The Jordan Harbinger Show

How do you get your enemy to buy its own bomb? Paging Hezbollah filmmaker Justin Folk brings us in from Out of the Loop here!

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. Filmmaker Justin Folk, whose documentary Paging Hezbollah reconstructs Israel’s exploding-pager operation, is here to help us understand how Mossad got Hezbollah to buy, distribute, and carry its own booby-trapped pagers, how everything from the alert tone to the sales pitch was engineered to work, and how the operation weakened Hezbollah and Iran’s wider network.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1407

What We Discuss with Justin Folk on This Episode of Out of the Loop:

• How Israel got Hezbollah to buy, distribute, and willingly carry the very weapon used against it, and why Hezbollah’s own fear of Israeli cellphone surveillance created the vulnerability Mossad exploited.
• Why Mossad reportedly reduced the explosive charge to maim rather than kill — reasoning that dead fighters become martyrs, while thousands of visibly injured ones become walking warnings and a lasting drain on medical resources.
• What Mossad learned by having its own people carry test pagers and filming how they reacted, which led to a louder, more irritating alert and firmware requiring two buttons pressed at once to read the message.
• How Mossad licensed Taiwan’s Gold Apollo brand, hired the sales manager Hezbollah already trusted, and built a fake company convincing enough to survive due diligence by an organization that assumed Israel was trying to penetrate everything it did.
• Why even the most sophisticated technology still depends on understanding people — a familiar salesperson, a desirable product, and habits nobody thinks about. Notice which of your own routines run on autopilot, and you’ll make wiser choices about whom and what you trust.
• And much more!
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on an Out of the Loop episode, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!

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He’s your best friend, but the spark’s long gone. Do you open the relationship to save it, or are you just postponing goodbye? 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 [email protected]. Now let's dive in!

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1406

On This Week's Feedback Friday:

• You’re nearing 40 and 12 years in with a loving boyfriend — but seven months without intimacy, his nightly couch-and-booze routine, and your growing urge to explore women and the wider world have you eyeing an open relationship. Can you raise it without blowing everything up, or is the real question bigger?
• Your sister rented your L.A. condo to a tenant who turned out to be a serial squatter armed with fake bank statements and borrowed identities. Six months, a trashed condo, and $25,000 in unpaid rent later, you want her held accountable. Is there a real path to justice, or any hope of seeing that money again?
• Years after your breakup, your ex and his parents are still family — daily chats, a group text, the works. But your serious new boyfriend has no idea, and they don’t know about him either. With marriage on the horizon, how do you come clean without making the whole thing look far shadier than it is?
• Recommendation of the Week: Big Brother: North Korea’s Forgotten Prince — a podcast on Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son once groomed to rule North Korea, and the brazen airport assassination that ended his exile. How does the heir to a dictatorship end up a target in a crowded terminal?
• A few months ago, your life collapsed all at once — marriage, job, house, health, even your dog and your car. Now you’re back with one final update after a gauntlet of interviews, rejections, assessments, and maddening waiting. So where did all that rubble lead, and what did you learn about rebuilding?
• Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger.
• Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

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Card counter Steven Bridges reveals how to beat blackjack legally, dodge casino surveillance, and why playing perfectly can still cost you a fortune.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1405

What We Discuss with Steven Bridges:

• How card counting actually works — not by memorizing cards, but by keeping a running point tally to spot when the remaining shoe favors the player, then betting big on those waves for a slim one to five percent edge over the house.
• Why you can play perfectly and still lose a fortune. With such a thin edge, counters need hundreds of hours to reach the long run, and Steven’s team once won $97,000 in Vegas only to lose $110,000 right after.
• What casino surveillance looks for, and how Steven buys extra time at the table with movie-quality fake teeth, bruises, tattoos, code-word team play, and the paradoxical trick of blending in by standing out.
• Why Steven, a professional gambler, detests how casinos operate — from staff ignoring a drunk player who couldn’t stack his chips to a 77-year-old woman left gambling for over 24 hours without food or sleep.
• How to judge your decisions by process rather than outcome. A good choice can lose money and a bad one can pay off, so understand the downside, respect variance, and never let one lucky win convince you that you’ve outsmarted the game.
• And much more...

And if you’re still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
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Alex Davies explains why "user error" often hides a design failure, and how testers — from grizzlies to toddlers — keep the modern world from breaking.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1404

What We Discuss with Alex Davies:

• How Kobuk the Destroyer, an orphaned grizzly at a Montana bear sanctuary, became the gold standard for certifying products as bear-resistant — and why a wild bear named Yellow-Yellow still cracked canisters that had passed the test.
• Why every good test must balance real-world similarity against repeatability, and how the de Havilland Comet’s earlier maximum-pressure test unknowingly strengthened its test fuselage, producing false confidence before the jets began exploding midair.
• What the factor of safety means for airplane wings (1.5), steel mill cranes, and elevator hoist cables (11 or 12), and why these margins are negotiated compromises rather than numbers handed down on stone tablets.
• How shifting from “user error” to “use error” — redesigning B-17 landing-gear buttons, morphine pump interfaces, and table saws like SawStop — beats warning labels, which sit at the very bottom of the safety hierarchy.
• How to borrow a product tester’s mindset: ask what mistake your setup is counting on you never making, then change it so that mistake is harder to make or less costly when it happens — because “I’ll just be more careful” is a terrible safety feature.
• And much more...

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On Skeptical Sunday, Jessica Wynn explains why your mozzarella sticks taste the same everywhere — and how to find restaurants that still really cook.

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/1403

On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:

• How two distributors, Sysco and US Foods, supply more than a quarter of what Americans eat when dining out — and why their 400,000-product catalog means the sports bar, the bistro, and the Mexican place may serve identical mozzarella sticks, lava cakes, and pre-seared steaks.
• Why chains like Cracker Barrel, Applebee’s, and Olive Garden rely so heavily on frozen, pre-made, and microwaved dishes, and how ghost kitchens and restaurant groups like Darden turn one shared supply chain into a dozen seemingly distinct brands.
• What menu buzzwords like farm-to-table, artisanal, and locally sourced really mean (legally, often nothing), how menu engineering steers diners toward high-margin items, and why most franchisees can’t swap in better local ingredients even if they want to.
• How consolidation costs more than money — feeding ultra-processed diets, nationwide recalls that hit thousands of restaurants at once, hidden allergen risks, vanishing regional food traditions, and kitchens where trained cooks are reduced to setting timers.
• How to eat out smarter: ask “Is this made here?”, order simple dishes like grilled chicken or poached eggs, favor small menus with specific descriptions and changing specials, and reward scratch kitchens with your business and reviews that mention the cooking.
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!
• Connect with Jessica Wynn at Instagram (and Instagram!), and subscribe to her newsletters: Between the Lines and Where the Shadows Linger!

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
• Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
• Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!

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On episode 517, a headless squirrel appeared at your door. Now you have news about the neighbor who put it there. Welcome to another 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 [email protected]. Now let's dive in!

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1402

On This Week's Feedback Friday:

• Back in episode 517, you told us about the neighbor who wormed his way into the lives of the two girls in your care, then spent years harassing you — right down to a headless squirrel at your back door. Five years and countless reports later, you're back with news about the man next door. What's changed?
• You and your estranged wife have been "working on things" for years — through her affairs, a move-out, and a baby with another man. Now she says she isn't ready to commit, yet you still hope she'll choose you. Is it love that keeps you coming back, or are you clinging to the family you'd hoped to have?
• At 45, after nine years in the same niche role, you've built a respected network — executives, board members, and peers you can call to talk shop. Yet a year of job hunting, even with a career coach holding you to Jordan's own course, has gone nowhere. Is the networking advice flawed, or is something missing?
• Recommendation of the Week: Sleep Apnea Screening — Jordan's nudge for snorers and the chronically groggy to get tested, since this slow-acting condition goes undiagnosed in a surprising number of people, and it isn't just a weight issue. Could a simple at-home test finally explain why you wake up tired?
• You started listening to Feedback Friday for the drama and stayed as the show's approach to problem-solving began showing up in your own life. Now you're curious how years of guests and letters have shaped Jordan and Gabe themselves — on marriage, psychopathy, and more. What have they learned the most about?
• Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger.
• Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
• Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
• Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!

This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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Facing a shortened life, Tom Rath raced to check every box — then hit 40 and asked: "What's the point?" Here's how to make your hours matter.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1401

What We Discuss with Tom Rath:

• How a diagnosis at 15 — and an average lifespan of about 37 for people with his condition — sent Tom Rath racing to check every box, only to reach 40 and realize the boxes weren't his. Sometimes achievement is just existential panic wearing a suit.
• Why career choice is less free will than inheritance: most of us glimpse five to 10 percent of the jobs out there, and a kid whose dad hangs drywall is 136 times likelier to follow suit. Tom half-jokes that random job assignment might beat our hit rate.
• Why "follow your passion" is cotton candy advice — and "Let them eat cake" for anyone living paycheck to paycheck. Passion asks what you want; purpose asks who you help, and it's built daily, one rescued frazzled customer at a time, not found once a decade.
• How spending 80 percent of the day reacting to email, feeds, and stock tickers feels productive but builds nothing durable — and why anyone who merely processes tasks may be one AI point release away from automation.
• How asking "What's the point?" of every hour can reclaim your calendar. Guard at least 60 meaningful minutes a day, work in focused initiating blocks, and push email to later. No headstone brags about quarterly revenue, so spend today on what gets carved there.
• And much more...

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
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Dr. Leslie John explains why oversharing is underrated, how opening up builds trust faster than waiting for it, and where candor tips into TMI.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1400

What We Discuss with Dr. Leslie John:

• Why waiting to feel trusted before opening up gets things backward — a slightly edgy reveal is a social risk that signals trust, and trust begets trust (a lever CIA recruiters and con artists both know how to pull).
• How two people in love lost 20 years to the fear of saying the wrong thing, and why we tally the risks of revealing but rarely the cost of silence (the first “I love you” is returned about 80% of the time).
• What Miss USA’s ravenous pageant answer, an onstage bladder mishap, and a sassy Harvard job interview reveal about the sweet spot between TMI and its overlooked twin, TLI (too little information), and the respect hiding behind the cringe.
• How to tell genuine, gradually escalating intimacy from love bombing and catfishing, why you need a full competence bank account before making vulnerability withdrawals at work, and why transparency is the safer bet.
• How to build the revealing muscle with sincere, specific compliments (and less gossip), and why the cure for a disclosure hangover is usually to lean back in and check with the person — not retreat into a catastrophic replay.
• And much more...

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
• Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
• Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!

This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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Innocent until proven broke? On Skeptical Sunday, Jessica Wynn explains how cash bail jails half a million unconvicted Americans.

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/1399

On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss:

• How roughly 500,000 legally innocent Americans sit in jail awaiting trial on any given day — not because they're dangerous, but because cash bail sorts people by bank balance rather than by risk, and only the US and the Philippines rent out freedom via commercial bail bonds.
• Why bail reform became political kryptonite: crime rose during COVID just as reforms rolled out, so Utah (after five months!) and Alaska scrapped theirs before the data arrived, while a $2-billion-a-year bail bond industry lobbied hard to keep freedom behind a paywall.
• What happens when reform survives on paper but not in practice: judges swap unaffordable bail for no-bail holds, ankle monitors widen the net, and risk algorithms trained on biased data launder old prejudices into objective-looking scores.
• How pretrial detention powers the plea bargain machine — with about 95 percent of cases ending in pleas, people held before trial are four times likelier to be sentenced to jail and get sentences three times longer, even controlling for charges and history.
• What actually works: Washington, D.C. has run without cash bail since 1992, releasing about 90 percent of arrestees (88 percent show up for court), while simple text reminders cut missed court dates 26 percent in NYC — proof that a nudge often beats a threat.
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!
• Connect with Jessica Wynn at Instagram (and Instagram!), and subscribe to her newsletters: Between the Lines and Where the Shadows Linger!

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
• Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
• Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!

This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

• Xero: Find out more: xero.com
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since episode 1287, exhaustion has turned to regret and your church has shut you out. Can you forgive yourself, or will shame win? 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 [email protected]. Now let's dive in!

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1398

On This Week's Feedback Friday:

• Months after ending a pregnancy just hours before a test confirmed your son was healthy, you're back with more of the story (from episode 1287) — the sleepless night that preceded it, a church group that quietly ghosted you, IVF on the horizon, and anger at yourself that won't let up. Where does healing even begin?
• Six months into dating a man 15 years your senior — everything you've ever asked for in a partner — you're happy, yet around his wildly accomplished friends, you can't shake the sense you've wandered into the wrong league. Should you study up on his world, or is the pedestal itself the problem?
• You ended a four-year friendship after learning he'd hidden his dating life and secretly loved you all along — convinced you were somehow "in on it." Now you want close male friends without the guesswork. How do you draw that line without sounding conceited, or presuming every guy is smitten?
• Recommendation of the Week: Resistance Bands — Jordan's road-warrior answer to living without dumbbells: featherweight elastic loops that turn a hotel-room mat routine into shoulder presses, squats, and crunches with real bite. Could a $10 set be the gym that fits in your carry-on?
• A few weeks back (on episode , you heard Jordan and Gabe counsel a man who believes he's a pedophile but has never acted on it — and you, like a vocal handful on the subreddit, felt they got it fundamentally wrong. Why give him airtime at all? Was that segment platforming, or prevention, and who has the stronger case?
• Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
• Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger.
• Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

• Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
• Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
• Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!

This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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