1256: Cheatin’ Heart Yearns for Return to the Start | Feedback Friday

1256: Cheatin' Heart Yearns for Return to the Start | Feedback Friday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I am your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the Katana sword helping me decapitate these existential henchmen Gabriel Mizrahi. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, national security advisors, astronauts, CEOs, neuroscientists, Russian spies. This week we had Justin Hooman. He's a urologist. Yes, another episode about Dicks.

We talked erectile dysfunction, what can be done about it? Some other general men's health topics like fertility, which like it or not, are becoming more and more relevant for us guys, especially at certain ages. I also sat down with Dr. Abby Morono, author of The Upper Hand. It's kind of a more of a fun chat.

Less about Dick's decidedly. Less about Dick's, actually more about [00:01:00] social engineering, winning trust and rapport and tactical social interaction. We also had a skeptical Sunday, last Sunday on organ donation. Not that organ people get your mind outta the gutter. On Fridays though, we share stories, take listener letters, play occasional, obnoxious sound bites, or as you'll start to hear, sometimes recreate those sound bites ourselves for legal reasons and generally minister to your most pressing problems from opposite sides of this amazing globe.

Speaking of which, Gabe, how's week two in China? I mean, Japan.

Jase Sanderson: Are guys, it's producer Jase here. If you'd like to take a Japanese gondola across the abyss of Gabe sub Rashi travel stories and go straight to the dues, you can jump to timestamp. 14 minutes and 40 seconds. Enjoy the show.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh man. Dude, it was, first of all, thank you so much for using that sound bite.

I forgot about that one. Completely. Such a classic. It's

Jordan Harbinger: public domain so we can use it. Now I'm leaning into the presidential stuff 'cause

Gabriel Mizrahi: it's just [00:02:00] clean, easy to use. No fair use stuff. Week two was really great. It was such a whirlwind though. I don't think I've ever taken this many forms of transport this close together in my entire life.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, seriously. Every time we text you're like, Hey, I'm on a train, I'm on a bullet train, I'm on another kind of train, I'm on a boat, I'm on a gondola. Like are you becoming the Japanese equivalent of those homeless dudes in New York who just ride the subways all day? 'cause there's air conditioning.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm just talking to myself in the corner while I prep the show using the free wifi.

Yeah, exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: Pretty sure you can take the shinhan san to Coney Island super fast.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The Nzo meet in Nantucket. Yeah. Basically all day, every day. So what did you and Dr. Margolis get into this week? Oh man. Let's see. We visited a ton of temples 'cause we're in Kyoto. We had to.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Did you hit your head a lot?

I would imagine

Gabriel Mizrahi: every single time.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Can you see this in the video? I have a little cut on my floor.

Jordan Harbinger: I mean, barely it. What reminded me of that is Jen is who's also in Japan right now without me, whom I'm having dinner with tonight. Yes. Who you're having. You're having dinner with my wife tonight. [00:03:00] She took a photo and she was in that.

What's that? Super famous, the red gates that everyone, you were there last time. You were Ian

Gabriel Mizrahi: Nty.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, probably. And I was like, oh yeah, she can fit under those things. Meanwhile, Gabe's like thunk, thunk, thunk. Was that where you saw the British people coming back the other way and they were like, it's just small gates.

Really?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I totally forgot about that. It's just more stairs really, isn't it?

Jordan Harbinger: Uh, yeah. It's more stairs. Yeah, it's just more stairs really. It's like going to the pyramids and being like, it's just a big old pile of rocks really?

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's just symbols, isn't it?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Just birds and cats in it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Uh, anyway. Stunning things We have seen, we did the classics.

Yeah, we did the philosopher's path. Ji Ji. We did Fini Nari Taisha. The one that you were just talking about, which by the way, amazing pro tip for anybody who goes to Japan. Go to Fushimi Nari Taisha at night. Because it's open 24 7 and they light it up at night. There's basically nobody there. And during the day, even if you go there at six or [00:04:00] seven in the morning to beat the crowds, it is packed and it's kind of unpleasant.

It's hard to really enjoy it. It was amazing. We went at night. We did maybe 45 minutes. We didn't go all the way to the top. It was so awesome. We did MTA like all the bangers, 'cause Aaron had to see the classics. But I also found these tiny temples that are way less popular and they are stunning in some ways, more stunning than some of the popular ones.

And you'll go to these places and there might be. Five, seven other people there at any given time. And you can just walk around the gardens and stare at the fall foliage and yeah, it's gorgeous.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Whenever I see people's Japan picks, there are 10,000 tourists taking the same picture from the same spot.

And you can see everyone's phone's in the frame. Yeah. I won't say it ruins it 'cause you're still in Japan seeing something amazing. But it's gotta be nice to pretend you're not in a throng of Chinese and American people doing the exact same thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There is nothing like visiting a temple in Kyoto to make you feel like an NPC.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, exactly. Like am I the least relevant character in the most played out video game ever made. It's just you're just waiting in line to take a [00:05:00] photo in front of a gate.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dude, some of these temples though, the leaves are changing color right now in Japan and they have these reds and yellows I've never seen in real life before.

Just the most stunning autumn ever. I literally walked outta one of these tumbles and turned to Aaron like, I think I get Taylor Swift now. That's what I'm taking away from this. That's your big

Jordan Harbinger: takeaway from your Buddhism tour in Japan? I get Taylor Swift now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know, man. Sometimes you just gotta go to a UNESCO World Heritage site to understand one of the bestselling artists of all time.

Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: so Siddhartha would be so proud. Yes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: We also did a tea ceremony with my friend Jack, the tea teacher. That was pretty cool.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah, you, I would, you would've loved that. A bunch of our listeners have gone and done that. Is that correct? A bunch of listeners went as well.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. I've sent so many listeners to Jack.

They've all had a great time. This tea ceremony thing, Jordan, I kind of forgot, 'cause the first time was a blur and it was so exciting. The second time, it is just. Hours of preparing tea matcha in a very specific way. Just to give you a taste of what, how specific this is. [00:06:00] It's like left hand picks up the matcha jar, right hand opens it, left hand, puts it back down, right hand picks up the ladle for the hot water.

And your fingers are in this very particular position. You pour half of it into the cup. Your back has to be straight, your knees have to be at a certain angle. They're aligned perfectly with the stitch and the to Tommy, Matt. Exactly. This number of threads away from the edge or whatever. And you make the tea, you do the whisk thing in a certain way for a certain amount of time until you see this many bubbles and the tea.

And then you hand the cup to somebody, you look them in the eye very deliberately. They turn to the person next to them and they say, may I join you? And then they turn to the person on the other side of them and they say, I hope you don't mind that. I'm going before you. And there's just like this ritual goes on and on and there are all these rules and.

Customs that are just so insane. And then the person drinks the tea that you made them, and then they hand it back to you in this very deliberate way. And then you wash the cup with the, with the exact same precision. And then you do that over and over again for each

Jordan Harbinger: person. That's exhausting. I can't [00:07:00] tell if it's super cool or incredibly annoying.

I think, did I tell you when I was in elementary school, it, it was, I went in the Detroit area and there were all these auto suppliers from Japan. This is the era of like Japanese auto suppliers. So they moved to my area with their family. So there's tons of Japanese kids in my school. One of the kids' moms was a.

Master of Tea ceremony. Oh yeah, you did tell me this. I remember. And she did it in the library as like a demonstration. Yes. And I remember being like, whoa. It's like karate without any punching and kicking

Gabriel Mizrahi: really? Yes. That's exactly what it's like. It is incredibly tedious, but it's also kind of exquisite.

Jordan Harbinger: Right? The specificity of the rituals are beautiful, but you're also like, I really just wanna drink this tea and kind of like move on with my life. Totally. But that's the point. You're not a, it's a meditation kind of thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Exactly, yeah. And it forces you to pay attention in a new way, which I think is kind of the point, because then you give every little gesture, every little movement, your full attention, and then the tiniest thing becomes sacred.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Like meditation slash celebration of focus. I don't know. It's hard to [00:08:00] explain. But again, can we just drink the dang matcha? I would be struggling, man. I, I wanna pound the tea and then forget to bow 23 times between sips. I just want the tea. I don't know, maybe I'm the guy who eats dessert first.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You're also supposed to slurp at the end of the cup to signify both how much you enjoyed it and also to let the other person know that you're done so that they can take your cutback. And lemme tell you, that was the hardest part of the ceremony. Mouth

Jordan Harbinger: sounds your favorite

Gabriel Mizrahi: nails on a chalkboard.

Jordan Harbinger: I love that.

There's an ancient Japanese ritual you signed up for that also triggers your air quotes mild OCD.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, that reminds me, I discovered a new one at dinner with Aaron the other night. I have to, I I'm so glad you said that. 'cause I was like, I have to tell Jordan about this. So we're sitting at a restaurant and there are these people sitting next to us.

It was at a kind of sushi bar setup, and this woman had her phone on the sushi bar and it was unlocked, like open to her home screen. My eyes kept traveling to it. Like, when is it gonna lock? When is it gonna just be [00:09:00] a black screen? And Erin's like, yo, are you good? Like she could see that I wasn't fully focusing on what she was talking about, and I was like, no, no, I'm fine.

I'm fine. I'm just, this woman's phone is driving me insane. Oh my God. She was like, what are you talking about? I'm like, why is it open? Why won't it close? She had like the lock feature turned off the automatic lock and I was like, I need to turn off this phone. And my hand starts reaching toward her phone.

Oh's don't do it. She's like, stop. What are you doing? I was like, I need to lock her phone so I can be okay and focus.

Speaker 4: I'm like, geez

Gabriel Mizrahi: man, that is weird. I reached three times and she kept like slapping my hand away and then finally when the person next to me was looking the other way, I just reached over and locked the phone.

No, you did it. Oh my God. I don't, it is an in insane thing to do. I fully admit it. That is an

Jordan Harbinger: insane thing to do. This is like the intrusive thoughts. One, thank God your intrusive thoughts are pretty mild.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I also wanted to see what would happen, you know, like if she did catch me and then I would have to explain.

I just thought, I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: How do you [00:10:00] explain, oh, your screen was on, so I thought I would turn it off. Sounds like the least believable lie for

Gabriel Mizrahi: what you were doing. You're so right, dude. That was a very reckless thing me do. That's how for me to, the police come and

Jordan Harbinger: they're like, what were you doing trying to steal her credit card numbers?

And you're like, no. That's

Gabriel Mizrahi: how Japanese ice ends up taking you to a detention center. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: You get beaten with, you're gonna get caned. That is so interesting. I, I'm more like, I have intrusive thoughts like a cat where something is near the edge of the table and I'm like, what if I bump that and it falls on the ground and explodes and I'm like, don't do it.

That would be so messy. And, but then I don't know. It might happen. They don't ever win. I don't ever reach over and touch someone else's glass and I'm like, ah, I was too close to the edge.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Lemme tell you when you get away with it. It is so sweet. It feels so good. Oh man. Anyway, then a couple days ago we did a kubo in Mount Koya, which is where you go and sleep at a Buddhist temple overnight, which was very cool.

Jordan Harbinger: That must have been kind of. Cool and maybe cold.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It was cold and amazing. We had to take two trains to get there from Osaka and then a cable car from the train station up the mountain to the Mount Koya station [00:11:00] and then a bus down the mountain into this tiny town. And then we were sitting on this bus and like schlepping our luggage on and off and it was, it was just a very stressful transit day.

And I was doing email on my phone on the bus, so I wasn't paying very close attention and we missed our stop.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, that is so stressful when that happens in another country.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, it's the worst feeling. It wasn't that bad though. It wasn't super complicated. We just had to get off and get on a bus back in the other direction for a few minutes, but.

Dr. Margolis was in a state because she hates stressful bus rides.

Jordan Harbinger: I can't blame her. It is stressful having to backtrack. That's I, I hate that feeling. I hate it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Finally, we get off at the right stop and then we have to walk about 20 minutes to the temple with our bags and halfway to the temple, I start shivering because it's getting cold in the mountains.

And I looked down and I realized I don't have my jacket. Oh no. I was so frazzled trying to catch the bus and get off the bus. Get on the other one. I forgot my jacket on the bus. My favorite jacket. Oh, you lost it? Oh, that sucks. I bought it the last time I [00:12:00] was in Japan, and it's one of my favorite things, and I wear it every day, almost all day.

So

Jordan Harbinger: frustrating. Oh, that's a terrible feeling. So yeah, that sucks.

Gabriel Mizrahi: By the time we arrive at this Buddhist temple, Aaron and I are, we showed up with a weird energy. We were not in great spirits, and the people at this place were so nice, and I feel like we weren't being dicks or anything, but I feel like they could just tell that we were a little tense.

And they were probably just thinking like, man, these guy gen dude, they're always upset about something like, why do you come here and come with this energy?

Jordan Harbinger: Well, this, this is why they need to come here basically. Right? Like, look at these guys upset over a jacket. And then meanwhile, there's a guy trying to imagine the sound of one hand clapping for the last three years in a cave nearby.

He is like, what the hell are you guys complaining about?

Gabriel Mizrahi: So we were checking out at the front desk and I asked the guy, Hey, I left my jacket on the bus. Is there any way you could like call them and see if they, so he calls them within two minutes. I don't know if he knows the bus driver or if the, it's small town.

So the, I don't know, he found my jacket. They had already found it on the bus and put it [00:13:00] aside for me. So I was like, oh, thank God I can get it tomorrow morning when we get back to the station.

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So an hour later at 5:00 PM everybody's invited to come meditate with the monks. So we went down and did that and it was like just reset the whole thing.

It was so wonderful. And the monk speaks for a little bit. They burn some incense and then you just sit in silence in this beautiful room like. Low lighting, these beautiful, like golden, I don't even know what to call them. Just hanging down from the ceilings, chandeliers. And it was one of the most beautiful rooms I think I've ever been in.

And then afterward the head monk gives a little sermon first in Japanese and then in English. And it's usually like a parable, you know, story that illustrates some point. It was kind of hard. I think I got about 30% of what he was saying. But it doesn't even matter what he's saying because the energy that he brings to his talk, like the sweetness and the lightness and the playfulness of this monk is the real point.

Mm-hmm. Of the sermon. It was so cool. And then at six they serve you dinner and you sit on the floor in the main hall. All vegan, by the way, I was in heaven.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And then I think we were in bed by eight 30 because [00:14:00] you have to be up at five 30. Oof. And at 6:00 AM you're invited to chant with the monks, which was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

It was so wonderful. I feel I still have their voices in my head. They chant for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. And then there's another little sermon talk. And then breakfast at seven. And then we left and took the bus to the cable car, to the train, to another train. Aaron went back to Tokyo to fly home. I went back to Kyoto and now I'm here on my own with your

Jordan Harbinger: jacket.

I hope

Gabriel Mizrahi: with my jacket. Thank God. And some really good memories with my, with my good buddy, Dr. Mar Googs. My

Jordan Harbinger: googs. I love it, man. What a weird journey. You're on this, uh,

Gabriel Mizrahi: the Taylor Swift appreciation tour. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Chanting away your lost jacket. Grief. Exactly. Real high stakes spiritual stuff over here.

Speaking of chanting and grief doozy, disco doozy on AMAs. What is the first thing out of the mail back?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Jordan and Gabe. A few years ago, I had an affair that ended my 13 year marriage. Mm. I still don't fully [00:15:00] understand why I did it. My ex-husband and I were happy in so many ways. We shared three sons.

He helped me raise my oldest daughter like his own, and we were best friends, but our sex life had always been difficult. We both have sexual trauma in our pasts, and looking back, we never really found a way to heal or connect physically in a healthy way. He struggled with a long-term pornography addiction and had sexual preferences that made me deeply uncomfortable.

Mm. Having grown up in a strict religious home where sex and shame were tightly intertwined, I wasn't good at communicating that discomfort and silently assumed the blame for not being more open-minded.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Fascinating.

Jordan Harbinger: So there's a already a lot going on here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She doesn't fully know why she did it, but these sound like pretty good reasons.

I mean, you know, good in quotes.

Jordan Harbinger: Understandable. They do. I mean, I'm guessing she feels there's more.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I now realize how much silence and shame shaped our dynamic. That's not an excuse for what I did, but maybe it's an explanation. Definitely. Shame creates isolation and

Jordan Harbinger: distance. [00:16:00] Silence widens

Gabriel Mizrahi: the

Jordan Harbinger: abyss between you guys.

Yeah. Do dot, dot. The problems get worse. You feel lonelier. You're not finding answers inside the marriage. So you look for experiences and feelings outside the marriage. So far this is tracking, but yeah. Complicated marriage.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Anyway, when the affair came out, he was understandably furious and I was drowning in Gelt.

I didn't see a way to repair the relationship, so I left. About a year and a half later, I moved in with the man I had had the affair with. We've now been together for almost three years. He's good to me, treats my boys well, and our sexual chemistry is strong. Something I didn't realize I'd been missing until I had it.

Lately though, I found myself thinking about my ex more and more. I've had to admit that I'm still in love with him. Part of me wants to see if reconciliation is possible, but another part of me knows that might be a fantasy. Meanwhile, my boyfriend and I have been talking about marriage and I feel wrong about saying Yes while keeping these feelings to myself.

How do I move forward without repeating old [00:17:00] mistakes? Should I tell my boyfriend the truth and risk losing him, or do I try to let go of the past and fully commit to what I have now? Signed making sense of the strife and wondering if I should become this man's wife when I still don't know why I blew up my

Jordan Harbinger: life.

Ooh, fascinating letter.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Really appreciate how much she's sharing with us here. This is difficult stuff to talk about.

Jordan Harbinger: Same. And that's part of what's so interesting to me. Silence and shame destroyed her marriage on top of all the other challenges on both sides. Of course. And it sounds like she struggles to fully understand her own feelings.

It's hard for her to share them,

Gabriel Mizrahi: but she's doing that with us fairly well.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I would say very well. There's shame and she's talking about it. There's Gelt and she's owning it. There's confusion and she's leaning into it. Yeah. But with us though. Yes. With us. Exactly. That's, I think that's kind of what I was getting at.

It sounds like. With the audiences who matter, the actual, the people she should be doing this with, namely her partners in the story. Maybe it's really tough to talk about all this stuff, but with us. Mm-hmm. Easier [00:18:00] lower stakes. Yes. Yes. Lower stakes. That's the, that's what I was looking for. Which I do understand.

You know, we're a couple of friends at a distance. We don't know her. She's anonymous. No judgment. And if we did judge it doesn't matter. Probably makes it easier to cope with the shame. Uh, yeah. Perfectly understandable once again. But that's one of the big themes of her letter. How do I talk about this stuff?

Who's the right person to share it with? Do my partners deserve to hear about these difficult feelings?

Gabriel Mizrahi: And is that gonna bring us closer or is that gonna drive us apart?

Jordan Harbinger: Which is one of these central questions in a relationship. It's very intense,

Gabriel Mizrahi: right?

Jordan Harbinger: It's like two partners need to have a pretty good grasp of the other's feelings at any given moment in order for there to be true intimacy, right?

But that same information can spook the other person. It can confuse the other person,

Gabriel Mizrahi: hurt the other person.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So we're in a bind as human beings, right? It's really tough. How do you balance wanting to be known and understood with wanting to care for your partner and not create too many waves,

Gabriel Mizrahi: right?

So there's always a tension there. On the other hand, you don't actually know how much a partner can handle [00:19:00] until you do share this stuff,

Jordan Harbinger: right? And the way you share it, that's a huge part of how it lands.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So until you do, you're basically left to assume. I think whatever your history and your conditioning have primed you to assume about the other person.

For some people that their partner can handle it. For some people that they can handle it, that the worst possible thing is gonna happen, that they will either turn on you. Or they will leave or whatever it's,

Jordan Harbinger: which then increases the resistance to opening up and multiplies the shame.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. It's a tough cycle to break out of.

Jordan Harbinger: I think it's safe to say that whatever those early experiences were, the ones that inform her feelings about whether to communicate about this stuff with her partner, they're probably the same ones contributing to this predicament in the first place. So. Let's zoom way out for a moment. You're living with some intense feelings and some very big questions, and you're struggling with some major conflicts.

Conflicts around who you wanna be with, whether to move forward with your boyfriend or try to go back to your ex-husband, whether to open up about your true feelings. That's a really difficult place to be, but [00:20:00] also one that most humans, I think, find themselves in to one degree or another. But when those conflicts are around something as fundamental as intimacy, communication, sex identity, who to spend the rest of your life with, I can imagine that's pretty overwhelming and paralyzing.

So I really do feel for you there. You're also asking such a big question, how do I move forward without repeating old mistakes? Which is kind of the big project of being a human being, right? Rewriting these patterns, trying things in a new way, a more conscious way, and hopefully having new and better outcomes.

The only way to do that, as far as I can tell, is to get a good handle on the wounds and experiences, especially the ones that happen early in life that make us keep behaving in a certain way. Talking about those things with the right people. And you know what I'm about to say here, I'll delay it as long as possible.

And through those conversations, which are really the only antidote to shame that I'm aware of, you bring this stuff to the surface. You process these events, you step into more and more awareness of how you operate. You trace things [00:21:00] back to their roots. You experience the other persons hopefully loving and non-judgmental response, all that good stuff.

And then, and this is the crucial part, you take those insights into your life and you act with more awareness. You make decisions more consciously. And by doing that, you create new situations and outcomes. Major ones, minor ones. Those kick up data that you can use to grow, to continue revising your thoughts and feelings about yourself, about other people, about the world.

Look, I'm oversimplifying dramatically. I know I'm presenting healing and growth like a consultants PowerPoint deck, but that's really what we're talking about here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I saw the Chevrons in my head while you were talking. Nice flow chart, by the way. Yes, really enjoyed that. Call

Jordan Harbinger: me Dos Allen Hamilton over here.

However, my gut is telling me that you have people who aren't familiar with that firm are gonna be frigging lost, but whatever, however, my gut is telling me you have some of this work, perhaps a lot of this work to do on your own before you talk to your boyfriend. As much as I would love for you to be opening up [00:22:00] to him right now, there might be a phase where you need to do some introspection because you're deeply conflicted and confused right now, and in some ways you have a good grasp of how you got here.

And in other ways you're going, why am I like this? Am I still in love with my ex? Do I get married? Why did

Gabriel Mizrahi: I even cheat in the first place? I'm still confused,

Jordan Harbinger: right? Yeah, she's not even totally clear on that. So these are really big questions.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If you go and tell your boyfriend the truth, and let's put truth in air quotes for a moment here, because the truth of what you are feeling right now is, I think, limited and relative.

It's a truth that from where I'm sitting, is informed by so much. Unconscious and unclear material to really be, you know, like the capital T truth of where you are

Jordan Harbinger: these days. Right. The truth at this moment is mostly that she's confused.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So you would mostly be bringing your confusion to him, and I think that conversation would probably be a lot more productive if you had just more insight.

So I'm gonna fall on the sword, the Katana sword that Jordan was trying to delay a moment ago and say, I think it's time to start therapy. Absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:00] Thanks, Gabe. Cue the slew of three star reviews from people saying, all we do on this show is tell people to go to therapy. I will

Gabriel Mizrahi: happily take those stars if it helps our friend here get on the couch.

That's fine with me.

Jordan Harbinger: We have maybe 12 minutes with you guys when you write in and you're bringing your entire childhoods to us and we look, we can't heal everyone just like that. You guys get that, I hope. Right? Well, my

Gabriel Mizrahi: co-host throws a minor tantrum about his apple rating. I'll just say, and Spotify, the bi, the bind you're in and the reservoir of feelings and experiences that it's floating in.

Namely the shame that you described is. Precisely the territory that you can really only move through in a deep and ongoing way in therapy on the couch.

Jordan Harbinger: For sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You're asking a practical question, do I get engaged? Do I talk to my boyfriend? Do I reach out to my ex? But it's like you're trying to wrap your arms around this very complicated tree, but meanwhile, the roots go miles underground.

Jordan Harbinger: Nice metaphor. She's treating it like a bonsai tree when it's more like it's those trees and avatar that talk to one another.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You know? Exactly our experience. By [00:24:00] the way, our Japan metaphors are getting out of hand today. Yes. But yes, our experiences have like a mycelium network beneath the soil. You know what I mean?

And if you don't know where those are going or where they come from, it's really hard to make progress. So your last question, do I try to let go of the past and fully commit to what I have now?

Jordan Harbinger: I don't know how you let go of the past or how you do something as big as commit to the future. Without going through this part, I don't, I think it's possible

Gabriel Mizrahi: the ability to commit to anything or anyone is such a primitive thing.

Mm. So I don't know if you've heard of a woman named Melanie Klein. She founded Object Relations Theory. So she wrote a lot about how the capacity to love, and I think by extension, the capacity to be in an ongoing relationship with anything implies the capacity to bear anxiety and Gelt. And that capacity begins when we're infants.

You know, like how well does a small child hold these mixed feelings about their parent? At the same time? How do they love the primary caregiver while also tolerating the anxiety and the Gelt that come from [00:25:00] what she called like this ambivalence around the consistency of that object. So a baby on some level is always asking, is the object gonna come back?

Is it safe? Am I safe? Did my anger, my shame, my anxiety, my crying, whatever it is, did that hurt the object I love or can I depend on it to stay close?

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Yeah. Which is exactly what she's wrestling with in these two relationships, isn't it?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally. But this ancient conflict, it develops in the furnace of childhood, and I can only assume that her past, to your point, is playing a huge role here as it does for all of us.

So after a month or two or three or whatever, a therapy, whatever that timeline is for you, you might be ready to talk to your boyfriend about all of this, but in a new way, at the very least, I do think you'll be able to say something like, look, here's the deal. This is scary for me to share with you, but I also want you to know where I am and I wanna be fair to both of us.

I'm confused right now. I'm conflicted. Here are the things that I'm confused and conflicted about. Here's what I've learned about why I'm in this place with you, [00:26:00] with my ex, with this, that, and the other thing. Here's where I am in the process. I wanna stay with you and keep doing this work. I want to get engaged or I don't want to get engaged.

I need some time to myself so I can get clear on things I've, or I've decided to end this relationship. Whatever it is you're feeling, this is up to you, of course, to decide, but I just want you to know where I am and I'm ready to talk about some of this stuff, which has been hard for me in the past, but I am also ready to find out if we can handle it,

Jordan Harbinger: or maybe going to therapy will resolve a lot of these conflicts and answer a lot of these questions and that conversation will go very differently.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or that either way, you're right, there's work to do closer to home before she tries to work this out with her boyfriend when it's still very much in process.

Jordan Harbinger: But I do think that's compatible with starting to open up to him a little bit more, and maybe that's part of her process too. She could literally say, listen.

I know we've talked about getting married. There are a few things I need to get clear on. A few experiences I need to process. I'm gonna be doing X, Y, Z things, therapy, whatever it is. In order to do that, I'm not quite ready to talk about it, but I wanna do that before we [00:27:00] explore the idea of getting married.

And thank you for letting me do that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Wonderful. Great.

Jordan Harbinger: So on that note, I think you're absolutely right to worry about saying yes to any proposal while keeping these feelings to yourself. It's not fair to him, it's not fair to you, it's not fair to your kids for sure. And it, it's just gonna kick this can down the road when the stakes are even higher.

And not to freak you out, just to help you avoid a huge iceberg. But if you don't slow down and give yourself some time to dig into this stuff, you could blow up a second relationship, or you could continue to be one foot in, one foot out with all of this anxiety and the Gelt and the confusion and the impact to your kids.

And that is gonna hurt even more. I also just wanna remember that you have a number of other big things in your past, right? The sexual trauma, a previous relationship, the father of your daughter sounds like, and of course the religious trauma around sex and shame that I feel like you alluded to there

Gabriel Mizrahi: also this pattern of silently assuming the blame for various things.

Mm. Like that's another big one.

Jordan Harbinger: Another template that gets created early in life. And I would love for you to have the space to unpack [00:28:00] all of that. Everything you've been through, and I'm so sorry you've been through it. It's all informing where you are now. So yes, therapy with a good therapist, this is an investment, but also a good friend or two.

Reading, journaling, experimenting with being more honest with people in all different contexts.

Gabriel Mizrahi: These feelings that you are wrestling with. I know that they're painful. I know that they're shameful and I can hear from your letter that they're very intense, but they on their own are not fatal. The only thing that's potentially fatal.

Is continuing to avoid them or send them underground and then hope that your results are magically going to be different.

Jordan Harbinger: If you wanna move forward, you're gonna have to go back for a time. Yeah. But not back to your ex-husband. Not right away anyway, but back to yourself is what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Then you'll know which relationship you wanna have with the past and the future, whether you're with the right person, and you won't just be chasing these chaotic feelings around without understanding them.

That's so important. Sending you a big hug. Wishing you all the best. And now we're gonna break our silence and say that there's no shame in [00:29:00] patronizing the amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Aura Frames. One of our family traditions has taken the kids to get photos with Santa.

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Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by BetterHelp. Every year around the holidays, we got this little tradition of loading the kids in the car and hunting for the best Christmas lights in town.

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Please consider supporting those who support the show. Alright, back to feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. A couple of years ago, I inherited a house together with my siblings. My brother lives there. The rest of us do not live in the state. He's unemployed on disability with some psychological issues diagnosed narcissistic [00:32:00] personality disorder, but I suspect it may also be that he's undiagnosed autistic and definitely self-medicating.

He's not financially able to buy us out, and none of us really wanna sell it out from under him and evict him. He's our brother and we love him. Plus it's a family home and we would theoretically love for it to stay in the family. The problem is he's allowed the homeowner's insurance to lapse. He's not maintaining the property.

He won't allow us to enter it, and he absolutely refuses to allow us to renovate it into a duplex at our expense or at an A DU so that we can rent part of it out and at least be getting a small cash flow in exchange for him living rent-free in our inheritance.

Jordan Harbinger: This happens so often and parents mean well.

What they do is they basically go, alright, who's my least self-sufficient failure to launch, has dropped the ball on every opportunity throughout their entire life. Child. Okay, we're gonna put them in the house, but then we're gonna give that house theoretically to [00:33:00] everyone, even though he's gonna have to use it and never be able to leave.

And they're like, our work here is done. And then they, they kind of, I mean, I'm sorry to make light of it, but then they, you know, pass along to the other side and it's like, you have just created so many problems. I don't know what you were thinking because,

Gabriel Mizrahi: you know, mom and dad knew about this guy.

Jordan Harbinger: Of course.

Yeah. They one knew about it. And two, I'm a little bit of a cold a-hole when it comes to this. They probably enabled the crap out of this guy for his whole life, which is why he still lives in mom and dad's house. And they're like, no, no, no. All the siblings own it too. And it's like, what are we supposed to do with it?

Are we just supporting this guy? Like basically you end up in this exact same situation. So this is the piece of information I was waiting for. Your narcissistic brother is shamelessly mooching off of you guys. He's not doing anything to help you in return. In fact, is making your life even more difficult?

That really tells me again, I said I was a cold a-hole here. This just tells me all I need to know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I believe we can file to partition our interests in the property, and then a majority of us, or possibly even just one, it's unclear, can put the [00:34:00] property up for sale. But all this does is basically evict my brother since he doesn't have the money to buy it and he won't qualify for, and also doesn't quote unquote believe in

Jordan Harbinger: mortgages.

Oh, he doesn't believe in mortgages. What a convenient stands for a guy who doesn't want to pay for anything and doesn't work.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Does he also not believe in credit cards when he swipes his MasterCard down at Walmart?

Jordan Harbinger: No. He probably only believes in the handouts that he's been getting from the government and everyone else his whole life.

Does he not believe in national debt when he gets his SNAP benefits Every month? Because that's basically a mortgage the government takes out in the form of treasury bills to support his, sorry. Lazy pill. Popping ass. Oof. Brutal take. Dude, I hate people like this. I'm sorry. I can't stand them. They are the worst.

I'm done with this guy. I know I should feel somewhat bad for him 'cause he has all these issues. He just sounds like a garden variety, a-hole that has a medical excuse that he's leaning on to be a jerk to everyone in his family

Gabriel Mizrahi: doing. This is basically the nuclear option. And when I look at the amount of strife and grief that it would cause in our [00:35:00] family, I don't feel like it's worth the money that I would receive from it, which leaves me stuck.

Jordan Harbinger: Look, I'm not sure I agree, but I don't know about the money, but I also sympathize with this. You know what? Screw it. I'm gonna make this someone else's problem, even if it means I don't get paid. Bye, I'm done. But that wasn't the intent your parents had, I assume when they handed this property down to you.

Look, I hear you. The pain involved feels higher than the reward, and you could very well be right. I've

Gabriel Mizrahi: tried to talk to insurance companies about getting my own homeowner's policy in case the absolute worst happens. For example, someone gets injured, sues comes after me as the only non-judgment proof sibling and takes my pitiful life savings.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, someone like your brother,

Gabriel Mizrahi: oh man. Do you think he would,

Jordan Harbinger: dude, this stuff happens all the time. The freeloading, narcissistic drug addict living rent free in his house, like that family in the movie Parasite with Zero Shame or Gelt, who's almost certainly been enabled by his family his entire life. Yeah, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility.

That this guy also does something crappy to his siblings. On top of all

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:36:00] that, oh man, he's listening to this having a panic attack in his car. The car he financed and pays for in full every month, by the way, because he is a functioning member of society. But

Jordan Harbinger: yeah, exactly. Look, I'm not trying to rile him up.

I just, I want him to understand the stakes here. And again, as the only non-judgment proof member of the family, you are a prime target. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm almost at the point where you just say, you legally make this not your problem anymore. If you can't solve the issues, whew. Oh man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But insurance companies are not engaging with me since I don't live there or have access to the property

Jordan Harbinger: unsurprising. So this feels like a footnote to the real problem, but I hear you. If this really is a no go with insurance companies, that is even more reason to address this head on, even if it means just throwing the baby out with the bath water and.

Abandoning any claim you have to the property.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm not sure. I totally agree because I think his mind is going to the worst case scenario, but there are other things that he needs to tackle before he worries about this very abstract liability. But let's get to that in a moment. I [00:37:00] tried getting an attorney to help me figure out how, at least to protect myself from liability, but I don't really know what kind of attorney I need to talk to.

The most promising one I spoke with was insanely difficult to get in touch with. Luckily, they were incommunicado for two months before sending me my engagement letter to sign. By which point I had decided that in the event of a lawsuit, the plaintiff will most likely go after the house itself, which is worth more than three times what my savings are.

And in that case, I might even see part of the sale proceeds, which would frankly be a better situation than where I am now.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm not sure why you assume that. I can't help but wonder if that calculation is one more way to dodge the problem here. You'd rather take a huge financial hit than have some tough conversations.

That's what I'm getting from this. Also as a driven plaintiff with high damages. Let's say somebody falls on the porch, it's icy and they smash their back. They could take the house and then also come after your life savings. Why would they randomly just stop at the house? They're gonna see who owns it and go after everybody's everything.

Anyway, we'll [00:38:00] get to that in a moment. So just to nip this lawyer thing in the bud, you could use an attorney at some point, at least to advise on your strategy and the kind of lawyer you want. Since it sounds like the estate is already settled. You want a real estate attorney or a landlord tenant attorney with experience in co-ownership disputes, and you do not want an attorney who takes two freaking months to send you an engagement letter.

Honestly, that Giron did you a favor by being difficult. Move on and find somebody who actually calls you back. It's actually really amazing how many crap lawyers there are out there who don't have their stuff together and over bill, or don't track their time, or take two months. This person doesn't have your business yet and they're taking two months.

Imagine when they have your retainer and you need them to get something done. You're gonna be waiting six months. That's insanity.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, if my brother were willing to work with us, so it wasn't just a pure liability for those of us not living there, I would be fine to just stick with the status quo. I like to think that property values are gonna continue to go up.

So by the time I want to take my equity out to buy my own home, it may have grown. But as [00:39:00] time goes on, I'm just getting more and more uneasy about owning a share of this black box of liability with zero upside, and I want to extricate myself. My siblings are being very cagey about where they stand on things, so I feel like I'm dealing with this alone.

What are my options both legally and relationally? Where do I even start? Who do I talk to? How do I find an attorney signed wanting to wash my hands of this property because the brother inside is not acting properly?

Jordan Harbinger: Man, what a sibling. Not the first time again. Not the first time we've heard a situation like this.

The pantheon of feedback Friday. Is just filled with freeloading, Buda, Beed, narcissistic family members of all stripes. But this is a new twist diagnosed narcissism, possible autism spectrum disorder, substance abuse, financial abuse of his family, which is what this is. Physical disability. There's just, there's a lot going on here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh man. You're getting moral outrage face. I can see it.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, yes. I feel like I'm cartoon red right now. [00:40:00]

Gabriel Mizrahi: You're about as red as the Taylor Swift foliage I saw at that temple earlier. I just wanna point that out.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God. Get over it. So I think you can already tell that I feel something has to change here.

There is nothing fair or sustainable about the situation. Okay. Maybe it's sustainable if you guys can continue taking the hit and sweeping all of this under the Rugiet and just praying that nothing happens, but it's definitely not fair, like you said. If he were making things as easy as possible on you, if he were allowing you guys to do the improvements or the additions that would increase the value if he were a great brother in other ways, whatever that looks like, this would just be, it would be a different story than maybe I'd say, okay, let your disabled brother have a place to stay.

You get to benefit in these other ways. Fine. That's not the case here. Your brother is taking advantage of you guys straight up. I bet he's done this his whole life, by the way, but I digress. Maybe he knows he's taking advantage of you. Maybe he means to do it. Maybe he's totally clueless and unable to empathize with other people.

It kind of just doesn't matter to me if you haven't noticed. The fact is you guys are supporting him. [00:41:00] He's doing absolutely nothing to earn it, and it doesn't even sound like he's thanking his lucky stars and you guys for being so kind to him. But I understand your dilemma, the strife and the grief of kicking him out.

It feels greater than the money you'd receive. My question for you is. Why exactly are those feelings so intense, so costly? I'm gonna guess just like question one that goes back to childhood. Growing up with his sibling, probably feeling responsible for him from a young age, at the very least, cramping around his myriad issues.

So changing the script now, it feels very scary. And all of that is morphed over time into what I feel is enabling you and your siblings based on what you've shared. You are all enabling him. And I get how hard this is to change. I really do. This is a huge template to rewrite. My mom was in a similar situation with her brothers.

It took years and years and years for her to do it. Much to the annoyance of my dad and me, frankly. But look, that's what's keeping you stuck here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I totally agree. I also think it's quite telling that his [00:42:00] siblings are being very cagey about where they stand on all this. That's an important detail

Jordan Harbinger: cagey or just totally unwilling to commit to anything because they're also as scared or more scared than you are to do something about this guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So my guess is that they're walking on eggshells around this brother and or not being totally forthright with our friend here about how they truly feel. To your point, maybe that's because it's hard for them to take a strong stance on this brother too, for all of the reasons we're talking about. Maybe they don't want to acknowledge that they have also been enabling him in their own way over the years.

I think it's also very possible that everybody in this family is similarly afraid of conflict.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised since they're all products of the same upbringing,

Gabriel Mizrahi: it might be hard for them to even acknowledge their difficult feelings about this brother in the first place. Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: that's my guess.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's super hard in a family system where the implicit message was probably none of us can fully express our true feelings about brother, our anger, our discomfort, our. Distaste, our embarrassment, whatever it is. And so we all need to protect brother, even if [00:43:00] it comes at our expense,

Jordan Harbinger: which is leaving our friend here in an even more difficult place as the only person in this family who might be willing to step up and say, I'm sorry, I'm done.

This is not fair to any of us.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So one answer to your question is you need to get together with your siblings and talk this out. So step number one is make lots of space to discuss, brother. Try to come to an agreement about your feelings as a group about all of this. This is gonna be an interesting dance between making lots of space for you and your siblings to share your true feelings, which might be different from one another, at least at first.

And also gently recruiting them to your position, which is that something here needs to change. Uh,

Jordan Harbinger: tricky. Not sure how he does that without being too heavy handed. Maybe give that Dr. Abby Morono interview a listen, read her book, some great stuff in there about how to influence people with skill and integrity without the need for coercion.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I would say do the first thing first, and then think about the second thing, the influence piece. It might take your siblings some time to catch up to where you are or for them to feel heard enough to consider [00:44:00] taking your side. I think it's even gonna take you a minute actually to fully acknowledge your own feelings about your brother.

'cause that's another thing that I'm hearing in your letter, your own ambivalence about where to land with him.

Jordan Harbinger: Dude, I am 90% sure they all feel this way about brother. They're just too afraid to say it because of the enabling.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, you're probably right about that. And our friend here could say, look, I understand that we all have complicated feelings about him.

We all love him. We don't wanna hurt him. But the reality is that he is taking advantage of our kindness and our avoidance and not making our lives easier and not doing anything to make this situation fair, to make our lives easier. And my feeling is that both of those things can be true.

Jordan Harbinger: I like that.

Something like that could make it less costly for the other siblings to speak up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hopefully over time you guys can come to a shared opinion about the right approach here, and then you can present a united front to your brother, which is gonna be much harder for him to argue with. My feeling is if you guys do end up partitioning your interest in the property and selling it, which yeah means forcing your brother out, I guess at the end of the day there is still a kind way to do that.

You can give him [00:45:00] six months, a year, whatever you guys decide is fair, and that way he has plenty of time to make another plan. You can also say to him, brother, we love you. We want you to be safe, we want you to be housed, but we can't support you forever and we can't take the hit without being able to create some wealth out of this property, which is only fair.

And so we're gonna do whatever we can to help you get into a new place.

Jordan Harbinger: Dude, someone like this, he may even qualify and probably does qualify for subsidized housing or something. It might take a while to get in there, but that is an option. He might have NPD, he might be drinking too much or whatever, but he can fill out that paperwork himself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or you can say, if this is the decision that you and your siblings come to, you can say, brother, here are your options. We either sell the property and you have to find a new place to live, or you allow us to do these renovations or add the A DU, which will ultimately benefit all of us, by the way. But you can't just squat here and not play ball.

That is not fair to the rest of us. And if he refuses to entertain that idea, then maybe you have to put in terms that his [00:46:00] narcissism or his autism can understand. Help us understand why you are taking this stance. Please explain to us why you won't allow us to invest in the property. Because I know that you can see that this is not fair.

You know, if the situation were reversed, would you let any of us do this to you? We're confused. Help us. Why? Why are we here?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I like that. That's gonna make it real hard for him to justify. I mean, he could be like, I don't want people on the property. I don't like the noise. I'm just thinking about some of his potential concerns if he is on the spectrum.

But even that is something that they can work with and I, I just dunno how much sympathy you have to have for somebody like this who has a quirk that's potentially costing you tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, whatever.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, if he absolutely will not engage with you in good faith on this, then you have more license to be tougher.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. If that's where you land, then you know, screw this guy. He is on his own. I think you can guess what I think you should do, but whatever. But then we're back to the original problem. How do I cope with the difficult feelings? Of course, he copes with them by going through these very reasonable steps, approaching all of this collaboratively, peacefully.[00:47:00]

Then hopefully together with his siblings, trying things in a new way and learning to bear those feelings. Again, a theme on today's episode, how to act in a new way and create new templates. When you've been taught from a young age that certain feelings are too scary or too intense, and I understand that you love your brother, I know it's scary to think about hurting him or provoking him or destabilizing him, but here's my brutally candid opinion about that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, now, now you're gonna give your brutally candid opinion, okay? Yes. Now I,

Jordan Harbinger: I was too. I was sugar coing everything before, let's say buckling up. You are dealing with a narcissist here. Let's remember, this guy is diagnosed NPD. He's not just like an arrogant jerk of the garden variety. You are allowed to be much less empathetic here.

Your brother does not have the capacity to empathize with you. He doesn't have the capacity to treat you as a full human being who is just as real as he is, who also has needs and wants that are valid. He can probably view other people only as tools, as means to an end, and to get what he wants or get what he needs, and that probably makes you, in his view.

A [00:48:00] way to get free housing. It's really as simple as that. And I know it sucks because you're like, I love my brother. I doubt he really has the exact kinds of feelings for you. I'm sorry. Your chances of fixing him enough to approach this harmoniously are basically nil. So this is me giving you some permission to just be a little more self-oriented and a little tougher here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Also, sparing your brother these difficult feelings and allowing him to coast while you guys take the hit. That is easier in a way, of course, but I don't know if it is ultimately loving. It's not entirely loving to yourself. I don't think it's very fair to your siblings. I don't think it's ultimately loving even to your brother, even though he would obviously prefer that.

So addressing all of this would be a very big step for all of you, not just in your relationship with your brother, but also like your relationship with life. Because I know how hard this is, especially if you run a little anxious, which it sounds like you do. And by the way, this is the thing I wanted to circle back to when I was reading the letter, the anxiety that you feel is probably fueling some of these concerns about the insurance and the liability.

And what if somebody slips and then they come after me? That is something [00:49:00] else I would keep an eye on. You're not wrong to worry about that kind of thing. Of course it could happen. Of course, you wanna be protected. But I also get the sense that obsessing about the possibility of being sued one day that is fixating on a maybe problem in the future, and not even the most pressing one when you have a very real problem to worry about right now, which is your

Jordan Harbinger: brother.

Completely agree. Completely agree, Gabe. This is not the only area of your life where somebody else's needs and interests are gonna compete with your own. And you gotta learn to assert yours in a healthy way, in a fair way if you don't wanna be taken advantage of or get hurt yourself. So be tough, but be kind and keep looking for solutions, not just conflicts, but options you guys can pursue.

It'll be bumpy, but that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. In fact, when you're dealing with a family member as problematic as this, it kind of means you're doing something right. Sending you and your siblings a big hug and wishing you all the best you can. Reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com.

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Gabriel Mizrahi: Alright, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. When I get one of those pig butchering text messages like, did you get my message? I know that I'm in for the usual nonsense that escalates into the full scam.

Speaker 4: Mm.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I use the opportunity to string the scammer along for as long as possible, concluding with me sending a list of links about pig butchering prior to blocking and reporting the sender's number.

My theory is that anytime I can make them [00:51:00] waste is time that they cannot target someone who might be fooled by their nefarious scripts. However, I also know that many of the perpetrators are themselves victims of human trafficking, as you talked about in your episodes with Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy.

That was episode 8 33 and 1145. By the way, fascinating episodes. I wonder how sympathetic I'm expected to be to these people's plight. After all, we're constantly reminded about these scams and we're constantly targeted. Since the people perpetrating these crimes are well versed in technology, shouldn't they have known that the work opportunity that they responded to was working at a scam center?

What do you guys think of this somewhat ethical dilemma? Do I show sympathy and just ignore these attempts, or should I prioritize the benefit of distracting these criminals from targeting others, signed looking for some wisdom and maybe a final victim on if I should protect unsuspecting victims when it's fun to say, yeah, I [00:52:00] tricked them, even though these scammers are slaves in a very depressing system.

You know, Jordan, I used to do this as well. I used to string these people along and have a laugh and post the screenshots to Instagram because you know, it's entertaining and like it's fun to mess with scammers. But then I listened to the Nathan and Lindsay episode, and I had to stop. Obviously, also, I'm busy, so what am I doing with my life?

Mm. But now that I know that a lot of these people, maybe most of these people I, I don't know exactly the breakdown, but most of them are just victims who are caught up in these really awful. Scam centers, these cyber slavery operations is just terrible. You can't do it.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, same here. I can't justify it.

You're sometimes hearing from literal slaves who have to do this in order to not get beaten or abused or abandoned in a country where they probably live illegally or worse, maybe they get killed, disappeared, whatever. It's so dark. Plenty of them joined willingly because they get paid well, but like you just don't know who's who.

So you're not really getting one over on the scammers themselves. When you do this. You're just kind of messing with somebody who's carrying out some [00:53:00] script in a call center because they were hoping for a better life. And to your point about shouldn't they have known the work opportunity they responded to as a scam?

I, not necessarily. A lot of these people have no idea that these slavery operations even exist. Or if they know it's a possibility, they roll the dice. 'cause their situations are so bad and so desperate. They wanna leave, they wanna build a better life, they wanna get paid. And by the way, a lot of these people who respond to these jobs, they're also applying for like bartender at restaurant or made at hotel.

They're recruited by what seemed like proper recruiting agencies in, you know, Bangkok or whatever. Why would they know it's a scam? They think they're gonna be making my ties in a Pachinko hall and they end up being enslaved doing the pig butchering scam in a Cambodian call center. Oh, so hard. It is heartbreaking.

I mean, a lot of these people, they get rescued. They're like, yeah, I've, I've been here for three years, and I thought I was gonna be a waitress. So, yeah, in some sense you might be sparing someone else who might fall for the scam. That's an interesting way to justify this. I, I tend to agree, but the numbers are just not on your side.

You're one person. There are [00:54:00] probably tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of these people spread across Asia primarily. So it's really a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, if you really wanna help people, your time would probably be better spent writing posts on social media or articles or whatever about this problem and giving people resources to protect themselves.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or maybe donating to nonprofits that are combating cyber slavery.

Jordan Harbinger: Right? Or like that super brave person who contacted Nathan and Lindsay recently did, instead of just stringing one of these scammers along. You ask them, are you being held against your will? Are you stuck in a call center? And just see if they engage.

Maybe they engage, maybe they don't. But I'm struck how many stories we've been hearing about how many do. Ask them where they are, how many people are there, what's happening, see if they can give you another phone number. Leave their location tracking on. That's how Lindsay and Nathan actually saved a whole busload of slaves, I think was, uh, in Cambodia recently.

Then take screenshots of the thread, send them along with the phone number in the location to local police. Interpol Lindsay and Nathan. I dunno, they've been helping bust a lot of these centers [00:55:00] most recently, that $15 billion Bitcoin enterprise. So crazy, which is just incredible. It's the largest seizure in Department of Justice history.

That's how you really make a difference. That's an investment of time and energy too, but maybe not a huge one. And if you contribute to these people's freedom, man, that

Gabriel Mizrahi: what a good deed. One of you guys wrote me recently, or, or maybe this was in our subreddit, I, I wish I could remember the details, but one of you told us about texting with one of these scammers and asking questions like this, and the scammer actually texted back and said something like, yes, it's awful here.

And if you ever get a text like this, do not respond. We will ruin your life.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I saw that. That's so chilling. So if you want proof that most of these people are decent human beings who hate what they're doing, but are forced to do by these gross Chinese gangsters who are buying huge mansions in Malaysia with Ethereum or whatever.

There you go. It's a tragedy and I'm, and I'm very grateful to people like Nathan and Lindsay who are dedicating their lives to busting these people. If you want to go deeper into this, I would check out my interview with Winston Sterl. That was episode 7 37. [00:56:00] Of course, the episodes with Lindsay and Nathan as well are super interesting about this.

This topic's not going anywhere. This is one of the biggest scams in the world. You know, they say that these scams may make more than drug cartels. Crazy. Wow. Crazy. Wow. Speaking of scams, designed to empty your wallet. Now a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Simply Safe.

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Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored in part by Jasper. We've tested a ton of air purifiers over the years. Seriously, more than any normal household probably should.

And what you start to realize is clean air is one of those things you don't really notice [00:59:00] until you don't have it. Wild fire season, cooking, pets, allergies, your air changes constantly. Most purifiers just are not built to keep up. That's why I'm such a fan of Jasper Mike, the guy who created it. He spent years doing home restorations after wildfires, so he's seen what truly bad air looks like.

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Again, [01:00:00] JS pr.co/jordan, the code Jordan gets you 25% off. If you like this episode of feedback Friday and you found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment, support our amazing sponsors that are almost certainly not run by Chinese gangsters.

To learn more and get links to all the discounts you hear on the show, visit Jordan harbinger.com/deals. If that doesn't work, feel free to email me. We're happy to dig up codes for you. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to feedback Friday. Alright, now for the recommendation of the week.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm addicted to lip fella

Jordan Harbinger: it. It's not quite the same, but I'll take it. My recommendation of the week is the Bradley Meat Smoker. It's called the Bradley Smoker. Sorry Gabe. I know this is your worst nightmare, but we love this thing. As long as you're happy, I'm happy. Oh, thank you. This is such a,

Gabriel Mizrahi: I can tell how passionate you are about this.

Jordan Harbinger: Jen loves this. She uses it all the time. Basically, I guess regular smokers that you get ash on stuff and carbon. This thing doesn't do [01:01:00] that. It burns these wood bisques that automatically rotate and drop after it burns for 20 minutes. So it's always burning. This sounds like an oxymoron, but clean smoke.

It's never burning the ash and getting like the worst part of that stuff on the meat. Also never imagined ourselves to be able to smoke. Meat wasn't a thing I thought I would do, but it's so easy to do. It makes brisket and turkeys. It's amazing, really great for family gatherings. We're gonna smoke a Turkey for Thanksgiving.

It's been a real game changer. Highly recommended, even though we usually don't plug show sponsors and recommendation of the week. Bradley was a sponsor a long time ago. It's a very old sponsor, but Bradley smokers.com/jordan gets you 15% off and the device is awesome. We've been using it for years and years and just, Jen loves it.

She busts it out every single chance she gets. Really. Also, in case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for the show. If you wanna jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes, episodes you love, episodes you hate potential show topics, sponsors, everything is up for discussion over there on the [01:02:00] Jordan Harbinger subreddits.

Okay,

Gabriel Mizrahi: next

Jordan Harbinger: up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hey guys, if you were a federal civilian who is laid off, what would you do? I mean, beyond the Six Minute Networking stuff, which I attempt to do almost every day and getting into better shape. How would you take advantage of this time signed trying to avoid new frown lines during this unexpected downtime?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, good question. Well, first of all, very sorry. You were laid off. Not sure if you were part of the government cuts or if this is a temporary thing related to the recent shutdown, but either way, that sucks. I hope you're holding up okay. And not just lounging around hate and life. So beyond nurturing your relationships and exercising, which are two pillars of life you have to invest in, whether you're employed or not.

I would say keep working hard to connect all of the dots you're creating. Stay close to people. Spend a few hours a day putting in the legwork on finding a job, applying, emailing, interviewing, whatever that is. But with your free time, I would actually read as much as possible. Books are usually the first thing that falls away when you're too busy, which is such a shame [01:03:00] because there's so much great stuff to learn by reading fiction, nonfiction, physical book, audio book.

I would make that a priority. Pick a great book or two that relates to your career or your life phase, or a topic you're excited about. Maybe one fiction and one nonfiction to sort of balance things out. Make that a little project. You can do audio books while you walk or exercise in another ways. I love to do that.

I love to combine those things. You can run errands while you listen. Kill two, three birds with one stone. I would also do all those annoying life things that you put off when you have a job. Make a big list of projects around the house, cleaning out the cupboards, the drawers, the attic, clear, the gutters, whatever it is.

Donate a truckload of crap to goodwill. I know that it's kind of a basic pitch. I get that, but actually this is more than just, you know, make good use of your downtime. All those dumb projects we put off. I do this all the time too. They just create mental clutter. They take up background memory. They put a monkey on your back.

We don't even realize it 'cause you get so used to it where you're like, gotta fix that step. You know what I [01:04:00] mean? Part of our brains are always consumed by the things that we are not doing, and that makes us less effective everywhere else. So this is actually super important to my opinion, and that's another great thing to do when you have the whole day to yourself and way more energy.

I would spend a little time in your inbox every day and go through all your unread messages. I know that sounds like a nightmare, but do something with 'em. Respond to 'em, delete 'em, archive it, move on. That's the digital equivalent of the last thing. And every time you come across one that's from a person who's important to you in any way, I would respond with a few sentences.

I know we're back to Six Minute Networking now, but this is crucial. Your job really is to stay connected to people, to create as many dots as possible, and your inbox is well. It's where a lot of that happens.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I might also take this time to reflect on your career, your life, where you're heading, where you want to go.

Again, when you have a job, it's so hard to step outside of it and go, okay, is there something else I wanna be doing? Or, you know, is there another way I could be doing this job that's gonna be more impactful or more gratifying? Is there anything else I could be [01:05:00] doing around my job that would be fulfilling?

Interesting. You're basically on a forced vacation right now, so I would maybe use that freedom to take a step back and think about your professional life, but really your whole life in a new way.

Jordan Harbinger: Whenever I travel, even short trips to New York or whatever, I always find I have more ideas about work. Yeah, there's something about not being in your daily routine that puts you in touch with new stuff or gives you the distance you need to see things more clearly, but you have to be intentional about this.

Sit down with a notebook. Open up a Google Doc. Talk into your voice memo app, whatever's the easiest. Jot down some notes. Make it real for yourself. Don't just like, you know, think about it and then forget. I wanna write an article about the project I did at work this year. Try to get it published. Great.

Then I would think about two or three people who could help you with that or would benefit from that article. Reach out to them, say hello, chip away at it while you're still unemployed, or work on it in pieces when you get a new job. Doesn't matter. Share drafts with people. Turn it into a process.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Interesting how most things collapse back into relationships, right?

Jordan Harbinger: It's really kind of unavoidable. I [01:06:00] mean, we need one another, right? Humans are social. This is what being alive is kind of about. If you wanna do something, it's gonna involve other people. People you know, people you want to get to know.

Even if you need to work on something alone, at some point someone's gonna have to use that thing or read the thing or enjoy the thing. So my approach to anything is there's always a relationship building aspect to every goal, and that layer makes it way more successful, way more interesting. Plus texting someone, Hey, how you doing?

I'm unemployed. Totally fair. Better than nothing but. Texting someone, Hey, I was laid off, or I was furloughed and now I'm working on an article about this cool project I worked on. I'd love to interview you for it. I'd love to share it with you, whatever. Which one is gonna get a better response? So when I bang on about Six Minute Networking, it's not just self-serving, I don't just need your email that I can literally never use for anything.

So far in the 18 years that I've done the show, it's that your relationships are really the fabric of everything you do, and that's why this stuff pays off. Sorry you were laid off, my friend, but honestly, it [01:07:00] sounds like you're approaching this time very thoughtfully, and I love that. So take good care of your responsibilities.

Take good care of the people in your life and trust. That's the best way to take care of yourself. Sending you good thoughts and I hope you land somewhere great soon. Go back and check out our episodes with Justin Mann and Dr. Abby Morono and our Skeptical Sunday on organ donation. If you haven't done so yet, show notes and transcripts always on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show always 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. This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tadas Sidlauskas, and of course Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on this show [01:08:00] so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time. You are about to hear a preview with James Patterson and what would make the bestselling author walk away at the top of his game?

JHS Trailer: It's rare that I don't write. What I discovered was that I loved doing it, and then I started writing stories and I just loved it.

I didn't know whether I was any good, but I loved doing it, and I would just write, write, write, write, write. When the first book came out, Thomas Berryman number gave Little Brown a blurb, and he said that I'm quite sure that James Patterson wrote a million words before he started this book. It was a great compliment, and then I decided I tried novel.

I'm really happy with the way that turned out. One of the things you always like to do at the end of the chapter is they must turn that next page. That's a strength. The weaknesses, I sometimes don't go as deep as I should. Here's the secret. Hit 'em in the face with a cream pie. And while you have their attention, say something smart.

That's it. No [01:09:00] cream pie. They didn't even notice it. So forget about it. You're just talking to yourself. And if you don't say something smart, once you get their attention, it's irrelevant. You surprise people, which I think is important for my kind of book. We need heroes. And one of the things about the military, and it's very true in this book, in American Heroes, but also walking my combat boots, the military is about we, not me.

And one of the things I think we need to get back to a bit more is we, and it is hard to come by now, duty, honor, sacrifice that just has to be more we rather than just me

Jordan Harbinger: to hear more. As James Patterson reveals the moment that changed his life and the unconventional process that's helped him sell over 400 million books.

Check out episode 1100 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.