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Thanks so much.
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Now, let s jump into this episode.
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When you re three months in and this person s gaslighting you and manipulating you and doing shady stuff and invalidating you and you re making excuses for that, that s trauma bonding.
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So someplace between attraction and trauma bonding is a process.
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And that s the process we d love to be able to short circuit.
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But the problem is most of that process is something we call love bombing.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.
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Very excited about our guest.
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We have back Dr. Ramani in the house.
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So good to see you.
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Welcome back.
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So nice to see you, Louis.
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Our last interview, I think, had millions of views and listens.
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And I think this is going to help a lot of people.
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Thank you.
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So It s Not You, Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People.
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Is it even possible, in your book, you uncover all these different ideas, is it even possible to
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not only heal after narcissistic relationship or abuse that you ve experienced in a narcissistic relationship, intimacy, but also to trust yourself again that you can choose someone who isn t a narcissist.
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100% it s possible.
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I see love stories after narcissistic abuse for people all the time, but let me tell you, it s a bumpy road to get there.
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Really?
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So what I want to tell people is, it s possible.
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It s not easy.
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I read this, someone in my healing community brought this interesting line from David Kessler s work.
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I m sure you know David Kessler.
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If you don t, you should.
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You ve got to have him on.
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He s great.
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He is, to me, one of the best voices in grief that s out there.
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He worked with Kubler-Ross back in the day.
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He s that guy.
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And he had this beautiful passage in a book, like I said, someone in my healing community was sharing it, just in terms of trying to understand the grief from narcissistic abuse.
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And he said, loss is optional.
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And what he meant by that is, he was talking about his own process of grief.
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And he said, I could choose, there s one way to avoid losing, is to never love again.
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To never have a pet, to never have a lover, to never have a partner, to never have a friend, and to not have a family.
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And then,
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You won t experience loss, but you won t experience life.
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And I thought it was so beautiful because it was that idea of loss is optional.
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These do, at some level, do become choices.
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And I think for me, for survivors of narcissistic abuse, feeling the sense of autonomy, which tends to be stripped away by these relationships,
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Grief is a process you go through, and during grief it is, and I ve been working with several grief-stricken clients recently, either through death or through the loss of these relationships, and it is the most human of experiences.
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Like birth and death, grief is the experience that unites everyone, and we have some pretty universal reactions to it, and the big mistake we re making now
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in modern times is we believe we can rush through grief, that we can control our feelings.
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Get over it quickly.
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Get over it quickly.
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Find someone else quickly.
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Get over it quickly, move on.
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I m not thinking about it anymore.
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I m back at work, I m good, I m back in my routine.
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And grief is a funny thing, because it s going to come for you.
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It might be sitting in the back, it s like, be careful.
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And I can t tell you how often people say, and because people who go through narcissistic relationships,
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Become masters of dissociation and I don t mean sort of the full-blown traumatic dissociation, but like I m not feeling that I m not seeing that you re very good at pushing everything away because that s the only way to survive in these relationships But you also get good at cutting out the pain right going through in this world in this numbness But going back to this idea of loss is optional
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what you d have to live, no partner, no nothing, I guess you wouldn t go through that same breach of trust or betrayal and all the pain we go through when we love, but then you wouldn t have love.
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And what else is the experience of being a human being but to connect to other people?
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And the reason I say this is that when you re in those acute stages of grief, you re not thinking about like, good, let loss be optional.
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I am not signing up for it.
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Thank you, no.
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But then there s a point at which you say, but I want to feel again.
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And there s nothing more beautiful to me when I m working with a survivor when they do say, I think I m ready to start feeling people again, but I m so scared.
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And first of all, I remind them, girl, you survived that.
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Anything else someone brings new, you re going to be fine.
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You got this, right?
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But that fear, it is overwhelming for people that how will I survive if this is done to me again?
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How will I ever have faith in any human being again?
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And above all else, the point you made, how will I ever trust myself?
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And that loss of trust in the self is what really bums me out because now these are people who are saying they re still having trouble making decisions or I ve got bad judgment.
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And so a lot of the work and a lot of what I talk about in It s Not You is the fine art of discernment.
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And my big point there, okay, and everyone talks about wellness, wellness, wellness.
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Drink the right juice, drink the right tea, eat the right kale, do the right workout, do the right discern, discern, pick, pick well, wear the right workout clothes and cotton and all this.
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I m like, people, I get it, you do you, but can we bring that kind of discerning awareness to people?
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We re not discerning when it comes to the people we let in our life.
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Oh, you re going to abuse me?
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Come on in.
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I m like, you might as well smoke a pack of cigarettes at that point.
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You re so careful about what you eat.
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Stop doing that.
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Eat junk food for all I care.
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Just be careful about who you let in.
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Don t allow emotional abuse to come in.
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Exactly.
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And don t enable and don t keep making those excuses.
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We let toxic people in so close and fast.
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Why is that so common for people to make excuses for their partner s bad behaviors consistently for how they treat them?
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Why do we allow that?
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Why do we excuse that?
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Why do we continue it?
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You love them.
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I mean, you love them.
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Do we love them or is it a false sense of love?
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I think that then we get into a philosophical discussion.
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Is it chemical bonded?
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You think you love them.
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Listen, if somebody behaves badly on a first date, they try to grab the waitress s ass, and they yell at you, and they scream at you, and they curse at you, you re like, okay.
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You re probably not gonna be on a second date with them.
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It s not gonna be a second date.
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Second date, third date even, you probably won t put up with it.
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Once you get deeper into it,
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Why though?
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Why do we put up with bad behavior after three, six months to three years and then we stay in it when we wouldn t have been in that relationship early on if they did that?
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One I d almost say is more cognitive and almost behavioral economic and sort of sunk cost fallacy stuff.
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I ve already put in three months into this relationship.
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Can I look at more dating profiles?
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Like, oh, I got to make this one work.
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It s like you don t want to return the thing to the store.
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Like, we make this one work.
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Okay, there s that.
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But that s very cognitive.
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That misses what I think is more powerful.
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which is the somatic physical things that happen in us.
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Old scripts get evoked.
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If you were a child who made excuses for an invalidating parent, if you were a child who had to cater to the needs of a parent, all those accommodations in you, intimacy brings that out.
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Right?
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Because a parental relationship has its form of intimacy.
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It s a closeness.
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It s an attachment.
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So those old scripts start getting activated.
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And our natural tendency to fix, to rescue, to excuse, to justify in the name of attachment, all of that kicks in pretty quick.
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So by the three months in,
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Especially if there s things you like, you re attracted to the person, they re smart, they re clever, you have fun, you ve gone on a nice trip, you like the sex, all of those things, which at some level are kind of superficial, they keep someone in the game, right?
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So in order to keep attached to this person that you re feeling, that you re enjoying,
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Some of us are really good at those trauma-bonded justifications.
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There s people out there, frankly, Louis, who are actually good at three months out to say, this isn t healthy, and they can step away.
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They may not be as vulnerable to those internal accommodations made in family of origin.
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How do we become more discerning?
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What are the qualities of a discerning person?
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How do you know
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I have the skills, the tools, the emotional strength and courage to be discerning.
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What do those skills look like?
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What do those emotions look like?
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I m going to go backwards on your answer here.
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I m going to get to the nuts and bolts.
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I was recently talking with someone who said something so interesting to me.
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A lot of what her and I talk about is discernment, discernment, discernment, right?
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And she said, you know, I ve become more discerning because I m working with you and talking with you.
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But it means I m slower.
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Like I m very, I deliberate on things.
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And I m very aware of the trauma wounds that are brought up by being taken decisions.
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That s a good thing, right?
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In relationships?
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But everyone around her is like,
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Like, what s going on?
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Like, why are you taking so long?
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Like, hurry up and make a decision.
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We like decisive people in our world.
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We view decisive people as together, as confident, right?
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So the discerning person can sometimes feel like a waffler, when in fact she s like, and I, again, I really believe in somatic, physically held work.
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I really believe in that.
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I think that we feel things when they re right, however that, there s a wholeness, there s a sensation of wholeness, right?
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Discernment, number one, means slow the hell down.
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You have to go so much.
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So don t have sex on the first night?
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Don t have sex.
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As tempting as it is, I mean, go home, take care of yourself.
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But not with them.
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For no other reason, this is not a moralistic thing at all.
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It really is not.
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It is more of a, it muddies up the decision-making waters.
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Of course.
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It creates a different kind of an investment, and it even brings up, for some people, emotions such as shame, which also muddies the waters.
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Keep it clean.
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And then you want to stay with that person because you ve already had sex with them.
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And you want to prove them wrong that you re not that person.
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So you see what I m saying?
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All this stuff.
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Speaking about that, what is the biggest challenge that a woman may have sleeping with a guy on the first date?
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I m not saying it couldn t work out and it could be a great relationship.
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There s plenty of people out there who are listening and saying, I m married to somebody for 20 years and I had sex on the first date.
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A one night stand, or yeah, it turned into a marriage.
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But what is the biggest, I guess, challenge that could come if a woman sleeps with a man on the first date?
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I think that the expectations shift immediately, right?
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So it s a...
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You know, Matt Helsey, dear to both of us, talks about standards, right?
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And I love his work on standards, but it gets real tricky when we talk about narcissistic relationships.
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That s when him and I kind of like are sort of like in this interesting dance because none of that standard stuff works in a narcissistic relationship.
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I m not saying that only a narcissist has sex with you on the first date.
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You might meet a really sweet person and you re a sweet person and two sweet people have sex on the first date, right?
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But what it s done though is, because ultimately Lewis, the connective tissue of a long-term committed relationship is respect, compassion, safety, a growth orientation, attunement.
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Those are the things I come back to every time.
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That s it.
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That s safety in a relationship.
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And getting to that like ensuring that you almost have those active ingredients because sex is such an emotionally laden space for people.
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Some of us have heard very moralistic stigmatizing stuff about it.
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about it.
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Many people have been have histories of sexual abuse or other sort of unwanted or coerced sexual experiences.
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That muddies the waters.
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It leaves both people sometimes even sort of confused.
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What is this about?
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What are we doing?
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Right?
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For what I do believe in a gendered frame, in a binary gendered frame, women get more shamed and feel more shamed for that.
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They feel as though, okay, well, that s how this person sees me.
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And so there is that there s I still think even though that feels so
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patriarchal and throwbacky, I think it s sadly still part of the conversation for how women experience it subjectively.
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Like, did I just sort of throw myself under the bus here, or have I just made this into something that s not going to last?
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I don t think that s necessarily so.
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I think a good partner would not discount a partner for doing that, but I do think it muddies the waters.
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And if you have sex with a narcissist on the first date, forget it.
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Forget it.
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Well, because now what s happened is they have, in a way- They have power and control and manipulation.
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You ve given them the ultimate supply.
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They re not even gonna love Bob that much anymore.
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They re like, okay, great, got what I need.
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And I hate to say this, Louis, because narcissistic people can be very cruel in relationships, they will actually use that as a tool of punishment and manipulation down the road.
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How so?
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Forgive me for using really bad language, but you re a slut.
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Oh, wow.
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Look what you did with me.
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You re down market, like who else you do this with?
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Or what are you going to go do that with someone else?
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And so now the person feels shamed in the relationship, but the shame feels plausible because they re hearkening back to an event which might have actually felt connected and intimate at the time.
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but a narcissistic person will always weaponize those experiences.
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So it leaves a person often questioning themselves.
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They re like, I don t think of myself as sort of a sexually wanton person.
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And they re not.
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They just felt some sense of trust and connectedness that particular time, but the narcissistic person will run with it.
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So that s why I m saying, since you don t know the person s a narcissist on the first date, best not have sex with them.
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How can you know if someone s a narcissist on the first date?
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You can t.
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I mean, unless it s glaring.
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I mean, the only giveaway, and I would never want anyone to get into a car with someone on a first date because I actually think that s dangerous.
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I think it s too closed in and that s me in the sort of scary world that Dr. Romney occupies.
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But if you were in a car or watching them drive, I don t know why you d watch them drive, but narcissistic people drive quite dangerously.
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It s often an interesting tale.
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I m not saying every dangerous driver is narcissistic.
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But if you ask me to put $100 down, I ll take the bet every time.
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Wow.
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What s dangerous mean?
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Like they re reckless or they re screaming at people?
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They re reckless, driving too fast, swerving in and out of traffic, driving faster than the other cars on the road, beeping, honking, giving them the finger, but like in a rageful way.
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Researchers, I can think of a dozen published empirical articles from around the world, driving simulator articles, observation articles, you name it, that have all shown that narcissistic people drive more dangerously.
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So if you, let s say by day three you re in a car with them and they re doing that whole
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I drove here, it took me an hour to drive here, and in that hour I m like, narcissistic.
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They were cutting me off.
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I actually never get into it when that happens because if they are in fact narcissistic, I know they re going to be short fused and it could cause me more problems.
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I cut them a wide berth, I m gonna get there when I get there.
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But that s often a tell.
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But other than something that glaring, I mean, sure you could watch how they treat the person who valet parks the car, or the server in the restaurant, or the bartender.
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If they re really that unhinged and they re that disinhibited on the first date, that they re rude to these folks, or inappropriate, intrusive, flirty.
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listen to that.
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A lot of people say, well, maybe they were a little anxious.
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I m like, well, if this is how they behave when they re anxious, do you really want a relationship with this person?
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So I would say that those kinds of tiny tells might come up.
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I would say that it would be, this is a great one actually.
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This came up, someone I was talking with recently.
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It was a first or second date.
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And at the end of the date, it was like one of those times you re in a neighborhood where there s lots of stuff to walk to.
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And the person, the guy said, hey, you want to go out to this other place for another drink or whatever?
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And she said, and she had done the discernment work with me.
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And she said to me afterwards, I wasn t feeling it somatically, right?
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And she said, no, I ve had such a great time.
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And I d love to see you again.
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And she said, I have to work early.
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And he got really cold and a little bit angry.
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And she wondered if she was being too sensitive.
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I said, no, that s a red flag.
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Because I said, if you just had a lovely time and a lovely dinner and you had to work right, whatever you had to do the next day, you don t have that use that I don t want to do that.
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And the person, what she had said to me is like, I kind of felt like I d hurt his feelings.
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And I said, if this is how he s responding to hurt feelings, that level of reactive sensitivity, that s a red flag to me.
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Those are the kinds of early tells that might be a little
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That s a lack of emotional, I guess, awareness, or lack of emotional maturity, or whatever it might be, right?
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Yeah, but it s also a dysregulation.
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It s a reactivity.
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I mean, from the guy, it would be- That s what I mean.
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Yeah, yeah, dysregulation.
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That you dysregulated, yeah.
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Which means he s not emotionally safe himself, I guess.
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Maybe.
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He s insecure, or he needs something, or whatever, right?
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Maybe, and you know what?
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I m sad for him.
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Go find a shrink, but this isn t her problem.
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Right, exactly.
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No, I get it.
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No, more of a sign for her that he s in that state.
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Correct.
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Correct.
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That s fascinating.
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So what I m hearing you say is one of the greatest skills you can have in spotting or saving yourself from a potential narcissism.
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Or an unhealthy relationship.
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Or an unhealthy relationship is discernment.
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Discernment.
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Slowing down.
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Slowing down.
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Paying attention.
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Paying attention.
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And really feeling it in your body.
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Feeling it in your body.
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Now here s something.
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How do you know
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when you re feeling something in your body that feels exciting and wow this is I have this butterflies and chemistry and connection how do you know if that s a bad sign or actually
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something to lean into because you re feeling good as well in your body.
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Not like, oh, this is exciting and dangerous, but this feels right.
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So here s, it s funny, in one of my prior books I write about this at length, but chemistry and connection are really dangerous words to me because they are, they can be trauma bonded words.
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People say, I don t know what to tell you, it feels familiar.
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I m like, familiar is not good because the,
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Again, that s a great example of the body holding something.
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Now listen, I m not saying everyone should go date someone they think is a dud.
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Or like, I felt nothing, so I m going to go on a second date.
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I m going to go right into it.
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I m going to go right into it.
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So what do we mean by connection?
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I guess that s the problem is, when somebody says to me, I feel the sense of connection, my question is, shrink s going to be, what does that mean to you?
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Right?
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Because what you call connection, what I call connection, what a random person in the street calls connection may be very different things.
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Right?
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There s healthy feelings of connection, feeling attuned to, feeling seen, feeling heard, a conversation that seems to just flow effortlessly.
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You don t feel judged.
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You feel safe.
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I like, I ll buy that as connection, but connection when it s sort of like, you kind of feel like you re on your back foot, that now you re sort of game on, and how do I win this person over, and it s a little bit of like, you re almost like, it s almost like a match, like how do I sort of, like it s a little bit gamey, that concerns me.
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Because that to me could actually be a throwback to somebody feeling as though I have to win this person over.
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What are the tricks?
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And you ll see this in people who have sort of a sympathetic nervous fawn response, like how do I have to modify myself to win them?
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That familiarity, especially if that s how somebody had to go through childhood,
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can actually feel like connection.
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Wow.
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Because it s work.
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It s exciting.
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Oh my gosh, there s something I need to do.
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But if one doesn t feel worthy of being loved as who they are, and somebody comes and just likes you for who you are, well, that s not very fun because I don t have a template for that.
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You re almost like, what?
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Why are you like, hmm?
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But when you re feeling you have to win someone over, that becomes exciting.
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So I think that that idea of chemistry can make people irrational.
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Listen, if you have chemistry with somebody who is empathic, compassionate, kind, and respectful, you won the lottery.
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We call it what it is.
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You re just a lucky person.
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Wow.
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Okay?
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And that s great.
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And there s people out there who have connection and all those goodies, and they are as blessed by the heavens as a human being can be, right?
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The majority of people who have connection sadly will say we had this kind of connection and that s why I excused this and excused that and this and that and you know it s funny because when I have worked with people and who are in more trauma bonded relationships this idea where it s Days hot cold and hot and cold and back and forth and you keep having the same arguments and you re always justifying
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The hack I have for figuring out whether or not someone s in a trauma bonded relationship, I ll have a client who s in a chaotic dating relationship or like a really unhealthy relationship and will sometimes hit the wall of like, Oh, I know this is an LD.
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I love them.
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And I ll say, okay, right now, take a minute.
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Tell me why you love them.
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And you know, the answer I get when people are trauma bonded, the answer I get, or with chemistry, the answer I get is,
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Okay, Doc, give me a second.
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Well, you know what?
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It s, I don t, it s this, I don t know how to describe it.
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It s like this, I don t know, it s just sort of this, you can connect, map.
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That s not an answer.
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They can t clearly define why they love you.
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And whereas I ask that to healthy people, because I have friends whose marriages are just, they re beautiful.
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And I ll say to my friend, tell me why you love him.
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And she s like, oh, please, he s my best friend.
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I love him.
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We ve got each other s backs.
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We kind of almost read each other s minds.
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We do stuff together.
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He s the first person I want to see in the morning.
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I look forward to landing on my flights because he s the first person I text.
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I miss him and I m not.
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Those are answers.
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Nothing trauma bonded.
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But the whole like, I don t know.
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That s not good.
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How do you know if you re entering in a relationship through trauma bonding?
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So I don t think anyone enters in that way, Lewis.
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I think that we are, attraction s a pretty universal phenomenon, right?
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Although we might find different things attractive, right?
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Different people find different people attractive.
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Attractiveness, there s something that sort of, we re attracted to what we re attracted to.
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We re attracted to whatever is aesthetically pleasing to us, what might feel so much familiar to us, what is sort of normative for our culture.
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Attraction s attraction.
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Now, remember, narcissistic folks are charming, charismatic, and confident and successful, right?
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So that is attractive to everybody, which is why narcissistic people are attractive to everyone.
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But trauma bonding is not what gets people into relationships.
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It s what gets them stuck.
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So a person might be drawn, for example, in a narcissistic relationship to the charm, the charisma, the confidence, the attractiveness, the smoothness, the whole thing, the whole package, and say, wow, I want to meet them.
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And you meet them and they re every bit as charming as they were across the room.
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That s attraction.
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When you re three months in and this person s gaslighting you and manipulating you and doing shady stuff and invalidating you, and you re making excuses for that, that s trauma bonding.
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So someplace between attraction and trauma bonding is a process.
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And that s the process we d love to be able to short-circuit.
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But the problem is most of that process is something we call love-bombing.
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And it just brings you into the relationship and makes you feel like you re thinking about them all the time.
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How do you pull someone out of a fairy tale?
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It s not easy.
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How do you?
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And this is why I m the last person anyone wants to spend Valentine s Day with.
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Interesting, it s my clinical day.
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I m like, it s best that I just stay locked in with my clients on Valentine s Day and be kept away from everyone else because it s not easy.
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So when people are in the fairy tale, I say to people, listen, if any of you have the discipline to just eat the top off the cupcake, do it.
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But then don t get involved in the stumpy bottom part.
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Like, we don t need that.
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You want to ride it out?
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Ride it out.
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Have some fun.
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Do some fun things.
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But it s pretty rare.
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Two to four weeks, and then stop.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, it s pretty rare for a person to say, OK, I m sad.
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Or to leave after the third invalidation, or the third shady thing, right?
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I m a big fan of threes.
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First time happens, it happens.
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Second time it happens, it s a coincidence.
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Third time it happens, it s a pattern.
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And that s when you re like, ooh, what s happening here?
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But that overlap, that overlap period where love bombing turns into devaluation is this demilitarized zone that s a really dangerous place.
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Because it s where the good stuff is still happening at a pretty good frequency, but the devaluing is starting to kick in.
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And you re now trying to make sense of it.
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and you want the good stuff.
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You go back to the good stuff, yeah.
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But it s happening enough.
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You re still getting enough good stuff.
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So it s almost like you re with this, again, it s all intermittent reinforcement, all trauma bonding.
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It s a slot machine.
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It s not consistent.
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It s a slot machine.
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I think the last time you were on here, or maybe it was the first time you were on, I didn t really know what narcissism was fully.
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I was kind of like, and I remember just having all these gasping moments where I was just like starting to realize more and more about,
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the pain of experiencing a narcissistic either person or narcissistic tendencies from a person where I had once in a relationship felt so much love for many many months and then this intermittent
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make wrong, or you need to change, or whatever it was, like this less accepting of me, more shaming of me, diminishing me, trying to change me, but still bringing some of the love, but then it just faded all the way into 5% of the love, and all blame, make wrong, gaslighting type of experiences.
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And when you first started telling me about this, I was just like, man, this is a, it s a pain, it was, because it s so painful to experience.
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It s painful.
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And so many people have experienced this in some way, whether it s intimate relationship or friendship or with our parents.
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And it s painful to be in.
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It s painful to try to get out of.
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It s painful to heal from.
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The whole thing is painful.
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It is painful.
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And I m so glad you brought up that painful part because the simplistic view is this person s mistreating you, step away.
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But for some people, they ll say, it feels like cutting off my own arm.
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And many people, when they re a trauma bonded, will say, I m feeling like a panic attack at the idea of even considering leaving this relationship.
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You know, not even having the conversation or considering doing it.
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And so we can t live in tension all the time.
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That s not how the human nervous system is set up, and the human psyche is not set up that way.
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So how do we dissipate that tension, that cognitive dissonance, we call it?
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We undissonance it, right?
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And we make the justifications.
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So the justifications make us feel less tense, and now we ve bought another month, six months,
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years.
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And when life gets busy, which is where when people might get married to a narcissistic person, and then there s wedding, wedding, and busy, busy, instead of a household distraction, then you have kids.
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I ve worked with so many people.
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That s why 20 to 25 years is not an unusual time
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for a marriage with a narcissistic person to break up, because around that time, everything, there s no more, there s not so much activity to pay attention to.
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You re like, I hate this person.
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I hate them.
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I don t want to be in this house with them anymore.
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But there was so much activity before, work, whatever it was, so people didn t notice it.
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You just dealt with it enough, right?
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Yeah, this is, you know, I have a lot of compassion for people that have experienced this, because I just remember thinking,
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Like, I would think, how do I get out of this relationship?
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But I didn t have the courage.
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Now, I had the courage to do everything else in my life, and achieve, and go after my goals, and have challenging conversations, and succeed, or whatever it might be.
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But I lacked the courage to have tough conversations in a previous relationship that kept me in it.
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And when I would think about ending the relationship, I would have heart palpitations.
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So what were you afraid of?
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Oh man, let me go back to the state now, because I feel like I m in a healthy place now.
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Sorry.
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But I think I felt like I was a failure if I couldn t make the relationship work.
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I think I was thinking,
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Something s wrong with me if they re not accepting of me or loving me or if they re mad or angry with me or if they re... I was thinking, how come we can t just go back to the first few months when it was just like, everything was amazing.
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There was never any stress, there was never any like make wrong or blame or you need to change or you can t do that or you have to do this.
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None of that.
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I was like, why can t we just go back to that experience again and have that more continuously?
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But I just also didn t know what a healthy relationship looked like ever.
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So I never experienced that from the model of my parents.
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I never experienced that from all the relationships I had.
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So I was unable to know somatically, this is healthy, this is the way it s supposed to look.
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Whether we work out or not, based on our values or our vision or whatever,
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But this feels healthy.
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I d never felt healthy in any relationship.
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And so I just didn t know.
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No, you don t know.
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And in some ways, ending, so being honest with yourself about that moment in a relationship where, like, this is not good for me, I m afraid, like you said, I felt a lack of courage, as it were.
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And I was also afraid, like, if I end this,
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this person s going to go out and try to ruin my life.
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Okay.
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But see, the thing is, that s a real ... So those fears, some of those fears are fears based on history.
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Some of those fears are fears based on identity.
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I m a failure.
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Some of them are fears based on potential reality.
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Right.
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Because if there s one thing anyone ... Because this is what s challenging about narcissistic relationships.
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It s actually great when they break up with you.
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And my clients will say, what are you talking about?
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My heart s broken.
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I m like,
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You re going to be so glad about this at some point.
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That didn t happen, though.
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I had to do it.
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No, you had to end it.
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You had to end it.
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I kept saying, please end this, but they wouldn t.
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They wouldn t do it.
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And then they were like, you re breaking everything up.
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It s your fault.
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And I m like, oh my gosh.
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But when you end it, then something that often happens is a period we call post-separation abuse.
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And post-separation abuse can be everything from
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stalking to incessant text and email messages, to talking badly to you about other people.
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To all your friends, reaching out to your friends.
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Putting on passive-aggressive posts on social media when they clearly, everyone reads it, knows it s about you.
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Yeah, of course.
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And all of that stuff, large or small, I mean, some of the stuff can be, I mean, obviously the most horrific cases, it s physical violence afterwards.
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But in, you know, what we re talking about, it s not as dangerous, but still psychologically dangerous.
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People kind of know that s going to happen and they don t want that to happen.
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No.
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And so they say, well, there s one way to avoid this from happening, and it s to stay in it, right?
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But to see one of these relationships, so partly that courage piece is to see a toxic relationship clearly, intimate relationship clearly, especially when we ve had no template of healthy relationships or a history of relationships where we ve made the accommodations in ourselves to make them work.
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is that to come into that place of courage, to see clearly that it s not okay and something needs to be done, can give people this tidal wave of terror of, that means all this other stuff in my life was a mess too.
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It s terrifying.
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It opens up this sort of door on our narratives that we sometimes don t want to look at and examine how these other things have shaped us.
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Or examines our parents.
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Our parents, exactly.
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That s my point, is that it feels like too much.
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But I have to say that, and the other fear that I hear a lot of people have is regret.
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What if I m wrong?
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What if I m reading this wrong?
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Those first three months were good, and maybe this is just a bump in the road.
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And if I walk away from this, and in fact, and I m out there in the desolation of dating profiles and people s puppy pictures, what am I going to do?
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And now, and they move on, and the next person s going to get the better version of them.
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And so then people go down that rabbit hole, and it s almost like a kid with a toy.
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They re like, I don t really want this toy, but I don t want you to have this toy.
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If you ve ever had a sibling, the sibling doesn t give up the ball, but you don t want the ball, but I don t want her to have the ball.
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So it s that.
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So people, that fear of regret.
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What if I m wrong?
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What if they change?
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What if they change for the next person?
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What if they move on quickly?
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They re going to move on quickly.
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That s what they do.
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And all of that.
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And then, I ve got a bird in hand, and it s so hard to date, and all that stuff.
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It lasted a year, or two years, or four years, whatever it is, right?
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Gosh.
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How do you know when you know?
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That someone s narcissistic?
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That someone s the right person.
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The right person.
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You know, they say you know when you know, but how do you fully know mentally, spiritually, somatically, this is healthy, this is or could be the right person for me?
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So you re neither indifferent nor ruminating.
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Does that make sense?
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And the reason I m making that distinction is... What does that mean?
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Okay, so you re ruminating when it s unhealthy.
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Like, you re ruminating the whole drive to work, like, oh God, I m so... You re asking people, your friends, like, why is this happening?
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What do you think about this?
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And asking for advice.
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All that.
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So that s bad.
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Ruminating, yep.
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Indifference is bad because I was going to say, because you re not thinking about it all the time, but I don t mean not thinking about it all the time because you re literally indifferent to someone and you re like, if they never call me back, I don t care.
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I would say that in a good relationship, you are looking forward to seeing them,
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they re the first person you wanna tell good news to because you feel validated, that they see something in you that you don t see, that they re genuinely proud of you, that they are, but it s more of the looking forward to them.
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Like even at the end of the day, I think I m always amazed when I, I have a friend of mine, she s been married for about 30 years, 25, 30 years,
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And she was visiting me over the summer, and I was listening to her talk to her husband on the phone.
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I mean, they re an old married couple.
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Sorry to friend if you re listening.
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You know I m talking about you.
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But I was overhearing their conversation, and it was so beautiful.
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It was, he was so solicitous.
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He works very hard in the summer, she works very hard during the school year.
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And she wanted to go do all the stuff, and he s like, sweetie, sweetie, you just need some time to yourself.
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Don t put so much on the day.
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Go out there, go with the kids, enjoy the beach.
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So it wasn t like, oh, you re having a vacation and I m not.
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And he s like, I miss you so much, but I m so glad you re having a good time.
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I can t wait to see you.
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And she was, the tone of their voices.
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But I m like, oh my God, after over 25 years,
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She is as looking forward to talking to him as she probably was when they were first dating.
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I have several friends in these situations.
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You don t feel like you re looking at a friendship.
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You still feel like you re looking at something special.
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I have to say that there s a fantasy.
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Imagine if you grew up with parents who had that kind of a marriage.
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what that does for you, what that does for your heart.
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But you know what, Lewis?
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There s people out there whose parents were happily married, and they end up with narcissistic folks, and that s its own whole kind of mess of a situation.
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Whose parents are happily married?
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Super happy.
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Parents were like love story.
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But what, the kids are narcissistic?
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No, the kid marries a narcissist.
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Why?
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That s a great question, and I ll tell you why, because I ve seen it happen many times.
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They re just so compassionate and loving and accepting, or how does it work?
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So go back to the charm, charisma, confidence, success, all that stuff, right?
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So the person s shiny and cool and neat, and sometimes that narcissistic person not only love bombs person, they love bomb their family, right?
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SPEAKER_00
And so, especially a close-knit family where everyone s doing stuff together, and so they ingratiate themselves into that system sometimes, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Especially the happy family that s clearly a united front, but they re not a difficult front.
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SPEAKER_00
And since they love each other and they love their kids, they believe in love.
3
SPEAKER_00
right?
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SPEAKER_00
So that kind of cynicism that you d see in most of the dysfunctional families I know, that they re like, well, who s this guy?
3
SPEAKER_00
He s more
4
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of like, come on in, like welcome to the fit now.
4
SPEAKER_00
So they re getting so much validation, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So then when things start going wonky, talk about the lack of a template.
4
SPEAKER_00
At least those of us from dysfunctional families were like, I know from messy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Some messy is happening.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t have a name for this.
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SPEAKER_00
but they literally have not been to this planet before.
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SPEAKER_00
They re like, what is this place?
4
SPEAKER_00
They re speaking the language I don t understand.
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SPEAKER_00
And I ll tell you, this actually can be quite tragic.
4
SPEAKER_00
I consulted once.
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SPEAKER_00
There was a couple of times, actually, not even once, a few times, with families where, one I remember so well, the parents had been married like 48 years, 45 years, really healthy, did all kinds of wonderful stuff together, and daughter married a narcissist, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
And the parents were almost coming to me like, we don t get this.
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SPEAKER_00
And they said, we re devastated because these parents literally believe that like, well, he s not a very nice guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
So family court is just going to give the parents to the nicer person.
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SPEAKER_00
I m like,
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SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no, no.
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SPEAKER_00
This is not how this works.
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SPEAKER_00
Your daughter needs an attorney like yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00
And they said, well, no, we re already learning this because this process has already begun and we re watching our daughter fade in front of our eyes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so they said, we did.
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SPEAKER_00
And they felt very guilty because they felt like they d given her terrible advice because they kept saying, just love him more.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s what we do in our family.
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SPEAKER_00
We just love more.
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SPEAKER_00
And sometimes that would come in the way of giving him more money.
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SPEAKER_00
That would just be like, you guys go, go away to the Bahamas for the weekend.
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SPEAKER_00
We ll watch the kids.
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SPEAKER_00
Like, so it was just like, they were basically giving him supply and he was getting worse and cheating on her more.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was just getting worse and worse and worse.
4
SPEAKER_00
But the family,
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Really they said they were so and they would felt say almost a sense of moral injury That they had done something wrong to their child by not seeing this but Lewis they had no template and there are people out there We re like I they don t know this they really have this joyful happy happy life And you want to trust the people you want to trust the world you want to be open you want to be you know yeah
4
SPEAKER_00
Vulnerable all that stuff, but the good thing is though, but there s a good thing Is that the woman did have this happy family who was this tremendous source of support?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s so as the whole thing fell apart Whereas most people who go through this don t have that and I was so they re not only do they are they going through this nightmarish?
4
SPEAKER_00
Divorce or something like that.
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SPEAKER_00
They don t have a family of origin They can turn to or the family of origin blames them or the family of origin was half their problem So they really it can sort of double down on their grief, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Man.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, there s four things you said about a narcissist.
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SPEAKER_01
They re charming, charismatic, confident, and successful.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is that right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Charming, charismatic, confident, successful, curious, attractive.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we can keep going.
4
SPEAKER_01
Shiny.
4
SPEAKER_00
Shiny.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, is it possible to be charming, charismatic, confident, successful, attractive, and not be a narcissist?
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you know the difference between the two?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, here s how you know the difference.
4
SPEAKER_00
Here s the thing.
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SPEAKER_00
Charm and charisma get supply, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like the fancy polony thing that sticks out of a flower, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
They attract the bees and the birds, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
There s an interpersonal skill that s cultivated in the charming and charismatic person.
4
SPEAKER_00
It can happen, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So how do you know?
4
SPEAKER_00
The charming, charismatic, successful, attractive person who s not narcissistic is empathic.
4
SPEAKER_00
They listen.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re warm.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re not, you know, there s always that, that sort of, that, that vision of the person who s at the cocktail party that is talking to you, but they seem to almost be looking through your head at the door behind you to see if something better is coming in.
4
SPEAKER_00
They don t, you don t get that vibe from them.
4
SPEAKER_00
There is a genuineness.
4
SPEAKER_00
They don t monopolize the conversation.
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SPEAKER_00
They are, there s a genuine warmth to them.
4
SPEAKER_00
You feel it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you definitely feel it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it takes a few hits, you know, sort of a few times up at bat to be sure that that s what you re dealing with.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a, I mean, listen, I ve met charming, charismatic people who are nice, but I ve met more that are narcissistic.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a pretty rare combo.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh man, it s probably rare, depending on where you are located in the country as well, too, where there might be more.
4
SPEAKER_00
LA.
4
SPEAKER_01
LA, right, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
What is the percentage of narcissists in the country right now, do you think?
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I m going to spitball a number because we have never gotten good prevalence statistics.
4
SPEAKER_00
Here s the problem.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s this thing called narcissistic personality disorder that I don t even concern myself with.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is a clinical diagnosis that can only be issued by a mental health practitioner who spent enough time with a client to actually unfurl these patterns.
4
SPEAKER_01
And no narcissists are going to a therapist.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re often not, and when they do, they re going in for a backdoor reason, like addiction, depression, optics.
4
SPEAKER_01
Court order.
4
SPEAKER_00
Court order, being forced, ultimatum by a spouse, that kind of thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of therapists don t issue it, because it s stigmatizing diagnosis and insurance.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know what I m saying?
4
SPEAKER_00
The whole world of diagnosis is messy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And usually the way we figure out the prevalence of a disorder is what we call epidemiological studies, where people are brought in, and they re actually just put through the interviews, and they re anonymous, and it s not going on any record, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Those studies of NPD show 1% to 6% prevalence, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
But again- In the country.
4
SPEAKER_00
In the country.
4
SPEAKER_01
Which is like, on the spectrum of narcissism, they re at the highest.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re at the most, they re in the research studies.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t even say they re at the highest.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s one thing I do want to correct is that just because someone has NPD doesn t mean they re more severe.
4
SPEAKER_00
It merely means they were diagnosed.
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SPEAKER_00
Does that make sense?
4
SPEAKER_01
There might be others who haven t been diagnosed that are more severe.
4
SPEAKER_00
But they re way worse, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
But if we were to look at across from mild to severe narcissism, because it is on the spectrum, so mild to severe across the population,
4
SPEAKER_00
The spitballed number that I think most of us in the trenches would probably agree with, enough narcissism that it s causing other people problems, 15%.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s my guess.
4
SPEAKER_00
Somewhere between 15 and 20.
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say certain parts of LA, 20.
4
SPEAKER_00
Certain industries, 20.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, right, right.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I would say on average, somewhere around 15, and that s all types of narcissism too, which means 85% of people aren t, which is good.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s good, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s what, four different types of narcissism?
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say probably closer to six, but we can go to four, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
What are they?
4
SPEAKER_00
I would say grandiose, which is the traditional arrogant, pretentious, charming, charismatic, kind of shiny narcissist.
4
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That s your kind of prototype of the narcissist.
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SPEAKER_00
There s the vulnerable narcissist.
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SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
These are people who live in fantasies of the great things they re going to do.
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SPEAKER_00
but they never do them.
4
SPEAKER_00
The grandiose people actually often do get them done.
4
SPEAKER_00
They will talk the big game, and they ll kind of do the big game.
4
SPEAKER_01
So vulnerable doesn t mean they re actually intimate and vulnerable with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
4
SPEAKER_01
It means that they talk of the game, but they don t actually take action.
4
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
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SPEAKER_01
You keep telling everyone, I m going to do this project or this thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know why I couldn t do it?
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SPEAKER_00
Because that guy didn t give me the money, and that guy scammed me.
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SPEAKER_00
Everyone takes advantage of me, and that person stole my idea.
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SPEAKER_00
That s that.
4
SPEAKER_00
The vulnerable.
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SPEAKER_00
The vulnerable.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then there s the malignant.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the dark tetrad is composed of narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, the willingness to take advantage of other people, and sadism.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I also believe paranoia sits in there too, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So in malignant narcissism, we re talking about people who are more coercive, who are more menacing, who are more isolating.
4
SPEAKER_00
This feels a little bit more like psychopathy, but it s still narcissism.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s much more severe.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then we have the communal narcissist.
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SPEAKER_01
Communal.
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SPEAKER_00
Communal.
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SPEAKER_00
And these are the folks who get, so all narcissistic folks need validation.
4
SPEAKER_00
The communal narcissistic folks are interesting, because they get their validation by being perceived as saviors, rescuers, and do-gooders.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like cult leaders or more?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a severe, so a cult leader would be a communal malignant narcissist.
4
SPEAKER_00
That would be, so these are like cocktails, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
These are like, you move every, you put it all together.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
So at the extreme, a communal malignant narcissist, cult leader.
4
SPEAKER_00
But some communal narcissists can be
4
SPEAKER_00
could be a mother who does all the activities and the PTA and 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.
4
SPEAKER_00
But on the surface, it looks like she s- They think she s a saint amongst us.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s the person who walks around and everyone thinks they re humanitarian, and people are like, no, no, no, I worked for their non-profit, and we was actually a hellscape, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It was crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, when you look behind the curtain, you see- Bingo.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s the communal narcissist.
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SPEAKER_00
So they get validation by the sense of, look what a good person they are.
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SPEAKER_00
They re rescuing puppies, and they re doing this thing, and they re raising all this money, and they re so good.
4
SPEAKER_01
But behind the scenes, they re not.
4
SPEAKER_00
Not so it s not saying if people do nice things are communal narcissists It s that that they continue to have the lack of empathy entitlement all that other stuff So it s like you can you know, cuz I m like, okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, I want to I want to build a community and serve people So, how do you build a community?
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve got a big audience.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, how do we build communities without?
4
SPEAKER_01
That becoming a thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is it just because if you re not consistent with service all around you in your relationship?
5
SPEAKER_00
then you re more... So, I mean, are you being mean to other people?
5
SPEAKER_00
Gotcha.
5
SPEAKER_01
So, like, if I was... Public-facing, you look like the best thing ever, but behind the scenes, you re nasty.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, you re mean to your partner.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re mean to your family.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re mean to your people who work with you.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re inconsistent.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you re consistent.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but you re not consistent on both ways of, like, service mindset.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, and that s what it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, communal.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then there s the self-righteous narcissist.
5
SPEAKER_00
The self-righteous narcissist is judgmental, moralistic, rigid.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re often funky with money.
5
SPEAKER_00
This would be a kind of person who has so much money, and someone in their family has a hardship.
5
SPEAKER_00
They had a job loss, and then their kid needs medical care, and they ll say,
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I didn t create this situation, so I guess you ll have to figure it out.
5
SPEAKER_01
They have no heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
It feels like no heart, but there s also this really rigid judgmental, and they judge people from the sense of, well, look at all I built.
5
SPEAKER_00
I guess I must have worked hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
They ll never account for their luck, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Or sometimes their absence of bad luck, that kind of thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
They will say, if they say dinner s at 6 and you show up at 6.30 because your kid got sick, they ll say, I m sorry, we already ate.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it feels very rigid, cold, moralistic,
5
SPEAKER_00
miserly, obsessive, these are people who are often workaholics and with little care for how it would affect.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he was like, there s workaholics out there who check in on other people, like, I m gonna make time for you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or we re taking a vacation when this is done, whatever, and they re communicating and people are aware, okay, they re doing this so we could buy the house or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
So is it possible to be self-righteous and not be a narcissist in them?
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
Ah, gotcha.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
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 1,000 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.
5
SPEAKER_00
What are you talking about?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there no other human being in your life?
5
SPEAKER_00
How do you deal with a crying sister?
5
SPEAKER_00
I told her to go to hell and I drank more goat milk.
5
SPEAKER_00
That can be self-righteous.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I m in shape and I m going to live to be 179 years old is because I do all this and you don t, you lazy, awful person.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s self-righteous.
5
SPEAKER_01
Lack of compassion, lack of understanding, lack of awareness.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s lack of awareness of others.
5
SPEAKER_00
Self-righteousness is sort of where the lack of empathy sits, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think there s good self-righteousness.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think all self-righteous people are narcissistic, but many people said to me that self-righteous narcissism is really what happened
5
SPEAKER_00
in their family of origin, it was apparent.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, number six?
5
SPEAKER_00
And number six would be more of a neglectful narcissist.
5
SPEAKER_00
So these are the people who, they will not, they view everyone as object, so coffee cup, whatever,
5
SPEAKER_00
And they just neglect them until they need them.
5
SPEAKER_01
They just discard them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or they just don t give them attention or energy.
5
SPEAKER_00
They don t attune.
5
SPEAKER_00
They don t give them attention.
5
SPEAKER_00
They don t attune to them.
5
SPEAKER_00
When a person around them is struggling,
5
SPEAKER_00
They won t care.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a lack of empathy.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a lack of empathy, but it s a lack of ... For example, a malignant or a grandiose narcissist might actually get mad at someone.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, oh my gosh, why do you keep talking to me?
5
SPEAKER_00
And people in relationships with neglectful narcissists will say, I ll take it, because at least that person was listening.
5
SPEAKER_00
But people in these relationships will literally feel
5
SPEAKER_00
Like they re losing their minds because the person with them is literally not noticing unless they need something from them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they re giving the cold shoulder, they don t speak to them for days, whatever.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, whatever.
5
SPEAKER_00
They just don t notice, they don t care.
5
SPEAKER_00
They won t know.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like you might say, like, I have the biggest presentation of the year next week.
5
SPEAKER_00
They won t even ask.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s all about them.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s all about them, but in this weird way, and they don t even take notice of other people.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you feel like a really neglected personal assistant.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
5
SPEAKER_01
Have you seen any research on if men are more narcissistic than women?
5
SPEAKER_00
So it depends on the type of narcissism.
5
SPEAKER_00
Malignant and grandiose, definitely more men than women.
5
SPEAKER_00
Vulnerable narcissists, a dead heat.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really?
5
SPEAKER_01
What about just in general?
5
SPEAKER_01
Are women more narcissistic than men, or is it?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think in general, we re at a time, at this point in history.
5
SPEAKER_01
And as social media, and the self-implication of everything, and the filterication, and constantly showing yourself.
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of men are doing that, but it seems to be more women are doing that because they re getting validated on social media.
5
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the question becomes then, what we have to be careful is, if a person s posting a lot to social media, getting the likes, influencer, all that, can t assume that every influencer is a narcissist, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
So I d have to talk to them and say, are all influencers narcissistic?
5
SPEAKER_00
No.
5
SPEAKER_00
Put them in front of me and I want to see what kind of human being they are.
5
SPEAKER_00
Let me spend a couple of days with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll tell you then if they re narcissistic or not.
5
SPEAKER_00
I definitely think a narcissistic person would be a better influencer because they d be able to do the job better because of what it requires, if that makes sense, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because it s very performative.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s very, how do I get the most validation?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s the outcome variable.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, they re going to be stronger, just like a strong person would be better at loading trucks.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would not be good at that job.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could do it, but it would be really slow.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s the same thing with a really nice person s like, oh, this is why I m so bad at book promotion.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, I feel bad asking people to spend money.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re like, no, no, no, it s a good book.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s okay to ask them, but I m just not, I m not good at that.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, I just wouldn t, I m saying some people are really good at that because that narcissistic quality, that s why narcissistic people are great salespeople and that s why
5
SPEAKER_00
In fact, that s why they re overrepresented in CEO ranks, because CEOs often come up through the sales kind of model, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
I still think at this point in history, Lewis, it is more men than women for a couple of reasons.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think part of it is how men and boys are socialized around emotion.
5
SPEAKER_00
They are taught emotion is bad, emotion is ridiculous, emotion is weak, emotion is vulnerable.
5
SPEAKER_00
In 2024, I recently saw, I was in a Target or a store or something like that, and I was watching a mother interact with her son, and the son was fussing, or he d fallen on the floor or something, and she s like, stop it, boys, don t cry, stop it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I almost started crying in the store, because I m thinking, if this is what I m seeing in the store, this poor boy is hearing that his emotions are not okay, and he s weak.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I still think boys are told to,
5
SPEAKER_00
toughen up.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, girls will cry after a soccer game.
5
SPEAKER_00
My girls cried after their soccer games, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
They re allowed to cry, and we re fine with it.
5
SPEAKER_00
We comfort them.
5
SPEAKER_00
But if a boy does that, they might have to face the humiliation with their peers.
5
SPEAKER_00
They might have to face anger from a parent.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I think boys and men are still not... I think we ve come a long way.
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t get me wrong, but we ve got a ways to go.
5
SPEAKER_00
And because of that, that emotion s got to go somewhere.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that can often become a core wound that can show up as narcissistic defenses.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I think women are allowed to do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Women also are socialized for more sociality.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re trained more, if you will, not trained, raised more, socialized more to turn to others for support and help.
5
SPEAKER_00
And men, the whole colonoscopy test.
5
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Ask a 50-year-old guy if you ve got someone to drive you home from your colonoscopy who s not your wife.
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And a lot of men say, I don t have someone.
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And that s a bad, bad answer.
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So the colonoscopy test is a great example of how, and I have like, and I know most women, I have like 15 people I can call.
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Lots of people that bring me home from my colonoscopy.
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Who s to blame for creating narcissists?
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I mean, listen, this is a social developmental phenomenon.
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No one s born narcissistic.
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If you want to use that definition, every baby s narcissistic because they re not helping and they re not paying attention to your feelings, but they re expecting you to do all this stuff for them.
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Babies are born, children are born, small people have temperaments, right?
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You had one, I had one, and if you ask your parent about what your temperament was like, some kids are, and if you have siblings, you might have all had different temperaments, okay?
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And some kids are easy, and they soothe easy, and they laugh a lot, and they go to sleep, and you can take them anywhere, and they re just lovely.
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And that s just, and they often grow up to be lovely people.
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And then some kids are just tough.
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They re just like a screwed up tantrum ready to happen from the day they re born.
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They don t soothe easily.
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They don t sleep well.
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They re fussy.
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And then as they grow up, they might be more externalizing.
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They act out more.
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They get in more trouble in school.
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Those are, in fact, when those, they re often the kids I m always like, get this kid into sports because it s going to be such a great channel for this kid.
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Like something physical, like just something, teaching decline, something.
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And so they ll get that.
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invalidation, but sit in school at a desk all day, it s tough for those kids.
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And so they get a lot of invalidation.
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Kids that are more externalizing, but there can be kids who have that kind of go, go, go temperament, but who aren t difficult.
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There are sweet kids, but they just want to move, right?
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But that more difficult, antagonistic, it almost feels like a four-year-old who s gunning for a fight kind of kid, right?
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Those difficult temperaments, when they come up against invalidating environments,
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parents who aren t available, parents who are cruel, parents who are rejecting, parents who are abusive.
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That combination can be a setup for that kind of narcissistic personality.
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It doesn t always end up that way, but that s definitely sort of a setup for it.
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So that then becomes, yes, there is a
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familial origin to this.
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There can be chaos.
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Now, this is why in the same family, say there s two or three siblings, one sibling may be narcissistic, but the other siblings aren t.
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And it might have been a very similar family environment for all of them.
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How does that happen?
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Temperament, that different temperament in that one kid.
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And so it could also be that the age at which a seismic event happened in the family, a divorce, a death, something like that.
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Domestic violence might have been observed by one child, but not another child, that kind of thing.
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Those things might have been differential.
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depending on the age gap.
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But this is developmental.
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Now, the challenge is too that parents, while probably most central and significant, there are other people around the kids.
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Beyond parents, there s other caregivers, there s grandparents.
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Coaches, teachers.
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Coaches, teachers.
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And so, all of those people shape that in the kid.
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But in some cases, it s not just a neglect pathway.
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There s also parents who tell their kids, you re more special than anybody else.
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You re the most special kid.
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No line for you, no waiting for you.
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If parents do that to their child, where they tell them, you re the most special thing in the world, you deserve everything you want, I m going to give it to you, and you deserve to cut the lines or whatever, what are you saying to that child?
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You re telling them ... These kids go on one of two very different pathways.
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One group of them go on to become narcissistic.
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Well, I am more special than everyone else, so ... My mom told me I was.
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My mom told me that s who I am, and so they ll be very demanding in the classroom.
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They ll be demanding with peers.
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They ll be entitled.
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They ll walk through life entitled, right?
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That sort of spoiled little rich kid kind of model, right?
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But another group of them who may not have shared that temperament, this different group, will grow up with a tremendous sense of shame.
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You know, that like, I m not more special.
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And so they ll feel there s this sort of inner conflict that happens.
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You know, like, I m not as smart as this person.
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Or I better perform in a way that shows that I m special.
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So if things don t go the way they want, then they feel bad.
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And there s a new phenomenon I saw documented.
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that with all the sort of helicopter-y over-parenting we re seeing, that some of these kids who are like, okay, my parents kind of did everything for me.
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I kind of can t do not much for myself.
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You re seeing a vulnerable narcissism form in them where they re almost angry at the parents who made it too easy.
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So no parent wins at this, I can tell you now.
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And it s very painful for parents.
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I ll tell you where this is the most painful because
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I know how painful it is for a parent who is an adult child who s narcissistic, right?
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Because those parents will often sit and say, I know something in that early environment had something to do with it.
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And the most painful cases, it s when a person, a lovely person, was married to a narcissistic person.
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And that toxic environment against that kid s temperament, or the narcissistic parent really indoctrinated that child.
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I ve watched parents go through this and it s really a living hell because it s really where you have some of your most unconditional love and it s your kid and your kid hates you and is behaving in this terrible, manipulative, entitled, brutal way.
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It is absolutely awful.
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I have to say that is the clinical population.
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The group of clients that s the most difficult and heartbreaking for me are the parents of adult children with narcissism.
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Because they have to watch their kids live with that.
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And they feel partly responsible.
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And they re like, oh, I raised that child.
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I raised that child.
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What did I do?
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What did I do wrong to cause this?
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So there s a tremendous sense of moral injury.
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Oh, shame and guilt and everything.
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There s shame, there s guilt, there s loss, there s grief.
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It s terrible.
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It s the worst.
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And you have to live with that for the rest of your life.
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And you have to live with that the rest of your life.
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It s almost like being married, I guess, to a narcissist.
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It s even worse because there is a devotion you feel to a child in many ways that when I, for these folks, they ve had to say, I have to step away from my own child.
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Devastation.
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It s devastation.
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What are three things that you think a parent could do when they have a child to set themselves up to raising a healthy, non-narcissistic human being?
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attune to the child in an appropriate way.
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Not, you re so great, but like, hey sweetie, what are you doing?
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And listen to the answer.
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I know you ve talked, I believe you have talked, I shouldn t assume.
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I ve listened to enough of your episodes, but not all of them.
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Have you ever talked to anyone who does a Gottman therapist or does
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I love those guys.
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Yeah, the two, the Gottmans.
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I want to have them on.
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I haven t had them on yet, but I love their work.
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Okay, so you should.
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But what s interesting is, you know, because Gottman s work actually doesn t always work well with narcissistic couples.
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But one thing I do like about the Gottman model is he talks a lot about attunement, right?
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And I think that that model of attunement matters even more in parenting.
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So what Gottman talks about is that how important it is, for example, in a couple.
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And I m sure you saw this whole phenomenon on TikTok play out, which is this idea of the bird test.
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Did you hear about the bird test on TikTok?
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Yeah, where it s like someone s paying attention or asking about the birds.
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And you have to attune.
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So the whole idea is like, if you re in a relationship with someone, and even if they re asking you to pay attention to something as trivial, it s like, look how pretty that bird is out the window.
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That was the whole TikTok trend was,
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that the partner would actually lift from what they re doing and do it.
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Oh yeah, that s interesting.
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That s attunement, right?
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That many times when you re in relationships, you re saying, how do we know a relationship is healthy?
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That you don t keep scrolling on the phone.
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Like you even say like, you might turn to your partner and say,
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Oh my God, that is so cool.
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Give me one second.
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I really want to come pay attention to that. 
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And maybe you have to turn off a button so you don t burn down the house.
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And you re like, okay, let me come see this, right?
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So that s attunement.
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Children need that more than an adult does.
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So for the child to know that when they make that call to the parent, that the parent responds to it.
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A parent doesn t mean a parent drops what they re doing, but the parent will be like,
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Oh, cool.
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Give me a second.
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I m going to come right over and see.
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And then you do go and see.
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As opposed to neglect constantly.
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So like, you know, either literally ignoring them or continuing to watch the TV.
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Or this is the one I see all the time is the parents on the phone.
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Parents in front of kids looking at their dad or their mom saying, hey, look at me.
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And there s not paying attention.
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And the parents are on the phone.
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I mean, I ve seen parents walking their kid in a stroller.
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And the stroller literally has a thing that allows them to be on their phone.
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And I m like, no, this is such a good moment to stare at the baby.
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Be present.
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And be present.
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So attunement.
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And so that the child knows that with number one, number two, listen to their needs without judgment.
6
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So I feel like I know that they don t need this.
6
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OK, so but let s say the child says, I need three new video games.
6
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OK, it s OK.
6
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Let s talk about that.
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You got one video game and that video game s working fine.
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You might want to talk to them and say, like, listen, you know, we can talk a little about how we got that video game.
6
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Right, right.
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But my point is that you re not saying, you spoiled piece of, you know what, how dare you ask me for a video game?
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But that s usually not what kids are asking for.
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You know what, when a kid is expressing a need, mommy, will you come, you know, read a book with me?
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They re like bored or something.
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Not even bored.
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It s more than that.
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Attachment is a survival need, right?
6
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So children are always making these plays for attention to their parents because they want to feel secure in the world.
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The more consistently you meet that, frankly, the less they ask for it.
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Because now they feel secure in the world.
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So not even that they re bored.
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It s sometimes that the love of a small child to their parent is unbelievable.
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It is their world.
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But how do you not over coddle them so that they are unable to survive in the world?
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Because if they re securely attached, they will go free.
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They don t always want to be with you, right?
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So it might be like, hey, mom, you want to play chutes and ladders?
6
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Absolutely, set it up.
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But again, I say this as a woman who is a working mother, OK?
6
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And I was a single working mother.
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So I was working multiple jobs when I had young kids.
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And so it s something I d be like, set it up.
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I need to grade one more paper.
6
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And now we re doing some chutes and ladders, right?
6
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Sure, sure.
6
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Give me 20 minutes.
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Not even, like 10, 15.
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And so I m like, and here I come, right?
6
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But even still, my parents will say, my parents, even still, sometimes my kids will say, you know, it was hard.
6
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You were often looking at that screen working.
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We know you were working, but it still hurt.
6
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So I know that I didn t, I certainly didn t get that right.
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But I would say, never shame their needs.
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So when, even when they say like,
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It could even be little things like, could we go to the park?
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Could we take a walk?
6
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Could we throw a ball?
6
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That s what a kid wants.
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How many men I ve heard say, all I wanted was a to throw a baseball at me.
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That s it.
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And it was never about the baseball.
6
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Think about what throwing a ball is.
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It s the ultimate attunement.
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You re going back and forth.
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You have to pay attention.
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And so that s what throwing a ball is.
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And so it s being available to your children, understanding, and like I said, if we get it right, 80% of the time, they ll figure out the other 20.
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That s another one.
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And number three, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy.
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Model it, live it, show it.
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And that means not just like you re only ... It s not just empathy for their feelings.
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It s that they re seeing you have empathy to
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their other parent, or to a family member, or to an animal, or to the person who comes and delivers something, and you say thank you, and you make eye contact, grocery store, everywhere.
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because your child is a sponge and they see that empathy.
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And the other place to do it, something I do remember doing with my kids, kids, if you re listening, I did do this with you, by the way.
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We would read a story, a book, and then afterwards I d say, so how do you think the bear felt?
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Like, that bear was really sad.
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Why do you think a bear was sad?
7
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Well, the other bears were kind of sharing with him.
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So, take the book.
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Same with a TV show.
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So, you d watch a TV show.
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Reflection.
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It s beyond reflection.
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It s like lifting out the empathy.
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How do you think that character, person ... You can do that well into adolescence.
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When the movie stops,
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How did you feel?
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How did that movie leave you feeling?
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And the amount of conversation, I don t care if it s a Star Wars, Marvel Universe, martial arts, you sit there and say, how did you feel about that?
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Some of the most powerful conversations I ve had with my children to this day have been after we watched a film.
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Some of the most intimate conversations have come out of after we watched a film.
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because it becomes a catalyst, right?
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That s cool.
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And so, from early on, when we were watching whatever, Sesame Street, something or other, and, you know, I remember, you know, my daughter, like, getting upset at someone s being mean to Elmo, and I m like, are you worried about Elmo?
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She s like, and she, you know, the best, yes!
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And I m like, I understand that.
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That s so kind of you to be worried about Alamo.
7
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We have to grab these moments.
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Empathy, vulnerability, tears.
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And then, you know, I would say other things is do stuff with them.
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Crafts, baking, building, whatever.
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Activities, yeah, yeah, yeah.
7
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I ve got a few more questions for you, but your book is gonna inspire a lot of people.
7
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It s not you, identifying and healing from narcissistic people.
7
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Something we talked about before we started was this idea of how do we forgive someone who s been narcissistically abusive towards us?
7
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Specifically, how do we forgive our parents or our parents?
7
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How do we forgive someone we ve been in a relationship for
7
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10, 20, 30 years, maybe they had the children with us.
7
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So whatever it might be, how do we forgive someone who s hurt us so badly as a narcissist?
7
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Maybe we don t.
7
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Maybe we don t.
7
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I have to tell you that something that s very important to me is that no one ever feels that they have to forgive someone for hijacking their soul.
7
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Because maybe there is no forgiveness for that.
7
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The pressure to forgive has led some people to feel guilty their whole lives, prematurely forgive.
7
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There s a really interesting body of literature out there that suggests that if we forgive someone who re-perpetrates,
7
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It significantly harms the well-being of the forgiver.
7
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So all of our research, forgive, you ll feel better.
7
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Forgive, you ll free yourself.
7
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Not so much, because not everyone leaves these relationships.
7
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Some people continue to have contact with the family members.
7
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They continue to stay in the relationship.
7
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They may not have a choice.
7
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Not everyone can leave.
7
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This isn t as simple as, you re a narcissistic, I m leaving this relationship.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not how it works most of the time.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s, I ve got this really toxic parent and I still have to interact with them.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have this really toxic ex-partner and we still have to raise kids together.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have a toxic marriage and I m staying in it, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
And these are people who have broken people down to their core, left them feeling like they re not enough, left them feeling that they were worthless people, left them not knowing who they were anymore, left them doubting reality.
7
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Is that forgivable?
7
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I m not so sure.
7
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And so I will always tell everyone I work with,
7
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This is a personal decision.
7
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It is not right to forgive.
7
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It is not right to not forgive.
7
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It is not wrong to forgive.
7
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It is not wrong to not forgive.
7
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You have to do what makes you whole.
7
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If you look at the definition of forgiveness in the dictionary, it says it is to cease to feel resentment.
7
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Let it go and cease to feel resentment.
7
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And I ask them, do you not feel resentful?
7
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And they re like, I feel resentment.
7
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You didn t forgive them if you still feel resentful as hell.
7
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So resentment does not push forward healing.
7
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I think that it s one more place where people are forced to be inauthentic.
7
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Some people will say, and I ll be frank with you, Louis, I have probably, I can think of a half a dozen people, narcissistic people in my life, I am now in no contact with, some I still have contact with, I don t forgive them.
7
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I will never forgive them.
7
SPEAKER_01
Really?
7
SPEAKER_00
Never.
7
SPEAKER_01
Even if you never speak to them again?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t speak to them again.
7
SPEAKER_00
I will never forgive them.
7
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What they did to me, because what they,
7
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It changed my view on myself.
7
SPEAKER_00
I spent years crawling out from under that rubble.
7
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I still doubt myself.
7
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I still don t feel safe in the world.
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They took away my safety.
7
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How the hell do you forgive that?
7
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I don t.
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And I sleep fine at night.
7
SPEAKER_01
I guess as long as you feel at peace.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right, I feel totally at peace.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s good then.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because what bothers me is I know they re out there doing this to other people.
7
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Yeah.
7
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How do you forgive that?
7
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That s frustrating.
7
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That s frustrating.
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I guess the thing would be how do we find peace even if we don t forgive someone?
7
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I think that people who don t forgive definitely feel peace.
7
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Okay.
7
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I think people who don t feel peace are the people who forgive and keep getting harmed.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s true.
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Are the people who forgive and weren t ready to forgive.
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Healing from narcissistic abuse is individuating, becoming autonomous, and ultimately rising into your authentic self.
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That s what it is.
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And your authentic self may not forgive, and that s okay.
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Wow.
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If you don t forgive, do you feel like you can truly heal?
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Yes, 100%.
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100%.
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Because not forgiving is an acknowledgment.
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Right?
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I have talked to people who have
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their children returned against them.
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How do you forgive that?
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I have talked to people where their narcissistic partner put their kids in harm s way.
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How do you forgive that?
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I have talked to people who have watched their life savings get squandered by an how do you forgive that?
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How do you forgive these things?
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And those are just practical.
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I mean, children are emotional, but some of them are practical.
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But I actually think the worst part is that this is somebody who left you feeling not enough, like there was something wrong with you when you were bringing the best of yourself forward.
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I have a problem with that.
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And I tell folks, some people get there.
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Some people will say,
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I was 10 years out.
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I fell in love with someone.
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I learned more about myself.
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I recognized that they were the ones who were carrying all the wounds.
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And I did forgive them.
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But many people will say, I was not able to forgive until I went no contact.
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Yeah.
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You had a lot of time to heal and space.
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And not be harmed.
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Some people say I forgave after they died.
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you know, so they didn t hear it, but I think that we have this big pressure of forgive and everything will be fine.
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You don t have to forgive them, like say it to them, but more to yourself, say, yeah.
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Internally, right.
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But in the cases I m talking about, these people, I don t forgive.
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I really, really don t.
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It was wrong, it was wrong, and I know they keep doing wrong, and it harms me because it changed my insides.
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And while I can take responsibility for my insides,
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why that wasn t okay.
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And I m very, very clear on this with survivors.
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That s why that section of the book is called The Treachery of Forgiveness.
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The Treachery of Forgiveness.
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It s, I mean, anyone wants to hate on me for it, I m like, bring it, because I would say, talk to a survivor, talk to, and I hope there s survivors listening to this who say, thank you for giving me that permission.
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Some people will say, look, I got to 85, I ve worked with older survivors, and some folks have been, for example, through family systems, they ll say, never, I will, I ve heard the range of it, and it s a,
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And I ll tell you, and some people, listen, some people will say things that might seem mild to other people, like, you can t forgive that.
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I said, if they can t forgive that, then they can t forgive that.
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Accept that, you know?
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And these are not petty people.
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They really aren t.
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And the criticism I ve heard people get when they say they don t forgive is like, you re petty, you re
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You re the one with all the anger.
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You re the one with all the hate in your heart. 
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I m like, no, they re not.
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No, they re not.
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It s a very personal decision, but I think because we view it as a one-size-fits-all, and I think
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that then what happens is people can then allow their process.
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In fact, healing is easier when you know you don t have to forgive, because forgiveness is about the other person.
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Everyone s like, no, forgiveness is about yourself.
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No, it s not, because you know what a narcissistic person does with forgiveness?
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They re like, get out of jail.
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Let me get back in there.
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Get out of jail free card.
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I guess I could do this again.
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Nothing I did was wrong, yeah.
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Boy, nothing I did was wrong, because forgiveness works, Louis, beautifully.
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I m sure you ve been forgiven at times in your life.
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I ve been forgiven at times in my life, and I ve forgiven many people.
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And when that forgiveness was met by that person forever committing to a change.
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A behavioral change.
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Then it s the most beautiful human process because we recognize that we re all flawed.
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Yes.
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But it has to be met with a change.
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Imagine you forgive someone.
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Accountability.
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Right, it s accountability.
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You forgive someone for cheating on you and they cheat on you again.
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How do you think that feels for a person?
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It s worse than betrayal because it s now, it s betrayal in the face of this divine offering you gave.
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Like, I forgave you.
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And then you did it again.
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And you did this after you promised you wouldn t.
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So it s like, it s a multiplied betrayal.
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There s so much in this book that I want people to get.
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It s not you.
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Identifying and healing from narcissistic people.
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Again, there s so many more things we could talk about today, but I want people to dive into the book to get this information.
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You ve done years of research.
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Yeah.
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decades of research, I m assuming now at this point, and one of the leaders on narcissism in the world.
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You work with clients weekly, you speak about it, your YouTube channel is massive, you have a big podcast, and now this book, It s Not You.
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So if you are someone who is struggling in a relationship, get this book and learn more tools about how to create specific boundaries.
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If you can t get out of the relationship,
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effectively take care of yourself when in harm, how to make sure you re setting yourself up for safety if you re unable to leave the relationship, things like that.
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You talk about things like that in here.
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and so much more.
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If you know someone who keeps coming to you for advice and is struggling in a relationship, and you think maybe this might be a narcissistic person or have tendencies, and you could help your friend with tools, get them this book to have tools to support them on their
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suffering relationship journey.
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And anyone else you can think of that might need this book, It s Not You, Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People.
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Dr. Ramani, is there anything else we can do to serve you today besides making sure to follow you on social media, YouTube, getting the book?
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How else can we be of service?
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So again, belief, I m going to say in a macro, don t shame people.
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When people say, I think I might be in a relationship with someone narcissistic, don t shame them immediately because that s what a lot of people get.
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Everyone s saying that on TikTok.
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You don t know if that s the right word because people who are suffering with this are suffering.
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If a friend says to you, this might be happening in my life, instead of judging them or shaming them, just say, what s going on in the relationship?
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Like, let s talk it out.
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So just, I think we can all be a listening ear to someone for a moment.
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And sometimes that makes all the difference in the world.
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To get this work out into the world, though, so more people hear it, go to my website, drwamundi.com, please, oh, please buy the book.
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People who want to do a deeper dive in healing, though, we have a monthly healing program.
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People can join at any time.
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So those of you who are going through this and say, I want, and it would be beautiful, because it s kind of parallel, like the book becomes a beautiful manual, but we ve been going for, oh gosh, a year and a half now, so we re going strong.
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Beautiful, amazing community.
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Go to my website, and then you can find the link for it, and join us, and try it out for a month.
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It s just our healing from narcissistic abuse.
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It s simple.
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You go to it, and we meet every month, workshop every month, a Q&A every month.
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That s big.
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Fantastic community platform, three journal prompts a week, guided meditation every month, and so it is an amazing community.
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I have to tell you, part of this book is dedicated to that community because they have been so remarkable, and I ve seen amazing things happen, and the support they give each other, because we moderate that platform 12 times a day, so no one can get in there and do harm.
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I take it very seriously.
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That s cool.
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Come join us there if you want to do, again, the deeper dive into healing above and beyond this.
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Read the book.
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Talk about it.
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Go to our social media.
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Go to our YouTube channel.
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We have new content every single day.
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And so there s lots of places to find me.
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That s beautiful.
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That s beautiful.
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Get the book.
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I asked you before about your three truths and your definition of greatness.
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I m curious.
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I m going to ask you a different question to end.
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If you could go to the last day for you, many years away, live as long as you want to live, but you could share only one piece of advice to your younger self, what would that piece of advice be?
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If you could look yourself, metaphorically, in the face and speak to your 15, 20, 25-year-old self, before all the pain, challenges, and all the service that you got into, what piece of advice would you give?
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Give life a chance, because I think I often rushed trying to hit benchmarks.
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I gotta do this on this schedule and this on this schedule, and if I don t, it ll be too late and all of that.
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And so I would really say give life a chance.
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And all my rushing, I think I sometimes did things too quick because I was so afraid the opportunity wouldn t come again.
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And so, you know, listen, Lewis, I look back at it.
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I m a lot older than you.
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And so the beauty of getting old is so great.
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It s so great.
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I m probably the only woman in the world who says that, but it s so great, and what s so great about it is it s like living in this beautiful data-driven world where you have all the evidence now.
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You re like, okay, this theory has now been upheld, or I ve now talked to enough people, and you re starting to lose people, and you re watching your friends lose their parents, or your friends are getting sick sometimes, and you re getting this different sort of view on life, but first of all,
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So now when I, David Kessler put it beautifully, like when I, we were talking to each other on her birthday, I m like, he taught me, like, I just got another birthday.
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Like this is, everyone s like, Oh, don t talk to me about it.
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I m like, talk to me about it.
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I just got another birthday.
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Like I am so happy.
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So there is a, um,
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I now feel a usefulness in me.
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I don t feel so hemmed in by like, I got to do this and I got to get this and I got to get married and I got to have the kids and I got, I m like, this is so fun.
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I feel like I m a 58 year old woman trapped in like a 29 year old entrepreneur s, no, 20, I m a, yes, I m trapped in the, I m a 29 year old entrepreneur.
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Dropped in a 58-year-old woman s body.
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And so I do need a little bit more sleep and probably have to go to the bathroom more than I do.
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But I love getting older.
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Talk to me when the hip starts going and everything actually has started going.
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I m like a car where you re like, do we trade this in for parts or do we keep fixing it?
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But I have to say that in line with that of give life a chance, for the first time I am giving life a chance.
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Interesting opportunities come up.
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Yeah, let s do it.
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My team s like, are you sure?
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That feels like a risk.
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I m like, at this age, is anything a risk?
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I m not that.
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It s like I m 90.
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Right.
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Let s go for it.
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Yeah, exactly.
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I just feel as though ... And even then, I was talking to Lisa Bilyeu, a friend of both of ours.
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She interviewed someone who s 103, just wrote a book.
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And I looked at Lisa and I said, I want to be 103, write a book.
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Judith Herman, she was 82 and she wrote that.
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Wow.
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of that wisdom, and again, I love getting older.
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And nobody critiques you for staying home on Saturday.
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I m like, that s where old people are supposed to be.
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And I m like, yeah, that s right, that s where I need to be.
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So I just put a blanket on my knees.
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I m gonna be so good at 90.
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I m gonna be the best 90 you ve ever seen.
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I m gonna rock it.
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So I love it.
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And I feel like every day is that, I now am actually allowing myself to be excited about opportunities, because I m no longer living
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To what other people want for me, and so I think I m I m sort of living in my humanist heaven right now.
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That s cool mom Appreciate you for your service.
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I appreciate you for your time.
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Thank you so much
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Here s to living life fully.
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Thank you, Lewis, and thank you for having me.
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I love seeing you as a friend.
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I was so grateful to have this conversation.
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I hope you enjoyed today s episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today s episode with all the important links.
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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
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exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
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Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.
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Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.
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I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.
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And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now, it s time to go out there and do something great.