The Jordan Harbinger Show

Rex Stout, the guy who wrote all the Nero Wolfe books had a great line he says you can't take somebody for a ride unless they've already got a ticket in their pocket or at least they've been checking timetables and it's really true.

I loved all the 80s references in the book because born in 1980 myself, you have a lot of kind of deep cuts.

The book is very interesting. I don't cover health, but this isn't really health. This is more about how humans are biomechanical machines and we're very different from one another. Yet we kind of don't really know why. Is that accurate?

And this book encompasses a lot of great stuff. It just all started with the virtual reunion that happened years ago when I got on social media and just started linking up with friends who I haven't spoken to or seen in 20 years.

The gut has 8 million genes in it you wrote but is that kind of like saying the chicken I just ate has a ton of genes in it because there's DNA in the meat or are you talking about something else?

It's a funny visual that there's so much going on down there that there's actually more than in the rest of my body.

The book is very interesting. I don't cover health, but this isn't really health. This is more about how humans are biomechanical machines and we're very different from one another. Yet we kind of don't really know why. Is that accurate?

And this book encompasses a lot of great stuff.

I loved all the 80s references in the book because born in 1980 myself, you have a lot of kind of deep cuts. There's a lot of references in there that I go, wow, okay, I haven't heard that for a hot minute.

It seems like there's a whole show here so I'll move on pretty quick but I'm so interested in this because even though I don't cover health, this isn't really one of those things that's like it's not a fad diet or an exercise plan. This is something that I think is pretty well documented and is not just hype.

You mentioned being a super-taster now this is something that I've experienced I'm also a super-taster. Tell us what this is because I've just heard oh I have more taste buds than normal people but what it results in is me hating a lot of things that other people love.

Either be greater be forgotten only one of those was an option for me.

Sports is business. It's no separation.

Some of the stories in the book man like finding a dead body in a trash can which was I think a kid about your age you saw some shoes sticking out and thought like oh man I'm going to get those free shoes and then you realize there's like legs attached to the shoes.

I've said it before I've said it a million times I love basketball with all my heart what is given to me is a piece of my soul but I've also worked extremely hard never to let it completely define who I am happiness for me never came from just one source I've gotten the chance to meet so many people from so many walks of life and impact them in ways that didn't always matter if I led the league and scoring or if we finished a top the Eastern conference I'm proud of being Dwayne Wade the three time champion or Olympic gold medalist but I'm not just that I never will be.

My first book was titled the father first and the second title in that book was how my life became bigger than basketball.

My first book was titled 'The Father First' and the second title in that book was 'How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball'.

We wrote Billion Dollar Whale, we wrote about corruption at Goldman Sachs, this guy Jolo who we think orchestrated the largest one of the largest financial frauds ever.

He never called us a foreign agent, but he did, he went after us. He said he was going to sue us.

This book is jammed with celebrity names. You can't really get more kind of ridiculous than this kid. And he's 27.

It was described as the most expensive private party ever thrown by the host of the last holes of the rich and famous right so it was there Robin Leech right so this guy is profiling like Malibu mansions cut into the hills saying this is a ridiculous party I've never seen anything like this.

When it came out a few years ago you know the book shops around the world received letters from a firm called shillings in the uk threatening them that they could be the target of a defamation lawsuit if they took our book.

We wrote 'Billion Dollar Whale', we wrote about corruption at Goldman Sachs, this guy Jho Low who we think orchestrated the largest one of the largest financial frauds ever.

We call it in the book, we call it 'peak Jho Low' and it's a prologue of 'Billion Dollar Whale' because it was described as the most expensive private party ever thrown by the host of the last holes of the rich and famous.

And then the book gets into all these other ways of money can be laundered, it can be laundered through real estate, it can be laundered through jewelry, art, you know Jho Low becomes one of the biggest art purchasers on the planet.

When it came out a few years ago, you know the book shops around the world received letters from a firm called Schillings in the UK threatening them that they could be the target of a defamation lawsuit if they took our book.

Big thank you to Tom Wright, the book title is 'Billion Dollar Whale', of course he's got a lot on the plate including 'Fat Leonard' which will link in the show notes.

So it's not the same old routine. I said, you know what? I'm gonna change my name too.

I said, you know what? I'm gonna change my name too. So in 2000s I think seven or eight I was going to change it to so heard and I was going to change it to Queens Bridge.

So in 2000s I think seven or eight I was going to change it to so heard and I was going to change it to Queens Bridge. I have so heard.

I always tell people when Chad Johnson changes name I thought that was cool and when you're playing sports you always need something to activate you.

So I was going to change it to so heard and then every year I kept evolving to different things. I was really interested in like myself to learn more about myself.

Metta World Peace(aka Metta Sandiford-Artest, aka Ron Artest) is a former NBA All-Star, author of*No Malice: My Life in Basketball or: How a Kid from Queensbridge Survived the Streets, the Brawls, and Himself to Become an NBA Champion*, and host of the*Mettaphorically Speaking* podcast.

I think back to someone I had on my podcast called David Robson who wrote The Intelligence Trap, a book that came out, exposed last year and it's all about how the smartest people we know often made the biggest mistakes.

I think back to someone I had on my podcast called David Robson who wrote The Intelligence Trap, a book that came out exposed last year and it's all about how the smartest people we know often made the biggest mistakes.

it's called Love People, Use Things because the opposite never works it sort of was a tagline that started with our live events and then our podcast and eventually we turned it into a book it's about really healing the seven relationships in our life and it starts with our relationship with stuff but of course how do we deal with those things

we have some rules in the new book that sort of talk about how to deal with some of these things the no junk rule the wait for it rule etc

it's called love people use things because the opposite never works it sort of was a tagline that started with our live events and then our podcast and eventually we turned it into a book it's about really healing the seven relationships in our life and it starts with our relationship with stuff but of course how do we deal with those things

we have some rules in the new book that sort of talk about how to deal with some of these things the no junk rule the wait for it rule etc

The world has been coming to an end for a long time indeed and there's a very good book by Arthur Herman called the idea of decline in western civilization which shows that starting probably with the romantic movement in the mid 19th century there's been a whole parade of people saying we're on the verge of collapse it's our society is decadent and corrupt and by the way and these are the all stars of the academic curriculum you know you major in the liberal arts and you're going to read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and WAB Du Bois and one sour push after another convinced and they were convinced you know back in the 19th and early 20th century that everything was on the verge of collapse.

the world has been coming to an end for a long time indeed and there's a very good book by Arthur Herman called the idea of decline in western civilization which shows that starting probably with the romantic movement in the mid 19th century there's been a whole parade of people saying we're on the verge of collapse it's our society is decadent and corrupt and by the way and these are the all stars of the academic curriculum you know you major in the liberal arts and you're going to read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and WAB Du Bois and one sour push after another convinced and they were convinced you know back in the 19th and early 20th century that everything was on the verge of collapse.

Yeah, so Mental Immunity is resistance to the uptake of bad ideas.

Turns out based on about 60 years of research in psychology our minds have immune systems too and they protect us from infectious ideas to one or another degree.

And what we're witnessing today, if you want to understand our root cause of contemporary craziness. It's that mental immune systems have been compromised by ideas that actually disrupt their functioning.

So that's the thesis of my book and I argue that by developing the science of Mental Immunity, science of resistance to bad ideas that we can actually enhance critical thinking and take it to a whole new level.

I'm reading a book right now about it's called 'The Storm is Upon Us,' it's the story of how the QAnon evolved as a set of beliefs.

So that's the thesis of my book and I argue that by developing the science of Mental Immunity, science of resistance to bad ideas that we can actually enhance critical thinking and take it to a whole new level.

Yeah, so Mental Immunity is resistance to the uptake of bad ideas.

And what we're witnessing today, if you want to understand our root cause of contemporary craziness. It's that mental immune systems have been compromised by ideas that actually disrupt their functioning.

I take some some pride in having developed the idea well the metaphor of it makes sense to weed our minds of bad ideas and seed them with good ones.

In my own book I actually character as the same idea as I call it reasons for crim it's the idea that we should always yield to better reasons reasons for crim is a way to make intellectual humility actionable.

I read the book that you wrote with her and I thought she has just by the grace of God come out as a loving mother like she had her faults in everything but wow I mean her upbringing was like straight to sociopath but she didn't have the gene so far.

My mom was Glowier Vanderbilt and obviously the family that she was born into was just ludicrously wealthy.

My great great great grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt who made two fortunes one based on steamships one on railroads after starting out dropping out of school 11 and ferrying supplies on a little boat you know he died with $100 million which in 1877 meant that he controlled one out of every $20 in circulation.

He had more money than the US Treasury at the time so $100 million doesn't even sound like a lot today you know I mean it's a huge amount but back then it was just nobody could believe it and the crazy thing is his son who he had mocked and ridiculed his whole life inherited all the money and he doubled it in eight years and then he died and then the subsequent generations just started spending.

It was interesting writing this book I did a lot of research in the old press accounts of the Vanderbilt and for instance Cornelius Vanderbilt's death you know the richest man in the world dying it who he's going to leave the money to there were reporters camped outside his house for months waiting for him to die the press accounts of his actual death they're all completely different.

Obviously the family that she was born into was just ludicrously wealthy.

My great great great grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt who made two fortunes one based on steamships one on railroads after starting out dropping out of school 11 and ferrying supplies on a little boat you know he died with $100 million which in 1877 meant that he controlled one out of every $20 in circulation.

He had more money than the US Treasury at the time so $100 million doesn't even sound like a lot today you know I mean it's a huge amount but back then it was just nobody could believe it and the crazy thing is his son who he had mocked and ridiculed his whole life inherited all the money and he doubled it in eight years and then he died and then the subsequent generations just started spending.

I read the book that you wrote with her and I thought she has just by the grace of God come out as a loving mother like she had her faults in everything but wow I mean her upbringing was like straight to sociopath but she didn't have the gene so far yeah.

It was interesting writing this book I did a lot of research in the old press accounts of the Vanderbilt and for instance Cornelius Vanderbilt's death you know the richest man in the world dying it who he's going to leave the money to there were reporters camped outside his house for months waiting for him to die the press accounts of his actual death they're all completely different I mean what the New York Times is that it was a kind of it was the model Victorian death of him's being sung well beloved family members were around the bed you know other accounts are that he's dying of venereal excesses and screaming and you know they're giving him opium and he never really went to church in his life so was he really singing hymns so it was interesting to me just kind of realize you know there have been problems with accuracy and the the rush to get things into print and you know reporters not doing their jobs for as long as there have been reporters.

send him a copy of the book that Michael Santos wrote, it's called Earning Freedom

it's all about his story of getting arrested at 23 for dealing cocaine, surviving a really intense 26 years in prison and using his sentence to become a pretty remarkable person who's rebuilt his entire life.

send him a copy of the book that Michael Santos wrote, it's called Earning Freedom

it's all about his story of getting arrested at 23 for dealing cocaine, surviving a really intense 26 years in prison and using his sentence to become a pretty remarkable person who's rebuilt his entire life.

The gap is really just the idea that it's really just what you're measuring yourself against.

Most high achievers because they're so driven, they're always measuring themselves against where they wish they were and that devalues what they just did in the past.

There's nothing noble about being superior to other people true nobility is about being superior to your former self.

The only real reference point you can actually have is yourself like that's the only thing you have to measure yourself against because no other there's no other thing that's actually comparable.

Ideals are unhealthy as goals and ideals are by nature not achievable it's like a horizon line no matter how much you walk towards it you never actually get there.

The Gap is really just the idea that it's really just what you're measuring yourself against.

Most high achievers because they're so driven, they're always measuring themselves against where they wish they were and that devalues what they just did in the past.

There's nothing noble about being superior to other people true nobility is about being superior to your former self.

The only real reference point you can actually have is yourself like that's the only thing you have to measure yourself against because no other there's no other thing that's actually comparable.

Ideals are unhealthy as goals and ideals are by nature not achievable it's like a horizon line no matter how much you walk towards it you never actually get there so you can't compare results even if there are results to an ideal there's no point because like you said it's imaginary and it doesn't exist otherwise you're gonna stay in the gap you're gonna see yourself as a failure or it's easy to see yourself as a failure if you're always in the gap as well.

And that's what the book is really for. How to stay ahead, how to not be drained, how to not be tired, how to not have your partners calling you for things but you really be the one that's on top of them and that's what it's really about.

I liked it a lot actually because of course, I read a lot of books for this show. And I read a lot of books by scientists but also I read a lot of books by celebrities and artists and a lot of the books that are by celebrities and artists. Well, books in general, a lot of them are full of fluff that doesn't make any sense. And a lot of it is self aggrandizing bullshit as you might imagine. But the newest book is like, here are some ways that I run my business and it's clear that this is actually true and it makes a lot of sense, right?

I speak on that in my book. I don't feel deaf. I've had attempts of my life and it's nothing to be proud of. But it's certain things that come with the gang that I play. And I don't feel deaf. We gonna keep growing. We gonna keep getting bigger. I'm gonna keep sharing the experiences and the wisdom in the books. And that's just what I did. And I'm excited to see the response from my new book.

In the book you say look nobody cares about your excuses. I'm a boss because I don't have to worry about circumstances but I go for it no matter what.

You say that success is based on what you do when no one is looking and you build one break at a time that is probably one of the most important and one of the most overlooked bits of advice that I think a lot of people who are trying to make it think of like they're really doing everything in front of the camera and when the cameras off there's a lot of like well I'm done now because I posted or I'm done now because the video is the out I'm done now

I'm currently in 19 different partnerships.

And that's what the book is really for. How to stay ahead, how to not be drained, how to not be tired, how to not have your partners calling you for things but you really be the one that's on top of them and that's what it's really about.

And I remember one of my partners when we first got in business together maybe over a decade ago they told me that venture would be my most valuable asset and I remember I laughed in their face. I was like, and man, he was actually right though.

I liked it a lot actually because of course, I read a lot of books for this show. And I read a lot of books by scientists but also I read a lot of books by celebrities and artists and a lot of the books that are by celebrities and artists. Well, books in general, a lot of them are full of fluff that doesn't make any sense. And a lot of it is self aggrandizing bullshit as you might imagine. But the newest book is like, here are some ways that I run my business and it's clear that this is actually true and it makes a lot of sense, right? Because it's not like put yourself out there and believe in yourself. It's like treat everybody fair and put people on so that they can develop their own infrastructure and network. Like it's real advice.

In the book you say look nobody cares about your excuses. I'm a boss because I don't have to worry about circumstances but I go for it no matter what.

In the book AI 2041 I talk about scenarios where companies have aligned interests with the user imagine if there were an app that would make you more knowledgeable or make you happier or make you wealthier whatever good metrics you think there there might be and let's say we trained in AI on a lot of people to continue to expose you to content that would actually make you knowledgeable then that AI would actually figure out not to show you fake news because fake news doesn't make us more knowledgeable or if a lot of violent content is enticing for you to watch it makes you very angry and not happy if AI detects that it can choose not to show you those violent content so I think knowing how to measure things that are long term definitely good for us and then building apps on those long term positive things that's probably the ultimate way out of the current situation as described by the documentary social dilemma.

in the book AI 2041 I have several stories based on how the retraining could take place and how people can find a satisfaction in jobs that may look nothing like jobs of today.

in the book AI 2041 is interesting because it's written is a series of explanations of AI and stories that illustrate the possibilities of the technology so it's kind of like black mirror episodes if you've seen that only you know a little more hopeful a little less dark

we're going to see a lot of games and other applications I mean there's a lot of application in the book it's a really good book full of stories and some of the stories resemble black and mirror episodes if you are familiar with that show

you mentioned in the book in AI 2041 that we're going to see a lot of games and other applications

In the book AI 2041 I talk about scenarios where companies have aligned interests with the user imagine if there were an app that would make you more knowledgeable or make you happier or make you wealthier whatever good metrics you think there there might be and let's say we trained in AI on a lot of people to continue to expose you to content that would actually make you knowledgeable then that AI would actually figure out not to show you fake news because fake news doesn't make us more knowledgeable or if a lot of violent content is enticing for you to watch it makes you very angry and not happy if AI detects that it can choose not to show you those violent content so I think knowing how to measure things that are long term definitely good for us and then building apps on those long term positive things that's probably the ultimate way out of the current situation as described by the documentary social dilemma.

In the book AI 2041 I have several stories based on how the retraining could take place and how people can find a satisfaction in jobs that may look nothing like jobs of today.

It's a really good book full of stories and some of the stories resemble black mirror episodes if you are familiar with that show.

The book AI 2041 is interesting because it's written is a series of explanations of AI and stories that illustrate the possibilities of the technology so it's kind of like black mirror episodes if you've seen that only you know a little more hopeful a little less dark.

Big thank you to Kyfouli the book title is AI 2041 links to all of his stuff as usual will be in the website in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger dot com

What inspired the newest book It's All Relative why go out and prove that all humanity is one family and kind of do this large family reunion tell us what you grabbed from this and why you even started this journey in the first place.

Yeah, this was a weird one because I did not expect to pursue this topic but it turned out to be one of the most fascinating in my life and it started because this is about three years ago I got an email from this guy and he said you don't know me but I am your age cousin.

I think it is possibly the biggest problem because it also affects every other problem because if we're all in these little separate warring tribes then we can never get together and solve the big problems which are huge and need worldwide cooperation like climate change or these pandemic diseases I do think a little bit about the AI robots taken over the world as crazy as it sounds it worked when we were paleo-lethic because you were in a small tribe and yeah you needed to protect that and keep your DNA intact so your kids and close relatives but now at days it's just spun out of control and you look around I mean tribalism in politics the red states versus blue states and rural versus city and just this increasing obsession with race and ethnicity identity politics I just think it is really literally tearing our society apart because we're all obsessed with our differences instead of focusing on the 99% of DNA that we share this idea of one big family is one way to fight it it actually there's empirical evidence that it kind of works there's a great study last year by Harvard that showed when they told Palestinians in Israelis how closely they were related they treated each other with kindness and more willingness to negotiate so it's sort of this what behavioral economists call the family bias that you are biased naturally to treat your relatives with a little more generosity so if we can take this bias and hijack it and apply it to everyone in the whole world your big family it might actually help.

I think it's good to have people confront the black sheep in their family and realize that we all have good and bad in our family it's sort of democratizes things and makes us realize we are not beholden to our ancestors we can rise above and that's why that hole I don't know if you remember this mini scandal where Ben Affleck was on one of those ancestry shows oh no oh yeah it turned out one of his ancestors was a slave owner and he lobbied the show successfully to get it censored from the show then the Sony hack happened and it came out that he had censored this and he got in a lot of trouble which I think he deserved to get in trouble because why censor it the fact that he's not racist I think that's a great educational moment I think you can teach people listen we all have horrible ancestors but we don't have to follow in their footsteps so that really drove me crazy yeah I understand a little bit why but I also think you're right it is inappropriate because it's kind of like you're trying to imply that people in your past have never done anything wrong which is ridiculous.

well thank you very much for coming on the show thanks so much for your work as well so funny and just interesting entertaining and educational at the same time.

This was a weird one because I did not expect to pursue this topic but it turned out to be one of the most fascinating in my life and it started because this is about three years ago I got an email from this guy and he said you don't know me but I am your age cousin.

So I was immediately suspicious I figure all right he's going to ask me to wire $10,000 to Nigeria but actually he was legitimate and he's one of these people who is helping the build the biggest family tree in history with literally millions of people in dozens of countries hundreds of ethnicities all connected on a single tree that just blew me away because as I said I always thought genealogy is a little stodgy maybe not so sexy but now with all these technology advances it is so relevant and it affects everything from politics to race relations and tribalism which I think is perhaps the biggest problem human space right now.

You found out you were related to your wife that's disturbing it and tells how this happened because I can't imagine that news went over really well.

Well that's right I took all of the DNA tests I took like seven of them but one of them 23 me which we can talk about later they send you a list of people who share enough DNA that they are your cousins so I get the list and I'm looking down I don't recognize don't recognize oh wait there's a name I recognize Julie Jacobs my wife I went in to show my wife ironically and I couldn't have scripted this she was watching the game of thrones and I was like hey look at this we're cousins I thought it would spice up our marriage like the forbidden fruit but no she was grossed out yeah but it actually I have a whole chapter in the book about the history and ethics of cousin marriage which is crazy if you do buy this idea that we're all related you're married to your cousin you're a cousin stupor luckily my wife is of Chinese origin so it's a very distant cousin but still yeah we're all related

I always feel like I'm lying like there's a part of me that's embellishing or this or that or whatever the case maybe

And then you know the book opens up with my mother's screaming on the phone and going crazy.

It's because I'm listening back to a 16 year old recording while I was recording music, I stopped it you can hear my mom record like going crazy in the background and the funniest part is like, it's in the audiobook and it's gnarly.

That just gives me that feeling of like, oh right, it's worse than I thought it was, you know what I mean?

My dad smoked crack, my brother sold my dad crack, they were gangsters, ran around taught me to cook crack, you know what I mean brothers on drugs, mom was a prostitute, she was raped had miscarriages, beat me for no reason, almost choke me to death one time.

Today one from the vaults we're talking with Jessica Tracy, author of Take Pride.

As we'll discuss today, Pride is really a magnifying glass that we sort of can put on ourselves.

We'll hear about the two types of pride when you should have them, when you should seek to limit them and of course we'll learn how to move from one to the other, unhealthy to the healthy forms of pride that actually can serve us.

We'll also explore how pride forms those around us both at home and at work and dictates the level of achievement or capable of reaching in our lives.

Jessica, thanks for coming on your time is in demand and the book is really good and I appreciate you going up.

Today one from the vaults we're talking with Jessica Tracy, author of Take Pride.

As we'll discuss today, Pride is really a magnifying glass that we sort of can put on ourselves.

The good one are healthy when we call authentic pride and that's the pride that you feel when you've worked really hard for an accomplishment or an achievement that's important to you, important to you, important to your sense of self.

The other kind of pride we call hebristic pride and this is the pride that's much more about arrogance, ecotism, conceniveness.

Jessica, thanks for coming on your time is in demand and the book is really good and I appreciate you going up.

the most important moment of my life of grief was when I realized I wanted my husband's life to matter more than his death

I want to make every day a celebration of who he was and what we had

healing for me is not getting over grief healing is learning to have my grief inspire me rather than dead in me

the most important moment of my life of grief was when I realized I wanted my husband's life to matter more than his death I want to make every day a celebration of who he was and what we had

healing for me is not getting over grief healing is learning to have my grief inspire me rather than dead in me