977: Do You Strive for a Love That Can't Survive? | Feedback Friday

23:00So when she says, I won't have my relationship held hostage by this other woman, when she says, you know, if you want to save our relationship, you need to go to therapy with me. And when she says, I care about him, and I feel like our future is worth fighting for. I do wonder if what she's really saying is, please pick me, like, please confirm for me that I really am the top priority in your life, that you really do love me, that you want to get better, because to admit that I might not be your priority, that you don't feel the same way about me, or that these other relationships or this addiction are more powerful than the feelings you have for me, and you can't treat me the way I deserve, all of that is just too devastating.

23:39And it would confirm for me that I really should be embarrassed for investing the last six years in you. Look, that would be a wound that would be extremely difficult for anyone to bear. So my question is, do you really feel like the future you could have is worth fighting for? Or do you feel like you're so hurt and so vulnerable right now that your only option seems to be to double down on this relationship to avoid confronting that hurt? That's exactly right. This guy has shown her in so many ways that he's either unwilling or unable to have a healthy, respectful, reciprocal relationship with her.

24:11That's the bottom line. And she didn't have the full story until recently, but in a variety of ways, she's sort of colluded with this guy in this limited relationship by accepting his reasons, at least as partly bogus reasons, for not moving forward together. And to your point, in addition to being deeply hurt by him, she also feels that she's got egg on her face. And I get it, man. But when you have egg on your face, the answer can't be, well, let's stay together so I can pretend my face is not covered in egg. The answer has to be, I need to take a step back and get some perspective on this relationship and separate my hurt from your actions, from my expectations, and grieve this relationship and my hopes for that relationship.

24:51And then, and only then, to decide whether there's really a future here. Yes, that's exactly right. But if I can just be a total Lydia here, spoiler alert, I don't think there's a future here. Not a healthy one, not a respectful one, not anytime soon. this guy, he's gotta do a ton of work on himself. Work that he owes himself first and foremost before he even considers how it intersects with you. And you would have to do a lot of growth and introspection yourself to figure out how you showed up in this relationship. What you want from a relationship. What you can reasonably expect from this guy.

25:24And at this stage, I'm just afraid my answer is not much. So rather than wondering how to rebuild trust with your boyfriend, your cheating, evasive, commitment-phobic, possibly sex-addicted boyfriend, I would ask yourself a much more important question. What do I need right now? How can I help myself find the healing and insight that I need to navigate all this? And what am I protecting? In him and in myself, by hoping to save this relationship, answer those questions, and I know they're gonna lead you to the right decision. And you can always revisit this down the road. It's an option. But for now, prioritize you.

26:01We're sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. And just think, now you don't have to learn how to cook gormisabzi now. You're off the hook. That's a good point. Yeah. That's a complicated recipe right there. So she's going to have so much more time on her hands. That's right. You're free. Free of those chains. You know what else you're going to want to stroke multiple times a day, Gabriel? The key is on your keyboard to access the sexy discounts on the irresistible products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors does keep the lights on around here.

26:32All of the deals, discounts, and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 32-year-old American guy pursuing a career in international business focusing on U.S.-China trade. I'm fluent in Mandarin, have extensive experience living and working in China, and recently completed an MBA program. That is incredible. Very cool. You're killing it, man. Fluent in Mandarin is really hard. So, I mean, I don't even know what an MBA program is like.

27:09Definitely not as hard as becoming fluent in Mandarin. So I'll give you that. Now I work for an American company that was recently acquired by a Chinese group. I've climbed the corporate ladder relatively quickly and am viewed by many as a rising star in the organization. But I find it difficult to ignore the grim reality of China's economic trajectory and the fact that its government is a malignant force in the world. Despite claims that our new owner operates, quote-unquote, independently of the Chinese government, anybody with basic knowledge in the space knows that that is not the truth. For sure.

27:40All these companies have ties to the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, in some form or another. You can't escape it. Some people think it's like a weird conspiracy theory, but it's not at all. By law, major Chinese companies have to have CCP oversight and or personnel directly in the company influencing things inside the company in order to operate. And yes, it's an American company, but if it's owned by a Chinese company, then the parent company is influenced by this. And yes, they would be instructed to do the same for their subsidiaries in the United States. Furthermore, as I've risen up, I've observed our owner exerting more influence in our company's day-to-day decision-making, leading to outcomes that I believe are both financially suboptimal and also morally objectionable.

28:24Oh, suboptimal, huh? I see that MBA is really paying off. I do kind of love that word. I use it sometimes as in sending me and my kids a cake with eight servings of espresso at 9 p.m. was a suboptimal decision on your part. Okay. Once again, I didn't send it to you at 9 p.m. You fed it to them at 9 p.m. So really, that was a suboptimal move on your part. But, you know, there was no warning on what kind of cake it was in advance, which is both suboptimal and morally objectionable. And perhaps negligent. So I guess I really am this. I'm the CCP of birthday cake, I guess. Just inflicting harm with every product I export to your home.

29:01You're the Mao Zedong of pastries. That's what is happening here. Noted. Fair enough. So he goes on. I've raised these concerns with several co-workers who generally agree with my assessment, but feel powerless to stop it. Yeah. Unfortunately, you probably are powerless to stop it. You can't change how Chinese companies operate. You can't take on CCP influence inside your company on your own. That's not going to happen. No way. There's no Aaron Brockovich-ing your way out of this, I think. Not a chance. The result has been the most toxic work environment I have ever experienced in my career. Unfortunately, the skill set that got me to this point also means that I am often the person selected to drive many of these projects.

29:39At this point, I feel like I should be enjoying the benefits of the hard work I've put in over the last decade. Instead, I find myself working nights and weekends in a high-stress environment with little time for anything else. The heavy workload is bad for my physical health, and my moral disagreements are taking a mental toll as well. Yeah, man, I hear you. And that second one, the mental slash moral toll, sometimes that's even harder than the 80-hour work weeks. I mean, you got to sleep at night. If you can't, well, you can't. I know on some level, I need to extricate myself in this position and find something else, but two things are preventing me from making a change.

30:12The first is financial. I paid for my MBA by taking out considerable loans, and I also accepted a large bonus that I would need to pay back in full if I leave the company within the next two years. My compensation should allow me to pay everything off in the next two years, but the cost to my health would be considerable. Moving to something else where my skills wouldn't be as relevant would almost certainly mean a decrease in income. The second reason is emotional. I've worked extraordinarily hard and made significant sacrifices to develop the skills to get to this point. Abandoning that now would feel like I wasted an entire decade of my life.

30:47How do I reconcile the broader moral objections of my work with my responsibility to ensure financial stability for myself? Moving forward, signed, sweating my spot on the bandwagon when it's being pulled by the Red Dragon. Yeah, great question and quite a conundrum. So there are a few different strands to your story, so let's pick them apart a little. First off, as you know, no one is more grossed out in disapproving of the CCP than your Uncle Jordan. I've done tons of episodes about China, I've talked about how to avoid Chinese goods on Feedback Friday. I've made it virtually impossible for myself to travel safely to China.

31:22And I always separate the Chinese people from the Chinese Communist Party. So calm down if you're new to the show. I'm married to a nice Chinese, ethnically Chinese lady. So I totally get your moral qualms about working for a Chinese company. I share them. And if I were in your shoes, I'd be feeling the same way. Yeah. And I just got to say, especially because he's leading a lot of these projects now, right? He's not just a lowly cog in the wheel with zero power. he's pushing these projects forward and now he's the face of it so yeah the stakes are higher for sure it's a tough place to be and i gotta say i admire him for staying connected to his values his worldview i mean how many well-paid mbas do you know who are thinking about this stuff how many horton grads making bank at like a hedge fund in hong kong or stanford mbas consulting for chevron or whatever how many of them are going should i really be making hundreds of thousands of dollars if i'm helping questionable companies get richer very few i would imagine or if they do feel that conflict, they just stuff it down because it's easier.

32:16And you know, I can appreciate that too, because this world is complicated. Capitalism is crazy and everybody has to make their money somehow. So I really get the bind that you're in. But as I've said on the show before, there's no way to participate in the global economic system of ours and not in some way contribute to suffering or corruption somewhere. China is so woven in to our system that it is virtually impossible to ignore. And like I said a while back, even if you deliberately avoid visiting China, which is a shame because it's an awesome place, you're still probably going to be flying on a plane with parts manufactured in like Guangzhou or whatever.

32:52So we all support China indirectly in some way. And that's just the unfortunate reality of our world. It's okay to support Chinese people, Chinese industry. The problem is the CCP. That's it. Now, obviously, you're serving this company in China more directly in virtue of your role. So I get why that turns the heat up a little bit, but my stance is you need to balance your healthy moral objections with your responsibility to yourself. If what you're saying about your career prospects is true, although I want to come back to that in a moment, then leaving this job would mean exposing yourself to some pretty significant risk on these loans, giving up this big bonus, which I assume amounts to, let's say it's like 200 grand or something crazy.

33:30That's nothing to sneeze at. If you stay for two more years, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that long, although I know it probably feels like an eternity. You could climb out of the debt, which is also extremely important. I'd hate for that to be an albatross around your neck for like the next decade or two, maybe even longer as it is for a lot of people. Student loans are no joke. That could constrain your options. It could create a psychological burden. It could lead you to other dubious ethical choices in order to pay it off. So climbing out of the debt is really key. That said, I do think it's worth looking at other jobs just to see what's out there.

34:02see if you really can't find a way to move out of this company without compromising yourself. And obviously the best way to do that is just to keep investing in your relationships, which is hands down the best way to job hunt. And I won't bang on about that here. That's why we got sixminutenetworking.com in the first place. The reason I want you to do this is, first, I'm hearing a little bit of rigidity in your letter. A little bit of like, oh, this is just the way it is and I'm basically stuck. That kind of mindset. I want to challenge that. You're saying that moving to another company where my skills won't be as relevant would almost certainly mean a decrease in income.

34:35Hey, maybe you're right. You know, you know your industry better than I do, of course, but who says your skills wouldn't be as relevant elsewhere, maybe even more relevant, even if they're very different in your next job? Who says that working in a Chinese owned company and speaking Mandarin and all the incredible expertise you've developed, who says that won't be incredibly valuable to the right company? I mean, you could end up working for a company that wants to pull their stuff out of China and start manufacturing in India or whatever. I'm making this example up, but you see what I'm getting at.

35:03And they need the help of somebody who speaks Chinese and can wind down the contracts and relationships, apply what they've learned in China to the new market. You could end up working for a company that does business in Europe, where you have to interact with a lot of Chinese partners. And hell, you could end up working for a trade group or a think tank that studies corruption and government ties in China. And again, I'm totally making this stuff up. you could suddenly find yourself using all your quote unquote corrupt experience for good. I would look at some of these assumptions you have about your job search and see if they're 100 % true.

35:33I mean, I can't even go to China and I'm never going to have a real job because I'm a podcaster and I'm still learning Mandarin all the time. And I talk with you. So it's like, I don't see that stuff as irrelevant. I don't know why you would. It's such a good point. And that is something that I picked up in his letter. There is a little bit of like, I'm no matter where I turn, I lose. Right. And I'm kind of stuck here. And I think Like that's very natural to fall into that mindset, especially by the way, if you're working a ton, you're sleep deprived, you're not inspired, you're demoralized. I mean, those are not optimal.

36:04Those are suboptimal conditions for having the excitement and the inspiration to really think openly about all the possibilities. So yeah, you might be right that you would take a step back or down if you left. You know, we're not arguing with you there. Although even the idea that taking a step back or down is definitely the wrong move is also an interesting assumption. It's another assumption worth investigating, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some great position waiting for you out there. To Jordan's point, that draws on these skills in a way that you haven't thought about yet and possibly pays you just as well or comparably, or that you couldn't create a job like that for yourself with the right relationships, which by the way, is another reason that I do think your relationship building is going to be so important, especially for somebody in your shoes who's looking to make a change.

36:45Even your desire to keep making good money. I would invite you to look for some flexibility there too. Like Jordan said, we would love, love for you to pay off your student loan debt, hang on to that great bonus. But also, would you be willing to take a slightly lower salary in order to extricate yourself from this company that you can't stand from the sound of it? Now, how much is that freedom worth to you? You know, could you do right by your morals and still take care of yourself within some reasonable degree? Even this idea you mentioned that abandoning your role would feel like you wasted an entire decade of your life, I want to ask, is that true?

37:19I mean, is that really true? Would the last decade be a true waste? Or would it just be a really interesting and useful chapter that you capitalize and build on in all sorts of cool ways? I think even the word abandoning is so interesting. I mean, that word is laden with so many assumptions and judgments about what you would be saying about your career if you decided to make a change. So I would unpack that too. But again, your options are only going to get better by not being quite so binary about all of this. Yes, that rigid type of thinking is very tempting. And we hear it a lot in letters that are about whether to pursue path A or path B.

37:53That's when your brain starts going, OK, I can either have all this great stuff or all that great stuff, but I can't have both or I can't get out of this bind. So I guess I just have to make peace with suffering. So my advice, and maybe you'll think this is a little spineless of me, given all my big talk about China. But hear me out. My advice is to consider staying put for two years. Keep investing in your relationships. Keep looking for great roles elsewhere and find healthy ways to manage the physical and ethical burnout. This is not forever. It doesn't have to be forever. You're not a monster for taking care of yourself while you plot your escape.

38:26And who knows, maybe in six months, you connect with somebody who hooks you up with an incredible job that checks most of your boxes. Or you finish up these two years, you make them about getting as much experience as possible, and in 18 months you begin hunting for a job that doesn't suck your soul or, you know, dump nuclear waste into the ocean with reckless abandon or whatever it is. You don't know how this will play out, which might be part of what's so stressful about all this. Yet another meaningful aspect of your mindset that I'd encourage you to unpack. Yes, but listen, if you do decide to stay for two more years, which is a perfectly valid option, I would definitely encourage you to find some ways of coping with this job just a little bit better.

39:02You know, maybe that means... Drinking more. And drink is just go out and get freaking hammered. Honestly, that's the solution. Maybe that means being more disciplined, not about the alcohol, but a little bit more disciplined around your time and your job, a little more efficient. Can you carve out a little more time for yourself? Can you exercise a few days a week? Can you see friends and talk about this? Can you say to your company, hey, I need two weeks off in November. I need to step away and take care of myself. You know, go enjoy your paycheck a little bit. Not feel quite so boxed into this job that's wearing you down.

39:32Maybe it means not striving to be perfect in every regard for a company whose values you are not crazy about. You know, maybe you give 85-90 % instead of 100-110 % and that's the freedom that you need. Maybe it also means forgiving yourself for not being ethically perfect all of the time. I do get the sense that some of your stress here is tied to your sense of justice and I really admire that. But again, like Jordan said, we live in a complicated world. Nobody can be blameless in this system. We can only do our best. And I do wonder if you need to give yourself just a little grace for working with this company right now.

40:05You're not a supervillain for doing interesting work in an interesting part of the world. Until you rose up, you weren't even the face of these projects. You weren't initiating them. You know, you didn't push the company to sell to a Chinese owner. You're not yucking it up with CCP members at karaoke bars in Beijing. You're not designing corrupt bribery schemes to keep the company afloat while, you know, you make the finger pyramid of evil contemplation, you know, like Mr. Burns and the Simpsons or whatever. But I'd trade it all for just a little more. Exactly. Like, you're just a really accomplished person doing his best in a morally flawed world.

40:39And by the way, who's already in the process of trying to do better by contemplating other options, which I think is a huge first step. Yeah, I totally agree, Gabe. So give yourself a little more grace. Plant a couple seeds every week in terms of your plans, your skills, your relationships. Nurture the seeds and let them take care of you. If you truly want to leave this company, I'm very confident that you will. and with the right mindset and habits, I know it'll happen in a way that doesn't compromise you and only leads you to greener and more ethically appealing pastures. Gabe, I applaud this guy for even caring about that because I'm trying to think, like if I was 30-something years old and I was crushing it at some company and they got taken over by a Chinese company and they were like, dump the plastic.

41:17It'd be so easy for me to rationalize, like, but every company in our industry is dumping the plastic. And if I leave, they're still gonna dump the plastic. So what's the difference? And I'm sort of sympathetic to that, even though half of the episodes of this show over the last decade or whatever have been like, look at this thing that we're doing to the planet or look at what China's doing or whatever. So, but I get it, you know, I get it. And I think it's great that he's planning his exit, but no, I don't think he has to like blow up his life and give his quarter million dollar bonus check back in order to like, you know, be cleansed from this.

41:47You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. If your dog busted you having morning sex with your partner or your abusive father is now himself being abused, or your alcoholic sister is experiencing possible postpartum psychosis. 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. Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm 42 years old, and I'm currently married to my second husband, who is 44. When we first started dating, I never noticed any strange behavior from him.

42:22Then we moved in together, and he kept asking me where things are or belong in our house. At first it made sense, because I like my kitchen organized in a particular way. But it's been five years, and he still asks me stupid questions like, where do these mixing bowls go? Once, while holding a bottle of fingernail polish, he asked me, is this fingernail polish? So this is kind of funny. Poor guy's trying to clean up the kitchen, and he's like, where does this go? And she's like, you're a moron! No, but look, I can see this also being, well, it's annoying, but it's also borderline weird. How do you not know?

42:53You don't know what this is? Is this like, he doesn't know how to make conversation. So he's like, hey, is this a remote for the TV? Yeah, it's so strange. There's gotta be something else. I just picture him at dinner, like holding up the fork. Is this a fork? It's like, yeah. What do I use? What does this thing do? When I say things like, you should know where they go. They've been in the same place for four years. He gets defensive. In the fingernail polish incident, I just stared at him blankly, then got annoyed and asked if he could read. That's mean. He claims he's just clarifying or asking to be sure.

43:21He lacks the ability to come to a solution based on context clues. When I try to point the clues out, he tosses his hands up and says, well, I don't see it that way. He also lacks critical thinking skills and can't come to an opinion he isn't told by his parents or his church. Every time I try to show him proof of something, he refuses to even hear it. And he won't read anything because he quote-unquote doesn't like to read. Okay, well that one's harder to forgive, obviously. The household chores end up primarily falling on me or our kids because, quote, we just do it better, unquote, or because I get mad when he messes them up.

43:56I don't dare send him to the grocery store without a list, and if I want something specific, I have to send him a picture. And he still often buys the wrong items. He can't cook, he overcooks or undercooks nearly everything, so dinners are always my job, and I'm exhausted. I work 40 hours a week with a two-hour commute. This morning, he had a red line on his arm from sleeping. He stopped me on my way out the door to ask me if he was okay or if it was, quote unquote, something serious. I feel dumber for being married to him. This is brutal. This is really bad. This guy's really, really thick. And I don't mean THSCC.

44:32I mean, I mean, can't let him out of the house without a harness. Like, oh my God, what do you think? Is this serious? You pushed a pillow against it for three hours. It's going to go away in literally like two minutes. What are you talking about? And is this nail polish? It says nail polish on the bottle. But then his upbringing was rough. His family aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. His mom and brother are bipolar, and his dad and youngest brother are just kind of dense. They can't understand anything subtle. Everything has to be spelled out for them to understand a topic. His parents and brothers are supporters of a questionable political movement, and even when presented with alternative evidence of any kind, their opinion still equals facts to them.

45:14Oh gosh, I think we all kind of know people like this. Certainly we've seen them online. Out of the five of them, my husband is the smartest, but that's not saying much. No, this poor guy. I'm now at a point of no return. I feel like I'm losing my mind. My only hesitation about divorcing is that I can't afford to live on my own. I would have to stay in this area until my youngest graduates high school in two years in order to share custody. And I do love my husband when he's not being a complete moron. But that seems to be fading fast, and I don't know if my feelings can be rekindled. Am I losing my mind here?

45:48What would you do? Signed, watching my marriage corrode, because my husband's a few bricks short of a full load. Well, okay. You're annoyed and resentful and at the end of your rope, and I get it. If this were my spouse, let's just say, I wouldn't be able to bite my tongue nearly as much as you are. I mean, if my spouse asked me whether a sleeping line was a possible fatal diagnosis, I don't know what I'd do. The moment my spouse says, I don't like to read, I'm out. Come on, man. Yeah. Although I'm a little confused. Wouldn't this have come up somehow before getting married? I mean, that's my first question.

46:20How did none of this come up before they got together? Yeah. I know she said she only discovered this all when they moved in together, but like, you can still break up at that point, right? Or has it just gotten worse over the years? It almost sounds like he's got dementia or something, but not even that. It's so severe that it makes me wonder if there's something that neither of them is considering. Yeah. Does he, yeah. Does he have dementia? I mean, he's 44. So very unlikely. I also do wonder if he might be somewhere on the spectrum, possibly just in terms of not being able to read certain social cues or I don't know, be sensitive to certain details.

46:51But what she's describing is not this is above and beyond what sounds like autism or anything related to it. Well, it's like it could be like that plus super low IQ. It's possible. Like we all know a lot of really smart autistic people, right? And there's a lot of famously smart autistic people. So just as there are very smart autistic people, there's probably like really dumb autistic people. And they still suffer from the same sort of basket of consequences as people who are suffering with low IQ and also have autism symptoms, right? But then does that describe all of his siblings and his parents?

47:23Like it's the things to run in the family, unfortunately. It's like lead poisoning or something. That's another option. I mean, it's all on the table. I do wonder if he hid some of his stupid from her, or did she discount the signs early on? Can a stupid person be like, you know what I'm going to do? Not show how dumb I am. Good point. So she must have discounted the signs. Maybe she rationalized it like, I don't need him to be some sort of great thinker. He's solid, he's sweet, he's responsible. Right, but then she sends him to Ralph's for bread and he comes home with Windex and she's like, dude, what is wrong with you?

47:54Yeah, that would drive me up the wall and I completely understand why she's at the end of a row. I don't mean to be cruel, because I know this guy comes from a, like, what's the polite way to put it? A challenging family. I mean, not that I need to be PC. Challenging or challenged. Exactly, yeah. Like both. And it's hard to know what's going on there. Like we said, is it willfully ignorant? Is it low IQ? Are they steeped in dogma? Are they brainwashed? Were they not educated well? Is there paint chips that they fed on early in the game? God, all of the above, I think, possibly. Plus, clearly some mental health stuff, which is another interesting layer to his personal history.

48:28It's really sad. And I know we're having a bit of a laugh here, but this guy's family, man, he was just not set up well by these people. And, you know, who knows, maybe having a bipolar parent and a bipolar sibling, maybe that left a mark on him that has nothing to do with raw smarts. I mean, if their house was very chaotic growing up, if his relationship with his mother was complicated, he almost certainly has some trauma. And we know that trauma can shape the brain physically. It affects development. It can make it hard to do things like understand certain concepts are concentrated can sometimes make a person kind of spacey or forgetful or it can also you know even make them fearful of information and experiences if those sources are threatening or destabilizing to the person all of which do sound like qualities in her husband well good point all of these things that drive her nuts which i completely understand could they actually be trauma symptoms maybe i i don't know in which case it might not be quite as simple as my husband is an idiot.

49:24I mean, he might be, but he might also be conditioned in ways that even he doesn't realize. What's hard though, is he's just not making any of this easier at all. Right. He's not writing down lists to stay on top of stuff. He's not trying to read more. He's not even watching YouTube videos, right? Like he's not, I mean, not the ones that he's not seeking out new information is my point. And he's not open to having certain conversations. He's not talking to a therapist about why he's like this. He's not really doing anything. That's what's so maddening about all this. He's just bumbling through life, staying safe in his little cocoon outsourcing more and more responsibility to her and the kids, deliberately closing himself off from new information.

49:59And she's over here like, can you even try to work on this? So are you losing your mind? No, your husband is making life for you and your family more difficult. That is objectively annoying. And you have concrete reasons for being mad at him. At the same time, though, you say you still do love your husband when he's not being a complete moron. So there's still love there. It does sound like he's a decent guy in some ways. Right. But then she also said that her love seems to be fading fast and she doesn't know if her feelings can be rekindled. So can you come back from that? Right, so they're kind of reaching a point of no return.

50:31Honestly, I hate to say this because I do have some empathy for this guy, but if your husband is driving you up the wall on a regular basis, if his personality is making you fall out of love with him and he refuses to work on this in any way to even have a conversation about it that leads to some meaningful change, then I just don't know how happy and well-functioning your marriage is gonna be. If you're constantly snapping at him, If you're always irritated, if you and the kids are always stressed, I'm afraid that this marriage is going to make for some, it's going to be a difficult home. I'm afraid.

50:59I agree. But a lot of this depends on your expectations for your husband. If you can learn to let go of the expectation that he'll pitch in and that he'll be able to do what he says he's going to do and that he'll have certain conversations with you, that he'll pick up a book once in a while, that he'll be open to new ideas. What else? I mean, he'll remember where the frigging salad tongs go after five years of marriage. You know, all of that. Basically, if you give up the need for your husband to be useful and rational and curious in any way, basically, then maybe this can work. And then you'll just be married to this guy who, and I'm really not trying to be funny anymore.

51:31I'm just calling it how it is. A guy who's kind of bumbling and limited and I guess sort of hopeless, but maybe he's sweet and he's kind and he has these other great qualities, which you didn't really mention in your letter, but which I really hope exist. So I think our non-answer answer might be that this kind of comes down to you now. What you want, what you need, what you can live with, and also what kind of marriage and home this dynamic with your husband is creating. Exactly. That's the question she really has to sit with now. And whether these practical concerns, like the money issue and staying in the area until their youngest graduates, whether those are truly obstacles to separating or whether they're just things she needs to sort out.

52:10Hard for us to know. I don't see why they can't be peaceful and loving co-parents, though, if they were separated. Right. But then is her husband going to be even worse in that situation? Right. Is she going to say like, hey, can you pick up the kids from soccer today? And he calls her two hours later like, I'm at laser tag. I can't find them. Where are they? Good point. Right. They're living together. She can keep them in check. But if this guy can't help manage the family now, how the hell is he going to be able to manage the logistics of a divorced household? So complicated. It's very tricky.

52:36And I bet it'll continue to drive her up the wall and she'll have less leverage. Right. Like if they're married, she can be like, you need to do this. But if they're divorced, he's going to be like, you can't tell me what to do, right? And he's going to be even more of an off the chain idiot. So I'm not trying to talk into staying necessarily, but that is something you might want to prepare for. And I'm sorry your husband is like this. I really do feel bad for the guy, but I also feel really bad for you and the kids. Not an easy partner or father to have. And I wonder about how his psychology might rub off on everyone in the house.

53:06But I'm glad you have your head screwed on straight. And I hope your kids take more after you than their dad in many ways. So good luck. And you know, just one other idea that just occurred. I would maybe try to get your husband to see a neurologist and or a psychiatrist and just do some basic tests and see if there's anything that might explain this. I mean, did he like have a traumatic brain injury that never got addressed? Does he have a psychiatric issue that is undiagnosed that would explain some of this? I mean, there's something going on here. And yeah, seeing a doctor would be a huge help.

53:35And make sure you drive him to the appointment because if you tell him to go on his own, he's going to end up at Chuck E. Cheese or something. One state over. One, two, three. Yeah, good idea. No GPS for this, man. You know what your simpleton husband can definitely wrap his tiny mind around? The crazy good deals on the products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you liked this episode of Feedback Friday and found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

54:11You can also email me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. If you're super lazy, can't find the code, I'll dig it up for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, my husband and I do not have any contact with my parents. My mom likely has narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. She was verbally, emotionally, and spiritually abusive to all of the eight children in my family, and physically abusive to many. My parents also allowed sexual abuse in my home, and went so far as to obstruct a police investigation when that sexual abuse was finally reported, which I can corroborate with police reports.

54:56Wow, that is awful. I am so sorry you went through all this. These sound like extremely difficult parents to have. But I've never personally pressed any charges against my parents, nor have I requested a restraining order or any other legal interventions. Obviously, we are not designating my parents as guardians for our children in our will. Yeah, no kidding. Well, that makes sense. But I worry that my mom's charisma, skillful manipulation, and pathological lying will enable her to persuade our children's hypothetical future guardians to allow them to resume contact with my children in the event that my husband and I ever die before our kids turn 18.

55:33Aside from designating guardians in our will, is there any other legal verbiage we can insert to create guardrails against my parents being able to re-establish contact with my children if we're no longer around to protect them? Is there a particular type of attorney we should consult about this? Signed, crossing my T's and dotting my I's in the unlikely event of an untimely demise. Ooh, this is a good question. The thought of these parents getting back in touch with your kids and potentially hurting them too, that's got to keep you guys up at night. I get it. We wanted to run all this by an expert, so we reached out to Jordan Richards, an experienced trust and estate attorney and the judge of probate for the Litchfield Hills Probate Court in Connecticut.

56:13And Jordan, great name by by the way, he had a similar response to your story, that you've gone through what sounds like a terrible ordeal. We all really feel for you and your family. So first off, Jordan confirmed that nominating a guardian for your children, that is crucial to protect them from your parents. So very quick legal crash course here. In general, a guardian is an adult who has the legal right and duty to take care of a minor. This person is authorized to take physical control of a minor, they have broad authority to make decisions about what's best for them. parents are joint guardians of their children.

56:44If one parent passes away, the surviving parent becomes the sole guardian. If both parents pass, their children would be without a legal guardian. But parents can nominate what's called a testamentary guardian, somebody who would become guardian of the minor child in the event that that ever happens. Jordan explained to us that that's usually accomplished with language in your last will and testament, and oftentimes the nomination has to be confirmed by a court. A testamentary guardian nominated that way is then generally presumed to be the right person for the job. And apparently, it's pretty difficult to challenge that appointment, which is why Jordan believes, it's weird, it's like I'm talking about myself in the third person, which is why Jordan believes, Jordan believes that you want to carefully consider that decision.

57:24Obviously, you want to choose somebody who would be a great parent-like figure, but Jordan also recommends that you choose somebody who's familiar with your family history, someone who understands that your children must be protected from their grandparents. Because as he put it, having a guardian in place will be of no value if this person is somehow later convinced by your parents to allow access to your children. Now, this situation does have the potential to get ugly, confrontational, so Jordan would also recommend that any nominated guardian be somebody who's assertive, who's able to vigorously advocate for your kids, and again, you don't wanna nominate somebody who could be browbeaten into allowing contact with your kids by their grandparents because they barraged them with phone calls or something or got in their head and rewrote the history of what happened, Jordan would also encourage you to write a letter to be kept with your last will and testament that details your family history and your wishes about excluding your parents from having access to your children.

58:17The primary goal of this letter is to communicate to whoever becomes guardian just how important it is that they keep your parents away from the minors. But Jordan said it could also be significant and helpful if there's any litigation about guardianship or anything like that. If anything ever happened to the guardian, they needed to be replaced. By the way, this letter would also be helpful in explaining the situation to your children when they're old enough to understand, why couldn't we have a relationship with the grandparents? What's up with grandma and grandma? And a little pro tip here, I would include copies of the police reports with the letter.

58:47Jordan said that would almost certainly be inadmissible in court, so they wouldn't have a significant impact on any potential litigation, but they could add credibility and gravitas to the letter about your family's history. So yes, definitely talk to an attorney. And by the way, I have a great estate attorney in California. If anybody needs a California state attorney, definitely hit me up. I'm happy to refer you. All super sound advice. Now, what we've been talking about so far is how to legally protect your children from ending up with their grandparents. But none of this would totally prevent them from, for example, writing your kids a letter or knocking at the door or finding them at school or crashing a family barbecue or anything like that.

59:26Your parents could still attempt contact even if they can't get legal guardianship, which kind of leaves the realm of the law and becomes something more informal and ambiguous. So we quickly ran this by another lawyer friend of ours, and he said that if you want to help prevent any contact whatsoever, you could consider getting a protective order against your parents and or what's called a civil harassment restraining order in certain states. But these CHROs, as they're known, can be quite hard to get. And Jordan said, our lawyer friend Jordan, not Jordan Harbinger, said that in his jurisdiction, CHROs are pretty limited, both in terms of the scope of who qualifies for relief and also in terms of how long the restraining order stays in place.

1:00:08So generally, CHROs are for a situation where there is an imminent possibility of harm or stalking or a pattern of threatening physical behavior, that kind of stuff. And it's rare for a restraining order to continue for more than a year. But this really depends on what your parents are doing. If they're threatening to come and grab the kids from school or something like that, then Jordan said you should explore this option. But then if the court doesn't grant you one, then your parents might vilify you even more. They could cry victim, paint themselves as, you know, the woe-be-gone loving grandparents who have been alienated from their grandchildren, yada, yada, yada.

1:00:41Although I don't think that that would be much of a surprise to you and it probably wouldn't change things all that much, which is why in our other attorney friend's view, it's often better to just use common sense and avoid the other party as much as you can without a proactive visit to the court. I tend to agree, and I get why our friend here might want to exhaust every legal option, but it's also possible to over-engineer a situation, or you end up kicking the hornet's nest when it isn't necessary. Jordan's last thought for you, beyond nominating a guardian, definitely consider a well-prepared estate plan.

1:01:12That would set up a trust to hold any inheritance that your kids would receive until they reach a certain age. They can handle the money without assistance. That's what I've done for my own children. Almost always a good idea to protect a child from mismanaging an inheritance. You don't want a 15-year-old inheriting a million dollars. That's just not a good idea. And while the money's being held for them, it can also be used to pay reasonable expenses such as school and living costs. But in this situation, Jordan said a trust is even more important because it could also pay expenses related to a custody or a visitation lawsuit brought by your parents.

1:01:44That way, the guardian would be able to hire an attorney and defend against a malicious lawsuit, which is another way you could protect them. The last thing I want to say is, given what your parents did to you, I totally understand why all this keeps you up at night. But I also want to remind you that the likelihood of you and your husband both dying before your kids are adults, I mean, statistically, it's just very unlikely. So I would hate for you to obsess about the outcome more than is absolutely necessary. Channel this fear into finding a good attorney. Let them take good care of you. Trust that all the legal stuff is in place to protect your kids.

1:02:17And then just remind yourself that you'll have done all you can on the legal front, certainly the most important part. And if you, for some reason, can't turn this fear off, like if it's dominating your life or it's making it hard to function in some way, then I would consider talking to a therapist and working through the underlying anxiety. I'll say, this makes sense, man. When I was doing my will, I was like, wow, I'm thinking about my death a lot. It doesn't feel good, but you have to realize you're imagining a very remote worst case scenario. And I just want to acknowledge that you might be letting this very legitimate fear get the best of you.

1:02:49Not a day. Every time Jen and I go on vacation, she's like, what if the plane blows up and we all die? And I'm like, when has that happened? Like, and she's like, maybe we should take separate flights from her, you know, her brother, who's our guardian. Maybe we should take separate flights. Cause if that happened, then what? And I'm like, okay, really? Come on. Yeah. But I think, I mean, I'm not a parent, so I can't imagine, but I think when you're a parent, your brain gets different. And if you had parents like these, it's even, I can understand, but you're right. They cannot let this fear get the better of them.

1:03:16I also just want to throw in, I think it would be really helpful to talk to your kids about their grandparents when the time is right. If anything ever did happen to you and your husband, it's important to make sure that your kids understand why their grandparents are dangerous. So if they ever had to, they would be empowered to say, yeah, no, mom and dad talked to us about this. Grandma and grandpa are not safe people. You know, we read mom and dad's letter. We had these chats with them. We saw the police reports, so we got to stay away. And you know, you can do that in stages depending on their capacity for this conversation.

1:03:43I get the sense that your kids they're still relatively young. But as they become teenagers, and you could do this in phases, you can start to share a little bit more over the years until they're 16, 17, maybe when they can handle the, you know, all of the difficult facts, you tell them the full story, you show them the letter, you show them the police reports. But since the legal side of things cannot completely prevent your parents from trying to reestablish contact ever, my feeling is that the best protection for your kids is ultimately going to be information. Totally agree, Gabe. Again, I'm so sorry you had this childhood.

1:04:12It is awful. But it sounds like you're doing a great job looking out for your kids here. So go book the appointment. Rest assured you're gonna be doing all you can to protect him. Please keep taking care of yourself too. Big thanks to Jordan Richards for his wisdom and experience here. Jordan serves clients throughout the state of Connecticut. His practice concentrates on estate planning, probate and trust administration and public benefits qualification. And he's particularly interested in representing senior citizens, individuals with disabilities and their families. You can learn more about him and his practice at richardselderlaw.com or connect with them on LinkedIn.

1:04:43We'll link to both of those in the show notes. All right, what's next? Hey guys, a few months ago on episode 941, you mentioned that you knew a guy who sold these pills that would reconstruct your DNA so that you would make more money. Right, Carl the Weird Life Coach, the culty scammer dude in LA. Yes, the guy who was a famous UFO whistleblower and put people on, what was it, roller skates to show them where they needed to improve in their life and all that. It was like, oh, you're unbalanced. It's like, well, you did put me on roller skates and then kick one of my legs out from underneath me, but okay.

1:05:16So he goes on, you said it cost$8 ,000 to$10 ,000 for the money DNA pills, but would you sell half a pack or a dose for$2 ,000 or$3 ,000 bucks? Is this real? So I think it's for real. I think this letter is real. This guy's asking us to hook him up with Scammy Carl's fake DNA altering money pills? Apparently. That's funny because I think about this stuff all the time because it's so ridiculous. this can't be real first of all when his whistleblower his UFO whistleblower story was that he was a copy machine repairman and they called him to the Pentagon because something was stuck in the machine and when he opened it it was like there's a moon base plan in the copy machine and I'm like and they called your minimum wage ass into the Pentagon with no security clearance pull this paper out of the machine give me a break oh my god I'm having a coughing attack because it's such a dumb story it's making I'm allergic to that much bullshit at once Good Lord.

1:06:11So I'm like, anybody who believes this guy is a moron, but okay. I've read this email like six times and I'm pretty sure it's real. Let me just finish the letter and then you can decide if it's real. Okay. I'm very interested in these pills and I really think they would help with turning my business around. I've used something similar in the past and it worked wonders, but couldn't get them again. Couldn't even find where to get them. So when I heard you mention it, let me know, or maybe we can make some sort of deal for them. Looking forward to hearing back from you. Signed, looking for a script to make my knot thick.

1:06:43Stop it. My gosh. This is the ethical thing all over again from the guy who works for the Chinese company. Because I got creatine pills in the kitchen. And as far as you know, those alter your DNA so you can make more money. And$3 ,000, I mean, that's not bad. I wonder if this is the husband from question three writing in. That would explain a lot. The dude who doesn't know what nail polish is, doesn't like to read. He'd probably love some DNA-changing money pills. I can't even imagine how that dude is performing at work. By the way, to make my knot thick, is that like a money idiom from hip hop culture?

1:07:13Like increase your stacks. Yep, exactly. Like a fat knot is a thick roll of bills, right? Like that's what I've learned from Lil Wayne. Anyway, he has a song where he talks about how his knot is thick and he does not mean T-H-I-C-C. Actually, he does mean T-H-I-C-C, but he doesn't spell it that way. Ah, yes. Lil Wayne, our patron saint of personal finance. That's the one and only. Yeah, he wears a$100 ,000 watch. Honestly, I think Lil Wayne could teach our friend here more than we ever could, given his objective here. I don't quite know what to say. I'm a little gobsmacked. And yeah, unfortunately, this email does sound real.

1:07:45So first of all, I don't mean to quibble here. But if I recall correctly, each pill was$3 ,000. So you're already getting the price sheet on shady life coach Carl's DNA money pills wrong, my guy. And that is worrisome. I know. At the very least, you should know how much money you're about to waste on fake money pills. Just as a matter of basic accounting, really. Yeah. Second, as I told you in that story months ago, Carl died. Oh, yeah. He got, what was it? He got hit by a truck or something. Oh, he was riding his bike. Yeah, he got hit by like a semi-truck while riding his bike on a turnpike or something like that.

1:08:16I mean, it's really not good. Yield Zamboni. So even if I wanted to hook you up with these fake pills, I wouldn't know where to get them. Although, since they're fake, I could just give you any pills that won't hurt you, right? So although I'm sure there's no shortage of people online hawking BS supplements like this, so you don't really need my hookup. I don't know, Gabe. I don't know how seriously to take stuff like this. But because it was clearly written in earnest, I feel compelled to make some kind of comment about people's willingness, eagerness even, to buy into this stuff. I mean, my friend who was buying it, the friend's business partner, he was like really thinking about it all the time, scrimping and saving to pop another one of these things.

1:08:55In his mind, it was absolutely real. I couldn't believe it. I think we also need to touch on how hard it is for some people to understand irony. I mean, that's the only conclusion I can draw. The whole Carl story was very much about how ridiculous he was. So I'm curious to know how somebody heard that letter and didn't walk away with that conclusion. Right. Yet another quality this guy seems to share with the husband from question three. Yeah, but dude, you were not being particularly subtle. That whole story was explicitly about how Carl was a manipulative culty con artist. It wasn't like, oh, but he might have been legit.

1:09:26No. No, I even explained how his manipulations were intended to work and why they didn't work on some people or did on others. that's why I'm so confused. Like what part of that story sounded like I was endorsing Chinese sawdust pills that are supposedly gonna alter your DNA, dot, dot, dot, something with money? Or does he just know that and he still believes otherwise? I don't know. Anyway, sadly, can't hook you up with the pills and I can't in good conscience have a laugh at your expense without also saying that this stuff will not help you turn your business around. You wanna turn your business around, go get a coach, bone up on running a company, take a class, find some peers and mentors to guide you, read as many business books as you can, legitimate business books, not memoirs by MLM kingpins about being your own boss or whatever, and learn the skills and information you need to be a better manager, a better leader, find product market fit.

1:10:12I recommend Noah Kagan's book. It's called Million Dollar Weekend. It's a really good read for new business owners, people who want to start a business. Do not take some dodgy tincture you find on whatever the new version of Silk Road is, sold by some chemical financial guru who claims to have a secret formula for becoming successful. Basically, if you need to buy it with Dogecoin, don't put it in your body. Yeah, and my God, do not spend thousands of dollars on it or doges. No joke. I don't mean to twist the knife here, man, but if you're having problems in your business, it might be because you're spending thousands of dollars on stuff that has zero value and or you're making decisions based on what sounds to me like severely faulty reasoning and highly questionable beliefs.

1:10:51Please talk to people who have their head on straight. Please read up on the truth about this stuff and stop looking for shortcuts to success, especially in the form of shady supplements. And that's the only deal I can work out with you. A frankly unnecessary clarification on that whole Carl story and a loving smack upside the head. Hope you all enjoyed the show. I want to thank everybody who wrote in and everybody who listened. Thank you so much. Don't forget to check out Skeptical Sunday on emotional support animals. Cal Newport on slow productivity and Bruce Lataboo on trying to eradicate child slavery.

1:11:21The 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 of course through my DNA money pills. But aside from those, I'm teaching you how to build a network for yourself in our Six Minute Networking course, which is 100 % free. It's not gross. It's not schmoozy. It's on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com. The drills take a few minutes a day. Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks. Build those relationships before you need them. You can find it all again for free at sixminutenetworking.com. Check out our subreddit.

1:11:49Gabriel and I pop in there from time to time. People talk about the episodes and whatnot. Our newsletter is over there on the website at jordanharbinger.com. We give stuff away there. We go through the back catalog and take gems from past episodes, deliver them to your inbox, jordanharbinger.com slash news. Show notes on the website, transcripts on the website, advertisers, discounts, and 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 over on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi.

1:12:21This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Jordan Richards. 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.

1:12:54of my interview with Scambuster Coffeezilla. Whether you or a loved one is being tempted by sketchy investment opportunities, MLM traps, fake guru-led operations, understanding how to identify them and the mechanisms by which they work is the best chance you can have of putting a stop to their shenanigans. Here's a quick look inside. You see an ad and it's of some guru you've seen before, you haven't seen before. Let's say, Jordan, you're the guru for today. And you tell me, oh, come to my free webinar. It's always free and it's always going to teach me how to get rich. There's no investment that I initially think I have to make.

1:13:29So I go to your webpage, I give you my email and I sign up for this live webinar. It's never live. They've pre-reported it. It's a three hour sales pitch for their$2 ,000 course. And they basically tell you, look at all these people who have had success. They will show you the Forbes article that they bought, but they'll not tell you that they purchased it. They'll say, Hey, look how successful I am. They put themselves in your shoes. They know that their average buyer is broke, you know, disaffected. He's everything he's been trying hasn't worked. And they say, I was just like you. I was where you are.

1:13:59And I bounced around and I made all these mistakes until I found the one secret. And I will tell you that secret to get you from A to Z. It took me five years to get to a million dollars. I'll teach you, Jordan, how to do it. A proven blueprint in one year. I'll take you from loser where I used to be. I used to be a loser like you. And I'll take you to winner where I am now. And I'll take you there. Blueprint guaranteed. No problem. Look at all the testimonials. Sign up, baby. Right, right, right, right now. And then they go, hey, my course normally I'd sell it for$40 ,000. Normally it's a hundred thousand dollars worth of value.

1:14:33But just this second for the next 50 minutes, I will give this to you for$2 ,000. and they're coaching you through the little credit card application. You're on the phone with a credit card company and they're coaching you through this? You're like sitting there and they're like, hey, this is what you're going to say. Go ahead, call them right now and let's swipe that card, baby. Let's swipe that card before you leave the seminar. They're left with a$40 ,000 collection debt, you know, for a high interest rate. They can't pay it back. They're not making the money they were promised. And then there's a money back guarantee.

1:15:02There's not a money back guarantee. To hear more about how to expose predatory shysters for what they are by delving into their shady manipulation tactics. Check out episode 368 of The Jordan Harbinger Show with CoffeeZilla. This episode is sponsored in part by The Gist Podcast. If you're looking for a news podcast that is smart, unfiltered, and doesn't just echo whatever side you already agree with, check out The Gist with my friend Mike Peska. Mike's been doing this longer than just about anyone. It's actually the longest-running daily news podcast. It's earned that spot on Apple's top charts for a reason.

1:15:31Each episode's around 30 minutes, so it's perfect for your commute or while you're making breakfast. It's always packed with sharp, thought-provoking takes. What I love about the gist is that it's not stuck in a partisan box. Mike, he's a really smart dude. He digs into real questions, the kind that most shows avoid because they don't fit neatly into a political lane. He'll challenge the right. He keeps the left honest. He dives into stuff like the New York City mayoral race, that whole cluster, and the chaos of sports betting, or even whether talking to your plants actually does anything. He's an award-winning journalist.

1:15:57He's not some schmo like me who's totally unqualified. You've probably seen his work in the Atlantic, the Free Press, the Washington Post. He's got that rare mix of wit, skepticism, and depth that makes even heavy topics fun to listen to. And he's a great dinner guest, just saying. So if you want your daily news with more brains and less noise, check out The Gist with Mike Peska every weekday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by the Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a great new podcast can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Let me save you some hassle.

1:16:25Check out Something You Should Know with my friend Mike Carruthers. Every episode is packed with fascinating insights that you can actually use. Mike interviews top experts on topics that shape your life, like how to optimize your brain chemistry, the best and worst ways to apologize, probably could have used that recently, why couples hate to talk about money. No matter the topic, Mike asks the questions you'd want to ask, getting straight to the good stuff. And the conversations are always engaging, always insightful, guaranteed to leave you a little smarter than before. They've got thousands of five-star reviews.

1:16:51But do you even need that? I'm recommending it. You don't need other people's opinion, right, at this point, I would hope. Anyway, give it a listen. Just search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening to something you should know