Jordan Harbinger On: How To Succeed at Work; How to Network Without Being Gross; And How Not To Succumb To Hustle Culture

Career advice from a man who has walked the walk. Jordan Harbinger https://www.jordanharbinger.com/ is a Wall Street lawyer turned podcast interviewer with an approachable style and knack for securing high-profile guests. His podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show https://www.jordanharbinger.com/podcasts/, was selected as part of Apple's "Best of 2018." This episode is part of our ongoing Sanely Ambitious https://www.danharris.com/t/sanely-ambitious series. In this episode we talk about: How to engage in networking without being gross. He has lots of interesting techniques here, including something called Gmail roulette He also has a cardinal rule that I found compelling We also talk about: The ripple effect of generosity How to ask for a raise The strategic value of asking for advice How to deal with a bad boss How to persuade and negotiate And the many problems with hustle culture Sign up for Dan's newsletter here http://www.danharris.com Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Ten Percent Happier online bookstore https://bit.ly/46TZglY Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety https://spoti.fi/3Qa8kMT, Sleep https://spoti.fi/3MjtMxF, Relationships https://spoti.fi/3QvyA5J, Most Popular Episodes https://spoti.fi/3QxZASc Additional Resources: Sanely Ambitious https://www.danharris.com/t/sanely-ambitious

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  [4.711-5.21] It's the 10% Happier Podcast.[7.27-8.03] I'm Dan Harris.[19.32-21.27] Yo, how we doing, everybody?[21.27-23.46] Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, something I think[23.46-28.02] about slash obsess about all the time, pretty much.[28.02-31.47] How to succeed at work without driving yourself crazy, without succumbing to[31.47-34.44] what is sometimes called hustle culture.[34.44-38.54] My guest is Jordan Harbinger, who has thought very deeply about this issue[38.54-40.95] for many years, and he has really walked the walk.[40.95-46.32] He left a Wall Street career as a lawyer, took a huge risk going into podcasting[46.32-48.89] back when the industry was in its infancy.[48.89-52.62] Now, his show, The Jordan Harbinger Show, is a big hit, and Jordan and I[52.62-54.45] have become friends.[54.45-55.14] I really like him.[55.14-58.23] In this conversation, we talk about how to engage in networking without being gross.[58.23-61.35] He has a lot of interesting techniques here, including something called Gmail[61.35-63.18] Roulette.[63.18-66.63] He also has a cardinal rule of networking that I found compelling.[66.63-70.98] We also talk about the ripple effect of generosity, how to ask for a raise,[70.98-75.06] the strategic value of asking for advice, how to deal with bad bosses,[75.06-80.01] how to persuade and negotiate, and the many, many problems in his view of hustle[80.01-81.09] culture.[81.09-83.46] This is part of an occasional series we do here on the podcast[83.46-85.20] called Sanely Ambitious.[85.20-88.68] We've got three Sanely Ambitious episodes this week.[88.68-92.46] If you missed it, check out Sue Ashford on Monday.[92.46-96.57] She's a researcher who talks about how we can get systematic about growing,[96.57-98.22] failing, and taking risks.[98.22-102.21] And coming up on Friday, it's another podcaster, Jonathan Fields.[102.21-105.84] We'll get started with Jordan Harbinger right after this.[105.84-108.66] Before we get started, I just want to make sure you know about all the[108.66-111.42] cool stuff we've got going on over at danharris.com.[111.42-116.58] That is my new-ish online community built with Substack, where paid subscribers[116.58-119.37] can now listen to this podcast ad-free.[119.37-120.11] Thank you for listening.[120.11-120.89] We'll see you next week.[120.89-121.64] Thanks for watching.[121.64-122.42] We'll see you next week.[122.42-123.22] Thanks for listening.[123.22-124.01] We'll see you next week.[124.01-124.82] Thanks for watching.[124.82-125.63] We'll see you next week.[125.63-126.44] Thanks for watching.[126.44-127.25] We'll see you next week.[127.25-128.06] Thanks for watching.[128.06-128.87] We'll see you next week.[128.87-129.68] Thanks for watching.[129.68-130.52] We'll see you next week.[130.52-131.33] Thanks for watching.[131.33-132.18] We'll see you next week.[132.18-132.99] Thanks for watching.[132.99-133.83] We'll see you next week.[133.83-134.68] Thanks for watching.[134.68-135.52] We'll see you next week.[135.52-136.36] Thanks for watching.[136.36-137.22] We'll see you next week.[137.22-138.06] Thanks for watching.[138.06-138.90] We'll see you next week.[138.90-139.74] Thanks for watching.[139.74-140.58] We'll see you next week.[140.58-141.41] Thanks for watching.[141.41-142.26] We'll see you next week.[142.26-143.11] Thanks for watching.[143.11-143.94] We'll see you next week.[143.94-144.81] Thanks for watching.[144.81-145.65] We'll see you next week.[145.65-146.52] Thanks for watching.[146.52-147.36] We'll see you next week.[147.36-148.22] Thanks for watching.[148.22-149.07] We'll see you next week.[149.07-149.91] Thanks for watching.[149.91-150.75] We'll see you next week.[150.75-151.61] Thanks for watching.[151.61-152.46] We'll see you next week.[152.46-153.32] Thanks for watching.[153.32-154.17] We'll see you next week.[154.17-154.91] Thanks for watching.[154.91-155.76] We'll see you next week.[155.76-156.61] Thanks for watching.[156.61-157.46] We'll see you next week.[157.46-158.31] Thanks for watching.[158.31-159.16] We'll see you next week.[159.16-159.91] Thanks for watching.[159.91-160.76] We'll see you next week.[160.76-161.61] Thanks for watching.[161.61-162.46] We'll see you next week.[162.46-163.31] Thanks for watching.[163.31-164.16] We'll see you next week.[164.16-164.91] Thanks for watching.[164.91-165.76] We'll see you next week.[165.76-166.61] Thanks for watching.[166.61-167.46] We'll see you next week.[167.46-168.31] Thanks for watching.[168.31-169.16] We'll see you next week.[169.16-169.91] Thanks for watching.[169.91-170.76] We'll see you next week.[170.76-171.61] Thanks for watching.[171.61-172.46] We'll see you next week.[172.46-173.31] Thanks for watching.[173.31-174.16] We'll see you next week.[174.16-174.91] Thanks for watching.[174.91-175.76][S01.

• 0:04Dan Harris?

  It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Yo, how we doing, everybody? Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, something I think about/obsess about all the time, pretty much. How to succeed at work without driving yourself crazy, without succumbing to what is sometimes called hustle culture. My guest is Jordan Harbinger, who has thought very deeply about this issue for many years, and he has really walked the walk. He left a Wall Street career as a lawyer, took a huge risk going into podcasting back when the industry was in its infancy. Now, his show, The Jordan Harbinger Show, is a big hit, and Jordan and I have become friends. I really like him. In this conversation, we talk about how to engage in networking without being gross. He has a lot of interesting techniques here, including something called Gmail Roulette.

• 1:03Dan Harris?

  He also has a cardinal rule of networking that I found compelling. We also talk about the ripple effect of generosity, how to ask for a raise, the strategic value of asking for advice, how to deal with bad bosses, how to persuade and negotiate, and the many, many problems in his view of hustle culture. This is part of an occasional series we do here on the podcast called Sanely Ambitious. We've got three Sanely Ambitious episodes this week. If you missed it, check out Sue Ashford on Monday. She's a researcher who talks about how we can get systematic about growing, failing, and taking risks. And coming up on Friday, it's another podcaster, Jonathan Fields. We'll get started with Jordan Harbinger right after this.

• 1:45Dan Harris?

  Before we get started, I just want to make sure you know about all the cool stuff we've got going on over at danharris.com. That is my new-ish online community built with Substack, where paid subscribers can now listen to this podcast ad-free. Head over to podcast.danharris.com to set up ad-free listening today. If you're not a paid subscriber, you will be prompted to sign up when you go to podcast.danharris.com. Paid subscribers get lots of other stuff, including twice monthly live sessions on video with me where I guide a meditation and then take your questions. Plus, you get cheat sheets for every episode of this podcast, which include a summary of the key takeaways and a full transcript. It's a lot of fun. You'll get to virtually meet lots of other folks

• 2:29Dan Harris?

  who are interested in meditation. Community is a huge part of meditation that is often de-emphasized these days, but shouldn't be. Meditation and life in general is much more enjoyable in the carpool lane. Come on over to danharris.com and check it out. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That

• 3:13Dan Harris?

  really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low-stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for.

• 3:55Dan Harris?

  One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Jordan Arbiger, welcome back to the show.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me on, man. I feel like I looked at this and I go, oh, we talked recently, but no, not with microphones in front of us.

• 4:46Dan Harris?

  No, no, we have had meals recently.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 4:49Dan Harris?

  But we've not been on the show together. You were last on my show in 2018 when I worked at ABC News.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  That's a long, long time ago.

• 4:54Dan Harris?

  I know.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Somehow.

• 4:55Dan Harris?

  So I have a lot to ask you about.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Well, considering the pandemic lasted 20 years. It's been a while.

• 5:00Dan Harris?

  All right. So just as a framing for this conversation, you know that I'm gently bullying you into writing a book.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:11Dan Harris?

  Which I think you should do.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  I do know.

• 5:13Dan Harris?

  And so I have structured this interview as basically your audition for your future publisher, even though you don't want to write a book because you're too busy with your little children.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 5:20Dan Harris?

  For which I have a lot of sympathy, but I still think you should write a book.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  I saw time management as a bullet there.

• 5:23Dan Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  So we're going to come back to that.

• 5:25Dan Harris?

  Exactly. Okay, so you've had a sneak peek at my list of questions, but you've done a ton of work.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:30Dan Harris?

  Around basically what I'm calling like how to succeed. I mean, you've done dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes on it. You've thought about it. You've lived it out. You have a lot to teach on this, so I'm going to kind of use that as my agenda during this interview.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Sounds good to me.

• 5:46Dan Harris?

  Okay. Let me start with relationships, what some people might call networking. This is a huge emphasis for you, and I'm just curious, before we get into the nuts and bolts, why have you chosen networking to, as a thing to focus on?

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when I was younger, I didn't care about this at all. Most young people don't. They think it's for old people. I remember saying to my friends, networking is for old people. Now that I'm old, I get it. But when I was really young, when I was a kid, like 12, 13, I got a computer, we got a modem, parents didn't really understand what that all entailed, and I got on the internet and I started connecting with people in all different parts of the world and some of these... Chat rooms, not the America online ones, but like the deep sort of internet ones. And I started to realize that the world was a lot bigger than this little town that I grew up in. And that things I was interested in were shared by other smart people that might have lived in the Middle East

• 6:39Speaker 02

  or in Europe. And I started, I remember not knowing where any of these places are where the people that I was chatting with were in, and they were all university students or older. And I sort of grew up in this weird internet age where no kids my age were online. It was really unusual. And I started to get into a little bit of trouble. So I started to learn not just that these people lived in other countries, but that they could break into computer systems, or that they could take a cellphone and take it apart and reprogram it. And I thought, oh, that's pretty interesting. I want to learn how to do this. And so I met up with groups of guys locally in Detroit. We'd go dumpster diving, which is you go to a cellphone store at night, and you go and you get the garbage out, and there'd be these reams of printouts. You know, the ones where you rip the dots off the edge?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  You'd pull those out, and it would be like, Dan Harris bought a cellphone. Here's his phone number. Here's the cellphone number. Here's his address, name. Here's this electronic serial number, the ESN, which is like, kind of like a password to your phone, but not supposed to necessarily be secret. It was a serial number of your cellular account. That usually was no big deal. But we made cables out of plugs and wires and things like that. We'd plug in these cellphones, and we would put your phone number and your serial number into our phone. We could use it just like you could. So a lot of the guys that I was working with were just selling those to like drug dealers, I found out later. I was using them to be a 13-year-old who had a cellphone. That was the coolest thing in the world for me. And another guy was like, you think that's cool?

• 8:10Speaker 02

  You know you can put this thing in test mode, and you can listen to any channel that's going on. This is before, this is when cellphones were analog. Now they're all digital, they're encrypted, whatever. You could listen, just like a radio, to cellphone conversations. And so I started to do that. And then I started to learn how to tap those green boxes where all the phone wires are in the neighborhood, when everybody had landlines. And you just crack that open with a wrench that you could even make. And there's all these line pairs in there. So a screw and a screw, and a screw and a screw, and there's hundreds of them. And you could take alligator clips and connect those to another phone. And you could listen to any phone conversation that was going on on any phone line in the whole neighborhood. Our neighborhood had a bush near the road, near the green box.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  And I would ditch my bike there, and I would sit there, and I would just listen to people's phone conversations. This is the kind of crap I did when I had nothing better to do. You were a punk-ass kid. Punk-ass kid, yes. And I remember, once the cop stopped and said, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's a guy working on this." And I was just like, checking it out. And he's like, "Whatever." Did not think, "Oh, there's a kid wiretapping." Right? That was not a thing that occurred to him at all. And I remember even, once a phone lineman stopped his truck and said, "What do you think you're doing?" And I said, "Oh, I was just messing around with this." And he came over, thinking I was like, breaking it. And he goes, "You're ju-- oh, you're using a handset on the-- you're not supposed to do that." And he closed it and locked it, and he goes, "You should be working for us, man." And he took off.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  And I remember thinking like, "That was pretty cool. I didn't even get in trouble." The reason this is relevant is, there was one neighbor that was getting a divorce, and he was on the phone a lot. And I listened to a lot of his conversations. Like, lots, hours of his conversations. And I noticed that when he was talking with his soon-to-be ex-wife, he was a real a-hole. I remember thinking like, "Why is he doing this?" And then when he would talk to his mom, he was this like, whiny little kid. And then he would talk to his sister, and he was kind of like, whiny little kid plus wannabe tough guy. And then when he would talk to his friends, he was just only tough guy. I remember thinking, "This is a 13, 14-year-old kid. If he was this way, like, with his mom and his sister..."

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Towards his ex-wife, he probably wouldn't be in this particular situation. And he drove around in like a Corvette. He was kind of like having his midlife crisis, right? Convertible. And I just thought, adults are three-dimensional, real human beings. And that was new for me. Cause when you're younger, adults, they feed you, they take you places, they make you do your homework, they yell at you. Teachers, your parents, those are like the only contact with adults you really have. This was a young kid being exposed to adult conversations without being put in danger by those particular situations. Usually when kids are exposed to adult situations, it's bad for them, right? It's like their parents are getting divorced, or there's something, there's substance abuse in their house.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  This was fly on the wall. So it was like anytime things got too heavy or too much, I just unclipped and went home, right? This got me really fascinated with people and I started to really get interested in something called social engineering, which is like kind of hacking, but with people. And I started to get really into this underground scene of like hacking phone systems and somewhat hacking computer systems. And that was the genesis of me being interested in people, which of course now as an adult who is not interested in committing felonies, is why I got interested in actually developing real relationships and connections with people. Because I got an early start doing it. I had a really early window into what makes people tick.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And I also realized the importance of not mismanaging relationships. In part because of that one guy's divorce. He was living in his mother's house at the time. So I always think like, I wish I could go and like tell that guy like, hey, I heard every word of your midlife crisis. I don't know if he would appreciate it as much.

• 12:09Dan Harris?

  He would run you over with his Corvette.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I think so, yes.

• 12:12Dan Harris?

  But how has this played out in your life? This keen sense that you got as a teenager of how people operate? How has this played out in your career to your benefit or detriment?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I first, surprise, surprise, I started getting in trouble a little bit because I remember. Using cell phones to order pizza for my school and the cops called the FBI and I had to talk to the FBI and then I got in trouble with my parents and like got in trouble. And I just remember the FBI agents and stuff like that being like, man, you are so close to ruining your life. And my parents, you know, my mom being like, you're so close to ruining your life with this stupid crap. And having to find good role models aside from my parents that were also interesting, because your parents are good role models general, oh, I should only speak for myself. My parents were good role models, but they

• 13:05Speaker 02

  weren't like interesting and exciting. I had bad role models that were exciting, but were not good for me. So I needed to find that middle ground of kind of like interesting and exciting people that were also doing something good. And now, the internet provides a lot of that for younger people. They listen to shows like yours and mine and they go, oh, this guy's interesting and also is successful and not headed for prison. That's completely absent from the early 90s. That stuff doesn't exist. And so while I'm getting in trouble and I'm doing all these sort of teenage hacker escapades, I finally start to realize like, okay, anything that's good that's happening in my life is a result of a pretty lucky

• 13:46Speaker 02

  good connection. I started making money early because a kid that I went to school with, his dad was a stockbroker and he couldn't get real time or even up to the date quotes. It was very difficult. I had access to the internet and he was like, how can you get me up to date quotes on this stuff? And I would go, there was no Yahoo or anything. I'd have to go on these websites and do it. And I would get him this information. He was blown away to massive competitive advantage because he could get early information, early-ish, on these stocks and sell them to his clients in this wealthy area of town. So I thought like, okay, well, I only got that because this guy knows likes, trust me. All the bad things that have happened have been due to like, people that know, like, and trust me, but are up to no good.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  So I learned early to like, kind of filter in, people into different buckets. I think a lot of people make a mistake when you know, like, or trust somebody, and they don't have your best interests in mind. And we see that a lot with people who are in prison, for example, or in gangs. So I started to filter that stuff out really early, or in really early. I started to make connections with judges, who are my friends' dads, and things like that. And these guys really were like, hey, you are smart, but you are also an idiot, and you're gonna get yourself in trouble. You should consider doing literally anything else, and you could do it to a high level. So I had early enough role models that allowed me to do that. And those connections helped quite a bit. You know, I went to college. It was not easy to get into college. I ended up becoming an exchange student

• 15:16Speaker 02

  in Germany in the 90s. And they sent me to the former East Germany. So for people who don't know, Germany was split down the middle. West Side was capitalists. Western, the East Side was communists. It was essentially a Soviet satellite state, run by a secret police called the Stasi. So I got placed in the former East. It was just starting to become industrialized, privatized. I shouldn't say industrialized, it was privatized. And I stayed with a local family. The host father of that family, he told me that if you wanted to get anything done in the former East Germany, it was all about who you know, right? Your connections were everything. And he still kind of operated that way. So when I went in to get a visa and some papers to go to school, he just sort of cut in front of the line and was like, hello, yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Hey, do you remember me? I used to play at this bar, and I know that you and your brother owned this old bar. And the guy was like, oh yeah, come on in. What can I do for you? We skipped a massive line of people. And I thought, oh, that's cool, you skipped the line. He's like, that's not a line. And he told me, story after story, about real leveraging, real relationships back in East Germany. One of which was, I don't know if this is interesting to you, but I think it's hilarious. He wanted to get a driver's license. And it took two years to do that, in East Germany. So he wrote his cousin in the West, in Canada, and said, send me a case of Jack Daniels. So the guy sends him 12 bottles of Jack Daniels. It arrives with 10 bottles, because the customs and immigration guys took their cut. He goes to the police station and he goes, "Hey, I wanna get my driver's license." And they said, "You gotta go to driving school."

• 16:46Speaker 02

  He goes to driving school and says, "Hey, I already know how to drive." And the guy says, "You need a waitlist till you get in, and then you need to pass a test." And he goes, "How about two bottles of Jack Daniels and you just test me right now?" And the guy was like, "Sure." So he gives him a driving test, gives him a little piece of paper, and he goes to the police and he says, "Driver's license, please." And the cops say, "There's a wait, we gotta process this. It's gonna take another year or so." And he says, "How about two bottles of Jack Daniels and you process this right now?" And he gets the little stamp, and he walks out with a driver's license, and it took him, you know, two days or two weeks instead of two years. That's corruption, fine. But everything that he was able to get done in that place was based somewhat on this. And he still kind of operated that way, not in this corrupt sort of sense,

• 17:30Speaker 02

  but everywhere we went, he was like, "Let me call my friend first and see if that guy knows anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody who works at this thing." Everywhere. And that really blew me away. So when I got back to the United States and went to college, I thought, "Okay, we don't have this sort of rife, corrupt environment where everything requires a little box cheese or a bribe, but there's still a nugget to be taken away where you connect with somebody you know at this, you make it a little bit of a win for them in whatever you're doing. Where can I apply this in my college life?" And I started to really put those pieces together. And it worked out quite well, both for what I wanted to study in college and what I wanted to, eventually when I went to law school.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  One example from university was, I really had no idea what I wanted to study, and they make certain courses really hard to do. Business school stuff, the pre-biz, pre-whatever, it's very difficult. But I found, through a friend of mine who suggested this, to go talk to an academic advisor and learn what you can do to make your own degree. And he said, "Well, you have to present a really good case that you are going to select courses that are going to be as rigorous and useful as any other concentration at the university." I asked him to introduce me to people who'd done that already. He did that. Those people said, "Here's what you gotta do. It's all about the presentation." Those guys helped me with how I presented my ideas. You go to, in front of like the academic standards board or whatever it's called.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  And you do a bang up job. You just knock them their socks off. And if you do a really good job in the presentation, they don't care if you eliminated calculus and you got rid of the accounting 101, which is like impossible and graded on a super steep curve because it's all pre biz. So I picked courses that I was, I know this is ridiculous to say out loud. I've only picked courses I wanted to study in college that I was interested in. And I put them all together and created a coherent narrative of what that would be. And then you can name it anything you want. So I said, oh, well, the more impressive sounding, the better. So it was integrated international commerce. And so when you say that, people are just like, well, that sounds like a pretty hoity-toity degree from the University of Michigan. But the thing is, you could name it whatever the hell you want. I don't know if I'd choose the same name now.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  But you could do anything you want. So when I applied to law schools, they said, well, what did you study? This guy studied anthropology. This person studied English. What did you study, Jordan? Integrated international commerce. Oh, that's, I don't think we have anybody else who studied that who's applied here. Oh, I'm pretty sure you don't because I made it up. Right? So there's a lot of little like system hacking in very ethical ways that was only enabled by me getting really good advice from other people that really would not normally have helped me, but for getting a warm introduction from somebody else.

• 20:15Dan Harris?

  The problem when you start talking about networking is it pretty quickly gets into, and I don't love this word, but the issue of privilege. Because if it's all about who you know, well, that kind of depends to a certain extent on which womb you came out of.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does. So that said, I've had pretty much zero connections ever made from my parents introducing me to somebody. I learned how to do this, well, from some of the stuff that I'd learned as a kid, of course, but also especially from my host father in East Germany. He was a teacher. This is not a guy that came from like aristocratic communist family. Like it wasn't like, oh, my dad's the chief of this particular party branch. This is not a guy who was born into connections. In fact, he was in a band. That was his like side gig. So he would go to all the restaurants and bars and offer to play for free in exchange for food and beer when they were younger. And then he was Use those particular connections to bring people into that fold.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Because it was expensive to go out then. But if you were in the band, you had access to all these different places and all these different people and people recognized you and that was cachet. So I sort of tried to use that as best I could. This was not like, oh, I grew up and went to a private school and my dad owned 17 car dealerships and so I got into this. My dad was an autoworker, my mom was a teacher. They gave me great work ethic. They taught me to bust my ass. They did not call the dean of admissions and pull a favor. That was not something they would be able to do. So yeah, hey, look, if you can marry into or be born into a really connected sort of setup, I highly recommend you do that. But for the rest of us, you have to make that on your own.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  And I will tell you also, on the subject of privilege, one of my best friends from law school is American-ish royalty kind of guy. I went to his wedding. It was at his parents' house. There's an after-party at his parents' house in Georgetown over in Washington DC. And I said, under the giant moose head, there's like a giant painting of Paul Revere that's probably taller than you and I both. And I said, hey, this is so weird. Why do you have that? And he's like, oh, my parents have really weird stuff in their house. And his wife, who was also a good friend of mine, she goes, yeah, he's being modest. That's his like great-great-grand uncle or something was Paul Revere. Okay? So this is a, this is like a blue-blood American family with their house, their row house in Georgetown. That's not even where he grew up.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  It's just one of the houses that they have. He, his family was so well-connected, surprise, surprise. And I remember being on a trip with him in law school and going, I will never have the level of connection that this guy has from going to private school, from having these parents, from having these grandparents and these extended, I will never get there. Bummer. I remember thinking like, wow, some people really have an advantage. Years and years and years and years later, I'm still friends with him. It's very clear that I have a wider, deeper, more connected network than he does. He's great at what he does. He has a great career. I love this guy. But I am definitely more connected and better connected than he is. And it's tortoise and the hare.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  He was born into a privileged situation and he didn't really focus on this stuff. And he still has plenty of connections. I'm sure he could probably call grandfather, dad, get connected to people. It's no problem. But I certainly have watered this garden over the decades. And that has resulted in a massive advantage. You know, I never took my foot off of the gas. I think the other problem with networking is you run into the idea that this is schmoozy BS. And it's all about like, what's in it for me? And I would say that the opposite is actually the truth. It's all about helping other people as much as possible and just not even being attached to getting anything in return if possible. So if somebody wants an introduction or help with their podcast

• 24:10Speaker 02

  or whatever level of expertise I can provide, I do not go, huh, what can this person later on do for me or what can they do for me right now? I don't care. And a friend of mine put it best. He said, aren't you just getting the short end of the stick on a lot of these things that you do? And the answer is yes, but I'm collecting a lot of sticks and I'm stacking those sticks up. It doesn't matter if I got a better deal. Not keeping score is one of my like cardinal rules of relationship development. You should never keep score. If you find yourself keeping score, you are doing it wrong and you're going to poison the well of all, pretty much all the relationships that you have. Because if you are giving people things and you are keeping score, you're always going to think that you've done more for them than they have for you unless somebody really goes out of their way to do something for you. And the odds of that are pretty slim.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  So unless you want to feel bad about every single person that you know. And every single person that you help, don't keep score, don't worry about it. The only time you should even, that should even cross your mind is if you feel you are actually being taken advantage of by somebody.

• 25:09Dan Harris?

  Right.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Then and only then do you go, okay, I'm gonna draw the line.

• 25:12Dan Harris?

  What you're talking about reminds me of Adam Grant's work, which I'm sure you're familiar with, the great book, Give and Take, which is

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 25:19Dan Harris?

  The first book I read from him. He's gone on to write many other great books, but it had a huge impact on me because his argument is, look, you should just be generous within a work context and it will work out to your advantage in many, many ways.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:33Dan Harris?

  In terms of people being willing to help you, but also the act of helping people, you learn a lot by doing that.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  I could not agree more.

• 25:41Dan Harris?

  So generosity is, it's good for you in lots of subtle and interesting ways.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  It is. It's funny because people hear this and they either go, I don't like this guy, he's too, there's too many plans on the table, or they go, this guy's a pushover, he's probably getting taken advantage of by a ton of other people. Both of those are the wrong way, in my opinion, to look at this. Adam Grant is brilliant with this, right? I'll introduce somebody to a publisher when they want to write a book and I don't think like, oh, later on, I'm gonna ask, it doesn't even cross my mind. People write to me that I will never meet in my whole life because they listen to the Jordan Harbinger Show and they go, hey, I just have no idea how to start doing voiceover for video games. I know you do this. Can you, and I go, here's my coach, he's got room for new clients, I don't know what your budget is, if you can't afford him, I highly recommend

• 26:28Speaker 02

  one of these other, you know, it's, I'm not like, okay, and when you get your first video game job, make sure you call me. I don't, it's not how I operate at all. I want everybody around me to be suc-, the ideal outcome for you, if you do this, is that everybody you've helped is a wildly successful runaway, absolute runaway success, and maybe one out of a hundred of them is like, hey, I should thank you for that. And maybe something cool happens as a result. That's enough. And even if nobody ever comes back to you with anything, those people are eternally grateful for your help and you've done a good deed by helping a bunch of people succeed. It's really win-win. There's almost no cost to doing this kind of thing.

• 27:06Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 27:08Dan Harris?

  As long as, and then this is an important caveat, as long as the help you're providing isn't derailing your own ability to do your own work.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:16Dan Harris?

  It's basically giving you little squirts of happiness through the course of, that sounded a little gross, but a little, little dose.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Drops of happiness might be a better.

• 27:24Dan Harris?

  I don't know how to say this.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Injections.

• 27:29Dan Harris?

  We're both canceled.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 27:31Dan Harris?

  It gives you little doses of joy by being able to do this. And by the way, you referenced introducing somebody to a publisher. You did that for me.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 27:39Dan Harris?

  Last summer.

• 27:43Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Jordan talks about some tactical approaches to networking.

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• 28:58Dan Harris?

  We're talking at a very high level about networking, and you actually have some really interesting tactical approaches. So I'm going to just throw some terms at you, and just hopefully you can define them for me.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:07Dan Harris?

  Okay, one, connect for, AKA text exchange.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is something I do every day. I call it Connect Four because everybody can remember that. In my phone, in your phone, if you open up your messaging app and you scroll all the way to the bottom, those are those threads where it's like, oh, I met that person at a conference in 2019, and we had lunch with three other guys, and I don't remember ever following up with them, right? It's just dead threads. Sure, maybe your ex is down there, you can skip those people. Skip the person who like stole from you, or fired you with no warning and that didn't pay you, right? You can skip the outright awful connections there. But most of those are just like, oh yeah, I never did follow up with that person. Or, oh yeah, I made that introduction and I never saw how that went. Or that person helped me out with something, or I went to school with them and I haven't called them in years.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  I send texts to four of those people every weekday. I say, hey, it's Jordan Harbinger here. You use your name because if they don't have your number, they're gonna ignore you, right? So you use your name. Jordan Harbinger here, man, we haven't talked in a really long time. What's new with you? I've got a couple of kids now, I might send a picture of my kids so that they see the extra personal touch. And also, it's a little bit more like, oh, does somebody sent me something? I'm gonna look at it and read it. And I say like, where are you these days? I'm in the Bay Area. I'd love to know what you're up to. No rush on the reply. I know everybody's busy. And I just let that fly. Fifty to 75% response rate. And you would be shocked at what people that you haven't talked to for years are doing, and how that comes back to you.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  So, most of the time it's, oh hey, I work in insurance sales in Boise. It's great, I also have kids. Photo of their kids. Glad our lives turned out okay. Was on the rocks there for a while back in law school. Are you still a lawyer? No, I do a podcast. Oh yeah, I'm working in insurance. That's it. Then it ends, right? Fine. But over the course of months and years, so much opportunity comes as a result of this. Recently, I caught up with somebody just doing that. This is months ago. And then they came back earlier. Hey, I'm walking into a sales meeting. We're picking our annual speakers for our event. I don't suppose you do keynote speeches? I do. Great, what's your fee? And I said, give me as much money as possible, right? I mean, that's the game, right?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  So I gave him like a rough number and I said, and also if you land this, stakes on me at the event. Well, he got me a paid speaking gig, and it was well-paid, I'll leave it at that. But the reason that he thought of me was because I was top of mind-ish after catching up with this person that I hadn't talked to in over eight years. That's the type of opportunity that comes and it's one in every 200, you know, text exchanges, fine. A lot of people will say, "I'm still in law, but I'm thinking about going off on my own. Didn't you do that? How do you even begin to go off on your own? I'm worried about the following things." And you say you can maybe assuage their concerns, introduce them to a good lawyer who can help them with something. I've recently referred my estate planner to somebody and she was very thankful for that. And if we ever need

• 32:06Speaker 02

  to do anything, she's gonna do it for free because I got her a new client and the client probably gave her $5,000 to do a bunch of complicated trust and estate stuff. So I'm just doing that like a machine every single day. And I'm catching up with people, staying top of mind, and finding out what those people need and using that to plug into other people in my network like my estate and trust and estate lawyer. Or web designer. My web guy loves me. I rarely pay for any upgrades or updates on the website because people will go, "Man, your website is really good." When they ask what I'm doing, you know, jordanharbinger.com. "Wow, this is really good. I could really use a website like this. Hey, it wasn't even expensive. Here's my guy in New Zealand." And this guy's just like, "Man, you send

• 32:47Speaker 02

  us business every other month and we get a new client from you every other month. Thank you." So this is the kind of thing that allows me to build and reinforce those connections. People I don't even necessarily talk to all the time, web guy, gets plugged into somebody that I'm recently reconnecting with and I've strengthened both of those relationships at the same time. And this is scalable. I don't spend five hours a day texting people. I do this while I'm waiting in Starbucks for coffee. Instead of scrolling Instagram, I send those four texts and that's it. It's really just a few minutes a day and it's responsible for hundreds of relatively strong connections.

• 33:22Dan Harris?

  Gmail roulette.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is essentially along the same lines. I crack open my email. Any email program will do this, but if I'm waiting for something or if I'm answering other email, I'll type a couple of letters and you know how it pops? It tries to autocomplete. So you might type in "A.D." and it's like, "Oh, did you mean Adam Grant?" Oh, I haven't talked to him in a long time. Let me shoot him a quick note. And I'll just do that once or twice a day. Just type in a totally random combination and if somebody pops up that's interesting, I will write to them. And it's quite useful. Even if it's just a quick check-in, I'll do that. And there's a lot of opportunity that comes from that, too. I sent Adam Grant a note recently and he sent me a guest that ended up coming on my show. That was absolutely fascinating.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  The ep's not out yet, so I don't want to spoil it, but it was a doctor who found his own cure. Have you had this guy on? I'll have to tell you about it.

• 34:10Dan Harris?

  What's his name?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  David Faganbaum.

• 34:12Dan Harris?

  Yes, I have.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  He is so good. And Adam was like, "Oh, have you had this guy on? He's really good. He's a friend of mine. He's standing right here," whatever it was. Absolutely amazing episode that I can't wait to release.

• 34:21Dan Harris?

  It's interesting to know both you and Adam Grant because you both walk the talk. Adam Grant is genuinely one of the most generous human beings I've ever met. And you are very similar. I remember when I was leaving ABC News and going out to be a full-time podcaster. You spent 90 minutes on the phone with me, educating me about the industry and et cetera, et cetera. And there was really nothing in it for you.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  No. Just this friendship that I treasure, but otherwise, no, nothing really in it for me.

• 34:51Dan Harris?

  Exactly, exactly. So I say that largely just for anybody listening that I can take you behind the scenes a little bit and say that this isn't just some bullshit you're dropping on a podcast.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Right. I appreciate that.

• 35:03Dan Harris?

  Let me just go down this list, and there are a bunch of other things I want to talk about beyond networking. But this next one's less of a tactic and more of a philosophy, but I like it and I think it's important to get you to hold forth on. Digging the well before you're thirsty.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is not a term that I made up, as much as I would love to claim it. I think it's the title of a book from the 90s by, is it like Harvey McK... One of those sort of OG, like, "You can do anything you put your mind to" kind of guys. And those guys were right. I guess I shouldn't make fun of them, right? But dig the well before you get thirsty. The problem is, a lot of folks, and a lot of young people will write me and they'll go, "Hey, honest question, why do I need to network? I don't need anything right now. I'm in college." And I go, "Oh, I get it." You're only looking at what other people can do for you. And then when you do need something, you plan on building a relationship when you need that relationship. They often go, oh yeah, well, when you put it like that. Because the truth is, who are you more likely to help? Somebody you've known for three years, even just tangentially?

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Or somebody who cold calls you and you're like, oh my God, I went to high school with you. And they're like, yeah, can I have a job? That's not gonna work. So you have to build those relationships before you need them. The idea is, hopefully you never actually need them. Like, nobody wants to be thirsty, right? Nobody wants to go, oh, I got laid off from Facebook and now I don't know how I'm gonna pay my mortgage. Do you want to be searching for jobs by cold calling companies then? Or do you want to reach out to your network of 100 people also in tech in your area? That you know, that you've talked to maybe six months, eight months, 12 months ago and go, hey, I got clipped in those layoffs. Is anybody over there at Google hiring? Is anybody over there at Dropbox hiring? Do you want to have that happen for you?

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Or do you want to be flipping through the Yellow Pages, which I don't even think exist anymore? And sending your resume into a black hole online? One of those things is better than the other.

• 36:54Dan Harris?

  Point well taken. My grandfather worked for the Yellow Pages. Miserable human being. I mean, he was miserable at work.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I was gonna say, wow, tell us what you really think.

• 37:02Dan Harris?

  No, no, no, he was a, he was complicated, but miserable at work. All right, you made a reference before to, I would rather be doing my Connect4 text exchange than scrolling Instagram. But there is something in your arsenal here that does involve social media. And the idea is, to use your term, making social media more social. What does that mean?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  It's funny, because when you read it, it sounds so corny. And I'm like, where did I write that? I need to change that. I need to update that and make it sound less like a bumper sticker my mom would have on her car. Social media for me, it's not something I enjoy particularly. I answer my DMs from show fans, which takes a few hours a week. I enjoy that conversation, but I don't enjoy all the flexing and all that crap that goes on in social media. For me, Let's say your friend gets married. They'll post their wedding photo on Instagram. Most people will like it. A lot more people will like it than actually type a comment. But good friends will maybe type a comment. I don't engage at all on there. What I do is I will call or send that person a note, a text, whatever it is, and take it completely off social.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  I call this being kind of above the fold. So like a like, I'm not gonna notice that if you like my wedding photo, unless it shows that you liked it, which like they're putting one person's name there and then they write, "and others." If you write a comment, I might eventually read all those, but I'll probably be on the plane on the way to my honeymoon, like scroll through and go like, "Look at all these people that said it. Congratulations." I'm not even necessarily looking at the screen. I'm certainly not remembering, "Oh, look, Dan Harris said congrats" and put a champagne emoji. And I'm not gonna remember that. What I will remember are the 27 people out of 2,700 that sent me a text or an email that was like, "Hey, I saw that you got married. Congratulations. You deserve it. You and your wife get along so great. You're gonna have great kids." I remember those two dozen people.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  And I don't remember a single person who liked my photos from that day. I remember the people that were at the wedding, and I remember the people that called or wrote me something. That is all. So if you have a chance to engage above the fold, don't delay and don't engage below the fold. Don't be a person who goes, "Well, I liked it," or "I sent them a comment," or even a DM. Take it to an inner, a more intimate place. If I have your phone number, I'm kind of in the inner circle, right? So why would I not use that method of communication? People who've never met you in their life that listened to one episode of your show and then Instagram suggested they follow you, that's the people who are liking your photos there. You should never use the sort of outermost ring that you have available to you. If you live next door and I found out you got married,

• 39:37Speaker 02

  I would walk over and knock on your door and leave you something. That's the level of communication you should have, the most intimate one that you have available to you. And so if it's a text or a phone call, then you should do that. It should never be a like that gets buried in a sea of likes.

• 39:52Dan Harris?

  Did you ever read How to Win Friends and Influence People?

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. That was kind of one of my early introductions to this stuff. And I remember thinking, "Some of this is really cool, and some of this is really corny," which is the exact experience that your listeners and viewers are having right now.

• 40:06Dan Harris?

  I remember reading the book. I don't know if I read the whole thing. It's interesting because there are lots of like references to the Harding administration because it was written in the 30s or whatever.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  And I was like, Jane was a typewriter saleswoman. Or actually, I think all the women in the book were like secretaries and all the men were typewriter salesmen.

• 40:22Dan Harris?

  Yeah, there's that too. There's that too. But what came screaming out at me from the book is, which is also hitting me in this conversation is, on the one hand, you talk about something like networking or winning friends and influencing people, and it sounds very, very selfish. And yet, the guy who wrote that book, Dale Carnegie, and you and Adam Grant are all emphasizing empathy and generosity. Get into the mind of other people and think about what it is they want and try to help them with it. And it may not pay off in some direct transactional way, but if you add up enough, as you said before, short straws, it's very good for you in lots of ways.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  It is. Imagine that you help a thousand people over a period of years and not a single one of them ever helps you back. Your reputation is so good as a result of doing that, that it doesn't matter. Not only do you feel like a million bucks, but you're known as just such an awesome person for doing that. And that's if none of those people ever help you, and those odds are virtually impossible. Right? I mean, I would say that for every 10 people that you do something for, one of them is going to bend over backwards for you in any way they can. The other ones might try, but might swing and miss, right? Like, they're not hiring anyone. They can't do, refer anyone to you over time. There are people that I have done something for years and years ago, and I don't even remember what it was.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Probably six years ago now, I ended one business and I started another one. The previous business did not end the way that I had negotiated with my partners. Instead of the soft landing, it was like, unplug the machine and kick, you know, kick the guy out of the airplane, to mix metaphors here. I was like, oh my God, how am I ever going to get back on my feet? I made a giant list of people, called all of them, told them what happened, went on a bunch of other podcasts, favors essentially at that point, told my story about what happened, talked about the Jordan Harbinger Show restarting, and all of these different things that I needed. And I thought... Well, I'm gonna make a hundred and forty requests of different podcasters and things like that, and maybe half will say yes, the other half are gonna ignore me or say no.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Actually, just about every single person that I asked for help, helped me out in that time of need. I remember one guy said, "I'm gonna email this to my list right now." And I said, "Oh, that's really generous. Thank you. I appreciate that." And later I found out that he charges something like fifty thousand dollars to mail your product or service to his email list, and he, obviously he didn't charge me anything, he just did it the next day. It was like, "Oh, you just gave me that fifty thousand dollar gift because you are a nice person, and I've known you before." You know those ESPN documentaries where athletes are like, "Man, you really find out who your friends are," and they're not talking about how they had so many, they're talking about how no one cared about them when they were broke? I had the exact opposite experience.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  I had, wow, you really find out that you have hundreds of people that feel goodwill towards you and want to help you with something. That is an incredible insurance policy that money could never buy. And the reason that I had that was because I helped other people without the attachment of getting anything in return, and I dug the well before I was thirsty. I didn't plan on losing my business and being thirsty, nobody does, but you said I walked the walk. Thank goodness that I actually bothered to do that, because if not, I would be in deep trouble, right? It's really easy to pay lip service to something, it's a lot harder to do it. Thank God I actually did it. We wouldn't be having this conversation right now, probably.

• 43:54Dan Harris?

  A few more terms I wanna hit. The dossier technique.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is, if I know I'm gonna meet somebody that I want to connect with, I don't show up being completely clueless about what they're working on or what they do. It's real easy to go, "Oh, I'm gonna meet Adam Grant at this event," right, this author, "or Malcolm Gladwell at this event. That's gonna be great. I'm gonna shake their hand and then try to get their email address." Fine. What I try to do is I make, or have my assistant now make, a little file that I read on the plane, like Wikipedia, things they're working on, recent social media posts, and now, of course, if I know anybody that knows them personally, I'll go, "Hey, I'm meeting them at this event. What are they talking about recently? What are they doing recently?" And you'll find out that, well,

• 44:38Speaker 02

  a real example, I was gonna meet this scientist at a, science convention isn't quite the right word, but essentially where he was giving a talk. And this person is famous in their arena. Tons of other scientists were gonna be there. He was gonna have a line after his talk that was probably 40 people and he was gonna eventually escape and go to the airport. I reached out to him on LinkedIn before that and said, "Hey, I'm going to be at this conference. I know you like squash. Do you fancy a game of squash the morning before your talk?" Not, "Can I have breakfast and talk to you about things that I want?" Not, "Can I connect with you like 8,000 other scientists wanna do at this event? Do you want to play squash?" And he was like, "Yeah, sure." And I said, "I'm not very good at it, just so you know, but I might be able to keep up

• 45:23Speaker 02

  because you look 20 or 30 years younger than me. I think you'll be fine." So I played squash with this guy. I did not do well and he kicked my ass. And I kinda became buddies with him over that period of time, spoke with him during squash afterwards, got a bite to eat afterwards. He gave his talk. I can reach out to this person at any time, at any time. And these other folks, I remember waiting after his talk. There was at least 20, 30, maybe even 40 people waiting. Most of them never even got a chance to speak to him at all. I have his cellphone number. I found out what he wanted, what he was interested in, set up a court and asked him if he wanted to join me for that. There was not... By the way, when we play squash, I'm gonna ask you how to become one of your PhD students.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  I even told him, "I'm not a PhD candidate for anything. I'm a podcaster. I'm interested in your work, but also I'm looking for somebody to play squash on Tuesday." And he was like, "Good enough." That was it. So the dossier includes things like enjoys squash, or for me, my dossier would be has been to North Korea four times. If you wanna get through to me on something, you emailing me podcasting news, it's not gonna be interesting. You emailing me something that I'm interested in personally is gonna cut through the filter and probably get a response from me. If you say like, "Oh, hey, have you seen this new podcasting app?", the answer is probably "Yes, and I don't care about it." Or you're the 50th person to send it to me. It's old news. I might just bookmark it for later and reply in a batch.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  If somebody sends me something kooky about North Korea that I haven't seen, probably going to start a conversation via email or social media with that person. And so, somebody who finds out what I'm interested in is going to be able to cut through the noise. And so, I always recommend doing that. The only way to do that is you have to do a little bit of legwork beforehand.

• 47:09Dan Harris?

  I'm sensitive to time and there are a million other questions I could ask you about networking and relationships, but there are other questions I want to ask you on other success-related topics. Just to say, as we conclude this, though, if you go to jordanharbinger.com, there is a free course from Jordan on networking.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  It's at sixminute networking.com, too, if that's easier for people to remember. And it's free, and I don't go like, "Enter your credit card and I'll give you my free..." I don't want anything from you, other than for you to go through this literal 13-video course, and each video is like a minute long. This is the fastest dang course that you will take, and if you take one or two things away from it and do those forever, I've won. I've taught you a new habit. That's it.

• 47:48Dan Harris?

  Let me ask you about another prominent feature of your career, which is pivoting. Well, you started as a almost...

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Let's use the euphemism "dating coach."

• 47:58Dan Harris?

  Well, you started as an almost incarcerated teenager, and then you went to law school, and then you became a Wall Street lawyer. And then you got into a podcasting zone of like dating-related stuff. And now, you're a podcaster who talks about like a whole... You're a very small-C Catholic interest. You have like a very... You talk about international affairs, you talk about wellness, you talk about politics, whatever's interesting to you. But so, that's a lot of pivoting over time. What did you learn in the course of all of these changes? And what would you recommend to others who are thinking about building a career where they may change over time?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's really, especially when you're young, you go in thinking, "I'm gonna pick this thing, and this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life." That's a very hard decision. When I was young, I thought, "How am I gonna possibly make this clearly..." Very difficult decision about what I want to do for the rest of my life. And the answer is you are almost never choosing what you are going to do for the rest of your life. Anytime you make a decision. When you were a journalist, did you think this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life?

• 49:00Dan Harris?

  Yeah, yes, I did.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  And now here we are, right? So.

• 49:05Dan Harris?

  Something went wrong.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Something went wrong. Lower the stakes for yourself, man. Like when I went to law school, I went in going, I'm probably not going to be a lawyer because I really don't care about it that much. And everybody was like, what are you doing here? This is law school. Everyone here is going to be a lawyer for the rest of their life. Do you know what percentage of those people are still lawyers? It's tiny. Because most of us went there because we didn't know what to do with ourselves. And like our aunt told us, you should go to law school. Your uncle's a lawyer. He makes good money. And we were like, okay. My grades are good and I can't get a job at Best Buy with an undergrad degree, which is even more true now. So I'm just gonna go to grad school. Well, I don't have pre-med stuff, never took those courses. I don't want to get a PhD in English. Guess I'll go to law school. That's the thought process for like 80% of the class. Maybe higher.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  So I went there thinking, law degree won't hurt you. Looks good on every application, even if you're not going to be a lawyer. Maybe I'll be a lawyer for a short period of time. Then after law school, these law firms came and went, I know you don't want to be a lawyer, but what if we bury you in a pile of money? In exchange for every minute of your time? And you go, great, my time's not worth squat, but you're going to pay me for it? Let's do this. So I did that. And then when I was in law school and when I started my legal job, I was doing podcasting. A friend of mine said, hey, I've got an evening gig on Sirius XM Satellite Radio doing a show. I can't get there. I live in Virginia. You should just do it. And I said, I don't think that's how jobs on radio work. I don't think you can give them to your friends. But he gave me a shot.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  The station manager liked my podcast, which I had already been doing for six months or eight months, or however long it was. And he goes, oh, you can do this. Gave us a shot at radio, did radio and podcasting for a few years. The economy tanks. They ask us lawyers, who wants to take a buyout? I raise my hand and take nine months' full salary and benefits. Go do the radio show, go do the podcast, start this little coaching consulting company that I was running before. Stop doing the radio, move to LA, right? All these little pivots. You have to be, and there's probably some Zen Buddhism thing in here, Dan, you're gonna have to step in. You can't really be so locked onto the rails. Life is sort of like a hike, right? It's like you go off the trail, you got to the bathroom, you wanna see the flower over here.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  People act like it's a railroad track and you can only go in this direction. What they don't realize is you're supposed to meander around and go and take a drink from the stream. I'm gonna screw up this metaphor, by the way, so I'm just waiting for you to rescue me. You're gonna take a drink from the stream, you're gonna go look at the birds, right? You have to be open to that because the people who treat it like it's a railroad track, they wake up one day and they go, why the hell am I still working at this bank? I hate this. Then they got the golden handcuffs and they go, but if I leave, no more private school for the kids, probably have to sell the boat. And they just go, eh, I'm retiring in 15 years. This'll be fine. That's what a lot of my friends are who are still lawyers. That's literally what they tell me. I'm looking forward to retirement.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  I'm like, we're 44, or you're 41. You're thinking about retirement? You know, you are not even halfway through your career, man. That's depressing. So be available to the pivot. And for me, it's not follow your passion, it's bring your passion with you, especially in the beginning, right? In that job that you don't really love as an attorney, bring 100% of your focus and energy to it and do a damn good job. But it doesn't mean that you have to do that for the rest of your life. Like, you really have to have your eyes open to what you wanna do and your interests. We'll talk about on my show, What Went Wrong over at ABC News. But is it safe to say you enjoy doing what you're doing now, more than you?

• 52:39Dan Harris?

  Yeah, no, nothing went wrong at ABC, actually. I just, I had two things I really liked and this is the thing I liked doing more.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  The thing you didn't buy a boat.

• 52:47Dan Harris?

  I definitely did not buy a boat. I lived very frugally. When you said follow your passion for a second, that just reminded me of the fact that I think I've been wrong on this before. If there are loyal listeners out there, they may have heard me talk about this before, but. In 2005, I was invited to give a commencement address at the school that I attended, the college I attended, which is Colby College.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:07Dan Harris?

  And I got up and gave a follow your passion speech.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Who doesn't?

• 53:11Dan Harris?

  Which I believed at the time, because that's what I had done. But not everybody actually has a passion.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:17Dan Harris?

  Sometimes the passion actually follows the engagement.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:22Dan Harris?

  You do work on something that you may not be passionate about at the beginning, but the passion emerges from that. But that was not true for me. I was passionate about journalism and I went and did it and I was off to the races. But that actually was a bit of a, here we go with that word again, privileged argument.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 53:37Dan Harris?

  So what's your take on this question?

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so people always go, you're a hypocrite. You're doing something you're passionate about. That's true, but it's not like I graduated from high school and I was like, I am going to be a podcaster. Nobody even knew what podcasts were when I started. They didn't make money for almost a decade. There was no such thing as podcast advertising for the first 10 or 12 years that I did the show. So I don't think most of us should follow our passion. In fact, there's no better way to ruin a passion than to try and monetize it and make it your job. This is the interesting thing, especially about podcasting, right? People go, oh, man, how long did it take you before you started making money? I'm like, it's a hobby. You're asking me how you can monetize your hobby? When your kid is building Legos, does he go, man, one day I am going to make a ton of

• 54:22Speaker 02

  money building these things? Nobody's collecting model trains and going, this, this is going to be a great career for me. Nobody does that. But somehow with podcasting, it's like not allowed to be a hobby. It always has to be a business. I think it's a terrible way to look at it. And I think partially is survivorship bias. Looking at somebody like you or Anderson Cooper or like Brian Williams, you're looking at pure survivorship bias, right? These are the people that had a lot of talent, a lot of luck, and also shoveled a metric ton of S H I T and got through to where they are now and maybe are not necessarily enjoying every minute of what they're doing, but they make $485,000 a year or add a couple of zeros to that. What do I know? Right?

• 55:04Speaker 02

  And that's why you see those folks doing that. And were they passionate about it or were they good at it and then got great at it and now they're stuck doing it or they love doing it now? There's plenty of people that don't follow their passion that make a great life. Scott Galloway, who I'm sure has been, has he been on the show?

• 55:23Dan Harris?

  Yeah, he has.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  One of his things is, the person giving a commencement speech and telling you to follow your passion, they made a billion dollars in iron smelting. Hundred percent, right? The person telling you to follow your passion, Mark Cuban. If you go, "What are you passionate about?" "Oh, investing." "Well, okay, when you didn't have any money to invest, what were you passionate about?" "Nothing, I was just dead set on making money." So you were passionate about getting rich. Now you're passionate about using your money. He wasn't passionate about, what did he make his money off of? Like amalgamating radio shows onto broadcast.com so they could be streamed online? Literally no human has ever been passionate about doing that. Nobody. Nobody's passionate about that. But he will tell you, or somebody like him, I should say, I'm not going to put words in his mouth, somebody like him will tell you, they'll get up there and go, "Follow your passion, follow your dreams."

• 56:08Speaker 02

  That is probably a great idea if you're talking about how somebody can find a hobby. You should follow your dreams if you want to find a hobby that you enjoy, follow those dreams. If you want to find a career that actually pays for you to live an acceptable lifestyle, I recommend HVAC, I recommend construction, or any trade. Those are really good ways to make a good life for yourself. You don't have to follow your passion, but you bring it with you. When you get that HVAC job, you learn everything you can and you take all of the knowledge you get during your apprenticeship and you learn the business and you be the guy who owns 12 HVAC trucks that go all over Manhattan. That's how you get rich. You bring your passion with you. You don't necessarily follow it. Those of us that followed our passion and got rich doing that, you might as well buy a lottery ticket.

• 56:50Dan Harris?

  Yes, right. You and I both won the lottery.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  We won the lottery. And anybody who's in our position, speaking of privilege, that doesn't acknowledge the massive role of luck and timing is li- they are delusional. They are lying to themselves and they're lying to everybody else.

• 57:05Dan Harris?

  Yep, yep, well said.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Coming up, Jordan talks about his thoughts on hustle culture, how to ask for a raise, and the strategic value of asking for advice.

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• 57:50Dan Harris?

  You and I are both sort of, we find ourselves in interesting corners of what has sometimes been called the manosphere, you know, white dudes with podcasts.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 57:59Dan Harris?

  One of the things you sometimes hear in the darker precincts of the manosphere is you gotta crush it, always be working, thank God it's Monday, you know, you can sleep when you're dead, et cetera, et cetera. Hustle culture.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:12Dan Harris?

  And so you've done, I listened to a great episode you did.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  You'd be dead earlier if you'd do the hustle thing.

• 58:16Dan Harris?

  Well, exactly, yes. You can, you will be sleeping sooner than the rest of us. What is your take on hustle? I know what it is, but I would like you to tell these folks.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  I know you know. This is how questions in interviews work.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yeah, you know, for me, it was a shame to see this because the hustle culture that existed when I was in law school, where it was every minute you're not studying, someone else is studying harder than you, the final exam is 100% of your grade, there's a finite number of jobs out there, we're all competing for them, hide the library book that everybody needs so that they can't, I mean, that existed, right? To see that proliferate to everybody is horrifying. That was very toxic, very unhealthy. The level of competition drove people, we had suicides, we had eating disorders, we had people that just opted out and quit, we had people who dropped out of school that would have made fine lawyers because they couldn't handle or didn't want to handle all that. That's a damn shame.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  So to see that now. Being absorbed by high school kids is awful. It's not a good way to live. It's not motivating. People who who need to be motivated, being told that they're never going to be enough unless they work 24/7, that's very temporary motivation. Usually, it's completely ineffective motivation. So I strongly recommend people insulate themselves from this and do not consume that kind of content. By the way, I know a lot of those big channels that create those videos, those hustle culture videos. You know how those make money? They either get a ton of plays and they have advertising, or they sell courses on things like how to get ahead, but it's all the same recycled nonsense.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Or stuff you could get from how to win friends and influence people phrased by some dude in a video. That's $48 a month, recurring. That's how that guy's getting ahead. He's not hustling. He's making videos telling you to do that. Right? It's just like, again, Mark Cuban said something along the lines of, people ask him like, what do you think of these guys who sell business courses and teach people how to do this? And he goes, anybody who's teaching you how to make money, they are lying to you. Because if what they taught worked, they would do that. That's how they would make their money. The last thing they would do is package it into an easy to consume course and make that for sale. And that's true. Like, I tell people how to grow podcasts and stuff, but of course, I have certain trade secrets. And I'm like, I will only talk about this when it is either already widely known or

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  less effective than it is for me right now. I'll give people the basics and stuff like that, but anybody who's like trading cryptocurrency and knows the secret formula to do it, they're not telling anybody else. They are using that glitch to get rich as hell. And then when it either doesn't work anymore or starts slowing down, that's when they go, all right, how do I continue to make money doing, ah, I train other people how to do this? And they'll make a little, but I'll make more. That's hustle culture. It's at heart deceptive. It's disingenuous, and it relies on you feeling like you are not enough or doing enough to succeed. And that is inherently bad for you.

• 1:01:20Dan Harris?

  Right. Yes, the always behind this, never enough this piece of it is really pernicious. I would say the other part of this is There's a really good argument to be made that I'm stealing this from a guy named Alex Pang, Alex Su-jeong Kim Pang. You should actually have him on your podcast. He wrote a book called Rest. And his argument is that work and rest are two sides of the same coin. In other words, if you want to be productive, you need rest.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Dan Harris?

  And rest doesn't just mean lying on the couch, although lying on the couch can be great.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Sounds good to me.

• 1:01:49Dan Harris?

  Could be, yeah. But it can also be a hobby that requires a lot of energy. But something that gives your mind a rest so that when you come back to the thing you're quote unquote hustling on, you're bringing fresh ideas. You're not stale. You're not burnt out. That lands really well for me because I was hustling in an unhealthy way previously.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  I agree. There's so much. I'm glad there's science behind this now because when I went to law school and I would say things like, you know, I need to be well rested for this, or I need to go to the gym. People would go, sucker, look at him doing that. Now, of course, we know actually endorphins this, sleep brainwaves that, the science is there. But before it was, there were guys in my law firm where it was like, oh, you're screwed, man. You have a family. You're never gonna make it. Or you better get used to never seeing your wife and kids because there's no such thing as work-life balance. If you're in a job like that, they do not value your individual contribution. You are a workhorse. You're a stamping press that can be replaced as soon as you are worn out.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Look, we're in a creative sort of sphere. I'm doing interviews. I'm reading books. I need to absolutely be in good physical shape to be reading 24/7. I need to build Legos with my kid and I need to play video games and not talk to anybody. And I need to go for long walks and hikes and stuff like that because otherwise my work suffers. Because I don't want to frickin' be there anymore. And when that happens, the interview stinks. Or my ability to ask reasonable questions goes out the window because I am just trudging through yet another one. I'm so glad that people are now talking about the science of rest because now people might actually finally listen. Before it was just, yeah, if you're a wimp, I guess you can take a break.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're a loser, I guess you can sleep eight hours a night if you want to be like that. You still see these hustle culture gurus out there and it's like, oh yeah, whining about how you don't have time. What are you doing from 8pm to 4 o'clock in the morning every night? I've heard somebody say that. I'm not gonna mention their name. They live in this very city. What are you doing from the hours of 7pm to 2am? Oh, it's called my family. Oh, wait, you are divorced and maybe your kids don't talk to you. Maybe I shouldn't take your advice. Maybe I shouldn't listen to you and follow your example. You're rich, but are you? Your wife left you. I don't think that's a win.

• 1:04:15Dan Harris?

  Well said. As I made my table of contents for the book that you should be writing on how to succeed, one of the chapters that I'm proposing that you write is on, and this is actually taken right from the title of one of your episodes, is the pluses and minuses of vulnerability.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:34Dan Harris?

  We've got people like Brene Brown out there doing great work on, you know, vulnerability. In other words, being honest, real, in a professional context, although she talks about it holistically. But within a professional context, what's your take on the ups and the upsides and downsides of being authentic or vulnerable, or whatever the word is you wanna choose?

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. Yeah, any word you use is automatically overused and cliched, yeah. So, for me, when I was younger, again, these are other influences I see cropping up now that make me a little bit sad. When I was younger, it was all about like being a tough macho guy. That was a trait that was valued among young men. I was really grateful that that started to slip away. Now, of course, we see like a resurgence of, that's stronger than I've ever seen in my life, unfortunately. But, one of the things I used to teach back in the day when I was doing like the personal development stuff was, a strong guy can put the shield down and doesn't need to wear all the armor. It's not the strong guy that needs to front and put up...

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  The idea that nothing phases them and that they're completely unbothered. Like, that's kind of, in my opinion, antiquated and outdated ideal of masculinity. Think about it. A strong guy, when their son is having a problem, what does a strong guy do? Does he say, "Suck it up. You need to learn how to not deal with this and shove it aside"? That's kind of like what our parents did or their parents did. That's not what a real strong man does. A strong man has the emotional capacity to deal with somebody else's perceived weakness or somebody else's need for their strength, right? When somebody needs your strength and all you do is push them away, I think that's one of the weakest things you can do, especially as a father. If your daughter has a problem or your son has a problem,

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  the worst thing you can do is pretend, because that's what you're doing, pretend that that shouldn't bother them and that it doesn't bother you. It's ridiculous. You need to develop that ability to put the shield down. And the way you connect with people as well is you put that shield down. The guy who acts like he has absolutely no flaws, no faults, and can never be wrong, that person doesn't have great relationships. Why would they? So, the best people to learn from and connect with are the people where you go, "Man, I just don't know what I'm gonna do with myself. I don't know where I'm going with my career and I don't know if I'm making the right move." And they go, "Oh yeah, I've felt that way a lot in my life. Here's the last time I felt that way. Here's how things worked out for me. Here's what I did right about it. Here's actually what I did wrong, what I would do a different way if I had the choice." And that person goes,

• 1:07:04Speaker 02

  "Man, I feel so much better. Look at you now. Look what you're doing. And you went through something that was this bad or worse? And you made it to where you are now? I feel a lot better." If you go, "Sucks to be you", how do you think that person feels that? "That never happened to me" or "I'm too tough to worry about that", that person is not gonna connect with you. They're never gonna open up to you. They're never gonna create a relationship with you, and you have not helped them at all. So, for me, there's no real downside to that level of vulnerability. Now, if you make it like your entire personality, I think it can be a little off-putting. I feel like then it becomes inauthentic once again. Just, everything is always about love and vulnerability. And, look...

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  Every man has their own degree of this, and I think when you're talking about women especially, they're a lot more comfortable being open and vulnerable with each other. What do we notice about friendships between men and friendships between women? Which gender typically has stronger connections with each other? In every civilization, it's women.

• 1:07:59Dan Harris?

  Have you ever seen the SNL skit where girlfriends are taking their boyfriends or husbands to essentially a New York City dog run or a dog park? But it's for dudes to make friends with each other.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  I think somebody sent this to me, but I can't remember.

• 1:08:14Dan Harris?

  It's, I'll put a link in the show notes. It's hilarious and it really just speaks to the emotional imbecility of many of us men.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Dan Harris?

  And that inability to create connection, to have actual friendships is, I think it's safe to say, a big part of why you see mental health issues among so many people with our chromosomal structure.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Could not agree more. Men making friends as adults, I don't know what the stats are. I should look this up. It's abysmal. And my email inbox, we do an advice segment on Friday, Feedback Friday, where people are like, how do I escape this cult? Or like, how do I get a raise at work? Whatever it is. And the letters we get from just lonely guys who are like, I moved away from all my childhood friends and I realize I have no idea how to make new ones. We get that letter every single week. And it's really a shame because friendship is probably one of the most beautiful things that we have in our lives, right? Relationships with other people. So the idea that we are brought up and we are never taught how to strengthen those relationships

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  is profoundly sad and profoundly, it results in profound loneliness.

• 1:09:22Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  And you're right, the mental health has never been, probably never been worse for men. And that's a huge reason.

• 1:09:30Dan Harris?

  What about in a workplace? This whole idea of bringing your whole self to the office?

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you should probably ask a guy who's had a real job in the last decade and a half. That might help. I bring my whole self to the office, but it's also my, my own house and I'm usually not wearing pants.

• 1:09:46Dan Harris?

  How big is your team?

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  There's six of us. Most of them are not working in that particular hostile environment.

• 1:09:51Dan Harris?

  You mean, they don't see you pantsless?

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  They don't see me pantsless. No. They see, yeah, they're mostly remote. I've got a bunch of, a bunch of people elsewhere in California. I've got people in my area, but they're related to me. Right. My wife works with me as well. And then we've got a couple of people overseas in Eastern Europe that do things like sound engineering. That's it. You know, the bring your whole self to work, I think it's probably healthier than not. The idea that people are connecting with each other in a more real way in the office is probably good. I'm sure there's a limit to this, and I'm sure that that limit has been reached by, in some of the offices from some of the people listening to and watching this particular show.

• 1:10:28Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  I think that limit has been reached by many. We even may have even talked about an example or two of this in the lunch that we had before recording here. There's a way to overdo these kinds of things, I think. Yeah.

• 1:10:39Dan Harris?

  You made a reference to this a few moments ago, and it's on my list of things to ask you about how to ask for a raise.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Well, probably too long of a particular strategy. There's an article, I think, on our website about this, and I'm not just trying to like squeeze people to the website. The reason is, it's never just about the ask of the raise. It's about the groundwork you do years prior. The best way to get a raise is to basically work for the job that you want, or go for the job that you want. The best success stories of people getting a raise from Feedback Friday, from the Jordan Harbinger Show, are people that say, "I really want to work on this particular project, but I'm in this department over here." And our advice is always something along the lines of, go over to the department where they are working on that, and ask if they have anything that you can do, even

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  though you are in whatever, sales, and you want to work on the rockets. Is there anything you can do, especially after hours, that would help them in what they do? And then, do that. You're not going to get extra compensation. You got to get permission from your boss to do it, and they're going to go, "Only if you do it and it doesn't interfere with your current work." Adhere to that. And you go over there and you go, "I'm going to do all of the reconciliation on the spreadsheets for the whatever." And you do that, and you do that, and you do that, and maybe you do it for a year, and then suddenly you're a good part of that team. And when a position opens up, they're going to consider you first. That's how you might make a lateral move. Or, in the case of actually getting a raise... You would go to your boss well before you actually want the raise and you would say,

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  "I really would love to run a project. Here's an idea that I have for a project." One real example, again from Feedback Friday, is somebody said, "I do this thing, but there's definitely going to be a way to automate this. I found some tools that can do it. They're kind of expensive, but I feel like I could build something like this. I just don't really know exactly how." And I go, "Okay, go to your boss. Ask him if you're allowed to try your hand at creating an automation tool that does an element of your job or somebody else's job. And then, when you create that and you have to run it, just keep your boss posted every few weeks or months on this particular project." So this guy built, I don't know all the details by heart, but he built some kind of tool for the sales pipeline

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  that plugged into Salesforce, probably some sort of plugin for their API, whatever it was. And it was very specific to their industry. And it eliminated like five or six hours a week of this team's work. And he told his boss he was doing that. And then, when it came time for his performance review, he was like, "Hey, we're saving six hours a week doing this thing. I have other ideas." And additionally, he goes, "Those six hours are worth about, because it's six hours of multiple people's time. They're worth about 1,200 bucks each. So I would like 50% of that savings added to my compensation. And by the way, I have other ideas of things we can automate." So they created a sort of pseudo-position for him

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  where he's going through different systems and finding out ways to automate things. And he's compensated for the work that he already did creating that other system. But he basically had to do that for free in order to prove that he was worth doing that and worth that extra compensation. He didn't go in and go, "I need 5,000 extra dollars because I've been here for a year." That's not how you do it. You raise your game up and then you ask to be compensated for the value that you've brought.

• 1:13:58Dan Harris?

  Do you think brute seniority is not a good reason to ask for a raise?

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  I think it is because you have experience, maybe you're better at your job. Is that the best way to ask for a raise? No. Is it a possible way to ask for a raise? Yeah, you might get your cost of living increased, your inflation matched, whatever it's called. Sure. But would you rather be somebody who goes, "Hey..." I'm bringing in an additional $20,000 in revenue. Can I have five of that? Or do you want to be the guy who goes, can I please have enough money so that my salary isn't melting away from inflation? And they go, well, I'll give you 50% of what you asked for because otherwise, what are you going to do about it? Right? Especially if you're creating extra value. If you can make yourself indispensable, right? This guy is automating things in this current company. There are other companies that does what he, where he works. He could bring those tools to the competition.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Do they want him to leave and bring the extra value to a competitor? Or do they want to give him literally one half to one-fourth of what he's actually bringing them? It's a no-brainer. It's an easy calculation for them to make. The numbers work out in his favor. If you're just saying, I need extra money, the numbers do not work out in your favor. Now they're making a decision as to whether they can afford to lose you because you're asking for more. Are you worth that? Now, that's not the calculation you want your boss making. You want your boss going, we cannot afford to have this value go somewhere else. Not can we afford to do business without this person? That's a totally different question. One's a massive advantage and a massive lever and the other one is not.

• 1:15:30Dan Harris?

  Last question for me. What is the strategic value of asking for advice?

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is one of my favorite things. First of all, when you ask for advice, you get advice. Check that box. Second of all, there's a couple of schools of thought here. One is, there's this old, possibly apocryphal story about Benjamin Franklin, and I think it's in How to Win Friends and Influence People, where Benjamin Franklin had some enemy in like the, whatever, the Congress somewhere, or some guy didn't like him. He said horrible things about Benjamin Franklin. There's quotes to this effect. Benjamin Franklin finds out, he does the dossier technique, right? He finds out this guy loves collecting books. And remember, books back then, it's like, one guy you know might have one copy of one thing and it's the only copy anywhere in the United States, or possibly anywhere.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  So he finds out that this guy has a rare book and Benjamin Franklin writes him and goes, I heard you have a, I'm paraphrasing, kick-ass book collection and you've got an addition of this. I would love it and no obligation. I would be so amazingly blown away if you would let me read that. So the guy sends him the book. And what this does, this is now called the Benjamin Franklin effect. This guy rationalizes, well, I sent him that book. He must not be such a bad guy because I wouldn't have done that otherwise. You know what? Maybe my beef against him is a little bit overblown and they become fast allies, fast friends. When you ask somebody for advice, not only do you get the Benjamin Franklin effect, but you get the bonus of them. They now have stakes in your success.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  If you say, "How do I grow my show because I'm leaving ABC News and I want this to be a sustainable business because I love it?" And I give you 90 minutes of advice. If you turn around and fail after that, I feel kinda bad, you know, like geez, I gave you the best help I could and you like fell flat on your face. And that doesn't feel good. So now I've got a little bit of skin in the game, right psychologically. So if you're asking for advice from folks, one, they know you want to be there. They know you're serious about learning. You got the Benjamin Franklin effect in case there was a relationship issue there, but now your relationship with them is stronger. And they have stakes in your success, man. That's a really good combination of factors. And in addition to that, you might actually get some good advice.

• 1:17:42Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  But it's almost like a side effect of everything else.

• 1:17:44Dan Harris?

  Right. Is there something you were hoping that we would get to that we didn't get to?

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  I was hoping we'd turn on the air conditioner at some point.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  I don't know if you're gonna leave that in. You know, honestly, not really. There's so much we can talk about. Whenever we do meals, they, they last until they kick us out of the restaurant. There's a reason for that. So I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to be here, man. I really appreciate you having me on. And I think it's a lot of fun.

• 1:18:07Dan Harris?

  But are you gonna write the book?

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:18:10Dan Harris?

  I will say that your reason for not wanting to write the book, as I mentioned earlier, it has to do with time management and not wanting to be a part of hustle culture because you have two very young children, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think there, I think you have a book in you.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  Eventually I will write it. You're right. I have a two-year-old and a four-and-a-half-year-old and I spend a ton of time with them. And I'm away from them right now, which is, you know, it's not, it's not a good look to be like, I spend all kinds of time with my kids. Aren't you in New York City right now and you live in California? Forget about that. Yes, I do. So I'm going to Legoland after this.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  And I'm doing it for multiple days. So one, pray for me. And two, I wouldn't be able to necessarily do that kinda thing if I had a bunch of extra projects. So I, right now, while my kids are young and they actually wanna hang out with me and they actually think dad is cool. I'm putting a lot of this stuff to the side because it's like, oh man, every hour that I spend writing or doing something that's not paying the bills right then. Yes, there's building blocks and stuff that I can put together for later, but. Why do I want to be building on something that I cash in? And then I go, all right, we made an extra whatever from that book. And my kid goes, whatever. Can you drive me to the mall? Right now, he actually wants me to be there and I want to be there. And I feel like that book will be there later when I'm driving my kid to the mall.

• 1:19:26Dan Harris?

  Amen. Just remind everybody, before I let you go, the name of your show, what the website is. Just plug away, please.

• 1:19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Jordan Harbinger, H A R B I N G E R. The Jordan Harbinger Show, or Harbinger, if that makes it easier to remember. I'm still not even sure how I want to pronounce it. And it's jordanharbinger.com is the website with everything. Wherever fine podcasts are sold, you can find my show. We have a YouTube channel as well, but only like one third of my shows go up there.

• 1:19:56Dan Harris?

  We will put links to all of these in the show notes. So if you don't have a pen handy, it's in there. Jordan, always great to see you.

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you very much.

• 1:20:07Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Jordan. Don't forget to check out his show, The Jordan Harbinger Show. Also, if you want to check out the other episodes we're doing in the Sane and Ambitious Bucket, I will put a link in the show notes to a playlist of prior episodes. Also, don't forget to check out danharris.com. Subscribers will get a full cheat sheet for this episode, filled with all the key takeaways and a full transcript. We're also doing lots of other cool stuff like live AMAs. And yeah, anyway, just come check it out, trust me. Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who works so hard on the show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer.

• 1:20:51Dan Harris?

  DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 1:21:05Speaker 04

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