Habits and Hustle - Habits and Hustle Re-Release! Episode 75: Dr. Ramani Durvasula – Narcissism Expert, Clinical Psychologist, and Professor of Psychology

Episode Date: March 7, 2021

If you haven’t heard this episode before, you’re in luck! This is one of our favorite episodes ever released on Habits and Hustle. We’ve grown so much since episode 75 and we wanted to re-release this episode for our newest listeners! Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a Narcissism Expert, Clinical Psychologist, and Professor of Psychology. What it means to be a narcissist, the different types of narcissistic behavior, how to spot those relationships in your own life, and how to navigate entrepreneurship in a healthy way avoiding these toxic tendencies. Dr. Ramani expands on and explains these possible harms opening up what many people may be and have been enduring their entire lives. From the Me Too movement to an office job, to a “charming yoga expert”, to our homes… our lives seem plagued by these people. Tired of feeling used, like a pushover, or maybe even not sure how to spot if you’re dealing with a narcissist yourself? Take Dr. Ramani’s insight and see the world’s narcissists for what they truly are. Youtube Episode to this Episode Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s Website Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s Youtube Channel ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Only a DQ. Happy taste good. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast. A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits, and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by habit nest. Now here's your host, Jennifer Cohen. Now you're doing like, you're basically strictly doing

narcissism, like that's your women toxic relationships. That's my, that's it. And I, it's the, you know, it's really where I found the greatest impact in the work that I do ever. I mean, how desperate people were to understand this, men, women, all over the world. I mean, listen, I got nothing to bring to the weight loss table, Doni, and when you're stressed, you eat. And so there's just a pointless conversation.

It's not a pointless conversation. In many ways, the mental health profession has really contributed to people staying in toxic relationships, not recognizing toxic relationships. I mean, there's almost this unwillingness to recognize them. So anything can be fixed through love and light, and it's obviously not the case. And so that's where I was able to come in with all my beautiful pessimism. It was funny. Well, not funny at all, but when I was looking at your stuff, I couldn't believe how many views some of these videos were getting on narcissism, which tells us something much, much bigger, right?

I mean, there's, that's obviously, isn't technically a mental disorder, though? Isn't it? So it's tricky, right? So, you know, and this is where there's a lot, I prefer to take almost like the straight orthodoxy in the sense of when you use the term narcissism, narcissist, you're talking about a personality style that is, to me, it's pathologic, but it's not diagnostic, right? So it's such a curious thing. To me, it's very, very, very unhealthy and yet we live in a world that values it. So we've never, so in other words,, imagine living in a world where people love to depressed people.

We're going to make depressed people our leaders. We're going to give depressed people all the money. The depressed people are going to have all the Instagram followers. It's the same thing, except it's narcissism. Right. Well, don't you kind of, I mean, I have all these questions I want to ask you, but I like I like just before we even jump into them, I just couldn't like I said I couldn't believe the popularity of I'm curiosity about narcissism. And I was always thinking like and I do it to everyone does this, but like when they say things like

when people deserve much they're very like they're very like Lucy Goosey, like, oh, I hate that person, they're psycho, or like that person is a narcissist. Like it's such a throwback, right? Yeah. When you don't like somebody or when someone, like you feel wrongs you or that you feel, and then when you kind of like delve into it, I do find like when I look at all the different types

of character traits that even you live in your book or in your videos about what a true narcissist is, there has to be a correlation between a true narcissist and success because you need to have that feeling of self-importance and self- you know that a grandizing feeling that you can achieve great things. Yeah, but here's the challenge. That's a tiny slice of the narcissism pie. The bigger part of the narcissism pie

is that you invalidate people and you devalue people and you gaslight people. So while the aggrandizement often goes along with those things, it's a matter of, it's very interesting how we, I think so many people struggle with confidence that when they see somebody with false confidence, it's very interesting how I think so many people struggle with confidence that when they see somebody with false confidence, it's deducted. Not recognizing that the narcissists are the most insecure people in the room. And what's fascinating is that a person who's truly confident, in fact, is at times somewhat

self-effacing, they're humble, like, I know my stuff, you know, and so I don't need to make, I don't need to draw a lot of attention to myself. And so whereas the narcissist is so insecure, that they're the ones that are frothing and spinning, validate me, validate me, validate me, and for some reason we fall in for it, my hope and my lifetime is to get people to stop paying attention to the aggrandizing people

and look at the quietly confident ones because they're the money shop. I totally agree with that, right? I totally agree with that because the people who are truly, they feel like they have self worth. They don't feel like they have to tell everybody and basically yell it from every raster and that, okay, so let's start this.

So how do you even spot a narcissist? How do you, here's a tough one. It's like the people say, how quick until you get in a narcissist? How do you... Here's a tough one. It's like the people say, how quick until you get in a room could you tell? It can be tricky, right? Because listen, I'm the first person to tell you charming and charismatic people make me incredibly nervous. If you're very charming and charismatic, I'm going to walk away from you.

It's actually a terrifying set of qualities to me because it's so awesome. It's associated with narcissism. Not all charming and charismatic people are narcissistic, but so many are that I try to cut my losses and I won't even go there. Right? So because when we're looking at a narcissistic person, we're looking at somebody who is grandiose, who lacks empathy, who is very entitled. In other words, they feel like the rules don't apply to them. They apply to everyone else, but they don't apply to them. They're arrogant. They're constantly seeking validation and admiration. They are, they're quite sensitive. So they can throw out zingers at everyone, but if anyone even hints

at something that sort of mildly, I don't even playful driving with a narcissist, they'll get very hostile, defensive, you know, angry, they're prone to rage when they're stressed or disappointed. They don't tend to value another, other people enough to listen to them. My favorite is when they say, they'll Yamaron and hold court for 45 minutes, but as soon as somebody else starts to speak, they'll get distracted, they'll look at their phone, they'll be looking off in the distance, and then they'll claim that they have ADHD. I'm like, well, you didn't have ADHD for the first 45 minutes of this conversation when

you wouldn't shut up. So I'm not buying it. So it's all of these things. It's an antagonistic style that may not emerge the first time. But what you'll see is, again, they're often holding court. It's, you know, and a lot of people are sort of, it's because people are almost mystified, seduced, hypnotized by narcissists.

It's amazing. If you don't know what you're looking for, it's very easy to get sucked in. Like I said, I'm the only person in the world who, when they see someone charming or charismatic, makes a beeline for the rumped person in the corner. So what kind of person do you look for? The person who's kind of awkward, uncomfortable or just quiet or quiet? Why it humble, a good listener,

ask me as many questions as I ask them. It's a balanced conversation. They actually, what I enjoy are people who are able to stay in the moment. You meet them in a garden and they'll say, do you know what kind of tree that is? I'm not saying, you know, I don't know what kind of tree that is. And we'll start talking about the tree and say, you know, I grew up with a tree like this. Really, you know, I did too. You, it had to be 20 minutes before you even know what they do versus the, hey, John Smith, cell cars. Yeah, yeah. Mr. Jones, it worked for MTV and you get the resume before you get the person. That's always a good sign too. That's a very good sign. But I do think that there are, you know, that whole saying, like, the Fox and, oh, what is it? Like, a sheep and wolf's clothing or whatever that say.

Well, yeah, well, yeah, well, the sheep's clothing because I think if you're smart and you have that ability to kind of like be somewhat like aware, you know, you can fool people at the beginning. You can seem that you're interested. You can kind of play it back and we can still be a narcissist, right? Oh, absolutely. In fact, narcissists are masterful at emulation. They're listening to you, but they're listening to you to get data.

They're listening to you to get intel. It's almost like they're almost trying to penetrate beneath. And some people view that as, when people tell me they just met someone and they had a magical connection, I say, don't, don't, don't go on a date. Just end it. There's a dangerous word in my world, magical connection. So made, never felt this way before.

To me, it speaks to the love bombing, the idealization, the larger than life, that almost bizarre ability to climb into you, because they're almost like sucking out all your vulnerabilities, learning them, because I promise you six months down the road they're going to use them as a weapon against you. Well, so how did you become such a, I mean, you're obviously a very brilliant, and I'm not saying that just to like, you know, blow, you know, smoke up your butt, but you are always a very brilliant psychologist.

I back even went, my question is, what made you really hone in on this? Did you have a narcissist in your life that you wanted to really kind of like hone in on it or you just, or you feel like that of all the personality types? This one is such a common one that you wanted to kind of explain it

away to people. There's actually multiple pathways and I, you know, although I've had personal experience with it, what's interesting, it wasn't my personal experience that pulled me into this area. It was actually after having, I started in a research, in looking at it in research. And what it happened was I was working in sort of looking at healthcare issues and several of my students who were working at a research project would come to back to the main lab and say, I'm so frustrated, why are these clients so difficult?

In other words, they were harassing the nurses, these patients who were harassing the receptionist. And I took a moment and I said, how interesting, what's happening? And they over and over the student assistance for telling me the same thing. It dawned on me that there was a cluster of really difficult patients. I happened to be seeing it in my lab and the clinic I was affiliated with,

but then I started asking around, nurses and doctors all the way, yeah. There's like 10% of our patients, suck 80% of our resources because there's such jerks and they burn bridges and frankly, these people don't end up getting as good health care. That led me to get interested in personality disorders of people who had illnesses. And so I started doing research actually funded by the National Institutes of Health on

personality and in people with HIV. Some of this happened to be the area I was working in. At the same time I was also working as a clinician. And I would say from about 2014 on, increasingly I was working with people. Most people come into therapy with relationship problems, problems with husbands, wives, girlfriends, girlfriends, bosses, siblings, families, but particularly in the relationship space. Everybody kept coming in with the same story. This person isn't listening, they deny my reality, I feel like I don't exist. And I was like, that's interesting.

And they kept telling me the same thing. And after the session, they sometimes say, I'm so adult and so confused. Could you put some of this in an email? And I take the clinical notes, I have to keep anyhow. I toss them in an email. And after a while, I started looking at these emails on site. These emails might make a book. And so, you know, and then I started doing a deeper dive.

And I felt like, well, I didn't think anyone was getting at this issue the way it could be. So I wrote, should I stay or should I go surviving a relationship with a narcissist. As that process went on, I actually started seeing that I had been affected by many narcissists in my life in professional settings, in personal settings, in friendship settings, and in work and in my family of origin, kind of stuff. So every part of my life, I thought, this is very interesting. And as I did the deeper dive in my own therapy, I said, I floated to my therapist, I said, what do you think about this? And she said, all right, let's go, let's talk about this.

And even she hadn't gone there with me. And then all of these journeys sort of coalesced. And then 2016 happened and there was a presidential election. So I was quietly talking about this. And I thought, oh my goodness, is it going to happen that this thing has reached the tipping point? And this person, and I don't care what your politics are, it doesn't matter your politics, he's a narcissist.

Some people like his narcissism, some people don't, but that's just a statement of fact. And so I thought we're about to normalize this. That led me to write my most recent book, which is, don't you know who I am? How to how to stay sane in an era of narcissism entitlement and incivility. So from the election, yep, thank you, the election until it came out in 2019, I actually worked on that book, watching everything that was going on in the world, and then, you know, what, everyone needs a millennial for a mentor, and I worked with two magnificent, a couple of, actually more than two, but a couple magnificent people, and they said, you know what, Doc, nobody reads anymore, and your book is great, but you got to make videos. I said, I don't like videos.

And they said, will you give us a chance? And we're sort of making videos. And that's where we reached. And then I saw how global this phenomenon was. And then I started traveling to India, South Africa, and meeting clinicians. And I thought, oh my goodness. And nobody in mental health wanted to touch this.

This was like the bug nobody wanted to study, the fish nobody wanted to catch. And I was like, okay, somebody has to talk about this. And so, you know, someone needs to. And so, I did, here I am. Why? Why would people not want to touch this? Because it feels juggie. So in mental health, we're very trained.

You go to therapy. Let's say you go to therapy, you're sitting in the room with your therapist, and you're going on and on about a partner. Okay? The therapist is going to say, let's say you go to therapy, you're sitting in the room with your therapist, and you're going on and on about a partner, okay? The therapist is gonna say, you know what, can we just keep the focus on you? You keep talking about this other person, and you're like, I feel really confused, I feel really anxious, I'm constantly invalidated.

Well, what is it about you? How have you perceived the situation differently? And I'm thinking, are you serious? Proceed the situation differently? If I'm thinking, are you serious? Proceed the situation differently. If I could teach my client what's happening, because you gotta remember, I'm not making this up. These clients would show up with emails, with text messages.

Sometimes they even have phone calls while they were in the office with me on speaker, so I could hear what they were dealing with. They would bring in voice mail. They would bring in voice recordings. It was very clear what they're dealing with. Some of bring in voicemails. They would bring in voice recordings. It was very clear what they're dealing with. Some of these clients had been in therapy for a decade with other therapists.

Inside of six weeks, by merely educating them about narcissism, they're like, oh, this was never my fault. I'm like, no, this was their personality and it's not gonna change. People getting out, adjusting, 50% of people say 50% of people go. Not everyone was getting a divorce where people are like, now I know I'm not going to engage with this person anymore. I am not going to fix my dreams to this person anymore. I get it now. And

life's got changed and I said it's this simple. But nobody wants to do this in mental health. They think we shouldn't be talking about people who are in the room. You shouldn't be talking in diagnostic terms like narcissism about people you don't know. I said, oh, I think we should. That's such a true point because people do stay in therapy all the time. I mean, when I've been in therapy, I'm not a big therapy person per se, but when I have gone and I did speak about people, that would happen all the time, which is why I never liked going to therapy.

It was because they would always say, time, which is why I never liked going to therapy, because they would always say, well, what about you? How do you, they would try to like manipulate the conversation when, and I would always say, and I'm sure other people like, sometimes, you know, a cigar is just a cigar, you know, like sometimes a person's personality is what a person's personality is, you don't always have to internalize it. A big thing in like performance also and in general is about, always about, you can only control yourself. That's what a lot of people say.

You can't control outside external forces. So it kind of makes people feel like they, it is their fault or it's their problem that they are reacting to some other external action. When, quite frankly, sometimes that is what happens, right? Because other people do create reaction. But here's the thing, what I want them to understand is that that thing they're reacting to is predictable. So I'd say you're being guessed like,

so your reality's being denied. Instead of going with them, why can't you hold on to your reality? Because if I were to say something to me, I don't know what something. And I'd say, you know, I think you're being too sensitive. I actually don't think you're hearing me right. That's incredibly disrespectful. You know, instead of saying, she's sharing a feeling with me, let me hear her feeling and respect that feeling. And you know what? Because I'm sitting here in the guise of the expert.

You'd say, maybe I am being too sensitive. It's an incredibly manipulative thing for me to do. And when people go through that for years, decades, and more importantly, if they grew up like that, they don't even know that there's another kind of normal. And I have to say, the people who make the rules are more often than not narcissistic. As we said, they're not narcissistic. Yeah, exactly. So it's really about getting into these systems and saying, this isn't okay. You know, we have to teach people that your realities are your realities. People

can't take them away. Being invalidated is not normal. And once people understand this, that these toxic patterns are not okay and they're not your fault, it's the person's behavior, that's the problem. The other person who's behaving this toxic manner, then it allows clients to almost get freed up and say, okay, this still feels awful. And I feel like I'm not enough. But then we can start doing the deeper dive without them trying to please somebody who's unpleasable.

It's like having a calculator that keeps giving you two post two is five, slowly calculator up. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. So you keep on, you said a couple of things here and I know that you have a video about this and you mentioned these two things a lot. You say love bombing and gas, gas, gas, lightning.

What does that mean? Give us a definition of those. So narcissistic relationships have sort of a natural history to them. And phase one is typically what we call love bombing. Love bombing in general is a phase of idealization, seduction, winning someone over, but in often a really big way. Now in the classical form of love bombing,

it's the fairy tale romance. Let's go on a fabulous vacation on our fourth date. I'm going to set a white tablecloth on the beach. I'm going to take you to all the expensive restaurants and towns. I'm going to send a hundred dozen roses to your workplace. These big grandiose gestures. And some people will even say, you know what? It almost falls a little bit off-putting, but the people around me saying, oh my gosh, what's wrong with you're in a romantic love story and you're questioning it. They were right to question it. But love bombing doesn't always look like big grandiose gestures. Sometimes it's a person being super over-controlling.

Good morning, baby. Good afternoon, princess. Good afternoon, princess. Good night, gorgeous. What you doing? Where are you at? Who are you with? And it's a lot of that. And people feel like, oh, wow, look at all this attention

this person's giving me. And to me, it's stalking. And they'll say, well, no, it's early in the relationship. And that first time you don't respond to the good night text because you fell asleep. Where were you? Who are you with? And then you start seeing that it starts to escalate because this constant texting and calling

and video calling or whatever it is, was a means of control. So that's another way love bombing can take, can happen of almost too much intense attention that people interpret as deep, deep interest. Wow, this person's so intimate. Another form of love bombing is things move too quickly. People move in with each other after the first month. You're meeting their mother after the first week and you didn't originally know their mom. You're very quickly, things are happening too quickly. They're talking about marriage and we should buy a house and I'm moving here. You should move with me. And you feel again, a lot of people will say they feel guilty

saying, ah this is too much too quick and they'll often get almost shamed by other people say, whoa you're in the love story, you always complain, people don't call you back and here's this person. So love bombing is confusing and move so quickly you don't get a chance to notice the red flags and trust me those red flags are popping up everywhere. Then, here's the funny thing about love bombing. Once you give into it and love bombing, let me just go backwards a minute. It's not even always this big, big interest. Sometimes, it's a person that feels like they need so desperately to be rescued. So you meet this person and they almost sort of seem a bit like a sad sack. Nothing's gone their way.

You know, I've worked really hard and yeah, you know, and nothing ever went my way and my dad this and victim this and I'm victimized by that. And whoa, it was me and why didn't life work out for me? And very empathic people often feel very tempted to rescue people like that. So love bombing can look like this sort of rescue-y kind of experience as well. They rescue you, you rescue them, and very often a narcissist will meet you at a transitional time in your life. You've moved to a new city, you started a new job, you're coming out of another relationship, you're coming out of

an illness, a family member just died, they're really good at smelling blood and the blood they smells vulnerability. Once the love bombing works inside of a month or two, they'll start devaluing you. So once they've got you where they want you, that's when the contempt, because it's almost like the novelty is worn off. The game, the hunt, the catch, that's what they're looking for. Keep coming back, you got plenty of space!

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for the all warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water, zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. So is that really, is that 100% of the time and the narcissists like to thrill the chase? They do, because everything's a game to them

and all about the win. They want to win, win, win, win. And it's very much this idea of superiority and egocentricity and competition, which are not the ingredients of a healthy relationship. But winning is everything, which is why they're so successful on paper, why they make more money, why they have big jobs, why they run the world, because they're so obsessed with winning. But for them, then courtship why they run the world because they're so obsessed with winning, but for them, then courtship dating becomes about winning. So a lot of people think, well, I'm gonna play hard to get because that's what you're supposed to do That's even worse because now they're more obsessed with winning and now you're stuck with this narcissist when it's done right and then so how often do those relationships end?

pretty quickly if the thrill of the chase is just the goal. I would say in a certain percentage of cases, here, let's not be a spit ball. This is an even based on data. It's just anecdotally, I'd say about a third of the time the narcissist is sort of a serial data. It's almost like eating the top of the cupcake. They just want the fun, and then yeah,

I'm throwing out the stump. Like they want the bomb, they want the fun, they want the new sex, the new experiences, and then once you, I'm throwing out the stump. Like, they want the bomb, they want the fun, they want the new sex, the new experiences, and then once you start talking about, like, once it starts becoming sweatpants and hanging out in commitment, not so much, they move on to the next one. Unfortunately, in the other two thirds of cases,

because believe it or not, these narcissists who we think are also confident, like I said, are actually quite insecure. They're actually very uncomfortable with abandonment. So they often will hold on to relationships because they love the idea of a sure thing because it helps them feel comfortable. They just treat that sure thing really badly.

Right. So it's more about having like, it's kind of like, you're kind of just taking for granted like an old sock basically. Very quick. And but yet you've given the confidence to kind of feel that they have something like a safety, like a safety net type of deal. Well, in you.

So in other words, once they have somebody, they like that, they like how it looks to the world that they're in a relationship. Right. They like having something consistent. They like, again, they like the safety because they're so insecure. And especially if you're a good source of what's called narcissistic supply, which is all the admiration and validation that they need, then they're going to keep you around too because they need that

narcissistic supply the way I need the air that I breathe. Like we just they need it and if they don't get it, they get really, really frustrated. So then what you said, I was going to say, what personality type, you kind of said it a little bit earlier, the narcissist will smell blood, like they'll go for someone who's very Emphacetic you said right that would be the first so what other kind of personalities are They go for people who are so they go to people who are hyper empathic They go to people who are rescuers who want to fix things all the time They go to people who are hyper optimistic.

Like, I love your energy and let's go be energy together. And let's do yoga and have energy and kale and have energy. And I love you and you're so great. And what a great idea. And it's like all of that kind of like happy, happy, happy. And I'm thinking, oh my god, they're not seeing this realistically. So those hyper optimists, they can't see it. And they're like, no, he just had a bad day.

No, he's just really stressed. No, they're just friends. I'm like seriously, keep it in Kale's sweetheart because you're not seeing this. Right. So very optimistic folks. They also, um, they may not know this about the person, but something that renders a person vulnerable to a narcissistic relationship is somebody who came from a family where they had one or two narcissistic parents.

In many ways, you get so used to the narrative that you're not enough, that when somebody starts treating you not enough, a lot of people go with it. In fact, it feels very familiar and I hate to say it almost magical. And then sometimes they like a partner because they bring a value added to the table. So it's an older man dating a much, much younger woman. It's a person going for someone who's incredibly attractive, incredibly wealthy, very famous, or somehow very successful in their field.

So they bring a very superficial kind of thing. Narcissist will love those kinds of partners. That's very much what they're often looking for. Now, what's the percentage of male to female? Is there a lot of female narcissists? As much as... There's more female narcissists than you would think. I mean, I've often given a split of 80, 20 with each passing year.

I shift that number. I'm guessing probably closer to 70, 30. And because enough people listening to your podcast are gonna say, no, my mom's a narcissist. The number of people out there of narcissistic mothers are quite prolific. And so those are all obviously women. Right. Right. So I think that men are more likely to be raised and socialized to be narcissists. They're, they're not valued for their emotional inner worlds. They're told they're weak if they show emotion. They're raised to be more competitive, they're not raised to be as empathic.

So that's sort of a byproduct of how we parent voice in our culture and how society reinforces voice that said, it's not that simple. And since these are very ancient developmental issues that come from infancy forward, a woman can just as likely be a narcissist. And I could say there's plenty of men out there who could listen to something. I just say, no, this is my wife. This is my girlfriend. I would say in my practice, it's getting closer to 50-50 that I'm seeing.

So it's, I think we're getting there. Yeah, I mean, because I think what you just said is also very accurate. When you hear other people talk about bad relationship with them and their, like their mom, their father, You do hear that a lot. My mother was really narcissistic, which of course are women. So you're saying it is becoming much more balanced. I am seeing it much more in women. I mean, listen, recently there was a whole spate of scandals

where a bunch of rather women who were sort of bosses of companies, like big companies, were stepping down because of their toxic behavior. So I mean, I've had female toxic bosses and let me tell you, it was a nightmare, every bit is nightmares as a man who is a toxic boss. So you see that. I mean, there's no reason why there's limits on that. So I think it's out there.

I think it's absolutely out there. I think that it is again, it's probably more socialized in men, but in my, I honestly think in my lifetime, we're going to see those ratios of balance out to more 50 50. Do women narcissists kind of pick a different, the same type of guy then would it be the same, empathetic, more if they're superficially like make them look good, basically, in other one, optimistic, yeah, optimistic. They choose men who basically are enablers in both cases, whether it's a man or a woman, ultimately what's a narcissist

looking for in a partner, they need an enabler. And that's what they're looking for, even though they've never said it, obviously. Right, right, right. And so, okay, that's very interesting. Okay. And then what is gas, what is this gas light? So gaslighting, a lot of people use the word, you know, and it's very much on our radar now. Gaslighting is emotional manipulation that takes place because you're doubting or denying the reality of another person. The most common way, one of the most simple ways you can gaslight someone saying you're being too sensitive. So now I've just judged your emotion. It could be things like that never happened. You're making too big a deal out of this

uh, Dale deflect that you'll start talking about one thing and I'll completely change the subject um, they'll minimize it, uh, they'll minimize what you're going through or they'll start saying, you know what, there must be really be something very wrong with you for saying that. So now they're calling you mentally ill, you're actually building bringing up a relationship issue. So again, it's a denial of your reality. And so it is very harmful. It qualifies as emotional abuse. And it is the narcissist ground game. Within the first three to four weeks of a relationship of the narcissist, they will gaslight you stop making such a big deal out of that. It's not that big a deal. This is them. That's it.

Three to four weeks. I'm telling you honestly, I have now probably talked to thousands of people who've been through narcissistic relationships. And I will do surveys and we'll have them in these massive chats and people will drop their number in there. And I'll say, these are people who've been married 60 years and people who've been dating for six months.

And I always ask them a question, how soon into the relationship did you suspect something wasn't right that the red flag started popping up and invariably people said within the first month? I'd say probably 10% of people don't say that, but 90% of people say, in the first month, I knew something wasn't right, but I started making excuses and rationalizations because I thought I was the one at fault.

Wow. And is it always the gaslighting reason or is it something? There'd be anything. It could be. They seem shady. They lie. They don't listen. They would get angry very quickly.

Their stories didn't add up. They would talk badly about other people. I say, listen, if you're talking badly about other people, I promise you, they're talking about you, like this, to somebody else. It's a pretty good rule of thumb. So you would see these stories not adding up. All these different things would start happening.

They would have poor boundaries with people. It would be a million little things that are so easy to just sort of gloss away. And listen, there's a pressure people feel like I want this to work, I've dated so long, I'm 35, I want to get married, and I consider there's certain high risk relationship groups, people who are getting older and maybe coming out of a divorce. I can't tell you how many women I've worked with, probably age 50, 55, and older, who will say, gosh, in this town, everyone my age wants a day to 25 year old gal. So if I find a guy who wants to date me, I've got to hold on to him for your life. And that's the setup for dating and narcissists.

Yeah. No, you're talking about Los Angeles. I'm sure of it, right? Because that's the thing I'm talking about Los Angeles. I can't tell you how many emails I get from people who live in small towns in all about Los Angeles, I'm sure of it, right? Because that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Los Angeles. Do you know what? I can't tell you how many emails I get from people who live in small towns in all 50 states and in every country in the world. So this is, I think it's more pronounced in big cities for sure, but it's happening everywhere.

Are you wearing bracelets by chance? Because I'm hearing a, oh, you know what, it might be my hair. There you go. Is it? It might be, yeah, because I'm not wearing anything. Oh, that's, yeah, what do you have in your hair? I'm hearing like all this, like,

it sounds like bracelets. Yeah, no, you know, I've had this problem with this microphone before, so I'm gonna hold it out a little bit. Oh, okay, good, yeah. Thank you. I was gonna ask you, do two narcissists get along then? What happens with two narcissists together? When two narcissists get along, it's sort of interesting because initially they can be quite drawn to

each other because they engage in something I call parallel play. Like they both like, I got a bow, oh yeah, I got a big bow, oh I have a test, no I have a test, I like, look at my watch, I love your watch, I have a watch like that, oh what kind of card, da da da da da, there's a lot of like pissing contests, even if it's a lot too contests. The problem is when one of those narcissists starts doing better than the other. They feel like the other person, because narcissists are very prone to envy and coveted, coveting what other people have. So now if their friend gets a better house, a better whatever it is, they're going to start feeling competitive with them and it's going to bring a lot of negative emotion into the relationship.

And because narcissists are so insecure, this idea that your superficial friend is doing superficially better than you is very unsettling for the narcissist. But because they're afraid of abandonment, they may stick around because they like the narcissistic supply, their fancy narcissistic friend brings. And so they get into this very kind of tense dance with these with another narcissist, but more often than not, these relationships and friendships sort of blow up. So then basically we're talking about success and narcissism, right? So what is the, like I guess, do you have any data on what is the percentage of people who are narcissists who are professionally

very successful? There is there one? There was one survey that was done. And the data was published, gosh, I wish I could remember the original article. But they were suggesting probably about 25% of CEOs would qualify as psychopaths. Now, my guess is that 25% of CEOs' numbers probably more like malignant narcissists,

but that seemed about right. In fact, that was lower than I thought it would be. Maybe they were psychopaths and maybe 50% to 60% of CEOs are narcissists. So the numbers are high. The higher you get up in leadership, the more likely you're going to find a narcissist, because naturally, narcissists want to be the boss, right? So there's people out there who are smart and they're like, I don't want to be the leader. I like what I'm doing. I don't want the headache of dealing with all these people like I'm good.

Right. I don't need the title and I don't need the big office, but the narcissist needs the title. They need the big office. So they're going to fight to be the leader because they just simply have to be the leader. It's not because they're visionary. It's not because they want to do right by people. It's because they need to be the boss. And how about entrepreneurs, right, who have to be self starters, who have to believe in themselves, who have to kind of go and like, you know, every day fall and get back up and have resilience, you know, don't they have to have some narcissistic quality in that to not always, of course, but sometimes, right, because you have to have that self belief that you will, that you, you want to succeed, you want to succeed. You want to be successful.

The challenge for entrepreneurs is many of them are narcissistic and a lot of that feeds the grandiosity, right? In order to be an entrepreneur, there has to be some level of grandiosity or why bother, right? The challenge for the entrepreneur is that entrepreneurship is very frustrating. It's very disappointing. More often than not, people don't succeed. Narcissists are not built for disappointment. So when things start going south, they start blaming everybody else. They blame the world.

They blame the eye wasn't born with a trust fund. They blame the people who are working with them. They blame the venture, the VCs for not giving them enough money. Rather than saying, I'm not figuring this out right, maybe this is the wrong market, maybe I'm not branding this correctly. There's a lot of externalization of blame. Listen, are there narcissists out there who have tremendous work ethic? Absolutely, because you got to remember, for them, the way they're thinking about it is, if I become successful, now I'm in a lot of money, and if I have a lot of money,

everybody's going to love me and I'll get all the validation I need. So their drive is very much to get validation. So they live in the fantasy world that I'm going to be the tech billionaire with the house on the beach and the model girlfriend in the fancy car like that's the fantasy, which obviously comes true for fear. It's a very tiny percentage of people and for those who don't get that as an entrepreneur, they can often walk around feeling like a victim,

feeling let down, being very sullen, being very resentful, and treat people badly as a result. So I don't think by any stretch all entrepreneurs are narcissistic, but I think probably more, you'll see more narcissists in entrepreneurship than you might see in other professions for sure. Right, you got to be grandiose.

I mean, you got to be grandiose. It helps. And also actors, you know, like anything in Hollywood, I feel like you have to have some, but why does that, but also it can breeds that ability that you want to have that grandiose, but it's the most insecure people a lot of times. Of course, we need that validation.

And that's why you hear that all the time, right? Like, she's such an insecure actress and she's so difficult because of this because it's like, I kind of feel like it's such a dichotomy, right? Like, they have this one side or the outside is very, you know, look at me. I'm so great and beautiful and smart and talented. And then the inside, it's a complete opposite. That's exactly right. And so that insecurity means that any narcissistic individual, whether they're a CEO or an entrepreneur or a performer or a hell and accountant or anything else like that,

they are they constantly feel like they're under threat from the world. They're waiting for someone almost to spot their deficits, to spot their failings. They live in fear that those, like I said, deficits in them are going to be seen publicly and that the shame will kill them. So that's why they're so grandiose, that's why they're so arrogant, that's why they're so obsessed with their appearance because it's like a suit of armor that protects that fragile core interior that they have, that they're forever living in fear that will be exposed to the world. More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. So do you want your team to develop habits that will help them thrive?

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That's rise.com slash hustle. That's rise.com slash hustle. What happened to artwork, right? When you have a boss and coworker, you're dealing with a boss, let's say first, who's an narcissist. How do you kind of manage a relationship like that? It's really, really difficult. And I'm sure, again, many listeners are thinking,

I had a toxic boss and it brought me to my knees. Like having a toxic boss, toxic supervisor, toxic leader in your organization, especially if you're a direct report can actually make you sick. I mean, it can devastate you. Toxic bosses are more likely to be harassers. They're, you know, in the Me Too movement, I thought, you know, the Me Too movement isn't about men harassing women, it's about narcissists. And if every one of the people who fingered in those cases were narcissistic men, you know, that's they were not just men, they were narcissistic men. And so they are, you know, it is, you're not going to get recognized

to your work, your work is going to be stolen. Toxic bosses, foment, a lot of chaos and triangulation, they create gossip, faction A goes against faction B. They whisper secrets in people's ears. It's like being in a toxic family. And so as a result of that, you can't win with a toxic boss. A lot of you'll see this in Hollywood a lot. I just need to get one film under my belt with this particular guy. He's the biggest jerk in town. But if I could get one film under my belt, especially this film wins an Oscar, then my career

is made. Said everyone, whoever worked with Harvey Weinstein. Yeah, I don't think, and they were all his enablers. And that's a horrifically tragic story. And that story happens in a million smaller ways, not just in film and media, but in numerous other industries. If I can just get my PhD with this person, if I can just make partner.

And in doing that, you not only sell your soul to the devil, you, honestly, you make yourself both mentally and physically ill, and you may not always get the return on investment. And so you have to be, some people get there, they can get over the line, they get what they're goodies and they get out, they kind of cash out. But many other people get destroyed in the process. Part of it is because they don't know what they're dealing with. If you understand that all the promises that this narcissistic boss is making you

are probably not gonna come true, then that helps you understand this whole picture quite a bit. The odds of you coming out on the plus side after working with a narcissist are pretty slim. The trick is to figure out how to cut your losses. I always tell people, if you know you're working with a narcissistic boss, you start documenting

on the first day of the job. You save every email, every text message, every voicemail, every minutes from every meeting. You take notes at the end of each day. You get all of it off the company servers, print it out, take it home. It's like a whole nother full time job to document this mess you're in. Because if you ever do need to take legal action, you're gonna need that. And even if you don't need to take legal action sometimes it helps you feel sane. And people

say, this is my job, I need this for money. And I'll say that's fine. And you need to understand what you're dealing with. And I always say that the key, the two key tools to being able to not only work, but have a relationship with a narcissist are realistic expectations and radical acceptance. Realistic expectations is this boss is going to take advantage of you and throw you under the bus and probably not give you all the things they promised you and the radical acceptance pieces and they're never going to change. There is no magical thing you're going to say to this person to change them. You're not

going to be the person who comes around and pulls off the miracle. And so, when people can get their head around that they'll decide, this is a waste of my time, I don't want to spend years in this job, I'm getting out of this before I look back and 20 years later, see, I have absolutely nothing to show for what I did or worse get harassed and, you know, harmed or have my reputation hurt and all of those things. So, I don't think you can win at it. I tell people make good solid collegial relationships, not to gossip, but so you have other supports in the workplace. I'd say figure out once you, this is the toxicity you're dealing with, figure what you can get out

of this situation, what you can learn. Is there anything you can walk out with your name on something and then once you get that thing get out because it's not going to change. And what you'll see in narcissistic organizations is ultimately you're left with a narcissist and they're en thing get out because it's not gonna change. And what you'll see in narcissistic organizations is ultimately you're left with the narcissist and they're enablers. And it's about that time that the company tends to fall apart. And we've seen some high and mighty companies fall apart. And there was often, because they had too many

narcissists running a show, and the enabler's watching it all bring down. Wow. Like, who, give us an example, that's recent. I mean, Harvey Weinz is a great answer. I mean, size Harvey Weinz. Every cent time. I mean, you made off. Yeah, very made off of that. That's a good one. Yeah.

You know, look, there's, I was just reading an article about multi-level marketing companies the other day. Oh, yeah. Remember those that went to hell, those are also many times run by narcissists. You know, people selling a false future. And in fact, the selling of a false future, whether you're dating someone, whether you're working with someone, is again a signature move of the narcissist someday, and when I, and down the road, it's called future faking. And it's a key element of the narcissistic relationship, no matter where it is. So it's the parent who promised you

something down the line, and that thing never materialized. It's just pushing that into adulthood. And that's called future faking. Future faking. I've never heard that before. I like that one. Yeah. And it's basically like empty promises. It's empty promises and it's empty promises that are designed to keep you on the chain.

Stay with us for another year. We've got this really new great strategy. We just need you to sign on and then all these NDAs and all this, you sign away your life on this nonsensical promise. Trust your gut, it's probably noggin. Everything that seems too good to be true is too good to be true. It's too good to be true.

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But there's also a you talk about like there's a lot of types of narcissists right? So do all these narcissists do fundamentally these fundamental things like gaslighting, love bombing, future faking. What's the difference? What are the types of narcissists that? So the narcissistic type we've been talking about the most on this call is probably more the grandiose narcissist, the showman, the circus barker. Look at me, I've got, I'm so great, I'm so powerful. Look how nice my house has come. Look at my wine collection. Don't you want to spend time with me? I do better than anyone on and on. Like very braggy, arrogant, pretentious. That's your classical grandiose narcissist.

And that's the obvious one in my opinion. The obvious one. What's not so obvious, and I think there's just as many of them out there, are what we call the covert or the vulnerable narcissist. These are the narcissists that at first blush to aren't charming, aren't charismatic, don't seem confident. They're sort of brutally resentful. The best way I can capture them is they're like internet trolls.

They save nasty things about people, but like in a passive aggressive way or anonymously or something like that. They're very angry at the world and they feel like they didn't get what they deserve. They sort of live with a permanent grudge. They just feel constantly let down, constantly victimized. You know, life isn't fair, life isn't just. I got the short end of the stick and they're kind of always in a bad mood and the result. And they're very, again, very sullen, very sour. They almost sometimes seem depressed. They can be very socially anxious.

So they're definitely not the smoothest person at the party. But if you talk to them, the comments they'll make will be sort of mean-spirited, snide, and passive-aggressive so People and you'll say how the heck does a covert narcissist ever attract a partner? I'll tell you how they attract people who want to rescue them They listen to their sad sack story of like if only people could have seen what a great filmmaker I had and if only I got as much money as him from my father

Then I could have made the great American film. Man, man, man, man, man. And then I can't even get out of my parents' house. And then somebody comes on and say, you know, why don't you move in with me? I got you covered for six months. I see you're such a visionary. Boom. And then that's it.

You've been sucked into the covert narcissist vortex. It's like rescuing a puppy, except a puppy is cute and a covert narcissist is just going to grow up into a mess. So don't do it. That's interesting. So they both attract the grandiose narcissist and the covert, both attract the empathetic person. Yeah, always.

Always, because anyone who's not hyper empathetic and is sort of wise and gets it, wouldn't have fallen for either of these people. Right. There's a little toxic, I'm out. But even people in the know, because you got got to remember, no matter how wise you are, if you've had a narcissistic parent, this is often a replaying of that script from early life. So you can be smart as anything.

You know, I consider myself wise and I got sucked into one of these, more than one of these relationships. And I think it's because of my history. You know, I've so used to thinking, I'm not good enough, no one's ever gonna want me, no one's ever gonna be interested in me. I'm lucky that anyone even noticed me. That was my narrative that somebody actually stuck around

for a little while, like, well, I better sign up for this because no one else is gonna come along. That was the narrative I was sold as a kid. So you take that into adulthood and you play out in your relationship. This is why every 20-year-old in America should be in therapy. In fact, everywhere in the world.

So they can undo those childhood scripts and enter into adulthood, not feeling like they're not enough. Right. Because a lot of times, from what I noticed, and I'm not a doctor like you, but people have the story in their head from what they thought, what they think they are from when they were a child, right? And they behave as such to the world when they're adults, when they're very different people. Very, very different.

So I think that that's an important thing to keep in mind that even if you can read all the books, watch all the videos, but you still have to do your own personal deep dive. You might end up getting, because you might say, gosh, this feels so familiar without recognizing it's really so familiar. Like, oh, this is so wonderful. It's wonderful, because it's toxic. Yeah. So it's got to get you out.

But now speaking of toxic, probably the most dangerous form of narcissists is the malignant narcissist. The malignant narcissist is exploitative. They're manipulative. They're coercive. They're the ones who will control someone, isolate someone, take advantage of someone, they're menacing, these are where you're going to see it sort of the people who are major workplace harassers, workplace manipulators.

They're much more dangerous narcissists. And almost to me, it's a little bit difficult to tell the difference between the malignant narcissist and the psychopath. There's a little bit of a difference and there's subtle things that, you know, the psychopath is actually more calm, cool, collected. They're not at all insecure. Psychopath will just,

we'll slice your throat and go have lunch with their friends. A malignant narcissist still feels some remorse when they do bad things, but the psychopath does not. So, but a malignant narcissist has a lot of that same kind of menace to them. And so that starts to feel, I would say someone like a brini made off is a great example of a malignant narcissist. It sounds as a lot of like crossover between a grandiose narcissist and a malignant narcissist. Very much so.

The big difference is the malignant narcissist is a little bit more dangerous. They're much more willing to exploit people, like take advantage of them in a way that's times almost dangerous and someone like Jeffrey Epstein was likely either a malignant narcissist or a psychopath. He was his insecurities that I've seen in the various documentaries make me think more malignant narcissist than psychopath. Right. You know, it's right.

He's sort of re-screditing that line and a lot of them do. But then we get into some other interesting narcissistic types, one of which is the communal narcissist. The communal narcissist is one that often gets missed. In fact, this is a subtype. This term was only coined probably in the last 10 years actually by a researcher in Germany. And the way he described it was the communal narcissist is the person who gets validation by doing things for other people. So these are the people who run big charities and I'm a yoga savior and I'm going to save all of you and I'm a guru and you know, I rescue every animal known to man, all of which

could be nice things to do, but they're actually not nice people. So they're a yoga guru, but they're being really mean to their partner and abusive, or they're like some kind of animal rescuer, but they're a horrible parent. So they portray themselves to the world as this humanitarian, they throw all the gala, they make all the money, they seem like the most charitable person in the world, but they're a terrible person. And so, but people think they're a wonderful person because they're raising so much money or drawing so much attention to good works, but in an individual relationship, especially with

somebody who has less power than them, they often lack empathy, they're very unkind, they're very invalidating and dismissive, their validation comes from people saying, oh, you're such a great person because you do such great yoga or you do such great coaching or you do such great, Ianimal rescuing and they're constantly on Instagram saying, you know, in their bathing suit, rescuing a cat. But I was like, is this the cat or is this you getting likes for the, I mean, it's all very confused. It's not it's all it's all first of all that I'm laughing because it's so true Okay, it's so true. I mean I know I know a few of those people where they're like a master yogi and they are like saving other animal rescuing to like every animal alive And if there's such awful humans, that's a communal narrative. It's such a dichotomy and personality. I don't understand how the two can even,

it's in my modeling. It's actually not because what they've done is they found a really interesting way to get validation, right? So the grandiose narcissist gets validation by having a great body and having a great card, having a great job and holding court, the communal narcissist gets validation

by doing all these things for other people. And since most people aren't hip to it, they get sucked in and they get lots of validation. They get lots of likes on Instagram and all that stuff. I wonder if it's like, if it's because a lot of these things, you would think that people who are some people who are self-aware and have a high-ish emotional intelligence or IQ, EQ, they would pick up on a lot of these things. Do you feel that once you're in a situation that's much more difficult to spot some of these narcissists? Like it's easy to spot a narcissist when they're not in your social circle or they don't really affect you. But when you're really directly affected, I feel like the smartest people I know, the highest emotional intelligence that I know,

like are in these like woven relationships, be it personal and professional, and like you're saying they make excuses, they justify, they make, you know, it's like, oh no, it's because they're doing this, or like there's a lot of like, a lot of justification for people's behavior when you're in that situation.

Right. So one could actually argue that this is almost like a little bit of a blind spot in the emotional intelligence piece because I've got a bit. The way I approach this is rather cynical and not very friendly. And it's certainly not very optimistic or positive. It was very, it's very practical.

But it's also very realistic. And I think that people, actually, I think it makes them anxious to think that yikes really, you know, that we, some people are just not safe or healthy. And I'm not saying to people, you need to discard everyone. I'm saying you need to be a wise consumer of them. So, you know, don't give all your money to the communal narcissistic master, Yogi. You know, don't, um, you know,

and if the cat rescuer is being mean to you, you don't have to excuse a lot of the rescue cats. Like, no, this is rude. You're being rude to me. This is not acceptable. I don't care how many cats you rescued. So it's your ability to set a boundary without making a rationalization. And I think that that dissonance, there's a tension when you want to believe a person is mostly good. It's hard to integrate the good things they do with the bad things they do. And that's the tricky part. In fact, there is a woman named Mira Kirshenbaum who wrote a book a while ago, and it's called

Too Bad To Stay Too Good To Leave. That was a very popular book. Very popular book and it was a great title and it was very much the sense of narcissists aren't monstrous all the time. In fact, a lot of people, when I help people through divorces, they'll go back and look at 20 years of picture and say, we did have fun in Cabo. And that was a nice holiday. And then guests like guests like guests like guests like, but we have fun in Vegas, guests like guests like guests

like Invalidate and Miami was fun. You see what I'm saying? Like no, super sprinters. You can actually have, they can be great conversationist, they can be, they can be fun to be with, they throw a great party, they may be great lovers, that you take a great picture with them. So they often take a lot of the narrative of, I throw a great party, they may be great lovers, that you take a great picture with them.

So they often take a lot of the narrative of, I want this beautiful family, I want this beautiful life, I want this cool career, and it gets hard to fit in those two sets of pieces. And I do tell people judge your relationship on how it's going on the most stressful days, because that's really where it's meaningful. Like when you're lost and you run out of money and you're on vacation, when you're sick and you guys are having other problems in your relationship,

those are the days you don't judge your relationship on a really fun day in Miami. I mean, that's just gonna get you into a lot of trouble. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I guess you're kinda saying though, like, you know, you have to balance out to good and the bad, right? Like, how much percentage is good versus bad?

No, I wouldn't say that. I would say that you have to, yes, you have to look at it holistically, but the minute somebody starts emotionally abusing you, I don't care how good it is, it's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. Now, I agree, but I'm saying, like, if you're saying, they're going through the pictures and their lifespan,

they're like, oh, yeah, that was good. This time was good. You know, like, it's like you said, they're going through the pictures and their lifespan, they're like, oh, yeah, that was good. This time it was good. You know, like, it's like you said, they're sprinters. They're not always bad. But yeah, and even the good moments tend to be, and this is a lot of people will cough to this years later. They'll say, the good moments were superficially good. We had fun.

We were laughing. That was a fun night. You know, I'm saying fun. Good. I hear all the time I hear he was so smart. She's so smart. Smart's not a virtue. Okay. Compassion is a virtue. Smart is a parlor trick. Why is that though? That is another trueism. I think that is so true. I feel like people that is like she's so smart. He's so smart, you know, like that becomes like why they want to stay or work with the person, especially with work, right? Like they're so smart.

I want to be around that person because they're so smart. Is it because it makes you feel that it elevates who you like you feel like you want to be around that for some reason, make sure you feel smarter or elevate you, but it also may be the sort of thing where you have more confidence in the endeavor. You think that this is a bit like succeed. You know that I, you know, plenty of people in tech, you know, like various CEOs in the tech industry have been called out

for being rather difficult people. They're smart. You know, so, and then a lot of people cashed out of those companies with tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. I understand the appeal, but the fact of the matter is, is that smart is smart and but it doesn't necessarily mean kind. And some people if they can adjust to this and say,

okay, this is a very difficult, mean, invalidating abusive person. However, I think I can stick this out for this long. If I, let's, for example, let's say you have a toxic boss, invalidating cruel, exploitative, difficult, you name it, but you have a very strong support network outside of that job. It may just give you the resilience you need. It may just give you the resilience you need to tough it out for about the year or two you need to get vested or whatever it may be and that you

learn to set boundaries. Here's the thing toxic bosses don't let you set boundaries. You say, listen, I can't work on a Saturday. My kids got a birthday party. They're going to say, well, then that means you're not a team player. And those are the kinds of things that people are going to run into. So there's a point at which you're going to have to say surrender or you're going to have to say surrender, or you're going to lose that entire compassionate network, because you're going to drain them, too. Absolutely.

But people also say that also, the whole like, well, he's so, or she's so smart in personal relationships. Oh, that's going to do it for all the time. And that's how to keep telling them smart is not a virtue. OK, it's no different than saying he's hot. You know, smart doesn't look so good on Instagram, but it's like, you know what I'm saying? Like it doesn't have a lot of work.

But I mean, listen, I love smart people as much as the next person, but any day of the week, I'd rather spend an hour with a kind one. I agree with that 100%. In your book, you do a couple of things that I was curious about. You talk about pathological and normal. So you'd be like, I think you're like, you know, normal versus pathological, like, you know, lack of insight, normal amount, pathological amount, right? Why?

Because I use saying that everyone has a normal amount of lack of insight, a normal amount of, you know, arrogance, a normal amount of of past aggressiveness, right? Where does it become, where does normal and path a lot, where is that line between normal and pathological? The reason I did that and don't you know who I am and that's the book I made that to the engine was because, excuse me, when I wrote, should I stare, should I go? After people read that book and the 30 traits of narcissism are saying, I am some of these things, but they were doing it. We all do. For example, let's say you know how to make an apple pie like nobody's business, and you're watching your friend

making a hot mess of this crust. You might say, you don't know how to do this. I don't know much, but I know pie crust. So step aside, that's going to seem arrogant. But if you're saying, but if you quickly catch yourself, I'm saying, oh, my gosh, that was so, I should let you do this. I'm so sorry. I'm so used to being able to make the pies and you quickly catch yourself, you know, and say, yikes, I had, I've, that was not okay. And you're able to do it non-defensively. To me, that's not pathologic, but your little moment with the pie crust might have been a little arrogant. We all have some of these things. We have moments when we're not empathic.

It might be a day we've got 10 big deadlines and somebody wants to tell us a big personal problem and you're like, oh my God, I love you so much. Can this wait till tomorrow? Not very empathic, right? Your friend's suffering. But if you don't make these deadlines, you might, you know, not make a grade and that will. You know And I'm saying, so, but the next day you say, I'm calling you in the morning, or then that night, you say, I am so sorry. I wasn't there for you.

I'm here. If it's not too late, I apologize, and you quickly take ownership of it. So that sort of less than a pathic moment, there's a, there's self awareness. There's an attempt to correct the eruption. Now, you can't keep doing that. You can't keep blowing off your friend 27 times, saying, I've got a deadline, but we all, I mean, we have lives.

So I think that it jumps the line to pathological when it's pervasive, when it's consistent, and when you are hurting other people. To me, that's when you really do jump the line. And again, consistently, we all screw up sometimes. And then if somebody gives you feedback, like, whoa, you're not being very empathic and you integrate that feedback and say, I can't do this anymore. And you correct the behavior. To me, that's not pathological. And can people who have who are all the different types of narcissists. Is it possible to get better, like to heal a narcissist,

to get to be a less of a narcissist? Is that even a possibility? So in the macro, okay, your classical, I've got no problem, you're the one with the problem, I'm so great, get away from me, don't you ever tell me to be a therapy narcissist is not getting better?

However, I would say about 10% of people who are narcissistic don't like who they are. They're like, I have just burned 20 bridges. Nobody likes me. Nobody's inviting me to the parties anymore. I've blown up two marriages. This probably made me me. And I've got to commit to the change. I actually recently put out a video on this that like basically it's like 10 things narcissists need to do if they want to change. And it's really a laundry list of the kinds of things they need to do. And it ain't easy.

Because what it is like to be mindful and stay in the moment and listen to the other person and look at them in the eyes when they speak and Don't interrupt them and use empathic statements and do this every day and in every conversation. It's things like It's Don't interrupt other people. It's Don't don't be so competitive. Don't always feel like life is a pissing contest. It's all of those sorts of things, but more than anything else, it's a daily practice. It's every single day, every human interaction that you stop and think before you speak. And when you feel frustrated,

instead of taking that out of someone else, you come up with other ways to deal with, I'm going to take a run. I can feel that this is hard going to be hard for me. Can I take a minute to myself? I don't want to hurt you and sort of take that moment and do it on your own instead of harming someone else. But that means that after 40 years of never counting for other people's feelings, you're being asked to do a complete 180.

It's not easy. So how many people have you seen who are recovering narcissists? What's the percentage of that? In my clinical practice, 2%. Yeah. It's really low. I mean, I can think of one case in particular, this guy made massive strides. And there is a gentleness that emerged, but he had to lose that. He lost everything. In fact, she was pretty recent in the pandemic, lost everything. And I thought, either this guy's going to kill himself or he's going to turn a corner. And there was actually, I thought, he killed himself. He didn't kill himself. He turned a corner. And so that turning a corner was, he's very gentle. He's very aware of other people. He's cleaning the toxic people out of his life. Like, He is a real success story, but he had to lose everything. If he stayed on the trajectory, he was making money and it

was about to blow up big. I don't think he would have ever changed. But many people in that same circumstance, when they lose everything and we're seeing this in the pandemic, they become angry, frustrated, they rage at other people, they blame other people, and sometimes they harm themselves and sometimes they kill themselves. So it's, you know, the intolerance of failure for a narcissist can actually be quite dangerous and catastrophic. So we see a range of responses. That may not be a typical response, but it's pretty rare.

By and large, when a narcissist is under pressure, they tend to crack. And one, more than a few people said, I just have too much contempt for people. I think everyone's an idiot. You're telling me to be nice to people. Everyone's an idiot. I'm not gonna be nice to idiots. That's more of what we see with narcissists.

Right, and then, so like also this guy, I mean, it's pretty, it's probably too soon to tell, right? Like I was gonna say, you don't know if it's gonna be long term. It could just be because, you know, because right now everyone's in a very frustrating experience and, you know, sort of, right? I mean, time will tell if that guy actually lasts. It's time to help.

I totally agree, time will tell, and probability is not your friend. So I say to people, if you have a story of a narcissist that's made a true 180 and maintain that change for five years or longer, it's a unicorn. Because these are such baked in patterns that especially because they're so reactive. In fact, one of the biggest pieces of feedback I have for a narcissist who wants to change is I tell them you need to learn to respond and not react. Reacting is what you do like that. It's when you're like, ah, you scream at someone, but responding is when you listen and you wait and you think before you speak.

That is a very, very important skill. It's something narcissistic individuals do not have, and that's how they burn so many bridges. I think also people who aren't even narcissists do that, right? They've ever been. Absolutely. Absolutely. We can, that's a very good piece of advice for anybody. I'm going to write that down.

React. I mean, we're still going to instead of react. Rist, I like that. I'm writing that down. And what do you think about social media, right? Because especially now, has that just made narciss took, has that just like plummeted, I mean, has that just like completely plummeted narcissism to a whole new level now?

Social media blew narcissism up. It was like gas on a fire. And people say, were there narcissists before social media? Absolutely, they were, but think about it. They had to get up and leave the house. To get a validation, right? They had to clean up, take a shower. Now, you just take 100 pictures and one day, boom, boom,

boom, boom, boom, you're not leaving the house, you're getting validation. Yeah. Yeah. I will never forget the day, because I was already doing this narcissism work. My kids were very small. It was wild ago, right?

When Facebook and these things came out, even not even my Facebook, and I remember looking at it and thinking, oh my God, we're in so much trouble. And of course, I sounded like chicken little and everyone's like, what are you talking about? This is a great way to share baby pictures. I said, oh, no, no, no, no, this is not baby pictures. This might be the end of the world. And I hate to say it, chicken little here. The sky is falling. Yeah. A way for narcissistic people to literally mainline validation. And they've even given it a job title. They call themselves influencers. But really, it's the validation. And it's a constant broadcasting of one's life. And the day somebody doesn't

notice their life, they actually become depressed. And there's lots of research showing that narcissistic individuals are more prone to having their mood crash and their self-esteem crash on a day when they don't get enough validation. So social media changed the game in a very, so did reality TV. And reality TV. I mean, and I honestly don't think for the good.

And I think people who even worked full on narcissists, maybe just had a little bit of like, you know, sprinkle of it, have become full on narcissists, maybe just had a little bit of like, you know, sprinkle of it, have become full on narcissists because of social media, because they got the validation and when they don't get it, it's like Pavlov dog, you know, you get a little bit, you want more. It's like more, yep, and more. And, you know, and because of that,

depression has skyrocketed. So what do you say to this? This is what's happening. It's going to get worse, not better. It's going to get worse. And now we live in a world that's chronically disappointing. And narcissists don't do well with disappointment. Narcists are also more extroverted than most other people.

So by and large, covert narcissists tend to be a little bit more introverted, but grandiose narcissists, malignant narcissists, communal narcissists are naturally extroverted. And it's a really hard time to be ext introverted, but grandiose narcissists, malignant narcissists, communal narcissists are naturally extroverted. And it's a really hard time to be extroverted, right? Because you can't, you know, you can't be in a crowd, you can't be in a bar,

you can't be in a party. So we're really seeing a lot of narcissistic rage, a lot of narcissistic crumbling, a lot of acting out. And so I think that it's absolutely getting worse. And I think we've got a real problem on our hands because we're talking about this in sort of this kind of, you know, explaining these concepts.

But if you've ever spent time with somebody who's experienced narcissistic abuse, whether in their family of origin, it with their partner, with a boss, with a friend, it is hellish. These people suffer. You suffer deeply when you've been through these relationships. You're confused, you're full of self-doubt, you feel anxious, you feel helpless, you feel hopeless, you feel powerless. This isn't just a bunch of jerky people making

people laugh uncomfortably. This is really doing a number on people's mental health. And my crusade, really my work, is to elevate this concept of narcissistic abuse, to a real phenomenon. So therapists are trained in how to work with people who are going through this because it's real. And it's not just traditional depression and anxiety. It's something very specific that requires that person to understand the narcissist in their life and understand their own history so they can figure out how they don't do this again. Wow, that's a good point. And that situation again. Hey, it's Jesse Kelly. We are for the most part a reactionary society. If your neighbor

has a break in, you think about getting an alarm. If your buddy gets laid off, you say I better buckle down at work. If banks start closing, you may want to ask yourself if you should keep most or all of your money in a bank. It may be time for a portfolio protection plan. It may be time to have a little personal gold reserve. Go to www.oxfordgoldgroup.com to learn more. I mean, it's so basically then, would you also say that for social media purposes, like you should obviously limit the amount of social media that you would have? Yeah, I think so. I think that we're just on beyond it at all. You know, listen, and that's, but I can't give that as a recommendation.

It's like telling people to never eat sugar like, good luck with that, you know? Right, right. So, I think it's more of a having, I think what we should be starting as early as first grade, teaching kids how to consume this, and consume it as the fictional storybook that it is, rather than a lifestyle manual. You know, I think that teaching young people how to critically think about social media,

what it means, the purpose it's serving, it's really turned people into, there's an insecurity, why does her life look better than mine? And then there's that concern, like I said, of that victimized kind of identity, which really limits a person, rather than people feeling giving themselves a freedom

to sort of be their authentic selves. And that's what I'd like to see more of. And I think narcissists to abuse really steals a lot of that authenticity from people, because basically the narcissist tells them, your authentic self is no good. You're an idiot, you're a loser. Are you kidding me?

You're never going to succeed. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Stay in your lane and all of that kind of stuff. That's what narcissists do to people's dreams. To me, that's unacceptable. Yeah. I'll let you go. I know I've been taking too much of your time.

But what's, you say this in your book, I'll toxic masculinity. What is that? So toxic masculinity is a concept that was raised a few years ago. When, do you remember the Gillette ads that had gotten all that controversy? And it was this sort of sense of like, we want is the conversation became

that we were seeing this sort of epidemic in men where manliness and masculinity was associated with being unimpathic, with being abusive, with being aggressive, with not accounting for other people's feelings, being unimpathic, all of those things. And that this is in some ways something culture created because we tell boy little boys, don't cry, grow up, be a man, only weak men or even worthy of these worst terms, talk about their feelings, men don't cry.

You see, so all of that has resulted in this sort of compensatory, cold-hearted, unemotional manliness that does nobody any favors. It's bad for being a father, it's bad for being a partner, it's bad for being a boss, and we've come off of generation after generation of these really authoritarian patriarchal harsh fathers. That's how it's always been. Now we're sort of seeing a little bit of a shift, but I've

got to say in recent years with this uptick in global narcissism, I'm seeing some of a return to that sort of authoritarian form of thinking, and it's not good for us, but that's what that term toxic masculinity has referred to. And then because I have a mom, and I have to ask this, and we can end on this, is how do you not raise a narcissist. You know, that's very important. You gotta start early. One of the most important things is to hold emotional space for your child and let them talk about their feelings without interrupting them

and without inserting your feelings into them. Let them talk. So your child, I don't know, they might have broken a toy and they start to cry and say, sweetheart, how are you doing? I'm so sad. I broke my toy. I'm telling me more about that. That's so sorry. That must feel really, really hard. Yes, I love this toy. I'll play with it every day. Honey, I hear you. No, we're going to the store right now. I'm going to buy you a new toy. You may end up buying them a new toy, but use that moment to teach them that talking about emotion is safe, it's appropriate, and it doesn't always just need to be fixed.

And doing that over and over and over again, we are so uncomfortable with our children's discomfort. Understanding that they can have their discomfort and get through to the other side safely is the single most important lesson we can teach a child. The other piece is helping them learn how to regulate their emotions. We so don't want them to tantrum and foss, we don't, again, we don't want them to be disappointed.

Let them be disappointed. This is why kids need to lose. Let them play the board game and lose. I hate this game. Slow down cowboy. What's going on here? You didn't feel good, but it felt good for me, and I'm enjoying this.

And can you imagine if you won the game and I started yelling, that wouldn't feel very good. Read story books to them. Ask them, how do you think that pig fell? Step pig, when it was a pig feels sad because all his friends left him. You're watching a television show, pause it

and say, how do you think that child felt? And she'll say, oh, she feels really disappointed because her friend didn't invite her to a birthday party, process emotion everywhere you can. Process emotion. I like that. Thank you so much. That's my pleasure. Oh, you are so great. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. It was so nice. Thank you. Thank you. I love talking about it, but I really hope that everyone listening gets something out of this and more than anything else that I don't want people to feel that they're defined by their toxic relationships and that and to be self forgiving if you fell into it.

A lot of people say, how could I've been so foolish? I can't believe I felt for this. All of us do. And I think it's because the world enables people like this, one by one, we can stop this enabling structure and take the power back into structures that are authentic and compassionate. I'm convinced businesses can be run that way

and be incredibly profitable. I love that. Now where do people find your videos? If a YouTube channel does very good. I don't know. It's Dr. Romani, DOC, T-O-O-R-A-M-A-N-I. If you go to my website, which is again, D-O-C-T-O-R-Dash, R-A-M-A-N-I, dot com, at drromani.com, you'll find everything there. Instagram, my videos, links to my books, anything you can imagine is all there.

And then if you go to YouTube, you'll see my videos, you go to Instagram, you'll see I love those videos. Thank you so much. And you still have a private practice. You keep on saying patience. I don't know. I do, but I got to tell you it's full till forever. And so I do the consultations.

And so if people are interested in that, they can certainly go to my website and get more information about that. And then as the world slowly opens up, we sometimes actually, and we're doing them already, I do small master classes, 10 people at a time, you can get tickets for those on my website, and then I also, one day the world will open up again and we'll be doing live retreats again, which help people heal from narcissistic abuse. I love that. Thank you so much for being a guest. Lager, thank you for having me.

Absolutely. I learned a ton, so I can't wait to share this with everybody. So thank you. I appreciate it. Take care. Be well and bye-bye. Bye. Hi.

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