1300: As a Cop You're No Stranger to Pal's DV Danger | Feedback Friday

18:54I mean, sometimes that's necessary, absolutely. But in some situations, and this might be one of them, she might be in a phase of this thing with her friend where that overly formal slash rigid approach doesn't actually accomplish very much, other than maybe giving her a sense of control over a chaotic situation.

19:11Gabriel Mizrahi:Maybe a sense of comfort in a situation that's probably very distressing to watch. Which I completely understand, because let's remember, this is all born from her love and concern for her friend. I think we'd all want to step in and save somebody who's being abused, all the more so if you're a cop, or at least that's what I would hope. I'm still a little confused by her husband's response to all this, but the best thing you can do, in my view, is support and empower her to make the best call for herself. One good way to do that is to look into some resources designed for people like your friend and for you.

19:39Gabriel Mizrahi:One of them is the National Center for Women in Policing. There's another called Badge of Life. They apparently offer confidential peer support, referrals, stuff like that. And these are great in addition to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which we mentioned all the time. So we'll link to a bunch of those in the show notes for you. Also, if this guy continues punching holes in the wall and yelling at his wife and stuff, I think if you think he's really a danger, I know it's intense, but you might want to report him to the department. My understanding is that internal affairs can investigate domestic violence complaints and handle them administratively, even without criminal charges.

20:11I would also encourage you to keep talking to your husband about this. I know I'm kind of giving him a hard time for not taking this more seriously. I do find that odd and honestly irresponsible, but I also wonder if he might be nursing some resentment over that previous friendship that you ended. Maybe he struggles to make a lot of guy friends, so he might be looking at all this and thinking, here we go again, another friendship cut off because my wife has a problem with someone. That doesn't mean you're in the wrong here whatsoever, but I do think there's more for you guys to know about how this impacts him, how he's making sense of the situation.

20:43I'm so sorry for your friend going through this. I'm sorry you have to stand by and watch. It's a really tough place to be, but I hope you can influence the situation in some way, and I hope you can find the stance you need to help her stay safe and protect yourself. Good luck. And now we're going to punch a hole right through the prices on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Whatnot. If you've ever tried selling stuff online, you know the usual routine. You list something, you upload photos, you write a description and then you wait.

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22:11That's W-H-A-T-N-O-T dot com slash sell. WhatNot.com slash sell. This episode is also sponsored by DeleteMe. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. A lot of people don't realize there's an entire industry built around collecting and selling your personal information. Data brokers compile things like your name, your phone number, your home address, your family info, and then they sell all that data online. Your personal information basically becomes a commodity that anyone can buy, which leads to identity theft, phishing attempts, even harassment.

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23:40Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next?

23:45Gabriel Mizrahi:Dear Jordan and Gabe, In 2023, after seven years of trying, my husband and I finally managed to get pregnant during a single Hail Mary round of IVF. But when I was about 20 weeks pregnant, my husband ended up in the ICU, sedated and on a ventilator in an attempt to save his life. He had long-term lung damage from COVID the year before and had a recurrent pneumonia that had become horrifically acute. Jeez, that's scary. A week later, my water broke, and I was rushed to the same hospital. I didn't go into labor immediately, and the baby was still straight vibing in there. So I stayed there inpatient.

24:22That is a funny way to put it.

24:24Gabriel Mizrahi:Five days later, my husband coded, and I had to make the call to compassionately extubate him. He died about half an hour later. My God, I'm so sorry. This is a nightmare. This is next level stuff, dude. I can't even imagine what this must have been like. She has to go down from labor and delivery to the ICU to take her husband off a ventilator. Oh my God, I'm so sorry, my friend. Wow. By midnight, I was at a hospital in a city an hour and a half away because they had a NICU that could potentially save a baby born at 22 weeks. Man, wow, just right on into the next thing, out of the frying pan into the fire.

25:00This is, you poor thing.

25:01Gabriel Mizrahi:I sat Shiva in my hospital room. Not enough family members came to make a minion, so strangers came to mourn with me. Oh, for anyone who doesn't know, Shiva is the mourning period in Judaism. It goes for seven days. And a minion is essentially a quorum of, I believe, like 10 people required for certain prayers and events. It's like, for example, saying the mourner's prayer, you need a certain number of people. Yeah. Interesting thing about the concept of a minion. I was just reading up on this. This law exists in Judaism because certain acts are understood as communal, not individual. So they require like a coming together or a dialogue with other people.

25:36Gabriel Mizrahi:They is one of those things. Totally. So you need people around you. You need witnesses. It's kind of like Feedback Friday. Yeah, exactly. It's the Dew's cruise, not the Dew's canoe. That's right. So carry on. My son was born at 23 weeks and three days. His lowest weight a few days after birth was one pound, two ounces. He was the size of a disappointing burrito, and he wasn't expected to make it. Can you not make us laugh while we're talking about horrible things that actually do because we need it. This is really intense. But disappointing burrito is really a really funny way to describe your newborn child, I suppose.

26:12Gabriel Mizrahi:Oh, my God. And if he did make it, he was expected to be seriously disabled. Oh, my God. This is every parent's worst nightmare. He was in the NICU for six months, and I lived at a Ronald McDonald house the whole time. Oh, wow. That's interesting. Again, for people who don't know, because hopefully many of you don't and will never find out firsthand, but a Ronald McDonald house is a free or low cost place where families can stay when their child is going through medical treatment at a nearby hospital. So they're usually near children's hospitals. That's right. It's a really sweet program because when a child is going through treatment, it can be hard for families to find a place to stay nearby and afford it if they have to be in town for a week or two or a month or whatever.

26:49Gabriel Mizrahi:People were like sleeping in hospital rooms and waiting rooms for a very long time before they came up with this idea. So apparently that's where it started. There's actually a movie that came out a couple of years ago about the doctor who helped found this organization. It's called Audrey's Children. My friend Suzanne produced it. It's a very sweet and solid movie, actually. I just found out they have these all over the world, actually. That's amazing. Oh, interesting. I thought it was an American thing. So did I. I just assumed it was. She goes on. Fast forward to today. My son is two now, and he is a freaking miracle.

27:19Gabriel Mizrahi:He has some minor delays, but he's expected to catch up fully. Thank God. That is incredible. Absolutely incredible. I truly did not know which direction this was going at first. Although disappointing burrito now makes sense because I feel like you wouldn't say that if something went the other way. That's right. I'm so happy for you guys. The things you've just been through to go from an underwhelming Chipotle door dash to a perfectly healthy child is really a miracle indeed. He's smart and sweet and funny and he has the most amazing zest for life. He's obsessed with cows and the musical Hamilton.

27:52Gabriel Mizrahi:Name a more iconic duo, cows and the musical Hamilton. I know. Cows and Hamilton, both underdogs, I suppose. That's right. This kid is not throwing away a shot.

28:25Gabriel Mizrahi:of the night and advocated for me. The day my husband died, they helped me pack up and move my things to the other hospital. Sadie brought me some new clothes because I didn't have anything from home. When it was time to be discharged, I had to have someone else who lived nearby who could learn to place my son's nasogastric feeding tube. I have no family in the area, and Sadie agreed to come and learn. That's amazing. Very solid, friends. This is why I feel guilty and torn. Back when I first got pregnant, I was afraid that I would be forgotten, and that no one would think to offer to throw me a baby shower.

28:57Gabriel Mizrahi:I have a big thing about being forgotten, and having my life's milestones pass by without note. I've got a history there with other big life events, and it's a huge source of pain for me. My husband asked Sadie if she would organize one for me, and she agreed. After my son was born, she said she was still planning on doing it. But she never did. The ball got dropped, and it wasn't really acknowledged until I brought it up more than a year later. The fact that I never had a baby shower is still painful to me. It's not about the stuff. I don't care about that. It's because I didn't get any of the joy that surrounds having a baby.

29:31Gabriel Mizrahi:I never got to see my husband holding our son. I didn't even get to hold him until he was two weeks old. I spent most of my time absolutely alone when he was in the NICU. People forgot about me pretty quickly, it felt like. Almost no one came out to visit me. Maybe they didn't forget, but the absence felt the same nevertheless. I'm crying while writing this. I didn't think I would. Man, okay, so this is very painful, which I completely understand. I'm sorry you felt alone in all this. You were alone in many ways, and that this is a theme in your life, apparently. My day-to-day life is a constant struggle.

30:05Gabriel Mizrahi:I have a physical disability and deal with PTSD, and I don't really have any help with my son on a day-to-day basis. It's a bit better now that he's in daycare, but I struggle to get things done, and I am perpetually burned out. It's hard to experience his wonderful milestones without a fresh wave of grief. I feel inadequate all the time because of my limitations. Oh man, this is a lot. You are really going through it. So I have a lot of resentment towards Morris and Sadie. I have a hard time feeling empathy for them when they can't help with something because of their son. My brain says they have two parents in the house.

30:41Gabriel Mizrahi:They don't need both people there all the time. At synagogue events where both parents are present, they often also have a babysitter. and when Morris tries to commiserate with me when I express my exhaustion by saying, yeah, I've been there, I get upset. I struggle with finances. I'm behind on my utilities constantly. Meanwhile, they constantly claim to be broke but eat out all the time and go on vacations. I quietly judge them. I know it isn't fair. I know it isn't right. Sadie is pregnant now with their second child after a few years of trying. I am genuinely happy for them. I really, really am.

31:15Gabriel Mizrahi:But receiving her baby shower invitation in the mail was a gut punch. I knew it was probably coming, and I know it's not about me, even a little bit. I feel selfish for feeling this way, for feeling that it would have been kind to talk to me one-on-one, given the sharp, specific pain point in our relationship. I chose to throw the invitation away and try to forget about it. I don't want to make this about me. I don't want to detract from their joy. I want to celebrate with them in other ways. Okay, so she's really tied up in knots. There's so many conflicts here. I'm angry. I don't deserve to be angry.

31:49Gabriel Mizrahi:This hurts, but then I feel selfish for feeling this way. It's interesting. I appreciate the self-awareness. I really do. I think that's going to make it easier for her to make progress here, but I do wonder if it's hard for her to even feel like she's allowed to feel her feelings. Or which ones and how often and which ones should lead. Yeah, totally. So she goes on, then yesterday, Morris texted me asking if I received the invitation. I replied that I wasn't trying to make things about me or center my nonsense, but that I was still in my feelings about it. I fear that I over explained and that this was the final straw in our relationship.

32:22Gabriel Mizrahi:But then I also feel like I'm being more considerate about their feelings than they've been about mine. But then I feel that those feelings are unfair. Well, there it is again. I don't want to feel this way, but I don't know how to stop. And yes, I am in therapy, and I have been since before this all went down, so I have had that support throughout this whole journey. But how can I work through these feelings? Am I in the wrong here, or are they? What's the way forward here? Signed, a heartbroken widow struggling with these echoes and wondering how much to bellow at these inconstant fellows. Phew, what a saga.

32:58This is such an intense story on so many levels. There's so much going on here. losing her husband, and so suddenly raising a premature baby who almost didn't make it, dealing with a disability, feeling alone through a lot of that, then being disappointed, at least with this baby shower thing by close friends.

33:13Gabriel Mizrahi:And then this earlier wound or wounds, whatever they are, around being forgotten. Clearly a huge part of her story. It's a lot, man. It's a lot. No one deserves to go through even one of these things, but to go through all of them at once, I mean, this is just a degree of trauma that I can't really wrap my head around. If this happened to me, I'd be flattened by something like this. So from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry that you've been through all this and that you're still wrestling with all of the thoughts and the feelings that these losses have brought up. So, okay, let's start with Sadie and Morris.

33:44So clearly wonderful humans in so many ways. The way they showed up for you after your husband died and the baby was born, and then even after the baby came home, you know this, that's pretty extraordinary. The people who show up when you need them, not just say the right things, not just offer kind words and all that, but actually show up and do things. Those are the real ones. So I'm very moved by all that. I know you are too. But then there's this baby shower thing. And honestly, Gabe, I am not quite sure what to make of that. Look, maybe Sadie really did drop the ball and was being a bad friend when it came to this event.

34:15That sucks. But then given how present and loving Sadie and Morris were to not follow through on this one thing, I don't know. I just wonder if there's more to the story.

34:23Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah. If we could somehow talk to Sadie and ask her about this, I do wonder what she would say. Yeah, who knows? I mean, she might say, oh, I can't sleep at night because of this. I feel terrible. I don't know how to bring it up now. It's so awkward. Or she might say, and I'm totally making this up, by the way, but she might say something like, hey, I helped her for so many months after that. I did not have the energy to throw a big event. I didn't know how to tell her that. So I just let it go. Or did something happen in that period? Like maybe she was already feeling things fraying and didn't feel like throwing the shower anymore, but didn't know how to communicate that, which I do think is, you know, whatever her reasons, if they're fair, she could have probably talked to our friend about this much sooner.

34:57Yeah, I do wonder about that. From our friend's perspective, things began to fray because of the baby shower thing, but maybe things were getting a little tense before that for some reason. You know, again, I'm not saying at all that I even think they were or suspect that it's true or whatever. I'm just illustrating a point, which is that we just don't know what Sadie's reasoning was.

35:14Gabriel Mizrahi:I'm with you that there is probably more going on here than just being, I don't know, absent-minded and dropping the ball. And that would have been great to suss out when you finally brought it up to her over a year later. Yeah, I'm curious about that, too, because she shared so much with us, but she didn't tell us what Sadie said in response. She didn't tell us what Sadie said. Yeah, that's odd. Yeah, that kind of feels like important information. So here's my read on Sadie and Morris based on what you've shared with us. I'm getting the picture. These are very dedicated, big hearted, solid friends who really showed up for you when you needed them in a variety of ways, big and small.

35:47And I also think that Sadie and Morris, like all people, are not perfect. And one way that they didn't show up for you is following through on this promise to throw you a baby shower. And that hurts. But I also suspect that this baby shower, because of everything that went down, because of this wound, I think it was just a very loaded event for all of you.

36:04Gabriel Mizrahi:Yes. It doesn't let Sadie off the hook for not talking to you about the shower. Ideally, she would have come to you at some point and said, look, I know I said to throw you a baby shower. I want to honor my promise to you. I'm having some reservations. And then she could have just told you what they were and then tried to resolve that with you or elegantly bowed out, whatever, or asked for help or found someone else to take over. I'm sure that would have avoided most of this. But I also think the fact that she didn't do that is interesting as well. Right. Is she avoidant? Is Sadie not very attuned?

36:30Possibly. Doesn't seem like it, given how much she showed up for our friend here when it counted, but I don't know. Who knows? Maybe.

36:36Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah. But you know what? She might be one of those people for whom doing things for someone is easier than sitting down and talking about something vulnerable. But yeah, does Sadie find it hard to talk about her stuff? And if so, why might that be? We'd only be speculating, but I think it's fair to say that our friend is fairly fragile these days. There's a lot of big emotions flying around. Maybe Sadie intuited that or straight up knows that about her. And she was like, yeah, I don't want to go near this. I'm just going to ghost and hope she gets the message. So what you're getting at is, did Sadie maybe see aspects of our friend's personality and maybe feel the intensity of her grief?

37:07Gabriel Mizrahi:And that was just very challenging and overwhelming for her. So she's maybe pulling back a little bit. It's possible. She might also be sensing our friend's resentment and judgment around their lifestyle and finances, for example. And that might also be making her want to pull away, whether she consciously realizes it or not. Well, let's talk about those judgments for a second. On one hand, she's going, I know it's not fair to judge them like this. I know that it isn't right. On the other hand, she might not be entirely wrong to be frustrated when they say they can't help out, but they have two parents, they got a babysitter, or when they complain about being broke and they try to empathize with her about that, but they're spending recklessly.

37:42It's tricky because she knows it's none of her business, but I think it feels like it becomes her business when it impacts her.

37:48Gabriel Mizrahi:But it impacts her because she has these expectations of them. So one interesting question she might want to be asking is which expectations are fair and which ones are not? Do these entitle me to opinions about their lifestyle and how they should be managing their household and stuff or not? I mean, how much can I reasonably ask of these people? How like, what am I asking them for? You know, do I want them to come over and watch my child for a couple hours so I can take care of stuff? Or am I looking for something deeper from them? Yeah, I want to point out something that might be a little difficult for our friend to hear, but I think it's important.

38:22Sadie and Morris, yes, they're friends, good friends even, and good friends show up for one another. But Sadie and Morris aren't obligated to be there for her in every way that she wants forever. And I think on some level she knows that, right? But I also get the sense that she's kind of struggling to come to terms with that because her needs are so great. She's largely alone. She's grieving. She desperately wants community and support, which of course she does. She deserves that. But that can be true. And it can be that it's a lot for Sadie and Morris to always be there for her after really being there for her when it counted.

38:53So drawing some boundaries with her and prioritizing their own family, that just, it doesn't make them jerks. The reality is she doesn't know what their son needs at home. She doesn't get to tell them how to parent or manage their house or spend their time or their money. Again, I say this with so much compassion. I get why this is the story her mind wants to tell, but she also needs to investigate that story, all of these stories, and see if they're actually accurate and if they're making things easier or harder.

39:19Gabriel Mizrahi:It's such a good point. And also it's possible that the stories can be wrong, but the needs that they reveal, like her need for love and support and connection, those can be legitimate. And that's why her letter is so complicated. How do you take your needs seriously without tipping over into unfair expectations of other people? Yeah, good question. I think we're both feeling the same thing, which is that her grief about her husband and her pain over what sounds like many decades are making it hard to appreciate Sadie and Morris for what they did do. And she's probably looking for something from them, love, reassurance, a recognition of the value of her life and her life's milestones that for whatever reason, they cannot fully provide her.

39:57Gabriel Mizrahi:And that is really, really hard for her to accept in her current state. Totally agree. That's a good summary. So maybe we need to take a big step back here and talk about what is our friend here's stuff and what is Sadie and Morris' stuff. And then she goes on to have, I assume, a number of experiences that confirm that or are further challenging, including this physical disability and everything that brings up, and everything it probably makes harder or even impossible to do. And then her husband goes through this very serious illness, and then he dies on the day that she gives birth prematurely.

40:29Gabriel Mizrahi:And then she has to watch her baby fight for his life, and then, yeah, she was surrounded by some really good friends back then, thank goodness. And then she spent most of her time alone when her son was in the NICU and almost no one came out to visit her. Now she has to raise her baby alone while she's also grieving her husband's death, which is heartbreaking. She struggles to get things done. She's exhausted, depleted, money is tight. She has this ongoing sadness about her husband, about raising their son without him. She also feels this inadequacy and shame because of her limitations. I mean, my God, the things she is dealing with.

41:00Gabriel Mizrahi:I know we keep saying this, but this is profound stuff. So I can't understand why somebody going through all of that would look around at the world and other friends nearby and say, like, can someone just help me here? Can someone save me? Can someone just come over and be with me more often? So I'm not alone in all of this. Right. So feelings like resentment and hurt and anger and shame and feeling abandoned, they're all very normal responses to a super tragic and chaotic situation. Yes. And it's pretty clear that all of these wounds and losses are shaping the meaning she is making out of all of this.

41:34Gabriel Mizrahi:They're echoing this earlier wound and that earlier wound amplifies the pain in a really big way around each individual event. And I think it's just feeding these narratives, one stacked on top of the other, whether it's they're wrong for not prioritizing me or they owe me this support or I can't function without their help or nobody really has my back. So my life's milestones really don't have meaning. For sure. And those, they construct a whole worldview. A whole identity and a whole worldview, yeah. I also have a hunch that a lot of her painful feelings, especially the shame, which seems to be born from the sense of inadequacy she described, they're probably getting projected out in part, especially at Sadie and Morris.

42:13Right. I'm ashamed that I can't seem to do all of this well because I resent them for not stepping in and saving me.

42:20Gabriel Mizrahi:That is such a good way to put it, exactly. I think we all know that it's usually easier to locate something in somebody else, like a friend who dropped the ball when they said that they would do something, than it is to say, okay, so why does this hurt so much for me specifically? Or what other ways can I go about getting this need met? Or should I really write off an entire friendship with people who are amazing to me when they did one thing wrong, and then to take responsibility for that? So when she asks, how do I work through these feelings, like who's right? Am I right? Or are they wrong?

42:49Gabriel Mizrahi:Or what? You know, these are good questions. are fair questions, but the key might be to ask some other questions first, like which pieces of this overall experience are truly mine? How do these feelings and judgments get created? Because it's not as simple as they did this thing and therefore it's like this. I think it's going through a whole process in her. You know, how do I take an event or the absence of an event, like people not showing up for me in the hospital, how do I make sense of that? And what do I do with those feelings and those judgments? You know, what stories do they reinforce?

43:16Gabriel Mizrahi:Where is that getting me? Is it helping? Is it hurting? Do I feel like I'm in more pain or am I healing somehow? I think those would be good questions to ask. Man, huge questions. Ones she might be asking for the rest of her life. I guess I just want to invite her, and she's already doing this by interrogating these feelings, but I want to invite her to get more curious about this painful experience, which if I had to boil it down does seem to come down to this abandonment. Because I think if she can get to the roots of that and unravel her responses to it now, even a little bit, she'll have a much better grasp of how to work through this pain.

43:48Gabriel Mizrahi:And it might not even cause as much pain in the first place. Agreed. So like, let's talk about one of those situations specifically. Great. Let's do it. For me, the hospital visits are a huge one. For sure. She said people forgot about her pretty quickly, which you look, I believe her. We all know when someone goes through a huge loss or a huge challenge, the world keeps turning. People have their own lives. They move on and they forget. But people who are grieving talk about this all the time. It sucks. But then she said, well, well, maybe they didn't forget. But she also said the absence felt the same nonetheless.

44:16So right there, she's circling exactly the thing you were just describing. The story she wants to tell is they forgot me. But the only thing she knows for sure is they weren't there a lot of the time. Those are the facts. Now, is it still lonely to be alone when your baby's in the NICU? Of course it is. Is it still painful to not have people around you when you're freaking out and grieving like this? Yes. Is it as painful as feeling that everyone forgot about you or that you were abandoned, that this means no one loves or cares about you at all?

44:42Gabriel Mizrahi:I mean, I'm just not, I'm not so sure. Yeah, I see what you're getting at. And the same thing with the baby shower, right? She's going, Sadie Loki abandoned me by not hosting the baby shower, but there are several other possible stories that might explain why she did that. And like she said, her anger and her sadness around the baby shower really has to do with the fact that she didn't get any of the joy that surrounds having a baby. Although I do want to point out that she got one huge joy around having a baby, which is that this baby survived and thrived, which is like, that's the headline. But I understand what's feeding this narrative.

45:11Gabriel Mizrahi:She never got to see her husband hold her son. Again, heartbreaking. But also, that's not anything Sadie and Morris did to her. Yeah, so at least some of her resentment toward her friends is actually anger at the whole situation. Yeah, I think she's well within her rights to be angry at life and the world this whole situation. I think she's allowed to feel scared, overwhelmed, even ashamed. These feelings are not the problem. But taking those feelings to Sadie and Morris and transmuting them into these, like, specific grievances, especially when they did so much else right, you can see where that starts to get tricky.

45:43Gabriel Mizrahi:In one way, Sadie and Morris are logical objects of your anger. They let you down on the baby shower thing. And yeah, it really does sound like they could have handled it a lot better. In another way, though, they're just like convenient objects for your anger because they're nearby and because you've invited them into your life and they are involved now. And because the way they manage their lives is so different, they seem to have different values in certain departments, but also maybe not even the departments that really count. Yeah, good point. So I cannot tell you exactly where this line is between your stuff and their stuff.

46:13Gabriel Mizrahi:It's tricky, and you're going to have to find that for yourself. But just slowing down and asking yourself, why am I having this response? Is this really a Sadie Morris thing? Or is this a me thing? Or is this just kind of like a this situation really sucks thing? What is this tapping into in my mind, in my past that is making this so painful? Just doing that is a huge step forward. Right. What piece of this can I control myself and see what happens? Coming back to her side of the street there. So I want to get a little practical here before we wrap up. Whether all of this is fair or unfair, she obviously needs support.

46:48So I think one of her tasks is to start being more resourceful about finding the help she needs from a variety of people, a variety of places, and maybe communicating that a little differently so that people can show up for her in a way that she truly needs.

46:59Gabriel Mizrahi:And one example of that might be bringing something up sooner if it bothers her so she can resolve it with a friend before it festers and becomes this big issue. Yeah, I totally agree with all of this. And obviously, I'm so happy to hear she's in therapy. That's got to be crucial support for her right now. So we've gone deep on this. We could obviously talk about this for hours, but I hope we've given you some new angles here. Again, you have been through a lot. You are up against a lot. Honestly, my heart breaks for you that your story played out this way. In your letter, you called your baby a miracle.

47:26He definitely is. But I also think you're kind of a miracle because, my God, look at what you're going through and you're still standing. It really is extraordinary. And you've just been dealt a really shit hand in a couple huge ways. You've also been given a huge gift here with your son. And I know that you know that. But I just want to make sure that you're making plenty of room for that fact, too. And I know it's easy to forget when you're in pain, but this could have gone a very different way. And I know it's easy for me to say, but you have to stay connected to your gratitude for your healthy baby, for your friends like Sadie and Morris.

47:56while you also make room for your pain. You have to do both.

48:00Gabriel Mizrahi:Well said, Jordan. And you know, if you want, that could be a really lovely thing to say to them. If you need to repair this relationship, if you want to make things right with them, maybe you say, guys, I'm really sorry if I drove you away recently with the baby shower invitation thing. As you can see, I have a lot of sadness. I have a lot of grief. I don't always know where to take it or what to make of it. I was a little confused about the baby shower thing. I'm sorting through that. But if I gave you the impression that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me. I'm sorry. And thank you again.

48:25Gabriel Mizrahi:I'm sure that would go a very long way. It's probably the start of a really nice conversation. So while you work on all this, keep pouring your love and gratitude into your baby. Keep asking for what you need while also taking care of yourself, sending you and your little burrito baby a big hug and wishing you all the best. You know what makes a great gift for the baby shower you're not going to? The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Haya Health. As a parent, I think about how much ultra-processed food kids are surrounded by now.

48:55Our kids, unfortunately, often live on hot dogs, chicken nuggets, macaroni, and that's a big reason we use Haya. A lot of children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise. They're loaded with sugar, artificial additives, dyes. Haya took the opposite approach. Zero sugar, no gummy junk, clean nutrition. What I like is Haya was designed around the nutritional gaps modern kids actually have. They worked with pediatricians and nutrition scientists to create a chewable vitamin with 12 organic fruits and veggies, plus 15 essential vitamins and minerals. and the ingredient list is really clean. Non-GMO, vegan, dairy-free, allergy-friendly, gluten-free, nut-free.

49:26It's all third-party tested. My kids actually enjoy Haya Vitamins too, which is half the battle. The reusable bottle with the stickers was a big hit at the house. They send eco-friendly refills every month. That makes life a lot easier. And if getting your kids to eat vegetables feels impossible, Haya's Kids Daily Greens and Superfoods is basically chocolate milk stuffed with veggies. So if you got to use that old junk food trick, they got you there too.

49:48Gabriel Mizrahi:We've worked out a special deal with Haya for their best-selling children's vitamin. Receive 50 % off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to HayaHealth.com slash Jordan. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H-I-Y-A-H-E-A-L-T-H dot com slash Jordan and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Hi, I'm Jaden. I love Haya Vitamins. Hi, I'm Juniper and I love Haya Vitamins. This episode is sponsored in part by Audible. I burn through at least two audiobooks a week prepping for the show, and let's be real, there is just no timeline where I'm sitting down and staring at a page.

50:25That's not how I learn at all. Audio is my mode. I'm listening on Audible while I'm getting my 10 ,000 steps in, sipping coffee on the couch, all while jotting notes down into my phone. Honestly, I wish I'd had Audible back in the day instead of zoning out to hours of mindless TV. Imagine how much smarter I could have turned out. Listening on Audible feels like downloading knowledge straight into my head. Lately, I've been into Michael Aaron Flicker and Richard Schottens Hacking the Human Mind. super fascinating stuff on influence, decision making, what actually drives people. And Audible's well-being collection goes way beyond that.

50:53Brene Brown, Jamie Oliver on nutrition, even nature sleep sounds from the sleeping world. Whatever supports your mindset, health, or daily routine, Audible has it. Membership is$14.95 a month after 30 days. You can cancel any time. Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash JHS. Also, in case you guys don't know, there's a subreddit for the show if you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes or anything at all. That's over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

51:24And now back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next?

51:29Gabriel Mizrahi:Dear Jordan and Gabe, I have a four-month-old daughter, my first baby. She's also the first grandchild on both my and my husband's side of the family, so everyone is very excited. On my side of the family, we have my mother, who insists on being called Glamour. Insert rant on grandparent shows and nicknames here. Glamma is, is that Glamma? Yeah. Yeah. Like glamorous grandma, but she picked it herself. So it's a little cringe. Yeah. I'm picturing a sequined fanny pack in my head right now. Yeah. Glamma is obsessed with Facebook. She falls victim to rage bait, enjoys keeping up with the local drama, and especially loves posting her happenings on Facebook because she enjoys getting likes and comments on her photos.

52:10Gabriel Mizrahi:When I'm with my mom, I'm hyper aware that any photo we take will probably end up online. I've learned how to change my settings to require my approval and I've decreased my digital footprint so much over the last year, even more so since I've had a baby. I think it's creepy that someone could see a photo of my baby, click my name, and learn a lot of important things about us without even being my friend. Two days after I delivered my baby, Glamma was asking for pictures to post on Facebook. I've explained my concerns to my mom and she said that none of her Facebook friends are weirdos and they're all people she knows, so it should be fine.

52:43Gabriel Mizrahi:I've also explained that my fear is of AI. Did you see the clip of Boris Johnson saying AI, AI? Have you seen this one? No, that's ridiculous somehow. The way he says AI, I don't know why it's so funny, but he's like, do you know what AI is? It's like people have like remixed this clip over and over again. And now whenever I see AI, I hear Boris Johnson going AI, AI. Anyway, I've also explained that my fear is of AI. I feel terrible that my daughter already has a digital footprint and she can't even walk or talk. While she's playing with her baby toys, AI bots are scrubbing the internet collecting photo data.

53:20Gabriel Mizrahi:Everything about it freaks me out, from using our photos to train generative AI, to the disgusting dark web, to the collection of data. As soon as everyone in my circle is using ChatGPT for advice on things like, what type of account should I open for my granddaughter, or what does a seven-month-old baby want for Christmas? AI knows my daughter has assets, her approximate age, and probably her name. I've also run into this AI concern with my husband's parents, Nan and Grumpy. Nan and Grumpy love Instagram and fall for absurd AI slop constantly. What is going on with the grandparent names in this question?

53:56This is ridiculous. Did you make these up or is this in the letter? This is just a letter. Wow, Nan, Grumpy, and Glamour. This is quite a circus.

54:03Gabriel Mizrahi:Recently, Nan sent me a video of a little purple monster blowing fire and grinning at the camera, and I realized that this little monster was an AI-generated version of my daughter. This means she had to upload a photo of my baby into some random app or website that now owns that photo. Meanwhile, I'm using one of those private family photo apps where only people I invite can see the pictures. They can comment and react, and I post almost daily for everyone since we're long distance, so I feel like that reduces the need to post on Facebook even more. I want to tell everyone that they cannot upload photos of our daughter anywhere.

54:38Gabriel Mizrahi:But how do I go about this? A big text, in person, out of the blue? Also, am I spiraling? Should I back off of Glamour and just let her post to Facebook? Are Nana's videos harmless? What are new parents doing to set social media boundaries? Signed, feeling like the sharenting is reckless and now meriting some parenting that's against my kids inheriting an embarrassing amount of editing. Interesting question. So full disclosure, Jen and I, we don't worry about this that much. We post photos of the kids on Facebook and Instagram. Look, the settings make them all private, so it's only approved followers that can see them.

55:12You won't see it on my Facebook or my Instagram, for example. But yeah, we're probably inadvertently training AI models and creating a digital footprint for them. And that's just kind of the trade-off we've made to be able to easily share stuff with our friends and family. I'm not saying it's the right choice necessarily. I'm just saying I'm kind of the wrong guy to give you tech privacy advice in this particular area. But we were curious about this and we did some research. So here's what we found. First of all, you're not entirely wrong about this. Pew Research says 95 % of parents report posting their kids publicly.

55:4381 % of children under two already have a digital profile online, according to the UK Children's Commissioner. Different sources say different things, but several say that the average child has over 1 ,300 photos of them on the internet without their consent by the time they're 13. So 100 per year, basically. As you say, AI scrapes billions of images every single day. UNICEF has written about this. These photos, they can be copied, they can be stored, they can be sold. You just never know where they end up. Corporations obviously use them to train AI, target advertising. Governments use them for surveillance and recognition systems.

56:16The UK Commissioner and ChildNet both say that facial recognition software can recognize a child from one photo. The World Economic Forum says that by 2030, 30 children could represent a third of the global facial recognition database. And Barclays projects that by 2030 as well, two thirds of identity fraud cases will trace back to data shared during childhood. So yeah, I just want to be super clear. By the way, we can't fact check all that. There's a huge range of stats out there. A lot of it is shared in kind of these alarmist sharenting circles. So just please keep that in mind. But even if the numbers float around, I think we can all agree there's obviously some risk in posting your kids publicly online, especially if you don't have privacy settings on to restrict it to friends and family.

56:59And the upshot of all that, well, it's a little unclear. I don't know if we really know what all this means or how bad this is or where it's all going. I mean, five years ago, most people didn't realize AI was coming, especially not the way it is. So who knows what this all means for our kids' futures? But basically what critics of posting online say is the upshot of all this, way less privacy, less freedom, fewer choices, and no agency or choice on the kid's part about how their data gets used. People on the opposite side of this argument would say, yeah, the whole idea is kind of risky and sus, but documented harm from normal family sharing, apparently pretty rare.

57:34A lot of this risk depends on privacy settings, once again, what's actually shared, what data the photo includes. AI training on large data sets, it's not the same as targeted surveillance of your kid. We might, in fact, be moving to a world where the whole idea of what's private and what's risky is up for debate, which, you know, that probably doesn't put the naysayers at ease, but it might change the definitions and calculus here. And then there's the whole question of trade-offs. Like, yes, posting your kids on social media, it entails less privacy and less choice, but there are clearly upsides.

58:04Bonding with family, investing in support systems, having fun, all of which do increase joy and intimacy and connection. Also, my feeling is, in all likelihood, my kids are going to want to be on social media one day, so I'm not sure what I'm sort of protecting them from. Maybe I'm just naive here. And I know the counter argument. Yeah, but what if they don't want to do that? Then you just force them to be on social media and create a footprint before they could really choose. And I get that. I really do. I'm just saying, statistically, they're probably going to get out there anyway, so I'm not sure how much good it's really doing to keep them off of it, especially, once again, if it's my wife sharing stuff with an account that has family and friends following it.

58:41So bottom line, most people in this camp, they seem to be making the argument that thoughtful digital participation is better than total digital avoidance. They're also making the argument, and I think I largely agree with this, that this is much more about values, privacy, consent, autonomy, than it is, you know, about measurable risk. In other words, is this just philosophical or are we talking about real world harm? What do those values mean? And are those values worth protecting at all costs when it comes to sharenting if negotiating on them doesn't necessarily or even usually lead to bad outcomes.

59:15I think I know what you'd say, and I think you can tell what my answer is, but we all have to come to our own conclusions about that. So are you spiraling? I mean, in my humble opinion, not entirely, maybe a little. You're not crazy, clearly, but I think some of your concerns are more legit than others. For example, posting thousands of pictures of your kids on Facebook is obviously leaving a digital footprint. Your mother-in-law creating an animated dragging out of your kid's face on some random low security AI app, that image could end up and Slash is already on a server in Shenzhen or whatever.

59:45My understanding is that China is probably hoovering up all this data anyway, but they're also getting it from places other than meta and social media. For example, your kid's school photos are likely going to be saved someplace and that's eventually getting leaked. And God knows what China's doing with all that data.

59:58Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah. What are they doing with all that data? I don't fully understand. They're like constructing some huge AI database that can recognize people. 100%. They're training AI models and they want facial recognition that works for the whole planet. But the whole chat GPT and therefore like the whole internet will know my daughter's name and her future net worth argument. I'm not so convinced by that. Are you Jordan? I don't know. I mean, it's possible, but someone would have to literally type, how can I open up a custodian account with Schwab for my granddaughter, Violet so-and-so in Rapid City, South Dakota.

1:00:28Gabriel Mizrahi:So when she's 18, she can pay for college and she wants to go to college at this place. Like even then chat GPT and any other legitimate platform that is not based in China anyway. I mean, they're still governed by some privacy laws. Not that those are perfect, of course. I mean, Google, Facebook, obviously have played fast and loose with privacy in the past. So I'm not naive about that. But I think we can all agree that that's different from posting the same thing on DeepSeek or whatever. So you might be adding low probability fears on top of some legitimate concerns here. But look, if you decide no photos of my kids on Facebook, no Instagram, that's your choice.

1:01:03And it's not a completely unreasonable choice. I'm not saying that it is. My advice, don't make this a huge debate or conflict with your family. Just get together with your husband. Let your parents know the stance. You can literally say, we've thought a lot about it. We've been doing a lot of homework on this. We've decided not to post any photos of her on public social media or third-party apps. We love that you guys love her. We love that you're proud of her, but we're going to ask you to use the private photo app only. From now on, please don't post or upload her image anywhere.

1:01:29Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah, I probably would not get into the nuances of AI data scraping, which I doubt they can even wrap their heads around. Imagine explaining the dark web and AI LLM training to Nan and Grumps. I think just as simple, here's our rule, and we appreciate you guys working with us on this. That's all you need. And if they're like, relax, what's the harm? Our friends aren't weirdos. I wouldn't get into all that. I would just say, hey, we understand. It's not about that. It's about her choice, about whether to be out there. It's about her long-term digital footprint. We are choosing to minimize it. And you can do this in person.

1:01:59You can do it over text, but maybe both for good measure. and maybe when you do, you can also give the grandparents an aura frame. They used to sponsor the show. Somebody will tell me if the code still works because it seems to be on and off, but the aura, this is great. It's a digital picture frame. It displays photos and videos and you can send them from your phone from anywhere in the world to the person who has the frame. And there's this collaborative sharing with family members. So you don't text or email photos to the family and then they're like, cool, I'm going to download this and put it on Facebook.

1:02:29The photos just go into the frame. So maybe that's a good compromise. They're a sponsor. Once again, they're on our sponsor page. You can get 35 bucks off at AuraFrames.com. Code Jordan. We'll link to that in the show notes. So look, I appreciate that you want to protect your child. I appreciate that you are thinking about these big values. Even though I'm kind of going a different way here, I really do understand that. And I'm sure your child will thank you for caring about them so much. And when your kid becomes the leader of the resistance because they're the only person who doesn't have instant facial recognition, you can shove that in my face.

1:02:59But I really do think this is partly new parent brain talking to some degree. Your first kid, you're concerned about everything. You go way out of your way to protect them. And then a few years pass, you see what's actually an issue. You come up against the realities of the world and you just readjust. And then if you have a second kid, you're like, okay, here are the things worth worrying about. Here are the things not worth worrying about. Here are the things I don't have time to worry about. And your positions will kind of evolve. Look, I'm not saying that always leads to the best outcomes.

1:03:25I'm not saying you're wrong to be thoughtful here, but I would also give yourself some room to evolve when it comes to these policies. And that's okay, too. It's great to be principled as a parent, but you don't always have to be militant. Sending you, your husband, and your daughter a big AI-generated hug and wishing you all the best. You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. That does make our job a whole lot easier. If you're doing battle with an unstable colleague, you're trying to stop your sister from moving to a murder cabin in the middle of nowhere with her abusive spouse, or you're trying to save your sibling from going down an alt-right rabbit hole, or even something more mundane in those stakes.

1:04:00We love those too. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help, and we keep every email anonymous. You know what Glam is going to want to shove in her bedazzled fanny pack? Some of the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

1:04:18if you like this episode of feedback friday and you find our advice valuable i invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do that is take a moment support our amazing sponsors all of the deals and discounts and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com deals if something's not working you can't find a code please email us jordan at jordanharbinger.com we're happy to dig up codes for you it really is that important that you support those who support the show and now for the rest of feedback Friday. Now for the recommendation of the week.

1:04:48I am addicted to lit filler.

1:04:51Gabriel Mizrahi:A couple weeks ago, I gave a shout out to Libby, the app where you can borrow digital ebooks through your library for free. A bunch of you wrote me after that recommending some other great library apps. One of them is called Hoopla. I had completely forgotten about Hoopla. Apparently, Hoopla has some big advantages over Libby. The best one is that there's no waitlist and everything is available instantly. That's a huge plus. It also gives you access to a bunch of other platforms apparently, courses, TV shows, foreign streaming services, stuff like that. It does have some downsides though. For example, you can't read on Kindle and it has a smaller selection of bestsellers, I guess.

1:05:24Gabriel Mizrahi:And I believe that there's a monthly borrowing limit, usually five to ten items depending on the library and the interface, as some people say, is not as good. But between Libby and Hoopla, you could easily have all of your borrowing needs met and still not have to pay really anything for books and movies and stuff, which is amazing, as long as you don't mind switching between the apps. So that was a great rec and thank you for sending me that. And then one of our listeners, Ian, told me about another amazing app you can use with a library card. It's called PressReader. So PressReader is an app that gives you access to thousands of newspapers and magazines from around the world in their original print layout.

1:06:00Gabriel Mizrahi:Local newspapers, foreign newspapers, premium magazines, publications in I guess more than 60 languages. You can get current issues, back issues, you can download issues for offline reading so you can like take it on the plane with you without Wi-Fi. You can listen to articles with, they have like a text to speech feature. I've been playing with this app this week. I am obsessed with this app. It's kind of changed my life. Now I can read all of these cool magazines I never used to read because, you know, I didn't want to pay for 12 different subscriptions when I only read a few articles from each one.

1:06:31Gabriel Mizrahi:So big thank you to Ian for this one. That's my rec of the week. Actually two for one this week, Hoopla and Press Reader. Enjoy. Okay, next up. Hey Jordan and Gabe, you recently published a newsletter on the subject of forgiveness. I think one of the hardest aspects of forgiveness is forgiving yourself for past indiscretions, the things you dwell on from the past that you can't change, like regretting having said something to family or friends, or a conversation that you should have had but now you can't because the person is out of your life. How do you forgive yourself for that kind of stuff?

1:07:04Gabriel Mizrahi:Is self-forgiveness truly possible? signed, hoping you can shake me of these regrets that still plague me. Damn, great question. Hard question. So first of all, for anybody who didn't catch this WeBitWiser newsletter and shameless plug, if you haven't signed up yet, jordanharbinger.com slash news, we're getting great responses to this thing. It is so much fun to write and you all seem to be enjoying it. So what we said in that newsletter was that forgiveness as a concept, it's slippery, right? I think we all know that forgiving somebody for doing something, forgiving ourselves, not always easy.

1:07:35And oftentimes we think we've forgiven and moved on and then something else happens or time goes by or a certain mood sets in and suddenly it's like, nah, I still resent this person for that thing they did or no way I can let myself off the hook for what I did. So what we suggested in that newsletter was if you can't forgive, then maybe you need to do something else, something potentially easier, which is accept. Acceptance means I acknowledge what happened, what they did, what I did. I'm not arguing with reality. I'm not wishing things were different. I think a lot of the time, just that acceptance brings us the peace and clarity we're looking for.

1:08:05And sometimes when we really accept something, we go, oh, I don't actually need to forgive. This is enough.

1:08:11Gabriel Mizrahi:Right, sometimes acceptance is its own kind of forgiveness. And oftentimes acceptance brings us closer to compassion and compassion can be more attainable and often more productive than forgiveness. So my thought for you is, if you're struggling to forgive yourself for something you did, something you said, I don't see why the same principle can't apply to you. If you can't forgive yourself, Can you try to accept? Can you say to yourself, yeah, I said that careless thing to my friend, or yeah, I really wish I had that conversation with my ex before we went our separate ways. And instead of then saying, I have to forgive myself for that, can you try going, I have some regret about saying that thing.

1:08:45I have some sadness that I didn't get to express such and such to my ex. And see what it's like to invite those thoughts and feelings in and just sit with them without doing something else with them, like trying to turn them into something else or trying to push them away or even trying to forgive yourself for them. I think sometimes when we try to forgive, there's nothing wrong with that. Of course, it's a beautiful experience. And if you can get there, amazing. But I think sometimes when we try, like really try to forgive, we're actually doing something else.

1:09:11Gabriel Mizrahi:Just something to make it less painful. You mean? Yeah. Like if I can just forgive this person or if I can just forgive myself, then I won't have to feel angry or I won't have to feel sad or I won't have to feel embarrassed or whatever it is. Because look, I forgave. It's over. It's behind me. And ideas, concepts, they're tricky man because the mind can argue anything it wants to it it rarely knows what it truly believes dot dot dot buddhism i guess i don't know acceptance in a way it's easier all you have to do is allow something to just be there and in a way it's much harder because then you have to sit with the thing you did or the thing someone else did and all the feelings that come with it you don't have that forgiveness concept as a buffer anymore so that's where i'm at with all this yes self-forgiveness is possible but trying to work toward forgiveness without taking these necessary detours through acceptance and curiosity and compassion.

1:09:59I think that usually doesn't work. So you almost have to come at forgiveness indirectly. It's more the byproduct of acceptance, curiosity, compassion, rather than the goal. Kind of like how if you try to be happy, you'll never be happy. But if you focus on helping other people, if you engage in things that are fulfilling, then happiness will result. It's kind of like that. Gabe, you have any thoughts here? Did I just smash that? And thanks everyone for coming to my TED Talk.

1:10:22Gabriel Mizrahi:It's the best TED talk I've heard in a while. It goes Sir Ken Robinson, Brene Brown, and then you, for what you just said. I agree. I agree with all of that. So our friend here regrets having made some comment to a friend or a family member. He can't change what he said, but he can learn from it. He can use it to handle a similar moment in the future differently. He can figure out why he said what he said, or he can work that into an apology if that's appropriate. he can go to this person and say, you know, I really regret that thing I said to you way back when, and I've been asking myself why I said it, and here's what I've realized, and I don't actually feel that way, or hey, maybe I do feel that way, but I wish I had expressed it differently.

1:10:59Gabriel Mizrahi:I hurt you, I disappointed you, or I was just confused at the time, and I apologize for that. And hopefully all of that leads to more insight on his part, more skill, maybe even more closeness with the person he hurt or disappointed or whatever. Same thing with the conversations that he regrets not having. That person is out of his life now. He can't tell them what he wanted to say, but he can decide, okay, I don't want to wait to tell the people I love how much I love them, for example. Or if I have questions for someone in my family, I want to ask them while I can so I don't end up with this regret again in the future.

1:11:32Right. I'm going to speak up when something bothers me sooner so I don't sit on it and miss my window, whatever it is.

1:11:37Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah. So I think when you do something constructive with a wound or a regret, it does start to shift. It often doesn't hurt as much, or it doesn't only hurt, right? It hurts and it takes on new meaning. And that meaning is the real reward. In my view, it's actually probably why these mistakes have to happen. I'm putting mistakes in big air quotes, you know, why they have to happen to generate opportunities for this kind of meaning making so that we can have that experience and then hopefully evolve. At which point, forgiving yourself becomes a lot easier because it's like, okay, I can forgive myself for what I did or what I didn't do because I have this meaning now, because it showed me something important, something that had I known it in advance, I wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place, right?

1:12:20Gabriel Mizrahi:So this had to happen. And yes, it hurts, but in a weird way, I'm kind of grateful I made this mistake. And so now I can forgive myself for that. Absolutely. The more we talk about this, the more I wonder if forgiveness is really as important as we tend to think it is. I'm not totally sure about that. I want to think about that some more, but I agree that all these other processes are probably more productive than just going like, okay, yeah, I'm over it. The more fruitful question is, what is this thing I can't seem to forgive myself for designed to teach me? So I hope that gives you some new angles here.

1:12:50I love how thoughtful you're being about all this. Just keep going inward, keep inviting this stuff in, keep trying to learn rather than tucking something away, and I think you'll find what you're looking for. Go back and check out Matthew Tai aka C Milk if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course. It is free. It's not gross. It's not schmoozy. You can find it on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com.

1:13:17The drills take a few minutes a day. Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks. Build relationships before you need them. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Instagram, Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer.

1:13:48Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. What if Earth isn't the exception, but one of millions of planets that could host life? Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger takes us on a mind-bending journey through the cosmos, revealing how close we actually are to answering the question, are we alone?

1:14:21We have found more than 5 ,600 planets orbiting other stars, but we haven't seen most of them. And that's what we're looking for. We live in this incredible time of exploration because with bigger telescopes, with more time looking, we can find smaller worlds. We can find worlds that take more time to whist around their star. but we have actually changed our whole understanding of the cosmos in this respect that there are so many other stars out there. So we don't have two ships to get there yet. We can catch the light and read it. There's hope and there's wonder and there's our human curiosity that gets us to investigate.

1:15:12Our search for life comes down to the question, can we find it? And that, I think, is what it takes to figure out how we fit in this beautiful cosmos. And science is so much fun. And I think this is what we sometimes don't get to convey. This research is not just about are we alone in the universe? It's also about understanding our planet, getting a glimpse in our potential future when we look at all the Earth. and using all that knowledge to safeguard our pale blue dot. If you've ever looked up at the night sky and wondered who might be looking back, check out episode 1056 with Lisa Kaltenegger.

1:16:00Gabriel Mizrahi:The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. Scott for Scots here. How did the grass feel when it woke up from winter? A little crabby.

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