Jordan Harbinger is a former Wall Street lawyer turned podcast interviewer. His approachable style and knack for securing high-profile guests has led to his being called <\/span>\u201cThe Larry King of Podcasting.\u201d<\/span><\/i> His podcast, <\/span>The Jordan Harbinger Show<\/span><\/i>, was voted Apple\u2019s Best of 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIn addition to my podcast, I teach relationship development (or \u2018networking,\u2019 but I don\u2019t like that term, because it\u2019s a dirty word!) to everyone from sales teams, Google and Facebook employees, all the way to Secret Service and the CIA.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Originally from Michigan, Jordan started his first podcast\u2014the original <\/span>Jordan Harbinger Show <\/span><\/i>(he came back to this show title in 2018)\u2014in 2006 while at University. It was one of the first thousand shows on iTunes and consisted of about five episodes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He went to law school, started a podcast, did a radio show, left law, went back to the podcast, did the coaching thing, and now, is a full-time podcaster. I wondered what motivated him to walk away from being an attorney and if doing so was a tough decision to make.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself a late bloomer when it comes to figuring out what I wanted to do. I worked with\u2026 I don\u2019t want to say \u2018lazy,\u2019 but inept, maybe\u2026 people at various companies prior. They could have done the work, and they just decided not to. I quickly realized I need to do my own thing.<\/span><\/i><\/h3>\n

\u201cI ended up leaving law to do the show and a coaching business full time. I grew pretty tired with coaching, though, and ended up having a \u2018salty breakup\u2019 with my business partners. Although it was pretty traumatizing at the time, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The stats back it up:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In only a couple years, <\/span>The Jordan Harbinger Show<\/span><\/i> gets over six million downloads a month! Did Jordan ever worry he would not be able to recreate solo success after essentially \u2018leaving the band\u2019?<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t leave the company when I should have, which was years ago. Some of that was the rising of those internal fears: Oh my gosh I have been doing this for 11 years\u2026 am I going to be able to start over? It\u2019s going to be so hard to do this! What am I going to do? The band analogy is interesting, as there was another element with that. I didn\u2019t want to be that guy who is like, \u2018I\u2019m the lead singer; I can leave. I don\u2019t need you guys.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Jordan tried to make it work for a long time, but ultimately, they were not a fit and couldn\u2019t continue working together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI felt I had no choice but to leave, and they were like, \u2018You can\u2019t leave.\u2019 Which was weird!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/h3>\n

Eventually, they negotiated an amicable split that Jordan reports was not honored, and he was out on his own.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was scary, but within eight months, I had a podcast that was bigger and more revenue positive than the one I had with them, so that was a funny victory.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

What Jordan has achieved in the increasingly competitive podcast space is not an easy accomplishment. I had to ask how\u2026 what special sauce does Jordan bring to the medium?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA huge part of it was, when I left my old company, I was able to take pretty much the entire team. A lot of the vendors wouldn\u2019t work with anyone in the company but me, so I just took all of that.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Jordan doesn\u2019t want to come across as having built this hugely successful podcast in under a year. He had an 11-year \u2018foundation\u2019 in podcasting, and the majority of the audience he had built followed him to <\/span>The Jordan Harbinger Show<\/span><\/i>. It was very tactical; he even hired an SEO team to redirect people who searched for him via the old show to his new show.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want all those old links to point to me. The SEO team just emailed all those people, and because I had a good relationship with them, they were like, \u2018No problem. Done.\u2019 Then my rankings and everything climb above my old company. It helped that I was a lawyer. The moral of the story is: do not get into litigation with someone who can do most of the heavy lifting himself!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In my prep for this interview, I noticed that Jordan\u2019s former business partner has taken to using \u2018Harbinger\u2019 as his own name since Jordan left. I had to ask if Jordan found that weird, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ll let you draw your own conclusions, but if someone was in a business with you, then took your name and pretended to be related to you\u2026 yeah, unusual move. Made me feel a little creepy. There is a movie called <\/span><\/i>Single White Female,<\/span> and it goes along these lines!\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Sounds like he got out at just the right time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordan Harbinger is a former Wall Street lawyer turned podcast interviewer. His approachable style and knack for securing high-profile guests has led to his being called \u201cThe Larry King of Podcasting.\u201d His podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show, was voted Apple\u2019s Best of 2018.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIn addition to my podcast, I teach relationship development (or \u2018networking,\u2019 but I don\u2019t like that term, because it\u2019s a dirty word!) to everyone from sales teams, Google and Facebook employees, all the way to Secret Service and the CIA.\u201d\u00a0 Originally from Michigan, Jordan started his first podcast\u2014the original Jordan Harbinger Show (he came back to this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[462,127,463,461],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n