The Narcissism Doctor: "1 In 6 People Are Narcissists!" How To Spot Them & Can They Change?

we believe one in six people are narcissistic and exposure can become a life or death situation but the key step to identify narcissism is Dr Romney jaasa licensed clinical psychologist the world's leading expert on narcissism all narcissism is on a spectrum at the lowest ends it's Instagram saviors but the severe end of the spectrum you're talking about a cult leader they have low empathy they will dominate people they have to get the last word they get angry very quickly and that's just the top of the iceberg what about the impacts of narcissism on relationships narcissistic people they can go out in the world and they're able to be charming and charismatic and narcissistic relationships start strong they want to get you quick and then it becomes dismissiveness manipulation gaslighting the world thinks this person's fantastic a lot of people say aren't you lucky that you're married to that guy and behind closed doors they psychologically destroy you narcissism in work how do I know if my boss is a narcissist you're going to feel it in the sense of you don't feel seen you don't feel valued you feel like the workplace is unpredictable you might even feel that it's psychologically unsafe what about world leaders if our adversary in another country is a narcissist would we rather our leader be a narcissist as well that's a fantastic question and I think so the big question how do you know if you are a narcissist and can you cure narcissism so here's where we get into some interesting Muddy Waters it's absolutely crazy to me that so many of you have decided to watch our show um and so many of you have decided to subscribe to our show we now have five million subscribers on YouTube which is a number that I just can't comprehend and it's a dream that I absolutely never could have had we started the dire of a CO just over three years ago now and in my wildest expectations we might have had 100,000 subscribers by now so you can imagine how shocked I am that so many of you have chosen to tune into these conversations every week um and spend some time with us so thank you and I made a deal with you I made a deal that if you subscribe to the show that we would continue to raise the bar and in 2024 we're going to raise the bar like never before I've been working for the last N9 months on a surprise for all of you that have subscribed to the show and I'm very excited to deliver that for you the production's going to change we're going to go even further with our guests and we're going to tell even more Global stories so as always if you appreciate what we're doing here the simple free favor I'll ask from you is to hit the Subscribe button let's get on with the [Music] episode Dr Romany mhm you've committed so much of your life and your energy to the subject of narcissism why does it matter oh it matters so much because exposure to people who have narcissistic personalities shapes how people's identity develops shapes how their personality develops or if the first time you encounter a narcissistic person is in adulthood it can actually sort of hijack that sense of identity it can really steal a person away from themselves and we I think it's so important because we haven't given ourselves permission I think as a culture as a field of mental health to identify this as a problem and allow people to have responses in a way it's almost viewed as sort of not being very nice to say the narcissistic people are not very nice it's a strange Paradox in the world of mental health that's why I do it because nothing more than me wanting to return people back to their authentic s you must have seen the cost of narcissism can you give me some examples of the cost that a narcissist has had on someone's life that you've seen oh where do I begin I'll tell you cost is a person person who so doesn't believe in themselves that they may give up on their path of education and never pursue an interest so we never got to see the work product that that would have created not to mention that person actually getting to unfurl their wings and fully be who they wanted to be as a creative or as a professional it's the person who knew what they wanted to be that they had a very strong identity as pick something and they ended up choosing something else because they knew the only way they could be loved was to be what that parent demanded of them and it was so clear to them they wouldn't be loved unless they fully gave in to what that parent expected of them it's the person who was an absolutely glorious human being lovely empathic and warm but feel so damaged after years of being told you're not enough you're selfish you're greedy you're foolish that they get into relationship after relationship that duplic LIC Ates that theme and don't get the real collaborative compassionate love story that they deserve because they don't think they deserve it and that's just the top of the iceberg and your academic background your the experience that you're drawing from what is that experience so my my experience is in in my academic background is I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology and my minor is in something called Health psychology and so I got really interested in how various elements of mental health and mental illness showed up in people who had co-occurring medical conditions so it's a very almost like Strange point to enter but what we do know is people personality affects how we take care of our health how we might engage in behaviors that might put our health at risk for example narcissism and addiction have a really high overlap so here's a case of now a personality Style putting a person at health risk due to using substances to regulate and then all the things that would come of that but it's tough to measure personality Stephen it's really hard to meure measure it's not one of those things it's not like a blood test it's not even like measuring depression frankly depression is eminently measurable yeah there's different variants and there's different severity but we're very clear diagnostically and phenomenologically what makes depression what qualifies personality is like the wild west and so from a research perspective it's something that people would often shy away from because we couldn't get the constructs right but I said I welcome the challenge because I truly in my heart believe if we could understand and study personality more we'd actually be understanding all this unmeasurable noise in the mental health research because I thought that's probably where it was and I think more and more of the research is supporting that and you spend time even today dealing with patients who are the victim of a narcissistic relationship or the victim of a narcissist every week every week I mean it's it's probably one of the if not the most gratifying part of my my week I'm a big believer that if you're a mental health practitioner you practice mental health so that's a privilege to be able to be in that room and to work with clients but it would be so easy when you're dealing at a macro level large populations going on YouTube writing books to get distanced from what is happening to individual people's lives one of the tricky bits with research is we study populations we study samples right we study hundreds of people what happens in the room is something very different and you start to recognize a how badly these relationships harm people their schemas of the world their schemas of themselves and B how much potential for intervention there is with these clients through very very simple approaches around education about narcissism validation of their experience breaking through self-blame and teaching them to trust themselves so how many patients do you think you've seen that have been victims of narcissists I mean hundreds hundreds really and I even use the word Survivor I hate to call them victims because I don't even think they're that passive I mean I think that they just weren't no one ever taught anyone this right I give you the example when people are in a relationship with somebody who's living with addiction it's very clear what they're dealing with right you have a person they're using a substance that's altering them that's altering their behavior that's taking them away from who they are person people in relationships with addicts will say I'm in two relationships I'm in a relationship with a sober person and I'm in a relationship with somebody who's using or intoxicated or denying or defending their use right two people and it breaks the people in those relationships and we're willing to call it that the experience people have in narcissistic relationships in a way is no different with the added bit though that at least with addiction people can say I see what the behavior is I see what the issue is addiction's a disease and we know it's treatable narcissism not so much and on top of that the narcissistic person has this very well-developed very successful behavioral repertoire they can go out in the world and they're able to be charming and charismatic and confident and smart and the center of attention and running companies and behind closed doors they psychologically eviscerate the people they're with spouses Partners family members close friends maybe people who are below them in an organization people where they can kind of get away with it so the people they're harming the world thinks this person's fantastic at least a person who's in a relationship with an addict people say okay get it they're using this is hard but for the folks in narcissistic relationships a lot of people say aren't you lucky that you're married to that guy and the person's like oh my gosh are these people out there mind like so what do they do they blame themselves okay what is narcissism because I've heard the word used so often but I couldn't tell you the definition of it and I feel like I'd butcher the definition of what it is MH so I'm almost curious to ask you yeah what just before I almost contaminate you with the with what my definition is what's your working definition what's your working model of what narcissism is um delusions of grandeur someone that thinks they're like super important and that they are better than everybody else arrogance um and they're cruel okay all right so I I would give you probably like a C+ B minus if you're student in my class I mean I I I cut students a lot of slack back in day so I'll give you C+ B minus because you're in the neighborhood right the grandiosity the arrogance the the meanness but that to me is even more sort of a manifestation of the traits like the grandiosity the arrogance they have variable empathy and typically have low empathy they're deeply entitled they truly think they're more special than everyone else and that the rules should apply to them very differently they have a excessive need for admiration and validation they're very superficial they don't really have the capacity for deep sustained Intimate Relationships they're very much referential to the world out there out outside of them to set goals they don't have an good internal sense of like what matters to me what what do I want to do they just want to do what they do again to get that admiration and validation there's a shallowness a real emotional shallowness to narcissism those are the patterns and traits we sort of see they're very very self-centered very preoccupied with themselves the good parts of themselves the bad parts of themselves it's very rare for them to sort of lift their heads up and genuinely notice the experience of another person that's what narcissism is how does it show up it shows up as devaluation dismissiveness manipulation gaslighting they get angry very quickly especially when they're frustrated or disappointed and that can show up as overt Rage or overt anger yelling screaming or even violence that can show up as passive aggression with holding and withdrawing they are they can be they're prone to betrayal they lie they cheat they make promises about the future they never keep but they do that to keep people around so they won't leave them so it's it's part of a larger sort of a manipulation they will dominate people they have to get the last word they will shift blame onto other people they will rarely take responsibility for their misdeeds even when they're clearly caught in them and if they do they'll still blame the other person they're very neglectful and careless and relationships that is narcissism how can you tell the difference between someone having a bad day an [ __ ] and a narcissist because some of those things there I thought on a bad day I might do that yeah you know um the whole collection together no but on a bad day when I haven't slept I go you know what I might blame someone or whatever else what's the distinction when a person has a bad day and we all have bad days and on those bad days we might look if all the if the only tape someone had of us was of that day right but the here's the piece when people are not narcissistic and they have bad days they will take accountability they will make amends and they will change their behavior and say I'm not doing this again this is this is not okay why wasn't it okay because it was none of those people's fault you didn't get enough sleep and whether that means we reach deeper to be as kind as we can to the people in some cases especially if it's people we know or we see you may not know the random person at the gym but if we someone we know or work with we step we step out of ourselves to say the way I conducted myself yesterday wasn't okay and I'm really sorry about that um and so that that they're having that experience of you taking accountability that's where I know we're not dealing with a narcissistic person we're dealing with a bad day and a bad day is just that a day it's not every day with a narcissistic person many days I'm not going to say all but many days are characterized by these machinations these manipulations and these invalidations the person in a relationship with a narcissistic person feel like they're constantly on their back foot that they can't be themselves they can't express a need they can't express a want they can't even express a feeling for fear of it being shut down so there's your so there's your not narcissistic person what about an [ __ ] okay I do think assholery and narcissism are pretty they we use the terms interchangeably I think though that here's here's my [ __ ] belief since this is something it's I think the construct validation on [ __ ] is probably still needing to be done I think [ __ ] tend to be pretty consistently [ __ ] so whereas narcissistic people can really they have a much wider behavioral repertoire to be absolutely Charming this is a person who can be absolutely Charming on the golf course with the CEO of their company like Charming nice warm remember during the ages of their kids and asking about the wife and remembering that their grandmother is sick and all this stuff and get home forget it was his anniversary scream at their partner why is the house like look like this why do I have to put up with this make those damn kids shut up but they were Mr I remember that your little girl's birthday is February 6th when they were on the golf course that is not assholery that's narcissism can you cure narcissism in your opinion no I don't because I think that would imply changing a personality which I don't think we can do is there any evidence have you ever seen in your 20 years of working with narcissists and their survivors any sign of a narcissist becoming a not- narcissist or non- narcissist I've not seen them become a not- narcissist I've be seen them make micro changes because I measure and monitor and make my notes in therapy so I'll see interesting they're no longer trying to mess with coming in 10 minutes later and asking me to keep them for the whole hour they are honoring the therapeutic frame they're paying the bill when they decide not to show up at the last minute I see Tiny tweaks I'll see people who'll come in and say I screamed at my girlfriend again last night and that wasn't cool so I was like oh who that's Insight like I'll run with it but here's the rub okay these micro changes and they are micro changes but they are changes and they're in the right direction that much water under under the bridge for the family members and partners and other people that have been harmed they're saying you want me to stay in this relationship because this dude remember to say thank you once this week I think not to me the thank you is progress to the people in their lives who've been harmed that one thank you is not going to be enough when I was looking at the subject of narcissism and I was looking at what people are searching around the subject matter I could see no searches online for is my my wife a narcissist but I saw lots of searches for is my husband a narcissist really yes so I wondered is narcissism a gender specific thing and in What proportion do you typically see men and women being narcissists yeah no it's not gender specific I'm so shocked at that because I've worked with so many men who have narcissistic wives or female partners and I've worked with many I've worked with many lesbian couples I've I mean I've worked with cases where clearly it was a woman female identified person who is narcissistic it is definitely not limited to men so here's what we know grandiose narcissism much more common in men malignant narcissism much more common in men but there's a form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism vulnerable narcissism isn't so much of the showy charismatic Charming look at me arrogant salesy attention seeking narcissist the vulnerable narcissist is more socially anxious victimized Sullen resentful grieved and often we sort of see a failure to launch right there sort of a I'm angry at the world how come I never got my turn you know makes how come she got that and you know I I was better than him I should have gotten that there's like victim yeah victimhood okay that's called vulnerable narcissism right when we look at vulnerable narciss nism gender balanced okay so these other types of narcissism you named four types there grandiose narcissism right so that's our traditional sort of garden variety narcissism the showy charismatic pretentious preing Charming attention seeking actually quite often quite successful narcissistic person unlike the vulnerable narcissists who are Failure to Launch the grandiose narcissistic people often have big big dreams and they'll execute not always not always and they'll often burn Bridges because they are in fact narcissistic so they'll anger people or do Shady deals or cut people out and all that stuff but the grandio narcissistic folks are often the Larger than Life folks now if they are angry at you if they feel let down by you they will let you know they can be very vindictive they are not going to be very honest in a relationship they're probably going to betray you they're going to be mean to their Partners we can count on that too but to the World At Large Larger than Life That's the typical model now the vulnerable narcissism is what I narc IST is what I just shared with you that more vulnerable victimized sorry victimized socially anxious angry AG grieved Sullen resentful Failure to Launch narcissist okay some people would argue they're one and the same that as long as a grandiose narcissistic person is well supplied things are going well they're getting lots of attention they're making money they're they're just sort of feeling like they're they're the person they're good then they're going to they're going to stay in their grandiose mode however if the thing tips and things everything goes wrong for the grandiose narcissist they lose the money they lose the job they lose the partner they lose social status the vulnerable stuff will start showing up the victimhood the resentment this is a witch hon everyone's out to get me can almost feel sort of lowgrade paranoid you're either more one than another so the vulnerable narcissist could definitely have a grandiose moment if everything turned for them but some people are just more grandiose some people are more vulnerable but they do have the other underbelly that's just that's how that looks now the malignant narcissist which is another type I talked about this is where we see the most severe form and when I say most severe most severe in terms of how it shows up in relationships I'd say the most problematic form of narcissism and here's where we see a form of narcissism that shows up as manipulativeness exploitativeness the willingness to take advantage of people um coerciveness I isolation using Menace as a tool of control very vindictive dangerous it could be quite dangerous um this this is I always say malignant narcissism is the last stop on the train before you hit psychopathy station because this is as close to psychopathy as you're going to get without it being psychopathy and in fact there's a personality model called the dark tetrad and the dark tetrad is comprised of narcissism psychopathy machiavellianism which is sort of like that willingness to use other people for your own advantage and sadism I personally think there should be a fifth bit which is par oia because I think these folks can be really think everyone's out to get them but the model right now is those four pieces right malignant narcissism has a lot of those top notes the calculated callous coldness the shallow charm the shallow superficial charm intelligence um the lack of empathy the in some ways getting some pleasure out of seeing someone who wronged them being hurt so again it feels more dangerous and that's malignant narcissism is that your say serial killers I would say the serial killers are probably more Psychopathic and psychopathy is definitely a different subtype it's different psychopathy is something different than malignant narcissism they're not the same thing they they they they look different even genetically and all and they look different probably look different in the brain Psychopathic people have um they don't have remorse they don't feel guilt whereas malignant narcissistic people may they know they did something wrong a psychopathic person it's almost as though they don't understand what they did wrong not because they have a mental deficit but because they literally have zero capacity for empathy and the fourth type of narcissism so I gave you vulnerable grandiose malignant and the fourth type is communal narcissism right grandios malignant vulnerable yes the fourth type is communal narcissism communal narcissism is very interesting it's a relatively new construct in the field it came around 2003 was when I started reading some of the first papers by a guy Nam Gau I think he was writing he was the University of munic the time and I I loved the work I thought it was absolutely compelling because it was this idea that there were people out there who were going to get their narcissistic Supply not through the usual look at me I'm so great I'm going to do things so people tell me I'm great but by doing good deeds by being perceived as saviors by being perceived as Grand Rescuers humanitarians so the communal narcissist is a person who gets their narcissistic Supply their praise their admiration their Awe by doing these good deeds and that's the motivation for doing the good deeds not the good deed in and of itself not because you care about a refugee group not because you care about the plight of animals but because you want to be viewed as a good dude and so that's the communal narcissist now what gets interesting like with all forms of narcissism all narcissism is on a spectrum it's not an either or from mild to severe all of mental health is on a spectrum there's no such thing as a black and white dichotomy and mental health it's it's it's mild to severe mild to severe and what's interesting with communal narcissism at the lowest ends it's sort of like you're more like Instagram saviors like look at me I'm saving the world but you know like they're cleaning up the beach in their bikini and I'm like is this about how attractive you are is this about really trying to save the environment like it really is about are we talking about apps or are we talking about trash in the street like what are we talking about but they want the validation like what a cool person you are for spending your weekend saving elephants they're relatively harmless they're moderately ridiculous but they do get angry if people don't give them a big Bravo for how humanitarian they are you take communal narcissism all the way to the severe end of the spectrum you're talking about a cult leader these are now people who are saying I have the answer to the universe I know everything I know you better than you they'll bring people into cultic systems they will completely you know separate them from their sense of self and their sense of self-worth have no problem doing it it and tell them that they're doing them a good thing the whole time that's to me your your severe cult leader or I think all cult leader cult leader forget severe a cult leader is really probably where communal and malignant narcissism come together the big question how many people are narcissists this is a big question because our problem is this there's really no good studies about this it's tough to measure narcissism who's really going to cop to being really entitled or really manipulative you often don't get people who are going to answer those questions in an honest open way when we look at the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder that are done in what we call large scale epidemiologic studies we see the rates to be somewhere between 1 and 6% but that's the diagnosis and that's in really structured research settings narcissism is a person who has enough of the narcissistic personality style to be noticeable to be experienced by others it's a spitball number because we've never done the numbers so I'd say if the spitball number is probably sit in somewhere between 15 and 18% I think that's a good guess about one in six people I think if you're in a major metropolitan area it's going to be a little higher I think in certain industries it's going to be higher um I think in certain maybe even cultures it could be higher so but if you were going to just give me ask me for a global prevalence I mean I think that's it's my it's my best guess and I think a lot of folks in the field might agree with me again enough of it that you'd notice it enough of it that people are being affected by it so you've met six team members of mine including me I have not I've only met four of you so you're still two men down you're okay you might still be coming it through cuz my next question was which one do you think it was so far so bad for you because each one of us has been sweeter than the next so Stephen you're in the hot seat right now oh gosh sugar okay interesting okay so I mean one and six as a as a spitball number is is scarily high that's interesting you think it's scarily High I mean I I think it's about I mean listen we know how I I I actually don't think it is I think if you went to a small town you might hit closer to one in eight because I think a small town is almost based on a greater need for sociality I think there's more interdependence in that kind of a situation so narcissism isn't going to probably work as well but I I mean one in six I think if any of us really went home and did the soul searching listed out the names of everyone we knew the number is probably going to track is that number increasing are we breeding narcissists because of the sort of Social and societal changes that have occurred I'm thinking about Instagram when you said that I was thinking is is social media a narcissist Creator it's I think it's a it's a narcissist amplifier but I don't think it's a Creator narcissism is a personality style and like all personality Styles it's a social emotional developmental phenomenon that happens from infancy into adolescence so somebody jumping onto Instagram when they're 18 and posted lots of selfies they're a decent person that's not going to turn them narcissistic it might turn them boring but I don't know that it would necessarily turn them narcissistic I think it could take if somebody's got the traits they have the tendency to need the validation and admiration and again a person posting selfies that doesn't make them narcissistic because Jack went on holiday up this mountain and he posted loads of photos Okay so no but but we have to if Jack's a nice person right jack is excited to share his trip with everyone right but he was kind of like rubbing it in okay so it's a that's right Jack just lost some points there poor Jack but it's a but but I would say this what what we' want to know with anyone who's posted a lot of vacation photos right and they keep doing it how present are they when you're actually with them if you say like listen Jack is the loveliest person in the world and Jack Loves sharing his vacation trips and there's a little bit of shot and frea in there like you know but he's a sweetie then jacks off the hook right I think though that what n what social media has become is it has taken PE Once Upon a Time and you're probably even you're you're not so young that you wouldn't remember this but I remembered it as a full grown ass woman is that I can tell you that if I go backwards to when I first heard about social media I was already in my 40s at that point and um and I remember looking at it and I was already studying narcissism and I said oh God I I and it was really like it was almost like Houston we have a problem kind of thing someone else had shown it to me and I thought to myself this isn't going to create more narcissist but once upon a time for a narcissistic person to get validation they'd actually have to have a shave in a shower and get out of the house you couldn't just sit home and get validation you had to go go to work get it in a family sphere get it in your town bar or Pub or something like that but it wasn't going to come home from you just sitting on your ass at home taking pictures of yourself cuz I don't know if you've ever tried to take a picture of yourself with the camera you're either going to catch your head or your mouth like that's how we used to try to do it right so now there was a tool for these people to have a megaphone to say look how wonderful I am so a person who was already narcissistic this was going to harness it and sort of it was an accelerant on a fire that was already burning but I keep in the house though isn't it which is sounds like it's a safer place for it to be them wandering around the streets yeah well the point is what keeping oh keeping them in at home rather than but I still think that what it did though is now we get into a bigger philosophical question this many people depicting lives that are look how much better my life is than yours look how together I am look how great I'm doing while that might be something the narcissistic people will do to offset their sense of insecurity because that's sort of the core wound in narcissism there are other vulnerable people who are watching that content who are not narcissistic but already feel like they don't measure up and we've created this really messy space of people who already devalue themselves looking at these lives far better than theirs and wondering what's wrong with me roughly one in six people have a podcast so I was just wondering I mean that that many people think they have something that interesting to say right so um and like I said everybody's trying to put their voice out there their vacation pictures out there their breakfast pictures out there are not narcissistic I think in some cases I I don't think we should over pathologize what has become a new way of interacting I've got it's interesting I have children my my my daughters are now both in their early 20s and I'll watch their facility but they're it's not I see what they're doing it's not narcissism it's actually communication and they're staying in touch with a very large net of widely spread friends and there is a lot of intimacy there so I think young people whose cognition kind of also grew with it they use it in a more sort of seamless way listen what's it been around now we're we're going to soon come come 20 years around 20 years since social media has been around right we're rounding that horn soon we're going to get it's going to take a minute to get the data we're going to get our first set of data from the kids whose lives were captured from the day they popped onto a delivery table all the way right through ad adolescence that data is going to be very telling I don't think it's created more narcissism I think we've always had grandiose narcissists I think they make history they've been our leaders they're the people we've always looked to they've been the town mayor whatever I think what it's all it has done though it's taken this problem of vulnerable narcissism and it's really blown it up because the vulnerable narcissistic people get super resentful when they perceive other people as having these awesome lives that they don't and they get more angry and this is sort of the Advent of the Internet troll a lot of that is explained by vulnerable narcissism so where does narcissism come from then this is one of the big questions it from what you said there I assume it comes there might be a genetic component that's brought out by our childhood or so we're all born with a temperament right I don't know if you're an only child if you have siblings or anything youngest of four you're youngest of four okay so this is harder for you do you would it' be interesting for you to talk with them is that and your your your parent whoever was parents whoever around every one of you you and your siblings had slightly different personalities from the day you were born and that rolled out in early childhood so you'll see that one kid who's just easy breezy from the day they're born you'll some sometimes see that kid who's just a clenched up ball of nerves from the day they're born you'll see that kid who just doesn't want to chill for a minute from the day they're born that stuff is called temperament and what we know about temperament is that there are certain temperaments and those that make a child more biologically vulnerable a little bit more difficult to soothe they may be more they just sort of need more right so they're more of a demand on a caregiver it that with that more vulnerable temperament if that comes up against an environment that's at all invalidating trauma neglect other adversities chaos domestic violence substance use in the family um and even emotional abuse with a child is just being told stop sit down shut up why can't you be like your sisters right that com that combination can actually set up a real risk for developing narcissism so that's pathway one but pathway two and this is actually coming out of really interesting work by a guy named Eddie bruman from the University of Amsterdam it's fascinating work and he is studying more sort of how do we do what's the other pathway well the other pathway and other folks like Masterson and others have written about this which is the overvalued child these are the children who are told you're more special than any other child not that you're special but you are more special than him and him and her so you shouldn't have to wait in a line you're more special you should get the teacher you want you should get everything you want those children often they don't learn to self Soo they often aren't as well regulated they actually kind of believe the hype that the parent is giving them which is not doing them any favor favors and Bromans is suggesting that this could sort of be a foreshadowing of what could turn into adult narcissism you I'm guessing you need that temperament on board I think if you had a sweet tempered kid that constantly being told that they're special actually might leave the sweet tempered kid feeling a little bit guilty actually but the kid with that more vulnerable temperament they might sort of they might buy into the hype so you sort of have this one p pathway of adversity you have the one pathway of sort of these are kids who are told you're great you can anything you want we'll do anything you want let's go on this vacation here's this device but there're off also kids that are often very emotionally undernourished they're not they're not um their emotions are not valued they're not reflected they're not mirrored so these are kids who are get get get but it's a very tenuous existence because they're still not in touch with their emotional World which has to happen in child otherwise you don't get that um that so you don't get that atlas of your own emotions right so those tend to be the two primary p Pathways now not every kid who goes through those Pathways will be will become narcissistic in fact the ma vast majority will not so I think that the this it's very complicated and what we call it's very it's it's multi-determined it's a very multi-determined series of Pathways to what leads to adult narcissism and because of that I always say narcissism is one of those stories we can always tell backwards but is really difficult to tell forwards don't show me your 17-year-old who is who is has a lot of attitude and won't empty the dishwasher and calls you names and don't ask me if he's narcissistic I usually tell those parents call me in 10 years and in 10 years you're going to see if this tracked or he pops out of it like every adolescent who's trying to kind of individuate from his parents and settles down into a decent guy you mentioned that narcissism exists on a spectrum so does that mean that someone can be a little bit narcissistic I would say somebody can have milder narcissistic presentation so what I mean by milder the mild narcissistic people the best adjective I could use they're annoying they're emotionally immature they're superficial they're shallow they're vapid and and they're also very self-centered so these are people when they're having a problem they expect the world to stop for them take their calls talk to them for hours but the day finally comes that you need your friend they're nowhere to be seeing like oh I don't have time for this so it can feel like a very very imbalanced relationship and when you're with them the mild narcissist can actually be kind of fun right they're they're like let's go to this new hot hip whatever blah blah blah and they're fun and laugh and dance and attention seeking could be fun for a minute but there it would be very difficult to have a long-term committed relationship with someone like that be difficult to raise children with someone like that it would have been very difficult to have been raised by someone like that are narcissists more successful professionally yes they're much more successful that's the problem and not I mean again I and I'm not going to make this a blanket statement but I'm going to tell you now that they are they're more ambitious success is life or death to them right because it's validation it's the it's the it's the blood that flows to their psyche so the stakes are much higher for them the rest of us we want to succeed but at the end of the day we would say I've got my family I got my friends I got enough money in the bank I got some food in my belly like I'm good but for them it is it's the air in their lungs so they're more represented in leadership they are they make more money especially narcissistic men make more money than agree um agreeable men um they're more successful at dating um they're more successful and unfortunately the way our economy is set up it is set up so that the narcissistic people win narcissism and capitalism go together really well because it's a competitive system that rewards the person who does the most and we don't look at process we look at outcome and be when any anytime you have an outcome heavy metric narcissistic people are always going to win I'm thinking about some of the greatest companies that have been built that changed the world you know Apple being one of them oftentimes when you hear about how these people treated other people um it sounds like the narcissistic characteristics that you described earlier you know but then we often excuse that because of what they brought into the world the great Innovations the great companies they built how they helped change the world how they maybe led us through or out of War so what do you say to that is it sometimes worth their narcissism for what they gave the world so here's here's a rub I completely agree with what you're saying I actually think that some of the greatest Innovations greatest creativity in fact many wartime presidents and prime ministers were it had to be narcissistic right and might have gotten Count's people through messes might have made the had the decisive postures that were necessary that might have made the real really really kinds of um difficult corporate decisions that needed to be make with little regard for how the human beings were going to get hurt treated people way pushed them to an inhuman limit and then there was this thing that came out of it was it worth it I mean now we're in now we're in philosophy honey and I'm a psychologist but but suffice it to say you know there's some there's always been talk like even inventors like Tom Alva Thomas Alva Edison wasn't a was not a nice guy right some archival res SE loving these light bulbs right would someone else have done it it's a mood point he did and so I think the Innovations are important I think narcissistic people are built for Innovation they're grandiose they're dreamers they want the agile they want to do the big thing they want to be on the big Tech stage and have all the lights on them and have all the attention while they have the Beautiful video and the simple thing and they want that that is their everything and what I tell people is we're never never going to have a world without them we have gotten lots of cool stuff in our lives from them just don't marry them is it possible to be the person on the stage to build the incredible thing to have the insane ambition to put little computers into our pockets and do all of that and not be a narcissist I fully believe there absolutely 100% I think it's harder though I really really do I think that the empathic CEO is a is a unicorn it's tough that you know and because they're they're answering to so many Masters right they're answering to shareholders they're answering to rank and file they're answering to management it's I wouldn't want that job I I'm a very agreeable empathic person and I I I got to tell you i' I'd rather do any job than that one it sounds I'd love the money but I it's it sounds terrible and I think that the kind of shapeshifting and chameleon like qualities that requires it's I would say that an empathic person would get a bit more swallowed up in that job because if you actually stopped to care about everyone you were serving in that position you would burn out real fast the not caring I think is what actually can protect a person in that position and that's not to say all CEOs are narcissistic though a lot are because it's a competition at the end of the day it is a competition at the end of the day and narcissistic people are built for competition they're built for it because they have to win at any cost the rest of us are probably like I'm out you know yeah a lot of Industries are a zero some game not business generally isn't but when I say zero some game I mean there's you know when um one person does well that kind of means that someone else is not going to do well so I'm thinking about some Industries even one of my companies third web we realize that it's kind of a winner takes all industry in the same way that like Amazon is like there's one Amazon and they dominate the whole of them pretty much all the market share and with Google there's one Google and the nearest competitor probably has 5% of the market share so there are elements in business where it is pretty Winner Takes all and it's conceivable to think the person who is most ruthless most willing to cut ethical Corners most willing to put profits over people is probably going to rise to the top that's right so you know generally espe at least in the short term in the short term and but the thing is then they'll cash out yeah all their bad ethics will catch up with them or their bad ethics will catch up with they'll end up in jail which we see a lot we do we see it and I think for some people it was a was it was a worthy gamble because they could have potentially won at all right or they or they truly believed they were going to get away with it and I think that that's when we use the word arrogance arrogance is at it at its deepest level is I'm going to do the bad thing and I'm going to get away with it what about money um does money make you more narcissistic here's where it gets to be an interesting conversation and I write about this actually more in my other book and don't you know who I am where I I money breeds privilege money breeds entitle entitlement what I call the sort of phenomenon of feet that never touch the ground right if people have enough money they're whizzed to airports and cars they don't stand in the TSA line with the unwashed masses like the rest of us do they're taken to the best hotel suites they are they don't think about where their next meal is coming from it's brought to them they don't they don't do the all the the stuff that the rest of us do they don't tolerate the indignities and they don't have to regulate the same way so when a person has money for long enough that feet never touching the ground creates what they call sort of privileged entitlement was that maybe [ __ ] but maybe not I think it's also that bubble wrapped way that they go through life like they actually don't understand how to use the self checkout at Target did you hear the Paul piff study from the University of yeah he's great by the way he's wonderful which well we did so many which study are you referring to um the one where people are made to feel wealthier and when they feel wealthier they were more likely to endorse unethical decisions such as stealing office supplies stealing candy people who were made to feel wealthier also gave less to charity people who were who were made to feel wealthier expressed happiness through feelings that were self focused such as through Pride um contentment and amusement and people who felt less wealthy were more likely to agree with statements that were focused on others that's right which kind of suggests that being wealthier and feeling wealthier makes you more of an [ __ ] makes you more of an [ __ ] it makes you more self-referential right so I think that you know does that make sense surprising you think it be the other way around not at all not at all because I think that again Paul's research is great by the way he's wonderful he actually did another research study where he studied um he looked he went to busy intersections in Orange County he's a professor UC Irvin was at the time when I had met him um and they'd go to busy intersections stop signs not red lights and he found that people who drove luxury cars were far less likely to make a full stop at the stop sign and people compared to people who had more sort of you know middle level cars I mean it was fascinating so there's and and there's there's at least a dozen published studies that show that narcissistic people drive more dangerously so it's an interesting kind of an accumulation but per the money part I don't believe like if a person was a full grown adult 30 35 years old and they were an agreeable warm self-aware person and they made a lot of money okay I don't think you would turn them narcissistic I do think you might undercut that self awareness because they may be sort of pulled out of the world that the rest of us live in so there might be unrealistic expectations for how the world like why are we waiting in this line I'm like well that's because what we do is wait in this line because they've come out of it but they're not cruel about it they're like why are these dumb people making me wait in line so it's not a dismissiveness it's almost like how is this so inefficient there's almost a there's like a disconnect I guess so I wouldn't say money I think what he's showing is that money creates a self-centeredness right as you thought it might go the other way but I think that we sort of double down on sort of keeping it and we there's there's an importance I mean money is is the ultimate source of narcissistic Supply because it delivers power it delivers admiration it delivers a greater likelihood of getting sex or getting laid it delivers all kinds of stuff so for a narcissistic person the quest of for money is the the shest quick ticket way to get this thing called narcissistic Supply so you'll often see them attempting to do that by any means possible so but they but they're driven to the money I don't think that the money is what makes people rot and I think the bubble wrapping at that point makes them entitled it's a different conversation how do you know if you are a narcissist like does a narcissist know they are one is there a narcissist test one can do I don't there's about five to six tests out there that are designed to detect narcissism in its various ways all of them have flaws like I said and it's not it's not even fully the fault of the test because this is a very difficult thing to measure right we're at we're trying to measure things that are not socially desirable right that's really tough to measure so a lot of the narcissism tests will measure things like some entitlement assertiveness um self-importance that people may not find as offensive but the research actually shows that narcissistic people overestimate their empathy and underestimate their negative effect on other people they do not have a clear look at themselves they really have an almost deluded sense of who they are and how they go through the world so when a person says to me I think I'm narcissistic I always say hold the presses you need to tell me a little bit about you because there's a lot of people out there who think of themselves as narcissistic because they're in relationships with narcissistic people who have told them over the years years you are such a selfish person because this unfortunate person is doing simple things like saying hey could we go where I want to go for dinner once or you I want to talk about my feelings and then their narcissistic partner saying oh my gosh you're so selfish and they're really sort of indoctrinated into this idea or gaslighted into this idea that there's something narcissistic about them once we clear the decks of that is there a subset of people out there who are narcissistic and are kind of in some awareness like this might be who I am yes and we call them self-aware narcissistic people they're out there some of them view narcissism as their superpower they say like don't take this away for me this is why I've got the edge this is why I close the sale this is why I'm the man and one client was like I'm the man like oh my gosh like a six-year-old but okay do people men come to you women come to you and say I am a narcissist yes I've had that happen it's not common I can count on one hand the number of times it's happened and did you agree with them and they I in about an hour yeah what was were they how did they figure out they were a narcissist what were they saying they might have read they might have read my books or more more likely saw YouTube video they might have you know sort of again seen my content someone might have said that to them and then they looked it up on Google and they're like that is kind of me but they did in many ways rationalize it saying this is why I always close the deal this is who I am like you know what was it don't hate the don't hate the player hate the game they would try that kind of stuff with me and I'd say but your behavior is offensive like this is not okay what you're doing what you did you're doing on an ongoing basis to your spouse or partner is not okay and so they would have that awareness like almost like from a checklist yeah like yeah I don't care that much about people's feelings and yeah I guess I kind of think the rules don't apply to me they'll have that awareness it's pretty uncommon like I said most narcissistic people Veer into this idea of they overestimate their goodness and generosity underestimate how um how negatively they're viewed by other people so let's talk then about the impacts of narcissism on relationships particular what kind of people do narcissists attract in relationships and what kind of people are attracted to narcissists so it's such a good question I'm so glad you asked it what kind of people do they attract everyone's attracted to narcissistic people they're Charming they're charismatic they're confident they're in research has shown they're often rated as more attractive than other people they take good care of their bodies they know lots of interesting things they're so concerned about hiped that they are like they know the cool restaurants they all of us have been indoctrinated to think that these are the people were supposed to be dating right who says no to charm Charisma and attractiveness me maybe but just nobody else would do that so we're all attracted to them right until and even with the vulnerable narcissistic folks you'll say really someone's going to be attracted to Sullen and resentful well that's not how they come off when you first meet meet them many times a vulnerable narcissistic person looks like a vulnerable child who needs to be rescued so if you like rescuing people or puppies or any small vulnerable creature that's going to seem actually very attractive to you so we're all attracted to them what about what are they attracted to in us they're what they're attracted to in US is our supply now Supply can mean different things to different narcissistic folks classical sorts of Supply or are we attractive if we're attractive if we have some form of social status if we have have resource if we have connections the things that would get them Supply here's where it gets wonky because the question attractiveness is what attracts people it's almost the wrong question the more deep question is what gets people stuck in narcissistic relationships because narcissistic relationships start strong these are people who are running their fastest miles in the beginning of the marathon like they're just like go and you this is these can often feel like a fairy tale it is is it's glamorous and it's exciting and it's the dates are really interesting and they're very attuned they may be very attentive they focus on you and they figure what's going to work for you if they really want to keep you close it's they want to they want to get you and they want to get you quick because then you're like a butterfly underglass then they've got you captured because after all this good stuff happens you've bought in you might even be dubious for a while saying oh seems seem too good to be true or I don't know but then people after about I always say it's somewhere between 6 weeks and six months the devaluing stage starts and then it's they've got you right and they they you might get the passive aggressive digs the minimizations the lack of empathy the withdrawing the withholding and people will say where did that first six weeks go to like wait a minute we had such a good time and as the devaluing begins people start to blame themselves so people who are more empathic more forgiving more optimistic these are the kinds of people who get stuck because they're making allowances for this they're saying I mean I can't they they were lovely and they did say they're having a really stressful time at work but their behavior is consistently dismissive and rude and so you keep making excuses excuses excuses but then there's a few good days sprinkled in there so one of the interesting things is um a lot of people are trying to figure out if their partners are narcissists h do people in relationships especially long-term relationships tend to know that they're dating a narcissist or is the n or is the narcissist gaslighted them to the point that they they don't know until recently most people did not know because it's it feels like a disloyal thing to know about your partner many people say I love my partner we have built a life together there are enough good days that leave them thinking like there's something here they're confused people in these relationships are confused they're they blame themselves for everything that goes wrong they're walking on eggshells they've in essence modified themselves to be exactly what the narcissistic partner wants but it's a slow burn it's it's a very slow process of indoctrination I always say these relationships are Death By A Thousand Cuts because it's just each of these things happen slowly over time it's almost as a one day you wake up you're like who am like what have I become I'm literally like living in service to this other person it's only in the last 10 years I'd say that there's so much more content and the internet is more robust with making this and I'm sure people type it in my partner has no empathy and is really entitled and yells at me a lot Bing and then narcissism pops out at you I think this really created the revolution of people saying what is this and even when I wrote should I stare should I go that was 2015 I think it was we're still in the beginning phases there were just maybe about a dozen books out there taking this on and so we it's it's a as more information gets out there more people are clear that this is happening in their relationships the hope is the earlier you identify it the less indoctrinated the less what we call trauma bonded you become and then the easier it would be to make clear-headed decisions about how you want to proceed you talk about the three Rs that are the whole marks of negative relationships in your books what are the three Rs so the first is rumination okay that the rumination is it's an obsessive thinking about the relationship and it's usually in an attempt to either say what did I do wrong what happened what is going on it's a trying to fix it so these are the three things that someone that's in a relationship with a narcissist will do yep I mean they do a lot more but these are three common ones so the rumination is a Hallmark characteristic of a person in an narcissistic relationship in essence you're just trying to make sense of something that makes no sense the next R is regret and that regret links to bigger themes like grief people having regret that this is the parent I have and I will never have have a close loving relationship with them the regret that this is the marriage I created and my children will never get a healthy model of marriage the regret that I've spent 20 years in this relationship and really all I have to show for it is a whole lot of nothing except that it's harmed me so the regrets play out even big ways and even small ways like why did I say that why didn't I say it that way and then the last R is it's really euphoric recall the are being for recall by euphoric recall I mean that people in narcissistic relationships of an uncanny ability to sort of cherry-pick the good things that happen in the relationship to keep rationalizing it and justifying it to themselves so ba might be in a narcissistic relationship with a person has really treated them heinously for a month but on one day of that month the narcissistic person when they went to the grocery store for the first time remembered to bring home two muffins so that you could have a muffin and the person's like they brought me home the best blueberry muffin wasn't that thoughtful they brought me home a muffin we had muffins together so the euphoric recall is the over focus on those good experiences as a way in essence to create this sort of psychological buyin so then you can maintain the status quo for people in narcissistic relationships it's not as those they're waking up saying this is a hellscape I want to get out they're getting up saying I'm so confused I feel like I'm never enough nothing I do is Ever Enough nothing I say is ever they're not listening to me what is going on maybe I'm not being clear enough maybe there's something wrong with me so that's the confusion element so it's not like everyone's saying I want to get out of this there's a lot of history there's a lot of experiences together so people again and they're also confused because there's good things that happen and bad things that happen and that's what creates like I said this thing called the trauma bonded relationship so people might even be able to say like there's something about this that isn't okay and might even be able to articulate these are the problems in the relation relationship but the idea of leaving this relationship fills me with an absolute sense of panic would would a narcissist play to that insecurity and that um that history well the narcissistic person created the insecurity and they they will because the narcissistic person is an expert tactician right because that's what they bring to relationships is tactics and so they are very expert at knowing like ah your wound is abandonment piece of cake so if you say I I can't do this my out the narcissistic partner say okay cool let's call it quiz you'll like that's not what I wanted them to say I wanted them to say they were going to fight for the relationship you see what I'm saying like they it's so interesting because and part of the reason narcissistic people are so successful is because they're so socially perceptive they have no empath social perceptiveness and empathy are not the same thing what do they social perceptiveness is kind of being aware of reading the room understanding what people need understanding what makes them tick and what they want and then strategically giving it to them to keep them on the chain or keep them in the position you need them in that's not empathic manipulation you Ed the word earlier on to describe narcissism there's two types of manipulation you speak about which is the the sort of normal manipulation which I think we all do in our own ways when we're trying to get our way with a deal or with sales or with someone or whatever when we're trying to haggle for a discount whatever it might be and then there's this pathological ipulation which seems to be a little bit different M yeah pathological manipulation is that there's absolutely no regard for the harm it's bringing the other person you really are giving absolute Primacy to your own needs and then making the other person think that this truly is good for them this isn't as simple as I'm going to sell this car to someone maybe it's not the right car for them this is really around psychological stuff and it's with somebody where listen you're going into a sales relationship you understand what the sort of the codes of that relationship are they're trying to sell you something you're trying to decide if it's right for you we don't try to think of our intimate and our familial relationships as sales models so our guard is not up in the same way and yet the same tactics are being brought and we're sort of bargaining on things that are matters of the heart and matters of closeness and compassion so it's again the narcissistic person is so skilled at leaving the other person feeling that the thing they sacrificed or gave up was in their best interest and and ultimately the narcissistic person is so self-centered that anything that they're trying to do is going to serve them projection I've heard this phrase used a few times like he's projecting onto you or she's projecting in the context of narcissism what is projection so projection is CL is a primitive defense that any of us can use and we do use all of us engage in projection we engage in projection when some of that uncomfortable unconscious stuff inside of us is getting activated it's often shame or oriented and then we'll accuse someone of something that we're actually feeling like an uncomfortable feeling that's projection we all EX um how you might project onto me okay uh we're in a we're in a relationship and I'll say something like who are you texting Stephen like why what do you like you're so shady like you know why don't you show your show me your phone like what oh my gosh Stephen like what the hell you need so many you need all the girls to like you don't you like that's what you're all you're about show me your phone show me your phone show me your phone now guess who's got a side piece that would be me oh really oh there's a life hack for you Stephen okay so you're you're insecure because you know that you're Stephen not insecure I I'm doing a bad thing are you still pretending no I am no longer in a relationship okay so we're done that's because you cheated on me even though didn't but it was me but now I can go be with my new guy so but it's I'm giving giv you like such a loow hanging fruit example it's anytime we might accuse someone of lying when we're lying we may accuse somebody of um even being insecure when we're the one feeling insecure right we'll accuse someone of being uncomfortable when we're the one be who's feeling uncomfortable and all of us have different stuff we project about because all of us have different sort of psychodynamic histories right well narcissistic people do this all the time let me give you sort of a sense of what the inner psychological apparatus of a n a narcissistic person looks like despite all the shiny charismatic Charming arrogant grandiose stuff on the outside what's in them is the best I can describe it is a volcano right and that volcano the magma and the gases and the lava is shame and it's insecurity well that's not very perfect looking is it so all these defenses the grandiosity and the arrogance and the charm and all the rest of it is like a manhole cover a big manhole cover that covers the volcano so all that insecurity doesn't exist I'm I'm just the smartest person you know right so they get to show up as perfect as extraordinary but things can kick that manhole cover off criticism negative feedback their friend doing better than them their new Venture not succeeding um them not getting something that they wanted some form of frustration well that means they're not perfect the manhole cover gets nudged the gases in the lava o out what does that look like it looks like anger it looks like projection you accuse the other and this happens to them 20 times a day CU nobody lives a perfect life we get disappointed all the time there's traffic on the freeway there we had to wait for the elevator the people at the coffee shop screwed up our order our our public offering didn't go well it could be big things it could be small things it doesn't matter but each time the manhole cover gets nudged that grandiose exterior gets tinged and they they explode on others and that often looks like projection and that projection allows them to maintain that idealized interior can they take feedback narcissists like do they listen to the do they no they they can't they really don't they cannot the only time a narcissistic person may may tiny bit listen to feedback is if it comes from somebody with much much more power than them because narcissistic people are very hierarchical climbing creatures right so let's say they're getting it the CEO's up here and there's some sort of P level person here and they admire the CEO the CEO is giving them feedback they will listen because they want to be him they want to be with him they want to be next to or her or them whoever the CEO is right but I so they may get some of it but they're still going to hear it as there'll be this noise that's blocking them out from hearing all of it so it might be compliance as a means to an end versus them actually going ah okay no yeah they're not not integrating it into they're they're just sort of and they might even think like God this person's such a dick I I could do their job so much better they're so lucky they got there I'm going to get there but they they again they also Envy this person so they are listening but like you said it is exactly what you said it's compliance versus the sense of let me listen to this and I can promise you what this person's going to do if they're in a relationship they're going to go home and rage at their partner because they had to have that feedback session they're going to find a more vulnerable Target because they can't attack that CEO and they'll go and find someone else to rage at a partner a person on the subway train a family member friend someone else I heard this word gaslighting again it's a word I've heard a lot but I I'm not necessarily really clear on what the definition of gaslighting is but from reading your work I hear that narcissists gas light people a lot a lot right what is gaslighting so gaslighting it's simplest it's a power play it's a form of emotional abuse and it's a tactic gaslighting is predicated on a relationship that's ostensibly car characterized by trust so that's why strangers can't gasl at you in the same way as an intimate partner a trusted colleague a family member even a person with expertise like an attorney or a physician could Gaslight you right because there's a there's a presumption of trust so you're going to listen to the gaslighter initially what the gaslighter will do is they will doubt The Gaslight head person's perceptions experiences memories even reality that never happened I never said that you're making that up that you're we never went there so now this person's a little confused because their reality is saying yeah we did yeah we did so initially a person will fight back against a gas light they'll say we absolutely went there do you want me to show you the pictures on my phone then we go to the next step of gaslighting the gaslighter doesn't want to see the pictures on your phone they just want to overpower you this isn't about evidence this is about them overpowering you so they'll say look here's the pictures on my phone and then the gas fighter won't say well you're right we did go there instead they'll say oh my gosh you are the most Petty human being I've ever met is this what it is you're just going to go on your phone to find the pictures to prove something to me is that what this relationship is I don't know that I want even be in a relationship like this now this poor person who's being gaslighted is thinking I just showed them the pictures to prove a point and now I'm the bad one and so they're and they trust this person so they think well maybe I am doing something bad maybe I am being petty but gaslighting doesn't happen once it happens over and over and over again it's an indoctrination process that leaves the gaslighted person utterly confused completely out of their minds doubting themselves and they start to believe the critiques then the gaslighter will tell them things like you're crazy you're stupid you don't remember things right maybe you have dementia do you think you should be in therapy you might need to be on medication like by the time the gaslighter is done with with someone they've lost all sense of they don't they don't trust themselves at all and so if they don't leave the relationship and some people don't they are then sort of in this again this form of servitude with the narcissistic person or gaslighting person almost relying on them to lead them through reality so it's almost like utter submission at that point that they get the the gaslighter gets to dictate reality and then over time there's there's this there's this tactic that narcissistic and other abusive people use called dar darvo stands for deny attack reverse victim and offender it's a construct that was developed by Dr Jennifer fried deny attack reverse victim and offender so what the narcissistic person will in a very skill I mean in a cruy skillful way do is if the person the gaslighted person ever attempts to push back on something that the narcissist is does done like you came you said you were going to be home by 9:00 last night you didn't get home till 1: in the morning the narcissistic prison will deny said that's not true I came yeah I didn't get home at 9: but I didn't come home at any 1 in the morning but again like what is your problem like what do you do like you read the ADT guide all day to see what time I come in the door and you know what like I can't believe that this is my life I work so hard to keep us in this fabulous house I work so hard so you can stay home and I'm the bad guy like I can't even believe that this is the issue like you put me through so much reverse victim and offender he was out till 1: in the morning and he knows it but now he shut down the conversation it is an Insidious dynamic because done enough you literally strip another person of their reality and that is unacceptable to me that's absolute abuse do you see this alone all the time all the time it is the dynamic that once it had name to it when the word is used right most people use this word wrong that whole process I described is gaslighting when the word is used correctly it's powerful it captures a unique interpersonal Dynamic that really eats people from the inside out I hear it I see it all the time by family members by Partners in the workplace you name it and it really messes people up because they they feel like they've lost their minds and they feel like they can't trust themselves and I think that's a terrible thing to do to someone what should you do if you're being gas lit when you know what it is and someone starts to gas light you they literally deny your reality right you have to take a step back and say that's not what happened but you don't say it to them the importance with gaslighting is you don't engage with the gaslighter you now know you're being gaslighted which means the other person in that interaction has the capacity to Gaslight you so what that means is from your side you need to shut it down and that means no longer engaging does that make so that you cannot keep engaging with them because they're going to pull you down further and further yeah they're gonna it's almost like they're going to pull you down into into being drowned or pull you into the quicksand so when they start gaslighting I never said that one playback could be we're having a different experience then and leave it at that don't go down that slipp SL don't go down the slope don't say don't show them the text message don't pull out the email don't try to prove them wrong don't engage with them it's it's funny you're asking me this because I was recently gaslighted I in relatively recently in a professional situation and I'm thinking not me like I don't know much but I know this so don't but they did I was and I got very upset and in this particular situation it was actually I understand why I got it like think of it as a corporate structure that was gaslighting me so sometimes very very nice people who work in corporate systems Gaslight because they're trying to prop up the narcissism of the corporation but they're decent human beings and it was very clear to me I've seen that happen but in this particular case I was being gaslighted I got upset though knowing all I know knowing all the tactics it's very dehumanizing to have your reality completely doubted and so I I did feel a sense of upset but I confronted the person I said this is gaslighting and it's not okay and I know you're better than this and they will happen to be this was a lucky case where the Nar the the gaslighter was not narcissistic so we came to a conclusion but when I've been gaslighted by narcissistic people I just disengage and I file it away and say this person is capable of this this this there's really not much juice here I don't this can only go so deep controlling Behavior emotionally but also I guess physically controlling behavior when we when we often think about narcissists we think of like sort of domestic violence and this kind of thing is that quite typical of a narcissist to engage in domestic vience so here's we get to an interesting question you're from the UK and I have to say actually of all the countries in the world the UK actually has had has taken the front I think the the the highest front position in terms of being very creating public policies around understanding the psychological elements of domestic violence it was actually a coer of control laws first showed up in the UK so I this is my personal belief Stephen and this is my personal belief and I will hold to this personal belief 100% I believe all domestic abusers are narcissistic without exception and I'll tell you why I think that the capacity to tell someone I love you I'm going to care for you we're in a relationship and then to emotionally physically or sexually assault them that's zero empathy that's tremendous entitlement it's incredible arrogance that's narcissism there's a lack of self-awareness there's a lack of awareness of the other and I think this is why so much of the domestic violence intervention programs they don't work because how are you going to undo someone's narcissism so that's my belief and I know that this has been a this is very controversial conversation in the field of domestic violence back in the 70s there's a real push back on this I don't think that anyone who does domestic violence work will ever doubt that there's a personality issue in these folks but the concern was if we made it about narcissism will pull the focus away from their behavior right but I think the two things go together the behavior is unacceptable I don't give a damn if they're narcissistic and this whole idea of does the narcissism excuse the behavior never if behavior is unacceptable it's unacceptable I don't care about the backstory because it means it's going to happen again and it always does narcissism in work how do I know if my boss or my manager or my CEO is a narcissist and what should I do about it do I quit the job so if you believe that someone you report to a manager or a boss or someone like that in a job is narcissistic you're going to feel it in the sense of you don't feel seen you don't feel valued you feel like the workplace is unpredictable you feel like it's unfair that it's inequitable you might even feel that it's psychologically UNS safe you might feel that the way people are praised and get credit for their work again it doesn't have Rhyme or Reason it is inequitable it might be a very there might be a lot of Gossip in the workplace those are the things that would suggest a workplace is you have you might be working for someone who's narcissistic it's a tough one it might a lot of this might depend on the nature of your organization I always tell people if you suspect that you're boss or manager or someone you report to is narcissistic start documenting the hell out of it because the one thing HR doesn't care is you you cannot roll up to an HR office and say I think my manager is narcissistic you're going to need documentation which means saving emails and text messages and voicemails and meetings me U minutes of meetings and you know you you're going to need as much information try to avoid meetings alone all that stuff to have that sort of evidence base if you're at a large enough company where you might be able to switch to work under someone else's management especially if you still believe in the company some people might say I love the organization I can't stand working with this person they may find that working with someone else will allow them to preserve in the institution but in a smaller employer or where that is not possible some people might try to stick it out the best they can but documenting is not going to make it easier so some people will find that ultimately if they can't Outlast the narcissistic boss or manager which they often can't they will look for other employment some people also find a lot of solace in collaboration so just because you work for a narcissistic manager doesn't mean you're colleagues are narcissistic and there's some interesting research suggesting that some really in um powerful collaborative relationships can come when the leadership is narcissistic but the the teams actually come together even stronger it's almost like they're United against a common enemy I want to make sure I've given enough advice to someone who is currently dealing with a narcissist all of the things that you've said to them ring true they they can relate to everything you've said are you telling them to get out of that situation no and it's something is very very important to me is that people don't feel compelled that they have to get out cuz I can't always get out and I think if we said if we put that forth as the only pathway then people who can't get out might say that now what I'm just supposed to sit here and suffer and the answer to that's no in in in my in my book what I talk about is this idea if you're gonna if you're going to stay in a relationship like this right for whatever reason could be a family member and you you don't you still don't want to fully walk away from your family of origin it could be a long-term marriage and you've got minor children or there's Financial or cultural reasons it might be a job you've had for a long time and you're not financially in a position to step away from it it might be a friend you've had a long time your reasons are yours and so I always say to people you must never feel pressure unless it's dangerous let's take dangerousness out of the equation right you don't feel compelled to do what people say it's going to be harder if you stay it is going to be harder because you're still being exposed OS to their manipulative invalidating unkind unsettling destabilizing behavior however the first step the key step is what I call radical acceptance this is not going to change this is it there is going to be no someday better it's not going to get better when he gets a promotion it's not going to get better for her when the kids grow up your mom's not going to get soften with age this is it folks you now know what this looks like it is not going to change substantially their behavior is not going to change substant stantially so if you're going to stay in it your workarounds are going to be based on knowing that you have to have very realistic expectations now what happens though is when people initially have this level of radical acceptance they have a tremendous amount of grief because a lot of Hope was keeping them going I thought it was going to get better someday I thought maybe that someday would come the staying means that someday is not going to come and so that means that you're not as once you radically accept you're not as surprised by their behavior cuz a lot of people get exhausted from the number of times over years or decades they're like I can't believe they did that I can't believe they did I'm like can we just stop that part and say of course you believe they did it in fact we could have set a clock by the idea that they would have done it by the fact they would have done it that's a big piece of this but the grief of letting go of what you wanted these things to be that's its own process and grief takes time but you know as you come around through through that as you come around the bend on that you really do radically accept you need some tools and probably the biggest tool of all is social connection with people who are healthy empathic attuned responsive compassionate and respectful whether that means you make you you might have friends who already are this for you it might be enhanced by getting into therapy you might join a support group you might meet friends at work there's many ways you might try to do this but you're going to need it because if you're going to stay you're going to need spaces where you're not gaslighted you're going to need spaces where you are seen where you are valued where you are cherished that becomes the pathway to surviving and then it doesn't feel good to feel like you're in a marriage where you're phoning it in for the rest of your life but you know people people say that now that I'm not as surprised by their behavior it's a little more bearable I've constructed a rich life almost around this marriage and I just sort of you know view that as sort of the kind of annoyance in the side of the room that it is some people people say I happen to adore my my sister but I can't stand my narcissistic parent and you know I so but I'm going to stay in touch with them so I can also have the family gatherings that matter to my sister but I no longer have conversations with my mother or one person I know said she would regularly visit a narcissistic father because nobody else would give him the time of day and he he needed a little bit of assistance she said I'd set a timer 90 minutes max once the 90 minutes rang out I said well I got a jump he'd always yell at her she said but better to yell at 90 minutes than at 3 hours either way he was going to yell so people get into this space of accepting what this is and its limitations some people over time may still decide to leave but not at that moment but staying and not radically accepting it will destroy you can you be happy in a relationship with a narcissist do you think you can be happy but not with the relationship so you don't think you can be happy with the relationship I don't think so no I I think you can see it with its limitations and and I think you know I've met people who said who have told me everything about narcissistic um Partners who said they happen to be able to do this one sex thing I love and so that's just I mean all the rest of it's awful we can't end anyhow so we do the sex thing and it works for me um some people will say we both love watching period dramas and that's they're my person to do period dramas with someone else said we we obsessive about collecting antique fountain pens and I really can't stand spending time with him but we get excited when we find a new pen someone else said he's a hell of a Scrabble player you find the one or two things that work for you is it happy I mean again we're getting back into philosophy there that sense of it you know what's happy on that point of sex are narcissists better in better depends on what you call Better I actually just recently did there's a big piece in USA Today on this that I'd been interviewed for they are very performative lovers they are as you can imagine they like they they they almost want Applause after the sex act right because they need admiration and validation so they actually can be rather invested in getting a partner off because they want to be told oh my gosh you're the best lover ever they might want to be very like mirror sex so they can see their body or your body because it's all again very performative but some narcissistic folks are very selfish lovers the sex can be a little bit porny like it's a bit you know like a bit over the top and like I said it feels performative and um but for some people where it gets into Dangerous Waters is when people are narcissistic relationships and they feel like they're having sex just to go along just to keep the trains of the relationship going along and that's a very unhealthy precedent so it can be on a spectrum from sort of ridiculous performative sex to maybe they're skilled that they want to sort of show off but then they're like a little six-year-old who wants to get a lollipop for having done a good whatever on you and then all the way up to stuff that feels almost coercive Superman has Kryptonite and in the context of the Superman story Kryptonite is the thing that um he's kind of allergic to the thing that kind of you know defeats his very strong set of powers for a narcissist what is their Kryptonite what is the thing that you know makes them fall to their knees and that they run from when they see it in a person a trait maybe I think that for a narcissistic person there's a couple of ways Kryptonite can show up I think that the Kryptonite that we could bring into it is not engaging with them anymore right not giving them the satisfaction of the fight not getting into the mud with them we have to be strong in the face of that because they're going to want the fight so they're going to push and they're going to push and they're going to push and push and try to poke us and make us take the fight because they're really good at fighting another thing that's Kryptonite for a narcissistic person is a person who's much much more powerful than them because they they do feel they sort of feel cowed by them so if they me like I said I gave you the example of the sort of middle level narcissistic person working in a large organization and then they meet the big CEO and it's really really great if you had one of those empathic CEOs and then the narcissistic person who's almost trying to get into the good books with this empathic CEO and all their usual tricks aren't working that would definitely a bit of be a bit of kryptonite too that the very person that they Envy wants them to be sort of warm and fuzzy and all the things that they have contempt for but I have to say not engaging with a narcissistic person is the ultimate Kryptonite and not sort of oooing and eyeing narcissistic people are very used to people oooing and eyeing over them what about authentic I saw you talk about that once that they don't like people that are authentic they feel threatened by people who are authentic so and to show up as your authentic self in a narcissistic relationship can actually be say dangerous I put dangerous in quotes it's not like they're going to beat you up but they're not going to have it right your true self your authentic self they're going to mock it they're going to have contempt for it they're going to if if you're not solid in that authentic identity they're going to attempt to dismantle it which is why many people struggle if they don't know they're dealing with a narcissistic person they may struggle with authenticity in a narcissistic relationship because it gets dismantled it's hard enough for us to get to authenticity if somebody wants to dismantle it especially when we're younger I think authenticity the odds of it happening grow with age it's young it's hard to be a young authentic person but if you remain solid in your authentic identity around the narcissistic person they'll actually probably get bored and leave which is always the Hope right they may ramp up for a little while but then that you're just not an interesting Target to them anymore so then they'll sort of slowly lose interest and walk away famous narcissists what what what famous people are oh [ __ ] you think all famous people are I don't think all are but I think a lot are because the Quest for fame is a very narcissistically driven interest right so I think most normal people don't want to be famous they really don't if you talk to average per person do you want to be famous like hell no I want to be able to go to the grocery store and have no one know who I am I want to be able ble to live my life without being recognized so I think we talk famous people you're saying that is it one in five one in six seems like a lot I'd say famous people we at 40 to 50% 40 to 50% of famous people I do I really think it's a coin flip what about world leaders now we're we might be closer to 60 to 70% I mean think of what you're signing up for it's crazy I need to run a country I believe I can run a country and you know what there's we have in over history had some good people do that but when you look at the circus politics has become which is performative and ridiculous and bombastic and cruel and critical and manipulative I don't see how someone non-narcissistic could ever win at that game why do we vote for narcissists why do we put them into Power well I mean I think that we we we're still we still do what I call we or many of us call we still Fawn in their in their in the face of their Charisma I think we believe somebody who walks around thinking that they're all that that that they actually have the goods I still think we fall for the circus Barker we fall for the person who is who is sort of selling the story we we we vote for them we choose them and I think we want you know this is the best example I can give you Stephen when we go to a magic show right I don't know if you've ever been to a magic show this place called The Magic Castle in La you should you should try to go sometime because I find it intriguing but when you go there's no there's no such thing as magic it's all slight of hand right but for a moment we I don't want them to show me the trick I want to be lost in the magic and most of us most of us not all I think some people want to know how the trick is done but once we're shown how the trick is done the magic's gone now it's just it's it's it's dexterity right most people don't want to know how the trick is done we want to believe in magic and that's why narcissistic people don't get called out because there's something about them there's something that feels you know there's a confidence they breed because they have so much conviction but it's misplaced conviction it's not not conviction backed by facts or Integrity it's just they just believe it because they think it's true and it's going to forward their cause so that becomes a selfing exactly but we believe most of us don't have that kind of conviction we doubt ourselves we question ourselves and so when someone comes in with absolute 100% I wanted to bang my hand but I didn't 100% conviction we're like wow then they must really know what they're talking about leaders have conviction but in fact when we see a leader who's circumspect who might say well give me a minute I want to weigh both sides of this those leaders are often viewed as more weak-minded and are less likely often to get the vote if our adversary in another country is a narcissist you know like a Putin or I know Kim Jong whatever he's called um would we rather our leader that's against him be a narcissist as well that's a fantastic question do we want a narcissist fighting a narcissist I would say that the problem with a narcissist fighting a narcissist is that they lose track of what is good for their people MH so they could drag them into a conflict or a problem that could harm the populace economically physically battles Wars the whole nine yards right and that's what a narcissistic person is more likely to do because they can't be the smaller one in the fight it's all about e it's two egos fighting each other they can't just say okay no but an overly empathic leader might do a little bit of saying okay and then a narcissistic or a psychopathic leader will absolutely sort of railroad that person that sort of perfect midlevel sort of wise circumspect aware of the needs of the populace but aware of the psychology of the perpetrator is what we want I have to say if I ran the world Stephen and I don't not even even long shot and I wish I was more grandiose because really my career would be fire if I was but I'm not and so but I wish what one place I wish we really brought more narcissism training is into di diplomacy I wish more of the diplomats around the planet secretaries of state and un Representatives understood narcissism because I think a lot of times people are making bad deals where a lot of people are getting hurt and they're trying to negotiate with people you cannot negotiate with anyone who's ever tried to negotiate with a narcissistic spouse knows that it's impossible it's no different with a world leader and I think a lot of innocent people have been incredibly harmed as we diddle around and try to negotiate with narcissistic world leaders and just simply aren't willing to call them out for what they are what is the most important thing we haven't discussed that we should have discussed I would say the most important thing that we've discussed is that I don't want people to leave this conversation thinking it's all doom and gloom people can take themselves back from these relationships this isn't like sort of some terrible deterministic destiny that I've been through a narcissistic relationship so I'm never going to be authentic I think what's remarkable is once people learn about this and they're taught about this and the Dynamics of it and they're given permission to call abusive Behavior what it is they're able to slowly but surely start coming back into themselves no longer shaming themselves for having a need or a want or a feeling or a hope people do heal and I've seen remarkable stories of people coming back from familial narcissistic abuse marital narcissistic abuse long-term commit relationship narcissistic abuse workplace narcissistic abuse and out of it have come out so much wiser stronger finally enacting their creative selves I really want people to leave this episode knowing all the Dynamics but that not only is healing possible it happens all the time to people but it's work and it's not an easy process if you've seen my most recent post on LinkedIn you probably have seen that I'm on a bit of a hiring spree at the moment across my company flight group trying to find the world's best talent and throughout these years of build building these businesses my first Port of Call for hiring has always been LinkedIn jobs who are a proud sponsor of this podcast this is because of two reasons number one LinkedIn isn't just another job board it has a vast network of more than a billion professionals and quality candidates which I believe makes it the best place to find in higher professionals you can't find anywhere else and number two their process and features LinkedIn is constantly finding ways to make the hiring process easier with super easy and intuitive features hiring is easy when you have that many quality candidates in in fact 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours through Linkedin jobs post your job for free at linkedin.com doac that's linkedin.com doac to post your job for free right now and of course terms and conditions apply we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest oh in the Diary of a CEO not knowing who they're leaving it for the question here that's been left for you is which was your darkest day and how did you turn the lights on I was stalked by someone who went who sexually assaulted me and um it was sort of this nightmarish Collegiate Experience before you would report these things I'm I'm again I'm quite a bit older than you and it was it was horrific I it was just absolutely horrific and there was I didn't understand I talk about not knowing what narcissism was I was was I was much younger as I'm still my teens early 20s um but you that one experience you learned so much about what trauma does to us but I it was it was absolute Terror I was being stalked all the time I didn't know what to do we didn't understand this stuff then we did not understand we did not talk about it it was we didn't have cell phones it was still like it still back in the these dialing phones days and the person just kept Breaking Me Down breaking me down I didn't know what I was dealing with I didn't have a lot of self self-esteem I didn't know who to ask and you know it was sort of and then it was um yeah it was what it was and so probably is what propelled me to want to work with people who are doubted by systems and who are to help me want understand trauma A system that doubted you there was nowhere to go with that stuff to this day when women bring um reports of sexual assault or abuse on college campuses they're they're believed they're not believed more often than they are believed they're blamed there wasn't even a I didn't even know where to go I didn't know where to take it I didn't know who to tell it's fine I mean I I when I say it's fine i' like I've done the work I've been supported through therapy but you just didn't know where to take it with they an narcissist that person who did it I didn't know them well enough at the time time there was someone who was sort of peripherally known to me yes for sure I say vulnerable narcissist actually which I think by far even some ways is com is at level with the the the danger of the malignant narcissistic person and in that time Stephen very frankly like doing this work I don't know what your experience has been as a public person but maybe as a woman woman of color it's it's a little more risk is that I've had people um say very dangerous things to me in online spaces and issue some real threats towards me and it all came back at me in fact we had something like this happened in the last few years and it just it flooded me I I'd really compartmentalized that piece and it was um and it all comes flooding back when when you went through something like that when you felt again back then it wasn't online stocking it was using phones it was following you places my things were being stolen it was a lot of gaslighting my things would be stolen then my things would be put back so the campus police didn't believe me they'd said you said your stuff was so stolen but your backpack is right there but the person would take my backpack and then put the backpack back in its place can I ask how did that end um I left the university is is that why you left the UN has that inspired why you were focused on working on this subject matter at all no no I I I think I'm like most people should try my I I don't mean to laugh about it but I compartmentalized it you know and I'm saying like as we mostly dissociate from our pain and so um consciously it's uh no not consciously I think dissociation is a very protective mechanism I think the the way the mind and the body work when we've gone through trauma I think the body's beautiful and how it tries to protect us um I think the mind is also trying to protect us and together like these these are painful things but the problem is them getting pushed away actually doesn't do us any favors if you will you know what I'm saying and so um but yeah well thank you thank you for um taking the time to write such brilliant important books on a subject that is still not welln enough H in the way that you go about both your videos your content more broadly but especially your books is so important because you're giving information in a very very accessible way and information is always and awareness is always the first step in being able to do something about your situation and there must be so many thousands hundreds of thousands of people millions of people that have been exposed to your work it's heightened their awareness and because of that they've taken a step out of a situation that wasn't serving them that was hurting their health and happiness and towards a better place and that is a really remarkable thing that is a really really remarkable thing this book was um I've heard about the word narcissism but this new book it's not you turn the lights on for me in a really really important way to be honest as well as a CEO as a business leader it also made me um ask myself a lot of questions about myself about behavior that I have I don't consider myself to be a narcissist but but as I was reading about the behaviors of narcissists and also the impact that it can have on someone I thought [ __ ] hell like you know it's um as you said it's Insidious it's Insidious and we I think I'm right in saying that we can all exhibit some traits of narcissism sometimes and we kind of you know Define that as being an our or whatever um and it really made me want to be a better person it really really did really made me want to be a much much better person so thank you for that thank you for shining a light on this subject matter and thank you for all the millions of people that you've helped through your work it's really important I love that I I mean I think that that's such an interesting take on is that we do sometimes do these things that are narcissistic but we you know not even because we are narcissistic but to even recalibrate those behaviors I think the the the better we all can be the more we're fortified should someone who has these qualities come into our life that we don't give up on ourselves and I think that that's the more good we can sort of create in our univers is that the bad's going to happen it's the nature of life but we'll be stronger in the face of it so thank you I think it was about a year ago I became obsessed with sleep to the point that as many of you know I pretty much have it as a non-negotiable one of the things that I found is a brand called Eight sleep that sponsor this podcast and that is the cover that I have on my bed some of you will know that in order to have sleep our bodies need to be a certain temperature and there's slight variance between all of us that's exactly what eight sleep does it learns more energized and more capable to pursue our goals the podcast sponsors that I have are brands that I love and use and eight sleep is one of them I've had so many technological game changes in my life and eight sleep is certainly one of them check it out at eight sleep.com stepen for Holiday [Music] savings [Music] o

Channel: The Diary Of A CEO

Views: 1,170,520

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Length: 102min 29sec (6149 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024