Founder's Story - Beyond the Mirror: Unveiling Narcissism with Dr. Ramani | S2: E29

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Today's episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, whom I LOVE their MAGNESIUM BREAKTHROUGH product that has helped me sleep better, stay focused, and feel all around healthier. Check out their products at http://bioptimizers.com/danrobbins use promo code FOUNDERS for 10% off any order.In a profound episode of "Founder's Story," host Daniel Robbins engages with Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and a New York Times best-selling author, renowned for her expertise in narcissistic relationships. Dr. Ramani, who also serves as a professor, delves into the complexities of narcissism, a topic that resonates deeply due to its frequent misuse and the emotional weight it carries for many.APPLY TO BE ON PODCAST: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScae1KS6UZRjdG2FjGI-HYNKT-VIdflxbO2YYe62ofAFgDKmA/viewform?usp=pp_url Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Founders Story, the podcast where trailblazing entrepreneurs share their extraordinary journeys. Uncover the passion, grit, and vision that drive the world of business and innovation. Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. Today is something that's very personal to me because I've experienced many of these things and people and things that we're going to talk about today. This is going to be very deep and could be very emotional for a lot of people. That's why I wanted to get Dr. Ramani, who's a New York Times bestselling author of It's Not You, clinical psychologist, professor. I want to say a world leading expert, but she says a leading expert in narcissistic relationships. But Dr. Romney, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.

Before we even dive into all the intricacies, we throw the word narcissist or narcissism out a lot, but I don't know if we even understand what that means. A lot of people don't. I mean, maybe five, I can say 10 years ago, the word narcissist was somebody who likes to look in the mirror and we would reflect on the myth of narcissists, right? Now people have a little bit more of a subtle understanding because people are talking about it all the time, but there's still a tendency to throw the term around if someone aggravated you once. So for example, somebody had a partner, like a boyfriend cheat on them. He's a narcissist.

He might be, he might be, cheat on them. He's a narcissist. He might be. He might be. But the instance of cheating isn't enough. Somebody says someone's rude to someone in a store. Well, they're a narcissist. Maybe they are. Maybe. But I think that if we're going to use a word like this that has so many different sorts

of pieces to it, the example I always give to people, I say, if you give me an egg, I'm not going to thank you for giving me a cake. You gave me an egg. I need the egg probably to make that cake, right? But I also need the flour and the sugar and all the stuff and the putting it in the oven and all of that. That's a cake. And so when you just give me an egg, I'm not going to call it a cake. If you just tell me somebody is entitled one day, I'm not going to say they're a narcissist. What if they're nice all the other days and on one really bad day, they had to wait six hours just to be turned away. I think a lot of us would behave badly that day. So I think one of the problems is, is that because so many, because it's such sort of a clickbaity word, a lot of people are using it

and they're not using it correctly. And that's when it starts to get dangerous because then a people who are really going through narcissistic relationships sort of feel shamed and unheard, or maybe I'm making too big a deal of this because everyone's using the word. And also I think it does a disservice to people, like I said, who may genuinely be solid, not narcissistic people, but having a moment. And these days, everyone with their phones, you make a video of someone at the wrong moment, we could all look narcissistic. And I think that we often sort of generalize from snapshots. And in order to understand narcissism, you really need a much longer narrative arc of

a person. Yeah, that's very sad that that's how we are, right? Because everything is in the moment. Everything is like we watch it for 15 seconds. We don't really dig in deep and get an understanding. Are you finding that, is this like a genetic thing? Is it something that we learn? Like why do people have these narcissistic traits? Yeah. So narcissism is not genetic per se. It's what we call sort of a social development phenomenon. Our personality is shaped by the

world, right? We're born with sort of the seed of our personality that's called our temperament. And that's about as close as personality gets to being biological, but that temperament gets shaped by the world, by our interactions with the world. And narcissism is sort of an interesting personality style because it kind of comes in from two pathways. One pathway I call the pathway of adversity. These are kids who might have, again, that temperament we see in people who ultimately become narcissistic adults tends to be a bit more of a high demand, externalizing, dysregulated kind of a temperament. They're tough kids.

These are tough kids, even tough babies. And so that temperament comes up against an environment. If it's an adverse, invalidating, potentially traumatizing, there's attachment fails, that kind of, again, adverse environment early on, that's one path to narcissism. But the other path to narcissism is actually one of overindulgence. Kids who are told they're more special than anybody else. You're more special. You deserve more opportunities. You shouldn't have to wait in the line. We can get the secret handshake for you because you're more special. That's another

pathway to narcissism. Again, that temperament has to be there. If you have a sweet tempered kid, kid with a sweet temperament, who is raised in that overindulged way, the odds of them becoming narcissistic are pretty low. You need kind of both pieces to it. So it's, there's a biological piece. There's a social piece. The social piece is much, much, much larger. I didn't realize when you swing the pendulum either way. Yeah. Yeah. So if somebody is saying, wow, I think I am in a narcissistic relationship, what is a tip or advice? What do you tell them? So when somebody tells me they're in a narcissistic relationship, what is a tip or advice? What do you tell them? So when somebody tells me they're in a narcissistic relationship, the first thing I want to hear from them is tell me about the relationship, right? It's not that I'm not taking someone on face value. I

want to understand the dynamics of it because remember too, narcissism is on a continuum. So at the mildest levels, you're talking more about sort of an emotionally stunted, attention seeking, look at me kind of vapid superficial narcissism very immature that's very different than at the much more severe end of this of the um of this narcissism spectrum where we're seeing more malignant coercive severely manipulative isolating exploitative qualities right those two people having different experiences in their narcissistic relationships obviously then there are multiple different kinds of narcissism. A grandiose narcissist, it can really feel like a frustrating kind of relationship where it's always the them

show and you're not being seen, but that's not going to be nearly as confusing as a relationship with a vulnerable narcissist or as scary as a relationship with a malignant narcissist, right? So all these subtypes matter. That's why I'd say the first thing I'd want to know if somebody says I'm in a relationship with a narcissist, I'd say, tell me about the relationship. And more importantly, tell me what's happening in the relationship because all that matters here, this word narcissism is only important in so far as it's telling us about the behaviors in the relationship. My ear is going to be listening for things like invalidation, gaslighting, betrayal, fear, domination, deceit, all that stuff that leaves a person feeling psychologically unsafe, unseen,

unheard, confused. Those are the patterns we're looking for. That's one thing I'm looking for. Number two, we're looking for consistency. And we're also looking for inconsistency. And what I mean by that is narcissism, like all personalities, is who we are almost all of the time. There's going to be moments like an agreeable person might be a little bit grumpy one day, just like a narcissistic person might actually be quite nice one day. But it's more moments than not. And across most relationships relationships that's how a personality style is but the tricky piece with narcissism is that there are these good moments that come up not unregularly like there'll be a moment where they notice something in you where they say something nice where you're having a nice time together that's what confuses people if the

narcissistic person was always terrible, people wouldn't be confused. Like, this is a terrible person. But every so often they'll say, you know, it's so confusing. We had such a nice time at dinner. And then the next day it was just, it's like they were two different people. And that's a common statement that people in narcissistic, who are narcissistic relationships make. But what I'd be looking for is these kinds of patterns, this kind of consistency, this kind

of confusion. And what we see for people in narcissistic relationships is they'll say, it's very hard to make a decision on what to do. Do I leave it? Do I stay in it? I don't know which way both paths feel wrong, both paths feel right. But all I know is this is really stressful and I don't like it. And I don't like how this feels, but everyone else seems to like them. A lot of other people seem to respect them. And that's also really challenging. And this is also something that can distinguish it. For example, a relationship with someone who's living with addiction. There's a lot of common commonalities there, but everyone will know, for example, if you're in a relationship with someone who is an alcoholic or is an alcohol use disorder, Everyone's going to know there's a drinking

problem on board. And they may even say, oh, you got a handful on your hand because when he's been drinking, this is tough. That's not how narcissism works, right? So there's not something you can pin it to. And as a result, a lot of people in the world is like, you're so lucky that's your dad. Or wow, gosh, you guys have the best marriage. And you're thinking, oh my gosh, I'm in the twilight zone. Because these people are not seeing what's happening behind closed doors. Yeah, this reminds me of a friendship I had who he was an alcoholic who also had these same traits and personality. And a lot of the things that you're saying, I'm like going back in time to this.

One thing I struggled with once our relationship fell apart was the feeling of wanting to give them forgiveness. Yeah. And I know I've heard you talk to, I think it was Lewis Howes or I was talking about, you know, not having to forgive. So how do you, how do you feel about that? And I think I've struggled with that for many years. Yeah. So the not having to forgive is a big, big, big, big piece of this conversation. Because sort of the prevailing wisdom out there is if you forgive, everything will be fine. If you forgive, you'll feel more whole. If you forgive, it will be the path to your healing.

It's not true. The literature is pretty clear. If you keep forgiving someone who keeps violating your trust or keeps harming you, it actually harms you to do that. Because forgiveness is a process of sort of working through harm in a relationship and then letting go of resentment. A lot of people forgive while they still resent, and that's not forgiveness, right? That might be a way to keep the trains running on time. That might be a way to look cool to the world or to fit a sort of religious credo, excuse me, or a family demand or something like that. But at the end of the day, lots of people will feel doubly quadruply betrayed. You keep forgiving, they keep doing

the thing. You keep forgiving, they keep doing the thing. And so it's a, I often say to people, A, not only is forgiveness not required for healing, you often have a clearer path. We will return to our show shortly. But first, let's talk about today's sponsor, Magnesium Breakthrough by Bio Optimizers. Did you know four out of five Americans don't get enough magnesium? Crucial for over 300 biochemical reactions in your body. Here are signs of magnesium deficiency, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps, high blood pressure, and even constipation. I know I suffer from a few of these, but many supplements don't work well because they use low quality magnesium. That's why Magnesium Breakthrough by BioOptimizers is recommended. Offering seven forms of absorbable

magnesium, BioOptimizers stands by their products with a 365-day money-back guarantee. That's insane. So make sure you visit biooptimizers.com, B-I-O-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com backslash Dan Robbins. That's biooptimizers.com backslash D-A-N-R-O-B-B-I-N-S for a special offer. And make sure you use the code founders, F-O-U-N-D-E-R-S, founders, and you get your 10% off. So check out biooptimizers.com to learn more. And back to the show. ...to healing if you don't forgive. Because then you're registering it within yourself as that was not okay. And the reason it's so important to register within yourself that that was not okay is when it happens again in a future

relationship, especially if it shows up earlier, you've now got the inner model of saying, yeah, no, no, here we are again. This not okay thing is happening. Not cool. Not okay. You may be more willing to step back instead of falling into the muck of this forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness for a narcissistic person. They're not receiving your forgiveness as a divine gift. They're receiving your forgiveness as something that they're entitled to. And so they're not saying, because if a healthy person, we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes in relationships and we hope we're forgiven. But when we are forgiven, we change our behavior and we don't do that thing again.

We don't. And that's how forgiveness is supposed to work. That the forgiveness results in a behavior change and that then actually can take the relationship to the next level of two people recognizing they could work through a conflict one person could could communicate their needs their hurt their wants and not be shamed the other person would make a change because they heard that other person that's how relationships stair step up to healthier and healthier places. But if you forgive a person and they keep doing it, they're basically saying

you don't matter. So that that's just reinforcing a terrible, terrible way to view oneself in a relationship. So it doesn't work in these relationships. And I think the problem is that if you go onto the average health and wellness or feel good website, forgive, let it go, drop the weight. You'll feel lighter. Not here. You won't. Wow. I genuinely, I never feel like emotional when I have interviews, but I have to say this is like, it's drumming up a lot of emotions. And I appreciate you saying this because I'm, I'm really thinking back to things and I feel like I'm almost at peace after this discussion. Changing topics here, I'm curious around how narcissistic traits or somebody who is narcissistic,

how does that impact business? It's a great question. It impacts it in a lot of different ways. At first blush, and even as a sprinter, narcissistic people are often quite, and I'm going to put in quotes, good at business. And by that, I mean, they are about profit above all else. They always want to win. Life is a zero sum game to them.

So they're going to do everything to win. Unfortunately, some of the things they're going to do are shady and ethically questionable and sometimes even illegal. So, but that competitive hustle within a narcissistic person, not caring who they hurt, can mean, like I said, in the sprint, the narcissistic person will close the sale, will close the deal, will make much more aggressive business moves, right? So that's why narcissistic people are often great at business. They love being in charge. They will take charge.

And so there's often that kind of sense of like stepping up. There's no question. They're not asking a thousand people for consultation. However, if it was only that, then I'd be like, great, let the narcissistic people run the world. It ain't just that. Because narcissistic people lack empathy and they're entitled and they're arrogant and they don't really care about and attend to other people's feelings and they view other people as disposable, as people they can use up and throw out. Because of that,

you will see that there's also a greater likelihood of harmful behavior in the workplace, harassment, abuse of selected workers, not paying people enough, doing shady things around compensation, just lying, cheating, stealing. And over time, that can hurt an organization, right? So the person who's doing all the shady stuff might look like the numbers may look good, the business look like it's growing, but then someday all of it will catch up to them. So and we're getting we're more and more aware of this. I think that the glory golden days of narcissistic people abusing everyone in the workplace, some of that, some of those chickens came home to roost in 2017 with me too, which I

actually still think was more of an anti-narcissism movement or every bit as much an anti-narcissism movement as it was a women's movement because the people perpetrating the wrongs in the me too, you know, in the whole, in the me too sort of, you know, universe were narcissistic people who are now going to get called out. They really did think that their workplaces were their playgrounds, that they could have sex with anyone they want, they could touch anyone they want, they could say anything to anyone they wanted, and there were absolutely no consequences. So when a narcissistic person faces consequences, depending on where they are in the business, the business can crumble. And they also might have made ethically questionable decisions that can make a business crumble because even though they understand the decisions affected this one

were from this one leader, it could affect taxes. It could affect all kinds of things. So we've watched institutions, big institutions brought to their knees by narcissistic people being in charge. So like I i said in the short term it can seem like they're the golden goose and because they're the golden goose a lot of businesses especially very very big hierarchical businesses won't kill the golden goose they're making too much money on them so they'll kind of turn an unseeing eye to their abuses in the workplace and so in essence the narcissistic person is enabled by other decision makers in that workplace are like, well, I know he's I know he's an a-hole, but we're making

a lot of money off this person. And so there's that kind of discourse as well. But it is it's a funny conundrum because a lot of people say, gosh, this person really gets the job done. And I guess, but this person is really a dehumanizing person. You're going to have to pick a lane. And unfortunately, the way capitalism set up, a lot of this behavior does get rewarded by this kind of narcissistic style, at least in the short term. In the long term, it'll always bring down kingdoms. It sounds like so many back in the day sales organizations, companies that work for mortgage companies. There's so many back in the day sales organizations, companies that work for like mortgage companies, like there's so many of these companies I work for where every boss was like, sell me this pen, like do this, like get the sale done no matter what, which I never liked.

And I can understand as you're saying that so many organizations that got massive funding, but all the investors truly understood what you're saying and also didn't do a good job of balancing, maybe the C-suite balance or balancing leadership. Or even as a leader myself, I remember promoting people that maybe fit this bucket because I thought, oh my gosh, they're so good at this, but not realizing in the end,

they were just a really bad, they were not fit to be leaders and it could hold everything no well i think the problem is we don't recognize that leadership is not just about outcome right we're like okay they sold the most they should get promoted right they they had the most clients come in they should get promoted we don't tend to look at the culture around the person and a lot of businesses will silence the culture around someone again who is the golden goose people leave and in in fact, what we see is what I call sort of the narcissism inversion and institutions is that if you start getting to, you get, if you

get narcissistic people who are getting more and more power in institution, the healthy people will often leave saying, this isn't worth it to me. They might even, I mean, wherever they go, they might even go to lower paid positions. They may go do their own thing, but whatever it is, they leave. Then what happens is now you've created a culture of yes, people, people who just go along enablers, people who are abused and can't get out of the job. Maybe they need the benefits or the commute is what they want, whatever it is. So people who are just being sort of almost silenced within the group. And then the narcissistic people may, it might even bring up more narcissistic people. So the institution within the group. And then the narcissistic people may, it might even bring up more narcissistic people. So the institution gets diseased. And I've seen this happen. And I've seen

institutions within 15 years go from really solid, well-run ethical organizations to absolutely disease hulks of that do only harm. And so it is, and it does, that's all 15 years. It's, you know, it's only part of a generation that that can happen. So you really do get the healthy people leave, leaving this entire organization. That's really sort of enablers, scared people, other narcissistic people. And then whomever that organization is serving or whomever they're selling to, you know, again, I was just reading an article the other day. I don't know if these people were narcissistic, but I'm willing to bet the farm on it. And they were talking about how it was a big restaurant chain that's now gone

bankrupt. I think it's been around since I was a little kid. And one of the things that they had done was they took the serving staff, like the waiters, and where they once had like three tables, they were giving them 10 tables, right? So that abusive people who don't have a voice in the organization that they couldn't keep up. So now you can't turn around tables, you aren't getting in new checks, all the things that you need to keep a restaurant running because they thought they could just squeeze out every drop of blood from the people who are the lowest in the hierarchy that now the place is bankrupt. And the business has been around for over 50 years. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program,

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all these companies that are now facing this and looking back like, wow, there were some issues. And it wasn't like just because Amazon came in and disrupted or this came in. I think we always think of like it's disruption versus maybe it was the leadership and what they're doing. Knowing how important this is for the world, I know you have some incredible bestselling books and you do a lot of shows and you're really getting out there. You have an incredible YouTube that I hope everyone checks out. But what is your mission in life? So my mission in life is for everybody who's been in these relationships and has been unseen, unheard, unfelt and unlistened to, to be able to find their voice so that they can live authentically and unleash their potential in the world.

So many people have been silenced, feeling not good enough. I shouldn't say that. Who am I to think that? All of those things of self-shaming statements, self-blaming statements and have held themselves back. I actually shudder to think how much innovation we have lost, how many new interesting ideas, how many good people, frankly, we haven't gotten voices from that could have resulted in creativity, that could have resulted in changes in classrooms, in how we deliver healthcare, you name it. We lost those voices because they were silenced by virtue of these narcissistic relationships. And the mental health

community didn't step up and give this a name. They're like, ah, just a difficult relationship. I'm like, no, this is not just a difficult relationship. This is a very different landscape. And again, that's what I'm saying. We shouldn't just walk around saying everyone's narcissistic. But I think we need to teach people what is and what is not acceptable in a relationship. So this is really about breaking through existing hierarchies, existing structures that were permissible for so long. So it is as much a sociological movement as it is a clinical movement to me. But I want people to get their voices back. I want to know what they're dealing with because once you know what you're dealing with, it doesn't mean you all everyone goes no contact with all the narcissists.

But I'll tell you this. We don't engage with them in the same way ever again. I love that mission. I mean, that's that's incredible. The world needs it. We're all about impact here. The world needs this. I can't stop thinking about how many even cultures are out there in the world that really foster this and how much better things could be in many places if we knew.

What is your personal attachment to this movement and this mission? And what inspired you to do this? Yeah, I came up very academically in this space. I'd started as me doing research in this space. And then I was doing a lot of clinical practice in the space and the clinical practice I even stumbled into. I was like, you all keep telling me the same relationships. Why aren't we sort of pinning into the narcissism of this other person? Once I started doing more of that, I saw a lot of change in these clients and a lot of improvement. They weren't blaming themselves as much and they were more

decisive. It was ironic that I, I went through my own academic and clinical kind of journey through this, if you will, and then only then said, wait a minute, like this was happening in my life. And when I now go back and I see all these critical junctures, how long I sort of devalued myself, how long I thought I was not good enough. I didn't take chances. I have experienced narcissistic relationships in family relationships, intimate relationships, friendships, workplace. And I have to say, in some cases, these relationships changed the trajectory of my life, but I wasn't clocking them as such. I was in therapy for years and my own therapist said, she's like, we just didn't

use this terminology. I'm not mad at her. I mean, again, there's, there's a small group of people. And I think a big part of the problem is that when in the past we talked about narcissistic relationships, we talked about the big, big, big ones, the severe, really almost look like domestically abusive relationships, right? Those are incredibly important to study, but what it was missing is people who may not have been physically abused by a parent or people who had not been, um, physically harmed by a partner or weren't had not been physically harmed by a partner or weren't being like majorly harassed at work were thinking, this isn't my story. Like, I don't feel like I have PTSD. I don't feel like I'm living in fear of my life. But they were saying, I don't

feel I didn't feel safe or comfortable. I didn't feel like I could. If I every time I talked about myself, I was shut down. And they so started to believe, well, I'm the egotistical one. Well, maybe I shouldn't want to talk about myself, right? Wasn and they so started to believe well i'm the egotistical one well maybe i shouldn't want to talk about myself right wasn't like they wanted to talk about themselves all the time they wanted to share an opinion or a feeling they wanted to share an accomplishment and have someone say wow good job instead of why do you always make it about you when they never did so they were living in an alternate universe where they were being accused of things that the other person was doing so i was living that and it took well, I was, I was doing this work for a long time before I clocked it as what I was going through, which I always find fascinating because people assume like, well,

you're trying to solve yourself. I'm like, no, I do have to say, once I started doing this, the pieces of my life fell into place almost instantly. And I almost had to sort of guide my own therapist along in this for which he was grateful. Like she said, she said, this work doesn't exist. This is your, this is blazing new trail in the area of mental health. So I have to say that it was that, that the personal part of it, but those relationships changed me. And I'll be very frank with you. Some of the narcissistic people who have crossed my paths, hurt my life. And I'm going to say in some irreparable ways, I don't forgive them. I managed to find the, um, the jewels in the, in the ashes. I really did. Like I managed to sort of keep, keep on keeping on, but that wasn't necessary and it was unforgivable and it did change me. And I do carry those wounds and I still

don't feel good enough. And I didn't need that. Nobody needs that. And so no, not forgivable. And I guarantee you, those people are still doing it to others. So I just feel as though I took, that was the last part of this process for me. And the fact is now I very much interact with the narcissistic people I have still in my life that for whatever reason, I couldn't fully disengage from. I engage with them in a very, very different way. And it has really, really set me free. Thank you for all you do. But I'm so appreciative that you are now sharing that with everyone. I know I've been very impacted by you, your book, all the things that you're saying has

helped me a lot. I've gone through some similar things I feel like in my life. So thank you for all you do. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to learn more information. They want to get your book, get you on social media. How can they do so? Yeah. So please go get the book. It's not, you can get it anywhere books are sold and many times there's specials running. So go and get the book. Um, you can follow me on YouTube at Dr. Romney. We put out new content every day. I have a healing program for people who want to do a deeper dive, who've gone through narcissistic relationships, want to join our monthly program.

You can find that information on my website. You can follow me on all social media at Dr. Romani. And so you just look me up and then you'll see me on all social media. And we're starting a new platform next week on Fireside, which is an app that is a company, one of Mark Cuban's companies. And this is a sort of a new way to do audience engagement. People who want to have, you know, hear more content, hear question and answer, hear people bring their real questions, or maybe they bring theirs. We do that launch in a week. So if you want to go to Fireside and look up Dr. Romney, you can get the Fireside app and you can join us. Well, Dr. Romney, I remember Fireside used to use it all the time. I love the live interaction. I can't wait to see that. Please get that book. I mean, I need to go through all this and I need

to share this with many people that I know that need it. So thank you for all you do. And thank you for joining us today on Founders Story. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.