443: Kidnap Me Once, Shame on You | Stereo Sunday

Transcript for Kidnap Me Once, Shame on You | Stereo Sunday (Episode 443)

Jordan Harbinger: This episode was done live on Stereo in the Stereo app that's in the Android or iOS App Store. We'll link to it in the show notes.

[00:00:10] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional journalists kidnapped by pirates. Each episode turns our guests' wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker.

[00:00:37] Today, we're talking about the two times that I've been kidnapped while traveling abroad. I figured now is a good time to do that because nobody can really travel abroad so I can talk about something really scary, Gabriel. And people aren't going to be like, "Dude, really too soon." 

[00:00:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: You can talk about it without crushing American Airlines stock.

[00:00:54] Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Yeah. It's already crashed. You're welcome. 

[00:00:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Boom. 

[00:00:57] Jordan Harbinger: Some of the most insane experiences in my life, obviously. Some of the most valuable in a way especially because I lived. Probably would've sucked if I didn't, obviously. This is our fourth episode of Stereo Sunday. It's a little experiment. We're sponsored by the Stereo app. We might be live again next Friday or the Friday after. We're not sure yet. They've got to sort of inform us what's going on, renew the campaign, et cetera. But download the Stereo app in iOS or Android. Follow along with us live next time. You can also catch these episodes in the feed. Some of you are actually doing that right now.

[00:01:29] And again, you can listen to us live inside the Stereo app by grabbing it from the App Store. We'll link it in the show notes. And if you're hearing this in the podcast feed, then in Q4, we did a few of these Stereo Sundays live. Hopefully, we're going to do more in December and/or in 2021 because it is a lot of fun.

[00:01:45] If you're wondering how we managed to book the guests for the show, we have a networking course that works at home. It works for your job. Networking is one of the major, major reasons that I run a successful business right now. And I'm teaching you those skills for free at jordanharbinger.com/course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribed to the course, they subscribed to the newsletter. They contribute to the course. So come join us, you'll be in smart company. Again, we did this live in the Stereo app. It turns out this went really long during the live session. So we're actually going to turn this into two parts.

[00:02:15] This first part is my getting kidnapped in Mexico story. And then part two will be me getting kidnapped in Serbia. So you get a twofer here, two kidnap stories back to back, one week after another, here on Stereo Sunday. 

[00:02:28] Now, Gabe, this is a weird topic. 

[00:02:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, it's a little different. 

[00:02:33] Jordan Harbinger: It is. Yeah. My experience getting kidnapped, not once, but two times, a few years apart — talking about what happened and what I learned from those experiences. Also, for me, I want to talk about what lessons other people can possibly use. I think one of the reasons I'm actually still alive after this is because of a lesson I learned I'm not even kidding on Oprah in like 1994 from a guy who's been on The Jordan Harbinger Show named Gavin de Becker. He was or is Oprah's bodyguard, well, personal protection and security specialist. And he works with like Jeff Bezos and all those sorts of super famous people that you know of that are protected by private security, you know, any big-time CEO, they all use Gavin de Becker's people or people that used to be with Gavin de Becker. So he's like the security guy and he's really, really a smart, interesting guy. He wrote a book called The Gift of Fear. And I had seen him on Oprah talking about this. And one of the tips that we'll get into in a bit here was one of the reasons I think I got out of there in one piece. And Gabe is going to be kind of doing a reverse interview on me today.

[00:03:40] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. And I actually haven't heard these stories — I heard one of these stories years ago. I haven't heard both of them told in full for a long time. So I'm excited actually. Jordan, a lot of people know me if they read your bio or they've heard you on other podcasts that you were kidnapped, not once but twice. It's kind of like a famous fact about the old JH, but most people haven't actually heard, like how you found yourself in that situation, how it actually went down, how you got out. So we thought we talked about that today.

[00:04:08] I guess let's start — take me back to the year 2000. You're in Mexico. Why? 

[00:04:14] Jordan Harbinger: So I was an exchange student in Germany in the late '90s, and I loved it and it was like this massively formative year for me. And I learned everything from negotiation to the haggling to why our freedom as Americans is valuable because I lived in the former East Germany where if they were communist, like not even 10 years before I got there and it was like a totalitarian hellhole in a lot of ways with the Stasi and secret police. And I was just, I went to college after that. In college, the first year was kind of this disappointment where it was just like high school with jocks and bullies and stuff. And I thought like, this is so dumb, but at least I'm getting a good education. And then it would be like memorizing the skull shapes of these Australopithecines. And I just remember thinking, I learned so much more working and studying abroad than I did in that first year of college. So my second year of college, I went to Israel.

[00:05:06] And in Israel, I was like, you know, this is going to be great. It's a different type of experience. I'm so excited about this, but the second Intifada, which is like the Palestinian uprising — the second Intifada started while I was there, I was in the Old City of Jerusalem and there was a riot starting because Ariel Sharon, who is the prime minister at the time, I think — he went up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. If you didn't know what that is, it's like a flashpoint for Arab Israeli violence. There was a riot, me and my Jordanian roommate, we escaped because every time we would run into like Palestinian violent sort of gang youth, he would say, "We're Arabs in flawless Jordanian, Arabic." And they'd be like, "All right, fine. Get out of here." And then anytime we saw Israeli police, I would go, "We're Americans," and they would be like, "Go, okay, fine. Get out of here." So we've run. It was basically like, "Okay if they're brown, you talk to them and if they're white-ish, I'll talk to them. And if they're in the middle, it just depends if they're wearing a uniform and how dangerous they look," and he's like, "Great." So basically, we were just running out of there and thought, okay, it's a little dangerous. My parents were freaking out and it didn't end in a couple of days, it's arguably lasted for years and it's still potentially going on. 

[00:06:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, still going on, yeah.

[00:06:14] Jordan Harbinger: So I went to Egypt. I did a bunch of backpacking in Egypt because it was cheap and it was right next door. And I saw a bunch of cool stuff. And then the semester was starting to wind down in all of the universities that were in the United States that had sent students to Israel. They canceled their programs. So like all of my friends left and then it was— 

[00:06:34] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sorry. You're studying abroad at the University of Michigan at this point 

[00:06:37] Jordan Harbinger: I was studying at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and then I basically just enrolled at Hebrew University in Israel on my own. 

[00:06:44] Gabriel Mizrahi: On your own, okay. Got it.

[00:06:45] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:06:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: So you're just like, "I'm going to just pursue my own course of study and maybe I'll make my way back to Michigan at some point."

[00:06:49] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, pretty much. 

[00:06:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay. Okay.

[00:06:51] Jordan Harbinger: I didn't drop out of school at Michigan. I just went on like a sabbatical or whatever you call hiatus.

[00:06:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Got it. yeah. 

[00:06:56] Jordan Harbinger: You know, when you're a student, they don't even care. They just assume you're depressed or something and you're just out.

[00:07:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: Or just enjoying a little intifada. 

[00:07:02] Jordan Harbinger: I'm just enjoying a little uprising. I mean, come on. Don't judge. Right? Once Michigan State and Michigan and all these other programs canceled their Israel programs and everybody was called home. My parents were like, "Look, these other universities are calling everybody home. You have to come home." And I go, "Dad, it's October 27th. I can't just come home and be like, 'Hey, I want to enroll in classes at Michigan.'" And he's like, "Why not?" And I'm like, "They started two months ago, first of all."

[00:07:25] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:07:25] Jordan Harbinger: So I would just be — he's like, "Come home and work at a movie theater." I'm like, "Uh, hell no." You know work at my old job, like tearing tickets at a movie theater just made no sense at all. So I was like, "Nah, I'm going to go to Mexico," because I knew that in Mexico, there was a Spanish language program that I'd had my eye on for a while. And I thought, you know, I can learn this now and it's a private language school, so they're not going to care when I start, I'm going to have my own teachers. So I flew from Israel back to the United States, I think, but I can't really remember, and then flew to Mexico pretty much right after that and stayed in like a private home in Mexico. And I took Spanish lessons every morning from this teacher. It was kind of this miserable, lonely time in a lot of ways, but Mexico is also really a trip. So I had a lot of really fun, cool experiences. 

[00:08:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: And you're in Mexico City at this point, or you're in—?

[00:08:15] Jordan Harbinger: At that time, I went to Guadalajara first.

[00:08:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: As you do.

[00:08:18] Jordan Harbinger: As one does, yeah. It was a pretty chill town. Now, it's one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico because there's a new cartel they're called Nueva Generación, New Generation. And it's like a super violent drug cartel. It sounds like a boy band. Definitely not as fun as a boy band. 

[00:08:35] Yeah. 

[00:08:36] And then I got a job at a nonprofit. And the nonprofit was in Mexico City and they were supposed to find me a family to live in, like a host family, and they just couldn't. So I stayed on the roof literally, where there was like a makeshift bedroom of this home that these old people owned, where the daughter happened to know one of the guys that I worked with in the nonprofit. And she worked at the presidential palace. She was like — I don't know exactly what she did, but she worked in the middle of the city. 

[00:09:08] Gabriel Mizrahi: So they hook you up with a place to stay because they couldn't line something else up for you. You're living on the roof, like some B character in Narcos. 

[00:09:14] Jordan Harbinger: Totally B character in Narcos. Yeah. Like an NPC. 

[00:09:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: At night, what are you doing? Besides you're studying and you're working a little bit. Are you going out? Are you enjoying the city? Like what's the scene? 

[00:09:25] Jordan Harbinger: Good question. So I am going out a lot and it's funny because I did an episode with Ed Calderon. That's not out yet for The Jordan Harbinger Show and he's a cartel violence expert and a former Mexican policeman. So we talked a lot about this. So I'll keep this to the short version because you'll get a longer version during that episode. I wouldn't say looking for trouble, but I was very keen on seeing all of the cities had to offer that wasn't just like art museums and like tourist crap. 

[00:09:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:09:52] Jordan Harbinger: So I stayed in some gross hotels that were like $13 a night. 

[00:10:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: Those are the greatest hotels, right? 

[00:10:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah. But like, shared bathrooms scenario—

[00:10:05] Right.

[00:10:05] Geckos on the wall type hotels, although maybe in Mexico City, not so many geckos. And I went to markets that were kind of like the cops didn't go in there. And if they did, it was to buy illicit substances, not to enforce any laws. It's called El Tepito. And it's like this ancient market that's in the middle of Mexico City, but it was probably there before Mexico City was, and it's like this defensible area. And there, they sell everything from counterfeit Chinese handbags to — there's prostitution there. You can buy weapons there. You can buy pharmaceuticals there of all kinds. You can buy those Santa Muerte statuettes and stuff there. You can even go do like literally you can do like blood sacrifices there—

[00:10:49] Got it.

[00:10:50] —for creepy sort of drug cartel saints and stuff.

[00:10:55] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, Santa Muerte stuff and like—

[00:10:57] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, Santa Muerte, yeah.

[00:10:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: So you're kind of — okay, so it's like IRL Silk Road.

[00:11:02] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, exactly. It's like a real-life version of the Silk Road. Like you can go there and it's not like, "Hey man, psst, you want some weed?" It's like, you're just seeing it out on tables. 

[00:11:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right, right. just out and about. Okay.

[00:11:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:11:13] Gabriel Mizrahi: So these are the places you would go frequently.

[00:11:16] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:11:17] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. You want it to know what the real Mexico is. You didn't want to stay at like the Four Seasons. 

[00:11:21] Jordan Harbinger: It was, funnily enough, one of the places where everyone said, "Don't go there by yourself. And I was like, I'm going there tomorrow. And I went there like every day—

[00:11:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:29] Jordan Harbinger: —to explore. And what was funny was it probably was ridiculously dangerous for me to do that. On the other hand, I think people thought that I was either a narco or a cop or some kind of crazy person because I was a white guy who at the time — I was working out like twice a day, I didn't have much else to do but eat carne asada and workout twice a day. So I would go there and hang out. And I think people were kind of like, "Ooh, this guy's probably trouble."

[00:11:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:11:57] Jordan Harbinger: Because he's alone in El Tepito. And he's like, this jacked young white dude who is either crazy and doesn't know he should be here or knows something that I don't, and nobody should mess with this guy. 

[00:12:08] Right.

[00:12:08] And my Spanish was getting better and better. You know you don't talk much when you're at markets. So there were a couple of women that were like, "Wait, where are you from?" And I'm like, "United States." And they'd be like, "Oh my God. I just thought you were a Mexican with light eyes." Because you know, you get a tan after a while and you say a few words in Spanish that are more or less how you're supposed to speak and people think you're Mexican suddenly, especially when you're in the hood where no tourists ever go because they either don't know about it or every guidebook says don't set foot in this place unless you want to get your wallet slashed or something like that or your face. 

[00:12:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: So I'm guessing we're working our way toward the kidnapping. 

[00:12:41] Jordan Harbinger: Funnily enough, nothing ever happened to me in El Tepito, totally fine and uneventful. 

[00:12:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the point of this subplot. Okay, got it.

[00:12:47] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:12:47] Gabriel Mizrahi: You're like, "I put myself in danger, nothing happened. I went to go get some green smoothie from Whole Foods, that's where I got snatched." 

[00:12:54] Jordan Harbinger: 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah. Minus the Whole Foods part, you're pretty damn close.

[00:12:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. 

[00:12:59] Jordan Harbinger: By the way, we're doing this one live on Stereo in the Stereo app. You can grab that from the App Store on Android or iOS. We'll link it up in the show notes. 

[00:13:07] So I'm staying on the roof of these people's house and there's these buses like school buses — and I forget what they're called. Somebody will tell us in the chat probably. But whenever you go to Mexico and in fact, whenever you go anywhere in South America, there are these little buses that are basically decommissioned school buses that are now private city buses. They're not city buses as in they're owned by the city, but there are city buses as in, they drive to neighborhoods that are not served by the city. So like Favela-Bairro type—

[00:13:38] Gabriel Mizrahi: Got it.

[00:13:38] Jordan Harbinger: —neighborhoods.

[00:13:39] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. 

[00:13:39] Jordan Harbinger: And pretty much any neighborhood, that's just not close enough to it. Like a legit bus stop. And what's funny is they're always airbrushed really well. And that's how you know which bus it is. It's not like, "Hey, this is Route 27." They have that too. But they also — it's like, "Oh, I like the one that has the giant mural of Mariah Carey on the side that says Mariah in hot pink spray paint. So I'm always taking these same buses and they stop around, you know, 9:00 p.m. or something.

[00:14:08] So one day my friend who's a German guy, he goes, "Let's go to this bar. It's downtown in the center of Mexico City." I'm like, 'Great. I go outside and there's no buses running and I'm in like Banana Republic chinos and a nice light blue dress shirt. And I get into a taxi and the taxi is a green Volkswagen Beetle, just like all Mexico City taxis, so these green Volkswagen Beetles. And I get in the car and I go, "Oh, excuse me, I don't have cash. I need you to take me to an ATM, close to our destination?" And he goes, "No problem." Because I just didn't have any cash with me at the time. This is interesting because I probably wouldn't — I think I had just enough to pay for the school bus version of getting there, but not enough for the taxi version, which has probably three, four times the price. And so he goes, "No problem." 

[00:14:54] Mexico City, now it's shaped like a bowl and in the middle, there's statues and the presidential palace where the woman whose family I lived with was working. So I knew that area quite well. That's near where El Tepito, you know, all these like main areas of the city are. And on the outside of the bowl, the higher elevation areas are the areas where I live, where there's neighborhoods. And then above us and on the outside of the bowl is like less and less and less developed and more and more and more kind of sketchy further away from the center of town. And there's a lot of pollution up there too because the air quality is so bad. You're kind of like in the smog air. 

[00:15:30] So I noticed we're driving up instead of down and I go, "Hey man, you know, I'm going down there, what's taken so long?" And I thought like, maybe there's traffic, but there wasn't really. And then he drops the first red flag and he goes, "There's an accident." And I was like, "How do you know?" This is before cell phones in the year 2000. 

[00:15:49] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. 

[00:15:49] Jordan Harbinger: And then he goes, "Well, let me just get directions." And that was like a major hit you in the face red flag because if you are a cab driver in Washington, DC, and someone says, "Take me to the White House." You don't go, "Hang on. Let me ask for directions."

[00:16:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:16:05] Jordan Harbinger: If you're in New York and someone says, "Times Square." You don't say, "Oh man, I need to get some directions." 

[00:16:09] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Jordan Harbinger: You know, if you've been there for a day and a half, you know how to get there. So if you're a cab driver, you know the city like the back of your hand. You shouldn't need directions for anywhere. Let alone, one of the most popular areas in the entire country of Mexico.

[00:16:21] Gabriel Mizrahi: Not a good sign.

[00:16:21] Jordan Harbinger: So not a good sign. And we're lucky that we didn't have cell phones because if I'd had Instagram, I probably would've just been like whatever and scrolling and then been like, "Where the hell are we?" But I was looking out the window the whole time and I thought we're just not going in the same direction. You know, I've been here for a couple of months at this point already. I know where we're going and where we're supposed to be. And it's, this is not it. And he's being more and more strange. Like suddenly he doesn't understand my Spanish questions and he's turning the radio up and I'm like, "Can you turn that off? Like, I'm trying to talk to you now." And he's like, "Oh, relax, Señor." I'm like, "I'm kind of not relaxed. And also, you seem to notice that I'm not relaxed. What's the deal?" And so just a bunch of little things like that started to freak me out. And I tell him, "Look, just take me back, you know. Drop me off here." He's like, "No." I'm like, "I'll pay you." He's like, "I thought you didn't have any money." I'm like, "Dang, you got me there." 

[00:17:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, you're stuck with this guy. 

[00:17:13] Jordan Harbinger: I'm like, "Take me back. I've got cash in my place." He's like, "No, we're almost there." And I know that that's not true because now we can't even like barely see the city lights at all. So I'm like, "Uh, this is bad."

[00:17:23] Gabriel Mizrahi: Scary.

[00:17:24] Jordan Harbinger: We're in like a favela area now. This is like a slum kind of area. This is not good.

[00:17:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: Not good.

[00:17:30] Jordan Harbinger: And he's like, "We're almost there." So I realized now that he's up to something and we stop in front of this cinder-block house and people are going to go, "Why didn't you jump out and run?" I couldn't get out of the car. I thought about stopping at a red light and just like bolting, but the lock — this is the ultimate red flag. The locks in the backseat were broken. 

[00:17:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh God.

[00:17:53] Jordan Harbinger: I don't mean like physically broken. Like I tried the door and they didn't work. I mean, you know, an old car with a lock would pop up near the window, and then it would go down into that little hole.

[00:18:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. 

[00:18:02] Jordan Harbinger: This car had had the locks put up and then cut as low as they could and so that when the car was locked, you couldn't reach the lock to pull up. 

[00:18:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh my God. That's terrifying. 

[00:18:13] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:18:14] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So you're stuck in this car. 

[00:18:16] Jordan Harbinger: I felt like maybe they're broken because you'd see old cars like that a lot with broken locks. You'd see that. But the fact that these were both broken on that side was a little weird. And also, that they were both broken in the same way. Made me think it was kind of deliberate. 

[00:18:33] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:18:33] Jordan Harbinger: And I was like, "Oh, I'm in like a kidnap taxi." 

[00:18:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the moment when you're like, there's definitely something off at this point. Like, "I am not in a good situation. I am in trouble." 

[00:18:43] Jordan Harbinger: Right. And this is before everyone knew that there was like this racket to go and grab foreigners and take them to like five ATMs at knifepoint or gunpoint, and then leave them in the street after withdrawing the maximum daily amount of money. And I'm hoping that that's what this was, but you know, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

[00:18:59] By the way we're doing this one live on Stereo and the Stereo app that's in the Android or iOS app store. We'll link to it in the show notes. 

[00:19:07] So he stops and I said, "Sir, just keep going. Don't stop here." Because I knew — again, no cell phones. So I knew that if he gets out here and I'm stuck in a car, this is where he goes and gets like three huge guys from this shantytown. And they both get in the back of his cab. Or like, who knows? Right? This is the secondary location. And that's one of the tips that we'll talk about in a minute. This is bad. So I slide from behind the passenger seat. I slide behind the driver's seat and I go, "Sir, please don't get out. Just keep going. I don't feel safe here."

[00:19:42] And I put my arm between him and the door because I figure I can stop him from getting out. And then, that's all I've got right now. Ideally, we would never have even gotten to this place, but it's too late for that. So I decided, all right, I'm going to block his exit from the car if he tries to make a fast move. He didn't notice that my arm was between him and the door. He had no idea. So he's like, "Sir, calm down." I'm like, "Drive, just keep driving." And he's like, "Calm down, relax. I'm going to just go in and grab my friend and get directions." And I was like, "Okay. So you do know somebody that lives here. That's even worse. You know, you're not stopping to look at a map. You're telling me you're planning to get out of the car."

[00:20:20] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right, yeah.

[00:20:20] Jordan Harbinger: So I go, "No, keep driving anywhere, but here I don't like it. I don't feel safe." And at that point, he makes a fast one to try and open the door. But I have my hand kind of between his seat and the door. So I'm ready to slide my arm forward. Again, I'm 20 years old at this point. I'm 40 now. So it was a while ago, 20 years old at this point. I work out twice a day and all I eat are carne asada tacos and drink protein shakes. So I'm 209 pounds of a lean angry teenager, or just almost, you know, used to be a teenager last year. And he's like 50 something, sits in a cab all day, eating fast food. He's a slob and he is not strong. And I'm not even half his age and very strong. So he tries to get out and he can't and I throw him right back into the seat with one arm and I reach around the seat with my other arm, you know, over the console area between the passenger seat and the driver's seat with my other arm. And I put him in a choke that is nasty. Like I had my wrist bone of my left hand over the bridge of his nose and I had my entire forearm over his mouth. So he couldn't breathe.

[00:21:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: Wow.

[00:21:29] Jordan Harbinger: And I slipped my right hand, which was over his mouth down over his neck. And I put them in a sleeper and I put them to sleep with a car seat between me. And if you've ever put anybody in a sleeper hold, it's pretty tough to do and it requires a little bit of muscle to do right especially if the other person is struggling. To do it with a freaking car seat in between you, you have to squeeze extremely hard because otherwise—

[00:21:50] Gabriel Mizrahi: I was about to say—

[00:21:50] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:21:51] Gabriel Mizrahi: —you had to be in crazy good shape to pull that off. 

[00:21:55] Jordan Harbinger: I was extremely strong. You know, I was in panic mode, so I put like—

[00:21:58] Gabriel Mizrahi: You had crazy muscles.

[00:21:59] Jordan Harbinger: I had, yeah, crazy strength. I had berserker mode right on. And so I squeezed him so hard that he stopped moving, which is what happens in a sleeper hold. And I sort of let him go. I had to crawl between the two seats, which is not easy, open his door, push him out of the car. I tried to drive the car and I couldn't, it was a stick shift, but not only that, it was a stick shift from 1968 or something like that. So I'm trying to drive — and you know, there's a clutch and there's a trick to the clutch and I'm massively shaking from adrenaline—

[00:22:29] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sure yeah.

[00:22:29] Jordan Harbinger: —and freaked out and looked for other people who might've seen what happened. 

[00:22:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:22:33] Jordan Harbinger: Luckily, he didn't scream or get the horn. I mean, I put them out probably in a few seconds.

[00:22:38] Gabriel Mizrahi: There's nobody around in this area that you're standing in, right?

[00:22:40] Jordan Harbinger: No and it's dark out. It's like 9:00 p.m.

[00:22:42] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:22:43] Jordan Harbinger: So no one saw it. Thank God. So I take the keys out of the car. I threw the keys. I should have kept the keys, but it doesn't end up mattering. And the reason I should've kept the keys is because I didn't want him to chase me in the car. So I threw the keys thinking — first I tried to drive my way in the car. I couldn't. Then I threw the keys thinking I don't want him to just get back in the car if he wakes up in 10 seconds and come and chase me and find me—

[00:23:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sure.

[00:23:05] Jordan Harbinger: —you know, with three other guys. 

[00:23:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, smart. 

[00:23:07] Jordan Harbinger: But I should have kept the keys because — what if he found the freaking keys? I don't know. Anyway, I threw the keys and I ran back the way we came, but I was miles and miles away from where we really had come from. So I finally get to some semblance of a main road. I think they call it like Periférico or something. I could be getting confused. I think it's like a ring road.

[00:23:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the big ring road. Yeah. 

[00:23:29] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay. It may have been that. Or I may have just seen a sign for that—

[00:23:34] Gabriel Mizrahi: For it, okay.

[00:23:34] Jordan Harbinger: —and then thought it was that cause again, weird memory stuff 20 years later. 

[00:23:38] This episode was recorded live on Stereo in the Stereo app. You can go grab that in the iOS App Store or the Android App Store. And we'll link to that, of course, in the show notes. 

[00:23:48] Gabriel Mizrahi: You got to a main road, that's the point. And so there's traffic and people around. 

[00:23:52] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, there were people, but there was traffic and nobody would stop for me. And at this point, realize I had my hair like bleach blonde or something because I was 20. I was wearing a Banana Republic blue button-down shirt. I remember it really clearly. I was soaked through with sweat because I'd been running and freaking out and it was hot. It's 1968 VW taxi has probably no air conditioning in it. And I'm wearing like dry, clean, only cream-colored chinos, off white chinos. That I assume are soaked and I'm in the middle of the hood or at least damn close to it. So no one's like, "Let me stop and talk to that guy."

[00:24:24] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:24:24] Jordan Harbinger: They were like, "What is this meth out gringo doing here? What the hell?"

[00:24:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm starting to understand why you didn't get jumped in that market earlier? 

[00:24:30] Jordan Harbinger: I think so. I think I just looked like a crazy person. So finally, someone stops and they're like, "What's wrong?" Because it was so obvious that I was panicking and freaking out and jumping up and down and waving my arms. 

[00:24:40] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:24:41] Jordan Harbinger: And it was an older guy and a younger woman who I thought was his daughter in 20/20 hindsight, probably his girlfriend, because that's kind of how these things roll sometimes—

[00:24:50] Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay.

[00:24:50] Jordan Harbinger: —in Mexico. And I vaguely remember the guy was a doctor because he was like, "Are you hurt?"

[00:24:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay.

[00:24:54] Jordan Harbinger: And I was like, "No. This guy tried to kidnap me." And he goes, "What?" And I was like, "Look, I'll ride in the trunk. Just get me out of here." And the girl said something like, "We can't just leave him here." Because he was like, "Hell no, I'm not going to put it in this guy in my car." I was like, "I'll ride in the trunk." 

[00:25:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: He's like, "Oh, this guy is about to kidnap me. I'm not going to help him." 

[00:25:09] Jordan Harbinger: Right. He didn't know what was going on. It was just too weird. But the fact that I was yelling in English and like terrible Spanish, he just knew that it was — it just didn't add up. It was just weird. 

[00:25:18] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:25:18] Jordan Harbinger: So I said, "Look, I'll ride in the trunk." I think that was enough for him. He's like, "Get in the backseat of the car," and he just starts driving. He's like, "Where do you want me to take it?" I was like, "Police station!" And he goes, "Ah, okay. How long have you been in Mexico? I was like, "Uh, like four months or something," and he goes, "Let me tell you something, never go to the police if you have a problem like this. In fact, don't ever go to the police." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he's like, "No one's told you this in the few months that you've been here?" I was like, "No, I've never had any problems." He goes, "There's a very good chance that if you were kidnapped," because I kind of gave him a rundown, you know, "That if you were kidnapped, either the police were in on it and they are fully aware that this gang operates here. Or they could just decide that this is a different kind of problem." And I was like, "What do you mean?" And he goes, "Where's the cab driver?" And I was like, "Oh, you know, I told you I just had a scuffle with him." And he goes, "Where is he? Why didn't he chase you?" And I was like, "Oh, he's unconscious." And he's like, "Are you sure? He's only unconscious?" And I was like, "I'm starting to see where you're going with this story." 

[00:26:12] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, damn, that's intense. 

[00:26:14] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Because he's like, "Look, what could happen is I could take you to the police. They might be in on this. They might take you back to that gang and be like, 'Give me 50 bucks.'"

[00:26:22] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:26:22] Jordan Harbinger: "Or maybe they go and they look, and that cab driver is still laying in the road where you murdered him—"

[00:26:28] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, man.

[00:26:28] Jordan Harbinger: "—in self-defense. And now you have to prove that to a bunch of corrupt cops." 

[00:26:31] Gabriel Mizrahi: With broken Spanish as a gringo in the middle of a foreign country that you're just visiting where you don't know the people or the rules, yeah.

[00:26:39] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. So I'm like panic mode and I'm like, "Holy shit. I don't want to deal with this." So he goes, "I'll tell you what, I'll drop you off at a Subway Station. I don't want to know where you live." 

[00:26:49] Gabriel Mizrahi: You mean like to get a sandwich or like—

[00:26:51] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah, to talk to the sandwich artists. Those people are very good at advising and these types of high-pressure situations.

[00:26:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: What you need in a situation like this? You need a six-foot-long.

[00:26:58] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I needed five-dollar footlong. So he dropped me off at a Metro station. And I take that and I go home and I'm covered in sweat. I showered up and everything. I tell my German friend, "Hey, I can't make it. Sorry." I emailed him. I couldn't call him. We didn't have cell phones. I emailed him like, "Hey, I know you're probably standing around alone for hours and really pissed, but here's what I got in some trouble and I'm moving." And he's like, "What?" And I tell the woman via note that I live with, or these old people and the woman that I live with, that I'm going to move and that it's not them. And that I ran into some trouble and I'm really sorry and blah, blah, blah." And I basically like straight up, went to the bus station, like immediately—

[00:27:38] Gabriel Mizrahi: Wow.

[00:27:39] Jordan Harbinger:  And found a late overnight bus that went to Guadalajara and I just bounced and I moved. 

[00:27:44] Gabriel Mizrahi: Just like that. 

[00:27:45] Jordan Harbinger: I moved, oh, instantly I moved because again, people were telling me an organized crime. What if they know who you are? What if you drop something in the cab that identifies you? What if you told the guy where you work? Like, what if they just see you in this neighborhood where they picked you up? And they're like, here's the guy that murdered my uncle last weekend. Right? Who knows? 

[00:28:03] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right, right.

[00:28:04] Jordan Harbinger: So I was like, I'm out. So I moved immediately to Guadalajara from Mexico City.

[00:28:09] Gabriel Mizrahi: Damn.

[00:28:10] Jordan Harbinger: Back to Guadalajara I should say.

[00:28:11] Gabriel Mizrahi: That is terrifying, but it sounds like it ended up okay. 

[00:28:14] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:28:15] Gabriel Mizrahi: You obviously never heard about this guy after the fact, so you don't really know what happened, but you made it out okay. 

[00:28:21] Jordan Harbinger: Right. I don't really know what happened and I didn't go to Mexico for a really, really long time after that. And what I did, I ended up calling some people that knew some people that knew some people. And I was like, "Can you run me through the national crime database of Mexico if there is one and find out if there's like an outstanding warrant for me?"

[00:28:41] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:28:42] Jordan Harbinger: And they were like, "Sure. Okay. Nothing." Great. It was just one of those situations. Because I was like, hey, I don't want them to be like Having looked for me for five years. 

[00:28:52] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally. You don't want to show up at the airport in DF and they pull you to the side and say, "Did you take a cab—?" 

[00:28:57] Jordan Harbinger: "Are you this guy? Were you here in 2001? Cool. You're under arrest for the murder of this cab driver." 

[00:29:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: And by the way, good job on getting rid of those blonde tips. This is a much better look for you. 

[00:29:07] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Oh. I didn't recognize you because you don't have a douchebag haircut.

[00:29:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: Exactly. 

[00:29:10] Jordan Harbinger: A lot of you are listening to us live on Stereo. Thanks again for that. If you're not listening to us live, you can grab the Stereo app in the iOS or Android App Stores. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. 

[00:29:20] Gabriel Mizrahi: So looking back on that experience all these years later, 20 years later, right? What did you take away from that briefly? And I know we have to get to another story, which is, I suspect even wilder than the one you just told us but—

[00:29:31] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:29:31] Gabriel Mizrahi: —looking back, like if there were like a couple of things, what did you take away?

[00:29:34] Jordan Harbinger: So the first thing is the lesson that I learned from Oprah slash Gavin de Becker, which I talk about in his episodes on the show, Gavin de Becker. We'll link to those in the show notes as well. The first thing is to never go to the secondary location. That's the prime lesson. If you are getting kidnapped or abducted or taken someplace against your will, you fight right then and there. I don't care if they have a gun and you're in a parking lot and they're telling you to get in the car, you fight right then and there if they're trying to take you hostage. The reason is that's where they have the least amount of control and the least amount of privacy. So it might seem like you're in trouble because you're in a dark parking lot at a Target with very few people in it. And you're getting told to get into the car. That's the best place because once you're in the car, there's no one else you're moving fast. It's easy for them to conceal you. It's easier for them to conceal their firearms or their knives. If they get you to the secondary location, that's the proverbial place where nobody can hear you scream. 

[00:30:32] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:30:32] Jordan Harbinger: That's the safe house where I assume I was outside of Mexico City. Like that's the place we're in the basement. They've got a soundproofing basement. There's no neighbors. They've got chains cemented to the walls or a place to dispose of your body—

[00:30:46] Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally.

[00:30:47] Jordan Harbinger: —or whatever it is. Right? Or if you're lucky, it's where reinforcements are that take you to a bunch of ATMs and you're basically unscathed after they rob you. But I don't know, like to this day, was I going to get robbed and taken to three ATMs and withdraw $600 in the left in the middle of nowhere? Or was I going to get chopped up slowly into little pieces? I don't know.

[00:31:06] Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, and you don't want to stick around and find out so never—

[00:31:09] Jordan Harbinger: You don't.

[00:31:09] Gabriel Mizrahi: —never go to the secondary location. Okay. 

[00:31:11] Jordan Harbinger: The other lesson is a lot of — we have this map in our brain and I don't know exactly what this is called, but it's like — there's a fallacy for this Gabriel when you experience something that is outside your normal — not your comfort zone, but your normal level of experience — you often don't know how to identify it. And what I mean is when I was in the car if I'm really honest with myself, I knew that I was probably getting kidnapped like 10 to 15 minutes before I did anything significant to stop the actions. And then I dilly-dallied and talked myself out of it and sat on the fence for a while until it was just so obvious that this guy had taken me somewhere and was trying to get out of the car to get help.

[00:31:54] So you have to be really careful because your brain will — and this is what I remember from this conversation again, it's sort of like the magic of memory. So I'm not sure this happened in the moment, but my 20/20 hindsight says that it did. I remember very distinctly now having this conversation in my head that went something like, "Hey, I've never been kidnapped before. So why would that be happening now?" And then my other part of my brain went, "That makes no sense. Just because you've never gotten kidnapped before, it doesn't mean you can't get kidnapped. Now, when you were a virgin, you hadn't slept with a woman before and now you have. Like, what do you mean? That's what experience is, that's what life experiences."

[00:32:27] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:32:28] Jordan Harbinger: And then I go, "Well, I don't really know. Nobody's really talked about this." And then it was like, "Well, maybe people who've been through the situation and didn't get away are dead."

[00:32:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh man.

[00:32:36] Jordan Harbinger: "And that's why you haven't heard about it." 

[00:32:37] Gabriel Mizrahi: Sure, yeah, yeah. There's a small audience that you can learn that from. Yeah. 

[00:32:40] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Like there's survivor bias and it's called survivor bias because of literally situations like this, where you only hear from people that survive. Where they go, "Oh, it's fine. Just go to the ATM with them and they'll let you go. No sense of getting cut." And now, it's like, okay, everybody else who got cut into little pieces slowly and tortured to death for Santa Muerte blood sacrifices is dead. And don't come out the other side to tell you.

[00:33:02] Gabriel Mizrahi: Good point.

[00:33:03] Jordan Harbinger: So it's survivor bias. And I remember having these conversations in my head, not in so many words, not using like cognitive bias and things like that, but I just remember having this like one voice and then the other voice and going, "Well, maybe that's not true." "Am I just doing that because I don't want to accuse this guy of something?" "Yeah. I kind of am." "Well, if I escape, how am I going to do it?" "Maybe you don't need to escape. You're overreacting." "Okay. But what if I'm not overreacting? I should have a plan." You know, that whole thing was going through my head. And I'm not saying you should live in fear and always have an escape plan. But what I am saying is, you know when you're in an unfamiliar situation and you start to get heebie-jeebies. Listen to those heebie-jeebies. Put your freaking phone away, which is what most people will do. They'll start scrolling on Instagram to distract themselves.

[00:33:44] Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, good point.

[00:33:44] Jordan Harbinger: Or they start looking at their email to distract themselves. I didn't have that luxury because there were no mobile phones. So I was alone with my thoughts and my thoughts were getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And it would have been really easy for me to just bust out my phone, bust out GPS, or call my friend and chat on the way. I could, I would've done something like that instead. And I think the reason I'm alive or the reason nothing happened to me is because I did not do that. So you really do need to listen to your gut when it comes to these sorts of things. Now, your intuition might be wrong and you might go, "Ooh, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge people who have face tattoos. You know, maybe he's just a guy who's turning his life around or something like that." But why be wrong for the sake of being woke? Or why be wrong for the sake of making yourself feel comfortable for an extra 15 minutes on your taxi ride? If you're getting a weird feeling do something about it and if you're wrong, you're wrong and who cares. 

[00:34:38] Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm just glad I heard this because if I ever find that myself in that situation, you better believe I'm going to be thinking, "Pay attention to that voice. Don't discount that. Don't look at Instagram. Check your meme accounts later." Time to pay attention to what's happening right in front of you because if I hadn't heard a story like that, I don't know if I would be able to trust that voice as much as I would now. 

[00:34:59] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. 

[00:35:00] Gabriel Mizrahi: That's a really good insight. 

[00:35:01] Jordan Harbinger: Once again, to the Stereo app for making this possible for us, you can grab the Stereo app and the iOS or Android App Stores, and we'll link to it, of course, in the show notes as well, just as we always do. Thanks for joining us. 

[00:35:11] A lot of times what I was thinking when I was in the car was this probably isn't happening. And I sort of touched on that. It's wishful thinking, just don't roll the dice, make waves. Your impulse is going to be like, just be cool, just be chill — that's actually how you die. Yes, you should be calm. So you can think clearly. But there's a lot of social pressure that goes into this. And I remember the guy saying things like, "Relax, what do you think I'm going to do to you?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah, you're right." And then I was like, "Wait, that's what manipulative people say."

[00:35:41] Gabriel Mizrahi: Why am I taking this guy's word for it? He's the one who's going to do it.

[00:35:43] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. "You're the one it's going to do it. What do you mean? What are you going to do to me?" That's the thing, he's like, "I'm an old man, what could I do?" And I'm like, yeah, you're probably the perfect guy to kidnap people because you're like an older guy with gray hair. "

[00:35:54] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. 

[00:35:55] Jordan Harbinger: You know, of course. And he wasn't that old, he just happened to have gray hair. If it was somebody who wasn't in great shape or was sort of like talking themselves out of it. Yeah, I would have ended up sitting in the car. 

[00:36:05] There's a lot of people that say like, "Oh, be as calm as possible." Yes, you should be calm, but you should try and not panic. That's all that, that means. You should actually be worked up. You should allow the adrenaline to wash over you. You should be using that. The reason we have fight or flight when we are engaging in physical conflict is because that's how you get berserker mode. That's how you get that super strong strength to go in like outrun or a run — because who knows how far I ran; I could have run like a mile and a half in like 10 minutes or whatever it was running back. The struggle, yes, I was stronger than him, but I was in absolute survival mode and I basically crushed his windpipe with my arm and his nose. You need to channel your aggression and your excitement into getting out of the situation. Don't calm yourself down so far that you don't take action.

[00:36:56] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:36:56] Jordan Harbinger: All stay calm means don't panic and start running around in circles and be like, "Oh my God, my mom, oh, what am I going to tell my mom?" Like, that's freaking out.

[00:37:04] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:37:04] Jordan Harbinger: Don't freak out, but you shouldn't be like, "Oh, chill, relax. Nothing Is happening." That's not true. 

[00:37:10] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right. There's productive fear and unproductive fear.

[00:37:13] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. And then yeah, come up with a plan, right? Like I was thinking, how am I going to stop him from getting out of the car? How am I going to attack this guy if I need to? How do I avoid a knife? Because I was looking in the front and I thought like, okay, there's no gun or knife laying around. But I don't know what's in the glove box or if there is a glove box, there's something else hidden under the seat. So I, when I choked him, I purposely pulled him upwards and back so that he couldn't reach under his seat and he couldn't reach for the glove box. And yes, I thought about that in the moment because I thought the thing that can stop me from putting him to sleep is if he has a weapon that's close at hand that I cannot see. And if he has a weapon, that's close at hand that I cannot see. It's probably not in his front pocket. Like his shirt pocket. It's going to be in his pants pockets under the seat in the glove box, something like that. If I can pull him up and back and put him to sleep before he can get there, then he can't stop. So I planned all of that in my head before I went for it. 

[00:38:07] Gabriel Mizrahi: Got it. You're considering all the angles before you just act right. And you're channeling the productive fear into considering all those angles, rather than just like stewing in your own panic in the back. 

[00:38:18] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. And whenever I tell the story, people are like, "Oh, did you really plan all that?" Yes, I did. And I think that the reason I did that was because, at the time, I was doing karate and self-defense and stuff like that. And I'd worked at a security company, but none of that is like Ninja moves, right? A sleeper hold is really basic, an ex-choke or whatever it was called is really basic over the bridge of his nose. And it's like, it hurts. So he can't see, starts tearing up. I wanted that to happen and I wanted him to start flailing and grabbing at my arm and not reaching down. 

[00:38:49] Gabriel Mizrahi: Right.

[00:38:49] Jordan Harbinger: And I knew that if I did it fast with explosive violence, that he would then not be able to counteract that. So that was the plan. It wasn't like step left and then chop right, and then karate chop the trachea. None of that stuff is realistic. But having a plan to just be extremely violent in an explosive way without any warning — because I didn't say, "If you get out, I'm going to choke you." I just put my arm there. And when he made the fast move for it, I immediately went into — I turned it up to 11. I didn't ramp it up and say, "Hey, what are you doing, mister?" You know, I just immediately was like, "Okay, if he goes for the door, that is me going all the way up to 11. And if he dies, he dies." You know, I wasn't thinking that at the time, but after I left him unconscious or I think unconscious, I didn't think like, "Oh, I better make sure he's okay." In that sort of life or death struggle, I'm not thinking like I'm just going to put enough pressure on him to put him to sleep like you would at a karate class. This was crushed the windpipe and dumped the body—

[00:39:45] Gabriel Mizrahi: Got it.

[00:39:46] Jordan Harbinger: —out of the car. 

[00:39:47] Thanks for joining us live in the Stereo app. Again, this is part one of two. So this is my Mexico story. Of course, next week. I'll tell the story of me getting nabbed in Serbia, which isn't even more sort of involved and much crazier story. I hope you join us for that as well. 

[00:40:02] Links to everything we talked about will be in the show notes on the website. Please use our website links if you buy anything we mentioned. It does help support the show. Worksheets for the episodes in the show notes. Transcripts for the episodes in the show notes. There's a video of this interview going up on our YouTube channel at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabriel at @GabeMizrahi on Twitter or at @GabrielMizrahi on Instagram. 

[00:40:28] I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships, using systems and tiny habits over at our Six-Minute Networking course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us, you'll be in smart company. 

[00:40:45] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. And my amazing team includes Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's interested in getting kidnapped in Mexico, hopefully, hopefully not. I hope you found this at the very least entertaining, but there are some safety tips in here that I think are worth hearing, men or women, young or old. Please do share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. 

[00:41:23] We've got a preview trailer of our interview with Vince Beiser. It's all about sand. You heard me sand. It's actually quite fascinating. There is even a sand mafia who's killing people over sand. 

[00:41:34] Vince Beiser: If anybody had told me three, four years ago that I was going to be spending my every waking hour thinking and talking about sand, I would have just laughed. It's actually the most important, solid substance on earth. We use about 50 billion tons of sand every year. That's enough to cover the entire state of California every single year. Every year, we use enough concrete to build a wall 90-feet high and 90-feet across right the way around the planet at the equator.

[00:42:05] A bunch of sand might get broken off of a mountain top, washed down into a plane somewhere. And then that sand gets buried under subsequent geological layers and pushed down under the earth and compressed and turned into sandstone. And then that sandstone may get pushed up again by geologic forces over hundreds of thousands of years and worn away, again and again, broken down, back into grains. So an individual grain of sand can be millions of years old. 

[00:42:36] Jordan Harbinger: We're fully eclipsing the rate of creation here. 

[00:42:39] Vince Beiser: You're probably sitting in a building made of just a huge pile of sand. All the roads connecting all those buildings, also made out of sand. The glass, the windows, and all those buildings, also made of sand. The microchips that power our computers, our cell phones, all of our other digital goodies, also made from sand. So without sand, there's no modern civilization. And the craziest thing about it is we are starting to run out. 

[00:43:07] Jordan Harbinger: For more on why sand is the next petroleum-like resource and some crazy stories about sand pirates and the black market for sand, check out episode 97 with Vince Beiser right here on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:43:20] Once again, thanks to the Stereo app for making this possible for us. You can grab the Stereo app in the iOS or Android App Stores and we'll link to it, of course, in the show notes as well, just as we always do. Thanks for joining us.