1400: Leslie John | The Underrated Power of Oversharing

Jordan Harbinger (0:00)

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Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks. From spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional extreme athlete, real-life pirate or hostage negotiator. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode Starter Packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults and more. That will help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com.

Or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, you ever tell someone something personal and then spend the whole drive home wishing you could fake your own death? Meanwhile, they're thinking, finally, an actual human I can relate to. Today, Dr. Leslie John joins us to explore why opening up can build the trust we keep waiting to feel, how staying guarded quietly costs us relationships, and where honest connection crosses into oversharing or manipulation. Because there's a sweet spot between being an emotional witness protection program and making everyone at brunch wish you'd signed an NDA. Here we go with Dr. Leslie John.

So I was trying to figure out, I was like, okay, I got Dr. Leslie John coming on. We're going to talk about oversharing.

What can I overshare right in the beginning? But then that kind of defeats the purpose, right? I don't know, if you're just using it as a tool, does that defeat the purpose of doing it? And we'll get more into the tactics later, but I'm curious about that upfront because I was like, oh, God, do I have to involve like genitalia?

And by the way, that's not out of left field. We were talking about that pre-show just so people don't think I'm a pervert. You started it.

Leslie John (3:15)

Sure, blame me.

Jordan Harbinger (3:16)

I will. It's my show. I can get away with it.

Leslie John (3:20)

Well, now that you've primed the pump, show me what you got.

Jordan Harbinger (3:25)

Well, we are on video, so I'm going to take that as a figurative. Yeah, I was just thinking like, oh gosh, I don't know. It's always difficult, right? Because I do overshare a little bit on this show, but I don't get ridiculous with it because you have to decor them with it. And this is to your points in the book. You can't just roll in and be like, what's up, everybody? I've got a yeast infection or whatever, right? You have to calibrate the whole thing to the audience and something that's an overshare for somebody that's working in the accounting department that you talk to once a week. It's not an overshare when you're telling your best friend who's like, you didn't tell me this last week when it happened.