1133: Should Mum Be the Word When Dad's a Cheating Turd? | Feedback Friday

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Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.
As always, I'm here with my Feedback Friday producer, the guy who knew this was coming back, the guy who's Kalulu in my Dalulu, 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.
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 from neuroscientists, Russian chess grandmasters, tech moguls, tech luminaries and astronauts.
This week, we had Scott Payne back on the show for a round two. We talked about his undercover work with white power gangs.
A lot of what he said actually was new for me. Turns out the KKK is still around, which kind of surprised me, among other things.
There's also gangs called Accelerationists, which just want the whole world to burn, which, you know, maybe they're winning. I don't know.
We also had a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on Hangover Cures. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and dole out presumptuous advice to you folks like a couple of busybody Lydia's.
Before we begin, something I've been thinking about lately, a lot of great opportunities get wasted chasing the idea of slightly better ones. For example, would your career be more successful if you had taken that other job or you'd moved to a different city? Maybe.
I think about this a lot actually just for myself. But the job you have now will definitely suffer if you don't give it 100% of your focus and your effort.
Would you be 10% happier or more in some other relationship other than the one that you're in, whether it's our friendship, whatever it is? Maybe. Who knows? But you're definitely going to be unhappy in your relationships if you spend all of your time wondering what else is out there or lamenting something that you've lost in the past, assuming that the relationship you're in right now is a good one, of course.
The easiest way to end up worse off is to obsess over the paths that you didn't take instead of making the most of the one that you did. Every moment spent longing for a life you didn't choose is time that you're not putting into the life that you actually have.
And that's not to say that you can't want other things or you can't change your life or whatever. Of course you can.
You should in many cases. But when you want your life to be radically different from what it is, especially when you're not taking actions to create that life, you're just fantasizing or you're pining for something different.
That's when you can easily miss the great people and

situations and opportunities that are in front of you right now, which these usually become better

when you embrace them and when you nurture them. And it's funny because I see this playing out in

my own life. I'll have the kids jumping around me and I'm like, I really need time to do this

other thing. And I'm thinking, I got my kids hanging out.
We're eating together. They're throwing food at each other, jumping around on some mattress that I just unwrapped in the hallway.
This is really great. This is where I'm supposed to be right now.
Not wishing I was in Lake Tahoe snowboarding because I'll be in Lake Tahoe snowboarding and then I'll be missing my kids. So that sort of on the macro scale is what I'm talking about here.
And again, change is possible. Choices do definitely matter, but so does commitment.
And I really think that commitment wins in the end by a long shot. All right.
As always, we've got some fun ones. We got some doozies.
I cannot wait to dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Jordan and Gabe, my oldest sister is married and has three kids.
She and her husband have been together for over a decade. He's been the brother we never had and an integral part of the family.
But my oldest niece, his 15-year-old daughter, doesn't really get along with him. Her parents have been arguing a lot for a while, and she says her dad speaks poorly of her mom.
Then this morning, she told me that she was using his old iPhone, which my niece calls the trap phone because she uses it without her parents' knowledge when she gets her phone taken away. That's funny.
It has no SIM card, but is linked to her dad's Apple ID. On the phone, my niece noticed that her dad downloaded Tinder and similar apps in March, 2024.
And then again, recently, she sent me screenshots of everything and it checks out. Hang on one second.
You know, what's funny about this is I was thinking, oh man, it's signed into her dad's iCloud account. She better be really careful that her dad doesn't notice what apps and things that she has downloaded on this other phone.
Meanwhile, she's like, well, I went into the purchase history that my dad probably doesn't even know existed. And I see that he's been installing dating apps and then failing.
Not a liability for her. Definitely a liability for him.
That's so funny. Somehow.
She knows how to use the trap phone. He does not.
Yeah, she's like, it's a trap phone. Who's trapped now? She also saw that her dad has been watching a lot of porn.
Oh, he had things favorited and even searched how to delete it. Well, there's your answer.
Oh boy. Finding out your dad watches porn on his phone and knowing which things he favorited is something no child should ever know about.
Look, we can assume a lot of men watch porn on their phone, but when it's favorited, the names are right there in the favorites list. And she's like, what does this mean? And it's, oh gosh.
Oh wow. And you know, she clicked on one and was like, oh, that's what that is Oh my god, right? Oof.
You don't want to have access to that part of your parents' lives. The porn thing isn't uncommon, but it is telling.
My parents traumatized us when we were young by not keeping things in the bedroom when they were together. My sister has been the most affected by that, as she remembers the most.
As a result, she struggles to be affectionate. She doesn't want to make people uncomfortable like my parents did.
So he's probably looking for affection elsewhere. Interesting theory.
Who knows though, I guess. My niece and I agree that my sister should know about the cheating.
I hate that she's involved, but that ship has sailed. But she's afraid that her dad will hit her or her mom.
I've never known him to be physical, and I'd like to think he wouldn't dare. But if he does, it's not as simple as calling the cops.
He would be deported. And I'm sure my sister wouldn't want that.
So that is a Dark Jordan idea, like where your head's at in terms of, I feel seen. But I'd never pitch that for somebody who hasn't done something truly horrible.
And before you tell me that abuse is horrible, I know. So far, though, this guy is just secretly watching porn and possibly slash probably cheating.
Not okay by any means, but not, in my opinion, bad enough to ruin his life over, in my view. Not bad enough to deprive your niece of a father.
And you don't know him to be physically abusive, so let's maybe not play the ice card just yet. Should my niece tell her mom the news? Do I tell my sister with my niece? If I do, I fear my sister would be even more uncomfortable.
What should we do? Signed, charting this map alone after my brother-in-law's rep was blown by this incriminating trap phone. should not know this much about her parents' private lives.
I feel terrible she's sitting on this information that she's caught in the middle at her age. It's got to be very weird and confusing for her, and I'm sure that's doing a number on her.
In addition to watching her parents argue, hearing her dad speak poorly about her mom, this is all very sad. Even if he isn't physically abusive, the fact that she's afraid he might go there, just that fear is pretty upsetting.
It does make me wonder if she's seen him get physical before or maybe behave in a way that suggests he's capable of that or who knows, maybe she's just scared and imagining the worst and he's relatively harmless. Either way, your sister is going to find out about all of this one way or another and it shouldn't fall to her daughter to break the news to her.
You're the adult here. You're her sibling.
You're her friend. So I'm afraid that it makes it your responsibility to break the news to her.
And if you could use some help in delivering the news, having another close family member there, a mutual friend, that's also an option. But I would not tell her with your niece.
She just should not play any part in this conversation. She's still a child.
The greatest gift you could give her is to let her stay one as much as is possible at this point. Although I understand she's the one who found out, so she's going to be involved to some degree.
They're obviously going to talk about it, but it doesn't mean she should be the one to tell her mom that dad is cheating on her and watching porn, and this is the kind of porn he's into and all that stuff. That's just totally inappropriate.
I have a close friend who, when she was a teenager, she found out that her father was having an affair and she and her brother had to break the news to their mother. And the parents ended up divorcing.
And it was a very painful time for all of them. It's still very painful, actually, for the whole family.
He left them for another woman, a younger woman, and they got together. And then that relationship was kind of messy.
And then that fell apart. And it was just really bad.
I think this is going to be traumatic for your niece no matter what. But I'm with Jordan.
There are ways to make it less traumatic for her. And the main one is telling your sister yourself and sparing your niece that conversation.
Agreed. So that's what I would do.
And then you have to let your sister decide how she wants to handle this. She might leave him.
She might decide to stay with him and work on things. That's up to them.
I think you have to give her space to handle this however she wants to support her in whatever way she feels she needs. But look, if this escalates, if your brother-in-law does turn out to be physically abusive, for example, then I would consider calling the police or calling CPS, of course.
And if that means he might get deported, well, maybe that's a risk people take when they break the law. But that's a very different calculation from calling ICE on him before he's done something truly dangerous.
That just seems unnecessary and unfair. I'm very sorry that things have played out this way.
It is super awkward and sad, but this is what's happening. And your niece is going to have to find her own way of healing from this childhood, her own stance on her parents.
The best thing you can do besides protecting her from this tough conversation is staying close with her, being a safe person for her to talk to, supporting her, helping her make sense of all this and enjoy her last few years of childhood. I'm sure her relationship with you is going to be one of those things that allows her to survive this tough chapter and hopefully grow into a happy, healthy, well-adjusted adult.
Sending you all a big hug and wishing you all the best. Man.
Now, I want you to use your trap phone to creep on the pornographically good deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.
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Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, two years ago, in my early 60s, I quit my teaching job at a private

high school and became an adjunct professor at a large community college teaching English

and English as a second language.

I absolutely love this work, despite the huge pay cut, and I've been trying to learn and

do as much as I possibly can to make up for lost time. I've taken tons of online training and professional development classes, including course design.
I've made an effort to meet people in person and create connections within my department. I co-facilitated a recent training on inclusion, and I've joined several committees and even designed a newsletter for one of them.
My goal is to get hired as a full-time professor before I'm too old to think straight. Okay.
I love this way to hustle and look for ways to be of value. This is exactly the spirit that makes people indispensable and gets them hired.
You sound like an amazing employee. Also, congrats on being able to think straight in your early sixties.
I'm 45. And some days I'm like, how does this microwave thing work? I don't get it.
What do you mean the microwave? Do you just open it and put the food? Yeah. In my defense, this thing has 20 buttons and it has to come out of the wall first.
It's really nuts. I want to be able to talk to it and tell it what to do instead of freaking programming it in Python or whatever.
Okay. You need a voice activated AI kitchen appliance.
That's what you need. Yeah, exactly.
Plus, I wouldn't be so lonely all the time. Yeah, you would be significantly less sad as a human being.
Here's my dilemma. I'm currently teaching a class that is prepackaged, which means somebody in the department designed the curriculum and lessons.
While the content itself is fine, I've had to do major overhauls of the course materials so that the students could make sense of the class. I can't tell you how many times I've opened an attachment for one of these courses and found badly formatted, confusing, or even unreadable documents.
There are almost never examples given of what to do, so I often provide them myself. The directions are vague, wordy, and have no links to the materials needed to complete them.
I often see students coming in frustrated out of their minds because they don't understand what they're supposed to do. This is unacceptable to me.
My students deserve better. Students at community colleges are already at a much higher risk of dropping out than students at four-year institutions.
If they saw how much care has been put into course design, they would be much more inclined to engage with the material and learn something. I like and respect my bosses, all of whom either helped design or approved these courses.
I'm torn between my ambition and my genuine love and concern for the quality of the education we're giving this vulnerable population. How can I tell my bosses that we aren't serving our students well by giving them material like this, and that I have folders full of edited materials that would make things so much better.
How can I bring this up without jeopardizing my chances of going full-time? Signed, listening to my idealistic notions without messing up my promotion. P.S.
Also, if you can work the phrase hundo pee into a sentence on the podcast sometime soon, I would be eternally grateful. I almost peed myself laughing the last time you said it.
And then I tried it out on my adult kids and the death glares they gave me made me laugh even harder. Oh, so you, uh, you hundo peed your pants.
Is that what happened? Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. Oh, I can see the kids are just like, no, we're not doing this.

Great question.

This is something, by the way, that every professional has to worry about at some point.

How to balance honesty with politics, basically.

Those two are always going to be intention.

This is always a tricky dance, but I do have some thoughts on this.

First of all, just to build on what I said a moment ago, you are an absolute rock star,

my friend. What you've brought to your new job, how you've invested in yourself, in other people, built relationships, it's remarkable.
And to do that in your early 60s when a lot of people are just checking out, you're checking in. I love it.
You're literally a case study for reinventing yourself later in life and all of that six minute networking.com stuff. So kudos to you.
The other benefit of doing all that is you're building up capital at this place. A colleague who shows up the way you are is in a much better position to give feedback and for that feedback to be taken well.
So there's a world where offering some thoughts on these course materials might not jeopardize you as much as you think. So let's talk about a few ways that you can say some hard things without it backfiring.
The first thing I want you to know is the fact that you're approaching all of this in a spirit of genuine love for your students, a genuine concern for the quality of education you're providing them. That is fantastic.
It's very pure. It's extremely moving.
It's impossible to argue with. That's going to make a huge difference in how people hear this feedback.
They're going to be infected by that spirit. So part of your job is staying emotionally connected to that purpose and communicating that purpose to other people if slash when you have these chats.
The other benefit of framing things in this way is it shifts the conversation from one of criticism to one of solutions. If you approach these conversations from that place, not from a place of, oh, these course materials, they suck, I know better, or you're failing our students, but from a place of, look, I want to serve our students as well as possible.
I take great pride in the education we offer. Here are a few ways we can do that better.
You have a good shot of getting these colleagues on board. This is where you do have to be a little political.
You got to be thoughtful about how you frame things. I would not say, guys, these course materials you created, they are terrible.
Our students hate them. They're totally lost.
We need to fix them or people are going to hate us. I don't even know what the hell you're trying to say in these attachments.
I'd say something like, listen, guys, I love what you've done with the course materials. You allowed me to walk into this job with a great foundation.
I am grateful for that. I have noticed a few sticking points and gaps in the materials that are making the course hard for my students.
I've been playing with some solutions that seem to be working. I'd love to share them with you.
Maybe we can talk about building them into the materials so the curriculum can just get better and better, because I'm sure we all agree that our goal is to make English as accessible as possible for our students. We all want them to succeed.
Something like that. Just a little grace, sensitivity, acknowledgement.
They really do go a long way in making the medicine go down smoother. And Gabe, I think when you design a course and it kind of sucks, you know that it sucks and you're like, okay, this needs work, but I'm done with it for now.
So if somebody comes in and goes, I'd like to fill in the gaps, usually, unless you're an egomaniac, you probably would be like, oh, thank you, because we threw this together. We didn't have that much time.
We didn't have that many resources. We always meant to come back to it.
And here we are. Yeah.
Most people are grateful for the help. And they're like, man, help me take this across the finish line for sure.
And by the way, everything you just said, I don't think that's just politicking. This person said that she likes and respects her bosses, which is awesome.
So this is really actually just communicating that appreciation, that respect before she delivers the harder news so that they feel that she sees all of them. You guys have done a great job and there's something to work on.
It's not just here are your mistakes. We need to fix them.
Exactly. It's not just performative.
It's meaningful. But look, I can't tell you for sure when exactly you should have

this conversation. There's so many variables at play here.
The personalities of the people involved,

the rules and customs of your college, its hiring practices, your relationships, your reputation.

There's a world where maybe you don't speak up about the course materials until they give you

a full-time offer, okay? Or you don't go all the way until you get the offer. You give your feedback in smaller chunks

and see how it goes.

Keep making these informal adjustments on your own.

And then when you get hired full-time

and you have a little bit more security

and deeper relationships,

then you give your big pitch.

You're gonna have to read the tea leaves

and listen to your gut there.

You know better than we do.

But here's what I know for sure.

When you deliver tough feedback to people, when you give them total honesty, but you do it in a spirit of genuine love and excitement, which you clearly are, these conversations are rarely as risky as they seem. They can still be daunting, but the chances that they're going to blow up in your face are much lower.
And if they do blow up in your face, it's usually because the people you're giving the feedback to are not willing to take it in. They can't meet you in that same spirit, which is always a possibility.
But then kindness, respectfulness, graciousness, how well you communicate your why, all of that can even transform poor reactions over time. So I hope that gives you some new approaches here.
Ultimately, I have a feeling your new colleagues will be grateful for the feedback because who wouldn't want a coworker like you? You're giving them a massive gift with these changes to the materials as long as you position them in the right way. They're lucky to have you.
Your students are lucky to have you. You're exactly the kind of person who should be in education and I thank you for it.
And again, just a brilliant case study of how effective and productive and courageous a person can be a little bit later in life. You're an inspiration, my friend.
Good luck. You can reach us Friday at JordanHarbinger.com.
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You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com slash news. All right, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, this is a long one, so I'll just cut to the chase.
I'm 24. I live in Michigan and I want my grandma's house.
During the holidays, she very subtly expressed that she thinks she may not have another Christmas. We've all been quietly anticipating this for years.
Her 80th birthday was just a couple weeks ago. This is the first time she's recognized her own mortality, at least to her family.
We joke that she acts like she's 20 and still in college. Her house needs some updates, but it's been in the family for decades, and there's a family cemetery on the land.

The house is old enough that it can be entered into a register of historical buildings, which would prevent changes to the exterior. My grandma hasn't entered it yet, but she might.
We don't know. She doesn't talk about it.
I would prefer she doesn't, as renovations might become more difficult. Clearly, the house should stay in the family.
I truly think that I would be a good fit to inherit it as I have the time, energy, and resources to restore it and be a good steward of the family legacy. I'm the only grandchild who's still in the area and hasn't bought a house of their own yet.
Some grandmas lose their filter as they age and will happily have a chat about any topic in the world. That's not my grandma.
She's very old-fashioned and generally likes to keep her personal affairs private. She doesn't like to have big conversations, at least not with her grandchildren.
Nobody in my family knows what she plans to do with a house in her will. She might leave it to my aunt or one of my uncles.
They would probably support me in taking ownership as they're well-established in their own homes and don't want the responsibility of repairing the old house. But I'd probably have to buy it from them, reducing my resources for renovations.
There might also be disagreement among the aunts and uncles as to what should be done with it if it isn't explicitly in the will. The last thing I want to do is cause a rift in my family because of this property.
If I can talk to my grandma, bring up how I want to stay in the area and how I can care for the house, I do think she'll agree to leave it to me. Getting that conversation started is my hurdle.
How do I bring this up with my grandma? If I can confirm with her that she will leave the house to me, what's the best way for me to go about inheriting it? Should I ask her to put it in a good steward of your grandma's house. You'd continue the family legacy.
You could really use the help. All fair.
I hear that. I'm also just wrapping my head around the fact that you're basically talking about circumventing your whole family, including presumably your own parents and apparently your cousins and trying to become the beneficiary of this inheritance, which is delicate to put it lightly.
Play this out. Say you managed to talk to your grandma.
She engages with you. She decides that, yes, you should get the house.
And then at some point she dies. Then you inherit the house.
And the rest of the family finds out that she listed you as the beneficiary in her will without telling anyone else. Even if she tells them in advance, although it doesn't sound like that's her style, then that drama plays out while she is still alive.
Either way, that's going to raise eyebrows, probably ruffle feathers, all the things, because her kids, who again, include your own parents, they would be the obvious beneficiaries of any assets. And knowing what I know about how contentious these inheritances can be when they're not done properly, I just don't see this going well whatsoever.
Look, this was a little bit different in my family, right? Gabe, my parents, they grew up in Detroit. My grandma had eight kids.
And by the time my grandma was a little bit senile going to nursing homes and stuff like that, it was my dad and her sisters who lived in Michigan. And everybody who lived far away or was a little bit too old, they were just kind of like, you handle it.
And my dad and my aunt handled it. And when she passed away, my dad was like, okay, I'm going to sell the house and split it among everyone.
And they were like, cool. But it was worth like two grand.
It was really, it's in Detroit, for God's sake. I don't even know if they have electricity and water in that neighborhood now.
So this was like a hot potato. This sounds like the opposite kind of situation, where unless everybody gets along really well, it's going to be hard enough even for the kids to deal with it, let alone like, why did she give this to one grandkid? There's no scenario in which this turns out without pissing everyone off.
It's very messy. And I think he's underestimating how much people are going to have an interest in how the assets get divided.
Also, did they not grow up in that house? So they're just not going to have any say over their childhood home. His stance on this is that they're not going to care.
They're already established, which might be true. But also I could see that not being true.
I think everybody probably wants a piece of the assets, right? Yeah. Look, for me personally, if I had a couple of brothers and my parents were like, we're leaving you the house, I would be like, you guys handle this.
Yeah, I'm established. Maybe one of them needs the money more.
Maybe they still live in Michigan and I live in California. That doesn't seem to be the case here, right? She's not saying everybody lives in Oklahoma and this is still in Michigan and I'm the only one here.
That's not what's going on here. Anyway, the responsible way to do this, the respectful way to do this is to make this a family conversation.
You've got to get your parents and their siblings together. Don't try and get your parents to fight for this, to advocate for you here.
You got to get the other grandkids. You got to put everyone on one email thread, something.
And then you talk about the house. You say that you love it.
You want it to stay in the family. You'd be honored to restore it and be the steward of the family legacy.
And you're curious to know if her children know whether grandma has a will, has her affairs in order. And if so, who is set to inherit the house, what their plans for it are, whether they'd be open to a conversation about you being involved in some way, whether that means helping with the renovations or becoming a co-owner down the road or buying it outright, and if they don't know what the will situation is, why and what are they doing about that? Or if everyone's open to it, talking to grandma about potentially leaving it to you, although I would not lead with that idea because I think it would be way too self-serving and obvious.
What you want is to start a conversation about making sure that grandma's affairs are all in order because that's the right thing to do regardless, which look, even that's a delicate conversation because your aunts and uncles might be like, why are you so interested? What's with you in the house? Really, this is primarily between your grandma and her kids. I know you said they'd probably support you in taking ownership of the house, but you don't know that for sure.
I'm afraid that's probably a little naive. I don't know anybody who doesn't want to inherit an asset that is rightfully theirs, even if it's a bit of a headache and they're just going to sell it.
So actually, there's a precursor to this conversation where you just ask your parents or a few of your aunts and uncles, hey, I know grandma doesn't really like to talk about this stuff, but she mentioned that she's not sure how long she's going to be around. And I just wanted to make sure, are you guys on top of the estate stuff? Do you guys have a lawyer? Is there a plan for the house? And just find out first.
And look, Gabriel, tell me what you think here. I'm a fan of the parable where you say something like, I'm only asking because a friend of a friend, their grandmother died and she didn't have a will.
And it was this big mess and it was in court and it was really expensive. I just thought, does grandma have a will? I've never heard anything about it.
It's not really any of my business, but I'm just curious. You don't have to have a real friend of a friend.
I like to illustrate the consequences. For me, I can say, hey, as an attorney here, I'm thinking with my lawyer brain, does your mom have an estate that's all set? Because a lot of people wait till the last minute and you don't want to do that.
If you're not a lawyer, it's harder to do that because she might not have a will and she's not telling anybody or she's not handling her estate properly. And she's like, ah, it's not my problem.
I'm going to be dead. I know a lot of people like that, too.
And it's just creating a massive headache and a potential battle for her kids when she goes, which is not cool and is a terrible situation and can do serious damage inside families. So I would casually ask your parents what the deal is.
If they're like, yeah, she has that all squared away. We just don't know the details.
Then at least you can rest easy that the house won't fall into probate or whatever. And you might also know that getting the house is just not an option.
And if they're like, no, we have no idea if she has a will. It's funny you mentioned that.
We just all talked about that. We're all concerned.
Mom's making it really hard. She's probably putting it off.
Then you have much more license to say, okay, yeah, I'm really concerned about that because this could turn into a huge mess. You guys need to sort this out.
It's time to talk to grandma, hire a lawyer, make sure the house is in the will and all that. And I'm happy to help if you'd like.
What I'm getting at is there's a much more important conversation to be had here and getting your grandma to give you the house, not a kosher move to make. Not right now.
I'm actually a little surprised that you're thinking of doing this, given that you said that the last thing you want to do is cause a rift in your family. I'm not accusing you of being a bad person or an a-hole here.
I think it's naivete, maybe, but I promise you that secretly scheming to get her to leave you the house, that is almost definitely going to cause a rift. It's going to cause problems for you.
It's going to cause problems for your parents, most likely. And now look, if you guys have a conversation as a family about this, and your parents and your aunts and your uncles are all like, yeah, I don't want the house.
Oh my God. We'll sell it and we'll each get $20,000 because it is Michigan.
Although again, this seems unlikely, but if they're somehow all cool with you inheriting it, that's a different story. Then it's all in the up and up.
Although it doesn't really solve the problem of your cousins, the other grandkids, they might want a piece of the house too. So I appreciate that you'd be a great steward of the family legacy.
I get that you have the time and the resources to restore it. I know it's tempting because you're the only grandchild who's in the area.
You don't have a house of your own yet. But unfortunately, that is not enough to justify this strategy.
And my advice really is to focus on empowering your parents and their siblings to plan ahead as much as possible. That's responsible.
That's appropriate. It does benefit you too indirectly.
And if there's a conversation to be had about playing a bigger role in the house, you can have it then. But you're going to have to be much more thoughtful about the rules and the optics here.
Gabe, I know he said, oh, I could probably buy it, but then I would have less money to restore it. If it's your family, ask him for a really cush payment plan.
Hey, I don't have enough money to buy it and restore it. I'd love to restore it and then pay you guys each $1,000 a year.
They might not care, but you can't do it in some sort of shady backroom way. Speaking of shady backroom ways of dealing with things, I'm just marveling at how much this family struggles to talk about really important stuff.
Yeah, it's fascinating. And some of it might come from grandma who never talks about anything.
She raised all these kids who might also not talk about anything important. Good point.
She doesn't talk about her mortality. She doesn't talk about her plans.
She doesn't like to have big conversations. She hasn't even told anyone if she's entered the house in the historical registry, which is like not a controversial thing to share.
So there are some very important things happening here, some important practical matters that impact the entire family that are just not really being properly addressed. Now, our friend here is thinking of doing something similar by trying to talk to his grandma directly instead of starting a conversation with the whole family.
I just find that, I don't know, it's interesting. Yeah, you know, you're right.
This sort of, let's not face this head on, seems to run in the family somehow, which is normal. I'm getting the sense this really is the family way.
And the problem with that is when nobody's talking openly, there's all this secrecy that a tactic like this, it might feel like fair game or the easiest way to handle it, but he might just be dealing with the same avoidances as grandma. And it's going to blow up later.
That's the problem always. So go talk to your family, encourage them to get on top of this estate stuff, gently push them to have the important conversations they need to have with your grandma.
That's the right thing to do. That's your role here for now.
Good luck. And hey, I hope you get the house, but I hope you do it in the right way.
And if open, genuine communication doesn't work, you can always bribe your family with the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.
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All right, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I've been married to my wife for 10 years.
We've been together for 15, and we have one kid together. We also have one child each from previous relationships.
But there have been a number of incidents that make me question if I married the right person. Five years ago, we had a business that was losing money.
I asked her for an exit strategy or some criteria that would trigger us to close the business, but she was easily irritated when I brought this up. She explained that we should have a never-say-die attitude and shouldn't entertain the idea of closing, which led to us losing money.
Luckily, the pandemic happened and that forced us to close it down. Second, we're living with my stepdaughter, who I consider my own.
In 2020, my son from my previous relationship tried to live with us, and he said that he felt that my wife doesn't like him. He's constantly being criticized, and after a couple of weeks, he decided to move back in with his mom.
Third, my wife has some depression and is dealing with it with medication and therapy. She's gotten better, but she gets easily irritated or frustrated.
That's led me to not tell her things and just keep my feelings to myself. The resentment then builds to the point that I feel like I don't love her anymore.
Oh, wow. Over the past few years, I've become attracted to a few other people, but I feel depressed that I can't pursue them because I'm married.
My wife constantly complains that she doesn't feel special anymore. She always reminds me of my shortcomings, like not posting her on social media as much as she wants, even though I do post here and there, and not taking her on dates.
I find it hard to do all of those things because I don't feel anything for her anymore. But I don't know how to start a conversation with her because of her emotional instability.
She's told me multiple times that if I ever leave her, she'll kill herself. I've also come to love my stepdaughter, and I'm not prepared to see my son 50% of the time.
I've been trying to work on this for five years with no progress. I feel like I'm trapped.
How long should I try before the feelings come back? Or how do I know how to stop trying? What if she does indeed kill herself? Signed, debating whether to leave here when my wife might no longer want to be here. Ooh, boy.
Okay, there's a lot going on here. So much in this letter.
So look, I'm very sorry that you and your wife have ended up here. I'm even sorrier that your wife is struggling in all these ways and that it's affected your son as well, that you find it hard to be fully honest with her.
This is a challenging partner to have. It sounds like she's in a lot of pain.
And it really just breaks my heart for all of you. Honestly, I'm also very sorry that leaving would come at a cost, quite a big cost.
Let's come back to that in just a moment. So I understand why you feel trapped.
And feeling trapped in a relationship is an awful feeling. That's obviously not how a marriage should feel.
So look, you said you've been trying to work on this for five years with no progress. I guess my question is, how have you been trying? Are you having open and productive talks with your wife? It doesn't sound like it.
Are you going to couples therapy? You didn't mention that. So I'm assuming you guys are not there.
You said that her tendency to get irritated and frustrated, that's made you not tell her things. And you just keep your feelings to yourself, which I can understand why, but I can't imagine that creates many opportunities for you guys to really work on things.
And to be fair, it sounds like that's a function of her mood, her patterns, but it also sounds like it's a result of you maybe cramping around them to keep things on an even keel. You're probably both playing a role in all of this.
But another part of me wants to say, damn, it's been five years of this and there doesn't seem to be much willingness on either of your parts to work on anything. You say you don't feel anything for her anymore.
So is that just the end of the story? Because look, can people come back from that feeling? Sure, it's possible. I think it's probably pretty unlikely.
And if you guys are going to work on this in a meaningful way by really digging in and doing the work together, there has to be some minimal level of investment, some baseline love there. And I tend to think you kind of have a window in a relationship where you can save things.
And based on what you've shared, it sounds like that window has closed, at least for you. That's what I'm hearing.
But only you can know that for sure. But honestly,

even if you were still in that window, even if there were still some love there, even if you were largely to blame for the state of your marriage, there's still one huge issue here, which is- She's threatening to kill herself if he leaves. She's threatening to kill herself if he leaves.
I don't know how a person is supposed to stay in a relationship and be happy if that's the case. This is a very disturbing form of manipulation.
It's very sad that your wife feels that way. That's got to speak to just how much she's struggling right now, possibly how desperate she is to keep you close.
We can't know her true intentions in saying that, but I'm guessing it's a little bit of all of the above. But I do think you know that it is not fair to you whatsoever.
Not only is she putting her mental health, her desire to live on you, she's also preloading you with a ton of guilt about leaving, which again, I have to just imagine is a way to keep you in the marriage. So this is complicated.
It's complicated for her. She has a lot to work through in therapy.
I sincerely hope she and her therapist are getting into all this stuff. Although whether she's actually able to make progress is a whole other question.
And it's complicated for you, because if you choose to leave, you have to be willing to accept a timeline where she does, in fact, follow through on this threat, which is very sad. It's very dark.
It's very scary. So I really feel for you.
On the upside, you won't have to share custody. Sorry, I'm trying to keep it light.
Crawl back in your hole, Dark Jordan. Jeez.
What a dark turn that took at the most moment. Yeah, dude, this is intense.
I share that view. Here's what you need to understand, my friend.
Oh boy, this is a hard one. You are not ultimately responsible for anyone else's experience, certainly not their basic desire to stay alive, even if they are your spouse.
And if your wife ever did take her own life, which I genuinely hope she never does, but apparently it's a possibility, you need to remember that would be her choice. That would be her response to this whole situation.
And as hard as it is to really take this in and live with this, my feeling is that you can't live your life in such a way to keep your partner intact in these fundamental ways that are ultimately her responsibility. She needs to take care of herself with her therapist's help.
You can and you should support her in doing that. And you obviously play a big role in her

experience because you're her husband. I'm not saying you should go out of your way to hurt her

or just straight up abandon her. I'm not saying that at all, but you cannot live your life in

service of protecting another person all the time because ultimately I don't think you are protecting

her. You're not protecting her by biting your tongue when she gets irritated and frustrated.
I don't know if you're protecting her by staying in a marriage that you don't want to be in because you're afraid she might not want to stay alive, as tragic as that is. And I know that's a very intense thing to say and to wrap your head around.
I imagine that it might feel selfish and cruel and maybe dangerous because it's such a different stance from the one that you've been taking with her for the last five plus years, 10 years, 15 years, maybe your whole life with other people. But that's where that healthy separation has to come into play.
You got to recognize that you are your person and she is her person. And there's also a lot of grief to that, you know, grief that you can't on your own make her better.
And there's the grief also of potentially going your separate ways and seeing your children maybe a little bit less. And possibly, I really hope this never comes to pass, but possibly the grief of losing her if she ever did decide to go through with this, which again, I sincerely hope she does not do.
But that is really hard. If you're not willing to at least

risk experiencing that grief, which is always part of change, then I'm afraid you're going to

stay stuck in this situation. I am too.
And honestly, Gabe, we're being very delicate here

as we should be. But dark Jordan, or at least less delicate Jordan, he wants to go, dude,

the second your partner threatens to kill themselves, if you leave, get out because that person is unhealthy and unstable and manipulating you. And this cannot be good.
I get that. I also know that he's in the process of coming to terms with what that exactly means.
He's learning to become the kind of person who can stay firm in the face of a threat like that. And by the way, this might just be a threat.
She might be speaking abstractly. It might be a tactic or it might just be an expression of how she feels these days.
And it's not something that's actually going to come to pass. That doesn't make it not meaningful, but let's just remember that it doesn't necessarily mean that she would go through with this, but the cost is high.
It's not just the end of his marriage and the end of a chapter in his life. It's also what it means for their kids.
He didn't say this, Jordan, but I wonder if he's also afraid of what his kids, especially his stepdaughter, what they would think if he left and then she did spiral. And what if she did ever follow through on this plan? He said he loves his stepdaughter like she's his own.
I imagine that would be devastating. You know, how do you feel if you cause your stepchild's parent to hurt themselves or something like that? So I understand the predicament he's in.
This is really tough. Look, I get it.
I really do. I'm not minimizing any of that.
I understand he needs some time, although let's also remember it's been five years of this. Five years doesn't sound like that long of a time, but then I realized I have a five-year-old kid and I'm like, man, he can do math for God's sake.
But to me, threatening to take your own life if somebody leaves you, it's just so extreme. It's so revealing of a problem that is ultimately hers.
I just can't imagine sticking around. Maybe I'm an a-hole.
No, you're right. And if you say that to a partner and you don't go, huh, I wonder why I would want to take my own life if we ever broke up.
I need to go work on that. I need to figure that out.
Maybe that's part of the problem in our marriage. And the fact that she's kind of laying that at his feet and then not doing anything.
She might be talking about this in therapy, and that's a big question mark for me. What kind of work they're doing there, to your point? Yeah, just to lay that at your partner's feet without making it part of your self-work is dicey.
Dicey. By the way, we didn't even touch on the other detail about the business they ran together oh yeah how it was losing money she's like no you never say die terrible idea by the way the whole never give up in business is some of the worst advice you can get or give that led to them losing money of course i hear that and i'm like okay here's a woman who's very defiant very headstrong very committed to sticking with something that isn't working probably possibly watches too many youtube videos videos from Gary Vaynerchuk.
But this compromised them in the process. And it's kind of ironic because she was so committed to the business, but she doesn't seem to be committed to her life.
You'd think somebody who's suicidal had been different to the business, but she's very invested there and seemingly not nearly as invested in, I don't know, taking care of herself to the point where she could survive a divorce, literally. Interesting observation.
It is curious. I think we would need to know a lot more about her.
But what I'm hearing in that detail is someone who might struggle to acknowledge failure or even weakness, who might experience that as like a near fatal blow. Yeah, which explains why she'd rather lose money than admit that something they created is not working.
Right. Might be a metaphor for their entire marriage.
I don't know. Look, her personality might be more headstrong than resilient distinction.
Those are two different things, right? Doubling down and insisting that something will work or not being willing to admit that something's not quite working. That's not always strong, right? That's inflexible.
And that's often actually a form of weakness. But being willing to admit, okay, something isn't working here.
We either need to make some changes or we need to close the business and try something new. That actually requires greater strength.
It requires a willingness to bear the wound of struggling, of potentially failing. You got to be durable.
You have to have a capacity for that discomfort. And also the ability to separate your professional accomplishments from your basic sense of worthiness, which I also wonder if she struggles with, which maybe that was also in the mix.
So I'm connecting a few dots here. We don't know her again, but if any of that is true, then I could see those qualities playing out in other areas of her life, in her marriage, in her mental health, again, in her basic willingness to stay alive if she ever goes through a big loss.
I could totally see that because in a way that business thing is a footnote compared to all the suicidality, but it's all connected. And you're right, how she relates to the business, how she feels, the business is a reflection of her.
That's got to mirror how she feels about a lot of the other parts of her life, including our friend here. I hope that gives you some new angles here.
Obviously, I don't think this marriage is healthy or sustainable, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's game over. But if there's a way forward, you're both going to have to have some very real conversations.
Your wife is going to have to confront these parts of herself. You're going to have to stop cramping around her to avoid them.
The one big upside to giving it a go, you'll know for sure whether you guys are willing to do that. And if you're not, then maybe you'll feel more secure in your decision to leave.
But I'm afraid that's where this is heading regardless. And that's where you really need to be willing to live with the consequences.
And remember which ones you're responsible for and which ones you're not. Sending you, your wife, and your kids a big hug, and wishing you all the best.
All right, now for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to Lit Villa.
My recommendation of the week is a little different this week. It's not a product, it's not a service, it's just a thing you can do.
It's an experience. And that experience is telling people you don't know, personally, how they have impacted you.
So I'm always really touched when people write me on Instagram or in the Feedback Friday inbox and they're like, hey, I listened to the show. I've listened for this long.
It means so much to me. I learned this thing.
Even two sentences like really touches me. And I think a lot of people assume that the people they appreciate or follow or admire or whatever, whether it's an author or a speaker or somebody important in their industry, whatever it is, that those people are just too important or too fancy or too busy to read an email from a stranger.
But I can tell you, and I'm sure Jordan would agree, when you put something out into the world, it means so much more than most people imagine to hear how it lands with people, you know, what it means to them, what they do with it. And you'd be surprised by how often these folks do read these messages and they do respond.
It doesn't happen every time you won't have a hundred percent response rate, but it is absolutely worth it. So if there's a stranger who has impacted your life, my recommendation is take a couple minutes, hunt down their email address, find their Instagram handle, their LinkedIn, whatever it is, get in touch and send them a brief note just telling them what they mean to you.
You can keep it brief. It does not need to take you more than five or 10 minutes at the most.
Just send it. And I kind of do this fairly regularly with people just because I know how much it means, especially anyone who creates something and puts it out into the world.
It's always a rewarding experience. It requires so little effort.
And yes, it can lead to cool outcomes. You might strike up a relationship that grows into an interesting opportunity down the line or whatever, but that's not the point.
The point is sharing your love and appreciation without any specific expectation. And I'm just a really big fan of doing this.
It's made me feel more connected, more grateful. Even when I don't hear back from the person, a few months ago, I went to a play here in LA that was so good.
And the lead actor was insane, like so stunning. I followed his work for years.
I'm a big fan, not even super famous, but just like a master at what he did. And I had one of the best nights of theater I've ever had.
And when I got home, I wrote his agent an email and I was like, if you could pass this along, it would mean a lot to me. And she said she would.
And I never heard back, but I hope he read that email. And it just made me feel good to tell him how much the play meant to me.
It really does make the world feel smaller, more intimate. And it makes me appreciate it even more when people do it for me.
So I say, give it a go and see what happens. I think it's a nice little practice to build into your life.
I just want to share that with you guys. And I think maybe give it a go and see what happens and see how it makes you feel and see what happens to how you consume things and what your relationships are like.
Cause I find it to be very impactful. You know, I've got a, on my to-do list app that I use for all my to-dos, once a week I send genuine appreciation to someone because it's easy to forget to do this.
But I'll just write a random friend and I'll be like, hey man, three years ago, you gave me this idea to count calories and weigh my food and it has changed my entire life and here's how. And it's just wanted you to know like that random text changed the entire direction of my body and mind forever.
And people are like, whoa, dude, thank you for sharing. I was just feeling sorry for myself.
Or I was just driving to the gym. This made my day.
It's really cool to do that. And it's not just to get the reaction out of people.
It's actually just, I think it strengthens the relationship period. And I second everything you said.
It's kind of straight out of six minute networking.com. and I agree this works best when you're not explicitly trying to cultivate a relationship in the first place, but I find that doing this kind of thing, of course, it often does cultivate or strengthen the relationship because it's such a nice way to kick things off or remind somebody of the impact they've had on you.
I think I said this on the show recently. A lot of people, especially young people, they write to me and they're like, I'm 18 or I'm 20, 25, whatever.
I'm just starting out. I want to meet this amazing author.
I want to meet this senior person at my company who gave this great talk, whatever it is. I have nothing to offer them.
So I don't know where to start. I'm just going to not say anything.
And I'm just like, Hey dude, that is enough. Your gratitude is enough.
A five sentence email telling them why you responded to what they said or did. That is enough.
And if you can tell them what you did with what they put out specifically, how you put it into action, what results it led to, even better, because that's really what makes these notes pop. But I'm with you, Gabe.
It's not about pushing for any specific outcome. You have to hit pause on the part of your brain that's hoping for something more.
But the cool thing is, when you keep your intentions pure, people tend to respond to that the best.

Whereas a request for career advice wrapped in a compliment, that kind of dilutes the message and it can be self-serving. There's an author named Brad Meltzer.
He's a friend of mine. And the reason he's a friend of mine, I read something that he put out and I was like, oh, this is really good.
And I told my agent and she's like, oh, yeah, I love his stuff, too. and she told another agent who told Brad Meltzer and Brad Meltzer reached out to me and was like, hey, we should chat.
And I said, okay. And I can't remember exactly what the business reason was, but it doesn't matter.
He sent me a ton of his books. And then recently we caught up again.
He's going to come on the show because he just gave a great speech and it's got a great message that I wanted to share with everybody. Now we're just buddies.
It's really funny how that worked. And it was all because I reached out to somebody to say, hey, I really like this guy's work.
And I know he's famous and doesn't care, but I'd love to just get that message over to him. Look, I'm a big fan of this one.
I had to soapbox for a moment about how this connects to everything in the six minute networking dot com courses. And this is useful at every age, at every stage.

I still do it myself, like I said,

but it's especially useful for people

who are just starting out or starting over.

And this stuff is totally free.

I don't just mean the course,

the idea of reaching out to somebody

and telling them how they've impacted you.

That is free.

It only costs you a little bit of time

and the return on that investment could be huge.

Also folks, the subreddit for our show,

if you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes, if there's an episode you like, there's something you don't like, you're confused about a lot of cool, fun conversations happening over there, you can find it at reddit.com if you are a Redditor over in the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, My girlfriend listened to your show for years.

We met in 2020 during COVID,

and throughout our relationship,

she always sent me links to episodes.

I never opened any of them.

I thought your podcasts were boring as hell.

Then again, I thought all podcasts were boring.

Fast forward to October 2022.

I was 30 pounds overweight,

drank half a bottle of whiskey at night, binge smoked, ate like shit, and had stopped working out. I was also $125,000 in debt

from dumb choices. Meanwhile, my girlfriend, who's an amazing person, was the opposite.

She watched what she ate, worked out five times a week, and was always working to better herself

and those around her. I wasn't always like this, but somewhere along the line, I lost myself.

Thank you. eight, worked out five times a week, and was always working to better herself and those around her.
I wasn't always like this, but somewhere along the line, I lost myself. I'd also never shown her affection or talk like we used to.
She deserved better. Eventually, she told me that she wanted to break up because we didn't share the same values.
One of the last things she said to me was that I never took an interest in the podcasts that she loved. And she mentioned only one, the Jordan Harbinger show.
That shocked me. I thought it was such a dumb reason to break up with someone.
Actually, not liking this podcast is one of the single best reasons to end any relationship. You have three kids with somebody, total intimacy, undying romance.
You never fight. They cook you breakfast in bed every day, but they don't like this show.
Just, I would say, end it now. Don't even look back.
Game over. Don't even do it.
Just get out. Yeah.
So he goes on, a few days later, I was sitting in my truck thinking, damn, she's right. I've been wasting not only my life, but hers too.
Wow. I don't know what moved me to do it, but I opened our texts and found one of the links to your show.
I listened and was like, yeah, not bad. Love that.
Ringing endorsement. Yeah.
Would you mind leaving that as a review for us? Five stars. Eh, not bad.
He goes on. I started going down the rabbit hole of self-development shows and learned so much about health, fitness, empathy, affection, how you need to constantly work in a relationship.
Things I never learned growing up. For example, I would always want to argue and gaslight my ex.
I didn't even know what gaslighting was. Then I started listening to your show and I was like, damn, am I a narcissist? I'm loving this so far, clearly because I'm a narcissist.
But seriously, just to say, if you heard our Dr. Romany episodes, our Feedback Friday episodes about narcissism, and you were like, oh, man, that sounds like me sometimes.

You're probably not a capital N pathological narcissist.

Those people, 95 percent of the time, they literally can't even begin to confront that quality in themselves.

But we all contain narcissistic traits to some degree, even if we don't have the clinical disorder. So if you were able to see that more clearly because of the show, fantastic.
I love it. In short, I kicked my vices, lost a ton of weight and started the business I always said I would.
I'm now about $20,000 away from being debt free. Wow.
Paid down $105,000 so far. Bravo.
Damn, that takes hard work and talent, I imagine. Yeah, a lot of ramen noodles in that house.
Yeah, truly. I've been working hard to confront my trauma, like the gaslighting I learned from my mom, who learned it from her mom.
I confronted the little boy who grew up never seeing his dad show affection to his mom. I've rediscovered my love for health, fitness, and travel.
I was fortunate enough to go to Bali and Japan for a whole month. And the entire time I practiced gratitude for what I had, what I have, and what will come.
And I'm still traveling a lot. Last year, I traveled across Mexico and I'm planning a China trip at the end of the year.
Trauma creates change. Amazing.
It can. Not everyone gets there though, sadly, but yeah, all trauma, even difficult trauma.
It's always a window into something profound.

Yeah. We've talked about the concept of post-traumatic growth before.
Not everyone has the courage or the tools to explore that, but the opportunity is always there, which is remarkable. Amazing you were able to make this transformation.
Man, this is such a great letter. Losing the person I love the most in this world destroyed me, but it opened my eyes.
My best friend recently asked me if I could go back and make sure this never happened to me, would I? In the moment, I would have said, of course. Now, I wouldn't.
I needed to experience losing someone I loved in order to change. It wouldn't have happened any other way.
Yep, life really do be like that sometimes. I'm so thankful for her strength.
If she never made the hard decision to leave me, I would still be where I was. And if she never mentioned you, I wouldn't have found the information to help me change.
I wouldn't consider your show a self-development show, but you randomly gave me a second chance at life, and I'm never going back. I still think about my ex all the time, and I hope she's happy and thriving.
I recently found out she has an amazing boyfriend now, and I couldn't be happier for her. I now have an amazing girlfriend, and we have a dog.
I talked to her about the story, and my ex told her how much I learned the hard way. She's remarked on how different I am from her ex-boyfriends.
I've also introduced podcasts to her. Funny how that works.
As long as it's this podcast, fine, I'm all for it. No Gary Vaynerchuk for your girlfriend, please.
No shade to Gary. I just came up earlier.
That's why. I wanted to share all this because I hope that someone listening to this can take a look at themselves and learn from my mistakes.
I used to live my life like I had unlimited time, but the truth is, we don't. Every day and moment is running out.
Sorry for being so corny, but being aware of that is a gift. Mahalo, Jordan and Gabe, for ruining my last relationship.
Just kidding, for saving my life. And a new question has come out of all of this.
I've helped a few of my friends change their direction and worldview, and I feel a strong passion around that. How can I reach out to more men, young and old, to help them? Signed, a guy who lost it all, decided to finally tune into you know-it-alls, realized he had stalled, made a major overhaul, broke through a wall, and experienced a psycho-spiritual windfall.
I can tell that's a Gabe sign-off. What a letter, though.
This is very inspiring. As per usual, with stories like this, I don't have a ton to add.
I'm just very grateful that you shared all this with us, with everyone listening, and I'm honored that we could play a role in ruining your life, giving you another shot at life, whatever, bit of both. Actually, that's what stands out the most to me about your story, how you had to lose something really important to you in order to evolve.
Obviously, my mind went to my sort of trauma, whatever if you can call it that, it seems a little silly to use that word for it, but my big show reset in 2018, how painful that was having to start over, but I came to the exact same conclusion that you did. It really was the best thing that ever happened to me.
But if you'd asked me back then, hey, do you want this? I would have been like, hell no. Keep things exactly the way they are.
It's going to be impossible to recover from this. Even though things were far from perfect back then, I desperately needed to make some changes.
It's funny. We're such conservative creatures as human beings.
We don't want to expend any more energy than is absolutely necessary to get where we want or what we want. And we try to organize our lives to create as much stability as possible, even if the status quo is super dysfunctional, like where you found yourself in 2022, which is actually not that long ago, man, a couple years ago.
Oftentimes, something external has to come along to force us to wake up. A partner leaving, a job falling apart, an illness, whatever it is.
And yeah yeah that can be awful it's very stressful it's very unpleasant it brings up a lot of anger and fear and grief but what your letter captures so beautifully is it also creates space it shakes the etch-a-sketch it creates new room for us to reconnect with ourselves to try new things to form new relationships it into waking up. Most of the time, myself included, we're on autopilot.
We have to lose something. Some big disruption has to happen for us to sit up and go, oh, yeah, okay, I'm alive.
I'm living my life. How am I living my life? Am I making the most of my life? And then the other big thing that loss does, of course, is it forces us to confront some difficult truths.
Although I got to say, that's not the case for everyone. It's far from guaranteed.
Some personalities, especially narcissistic personalities, they tend to respond to big losses like this by digging in harder, growing more resentful, doubling down on the story that they're right and everyone else is wrong and they're the victim and the world's out to get them and blah, blah, blah, which is another reason that I doubt you are a pathological or clinical narcissist. But like I said, we all have narcissistic traits and those traits, they're often defenses against the very feelings that you had to confront after the breakup, especially the shame.
The shame of having to admit, man, I am not healthy. I am not stable.
I am not taking care of care of myself I did not treat my partner well I have some stuff to work through that's intense and that can be wounding so where a narcissist would go screw you for leaving you're not on my team you're too needy all you want for me is to listen to the podcast you listen to nobody gets me you said essentially I have a lot of feelings about this and one of them is that I might be wasting my life or going down the wrong path. Let me give this thing a listen.
And look where that got you. Being able to tolerate the tension of those feelings got you.
It opened up a whole new process, a whole new worldview, a whole new set of opportunities. It's really extraordinary.
Just that willingness to be wrong, to bear shame, to take another person's opinion seriously.

It is extraordinary.

So I really commend you for that.

You're a case study in how to surrender to loss, how to make meaning out of grief, how

to use these crises to grow rather than to shrink or stay stagnant.

And I'm very touched that we've been part of that process with you.

So to answer your question, finally, how to reach out to more men to help them, I think you're already doing the most important thing, which is sharing your story. It's a powerful one.
And the beauty of it is, it shows that you're actually living these values that you talk about. You're not just talking about growth and healing and all that.
You're in this process. You're embracing these ideas and putting them into action.
So I would say, keep sharing your story one-on-one for sure, and maybe in larger venues if you feel moved to do that. This show is one of them.
You could post this in a few subreddits around personal growth or relationships or breakups or something like that. You can start a conversation.
You could publish it as a blog or a newsletter. You could go tell it at storytelling shows in your town.
They have those all over the world. Maybe work up to a moth style event or a TEDx or whatever if that's interesting to you.
But my feeling is, look, if you really want to help people grow the way you have, wonderful. If that's truly your calling, you'll find it reflected back to you when you talk about what you went through.
And that would be a good signal that you should be more proactive in sharing this stuff. But you also don't necessarily need to go out looking for people to save.
I'm not saying it's your intention. It's just a pitfall of teaching.
It has the potential to be a little crusader-y, maybe a little pushy. I know how to help you.
Let me work on you. I'm not sure that's what you want.
Yeah, I agree. The best version of helping other people is putting yourself out there and sharing your story and just looking for ways to be helpful to them as they navigate their own journeys.
So yeah, I like that Reddit idea, Jordan. And if people comment on that Reddit post and they're like, Hey, I have these questions and you have thoughts about that, that would be a really great invitation for you to offer some wisdom and maybe strike up a correspondence.
Or if people read your blog post and they asked to chat with you and you're open to that, I say, go for it. Amazing.
But yeah, I wouldn't necessarily go out recruiting people to help because that's when this can get a little, I don't know, a little life coachy, a little like, I know I've been there and now you need to listen to some things, which, yeah, not the vibe. Exactly.
What are you, a podcaster, for God's sake? Seriously, I can't believe I'm the one saying that while we're sitting here. Yeah, exactly.
Room to talk over here, Gabe, Mr. Advice column.
But you know what? You did say that we're a couple of Lydia's today. You're right, though.
You generally want to pull more than push. And again, if you are being called to help people in a more formal way, like some kind of coaching, and you want to formalize that role, hey, go for it.
I'm not saying you can't. But I think this stuff needs to unfold organically on its own to some degree for it to be truly meaningful.
If you find yourself working very hard to find people to help, I think that's usually a sign that you're trying to achieve something else. And what that thing is, I'll let you figure that out.
It's a pitfall that I think all people in the self-development world have to confront at some point, and it's not all bad, but it is something to keep an eye on. I can't help but notice that a lot of people who are in the mix of something and solving a bunch of problems in their life, they get three steps into a hundred steps and they're like, I want to be a coach.
It sort of solidifies their identity as somebody who's like an action taker and doing something about it. It's like, you don't have to become a professional yoga instructor in order to go to a yoga class, but a ton of people want to do that with coaching.
And I don't totally understand why it happened in the dating world. And I was working in the dating world.
People would sign up for a boot camp and like on day two, what does it

take to be an instructor? Why are you even thinking about that right now? We're trying to iron out the

yellow belt stuff here, pal. I get it though.
It's just something to keep an eye on, like I said.

And your motivations, your ways of connecting with people, the spirit in which you meet them,

those have to be very pure, always, but especially early on. And look, I appreciate the question.

I love that you want to be of service. I'm extremely moved that your story has inspired other people to grow.
All of that is incredible. Those are signs that you have something important to offer, and it really is a testament to the remarkable transformation that you've been through, the man you've become, and I'm very proud of you for that.
I can tell you are too, as you should be. So thank you for clicking on that link that your ex sent you when you were definitely not going through her text so that you could respond to something that was months old.
I'm going to go through all these and find something mean that you said. He was actually hunting for those podcast links.
All right, fine. I'll listen to Jordan Harbinger and maybe she'll come back to me.
Jordan's just happy you did that because it really helps his numbers, just to be clear. That's right.
Text every girl right now dating anybody. Text this to your man.
Tell him that if you don't listen to this, it's over. That's what I need right now.
Actually, man or woman, do that to your partner right now. That's the mark of a healthy relationship that you can lay down an ultimatum out of nowhere in the middle of any Sunday, any weekend when everything else is fine.
Do you love me or not? Here's the link. If you do, you listen to this podcast and you support our sponsors too, right? As a massive thank you for changing your whole life.
I kid. Keep up the great work.
We are super pumped for you. Thank you for being a part of our show fam.
And everybody go back and check out our episodes with Scott Payne and our Skeptical Sunday on Hangover Cures. If you haven't done so yet, show notes and transcripts over at jordanharbinger.com.
Advertisers, 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 us 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 Fogerty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.
Our advice and opinions are our own, and I am a lawyer. I'm not your lawyer.
Do your own research before implementing things you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others.
Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today.
In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

And we'll see you next time.

Are you addicted to drama?

Check out this preview of The Jordan Harbinger Show

with psychologist Dr. Scott Lyons.

Do you vent constantly?

Do you find yourself changing the stories?

Do you find that wherever you go,

there's always something that's wrong or happening? Do you find yourself believing the other shoe will always drop? That no matter how good things are, something bad is going to happen? Do you find yourself crisis hopping? If you're in it, you will have no idea that that's what you're doing. And it takes a lot of time for those addicted to drama to recognize, to even be aware of the pattern is happening.
Our primal needs as a kid is to be seen and heard, to feel safe. And so you will go to whatever extremes, intensity shouting is needed to pierce through the chaos of a family household to be seen and heard, even if it's burning down the house.
A wave of an emotion, it lasts 30 to 90 seconds. Anything after that is the story we're feeding to maintain it.
We're trying to keep that emotion active. We're feeding off the emotion as opposed to processing or metabolizing it.
We're not letting it go because there's some belief system if we let it go, we'll be victims. If we let we won't be safe whatever it is why we won't let go of the emotion even a small trauma can feel like death because we feel helpless and if we don't have the resilience capacity to know that someone will help us there are tools out there to help us if we don't inherently know that it feels like we're going to drown.
In that moment, it feels like death. Learn to recognize and heal from drama addiction on episode 836 with Dr.
Scott Lyons on The Jordan Harbinger Show. I need directions for paying down debt.
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