The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - Outsmarting Narcissists: The Praise or Provoke Trap

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Ever feel like you’re talking to a wall when dealing with someone who just won’t take accountability? You might be dealing with a narcissist—or at least someone showing strong narcissistic behaviors. In this episode, I break down exactly how to talk to those people without losing your cool, your confidence, or your sanity. Whether this person is your boss, your sibling, or your partner—you’ll walk away from this episode knowing exactly how to protect your peace when things get heated. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 40% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Order my new book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTokFollow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi there, I'm Ryan Reynolds and I have a list of things I like to have on set. It's just little things like two freshly cracked eggs scrambled with crispy hash browns, sausage, crumble, and creamy chipotle sauce from Tim Hortons. From my writer to Tim's menu, try my new scrambled eggs loaded breakfast box. How do you talk to a narcissist? I know what you want to say. You don't. You don't Jefferson.

That's not reality. It sounds nice, it sounds really nice, but it's not reality. Why? Because more than likely, you're related to one. You're married to one. You work with one. Or you work for one. There are people who exhibit narcissistic behaviors everywhere,

and there are those that we might deem a narcissist. How do you handle it? All that more coming up. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you're listening to this right now, and if you're interested in improving your conversations, I'm going to ask you to please click subscribe or follow or like or leave a comment. Why? Because it tells whatever you're listening to, whatever platform, that this is good stuff and if you like learning good stuff, if you are interested in being a better communicator listening to this podcast, I promise you will make you a better communicator listening to this podcast I promise you will make you a better communicator and that's my promise to you thank you very much this episode is

brought to you by cozy earth cozy earth has these bamboo sheets and let me tell you they are on my bed at this moment and they're incredible it is so hot and humid here in southeast Texas but these bamboo sheets always keep me cool. And if you have bamboo sheets on your bed, you know what I'm talking about. You can't go back. And what's even cooler is that Cozy Earth has a 100 night trial,

or you can try them for 100 nights. If you don't like them, send them back. You're not gonna want to, because I did not. And on top of that, they have a 10 year warranty for all bedding products, which is just incredible You can go to cozy earth comm slash Jefferson used to go Jefferson for 40% off cozy earth comm slash Jefferson Used to go Jefferson for 40% off doesn't matter how hot it is outside These are gonna keep you cool and keep you cozy now. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist

You know this I'm a trial attorney. That means I talk to a lot of people, usually in some of the most intense situations you can think of. Cross-examination is one of those. I can't think of anything that is more adversarial, in a controlled way, where people do not want to answer me. They don't want to respond, but they're required to under oath, because they've done something where somebody is now calling them to the mat. They are now being held accountable for whatever they've done or they've said. So they don't typically want to talk to me. It's my job to ask questions in a way that is going to get facts, apply law to it, and advocate for my client. One of those personalities that I see often are narcissists.

And I say that as a general term of people who exhibit a strong pattern of narcissistic behavior. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. These are people that if I were to say narcissist to you right now, you could close your eyes and think of one person, you go, I have this is a narcissist. Somebody who always puts it to make it about themselves, always plays the victim, never takes accountability, has this inability to have empathy or sympathy or accountability for really anything.

We're going to talk about that right now. Ready? Number one, there's a mindset that I want you to have when you're dealing with people who exhibit these narcissistic behaviors, and it is a game. That's the mindset. That you are playing a game. And it's a game that I call praise or provoke. Meaning if I am not showering these people with praise, oh how great they are, how wonderful they are, how credible they are, if I'm not

reading everything else on their resume and just blasting and gassing these people up, well they will turn to provoke an argument with me to try and create conflict where there is none. Why? To get that same level of satisfaction. They want to create a problem. They want to get me emotionally stimulated to where I am getting aggravated and upset. You know this. You can relate to this. If you're not showering that person you're thinking of with praise, they will turn to provoke and start a problem with you because they delight in your frustration just as much as they delight in your praise because it's all about control. It's all

about control. Let me tell you about this game. This is a game you cannot win. It's not, it's, to be clear, it is not because of you. It's not that you're not a winner. You haven't failed, you're not a loser. It is a game that is set up to fail. Have you ever played one of those carnival games? You've gone to like a local carnival, a real bad one. Like, you know good and well,

they don't take care of anything, they're just a few rusted bolts away from it all destroying itself. You ever gone to one of those carnival games and you're like, I can do this, I can toss the ring on the bottle, I can pop the balloon, I can shoot that basketball, not a problem. And you try it and it doesn't work and you're like, let me try again. And before you know it, you're $20 in on a game and it's like, this is not beatable because it's not. It's rigged.

The game is rigged. It was never fair. It will never be fair. That's exactly the situation you're in. It's not fair. No, it's not. And guess what? It will never be fair. That's exactly the situation you're in. It's not fair. No, it's not. And guess what? It will never be fair.

You can only choose not to play it. You can only choose not to play it. So number one is this mindset. When you are talking to these personalities that exhibit strong narcissistic behaviors or pattern of it, understand you are playing their game. You can say, well, I'm just not going to play. That's true. You can not play. That would be my advice. Ideally, it's, yeah, you never deal with these people. Ideally, yeah, you don't talk to them. But again, like I started at the outset of this

episode, it's not reality oftentimes. Now you could say, I'm out of here. I'm not talking to you and you're gone. It's just not practical. Now you could say I'm out of here. I'm not talking to you and you're gone It's just not practical. It sounds good when somebody writes it in a comment It's not practical This is something where I want you to actually be equipped for real life And if that's if i'm not doing that then i'm not doing my job and that's that i'm not even following my passion And what's the point of that? You're in a game called praise or provoke. Get that in your mind when you talk to

these people. Doesn't matter what you do. If you're not feeding them with control, if you're not feeding the monster with your emotions, whether it's happy emotions or sad emotions, they will turn into the worst types of personalities you'll ever experience where you go I cannot do it and I know you want to fix it that's what you're good I know if you're listening to this episode you're a good person because you're trying to figure out how do I do it how do I navigate these situations. You want to fix it. That's the rig game. That's the rig game, baby. It looks beatable. It looks beatable. If you could just explain to them how

what they said hurts you. If you could just put it just the right way and all of a sudden the light bulb's gonna click and they're gonna, their eyes are gonna open. They go, oh my gosh, I've said so many things that are so hurtful and you're right, I should take accountability for this and I should be better about this. That will never happen. Don't do it. Have the mindset of just, one, acknowledging you're in the game.

Two, what are practical ways, Jefferson, of how we're going to handle these kind of conversations? I'm going to tell you You want to use very neutral flat? Statements why because they can't do anything with it We're tempted in our default to say things that are going to incite Things that are going to prove to them why they're wrong and why we're right That doesn't work with narcissists. They don't do empathy, they don't do acknowledgement, they don't do accountability. So instead we're going to use flat neutral statements. These are statements like noted, that's good to know, thank you, oh interesting, I don't know. Here I just flat as can be. You can't do anything

with those. You can't make something up in them. You can't take it and run with it. You can't twist them. Flat, neutral statements. I love noted. It's one of my favorites. I'm talking to a client, not client, excuse me, when I'm talking to a client and I client excuse me when I'm talking to somebody who's an adverse witness and They make some kind of snide Comment and I know we're gonna talk about the type of personalities I cross examine that I consider to be typically very narcissistic in their behavior if I just say noted Can't do anything with it Can't do anything with it when you have flat neutral statements, you keep them very short.

You hear how they're very short? They're not long. If you can't keep it to one word, find one word that you like, that you can go to over and over and over and over, even if it's, okay. You heard how I said that? Okay. It's not like, okay. Okay.

Where it's rude or try to have some kind of tone into it. Okay, flat as can be. So find a word, very short, very flat, that you can't do anything with. Number three, I want you to have this mindset of limited time, limited interaction. This is not the time when you're talking with these kind of people to sit down with your hot tea and say, let's talk it out. I need to express to you all the things that have been boiling up inside me and I really just need to empty out my bag with you and help talk about this kind of stuff No, they're not gonna do it can't they can't understand they cannot

So when you get in those situations keep it very limited even if it's a time frame Keep the conversations as short as can be when they start to lash out in different ways go to your neutral statements Remember the game and keep it very short. When you try to have a very quick clap back or a comeback, it's not going to work. It's never going to have the effect that you want it to have. They don't do that kind of stuff. I'm going to tell you right now a tip that I've used a lot with these type of behaviors in cross-examination. Again, you take it however you want to take it. I can promise you it works.

People who exhibit narcissistic behaviors don't care about you. They care about everybody else, everybody else who they believe is watching them. They don't care about you they care about the audience the crowd This is their stage after all didn't you know? This is their platform. Everybody loves them. Everybody watches them their audience my people That's what they see in their world. That's why they can't admit when they're wrong. It would hurt the ratings.

It would hurt the views, right? So how do you use that to your advantage? Let me tell you a story. I was taking a deposition of an expert. That's the type of people I usually cross-examine. They show narcissistic tendencies, experts. And it's not because they are an expert. That's not the bad pattern, not at all.

There's some wonderful people that are experts of their field. I'm talking the type that drink their own Kool-Aid so much that, I mean, they just, they get drunk off of it. The people who just get intoxicated by the sound of their own voice. Now, they will... It's often a very highly specialized topic. Maybe it's a biomechanical engineer.

Maybe it's a very highly qualified accident reconstructionist or some specific niche-down toxicologist. Something that's very, very, very high end. We need these type of opinions in cases. Real quick, in certain, well, for sure in Texas and for sure in the US, you can't, I can't just go on the stand, or you can't just go on the stand and say, oh yes, I'm going to give an opinion about a toxicology report or something of I just tasted this water and it has X amount of sodium in it. You can't just say that if you don't have the credentials to back it up. Anybody who's an attorney, you know rule 702, you have to show that you have qualified

knowledge, skills, training Anybody who's an attorney, you know rule 702 you have to show that you have qualified knowledge skills training To be able to make these kind of opinions Well, these experts know that and typically if they've been in the field a very long time they have a very high opinion of themselves and The good news is that's very good on paper to have a qualified opinion. It's very bad for a jury good on paper to have a qualified opinion, but it's very bad for a jury. Why? Because they come across as a jerk. They can come across as very snooty, very uppity, very full of themselves because a lot of times they are. The real experts that are awesome, I mean a good expert can make your case, a bad expert can totally break your case. The ones that are extremely knowledgeable and are able to create the link between what's happening in the evidence and the law and show you why and kind of teach you through it, and also they're just a likeable

person, that's the kind of expert you want. Well, I was deposing, I noticed when in deposition was in a case a guy and he was extremely, I mean I'd already known in the deposition he was very very full of himself. So I was asking him questions about my client's injury, talking about the case, and he made this opinion that was... I couldn't even understand how he was making the opinion, but it was it was about my client's injury, saying that she couldn't have been injured in the car, but yet somebody else who had been hit, who hit them, they had been injured and he was okay with that. Anyway, we started talking and I asked him a question, something pretty basic, and he said something to the tune of, well, I mean, I would

explain it to you, but, you know, I don't know if that would really do any good. And the whole jury was like, several of them kind of like gasped. They're like, oh, like, Their case was done after that he had he had Hurt the opinion of the other side pretty bad So so badly that the other attorney and closing argument had to kind of apologize for it and and say well You can't him as a whatever you think of him as a person you understand his opinion here today Anyway, you got to be careful of those kind of people and the other attorney couldn't really do much about it, but it was just a, it was a not nice guy who we all knew and the

jury knew and the judge knew, everybody in the courtroom knew, he was a narcissistic type of behavior. Now what did I do in that case? I referred to the jury. He made an opinion and I said, if you think, and you think the jury is going to like this opinion, is what I said. I said, you think the jury is going to like this opinion? And he almost instantly, you could see he kind of just did the calculation in his head, and all of a sudden pivoted to say, well, I mean, well, it's not so much about like, you know, what I, what I try to do in my experience in my field, and he went on to just talk about

himself. Now see what I did was I talked about the jury. How do you apply this to your own life? They don't care about you. They care about the audience. When you can say something to the tune of others and people, I've used this tactic many times. This is how you do it. So let's break it down. Somebody says something that's narcissistic or a narcissist is talking to you and they say something, you respond like this. If you think that's

a good look, or if you think others are gonna like that, or I wonder what other people would think about this, I wonder what your friend would think about this, you name that friend. Now I'm not sure if others would agree. Anytime that you talk about others or people, I have seen many many times They will change their behavior almost instantly because it reminds them they're not talking to you They're talking to the crowd their people and they will adjust their opinion adjust their tone the fit the audience Even if it's invisible In fact, especially when it's invisible because you just think all eyes are on them

Anytime you can use the phrase. Well if If you think others are going to agree with you See, it's very simple to say hey look if you think others are going to agree with you Or if you I wonder what other people would think about this I wonder what other people would think about the way you just said that They will turn They will turn it they will make it better. They will make it sound better. They will make it sound more empathetic, make it sound more sensitive or sympathetic without actually exhibiting any of the real character

traits. So when you talk about others, the takeaway here is when you talk about others, they will pay more attention to what they are saying and give a more productive output than when they think they're just talking to you. That's the takeaway. Narcissistic behaviors are not fun to deal with, but they're everywhere. And sometimes, you know what, every single one of us can exhibit a behavior that some might call narcissistic

we can make things about us we can say things we don't mean the difference the difference is the empathy if i can take accountability for what i said if i can apologize if i can apologize genuinely mean it change my character if I can apologize, genuinely mean it, change my character, if I can empathize of what I said and I understand, if I can just say, you know what, I can see how that

affected you. I can see. Use the phrase, I can see. I can see how that would upset you. You really mean it. Narcissistic people can do that, alright? So if you're wondering, I'm saying that to tell you, if you're sitting there thinking, am I the narcissist? If you are asking yourself that question, you are not. If you're asking yourself that question, you are not. All right, the takeaway here. Number one, understand when you're talking to a narcissist, you're playing a game.

It's praise or provoke. Understand that you're in that game and it's rigged. You cannot beat it. Two, when it comes to Responding rather than engaging and inciting more of a conflict which again feeds into the game. You're going to use short controlled flat statements and three if you need to Use phrases that are going to give attention or recall to the crowd talk about others talk about people

And they will adjust it rather than thinking they're just talking to you. So use what you know about narcissists and use that to your advantage in a way that is safe. All right? Cool. If you enjoy podcasts and episodes like this to improve your communication, again, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. My book, The Next Conversation, is out. You can find the links down in the show notes. And if you are wanting to continue to improve your communication further and practice it, the School of Communication is live.

Again, the link is in the show notes. All right. As always, you can try that and follow me.