Powerful Strategies To Deal with Narcissism and Addiction

25:01You're right. The crazy thing about addiction is your brain starts thinking that's effed up in addiction, that your brain convinces you certain things are good. When it's just that motivational system, that's the problem. So sex and love addiction is a challenging construct. I worry about the overutilization. If you're interested in it, Pia Melody has some great books on it. I think it's called Overcoming Love Addiction or Facing Love Addiction. And she talks about the love addiction, love avoidance cycle and the cycles of abuse. She has lots of great constructs in there that you will see yourself in if there's any sense that you have one of these things.

25:42And again, they're very common, built off trauma again. And there's various ways to manage it. if you are somebody that keeps getting yourself in situations that are really problematic, the relationships are not working or you're getting hurt physically or emotionally, you want to look at this. You want to look at it. And it's useful to think of it as a sex and love addiction sometimes. And the one thing that I mentioned it earlier, how you'll be attracted to circumstances and people that always end up being the same, your body's a perfect instrument if you've had that trauma and you'll be attracted to these things and you'll just do it over and over and over again.

26:26So when you feel lightning bolts, if you're that person that has this pattern, beware the lightning bolts, the lightning bolts of attraction. They call it a coup de foudre in Francais. And it's going to be the same thing all over again. What do you do beyond looking at it? What's something else you can do? So you can look at it, but then there's something you got to physically change, right? Yeah. I always tell people, look, you can, it depends, it's always hard for me. A lot of this I get when I'm just talking to people on telephone and things. It's hard for me to tell how serious it is, but I say, well, you can give yourself, try.

26:59Try to start dating people you're not having lightning bolts with, you're just having butterflies and see if you can hang with it or do you sabotage those relationships? Because the nature of the trauma makes it really difficult to have real intimacy. And so intimacy becomes uncomfortable and boring and weird and all these kinds of feelings. And so they either leave or sabotage or something. And so if you can't stay with a relationship that is not a lightning bolt relationship, you have to get treatment. Okay. Now you can do various things. You can go to a 12-step program. I think this kind of thing is best professionally managed.

27:36And trauma therapy does tremendous EMDR, things like that. Tremendous and quick. You start being attracted to and by different kinds of people. Do you? Wow. Now, when someone's going to get therapy, by the way, people advertise on the show for it as well. But is there any advice you would give to have the right type of therapist? Meaning, is there something about them? Yeah, these are hard things. Referrals are helpful. You shouldn't, it's certainly not at the beginning, you shouldn't love your therapist or feel better necessarily after therapy. The idea is not to feel better. The idea is to heal.

28:13And that often feels not so good for a while. It should be challenging. Now, a good therapist should give you tolerable doses of that. So you're not miserable and you're not depressed. You should be challenged. You should be challenging and should be gratifying. Should they have initials next to their name of some type? Well, that's where I was going to go. And so the best thing is if you have a PsyD, PhD, or MD after the names, I think LCSWs make excellent therapists also. Because they're training? It's something about the kind of person that becomes a licensed clinical social worker and they're training.

28:51I've hired a million of them. They're excellent therapists. And this just seems to be a consistent thing. I always worry that it's just in Southern California or something because that's where I work with all these people. But it's been my own therapist as an LCSW, and that just was outstanding. So the level of expertise is generally better. The MDs rarely do therapy, so it's really hard to find an MD that does this stuff. They refer it out, but they often know who to send to that are good. Okay. So one of the ways, ideal way to do this, if you have the resources and insurance and stuff, first get a psychiatric evaluation.

29:28You know, what is my diagnosis? What's going on here? And given that construct, what kinds of treatment are going to be most likely to help me? Now, most people don't do that. And it's always, you know, I always worry that, you know, I both worry that the MDs are going to overprescribe the meds. And I also worry that people that need meds never get to the MD and, you know, wonder why they don't get better and might really need it. Hopefully somebody enlightened will be judicious and careful and not throw meds on everybody. It's not the way to go. they're useful and sometimes very important, not all the time.

30:01And then if you have trauma, you need to be with somebody with really ideally LCSW, PsyD, PhD after their name, who has explicit trauma therapy and look for things like EMDR and various kinds of, you know, there's all kinds of ways now to hook the brain and the body up. It's all about getting the brain and the body reintegrated. Well, that's where I want to go. So I want to talk about heart, brain, what I call coherence or whatever. And you said you wanted to talk about that a little bit today. So one of the, I said earlier that I've done a lot of work and some of that work has been therapy, reading, having friends like you in my life that I taught, literally I've just become more self-aware.

30:35And a lot of times just my awareness of some of my behavioral patterns, it's lost some of its power over me. Oh, a hundred percent. That's why, that's why there's a whole category in treatment, frankly, called psychoeducation. Okay. And interestingly, my early, my therapy, I had to understand what was happening before I felt comfortable going in. So I read a ton of stuff before the therapist was like, why do you, why do you, I just, I need to understand. I just need it. Well, for me, it was, it wasn't just that it was like, I've produced an externally really pretty good life. Yeah. And I was afraid if I'm being candid, that if I change some of these patterns that I had in my life, that although maybe I had a little bit more set in peace, but I'd lose my edge.

31:15I'd lose my success. By the way, I think my audience listening resonates with what I just said deeply. Well, but here's the thing about treatment and healing. you have to be one of the your brain hates change our brain fight changes just the way we hate we don't want our arm cut off we don't want our we don't want to change fundamentally who who our brain thinks we are but you have to be prepared to become whoever you're supposed to be well and and that is a really hard thing for people to do i went through it myself it's it's you have to kind of let go uh and let things happen and your brain fights you and that's kind of why when i recommend professionals get involved, that's their skill set is working around and through those resistances.

31:58That's one of the most important things someone said, because what I ended up finding out, because this is like an achiever audience overall, right? I ended up finding out that in fact, I externally produced way more abundance in my life when I had patterns that served me in my life. And I gave myself the gift of a little bit more equanimity and peace in my life. One of the things I did also work on though was what I would, I'd like you to elaborate on cause you'd be better at it than me, but I've worked on small things all the way to like my breathing. Oh sure. To, you know, alter my HRV rate so that I've got a little bit more heart and brain coherence, which most people don't know about.

32:35So just riffed on that. Well, I just, there's a guy named Steven Porges. Okay. If you want to read about the neurobiology of attachment and regulation, Alan Shore is your guy, and Peter Fonagy, who really has worked out this socio-emotional exchange system, which is something that's evolutionarily built into not just our bodies, but actually into our development. And so there's, I'm going to have trouble explaining this in a way that's cohesive, but I'm going to try. The brain, the base of the brain, the brainstem, the cranial nerves, and the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems all develop together and are embedded in the face, the ear, the vocal cords through something called the brachial pouches, which is these things that develop into our face and neck and whatever, and the sympathetic outflow to our heart and gut.

33:33And it turns out, obviously the face and our voice and our ear is how we exchange emotionality. We are exquisitely sensitive to what's going on in other people's faces. And what goes on in our faces can have micro, micro changes that the other person, maybe even not on a conscious level, is able to read and receive as information about the other person's emotional states. So we ultimately learn to regulate our emotions through being in and around other people. Our identity comes from being in and around other people. You know, like we said, the brain is embedded in the body, but the brain body is embedded in a social system.

34:11and how it manifests. You mentioned earlier about trends and things and how they affect people. They do. I'm interested in that. I'm not an expert in that, but I read a lot about that stuff these days. History is one of my weak spots. I've read a ton about it, trying to make sense of it all. But the socio-emotional exchange system is also connected through various nuclei in the brainstem to the vagus nerve, the gut, and then the sympathetic outflow. Something like 70 % or 80 % of the vagus is an inflow to the brain. When I went to medical school, we were taught, well, the vagus is a system that decreases your, maybe changes your acid secretion in your stomach and slows your heart down.

34:54Right. No, 70 % of it is getting information from your body and taking it back to the brain. To the brain. Goes that way. It's crazy. Goes that way. And it's deeply embedded in this socio-emotional exchange system. And he has all this data about how heart rates change and breathing change with our emotional states. It's from infancy, from infancy. What have you done in that world for yourself? Do you do - I like the breathing stuff. I try to do that. I'm not a religious - My thing has been the psychotherapeutic process. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, but as it pertains to breathing and heart rate and facial expressions and stuff, I know when I'm around great therapists that are highly attuned to their patients because when I see them work or I interact with them, I notice I start breathing with them too.

35:41Interesting. Literally my heart rate and breathing starts syncing up with that other person. Yeah. And when I become aware of, I've actually been, this one woman who I've become close with who treats sex addiction actually, I saw her in a video working with a patient and I noticed it was happening to me and I went, oh, this woman has got powers. And so I got to know her and lo and behold, She really is an exquisite therapist. And they can just be fully present and attuned to that person on not just an attentive, attentional level, but the whole body as an instrument. And if you've ever been in a therapeutic process where your body is present like that, it's weird.

36:22I've been the subject of it as a patient, and I've helped other people by being the antenna. And you experience things and smell things and hear things. that are not yours. And you know it because you've never experienced these things before. And they're really the, I'll tell you a story in a second about my favorite story with this. I tell it all the time. But the real art in the therapeutic process is not just receiving, listening with your whole body, I call that, but knowing when to bring it in the room. In other words, when to go, you know, I'm having an experience. And I'll tell you a story about that.

36:58I had this guy that was severely traumatized. And usually it's traumatized parts of the self that are needing attention that the patient isn't even aware, isn't there in the room with that patient at the time. It's sort of a walled off part of themselves that's screaming for some kind of attention. And this guy was coming in and as he would sit down every day, I started hearing the opening riff on mad men i was like where is that coming from like i don't hear that normally and i thought well isn't that interesting and damn it every time what he would start walked in the room well then it got weirder then uh as we were working together it wasn't that long there's a few visits um i started feeling like i was that shadowy character falling through the buildings right like yes so i had that feeling and i was like whoa this is interesting but i I didn't bring it up with the patient because he was talking about horrible trauma and all these horrible things that happened to him.

37:56And then about halfway through one of these visits later, music kicked in. I'm falling. And all of a sudden, I experienced myself as a baby falling through these buildings. As I talk about it now, it constricts my chest. It was an overwhelming experience. I couldn't stay with it. It was like it just took my breath away. It's like this incredibly traumatic feeling. and I thought I have to bring it I have to bring it up and I said listen I actually interrupted him he was telling another traumatic story I said look I'm having an experience and I'm wondering if this is meaningful to you and I told him what I've been experiencing he became furious stormed out of the room you and your psychobabble how dare you you think you know what you're talking about and just ran out of the room and I thought maybe that wasn't the right time to bring that in comes back in the next day and he sits down calmly and says, how did you know?

38:54He goes, how did you know? All I hear is the baby, the baby, the baby screaming in my head. It's going all the time. And because of the depth of that attunement, he and I were, he trusted me. And by the way, if you've been traumatized, trust is a big deal. We were able to kind of work together for a while. And I always see that. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And so I would get people in working with people with trauma and addiction and stuff, I'm always getting them at the front end at the beginning of their treatment. And I really always conceived of my role, other than get them through the medical stuff, to teach them that you could be fully appreciated, I could fully experience you, and you can trust that.

39:31You can stay close to another person and they don't abuse, they don't, nothing. They'll be there for you. Wow. For you. Makes me emotional just thinking about it. Yeah, makes me emotional. The part of it that makes me emotional is to understand how connected humans can actually be together. It's unbelievable. Right. It's unbelievable, right? Right. And so when you ask, can, and that's, you know, it's weird. It's right. It's almost psychic-y kind of stuff. And every therapist who does this kind of work has had these experiences where you feel a pain somewhere that's not yours or you hear music or you see something.

40:05And, but of course, then we affect each other on a macro scale too, right? I don't understand why there are these huge trends, you know, why it happens. I'm trying to understand that. And it feels to me like it's sort of French Revolution type trend, you know, like where people are bringing out guillotines and things. Same here.

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42:09That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. I have a really unique woman on my show. She's one of the top attorneys in the country, but then has sort of morphed over this time into an expert. I would call it on negotiating life. And we're going to talk about a lot of things there. We're going to talk about toxic people in your life. We're going to talk about narcissists in your life. How to identify them. A lot of you have them. And when I was researching the show today, I'm like, wow, that friend of mine is somewhere on the spectrum of being a narcissist.

42:41That one is. And I wonder even if I am in some cases. And so I'm really honored to share Rebecca Zung with everybody today. Rebecca, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. The narcissist thing that you've been talking about lately is how to negotiate with a narcissist. But to me, when I hear narcissist, there's, correct me if I'm wrong, I think there's degrees of narcissism in life. But it's also for me, it's a lot of people listening to this are in different relationships, business relationships, personal relationships, and how to identify whether or not this person is toxic to you or just detrimental to your life or whether or not they're a benefit to your life.

43:16So what is narcissism to start out with and are there varying degrees of it? Yeah, I mean, to me, a narcissist is a person who has a very fragile sense of self. It's the the person who is the absolute most insecure person in the world, they have no inner sense of value. So therefore they have to get all of their sense of value from external sources, from either the, you know, adulation from prestige, from people giving them compliments, from all of the things that you think about when you think of that. But what I call the dark underbelly of that is that control, devaluing, debasing people, degrading people, that's the other side of that as well.

44:13So that's the one side of that. And then the other side of that is that they therefore have no ability to have any sense of compassion or care or empathy for other people. And that is because it's scarcity mentality to the extreme. If I give to anybody else, therefore I can't have or I won't have. So that's really what a narcissist is all the way to the end of the spectrum. And as you said, you know, I do believe that all of us, you know, to varying degrees have some sense of that. We've all, you know, had some feeling of insecurity at times. We all want to feel seen, heard and know that we matter.

45:04That's part of being human. And so, you know, it's when it becomes pathological. It's when it becomes, you know, that's the only way that you feel. So brilliant. I want to stay on it because listen, what's the most important things in our lives is obviously our sense of self. And we, as you said to people, people want to be seen and heard and felt, and they want to express themselves. They want to feel valued. That's healthy. That's okay. But right now, if you're listening to this or you're watching this, you may be in a relationship where you're like, is this the one, or maybe you're even married and you're thinking, why are we not happier together?

45:37Maybe it's a business relationship that you have people that work with you for you or a boss of yours. And so I want to hone in on this idea that, cause for me, I started to really when I'm reading about this, people start flashing. Well, you know, that particular person in my life, man, they are so addicted to attention, so addicted to getting accolades and admiration externally, and will do almost anything to get it, even do things to their own detriment. So how do we distinguish between the unhealthy and the healthy? I want to ask you specifically about something. When I was kind of ranking people that I know, including myself on this spectrum, so to speak, because I think there's a point where now no longer is this person healthy in my life.

46:18They become toxic. There's a line there. And for me, the other sign of the aggressive narcissist or the more severe one is they also will never take responsibility for any of their behavior. They immediately make you think you're the crazy one. Well, what about you? And they constantly turn the frame and put it back on you. Everyone right now that knows someone like this is going, I know that person. Do you think that's where you distinguish the line that this person is unhealthy because they won't take any responsibility for this addictive behavior, for attention and admiration and accolades is responsibility.

46:50One of the quotients we should be looking at. I mean, I think there's a number of different types of lines, and I think it depends on the type of relationship that you're in with that person as well. I mean, is it a work relationship? Is it an intimate relationship? You know, I think it really kind of depends. I mean, are you in a business relationship with this person? Is this person like in your finances? Are they in your space? You know, I mean, or is it kind of a more of a casual relationship? I think it really kind of depends, you know, how, how much control do they have over you? You know, but if, you know, you are feeling where, you know, the hairs on the back of your neck are up, the gut, your gut reaction is not feeling good.

47:35but you're feeling like this relationship is not working for you in some way. I mean, I know for me, I had a very minor business with a person, a business relationship where I had gone into a business partnership with someone. Thank God it didn't go very far and the business didn't really make any money, but it was enough that it absolutely made my life completely miserable. It was a covert narcissist. And, you know, right from the beginning, I saw red flags, but I kind of ignored them because I was like, well, but this person seems so nice. And but yet I knew that there were these flags and I let them go.

48:20And I thought that I could overcompensate for them. And I thought that, well, there's these other things that seem good. And I continued, you know, and I ignored them because I thought that I could make up for them in other ways. And because I did that, I paid for it so dearly. And it was it ended up to be one of the absolute worst nightmares of my entire life. and you know you most of the time with these people you know from the beginning yeah that it's not good you said something in there Rebecca I just want to jump in and ask you about it because to me you said such a great distinction between business and personal personal for me one of the things I measure is how much of my energy am I using to have to feed this person's ego and prop them up right now if you're in a relationship friendship personal intimate relationship with somebody measure it.

49:16How much of your energy time thinking goes to having to prop up their ego constantly, right? And how much energy are you expanding? And is it a never ending thing you're doing? You want to do that the rest of your life. Business sometimes though, to your point, I'm locked in now and I may need to be dealing with them for a while. Maybe I do need to exit, but if you can't, you have to deal with someone who's got some form of narcissism. You have this thing you say that is so brilliant. I want, if you'd cover two of them at once, One is slay. And the other one is sort of this related is this sort of how to ethically manipulate the manipulator.

49:51Would you sort of touch on that? So I'm in a business relationship. I can't exit it right now. How do I negotiate and deal with on all different settings? Someone has one of these forms of narcissism. Yeah, well, I mean, those are kind of both related with each other. OK, so, I mean, Slay is, you know, developing a super strong strategy and creating invincible leverage, anticipating what they're going to be doing and then focusing on you and your position and your case. And this is if you're having to negotiate with this person. And I call it and you're ethically manipulating the manipulator throughout the entire process because these people are master manipulators.

50:36You know, I always go back to the the Malcolm Gladwell 10 ,000 hour thing, you know, where he talks about how it took 10 ,000 hours to become good at something. These people, 10 ,000 hours was like, you know, they hit that at toddler. You know, I mean, they were doing this long ago, long ago. They're very good at what they do. They know exactly how to push your buttons. They know exactly how to trigger you. They've been reading you from the beginning. And, you know, so a lot of times people beat themselves up over like, how did I fall into this thing? How did I fall prey to this? Well, they know how to read you.

51:19They know how to, you know, manipulate you. So you have to learn how to take what it is that motivates them, which is their need for narcissistic supply, which is anything that feeds their ego and use that to manipulate them in order to create leverage. I mean, this is within the context of actually negotiating with them for people who are negotiating with them. Well, everything's a negotiation though. And so every single day, you may have a boss who's got a form of narcissism. And so what she's talking about with slay is being very aware right and being cognizant of listen oftentimes you have to there's got to be compliments there's got to be feeding them and then sticking in there what you need or that you want right so so a good example of that you know not to um cut you off but i want to give you but you want you to please i want you i want to give a good example of what exactly you're talking about so a good example of that would be some something that i call bartering So bartering in the real world is, you know, an exchange of goods and services, you know, without money So what does value look like to a narcissist?

52:40Well, it's adulation That is the grade A diamond level supply for a narcissist So in the narcissism world, supply is what they feed on It's their lifeblood, it's their food, it's their oxygen It's anything that feeds their ego but within that world of narcissism, there is a hierarchy of this supply. So, you know, there's the good food, there's, you know, that prime rib of beef or whatever, you know, there's the grade A and then there's, you know, like the scraps of food or whatever. So like the prime rib or the good food or whatever is the adulation. It's, you know, and so if you want something, you might want to say, you might want to give them some adulation.

53:29So you might want to say something like if you want them to get, you know, do the QuickBooks or something, hey, can you do the QuickBooks? You are so much better at it than I am. You know, you are way better at math and figures and you'll get it done so much faster. I'm terrible with that. And then you like you beef up their ego. They'll like want to do it. Yeah, you're right. I am so much better at it. They get motivated. They'll get it done. You get something you want and everybody is happy. And, you know, so a lot of people think, oh, but I don't I hate them. And now you're playing into their ego, blah, blah, blah.

54:14Well, but if you want them to do something, then you've got to like think about what it is that's going to motivate them. Right. Yes. You may have a you may be in a situation where you say, well, manipulates a strong word. Oftentimes, manipulating somebody to do things for their own good. I I've had to manipulate family members of mine to go see a doctor and then they found out they had cancer. Thank God I had the ability to put the words together, the emotions together to persuade them to go do something for their own benefit. it. So you may not be able to escape some of these situations that you're in.

54:45And so these are things that are important. You do need to learn how to do them. And now I want to ask you about confronting someone. And again, guys, there's degrees of narcissism. There's degrees of being self-centered, degrees of ego. We all have a little bit of it all the way to this point where it's not really healthy. And we're going to talk in a minute, by the way, we're going to talk about how to get what you want, regardless of who you're interacting with. But what would your recommendation be about you are interacting with someone who is behaving and acting out in a way that doesn't serve them or you, business or personal.

55:16Is there any upside in confronting a narcissist directly about their behavior? Or do you believe that that's completely useless use of energy and words? Well, I mean, there's no upside to, you know, going up to them and saying, you're a narcissist. and I'm referring more about their behavior. Hey, listen, this thing you're doing here, here and her doesn't serve you or I, or if you've already identified them as somebody who's a narcissist, are they not going to own it in any way, shape or form anyways? No, you're not going to get them to say, you're right. I'm so sorry. You know, blah, blah, blah.

55:52You're totally wasting your breath and your energy by trying to get them to do that. You know, you might as well, you know, go pound sand or whatever. I mean, you know, I think this is important, Rebecca, just because I think people are constantly doing this with people in their lives that are this way, like, hey, listen, just change this, just change this. And then what they like to do is they like to turn the lens and go, but you, you and you. So that's the other part I wanted to ask you. They start sending you a list of the 18 things you're doing wrong. How do you recommend you reply or respond to somebody who's got that personality type who's then sort of, I wouldn't call it attacking, but turning the lens onto you, do you recommend you reply specifically to all the things they're saying you're doing wrong or how would you best reply to somebody business or personal?

56:40I mean, what I recommend is, you know, a lot of times I say, you know, you want to reply in a way that's very, very, very specific. So for example, they've sent a very, very long email and a lot of times it's calculated to trigger you in a certain way. And it might be 18 pages long and there may be one line in there that you have to respond to. Like, what time are we gonna meet on Wednesday or something like that. And that's actually when you distill it down, that's the only thing you actually need to respond to. And so you can. And a lot of times people are like, but I need to respond to it because I don't want the judge to be seeing this.

57:37I don't want this to be used down the road in court. I don't want this to be some trial exhibit. I need to defend myself, you know, all that sort of thing. So what I will say is you can respond with something like this. Thank you for your email. I am in receipt of it. I deny all of the allegations herein, and we can meet at 3 p.m. on Wednesday. Sincerely. That's it. So reply to the smallest possible, most necessitated item in there, whether that's personal email, legal business, or otherwise. That's your advice. I've received it. I deny it. Here's, you know, the only other thing I need to respond to.

58:19Really good. All right. So that's dealing with them. Now let's talk about dealing with our lives. So the first thing you wrote was about, you know, negotiating as if you matter. And so I want to talk about now about negotiating our lives and getting what we want in life, because that's ultimately where everybody's listening to my show, right? They want more happiness, more money, more success, more peace of mind, more whatever it might be. So a broad question to begin with, what are some of the keys you believe in life to negotiating the life that you want? What are some of the keys you would suggest?

58:49The best lessons that I ever learned myself is I learned this from one of my business. Well, the main business coach that I've had, who's now become one of my best friends. She taught me something. I'm going to tell you what the lesson is, and I'm going to I'm going to tell you what the story was. she taught me that people will think what you tell them to think. Yes. And I get to tell you the story of how she taught me this. And it's actually a great lesson for negotiating, but it's also a great lesson for life. So what happened was I had been practicing law for about eight years. And then I left the practice of law for about two years to go be a financial advisor, wealth advisor.

59:35I spent two years with Morgan Stanley. I got my series seven, my 66. And I thought, oh, I'll have an easier lifestyle. I had a little child at the time. My daughter, who's now 19, was young. And I was like, oh, I'll have a better hours, which didn't really work out that way. So after about two years, a friend of mine was leaving her law practice and she was moving out of the area and she said, I've got this, these clients, if you want, you can take over my client base and start your own practice. So I was like, okay, well, people are not going to be dropping law practices in my lap on a regular basis.

1:00:16I mean, I'm taking, you know, this opportunity. So I decided to take over this, this law practice and I'm talking to my business coach and I was like, the people in this town are going to think I am such a flake. Like, you know, this girl is a lawyer. Now she's a financial advisor. Now she's back to being a lawyer. Like this girl does not know what she wants. And my business coach said, people will think what you tell them to think. So true. and she said you can tell them to think that you're a flake and you don't know what you want or you can tell them to think that you're the only lawyer that has a financial background so you are actually more qualified than any of the other lawyers in town because you know you've got this financial background and what other family law attorney has that.

1:01:23So good. And I was like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. And so I started to kind of hold myself out as that. And I can't tell you how many people ended up hiring me because that's how I held myself out. I love this. I have to tell you something. I have to acknowledge something when like wisdom is preached. So I just, I got brilliant. And just last night I was mentoring, I have a financial, One of the businesses I'm a, it was a financial firm. I was mentoring a very young guy last night and I told him, I just want to second what you said. I said, listen, most people are busy with their own lives.

1:01:57You can create the story. And if you tell them what to believe, they're going to believe it 98 % of the time. I said, I learned this because later in my career, I ended up working with a series of doctors. And the doctor said to me, he said, Ed, listen, when you're dealing with doctors, it's different than dealing with other clients. We're really busy. We just want you to tell us what we need to do, what we need to think, and let us do it so we can go back to working with our patients. and I said really you want me to kind of he goes tell ask tell us and ask us simultaneously say things like obviously we need to take these steps and you create the frame pre-frame what you're going to tell me tell me what this means then mean it and then when you're done tell me what you just told me and what it meant so pre-frame frame it and then post frame it so I started to do it and everyone was buying and I said to him about six months later I said you know what I found out it's not just doctors, it's everybody.

1:02:45I should have been doing this the entire time with everything in my life, pre-framing what this means for everybody, then framing it. And then when I'm done saying, this is what you just heard and what it meant. And you create the meaning. And so this is something for you get no less than this entire TV show. What Rebecca just told you is absolute truth on how to get what you want in your life. It's key number one in your life. Let me ask you about this number two, when I listened to you and I've watched your content. So Rebecca's got content that's very diverse. She's got stuff on divorce. She's got stuff on negotiation.

1:03:16She's got stuff on narcissism. She's also been a TV personality, which you'll get interviewed when a high profile person's going through something. And so she's learned to communicate in different settings, one-on-one financial courtroom, television podcast. You're an unbelievable communicator, how much of persuasion for you has just been your personal certainty level, just actual certainty in the way you deliver a message? Are you conscious of that? Or was that just sort of like a natural gift you had when you started practicing law? My father used to say, my father was from China, actually. And he came over here when he was 14.

1:03:59and he went to Columbia University undergrad and medical school. And, you know, he was the only Chinese guy in those days. And, you know, it was a big deal. And he used to say to me, whatever you say, say it with authority and people will believe you. And he just kind of, you know, groomed me that way. Like, even if you don't know the answer, don't lie. Just say, I don't know. I will get you the answer. But you say it with authority. Like, and so, I don't know. I just think that he was, and even as a girl, like, he just was, like, always believed in me in that way. And I was really, really fortunate to have a father who was, who believed in me in that way.

1:04:54I think there's things, Rebecca, I think some people, I watch this on my show all the time. It's fascinating to me that certain people are great at something and they're almost unaware of their greatness at it. And I think this is the case with you. You have a massive degree of certainty when you communicate. It's almost like you have a style when you speak. It's almost like, and I mean, this is a compliment. There's a way in which you deliver a message. My audience is going to nod when I say this. that you have a style of communicating. It's almost like there's a tone to it that you're almost an idiot if you don't believe what I'm saying right now.

1:05:27That's almost what it sounds like. It's that depth of certainty. It's not arrogance. It's not condescending, but it's a, it's an expression of certainty. That's almost like you're, you just don't get it. If you don't agree with me, that's what it sounds like. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I certainly haven't always felt that way, though. I mean, you know, for people that have followed me, you know, they know that I've certainly had my share of, you know, stumbles in my life. You know, I got married at 19 the first time. I had three kids by the time I was 22. I dropped out of college. I went, You know, I got divorced.

1:06:08I went back to law school at night. You know, I met my husband, my current husband in law school. I got married again. I had another child. I have four kids. You know, so I certainly like have I feel like I've had my share of of, you know, bootstrapping and getting, you know, where I need to be. You know, I was bullied as a kid for being half Asian. I talk a lot about that I've had to deal with these narcissists In my life I definitely I've tried to be As authentic as I can So that people understand That it hasn't always come easy For me I've definitely Had to deal with my own Struggles for sure Because I want people to understand I'm a human being too And if I could do it, anyone can do it.

1:07:07It's amazing what you've accomplished. I mean, everyone just flew by, but this is a woman who's married at 19, three kids, drops out of school. And you fast forward, Bob Shapiro writes the foreword to her book, one of the most powerful influential attorneys of all time. I've met Bob a few times, founded LegalZoom. She's a television personality. She's a sought after. She's one of the sought after experts in the world on negotiation. And it's a remarkable journey. And I'm curious, have you done anything specifically that you would share with us to work on your self-confidence? Because you are at least externally a very strong, very confident woman.

1:07:43But now I'm picturing this little girl who's half Asian getting bullied at school. I'm picturing this mom running around the house with three screaming babies at any given time in her early 20s, probably not in the best marriage at that time. You know, I'm picturing this, you know, precious lady at those times of her life. And then you flash forward and we have what we have in front of us right now. What have you done to change you, change your confidence? Oh, I mean, I always joke like that, you know, like I never leave my thoughts unsupervised. Whoa, whoa. Very good. What do you mean by that?

1:08:21Audio books, you know, just always making sure I'm working on self-development and surrounding myself with the right people, defending my light with my life at all times. Can you say that again? What did you say there? Say that again, please. Oh, it's one of my mantras. I defend my light with my life. I know it is, but I wanted them to hear it. So what do you mean when you say that? You know, I believe that I know I'm not going to say I believe I know that we are beings of energy and that we are vibrational and, you know, beings. And we, I mean, you know, I talked about this with John Gordon. I mean, it's so funny.

1:09:03I'd read the energy bus years ago. And then when Erwin introduced us, I was like, you know, I know I must've manifested that because I had read his book so long ago. And, you know, I'm very, very conscious about keeping my vibrational energy at a certain level so that I'm always attracting because I know that like attracts like and that you have to keep your vibrational energy at a certain level. Otherwise, I'm conscious of it, you know, dipping or negative thoughts coming into my life. I think, well, you better get rid of that unless you want more of that coming in, you know. So, how can I pivot this right now?

1:09:48What can I be listening to? What can I be looking at? What can I do to be pivoting that? It's not that I ever never have bad thoughts or I never have bad people or I never have, you know, dark, you know, times or whatever. I mean, everybody does because we are human beings. I'm just conscious of it. Now I get, I'm aware of when it happens and I, I have an arsenal of tools that I use to go to, to, to, to combat it now. I love it. See awareness of our thoughts helps them lose their power over us. And it's such a critical key that you've just said, just being aware of your thoughts helps the negative ones lose their power over you.

1:10:35I just interviewed an MMA fighter named Dustin Poirier. And I said, cause it comes to emotions, the way the world works, everybody, just so you kind of understand how you can change what she's describing is it's not the events in our life that define our lives it's the meaning we attach to them so what happens is an event takes place a conversation a meeting a failure a setback whatever you think it is you attach a meaning to it that gives you an emotion and based on an emotion you take an action so if you can go all the way back and attach the right meaning to an event that will change the emotion you experience and change the action you take and i was asking this fighter he just beat conor mcgregor i said do you get scared and have anxiety and worry before you get into the octagon?

1:11:13He goes every time, still fearful for my life, afraid, worried. He said, those thoughts never go away. But he said, they do become more familiar. And he becomes more familiar with those emotions, more familiar with those thoughts. And then he's in control of them. They're not in control of him. You don't have to believe everything you think, everybody. And this idea that Rebecca just gave you, that is absolute truth, that your vibrational frequency, the energy level that you're moving at in your life is deeply affected by the emotions you're experiencing and the meanings you attach. So please be conscious of that.

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1:12:41Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Today is going to be an experience that you are going to enjoy so much. I certainly know that I am. And the reason for that experience certainly isn't me. It's because of this lady to my left here. She's an incredible woman. And my crew will tell you I've been kind of giddy all morning about this conversation and looking forward to it for so long. She is an incredible poet, speaker, author. But I think she's become one of the great thought leaders in the world as well.

1:13:18Thank you. That means a lot. It's true. You make me think. And so this is Nezua Zabian, everybody. Nezua, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. You did say that, and you have to watch this in your relationships, that he was a narcissist and you're an empath. Yes. And this is a combination that is really not good for the empath in a relationship. So just give everyone just a minute on, so they can identify it if they're in one. Yes. What that looks like, what a narcissist does and what an empath does and why it's no bueno. Yes. So an empath is the perfect victim for a narcissist because when we were talking about you complete me, it is a complimentary thing.

1:13:55It really, if you imagine a heart that's just the way that you would draw a heart and then an inverse heart and just put them together, they're very complementary. So a narcissist makes a lot of mistakes and looks for someone to make excuses for them. An empath by nature makes excuses for people. A narcissist needs fixing, needs help. And an empath naturally wants to fix people and wants to help people. gives love unconditionally, blames themselves for anything that happened. And the narcissist is always blaming and projecting blame. So when he would blame me for things, I would accept that and say, yes, you're right.

1:14:37When he would say, look at the way you're standing, look at yourself, look at your body language. Like, who do you think you are? When he would say those things to me, I would think I'm a nobody. You're right. Because we, as empaths, we take things, We absorb and then we give all of ourselves. And when you're completely depleted from giving everything within you, you have no defense mechanism to tell that person that's not true about me because you're completely depleted. They take everything out of you. Yes. That's just how narcissists are. So as an empath, you would be called one of their supplies.

1:15:18They come to you for whatever they need. And so that is what I was. Yes. And empaths love it. Obviously, the empathy play, they love to build homes and narcissists. Yes. And so you have to really watch this in your relationships. Because you really think that you can change them and you cannot change them. You can change you, but you cannot change them. You can change you, but you can't change them. And there might be short periods of time. Like, here's the thing, and I'm sure you know this, but when you go through an experience where there's somebody who's very toxic to your well-being, at a moment when you're contemplating leaving you think back to those very brief moments when he or she expressed to you love in their own way and you say they can do that i know they can they just haven't awakened it within them true right yes and so you hang on to those little moments hoping that if there's one thing that you do differently right you put the blame on yourself they changed because I changed so if I go back to the person I was when they first met me maybe they will go back to the person they were when they first met me or they will treat me that way or that moment will happen again we hang on to those moments oh my god when they've completely moved on that's brilliant and you just helped the millions of people with that I hope so by the way that is absolutely totally true that's exactly how the mind works you go back to these little glimpses yes you think if I could go back to this other wow Wow, that's really good.

1:16:46Let's talk about a couple of things. We're helping people. Thank you, by the way, because you don't need to be doing this. And I want to say one thing about her speaking, too. Nezahua is an incredible speaker. Thank you. And I told her before we started, the reason is that she has, by the way, when she comes to speak to your organization, just so you know, nobody moves. Were we talking about that? You have the most dynamic screaming speaker in the world. This woman walks out on stage, and I'm telling you, no one moves. No one's grabbing their cell phone. No one's looking around. No one's using the restroom.

1:17:12she has this ability to have presence in silence like no speaker that I've seen and she uses silence. She's comfortable in silence because the caliber of her content and the beauty of the way she writes things, she will literally get up there at some points and just read to you what she's written and you'll be captivated by hearing it come out of the mouth of the actual author. So I want everyone to know you can go to her website, you can go to her social media, you're talking about a speaker that will reach people. And I just know both men and women hearing this, you've made so many points that are so profound.

1:17:49I have such a unique woman here today. Been a fan from a distance for a long time. She's a global parenting expert, but I actually think she's more than that. I think she's a transformation expert. And she's also great on TV too. And she was just giving me some advice on how to be great myself on TV. So Joe Frost, welcome to the program. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This notion with the, I'm just curious of your feelings about this. pushing a child. It's not the word I want to use, but I'm just going to, I think you'll know what I mean. I think everybody listening or watching will, where's that line of getting your child to do their best and pushing them to the point where they're like my, my children in sports.

1:18:26If you want to have a study and parents needing some help, go to a youth sporting event and watch particular parents with their children, right? It's a sometimes very scary thing to observe, almost like they're projecting all their hopes and dreams onto this child that they didn't achieve and there's this unbelievable pressure that's put on and then there was kind of me I was almost the other way where oftentimes I felt like maybe I would surprise many people that I didn't nudge encourage accountability with my children quite enough to get the best out of them well I think maybe there was a balance there for you excuse me maybe there was a balance there for you in a very conscious way because we don't want that narcissistic parenting we don't want that child having to perform and to always do good hey look at me can you see me now can you see me now can you hear me now based on performance because I believe that um you know men and women grow up and, you know, they kind of lose themselves, like who they are.

1:19:34You know, it's always about being this type of person so that you're light, so that people think you're the cool guy or the cool chick, you know. And we can, I think we have to ask ourselves as parents, are we living vicariously through our children? What does that make us feel? Does that mean that we can say, hey, well, my child, you know, made uh you know made the finals and you know again that to me is very narcissistic right because it's then teaching the child that you know we'll love you on terms and conditions not unconditionally but that has a major impact on an adult uh when they're older with respects to them kind of having this mask and and really not knowing who they are and accepting you know who they are and being okay with other people as well.

1:20:31Yeah. So guys, everyone that doesn't have a child, I want you to hear, maybe help you understand yourself better. I had loving parents, but one of the things I was conscious of with my children was even when they did achieve to acknowledge it and love them, but not such a dosage that was so in contrast to my day-to-day love of them. Let me tell you all why I grew up at some point. It wasn't my parents' fault at all. It was just the way I read things. that I get attention, acknowledgement, and love when I achieve. So I attach achievement, winning, getting the first place, doing this, doing that to my identity and feeling loved.

1:21:08Be very careful, I think you would acknowledge, Joe, doing that with your children where it's at one level most of the time, then they achieve its way up here, then it's back down here again. It's something we're not conscious of, true? Yes, absolutely. And I also feel that if parents can be less distracted with all the noise and the technology around them, because listen, it's not just kids that are on their phones, it's parents as well. If we're more in tune to our children, then we should learn to be more confident in trusting our gut. Because we know, we know when our children are being lazy and not wanting to show up or when they're just procrastinating.

1:21:50Like there comes a moment when you know, because you've seen it, you know they can do better, but they're just rushing it or they can't be bothered right now. or they want to go out with their friends or just not interested or maybe they're tired, you know, because they've had a stressful couple of weeks. So, again, when we're more in tune and that takes us being more observant, that means us not being distracted by outside stuff, then we can really connect on a level where we see every detail and we start to see more as we connect intuitively with our children. and and that i want parents to you know like i said you know trust your gut like if you're in a rut like trust your guts because you know that's never normally wrong parents normally know when something's off when it's just off tilter that they normally know i love that you know it's funny about this presence thing because i teach it i teach hey put your phone down when you go to dinner we were at dinner uh two nights ago and um and so i want everyone to give themselves some grace because I think it's something you have to be intentional about all the time in the world today.

1:22:56So I'm fortunate that when I go out, sometimes people want to come up and talk to me or take a picture of those kinds of things. Sometimes that breaks my routine. So anyway, we're at dinner. I just want to show this with everybody. We're at dinner the other night, two nights ago. And I looked and I watched this family and I just noticed them and they were all on their phone. Dad's head was down in his phone, mom's head and the two kids where they weren't looking at each other, they were typing. And I immediately went, gosh, that's not the way it should be. I feel bad for them. And then I, as I, my eyes glanced back to our table, my phone was up because I had just done an Instagram post.

1:23:27My daughter was on her phone. My son was checking the golf score and I went, now we're doing it. So it's something you have to be vigilant about all the time, everybody. I know that I do. And I want to ask you about this idea. Let me just jump in here. Do you have like two or three best practices? You go, Hey, you want to be a better parent here's two or three things you should be doing or thinking what would you say I think one you have to I think one to be it's confidence it's all about confidence right and how do you be confident in something maybe you grew up not in a good one and no one taught you how to do it in school and all you've got is Joe Frost get one of her books or how do you display that confidence well you could I think it's practice I think people are hard on themselves Like they expect to, they want it right now, immediate gratification.

1:24:16Like they want to be able to just pick something up and get it right. They're getting patient with themselves. But you know, what I've learned has been over thousands and thousands of hours in the trenches with families and lots of different types of families. So I say in order to build that confidence, you know, one, you have to be realistic with identifying what those challenges are. You have to face them head on. You can't run from them. You have to be real with yourself. You know, what are we really dealing with here? That's the mirror. And then secondly, you've got to have an action plan.

1:24:49Like, how are you now? How are you now going to change this? Like, how are you going to take the first step on the ladder? What are you going to do? Are you going to buy a book? Are you going to take an online course? Are you going to call somebody up? You know, like, you know, people call me. Right. Are you going to call up and we're going to do the work together? and are you going to make a commitment because you can talk a good game for five minutes but can you walk it are you going to commit to the changes you know and that's really important like when I help the families that you see me help on the show they give me their undivided time and attention and they are committed to the process of wanting to change now the journey challenges them and there are hurdles but it's not looking at the hurdle or the brick wall as as unclimbable you can climb that wall if you want to you'll find a way so it's got to be everything's got to be about stay open stay open this is about us working as a team and families get into a space where it becomes that it's you it's you like you're on the same side so how will we talk about an issue together to resolve it together, you know, and really taking into consideration how the other person is feeling and why they're showing up that way.

1:26:14And again, it comes back to ego. A lot of that ego gets in the room where it's about being right, rather than really being happy with what the outcome could be. You know, it's about an immaturity. It's about somebody feeling slighted and the communication is off where somebody felt they weren't able to communicate how they felt without being attacked or without hearing a defense. So again, it's unblocking. It's unblocking for those parents so that they can continue moving forward. But you've got to commit. You've got to give the time. You've got to surrender and identify what those issues are and you've got to keep going because we all come off track but you've got to get back on the horse you know you've got to get back on it you know and we we we do tend to helicopter parent we don't want our children to feel disappointed we don't want our children to feel upset we don't want our children to feel angry so we pacify we don't want them to feel what makes you mentally stronger you know a kid's gotta fall off a bike and graze their knee and feel the pinch and feel that little bit going on the knee to make it better ouch right to get better at their coordination and ride like sometimes you've got to fear the fear and do it anyway right and and face it head on i recently we had our grandson you know my husband's um son son right so we had him he's got his helmet on and he's ready to ride his bike you know husband taught him how to ride his bike he was well proud of himself he's gonna go out on my bike and ride it down the street we're like okay and I said he's going too fast and he's gonna fall so my husband was like Eli slow down slow down you're gonna fall I said nothing and he's looking at me like my husband's looking at me like you're not saying anything I'm like it's gonna fall and when he falls, it's how we're going to react to that that's going to make the difference in him getting back up on that bike and riding.

1:28:23And he fell and he graced and he cried. And we said, you know, oh, look, come and let's have a look at that. But as soon as we did that, we're like, all right, buddy, so you've had your first fall, get back on that bike, let's do it. You know, and he was like, all right, it's all done, let's go. And there he was. What a magic. what a magic lesson shoot where were you 15 years ago that's such a I should have been reading one of these books of yours um what a magic lesson that is I I gotta tell you that that by the way you want to raise a kid that can stand out in the world you do a little bit of what you just said that's a huge difference so I gotta snowplow you know we've heard a lot of it you know parents snow plowing, making it easier.

1:29:11You know, look, you can be really, really intelligent, but that's only going to get you so far. Like the grit and the character to not give in. Every time you get knocked down, you back up again. Like that grit is what's going to take you the extra five miles. And that's about having mental strength as well. I left a post the other day. don't give up on your children so you teach them never to give up on themselves right that's so powerful I did do a couple things right like you're making me feel good but a couple times there's things at school where the teacher wasn't unfair it was unfair to one of my kids or something and every parent's going in negotiating with the teacher I remember telling my wife I said you know what let's just let them handle this and even if they are being treated a little bit unfair they're going to have this happen in their lives when we're not around let them navigate this let them deal with it so it's not that I wouldn't intervene in something if it was dramatic but much intervention there's not enough of letting them metaphorically fall in life right and you're doing such a disservice to your kids now as a parent is there a way to give our children more confidence like one of the things I wanted for my children when they left my home I wanted them to have their faith or their moral compass I wanted them to have self-confidence and I actually wanted them to be really good communicators which I'm which I also put under that banner the ability to be present with people and listen I think a high form of communication is listening yeah anything that you recommend to a parent who's listening to this or by the way it could even apply to an individual to I think you think it okay I think you I think you've hit those those points already you know um being able to teach by example could communication starts with listening first you know so this your style of communication um having the patience to listen to give children a platform to recognize the difference between them voicing their opinion and not mistaking it for back chat sometimes I hear a lot of parents say my kid's back chatting and I'm like no back chat is when you deliver your opinion and you're insulting and you're cocky and you have an attitude you know um that's not the case you know when a child is giving their opinion respectfully that's that's them voicing how they feel and and we can mistake that sometimes for back chat so we also must give our children the breathing space to learn themselves not everything has to be structured like that genuine self-esteem and confidence comes from them having the ability to work things out and do things themselves and to see that they're capable and they have the ability to be able to do that just like you exercise with the school not everything's about intervening like step back like don't try and fix everything don't try and slow plow and make everything good because life isn't like that outside the house they're going to struggle and it goes with I feel it goes with a very delicate line in teaching our children resilience and teaching them the importance of still recognizing emotionally when they're overwhelmed and needing to voice and to talk and knowing that they can come to you um as children when they're when they're struggling, when they're feeling overwhelmed, you know, there's a very, there's a, there's a very fine line.

1:32:50There's a balance between that. Cause I do want children. I do want children to have mental resilience, you know, and we are caught, I believe in a time where we have a generation of people that wouldn't communicate as well. They wouldn't have had a higher emotional intelligence that just suck it up and deal with it, you know, and then children can't talk. And then you have this whole generation of touchy-feely and it's all about the feelings and then no self-discipline, like none at all. So really the compromise is meeting in the middle. It's truly about recognizing that it's not one particular parenting style.

1:33:32it's it's being able to think very quickly on your feet to look at scenarios that's happened before because parenting is also a moving target so look at everything why is the child behaving this way emotionally what are the circumstances surrounding that what is the best way for me to respond and not be reactional yeah you know we can then build you know certainly um this this infrastructure in our homes that really honor the importance of mental resilience, but an emotional compassion and empathy that our children know that they can always come to us, even if they, which they will in their older teenage years, they'll make decisions and they'll screw up and they'll learn by it.

1:34:21I have to tell you, Joe, you're so brilliant because I love being vulnerable. That's something I didn't do a good job of. I did not do a good enough job. I set standards. I was loving. We had our faith we had goals as a family but one thing I didn't do that a dear Teddy Mellencamp actually pointed this out to me one of my friends recently and um and she said well does so and so feel like they can call you and say hey I've made this mistake I need your help I said I think so well have you told them that no and I promise you they don't know that because they want to make you proud because you're a good example because of the so as you as a parent please make sure you hear what she just said.

1:35:01The other thing you said that's just profound that made an impact on me is why is my child acting this way? I didn't ask myself those questions until the last few years. When they were little, I wish I asked myself, why are they behaving like this? Why are they acting out like this as opposed to just reacting? I think in families, correct me if I'm wrong, but because of our proximity to each other and the regular frequency in which we're together, there's like this boiling pot of reactions happening all the time they do something you react you do something they react and it's reacting all the time whereas in business or in other areas of our lives or even with our friends we're like let me think about what I want to say here let me process this let me be intentional to some extent but in families we are reacting all the time unless we're conscious of not reacting and asking ourselves these questions don't you think it's even more true in a family structure than anywhere else that the reaction is.

1:35:55Yes, because we're emotionally invested because, you know, this is our family and there's nothing more sensitive to a family. When you start talking about their partner or their children, because it's a reflection of us. And we start to think about that. And what does that, what does that say about us? Again, it's the ego. What does it say about us? This is the Ed Mylon Show.