That's what you have and the relationships you have.
And that's ultimately it. Yeah, a hundred percent.
I know it's so obvious that it's literally just a crappy cliche, I suppose, but it's a cliche because it's true. Ultimately, all we have is ourselves and one another and everything else is just window dressing, beautiful window dressing, but it's not us really when the shit hits the fan.
The lessons of this fire, politically, psychologically, spiritually, what I think it might be here to teach us are so important. And so I'm just asking myself, like, how do I make sure I do that? Of course.
But yeah, that's hard to do. You know, we all have lives.
We have responsibilities. These memories fade.
But I'm with you. We have to keep these stories alive in some way.
It'd be a shame if nothing positive came out of this for people. Well, right.
I mean, otherwise, why do these things happen? You know, why do we experience loss? Why do we go through suffering? Why do things break down? Look, I'm with you. I feel uneasy talking about this when it wasn't my house that burned down.
I would probably be falling apart if this happened to me.

And who knows what lessons I would be taking away if this were my life. But just watching it happen to people I know is opening my eyes to something that I've just been fortunate enough to not have to confront.
But also in a weird way, and I hope this makes sense, but I also weirdly feel fortunate to be seeing it clearly now for the first time, because I understand that a disaster like this could easily happen to me, it could happen to any of us. And in fact, it looks like it might be happening more and more.
So it seems to me that we ignore that illusion at our own peril. So for my part, I just don't want to forget.
And yeah, thank you for wanting to talk about it today. It helps me to say this out loud and make it real for myself.
In an ideal world, I would like to keep this experience alive when things go back to normal so that I can live with more perspective, more gratitude, more care. And I know it's not easy, but I'd like to do it.
And if we can't do that, I do worry that we will have missed something really important from this experience. Amen, man.
Then that's something I'm taking in over here as well. Well, look, I am glad you're safe because, you know, you have a lot of work to do.
No, I'm, I'm glad you're safe. I'm so sorry about, of course, your family and your friends and your colleagues.
And I hope that they're holding up okay. I really do hope

everybody recovers as quickly as possible. I hope the winds die down.
I hope the fires end soon. I hope the land and the people and all the animals heal soon.
But that's it just sounds like a ridiculous trite wishful thinking when I say all that. I do hope we get the leaders we need in California to rebuild and live responsibly at this very complicated moment in history.
So, man sending lots of love to LA right now and to everyone affected by this disaster. And thank you again to all of you for being such thoughtful listeners, checking in on us, checking in on Gabe especially.
Just one more moment that makes me step back and go, man, our show family is really special. We really appreciate it a lot.
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Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to Feedback Friday.
Before we kick off, I want to share a little exercise that I've been doing recently that has helped me a lot. Actually, it's simple.
It's called hot yoga. Just gonna know steal the punchline.
Just shredded, just torn out of my hands.

It's simple, but it's very powerful.

This exercise begins by asking yourself, who brings out my best qualities?

Think of those people.

They're people.

Not what brings out my best qualities, who brings out my best qualities.

Think of those people, write them down.

Then take five minutes right now and schedule some time with them.

It can be a phone call.

You could shoot them a text. It can be something more involved, like lunch or dinner.
You could go for a hike, whatever it is, and just kick it with that person. Even if they live a couple states away, arrange something with them.
You will feel a lot better for it. As I get older, I just really appreciate more and more that these relationships, the ones that bring out our best qualities, they really are one of the great gifts of life.
They're assets that can refill our bucket from work, responsibilities, other stressors. They remind us of the best version of ourselves and they reinforce those qualities.
And then we can take those into the rest of our relationships and responsibilities. And you are that person for other people too.
So give it a go. It's ridiculously easy, but like I said, it's very powerful.
All right, we got some fun ones. We got the doozies.
And by the way, I think our first question here is a little difficult. It deals with abuse, some pretty dark family stuff.
So just keep that in mind. And yeah, Gabe, take it away.
Dear Jordan and Gabe, 60 years ago, when my cousin was a child, she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather. At the time, her mother disregarded the incident and it was never discussed until the stepfather's death.
Fast forward 20 years. My cousin had a three-year-old daughter, let's call her Sarah, who during an emergency was being watched by her uncle, let's call him Frank.
Who's my cousin's stepbrother and the son of her abuser. There was an incident of sexual assault.
Okay. Pause for a second.
I want to make sure we're all tracking this because the family tree is complicated. So it is this listener's cousin was abused by her stepfather when she was a kid, which is shockingly common, actually.
Yes, 60 years ago. And then 20 years later, her three-year-old daughter is abused by her abuser's son.
Exactly. Who's the daughter's uncle and the mom's stepbrother.
Jeez. Okay, this is so sad.
Talk about a pattern. Talk about generational trauma.
This is really awful. But also, sorry, not to point fingers or make this worse in any way.
I know that this is going to be controversial, but why would you put the son of your abuser in charge of your toddler daughter after what happened to you? Yeah, I'm not sure it's fair to say that the children of abusers are always going to be abusers themselves, so maybe it didn't even occur to the mom. Look, I hear that.
I really do. I know this is probably a little, what's the word, presumptuous of me to say so early on, but still just the proximity to the person who abused her, that would be enough to give me pause as a parent.
Like, oh, this guy seems all right, but I don't know, his dad raped me. I wouldn't want to be anywhere around anybody.
Yeah, no, it's a fair question. I can't even imagine what Sarah's mom must have felt when she found out.
This is like devastating. Yeah, that must have been horrible.
It's horrible enough to find out that your child was abused, but I'm sure it brings up a unique pain if you've been through it yourself. And it's the child of the person, to your point, who did it to you.
And you were the one who put them in the same room. It's not like you left it with your grandma and then she left and put them in charge.
And it's like, what were you thinking? You did this. So there's a lot of levels of pain here.
She must have been furious and horrified. It's just deeply sad.
How is this happening all over again? Also, if the son of the first abuser is now abusing other people, I guess I can only really imagine what his father did to him. I was wondering about that, too.
That can't be a coincidence. We should circle back to that.
Yeah. Look, this is dark and I'm so sorry this happened to both of them.
So she goes on. My cousin immediately recognized something was wrong and put the pieces together.
She confronted her brother and he denied everything. She then confronted her mother who denied it could possibly be true.
Okay. So this is the same mother who disregarded the original abuse.
It's just a person who just like can't handle anything uncomfortable for themselves. I'm guessing so.
The worst. What a failure of a mother, just a, an abject failure, just burying her head in the sand.
Oh, this can't possibly be true. This stuff doesn't happen in our family.
I can't with people like this. It is not okay what you're just prioritizing your own comfort over your daughter's physical safety.
I hate this person. I'm sorry.
Ridiculous. That denial continued for over 10 years.
My cousin never allowed any contact between Frank and Sarah after that, but they would be together at family gatherings. Oh, so they did have contact, some contact.
No contact except for all the family parties and dinners and lunches. Yeah, I mean, one on ones, but yeah, so much going on here already.
So she goes on. At the time, a counselor they saw discouraged counseling because, quote, memories were not formed at that age, unquote, and quote, they didn't want to put something in her head.
Okay. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not how trauma works.
Famously not. But who knows how Sarah was presenting at that time.
So maybe there's some other logic here. What a strange detail.
Yeah, I guess it's hard with children. Maybe it's hard to know what's there and you don't want to provoke them or insert a memory that I don't.

You don't want to insert a memory, but there's still trauma there.

So it doesn't matter if she remembers it or not.

It happened. Right.
And I think memories do get formed at early ages.

I think we know that now. So anyway, she goes on.

Then 10 years later, as an adult, Frank confessed to what he did.

He had gone through counseling and soul searching and admitted everything the mother had suspected. He justified it as pubescent curiosity more than assault.
My aunt, his mother, basically told her daughter and granddaughter, who's now a teenager, that it was their responsibility to forgive and move on. What's done is done.
They're a religious family and taught to forgive. Look, I'm biting my tongue right now.
Nothing I want to say here is appropriate.

We gotta come back to this.

40 years later, Sarah is a beautiful, intelligent, talented, athletic, and successful adult with an advanced degree.

She's deeply spiritual and has many friends.

But she's never been able to trust men enough to have a lasting relationship.

All she ever wanted was to become a wife and a mother, and she's had many suitors. But when a relationship got to a certain point, she couldn't advance.
To some degree, her life was destroyed by that incident. Oh man.
So sad. I am so angry.
Meanwhile, Frank is extremely successful and extremely well off. When asked by his sister, Sarah's mother, if he would help pay for some ongoing counseling for his niece, his response was, she should get over it, that was a long time ago.
He's unwilling to help her in any way, but he still feels he should be openly accepted and highly regarded by the family for his success. He flaunts his money and power quite a bit.
To complicate matters, he has a daughter who was involved in drugs and child endangerment. That woman's daughter, Frank's five-year-old granddaughter, was taken away from her by the courts.
Frank begged his nephews and his niece, Sarah's sister, to foster his grandchild so he could continue to have a relationship with her. Okay, so pedophile rapist has a daughter that's involved in drugs and child endangerment.
Surprise.

He screwed up his own kids.

Wonder what happened there.

OK, obviously, my mind is going to some really dark places, but who knows what his motivation

is there?

It's real hard not to wonder why he wants to have a relationship with his young grandkid

that's so close.

Why couldn't he foster her?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'd only be speculating, but I guess that's on the table. Yeah.
Well, I'm glad that he's not because he's a pedophile rapist. I hate this guy.
I want to castrate this man. Is that an inappropriate reaction to this? I don't know.
Let's see how this letter plays out and then we'll get to that. Sarah's sister prayed about it and agreed to foster and potentially adopt his grandchild.
As it turns out, this little girl now has all sorts of behavioral issues, and caring for her is very stressful. This has also caused a lot of stress for Sarah.
After going through counseling, she's drawn clear boundaries and said she will not be anywhere near this guy for any reason. But any family gatherings will now include Frank and this challenging granddaughter.
It seems ridiculous that money would solve anything, but it's painful for the family to see this guy traveling around the world, living his best life, and posting his braggy pictures while they're suffering. If he were truly sorry, he would be offering to help the niece he assaulted.
He would ask Sarah for forgiveness and wait for her to work through the healing process without pressure. And he would provide back pay to his sister for Sarah's counseling, which has cost tens of thousands of dollars, as well as financially help the niece who's taking care of his granddaughter.
Wow, I'm just realizing. So he is not financially supporting the niece who agreed to foster and potentially adopt his granddaughter, the one he wanted to stay close with.
He won't support them, but he begged them to foster her so he could have a close relationship with her. Like, he doesn't actually give a shit about any of these people.
But he has the resources to do that. That's not okay.
This is so crazy. This person is defective in so many ways.
Not a point in his favor. While it doesn't feel right to sue him for something he did when he was a child, and while a lawsuit could be seen as blackmail to keep the secret in the family, it certainly would help them pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.
I also feel it would be empowering to come forward and face the perpetrator and hold him accountable. But Frank is a very entitled and narcissistic person.
Should Sarah's parents and siblings stand with her and shun the uncle until she's able to work through this, decide she can forgive him, and move on? Should my cousin, Sarah's mother, threaten to sue Frank for the therapy expenses over the years? Can Sarah sue him for damages 40-plus years later? Signed, looking to redress the distress caused by this hot mess. When some in the family suppress, the abuser flaunts his success, and I confess that I'm done trying to quiesce.
Wow, damn, you went ham on that one. What a story, Gabe.
Yeah, crazy. There's so many angles here.
There's so many subplots. There's so many characters, all this history.
Stories like this, they really capture the legacy of abuse. They do, and how it can ricochet through a family and echo in a lot of people's lives.
It's really disturbing. It is.
It's beyond disturbing. And I'm so sorry for Sarah and her mom, what they've been through, how the family has responded to it.
The mom, anyway, like I said, burying your head in the sand, avoiding denying. It's just not OK.
I said I wanted to castrate this guy. I didn't mean that.
I mean, I want to castrate him with a rusty grapefruit spoon. This guy is horrible.
Dark Jordan justice being meted out here. Yeah, it is a very troubling way to respond to something like this in a family.
It's also insult on top of injury. Insult on top of injury and also how these traumas go underground and they only get worse.
It really does break my heart to hear about people being hurt by these kinds of things. It's horrible.
So look, as always, we wanted to get a good handle on your options here. So we reached out to attorney and friend of the show, Corbin Payne.
And the way Corbin saw it, and this is what I love about Corbin, how he thinks both as a lawyer and as a human being slash armchair psychologist. Some lawyers really can't think like humans.
I can, I am proof of that. You're asking about two very different things.
One is how to obtain justice for Sarah, and the other is how to obtain healing for Sarah. So Corbin's take was that the justice part, that's going to be hard, because 40 years is a real long time by legal standards.
Depending on the laws in your state, Sarah and her mom might not even be able to bring a lawsuit, and even if they are, there's no evidence about what happened beyond the testimony of the people involved. Frank could come in and deny everything under oath.
And it wouldn't shock me if this POS does that. Of course, Sarah's mom could come in and testify that he admitted to it years ago.
And then Sarah's grandmother could come in and be like, that's all a lie because she wants to protect the family slash herself, which is the only thing she's protecting. In Corbin's view, this is the classic he said, she said conundrum.
Also, everyone could come in and admit the abuse did in fact take place, but then argue or concede that this was your typical adolescent explorations like Frank said. To quote Corbin here, I can't say which way a jury would go, but I can say that it would be very, very difficult.
So that's the not so good news, and I'm sorry to relay that. These cases are notoriously difficult to prove, and they only get harder with time.
It doesn't mean it's not an option. Sarah and her family could certainly try.
But I think you guys have to be realistic about your odds of success and aware of what you'd all have to go through. Lawsuits can be a long and difficult process, especially when it involves speaking publicly about what happened, with no guarantee that you'd get the damages you're hoping for.
Sarah's healing, though, that's a whole other process. And Corbin had a couple of thoughts there based on his experience with the law and working with a lot of victims over the years.
Gabe, you want to share what he told us? Sure. So first of all, Corbin had a similar reaction to Jordan a moment ago.
He felt that your family's commitment to silence, or at least your grandmother's commitment to silence, is destroying the family. We talk about this a lot on the show,

how silence is just so isolating for a victim. Corbin believes that it really hurts victims,

and it only ends up empowering their abusers. So to quote him again here,

this family is cloaking silence under the more religious-sounding demand that victims forgive

and forget, but that doesn't make it anything other than what it is.

I just want to jump in here and say I had the exact same response while you were reading the letter, and this is no shade on religion or religious people. Obviously, there's an aspect of healing that is deeply spiritual.
Your tradition can be super helpful, but I totally agree with Corbyn here. Fast forwarding to forgive and forget in a situation like this.
That's not being a good Christian. That is just bypassing, which is this weird defense mechanism that doesn't help anybody.
Correct. And that's even more invalidating and more isolating for the victim.
Yes. I also find it very presumptuous.
Oh, you, grandma, get to tell us, the women who were actually abused and sexually assaulted, we just need to forgive when you denied that it ever even happened? Why should I do that to make you comfortable? F*** you, grandma. That's not a sentence I thought I would ever utter on the show.
It's very upsetting. I think when someone like the grandmother says that they need to just forgive, what she's really saying is, I need everyone to stop talking about this because it's so distressing to me.
Yes, of course. It's all about her, which actually maybe the narcissism is passed down from grandma to the her rapey ass kid.

Hard to say, but true forgiveness, if that's even on the table here, that is a process,

probably a very long and complicated process.

And it's the victim's process.

And also it's a personal process.

It's not something that somebody from the outside gets to order everyone else to do

because they can't tolerate the anxiety and the shame of knowing that this happened in their family. Exactly right.
Okay, so Corbin wanted to respectfully suggest that you and your family figure out some ways to break this silence. That doesn't necessarily mean going and shouting this from the rooftops or going and giving a TED talk about abuse or whatever.
You're welcome to. We all love a good TED talk, but healing doesn't require something like that.
Corbin said that he's seen countless sexual abuse victims begin by sharing their stories with family, with friends, with people close to them, and then work up to sharing it in wider circles after that. In his experience, the simple act of owning what happened to them, telling other people about it when they're ready, of course, that allows them to rewrite the script of their experience to some degree and often to a large degree because it really does transmute the original experience.
Maybe a little, but often a lot. And it allows victims to reclaim what happened to them, find new meaning in it, cut through the stigma, the isolation.
It is very powerful. It turns a victim into a survivor.
Into a survivor. Exactly.
Corbin also said that some people go even further and become advocates for other victims, which is another way to make meaning and to heal. So this could be as simple as Sarah and her mom choosing to speak up, if that's what they want to do, of course, it's their choice.
And then empowering their family members to take steps to better protect their loved ones and their little ones from abuse in this family. Literally breaking this cycle in their family by speaking up.
Totally. Corbin said that he has seen this process work countless times.
He also said that he knows trauma doesn't have a one-size-fits-all solution. The burden of healing this family should not fall just on Sarah and her mom.
But he was very clear about his stance on all of this. The silence has to end.
I totally agree. And the second thought Corbin shared with us is that sexual abuse, especially within families, is appallingly widespread.
So many people go through this kind of abuse, way more than most people realize, which is why there are so many support groups out there and networks where survivors can get in touch with one another. In Corbin's experience, these support groups have proven to be one of the most powerful tools for healing.
We're all super encouraged that Sarah's been pursuing therapy for a long time. She hasn't just been repressing all this.
That's fantastic to hear. I'm very proud of her for that.
Although, I do wonder if she needs to better assert the boundaries she's found in therapy in terms of how much contact she has with Frank, but maybe that says more about the family's way of dealing with the abuse or not dealing with the abuse than with Sarah's ability to protect herself. But just in case she hasn't considered a support group, Corbin wanted to remind you that it's a great resource.
And we're going to link to Rain and a couple other hubs for these resources in the show notes. Highly recommend checking them out.
Corbin shared one more really interesting thing with us, which was one of the things that you seem extremely frustrated about, and understandably so, is that Sarah's uncle seems to be thriving while Sarah has struggled to some degree in her life, especially in her love life. You also seem to be frustrated that Frank has this kind of untouchable image in the family and he will not take accountability for what he did.
And look, those are totally fair responses. Corbin said that he was frustrated on all of

your behalf for the very same reasons. But here's the thing.
Up until now, Sarah's uncle and this

grandmother have been able to control the narrative and keep up the image of a healthy,

well-functioning family, right? That's given them a degree of control here. And in Corbin's view,

that control is largely unassailable because they won't admit to their faults and they won't

I'm going to court is not going to change anything in that regard either. But he wanted you to know that that doesn't mean that Sarah's mom or you, that any of you guys have to relinquish all the control in the situation to Frank.
You guys control how you perceive the grandmother. You guys control how and when and where you guys tell your own stories, which stories you lead with.
Most importantly, Corbin wanted you to know you control your own characters. Sarah and Sarah's mom, they sound like really good people.
And you're clearly a very caring, very empathetic person. That is huge.
Meanwhile, Frank is this, look, let's be honest, narcissistic guy who did some terrible things and also appears to be doing some terrible things in a few areas of his life. And trust me, the horrendous stuff that he's done aside, just having this personality is very stressful and it is its own form of punishment in a way.
So in the end, Corbin's feeling was that in one huge way, you guys have kind of already won.

Yeah, I agree with that. You're healthy.
You're clear. You're kind.
You're solid. And you guys will have that over this crib for the rest of your life.
He's incapable of becoming that way due to his narcissism and other issues. That doesn't take away the legacy of this abuse.
It doesn't mean that it didn't matter or that you don't deserve some form of justice here. It just means that even if you can't get legal justice for what happened, you might have already gotten a kind of cosmic justice, and that's often how it plays out.
And the more Sarah and her mom own their story, the more meaning and healing I think they'll find from the terrible things that they've been through. That's their work to do.
And that's their birthright. I completely agree with that.
I think we need to talk about just one more thing here, Jordan. And going back to your response while I was reading the letter and look, this is delicate and it's very complicated.
And honestly, I wish we didn't have to talk about this, but I don't think it would be fair not to. I feel that the portrait we're getting of Frank here is actually complicated.
Let's remember that there's a world where this guy might've been abused by his father. And that might be why he then abused somebody else at a young age too, right? When he was young, when he might not have fully understood what he was doing and how it would impact another person.
And then 10 years later, as an adult, presumably Frank confessed to what he did. He went through counseling.
He had this soul searching. He admitted everything that the mother had suspected.
Now he justified it as pubescent curiosity more than assault. It's debatable exactly what that was, but let's just remember that for all of this guy's faults, he did this work to some degree.
And he came out saying, I confess that I did this thing and I acknowledge it. That is no small thing to admit.
And I know it sounds weird to say, but that must have taken some courage and vulnerability on his part. It's an awful thing to own up to doing, right? He's also saying that it wasn't abuse.
It was this pubescent curiosity, and we can't possibly know if that's actually true. That might be exactly what it was.
We've talked to Brad Watts a bunch about this kind of abuse and how children sometimes work things out, and that's in a different category from a textbook pedophile. This might also be the version of the story that Frank is telling in order to live with it and to keep the family on his side and keep the worst part of this trauma buried.
At the same time, it's also true that he has not taken all the steps he could to make this right. For example, like paying for Sarah's therapy.
Although then if it's true that he was a victim as well and this abuse was of a different category, maybe in his mind he doesn't owe Sarah that. I don't know.
I'm not saying I agree with this argument, but let's just at least appreciate that is an argument he could make. So all of this complicates the picture of Frank for me.
I'm not letting him off the hook. I'm not saying he's a good guy.
I'm not saying that this family doesn't have to go through a massive reckoning about what happened. I am very disturbed by a number of facts in this guy's life.
But as our friend here considers the remedies for this abuse, I do think it's important to open the aperture here a little bit more and appreciate that this particular story that we're hearing, it has a lot of nuances and some ambiguity and there are a lot of different angles here that really do complicate the question of who is culpable and how culpable are they and who ultimately bears responsibility for what happened and how do they make that right? Man, that's a lot to take in. You're right.
This is complicated. To your point, I wonder if deep down Frank knows he did something very wrong.
He might even feel that on some level

he is the abuser that everyone says he is. And that is why he's trying to portray this image of

himself as a successful human being. And he desperately wants everyone to forget what

happened or view it in a certain way. Even the whole traveling around the world thing,

that might just be a form of escapism for him. Just him trying to get away from himself, which

is impossible to do because there's still a world where what actually happened is a source of deep shame for him and a reminder of what his father might have done to him and then what he then did to someone else. No amount of money or success or projected self-image could make up for the fact that he did this awful thing, whatever his intention and psychology happened to be at the time.

Yeah. Wow.
That's a very good point. And honestly, dude, it's confusing.
I'm unsure whether to hold him accountable for all of this or to just feel sorry for him or both. I really don't.
Yeah. I'm now ping-ponging between the two as well.
I'm leaning toward the conclusion that guys like this deserve to have their balls cut off. Again, rusty grapefruit spoon.
My mind is a worrying right now, right? An anonymous person could host a website in a place like Russia that can't be taken down with this whole story using his full name and this successful guy, if he's a partner, let's say some sort of bank, they're not going to want a pedophile guy working there. He's going to get fired.
His whole life is going to come crashing down. But that is not something that you should do and it would come come back and blow up in your face.
I'm just saying that that would ruin his life, and that might be a shame, in air quotes. But Gabe, you're unfortunately giving me some pause with this take, because you're right.
People who do stuff like this, there's almost always a reason. So I guess we have to make some room for some compassion for Frank here, even if Sarah and her mom deserve the lion's share of that compassion.
Man, what a story. Like I said, there's so much to explore here, but I hope that gives you a few new angles to consider, and I hope it leads you, Sarah's mom, everyone in the family to the right decision here.
Although I think ultimately, this is really up to Sarah to decide for herself, because it's her story. Sending you and your family a big hug and wishing you all the best.
Okay, next up. Heya boys, I've had my work from home job for a year now, and recently a decision was made in my company that will affect my day-to-day work in a moderate to high manner permanently.
I'll be up for a review next month, and I know that my supervisor will ask me about this protocol change and how it's affected my work. I personally think this change is asinine, and I will have to work a little harder to be less productive.
But since this is not my supervisor's decision, I'm not sure how I would answer. How can I resist complaining about how dumb this is? Can I plead the fifth? What is the most professional way to weasel out when the alternative is to likely regret being honest? Signed, in a bind about speaking my mind, because I might be unkind and malign the blind minds who designed this unstreamlined time.
Jeez, you didn't have to absolutely murder that sign-off. It's just a work question, man.
This is the light stuff we're throwing in between the other not-so-light stuff. It just tumbled out that way.
I don't know. Sometimes that happens just there.
Gabe understood the assignment, as the kids like to say, which is a great phrase. Look, I can appreciate why it's stressful to think about being honest with your supervisor here.
Being truly candid at work, it is tough. There are politics at play.
You don't want to piss off the wrong person unnecessarily. I get it.
On the other hand, you have a few things working in your favor. One is that this change has objectively changed your job in a moderate to highway permanently, as you said.
So you're not just grumbling for no reason or inventing a problem that isn't there. The other thing is that this was not your supervisor's decision.
So it's not like you'd be attacking them directly by pointing out that it's making you work harder to be less productive. You guys are probably on the same side of the table here because I assume both of you have a stake in making sure that you are as productive as possible.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to point this out or even that you should. There might be other reasons to kind of suck it up or let it roll off your back.
I don't know the politics or the nuances of your workplace, but I actually think there might be a good reason not to dodge this question. And I have two thoughts for you that might make this easier to bring up.
First, I would focus on the facts as much as possible. Resist the urge to get angry and complainy and just talk about this as an economic thing.
Hours worked versus results delivered. The upside to doing things this way versus the opportunity cost of losing time and energy and whether this change actually makes sense to your supervisor.
In other words, don't use the word asinine. Just present the facts and let them draw their own conclusion.
You can even say, look, I'm having to work harder. I'm less productive.
I know this wasn't your call. But what do you make of this? Can we find a better solution so that we can perform better, or do I have to just suck it up and be a team player? And invite your supervisor to tell you what they make of all this.
If they're like, hey, I hear you, but this is just how management wants it now, then you'll know it's probably not worth getting worked up about. But if there's some openness there, you might want to pitch a solution.
And that's my second recommendation. I'd come to this meeting with a few ideas about how to solve this problem rather than just complaining about it.
It's one thing to sit with your supervisor and go, hey, this change sucks. I got to work harder.
I'm less productive. It's another thing to go, you know what? This change, it doesn't actually make a lot of sense.
So here are a couple ways I think we could move faster and deliver more. What do you think? If you come to a conversation like this with some solutions and some next steps, even if they are broad, it'll change the tone completely.
Because A, you'll be trying to actively make things better, which always lands better. B, it'll force you to lead with a spirit of productivity and collaboration rather than just grumbling and criticizing.
And C, it'll empower you and your supervisor to go and pitch some of these changes if they're actually workable. And you'll probably know a lot faster if they are workable or if this asinine change has some kind of logic that you just need to accept.
So yeah, you can resist complaining about how dumb this is if it's a prudent thing to do. But if you come to this meeting in this spirit, I'm not sure you'll have to resist too hard because you're not just going to be complaining.
You might even be kind of excited. you might be able to plead the fifth.
But if your supervisor asks you point blank, hey, what do you think of this new change? I'm not sure how well that's going to land. It's kind of weaseling out in a way that doesn't communicate.
I'm a trustworthy employee. I'm a leader.
While also it subtly suggests that you don't like the change, but you don't have the, I don't know, the courage or the integrity to speak up about it. Yeah, that is a really good point.
I totally agree. And as for regretting being honest, I don't think you'll regret it as much if you prepare for this meeting in the way that Jordan just laid out and also approach this as a creative problem to be solved rather than just like a flaw to be pointed out.
But if you're worried about that, then I would really think through this conversation, think through the implications of speaking up, maybe run it by a couple of peers, couple of colleagues you trust, just get their opinion. Would this land me in hot water or would this be welcome? Get clear with yourself on what specifically would make you regret speaking up.
Because my hunch is that being honest at work in general is probably a little daunting for you, as it is for all of us. And this kind of proleptic regret that you feel is probably designed to keep you safe by making you want to avoid the conversation in the first place.
Hold up. Proleptic? What does that mean? Sorry, Gaby SAT is over here going ham.
Proleptic means like treating a future event as if it's already happened. Okay.
Interesting. So she's regretting something she hasn't even done yet, but is that even regret? Isn't that just worrying? No, it's interesting, right? It's proleptic regret.
It's weird. She's projecting herself into a future where she wishes that she didn't speak up, which might give her a reason to not speak up when speaking up might be exactly the right thing to do, but she doesn't want to because it's a little scary, it's uncomfortable.
So my theory is that this proleptic regret is designed to protect her by letting her off the hook. But I think the solution is, first of all, prepare well, and second, trust yourself enough to say, hey, I know enough to know that this is not actually the best way of doing things, and I might have a better way, rather than regretting that you pointed out something that is objectively true, then this is actually a great opportunity for you to try, well, being more honest at work, more confident and thoughtful about your recommendations and just see what happens.

I have a feeling it'll go well as long as you lead with the right attitude. Good luck.
Gabe, I haven't had a real job in a long time, but I have to think that if you have a decent relationship with your supervisor and you come in and you're like, why do I have to do TPS reports every day instead of every week? They're probably like, oh, I know. I know.
Right. They're not going to be like, how dare you question a management decision? Especially because the supervisor didn't come up with it.
The fact that our friend here is so anxious about telling the truth to somebody who really probably doesn't even have a stake and is probably going to be like, yeah, I also think it's dumb, but we just have to deal with it. That tells me that there's probably something deeper to this.
I agree. It seems like you'd want your supervisor to go, hey, I know we say we need these daily.
My guys are way less productive now. Do you care about production or do you care about TPS reports being filed in a timely manner? And it's like, oh, we didn't realize this was causing a production issue.
Thanks for letting us know. Change of policy.
That's how things would happen here. Maybe in real companies, they just don't care because they're like somebody up top doesn't want their ego hurt.
So we're all filing TPS reports, but you got to try. You never know.
But then if you don't speak up at all, then you just get angry and bitter. And then you're like, this place doesn't want to change, but you're not giving them the chance to change by speaking up.
Exactly. All right.
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What's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, three years ago, my brother and his wife had a beautiful baby girl. We'll call her Mary.
Mary is the light of my life. She's my first and only blood related niece and my parents only grandchild.
Oh God, Gabe, after that first question, this one's making me nervous already. Don't worry.
This one's very different. Thank you.
I'm glad I was having a, there's a proleptic stress response. Oh, look at you.
Nicely done. That's a good word, man.
It's funny, Gabe. I was just remembering I was going to take the LSAT, which is the thing you take before law school if you get in.
And I was really good at the regular SATs, the verbal section, whatever. And then I decided to take the GRE as the backup to the LSAT in case I didn't do well in the LSAT for law school.
I was like, oh, I need this for regular grad school. And I'm not good at math.
I hate math. I really don't like it.
And I thought I would do decent on the verbal section and okay on the math section. And what happened is on the math section, this is one of those tests you take on the computer and it gets progressively harder the better that you do.
And I was like, oh, I'm not good at math. Why are they showing me all these weird things, calculus things and symbols I've never even seen before? And I was getting really confused because I thought, I'm clearly not getting these questions right.
I'm just guessing at the answer by looking at the four choices and picking the one that looks the most different from the other ones, kind of. And it's showing me more and more very complicated stuff that you would see like in a movie on a chalkboard or something in Einstein's laboratory.
Yeah, it's like a John Nash drawing on the window. Yes, exactly.
There's I'm taking yarn and connecting it to photos on a corkboard. They're like, sir, this test is on a computer.
Yeah. So I was just like, this is impossible.
What just happened? And I left so confused. And then about two weeks later, I get this letter from MIT.
That congratulations on your gre results stop it you absolutely slayed the math section we want to invite you to come out here we're going to pay for your travel we're going to pay for your accommodation we want you to take this further testing in our math department and if you do well on that we will invite you to a full or partial scholarship to MIT, a grad program. Wait, so you just murdered the math section of the GRE by accident? Absolutely.
And MIT was like, we want you. Yes.
That's too funny, dude. How did that happen? I don't really understand either.
I really must have just gotten one extremely lucky, but two, that test was written in such a way where the answers, there's just one that's different enough from the other three multiple choice that you can do it. It's not like I would have been able to do this if I'd had to show work or like actually do the math.
It's just that if you ask me a question and the three of the answers have graphs and one of them just has an equation and I pick the equation, okay, you didn't need the graph for that one. Or like all the graphs go to the right.
I just picked the one that went to the left because yeah, and it worked. So yeah, it was a flaw in the actual test.
Otherwise I would have had a better chance just rolling the dice and getting six, 12 times in a row. The odds are so low that it had to be a flaw in the test.
That is hilarious. Takes GRE as a backup to not getting into law school, ends up in the quantum physics program at MIT.
Yeah, exactly. Literally, they were probably recruiting me for some weird thing like that because they wanted me to do more math and then give me a scholarship to MIT.
Just none of it made any sense. But you didn't take them up on this, right? Hell no.
I hate math even more than I hate Boston. Great.
Thank you for that. I'm not going to get a bunch of emails from people in Boston who are famously passionate about their city.
Yes. Yelling at us for hating on their objectively charming town.
So I appreciate that. Look, man, I've been to Boston like once in my life.
The food was amazing. I'll give them that.
I just, I can't understand what anybody's saying. What a weird diversion that was.
Okay. So we got into from proleptic to your almost MIT career.
Okay. Let's get back to Mary's.
The letter goes on. But since the day Mary was born, my brother has used my niece as a weapon against us, keeping her from us when we've upset him and only allowing us to see her when he feels like it.
Over the years, he's gotten upset with my mother and me saying we are too obsessed with Mary and that if we wanted to see her so badly, we should have our own kid. That is such a weird thing to say.
Such a weird thing to say. He gets mad when we want to see her more than once a month, even though he lives five minutes down the street from me and she absolutely adores my husband and me.
Last year, my brother got mad because I only ever reach out to him to visit Mary, and I never ask about him. But before Mary was born, we never really had a close relationship, as he's eight years older than me, and he went to jail when I was 10.
Okay, so he went to jail at 18. That might explain a few things.
For three months after this fight, he kept Mary from me,

even threatening to keep her from my mom if she allowed me to see her.

It absolutely broke me.

Over time, I was allowed to see her, but only at birthdays and holidays,

and now I can see her only when he allows.

I'm a good and kind person. I own my own business, have a beautiful and loving marriage,

and love Mary like she's my own. But he restricts her visits with me as though I were a criminal or a bad influence.
The irony of the guy who was a criminal, Gabe, I'm getting ahead of myself, but she said, my husband and I are successful and we have a great relationship with her. I think that's why he's jealous of that.
It's very interesting. This guy's not a good person, I think.
I've tried communicating about this with him, but he's extremely dismissive and insensitive to my feelings, reminding me that Mary is his kid and he gets to choose who she can and can't see. Is there any way forward with this relationship? Do I just have to deal with the heartache of missing Mary and only getting to see her once in a while? Or am I asking too much by trying to see her on a more frequent basis? Signed, trying to make peace and circumvent the police, stopping me from seeing my niece when my love for her will only increase.
All right. So I have some ideas from question one.
Step one, get the court to take his kids away from him. Step two, foster the child.
You can see her whenever you want. Case closed.
Wow. Dark jordan connecting up the dots across questions that was weird and logistical and very improbable but i appreciate the effort fine i'm here for it look this is a sad situation and honestly i find it creepy it is the way he's gatekeeping his daughter it's so strange gabe i'm thinking about the letter we took two weeks ago from the woman whose sister accused her of abusing her son and how she was making it super hard for that listener to stay close with the nephew who she adored because she was accusing her of all kinds of heinous child abuse nonsense.
Right. This is the QAnon sister who was a victim of abuse and then claimed that her sister had abused her too emotionally since they were children.
Yeah. Interesting parallels here.
They're both aunts of kids they really love. Both have very tough siblings.
And because they're not the parents of these kids they love so much, they don't have much control over how often they get to see them. It's really interesting.
I'm sitting here wondering what the brother's version of this story would be. His main grievance seems to be that our friend here only reaches out to visit his daughter if she never asks about him, which, to be fair, maybe that is a little bit hurtful on some level.
Okay. That's true.
I could see that, but they were never close. And it sounds like he's a bit of a difficult character.
Look, if I go to prison at age 18 and my 10 year old sister doesn't want to be my best friend when I get out in five years, like I get it. No.
So clearly he's a difficult character and yeah, he has a criminal history, which look, that doesn't automatically mean he's some kind of monster or that he doesn't deserve some love and interest from his sister. But who knows? He might in fact be a shady dude and he might have other qualities related to his past that also make their relationship tough.
Plus there's an eight year age gap. That's huge.
Whatever the reasons that they have a fraught relationship, it's hard to be close. It's hard to talk about why they're not close.
And according to her, that's his fault. She's the one who's trying and he's dismissive and insensitive.
And he's pulling the whole like, well, she's my kid card. He gets to choose who she can and cannot see.
Yeah. Good luck when she's older and you're trying to control who she's friends with or who she dates.
Like you're strong. My kids don't talk to me anymore vibes in about 10 years for Mary and dad.
Look, he's not wrong about that. He does get to choose.
But you're right. One of them is at least trying to talk and repair things.
And the other one is shutting the conversation down and playing hardball with a child. So that does seem to be a point in our friend here's favor.
But what I'm getting at is it still might be helpful for her to consider how her brother views the situation, why he feels so slighted, even if his reasons are ultimately irrational or unfair. Maybe she just needs to say to him, look, I hear you that I have made you feel unappreciated.
I hear that you feel I care more about Mary than I care about you. That was never my intention.
If we can have a closer relationship, I would like that. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can work on that.
But in the meantime, I would really love to be able to be a great aunt to Mary and be a better sister to you without feeling like you're keeping her from me for reasons that I don't fully understand. Yeah, I like that.
Like I'll tolerate your annoying ass if I can see my niece. I'll even smile to your face, but I really just want to see my niece, you man child.
There are two ways to go about this strategy. One is cynically and just say the things that you think he needs to hear in order to soften up and let you see her.
And then there's another version where maybe you really do give that a go and see if this relationship could improve. I'll tell you which one I would pick.
Clearly. Playing him like a friggin fiddle, dude.
I know she's tried this, but maybe she needs to go a little further. Maybe that would give her a way to understand her brother, acknowledge her brother in a way that makes him feel heard, even if he cannot return the favor.
And maybe that's how she makes progress with him. Maybe that's how she stays close with Mary.
it's a good point because she's the one who's capable of really listening and talking he's not

so she might have to do most of the work here and maybe even cater to her brother's

delicate personality slash fragile ego so that she can have a relationship with Mary, I guess. I think that's the way forward here if there is a way forward, but also there just might not be a way forward.
Your brother might be so rigid and so combative that no matter how much empathy and diplomacy you meet him with, he just won't let you be super close with his daughter, which is really sad for both you and for Mary and actually also for him, because who doesn't want their child to be close with their family, especially if their family is solid and is loving relationships and is cool. I mean, I guess that just might be the way this cookie crumbles, in which case, yeah, you have to deal with the heartache of missing Mary and only getting to see her every once in a while.
It's the idea we seem to come back to again and again in situations like this. There's always a limit to our power.
A lot of life is about working through the grief of accepting life as it is. And I won't belabor that point, but I would definitely encourage you to go back and listen to that other letter that was similar to yours.
That was episode 1099, 1099. The first question on that episode, your stories are very different, but the shape is the same.
And I think you'll find some interesting parallels in that listener's story about loving her nephew and confronting a version of events where she might not be able to be as close with him for a while. At which point, this becomes about working through your own feelings about your family and finding creative ways to stay close over the years when your brother won't let you.
But no, I definitely don't think you're asking too much by trying to see Mary on a more frequent basis. You just want to hang out with the niece you love.
What could be more normal than that? So do what you can to change those variables, maybe by trying to meet your brother in a new way, as hard and as awkward as that might be, or start making peace with what this situation will allow. My hope is that you and Mary can stay connected in other ways, and when she's a little older, maybe it'll be easier to have a relationship again.
It sucks, but it doesn't have to be the end of the story. Sending you and Mary a big hug and hoping your brother comes around.
Good luck. All of the deals and discounts are searchable and clickable over on the deals page, jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

Our AI chatbot can search for sponsor codes and surface those as well, jordanharbinger.com slash AI.

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Now, back to Feedback Friday.

And right now, time for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lip filler.
My recommendation of the week, it's called the Sun Aware UV Tracker. Sun Aware, we'll link to it in the show notes.
So this is, it really is just a tiny little clip that's the size of half your pinky finger that clips onto your shirt or your hat, and it measures the amount of UV radiation that you're being exposed to. And it's solar powered so you don't have to fiddle around with batteries or anything like that.
It's Bluetooth, it connects to your phone. The company's mission is to raise awareness around UV exposure to keep people safe.
I spend a lot of time outside, I go rucking and I walk around every day for hours and during the summer I had no idea how much UV I was getting. I was like, oh, I'm probably fine because I don't burn.
Not really the case. According to this app, I'm really getting a lot of UV sometimes.
And on other days where I think I need to go inside because it's sunny, the UV index is low and I can actually stay outside for like two extra hours. So it's very helpful.
You can't really eyeball this kind of stuff. The company, I contacted them when I bought this because I thought it was so awesome.
They actually are generously offering to send three of these devices to our listeners as part of a giveaway, max one per person, of course. For this giveaway, they're going to ship worldwide for free.
So don't be like, oh, I live in Canada. I can't get this.
But outside the US and EU, there might be customs duties. I don't know how that works.
What do you go to the post office? You got to pay 10 bucks. I really don't know.
They will, however, cover shipping and customs for the US and the EU. So you'll get it like anything else you order online.
This is going to be a first come first serve situation. Please only get it if you need it.
If you spend a lot of time outside and you're worried about that or a loved one does, don't just grab it because it's like a cool gadget, at least not the free one. And also if we're out of them, go ahead and buy one.
Like I said, it's like under a hundred bucks, I think, and not getting skin cancer is kind of a compelling offer. So if you want to take advantage of our giveaway, please email friday at jordanharbinger.com.
We'll connect you with the company, and if we hit the three device limit before you write in, please don't be bummed. I encourage you to buy one for yourself.
I did. I bought this.
It's not a sponsor or anything. It's really just a cool device.
I think anybody who spends a lot of time outside should have. Also, in case you didn't know, there's a subreddit for our show.
If you're a Reddit user and you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes, actually, it's not even about that anymore. There's a lot of talking about the show in general or other stuff that's tangential to the show.
It's a lot of fun. But if there's an episode you really liked, an episode you really didn't like, you want to share additional thoughts, you want to learn from other people in our show fam, definitely come check it out.
It's a very positive place. I do ban people who are just a-holes for no reason.
Reddit's very tolerant of that. I'm not.
If you're going to go over there and crap all over people, I'm just going to ban you. I don't care.
But there's some really cool conversations happening over there. And again, it's a very positive place in part because of the no asshole rule.
So you can find it on Reddit in the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Okay, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe.
I'm a senior software engineer working for a small startup in London, and if all goes to plan, we'll soon be opening a new office near my hometown. I'm the only member of the team in this area, and I'd like to think my local presence and familiarity with the area added a little sprinkle of appeal to an already great business decision.
The longer term plan is to scale up this office and hire more engineers to help build our product. As you can imagine, this is a massive opportunity for me, and I know I'd regret it forever if I didn't try to make the most of it.
Yeah. So even more proleptic regret.
So interesting. Bob's going to put proleptic in the title.
For sure. And if he doesn't, you're fired, Bob.
You're done. You're proleptically terminated.
Proleptically get your ass in gear and throw that in the title. I've signed up for some local networking events and breakfasts, but here's where I'm struggling.
I don't feel worthy of being at these events. They're open to everyone to attend, but as I'm not a CTO, CEO, investor, or founder, I can't help but wonder, why would anyone there want to meet me? I don't feel like I have anything valuable to offer in return.
My gut tells me that these are the rooms I need to be in to grow my network. The connections I make could be invaluable.
But I don't want to approach this too selfishly. I love to feel like I'm offering something meaningful as well.
Am I thinking about this too transactionally? How do you build connections when you feel like you're starting on the back foot or have little to offer? Signed, in the throes of feeling like I have to pose, but wanting to grow in the way that I rub elbows. Yeah, you're useless, man.
Pack it in. Thanks, everybody, for listening.
No, this is a really good question. First of all, congrats on this exciting new opportunity.
I love that you're pumped about it. I'm even more pumped that you're thinking of it as a massive opportunity and that you want to make the most of it.
Obviously, investing in your relationships is a huge part of that. And I also love that you want to offer something meaningful to the people you meet.
You're doing so much right here. So yes, it definitely sounds like some of these events are where you need to be.
And yes, I do think you're thinking about this a little narrowly. It might be true that in some ways you don't have a ton to offer every single important person you meet at these events.
It's also probably true that you have something to offer these people, even if it's something really basic, like your curiosity, your listening, your empathy, or your willingness to introduce them to other people who might be more immediately useful in their worlds. Those are really huge assets, and they don't depend on your title or your technical experience or your assets under management, and you can't discount them.
I have been massively helped over the years by people who, to be totally honest, can't really immediately help me in my podcasting career. But let's say they hosted a dinner party where I met some amazing guests for the show, or they talked me through a business problem and they had a unique angle on that because it was different from mine, or they were just a solid peer or an inspiring presence.
And I've tried to do the same for other people as well. So I would not get too hung up on whether a CTO or a venture capital investor wants to talk to you just because of their title or their background.
I think that's already putting you on your back foot. I also think it's probably making these conversations a little bit strained.
If anything, I would go into these conversations thinking, man, this person is in a position of some power. This person is wicked smart.
Or this person deals with money. That's not my domain at all.
So how can I get to know them and their world better? How can I learn something new? How can I listen for the human being behind their role? How can I find one or two points of connection, connect some dots for them? How can I just be an enjoyable person to talk to? Going in with that mindset, that's going to get you a lot further. Ironically, though, you have to be both more and less strategic in order to succeed with some of these folks.
More strategic in the sense that on some level, you're actively looking for ways to be useful, whether it's walking them across the room and introducing them to a person you just met by the bagels or whatever, or getting their email and sending them useful stuff that you learn, or thinking about how these folks might fit into this new office your company is opening, whatever. But less strategic in the sense that you're not constantly doing the math of, okay, am I offering this person enough? Am I fancy enough to be talking with them? Am I giving them something valuable enough to justify taking up their time? Which is where these chats can become transactional, which is the only way that you can really fail.
So it's a dance, right? You walk that line between being thoughtful

about what you can offer

but not only viewing your relationships

through that lens.

Because look, man,

even if you are super valuable to these people,

you still want to be personable.

You still want to be funny.

You want to be open and interesting

and all that jazz.

And honestly, meeting someone like that at an event,

even if no work gets discussed at all,

that's usually way more fun

than meeting someone who's like,

oh, how can I help you?

How can you help me?

Let's get to the next level together from the jump. I can't stand it.
Actually, this brings up an interesting reminder. This is something I talk about in my keynote when I do talks.
There was a student who told me the same thing, like, I'm not useful. I don't know any people.
I'm young. I don't have any money.
I don't have a rank in a business. But he was in the cybersecurity club at his engineering school.
And what I told him was to lean into that. And he met a recruiter who was like, why should we hire you? And he brought his resume or whatever.
And I said, lean into the club angle, because that's valuable for a recruiter. So he told the recruiter that he was also in the cybersecurity club and she, in part, hired him

because he knew all the other people at his school

who were interested in what she was hiring for,

which was cybersecurity.

And think about it.

You're getting the dog and pony show,

the rizz, the razzle dazzle

from everybody who comes in for an interview.

But now you've got one guy who's already got a job

and he goes, yeah, I know that Tim looks impressive, but he's all blow, no show, shows up late to everything. You don't want that guy.
Angela, on the other hand, she's soft-spoken, and she undersells herself, but she's actually really brilliant. So now you got this inside man.
So she, in part, hired him because he knew everybody else who was interested and could shed light on whether they were a good fit for the company. So it didn't matter that he didn't have a job.
It didn't matter that he didn't have any money. He was actually one of the most valuable people that she could have met at that particular time.
Man, that is a great story. That perfectly captures this principle that you're trying to, yeah.
It does. It does.
Like he thought, oh, I don't know anyone. Yes, you know a bunch of other students and that's actually who she's looking for.
And you have insight on every single person and their personality. But he misvalued himself until that moment.
That's great. So all that said, if you are in fact starting on the back foot here, if it's actually true that you have little to offer, then part of your job right now is building up those assets.
So you do feel more equipped and confident at these events. Maybe that means boning up on your technical knowledge.
Maybe it means taking on more responsibilities at work so you have more experience, more power, more points of connection with these people that you're meeting. Maybe it means continuing to invest in all these interesting people that you're meeting so if nothing else, you can introduce them to one another.
You become the hub for these connections. It might also mean really taking stock of what you do already know, what you do already have to offer, and correctly valuing those things so that you are in touch with all of the things that you actually do have to offer to these people.
It's absolutely okay to still be developing. Hopefully you're always going to be developing.
But then you have to use your gaps or weaknesses to identify the areas that you need to grow, and then put in the work to expand in those places. And you don't need to put your networking on pause until you get there.
You can do both at the same time. And a lot of your growth will happen through your relationships.
So these are really two sides of the same coin. But listen, man, I'm actually not worried about you.
The fact that you're so concerned about what you can offer people, that actually tells me that you're coming at all of this with a really great mindset. And it also tells me that you 100% deserve to be at these events.
Just embrace where you are, resist the urge to pretend to be anything that you're not, keep working really hard to level up and meet people with kindness, curiosity, generosity, and you really can't go wrong. Good luck with the new office, man.
Hope this is the start of an exciting new chapter. Don't forget to check out our episode about dictators from earlier this week with Dr.
Marcel Derses, as well as our Skeptical Sunday. You haven't heard those yet.
Now's a great time to go check them out. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust.
We just talked about the value of that. I got a whole course on that that's free on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com.
The drills take a few minutes per day. I really wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago.
Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks. Build relationships before you need them.
Sixminutenetworking.com. There's no upsells or anything like that, at least not at this time, and I've got no plans for any either, so you don't need your credit card.
Just show up. It's a free course.
Yes, really. Show notes and transcripts at jordanharbinger.com.
Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi.
This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlauskas, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.
Our advice and opinions are our own. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer.
Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Corbin Payne.
Dr. Margolis' input is general psychological information based on research and clinical experience.
It's intended to be general and informational in nature and does not represent

nor indicate an established clinical or professional relationship with those inquiring for guidance.

So basically, she's a therapist, but not your therapist. 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 of the Jordan Harbinger Show with Olympic speed skater, Apollo Ono. To me, the power of belief is the real lesson.
I could tap into this unknown reservoir of performance potential. I believe that there was a sixth gear that I had access to, that everyone else only had five.
I truly believe that. I was able to use my fear of failure in a way that was so powerful, it became a superpower.
But over long enough durations of time, it also became toxic. We all live as if we have this infinite life, right? We take things for granted.
We're grinding. Very natural human experience.
I do this too. Life is this incredible gift.
And so do not waste it on shit that is just not worthy. It doesn't serve you and who you want to truly become.
If there's one message that I can leave to people is that your choices to respond and react to the situations that you're meeting today are solely within your control. Solely.
Whether you are hyper successful and you decide what you want to do next, whether you are failing miserable and you're deeply unhappy, or you feel like you're just floating and you're just like kind of like, ah, everyone seems like they all have it around me. It's all noise.

The person that actually creates momentum and progress is the one that doesn't listen to that voice unless it's using it for fuel to actually make progression and positive movement. everything that I dedicate myself towards today.

My life mission is about how do we create a more open communication channel

to create conversation that actually moves and inspires

and reminds people of the superpowers

that we actually really all have within.

For more with Apollo Ono,

the most decorated winter athlete in Olympic history,