MBA2665 Extended Interview: Jordan Harbinger - How to Start Again When Life and Business Punch You in the Face

28:13and so that's again why it should be a hobby is you should pick something you're really interested in talking about because then you can talk about it endlessly and the people that are interested in that will find you eventually and you'll have a small audience and you have to be satisfied with that because if you try to make a broad podcasting is narrow casting instead of broadcasting right so true like you find the audience of people that are really interested in like apple products right and you talk about the new watch and you talk about the new whatever everything that comes out and you go into the store and you buy it and you review it and that's narrow casting and if you try to be a broadcaster it's tough man like I cover a lot on the Jordan Harbinger show but I've been doing it for 18 years and my audience comes with me on that but a lot of people write in and go oh my god I love the advice segments on Fridays I don't love a lot of the interviews you do but whatever who cares and other people write in and go I love the interviews I don't care about the advice though but whatever other people love everything but i can get away with that because i've been doing it for 20 years i build skills in these different discrete areas but if you just showed up and you were like i'm going to talk about whatever i want not very compelling right that worked 20 years ago because you were on tv yeah like larry king can do it because there's one other show on at the same time or two and they're what then there's dateline or something competing with him so like if you want a talk show you just have to watch larry king so if he's talking with a person who's got animals on that's what you're watching you don't really have many other options so you could broadcast that one uh but now if you're like oh i'm gonna force this down the throat of my audience well that's not gonna work because there's eight bajillion channels and that's not even counting youtube is it just because you're talking about you know the different segments of your show the different kind of things that you've tested on your on your show So, you know, I've been podcasting for over a decade.

30:05You've been podcasting for almost 20 years. We all have known a lot of podcasters. We've been to a lot of conferences. We've seen a lot of podcasters that were huge and you don't hear about them anymore. Yeah, that's true. That stopped publishing. One of the biggest kind of, to be honest, fears I had when I, the last few years is like, am I innovating enough? Am I pushing myself? Am I staying too comfortable in my own comfort zone of the show? Maybe I should test this out. Maybe I should do more video. Maybe I should, you know, how important it is to kind of innovate, push yourself. Because I've seen a lot of podcasters that just have been doing the same thing for the last, whatever, 10, 12 years.

30:47And their show is like half the size it used to be because, you know, they're just not as good in comparison to what's out there. That's true. I mean, I do. Do I innovate? I'd like to say no, but I don't think that it's necessarily true because I find other things that I'm interested in and I start to experiment with those. So Feedback Friday, our advice segment on Fridays, started off because I was getting so many people asking me questions. And I was like, when am I going to respond to these? I don't spend all day answering my email. And I was like, oh, I'll just pick some recurring themes and do a show about it.

31:19I called it like the mailbag episode. So popular, people started writing in more. So popular. Then I was like, I'll do this every month. and now it's every week and we can't get through the inbox. And that was, I don't know, a decade or something ago. And then I was wanting to cover science stuff and just debunk it, but not with a guest, with a researcher that I paid because I couldn't find an expert on energy drinks that I wanted to have on the show that could make it or whatever. And then I wanted to do another show about, spoiler alert, can I say penis on your podcast? I've done a show about penis size.

31:52Okay, that's not a gross word. Scientific term. Yes, clinical. And so I was like, well, I'm not going to find an expert on this. I mean, I could, but it's either going to be somebody overly clinical or overly like kinky. And I don't really want that. I want this. I want to strike the perfect balance. I want a balanced show about penises. so i just hired researchers and now they go and do deep dives on topics for me and it's like yeah energy drinks the lottery uh genetic engineered food gmos you know whatever and so those became really popular too and then with youtube it was like okay i want to do this kind of thing i want to do that kind of thing so do i innovate i try new things right are they brand new brand new no one's ever seen it before is nah probably not but it doesn't really matter because it has my blend of presentation i bring the audience from the show feed into it they you know expose them to that kind of thing but in a way it kind of is innovation because it's people will always say like the jordan harbinger shows like three shows in one you got the advice part you got the science part on sunday and you got the interview part tuesday or tuesday thursday so yeah that's unique yeah but it's like did I go I need to come up with the trifecta of unique different formats for my shit no no not really right but the other thing is I'm always building skills and I think a lot of people like you said those podcasters where they're like their audience is half the size it was a decade ago because of whatever reason I've got voice coaches I've got people that I hired to look over scripts script I guess script coaching um we've done heroic public speaking yeah we did heroic public speaking with michael port yeah and and so i build you know constantly build those different kinds of skills um i took a bunch of video game voice acting classes because i was doing voice acting for video games anyways and i was like i should probably know what i'm doing and then that stuff just bleeds its way into me goofing around on the show yeah and then it's like oh i want to add some funny sound bites that i think are that make me laugh and then i add those into the show so the show constantly grows and evolves i think a lot of the people where their audience gets cut in half and i'd have to study this scientifically i suppose but a lot of those people i think what they do is they go i've got a winning formula i'm really focused on my lego building and kid raising i'm just gonna hire my team outsource all of this stuff and sort of work like on mondays and yeah their audience dwindles because they're really not even putting that much brain power into it they're just sort of letting it slip and i get it and look if they've already made 10 million bucks and they're going to retire anyway and they can live off their show like fine do that uh i don't want to do that because i enjoy what i'm doing if you don't enjoy what you're doing i can't really say i fault somebody for doing less of it that's probably what you should be doing if you don't love it it probably happens naturally it happens naturally so my audience is growing and part of that is just kind of lucky you know um and part of it is because i develop it over and over.

34:52And yeah, the, the, the audio stuff is, is tricky to grow. People do video for that. I assume we're going to talk about that at some point. Um, I don't focus on that for reasons that we could get into or not. We'll get into it for sure. I mean, uh, I'm going to push back a little bit because, you know, you talked about podcasting as a hobby and maybe you should just kind of do we love, but you know, you just mentioned a whole bunch of things that show that you're invested in what you do. Like, you know, I would consider you more a journalist. You know, you hire teams, you have researchers, you talk to scientists.

35:25You know, most people that are podcasting are not putting in that kind of investment. Yeah. You know, and obviously - Well, it's not a hobby for me. It's my business. Yeah. But if I started now, it would be almost foolish to treat it like a business. Yeah. But this idea of also just, obviously you're spending money on this, but what I'm saying is the amount of time and attention and thought you're putting into the episode. You know, that could, anybody could do. You know, this idea of like, and also being mindful, like, okay, I'm a podcaster. My instrument is my voice. Maybe I should improve my voice.

35:59Yeah. You know, intonation or, you know, my breathing on the mic or whatever it might be. Yeah. Today I'm sniffling a lot. Don't judge me. Everyone's like, this is the guy who invested in his voice. Yeah. Charming. Yeah, it's charming. So you started in 2006. You were podcasting. You were the host of your old show for over 12 years. And then you had one of the hardest periods of your time, of your life. You've mentioned this a few times in public on other interviews, probably the roughest 18 months of your life where you left your old show. I know that obviously there's some details we can't share, but I want to know a little bit about what is it like losing everything and having to start from scratch?

36:50What was your first thought that morning when you woke up and thought, okay, I got to start over? So I did that show for, yeah, over 11 years, I think. and I thought it was super depressing because I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to spend the next like maybe even 15 years trying to get back to where I am right now or where I was yesterday. That's really scary. It's like being at the top of a mountain and then you wake up and you realize that actually you have to climb the whole mountain. You were just dreaming. And I also was older, right? When I started the first show, I was probably like 26 and then you wake up and you're 37 and you got to do it again.

37:27and you're like, oh my God, right? And luckily I didn't have kids so I could really focus on this stuff. But I had a mortgage, you know, it was scary. Gotta live. Yeah, gotta live. And so that was really scary. But what I didn't count on, of course, was, and we'll get into this, was like the people I knew, the connections I had, the skills I had built. You kind of discount all that stuff. So I spent a couple of weeks like really anxious. I lost a bunch of weight and stuff, which was really awful. Well, it was good, but it was not good. I was like, ooh, the scale number's sexy. but I look like a skeletal mess.

38:00I should try sleeping more than three hours a night. And my wife was like really worried about me. My family was kind of not like, oh, he's going to do something bad, but they were just like, he looks like crap. This is not good. And so I was really, really worried about it. I thought it would be impossible because I thought, okay, we no longer have that sort of early to market advantage. All of the stuff I did to build this, like a lot of those strategies don't work anymore, like linking to blogs and, you know, having your friends send out to their email list, which they used to do for free. Now they're like, sure, for 25 grand, I'll send out to my email list.

38:35So that kind of stuff was really scary. What I didn't count on, you know, you see those like ESPN interviews and it's like, they're always like, you find out who your friends are. They're not talking about like, wow, you find out, you just have so many friends. They mean that when you're broke, like your friends are gone. Who's answering phone calls, yeah. No one's taking your calls. Well, everybody took my call. I made a list of 100 people to call and I went, I think I did 140 podcasts in the next like eight months or a year. Everyone took my call. I explained my situation in as much detail as I could stand to all those people and people that I barely knew.

39:10And of course, the people I did know, but people, even people I barely knew were like, I'm going to help you. I want to help you rebuild. I want to help you do this. So they had me on their show. They sent me out to their email list. They told their fans about me. They put it on their blog when those were a thing. They tweeted it when that was a thing that got a lot of traction for them. They would do whatever they could to help me get back on my feet. And that was really incredible. So I did have that ESPN moment, but it was like, wow, I found out I had a lot of friends. I didn't know that. And part of the reason was because I really had dug the well before I got thirsty, right?

39:39I built all these relationships before I needed them. I didn't ask most of these people for anything. I helped a lot of other people get what they wanted without asking for anything in return. I didn't have the expectation of getting anything in return. then when I needed something, I had this whole bunch of people were like, I can't, I had some people say, Oh my God, I can't wait to help you with this. I, I've, you, you helped me do this thing five years ago. And I'm like, I don't even remember that, but they were like, I've been looking for an opportunity to be able to help you with something at some point.

40:08So I'm almost glad this happened, not to you, but like, I'm glad that I'm able to help. And so after eight months, my new show and company was more profitable than my old company was after 11 years. Wow. After eight months, we had done more revenue in it, not more revenue, sorry, more profitability in a year than my previous company had in a peak year. Yeah. And when Jen, my wife, told me that when we were sitting around doing the finances, I was like, well, that doesn't sound right. And I was like, surely you're not counting what we pay ourselves. She's like, no, no, no. I mean, you know, if you count your salary and my salary and you add this and then you put the money we have in the bank, it's this.

40:46And I was like, do we owe like a million dollars in taxes? She's like, no, no, no, we pay our taxes quarterly. And I was like, well, I don't understand how this works. And she basically was like, well, in the old business, you had to pay all your partners out. They wasted a ton of money. They didn't really add anything to the bottom line. I mean, a little bit, but not much. You had a huge sales team, you had a house, you had all these expenses. With us, just you in the guest room doing a podcast. and I was like that's true we don't have this huge staff yeah we don't have all this overhead we don't have all these partners that are like I have to make as much as Jordan because otherwise my ego hurts like all that stuff was gone and so we just made a bunch and then that was also coincidentally when I started when I started the Jordan Harbinger show from the old show this is in 2018 there was somewhat of a something of a renaissance going on in podcast ads around 2017, 2018, 2019.

41:41And then COVID hit. And COVID was like the e-commerce explosion where everything closed brick and mortar. And then was like, we're going to advertise online. Oh, we have to get to people in their homes. What are they doing? They're listening to podcasts. So then my revenue, I think 2018 was that profitable year, that first year. 2019, I think we doubled it. 2020, I think we doubled that. 2021, 2022. I was just like, and I watched the graph go like this. So it was really, I remember almost laughing, looking back at myself and laughing and going, wow, I used to be worried about this. That's kind of funny.

42:19It's incredible. Like what life teaches you about what you're capable of, you know? And I think that the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because I know there's people listening that are having a tough time right now. Yes. They're having a tough time getting up in the morning and telling themselves what they need to do. I remember a period of time when I was running my software company Webinar Ninja before we sold it where we I call it my wartime like I was going to war every day the the peacetime rules and things we spent on and the way we ran our team don't apply anymore martial law yeah there's a curfew yeah so up after 10 you get shot in order for us to to kind of get through that period of time where we were competing and we were trying, you know, it was, it was like that post COVID dip and we're trying to like really manage the situation.

43:06And luckily we were able to get through it and do well. But I remember vividly like having to get up, force myself to get out of bed and just like, I just got to take the next minute to go to the bathroom, next minute to have breakfast, like just take it minute by minute. Yeah. That sounds familiar. Yeah. So, I mean, if somebody is going through that right now, what advice would you give them? Yeah, I really had a hard time with that. I would. So I don't want to sugarcoat this at all. A typical the first couple of weeks when I restarted my business, a typical day for me would be go to bed around 10 or 11 because I couldn't I trouble sleeping, wake up at 2 or 3 a.m.

43:48to go to the bathroom, be literally shaking, lay in bed until six o 'clock in the morning, fall asleep for another 45 minutes, get up and then try and have some semblance of a day. And I did that for weeks and I literally lost like 25 pounds. And my wife was like, you need to eat food and you need to sleep more than three hours a night. And I was like, I would love to, but I can't. So I get it and it sucks. And it's like a medical condition, you know? But one thing that really helped me was I made a plan, which was all the people I needed to call, schedule calls with, whatever it was, all the things I needed to get done.

44:21Cause when, when I had, oh my God, I need to make a website. oh my god I need to do a show oh my god I need to do this I just would do like parts of each thing that were sort of within reach at the moment and then at the end of the day I'd go like I didn't do anything today and then it would even make my anxiety worse once I made a list of all the things I needed to do I remember there were like 300 things on this list it was like a giant google doc and it was like call this person call this schedule call with them make call with them if I got up in the morning I would schedule all these calls all day handle some of the other calls that that I actually did.

44:54And then it would be like, okay, register new domain and set up domain security, uh, have contact friend about website. Then I'd go to bed and go, wow, I did so much today. So instead of being like a blender with no top on where all the stuff goes onto the ceiling and you're like, oh crap, now I got to clean that up. I was like a laser where it was like, okay, I did all these things like a laser burning a hole through the problem. So then I would go to bed and I'd go, all right, it doesn't maybe feel like I did that much today, but look at all the stuff I did today, all of which was important.

45:23Wow. I did out of 300 things. I did 11. I just need to keep doing this. Yes. And then in a month, like this list will be done empty. Yeah. And I felt really good about that. And I remember I slept like a freaking rock that day. And my wife was like, what did you take? You know, I live in California. So she was like, did you go to the dispensary? And I was like, no need. I'm high on life. Cause I'd completed 11 really important things today yeah one of them didn't finish or whatever but like i feel good i feel like i got this and my wife was like okay whoever this new jordan is stick around because i'm sick of waking up at 4 a.m and you're like staring at the ceiling and shaking and like you know making coffee uh or you know snorting coffee grounds off the kitchen table so yeah the the focus of having a plan was actually kind of magical.

46:13I really it basically like that focus really eased my anxiety. It just took away all of the jitters and it made me feel like I was moving forward. It's like one foot in front of the other. It sounds like a cliche and I'm sure that it is. Before I was just sort of spinning around in circles and running around like a chicken with no head. But once you go, if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other going in that direction I'm going to be all the way on the horizon. by the end of the month, that was just a massive, massive boost. And then I just kept doing that. And then eventually I didn't need the list anymore.

46:47I have my Todoist app and it's like, okay. And then I had my calendar and I fell into a routine. And then, like I said, eight months later, I was like, okay, I feel like we're doing okay. There's money in the bank. Jen, what's our status? Oh, our statuses were more profitable than we ever were in the last 11 years. And I was like this, like I said, I remember sitting there at this restaurant in the mall and going, there's no way that that's right. That can't be right. Run me through the numbers. And she's like, all right, I'm going to do it all again in front of you. And I was like, I can't believe it.

47:14Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible what we're capable of. Two things I want to kind of pull out of what you just said. First of all, one of the things that really helped me in my period of time was just changing my environment. Like we normally work from home, but I decided, Nicole, we're going to get an office and a co-working space and need to just change my get on the bus go to the co-working space see other people be working in public so you feel a little bit more accountable like okay i gotta get through my to-do list today i can't just like do the laundry you know yeah yeah i'm updating my gaming workstation that's a that's it's important yeah yeah it's part of my mental health yeah so it allowed me to kind of just get up go work come back home try again tomorrow that kind of thing and also you want to leave right yeah it's like if you're working from home you're like i'm just gonna take a quick break and like you said do the laundry i'm gonna go work out for a while come back exactly nice however when you're at what a fish burners or something yeah like i gotta get out of here but i have 30 more emails yeah i'm doing these emails i'm getting the hell out of here exactly i'm not staying for happy hour drinks cart don't miss me with that yeah yeah that was that was some tough times the other thing is is that this idea of just one of the hardest things of any business owner is that they have to be the planner and they have to be the implementer at the same time.

48:35And most people, they mix the two. So I think it's important to kind of like say, okay, right now I want to put on my planning hat and I'm going to do my to-dos and I'm going to plan my next few weeks and the things I got to do. And then I have to then put on my implementer hat and just trust the planner person that they made a good plan and just do it. Stop questioning because then you never get anything done because like, well, maybe I should do this in a different way, blah, blah, blah. So that mentality helps you kind of get through it. Like it's better for you just to get things done rather than worry if it's the perfect implementation or not.

49:10Because momentum is huge in those moments where you're just trying to get out of that trough of sorrow. I agree. My wife does a lot of the schedule, all the scheduling and planning. And so I just look at my calendar to see what I have to do on any given day. And so I don't have a choice really, which is nice. And she also does a lot of thinking. She'll be like, I'll go, oh my God, this week looks crazy. She's like, yeah, well, next week there's three days off. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So you're right. That does really help. My calendar is like a religion for me. If it's on the calendar, it gets done, and it gets done at that time.

49:41And if it doesn't, if it's not on the calendar, and someone's like, can you just do it? And the answer is no. I'll refer you to Jen. She'll fit you in on my calendar. Yeah. Oh, but that's in July. That's when I have time. Yeah. So if you have a compelling argument for why I should move something else, go for it. But if you just are in the mood to talk to me before that, it's not going to happen. That's true. And the other thing that I love about the calendar, not just that I follow to a T, is that let's say you have like an hour for email. Most people, they don't put that on their calendar. They're just like, oh, I'll do it between other things.

50:12Well, how much time do you have between other things? Zero time. Okay, so now you have 8 ,000 emails that you got to get to. Now you're working on Saturday, right? So, or Sunday to catch up. so I'll have that hour of email and then let's say that Jen's like hey my friend wants us to look at turf for the backyard can you jump on this call I'm like okay I got to do that that's important so now I put that on the calendar now I'm going to drag that hour of email somewhere else yeah and I go all right Jen now I have to work over the time that you had planned for us to go out to dinner and she's like okay I try not to do that but but the idea is that doesn't just vanish in like oh i'm gonna do two things during this hour if that's not happening you have to shift it down and it makes it so you can't lie to yourself because if you're moving that thing somewhere else you're like oh i have to put that over this other thing that i wanted to do oh now i'm not going to the gym yeah because i decided to screw around for an hour and now that's over my gym slot so you only do that a few times before you're like okay i have to follow this plan because i made the plan and if the plan works i'm gonna have a great day and if the plan gets all screwed up when I have a really crappy day.

51:18So that's been really, really helpful. That's a really good point because I think that the longer you're in entrepreneurship, the more you realize, oh, I'm in a bubble. Like I don't realize that most people outside of entrepreneurship business, creators, don't have a calendar. Like they don't actually have a calendar. They don't actually put anything in the calendar. It's not, they're just committed to memory and that's it. It's actually one of the first modules, first lesson I think it is in the$100 MBA program is put when you're going to do this course in the calendar. Because if you don't have it in the calendar, it's not going to get done.

51:54And I think that's the reason why a lot of people fail in anything. I agree. Working out, anything. There are so many people that will tell me, like someone will miss a call and I'll go, hey, you okay? Oh, I'm so sorry. So what happened is it was on my calendar, but I never checked my calendar and I go, what's the point of having it? And they go, well, there's only like two things on it so you're only doing two things this week no i only put calls on it okay so all the other stuff you just do it kind of like whenever and they're like yeah and i'm like oh i bet this guy's not productive at all yeah a lot of people think that you become a slave to the calendar or like oh i don't have any flexibility no but i think it's the opposite like i can unplug my brain i don't need to think of or remember anything anymore i just look at my calendar in the morning okay this is what i gotta do today great awesome i have flexibility i can move whatever i want in the calendar it just has to go somewhere else what these guys do is they go i have flexibility i just don't do the thing that was supposed to get done at that time and then later on when my boss goes hey where's that accountable where's the tbs report you just go oh shit i gotta work all weekend cancel the trip to disney with my kids i gotta do this thing for the boss it's like they're just not productive people will look at my calendar and go wow you do more in like one day than i do in the whole week and i go yeah but we have the same number of hours in a day so the difference is I'm just getting it all done on Monday because it's on the calendar and it's all scheduled and it's all efficient you're getting it done in a week because you're like ah I think I want to go to the gym actually I'm just taking early lunch you know what I don't feel like dealing with that right now I'll do it tomorrow and then in three months you're doing the thing I did last you know six Mondays ago or whatever it's just there's you can choose to live like that or you can choose to be productive and I choose productivity because I want the extra time At night, I'm done by like 5 p.m.

53:37every day because I want to play with my kids. I want to go to my gym. Other people, they work till 8 or 9. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, what are you doing? Less work than I'm doing from 9 to 5. Less, like far less. Because I don't screw around for 30 minutes between each thing. It's in there. So I can't recommend that enough. When I first started working from home, I swear my day got started at like 2 p.m. And then when I was in my 30s, it was like 10 a.m. And I got a few hours of work done every day, the end. But it still felt like I worked all day. Now it feels like my day goes by really fast.

54:14And it barely feels like I worked all day. But I get more done in a week than I used to do. Sorry, I get more done in a day than I used to in a week. It's all just because of time management. Yeah, all good. Do you want to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Let's shift gears a little bit. But you've interviewed all kinds of people, spies, billionaires, celebrities, athletes, Kobe Bryant. It comes to mind. Kobe Bryant was one of my heroes growing up. What is the common thread that you found from people that are just amazing at what they do, masters at what they do? Yeah, there's a few things.

54:52One, they enjoy the process of it and not just the results. I think that's probably the main thing. They enjoy the process, not the results. Kobe liked practicing and working out. Yeah, I'm sure he loved winning championships too, but I think what he loved is getting up at 5 o 'clock in the morning and shooting, I don't know, a thousand free throws or whatever. I think that guys like Ray Dalio, they love learning about investing in companies and they love learning about how to spot trends and they love going to China and seeing the new thing that's going to happen. They love money, I'm sure, too, But I don't think that they're like, oh, we're going to make so much money doing this.

55:31I think they're like, oh, we learned a lot about how this is going to work in the future. The AI guys, like the driven investors, they just love being on the cutting edge of things. Yes, then they make a big bet on what that's going to be and they make a bunch of money. But if you talk to like Mark Andreessen, he's not talking about his yacht and he's not talking about his bank balance. He's talking about the future of AI and how AI works or whatever, some cryptocurrency thing. so these guys are always interested in that kind they're interested in the process of what they're doing the learning more about it the mastery of it they're not as interested in the results and i i i mean to go back to the top of the show when we were talking about podcasting i always know if somebody's talking about how they're going to build an audience i'm like this person's screwed because as soon as they see how hard that is they're just going to be like no thanks and they're going to move on to like tiktok or something but if they're talking about how much they love discussing Pokemon cards, I'm like, oh, you're going to be fine because you're probably not even going to check your download numbers.

56:28You're just going to start talking about Pokemon cards and film it and then put it on your podcast host and your YouTube channel and then just never look at the analytics because you don't care. That's the person who's probably going to succeed in this game. Do you find these masters to be obsessed, almost maniacal? Sometimes, yeah. I would say somebody like Kobe Bryant was probably a little maniacal. I mean, you hear all these stories of – I think it was Tim Grover who coached Michael Jordan and Kobe and those guys. And he would say something like he would end at 11 p.m. and then he would come back at 5 a.m.

57:08And he's like, oh, Kobe's already here. And he's like, I never left. You know, or whatever. It was some crazy crap like that. He just stayed up all night doing free throws because he had the day off the next day and he was jet lagged. He spent like eight hours shooting hoops. And it's like, holy smokes. So, yeah, there's some of those guys. And guys like Tim Grover, those coaches, the athletics guys, they're kind of maniacal, yeah. They're on another level. It's harder to say, is Ray Dalio a maniacal learner? I don't know. It's a different level. Maybe maniacal is not the word, but I personally find that anybody who's highly successful in what they do, that thing that craft is one of the top priorities of life you know that's that's true um they just don't compromise i interviewed a bunch i always do these like interviews with like spies or undercover cops there was one recently there's a few recently cops atf fbi regular police that infiltrated like biker gangs the crips whatever one theme in in their work is they always work way more than their bosses want them to and that they're allowed to and they go off the books and I was like what is off the books and he's like so my boss authorized like 30 hours of overtime and I worked like 300 hours of overtime and I just didn't get paid and I'm like what and he's like but I really wanted to take down this street gang so he's like on my days off I would roll through the neighborhood and just say what's up to people I didn't put that in the report because I couldn't I didn't want them to have to be like oh we can't afford to pay you for the two hours that you spent on Saturday so he's like I just didn't mention it and then it was like and then they care about the results they care about the results so they would like go and do all of this stuff and he's like yeah i didn't write a report about how i went to this neighborhood barbecue with a bunch of crips and like sat there for six hours talking about so and so because they didn't authorize that overtime so he's like i just took my day and like brought my wife and like went to this barbecue with the crips and and like the biker gang dudes were like yeah i was doing this and then i was supposed to do this other thing and then i just decided to tag along with them on a cross-country ride and I didn't say anything because they would have had to arrange backup and it was going to take too long and be too expensive.

59:19So they just talk about maniacal. They put their own personal safety at risk at that point. Because there's no FBI van trailing them. They're in another state. They're like, well, if I want to build trust with these guys, I got to ride down to Florida from Michigan or Canada with meth in the bike. And if I get arrested, I'll go to jail and they'll eventually be like, oh, this guy was an FBI agent. It's like real Donnie Brasco. Yeah. And it's like, so he's like, that's a worst case scenario where they find me and they kill me. But he's like, what's worse is just not going and then missing out on this like massive meth deal that I will eventually use to indict all these guys.

59:54Yeah. So, yeah, that's maniacal because these guys like they throw like all caution to the wind to catch criminals. It's pretty incredible. That dedication. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, these are the guys where you're like, when you see like an old detective drama and they're like at a bar alone drinking a whiskey after a long day. You're like, that's what these guys are. They only have the job. And even if they're married and they're like, their wife's like, you haven't been home for three days. And it's like, oh, yeah. Can I take a shower? Yeah, you better take a shower. You look like a bum. Don't let the kids see you.

1:00:29That's horrible. Oh, my gosh. We talked about this a bit off camera, but there's so much changing in podcasting. We talked about video. There's things happening. People are putting everything on, breaking up their podcast, putting it on TikTok, putting it on Instagram Reels. They're doing live shows around the world, all kinds of stuff kind of changing the landscape of podcasting. I know you have some strong feelings about the audio format of podcasting. Can you share a little bit about all this and your opinions of what's happening? Yeah, I don't love TikTok. I mean, for one thing, I think it's like spyware from the Chinese government, but whatever.

1:01:07Speaking of conspiracy theories, but I don't love video. I film my shows, not all of them, but mostly only the interviews. But I don't create for YouTube. There's a reason for that. With video, you look at your analytics and you see what does well. And what does well are like wild thumbnails, crazy topics, getting people to make viral clips. The Mr. Beastification. Yes, the Mr. Beastification of things. So when I see what I see is podcasters, I call it the Jerry Springer effect. And what they do. That's how old we are, guys. Yeah, that's how old we are. R.I.P. So Jerry Springer used to be a serious journalist.

1:01:44People like don't even know that because he's such a clown. Was such a clown. well he stopped doing the serious stuff because geraldo rivera did a show with like kkk guys and black panthers and they started fighting he got hit in the face with a chair and he broke his nose and everyone was it made like news and everyone then his ratings went through the roof and jenny jones ricky lake jerry springer and i forget who else like they they their ratings tanked rafael yeah sally jesse rafael yeah their ratings went like they just tanked so what those folks all did is they decided to copy that format and become more and more ridiculous that's why you have the beginning of clickbait it was oh uh Geraldo's having on Black Panthers and KKK well Jerry Springer's having on my sister got pregnant with this though that's Maury Povich right and then you are not the father right it's that that whole thing oh so those guys they all used to be serious Then they became a complete circus.

1:02:44That is what YouTube does to podcasts. So there's a lot of serious shows that were like about science and things like that. I'm not going to mention any names. They were about science. They had really smart people on there. Now, if you look, it's like an actress that's still hot, but hasn't done anything for five years next on this channel. And you're like, what happened? What happened was they figured out that women do better on this channel. Attractive women do marginally better on this channel. Show business stuff does better on this channel. People who are popular on this Instagram viral thing and on this other channel did better on this channel.

1:03:18So now you have every YouTuber does the same guests, tries to get the same clips, makes them the same format. And you're serving the lowest common denominator. Yeah, you're serving the lowest common denominator and the algorithm likes it. So like even my thumbnails, I'm like, oh, is this – whose show is this? Oh, is this Diary of a – oh, no, this is my show. Why does it look like Diary of a CEO? Because they make the thumbnails look similar. Why? Because then people click on them. Oh, okay. And then it brings our analytics up and it results in discovery. So it's like literally we're copying my YouTube team.

1:03:45I don't even, they're their own different company and they do their own thing and they make money doing it. And they're often like, oh, can you interview this person? And I'm like, oh no, they're terrible. And like, okay, fine. So we try to find this happy medium of like stuff I'm interested in and stuff they can use. And the overlap is not a hundred percent. A lot of the, most of the stuff that I create, they're like, yeah, we're not going to put that on the channel. Cause it's not going to do well. It's like advice about a serious problem or a scientist that doesn't have a footprint on the Internet.

1:04:14And so I create that stuff. My audience loves it. YouTube is like, nah, we want you to have on this person who talks about aliens. And I'm like, nah, what if I have that person on, but we talk about life on other planets in a scientific way? And they're like, we can try it. And then it doesn't do as well as when they're like, UFOs are all around us. So you have this Jerry Springer effect and then people who are – they're more interested in the clicks and the money than they are in the actual content. They start creating for the YouTube algorithm, which tells them to create stupid stuff for stupid people.

1:04:48Yeah. And you make way more money creating stuff for uneducated stupid people and or kids, which is kind of the same thing.

1:04:59No offense, kids. No offense, kids. But if you create for those people, you will get many more clicks. You'll start to make more money. You'll get more notoriety. So I just don't play that game. You see me sighing because we started publishing our episodes on YouTube in August of 2024. And we went through this whole cycle of like, okay, what is YouTube? How do we succeed here? The whole thumbnail game, the whole hook game, the whole... and what happened is we started to change the podcast, really, and being vulnerable here to try to do better on YouTube. Yeah. But then we started to realize, wait a minute, this is like the tail wagging the dog.

1:05:39Yes. This doesn't make any sense. That's the expression I was looking for. Yeah, and I was listening to an episode of mine. I listened to my own episodes in the car, and I was like, I don't like this. Yeah. This doesn't sound like what I created the podcast for. This doesn't sound educational. This sounds like I'm trying to like, wait, don't go anywhere. We're going to tell you something really important. But before that, did you know that you like all that? You're creating all these open loops to get people like, people don't talk like that. It's exhausting. And it actually communicates better on video, to be honest, like those hooks and those types of things.

1:06:14It's not that obnoxious on video, but on audio, it just sounds really bad. Yeah. It's not a good experience. and when i heard that when i'm driving like i literally stopped the car i called nicole our producer and my wife and i said nicole we need to stop doing this this is this is yeah like this is not the show and we said okay and basically we just do a totally different audio version and we do youtube the way youtube and we even talk to our content team who runs our youtube channel and does all the videos and the editing and the thumbnails and all that kind of stuff we He said, we don't care about a million subs.

1:06:51Yes. We don't care about any of this stuff. We just want to have a good show. We want to produce the podcast. And if it doesn't do well, fine. It doesn't matter. We can still use the content and the clips to market the show. Exactly. And it took us like six months to realize that. We went through all those stages of disappointment and grief and what's going on. Why is this not working, blah, blah, blah. And to be honest with you, when we were on hyper YouTube mode, we grew. We got just like 12 ,000 subscribers and blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't happy with the product. Yeah. Look, man, I've still got, I think, 300 ,000 subscribers on YouTube.

1:07:25It's just that I don't look at it as a – I look at the revenue and I go, cool, it pays for my vacation. I don't try and grow that. I mean the team tries to grow it. I don't – they ask me to do things and I push back and I don't let them say, if you do this, you're going to make$10 ,000 more a month. Because I don't even want that to taint my idea of what I should be creating. You're right. It's so funny you mentioned that what works on video doesn't work well in audio because you're right. If somebody is in a video and they're like, I'm going to tell you first how to do this thing. But before that, I have something special to share with you.

1:07:57You're like, okay, this is an acceptable thing to do in a video. But imagine if you were like, hey, Jordan, what time is it? And I'm like, I'll tell you that. But in a second, first, I want to tell you about – you'd be like, no, dude. Just tell me what time – what is wrong with you? And if you talked that way to a normal person, they would lose their freaking mind. So I won't talk to my audience in a way that I wouldn't talk to my friend. It's too weird. But you're right. On video, you get a little bit of a pass. Yeah, we change the scripts and all that kind of stuff because it just wasn't working.

1:08:26I'm glad that we realized quickly. But at the same time, I think people don't realize that podcasting as a business is a totally different animal versus YouTube. And from a monetization point of view, it just actually makes more sense for you just to do audio. It does. Yeah, I agree. God, I'm thinking of like, Jordan, what time is it? I'll tell you in a moment. But first, have you heard of HelloFresh? Yeah, exactly. Fresh meals delivered to your own. I am never inviting you to France again. You're so weird, man. Oh, boy. So I want to talk about something that we've kind of talked about a few times.

1:09:07Neither of us have written a book. No. Okay. We're in Maison Broust's hotel, who's a famous author. That's right. In France. What a flex. I know. Look at that original painting up there. And I couldn't help but feel the sense of honest jealousy when I was in his library downstairs looking at all the books he's written, looking at the impression he made on a whole nation. of France through his writing. Is a book in your future? Maybe, yeah. My agent would love that. There's a lot of cool offers on the table. I realized from talking with so many authors on the Jordan Harbinger show that the amount of time you have to take to write a book that's good is crazy.

1:09:58And Ryan Holiday is one of my good friends, so I always see and hear about his creative process and I'm just like, oh my gosh. The thing is, to write good books and to do a podcast, I have kids, so I want to spend a lot of time with my kids. Ryan Holiday somehow manages to write books and do a podcast. And manage a farm. And manage a farm. I mean, his podcast is - How do you do it, Ryan? Yeah, there's not as much frequency of the podcast, and he's got his bookstore and stuff. He's got a good team. He works really hard, obviously. There's that too. But he also loves writing books, so it's like a non-negotiable part of what he's doing.

1:10:33I get that, right? For me, like working out all the time is a non-negotiable part of my life so I dedicate the time to that. The podcast is that for you. And the podcast is that for me. I would write a book but I'm not going to sacrifice the Lego time and the RC car time and the wrestle with my kids time. And I get my parents are around. They live across the street. They come over every day. So like imagine not spending an hour with them, not spending an hour with my kids or three hours with my kids and parents because I'm writing a book. while my parents are still around. They're in their 80s, while my kids are still little and want to play with dad.

1:11:04It just seems like a really bad trade. Yeah, the trade-off is huge. Really bad. And then when you write the book, great. Okay, now spend the next five years promoting it. Promoting it. A lot of people realize that. You got to travel. You got to go on these tours. You got to go on media stuff that you would normally say no to. So now I've given myself a part-time job and during that time is my workout time, my kid time, and my parent time. It's like, no thank you. Terrible deal. I mean, I think one of the things we've realized in our careers is once you say yes to something, it's like you're committing hours, days, years of your life.

1:11:38Yeah. Like now I can't do a whole bunch of stuff now because I said yes to this project. Right. Like I'd rather go to France. I just got back from China. If I was writing a book, none of this would be happening. I'd be at home sitting there writing this book with my co-authors and submitting things to my agents. I mean, Proust, yeah, he created a lot of stuff. But to be fair, all that guy had to do was drink absinthe and write. Like he is a pretty good gig. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he was celebrated as well. Smoke unfiltered cigarettes through one of those long holders that they had back in. I mean, that was that was top class.

1:12:11That was. Oh, man. So as we're kind of wrapping things up here, I want to ask you. I like to ask this question to all my friends and podcasting. Your signature sign off. No, no, no. I don't do this on the show. I just do this on a personal. Oh, OK, OK. um like because i asked myself asked this question to myself a lot like what what's this all for like what am i working for what am i doing what's the end game here is there an end game is it i just want to keep doing this as long as i can like what is that for you and even if that answers i don't know that's fine like but for me i ask this question a lot like because i feel like it has It means something.

1:12:51It has to end somewhere. Yeah. I mean, look, I love doing the show because it helps people. I got a letter the other day that was really interesting. This guy, he had been dumped by this girl that he loved, and he was crying in his car, and he was like, I'm going to go through all her old texts because he was having a hard time. And she had kept telling him to listen to different podcasts and, like, you know, you got to grow as a human. she was growing as a human like he was really negative and i think he like drank and smoked and stuff so he goes through a text and he he's like the show she recommended was yours he started listening to the show lost a bunch of weight quit smoking quit drinking started training met another girl is now friends with the ex and is like this changed my life he's shared that with us and i was just like wow this is really meaningful to a lot of people not just me and my producer so i do that i love that about the show it helps people it's say it literally like saved some people from going into a crazy downward spirals in their life it's not just entertainment some of the stuff i do is pure entertainment but it's really informative for a lot of people uh we help a lot of people through some really hard stuff especially on the friday stuff so as long as that's working i'll probably still do it no one's going to care about any of the things that you and i have created in 100 years after we're dead that's going to be completely irrelevant so i try to remember that when i'm like really stressed out about things and I focus on my kids.

1:14:14So I will continue doing it as long as it's fun because I could retire now, but then I'd be really bored. And I think purpose is important in a person's life. So as long as this is serving that purpose and making me feel fulfilled, I'll keep doing it. And then eventually one day I'll probably be like, hey, this is hard. It's not really fulfilling that purpose for me anymore. And I'm an irrelevant old man. Maybe I should just like go to Paris for two months instead of two weeks and bring my wife there and sit around and watch people walk by. That sounds like more fun. Right now, that sounds miserable.

1:14:47Yeah. But when that sounds like more fun than doing my podcast, then I'm just going to stop doing the podcast. Knowing when to hang them up. Yeah, knowing when to hang them up. I have no delusions that this is going to be like, oh, people in 50 years are going to be looking up what I said about AI. No one's going to care. So it's only really serving the purpose for myself and for the audience. Yeah. And so as soon as that dwindles, yeah, I'm hanging it up. You talk about networking a lot. You talk about building friends, building relationships. This is something that you're really good at. I know this firsthand as a friend of yours.

1:15:20Check that off. But I do want to say this before we wrap up because I do mention you a lot and things I learned from you on the show and the program, all that kind of stuff. It's really important for everybody who's listening to find a bunch of Jordan Harbingers in their life. Find a friend that they can count on. You don't have to talk to them every day. You don't have to be like besties and spend weekends every day. Go to France. You don't have to go to France again. You don't have to do that either. But I do recommend finding a good group of people that you can send them a WhatsApp and say, hey, I'm going through something.

1:15:54I need help. Or just, hey, what's up, man? I'm thinking about doing this with the show. What's your experience there with that? I've always felt like I can ask you questions. I felt like I can always lean on you when I need something. but I also feel like I, when I need to do that for you, it never feels like a burden. It never feels like, oh, there's Jordan again. Right. I remember that conversation when we had the business split and you said, man, I do not envy you. And I went and I said, yeah, what do you think? And we went through this whole thing, you and me and Michael Port. And then when you said you had somebody quit with like no notice and leave you in the lurch.

1:16:27And I was like, man, I do not envy you. But then we went through, we talked about the whole thing. And I just remember being like, the worst part about that was that they got poached by one of my friends. Oh, that is terrible. And then when I approached them, I said, hey, what's up, man? What's going on with that? And they're like, business is business. Not cool. Not okay. Just because you say a word twice doesn't make it legit. Just because it sounds catchy doesn't mean it's not an immoral, terrible thing to do. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. You've got to find a bunch of Omars and people in your life that you can throw things at.

1:16:57Because I've had some serious questions. I called you with something that was really bad a couple years ago. And I was like, what would you do if you were in my shoes? And you went through your own decision-making process and it happened to be the outcome that I was leaning towards. And I was like, thank God. Because it's really – some decisions are very hard to make on your own. And back to the integrity thing or like – and it's like, what do I do? You really need to be able to unload this stuff on people that you trust and get good feedback, honest feedback that is going to be a legal course of action or an ethical course of action.

1:17:31And most people don't have anybody that they can do that with. Yeah, and I think that requires you to make an effort to go to conferences, to go meet people, to go to even parties, friends. One of the things that I find to become harder and harder as we get older is just meeting different types of people, like getting out of your circle. I talk about this on the show a lot that I actually have started playing poker a lot. And I'm meeting and talking to people that I would never talk to ever, like these people from different walks of life, people that are professional poker players, that like used to be like a truck driver and now is like, you know, a savant.

1:18:09And it just humbles you and starts to realize, oh, there's so many different ways to win at life. Yeah. There's so many different ways to kind of – and there's so many things you can learn from all these types of people. But it doesn't happen by just sitting at home. It doesn't happen by just – Unfortunately, it does not. Making friends as an adult is hard. I don't want to even trivialize it because I think a lot of people are like, easy for you guys to say. You're super social. You go out and do all this stuff. You get invited to stuff. It's tiring. It's hard. It's hard. It's tiring. I recommend people go to a conference.

1:18:39And then one of the tricks that I used to have that I do less now, but I used to do, is I used to create like a side thing at a conference. And I think you participated in one where - The piggyback conference. We were at FinCon or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay. I think it was Jen's idea. She's like, let's go play miniature golf, invite Omar, Nicole, John Corcoran, and a couple of other people. I forget who we went now. So I met with you guys there and a bunch of other folks. And then we were kind of like all friends. Then I think we did dinner later. So I went to that conference and I met people at the conference.

1:19:10But then I really deeply connected with all of the people who went out and mini golfed. Because we kind of spent like the whole day together. Yeah, it was fun. I think we just forgot about the conference. Basically, yeah. And it was great. So it was like an unconference. So anybody can do that. You can go to a conference and you can, even if you don't spend the whole day with people, what I recommend is, this is another trick for my six-minute networking course. There'll be a professor who you know is going to get like mobbed or a speaker, you know, is going to get mobbed. So I'll look them up on LinkedIn and social media and see if I can find personal interests of theirs.

1:19:37There was one guy, this is a long time ago, but there's one guy back when I was playing squash. I found that he played squash. So I rented a court nearby where he was going to be speaking on the day where he was going to be speaking. And I emailed him and was like, hey, I'm looking forward to your talk on XYZ. By the way, I got a squash court for 10 a.m. I don't know when your flight gets in. do you fancy a game it's right near the hotel we can ride over there together i'm a beginner squash player so you're gonna cream me on this but it probably will feel good to burn off some sweat some calories after getting off the plane and he was like sure no problem yes so this dude was like because he probably was like oh yeah i'd love to play school and i wasn't like i have to i want a job i even wrote like by the way i'm not asking for a job or anything i just read your book i was really interested in it um that's all yeah i work over yeah it was it's like yeah p.s i'm not a psycho stalker who's gonna try and get a job in your department at the university of iowa or whatever right so he he was like hey you must be jordan um and then we went and played squash and then i didn't need to wait in this long ass line of people that wanted stuff from him after his talk and i kept in touch with this guy for years because i rented a squash court which probably cost me like 15 bucks right so it was and i still do stuff like that like i'll write to somebody and i'll be like hey uh you know when are you getting in uh i would love to to work out i know like guys like ryan holiday will go for runs or something with people it's just really facilitate that for them that's yeah you're doing my favor yeah like i think noah kagan did something where he went hey do you want to go for a bike ride along the beach i know where we can rent bikes and i was like yeah that sounds awesome yeah so it was like me and him a couple other people and we basically became friends because we were riding bikes along the beach and this was also in san diego doing little things like that is massive it's way better than let's go get coffee between talks and it's awkward and you're not doing anything the thing about these activities is that like you're doing something so it's not uh confronting right and it's something you would do anyway so even if you're like i got three people to confirm and then like one shows up you're not like oh i failed or no one shows up you're like well i guess i'm gonna go for this awesome bike ride on the beach totally kind of a bummer nobody came along but oh well i'm already doing this cool thing in San Diego.

1:21:49So I recommend people start to look for things like that. And really, it'll help you. Even if you leave a conference and you have one buddy afterwards, major win. Especially at age 45. If you made one friend this year, you're killing the game. You are. You are gregarious. Yeah, exactly. Jordan, thanks so much, man. I really appreciate you taking the time. And I really appreciate your friendship over the years, but also just everything I've learned, listening to your show, being your friend, the talks you've been given over the years. So just to kind of wrap up as a last word of this conversation, one of the things that I aspire to do is I try to get better at every episode I do, a podcast, any piece of content I do, any speech I do.

1:22:34A lot of that comes from just observing you in particular, like you taking your craft seriously, you putting everything you got, you not trying to just like phone in every time, because this doesn't mean anything. Right. I just want to say thanks for leading by example. That means a lot to me. I appreciate that. Yeah, love it, man. Thanks for having me on, man. It was a lot of fun. I had a blast. Yeah, same. Let's go have some fun, Paris. Let's do it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jordan Harbinger. I sure did. It was a pleasure to really have this talk shop conversation with him. We've been friends for a while, like I mentioned, and we don't really talk about business too much.

1:23:13so it was nice to kind of have that forum to do so check out jordan harbinger's podcast i highly recommend you check it out my favorite episodes are t-pain he has an interview with t-pain which is surprisingly honest refreshing insightful i also love his episodes with robert green recently so check those out jordan harbinger show where you like to listen to podcasts also if you want to learn from Jordan directly, he has a free six-minute networking course over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. It's absolutely free. And if you want to learn how to grow your network through Jordan Harbinger's methodology, it saved his career and his business as a podcaster.

1:23:57So go ahead and check it out at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Thanks so much for checking out The$100 MBA Show, listening, subscribing, being a part of this community. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow, and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show.

1:24:29It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.