Interview with Jordan Harbinger Part 2

Nick: We’re back here in Sirius satellite radios with Jordan harbinger. Everyone liked him so much. were back and he’s going to riff a little bit more on why he think bold people are and what’s its about. We got a little bit on episode one about his start and how he’s travelled a bunch and how that’s his background. We want to riff a little bit more on how you actually went from a podcast to getting on Sirius.

Jordan: Sure. Yeah. It’s good to be back by the way. Thank you. The podcast to Sirius was an interesting path. I mean totally accidental obviously. We started like I said before in AJ's basement. So it wasn’t even his basement. It was his buddy's basement. So we had to turn off the furnace and we had to shut door and we’d get a delivery in the middle of the show or something so we had to rerecord the part of it or whatever. The cooling fan would go off in the laptops. Our budge initially was pretty low. I mean the whole studio consisted of a folding table, two metal folding chairs that I think we borrowed actually and two mics and like a really crummy amplifier because essentially the next best thing to recording straight off the keyboard mic and the (1:26) and we used garage band which is like free software that comes with your macbook in the first place. So we were pretty low budget at that particular point in time. Recorded a couple of episodes. Put them all up on this really, really basic wordpress website and then I went to finish up my law school classes. I took a class in the Caribbean which is like the biggest racket ever. You get credit for this class and you’re on the beach half the time and then I studied for the bar exam overseas as well because normally they don’t allow you to do that. You have to take a course but I lobbied and said I’m going to be overseas here’s my flight itinerary. Here’s my hotel booking and I got an iPod with all the lectures loaded on which is really hard to get. it’s very difficult to get and so I ended up being able to study on the beach for the bar exam which is phenomenal obviously and that was why I did when the show launched and it was hard to track, the internet and everything from there so we really didn’t realize how excellent things were going 'til I got back. It was like the first week was 30 downloads next week was like 300 then it was like 800 then we recorded a couple more episodes. Then were like hey man were cracking a thousand people downloading this thing. Are you sure these analytics are correct and AJ says I don’t know. We don’t know enough about this stuff. So we ended up getting featured as a new and notable podcast in iTunes. That certainly didn’t hurt. Ended up creeping to the top 25 in the self help category. We haven’t left since February of 2006 or something like that. We haven’t left. so that’s been really, really good for us cause a lot of people find the show that way and of course we like to thank hey the show is decent quality enough that people will stick around. so we did that and then eventually when we moved to new York I moved there to take a job on wall street as an attorney and we had a guest spot on another show on Sirius xm satellite radio called Covino and Rich and they're like a guy talk podcast or rather a radio show and our show used to be on maxim radio. That used to be the radio station sponsored by maxim magazine.

So we came on their show hey we're dating coaches and we were getting hated on like crazy by the hosts. so we would give out advice and what happened was the producer, their producer was kind of a schlep and they were making fun of him without end and they treated treated him like a little schlep rally a little slob and they said we haven’t been able to do anything with him in eight months. He’s hopeless and we said well do it in eight days. Well do what you couldn’t do in eight months were going to do it in eight days. we actually said eight weeks but we said well give them a start after eight days but after four days he went back to work and everyone was like what did you do to our producer? He is awesome. Everyone loved him, super friendly, outgoing, stood up for himself, all the values stuff he was putting into action. Everything that we were doing. He was teasing girls and they were like what? He was getting dates and he met a girl and he got a girlfriend. So our bet with those hosts was if we can do any work on him you’ve got to have us back three times.

They honored that. We ended up going back three times. The producers and the executives had a talk were listening to some of the shows because they were wondering what the heck had happened to one of their team members over at Sirius. So they called us in the office and they said hey you guys are not bad at this. What’s your story? Do you want to get another guest spot and we said sure by the way check out this podcast. Tell me what you think. So they downloaded a couple of episodes of the podcast, brought it to the executives, the executives thought this is awesome why is it only a podcast? They gave us a trial show during a dead hour and the phones lit up to the whole dead hour. The whole time was phone call after phone call after phone call at it like 11AM EST which is a crappy time for radio most of the time. So we ended up with a trial show there. Knocked it out of the park and the rest is kind of history. We ended up getting a contract with Sirius xm ended up extending it for an additional hour. I think we’re going to ask for another hour. Don’t tell anyone. Next time our contract is up for renewal. so were going to be basically sticking it out and expanding the reach of the show and go on longer and longer and longer cause that’s what we love to do is deliver the content to people and let’s admit doing a live radio show is awesome.

I’ve wanted to be a talk show host on the radio since I was like eight and then someone I got wasted the years away and then ended up being a lawyer instead and now I’m back to talk radio. So I love it. I think it’s amazing.

Nick: It all sounds like you like helping out guys a lot.

Jordan: That’s the main thing is I wouldn’t have a talk radio show where I just prank call random people or play lots of music or something like that. That wouldn’t really be my thing. I’d love to be able to do that maybe ten minutes a week. That would be fun but it would get old. The reason that there’s such a longevity in what were doing here with the art of charm and with our show on Sirius xm which is actually called game on. The reason it’s so much fun because guys come on and say listen. I listen to your show with my son. He needs to learn this. I don’t know how to teach him this. I’ve been divorced three times or whatever. I wish I had this when I was his age and other guys call in and say I got divorced. I’m totally new. I’ve listened to you guys a couple of months. I’m finally back in and I feel like I know what the heck I’m doing. Guys are calling I’m a nerd in high school, nerd in college. I can’t get what I want from women, dating, relationships, jobs, social situations. We're able to give advice to people based on our experience and it’s delivered in a format that’s entertaining. Guys can really get engaged in it and I think that is the secret sauce. That’s the key ingredient to this show and that’s what makes it fun for us is cause it’s rewarding.

Nick: Could you riff a little on like you would suggest for guys listening to this or even girls that are viewing this like to help improve their social life?

Jordan: Sure. I think that a key and very general piece of advice that applies to everyone is to become social with everyone because one of the things that guys and girls think when they’re like I need to meet more people of the opposite sex. Guys especially they’re like alright I want to meet more girls and I want to meet hot girls. So they go to clubs and they make a b line for the hot girls and then they're like okay I don’t really know what to do but I’m just going to talk to all the hot girls. Great I’m glad you’re getting out there and doing it. Here’s the problem. When you go and make a b line for the hot girls her friends are not impressed. They’re not happy. The guys are threatened and then you get out there and then you’re like okay I’m going to make magic happen. It’s not going to work so well.

One of the best ways to for example stay in shape is not just go to the gym for half an hour three times a week. That might do the trick. It might work. You’ll have a decently healthy heart or whatever but if you want to be really athletic and really in shape what do you do? You have to play sports every day. you’ve got to do something that you really enjoy that’s fun not just because its fitness you’ve got to do it every day and you’ve got to do it for longer than 20 minutes or whatever. So we say be social with everyone. When you wake up in the morning and you get downstairs say hi to your neighbors. Say hi to the little kids that you see waiting for the bus. Say hi to the police that are standing on the corner. Say hello to the hotdog cart vendor if you live in New York or whatever big city. Say hello to your doorman. Say hello to people that you see that smile at you on the street. Greet the checkout girl at the drugstore or at the grocery store. If you banter and you talk to those people and you get to know them and you get to know their names by the time that you’re going out to meet people you’re so warmed up and you’re already in a social mode that you don’t have to try anymore. You don’t have to think well now I’m going to turn it on. There is no switch. There’s no switch. If there’s a switch you should turn it on in the morning before you get out of bed because that’s when this starts. The good body language. The good eye contact. The vocal tonality. All that stuff requires a lot of practice and you can’t just flip it on when you need to be Mr. Cool at the club or at the bar on Friday for three hours. It’s not realistic. It’s like trying to run a marathon without actually training at all. You’re going to be hurting and that’s where a lot of people run into a wall. They work all day. They don’t talk to anybody. They go home. They do their routine. They’re quiet on their commute and then they go out for drinks with their friend on Thursday for happy hour and they go why aren’t they meeting anybody. This sucks. Why is no one approaching me and trying to make friends with me? Why should they? You’re not investing in them why would they invest in you?

Nick: You’ve got to have those skills too built up.

Jordan: You’ve got to have those skills built up so one of the best things that you can do is start becoming social with everybody and a lot of people, they’re watching this at home and thinking well that’s just weird. I just can’t say hi to people I don’t know. Yeah you can. You totally can. Try it. your neighbors are probably wondering why they’ve been in the elevator with you every day for two months, three months, a year and you’ve never said anything but so is it raining? If you want to start there fine but you should know who these people are. You should know the doorman. You should everybody around you that you see every day. There’s really no reason for you not to. It’s just you putting up walls and then when you go out you wonder why there’s walls. Why there are barricades? You’re putting out these barricades all day. You spend most of your time doing it and then you go out and you go alright I hope those barricades that I’ve been building for the last 25 years don’t affect me right now. So the way to do that, what do we do? We get hammered and we hope that the other persons hammered enough that our inhibitions are gone and then again black box something in nebulas happens connection. Not very realistic in terms of strategy.

Nick: That’s good. Now how about a business strategy. I know you have a ton of experience in that and you also do some business coaching on the side. Could you riff on that for people that are just looking to you know they may have a business or they’re looking to stand out from the crowd business wise whether they’re working for someone else or themselves?

Jordan: I think one of the keys in business that I’ve realized and this is again I’m going to try and be general as possible because I want it to apply to as many people as possible, do what you say you’re going to do. This is like the first and foremost. This is the basic tip that I give to everybody whether they’re in high school and they’re trying to get a job. Whether they're in college and they’re trying to get an internship or whether or not they’re trying to move up on a fortune 500 company. Tell people what you’re going to do and then actually do it. It sounds so simple but most people do not execute. People have ideas all day long. They make promises all day long. Hey I’ll call you tomorrow. Yeah maybe the other person thinks he’s not necessarily going to call me tomorrow and they don’t expect it. Then you get into thinking well he knows I might not really call him tomorrow. So then you don’t and then the person goes ah yeah nick and Jordan are the kind of guys who are like I’ll call you tomorrow and they don’t really do it. so if I say it to him I don’t really have to do it because that’s sort of our unspoken arrangement and if he calls me I don’t really have to return this call right away because he’s laid back like that. No. set the tone that hey I’ll call you tomorrow at 1 o'clock. Call tomorrow at 1 o'clock. Not 1:15, not 1:30, not Saturday at 1 o'clock instead don’t make excuses just do what you say you’re going to do. People will then expect you to do that and who do you want to deal with more? do you want to deal with the person who says ill have this done for you tomorrow and then actually gets it done for you tomorrow or do you want to deal with the person who says yeah ill have this done by the end of the week. Oh yeah you see what happened was ah yeah I’ve got this excuse that you should totally believe. That’s not going to fly. No one wants to pick that person for their team and whether or not that affects you from getting promotions at your company, getting a job in the first place from your internship or even just getting hired. If you’re the kind of guy who showed up 10 minutes, 15 minutes late for the interview in jeans. I’m not going to try to look past that. Why should I give you the benefit of the doubt? Jobs are scarce I’ve got a great company. You want to work for me you’ve got to jump through all the hoops.

Nick: Exactly. So follow through is what you’re saying that’s the main part.

Jordan: Tell people what you’re going to do and then actually do it and that goes from delivering a top notch high quality project that might be complex and take months or years to complete or it might be I’m going to give you a call at 5 PM and then calling at 5 PM and not calling at 7:30 and going hey what’s up like nothing happened because that’s not what you said you’re going to do. You want to make yourself predictable when it comes to business stuff because your boss is going to rely on that. Business partners are going to rely on that. As a corporate strategy sure you can unpredictable. That’s great. It’s fun but when you’re working with a joint venture or something. Your partners don’t appreciate unpredictable. People don’t want to have to react to stuff that you’re doing. they want to know that they can plan ahead and that you’re actually going to be there and you’re going to uphold your end of the bargain whether or not it’s a phone call or whether or not it’s an entire jv.

Nick: Got you. So let’s think about, I mean in the case maybe art of charm is hiring what would you look for?

Jordan: Well I look for people, one who follow through in what they say they’re going to do. I look for people who execute. like when were working with you recently and you came and you said I got this idea for this site and we went great and then like two hours later you were like hey how does this look? Here’s what I got started so far. Finding people who do that is nearly impossible and people who do are worth their weight in gold and you’re a big guy. That’s a lot of gold. So it’s important to find people who execute first of all. It’s important for me to find people who could speak their mind. I don’t want them to do it because they want to cause ruckus or cause drama or because they like hearing themselves talk. I want to hear their ideas and if I don’t like their ideas I don’t want them to then get offended that I don’t like their ideas and then not do what I tell them to do. So people have to be able to put their egos aside and set their emotions aside and just keep their heads down and work but they also have to be able to go by the way this process would have been much more efficient if we do this next time. I want that feedback. What I don’t want is an argument that is going to take up two hours of work time because you want to do it this way and I tell you to do it this way.

So I look for people who not just follow instructions but people who will follow instructions and also give you feedback guided along the way as to how this process could possibly or potentially be improved and I think mostly though what it comes down to is people who show up on time, who are enthusiastic and passionate about what they’re going to do and they would do it in theory for free if they didn’t have a choice. Everybody who works here at the art of charm worked for us for a long time with no paycheck. Some guys slept on the couch for like a year when we first started and those guys are the guys that made it through. So the guys who came in and went oh man you’re actually going to make me work. Oh man I’m not getting paid $50,000 a year to sit around and run around and pick up girls. Oh I have to get up before noon. Those guys got cycled through real fast. Real fast. They didn’t get hired in the first place.

Nick: Got you. So also doing talk radio you interview a lot of people. What tips would you I mean if passed on to someone like me or someone else that has an opportunity to interview successful people or what not.

Jordan: Prepare because nothing bugs me more personally than going into an interview and the guy goes okay so what do you do and they actually don’t know the answer to the question. There’s a lot of guys that do that. Guys would be like oh it sounds interesting tell us about your job. Alright what would you like to know? Oh I don’t know just like what’s a typical day for you? Nah that’s a boring question. I know you’re asking me that because you didn’t prepare. Then I feel like I’m kind of wasting my time because you don’t necessarily care. You just want me to fill in content so that you can have a video to put around your advertisements or something. I don’t like that and I think preparation makes for better content and it definitely makes the guest feel welcome. additionally if you’re going to interview people you have to be engaging granted I haven’t really let you get too many words in edge wise but that’s also you’re interviewing a talk show host. If you’re interviewing somebody who’s not doing this type of thing for a living you’ve got to figure out ways to reel them in and get them talking about something that is interesting to them. If you ask bill gates so how’d you come up with the idea for windows? He’s probably got a scripted response that he said a million times that he could do in his sleep. Don’t ask those kinds of questions. Ask him something that makes him go hhmm that’s a good question. No one’s really ever asked me that before. I think the answer might be and make him think through it because those are going to be the thoughtful answers not the ones that he’s got scripted where he’s actually texting and emailing on his blackberry at the same time he’s delivering the answer. If you’re asking a question where a guy can actually check their facebook while they’re giving you the interview it’s not going to be a good interview.

Nick: Got you. good points after the last episode it was like I need to talk more but I commented to you afterwards it was like you know what this is what you do and this is good. I know I asked you this same questions off air so I was like you know what this is good content for other people that are interested. So it’s good. Any final things that you would add before we wrap this up? What question didn’t I ask you that I should have?

Jordan: That’s a good question. Let me think about that. No one’s really ever asked me that before and that’s actually true. No one really has. I think the question you could have asked now I’m just buying time that’s a good technique too. You can just repeat the question to buy yourself sometime. Nothing really comes to mind right now. There’s nothing that sticks out glaringly. I suppose the typical wrap up question is so how can people find out more about what you do?

Nick: Well how can people find out more about what you do?

Jordan: Thanks for asking. People can go to theartofcharm.com. That’s where we talk about our live training, our products and things like that but also all the free stuff, all the goodies is at pickuppodcast.com and it’s not just about picking up girls. It’s about being more social. We have everything in there from personal finance automation so that guys can sort of lifehack a little bit to meeting girls and being more social. So there’s a wide breadth there and of course the dating stuff. The hardcore like just dating stuff is going to be up real soon at AJandJordantalkchicks.com.

Nick: Awesome and you’re on Sirius xm.

Jordan: Sirius and xm satellite radio every Friday at 5PM Pacific. That’s 8PM Eastern. Sirius 108 xm 139.

Nick: Awesome. Thanks for sitting down with us again.

Jordan: You got it man. Thanks for having me.