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Episode 79: Monetizing Your Passion with Jordan Harbinger
226 Plays5 years ago
Jordan Harbinger made his way out of the jungle with a jackknife. As a pioneer of personal branding, podcasting, and the networking talk show space, he found his niche as an entrepreneur before influencers were ever a thing. In this episode, Jordan joins us to explain how he forged his path to wealth by connecting the opportunities around him and figuring out how to monetize what he truly enjoyed.
Jordan is a Wall Street lawyer turned podcast interviewer with an approachable style and a knack for securing high-profile guests. His show, the Jordan Harbinger Show, was selected as one of Apple Podcast’s Best of 2018, and he also serves as a consultant for military, law enforcement, and security companies for the North California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
During our conversation, Jordan explains his journey into an uncommon life, where he created a podcast that is pushing 11 million downloads per month. He walks us through the timeline of developing a personal brand and breaking off on his own. And he also discusses the process of scaling his digital business so he could build residual income and plan for retirement. If you want to learn more about Jordan’s uncommon wealth-building journey, this episode is for you.
what you will learn in this episode:- Jordan’s journey into an uncommon life
- How Jordan grew his podcast to over 11 million downloads per month
- How Jordan’s networking lectures led him to the podcasting space
- When Jordan knew it was time to make the jump and pursue his personal brand
- How Jordan scaled his business and built a team around himself
- What Jordan has done to build residual income throughout his career
- How to achieve financial freedom for retirement without becoming miserable
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Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Life Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
Focus on Personal Growth and Self-reliance
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the Uncommon Life Project where I'm your host Phillip Ramsey. And I'm Brian Dewhurst. And in this show we try to give you tips, tricks, and I would say exciting opportunities that you can jump into, but they all stem from one person and that's you. You're your best asset and we want to be those advisors that help you step into that and try to get a customized plan around that so your wife isn't going to kill you when you try to do something crazy.
00:01:01
Speaker
So we do have an amazing show today. I want Brian to read his bio and we can get him
Incentives for Listener Engagement
00:01:07
Speaker
on the show. But before then, you know, big thing for us is just doing the review like and review. And if you do, we are going to take, we're going to do an hour long call with the person that has rated our review and did like a written review. We're trying to get those up over a certain number. And that's what our marketing team is like. You got to do that. You got to do a competition or you got to do some kind of incentive to do that.
00:01:30
Speaker
We thought we'd give you an hour of our time in our ear to help you try to achieve your goals. So let's read the bio and let's bring Jordan on the show.
Introducing Jordan Harbinger
00:01:40
Speaker
All right. We have the one and only Jordan Harbinger. Jordan Harbinger is a Wall Street lawyer turned podcast interviewer with an approachable style and knack for securing high profile guests. His show, The Jordan Harbinger Show, was selected as part of Apple's Best of 2018. That is not all he's up to. He also is involved in journalism.
00:01:59
Speaker
And he is a consultant for law enforcement, military, and security companies as a member of the North California Chapter Society of Professional Journalists. So his podcast is doing 11 million downloads a month, so I think we could learn something from him on that. And so yeah, welcome to the show, the one and only Jordan Harpinger.
00:02:19
Speaker
Thanks for having me on guys. Looking forward to it.
Jordan's Podcasting Journey Beginnings
00:02:22
Speaker
Are you kind of the most interesting man in the world? Is this the reason why they started that? They just didn't put your name behind it. They stole it? No, I don't have a beard. I don't really have a full beard, so they needed a guy. Oh my God. Totally get that. I understand that.
00:02:35
Speaker
Dude, you know, thanks for being on the show. This is exciting for Brian and I only just to be able to highlight your story of how you got to where you're at. Because what we found is there's always a journey and honestly, the stories in the journey. And if we can encourage one or two people just to go on this uncommon path, as we call it, we have done our job. So how in the world did you get to where you're at with 11 million downloads?
00:03:00
Speaker
month on your podcast. Where were you? Did you ever think you were gonna be here? Man, I look up to you, brother. Well, thank you. No, honestly, this started off as a hobby. You probably have heard me talk about this or possibly have. Whenever people are like, we're gonna show you how to make a million dollars from your podcast, I'm like, let me stop you right there. You got the wrong guy. I always recommend people just start podcasting as a hobby because it is so hard to monetize as you guys have probably experienced.
00:03:27
Speaker
So, it's not that it's a bad business to be in, it's just the slowest way I can think of to make money online.
Networking, Wall Street Challenges, and Niche Discovery
00:03:34
Speaker
Right, right. Not everyone's going to be a professional athlete in grade school. Right. It's the Roth IRA of online businesses. Thank you. I love it. Yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
So, how did you start going that way? Like, okay, I'm going to start podcasting. I kind of like it. What were you doing? And obviously, you're a lawyer, so you're obviously educated. You have some college debt, student loans, I'm sure. So, how did you go like that? Let's go for it. So, in law school, I was teaching a networking class and I decided that I was going to learn networking because I had done an internship on Wall Street where I later got a job and everybody was like really smart and really hardworking.
00:04:10
Speaker
And I was like, oh, crap. There go both of my competitive advantages because I'm like pretty hard worker, but, you know, of average or slightly above average intelligence, depending on the test you're looking at, the standardized test you're looking at. And so, you know, I was the kid in high school who could show up to the geometry test and be like, oh, crap, we have a test. Rodney, show me your homework. Oh, I remember how to do this. OK, take the test, get a B plus, barely survive, you know, kind of live
Transition to Podcasting and Audience Growth
00:04:34
Speaker
with it. Do OK. Then I got to college and everyone could do that. But I was like, but they're drinking seven days a week.
00:04:40
Speaker
If I limit my drinking to a mere three to four nights a week, I can study and get things done and still graduate in the top half of the class or whatever. Then I got to Wall Street and it was like, here's all the kids that could drink seven nights a week and still just show up to the test and still get A's. I was like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble.
00:05:01
Speaker
And or they worked you know 20 hours a day and still managed to do everything and I felt like I don't have the ability to kind of go toe to toe with these people on the same terms as they do I just I can't so what I ended up doing was quickly realizing that
00:05:20
Speaker
I needed a new competitive advantage and so I started to learn networking in an effort to try and bring in business to the firm, to try and bring in clients. And started teaching that, ended up teaching dating because more people were interested in that and networking and dating are basically like the same, they're like two sides of the same coin. It's like sales to sell an item.
00:05:40
Speaker
Sales to sell a relationship, sales to sell yourself, right? It's like the same thing. So I ended up working pretty hard at learning the networking, teaching the dating stuff.
Evolving Content and Global Reach
00:05:50
Speaker
And then, you know, only women cared initially. And I was teaching women and then guys were like, why are you here with 12 women every night? What's your secret? Or you know, four nights a week or whatever. And I was like, I'm teaching this dating class and they're like, I want in.
00:06:02
Speaker
So I started burning CDs with my talks because guys would show up, new guys would show up and ask the same questions, you know, every day. And I was like, go listen to these CDs and then come back and you'll be caught up. And people kept keeping the CDs. So I started charging five bucks and then people kept keeping the CDs. So I started selling 20, selling them for 20 bucks. And then people were like, oh, 20 bucks each? All right, I need eight.
00:06:24
Speaker
And I'm like, no, it's not a product, man. I just want my CDs back, so I don't spend every evening burning CDs instead of studying for the bar exam. And then I realized I was onto something, and I kept complaining to my friends, like, I just need a place to put MP3 files online, and there was just no way to do it. Imagine, this is 2006, and you're like, if only there was a way to put a sound file on the internet, and everyone's like, yeah, there just isn't, man, sorry. Yes, what in the world?
00:06:50
Speaker
So then podcasting
Building a Personal Brand and Business Independence
00:06:51
Speaker
came about my friend goes, hey, there's this new thing where you can record an mp3 and put it on a server and then you point to it in the this like feed and you give the feed to Apple and then people with iPods can download it and or play it from iTunes and everyone in law school had iTunes. So I thought this is a great way for me to distribute these talks without
00:07:10
Speaker
burning them to CD great so I started it and then pretty soon rather than getting 24 downloads from Ann Arbor Michigan I was getting 800 downloads from Germany and Canada and South Africa and New York and California and I just remember saying into the next few files
00:07:29
Speaker
Who is listening to this that is not somebody that we met at a bar in Ann Arbor? And people were like, yeah, I'm a warden at a game park in South Africa. Yeah, I'm a student in Germany. Hey, I'm an investment banker in California. Do you do consulting? And I was like, there's a real, this is weird. There's like real money out there, you know? And there's a real niche and a need for this. And no one is doing this.
00:07:53
Speaker
I started doing it because I thought this is so fun and there's no way I'm going to get caught by HR. It's not Facebook. That wasn't even barely a thing, but people were like, hey,
Challenges in Business Growth and Fresh Start
00:08:05
Speaker
if you have keg stand pictures on Facebook, don't put them up there because HR may log in to Facebook and look at you. And they were like, it's probably never going to happen and nobody in HR even knows what Facebook is and they don't have accounts unless they went to a school that has Facebook. Because remember, Facebook used to be limited.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Virginia, whatever, the handful of schools. But it was kind of a concern and people were starting to talk about things like posting things online that were bad and making your website. Blogging, that was a thing. Don't put your sexploits in the blog because your name could be attached to that. And I was like, no one's ever going to find this audio file, right? And it's not going to be a big deal.
00:08:44
Speaker
I started my Wall Street job, worked there for a while, and then I got picked up by SiriusXM satellite radio. And I was doing my show live on Friday nights. So every Friday, I'd say, hey, guys, I've got to go do something, you know, try and cover for me. And then my office mates started to listen and they started to call in. And then the partners found out instead of getting fired, they were like, this is hilarious.
00:09:06
Speaker
that you do this drive time talk advice show in Midtown and then you get back on the train and head back to the office and they loved it. They thought it was really, really cool. So I kind of got lucky there. But the podcast started to take off because I just kept doing it for a while and the dating niche was like a real kind of popular thing at the time. And then the rise of these pickup artist guys.
00:09:27
Speaker
started to really kind of counterbalance what I was doing because
Balancing Business and Personal Financial Planning
00:09:30
Speaker
my advice was like, be yourself and here's the best way to be yourself. And here's all these scientists and experts talking about great ways to build your interpersonal skills. And then these pickup guys were like, lie to her about having a Ferrari. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. So like smart people.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, it was sleazy. But smart people went, hey, this Jordan guy is talking about being a normal human. I want more of this. So we really carved out a niche. And then eventually, as one does, I started to meet higher quality women and grow up and got married and had a kid. And at some point early on in the relationship with my now wife, probably even before that,
00:10:09
Speaker
I was doing things like reading The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Mastery and reading real books that aren't just about dragons. Well, I shouldn't say that. Dragon books? Not that dragons are bad, right? I started reading books that adults read that are more in line with human behavior that I didn't even know existed.
00:10:31
Speaker
And I went, oh my God, the books aren't just legal cases, you know, like there's more to life. And I started reading for pleasure. And I was like, I want to talk about these things on the podcast and see if anyone cares. And that's when things exploded because people went, oh, this is a podcast full of. Welcome back.
00:10:50
Speaker
And they were like, oh, I also read this. Hey, have you heard about this? Have you heard about that? And so I really expanded the show. And that's when people were like, I like this. I'm gonna do more with this Jordan guy.
Retirement, Passion, and Fulfillment
00:11:02
Speaker
And my business just started to really take off. And that was when I realized, oh my gosh, I have a personal brand. Because I started saying things like, hey, I'm going to North Korea on a vacation. Don't suppose you all care about that, but here's a podcast about it. And it would be like,
00:11:14
Speaker
thousands of people would be like, this is the best episode you've done. It's so interesting. Can I go with you next time? That's when I started to realize that the personal brand was a thing. Nobody was talking about it in 2007 or 8 or 9, whatever it was.
00:11:32
Speaker
But it started to become a thing and I started to really realize the power of it. And I focused on podcasting. I didn't go and become an influencer on Instagram or do YouTube or anything like that. And I think that it had its pros and cons. Right. How did you make the switch? At some point, you had this job. And when did you're like, I'm crossing over the dark side? I'm heading my own way.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, you know, that's funny because people go like, oh, how do I know when to, or how did you know when to like, kind of make the jump, I guess you'd call it, right? And candidly, I...
00:12:11
Speaker
was that decision gets made for you pretty quick. What happened was it was 2007, 2008. And so people who are confused as to why I was able
Team Building and Business Efficiency
00:12:24
Speaker
to make the jump, I just go, hey, the economy basically tanked. And all law firms, especially real estate ones, like I was in the real estate department, they just said, hey,
00:12:32
Speaker
you know we're probably gonna have to lay off so you might not have any work now is a great time to look for another job and economy was bad and law firms were really hiring people who had one year of experience doing something totally different that they had retrained you know they realize and i remember going to this like networking group they called it and it was just kind of like these.
00:12:54
Speaker
Sad, unvoiced people that were like, hi, do you know of anybody who's hiring? No? Okay. Thanks for calling. It was awful. And I remember going, oh my God, I'm going to have to do this for months or years.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's so sad. Then I started looking at other jobs like, maybe I'll just join the NYPD or something. That would be kind of cool. I'm 28. I have a law degree. I'll probably end up in internal affairs or something interesting, and I can then pivot later on. I kept getting these coaching clients from the podcast, the phone coaching, and guys wanted to come and live with us and learn stuff in person. I was like, let me just do this for a while until I can kind of sleep on it and figure out what I want to do.
00:13:40
Speaker
I never went back, right? I doubled down on the business and I was like, oh my gosh, all these, this putting out fires and starting your own thing and driving different revenue streams and testing stuff and seeing what works and moving really fast and working at all kinds of
Family's Role in Success
00:13:54
Speaker
crazy hours. I actually like this and people were like, yeah, it's called running a business, dude, you know? And I was like blown away by this and I realized, oh,
00:14:04
Speaker
I thought running a business growing because growing up, you only know people when you think of people who run businesses, you're like, yeah, my friend's dad owns a dry cleaner. Yeah, my other friends, they own a restaurant, you know, like a diner. And I can't really do that. So this was why I never really got that there were small businesses that did interesting things like like this digital businesses. They didn't.
00:14:25
Speaker
The only guys I know in digital businesses lived in California, wrote long sales letters, and sold bullcrappy vitamins or something. I didn't realize that there was a real world out there of responsible, upstanding citizens that didn't just rip people off on the internet. So it was exciting for me.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yes, so you're building this brand and you're exploring, like, what was the, like, did you have a mentor in this process or time where you're seeking out, like, or was it just that organic and money's coming in and it was just kind of, you were figuring out as you go. Before you answer that, this is what I love about your story.
00:14:59
Speaker
Like at the end of the day, there's just not a lot of people out there that will
Digital Business Evolution and Core Strengths
00:15:03
Speaker
help you walk down this path that you took. At the end of the day, like it was kind of like you with a jackknife in a jungle trying to forge your way. And like that's why we started the Uncommon Wealth Partners, our company.
00:15:16
Speaker
Is because we wanted to want empower people that they don't just have to have a sleazy online job or they don't have to have a laundromat business it's like no your gifts are actually super valuable and if you can figure out how to fund those gifts your tomorrow is gonna be a lot more exciting others gonna be challenges don't get me wrong.
00:15:34
Speaker
But you're going to control it. And your gifts are going to be the one that's going to be the passion that's going to be behind it. It's valuable. So that's why I think it's really fun to hear your story. And you've done this and forged it your way. So I guess back to Brian's question, mentors who helped you? Well,
00:15:49
Speaker
I didn't really have anybody mentoring me at all. And I, 2020 hindsight kind of wished that I did because I would have avoided a lot of mistakes, duh. But there's so many things that I didn't even know who to ask because you look at organizations like EO and they're like, yeah, I run the jewelry store or I'm a contractor, right? Entrepreneur organization. And I've joined EO since and I left because it was nice people but guys running the jewelry store or cell phone store and I was like,
00:16:19
Speaker
I'd say, well, here's my thing. I'm looking to try and expand my digital footprint, and they'd go, try Facebook ads. And I'm like, guys, you're 17 steps behind me here. What are you talking about? And they're like, can you show me how to use Facebook ads? I don't even know how. And I'm like, the internet is not just Facebook. You guys have no idea how my business works. This is awful. It felt like
Strategic Digital Growth and Industry Trends
00:16:40
Speaker
me consulting people and them being like, how do I start a likes page? And I'm like, you mean a Facebook page? Don't use that. They don't do anything.
00:16:46
Speaker
It was really hard. There were no digital business masterminds or anything back then. Now, there's too many run by 22-year-olds that the only business they've ever run is a digital business mastermind. They've never actually built a digital business other than that. Now, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's too much choice. Back then,
00:17:08
Speaker
All it was was me saying, hey, what if I do this? And then you'd eventually get some client that came through that was like an investment banker and they'd go, hey, your prices are way too low. And I'd go, what do you mean? And they'd go, yeah, I just hired some corporate training people for Deutsche Bank and they were $3,000 an hour.
00:17:27
Speaker
This is three thousand dollars a week. You guys are under pricing. And I'm like, oh, but if I raise the price, we won't get as many people. And he's like, exactly. You'll get better people and fewer. So we raised our prices and we were like, oh, my God, that worked. It was like, OK, now we're eight thousand dollars a week. And people be like, I can't afford that. And then other people would be like, great, here's my money. And we're like, these are better clients.
00:17:48
Speaker
Right? So I had to learn all of that stuff, stumbling around, running into walls. And I followed my gut a lot and looked at what other people were doing and said, like, that seems like a bad idea. And then sure enough, a year later, I'd either be proven right or wrong. So it was pretty hard. I think we we grew really slowly. And now you see people who start these businesses and then four years in, they're like, yeah, I've got three
Content Creation Process
00:18:13
Speaker
million subscribers on YouTube. And I'm like,
00:18:15
Speaker
You're kind of lucky. Your timing was a little bit faster because you hit a wave and you did a lot of things right in the beginning that, you know, it took me six years to learn or something like that. Right. Okay. So you're starting to go. Things are starting to work. At what point were you like, I need help with this? Employees wise and like you needed a little bit more body power to get what you wanted to get done done.
00:18:37
Speaker
Was that a tough transition because like you, raising the price is like the scariest thing for small business owners until they do it and they're like, I wish I would have this sooner. Let's talk through that just building a team around you. So that was really tough for me actually. I would say I didn't build much of a team around me in the beginning.
00:18:57
Speaker
We worked with a friend. That friend eventually needed more help, so we hired other friends. Those people started stealing from us. We got rid of them. We hired every idiot in New York City. It was interesting because I came from Michigan and I came from this work ethic where you really did bust your butt as hard as you could and you worked really hard. I'd hire these guys and they'd be like,
00:19:23
Speaker
Oh you know what i didn't do anything you asked me to do today but i went to a bar and i met some girls and i'll be like you're an idiot what are you talking about and like they do that over and over and i go you guys are now it's my fault at this point that you guys are being this useless you're fired and then instead of like packing their stuff and leaving they would.
00:19:40
Speaker
take their laptop with all of
Highlights from Notable Interviews
00:19:42
Speaker
the leads on it and be logging into Salesforce and calling our clients. I'm like, you realize that's illegal. There are some people that are so stupid that they're not even afraid of consequences because they don't understand them. Those were the people that we were hiring.
00:20:00
Speaker
It turned out pretty poorly. It turned out worse for them because as much as I was like, I'm suing you, they just ended up being unemployable losers who never ever did anything with themselves. I'd say that's a lesson I learned early. I took a couple people to court and it was like, why am I bothering? This guy lives on someone's couch. What do I get if I win this? Nothing. I started to learn how to hire because
00:20:26
Speaker
I started to realize why I used to think like, oh, they're overpaying everyone. Look, we can get all these people to work for cheap. You often get what you pay for. And when we finally hired an administrative assistant, he was a guy who used to work for I think, like L'Oreal Cosmetics Company in New York. And he was really, really a smart guy. And he goes, you guys have a real business. You have real money here.
00:20:52
Speaker
you need to get rid of all these idiots. These people are idiots. You don't see it, but they're idiots. And I was like, I don't know. They're working, they're trying, and he's like,
Maintaining Focus and Balance
00:21:00
Speaker
so he would go, he made a point of doing each of their jobs for a day and doing it well just to show us how bad they were at their job. And this is like one day, this is brilliant, by the way. One day a week, he would go and do the other person's job, and he'd do everything before like 10 a.m. that they took five days to do poorly.
00:21:19
Speaker
And he'd go, this is what it's like when the job is done well. And I don't even know what this person does, and I still did it better than them. And we're like, yeah, we didn't even really tell you what to do or how to do it. You still did it better and in one-tenth of the time. So that's when we realized we worked with a bunch of idiots. So we threatened to fire everyone. It's funny, I've never told a story, so I'm sort of going back and forth in the town. Oh, let's go.
00:21:40
Speaker
We're here. I love this story. I threatened to fire everyone and everyone was like, well, we're just going to take all the clients and work without you because there's too many of us. What we did is we came up with a plan where we told the entire team that we ran out of money and that we had a ton of debt.
00:21:56
Speaker
And then, everybody who thought they were going to take a piece of the company, we had our attorney come in, and since he was the company attorney, he had no real duty to any of these other people. And our company attorney came in and said, if you want to stay, great. If you don't, great. But you have to make a clean break, because anybody who takes a piece of the company is taking a piece of the debt legally, and you're going to end up owing, let's see, $184,000. You know, so everybody freaked out and sort of scattered like cockroaches.
00:22:25
Speaker
and didn't take any of the company IP because they didn't want any of the liability. So after we did that, we got everybody to sort of sign off that this is Jordan Harbinger's debt. And then I was like, great, there's no debt. We just didn't want you working here anymore. And we got rid of everyone and we moved across the country to Los Angeles and basically started over. Jeez.
00:22:43
Speaker
That's interesting. I think it's so hard to just start all over once you have created something. So hard. You just hang on to it and how really easy it can be and how much you've learned in the past. I love it. Here's what I love about your story. You know your gifts. You know what you suck at. Does that make sense? When you were in Wall Street, you were looking around like, uh-oh, we got a problem here. And it didn't intimidate you. It just said, I got to do this different.
00:23:11
Speaker
And to be able to pivot there, I don't know if that's the right word to use. I'm kind of triggered in 2020 to say pivot, but here's where we're at. But to be able to take your gifts and say, I got to do this a little differently, surrounding yourself with people to help you that way and now execute on it. What an amazing value and core value that you have in your life to be able to do that, not only for yourself, but other people that are your followers or like, hey, just speak into it. It's always scary when you just don't know the future.
00:23:38
Speaker
But if you take a step forward, hey, it might not be that scary. And it might actually be the best thing that has ever happened to you. Yeah, I think I think that's true. It is scary. And a lot of people stay in bad businesses or bad relationships or whatever it is.
00:23:54
Speaker
even though they should leave because it's sort of like better the devil you know the devil you don't know so they're like they'll stay in some business with these like my old business i stayed in with these two partners that were lazy and competent selfish stifled every attempt at innovating anywhere.
00:24:13
Speaker
and I stayed in it for a while, and the reason I stayed in it was because I was like, well, I can't just start over. And then eventually things got so bad that I basically said, look, I've got a split, we've got a split. They didn't honor our negotiated split agreement, which actually turned out, so I had to start from zero again, but it turned out to be the best thing ever because our split agreement would have had us sharing leads and costs, and then COVID hit, and it was a live events business. So it was like,
00:24:41
Speaker
You know, I would have just been totally sinking. Since they didn't honor it, I had to start over, but that was a couple of years ago. So I had some forward momentum and some stability and they were losing momentum and stability. And then Covid hits and I'm just like, you guys are totally screwed. And then, of course, they tried to sort of like open our legal case back up and even their attorney was like, there's nothing here. You know, we settled this.
00:25:03
Speaker
We settled it in February of 2020. Finally, after years of back and forth and them stagnating and stifling, and then COVID hits and they were just like, are you kidding? They were basically like, you knew that there was going to be a problem in the business. I was like, tell the judge that I knew about COVID-19 ruining your business. Go ahead. I want to see how this argument pans out. No, really. Let's go in front of the judge and talk about this.
00:25:26
Speaker
Part of our podcast or part of our platform, we talk about the seven sources of residual income. On Wall Street, you're a lawyer, you're working a real estate company, kind of like hard assets, right? Investments, real estate. You go through your passion really and you do this digital business that was new. You're 10 years in now.
00:25:47
Speaker
Do you look in terms of your own wealth building or diversification, just super high level, do you look to then take some of your assets and like, I want to invest in real estate or I want to invest in the stock market? Or is it like double tripling down on the digital assets and the cash flow streams that those come with? I'm just really curious.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. So early on, I had decided, hey, this could still sort of go the way of the dodo and we could be in deep trouble. And my dad, you know, was a decent investor. He was not a worker, but he invested a lot because he's like, hey, I see people.
00:26:20
Speaker
He listened to Money Talk AM radio. He was like, oh, you got to buy Vanguard funds and Fidelity or whatever. He invested a lot of money and retired pretty early. He's like, you need to do this no matter what. Even when I was in college and had no money, I'd get money for Christmas. He's like, I took it and I put it into an index fund. You're welcome. I'd be like, oh, that sucks. I wanted to go on spring break.
00:26:44
Speaker
He's like, no, trust me. I kept doing that and maxing out my IRA or Roth IRA or whatever it was back when I had the business. Even when I was earning 25 grand a year in Manhattan and having to spend all of it, my dad would be like,
00:27:00
Speaker
so and so passed away. You don't really know them, but they gave us money and I'm putting 15,000 of it into your retirement fund. And I'd be like, okay, whatever, that kind of thing. And then as I started to earn money, I kept putting my money away. Now I'm taking more risk where I'm investing in my business because now I own 100% of the business. I think it should have been a telltale sign before. I wanted to invest in my old business, but my business partners could never save any money.
00:27:26
Speaker
We'd be like, all right, we're going to put $40,000 this year towards ads and I'd have my 40 at the end of the year or my 10 or whatever it was, you know, 1250. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, I don't have it. And I'd go, you have a new car. What are you doing? We live in New York. You don't need a car. Yeah, I always just wanted a Porsche though. And I'm like, you're an idiot, right? And then the other guy would go, oh, I'm a little short, but I have 100 pairs of shoes. And I would just went like,
00:27:50
Speaker
This is not good and I'm not gonna put my own money into this and then see a return that I then have to split with these idiots. It's just not gonna work. Now I own 100% of the business, so now, especially having invested for the last 20 years in regular funds and real estate and stuff like that, I actually could afford to lose a lot and experiment a lot with the money that I'm investing in my business and I still will be able to retire on time, which is kinda lucky. So I made this base.
00:28:17
Speaker
Now that I can experiment with, and I see a lot of Silicon Valley people doing the opposite. They're like 35, they have $100,000 in student loans that they've deferred for 15 years. All of the money that they've ever had goes into their business. And I'm like, if you don't succeed, you are totally screwed, dude. All eggs are in one basket.
00:28:34
Speaker
All eggs are in one basket, and it's like an app, right? That you just have to pray Facebook doesn't go, yeah, we're taking this functionality and just making it, and we don't need you anymore. And that happens all the time. For me, I'm kind of the opposite. It's like, I can either continue to invest slowly, retire on time, whatever, or what I'm doing now, which is I've got my nest egg, my emergency funds, whatever you want to call it, my retirement funds, all set. So instead of taking
00:29:01
Speaker
a hundred grand a year and putting it in there, I'm taking that same hundred grand and putting it in my business and then watching those returns from my business be higher than what I would get from a retirement account, at least in the short term. Ignoring compound interest and stuff, I'm getting a higher than, let's say, 8% return by reinvesting in the business. I figure I'll do that for a few years until my appetite for risk
00:29:26
Speaker
sort of settles down again. So I probably have, I'm 40, I probably have like another decade or slightly less where I can be like, not reckless, but invest heavily in the business. And then eventually when I hit like 50, I'll go, hey, I can't really afford to maybe lose huge amounts of this money if something goes wrong. So now I have to sort of put more money into safer vehicles. And don't get me wrong, I'm still putting
00:29:54
Speaker
five figures or close to six, because I think of the way the tax, my CPA has this thing set up, I can only do X amount of profit sharing before it starts to be more expensive. You guys know that more than I do. But I'm still putting $70, $100 and some thousand dollars into the equities market. Tesla stock and index funds, I don't know how specific you want me to get, but like stock and index funds.
00:30:19
Speaker
Let me ask you this because we can go to the weeds and I'm not the weeds guy. Brian's the weeds guy. He's probably loving this conversation. I do. Let's just say, what are you going to do when you retire? What are you going to do? You're going to do the same thing you did yesterday.
00:30:36
Speaker
Don't you love where you're at right now? And that's kind of my point to all my clients is like, why would you even want to retire if you love what you did? Now, what I know about you and your story from the limited time we've talked is, yeah, there's going to be some things that you like more than others. And that's probably going to evolve over the next 15 to 20 years. But chances are you're going to figure it out and just go get paid for what you love to do. Like, and so for that, like, well, when are you going to stop doing that? Like, never, you know?
00:31:05
Speaker
like a lot of people think this retirement thing is like, I'm just going to go off and hit golf balls in the weeds like, or it's really not that you're going to actually go serve more than you ever have. But you just don't want to
00:31:18
Speaker
I would say worry about the cash flow of funding said fun thing that you're going to do next. You don't want to structure. That being said, I don't think you have a lot of structure now and you're in control of everything. Doesn't that feel good? You're not control your ship. We're saying that you're kind of like in phase four that we say is like financial freedom in a way.
00:31:36
Speaker
Now, when you're in financial freedom, you actually realize like, hey, there's a couple things that I'd like to do better. I'm going to do this different. I'm going to hire this one because I actually hate paperwork or whatever that is for you. But you just keep constantly evolving to the point of like, you know what, tomorrow I can't wait to get up and do what I do best and it's a dominate or whatever.
00:31:55
Speaker
for you. So I love where you're at. And I love that you're actually saving and probably for the most part, using it as like a tax purpose, tax saver, if you will, to put money away in these retirement accounts. But at the end of the day, like really, you're not looking over those retirement accounts like that just went down 20%. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Like, no, I'm gonna do registered yesterday.
00:32:19
Speaker
I'm gonna love tomorrow what a powerful thing and I don't know if there's a lot of people that even know that that's a possibility it's like I need to go work at this cubicle of doom job until I get enough of my retirement which is gonna be around 67 and then I'm gonna get Social Security and then
00:32:36
Speaker
But you are gonna hate your life every day of your life until you get to that point. And chances are, when you cross over to that point where you're starting to get cash flow from retirement accounts, your mindset's still gonna be like, I still kinda need to go to the desk. It's just your condition for so long where you have completely broken out of the box altogether and now the sky's the limit. Now you get to pay for your lifestyle and you have a wife, I don't know. You have any kids right now? Yeah, I have one baby.
00:33:06
Speaker
Okay, so now your job is to pour into him or her. Is it him or her? It's a little boy, little boy. There it is. All right. So now your job is to try to pour into him, to try to figure out how to get him to love his life and pursue his passions and get paid for it. Like you're in the ultimate phase four where money's coming in, but now you get to teach other people how to go down this uncommon path. Dude, kudos to you for sure.
00:33:34
Speaker
And I love that you still have advisors who are helping you with your retirement assets, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, you've seen it yourself. You are your best asset. Yeah. And nobody else is going to tell you otherwise. So I love that you figured out that and also learned how to get paid for that. Good for you. Great for you.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's funny to hear that because I think about this all the time and I look at media companies and I go, yeah, a lot of people are like, dude, you should have a media company. You should have like 10, 12 podcasts that you manage and different websites and writers pools. But I look at the costs of management in terms of time and I go, I just don't know if that's what I want to do.
00:34:15
Speaker
It's not, because the more you, like yes, your revenues will be higher and then you can sell the company and retire with like $50 million or something like that. But I don't think it's worth it because everybody I know, like right now I read books and I talk to smart people. That's like the bulk of my job, right? I'm reading half the time, I'm answering fan mail and I record my shows, my interviews, the Jordan Harbinger show. I've got to read Matthew McConaughey's book and call him on Monday. That's pretty cool. The more you start adding in,
00:34:44
Speaker
Like, oh, I've got 12 podcasts. Now I've got a sales team meeting for the ad sales team that manages the sales of the ads on the podcast. You just end up doing only that stuff, right? You like only are managing the sales team. And then you've got a web development meeting because you have 13 websites with news that you're managing and then you're hiring writers. And I'm like, I don't want to be doing that. I like working in the business and on the business, but only a little bit. I don't want to be sitting there like,
00:35:12
Speaker
talking to my board of directors about why we didn't hit revenue projections for 2021. Yeah. And it's so easy to get caught up in that trap. It is. And that's what we like for the most part, just tell people like, yeah, I know that eight plex or whatever rental property looks sexy on paper, but it really isn't. And it's going to take your mind and focus off of what you're good at, which is really going to make everything not as exciting. And you're really kind of just making yourself a job right now. Totally.
00:35:41
Speaker
Be greedy and just try to just keep focused on what you're good at. And then putting around a process where like, I mean, let's be honest, you're going to go talk to cool people and read books. When do you want to stop doing that? Well, I don't. I won't. Like, this is what I'm good at. So, man, yeah, don't don't take your eye off the ball by any stretch. I love it. It's easy to get caught up in in that, like you said, and it's really, really easy to
00:36:10
Speaker
Think that you're not doing enough, and I'm like uh-oh you know simplifying is the way to go it really is
00:36:18
Speaker
And I realized there's no scenario in which long-term I'm gonna go, man, I wish I'd worked hard or started a media company and retired with a bunch of money that I then gave away to some charity because I'm dead. I'm gonna go, hey, wasn't it cool that I could take a month off every year and go with my kids on really long vacations and not have frickin' Zoom calls the whole time?
00:36:42
Speaker
my gosh, makes me want to barf in my mouth. When you think about it too is like entertainers and you know, looking over at some of the people you've had on your show, you know, they get paid, they work very little, probably practice a lot. But what they're actually working, they're making the most amount of money, you know, like Kobe or Matthew McConaughey, those types of people.
00:37:03
Speaker
And so how have you like how are you staying in that sweet spot, you know, like conversations with your wife or whatever? Like, how do you continue to just hone that craft? Like, what's practice to you? I think I look for things that I enjoy that also make sense that I can monetize in some way, or even maybe can monetize. You know, so so right now, I'm spending a lot on podcast advertising, where I advertise the Jordan Harbinger show on other podcasts, and people go,
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, we tried to crack that. It's really tough to figure out. And I go, well, what are you doing for your suite of podcasts or your network of podcasts? And they're like, so what we did is we hired somebody for TikTok. We hired somebody for Instagram. We hired somebody for Twitter. We hired somebody for Facebook. We hired somebody for, you know, all these different things. Then they got a team and then we had, they script and write content and then we film it and then they edit it and then they post it. And I go, so I would have to like meet with them, manage them one day a week or so they're going to have to film me doing all these stupid things like,
00:38:01
Speaker
I'm at the airport eating a sandwich, reading a book, hashtag books, hashtag reading, right? That's what these people are doing, and then it sort of promotes their podcast, and it's not, it's maybe the same price, maybe it's more expensive, maybe less, but basically you're becoming this social media brand, and I'm like, that just doesn't seem that interesting.
00:38:22
Speaker
It ends up costing me time, too. I'm like, nah, so I'm paying more to grow my show than I would possibly, or maybe I'm paying the same, but I'm like, it doesn't really take that much time, because all I do is call an ad agency, and I'm like, yeah, I want to spend a million dollars next year on ads, and they're like, here's a bunch of shows we think might work, and then we test them, and if they work, we renew, and if they don't, then they don't. I've since started doing that myself, because I think it's fun, so there's no agency anymore.
00:38:49
Speaker
It doesn't, it just seems to me like this is, people go, oh man, but you know, if something happens to your podcast, you're not gonna have any other channels. I'm like, eh, if something happens to my podcast, one, I don't think that, what would happen to my podcast? I'm not Alex Jones, I'm not talking about, you know, conspiracy theories. And if something happens, then I'll retire because I don't think I wanna be like a TikToker instead, right?
00:39:13
Speaker
That was never the motivation in the first place. No, I wouldn't just go and do a bunch of it. I don't want to be an email marketer. No offense to anybody who markets things via email, but I didn't get into this because I wanted to make money and be on a beach. I got into this because I liked reading books and talking to smart people, and that's literally what I'm doing. I try not to overcomplicate my life such that I'm doing less of that in more
00:39:38
Speaker
something else you know i try and sit there to your earlier question i try and sit there and take stock like at least once a year we have a big meeting but occasionally and i probably not as often as i should maybe every month i'll go what have i done this month that was like annoying that i just didn't like.
00:39:55
Speaker
and that I should do less of. And then I try and figure out if I can do that without hurting the bottom line too much. Or does it mean I hire someone to do that for me? Does it mean it doesn't get done at all at that point? Maybe I don't do it at all. TikTok, I'm not on there. And I stopped posting on Instagram. I post stories that are really funny, but I don't do posts. And people are like, where are you? We want more from you. And I'm like, nah, I'm good.
00:40:17
Speaker
If I have a really good thing that I want to post and it's really obvious, I'll post it. But I'm not sitting there being like, yeah, I'm in the airport with a sandwich. Here's a post because I didn't post on Tuesday and I got to post 17 times a week. It's just a job for these people. And it's like, it's kind of barfy because
00:40:33
Speaker
I'll go to a five-star hotel on a vacation and I'm like, oh my god, I finally get to relax for the, you know, one week a year or something. I need to do this more often. And I see people there and they're freaking taking 40 selfies in a pool. Not even 40. I went to Vegas, man, with a friend of mine for a weekend.
00:40:48
Speaker
we sat next to the pool and for three hours there was a girl in the middle and she finally came out and we went wow that was a lot of photos and she goes yeah it's my job i'm an instagrammer and i go well you're finally done she goes well no my phone just ran out of batteries and i was like
00:41:06
Speaker
Literally exhausted. So she's like, I'm just gonna go to my room and charge it and then you know, take a nap. What the hell? And we saw her later, not in the same spot, taking photos. And I go, I go, Hey, just out of curiosity, how many photos do you think you take a day? And she goes, I don't know, maybe like 600 400.
00:41:24
Speaker
100, 400 in a day. You're not enjoying yourself if you're doing that. You couldn't pay me enough. No. No, even if you're making a million dollars a year to take 400 selfies a day, just shoot me now. It's not worth it.
00:41:39
Speaker
Okay, I want to talk about your podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show. Your favorite interview you have up to date, or to date right now, was who? Ooh, hard to say. It's like picking a favorite kid. I mean, some of the stuff, and you're like, well, that's not that hard. I've got two kids.
00:41:59
Speaker
I know where that was going. You know, I kind of have a recency bias where I'm like, oh, this person from a few days ago was really good. You know, I like Malcolm Gladwell. He was good. Danny Trejo, AKA the Mexican guy who's in everything and dies in every movie that he's in.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, the spill blood guy. Yeah, she's really awesome and a cool person. Ray Dalio was really good and probably up the alley of, you know, your audience as well. Just a super, super smart guy. He's coming back, I think in, I don't know, February or March or something like that. Russell Brand was an interesting guy. It's hard, but I think a lot of the not famous guys are really interesting. We have this jewel thief on who had been in prison.
00:42:42
Speaker
And I was like, hey, tell me how to plan a jewelry heist. And we basically planned like a fake jewelry heist on the show. That was cool. That was pretty cool. What was your most awkward moment you've had an interview? And you're like, OK, I got to save this because it's going south. Quick.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like there's got to be a few of those. Let me think, because it's probably been a minute since anything like that has actually happened. I mean, I drove to someone's house in Silicon Valley. This person has since become a friend of mine, so it's not that big of a deal. But I drove all the way there, and I've been doing the show for 14 years at this point, or 13 years at this point.
00:43:21
Speaker
And I drove there and I go, all right, we're all set up. He goes, cool, I'm just gonna have a quick call and then I'll be right down. And I looked at my microphone case and we'd set up all the tripods and all the cameras and I went, holy shit, they're still charging on my desk at home.
00:43:38
Speaker
And I go, how do I tell him that I literally forgot the one thing we needed to do this? And my wife's like, oh man, this is so embarrassing. So I said, hey man, embarrassing, but I'm just gonna tell you the truth. I forgot my microphones. And he's like.
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah, because you've done this for a while, right? Like the first thing that was on his mind is that you just don't have any microphones at all. What's in these giant boxes? I was like, lights, cameras, tripods, wires, cables, power supplies. I just don't have the little thing that clips onto your shirt. And he's like,
00:44:14
Speaker
You forgot the microphone? I was like, yeah, I'm equally in shock, okay? Can I come back tomorrow? And he was like, okay. And he, at the end of the interview, it was funny, because he goes, that was good, surprisingly good. And I go, surprising how? And he goes, well, I mean, yesterday, you literally forgot the microphone. I didn't have high expectations.
00:44:30
Speaker
I want to ask this because I think spouses play a huge role in this uncommon life, uncommon path. How has your spouse encouraged you, just supported you in the process, and how important has her, like just how she's been?
00:44:48
Speaker
Well, my wife is like my chief operations person here, and I don't mean that in some sort of like honorific way. I mean, she literally is like, here's how much money came in. Hey, we didn't get paid for this. Hey, do I need to invoice this person? You know, I'm arranging this for you. I booked you at this hotel. I booked you on this flight. This person said they need to reschedule. I'm gonna cancel it instead. Like she does all of that for me, but she also manages the house, right? And she also is in charge of the baby. Huge, huge.
00:45:18
Speaker
It's interesting, because everyone's like, you need to hire help for your wife. And my wife's like, I got this. And I definitely, I told her, I'm going to have to hire an operations person if we have another kid. And she's like, no, what we should do is hire child care, because I need a break too. And I was like, OK, look, I'm leaving this up to you. So it's weird, because people are like, ooh, you're being fancy. But we're not really. Because I go, hey, next year,
00:45:46
Speaker
if we have another kid and you're still working with me, who's gonna cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And she's like, God, I don't know. And so I'm like, we're hiring a chef to come in on Tuesday and Thursday to cook food and bring groceries and prepare stuff. And then we're gonna have a housekeeper on Monday, Wednesday, Friday to come in and do dishes and laundry because you don't have time for that. And she's like, no, because she grew up working slash middle class too. And she's like, I don't wanna hire, those things are considered luxuries. And I go, no, you don't get it. We have a business.
00:46:16
Speaker
Either I need to hire somebody in the business who's gonna do your job in the business and not do as good of a job, or I need to hire somebody who can cook food and do laundry, which is something that's harder to mess up. And we both benefit from this. And so I'm having trouble kind of like convincing her that it's not a luxury. And I go, look, if we worked in an office,
00:46:37
Speaker
We would have somebody who comes in at night and cleans the office, but since we work from home, she can't really get her mind around. She's like, oh, no. And she's going through what a lot of entrepreneurs go through and what I went through probably 10 years ago, which is a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners do this. They go, well, I can do it, so I should do it. And you see these guys who are like,
00:47:00
Speaker
running 12-man teams, running some sort of cybersecurity business. And they're like, hey, do you know anything about editing Instagram video? And I go, no, why? Doesn't your social media person do it? And he goes, well, I've spent like three hours today trying to edit this video that I'm going to post. And I was like, why are you doing that? Are you kidding me?
00:47:18
Speaker
And he's like, well, it just seems easy, but it's harder than I thought. And I'm like, you should never be editing a video again. You're a frickin hacker that owns a cybersecurity company. I never want to hear about you editing your Instagram posts ever again. You need a social media kid who lives in the Philippines who does this for you and you don't even look at it.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yes, hire it out. People don't want to do that because they're like, yeah, but there's these apps for the phone and it's only like going to take me like an hour a week. And I'm like, how many jobs do you have that are an hour a week that you're doing now that any any anyone with a pulse and a smartphone could do for you?
00:47:52
Speaker
And then he's like, yeah, a lot. And my business is kind of like that, too. My stuff's really outsourced. But what happens is I'll say, Jen, find someone and hire them for this. And then I catch her doing it, like editing the video or doing this. And so next year, my plan is to kind of put the clamp down because she is very capable.
00:48:10
Speaker
And she's so capable and she loves figuring things out, but then it adds to her workload. And she's like, I have too many things to do. And I'm like, what do you have to do? She's like, well, I'm editing this commercial. I'm like, send it to the producer. We literally have a full-time producer. Why are you editing a commercial? Well, it's 9 p.m. where he lives and I wanted to get it done. And I'm like, oh, my God. You have to be careful, right? It's hard.
00:48:33
Speaker
because you really do, you can't tell your wife and your spouse anyway how to do things, but if I were mentoring an entrepreneur and I caught them doing this, I would be like, I'm having an intervention right now and I'm reaming you a new one.
00:48:51
Speaker
You talked to a lot of amazing people and you're doing a lot of amazing things yourself. We just went through COVID. What are you excited about or what trends do you see that people should be aware of, either from an investment standpoint or just entrepreneurial standpoint?
00:49:08
Speaker
Well, I mean, I look right now and I tell people like to be really careful because the market is quote unquote high, but it could, you know, could go higher and stay higher. We don't know. But I think a lot of people, they feel like stocks are they're getting FOMO, right? They're doing like the Bitcoin thing in 2017, but they're doing it with stocks.
00:49:28
Speaker
And they're doing it with money that they can't afford to lose. So I see people doing kind of crazy stuff to get into like Tesla now. And I'm like, hey, look, go ahead. By all means, throw some money in on Tesla. But I see people doing crazy stuff, like liquidating real estate or liquidating their IRA and paying tax penalties to buy securities that could go down tomorrow.
00:49:50
Speaker
And that is a huge problem. And I want people to get comfortable with FOMO because in business, you have more FOMO in every single niche. And I think for a lot of people that don't have their own business, you get FOMO mostly with things like the stock market because that's one of the areas where you can control things or you think you can because you can move your money around.
00:50:10
Speaker
I see opportunity now for people to grow, of course, their digital footprint in their business. Pivoting to digital has been great for a lot of people. Not even a year ago now, I guess like eight to nine, whatever, 10 months ago now, I had friends calling me in absolute panic who owned huge chains of gyms across North America and they were so screwed.
00:50:34
Speaker
I'm so screwed. I have to fire people. I can't believe it. My life is over. And I was like, you need to do online fitness training. And they're just like, I don't know, man, I have no experience with this. Fast forward to right now. And they've got custom online fitness training software. And they've done over 60,000 hours of online fitness training. And they're the biggest online fitness trainer in Canada. And I'm like, how's this going? And they're like, yeah, we're thinking about just
00:51:00
Speaker
doing online training only. He's like, maybe I'll get rid of some of my gym locations and stuff because we're making so much money from online fitness training that it just doesn't really make sense to go back to brick and mortar in all the locations, the low traffic locations. So we're gonna pivot our clients to this. And I thought like, I wish you could have heard this a year ago when you were panicking, not even a year ago, when you were panicking, you're like, my life is over.
00:51:26
Speaker
COVID has done. It's like allowed you to push something you've never thought you could do in like two weeks. You're going to need to do that. So Jordan, how do our listeners hear more about you? Jordan Harbor show, obviously podcast, but how could they hear more about you? Yeah. The Jordan Harbinger show anywhere you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, but also I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. So of course people can reach me there.
00:51:48
Speaker
And I love to interact with folks that have heard me, heard the podcast. So I would just love it if people checked out the Jordan Harbinger show. And I teach networking and relationship development and things like that as well. And all my stuff is free to the end users so far. That's good. Well, you've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I'm your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Until next time, go be uncommon. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
00:52:11
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.