The Narcissism Doctor: "1 In 6 People Are Narcissists!", "Are Narcissists Better In Bed?", "Can A Narcissist Change? - Dr. Ramani Durvasula

25:08But that's the diagnosis. And that's in really structured research settings. Narcissism is a person who has enough of the narcissistic personality style to be noticeable, to be experienced by others. It's a spitball number because we've never done the numbers. So I'd say spitball numbers probably sit in somewhere between 15 and 18%. I think that's a good guess about 1 and 6 people. I think if you're in a major metropolitan area, it's going to be a little higher. I think in certain industries, it's going to be higher. I think in certain maybe even cultures, it could be higher. But if you were going to just give me ask me for a global prevalence, I think that's my best guess.

25:48And I think a lot of folks in the field might agree with me again. Enough of it that you'd notice it. Enough of it that people are being affected by it. So you've met 6 team members of mine including me. I have not. I've only met four of you. So you're still too many down. You're okay. You might still be coming through. Because my next question was which one do you think it was? So far so bad for you. Each one of us has been sweeter than the next. So Steven, you're in the high seat right now. Sugar. Okay, interesting. Okay, so I mean 1 and 6 is a spitball numbers is scarily high. That's interesting.

26:24You think it's scarily high. I mean, I think it's about, I mean, listen, we know how, I actually don't think it is. I think if you went to a small town, you might hit closer to 1 and 8. Because I think a small town is almost based on a greater need for sociality. I think there's more interdependence in that kind of a situation. So narcissism isn't going to probably work as well. But I mean 1 and 6. I think if any of us really went home and did the soul searching, listed out the names of everyone we knew, the number is probably going to track. Is that number increasing? Are we breeding narcissists because of the sort of social and societal changes that have occurred?

27:01I'm thinking about Instagram when you said that. I think it is. Is social media a narcissist creator? It's, I think it's a, it's a narcissist amplifier, but I don't think it's a creator. Narcissism is a personality style. Like all personality styles, it's a social, emotional, developmental phenomenon that happens from infancy into adolescence. So somebody jumping on to Instagram when they're 18 and posting lots of selfies. They're a decent person that's not going to turn them narcissistic. It might turn them boring, but I don't know that it would necessarily turn them narcissistic. I think it could take, if somebody's got the traits, they have the tendency to need the validation and admiration.

27:38And again, a person posting selfies, that doesn't make them narcissistic. Because Jack went on holiday up this mountain and he posted loads of photos. Okay, so no. But we have to, if Jack's a nice person, right, Jack is excited to share his trip with everyone. But if he was kind of like rubbing it in. Okay, so that's all right. Jack's awesome points there for Jack. But it's a, but, but I would say this what we want to know with anyone who's posted a lot of vacation photos, right? And they keep doing it. How present are they when you're actually with them? If you say like, listen, Jack is the loveliest person in the world.

28:15And Jack loves sharing his vacation trips. And there's a little bit of shot and freight in there like, you know, but he's a sweetie. Then Jack's off the hook, right? I think though that what not what social media has become is it has taken once upon a time, and you're probably even, you're not so young that you wouldn't remember this. But I remembered it as a full grown ass woman is that I can tell you that if I go backwards to when I first heard about social media, I was already in my 40s at that point. And, and I remember looking at it and I was already studying narcissism and I said, oh, God, I, I, and it was really like it was almost like Houston.

28:52We have a problem kind of thing. Someone else had shown it to me. And I thought, so this isn't going to create more narcissists, but once upon a time for a narcissistic person to get validation. They'd actually have to have a shave in a shower and get out of the house. You couldn't just sit home and get validation. You had to go to work, get it in a family sphere, get it in your town bar or pub or something like that. But it wasn't going to come home from you just sitting on your ass at home, taking pictures of yourself. Because I don't know if you've ever tried to take a picture of yourself with a camera.

29:26You're either going to catch your head or your mouth. Like that's how we used to try to do it. Right. So now there was a tool for these people to have a megaphone to say, look how wonderful I am. So a person who was already narcissistic, this was going to harness it. And sort of it was an accelerant on a fire that was already burning. But I don't want to keep it in the house, though, isn't it, which is, it sounds like it's a safer place for it to be than wondering around the streets. Well, the point is, what, keeping, oh, keeping them in the home rather than, yeah. But I still think that what it did, though, is now we get into a bigger philosophical question.

29:57This many people depicting lives that are, look how much better my life is than yours. Look how together I am. Look how great I'm doing. While that might be something the narcissistic people will do to offset their sense of insecurity, because that's sort of the core wound in narcissism. There are other vulnerable people who are watching that content who are not narcissistic, but already feel like they don't measure up. And we've created this really messy space of people who already devalue themselves, looking at these lives far better than theirs, and wondering what's wrong with me. Roughly one in six people have a podcast, so I was just wondering.

30:35I mean, that many people think they have something that interesting to say, right? So, and like I said, everybody's trying to put their voice out there, their vacation pictures out there, their breakfast pictures out there, are not narcissistic. I think in some cases, I don't think we should over -postologize what has become a new way of thinking. I think it's interesting. I've got, it's interesting. I've children, my daughters and now both in their early 20s. And I'll watch their facility, but it's not, I see what they're doing. It's not narcissism. It's actually communication. And they're staying in touch with a very large net of widely spread friends.

31:11And there is a lot of intimacy there. So I think young people whose cognition kind of also grew with it, they use it in a more sort of seamless way. Listen, what's it been around? We're going to soon come 20 years, around 20 years since social media has been around, right? We're rounding that horn soon. We're going to get, it's going to take a minute to get the data. We're going to get our first set of data from the kids whose lives were captured. From the day they plopped onto a delivery table all the way right through it at a lessons. That data is going to be very telling. I don't think it's created more narcissism.

31:43I think we've always had grandiose narcissists. I think they make history. They've been our leaders. They're the people we've always looked to. They've been the town mayor, whatever. I think what it has done though, it's taken this problem of vulnerable narcissism and it's really blown it up. Because the vulnerable narcissistic people get super resentful when they perceive other people as having these awesome lives that they don't and they get more angry. And this is sort of the advent of the internet troll. A lot of that is explained by vulnerable narcissism. So where does narcissism come from then?

32:16It's one of the big questions. From what you said there is, human comes. There might be a genetic component that's brought out by our childhood or... So we're all born with a temperament, right? I don't know if you're an only child if you have siblings or anything like that. Youngest of four. You're youngest of four. Okay. So this is harder for you. It would be interesting for you to talk with them. Is that... And you're your parent, whoever was a parent, whoever were around. Every one of you, you and your siblings, had slightly different personalities from the day you were born. And that rolled out in early childhood.

32:46So you'll see that one kid who's just easy breezy from the day they're born. You'll sometimes see that kid who's just a clenched up ball of nerves from the day they're born. You'll see that kid who just doesn't want to chill for a minute from the day they're born. That stuff is called temperament. And what we know about temperament is that there are certain temperaments. And those that make a child more biologically vulnerable. A little bit more difficult to sue. They may be more... They just sort of need more, right? So they're more of a demand on a caregiver. That with that more vulnerable temperament, if that comes up against an environment that's at all invalidating trauma, neglect, other adversities, chaos, domestic violence, substance use in the family, or even emotional abuse, where the child is just being told, stop, sit down, shut up.

33:34Why can't you be like your sisters, right? That combination can actually set up a real risk for developing narcissism. So that's pathway one. But pathway two, and this is actually coming out of really interesting work by a guy named Eddie Bromelman's from the University of Amsterdam. I've had its fascinating work. And he is studying more sort of, how do we... what's the other pathway? Well, the other pathway, another folks like Masterson and others have written about this, which is the overvalued child. These are the children who are told, you're more special than any other child. Not that you're special, but you are more special than him and him and her.

34:09So you shouldn't have to wait in a line. You're more special. You should get the teacher you want. You should get everything you want. Those children often, they don't learn to self -sue. They often aren't as well regulated. They actually kind of believe the hype that the parent is giving them, which is not doing them any favors. And Bromelman's is suggesting that this could sort of be a foreshadowing of what could turn into adult narcissism. I'm guessing you need that temperament on board. I think if you had a sweet tempered kid that constantly being told that they're special, actually might leave the sweet tempered kid feeling a little bit guilty.

34:40Actually, but the kid with that more vulnerable temperament, they might sort of, they might buy into the hype. So you sort of have this one pathway of adversity. You have the one pathway of sort of these are kids who are told, you're great. You can have anything you want. We'll do anything you want. Let's go on this vacation. Here's this device. But there are also kids that are often very emotionally undernourished. They're not, they're not, their emotions are not valued. They're not reflected. They're not mirrored. So these are kids who are get, get, get. But it's a very tenuous existence because they're still not in touch with their emotional world.

35:15Which has to happen in child. Otherwise you don't get that, that's, you don't get that atlas of your own emotions. Right. So those tend to be the two primary pathways. Now, not every kid who goes through those pathways will become narcissistic. In fact, the vast majority will not. So I think that this, it's very complicated. And what we call it's very, it's, it's multi -determined. It's a very multi -determined series of pathways to what leads to adult narcissism. And because of that, I always say, narcissism is one of those stories we can always tell backwards. But it's really difficult to tell forwards.

35:50Don't show me your 17 year old who is, who has, has a lot of attitude and won't empty the dishwasher and call your names. And don't ask me if he's narcissistic. I usually tell those parents, call me in ten years. And in ten years you're going to see if this tract or he pops out of it like every adolescent who's trying to kind of individuate from his parents and settles down into a decent guy. You mentioned that narcissism exists on a spectrum. So does that mean that someone can be a little bit narcissistic? I would say somebody can have milder narcissistic presentation. So what I mean by milder, the mild narcissistic people, the best adjective I could use, they're annoying.

36:25They're emotionally immature. They're superficial. They're shallow. They're vapid. And they're also very self -centered. So these are people when they're having a problem, they expect the world to stop for them. Take their calls. Talk to them for hours. But the day finally comes that you need your friend, they're nowhere to be seen. Like, oh, I don't have time for this. So it can feel like a very, very imbalanced relationship. And when you're with them, the mild narcissist can actually be kind of fun, right there. They're like, let's go to this new hot hip, whatever blah, blah, blah. And they're fun and laugh and dance and attention seeking.

36:59Could be fun for a minute. But it would be very difficult to have a long term committed relationship with someone like that. It'd be difficult to raise children with someone like that. And it would have been very difficult to have been raised by someone like that. Are narcissists more successful professionally? Yes. They're much more successful. That's the problem. And not, I mean, again, I'm not going to make this a blanket statement. But I'm going to tell you now that they are, they're more ambitious. Success is life or death to them, right? Because it's validation. It's the, it's the, it's the blood that flows to their psyche.

37:33So the stakes are much higher for the rest of us. We want to succeed. But at the end of the day, when I say, I've got my family, I got my friends, I got enough money in the bank. I got some food in my belly like, I'm good. But for them, it is, it's the air in their lungs. So they're more represented in leadership. They are, they make more money, especially narcissistic men, make more money than agree, agreeable men. They're more successful at dating. They're more successful. And unfortunately, the way our economy is set up, it is set up so that the narcissistic people win. Narcissism and capitalism go together really well because it's a competitive system that rewards the person who does the most.

38:14And we don't look at process. We look at outcome. And we can, anytime you have an outcome heavy metric, narcissistic people are always going to win. I'm thinking about some of the greatest companies that have been built that change the world. You know, Apple being one of them. Oftentimes when you hear about how these people treated other people, it sounds like the narcissistic characteristics that you described earlier. You know, but then we often excuse that because of what they brought into the world, the great innovations, the great companies they built, how they helped change the world, how they maybe led us through or out of war.

38:53So what do you say to that? Is it sometimes worth their narcissism for what they gave the world? So here's a rub. I completely agree with what you're saying. I actually think that some of the greatest innovations, greatest creativity. In fact, many wartime presidents and prime ministers were, it had to be narcissistic, right? And might have gotten countries, people through messes might have made that had the decisive postures that were necessary. That might have made the really, really kinds of difficult corporate decisions that needed to make with little regard for how the human beings were going to get hurt, treated people and we pushed them to an inhuman limit.

39:34And then there was this thing that came out of it. Was it worth it? I mean, now we're in philosophy, honey, and I'm a psychologist, but, but suffice it to say, you know, there was some, there's always been talk like even inventors like Thomas Alva Edison, was not a nice guy, right? Some archival research. Love in these light bulbs, right? Would someone else have done it? It's a mood point he did. And so I think the innovations are important. I think narcissistic people are built for innovation. They're grandiose, they're dreamers. They want the adjuli, they want to do the big thing. They want to be on the big tech stage and have all the lights on them and have all the attention while they have the beautiful video and the simple thing.

40:18And they want that. That is their everything. And what I tell people is we're never going to have a world without them. We have gotten lots of cool stuff in our lives from them. Just don't marry them. Is it possible to be the person on the stage to build the incredible thing, to have the insane ambition to put little computers into our pockets and do all of that and not be an narcissist? I fully believe they're absolutely 100%. I think it's harder though. I really, really do. I think that the empathic CEO is a unicorn. It's tough. Because they're answering to so many masters, right? They're answering to shareholders, they're answering to rank and file, they're answering to management.

41:06I wouldn't want that job. I'm a very agreeable empathic person. And I got to tell you, I'd rather do any job than that one. I'd love the money. But it sounds terrible. And I think that the kind of shapeshifting and chameleon -like qualities that required, I would say that an empathic person would get a bit more swallowed up in that job. Because if you actually stopped to care about everyone you were serving in that position, you would burn out real fast. The not caring, I think, is what actually can protect a person in that position. And that's not to say all CEOs are narcissistic though a lot are...

41:41Because it's a competition at the end of the day. It is a competition at the end of the day. And narcissistic people are built for competition. They're built for it because they have to win at any cost. The rest of us are probably like, I'm out. Yeah, a lot of industries are a zero -sum game. Not business generally isn't. But when I say zero -sum game, I mean this, you know, when one person does well, that kind of means that someone else is not going to do well. So I'm thinking about some industries. Even one of my companies, third web, we realize that it's kind of a winner -takes -all industry in the same way that...

42:10Yeah, that's interesting. ...amazon is like, there's one Amazon. And they dominate the whole of them, pretty much all the market share. And with Google, there's one Google. And then Eris competitor probably has 5 % of the market share. So there are elements in business where it is pretty winner -takes -all. And it's conceivable to think the person who is most ruthless, most willing to cut ethical corners, most willing to put profits over people, is probably going to rise to the top. That's right. You know, generally, it's about at least in the short term. In the short term. But the thing is, they're not cash -out.

42:41Yeah. All their bad ethics will catch up with them. Oh, they're bad ethics will catch up. And they'll end up in jail, which we see a lot. We do. We see it. And I think for some people, it was a worthy gamble because they could have potentially won it all. Or they truly believed they were going to get away with it. And I think that's when we use the word arrogance. Erigance is, at its deepest level, is I'm going to do the bad thing and I'm going to get away with it. What about money? Does money make you more narcissistic? Here's where it gets to be an interesting conversation. And I write about this actually more than my other book.

43:15And don't you know who I am? Where I, money breeds privilege. Money breeds entitlement. So I call this sort of phenomenon of feet that never touch the ground, right? If people have enough money, they're wiz to airports and cars. They don't stand in the TSA line with the unwashed masses like the rest of us do. They take into the best hotel suites. They don't think about where their next meal is coming from. It's brought to them. They don't do the all the stuff that the rest of us do. They don't tolerate the indignities. And they don't have to regulate the same way. So when a person has money for long enough, that feet never touching the ground creates what I call this sort of privileged entitlement.

43:54It doesn't. Well, it's that maybe assholes, but maybe not. I think it's also that bubble wrapped way that they go through life. Like they actually don't understand how to use the self -checkout a target. Did you hear the pull -pift study from the adults in your country? Yeah, yeah. He's great, by the way. He's wonderful. Which we've did so many, which study are you referring to? The one where people are made to feel wealthier. And when they feel wealthier, they were more likely to endorse unethical decisions, such as stealing office supplies and stealing candy. People who were made to feel wealthier also gave less to charity.

44:27People who were made to feel wealthier expressed happiness through feelings that were self -focused, such as through pride, contentment and amusement. And people who felt less wealthy were more likely to agree with statements that were focused on others. That's right. Which kind of suggests that being wealthier and feeling wealthier makes you more of an asshole. It makes you more of an asshole. It makes you more self -referential, right? So I think that, you know, is that makes sense? It's surprising. You think it could be the other way around. Not at all, not at all. Because I think that again, Paul's research is great.

44:56By the way, he's wonderful. He actually did another research study where he studied. He looked, he went to busy intersections in Orange County. He's a professor at UC Irvine. He was at the time and I met him. And he'd go to busy intersections, stop signs, not red lights. And he found that people who drove luxury cars were far less likely to speak a full stop at the stop sign and compare to people who had more sort of, you know, middle -level cars. I mean, it was fascinating. So there's, and there's, there's at least a dozen published studies that show that narcissistic people drive more dangerously.

45:28So it's an interesting kind of an accumulation. But per the money part, I don't believe, like if a person was a full grown adult, 30, 35 years old, and they were an agreeable, warm, self -aware person, and they made a lot of money, okay? I don't think you would turn them narcissistic. I do think you might undercut that self -awareness because they may be sort of pulled out of the world that the rest of us live in. So there might be unrealistic expectations for how the world, like, why are we waiting in this line? I'm like, well, that's because what we do is wait in this line because they've come out of it, but they're not cruel about it.

46:08And I'm like, why are these dumb people making me wait in line? So it's not a dismissiveness. It's almost like, how is this so inefficient? There's almost a, there's like a disconnect, I guess. So I wouldn't say money, I think what he's showing is that money creates a self -centeredness, right? As you thought it might go the other way, but I think that we sort of double down on sort of keeping it. And there's an importance. I mean, money is the ultimate source of narcissistic supply because it delivers power, it delivers admiration, it delivers a greater likelihood of getting sex or getting laid, it delivers all kinds of stuff.

46:44So for a narcissistic person, the quest of for money is the surest quick ticket way to get this thing called narcissistic supply. So you'll often see them attempting to do that by any means possible. So, but they're driven to the money. I don't think that the money is what makes people rotten. I think the bubble wrapping at that point makes them entitled. It's a different conversation. How do you know if you are a narcissist? Like, does a narcissist know they are one? Is there a narcissist test one can do? I don't, there's about five to six tests out there that are designed to detect narcissism in its various ways.

47:22All of them have flaws, like I said, and it's not even fully the fault of the test because this is a very difficult thing to measure. We're trying to measure things that are not socially desirable. That's really tough to measure. So a lot of the narcissism tests will measure things like, and some entitlement, assertiveness, self -importance, that people may not find as offensive, but the research actually shows that narcissistic people overestimate their empathy and underestimate their negative effect on other people. They do not have a clear look at themselves. They really have an almost deluded sense of who they are and how they go through the world.

48:06So when a person says to me, I think I'm narcissistic. I always say, hold the presses. You need to tell me a little bit about you because there's a lot of people out there who think of themselves as narcissistic because they're in relationships with narcissistic people who have told them over the years, you are such a selfish person because this unfortunate person is doing simple things like saying, hey, could we go where I want to go for dinner once or I want to talk about my feelings and then they're narcissistic partners saying, oh my gosh, you're so selfish. And they're really sort of indoctrinated into this idea, gas -lighted into this idea that there's something narcissistic about them.

48:43Once we clear the decks of that, is there a subset of people out there who are narcissistic and are kind of in some awareness like this might be who I am? Yes, and we call them self -aware narcissistic people. They're out there. Some of them view narcissism as their superpower. They say, don't take this away from me. This is why I've got the edge. This is why I close the sale. This is why I'm the man. I had one client who was like, I'm the man. Oh my gosh. So like a six -year -old. But okay. The people come to you, women come to you and say, I am a narcissist. Yes, I've had that happen. But it's not common.

49:15I can count on one hand the number of times it's happened. Did you agree with them? I did about an hour, yeah. How did they figure out they were a narcissist? What were they saying? They might have read my books or more likely saw YouTube video. They might have seen my content. Someone might have called said that to them and then they looked it up on Google. And they're like, that is kind of me. But they did in many ways rationalize it saying, this is why I always close the deal. This is who I am. What was it? Don't hate the player, hate the game. They would try that kind of stuff with me. And I'd say, but your behavior is offensive.

49:50This is not okay. What you're doing. What you're doing on an ongoing basis to your spouse or partner is not okay. And so they would have that awareness, like almost like from a checklist. Yeah, I don't care that much about people's feelings. And yeah, I guess I kind of think the rules don't apply to me. They'll have that awareness. It's pretty uncommon. Like I said, most narcissistic people veer into this idea of they overestimate their goodness and generosity underestimate how negatively they're viewed by other people. So let's talk then about the impacts of narcissism on relationships, in particular.

50:27What kind of people do narcissists attract in relationships? And what kind of people are attracted to narcissists? So it's such a good question. I'm so glad you asked it. What kind of people do they attract? Everyone's attracted to narcissistic people. They're charming. They're charismatic. They're confident. They're in research has shown they're often rated as more attractive than other people. They take good care of their bodies. They know lots of interesting things. They're so concerned about hip -cred that they are like, they know the cool restaurants. All of us have been indoctrinated to think that these other people were supposed to be dating.

51:05Who says no to charm charisma and attractiveness? Me maybe, but just nobody else would do that. So we're all attracted to them. And even with the vulnerable narcissistic folks, they say, really, someone's going to be attracted to Sullen and Risenfell. That's not how they come off when you first meet them. Many times a vulnerable narcissistic person looks like a vulnerable child who needs to be rescued. So if you like rescuing people or puppies or any small vulnerable creature, that's going to seem actually very attractive to you. So we're all attracted to them. What are they attracted to in us?

51:38What they're attracted to in us is our supply. Now, supply can mean different things to different narcissistic folks. Classical sorts of supplier are we attractive? If we're attractive, if we have some form of social status, if we have resource, if we have connections, the things that would get them supply. Here's where it gets wonky. Because the question, attractiveness is what attracts people? It's almost the wrong question. The more deep question is what gets people stuck in narcissistic relationships? Because narcissistic relationships start strong. These are people who are running their fastest miles in the beginning of the marathon.

52:17They're just like, go. And these can often feel like a fairy tale. It is glamorous and it's exciting. And the dates are really interesting. And they're very attuned. They may be very attentive. They focus on you and they figure what's going to work for you. If they really want to keep you close, they want to get you and they want to get you quick. Because then you're like a butterfly under glass. Then they've got you captured. Because after all this good stuff happens, you've bought in. You might even be dubious for a while saying, it seems to be too good to be true or I don't know. But then people, after about, I always say it's somewhere between six weeks and six months, the devaluing stage starts.

52:58And then it's, they've got you. Right? And they, you might get the passive aggressive digs, the minimizations, the lack of empathy, the withdrawing, the withholding. And people say, where did that first six weeks go? Do you like, wait a minute, we had such a good time. And as the devaluing begins, people start to blame themselves. So people who are more empathic, more forgiving, more optimistic, these are the kinds of people who get stuck. Because they're making allowances for this. They're saying, I mean, I can't, they were, they were lovely. And they did say they're having a really stressful time at work.

53:35But their behavior is consistently dismissive and rude. And so you keep making excuses, excuses, excuses. But then there's a few good days sprinkled in there. So one of the interesting things is, a lot of people are trying to figure out if their partners are narcissists. Do people in relationships, especially long -term relationships, tend to know that they're dating a narcissist. Or is the narcissist gaslighted them to the point that they, they don't know? Until recently, most people did not know. Because it feels like a disloyal thing to know about your partner. Many people say, I love my partner.

54:10We have built a life together. There are enough good days that leaves them thinking like, there's something here. They're confused. People in these relationships are confused. They're, they blame themselves for everything that goes wrong. They're walking on egg shells. They've in essence modified themselves to be exactly what the narcissistic partner wants. But it's a slow burn. It's a very slow process of indoctrination. I always say these relationships are death by a thousand cuts. Because it's just, each of these things happen slowly over time. And it's almost as a one day you wake up. You're like, who am I?

54:42Like, what have I become? I'm literally like living in service to this other person. It's only in the last 10 years, I'd say, that there's so much more content and the internet is more robust with making this. And I'm sure people type it in. My partner has no empathy and is really entitled and yells at me a lot. Bing! And the narcissism pops out at you. I think this really created the revolution of people saying, what is this? And even when I wrote, should I stare, should I go? That was 2015, I think it was. We're still in the beginning phases. There were just maybe about a dozen books out there taking this on.

55:15And so it's, it's a, as more information gets out there, more people are clear that this is happening in their relationships. The hope is the earlier you identify it, the less indoctrinated, the less what we call trauma bonded you become. And then the easier it would be to make clear headed decisions about how you want to proceed. You talk about the three hours that are the whole marks of negative relationships in your books. What are the three hours? So the first is rumination, okay? That the rumination is, it's an obsessive thinking about the relationship. And it's usually in an attempt to either say, what did I do wrong?

55:52What happened? What is going on? It's a trying to fix it. So these are the three things that someone that's in a relationship with an narcissist will do. Yeah, I mean, they do a lot more, but these are three common ones. So the rumination is a whole marquee characteristic of a person in a narcissistic relationship. In essence, you're just trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. The next R is regret. And that regret links to bigger themes like grief. People having regret that this is the parent I have. And I will never have a close loving relationship with them. The regret that this is the marriage I created and my children will never get a healthy model of marriage.

56:29The regret that I've spent 20 years in this relationship. And really all I have to show for it is a whole lot and nothing except that it's harmed me. So the regrets play out even big ways and even small ways like, why did I say that? Why didn't I say it that way? And then the last R is, it's really euphoric recall, the R being for recall. By euphoric recall, I mean that people in narcissistic relationships have an uncanny ability to sort of cherry pick the good things that happen in the relationship to keep rationalizing it and justifying it to themselves. So they might be in a narcissistic relationship, but the person has really treated them heinously for a month.

57:07But on one day of that month, the narcissistic person, when they went to the grocery store for the first time, remember to bring home two muffins so that you could have a muffin. And the person will say, they brought me home the best blueberry muffin. Wasn't that thoughtful? They brought me home a muffin. We had muffins together. So the euphoric recall is the over focus on those good experiences as a way in essence to create the sort of psychological buy -ins so then you can maintain the status quo for people in narcissistic relationships. It's not as though they're breaking up saying, this is a hellscape I want to get out.

57:43They're getting up saying, I'm so confused. I feel like I'm never enough. Nothing I do is ever enough. Nothing I say is ever there not listening to me. What is going on? Maybe I'm not being clear enough. Maybe there's something wrong with me. So that's the confusion element. So it's not like everyone's saying I want to get out of this. There's a lot of history. There's a lot of experiences together. So people again, and they're also confused because there's good things that happen and bad things that happen. And that's what creates, like I said, the thing called the trauma -bonded relationship.

58:13So people might even be able to say like, there's something about this that isn't okay. And might even be able to articulate. These are the problems in the relationship. But the idea of leaving this relationship feels to me with an absolute sense of panic. Would an narcissist play to that insecurity? And that history? Well, the narcissistic person created the insecurity. And they will. Because the narcissistic person is an expert tactician. Because that's what they bring to relationships is tactics. And so they are very expert at knowing like, ah, your room is a bandiment piece of cake. So if you say, I can't do this anymore.

58:51I'm out. The narcissistic partner. And I'll say, okay, cool. Let's call it a quiz. And I'll be like, that's not what I wanted them to say. I wanted them to say they were going to fight for the relationship. You see what I'm saying? It's so interesting. And part of the reason narcissistic people are so successful is because they're so socially perceptive. They have no empathy. Social perceptiveness and empathy are not the same thing. What do you think? Social perceptiveness is kind of being aware of reading the room, understanding what people need, understanding what makes them tick and what they want, and then strategically giving it to them to keep them on the chain or keep them in the position you need them in.

59:29That's not empathic. Minipulation. You used the word earlier on to describe narcissism. There's two types of manipulation you speak about, which is the sort of normal manipulation, which I think we all do in our own ways when we're trying to get our way with a deal, or with sales, or with someone, or whatever, and we're trying to hang off for a discount, whatever it might be. And then there's this pathological manipulation, which seems to be a little bit different. Yeah. Pathological manipulation is that there's absolutely no regard for the harm it's bringing the other person. You really are giving absolute primacy to your own needs and then making the other person think that this truly is good for them.

1:00:09This isn't as simple as I'm going to sell this car to someone. Maybe it's not the right car for them. This is really around psychological stuff. And it's with somebody where, listen, you're going into a sales relationship, you understand what the sort of the codes of that relationship are. They're trying to sell you something and you're trying to decide if it's right for you. We don't try to think of our intimate and our familial relationships as sales models. So our guard is not up in the same way, and yet the same tactics are being brought. And we're sort of bargaining on things that are matters of the heart and matters of closeness and compassion.

1:00:41So it's, again, the narcissistic person is so skilled at leaving the other person feeling that the thing they sacrificed or gave up was in their best interest. And ultimately, the narcissistic person is so self -centered that anything that they're trying to do is going to serve them. Projection. I've heard this phrase used a few times like he's projecting onto you or she's projecting in the context of narcissism. What is projection? So projection is a primitive defense that any of us can use. And we do use all of us engage in projection. We engage in projection when some of that uncomfortable, unconscious stuff inside of us is getting activated.

1:01:20It's often shame -oriented. And then we'll accuse someone of something that we're actually feeling. Like an uncomfortable feeling. That's projection. Give me an example. How you might project onto me. Okay. We're in a relationship and I'll say something like, who are you texting, Steve? And like, why, what are you? Okay, you're so shady. Like, you know, why don't you show your, show me your phone? Like, oh my gosh, Steve. Like, what the hell? What do you need so many, you need so all the girls to like you, don't you? Like, that's what you're all you're about. Show me your phone. Show me your phone.

1:01:50Show me your phone now. I guess who's got a side piece? That would be me. Oh, really? There's a life hack for you, Steve. Okay, so you're insecure because you know that you're... Not insecure. I'm doing a bad thing. Are you still pretending? I'm not. I am no longer nervous. Okay, we're over. So we're done. That's because you cheated on me. Okay, well, I'll choose this. But it was me. But now I can go with my new guy. I'm okay. So, but it's, I'm giving you like such a low hanging fruit example. It's anytime we might accuse someone of lying when we're lying. We may accuse somebody of even being insecure when we're the one feeling insecure.

1:02:31Right? Well, accuse someone of being uncomfortable when we're the one of being uncomfortable. Can all of us have different stuff we project about because all of us have different sort of psychodynamic histories, right? Well, narcissistic people do this all the time. Let me give you sort of a sense of what the inner psychological apparatus of a narcissistic person looks like. Despite all the shiny, charismatic, charming, arrogant grandiose stuff on the outside, what's in them is the best I can describe it is a volcano, right? And that volcano, the magma and the gases and the lava, is shame and its insecurity.

1:03:05Well, that's not very perfect. Looking is it. So all these defenses, the grandiosity and the arrogance and the charm and all the rest of it, is like a manhole cover, a big manhole cover that covers the volcano. So all that insecurity doesn't exist. I'm, I'm just a smartest person, you know, right? So they get to show up as perfect as extraordinary. But things can kick that manhole cover off. Criticism, negative feedback. They're friend doing better than them. They're new venture, not succeeding. Them not getting something that they want. It's some form of frustration. Well, that means they're not perfect.

1:03:41The manhole cover gets nudged. The gases and the lava ooze out. What does that look like? It looks like anger. It looks like projection. You accuse the other. And this happens to them 20 times a day. Because nobody lives a perfect life. We get disappointed all the time. There's traffic on the freeway. We had to wait for the elevator. The people at the coffee shop screwed up our order. Our public offering didn't go well. It could be baked things. It could be small things. It doesn't matter. But each time the manhole cover gets nudged, that grandiose exterior gets tamed. And they plume. They explode on others.

1:04:17And that often looks like projection. And that projection allows them to maintain that idealized interior. Can they take feedback, narcissists? Like, do they listen to them? Do they? No. They can't take people. They really don't. They cannot. The only time a narcissistic person may, may tiny bit listen to feedback, is if it comes from somebody with much, much more power than them. Because narcissistic people are very hierarchical climbing creatures. So let's say they're getting the CEOs up here. And there's some sort of VP level person here. And they admire the CEO. The CEO's giving them feedback.

1:04:56They will listen because they want to be him. They want to be with him. They want to be next to or her or them, whoever the CEO is, right? But I, so they may get some of it, but they're still going to hear it as or they'll be this or noise that's blocking them out from hearing all of it. So it might be compliance. Because it means to an end versus them actually going, okay? No, yeah, they're not integrating it into their, they're just sort of, and they might even think like, this person's such a dick. I could do their job so much better. They're so lucky. They got there. I'm going to get there.

1:05:31But they, they, again, they also envy this person. So they are listening, but like you said, it is exactly what you said. It's compliance versus this sense of, let me listen to this. And I can promise you what this person's going to do. If they're in a relationship, they're going to go home and rage at their partner. Because they had to have that feedback session. They're going to find a more vulnerable target because they can't attack that CEO. And they'll go and find someone else to rage at a partner, a person on the subway train, a family member, friend, someone else. I heard this word gaslighting again.

1:06:00It's a word I've heard a lot, but I'm not necessarily really clear on what the definition of gaslighting is. But from reading your work, I hear that narcissists gaslight people a lot. A lot, right. What is gaslighting? So gaslighting, it's simplest. It's a power play. It's a form of emotional abuse and it's a tactic. Gaslighting is predicated on a relationship that's ostensibly characterized by trust. So that's why strangers can't gaslight you in the same way as an intimate partner, a trusted colleague, a family member, even a person with expertise, like an attorney or a physician could gaslight you, right?

1:06:33Because there's a presumption of trust. So you're going to listen to the gaslighter. Initially, what the gaslighter will do is they will doubt the gaslight head person's perceptions, experiences, memories, even reality that never happened. I never said that. You're making that up. We never went there. So now this person's a little confused because their reality is saying, yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. So initially, a person will fight back against the gaslight. Let's say we absolutely went there. Do you want me to show you the pictures on my phone? Then we go to the next step of gaslighting. The gaslighter doesn't want to see the pictures on your phone.

1:07:14They just want to overpower you. This isn't about evidence. This is about them overpowering you. So they'll say, look, here's the pictures on my phone. And then the gaslighter won't say, well, you're right. We did go there and said they'll say, oh my gosh, you are the most petty human being I've ever met. Is this what it is? You're just going to go, yeah, yeah, and your phone to find the pictures to prove something to me. Is that what this relationship is? I don't know that I want to even be in a relationship like this. Now this poor person who's being gaslighted is thinking, I just showed them the pictures to prove a point.

1:07:44And now I'm the bad one. And so they're, and if they trust this person, so they think, well, maybe I am doing something bad. Maybe I am being petty. But gaslighting doesn't happen once. It happens over and over and over again. It's an indoctrination process that leaves the gaslighted person, utterly confused, completely out of their minds, doubting themselves. And they start to believe the critiques. And the gaslighter will tell them things like, you're crazy, you're stupid, you don't remember things right. Maybe you have dementia. Do you think you should be in therapy? You might need to be on medication.

1:08:18Like by the time the gaslighter's done with someone, they have lost all sense of, they don't trust themselves at all. And so if they don't leave the relationship and some people don't, they are then sort of in this, again, this form of servitude with the narcissistic person, a gaslighting person, almost relying on them to lead them through reality. So it's almost like utter submission at that point that they get the gaslighter gets to dictate reality. And then over time there's this, there's this tactic that narcissistic and other abusive people use called Darvo. Darvo stands for deny, attack, reverse, victim, and offender.

1:08:58It's a construct that was developed by Dr. Jennifer Fried. Deny, attack, reverse, victim, and offender. So what the narcissistic person want to very skillfully skillfully do is, if the person, the gaslighted person ever attempts to push back on something that the narcissist does, like you said you were going to be home by 9 o 'clock last night, you get home till 1 in the morning. The narcissistic person said, that's not true. I came, yeah, I didn't get home at 9, but I didn't come home at any one in the morning. But again, what is your problem? What do you do? You read the 80th guide all day to see what time I come in the door.

1:09:41And you know what? I can't believe that this is my life. I work so hard to keep us in this fabulous house. I work so hard so you can stay home. And I am the bad guy. Like, I can't even believe that this is usually like you put me through so much reverse, victim, and offender. He was out to 1 in the morning and he knows it. But now he shut down the conversation. It is an insidious dynamic because done enough, you literally strip another person of the reality. And that is unacceptable to me. That's absolute abuse. Do you see this alone? All the time. All the time. It is the dynamic that once it had named to it.

1:10:21When the word is used right, most people use this word wrong. That whole process I described is gaslighting. When the word is used correctly, it's powerful. It captures a unique interpersonal dynamic that really eats people from the insidious. I hear it. I see it all the time. My family members, my partners in the workplace, you name it. And it really messes people up because they feel like they've lost their minds and they feel like they can't trust themselves. And I think that's a terrible thing to do to someone. What should you do if you're being gaslit? When you know what it is and someone starts to gaslight you, they literally deny your reality.

1:11:01Right? You have to take a step back and say, that's not what happened. But you don't say it to them. The importance with gaslightings you don't engage with the gaslighter. You now know you're being gaslighted, which means the other person in that interaction has the capacity to gaslight you. So what that means is from your side, you need to shut it down. And that means no longer engaging. Does that make... So you cannot keep engaging with them because they're going to pull you down. Feathering. Feathering. Yeah, it's almost like they're going to pull you down into being drowned or pull you into the quick sand.

1:11:35So when they start gaslighting, I never said that. One play back could be, we're having a different experience then. And leave it at that. Don't go down that slip. Don't go down the slip. Don't say, don't show them the text message. Don't pull out the email. Don't try to prove them wrong. Don't engage with them. It's funny you're asking me this because I was recently gaslighted. I was relatively recently in a professional situation. And I'm thinking, not me. Like, I don't know much, but I know this. But they did. I was. And I got very upset. And in this particular situation, it was actually...

1:12:14I understand why I got... Think of it as a corporate structure that was gaslighting me. So sometimes very nice people who work in corporate systems, gaslight, because they're trying to prop up the narcissism of the corporation, but they're decent human beings. It was very clear to me. I've seen that happen. But in this particular case, I was being gaslighted. I got upset, though, knowing all I know, knowing all the tactics, it's very dehumanizing to have your reality completely doubted. And so I did feel a sense of upset, but I confronted the person. I said, this is gaslighting. And it's not okay.

1:12:50And I know you're better than this. And they were happened to be. This was a lucky case for the gaslighter was not narcissistic. So we came to a conclusion. But when I've been gaslighted by narcissistic people, I just disengage. And I file it away and say, this person is capable of this. There's really not much juice here. This can only go so deep. Controlling behavior. Emotionally, but also, I guess, physically controlling behavior. When we often think about narcissists, we think of domestic violence and this kind of thing. Is that quite typical of a narcissist to engage in domestic violence?

1:13:28So here's where it gets an interesting question. You're from the UK. And I have to say, actually, of all the countries in the world, the UK actually has had, has taken the front, I think, the highest front position in terms of being very creating public policies around understanding the psychological elements of domestic violence. It was actually a coercive control laws for a showed up in the UK. So this is my personal beliefs, even, and this is my personal belief. And I will hold to this personal belief 100%. I believe all domestic abusers are narcissistic without exception. And I'll tell you why I think that.

1:14:03The capacity to tell someone, I love you. I'm going to care for you. We're in a relationship. And then to emotionally, physically or sexually assault them. That's zero empathy. That's tremendous entitlement. It's incredible arrogance. That's narcissism. There's a lack of self -awareness. There's a lack of awareness of the other. And I think this is why so much of the domestic violence intervention programs, they don't work. Because how are you going to undo someone's narcissism? So that's my belief. And I know that this is a very controversial conversation in the field of domestic violence. Back in the 70s, there's a real pushback on this.

1:14:49I don't think that anyone who does domestic violence work will ever doubt that there's a personality issue in these folks. But the concern was if we made it about narcissism, we'll pull the focus away from their behavior. Right? But I think the two things go together. The behavior is unacceptable. I don't give a damn if they're narcissistic. And this whole idea of does the narcissism excuse the behavior? Never. If behavior is unacceptable, it's unacceptable. I don't care about the backstory. Because it means it's going to happen again. And it always does. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead.

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1:16:03Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future -proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsuite .com slash Bartlett. And free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite .com slash Bartlett. Narcissism in work. How do I know if my boss or my manager or my CEO is a narcissist? And what should I do about it? Do I quit the job? So if you believe that someone you report to a manager or boss or someone like that in a job is narcissistic, you're going to feel it in a sense of you don't feel seen, you don't feel valued, you feel like the workplace is unpredictable, you feel like it's unfair, that it's inequitable, you might even feel that it's psychologically unsafe, you might feel that the way people are praised and get credit for their work again, it doesn't have rhyme or reason, it is inequitable, it might be a very, there might be a lot of gossip in the workplace, those are the things that would suggest a workplace is not, you might be working for someone who is narcissistic.

1:17:03It's a tough one. It might be, a lot of this might depend on the nature of your organization. I always tell people, if you suspect that your boss or manager or someone you report to a narcissistic, start documenting the hell out of it, because the one thing HR doesn't care is you cannot roll up to an HR office and say, I think my manager is narcissistic. You're going to need documentation, which means saving emails and text messages and voice mails and meetings, minutes of meetings. And you're going to need as much information, try to avoid meetings alone, all that stuff, to have that sort of evidence base.

1:17:38If you're in a large enough company where you might be able to switch to work under someone else's management, especially if you still believe in the company. Some people might say, I love the organization. I can't stand working with this person. They may find that working with someone else will allow them to preserve in the institution, but in a smaller employer or where that is not possible. Some people might try to stick it out the best they can, but documenting is not going to make it easier. So some people will find that ultimately if they can't outlast the narcissistic boss or manager which they often can't, they will look for other employment.

1:18:10Some people also find a lot of solace in collaboration. So just because you work for a narcissistic manager, you've done some of your colleagues are narcissistic. And there's some interesting research suggesting that some really powerful collaborative relationships can come when the leadership is narcissistic. But the teams actually come together even stronger. It's almost like they're united against a common enemy. I want to make sure I've given enough advice to someone who is currently dealing with a narcissist. All of the things that you've said to them ring true. They can relate to everything you've said.

1:18:45Are you telling them to get out of that situation? No. And it's something that's very, very important to me is that people don't feel compelled that they have to get out because I can't always get out. And I think if we put that forth as the only pathway, then people who can't get out might say, that no, what? I'm just supposed to sit here and suffer in the answer to that. And my book, what I talk about is this idea. If you're going to stay in a relationship like this, right, for whatever reason, it could be a family member and you don't, you still don't want to fully walk away from your family of origin.

1:19:18It could be a long -term marriage and you've got minor children or there's financial or cultural reasons. It might be a job you've had for a long time. You're not financially in a position to step away from it. It might be a friend. You've had a long time. Your reasons are yours. And so I always say to people, you must never feel pressure. Unless it's dangerous. Let's take dangerousness out of the equation, right? You don't feel compelled to do what people say. It's going to be harder if you stay, it's going to be harder because you're still being exposed to their manipulative, invalidating, unkind, unsettling, destabilizing behavior.

1:19:53However, the first step, the key step is what I call radical acceptance. This is not going to change. This is it. There is going to be no someday better. It's not going to get better when he gets a promotion. It's not going to get better for her when the kids grow up. Your mom's not going to get softened with age. This is it, folks. You now know what this looks like. It is not going to change substantially. The behavior is not going to change substantially. So if you're going to stay in it, your workarounds are going to be based on knowing that. You're going to have very realistic expectations.

1:20:25Now, what happens, though, is when people initially have this level of radical acceptance, they have a tremendous amount of grief. Because a lot of hope was keeping them going. I thought it was going to get better someday. I thought maybe that someday would come. The staying means that someday is not going to come. And so that means that you're not as, once you radically accept, you're not as surprised by their behavior. Because a lot of people get exhausted from the number of times over years or decades. They're like, I can't believe they did that. I can't believe they did. And I'm like, can we just stop that part and say, of course you believe they did it.

1:20:59In fact, we could have set a clock by the idea that they would have done it, by the fact they would have done it. That's a big piece of this. But the grief of letting go of what you wanted these things to be, that's its own process and grief takes time. But as you come around through that, as you come around the bend on that, and you really do radically accept, you need some tools. And probably the biggest tool of all is social connection with people who are healthy and pathic, attuned, responsive, compassionate, and respectful. Whether that means you may, you might have friends who already are this for you.

1:21:34It might be enhanced by getting into therapy. You might join a support group. You might meet friends at work. There's many ways you might try to do this, but you're going to need it. Because if you're going to stay, you're going to need spaces where you're not gas -slided. You're going to need spaces where you are seen, where you are valued, where you are cherished. That becomes the pathway to surviving. And then it doesn't feel good to feel like you're in a marriage where you're phoning it in for the rest of your life. But people say that now that I'm not as surprised by their behavior, it's a little more bearable.

1:22:07I've constructed a rich life almost around this marriage. And I just sort of view that as sort of the kind of annoyance of the side of the room that it is. Some people say, I happen to adore my sister, but I can't stand my narcissistic parent. But I'm going to stay in touch with them so I can also have the family gatherings that matter to my sister. But I no longer have conversations with my mother or one person I know said, she would regularly visit a narcissistic father because nobody else would give him the time of day. And he needed a little bit of assistance. She said, I'd set a timer, 90 minutes max, once the 90 minutes rang out.

1:22:45I said, well, if I got a jump, he'd always yell at her. She said, but better to yell at 90 minutes and at three hours, either way, he was going to yell. So people get into the space of accepting what this is and its limitations. Some people over time may still decide to leave, but not at that moment. But staying and not radically accepting it will destroy you. Can you be happy in a relationship with a narcissist, do you think? You can be happy, but not with a relationship. So you don't think you can be happy with the relationship? I don't think so. No. I think you can see it with its limitations.

1:23:16And I think, you know, I've met people who said, who have told me everything about narcissistic partners have said, they happen to be able to do this one sex thing I love. And so that's just, I mean, all the rest of it's awful. We can't end any house. So we do the sex thing and it works for me. Some people will say, we both love watching period dramas. And that's there, my person to do period dramas with. Someone else said, we're obsessive about collecting antique fountain pens. And I really can't stand spending time with them. But we get excited when we find a new pencil. And I said, he's a hell of a scrabble player.

1:23:52You find the one or two things that work for you. Is it happy? I mean, again, we're getting back into philosophy there. That's a sense of it. You know, just what's happy on that point of sex. On narcissists, better and better. Depends on what you call better. Actually, I did a big piece of you as a today on this that I've been interviewed for. They are very performative lovers. They are, as you can imagine, they like, they almost want to pause after the sex act, right? Because they need admiration and validation. So they actually can be rather invested in getting a partner off. Because they want to be told, oh my gosh, you're the best lover ever.

1:24:24They might want to be very like mirrory sex. So they can see their body or your body. Because it's all, again, very performative. But some narcissistic folks are very selfish lovers. The sex can be a little bit porny. Like it's a bit, you know, like a bit over the top. And I can say this feels performative. But for some people where it gets into dangerous waters, is when people are in narcissistic relationships. And they feel like they're having sex just to go along, just to keep the trains of the relationship going along. And that's a very unhealthy precedent. So it can be an aspect from sort of ridiculous performative sex to maybe they're skilled that they want to sort of show off.

1:25:01But then they're like a little six -year -old who wants to get a lollipop for having done a good whatever on you. And then all the way up to stuff that feels almost coercive. Superman has kryptonite. And in the context of the Superman story, kryptonite is the thing that he's kind of allergic to. The thing that kind of, you know, defeats his very strong set of powers. For a narcissist, what is their kryptonite? What is the thing that, you know, makes them fall to their knees and that they run from? But when they see it in a person, a trait maybe? I think that for a narcissistic person, there's a couple of ways kryptonite can show up.

1:25:37I think that the kryptonite that we could bring into it is not engaging with them anymore, right? Not giving them the satisfaction of the fight, not getting into the mud with them. But we have to be strong in the face of that because they are going to want the fight. So they're going to push and they're going to push and they're going to push and push and try to poke us and make us take the fight because they're really good at fighting. Another thing that's kryptonite for a narcissistic person is a person who's much, much more powerful than them. Because they do feel, they sort of feel cowed by them.

1:26:04So they, like I said, they gave you the example of the sort of middle level narcissistic person working in a large organization. And then they meet the big CEO. And it's really, really great if you had one of those empathic CEOs. And then the narcissistic person who's almost trying to get into the good books with this empathic CEO and all their usual tricks aren't working, that would definitely be a bit of kryptonite too. That the very person that they envy wants them to be sort of warm and fuzzy and all the things that they have contempt for. But I have to say not engaging with a narcissistic person is the ultimate kryptonite and not sort of owing and eyeing.

1:26:41Narcissistic people are very used to people owing and eyeing over them. What about authenticity? I saw you talk about that once then. Yeah. They don't like people that are authentic. They feel threatened by people who are authentic. So, and to show up as your authentic self and a narcissistic relationship can actually be, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a dangerous, I put dangerous in quotes. It's not like they're going to beat you up. But they're not going to have it, right? You're a true self. You're authentic self. They're going to mock it. They're going to have contempt for it. They're going to, if you're not solid in that authentic identity, they're going to attempt to dismantle it, which is why many people struggle.

1:27:17If they don't know they're dealing with a narcissistic person, they may struggle with authenticity and a narcissistic relationship because it gets dismantled. It's hard enough for us to get to authenticity. If somebody wants to dismantle it, especially when you're younger, I think authenticity, the odds of it happening, grow with age. It's hard to be a young authentic person. But if you remain solid in your authentic identity around the narcissistic person, they'll actually probably get bored and leave, which is always the hope, right? They may ramp up for a little while, but then you're just not an interesting target to them anymore.

1:27:49So then they'll sort of slowly lose interest in luck away. Famous narcissists. What famous people are. Oh, shit. You think all famous people are? I don't think all are, but I think a lot are because the quest for fame is a very narcissistically driven interest, right? So I think most normal people don't want to be famous. They really don't. If you talk to average person, do you want to be famous about your handle? No. I want to be able to go to the grocery store and have no one know who I am. I want to be able to live my life without being recognized. So I think we talk famous people. You're saying that is it one in five, one in six seems like?

1:28:22Like a lot. I'd say famous people were at 40 to 50%. 40 to 50 % of famous people are narcissists. I do. I really think it's quite flip. What about world leaders? Now we might be closer to 60 to 70%. I mean, think of what you're signing up for. Yeah, it's crazy. I need to run a country. I believe I can run a country. And you know what? There's, we have in over history had some good people do that. But when you look at the circus, politics has become, which is performative and ridiculous and bombastic and cruel and critical and manipulative. I don't see how someone non narcissistic could ever win at that game.

1:29:00Why do we vote for narcissists? Why do we put them into power? Well, I mean, I think that we, we're still, we still do what I call, or many of us call, we still fond in there in their, in the face of their charisma. I think we believe somebody who walks around thinking that they're all that, that they actually have the goods. I still think we fall for the circus Barker. We fall for the person who is, who is sort of selling the story. We, we vote for them. We choose them. And I think we want, you know, this is the best example I can give you, Steven. When we go to a magic show, right? I don't know if you've ever been to a magic show.

1:29:33It's a place called the magic castle in LA. You should, you should try to go sometime because I find it intriguing. But when you go, there's no, there's still such thing as magic. It's all a slight of hand, right? But for a moment, we, I don't want them to show me the trick. I want to be lost in the magic. And most of us, most of us, not all. I think somebody of one, you know, how the trick is done. But once we're shown how the trick is done, the magic's gone. Now it's just, right, it's, it's, it's dexterity, right? Most people don't want to know how the trick is done. We want to believe in magic.

1:30:03And that's why narcissistic people don't get called out. Because there's something about them. There's something that feels, you know, there, there's a confidence they breed because they have so much conviction, but it's misplaced conviction. It's not conviction backed by facts or integrity. It's just, they just believe it because they think it's true. And it's going to forward their cause. So that becomes a self -fulding. Exactly. But we believe most of us don't have that kind of conviction. We doubt ourselves. We question ourselves. And so when someone comes in with absolute 100%, I wanted to bang my hand, but I didn't 100 % conviction.

1:30:37We're like, wow, they must really know what they're talking about. Leaders have conviction. But in fact, when we see a leader who circumspects, who might say, well, give me a minute. I want to weigh both sides of this. Those leaders are often viewed as more weak -minded and are less likely often to get the vote. If our adversary in another country is a narcissist, you know, like a Putin or a Kim Jong Un, whatever he's called, would we rather are a leader that's against him being a narcissist as well? That's a fantastic question. Do we want a narcissist fighting a narcissist? I would say that. The problem with a narcissist fighting a narcissist is they lose track of what is good for their people.

1:31:19So they could drag them into a conflict or a problem that could harm the populace economically, physically, battles, wars, the whole nine yards, right? And that's what a narcissistic person is more likely to do because they can't be the smaller one in the fight. It's all about, it's two egos fighting each other. They can't just say, okay. No. But an overly empathic leader might do a little bit of saying, okay, and then a narcissistic or psychopathic leader will absolutely sort of railroad that person. That sort of perfect, mid -level sort of wise, circumspect, aware of the needs of the populace, but aware of the psychology of the perpetrator is what we want.

1:32:03I have to say, if I ran the world, Stephen, and I don't know, even a long shot, and I wish I was more grandiose because really my career would be fire if I was, but I'm not. And so, but I wish what one place I wish we really brought more narcissism training is into diplomacy. I wish more of the diplomats around the planet, secretaries of state and UN representatives understood narcissism, because I think a lot of times people are making bad deals where a lot of people are getting hurt, and they're trying to negotiate with people you cannot negotiate with. Anyone who's ever tried to negotiate with a narcissistic spouse knows that it's impossible.

1:32:41It's no different with a world leader. And I think a lot of innocent people have been incredibly harmed as we did all around and try to negotiate with narcissistic world leaders and just simply aren't willing to call them out for what they are. What is the most important thing we haven't discussed that we should have discussed? I would say the most important thing that we've discussed is that I don't want people to leave this conversation thinking it's all doom and gloom. People can take themselves back from these relationships. It isn't like sort of some terrible deterministic destiny that I've been through a narcissistic relationship so I'm never going to be authentic.

1:33:15I think what's remarkable is once people learn about this and they're taught about this and the dynamics of it and they're given permission to call abusive behavior what it is. They're able to slowly but surely start coming back into themselves. No longer shaming themselves for having a need or a want or a feeling or a hope. People do heal and I've seen remarkable stories of people coming back from familial narcissistic abuse, marital narcissistic abuse, long term committed relationship, narcissistic abuse, workplace, narcissistic abuse, and out of it have come out so much wise or stronger, finally enacting their creative selves.

1:33:54I really want people to leave this episode knowing all the dynamics but that not only is healing possible, it happens all the time to people but it's work and it's not an easy process. We have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest in the diary of a see -you. Not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question here that's been left for you is which was your darkest day and how did you turn the lights on?

1:34:30I was stalked by someone who actually assaulted me and it was sort of this nightmarish collegiate experience before you would report these things. Again, I'm quite a bit older than you and it was horrific and it was just absolutely horrific. I didn't understand, I talked about not knowing what narcissism was. I was much younger, I was still my teens or the 20s. But that one experience, you learned so much about what trauma does to us. It was absolute terror. I was being stalked all the time. I didn't know what to do. We didn't understand this stuff then. We did not understand, we did not talk about it.

1:35:10We didn't have cell phones, it was still like you're still back in these dialing phones days. And the person just kept breaking me down, breaking me down. I didn't know what I was dealing with. I didn't have a lot of self -esteem. I didn't know who to ask. And it was sort of, and then it was, yeah, remember what's what it was. And so probably is what propelled me to want to work with people who are doubted by systems and who are, until me, want to understand trauma. A system that downloaded you. There was nowhere to go with that stuff. To this day when women bring reports of sexual assault or abuse on college campuses, they're believed, they're not believed more often than they are believed.

1:35:55They're blamed. There wasn't even, I didn't even know where to go. I didn't know where to take it. I didn't know who to tell. It's fine. I mean, when I say it's fine, I've done the work. I've been supported through therapy, but you just didn't know where to take it. With an narcissist. That person who did it, I didn't know them well enough at the time. There was someone who was sort of peripherally known to me. Yes, for sure. I'd say vulnerable narcissists, actually, which I think by far even some ways is at level with the danger of the malignant narcissistic person. In that time, Stephen, very frankly, doing this work, I don't know what your experience has been as a public person, but maybe as a woman of color, there's a little more risk.

1:36:39I've had people say very dangerous things to me in online spaces and issue some real threats towards me. It all came back at me. In fact, we had something like this happened in the last few years, and it just flooded me. I'd really compartmentalized that piece. It all comes flooding back. When you went through something like that, when you felt, again, back then it wasn't online stocking. It was using phones. It was following you places. My things were being stolen. It was a lot of gaslighting. My things would be stolen. Then my things would be put back so the campus police didn't believe me. They'd said, you said your stuff was stolen, but your backpack is right there.

1:37:17The person would take my backpack and then put the backpack back in this place. I can't ask how did that end? I left the university. Is that why you left the university?

1:37:32Has that inspired why you were focused on working on this subject matter at all? No. I think most people should draw. I don't mean to laugh about it, but I compartmentalized it. I'm saying, as we mostly dissociate from our pain. Consciously? No, not consciously. I think dissociation is a very protective mechanism. I think the way the mind and the body work when we've gone through trauma, I think the body is beautiful and how it tries to protect us. I think the mind is also trying to protect us and together. These are painful things, but the problem is them getting pushed away and they actually don't do us any favors, if you will.

1:38:11You know what I'm saying? But yeah. Thank you for taking the time to write such brilliant important books on a subject that is still not well known enough. The way that you go about both your videos, your content broadly, but especially your books, is so important because you're giving information in a very, very accessible way. And information is always an awareness, is always the first step in being up to do something about your situation. And there must be so many thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people that have been exposed to your work. It's heightened their awareness and because of that, they've taken a step out of a situation that wasn't serving them, that was hurting their health and happiness and towards a better place.

1:39:02And that is a really remarkable thing. This book was, I've heard about the word narcissism, but this new book, it's not you, turn the lights on for me in a really, really important way. To be honest as well, as a CEO, as a business leader, it also made me ask myself a lot of questions about myself, about behavior that I have. I don't consider myself to be a narcissist, but as I was reading about the behaviors of narcissists and also the impact that it can have on someone, I thought, it's insidious, it's insidious. And I think I'm right in saying that we can all exhibit some traits of narcissism, some times, and we kind of define that as being an asshole or whatever.

1:39:48And it really made me want to be a better person. It really, really did. It really made me want to be a much, much better person. So thank you for that. Thank you for shining on this subject matter. And thank you for all the millions of people that you've helped through your work. I love that. I mean, I think that that's such an interesting take on is that we do sometimes do these things that are narcissistic, but we, you know, we're not even, because we are narcissistic, but to even recalibrate those behaviors, I think the better we all can be, the more we're affordified should someone who has these qualities come into our life that we don't give up on ourselves.

1:40:20And I think that that's the more good we can sort of create in our universes that bad's going to happen in its nature of life, but we'll be stronger in the face of it. So thank you.

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