Ep. #567: Jordan Harbinger on Building Good Relationships and Avoiding Toxic Ones

Mike: Hello Skull friends. Welcome to another episode of Must For Life. I’m Mike Matthews, and this one is all about building good relationships and avoiding toxic ones. And to discuss this, I invited Jordan Harbinger on the show who is a top podcaster and who has. Talked a lot about this subject and has also consulted in the corporate world on it as well.

I’m not sure if he’s still doing that, but he was at the time of the interview. And this is an important subject because we humans are so social creatures. We all know that, right? And that comes with good and bad. So on the good side of things, we have our tribe, we have people we can rely on when times get tough.

We have people we can celebrate our wins with. We have people who lift us up and who add value, who are a net positive in our lives, of course, who we can reciprocate that with. Then on the other hand though, there are the negative Nancys out there. The people who just bring us down, maybe they always complain.

Maybe they don’t pull their own weight as a part of a team, like as part of a work team, for example. Or maybe they only talk about bad news one way or another. These are the type of people who just make your life a little bit worse every time you interact with them, or at least most of your interactions with them.

Leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, leave you feeling just a little bit worse, and sometimes you can’t even put your finger on. Why? Well, that is what Jordan and I talk about because a very easy way to make your life better is to surround yourself with people who lift you up. People who are adding value to your life, and eliminate the people who drag you down.

And then of course, avoiding those people in the first place. That’s the best place to be, right? Inoculated against them. So you can’t get infected by their toxic ideas, behaviors, and lifestyle. So if you’ve ever wanted to know how to be better at finding and fostering good relationships, how to avoid radioactive people, as Jordan likes to call them, aptly phrased, and how to cultivate a robust network of people in just a few minutes per day.

Yes, it can be done. Very simple, very straightforward. You’re gonna like this episode now before we get to the show, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my v i p one-on-one coaching service.

My team and I have helped people of all ages. Circumstances and needs. So no matter how complicated or hopeless you might think your situation is, don’t worry. We will figure out how to get you the results you want. Every diet and training program we create is 100% cut. We provide daily workout logs, we do weekly accountability calls.

Our clients get priority email service, as well as discounts on supplements, and the list goes on and on. We basically do everything we can to help you lose fat, gain muscle, and get healthy as quickly and enjoyably. That’s an important point as possible. So to learn more, head over to legion athletics.com/coaching and schedule your free consultation call.

Now, there is usually a wait list and new slots do fill up quickly, so don’t wait. Just head over to legion athletics.com/coaching, lock in your free consultation call and let’s see if there’s a good fit. Hey Jordan, thanks for making the time to talk to me. I, and also I, I ate up probably the time you had allotted in the pre-game chatting, so I appreciate taking the extra

Jordan: time.

Yeah, for sure, man. I appreciate you having me on. Always fun to catch up too. Yeah. Even though we definitely ate up some of the time, but it’s always worth it to sort of vent on. I think there’s certain set of problems that. People have in our situation and it’s always good to find a sympathetic ear.

Mike: Totally. Which kind of just segues into what I wanted to talk to you about is a lot of things that we were just discussing and, and that’s just the topic of relationships. Say there’s positive aspect of it, of how to find good people and how to foster good relationships. And then there’s the eliminating the negative, I guess, aspect, which is how to stay away from people who are just gonna make your life worse.

I don’t like the word toxic cuz it reminds you of Instagram influencers, but I guess we can say that toxic people, but how to keep them outta your life. And that means if they’re in your life, how to recognize that and get them out of your life. And there are many obstacles that you can run into depending on who these people are.

Exactly. And then also though, Avoiding them in the first place. And as I know those things are completely in your wheelhouse, I thought it’d be fun to talk to you about

Jordan: it. Yeah, absolutely, man. You know, there’s so much, it’s hard. You’re right, without using the word toxic, there are a lot of folks where you’re just thinking like, how on earth does this person get by?

And you used

Mike: the word radioactive. I think that’s good too. Yeah,

Jordan: that was pretty good. It’s a good metaphor, you know, that that came across. Earlier when I was talking with you offline, and you’re right, there are certain people that are just absolutely radioactive, and what this really means is you can’t just kind of keep people like this at arm’s length.

You know, we were talking about people we, we once worked with or once knew. And there’s just no real way to kind of only hang out with them sometimes. I mean, some people are just so radioactive that every time you interact with them, there’s some resultant drama. Not everyone is like that. Like some people might be friends but you shouldn’t work with them.

And other people might be great to work with, but you would never be friends with them and that’s okay. But there are other folks that their pathologies and their wiring is so bad that you actually shouldn’t engage with them at all. And the way that you’ll be able to pick those people out is because there will always be a negative consequence of pretty much every interaction.

So there’s people you shouldn’t work with. You know what? Cuz when you work with them, you get burned. People you shouldn’t be friends with. You know what? Because when you’re friends with ’em, there’s drama or they don’t follow through on what they say they’re gonna do or they’re flaky. But whenever these people are so radioactive that even having coffee with them once a year turns into them getting mad at you for this thing that you maybe said that they misunderstood deliberately, those are people where just ain’t nobody got time for that.

You just can’t be around it. If you wouldn’t introduce them to your significant other or something like that, you probably should not have them in your life at all.

Mike: Totally. And I mean, for me personally, I have, I guess I’ve, I’ve had very low tolerance for that level of social sociopathy or narcissism or whatever it is that we’re looking at.

But then there are, The class of people who are more insidious, who are more devious, or maybe it’s just the volumes turned down a bit. Like they’re actually, they’re pretty fucked up, but it’s not as obvious. Or sometimes they have a better mask, they have a better social, they have better social graces, and they can, they do a good job pretending like that they’re a good person or they could be a good friend.

But then, You get glimpses of who they really are. Usually, in my experiences, it’s been when there are stressful situations or when they’re not getting their way, there’s certain where then you start to see who are they really. So those people are, can be, I think, even more destructive in some ways because if you have someone who’s a human hurricane and you choose to invite them into your life repeatedly, you’re not surprised then when they break a bunch of shit.

But when they’re more of a, I don’t know what the weather analogy would be, but when they’re the shape shifter, so to speak, it can be harder to understand what’s going on until they’ve really kind of sunk their fangs

in.

Jordan: Yeah, you’re right. There are those people that have a really good mask, like, wow, they’re super productive and they’re really, really good at this element of work and they have really good salesperson.

But then, yeah, as soon as you get involved with them in some other way, it’s like, Did this get taken from my kitchen? Like what’s going on here? Or this person’s never functional at the right time. A lot of times those people can’t hold jobs, but other times you realize, ah, okay, work is like the only area where they have their stuff together and everything else is a complete and total mess.

It’s like looking at the outside of their house and the lawn is perfectly manicured. And then you go inside and there’s just like chaos and you know the kitchen’s on fire and you don’t see that until you get more closely involved with somebody. And it’s really tempting in our lives. To put those people and say, I can compartmentalize this, right?

We say, I will work with them, or I will only hang out with them at the bar, or I will only hang out with, they’re, they’re my lifting partner and we’ll go to the gym. But, you know, I’m gonna limit my exposure to them otherwise. And it’s very, very hard to do that.

Mike: Or worse, oh, I, I can fix them, or I’m, I’m gonna, and I’m all for helping people who are willing to help themselves.

And, but there are people who are not, but they’re willing to exploit your willingness to help them to further their own ends. Yes.

Jordan: That’s extremely dangerous thinking. Oh, well, they just need a good role model or a good example. In rare cases, that’s true. You know, if you’re working with a young person and they’re acting up and you think, you know what, they just haven’t been around good people.

They need to learn how that’s done. That’s very possible. But if, if you’re 35 and you’re dealing with another 35 year old grown ass man or woman, And they can’t get themselves together and it’s been a few weeks or a few months, and they don’t seem to be learning from their mistakes or your example, you aren’t going to change them.

And this is especially true even if you’re right now we’re using like workout or working relationships, but if you’re dating this person, you need to cut and run because there’s a whole lot of divorced people out there who thought, oh, well I can tolerate this because she’s really good looking, or I can tolerate this because he just needs me to take care of him, or whatever.

Mike: Or he’ll grow out of it. I’ve

Jordan: heard that one before. Exactly. And the truth is there’s a chance that they might, but there’s also a chance that you’re enabling all of the bullshit that they’re doing and putting you through because you’re tolerating it. It’s a matter of self-esteem and self-worth at some point to go, maybe I shouldn’t be here putting up with somebody who treats me as an option and I’m treating them as a priority and they’re running havoc through my life.

You know, I can do better. A lot of of people don’t believe that. About themselves and they have self-worth issues along those lines, and they’ll put up with anything. A lot of times as guys, we don’t wanna think it’s a self-esteem issue, and that’s why we’re putting up with it. We’re like, oh, but she’s hot.

Whatever. I’m cool with it. I don’t care if she acts like this. It’s like, no, no, no. You have a self-esteem issue because there are plenty of really good looking. Women out there or whatever, you know, people of the opposite sex out there, or the same sex, whatever, that you can deal with that are just fine and aren’t going to mistreat you.

So if you think you deserve to be or that you can put up with that because she’s looking great or is great in the sack. It’s a self-esteem issue. It’s just that as guys, we don’t wanna admit that. We like to think that we don’t care. But truth be told to have someone sane in our lives, that’s also great for us.

And the the sac is so much better and so much more safe for our health. Why would we put up with anything else other than a self-worth issue? And that’s, I think, what’s worth examining for a lot of us. Yeah, I mean,

Mike: I think there’s also something to be said for just making a big change can be scary.

Whether it’s leaving a relationship or a business partnership, or killing a friendship, there’s the, the self-doubt that creeps in is like, is this really the best solution? And oftentimes, I mean, speaking, I guess from some personal experiences and just experiences of people I’ve known, it needs to come really to a head.

Like the writing was already on the wall for some time, and now it’s like splattered with blood everywhere as well. And finally it gets to a point where it’s like, all right, this is unacceptable. And so I can understand that though, where you do have to get to that point where I think of it in terms of.

It’s a similar head space you have to be able to get into, even to do well in, in work or, or build a business, you have to be able to just say like, fuck it. This is what I’m gonna do. You can’t overthink it if you know that it’s the the right thing to do. Or maybe in business it’s like you’re strong, you believe, and like this is the right play.

It entails a lot of risk. You have to be able to just say, fuck it. I’m doing it and I’m gonna have faith that by making the right decision and working as hard as I can to execute as well as I can, it’s gonna turn out at least better than it is now.

Jordan: Yeah. I think that there’s an element of that for sure.

I do wanna go back to your earlier point though, where you mentioned that making a big change can be scary. You have to think about why it’s scary. Sure. Sometimes you’re just not sure if you can handle, or if you wanna handle the fallout from making a change like that. I totally understand that. But often the reason that making a big change is quote unquote scary, is because what you’re really thinking, especially when it comes to dating and relationships, what you’re really thinking is.

Can I get someone who is. As good or better, or am I going to be lonely? And you might also be thinking, is this what I actually deserve? And this is often a subconscious line of thought. You know, you’re not necessarily thinking, gee, I really need a terrible, lazy drug addicted business partner, or whatever sort of situation.

You might find yourself in what you’re thinking is. Is this person gonna let me out of this situation? Am I locked in or can I do this without them? And often we don’t think we can because we’ve worked with that person for 10 years or something like that. We aren’t seeing our own value there necessarily.

And I don’t wanna sound like an Instagram quote, you know, where it’s like, you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and people like you. Cause often that’s really not the case. But what’s true here is you don’t know. And the only way to find out is to actually free yourself from this person’s bullshit. And that’s scary.

But I can promise you that in every instance, you’re better off without somebody who’s making you miserable and dragging you down, even if you’re not sure if you can do it. On your own, you’re actually better at zero than you are with this dead weight hanging off of you for the rest of your life. And a lot of people don’t necessarily believe that, and that’s the self-worth issue that I’m talking about.

They will literally think, maybe I can’t find anyone like this again. Or maybe it’s not as bad because. It’s better than being alone. And when you get people who are really down and then crap relationships and they’re really honest, they’ll say things like that. Yeah,

Mike: no, I can relate to that with just situations that I’ve gone through.

You know, something that has helped me just navigate, there’s having something there that, okay, what’s it gonna be like, uh, if I lose it? Or just even in business, for example, wanting to go in some direction and knowing that it’s gonna entail a fair amount of risk. Just kind of actually thinking about what is the worst, the true worst.

Case scenario and often it’s not as bad as my emotions would indicate if I didn’t like sit down and analyze it. And then from there looking at, okay, and what’s the actual, what’s the probability of the worst case scenario occurring? And oftentimes the probability is a lot lower than just maybe instinctively, I would think, before I really sat and, and analyzed it.

And I think that’s just because we, humans tend to catastrophize if things are too vague and if we don’t like actually just look at the specifics and, and get over our initial emotional hump.

Jordan: Yeah, there’s something to that for sure. I think a lot of us will fill in the blanks with. Well, what’s gonna happen if I get rid of this person in my business or in my life is I’m gonna not be able to do their portion of the work and the revenue’s gonna go down, and that’s gonna take us below this danger threshold.

And we could go out of business, and then I’m gonna have to go and get a job with my girlfriend’s company. And her dad’s gonna be like, see, I knew he was a loser, and then I’m gonna have to deal with that. And then she’s probably gonna dump me finally, and then I’m gonna be alone. And it’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That is one highly unlikely possible outcome that we’re evolved to think about because we’re social animals. And the sort of evolutionary psychology angle here is leave the tribe die alone, and, and the woods, right? So like we’re thinking, we can’t get rid of this person, we shouldn’t get rid of this person because that might happen.

But what also might happen is, You could get rid of this person and you could realize that they weren’t doing anything positive for you, that you were actually working around them the whole time and you no longer have to do that. And you have a lot of extra capital freed up cuz you don’t have to pay for them and their stupid hair-brained ideas or mistakes.

And now you can use that profit to reinvest in the business. So I always recommend whenever people start catastrophizing, which is very human, don’t try and stop yourself from doing it. Cuz thinking about worst case scenario for some people like me is actually a good thing because then you think, oh, I could handle that particular situation, I can plan around it.

But what you should also do, you should sort of do the inverse of worrying where you go, well, I might die alone and this happens, and then my girlfriend breaks it. You should think of the best case scenario that could happen that’s equally farfetched,

Mike: and then maybe consider the middle ground, which is probably what’s gonna happen.

Jordan: Yeah, the middle ground is gonna be somewhere in between, and it’s probably not gonna be worse than where you are now. So if you’re thinking, oh, I’ll have, the business will go down, it’ll go under, I’ll have to take a job with my girlfriend’s dad. She’ll realize I’m a loser and dump me, and then I’m gonna have to live with my mom.

You can also think of the. Best case, positive outcome, like what I just mentioned, extra capital to invest in the business. Waking up every day feeling refreshed instead of feeling horrified that you have to work. Getting a passive aggressive slack message that you have to deal with that ruins your day or your vacation, or your one day off that you took this month.

You know, some stuff like that. You should think about that and that’s how you can make the decision. Because even though we’re wired to think about the worst thing, thinking about the best thing and realizing that your result is going to probably be a mix of those terrible things and also those good things, like yeah, your revenue may go down, but then you’re gonna realize, oh, but I don’t need as much cuz I’m not paying someone $400,000 a year to like play Warcraft all day and yell at my team and distract them from other projects, which is like stuff that you hear about happening in people’s businesses.

And so that mixture scenario is likely what’s going to shake out of it, and that should be a relief. Because you can probably handle all of that. You know, I know that you can because you built the business in the first place. There’s a very rare, rare scenario that almost never happens where like you and I were talking about businesses that we’d been in previously and people we’d worked with previously.

It’s very unlikely that you’re working with a deadbeat now, and somehow he’s the linchpin to your whole business, right? Like what are the odds that the person that sits around with their thumb in their ass all day and like can’t get their shit together and you know, puts a bunch of stuff up their nose or whatever it is that they’re doing, what are the odds that what they’re doing is so incrementally crucial to the business that you can’t recover from it?

It really doesn’t sort of make sense, right? Like if you’re doing 80% of the work and this person’s doing 20, if you’re lucky, and that’s when you can yank ’em out of bed, what are the odds that you’re going to really need them to succeed? It’s pretty slim, right? The chances are pretty slim that they’re actually doing anything other than dragging your ass down and so

Mike: low.

That probably should just, that notion should just be dismissed altogether. If we’re just looking at it objectively similar to, you know, what are really the odds of dying in a plane crash? It’s so low that you shouldn’t even think about it. I mean, if you’re gonna worry about anything like that, then worry when you drive your car.

But when you’re flying in a plane, statistically speaking, you’re pretty safe. So who cares, basically.

Jordan: Exactly. If you’re dating a woman and she’s driving you crazy and taking your money and costing you drama and sans sanity, and you’re thinking, but what if I can’t find anyone else like her? The answer is good.

I hope you don’t, because she’s actually bad for you. You’re better off alone. And most people are so afraid of actually being alone because then you have no one to blame for your failure and you have to put yourself to the test. But I will say, and this is probably not news for anyone who listens to, to your show, That’s where the iron is for, or the steel is forged right through the fire.

And so you being alone and being able to go out and work on yourself and not worry about someone else that’s actually good for you. It might feel crappy at the time because you don’t have a trophy girlfriend to show off to all your buddies. But I’ll tell you right now, your buddies, they already wonder why the hell you put up with her.

Right? Or or ladies, girls already. They don’t go, oh, he’s such a dick. But you know, he’s got money and he is really cool and he is good looking and he has abs like your girlfriends are going, wow, when is she gonna dump this fricking piece of shit? You know? So like, do it now and realize that being alone, which you’re so afraid of, isn’t that bad, and now you’re finally free.

Like that amount of freedom you can’t buy. It’s really, really hard to attain. Being self-assured is, is probably one of the most undervalued assets of any human being. Yeah, that’s

Mike: interesting. That point of, you think that that’s a common reason why people are afraid of being alone, that they won’t have somebody else to lean on or even blame for their

Jordan: failures?

I think it’s subconscious, but yet, like, I think it’s really easy to go. So let’s say you and I go into business together and I’m like, man, you know, I just can’t make it in the supplement industry. Like it’s really cutthroat, it’s really hard. And you know, Mike, like he has all these ideas and they don’t really, they’re not really gonna work.

And then you’re going, man, you know, we would be crushing it if it weren’t for Jordan. But as soon as we’re on our own, Then I go, you know what? I never liked the supplement business and I’m gonna get out of it. You know, I was coaching before and I was like, I don’t like doing this. And you’ll then take the supplement business and run and you’re expanding and you’re going, oh, I just didn’t like having a partner.

It wasn’t the supplement business, it was just I didn’t like having a partner. So there’s an element of not realizing that you can do it on your own. And there’s also an element of not wanting to do it on your own. Because in part, you think if you fail, you’re the only one on the hook. You can’t blame your partner anymore.

And I had this experience recently where I recently got rid of some dead weight in the company, and it was a little scary, but then it was like, well wait a minute. This was dead weight. It’s really easy for me to move forward, but any failure that I have is now mine and mine alone. However, all the victories that I have are also mine and mine alone.

So you start to see, oh, I’m the one that’s moving the ball, and you can’t, you don’t have to share it with somebody else who’s taking credit and you realize maybe they never should have gotten any credit in the first place. That’s the upside. So a lot of people are afraid of, let’s say, being alone, but.

They’re mostly afraid of having to do something by themselves and be completely accountable. It’s not loneliness. You can call your friends and go get a drink or play on PlayStation and chat about bs. You’re not alone. Alone. You’re afraid of being accountable to yourself. That’s the difference. And

Mike: do you think that also applies to interpersonal relationships?

Cause the reason why I’m, I’m asking is knowing your background and the, all the interesting discussions you’ve had with people over the years. I’m curious as to your thoughts on this. Cuz I’m from, this is an area that I haven’t really, haven’t read a book on any of this. I haven’t just kind of gone about my ways.

And for me personally, I’ve always kind of enjoyed being alone. I wouldn’t say I’m an antisocial person at all, but I have no problem filling my time with, I mean, these days I don’t have very much alone time. I have two kids and, and a wife. But in the past when I had more. Free time. I have no problem filling my time with things that I like to do.

And oftentimes they would be like, if I’m gonna learn to play golf, I put a lot of time in and it was just me alone learning to play golf or if I’m gonna, you know, there’s just a part of me enjoys being alone. So for me, I’m like, that’s interesting. It’s hard for me to kind of wrap my head around that.

Well,

Jordan: there’s a difference between being alone because you’re kind of an introvert and you know, and you recover and, and you like me time and you like reading or something like that. Like that’s different than if you’re in an intimate relationship. It’s different than thinking, all right, so here’s the subtext.

If you’re single, because you are focused on your business, or if you’re single, because which is often an excuse by the way, but we’ll let that go. Or you’re single because you just broke up with somebody and you’re like, between relationships, that’s one thing. But if you are single. And you think I can’t get anyone else, or you’ve defined your success by the caliber of women that you date, or the caliber of guy that you date or the amount of money your partner makes or something like that, then you lose a piece of your identity when you’re not with them.

So you being a self-made multi-millionaire and having a wife and young kids like you don’t think about this because, but I think we can both admit that you’d feel pretty lost without your family, right? Like that’s not women admitting that that would be horrible. And I hope that you never have to deal with anything like that.

And I hope everyone listening never has to deal with that. But truth be told, there are plenty of people out there that are guys in their twenties, women in their twenties, thirties, whatever, and they’re thinking, if I lose this person I’m with now. It means something about me that I don’t necessarily wanna face.

Like it means that I never should have been dating a woman this beautiful. It means I never should have been dating a guy this good looking or smart or wealthy or whatever. Equality, whatever external equality. We think it’s a reflection of how deserving we are of love. Not to go all Dr. Phil on you, but like that’s the problem and it’s a subconscious dialogue that we’re playing in our head.

I think we all know guys that have like a trophy wife or a trophy girlfriend for example. And they aren’t necessarily, or both? Both. Yeah. Maybe there’s both. Yeah. Often there are. And the reason they do that is because they seek external validation. They’re not thinking like, wow, I feel so good about myself because of this.

They’re thinking. I look good to other people, therefore I feel good about myself because that’s the value metric. That’s the value metric that you have when you look for that kind of relationship. And there are people that are willing to play that part for you because they need someone to take care of them.

So you’re actually in this weird, codependent relationship where maybe you are supplying a bunch of money or financial stability and she’s supplying, or the other person is supplying good looks in a positive image. Like, wow, look, this guy can really pull, uh, somebody who’s really attractive, he must be X, Y, Z, positive quality.

Those people are terrified of being alone because that validation vanishes if that partner vanishes and that’s what they’re afraid of. But I think guys like you and I. If God forbid, something tragic happened, yes, we would feel lost. We would feel a loss, but it wouldn’t be, I’m not worthy of love. It would be this tragic thing happened that dissolved my relationship.

And there’s a massive, massive difference in people that think like that. People who are actually confident in themselves are not afraid of being alone because they realize that the relationships that they have with somebody are external to themselves. And that’s a massive realization. Same thing if your business fails.

You’re gonna lose a piece of your identity, but if that spirals you into an an unrecoverable depression, that’s because you had too much of your identity pegged to who you were in that business, or as being a successful multi-millionaire guy. That’s why you see these guys whose businesses are like 20 million in debt, and they’re like, yeah, I’m going on this fancy vacation.

I’m buying this fancy car. I’m eating at this restaurant. It’s like, what are you doing? Save your money and make payroll, you moron. But that’s not where they put their value. Their value is on how they show up to other people, and that’s super dangerous. Pretty much every terrible decision that you can make in life is rooted in your opinion of yourself being pegged to how other people see you or how you think other people see you.

Mike: And how do you escape from that? Take social media. I mean, that is, that’s what drives social media. I think of, there was, uh, recently I was reading about as research, there’s a survey that was done with a bunch of teenagers, like 16 year olds. You’ve probably heard of this. And what was their biggest ambition in life?

What do they wanna do? What do they wanna achieve? Just be famous. That was it. It was number one was to be famous as if that is even a viable career goal in and of itself. Not to say anything of, uh, one that’s gonna be satisfying and there’s just so much in our culture that is geared toward that. What are your thoughts on how do you get away from that and instead develop a true sense of self-worth?

And probably there’s some self-confidence and self-esteem that plays into that as well to where you can, and you know, I have my own thoughts, so I’m curious as to your thoughts. I’m thinking of myself personally in many ways. I, and I’d say this is probably backed up by how I live as well. I truly don’t care what people think about me, but, but not in an antagonistic sense, or not even in an arrogant sense.

Like, oh, I’m just so much better. Why do I care about what all these peons think? It’s just, I’m okay with my own applause. If I am satisfied with the way that I’m living and I feel like I’m living according to the values and the things that matter to me, and I’m doing the things that I wanna be doing and achieving the goals I wanna achieve, whether that means anything to other people or not, it really doesn’t mean much to me.

And so, you know, I, I’m not a flashy person, for example, I, I drive a, a nice ish car. It’s not an exotic car, it’s a Mercedes. So maybe you, but that’d be the only thing. If you were to just meet me randomly, that would indicate maybe I, I make some money, otherwise I’m like dressed like a bum half the time, honestly.

And, and I’m not into talking about myself and my things, but that’s not necessarily the case with many people or even many people. I don’t know you beyond the interwebs, but it seems like you also are similar in that you’re not running around trying to assert your importance or trying to gain as much acceptance or admiration as you can from other people, but it’s pretty rare to see that.

And why and how do you

Jordan: get there? Yeah. So there’s a lot there. But I think the difference is, you know, look, if you drive a nice car out there and you’re listening to this right now, don’t get defensive. We’re not saying people who have nice cars are not

Mike: at all. I actually don’t care about cars. That’s why I totally understand like guys who are truly into, into cars and they, you used to work on cars and they take ’em to the track and now a guy can afford to get a Ferrari and drive it around on a track and that’s like truly a fun activity for him.

I totally get that. That’s different though.

Jordan: It’s different than a guy who buys a Ferrari so that he can cruise and go, look, wait till all the tail I get in his Ferrari and go, just go

Mike: hit every valet spot in town.

Jordan: 100%. So like for me, there are a couple ways to go about this. So it’s kind of like illnesses, right?

So there’s one. One way to not get sick is to never expose yourself to germs. So don’t go on social media. Make sure that if people around you are really facing a lot of external validation and they’re talking about other people and what they have, that you don’t spend very much time with them. So you don’t absorb that type of value system, that kind of thing.

You know, limiting your time on social media, realizing that you’re seeing other people’s highlight reel and you’re comparing it to your own personal blooper reel, that’s good. But at the same time, if you also wanna not get sick, another way to do it is to expose yourself to a bunch of. Other people’s germs, and you’ll get sick in the beginning, but then it, you’ll start to become, you’ll build antibodies or you might not even get sick.

You’ll just build antibodies. And the way that that happens is you go, okay. I’m feeling a lack of confidence here. What should I do? And so for example, whenever I had a breakup, I’m married and have a kid now, but like when I used to have a breakup, one of my cures in quotes was to go learn a new skill.

Because when you break up, you often suffer a little bit of a lack of confidence, even if you’re the one that broke up with the other person. You know, there’s this little dialogue in your head that’s like, man, Another person that’s not right for me. Like, dang it, you know? So I’ll start studying like Mandarin Chinese or take a cooking class or something like that, and that might sound a little ridiculous.

But what you do when you build a skill is since you’re building competency in a specific area that you didn’t have before, you build confidence both in that area, situationally and more generally, because you go, well damn, if I can learn fricking Mandarin Chinese, like, is there anything that I can’t really learn?

You know, I’m starting to wrap my head around this and realizing that all these things I thought were hard, were actually not that hard and I’m actually pretty good at them. That builds confidence there too. So I recommended sort of two-pronged approach. Fitness

Mike: is a, a good cure for post

Jordan: breakup blues.

It is, you know, you get back in a little bit of shape. Also, you get those endorphins going that make you feel good. You know, you can’t really beat that combination. So I would recommend. Going back to the gym and also learning new skills just in general. And that’s good to do, whether you broke up with somebody or not.

So this is the two-pronged approach, right? Because yes, you should probably compare yourself less to other people. And yes, the way that most people compare themselves is social media. So, especially Instagram is particularly toxic for this because all you’re doing is looking at people’s like bullshit, fake vacation that they’re on, working their butt off on vacation to show everybody that they’re on vacation, right?

So you have to be careful of that. Again, you’re comparing your blooper reel to other people’s, very highly curated highlight reels, but also work on yourself and working on yourself is really hard to do when you’re obsessed with what everyone else is doing. So that’s why I recommend limiting. You don’t have to delete Instagram, you know, just don’t go on there when you’re bored.

You know, if I’m feeling this issue come up, I would delete it.

Mike: If I didn’t use it for work, I wouldn’t have it. A hundred percent would

Jordan: not, I would never use it if I didn’t use it for the Jordan Harbinger show. You know, I post pictures of me interviewing guests and so people can see like, oh, Jordan had Kobe on, let me go play that episode.

Like that’s useful for a business. But man, I started Instagram in October, 2017, super late to the party. And the reason is cuz I just resisted it, it’s probably about the same as me. I resisted it cuz it’s not good for you. The element of what’s fun about that for me is limited entirely to interacting with show fans.

Other than that, it’s completely a time suck, a waste of time, and doesn’t make me feel good

Mike: when the only thing I I like is in dm I get people who will DM me sharing their successes. Yeah. Like often the, you know, sharing how I help them. That’s always nice. Outside of that personal interactions, it’s just not interesting to me.

It’s a useful marketing tool and I just look at it as if I can repurpose content that I’m creating and just introduce more people to the educational side of things, which is what I’m most interested in, in all the things that I’m doing, then it’s useful and it’s helpful, but for the purposes of getting attention or acceptance, you know, it just, it just, I don’t care about it.

I mean, and I don’t want to care about that. I don’t want to even become conditioned to care about that.

Jordan: It’s dangerous because you can go on there and think, I’m just bored. But then you start to see other people doing things and you fomo into a totally different life and it’s

Mike: gonna happen. I mean, it’d be, and it’s a good point that you brought up this kind of like inoculating yourself by not even exposing yourself.

And that’s been a, a personal philosophy of mine, of sorts that ironically I came across it again in, I read a, a biography of. John Rockefeller called Titan and he never drank. He was very anti alcohol for himself personally. And his joke about it though was this way, basically he could never become an alcoholic.

And so I don’t, I’ve never been drunk. I’ve had a, maybe a couple drinks and I never got into drinking. And it’s always, people always weirded out by that as a why, what you don’t drink? And, and I’ll joke like, yeah, I never got into it. So I figured, you know, it’s not a habit worth taking up, but I also this way, I don’t know what I’m missing.

Who knows? Maybe I would love it and then that would be a problem. And so similarly, By just keeping social media at an arm’s distance and keeping myself engaged with work that is more difficult, but also more important and ultimately more rewarding. I’m not gonna fall into the trap and I think it would be naive to think that I could, in engage in the activities that would normally lead to the development of these issues, but not me, of course.

Cause I’m an outlier. I, I can do those things and not experience the fomo or not the instinctively, maybe even envious of what maybe somebody else has that I feel like is better than some way than what I have in that regard. And so, you know, for that reason also, I just intentionally don’t spend much time

Jordan: on social media.

Yeah, it’s not good for you. And I don’t think anybody can actually argue that it is. And so I’m a huge fan of, of keeping people away from it if you don’t need it for business. And I know that that’s an unpopular opinion, but on the other hand, if you can’t or won’t do that, or if you wanna also sort of hit the second prong of this, you need to be working on yourself.

And a lot of people think they’re working on themselves just because they’re going to the gym. But working on your mind and working on your body, although there’s a lot of overlap, I highly recommend getting other skills too. Especially in any area that you thought, oh man, that just sounds impossible.

Like, Chinese sounded so hard, I thought, no one can do this. It’s like, it’s literally just gotta be impossible. So once I started learning it, I realized, wow, I can do this. That is a massive, there. There’s something there, right? Like there’s something important there. That I think a lot of people miss almost

Mike: education as therapy.

Like it’s, it’s therapeutic in and of itself, just learning things. I totally

Jordan: agree. You’re attacking a weak point that is extremely important. You’re attacking a point at which you didn’t think you had capacity, and you’re turning it in into a strength. And like if you do that enough, you start to build a general confidence that frankly is unmatched.

You know, you just start to realize that nothing you wanna do is actually gonna be too hard for you.

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If you do make a habit of learning new things, because in a sense, learning is kind of a meta skill, right? So if you, if you’re good at learning, if you know that you can get into something that you know nothing about and get up to speed relatively quickly and, and acquire whatever skill you want to acquire, like that is a, in itself a meta skill because now it logically you should be more confident now where you’re like, well, should, I actually am pretty good at, at just learning things and getting good at things.

So what should I learn next? What should I get? What should I get good at? And it reminds me of a book that I read recently, which I honestly, I didn’t really like the book very much, but I liked that message. In it, it was called Ultra Learning. It was a book about learning and how to learn quickly and efficiently.

And it had some good tips. But, uh, again, I, I was a little bit disappointed. The marketing didn’t match the actual material in my mind. But, uh, I did. One of the points that I liked is just this idea of always having a learning project going. And I’ve met a lot of, Successful people over the years, and that was just a common thing.

Actually. A lot of these men and women, they would consciously, they’d be like, oh, every six months, or sometimes it was over a year, like every year there was some new thing that they would be picking up and they would get into, and oftentimes it was. Also with the element of fun in it. Like they were trying to ensure they’re injecting some fun into their lives.

Because if you work a lot and you have a lot of pressure in your work and stress and whatever, it can get to a point where it’s unhealthy if you have nothing fun to look forward to at all. And so, yeah, I think that there’s definitely a lot of value in what’s the next thing that you’re learning? Oh, you’re gonna learn Chinese and you’re gonna get up to a certain point of fluency.

Like what’s the goal? You want to pass a certain, you know, they have standardized testing. You want to get to where you can be conversational. Okay, great. That’s done. What’s next? And of course, it doesn’t have to be, it could be badminton, it doesn’t matter. It’s just what’s the next thing that you’re gonna go after and you’re gonna learn?

I think I agree. I think it’s a great way to, uh, very practical way to work on yourself. And I think more valuable than something like maybe meditating for 10 minutes a day, which is trendy and. And it’s fine. I, yeah, I think it’s good if you can sit there and not spazz out for 10 minutes, but you’re not gonna change yourself in the way that you’ll change yourself really going after new knowledge

Jordan: and new skills.

Yeah, you’re right. There’s something to attacking the, any sort of perceived weakness and turning it into a strength is always going to increase your confidence. And I highly recommend people systematically do this, not just when they are, are dealing with a breakup or something like that. I, I highly recommend going after any sorts of.

I highly recommend going after any sort of perceived weakness, I should say, and really starting to crush those down. That’s how you generate that confidence that in plugging holes in the bucket where confidence leaks out, like comparing yourself to others. And on the

Mike: flip side, if there’s nothing that’s popping out in terms of like, oh, what’s the weakness I should go after?

I think there’s value also in just following your curiosities. Even if it’s literally like, oh, I always kind of liked the piano. That’s gonna be my next learning project. I’m gonna, I’m gonna learn to play a piano again. I think there’s therapeutic value in just doing stuff like that. And then there’s also, there’s a lot to be said, I think for the value of having been exposed to a lot of different topics and activities, and you never know how learning to play the piano might influence some other thing later that you want to learn.

And maybe in this case, it’s something that is related to your work and that because you had learned to play the piano, you’re actually better at this activity that now you’re gonna make money

Jordan: with. Yeah, that’s a good point. You know, there’s, I agree that following your curiosity does have massive benefits because you do develop talent.

You’re right, it’s like meta confidence too. Not just that you can learn anything, but the fact is anything that you thought maybe you might be interested in turns out to be a talent that you can build. So there’s a lot of ways to become more confident in that area that doesn’t result in this sort of arrogant brand of confidence that a lot of people have where they’re basically pretending to be confident or they’re basing it on, Hey, you know, I went to a really good college.

It’s like, well dude, who cares? We’re 30 now. Like, get over it. You have to constantly be filling that bucket or you start to become. That person who’s holding onto the past or holding onto a narrative that you’re, or trying to build a narrative through something false. Like, look at who I’m dating. I still got it.

Or like, look at all the money I’m making. I still got it. It’s like, that’s only going to last so long. And if you’re trying to play the game of I’m making the most money out of all the people that I know, well then you better not surround yourself with more successful people, or you’ll start to lose confidence in that area.

And I think we all know that that’s a bad idea. Like if you’re limiting yourself to who you’re hanging around because you feel bad when you’re around people that are better than you in certain areas, that’s a really good way to surround yourself with people that are not doing as well as you, which is a great way to underachieve and fall short of your potential.

Like, do I really wanna be around people who are less fit than me, less educated, doing less in their business? I don’t think so. And

Mike: to that point, it’s, there’s a funny though, it’s like a carton horse problem or, or chicken and egg problem because the, at the same time, Okay, so lemme lemme back up. So yes, that’s common advice.

Of course what I’ve seen though often is people who, they get that and there’s an obvious logic to it and it makes sense. And a lot of other successful people and smart people have said it as well. And so then where you have now people who then try to, uh, they go, okay, I’m gonna upgrade my network. I’m gonna upgrade my friends or my business acquaintances or whatever.

And but what they don’t realize is that they are not anywhere near the. The level of these other people and that they’re the person that these people don’t want to associate with. Like you have to yourself get to a certain level of achievement in terms of whatever this circle revolves around, right?

Even it could just be your local, you know, country club. And if you’re not good enough at golf, like the good golfers don’t wanna play with you. Cause it’s annoying to play with a shitty golfer if you’re good. So there also, it takes a little bit of self-awareness though, to be able to say, here’s the type of people I would like to associate most with.

Am I the type of person they want to associate with? And if not, okay, how do I become that kind of person? And not that you need to do it for that reason, but I think it’s just a reality of life. And I’ve run into that where there are people who’ve wanted to insert themselves in my life and I’ve had to actively just resist.

And even if it’s politely, but not let it happen because, not because I think I’m better than them, but because of that point where I’m like, This might sound bad, but I don’t see how spending time with this person is going to, I don’t see what I’m gonna get out of this. Like, I don’t even have any real common interests, so I’m not even gonna get the, the pleasure of just kind of socializing and being conscious of like, if I am gonna be taking time to do business networking, for example.

Well, what type of people do I wanna be networking with? I mean, ideally I want people who are, have done a lot more than me and who see enough in me to want to associate with me, and I’m gonna try to go as high as I can, but to spend time with people who, uh, have very little business experience, very little business success would be a, a stupid use of that time specifically.

You know what I

Jordan: mean? Yeah, absolutely. Look, I’m not one of those people, and I don’t think you are either who bases all their personal relationships on what you can get from someone else. That’s not the message that I want to convey, but I am saying that, look, I have very limited slash no time. For, let’s say, people that I think are deliberately, maybe deliberately is not the right word, but are underachieving, right?

Like I don’t have time for someone that I think is not working on themselves, that isn’t interested in their career, that doesn’t care about much

Mike: of anything, period. Beyond maybe like some sports ball and what happened on Twitter today,

Jordan: Netflix bullshit. You know, like I don’t have a very large amount of time for those people because those aren’t the values that I wanna achieve.

And as judgey as it sounds, you don’t even have to put it in a judgmental framework. You can literally just say, who’s doing something in an area that I admire? Look, I don’t hang around with a lot of singers, for example. Not necessarily by design, but I’m not trying to become a better singer or anything like that.

So I don’t have a lot of those people in my network. It’s not that I wouldn’t, but it’s not a value that I’m working on. But what I do have in my life are a lot of people that are really fit, really good at their business, really good performers in other areas, really good at languages, really good at X, Y, Z.

You don’t have to cut people out because they’re not doing something you’re interested in, but you shouldn’t be around a bunch of people that are like playing PlayStation 24 7, and then be surprised that your level of fitness, your career, get up and go is not. Also working out as well, because there’s science behind this.

The network effects of being around certain types of people is something you cannot escape. And you’ve probably seen this, right? Like if your friend is fat, you’re X percent more likely to be overweight. If your friend’s friend is overweight, you’re still like your end percent more likely to be overweight.

And if your friend’s, friend’s, friend, somebody you’ve never met that you don’t even know, that your friend doesn’t even know is obese or smokes. So you’re like a certain percentage higher, more likely to also have those negative habits and negative lifestyle, which is terrifying because some, it’s like contagion, it’s contagious, right?

Smoking, and I think it was smoking and it was being overweight, and it’s like, holy shit, that means my friend’s, friend’s friend can be fat. Like who doesn’t have a friend? Whose friend? Whose friend is also. So we’re all fighting against that, whether you know it or not, you’re fighting against that constantly.

So the more you can remove first and even second degree connections. Of people that are doing negative things like that, the better off you are, which is kind of scary,

Mike: right? Yeah, no, I mean, I completely agree and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve always been careful about who I associate with and I’ve had to learn some hard lessons along the way.

But I’ve at least tried to be, as I’ve gotten older, at least, I mean, maybe as a, when I was a teenager, I didn’t really care is who am I gonna have fun with and whatever. But as I’ve gotten older, try to be deliberate with people that I believe are, again, it’s not, what can I get from them? Not at all. But I believe that first and foremost, they’re not gonna drag me down.

Let’s just start there. And then from there that I believe that there’s a, a good, mutually beneficial relationship that can result from this, that we both can be enhanced in one way or another by being associated.

Jordan: Yeah, it’s extremely, there’s kind of no way. There’s kind of no way to get around this, unfortunately, fortunately, or unfortunately.

What this means is you are in control of who you surround yourself with. Therefore, you’re in control of the type of people that you can have a first degree separation from. But on the other hand, it means that unless you’re controlling meticulously, literally everyone who you, your friends, friends are friends with, which you can’t do, then you’re gonna be subject to this type of pressure.

And so it can be tempting to sort of self isolate, but then you’re not taking advantage of the perks of the network effect. So, That’s why it pays to curate those in your immediate surrounding, because as strong as you think you are, every negative bit of your significant other, your roommates, your friends, that rubs off on you for better or for worse.

And hopefully you’re at least curating those in your first degree circle.

Mike: And nobody’s perfect, obviously. So you can grab your lamp and look for the honest man and never find him, but you need to at least have what are the deal breakers and what are the things that you can work with? And for me personally, what that has resulted in is I’d say I have a, a large number of acquaintances and people who I would consider, you know, who I like, who I like hearing from or talking to, but a smaller number of kind of inner circle people who I.

Spend, not only spend more time with, but go to maybe for opinions on things and the people who I would call up and ask if they want to go do something, you know?

Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well that’s good. And you should continue to curate that circle. And people should also realize, and by the way, caveat here, if somebody who you’re friends with is going through a tough time, don’t like cut them out of your life.

That’s not what this means. What it means is if somebody’s just completely uninterested and developing or has developed negative values, like they play video games all day, they eat pizza three times a a week for dinner. That might not be what you’re trying to cultivate in your own life, and that’s fine.

But what you should not do is go, oh my friend’s depressed. Nobody call him anymore. He is gonna ruin our lives. That’s not what I’m

Mike: talking about at all. Yeah, I totally agree. Because of course we all have ups and downs and it’s nice to have a shoulder to lean on. So I think that almost goes without saying, but it’s a good point to bring up cuz I, I to, I totally agree.

Unfortunately, some people, I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen this though. They, they’re doing okay for a bit and then they kind of get on this downward trajectory and then they just never come back. They just hit terminal velocity and that’s where it’s like, whoa, this isn’t even same person that I knew. Like, this is a different person

Jordan: now.

Yeah. When somebody goes down the tubes, First, it depends how close they are to you, but the first thing you do is you figure out what the hell is going on with them and try to help them up. If they go, I don’t care, and they mean it, and they, you know, really don’t care and their passion is now playing FIFA all day, like, you’ve got a problem and it means you have divergent values.

Doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk to them or anything like that, but it does mean maybe you shouldn’t go to his house every Friday, play a bunch of video games, eat a bunch of junk food and complain about your wife because that stuff will affect your world. You have to be very careful there. I’m always like to default to helping other people up because chances are someone didn’t make it to my circle by being a burnout in the first place.

So I wanna figure out what’s going on there cuz I would expect them to do the same thing for me. That said, there’s probably a lot of people in your life, in my life, well not maybe yours, but in someone listening in our lives in general, who we just, we’ve known ’em since high school and they’re a boy and they’re satisfied with mediocrity and it’s like, oh yeah, I just.

Kind of friends with them, cuz we lived next door to each other for a long time. Doesn’t mean you have to ditch them as a friend, but what it does mean is maybe you should be more intentional about how much time you’re spending because that kind of negative thought process is rubbing off on you just as much as your positive or, uh, upwardly mobile thought process might be rubbing off on them.

But it’s certainly easier to be fat, lazy outta shape and hang out with a bunch of bums than it is to cultivate your inner circle around you and protect your mind. And so you really have to protect your mind. And there’s something

Mike: to be said for the, I’m not sure there’s probably a term for this, but the situation where you have those types of people around you and then you start working on yourself and you start improving yourself and they actually don’t like it.

Not, not always, but you have people who, and I I hear from people often, I would say at least probably once every other week, where it’s this specific situation where they start getting in shape and sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s partners, spouses, friends, whatever. And there are people who give them shit for it and who try to even actively sabotage their efforts to improve their fitness by getting them to continue the bad habits of eating the bad food and going out and drinking too much.

And I hear from people who they don’t exactly know how to respond. It’s, it makes them uncomfortable, it makes them, it’s demotivating. They go to these social gatherings and they’re, they’re kind of just getting poked for not eating as much as everybody else. Or what are you starving yourself again or not drinking as much.

And so that. Type of peer pressure can be very negative and it can make, it can make it harder to escape the gravity well, so to speak, and, and really break through to, to a new level of whether it’s fitness

Jordan: or anything else. Yeah. In fact, I would say if you’re trying to go through any sort of dramatic set of habit change, what you should do is if you have people like this in your life and you don’t wanna sort of carve him out, Which I understand.

What you should consider doing is, let’s say you’re trying to get in shape and you’ve got a bunch of friends and they go out for pizza and burgers all weekend, and they drink all weekend and they play video games all weekend or something like that. Maybe opt outta that for the first few weeks and just say that you wanna catch up with them later.

You’re busy with some stuff at work, whatever you need to do to get your space. And then when you get firmly settled in your routine, you get firmly settled in your convictions, then you can start hanging out with them again. And then when you order a Caesar salad instead of a rack of ribs, and when you’re not partaking in the chili cheese, fries, and seven pints of beer during the game.

And they go, oh, what are you doing? Oh, you’re starving yourself. Oh yeah, you wanna look all pretty for the boys. You can just sort of laugh it off because you’ve got a month in on your routine and you’re like, so you’re seeing results, you’re working the program, whatever you need to do. And you go, yeah, guys, trust me.

I wish I could have a bunch of that, but I’m got some goals and I plan on hitting ’em. And, but you enjoy, you can do that. Instead of being like, uh, maybe I’ll just have some ribs and maybe I’ll just have some beers and maybe I’ll just get a little hangover tomorrow. Once you get settled into your new routine, you’re more able to withstand that peer pressure Bs.

And that’s just what it is. It is peer pressure. We don’t think of it now that we’re not teenagers, but that’s exactly what it is. It is actually pure pressure and adults do it to each other all the time. We just don’t admit it because it seems like we’re supposed to be above that, but we’re totally not.

Mike: Totally. And also, I mean, just something to consider is in some cases, it’s just making them uncomfortable because it, it making them feel bad for not doing the same thing. Oh yeah. Because they wish they were getting in better shape, but they’re not. And now that you’re doing it, there’s cognitive distance there of like, well, you’re doing it.

And then it makes them, it’s holding the mirror up to them. So oftentimes, fortunately, if it’s a family member, if somebody’s close, you just, you, like you were saying, you just kinda laugh it off, be good spirited and good humored about it. And in time people will adjust to this new, it’s the new you. I mean, it doesn’t go on forever, obviously.

Like if it’s been a year and you’re like, you’ve lost all this weight and you’ve totally changed your body composition and you’re in great shape now, they’re not still remaking the same jokes. Like eventually realized like, this is them now, this is Jordan. And then they just, you know, they adjust to it.

But initially I would say that it’s, it’s just them having to process their own, or at least oftentimes it’s them having to process their own guilt of not doing the thing that you’re doing.

Jordan: It puts a highlighter. Over every shortcoming other people have. If you are in the same bucket as someone else, in the same situation in life, and you start to work your way outta there, they have to make a choice.

Buckle down, go on that same diet and exercise routine, work equally hard in their career, whatever it is that they have to do to get to the next level. Or the other choice is try to drag you back down. And of course, the third option is feel really, really, really shitty about the fact that you, with the exact same hand of cards, was able to do something more with it, which means something about themselves, their willpower, their work ethic.

Most people do not. Want to admit that, and so therefore they will choose to drag you down cuz that is the path of least resistance. It’s the easiest option. They’re not doing it on purpose, they’re literally just trying to save themselves. It’s not even about you. Right. It’s not about you at all. It’s about them and them realizing that the work, or subconsciously realizing the work is actually extremely hard and they can’t slash don’t wanna do it.

And so that’s the real issue here. So that’s why you have to be careful. It’s not about them being jerks, right? This is like a self-defense mechanism that humans have. And

Mike: sometimes, again, speaking from experience, just having worked with a lot of people, sometimes it is about them being jerks. And some people seem to, they’re just kind of nasty people and it gives them something to be nasty about.

And that is also just good to recognize. And for me personally, it would, even if it were a family member, I would just, I mean, if it were me, I, I would just limit my interactions as much as possible with that person and just recognize that like, eh, this is just not a very good person. And they seem to like when people around them do worse, and I’m not gonna let them do that to

Jordan: me.

Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, you can’t, no matter what the reason is, you can’t sit there and not achieve because you’re worried about what other people are gonna think. Like that’s, That’s a great way to be mediocre forever. Again, it doesn’t mean they’re doing it to you on purpose, but it certainly means that it’s affecting you.

And so regardless of the reason for it, you need to figure out a strategy to get around it. Otherwise you’re, you’re screwed, you know, frankly, and

Mike: unfortunately. So to that point, let’s change gears quickly and let’s talk about the, the positive approach or positive at least view of, of relationship building and how to cultivate a better network and how to, so when you find somebody who does seem like they would be an interesting person to be connected to or somebody you would like to build a relationship with, how to go about that?

Jordan: Sure. It, it certainly is one of the things that I do every day. This is sort of how I maintain some of my connections and, and re-engage weak end dormant ties. This is so easy cuz otherwise we have to go through this whole sort of rigamarole. Do you have to go through this whole thing where. Otherwise, you are adding people and trying to figure out how you’re gonna keep people in your orbit.

For me, I don’t wanna worry about that. I wanna do this for just a few minutes a day. I want something that’s consistently, it’s like getting in shape. If you tell me, Hey, go walk 10,000 steps a day. You can listen to podcasts while you do it, and then go to the gym for 20 minutes and do something, something, I can do that.

But if you tell someone, Hey man, you have to go to the gym six days a week, work out for 90 minutes and probably bar each time. You’re gonna have a lower conversion rate of people who do that successfully. So for me, one of the things I wanna teach people the very first, when they’re first starting with networking, relationship development, is when you get up in the morning, actually wait a little bit, depending on time zone, if you’re an early riser, you don’t wanna be that person who’s texting everyone.

It’s 7:00 AM Especially if you’re in New York and it’s like four o’clock in the morning in California, seven’s not very early, man. If you’re in New York and you get up then and you text people and they’re in, you know, mountain time, they’re gonna hate you. I do it around 10 because that means that everyone’s awake in California, everyone’s awake in Hawaii, everyone’s awake in New York.

And so I’ll go to the bottom of my text messages. That’s where those weaker or dormant ties are, right? Like those threads that get a lunch with Mike Matthews at a conference three years ago, and you never really kept in touch. I’ll send a script there that’s like, Hey, what’s the latest with you? It’s Jordan Harbinger.

I just had a kid. Here’s a photo of the kid. What’s the latest with you? I’ve done a crappy job of keeping in touch and I’m trying to fix that, and you’ll get about a 75% response rate from people that are excited to hear from you that shoot you a little bit of an update back. This re-engages weak and dormant ties, and I’ll just do like 1, 2, 3, or even four a day.

I call it connect four for that reason, and you’ll reach back out to these folks. And you start to realize how many people you know. Cause a lot of people when they first start networking or relationship development, they go, I don’t know anyone. Or I don’t know that many people. You know a ton of people.

You just haven’t thought about them because you haven’t asked them for anything. Or they haven’t asked you for anything. Or they’re not top of mind. So go back and make yourself top of mind for hundreds or even thousands of people that you have in those old text message threads. And it’s a really good place to find people that are probably doing things that are interesting cuz you hung out with ’em one time that was good enough, right?

Or their friend of a friend. That’s a really good person to have back in orbit. So go and re-engage those weakened dormant ties. This is time you’d normally spend on Instagram. You’d waste it waiting on a coffee line. You know it’s not something, it’s not gonna take you an hour. It’s gonna take you like four minutes because you’re cut and pasting your little daily update to the bunch of people.

You’ll type it out once and then you paste it to the other people and it’s really, really easy. Don’t say like, Hey, man, or Hey friend. Then it seems like a mass text. Put your full name in there if you think they’re really a weaker dormant tie. Tell ’em where you met him. Hey, it’s Jordan Harbinger. We had lunch at cafe, whatever in San Diego during FinCon 2016.

Been a long time. That’s when somebody goes, oh, that guy. And many people won’t reply, but many people will. And what you’ll realize is over time, you’re not necessarily gonna have people get back to you right away. Not everyone’s gonna do it, but if you message one person a day, that’s 30 people a month, and outta those 30 people, maybe 20 reply and outta those 20 people, maybe one or two of them.

In three months, we’ll come back with something. And this is a real example. Somebody will come back and go, Hey, Jordan, good to be in touch again. Thanks for shooting me that note. The other day, I’m, do you still do speaking? And I’ll be like, yeah, why? Oh, I’m going into my annual sales meeting and we’re gonna pitch keynotes, and I thought maybe you’d be a good dude for the job.

So you end up with like a $20,000 keynote or you know, 4,000, whatever the, the hell you charge for the speaking gig because you’re top of mind with that person. Or they’ll say, oh, you’re still doing your podcast. A friend of mine’s doing a podcast. Would you go on his show? Would you consider doing that?

Or, you know, I, I saw that you were making a new website. Do you need graphics for it? Uh, you know, I know a really good guy being top of mind with hundreds or even thousands of people at once is a massively powerful advantage. It makes you visible. In your network, and that’s a humongous advantage. And also you get people asking how they can help you.

You start to figure out how you can help them, and you start plugging people into one another. You’ll check in with one person and they’ll say, man, you know I’ve been better. I just lost my job. And then you’ll check in with someone else and they’ll go, you know, I’m doing really well. In fact, we’re hiring.

Do you know anyone that wants to work remotely? And these are people that you can plug into one another knowing them personally. So your value becomes this network that you’re cultivating in five minutes a day. Bill

Mike: Clinton did that. That was one of his early on key kind of networking actions that he did.

What he would, whenever he would meet people that he wanted to add to his extended network, he would write down their information, I think on like a, an index card. And he had a shoebox of all these index cards and every day he would make phone calls, I think is what it was a certain, he spent a certain amount of time making phone calls to people in, in his shoebox.

And over time, I think the story goes, he collected over a hundred thousand of these index cards or something like that, and was known for, I mean, he did that for I think decades. And it’s one of those things when you hear it, you’re like, oh yeah, that’s a good idea. But very few people do any version of that.

Jordan: Yeah, very few people do. And this is from, um, I’ve got like a freebie course on my website that’s doesn’t cost anything. It’s called Six Minute Networking. And it’s extremely useful and full of stuff like this because I know that people aren’t gonna go, oh, I’ve gotta go to all these net events and I’ve gotta go and do all this stuff.

It’s like, no, don’t even think about that. Honestly, that’s not important for you at all. What you need to be doing is something that you can do every day because you have to dig the well before you get thirsty. And the key is consistency. The key is not reaching out to everybody once a year with a Christmas card that doesn’t do anything.

What works is being top of mind with hundreds or thousands of people at once, while not spending six hours a week doing it, but spending like five minutes a day doing it at freaking red lights or whatever. You know, that’s sustainable. And that’s massively, massively important. You really do have to focus on this type of skill.

That’s where the magic happens. And so, A lot of people don’t really know how to get started and I highly suggest this Connect four drill cuz you can’t really screw it up. It doesn’t take a lot of time and you start to see a decent amount of results pretty quickly cuz all these people you thought would never reply or something like that, they actually are happy to hear from you and you realize this is really easy and not weird.

Yeah. If you

Mike: don’t have numbers, that also is at least a more productive way to use social media. Like maybe they’re on LinkedIn and maybe that’s the only way that you’ve been connected in the past, or maybe you just have an email address. There are people I stay in touch with. I, I don’t think, maybe I have a couple numbers, but it’s just email is, that’s where we’ve always done it through email.

Even though you’re gonna get a, you’re gonna get a better open, you’re getting a better response rate through texting, but if you don’t have the number, you still can figure it out.

Jordan: Absolutely. I do recommend people do it in email, but I recommend that they also do it with texting. A lot of people will be like, oh, I don’t wanna text.

It’s weird. I’d rather email. Your response level is gonna be much

Mike: way higher. Oh yeah, no, I totally agree. If you have a number, send a text. And even from a marketing perspective, text marketing is becoming more of a thing because companies realize like text messages have like a 90% open rate. You’ll never get anywhere close to that with your email, no matter how good you are at it.

Jordan: Yeah, it, there’s something to be said for this. You really, email is kind of a cop out, like you can do it, but we, I think from a marketing perspective, isn’t it like a hundred percent of text messages are very close to it. Like 99.9 something percent are open within 10 minutes in red. So of course you’re not going to find a comparable email open rate, which I think industry standard for email opens is like 18% or something like that.

Mike: Yeah. If you’re doing 20, you’re doing a good job. If it’s quite a bit more, you’re doing a really good job.

Jordan: Yeah. Email’s a cop out. Texting is better. It also feels more

Mike: personal. It is more personal.

Jordan: It does. It is. It demands a response, it compels a response.

Mike: What are your thoughts in terms of, I dunno if this is like a networking tip per se, but looking at it in terms of what can you bring into this other person’s life?

So I think of that because, I mean, you probably get the same, I get a lot of. People reaching out to me via email. Not a lot of text messages, but I get a lot of emails and a, and a lot of social media messages and with business propositions, right? What I’ve never gotten though is someone who took the time to do something that would be valuable for me and, and then just reach out and say, I saw an opportunity here.

I was looking around your website and I noticed that your email autoresponder sequence, when you join as a, as a website subscriber or as a blog subscriber, I thought it could be a bit better. And so here’s what I did. I went, and I, I took your sequence here and I, I changed it a bit and here’s why I did this, and here are the my five emails.

What do you think? Right? And instead it’s, Hey, your email autoresponder could be better and you know, I can help you. And I’m even interested in those kind of conver in those, like if somebody says that, then I’m interested in what they have to say, but I don’t think. Any of those types of outreaches have ever resulted in anything actually meaningful.

And so it’s always just been in the back of my mind. I’ve wondered why. Cause if it were me, I would do the former, I would do what I would just laid out. If I wanted to get the attention of someone, if we’re talking about business and I wanted to show them that I could be valuable, I would just take some of my time.

I’d be like, I’m gonna, I’ll work 20 hours on this thing. So when they get it, they’re gonna be like, holy shit, this dude actually put some time into this and it is an actual representation of my skills. And, you know, get them thinking with like, well, what, I wonder what else This guy I, if he, if he could do that, he might be able to also help me in this other area and shit.

He can write copy, maybe he could help with social media and so on. Uh, what are your thoughts on

Jordan: that? Yeah, so often. Of course what we wanna do is figure out how we can help other people without the attachment to getting something in return. Does that make sense? So you want something where you are helping figure out whether or not you can offer some other person value.

And this doesn’t have to be like if you’re a graphic designer, it doesn’t mean you’re running around making graphics for a bunch of people. It means most of the time it’s gotta be done in a way that’s scalable. So what this essentially means is you’ve gotta be able to do something where, let’s say, you know someone that does website design and you know somebody that needs website design, you’re simply making an introduction to that person.

So that is what makes it scalable and that’s hugely important cuz if you’re just making free graphics for people, you’re gonna go out of business and you’re only gonna be able to help, you know, one person a week and that’s not going to be helpful. At all. What’s helpful, sorry to interject, but I, I

Mike: don’t know if I agree.

I don’t know if we’re, we’re speaking past each other, but, so I’m saying if you’re in a position where you haven’t established yourself, right, but you’re good, you’ve put in work and you have skills and you’re in a competitive field where it can be, take copywriting or take graphic design can be very hard to get clients.

Like, what I often get are copy and paste emails from people who have a little bit of customization. So it looks like they’ve actually looked through your business, although, uh, sometimes they’re talking about Muscle for Life, which doesn’t even exist anymore. So I know they didn’t even get to Legion’s website.

So, and, and, and I know some. Actual personal, like, not that this means anything in the scheme of like, oh, this is the way to do it. But I, I do know actually a couple people who have gotten good jobs doing exactly what I said, where there was somebody, like a, a friend of mine, Neil, he’s big in the internet marketing world.

He’s had, there were a couple people he was telling about who did just that and impressed him and were like, oh, this is, I mean, maybe I said 20 hours. I mean, maybe it’s only five hours. But when they reached out, they reached out with like a good idea and showed a proof of concept that they could help him with it and they could implement it in accordance with their vision.

And they ended up with jobs. And in a couple cases ended up, like now they’ve moved up in his organization and he gets hit up more than, He gets so many people reaching out along those lines of like all the things that I can do for you, but even he has told me the same thing. It’s very, very rare that anyone actually takes any time to show him, show me something that is value.

Show me that I should take any more time listening to you.

Jordan: I definitely agree with that. What we’re talking about here though is something that I think Ramit Sathi calls the briefcase technique. So what this is, is somebody comes to you with a tailored solution, like they’re looking for a job with you or something like that, and instead of saying, Hey friend, I’m a marketer and I would like to help you with your social media, which doesn’t work.

What they do is they say, Hey, look man, I’ve been looking at Legion for a while. It’s really interesting, but I think you’re leaving money on the table on your. I don’t know, Instagram, here’s what I’ve been doing for other people. Here’s a mockup of what it would look like. Yeah, yeah. If I did. Exactly. I never get that.

It’s rare and that makes sense. But that’s somebody who’s essentially applying for a job that’s not like me going, Hey man, you ever think about transcribing your shows? Yeah. Cool. All right. Here’s my system that I use. Here are the people that can help you set up the system that I now use that’s much more scalable.

Totally. And you have to do that with most people because you’re not really looking for a job, you’re just trying to give value to your own network. So what you wouldn’t wanna do is send out sort of briefcase technique type stuff. Like I wouldn’t say, Hey, I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing a bunch of your shows, and that would be weird because I’m not trying to get you to hire me to transcribe your show.

Of course of, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it’s different if you’re applying for work with somebody or trying to get their attention, or you wanna get their attention of them or their business, or trying to sell them something that’s different than. Simply adding value to your network. Cuz if I want hundreds or thousands of people to be like that, Jordan guy’s pretty cool.

I owe him one. Let me see if I can help out his business or introduce him to somebody. If I’m looking for that, I have to do this in a scalable way where I can help a couple of people each day and usually that involves me introducing them to one another. So that’s me helping you find the transcription solution that works best for you.

That’s me helping another person find a good web designer who’s not a flaky moron. That’s me. Helping someone find a good YouTube moderator that’s not gonna ruin their channel like that kind of stuff is scalable. But yeah, you bet your ass. If I’m trying to become a consultant for somebody or get hired as a marketer for Legion, I’m not just gonna send you a generic note, I’m gonna briefcase it, which means I’m gonna make it look like you can’t afford.

Not to hire me because I’ve already done the planning on the project, the initial planning on the project. And even if I get it wrong and you’re like, oh, I don’t like that particular design, you’re not gonna go, this guy’s useless. I don’t like yellow. You’re gonna be like, wow, this is the only guy who actually took the time to mock up a design and I don’t love it.

We can tweak it, but we’re 20% there and he doesn’t even work here. He hasn’t even taken the interview yet.

Mike: Totally. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And that point of just seeing how you can I, I’ll say add value, but I feel like that’s a phrase that has been suli now because it’s the masterminders and influencers love to harp on add value, add value, but it communicates, and it is a point of if you meet somebody, if we’re talking about just social and not trying to get a job or trying to seriously impress somebody for one reason or another, Then, especially if it’s combined with just your recommendation of regular check-ins with people, eventually you will start, you’ll remember that that person that you met who you’re checking in with, oh, they like F one racing or something, and then you just met somebody else who, you know he’s going to an F1 race in Mexico and he actually has, he has extra tickets and who knows, maybe they would like to go together.

Stuff like that will just happen organically and then if you can make that happen for someone, you’re definitely top of

Jordan: mind. Exactly, yeah. Giving someone some kind of crazy experience that’s better than just helping someone with a small favor in business. So yeah, of course. If you really wanna wow someone.

There are different ways to do that too, you know if, if you happen to know, I had a buddy of mine who was like super in mma. A couple of friends of his, he had cancer, so they’re like, we’re gonna make him feel better. So they took him to like the behind the scenes mma and he was like hanging out with Joe Rogan and Dana White at the announcer’s table, like during the under colored fights.

And it was just, you know, some sort of once in a lifetime, impossible experience, but it turned out to be something that changed his life. And obviously he’ll never forget those people. So it’s not something you would do for like a random client, but it is something you would do if you were really trying to get someone’s attention.

Or if you were, you know, giving your kid a, a graduation present for kicking ass all the way through college or something like that. You know, you’d do something along those lines, you know, get surprising your wife with something amazing like that kind of thing. So there’s always ways to go the extra mile,

Mike: something expensive.

That’s the key,

Jordan: right? Whenever something is really, really that grand, it’s not scalable. But the trick that we’re talking about here is finding something that is scalable. That you can repeat every day, that doesn’t cost you anything other than a few minutes of time. But the reason this is also scalable and works for you is because if I connect a graphic designer to somebody who’s designs websites and needs a graphic designer, that person is grateful to me for hooking them up with the designer.

The designer’s grateful to me for hooking ’em up with the job, so I’m actually multiplying. My referral currency here, it’s not one person is happy, it’s two people are happy in a six minute interaction and it becomes something that can’t be taken from you. Like you can get fired, you can lose your business, but the odds of you losing your network unless you do something horrible and it’s in public, like if you get busted for like child porn or something, yeah, your reputation is shot.

But if you just get fired from your company, your network is still largely intact.

Mike: Totally. You know, something simple that I do is when I come across information that I think other people might find interesting or might find helpful, I’ll, I’ll send it over to them. Just something simple where if I read an article and about, uh, that’s relevant to the business of somebody that, and if it comes to mind and, and send it over, Hey, I read this and I thought of you, thought you might like it.

And even that people are, are thankful for like, Hey, thanks for thinking of me.

Yeah,

Jordan: this is great. That’ll do it. Like a sort of low touch like, Hey, I’ve got this cool bit of information that’s better than nothing. It’s better than like, Hey, what’s up? That’s for damn sure. It’s not as good as helping someone if you can, but that’s not always available, right?

It’s not always something that you can do.

Mike: Yeah, there are quite a few people who I’m loosely in touch with where I’m not sure what I would do. You know, there, there’s one guy who, he runs private equity firm with 13 billion in assets. Like, I don’t know what do I do to help him, but I’ll reach out and I’ll, he’s like, he’s a cool guy and I like to stay in touch with him, but in some cases it’s, unless you really know them well and know them personally, it can be hard to go, what do I do

Jordan: for this person?

Yeah, that can be problematic. You have to elicit. From them, not necessarily the values, but you have to elicit what can be done. So what you don’t wanna do is be like surprising people with introductions that doesn’t work. Oh, I hate that. Yeah. Yeah. Always do what’s called the double opt-in, where you ask both sides for permission first.

That’s also in. The freebie course that I’ve got at Jordan harbinger.com/course. It’ll show you how to make those because nothing’s more annoying than like, Hey Jordan, meet Mike. And then it’s like, Hey, we already know each other, or I’m on vacation. I don’t wanna reply to this right now. Or worse, like, Hey, I’ve been avoiding Jordan for like six months cuz he keeps bugging me for a job and now he’s in my inbox with a friend CC’d and like knows that I got this.

So now the monkey’s on my back. There’s multiple reasons not to do that. You should always spend the extra two or three minutes to send emails to these other folks and get the double opt-in permission. But you’ve gotta also realize that like, well, the low touch methodology is great. You have to elicit the reason or the ways that you’re able to help other people and sometimes.

That involves knowing a little bit about their business, but it also involves trying to do a little bit of sleuthing. Like don’t, here’s a common mistake also. Now people go, how can I help you? And I’m like, I don’t know. Like, how can I help you? And I, I just go, uh, share the show with friends cuz it helps you know me grow my listener base.

That’s helpful. If you run a web property with 6 million visitors a month, that’s not the best thing you can do is, you know, sending it to your uncle. No. The best thing you can do is put an article about my show on a super high traffic website. So you have to figure out how to help other people. Don’t just put the monkey on their back.

And have them tell you something cuz it’s gonna be suboptimal. Unless they know a lot about you, you really do have to figure out how you can help them best and often the way to do that is learn a little bit about their business and or say what are you having trouble with right now? Or what are you working on, you know, next year?

Yeah. Or like, yeah,

Mike: what’s new and exciting? I know it’s like, uh, one of those, oh hey, how are you doing? But I mean it, when I ask people, if I haven’t spoken to someone in a while, I actually am genuinely interested. Like, what’s new? What has you excited right now? It’s

Jordan: great to be able to do that. It’s also great to ask what they’re gonna be working on next year.

Because if you say, what are you working on right now? You know, you might yield something, but chances are you’re gonna get something along the lines of, case in point, we’re redesigning our website and people go, what are you working on right now? And I’ll go, well, we’re doing a website redesign. Oh, I know the best web designer.

I don’t care. I’m already six months into a project. True. Another designer. Oh man. Oh, I know the, that was supposed to take two months. Yeah, exactly. Dude, you story of my life. So you have these projects that you’re in the middle of now. I don’t want to hear that. You know, the best guy for this. The best guy for that.

Chances are you can try it, but you’re gonna have more of a miss. But if I say, yeah, next year we’re gonna be focusing a lot more on social. Oh really? Like Instagram and YouTube? Yeah. I know a really good Instagram and YouTube team. Oh, well I’d love an introduction cuz they’re still in the planning phase of that project.

So that’s what you really want. You want somebody who’s gonna be able to help you with something you’re about to work on, not somebody who’s gonna mess up a current project. And certainly not somebody who’s like, Hey, what can I do to help you? And you’re just like, uh, I don’t know. Like, what do you do? Oh, I don’t know.

I do lots of stuff. Not helpful. Just annoying. Just an annoying, boring conversation. Totally,

Mike: totally agree. Great stuff man. I really appreciate you connecting up again. I think this came about yet cuz I think you did your little connect four thing on me actually. This is why we’re talking

Jordan: probably. Yeah, probably very possible.

Mike: Totally. So where can people find, I mean, you mentioned a couple times, of course your podcast is much bigger than mine and a lot of people probably have heard about it, but in case they haven’t, the Jordan Harbinger show and where can people find you on the internet to your website and anything else that you want people to know about?

Jordan: Yeah, sure. Jordan harbinger.com is the website and I’m available on Instagram, Twitter at Jordan Harbinger as well. And I love engaging with people. You know, I answer all my dms, all my email and everything, so if people wanna hit me up on social or email, but I’d love to hear what people think of the podcast, cuz of course this being a podcast audience, people who love to learn and apply things, you know, every guest I have, whether it’s Kobe Bryant or you know, a general in the military.

Everybody teaches something practical that the listener can use. So that’s what the show’s about. So I’d love, you know, this audience obviously loves to learn. I’d love to hear what they think of the show. Absolutely.

Mike: Well, thanks again, Jordan. I really appreciate it. And look forward to our, our next Connect four session.

Jordan: Thank you man, and talk to you soon.

Mike: All right. Well, that’s it for today’s episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility.

And help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you wanna be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast in whatever app you’re using to listen and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming.

And last, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike muscle for life.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. All right, thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.