The Jordan Harbinger Show

Untreated Bipolar II keeps pulling you under, but disclosing it could cost you the military pension you've bled for. Welcome to Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1306On This Week's Feedback Friday:You're a military servicemember just years from retirement, recently diagnosed with Bipolar II — and your depressive episodes have brought you dangerously close to the edge. But disclosing your diagnosis could torpedo your pension and career. How do you stay alive without blowing up the only stability you've ever built?Over 20 years ago, your partner cheated, then slapped

Your emotions are a con artist's favorite weapon. Johnathan Walton lost nearly $100k to a fake friend, sent her to prison, and is here to explain how.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1305What We Discuss with Johnathan Walton:Con artists don't outsmart you — they out-feel you. They bypass logic entirely by creating deep emotional bonds, exploiting love, sympathy, fear, and trust. Once you're making decisions with your heart instead of your head, you're already in the trap — and believing you're "too smart to be scammed" only makes you a bigger target.The most dangerous scammers are already in your life. Professional con artists enter through offers to help, build trust over years, and use real details — like places they've actually lived — as kernels of truth to construct elaborate lies. They don't lurk in dark alleys; they sit at your dinner table and call your mom auntie.Con artists deliberately make their scams complex and document-heavy so that when victims go to police,

The US spent millions trying to create psychic spies, but this remote viewing pseudoscience never came into focus. Nick Pell explains on Skeptical Sunday!Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1304On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:The U.S. government spent millions over two decades on Project Stargate — a real program aimed at training psychic spies to "see" enemy secrets through meditation — and the CIA ultimately concluded that no remote viewing report ever provided actionable intelligence.Early ESP research by J.B. Rhine at Duke produced seemingly positive results, but none of his studies were ever reliably replicated — including a Princeton trial of over 25,000 attempts with 132 subjects

A narcissistic friend ghosted you for years, then announced he's moving in — rent-free — while you and your fiancée plan a family. It's Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1303On This Week's Feedback Friday:If you prefer to board the Dooze Cruise without following the latest globetrotting adventures of Jordan and Gabe, skip ahead to around 21 minutes and 20 seconds.After two years of radio silence, your old friend from Germany has suddenly resurfaced — not to reconnect, but to announce he's moving into your apartment rent-free while you and your fiancée are trying to

Drug cartels have quietly infiltrated rural America. Trafficked host Mariana van Zeller walks us through the underworld hiding beneath our very feet.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1302What We Discuss with Mariana van Zeller:Mexican drug cartels are deliberately setting up operations in small-town America — not big cities — because rural areas have minimal law enforcement, making it easier to hide distribution networks where a single sheriff can't compete with heavily armed cartel operatives.Mariana van Zeller builds trust with dangerous sources — from cartel lieutenants to assassins — by ditching prepared question lists, sharing personal photos, and offering cigarettes, treating interviews as human conversations rather than interrogations to unlock genuine, unguarded responses.Commercial airlines like Delta are among the biggest drug transportation networks in the US, with cartel distributors exploiting everyday travel infrastructure rather than the covert smuggling opera

Are electric vehicles a green revolution or just greenwashing on wheels? Nick Pell pops the hood and breaks it all down here on Skeptical Sunday!Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1301On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:Electric vehicles carry zero tailpipe emissions, but the electricity powering them often comes from coal and natural gas plants — meaning your EV's true environmental footprint depends heavily on where you live and how your local grid generates power.The cobalt fueling EV batteries comes overwhelmingly from the Democratic Republic of Congo — one of the poorest, most unstable nations on Earth — where child labor, armed militia control of mines, and toxic contamination of loca

Your friend fled her wall-punching spouse and crashed at your place. Now she wants to go back, and your husband says to butt out. It's Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1300On This Week's Feedback Friday:An eagle-eared listener spotted a mistake on episode 919 and wrote in to correct the record and clarify the facts!Your close friend's spouse is punching walls, deflecting blame, and getting verbally aggressive — and now she wants to reconcile with him. You're a police officer who sees this stuff escalate for a living, and your own husband thinks you should just play

The China Show's Laowhy86 reveals how millions of Chinese citizens disguise dissent as puns, memes, and mythical creatures to dodge censors.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1299What We Discuss with Laowhy86:China's internet operates as a closed ecosystem where apps like WeChat handle everything from payments to communication — and the government monitors all of it. Citizens who default on debts, post the wrong opinion, or even discuss banned topics can lose access to trains, flights, and basic services overnight.Chinese citizens have built an ever-evolving coded language to dodge censorship — from "grass mud horse" (a pun on a profanity) to calling lockdowns "square cabins" and using "talk egg prices" to vent about the economy. What started as playful wordplay has become a high-stakes survival tool as punishments have escalated to years in prison.The government now deploys AI — through campaigns like "Clear and Bright" — to predict and pre-emptively ban future slang before

The red light therapy market is full of junk science and real breakthroughs. Recharge Health CEO Bjorn Ekeberg is here to separate scams from the science.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1298What We Discuss with Bjorn Ekeberg:Red light therapy has real, evidence-backed benefits — particularly for musculoskeletal pain, inflammation, and recovery — but the market is flooded with junk products like LED toothbrushes and shower heads that can't deliver a meaningful dose, threatening to discredit the legitimate science behind it.The real power of light therapy lies in near-infrared wavelengths — not just visible red light. Red light works on the skin's surface, but near-infrared penetrates deeper into tissue, stimulating mitochondrial function and improving cellular efficiency — which is why the distinction matters more than most people realize.NASA research in the early 2000s showed that without exposure to red and near-infrared light, astronauts' healing processes slowed dramat

Protests, missiles, and a regime on the ropes — Iran is at a turning point. Ryan McBeth explains the forces driving one of the world's most complex crises.Welcome to what we're calling our "Out of the Loop" episodes, where we dig a little deeper into fascinating current events that may only register as a blip on the media's news cycle and have conversations with the people who find themselves immersed in them.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1297On This Episode of Out of the Loop:Iran is an ancient civilization stretching back 5,000 years — but most Americans only know the post-1979 version, which is like judging Rome entirely by the fall of its empire and missing the aqueducts, art, and architecture that came before.The 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Iran's democratically elected government planted the seeds for the 1979 Islamic Revolution — a theocratic regime that crushed dissent, built a proxy empire through Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and turned the IRGC into

Your brother's political curiosity took a dark turn into alt-right extremism. As his big sis, can you reach him before it's too late? It's Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1296On This Week's Feedback Friday:Your teenage brother has gone from healthy political curiosity to spouting antisemitic talking points and binging alt-right influencers. You're his cool big sister — but you moved across the country, and the window of influence is closing fast. How do you pull him back before it's too late?Your former mother-in-law is elderly, broke, and living with an ex-husban

Beyond Belief author Nir Eyal returns to break down why belief — not motivation — is the missing piece behind every goal you've abandoned too early.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1295What We Discuss with Nir Eyal:The number one reason people fail to reach their goals isn't a lack of knowledge or resources — it's that they quit. Motivation isn't a straight line from behavior to benefit; it's a triangle that includes belief. Without belief in both the process and the payoff, perseverance crumbles.Limiting beliefs are invisible cages we mistake for facts. Phrases like "I don't have time," "I'm too old," or "someone like me can't do this" feel like objective truths, but they're actually tools that sap motivation and increase suffering — and most people never stop to examine them.Venting feels productive but actually reinforces the distorted mental image you've built of someone. Instead, Nir uses a "turnaround" technique — asking if the opposite of your grievance could also be

Your sister went off her meds, fled cops, got in a bar fight, and assaulted an officer. Now she faces felonies and won't let you help. It's Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1294On This Week's Feedback Friday:Your sister with schizoaffective disorder went off her meds, quit her job, led cops on a chase, started a bar fight, and injured an officer — and now she's facing felony charges while refusing your help and rejecting her own public defender. How do you save someone who won't be saved?You're pretty sure your wife's business partners are hiding financials, breach

Psychopathy is treatable, altruism is contagious, and 'sociopath' is a word we should probably retire. Abigail Marsh makes the case here on part 2 of 2. [Find part 1 here!]Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1293What We Discuss with Dr. Abigail Marsh:Psychopathy isn't the life sentence people assume it is. Personality disorders like psychopathy and borderline are far more treatable than the popular narrative suggests, and many people with psychopathic traits actively want to change, recognizing their behavior patterns aren't working for them.Most of the world's worst atrocities aren't committed by psychopaths — they're committed by groups of ordinary people who believe they're completely justified. The real danger isn't the remorseless loner; it's collective moral certainty that one side's aggression is righteous.Fear is the secret bridge between altruism and psychopathy. Psychopaths don't process fear — their own or others' — while extreme altruists are hypersensitive to it.

What separates someone who'd donate a kidney to a stranger from someone who might steal one? Abigail Marsh explains the neuroscience of fear on part 1 of 2.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1292What We Discuss with Dr. Abigail Marsh:Psychopaths don't lack all emotion — they specifically lack the ability to recognize and feel fear. Where most people see terror on someone's face, a psychopath sees something unidentifiable — a deficit that fundamentally rewires how they relate to other humans.Many of psychology's most famous studies — the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram shock test, the Kitty Genovese bystander story — turned out to be deeply flawed or outright fabricated. Humans are actually far more compassionate than these narratives suggest; CCTV data shows bystanders intervene 90% of the time.Psychopathy isn't caused by "bad parenting" in any simple way — it's a neurodevelopmental disorder with significant genetic heritability, much like autism or ADHD. Blaming pare

You've healed from self-harm and own your story. But curious kids keep asking about your scars. How honest should you be? Welcome to Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1291On This Week's Feedback Friday:A shoutout to Adam Aleksic, The Etymology Nerd — and his take on social media comments sections!Five years ago, you were in the grip of an eating disorder and self-harm — but you did the hard work, went to therapy, and came out the other side stronger than ever. Now, you're navigating a new challenge: visible scars on your arms that curious strangers — and especially

Danny Rensch went from being weaponized as a chess prodigy by a cult to co-founding Chess.com — detailed on part two of this two-part episode. (Find part one here!)Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1290What We Discuss with Danny Rensch:Chess.com grew from a bootstrapped startup — laughed out of investor rooms — into a unicorn by building a chess creator economy and content ecosystem years before the pandemic boom, capturing 99% of chess's explosive growth when The Queen's Gambit and COVID lockdowns sent 400,000 new members flooding in per day.Catching cheaters in chess is a high-stakes statistical science. Chess.com employs 30 full-time specialists, from research scientists to in-house detectives, who use AI-driven algorithms to detect engine-assisted play, acting only when evidence would hold up in court rather than in the court of public opinion.The digital revolution in chess has dramatically compressed the learning curve. Kids now grow up playing against Magnus Carlsen a

Danny Rensch was born into a cult that weaponized chess for prestige. He's here to explain how he broke free on part one of this two-part episode.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1289What We Discuss with Danny Rensch:Cults don't always start with sinister blueprints. The Church of Immortal Consciousness where Danny Rensch was raised grew from self-help roots and communal idealism into full financial control — where members surrendered everything, kids shared bathwater, and the shoe list became a euphemism for "you don't matter enough to get a pair."The cult weaponized chess the same way the Soviet Union did — as a tool for prestige. Danny was identified as a prodigy, deliberately separated from his mother, and groomed as the collective's golden child. His talent wasn't nurtured for his sake — it was exploited for the cult leader's ego.By age 13, Danny was living alone, traveling to national chess tournaments with pockets full of cash and no adult supervision. The neglect wa

Is test prep a lifeline or a scam? Jessica Wynn reveals who's really cashing in on your SAT anxiety here on Skeptical Sunday!Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Jessica Wynn!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1288On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:The test prep industry is a multi-billion-dollar machine built on manufactured anxiety — not better education. Companies exploit the fear that a single test determines your entire future, turning parental stress and student panic into a lucrative marketplace where confusion plus fear equals profit.The same corporations that create standardized tests often sell the prep materials to pass them — a staggering conflict of interest. It's vertical integration at its most cynical: they've engineere

Genetic test results were delayed, so you took the abortion pill — then learned the baby was healthy. Now faith and regret collide. It's Feedback Friday!And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1287On This Week's Feedback Friday:You're 38, happily married, financially stable — and just terminated a pregnancy before learning the genetic test results came back perfectly healthy. Now you're drowning in guilt, questioning your faith, and wondering if you can ever try again. What does forgiveness look like from here?Your 19-year-old son is a bona fide genius — perfect test scores, weather ball