Understanding Narcissism and Empathy Lessons on Human Behavior Feat. Dr. Ramanai

So let me ask you to define narcissism and let's make some distinctions between sociopaths, psychopaths, because I think that'll help with the foundation here.

So I think the key here, number one, what is narcissism? It's a lack of empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance, inability to manage any kind of disappointment. And that tends to be manifested as rage, chronic validation seeking. But all of this, envy of other people, but all of this, the core of it, and this is what gets forgotten, is that it's all based on a deep, deep insecurity. Everyone looks at the narcissist. They say they're charming, they're confident, they're successful, they're smart. That doesn't mean if you're those things, you're narcissistic. But if it's built on that core insecurity, that's why the person needs to be grandiose and entitled. Because if I was that fragile inside, my temptation would be to protect it. It's like if you broke your arm, what. What do we do? We put a cast on it. Why? So the arm doesn't get broken again or the bone doesn't get agitated or moved. When you have a broken inside, you're that insecure, you're going to protect it. How do you protect it? I'm the shit. I'm the best. No one's better than me. Why should I have to wait in this line? I'm the best, after all. Everybody move out of my way so I can be the first in line. Why am I not the vip?

All of that's protective.

All of that is them putting this carapace around this fragile interior. So anything from the outside that cracks it, marital breakup, somebody else beating them at what they do, getting more sales, having more money, having a bigger yacht, having a better whatever, that is going to piss them off. And that's where you see the rage and the acting out. That's narcissism, okay? There's different kinds of narcissism. There's grandiose narcissism, which is sort of textbook. Come to my palace and be palace y with me. And I'm so great and you're so lucky to be my friend and I'm so beautiful. That's what we classically think of narcissism. But then there's the malignant narcissist, and that is somebody who's downright dangerous. They're malevolent, they're exploitative, they're manipulative, they smell like A psychopath. But you're going to learn in a minute why a malignant narcissist isn't a psychopath. They're slightly different creatures. There are the more vexing covert narcissists. These are people who don't look like narcissists. They look like victims. The world was never fair to me. I never got a fear shake.

You know what?

Maybe he succeeded because he got more money to start with than me. I would have been better than him if my dad gave me money up front.

You know what?

I'm too good to show up to a job. Why should I do that? Like, I got all these ideas, I'm the next Steve Jobs. Like, let the world find me. That's covert narcissism. They look so hang dog and so silly all the time that people often think they're depressed and they come to a therapist's office who thinks they're depressed and treats them for depression for three months and then wonder why they're not getting anywhere. And this person, well, the world is against me. The world is against me. The world is against me. Their grandiosity is, why doesn't the world see how great I am versus the grandiose person who says, look how great I am. And then there's even what we call noble narcissists. These are the people who do lots of charitable work and have these big rescue the elephants, rescue the world, rescue everyone kinds of profiles, but they're doing it solely for validation.

That's the same as a communal narcissist.

No, same as a communal. Same as a communal or noble narcissist. These are the people who you think like, wow, they're saving the world. They're so charitable, they're so wonderful. But then catch them behind closed doors and they treat their partners, their families, anyone, one to one, their staffs, absolutely, horribly. So they only have empathy when they're on stage or they're saving an elephant.

I mean, I see so much of that, especially in the stuff that I've done in the nonprofit world. Yeah, it's cosmetic.

It's very cosmetic.

Yes.

But the work is being done in the name of seeking validation versus for the meaning and the purpose or just the higher purpose as you will, of doing the actual work. That's narcissism. I'm sure you're wondering what's the difference between that and narcissistic personality disorder. There was a wonderful book by Alan Francis called Twilight of American Sanity. I don't know if you've read it, but It's a fantastic book. The diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder only entered the world of psychiatry in the 1970s. This is a late entry. Freud wrote about it. Otto Rank was the first person who wrote about it. These were early, early analysts and obviously theoreticians, but we didn't make it into diagnosis until the 70s. Francis was one of the people who wrote about it. When Trump got elected, he wrote this book about narcissism, and he's like, trump doesn't have narcissistic personality disorder. Why not? Because in order for something in the dsm, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals of Mental Health, Mental Illness, you have to. In order for it to be diagnosis, it either has to be causing the person subjective distress. Think about a depressed person. They're uncomfortable, they can't get out of bed, they feel sad all the time, they're angry.

Or.

Or it has to be causing them social and occupational impairment. You look at somebody who's got seems to the world a fine marriage, or at least the person thinks it's a fine marriage or relationship. They seem to have perfectly fine kids, at least to the world that looks like that. And the person thinks that and they're not having any distress. We don't get to diagnose it. Which is why the majority of people with narcissistic traits don't get diagnosed, because nobody ever lays eyes on them.

Yeah.

So that's there. That's why the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder is about 1 to 5%. I'm spitballing here, because we don't have the numbers. The prevalence of narcissism in the American culture is probably closer to 30%, that gap.

So 30% of.

I would guess so, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, it's one in three, you know, but now when we go to psychopathy, we jump the rails. Narcissist insecure. Okay. When the mask gets pulled off the narcissist, and he and I were talking about his program about, you know, getting people ready to go to prison. One of the things he's going to run into most, and this has come up when I've taught at jails and prisons about this to the clinicians there, is that they're so insecure now, the mask is off.

Shame.

You're a bad guy.

Like they're.

I was once supposed to do, I think, an interview with Steve Madden. I was telling him for this thing on narcissism, and he was actually willing to subject himself to talking to me. And then at the 11th hour, I think he had something more interesting. Surprise, surprise. But he acknowledged it. He said the thing he was most frightened of was going to jail or going to prison. And he did. And so it shatters them. A psychopath is not insecure. They have no fear, they have no anxiety, and they're completely stress resistant. Which is why they make, for example, great surgeons. They make great CEOs, they make great anyone who needs to stay completely calm at a time of tremendous danger. Right. So nothing bothers them. That's just why they make great hired assassins. I mean, anything that requires you to be calm, cool and collected under conditions that are difficult for people to do them, they're dangerous.

I was watching a show on drug lords and gangsters and mob leaders and stuff, and they were talking about the brain scans and some of these people in fearful situations. For most people, it doesn't even register like it doesn't bother them at all. So is this a genetic.

Yeah. So the belief of psychopathy is. It's definitely biological. And the imaging studies have shown that very clearly. There's likely. The genetic piece is still being argued because think about it, far, far more men have been diagnosed with psychopathy than women. So we don't see. There's almost no research on female psychopaths, though we see them. An interesting speculation would be someone like Elizabeth Holmes. Is she a malignant narcissist or is she a psychopath? Like, I've watched everything on her I can. Because you don't see women in these situations much. She's somewhat. I haven't talked to her, so I don't know.

Right.

But the key with a psychopath is they feel no remorse. That's the issue. They feel truly no remorse. The narcissist actually does feel some remorse for anything from even smaller time stuff like infidelity to big ticket stuff. I embezzled $20 million. So a madoff type reaction, psychopathy. Okay, that's a great. Absolutely didn't register like, this is really inconvenient that you're doing this to me. But no circumspect sense of how this impacted other people.

Do they fake it?

As if they.

They fake it. They can fake it. They absolutely can fake it. But it really. It's like an aftermarket thing.

Like about.

This was about 10 hours too late. Like this should have been what you led with. Another one was that guy Larry. God, what the hell was this? Larry Nasser. He was one of the physicians in the whole gymnastics issue of. Of all the gymnasts who were sexually abused. I dug deep into that case, because he felt so psychopathic. All he never, ever expressed remorse to the girls and young women he harmed. All he said is, basically, this is a pain in the neck. Why are you wasting so much time? You're hearing similar discourse from a gynecologist who sexually abused countless scores of girls and women over 20 years at USC. Just know you're inconveniencing me with all these proceedings. I'm like, oh, my God, you've destroyed hundreds of lives.

There's no.

That doesn't register. A narcissist would show more guilt and shame under those conditions.

So a sociopath.

Sociopath. This is a less articulated condition. A lot of people incorrectly interchangeably use the term psychopath and sociopath. The psychopath is considered to be, again, that calm question. Cool, callous, calculated, smart person who's just able to barrel through in a remorseless way. And we have much more evidence that that is a central nervous system phenomenon. The sociopath is likely someone who was. And again, criminologists and everyone argue about this, that may be more of something that was created by the environment, somebody who was beaten up a lot by a father or a caregiver, somebody who grew up on the streets or under conditions of tremendous, tremendous deprivation or danger. And that under different conditions, the story could have probably gone a little bit differently. They also tend to be more combative. You'll probably see a lot more sociopaths in prison than you will psychopaths. Sociopath gets into a bar fight. A psychopath would never, you know, diminish.

Themselves in that way.

They'll find a way to slowly destroy that person's life or kill them, and no one will ever know the difference kind of thing. So whereas a sociopath, they'll fight, they'll get into a street fight, they'll get into a bar fight. They're less regulated. They tend to be less successful. The big difference that's been brought up in the literature is a psychopath at some level doesn't understand the function of rules. They're like, why is this a rule? Like, why can't she did me wrong in a drug deal? Like, why can't I kill her? Please help me understand this. A sociopath knows he shouldn't kill her and still will.

Interesting.

Yeah. So there's a not knowing. But that said, even though there's a not knowing in psychopathy, psychopathy cannot be used as part of the insanity defense in the United States. That has been taken off the table.

What I mean, is there any idea how many people in The United States, as example, are North America. Are sociopaths.

Psychopaths, I would guess with psychopathy. Merciful. It's probably under 2%. It's a pretty low frequency phenomenon. It's rare, it's terrifying. And interestingly, some of the professions, like I was reading some research on the top 10 professions that have psychopaths in them, and amongst those were surgeon, CEO and clergy. Those are the professions that attract psychopaths.

Wow.

Wow.

So statistically speaking, if there's anything there, then there's 30% of this audience are.

Narcissists, then maybe, yeah. I mean, again, I don't want to.

Be the ones that you.

Just because I love this group has been amazing. But what you might find in a group like this because everyone is so successful is sort of what I consider just sub threshold narcissism. Like just enough cockiness to get you into trouble. And I would love to sit with each and every one of you and find out what your close personal relationships are like, because it may very well be that that's where it's not working as well as it could be. And again, you may have also gotten lucky, Joe, because you're you and you might have gotten 100% entrepreneurs where there's.

Not a single narcissist in the room.

Listen, is a little of it going.

To make you successful in business?

Sure.

Because if her and I are vying for the same job and I like, oh, she's so sweet, I'm gonna give her all the intel. We're in this together. I may not get the job, but if girlfriend's like, Girlfriend's like, yeah, she's going, she's like, I'm not telling her everything. Is that narcissism? I think it's probably a heavy handed use of the word. But that lack of empathy, I mean that to me is what the whole thing sort of hinges on. And then when we talk about the origins of narcissism, I think people can self reflect. But I gotta tell you, so far my alarms maybe have gone off one and a half times today.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video.

And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link.

Below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply.

Go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. How do I develop one of the most amazing entrepreneurial group of givers without narcissists in it. Like, how awesome would that be? Because I'm part of many other groups and speak at a lot of different things and some of them are just filled with narcissists.

Part of it is how much of your discourse is an us them discourse. Like we're the chosen and everyone else is a loser. I haven't heard that once today. Whereas other groups will say, you're the chosen being here, those other schmucks don't.

Know what they're doing.

So if someone else was doing what you're doing and kept saying, Joe Polish is a hack, he's an ass, he's an idiot, that's probably going to generate sort of a more kind of a narcissistic kind of groove. I have not once here heard another entrepreneurship development program to be spoken about in such a bad way today. So maybe they're out there, but as a newbie who's here with fresh ears, it's not like this group exists to denigrate and devalue others. I would say that kind of energy would probably cultivate that, you know, that sort of sense, we are the chosen, it's us, and nothing's better than us. So that kind of you're not. Even though this feels incredibly exclusive and everyone I'm meeting, I'm like, every neurotic, where is he? Tucker is like, don't let it bother you. I'm like, oh my God, everyone here so successful, smart, and yet it's. But everyone's humble, you know, so. But I think that might do with the curation.

What's funny too, like, I don't ever want this group to be known for me. I want it to be known for the people in the group, that sort of thing. And what I've noticed about a lot of people that lead groups is they have to be the star. They have to be the. I really just try to curate, right? Because there's people that are way smarter, way better speakers than me. I just am a curator, right? And a lot of groups, if they're not the main star there and everyone's beneath them, it just doesn't work for them. They can't function that way. And it's quite fascinating. Now, having said that, I've said this jokingly that anyone that writes a book, anyone that's a speaker, anyone that puts themselves out there publicly has some level of low self worth, low self esteem, wants the world to applaud them. They want validation 100%. How do you know if you're a Narcissist, meaning how do I identify certain traits that I could, if I'm aware, can do something to better myself?

So let me ask you this. Do you have contempt for human emotion?

Meaning contempt?

Like, you know, she's. Let's say she all of a sudden starts, you know, like, huh, don't be such a whiner. Yeah, don't be such a whiner. Or like, she starts telling us something personal and it's like, oh, come on, get over it.

I rarely say stuff like that because with the work that I do in genius Recovery with, one of my main goals is to reduce suffering. Even with this group, it's not a great. I haven't figured out how to market it. It's a lot easier to tell someone how to come into here and build and grow a business than it is to reduce entrepreneurial suffering. But I'd rather reduce entrepreneurial suffering because if I can lower that, then they're going to succeed in far greater levels.

But is that a long way of saying you don't have contempt for people's emotions? Like, you know, in other words, yeah, rare.

I would say don't feel that feeling or try to shut it down or.

Even just be grossed out by feelings. Like, you know, people. Oh, my God, like, there's too many people talking about their feelings. I don't want to be bothered with this.

You know, I'd say in the past, maybe I may have had a tinge of that. But I don't think, I don't think.

To me, when I say people, I get probably at least 10 emails a day from people all over the world who email me and say, shit, I've watched your videos. I think I'm a narcissist. And then they'll give me examples of it. And yeah, they're pretty spot on. Like, they probably are. And at this point, likely things have gone wrong. Likely a partner left them, they're alienated from kids, they might have lost their jobs, they've had a wake up call and now they're reflecting on that. And so I think that, again, it is that awareness that you really don't have empathy, that you do have contempt for other people's feelings, and that people really do believe they deserve special treatment for no other reason than because they're them. You know, they're too good to wait in a line and that they have been that screamy person at the flight attendant or the clerk or whomever, and they're like, ew, I'm that person. I can't Handle disappointment. I tell clients, but it takes me probably about three to six months before we get to the you're a narcissist session.

Wow.

It takes a while. I really have to get them to trust me.

How do they respond when you say that?

And they're like, yeah, you're right, or you've got my number only once somebody got mad. But by and large, they're like, yeah, you know, I'm down with that. And so. And then we start doing the work, which never really works, but that's okay.

Let me ask you about that, because there seems to be the notion that there's not a lot of hope for these people.

Depends on what you call hope. Right. And I think I was sharing with you a particular story of somebody I was working on, a real titan in his field, like, probably, if not the most, one of the most successful and in the entertainment industry at that. So kind of household naming. And what was fascinating about this guy was when we got down to it and he's like, he was copped to being a narcissist. Then he got mad at me. He said, you know where you fucked me up? You made me a self aware narcissist. Now I know I'm an asshole. Like, I was pretty blissfully, like, not owning my being an ass. Now I know I'm an asshole.

And.

But then he became very aware of his contempt for people's neediness, for people's emotion, for people's feeling. Like that really, really bothered him. And then where we really ended. And the long story short, towards the end of our course of therapy, he became a little bit more mindfully aware. But in all that awareness, he said, I'm not made for human relationships. He said, I will. He's heterosexual. I will never be able to give a woman fully what she needs. It is wrong for me to be doing this. And I said, thank you. I was waiting for you to get there on your own. And so he has lots of friends, he has a very robust social network. He has kids. I mean, it's not like this guy is sitting in an apartment somewhere. I mean, he's got a very rich life. But that idea of intimacy, that one on oneness, he does not have the bandwidth, he does not have the interest in. He does not have the capacity. And he finally had that sense to say, I don't have it. And I said, how about you don't ruin any more lives? How's about you pull out of that game for a while, maybe forever. He's older and so he's like, yeah, I'm done. And we figured out how he was going to have sex because he still likes sex and you can pay for it and pay for it with the same person so it didn't feel unseemly. And she'd show up at a regularly scheduled time every other week, but she'd be out at 2am he got what he needed in terms of touch and closeness. He'd get massages and, you know, things. I mean, we really thought this through. But then he's like, yeah. I said, really? You should stay away from close relationships. This ain't your game, boy.

Fascinating.

Is that a win? I think so, yeah.

Better than the alternative.

He was fine with it. He said, I have been swimming upstream my whole life on this one. Three marriages, you know, I mean, like he just couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. Some people kind of can. Sometimes we can get people to be okay at work, but they can't do the relationship thing because I think the intimacy bandwidth you need for a job is obviously far less than you need.

For a close relationship.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video.

And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to.

Get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply.

Go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. Let me ask you because it brings something up.

So all the work that I.

It's interesting that I built one of the, you know, this wonderful connection network of people when I grew up feeling so disconnected and feeling abandonment and abuse and sexual and physical and everything in between. And there's a guy years ago that he's a 70 year old gay man. I never met him in person, but I talked with him on the phone and he gave me a definition of intimacy. And he spends his time sponsoring people with sexual addictions. And he said intimacy is a mutual exploration of a shared safe place. Abuse is anything that takes away the safe place. And addictions are what we do to make ourselves feel good when we don't have a safe place. And I thought about that a lot, saying, okay, because I never felt safe when I was growing up. Especially if you had any sort of a abuse. If you don't hear the words I love you, if you don't have anyone to go to for help, if you're getting abused, it's very scary. And with narcissists or even psychopaths. Who you're saying. So that definition I just gave. Addictions are what we do to make ourselves feel good when we don't have a safe place. Is narcissism a coping mechanism or is it. How would you describe it in terms of. Because I don't know if they feel safe or unsafe or how did. Because I'd like to almost ask you about connection and intimacy from the experience of the narcissist.

In some ways it's.

And again.

And Tucker made also I had ate lunch with him. That's why he's featuring this conversation. But he, you know, a lot of it does go back to early experience. Narcissism is made. And it's made by circumstances. People are not born this way.

Okay?

It's made by circumstances, it's made by circumstance. Now, may a child be born with a temperament that makes them more likely to become narcissistic? Yes, they tend to be a little bit intense. You know, probably like the colicky baby can become a colicky adult kind of thing. Like there is sort of an intensity. They're not an easygoing sort of a kid by any stretch. And some people are. They're just more easygoing even if terrible things happen to them. I would say 85%, 80% of my clinical population has experienced sexual trauma before the age of 16. It's pretty normative, men and women. And so obviously that does something to boundaries and trust. However, the bulk of them go through the world. I mean, they're wonderful parents. I mean, it's not like this is a guarantee that you've all. But this person's all but doomed to, you know, a terrible future. They found their way through it. What they tend to do is be much more self denigrating. But for many narcissistic individuals, there are early histories characterized by neglect, frank trauma, inconsistency, chaos. But there are also early histories characterized by being spoiled, like too much material indulgence without feeding the emotional needs of the child. Listen, a person of means may want to be able to give their kids a really nice bike and a trip to Disney World and all that. But if at the same time that child is also not being given a rich emotional vocabulary, an opportunity to share feelings in an appropriate way, and parents that are present psychologically more often than not when you have that indulgence, the overindulgence of the material with the under indulgence of the emotional, that's actually the classical way we create narcissism. And then again and Then the people who experience some trauma, neglect. Neglect is a parent who may actually put them in a beautiful home with lots of things and the best schools, but the parents are nowhere to be found. This is a huge problem in Los Angeles. I see it on my kids, peers. I'm like these, listen, I worked from the day my oldest, Maya was six weeks old forward. Just it was required. I did the best I could. But I'm shocked that people were like, we're going off for three weeks and we're leaving you with top flight nannies. Well, Fast forward that 35 years and they're in my office and they're dealing with that trauma of abandonment. They were left with the best caregivers possible. They just weren't their parents. And so this is not something that is just a choice that's abused and neglected because they're impoverished. This happens across the spectrum. And so I think that that narrative often fuels narcissism. Why? The world isn't safe. So that lack of safety fuels insecurity. That insecurity, that unempathic lashing out. And in this way, my goal, and it's a tough one to create, is to say, please be compassionate to narcissistic people because they've often had a rough start and, and then get the hell out of dodge and don't engage them because you can't win at that game. So I'm saying you do not need to be cruel. You do not need to call them out in a cruel way. You don't have to do a smear campaign, but you're not going to make this work. So you're almost telling two stories at the same. Because the narcissist is saying, why does anyone want anything to do with me? I'm like, because you're not a nice person to them. And I understand why you're not a nice person, but that's the balancing act.

Helping the person heal. Not so much emphasis on the narcissist itself. Although the first beginning part lays the foundation and the groundwork. So for people that are out there, let's play a game. How do you spot a narcissist in the crowd?

You know, you know, it's funny, that's. This is the question everyone grapples with. How quickly can I find them?

What are the red flags?

How can I pick them out in a crowd? I mean, listen, it's a probability game, right?

It's like picking a horse in a race.

You're going to.

If you pick the odds on favorite.

It'S probably A good bet, but they.

Still may not win the race in a crowd.

If somebody said, all right, I'll give you ten bucks.

Tell me who's most likely the most narcissistic person here.

I'm probably going to gravitate to either the most charming, charismatic, attention seeking person in the room or the most aggrieved.

Angry person in the room.

Those are my two bets, right? They're different people. Sometimes that aggrieved, angry person isn't as socially skilled.

They might be sort of victimized and sullen and petulant.

And whereas that grandiose, charismatic, charming person is speaking smooth as can be and is pulling old, you know, pulling chairs out for ladies to sit at the table, like all the manners and all of that. So you'll see these two different kinds of portrayals, but those are the two.

People I'd be looking for in a room. Unfortunately, we're drawn to that charming, charismatic person.

Yeah, no, totally, totally. So do narcissists usually develop relationships with non narcissists or do they often find each other together?

So you find you're asking such an.

Interesting question and I've really been doing.

A deeper dive into this issue, so I'm so glad you asked it. One of the things that people struggle with is they say, am I a narcissist magnet? And one thing I tell everyone who's ever gotten into a narcissistic relationship, I say to them, you know why the narcissist chose you? Not because you're the broken gazelle, not because you're damaged, not because you look like an easy mark. They chose you because you were attractive. They chose you because you're good, supplied, apply and whatever. For every narcissist supply is a little different, right? Narcissistic folks are heat seeking status missiles.

They want status.

Right now, status means different things to different people.

For some people, it's looks and appearance.

For another person it might be money. For another person, it might be position. For another person, it might be contact. It. It depends on everyone, right? And for some people, it might be that they're absolutely beautiful but like very malleable, right? But that supply is going to be different. So they chose you because you're a fantastic supply. And a narcissistic person isn't going to choose someone who makes them look bad. So I always say, folks, if they chose you, you got it going on. So let's not get into this place of you're somehow broken. And so for that reason, a narcissistic person could end up with any number of people in a relationship, including another narcissistic person.

Because another narcissistic person could be quite.

Charming and charismatic and grandiose and attractive themselves. Themselves. And you can imagine that's an extraordinarily volatile relationship. And we're talking a lot about intimate relationships in a way, in sort of how we're framing it. This can happen in families, this can happen in business relationships. You and I have talked about that a lot. And you can imagine if you're in business and you're looking for someone to be like this great business partner, someone who's really visionary and charming and energetic and charismatic, that might be who you're drawn to. And then before you know it, the whole business goes poof because you've got this narcissistic business partner.

Okay, so that's really great. I want to have you go elaborate a little more on narcissistic supply because in your book you just define because that's what they want. Like what is that actually mean? And let me frame it from this standpoint. So we all go into relationships because we want something, right? I always say this all the time. You know, it's like, what do people want?

We're going to want to eat lunch later, right?

Everybody wants something. People are coming to this event today because they want to do trauma healing. So everyone wants something. People go into relationships because they want companionship, maybe they want intimacy, they want sex, they want whatever. So the narcissist, what are they actually seeking? Because I think it's. You really help people understand what they're looking for. And if they don't get it, they can get really ugly, they can get very violent, they can destroy their life.

Right?

And I'm going to, I'm going to.

Push back on you a little.

Joe here is that it's that everyone's wanting something in a relationship. Because I also think that even more primal to us is an attachment seeking element. And that's less of a want but a drive and a need, right? Human beings are wired for attachment. And when a human being is not attachment oriented, it's actually a bit pathologic, right? We're a tribal species.

We live in small social groups.

We need each other. We have, we have babies that take a long time to get to maturity. So that means you need multiple people.

On the job, right?

So evolutionarily, we are attachment seeking creatures, right? So it means that most people are seeking attachment, connection, reciprocity, mutuality, compassion. They want to, you know, there's Caring and being cared for.

Right, right.

The narcissistic person though, isn't coming at that from a different angle. Not saying the narcissistic people don't want attachment though.

They tend to be more anxiously and avoidantly attached. So they're either not.

There's a lack of capacity for intimacy or there's like a lot of a push, pull in, out, in, out kind of thing. But that supply seeking is almost a higher order motivation for them. Right. Because that feeds that insecurity. There's an empty beast in them that's always needing more, more and more and more. And so that supply is something that not only makes the transaction of the relationship make sense to them. Right. Because a relationship isn't for that, just that attachment need for them. It's. They're getting something from this. Right. Whatever getting something means. And it's usually some form of social status. Right. But supply gets stale. Right.

At some point that very attractive partner.

Gets older and is not as attractive or they're not a novelty anymore. And narcissistic folks are very reward sensitive. That's why we see a high overlap with narcissism and addiction. That same kind of dopaminergic orientation of reward, reward, reward, whatever that looks like. Gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, pick your, pick your poison, shopping. You know, there is also that kind of compulsion we see. So that supply is really kind of an offset to the insecurity and the shame. And it bolsters those external defenses like entitlement that allows the narcissistic person to.

Sort of feel anodyne in control and.

Able to dominate so that it's, it's a constant sort of feeding the energy to do that.

Gotcha.

Does that make sense?

Totally.

No. And the other flip side, which I didn't finish, finish on like we all want something. I, I tend to look at it from the standpoint of if you want something from somebody, make sure that your give is equal to or great or. So you're not a taker. And narcissists seem to be the ultimate takers. Yeah, they just take like it's not, it's not a given. If it is a give, it's, it's like fake.

Well, it's a performative give at that point, the give is still also a source of supply. That's where we talk about communal narcissism. Those narcissistic folks who it's there, they sort of trick people. Because unlike the grandiose narcissist who's very extroverted and sort of look at me and sort of shiny and handsome and all this other stuff. Or the vulnerable narcissist who plays victim.

And everyone gives them supply by trying to like save them or give them supply in some other way.

The communal narcissist gets their supply by playing at humanitarian and rescuer. And I'm the great savior. And so that's why at the most extreme, extreme end of the communal continuum, we would see a cult leader, but at the more mild ends, we'd see the person who seems to be organizing.

Things to save every vulnerable group in the world.

But behind closed doors they're screaming at.

Their spouse, they're screaming at their staff.

So they're a terrible person.

But to the world they seem like a humanitarian. You know what I'm talking about?

I Absolutely.

You're the.

When I first, you first shared that term with me about, I don't know, four years ago we were talking and won't they names very famous probably person men and women that give to charity let the whole world know they're doing it. Social media posts, television, you name it. And they're donating to everything, they're contributing everything. But absolutely it's, it's, it's all a status seeking. Look at me, I'm so wonderful, I'm so great.

And Joe, the wellness world is also fraught with this too. I mean I have work with many people in, in yoga communities, things like that. They'll say I went in with my heart, heart open, wanting to learn from this teacher, from this healer. And by the time they were done in this space, I went into vulnerable. A very narcissistic person was at the top of that food chain and advantaging people and sort of is quite extortionate.

It was humiliating and, and that to.

Me is heartbreaking because it's hard enough for a person to get to vulnerability, but then to get pulled into a community where once again they're caught in a toxic transaction.

That. That's communal narcissist.

Totally.

What is the. I've got a few questions I've written down I wanted to ask you. So what's the single most surprising thing narcissists do that people never expect until it's too late?

I think the thing that throws people off about narcissistic folks is they're looking for almost a psychopathic lack of empathy. Does that make sense? So we keep hearing lack of empathy, lack of empathy. So they're expecting to meet someone cold and remote and distant who doesn't cry.

At movies and who doesn't like, like babies and doesn't like puppies and all of that stuff, Right.

So when they meet a narcissistic person who actually can seem quite gregarious and warm and cry at the movie and be emotional at times, that's what throws people off. And I think this is why we've got to get away from this idea.

Of the narcissistic person having like a forked tongue and, you know, like horns on their, on their head.

That's not that people fall in love with these folks because there's a moment in time, in many moments in time when they can show up with what feels like empathy, but it's often what we call cognitive empathy. Narcissistic people understand this idea of empathy. They understand emotion. They could say, I understand why you feel that way. It feels very analytic. But that's not emotional empathy, which is somebody's entire demeanor changing, Somebody not screaming.

At you on a bad day because it's inconvenient. Right.

But that cognitive empathy, I have to.

Say, is the thing that throws a.

Lot of people off because they'll see.

Someone who looks and it like, looks empathic.

And so they're saying, well, maybe they're not narcissistic because they were really nice to my aunt when she came to visit or they really cried at that person's funeral. Like, they seem to show this emotion. And I think that the key is to sort of understand this idea of cognitive empathy, but also consistency and how they show up on your bad days.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video.

And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to.

Get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply.

Go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Gotcha.

No, Great, Great. So why do so many people stay emotionally trauma bonded even when they know the narcissist is toxic? So there's.

There's a couple ways I want to go with this is.

One is the con. The, the idea of trauma bonding is really based on a. What feels like almost like a physiologically unbreakable connection you have with someone that's created by that alternation between good and bad or not so bad and better or whatever it may be. But it's an alternation, right. If we think of it in its most primal way for how a trauma bonded relationship is created for a child the child needs the caregiver. There's no alternative here. So the child has to go through all of these mental accommodations to maintain that relationship. Narratives they create, blaming themselves, anything to make it so they can maintain that relationship. And there's a lot of justification, there's a lot of excuses, There's a lot of almost metaphysical thinking about the relationship to keep it in place. Because the idea of losing that relationship for a child is a complete attachment fracture that the child simply couldn't tolerate and survive. Now fast forward to adulthood where we don't have those same survival needs, but still that alternation with someone we feel attached to, connected to, that we love because there are some good days. Again, that pattern of rationalization and justification and having the same arguments and never quite resolving them and making excuses for the relationship. And one of the things that also happens is people become isolated in these relationships so they don't get that sort of alternate point of view, right?

And that's.

There's something almost deliberate about that. People won't be able to articulate in an adult manner what they like about this person. Again, I always call it my trauma bond hack when I'm working with a.

Client is they'll say, I love them, I love them. It's clearly a dysfunctional relationship.

I'll say, what do you love about them?

And the client will always pause and they'll say, okay, Dr. Ramani, I, well.

Okay, so I love. I can't put it into work.

That's when I know I'm like, this is trauma bonding.

Because when you really love someone and it's healthy, you'll say, this is my friend, my companion. I love being with them. I look forward to see, seeing them. I. We share so much. Like they're, they're articulating a coherent model.

Of the relationship versus a trauma bonded relationship.

There's no coherent schema because it's all.

Based on this sort of physiological panic model.

Does that make sense? Totally. And so the idea. And the person will say, the idea of ending this relationship fills them with panic. Even as they intellectually at a, at almost like a, a cerebral cortex level, they know that this is not a healthy relationship. Like, I know they cheat on me. I know they lie. I know, I know. But what's happening is much more. It's much more primal, right? It's much more attachment oriented where there is a sense of panic, of, what if I'm always alone? What if they find someone better? What if it's me? That's not enough. And that panicky system is what sort of kicks in for someone. And undoing that is no small task. Therapeutically, a lot of folks really benefit, but what's happening is much more, it's.

Much more primal, right?

It's much more an attachment oriented, where there is a sense of panic, of what if I'm always alone? What if they find someone better? What if it's me? That's not enough. And that panicky system is what sort of kicks in for someone. And undoing that is no small task. Therapeutically, a lot of folks really benefit from the trauma oriented work. And where did this, where did the schema, where did this model define schema? So a schema is a mental model, right? And we can think of this in terms of again what I was using the term a coherent narrative. A coherent narrative is being able to look at something holistically. Great example would be a childhood, right? A childhood where a person could say.

I was abused by one parent or.

I was abandoned by the parent. And since then I keep looking for people who reject me, but when a kind person comes along, I reject them. The person is able to see everything in a very coherent, consistent, stable way. So the more stable the schema usually the healthier it is because it almost.

Becomes like a little mental gps, like.

I know how to navigate the situation. And schemas are driven by experience, or they're driven by temperament, they're driven by culture and they're driven by personality, right? So, and having that model, when it's coherent and healthy, then a person's also.

Even able to say, oh, I see.

What I'm doing here in this relationship. But I often see in the more trauma bonded relationships, there's no coherence in.

That schema, in that narrative.

Super helpful. So how, how do we set ourselves up for being able to develop healthy, connected relationships? Because you've heard this a thousand times where someone's like, why do I keep picking this bad person? What's wrong with me? Like there's something their pickers messed up. And maybe it is, maybe the. And when I say it, I mean they've been in damaging relationships and they're scared, they're gunshot, they don't know what to do.

They're, you know, they've, they've been burned, they don't want to get hurt again.

So therefore they don't play to win.

They play not to lose.

And if you play not to lose, you tend to lose.

So I want, I want to connect this back to our trauma bond.

Our trauma bond question too. When we think of this narcissistic relationships, we often make the knee jerk assumption that this is a trauma bonded relationship. Not necessarily so too.

There are plenty of people in narcissistic.

Relationships who aren't trauma bonded but can't get out. So it's very, it's.

And I work with a lot of folks who are in narcissistic relationships and not trauma bonded. They're like, if this fool walked out the door tomorrow, as long as I could keep my kids or keep the house, I would be fine.

So there's, there's external structures, practical issues, minor children, finances, family court, a whole host of other things, family traditions, whatever it may be. So those folks are like, I see.

This 100% clearly, but there's no clear path out for me right now.

To your point about how do we, how do we talk with people and create these healthier models of relationships? First of all, we need to create.

Healthier models of relationships.

We don't talk to people about this. Right. For all the things we talk about, we don't really have those straight up and informed by psychological science conversations of what makes a healthy relationship. And I keep using these terms, mutuality, reciprocity, respect, compassion, and above all else, Joe, psychological safety. That a person feels like they can come into a relationship and show up as they are, farts and all, and not feel that they are going to be rejected on that. And, and I say that jokingly, but I always say like there's the fart.

Test in the relationship. That first time you pass gas in front of someone, you're like, oh my God.

I'm like, what did you, did you really think you were going to be married to someone in 50 years and not pass gas in front of them? And I'm like, and look, they're still here. Maybe they'll laugh a little. And I'm like, if they get up and leave because you had beans for.

Dinner, I don't know that this was the keeper.

But I think that that kind of model of I have to be perfect, I have to show up as this idealized version of myself. I, I can't be authentic. And I do think it takes us to that conversation about authenticity, another really overused word these days. But that has so much power in creating healthy relationships because it's, that requires us, even before the relationship to do a deep dive in who am I? What do I stand for?

How do I show up?

And people are afraid of that because they were told, maybe in childhood I show up as my true self. I'M going to be raged at. I'm going to be told I'm sorry, selfish. I'm going to be told I'm ungrateful. They go into a relationship, the first time they show up as their true selves, they're rejected. And so that can really squelch that authentic self. Right. But that's what a healthy relationship is. That capacity to feel like you're in something that's not only psychologically safe, but balance. We are very much so still. And I think social media made this worse in the era of the check, the check mark relationship, you know, if for. I think we still have very gendered anticipations around that. Whether it's around money or appearance or youth or whatever it may be, intelligence, anything. And instead of these very, very sorts of healthy barometers. And I don't know about you, Joe, but I have a handful of friends who are in fantastic long term relationships and marriages. And when I look at all of their relationships and these are people you can, of every age, ethnicity, these are straight couples, these are queer couples. These are couples with money, without money. And you feel that you're in the presence of two people who get each other who, who have each other's backs. It doesn't feel lovey dovey. I don't feel like I'm in some sort of, you know, sort of fairy tale. I feel like I'm with two people where it's just like a big cozy.

Blanket and I just want to stay in their house for forever.

And that and that kind of alchemy. There was often two healthy people that entered that relationship.

That's really great.

Yeah.

And that, that feels really good.

And there are.

And I'll tell you, I think it's important to have models.

Yeah.

Of relationships because if everyone you hang around with is completely dysfunctional and talking about each other, you know, it's just. Yeah. It doesn't help you at all. We need. And look, I think in a lot of ways you are providing more models. Like I take like we have one interview that we did that has over a million views and I have at least 100 times when someone has sent me a message because I have genius recovery. So I'm talking to people that are struggling with addiction all the time. It's just kind of weird how I've. My own recovery has led to all these other things I do. And I will you utilize your interviews. I will say you need to watch this. And so it's not just an interview.

It's.

It's literally a Toolkit. It's helping people work through their lives. So what is if you could wave a magic wand? There's so much you've learned. You've had so many of these conversations. You ever get sick of talking about this stuff?

I don't. Because, Joe, one of the beauties of.

Being sort of a former academic is you never stop the work. Like, it's all. Your head's in the journal articles. You're always reading the new science again, even.

Here we are today at this beautiful.

Seminar on training trauma. I get to learn from Gabor all day. I get to learn from Kimberly all day. I get to learn from folks like you about addiction. So it's. It's not just getting your head in.

The clouds with all the minutiae of the science, but talking to people who have walked the walk. And so every day as a teacher, and it's like this gigantic sculpture. You're always adding more clay to it. You're always flexible and willing to sort of see things in a new way. So I never get tired of it because I have the real privilege of.

Always getting to learn, pushing myself to learn. Always, always reading books and always talking to survivors.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so, so you've learned so much that, like, what have you discovered over the last year or so that you're like, oh, this is really valuable, that.

I think people need to be aware of this.

They need to. I'd love to have you share some of those things because you're, you're always on the cutting edge of all of this. I mean, you, you, you in. I mean, I really admire just how much work and what you deal with is pretty heavy. I mean, you deal with some. Some very difficult situations that I don't know very many people that could unravel. Some of the stuff that you, you, you.

You work with.

Well, I really appreciate that, but again, it feels like a real privilege. You know, I've lived experience in all of this, so I, I, I get it. I feel it, and I know how important it is for people to feel seen and not shamed. I think that the piece that. In this year that has really been illuminating for me, and it's such, it's such a. I was reading in all.

These sort of complex models.

But the simple part, Part of it is anyone who's in a narcissistic relationship, I don't care how mild or severe it is, it is a relational trauma, and it is a betrayal trauma. And the only way to treat relational trauma is in relationship that we. That you are now in this year. That has really been illuminating for me. And it's such, it's such a. I was reading it in all these. So basically you are fixing that broken schema of a relationship. And even whether it's in the therapeutic.

Complex models, but the simple part of.

It is anyone who's in a narcissistic relationship, I don't care how mild or sick room where you're teaching someone, people show up, people care that this can be a healthy space, that the therapist can show up authentically. And then it's about helping that person heal. Severe. It is, it is a relational trauma and it is a betrayal trauma. And the only way to treat relational trauma is in relationship that we. That you are now in community. And we have a monthly membership. And what I've seen now, we've had it for over two years. And that you need that much time to sort of see changes in trend. What's been remarkable watching that healing community is watching people who all came in, not everyone didn't come at the same time like some people come drop out, whatever. But is why basically you are fixing that broken schema of a relationship. And even whether it's in the therapeutic, watching people evolve from feeling that they couldn't even get out of bed to becoming the healers themselves. Thick room where you're teaching someone, people show up, people care that this can be a healthy space, that the therapist can show up authentically. And then it's about helping that person heal, healed relationally. You see this in the addiction community all the time. We heal relationally, Right? Right. That in community we have a monthly membership. And what I've seen now we've had it for over two years. And you need that much. The idea that somebody can go off with a book or a podcast and do this themselves is never going to happen. Or even. I still don't even think therapy is sufficient. There has to be community. We heal in community. And I think that helping people understand that they're not alone. And I have, you know, listen, I have worked with folks who've been in 30, 40, 50 year marriages with narcissistic folks, right? So raise kids. Kids in it, the whole nine yards. And they said, you know, time to sort of see changes in trend. What's been remarkable watching that healing community is watching people who all came in, not everyone didn't come at the same time.

Like some people come drop out, whatever.

But is why what Dr. Ramany, if I had five years, eight years into this marriage, even before we had kids, one or two years in, had I read watching people evolve from feeling that they couldn't even get out of bed to becoming the healers themselves, that this I would have gotten out. There was just simply no framework. We had no language, right? And so, and that applies in the world of addiction. Think of how long there was no language. We didn't understand this as a disease. They healed relationally. You see this in the addiction community all the time. We heal relationally, right. That we didn't understand how people heal. We didn't understand the intersection of trauma and addiction.

Right?

When those, each of those layers of the onion got peeled away. We have had more compassionate conversations. People are getting better treatment. Well, narcissism is about 20 years behind that right now in terms of understanding how that shows up in relationship. The idea that somebody can go off with a book or a podcast and do this themselves is never going to happen.

Or even.

I still don't even think therapy is sufficient. There has to be community. We heal in community. And I think that helping people understand that they're not alone. And I have, you know, listen, I have worked with folks who bitch and chicken and now that people are getting these schemas, they're willing to clock these patterns earlier. And in 30, 40, 50 year marriages with narcissistic folks, right? So that raise kids in it, the whole nine yards. And they said, you know, and that plus the relational understanding, I think we're actually going to start seeing people being more discerning in their relationships, maybe sort of capture these things as patterns and start disengaging earlier, giving themselves even permission, not just in intimate relationships, but even in workplace relationships, family relationships, saying, no, this, this isn't okay. This is, this is one sided. This is asymmetric. This doesn't make sense. So, but it, I think the needle's moving.

But as all ARCs are, they move quite slowly.

And so those what? Dr. Ramany, if I had five years, eight years into this marriage, even before we had kids, one or two years in, had I read this, I would have gotten out. There was just simply no framework. We had no language, right? And so, and that applies in the world of addiction, think of how long there was no language. We didn't understand this as a disease. We didn't understand how people heal. We didn't understand the intersection of trauma and addiction, right? When those, each of those are the things I've really learned in the last year. So I really am focusing on the community piece of this.

Yeah, no, so, so critical. And I always go Back to the saying you're sick of your secrets. And so having people to talk to, silent battles, the hardest battles to fight, to try, try to do this on your own is so difficult. So I absolutely agree. I mean I would have never had recovery with addiction without.

I don't think anyone would.

Yeah, yeah. And I always say to people, you know, like, even when they talk about 12 steps, it's not an attendance program. No, it's a step program.

Those layers of the onion got peeled away. We have had more compassionate conversations. People are getting better.

You go, you go meet other people, you do the steps, that sort of thing. I've read comments where I'm so curious because I've never asked you this, where someone, probably a narcissist on the other side, where you know you are really describing someone, they'll say like she's under treatment.

Well, narcissism is about 20 years behind that right now in terms of understanding how that shows up in relationships. And now that people are getting these schemas, they're willing to clock these patterns earlier. And that plus the relational understanding, I think we're actually going to start seeing, seeing people being more discerning in their relationship.

Narcissist. They call you a narcissist. Yeah. So how do, like what, what is, what is, what is that about? How do you interpret it?

I, I mean, listen, if somebody sees himself in the content, first of all.

I applaud them for willing to do that.

I think that's an incredibly vulnerable thing to do. However, that vulnerability activated the shame, activated the rage.

And they're gonna.

Joe, I'm gonna be very.

I am chips, maybe sort of capture these things as patterns and start disengaging earlier, giving themselves even permission, not just in intimate relationships, but even in workplace relationships, family relationships, saying, no, this, this isn't okay. This is, this is one sided. This is asymmetric. This doesn't make sense. So, but I think the needle's moving.

But as all arcs are, they move quite slowly.

And so those willing to be completely.

Self effacing in that they see a person who makes her living putting herself in a public forum to teach people about this. And in some level it's paying the bills. Right. You know, I'll give them that.

Right. And, and many. I get that. And it hurts my feelings.

I'll be very, I'm very. I do not read my comments. I would be in a psychiatric hospital if I read my comments. I'm still a very, very sort of.

The things I've really learned in the last year. So I really am focusing on the community piece of this.

Yeah, no, so.

I have my, like, I understand my own neurotic personality structure and my.

So critical. And I, I always go back to the saying, you're sick of your secrets. And so having people to talk to, silent battles, the hardest battles to fight. To try to do this on your own is so difficult. So I absolutely agree.

I mean, I, I would have never.

Had recovery with addiction without.

I don't think anyone would.

Yeah, yeah.

Fearfulness and all the things. Right. And so I really would dig in in my own therapy, say, do I have empathy?

And she's like, why. Why are we having this conversation?

You have deep empathy, you know, and so it's like, I'm thinking I will even stand in a line when I don't need to stand in line because I don't want anyone to think, like, she's ever taking advantage. So I know I'm not those. I'm very. Because entitlement is the, The, The. The sort of the trunk of the tree. And so I don't.

I say to people, you know, like, even when they talk about 12 steps, it's not an attendance program. No, it's a step program.

I never. And so I'm pretty confident. Confident that I'm not. In fact, I think if I was.

Narcissistic, you go meet other people, you do the steps, that sort of thing. I've read.

My business would have been so much better and so much bigger. But I, I.

But, you know, I'm so curious because I've never asked you this where someone would probably.

You do come against that. And I do think that more than anything is that people are being made uncomfortable about this conversation.

A narcissist on the other side, where you, you know, you are really describing someone.

They'll say, like, she's a station.

And so it's activating shame in them. I also think that it's the nature of, of online spaces. And so people around the attack. I'm sure you get all this stuff all the time. And so any of us in this space, too.

Yeah.

No, you, you, you just, like, what? Just hearing you say that. Narcissist. They call you a narcissist. So how do, like, what.

What is?

What is? What is? That makes me realize, why the heck are we so sensitive? Where I could read, like, a book review where, you know, there's, like, one. There was one that I read recently that was a negative review about.

How do you interpret it?

I, I Mean, listen, if somebody sees himself in the content, first of all, I.

And right before and right after is like, this is the best book I've ever read. And I'm like, how is it, you know, but why do I get so bothered by that? Why do we get so. But why are we so sensitive to it and how do we not be bothered by it? Or maybe that's part of just being a really cool human. Like, yeah, you're sensitive. You, you, you know, you want, you don't want people to call you something that you don't. That you're not, or you don't feel that you're not. I mean, I, you know, how. I guess. How do we become less bothered by it?

I don't know that we do become.

Less bothered by it. In fact, maybe we don't.

I don't know that we do. I think that part of the burden of empathy is that that also would. Would sensitize us to, to that kind of discourse, and it will. And I'm going to be frank with you. I think that anyone who's had a history of trauma and anyone who's had. Or a history of these kinds of narcissistic, betraying relationships, there is such, again, a core schema of what's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Do I deserve this? Am I the bad one? Right. Since that's such a central schema, that kind of commentary is going to bounce off of that.

And instead of like, I'm absolutely not.

That is that there's a, There's a plausibility to it, and then it causes this sort of grappling. And I don't think grappling is ever a bad thing. That. That creates the core of accountability, which is another core element of a healthy relationship.

But I don't need to be sitting there all day. And I'm very much. I, Again, one of the things, the way I opened up this book was a story of me as a child, right?

You know, with a purple dress and not willing to, you know, sort of put myself out there more than anything because I didn't want to be made fun of. That was the driver that day. I did not want people to see me and make fun of me. And even to this day, I still think, what the hell are you doing? But I. Because there was no way to do this anonymously, right? I could have tried.

And then people like, what the heck is this?

So I, I do. In academia, in some ways, you can be very anonymous. So for decades of my career, you really Are you?

Sort of.

In fact, the way our work is.

Reviewed in academia is it's done, it is done anonymously. They remove our names from the manuscript. So there's no bias in the peer review process. So there's almost a built in anonymity.

In the scholarly process.

And so if people say it, they say it. And I'm thinking if they. Again, I'm not reading the comments, so I'm not seeing it. But, but if they, if it did.

Lead the person to grapple with.

Well, maybe I am the narcissistic one, maybe then the content was worth it.

Do you know Gabor Mate? You familiar with Gabor Mate? Yeah.

So applaud them for willing to do that.

I think that's an incredibly vulnerable thing to do. However, that vulnerability activated the shame, activated the rage.

And they're gonna.

Joe, I'm gonna be very, I'm, I'm.

I am willing to be completely self.

Effacing in that they see a person who makes her living putting herself in a public forum to teach people about this and in some level it's paying the bills.

Right.

You know, I'll give them that.

Right. And, and, and many. I get that and it hurts my feelings.

I'll be, I'm very, I do not ruin my comments. I would be in a psychiatric hospital if I read my comments. I'm still a very, very sort of. I have my, like, I understand my own neurotic personality structure in my.

Gabor's a good friend of mine. He lives here in Canada.

Yeah.

And when I created Artists for addicts back in 2015, he had written up this whole thing for me about the sensitivity of artists and you know, some of the world's. If people walked in Hollywood and saw the Hollywood stars, they would be. So I bet you half the people that have Hollywood stars have struggled with addiction and many of them have died. And so, you know, you've got the 27 Club where there's 150 plus musicians.

And artists, fearfulness and all the things.

Right.

And so I really would dig in in my own therapy, say that have.

Died at 27 years old. And it's, it's so interesting because the creators of the world, and I don't just say creators in terms of artists or music, but like the entrepreneurial creators.

Yeah.

They just. There's so much anguish and there's so much mental struggle. And so I think can it be parlayed into something productive or is it something that just keeps them trapped? And I think it. So what are your, what Are your thoughts on. Because I mentioned before we started recording, you want to talk about addiction? You're like, sure, sure, let's. Let's go there. And I think of addiction as a solution to pain. You know, I don't believe you can punish pain out of people. So if you try to incarcerate someone, which they do, or you look at someone as a moral degenerate, like a choice, then it just makes it more hidden. People don't want to talk about it because they're going to be publicly shamed. Have you struggled with addiction in your life?

It's interesting, right, because it's like when people talk about addiction, people talk about drugs, right? Like they have certain. The way they do.

I have empathy. And she's like, why. Why are we having this conversation?

You have deep empathy, you know, and so it's like I'm thinking I will even stand in the line when I don't need to stand in line because I don't want anyone to think like, she's ever taking advantage. So I know I'm not the label.

Stuff, but then I sometimes then I help people take a broader perspective, right? And a lot of people addicted to. To working hard, right?

Oh, well, you know, there's a book on workaholism in the subtitle is, right. The Respectable Addiction.

So I've been lucky, if you will, that my addictions have been mostly of the type that is less frowned upon by the human society. But the addiction of being smart.

And I'm very. Because entitlement is the sort of the trunk of the tree. And so I don't.

I'm constantly learning new stuff. It's awesome. Addiction. And also, like, over the years became very clear to me that this is also one of my ways to kind of escape, you know, like when I'm suffering struggle, then I might be likely to try to read a new book and find a new way of thinking about stuff. And it's funny, right, because a lot of the times it's also about. Instead of dealing with stuff, we try to find a way to heal stuff or learn or understand stuff. It's like, stuff is right here. But yeah, let's. I don't like that. That's too hard. You know, let me try to. And addiction to working, like, you know, a lot of my life has been. Again, it's been generally manageable.

I never. And so I'm pretty confident that I'm not. In fact, I think if I was.

Narcissistic, I worked quite a bit. But then I also had my kids, and I'm happy that I spent a fair bit of time with them and all of that. But so I had those things and the light addiction to alcohol and whatnot, and I had their light addiction to cannabis, if you will, for some time. Those are mostly gone. But again, like, my business would have.

Been so much better and so much bigger. But I, I, but you, you do come against that. And I do think that more than anything is that people are being made uncomfortable about this conversation.

For me, this is a, it's, it's a word. What, what does it really mean? It means that human being, you know, we all have emotions we're not comfortable with, and right. Then we try to find a tool, a way to manage them. Right? And then we find the tool and eventually, inevitably, we overuse that. Right. Like, you know, we work a bit.

And so it's activating shame in them. I also think that it's the nature of, of online spaces.

Work more, work harder. That's cool. You know, generates dopamine and recognition and results and success and whatnot. But then we keep working more and more and, you know, we stuck in that, or maybe we drink a little bit, and then over the years we keep drinking more and more or whatever other thing we consume. Like, coffee is my drug. You know, I like it. You know, I drink a few cups a day, and it is a drug.

And what's the most coffee you've ever drank in a day?

Not a lot. Like, I don't know, maybe four or five cups.

Okay.

I mean, one of their mechanisms that's been programmed into me long time ago is discipline. Right. So that's been a very powerful tool that's been in me for, since my childhood, and it's been extremely effective in a lot of things and really messed me up and a lot of things too, Right.

And so people around the attack, I'm sure you get all this stuff all the time. And so any of us in this.

Space, you know, I like the way I think about this, is also here's their branch. Like, some people are really good at discipline, and some people are really good at being sensitive and surrendering. Right. And I think that sometimes we have a natural way kind of we gravitate toward one or another because of our genetic circumstance and whatnot. And, you know, but I. Yeah, no, you, you just.

Like what? Just hearing you say that makes me realize, why the heck are we so sensitive? Where I could read like a book.

Review, seeing people stuck in one of.

Those for a long time, you know that's okay. So where my brain goes with what you just said is that when I was in the peak of struggling with my addiction, the worst stages were when I was 18 years old. I was free, basing cocaine, I was snorting crystal meth, I'd taken lsd, where.

You know, there's like one, there was one that I read recently that was.

A negative review probably 75 times before the age of 18, I was taking speed, I was getting high every day, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, was a mess. And in my worst state, there was one week where I had not eaten for hardly anything for the entire week. And on average I was weighing 120 pounds. And when you're a male and you're five, five ten, that's freaking skinny. And there was one week where I had just eaten hardly anything. I'd just been doing coke all week. I was up just almost non stop for this whole week. And I weighed myself and I got down to 105 pounds and I look like a freaking skeleton. And people.

And right before and right after is like, this is the best book I've ever read. And I'm like, how is it, you know?

But we're telling me like, you need help, you need help. And it would just piss me off. And I was a blank, oblivious of seeing how messed up I had become. And so obviously I write about this in books that I've written and whatnot. So I won't go into the whole story. The what ended up happening is I got out of where I was living, I drove to New Mexico on this piece of crap pickup truck and lived in a trailer with my father and got sober. And the first six months were just grueling. And then I ended up getting a job selling gym memberships. And I, for the first time in my life, I started consistently exercising. Then I met some, someone there and I got a job at a mental hospital and I was a mental health tech and I would drive one of the things.

Why do I get so bothered by that? Why do we get so. Why are we so sensitive to it and how do we not be bothered by it? Or maybe that's part of just being a really cool human. Like, yeah, you're sensitive, you know, you don't want people to.

So my job was to three times a week to drive the patients there that were adults for drug addiction, alcoholism, to AA meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, CA meetings, Cocaine Anonymous. And I would sit in on these meetings not realizing how valuable that would be not only to my life Then, but in my future life, because my core addiction was sex addiction, and that stemmed from being raped and molested as a kid. And I was paid money not to say anything. I also didn't have any female upbringing because my mother died.

Call you something that you don't. That you're not, or you don't feel that you're not. I mean, I, you know, how. I guess, how do we become less.

When I was 4 years old and my father never remarried, so he was just, you know, tormented. So I had a really. Not a very happy. Yeah, it was a miserable childhood, but basically I just didn't deal with any of the trauma. So I'd gotten sober from drugs, but I never dealt with the underlying issues that caused me to drink in the first place. And so that term, dry drunk. There's a lot of dry drunks and a lot of my very successful friends and colleagues, like you had mentioned, they're workaholics. But it's. It is this. It is this compulsivity that you get rewarded in the world. You get high status, you can make a lot of money, you can actually do a lot of good stuff. But inside, you know, there's this drive that is driving you, you know, crazy.

Yeah.

And so, so workaholism, sex addiction, you know, drug addiction, These were all.

Bingo.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, like, during the pandemic and during this big, you know, the end.

Bothered by it.

I don't know that we do become.

Less bothered by it. In fact, maybe we don't.

I don't know that we do. I, I think that part of the burden of empathy is that that also would. Would sensitize us to that kind of discourse. And it will. And, and I'm going to be frank with you, I think that anyone who's.

Had a history of FT craze. Yeah, there was a couple of years ago, I was looking, you know, even, you know, thinking of myself and the people I was talking with. It totally mirrors gambling addiction. You know, crypto addiction is. Is very similar to. To gambling addiction. And I'm like, man, there's a ton of people in that space that struggle with addiction on top of the fact that they're staring at screens all day long. Because Internet addiction, porn addiction, gambling addiction, Gaming addiction.

Yeah, addiction.

These are all these compulsive ways that people try to, you know, try to scratch the itch. So, you know, the spectrum of, I.

Think that line trauma, and anyone who's at. Or a history of these kinds of narcissistic betraying relationships.

There is such again, the opposite of addiction is connection. And the ultimate form of connection is getting into a state of flow where you just time disappears and you feel really connected there. And I, in most human life is kind of in between. And it vacillates between joy and misery. Although from my perspective, I think it's more unhappiness than happiness.

And I don't even think core schema of what's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Do I deserve this? Am I the bad one?

Happiness is like the goal, you know, as a matter of fact, I mean, some of the world's greatest achievers and people that have done things did not live most of their life in joy. A lot of it was, you know, there's. So how do you view sacrifice and how do you view.

Right. Since that's such a central schema, that kind of commentary is going to bounce off of that.

And instead of like, I'm absolutely not.

That is that there's a. There's a plausibility to it. And then it's a cause.

You know, what you're willing to endure pain for. For. For different people, for different causes, for your family. I mean, is there places where you're like, you know, I will trade peace of mind for productivity in these areas.

This is a very complex calculation that a human being does every single moment, right? Like, you know, what do I do? And it has a certain pattern so that it keeps applying, right? And it finds them successful or not, and it keeps applying them in one way or another. So like sacrifice, right? It's always the way I look at the human being. Human being does what it does. And then there is a story about why did I do that and is it good, is it bad, what not. And the story is a superficial layer on top of that. The behavior is not driven by the story, but the story is one aspect of what a human being is. And I also seen that our story about what's happening, why am I doing things, can change, radically change. But the thing is, even when the story changes, the behavior might still be there or not. It's really fascinating.

Is this sort of grappling. And I don't think grappling is ever a bad thing. That that creates the core of accountability, which is another.

I somehow, for me, for example, I've never, on the one hand, I can say that I rarely sacrificed some physical aspects of my health. Like, for example, I've always been very good with sleeping. That's something I've never really Sacrificed, really? When I was working full time, studying full time, and having a kid, like, you know, my sleep was difficult sometimes, but I would never, for example, work during the night and do stuff and whatnot. Like, you know, I would always go to sleep and still kind of. That's been all of my life. But then also sacrifice, Right. Like, and then I exercised for the bulk of my life. I started exercising about 17, and I was this skinny guy, and I wanted to be bigger for, like, you know, to attract girls and also to look scary to bullies and whatnot.

Right, right, right. Of course, there's a practical reason.

So I've done that, and it's been awesome. But also, like, I've been in that discipline of doing that. I've been also, looking back, I've been so insensitive to some injuries and stuff and, you know, injuring myself.

Their core element of a healthy relationship.

But I don't need to be sitting there all day, and I'm very much. I. Again, one of the things, the way I opened up this book was a story of me as a child and.

You know, with a purple dress and not willing to sort of put myself out there more than anything because I didn't want to be made fun of.

That was the driver basically, not properly healing. And some of that stuff caught up with me later on. Right? So it's like. So that's another sacrifice. Right? So all kinds of sacrifices. Right. But whether we talk about sacrifices or not, right, like, we kind of want to say, I'm noble, I'm doing this stuff for the good, for the future. But you know what? Fuck your future, because the future will always surprise you, Right? Yeah. So we do what we do, and then what happens is what happens. So it's merely what we do is our current best effort based on everything that happened to us, based on our current mindset and emotions.

And for that days, I did not want people to. To see me and make fun of me. And even to this day, I. I.

Still think, how did we sleep and what did we eat and what did we listen to? And maybe listen to your podcast. Right? You know.

Yeah.

Or maybe we listen to some asshole.

Yeah.

Who. Who said something different and gave us some, whatever, crystal meth. I never tried that, but.

Well, you know, you.

You.

You know, it's funny. The only thing that makes the brain light up quicker than sexual imagery is methamphetamine. I mean, when you so it literally. So, yeah, you probably don't want to try.

It's.

It's a bit.

Yeah.

But yeah, but here's the thing. Like, I don't think any. If you're sit. If you're sitting there, I don't even know what the hell rational even means like half the time. But if you don't would sit there and be like, let me take this substance that's going to.

Right.

You know, be clearly has a lot of consequences, but, but it gets you high. But at the same time, you know.

The hell are you doing?

But I.

Because there was no way to do this anonymously, right. I could have tried.

And then people, if you've been on medicine journeys, which you have, those could be really intense too. But the, you know, the point is, is like people are trying to escape constantly.

The heck is this? So I, I do, in academia, in some ways you can be very anonymous. So for decades of my career, you really are.

You sort of.

In fact, the way our work is reviewed in academia is it's done, you.

Know, the reality of a, of a situation. So let me, let me mention this because I want to get your perspective on what you think of this line. I talk about it all the time because it just, for some reason, it just resonates with.

Yeah.

So I have a genius network member named Dr. Don Wood, and he's a trauma doctor, used to be a hockey player. And he's in his 60s. And he never had a lot of severe trauma. He never had like that he can recall any serious trauma in his life. But his wife did and he got into, you know, becoming a trauma therapist in a lot of ways because of his wife and just different people. And he, he, he's become really, really good at it. And he has this line where he said, if you understood the atmospheric conditions of somebody's life, it would make sense why they are the way that they are.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. So in your, you know, so if.

You think about it is done anonymously. They remove our names from the manuscript. So there's no bias in the peer review process.

The atmospheric conditions of your life, if I have them, I would be you. If I was built genetically, everything the same. And so, you know, and you've talked about this where people are, you know, people are just doing what it is they do. It's not even. Right.

Let me also talk a little bit about this, because when we talk about drama, I don't even like to use that word anymore because for me, just like every human being has all kinds of influences on them all the time. And then some of them, they are powerful and they stay with us For a long time. Some of them are more fleeting. Right. And you look outside the window, you look at this tree, it has a unique shape of its branches and leaves and whatnot. It's been shaped by how the sun, the structures, the wind, the humidity and all of that stuff.

Right?

The same with a human being, right. We, we are shaped by that, but we are not a static thing. You know, it's not like we become this and then we stay this. You know, we're ever flowing infinity, constantly dancing with our environment.

So there's almost a built in anonymity.

In the scholarly process.

And so if people say it, they say it. And I'm thinking if they. Again, I'm not reading the comments, so I'm not seeing it. But, but if they, if it did.

Lead the person to grapple with.

Well, maybe I am the narcissistic.

And what is also interesting is that as I've been in the last year especially kind of diving more and more into the world of AI, and AI is modernized, they are built on a somewhat simplistic model of a human brain, neural networks. And what is very interesting is like one aspect of this, like when we humans think about the brain and we have, many of us heard the story that we have these neurons and, you know, they then get activated. For example, a neuron can be activated when you see somebody's face, right? So we say that and people we're well familiar with, they might even have a bunch of different neurons activated when that happens. But anyways, and human brain is one unique aspect of this is that it's much more complex than our simplistic story about this. Meaning that if you take a particular neuron, it's not that it reacts to a particular abstract event like this human being, but it reacts to maybe this human being and also affect it a little bit.

Like it's activated one, maybe then the content was worth it.

Do you know Gabor Mate? You familiar with Gabor Mate? Yeah.

So good. Less or more based on the weather, based on some, maybe music, based on some of their chemicals that you have in your bloodstream from what you eating. And the thing is. So it's a very complex structure and you cannot just take away one neuron and say, oh, this is a bad thing. This is my addiction pattern. And I can somehow get rid of this because this is an intrinsic aspect of what you are. And maybe your kindness, maybe your ambitions and your achievements, they're there in that neuron as well. Right, Right. So we talked a little bit about this thing about many people.

Gabor is a good friend of mine. He lives here in Canada and when I created artists for Attic owned this.

Journey to authentic self. Right. And that idea is based on a very simplistic understanding of human being that. Here's my good authentic human being.

Back in 2015, he had written up this whole thing for me about the sensitivity of artists and you know, some of the world's. If, if people walked in Holly, here's.

Some that I don't like. I'll get rid of the. I'll be so awesome. Right. And this is so fucked up, right? Because you already are all of this and all of your parts are interrelated. You take this part and then maybe you will have less of this pattern, but also you will become maybe less friendly, less ambitious. Maybe you will get really fat. Who knows? Right? But that's the point. You cannot disassemble human being into components. It's just like one interconnected, interwoven structure. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So what are your thoughts on forgiveness and acceptance? And because is it. Is that. Is this human? This whole bundle of emotions and feelings and behavior, some good, some bad? Hollywood and saw the Hollywood stars. They would be so, so I bet you half the people that have Hollywood star and, and you know, good or bad is relative to a. The, the actions and the other person's interpretation and then your own.

Yeah.

Because you know, meaning the line that I will often say to people are feelings are not facts. You know, especially if I'm. Because I talk to a lot of people that are struggling with addiction and there are times where I have felt fantastic and my life was completely up.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and I was delusional. Right. Because my life was just not working. There's other times where I felt miserable and I'll have people, you know, be like, oh my God, you were so helpful with me, you know, and you're doing so ours have, have struggled with addiction and, and many of them have, have died. And so, you know, you've got the 27 Club where there's 150 plus musicians and artists that have died at 27 years old. And it's, it's so interesting because the creators of the world, and I don't just say creators in terms of artists or music, but like the entrepreneurial creators.

Yeah.

They just. There's so much anguish and there's so much mental struggle. And so I think can it be parlayed into something productive or is it something that just keeps them trapped? And I think. So what are your. What Are your thoughts on. Because I had mentioned before we started recording, you want to talk about addiction? You're like, sure, let's. Let's.

Good.

And I'm like, well, I don't feel like I'm doing really good.

So it.

And then there are times where it's congruent, where I am doing well. At least I feel I'm doing well. And I feel pretty good. And my life is working right.

Okay.

And so forgiveness and acceptance and how. How do you think about that?

I think they're grandiose dreams of ego that I am forgiving you. It's all bullshit, right? What I mean is that when the real forgiveness happens, it's usually. It's not a story that it's not the real forgiveness, which is again, the new story, but it's not coming together with the story. Like, I forgave this, me, you, whatever. But it's something much different is like, the real forgiveness happens when you see, oh, wow, there was nothing to blame in the first place, right? When you see, like, this human being, this human being, this human being, they were doing this because they were in so much fucking pain. They just. You feel the pain, you feel the compassion, right? And all of your ideas, like, oh, he did this to me. Like, even the person who, you know, molested you and raped you and all of that stuff, you know, fuck him, but also love him, right? Because he was doing this because he was in so much pain, right? And a lot of this pain, I don't know his story, right? But a being who is not in pain is not inflicting pain on other human beings, right? Well, so, yeah, I mean, that's like the real forgiveness is really when the idea of blaming disappears, right? And the real acceptance is not.

Like, I have go there and I think of addiction as a solution to pain.

Accepted this because again, like, you know, it's an idea of trying, like, here's me, human being, I'm standing somehow aside from myself, and then I'm accepting stuff and I manage my own emotions. But you cannot manage your own emotions. The emotions, they. They flow, the thoughts flow, and all of this flow. And sometimes there is acceptance, right? Yeah. And you've been on medicine journeys, right? And sometimes there's a lot of fucking resistance, and sometimes you get stuck in that resistance and it's extremely painful, right?

Yeah.

And sometimes there is just surrender, right? Yeah. And I remember in the beginning of this year, I had mushroom journey, and I came out of this and there was quite a bit of resistance and it wouldn't fully go away. And I came out of this with a very powerful insight. And the insight was like, fuck you, Dima. Right? And I posted about this and some people misinterpreted that, right? Because really, it was about. There was a lot of compassion on that inside. Because really it was about the fact that sometimes we do our best. We try to accept and surrender and everything. But, like, your acceptance of, you know.

You know, I don't. I don't believe you can punish pain out of people. So if you try to incarcerate someone.

Acceptance, like, this is the infinite circle of that, right? It's not like, you know, acceptance, oh, I will accept. And now I'm peaceful and I'm happy. It's like, you know, sometimes acceptance is just like this, this is.

I mean, which they do, or you, You. You look at someone as a moral degenerate, like a choice, then pain, this is it.

And I'm suffering and I'm not able to accept this. You know, I. I look at, you know, we mentioned war in Ukraine, and I see a lot of people who are really suffering and struggling. Like, you know, this is bad. This should not be happening. You know what? This is happening, right? Like, you know, our struggle is always. We have an idea how reality should be, but the reality is different. And like, you know, it.

It just makes it more hidden. People don't want to talk about it because they're going to be publicly shamed.

It should be different, right? And the thing is, like, you know, we can still act, but we don't have a story that things should not be this way. Putin is a fucking asshole. But also, you know what? Like, he's a human being who's been really messed up with whatever his circumstance, his circumstances are, were. And. And he's named.

Have you struggled with addiction in your life?

It's interesting, right? Because just a natural phenomenon, right? Like, you know, we can blame him or, you know, shame him. We can say, yeah, I mean, this is this kind of stuff you do. You know, he lies, he kills people and all of that, right? So this is the reality, right? Can we act based on the reality? Not of, like, the ideas like, you should not be doing this. You know, like, he's doing this. Right? Well, same with us.

Well, you said, you know, someone misinterprets something. Well, like, it's really interesting because if, if their interpretation is their interpretation, right? So if someone respond.

Reality, Right, Right.

Because there's people that.

So if you take something you've posted.

And people like, I don't you know, they're disagreeing with you, they're arguing. Or others are like, Dima, you know, totally relate with you. Whatever it is, whatever the topic is, whatever's going on, that's just simply their atmospheric conditions, their life experience and, and the thing with, with humans, I have thought about this.

It's like when people talk about addiction, people talk about drugs. Right. Like they have certain.

The way that a lot over the last year is everybody thinks they're right, including me most of the time. And I think it takes a lot of awareness to be like, you know, I'm, I'm really. This is. I may not be right here. I could be completely and utterly wrong.

Yes.

And, and people will fight for their wrongness in thinking they're right. And there's that, that line. I've heard Stephen Covey say it. I've heard, you know, other people say it, where people judge themselves on their intentions. They judge others by labels St stuff.

But then I sometimes then I help people take a broader perspective. Right. And a lot of people, their actions.

Right.

And if you were to ask Putin or you'd ask any side, you know, you, you, you take Israel and you know, Hamas, you know, whoever is. Is in charge of any political.

Addicted to working hard.

Right. Oh, well, you know, there's a book on, on workaholism and whatever they think they're right and they're. And when someone will often hurt us. Well, that's not my intention, but their, their actions did.

Yeah.

So. And that's a really hard thing to, to come to grips with when there's, you know, war and conflict with when the subtitle is right. The respectable addition.

So I've been lucky, if you will.

That might with each other. But I think the conflict first starts internal conflict. You know, there's not going to be external conflict without people internal conflict and then budding, you know, heads with themselves before they start butting heads with others and being right.

It's like, you know, I'm a guy who used to be very keen on knowing a lot and I still, I have a very natural curiosity and that's still, it's still present. I, I learned about a lot of stuff. I read and I play and I explore and whatnot. But it used to be very important for me to be right. Right. So it's like what I know, right. And when I would argue then that I would be. I didn't realize that, but I would be so scared of not being right. And I would like, you know, just try to bamboozle and to my opponent and pretend that I know when I. When I had my doubts and whatnot and would. So arguing those people is difficult. Right. And it's no longer the case. It's like, you know, I post my opinion and then it's like, this is. This is just like my current idea. And then somebody's agreeing with that. Okay, awesome. And somebody's degree disagreeing with that. Like, of course you're right. Right. Like, you know, how can you agree with the bullshit I just posted, you know?

Right.

Addictions have been mostly of the type that is less frowned. So it's. It's this. There's this lightness. Right. I can see that all that we know is, is a matter of perspective. And that perspective is not the truth. Of course it's the truth of this. But this is human being is really just this imaginary perspective on everything, right? Yeah. Most of the time it's like, here is me. I'm the center of universe. This is how things are and upon the human society. But the addiction of being smart and constantly learning new stuff, it's awesome. Addiction. And also, like over the years became very clear to me that this is also one of my ways to kind of escape, you know, like when I'm suffering from. I know it's right.

How much does trauma and fear play into the inability to let go?

Oh, I think it's huge. It's huge. But you think about it. This is what we're talking about is behavior change. Right? Okay, so what is it that triggers behavior change on anything? Like, let's say that you've been. You've not been in good shape, you know, you've been overweight or you've just not been in good. And finally you just. You're sick of it for some reason or another. I mean, I remember early on I learned this. I had a woman called me and she said, oh, you've got to come and clean my. Got to come and organize my house. I mean, I could tell there was just like this panic, you know, something. I said, well, sure, you know, what, what's happening? She said, oh. She said, I met this guy and he's just fabulous. And I went to his house and it's all white carpets and I mean, it's this beautiful house.

And he said.

She said, I can't invite him to my house. You know, it's like, so things happen, you know, or the doctor says you're going to have a heart attack if you don't lose 60 pounds or something like that. Well, I think it's the same.

Then I might be likely to try to read a new book and find a new way of thinking about with organization and productivity.

I mean, no one can make you do it. I mean, people will come to me and say, I want to buy your book. And you give it to my husband or my wife. I said, please don't. I mean, please don't. I don't want stuff.

And it's funny, right? Because a lot of the times it's also about, instead of dealing with stuff, we try to find a way to.

Your money for that. Because it's not going to work.

It has to be internal, heal stuff or learn or understand stuff. It's like stuff is right here.

And until I always say I'm not trying to convince anybody to do anything.

I. Yeah, I don't like that. That's too hard. You know, let me try to. And addiction to.

I'm looking for people who've been wondering, where have you been all my life?

Such a. Such a critical point. Yeah. I mean, and even too, just giving. Just. Even in the business I'm in, you know, so many clients that are how to. You know, when people don't pay, they don't pay attention. And when it's someone else just trying to, hey, I think you should use this. It has to be an internal motivation, not an external thing.

I lived and worked in India for a while and we did help gave out food and things like that. And we always had people pay something because if they didn't pay something, might be a penny. They didn't, you know, they didn't value it.

Exactly.

And I think, you know, it's the same kind of thing.

And the way you laid out the.

Engagement, though, is critical, is by turning it into a game, defining a particular day, getting the team working and the collaboration that way, because someone has to be the catalyst for that. So in that particular recommendation, we're talking to either someone that owns the company, founded the company, or at least is in the ability to drive that.

Well, let me talk about one other step that's in that. And one of the things that we do. I have a lot of companies that will put us on a retainer for a period of time. And part of what happens within that is that we then have the company choose, depending on the size of the company, at least two people that we can train to do what we do internally. And that's easy to find because in every company there's somebody who just loves to organize. I mean that. And they Want to, they want, but they're working.

Like, you know, a lot of my life has been. Again, it's been generally manageable. Like I worked quite a bit, but then I also had my kids and I'm happy that I spent a fair bit of time with them and all of that, but so I had those things.

They just haven't been empowered to do it. And people, you know, kind of get annoyed even. And so suddenly they have a.

And the light addiction to alcohol and whatnot. And they had their light addiction to.

Cannabis, if you will, and they can turn it into a game. I'm working with one company right now that we're. It's actually a non profit organization and they've got me on retainer for a year and I'm training three of their people to do it. And one of the things we've done is, you'll appreciate this, is we're getting cardboard figures of me. Oh, that's funny because people will say, well, when you're around, I hear, what's the worst possible thing that would happen.

If you didn't have this?

Or Clutter's postponed decisions. So when I was working with them, I said, hey, we'll get cardboard figures of me. And then we'll take these different quotes and we'll put them up on the cardboard figures. And then these three women can go around and they move them around within the company. They show up at different times, different places to educate people and raise people, people's conscience and to make it fun.

I'm just sitting here thinking about all the quotes I say about marketing, that I can start sending cutout pictures of me to all my clients with all these quotes. Not that it would be anywhere near.

As productive as what you're saying, but it would just really mess with people psychologically. That's a great idea though, really.

So that's another way because when we were talking before the interview, you said, when you've got a problem, you can just extend it long enough so you keep paying for it. And what, what I'm saying is you don't have to. I mean, I can literally now what I. A mistake I made. And everybody in business makes mistakes. And for a while I did this, but what I didn't do was I didn't stay tied to the company. So I had these people that I had trained, but I didn't keep tied enough to be able to update them on what was going on. So they're now still doing what I did 10 years ago, but what I'm doing 10 years ago isn't working, working anymore. So one of the things I know now is that ideally with a company, it's like, okay, you hire me for a year to get this all in place at a, at a high fee. But then in the year for some.

Time, those are mostly gone. But again, like for coming, it's just.

A little bit, just something so I can keep you updated and make sure you have the newest.

And for me, this is, it's a. What does it really mean? It means that human being, we all have emotions we're not comfortable with and.

All of that sort of thing. So it's very exciting because it's a win win and it enables you to keep doing it. Makes me so sad when I see people invest enormous amounts of time and energy to, quote, get organized, but then they don't do anything to maintain it. I mean, it's like you might as well take your money and throw it down the garbage disposal.

Yeah.

And we try to find a tool, a way to manage that. Right. And then we find.

And then another thing that's really important is early on I was called by a company. It was actually the National Governors Association. They know I tell this story, so they don't have trouble with it. They called me. This has been 30 years ago now. I guess they called me because they had a room that they called the gloom and doom room. And that was the room where all the postponed decisions were put, you know, when an employee left the company and nobody wants to go through an old employee's stuff, right. So they put it in the box and then it goes in this storage room. And they didn't have proper shelving. And so the boxes had just been stacked up. And then one day they all kind of came cascading down to the point that you couldn't open the door, you know, because it cascaded and the fire inspector found it. So they called me and said, would you clean up this room? And I said yes, under one condition, and that is that we figure out what happened to make that happen. Because I'm not in the cleanup business, I'm in the organizing business. And so I'm not going to fix that until we figured out how to prevent it from happening. And one of the principles that we operate under is today's mail is tomorrow's pile. So one of the other services that we offer is called an eight hour miracle. It's an organization organizing intervention for one person in one office, which we can now do in place, but we've even learned to do it virtually because some people are too embarrassed. I mean, we have executives at companies. I don't want you to see what.

My office looks like.

So it's okay, fine, we don't have to.

We can, we can the tool and eventually, inevitably, we overuse that. Right. Like, you know, we work a bit, we work more, work hard. School, you know, generates dopamine and recognition and results and success and whatnot. But then can still do that.

But one of the things with that is we ignore.

We keep working more and more and, you know, we're stuck in that. Or maybe we drink a little bit. And then over the years, everything they.

Did in the past. I don't care what you did in the past. I'm going to put in place what I call the Magic 6, which is based on. I worked with the software company for a while, and prior to releasing the Software, I organized 200 people. And I said, I know organizing is an art. I know everybody's different. But I also have this intuitive feeling that there are some things that are not negotiable, that if you're going to be productive, if you're going to accomplish your work and enjoy your life, there are some things that just have to be in place. And after organizing 200 people, I identified the six of them. So that was the magic six. So when we go in to do the eight hour miracle, we ignore the past and we put the Magic Six in place now. We start stop the problem and then once we've stopped the problem now, we go back and deal.

We keep drinking more and more or whatever other thing we consume. Like coffee is my drug, you know, I like it, you know, with the old stuff.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful.

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Do it now.

Come on. Thank you.

Watch him.

Oh. I drink a few cups a day and it is a drug.

And what's the most coffee you've ever drank in a day?

Not a lot, like, I don't know, maybe four or five cups. Okay. I mean, one of their mechanisms that's been programmed into me long time ago is discipline. Right. So that's been a very powerful tool that's been in me for, since my childhood. And it's been extremely effective in a lot of things and really messed me up in a lot of things too. Right. You know, the way I think about this is also. Here's their branch. Like, some people are really good at discipline and some people are really good at being sensitive and surrendering, right? And I think that sometimes we have a natural way kind of we gravitate toward one or another because of our genetic circumstance and whatnot. And you know, but I've seen people stuck in one of those for a.

Long time, you know, that's okay. So where my brain goes with what you just said is that when I was in the peak of struggling with my addiction, the worst stages were when I was 18 years old. I was free, basing cocaine, I was snorting crystal meth, I'd taken LSD probably 75 times before the age of 18. I was taken speed. I was getting high every day, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol. It was a mess. And in my worst state, there was one week where I had not eaten for hardly anything for the entire week. And on average I was weighing 120 pounds. And when you're a male and you're 5 10, that's freaking skinny. And there was one week where I had just eaten hardly anything. I'd just been doing coke all week. I was up just almost non stop for this whole week. And I weighed myself and I got down to 105 pounds and I look like a freaking skeleton. And people were telling me like, you need help, you need help. And it would just piss me off. And I was oblivious of seeing how messed up I had become. And so obviously I write about this in books that I've written and whatnot. So I won't go into the whole story. What ended up happening is I got out of where I was living. I drove to New Mexico on this piece of crap pickup truck and lived in a trailer with my father and got sober. And the first six months were just grueling. And then I ended up getting a job selling gym memberships. And I, for the first time in my life, I started consistently exercising. Then I met someone there and I got a job at a mental hospital. And I was a mental health tech. And I would drive. One of the things of my job was to three times a week to drive the patients there that were adults for drug addiction, alcoholism, to AA meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, CA meetings, Cocaine Anonymous. And I would sit in on these meetings, not realizing how valuable that would be not only to my life then, but in my future life, because my core addiction was sex addiction. And that stemmed from being raped and molested as a kid. And I was paid money not to say anything. I Also didn't have any female upbringing because my mother died when I was 4 years old and my father never remarried, so he was just, you know, tormented. So I had a really. Not a very happy. It was a miserable childhood, but basically I. I just didn't deal with any of the. The trauma. So I'd gotten sober from drugs, but I never dealt with the underlying issues that caused me to drink in the first place. And so that term dry drunk. There's a lot of dry drunks in a lot of my very successful friends and colleagues. Like you had mentioned, they're workaholics. But it's. It is this. It is this compulsivity that you get rewarded in the world. You get high status, you can make a lot of money, you can actually do a lot of good stuff. But inside, you know, there's this drive that is driving you, you know, crazy.

Yeah.

And so. So workaholism, sex addiction, you know, drug addiction. These were all.

Bingo.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, like, during the pandemic and during this big, you know, the NFT craze.

Yeah.

That was a couple of years ago. I was looking, you know, even, you know, thinking of myself and the people I was talking with. It totally mirrors gambling addiction. You know, crypto addiction is. Is very similar to. To gambling addiction. And I'm like, man, there's a. Of ton, ton of people in that space that struggle with addiction on top of the fact that they're staring at screens all day long. Because Internet addiction, porn addiction, gambling addiction, gaming addiction, these are all these compulsive ways that people try to try to scratch the itch. So the spectrum of. I think that line, the opposite of addiction is connection. In the ultimate form of connection is getting into a state of flow. Flow where you just. Time disappears and you feel really connected there. And I, in most human life, is kind of in between, and it vacillates between joy and misery. Although from my perspective, I think it's more unhappiness than happiness. And I don't even think happiness is, like, the goal as a matter of fact. I mean, some of the world's greatest achievers and people that have done things did not live most of their life in joy. A lot of it was. You know, there's. So how do you view sacrifice and how do you view, you know, what you're willing to endure pain for different people, for different causes, for your family? I mean, is there places where you're like, you know, I will trade peace of mind for productivity in these areas.

This is a very complex calculation that a human being does every single moment, right? Like, you know, what do I do? And it has a certain pattern so that it keeps applying, right? And it finds them successful or not, and it keeps applying them in one way or another. So like sacrifice, right? It's always the way I look at the human being. Human being does what it does. And then there is a story about why did I do that and is it good, is it bad, what not? And the story is a superficial layer on top of that. The behavior is not driven by the story, but the story is one aspect of what a human being is. And I also seen that our story about what's happening, why am I doing things, can change, radically change. But the thing is, even when the story changes, the behavior might still be there or not. It's really fascinating. Somehow for me, for example, I've never. On the one hand, I can say that I rarely sacrificed some physical aspects of my health. Like, for example, I've always been very good with sleeping.