1262: A Weighty Matter of Mind Over Platter | Feedback Friday

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This game is once in a century.

Be there at Chase Center on January 18th. Go to HarlemGlobetrotters.com for your tickets to the 100-year tour.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the wise man standing with me in this manger of life drama, helping me make some frankincense of these conundra so you don't murder your family this holiday season, because you know his advice is going to be gold.

Gabriel Mizrahi. Nicely done.
I am a big fan of that one.

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

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

During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, organized crime figures, drug traffickers, cold case homicide investigators, hostage negotiators.

This week, we had John Young on quantum computing and Q-Day, which is when quantum computing can essentially break all existing encryption in a matter of minutes or hours, throwing our entire society into chaos.

We also did a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on vaping, and these seemed like the right episodes to air after Christmas. Super relevant.
Hey, at least we're not talking about dicks or OnlyFans.

That doesn't mean we won't do it again. I'm just, we're just not doing it this holiday season by accident, really.

On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, play obnoxious sound bites, and enjoy these chestnuts roasting on an open dumpster fire.

You're killing it today with the puns and the nicknames. Well done.

So you just got back from Patagonia. Yeah, I did.
I just got back. I went with Wayfinders.
This is a group I've talked about on the show before.

It's essentially a business owner adventure travel group. That's code for Group Orgy for sure.
Yeah. It's a bunch of very like-minded business owners.
If you know what I mean, friendly.

There may be a cuddle puddle here and there with some folks. There's some talk about your feelings.

That definitely is a part of it, but there's more paragliding, hiking, whitewater rafting, horseback riding type of stuff. Is that what you guys call it these days? That's what I call it these days.

You guys bareback or side saddle? Yeah, side saddle. We flew in, I don't even know what that means.
I'm afraid to say that because that could be anything.

We flew on small planes, boats, small bush planes landing on soccer fields. And it was just like...
Biting my tongue. Yes.

It was just one of those like something you'd see in a movie where you're like, I'm getting on that thing, this like rusty plane.

And then you fly really low thinking you're going to hit the mountain on the other side of the valley. You're in the middle of nowhere.
And suddenly he's like, all right, we're going to land.

And you realize that you are landing on a soccer field where the people below you have just chased the goats and/or cows or horses off of this thing.

Dude, you sent me a video of the plane landing, and I was like, What scene from Narcos is this? This is me in Patagonia right now.

And then you go to a lodge that has solar panels on the roof and Starlink internet that's like faster than my home connection half the time. And yeah, it was actually quite amazing.

Obviously, we spent no time online or anything like that. This is just really in the middle of nowhere, Patagonia.

Canyoning, which is essentially hiking up a river in the water over the rocks upstream i don't know it's yeah it's crazy wait so sorry i feel really ignorant patagonia is off the coast of south america right well it's in south america it's an island isn't it no no it's a huge region of the andes mountains oh it's a piece of land okay i know nothing

so ignorant about this so in case anyone else doesn't understand can you explain all i know is that's supposed to be really beautiful it is yeah it's chile and argentina the mountains and the valleys there am i thinking of easter island isn't that off the coast of I have no idea where that is.

Okay. So it's a region.
It is a region, yeah.

And we went mountain biking and rafting and pack rafting and whitewater rafting and paragliding, supposedly the best spot in the world for paragliding, which if you don't know, it's not parasailing.

There's no boat. You jump off of a cliff, literally, with a man strapped to your back

and you rip the parachute. And then the parachute's already out.
Thank God. These still sound like sex metaphors, but go on.
Yeah, it sure does. The parachute's already out.

And then you ride these thermal currents and you just fly around. It's actually insane, and I can't believe I did it.
And yeah, horseback riding. It's gorgeous.
Patagonia is gorgeous. It's unspoiled.

There's almost no tourists there, at least for us, because it was the beginning of the season. Also, we were kind of off the tourist pack.

There's a couple of trails that like everyone does, and we were just nowhere near. any of that stuff.
Crazy, beautiful views.

And with Wayfinders, you drop your shield, you talk about what's important to you, you ask big questions.

I can talk about that a little later, but I'm also going to Egypt and Saudi Arabia next year with the same group. And so I'm looking forward to that too.
So cool. Sounds gorgeous.

It's stuff I would never plan on my own. I'm never going to plan a trip like this.
Usually my version of camping or roughing it is like being barefoot in a four-star hotel.

That's usually about the limit for me. I don't paraglide, horseback ride, canyon, whitewater.
I love whitewater rafting, but still, I don't do this stuff. Was it super fun the whole time?

Or were there times when you're like, oh, this is really, this sucks. This is hard.
Mountain biking was brutal because it's a trail where they were like, oh, this is really tough.

And I'm like, I've never done this and it's really hard. And it was muddy and there was roots and rocks everywhere and like piles and piles of horse crap all over the trail.

And you're like spinning your wheels trying to get through and it's like going everywhere. And you're like, this blows.
How much further is this? Type two fun. Yeah, that was it.

But other than that, it was great. I don't have a problem roughing it a little bit, but you're not in a tent, right? I wasn't camping in Patagonia.

I I was in like lodges that are just in the middle of absolutely nowhere that are usually attached to a farm or something. And I would never do it on my own, but that's part of becoming better, right?

Is just forcing yourself outside your comfort zone. And often when I'm in a group, I'll be like the guy who's in good shape in that group.
This is not the case with this group.

There's all these endurance athletes and stuff, professional adventure racers that run like 90-mile ultra marathons, you know, in the desert and stuff.

And so I'm like the guy who's like, hey, we're going up that thing. And they're like, relax.
So it's cool being at the bottom of that and not knowing what you're in for.

They don't tell you the itinerary. You can't really opt out of stuff unless it's going to be unsafe.
Then they'll give you a little heads up. It's a surprise.

Oh, that adds a whole layer of anticipation to everything. So I'm going to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and all I know is we're going to be in the desert.
Big shock.

And I think we're going to live with Bedouins for a couple of weeks in yurts, I guess. I don't know.
So every day is a surprise. You're just constantly

on your toes. So they tell you what to pack and they give you a list of stuff that you definitely need.
Like they'll say, you definitely need to bring sunscreen, a bug net, stuff like that.

And you're like, okay. And then it's like optional water shoes.
You're like, all right, that's it. Optional condoms.
Yeah, well, certainly mandatory for some people.

Anyway, so I'm looking forward to the Egypt and Saudi trip. Could be anything, but it's one of the only times of the year where I get to just relax and go, I don't know what's next.
I'm just here.

I'm going along for the ride. And I like that.
Yeah, nice. Gabe, you're back from Japan.
I am.

By the way, if I went on this Patagonia trip, I think the biggest surprise would be finding out that it's not an island. I don't remember landing on the island yet.
Yes, I'm back from Japan, finally.

How's the jet lag? Brutal, bro. I'm up all night.
I'm sleeping till 11. Are you going to tell us about Japan at all?

Maybe in the back half of the show, I know we're going to do a little end-of-year kickback. I'll tell you some stuff then.
All right. Sounds good.
Oh, we've got just the one doozy today.

We're doing something different on this end of year episode. Good point, Gabe.
Thanks for reminding me.

I'll be taking just the one question, and then after that, Gabe and I are going to be reflecting on 2025, talking about some of our favorite letters and themes from this year, our travels, what we're taking into next year, stuff like that.

So I just wanted to give you all a heads up. So if you've listened to the first question, it's all downhill from there.
So if you just came for the questions, don't be surprised when there's only one.

All right, Gabe, what is the first and only thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Jordan and Gabe.

I struggle with overeating, and sometimes my main struggle is really the fact that I feel as though I lack discipline.

It's bothering me that perhaps I've only decided to give up tracking calories because I lack discipline and was unable to follow through. I've also started therapy recently.

I think the only change I've been feeling is really just noticing my feelings and being slightly more aware of when I'm becoming too overwhelmed, but I don't feel like my problems have completely disappeared.

How do you balance discipline with not beating yourself up? How should I get the most out of each counseling session? And how fast is progress supposed to look?

Signed, Looking for a Guide on How to Make Strides, as I start to confide, but hopefully on a timeline that's specified. Okay, fair questions all around.

So, first of all, I'm sorry you're struggling with overeating.

I know that's a tough challenge/slash addiction, and I can hear that the thoughts and feelings around it are difficult, including this whole discipline thing.

I'm very glad to hear you've begun therapy, though. I think that's great.
I hope that's a helpful space for you to work on this and everything around it.

Food stuff, any stuff really is connected to a number of other things, as we often often talk about. And an addiction, even a relatively mild one, it's never the real problem.

It's your solution to the other problems. And therapy is definitely the place to go and explore all that.
So good on you for that. So what is that balance between discipline and beating yourself up?

Is there even a difference? It's a good question.

And for me, I feel like the difference is, are you holding yourself up to a certain standard or are you tearing yourself down in order to achieve this?

And look, by the way, I say this as the damn near undefeated national, regional, whatever champion of beating yourself up. If there were an Olympics for this, I would at least take a bronze.

I would take silver. So it's so hard to want to get better without simultaneously turning on yourself.
It's not easy. So in other words, are you going, okay, I need to take better care of myself.

I need to not use food in this way. So I'm going to track my calories because that's my system for keeping an eye on things.

Or are you saying, oh, you have to track your calories because you're out of control and you can't be trusted and you never stick with anything?

or however your internal monologue might go, which I imagine only creates more difficult feelings. And again, that only makes overeating more appealing.
I counted calories for years.

I still do, actually. It depends.
I weigh my food. I did that for years.
I had to do it because I was serious about losing weight, which looking back, I wrestled with that for a while.

Not that I couldn't lose weight. I just wasn't serious in putting a system in place.
I was like, I'm going to work out. And it's okay.
Well, you can't outwork your appetite.

And you have to count your food. You have to get an app that says how much you're supposed to be eating based on your weight and what you're eating.

That's the only time that any sort of real change actually happened and lasted for me. I think I talked about this on the show.
I dieted for like 10 months. It wasn't miserable at all.

I just had to actually do it. And listen, I know how complicated this can get.
Some days you're like, man, I'm so proud of myself. I'm on top of things.
I'm seeing results.

And some days you can't be trusted. You need a tedious system to make this work.
What is wrong with you? So you have to be very aware about which spirit you approach this in.

And I say that knowing that a lot of the time that inner voice is not totally under our control, but what we do have control over is how much we listen to it, how much stock we put in it.

Also, which other voices we tune into, like this more helpful voice, this more inspiring one that's telling you to rise to the level of your standards, not berate yourself for falling short of them.

Look, for some people, That can have some short-term utility. I think it probably keeps you in check, but that is not sustainable.
It's usually not healthy.

And more often than not, it just reinforces the underlying problem.

Holding yourself to a higher standard, creating systems and habits around your goals so you don't fall off, being passionate about taking care of yourself rather than afraid that you won't, that is sustainable.

That is kinder to yourself. That's going to get you way further.
I do want to be clear, though, this is an important caveat.

When it comes to food specifically, This is just a really complicated topic for most people. I think counting calories in order to lose weight, it's different from sticking with a workout routine.

It's different from becoming more productive at work or trying to watch less TV. Food stuff, weight, body struggles.
It's all so personal. It's very sensitive.

And I'm fully aware that me going, hey, hold yourself to a higher standard by counting calories. Don't beat yourself up.
Okay. First of all, way easier said than done.

And second, encouraging you to count calories, even in a quote unquote good spirit, I do understand that could contribute to an unhealthy relationship with weight loss.

It could also end up reinforcing certain anxieties or conflicts you have around this stuff. That is absolutely not my intention.

When I started weighing my food, I did it because I literally had no idea how many calories were in portions of food. It wasn't like an orthorexic thing.
It was a more of a bodybuilder fitness thing.

And you've got to kind of figure out what this is for you.

I'm not making light of this, but I've heard people who they weigh their poop in the morning and stuff and they count everything they eat and it's like very unhealthy.

They're doing it because it gives them a sense of control. For me, it was just literally about losing weight and putting it into an app.
I didn't have this sort of ecosystem of complexes around it.

So if you think you might obviously do this in combo with your doctor, your therapist.

So the best advice I can give you here really is to keep working with that therapist on getting to the root of your relationship with food. Trace that back.

Try to figure out what role it plays in your life. What about the relationship makes it difficult? And really talk with them about what tracking calories or not tracking calories brings up for you.

What thoughts and feelings come up when you feel the need to track them and when you feel that you lack the discipline to track them?

And what discipline actually means to you, what beating yourself up looks like, where that tendency comes from, other ways you can meet yourself in this goal.

I think all of that is ultimately going to be much more helpful than trying intellectually to figure out the difference between discipline and beating yourself up. It is a good question.

Also a good question, how to make the most out of each session with your therapist or really any kind of meeting. So I don't think there is a right way to do therapy.

I think that's actually one of the beauties of therapy, especially when you're working with a good clinician. You can show up to a session in a variety of ways.

You can show up one day, you're super on point, the next day you're a little messy, or you show up clear one day, and then another day you're confused, or you're energized, or you're tired, or whatever.

And this person should be able to meet you where you are and help you find the most useful thing to be talking about that day.

But that said, I do think there are more helpful and less helpful ways to meet your therapist in general. And there are some things you can do to maybe maximize your time together.

For example, I'm a big fan of coming into session with one or two things to talk about, even one thing, and just taking a few minutes during the week or the day of your session to sit with yourself, get quiet, notice what feels most important or pressing to you or what you know you should talk about, but you don't really want to talk about.

And then come into the session with just a little bit of direction, at least a place to start.

Now, if you go into session not knowing what's most important or not even knowing how you're feeling, that's okay.

And again, I think that actually can be useful too, but even that is a place to begin.

If you go in there and you say, I don't really know how I'm feeling today, I'm confused about what's worth talking about or I'm feeling disconnected or I'm feeling overwhelmed, whatever it is, that can be really good information.

Another way to get the most out of your session, share as much as possible with your therapist. Go to the tough parts, the scary parts, the icky parts.

Now, if you're still developing trust with your therapist, of course, that takes time. But a therapist can only really help you with what you bring to them or what they help bring out of you.

They can't read your mind, although the good ones, I think, sometimes it feels like they can a little bit, right?

Because they can read between the lines or they can and they should pick up on things like affect and subtext and what goes unsaid.

So the sooner you get to the good stuff, so to speak, the faster you'll probably make progress. As opposed to avoiding stuff or tap dancing around it.

Yeah, as opposed to tap dancing around it or defending yourself yourself too much. Now, here's another interesting thing.

Encountering your defenses in therapy and just the general concept of resistance in therapy is also part of the therapeutic process.

So even that can be very useful, again, especially if you're working with a good clinician who's very interested in that kind of stuff.

So it's not entirely your job to be completely on top of all the ways you might be protecting yourself in therapy.

And in fact, most of the time you won't know because a lot of the time it's unconscious.

But you can notice when something is hard to talk about or when you might be holding back or when you want to come across a certain way with your therapist. Like you want to look good.
Yeah.

If you want to come across as, you know, in control or morally upstanding or low maintenance, that's a common one or whatever it is.

And you can say, okay, so this is something I don't really want to go near or I'm noticing myself not wanting to look bad in front of you in this moment or I don't want to let you in on this part of my life just yet.

And then you guys can talk about that. Sometimes just talking about that resistance, that is the most important thing to be discussing.
Yes.

And it's also also an important part of your relationship with your therapist, and the relationship is almost everything.

But if you're able to call that out sooner, again, you will probably move a little faster. You ever take notes in your sessions, Gabe? I don't, but I know some people who do.

I take notes afterward, though. Yeah, either way, I feel like that could be helpful.
I think so. I'm a big fan of taking notes because oftentimes the details of a session can fade after a few days.

Like you're left with maybe a feeling or an impression, but you can't remember exactly what you discussed. I have a little like therapy journal.

It's just a file on my computer, and I'll jot down some notes after every session.

If I have time and I'm feeling inspired, sometimes I'll write a little journal entry kind of expanding on what came up in session or connecting it to some other ideas and I find that very helpful too.

But whatever version of this you do, it is a helpful way to build on what you learn in session. And then you also have something to refer back to from time to time, which I also find very useful.

Yeah, I can see that making it easier to track the arc of therapy, see the themes and all that.

And sometimes you read an entry from six months ago or a year ago and you go, oh, wow, look how far I've come. Or, oh, that's something I'm still struggling with.
I need to keep an eye on that.

I'm still working through that one, but it's nice to look back. As for your last question, how fast is progress supposed to look?

Gabe, tell me if you agree, but I feel like there's no real answer to that. Not in my experience.

If you're going to therapy for nine months or a year and you don't see any meaningful changes whatsoever, that's a sign something needs to change.

Either you need to ask your therapist why you're not feeling any progress or you need to find a new therapist or try a new modality. But I don't think there's any one timeline here.

It's not like progress should happen by month four or you're doing something wrong. No, therapy doesn't work like that.
It really is a process and everyone's process is different.

Everyone's process is different and also progress isn't linear.

Sometimes you do have to feel worse before you feel better, especially if you're getting into difficult stuff that you haven't dealt with before or you go through periods of confusion on your way to, oh, aha, now I understand.

This is a key insight.

Or you spend weeks or even months talking about something and then one day you actually do something about it or you get a win or something shifts and you go, oh, wow, I am changing.

Even if it felt like you were swimming in circles for a while.

And that might be especially true for our friend here because, like you said, Jordan food is a very complex topic and this is her first time in therapy, it sounds like.

So this could take a little time. She said that the only change she's been feeling is just noticing her feelings, being slightly more aware of when she's becoming too overwhelmed.

But she doesn't feel like her problems have completely disappeared, which is interesting.

I would say for a lot of us, just noticing your feelings, understanding when you're overwhelmed, being able to name it, even that could just be a huge step forward.

And that sort of foundational work, until you can feel this stuff, it's hard to actually work on it. It's also important to remember that therapy is not about making your problems disappear.

That's a good point.

It's much more about changing your relationship with your problems, giving you new tools, new insights to meet your problems in new ways, and also helping you make new meaning out of them and coping with and working through the feelings that those problems stir up in you.

Yeah, in a lot of areas, hopefully that will resolve your problems, which is wonderful when that happens.

But we all know that there are some problems in life that can't be solved, that do not go away completely.

And there are people and situations and goals like the one that you're in now that will continue to challenge you no matter what. So I love that you want to make tangible progress.

I love that you're trying to figure out how to move as quickly as possible. You're clearly passionate about growing and I love that.

But if there's a layer to that passion that is also about maybe fast forwarding through stuff, trying trying to turn your problems into non-problems as soon as possible so you can just get past them and be done with therapy or who knows, maybe even have a reason to call it quits with therapy because you know, like, it's been six months and I still have problems, then that is something to keep an eye on.

Yeah.

And something I would actually share with your therapist because again, that could be a great thing for you guys to talk about, how you guys define progress, why it's so important to hit certain milestones on a certain timeline, all that.

I feel like there's just a lot to unpack just in that idea alone. I agree.
I'm just realizing I can't quite put my finger on this.

Maybe you can help me, Jordan, but wanting her problems to go away and worrying about making progress on a certain timeline, that is especially interesting in the context of her struggle with food and counting calories.

You mean like, is overeating also a way to make her problems go away? Oh, I hadn't thought about it like that, but sure, yes, that could be one connection. Absolutely.

I was more thinking about this idea of discipline, sticking with this calorie counting thing, beating herself up when she falls off.

One way to understand this goal is as a relationship or a nexus of relationships.

Obviously, the relationship with herself, which is her present self, her future self, but also I'm sure her past self, and also her relationship with food in general and what this system that she has developed for managing her intake brings up for her, which I agree can be very complicated, very fraught.

for someone who struggles with food.

And I don't want to gloss over that either, but all of that entails a relationship that, if it's it's going to be successful, needs to be consistent, needs to be supportive and supported, and needs to be big enough and sturdy enough to contain all of her feelings around this area of her life, right?

Her passion for taking care of herself and what I imagine can be frustration, disappointment, shame, this tendency to beat herself up.

And that relationship, I think, mirrors the relationship you hopefully develop in therapy, which also needs to be big enough to contain other difficult feelings like being angry at your therapist or being embarrassed or being demoralized or confused or whatever it is.

So you're asking, how can I stay disciplined? And that is a good question. There is an element of discipline to any goal.

But I wonder if what you're really asking is, how can I stay connected, connected to myself, when this gets hard, when I don't see results immediately? Which is so much of the work in therapy.

Yeah, to build up those aspects of self necessary to sustain commitment and excitement and interest.

I have a feeling that will get you a lot further than looking for ways to keep yourself in line and definitely further than beating yourself up.

On that note, I'm happy to share an opportunity with y'all. Little Christmas gift from us to you.
So our friends at BetterHelp have generously offered three months of free therapy to 16 people.

So I know that's a random number, but if you've been wanting to give therapy a try, but money's been tight or you've been looking for the right moment, here is your chance.

You hear me talk about BetterHelp all the time. I won't do the whole pitch, but it's awesome.
It's all remote. You pick your therapist.
You can do it from anywhere in the world.

It's a fantastic opportunity. So the way it's going to work is this.
If you want to jump on the offer, write Gabe at Friday at JordanHarbinger.com. Mention the offer.

We have to do this on a first come, first serve basis. We can't be deciding who gets it based on need or your amazing storytelling abilities or anything like that.

It's really just about who gets there first. I highly suspect these are going to go super quickly.
So write us ASAP. Hopefully you can be one of the 16.

And if we run out of vouchers, please don't be mad at us. I would give away 100 if I could.
And don't despair. It's not personal.
It's a timing thing.

I'm almost sure there will be more opportunities like this in the future. I'm happy to partner with BetterHelp on this.
Big thanks to them for their generosity and sponsorship.

And happy holidays, fam. There is nothing more on brand for this show than using therapy as a stalking stuffer.
No, it's a brain stuffer. That's right.
Truly.

People can't get mad at us for telling people to go to therapy if we are literally giving it away for free. Now, that's good point.

And to our friend who wrote in, keep going, keep looking for the insights and habits and people you need to stay connected to your goal in a healthy way.

And I promise if you do the work, if you stick with it, if you don't cling to the idea of hitting certain magical milestones on a certain timeline, you'll be amazed by what you can achieve, sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best.

You know what you can gorge yourself on, guilt-free. The lip-smacking good deals and discounts on the nutrient-dense products and services that support this show.
We'll be right back.

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Now, back to Feedback Friday.

All right, no more questions. Just our fancy pants, end of year message, end of year monologue, monologuish dialogue, where we take a step back and we look at this year in dues.

We talk about some of the interesting themes that popped up this year, you know, just pause and take stock of what we learned, what we want to focus on as we enter the new year.

Not gonna lie, Gabe, I always feel overwhelmed when it comes to this episode because how do we do all the stories that we hear, even a remote sense of justice? How do we sum up the year we just had?

It is a tall order. I know.
I feel you. It really is.
But okay, let me start by sharing something that really moved me. It's a review we we got last month from a listener, and it went like this.

We get a lot of reviews and a lot of them are moving, but this one just stuck out. In all of the podcasts I've explored over the years, the Jordan Harbinger show is high above the rest.

With his outstanding gift to bring the best out of his guests, Jordan weaves together intellect, storytelling, adventure, and excitement. I learned something new and interesting in every single show.

Jordan, Gabe, and their guests have been my ride-or-die distraction through my journey with stage four cancer at 39 years old with a one-month-old.

In moments of fear, the rich content kept me distracted in the best way possible. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen in advance.
You're welcome. That was from Paula from Canada.

And I wanted to share that, by the way, not just to gas myself up, I promise you. That was a very fortunate side effect.

I'm proud of this show, but really, I wanted to share it because it was one of those reviews that make me stop what I'm doing, lean back in my chair, and just go like, woof, okay.

These are things that our listeners are going through. These are things I might go through one day, or people I love will go through one day.
Who knows?

And these are the experiences that we meet people in. And that is extremely meaningful to me and very clarifying in terms of what the purpose of this show is.

Because yeah, the intellect, the wisdom, the adventure, the excitement this listener talked about. I mean, I love getting that out of our guests.
I love bringing that stuff to you.

That is obviously what the show is about in the obvious sense of the term.

But when a listener says, you've been my ride or die through stage for cancer, you keep me company while I'm fighting for my my life and i have a one-month-old baby you distract me when i'm scared i mean that's just a moment where i go like okay that's what this show is really about for me not just information but connection community company

i'm gonna go all wayfounders on you love really and there are just no words to express how much that means to me to receive a message like that and to have an opportunity to really remember why i do this bruh well said man yeah i agree bruh indeed I don't talk about the show in these terms very often because, frankly, who wants to sound like a sanctimonious, self-important turd all the time?

But this end of year episode, this is my excuse to be a little sentimental. So there it is.

So thank you, Paula, for listening, for meeting this challenge with what sounds like a ton of strength and a ton of vulnerability, for spending so much time with us while you go through treatment.

We're honored to be there with you or at least take your mind off things for a little while. You know what this reminds me of, Gabriel?

Remember the guy who wrote in and was like, I have X months to live? This is maybe a couple of years ago. Our boy Pete Donella.
I was thinking about him while you were reading that review.

It's so funny you said that. Yes, he's been on my mind.
And then we just wrote to him. He's like, oh, this is going to be my last letter.
And we're like, okay.

And then that was just kind of it. Paula and Pete.

When somebody spends their time with you when they don't have that much left or maybe don't have that much left, that is, ooh, man, it's goosebumps and chills all the way down. Very touching.

Thank you to everyone else who's listening right now for being part of our show, fam, for sharing your responses and your criticisms and your questions with us for, and I know I say this every year, but I really do mean it, for being the best damn show fans a podcaster could ask for.

With the amount of email I get, I can't always communicate that properly throughout the year, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I love y'all.
And this show really only exists because of you.

and the sponsors and the fact that you use our sponsor codes. So really, it is you at the end of the day.
Bro, well said. That was really lovely.
Thank you for sharing that.

Who is cutting onions in here as my guest? Not me. Definitely not tearing up thinking about Apple reviews.

All that said, if you'll indulge me for just a few more minutes, I want to share a couple of things that I've been turning over as we close out the year.

On my flight back from Patagonia, I was sitting on the plane thinking about what a gift it is to travel anywhere, low-key, exotic, near, far, old, new, cheap, fancy, easy, hard, even when some piece of garbage leaves his window open on a nighttime flight.

Just so everyone understands what Jordan is talking about, I sent him a photo from the plane back from Japan because one of our shared pet peeves is people who open the window in the middle of the flight and just let like sunlight flood into the cabin because they want to have a little look, see out the window.

Oh, it drives me crazy. Dude, this guy, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Jordan.
I know you're on a roll, but we have to talk about this. This is a big theme from this year for me.

This guy on my plane back from Tokyo. They make an announcement.

The flight attendant at the beginning of the flight says, once we're done with like meal service, please close your windows because we're going to be crossing that line, whatever that line is called, where we meet the sun again.

And it's just going to be sunny the whole time. So people are going to want to sleep.
Please close your windows. Everybody does it.
It's dark in the cabin for hours.

And then the middle of the flight, I wake up from a nap and there's just bright sunlight stabbing through the window. And there's a guy looking out the window.

And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me right now? And then I'm like sitting there like, do I get up and say something? But then I'm that guy and it's awkward. And how is he going to respond?

This is the constant conundrum, as you know, calling a-holes out in public. Do I do it? Do I not?

And then I look over and I'm like, he better be enjoying it because his head is against the wall and he's asleep and he didn't close the window. Just a total ignorant, thoughtless dickhead.

I was like, you're not even going to be enjoying it? You just opened it to take a nap. I was furious.
And so a flight attendant passed by and I said, hey, would you mind closing that window?

And she goes, I can't do that. I was like, what do you mean? She's like, we're not allowed to wake up the passengers or touch them.
And he's in the way of the window.

So everyone in the the area is looking back at him like hundreds of people have to deal with this because you have this dumb policy everyone's looking at him i looked back and a woman was like stirring she had her head on her husband's shoulder and she woke up like what the

and so we all had to deal with it for the rest of the flight it was like two hours more so annoying anyway i sent jordan a photo of that and he wrote me back in all caps i can't with these people i can't i've definitely closed people's windows i've gone to ask them if they can close it you've gotten up and closed their windows oh dude this is something that i'm not proud of doing this particular thing i haven't gone up in front of them look them dead in the eye and be like

i haven't done that if they're awake i'll be like can you close that please there's a few people trying to sleep there's some old ladies and they're having trouble sleeping and unless they are a complete scumbag they will almost certainly do it I've also seen people who are asleep and I'll lean over and close it and then just like quickly scurry away, hoping they don't notice and maybe they haven't.

I don't care if they have. There was one time though, I was flying back from like China.
This is like 2013. I was flying like the economy, whatever, like packed in back from China.

And this guy, this is an American airline and we're flying back to the States. And this guy opens his window and it's the middle of the night.

And I shut it because it's one of those windows that's like between his seat and mine. So I'm like, is it yours or is it mine? So I'm like, all right, that's kind of mine.
I'm shutting it.

And he opened it again right away. And I was like, oh, if you need a light, there's a light above you.
And I shut it. And he opened it again.

And I walked in front of him because he was in like the, before the galley. and I go, there's a light right here.
Please keep the window shut. And he like ignored me.
And I went back and shut it.

And he opened it again. And I was like, okay, that's fine.
And I heard him like smugly saying, I didn't understand Chinese much at the time, but I heard him smugly being like, screw you, pal.

So when I got to immigration, I said, the guy who was sitting in front of me talked about having a bunch of meat in his luggage. No, you did.
Oh, you petty LaBelle.

You threw this guy under the immigration bus. Yeah.
And they were like, who, who is is it? And I was like, oh, it's this, one of these guys. And I found him.

And I was like, yeah, that's the guy, low-key. I don't want anything to do with it.
They took him into a separate room and they absolutely tore all of his shit apart.

I know it because I waited for a long time, but waited, got my bags hit. Dude, did not leave the room.
And his friends are like, where is he? And I was like, yeah, that's right.

You sit here all afternoon. How's that sunlight feel now, buddy? Oh my gosh.
Here's the thing. I hope he had meat in his bag.
And they were like, up, $5,000 fine. Screw you, pal.

Keep that window shut. I will find a way to hurt you.

This is one of my favorite stories I've heard from you about this. As an adult ass male now,

not that this wasn't 12 years ago, but more mature man, I am not proud of that. I think it was petty, unnecessary.
Yes, that guy was a jerk. Maybe I could have handled it a different way.

Do I regret doing it? 50-50. Like, it wasn't a good thing to do.
And the climate was different. It's not like he's going to get arrested.

He's going to get his stuff confiscated, thrown away, maybe get a fine if he had anything or just mildly inconvenienced, honestly. Now I'm like, dude's going to get deported or something.

And like, I don't know, ICE agents are going to kick down his door. I don't want to deal with that.
I don't want that guilt on my shoulders.

But back then, I was just kind of like, you're just willing to be that prick who keeps everyone awake because you don't care and you think it's funny. Okay.

How about you get a five-hour interrogation from customs when you come in? I am experiencing a new emotion.

I think it's secondhand catharsis. Yeah.

Whatever the nice version of Schottenfreuda is, where I feel like satisfaction, but at a distance by proxy, that's how I feel with the story.

You know, those videos you see on Reddit where somebody's like being a jerk, like they have a speaker in public at a subway station, and everyone's like, turn that off. And they're like, make me.

And then someone's like, okay, it smashes the thing on the ground. And what are you going to do about it? Because they're like six foot nine.

And the guy's like, sorry, that's the feeling that I want everyone to have. I didn't just do that to be a petty a-hole.

I did this for everybody who's ever had somebody open that window in a nighttime flight. So you don't have to do that.

You somehow did it 12 years in advance for the flight I just took because I'm still angry about this and it's over, which is petty on my part. I know.

Well, obviously I'm fired up about this guy and I'm like, do I admit this on the podcast? Because it does make me sound like such a total a-hole. Oh, I love that you did.

And again, I would never do that now. I feel like the stakes are too high now.
There's better ways to handle it. But back then, I was just like, oh, I'm going to win this one.

Dude, you've encouraged me. I feel like the next time this happens, I'm going to at least go over and politely say something.
You should say something.

I bet you a lot of these people would go, oh, gosh, I'm sorry. And just shut it.
But it annoys me that people don't understand this on their own.

How do you do that when you are the only person on the plane doing it and it's bright as hell and they made an announcement and then you fall asleep? There's something wrong with you, sir. I agree.

These people are thoughtless and their emotional intelligence is like single digits on a triple digit scale. Anybody who says any who should be also punched directly in the face.

I'll call you out next time. But I think you were talking about how on the flight back from Patagonia, you were sitting there and just thinking about what a gift it is.

Yes, that's right.

Especially these days when everything just feels so all consuming and mechanized and so fixed, we really do need to step outside of the matrix and have experiences that aren't about producing more or making more money or getting somewhere or even learning anything.

Just stuff that's just about enjoying and remembering that we are, at the end of the day, human beings, not just human doings. And I can tell you for me, I forget that all the time.

When you spend months on end working your butt off, you're a spouse, you're a parent, you're raising kids, you're taking your own parents to their doctor's appointments, you're going to parent-teacher conferences, and yada, yada, yada, the list goes on and on, the 10,000 things that make up your life.

For me, it can be hard to remember, like, oh yeah, I'm also a person. I'm a person who is here to experience life.
Do it. And that's what travel is for me.

Gabe, I know it's the same for you, although it's kind of your new normal now. I'm very envious of that.

It's a chance to step outside those roles and those duties, which just to be clear, those roles and duties, they are a joy for me. They're a privilege.
I love my life.

I'm so grateful to have these responsibilities, the show, the kids, the family, everything. But yeah, it's a lot sometimes.

And taking a trip is just really, it's a chance to step outside all that and come back to Jordan with a backpack on.

But what I find is that it can be really hard to carve out that time, man, whether it's for yourself or with your family or with some friends, whether it's in another country or, I don't know, camping in the woods near your house.

There are so many good reasons to put off these experiences, to put off life.

So what I'm about to say, and this is another reason I get a little sweaty doing these big end of year wrap-ups, what I'm about to say is very cliche, but that's also because it's true.

There is no real later. There's no real later.
There just isn't. Later is tomorrow.
Tomorrow is like right now. And what's happening now is going to be yesterday in a heartbeat.

And yesterday is going to be last year. And last year is going to be like, I should have done it when or before.
There just is no later.

There's only carving out the time to do what you care about now.

And I have to keep reminding myself of that when I look at my calendar and I go, oh, I don't know if I can really carve out two weeks to fly 15 hours to freaking Chile, to take a rickety bush plane to Patagonia to go look at mountains with a bunch of people.

But I know that if I want to have these experiences, I almost have to force myself.

I have to force myself to act as if I don't have forever, as if there is no real later, because there's something about the human brain and life itself that just makes you forget that.

And I'm always grateful that I did it. That applies to travel.
That applies to getting your family together for dinner. That applies to sending the email.

That's your first step toward a potential new career. It applies to everything.
There is no real later. So I have a corollary to this principle, which is, I believe.
You have a corollary, you know.

I knew you were going to say something about that. Corollary.
Is that better?

Someone's getting grandiose. Grandiose.
I didn't work for a British law firm for nothing. Clearly not.
You really took away the most important thing, which is saying words incorrectly.

So what's your corollary? So my corollary is

there's also no such thing as too many experiences or too much family time or too much close friend time. Yes, you can burn out on travel.
Yes, adventure can easily turn into escapism.

Yes, you can cling to friendships that are changing. All of that is true, but that's a different thing.

What I'm saying is the things that truly light you up, that make your life meaningful, and that ultimately comes down to a handful of things for all of us.

And we know that at the end of the day, it's our relationships. You can never get enough of those.
And you can never go wrong prioritizing them in your life within reason, of course.

Obviously, you still got to earn money. Of course, you got to exercise.
You got to pay your stinking taxes. There are things we can't neglect.

But why do we do those things, earn money, especially, if not to enjoy meaningful experiences with people who matter to us. Why?

Honestly, dude, it is insane that we even have to ask ourselves that, but you are absolutely correct. Some people are like, oh, gosh, what a cliche.
And I know it's so obvious.

It's tragic to forget it, but that's how easy it is to forget. Yeah, it's just like almost an inconvenient thought to hold around.
Yeah.

There's so many times where I go like, oh, yeah, I would love to go to Arabia. I'll do that another time.
When would that be? When is that going to be?

I'll go to Egypt when my kids are older and they can enjoy it. I mean, God forbid that that doesn't happen, but that could be 20 years from now, right? I don't know.

Something could happen and we could be unable to go. North Korea, I remember telling Sailor Joe, who took you and I to North Korea that first time, I was like, oh, I'll go next time.

And he goes, dude, this is North Korea. There's not a next time.
What are you talking about? And I was like, yeah, that's a really good point. And then we went four more times, but you don't know.

And then, I mean, we were just getting how to go to NorthKorea.com off with the live chat and this and that and the other thing. And it became illegal.

And I remember texting you and being like, so this is over because now it's a crime. We should sell this.
Aren't you glad we went when we could? Yeah, exactly.

Now, even though you could go if you're not American legally, it's just a bad idea.

It was probably a bad idea then, but we were younger and stupid. Exactly.
We've established that 12 years ago, our brains did not work. That's right.

We had a different calculus for just about everything. Yes, sometimes your parents get on your nerves.
Sometimes your spouse pisses you off. Usually that's me pissing off Jen, but whatever.

It's easy to spend too much money or overstay your welcome or over-index on fun over responsibility. I'm not saying it doesn't matter how you live your life as long as you're having a good time.
YOLO.

I'm not saying that.

But with every year that passes, I feel more and more that there's really no good reason not to do a borderline outrageous number of interesting, fun, meaningful things with your partner, your kids, your friends, your cousins, your pets, whoever is lucky enough to hold a big place in your life.

Earlier this year, I did a bunch of travel more than I usually do. Jen and I met up with Gabe in Portugal.
Jace, our editor, joined us. We got the gang together.
We created a memory.

I'm very glad we did. My cousin Lindsay wanted to come with us, but she didn't want to spend the money because she's in law school and has a quarter million dollars in debt or whatever it is.

And I was too when I graduated law school and it sucked. And I feel lucky that I'm now in a position to invite her.
So I was like, hey, don't worry about it, Lindsay. I got your flight.

Just come with us. And it was just really special.
I had my cousin there in Portugal, just to give you one example. Also nice low-key flux that you can fly your family members to Europe, of course.

My favorite family members, the rest of them, they can stay put in freezing, Michigan. They're going to get a lot of letters from the family this holiday season, I think.

Hey, I told you I might sound self-important sometimes, whatever.

I lived in a shitty apartment with a bunch of dudes for eight years eating ramen and rolling calls in my twin bed/slash futon till 10 p.m.

It took me years to get over the hip and back problems I had from working on a futon by leaning over for that long every day. That was not good.

Anyway, my point is, unless you're going to actually run into issues, I understand everyone's situation is different, but the best way to spend money and all the research bears this out.

The best way to spend money and definitely the best way to spend your your time is to create experiences. And the best experiences are with people that we love.

And by the way, it can be a big trip like Portugal or it could be a half day at the beach. Literally doesn't matter.
I've gone on big fancy three-week trips that left me demoralized and lonely.

I've gone on 90-minute road trips to a weird little hike that I still think about to this day. The where and the what and the how, sure, that matters, but it's secondary.

The who you're with and the who you become when you're with the who's you care about, that's what matters. So my strong advice, if I may be so bold.

He said hosting a literal advice podcast, but go on. Hey, this segment wasn't my idea.
I know, right? Why am I suddenly gun-shy about telling people what to do?

Like, however long I've been doing this podcast, my strong advice is to carve out time this year to be a human being, ideally with a couple other human beings that you actually care about. And yeah.

If you can swing it, go a little overboard, whatever that means, stay at that hotel an extra day.

Get the nicer room where you and your friends can sit on the floor and tell stories till two in the morning and laugh till you cry.

Pay a little extra for the bigger car so you can pack the bigger camping tent and bump a killer road trip playlist on the good speakers and you sing while you drive.

Carve out an hour to write some handwritten notes for them when you arrive. Give them a little toast.

Give yourself some permission to do whatever is possible to maximize the amount of experience you can pack into 2026. And whatever that looks like, really enjoy it.

There doesn't have to be any deeper reason or justification for living your life. Enjoying your life, that is the deeper reason.

Damn, I feel like I needed to hear this this week for reasons that might become clear in a moment, but amen, brother. Yeah, slow clap over here.
I'm glad that resonates.

Or am I like, I'm not the old man shaking his fist at a... No, you're the middle-aged man shaking your fist at everyone else with a big smile on his face because you're right.
You're absolutely right.

I needed to hear that. That is how I intended it, I promise.

And the last thing I want to say is a big theme we heard again and again on this show this year is that there are a lot of people sacrificing themselves on the altar of taking care of other people, doing everything for the people around them, taking care of a parent or child who won't take care of themselves, bending over backward to please a boss who might or might not be doing right by them.

sacrificing their needs to keep a partner stable or make a friend happy or to go back to the thing we were just talking about to avoid living their own life. I think we all know what this looks like.

I think we've all done this in some form at one point or another. I know I have.
It's a very human thing.

And I think many of us, especially those of us who weren't taught or wired to put ourselves first sometimes, most of us could afford to be a little bit more selfish here and there in 2026.

And in fact, some of us have to be.

It's funny, a few weeks ago, we wrote a newsletter about how if you want to get anywhere in life, if you want to achieve anything, you're going to have to embrace the fact that you're going to be just a little annoying sometimes.

And it was one of my favorite pieces.

Actually, it was inspired by a letter we took a couple of months ago from that woman who needed to build relationships to make her company successful, but she was afraid of being pushy, being inconvenient, being too much.

That was far from the craziest letter we got this year, but it was actually one of the most important because it touched on something so universal, which is this fundamental fear of being inconvenient.

This hesitation we have to push for what we care about in the face of other people's inertia. Such a great story.
Thank you to that listener for writing in.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is we could have inserted selfish in there instead of annoying, and it would be just as true.

You know me, I'm the guy who's always banging on about always being of service, give before you take, put other people's interests first.

I fully believe that, but I also think we also need some degree of healthy self-interest to fully enjoy life and to create the life that we want to enjoy. And that is totally compatible.

with loving other people and taking care of them and helping out wherever you go.

It's not an either or, but this is especially true if if you're one of those people who tend to subjugate their needs entirely to other people's, who suffer or miss out on life as a result.

So getting on my soapbox one more time. This year, I want you to try saying no to somebody you've said yes to too many times.
Don't be a dick about it.

You don't have to jerry Maguire your amazing career. Don't alienate your family.
Don't tell your best friend to screw off unless they deserve it.

But when it comes to these situations where you just know deep down that you're sacrificing yourself in a way that is not not fair, take a break when you need it. Recruit some support.

Turn down that extra responsibility at work that you know doesn't belong to you, but is being put on your plate because you're a team player and everybody knows you never say no.

Invite someone else to step up. Invite the person you're usually saving to step up, even if you feel guilty, especially if you feel guilty.

Reclaim some of your life and find out if that guilt is actually a symptom of a misprioritized life. Give yourself permission to do less, even if you're leaving money on the table.

Again, going back to the earlier point, I love working my butt off and making money as much as the next guy. But again, old man Jordan talking here, I'm wisening up.

Sometimes we need to leave money on the table in order to get the most juice out of life.

And just as important, how is this pattern going to change if you don't experiment with drawing a line sometimes and see what happens? I know this can be really scary.

And again, I'm not advocating for being reckless or disrespectful or or hurtful, but there is a diplomatic way to say, sorry, no, can't do it this time. You'll figure it out.

And then go camping with your friends without your phone or whatever and just be a human being again. I know this is not groundbreaking advice this year, what I would focus on next year.

This just felt important. So I hope you take that to heart.
I hope you put that into practice this coming year, inspired by our friend Paula. Paula, you're a hero.

And I know you're going to have many beautiful experiences with the people you love on the other side of your treatment, including your new baby. We're sending you all a huge hug.

And yes, confirmed by my middle-aged ass who's waking up more and more each year to just how precious this life really is. So Gabe, I just talked for quite a while.
What's on your mind?

Did anything even happen for you this year? Not really. Pretty low-key year.
Yeah, feels like it was pretty mid.

If you want to just skip this part because your life is too boring, that's totally fine with me.

So you remember when we interviewed Ken Burns and he was talking about what makes a good story and he mentioned how it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup?

So you're the sap and and I'm the maple syrup? Is that what you're getting at? No, but yeah, he lives in New Hampshire. So that's like a thing that people understand over there, I guess.
I don't know.

Exactly. It's the perfect metaphor.
I can't stop thinking about that, though. It is a good metaphor, I think, especially, I don't know, Canadians are all over it.

He also said, we asked him about how he decides where to start a story and what do you include? What do you decide to leave out? And he said, honey, how was your day? Doesn't begin with.

I backed slowly down the driveway, avoided the garbage can at the curb, unless somebody T-bones you. Yes, that's exactly what you say, if that's the case.
Exactly. Story happens when things go wrong.

When expectation and reality diverge, exactly. That's kind of how I feel about this year.

Really, I T-bone myself in the best way by giving up my apartment and going on the road and trying this whole nomad thing.

Yeah, I would describe your adventure as a very pleasant car accident because it kind of nothing worked out. I mean, many things didn't.
Thank you.

My insurance is definitely going up, but it was worth it.

Yeah, anyway, in that gap between expectation and reality, I tried to put myself in the way of a lot of stories, more stories, some funny stories, some tough stories, some very eye-opening ones, but honestly, some still that I don't even understand yet, or I haven't figured them out yet.

And having gone through a period for a while in Los Angeles where I felt like I wasn't really living any new stories, where my life, it felt like it had flatlined for a little while, I just, I feel very lucky that I've been able to do that and still do the show.

That's literally what you wanted, right? It is.

And also these travels, to your point a moment ago, have not turned out the way I thought they would, hardly at all, which I guess is exactly what we're talking about. That's what a story is.

If you wanted things to turn out as expected, you could have stayed in LA safe and sound in your recording closet or whatever. That's right.

But it's funny, every week we get together, Jordan, I want to tell you and I want to tell everyone listening about what happened that week.

And I do feel this subtle pressure to make it interesting, to make it funny, to make it meaningful. Otherwise, like, why am I talking? Yeah, I think a lot of people wonder that.

Thank you for putting that in my head before I launch into my end of your rat. I appreciate it.
Well, look, this traveling life is a gift, as you said, and it is so stimulating.

There is a tendency to make it sound awesome and exciting and romanticize it when the reality is.

Yeah, far from it, right? It's not always that way. What it is, is it's everything, right? All nomading is, as far as I can tell, is just more experiences, more feelings, more highs, more lows.

And I can tell you firsthand, a lot of middles. And there are hours you lose taking trains or trying to buy a bike in a new city or dealing with some stupid bureaucracy.

And days you spend wandering around a strange city going like, why am I here again? Like, what am I supposed to be doing today? And also with the rest of my life.

There are weeks where I would walk around in a state of disorientation, which depending on what I was going through and how much sleep I'd gotten the night before, that sometimes feels like wonder and sometimes it feels like the symptoms of a TBI.

to be honest. Yeah, I remember that feeling.

It's that feeling of being slightly disconnected from reality because you're such a fish out of water and everything you know has been disrupted, but you're also like lit up because you're so stimulated and challenged.

That's exactly it. So I look back on a lot of this year and I'm full of all of these really interesting and beautiful impressions and references and experiences.

And I'm like, okay, well, what the actual fuck am I supposed to do with all of this? What did that even mean? Yeah, I. feel that way about Patagonia too.

Like I'm still making sense of it and it doesn't entirely make sense. A lot of travel doesn't make sense.

Maybe what you said earlier is the answer, that the point of these experiences is not necessarily to learn anything or get anywhere, but just to enjoy, which I am taking in.

I really do believe that, but I can't help but be like, what's the deeper meaning of this? And then maybe you just had a good time, bro. Yes.
Same.

I find myself wanting to know what all of this means. And if it doesn't mean anything, then I'm going to create that meaning so I can at least feel like this was worth it.
Yes. What journey am I on?

Yeah. What is the through line of this whole experience? Because it's not always obvious.

There are a handful of experiences from these travels where I go, okay, that was a great moment on that road trip where I learned that thing, or that was that dinner party where that ridiculous thing happened and it still makes me laugh.

Or I didn't know how to handle this problem in Portugal, but then in Germany, I nailed it. Okay, cool, growth.

But I have to say, a lot of the time, I'm kind of at a loss as to how to capture the last six months and figure out what it all meant. I'm just, I ask myself a lot, is there real significance to this?

Am I on some journey? Or is it just interesting chaos? Is it it a story? Or is it just 40 gallons of sap? Good question, man. Yeah, I wish I could tell you.
I don't know. Maybe Ken Burns can tell me.

Call Canny B. I'm sure he'd love to tell you.
Cue the Ken Burns effect on your most embarrassing Europe photos.

Slow pen and zoom over the photo of me in a black pleather kilt and crop top in front of the Kit Kat Club while a trombone plays in the background.

Yeah, I forgot you went to the Kit Kat Club, dude. Yeah, I told you about that a little bit, right? Not really.

You were like, hey, check this photo out. And I was like, send it to me.
And you were like, nope. You just showed me on a camera.
And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I'm going to need those photos, bro. I need to see my producer in assless chaps and a leather vest just saying, from the front, by the way, people, just so you know, just to be clear.
Okay.

There were no assless chaps for the record. Please do not defame me.
Actually, sir. All chaps are assless.
That's true. I've never heard of assed chaps, so you might be onto something.

They don't exist. It's an untapped market.
Chaps. Are those just pants? I think that might just be pants.
Yeah, you're right. Those are just later hosen.
You're right. That's all that is.

I deeply regret bringing up this photo.

I will tell this story another time because if I try to do it now, I think this episode is going to be like two and a half hours long and it's going to go off the rails, but we'll try to get to this.

Fair. But what a way to tease everyone.
The Kit Kat Club, for anybody who doesn't know, is like this super famous sex club in Berlin. It's when you think of a creepy German

sex positive club. They might take umbrage at sex club.
Okay. Look, if the BDSM kilt fits, come on, man.
First of all, they make you dress up.

Okay, this isn't like something I have in my wardrobe that I packed from Los Angeles. I went to a friend's.
I'm not going to explain where I came across the dungeon skirt. Okay.
Okay.

You don't have to have sex at the Kick Huck Club. You can just dance and hang out.
Anything goes. Whatever you say, Daddy.

Daddy, chill.

I kid. But okay, so I get what you mean.
That was actually a huge theme on the show this year. Yeah.
You mean how to classify sex clubs? Yes.

That and how we we all need to make meaning out of our lives. Yeah.

Totally. But the thing is, real life doesn't always make sense.
It doesn't cohere like that. It doesn't always fit.
Real life is not a story.

It's not a story, which is why we need stories to make life make sense. But you and I also talk a lot on the show about how whatever story we come up with to explain our lives is never totally right.

Sometimes it's completely wrong. We impose a narrative on things that happen, but even if it's true, it's never the full story.

And so hopefully, I guess we find the most accurate meanings possible, the most helpful stories.

But what I'm really appreciating more and more is that we also need to know when to stop looking for a story and enjoy, first of all, to your point.

And second, make peace, at least to some degree, with the ambiguity and the confusion that are such a big part of life.

And to accept that sometimes, especially when you're in the middle of an experience, the central meaning cannot be found. And sometimes the meaning is just like meaninglessness.
Oof. Yeah.

So brutal, especially in light of some of the tragedies that happened around the world in the last few weeks, which make no sense. But yeah, very true.

You just reminded me of a letter we took this year. I wish I could remember the details and tell you the episode, but it doesn't matter.

I just remember us saying, look, what you're going through right now is awful and we can't know where it's going, but it's going somewhere.

And at some point, you will look back and go, oh, okay, that's why this had to happen, or at least this interesting thing came out of that situation.

But for now, your only job is to be present and handle whatever's in front of you because right now there is no meaning. I do remember, I cannot remember the story, but I remember talking.

I should take our own advice from our show is what I'm learning. That's what I'm taking away.

Yeah, it's just fascinating how badly we want to know what everything means and how life is often like, yeah, no, or not yet.

Well, what I'm also starting to notice is that, yes, these travels have added so much to my life. Memories and skills, friends.

But mostly, I feel like this period has actually taken things from me or I dropped things things in order to go do this travel.

It's more like stripping away of familiar comforts and routine, stripping away beliefs and certain ideas I had about myself, about how well I can function in different cities or how much work I'm actually capable of, or I can be the guy who can write a movie and do the show and do my personal writing and go out all night and have fun and never struggle and never hit a wall.

And a lot of those ideas have been... seriously challenged and in some cases falsified by these travels.
Fascinating. So not as glamorous as people think.

So a quick story. You actually just reminded me of something.
One day in Berlin, my buddy and I went to visit Zachsenhausen, the concentration camp.

It's, I don't know, 45 minutes, an hour outside of Berlin. And we were walking around the grounds.
And I got to say, I went to Dachau when I was in Munich. It was quite a day, but...

Zachsenhausen was on a whole other level. A lot of the buildings are still standing and you can still see the gallows on the property.
It's really dark.

And they have not manicured the grounds very much the way they have at Dacha, which is kind of more of a museum now. And so you can literally walk through the rooms where this genocide took place.

It is very eerie, and it's very intense. And we ended up walking through the kitchen where the prisoners would prepare their meals.

And on the walls of this kitchen, still perfectly preserved, are these cartoons that the prisoners made.

They were like paintings of various scenes where the subjects in the drawings were cucumbers and potatoes and carrots. These were the things that the prisoners used to make food in the kitchen.

So like one painting was a bunch of yellow carrots interrogating and harassing a group of orange carrots. And another painting was some potatoes scrubbing one another in the shower.

They were basically making art about what they were going through, the Holocaust, as it happened. Oof, that is so intense.
You know what? It kind of reminds me of that book, Mouse, for some reason.

Yes. 100%.
And the Nazis let them draw cartoons? I can't remember. They either let them or they didn't know about them or maybe the paintings were covered up and then later discovered.

I can't remember exactly. Fascinating.
But yeah, so I'm walking around this kitchen and I stop in front of this column and I freeze because on this column is a painting of a cucumber.

And this cucumber is being thinly sliced by a slicer while these other cucumbers stand underneath the slicer looking up and watching. And weirdly, they're smiling.

And even the cucumber being sliced actually was smiling. And I just started crying.
The whole day just hit me in that moment. I just started crying in the kitchen.
Yeah, that would do it.

That's quite an image. Holocaust art is wild.
I don't know why my mind just associated to that, but I guess it's because this is a theme that came up a lot on the show this year, right?

Like injury, some physical injuries and also narcissistic injuries, being wounded, having your defenses laid bare, coping with the feelings that result.

I feel like so many of our letters deal with that. And I just want to be very clear.
I'm not trying to compare my little nomadting struggles to the Holocaust, obviously.

But I think about that image a lot. And for me, travel was a series of those thin slices.
And that's not a super fun thing to talk about.

It's way less enjoyable than telling you all my funny stories from my trips, which I still love doing.

But that has been the reality of these travels for me. It's a lot of joy and it's a lot of adversity.
And I would say a lot of it is subtractive. It's not additive.

And in that subtraction, which can really hurt sometimes, it can just really throw you for a loop. I have to say, I've also learned a lot.

Man, I was just Googling that while you were talking about that. And we can drop the link in the show notes because, of course, I think a lot of people would be interested to see that kitchen art.

Gabe, when we interview people on the show, my favorite moments are when they talk about their struggles. Yeah, I love the wins.
I love the fun stories. I love hearing how badass they are.

That's great. But what I really love and what I think people learn the most from is the hard stuff.
Tell me what sucked about this experience. Yeah.
No, you're absolutely right.

And the older I get, I do find the more interested I'm becoming in failure, not so much in success. Of course.
There's nothing to learn in success. So true.
Yeah, maybe slightly untrue.

There's something to learn in success. Something, yeah.
Yeah, more in failure.

And I can just tell you, anytime I read a thread on Reddit from a digital nomad who's like, it's amazing, I'm living the dream.

I'm always like, okay, it's either the first week or are you sure about that, bud?

You're either a simpleton or you're in denial or you're an influencer or a coach who's for sure selling a product related to nomadding.

And sure enough, you click on their post history and they've been hawking some course about how to work remotely in Bali for 12K a month, bro. And I'm like, okay,

got it. But when I read a thread from somebody who's like, so I moved to Estonia, here's what's been really cool.
Here's what's been really hard for this and that reason.

I'm always like, okay, this is a real human being. This is what moving to another country actually is.
It is not this fantasy.

It actually is really hard, but you go through it to have certain experiences. And one of those experiences is the suck.
Well said. So true.
And thank you for that.

It helps to hear it said back to me because I have to say there is a part of my personality that I'm not crazy about and I'm trying to work on it.

And it's this part that wants to be totally in control and look good and know what everything means and get everything right.

But being in control and getting everything right and knowing what everything means is, first of all, literally impossible and the opposite of what traveling is when it's at its best.

When I was in my 20s, man, I did the exchange year in Germany and it was really hard in the beginning. And at the end, it was awesome.
And I was like, I need to recreate this experience.

And I remember going to like Israel and Mexico and Panama and Ukraine and all these other places. And every time

I would be like, when I go there, it's going to be like this.

And then I'm going to meet these kinds of people and have these kinds of friends and these kinds of experiences and have this kind of girlfriend or whatever it is.

And reality was always, actually, first I'm going to be homesick. Then I'm going to realize this language is really hard and I can't showcase my personality at all.

Then I'm going to find some people who speak English, but they're not really the kind of people that I would normally be friends with.

And I'm going to have to be friends with them or be alone all the time. And I'm going to be super lonely.
Like the reality is always just quite different.

And you realize at one point, you're like oh this is escapism like i'm just leaving because i'm fantasizing it's going to be better than my life at home but what's that saying wherever you go there you are and you bring your problems with you you bring all your issues with you speaking of another cliche that is so true so actually on that point the last thing i'll share is my time in japan was really special and i had two weeks with dr margolis and then i stayed for another three weeks or so on my own.

And when I decided to go back to Japan, I knew it would be harder than Europe because Japan, you know what they say, right? Like loneliest country on earth.

It can be super alienating, especially for a foreigner. And if you don't speak Japanese, but this is what I wanted.

One of my goals for these travels, I think I even remember writing this down before I left was to actually encounter true loneliness or solitude, depending on how you look at it, and see what happened.

What is it like to be in a radically displaced in another country and go inward and not socialize as much and do just some good writing and read and have that experience.

So much harder than I thought it would be. Yeah, I got that sense.

sense not the most exciting chapter of eat pray gabe no it was not not outwardly i could tell you some funny stories some interesting stories but most of my time in japan especially toward the end was just me and my hotel first of all finishing a rewrite on this movie that i've been working on this is the one that i mentioned i don't know a week or two ago when i think we were talking about letting go of expectations and so It was very frustrating.

And I was just kind of stuck in my hotel having to finish rewrites and working with my director in LA. And it was, I wasn't really enjoying Japan at all.

And then when I had free time, and once I was done with the script, I was just wandering around Kyoto and Kanazawa alone, listening to audiobooks, reading, which was great, writing some, which was nice, taking a lot of trains, but not knowing why I was going to play, just utterly without direction or purpose.

And I got to a place, which I think you know well, Jordan, where I was just like, dude, I am on another planet. I am an alien here.
I don't speak the language.

I feel like the least important NPC in this weird video game. There is an abyss between me and everyone else here.
I think it's been like three days since I said a word to another human being.

Everybody here is so polite, so respectful, but no one really, you know, like engages with you. So I'm not really meeting people.
They don't even make eye contact on the subway. I love Japan.

I am so glad I came, but I think I'm done. I think it's time to come home.
Yeah, that's intense. I experienced a kind of loneliness in Japan that I don't think I've ever experienced before.

Like even being in North Korea, which is probably the furthest out we've ever been in terms of you're not supposed to be there, we were together. We had that contact.

And you realize when you go on a trip like this alone, you realize why people in solitary confinement go out of their minds because you need other people. You need their presence.

You need other minds to really function at your best. But I did learn something very valuable in that loneliness.
And now it's my turn to dip into a cliche.

There are really ultimately only a few things that matter, only a few things that really determine your experience of life.

The quality of of your thoughts, of course, the state of your body, and the people you surround yourself with. Especially that last thing, your relationships.

To your point earlier, Jordan, and really every single week. It is everything.
It is everything.

I cannot tell you how much more grateful I am now for my friends, for my family, my colleagues, these touch points back home when I was just way off the beaten path.

You, Jordan, this show, which has kept me connected and full of meaning this entire time when I couldn't find the through line this year, this show was the through line for me.

And I'm just so appreciative of all of you who have written me over the last six months, all the emails and DMs, and those have been a lifeline for me and everybody who shared their stories with us.

It's just amazing what we get to do together here. I know I say this every year.
It just gets truer and truer. Doing this show really is one of the great gifts of my life.

I feel so lucky to be part of your lives in this way. And I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for that.
Thank you for helping me basically turn sap into maple syrup.

You have taught me a lot this year and you guys have really clarified for me the kinds of experiences I want to have from now on and really how I want to spend my time and my energy in 2026.

So I just want to say that. And I want to say I love you guys and I love you, Jordan.
And happy holidays. Same here, man.
Thank you for that, Gabe. Quite a journey you're on.

And despite what you were saying before, all of that actually sounds super meaningful. And there's clearly a through line here, even if it's hard to see sometimes.

Although I love that your big insight was what we bang on about on the show every single week.

You know, one of my favorite James Joyce quotes, which is the most pretentious thing I've ever started to say in my life, but I'm just going to lean into it. One of my favorite James Joyce quotes.

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Maybe there is an upside to escapism.

Yeah, literally couldn't have said that better. He's a brilliant writer.
Maybe you had to go to Japan just to come back with that perspective.

Although I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that I am glad you are not moving to a monastery in Fukuoka or something because I'm not sure you'd survive it and the internet's probably pretty bad there.

That's a good point. Also, not without my jacket, which I think I would probably lose on the way at this rate.
That's right.

A special thing we have here and that we can do it from anywhere in the world. It's been a super cool layer to the show this year.

I selfishly hope that you keep going so we can keep getting stories on the road or from the road and even and especially when they're about how sad you are and they make no sense. I love all of it.

But you know what always makes sense? Taking advantage of the the deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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It really does keep us going and makes it possible to continue creating these episodes week after week. All right.
Back to Feedback Friday.

Before we close out, I just want to second what Gabe said and say thank you to everyone who listens, everyone who writes in, everyone who leaves reviews, and everyone who writes me angry emails about all the things I got wrong this year and how we said full stop too much and I didn't agree with them politically in every single way and how I am a right-wing troll and a leftist turd at the same time.

Seriously, I even appreciate most of those emails, even though I just forward them to Gabe so he can enjoy them too.

So when I was on the Patagonia trip, we did a bunch of sharing circles, which if you listen to the show regularly, Gabe, and I hate those.

The worst sometimes, sometimes. The forced vulnerability, the self-conscious presentation.
I mean, they weren't like that.

Unless I will say, and I think this is where you're going, is when you're with a great group. That is amazing.
This was like, it wasn't forced. The container was there.

The earlier rapport stuff was done. It wasn't hard to do.

So that's actually what I was going to say, because in these circles and inside conversations throughout the trip, a lot of people opened up about some pretty serious stuff going on in their lives.

I'm talking, I just broke up with the love of my life, or my business is on the brink, or I don't know if I have meaning in my life, or my mom just died.

And I got to say, the general level of vulnerability on this trip, it really opened the floodgates. I would say after day four or five, pretty much everyone on the trip is doing the same thing.

And it's liberating. I'm kind of the slowest one, surprise, surprise.
And people will make a joke about it. They'll be like, oh my God, even Jordan's coming around.

All right, the trip is peaking, you know? That's wonderful. Yeah.
It's liberating. It's enlivening.
It was like everyone stopped protecting themselves and wanting to look cool and they just got real.

And I think everyone on the trip feels way better for having been able to do that for the past couple of weeks.

The container, again, that we have for that on Wayfinders is unique, but you can create a mini container like that for yourself with certain friends, with certain family, with your peers.

It is such a gift. And I think everyone on this earth is just dying to share something about themselves or something that's going on in their life.

But a lot of people feel like nobody will understand or they don't have permission to share or it's not appropriate or whatever, when really the best thing you can do is open up about something important in your life and see who takes the bait.

Not everyone will. It won't always hit.
But when one or two people lean in and listen, when they go, oh man, do I have a story for you?

And you remember that everyone's going through their own version of the same human experience.

That kind of disclosure, that vulnerability, which doesn't come naturally for most of us, including me, it really deepens your relationships.

But it'll also make you feel a hell of a lot better about whatever you're going through because you have somebody else in your corner, or at least a sympathetic mind and an outlet to acknowledge things, process things.

I honestly don't know if there's a better feeling than that.

So my final invitation for you this coming year is just that, to share more of yourself, to take a chance to create the container if there isn't one and see what happens.

My experience is that it can be life-changing. But sometimes you have to go first.
Happy holidays, guys. Happy New Year.
Feedback Friday will be back in your feed next week.

As always, January 2nd, the Dues Cruise never takes a holiday, but you can and you should enjoy some quality time with some people who matter or just yourself if you want to microdose some Gabe in Japan level loneliness.

And we will see you soon. Go back and check out John Young on quantum computing and Q Day and our skeptical Sunday on vaping if you haven't done so yet.
Show notes and transcripts are on the website.

Advertisers, discount codes, 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 on Insta, at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sudlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own.

Yes, I am a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, definitely. So consult a professional before implementing anything you hear on the show.
Remember, we rise by lifting others.

Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you all in 2026.

What if the person charming your lonely aunt isn't after love, but her home, her will, and her life savings?

In this preview, Javier Leyva reveals how modern romance scams have evolved into full-blown identity takeovers hiding in plain sight. A lot of con artists, they are very generous at first.

They're the types of people that are going to pick up the tab when you go to dinner. They're buying you stuff.
They're very generous. And they're doing that.

It's almost like they're fattening you up for when they need that favor. When they need that favor, when they need that loan, you wouldn't question it because this guy is so generous.

Why wouldn't I trust him with money? From a distance, we're thinking about these romance games like, how could anybody fall for these things, right?

But the closer you look into it and put yourself in the shoes of the victim, you realize that when you're in the center of the cyclone, it all makes a lot more sense.

Another thing is when somebody smothers you and just consumes all of your time, that's a warning sign too, because what they're doing is that they're cutting you off from your surroundings.

They create the urgency so that you could make stupid decisions and you kind of bypass your reasoning. Don't forget your friends and don't forget your family.

Their opinion counts and you should take it. Honestly, when you start seeing all these signs, you recognize that maybe this is a situation where you got to create personal space.

You have to create boundaries.

Most victims of anti-con artists, they feel so ashamed that they don't want to tell their story because they've been violated their trust and they're no longer trusting people.

To hear how predators turn affection into control, listen to episode 1195 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

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Have a good one. Yep, that too.
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This isn't just a game, it's a once-in-a-generation event. The Harlem Globetrotters 100-year tour.

Celebrate 100 years of high-flying dunks, 100 years of show-stopping moves, and 100 years of changing the game. Bring the whole family and be part of the legacy.
This game is once in a century.

Be there at Chase Center on January 18th. Go to HarlemGlobetrotters.com for your tickets to the 100-year tour.