The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

The Exploration of Human Behavior and the Way the World Works with Jordan Harbinger

As a high school exchange student, Jordan Harbinger was placed in the former East Germany. His frustrations with the language barrier caused him to dedicate himself to learning German, into an exploration of human behavior, and the way the world works.

The life changing decision to become an exchange student
Bringing about changes by attacking your fears and weaknesses
Why fake confidence doesn’t lead you anywhere significant
Building our internal confidence through developing self trust
Choosing to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us
Learning to look at things through a growth perspective at all times
How Jordan consistently tests himself by pushing his own limits
A kidnapping in Mexico City that enabled Jordan to develop his sense of self trust
Why greater people skills accelerate your progress dramatically
Learning to master the skill set of social competence
Why developing a legacy that is greater than currency

Jordan hosts a successful show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, founded The Art of Charm, a relationship, dating, and self improvement school, and is an accredited speaker. He is fluent in English, German, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian.

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Duration:: 59m
Broadcast on:: 21 Jul 2014
Audio Format:: other

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You know, it's funny because usually when people ask, they're asking about the art of charm and I talk about how I used to be as Wall Street Attorney and I hated it and I learned that people skills were paramount and I've told that story so many times. But honestly, it goes back to when I was an exchange student, it probably goes back even earlier. But the sort of principal kickoff in when I really understood that I loved learning about people was I got so bored in high school that I started getting in trouble, surprise, surprise. It's like the story of everyone's life, right? And I went to, I went to my girlfriend's house and she had a friend who was an exchange student from Norway and exchange students are kind of invisible unless they're really outgoing. So I remember talking to her and being like, do you like it here? You know, what's the deal here? And she was interested and she was really interested in us as people and I thought, you're really interested in Americans. I find this whole thing so boring and played and she goes, well, why don't you become an exchange student? And I thought, oh my God, that's the best idea ever. So I found out that I could go to another country like Israel and my mom vetoed the hell out of that instantaneously because she was worried that I was going to get blown up or something. And then she didn't let me go to Hong Kong because it was going back to China. This is 1997. And she's like, you know, in my mom's day, if you got stuck behind an iron curtain, you were cut off from your family for the rest of your life, North Korea, East Germany, you know, Berlin stuff like Berlin wall type stuff and it was bad news. So I actually chose Germany. She was totally cool with that iron curtain days were supposedly over. And I ended up getting placed in the former East Germany, which we didn't really understand at the time. But when I showed up, there was a lot of I was in considerably what people consider to be one of the worst places to live in the former East Germany is called Halazala. And the city was an industrial shell where there were chemical plants around it. It was super high crime, relatively speaking for Germany, had a lot of illegal immigrants from Turkey and other places. And it was just a very undesirable place to live, generally speaking. So when I got there, I was pissed. I was uber pissed. Nobody spoke English. That was the one thing I was kind of counting on because I didn't speak German. And after a few months of whining and feeling sorry for myself, I started to really apply myself to learning German and meeting people and getting to know people. And that experience that I got that year changed my whole life because I started to realize that things I thought I wasn't good at, like language learning, I was actually really good at and I wasn't actually introverted and shy. I was actually holding myself back by choice because of ego and being afraid to make mistakes with the language and, you know, expecting people to come up and talk to me or whatever. And I changed all of those habits while I was there in Germany. And I found out kind of who I really was to use a stupid cliche that I normally hate because I was placed in this totally unfamiliar situation away from everybody that I knew. And I really had trial by fire. And that got me really interested in people from everywhere because a lot of my friends were internationals and everybody else was German. I didn't even know any other Americans. It was an experience unlike any other. And the fact that I was in a former socialist country, I learned so many things about how how the world quote unquote really worked because in socialist societies, supposedly everybody's equal, but it's actually much more classist and much more about who you know than any capitalist society have ever, have ever been a part of. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So let's, let's go back to the beginning of this. There's a component of this that really kind of interests me that I want to talk about in more detail. You know, you mentioned holding yourself back and ego and how being placed in this totally unfamiliar environment kind of just caused all these radical habit changes and identity changes. Now, what I'm really interested in is how we bring about those changes in our own lives. If we can't say, you know, put ourselves in a completely unfamiliar environment. Yeah, that's a, that's extremely, that's a great question. You know, honestly, it's, it can be really tough. But one of the things that, that I give clients and stuff at the art of charm, there's a lot of drills and exercises that people can do, but I really think that I could have probably done something similar by, and it's not just the whole like pick up and travel and discover the world. Because that's just kind of a platitude, you know, find out who you are, go find yourself. If you can't read the menu, you can't read the road signs, you're not going to find yourself. I'm sorry. But you can make a list of things that you're afraid of, things that you've avoided, people and relationships that need mending. And you can just attack those things, those weak spots one by one. Now, traveling and placing myself in that foreign environment, that was really helpful for finding out what those weaknesses were. But I was also 17 years old. If you're 27, you probably have a damn good idea of what a lot of your weaknesses are. And you can probably make that list a lot more easily than I could have at age 17 when I thought I knew freaking everything, right? And so I had to hit a wall because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch. But I think a lot of people don't really need to do that. I think a lot of people go, I know I'm shy at work. I know I don't ask for raises. I know I don't put myself out there socially. I know that I don't apply myself in my hobbies. I know that I'm not in great shape. I know that I'm afraid of heights. When I was 17, I was like, I can do whatever the hell I want. That was great fake confidence, but it wasn't really going to lead me anywhere. So I needed to put myself, I needed to unplug from my security blanket of suburban Detroit, Michigan, and put myself in a place where nobody really cared. And I had my host family, but at the end of the day, I wasn't really their kid. Now that sort of changed later on, but in the moment, they were kind of like, hey, our exchange student's broken. He's a dick and he sleeps all day. You know what I mean? My host brother at the time was like, you know what? This guy sucks. We fought all the time. He's like, we should just send you home. I mean, he couldn't have been more unhappy with his selection. Now we're tight like real brothers, but back then, I mean, I had a lot to learn and you get grown up real fast when you're not around your family, your friends, no one speaks English, and you're in a place that's sort of proverbially cold and gray because it used to be surrounded by chemical plants. And even when I was there and I remember people saying, yeah, the city's really great now because it's a lot greener than it was. And I go, holy crap, what did it look like five years ago? And they said that there was ashes on things and the trees were gray because the ashes from the chemical plant would just rain down and the rain was brown and black. I mean, this is like dystopian communism. And this is not something that you want to be a part of normally, but for me, it was the perfect thing at the perfect time. So Jordan, you mentioned something earlier, which is this idea of fake confidence, which I think that anytime we get external validation from something, we get fake confidence, right? Yeah, exactly. Like that's why people save up and buy a Lamborghini. Yeah. So what I'm curious is, you know, let's talk about building that through internal validation and kind of your own experiences with that and really, and how that's kind of shaped, I mean, where the journey goes from here, you know, from your time in Germany. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's a loaded question because it's so complicated and that's what you're known for. So I love it. And yeah, the show is about that. So for me, honestly, it was a long journey of self-trust, which I think is a core component of internal validation and internal/real self-confidence because you can work your butt off and you can buy a great car and you can get a nice looking property and you can even have a trophy girlfriend or wife. But at the end of the day, it's kind of a cliche that none of those things make us happy, right? And so getting that sort of internal locus of control and that internal self-confidence, and do you know what I mean by internal locus of control? I should probably explain that, right? I think it's worth, I know what it is, but I think it'd be worth explaining. So essentially what it means is when I, I'll just do an example. When I first got to East Germany or former East Germany, because it was 97, it wasn't East anymore, but everybody still said that it was, especially the people that live there. I was like, this sucks. Everybody's mean. I got placed in a place that sucks. I got the shaft from the exchange organization. All these people are dumb. They don't understand anything. They don't get me. They're not friendly. I mean, a million victim mindset type of things that a lot of, surprisingly, a lot of grown ass men still have today. And those aren't good belief systems that serve us. They're very negative. They result in a ton of problems, and it's just a huge pain to get over those things. Now, what luckily happened with me is I literally, and I remember there was a day where I woke up and I was like, I hate it here, and I had heard about an exchange student that actually left in the middle of the night, booked a flight back to America, packed all her crap and left. And we heard about it because her family was like, holy crap, our exchange student is missing and her stuff is gone. What happened? And she had just bounced. She just couldn't take it anymore. And I remember thinking that sucks. And then I remember thinking, it might be great. Would I want to go home? And I thought, heck no. And I remember going to myself, I have a choice to make. I can sit here and be miserable and bitch about it to just anyone who will listen. Or I can decide, I'm going to learn German. I'm going to make some friends. I'm going to enjoy this and get some value out of it. Why is this a prison sentence? And I realized that it was my own doing and my own choice. And that was a huge defining moment for me because it was like night and day. My host father told me about a week later, he goes, okay, you got to explain something to me. The first three months that you were here, you didn't speak a word of German, you were really quiet. You didn't want to go out and do anything. You didn't want to meet anyone. You didn't care about anything. Now you're never home. You have a ton of friends and you're never, you just never shut up and your German is excellent. What happened? What on earth, what happened to you? You know, we're not complaining and I'm hesitant to even ask because I don't want to screw it up. But what is going on here? And I told him about, you know, I made a choice and it's a lot easier said than done, but I had just been beating myself up and punishing everything and everyone around me. Most of all myself, while I was over there, that I knew that I was going to either be miserable for another eight months or I was going to just be like, I was going to get good at it. I was going to win. I was going to win being an exchange student, okay? And so I was determined to do that. And that really changed everything for me while I was there. And so having that internal locus of control where I was able, where I realized I was the cause of all of these things around me and not just a victim of it, that allowed me to go, oh, so I can actually dictate any outcome that I want. You know, there's still chance and things still happen to people and blah, blah, blah. But I can take that mindset and realize, oh, everyone speaks German around me, poor me and go, wait a minute, everyone speaks German around me. I'm going to learn German like a boss because no one's going to try to speak English to me. No one's going to try to, you know, be the guy who practices their English. No one's going to worry about anything. I'm in public school where everyone's speaking German around me. This is a unique once in a lifetime opportunity for me to get fluent in German and basically just to have it happen almost automatically by just being here and being present. And that was amazing. So that once, of course, I started to make friends and once my German started to get better and I started to travel around Europe by myself as a 17 year old kid and be able to book train tickets and drive a car in Europe and all that stuff, I was like, I can do pretty much anything. I didn't realize I had this much capability and that directly translated into the things I look at in my life now where it's like, I can start and run a business. I can learn Mandarin Chinese. I can go to North Korea and be one of the only Americans to ever see that place. You know, and every time I think I rarely have a moment where I go, Oh man, I can't do that. My limiting beliefs. I kind of got rid of that whole process a long time ago because things don't happen too many more. They're a result of whatever I've done, good or bad. Does that make sense to you? Makes all the sense in the world. I think this is a radical mindset shift for people, right? To go from sort of victim to I control things because I don't know that we control everything. We don't. And anybody who says that you do is like a self help weirdo, who's probably read too many books. Yeah. Because I mean, there are things that are going to happen that are bad that we just we can't do anything about inevitably. And so what the first place I want to really kind of dig deeper into this is making the shift from an internal locus or from an external locus of control to an internal locus. I mean, you had a situation that caused it. I mean, how do we do that in our own lives? I mean, easier said than done, right? Because like something bad happens to you. You tell a story about it. It makes you feel like shit and, you know, and it just plays itself out. So I mean, how do we make this shift? Yeah, you're right. It is a lot easier said than done. And here's the thing. I didn't just do a bunch of yoga one day and not there's anything wrong with yoga, but you'll see where I'm going. I didn't just do a bunch of like meditation and go, Hmm, internal locus control events are neutral and I can control anything that comes out as a result. Like, yes, that's a great principle. Yes, I would largely agree with it that events themselves are neutral and it's all about how we experience them and choose what we do as a result, how we respond, all that stuff. But here's the thing, I had to go through like a three to four month period of depression in a foreign country with no one that I know around and basically be at the point of tears to come to that realization. And before that, I was bored to tears in high school. And before that, I was in middle school as a misfit, like not fitting in bored to tears with the curriculum. So it was a long and painful process for me. So I don't recommend beating yourself up for half a decade or more to get there. That was not the most efficient place to do it. And making that shift for yourself can be a very difficult process. And I mean, it's part of the reasons that I became a coach and do what I do now at the art of charm because I think that it's a process that's best guided. I also don't think that it's something that anyone else can do for you on that same token. Like I'm not trying to say, hey, you know, if you just listen to my podcast, you will come to the same realization. I mean, you've got to really, you've really got to work at it. And that work might look differently for a lot of people. It might be making a list of everything that you think is difficult that you've always been afraid to do and going out and systematically eliminating it to get to that level of self trust. It might be quitting your crappy job that you hate every minute of taking large financial risk and backpacking around the world and or it might be for other people sitting down and writing because you're a writer and you want to get all this stuff out of your system and, you know, making that successful or it might be starting a podcast and delivering what knowledge you have slash think you have to everyone else. But here's the trick. Anytime you embark on something like that, you run the risk of it being of it not having a great result. You know, you might write a book and everyone goes, this thing sucks. You might backpack around the world and you might meet a bunch of people and find out that you are one naive dude and now you're broken jobless, you know, but that will that will again always come down to what you the way that you interpret it. If you just wanted to write for the sake of writing, you win. If you just wanted to travel so that you can get to know yourself a little bit more, which in my opinion is one of the best reasons to travel, then you win. You know, so it really comes down to being able to take risk and become tolerant for that. And then looking at things through a growth perspective at all times, don't worry about the entertainment value of it. Don't worry about what you're going to get out of it because at the end of the day, you're really just testing yourself. And if you look at pretty much everything through that prism when you're going through this process, you're really going to be able to guide yourself through it. It's tough though. It's really hard. I'm not going to lie and be like, buy an ebook and you'll be fine. I think people that do that are doing everybody a disservice anyway. And I think there's big business based around trying to get people some sort of weirdo enlightenment. I mean, I live in San Francisco, half the city is tech and the other half the city is like stretch. And eventually you'll realize who you really are at the Nirvana level and it's just a bunch of garbage in my opinion because none of the people who teaching it are, they're doing the same thing. Can I make money? Health this question mark? You know, it's really, it's really tough. So there's no, I would say sort of, what's that, what's that sort of cliche? It's like, beware of anybody who claims enlightenment or wisdom. You know, when I'm, you know, I'm talking about beware of those who claim to have found it. Yeah. And it really is something like that. Like I know that I've gotten it for myself in a lot of ways, but I'm, this isn't a process where I'm like, I'm done, I'm confident, I'm consistently working on this. I'm consistently finding new ways to test myself, consistently finding new ventures and to other people. It looks like I'm crazy because I'll go on vacation in North Korea and then I'll start a business that deals with North Korea and people go, are you an idiot? What's wrong with you? But really it's, it's always about testing yourself and pushing the limits. And for me, it's always been like that since I left. And since I got back from Germany, I've always been trying to figure out what's next. Spark something uncommon this holiday, just the right gift from uncommon goods. 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And it's a hard thing to define, and so I get the question, it's really about, if I know, I mean, I guess it could be simpler, complicated. For example, if somebody says, "Hey, Jordan, I need you to play this on the piano, we're going to have a problem. I don't play the piano, I don't know how to do it, I have no concept of where I would even start." If you tell my girlfriend to play something on the piano, she'd probably say, "Sure, I'll give it a try," and she might not nail it at first, but she said a lot of practice. She just had a lot of experience. That's a pretty common task, right, playing something on a piano or balancing a checkbook. But if you look at something like starting a business, it involves a high level of risk, and it involves a high level of competency that most people don't have when they're starting their first venture, because why would you? You don't have experience. So my whole life has kind of been about getting experience in as many areas as possible and trying to get good at those things. So I have a higher level of self-trust, and it becomes an addiction. So it's all about competency in some fields, and then the idea that you know you're going to do the right thing in another field, and that kind of leads into a story about how I was kidnapped that I'll happily tell that has led to a lot of self-trust. Well, let's go there. All right. So this is something that I had to reflect on for a while before I realized that I had this level of self-trust, but at the time it was just a scary, shitty experience. So when I was 20, I lived in Mexico City, and I lived on the outside of the city on the roof of a house that belonged to these random old people, essentially, rented. And I worked for this nonprofit. They were supposed to find me housing. They didn't surprise, surprise. They were massively disorganized and very wasteful. So I ended up living on the roof of a house of somebody who was just like a friend of some guy who worked there. And they were nice enough people, but I was a miserable bastard, and I would go to the gym every day and eat tons of steak because it was Mexico and everything was cheap. And I just got really big and muscular because that's what I thought I needed to be confident as well and be attractive and all that stuff. And one day I was meeting a friend of mine from Germany, and I told the cab driver that I needed to go to an ATM first because I didn't have any cash all I had was my credit card. He said, no problem. And that's the dumbest thing you can possibly tell a shady cab driver in a random part of Mexico City, but he was in a green VW bug, and that's what most cabs are. Little did I know there were gypsy cabs of the same kind that were run by just straight criminals. And this guy was one of them. So instead of taking me down to the center, Mexico City is like a bull. And down in the middle of the bowl is so kalo. That's where the presidential palace is statues, all kinds of things that everybody knows about. It's like the White House area of what Mexico City is to Washington, B.C. And instead we're going up and further away from the lights. And I thought, hmm, that's strange. Maybe we're just going away from the, you know, around traffic or maybe we're just going through something. And so I asked him, you know, what are we doing here? Is there traffic? And he said, uh, yeah. And I thought that's a really weird hesitant answer that tells me that he's probably full of crap. So I remember learning from my old boss. I used to work in a security company that the secondary location is where a lot of bad things happen. And I even saw it on Oprah when I was like 14 watching with my mom. And I was like, huh, okay, I better be careful here. I don't really trust this guy is nonverbal communication. Like something in my gut is telling me that this guy is full of it. So we start driving further and further away. And I said, listen, man, just turn around and let's take me back. And he goes, no, I'm almost there. I said, no, we're not. I know we're not there. And he goes, I'm just going to ask a friend for directions. Now, this is the equivalent of a cabin in Washington, D.C., not knowing where the White House is and having to stop for directions. Also, there were no mobile phones back then. But you know, we could have stopped at a phone. We could have asked somebody else on the street, why were we going further away from the destination to ask for directions? It just didn't sit right with me. So I told him, listen, I'll pay you. Just let me out. And he said, I thought you only had a credit card and no cash. That's exactly what I knew that the proverbial shit was going down. And so I knew that at that point, I had a choice to make. I could rationalize to myself that nothing was going to happen and that I would probably be fine and that maybe I was just overreacting and that everything my gut was telling me was probably not true or I could do something about the situation. Not having a plan on what to do when you're being driven down a road in a taxi in the backseat was very unsettling. So we eventually did stop. At this point, I'm like cold sweat panicking. And I slide behind him and I say, don't get out of his cab. Take me back to where I was and let me out. And he said, no, my friends are in there. I'm just going to ask them for directions on where to go. Now at that point, I'm painting a very vivid picture of me sitting in a basement chained up, getting cut into little pieces slowly, right? And I put my arm between him and the door and he did not notice that my arm was between him and the door. And so I said, don't get out. Just keep driving because I figured at least even if he keeps driving, at least we're not where he wants me to be, right? At least I'm anywhere but right here in front of this like CD center block building with like no fixtures and curtains over the windows and, you know, dark, no lights on. I'm thinking, what is this, this place, you know, one light on like upstairs? It's just everything about the whole area freaked me out. There was nobody around. And so he made a fast one for the door. And I reached up behind the seat and I squeezed his neck until he stopped moving. And at that point, I wasn't thinking about much of anything other than I have to get out of here. I got out, I pulled the lock up, which was like a little nail stuck in the lock hole because the car was ancient. I walked around to the driver's side door, opened the driver's side door, pulled him out, looked for the keys, tried to drive the car, couldn't because I didn't really know how to drive a stick, especially not a stick that was manufactured in 1968. And I just couldn't make much of it, took the keys out, chucked him. I should have held on to him, but it doesn't really matter. Chucked him so that he couldn't chase me in the car and proceeded to run probably further and faster than I'd ever run before, back towards where I remembered we came from until I hit a road of any substantial size. Meanwhile, I'm waving his money that I had taken from the cab, waving his money around, trying to get somebody to stop. Now, meanwhile, I'm a taller white dude, taller than Mexicans, generally, especially in that area with like bleach blonde hair at the time, banana republic buttoned down blue shirt and cream colored chinos, hauling ass down a Mexican suburb side street that's not even paved, okay? So nobody was going to stop from me, sweat soaked through, sweat dripping off my face. You know, I just look like a crazy person had been transplanted there from another planet, okay? And so nobody would stop. Eventually, this couple stops, I thought it was a guy and his daughter turned out to be like a guy and his girlfriend, who was 20 years younger than he was, and he was a doctor and he's like, are you okay? I said, yeah, but somebody kidnapped me. And he wouldn't let me in the car, but the girl was like, you can't leave him here because I think everybody in that area of the city knew that wherever I had come from was not a place where somebody like me was going to be safe. And so they let me sit in the back of the car and I, because I remember saying, I'll ride in the trunk, just get me out of here. And so they put me in the back of the car and I said, let's, can you take me to the police station and the guy explained to me, listen, if I take you to the police station, there's a pretty good chance that the police are going to take you back here. If they know who these guys are, if they're organized crime, and additionally, what happened to the cab driver again. And I remember thinking to myself, I have no idea what happened to the cab driver. For all I know, he woke up a few seconds later because it was a basic sleeper and he woke up feeling kind of crappy and called his friends and they searched around for the car keys and are now having a beer. Option B is he's still laying exactly where I left him. And I didn't really want to bet on that and go to the Mexico, Mexico City Police Department and find out that I'd accidentally killed a 60 year old or 50 year old or however old this guy was cab driver. And my version of the story is that he was trying to take me somewhere because the only version they have is mine. And you hear horror stories when you live there about how those police operate in the beginning anyway. So I really, I really didn't want to go there. So I immediately got dropped off in a metro station, went home, packed my stuff, announced to everybody that I was going to be leaving the next day. I quit my job and I moved to another part of Mexico and I stayed there until I went home. What I should have done is probably come back to the United States, but I left and went there. I was going and I rented a room from people, people in cash and sat around and learned Spanish for the next couple of months because I was sort of processing. And people might ask, what the hell does that have to do with self trust? What does that have to do with confidence? You just kind of escaped some crap situation and the guy was probably fine. You know, but at the end of the day, you know, when I think back on that, I know that my life was in danger or at least I perceived it to be that way. And instead of panicking and instead of blaming circumstance and instead of curling into a little ball instead of freaking out and doing all the other things that I think a lot of people would do and that I sort of had expected that I might do in a situation like that. I kept things together and I managed to get away from the situation unscathed aside from a little bit of emotional trauma. Of course, you know, I still have nightmares about this stuff to this day with things turning out differently, but you know, it's it's something where when people go, well, what if you fail at your business or what if this doesn't work out for you or what if this relationship doesn't work or what if people think you're an idiot when you're on stage? It just pales so ridiculously in comparison to what I've been through. And I know that I can handle it because I know that when the chips were really, really down and it was make or break, literally do or die that I did instead of died. Tailing football to the friend who's just there for the nachos, hard. Tailgating from home like a pro with snacks and drinks everyone will love, any easy win. And with Instacart helping deliver the snack time MVPs to your door, you're ready for the game in as fast as 30 minutes. So you never miss a play or lose your seat on the couch or have to go head to head for the last chicken wing. Shop game day faves on Instacart and enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three gross three orders, offer valid for a limited time, other fees and terms apply. Jewelry isn't a gift you give just once. It's a way to remind your loved one of a beautiful moment every time they see it. Blue Nile can help you find the gift that says how you feel and says it beautifully. 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With our tools and our long lasting polish, each manicure with our Mani System comes out to just $2. That's right, $2. No more $30, $40, $50 manis that you get at a salon and they take hours. Now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than ever. And by the way, when people ask, "Who did your nails? Where did you get them done?" You're going to proudly say, "I did them myself." Get 20% off your first Mani System with code PerfectMani20 at oliveandjoon.com/perfectmani20. That's code PerfectMani20 for 20% off at oliveandjoon.com/perfectmani20. Does that make sense? Does that answer your question? Yeah. I know a lot of people go and that has to do with what confidence-wise? No, it makes a complete sense. One more question around this, you mentioned you were literally in a do or die moment. This is actually a question that I've asked a lot of people around post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. It seems like for you, this was a profound growth experience and there are a lot of people who, even if they survived the experience, it would haunt them forever and it would actually cause them to shrivel and change in a way that was not to their benefit and it sounded like it really was to your benefit, so I'm really curious. What do you think separates the two people who have those experiences and those interpretations? That's a really good question. I'm not 100% convinced I know the answer, but I think it goes back to what we were talking about before where is it that events happen to you because I guess the other interpretation I could have taken from this and maybe I would have had I not had my Germany experience is, "Oh my God, the world is an unsafe place and I'm just- you're inches away from death anytime you step into a cab and people are inherently evil and you know, there's nothing that can be done about it and I was forced to commit this brazen act of self-defense and wah wah wah and I could have easily had that interpretation and I think that again it comes down to the way that you interpret events and that internal locus of control. I look back and go, "What a dumbass." I walk into this cab in a crap part of town dressed nicely and announced I've got credit cards with me and then I rationalized to myself that we're going a different way even though I know damn well that we're not and what's this whole thing about me waiting until the last minute? I mean I could have bought the farm there. So these are lessons that I take with me everywhere in everything that I do now and I think it has everything to do with my interpretation and I don't know if my interpretation would have been the same had I not already gone through what I did when I was in exchange student in Germany those years ago because I think I already had to reprogram my brain to realize that it is about the way that you think about things and it has nothing to do with the outside stimuli. Well, let's do this, let's shift gears a little bit and let's start talking about kind of where that has all brought you to over the last several years and kind of the journey through there. I mean you talked a little bit about North Korea and the business you guys have started but talk to me about sort of how the journey transpires from that point in your life. Sure, so after that, I mean I've been traveling around a ton. I went to a lot of different places to get a feel for different cultures. I started to really want to get to know people and you know deep down now that I think about it and I've never really thought about this before. I think part of my desire to really understand people is because I think that I realize those people skills had saved my life in Mexico. I thought I think subconsciously my brain sort of knows that and it's become not only fascinating for me but also I know that these things I could have avoided that whole situation with greater awareness. I know that in middle school when I was sort of a tortured geek, if I'd had a greater understanding things would have turned out differently. I know that when I was on Wall Street and I was an attorney, greater people skills get people ahead of the pack further along. I know that when I was in college and I struggled a little bit with dating but at tons of friends that if I'd had a greater awareness, I could have avoided a lot of emotional pain. So a lot of it's just like 2020 hindsight and looking at things through the prism of what I've learned and going. Okay, this is the most important skill set that I can master, you know, this type of psychology. Combined with an intense interest in people that I've probably had since childhood. Well, let's dig deeper into that because I think that's really where I want to take this next and that's what's going to really, you know, sort of, I'm sure what people are curious about is, okay, great. So you have this deeper interest in people. Understanding these people dynamics really are what open up the world to you. I mean, what open up the world to anybody it sounds like from all the experiences you've had. I want to talk about it in the context of, you know, your own experiences and how it's opened up things to you by really, you know, going into a deep dive and study of these people skills that you talk of because I think people skills can be sort of a very generalized term. So I want to get a bit more specific and then and then through the lens of your stories, you know, how it's opened things up to you. Sure. I mean, for me, man, it's really hard to say it's hard to look at events and say, this is a direct result of this. I mean, it's I really have no clue why exactly my world has opened up as a result of these sort of skills. I mean, I can appoint to interactions and in areas in which it has happened, but I can't really say why per se. I mean, for me, yeah, people skills persuasion skills, I think report generating skills, getting people to like and trust you. At the end of the day, business, especially in the niche that the art of charm occupies is all about people who like you, people buy you, right? It's all about your personal brand. And so these skills have always come into play. And I feel like the people that I've met that are most successful like Bill Clinton, you know, guys like that of that caliber, I think those people are just masters with other people. I mean, Bill Clinton doesn't have any really real technical skill or and those that he does are are definitely dwarfed by his impressions that he leaves on others. And so we look at great leaders and we look at great, both political and in business and you always see a high level of social competence. So I treasure that so highly and also I'm a terrible coder and, you know, I was never good at math. So I'm sort of playing to my strengths here because that's always served me really well. So you mentioned this idea of a high level of social competence. Let's talk about that. What does that mean? And how do we develop a higher level with our in our own lives? Well, that's social competence, I guess, is measured by no metric, right? If I had to choose one, it would probably be the speed and depth to which you can get people to like and trust you in an authentic way, doing it in a fake way doesn't count. So if you can, if you can master that skill set, you know, you can, the world is your oyster. And so it's such a, and it's a big damn oyster and it's a big question as well. How do we get that to happen? I mean, it's at AOC, one of the things we teach is that your beliefs influence your actions, which influence your results. And so what that means essentially is you can't really think of like, all right, I've got to stand up straight and I've got to push my chest out and I've got a smile and I've got to do it out. You can try to change your physiology a little bit and it will influence your mindset. But really at the end of the day, we want our mindsets to influence our physiology. Again, beliefs, influencing actions, influencing results. We know that people who appear confident inspire confidence in others. We know that people who appear confident inspire trust in others. And people like who they trust, you know, in many, in most cases. So that's, there's a lot of correlations there that we can use to our advantage. So a lot of what people should quote unquote spend their time doing, and I hate that word, but I'm going to use it anyway, is working on those confident mindsets and the way to do that is to put yourself into situations that you don't know the outcome and that you find challenging. And if that means making a list of everything that you find terrifying and systematically attacking each one, either by getting a tutor or instructor or trying to go at yourself, that's great. I would say that's a great place to start. Also changing your physiology is a great place to start as well. If you're not working out, if you're not limber, if you're not strong, work on that at least to get up to speed. You don't have to be a strong man. You don't have to be a yoga maestro to get this done, but you need to attack your weaknesses. And that will inspire a great level of self trust. It doesn't, you don't have to get kidnapped in a third world country to do it. And not just the self trust, but the people skills, you can develop those in only one way. And that's through practice. And unfortunately for most people, that's one of the most terrifying things that they can do. Yeah. No, I would agree. I mean, I think that you and I both put ourselves in a situation that naturally lends itself to having conversations, like the one that we're having, which definitely, I mean, I would say, you know, this is hands down, been as far as developing people skills, there's probably been no more useful thing than the things I've done with interviews. Oh, I would, yeah, of course, because developing interviews not only gives you access to people you normally wouldn't, but you've got to be able to read a conversation with no nonverbal cues. I'm not looking at you right now, right? And the listeners not looking at me right now. And yet they have to be able to get a feeling for that. And if you're guiding the conversation, people don't really understand when they don't run a show what you're doing right now, just as when people listen, they don't understand what I'm doing when I'm guiding a show. It's actually really challenging. And when I listen to my old stuff, I cringe and go, God, why did anybody listen to this? You know, well, I have the same exact thing, I'll go back and the thing is, I'll still do it. And I say, wow, I missed something really critically important that would have led to a far more interesting conversation. Oh, every, every, I feel like every show I do has that, you know, and it's, it's a challenge, but it's because you're, you're artistic in this and so your art is never done. It's never perfect. You know what I mean? And so, but other people listening go, this is life changing. And I go, okay, great. At least you like it. Yeah. All right. So talk to me a little bit about this whole North Korea thing. And then we'll, we'll start sort of wrapping things up here, you know, to, to talk about kind of how this is all, you know, kind of blended together into the work that you do and what you're kind of known for today. Sure. So essentially I run trips to North Korea where I take Westerners to North Korea. It is legal even for Americans. It's, it's fun. It really opens up your horizons as far as seeing what other people live like. It's a very restrictive society. There's no internet. There's no phones. They've never seen Facebook. They don't have television. Most people have never seen a white person in real life. And so it's a completely different, totally outside place that you would never have anything comparable. People go, oh, yeah. You know, I went to Russia and it was like pretty much like, no, it's not like that. Any other communist country, you, oh, I went to Cuba and it's kind of like that. No, it's not like that. North Korea is a total control zone. And you've never experienced anything like it. There's hopefully never any ever going to be anything, even remotely like it anywhere on the face of the earth ever again. And to see it from an outside perspective will give you a different lens with which to view your own life. And it's hard to explain to people that haven't been there. But when you see people that not only do without materially, but do without even in the sense of thought, freedom, it's completely, it's a, it's a complete paradigm shift into looking at what you have and the opportunity that awaits you when you come home. Hmm. I love that. So talk to me. I mean, basically what's interesting about you is you've taken all these life experiences and you've blended them, you've blended them into what you do today at the art of Trump. So talk to me about that and kind of how all this is translated into the way you live your life and the way you show up in the world today. Sure. So essentially my, my life's work now is doing the podcast, the art of Trump podcasts and also helping guys, train guys at our boot camps to amass a high level of competency with social and people skills in as short amount of time as possible. And it's tough. It's a long process. But there's nothing greater for me and nothing more rewarding than giving people a skill in a few months that took me years and years and years and a shitload of pain to go through and get myself, you know, and, and I'm not trying to say like, well, my life was so hard. I have a great life. I can't really complain about too much, especially compared to other folks, but I can say that a lot of it was unnecessary and had I known what I know now, which is whatever single person in the world says, I would have been able to change a lot of things. And so giving people that skills is my life's work. It is my legacy. I give away as much as I can for free on the show and the rest of our programs. And I can't think of anything that I would rather do in the whole world. If I had $10 million, $100 million in the bank, all I would do is expand what I do now. Awesome. Well, Jordan, this has been just a really, really fascinating to look into what you do. And you know, I'm really glad Matt, you know, my friend Matt Monroe actually recommended for you to talk to me. Oh, you know, it was constant. He's like, you got to talk to Jordan. You got to talk to Jordan. I was like, I don't want to talk about the art of charm. He said, I don't think Jordan wants to talk about the art of charm either. Yeah. No, I'm good on that. I talk about that a whole lot. He said, I think he's sick of talking about it. So it's really cool to get a different side of your story and really learn about, you know, everything you guys do. So I want to wrap with my final question, which we close all our interviews here with a unmistakable creative. I mean, you know, we live in a really, really noisy world in which everybody is trying to sort of claim their, you know, their piece of the pie, I guess is one way to put it. And I'm curious in your own experience, you know, with the work that you've done and the world, you know, experiences you've had, what is it in your mind they make somebody or something unmistakable? You know, that's a, that's a great question. I'm sure other people have had amazing answers to it. Oh, man. Putting me on the spot. I should have, I should have prepped something, but I don't like doing that. You know what I mean? Because it seems less authentic, honestly, I'm not going to give you a cliche about following your passion or, you know, going with your gut or any of that stupid stuff. Because I think honestly, a lot of that it's not just cliched BS, but I don't think most people actually do it. And so for me, part of becoming, I guess, if I, if I can consider myself unmistakable is just that I think legacy is greater than currency and for if you want to, yeah, me too. Holy crap. Okay. There we go. I've prepped myself on the back of that one. But honestly, I do believe that legacy is greater than currency. And you do need both, but there's something about building for others that just is just next level exciting and for me, that means assembling all of the greatest knowledge that I can into one place. And, you know, that's, that's what the art of charm and what I am all about. And I think being unmistakable is taking, making sacrifices to do that and taking great pains to make that as awesome as you possibly can and doing it every day because discipline, discipline only counts when you need it, right? It doesn't matter when you wake up and you're motivated and you're going to have a great day and it's sunny. It matters when you don't feel like talking, it matters when you don't feel like doing a show. It matters when you don't feel like releasing on time, you know, and, and that's, that discipline has been such a reward in and of itself, regardless of what other people get out of it. I think I do it in the end of the day. Not only do I do it for everybody listening, but I do it for myself more than anything. And I think the greatest rewards are reached by me at the end of the day. And I know that might be a surprise because a lot of people say, thanks so much for your selfless efforts. Honestly, if nobody was listening, I'd still be doing it. Awesome. Well, I think that makes a fantastic way to wrap up our conversation. Jordan, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share some of your insights with our listeners here at the Unmistakable Creative. Yeah, I appreciate it. This was a fun one. I appreciate the challenge. Yeah. And for those of you guys listening, we'll wrap the show with that. You've been listening to the Unmistakable Creative podcast, visit our website at unmistakablecreative.com and get access to over 400 interviews in our archives. Hey, it's Mark Marin from WTF here to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. And I'm sure the reason you're listening to this podcast right now is because you chose it. Well, choose Progressive's name, your price tool, and you could find insurance options that fit your budget so you can pick the best one for your situation. Who doesn't like choice? Try it at progressive.com. And now some legal info, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliate's Price and Coverage Match, limited by state law, not available in all states. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron. We donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's We Call Home. 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The life changing decision to become an exchange student
Bringing about changes by attacking your fears and weaknesses
Why fake confidence doesn’t lead you anywhere significant
Building our internal confidence through developing self trust
Choosing to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us
Learning to look at things through a growth perspective at all times
How Jordan consistently tests himself by pushing his own limits
A kidnapping in Mexico City that enabled Jordan to develop his sense of self trust
Why greater people skills accelerate your progress dramatically
Learning to master the skill set of social competence
Why developing a legacy that is greater than currency

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