Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) We’ve been talking a lot about scams on Feedback Friday lately. Romance scams. Job-hunting scams. Multi-level marketing scams. Those letters are always entertaining, because from the outside it’s so obvious that the person in question is being taken advantage of. We hear them and we go, “Come on, do you really believe this charming British architect stuck in a hospital in Indonesia needs you to send him $500 in Bitcoin urgently? How dumb...
10 days ago • 3 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Wise up I met this Danish guy at a party recently. Passionate. Curious. A real zest for life. Let’s call him Mik. (I can’t actually remember his name, but man, this guy looked like SUCH a Mik, so let’s go with that.) Mik had just come back from India, where he was attending some lectures by a well-known spiritual guru, whose name I won’t mention because I don’t want his followers dragging me online. Long story short, he walked away disappointed. Not so much...
17 days ago • 4 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Get wiser A few weeks ago, I talked to Michael Easter about how important it is to get deliberately uncomfortable in this modern world. He’s absolutely right: We’ve engineered challenges out of our lives, and we’re suffering massively from a modern comfort crisis as a result. Discomfort as medicine — physical, emotional, spiritual — is real. Our conversation also got me thinking about when creating discomfort goes too far — when the impulse to be challenged...
24 days ago • 2 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) There’s a difference between self-interest and self-orientation. There’s a difference between attention-seeking and attention-enjoying. There’s a difference between being cut off and being boundaried. Every quality exists on a spectrum. A lot of self-help experts will tell you to avoid a vice at one end of the spectrum by radically embracing its opposite on the other. But that often ends up missing the subtle distinctions that turn a vice...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) For all our talk about radical candor, let’s be real: Being honest is risky business. Speaking your mind — while important and admirable — often comes at a cost. Hurt feelings. Compromised relationships. A reputation for being confrontational. The judgments of other people. Straight-up retaliation. And honesty is especially tricky at work, where complicated politics can make the cost of speaking your mind — even if you’re 100% right —...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) Here’s something people don’t talk about much. All growth comes with some degree of shame. We usually think about growth as an antidote to shame. We believe that learning and evolving are good ways to avoid feeling embarrassed. And in one way, they are. But over the years I’ve come to appreciate that shame is an essential part of the growth process. It’s not something you necessarily need to avoid. Shame can actually be a sign that you’re...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Wise up If you’re feeling stuck right now, or you can’t seem to begin a project, I want you to try something. I want you to start in the middle. Whatever that means for you. Start there. Maybe you want to write a book, but you don’t know what the opening should be. Start in the middle. Write a free-floating point, a random passage. Type your way forward and type your way back. Maybe you want to get in shape, but you don’t have a fitness routine. You guessed...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) Chances are, you think there’s a TON of stuff you need to deal with right now. And I’m sure there is. But also, there isn’t. Hot take, and hear me out: There’s only ONE thing you really need to deal with. And it’s not bad. I promise. Well, maybe it’s a little bad. But you can handle it. (And it’ll get worse if you don’t deal with it. Trust me.) The one thing you have to deal with — right now, fully — is whatever is in front of you at this...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Wee Bit Wiser by Jordan Harbinger Something wise(-ish) I’m about to sound like the crotchety old man I promised myself I’d never become, but there’s something bothering me about the current wave of self-help. It’s the idea that anyone who causes you stress, dysfunction, pain — major or minor — should automatically be cut off. You see this kind of thing a lot in pop-psychology TikToks and therapy memes. A lot of creators seem to believe that any form of tension is automatically a) bad and b)...
6 months ago • 5 min read