1347: Grandma's Adoption Blocks Custody Option | Feedback Friday

20:07I mean, why would they?

20:08Gabriel Mizrahi:Actually, Chile's infrastructure is excellent. This is the easiest country I've driven in, in South America. So it's not like backwater everywhere you go. But no, this is a private country road. So it's not like Mulholland Drive. I remember when I lived in Serbia, I drove to Montenegro a couple times on a bus. And it's actually a really nice drive. But the The problem is it's next to the largest, deepest, I think, canyon in the world other than the Grand Canyon is there. And there's one lane, mostly, in the tunnels because it's just old Yugoslav infrastructure. And you can see there's guardrails.

20:44But the guardrails have holes in them where cars and buses have plunged through them and fallen down the canyon. And they just didn't fix it.

20:51Gabriel Mizrahi:Those aren't guardrails. years ago. They're guardrails that are only partially operating and are not strong enough to stop a car or a bus, apparently. And you're driving through the tunnel and the bus will stop and turn the brights on and honk, basically to make sure there's no car in the tunnel, because if there is, you're not getting out of the tunnel. Because he has to drive through the middle because the bus is too high. It's made for like a Yugo to drive through, maybe two Yugos, but not a bus and a Yugo or a car. So I just, this reminds me of that, because you look down the side from the second floor of the bus and you're just like holy smokes that's far and you can see things down at the base of the canyon sometimes like cars and buses that are just there and of course the occupants did not make it out of that there's no possibility that they lived it's an amazing experience but that's terrifying yeah you're kind of like i'm gonna go back to reading yeah it's not a guardrail if it doesn't guard that's true it's just a suggestion anyway the problem was how are they going to get the car down now because it's at this awkward angle and there's not a lot of room for a tow truck to maneuver and they had to somehow flip it back over and then they have to figure out how to get it down the hill so after dinner sebastian and his friend danny who by the way is some kind of spiritual author slash teacher in there which is a whole other story i can't get into right now but it was i say that because he lives in another dimension but he was the handiest person i've ever like he knew how to hang a door and align your chakras yeah yeah basically but i say that to illustrate how resourceful people in this area are because you have to constantly fix things.

22:18Gabriel Mizrahi:And yeah, it was kind of amazing. Anyway, we drove down in my car to Bang Chan and they took a cord they found in the driveway and they tied one end of it to the chassis of Bang Chan and the other end to the hitch on my Tucson, which was lucky that I had a hitch. I put the car in sport mode and then slowly accelerated up the hill until the car just went boom and flipped over again. Wow. I'm loving blue collar farm gabe over here i know i felt so useful it was so empowering my delicate right early hands finally getting dirty by shifting the car into drive you don't get a lot of calluses from setting up microphones no it's cool you guys figured that out though way to get creative i might personally i probably would have just pushed the car into the canyon and been like take me into town to the dealership tomorrow i don't know give me the insurance papers let's call it a day that's right there's a chilean idiom i learned on this trip that i'm obsessed with la necesidad tiene Necessity has the face of something.

23:14Gabriel Mizrahi:The face of a heretic. Meaning when you have to figure it out, you figure it out. So like necessity is the mother of invention? Something like that? Something like that. Something like that. I'm obsessed with this idiom. Yeah, Spanish idioms can really slap. Actually, idioms in most languages are really... Chinese ones are crazy too. None of them make any sense and they don't mean anything about what they say ever. It's my favorite part of learning another language is learning the idioms. Because you learn a lot about the culture and then they have ways of explaining things. Like this one is so necessity has the face of a heretic.

23:43Gabriel Mizrahi:It's just so extra. So isn't Bang Chan done for? I mean, it flipped over twice. Bang Chan. Your Michigan is showing. Yeah. Bang Chan. Amazingly not. It needs a new door and a new window. And there was Yerba Mate spilled all over the windows in the inside cabin. But besides that, not too bad. And then Sebastian tried to start the car and the battery suddenly worked for some reason. Okay. I guess it just needed a small accident. And he just drove it into a little turnout on the side of the road. And that was that. And now I have to drive carpool for every morning until I leave because my car is the only one we have now.

24:16It was nice of one Korean car to save another Korean car. That's poetic.

24:20Gabriel Mizrahi:I know the Hyundai Tucson was like the responsible older brother. And Bang Chan was like the out of control younger sibling with a kind of music career who needs to go to rehab. Yeah, right. I do have a job. Work the record store. Chain smoking outside. That's right. By the way, I have some photos and videos of all of this. I'll post it for you guys today so you can see what this looked like. It was quite a sight, this jackknifed car on this idyllic country road under the splendor of the Chilean stars. I just could not have staged the scene better myself if I tried. I bet, but you could have been in that accident, dude, that you were supposed to be.

24:54Gabriel Mizrahi:That's why I wanted to tell you this story. How weird is that? I don't know, man. What you're saying is Feedback Friday saved your life. That's what I'm hearing. Basically. If I didn't need to organize the deuce cruise, I might have been on the snooze cruise. The eternal snooze cruise. Dark. The eternal snooze cruise. We got to use that when we talk about dying. Keep things light and fun. It's kind of nice, actually. Yeah, it is. I mean, but I think you might have actually worn your seatbelt in Bang Chan. Of course. Absolutely. So maybe it wouldn't have been that bad. But if she hadn't turned into the mountain or if you were in the backseat and Amelia landed on you or you leaned forward to, I don't know, hit Spotify playlist or something like that.

25:29I don't know.

25:30Gabriel Mizrahi:which I am prone to do who knows would I have gone out to push the car would I have stayed in the car where would I have sat in the car what would I have been doing what if Amelia didn't send that text from the book like how far back do you go it was so crazy that's right what if they'd actually replaced the battery the day before so it's weird to think about sliding doors moments yeah so good on you for listening to that instinct to stay home slash putting our listeners above pounding yerba mate at a pucon intramural football game my pleasure good thing I also love being alone too Also, I don't really love yerba mate, so it wasn't that much of a sacrifice.

26:02It's an acquired taste. I can't stand it. And everybody in Chile and Argentina was like, you got to try this, you got to try this. It's an acquired taste and it's an acquired taste. Years ago, Ryan Holiday told me something that has stuck with me for at least 10 or 15 years, which is I was talking about drinking with him and I was like, oh, whiskey, I like it. It's an acquired taste. And he goes, yeah, people say that about cigars, but I never understood the point of acquiring a taste for something that normally tastes bad and is also really bad for you. And I was like, that's a really good point.

26:30I'm going to force myself to like this thing that normally I wouldn't like. Oh, and also there are no benefits whatsoever. It's totally just device and terrible for you and expensive.

26:40Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah, except that yerba mate apparently does have some health benefits. Like it's supposed to be good for you. I don't know much about it. Anytime people have a vice, they try and rationalize some health benefits. Like, oh no, it's a different kind of caffeine. I got to do a skeptical Sunday on this because yeah, I don't buy it. I just don't buy it. And I don't have data for this, but everybody who says, oh, the caffeine here is different and it doesn't make you edgy or whatever or antsy. I'm like, I am pretty sure caffeine is just caffeine, bro. Actually, no, that part is true. Really? I believe it doesn't.

27:09Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah, it doesn't give you the same crash that normal caffeine does. And I think that's part of what people like about it. I just don't know about the health benefits. It also tastes horrendous. Yeah, like you have to douse it in sugar to get through it. It is the perfect beverage though. If you're like, I would love to drink a tea of hay mixed with car exhaust. Yes, throw a little diesel in here and make it like grass tea. Yes, exactly. If you had died in a Chilean country car accident, I don't know what I would have done, man. This would have been a weird episode, first of all. So Gabe's on the eternal snooze cruise, and all of the answers from this point forward on Feedback Friday will be devoid of compassion and nuance.

27:44All right, well, at least it sounds like Chile delivered in every single way. You have a story. You have some memories.

27:50Gabriel Mizrahi:Truly hit all the notes. I have to say. And just a whiff of death here at the end, which is always good in a story. I had the best time here. I cannot wait to come back. Truly a stunning country. The best idioms, the best Spanish, the best vibes. And shout out to Sebastian and Javi for being the best hosts I could ask for and also for staying alive, which I'm very proud of them for. All right, Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, my wife and I have a friend. We'll call her Sam, who's 21 years old and currently living with her parents. A couple of years ago, she had an unintentional pregnancy with her boyfriend who lives about eight hours away.

28:28Gabriel Mizrahi:We'll call him Tom. Sam truly loved Tom and was fully invested in the relationship. But when Tom found out she was pregnant, he completely ghosted her. He blocked her on all social media, stopped answering calls and texts. Even his parents cut off communication with Sam and her family. What a class act. Jeez, that sucks. This was an extremely difficult time for her. She withdrew from her friends, isolated herself, and fell into a deep depression. My wife and I were dealing with our own pregnancy and financial stress at the time, which made it difficult for us to be there for her in the way she needed, especially when the only reliable method of contact was showing up at her parents' house.

29:07Gabriel Mizrahi:After nearly a year, Sam reached out to my wife to reconcile. My wife gladly met with her, and they talked through everything. Sam shared just how broken she had been during that time. We made it clear that we are here for her, no matter what. Since then, she has made significant progress. She's taken better care of herself, focused on personal growth, and worked to rebuild her life. The change has been genuinely encouraging to see, even though the weight of her past situation still shows at times. That's great news. That's a huge thing to bounce back from, honestly, damn. Her daughter, who we'll call Anne, is now almost two years old.

29:43Gabriel Mizrahi:Anne is a sweet little girl who gets along wonderfully with her son, who is slightly younger. It's clear that Sam has been a loving and capable mother. The support from her parents has also played a role in her stability, allowing her to grow in her career, rebuild relationships, and provide a good life for Anne. Amazing outcome, all things considered. Now for the doozy. Yes, please. Putting on my dooze bib. Yeah, so you don't get any dooze on that clean shirt, Papa. Yeah, I got a nice new shirt on. Wouldn't want to get any dooze dribs on this thing. do his trips. We are but gentlemen. Unbeknownst to us at the time, during her pregnancy, Sam's mother convinced her that Tom or his family would try to take the baby by falsely accusing Sam of assault.

30:25Gabriel Mizrahi:She instilled a deep fear that the only way to protect the child was to allow her mother to adopt the baby after birth. So that's what happened. Sam gave up her parental rights, and Sam's mother now has full parental rights over Anne through a legal adoption in the state of Georgia. Tom does not have any parental rights either. Maybe there was some back-end legal stuff similar to a summons and the lack of response constituted the release of his rights to Anne. Since then, the situation has taken a troubling turn. Sam's mother has become verbally abusive, telling her that she has ruined Anne's life and failed her by not providing a good father.

31:01Gabriel Mizrahi:She also mocks Sam for attending church with my wife and me, calling it a cult, and claiming it will only make things worse. So where is this all coming from? Or was she always like this? Whatever opinions people may have about religion, the truth is that the church community has had a profoundly positive impact on Sam. It has provided her with support, structure, and encouragement during a time when she was not actually receiving those things at home. I mean, I totally believe you 100%. I think if I was a 20-something single parent, I would go to church too, or synagogue, or something. You need something like that.

31:34You need some kind of community.

31:35Gabriel Mizrahi:I recently sat down with her and went over her finances. She can definitely move out into a relatively cheap apartment, but she would have to adhere strictly to the budget we created. It would be hard, but fully possible. But her mother refuses to allow her to take Anne with her. All of which is making this a far more difficult decision. Sam does not want to remain in that environment, but she also cannot bear the thought of leaving her daughter behind. While she hasn't said this outright, I believe she is enduring the situation and avoiding conflict, in order to maintain whatever access and influence she still has in Anne's life.

32:10Gabriel Mizrahi:She feels stuck and believes her only option is to slowly convince her mother to eventually allow her to regain custody. There are also concerning control issues. For example, Sam recently applied for a credit card to begin building credit. Before she could access it, her mother intercepted the mail, opened it, and destroyed the card. She then lectured Sam, claiming that having a credit card would ruin her life financially. This is not an accurate assessment of Sam's responsibility. Wow. Also illegal. It's called obstruction of correspondence. It's a felony. Gabe, there's a part of me going, does Sam's mother know something about her that we don't?

32:47Like, does she know that her daughter can be and has been reckless with money, or she's prone to falling in with questionable organizations? Maybe she was in a crazy cold before, or does she, maybe she has a terrible track record, or I don't know. Maybe she's being kind of a dick, but it's for a reason? I don't know. It's hard to say. We have one side of the story as usual. But after the credit card thing, another part of me is going, oh, OK, this woman just wants to disempower her daughter so she can keep custody of her granddaughter.

33:14Gabriel Mizrahi:It's really hard to know what's going on. But then if that's the case, why? Why is she doing that? That's the crazy thing. I get a parent pulling moves to get custody of a child. I get that. But a grandparent, if she's not doing this stuff for altruistic reasons, like Sam really is unfit to care for Anne, which doesn't seem to be the case. Is she really like, I want a baby again at 73 years old. That's a little bizarre to me. Or maybe she's grown attached to her granddaughter and doesn't want to give her up, but that's also just as questionable. It is, yeah. So, I don't know, there's more here.

33:44Gabriel Mizrahi:We have since advised her to have important mail sent to our address. Then, recently, Tom reached out to Sam. They scheduled a time for him to come visit Anne. Sam wanted to do it at my house so she would have company. Tom ended up ghosting her again a week before the day. I've also encouraged her to document everything, messages, specific incidents, dates, and especially any details related to how her mother persuaded her to agree to the adoption. My hope is that this could help establish whether coercion or emotional pressure played a role in that decision. What steps can Sam realistically take moving forward?

34:18Gabriel Mizrahi:Is there any path for her to regain custody or establish legal rights to her daughter? And how can my wife and I best support her through this? Signed, a friend trying to play quarterback In the game of getting my friend's daughter back When all her mom sees is what she lacks And when it comes to her rights She won't cut her slack What a sad story This is a bizarre story Needless to say, my heart does go out to Sam To be abandoned by the father of your child Only for your own mother to basically take her from you This poor woman has really been through the ringer I'm really glad she's doing better these days That must say a lot about her But man, she's been dealt a pretty tough hand here My heart also goes out to you guys, having to watch your friends struggle like this for so long.

35:00We wanted to get an expert's opinion, so we reached out to a lawyer friend of ours who has some experience in family law way back when and who asked to remain anonymous. And basically what he said was, there are no easy answers to your questions, legally speaking. He said a lot of this is a fact and law-specific matter and something that needs the attention of a local lawyer, as most matters are. Meaning, the unique facts of Sam's case, that's what's going to determine her options and outcomes and the unique laws around custody and all that in Georgia, that's all going to play a big role. But our expert did say that Sam does not need to resign herself to things staying as they are.

35:33That said, because Sam gave up her parental rights, our expert said that might be harder to undo. In that case, he said that Sam might need to argue fraud or undo influence, which I think is what you're hoping for with all this documentation. Family law was never my area, but just based on what I've heard over the years, that could be a more challenging case to prove. Not impossible, but harder. And if she's going to succeed, she's probably going to have to come with a ton of documentation, like you said, well-organized in a way that really establishes the narrative, the narrative that Sam's mother coerced her into doing all this.

36:04Gabriel Mizrahi:But even then, I'm just trying to imagine how you get a judge to see it that way when Sam, it sounds to me like she was healthy and sane and sober and all of that when she signed away her rights. So like, how do you paint that picture? It doesn't sound easy, but I mean, look, if you're like, I live with my mom and my mom said this is going to happen and she will only help us if she can adopt the baby. It's like, well, okay, if your choice was you're going to be homeless. I mean, you can frame things in a certain way, right? She said I would be homeless and out of my butt or I could let her adopt my daughter.

36:32Gabriel Mizrahi:Someone else is going to come and take the baby. Yeah. But it's going to be a long road, I think. Look, this is not easy. And our expert agreed. He said if Sam gave up her parental rights, that makes her situation really tough. But he also said that the facts on the ground that she's living with Anne, that she's there to parent her, that should help. But either way, the bottom line is a local attorney with adoption experience who has all the facts needs to take a look at her case. And our expert said it's best not to delay on that because that could allow a new and toxic status quo to be established.

37:00So what he's getting at is you don't want to sit around for six, nine, 12 months hoping things magically shift with her mom because the longer that goes on, the more Sam's mother's role becomes entrenched, the more power she accumulates emotionally and legally, the more Anne gets used to being raised by her, the harder it's going to be to have a court shake things up, all that. Now, I know money is tight for Sam. A lawyer is always an expense. But our expert shared something interesting with us, which is that some states have attorney's fees provisions that might make Sam's mother have to pay Sam's family law bill.

37:34And Georgia is one of those states. Based on what we've read in Georgia family law, the default rule is usually that each side pays their own lawyer. But Georgia statutes give judges broad discretion to shift fees in divorce, alimony, custody, contempt, modification cases. And apparently they make that call based on the financial disparity between the parties, whether one side controls most of the money, fairness and access to representation, stuff like that. So who knows? That could work in Sam's favor or at least make her a little bolder. Of course, there's also free legal aid groups out there, and you can find them by checking out the Georgia State Bar website.

38:09Well, any State Bar website, really.

38:11Gabriel Mizrahi:As for how to best support Sam through all this, it sounds to me like you guys are already doing that very well. Emotionally, of course, legally, logistically, even financially, I'm kind of struck by the fact that you built her a whole budget. I mean, you guys sound like very solid friends. I would say anything you can do to give your friend confidence, support, power is going to be a good thing. Getting a credit card is also an important step. I imagine it's pretty hard to be independent when you can't, you know, pay for pampers with a MasterCard, which I assume is why Sam's mom doesn't want her to have one, which again, disturbing.

38:43Yeah, this is kind of domestic violence 101 stuff. Control the person financially, limit their options, make them dependent on you.

38:50Gabriel Mizrahi:Unless, like you said, there's some other explanation. I would also continue to encourage her to build her career, hold down good jobs so she can earn money and hopefully prove to a judge one day that she is very stable and she is responsible. And then, you know, making time for her to talk when she wants to talk, of course, which I'm sure you're already doing. I think the tough thing about your position is that you can't really do very much on the custody front. Only Sam and her attorney, really her attorney, can do that. You can just help around the edges. So maybe equally important to supporting her is also remembering that you guys cannot fix her situation with her daughter or do Sam's work for her.

39:24Gabriel Mizrahi:And I love how much you're rooting for her. I love how much you're trying to prepare her for this. She's extremely lucky, but you know, there's a limit to that. And you also have to live your own lives too. Agreed. I suppose there's a whole other strategy, which I think Sam is casually pursuing, which is not to jump straight to a legal battle, but try to win her mom back over and prove to her that she's responsible so she can get Anne back. But we're not hearing anything in the letter that suggests that that's very likely. Yeah, that's the problem. And even if she informally let Anne go stay with Sam in another place, as soon as she changes her mind or just wants her for a week, she can call the police and be like, hey, I have custody.

39:58Sam's going to have to be awarded custody by a court to know that Anne is really going to be with her long-term. But like, is there a Gray Jordan approach where Sam pretends to play mom's game and gets in her good graces and says, you know, thank you so much for saving Anne from Tom's parents back then. I know you were just trying to protect us and talks about how they're going to, I don't know, raise Anne together and stuff like that. And then at a certain point, just gets her mom to voluntarily give her custody. Maybe that's an option. I don't know how likely it is to work.

40:26Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah, it is a risky way to try to get custody, but I suppose it's an option Which is why i'm afraid this might have to get a little ugly jordan in the interest of making room for All the narratives all the possible narratives. I'm glad you're going there because like I said I I do wonder I'm, just asking myself what might sam's mother say about all this in a world where This woman is not a total monster, which we don't know But in a world where she isn't because like you said, this is a fairly extreme thing to do I have to believe she's doing it for some reason. Yeah, and remember, she suddenly became emotionally abusive.

40:58This is not like she's always been this way, right? So that's something's going on here. If we could talk to Sam's mom, would she say something like, well, my daughter stayed with a guy we warned her about over and over. She got pregnant, which we warned her about. She racked up a bunch of credit card debt that we had to pay off for her. She was a mental and emotional basket case for two or three years with a newborn baby. we had to step in and make sure the kid was okay because we were all worried that the ex was going to come out of the woodwork with false allegations and take the kid away from the family.

41:27Gabriel Mizrahi:I mean, that's not out of the question. And now here she is opening the door to this guy again, and he's ghosting her and the baby again. So what does that say about her judgment? This is what her mom might think. Look, I really do feel for Sam, and I'm sorry to say, but the facts do not paint the most encouraging portrait here. And to be clear, We're speculating a little bit, perhaps wildly here. But look, if this is my daughter and she got pregnant with a guy who ghosted her and then she couldn't get out of bed in the morning for three years and she didn't have a career or a partner or seemingly many inner resources to take this huge challenge on and then the guy's floating in and out on his whims.

42:01I don't know. I might have done the same thing.

42:03Gabriel Mizrahi:Been Grandpa Jordan at 75. Well, it's Pop Pop Jordan once those papers come through. Yeah, I don't know, man. No, you're making some good points. Although I also want to say all of this is compatible with her having come a long way and we're not saying that she's unfit to parent. I'm just trying to imagine what her mother thinks about all this. Yes. Again, we do not know. Sam's mother could be a total lunatic tyrant who's trying to get between her daughter and her granddaughter. But given the facts here, this other version of events seems equally, if not more likely. And if that is true, then what does that mean for our friend here?

42:32Well, it's hard to say. It could mean that he should encourage Sam to do what's best for Anne, even if that means she doesn't get custody back.

42:39Gabriel Mizrahi:That's tough, but that might be the right move. But again, I also believe him when he says that Sam has come a long way. So, you know, maybe she is in a position to have custody again now. So I don't know, maybe this means encouraging Sam to acknowledge to her mother, if this is true, of course, that she understands her mother's reasons for pushing her to give up her rights at the time. But she's in a very different place now. She's learned a lot. She's a different person now. She wants things to change, which I can imagine that's going to be a very difficult conversation for you to have with Sam, who probably looks to you to support her unconditionally.

43:11Gabriel Mizrahi:and I imagine it'll probably be a pretty difficult conversation for Sam to have with her mother if this is the route she wants to go, but that's up to her, of course. I just think it's fascinating to consider the possibility that both of these things are true, that Sam's mother might have had some good reasons for doing what she did, and that Sam might also still deserve custody now. Exactly, and I don't mean to repeat myself, but we could be totally wrong here. I acknowledge that, but if there's even a little truth to this theory, then it's a fascinating example of how complicated these situations can be.

43:41And it might not be as black or white as Sam's mom is a monster and Sam's an angel or Sam was a nightmare and thank God her mom stepped in. There might be just a lot of gray here.

43:49Gabriel Mizrahi:And so part of your job might be helping your friend come to grips with that gray. Either way, she should seek out qualified local legal advice ASAP. I'm really sorry she's in this situation. It sounds like a nightmare. But I'm crossing my fingers that there's a way out of it. It'll take time. It's going to take a lot of work. But it sounds like it's a fight definitely worth taking on. So good luck. By the way, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise, use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a lot easier. If your sibling is pushing you to cut your parents off or what they did years ago, you're gunning for a promotion and you keep getting passed over, or you're trying to salvage a shred of hope for men after life and a bunch of studies have turned you against the gender entirely.

44:27Whatever'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. By the way, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out the newsletter, We Bit Wiser. It's a bite-sized gem from us to you just about every week, under two-minute read. If you want to keep up with the wisdom from the show, I invite you to come check it out. You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com slash news. All right, next up.

44:50Gabriel Mizrahi:Dear Jordan and Gabe, my daughter is 47 and has been married to her husband for 21 years. Early in their marriage, they decided that he would manage the finances. Although she questioned him often, at least two to three times a week to confirm what he had been telling her, she never actually looked at any financial records. Okay, but two or three times a week. I mean, we flat put a pin in that. Having been widowed at 46 with debt from a husband who overspent and had no life insurance, I learned how important it is to know where my finances stand. I encouraged her to work together with him, but she chose to trust him with the money management.

45:27Gabriel Mizrahi:After listening to a podcast on the topic, she decided to run her credit report and was completely shocked by what she found. He had told her that they had no debt other than their mortgage and that they had at least$85 ,000 in savings. After a car accident two years ago, they decided they had the cash to pay for a new car. He lied about that and had taken out several personal loans with extremely high interest rates to pay quote-unquote cash for the car. He's also juggling multiple credit cards. He invested in crypto and stocks through his company, saying it was a way to make more money, but supposedly has closed those accounts.

46:03Gabriel Mizrahi:He also lied to her about his salary bonuses, saying his company had stopped them, even though he was getting a minimum of$4 ,000 per quarter, as well as contributing$1 ,000 a month to his personal 401k. The combined debt is now over$75 ,000 with no savings. I am never going to financially recover from this. Oh, is that Joe Exotic? That's so funny. Yeah, man. When the person gets their arm chewed off. His first thought is, oh man, I'm never going to financially recover from this. Oh, this is a nightmare, isn't it? Yeah, this guy's out of control. Or he's just extremely inept with his finances, but it sounds like he was lying about a lot of it and possibly moving money somewhere where he didn't want to admit money was going.

46:45Gabriel Mizrahi:He cannot or will not explain where the money went or why he continued down this path. I'm thinking he pissed it away on dumb crypto plays or he has a secret gambling addiction. That's possible. That's kind of where my mind went. Like, Is he hitting FanDuel every night and he's in over his head? I mean, or he's got a secret family in another state or something, but he sounds inept enough to not actually be able to manage that kind of thing. But this is a lot of money to just lose in the market. I mean... Yeah, it went somewhere. Apparently, he made up elaborate stories for years, but in ways that somehow made sense to her based on their income, spending habits, and savings.

47:19Gabriel Mizrahi:She's still not sure if he has told her everything. My daughter is completely devastated, overwhelmed, and heartbroken. but is determined to repair what she can and build her own security. She feels like a fool and is ashamed, although I've told her many times that she did nothing wrong. She is a loving, caring, strong, intelligent, and beautiful woman who needs help. She is the best mother I know, works tirelessly, and devotes herself to her four teenagers every day. Because of this, they are secure and confident, and she is determined to keep it that way. They love their dad, so she didn't ask him to leave and is not considering divorce.

47:58Gabriel Mizrahi:From the outside, he appeared to be a good man who provided for and took care of his family. Being the operative term, I guess. Coached his boys in basketball, went to church, and clearly loved his wife and family. Although she is the dominant one in the relationship, she always put her husband and kids first. Okay, curious last sentence there, but okay, I hear you on all this. Jordan, I'm not sure I could stay with somebody who lied to me about something this big when the consequences are this severe. I don't think I could either. Like, where do they go from here? How does she trust him again?

48:31This is a massive betrayal. The only scenario where I could maybe imagine staying is if my spouse totally came clean, confessed everything, apologized, showed where the money went, which he still won't do, said, I have a problem. Here's what the problem is. I'm getting help for it. I want to get better and make it right. Then maybe I would be able to stay if they were sincere and they were able to make real progress on whatever was driving their financial problems. But it sounds to me like our friend's daughter is just like, well, the kids love their dad. And if we separate, they won't be secure and confident anymore.

48:59So that's off the table. I know we're not hearing from her, but I just I don't understand the logic here.

49:05Gabriel Mizrahi:Also, what he did to his wife, he also did to his kids. He's compromising all of them. Of course. And if she's such a good mom, there's no reason that that should have to change if they separated. Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But I just wonder if she would do even better apart from this guy who's compromising them in all these ways. Well, yeah. And this stuff could plague her for years. They have no savings and they have 75K debt. I don't know how much they make, but if you don't make several hundred thousand dollars a year, that's going to take forever to pay off. And especially if he's got high interest personal loans.

49:34My theory, I'm going to speculate again, she's so devastated, she's so embarrassed, and to be fair, maybe confused and overwhelmed that she doesn't want to make any big decisions on the marriage because it'll just confirm that she was kind of asleep at the wheel and knew something was off and asked him three times a week and never got a satisfying answer. and she just doesn't want to acknowledge all the implications.

49:53Gabriel Mizrahi:Which, to be fair, I do have some compassion for her. I've been in this situation with business partners in the past where you're like, I want to see the bank statements. And they give you the runaround. It's more comfortable to keep your head in the sand. Years and years and years and years ago, like double digit, 15, 16, even, I don't even know, 17, 18 years ago, right when I first started my first business, one of my first businesses, we had this CEO guy and he was managing the company funds. and this is something he did for his real estate brokerage or whatever. And we would be like, I want to see the money.

50:24I want to see the statements. And he would show us this Excel spreadsheet with all these different things in it. And I'm like, okay, but that's not a bank statement. He's like, come on, man, you're wasting my time. And I was like, all right, fine. All right, fine. Everyone's like, what are you worried about? What are you worried about? Well, later on, I finally was like, what in the heck is going on here? Well, this guy kept getting more and more stressed out to the point where we sent him away for a week to go on vacation because he was throwing chairs in the office. I mean, he was totally ridiculous.

50:48We had like an intervention meeting and it was completely insane. And so we're like, you need to go take a break, go back home, relax for a week. So he goes back home and we're getting mail and we're like, oh, okay, there's mail from American Express. It's got his name on it, but it's our company and it's our Amex. So let's open it. And he had all these bills and things like that in his email. Cause I don't know why he thought we weren't going to log into the company email. It's company email. So we were logging into that and seeing that he had like all these overdue bills. So what this guy was doing was, and thankfully he did it this way, he opened up a bunch of credit cards in his name personally, and he took all of the money out of that and would use that cash to pay company debts.

51:29I don't know why he was doing that, probably because he would need our sign off to borrow money otherwise, and we wouldn't have wanted to do that. And I don't know why he did this, but again, he borrowed personally and then funneled it into the company. And we were like, dude, you didn't have permission to do all this. And our lawyers were like, you need to tell him that these are not your debts, you don't accept them. And so he ended up declaring bankruptcy. And it's crazy, because he did pay for company expenses, but it was like company expenses that only he wanted. So we basically had to, we terminated him, and then he just had to hold the bag.

52:00Gabriel Mizrahi:That's really messed up. Yeah, so he didn't have a case. He tried to stiff the company with that, and he kept being like, you need to write me a note that says you owe me all this, and that the money was corporate. But even his own lawyer was like, so you didn't have their permission, you took personal debt, you used it to pay for company things that they didn't approve and you want them to reimburse you? No. So yeah, he was just SOL. It's just absolutely crazy. But it was all like, you worry about your job, I'll worry about mine. You know, it's that whole nonsense. So yeah, I don't know. For months, I was like, okay, Simon's got it handled.

52:31I don't want to know about the finances. I was basically this woman's daughter too at one point. So I get how this happens.

52:37Gabriel Mizrahi:I'm furious at him and the destruction he caused, but I have assured my daughter that I will be walking with her every step of the way. I'm also concerned about my daughter's mental and emotional health. I'm encouraging therapy to deal with all that has been put on her. She truly believed she was married to the love of her life and is now remembering all the good times she had with her husband. Again, I really do understand how tough this must be for her. She's still coming to terms with all this. She's mourning their marriage, the marriage she thought she had. I get that. But this is kind of what I was getting at a moment ago, she might not want to be in touch with all this pain.

53:09So she's jumping straight to we're staying together for the kids. Anyway, yeah, I think it would be great if she could talk to someone.

53:15Gabriel Mizrahi:I've recommended that she ensures her name is off any joint debts other than their mortgage and opens bank accounts in her name only. Yeah, smart, smart. But also, isn't that what you do when you're preparing to divorce? Can you do that if you're still married? You can if you're still married, but it doesn't. The problem that I think a lot of people have is they think like, oh, I opened this account and it's in my own name, therefore this is only my property. And that's not how this works. But if you want to keep your deadbeat husband from wasting it on a parlay bet on FanDuel, you can open it up, put it in your name, and technically he owns some of it, but it doesn't mean that he can go and take it at a moment's notice with a debit card or something like that, right?

53:54He would have to ask you for it. And that's if he knows about it. Just saying. There's a difference between what's legally owned by somebody in a divorce proceeding as community property and what somebody can access on a moment's notice without you noticing. Those are two different things.

54:07Gabriel Mizrahi:What is your recommendation for actions that she can take now and in the future? Does she need a financial attorney to advise her through this mess? If so, where do we start? And how can I encourage her to start therapy to help her through this process of grief and financial instability? Signed, Helping My Daughter Who Wants to Overlook, the fact that her husband was playing funny with the books. Man, what a nightmare. So stressful. I'm very sorry for your daughter. A bomb has just been dropped in her life, and that is awful. And I'm also very sorry for you as her mom having to watch her deal with the fallout and also sometimes disagreeing with her about what she should do.

54:42But your commitment to supporting her no matter what, respecting her autonomy to decide, that sounds thoughtful on your part. It's gotta be hard sometimes, but it's probably the right stance to take. And I'm sure it means a lot to your daughter. so to be very tactical for a moment, I think the most important thing that your daughter needs to do is find out as much as she can about what the heck is going on here. That means obtain all credit reports from all three credit bureaus, pull every bank statement, even if she needs to go to the bank and do it herself, every retirement account, every loan, every credit card, every tax return, every investment account, every line of credit, document everything and not because she needs to divorce her husband immediately.

55:23she really needs to do this because well she needs to know how bad the problem really is and wrap her head around how many different liabilities there are actually because she's still largely taking this guy's word her husband's word for all this and his word has less value than the shitcoin crypto he bought by draining his 401k also new debts and losses and weird purchases might reveal themselves over time there's a reason this guy's still being cagey look i've never been in this situation. But if you ask me, where did that$100 ,000 go? I don't go, gosh, I don't know. It's just so crazy around here.

55:59There's a lot going on. No, you're not running a business with 10 ,000 different transactions per month that he's got to sift through and add it all up. He knows where the money went. He just doesn't want to tell you. So she can't really decide what to do next. She can't make the best possible decision without understanding the full picture. If I were her, I would also be pushing for answers about where all of the money went. I would encourage your daughter to hold this guy's feet to the fire, do some digging of her own to figure out how he spent it. Because if he has a gambling addiction, or he's a compulsive spender, or he's just a terrible investor that buys get rich quick nonsense crypto, or he's got a secret cocaine addiction or something, Mr.

56:35Girlfriend somewhere, or he's just a hot mess in general, those are all different problems with different degrees of risk, different origins and different solutions. So I'm not sure if your daughter can even responsibly make the call about whether to separate or stay or what kind of help to get her husband without knowing what the actual freaking problem is, right? Because Gabe, it's like you are less likely to stay with somebody who maybe has a girlfriend on the side versus just a bad investor. Those are two very different things, man.

57:04Gabriel Mizrahi:The fact that she doesn't actually know what the problem is after discovering all of this and confronting him and doesn't, based on this letter anyway, seem particularly eager to get to the bottom of that problem and really, that itself is a problem to me, and it starts to become her problem, not just his. Yes. And again, that's where I get confused by this daughter. She's saying, we're staying together for the kids, and she still doesn't even know if her husband has a secret kid in Florida, or is sending all the money up his nose, or is addicted to dodgy crypto Twitter plays, or what. I don't quite know how she's thinking about this whole situation, but it kind of fits with the, well, I questioned him, but took his word for it for years.

57:43It just smacks of avoidance. and willful blindness to me, especially at this point.

57:48Gabriel Mizrahi:Also kind of chips away at the whole, she's the dominant one in the relationship comment too. I'm kind of confused by that. I mean, she might manage the family calendar and talk the most at the dinner table, but as long as she doesn't even, she's not looking into this. She's not holding her husband accountable. She has no idea where the money went and where the money is and how much debt they have. I'm not so sure she's wearing the pants in the family. And right now she needs to wear the pants because this dude can't even pay for the pants that he's wearing. He can't afford the pants. Do you think she needs an attorney at this point?

58:16I think she needs to pull all their credit reports, look at all their bank statements and all their account summaries and get a handle on things. And then once she figures out how bad this is, she probably needs a debt counselor, not a debt consolidator. Those are dangerous and skeezy sometimes, but a debt counselor, somebody who can help her slash them come up with a plan to manage and tackle the debt and hopefully climb out of it. If they can't, she might need to consult with a bankruptcy attorney, which I think is what she meant by financial attorney in the letter. She might also need a divorce attorney.

58:46They're good at looking for assets, by the way. But I think maybe we've covered that. And I suppose that's up to her. Maybe she's not there yet. If she has a friend who's an accountant or something like that, she could also ask them and say, where else should I be looking? Because sometimes accountants or even divorce attorneys, they could do something like, well, here's where I'd look for hidden assets, or here's where I'd look for certain funds. And you can do that kind of thing just to make sure that there's not a secret slush fund somewhere else.

59:13Gabriel Mizrahi:Oh boy, the forensics on this thing are going to be not fun. This is going to take a while to untangle, I'm afraid. Look, if you wanted to go to therapy, which I do agree would probably help her see things more clearly, or at least I hope it does, I would say something like, listen, you're going through a lot right now. I can see that it's confusing. I can see that it's overwhelming. I would really love for you to have someone to talk to. And you could even offer to find her some names if that would help her. You can check out the listings. You can do some searches in her area if she's open to that.

59:40Gabriel Mizrahi:But I'm guessing you're asking this question because your daughter is maybe resisting therapy or because you want her to go to tackle these deeper things, like you said, grief and instability and what to do about her marriage, but you don't want to spook her, right? So I guess my thought there is maybe don't talk too much about the specifics of what you hope she's going to discuss there or the particular outcomes that you're hoping she will arrive at in therapy. That's her process and that's going to take care of itself. I would just listen to what she shares with you and then you can say, that sounds really hard.

1:00:11Gabriel Mizrahi:This is very confusing. So intense. I'm sure it's tough to handle on your own. You know, it would be great if you had a professional to talk to about all that. I don't know what else you're supposed to do. That sounds like the right move. Man, it must be so hard for our friend here to watch her daughter stick around with this bonehead and not be like, go to therapy and call a divorce attorney. Especially given what our friend here has been through herself. She clearly has a different life experience. Widowed at 46 with debt from a husband who overspent on crap and had no life insurance. I'm sure she's looking at all this and she's like, girl, listen to me.

1:00:43Gabriel Mizrahi:It's also very interesting that both mother and daughter ended up with financially reckless men. Well, okay. I mean, good point. I mean, how that happened, we don't know. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's a parallel that's kind of impossible to ignore in this story. Something else that I hope would come up in therapy, maybe the most important thing, honestly. Yeah, I think that's quite fascinating. If I were the daughter, I think I'd want to figure that out. You know, like, huh, my father spent recklessly. Now I've married a man who spends recklessly and hides information from me. What's the pattern here?

1:01:11Why did I pick this guy? How did I help create this situation somehow?

1:01:15Gabriel Mizrahi:Yeah, those are powerful questions. But again, up to the daughter to decide if she wants to go there. Maybe she doesn't. Now I'm wondering if mom has done any of this work herself and if it's helped her at all. And if she can tell her daughter, hey, I've talked to somebody about this stuff. Helped me a lot. I see the patterns and I see you're running into this. For sure. And if she hasn't done that, that might be interesting, too. Is that part of the reason that she wants her daughter to go to therapy so badly? Oh, interesting. Because, yeah, she does seem to be locating a lot of herself in her daughter's story, which is understandable given the parallels.

1:01:43But, yeah, is guiding her daughter through this in a particular way also a way for her to come to grips with parts of her own story, maybe even to do some of this work by proxy? Maybe, maybe not. It's a good thing to keep an eye on. In any event, I'm very sorry things played out this way. My heart goes out to your daughter. It really does. but she has to find out about all this eventually. If this had continued, it would have only gotten worse, for sure. So in a way, I'm glad your daughter's finding out now, as awful as it is. I hope she could be proactive, diligent, and courageous and start to take some action, whatever that looks like for her.

1:02:16Sending you both a big hug and wishing you all the best. Garrett, the Dogecoin enthusiast with the maybe cocaine addiction and a secret kid in Louisiana, not so much. Good luck. Also, in case you don't know, there's a subreddit for the show if you want to jump into discussions. A lot of Feedback Friday threads in there from people with a wide breadth of life experiences and some experts in there. You can find all that on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. Take a moment, support the sponsors.

1:02:46They're all searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If something's not working quite right for you, email us jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you and see what's going on. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. And now for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lit filler. My recommendation of the week is the option to freeze your credit and that of your kids, especially. If you don't know what this means, freezing your credit means restricting access to your credit report, which effectively stops anyone, including you or an identity thief, from opening new credit accounts in your name.

1:03:20This is one of the most effective ways to prevent identity theft, and it is always 100 % free by law here in the United States. You can also do this on behalf of your kids if they are minors, which helps against what's called synthetic ID fraud, which is a whole other sort of ball of wax. That's where people use a kid's name, and they add an adult bio to it, and then they open up credit cards in their name. They buy cars, whatever it is. If you don't freeze the kid's credit, someone could theoretically use your kids' information to rack up debts, and you have to unwind those, I don't know, 18 years later or whatever when you find out it's all happened.

1:03:56It could take years to unwind, and this happens all the time. People literally sell child bank accounts and identity information on the dark web for like 50 bucks. It's ridiculously easy to do. It's insane how easy this is to get away with. My feeling is better to do this for your kids now than take a risk and straighten it out later. Freezing your credit is free. It's really fast. I think I was like, oh God, I got to set aside this Saturday morning to do it. And 15 minutes later or something like that, I was done. It's really also easy to undo and then redo. So if you're thinking like, oh, I'm going to buy a car in a couple months.

1:04:29I don't want to freeze it now. Freeze it now. When you go to the dealership, you can unfreeze it the morning of, buy the car and refreeze it later that day. This is the financial equivalent of locking your front door. All you have to do is go to each of the credit bureaus' websites, It's Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, and you basically toggle a switch on there and you're done. Really easy. This is big time bang for your buck in terms of the time investment and the protection you get from doing it. All right. This last segment is sponsored by BetterHelp, and we're going to do something a little different.

1:04:59We're going to air a short conversation that I recorded with my dad. This is his first time on the show ever. It's the first time on any show. Obviously, I guess I should point that out. He's not a professional. He's just my dad talking about his experience going to therapy at 80 years old, which is pretty wild. Little Father's Day segment in honor of all the dads out there and a testament to the power of talking, storytelling, and finding a new way to meet the many challenges of life at every stage. This is the first time I'm having my dad on the show. It's only going to be a couple of minutes.

1:05:34He's an acquired taste. Dad, thanks for coming on the show. I think a lot of people probably have wanted to hear from you for a long time. But I was reluctant to bring you on, you know? I don't know. Don't make me regret this. Well, the pay is kind of bad. Yeah. For you. I'm fine. I wanted to talk about therapy. The Father's Day segment here, this is a pretty good opportunity for us to talk about your experience with therapy. I was shocked, actually, when you asked me about BetterHelp. I was not expecting that. I think your generation maybe was not super pro-therapy for a while. No, there was a stigma.

1:06:14Yeah. Way back when, if you said you're in therapy, immediately people think, oh, man, he's cuckoo. He's crazy, man. Getting shocks on his brain. What did you think therapy was when you first started? I thought something like you see on TV, where you're on a couch and a guy's sitting there on a chair talking to you and he asks you why are you here and stuff like that yeah well that's kind of what it ended up being i assume except you're on the phone with better help what surprised you about the therapy finally i got somebody to hear me out without interruptions i didn't want to interrupt you there that would have been ironic yeah yeah what was the most uncomfortable part for you because you've changed a lot as I've grown older, but you're, we're never really a sharer of feelings probably.

1:07:11That's true. Yeah. Finally, I had enough confidence to tell a complete stranger what my issues were at the time. You see, I wouldn't do that. You would try to solve the problem yourself. Yeah. And then if you couldn't - Self-diagnosis, you know? Yeah, sure. And then what, if you couldn't do that, what do you do? Just bottle it up and get angry forever? Yeah, you just bought it right. Go play racquetball for an hour and a half. That explains a lot. Okay. Back in the day, would you have done this when you were 40 years old? No. 40-year-old you have done this. No? No. Those are the racquetball days.

1:07:43That's right. That was a stress reliever. Would your dad have done this? Would grandpa have done this? No. No? No. What did he do to unwind? He would go in the garage. He did a lot of work in the garage, working with tools, wood, he would make things. That's what he would do. That was his stress relief, get away from the family and go out in the garage. He had eight kids, I get it. Yeah, seven. Seven. Whoops. Sorry, yeah, thanks, Jordan. Whoops. Yeah, we're going to cut that out, aren't we? He did have eight kids, but we're not going to talk about that. That's true. Yeah, I wasn't planning on getting that into the weeds on the segment.

1:08:21what advice would you give younger dads you think younger dads keep a well-balanced life work and home life you got to balance it out i was predominantly in the work side sad to say but it's true yeah i know that's right i did notice so you regret that you think oh yeah Yeah, I read it all the time. That's why I was the main instigator to coming out here. To move into California? Oh, yeah, I wanted to see the grandkids be raised. So for those who don't know, you and Mom moved from Michigan, where I grew up, to California across the street. And that's a big move. It's a monumental move. I was 80 and Ma was 83.

1:09:16All our friends were back home. Neighbors, people that we can trust, all back home. We had a house, and to be honest about it, we were in cruise control. Yeah, sure. It was supposed to be the easiest time where you don't have to ever think about anything. Yeah, but the issue was the grandkids. My mom was kind of reluctant because she had all her friends in Michigan. Yeah. It was a big move. It is a big move, but yeah, that was the choice, right? It was like, do you want to see your grandkids every day or do you want to see them twice, three times a year? That's unacceptable to me. It's a lifetime opportunity for us to see the grandkids grow up.

1:09:55They're only going to grow up once or you've got to take it all in. Was mom already having memory issues by the time you guys decided to move? Yeah, but it wasn't as pronounced as it is today because mom, all of a sudden, within a week or two, I noticed a big difference. and that's when I started saying hey we got to go talk to the doctor and well there's nothing wrong with me oh yeah it's interesting she said there's nothing wrong with me because I remember when I came back a couple of years ago I think Jen came with me yeah mom had this big basket a lot you know those plastic laundry baskets she used to always have she had this big basket and she goes I want you to go through this basket in the box in your room and I did it probably the first day I was there.

1:10:41And then at the end of the trip, she goes, I'm really disappointed. And you asked you to do one thing and you didn't do it. And I said, what is that? And she goes, go through the basket and the box. And I said, mom, I did that on the first day. And she goes, no, you didn't. And then I said, I did. And then she walked into my room and she goes, oh yeah. And then she came out and she goes, I think this is the beginning of something for me because I've been doing this. She said she forgot, she's been forgetting things. It's interesting that she kept telling me, oh, oh, this is the beginning. I'm starting to forget things.

1:11:11And then when you told her to go to the doctor, she said, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. Sometimes when you live with somebody, the old saying, you can't see the trees through the forest or the forest through the trees. Yeah, because she had her own activities. I had mine. And we would meet up for dinner. Which in our house back then was a bologna sandwich. A bologna sandwich, stale bread, no mustard. Ma quit cooking years ago. You're lucky. Yeah, exactly. Say that again. But yeah, I noticed the subtle differences. But then all of a sudden, she gets in an accident. She didn't even know she hit a mailbox, right?

1:11:51No. She says, I thought I hit something. I says, well, you did hit something because the passenger side mirror is dangling down. Yeah. Oh, maybe I hit a mailbox. So I drove up and down the street to find out because I wanted to tell the people, hey, my wife hit your mailbox. I couldn't find any. Was that hard on you, seeing your wife starting to forget things? Yeah, it's hard on me now. Is that one of the reasons you went to therapy? Uh, no. No, I wanted to, you know, with the move. That was big. What do you wish dads talked about more? Probably their home life. With people that they love and not guys at work.

1:12:38Guys at work probably knew more about the family than my family. Oh, I see. About each other. What do you think I do differently as a dad than you did? Your interaction with your kids. You and Jenny are home, which is a good deal. And I like that. That's something I wish I would have did. That was impossible back then. You worked at Ford. You can't work from home. But that's still when I worked. I mean, I work 12 hours a day, six, seven days a week. That's unacceptable. One thing I've learned through therapy is this asking for support is okay. But I feel like I wasn't raised that way, but not because of you and mom, but mostly because I think even my whole generation was raised to be self-reliant.

1:13:26You shouldn't lean on other people all the time. Your generation was ignore problems, sweep them under the rug. My generation was maybe we don't ignore the problem and we deal with it, but you deal deal with it on your own. Yeah, that's true. If you had a problem, you put it on a back burner, but then you get another problem. And this is one thing I did learn through therapy is don't go through what-if scenarios. Because I was always the one that, what happens if this one, how about this? I was all the different what-ifs and cleared my mind when I was talking to the therapist, just take one thing at a time, be calm about it, and eliminate all the trash and the what-if scenarios.

1:14:15Did you find it easy to match with a therapist? I've gone through a few of them. No, this guy was great. Really? He got lucky the first time? Oh, yeah. Good for you. He was really great. Yeah. Do you think therapy would have helped you be a better father had you done it, I don't know, 40 years ago? Oh, yeah. No doubt in my mind. That wasn't even a thing for your generation, work-life balance, was it? No. Everybody I knew worked in this particular industry. The automotive industry, it's hectic. And I launched new cars, worked in the assembly plants, manufacturing plants. A lot of what I've learned about being a dad does come from you.

1:14:55Some of the stuff is, you said, a negative example, but I think I took a lot of positive examples too. work hard all the time. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that I am around for my kids so much is because I remember that you had to work a lot. But I don't really blame you for that. I feel like you did the best you could at the time and you did what you thought was right at the time. Well, like I said, years ago, if you say you're going to talk to a therapist, everybody thought you were, oh man, this guy's crazy. Stay away from him. He's going to tell you all his problems. You know, that's the way it was.

1:15:29So you said that better help helped you out. But how? In what way? Was it just having someone listen? Or did it make things feel less bottled up? No, what I liked about it was I was in my own environment. It made me feel more comfortable. And when I talked to the therapist, I talked to him like I was talking to a friend. A friend who never interrupted, was concerned about my issue. and he stated, this is what I think should happen. This is what I think you should do. Were you skeptical at all about doing therapy from the internet? Okay. What were you skeptical about? Telling a complete stranger my problems.

1:16:11Yeah. That's what I was skeptical about. And it had to do with the taboo of ridicule, people talking behind your back. This is the old school. Like I said, back in the day, you solved your problems with alcohol or another means necessary. Go play racquetball or whatever your stress reliever is. That's what you did. But the only problem with that is, you still have the problem. You're just avoiding the problem. Yeah. You just prolong it. Did you think it would be awkward or that maybe you wouldn't know what to say? No. What I really liked is that he was a good listener. and I could tell from his comments afterwards that he did listen because he gave me the feedback.

1:16:58Do you think you would have done the therapy if you had to go there or was it more convenient because it was on the phone? If I had to go there, the only bad thing about it is that's the taboo. Everybody knows room 101 is where the therapist is. Sure. And you go in there and they say, oh, there goes another looney-tooney. So discretion by doing it on the phone is better for you. You have a lot of notes. Are those your therapy notes? Yeah, those are my therapy notes. Shocked that you can read those, actually. What did you take notes on? You don't have to give specifics, but I'm curious. Yeah, nothing's an emergency.

1:17:34Calm down because people get excited. As you know. No, never. I don't get excited. No. Yeah. Never seen that. Yeah. Yeah. One thing also, he gave me answers that I really didn't think about because it was an accumulation of problems. So I went from one problem to the next. We had 80 years. Yeah, 80 years, 80 years of issues. Yeah. Wow. What would you tell another dad your age who thinks therapy maybe is not for him? I would say try it. Try it. and see what happens, and you'll be surprised, because I was surprised. You said I'm taking notes? Yeah, I was taking notes, and I'm glad I did, because then I could go back and find out exactly what he was talking about.

1:18:33Yeah. Do you think men wait too long to ask for help? No doubt about it. That's why we've got a lot of bars. Yeah, probably. Thanks for coming on, Dad. But you're welcome. I'll send you my bill. Sure. Yeah. Have your agent invoice us. Big thanks to my dad for jumping on and doing this one with me. I really enjoyed talking to him like this. It was very new for us, as you could probably tell. I'm honestly quite touched that he gave therapy a try so late in life, and he's just getting so much out of it. I find it inspiring, really. And also, I love that he took all those therapy notes. How awesome is that?

1:19:11If therapy is something you've been thinking about trying, or if hearing me interview my dad makes you think, wow, these two are actually pretty well adjusted. You can support the show and get started at betterhelp.com slash Jordan. That's it for this week. Go back and check out the episodes we did this week with David Epstein on constraints and Dr. David Maimon on cybercrime and our skeptical Sunday on avocados. If you haven't done so yet, don't worry, you're still going to eat avocados. I should say that because people are like, you've ruined coffee for me. Don't ruin avocados. We're not going to ruin it.

1:19:38It's just a wild sort of backstory with the good old avos. 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. Teaching you how to build that same thing for yourself for free over in our six-minute networking course. It's great for professionals, no matter what stage you are in your career, and it's even good if you're retired. The course is free. There's no shenanigans. It's over on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:20:08I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Insta at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, Tadis Adlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today.

1:20:38In 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. When a government bans words, people turn language into code. LaWai86 reveals how Chinese citizens hide dissent in memes, emojis, and mythical creatures, and how AI is now learning to crack those codes. Hear how this censorship cat and mouse game is getting darker on episode 1299 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:21:03Gabriel Mizrahi:We have to understand that China is an absolute totalitarian dictatorship. So these words to get around censorship are very necessary. And I want to say the punishments before we get into this to understand what Chinese people face in terms of trying to express themselves. If you spread rumors, you can get three years in prison. The second level of this is picking quarrels, making people have a debate or a discussion about something online. And if the government decides that you're having a discussion about something they don't want you to talk about, that gets you five years in prison. And then you have inciting subversion.

1:21:39And in China, that is absolutely positively the worst thing you can do. I mean, to the Chinese government, that's like treason almost. So they can get you up to 15 years in prison. And people do face these jail times just for stuff they post online.

1:21:51Gabriel Mizrahi:So keep that in mind when we try to decode some of this language. People are literally risking their freedom and lives to post these things and get their worries out there into the world. To drink tea means you actually go to the police station because the tradition is if you go into any sort of Chinese building or something, you're offered some tea or hot water and a cup. Recently, the way of talking about the current economic situation in China has gotten people arrested. Talk egg prices. If you talk about specifically just eggs, oh, egg prices are really high right now. That's like how to express discontent that life is getting too uncomfortable.

1:22:25Talking about the leader is so off limits, it's not even funny. I mean, that's where you get the 15 years to just actually just disappearing. People that do bring up or ask the leader to step down, that is the worst thing you can do in China, period. Laowai86 reveals how Chinese citizens hide dissent in memes, emojis, and mythical creatures on episode 1299 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:22:59Gabriel Mizrahi:Did you know writers who switch and save with Progressive save nearly$200 per year? That's a whole new pair of writing gloves and more. Quote today. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of$197 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2024 and September 2025. Potential savings will vary. This episode is sponsored in part by Everything Everywhere Daily. You've heard the phrase, learn something new every day. Sounds nice, but do you actively do it? That's where Everything Everywhere Daily comes in. This podcast makes it effortless.

1:23:34Just 10 minutes a day, you'll walk away with a fascinating fact, a slice of history, a science gem. It's no wonder the show has climbed up to the top as the number one history podcast. It covers history, science, technology, geography, and stories of remarkable people, always in a way that keeps you hooked. Not sure where to jump in? Start with these favorites. The eruption of Krakatoa, nature's fury in one of the deadliest volcanic events ever recorded. Or the spice trade, how a handful of spices changed the course of global history. If you want to make learning effortless and fun, check out Everything Everywhere Daily.

1:24:03It's quick, fascinating, and a perfect way to stay curious. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.