• 1 hour 20 minutes
    1332: Screen Time | Skeptical Sunday

    Screens are rewiring teen brains and torching their happiness. Michael Regilio cuts through the glare to explain what's really at stake 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 skeptic, comedian, and podcaster Michael Regilio!

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1332

    On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:

    • The fear of new technology is ancient and remarkably repetitive. Critics warned the telephone, the printing press, even writing itself would rot brains and shred social bonds. Today's smartphone panic is the latest verse in a very old song, though experts insist this time the data is louder.
    • The "U-shaped" happiness curve — high in youth, dipping in midlife, rising again after fifty — has held steady across cultures for decades. But around 2014, right as every teenager got a smartphone, that youthful high point collapsed, and researchers like David Blanchflower are sounding alarms.
    • Big Tech isn't accidentally addictive — it's engineered that way. Frameworks like the Fogg Behavior Model power infinite scroll, autoplay, and notification floods designed to exploit adolescent cravings for status and novelty. Reed Hastings admitted Netflix's real competitors are sleep and human connection.
    • Internal documents from Meta and Alphabet lawsuits revealed the ugly truth: companies knew their platforms harmed teen girls and deliberately targeted users as young as 11. One memo read, "If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens" — exploiting developing prefrontal cortexes by design.
    • Screens aren't the devil — how we use them is what matters. Play video games with your kids, FaceTime grandma, keep phones away from babies, and set lights-out rules at night. The best screen time report might be a screen-down report: what did you do with your one short life while you weren't scrolling?
    • 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 Michael Regilio at Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and YouTube, and check out War Bar, his comedy special!

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

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    24 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 32 minutes
    1331: Your Boyfriend's Wrath Is Blocking Your Path | Feedback Friday

    Your boyfriend rages through walls, jobs, and landlords like a one-man wrecking crew. You've got coping tools—but is coping the goal? 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/1331

    On This Week's Feedback Friday:

    • If you want to skip Gabe's thoughts on Brazilian street muggings and the story of the weirdest yoga class of his life, you can take a Vinyasa and jump straight to 13 minutes and 30 seconds.
    • Your marriage crisis got "counseled" by a pastor-and-wife duo who prescribed prayer and a Toblerone. You lost your church, your college friends, and years with your parents. Did the chocolate-and-scripture combo crack the case, or was something else doing the real work?
    • Your sister credits a decentralized, unregulated form of Biblical Counseling with healing her postpartum spiral. Now you're depressed too, convinced misery stems from not obeying Scripture, and you're about to walk into a session built to challenge you on exactly that. Brace for impact?
    • You're a Lutheran pastor with serious thoughts about charlatans slapping "pastor" on a business card. You refer congregants out, see a counselor yourself, and have a hot take coming on whether anyone should stay at a church serving judgment instead of compassion. Mic drop incoming?
    • Recommendation of the Week: Hydrocolloid Roll — a cheaper, better-sticking, washable alternative to Band-Aids that you can cut to size for any scrape, blister, or zit.
    • Your 6'4" disinherited wheat-heir "sweetheart" punches walls, rages at landlords, and has you one outburst from eviction. You've got Al-Anon, jiu jitsu, and Grand Master Carlos' mantra in your corner. Is that armor enough, or is the armor itself the problem?
    • 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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    22 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 14 minutes
    1330: Javier Leiva | Why We Obey: From Prank Calls to Fake Badges

    Fake cops, fake ICE agents, and prank callers are turning ordinary people into accomplices. Javier Leiva joins us to examine the psychology of obedience.

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1330

    What We Discuss with Javier Leiva:

    • How a stranger with a phone, a fake title, and the magic phrase "this is part of an investigation" can hijack ordinary people's judgment and turn workplaces into crime scenes — no weapons or hypnosis required, just authority, urgency, and confusion.
    • The "strip search scam" ran from 1992 to 2004, hitting 70+ fast food restaurants — and the managers who obeyed the fake cop went to prison. One Hardee's manager faced two second-degree rape charges and kidnapping, losing his job, relationship, and freedom, branded a sex offender from a single phone call.
    • PrankNet weaponized authority for entertainment, tricking hotel clerks into drinking guests' urine and convincing employees to strip naked outside in freezing weather after triggering fire suppression systems. The "prank" framing minimized what was actually felony-level psychological torture broadcast live to a laughing audience.
    • Fake ICE agents are exploiting today's chaos with badges, threats, and confusion to rob, kidnap, and extort some of society's most vulnerable people — including a scammer who stole $58,000 from a Hispanic family by promising fake legal documents in exchange for avoiding "deportation."
    • Real authority can withstand verification — fake authority needs panic. Slow everything down, ask for ID, ask "Am I being detained?" and call 911 yourself using a number you find independently. Refuse anything involving humiliation, nudity, money, or secrecy. This one habit can stop a manipulation attempt cold.
    • And much more...

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

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    19 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    1329: Psychic Detectives | Skeptical Sunday

    Psychics keep wedging themselves into police cases — and grieving families pay the price. Nick Pell explains the grift 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/1329

    On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:

    • Psychic detective work traces back to 19th-century spiritualism, which surged after the Civil War and WWI as a grief-coping mechanism — part therapy, part pop religion, part proto-reality TV. The post-WWII pulp era rebranded it as "science," birthing the modern psychic detective archetype.
    • The genre's most-cited "successes" — Etta Smith in the Melanie Uribe case, Dorothy Allison on the John List murders, and Noreen Renier's many TV appearances — all collapse under scrutiny. Police never credited any of them with usable leads, and Allison reportedly tried to bribe cops to vouch for her.
    • Sylvia Browne is the cautionary tale that turns this from harmless grift into genuine harm. She told Amanda Berry's mother her daughter was dead in 2004 — Amanda was alive, held captive in Cleveland until 2013. Mom died never knowing. Browne botched the Shawn Hornbeck case too.
    • Four mechanisms explain every "psychic solved it" story: confirmation bias (remembering hits, forgetting misses), post-hoc reasoning (vague claims retrofitted to fit), emotional vulnerability of grieving families, and Barnum statements — deliberately vague phrases like "I see water" that let your brain fill in the blanks.
    • Real cases get cracked by forensic evidence, behavioral profiling, and community tip lines — the unsexy, methodical work that rarely makes headlines. Families seeking closure are better served by counseling and victim support than by false hope, and learning to spot the four tells above makes anyone a sharper media consumer.
    • 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!

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

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    17 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 25 minutes
    1328: They’re an Ideal Pair, but Is Her Baggage Fair? | Feedback Friday

    You're 47, dating a guy 15 years younger, and quietly drafting his exit so he can find someone "better." Noble move, or self-sabotage? 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/1328

    On This Week's Feedback Friday:

    • You run daily, hold down a job, parent your kids, pay the bills — and quietly drink a fifth of liquor every single day. You're high-functioning by every external metric, but you're trapped in a loop where feeling like crap fuels the drinking. You wrote in hoping supplements might do the trick?
    • You're 47, met a guy 15 years younger at the dog park, and two magical years later he wants to move in. But you're widowed, infertile, and carrying debt from a traumatic marriage. You're convinced you're saddling this catch with your baggage. Is letting him go the kindest thing — or are you pre-breaking up with yourself?
    • You've been the family breadwinner for 15 years until a bad job move ended in bankruptcy. Your husband — diagnosed with BPD — has bounced between jobs, ignoring every training course you've funded. You've secretly stopped job hunting hoping he'll finally step up. How do you support him without twisting the knife?
    • Recommendation of the Week: Six Feet Under — Gabe's pick for the single greatest TV show ever made. The HBO family drama (2001–2005) about a clan running a funeral home becomes a five-season meditation on death, meaning, and being alive. Stick with it past episode three, he begs you.
    • You're a 40-something European attorney with a 24-year marriage and a life you built mostly on your own. But your clinically narcissistic dentist father and severely ADD mother left you with conditioning you can't outrun — episodes of rage, a haunting sense that your warmth might just be a mask. Now what?
    • 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!

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    15 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 23 minutes
    1327: Eric Zimmer | Making Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life

    A little of something beats a lot of nothing every single time. How a Little Becomes a Lot author Eric Zimmer explains the math of meaningful change.

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1327

    What We Discuss with Eric Zimmer:

    • Real change isn't the cinematic rock-bottom epiphany we love to romanticize — it's the thousands of unglamorous, repeated micro-decisions that follow it. Calling the sponsor instead of the dealer. Driving the long way home. The watershed moment only matters because of what comes after.
    • What feels permanently insurmountable can genuinely vanish as a problem. Eric drove oxycodone to his mom for weeks without flinching, when years earlier he'd have robbed someone at gunpoint for those same pills — proof that cravings don't always require lifelong white-knuckled willpower.
    • All-or-nothing thinking is the silent killer of progress. The protein-powder-and-two-hour-gym-sessions fantasy keeps people doing literally nothing, when a 15-minute walk after dinner would honor the underlying goal and keep momentum alive. A little of something beats a lot of nothing.
    • You can't pull a "feel happy" lever — emotions don't have one. But behavior does, and acting your way into right thinking is often more reliable than thinking your way into right action. Show up, shake hands, do the small thing, and the inner state tends to follow.
    • Get honest about what you actually value by noticing what stays constant across different rooms and moods, not what flickers based on whoever you were just hanging out with. Then make those values easier to live — shrink the action, remove the friction, and let the next good choice be the path of least resistance.
    • And much more...

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

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    14 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 33 minutes
    1326: Simone Stolzoff | How to Make the Most of Uncertainty

    Why does not knowing feel worse than bad news? How to Not Know author Simone Stolzoff shows us how to make uncertainty work for us, not against us.

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1326

    What We Discuss with Simone Stolzoff:

    • Certainty feels like wisdom but often isn't — Phil Tetlock found the average expert predicting the future is about as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee, yet we keep mistaking confidence for competence and rewarding the loudest voice in the room.
    • Our brains are wired for the savanna, not the spreadsheet. The same alarm bells that once warned us about rustling bushes now fire over phone storage decisions, leaving us anxious about choices that have almost nothing to do with survival.
    • We hate ambiguity so much we'd choose guaranteed pain over uncertainty — one study found people facing a 50 percent chance of a shock felt more stressed than those facing 100 percent. Not knowing whether you'll lose your job hurts as much as actually losing it.
    • Intolerance for uncertainty traps us in mediocre jobs, mediocre relationships, and mediocre lives. The "safe" choice quietly becomes the costly one, because the breakthroughs — entrepreneurial, creative, personal — all live on the other side of not knowing.
    • Treat uncertainty tolerance as a muscle you can train. Take a new route to work, order the unfamiliar dish, run small experiments, write down your predictions, and trust your future self to handle future problems — that version of you will have more context than the one worrying today.
    • And much more...

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

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    12 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 6 seconds
    1325: Matriarchy | Skeptical Sunday

    Have women ever ruled the world — or did we just make it all up? Jessica Wynn separates feminist folklore from real anthropology 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/1325

    On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:

    • The world's most famous "matriarchies" — the Minangkabau, Khasi, Bribri, and Mosuo — share a curious pattern: women hold the property, the lineage, and the daily labor, while men retain the prestigious roles like religious authority, political leadership, and ceremonial titles.
    • The prehistoric "golden age of matriarchy" so beloved by 19th-century theorists and 1970s feminist spirituality has no solid archaeological evidence behind it — but the historical record itself is biased, since colonial chroniclers often erased or ignored female authority structures they didn't recognize.
    • A landmark study of Mosuo communities found women in matrilineal villages had less than half the chronic inflammation rates and notably lower hypertension than women in patrilineal ones — and crucially, men in those same matrilineal villages showed no meaningful health penalty.
    • Patriarchy isn't just costly for women; it quietly taxes men too, pushing them into rigid dominance roles that produce emotional isolation, shorter lifespans, and higher suicide rates — meaning the same structure that disadvantages women also corrodes the men it supposedly elevates.
    • The most useful reframe isn't matriarchy versus patriarchy but dominance versus care — societies organized around reciprocity, redistribution, and consensus produce measurably better well-being across genders, and that's a model anyone can build toward without needing a mythical past to justify it.
    • 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!

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    10 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 20 minutes
    1324: Has "Vanilla" Guy Always Been Kinky on the Sly? | Feedback Friday

    17 years in, your husband's hidden kinks and porn habits are unraveling everything you thought you knew about him. Now what? 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/1324

    On This Week's Feedback Friday:

    • If you prefer the dooze cruise to tales from a food poisoning-riddled Disney cruise, skip ahead to around 20 minutes and 20 seconds!
    • You've been with your husband for 17 years, married 13, three kids — and over the past year, the picture you had of him has been quietly unraveling. The "vanilla" guy you married has been hiding kinks, porn habits, and contradictions that don't match what he says he wants. Now you're wondering where private ends and dishonest begins.
    • You've always been great at interviews, but since having kids, you've been the runner-up four times. Hiring managers keep telling you it was out of your control, that someone else just had a specific edge. You're the common denominator, though, and you know there's something you can sharpen. Where's the move from almost to absolutely?
    • You've always wondered how Jordan rattles off "that was episode 1192" mid-flow — is it prep, memory, or magic? And how much of his real-time outrage at a letter is genuine vs. performed? You've been curious about the sausage-making of Feedback Friday for a while, and today you're finally getting your answer.
    • Recommendation of the Week: Jordan recommends Paint-Your-Own Pottery Studios as a fun family or friend-group activity.
    • You're a fairly new listener who's never struggled with depression — but most of your community-theater friends have, and when they open up, you freeze. "I'm so sorry, do you want to talk about it?" feels emptier each time. You want them to feel seen, but you don't share their experience. How do you bridge that gap without faking it?
    • 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!

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    8 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 28 minutes
    1323: Todd Rose | The Collective Illusions Tearing America Apart

    90% of Americans privately agree on most issues, yet publicly act like enemies. Author Todd Rose unmasks the collective illusions fueling our division.

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1323

    What We Discuss with Todd Rose:

    • Collective illusions are social lies we all participate in because we mistakenly believe everyone else believes them. On most controversial U.S. issues, around 90% of people privately agree, yet publicly act like they're at war — we're not divided, we're confused and copying each other.
    • Our brains use a flimsy shortcut to gauge group beliefs: the loudest voices repeated the most are assumed to be the majority. On X, 80% of content comes from just 10% of users — fringe extremists who are not remotely representative — yet their volume warps our sense of what "everyone" thinks.
    • Foreign adversaries (China, Iran, Russia) have weaponized this vulnerability with AI-enabled bot armies. Roughly a quarter of social media interactions are with bots, and just 5% well-designed bot presence can dictate group consensus — manufacturing illusions to destroy social trust cheaply and effectively.
    • Conformity is biologically hardwired: agreeing with your group triggers a dopamine reward like hard drugs, while disagreeing fires an error signal that disrupts memory and attention. In one study, people unconsciously shifted their ratings of attractiveness to match a fake group — some literally seeing differently.
    • The good news: these illusions are fragile because they're lies, and shattering them happens at the speed of trust. Have one honest conversation with someone who matters to you, or simply inject uncertainty ("I'm not sure yet") into group conversations. That small act of moral courage cascades faster than you'd ever believe.
    • And much more...

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

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    7 May 2026, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 32 minutes
    1322: Courtney Conley | The Step-by-Step Guide to Living Longer

    Want to live longer, sleep better, and feel sharper? Start walking. Dr. Courtney Conley is here to show you how to make every step pay compound interest.

    Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1322

    What We Discuss with Courtney Conley:

    • Walking isn't optional cardio you bolt onto your week — it's a core biological input on par with breathing and sleeping. Courtney Conley argues we've engineered it out of daily life, with the average person logging just 4,700 steps a day, running what amounts to a slow systems failure on the body.
    • The longevity sweet spot is 7,000 to 8,000 steps per day, not the famous 10,000 — that number was literally a marketing campaign for a Japanese pedometer during the Tokyo Olympics, with zero science behind it. Past 10,000 to 12,000 steps, the benefits plateau hard.
    • A 10 to 15 minute walk within 30 minutes of eating is a metabolic cheat code. Muscle contraction pulls glucose out of your bloodstream alongside the pancreas — sit after a meal and you're only using half your blood-sugar regulation system, which is brutal news for anyone with insulin resistance.
    • Your toes are a longevity marker hiding in plain sight. Toe strength declines before grip strength, correlates with glucose levels, and predicts falls as you age — and the foot loses sensitivity so dramatically that by age 80 it takes 75% more pressure to stimulate the same sensory receptors as it did at 50.
    • Start with a five-minute "micro walk" — that's roughly 500 steps, and for sedentary folks under 2,500 daily steps, that tiny addition meaningfully decreases all-cause mortality. Pair it with a post-meal walk and a "relationship walk" with a spouse, kid, or friend, and you've stacked metabolic, mental health, and social benefits into one ridiculously simple habit.
    • And much more...

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

    This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:

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    5 May 2026, 7:00 am
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