Narcissism: Your Ultimate Toolkit

Narcissists are master manipulators, and it’s incredibly tough to spot their intentions from the onset of getting to know them. It’s natural to want to give people the benefit of the doubt in situations, and narcissists take full advantage of the opportunity. In this episode, we’re going to walk through the ways you can spot, handle, and avoid narcissists in all your relationships. I’m excited to share this one with you all because I’ve seen the deep, sometimes lifelong damage that narcissists can do to their partners, their friends, and their family. In this episode you will learn,The Red Flags of Narcissism: Discover key personality traits and behaviors that are indicative of narcissism, helping you identify narcissists in your life more effectively. Effective Communication Strategies: Learn how to interact with narcissists and employ communication techniques that can defuse tense situations and minimize their impact on your well-being. Self-Preservation Techniques: Gain insights into self-care practices and boundary-setting strategies to protect yourself emotionally and mentally when dealing with narcissists. Navigating Relationships: Understand the various types of relationships where narcissists can be encountered, from personal to professional, and develop strategies for managing and minimizing their influence. Preventative Measures: Explore ways to proactively avoid getting entangled with narcissists, including tips on recognizing potential narcissistic individuals before they become a significant part of your life. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1498For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Full episodes:Vanessa Van Edwards: https://link.chtbl.com/1231-podDr. Ramani Durvasula: https://link.chtbl.com/1195-pod & https://link.chtbl.com/1196-podLori Gottlieb: https://link.chtbl.com/1191-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.

• 0:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Think about seeing a toxic person. I know that people probably have toxic people in their lives, and this is why toxic people are so challenging, because toxic people put us out of integrity. Toxic people force us to

• 0:12Lewis 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.

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• 1:34Lewis Howes?

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• 2:48Speaker 02

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• 3:03Speaker 02

  G. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 3:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 3:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that scares me.

• 3:33Speaker 02

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

• 3:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It scares me.

• 3:39Speaker 02

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

• 3:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 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.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 4:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what are those cues?

• 4:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

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

• 4:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 4:55Lewis Howes?

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

• 5:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

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

• 5:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 5:07Lewis Howes?

  But might be super narcissistic underneath.

• 5:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 if you haven't... 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.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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, diagnose your own tells. It's very important to know your own tells, because you should know what your danger

• 6:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 lives. That was one of the biggest indicators. So, in Live Any 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?

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  Man, that'd be interesting.

• 6:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 7:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  This happened in my life.

• 7:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

• 7:49Lewis Howes?

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

• 7:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 nonverbal and people shaking their head. "I can't believe that happened," right? Like, "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 to distance ourselves from things we don't like. So we're looking for lip purses,

• 8:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  They blink more.

• 8:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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."

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 9:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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, like down here. And people used to say,

• 10:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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?

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't feel competent.

• 11:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  An octave lower.

• 11:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Don't drink alcohol.

• 11:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Or you're gonna get caught.

• 11:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So like you can't keep it up for that long. Is that she was faking that cue, we think.

• 11:50Lewis 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.

• 12:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They feel bad.

• 12:08Lewis 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.

• 12:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's gonna leak.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna leak. Leaking cues.

• 12:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

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

• 12:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  Now, your LA roots are coming back to you.

• 13:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 overcommensurate 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.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  But.

• 13:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Of the book is like.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  Don't keep them around.

• 14:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 14:05Lewis 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.

• 14:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  Is that right?

• 14:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, that's exactly right.

• 14:12Lewis 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.

• 14:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

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

• 14:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yep, exactly.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  With yourself.

• 14:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  With yourself. So that was a question you were asking me. And I'm like, yes, it was. Yes, yes. It 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.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

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

• 14:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Lewis 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, but it's not my person. Yeah.

• 14:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Totally.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

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

• 14:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Lewis 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.

• 15:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Lewis 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.

• 15:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 15:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Just go right into competence.

• 16:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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?

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

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

• 16:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, you know, 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.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. So get back to like the mission, on 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. La di da di with everyone and I'll just wait.

• 16:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm gonna get stuff done.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  And then I'll move on to the next.

• 16:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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 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?

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What can you highlight about them that's competent?

• 17:24Lewis 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.

• 17:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, and say, hey, can we put them on a different team?

• 17:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  Give them like an improvement plan or something, yeah.

• 18:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Right. What's been the, uh, I think I asked you this last time, what's been the charisma strategy?

• 18:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  If you want to call it strategy.

• 18:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 18:20Lewis 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?

• 18:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There's a new cue that I snuck into the book in the very last draft, because I just learned it. And this was 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?

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  I nod all the time.

• 18:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 18:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, is it good?

• 18:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh, that's cool.

• 19:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

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

• 19:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 19:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 20:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow, that's so true.

• 20:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is it true?

• 20:12Lewis Howes?

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

• 20:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, acknowledged.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you.

• 20:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 20:17Lewis Howes?

  Hey, what's up, buddy?

• 20:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's so true.

• 20:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

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

• 20:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  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.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

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

• 20:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna protect myself.

• 20:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But I see you.

• 20:57Lewis Howes?

  But I'm here for you, bro.

• 20:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. I think that that's where it comes from. If it's like a, do I know you or do I not know you?

• 21:08Speaker 03

  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, entitlement, grandiosity, validation-seeking, a sense of envy for other people, or the assumption that other people envy them, the inability to regulate their anger when they're frustrated, disappointed, or stressed, 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 come at them, blame shifting and responsibility shifting.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  So they blame other people for what is actually their responsibility. They're very controlling, very egocentric, everything is about them, everything is self-serving.

• 22:00Lewis Howes?

  Insecure.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Deeply insecure, 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...

• 22:41Lewis Howes?

  Can you have those things and not be narcissist?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  You can.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Because I'm a very curious person, I care.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  So here's where it gets interesting, right?

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• 25:16Lewis Howes?

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• 26:00Speaker 03

  Is you can be curious. When you can find an empathic, charismatic person, behold to them. They are the unicorns of the human being. Like you really are like... When I meet the confident, charismatic, empathic, kind, respectful, humble person, I do, I literally, I'm like, alright. 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.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  It's like they'll often feel like they're rescuers. I can take care of it all. They'll be very generous.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Upfront, right?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  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. 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.

• 27:09Lewis Howes?

  You just, well, yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  They're, 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.

• 27:39Lewis Howes?

  What's that mean, like dismissive interrupting?

• 27:40Speaker 03

  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,

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

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

• 27:50Speaker 03

  You're an idiot.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  I know what's really, yeah. Okay, so you shared some of these signs of malignant narcissism.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Okay, so let's go back to the core. So we got the core of lack of empathy, all that stuff I talked about.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Entitlement, yes.

• 28:03Speaker 03

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

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Not all narcissists are created. We really do need a whiteboard nail.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's crazy.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  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 controlling. They're a little bit more scary. They're sadistic. They're paranoid.

• 28:55Lewis Howes?

  What if they have both of those things?

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Usually, they can, they can. 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.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  Controlling.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Controlling, when we see manipulative narcissism, manipulative, I'm sorry, malignant narcissism, we're seeing people who are often, 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, especially a lot in the Me Too era. A lot of those folks are malignant narcissists.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  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 we're in. Whether it's a working relationship, a friendship, an intimate relationship, we've spotted it.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

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

• 30:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  So trying to change them is not gonna happen.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  That's a fool's theory.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  So 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?

• 30:27Speaker 03

  So life's not that simple.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 03

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

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  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.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  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

• 31:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  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.

• 31:28Lewis Howes?

  Completely blocking, cutting off.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, 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

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  Eliminate.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  have no more toxins.

• 31:38Lewis 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.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  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 and others have called radical acceptance. This is never gonna change.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  This is who they are.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  This is who they are. This is it. So, and then I tell people, I have something called the deep technique that 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 really are keeping it tight. It's a lot of, it's like you're in a deposition. Yes? No? Okay. Sounds good. Sure. Now, narcissists don't like that.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

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

• 32:33Speaker 03

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

• 32:39Lewis Howes?

  They go for every...

• 32:40Speaker 03

  They go for everything that's gonna get there.

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  And make something else, start making stuff up.

• 32:43Speaker 03

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

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

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

• 32:49Speaker 03

  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.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  I got you.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  I got you. Because when you're fighting, they're fighters. That's what they do. In fact, there was a great research study, it came out from Ohio State University, Ohio boy. 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, this is, there's nothing soft about this. This is about aggression. They want the fight. They are always a better fighter.

• 33:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 33:23Speaker 03

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

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  This is crazy.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  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 their relationship. Whether it's, someone gave me the number, or someone's noticing me.

• 33:43Lewis Howes?

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

• 33:45Speaker 03

  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. There's a difference between jealousy and pathological jealousy. 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.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  They're still sexually monogamous.

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  With one part at that moment.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  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 the Darwinian, Darwinian stuff, movie production.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  Pathological jealousy.

• 35:04Speaker 03

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

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  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 a 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.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

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

• 35:36Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, but that's, that's, 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 driver, I'm like, I got that little funny thing in my tummy. I, and 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.

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

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

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Only because we're talking about it here.

• 36:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah. And so the, what did you say, what's the parent?

• 36:14Speaker 03

  Paranoid, the pathological jealousy.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Pathological jealousy.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  That's a narcissistic trait.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  That's more than, it's more paranoid, it's more antagonistic, it's more about,

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  You must be doing something.

• 36:23Speaker 03

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

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, okay. 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?

• 36:37Speaker 03

  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 what? 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.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  Since they were born.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  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 actually...

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Friends and family.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Put them in an envelope, mailed the picture, kind of thing.

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  Came over to the house and looked at the picture.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  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 were 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.

• 37:40Lewis 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?

• 37:55Speaker 03

  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 we say, "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." But they're not agreeing.

• 38:25Lewis 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."

• 38:35Speaker 03

  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.

• 38:42Lewis Howes?

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

• 38:45Speaker 03

  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?

• 39:06Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the main traits of a narcissist?

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Grandiosity, really wanting to be the center of attention. This veneer of confidence, being very easily wounded. Oh, wait a minute, you complimented this other person's whatever it is. They get so wounded, like, well, why didn't you compliment mine? Right?

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Oh, you think that person's attractive? They'll like ice you out.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow, is this a super jealous too, or no?

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Very, very, but they act like they don't care. Oh, you want to do, go ahead. I don't care.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  Like passive aggressive jealous or something, right?

• 39:44Speaker 04

  Very passive aggressive, yeah.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Any other signs that people should look out for if they're like starting to date someone? They're like, huh, this seems very narcissistic.

• 39:52Speaker 04

  I think that Jekyll and Hyde quality, that, you know, one minute you're like this and the next minute you're incredibly cruel. You can be incredibly warm and loving and incredibly cruel. And the two, you toggle between the two in a way that is frightening.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  It's like a split personality, huh?

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, but it's not because the narcissist is doing the thing. You reel them in, the narcissist reels the person in with the charm.

• 40:16Lewis Howes?

  With the charm.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  With the seduction. Which you are the center of the universe. And then, oh, oh, you're getting too close to me. So I'm going to be cruel.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  So it's interesting. So it's like if you're with someone who's showing these traits and they're just wowing you and they're so nice and loving and grandiose. But then if you truly open up and you want to get to know their heart, that's when they start to do other things, or what happens then?

• 40:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:43Lewis Howes?

  If you get too intimate.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  If you get too close to them, right. Either you're being too intimate with them, although they want you to be somewhat intimate with them so they know how to use it against you.

• 40:51Lewis Howes?

  Right. Tell me your deepest darkest secrets, then I can use it against you later.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  Then I will use it against you in the moment when you are most vulnerable.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Or they don't want, they don't want you to know too much about them, right?

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  They hide certain things.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  Well, they hide their vulnerabilities. They don't know how to get authentically close to another person.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Why does someone become a narcissist?

• 41:14Speaker 04

  Oh, that's, you know, I think so many people, anybody who's had experience with someone like that wants to know that. And, and you'll see that, you know, this is, this is when we talk about we marry our unfinished business, right? So it's, it's the person who grew up feeling very, they didn't get their needs met. They didn't get, you know, they, they were either neglected, or they were, or they grew up with a narcissistic parent. So what do we do with parents who don't meet our needs? On the one hand, we rebel against them. We say, I'm not going to be like that. I'm not going to choose someone like that. So the narcissist doesn't choose another narcissist. If the narcissist grew up with a narcissistic parent, they don't choose another narcissist. They choose someone like the other parent who was with the narcissistic parent.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  And then what they do is they take on the traits of the narcissistic parent. Now, why do they do that, even though they were so injured by that kind of parent? It's like, it's like the person who grew up with an alcoholic parent, or, or a person who like couldn't self-regulate. Why did they become the angry yeller, even though their parent was the angry yeller? And they said, I would never do that. How do you get close to a parent who couldn't get close to you? You become like them. That's your connection to them. This is completely outside of your awareness. You don't realize that. But we still, the wish never dies that we can be close to our parents. The wish never dies. So what do we do if we don't process this?

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  So if we process it, then we-

• 42:38Speaker 04

  If we process it, then we know, okay, I have to watch out for that. I have to find another way to grieve what I didn't get growing up. I have to really go through that grief process. And I'm going to have that, that, that loss is going to live with me, but it's going to live with me in a way that isn't so sharp. So you really have to grieve it. But if you don't grieve it, you repeat it.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  You take on the trait of one of your parents or something?

• 43:03Speaker 04

  You take on their traits because that helps you feel close to them.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm going to feel close to you in this way. This is not in your conscious awareness.

• 43:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  And then people don't realize it. They think, oh, my gosh, one day someone says to them, you are exactly like your mom, your dad. And they go, oh, my God, I am. Right? If they're not, if they, if they, if they can get past sort of like the narcissistic protection.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Which would be what?

• 43:26Speaker 04

  If they can hear it.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  I'm not like my parents and-

• 43:28Speaker 04

  No, I'm not like them at all. I'm not like, I'm not like them at all. Like, if you could take a videotape of a scene from your childhood, and you take a videotape of how you're acting now with your own child, you would be stunned.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone, if they're, okay, they've realized they're, maybe there's narcissistic traits, or that's a full-on narcissist that they're in a relationship with? What are the next steps they should take? Is there a way to actually, I mean, you can't really change someone in a relationship, what I'm hearing you say. You can't, no matter what you do, the person's not gonna change.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:02Lewis Howes?

  So do you need to change in order for them to change? Or is it just, if you're with someone who's diagnosed narcissist, there's no hope for actually healthy growth in the relationship?

• 44:12Speaker 04

  Well, someone who has narcissistic traits generally doesn't come to therapy because they don't think they have a problem.

• 44:19Lewis Howes?

  Right. They're like, no, I'm good.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  Right. So how they come in is they're having some relational difficulty.

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  And the relational difficulty is either they're coming in for couples therapy because the other person dragged them there.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  You know, so often we say that, you know, the reason that people come to therapy is to deal with the people who won't go to therapy.

• 44:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  You know, you're coming to therapy to deal with the person in your life who won't come to therapy.

• 44:42Lewis Howes?

  It's funny that, yeah. Isn't it obnoxious when companies have those sneaky gotchas hiding deep in the fine print or bills that seem to go up for no dang reason? Like when budget airlines promise a cheap fare, but then charge you for every little thing until you realize you're paying even more than you would've elsewhere? At Metro by T-Mobile, there's nada, yada, yada. That means no contracts, no price hikes, no surprises. They don't even want me to speed through the legal, so here it is. When they say no price hikes when you join, they mean your price will never increase for talk, text, and smartphone data plans.

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  Their only exclusions are for limited-time promos, per-use charges, and third-party services. I guess that really is nada, yada, yada. At Metro by T-Mobile, nada, yada, yada.

• 45:36Speaker 02

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• 46:20Speaker 02

  And being able to communicate with her friends and her family in Spanish with ease is a powerful experience for me. And I'm not there yet, but I'm trying it out with Rosetta Stone. Start learning a new language right now. And for a limited time, the School of Greatness listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 40% off. That's $179 for unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 40% off at rosettastone.com/greatness today. That's rosettastone.com/greatness. Three previous relationships I was in, I was like, we need therapy. We need to like, we're getting to the point where I was like, something's not working here. Let's go to therapy and like try to work this through. None of my partners wanted to go to therapy.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  They resisted, resisted, resisted. And I was like, what? We're not figuring it out on our own. Like I'm trying, you're trying, it's not working. Let's go, let's have someone look at it. No, it was like so much resistance. I was just like.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Right. And so in that, in that case.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Not saying they were all narcissists, but there was definitely.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  No, no, no. So I'm not even talking about, so, so I, well, let me differentiate. So there's if, you know, a narcissistic person, meaning diagnosed narcissistic, or even people with narcissistic traits, they tend not to come on their own to therapy unless they actually agree to come in couples and they're coming because their partner is making them come.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Yes, that's the only reason.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  Or, and then you kind of see like, how flexible are they with their story? Right? Because everybody's coming in with their story, both people, both people need to be. Right. The other reason, like, and maybe you should talk to someone, John, right? When I talk about him, he's this guy who's in his 40s, he's married, he has some kids, and he is incredibly insulting to me from the minute, you know, he walks in the door. Everybody else is the problem, you know? In fact, the chapter is called "idiots" because he says, "Everybody else is an idiot," right? Why can't people, why aren't people as smart as he is? Why aren't people as competent as he is? Why can't people do things right? Why does he? And he's like the beleaguered victim. You see that sometimes, right?

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  I'm so talented and smart, I'm the victim because no one else is.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  I'm the victim of all these other people are causing so much anxiety in my life. Like, why are they doing things the way that they should be done? Why are they complaining about all these things? Not realizing that he's the one doing the complaining.

• 48:37Lewis Howes?

  About every day, yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  Right, right. You know, and we call it complaining from the victim position. You know, or being offended from the victim position. Everybody else is the problem. Or the reason that people are cruel to another person is they say, you know, like, "I was the victim so I can hurt you twice as much." So if you hurt me, I have a right to hurt you.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  Back.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Right, right. I'm doing this to protect myself.

• 49:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:05Speaker 04

  No. So when John came in, he was, you know, you very much say, a lot of people would say, "I don't want to treat somebody like that because they don't know how much progress they're going to make." Because if they can't self-reflect. Well, you have to be able to see yourself. You know, in the book, I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. So your friends say like, "Listen to what my partner did, or my mom, or my, you know, my kid, or my sibling, or whatever it is." And we say, "Yeah, that's terrible. You're right. How dare they? You know, you're right, they're wrong." It's just, we just back them up blindly because we think we're being supportive. But if you actually listen to your friends over time, you might hear that there's a pattern, that they are kind of complaining about similar types of things.

• 49:50Speaker 04

  It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. We don't say that in idiot compassion. So in therapy, what we offer is we offer wise compassion. And in wise compassion, we hold up a mirror to you. To help you to see yourself in ways that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And compassion is the key word here because we're doing it compassionately. So someone who comes in and they're not able to self-reflect, they're not able to see their reflection in the mirror and say, "Yes, oh, I have a role in this too." "Yes, it's true, the other person does this, but I have a role in this too." So when you are asking about change, when people come in for couples therapy, I always give them an assignment before they come in. And the assignment is this, because normally, the first thing that'll happen if I don't

• 50:32Speaker 04

  is they're gonna come in and they're gonna name all the ways that their partner needs to change. And then we get nowhere. So I say to them, "I want you to come up with how you can make this relationship better." "I want you to come up with what you're going to do. What are you going to be working on to make this relationship better? Even if your partner never changes." And they each have this assignment. So from day one, they come in, and even though they might have a lot of reasons that, you know, things aren't working out, that they think are their partner's issue, their goal in therapy is to work on the one thing, or the two things, or the three things that they think they can do to make the relationship better. And it changes the whole course of the couples' therapy

• 51:17Speaker 04

  because it's not about changing the other person. The magic of this is that, they say, "Well, what's the point of doing it if they're not gonna change?" Well, first of all, again, going from the me and the you to the us is, things are gonna go more smoothly because you're gonna be doing something to improve the relationship. But the other part of it is, and where the magic comes in, is you can't change another person, but you can influence change in another person. Absolutely. So when you do something differently, you are helping the other person to change. No one changes because you say, "I want you to change in this way." That doesn't really happen. They might do it, you know, they might pay lip service to it, it doesn't really last. But if you start changing, if you make it easier, you help them to change by making it easier for them to change.

• 52:01Speaker 04

  So let's say they really need space, give them some space. Let's say, you know, you try to control them less. Let's say that you don't engage in the same familiar argument over and over and over. Um, you, maybe you do something kind for them. And then people say about that, they say, well, why should I do something kind? Why should I go first? If they would be nice to me, I'll be nice to them. It doesn't matter. You need to go first because someone needs to do something. Someone needs to change the dynamic. It's like a dance. And so if you do something nice for them, you might notice that they, not because it's a tit for tat, not because they're doing it because you do, it's because they feel safer. They feel more loving toward you. They feel like, oh, that was really nice. I really liked that.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Now I actually want to, on my own volition, want to do something nice for you.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And what if, what if someone says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna improve all, you know, three, five, 10 areas that I know can improve. And after six months, the other person's like, yeah, I deserve all these things. And I'm not gonna give anymore. Then what? If you keep coming back, have you seen that where people come back to you and it's like, okay, I've done this, I did this, I did this. And they're still not happy, and they're still upset, and they're still not shifting in certain ways.

• 53:16Speaker 04

  Well, first of all, I think that what they engage in then is what I call the pain Olympics, which is like, whose pain is greater? You know, like, I'm working so hard, I'm working 12-hour days. Well, I'm taking care of the kids, or I'm doing this, or, you know, like, I'm doing all of this kind of labor in the relationship, and you're doing all of this. It's, there's no, there's no winning the pain Olympics. Like, let's just say that you're both at a 10, okay? You both win. You both are in pain.

• 53:40Lewis Howes?

  You both lose.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  But you both lose if you keep trying to compare it. The point is, you're both, you're both struggling. And, and what's really interesting about couples is that couples don't tend to tell the other person exactly how they're struggling in a relationship. Instead, they act it out. They act out their fears, or their disappointment, or their hurt in other ways. But they don't directly say, this is how I'm struggling. And so if you're in couples therapy, you're gonna start talking about those things. And if you're, you know, if you're not, then, then you're not really doing couples therapy.

• 54:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  So, you know, I mean, I think that your therapist will tell you very early on, like, this is the work that we're doing and this is, I think some people think that couples therapy is you come in, you download the, the argument of the week, or the struggle of the week, you leave, you come back the next week and you download the new thing. No, that, that's, that's like talking to a friend. There's no point to that.

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  What should, what should the point of therapy be?

• 54:37Speaker 04

  The point, the point is, is that you want to be doing, the, most of the therapy of couples therapy takes place outside of the therapy room, meaning what happens in between sessions? So we came in, we talked about this, you learn something new about yourself, you learn something new about your partner, and then we always say insight is the booby prize of therapy, that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't make changes out in the world between sessions, the insight is useless. So then, okay, you have this insight, you learned something, what are you going to do with that knowledge? Use it. Like, why are you wasting your time and your money coming in here every week? If you're not gonna use it?

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  What's been the thing that you've seen as a therapist, um, where you realized, oh, this is something that I have done in my relationships? Or, oh, actually, this is a really good lesson for me, because I used to do that and I don't wanna do that anymore? Or something like that? Has there been anything?

• 55:30Speaker 04

  I would say all of it.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 55:32Speaker 04

  I mean, I think that that's what makes relationships so interesting. And people think that it's only happening to them. They're like, you only do this, you know, it's, it's really interesting that they think.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  You're the only one that does this. My friends don't do this.

• 55:44Speaker 04

  Nobody does this, their partners don't do this, or, or, or I only act this crazy around you. Right? Like, I don't, I don't do this, or nobody else elicits this kind of response in me. Well, of course, they don't elicit that kind of response in you, because you're not in an intimate relationship with them. They're not bringing up all that unconscious stuff that comes up when you're in that intimate relationship. Um, so I think that the good news for couples is that anything they bring in, I've seen it before. I've experienced probably some of it before. Um, you know, and, and it's so universal. And if people could stop, be so, you know, people can blame and shame. You know, they blame the other person, they feel shame themselves. And then they don't really make progress because they're afraid to really look at these

• 56:28Speaker 04

  things because they're really uncomfortable talking about them.

• 56:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  But when they find that, oh, this is just the human condition. And this is what happens when we get scared. This is what happens when we feel threatened. And maybe it's not even your partner who's threatening, but it's something about being this close to someone. Or there's something your partner does that reminds your nervous system of something that happened earlier. Like, who am I talking to right now? Am I talking to the child who had to come up with a way to protect yourself from whatever was happening? And it was very effective. It was ingenious as a child because you had to. You didn't have agency. Or am I talking to the adult who has agency and doesn't need to use that way of protecting yourself that is actually creating some conflict in your relationship?

• 57:12Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 57:57Lewis Howes?

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