Narcissism Experts Reveal How To SPOT, Handle & Heal From Trauma | Lewis Howes

Most people think narcissism looks like a loud ego, but the truth is it often disguises itself as care, protection, or even victimhood. This episode brings together six of the world's leading experts to walk you through every layer of the problem, from learning to spot the patterns to understanding why you keep attracting them to finally healing the wound underneath it all. You'll discover that the real danger isn't just the narcissist in front of you, it's the unexamined programming from your family of origin that keeps pulling you back into the same cycles. Whether you're navigating a toxic relationship, recovering from one, or realizing for the first time that something in your childhood wasn't as normal as you thought, this is your roadmap to reclaiming your self-trust and building relationships that actually fuel you. Make Money Easy: Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer Life The Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest Lives The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy In this episode you will: Learn the six types of narcissists so you can finally name the dynamic that's been draining you Spot the body language "danger zone" cues that manipulative people leak without realizing it Recognize how covert narcissism controls you from underneath through guilt, victimhood, and passive aggression Identify whether your self-criticism is actually your family of origin still running the show inside your head Shift from "me over us" thinking to the kind of connected, whole relationships you actually want For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1894 For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960 More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Dr. Ramani Durvasula Jerry Wise Esther Perel Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  If you keep finding yourself drained, confused, or questioning your worth after certain relationships, then this episode is for you. Now, have you ever wondered, "Why do I always attract this type of person?" Or, "Why do I feel so small after loving them?" Well, I hate to break it to you. You may have been dealing with a narcissist, and you didn't even realize it. And the truth is narcissistic dynamics don't always look like what we expect. They don't always look like a loud ego. Sometimes, they look like care. Sometimes, they look like protection. And it can be confusing. So, how do you spot it? And how do you protect yourself? And most importantly, how do you heal from it when you've dealt with it?

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  Without carrying that damage into future relationships? Well, today, I've put together a powerful masterclass, where we're bringing in the world's leading experts. And we're going to be helping you identify the signs, break patterns, and rebuild your self-trust. And learn how to create healthy, safe, and secure relationships moving forward. In this first section, we have narcissism expert Dr. Ramani de Rosella. She is the gold standard on this topic. And she's going to break down the six different types of narcissists that you need to look out for. Let's check this out.

• 1:21Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Grandiose, which is a traditional arrogant, pretentious, charming, charismatic, you know, kind of shiny narcissist. That's your kind of prototype of the narcissist. There's the vulnerable narcissist. This is probably, to me, the most compelling form of narcissism. Because this is where you see the sullenness, the petulance, the passive aggression, the chronic victimhood, the social anxiety, the failure to launch. These are people who live in fantasies of the great things they're going to do, but they never do them.

• 1:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:51Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The grandiose people actually often do get them done. They will talk the big game, and they'll kind of do the big game.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  So, vulnerable doesn't mean they're actually intimate and vulnerable with you?

• 1:59Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No, no, no.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  It means that they...

• 2:01Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They themselves are vulnerable.

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  But they don't actually take action.

• 2:04Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Correct. And they...

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  You keep telling everyone, "I'm going to do this project or this thing."

• 2:08Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And you know why I couldn't do it? Because that guy didn't give me the money. And that guy was scamming me. And that, you know, everyone takes advantage of me. And that person stole my idea. That's... that's that.

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  The vulnerable, okay.

• 2:17Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  The vulnerable, okay. Then there's the malignant. Now, to me, the malignant narcissist is the most severe form of narcissism, and that's when we talk about stuff like the dark tetrad. And the dark tetrad is composed of narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, the willingness to take advantage of other people, and sadism. And I also believe paranoia sits in there too, right? So in malignant narcissism, we're talking about people who are more coercive, who are more menacing, who are more isolating. This feels a little bit more like psychopathy, but it's still narcissism. That's much more severe, okay? Then we have the communal narcissists.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  Communal?

• 2:53Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Communal. And these are the folks who get, so all narcissistic folks need validation. The communal narcissistic folks are interesting because they get their validation by being perceived as saviors, rescuers, and do-gooders.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  Like cult leaders or more?

• 3:07Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  That's a severe, so a cult leader would be a communal malignant narcissist. That would be, so these are like cocktails, right? These are like you move every, you put it all together. So at the extreme, a communal malignant narcissist, cult leader. But some communal narcissist could be, could be a mother who does all the activities and the PTA and is the, helps the Little League and raises the money and goes to the galas and goes home and screams at her kids and is horrible and abuses her partner.

• 3:34Lewis Howes?

  But on the surface, it looks like she's-

• 3:36Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They think she's a saint amongst us. It's the person who walks around and everyone thinks they're humanitarian. And people are like, no, no, no, I worked for their nonprofit. And they're like, it was absolutely a hellscape, right?

• 3:47Lewis Howes?

  When you look behind the curtain, you see-

• 3:49Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Bingo. So it's, that's the communal narcissist. So they're, they get validation by being, by the sense of, look what a good person they are. They're rescuing puppies and they're, they're doing this thing and they're raising all this money and they're so good.

• 4:02Lewis Howes?

  But behind the scenes, they're not.

• 4:04Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Not. So it's not thinking people do nice things are communal narcissists. It's that, that they continue to have the lack of empathy entitlement, all that other stuff.

• 4:12Lewis Howes?

  So it's like you can, you know, because I'm like, okay, well, you know, I want to, I want to build a community and serve people. So how do you build a community? You've got a big audience. Like, how do we build communities without? That becoming a thing, is it just because if you're not consistent with service all around you in your relationships, then you're more-

• 4:28Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Right, so I mean, are you being mean to other people?

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 4:31Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  So like, if I was-

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  Public facing, you look like the best thing ever, but behind the scenes-

• 4:35Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Exactly, so you're mean to your partner, you're mean to your family, you're mean to your-

• 4:39Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 4:39Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  People who work you-

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  You're inconsistent.

• 4:41Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  You're, well, you're, you're consistent, you're consistently mean to the people who are behind the curtain here, consistently sort of putting on a show in front of the curtain.

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but you're not consistent on both ways-

• 4:50Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  No, no, and that's, that's what it is.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Of like, service mindset, okay.

• 4:52Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, communal. And then there's the self-righteous narcissist. And the self-righteous narcissist is judgmental, moralistic, rigid, they're often funky with money, um, they will, like, they will, this would be a kind of person who has so much money and someone in their family has a hardship, they, they had a job loss and then their kid needs, you know, needs medical care and they'll say, "Well, I didn't create this situation, so I guess you'll have to figure it out."

• 5:24Lewis Howes?

  They have no heart.

• 5:25Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Like, this is, it feels like no heart, but there's also this really rigid judgmental and they judge people from a sense of, "Well, look at all I built, I guess I must have worked hard." They'll never account for their luck, right? Or sometimes their absence of bad luck, that kind of thing. They will say, if they say dinner's at six and you show up at 6:30 because your kid got sick, they'll say, "I'm sorry, we already ate." So it's very, it feels very-

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  Cold.

• 5:48Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  -rigid, cold, moralistic, miserly, obsessive, these are people who are often workaholics and with little care for how it would affect anyone. It's like, there's workaholics out there who check in on other people, like, "I'm gonna make time for you."

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 6:00Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Or, "Once, and we're gonna do, we're taking a vacation when this is done," whatever, and they're communicating and people are aware, like, "Okay, they're doing this so we could buy the house," or whatever.

• 6:09Lewis Howes?

  So is it possible to be self-righteous and not be a narcissist then?

• 6:12Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  I don't think you can ever be self-righteous and healthy, because I think if you're self-righteous, you're like, "I'm better than you."

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  Ah, gotcha.

• 6:18Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Right, so you'll even see self-righteous narcissism in some of these kinds of exercise zealots, who are like, "I wake up at 4 a.m., and then I milk my goat, and I make a smoothie, and then I do a thousand crunches and run 10 million miles, and then I work, and then I journal, and then I this, and I sleep at 8 o'clock," and I'm like, "What are you talking about? Like, is there no other human being in your life? Like, how do you deal with a crying sister? "I told her to go to hell, and I drink more goat milk." You know, I mean, that can be self-righteous. And the reason I'm in shape, and I'm gonna live to be 179 years old, is because I do all this, and you don't, you lazy awful person. That's self-righteous.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  Lacking compassion, lacking understanding, lacking awareness.

• 6:57Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's a lack of awareness of others. So that self-righteousness is sort of where the lack of empathy sits, right? So I don't think you can be self-righteous. I don't think there's good self-righteousness. I don't think all self-righteous people are narcissistic. But many people said to me that self-righteous narcissism is really what happened in their family of origin. It was apparent. So there would almost be this unrealistic expectation that the child would adhere to rigid obsessive rules, like, "Don't touch this, don't do this, don't sit there, eat like this." And so the kid never got to be a kid.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay, number six?

• 7:31Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And number six would be more of a neglectful narcissist. So these are the people who, they will not, they view everyone as object. So, coffee cup, whatever.

• 7:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  And they, and they just neglect them until they need them.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  They just discard them? Or they just don't give them attention or energy?

• 7:50Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  They don't attune, they don't give them attention, they don't attune to them. They don't, they, when a person around them is struggling, they won't care. They, it's, it's, it's...

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  It's a lack of empathy.

• 8:03Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's a lack of empathy, but it's a lack of, like, for example, a malignant or a grandiose narcissist might actually get mad at someone, like, "Oh, my gosh, like, why do you keep talking to me?" And people in relationships with neglectful narcissists will say, "I'll take it, because at least that person was listening." But people in these relationships will literally feel... Like they're losing their minds because the person with them is literally not noticing unless they need something from them.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so they're given the cold shoulder, they don't speak to them for days, whatever.

• 8:33Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  Yeah, whatever. They just don't notice, they don't care. They won't know, like you might say, like, I have the biggest presentation of the year next week. They won't even ask.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's all about them.

• 8:42Dr. Ramani Durvasula?

  It's all about them, but in this weird way, but and and they don't even take notice of other people. So it is a people I've known clients in this experience and they'll say, it's as though I didn't exist, but then when I had the piece of information or something they needed, I existed. So you feel like a really neglected personal assistant.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. In this next section, we are speaking with behavior expert Vanessa Van Edwards. She's going to show the physical signs, the body language that tells you exactly who you're dealing with. Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism? And how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic? Versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling and getting what they want in life?

• 9:42Speaker 02

  So this is my biggest fear with this book. This is my, this is my single biggest fear and it was an issue for me when I first started writing it. Is I'll be honest, you can use this book for manipulation.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  And that scares me.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  And when a smart person who's narcissistic is going to study everything and then start using it.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  It scares me.

• 10:01Lewis Howes?

  So how can you tell the difference, the subtle cues, these are very subtle now.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Very subtle, yeah. So we're talking about big to subtle, right? There's like a range of them. So first is, it is my biggest fear with this book that people do not have the right intentions. And my hope is that we can actually use these powers for good and not evil. That is the number one thing is you, you can, if you want to. Here's the good news. There are certain cues that we cannot control. And if you have bad intentions, they will leak. So I call these danger zone cues. So in the book I talk about, there's four different types of cues. There's highly warm, nonverbal, verbal and vocal. So these are things that make you highly warm, highly trustworthy, highly likable. There's highly competent cues, verbal, nonverbal and vocal. And then there's charismatic, the ones that are just knocking out of the park, like they're just great. And the last one is danger zone cues. Danger zone cues are the cues that get us into trouble. They're the cues that liars use.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  They're the way that we leak guilt and shame. Actually, shame is not a bad thing. It's only when you have guilt that you've done something wrong. So, in the danger zone, it is very hard to inhibit those cues. So, I teach them because I want people to be able to spot them.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what are those cues?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Okay, so there's a bunch and I'll let's talk about as many as we can.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure. And this might be someone who's very successful, someone who's accomplished a lot potentially, someone that seems very credible.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  Someone that could be in a power position, owning a business, or having influence online, or something like that, right?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  Extremely successful, they could be successful, they could seem credible, trustworthy.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:29Lewis Howes?

  But might be super narcissistic underneath.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Yes, so there's a couple of danger zone cues that we can control, which a manipulative person could inhibit, right? So, for example, one that I found that I talk about in the book is Lance Armstrong. So, Lance Armstrong, for those who don't know, spoiler alert, Lance Armstrong was doping, so someone was like, "There was spoilers in the book." And I was like, "You haven't heard of that news yet?" I also talk about Britney Spears in the book, because there's some really interesting cues on her, which I think why we're worried about her, why her fans worry. She shows a lot of danger zone cues.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  So Lance Armstrong, in one of his early interviews on Larry King Live, he's asked about doping, and he does what's called a lip purse. So, a lip purse is, okay, when we push our lips into a flat line, we mash our lips together. That is a universal withholding gesture. So, when we're literally trying to hold something in, or hold something back, or we don't like what's being said or heard, we go... And so, you'll notice that when someone has been asked something they don't like, when someone had to lie, a lot of the time... So, we did a massive experiment in our lab where we asked people to send in videos of themselves lying. Actually, you play it in the book, it's called "Lie to Me." So, I have you lie to me, play this "Lie to Me" game to diagnose your own tells. It's very important to know your own tells, because you should know what your danger

• 12:45Speaker 02

  zone cues are when you're leaking them. And one of the, you should know those. It's good to know those in the back of your pocket. Do that with your partner, right? You want them to know what those are too. So, one thing that we noticed is on lies. That was one of the biggest indicators. So, in Lie to Me game, we ask you to do two things. We ask you to tell us an embarrassing story, your most embarrassing story, and then a fake embarrassing story. And we want to see if we can tell the difference. If we cut the clips, can we know which one is the fake one?

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  Man, that'd be interesting.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Yes, and it's amazing. You see the same danger zone cues over and over again right before someone's about to lie and tell their fake embarrassing story. They go, "Okay." And they lip purse right before they're gonna do it. And that's because we don't like lying. Our body knows it's gonna get us into trouble. So, we're like, "Stop it, stop it, stop it." And we hold ourselves back. You ask a woman, "How much do you weigh?" And she'll go, "Mmm." Like, literally close those lips because no woman wants to talk about how much she weighs. So, it's a withholding gesture. And so, that's the first thing is you want to look for some of the bigger cues, withholding gestures. Lip purse is one. A sudden distancing behavior. So, we also noticed that liars in our lab, they wanted to like get away from the lie, like as if it smelled. So, like when they were telling their most embarrassing story, they'd be like leaning in, using gestures. "Oh, it's so embarrassing." And remember, embarrassing stories are negative.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  It's not like it's a positive memory. It's like people are like, and they do a shame touch. The universal shame touch is when people touch their fingers to the side of their forehead.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  This happened in my life.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  So, they're usually telling the truth and they do like this.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yes, because they're actually embarrassed, right? So, these are all good, like congruent, right? We're seeing embarrassment and shame gesture. We're seeing negative, unverbal, and people shaking their head. "I can't believe that happened," right? Like, they, "Oh, they're so upset that happened." We're seeing cringes. We're seeing fear. We're seeing sadness. Congruent, right? Like, that's all congruent emotion. On the bad stories, we often see people will lip purse and they try to get away from it. So, they'll say a statement and then... You know, and then, um, and they're literally like as far away, I hope I'm not messing up my audio there, as far away from the lie as they can possibly get. They're leaning back, they'll sometimes literally lean their head back in the chair, and that's because physically, we want

• 14:54Speaker 02

  to distance ourselves from things we don't like. So we're looking for lip purses, sudden distancing. And there's a lot of cues that we can't control, right? So blink rate is another one. Eye blocking behavior is liars have higher blink rates.

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  They blink more.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, in Britney Spears, she had a really interesting interview that I, I actually break this on my YouTube channel, so you don't even have to read the book if you want to see it, where I break down the cues in this early interview. This is right before the conservatorship started, so very, very full of cues, because it's right before it happened. And she gets asked a very difficult question, and she, all of a sudden, her blink rate goes from a normal rate to a high rate. So she starts to, to really quickly blink her eyes like this, and that is because when we're really nervous, we literally want to close out stimuli to not see what's happening, so we can process what's happening. So blink rate is something that a lot of manipulative people cannot control. In fact, when I share this, people go, "Oh, I know a very narcissistic, manipulative person who has a very high blink rate."

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Because they're literally like trying to block out the lie or the manipulation. And so they'll sound really good, but they're like, really like processing a lot. And you, and you're like, "Why are they blinking so much?" And it's because they're trying to process.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  So just knowing those cues are not all bad on their own, but it's important to know what those cues look like, so you can spot them. And I do think, I really think, manipulative people will get caught eventually. It is very hard to fake competence. It is very hard to fake warmth. It's hard to keep that up. And so for the long game, yes, you can learn a couple of these cues and try to master your way around them. But for the long game, it's really hard. I mean, look at, you know, Theranos, right? So Elizabeth Holmes, so spoiler alert, Theranos did not go well. I always have to say that. So one of her interesting cues is, I don't know if you've ever seen her talk, she has a really, she uses a really deep voice, like fakely deep,

• 16:48Speaker 02

  like down here. And people used to say, like, "Is that real?" It's because she read in some cue book, it wasn't mine because my book wasn't out then, thank goodness, she read in some book that having a lower tone of voice makes you more competent. And that is true. Research has found that people who use the lower end of their natural voice tone are seen as competent. That's for both men and women. So you have a very deep voice and it serves you really well. When I'm talking right now, I'm trying to use the lowest end of my natural register. When I'm talking to my toddler. Right, right, when I'm talking to my toddler, I'm much more up here. You know, hey, baby, how are you? But if I were to do my entire interview like this, it would drive you crazy. Right?

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't feel competent.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  No, and it wouldn't, and people would go, I can't, I'm not taking her seriously. So she read that study, obviously.

• 17:33Lewis Howes?

  An octave lower.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  There you go. And went an octave lower. So it wasn't her natural voice tone, it was like one step lower than her voice tones. She was always talking like this. And when she did an interview, she would talk like this and you would hear that this just doesn't sound natural. And part of your spidey sense would be like, why is she talking so low? It sounds really unnatural. And it came out that when she was drunk, her employees noticed that she went back into her natural register. So there are cues, they will eventually.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Don't drink alcohol.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And that is the point of this story. Don't drink alcohol.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Or you're gonna get caught.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  So like you can't keep it up for that long.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Is that she was faking that cue, we think.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  I think you're also just, your body is out of integrity. Like the more you're, you're keeping back something, you're telling a slight lie or whatever. I mean, I've felt this from the past because I've been out of integrity in my life at different times, from different stages of childhood to adulthood, right? From little white lies to bigger stuff, hiding from my parents or whatever it is.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  They feel bad.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  So you're like, like something inside of you feels off, right? And then you gotta like keep the lie up and you're like, huh. Eventually you're gonna explode or you're gonna have a heart attack or something.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  It's gonna leak.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  It's gonna leak.

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna leak. Leaking cues.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  You leak those cues and like those are the cues that we're looking for. Like I want you to be on the lookout for them because when something feels bad, like even like something feels bad, even just then, when you were saying it felt bad, your voice tone changed.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Just then.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Because when you think about, oh, I like, think about seeing a toxic person. And I know that people probably have toxic people in their lives and this is why toxic people.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Are so challenging because toxic people put us out of integrity. Toxic people force us to use warm cues where we don't feel like it. Now, we can do it.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean? We gotta be nice to them or something?

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like if you have a toxic person, and this is the thorn in. And I think our work is I want everyone to be their best selves. I want them to show up as their warmest, most competent self. But what if you have a toxic person? How do you do that authentically? And this is what's so hard about toxic people. You have a colleague or coworker or a family member. You don't like, right? And you have to break out the fake warmth cues. Oh, hi, how are you? Right? And so what do we do? We fake smile, right? So, oh, it's so good to see you. Right? And like, no, don't look like it, right? Or we say, oh, yeah, so how, oh, that sounds good. Congratulations.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Now, your LA roots are coming back to you.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  And that, right? That's why toxic people challenge us is because they come into our lives. We know we're supposed to be warm. And so we try to force that warm sound and it comes out sort of forced. And then it makes us feel bad. And then we're trying to overcompensate for it. And so you know what? The antidote here is not learning more fake warmth cues. It's, it's time to get rid of toxic people. I think that's like the side effect.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Of the book is like.

• 20:21Lewis Howes?

  Don't keep them around.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Don't keep those people around because it will leak. And so set boundaries around them.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean it will leak? Like your integrity will leak because you're constantly trying to be nice, but they're actually out of integrity because you don't want to be.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  Is that right?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Right, that's exactly right.

• 20:35Lewis Howes?

  So your body is like, I'm doing something that's not authentic to me. Because I feel like I have to with this person.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  And the more frequently you do that, you feel out of integrity with yourself.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yep, exactly.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  With yourself.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  With yourself. So that was a question you were asking me. And I'm like, yes, it was. Yes, yes. That was perfect because you were asking a question I knew, yes. Is if you allow toxic people to come into your life, especially without boundaries, we have to have some of those people we deal with. But if you don't have boundaries around them, they come into your life and you have to fake niceness. And that feels really bad.

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  What happens if, let's just say there's a person you don't like.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:06Lewis Howes?

  Maybe they're not toxic. There's somebody you don't like and you don't like being nice to because you feel like, why am I, I just don't, nothing wrong with them, there's not my person.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you're in a work environment.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:17Lewis Howes?

  And you're at a company, you got 50, 100 employees that you're working with, you're on a team with, and you're just, okay, I'm here.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Is it better to be? Inauthentic and lie and act nice around this person. Friendly, fake, how are you interested? Even though you've like been around them for six months or a year and you realize you really don't like them. Or is it better to go right up to the person after six months and say, you know what? I just want to be completely honest and not fake with you because I feel like I've been fake. That I don't connect with you, I don't like you. I think, I think you're out of integrity, I think you're inauthentic. And maybe I'm being judgmental, but I'd rather be honest with you and fake nice to you.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Okay, that's A and B. Can I give a C?

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Okay, so I don't believe in fake it till you make it. So I, I, I try not to give like fake it. I don't, I don't roll that way. Like I just think it's exhausting. I think it's gonna leak. The C option here is to not fake warmth, but is to double down on competence. So if you are working with someone that you don't like, the one thing that you do have to do is get stuff done with them. Right? You have to master your tasks, you have to be on it, you have to be responsive to emails. So that is something that you can be authentic about because to do your job, you have to be able to get along with them in a very professional setting. So I would skip all the fake warmth stuff.

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  Just go right into competence.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Right? Like stick with where you're authentic, which is like, I don't need to hear about your weekend. I don't need to go to happy hour with you. I don't need a fake sitting with you for coffee, but you know what? We can get stuff done. You know what?

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  So create boundaries around the, hey, let's go have coffee.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm so busy, I'm so busy today, but you know what? Let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow at the end of the day so we can really kick off.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. So get back to like the mission, the task on hand, the competence. And maybe you've just gotta be like, okay, this is someone where, you know, 20 seconds a day, I've gotta be around someone that's trying to be fake. Laddy dotty with everyone and I'll just wait.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get stuff done.

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  And then I'll move on to the next.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  That's it. Exactly. Cause then at least you're focusing on where you can be authentic. And also that's, even if that were to come up, you could honestly say that kind of. Conversation could be, listen, like, you know, I'm I'm not really into like, you know, connecting at work. I'm more about getting it done. I want to get home to my kids and my family. I hope that's okay with you. You know, when we're together, if it's all right, I might skip lunch and just have us like, you know, work it out and be really efficient. I really appreciate how efficient you are because it allows me to get home to my kids faster. Right? Like, that's authentic. So what can you appreciate about them that's competent?

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  What can you highlight about them that's competent?

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  What if you don't feel like they're warm or competent? You're like, this person on a team is just, they can't get anything done, they're not smart, and they have fake attitude around me all day.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  I mean, this depends on how you feel, but I would say, deal with it. Like, you got, like, go to your boss.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Right, and say, hey, can you put me on a different team?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. You say, like, I don't know how, I can work with this person. I don't want to be unauthentic. But I'm telling you that we're not getting stuff done, and they are causing issues on the team. Like, I don't like to ignore that stuff. Like, you could hope it gets better, but ask for help. If you have someone on your team or someone in your life who is not warm nor competent, and doesn't treat you with warmth or competence, either get them out of your life, set a boundary, or get help.

• 24:24Lewis Howes?

  Give them like an improvement plan or something, yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't live with it. Life is too short to feel fakely competent or fake warmth.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  Right. What's been the, uh, I think I asked you this last time. What's been the charisma strategy? If you want to call it strategy.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  You weren't sure about that. You weren't sure about that.

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  I don't know what the word is, right, but what is the charisma or social cue that you've learned in the last six months that has brought some new attention to your life where you said, ah, I wasn't aware of that fully, but now the research is showing that when someone does this, it improves this?

• 24:58Speaker 02

  There's a new cue that I snuck into the book in the very last draft because I just learned it. And this is actually brought to me by one, it's called my male readers, and I'm so curious. Okay. Do you agree with this, Louis? Okay, here's what they said. So in the book, I had a whole section on nodding. So nodding, affirmative nods, upside down, right?

• 25:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I nod all the time.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yes, you're a nodder. It's really high warmth. We love it.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh, is it good?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Yes, nodding is great. Because vertical nods, and by the way, this is different in certain cultures where they'll nod. They nod sideways. That's different, okay? So just vertical nodding in Western cultures is agreement. It's yes. In fact, research has found that when you nod at me slowly, I speak three to four times longer.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh, that's cool.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  That's why you're a good interviewer is because you'll nod and be like, keep going. Keep going, keep going.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  I'm just kind of, I'm just like a bobblehead. I'm just kind of like, yeah. It's kind of like a very slow, like I'll pause and be like, okay, cool.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Okay, well, actually, you're right. Slow nodding is tell me more. Fast nodding is finish up.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  Okay, I got it. I got it, right, right, right. Okay, so that's the difference there. If you want someone to wrap up in a meeting, give them a one, two, three triple nod, like, I got it. If you want them to keep going, an introvert, uh huh, uh huh. Okay, so that's the difference. That's number one. So I shared about this, I taught it, and then a couple of my male readers said to me, no. Vanessa, we think that there is a secret nonverbal cue between guys. No, I don't know what this cue is. Here's what they said.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  What guy?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  If you know a guy and you're trying to acknowledge him, guy to guy, you nod up.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Good to see you. It's literally like an open gesture, you're open. If you don't know a guy, but you're trying to acknowledge his presence, you, hey, good to see you.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow, that's so true.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Is it true?

• 26:34Lewis Howes?

  That's so true. Yeah, it's like, oh, good to see you, yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, acknowledged.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Hey, what's up, buddy?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's so true.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Okay, so this was, so I snuck it into the book last minute.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's fascinating. I wonder, is that like biology? Is that social?

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Yes, here's what I think. Okay, here's my, here's my theory on this. As soon as I heard this, I was like, and I started looking. I started watching, man, I asked my husband, I asked my guy friends. And this is why I think it happens. When we know someone, we expose our jugular. So this is a very vulnerable part of our body, and we're saying, I know you, I trust you. Look, I'm opening, I'm acknowledging you, and I feel trustworthy. When you don't know someone, but you want to show respect, you nod down to protect your jugular. I don't know you, but I see you. I got you.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  I got you. I'm here for you, kind of.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  You can't see my jugular, but I'm here for you.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna protect myself.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  But I see you.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  But I'm here for you, bro. What's up?

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Exactly. I think that that's where it comes from. It's like a, do I know you or do I not know you? So in that sense, this is a high warmth cue. Hey, buddy, what's up? Right, it's high warmth, you're showing your jugular. This is a high confidence cue. Hello, good to see you. I look ridiculous, because I don't do that.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  In this third section, we have the legendary psychotherapist Esther Perel, who is going to share the clear patterns that prove your partner might be a narcissist. What's your thoughts on narcissism in general? And can people change or evolve out of it?

• 27:56Esther Perel?

  I can answer it clinically and culturally. I mean, maybe we should start by talking about the, like Christopher Lash talked about it. We do live in a narcissistic culture.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  Selfie culture, the likes.

• 28:06Esther Perel?

  We live in a culture of narcissism. Once you are continuously evaluating yourself, proving yourself, performing, demonstrating yourself, you know, posting about yourself, engaging in fake news about yourself, you are in a narcissistic culture that, you know, criteria, diagnosis, accompany the culture of the day. In the 19th century, we talked about hysteria. We do not talk much about hysteria today because we realized that the majority of these hysterical women, supposedly hysterical women, were actually women who had experienced sexual abuse. They were not hysterical, they were traumatized.

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:52Esther Perel?

  Narcissism is the word that we come back with on the 21st century. Stress and anxiety and depression was the 20th century. So every century and every culture has its expressions, true mental illness or mental manifestations, okay? Eating disorders exist in some cultures and not in others. You, you know, a diagnosis, a personality disorder doesn't just exist like that without a background. So that means that it's easy to make these issues very personal, but they are also societal. That said, I have sat with people who have a whole range of narcissistic tendencies

• 29:37Esther Perel?

  to get to saying somebody is a narcissist, somebody is depressed, somebody is, you know, I think that there are, there's more to us than just that.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:48Esther Perel?

  But you see a lot of people with narcissistic tendencies and you see a lot of people who are not just this exhibiting it with manifest narcissism, but there's a whole other form of narcissism that is called covert narcissism, which we talk about much less because we not name it in those ways.

• 30:05Lewis Howes?

  What is the difference?

• 30:07Esther Perel?

  That is a long conversation. That is really a long conversation.

• 30:10Lewis Howes?

  In the short form, what is the?

• 30:12Esther Perel?

  You know, power can come from above and power can come from underneath. You can have power through victimization. You can make people feel guilty all the time. You can be passive aggressive. You can make people continuously feel that they are responsible for your life, that if they don't do what you want, that you may kill yourself. There's loads of ways to make other people submit themselves to you.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  And that would be considered covert?

• 30:40Esther Perel?

  Those are expressions of more covert narcissism.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  It's not like this domineering, but it's a psychological...

• 30:47Esther Perel?

  You can control people from the top and you can control people from underneath. You know, I think that there is a certain profile at this point of when we say narcissist, everybody has five or six associations that are quite similar. And this is really a whole other conversation. But what I will say is that, yes, I have sat with people who have very little regard. People who bring everything onto themselves. People who see everything as a reflection of themselves. People who are charming, charming when they need to seduce you. And then once they think they have you, they turn and they go into the next people who they need to charm. But those that they have already recruited are disregarded and discarded.

• 31:32Esther Perel?

  So those...

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  They got the most out of them already, yeah.

• 31:35Esther Perel?

  You know, people who can lie pathologically to you. People who have very little empathy for what is happening. So there is a cluster of things. But I think for me, I tend to look at behaviors and I tend to look at interactions because I'm a relational therapist and I'm a systems-oriented therapist. And so I less spend my time labeling a personality. I think it's useful on occasion, but it is not my primary vocabulary.

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Esther Perel?

  But she's very eloquent about it.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes. We'll have to have you back on to do a whole two-hour conversation on that another time. There's a lot to that.

• 32:18Esther Perel?

  It's really, I do not want to talk about complex topics

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  In a short amount of time.

• 32:24Esther Perel?

  Because it doesn't do them justice and I don't like to reinforce...

• 32:30Esther Perel?

  Notions that have not been examined.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 32:33Esther Perel?

  But that are easy to grab on.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  We'll have your background for that. I'll do one final card and then I think I've got to make sure I'm respecting him the time.

• 32:41Esther Perel?

  That you're gonna touch on me. Yep, what is that?

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay. I'm my own worst enemy when? It's interesting. I-

• 32:52Esther Perel?

  You know what?

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  Want to give me a different one?

• 32:53Esther Perel?

  Yes.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:54Esther Perel?

  I want to give you this.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:56Esther Perel?

  Because of what happened just a few minutes before.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Last time I cried was, I mean, yesterday, you know? In terms of, my father just died two months ago. And so I've been crying a lot, you know? Every couple of days, I hear a song that really connects me to a memory, to him, and to the whole... It was a sad experience because he happened into a car accident 17 years ago, had a severe brain trauma, was in a coma for three months. Then he woke up, went to a different country, in New Zealand at the time, I was in college. Then he came back and it was like my dad was physically here, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually not.

• 33:39Esther Perel?

  Ambiguous loss.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:41Esther Perel?

  This is it.

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  I never was able to fully grieve.

• 33:44Esther Perel?

  That's ambiguous loss.

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  My father, he was physically here, but-

• 33:48Esther Perel?

  You're not with the same person.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  And every interaction I had with him was reminding me of the loss. Was, I'm grateful he's here and it's great to experience some time with him, but every time I go and say hello, he says, "Louis, right? Didn't you, didn't you used to play, what sport did you play growing up? Where did you go to school again?" So he could have a conversation with you and speak conversationally, but it was the same story over and over again, I'm meaning to remind my father-

• 34:22Esther Perel?

  17 years?

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  17 years of the memory loss that he had. Show him photos of him with me, taking photos of me playing sports. The second half of my life with him was beautiful. He showed up, he transformed, he overcame a lot of the the anger and resentment he had.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  And I had two different lives with him. When I was 13 before, I had a some love, some scary with him. Then after 13, it was like this incredible friendship. So it's like I lost my dad. But he was physically here and every year there was some type of health scare. He had a couple of strokes, a heart attack, he had multiple surgeries from the accident, just the complications from the accident.

• 35:07Lewis Howes?

  And so every year I didn't know if he was gonna survive or not. And I was always, is it gonna happen this year? Okay, he's in the hospital now, is he gonna make it? Do I need to be there? In this seventeen year cycle of learning to accept something and doing my best to be okay with it. And, and accepting and loving where it's at, you know, so for me it was seventeen years of I wouldn't say numbing, but it was acceptance and just like managing it the best I could. And then when he passed in February, a couple of months ago, it was

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  I mean, just full circle, kind of like going back seventeen years ago and reliving that and then reliving my whole childhood and allowing myself to be to have a full range of emotions. And I think it's beautiful because

• 35:57Esther Perel?

  You feel like this time actually you can fully grieve?

• 36:00Lewis Howes?

  I feel like I can.

• 36:01Esther Perel?

  Because it's, see, this is ambiguous loss, what you just described. Can't grieve, can't mourn because he's there, but he's not there.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Esther Perel?

  And this one gives it, now you can experience the full range.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. I didn't feel like I could. And, and I feel like I have a more spiritual connection to him now than in the last seventeen years. You know, every night I'm connecting with him in my own way and in my little meditation room and you know, throughout every, the days, there are things that come up where I feel the spiritual presence and it's, it's a beautiful sad, it's beautiful, it's emotional, it's, it's a wide range of emotions. And, you know, there's a lot of sadness I have because I wish it wasn't that way, but I also

• 36:44Esther Perel?

  Relief.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  I have some relief and I'm also doing, doing my best to create meaning from the whole thing. So that it's not just this thing I'm frustrated with constantly, but like, you know what? I probably wouldn't be doing this without that pain and sadness and loss. I want to be a curious, hungry, I wanted to have been as resourceful if I had him there, so.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, I've been crying a lot, been crying a lot. And it's been beautiful to have

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  a safe environment in my relationship with someone who allows that. Because I think that's hard for some people to allow that, especially for men to be able to express their full range of emotions. And for their partner to feel safe with that, too. So I feel very grateful.

• 37:32Esther Perel?

  Absolutely.

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  It's not, it hasn't been fun, but it's also been allowing me to have like peace with it.

• 37:41Esther Perel?

  It's an amazing thing that if you ask people, when's the last time you laughed? Nobody has to justify laughing.

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  But crying.

• 37:50Esther Perel?

  But crying, people have to justify it. They have to.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting you ask that.

• 37:55Esther Perel?

  I mean, it is the absolute natural emotion to feel in sadness, in grief, in loss. What men, women, they, them, whoever.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  I had a woman on two days ago who hasn't cried in years. And I had a man on yesterday who hasn't cried in, I think, ten or twelve years. And it's interesting. It's like there's something there, I think, to be able to have the full range.

• 38:20Esther Perel?

  Of course.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  I'm not saying you need to cry all day long or something, but allowing ourselves to feel. But that's probably for a whole nother conversation.

• 38:27Esther Perel?

  I mean, I would say that it's hard for people to really fully say yes if you can't fully say no. And it is hard for people to fully laugh if you can't also cry. If something is funny, you automatically do this. If something is sad, the fact that you stay like that, affectless, or that you repress it, or that you hold it in, or that you don't even notice it, or that the thing is coming down your face and you don't even realize. I've had people tear in my office while they say I never cry.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  What does that, what does that mean when someone isn't able to fully laugh or fully cry?

• 39:09Esther Perel?

  What would it be like if a person comes into this world and doesn't scream? I mean, if a baby doesn't scream when they come out, you think they're death at birth. What is it like when people make love and make no noise? When it's impossible, I mean, you're a sports person, you know that if you lift something, you make noises.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  You're screaming, you're grunting here, yeah.

• 39:28Esther Perel?

  The voice is, it's just, what does it mean when this whole thing is closed off?

• 39:34Lewis Howes?

  There's something inside that's missing or dead or trapped?

• 39:36Esther Perel?

  Or trapped?

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Esther Perel?

  Or was shut down or can't come out, but for sure, it is a blockage.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  Next, we have the family therapist expert Jerry Wise, who shares a different type of dynamic. Because sometimes, the narcissism isn't in your partner. It's in your history. It's the people who raised you. And he's going to explain how to heal that childhood trauma right now.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  People will always ask me, "Am I a narcissist?" And I'll go, "Do you ever feel guilty?" "Oh, yeah, all the time." Then you're not.

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  You're just dysfunctional.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  You're just dysfunctional. No, right. A narcissist is not going to feel that guilt. They don't feel, what have they done wrong? They're always right. So that, why would I feel guilt about anything? Or shame? So, if, if you felt that, you're probably less likely to be a narcissist. If you, but a parent can be a narcissistic parent and they, they don't, they can abuse you, they can criticize you, they can, but they'll never go, "Oh, that, my bad."

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  They want to apologize.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Do that. Why would they apologize? You made them do it. You made them do it, or they did it for your good. So why would I ever need to say, "I'm sorry"? There's no need to say, "I'm sorry."

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  What's the worst thing a parent could do then to their kids over and over again? That will almost surely make them dysfunctional as an adult? Is it never apologizing to them when, you know, they?

• 41:19Speaker 04

  That, that's too symptomatic. That's too superficial. The thing that's going to make them more dysfunctional as an adult.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  Is to not break their own cycle from their own past. Bringing that cycle to their current nuclear family. And not knowing it.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  So bringing the generational trauma onward.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  And the generational programming. The and the generational emotional wifi.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  That's been going on and they just bring that right into here. That's gonna mess them up more than ever. Now, does abuse and narcissistic meanness, do all those things affect the kid? Of course it does.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Screaming and all this stuff, yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Exactly, of course it's going to. But it's not the screaming that's the underlying problem.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  That's a symptom of something.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  That's a symptom of how the family has been dysfunctional and toxic. And and it can come out in different ways. Narcissism, alcoholism, abuse, workaholism, sex addiction. It can come out in gambling and all kinds of symptomatic ways. But underneath all of that. Is an enmeshment to a family. Whose trance has never been broken.

• 42:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow. The origin family.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  The origin family. It's never been broken. And now you're just living it out. Only John's living it out that way. Mary's living it out that way. But that's the underlying important dynamic.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  And if we don't break the trance of the family, the origin family of ours. If we don't break that trance, then we're just going to relive that pattern in our adult relationships as well.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  In some way. And it may not even look like the way mom and dad did it. But the pattern's still there. So people will go, well, I'm not like my parents. Oh, oh, hold on just a second. Let me ask you. But what you're doing is the same theme. And it has origins in your family of origin. You may have chosen the opposite, but up.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  A hundred and eighty degrees from unhealthy is unhealthy. So people go, oh, well, I'm all the way over here. Oh, now you're just a class B unhealthy rather than a class A unhealthy person. And you feel superior over them because you're over here.

• 43:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  You haven't broken the cycle. You're living the pendulum life.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm not screaming at my partner.

• 43:57Speaker 04

  I'm not screaming at my partner like they did.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  But I'm controlling.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  But I'm being controlling and I still may be self-absorbed or judgmental or any number of other kinds of things.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Here's the real question then. If we start to think about, oh, maybe my parents had some narcissistic tendencies. And I'm starting to think about it and I'm starting to evaluate my childhood and realize, oh, I thought this was just normal because it's the only thing I knew.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  How many families did we grow up in?

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right? And it wasn't as bad as that family, so I gotta be grateful for this.

• 44:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we should.

• 44:32Lewis Howes?

  And my parents were loving at times and they gave us and they were doing the best they could. So that I can't think of them as narcissistic, but we start to internalize that. What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents?

• 44:47Speaker 04

  Let's then take a look at that.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  Mom and dad or whoever was narcissistic, hypercritical and judgmental. Now, I then grew up and say, I'm not gonna be like that. But what am I to myself? Hypercritical and judgmental. So an adult child of a narcissistic family often will have

• 45:16Speaker 04

  unbounded guilt, shame, criticalness, hypercriticalness, uh, very hard on themselves. So they just take the voice from here and just live it inside themselves.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:30Speaker 04

  Everything is that way. Uh, people go, oh, well, they, they screamed all the time. So many times I've said, so how many times have you internally screamed at yourself? I don't scream at other people. I didn't say other people. I said you. Oh, well, yeah, I can be pretty nasty to me. You know, you stupid, da, da, da, da, da. And I said, you're just reliving this only in a different way. And so it's all embryonic in the family. So everything that's happening out here, the problem. And that's what I think, that's why I use the term, the problem is, the solution is not near the problem.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Also, the problem may not be near the symptom.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  Here I am criticizing myself and, and cutting myself down internally and hating myself. And narcissists, adult children narcissists can definitely hate themselves. Cause they've been judged and criticized and, you know, emotionally hurt so many different ways. Shamed and so this is what they're doing out here and they're now doing this as adults to themselves internally. And going, well, what's the solution? And many will go, don't look at any of that. Let's just try to be nicer to yourself. Which is not bad advice, but it's superficial advice.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  And it may not hold. And then you'll try it and then give it up. And you'll try it and give it up. Versus, wait a minute, let's get mom and dad out of you.

• 47:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  That's what we want to do. Cause we, and do you recognize that's not you? When you are criticizing yourself that way. You're gonna be under the hypnosis and the trance that this is me doing it to me. And I'm, and I go, let me give you some good news. It's not you doing it to you. It's your family still doing it to you.

• 47:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 47:43Speaker 04

  Through you.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  There's a difference and that's a huge difference.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  And so as adult children.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  What should we be thinking about if we felt like we had a dysfunctional childhood? Should we be thinking about how do I get myself to be self differentiated from my parents and my family? How do I block my family completely? How do I heal the past? Like, what should we be thinking about as we come into awareness as adult children of dysfunctional childhoods or narcissistic parents?

• 48:17Speaker 04

  And I think it's a great question. But your question also has within it a certain paradigm, as all questions do. Every question has the answer in it. Every question that someone asks, the answer is in their question. And so you were asking about, so do I separate myself from my family? Do I, you know? And certainly if someone, if families are abusive and toxic and have no interest in changing, well, then we have to look at some no contact or, you know, we may need to go that far. But self differentiation, what I tend to think when someone has a family that's narcissistic,

• 48:59Speaker 04

  does the person that I'm working with or talking to, or the adult child of the narcissist, need greater self differentiation, which is an emotional state and a maturity state? Or do they need to physically separate?

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  In this next section, we have Annie Sarnblad. She is the master of micro expressions. She'll show you the tiny split second signs that reveal a narcissist's true intentions. How can you know if someone has narcissistic tendencies? If you're going on a date or you've been in a relationship with them for a long time?

• 49:40Speaker 05

  Because they don't show me any kindness.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  They don't show kindness?

• 49:43Speaker 05

  They don't care when I get hurt.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Regardless of how I get hurt or regardless of how somebody else gets hurt, they don't show that.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 49:51Speaker 05

  They don't, no.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  They care more about themselves, or they just, they just don't

• 49:56Speaker 05

  But I know narcissists that will describe something that they've been through that's painful, and their chin will be working overtime.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  But for, for someone else, they probably won't have that.

• 50:06Speaker 05

  No, because they don't care.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  But how are they so good, I guess, at captivating you to love them?

• 50:13Speaker 05

  One, they, they tend to over the, well, the narcissists in my life tend to overdo the eye contact.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  So they're very present and connected?

• 50:20Speaker 05

  Yes, they, they, the gaze is long. And then the other thing is that they've learned almost mathematically which phrases, which behaviors work. So I had somebody in my life, I won't mention who it is, but it's, it's a family member of mine that I just lost it on him. We were living in Hong Kong, and he was yelling at a taxi driver. And we got out of the car, and the taxi driver had made a wrong turn. You know, even though the person that I was with had said, you know, turn to the right, they had, it's like, you made a mistake. And he just lost it on this taxi driver, and I, I was really angry afterwards.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  I said, do you understand that this is somebody who's trying to support his family, working really long hours? Like, this is, you know, a decent human making an honorable living, working hard, and probably has a lot of people depending on them. And you don't get to yell at somebody for making a mistake. We all make mistakes. Next night, we were out, and this person was trying to pick up girls. Puffed out his chest and said, I'm the kind of guy who's nice to taxi drivers.

• 51:32Lewis Howes?

  No. Wow. The next day? Jeez.

• 51:38Speaker 05

  It's like, this is the weirdest, most surreal experience. But it was, it really clicked for me, this narcissistic behavior, and I knew that this was a narcissist. This idea of, oh, there's a puzzle piece and a tool that I can use to impress other people. And it was just so artificial and strange. But people find a way to get their needs met. We humans tend to be really good at that. And if something works for us, well, we repeat that. We do more of that.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we kind of stored that in our brain. This worked before, so let me keep doing this thing.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  That whole love bombing and the whole, like, I will tell you, and the narcissists that have ever tried to date me, I call them parrots. They try to figure out what is your thing. So I had a guy not that long ago, I've actually written about it, that was telling me, you know, I've been obsessed with micro expressions for years because if you can't really connect with people. I mean, he'd seen me speak a couple of times and he was just pulling all this stuff. And I was lonely and newly divorced and I almost fell for it, you know, even with my stuff. Because he was so good at the...

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Speaking to your heart into like your things.

• 52:55Speaker 05

  Well, and he wasn't doing it face to face. He was doing it via text. And I kept saying, well, let's just jump on a phone call. No, no, no, didn't want to even jump on the phone call because he knows that I can do voice stuff.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow. No FaceTime, yeah. FaceTime...

• 53:09Speaker 05

  Didn't want to do the FaceTime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:12Lewis Howes?

  So can you personally tell the difference between someone who's maybe a psychopath, a narcissist, and a genius? Can you tell the difference based on, and are there tendencies of all three, I guess?

• 53:30Speaker 05

  That's a really good question. You can be a genius and also be kind, right? That doesn't necessar... You can be a narcissist and a genius, for sure.

• 53:43Speaker 05

  But the genius isn't necessarily overlapping the other ones. There are a couple pieces that I look for. I look for what my kids call crazy eyes. So remember I talked about we pull our upper eyelids way back? You know, we do this, right? So that's a piece of fear. So if you, if I walk into a room and I see somebody, you know, maybe standing with a gun behind you or like pulling out a knife, my upper eyelids are gonna pull way back. That fits.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  Right, if I'm in a scary situation, something scares me, or somebody jumps out, or there's a loud noise, I'm gonna pull my upper eyelids back, and, and that

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Like crazy eyes.

• 54:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay, but that matches, but we don't ever in fear, the only time we will pull our upper eyelids back and hold them, it roller coaster haunted house, you know, uh, terror.

• 54:32Lewis Howes?

  Loud noise, yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 05

  We never hold our upper eyelids pulled way back, except when we're nuts.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  When you're a soci- a psychopath. You just like that all, all the time.

• 54:42Speaker 05

  Hitler. Really, I'm gonna get in so much trouble for this, Elizabeth Holmes.

• 54:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 54:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, see, your face immediately goes like, there's a lot of people in the public eye, the school shooters, if you, if you look at the pictures of them.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  They have their eyes like that a lot.

• 54:58Speaker 05

  They always like pull, they're showing their sclera, and there's something about mental instability, and volatility, and I'm not safe, that, and I don't know what it is, and I've done a lot of research, just my own private research on that, but, but I almost always find that somebody who's committed a heinous crime, and a really violent crime, they're all, almost always like, I don't know, twenty, thirty percent of their pictures that you can find up on the blind, where they're, where they're holding that.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 55:28Speaker 05

  Okay, so watch the facial expression of fear, the full facial expression of fear, and it like makes me shiver, is it? Right, watch when I take the bottom half of my face and turn it into joy or arousal, or cheerfulness.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  That is weird.

• 55:42Speaker 05

  It's super creepy, and it like sounds all these itchy signals to my brain, but it's, it's out of context, it doesn't match, and your whole body, your whole nervous system knows that when you see it. When I give you the vocabulary to pull this and dissect it, you're going, oh my god, I just talked about this thing, and that person showed crazy eyes, like almost like they were, there's horror and arousal at the same, there should not, that's the Joker's face from Batman, the arousal in the horror, the joy in the horror, that's terrible.

• 56:13Lewis Howes?

  The joy in the horror.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:14Lewis Howes?

  That's something to watch out for.

• 56:16Speaker 05

  That is something to watch out for.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  Now, are people? You know, I guess our psychopaths, are they more like that all the time? Or is that only sometimes?

• 56:24Speaker 05

  She seemed to show it a lot.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  And I, in the, I don't really, it's almost like I'm not all the way to the finish line with that research.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 56:32Speaker 05

  I just know.

• 56:33Lewis Howes?

  Something seems inauthentic though.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  Something's inauthentic and you can have somebody who is not a bad person, but who is going through a period of severe trauma and mental instability, also have that sort of constant deer in the headlights look. So you have to be careful. All of these facial expressions, you have to put them in context.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  You need context.

• 56:52Speaker 05

  And it's not a, like you see this in somebody, they're automatically a bad or a dangerous person. But they are more likely, in my experience, to be violent against others or themselves. You sometimes see that facial expression before somebody takes a moment.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  Hey.

• 57:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  So there's something, um, there's some, you know, serious emotional health issue.

• 57:17Lewis Howes?

  With a, with a psychopath essentially, yeah.

• 57:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, and yeah.

• 57:20Lewis Howes?

  And finally, my friend, Dr. John Deloney. This is a big one. He's gonna help you look in the mirror. He'll show you how to make sure you don't fall into your own narcissistic tendencies that all of us might have from time to time. There seems to be a trend of narcissism, self-interest, and my feelings and my beliefs are the things that matter most. So you need to change, this system need to change, everything needs to change to fit my feelings and protect my feelings. Why do you think that is happening more so?

• 57:54Speaker 06

  We don't have, we, we've clipped the strings. Esther talks eloquently about this. We've clipped all of the, the common strings that bind us together with a common story. For, just for however long you think the Earl, how, however long you think the earth has been around. Our relationship to our gods told us what we're gonna wear, what your role is, what, whose job is what job, what, what our values are, what you do and don't do. There's been tons of oppression. I'm not saying it's all great. I'm just saying that's the way it works. And then we cut all the strings. None of that's real, guys. If it can't be randomized, controlled, double-blind study, it's not real. It doesn't exist. And so, as beings created to worship,

• 58:38Speaker 06

  whether you're an atheist or not, as beings created to be in service of something. If there's nothing to be in service of other than the self, then you are the, the supreme ruler of your world.

• 58:50Lewis Howes?

  You're the center of the universe.

• 58:51Speaker 06

  You're Pharaoh. You will bow before me. And we have a whole generation of people saying, no, you bow before me. No, no, no, you bow before me. Then you get chaos, which is what we have. Instead of saying, what if we all just went to the moon? Can we figure that out? Let's do that. Let's go to the moon. And what if we said, how can I love you today? Instead of, this is just how I'm wired. I give answers. One of those ways you're gonna end up sleeping outside by yourself. One of those ways creates warmth in your home, right? And so what do you want? Like, what do you want this thing to feel like? What are you doing? Right? And I often ask this question, does that feel good? Like, like great quippy response. Like great grenade sarcasm, you know, cynicism. Good job.

• 59:36Speaker 06

  That feel good? Yeah. Did it? Is that what you're going for today? Do you feel powerful for a minute? Like, what, what are you, what are we doing? Or do you wanna be connected and you wanna be whole?

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:46Speaker 06

  You get to pick, man.

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  Connection, wholeness, peace, I, I believe comes from service. And I believe first comes from service to self in creating wholeness, not neglecting self and being empty all the time and just only serving others and, and... You know, deflecting all of your needs to feeling peaceful and whole and healthy. But then, in that journey, giving to others, helping others, being of service, contributing to something greater than self, a mission, a vision, a family, a community, a goal, you know, going to the moon, whatever it is. Believing in something and others and giving to them.

• 1:00:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  And it's something for me that is really flipped in the last 10 years. 10 years ago, prior to 10 years ago, I was more about how do I look good? How do I win? How do I succeed? How do I, you know, be right?

• 1:00:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Lewis Howes?

  As much as possible. And it was very unconscious. It wasn't like I was conscious of it.

• 1:00:45Speaker 06

  That's your body playing defense.

• 1:00:46Lewis Howes?

  And it was survival.

• 1:00:48Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Mechanism, right? It was like, I need to win. I need to be right. I need to make more. I need to look good. Need to have this image and ego, you know, shape the way I want it. Um, and I just realized that wasn't a happy life for me. Maybe, maybe some moments that seemed happy, but it wasn't really fulfilling.

• 1:01:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  Until I said, it's gotta be collaboration over competition. And I can still compete in certain ways, but it can't be for someone to be less than.

• 1:01:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:17Lewis Howes?

  It needs to be for me to compete to get better.

• 1:01:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Lewis Howes?

  And serve better.

• 1:01:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Um, but collaboration over competition, service over self, that is what's brought me a lot more fulfillment. It doesn't mean it's always easy. There's challenges, but it's brought me much more meaning and fulfillment. What do you think is the biggest cause of pain in relationships today?

• 1:01:41Speaker 06

  Me over us.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:01:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, me over us, how I feel right now, or how you made me feel. Not my body responded and you did this. I need to deal with that. Or I've got some hard choices to make. You did it. You did it. It's me over us. I think, and this, this would go back to the question you asked earlier. Um, it was a watershed moment when I heard Esther Perel talk about, um, the nine 11 towers, um, analogy. She was talking to a couple who had experienced infidelity.

• 1:02:13Speaker 06

  And she said, one of the greatest challenges couples experiences, they want to, I just want to get back to the way things were. And she likened it to, you couldn't go on September 12th and sweep up all of that dust and glass and steel and rebuild those towers with that stuff. They fell.

• 1:02:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:30Speaker 06

  You have two choices. You can walk away and let nature take it back over, and it will. Or you can hire some experts. You can excavate that. You can design, build, grieve, come together and build something beautiful. A nod to the past, but something going this way, that's hopefully stronger, right? Those are your two choices, but you, what you had is over. And so I've taken that into my own home. My wife and I, right now, we've never been parents of an eighth grader and a second grader. This is a new marriage, and so we're gonna build something new. It'll have a lot of the features of the old one, but this is new. Cause eighth graders stay out later than second graders, right? We're used to going to bed at nine o'clock.

• 1:03:13Speaker 06

  I ain't doing that anymore, cause I gotta pick them up, right? So we have a new marriage. And if you keep saying, I just want to get back to the way it was, I just want to get back.

• 1:03:20Speaker 06

  You end up dragging each other back. And so if we put, we said I do. Then us becomes number one.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And that's a, that's not a popular thing. But I know, I gotta exercise, I gotta eat right, I gotta get some sleep so that I can show up for us, right? So it sounds self-serving, but it's not. I gotta do these things so I can be whole, so I can show up for what we're building new. On your, on your show, uh, the Dr. John Deloney Show, you have a lot of call-in aspects as well, where people are calling you.

• 1:03:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:52Lewis Howes?

  Your, your coaching, they're telling you their challenges. You've been doing this for the last few years now.

• 1:03:58Lewis Howes?

  What is the, the big reasons for struggle in relationships or causes of divorce that you're seeing lately? I know kind of historically what that is. Is it more a financial burden? Is it more, um, is there infidelity or people wanting more to like sneak around? Is it a lack of intimacy? Is it? Family dynamics of the other families. What is the main cause of friction in relationships or marriages today?

• 1:04:28Speaker 06

  I think if I'm looking at symptoms, it's going to be money and infidelity.

• 1:04:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:04:32Speaker 06

  Some scale of infidelity. Yeah, some version of.

• 1:04:36Lewis Howes?

  And people are calling in and telling you about this stuff, right?

• 1:04:38Speaker 06

  Wild stuff, yeah. Um, underneath it, I think it's a broader picture. Terry Real talks about this beautifully. Um, the world changed and men, um, just want things to go back to the way they were and women want men to do new things without new, a new set of tools.

• 1:04:58Lewis Howes?

  I hope this masterclass didn't just give you information. I hope it gave you a sense of clarity and a sense of peace because understanding these narcissistic patterns is a huge first step. But the real goal, it's not just about identifying the toxic people. It's about reclaiming your own power, your own self-trust, your own worth. Healing from the past is the only way to rebuild a great future because you can't run a world-class race if you're still carrying the weight of someone else's expectations. You can't experience true intimacy if you're still living in a state of hyper vigilance and

• 1:05:39Lewis Howes?

  you deserve a life where you feel safe in your own skin, in your own heart and body. You deserve the relationships that fuel you, not drain you. Your healing is the greatest gift that you can give yourself and to the world. Your past only has as much power as you give it. So today, we are here to take that power back. Today, you choose a higher standard for your life. And if this was something that supported you today, please comment below what your biggest moment was from all of these great experts. Share it in the comment below and let me know. Go ahead and like this video, share with a friend. And I'd love to know, what is the one boundary that you're going to set starting right now

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  in your life to ensure this doesn't happen in the future? I read a lot of these comments and they inspire me. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for constantly choosing your own personal growth. And as always, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. 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 episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.