1121: Ethics Expire with Doctor’s Desire | Feedback Friday

1121: Ethics Expire With Doctor's Desire | Feedback Friday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer helping me give birth to our 2 cents' worth, Gabriel Mizrahi.

[00:00:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: And our mucus plug is definitely passed on that one. Oh, God. That's one of the grossest.

[00:00:16] Jordan Harbinger: Sort of, yeah, just those two words put together.

[00:00:19] Gabriel Mizrahi: Which part? The word itself, or it applied to two bros doing a podcast, . Yeah, you're right. I'm not sure which one of those is more sort of graphic and disgusting, but I mean, it passes every week really. That's right. Usually around, um, I would say Thursday midday. Oof.

[00:00:33] Jordan Harbinger: Oof. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people.

Turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. And 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 from undercover agents, gold smugglers, money laundering experts, astronauts and tech moguls.

This week we had Scott Payne, an FBI agent who infiltrated a biker gang, as well as some other crazy, crazy, just actually insane people, gangs that you would never wanna be a part of if you were searching for a gang to be a part of. I don't know these, you know, it takes all kinds, I suppose. We also had a skeptical Sunday on homeschooling, which many of you hated.

And I can't say I totally disagree with why, and many of you loved, and it's really interesting because many of the people who hated it were educators, and many of the people who loved it were educators. So go back and listen to those two if you haven't done so yet. On Fridays though, we share stories.

Take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites. Marvel at the crazy ish that life can throw our way.

[00:01:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: Speaking of which, you had yourself a night the other night. You wanna tell us, uh, what happened over there?

[00:01:41] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, so for those of you who don't, who didn't sort of see this Instagram story that I threw of the broken window, the door wall, whatever those things are called, on Monday night, I was in my bedroom at 8:00 PM 'cause it was a little jet lagged, a little under the weather, as you can hear, I'm a little stuffed up.

And so I decided to go to bed early. The kids were already being read to in the other room, another book after I finished reading them my book. And I'm laying down and I was looking at Reddit as one does when passing out. It's funny 'cause I was looking at something stupid, right? And then I hear this boom, like a thud that was loud enough that something had hit the house, but it wasn't heavy.

Followed immediately by a real heavy thud that sounded like a fricking tree hitting the window. And I got up and I, I was like, huh. And then I immediately thought, we don't have any trees. We have a fenced in yard, so it's not like an animal ran into the wall. And if it did, it's gotta be a big ass animal.

I mean, we're talking like this sounded like a rottweiler hitting the glass. So I started screaming, get outta here. I'll fucking kill you. I just went psycho, right? And I just went absolutely batshit crazy. And I barricaded the rest of the house from Jen and the kids, and I was like, call 9 1 1. And I still had my phone in my hand.

Wait,

[00:02:55] Gabriel Mizrahi: uh, by this point, did you see anybody? I'm confused. Did somebody? No, I

[00:02:58] Jordan Harbinger: didn't see anybody, but I knew, I felt cold air come in and I saw the curtain fly up. Oh,

[00:03:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: okay.

[00:03:03] Jordan Harbinger: But here's the thing, it was windy and also if a tree had hit the window, it would've pushed the curtain over. I'll tell you later what that ended up being.

But, so I barricaded the rest of the house and I'm holding the door shut, which is like this flimsy interior door with a turn, you know, a little turn latch. Mm-hmm . Jen's like, I can't find my phone. And I'm like, well, I'm holding my phone with one hand, so call nine one one. So we call 9 1 1. It's a little infuriating 'cause you're like, someone's breaking into the house and the guy's like, okay, sir, uh, where are you right now?

And you're like, no, no. You're supposed to be alarmed also , you know, . And of course they're not. Right. They're supposed to stay calm so that you calm down. They're to calm. Yeah, calm right. But I'm just like, no, no, no, you, you kind of feel like, are you not taking me seriously? And of course it's just his training being like, of course I'm taking this seriously, man.

I just don't want you to like lose your mind.

[00:03:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: I just have to be even so I can understand what you're saying.

[00:03:48] Jordan Harbinger: Right. I just don't want you to lose your mind even more than you already are. And I'm . A little bit shaky, but I'm like, oh, well I'll get into my reaction later. I'm a little bit shaky, but I'm also like holding this door shut with a death grip and I'm holding onto the phone and I'm like, you know, I should have both hands free in case I need to punch somebody directly in the face.

So I give the the phone to Jen and she's like, I don't know what happened. I heard two thumps, and then I heard my husband screaming and they're like, the police are on their way. And I'm like, I can feel the cold air blowing in under the door. I know that the door is blasted open. And it wasn't just in my, you know, my imagination because there's always the chance that like people heard something fall outside and they're just freaked out, right?

And I was like, no, I feel the window is broken. I can feel the cold air rushing into the house. So the police come in just minutes, single digit minutes very quickly. I mean, it seemed to me like four minutes or five minutes. And I think when we looked at the videotape, it was something like five or six minutes before they were at our door with the door open.

They were like, get outta the house. So they came in, they looked in the door, they're like, sir, run over here as fast as you can. So I let go of the door and I sprint out the front of the house and I have to say, I'll just pause here and say, the police were amazing. Not only was a response time amazing, but you know how if you've ever had any dealings with the police, sometimes they treat you like you're the criminal, even though you're the one that called them.

And you're like, no, no, no. And you know, or they're like treating you like you're stupid for calling or something like that. And they were like, no, hi. Behind the car, they get on the, they aim all these lights at the house and they're like, what is it? They fan out and they look around the outside of the house and I know something happens because as soon as they get to the backyard, they radio, I don't hear what they say.

But then I hear sirens immediately that are pretty close by, and then six more cars roll up. And I'm like, oh, they found someone or something. So the more cops show up, they aim all the lights and they start going, come out of the house with your hands up. 1, 7, 5, 1, and our street name. You come out with your hands in the air, obey all police commands.

At this point, I'm like, well, the neighborhood sure as shit knows what's going on. . Oh

[00:05:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: my God, this is so intense.

[00:05:52] Jordan Harbinger: It's intense. It's like a grand theft auto mini, you know, side quest. And I'm just like, geez. And they're like, stay behind the car. Stay behind the car. Because they're like,

[00:06:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: you're just behind.

You're behind the car. Like continuing the, we're behind a police car. Continuing to read the Reddit thread that you were enjoying flame lot. Yeah. I'm looking at

[00:06:06] Jordan Harbinger: Hawaiian tropic winners from 1983, zooming in on their faces to see what the makeup from beautiful women in the, in the eighties looked like.

That's actually what I was looking at in my bed. So imagine how jarring this was, right? I'm like, oh, women from the eighties, this is interesting. They look so much more real. boom. Boom. Okay, someone's trying to break into the house while I'm home. So . So the more police come and then . They're like, go, can you go somewhere else?

'cause it's cold. I'm in my underwear by the way. Mm-hmm . And my kids are in their pajamas with no shoes on. Mm-hmm . And so we go in, my brother-in-law's house, who happens to be right next door. And they're like, we'll call you on your phone when we need you, when it's safe. So we look at our cameras, 'cause we've got crazy, you know, we have multiple camera systems and multiple security systems.

So we look at all the camera footage and we see like nine cops go through my whole house with their guns drawn. And they're serious. They're like, check the hallway, check the closet. If anyone's in here, now is the time. Raise your hands in the air and signal to us where you are. I mean, it's pretty like they are like someone is probably, or possibly in the house men business.

Yeah. They're not like, oh yeah, rock the window. So they clear the whole house and then they're like, do you have cameras? We see cameras. Can we look at the footage? So we look at the footage and there's nothing at all at the time that the window broke and we're just mystified. And they're like, well, okay.

Maybe this window's defective and the wind blew it in. And the other cop's like, I don't think so. This didn't even break in the middle, which is where it would break most likely if the wind, so they're like kicking the glass. There's huge pile of, of shattered glass in my house. They're like, Hmm, there would be a rock in here somewhere.

They're like, you didn't find anything, you didn't move anything. I'm like, no. I ran out after charging towards the window to scare whoever it was away I ran left and, and barricaded the door, and they're like, huh, could it be an animal? And they're like, how would an animal get over this fence though? Are you, were your gates open at all?

Did a big animal run in here? They're like, well, there's no fur, there's no blood. And then one of the officers, she goes, why don't we just back up the tape a little bit more in case we have the timing wrong. And sure enough, what we find is one of our security outdoor systems, which is like a totally separate hardwired thing.

It's 11 minutes off the timer. The internal clock is 11 minutes off. Oh wow. We go back another 20 minutes and sure enough, what we find are three dudes who have clearly been to my house before because I've tricky gait latches that are like in weird places and they just without looking almost just do it.

Whoa. They walk in, they go through both gates, they duck under this other floodlight, which turns on, but they just didn't care 'cause they were already inside one of our gates. They go around my house, around towards where my hot tub is, around my gym, and they try to break through these big sliding windows that I have in the back.

But we have a, a screen that went down that they couldn't lift up without making a bunch of noise. What's really scary is they hide behind this box of toys that we have and another guy hides behind the wall, and then one dude uses a glass breaker on my window and then donkey kicks it in. That's what I heard.

Ah, I see the glass breaker that went, boom. And then him donkey kicking the window, and then these guys go to charge in my house to try to get the jump on us. But lo and behold, psycho Jordan was right there going blah, and you can see them freeze like children and then bolt, like they were not expecting anyone to be home, or they were, and they just thought, oh, we're, we're gonna get the jump on this dude.

Oh my God. And I happened to be right there. I happened to have an immediately and very aggressive reaction and they were like, oh, okay. Bye. Thank God you did. So they ran back out that, thank God. Yeah. So they ran out the way they came.

[00:09:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: So their plan, just to be clear, they either thought no one was home and they could just do a quick burglary.

Mm-hmm . Or they were planning on what holding you guys hostage while they did it. Like what's the deal?

[00:09:42] Jordan Harbinger: So we can see them on the cameras looking in our windows to see if people are home or if lights are on. But these geniuses again, who have cased our house, failed to realize that they were looking at blackout curtains.

Oh my. So they probably thought, oh, it's pitch black in there. Not realizing, I'm looking at a curtain genius. I thought

[00:10:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: you were out of town

[00:10:02] Jordan Harbinger: or at dinner or something. Yeah. So they probably saw our nanny pull out at a certain time and then were like, no one's home. 'cause I keep my car in the garage 'cause I'm not an idiot.

You know, why would I park my car in the, got it. So they saw some of our, our help come and go. And they probably were like, okay, this is what time they leave every night or whatever, and they don't come back till the next day. Oh my

[00:10:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: God.

[00:10:19] Jordan Harbinger: So disturbing. It's super disturbing. Yeah. So the cops, it was funny 'cause I felt kind of bad.

I was like, oh my gosh, you know, like we didn't have much of a plan. You know, my Jen, she did a, a good enough job, but also she's like running around the hall holding a baby. And I'm like, you need to lock yourself in the bathroom, not be running around in the living room in circles, you know, . And to her credit, it's like, well, what else are you supposed to do?

You're supposed to take care of the kids. She didn't know whether to run out the front door or stay in the house like I was telling her to do. And the answer is, you stay in the house and barricade yourself in because if they're looking for you, they can just walk around your house and go find you standing in your front lawn.

So that's no good. And she's like, I don't want to be trapped though. So we have to kind of go through this whole thing. We're gonna hire a security consultant and strengthen some of our doorways and stuff like that because. Basically, once you're in the house, it's like you've gotta kick through some crappy plywood painted doors to get into any other part of the house.

And that's not gonna be good if my kids and wife are in the bedroom or if like we end up in the guest room or something. Like we need some place where we can go that's not just like a shoulder check away from the rest of the house. I was kind of bummed about how it all panned out. The cops missed them by like 30 seconds too, by the way.

They ran to our neighbor's house and then you can see them running back because they were like, oh crap, the cops are coming this way and we're in the corner. So they just made it out. They just made it out. These guys every, like the cops are like, this was planned, but these guys were not. I was really disappointed in my glass until I realized they used a glass breaker because this is triple pane tempered glass and it really looks like this 140 pound skinny piece of shit just kicks it with his foot and his ghetto air force ones or whatever.

And, but he used a, a glass breaker and as much as they had watched our house. These guys were hardly professional. I mean, it looks like they play Call of Duty and they're like, we're gonna charge in there. The way they reacted when I was like, Hey, I'll kill you. They, I mean, these are like kids who got busted with their hand in the cookie jar.

These were not like, we've got an xFi plan. I mean, they ran the wrong way towards the road and then ran back 'cause the cops were coming. It's like, you guys are not,

[00:12:21] Gabriel Mizrahi: not top tier talent.

[00:12:22] Jordan Harbinger: No. I mean, they're not, they're not sending their best. Right. So it's like these guys were dumb asses and, and the other thing that was funny was

You can see on the camera where they walk because they're wearing these running shoes that have these reflective strips on them. And I'm like, you guys don't realize that you're actually extra visible at night if you try to hide from the cops with these shoes on, you are visible from a block away with these bright ass running shoes on you, morons.

I mean, that

[00:12:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: gives me some comfort that they're not super professional or good at this, but my God, that's so disturbing. They

[00:12:52] Jordan Harbinger: found a nice house and they're like, we can rob this house and let's go check the gates or whatever. But these guys are not like stealing the Maltese Falcon or whatever. . These guys are just dumb pricks that ordered some crap off of Amazon that breaks glass.

Really. So

[00:13:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: has it been hard to stay in the house since then?

[00:13:08] Jordan Harbinger: For me, no, because I'm, I'm mostly just angry. I've got a board over the window of where I am, but I call my friend is, uh, love him or hate him. My friend is Elon Musk's head of security and I was like, what do I need to do? And he's like, here's what we have.

And he sent me some links to some pretty cool stuff like. Glass that's bulletproof, that are like coatings. You can put over existing windows that's, you can basically take a sledgehammer to it and the glass will shatter, but it won't break. You have a real hell of a time getting in. Of course, the problem is what happens if there's a fire and we need the firemen to get in.

They now need to run the engine through the front door because they can't break the glass. . Yeah. Pick your poison, I guess. I dunno. Yeah, it's pick your poison. So there's some issues there. That we've gotta figure out, I've gotta call the fire department. They might be like, oh yeah, no, we jam a crowbar in there and we like rip it out and it's no problem, don't worry.

But I, I need to make sure because it's far more likely that we have some situation like that than we have the purge 2.0 come to our house.

[00:14:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: You don't live in a purge neighborhood? No, because this stuff happening more in your area or what? It's

[00:14:10] Jordan Harbinger: happening more the cops said, but also they said your house stands out in your neighborhood.

So we bought a house in a nice normal neighborhood and we tore it down 'cause it was like a tear down and we built another house there. There's a few nice houses. It's our house. My brother-in-law's house. The architect who designed our houses lives next door to both of us. And then there's two other nice houses on the street and everything else is from like 1950.

They're normal houses. They're not gross, but it's like, oh, here's a story. Here's a two story house that has a brand new whatever and a Tesla in the driveway. And the other houses are, you know, one story ranches that have a. They look normal. So if you're gonna rob a house on that street, it's gonna be hours.

'cause we got too much glass or my neighbors. So of course my neighbors are like, oh crap, we are all in this area.

[00:14:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: I was about to say, I meant your neighbors must be taking notes on the security stuff that you're looking into.

[00:14:59] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, they are. They're taking notes and it's good because the cops said they probably won't hit our house again, the the same crew, because now they realize that they can't tell when we're home.

Since I didn't hurt any of them, they have no reason to have like some sort of beef with me personally. That's

[00:15:15] Gabriel Mizrahi: comforting. Yeah. And how are the kids since this happened? Do they understand what happened?

[00:15:18] Jordan Harbinger: This is what actually really pisses me off. I don't mind replacing the glass. I don't mind that I have to do security upgrades.

I slept like a rock the next night, so it's obviously not really affecting me. Like I, my ordering sleep scores have been through the roof 'cause I'm sleeping like a baby.

[00:15:30] Gabriel Mizrahi: People should break in more often.

[00:15:32] Jordan Harbinger: They should break in at least once a month and reset my sleep score. Get you eight and a eight and a half hours out of it.

That's right. The thing that really pisses me off is my daughter who's three keeps saying, why are there bad guys? Where are the bad guys? Are the bad guys still hiding? Are they in our house? So I'm really pissed off that these guys scared my daughter and I've been conflicted. 'cause of course for me, I'm like.

I really wish I'd smoked one or two of them and just let 'em bleed out my lawn. .

[00:15:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm sorry, I thought for a second you're like, I really wish I smoked a fat de before this happened. . No, that would've been, that would've been scary. Why would you do that? Because triggers my

[00:16:07] Jordan Harbinger: anxiety and this would've been like proof that it's, it's all in your head, Jordan.

Oh no. Someone's actually trying to break into your house. No, that would've been a terrible kind. Oh, what a nightmare. Yeah. 16 cops in my house and I'm like, no, I'm just really tired guys. I'm just really tired.

[00:16:20] Gabriel Mizrahi: Um, um, I've just been looking at too much Reddit. That's where my eyes are red. Yeah, no, I always have

[00:16:25] Jordan Harbinger: eyes that look like this.

It's totally normal. . Yeah, so that pisses me off 'cause my kids are scared. But as my friend pointed out, 'cause I was like, I really, I should have gotten my strap and just lit the window up and I would've hit at least the guy that kicked in the window and came through. Oh my God, that's so intense. But as my friend pointed out, your daughter is scared because the bad guys that she didn't see at all on camera, I.

The police came. She's a little nervous. This would've been way worse if she's like, why are there two dead people with and giant blood pools in our backyard slash bedroom? That would've been way worse. Right? 'cause she would've seen or heard that. I mean, and they have to take the bodies out. I mean, it would've been hard to hide that from the kids.

Yeah. So this is actually the best alternative, although I do, like most people, I'm sure, who've had a break-in fantasize that I should have just killed one or two of them. Spare me the emails about how these people might have fallen on hard times. I don't care. There's a lot of people who've fallen on hard times.

They don't go breaking into other people's homes, especially while they're home to rob them. So I actually do hope that they get lit up by the next person whose house they break into, and maybe the other two surviving guys in this crew will change their mind about how they make a living. I have zero sympathy for people like this.

They had no problem causing thousands of dollars in damage and scaring my kids. I don't even know what they would've done if they got in the house. I'm sure they would've, at the very least, trashed every room looking for valuables and smashed things. And that would've been super violating. And my wife wouldn't have wanted to live here anymore 'cause it wouldn't have felt safe.

And the cleanup would've taken weeks or months to get everything cleaned up and replaced. So I really have zero sympathy for this kind of stuff. And the cops were like, I'm surprised you didn't go for the kill. And I'm like, you know, I do. They said, wait, they said that to you? The, yeah. The female cop was like, I'm surprised you didn't kill one of them.

I'm like, you know what? I'm actually a little bit surprised slash bummed. And the other cop was like, no, no, no. You did the right thing. You had the perfect reaction. , because I was a little bit bummed. I was like, man, I really should have lit one of these dudes up. She, he's like, no. Because you know, if they're in a gang, they're gonna want revenge against this and like it.

This is the beginning of an ongoing feud. Oh, of course. Between you and them, and he's like, what you did, which was scare the crap out of them. Make them realize they don't know when you're home and when you're not, and then barricade your family safely. That was actually the right reaction.

[00:18:46] Gabriel Mizrahi: I agree with that.

But , well, that's so intense to hear from a cop. Yeah. You should've. Mm-hmm . Taken one of them out. She, that's what she said. She was like, I'm surprised you didn't take at least

[00:18:53] Jordan Harbinger: one of them out. I was like, I did think about it. That's not

[00:18:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: how we do things. . Yeah. Wow. That's so crazy. I'm so sorry this happened to you, man.

What the hell? This is so intense. It

[00:19:04] Jordan Harbinger: happens. This was the best outcome. Literally just pay a few grand to replace. The door wall. And of course we have way more lighting, way more motion sensors, way more locks, upgrades on a lot of different stuff. So it's, it's a, we're a harder target and we didn't have to learn this lesson by getting held at gunpoint or having our whole home trashed.

[00:19:25] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So, no, it's really, you guys are very lucky, very lucky, but it's still very upsetting to have this happen to you. What's

[00:19:31] Jordan Harbinger: scary is like I was robbed before in college. They broke in and stole a bunch of our stuff and it was a quick sort of like, Hey, let's take a watch, a cell phone, an Xbox. They left a lot of other stuff and you know, they took like a video camera.

It was just kind of like, oh, that's a bummer. That's sucks. This is different because this is your forever home. Not some crappy basement. $800 a month in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Apartment 800 was exorbitant. Right. $400 a month equivalent apartment in Ann Arbor that you're gonna leave in a year or six months or whatever it is.

Yeah. But the cops were again, really cool. They were just like, you can email us anytime, call us anytime, even if you just wanna vent. Let us know when you feel better. We care about you feeling at home or safe at home. And they're like, don't live in fear. These guys are, you know, not coming back. Take this queue.

Upgrade your security. I was like, are you guys real police? 'cause I, I was

[00:20:25] Gabriel Mizrahi: about to say, are you sure they were police ?

[00:20:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, Mike, because everything I read about in the media, it's, it really paints you guys in a completely different light. A kid. They were really, really cool and really, really professional.

And I just thought it was funny. 'cause first of all, they're all in the house looking over at my phone playing the, the security video. And one of the female cops, she looks down and at my phone and then she looks down further and I realize I'm still in my underwear. And I hand her the phone and I go, I'm gonna put some pants on.

And she just starts laughing and all the cops start laughing and I assume the joke is, oh, he finally figured out that it's like, Hey dude, you know you can get dressed. You are in your own home, in your bedroom with your phone. What a scene. So I put my pants on and we're just sort of joking around and the one of the guys was like, I gotta see man, it's a really nice house,

And I was like, I had nothing to do with the design. My brother-in-law and my wife designed it. And he goes, is that a gym back there? I didn't check the backyard, but it looks like you had a gym back there. I was like. Lemme cut to the Chase . You guys can use the gym at any time. Please come back anytime and use the gym, preferably after the sun sets, because if, if these guys come back and there's cops working outta the gym, I'm never getting robbed again.

Ever.

[00:21:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay? Yeah. What, first of all, what is this Architectural Digest tour that is now unfolding? ? It Just going to look for the guy, please. What was funny

[00:21:38] Jordan Harbinger: is they're clearing the house with guns, right? Their guns out, and one of them goes. That's a screen back there.

[00:21:44] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

[00:21:45] Jordan Harbinger: Is that crown molding and she, no.

She goes, is that a screened in patio? Are those heat lamps? , and, and the guy's like, check the hallway and the other guy goes, oh yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, this is a heavy door. Oh, he is. He a streamer. There's a lot of lighting. He must, he must be a streamer. And then like, check the hallway, , like get back here. Then they're like, what's in that room over there?

And she goes, there's a backpack, there's a computer, there's a really nice desk in there. And that's it. The room's clear . 'cause I have this custom wooden audio desk for all of the, my stuff that a show fan made. Yeah. And then they go in the bedroom and they go in the kids' toy room and then they're walking through the master where they, the guy had broken in.

And then he's like, what's back there? And she goes, it's a hot tub on an elevated platform. And he goes, nice

[00:22:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: cut to you in the hot tub with all these cops. . Yes. All the cops reviewing, not just the security footage from a couple hours. That's right before, but like for the last several weeks. Mm-hmm .

[00:22:46] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Now it was quite funny like, and they leave and they go again, really nice, really nice house. Really, really nice home you got here.

And I was just like, if anybody said that and it wasn't a police officer, you'd be a little bit like, okay, did you break into my home? Are you the person that broke in

[00:23:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I mean that would explain why they arrived in four minutes.

[00:23:08] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that they were already there? Yeah. They're like, uh, park a block away. Yeah. It would explain

[00:23:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: the response time. It would explain the reflective shoes. , these people don't have to worry about getting caught. That's

[00:23:18] Jordan Harbinger: right. They were super cool, super professional.

I was really. Impressed by that. And I, I, it does make you feel a lot better. And it makes, on the flip side, when you hear about people having bad experiences with the police, it makes you feel really bad for them because it would've felt horrible if they came and they were like, yeah, someone broke in, uh, looks like an inside job to me.

You know? And you hear about that stuff online. You read about that stuff online where cops treat people like they're the criminal after they call them. If that happened, that would feel horrible. So since that did not happen, the opposite happened, it actually felt really good. And really sort of, you feel like the police have your back, which is probably the only thing that can make you feel comfortable again in a situation like this.

So, shout out to San Jose PD for their help. And I know it's hard to get these guys. You can't like buy police things. It doesn't, you're not allowed to do that directly. There's some sort of monetary thing. So what I'm trying to do is get a bunch of the show sponsors to send the police stuff directly. I gotta make sure that that's kosher.

Basically they're getting a bunch of HVMN ketones and IQ bars.

[00:24:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: a one for the whole department.

[00:24:26] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly, yeah. They got a lot of vitamins and minerals,

[00:24:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: new living wills and trusts for everybody in the department. That's right. Top to bottoms. That's

[00:24:32] Jordan Harbinger: right. Yeah. Look, the upside of this whole thing, one of the many upsides is my, my simply safe reads are gonna be fire from now on , because we did use those panic buttons.

Oh, that's good. That was the initial way we triggered it. 'cause Jen's like, I can't find my phone. It, her phone is white and it was on a white bed and it was dark. So she's like, I just can't find it. So she went and hit the panic button and that was what set off the alarm. Now of course we have way more sensors in the, like the whole house.

'cause first we just installed what they'd given us for free with the initial package. But now we have sensors on everything and we have double sensors on some of the bigger sort of entrances and exits. So it's again, you know, you learn to harden the target. It was a lot cheaper than even replacing the glass.

So. I implore all of you. You know, if you don't have a security system, it does work. It did call the cops. And if I weren't there to scare these guys away, the alarm had it gone off, would've scared these guys away. I would imagine. So last but not least, thanks to everybody else who did send me messages and well wishes on Instagram.

I posted the picture of the door. I'm actually gonna post the video the guy's, uh, breaking into, 'cause it's interesting. People are just being super cool about it online. It's, it's sort of repairing a lot of my faith in humanity after the break in as well. Of course, the police response did that too, but everybody was like, oh my God, I'm so glad you're safe.

And sending really nice notes or people I've never heard from or like, okay, I've, I've been a lurker for 10 years. But I, I wanted to say thanks for the show and I'm sorry that this happened to you. I wasn't really expecting that. I really posted that to tease the idea that I'm gonna talk about it on the show like I am now.

And really the takeaway was harden the target beforehand. Get a security system, you know, simplisafe.com/jordan is a good place to start. Get glass break sensors. Make sure that your house is not like using crappy interior doorways. If you do need to retreat inside the house, get those solid core doors from Home Depot if you can find a sale and just make sure you have a plan.

You know, we really didn't have a good plan. A 10 minute discussion about where you should retreat, depending where you are in the house, would've gone a long way. Thankfully we didn't need it. But had they tried to get into the rest of the house and Jen had, you know, a baby in one hand in the middle of the living room, that would've been not great.

I would've personally felt better if she had retreated to the bathroom and locked the damn door. So there's other ways that you can handle this, and we just had never thought about it. And I recommend thinking about that stuff too. So harden the target. Make sure you got the alarm system. Make sure you got a strong interior door system.

Make sure you got a plan. That's really it. You know what? One other takeaway, and this is just for me personally, I've, like I said, I felt bad about not smoking one or two of those dudes because that's like my anger talking. But one of the things that the cop had said was, you know, it's fight flight or freeze, and you fought and then you barricaded your house.

You didn't hide under the blankets. I was like, no one does that. He's like, uh, actually a lot of people will hide under their blankets, which of course is not very effective. But again, if this is something you've done according to Amanda Ripley, you can't feel ashamed of yourself 'cause it's your natural reaction.

I'm glad I didn't have that reaction. Just me personally on the other side of things, I said, oh man, I wish I'd gotten da, da, da. And the cop was like, actually, the way people get hurt, you had the appropriate amount of fight reaction, which was charge at these guys, which I didn't see. Remember, scream at them, scare them away, and then barricade yourself in the family in a safe place.

If you fight too hard, he's like, the way people get hurt is they run into their yard and they tackle one of these guys and then the guy's like, oh crap, now I gotta pull out my knife and get away. 'cause I don't wanna go to jail or get killed by the homeowner. So he is like, the way people get hurt is they fight too much, even when it's not necessary.

So what you wanna do is make sure they don't feel trapped. You wanna scare them right back out the way they came so that they're not thinking, oh, I'm gonna die in this guy's house bark,

[00:28:21] Gabriel Mizrahi: but maybe don't bite.

[00:28:21] Jordan Harbinger: Right? Bark. But don't bite or punch him in the face. Lay him out. And then you get out of the way, right And barricade yourself.

And then he gets up and crawls out the window. He just kicked in. That's the limit of it. Don't right. Try and hold them down to the police. Come. That's how you get shot by their partner or stabbed. So. All right. What's the first thing outta the mailbag?

[00:28:40] Gabriel Mizrahi: Hello, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a traveling nurse and up until six months ago I was friends with a physician who knowingly started a two and a half year affair.

I. With a seriously mentally ill drug addicted patient of hers, my friend said that at first, the taboo and secrecy of the affair were exhilarating, although she knew it was wrong, but the relationship quickly devolved into abuse. My friend said she felt compelled to stay for as long as she did, out of fear of escalating physical violence and the patient's constant threats to tell her employer and family about the relationship.

Ugh, oof. She ended up quitting the job where she met this client due to unsavory rumors before she could be terminated, then abruptly pivoted to another position. Four months later, her affair partner ended up spilling everything during an unfortunate psych hospitalization. When the secret came out, she was fired by her new employer, which then filed a report with the medical board for an ethics violation.

Oh

[00:29:38] Jordan Harbinger: God, what a mess. What a predictable mess.

[00:29:41] Gabriel Mizrahi: The medical board conducted an investigation and published the findings on the State's website. But my friend hired a very expensive employment attorney to represent her, and in my opinion, the worst of the lurid details and the overall degree of harm were severely underrepresented.

Her license is now suspended, and last I heard she's trying to get it reinstated. This was a large part of why I ultimately decided to end our friendship. I just couldn't believe her when she said she fully understood the harm she had done and that it wouldn't happen again in the future. Also, this isn't the first affair she's had.

This one just had the worst fallout. Meanwhile, her husband of 15 years has stuck by her through every infidelity. Oh geez. I believe my friend, 100% when she says she was afraid of this patient, and I'm upset by the thought that she felt trapped by a scary, abusive person for so long. But I'm also really disturbed and can't get over what I see as my friend's brazen willingness to overlook her professional ethics and take advantage of a vulnerable, unstable person to meet her own selfish needs frame like that.

I do kind of blame her for what happened during the affair, but only in the very beginning when she had more power in the relationship and chose to open that door. She says that I'm being an unsupportive friend for taking that moralistic stance, which unfairly flattens her experience of the fear and abuse, and that that makes me not only a bad person, but also an unprofessional practitioner engaging in a disgusting amount of victim blaming

Okay? But this whole situation has made me question whether that's fair. I don't want to be seen as an unapproachable friend for fear of judgment, and I'm having a tough time parsing my emotions. Am I being unfair and overly rigid in my judgment and my friend here? Signed. Am I a clear thinker or am I just pointing a finger?

[00:31:36] Jordan Harbinger: Wow, this is a wild story, man. . Fascinating. So isn't it insane? First of all, I'm, I'm with you. I'm very sorry that your friend got involved with what sounds like a very troubled, very dangerous patient. I'm sorry for his troubles to some degree too. And I'm sorry that she overlooked them or just didn't recognize how serious they were or would become, or maybe she totally did and just decided not to let that stop her.

The abuse that she experienced, the blackmail, all of that must have been terrifying. And it sounds like your friend went through a nightmare and that's awful. And your friend chose to enter into a romantic relationship with this guy knowing that he was mentally ill, knowing that he struggled with addiction while she was married and not for the first time, knowing that that was wrong, knowing that it was a violation of her professional ethics and would get her fired and put her in a compromising position that that guy would have leverage over her.

I mean, come on. As you know, physicians have a clear ethical obligation to avoid romantic relationships with patients. Healthy, unhealthy, stable, unstable, sober off the wagon, doesn't matter. It's a no-go. The American Medical Association, and most if not all state medical boards, they strictly prohibit relationships between doctors and patients because it exploits the power imbalance inherent in the physician patient relationship and engaging in a romantic relationship with a patient who has mental health challenges.

That's particularly unethical because the patient's vulnerability increases the potential for exploitation or harm. And the power dynamic in the relationship is even more complicated. Now, there are some exceptions to this. The main one of course, is if enough time has passed to dissolve the physician patient relationship and any influence it might have had.

But even then, the appropriateness of the relationship depends on the nature of the previous relationship, the amount of time that has passed, the patient's mental health, their capacity to give informed consent, none of which apply to your friend because she started seeing her patient while he was still her patient.

So it makes sense that the medical board did an investigation that her license was suspended as it should be. These ethics, they are not just nice words if you violate them. If somebody files a report, you can lose your whole career. Duh. That's the point. Gabe, this is reminding me of that letter we took from the listener whose psychiatrist hit on her a few.

This was a few months ago last year. Oh, yep. Am I remembering this right? He lost his license too, or wasn't he? Sort of like, I'm gonna retire now quickly.

[00:33:55] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I think he voluntarily gave up his license to avoid a full investigation. That was episode 9 31, by the way. And then we aired the update to that story on episode 9 61.

Fascinating story. Some parallels there. These doctors,

[00:34:08] Jordan Harbinger: man, I just don't understand how they make these decisions. Obviously there's something wrong with them. Now look, your friend didn't know this guy would turn out to be so dangerous. So I have some, some compassion for her there. Once the abuse really began, I'm sure she was terrified and in over her head and that's awful.

But you're absolutely correct. She brazenly flouted her professional ethics in getting involved with this patient. She placed her own needs first. This is not her first affair. This is apparently a pattern for her. She had more power in the relationship at the start and she actively chose to engage with him.

And that decision could arguably be construed as taking advantage of a vulnerable patient, even if it ultimately turned out that he was the one taking advantage of her. Now, apparently that's hard for her to take in, but that's not victim blaming and actually calling that victim blaming. In my opinion, it's kind of an insult to actual victims.

What you are saying is you experienced abuse from an unstable person that was objectively horrifying, and you have my empathy and my sadness that this scary guy treated you this way and you bear some responsibility. A great deal of the responsibility I would argue, for getting involved with this guy in the first place.

You knowingly entered into a relationship that was explicitly prescribed and clearly very risky. Right. Both of those things can be true and both of those things are true.

[00:35:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. And the fact that she's responding to that by saying, you are being an unsupportive friend. You are being moralistic, you're, what was it?

Flattening my experience of the fear, the abuse. You're a bad person. Yeah, it's nuts.

[00:35:34] Jordan Harbinger: I'm sorry. That's insane. She is a kook for coming to that conclusion. That's ridiculous.

[00:35:39] Gabriel Mizrahi: If that's actually what she said. What I'm hearing is a person who is just deflecting hard. Yes. I mean, there's a lot of projection happening there.

[00:35:46] Jordan Harbinger: This, you know what, she's had like a dozen affairs or whatever it was from her, her partner of 15 years. It's always somebody else's fault. You gotta support me. This person is, she's also got whatever sort of mental health challenge going on with her. I. Dude, you're an unsupportive friend. After she literally told her, Hey, I believe you a hundred percent.

When you say you were afraid of this guy. I'm upset by the thought that you felt trapped by a scary, abusive person for so long. You're an unprofessional practitioner. . That's the one that gets me. Yeah. Like what are you talking about? What are you freaking talking about? She's the one who started banging her mentally ill patient.

What on earth is wrong with you? So unprofessional.

[00:36:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: Obviously this brings up some very big questions about her mental state. To your point, I mean, this old friend of hers is either a bit unstable or not fully in touch with reality. Yeah. Or she is so ashamed of what she did that she feels she has no choice but to project all of that shame and hurt and fear onto our friend here.

Right. 'cause it's just too uncomfortable.

[00:36:44] Jordan Harbinger: Either way, this woman is isolating herself. If she can't even make room for the idea that she might have played a little bit of a role in all this, there's no real conversation to be had.

[00:36:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: I agree. My only caveat is we don't know exactly how you articulated all of this to your friend.

I mean, if you said to her everything you shared with us, then I am 100% what Jordan you're saying and doing all the right things. You're on solid ground. If you jumped maybe a little too quickly to pointing out her many mistakes or, which, by the way, not totally outta line on your part. Mm-hmm . I'm just saying if you did do that a little quickly, or if you didn't communicate your empathy as clearly as you did in your letter.

Or you made this conversation primarily about the ethics thing and she felt misunderstood or overly judged or whatever, then I, I might, might understand part of her reaction.

[00:37:27] Jordan Harbinger: Maybe.

[00:37:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't get the sense that that's what happened.

[00:37:29] Jordan Harbinger: No, look, it doesn't change the fact that she chose to sleep with a vulnerable, unstable patient.

She screwed up massively. Full stop. I mean, I don't know if I would be kind if someone called me and was like. I painted myself into this corner, I'd be like, oh man, I'm really sorry that you're in that situation. You do realize this is a hundred percent your fault, right? , you're an idiot. I don't wanna be friends with you anymore.

You're toxic. Go away.

[00:37:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: What I'm wondering is, does her reaction to our friend here also speak to her personality? I think the answer is , almost certainly, yes. Yeah. Does it explain some of her questionable decision making when it came to engaging with a patient? ?

[00:38:00] Jordan Harbinger: It must, right? I don't think these qualities just pop up out of the blue.

She's got her dumb enabling partner with her too, who is stuck with her through all that infidelity, like, geez, get away from these people. Yeah,

[00:38:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: that's an interesting subplot. I mean, that guy is putting up with a lot. I'm just picturing this woman three years ago, trying to decide whether to get involved with this guy, and if she's a person who struggles to control her impulses, who's not very self-aware, who clearly can't bear other people's appropriate judgment of her, who can't confront aspects of herself that are concerning, all of which showed up in these conversations with our friend here, I could also see that person throwing caution to the wind.

And sleeping with a patient she knows is bad news,

[00:38:37] Jordan Harbinger: right? To say nothing of what else she might've been getting out of their relationship.

[00:38:41] Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, let's also remember that one thing she was getting out of it was a thrill. She said that at first, the taboo and secrecy of the affair were exhilarating, although she knew it was wrong.

I mean,

[00:38:50] Jordan Harbinger: I completely forgot about that part. Okay, this, this woman is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Like, oh yeah, I'm breaking all these rules. It's a real thrill. You're just gonna gamble with your marriage and your career 'cause you need a thrill. You are there is screws, l multiple screws loose with you.

[00:39:05] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's one way to put it.

The other way to put it is that we're hearing about a person who's thinking sounds very black or white, you know, she probably struggles to hold multiple feelings, straddle multiple perspectives. So it sounds like from this doctor, friend's point of view, she's either a totally blameless victim or she's a reckless predatory monster.

And her friend, the woman writing in is either a loyal, compassionate champion or she's this judgmental moralizing enemy. The reality is that both are true to some degree. I don't think our friend here writing in is the enemy, but the doctor friend could try to have a foot in both of those realities, right?

Yeah. E,

[00:39:44] Jordan Harbinger: especially the first part. What I don't get is, why is that so hard? I mean, this woman's story is literally a perfect example of how two things can be true. She chose to engage with a mentally ill patient, and he did some awful things to her. Those are the facts, so you know, why fight it?

[00:40:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, yeah, but this is the challenging thing about personalities like this.

It can be a little bit disturbing to confront that. There are some people who really can't do that. I do think the shame is a big part of this. I would not be surprised if this woman struggles to bear that particular feeling. Probably a lot of difficult feelings. I also think that holding multiple feelings and multiple truths at the same time can be very distressing.

For some personalities more than others, it can be hard to just bear the tension of that, but also black or white thinking. That's also an example of what's called splitting.

[00:40:34] Jordan Harbinger: Splitting, okay. I've never heard of this. Tell me about this.

[00:40:37] Gabriel Mizrahi: So splitting is a really interesting defense mechanism and people tend to engage in it when they need to cope again with painful or overwhelming feelings, because splitting simplifies the world.

It takes a complicated situation or an ambiguous situation like this one, and it turns them into categories that are more easily understood. So. When someone engages in splitting, people become all good or all bad, right? Like totally loving or totally judgmental. And situations become, you know, totally supportive or completely unfair.

There's very little, if any, gray area.

[00:41:10] Jordan Harbinger: It does sound like what's going on here? That's fascinating. I didn't realize that was a coping mechanism. Wait, didn't her friend accuse her of flattening her experience of the fear and abuse, whatever that means? She did say that. Yeah. But isn't that exactly what she's doing?

By being so black or white about this isn't splitting the way that you flatten her experience of herself so that it's more tolerable.

[00:41:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's Wow. Good point. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:35] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, just lawyering up over here. If you're gonna use therapy speak, I'm gonna use that lawyer speak, gonna hit you back. So once, once again, she's accusing our friend here of doing the very thing that she's doing.

And our friend here isn't, by the way, even doing that, in my opinion. And meanwhile, she can't even make room for the idea that she might have played even some small role in this, which is ridiculous. Cool projection, bro. Ah, that is fascinating. Yeah. Better help.com/jordan. Just saying, geez, . Yeah. Nice plug.

Mm-hmm .

[00:41:59] Gabriel Mizrahi: You know what I really like about this letter, it raises an interesting question, which is, what do we owe our friends when they make a really big mistake? That's a big one, because, yeah. Well, it depends, obviously. It does depend. Every situation is unique, of course, and I think everyone's values are different.

You know, different people have different thresholds for what they're willing to put up with from their friends, but generally speaking, I think people deserve precisely what our friend here offered this woman. Empathy, curiosity, understanding, nuance, and also the willingness to say, yo, these are values that I actually believe in.

These are the standards that we all need to hold ourselves to. I hold the rest of my friends to the same bar. I personally don't find that judgmental. I find that appropriately discerning, you know, like having some basic, strong values around behavior. That's empowering actually, because . What she's saying is, Hey, at the end of the day, we're still responsible for ourselves here, especially when you are the doctor.

[00:42:51] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, dude. Same. You have to take accountability for your piece of things, even when they're not entirely your fault. Although I still feel this woman largely brought this on herself, or at least was playing with fire. The rules are there for freaking reason. I think a lot of people have a skewed sense of what judgmental means or when it's warranted and when it's not warranted.

First of all, expecting people, even people who love you to not be judgmental at all. What is that? That's some kind of fantasy. We're all judgmental to some degree, some of us more than others, and yeah, it's generally more helpful to be less judgmental than more fine, but I don't know if it's fair to expect a friend, and it's definitely not fair to expect a colleague in your profession to not have any thoughts and feelings about something as important as professional ethics, because also not all judgments are wrong.

Like you said, there is such a thing as helpful values, appropriate discernment. So when this friend turns around and goes, you're being judgmental. You're flattening my experience with your moralizing. Okay, that's a totally bogus argument. This woman deserves some judgment. She doesn't necessarily deserve cruelty.

She doesn't necessarily deserve to be hated or whatever, but a fair reminder that she abandoned her good judgment and ethics is totally fair game. And like Gabe said, how you communicate all this to her, that obviously plays a big role in how she experiences your judgment. But a person who can't tolerate other people having a freaking opinion about whether she was right or wrong, to sleep with a mentally ill patient under her care, I'm sorry, but that person is narcissistic and possibly delusional or just incredibly naive and annoying

So no, you're not being unfair here. You know, you're not being overly rigid, especially given how this woman has responded to you. If she'd gone, oh God, I'm really angry at you for not taking my side. I feel gross about how you view me. I feel like I was the victim, but I also chose to sleep with him. I'm embarrassed.

I'm confused. I'm ashamed. That would be a different story. That would be a person making room for both realities, living with the tension of what happened to her, like Gabe said. But I. As long as she is choosing to understand what happened to her through this lens. I'm afraid she's being unfair and rigid and you know, maybe that's not entirely her fault in the sense that God knows what happened in her life to make her this way.

But as we talk about all the time, this is her responsibility to sort out and get her shit together, in my view. You're good to move on. I would not want to be friends with anybody like this. You should feel secure in your standards and your values. Look, I hope this woman finds her way into therapy, into more nuance, into better choices from here on out, but I don't see why you have to be around any of this crap.

In the meantime, I wouldn't touch this person with a 10 foot pole. And now please support our sponsors so I can put a laser site on my nine millimeter. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Delete Me. Ever get one of those emails that makes you think, how do they even know this about me?

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Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now, back to feedback Friday. All right, what's next?

[00:48:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, both my parents immigrated to the us, spoke some English and were very religious. They had six children, and I am the oldest. I played a key part in raising my brothers and sisters and also protecting them as my parents were physically and emotionally abusive.

Many years later, my parents acknowledged that they were limited parents, but they still pick favorites among their children. You guessed right. I'm the responsible one, but not their favorite. Do you think this person means that they said that? Or is that just like in the air?

[00:48:50] Jordan Harbinger: Uh, you know, that's interesting.

Like they

[00:48:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: just get the sense that that's what it is. It's

[00:48:54] Jordan Harbinger: hard to say that somebody would say that. I think it just becomes really obvious. There's people I know where I'm like, wow, your brother is really the favorite in the family. And it's like, I know they'll buy him a car and a house and they're like, you need to get a job

She's

[00:49:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: like, what? I mean, that's like a blatant example. I mean, that's hard enough, but when that happens and you were the one who is tasked with raising the rest of them because they were abusive, that's really painful. Yeah. No, that's, that's messed up. I've worked through these issues over time and have managed to create a peaceful and happy life for myself and my husband.

That is fantastic. I love that. On the rare occasion that I visit my family, they're kind to my husband say hello and even call or text him. Recently I gave my sister a gift at her birthday and she texted my husband, thank you. He walks in the warm sunshine of my family while I'm still stuck in the arctic chill.

We generally have a strong marriage, but this really hurts. I've explained to him how it makes me feel, and that my expectation is that he draw boundaries by reflecting to my family members that if they wanna say something to me, they shouldn't communicate through him. My husband also comes from a broken home and will not visit his family without me.

He likes having me there because he says they treat him better when I'm around. His family knows that I support my husband a hundred percent and don't say anything bad about him to me because they know that I back him. Yet my family treats my husband very well and me poorly. My husband is seen how they treat me and acknowledges that it's wrong, but he doesn't stand up for me either.

How do I deal with this? No win situation? Signed, feeling screwed and looking for a way through. This Aya Yahi. Maru Coba. What? Yeah. I hadn't heard of this either. The listener came up with this one, so, okay. The Aya Yahi. Maru, I guess it's a training exercise in Star Trek . I did not know about this. Okay.

Apparently it's some kind of no win scenario that's designed to test a cadet's character and skills.

[00:50:45] Jordan Harbinger: Honestly, it just sounds like a ramen place.

[00:50:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: sounds like something you'd order at the sushi restaurant. That's right. All chef have the Cohi Maro.

[00:50:52] Jordan Harbinger: Well, alright. Well, excellent choice, sir.

[00:50:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, sounds pricey.

Yeah,

[00:50:56] Jordan Harbinger: that's you. There's no Ccae. And then there's the Kobayashi Maru, and then

[00:51:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: there's a Aya Maru. Yeah,

[00:51:01] Jordan Harbinger: for special occasion. Look, I'm not a Star Trek guy obviously, so I've never heard of it. But that's fitting, isn't it? Because this does sound like a no win situation. And in a way, I guess these two families, they are designed to test her character, her emotional skills.

So let's start by acknowledging just how difficult these parents must be. They were physically and emotionally abusive, which is terrible. They apparently pick favorites among their children, which I can't really wrap my head around as a parent. I don't know if they do this overtly or subtly, but either way, that's, yeah, it's super hurtful.

And

[00:51:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: then parentified from a young age, which always does a number on a kid. It does,

[00:51:35] Jordan Harbinger: yeah. It's sort of one of those things where parents probably think it's okay in the moment, and then it just turns out to be a really bad idea. She's the oldest. It sounds like. She became a surrogate mother and or father to her siblings, and she felt a responsibility to protect them, which means she probably lost out on having a real childhood of her own.

That comes with its own unique trauma and then years later, all her parents are gonna say, this is what really pisses me off. They were limited. That's just, yeah,

[00:52:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: comically understated.

[00:52:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Seriously. Good effort guys. Well, we were limited. What a euphemism. That makes me wanna punch somebody in the face.

You know, you made, wanna dig into that a little bit more? Mom and dad, can you try ? That's talk about not accepting a shred of responsibility.

[00:52:15] Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, clearly they can't really try. Yeah. It must be painful for them. Or maybe it's impossible to just even go near that topic, you know, brings up a lot, I would imagine.

[00:52:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Maybe they have no idea the damage they caused. Yeah. I'm honestly not sure which is worse, but either way, that makes all of this harder. But I'm happy to hear that you've worked through some of these issues over time, that you've created a life that's peaceful and happy. That's a massive accomplishment.

I'm sure it took a lot of time and a lot of work. And honestly, that's the greatest victory you could have over a family like this. Being healthy, being fulfilled, having a successful marriage. So you've already won. But I'm also hearing that there's still this wound here, which you know, of course there is.

And it's getting activated whenever you visit your family, which makes sense. And even more when you see your family being super nice to your husband. Honestly, that behavior is so odd. It makes me wonder if there's something big that we're just not getting here. Like do they, do they have some reason for treating your husband better?

Is there some reason they prefer to go through him?

[00:53:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: I was wondering the same, but I assume she would've told us if there was some glaring reason that her family is nicer to her husband. It just sounds like, yeah, they're just nicer to him. They're not as kind to her. Yeah, she

[00:53:20] Jordan Harbinger: would've told us. Yeah, she would've said something, right?

I think so, yeah. Unless she's trying to shape the narrative here. But given that everything her parents have done, I'm getting the sense that she's not the bad guy here. I can only assume that your family finds it easier to be nice to your husband because your relationships with them are fraught because they've probably become strained over the years and they just, it's easier to interact with this new guy,

[00:53:39] Gabriel Mizrahi: or your siblings might be working through their own complicated feelings about you based on this childhood, which affected everybody, right?

[00:53:45] Jordan Harbinger: I'm sure they each have their own traumas. The wounds always echo in every relationship in a family.

[00:53:50] Gabriel Mizrahi: Even the siblings who are your parents' favorites. I mean, being treated as exceptional as more loved or more approved of than another sibling, that's also damaging. You know, whether they recognize that as a wound or feel it's a point of pride, I imagine that that's also informing how they treat her,

[00:54:06] Jordan Harbinger: right?

So there's a lot going on in your family, whereas your husband came into the picture long after that. He doesn't carry any of these old wounds, these patterns. So it might be easier for your family to be kind to him. And you know, now that I think about it being nice to him, maybe in some weird way that's actually their way of being nice to you because their relationship with you isn't the greatest.

Or because you guys struggle to express yourselves, I wonder if they might be giving your husband that kindness and hoping it somehow transfers to you. That's a charitable interpretation of what's happening. I might be totally wrong, but it could be in the mix. And all that said, I don't think any of this is cool.

I completely understand why you find this hurtful.

[00:54:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I do too. And I'm not totally sure that it's fair to hold it against your husband. You want him to pull back. You want him to say, Hey, if you wanna say something to your sister, don't text me. Make it a group chat. Pick up the phone. And I get it. Maybe that would be a nice thing for him to do.

Maybe hearing that would make your siblings realize that they're, they're not being the most thoughtful to you. And if your husband wants to play that role, it's an option and it might be an interesting approach. He can also do that in a slightly less confrontational way than what you're imagining. He could say, Hey guys, you know, just so you know, Mary is actually the one who chose that gift for you.

She put some thought into it. I'm sure it would mean a lot if you texted her thank you directly. You know, something like that.

[00:55:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's nice. I'd be curious to see how they'd respond to that. If it would change anything. Maybe it would require something stronger. These

[00:55:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: siblings seem tough, even if nothing changed, that would still be good for you and your husband to know.

But look, I'm sure that part of what hurts here is that this dynamic they have with your husband, it's kind of recreating the whole wound from your parents, isn't it? They're choosing someone close to you over you in a way, and it feels like no one is really standing up for you, which is precisely what you must have felt growing up.

You were the responsible one. You were the one making sure everybody else was safe, that everybody else was well cared for, and based on what you've shared, it sounds like no one was really doing the same for you. So of course this hurts extra hard, and of course you want your husband to stand up for you.

I get it. I also think it's important to see that this anger and the sadness that you feel, which by the way, totally appropriate and important. But they might not be feelings you can reasonably ask your husband to fix on his own. Because first of all, I'm not convinced that he can, although it might be worth giving it a shot.

Second, even if he does succeed, that's not gonna change the past. Healing that pain is something that only you can ultimately do, and you would still be interacting with a family that whether they intend to or not seems to cause you a lot of pain. Your parents anyway. Sometimes your siblings, since they seem pretty unlikely to change at this point,

[00:56:47] Jordan Harbinger: right?

So what can her husband really do about that? He might be able to change the surface behavior a little bit, but there's no guarantee that she won't still get injured.

[00:56:55] Gabriel Mizrahi: I guess what I'm inviting her to do is to be more curious about what she's actually bringing to her husband when she asks him to do this.

What are her expectations around this request? Because given who her parents are and how they treated her and the role that she played in this family, I think what she's asking her husband here is more than just, Hey, can you be on my team? Can you help me out? I have to imagine that there's a wish buried in that request, kind of a, a longing, a very profound longing to not feel alone, to not feel undefended, to not be abandoned again and again.

That is so fair. But as a starting point, it might be helpful for her to fully appreciate what she's actually asking her husband to do, what she's saying to him and why it hurts her so much when he doesn't stand up to them, which whether that's his job to do or not, is ultimately not his fault.

[00:57:42] Jordan Harbinger: But I can see why her anger is being directed at him.

'cause he's now the proximate cause of her pain. She's saying, help me stand up for me. And he is going, Hmm, okay, maybe let's see. Or maybe he's just straight up saying no. But what you're saying is she might feel like he's hurting her or letting her down by not trying to rewrite her family dynamics, which really this pain is just her parents all over again, but located in him.

[00:58:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, exactly. And if she sees that it won't fix everything overnight, but it might help her feel a little less pain around it or give her a better sense of where to direct that pain. At that point, I hope that she would be in a better position to decide what to do about this anger, about the sadness, because you know, maybe she decides that she does need her husband to help her with her siblings, but if nothing changes, maybe it won't hurt as much because she'll now have better expectations.

She'll know what she's invested in this outcome. Or maybe she decides, you know what, I'm gonna text my siblings myself. I was kind of outsourcing that to my husband. Now I see why, but let me give this a go. You know? And maybe she text them like, Hey guys, it's really sweet that you text Dan. I love that you guys have a relationship with him.

But if you ever wanna say something to me, just text me or text us both, you know, it would mean a lot to me and it would really help us stay close. Nice. I like that. Or who knows? She might decide to take this anger and sadness to her parents. You know, Hey mom. Hey dad. I know this is tough to talk about, but there's some stuff about my childhood that I'd like to share with you, or there's some things you guys do.

I. Today that still kind of hurt my feelings and I'd like to work on it if you're open to that.

[00:59:08] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Go straight to the source. If these parents can even hear that.

[00:59:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Like maybe they can. Maybe they can. But in a way that's not really the point. The point is how can she be fully in touch with this wound?

How can she have a better handle on her expectations for how it gets resolved? And in a world where her family doesn't treat her any better, can she learn to hold this anger and the sadness and the grief on her own and find her own ways of working through it? That's what her letter is really about, I think.

[00:59:36] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Yeah. 'cause that's a very different person saying those things. It's also a very different person learning to heal this wound if her siblings brush this off, which I, I hope that doesn't happen, but it might. And then what? She might not be mad at her husband anymore, but she'll still have to make sense of this old pain, which now that I think about it, is that another unconscious wish buried in this request to her husband, is she?

I. Maybe hoping that he'll stand up to her siblings and that all will be well and then she won't have to be in touch with the pain at all. It's just something to consider. Maybe another contour to all this. Alright. I just wanna point out one other thing about this letter, which is the symmetry between these two families.

Yeah, that is fascinating. Let's talk about that. He also comes from a broken home. He won't visit his family without her. He says they treat him better when she's around. Obviously I find it interesting. They both come from difficult families and they both struggle in different ways with their parents.

I'm sure that's part of their bond. They have that shared experience there, but that's also part of why she's angry. 'cause she stands up for her husband and he's not doing the same thing for her. So that gives her more ammunition, so to speak. But does that automatically mean that he should intervene in her family the way that she apparently does or is willing to do in his, do these two families respond to messages like this in the same way?

Maybe that is reasonable to expect, but also. Maybe she's assuming that he'll have the exact same results when the dynamics are possibly totally different. It's just one last thing to consider. Again, I'm very sorry that your family's treating you this way. It sucks. I hope you find a way to improve these dynamics if that's possible.

And I also hope that you'll find the acceptance and courage to bear the grief of potentially discovering that you can't change the dynamics because that's possible too. And while I'm totally rooting for you, that might be the superpower that your family is here to teach you, sending you and your husband a big hug and wishing you both the best you can.

Reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Use descriptive subject lines. If you're hiding a dark family secret from your partner, a narcissistic gun loving fascist has hijacked your friend group, or you're locked in a never ending custody battle with your psychotic ex, whatever's got you staying up at night lately.

Hit us up friday@jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Oh, uh, by the way, our newsletter, we bit wiser. It's a bite-sized gem. Every Wednesday, two minute read. Very practical. It's a great companion to the show. Come check it out. Jordan harbinger.com/news. All right, what's next?

[01:02:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, I've worked in my current company for almost 15 years. Our brand is currently number one in our industry. It was privately owned when I started and has since gone public during my time here recently. The CEO of our parent company announced that our headquarters will be moving from our current blue collar city to a much larger metropolis.

Associates are being given the choice to opt in or out for the move. If we opt in, we receive some pay increase in assistance with moving expenses. If we opt out, we receive a six month severance, but only if we stay until a certain date, which is still being determined. The best estimate for the big move is around two years.

I have a wife and kids and I'm well settled in my current location, so I have no interest in moving. I haven't received my pay package yet, but from what I've heard from those who have. It doesn't even cover the cost of living difference. Now I'm stuck deciding between jumping ship now and missing out on my severance or sticking it out till the end and entering an unknown job market years from now.

If I leave now, I leave a significant amount of money on the table, but if I stay, I worry what work life will turn into as associates begin to leave and remaining associates become less engaged. Also, our executives estimate that only 10 to 20% of associates will make the move. I fear that it will be far less.

Hearing that and knowing they're okay. Losing 80% of the company that helped us reach number one in our industry really hurts. What advice do you have? Any dark Jordan suggestions? How do I stay motivated if I do stay signed in a bad mood about this headquarter move? Should I stay and get paid or avoid getting played?

[01:03:41] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, interesting question. So first of all, I can see why this big decision is bringing up all these big questions and probably some intense feelings. Anxiety, fear, sadness, a lot of unknowns here. Unknowns are stressful and they're confusing. I know this can be well overwhelming, especially because you have so little control here.

In a way, you do have a big choice to make, make the move to the new city or stay put, although it sounds like in a way you've already made that choice. You wanna stay. The real choice is how long to stay put do you leave now? Do you leave in a year or two? And you have some good reasons either way.

Basically, the variables are money, morale, motivation, and job prospects in a year, 18 months, two years. Okay, fine. But here's the thing, you can't predict the future. You don't have control over most of this, and most importantly, you're trying to game out scenarios without having access to all the information.

What the economy's gonna be like down the road, how your company's gonna operate with fewer employees, how future you is gonna feel in that new environment. You're trying to make a perfect decision amid a ton of uncertainty, which is impossible. So you're not wrong to be asking these questions. They're good questions.

I'm just not sure that they're gonna lead you to very helpful answers. So my take is this, rather than try to make this decision perfectly now, I would start proactively working on all the things you'd wanna have in place. When you do make this decision, I'm talking about the nuts and bolts, your relationships, warming up your connections, making new ones, getting a sense of what jobs are out there right now, putting feelers out, creating a good tribe for yourself, all of that.

Your skills, your knowledge, your talent, getting clear on what you have to offer, filling in any gaps in your experience, learning how to tell that story, continuing to perform well at your job, paying attention to the signals that are telling you to either stay or leave reading the tea leaves, and generally just creating as many opportunities as possible for yourself.

Because having a job offer in hand that's concrete, that's real. Then you'd be in a position to go, do I take this offer now or do I stick it out another six months and get my severance? Or do I somehow push this offer by six months so I can enjoy both? Whatever that looks like. But trying to game out a hypothetical decision in a hypothetical future that's only gonna send you around and around in circles, and it's mostly pointless because there really isn't a decision to make.

So the best advice I can give you is don't torture yourself with confusion. Don't drive yourself crazy with speculation. You need to channel that energy into investing in yourself, creating concrete opportunities for yourself. That's ultimately all that matters, and that's actually all you can control.

And I promise if you do that, the right decision will become obvious to you. You won't have to think about it so much, whereas you can debate forever about something that doesn't really even exist.

[01:06:20] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, good point. I totally agree with that. Also, I find it really interesting that he has such an emotional connection to this place.

You know, he's loyal and he is passionate, and I find that really sweet. I mean, that says a lot about him. He sounds like a really solid employee, but his company is also making a big decision here. They're trying to move the whole company to another city. From this blue collar town where he lives to this big, like they're moving them to New York City or something.

They're apparently willing to lose like 80% of their staff along the way.

[01:06:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, 80 or 90%, which is bananas. They, this is them trying to figure out how to just take down the entire company. I don't really understand what they're doing. Yeah.

[01:06:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, that did occur to me. It makes me wonder if this might just be an easy way for them to clean house without having to fire 80 to 90% of their staff, or at least to find out who's, you know, quote unquote serious enough to stick with them.

But either way, it's a brutal decision. So I know this hurts and that's part of what he's wrestling with and how is he gonna stay motivated when his colleagues start to leave and all of that. But given what his parent company is doing here, I do think it's worth asking if this emotional investment in this place still makes sense.

You know, I get why he feels that way, because he worked there for 15 years and he helped get them to number one. So his investment is beautiful and is logical. But this might be one of those tea leaves that you just mentioned, Jordan, you know, time to notice when. Your attachment to this place is not always being reciprocated or reflected by your employer.

And maybe that'll also make it easier for you to know when to leave, when to make this decision.

[01:07:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I don't get it. This is gonna be one of those things where they find out later, like private equity actually acquired the company and they were gonna fire everyone and this is just an easier, cheaper way to not do that.

[01:07:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: Or they're positioning the company for private equity and they're just trying to slash costs could be right? Yeah.

[01:08:03] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And good point by the way. 'cause like why torture yourself with sentimentality? Why worry about how you're gonna stay motivated when your company is really just trying to get rid of everyone in clean house?

That energy might be misplaced. I get it. All change hurts. But on that note, I would encourage you to become as friendly as possible with uncertainty. You strike me as a guy who likes to plan, who likes to control, who likes to know. I'm the same way. So I get it, but the older I get, the more I realize what a fool's errand that actually is.

It's a little terrifying to accept, but we're in control of so little in life, and it's important to know when to control and when to just allow. But that's why it's so important to focus on the handful of things that you do control your body, your mind, your story, your relationships, and you have to do that not knowing exactly where they're gonna take you and how those dots are gonna connect up.

But they always do trust that taking care of those things will take care of you. And I know you'll be great. Good luck. And now some exhilarating deals that won't blow up your entire life. We'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored by Progressive fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

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Our AI chatbot can surface codes for you, and if that doesn't work, you can always email me, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Happy to dig up codes for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to feedback Friday. All right, now for the recommendation of the week,

[01:10:50] Lip Filla Clippa: I am addicted to it fella.

[01:10:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: My recommendation of the week is a docuseries called Bailin Out Loud. Jordan, have you heard about this show?

[01:10:59] Jordan Harbinger: No. No, no, no. Everything I've been watching recently is . Bit about how you , how to, how to shoot targets in the dark. .

[01:11:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: You got, you're like on surprise, surprise security talk. Yeah, exactly. 24 7.

[01:11:12] Jordan Harbinger: I'm watching like dudes with beards and tattoos.

Talk about how to clear your house.

[01:11:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Also very useful. So bailing out loud is this reality show about a young woman named Bain Dupre, who became famous on TikTok because she has a very severe case of Tourette syndrome and specifically she has this, I guess it's a type of Tourette syndrome or it's a type of tick called colia, which is basically a disorder that's characterized by involuntary repetitive movements and the tendency to use obscene, inappropriate offensive language.

[01:11:45] Jordan Harbinger: I

[01:11:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: see. And she would post videos of herself doing like really normal things like baking or you know, cooking or hanging out with her family or friends or whatever. And then she just yells out the most. The, I gotta say like the funniest and most offensive ticks you can imagine. And the thing about her, I mean, I don't know much about her personally.

I'm starting to get a little bit of a sense from the show, but she has a really good sense of humor about it. And I think she, she knows, and everybody around her knows that the, the ticks that she picks up, the things she screams out, the gestures she makes are objectively hilarious. But they're also really deeply debilitating and they're preventing her from living what we consider like a, a normal life.

Like she can't live on her own. She could hurt herself in the kitchen. She can't easily go out in public. When she does go out in public, it often, she creates a scene and people stare or they get offended or whatever. I. But the way her TikTok and Instagram accounts just really capture, like the duality of her disorder is fascinating.

It's like she's kind of celebrating how absurd and funny her ticks are, and she's also shining a light on how serious wow this syndrome is. So there's a new docuseries on TLC, which you can find streaming on Max that follows her all around. And I gotta say, I'm not really a reality TV guy.

[01:13:06] Lip Filla Clippa: No.

[01:13:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: I am riveted by this show.

And it really shows you parts of her life that her Instagram account, her TikTok account, do not really get into. Those are great too. But this gets into her personal life and what she's trying to do and her struggles to individuate from her family and settle into an adult relationship, get a career, get a job when she really can't control a lot of what she does and says, it has really opened my eyes to what it means to live with a disability in addition to being objectively entertaining.

And I gotta say, Jordan, there's this one moment in the show. . She's at a particularly difficult moment, I think, and she says, I don't know what to make of this. Why was I born with this syndrome? Why am I this way? And she says something so heartbreaking. She says something to the effect of, I love God. Why did God make me this way?

I know there must be a reason. Like I have something to offer the world. I have a meaningful life to live, but it's so hard for me to do that with this disorder. And she's like the, the show is basically watching her figure out what that purpose is and how she can be a full human being when she lives with this thing.

It is. And then after that, she said, mother

[01:14:15] Jordan Harbinger: sucker .

[01:14:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: She does it constantly. But dude, the ticks are so much more absurd and so much more specific than what you just said. Oh, oh God. Like you have to watch it. It's so riveting.

[01:14:27] Jordan Harbinger: I feel really deeply feel for somebody who has to deal with something like that.

Like you can't go to the mall and eat tacos with your friends because I. You might do something and then parents are calling security 'cause you're doing this around their kids and you're just like, ah, I have a disability. I can't help it. Yeah, it's terrible. Imagine dating, like I've got Tourette's and someone's like, oh, I have, you know, whatever.

I've got a, like a prosthetic leg. And you go show up and you're like, okay, I can't be around this person. Are you kidding? We're gonna get arrested.

[01:14:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, that's one of the most interesting parts of the show. She has a boyfriend and they're in love and he's like very understanding, but they're unique challenges in their relationship when they go out.

Oh my gosh. In public. It's, it's really something. Goodness. I think you guys are gonna like it. We'll link to it in the show notes

[01:15:07] Jordan Harbinger: and you can talk about it in our subreddit over at the Jordan Harbinger Sub Reddit. A lot of interesting conversations happening over there. If you're a Reddit user, we talk about episodes, we talk about random stuff that's recommended in the episodes.

Go find it on Reddit. If you're a redditer, it's the Jordan Harbinger Subreddit.

[01:15:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: Alright, what's next? So our last letter today is an update from the guy who was essentially reverse catfishing his catfish. That was episode 10 93. Yeah. Insane story.

[01:15:32] Jordan Harbinger: So I've been waiting for this for anybody who didn't catch that episode real quick.

This is the guy that was, I think it was in his forties. Married to a woman, but they've been living separate lives for a while. And one day he gets some flirty messages from a pretty woman online. He does a reverse image search of her photo and he discovers that it actually belongs to a different woman entirely.

And then he tracks down that woman and she tells him that her ex-boyfriend used her pictures for this kind of thing in the past. And then he finds out that her ex-boyfriend, he realizes it's his, uh, wife's cousin's boyfriend. Right. Who he sees at family gatherings and stuff like that. So yeah.

[01:16:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Catfished by someone in his own family who might or might not have been vaguely flirty with him when they were in person together. Unclear. Yeah.

[01:16:14] Jordan Harbinger: And he is trying to figure out like, okay, is this guy trying to blackmail me? Is he trying to give my wife ammunition for a divorce or is he enjoying this? Is he flirting with me?

Does he wanna hook up like, what's going on here?

[01:16:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Except the kicker was that he has like a real crush on this guy.

[01:16:26] Jordan Harbinger: Well, right. And our response was basically like, this is very bizarre, very confusing. Okay. It's kind of fun, but you gotta be careful here. 'cause this could easily blow up in your face. More

[01:16:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: likely than that.

Right. Right. And what are you getting out of this? What is this role play slash reverse catfishing situation allowing you to explore that might be worth confronting? That was the real question. Yeah, it's so bizarre. Really. One for the books here. So the letter goes, hi Jordan and Gabe. I listened to your advice a few weeks back to keep it cool with my catfish and thought it made perfect sense.

But then I wondered how much better it would feel to be held in those strong arms and thought, dammit, I need to give this a go .

[01:17:05] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, for God's sake, what good was our advice then? . Come on man. Gabe is this dude just trolling us.

[01:17:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: So I asked myself the same thing but of corresponded with him a bunch and it seems to check out.

But yeah, I mean obviously he knows that. We're kind of hoping he keeps this up so we can hear what happens. So there's that.

[01:17:22] Jordan Harbinger: I don't get me wrong, I am stupidly excited to hear what's about to happen. So maybe part of this is our fault, but alright, continue.

[01:17:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: But I had to be careful, so I decided to wait and see what his next move was before taking action.

Strangely, the catfish went quiet over Christmas, so I decided to wait till our family's big new year party. We do every year. My plan was to make sure I was next to him at the countdown to midnight, then swoop in for a hug and a kiss to see what the reaction was. If he wasn't happy, it could be laughed off as a New Year's thing, but if he was comfortable, it could give me a sign

[01:17:56] Jordan Harbinger: or, okay.

So the plan is blame it on the a a a alcohol , it sounds like. And

[01:18:01] Gabriel Mizrahi: the reverse Catfishing. . Mm-hmm . Oh man. Alright. So the plan was plant a juicy one on him during old long sign. Okay. Yeah, that's one. That's one way to do it. So he goes on, the New Year party was underway, and after an hour or so, my wife's cousin appeared on her own without her boyfriend.

She got teary and admitted to the girlfriends that she had split up with him just before Christmas, because I. She kept catching him, messaging people and he wouldn't hand over his phone. Hmm. Looking over his shoulder, she spotted his ex-girlfriend's picture, so she assumed he was intimately messaging.

His ex got furious and threw him out of the flat.

[01:18:41] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, so he was doing this to other people too, or just to our friend here. And that's what she actually caught him doing.

[01:18:47] Gabriel Mizrahi: Unclear. Yeah. But he said messaging people. So it sounds like there are others. What

[01:18:51] Jordan Harbinger: a weirdo.

[01:18:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So he goes on then trying to find out more.

She went to confront the ex-girlfriend, . Oh

[01:18:57] Jordan Harbinger: man. This poor woman. She can't get away from this relationship. Like I broke up with him three years ago. Stop calling me.

[01:19:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: This must be so weird for every other week, another person from this family is like, Hey, what's going on with you in the photos? Yeah. She

[01:19:08] Jordan Harbinger: must be so sick of this.

[01:19:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: At that point, her ex told her what None of us had thought to ask what he was doing with the ex's photos in the first place when they were together a couple of years ago. She said she was suspicious when he was online a lot and had some unexplained absences. Then she saw that he had gone into her phone and sent himself pics from her collection.

She confronted him and he admitted using her pictures to message guys because he was quote unquote verifying their fidelity and said he was being a bit of a vigilante. That's why he usually picked people he knew he was trying to weed out rogues and do a service to women. Mm. But she thought it was weird and had enough drama, so she ended it.

[01:19:50] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. This guy's officially scaring me a little bit, so he was trying to tempt other men. He knows personally to see if they're faithful. 'cause he considers himself a vigilante. There's something wrong with this guy, and I don't fully buy that story either.

[01:20:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, neither do I. Also, he has way too much time on his hands.

[01:20:05] Jordan Harbinger: And that's your concern, Gabe, how he fill his days? , I mean, it's one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Says the guy who attended, not one, but two hot yoga classes the other day. .

[01:20:14] Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay. First of all, I do that very rarely. All right. Second, the first hot yoga class that day that I told you about was way too easy, so I didn't get my usual fix.

Okay. And three I I, yeah. I might have a little too much time on my hands some days. Okay. I don't know what to say, but at least I'm working out. Yes. I'm getting something done. I'm not sexting them. , the men in my family's so insane. Yeah. I'm not sexting the men in my family to see if I can take them down.

Yeah. Why I, why

[01:20:41] Jordan Harbinger: do that? Fair enough. Open question. Who's sweating more? You or him? . Yeah, so I think this answer is our friend. Here's question from his first letter about what this guy's up to. If what the catfish said is true, which I suppose that's still an if, but if that's true, then he is trying to bust our friend here.

[01:20:57] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. But like you said, there's clearly something else going on. I feel like he's getting something else out of this. I mean, at a minimum it must be that he feels powerful or something.

[01:21:05] Jordan Harbinger: Right? You, you don't wanna do a service to women and be of some sort of weird Instagram vigilante for no reason. It's also possible that he is getting off sexually on these messages, and that's harder to admit, or it's a little bit of both.

But the fact that he admitted to this game he's playing, I don't know. He just seems like a total weirdo. Best case scenario, he's in the closet and this is his way of safely flirting with men. Worst case scenario, he's a manipulative creep who's, you know, got one out for him. It just makes no sense.

[01:21:31] Gabriel Mizrahi: So he goes on.

It wasn't clear whether his absences in that past relationship were meetings with people he catfished or something else. Mm. Just, just imagine what this guy's double life is like. Like what else is he doing? So strange. When I heard all of this after the party, I felt a thrill. It sounded like there was some potential there, but there's also a risk of my details being found on his phone in the future if things ever blew up.

Oh. However, if anyone ever did find it, they would assume that I was the victim, as I never called out the catfishing. So it would look like I was just a dumb guy, being flattered by a good looking woman, giving a boost to my masculine credentials. Now that he's been ostracized by the ladies, I reached out to him as myself.

Offering sympathy and a ketchup drinker. Oh

[01:22:17] Jordan Harbinger: God. Thi this guy's the definition of doing it for the plot . I'm not even mad about it. Damn.

[01:22:23] Gabriel Mizrahi: The potential hit to my reputation for acting on this has been removed. The cat fisher is away from the nosy cousin, so rumors are less likely. My information on his phone wouldn't look dodgy, and I have a chance to get closer to him because he's pushed others away.

So there's genuine sympathy.

[01:22:40] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, you're not wrong. I still can't say I support this, but go off.

[01:22:43] Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm not great at reading signals, so this could be risky, but worth a go As otherwise, I'll regret doing nothing. Okay. I mean, you might also regret doing something , but he's only replied to say thanks, and he's thinking about it.

I'm wondering if the cool response is a bad sign, or maybe he's feeling guilty about the situation unnecessarily. Of course, I don't wanna seem desperate, so I think I'll wait to see him again in person before following up on all this. Even if our relationship doesn't go beyond a stronger friendship and remains at hugs, that's better than nothing.

I still get to feel those arms around me. I think this is a pretty great outcome. What do you think Ps, have you thought about doing an episode on people who need to live double lives , whether for political, religious, or social reasons? The efforts? Stress and trouble is something most people don't even know exists, but has real impacts, clearly.

Yeah, we got it. Yeah, we get it, man. Signed still entangled with his catfish and working up to my true wish. Oh, man. Well, that postscript really speaks volumes, doesn't it? I mean, this letter is objectively entertaining, but I don't know, man. It makes me kind of sad.

[01:23:55] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I mean, the guy's hiding, he's stuck between two identities.

I think we talked about that in the original segment. He isn't ready to own who he is. Take some steps towards openly pursuing it. I'll refrain from rehashing that point, but honestly, it makes me, yeah, a little bit sad and I'm afraid that it's making him vulnerable to an unknown quantity like this catfish.

So look, I'm over here eating my popcorn like everybody else listening right now. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. The predicament you're in is objectively entertaining, but I can't say that I share your view that this is a pretty great outcome. Not to beat a dead horse, but this guy, he's weird and squirrely and manipulative, and it's just not somebody I would wanna get close to at all.

I understand that he represents something meaningful to you. I get that he's allowing you to explore your sexuality in a way that feels safe right now. I just don't know if continuing to engage with this guy or pushing things further is a wise decision. Yes, the risk to you is lower. Now, I guess you're right there, but in another way it's higher because now you know a lot more about this guy.

You know, he has a pattern of doing this kind of thing. You know, he has a history of lying going MIA, maintaining a secret life, compromising people he's involved with. There's a world where he's doing this for creepy and nefarious reasons, to entrap you into cheating, to possibly tell your wife what you're up to, even if he is also enjoying flirting with you.

So my question for you is, why do you still wanna get involved with this guy? How is it worth it? Because he has nice biceps or whatever. Come on, man. I think you can tell how I feel about all this, but you gotta answer these questions for yourself. Look, it's not that I don't understand your reasons for wanting to explore this.

In the last segment we talked about how that's really the most important thing to come out of this whole experience, what it's showing you about yourself. I'm not judging your orientation or the thrill that you feel. I'm just really encouraging you to get more curious about where you are in your journey, how you're owning these parts of yourself, how you're managing your life overall, to get more curious about all that than you are about whether this particular dude should be your lover or whatever.

[01:25:53] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally agree. Also, one of the interesting details he included in this new letter is that he's not great at reading signals, so he might not be reading this situation clearly at all. He might not be properly assessing the risk here. He might not be sizing this guy up correctly. That actually worries me.

[01:26:09] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, me too. I'm, look, I commend him for knowing that about himself. I'm glad he thought that that was worth sharing with us, but he needs to take a much closer look at that quality because again, it might be making him very vulnerable here, or at least about to stumble into an embarrassing misunderstanding.

That said, if you guys do meet up, you have to send us another update. Obviously, look at this feedback Friday. We're not about to miss a killer dues cruise. Please be safe. Be discerning. Keep your guard up. Think ahead. Keep looking inward. There's still so much more for you to know about yourself and the hidden costs of this double life that you're leading.

Don't forget to check out our episodes with Scott Payne, the FBI agent who infiltrated a criminal biker gang and our skeptical Sunday on homeschooling. If you haven't heard those yet, now's a great time to get 'em started. 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. The course is free. Six minute networking.com is where you can find it. Over on the Thinkific platform. I. They're drills, they're exercises. You can plow through the course. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. It works whether you're young or old, employed or retired or a student.

Dig the well before you get thirsty. Build those relationships before you need them. You can find 'em all@sixminutenetworking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers discounts, ways to support the show, all at Jordan harbinger.com/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 or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, tataki, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.

Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about some of the most controversial and misunderstood topics and sexuality, including what makes people gay and the differences between gay men and gay women.

[01:28:17] JHS Clip: I don't think I'm controversial. It's not like there's anything about me or my life that's particularly noteworthy, but I'm a scientist studying, you know, some extremely controversial issues.

I study the nature of sexuality. It's fascinating, fascinating stuff. What makes anybody attracted to whatever it is they're attracted to? Gay, lesbian, old, young, kinky, not. How does the whole thing work? The debate like many of these debates are over. What does it mean? The big question that a lot of people ask is, you know, is it in the genes or not?

Is it in, you know, the brain or not? It seems to be, we haven't figured out what in the womb seems to trigger this, you know, sequence of events, subtle clues that we've run into, again, all lead back to whatever it was that was in the womb. People have become so afraid of how this is going to look, that no one's talking about anything challenging.

People are only willing to talk about nice, charming, easy. Already popular and it's just ended meaningful progress on some of the most challenging issues confronting us 'cause nobody's willing to talk about them. I haven't changed, what I've said hasn't changed. The people in the conversation have changed

[01:29:44] Jordan Harbinger: to hear more on the latest in sex research with leading clinical psychologist and sexologist, Dr.

James Cantor. Check out episode eight 15 on the Jordan Harbinger Show.