The Jordan Harbinger Show
1274: Past Indiscretion Keeps Threatening Profession | Feedback Friday
23 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: How can I reclaim my story after my past is used against me?
Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the dragnet helping me catch these slippery fish of wisdom from the choppy waters of your life drama, Gabriel Mizrahi.
On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life Thank you so much for having me. the behavioral science secrets behind 17 of the world's best brands.
We talked about how leading brands like Apple, Guinness, Red Bull, how they use behavioral science to influence consumer behavior. They basically analyze specific brands and the psychological principles behind their success, offering actionable strategies for marketers and really for anyone to apply. We also did a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on left-handedness.
On Fridays, though, we take your listener letters, offer advice, and play emotional cat's cradle with the yarn of your naughtiest life conundrum. Now, I hear we've got an overbooked dues cruise today. The lunch buffet is going to be swamped. So let's dive right in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?
Hey, Jordan and Gabe. More than 22 years ago, when I was 22, I made a serious mistake and had a relationship with someone who was 17. I took responsibility, served two years in prison, completed 10 years of parole, and have lived with the consequences every single day since. When I was released, the only work I could get was washing cars in the winter.
I slowly rebuilt my life from nothing, eventually starting my own company from the ground up. Today, that company employs over 130 people and is one of the 10 largest in our industry.
Wow, that is a journey. To go from prison for what I assume was statutory rape, which is so intense to have your life fall apart, to then washing cars, to starting a company that becomes one of the ten largest in your space. I'm sure that many people listening will have some feelings about this past, but man, rebuilding your life in this way is a huge accomplishment.
Despite the progress I've made, this part of my history still haunts me. Recently, I had a personal conflict with my business partner. We've been best friends for years. He recently got into a relationship and his girlfriend didn't like how much time we were spending together. So he started to push me out of his life.
I felt like I lost my best friend, but he kept pushing me away until I had enough and we had a huge argument about it. I asked multiple times to talk about it, but he always said he wasn't ready. Finally, I asked if I needed to get an attorney because I was worried he was doing something to get me out of the company. He said he needed time and I told him that time is something I can give him.
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Chapter 2: What should I do if I'm not invited to my stepbrother's wedding?
The stress and shame that this guy must carry around. I honestly, I don't know if I'd be able to get out of bed in the morning, let alone build a top 10 company in my industry.
Now I'm looking for another job, starting over yet again, and it's exhausting. As I talk to new companies, should I tell them my background and once again relive something that happened 22 years ago? Signed, shaken and aghast at the thought of dredging up the past when I've been put on blast after a lifetime of being typecast.
Wow, what a saga. So look, I'm sure some people listening are going to be turned off by this guy's past. I get that. I'm also hearing that he's done his time and really put in the work in a number of ways to be a very different person. He was 22 when he did this. She was four or five years younger. He is a family now. I just, I believe in that kind of evolution and second chances I do.
But also let's put aside the details of the crime and just focus on how do you recover from something like this? And I just want to acknowledge this is a major blow. I'm so sorry things played out this way, man. I can hear how hurt and demoralized you are in your letter and how scared. You're responsible for your family. This is a terrible loss, and it just sucks.
So we wanted to get a couple experts in here to advise. The first person we talked to was Corbin Payne, defense attorney and friend of the show. Dun-dun. And the first thing Corbin said was, in his experience, ex-cons are generally viewed with suspicion and a lack of sympathy by the legal system in the wider world.
And because we as a society are primed to view ex-cons with both suspicion and contempt, people like your former business partner, they can often justify their actions as you deserving it, and they can do so pretty easily. So Corbin had some tactical advice for you First, from now on, when you start a business, you need to document, document, document.
Never again start a business without an operating agreement or a partnership agreement or something like that. Never take a job without something in writing laying out what the compensation looks like, what your job description and duties are, what protections you're entitled to, what your equity is, that is essential.
If the other party drags their feet, then Corbin said at the very least, send a CYA email laying out your understanding of these facts and ask them if that's also their understanding. If they confirm, great. If they don't reply at all, that's essentially confirmation. If they deny, then at least you have clarity.
And second, and I assume you're already doing this, if you're suing your partner for your share of the business, bring a ton of documentation to your case. Dates, history, contributions, major conversations, all of it.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of testosterone replacement therapy on fertility?
Of course, but it's also an interesting question. Which is more terrifying? Coming out and saying, here's what I did when I was a very different person. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Or walking around with this freaking sword of Damocles hanging over your head because you're constantly worried someone's going to find out your past and weaponize it against you.
It's a very good question. So that was Corbin's idea, maybe being more forthcoming with your story and also making it clear to people that your ex-partner didn't have a problem with your past until he decided he wanted all the money.
Exactly. Or until his girlfriend turned him against you, assuming that's even what happened.
But it sounds like you might need to get a job in the meantime. So let's quickly talk about how to talk about your background with new companies. We ran that question by Joanna Tate, friend of the show, HR professional for over 20 years. And Joanna was very clear, she would not advise you to come right out and tell employers about your past.
And the reason is, when you get an offer, a company should explain their pre-employment process, you know, drug screen, background check, whatever they require. The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the FCRA, protects job candidates from discrimination when an employer uses one of these third-party background reporting services.
And it prevents employers from asking you about your criminal history before interviewing you, before offering you a job.
And the idea is to allow you to get a fair interview and assessment of your abilities regardless of your criminal history.
So if the company uses a third party to obtain any kind of report, your company has to let you know in advance in writing and you have to give your permission also in writing. So the job offer is contingent upon quote unquote passing the background report.
And if the employer decides that there's something on the report that poses a liability or is against their standards, they have to notify you that the job offer is on hold. Joanna said that you are then given a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes it's like five days to respond, to provide proof if there are any errors or issues, and then the employer will decide whether to move forward.
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Chapter 4: How can I pivot my career to therapy without burning out?
Totally get it. But... Corbin pointed out that when most people hear mistake, they think accident. And if you were really out there referring to your relationship with a 17-year-old as an accident, you might get understandably judged or written off because of that. Whereas you could talk about how you had a moment when you were 22 where you listened to your hormones over your conscience and
You made a decision that landed you in prison and that's haunted you ever since.
Right. That's a different narrative. And so a different experience for the audience.
You know, Jordan, I can't stop thinking about the interview you just did with Joe Loya. Yeah. Interesting parallel. I was very moved by that guy's story and not just moved, but like genuinely invested in him, despite the fact that he did a lot of awful things when he was younger. I was listening to the interview and I was asking myself, like, why am I rooting for this guy so hard?
Yeah.
And I think it was a few things. One of them is his backstory, right? The childhood he had, what his father did to him, his background. It's hard not to empathize with somebody who was very badly hurt when they were young. Right. Or at least to understand them. Or at least to understand what the roots of it are. Exactly. Another thing, though, was his extreme ownership, to your point.
He wasn't justifying his crimes. He wasn't hiding the ball. He wasn't editing around certain inconvenient facts. The other thing is just his personality and his style. He's gracious, he's gentle now, he's reflective. Yeah, he can be funny. Yeah, funny always helps. And he has a long history of living by very different values in service of very different experiences, just like our friend here.
So like, how do you not root for that person, even if you know what they did? It's almost impossible.
I know you can almost reverse engineer a playbook from that interview for creating a personal narrative that gets people to root for you. So yeah, Joe Loya, he might be the perfect model for our friend here. Episodes 1264 and 1265, by the way. Just shamelessly plug in the library on this one.
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Chapter 5: What advice can I get for handling conflicts in family dynamics?
That must be part of the pattern too, right? Business breakups, they don't happen by accident. I don't think all these partners woke up one day like, today's the day I'll steal the company from Pete because I feel like it. That's not how this goes.
Just because Andy thinks we're playing basketball too much time to change.
Yeah. Yeah, what I want to know is what conflicts came up leading up to being pushed out? How did he handle those conflicts? Did he inadvertently give these partners ammo to push him out somehow? Or reasons to justify these obviously selfish decisions? Or reasons not to invest in him and his story in some kind of lasting way?
All excellent questions, especially in light of that one detail when he said that things came to a head and then he kind of exploded at his partner. And I don't know exactly how that played out. I'm not saying it's all his fault, but... Does his anger play a role in this? Is it hard for him to really get people to be honest with him?
There's so much more about the relationship that is probably playing a role.
I mean, you slam a guy's head through some drywall, no big deal, right? No, I'm kidding.
As long as you have an operating agreement.
That's right. No, I want to be clear, though, and that previous thing that I mentioned before, I'm not blaming him entirely. It's possible that he, it's possible this was always these people's plan, or it occurred to them that they could do it and get away with it, or that they would have done it anyway somehow. I mean, I'm not trying to say, like, this is your fault.
It's also true that he has a talent for building building businesses that are worth stealing.
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Chapter 6: How do I manage my expectations and emotional responses in new career paths?
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Back to Feedback Friday.
All right, next up. Hey guys, my stepbrother and I have been brothers for almost 20 years. My fiance and his fiance have been friends for about as long. Since 2021, we've all hung out and had plenty of sleepovers, playing cards till early in the morning, laughing, and generally having a good time.
Then sometime last year, my fiance and his had a falling out and they are no longer friends over what I think is mostly stubbornness, but also a few low blows here and there. Now my stepbrother is getting married in 10 days and I have yet to receive a wedding invitation. I sent him a text on his birthday recently and got no response. Mind you, he and I have had no problems at all.
If anything, out of us four brothers, I think he and I were the closest in recent years. I've been wanting to call him for about a month just on the off chance that he has no idea I haven't been invited.
Oh, he knows. Come on, man. So maybe people who haven't been married don't know this, but when you do wedding RSVP stuff and you don't get an answer from somebody that you actually give a crap about, you notice right away because you're like, wait a minute, I didn't hear from so-and-so. Or your mom's like, so we're all going, or Tom said he didn't hear from, like, come on.
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Chapter 7: What steps can I take to ensure sustainable commitment to my passions?
And are we just getting to a point now where family members are just cutting each other off for no reason? Signed, something old, something new, something borrowed, now I'm blue. and a conflict avoided in her shoe.
That's a good one. I like that one. That's a new genre of sign-off. Again, kudos. Well, I think we already answered your first question. There's so much more we'd need to know about these conflicts to weigh in on who's to blame, who needs to apologize, whether you guys should be at the wedding, all of that. What I can say for sure is, this is not a helpful way to handle a problem.
If your brother and his future wife aren't even willing to talk to you, how are you going to make progress here? And that leaves you and your fiance with some really tough feelings. Even if you and or your fiance were in the wrong here, this is both compounding the problem and leaving you with a lot of hurt and a lot of confusion. And it sucks, it really does. I'm sorry about that, man.
I assume you'd wanna know if you did something wrong and try to repair things, but they're making that impossible somehow, for whatever reason. And so I have to assume that this says more about their personalities, their capacity for conflict, their empathy for you guys, even if your fiance is responsible for some of the low blows that you mentioned.
Gabe, I am barely wrapping my head around how extreme it is to not invite a sibling to your wedding. The problem would have to be really, really serious. This can't be a problem that'll eventually blow over or be resolved because this is a permanent decision and they're escalating it. The brother's not gonna be in the photos. Everyone at the wedding is going to ask, where's Rob? Where's Nicole?
And they're going to have to be like, oh, Nicole and Stacy are in a tiff, so we didn't invite them, which is either going to make them look like the childish assholes that they are being, or they're going to have to invent some way worse story to make themselves not look like complete dicks for excluding them.
Which is then, of course, going to further damage our friend here's reputation in the family, and he's going to have to undo that and then explain, like, that didn't happen. It's just going to cause so much more drama. This whole thing is a mess.
All because they don't want to have a difficult chat for a few minutes.
Yes. It's absurd. Ridiculous. I'm actually deeply weirded out by this. This is like one notch below not visiting somebody in hospice when they're dying because you're mad at them for not lending you their car one time. If I was really mad at somebody in my family, I'd invite them and then be like, we got some crap to sort out, but in the meantime, have a drink. It's my wedding.
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Chapter 8: How can I navigate the challenges of being a therapist while managing my own emotional health?
No way around it. But that seems to be the position that they're boxing you into.
Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I would probably write that letter to your stepbrother. And I would basically say that it's been very hard and confusing to be cut off and excluded from the wedding.
That if there is an issue between you and or between your partners, you are eager to hear them out, understand the problem, find a resolution in a spirit of like genuine curiosity and openness, of course. And that despite all of this, you love your stepbrother and you want to be a part of his life and his big day so that he really feels that.
And that you would love for the conversation to happen as soon as possible, ideally before the wedding, so that nobody in the situation regrets missing out on sharing this important event. I think it's important for him to remember the stakes here.
Dude, if you ignore your family member after getting a message like that, assuming they didn't, you know, again, kill their dog or sabotage their business or try to sleep with their wife or something, which isn't the case, because then you would know what you did. Right. If you ghost your brother after that, you are an avoidant dickhead. I'm sorry. I just don't understand this.
I don't disagree. But the fact that he's probably avoiding his brother in solidarity with his fiance. Yeah. Such an interesting parallel with the first question, because with the business partner might have been acting in solidarity with his new girlfriend. It's interesting. If the problem is not even between the two brothers, that complicates things even further.
That is also a problem if he's that's why he's uninviting them. But it's a totally different problem. And that's not something our friend here can really resolve. It's not his business, really. No, if that is what's going on, then he's definitely affected by it severely. But it's not really his place to tell his stepbrother.
It might be harder for him to say, hey, this is how much you should take your spouse aside. And this is when you should do it. And this is when you should not do it. That's not fair.
But dude, the fact that he's making his brother pay the price for something that's between the ladies, again, unless we're missing something big here, that's even more ridiculous and meaner.
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