1222: What Legal Steps Come Next to Stop Criminal Ex? | Feedback Friday

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Welcome to Feedback Friday.

I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer The Dainty Parasol, keeping these UV rays of life drama off your pasty, supple skin, Gabriel Mizrahi.

On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turned their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker.

During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, arms dealers, drug traffickers, astronauts, investigative journalists.

This week, we had former spy Andrew Bustamante back on the show.

We talked about Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Taiwan, China, and why World War III has probably already started.

We also talked about Jeffrey Epstein and information warfare, basically a spy's take on current events.

On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, play obnoxious soundbites, and marvel at all the cray that makes Feedback Friday.

Gabe, before we kick off, I remembered a story from a long time ago that i don't think i've ever shared with you oh great i love these i can't wait what happened now maybe i'm hyping it up too much but a long forever ago i was on a reality show a pilot a shot a pilot for a reality show i'm already so into this story go on basically i was a the white dating coach there was a black dating coach who was a friend of mine and she wanted a white guy to like be her kind of like foil character coach and all the women were people of color and all the guys were white on on the show and so we were like she was kind of coaching the girls and I was kind of coaching the guys and it was really a lot of fun and there was a guy there I think his name was Rocky which first of all is gonna make sense he was like this muscly East Coast guy surprise surprise and we had reached this lull where we had done like a bunch of the stuff that we needed to do to prep the contestants were waiting and They were like, oh, let's get some drinks going because we have a little bit of a break and we're going to start shooting.

And it's like reality TV.

So they're like, we we don't want you to get drunk, but we kind of want you to get a little bit tipsy.

So you do some stuff that's memorable.

And I was like, I got to get out of this like super warm.

If you've ever been under lights, which you have, most people probably haven't, you're under these lights.

The house you're shooting in is a million degrees.

And they're like, wear this leather jacket and a sweater.

So everyone's just like sweating.

And I'm like, I need to get out of here.

And they're like, oh, yeah, let's send a PA to go to a convenience store, Pink Dot, and get some drinks.

And I was like, I'll go too.

I get ready to go jump in the car with the PA and this guy, Rocky, he's like, Hey, Chief, don't be getting me the cheap stuff.

I want Johnny Walker Black.

Don't be getting Jameson or anything, all right?

And I was like, sure, anything else?

And he was like, Yeah, blah, blah, blah, like just talking to me.

Like, I don't even know.

I would never talk to anybody like that, even if they did work for me.

And I did not work for him, and neither did the production assistant for that matter.

And just to be clear, this guy is a contestant on the show, right?

Contestant on the show, and he has no idea who I am at this point.

Okay, and in a couple hours, he's going to be trying to find a match on this reality dating show pilot.

Okay.

Of which I am a coach on the show, and he apparently thinks that not only am I a production assistant, but that he is the boss of all of the production assistants.

Yeah, so he's what, trying to flex in front of everybody before the show?

Okay, the women that are going to be dated by these guys, they're not even there.

So he has nobody to impress, okay?

He's flexing on all the other men.

Yes, on dudes and like camera guys and directors and DPs and showrunners.

This is a big moment.

I got it.

No one cares.

Right.

And I'm like, okay.

And I was like, anybody else want anything?

And I look around the room and everyone is staring at me like, are you going to put this guy in his place or what?

Are you going to lose your mind?

Is there going to be an issue here?

Even the director was like, just freezes and like looking with side eye like, did I just hear that happen?

And I was like, anybody else want anything?

And people were like, no.

And I was like, cool.

I'll see you guys later.

And I get back.

And my friend Crystal and who's the dating coach for the women, she's like, what was that?

And I was like, don't worry about it.

It's fine.

She's like, I can't believe you didn't say anything.

And I was like, no, I'm going to say something, just not right now.

And she's like, oh, no.

Oh, boy.

Yes.

Let's see where this is going.

Okay.

As the show goes on, I'm, you know, wandering around.

I'm having a drink.

I'm watching video of him.

I'm being filmed watching video of him talking with the women.

And he's like, huh, that's weird.

Why is that guy watching video of me?

Oh, I guess that's part of his job.

And then We sit down with the cameras rolling right at this point.

I sit down with Crystal and he sits down with the other guys.

and he's like, oh, you're like on the show.

And I'm like, yeah, that's why I got hair and makeup and all the other PAs are in like black t-shirts and hats.

And what was really interesting about this is my job was to say what he did right and wrong.

And he had done surprise, surprise, so many things wrong.

And none of the women were interested in him because he was an arrogant prick.

And I broke it all down in a very fair way.

I didn't mention anything, but then towards the end, when one of the women was like, he was too arrogant, I couldn't deal with him.

He started to get really defensive.

And I was like, let me stop you right there.

And I told the story of how he treated me when he thought I was just a lowly PA, which, by the way, PAs are super cool and they can really make your time on a set nice if you're cool with them.

And they can accidentally spill a drink in your lap if you're not.

I don't think that would ever happen, but you know, whatever.

You're supposed to be cool to people on set.

It's a high-stress environment.

Everyone's hot.

Those guys got up at 4 a.m.

Like, you suck it up.

You're the talent.

You have it easy.

I shred him and he's like, suddenly his shoes got real interesting where he's like looking down and humiliated.

But I will say, to his credit, at the end of that, he was like, I understand.

And he like took it all in a little bit of stride, even though he looked like a wounded child.

And after all the cameras were off and cut, I was like, hey, man, you all right?

And he's like, dude, I just want to apologize.

And I was like, you know what?

You don't even have to apologize.

Apology accepted, but you need to change your behavior.

And he goes, I've been doing this my whole life and nobody's really ever said anything about it.

And I bet I've done this to myself over and over over again.

And I've heard about it from women that I dated.

I just thought they were trying to hurt me.

But now I see it on video and now and I trust what you said is accurate.

So he actually like turned out to be a really thoughtful guy.

He was putting on this dumb,

like meathead idiot front because he thought that's what like you needed to do to be cool in New Jersey or whatever.

And it was totally shooting himself in the foot.

He was actually a sweet guy.

And I was like, hey, first of all, you're not cooler because you treat people like crap.

And he's like, I mean, it sounds obvious when you say it.

It was a really fascinating experience.

I almost felt bad that I had to shred him on camera, but it made the pilot amazing.

So whatever.

You didn't have to, but your sense of drama is impeccable.

Absolutely.

So cameras were rolling, obviously, but it wasn't supposed to be part of the show, what they were filming.

But you used that.

And I assume the producers of the show were on board with you doing that somehow.

100%.

That is a moment that if I saw on a reality show, I would think that they scripted the whole thing

to have that moment to use against him later.

Yeah, he was probably in on it, but this all was organic.

All organic.

And you know what's even funnier?

I didn't even think about this now that you just mentioned it.

There was a guy doing, I guess you'd call it BTS camera on like a Sony Alpha.

Just one guy, like shotgun mic, mounted to the camera, just sort of honestly, probably testing the camera and the acoustic environment and the lighting, if anything.

But he had filmed us just randomly chatting in the kitchen over the kitchen island.

And so we have this kind of like kitchen echo audio version of him being like, and hey, chief, give me that Johnny Walker black, not the cheap stuff.

All right there, Bucko.

I assumed you guys had footage of that for some reason.

We did, but not even like on purpose.

The camera doesn't even really shoot him most of the time.

It doesn't even shoot me most of the time.

It's just looking at random other people, but it's even better because you see their faces go from like, we're all having fun and chatting to like, whoa, you're going to talk to that guy like that for what?

Why are you doing that to yourself?

So it actually worked out really well.

And they took a clip of that and they put it in the pilot.

And I really wish the pilot was available available somewhere because it was it was quite hilarious.

Oh, I'd love to see that.

This is 15 years ago, so I'm wearing like a purple leather jacket and I have like slick-backed hair.

I remember that leather jacket.

Yeah, that was that was a distinct era of Jordan Harbinger.

For ages, I had a headshot with slick-backed hair and a purple leather jacket that they took during the pilot as an image.

Yeah, and they loved it.

And I was just like, now it's cringe, of course.

Before there was Dark Jordan, there was Lavender Jordan.

There was Lavender Jordan.

Yeah, but at least it wasn't a blouse.

All right.

Oh, another thing that I thought was kind of funny, actually, about this was it was shot in a house.

And this is one of my first shoots, certainly one of my first TV shoots.

So I was like, oh, okay, we're doing it in a house.

And then there's, you know, there's hotlights in the house.

And it looks kind of like, wow, there's a lot of gear in here.

There's a lot of people working in here.

This is really good.

And I remember the director saying something like, we all got to be out of here.

by 4 p.m.

because there's a showing.

And I was like, what's that?

Like, is that an industry term?

And he's like, no.

Basically, as it turned out, this was not a professional set.

This was his homeboy had, it was a real estate agent and their client, his clients owned this home.

And the home had been staged for sale.

And so like, they just went in and did this shoot and probably gave the real estate agent some dollars.

But did they tell the clients that they were using the remote?

Assume they did not do that because they weren't.

wanting to pay a set fee.

That is so not okay.

That is so

hilarious.

So they just got a free location out of it because he's showing the house and the owners might have not had any idea.

I think so.

The more I did stuff in Hollywood after that, the more I realized there were definitely two kinds of sets.

There were the sets where it was like, hey, this is nice.

What is it?

And it's like, it's an Airbnb, so like, don't park outside.

And you're like, okay, what are we shooting again?

And then there are sets.

I did an AT ⁇ T shoot a few years ago.

There were 50 people there, trucks outside, lights outside, reflectors outside.

The windows were covered with reflectors so that it looked like natural sunlight.

There was like a generator in the back because the power supply of the house was actually not enough to run all of the lights and stuff like that in the set.

There's several audio people, right?

There's wood paneling on the floor to protect the floor with cables taped to it.

There's catering.

Everything is covered and all the furniture has plastic on it so it doesn't get dirt or dust or whatever on it.

That's a real set.

That's, you know, a hundred grand or something worth of service in a location fee for like a day.

And on this reality show, Pilot said it was what, like subway sandwiches.

And if you're thirsty, you're drinking out of the sink?

100%, right?

It's like there's some diet creamsical shasta in the fridge that we got to remember to take out of here.

And some subway, like knockoff subway sandwiches where everybody left the one kind, the pesto one that nobody wants is all still there and like warm and food poisoning central.

Yeah.

Whereas the other one had like boxes.

They were doing a gorilla reality show pilot shoot, basically.

Yes.

So if you see a set like that now in 2020, this is 2010 or 2012, whatever.

If you see a set like this now, it's porn going on OnlyFans, basically.

If you run into set like this, like something's about to go down and you don't want small kids nearby.

So that back then, though, was kind of standard.

People were shooting pilots guerrilla style.

Even if they had $25,000 worth of rented stuff, that was still how you did it back in the day.

Everyone in LA has one story like this.

You got to do, you have to do one shoot like this just to know what it's like.

That's hilarious.

Speaking of drinking out of the sink, let us imbibe some of the craziness from this week's Feedback Friday.

Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

Hi, Jordan and Gabe.

After I ended my relationship with my ex, he threatened to blackmail me with explicit photos he secretly took during our relationship.

Oh, very illegal.

And very creepy.

Yeah, okay.

I'm already going what a POS.

Ugh.

He demanded access to my credit cards and accumulated nearly $19,000 in debt across two cards on which he was an authorized user.

When I refused to keep allowing it, he became aggressive and harassed me constantly by phone, text, and FaceTime.

That's when the attempted blackmail began, though I was stern and had no contact with him by then.

I truly don't know if he put my photos anywhere on the web.

Then, recently, I woke up to an email about my Amex card being processed to ship to a zip code I was not familiar with.

I quickly called Amex and asked what the address was, but they weren't able to give me that information.

I googled it and figured out that it was sent to San Jose, California.

Yeah, it's in my hands right now.

Where a Jordan Harbinger was.

No, not Jordan, but that is the town that he lives in.

Yep.

So either he or his girlfriend impersonated me to get a card reissued, but I had deleted him off my account and he never had access to any of my banks or website logins.

He called in with all my information, social security number, birth date, address.

This has to be illegal.

Correct.

Indeed, it is.

It's called fraud.

He also retrieved an old laptop he had given me, used recovery mode, and accessed all my saved logins.

This included my bank, email, healthcare, insurance, and even photo storage.

Oh, no.

He monitored my location through my State Farm driving beacon and sent me old photos and personal messages, making it clear that he was still tracking me.

I later learned he misled me about changing my Apple ID, which prolonged his access.

I had to create an entirely new Apple account and reset all passwords.

He also hacked into my professional booking account, deleted my profile, and issued refunds to clients.

I had to explain to my clients what happened.

He also threatened to kill me multiple times.

I attempted to file a restraining order, but because I didn't have his apartment unit number at the time, he was not properly served.

I now have a new address I obtained using an AirTag, which showed a new home under construction.

Jordan, how do you think she pulled that off?

How does her AirTag tell her where her ex-boyfriend's new house is?

If I had to hazard a guess, what I think is that this num nut psycho stalker who broke into her Apple account, I think he probably bought the air tag and added it to the Apple account and she could see where this guy is.

I think that's probably what happened.

Oh, so he ordered the air tag and she got a notification or was able to see it?

Unless she slickly got an air tag to him and tracked him, which is also slick.

That's what I think she did, but I'm just trying to figure out how she did that if she didn't know where to send it.

Yeah, that's a good point.

She's clever, man.

Yep.

I now have a new address I obtained using an AirTag, which showed a new home under construction.

How did she do that?

When you email me back, let me know how you pulled that off.

Finally, he still has a car titled In My Name.

I avoided the old title, obtained a new one, canceled the registration and insurance, and reported the vehicle stolen.

Despite this, he continues to drive it across state lines, generating toll invoices in my name.

On top of the $19,000 he's gone away with, he's also like stiffing her for $13 when he crosses over the border from Idaho.

That is so annoying.

While I've been been able to dispute some charges using the police report, I recently received a new invoice suggesting the system may have reset for the new year.

This ongoing situation has made me feel unsafe for a long time.

My cortisol levels have been through the roof due to this trauma.

I was hoping a cop, a car accident, or one of those cameras that read license plates would catch him, but no such luck.

With the evidence I have of his blackmail, hacking, identity theft, threats, and credit card usages, what legal steps steps can I take to reissue a restraining order?

What can I do to legally recover my car from him?

If I went the legal route with all of this, could I get the $19,000 repaid to me?

Would it help to provide the detective with the address I believe is his new residence?

Signed, lookin' a clap back and enjoy some payback for these ongoing attacks when the system is whack.

What a nightmare and what a gross human being.

Obviously, I'm so very sorry that your ex has targeted you in all these ways.

It's terrifying.

It's stressful.

It's violating.

It's exhausting.

Really, it's disturbing to me that people like this even exist.

And I'm just so very sorry that you're in this position.

As per Ush, to get a good handle on your legal options here, we reached out to attorney and friend of the show, Corbin Payne.

And the first thing Corbin said was, what an asshole.

Yes, that's a direct quote.

You are a true champion for persevering through all this, and I concur.

In Corbin's view, all of this merits going to the police, both locally and federally.

Corbin said that there are several crimes here.

First and foremost, blackmail.

Second, his threats to publisher nudes, which is revenge porn.

Third, credit card fraud, identity theft.

Also, threatening to kill someone multiple times.

My law degree is a little dusty, but I'm pretty sure that's not legal either.

Blackmail is a crime in all U.S.

states.

Revenge porn was outlawed everywhere in the U.S.

as of this year.

Credit card fraud is also a pretty serious crime.

Both the states and the feds have criminal laws against it.

There are federal laws against revenge porn.

There are federal laws in place to deal with crimes occurring over the internet.

So this guy could potentially be in huge trouble.

Corbyn was unequivocal here.

Report all of this.

Now, the authorities might drag their feet because it's going to take a lot of time to assemble a case.

And Corbyn's experience is that many officers, they don't really like to mess with complicated cases.

But he said it's still worth filing those reports and pushing for charges.

So let's talk about how to get the legal system to get its button gear and actually show up for you.

His main advice will not surprise you.

Always, always, always come in with as much documentation as is humanly possible.

The more organized the information is, the better.

As Corbyn put it to us, police officers are people.

If you walk in and you present them with a crazy dramatic story, they're not really going to know what to do with it.

If you go in with texts and emails and pictures, all of that, stuff that clearly shows him saying, pay off the credit card debt or I release nude photographs of you, they're going to take you much more seriously.

The second thing Corbin said to do is go and speak to the prosecutor's offices in the relevant jurisdictions.

Prosecutors often have what's known as a victim advocate or victim coordinator.

Those are people who work with victims that are also talking to the lawyers, the cops, the social workers, the clerks to ensure that cases are coming together and moving forward.

And Corbin said that if you can get in there and get one of them on your side, things are going to start moving a lot better and a lot more smoothly.

His strong advice.

It's time to become an advocate for yourself.

Become what Corbin called a pleasant nuisance.

So let's talk about what it means to be a pleasant nuisance.

Corbin said that it basically means identifying the advocate or the coordinator for victims in that prosecutor's office, checking in with this person at least twice a month, maybe move that up to weekly if you feel that they're not taking you seriously enough and moving things along.

and continuing to do some detective work on your own.

For example, if you or any of your friends or your family are still following your ex on, say, social media and you can see him posting things that would help with a case against him or perhaps harm any potential defense on his part, immediately collect that evidence, send it along, let the victim coordinator know.

Yeah, the more you can wrap this up in a bow and hand it to a prosecutor, the more likely they're going to be to take on your case.

Now, Corbin said the victim coordinator is usually not a decision maker in a prosecutor's office.

All they can do is advocate for you, to the decision makers, and generally keep things organized on their end.

So if the office isn't being helpful, Corbin said that the coordinator is not the person to yell at or pressure to make better decisions.

You got to keep that person as a friend, as an ally.

That is key.

As for the blackmail and revenge porn piece, Corbin said that if you ever find your nudes online, there's a process through the Federal Trade Commission to report non-consensual nude photographs.

The FTC can issue takedown notices.

Now, this can have mixed results, but as we all know, revenge porn has become more and more of a problem.

So efforts to combat it have increased as well.

On the financial side of things, Corbin said to look into identity monitoring.

These services, which are usually 10, 12 bucks a month, they'll monitor your bank accounts, credit cards, insurance, et cetera, to ensure you haven't had your identity stolen.

Some of them will also work to undo the damage.

Maybe you know this.

One of our sponsors is the identity monitoring company Lifelock.

I'm a fan of theirs.

I use it myself.

You can get 25% off your first year at lifelock.com slash Jordan.

Corbin would also look into identity theft insurance.

That provides reimbursement for certain expenses incurred after your identity is stolen.

It helps cover costs like legal fees, lost wages, fees for replacing documents, all that.

You might not be eligible for the insurance at this point because it's already happened, but it's worth looking into if he keeps doing stuff like this.

And by the way, LifeLock includes insurance as part of their monitoring product.

Now, about getting your car back, since you have the new title to the car, Corbin's recommendation was to take it to a reputable tow truck company and ask them, hey, can you get my car back for me?

Assuming, of course, that you know where he lives and keeps the car.

I had never heard of this, but this is a great idea.

So this is basically a repo, repossession, but instead of a dealership doing it or a bank, it's an individual.

Corbin did say that this is worth consulting a local attorney about, but tow truck companies apparently have to operate under very specific laws, specific regulations, and reputable tow truck operators are going to be familiar with those laws.

They're going to know, you know, I need this document and this signed copy of this thing thing before I can seize a car.

And if you have that, I'm all good.

I'll go do it for you.

And he said that these guys are generally blue-collar guys who, in his experience, really enjoy sticking it to a-holes.

So

that's an advantage.

The laws on this are very state-specific, Corbin said.

But if you're the owner of the car, you have the title, the car has been reported as stolen, and you can prove all of that, he's pretty sure you can do this.

There's a more formal version of this, which is suing your ex for possession in small claims court, getting a judgment from the court saying that the sheriff has to go and reclaim the car for you, and then in Corbin's experience, they'll continue doing what they've done so far, which is essentially nothing, which is why Corbin's a fan of talking with a local attorney and employing a reputable tow truck company.

At the same time, though, Corbin feels that you do need to get an order of protection or a restraining order, whatever it's called in your state.

Again, document, document, document, walk in with copies of everything proving your case, have it organized.

Show the judge how this dude will not leave you alone, keeps harassing you, keeps financially abusing you, blackmailing you, stole my car, committed credit card fraud, all of it, the full story.

If you get that order of protection and then he violates it in any way, he's committed a crime.

And the moment he does, you can call the police.

And if they find him, they'll arrest him immediately.

Also, a little C-Pain life pro tip here, keep a certified, meaning stamped or embossed copy.

of this protective order issued directly from the court clerk on your person at all times to give to the cops.

Say you run into them at the mall and you're out and about.

You call the cops.

They're going to be like, do you have the copy of the protective order?

Yeah, I have a certified copy right here.

Well, somebody's going to jail and that's going to be a lot of fun, hopefully.

Corbin also feels that you need to consider suing your ex for all of the financial damages that he's inflicted on you.

So you know about small claims court.

It's set up to be simpler.

It's set up to be less formal.

It's easier to navigate.

He said, start by checking out what the limits are in small claims court.

In Tennessee, where Corbin practices, that amount is $25,000.

I think that's fairly common for a lot of states.

If the economic damages are more than the cutoff, then you can consider either cutting your losses and going through small claims, or you can consider hiring an attorney to pursue a lawsuit against him.

So I want to clarify what that means.

He doesn't mean cut your losses isn't like, oh, just chalk it up to the game.

He means like, let's say the damages are 30 grand.

You want to stay in small claims court.

You sue for $25,000 so that you stay in small claims court.

So you're literally cutting your losses down to the cutoff at small claims court.

That's what that means.

He means you give up $5,000 potentially, but you keep it in the small claims court where it's easier and you might make some progress.

And you don't need a lawyer and all that stuff.

If you have the evidence, then Corbin thinks that there's a good chance of a judge saying that you have a solid case and granting you a judgment.

And then the next step, of course, is to collect that money, and that's always the hard part, especially when it comes to people like your ex.

But you mentioned that he has a new home under construction.

So if you get a judgment against this guy and he doesn't pay, then Corbin said that you could get a lien against his house or seize any of his personal assets.

Jordan is grinning with glee.

Yeah, I'm grinning like the Joker in the 90s Batman movies.

Way till they get low to me.

Your ex might be a deadbeat, but if he's about to move into a brand new house, he might be a deadbeat with assets, which can be very helpful.

Now, I want to pause here and acknowledge that this might be a lot to take in.

And you might be terrified of this guy, and I get it.

And maybe you don't want to kick the hornet's nest by doing all of this stuff.

I understand that.

I would probably feel the same conflict in your shoes.

If you decided to lay low and just eat the costs of this and just move on, which by the way, it doesn't sound like you want to do.

You're actually asking for options here.

But if you decided that this is too much and it's better to just move on with your life and not be bothered by this guy, like if you don't want to deal with him retaliating or something, I would totally understand.

I'm also hearing, though, that a number of systems have failed you here.

You want your money back, which you deserve, and this guy is still ruining your life and getting away with this, which is infuriating.

And there's just, I don't think there's ever going to be a way to hold him accountable and be made whole without standing up to this dude.

So this is a little tricky.

You know, I don't, we don't have all the information about how vindictive your ex is.

He sounds pretty bad.

It also sounds to me, I don't know if you're getting the same read, Jordan, but this guy is, has a new home under construction, right?

That's a multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars job, but he also wanted $19,000 from her credit card.

Like, yeah, $19,000 probably means something to this guy, but I also get the sense that he is enjoying messing with her.

Yeah, no, this is not about the money.

He's He's using her money to screw around and buy toys for himself, probably, or go out at night and hang out with his girlfriend.

But the money is probably secondary to him being like, I control you.

That's the sense that I get.

So people like this, they need to be held accountable.

There's no way to make progress here without leaning into the fight.

But this might be a process as you figure out how hard you want to go.

I would say don't put pressure on yourself to go full tilt against this guy if you're not comfortable with it.

But if you put this guy away for a decade for what he did and buy yourself some peace, I think you'd be very proud or half a decade.

But if you do all this, you're going to want to surround yourself with lots of help, good friends, a decent lawyer, protection, as much community as possible.

And on that note, Corbin's last thought, which is part of why we love him, he would really love for you to find some support groups for survivors of abuse and or stalking.

In addition to being a helpful community for you right now, a good support group should have access to local resources, know which police officers or prosecutors to talk to, be be able to help brainstorm some local options for relief, all of that.

Corbin says this in every consult he gives us, but he wanted to reiterate it for you.

You're about to run a marathon.

Don't run it alone and don't run it unprepared.

We're sending you a big hug.

We're all rooting for you and we're wishing you all the best.

Gabe, I am going to laugh myself silly when she sends us an update in a year about how she's moved into her ex's newly constructed house that she seized from him while he's in jail.

Yeah, and how she's leasing it out to film reality show pilots to make some extra income.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Honestly, though, if she does seize the house, just sell it.

You don't want this guy knowing where you live.

Just sell it to somebody else, and then he won't ever be able to get it back.

Exactly.

So juicy.

You know what you need to decorate that sick house you're going to snatch away from your dead Beatx boyfriend?

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Now, back to Feedback Friday.

All right, next up.

Hi, Jordan and Gabe.

Recently, several people close to me have either been let go unfairly in the private sector or faced severe government department cuts.

An unexpected byproduct of these situations has been employees who have not been let go coming to their managers who are dealing with their own job losses to unload about how upset they are that the manager was let go.

They're expressing their sadness, disappointment, and frustration about the job loss, not understanding how they're compounding the difficulty.

How would you advise someone dealing with a job loss to respond to well-meaning coworkers who unload their own feelings on the person who has just lost their job.

How can these people who have lost their jobs appreciate the sympathies while also drawing boundaries?

Signed, Helping My Mates Buckling Under This Weight.

Interesting question.

Obviously, I'm very sorry that your friends are going through these layoffs, that they're navigating all this uncertainty.

I know firsthand how intense and anxiety-provoking that is, and my heart really does go out to anybody who's lost their job.

It's been a long time since Gabe and I had real jobs, so we wanted to reach out to an expert about all this.

So I reached out to Dr.

Arsenitum Tum von Neuburg, leadership speaker, coach, and friend of the show.

And the first thing Arseni said, which Gabe tells me is classic Arseni, was that he was also sorry that your friends are going through this.

Yeah, which I really appreciate.

Can you tell that Arseni's been listening to Feedback Friday for a minute?

Yeah, clearly.

I know where to start.

I mean, you told me before he's a very thoughtful dude, but yeah, you can tell you the show's rubbing off on him.

No, he's the best.

Also, fun fact: Arseni did his dissertation on post-traumatic growth in companies.

So we reached out to the right person.

He has such a deep interest in how people respond to hardships and trauma at work.

It's fascinating.

The right man for the job.

So Arseni said that job loss, it can be very unsettling.

It could be disruptive because work is obviously such a major part of our lives and our identities.

And so it's easy to understand why somebody who's just been laid off might not want to constantly deal with other people's frustrations while they're dealing with their own.

It's a lot to attend to all at once, especially when they're the ones who arguably have it worse, right?

So Arseni's first thought was the obvious answer to your question when dealing with job loss, a manager needs to take care of themselves first.

Maybe your friends say to their employees, listen, I appreciate you sharing your disappointment and frustration with me.

I'm happy we have such a strong relationship that you feel comfortable sharing this.

It's also a lot for me to take in right now, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I haven't fully processed it myself yet.

And until I do, I'd appreciate it if we could focus on our daily business, something like that.

Arseni said that that could be a solid response if these employees are making the firing more about themselves or they're just kind of checking a box and doing it as a formality or if being vulnerable with these employees would be inappropriate.

Like your friends have only ever talked about business and never about personal feelings and this crosses some kind of line.

But honestly, my feeling, I'm not sure that these employees are, how did you put it, compounding the difficulty by going to your friends and saying, hey, I'm really sad that you're leaving.

This sucks.

I mean, isn't that more comforting than difficult?

I'm just not entirely sure why this is such a problem for these managers.

Yeah, to be honest, when we first talked about this letter, my gut reaction was, are your friends maybe looking for a problem that isn't there or interpreting this in a way that isn't really necessary?

What I'm hearing is that your friends' firings are taking a toll on their people and those people feel comfortable expressing that.

That's not just kind, but it's also potentially quite useful because if they respond in a gracious way to their employees, if they treated it like a shared blow, they'd only be deepening those relationships.

Yeah, so Arseni felt the same.

He offered another way of looking at this, which is if these employees are approaching your friends with genuine empathy, if they're trying to express their deep support for your friends, which it sounds like they are, then your friends might want to reframe this to see it as something positive rather than as a burden, another thing to manage.

And I'm so glad he said that because sometimes I have these reactions and I'm like, what am I missing here?

Am I crazy or are these people kind of choosing to view this in the least productive way?

Look, Arseni put it best.

He said, these employees are likely reaching out because they care about their managers, which is by no means a given in this situation.

Imagine the opposite opposite scenario.

Would you have preferred it if you were being let go and no one cared to reach out?

Or worse, if people were secretly celebrating it?

No.

Literally took the words right out of my mouth.

Yeah.

Arseni's take was the fact that your friend's employees are frustrated by them being let go really speaks volumes about the way that they've led their teams, the quality of their relationships, all of which will definitely serve them well in the next role.

And actually, Arsenius shared an interesting quote from Jürgen Klopp.

Do you know who this is, Jordan?

No.

By the way.

It's a very German person, whoever it is.

Jürgen Klopp.

Yep.

So he's a famous German soccer coach, and I get the sense that he's one of Arseni's personal heroes.

And apparently, he famously said, it's not important what people think when you come in, it's much more important what people think when you leave.

Exactly.

So Arseni wanted to invite your friends to just explore what exactly is making these conversations with these employees so difficult.

Do they feel responsible for making their employees feel better?

Does it feel wrong for them to be receiving support rather than offering it to their employees?

Would it make any difference if those same conversations were happening outside of work?

Do they feel like they need to be able to deal with everything by themselves without any support from other people?

These are just a few interesting questions because there does seem to be something more going on beneath the surface.

Dam, good questions.

If I were you, I would be supportive of your friends.

I would validate what they're going through.

But I would also help them see what a gift this response actually is and how they can honor and build on this affection and loyalty by making more room for their people as they transition out.

They don't have to do very much.

All they have to do is say thank you and acknowledge that their employees are being impacted by this and reassure them that their relationship can continue.

This is not complicated.

It's just a slightly different mindset and a recognition that the quality of your relationships is the most important asset that you have, always, but especially when you've just been let go from a job.

Big thanks to Arseni for his wisdom and insight here.

You can learn more about Arseni and his work at yenivine.ch.

That's j-e-n-e-w-e-i-n.ch.

Of course, we're going to link to his LinkedIn in the show notes as well.

You can reach us at Friday at jordanharbinger.com.

Keep those emails concise, use descriptive subject lines.

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All right, what's next?

Hello, Jordan and Gabe.

I'm a 34-year-old guy and software engineer.

In 2017, I was having some issues with low mood and not being able to get things done at work and at home.

I saw my doctor who referred me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with depression and anxiety and put me on Zoloft.

It helped some, but also had a lot of unpleasant side effects, including some ED.

In 2019, I was once again struggling at work.

It got so bad, I wound up going on disability for a few months and then took a severance package rather than coming back just to be put on a performance improvement plan.

I was working with a therapist and psychiatrist to work through the issues I was having, but it didn't feel like it was making a ton of difference.

In 2020, I managed to land a role at a major tech company.

Onboarding and the first couple months were okay, but I started to get more and more overwhelmed.

At some point, one of my roommates, someone I had only known a few months, sat me down and took some guesses about various details in my life.

They said I was a smart kid who was always near the top of my class, but I had trouble doing assignments until the last minute.

That if I sat down right after school to do homework, it would take hours, but if I did it before bed, it would be much quicker.

That I frequently drank energy drinks and the caffeine was relaxing for me rather than amping me up.

That I could play games or read things I enjoyed for hours, but I couldn't focus for more than a few minutes on things like cleaning and organizing.

All of it was correct.

They told me to look into ADHD and to talk to my doctors about it.

They were surprised that I hadn't brought it up before.

I started on Adderall, and it was life-changing.

I was able to focus, get things started, and finish much faster.

A few months later, someone in an ADHD group chat at work mentioned RSD or rejection-sensitive dysphoria.

I looked it up and saw that a lot of it lined up with my experience.

It turns out that you aren't supposed to feel extreme emotional pain from mild criticisms.

When I got negative feedback in a one-on-one, I would shut down.

My brain would feel fuzzy and slow.

I would go on autopilot with my responses.

My stomach would hurt and it would be difficult to eat for a few hours after.

I was also embarrassed about how sensitive I was, which compounded the issue.

Huh, RSD.

Never heard of this.

Yeah, this was new for me as well.

Interesting.

I brought this to my providers, and they were again confused how this hadn't come up, but they confirmed that I have RSD.

I got started on Guanfazine, and it was another life-changing experience.

It felt like emotional body armor.

I still felt the same feelings, but they were dramatically reduced and no longer disabling.

I was able to take take things in stride and I did a lot better at work.

I went off Zolof shortly after since the anxiety and depression were being treated with the other meds.

Coming off of it was an awful process, but getting rid of all the side effects was great.

Then, in 2022, my sister picked up a book called Autism in Adults so she could try to better understand her partner who is a high-functioning autistic.

A couple days later, she called me to tell me that she was pretty sure we are autistic.

I pushed back, were extremely empathetic, and were able to to get through life pretty well.

I read the book.

Two days later, I called her back and said, son of a bitch, sis, I think we're autistic.

That's one very neurodivergent dinner table.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So bring the mashed potatoes.

Oh, I was supposed to bring the mashed potatoes.

Well, I can't focus long enough to mash the potatoes.

Yeah, there's a lot of meds being passed around between courses.

Look, I want to hook up on this medication that gets rid of your feelings.

Where do I sign up for that?

You want some guanfazine?

Yeah, hook it up, man.

A little emotional raincoat.

You want a little emotional poncho you can put on so it doesn't hurt as much?

Yeah, prophylactic.

As it turns out, hyperempathy is as much of an indicator as an extreme lack of empathy, but hyperempathy isn't one most folks talk about because it isn't as concerning.

Many autistic traits have these extremes, like not being able to make eye contact on one end to excessive amounts of eye contact that make folks think you are trying to stare into their soul.

feedback I've also received.

Examples of autism in media tend to show folks with little to no social social skills while I had reasonable social skills that I worked hard to build up.

Autistics are shown as being unable to communicate clearly while I tend towards over-communicating and making sure things are said in a way that's difficult to misinterpret.

Kind of like this overly verbose letter.

I like that he pointed that out because he is being so thorough here.

Although, I honestly, I appreciate it.

It's kind of fascinating.

Providers did their evaluations, and it turns out I am indeed autistic.

Now I understand myself better, and I'm able to give myself a lot more grace for things that I used to think were personal failings of mine.

Yeah, one of the big upsides to getting diagnosed, I would imagine.

Then, in mid-2024, I had an anxiety attack, and afterwards, my partner asked if I had ever been evaluated for OCD.

I took an online test that suggested a high likelihood of severe OCD.

One of the questions was, are there good numbers and bad numbers?

Originally, I put no because math is math.

But numbers do have other contexts.

The volume on a TV, for example, 16 or 18 are both good, but why would you ever leave it on 17?

It just feels wrong.

Okay, I am so glad you brought this up, sir.

I gotta say, I feel the exact same way.

Volume on the TV

has to be an even number.

If you leave the TV volume on an odd number, there is something wrong with you, and I don't have OCD.

Are you sure, bud?

Because this would never bother me.

Okay.

I'm having a bit of a moment.

Okay.

As long as we're getting into this, this is deeply uncomfortable, but I will say I do love to organize my Google Docs.

I've known this for a long time.

I love a good hierarchy.

I love a good table of contents, but that's just like good cloud hygiene.

Do you have any stuff like this at all with numbers?

No, I'm thinking.

So here's, first of all, the cloud.

It's all searchable.

I don't care where it is at any point as long as it's on the right drive.

You know, like, I don't want work stuff on my personal drive.

That's it.

No, I need like the H1, H2, H3.

I need the into, like, it has to be.

No, the closest I come is I like things sort of organized on my desk.

But if you look at my desk, it does not look organized.

I got ketone IQs, some CarMex.

There's a remote, an SD card case, an empty can of Diet Coke, which is from today at least, and a keyboard that doesn't have any batteries and some tape.

There's maybe some miscellaneous items.

It's not terrible, but it's organized-ish.

That's as close as I get, bro.

Fascinating.

Okay, I wonder how many people listening right now have something with numbers, but don't think of themselves as OCD, which I realize.

Because I also really like even-numbered stairs.

And I like to finish it.

This is so weird.

I've never talked about this with you before, but I really like to finish a staircase on the right foot.

And I have to step up to the front of the mat in yoga the same number of times on each leg or something feels just off.

Yeah, it sounds like you have OCD on some level, man, or maybe there's another version.

Okay, so the TV volume being on a a non-number.

I just need to get clear with you on this.

That doesn't bother you.

No.

My thing is I turn it up and I'm like, eh, that's loud enough.

Man.

Yeah.

What is it like to live in that world?

What is it like to be you?

All joking aside, is this hard?

Does this impact your life?

Because for me, it's like not thinking about the TV volume being an even number.

It's just one less thing I got to worry about.

I don't think so.

I just feel vaguely weird if I end the stairs on the left foot.

But that feeling only lasts like four or five seconds and then I just forget about it.

So it's not that, I don't know.

Well, I think people who have debilitating OCD, they can't function until they close that loop or whatever.

Right.

Right.

They have to shut the switch off 10 times or they can't leave the room.

You're on the diet end of that spectrum or whatever of OCD.

Oh, I have diet OCD.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not debilitating in terms of your life, but it still exists.

Whereas I'm on the zero thing because it's like, it doesn't even occur.

to me to look for that.

So interesting.

I always thought that everybody kind of had a preference for even numbers.

I don't know.

Yeah, we've been friends for 15 years.

I had no idea that you were secretly Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets.

This is a little too much for me to process right now.

So let's circle back to this offline, shall we?

Do you want to square back to it or circle back to it, though?

That's the question.

Oh my God.

I wish you hadn't asked me that.

Just visualize both and see which one you like better.

That's exactly what I'm doing.

And what I want to do is square back with you on it.

We'll talk about this while I'm wiping down my countertops.

Okay, so he's gone.

With the disinfectant wipe, yeah, three times each.

With that thought in mind, I changed my answer about numbers to yes, submitted, and wouldn't you know it, I got a perfect 20 out of 20.

Hey, congratulations, your top score.

You won it OCD, my friend.

Congrats.

That's right.

And you get pharmaceuticals.

You get pharmaceuticals.

You get pharmaceuticals.

Yeah, I'm guessing.

Anyway, I don't know how it works.

Boy, this letter is hitting much closer to home than I ever thought it would.

I talked to my providers who, once again, could not understand how this hadn't come up.

When asked asked why I didn't mention things earlier, my only response is that I had no idea those things were unique or relevant.

So just like you, basically, like I thought everybody wanted even numbers of stairs.

What?

Boy, I got a lot to think about.

I was started on Lamictol, and the day after starting it was the first day of my life where my mind was quiet.

It was easier to think without my mind constantly racing and worrying that I did something wrong or that someone was mad at me.

The intrusive thoughts stopped intruding.

I didn't need to quadruple check every single thing I did.

I got more done and was less stressed out.

Once again, I'm able to give myself grace for behaviors that were embarrassing or upsetting before, like checking that I locked the front door.

Rather than get frustrated by the compulsion, I just let myself check if I haven't left the driveway yet.

If I have left, I can now accept the fact that I probably did lock it.

And even if I didn't, my doorbell camera has shown that in the three years I've lived here, no one has ever walked up and tried the door.

I knew all of this before.

The logic was the same, but now I could actually accept it.

Then, earlier this year, I woke up one day and my vision was different.

Things seemed like they were popping out at me.

I could see the shapes of things around me, like cars and houses, and when I looked up into a tree, I could see the leaves and the branches, but also the space between them.

It was amazing and felt like a superpower.

Over the next few days it went away, the world looked flat once again, and it was devastating.

Don't tell me he also has psychosis or something.

I did some research and learned that I am stereo blind.

New disorder just

means I don't see the world in 3D.

I have depth perception.

I can tell how far away something is from the size, what's in front of it, and other context clues, but I don't see the depth and the empty space itself.

From what I can find, the estimates for stereoblindness range from 2 to 12% of the population, and the vast majority don't know they have it.

No amount of explaining what it's like will ever come close to experiencing it.

That is so.

I've never heard of this, ever.

Never.

This is new information to me.

I signed up for vision therapy to try and see the world in vivid 3D once more, and my eyesight is better and clearer than ever.

The world is so much more beautiful and interesting than I knew.

Dude, there's treatments for everything.

Do you have vision therapy?

I had no idea.

So this is like a gym for your eyes, lifting for your lenses.

Yeah.

Pilates for your pupils, bro.

CrossFit for your corneas.

I also want to say that I don't think I have every condition or disorder I read about.

No, but you have a lot.

You're like Pokemon.

Catch them all.

Got to collect them all.

Some of the things I've ruled out are bipolar disorder, BPD, sociopathy, and narcissism.

Turns out that the OCD and autism can really help with being thorough and confident in my work.

So funny because I was literally going, does bro have everything?

But I hear you.

I also love that being neurodivergent is helping you feel confident in your research.

I'm diagnosing you with a good sense of humor.

You're welcome.

No drugs needed.

No pharmaceutical intervention required.

My neurodivergences have also helped me in my job.

Having the ability to hyper-focus and deep dive into a system to learn it inside and out, along with my natural habit of thoroughly checking things, allows me to figure out and fix complex issues.

I've been able to fix bugs in our product in a couple of days after other folks had spent weeks trying.

Therapy, I bet his bosses love him.

Yeah.

Therapy has also been very helpful in figuring out what to lean into and what to work around.

That is awesome.

Good on you.

I love to hear that.

I gave a talk on ADHD from my wider team at work and at least two of my co-workers wound up getting diagnosed and are getting treatment, which was super gratifying.

One hope I have is that hearing this leads other folks to learn about neurodiversity and get help that they need but have no ideas out there.

What can I do to figure out what other issues or conditions I might have?

How do you know when something is a normal experience versus something you should mention to a medical professional?

Uh, you were asking the wrong person, dude, because I've been doing the right leg on the staircase thing since I was a kid and apparently, uh, yeah, I'm gonna let Jordan take that one, I think, maybe.

And what can I do to help folks who are having the same struggles that I did, which apparently is me?

Signed, feeling a lot better since receiving these letters that left me unfettered and eager to endeavor to become something of a mentor.

Damn, what a ride that was.

This dude's been on a wild mental health journey.

You've shared a lot with us.

We only have a few minutes here.

I'm going to try to get to the point.

First of all, I am so sorry that you struggled in all these ways over the years.

And it's been hard sometimes to know why you were having the reactions you did, how your mind worked, but it sounds like you've sought out a ton of great resources and found the support that you needed.

And that's done wonders for you.

Not just in getting certain insights or treatments, but in learning how to work with your brain in the right way to capitalize on your talents and manage the downsides.

Personally, I just think that's terrific.

I really commend you for it.

And I also think it's very cool that you're talking about your experience and trying to help other people do the same.

You work in a field where there's probably a higher proportion of neurodivergent people.

It's a world where this brain can be a superpower.

So I think that it says a lot about you, that you want to inspire and inform other people.

You sound like a solid dude.

Look, I totally get why.

having these diagnoses has been extremely helpful for you.

Sometimes knowing what you have is essential.

I also don't know if your goal should necessarily be to figure out what other issues or conditions you might have, because that can easily become a hunt for more acronyms for its own sake.

I can imagine that could kind of take over your life.

I realize this might be the pot calling the kettle black, but that might also have the potential to become a little bit obsessive, which you also struggle with.

So something to keep in eye.

Sounds like it's not just him, Gabe, but yes, good point.

Is this hunt for issues and conditions a reflection of his curiosity, his desire to give himself every possible advantage, because that I get.

Or is it a bit of an obsessive quest to look into every nook and cranny?

Because that can be helpful up to a point, but it can also kind of torture him and take over his life, like I said.

So, this theme in his letter, how his providers are constantly confused why certain symptoms didn't come up sooner, I don't quite know why that is.

Maybe it's just hard to know what's unusual when you've lived with it for so long, right?

Yeah, can't read the label from inside the jar and all that.

Yeah, can't climb the stairs from the top of the

right.

Yeah.

Or maybe it's that he struggled in the past to speak up when he needed help, and maybe that kind of shut down whatever process would lead him to even know that he needed help.

You know what I mean?

Interesting.

Yeah, I could see that.

It's also possible that he wasn't as curious about his own mind in the past as he is now.

And now that he's so aware of how it works and what are the upsides and how do I manage the downsides, he's excited.

He's clearly lit up about this.

And he's also taking these qualities and these experiences more seriously, which generally speaking, you know, within reason, I do think is a good thing.

So rather than trying to figure out what other issues you might have, I would probably just keep being curious about these parts of yourself, and I would keep sharing them with your therapist and your psychiatrist and any other providers you work with and trust that they can connect the dots and help you find a diagnosis if there is one and if it's helpful.

Which they do seem to have a pretty good track record of doing once he gives them the information that they need.

Yeah, once he tells them what that what is weird and what yeah, what is happening in his life.

So this also gets into an interesting question.

he's not really asking this but it's kind of in the background of his letter which is why are these labels helpful really obviously knowing that he's on the autism spectrum that he's rejection sensitive that he has ocd that he's stereo blind that's been super helpful it's helped him come to terms with how he's wired it's helped him seek treatments it's helped him work with his brain in the best possible way but those diagnoses were helpful because he did something helpful with them yes that's exactly what i'm getting at as opposed to just going well i'm autistic so i can only do these things this way, or I can only do these things and not these other things, or, you know, like I have OCD, so I have to go back and lock the door if I'm not sure I locked it.

You know, he's much more flexible than that.

What I'm hearing is that his success here is largely about how he's used these diagnoses in all these productive ways, how he's made good meaning out of them.

It's not that he got a label slapped on him and then let himself off the hook or allowed himself to be held back by them or be defined by them.

But look, I hear you that it's hard to know when something is a normal experience and when it's something you should mention to a professional, which I'm going to be thinking thinking about for a long time after this episode.

The best advice I think I can give there is, as a guy who has to really reconsider his relationship with staircases, keep observing your mind and your thoughts, even your sensory perceptions and how they work, how they don't work, which ones are helpful, which ones create pain or difficulty for you.

Keep looking at your dynamics with people, your larger patterns, your results.

Check in with yourself.

Ask yourself, you know, am I happy with how things are going?

Are certain conversations bringing bringing up some difficult stuff for me?

Am I struggling to achieve things that I really want to achieve?

And also keep asking your close friends and your family and your colleagues for feedback and perspective.

It sounds like that has been hugely helpful in your life.

Like that roommate who you barely knew sat down and said, here are some things I think would be true of you.

And that kind of kicked the door down.

And then keep sharing all of that with your therapist primarily.

And when it's helpful, with your other doctors, and just, again, yeah, let them help you know when something is actually unusual.

And by the way, you can literally say, hey, here's something interesting I've been noticing.

Is that normal?

Is that weird?

What about this is relevant?

And just put it on the table.

I don't know if you need to do much more than that.

I think that's true of both neurodivergent people and neurotypical people.

Agreed.

As for helping people who are struggling with similar stuff, I mean, you're already doing it and you seem to be doing it beautifully.

I'd say keep sharing your story with people, keep talking about your journey when it's appropriate and helpful, of course, and just see how it lands with people.

Take an interest in them, invite them to chat.

If they're open, listen to them, hear them out, respectfully help them become as curious about themselves and the resources that are out there as you've become, and generally be a friend and champion to them.

And when I say appropriate, helpful, respectful, what I mean by that is I wouldn't talk about this in contexts where it's not welcome or helpful, like in front of a bunch of people at work.

I wouldn't push people to talk about this stuff if they don't seem open to it, even if you suspect that they are neurodivergent and need help.

I wouldn't push them to have the same timeline or approach that you did, that kind of stuff.

Not saying you're doing this.

I don't get that impression.

It sounds like you're handling this great.

I just want to flag that so you can keep an eye on it.

And if you really feel called to make an impact in this world, maybe you get involved with some organizations around these diagnoses or start one, nonprofits, affinity groups at work, community initiatives.

Maybe you create a talk and you give it at conferences one day.

I've been doing that for the last few years.

I get to talk about one of my favorite topics, relationships and networking, and I love it.

It lets me enjoy a whole other source of connection and meeting with people.

just speaking live about it.

Maybe you write a book.

You seem lit up about this stuff.

You have a great story to tell.

There are tons of ways to formalize this and reach a larger audience but it really starts with you telling your story and seeing where it leads and i'm proud of you for finding the answers you need and doing great stuff with them keep up the great work and good luck now while gabe goes and counts the number of stairs in his hotel over there in hamburg we're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsors we'll be back in an even number of minutes

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Now, back to Feedback Friday.

And now for the recommendation of the week.

I am addicted to Lit Villa.

My recommendation of the week is, and I feel old saying this, but retro board games.

I don't mean stuff from 1960.

I mean, go for it if you can, but I just bought Trouble, Uno, and Sorry.

And I did so because they were like $9 each at Target.

But my kids are just starting to get old enough to play these games and I'm really sick of Candyland.

There's a nostalgia factor.

They're fun with kids.

They're easy to play with parents and little ones.

So even my 80-year-old dad, he'll play trouble.

Jaden, who's six, will play trouble.

And me, I'm 45, I'll play trouble.

And it's fun.

We're all having fun.

And it's a really good way to bring the family together that's not like around an iPad.

It's not messy with Legos.

Like the kids can eat at the same time as they're playing, which is helpful because I don't know, maybe it's us, but my kids can't just sit there and eat.

They have to be doing something.

And usually that's like iPad and I hate that.

Or they're playing with a toy and then they don't eat.

But if it's a game and it's not their turn, they go back to eating.

So that's been a little hack that we've had.

And man, there are so many good old games, man.

Sorry, Uno, trouble.

They pack up easy.

They travel well.

Gabe, you ever play OG board game type stuff?

It's funny you ask because my mom has this collection of board games from when she was a little girl in her storage room.

And sometimes we'll bust them out.

And we've played like, have you ever played like the old parteesy or even there's a barbie board game from the i want to say the 60s not barbie but in 1989 or something i know i played parcheesy because i remember the name was weird and my friend met court and i would play parcheesi actually now that i say it i think parteesy is much newer than the 1950s 1960s but we we have some family board games that are like truly vintage and they're super fun to bust out every now and again big fan barbie so it's barbie like the dolls yeah dude this game is so not relevant now i think the objective of the game is to get married.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Because your life's not complete otherwise.

It's actually fascinating now that I think about it.

This old vintage Barbie board game is the polar opposite take of the new Barbie that came out a couple of years ago.

It's just, it's super interesting how far that product has come.

I still haven't seen that movie.

The journey of that movie is not to find a man and get married.

I'll put it that way.

Anyway, super fun, very low investment.

If the kids hate it, it's literally $9 plus tax, so $10.

You can't really beat that, and you can always donate it.

Somebody will play it.

In case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for the show.

If you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes, there's for sure going to be a retro game thread there with recommendations as well.

That's kind of how this works over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

So for our last segment today, I wanted to share something that I read that really got me thinking about this new AI-powered world we're stepping into or being dragged into as the case may be.

Last week, Gabe shared a snippet from a newsletter that he loved.

I thought it was a cool way to step back and appreciate some bigger themes.

And this week, I'm going to do the same with a newsletter by the one and only Scott Galloway.

Scott, if you don't know, super sharp guy, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, business school professor.

He's just such a super bright dude, very insightful about tech and economics and wealth.

He's been on the show twice, episode 734 and 1074, both terrific conversations with, again, a super smart and super bold dude who I'm proud to call a friend.

So this newsletter that I'm going to share with you, it's called Why Women Use AI Less and Why It Matters.

So he writes, across nearly all regions, sectors, and occupations, women are 20% less likely than men to use AI.

Among users of ChatGPT's app, 85% are men.

Which I did not know.

No, crazy, right?

I had a feeling men used it more, but I did not know it was skewed this far.

Yeah, immediately when I saw it, I was like, damn, that's fascinating.

Why is that?

And the conclusion that Scott came to, and I'm quoting him again, women are more likely to see using AI as cheating, less likely to trust it with their data, less likely to believe their company supports its use.

The reasons for this gap aren't entirely clear, but the consequences are.

AI skills increase your chances of getting a higher-paying job.

This is especially important for women.

Recent UN research shows that women who are overrepresented in entry-level office jobs are three times more likely to have their job replaced by AI.

Oof, that's a sobering statistic.

Okay.

Yeah, so some data.

College graduates with AI skills are almost twice as likely to receive an interview offer after applying for a job.

In the UK, jobs requiring AI skills commanded a 77% higher wage premium over jobs requiring a master's degree.

Even in non-tech roles, jobs requiring AI knowledge offer 28% higher salaries on average.

This is a multi-million dollar opportunity on a per-person basis.

The benefits of having AI skills, the consequences of not having them will compound over the course of of your career.

Yeah, damn, but that makes sense.

So then Scott really brings this to life with a rough example.

So say a fictional woman starts her career at age 25 with a $60,000 salary, which is pretty high, plans to work until 65, earns 3% cost of living raises each year.

Without AI skills, she switches jobs three times.

Each move nets a 10% salary bump.

She also endures one layoff that costs her a full year's pay.

Over the course of her work life, she earns roughly $5.2 million in salary income.

okay?

With AI skills, she will get a 28% higher starting salary, switch jobs five times, again with 10% bumps, and never have to deal with a prolonged period of unemployment.

Over the course of her work life, she will earn almost $8 million in salary income.

So a higher starting salary, more job switch opportunities, and better job security, all of those compound over decades into a $2.7 million advantage.

So like 50% more than somebody else who doesn't have these skills.

So, he comes back to the question: why aren't women using AI?

And his take is: part of this is about risk perception.

Women are more risk-averse than men.

They may fear potential consequences of using AI more than men do.

And he points to this study of business school students, which found that when professors explicitly allowed chat GPT, men and women used it at the same rate, about 80%.

But when it was prohibited, usage among women dropped 38 percentage points, while usage among men dropped half as much, much, which created a 20-point gender gap.

Interesting.

So why?

Yes, so apparently researchers dubbed this the good girl effect, which is a little something.

You can tell who those researchers are, right?

It's a little condescending or infantilizing or whatever.

It strikes me that way.

But the point is, women seem generally more respectful and deferential than men.

They're more willing to play by the rules, less willing to take a chance and keep giving themselves an advantage, which puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to capitalizing on these tools.

And apparently other studies back this up.

Scott mentions another study from the University of Chicago that adds weight to this theory.

Apparently, when workers were asked why they weren't using AI, women were 11 percentage points more likely than men to cite a lack of training as the reason.

So again, quoting Scott directly here, I believe this is less about a good girl effect and more likely a case of smart woman precaution.

In environments with vague or no AI policy, women face harsher penalties for using it.

So in another study, participants were asked to assess code code written by another engineer with or without AI assistance.

The code was identical.

The only difference was how it was purportedly written.

So when reviewers believed an engineer had used AI, they rated that engineer as 9% less competent despite reviewing identical work.

The competence penalty was more than twice as harsh for female engineers who faced a 13% reduction in perceived competence compared with 6% for male engineers.

Oh, interesting.

So this is actually about gender bias and women anticipating that?

Basically, yeah.

Quoting Scott again, many engineers anticipated this competence penalty and just avoided using AI to protect their professional reputations.

Those who most feared competence penalties, disproportionately women and older engineers, were precisely those who adopted AI the least.

I believe, and again, Scott speaking, I believe their choices were not a question of behavior informed by gender and age, but by an intelligent risk assessment that takes biases into into account.

Fascinating.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Scott thinks there are two conclusions here.

First, companies need clear AI policies.

No AI policy, that's just a bad AI policy.

It creates uncertainty and leaves marginalized employees more vulnerable to backlash or bias.

If AI is allowed, say so.

And if it isn't, make that clear too.

Second, more women need to start using AI more frequently.

You don't need to become an expert or spend hours a day reading about neural networks.

You just need to start using it.

Even small practical AI skills can meaningfully boost your value in the job market.

Scott was very direct in his takeaway about all this.

If this gap continues, it will broaden and compound gender inequalities in income and in career advancement.

But it's also a leaving billions of dollars on the table problem.

And here Scott quotes two gender gap researchers who put it this way.

Economically, a persistent gender gap could mean enormous productivity and innovation losses as women's skills, ideas, and perspectives are left untapped.

Generative AI is capable of boosting U.S.

productivity by nearly 20% over a decade.

So a 25% gender usage gap, that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars in lost economic gains.

Damn, dude, that is wild.

Damn is right.

So I don't have much to add here.

I'm not an AI expert by any means.

I'm definitely not a gender gap expert.

I'm sharing Scott's take with you.

because he knows way more about this stuff than I do.

I generally trust his opinions, even if he's not right about every single thing.

I find that his understanding of human behavior, his grasp of microtrends, his insights into technology, they're generally spot on and they always contain tons of gems.

But as you know, we've gotten some emails from listeners over the last year asking us to stop recommending that people use AI for various reasons, energy costs, reliability, critical thinking.

I'm sympathetic to those arguments up to a point, although Google did release some data on how much energy Gemini uses per search and it's using a microwave to reheat something for one second.

But the reality is, look, this is the future, obviously.

I think that it's beyond obvious at this point.

I'm just not convinced that the benefits of not using AI for noble reasons, and by the way, those benefits are marginal.

They're basically non-existent on an individual level.

And yeah, there's a collective action problem here, but that's a whole nother topic.

I'm just not convinced that the benefits of not using AI outweigh the costs.

especially for people earlier in their careers.

And after reading this newsletter, especially for women, because my God, those statistics are alarming, we are blessed to have a super diverse audience, men and women, older, younger, tech and non-tech.

And so I wanted to share this with you guys in the spirit of encouraging you as much as possible to really think about your relationship with this technology, how it's going to impact your job prospects, your earning power, your career longevity, your security, hell, your role in this rapidly changing world, and just start playing with it.

I'll let you decide what to make of all this, how you want to act on what I just shared with you.

And if you're a woman specifically, I think Scott's points are particularly urgent and important.

And I'd love for you to explore them as you invest in yourself.

And if this landed with you, if you want to share anything about what you're learning or achieving by embracing this tech, you know where to reach me.

I'd love to hear from you.

Go back and check out the Andrew Bustamante episode if you haven't done so 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'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course.

It is free.

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It's all on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com.

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Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks.

Build relationships before you need them.

Sixminutenetworking.com is where you can find it.

Show notes on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, Gabe's over on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi.

This show is created in association with Podcast One.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sedlauskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own.

And yes, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer.

So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

Ditto Corbin Payne and Arseni Tum von Neuberg.

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.

What if if everything you've been told about building wealth is total BS?

Scott Galloway joins me to dismantle the myths and lay out a brutally honest roadmap to financial security in today's economy.

The greatest bump in mortality for men is one, when their spouse dies and two, when they stop working.

And when they lose their social fabric and their purpose, they get inactive, sometimes depressed.

And when you get inactive and depressed, your brain kind of sends out a hormone or a message saying, oh, it's time to die.

This person isn't adding any value.

Supposedly, for every additional additional year you work, your life expectancy actually goes up.

So what they don't teach you is the smart thing to do is the moment you have assets, start diversifying.

And here's the thing, you don't need to be a hero.

You don't need to find the needle in the haystack.

Figure out what you're good at.

Find a way to save more than you spend.

Realize how fast time is going to go and diversify.

This is what you become passionate about is when you get to our age.

You become really passionate about taking care of your kids.

You become really passionate about taking care of your parents and being able to take your spouse to really wonderful places.

You become passionate about the absence of stress from your relationships that not having economic security injects into every relationship.

Success in entrepreneurship is your ability to endure rejection, ability to endure failure, and entrepreneurship is really just a synonym for salespeople.

Don't be an idiot.

Follow these simple equations and you're going to be fine.

Develop economic security for you and your family by finding something you're great at.

Make some money, save some money, understand how fast time is going to go, and diversify.

If you've ever wondered why working hard isn't enough, check out episode 1074 with Scott Galloway.

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