1136: Marriage on Skids If You Can't Agree on Kids? | Feedback Friday

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Shopify.com slash listen. Welcome to Feedback Friday.
I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the complimentary cucumber and strawberry flavored ice water keeping you cool in this bootcamp of life advice, Gabriel Mizrahi.
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. I meant like a fitness boot camp.
You're in there about to vomit and you're like, I need some water. And they only have this weird concoction in the back of the room in that little cooler thing.
Anyway, our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, former jihadis, drug traffickers, Fortune 500 CEOs.
What's the difference? Rocket scientists, four star generals, investigative journalists. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice and generally offer new hot takes on age old themes.
Before we dive in, I had a little insight this week, I suppose you could call it. I wanted to share it with you guys.
So we all know that having goals is important, right? That's something you learn probably in college or whatever, high school now. Goals are powerful.
Goals can be really helpful. But I've always been more interested in how you turn an abstract goal into reality.
Because a goal is essentially, it's vague aspiration, right? It's just an idea. It can be a very powerful idea.
All change and ambition starts with that idea. But the reason so many people never achieve their goals is that they remain just that goals.
If you ever achieve something, it's because you've woven that goal into your life in some way because you're in a relationship with it. And the older I get, the more I realize that goals, they're kind of the tip of the iceberg.
They're just the headline. The real substance is how you're engaging with that goal in tiny ways all the time.
In other words, at some point for a goal to actually become real, it has to become a process. It has to become a system.
It has to become a ritual, especially if the goal is not a one and done thing, but something you want to be or have for the rest of your life, like being in good shape or writing books or speaking another language, that sort of thing. Goals are for people who care about achieving something once, but systems, processes, these are for people who care about achieving something repeatedly and who are interested in seeing that goal evolve into new goals, new opportunities, new levels of mastery.
You don't get into great shape by saying, oh, I want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, which I think every guy did back when that came out. Was that college, I guess, for me? Probably.
I'm putting a timestamp on myself, which you should never do. But you get in shape by doing five pushups and then you do 10 and then you do 20 and you walk on the treadmill and then you start jogging and you start running.
Gabriel, did you ever do the couch to 5k? Did you ever try to run? No. What is that? So I wanted to run, but I was essentially just like overweight and had never run in my life.
And a friend of mine was like, oh yeah, couch to 5k. And I was like, yeah, haha.
And he's like, no, you've seen that, right? And I said, no, similar to what just happened now. And there was this plan on the web in 2004, whatever the year was.
It was like the couch to 5k plan. It was like, get up and walk for 10 minutes and then stop and relax and then walk for 10 more minutes and then stop and then relax and then go home.
And the next one was like jog lightly for 10 seconds and then stop and walk for 20 seconds. And it was just that but slow.
Just incremental progress. Yeah.
Eight months later or whatever, I was just running three miles a day or whatever it was. It was awesome.
And I'd never felt more accomplished than having done that because I'd never really gone for any sort of fitness goal in my life until that. It was amazing.
So these incremental gains really are something. You don't write a book by saying you want to be a bestselling novelist.
You write a book by writing a thousand words a day for years at a time and getting rejected constantly. So goals, great, very helpful, definitely nice to have.
They're an important stage, but they have to become something more,

something active, something consistent,

and they have to become very small,

tiny ways of engaging with that goal every day in order to be truly useful.

And I know it seems obvious,

but I just thought it was worth repeating,

especially as we enter that part of the year

where your New Year's resolutions,

if you are not already in full-on habit mode, they're gone. They're falling away because the resolutions were just goals.
The goals were just ideas. There wasn't a consistent system or habit or routine created around it to make it real.
And there's no shame around this. You just got to modify the way that you do things.
Modify your thinking. Get those systems in place.
All right. As always, we've got fun ones.
We got doozies. What is the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan and Gabe.
I'm 32 and my 33 year old husband and I have been together for 10 years and married for five. I grew up in a small town and understood that getting married and having children were my primary goals early on.
We dated for a bit. And when I told him that he broke it off because he didn't want kids.
His reasons for not wanting children were, he's seen a child complicate a marriage that ends in divorce twice, financial stability, freedom, lack of responsibility. He was a parentified teenager at 15 years old, helping raise two half-sisters from both sides of the family.
And his dad was married to a woman who wanted children and his dad didn't. So she ended up leaving him for someone else.
Oof. Okay.
Interesting. All of those reasons make sense.
They're the usual, I don't want kids reasons, but the last one, it confuses me. What am I missing? Yeah, no, I'm a little confused myself.
It's not really a reason not to have kids. It's just an example in their family of another couple that wanted different things, right? Yeah, I shouldn't have kids because one other person didn't want to have kids.
And then this whole thing imploded. I guess I'm just not sure what to make of that.
Just let's see where this goes. But side note, anecdotally, every adult that I know who was parentified as a kid, basically at some point soon after decided they didn't want kids as an adult and ended up never having them and is usually at this age, I can say, do you regret that? And they almost immediately say no as they sip on their old fashioned or their martini and they book their flights to Italy from their phone at the bar.
So we talk about this a lot, but that just really does seem to do a number on people having to raise your siblings when you're 12 to 18, it's just like, I'm done. Yeah, I appreciate that reason of his the most out of all the reasons on that list.
So she goes on, I was devastated by that, but ultimately told him I could compromise for now. We got back together and we've had a wild ride of fun and adventure and our life has truly been awesome.
Lots of camping, mountain biking, fishing, etc. across two states.
Every year or so, we would do a quick, do you want kids, conversation, and the answer was always no, because we were having fun. We stopped checking in around the time we got married.
I wanted children the whole time, but it would have been a difficult conversation and served as an emotional ripcord. So I didn't pull it.
Ah, okay. I got it.
So she was just avoiding it because it would spell the end of their relationship, basically. That's what it sounds like.
As we've aged, I've worked on my personal and emotional growth. I can honestly say I am the most healed version of myself today, and my former self is almost unrecognizable to me.
Oh, I know the feeling. I now know for sure that I'm ready to be a mom.
I feel it in my bones. I told my husband that yesterday, and he received it with compassion, but was emotional, because his immediate reaction was, f***.
Oof. But, okay, so was it like, f**k, or was it like, f**k? I'm guessing it was, f**k.
Because the party's over. Me too.
Yeah. He's never wanted children, but is now torn between a life with me and a life without me.
He's doing everything to try to understand if this is a future he wants, really trying to make a responsible and well-informed choice. He's great that way.
But he's not a naturally nurturing person, and I am. I'm concerned that he'll convince himself that quality doesn't matter or that he can figure it out, and I don't know if that's possible.
I haven't seen him be nurturing of his own accord outside of times of distress in a decade. Oh, don't worry.
Kids are distressing. Very distressing.
That quality is going to come out. Exactly.
Yeah. Pop one out.
I'm also the more emotionally apt person in our relationship. And I do a lot of teaching with him about understanding and validating feelings, his, mine, other people's.
That's fine with me without a child, although it's annoying sometimes. But I'm concerned that he doesn't know this about himself, or won't acknowledge the impact that this could have on a child and on our marriage.
I'm worried about feeling like I'm teaching two children about caring for themselves and others' emotional lives. Should we have children? How do I navigate this decision? Signed, debating whether to reproduce when my dude's a bit obtuse.
Is it my job to induce, seduce, or simply deduce that creating a youth is not his pursuit? Wow. It sounds like you just gave birth to triplets right there.
That makes us co-parents. You're doing the diapers.
That's all I'm saying. I'm not very nurturing.
Fair. Look, this one's a bit sad, but I'm glad you're finally confronting this question with your partner because you're clearly on different pages here.
Look, there's a lot going on here. There's the basic desire to have a child.
There's the fact that your relationship is good in a lot of other ways. There are the qualities you guys have or don't have that would play a big role in how you raise a child.

So it's complicated. But honestly, I'm not sure how much all of that other stuff matters because ultimately, you know in your bones that you want a child.
And he pretty clearly does not want a child. And I don't think that anyone should have a child with a partner who isn't equally or at least similarly pumped to do something as big as this.
his struggle to be nurturing, to understand and validate other people's feelings,

your fear that you're going to end up feeling like you're raising two children. Those are important variables too, and they're very legitimate concerns.
Those are obviously crucial qualities in a parent. Although, to be fair, I also know there's no such thing as a perfect parent, and even people who don't have all these qualities can still do the job pretty well.
Sometimes I also know that people can grow into parenthood to some degree. If you're a decently functioning person, seeing a person that you created kind of unlock certain nurturing qualities that might not have been obvious before.
So there's that. But in my view, these concerns of yours, they're secondary to the fact that this guy, when you told him that you knew in your bones, you were being called to be a mother said, or potentially, which is not really the response you want from a potential co-parent.
No. Yeah.
I'm sorry to say that. I'm just, I'm not totally sure that having children with this guy is a good idea.
It sounds like it would involve you convincing him or trying really hard to convince him, maybe even pressuring him to some degree. Cajoling him, if you will.
I will. Exactly.
A different kind of cajoling from the geopolitical incel. But yeah, that's a good word.
Different genre of the cajole. That's right.
Cajole nonetheless. Not the vibe you want when you're creating another human life.
No, you do not want to have to cajole your partner into creating another human life. The act is too special.
The stakes are too high. And I'm also concerned about what that would do to your relationship, what feelings it would leave him with both of you really knowing he was somewhat pressured or convinced to do something he clearly has major reservations about.
Look, he might have a kid and go, man, I'm so glad you pushed me. It's possible.
But that list of concerns he has about having kids, I just I don't see those just going away. I worry about what a guy with those reservations would have to deal with if he capitulated to having a child kind of just to make you happy.
I just don't think this is a good decision for either of you. And most importantly, I don't think it's fair to your potential child to possibly give them a parent who isn't really that excited and on board with bringing them into the world.
Hard agree. This worries me.
Obviously, I'm thinking about the question we took a week or two ago from the couple in their early 40s. Do you remember them? The ones who lived in Central Europe and they were trying to decide whether to have a child.
It's funny, Jordan, because our stance there was we can't really tell you whether you should have kids or shouldn't have kids. You guys have to decide for yourself.
But the facts in this story are much starker. As soon as one partner is mostly a no on this decision, I'm with you.
I can't really imagine wanting to proceed. My only caveat is this.
If your partner is interested in unpacking his conflicts around having kids, maybe coming to a new understanding of them, potentially changing his views about having children, there might be a process worth exploring here. You're 32 years old.
You don't have a ton of time to spend waiting for a partner to catch up to where you are, but it's also not your last chance to have kids in the next year or two. So if you're willing, and if he's willing, then maybe you guys explore some of these concerns.
Again, if they're things that are actually resolvable for him, maybe they're not. I can't quite tell from your letter whether your partner is saying, look, I was parentified as a kid and I had to raise my sister.
So I find the idea of being a parent again, really hard. And I want the rest of my life to just be about me, which just to be clear, that is a fair stance.
He has every right to feel that way, but that's different from I was parentified as a kid and it really did a number on me and it's made me wary of responsibility and I'm afraid of making my own child have to go through something like that, whatever the impacts of that childhood were for him. But maybe I can work through some of that.
Maybe I can learn how to be a different kind of parent. Maybe I can find a new relationship with responsibility that doesn't feel as scary or doesn't feel as suffocating.
Completely different. So my question is, how fixed is he? How open is he to talking about this stuff? Ideally in therapy, maybe also in couples therapy with you.
Does he view these things as just unchangeable qualities? This is just the way I am. These are my firm beliefs and they're non-negotiable.
Or is there some openness there? So that's my caveat. You might have a little time to talk through some of this stuff, but it'll still be a gamble whether he comes out the other side as a yes.
So I think you have to ask yourself if you're willing to spend another six months or a year or more as he does that on his own or with you. And maybe the answer is I can't afford to do that.
I know enough now to know that this is probably a no and I need to prioritize myself. Not telling you where to land.
I'm just giving you a couple options here. Yeah, I'm with you, Gabe.
But honestly, my sense is that this guy is a no. And when you add in those other concerning qualities, that sort of tips it for me.
They're going to have to decide for themselves, of course. I'm just thinking about that last reason that she mentioned that his dad was married to a woman who wanted children, but then his dad didn't.
So she ended up leaving him for someone else. I'm still puzzled by that.
Because like we said, that's not a reason not to have kids. That's just, it's literally just a story about other people in his family who have wrestled with this decision.
And interestingly, the outcome there was that they broke up. So if anything, that story just illustrates what he might have to give up.
Yeah, that's a good point. Like you would think he would look at that and go, wow, this issue can really divide a couple.
I better look at this and see if I really don't want kids so I don't lose my partner unnecessarily. Or is that like a parable giving her is indirect form of communication? Yeah, they wanted to do this.
And then one person didn't. So they just broke up.
All right. I'm not the only guy who might stick to his guns here.
Exactly. Or maybe you should have thought I need to be very upfront with my partner about this no kids thing.
So I don't waste their time or mine. Honestly, what I'm hearing in that list of reasons is that there's a pattern in his family of ambivalence around having children and also people paying the price for that.
He's also seen a child complicate two marriages that ended in divorce. We don't know exactly what that means, but then also he was thrust into a father role when he was a teenager, which might also speak to his parents' inability sometimes to properly parent his sisters and also his parents' failure to protect him.
These are all very real, very interesting wounds. Multiple family members who probably had their own conflicts around parenting, the parentification he himself went through, potentially the loss of a stepmother figure because his father didn't want to have more children, which I imagine sent him a few loaded messages.
And then there's how all of these people were communicating about all of this, which it sounds like probably not very well. So not to beat a dead horse here, but I think his no kid stance is a lot more complicated than just, I want to hang on to my money.
I don't want the responsibility. And talking about all of that in therapy, that would be worth doing no matter where he lands on the kid's question, just for himself.
Maybe he grows and heals so much that he views parenting differently, or maybe he grows and he still doesn't want to be a dad. Or maybe he just doesn't grow at all.
Or maybe nothing changes. Right.
So for our friend here, you need to make peace with the idea that your partner might not change in the exact way that you hope. And even if he does, you can't fully control his process.
And just make sure that you're also taking care of yourself here because your interests are just as legitimate as his. I totally agree.
But one thing I know for sure, do not have kids with this guy if he is not psyched to have them too. It's not fair to anyone.
And if you did that, if he agreed to that, he'd really be recreating that pattern in his family Gabe was just talking about. And you guys have good data on how that goes.
That would be a whole other tragedy. So don't make that mistake.
Time to start talking. Good luck.
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Now back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up.
Dear Jordan and Gabe, my sister's mother-in-law, let's call her Eileen, recently lost her husband only to inherit $500,000 in debt. For the past decade, Eileen and her late husband made questionable financial decisions to obfuscate assets and minimize child support for his daughter from the previous marriage, which he already couldn't afford.
His ex-wife seems to have made it her mission to ruin not just his life, but now Eileen's as well. All of this comes just weeks after Eileen lost her brother.
She can't afford a lawyer unless she sells her house, but she can't sell the house due to pending litigation. To make things worse, she's leaning heavily on her son, my brother-in-law, to talk to her lawyer for her and handle this mess that she essentially dumped in his lap.
She's now considering fleeing British Columbia, Canada and going abroad to dodge the debt. Now that my brother-in-law has gotten involved, he's worried about his own legal exposure.
He's already consulting his own lawyer as well as his dad's estate lawyer. We're really close, so I want to be there for him, but I don't want to get caught up in this.
Eileen is also a recovering addict. She's been clean for several years, but my brother-in-law is afraid that this added stress will cause a relapse or worse.
How legally exposed is my brother-in-law for getting involved? How bad could this get for him? Should he just step back and let his mother deal with the storm she created? Would talking to the ex-wife help at all, or is the damage too great? My brother-in-law is a hothead, so this could backfire badly. If Eileen fled the country to Canada, what potential legal fallout could the rest of the family face? And how far away should I stay from the situation? Signed, looking for a truce and avoiding the noose of this unpaid flooce.
Flooce? What's that? It's Arabic for money. It's one of my favorite words that my grandparents used to use.
I just like lodged in my brain. Oh, yeah.
I always forget about that. That's cool.
Flooce. It weirdly sounds kind of like what it is.
It does, doesn't it? Also very similar to floss, which is appropriate. Do you know the word bakshish?? I love that word.
My dad uses that word all the time. Bachshish.
It's like a little bribe or a little friendly bribe or something to lubricate a deal. You like throw something in there.
Somewhere between tip and bribe, but it leans towards bribe, but not like outright graft. Exactly.
It's just, oh, you want to get into this place five minutes before it opens so you can get a good seat? How about a little bakshish, right? It's like, okay, it's not something that would put you in jail, but it's something that probably you shouldn't be doing, but everybody's, that's just how it works around here. Yeah, it's a great word.
And if you go to a place like Egypt, you're going to hear it every five minutes if you want to get anything. You know, what's funny about that word, just to nerd out on this for a second, is a variant of that word ended up in British English because of their involvement in the Middle East.
There's a word bakshi, which in informal British English means free of charge. Like here's a bakshi whiskey or whatever at the bar.
It comes from bakshish. Never heard that word in my life.
Interesting. That would be the first time I've heard you use a word on this show that I've never heard in my life.
And we're all're all smarter for it. Okay.
I'm very sorry to hear about all this. This is super stressful.
I can, of course, understand why everyone's spiraling because of this. 500 grand in debt is no joke.
500 grand in debt you inherited after your spouse died weeks after losing your sibling is just super sad and a lot to handle. We wanted to run all of this by an expert.
So we reached out to Aaron Hoskins, bankruptcy attorney and a friend of the show. Aaron practices here in the States.
She's not as familiar, of course, with Canadian law, but she did some very brief research and she said that the laws in British Columbia, they don't seem significantly different from ours when it comes to liability for debt. Just keep that in mind.
Lawyers, we're not your lawyer and all that. Do your own research before fleeing the country to escape a crushing debt, et cetera, et cetera.
My new favorite disclaimer. We should use that more often.
Exactly. Before fleeing the arms of justice, please consult your own attorney.
So Erin started off by reminding us that people are only responsible for debts that they personally sign for or are found liable for as like in a lawsuit. So she was a little confused, as we were initially, about how Eileen's late husband's ex-wife could still make her life miserable due to what seems to be a family support obligation of his.
But Aaron said that when somebody dies without standing child support, that debt can sometimes be considered a claim against their estate. So that must be paid from the estate assets before any inheritance is distributed to beneficiaries.
She assumed that your uncle's estate is still being settled after his death. And if there are any joint assets, his portion of them would go to pay any outstanding debts, which might explain why the house can't be sold due to the pending litigation.
Aaron would also assume that Eileen's portion of the estate, that would be hers to keep. In her view, there's no reason that her late husband's ex-wife should be entitled to that.
Now, there does seem to be one big exception to all of that, which is if a spouse is directly involved in managing the deceased person's finances that led to the unpaid child support, then they might be personally liable, particularly if this management involved the transfer of assets from the person who owed the debt to the non-obligated spouse. You said that Eileen and her husband made, quote, questionable financial decisions to obfuscate assets and minimize child support.
So maybe that's what's going on here. Maybe that's why the ex has a claim.
She's trying to recover funds that were transferred essentially to the wife in order to keep them away from the

ex-wife for the child support purposes, which does sound quite dodgy and unfair to the ex and

their daughter. So these people might have a very legit claim, but it's just unclear how involved

Eileen was in all this. Maybe it's ambiguous, but property laws often differ from state to state or province to province.
So you would need to seek specific legal advice on all of this, of course. Now, about you and your brother's exposure here, Aaron said that you guys would not be considered liable for Eileen's debts, even if they are personal to her, unless one of you co-signed or somehow guaranteed the debts or they were somehow a joint obligation, which it doesn't seem to be the case.
You would know if you co-signed something from your aunt. So just helping her out by talking to a lawyer or supporting her in other ways with the litigation or otherwise, that should not make your brother or anyone else in your family liable.
Doesn't mean the ex-wife won't hate you. It just means that you're not going to be legally on the hook for anything.
And if Eileen fled the country, Aaron said that still wouldn't make anyone other than her liable for her debts. And it definitely wouldn't make anyone else liable for your uncle's obligations.
But if any litigation plays out, her moving to another country, Aaron said, that's not going to help the situation. Because by not defending herself, a judgment will still be entered.
And that can be used to seize the defendant's property or bank accounts. I saw this when I was an attorney.
Also, people would go, oh, there's this thing I owe this money. I'm just going to be somebody nobody can find.
OK, but what happens is court goes on and you're just not there to defend yourself. So the judge goes, well, OK, I have no choice but to rule for the plaintiff and the other person's not there, but they have a bank account somewhere with money in it or a house that's sitting around or vacant land.
Take that. Okay, well, we're going to force the sale of that or give it to the, that's just how it works.
It's not that, oh, everything's on hold until we find this guy. This is not a criminal proceeding where you have to find the person in order to put them on trial.
This is, okay, well, we just assume you're abandoning all this and you're guilty. So we're taking it.
That's how this works. So that's not really going to help unless she's going to flee and move all of the assets away in the meantime, which is, again, not legal, almost certainly if the pending litigation is happening.
But again, if the litigation is against the estate, Aaron said that still wouldn't transfer the obligation to Eileen unless joint property

can be seized for one of the spouse's debts. And again, specific to the jurisdiction where she

lives, you got to talk to somebody who really knows what they're talking about in the area

where she lives. So Aaron's take on all this was if Eileen's goal is to keep the property,

it might be to her benefit to try and settle the litigation to allow anything that belonged to her

husband to go to his ex-wife or whatever fair slash relevant portion of it. After all, it does

Thank you. benefit to try and settle the litigation to allow anything that belonged to her husband to go to his ex-wife or whatever fair slash relevant portion of it.
After all, it does sound like they failed to pay her child support and they did so on purpose because they didn't want to. And at that point, Eileen would be able to keep her portion of the estate.
But Aaron recommends that she seek legal advice on that point as well. You don't want to try and navigate this stuff alone, period.
And if Eileen would receive a portion of the proceeds from the House, Aaron said that an attorney might actually be willing to represent her if she agrees to pay them out of the proceeds once it's been sold. Or she could look into legal services or pro bono representation, that means free.
You can always find those on the applicable court's website or through a Google search. Another option, look into engaging a mediator to resolve the litigation.
A good mediator can help both sides realize the reality of the situation and walk the parties into an agreement that usually works well for all involved, or at least equally badly. And hey, maybe your brother-in-law's lawyer or your dad's estate lawyer, maybe they'll offer to have a quick chat with her or at least pass on some high-level legal advice.
One way or another, she needs to get some good counsel here.

I'm also just thinking about what this woman has been through up till now.

She loses her brother, then she loses her husband.

Now she's in a legal battle with his ex-wife while trying to settle an estate and sell a house while also managing her recovery, which might be at risk.

Like you said, Jordan, this is a lot for one person to deal with, even if she did have some hand in bringing this drama about. I wonder if wanting to flee the country is not just a way to dodge this debt.
It's not just a practical thing. It sounds like it's also a way to run away from this overwhelming situation, which Aaron said, not going to make anything better.
It could actually make things a lot worse. Agreed.
Look, there is a resolution here eventually, but it's not going to happen by fleeing to Portugal or whatever. It's going to happen when the lawyers start talking.
And honestly, before you flee, sometimes fleeing and moving assets that are going to be involved in a litigation. Now you're talking, okay, contempt of court, criminal proceedings, potentially, this can get a lot worse.
You think it's bad now can get a lot worse when you try to unplug from it. Not wise.
Whether she flees to Portugal or just flees into her bedroom and closes the blinds and buries her head under the pillow, metaphorically and literally. Until the sheriff knocks on the door.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a problem.
So my feeling is, look, our friend here can get involved and try to help if that's what he wants to do. You could take a backseat and just be available as a sounding board for your brother-in-law, or you could actually step in and assist more if you think you could engage in a way that the others can't or something.
Garen said you are not putting yourself at risk with respect to any liability for the debt or any judgment, but this process could take years.

So her general thought for you is consider your circumstances, consider your capacity to assist before you jump in, because once you're involved, it might be hard to walk away until this thing is over. Your brother-in-law, on the other hand, his responsibility is more complicated.
Eileen is his mom. The obligation is different from yours.
And what happens with the estate, that also directly affects him and also your sister. Again, he's not putting himself at risk by getting involved, but this is obviously a highly contentious, very stressful situation.
So one way to help Eileen is with the legal stuff. Yes, but maybe the more impactful way for him to help her is to encourage his mom to take on this responsibility to not run away or bury your head in the sand.
Give her some courage, give her some confidence to work toward a resolution here, or at least ask somebody like a lawyer to help her find that resolution. So maybe he checks in with her more often and make sure that she isn't dodging phone calls or mail or paperwork.
Maybe he makes sure that she's going to meetings if she works a program or he goes to meetings with her or just make sure that she's staying sober. Maybe he can enlist a few other relatives who can help keep an eye on her.
It sounds like that's the kind of support that Eileen really needs more than anything. Totally agree.
And I'm not entirely sure that your brother-in-law should talk to the ex-wife himself, especially if he's prone to blowing up. Aaron said that sometimes engaging directly can help, but that largely depends on the relationship between the two sides, which clearly isn't great.
There's a long history of tension here, so it seems more likely that the attorneys will be able to talk without historical emotions. That could end up clouding judgment, making things worse.
But if there's a world where your brother-in-law could manage his feelings and play the role of somewhat neutral third party, hey, maybe it's an option, but I don't know. Gabe, it sounds like, do you want me to take this? I'm a hothead and I get angry at gas stations, but let me give her a piece of my mind and set her straight.
It's like, let me give this ex-wife who's angry that you didn't pay her child support for the last 15 years. Tell her to calm down a little bit.
Yeah, exactly. Let me handle this.
No, Frank, I think we got this. I'm sorry you're dealing with this.
I'm sorry the child support and estate stuff played out this way, but this is ultimately something Eileen needs to sort out with the help of her attorney. It is not your job or your dad's job, although you guys are welcome to help if you want.
I hope Eileen finds the representation she needs, works her recovery, gets through this. She's lucky to be surrounded by so many people who want to help.
And good luck. You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com.
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All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 30-year-old divorced father of a six-year-old child.
As a millennial, I was among the first generation that grew up with ubiquitous access to the internet. I remember being with friends and seeing things I should not have seen at a young age.
So I'm acutely aware of how unrestricted internet access can do harm. Oh, seriously.
I mean, porn aside, do you remember Rotten.com? Rotten.com. I do, unfortunately, remember that website.
Just wall-to-wall autopsy photos, that website. And worse.
And if you don't know, you're lucky. Don't Google it.
Don't try to spell it. Furiously Googling right now.
No, don't do it, too. Okay, I'm not going to do it.
Just really horrific photos. There was some weird stuff on the internet back then, man.
The 90s internet was wild. Different place.
So he goes on. While my parents did an okay job teaching me the risks of using the internet at the time, the landscape has changed dramatically, and I often feel concerned for my daughter's safety in the coming years.
I foresee many talks with her about digital footprint, talking to strangers online, cyberbullying, etc. I don't want a fearmonger, but I do think that a healthy fear

of the risks is a good thing. What are some tools and strategies that I can use to teach her about internet safety now while she's still young and in the future as she grows up? Signed, Taking the Right Steps to Protect My Girl on the Interwebs.
So I was looking forward to this one because I have the exact same question with my own kids. The landscape has changed a lot.
Kids are getting phones so young, they almost need them at some level. It's hard to know how to educate and protect them without freaking them out or holding them back.
And it's a great question. I love that you're thinking about all this now.
We wanted to talk to an expert about all this, so we reached out to Derek Fisher, cybersecurity professor, speaker, educator, and founder of Securely Built. He's also the author of Alicia Connected, a children's book that follows a young girl as she learns about privacy and safety online.
Kind of the perfect person to talk to about all this. And the first thing Derek said was, you're absolutely correct in getting out ahead of this with your daughter and preparing for the coming years.
As he put it to us, technology, especially cell phones, tablets, it opens up a new and unfiltered world to young minds that are often just not at all prepared for what the internet has to offer. Gaming, social media, videos, music, they're just a click away, a tap away, and of course all the other gross stuff we were mentioning.
And in his view, children, they're not equipped to self-regulate, of course. Dude, adults can't even self-regulate.
I don't understand how kids are supposed to do this. Serious.
It's hard for me. Oh, I should be in bed by now, but I can also check the news on Reddit.
Most adults can't do that at all. And also, Derek believes that the system is fundamentally stacked against us, which of course it is.
Tech companies knowingly make their products addictive. This is called the hook model.
We've done shows all about this with my friend near Eyal, who wrote the book Hooked, which is about this model. The triggers, the actions, the rewards, the investments, they all come together to create a model that's designed to keep people engaged.
That leads to people feeling like they need to constantly be online. It leads to FOMO as opposed to having physical interactions in the real world.
And we know what happens after that. Not to freak you out, but it's not good.
Kids stop building social circles. They struggle to engage in empathetic, nuanced conversations.
They're targeted by endless amounts of ads and products and people in ways that their parents often can't even see. There are online predators posing as peers attempting to lure children or they use sextortion schemes to extract money from them.
We've talked about that on Feedback Friday a bunch. In fact, we took a letter recently from a family friend of a teenager who tragically killed himself because he was being sextorted online.
That was so sad. It was awful.
And remember, it happened within it was five hours from this happening. It played out in the middle of the night.
So sad. It was terrible.
There's other kinds of bullying. There's revenge porn.
There are scams, social engineering projects, phishing campaigns. These platforms are overrun with privacy pitfalls, inappropriate content, disinformation, radicalization content.
The list just goes on and on. And to quote Derek here, it truly is the Wild West.
So what do you do about that? Derek's first recommendation was pretty simple and pretty bold. Delay the introduction of technology as long as possible.
That's the best course of action in his view. But he did point out that there's a collective action problem here, where kids are probably going to see their peers getting phones and tablets at a young age.
They're going to want one too. Maybe they even need one

to stay connected to all their friends in school. And that's why it takes a village to change

when kids get access to all this stuff, which led to his second recommendation. Talk to your own

peers, family members, other parents, teachers, co-workers. Ask them how to address technology

usage. Be open about your concerns.
They're likely to share theirs with you and make sure they're on

the same page. Derek also believes that we need to continue to hold technology makers accountable for their duty of care.
He wants to see parents ask for better controls over children's access, for example, like better age verification for certain services. Services.
He also wants to see less targeting of minors, more transparency on how they intend to keep children safe on their platforms. But in a world where the tech just might not change or change for the better, Derek recommends that parents also set limits on screen time, tailor content to lean more educational, find device-free activities, bonus points if they're in group activities in the real world like camps, sports, that kind of thing.
For example, our kids, they do dance, they do art, they do swimming, they do music, they play outside all the time, all of which were always great activities, but they're the antidote to tech now. In fact, in the other room right now, my kids are making a ton of noise, and I guarantee it's not because they're watching an iPad.
They're probably destroying my house, which is fine. At least they're not watching YouTube.
But Derek recommends taking advantage of certain technical controls. Those are super helpful, especially early on.
He told us about these kids safe phones. I had actually never heard of them.
There's a few brands, Bark, Gab, Pinwheel. You also want to get familiar with the security and privacy settings on your child's devices and your own home network security and privacy settings.
Although that won't help when your child is at a friend's house or they're borrowing a friend's iPad or they're using Wi-Fi at the mall or whatever. Also, while technical controls are great, Derek pointed out there are always ways around them.
And kids, we all know, come on, man, you knew the combo to the safe. You know how to get around the thingamajig.
You know where the hidden keys were outside. I mean, come on, kids know this stuff better than we do by age 12.
They're going to figure out a way around it. This is where basic, strong, timeless parenting skills come into play again.
So talk to your child, know what's happening in their life, know who their friends are, what standards and rules and oversight they are being held to, what kind of stuff they get up to together, all of that. Teach your child about scams, stranger danger, cyber bullying.
I think we don't say stranger danger anymore. I think we say tricky people now, which is even better.
Wait, what is this about? Is this like a PC thing or? No, I think it's because most strangers are fine. It's not the stranger that does bad things to your kid.
It's somebody they know. So you don't want to say stranger danger and they're like, oh, but my uncle who we hang out all the time is the one who's like telling me to do gross things.
So we call it tricky people. I see.
So it's taking the focus off of the stranger and putting it on the feeling like you feel weird around them. So it mostly people who are close to kids that do dangerous things.
So you want to say tricky people. When somebody says, don't tell mommy and daddy, you should never have a secret from your parents about these kinds of things.
Also, tricky people will ask you for help. Adults ask other adults for help.
They don't ask kids for help. So when someone's like, can you help me find my dog, a stranger, for example, that's not an appropriate request.
You don't need a toddler to help you find your dog. You need another adult to help you find your dog.
So tricky people means people do tricks. It doesn't mean that you feel tricky or weird around them.
It's a different thing. Okay.
Right. It's people who do tricks or ask you to violate rules that your parents say not to do, like going with somebody else, not telling somebody about something, those kinds of things.
There's other rules. Where did you learn this? Instagram.
Of all the things, don't let your kids use technology. Where'd you learn about how to be safe? Oh, this social media platform that's stealing all my data.
But this is like a new parenting concept for this generation. It's a new parenting concept.
Stranger danger, man, I don't know. Sure, strangers can be dangerous, but who's really dangerous? The creepy Boy Scout leader who's a molester, right? The neighbor who's got a kid in his basement.
If the Feedback Friday inbox is any indication, you're absolutely right. So teach your child about scams, tricky people, cyber bullying.
Explain to them that there are people on the Internet who sadly want to take advantage of other people, hurt other people, including grownups. And if they ever encounter anything like that, they should recognize it, disengage and just come right to you.
Derek also advises teaching your child that what happens on the internet stays on the internet. I know that sounds like something that might be good, but it's actually the opposite.
Make them understand early on. There's no delete.
I'm a huge believer in this one. The earlier kids understand this, especially this tech first generation our kids are in, where they are way more comfortable leaving an online footprint than we are, the better.
Because, yeah, you can't ever get rid of that stuff, man. Yeah, that one worries me a lot.
And on that note, Derek's final thought was, don't be afraid to be blunt with your child about the long-term impacts of this technology and social media. As Derek put it, we are likely to see fewer and fewer cases in the coming years of people in the public eye who don't have a history of embarrassing gaffes and compromising decisions and compromising tweets that are available for the entire world to see.
In his view, that's going to limit people's job prospects. It's going to compromise their love interest, their college applications.
It might even create further social isolation to say nothing of the psychological and emotional impacts of using this stuff day in and day out from the age of like three years old.

So the more you can make your child understand that this tech can be harmful and compromising

and risky, the better.

And just speaking for myself here, I think that taking that stance with your kids, even

if you allow them to get a smartphone, which they arguably need to be fully part of this

modern world, being very open and intentional with them about what the dangers are, how

they need to conduct themselves, how they need to regulate themselves. It's kind of a revolutionary act.
It's going against the grain of a culture that's just totally adopted this tech and largely turned a blind eye to what kids get up to online, but it's absolutely essential. And I'm taking notes over here too.
To quote Derek one last time here, this brave new world is not for the faint of heart, but be assured that you are not alone and many parents are grappling with the same issues. There's a concept he found helpful that parents should be more like gardeners and less like carpenters.
In other words, create the ideal environment for your child to grow rather than thinking about parenting as a project that has a start and an end. And I love that you're being so thoughtful about this.
I appreciate that you're looking out for your daughter. I'm grateful for the chance to learn alongside you.
You sound like a great dad. Your daughter's lucky to have you keeping an eye on all this.
And big thanks to Derek Fisher. You can learn more about Derek's work at securelybuilt.com.
We're also going to link to his Alicia Connected books, a talk he gave on this topic, and his LinkedIn in the show notes, of course. And now we're going to target you online with some predatorily good deals on the fine products and services that support this show.
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Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I am a bird catcher. Bird goes into store, store calls company, company dispatches me, I go catch bird.
Okay, got it. You're a bird catcher.
I'm going to start describing our job like that. Do's hits person, person writes inbox, inbox goes to show, we catch do's.
We are do's catchers. Dues catchers.
The job is great. The company, meanwhile, takes any opportunity it can to roll costs onto the lowest workers.
Side note, I wonder what makes the job great if the company sucks. Yeah.
Is the job amazing? Maybe catching birds is just super therapeutic i don't know yeah maybe just you and

the animal but you don't hurt them you get them out to safety that's right yeah nice you get to

be the hero you catch a cockatoo at barnes and noble or whatever and the people working there

like holy crap you're a hero how many cockatoos do you think are flying into barnes and nobles

look maybe they have barnes and nobles and papua new guinea or something i don't know cannibals

read books too not selling a lot of cookbooks though are are they? Okay. Nice.
So he goes on. There are about 120 of us out in the field all across the U.S.
10 or so regional managers, some IT and dispatch, and then about 10 at the top calling the shots, which we call the inner circle. All of the company's communication is over video or phone, and I've only ever met maybe nine of my co-workers in person, most of them just once.
This model has produced a very fractured company, and there's a lot of language in the handbook that makes that seem intentional. For example, we're allowed to contact co-workers only through approved apps, so the conversations can be monitored, and any discussion of company matters outside this method is considered back-channeling and grounds for termination.
Interesting. Sounds shady.
So they're almost certainly trying to stop you guys from comparing notes and or starting your own company. And Gabriel, it's also weird.
Oh yeah, all the communication is on the phone or video, so not recorded and not in writing. That's very odd.
When I was working for the law firm, we had approved apps, but we also used email. And if you had a meeting, somebody was like, let's type up everything in this meeting.
And if you had a meeting that was like, then they were like, let's not send a summary of this meeting. Okay.
No emails about this. If you have a question, call me.
And that was rare. And also there had to be a damn good reason for that.
This sounds like the reason is we don't want to get caught for doing things that aren't quite right. That's what that sounds like to me.
So it's hard to know exactly how every employee in the company is treated, but here are some common themes. We get half of the going rate for mileage and I drive 50,000 miles a year on my own car.
Employees have been asked not to report overtime. We don't get holiday pay.
We don't get vacation or sick time. We don't get paid unless we catch every bird and another bird doesn't enter the store for the next 48 hours.
This is called a revisit and it happens about once every six jobs for me, which is average for the company. Okay, hold up.
To what I said earlier, this all sounds shady as hell. The last one is particularly ridiculous, but also half the going rate.
No, no, no. The reason the rate is going is that's the rate.
And hey, don't report that overtime. I'm guessing that didn't come in an email.
That came in one of those video calls that's not recorded. This is all very shady.
But how is it his fault if another bird enters a customer's store? That's what I can't. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
They're catching the bird, right? They're not having a neighborhood meeting with all the birds in the area telling them not to come back. Like it's their fault if the message didn't stick.
I'm so confused about. Yeah, you guys just weren't persuasive enough because we got a blue jay in here.
That makes no sense to me. I could be wrong, but it sounds like a random policy that essentially allows the company

to not pay their employees for 17% of their work.

That plus all these other nickel and dime-y exploitive practices really just sounds shady.

One time, I was even denied pay after a bird entered a store well after the 48-hour window.

They're straight up stiffing you.

This is not cool.

There's all kinds of ways to just not pay you. When I brought this up to my regional manager, they were told by the inner circle to tell me, that was our decision.
I responded, I understand that, but I need to know why that decision was made as it affects my paycheck. The response to this was, that was our decision and we consider the matter closed.
Oh, wow. Cool strong arming, bro.
These bosses sound like real a-holes. Yeah, we decided to just not pay you.
Can I ask why? No. The matter's closed.
We investigated ourselves and found that we're just going to keep your money. No.
Come on. I requested a meeting with anyone in upper management and was denied.
I don't know if I have any recourse because even though I work full-time hours, I think I'm technically freelance or a contract worker. I tried looking up some labor laws, but I don't know if they apply.
Oh, they apply. Is my employer bound by its home state's laws, my state's laws, or the laws in the five other states I work in? How do I pass the information along about what rights we have to the other employees without triggering some sort of anti-union response.
Signed, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, unless that bush is near a commonly used door. That was all him.
He came up with that. That's funny, man.
Wow. Look, despite my laugh at the sign off, I am not happy about this.
Your employer is shady. They are manipulative.
That is for sure. And look, all companies have their BS.
There are certain policies they can come up with just to benefit themselves. But things like reimbursing employees for mileage, if you live in a state that has laws mandating mileage reimbursement for employees who use their personal vehicles, they have to do that.
And that rate, I believe, is set by the IRS. They can't just decide to give you half because that's our company policy.
Reporting overtime, that is also usually governed by labor law, holiday pay, I don't know, maybe that's a company by company thing, vacation sick time, probably in the law. And then this whole revisit policy, that is what we in the legal business call complete hogwash.
Yes, that's my opinion, but you certainly have good reasons to be pissed. I'm not an employment attorney, but I have to imagine the law is largely on your side here.
And candidly, I am shocked by your company being just so brazen about this, because if they were investigated for this stuff, they would probably be in big trouble and on the hook for a decent amount of money. I think now we know for sure why they don't want their employees talking to one another.
Bingo. And if they do talk, they want to be able to review the AI transcripts of their chats or whatever so they can get out ahead of any headaches and fire any troublemakers.
Even that is, in my opinion, incriminating. So great question.
Which laws is your employer bound by? We did some quick research. And interestingly, it looks like an employer is generally bound by the laws of the states in which its employees work, not just the company's home state.
And this makes sense, right? Because otherwise you'd have a Florida where you can just punch your employees in the face and then they'd have all their employees in California and they'd be punching them in the face. Famously, Floridian law allows for assault of your employees.
Yes. That is such a Florida law.
When I passed the bar, it was in there. So there are some caveats to that.
First off, no matter what state you work in, employers have to comply with federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act. Nobody is exempt from that.
Maybe in the military, of course. But when it comes to wage laws, hour laws, workers comp, paid leave, overtime, non-discrimination, wrongful termination statutes.
Employers generally have to comply with the laws of the states where the employee performs the work, even if the employer is based elsewhere. Now, an employer might be able to include clauses in your contract specifying which laws will govern your employment, but based on what we read, that does not override mandatory protections granted by the state in which you're working and definitely does not override federal law.
Nice try, though, guys. Most contracts have what's called a choice of venue provision, which means they'll have something that says this contract will be interpreted according to the laws of this particular state.
Even my contract has that. Hey, you got a problem? OK, we're going to be doing this by California law.
And if you want to go to court, you got to go to court in California. So that if I decide to move to Texas, podcast one doesn't have to fly a lawyer down to Texas and hire local representation.
That's just what that is. But that doesn't mean that they don't have to follow the laws where we work here in California or in Texas or whatever it is.
But even then, there are certain state laws that have to be followed where the employee is located. For example, if you work in a state where there's a law that limits an employer's ability to require overtime, they generally cannot override that protection by requiring you to sign a contract saying the employer can just require whatever overtime they want.
But again, state specific. And if you are a random freelancer and you're not a full-time salaried employee, that's going to be different.
So bottom line, employers typically have to follow the employment laws of the states where you're physically catching birds. And if that means following multiple different state laws, that's what they got to do.
Compliance is a bitch. Sorry about that.
Which makes me wonder, is that why they're so scared of their employees talking? Because they know that they need to be across this and they don't want to deal with the headache of tracking all of these different laws and rates and protections and stuff across all these different states. Is it possible that this is more laziness than malice? That's got to be part of it.
But I strongly suspect that it's both. Here's the thing.
The kind of people that are too lazy to do things properly, they're also generally the people who also don't want to do right by their people. Now, this would be different if you worked at a dry cleaner and the owner's like, yeah, I printed this off the internet, this contract.
It's got a bunch of weird stuff in it. That's just ignorance.
That's just he didn't want to pay a lawyer. This is a company that's operating with, what did you say, 120 people in different states.
This is not a Mickey Mouse operation unless they want it to be. And they want it to be because they want to skim off the top instead of giving their employees mileage money.
They want to put it in their own pocket. This is all it is.
And it's very clear to me that's what it is. Look, I'm sure it's a minor nightmare tracking all this stuff across five different states, but I'm also sure that thousands and thousands of companies deal with this.
There's literally software that does all of this automatically. So they really don't have an excuse.
Yeah, good point.

As for how to tell your colleagues

about what rights you guys have

and try to hopefully avoid triggering

some kind of anti-union response,

I am not sure that you can do that.

Like we keep saying,

this is probably exactly

what your company is afraid of.

And once they get wind of this,

they're probably going to want to shut it down

or convince you guys not to band together

or speak up or compare notes

because it just seems to be their MO. Who knows? They might freak out so hard that they cave and give you guys what you want.
That can happen too. It's really hard to say with these people.
If you're going to tell your fellow bird catchers about what you've learned and push your company to make things right, I would prepare for a little bit of a fight. You're going to have to be willing to take some heat if you really want to make a change here.
The good news is a growing number of states have prohibited employers from forbidding employees to discuss their pay for this reason. Again, this does differ state to state, but it sounds like the law might be very much on your side here.
And if your bosses retaliate against you or fire you for speaking up about this, I have to think that would make a lawsuit pretty easy, especially if you document everything that happens. So they'd be silly to get rid of you for this or make your life difficult, although I wouldn't put it past them.
In a weird way, little dark Jordan, little gray, is it gray Jordan peeking out here? I'm hoping they do so that you can turn around and sue the crap out of them for sacking you or targeting you after you simply pointed out that they're breaking the law. And then not only would they have to pay you, they'd also have to deal with the fallout of an investigation.
That's my fantasy here. Just check if your contract has an arbitration clause in there, which means that you'd need to resolve disputes through arbitration instead of litigation.
Although big asterisk arbitration clauses, I've had those. And when I wanted to sue the employer, I just said, I don't think I should file this arbitration clause.
And my lawyer said, yeah, I agree. And then we went to their attorney and they said, no, you have to.
And the judge went, nah, I'm going to just go ahead and allow this to go to trial. I'm just not going to honor that.
Wow. Yeah.
Arbitration clause means we really want you to go to arbitration, but a judge can go, no, thank you. I think we're going to deal with this my way.
And that's it. Look, if there isn't an arbitration clause and you did sue or they sue you, they'd be giving you a great opportunity to pursue discovery, conduct depositions, air the employer's dirty laundry, which I cannot imagine would be good for them.
And I know what you're thinking. Oh, my God, this sounds expensive.
But here's another Dark Jordan pitch. You mentioned that you work full time hours, but you might be classified as a freelancer or a contractor, which would mean they aren't paying the employer side of paycheck withholdings, even though you work as much as a full-time employee, which means they could get hit with a very unpleasant tax bill, in addition to all of the other difficulties and expenses.
If, I don't know, you were to report them for misclassifying all 120 plus employees, something else to think about. Your other option is to file a complaint with the Department of Labor, as well as any relevant labor agencies in the state where you live, the states where you work, and the state where the company is based.
And then there's going to be five investigations. And send them a detailed list of all of these violations.
Ask them to look into it. Maybe also the attorneys general in those states.
They have a complaint system too. And yes, it is.
It's attorneys general, not attorney generals. They're not generals.
They're attorneys general. Nice.

Who's the pretentious a-hole now? Thank you. Look, I know like one of these every six months.

No, this is great. That really helped even out the scales on the whole Bakshi digression.

It's just a Bakshi grammar lesson for those of you who think it's attorney generals. It's not.

It's attorneys general. I appreciate that.
And you're going to sound real educated when you

use that next time, which of course you

will.

Yeah, they're going to be reading the AI transcript on that video chat after they have him like,

oh, attorneys general.

This guy's been doing his research.

You can also call into your state's labor board and just be like, hey, if I work for

a company and they're doing this and all this, is that legal?

Is there something wrong here?

And get their take.

That should be a free consultation at any rate.

Just know that these complaints can take some time to get processed.

This is not going to be Monday. There's a check in your hand.
That's just not how these things work. By the way, the other advantage to reaching out to these labor boards is if your employer is violating any laws, then you would probably have some whistleblower protections and you'll be on firmer ground.
But just know, even if you do have whistleblower protections, you can still be fired for cause, unfortunately. And if you work in a state where employers can prohibit employees from talking about their salaries and stuff like that.
Yeah. Again, this could be considered a cause.
Just want to give you all the information. Yeah.
But if he files a complaint, they act on it and then he's fired shortly after that. Wow.
That sounds like a wonderful lawsuit for retaliation. Great for him, bad for the company is what I meant.
Yes. It's also another violation of the state's labor laws, whistleblower protections.
I mean, there's so many things can happen to a company that fires somebody who files a complaint. So you really do want to talk to an employment attorney about all this.
In fact, I think personally, I've got employment attorney friends. They salivate at the prospect of a multimillion dollar class action lawsuit across multiple states for over 100 employees.
This could be a huge case and the kind of case that's an existential threat to a company like this. And your other option is just to move to another company that treats its people better.
Avoid the whole debacle. That's also a fair option.
But there's a part of me, the attorney that has a strong sense of justice. I love to watch companies like this just get picked apart and dismantled by labor organizations in the law.
This is a great use of lawyers. But really, man, I'm sorry they're treating you this way.
I hate companies like this, if you couldn't tell. But I appreciate your conviction and your curiosity, and I really hope they start treating you guys better, or you just flap your wings to another place that does, because this bird-catching gig sounds pretty sweet.
I'd love for you to be able to enjoy it without getting your wings clipped. Enough bird metaphors in there? I think you nailed it.
Yeah. Keep flying, my man.
And now, for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lip filler.
My recommendation of the week, these are vitamin cases or pill cases. They're called Ikigai, I-K-I-G-A-I.
Of course, we'll link to it in the show notes. Not a sponsor, just something that was advertised to me relentlessly on Instagram.
And I take tons of vitamins and different things, breakfast, lunch, dinner, before bedtime. And it really was annoying to have all these bottles.
And if you go away for three days, you got to bring all the bottles, you got to count it out in advance and put it in another bottle and then be ready to identify them. It's just a huge pain.
And these vitamin cases, they're made out of metal, they're engraved, and they look really cool. There's a zillion colors you can choose from.
They're magnetic, and they're just well-made. And so you can put in a week's worth, a day's worth, depending on which model you choose of your vitamins, your pills, whatever it is.
And then you can break them into different pieces, put them away. They don't come open in your bag.
And then you don't have 17 vitamin bottles in a Ziploc like I used to do. It's just a more elegant way to handle this.
This is not super duper cheap. They have great sales all the time.
And it took me a while to pull the trigger because I was like, oh, I'll just do it the other way. Once I got one of these and splurged, it's just been great.
You leave for three days, you only need this. You leave for five days, you only need that.
It's just a much better way to stay organized and handle all of these things. Again, they've got ones that are a week long, ones that are a day long, ones that are two weeks long.
If you take a ton of vitamin stuff, if you take just a few, ones that fit in purses, ones that definitely are so big they would never fit in a purse, they've got a lot of different options and I just think they're really nice. So thank you for allowing me to supplement your supplement game.
Enjoy. Also, in case you didn't know, there's a subreddit for the show.
A lot of activity in the subreddit. Discussion of episodes, meme threads, discussion of the news, questions about the show.
If you're a Redditor and you're on Reddit, go over to the Jordan Harbinger subreddit and come hang with us. All right, what's next? Howdy, Jordan and Gabe.
Two months ago, I started dating a new guy. He's communicative, kind, and funny, and he makes me feel very comfortable in my own skin.
A very new and relieving feeling for me. The problem is he doesn't brush his teeth regularly.
It's a huge turnoff when I see food or whatever stuck in his teeth. Ooh, Gabe, this is your nightmare.
That's so gross. Skin crawling over here.
This would be a deal breaker for me, too. I mean, you don't brush your teeth? Bruh.
I can't imagine not doing that. I'm not like Gabe, who obsessed with dental hygiene.
I do the basic stuff. But how can you not at least brush them once a day, usually twice in the morning? How can you go out in public with furry teeth? That's insane to me.
I'm just gonna read the letter. Gabe needs to schedule a therapy session after this.
Yeah, I'm just like texting my dentist. Squeeze me in for a bonus.
He's talked about getting them clean with his new insurance. That's great, but irrelevant if he doesn't maintain brushing.
There's another issue too. He seems to be very insecure when it comes to relationships.

When we first started talking,

he told me a lot about himself and rarely asked questions.

Not to show off or be macho,

he seemed more concerned about me liking him.

Not secure enough to be curious about me.

Oh, I thought she meant because of his teeth. I'm like, yeah, I'd be insecure too if I had teeth like venom.

No, this is a separate pathology. Okay, all right.
He says he's someone who needs to be pushed in the right direction. For example, the teeth.
So this is about the teeth again. My resentment is now building and I'm becoming annoyed.
It feels like I'm mothering him a little. I've been single for many years and have a low tolerance for nonsense.
When I date, most of my relationships don't even last three months. I know I have to work on my empathy and patience.
But is this something I need to wait out? Is this a normal feeling? What else should I do to view him in a better light? Or should I just start over? Signed, scraping the tartar off this relationship before it decays. Oh, man.
Okay. As you can tell, Gabe and I are both horrified by the no brushing thing.
Obviously, that is a major health and hygiene issue, but it really also speaks to some larger themes that are the real issues here, that he apparently needs to be pushed to do basic things. He's not taking very good care of himself.
Dental hygiene, that's not just a cosmetic thing or like a nice to have. And also he is somewhat oblivious or maybe even indifferent as to how he comes across to other people.
I mean, dude, if you don't brush your teeth ever and you're not worried about your breath or what your partner's going to think when they kiss you, that is very weird. That's concerning to me.
But look, I hear you. He has some great qualities.
He's kind. He's funny.
He makes you feel very comfortable. That's new for you.
And you don't have many relationships. The ones you do don't last very long.
You say you feel you need to work on your empathy and patience, which, look, I appreciate that. So you don't want to give up on this guy prematurely.
I get that. I can understand why that puts you in a bind, but you've listed three major challenges here.
One is the oral hygiene thing. I think we've covered that.
The second is that he's somebody who needs to be pushed in the right direction. So he really might be needing or even looking for a mother or to be more accurate, he might need a mother figure in his life, but you're also falling into that mothering role, which I can't say I entirely blame you for because it sounds like he's a bit of a mess, but that might also speak to something in you that's willing to mother him.
And the third problem is that he seems to be insecure. He doesn't, or at least didn't early on, seem to be all that curious about you.
Your read is that he's very concerned about you liking him, that he's not secure enough to make room for you, which maybe that's exactly what it is. I also wonder if that oblivious quality I just mentioned is also playing a role.
Maybe he's just not aware of how he comes across, or maybe he's a little narcissistic. I don't know.
Yeah. All of which makes me wonder why exactly he makes her feel so comfortable.
Look, I totally hear her that he's kind, he's funny, he's communicative, and he might be like a wonderful guy in every other respect. And some combination of these qualities, maybe just his overall vibe as a person, that is nice.
And it's new for her. She described it as a relief.
Although actually, now that I'm thinking about it, Jordan, I'm having a little bit of a hard time squaring the whole, he's really communicative thing. And it's like a relief to be with him thing with some of these other qualities.
Yeah. Like he often makes it about himself.
He needs to be pushed to do things. He doesn't always understand or care how he comes across.
I'm just like, it's confusing. Is he communicative or is he just yammering on about himself a lot? Cause those are two very different things.
Maybe he's made more room for her as they've gotten to know each other. So yeah, fair enough.
That's the case. But I guess what I'm wondering is, why does this guy who's clearly annoying you now, who's making you resentful and who makes you feel like you're mothering him? Why does this particular person also make you feel so comfortable? Why is that such a relief? Just something maybe to explore, because there might be something about this dynamic that, on one hand, is maddening, and on another hand, maybe is familiar and gratifying.
Or, to be fair, maybe she's only clocking these concerning qualities now, two months in, which is still very early days, and it's complicating her feelings about it. Okay, I hear that.
That could totally be what's happening. But still, for someone who's been single for many years, who says she has a low tolerance for nonsense, who says she needs to work on her empathy and her patience, it sounds to me like she's being pretty empathic and patient with this guy.
So it's just curious to me that she's finding so many competing experiences in the same partner, like comfort and resentment, attraction and annoyance, this impulse to mother and also the impulse to let him be or even to leave this relationship. So whenever those conflicts exist in the same relationship, I think there's something more to know about the dynamic.
No, good point. That is meaningful because there's the stuff he's doing, objectively speaking, right? And then there's how she's responding to those qualities, what pattern she falls into as a result.
And those are just as important for her to understand. So yes, these are all normal feelings, but I'm not sure they're feelings that you should just wait out.
Two months into a relationship is when you start to get a handle on what the other person's stuff is. And everything your partner's qualities are bringing up, whether your interpretation of them is right or wrong, whether they reflect more on him or on you, they're not going to go away.
Two things need to happen if you guys are going to be able to move forward here. The first is to take some time to appreciate this dynamic we've been talking about, how you both are playing a role in these feelings and experiences, what's coming up for you in this relationship, how your history and your patterns and your needs, these qualities you feel you need to work on, how all of that is informing your interpretations and responses right now.
The second thing that needs to happen is you guys need to start talking openly about this stuff. The more superficial stuff, like the not brushing his teeth thing and the deeper stuff like flossing.
No, I like him needing someone to tell him what to do in his life. And in that conversation, I would make room for what's going on for both of you here, frankly.
So for example, I think it's totally fair to say it really concerns me that you need someone to push you in the right direction. It makes me annoyed.
It makes me resentful. I want you to take more responsibility for yourself.
But if you really want to get somewhere, maybe you tell them, but I'm also noticing that there's a part of me that might be willing to push you, if that's true, of course. Or my pattern is to have short relationships and to be single for long periods of time.
And I think I need to work on my patience and empathy. So I'd like to tap into that more and understand where you're coming from better.
Obviously, you get to decide what to share with them, what's relevant. I'm just saying there are broadly two ways to have a conversation like this.
One way is to say, here are all the things you need to fix for me to be happy. And the other is, here are the things I'm finding challenging, and here's why.
That second approach will probably lead you to a better outcome, or at least give you a lot more information about whether to stay in this relationship. I really like that approach and I totally agree.
They do have some important stuff to talk about. I don't know if it's necessarily game over, but yeah, there's a way to kind of blame the other person and say you need to change and there's a way to open up a larger dialogue.
So given all of that, I find her other question, what should I do to view him in a better light? I think that's a really interesting question. Yeah, that jumped out at me too.
And her last question, should I just start over? In her mind, there are two options. Either she adjusts herself so these problems of his don't seem like problems anymore, or she leaves.
Not a lot of room for conversation in there. Yeah.
And that is another reflection of that thing she said, how she needs to be more empathetic and patient. It might be.
And do conversations like this even feel possible for her? Does she feel like there's room in her relationships to say, hey, I really like you for this reason and that reason and that reason. And I'm also concerned and a little annoyed about this and that other thing.
And I want to talk about it. To be able to have that conversation, which let's recognize, not always easy, right? It can be intense.
It can be scary. It can be uncomfortable.
Even if it's something as quote unquote small as brushing your teeth, of course. But to be able to have a conversation like that with a partner and to tolerate the feelings that an honest conversation about these qualities is going to bring up, that can be the difference between having relationships that only last a few months and having relationships that evolve and deepen and last for months or years.

So I wonder if that's one of the things underlying her pattern to either be single for long stretches of time or to have short relationships, just this willingness to confront and work through these things as opposed to either contorting yourself so that things don't bother you, which never ultimately works or giving up quickly and leaving and being single. So you don't have to deal with this kind of stuff at all.
Like you said, Jordan, maybe these conversations with her partner are successful. Maybe they're not.
It's going to require both of them to want to take this stuff on, but it sounds like just giving it a try would be a really big step for her. And if he doesn't meet her in the same spirit, or if he agrees with her, but he doesn't make any changes, then she'll know whether she's leaving because she's avoiding something or because this guy is not ultimately the right person for her.
A hundred percent, man. And also she wants to work on her empathy and her patience.
Here's her chance that said though the one thing that has to change here this just has very few nuances for me is the tea thing i'm sorry it's so gross it's first of all it's dangerous it's inconsiderate this is the one problem where i'm not going okay but how does your partner's stank breath make you feel what's your pattern around three-day-old spinach? No, he's a freaking adult. He has to brush his teeth and he shouldn't need mommy to tell him to do that.
Look, this is something I would expect from maybe a 10 to 11, 12 year old boy, a rebellious 13 year old who's like, I'm going to not brush my teeth now. Even then that comes across as immature.
This is an adult man who's, I'm not going to brush my teeth. I'm too lazy.
Who cares? I just, wow. And if you're not brushing, you're obviously not flossing.
I mean, this is just like really disgusting on so many levels. You read my mind.
I was also thinking, I just also really want this guy to floss and rubber tip if you can get him to, but that's rather besides the point. Rubber tip and slow down, Gabe.
Let's get this guy shoving a toothbrush in his mouth for 60 seconds, just a couple times a week. Then we can talk about rubber tipping, whatever that is.
We'll work up. We got to go from the couch to 5K, but with his mouth.
Couch to 5K, but it's more like just brush one tooth. Then you can stop.
What is that called? Yeah, that's the thing where it's like, just put your running shoes on. And if you don't want to run, you don't have to run.
But then you've already got your shoes on. Yeah, just put the toothpaste on the toothbrush.
That's right. Just brush one tooth.
If you don't want to brush the rest, you're off the hook. Before you know it, you'll be moving it around.
That's right. I just can't.
I don't know, man. I'm just thinking about this dude's gums.
Those things must be in rough shape. They're screaming.
I literally don't want to talk about this anymore. It's too gross, man.
If you don't brush your teeth, you need to seriously reconsider your relationship with society at large.

I'm sorry, but that's the truth.

So clearly it's about more than just teeth.

This is about your partner's ability and desire to care for himself.

And so there's always something deeper there, I suppose.

Something else you can try to make room for.

Proud of you for asking these big questions.

Good luck.

Gabe, I can't even get over it.

Like your home would smell. Your car would smell.
Because once your breath is that bad, I mean, you're just that level of bacteria is just insane. I don't know if I've been around somebody like that, but yeah, it's bad news.
I have. And you can smell them when they walk into the room.
Gum disease is no joke. It's terrible.
And it causes stomach problems. I mean, it's bad for you.
Cause heart problems. Go and check out, if you haven't yet, 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.
I am teaching you how to do the same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course. It is free.
It is not schmoozy or gross. It's on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com.
The drills are designed to just take a few minutes per day. It's almost the same amount of time you'd spend brushing your teeth.
For some of you, it might not work, but for the rest of us, there's sixminutenetworking.com. Build relationships before you need them.
Show notes and transcripts are on the website at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, discounts, and 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.
Gabe's over on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One.
My amazing team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.
Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Aaron Hoskins and Derek Fisher.
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.
And I gotta go brush my teeth. I I just did it, but I got to do it again.
And I know I'm not alone. Join us as Adam Gamal, a Muslim Arab American and former Egyptian refugee recounts his rise to become a key operative of one of the U.S.'s most secretive military units in this two-part podcast series.
In part one, Adam delves into the high-stakes world of counterterrorism and covert operations, revealing the personal and ethical complexities of fighting terrorism from within the shadows. I came to the U.S.
to give me the right to dream. In Egypt, you don't have that option.
It's not cliche, I'm not trying to recruit people to join the army, but I was like, here is a key, actually, to be as American as anybody can argue with you. And it was joining the military.
You end up there by pure determination, by having grit, and by being a bit lucky. So we were basically getting our tasks from Secretary of Defense level.
Join Special Operations Command in charge of three main missions. Counter-narcotic, counter-terrorism, and hostage rescue.
I believe myself, if my dad did not push me towards getting the right education, then maybe I would have went in the wrong direction. So education is gonna help people prosper, they're gonna help people actually critically analyze the information they are receiving.
So when somebody's bullshitting them about, hey, if you go to the bathroom with your right foot, not your left foot, you're going to hell. If you have an educated person, you're going to look at him and say, you know what, man, this doesn't make any fucking sense.
And then I believe to educating women is crucial because they are raising us. A lot of people spend more time with their moms than with their dad because they nurture us and they do all of these things.
So if we have a population of educated women in the Middle East and in these countries, I think these countries will prosper.

And it will be harder to convince these guys to become terrorists.

Business is war and business is good.

When we give people the proper education, we all live a better life.

Tune in to uncover his unique journey and critical insights only he can provide

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