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

As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the spooky, amulet helping me ward off

your nefarious existential ghouls while we get to the inner sanctum of your most pressing life conundra, Gabriel Masrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people, in turn there was them into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life, and those around you, and our mission is to help you become a better

informed, more critical thinker during the week we have long-form conversations with the variety of amazing folks, national security advisors, extreme athletes, cold case homicide investigators, this week we had Matthew Ty aka C. Mill coast of the China show, we talked

“about China, the Chinese internet censorship, their on, and the secret language that the”

Chinese use on that internet to talk about political topics. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, and generally turns some of your lives around, while driving others of you to write

page-long negative reviews, because we let you down in one very specific and borderline

bizarre way. That's podcasting, baby. On the game, you know, before we dive into the listener wrote in with an interesting correction on a somewhat recent episode, so I wanted to quickly share that with you guys. This one is especially interesting if you're tech, geopolitics, nerd, like me, Gabriel,

want to read that for us. I'm a professional in the semi-conductor industry, and I just listened to your episode with Chris Miller, that's episode 919, which is a great resource for anyone interested in the details on chips. You guys talk directly about Taiwan's dominance in the industry and China's struggle.

I loved his book and the interview just as much, a really good rundown for both laymen and enthusiasts. I just want to offer a correction. Dr. Cole stated that most chips are made in China. This isn't quite the case, unless one considers Taiwan as China.

Not me, but I hear you.

“But I think he probably just missedpoke, but that is a good correction.”

A chip is a piece of processed silicon that is packaged. This packaged chip is then integrated into the rest of the electronics of the device, which is then connected to all the other components. Then it's all housed together in plastic metal, et cetera, to give the final form factor. Electronics are often made in China, but this refers to the final manufacturing.

Let's consider an electronic kid's toy. The company like Fisher Price designs it, likely in the US, and sources all the components. These are either from purchasing off the shelf or contracting a manufacturer. This includes all components, chips, plastic housing, PCB board, screws, et cetera. The final assembly into the plastic is often done in China, but the components will be

sourced globally. For chips, most will be manufactured in Taiwan, mostly by TSMC. TSMC has 35% of the total chip manufacturing market globally. No Chinese company is above 5% of the market share. This includes all chips produced for so-called "fabless" companies, meaning companies

that design microchips but contract out their production to accompany like TSMC, rather than owning their own factory-like Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, et cetera, and integrated device manufacturers. These are companies that design and manufacture chips in-house, like Intel, Texas Instruments, and Samsung. So, it's clear that most chips come from Taiwan, followed by the US, Korea, and Japan.

The security hazard is still the same for PRC-made electronics. They can, and with 99.99% certainty do, modify these devices to spy and gather data. But it's not at the chip level. It's the electronics as a whole, if that makes sense. If you're interested in TSMC's history, acquired podcasts did a great two-and-a-half-hour

episode about it, and we're going to link to that in the show notes. The founder of Morris Chang was surprisingly not Taiwanese. He was actually Chinese, and escaped Mao by immigrating to America, and eventually leading divisions at Texas Instruments in its heyday. He didn't become CEO there, so he took up Taiwan's offer to build his vision for TSMC

there.

Great episode as always, and thanks for bringing attention to this issue.

Great. Well, thank you for sharing all this.

“I think it's cool and helpful when we get stuff like this.”

I like to pass this stuff along because, obviously, it's impossible to fact-check everything a guest says, especially in real-time, and I like to be as accurate as much as possible. So I appreciate when you all chime in, especially if you happen to know a lot about a certain space, like our friend here, but I also wanted to share this because these semi-conductors they're turning out to be such a cornerstone of modern geopolitics, not just the economy,

in our relationship with China specifically, which we talk about on the show quite a bit. I mean, these chips sit inside AI data centers, precision weapon systems, satellites, EVs, the supply chains around them are a strategic vulnerability, especially when it comes to Taiwan. A lot of what the U.S. is doing is trying to limit China's access to cutting-edge chips, so semi-conductors are now a huge economic weapon.

That's also driving a lot of unshoring of manufacturing, and whoever controls computing power, controls AI, and AI capability means military economic and informational power, so it's just an incredibly important and fascinating topic, and I want to be accurate about it. You know what's simultaneously smaller and more controversial than a semi-conductor?

It's actually the record the week, but yeah, we can start with the first thing out of the mailbag. Let's do it. Dear Jordan and Gabe, over the past couple of months, I've been supporting a close friend who's been experiencing ongoing conflict and concerning behavior at home from her spouse.

From what she shared, and from what I've personally witnessed, he often deflects responsibility becomes verbally aggressive during arguments, and has punched holes in walls, or made threatening comments. Despite this, he insists his behavior is not violent toward her. How fun, and how not terrifying or stressful this must be for you, cheese.

Guys like this, it's the time bomb.

It's always weird to me when people punch holes in their own walls.

“It's like, you know, this is your house, right, dude?”

Like, you understand, you're the one who's going to have to be on Angie's list later tonight, like hiring a contractor to patch that thing up. For real, yeah, break a plate, go to the batting cage. It's just a cheaper, just good economics. To create some distance and feel safer, my friend is occasionally stated our house,

or spend more time with us. However, she recently told me that she's considering reconciling with him. Oh boy, this has created tension between my husband and me. I told them that if they do reconcile, I'm not comfortable having her spouse in our home for gatherings or social events due to safety concerns.

My husband feels I should set my personal feelings aside to support my friend, and worries that setting this boundary could damage the friendship. Not to jump the gun, but I think it depends on what it means to support a friend.

If a friend is about to do some reckless and that thing also impacts you, and you go along

with it, is that really supporting them? I'm not so sure. Great point, and if drawing a line damages the friendship, is that maybe a fair price

“to pay for protecting yourself from a potential maniac?”

Yeah, I would say probably, yeah, complicated things further, my husband is still frustrated about a different friendship I ended earlier this year after repeated toxic behavior during my bachelor at party. This ended a close friendship between him and that female friend's husband. Interesting, so he's going, hey, we're not gonna have any friends if you keep cutting people

off who do stuff you don't like. Making your spouse stay friends with somebody toxic or dangerous, assuming this other friend she's talking about was toxic, just so you're gonna like keep grabbing drinks and playing basketball with her husband? Yeah, it's kind of absurd, and also you can still be friends with somebody if the spouse

is, I mean, it's not that hard, like the girls don't hang out anymore, who cares, let's

play ball, you know, the end. I think a lot of couples do care, like I'm sure clearly they do, yeah, apparently. For additional context, all four of us are police officers, and we know firsthand that domestic violence within law enforcement often goes unreported until situations escalate. Right, okay, interesting layer to all this, so that might explain some things.

You would think that police officers would be more sensitive to domestic violence, given

“the things they probably see on the job, but I guess that's not the case.”

Yeah, but maybe the husband is protecting this friend's husband, and maybe he knows what the guy's going through, and I don't know, doesn't think he's actually dangerous, maybe doesn't want things to be weird at the station. I don't know, gave, I wonder what the incidents of domestic violence in a law enforcement world is? Yeah, so I just looked into this actually, and it does seem to be higher than

in the general population. That doesn't surprise me, unfortunately. The thing is the numbers vary a lot, because the data is not systematically collected research is limited, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some of these studies define violence broadly, some narrowly, some ask for like self-reported

data, so obviously, that's going to skew the results, but sure. A lot of studies cite this estimate of 20 to 40% of law enforcement families and significant others experience domestic violence compared to 10% in the general population. Wow, some people make a good case that the 40% number is wildly inaccurate, but others are like, no, that's probably true, especially because some of these studies now define

abuse more broadly. They include, for example, coercive control as a form of abuse, whereas older studies didn't do that. I see. So before it's like, you had to hit somebody, and now it's like, no, you're not letting them

have money and do things, and call people is also abusive, got it, precisely. That might be the right thing to do. That's how this stuff often starts. There's another study that found that the rate in law enforcement was 28% versus 16% for the general population, another one of older and more experienced officers found a rate of

24% and that one indicated that domestic violence is 24 times more common among police families than American families in general. Wow. That's either twice as bad or 24 times as bad, depending on which study you choose to believe.

That's hard to know. That is dark. They all seem to share the view that it happens at a higher rate. There's a stereotype at least when I was growing up in my part of the country that cops beat their wives.

I feel, it feels kind of like a 1970s 80s trope, but maybe not entirely unfounded given what we just learned. Anyway, carry on. I genuinely want to support my friend, but I also want to maintain firm boundaries to protect my home and my own peace of mind.

But I prioritize supporting my friend by allowing our spouse into our social circle if they reconcile, or is it reasonable to set a clear boundary that he has not welcomed in my home?

Am I making much of do or do I need to renew my efforts to protect myself before real violence ensues? Oh, you don't want to violent armed man in your house. How unreasonable. You know, what's going to happen if this guy is a few drinks and gets angry or escalates

from this? You know, if it comes over to their house, he's going to flip a table, start yelling at the other guys. Brandish his weapon. I mean, you don't know.

I mean, I don't know. Something tells me that since these guys actually do no better, they're often on their normal behavior until they get behind closed doors, but you can't guarantee that. And also, what happens when she's like, yeah, he punched me in the face and I'm telling everyone I fell, but you know the truth and now they're both in your living room.

Like, that's just weird and dangerous.

Anyway, first of all, I don't think you're crazy whatsoever to be concerned about this

guy. And I'm sorry you're in this position. It's awful to be close with somebody who's going through this kind of thing at home. I understand it could be a lot worse. I understand he might just be like a hud or whatever, but that doesn't mean this is not

concerning and it doesn't mean it couldn't easily escalate into something more. If you're punching holes in the walls and becoming verbally aggressive and not taking any

“accountability for that, there's obviously something wrong and you need to figure it out.”

To your point, the fact that he's a police officer does make this even more concerning because first of all, he must have a weapon and he has more training. And because generally you don't want somebody with a temper and poor impulse control patrolling the streets, that's just a recipe for disaster. No, this person is a liability, but I would not be surprised if a lot of cops wrestle with

similar demons and who knows, maybe the job is activating a lot of this stuff. We all know that job can be super intense and it's dangerous. So as I said a moment ago, I think we need to define what's supporting a friend in a situation like this actually means. If your friend is going, I've made up my mind.

I'm reconciling with him. Yeah, I think you probably have to accept that or at least accept that she wants to, but you can still say, okay, I hear you that you want to reconcile with him. If that's what you feel is right, I can let you make what you feel is the best decision for yourself.

But before you do, as your close friend who's seen you go through this cycle a few times now, I want to do my best to make sure that you're safe. I want to understand how you're making that decision. So talk to me. Are you and your husband talking about this stuff?

How have those conversations gone? Is he doing anything to address the anger and the violence? What's making you want to work on things? What's making it hard to leave? Catch me up here.

My hope is that you can get her to really reflect on this decision, share which is going through, see her situation is clearly as possible. If you can be a loving and concerned but safe and nonjudgmental space for her to talk through all this, that'd be great. That's what I call true support.

“I think her crucial piece of information is what he is doing to work on himself if anything.”

I mean, if this woman is getting back together where there has been and he's done absolutely nothing to change, she moved out and he's just the same person that I would say what makes you think things are going to be safe for this time.

And if she's like, oh, I don't know, he just promised to never do that again and he's

begging me to give him another chance, then I would probably say, look, I'm very worried about you. I can't say I'm on board with this. I'm not hearing that anything meaningful has changed here. As your friend, I want you to really think about what you're walking back into.

And if he is in therapy or some other program, I mean, I guess it would depend on how committed to it is, you know, how long has he been at it? Is there friends seeing any changes in him? If so, I guess that's encouraging. Maybe then there's cause for some cautious optimism or at least openness.

Okay, by the way, I meant to tell you this, the other day I went to REI because I needed like a Garmin GPS device for my trip that works for satellites and the whole parking lot was roped off and Jen's like, oh, that had there's two helicopters overhead. I wondered why they were overhead from far away. They're over here.

“And then we saw a news van and I walk into Arianna, like, what's up with all the cops?”

There's like 10 squad cars here, more. And he's like, I don't know, something's going on, but we found out that a couple was arguing in their car and one of them pulled out a gun and shot the other one and then shot themselves. So they were just essentially like a double, I don't know, murder suicide in the parking spot at REI in our area.

That's so dark. I bring this up because this stuff happens with civilians all the time. Why wouldn't it happen with cops as well that are also armed all the time and have a higher incidence of this? And you know, I don't have the details on this couple, but who knows, has this been going

on for years and everybody knew about it or was it, oh, it's just fine, he punches holes in the walls.

Like you just don't know, like this, when it escalates, it's not always slow escalation.

Sometimes it goes zero to 100 or 10 to 100 is the case maybe. Good point. Yeah, that's terrifying. But so I also think she, the friend, I mean, she needs some support too. She and therapy is she in a support group of some kind or is she just naively walking back

into this relationship with no support or perspective. If neither of them is doing any real work on this, then I think it's fair for our friend to say, I can see that you want to give this another shot. I'm sure you have your reasons. I'm happy to talk them out with you.

And yeah, I cannot stop you, but like I said, I'm very concerned. I have seen you come over to my house because you wanted to spend time away from your husband.

So I can't say I endorse this, but I am still here for you if things get bad.

The tricky thing is if they don't let the husband into their social circle, he's gonna notice and he might get angry about that or friend, my take her husband's side who knows. He might even take it out on her like, oh, you told them all this bad stuff about me and who knows. Unfortunately, these are all risks, but I don't know how much control they have over

that stuff. Yeah, me neither. I'm just appreciating how tricky this can be. One way to mitigate some of the risk might be to draw this boundary more quietly, like you agree with your husband not to have this guy over at your house and maybe you don't

engage with him as much in the friend group when you guys are out somewhere else, but you don't necessarily come right out and say, hey, you're not welcome in our home anymore. Maybe that way, you don't antagonize him unnecessarily and you don't drive away your friend and then you buy yourself a period of time to see how they do this time around. I like that.

That seems like a smart move.

It sounds like she wants to formally announce her stance with this guy, which is kind

of a respect in a way, and maybe that's also a cop thing, like there's no gray area here. Shears how it is. But this is a good question for her.

“Do you actually need to do that in order to achieve your goals here?”

That is no making me think about the backstory again with that other friend, the toxic one at the bachelor at party. Yeah, there's another person she took a firm stance with. Yeah, she ended that friendship very formally. So maybe that's the interesting thing that these two stories have in common, and maybe this

is part of what her husband struggles with, I don't know, that when something does not sit right with her, she can be very official about it very firm. Yeah, which to be fair, maybe she has some good reasons to be that way with that person. Could totally be. I'm not saying she was wrong to end that friendship, but it's interesting because I

wonder if that's also paralleled on the supporting this friend thing. It sounds like in her mind she either has to support her friend entirely by, you know, approving of her getting back into this marriage, or she has to set a clear boundary in this guy

can never step foot in her home again.

Good point. That is a bit binary. I wonder if viewing things that way is just easier for her, so there's less ambiguity, less confusion. Yeah, could be.

And therefore less tension on her end, so then she doesn't have to feel this anxiety as much. Yeah, I'm Paul. We're speculating here a bit. I know she can decide if this is true, but I think whenever we notice this tendency to view

things in a black or white way, or we feel the need to take a very public or firm stance. I mean, sometimes that's necessary, absolutely, but in some situations, and this might be one of them, she might be in a phase of this thing with her friend wear that overly formal slash rigid approach doesn't actually accomplish very much. Other than maybe giving her a sense of control over a chaotic situation, maybe a sense

of comfort in a situation that's probably very distressing to watch. Which I completely understand, because let's remember, this is all born from her love and concern for her friend. I think we'd all want to step in and save somebody who's being abused all the more so

“if you're a cop, or at least that's what I would hope.”

I'm still a little confused by her husband's response to all this, but the best thing you can do in my view is support and empower her to make the best call for herself. You know, one good way to do that is to look into some resources, design for people like your friend and for you. One of them is the National Center for Women in Policing.

There's another called badge of life. They apparently offer confidential pure support, referrals, stuff like that. And these are great in addition to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which we mentioned all the time. We'll link to a bunch of those in the show notes for you.

Also if this guy continues punching holes in the wall and yelling at his wife and stuff, I think, if you think he's really a danger, I know it's intense, but you might want to report him to the department. My understanding is that internal affairs can investigate domestic violence complaints, and handle them administratively, even without criminal charges.

I would also encourage you to keep talking to your husband about this. I know I'm kind of giving him a hard time for not taking this more seriously. I do find that odd and honestly irresponsible. But I also wonder if he might be nursing some resentment over that previous friendship that you ended, maybe he struggles to make a lot of guy friends.

So he might be looking at all this and thinking, "Here are we going again?" Another friendship cut off because my wife has a problem with someone. That doesn't mean you're in the wrong here whatsoever, but I do think there's more for you guys to know about how this impacts him, how he's making sense of the situation. I'm so sorry for your friend going through this.

“I'm sorry you have to stand by and watch.”

It's a really tough place to be, but I hope you can influence the situation in some way, and I hope you can find the stance you need to help or stay safe and protect yourself. Good luck. And now we're going to punch a hole right to the prices on the fine products and services that support this show.

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Okay, what's next?

Dear Jordan and Gabe, in 2023 after seven years of trying, my husband and I finally managed to

get pregnant during a single Hail Mary Round of IVF. But when I was about 20 weeks pregnant, my husband ended up in the ICU, sedated, and on a ventilator in an attempt to save his life. He had long-term lung damage from COVID the year before and had a recurrent pneumonia that had become horrifically acute.

Jeez, that's scary. A week later, my water broke. And I was rushed to the same hospital. I didn't go into labor immediately, and the baby was still straight vibing in there. So, I stayed there in patient.

That's as a funny way to put it. Five days later, my husband coded, and I had to make the call to compassionately extibate him. He died about half an hour later. My God, I'm so sorry, that's a nightmare.

This is next level stuff, dude. I can't even imagine what this must have been like. She has to go down from labor and delivery to the ICU to take her husband off of ventilator. There's, oh my God, I'm so sorry, my friend. Wow.

By midnight, I was at a hospital in a city an hour and a half away because they had a NICU that could potentially save a baby born at 22 weeks. And, wow, just right on into the next thing out of the frying pan into the fire. This is a super thing. I sat Shiva in my hospital room.

Not enough family members came to make a minion, so strangers came to mourn with me. Oh, for anyone who doesn't know, Shiva is the morning period in Judaism.

“It goes for seven days, and a minion is essentially a quarrum of, I believe, like, ten people”

required for certain prayers and events. It's like, for example, saying the mourners prayer, you need a certain number of people. Yeah, interesting thing about the concept of a minion. I was just reading up on this. This log exists in Judaism because certain acts are understood as communal, not individual,

so they require like a coming together or dialogue with other people. They cannot be done alone, mourning is one of those things. Totally. So you need people around you, you need witnesses. It's kind of like feedback, Friday. Yeah, exactly.

It's the dues cruise, not the dues canoe. That's right, so carry on. My son was born 23 weeks and three days. His lowest weight a few days after birth was one pound to ounces. My God.

He was the size of a disappointing burrito, and he wasn't expected to make it. Can you not make us laugh while we're talking about horrible things that actually do because we need it. This is really intense, but disappointing burrito isn't really a really funny way to describe your newborn child, I suppose.

Oh my God. And if he did make it, he was expected to be seriously disabled. Oh my God. This is every parent's worst nightmare. He was in the NICU for six months, and I lived at a Ronald McDonald house the whole time.

Oh, wow. So it had some interesting.

Again, for people who don't know because hopefully many of you don't and will never

find out firsthand, but a Ronald McDonald house is a free or low-cost place where families can stay when their child is going through medical treatment at a nearby hospital. So they're usually near children's hospitals. That's right. It's a really sweet program because when a child is going through treatment, it can be hard

week or two or a month or whatever.

“People were sleeping in hospital rooms and waiting rooms for a very long time before they”

came up with this idea, so apparently that's where it started. There's actually a movie that came out a couple of years ago about the doctor who helped to found this organization. It's called Audrey's Children. My friend Suzanne produced it. It's a very sweet and solid movie, actually.

I just found out they have these all over the world, actually. That's amazing.

Oh, interesting. I thought it was an American thing. So did I. I just assumed it was. She goes on. Fast forward to today. My son is too now and he is a freaking miracle.

He has some minor delays, but he's expected to catch up fully. Thank God. That is incredible. Absolutely incredible. I truly did not know which direction this was going at first.

Although disappointing burrito now makes sense because I feel like you wouldn't say that. If you didn't say that, what's happening with the other. Yeah. That's right. I'm so happy for you guys. The things you've just been through to go from an underwhelming,

“chipotle door dash to a perfectly healthy child is really a miracle indeed.”

He's smart and sweet and funny and he has the most amazing zest for life. He's obsessed with cows and the musical Hamilton. So maybe more I can't do cows than the musical Hamilton. I know cows and Hamilton both under dog's I suppose. That's right. This kid is not there on a way as shot.

I tell you the story to give you some context for my reactions in trauma. I'm not using them to excuse anything just to explain. I have two friends. I'll call them Morris and Sadie. I met them when I was teaching Hebrew school and I adore them. They are amazing people.

They really showed up for me when my life exploded. They took me to dinner on the night my husband was intubated. When my water broke Morris came and sat with me in the hospital for most of the night and advocated for me. The day my husband died they helped me pack up and move my things to the other hospital.

Sadie brought me some new clothes because I didn't have anything from home. When it was time to be discharged I had to have someone else who lived nearby who could learn to place my son's naso gastric feeding tube. I have no family in the area and Sadie agreed to come and learn. That's amazing. Very solid friends.

This is why I feel guilty and torn. Back when I first got pregnant I was afraid that I would be forgotten. And that no one would think to offer to throw me a baby shower. I have a big thing about being forgotten. And having my life's milestones passed by without note.

I've got a history there with other big life events and it's a huge source of pain for me. My husband asked Sadie if she would organize one for me and she agreed. After my son was born she said she was still planning on doing it. But she never did. The ball got dropped and it wasn't really acknowledged until I brought it up more than a year later.

The fact that I never had a baby shower is still painful to me.

It's not about the stuff I don't care about that. It's because I didn't get any of the joy that surrounds having a baby. I never got to see my husband holding our son. I didn't even get to hold him until he was two weeks old. I spent most of my time at absolutely alone when he was in the nick you.

People forgot about me pretty quickly it felt like. Almost no one came out to visit me. Maybe they didn't forget but the absence felt the same. Never the less. I'm crying while writing this.

I didn't think I would. Man, okay so this is very painful which I completely understand. I'm sorry you felt alone in all this. You were alone in many ways and that this is a theme in your life apparently.

“My day-to-day life is a constant struggle.”

I have a physical disability and deal with PTSD and I don't really have any help with my son on a day-to-day basis. It's a bit better now that he's in day care but I struggle to get things done and I am perpetually burned out. It's hard to experience his wonderful milestones without a fresh wave of grief.

I feel inadequate all the time because of my limitations. Man this is a lot you are really going through it. So I have a lot of resentment towards Morris and Sadie. I have a hard time feeling empathy for them when they can't help with something because of their son. My brain says they have two parents in the house.

They don't need both people there all the time. At synagogue events where both parents are present they often also have a babysitter. And when Morris tries to commiserate with me when I express my exhaustion by saying, "Yeah I've been there. I get upset.

I struggle with finances. I'm behind on my utilities constantly. Meanwhile they constantly claim to be broke but eat out all the time and go on vacations. I quietly judge them. I know it isn't fair.

I know it isn't right.

Sadie is pregnant now with their second child after a few years of trying.

I am genuinely happy for them. I really, really am. But receiving her baby shower invitation in the mail was a gut bunch. I knew it was probably coming and I know it's not about me even a little bit. I feel selfish for feeling this way,

for feeling that it would have been kind to talk to me one-on-one, given the sharp specific pain point in our relationship. I chose to throw the invitation away and try to forget about it. I don't want to make this about me. I don't want to detract from their joy. I want to celebrate with them in other ways."

Okay, so she's really tied up and not.

I'm angry, I don't deserve to be angry.

This hurts, but then I feel selfish for feeling this way. It's interesting, I appreciate the self-awareness I really do.

“I think that's going to make it easier for her to make progress here.”

But I do wonder if it's hard for her to even feel like she's allowed to feel her feelings. Or which ones and how often and which ones should lead, yeah, totally. So she goes on, then yesterday Morris texted me asking if I received the invitation. I replied that I wasn't trying to make things about me or center my nonsense, but that I was still in my feelings about it.

I fear that I overexplained, and that this was the final straw in our relationship. But then I also feel like I'm being more considerate about their feelings than they've been about mine. But then I feel that those feelings are unfair. Well, there it is again.

I don't want to feel this way, but I don't know how to stop.

And yes, I am in therapy, and I have been since before this all went down. So I've had that support throughout this whole journey. But how can I work through these feelings? Am I in the wrong here or are they? What's the way forward here?

Signed a heartbroken widow, struggling with these echoes,

“and wondering how much to bellow at these in-constant fellows?”

Whew, what a saga. This is such an intense story on so many levels. There's so much going on here. Losing her husband, and so suddenly raising a premature baby who almost didn't make it, dealing with a disability, feeling alone through a lot of that, then being disappointed, at least with this baby shower thing by close friends. And then this earlier wound or wounds, whatever they are around being forgotten.

Clearly a huge part of her story. It's a lot, man. It's a lot. No one deserves to go through even one of these things. But to go through all of them at once, I mean, this is just the degree of trauma that I can't really wrap my head around it. If this happened to me, I'd be flattened by something like this. So from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry that you've been through all this,

and that you're still wrestling with all of the thoughts and the feelings that these losses have brought up. So okay, let's start with Sadie and Morris. So clearly wonderful humans in so many ways. The way they showed up for you after your husband died, and the baby was born, and then even after the baby came home, you know this. That's pretty extraordinary. The people who show up when you need them, not just say the right

things, not just offer kind of words and all that, but actually show up and do things. Those are the real ones. So I'm very moved by all that. I know you are too.

“But then there's this baby shower thing. And honestly, Gabe, I am not quite sure what to make of that.”

Look, maybe Sadie really did drop the ball. I'm as being a bad friend when it came to this event. That sucks. But then given how present and loving Sadie and Morris were, to not follow through on this one thing, I don't know. I just wonder if there's more to the story. Yeah, if we could somehow talk to Sadie and Oscar about this, I do wonder what she would say. Yeah, who knows? I mean, she might say, I can't sleep in the night because of this. I feel terrible.

I don't know how to bring it up now. It's so awkward. Or she might say, and I'm totally making this up, by the way. But she might say something like, hey, I helped her for so many months after that. I did not have the energy to throw a big event. I didn't know how to tell her that. So I just let it go. Or did something happen in that period? Maybe she was already feeling things fraying, and didn't feel like throwing the shower anymore, but didn't know how to communicate that.

Which I do think is, you know, whatever her reasons if they're fair, she could have probably talked to our friend about this much sooner. Yeah, I do wonder about that. From our friends perspective, things began to fray because of the baby shower thing, but maybe things were getting a little tense before that for some reason. You know, again, I'm not saying it all that I even think they were, or it's suspect that it's true.

What I'm just illustrating a point, which is that we just don't know what Sadie's reasoning was. I'm with you that there is probably more going on here than just being, I don't know,

absent-minded and dropping the ball, and that would have been great to us out when you finally

brought it up to her over your later. Yeah, I'm curious about that too, because she shared so much with us, but she didn't tell us what Sadie said. I was going to tell us what Sadie said. Yeah, that's odd. Yeah, that kind of feels like important information. So, she was my read on Sadie and Morris based on what you've shared with us. I'm getting the picture. These are very dedicated, big-hearted, solid friends

who really showed up for you when you needed them in a variety of ways, big and small. And I also think that Sadie and Morris, like all people, are not perfect in one way that they didn't show up for you, is following through on this promise to throw you a baby shower, and that hurts. But I also suspect that this baby shower, because of everything that went down, because of this wound, I think it was just a very loaded event for all of you. Yes.

It doesn't let Sadie off the hook for not talking to you about the shower. Ideally, she would have come to you at some point and said, look, I know I said it through you a baby shower. I want to honor my promise to you. I'm having some reservations. And then she could have just told you what they were, and then tried to resolve that with you, or elegantly bowed out, whatever, or ask for help, or found someone else to take over. I'm sure that would have

avoided most of this. But I also think the fact that she didn't do that is interesting as well. Right. Is she avoidant? Sadie not very attuned. Possibly. Doesn't seem like it, given how much she showed up for our friend here when a county, but I don't know who knows. Maybe. Yeah. But you know what, she might be one of those people for whom doing things for someone is easier than sitting down and talking about something vulnerable.

But yeah, to Sadie find it hard to talk about her stuff. And if so, why might that be?

days. There's a lot of big emotions flying around. Maybe Sadie into it at that or straight up knows that about her. And she was like, yeah, I want to go near this. I'm just going to ghost and hope she gets the message. So what you're getting at is, did Sadie maybe see aspects of our friend's personality and maybe feel the intensity of her grief? And that was just very challenging and overwhelming for her. So she's maybe pulling back a little bit. It's possible. She might also be

sensing our friends resentment and judgment around their lifestyle and finances, for example, and that might also be making her want to pull away, whether she consciously realizes it or not.

Well, let's talk about those judgments for a second. On one hand, she's going, I know it's not

fair to judge them like this. I know that it isn't right. On the other hand, she might not be entirely wrong to be frustrated when they say they can't help out, but they have two parents. They got a babysitter or when they complain about being broke and they try to empathize with her about that, but they're spending recklessly. It's tricky because she knows it's not of her business, but I think it feels like it becomes her business when it impacts her. But it impacts her because

she has these expectations of them. So one interesting question she might want to be asking is which expectations are fair and which ones are not? Do these entitle me to opinions about their lifestyle and how they should be managing their household and stuff or not? I mean, how much can I reasonably ask of these people? How much can they reasonably give? And like, what am I asking them for? Do I want them to come over and watch my child for a couple hours

so I can take care of stuff or am I looking for something deeper from them? Yeah, I want to point

“out something that might be a little difficult for our friend to hear, but I think it's important.”

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

that. But that can be true. And it can be that it's a lot for Sadie and Morris to always be there

for her after really being there for her when it counted. So drawing some boundaries with her and prioritizing their own family, that just it doesn't make him jerks. The reality is she doesn't know what their son needs at home. She doesn't get to tell them how to parent or manage their house or spend their time with her money. Again, I say this was so much compassion. I get why this is the story her mind wants to tell. But she also needs to investigate that story at all of

these stories and see if they're actually accurate. And if they're making things easier or harder. It's such a good point. And also it's possible that the stories can be wrong, but the needs that they reveal like her need for love and support and connection, those can be legitimate.

“And that's why her letter is so complicated. Like how do you take your needs seriously without”

tipping over into unfair expectations of other people? Yeah, good question. I think we're both feeling

the same thing, which is that her grief about her husband and her pain over what sounds like many decades are making it hard to appreciate Sadie and Morris for what they did do. And she's probably looking for something from them. Love reassurance, a recognition of the value of her life and her life's milestones that for whatever reason they cannot fully provide her. And that is really, really hard for her to accept in her current state. Totally agree. That's a good summary.

So maybe we need to take a big step back here and talk about what is our friend here stuff and what is Sadie and Morris's stuff. And then she goes on to have, I assume, a number of experiences that confirm that or are further challenging, including this physical disability and everything that brings up and everything it probably makes harder or even impossible to do. And then her husband goes through this very serious illness and then he dies on the day that she

gives birth prematurely. And then she has to watch her baby fight for his life. And then, yeah, she was surrounded by some really good friends back then. Thank goodness. And then, she spent most of her time alone when her son was in the NICU and almost no one came out to visit her. Now, she has to raise her baby alone while she's also grieving her husband's death, which is heartbreaking. She struggles to get things done. She's exhausted, depleted,

money is tight. She has this ongoing sadness about her husband, about raising their son without him. She also feels this inadequacy and shame because of her limitations. I mean, my god, the thing she is dealing with. I know we keep saying this, but this is profound stuff. So I can't understand why somebody going through all of that would look around at the world

“and other friends nearby and say, like, can someone just help me? Here, can someone save me?”

Can someone just come over and be with me more often? So I'm not alone in all of this. Right. So feelings like resentment and hurt and anger and shame and feeling abandoned, they're all very normal responses to a super tragic and chaotic situation. Yes. And it's pretty clear that all of these wounds and losses are shaping the meaning she is making out of all of this. They're echoing this earlier wound and that earlier wound amplifies

the pain in a really big way around each individual event. And I think it's just feeding these narratives one stocked on top of the other, whether it's their wrong for not prioritizing me or they owe

life milestones really don't have meaning. For sure. And those, they construct a whole world view, a whole identity and a whole world view. Yeah. I also have a hunch that a lot of her painful feelings, especially the shame, which seems to be born from the sense of inadequacy described. They're probably getting projected out in part, especially at Sadian Morris. Right. I'm a shame that I can't seem to do all of this well because I resent them for not stepping in and saving

“me. That is such a good way to put it exactly. I think we all know that it's usually easier to”

locate something in somebody else, like a friend who dropped the ball when they said that they would do something, then it is to say, okay. So why does this hurt so much for me specifically? Or what other ways can I go about getting this need mad? Or should I really write

off an entire friendship with people who are amazing to me when they did one thing wrong?

And then to take responsibility for that. So when she asks, how do I work through these feelings? Like who's right? Am I right? Or are they wrong? Or what? You know, these are good questions or fair questions, but the key might be to ask some other questions first, like which pieces of this overall experience are truly mine. How do these feelings and judgments get created? Because it's not as simple as they did this thing and therefore it's like this. I think

it's going through a whole process in her. How do I take an event or the absence of an event like people not showing up for me in the hospital? How do I make sense of that? What do I do with those

“feelings in those judgments? What stories do they reinforce? Where is that getting me? Is it helping?”

Is it hurting? Do I feel like I'm in more pain? Or am I in my healing somehow? I think those would be good questions to ask. Man, huge questions. One she might be asking for the rest of her life. I guess I just want to invite her and she's already doing this by interrogating these feelings, but I want to invite her to get more curious about this painful experience, which if I had to boil it down, it does seem to come down to this abandonment. Because I think if she can get to the roots

of that and unravel her responses to it now, even a little bit, she'll have a much better grasp

of how to work through this pain and it might not even cause as much pain in the first place.

Agreed, so let's talk about one of those situations specifically. Great, let's do it. For me, the hospital visits are a huge one for sure. She said people forgot about her pretty quickly, which you look, I believe her. We all know when someone goes through a huge loss or a huge challenge, the world keeps turning, people have their own lives, they move on and they forget, but at people who are grieving talk about this all the time, it sucks. But then she said, well,

maybe they didn't forget. But she also said the absence felt the same nonetheless. So right there, she's circling exactly the thing you were just describing. The story she wants to tell is,

“they forgot me. But the only thing she knows for sure is they weren't there a lot of the time.”

Those are those of the facts. Now, is it still lonely to be alone when your babies in the NICU? Of course it is. Is it still painful to not have people around you when you're freaking out and grieving like this? Yes, is it as painful as feeling that everyone forgot about you or that you were abandoned? That this means no one loves or cares about you at all? I mean, I'm just none. I'm not so sure. Yeah, I see where you're getting at. And the same thing with the baby shower,

right? She's going Sadie, Loki abandoned me by not hosting the baby shower, but there are several other possible stories that might explain why she did that. And like she said, her anger and her sadness around the baby shower really has to do with the fact that she didn't get any of the joy that's around having a baby. Although I do want to point out that she got one huge joy around having a baby, which is that this baby survived and thrived, which is like that's the headline.

But I understand what's feeding this narrative. She never got to see her husband hold her son,

again heartbreaking. But also, that's not anything Sadie and Moira did do. Yeah, so at least some of her resentment toward her friends is actually anger at the whole situation. Yeah, I think she's well within her rights to be angry at life in the world. This whole situation, I think she's allowed to feel scared overwhelmed even a shame. These feelings are not the problem. But taking those feelings to Sadie and Moira's and transmuting them into these like specific

grievances, especially when they did so much else right, you can see where that starts to get tricky. In one way, Sadie and Moira's are logical objects of your anger. They let you down on the baby shower thing. And yeah, it really does sound like they could have handled it a lot better. In another way, though, they're just like convenient objects for your anger, because they're nearby and because you've invited them into your life and they are involved now. And because the

way they manage their lives is so different, they seem to have different values and certain departments, but also maybe not even the departments that really count. Yeah, good point. So I cannot tell you exactly where this line is between your stuff and their stuff. It's tricky and you're gonna have to find that for yourself. But just slowing down and asking yourself, why am I having this response? Is this really a Sadie Morris thing or is this a methane or is this just kind of like

a this situation really sucks thing? What is this tapping into in my mind in my past that is making this so painful? Just doing that is a huge step forward. Right, what piece of this can I control myself and see what happens? Come in back to her side of the street there. So I want to get a little practical here before we wrap up whether all of this is fair or unfair. She obviously need support.

from a variety of people, a variety of places and maybe communicating that a little differently so that people can show up for her in a way that she truly needs. And one example of that might be bringing something up sooner if it bothers her so she can resolve it with a friend before it festers and becomes this big issue. Yeah, I totally agree with all of this. And obviously I'm so

happy to hear she's in therapy that's got to be a crucial support for her right now. So we've

gone deep on this. We could obviously talk about this for hours but I hope we've given you some new angles here. Again, you have been through a lot. You are up against a lot. Honestly my heart breaks for you that your story played out this way. In your letter you called your baby a miracle. He definitely is but I also think you're kind of a miracle because like look at what you're going through and you're still standing. It really is extraordinary and you've just been dealt a really shit hand in a

couple of huge ways. You've also been given a huge gift here with your son and I know that you know that but I just want to make sure that you're making plenty of room for that fact too. And I know it's easy to forget when you're in pain but this could have gone a very different way and I know

“it's easy for me to say but you have to stay connected to your gratitude for your healthy baby,”

for your friends like Sadie and Morris while you also make room for your pain. You have to do both. Well, sad Jordan and you know if you want that could be a really lovely thing to say to them if you need to repair this relationship if you want to make things right with them. Maybe you say guys I'm really sorry if I drove your way recently with the baby shower invitation thing.

As you can see I have a lot of sadness, I have a lot of grief. I don't always know where to take it

or what to make of it. I was a little confused about the baby shower thing. I'm sorting through that but if I gave you the impression that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me, I'm sorry. And thank you again. I'm sure that would go a very long way. It's probably the start of a really nice conversation. So while you work on all this keep pouring your love and gratitude into your baby keep asking for what you need while also taking care of yourself sending you and your little

burrito baby a big hug and wishing you all the best. You know what makes a great gift for the baby shower you're not going to. The fine products and services that support this show will be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Haya Health. As a parent I think about how much ultra process food kids are surrounded by now. Our kids unfortunately often live on hot dogs chicken nuggets macaroni and that's a big reason we use Haya. A lot of children's vitamins are basically candy and

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“if you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes or anything”

at all that's over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. And now back to feedback Friday. Alright, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I have a four-month-old daughter, my first baby. She's also the first grandchild on both my and my husband side of the family, so everyone is very excited. On my side of the family, we have my mother, who insists on being called Glamma, insert rent on Grand Barren shows and nicknames here. Glamma is, is that Glamma? Yeah. Yeah, like,

sequin fanny back. Yeah, Glamma is obsessed with Facebook. She falls victim to rage-bait,

enjoys keeping up with the local drama, and especially loves posting her happenings on Facebook, because she enjoys getting likes and comments on her photos. When I'm with my mom, I'm hyper-aware that any photo we take will probably end up online. I've learned how to change my settings to require my approval, and I've decreased my digital footprints so much over the last year,

“even more so since I've had a baby. I think it's creepy that someone could see a photo of my baby”

click my name, and learn a lot of important things about us without even being my friend. Two days after I delivered my baby, Glamma was asking for pictures to post on Facebook. I've explained my concerns to my mom, and she said that none of her Facebook friends are weirdos, and they're all people she knows, so it should be fine. I've also explained that my fear is of AI. Did you see the clip of Boris Johnson saying AI? Have you seen this one? No, that's ridiculous somehow.

The way he says AI, I don't know why it's so funny, but he's like, "Do you know what AI is?" It's like people have like remixed this clip over and over again, and now whenever I see AI, I hear Boris Johnson going, "A-I-I?" Anyway, I've also explained that my fear is of AI. I feel terrible that my daughter already has a digital footprint, and she can't even walk or talk. While she's playing with her baby toys, AI bots are scrubbing the internet collecting photo data.

Everything about it freaks me out from using our photos to train generative AI to the

“disgusting dark web to the collection of data. As soon as everyone in my circle is using”

chatGPT for advice on things like, "What type of account should I open for my granddaughter?" Or, "What does a seven-month-old baby want for Christmas?" AI knows my daughter has assets, her approximate age, and probably her name. I've also run into this AI concern with my husband's parents, NAN and Grumpy. NAN and Grumpy love Instagram, and fall for absurd AI slopp constantly. What's going on with the grandparents names of this question? This is ridiculous. Did you make

these operas in the letter? This is the letter. Wow, NAN and Grumpy and Glamma. This is quite a circus. Recently, NAN sent me a video of a little purple monster blowing fire and grinning at the camera, and I realized that this little monster was an AI-generated version of my daughter. This means she had to upload a photo of my baby into some random app or website that now owns that photo. Meanwhile, I'm using one of those private family photo apps where

only people I invite can see the pictures. They can comment and react, and I post almost daily for everyone since we're long distance. So, I feel like that reduces the need to post on Facebook even more. I want to tell everyone that they cannot upload photos of our daughter anywhere.

“But how do I go about this? A big text in person out of the blue?”

Also, am I spiraling? Should I back off of Glamma and just let her post a Facebook? Our NAN is video's harmless. What are new parents doing to set social media boundaries? Signed feeling like the sharing thing is reckless and now meriting. Some parenting that's against my kids inheriting and embarrassing amount of editing. Interesting questions. So, full disclosure, Jen and I, we don't worry about this that much. We post photos of the kids

on Facebook and Instagram. Look, the settings make them all private, so it's only a proof followers that can see them. You won't see it on my Facebook or my Instagram, for example. But yeah, we're probably inadvertently training AI models and creating a digital footprint for them. And that's just kind of the trade-off we've made to be able to easily share stuff with our friends and family. I'm not saying it's the right choice necessarily. I'm just saying,

I'm kind of the wrong guy to give you tech privacy advice in this particular area. But we were

curious about this and we did some research. So here's what we found. First of all,

you're not entirely wrong about this. Pew Research says 95% of parents report post in their kids publicly. 81% of children under two already have a digital profile online according to the UK Children's Commissioner. Different sources say different things. But several say that the average child has over 1300 photos of them on the internet without their consent by the time they're 13. So 100 per year, basically. As you say, AI scrapes billions of images every single day.

UNICEF is written about this. These photos they can be copied. They can be stored. They can be sold. You just never know where they end up. Corporations obviously use them to train AI, target advertising. Governments use them for surveillance and recognition systems. The UK Commissioner and child net both say that facial recognition software can recognize a child from

one photo. The world economic forums says that by 2030 children could represent a third of the

global facial recognition database and Barclays projects that by 2030 as well. Two thirds of identity fraud cases will trace back to data shared during childhood. So yeah, I just want to be super clear. By the way, we can't fact check all that. There's a huge range of stats out there. A lot of it is shared in kind of these alarmist sharing ting circles. So just please keep that in mind. But even if the numbers float around, I think we can all agree. There's obviously some risk

restrict it to friends and family. In the upshot of all that, well, it's a little unclear.

“I don't know if we really know what all this means or how bad this is or where it's all going.”

I mean, five years ago, most people didn't realize AI was coming, especially not the way it is.

So who knows what this all means for our kids futures? But basically what critics of

posting online say is the upshot of all this, way less privacy, less freedom, fewer choices, and no agency or choice on the kids part about how their data gets used. People on the opposite side of this argument would say, yeah, the whole idea is kind of risky and sus. But documented harm from normal family sharing apparently pretty rare. A lot of this risk depends on privacy settings, once again, what's actually shared, what data the photo includes, AI training on large

data sets, it's not the same as targeted surveillance of your kid. We might, in fact, be moving to a world where the whole idea of what's private and what's risky is up for debate, which you know, that probably doesn't put the naysayers at ease, but it might change the definitions and calculus here. And then there's the whole question of trade-offs. Like, yes, posting your

kids in social media, it entails less privacy and less choice, but there are clearly

upsides, bonding with family, investing in support systems, having fun, all of which do increase joy and intimacy and connection. Also, my feeling is, and all likelihood, my kids are going to want to be on social media one day, so I'm not sure what I'm sort of protecting them from, maybe I'm just naive here, and I know the counter argument, yeah, but what if they don't want to do that? Then you just force them to be on social media and create a footprint before they could

really choose. And I get that, I really do. I'm just saying statistically, they're probably going to get out there anyway, so I'm not sure how much good it's really doing to keep them off of it, especially once again, if it's my wife sharing stuff with an account that has family and friends following it. So bottom line, most people in this camp, they seem to be making the argument that thoughtful digital participation is better than total digital avoidance.

“They're also making the argument, and I think I largely agree with this, that this is much more”

about values, privacy, consent, autonomy than it is, you know, about measurable risk. In other words, is this just philosophical, or are we talking about real-world harm? What do those values mean? And are those values worth protecting it all costs when it comes to sharing, if negotiating on them doesn't necessarily, or even usually lead to bad outcomes? I think I know what you'd say, and I think you can tell what my answer is, but we all have to come to our own conclusions about

that. So are you spiraling? I mean, in my humble opinion, not entirely, maybe a little, you're not crazy, clearly, but I think some of your concerns are more legit than others. For example, posting thousands of pictures of your kids on Facebook is obviously leaving a digital footprint. Your mother-in-law creating an animated dragon out of your kids' face on some random low-security AI app, that image could end up in slash as already on a server, in Shenzhen or whatever.

My understanding is a China's probably hovering up all this data anyway, but they're also getting it from places other than meta, in social media. For example, your kids' school photos are likely going to be saved someplace, and that's eventually getting leaked, and God knows what China's doing with all that data. Yeah, what are they doing with all that data? I don't fully understand. They're like constructing some huge AI database. Yeah, they're training. Recognize people

occur. Yeah. The 100% they're training AI models, and they want facial recognition that works with the whole plan. But the whole chat GPT, and therefore, like the whole internet, will know my daughter's name and her future net worth argument. I'm not so convinced by that. Are you Jordan? I don't know. I mean, it's possible, but someone would have to literally type how can I open up a custodian account with Schwab, for my granddaughter, Violet, so-and-so, in Rapid City, South Dakota, so when she's 18,

she can pay for college, and she wants to go to college at this place. Like, even then, chat, GPT, and any other legitimate platform that is not based in China anyway. I mean, they're still governed by some privacy laws, not that those are perfect. Of course, I'm a Google Facebook. Obviously, I've played fast and lose the privacy in the past, so I'm not naive about that,

“but I think we can all agree that that's different from posting the same thing on deep seek or whatever.”

So, you might be adding low probability fears on top of some legitimate concerns here. But look, if you decide, no photos of my kids on Facebook, no Instagram. That's your choice, and it's not a completely unreasonable choice. I'm not saying that it is. My advice, don't make this a huge debate or conflict with your family. Just get together with your husband, let your parents know the stance. You can literally say, we've thought a lot about it.

We've been doing a lot of homework on this. We've decided not to post any photos of her on

public social media or third party apps. We love that you guys love her. We love that you're proud

of her, but we're going to ask you to use the private photo app only. From now on, please don't post her upload her image anywhere. Yeah, I probably would not get into the nuances of AI data scraping, which I don't think can even wrap their heads around. Imagine explaining the dark web in AI alone training to to nann and grumps. I think just as simple, here's our rule, and we appreciate you guys working with us on this. That's all you need. And if they're like, relax, what's the

horror? Our friends aren't weirdos. I wouldn't get into all that. I would just say, hey, we understand. It's not about that. It's about her choice, about whether to be out there. It's about her long-term

over text, but maybe both for good measure. And maybe when you do, you can also give the grandparents

“an aura frame. They use to sponsor the show. Somebody will tell me if the code still works,”

because it seems to be on and off. But the aura is, this is great. It's a digital picture frame. It displays photos and videos. And you can send them from your phone, from anywhere in the world, to the person who has the frame. And there's this collaborative sharing with family members. So you don't text or email photos to the family, and then they're like, cool, I'm going to download this and put it on Facebook. The photos just go into the frame. So maybe that's a good compromise.

They're a sponsor. Once again, they're on our sponsor page. You can get 35 bucks off at auraframes.com. Code Jordan will link to that in the show notes. So look, I appreciate that you want to protect your child. I appreciate that you are thinking about these big values. Even though I'm kind of going a different way here, I really do understand that. And I'm sure your child will thank you for caring about them so much. And when your kid becomes the leader of the resistance,

because they're the only person who doesn't have an instant facial recognition, you can shove that in my face. But I really do think this is partly new parent brain talking to some degree. Your first kid, you're concerned about everything. You go way out of your way to protect them. And then a few years past, you see what's actually an issue. You come up against the realities of the world. And you just readjust. And then if you have a second kid, you're like, okay, here are

the things worth worrying about. Here are the things. Not worth worrying about. Here are the things I don't have time to worry about. And your positions will kind of evolve. Look, I'm not saying

that always leads to the best outcomes. I'm not saying you're wrong. Be thoughtful here. But I would

also give yourself some room to evolve when it comes to these policies. And that's okay, too. It's great to be principal to a parent. But you don't always have to be militant. Sending you your husband and your daughter a big AI-generated hug and wishing you all the best. You can reach us Friday at Jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines that doesn't make our job a whole lot easier. If you're doing battle

with an unstable colleague, you're trying to stop your sister from moving to a murder cabin in the middle of nowhere with her abusive spouse. Or you're trying to save your sibling from going down an alt-right rabbit hole. Or even something more mundane in those snakes. We love those, too. Whatever's got you stand up at night lately, hit us up Friday at Jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. You know what glam is going to

want to shove in her bedazzled fanny pack. Some of the fine products and services that support this show will be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and consider it listeners do that is take a moment,

support our amazing sponsors. All of the deals in discounts and ways to support the show are

searchable and clickable on the website at Jordanharbinger.com/deals. If something's not working, you can't find a code, please email us, Jordan at Jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to take up codes for you. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. And now, for the rest of Feedback Friday. Now for the recommendation of the week, I am addicted to it fella. A couple of weeks ago, I gave a shout out to Libby, the app where you can borrow

digital e-books through your library for free, a bunch of you wrote me after that recommending some other great library apps. One of them is called Hoopla. I had completely forgotten about Hoopla, apparently Hoopla has some big advantages over Libby. The best one is that there's no wait list, and everything is available instantly, and that's a huge plus. It also gives you access to a bunch of other platforms, apparently courses, TV shows, foreign streaming services,

stuff like that. It does have some downsides, though, for example, you can't read on Kindle,

“and it has a smaller selection of best sellers, I guess, and I believe that there's a monthly”

borrowing limit, usually 5 to 10 items depending on the library, and the interface, some people say is not as good. But between Libby and Hoopla, you could easily have all of your borrowing needs met, and still not have to pay really anything for books and movies and stuff, which is amazing, as long as you don't mind switching between the apps. So that was a great rack, and thank you for sending me that. And then one of our listeners Ian told me about another amazing app you can use

with a library card. It's called Press Reader. So Press Reader is an app that gives you access to thousands of newspapers and magazines from around the world in their original print layout. Local newspapers for newspapers, premium magazines, publications, and I guess more than 60 languages, you can get current issues, back issues, you can download issues for offline readings, so you can take it on the plane with you without Wi-Fi, you can listen to articles with they

have a text to speech feature. I've been playing with this app this week. I am obsessed with this app.

It's kind of changed my life. Now I can read all of these cool magazines I never used to read

because, you know, I didn't want to pay for 12 different subscriptions when I only read a few articles from each one. So big thank you to Ian for this one, that's my rack of the week, actually two, for one, this week, Hoopla and Press Reader. Enjoy. Okay, next up. Hey Jordan and Gabe,

“you recently published a newsletter on the subject of forgiveness. I think one of the hardest”

aspects of forgiveness is forgiving yourself for past and discretion. The things you dwell on from the past that you can't change, like we're grating having said something to family or friends or a conversation that you should have had, but now you can't because the person is out of your

Signed, hoping you can shake me of these regrets that still plague me. Damn, great question, hard question. So first of all, for anybody who didn't catch this wee bit wiser newsletter and shameless plug, if you haven't signed up yet, Jordanherbanger.com/news, we're getting great responses to this thing. It is so much fun to write and you all seem to be enjoying it. So what we said in that newsletter was that forgiveness as a concept, it's slippery, right? I think we all know that

forgiving somebody for doing something, for giving ourselves, not always easy. And oftentimes,

we think we've forgiven and moved on and then something else happens or time goes by or certain mood sets in and something that's like, nah, I still resent this person for that thing they did or no way I can let myself off the hook for what I did. So what we suggested in that newsletter

“was if you can't forgive, then maybe you need to do something else, something potentially easier,”

which is accept. Acceptance means I acknowledge what happened, what they did, what I did. I'm not arguing with reality. I'm not wishing things were different. I think a lot of the time, just that acceptance brings us the peace and clarity we're looking for. And sometimes when we really accept something, we go, oh, I don't actually need to forgive. This is enough. Right, sometimes acceptance is its own kind of forgiveness. And oftentimes acceptance brings us closer to compassion

and compassion can be more attainable and often more productive than forgiveness. So my thought for you is, if you're struggling to forgive yourself or something you did, something you said, I don't see why the same principle can't apply to you. If you can't forgive yourself, can you try to accept? Can you say to yourself, yeah, I said that careless thing to my friend or yeah, I really wish I had that conversation with my ex before we went our separate ways. And instead of then saying, I have to

forgive myself for that, can you try going, I have some regret about saying that thing. I have some sadness that I didn't get to express such and such to my ex. And see what it's like to invite those thoughts and feelings in and just sit with them without doing something else with them. Like trying to turn them into something else or trying to push them away or even trying to forgive yourself for them. I think sometimes won't be try to forgive. There's nothing wrong with

that of course. It's a beautiful experience. And if you can get there, I'm amazing. But I think

sometimes when we try, like, really try to forgive, we're actually doing something else. Hmm, just something to make it less painful. You mean? Yeah, like if I can just forgive this person or if I can just forgive myself, then I want to have to feel angry or I want to feel sad or I want to feel embarrassed or whatever it is. Because look, I forgive. It's over. It's behind me. And ideas, concepts, they're tricky, man, because the mind can argue anything it wants to.

It rarely knows what it truly believes. That's a dot Buddhism, I guess. I don't know, acceptance

“in a way. It's easier. All you have to do is allow something to just be there. And in a way,”

it's much harder because then you have to sit with the thing you did or the thing someone else did and all the feelings that come with it. You don't have that forgiveness concept as a buffer anymore. So that's where I'm at with all this. Yes, self forgiveness is possible. But trying to work toward forgiveness without taking these necessary detours through acceptance and curiosity and compassion, I think that usually doesn't work. So you almost have to come at forgiveness

indirectly. It's more the byproduct of acceptance, curiosity, compassion rather than the

goal. Kind of like how if you try to be happy, you'll never be happy. But if you focus on helping

other people, if you engage in things that are fulfilling, then happiness will result. It's kind of like that. Gaby, how many thoughts here? Did I just smash that in thanks everyone for coming to my TED Talk? Best TED Talk I've heard in a while. It goes sir, Ken Robinson, Renee Brown and then you for what you just said. I agree. I agree with all that. So our friend here regrets having made some comment to a friend or a family member. You can't change what he said.

But he can learn from it. He can use it to handle a similar moment in the future differently. He can figure out why he said what he said or you can work that into an apology if that's appropriate. You can go to this person and say, you know, I really regret that thing. I said to you way back when and I've been asking myself why I said it and here's what I've realized and I don't actually feel that way or hey, maybe I do feel that way, but I wish I had expressed it differently.

I hurt you. I disappointed you or I was just confused at the time and I apologize for that. And hopefully all of that leads to more insight on his part, more skill, maybe even more closeness with the person he heard or disappointed or whatever. Same thing with the conversations that he regrets not having. That person is out of his life now. He can't tell them what he wanted to say, but he can decide, okay, I don't want to wait to tell the people, I love how much I love them.

For example, or if I have questions for someone in my family, I want to ask them while I can, so I don't end up with this regret again in the future. Right. I'm going to speak up when something bothers me sooner, so I don't sit on it and

“miss my window, whatever it is. Yeah. So I think when you do something constructive with the wound”

or regret, it does start to shift. It often doesn't hurt as much or it doesn't only hurt, right? It hurts and it takes on new meaning. And that meaning is the real reward. In my view, it's actually probably why these mistakes have to happen. I'm putting mistakes in big air quotes, you know, why they have to happen to generate opportunities for this kind of meaning making so that we can

easier because it's like, okay, I can forgive myself for what I did or what I didn't do because I have this meaning now because it showed me something important, something that had I known it in advance,

I wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place, right? So this had to happen. And yes,

it hurts, but in a weird way, I'm kind of grateful. I made this mistake. And so now I can forgive myself for that. Absolutely. The more we talk about this, the more I wonder if forgiveness is really as important as we tend to think it is. I'm not totally sure about that. I want to think about that some more. But I agree that all these other processes are probably more productive than just going like, okay, yeah, I'm over it. The more fruitful question is, what is this thing I can't seem to

forgive myself for designed to teach me? So I hope that gives you some new angles here. I love how thoughtful you're being about all this. Just keep going inward, keep inviting the stuff in,

“keep trying to learn rather than tucking something away. And I think you'll find what you're looking for.”

Go back and check out Matthew Ty aka C. Milk. If you haven't done so yet,

the best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network. The circle of people I know like and trust. And I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for yourself in our six minute networking course. It is free. It's not gross. It's not Shmoosey. You can find it on the thinkific platform at six minute networking.com. The drills take a few minutes today. Take that well before you get thirsty folks build relationships before you need them. Show notes and transcripts on the website

advertisers discounts ways to support the show. All at Jordanharbinjur.com/deals. I'm @jordanharbinjur on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gables on Instagram. Gabriel Miss Rahi. This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jason Sanderson,

Robert Fogody, Ian Beard, Tadasadowskis and of course, Gabriel Miss Rahi. Our advice and opinions

are our own anomal lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others, share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

What if Earth isn't the exception, but one of millions of planets that could host life? Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger takes us on a mind-bending journey through the cosmos, revealing how close we actually are. To answer in the question, are we alone? We have found more than 5,600 planets orbiting other stars, but we have seen most of them.

“And that's what we're looking for. If we live in this incredible time of exploration,”

because with bigger telescopes, with more time looking, we can find smaller worlds. We can find worlds that take more time to whist around their star. But we have actually changed our whole understanding of the cosmos and this respect that there are so many other stars out there, felt we don't have to ships to get there yet. We can catch the light and read it. There's hope and there's wonder and there's our human curiosity that gets us to investigate.

Our search for life comes down to the question, can we find it? And that I think isn't what it takes to figure out how we fit in this beautiful cosmos. And science is so much fun and I think this is what we sometimes don't get to convey. This research is not just about how we alone in the universe. It's also about understanding our planet, getting a glimpse in our potential future when we look at all the Earth

and using all that knowledge to safeguard our pale blue dot. If you've ever looked up at the night sky and wondered who might be looking back, check out episode 1056 with Lisa Colton Eger.

“Quick rake to put you onto another show you should be listening to. If you enjoyed my interview”

with Havier Leave about romance scams back on episode 1195, you'll want to check out his podcast pretend. Havier is an investigative journalist who lives in the world of lies, manipulation and deception and but he's still a nice guy. And on pretend he doesn't just tell these stories, he gets inside them. He talks directly to scammers, cult leaders and the people they've conned. He just says a way of getting them to reveal things that I'll make you go away. Okay, you're just

gonna admit that. And the cases are bananas, a cyber stalking story where the victims turned out to be the stalkers, a true crime podcaster accused of harassing victims for content. No, it's not him. And Havier is spending a day with a cult leader. Yes, including an exorcism, that must have been a fun afternoon. Plus he digs into the real frank abagnel from catch me if you can. Let's just say the movie took some liberties. Pretend has been featured on Netflix's Don't Pick Up

the Phone. Spotify tagged it as a breakout hit. And it's consistently up there with the top true crime shows search pretend wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored and part by something you should know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard to

you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a

practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here. Just in a fast, focused format,

Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask. And the topics are

“all over the place in the best way. Recently they've covered things like why we care so much”

what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested and what makes

people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use

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and start listening. You can thank me later.