Signs You’re Dating a Narcissist & How to Know If You Are One w/Dr. Ramani Durvasula (PART 1) EP 1195

Today’s guest is Dr. Ramani Durvasula. She’s a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at California State University in Los Angeles. The focus of Dr. Ramani’s clinical, academic and consultative work is the cause and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She’s also the best-selling author of “Don’t You Know Who I Am?”: How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement and Incivility. This is a topic that truly fascinated me so much that I wanted to split this episode into two parts! Make sure to come back for part two later this week! In this episode we discuss the main traits of a narcissist and how people become one, what to do if you find yourself in a relationship with a narcissist, the "DEEP" Technique and why radical acceptance is so important, whether or not a narcissist is capable of feeling love, and so much more! For more go to - www.lewishowes.com/1195Read Dr. Ramani's books - https://www.amazon.com/Dont-You-Know-Who-Entitlement/dp/1682617521 & https://www.amazon.com/Should-Stay-Surviving-Narcissistic-Relationship/dp/1618688782Check out her website - http://doctor-ramani.com/The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,195 with Dr. Ramani Durvasula.

• 0:05Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The bigger question I often get is can a narcissist love?

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Is that possible besides loving themselves?

• 0:10Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  We love what we believe they are.

• 0:14Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:38Lewis Howes?

  Welcome my friend to this special episode. I was kind of in shock and fascinated this entire episode with Dr. Ramani. And you're about to hear why. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Cal State University in Los Angeles. And the focus of Dr. Ramani's clinical, academic, and consultative work is the cause and impact of narcissism and high conflict entitled antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She's also the bestselling author of Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  And this topic truly fascinated me so much. I kind of had to pause and was in shock many times throughout this interview. And I wanted to split this into two parts because it just kind of blew me away and was fascinating how I was kind of reliving my past in so many different scenarios in my life. So I want you to dive in, buckle up, get ready, because this is going to be a powerful two-part episode. And part two will come out later this week. In this first episode, we discuss the main traits of a narcissist and how people become one, what to do if you find yourself in a relationship with a narcissist. And this was interesting what she shared here, the difference between narcissists and psychopaths,

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  the deep technique, and why radical acceptance is so important, whether or not a narcissist is capable of feeling love, and so much more. And I'm telling you, this has kind of been a fascinating. Topic for me and I wanted to dive in on this and so many of you are asking me about doing a subject on this because we live in an era of narcissism really where social media is amplified a lot of these things and showcase people this so much more. I really think this is going to help a lot of people who are struggling in relationships, maybe controlling or manipulative relationships where they feel like the life is sucked out of them, where they feel like there's no hope, like it's never enough, what they do is never good enough, all these different things. So if you are feeling inspired by this at any moment, make sure to share this with a friend, a family

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  member, or post it over on social media. Let's get the word out because this information is so powerful and it helped me realize so many things. And if you think of someone who might be in a specific relationship that is struggling with a narcissist, send them this episode and see if there are any common themes that come up for them from this interview. Again, big reminder, if this is your first time here, big thank you for being here. Thank the person that sent you here and please subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple Podcast or on Spotify or wherever you're listening to this episode and connect with us over on YouTube as well for some incredible long form videos over there. And I want to give a thank you and a shout out to the fan of the week from Byron who said, "I thoroughly enjoyed listening to your podcast because of your focus

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  on helping us all improve our lives and breakthrough to living our best life. I am thankful to have found your podcast and each episode is a treat." So Byron, thank you so much for being here and leaving a review over on Apple Podcast and being the fan of the week. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Ramani Durvasula.

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  Why is narcissism such a big topic, especially right now in our society?

• 3:50Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's interesting. It wasn't for a very long time. I mean, this is, it's fascinating to have been studying something when nobody cared about it. Like I was like, I was that nerd in the lab with the butterfly that nobody cared about. Everyone, I was literally back room of a lab and everyone forgot about me. I was content because I'm a nerd. That's, I'm geeked out. I was like, this is fascinating. And then, a lot of things happened. You know, if anyone ever asked me, this is my theory on it, is I think, it's interesting. If you, if you, there's a book from the 1970s by a guy named Christopher Lash called The Culture of Narcissism. And in that book, he really gets, and this is the 70s, okay? And he really gets into issues like materialism and also the falling apart of American community structures and family structures.

• 4:35Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And so he pins this sort of pathological narcissism and selfishness to the, sort of the erosion of those structures. But I think that misses something. Then it was kind of quiet, like this has always been a quiet area, interestingly, in, in mental health. And then, reality TV happened, social media happened.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  You had to witness it all.

• 4:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, and we had to witness it all, kids are growing up with it now.

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  Political dramas and fights and...

• 5:00Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Lots of, and, and materialism was on the rise. So when we look at materialism, social media, and reality TV, that kind of triple threat, where everything was about shameless self-promotion. Everything was about validation-seeking, "Look at me, no, look at me, no, look at me, my life's better than yours." And it was that, it was, I'll never forget the day, actually. I was, when I, someone told me about social media, it was in that space between MySpace and Facebook.

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  Facebook, yeah.

• 5:30Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And I had small, small children at the time, and I think I was up late. And somebody said, "You gotta look at this thing called Facebook," right? And I'm like, "I don't know what this is." And so I, at the time, I was even married, so I really had no social life. And I look at it and, and I'm, and it's that moment, that penny-drop moment, where I could feel that dread in my stomach, as though like a ghost appeared in the door. And I thought to myself, "Oh my God, this narcissism thing is about to blow up." Because before that, think about it, if you were a narcissist and you needed to get validation, you actually had to get up and get out of the house, right? Like, no one was gonna, you had to get up, kind of get ready, go to work. A lot of narcissists got their validation at work, especially men in that era.

• 6:14Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And then, other people like, would get it by like, going to social events, going to parties, maybe succeeding at something. But it was a different game.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  Going to the gym, maybe.

• 6:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Maybe going to the gym, but now, all of it, excelling at something visible, like sports or performing, or like, singing, or something like that. But then I was like, oh, hell no. You're telling me that people are gonna be able to get validation just sitting at home? And I thought, this narcissism thing's gonna blow up. That was 2008, when I had that revelation. I started telling people, you know, people said like, oh, honey, you're just, you're, you're, you're running off in your head. Get some sleep, like, you're acting crazy. And I said, no, no, no, this is gonna blow up. And then it blew up. And at around that time, we're starting to see the beginnings of reality TV shows, like, you know, Survivor and things like that. I'm like, hmm, this is interesting. And then we'd start seeing more and more and more of the attention-seeking reality TV, housewife-type shows.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  The Bachelor.

• 7:09Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The Bachelor, and I, I thought, oh, no, no, no. And then, and then the political winds changed, and the word came into the, into popular use. So imagine going from something that you studied, only you studied.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  And no one cared about it.

• 7:21Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Nobody cared about it.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  And then all of a sudden, it's mainstream.

• 7:24Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And then the world changed, and it became mainstream. Exactly. And, but this, another thing that was happening too is this, um, I was studying it in my research. I had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to look at, um, personality issues. Because I had, I was working with folks who were working in community clinics. And they would come back from the community clinics, back to the main lab at the university and say, and they would look frazzled. And I'd say, hey, what's up? And they'll say, some of these patients, they're so terrible, and they're ruining everyone's lives. And what we came to find out was that there were some patients who come in entitled and grumpy, and take it out on the staff. And I thought, that's interesting. These people are not only burning out the staff so they can't give good healthcare to other people, they themselves, everyone's dreading seeing them. So they're not getting good healthcare. And then a few years later, I was noticing a pattern in my patients over and over again.

• 8:09Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They kept, it's like they were all talking about the same relationship. And I thought, this is interesting. Nobody ever taught these people about narcissism, because this is clearly what was happening in their relationships. And I'm not kidding you, once they got educated on these patterns, they were making changes like this. Some were getting divorced, some were splitting up, some were saying, I'm gonna set boundaries.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:27Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I mean, it was, it was insta-change. And they said, we were in couples therapy for five years, and it always about, marriage is hard. You gotta communicate. I'm like, communicating with a narcissist is, I don't know, it's like, it's impossible. Screaming into an abyss, like, there's no point.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Is there hope for, uh, people in marriages, if they're in a relationship with a narcissist, to actually? Heal the relationship and improve it? Or is it just going to be hard the rest of your life?

• 8:51Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Going on a probability basis, the answer is no. I think it's going to be hard always. Are there unicorns out there? Sure. But the amount of commitment you'd need on the part of the person who's narcissistic, I mean, we're talking about daily commitment.

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  On the person who is a narcissist.

• 9:05Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The person who's narcissistic has to get into therapy multiple times a week. They have to, they have to be willing to have humility. They have to be willing to be mindful. They have to be willing to regulate themselves. That's a long list of things they need to be willing to do. They can't be impulsive. They can't say whatever's on their mind. I, it's fascinating because I have worked with, I'd say 25% of the clients I've worked with in my clinical practice for a long time now, you know, have been narcissistic.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Why would they even come to work with you if they're narcissistic?

• 9:33Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Because something's going wrong in their lives. Their marriage is blowing up. There's, they're having some sort of public shaming. Their career isn't going well.

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  They have to ascend to.

• 9:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Lawsuit. They feel the world is against them. And in this victimized stance, they roll up to therapy. And somebody's wanting to complain, right? Every so often, they're given an ultimatum, maybe by a workplace or by a spouse or someone. Maybe they get caught in an affair. And then they're told that wife or husband or partner or spouse will say, we're not staying together unless you get therapy, which is a fool's errand. Because if they're, if someone else is telling them to do it, even if someone, even if they do it on their own, there usually isn't much personality. Personality doesn't really change.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  Personality doesn't change. Unless you're like doing therapy every week and holding yourself accountable.

• 10:18Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And even then, listen, I'm, listen, I have a certain personality. I got it tested when I was in my twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. It hasn't changed. I'm a little bit more, I'm a little bit more confident now. That's not my personality. That's just time served.

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's like I put in more reps.

• 10:33Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yes, I put in more reps. So I'm like, now I know I can do this thing, right? But it's not that. I'm, I was born agreeable. I grew up agreeable. I was an agreeable adult. I'm an agreeable person. That's just who I am.

• 10:45Lewis Howes?

  When is our personality shaped?

• 10:47Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Well, there's two pieces of personality. We're born, the sort of the genetic part of personality, if you will, it's called our temperament.

• 10:54Lewis Howes?

  Our temperament.

• 10:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Temperament.

• 10:56Lewis Howes?

  You're born and you're either a crier or not a crier or you're...

• 10:59Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I can make it ultra simple. Like, you know, there's some kids out there who have really difficult temperaments. They're born into the world difficult. Talk to a parent, they're, they're kids who are difficult to soothe. To make them stop crying, to help them sleep. As time goes on, they're just difficult kids. They don't play as nice. They have low frustration tolerance. They're difficult with their siblings. They're punchy, fighty. They get to school, they can't sit still. They're always getting into trouble. And none of the adults like them. So these kids with these difficult temperaments actually have this relationship with the world that's pretty unpleasant. Everyone's like, "Sit down, stop that, don't do that." And there's even this vibe these kids get. Like, nobody really wants to spend time with them. Because they're a real handful.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Is it their fault? I mean, they can't really change that when you're five.

• 11:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No, you can't. But the difficult temperament's a risk factor for the adult narcissistic personality. Now, not everybody with a difficult temperament goes on to become narcissistic. So it's not a slam dunk. But it's definitely when we tell that story backwards. Every narcissistic client I've ever worked with, without exception, had a difficult temperament as a child. So that either they... Every so often, I'd get lucky. We'd phone the parent during therapy and say, "Can we talk about this?" Sometimes I'd ask the parent, and the parent would come clean on that and say, "Yeah, you were a real handful." Because you had siblings, right? So they'd compare them to siblings. Some siblings have this great, easy temperament. It's not quite... So temperament is that biological part of our personality. It's how you might see your personality in either one of your parents or in a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle.

• 12:27Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You'll say, "Wow, I have such a similar personality to them." That's the genetics of it.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  And the other...

• 12:32Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  All the rest of it is shaped by the world.

• 12:35Lewis Howes?

  Environment, parents, society, how you were treated, and yeah, what you're exposed to.

• 12:39Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Exactly.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  So if you had a, let's say, a challenging temperament growing up, is there hope for you to, you know, I guess, shift your personality into a different style with environment?

• 12:51Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I think so. I think so. I think a couple of things have to happen. That kid needs to be met where they're at. So let's say you have a boy with a difficult temperament who's just energy, and you get them into athletics.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:01Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Or you get them into something where they're using their hands, whatever that might be, building things or something like that. And you really are with them. Instead of saying, "You're being so bad, you're so difficult." Like, "Whoa, look at that rocket you built." Or like, "Oh, my gosh, you ran 10 miles today." Or "You threw the ball." Or like, "This is great, like, let's do it together." And they have a parent who wants to maybe do those things with them. I've heard of some... This is where it's interesting. I hear a lot of these stories, if not in athletics, but people who do things like climb mountains, that kind of thing. And sometimes the parents got them into these things because the kid was just a bolus of energy. And then they would, and then the parents would really encourage them, might even go with them, like go hunting with them or whatever.

• 13:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So I do think if that child feels loved, safe, protected, attached, they feel like they have a safe base to return to, which is usually their primary caregiver.

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  They can relax more into it.

• 13:52Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And they have success experiences, right? So maybe they're not the best kid in school, but they're really, like, they feel loved no matter what, whether they can read or not, whether they can do math or not, they're loved, and that they have these other outlets.

• 14:05Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 14:06Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And that the school is supporting them and meeting them. How many kids do you know who have that things line up like that? I can count on one hand the number of kids I know who got that lineup.

• 14:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, I mean, who had like all the support, love, and we love you no matter what, yeah. It's very challenging. It's interesting because I interviewed Kobe Bryant before he passed, obviously, and he, he said his father, one summer when he was playing basketball, I think he was 13, he said he didn't score one point the whole summer in like this summer competition league. And he said, "My father told me, no matter what, I'm gonna love you. Whether you score zero points or you're the highest scorer, I'm gonna love you no matter what you do. No matter how good or how bad you are, I love you no matter what." And he said that conversation with his dad gave him the confidence to say, "I'm gonna go out and go for it. No matter what happens, I'm loved," is the way he explained it. And I thought that was interesting.

• 14:59Lewis Howes?

  But not a lot of people have had like the school support and parent support and sibling support and like the encouragement. But it sounds like you can't change a personality, but you can channel a personality into other activities to support their growth, is that right?

• 15:14Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So every human being has the same sort of essential ingredients that they need in terms of wanting, you know, like again, a safe base.

• 15:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  A safe place of attachment, a sense of being loved no matter what. Yeah, their behavior could be called out, like, no, you cannot tear up the living room. That behavior is not okay. I love you. You know, I love you whether you get the 13 points or the no points, just like.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  You're still grounded, Kobe, I love you.

• 15:38Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You're still grounded, you know, I love you, you know? And so that sort of consistency and safety, but it was interesting, I was just reading a research paper from 2014, and in this paper, they were talking about, how do you, basically, it's how do you make a narcissistic adult out of a kid? One thing we're seeing a little bit right now is this problem of children being overvalued for nothing.

• 15:59Lewis Howes?

  Celebrated for just being.

• 16:01Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Celebrated for like, "You're just so great." And it's, you're saying, "Well, what should we tell kids if they're not great?" Well, great means something, right? Great is excelling. So, you love a child, you cultivate their strengths. But the idea being that narcissistic parents are very vulnerable to thinking their kids are great because they have to be, "They're my kids, so they better be great kids." So, these kids are being told they're all that, over and over. "You're all that, you're all that, you're special, you shouldn't have to struggle with the slings and arrows of the world." Well, then they get to adulthood and the slings and arrows happen and they are not having it. And that's where you see, that on top of everything else can also be what fosters the building of the narcissistic child, just overindulge.

• 16:46Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And what happens is, they're almost, they're overindulged for their outsides and you're so special, but their emotional world isn't nourished. So, nobody is sitting with their emotions and letting them be sad. It's many times like, "Come on, let's all be happy." You know, it's a lot of that. And that's a dangerous game to play with.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  Would you say with your research, if kids grew up in a healthy family, let's say it's, they got all the tools and resources and their parents were healed from their traumas and gave them, you know, discipline, but love and all these things in the way that, the best way you could. Is it possible for someone to still be raised as a narcissist even if they have this environment of love and safety? Or how does a narcissist become one? Is it only through family environment and the way they were treated? Or how does that actually happen?

• 17:35Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So, the problem, if someone had all the fundamentals, right? The safety, the love, the consistency, the freedom from trauma.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Great values.

• 17:44Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The great values, you know, all of those things, supportive educational environment, all of that. You still will have a handful, but you will have dropped the probability from here down to here. Right? It's a horse race, right? You've really dropped the likelihood significantly. Narcissism is, creating adult narcissism is a complex interblend of that biological temperament meeting up all these environmental conditions. And there's a range of conditions that can result in adulthood narcissism. At the most extreme and probably most difficult is trauma in childhood. So, a child who is raised and experiences trauma. You know, significant caregiver loss, chaos, abuse, observing abuse. And because that results in inconsistent caregivers, right?

• 18:28Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And so that can put a person at risk for developing an adulthood narcissistic personality. But here's where it gets tricky. The majority of people exposed to trauma in childhood don't become narcissistic.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  Majority of people.

• 18:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You see what I'm saying?

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  So you could.

• 18:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Risk factors, you could, but you don't always. So that's one pathway. This over indulgence, this over like, you're so great, you're so special, you're so extraordinary. My kids are the most extraordinary thing. That's another model towards narcissistic personality development. Conditional love. Kobe Bryant's father, I'm only gonna love you if you come back having scored 20 points. If you didn't, don't even show up.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:03Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Now imagine that happening a thousand times, 10,000 times. I love you when I love you when you clean the dishes. I love you if you get straight A's. I love you if you make the soccer goal. I love you if you whatever. The child learns that they're all love is conditional, which is really, that's transactional, basically. All narcissistic relationships in adulthood are transactional.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You set the tone there with conditionality. A lot of this, though, comes down to something called attachment. And attachment is something that's created in the first year or two of life. It requires an available, consistent, responsive caregiver. One, singular. You need that. That person who is there, who looks at the baby, who responds when it cries, who loves it, who holds it, feeds it. You need that safe, it's called a secure attachment. A lot of the research really points to the importance of that secure attachment. That as being something that predicts a lower likelihood of adult narcissistic.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  So if you have a secure.

• 19:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You're less likely to be narcissistic.

• 19:59Lewis Howes?

  If you don't have that.

• 20:00Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But if you have an anxious attachment, and an anxiously attached baby is the child who absolutely flips out when their caregiver leaves. Like, you know, if the mommy drops them off and they lose it, then the person who receives the child has a hard time soothing the child. And then when the child sees the parent again, they start crying again, like almost like, how could you leave me?

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  You abandoned me for five hours.

• 20:22Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Exactly. And that anxious attachment style is very much associated with a narcissistic style in adulthood.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Can you break down the differences between narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, and then also how you spot them?

• 20:38Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So there's a big difference. If I was at a chalkboard here, I'd be drawing a Venn diagram with overlapping circles, okay? Lots of overlap between narcissism and psychopathy, lots, okay? The boldness, the meanness, the impulsivity, the disinhibition, the always working the angles, the exploitative-ness, the manipulativeness, the entitlement. Absolutely overlapping. So you might be wondering, then what's the difference? Here's the difference. Narcissistic people are insecure. And they are constantly very insecure. And lots of feelings of inadequacy, okay? So, but that's all happening at an unconscious level. But I want you to think of a narcissist as somebody who constantly has a stomach ache, right?

• 21:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Because they're going through their lives, but they're like, there's almost this tension. They're not aware why they have it. But the tension that the top's gonna get blown off and we're gonna be able to see their inadequacies. That's why they're so sensitive to criticism.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  Oh my god, they can't take feedback.

• 21:38Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Like if I were to say, hey, like, mm, yeah, it's interesting, you got some dust on your shirt. And you're like, oh, really? And you start coming at me.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Oh no, you got this on yours.

• 21:45Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, right, you got that, like, yeah.

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  Look at this and this, criticizing you.

• 21:49Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yes. You see what I'm saying? That's a hedge against shame. That's the narcissist game. Psychopath doesn't go there. Psychopath is not anxious. Psychopath is not insecure.

• 21:58Lewis Howes?

  They're calm.

• 21:58Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Their nervous systems are different. So there's a part of our nervous system called the autonomic nervous system. This is the involuntary part of our nervous system. And it's from which the sympathetic nervous system comes off, which you know as fight or flight or freeze. And that fight, flight, freeze, and there's even a fourth part to it called fawn, which we could talk about. But that autonomic reaction, that like boom adrenaline, got, you know, eyes wide open kind of reaction, that's not there for the psychopath. So whereas I, I don't know if I saw something out there and I saw someone had a hundred dollar bill hanging out their wallet, never could I ever, like I would have a heart attack from the anxiety of thinking about like, no, you know, because I have a very, probably overly

• 22:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  functioning autonomic nervous system. But for somebody who's a psychopath, they'd clip that and their heart rate would not go up.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  They would not think, they'd just take it, steal it.

• 22:49Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So they have no anxiety.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  No excitement around it.

• 22:51Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No excitement, no anxiety, and they're very stress resistant. In that way, that's why there's so many psychopathic CEOs. If you're gonna be a CEO and nothing bothers you, you're able to say, cut those hundred thousand jobs, and then you still go off and play golf for the afternoon because nothing gets you. They sometimes make great surgeons because when all hell's breaking loose, they're just sort of calmly doing their surgery thing. It really is, but there is a coldness and a callousness.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 23:17Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Because there is almost like no capacity for empathy, no capacity for intimacy.

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 23:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And psychopaths are almost singularly motivated by power, pleasure, and profit, and mostly by power. They solely want to dominate because that's what they do. Narcissists like to dominate, but they actually kind of seem like dumb dogs next to the psychopaths.

• 23:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:38Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah. The closest we get to overlap is what we call malignant narcissism. So that's when we have all the goodies we see in narcissism, but we see as more of a sadism and a paranoia in the malignant narcissists. They're the most dangerous narcissists. They're still not fully psychopaths because they still have the insecurity and the inadequacy. The psychopaths don't have that.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  They're not insecure.

• 23:59Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They're not insecure. No. I mean, if you see a psychopath get mad, it's simply because you might have gotten in the way of something they needed to get done. You know what they'll instead do? They'll very quietly figure out a way to destroy you.

• 24:12Lewis Howes?

  Get rid of, yeah.

• 24:12Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Exactly. Or they'll calmly have someone say like, I'll literally look at you if I was the psychopathic boss and you were working for me, I'd be like, and I'd be calm and I'd go, and then, I don't know whether that means you'd kill them or fire them or whatever, but no problem with that.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:27Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And very easily.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  They don't have the emotion, they don't have empathy, yeah.

• 24:29Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No empathy.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Does narcissists have empathy?

• 24:32Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Narcissists have, we tend to say, oh, they don't have empathy. They have what we call, I like to call it instrumental empathy. They weaponize empathy. So narcissists get what empathy is. They know.

• 24:44Lewis Howes?

  They use it against you.

• 24:45Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They use it, they use it to get what they need. They don't necessarily use it against you, but like if they want to get you to do something. Oh man, I heard your mom's sick.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  Oh man.

• 24:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Oh my gosh, how's she doing? I'm so sorry, like it's rough, you know, my mom was sick. She was really sick for a while too, I get all that.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  It's a big rapport.

• 25:03Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You know, it's a rapport and then they're getting something from you, right? So it feels like empathy, you know? And especially when you first meet them, that's why so many people think narcissistic people are charming and charismatic. They know what the feel, they know what's right. They, or I should say, they know what empathy is. They know how to read the room. So they got it.

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 25:24Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But they can't be bothered with it. They actually cognitively get it, they can think about empathy. Oh, I need something for him, from him. Somebody said his mom's sick, so let me, let me work the mom angle here. Because that's gonna help him feel better. What they don't have is any regard for, so they have no regard for the feelings of others. They don't care. So when they're done with you and they've gotten what they need from you and someone's, the next week when they're fully done with you and say, hey, his mom got sick or, and like, so, yeah, so what do you want me to do about it? So it's very cold when they're done. So that, and that's why people say, well, don't tell me they don't have empathy. Cause it seemed like they cried at that movie. Or they were really understanding my feelings. Odds are they needed something at that point.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  So what was the most, uh, the scariest narcissist? What was it called?

• 26:09Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Malignant.

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  The most, um, dangerous malignant narcissist. Okay, so can you explain again what that, what that is?

• 26:16Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So let's talk about, let's, let's view narcissism as almost like this inner core, okay? The inner core of narcissism is this variable empathy, usually a lack of empathy.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 26:25Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Entitlement, grandiosity, validation seeking. A sense of envy for other people or the assumption that other people envy them. Um, the inability to regulate their anger when they're frustrated, disappointed, or stressed. A, a sense of shame, so if anyone points out a flaw in them, they tend to react with rage. A reactive sensitivity to criticism. So if anyone points out anything, they, ah, they come at them. Blame shifting and responsibility shifting. So they blame other people for what, you know, what is actually their responsibility. They're very controlling, very egocentric. Everything is about them. Everything is self-serving.

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  Insecure.

• 27:08Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Very deeply insecure, deep, lots of feelings of inadequacy, but those are all sort of pushed down. All of these things I'm talking about, the entitlement and all the rest of it. It's like a suit of armor that protects that inner core of inadequacy, so nobody ever sees it. If I'm walking around telling you I'm all that, well, then I can't be inadequate, right? And if I got a big fancy car and a big fancy house and a big fancy person on my arm, then I'm all that, right? So with narcissism, we have to talk about sort of the top of the line behaviors. And those are presentations. Charm, charisma, confidence, curiosity. And they also.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  Can you have those things and not be narcissist?

• 27:49Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You can.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm a very curious person, I care, you know.

• 27:52Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So here's where it gets interesting, right? Is you can be curious and when you can find an empathic, charismatic person, behold to them. They are the unicorns of the human being.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  Someone who's confident and caring.

• 28:06Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  When I meet the confident, charismatic, empathic, kind, respectful, humble person.

• 28:11Lewis Howes?

  It's a unicorn.

• 28:12Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I literally, I'm like, alright, everyone. And I can tell you, it doesn't happen often. And I'm usually like, I look goo goo eyes, cause I'm thinking. And then, of course, I'm poking at it, I'm like, no, no, no, I'm gonna find, I'm gonna find what's wrong with it. Every so often, I find it. And I'm like, it hasn't happened often, it hasn't happened often. But here's the thing, the charm, the charisma, the confidence, the curiosity. There's also comfort that they also offer. It's like they'll often feel like they're rescuers, I can take care of it all. They'll be very generous.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Upfront, right?

• 28:44Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You know, it's all a front game, right? So what happens then? The curtain comes down across all your common sense. And you miss the little things.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  You're like, this is amazing.

• 28:54Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, and people, and if you, either you miss the lack of empathy and the anger and the rage and all the other stuff. Or you justify it.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  You just, well, yeah.

• 29:03Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, you know, well, he's got a big job, or she's really stressed, or she doesn't mean that, or that's just their culture. I was listening, I was reading an article by a linguist recently, and the linguist was talking about how people talk over each other in certain cultures, right? And they were using that as a way to rationalize interrupting. And there's interrupting and there's interrupting. Narcissistic interrupting is not only, it's contemptuous interrupting.

• 29:30Lewis Howes?

  What's that mean, like dismissive interrupting?

• 29:31Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's dismissive, like, um, okay, all right, you know, you're talking and then I not only cut in, but it's basically like, uh, you don't know what you're talking about.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  Your point of view doesn't matter, or yeah, you're, you're an idiot.

• 29:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You're an idiot.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  I know what you're, yeah.

• 29:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so you, you shared some of these signs of malignant narcissism.

• 29:47Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No, that's, okay, so let's go back to the core.

• 29:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes, of course.

• 29:50Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So we got the core of lack of empathy, all that stuff I talked about.

• 29:52Lewis Howes?

  Entitlement, yes.

• 29:53Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yes. Now, the problem with narcissism is there's subtypes.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 29:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Not all narcissists are created, we really do need a whiteboard in here, like, I'd be writing notes up there, because what we have then is the classical narcissist, the sort of 57 Chevy of narcissism, is the grandiose narcissist. It is the, the big charming confident, I'm the one, I'm the best, no insight, very little empathy, kind of, but very like, big salesperson-y. That's the grandiose narcissist. But then, when we talk about the malignant narcissist, again, we have all that stuff, lack of empathy and all that other stuff, but they are more menacing, they are more

• 30:37Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  controlling, they're a little bit more scary, they're sadistic, they're paranoid.

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  What if they have both of those things?

• 30:46Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Usually, they can, they can, but, and what would, that's a horrific combination, because then that person's real charming on the front end, and then, once you cross the threshold and walk through all the way in with them, now you're dealing with their malignant, manipulative, scary, and, and when we see, controlling, when we see manipulative narcissists, uh, manipulative, I'm sorry, malignant narcissism, we're seeing people who are often, they're more, they're more likely to be aggressive, to be violent, to be abusive, to isolate people from ever being able to get help, from being abusive in the workplace. We hear these big, awful workplace abuse stories, a lot, especially a lot in the Me Too era, a lot of those folks are malignant narcissists.

• 31:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. So what happens if you're with a narcissist? You, you, maybe it's been a year, you've been dating someone, or your, your boss didn't seem like it at the beginning, but then you're figuring out, oh, check, check, check, they've got a lot of these things. But you, you know, the first six months was, seemed great, or it seemed like it was amazing, but now we're seeing the curtain, you know, pull back, and some of these things are coming out, and we're not feeling good about the relationship that we're in. Whether it's a working relationship, a friendship, an intimate relationship, we've spotted it.

• 32:00Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yep.

• 32:01Lewis Howes?

  What I'm hearing you say is there's really no way to change a narcissist.

• 32:04Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No.

• 32:04Lewis Howes?

  So trying to change them is not gonna happen.

• 32:07Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's a fool's theory.

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't mean we just pretty much have to rip the cord and, and rip the Band-Aid and get out? Or how does it?

• 32:12Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So life's not that simple.

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:15Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Right? We can't walk away from all relationships. People can't just quit their jobs.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Um, let's say, let's say a person starts figuring this out five years in a relationship, and they're married and they have children.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 32:25Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  What if it's their family of origin? And they're like, I've done my homework, and this is actually my parent or my sibling. People say, well, I don't know that I'm willing to cut off from my entire family. So I'm not gonna sit here and tell people that, oh, you just gotta always go. In fact, my, my first book on the topic of narcissism is called Should I Stay or Should I Go? Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist. And I wrote it from that point of view because it's too simplistic to say, well, get up and go. Like you said, rip off the Band-Aid. So if you're, and neither path is easy, but

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  in an ideal world, I will be frank with you. And there's actually an interesting group in Israel that's gathering, has gathered some data on this, on narcissistic abuse. And they've found that the thing that works best in dealing with a narcissistic relationship that resulted in the best outcomes was going no contact, like having no contact with them.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  Completely blocking, cutting off.

• 33:14Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Completely done. And because it's almost like a toxin, right? If you, if there's a toxic gas, the best way to feel better is to

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  Eliminate.

• 33:22Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  have no more toxins.

• 33:22Lewis Howes?

  If you have a little bit, you're just gonna be feeling a little bit of pain consistently. It's gonna be holding on to it.

• 33:26Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Correct.

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 33:27Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But a lot of people don't have that. So the biggest, if you're gonna have to stay in this relationship, You have to engage in something that I, you know, this have called radical acceptance. This is never gonna change.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  This is who they are.

• 33:38Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  This is who they are. This is it. So, and I, then I tell people, I have something called the deep technique that I, I talk about. The deep technique is when I tell people, if you're dealing with a narcissist, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. So, deep. Don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. And so, when they're coming at you, and if you can remember, you're, you really are keeping it tight. It's a lot of, you, it's like you're in a deposition. Yes? No? Okay. Sounds good. Sure. Now.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 34:11Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Narcissists don't like that.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  So they're gonna keep coming and digging and digging.

• 34:14Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They're gonna bait you. They're gonna bait you. And they, when I tell you when they bait you, they, they don't play.

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  They go for every-

• 34:21Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They go for everything that's gonna get there.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  And make something up, start making stuff up.

• 34:24Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They, they start making stuff up. They go after your friends. They draw your friends in it.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  Threatening to shame you publicly, whatever it is, right?

• 34:30Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And so then at some people, people take that bait and then the narcissist's like, game on. You know, and they're all in.

• 34:36Lewis Howes?

  I got you.

• 34:36Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I got you. Because when you're fighting, they're fighters. That's what they do. In fact, there was a great research study, came out from Ohio State University, Ohio boy.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And phenomenal study that came out this year. And over, over, over 450 studies they examined and found really strong effects that narcissism is consistently associated with aggression. It's a very, it's, this is not, there's nothing soft about this. This is about aggression. They want the fight. They are always a better fighter.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 35:04Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And they want the fight. So they bait you. You gotta be made of steel. Don't defend, don't engage, don't explain.

• 35:09Lewis Howes?

  This is crazy.

• 35:10Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  To not get into the fight. Every relationship with a narcissist is a threesome. You just don't know it. Because they always need that third person in the relationship, whether it's, someone gave me the number, or someone's noticing you're-

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  This person DM'd me, or this person's hitting on me.

• 35:26Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Exactly. They're always trying to, and they're always trying to create that sense of intrigue, or the idea that somebody is more into them, or they're, or, again, it's often them creating the jealousy, or they be incredibly jealous of their partners.

• 35:41Lewis Howes?

  Oh, they're so jealous of-

• 35:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  There's a difference between jealousy and pathological jealousy.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference?

• 35:45Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  There's two different things. Okay. So jealousy's normal. We are a, actually, we're a pair bonded species, we human beings. We're, we, we liked, we pretty much are about, generally, normatively, have sex with one person. People are like, no, that person cheated on me. I said, yeah, they were only having sex with them. They weren't having sex with you.

• 36:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:04Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They're still sexually monogamous.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  With one part at that moment.

• 36:06Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They weren't banging you, they were banging someone else. You were on paper in a relationship with them, you came, you went to the same home, but their sex was with someone else. Okay, but we tend to be pair bonded, we tend to be monogamous, alright? So jealousy is a threat to that, think of it Darwinianly, right? If, if I'm in a, if I'm in a relationship and a threat comes in, right? Normal jealousy is that sort of evolutionary jealousy, right? I'm with a person, if somebody is, comes in as a threat to that relationship, I've lost the resources and support for our offspring, right? That's all that Darwinian, Darwinian stuff, movie production.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Pathological jealousy.

• 36:44Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's a logical jealousy though, that starts getting into the realm of things like paranoia and

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 36:50Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And negative mood states and all that, like jealousy doesn't feel good, but it, I always, when I've worked with couples, they're like, I'm jealous, I'm like, that's good, that means you still got skin in the game, like, because when people, I've been with people, worked with couples and, or worked with individuals, and they'll say, I'm not even jealous when people notice my husband, and I kind of feel sad, because I'm like, yeah, this thing, this thing's kind of, kind of done.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  I feel like, yeah, I don't feel jealous, I feel like I trust the person I'm with.

• 37:15Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's, yeah, but that's, that's what we're talking about pathological jealousy, right? So I think of my partner, ironically, on our, on my drive here, he was talking about something and about this woman who I knew we were going to see, who had hit on him, and this dude is so loyal, it levels it to a whole new level. And I remember thinking in the drive, I'm like, I got that little funny thing in my tummy. I, I'm like, huh, he doesn't even live in this country. And so I'm thinking, that's, and I was like, that's good, that's good that I'm still feeling like, I still got a dog in the fight.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  But it doesn't mean you're like, for days, letting it stress you out and like talking to them.

• 37:48Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Only because we're talking about it here.

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah. And so the pa, what did you say it was, paranoid?

• 37:52Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Paranoid, the pathological jealousy.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Pathological jealousy.

• 37:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  That's a narcissistic thing.

• 37:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's more of an, it's more paranoid, it's more antagonistic, it's more about,

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  You must be doing something.

• 38:02Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You're doing such accusatory, it's almost delusional.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, okay.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  What would you say again are the main causes? What are the main things that happen to cause someone to become a narcissist? Is it all trauma based?

• 38:15Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's no, it's partly trauma. It's also that temperament. It is chaos in the early environment. It's lack of secure attachment. It's overvaluation of the child. Basically, the child can do no wrong and they're so wonderful. I mean, it's interesting. We're about to see something fascinating happen and I don't know how it's gonna go down. We're about to see, because Facebook's coming up on 20 years soon, right? We're about to see the first generation of kids who are born into the Facebook world. Where every moment being documented and shared.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  Since they were born.

• 38:47Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Since they were born. This is the first time we're gonna be seeing this. So I bless the people out there who are gonna start collecting this data. Because we now have, you know, you're gonna see what happens if you were... Because I had kids way before this, so I did not... The only people saw their pictures were the people I actually put them in an envelope, mailed the picture, kind of thing.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  Came over to the house and looked at the picture.

• 39:06Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Came to the house and looked at the actual baby. But this is a, this is a whole new game for kids who's, who's... Basically, we're accessories to their parents' lives. Like, "Look at my child this, look at my child this, look at my child this." Every day, there's a new picture.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  So is it, do you think it's okay to share some of your family life on social media? And some of your children's, you know, special moments? Or do you think we should be protecting our kids at all costs and never show their face? Never show anything until they're whatever, 10 or 12?

• 39:33Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's a super interesting area. There's some actually really interesting thinking and writing about this, which is these children aren't consenting to this. Are these children consenting to you showing them have a meltdown? Or, you know, we see all these silly child videos and sometimes I kind of feel a little sadness because these things stay evergreen. They didn't agree to that. And as much as they said, "Oh no, it's so cute." Is it still, they didn't consent. It's a vulnerability, right? So there's some, I know some folks in the developmental sphere of psychology saying, "Oh, this may not be entirely cool." Because they're not agreeing.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  What happens when the kid's 23 and they start going back and seeing all these like things that their mom or dad posted and they're like, "Huh, that's not really cool. I wish you wouldn't have done that to me."

• 40:13Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But it goes beyond that because even when the child is young, there's this sense of things... are constantly being done to them without them agreeing to it.

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  posing and put these clothes on and do this and let's post you.

• 40:23Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, in a public way and that and then the child also gets this sense of their utility, their importance to their parents is their social media persona. You look so pretty in your dress. You look so cute in your costume. Like you're wondering, are you costuming your child for Halloween for you or for them?

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Or for the validation online.

• 40:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, except for the validation the parent is getting. Yes, exactly.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  And that's tough because I have I have friends who never show their kids stuff and then I have friends who do show their kids and man, it's just like, yeah, how do we how do we navigate that conversation? And how do we?

• 40:59Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I think we're building this airplane in the sky.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 41:02Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And so the challenge becomes then that I would say it's a it's a balancing act between parents talking to each other, both parents, but also I think there's a larger issue of how much is the child feeling that they're valued, validated for being the kid who poses in social media, right? Because what does every child want? They want their they want their parents' love.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Love and attention.

• 41:24Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's all they want is their parents' love and attention. So if they start to recognize that if I'm looking good on social media and mommy's getting validated, then they'll put on the weird thing they want her to wear or do the thing that she wants them to do. But what's not happening is that their interests, what they value, may not be cultivated or everything's a photo op. It's as though the child feels that they're constantly on display versus just having a moment where they're being present and mindful and it doesn't all have to be documented. That I'm I've been a psychologist, I'm concerned about when these chickens come home to roost and they're going to.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Let's say there are there are parents that are posting about their kids online, you know, maybe they have a small following, maybe it's to a private group of their friends and family.

• 42:05Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's a kind of a different game.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  And and or it's the ones that have a bigger following. If they were going to be posting and they have a bigger following, I'd say not to their friends and family. What would be appropriate? That you think psychologically, in a healthy manner, to be able to talk about your family and your kids. Is there a healthy way psychologically that's going to, you know,

• 42:26Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I think that-

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  Not mess them up, or, you know?

• 42:28Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Being present with your children emotionally, being aware of their needs, of not turning them into a performing pony in your circus. Do you know, I mean, again, I say this as the mom of two kids, right? And there are moments when you think, well, this is the day we're gonna take such and such picture. Somebody's sick, someone's crying, someone has torn their dress, someone is this. And if you get angry at them because they've ruined your finely laid plans, that child then starts getting that conditional sense of, I'm only about this person's finely laid plans. Listen, we all do it. We all screw up. We all do that conditionality to our kids. It's almost impossible to not, it's how quickly we catch ourselves and say,

• 43:10Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  that's not what they want. This is not, this is, we're going to Disneyland because they want to go to Disneyland. We're going to the parks, they want to go to the park, not because what a great day for a photo op. Like, I've been on vacation and I've watched families like practically, I mean, literally screaming, we need this for our Christmas card.

• 43:27Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 43:27Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And I'm like, oh my god.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Pay attention, look here.

• 43:30Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Let them just splash and be sandy and muddy. They're at the beach. And it's that kind of obsessive zeal because all of that social comparison of people wanting to put out the false self and what is narcissism about the false self.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  Narcissism is the false self.

• 43:47Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  It's a mask.

• 43:48Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's always a mask because it's the mask of what they think the world wants. How the world wants them to look, which is why more and more people are looking the same. They're getting the same cosmetic procedures, they have the same bodies, they're driving the same cars. They're really sort of shills for this sort of artificial mask. That's a narcissist's game. Narcissism's the opposite of authenticity.

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  It's so interesting because um four years ago I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity.

• 44:13Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Interesting.

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  And I interviewed a lot of psychologists and you know, experts on on these kind of personality traits and these masks that men wear. And I did, I wrote about it because I realized I was wearing a mask, a couple of different masks for many different years of my life to protect myself, to try to fit in, to try to be liked and loved by society. Um, one of them being like the, the athlete mask. It's like I always had to win at all costs. I needed to be number one. And if I ever lost or got second, then no one would ever love me. So at all costs, I was like training and developing myself to be the best athlete I could be. And I was a horrible loser. I was a sore loser. I couldn't handle it. I would get angry. I would be like moody. I would be like frustrated and

• 44:59Lewis Howes?

  I'm not good enough. I'd beat myself up and train obsessively until I got better. Until I could make sure that um, you know, I could put myself in a better position athletically. And there's these different masks that men wear. Um, and I realized that it's all about trying to fit in. It was all about men trying to fit in and trying to belong, but it's, it's not the authentic self.

• 45:22Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Correct. And that, I mean, that's maybe we'll have a different day. I'll come in and talk to you about the authentic self because it's such a big conversation. When we look at the work of Carl Rogers, right, the humanistic psychologist and even other humanists like Abraham Maslow. So these were the, the big players in that humanistic universe. This idea of authenticity and self-actualization. So if you're to view human growth as a mountain, self-actualization is the summit. It's the top. I, I can, in my lifetime, I've met five self-actualized people and it was unforgettable. And they were always older. I think it's hard to self-actualize when you're younger and they were deeply authentic. I mean, like you, you did feel like you were in this, in the, in the face of greatness with them, but some of them ordinary, like one was a man who was a, he was an auto mechanic in Johannesburg.

• 46:07Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And I was like, I am in the presence of absolute greatness right now, you know?

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  What did that feel like? What was the experience?

• 46:13Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Absolute serenity. Um, I felt it. I felt at one with him, at one with the situation. I felt more calmed down. I felt like I could keep listening to him. He was a man with almost no education. Who, again, he fixed cars in Johannesburg and actually in a pretty, you know, not in the nicest of surroundings. And he was joy, like he was just human joy. And it's not because he was laughing, but he was so proud of what and anyone looking at it. Like, there's not a lot happening here, but it was this genuine, authentic, like, please come into my. Look at my beautiful space. This is my life. And the other person I met who was same thing, joy. And that man, the Johannesburg man, I'm still not in touch with, but this other man I am.

• 46:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And he is somebody who had a moment in his life and he decided to devote his life to children and families living in poverty in India. And I worked with a school he was working with in India. And I remember sitting with him. We were kind of actually kind of sitting next to an open sewer and it smelled like an open sewer. He's just chilling. He's just chilling and I'm like, I could have sat there all day and it was hot and there were flies. It was uncomfortable and he was magnificent. And the, and it wasn't just, the mechanic guy wasn't like they're saving the world. He was fixing cars. This guy happened to be doing something for a very small community in this village in India. Right?

• 47:35Lewis Howes?

  In service.

• 47:35Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But he was in service, the other one was not. But there was such a congruence between who they were as human beings and how they conducted themselves and how they were in the world. There was no sense of someone has more, I want what they have. Someone's got it better. Why is that happening? How come they got their turn first? And I remember when I, I, I think about them. I have the photograph of the gentleman from Johannesburg, this other man I'm still in touch with. And I, I need that to sort of try to get myself recalibrated to my center. But again, the opposite of narcissism, no mask whatsoever. They were just in themselves. Like what a life, like what a gorgeous life.

• 48:16Lewis Howes?

  You mentioned the, the deep technique. Uh, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. So how do you argue or communicate with a narcissist to get like your point across? If you need to get it across.

• 48:31Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You don't.

• 48:31Lewis Howes?

  You don't.

• 48:31Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You can't. So the, sometimes I tell people, okay.

• 48:36Lewis Howes?

  But do we, life is meant to be lived in a beautiful way.

• 48:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Not with them.

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  So that we should just rip the bandage, you know what I mean?

• 48:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Not necessarily, because we can't, right? So like I said, you know, I'll give you an example, okay? Narcissistic divorce. Family court and family law is not written around saying narcissistic parents aren't good for kids. So if you're parenting with a narcissist, we're gonna give the other parent full cussing. Not happening.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:00Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  State of California, fifty fifty. All right? Unless somebody doesn't want that. So what happens then is a person says, if I decide to split up from this person, I'm only gonna be with my kids fifty percent of the time. And I don't want them with that influence fifty percent of the time. So some people will stay. My favorite is when people file for divorce, like the day of their youngest child's eighteenth birthday. I'm like, I know what that was about. You see that happen quite a bit. They literally wait till that day.

• 49:27Lewis Howes?

  Trying to protect them.

• 49:28Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And then at eighteen, those kids are free agents. So there's no, no one can say, you have to be here, you have to stay here, you have to celebrate this holiday with that or anything. They get to call their own shots.

• 49:36Lewis Howes?

  So how do you, you just have to have extreme patience, I feel like.

• 49:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's beyond patience. It's radical acceptance. Patience is endurance. Radical acceptance.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  This thing sounds exhausting.

• 49:47Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Is getting, it is absolutely exhausting. It's just knowing that this isn't gonna change. You ever spend time in Chicago? I'm sure you have, right? Go to Chicago. It's February in Chicago.

• 49:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's miserable.

• 49:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You running, are you gonna go for a run in just your shorts and no shirt?

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  No, unless you're crazy, yeah.

• 50:02Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Okay. Why? Cause in February in Chicago, it's cold. Radical acceptance.

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so you just accept it.

• 50:07Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Right? If your window's facing east and you don't want the sun to wake you up, get curtains. Radical acceptance. You cannot talk to a narcissist. So I tell people, there's another concept I use is something called true north. Sometimes you have to get into the argument. True north are those things that you're gonna fight for because they're so, they're, they're important to your core values. So who you are. For some folks, it's their kids. For some people, it may be a cause they believe in, or a belief they have, or they will not listen to, I don't know, prejudicial language. True north gets activated, and they'll say, I'm taking the fight. They pull off the gloves, they pull out the earrings and then they're in. They're just, they'll go at it, it is exhausting.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  Nothing good happens, does it?

• 50:48Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Nothing good happens, right? But at least they can say, "I took the fight, Dr. Ramani, so I could live with myself."

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:55Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  To know that I fought for my kids. I stood up, but do not get into the fight about the dishwasher, or, you know, "Why were you late to the party?" Or, "Why were you rude to my sister?" or whatever. I mean, if you keep taking every fight, it's exhausting. The minute you let go, you know what happens, though, is when a person finally gives up, they're overwhelmed with grief. They're like, "There's no there, there's nothing here, there's nothing to talk about." I can't tell them good news, because they make fun of it, or they dismiss it. I can't tell them bad news, because they get really angry and rageful. So, "All we can really talk about is the weather," I'm like, "Uh huh."

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  But that's, I mean, what do you do with the rest of your time?

• 51:34Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You cultivate other stuff in your life, interests.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  Can you actually, can you love a narcissist, or is it impossible to love a narcissist?

• 51:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's a subjective question, right? Love is such a complicated word. It means something different to you, it means something different to me, it means different things to the people out in the street. So, the, and that's, the bigger question I often get is, can a narcissist love?

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  Is that possible?

• 51:53Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It depends.

• 51:54Lewis Howes?

  Besides loving themselves?

• 51:56Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  What is cold to you, right? You're in short sleeves, I'm in a sweater. You know, so it's a subjective word, so can a person, lots of people love narcissists. They do, they're like, "I love this person." They represent something to me. Maybe this is where it starts getting to a philosophical question. Maybe when we love someone, it's very, it is very representational. We love what they stand for, we love what we believe they are. But we don't know, maybe we never know someone enough to love them. So, again, that's a philosophical conversation. But when it comes down to it, there are people out there who will say, "I do..." Parents are a great example. People have narcissistic parents, like, "I love my mother," or, "I love my father," I can't stand them.

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 52:40Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  But love is much more metaphysical.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:43Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest misconceptions about a narcissist then? Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.