This message brought to you by Snow Teeth Whitening. Whiten your teeth in nine minutes anywhere you go and use the promo code, let it snow for 25% off today. Check the description and pinned comment for that link. Thousands of people took to the streets of Washington, D.C. to support the president's attempts to block Joe Biden's election. Good morning and those demonstrations turning violent overnight. Overnight, tense clashes in Washington as thousands of Trump supporters rallied ahead of the electoral college vote. Violence erupting between pro and anti-Trump demonstrators leading to dozens of arrests. Here a female officer being assisted as she limps away from the protest zone. Four people reportedly stabbed. Welcome back everybody. If you're anything like me, you spent the weekend watching these mass demonstrations by the Proud Boys and Trump supporters in Washington. The one thing that I came away with is that it was actually really mostly peaceful. From what I saw, and I watched hours and hours over the course of the weekend, were mostly just Proud Boy members in large groups, I'm guessing mixed with other Trump supporters, marching around in Washington looking for Antifa but never really finding them. Anytime that they did find them, they got blocked by police and then they would just try to move and split up but every time that they would encounter Antifa they would be blocked off by the police. Now I do realize that there were a couple examples of small scuffles between small groups of Antifa and the Proud Boys. Now keep in mind that the Proud Boys and the other Trump supporters who were there were not there to like burn and loot or attack people. They were there specifically to show their support for Trump and if Antifa wanted to show up and fight with them they were ready for that too. The fact is there were thousands of Trump supporters there. If they wanted to be violent, you would know it. But unsurprisingly, since we're living under this Orwellian CCP-esque state media complex they saw it completely different. Thousands of people took to the streets of Washington DC to support the president's attempts to block Joe Biden's election. Good morning and those demonstrations turning violent overnight. Overnight tense clashes in Washington as thousands of Trump supporters rallied ahead of the electoral college vote. Violence erupting between pro and anti-Trump demonstrators leading to dozens of arrests. Here a female officer being assisted as she limps away from the protest zone. Four people reportedly stabbed. Wrong. Ask yourself, what was the one thing you didn't see there during this report where they're describing these protests as quote turning violent? Could it be maybe violence? I mean, I saw a couple people chatting at a car and a random scuffle with a few police with who knows who. Tell me, how is this mostly peaceful? Nationwide unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd could lead to the highest insurance payout of its kind in history. The protests in late spring were mostly peaceful, but damage from looting and arson will cost one to $2 billion in claims. Police in Portland rushed protesters late last night as they've done frequently during more than three months of clashes and demonstrations. Protests were mostly peaceful. Many of the protests have been peaceful. We can't emphasize that enough. Could be noted that the demonstration here in Washington and this is the case around much of the country as well. Those demonstrations were largely peaceful. I just want to reiterate, most of the protests that we saw this weekend were peaceful. But most protests remained peaceful. There have been mostly peaceful demonstrations. And I think it's so important, Karim, to make the distinction between, for the most part, these protests are peaceful. One woman told me she couldn't help but notice how beautiful it all was. But less than a dozen people out of thousands of people getting in a couple random fistfights is turning violent. This is an old media tactic. I remember back during the Obama years, during the tea parties, the media would always describe them as violent or turning ugly, yet would describe violent left-wing protests that involved fighting with riot cops as mostly peaceful. On the streets, there was anger. Riot police were called in to try to control demonstrators protesting outside the Capitol. Most were peaceful. A handful threw bottles at police and were arrested. And outside, protesters against the plan gathered on the streets of the Capitol where, late today, we learned words shouted turned very ugly. Late word from Washington tonight about just how ugly the crowds gathered outside the Longworth office building had become. I'd also like to point out that when Trump got elected and Democrats protested it, it was held up as democracy in action. But when it happens to Democrats, it's attempting to overturn an election. A charge that we were constantly leveling at them the last four years. So of course they have to now turn it around and blame us of what they were engaging in. They also heavily implied that the officer limping away and those four stabbing victims were all victims of Trump supporters. Wrong. Nope, they were just outright lying. According to the leader of the Proud Boys, all the victims of the stabbings were Trump supporters and the attacker was a left-wing Antifa member. This information was pretty easy to find. So I guess give me a job at ABC and NBC News. But I think we all see the tactic here. They're vague on purpose as to not generate any negative attention towards their foot soldiers. And overnight, the remnants of that pro-Trump demonstration here in Washington turning violent DC police say four people were stabbed, more than 20 arrested. See, again, it's implied that those four stabbings were committed by a Trump supporter. And it's amazing to me that they're given this much cover to a group that's known for stabbing people. All I'm saying is that this report shouldn't have been so vague and shouldn't have been implying that Trump supporters were the perpetrators. That's all for this one. If you found it informative, please share the video and hit like on your way out. If you'd like to support this channel, you can find all those links in the description or pinned comment. Thanks for watching. Keep coming back.


I was surprised for you. What'd you do? So weird and like messes with your eyes What is up Marvel Squad and welcome back to our channel? So as you guys can see I don't know if you can even tell but the quality might not be as good because my silly butt Forgot our vlog camera at the house.  This has never happened to me So team a riot definitely took a big fail on this one even though this isn't a prank But I did take a big out on this but the phone camera is gonna do you know you guys are gonna come along with me? So today we're gonna be surprising Bill with my new hair and surprising myself So I don't know if you guys remember I used to be a blonde for some reason my my mind is just wanting to go back Blonde again, obviously I don't want to go super blonde But I just realized the blonde compliments my face more so I'm gonna test it out I'm gonna see if I like it again, but guys you guys are gonna come with me I just made it to my sister salon guys if you guys live in like the new Lennox area you guys need to check out my sister Meg She works at fantastic Sam She's super talented and if you guys want to go support her go to go to fantastic Sam's in new Lennox She will hook you up, but guys so I have my extensions out I have not had my extensions out in freaking forever and my hair is really dirty in mine That's like day four hair, but just took my sentence out yesterday, so I'm extension list So basically I'm gonna go get my hair colored by Megan and then Ali is going to apply my extensions I am super excited to see the transformation and I know Bill is gonna go crazy He loves any color I give but he is obsessed with brunette, but I'm gonna be a brunette and a blonde I'm not gonna go fully blonde like how I used to be I was like platinum blonde but you guys are to come along with us and I'm excited make sure get video a big thumbs up if you guys haven't already subscribed make sure go Not hit that subscribe button join the Marvel family because today's about to be a good day So guys here's my hair without my extensions It's actually grown so much well I don't really know if it's grown that much But it looks so weird without having my long extensions because you guys know I wear like the 24 inch hair extensions So it's really crazy to see my hair without them, but I'm excited to glow my hair today All right guys.  I am so blonde.  Let's be crazy All right guys, so Megan just finished my hair allies doing my extensions now, so I cannot believe how blonde she got me I was so dark and it's crazy to me how blonde I am now. So stay tuned for the final results. I'm so excited Like this is insane. I am absolutely in love. I cannot wait to see Bill's reaction He's only gonna flip out because he loves it on like a mixture of like blonde and brown So this this is just crazy how well it turned out shots of my sister She did an incredible job also shot to Ali for doing my extension. She did amazing I'm literally obsessed with how well these turned out guys. I am like Screaming in the inside with how pretty it looks. I feel so much better I feel like the dimension on my face like oh my god guys. I'm obsessed now. It's time to go home and surprise bill I'm just so excited I ran in here and I grabbed the camera guys.  I was surprised for you.   Oh my god. It looks darker on camera, but it's so much lighter in person guys What do you get new coat and there's nothing nails you know time. No, what'd you do? You know what I did today. I got this one with my hair.   Well, let me look at it one more time. All right, three two. I go open them in three Baby, it probably looks really good. Let me see Oh my gosh guys Baby, it looks awesome. All right. No, apparently you're not ready. I've been ready I'm kidding. I love it I mean you look good either way, but this this is like this is like dimensional it down What do you mean it looks bad? It's weird it has like gray in it to see the gray That's so weird. It like messes with your eyes It's like blonde brown and gray all in one small squad Oh, I definitely think I knew you were doing your hair, but I didn't know you were doing all that Look so much better. I'm baby.  Oh, let me show you the selfie This will really show the selfie. Oh, yeah, stay tuned. Make sure to follow her on Instagram and me by the way But she'll probably posting these all in the snow. That's gonna look so good in Florida. Right, right? That's gonna look so good guys. We're moving to Florida and that's honestly perfect. That's obviously perfect Yeah, imagine like a palm tree right here an ocean right here Final look either like I got more progress to go and one time once I get the light What are you gonna go lighter? Well, I'm gonna touch up a little bit. Yeah. Oh my gosh Yeah, I know I like it a lot.  So yeah She took out her old extensions yesterday. Don't they feel nice and her hair literally had like no extension Is that how they're supposed to be? No, they're like nicer than the last ones. I had the last one for never like that No, not that so Girl right here. Oh my god I want the question of a day to be what color do you guys like very do you guys like me at the dark brown? Do you guys like me? I'm blonde and don't I think why because I'm blonde.  She's like do you like my hair darker light better?  You would look good in any color in between that so they're of course gonna like it Either way, just like yeah, you know my silly butt did I forgot the vlog camera today when I was vlogging this and I forgot Wait, so this is just the start of the video. No On your phone.  Oh my god. I was so mad at myself. Damn. I didn't know oh my god I would have made sure you didn't forget it if I knew you were filming, but I had no idea She was filming this video for like me. So I was going to get my hair Yeah, no, I didn't think you were gonna do all this though. Is it crazy? Yeah, you oh my god. I thought you were just getting some like different extensions in or something That looks good. That's really good. Dude her hair yesterday was like half as thick. No, look at like look at how full She has like a lion's mane right now. It's so funny. Let me see. Oh No, you look good babe, but that was low key. That was not a good picture. That was that was a horrible picture. I'm not gonna lie Why are you taking why are you taking those actually because I was taking those for the thumbnail like for the before It was ugly. It was just like not not your best Now you're cute. You're cute no matter what.  Yeah, I'm glad that I love it. It looks really good, babe I love it. I can't wait to be taken picture with this girl It looks better with me. Your hair looking way too dark like kind of like offset me in a way Like it didn't it didn't vibe as well as like both white hair This is just the mood and it's only the first process of my hair. Give me some high fives Guys comment down rate her hair one out of ten I better be seeing some tens in the comments literally ten out of ten for me Mariah. I love it snap.  Oh You like your hair? Let's do it. Just let's rate it. All right snap. Oh All right, he's running away. I don't know if he likes it actually you kind of match him Wait, hold on. Hold your hair up to his body. Look at You kind of matches hair right here, babe is fur. That's so funny Oh Lookie you're asleep. He was sleeping all day Mariah. He's literally just a little look at him. Oh He's like all right. I just want to go do my thing now I just want to go back to bed again, but anyways guys I hope you enjoyed today's video make sure to comment down below what looked you guys like ready guys like my blonde Are you like guys like like my brown content below what you guys think I definitely think the blonde of the blonde fitting I love either way and sorry about her filming on her phone earlier. I'm still sure it came out great And yeah guys, I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. What do you rate it? What do you like very much? I have a 10 out of 10. Okay, so that's my blonde better. Yes I like you no matter what you look really good. Well, thanks. I always need you He said he said he likes it. He just wants to have Have his own look at him. He's like nope. Don't touch me You can't resist no matter how hard he wants to not be right here. I'll take I cannot resist No, no, I didn't He is doing so much better. He's back to his normal self seriously. No, I don't snap is all good I know his that other video that kind of scared us But he look at him. He's just back to a normal loving cat. Nothing's happened knock on wood since that video then so All right guys make sure you give this video a big thumbs up you guys have already make sure you Gotta hit that subscribe button join the marble family and we'll see you guys


Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the highly respected leader and general manager of Hawaii News Now. She is Katie Pikman, and today we are going Beyond the News. Hi, Katie, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Aloha, Rusty. Thank you so much for letting me be one of your guests today. I have so much enjoyed watching your show, and I just feel very lucky to be here today with you. Oh, thank you, Katie, and you've been making such a great positive impact in our community, and I want to first ask you if you can share a bit about your background. Absolutely. Well, if we go way back, I was born in a suburb of Chicago. It's called Oak Park, and that was definitely very, very formative to who I am now. It was a town that was going through a lot of change and really focused on what it looks like to integrate as the towns in Chicago were experiencing a lot of racial change very quickly as different families of color were moving into white neighborhoods. So I was very fortunate to be part of a group of committed individuals to creating a diversified village, and then being right next to Chicago, there was so much happening, and it definitely impacted the start of my career. But really, what I always imagined I would be Rusty was a movie director. From the very beginning of my upbringing in Oak Park, I had actually written a screenplay about our town and all of the changes that had gone through. And so I was drawn to the TV industry because I thought, wow, that's probably the best way that I could get into this artistic screen-based career. And so I started my TV career back in 2000 and had just made a move to Rhode Island. So I joined WPRI, which was a CBS affiliate and WNAC, a Fox affiliate. And I was in the marketing production side of the business because I wanted to be a movie director. So I was writing commercials. I was writing marketing promos. And I actually remember one of my favorite memories was I really wanted to learn how to edit and how to actually make this content that I had written and bring it to life. And so I ended up learning that the avid editor we had on staff was going to quit the next day. So I paid him $75 to teach me how to edit over the weekend. And boy, my next week was editing commercials for our largest client that the station had. So it was it was a great opportunity to learn quickly. But really with that focus of becoming an editor and being in the production and a marketing side of the business, I was able to build just beautifully strong relationships with a lot of our local clients because we were sitting in an edit suite for hours together and inevitably you start talking about life and what's important to them. And I really learned that being able to listen to that, learn their stories and then tell their stories through the writing and the content creation that it was really powerful for them. So over time with building those relationships, the sales leaders saw that that was kind of a unique talent and drew me into the sales side of the business. So I actually I joined right in 2001, I want to say a week before September 11th. So it was absolutely an incredible time to be joining the sales side of the business. Actually as everything was canceling and finding really new ways to message for these important community partners in a time that was just so incredibly unprecedented and so serious. But I did that for six years. For six years, I took my my talents into the sales world and what really helped me was having that background with telling stories, creating content for people and then using it to be able to make their marketing campaigns really strong for them. And then I got the opportunity in 2008. Again, another really monumental time in our history as the financial crisis was happening to go into sales leadership. And just loved the ability to work with all of these salespeople to basically diversify their skills. And and instead of just being sales focused and money focused, talk about how do you connect with those clients and how do you learn their stories and really be meaningful in supporting the marketing efforts. And then after doing that until 2014, I got a great opportunity to move to Hawaii to join another station in our family of stations as the director of sales. And that led me to move to this this place that I am so so proud to call home with my husband and two little boys. Well, Katie, I I still believe there's a lot of time for you to become a movie director still. Yes, I I see that too. Every once in a while when I'm watching credits, and I haven't been to a movie theater in a long time, but I just imagined my name rolling up in the in the director credit. So thank you for that belief in me, Rusty. Now, Katie, I know that you work closely with the previous general manager, Rick Blangiardi, who's our current mayor, as we all know. And what what do you say? I mean, why was he a successful leader for Hawaii News Now? Well, so many reasons. And I'll be very open. I loved working for Rick Blangiardi. First, as so many of us have experienced, if you get to be in close contact with him, he has amazing energy, and it's the kind of energy that you feel when you walk into a room with him, and it's really positive. And it feels good to be in that type of energy. One of the things that I think has made his leadership so powerful is that when you are with him, he really gives you his attention. So you feel seen and you you get time with him. And he has great, great confidence in himself, but he also is very generous with sharing that confidence in you and what he believes you can do. And frankly, it makes you want to work harder. So, you know, you're already he's very good at surrounding himself with people who are at the top of their field and doing their best work, but then has this wonderful additional skill of inspiring you to do even better than you'd ever done before.  He's a coach. And those coaching skills that he brought from being a football coach for years really have they're very effective in a business atmosphere, especially in a TV station like this, where really the work can be. You can feel like you're in a grind sometimes. And each year you start over and you're like, OK, here we go again. But what I loved about it, when I was his director of sales, we would get to a point where we might have done so well for the month. And he would look at us and look at all our success. And he's like, well, is that it? Are you going to take a knee? And you would just say, OK, let's see what else we can do. But he definitely inspired you to just keep working towards your absolute best. Oh, I totally agree. Mayor Rick is is fantastic. And Katie, how would you describe your leadership style? Well, I think in your books, talk a lot about this, but it's ever evolving. I'm really always trying to look closely at myself and the choices that I'm making and evaluate that work. Could I do better? What would I do different next time? And just make sure that I'm learning constantly. I definitely am a consumer of all sorts of leadership materials and great books like yours to leadership podcasts. But I really like to think of myself as having a collaborative leadership style until I became the general manager of what you use now. I was in the sales field for a very long time. And frankly, that was something I knew very well. So I would be in a zone and part of my leadership style then was work ethic. I always knew that I would work as hard or harder than everyone around me. And and, you know, and basically lead by example, by always working so hard. Well, now that I'm the general manager and truly don't have a background in the very diverse departments of our station from engineering to marketing to news to sales to the business office. I've really had to learn how to lean on the leaders around me and collaborate with them with coming together with a common mission and goals. But figuring out how I can work with them so they can lead their teams with their special expertise in each one of those those areas. I also on one of the things I noticed from Rick's style and I loved was he'd always say, get me to yes, you know, you bring me an idea. Give me the rationale to get me to say yes to your idea. Well, I would describe myself more as I'm already at yes, because I just love to honor people's ideas and work to try to make them happen. And then the next phase is really figuring out how do we stay at yes because there is definitely investigation and things we have to do to make sure we're we're focusing our resources and efforts on the right things. But more than anything, I would say I am always focused on prosperity. I really believe that you'll rarely hear the words impossible come out of my mind or my mouth. And it's just because I believe in anything is possible. And I really believe in the people that I get to be surrounded by here at Hawaii News Now. So I like to focus on what we can do. I like hearing your insights, Katie, and your Hawaii News Now Sunrise Team continues to be the number one show, morning show. And why what do you think are the reasons why for that? Well, that's actually the easiest question you've asked me. That is all team, team, team and a heap of phenomenal chemistry. So from the behind the scenes people of Sunrise, you have the absolute best in the business producers, technical media producers, photographers, editors, just people behind the scenes, putting that four and a half hour Monday through Friday news program together. And then you have the most incredible on your team. And you have Grace and Steve, Guy and Lacy, Billy V. Howard. You have Casey out there reporting and you really couldn't ask for better chemistry, talent and truly authentic relationships.  Well, what's great is that they really do. And sometimes I guess you can fake that. But in this case, they don't have to. So it's it's a really nice dynamic in the morning. And it's it's a big responsibility to, as you know, wake up that early and come on and really start not only our Hawaii News now day, but also the day of all of the viewers in the community. And they take such pride in doing that. And because they do such a good job and they have such great chemistry in that ensemble style of a news program, it really affects and impacts the rest of our day, keeping us successful and keeping that piece really high for the viewers. And it just sets such a powerful tone of positivity and success for our day until we wrap at the end of the 10 p.m. newscast. You're right. I mean, it's great to start off the day like that. And consistency.  And Katie, many of my friends, including myself, really enjoy watching Keahi Tucker and Stephanie Lum. Why why do they make such a great anchor team together? Well, I would say overall, it's excellence. I mean, they are the best in the business and they both are. And they've worked very, very hard to get to where they are today. I mean, I know that you've had Keahi on as a guest before and he shared a little bit about his background, but man, he left Hawaii and really put in some meaningful time in other markets to gain experience and learn how to serve audiences. And then to be able to come back here and also then take all that talent and then serve the community that he loves. Man, that was an investment in himself that's really paid off. And very similarly, Stephanie, you know, she has been in so many different roles in this industry and she worked in Guam. But really, one of the things that I admire about the two of them so much is they put in so much work behind the scenes. So it's not just coming to the desk and reading the news. From the moment they walk into this building, they are writing. They are being part of putting that newscast together and they care very deeply about the experience that our viewer has when watching the newscast that they're in every minute up till during the show is they're in action, making sure that those newscasts are serving the viewer with whatever the focus of the day is for the day. But most importantly, this is this is their community. So they are honored to serve the place that they grew up in. And it's just it's really rare to have two superstars in a newscast like that. So I think that's probably why we all enjoy them together so much. I completely agree with you, Katie.  And I also enjoy watching Mahelani Richardson, Ashley Nagaoka, your weather anchors, Guy Hagi, Jennifer Robbins, Ben Gutierrez. They all have great character. Now, how important is is character in the news business? Wow, just hearing you say all of those names of the incredible people, colleagues of mine, I get to work beside. I feel so fortunate. And you're right, great character is key because it builds trust. And given the news landscape nationally, man, are we proud to have the trust of our community? And we don't take it for granted. Our team, those people that you mentioned, they work hard every day to ensure that we're fulfilling our responsibilities to Hawaii as an ethical, accountable, diverse newsroom. And, you know, in this business right now, the definition of leadership can often be confused with ratings. And, yes, high ratings are great and they can be interpreted as leadership in this business, but true leadership and character comes from the credibility and reliability of your work. And there's just no dispute that that team and Hawaii News now really owns that leadership role. Oh, yeah, I totally see it. And, Katie, you mentioned my books earlier. I want to ask you, what are some things that really stood out to you in the books? Well, first, I just want to congratulate you on writing two incredibly successful and impactful books and just focusing on such an important topic that is important to focus on throughout your whole career if you're blessed to be a leader. So with beyond the lines, beyond the game, I just want you to know both are in my kindle right now. And I've been really learning a lot and appreciating reading them. Some of what really resonated with me is I see a lot of your topics and your writing is focused on keeping a high performing team at the top of their game. And that is truly our focus at Hawaii News now. We are in the big leagues from an industry perspective, from our market for sure. And we are in the we have the best of the business working here. And so having these self driven professionals working each day to do their best work, how is how can I as a leader support this level of drive and excellence? So two of the things that I really appreciated in your books were you talked about sharing appreciation, you know, with your players and noticing their effort, noticing their dedication and growth. And I've felt for a long time, I remember recognizing this thought process in my mind of I would think such nice things about the people that I work to beside and yet would keep those things to myself. And I made it a practice of if a wonderful thought or something I'm observing about a colleague or, you know, a community partner is going through my head, I'm not going to keep it to myself. I'm going to share that. And I really appreciated that you made that a point in your books to talk about. The other piece I loved that resonated was you talked about investing in people and that whole idea of, well, what happens if they leave? And then the thought of, well, what happens if they stay and you didn't invest in them? And I very much agree with that, that mindset. So from training opportunities to really focusing on ways where we can enhance people's quality of life, that is a big focus for me and the leadership team here at Hawaii News Now. And, you know, those things will make an impression on people and whether they choose to continue their career here at Hawaii News Now or they take all these skills somewhere else, they will remember that investing in people is important and spread that practice. So I'm a big fan and can't wait to finish reading your books. Well, Katie, I love what you mentioned there. I mean, it's it's so important. I mean, to really, like you said, acknowledge people when they're really doing great things and to really let them know that it's that we see that. And then to really strive for that superior culture of excellence. So I'm trying to inspire the world. Yes, but you're doing a great job. Now, Katie, can you share what are some of the challenges you deal with in the news industry? Absolutely. And because the news industry, I've worked in this business since I started in 2000, but with being able to now be in this unique situation, this unique position of general manager, I wanted to really talk about this regularly with the news leadership team. And they shared some of their takeaways from what are our most pressing pressing challenges right now that have had an impact on me. So one of the things that we talk about all the time is that people are absolutely our most valuable asset.  We've seen it in ways that we had never seen before, just dealing with anxiety, dealing with covering just loss and really tough stories over and over again. Can that can have such a hard impact, especially on newer people to this industry, young producers, photographers and reporters. So just like everyone else is experiencing and has experienced these last two years, our team are reporters, photographers, producers and other professionals. They need the opportunity to step away from the daily grind and reflect on their practice. And it's really tough to do in a twenty four seven newsroom. And so our newsroom leaders have really focused on making it a priority to ensure that the team members have time to to support them, to innovate and to pursue a lot of different passion projects. So I think you may have seen if you follow what you use now, as you said you have, we've launched a lot of podcasts over the last two years. So we've launched podcasts that are making our news more accessible to people who like to listen to podcasts, whether they're outside walking or they're in their cars. But we've also launched a lot of new, passion inspired original podcasts from our team. So there are shows like Mothership with Stephanie Lam and it has her two best friends and they talk about parenthood. They talk about friendship and lessons they've learned along the way. And then they always have a featured guest who's very on topic with things that are happening that we're focused on. We have H&N off there, which is our way of being able to bring you the full interview, not just a sound bite here and there, but with a meaningful newscaster or newsmakers that are in our community. And then we even have a podcast series right now. It's called Repairing Earth and it's produced by one of our digital team, Emily Cristobal, and it showcases people who are really fighting climate change in our own backyard. But these were all born out of our team's inspiration and a passion for these topics. And so being able to support that we found is a really good way to help with refueling this very hardworking team. But I guess the biggest challenge slash opportunity right now is really trying to manage and attract new people to our profession so they can grow their portfolios and their skills. And one of the ways that we're doing that is we really focus on a strong internship program. And we find that a good percentage of those interns return here and become future producers, reporters, even on air posts. So it's it's been an incredible, incredible resource for us. But the last thing I would just say and you and I were talking about this earlier is the television news business is just one that requires constant innovation and creativity and investment. So that's one of the things that can be a challenge because those resources that we we need to be able to do that come out of our business community being able to really understand the value of our products. So our sales team and the professionals that are talking to those business leaders are always ensuring they understand why these why these products and news programs we have are so valuable to invest in. Katie, I really like hearing your insights. And yes, it's all about being creative and innovative.  Now, how did that come about? Well, it's kind of funny because, you know, taking a program like that and going for a certificate certification takes time and having kind of that work ethic that I like to pride myself on. I've never ever made time for myself to to do those types of courses that felt like a value added. But when I was the local sales manager after having been a solo salesperson for years, I was pregnant with my first child and went on maternity leave. And of course, had never understood what downtime looked like. So I signed myself up for a life coaching certification course. And I really truly I am fascinated by people and really believe that with the proper support and coaching, we are capable of anything. So I wanted to be able to meaningfully add to my skill set of supporting the team members that I work with and then even, you know, people in the community beyond the teams that I was on. And what I found by having these life coaching skills is you had real tools and tactics for keeping people excited and high when they were in their best time of life. But then you also had great tools for helping people shift perspective. You know, if they were in a place where they're at a crossroads and you really needed to be able to help them look at all the different roads they had ahead, you suddenly had a tool for that. And then I think most meaningful and something I would put apply over the last two years is that the ability to also honor when people are in really tough times and making space for that and not trying to brush aside that, wow, this is hard. But making space for that and then starting to figure out, OK, well, how are we going to move forward? So I think that just any time you can add to resources in your toolkit, it just helps to continue your leadership journey. Well, Katie, I without a doubt, I mean, being a life coach as well. I mean, greatly enhances you as a leader, just because what you said earlier about building relationships and having the awareness to really just help people and their well-being. And Katie, I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up. Yeah, what's what's a valuable lesson you learned in life so far? There are so many. But I think the most valuable for me is really just that we are in control. I am in control of my perspective. And so each day, I mean, there are challenges I never thought I would see before in these unprecedented times. You know, sometimes instead of feeling like a leader, I feel like the school nurse and doing roles that I hadn't ever done before. But instead of letting that shape how I'm going to go forward, each day I can start fresh and decide to do my best. And my best might look different today, that it'll look tomorrow, but resetting each day and coming at it with, you know what? I can do my best work and I can start fresh today has really made me feel up for the challenge and just committed to doing the best work I can. Well, Katie, I have to say you are a fantastic leader and it was a pleasure having you on the show today and the impact that that you're making in our community is just priceless. So I want to really thank you. Thank you, Rusty. I have love this time with you and thank you for the work that you do. It's really meaningful and helping support us on our leadership journey. Thanks, Katie, and thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Katie and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech, Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Of the many, many strange things in my office that have either been accumulated by me or found and recovered since moving in, the most useful has been this painted gold brick, which has mostly been used as a counterweight to make a crude but effective overhead visualiser. And I've often wondered, well, what is it actually made of? Well the easiest way to figure this out was with density, which requires weighing and dividing by volume. Volume of course is trivial, as the simple shape removes the need for some kind of fancy water displacement experiment. The brick is 20.3x7.6x3.9 for a total volume of just over 600 cubic centimetres. Knowing that something this heavy would do irreparable damage to some expensive and well-calibrated precision equipment, if this thing went anywhere near our analytical balances, and also disappointed that my preferred description of chose was neither a metric nor SR unit, I had to make do with some less precise bathroom scales transported from home, insert a problematic lockdown weight gain joke here. This showed that the brick weighs about 6.9kg, a very nice, rounded number. To put this weight in perspective, this is equivalent to about 20 of these drinks cans that I have lying around after an event which all passed their use by dates before the pandemic even started. In total these cans occupy over 10 times the volume of the brick. A simple division of this 6.9kg by 600 cubic centimetres yields an answer of 11.47 per cubic centimetre, which is a shade over but well within the error range for pure lead, which has an established density of 11.34g per cubic centimetre. The only other competitor for something with this density would be Thalium, but given that a brick this size would cost over $3,000 and the fact that I am still alive after handling it suggests this is highly unlikely. For comparison, 600 cubic centimetres of water would weigh only 0.6kg, and a quick division by the molar mass of water yields about 33 moles of water, that's about 20 septillion water molecules. By lucky coincidence, that's about the same as the number of atoms that would be in the lead brick. So why is the brick so much heavier? The overwhelming majority of the mass of an atom comes in the atomic nuclear switch by volume is an incredibly small part of the atom. As the mass of each element increases, their size doesn't change by an equivalent amount. I'm going to almost oversimplify here for the sake of time, but the nucleus of an atom increases in size across the periodic table, and the positive charge holding the atom together also increases. This exerts more of an electrostatic force on the electrons, reducing their size going left to right on the periodic table. While going down each group, elements still get larger, it means that the metals found in the bottom right where we can find lead tend to be smaller than we'd expect if it wasn't for the complexities of electronic structure and special relativity. The volume of a lead atom is approximately twice that of aluminium, but that means it packs in almost three times as many of electrons per volume with an atomic nucleus that weighs nearly eight times as much. In fact, going by density, a brick of aluminium this size would contain about twice as many atoms, but contain only half their mass. That means you get a lot of mass for not very much space, and means if you drop a litre of water on your foot, it will likely hurt, but if you drop this on your foot, you might end up in hospital.


Hello, everyone. Good morning. This is a seminar organized by the inimitable Barbara Jura, the narcissist coach in Budapest, Hungary. Hungary is in Europe. Europe is on Earth. And Earth is part of the solar system. And if this is not enough, today we are going to discuss astrophysics in mental health. Because the narcissist is a black hole. And this is a cosmic object, as some of you know. So the seminar is a total of six hours. The first part is two hours, then questions and answers, one hour. And there's a break, short break, then a second part of two hours, and then questions and answers for yet another hour. You can post your questions to my right, to the right of my screen. There's a chat function, and you can type your questions there. I promise to review them and to ignore all the questions I don't want to answer. Because that's the kind of guy I am. Who am I, actually? My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. And I'm a professor of psychology in Southern Federal University in Oostov-on-Don, the Russian Federation of All Places. And I'm also a professor of psychology and a professor of finance in the Outreach Program of the CS Consortium of Universities, Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies. Phew! That was long. Now kids and kids listen well. The first part is focused on the narcissist's psychology and the psychodynamics of his relationship with you. So it's a deep dive into what makes the narcissist stick in your relationship with him and how does this affect your psychology. So the first part is entirely dedicated to the psychology of relationships with narcissists. On both ends, the narcissist and its hapless victim, recipient, survivor, whatever you want to call yourself. That's the first part. The second part of the seminar, about two and a half hours from now. The second part will be a new stream, another stream, and it will be about two and a half hours from now. And the second part, I will deal with coping strategies, coping strategies within the relationship. And even more importantly in my view, coping strategies after the relationship had ended, coping strategies in the aftermath of the relationship. So stay tuned either for both parts or for the second part.  There'll be a new stream dedicated to practicalities, how to, kind of how to stream. If you are curious about what's going on in the narcissist's mind and what his mind does to your mind, then you're in the right place and definitely with the right guide, which happens to be So without further ado, and by the way, good morning to all of you from all over the universe, the known universe, and without further ado, let's dive right in. As you all know, relationships with narcissists go through predictable, a predictable cycle. It starts usually with love bombing, love bombing. And if the narcissist is psychopathic, there's a stage called grooming. It then evolves into a honeymoon.  I will come to it a bit later. Then there's a process of idealization, actually co-idealization, an introjection, snapshotting. Then there is the inevitable devaluation, then there is discard, and then there is replacement and repetition compulsion. These are the phases of the cycle of the relationship with the narcissist. And I will dwell on each and every one of these phases and explain to you in depth the psychology, the engine behind this inexorable, inevitable, ineluctable cycle. Why does the narcissist keep doing it? Why does he keep finding new intimate partners, idealizing them, and then devaluing them, discarding them? Why go through all this? What's the benefit? And so I will explain to you that the narcissist actually cannot help himself. And this is why it's called a repetition compulsion. Before we go there, a few things about narcissism. Narcissism is widely considered to be a personality disorder.  I think the personality is a fictitious construct that has no grounding in any studies or anything we know about human beings. Personality ostensibly is lifelong, it's fixed, it's immutable, but of course it's nonsense. People are not like lakes, they're like rivers. People flow, people evolve, people change. Sometimes they change within months. There's no such thing as personality. Similarly, I disagree with the word disorder, but not to make this too academic, I think that narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder and even narcissistic style. People who are just narcissists, a-holes, jerks. I think that these people actually had experienced complex trauma in childhood. They are the said outcomes, the said reactions to CPTSD, complex trauma. Now, this complex trauma must have happened in the formative years. In psychology, the years between six months and six years. This period in human life is when we are essentially formed. We use metaphors such as core identity or self or ego, superego and id, if you're a Freudian. These are all of course metaphors. No one had captured an ego or a self in a bottle. These are allegories, similes. But something happens in these first six years of life. And if you're exposed during these years to a dead mother, dead not in the physical sense, but dead in the emotional, psychological sense.  And so on and so forth. A mother who spoils the child and prevents the child from getting in touch with reality. And so a mother who hinders the child's personal development and growth. A mother who does not allow the child to develop personal firm boundaries. A mother who refuses to let the child go, refuses to allow the child to separate and become an individual in a process known as separation, individuation. All these things are very traumatic because the child cannot become. There's no way the child can feel separate from his mother. And so he just dies. He dies mentally and emotionally. And both people with borderline personality disorder and people with narcissistic personality disorder are actually victims of childhood abuse. Now I know that many of you would scoff or be startled by the idea that narcissists are victims. But of course they are. Narcissists are children who had chosen a specific solution, trying desperately to cope with an environment which had been toxic and not conducive to growth.  There are a few things, characteristics of narcissism, pathological narcissism, because there is also healthy narcissism. But we, in our seminar today, are going to limit ourselves to the pathological kind. And when we observe pathological narcissists in their habitat, which is the relationship with you, we come across certain specific behaviors. First of all, narcissists self-soothe. They have self-soothing behaviors. And these self-soothing behaviors are usually in the form of addictions. So narcissists very commonly are addicted to alcohol, or to drugs, or to the internet, or to pornography, or to workaholism, or to shopping, or to traveling. Whatever they do, it's addictive. And the reason they need to self-soothe is because of something called prolonged grief syndrome. Prolonged grief syndrome means that the narcissist mourns and grieves his childhood, his lost childhood. He is constantly said, dysphoric, about what he could have become. He mourns and grieves his lost potential. The fact that he had never become an adult, that he was never allowed to evolve and to develop.  The narcissist's background is sad. And so he needs to soothe himself all the time. Another thing common to narcissists is repetition compulsion. They tend to repeat the same behaviors, regardless of outcomes. Someone said erroneously, but never mind, that the hallmark of craziness is repeating the same thing, the same behaviors, over and over again, expecting different results. Well, that's the narcissist for you. The narcissist has repetition compulsion. In his relationships, for example, the narcissist would select an intimate partner and then go through the same mistakes he had committed in previous relationships. The devaluation, the discard, the callousness, the ruthlessness, the cruelty, the sadistic abuse, etc. He just can't help it. That's the meaning of the word compulsion. Compulsion means he's compelled to do what he does. It's not, it doesn't control his behaviors. The second thing, the next thing is, by the way, say hello to Mini. The next thing is dysfunctional attachment. Most narcissists have avoidant or insecure attachment styles. More likely avoidant dismissive. Avoidant dismissive attachment styles are attachment styles which are not conducive to bonding. They're not real attachment. Actually, I'm proposing another style of attachment. I call it flat attachment. I think narcissists are incapable of getting really attached to anyone, really bonding with anyone, really committing to anyone and really investing in anyone. And there are many reasons for this, but suffice it to say that they are incapable. They also don't have access to positive emotions. Early in childhood, the narcissist had learned that positive emotions such as love lead to pain result in hurt. So he doesn't want to do this anymore. He doesn't want to love anymore. And he's afraid to tap into his negative emotions, positive emotions. I'm sorry, because his positive emotions are marinated in a reservoir of historical pain and hurt. If he were to love again, he would feel very threatened. So he's incapable of emotions. And there are other reasons why he's incapable of bonding and attachment. I will touch upon this a bit later. The next thing you need to know about the narcissist is that he is discontinuous. There's no continuity there, no coherence, no cohesion, no core, nothing stable. The narcissist is shape-shifting, mutable, exactly like a river. He has dissociative self-states. He appears to be different persons. It's like his shape is shifting or switching between personalities. He has no memory of the vast majority of his life. He experiences his life as something out there. He is merely the observer, the spectator, the director of a movie or an actor on a stage in a theater play called My Life. So he doesn't experience his life directly, but only indirectly through the mediation of a narrative. That makes it very easy for him to forget things. So he does all the time, he dissociates in a desperate effort to not appear dissociative, to not appear forgetful, to not appear demented and senile. In a desperate effort to cover up for these memory gaps and identity lapses, the narcissist lies. He confabulates, he invents stories which are plausible and probable but need not be true.  And many people perceive this to be gaslighting, but gaslighting actually is a psychopathic behavior. Gaslighting implies premeditation, intention, goal orientation. The narcissist's only goal, only wish, only purpose in life, and the sole engine of meaning is narcissistic supply. That's all he wants. He doesn't need to gaslight you. But he ends up doing it because he lives in concocted fictitious narratives that have little to do with what had really happened. You must remember that the narcissist is a case of arrested development. He is an infant. He has infantile defense mechanisms such as splitting. The narcissist spends most of his life in regressive infantilism. He is maybe two years old. He is maybe four years old. In the best case, he's nine years old, but he's never, never an adult, not even an adolescent. So narcissists avoid shirk, adult chores and adult responsibilities. They are Peter Pan's syndrome. They are eternally stuck in an early phase of life, unable to extricate themselves and later unwilling to extricate themselves.  And they throw temper tantrums. If you don't, they'll exploit rats. Part of the reason for this is cognitive distortions. The narcissist does not perceive reality properly. The narcissist distorts reality cognitively. A prime example is grandiosity. The narcissist perceives himself as God-like, perfect, brilliant, omniscient, or knowing, omnipotent, or powerful. And of course, it's a wrong self-perception. He is not like that. But he fully believes that he is. So he distorts reality. He fakes it. He reframes it. He reforms it and reshapes it to cater to his need to perceive himself as God-like. It's a kind of private religion, if you wish. And this creates cognitive distortions. Gradually, the narcissist drifts away, drifts away from reality. Clinically, we call it impaired reality testing. He becomes more and more delusional, more and more adrift and detached from what we, all healthy people, consider to be the real, the essential. He lives more and more inside his head, inside his mind, inhabiting an internal space with representations of people out there known as internal objects or introjects. He retreats and withdraws into the safety of this boundary space known as mine. And these are the only boundaries he does have. So it's perfectly, perfectly logical to say that narcissism is a form of mild psychosis. Otto Kernberg had suggested this in the 70s. The narcissist also suffers from emotional or affective dysregulation, but not like the borderline. The borderline experiences empathy and she experiences strong emotions. These emotions overwhelm the borderline. Take over her, subdue her. She drowns in these emotions. She's unable to function anymore because she's flooded with a tsunami of feelings and effects and memories and so on. That's the borderline. The narcissist is different. His emotions and his effects are also dysregulated, but in a different way. He has something called inappropriate effect and reduced effect display. In other words, the narcissist experiences only an extremely limited set of emotions known as negative affectivity. He experiences envy. He experiences anger. He experiences all the negative emotions. And in an attempt to fit into society somehow, he either demonstrates or shows inappropriate emotions, inappropriate effect. For example, he may laugh at a funeral or he may find a tragedy very comic. And on the other hand, he may suppress all emotional displays, reduced effect display. So he would appear to be unflappable with a poker face, untouchable, impermeable, invulnerable, sang foie, etc. The narcissist doesn't have acting out. He doesn't act out the way the borderline does.  He rarely loses control because orthological narcissism is focused on control. It's a control adaptation. It's a positive adaptation in early childhood in an environment that had been chaotic and hectic and unpredictable and dangerous and ominous and threatening. So narcissism is about control where the borderline loses control when she switches into the secondary psychopathy mode. When she anticipates humiliation and rejection and abandonment, she just loses it. The narcissist doesn't. He actually, if anything, tries to reassert control, reassume control, usually by preempting abandonment. He abandons first, crawling and so on. But the narcissist exactly like the borderline has episodes of decompensation. Decompensation is when the narcissist's defenses crumble, fall apart, when he can no longer lie to himself and tell himself that he is Godlike, that he is a divinity or a deity, that he is perfect and brilliant and handsome and amazing and a professor of psychology. So he cannot tell himself all these things and then he falls apart. He falls apart in two ways. The mild form is known as narcissistic injury and the extreme form is known as narcissistic modification. When the narcissist decompensates, he doesn't act out. He doesn't go crazy.  He becomes depressed and anxious. This happens also to psychopaths who are beginning to discover the stereotype or the fearless psychopath is just that. A stereotype is not true. Psychopaths actually experience long periods of anxiety disorders, same with the narcissist. The narcissist's emotional dysregulation in the form of inappropriate and reduced effect has profound implications. The narcissist is unable to perceive external reality properly for the reasons that I had explained, but he is also unable to perceive internal reality properly. He has impaired internal reality testing and of course he has empathy deficits. It has only cold empathy, the cognitive reflexive part, but not the emotional part of empathy. So the narcissist begins to lose, to get lost. He's simply, he's disoriented. He can't evaluate or appraise reality externally properly and gradually he doesn't understand his internal reality properly. He loses touch with both the external and the internal and this is even more extreme than psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and paranoia. The narcissist in your life is likely to be not only a small kid, but a very, very terrified and scared small kid because it's a kid who doesn't understand the world out there and doesn't understand what is happening inside him. It is important to understand, it's important to grasp with the narcissist that his, whatever shreds of identity that he does have, they are negative. He is a negative identity. He defines himself in contra distinction to others. He defines himself by contrast, by comparison with others via relative positioning. If he's envious, I'm as good as or not as good as this or that person. So he's constantly comparing himself. He's likely to say, I'm never going to be like my father.  I'm, I think my boss is deficient. He's much better than him.  Even people he had never met, like political leaders, figures from history. And this creates something called negative identity. Negative identity is about rejecting, rejecting other people, rejecting their, their assets and rejecting their liabilities, rejecting their good traits and characteristics and rejecting their flaws and deficiencies. It's about rejecting the narcissist defines himself, acquires a kind of sense of identity. I call it pseudo identity by rejecting other people. But rejection becomes an organizing principle. Rejection rejection in the narcissist's life makes sense of his existence, imbues it with meaning and direction, gives it structure. It's a method of operation and M.O. modus operandi. So the narcissist begins to reject everything, everyone, especially himself. Narcissism is an extreme form of self-loathing.  And the answer to all this is, yes, in the case of the overt narcissist, but we are beginning to realize that the overt narcissist is actually not a narcissist, he's a psychopath. And the only real form of pathological narcissism is what used to be called, until now, covert narcissism or compensatory narcissists. So the compensatory narcissist is a narcissist who hates himself, loathes himself, considers himself secretly inferior as an inferiority complex a la adela. And so this kind of narcissists compensates by pretending that he is great, that he is Godlike, that he is all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect, brilliant, flawless, infallible. That's his compensatory mechanism. So this self-loathing compels the narcissist, forces the narcissist to put on a display of superiority, haughtiness, arrogance, and yes, rejection. But as I said, rejection metastasizes, it spreads, you can control it. If you relate to the world via rejection, then you will end up rejecting yourself. And this is the irony in narcissism. Deep inside, the narcissist despises himself, contemptuously relates to himself. Deep inside, the narcissist has auto-plastic defenses very similar to the neurotics defenses. He blames himself, he shames himself. There have been scholars such as Masterson who insisted that pathological narcissism is a form of dysfunctional coping strategy with shame. It is based on shame and the inability to process shame as a child. And so this would lead the narcissist to have a neurotic core. The inside of the narcissist is actually neurotic. And this is the original observation of Otto Kernberg in the 70s. He said that narcissism and borderline, which he thought were one and the same, narcissism and borderline are on the border. That's why he called it borderline. On the border between neurosis and psychosis. And I couldn't agree with him more. He was a great visionary who is now being vindicated. The narcissist says auto-plastic defenses internally, but because he rejects people all the time, he has alloplastic defenses externally. He blames people, his wife, his boss, his neighbor, his colleagues, his friends. You name it, the state, government, secret agencies, if he's a paranoid. So he blames everyone for everything wrong in his life, for every defeat, for every failure, for every mishap, for every erroneous decision and choice. And so he adopts alloplastic defenses. He attacks other people. He blames other people for everything that's wrong in his life. But this creates an external locus of control.   It's like confessing to being a plaything, an object, something that has no agency, no self-efficacy and no autonomy. Indeed, this is exactly how the narcissist feels. He feels that people are envious of him. He feels that people hate him. He feels that people are angry at him. And he's right on all three counts, by the way. And people in his mind are out to get him. They're out to control his life. They're out to demote him. They're out to hurt him. They're out to pain him. They're out to destroy his life. Everyone is an enemy. Everyone is a per-secretary object. One of the reasons that the narcissist sees only bad around him, only envy and anger, one of the reasons the narcissist is able to experience only negative effects and negative emotions is because of a process called bad object in projection.  If he performs, he gets love. If he does not perform according to maternal or paternal expectations, he doesn't get love. This gradually had convinced the narcissist, even as a child, that he is not lovable. He cannot be loved. So he internalizes this bad object. As a child, the narcissist in the making has two choices.  That's option number one. Option number two, mother keeps telling me all these things and because she's mother, she's always right. No child would choose the first option. No child would think bad things about mommy.  He cannot afford to think of mother as a bad, malevolent, evil object. He cannot afford to think of mother or father as defective, deformed, sick, dysfunctional. So he internalizes the bad object. He says, I'm bad. Mother is right. I'm bad. Father is right. I'm unworthy. They both right. I'm a disappointment. And this is called bad object introduction.  The narcissist does not want to be himself. He wants to be a false self. He wants to be someone else. And this process is clinically known as estrangement. He gets estranged from himself the way some couples get estranged from each other. So estrangement is an attempt to put distance between the narcissist and his internal bad object, because the internal bad object is harsh, sadistic, it's an inner critic. It's a super ego that keeps chastising, castigating, tormenting, hectoring, preaching, criticizing the narcissist. It's painful, it's hurtful, it's an annoyance, it's unsustainable. So the narcissist puts distance in this process of estrangement between his himself and himself. And the solution to this is the false self. The narcissist catexes the false self. He invests emotional energy in a piece of fiction, in a narrative, in a story, in a deity, in a divinity known as the false self. And he sacrifices to it its true self. But of course if you do this, if you divorce yourself, if you remove yourself from the scene, if you convert yourself from an existence, from a presence to an absence, if you become a void, if you become an emptiness, this is terrifying. This is perceived as dying, as a process of dying.  And this is of course a catastrophe. So the narcissist tends to catastrophize. He tends to expect doom and gloom. He has a negative pessimistic view of the world. He's likely to be extremely cynical. And he believes everyone is precisely like him. Everyone is callous and ruthless and merciless and pitiless and cruel and relentless in pursuing goals. So he catastrophizes. Because he catastrophizes, his anxiety levels rise. The narcissist is a very anxious person. And to cope with his anxiety, the narcissist engages in rituals. He becomes obsessive, compulsive. And one of these rituals is addiction. So most narcissists are addicts. The narcissist is afraid to confront his life. He's afraid to experience his life firsthand. He has an imaginary friend, an intermediary, the false self. And he inhabits a fantastic universe known as paracosm. The narcissist does not experience life. Instead, he lives in the future. He is afraid to come in touch, to get in touch with his past, with his emotions, with his personal history. So he deletes, he dissociates his past the same way borderlines do. He cannot live in the present because of the process of estrangement. So he inhabits the future, his future oriented, goal oriented. But this is of course compensatory. When you refuse to inhabit your present, when you refuse, when you decline to contemplate your past, you're actually rejecting yourself. It's a form of self-rejection. Scholars such as Harvey Clickley, Jeffrey Seinfeld, others, they kept insisting that the narcissism is about the rejection of life, about an emptiness that is all pervasive, a kind of black hole.  Some narcissists are unable to maintain a continuity of life this way. So they're very erratic. They drop everything. They start new projects and then stop. They start new new relationships and then bail out. They take effect. They remove emotional energy, emotional investment. So we see these narcissists as desentory, itinerant, unpredictable, unexpected. And so we tend to confuse this kind of narcissism with borderline. I'm telling you all this about the narcissist because if you have a narcissist as a partner, you need, in my view, to understand what's going on inside this mind. This mind which is demented and deranged and on the verge of psychosis and crosses the border very often. This mind which is tortured and tormented. This mind which is estranged. This absence which pretends to be a presence. This black hole which if you are not careful enough and you cross the event horizon will consume you and never let you out. You need to understand the dangers of living with someone like that. The only way to do that is to gain access to the user's manual, which I'm trying to do right now and right here in this confined time and space. You see, it is impossible to love other people if you do not love yourself. Narcissism is not about self-love. It's the antonym. It's the exact opposite of self-love. It's the ultimate form of self-rejection. The narcissist as a child kills itself, commits mental suicide and invents another guy, another image, the false self. By the way, of course, everything I say applies to female narcissists as well. Today, about half of all narcissistic personality disorder diagnoses are female, so women have caught up with men. So you can't love if you don't love yourself. All love, all love is self-love. When you love another person, you can see yourself through the eyes of your lover. The gaze of the lover defines you, allows you to apprehend yourself as an external object. Because your lover sees you as an external object, you're able to perceive yourself to self-perceive as boundary. The lover's gaze helps you to create boundaries, to delineate them, to become, to regulate your sense of self-worth internally, to take on the world, to become a better version of yourself. All these are precluded in the case of pathological narcissism. Narcissist doesn't have access to all this because he's incapable of truly loving another person. We'll talk about it a bit later. He is able of interacting with an intimate partner, but not in the way healthy people do. Narcissism is not self-love. There's no self to love. The narcissist has no ego. He has impaired reality testing, and so he outsources his ego-boundary functions. The mind of the narcissist is the combination, the collage, the kaleidoscope of all the observers, the people who observe the narcissist. All the sources of narcissistic supply put together and generate and create the narcissist's mind. It's a hive mind. It's a swarm mind. It's not a single unitary entity. And it shape-shifts all the time. So if there is no self there, if there is no ego there, the narcissist cannot self-love because there is no self. And because he cannot self-love, and because he thinks of himself as unlovable, most narcissists would tell you, I prefer to be feared than to be loved. And narcissists find expressions of empathy, compassion, affection, and love very awkward, very embarrassing, and sometimes repulsive. They reject such expressions. So the narcissist has an incapacity to love. In clinical terms, we say that there is a failure to generate self-objects or object representations. The narcissist can invest in you, his energy, his resources, even some emotions. He can perfect in professional terms, but he can never love you. You have never been loved. You had been bombed. There was love bombing. But love bombing has nothing to do with love because love bombing treats you as an object and converts you into a symbol, an introject, an internal representation in the narcissist's mind.  Love bombing is about getting rid of the real you and replacing it with some image. We'll come to it a bit later. Narcissism is a form of self-loathing. The child rejects his helpless self and his lack of self-efficacy. The child is ashamed of this learned helplessness. The child is terrified all the time because he cannot predict the arbitrary and capricious behaviors of adults around him. He doesn't understand their expectations and he knows that their love is intermittent. Intermittent and comes in bursts. The child is subjected to intermittent reinforcement early on. So the child withdraws. He creates the false self, which is everything the child is not. The child is helpless. The false self is all-powerful, omnipotent. The child cannot read or predict the adults around him. The false self is omniscient or knowing. The child is told that he is bad and unworthy and flawed. The false self is perfect.  The false self is brilliant, etc., etc. Narcissism can be easily described as a form of dysthymia, dysphoria, permanent depression, a prolonged grief over an internalized bad object that could have been loved, could have been allowed to develop, to separate, to individuate, to become a lovely, charming, amazing, intelligent adult. It is this denial of self-actualization, this denial of potential that is at the core of pathological narcissism, a prolonged grief response to what could have been to the lost potentials, to a life unlived. And so now we move from the narcissist's inner landscape to your relationship with the narcissist. We know in psychology that when people have unresolved issues, unsettled accounts, open conflicts, they tend to recreate them. They tend to repeat them. This is called repetition compulsion, a phrase coined by, of course, Wales, Zygmunt the Freud. We all engage in repetition compulsion, compulsion is big and small. But the narcissist's life, his psychology, is one giant repetition compulsion. The entire relationship with the narcissist, your relationship with the narcissist, is intended to recreate the dynamics of the conflict with the narcissist's mother during the formative years. The narcissist unconsciously keeps hooping that this time around, with this different mother, which is you, the outcome might be different. The power matrix may turn out differently. He and the mother could be equivalent, could have the same power, could negotiate, could compromise, could coexist.  And he tests you, he subjects you to tests. He abuses you.  Are you going to love him no matter what?  So, again, we revert to this definition, erroneous definition, of what is to be crazy. To be crazy is to engage in the same behaviors, time and again, expecting different outcomes. And that's precisely what the narcissist is doing. He's trying to resolve the early conflict with his mother, which had left him wounded and scarred for life. He's trying to solve it, what Freud called the archaic wound, and what Johann Lochkar calls the vulnerability spot of the vulnerable spot, the vispot. He's trying to heal through you, through your agency. He's trying to convert you into a mother, a maternal figure, and then reenact with you his childhood.  And the narcissist vainly hopes, and I will explain a bit later why vainly, but vainly hopes this time to be able to separate from you and to become an individual. He hopes to complete the separation individuation phase. And here I must explain or revisit the issue of separation individuation. Essentially, there are two phases of separation individuation in human life. The first one is between the ages of 18 months and 24 months. During the separation individuation phase, the child begins to venture out into the world. The child begins to give up on the idea that he and mother are one and the same. There's a single organism with two heads, maybe. This process, this psychological phase is called symbiosis, used to be called symbiosis. So then the child exits the symbiotic phase. He begins to realize that mother is a separate entity, that he and mother are not the same. There's a lot of terror. It's a traumatic realization. Because if mother is not the same as the child, she may abandon the child. And indeed, during this period, the child develops separation insecurity, also known as abandonment or separation anxiety. He's terrified that because mother is not separate from him, she will also go away and never return. But gradually, he overcomes this terror, this fear. And he begins to initiate separation, actually. He walks a few steps away and runs back to mommy. This is separation.  The child knows she's not going to punish him for trying to separate. She's not going to just walk away. She's not going to disappear on him. When his back is turned, as he ventures out into the world, grandiosely taking on reality, she's going to be there for him if he fails. She's going to be there for him if he wishes to return to the base and recuperate and recharge. That's the good enough mother.  She penalizes the child for any display of autonomy and independence and agency and self-efficacy. Gradually, the child learns to please mommy. He needs to stay tethered to her, attached to her in an invisible, umbilical cord. As though he had never been born, he needs, in other words, to go back into the womb. He needs to be unborn.  Only that way, mother will remain in his life happy and loving. Her love is conditioned upon his death. Mommy loves him only when he does not exist. Only when he seizes to show any signs of independence and autonomy. Only when he has no boundaries. Only when they are enmeshed, merged, infused.  The phrase dead mother was coined by Andre Green in 1978.   She aborts her child's attempts to become an individual, someone else, not her, an adult. And so the narcissism, pathological narcissism, is the outcome of aborted, aborted separation and individuation. Separation and individuation face gun awry. The good enough mother pushes away the child, encourages the child to become, to transform into an adult. The bad mother keeps him around her, possesses him, converts him into an object, and he never overcomes this.  But how does he bring these outcomes about? How does he convince you to become his mother? How does he engage you in what Sander called in 1989 the shared fantasy? He creates a fantastic space, fantastic space exactly, which reflects the space in his mind. His mind is a fantastic space where he creates an external fantastic space. And then he invites you in, enticingly, alluringly, in the love-bombing and maybe grooming stages. A honeymoon, permanent honeymoon, never to end. And he invites you in, and you can't resist. But very early on it becomes clear that he expects you to be much more than an intimate partner.  And so, at this stage, some potential intimate partners walk away. But the majority don't. And the question is, how come? Why do people lose their sense of self-preservation and self-defense in the face of the narcissist's shared fantasy? What is he offering to them that is so irresistible? And the answer is, he offers self-love. Now that sounds totally counter-intuitive. I've just said earlier that the narcissist is incapable of loving himself, mainly because he has no self, but also because he perceives himself as a bad, unworthy object. So how can he offer you self-love? Well, through the dual mothering or dual mothership mechanism. And here's the deal that the narcissist offers you as an intimate partner.   And this time you're going to allow me to separate and individuate. And I'm going to separate from you by devaluing you. I'm going to individuate by discarding you. And I'm going to do so from an empowered position, not as a helpless child anymore, but like as a boundary adult. So it's a bad deal on the face of it. The narcissist lets you know pretty early that if you don't conform, he's going to dump you. He's going to devalue and discard you. He needs to do that. It's another way to reenact, to replay the separation individuation phase, except by separating from you and by individuating. So he needs to devalue and discard you. This is a compulsive.