Dealing with a Narcissist: How to Keep Control in the Conversation
In this solo podcast episode, Jefferson Fisher explains how to recognize and manage interactions with narcissistic individuals. He begins by defining narcissistic behavior as a self‑centered lack of empathy, warns against casually labeling people, and notes his non‑clinical background. Fisher introduces the concept of the "praise‑or‑provoke" game—a rigged interaction where the narcissist seeks either adulation or conflict to maintain control. He outlines three core tactics: (1) refuse to play the game, (2) use silence or "no move" as the safest response, and (3) focus on personal peace rather than seeking an apology. He emphasizes staying neutral with short, non‑engaging replies that give the narcissist nothing to manipulate. Fisher then applies these principles to a listener’s situation—a divorced mother dealing with a diagnosed narcissist ex‑husband—offering concrete phrasing (e.g., "If you think that's a good look for you"), the importance of short text messages, keeping written records to expose contradictions, and employing the "gray rock" technique. The episode concludes with a call to follow, review, and subscribe to the podcast.
Questions this video answers
Use short, neutral text messages; employ phrases like "If you think that's a good look for you" to remind him of external perception; keep a written record to call out contradictions; stay neutral with brief acknowledgments; avoid long explanations; apply the gray‑rock technique to limit emotional engagement.
Chapters
Well, here it is, one of the biggest challenges you'll face when it comes to the world of communication. How do you talk to a narcissist? Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast and please leave a review. If you have any questions or topic suggestions, just throw them in the comments. Now, on the outside, they look totally normal. Maybe you're related to one, maybe you work with one, but a narcissist reveals themselves as soon as they open their mouth. Now, if you don't know exactly what a narcissist is, as if you've heard this term a lot but you're not really sure how to define it, I'm going to break it down very easy, and it is simply somebody who cannot imagine thinking about someone else. They can't put themselves in somebody else's shoes. It's always about them, how great they are, how wonderful they are. If somebody else is having a good time, they need to be having a better time. If they're frustrated, they need you more frustrated. They understand that it is not empathy that they do. It is all about the gratification of oneself, and they just can't get there. It always has to be about them. They're always the victim, and it will always be that way. And the best thing about a narcissist typically is they have no problem telling you that they're a narcissist. So here's some tools that I'm going to give you the next time that you find yourself talking to a narcissist. Number 1, don't play the game. Anytime you're talking to a narcissist, you are playing a game. It's a game I call praise or provoke. But at the end, we're going to find it's a rigged carnival game. It's not something that you can win, so we're not going to play it. Number 2, anytime that you feel like you don't know what to do, understand that the best move you can often make is no move at all. And we're going to talk about exactly how to do that. And number 3, rather than getting yourself worked up as if you need to prove to them that they need to see the wrong of their ways and they need to apologize. It's probably never going to happen, at least to the extent that you want. Instead, there are ways that you have to look within and understand that you don't need an apology to validate your own feelings. All right, how to talk to a narcissist. Now, I want you to understand for a minute, I am no psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not somebody that has a degree in this. So I'm going to be very clear with you. I'm not in a place to diagnose somebody as a narcissist. And unless you really have the ability to clinically diagnose somebody, you have to be very careful when you use that word. It's often overused for anybody that's doing something negative that they don't like, or maybe they're just not understanding you in a certain way and they're not being willing to understand you. It's easy to just throw over a blanket and consider them a narcissist. I want you to be very careful about that. So that disclaimer out there, there are people that are diagnosed as narcissists and there are others that just have narcissistic tendencies or behaviors. So I want to make sure you understand that distinction. I typically see narcissistic behavior in my line of work. I see it among attorneys, certainly when you have that kind of ego of who's right and who's wrong and who has more cases, who's been more successful. I see that a lot. But often it's in cross-examination. I am cross-examining somebody, let's say they're an expert in something, or it's a personality that's on the other side of the fence as me in a case, and I have to cross-examine them, and they're just never going to admit any kind of blame despite the evidence that suggests otherwise. And so the tools that I'm going to be discussing with you today, I want you to understand, are about as practical as they can be, because there is a place that you have to go in your mind to be able to regulate yourself and go to when you know that you are talking to a behavior like this, that you have to separate that person from their behavior and understand that what they're doing is a game. Which is why rule number 1 is don't play the game. Anytime you're talking to a narcissist, you are walking into their trap. That is a game that they like to play. I call it praise or provoke. In other words, if they don't feel like you're praising them enough, if they're not getting enough accolades in the discussion, they will turn to provoke. They will start an argument with you because they delight in your frustration. Just as much as they delight in your praise. And you feel like it's something you can win. You feel like when you get into that bad argument that you can show them their ways, how they're not listening to you, how they're not understanding you, but they will not do it. It is a rigged carnival game because it is that control that they like. They feed off of that control. Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and you talk well about a third person? Maybe it's a mutual friend that you have and you're saying something nice about that person. The narcissist will typically go, oh, well, yeah, well, I've heard about X, Y, and Z, and say something terrible about this person. Or they'll say, oh yeah, well, I mean, I did this. How about me? They'll try and focus and put that spotlight on them. Narcissists want that spotlight entirely on them unless they've done something wrong, then they'll quickly try and put it on you. The key here is understand that this is a game. Often it is a game. It is a, um, something that they enjoy in the back of their mind. And the best thing you can do is not play that game. So key number 1 is recognition, recognizing that you are in a game and and you're going to choose to take your pieces off of the board. You don't have to play it. And that's why rule number 2 is that the best move you can make is no move at all. Meaning silence is your best friend. Often when you're in a conflict with a narcissist and they're saying terrible things, you want to push back against it. You want to think that you can beat it. Instead, often the best move is to say nothing. Silence, the best thing about it is that it can never be misquoted. It can't be twisted in some sense and repeated back to you over and over, manipulated and stretched into something. Often you have this urge to say more and say longer things, throw in 4 sentences, 6 sentences of all this reasoning that's logical and reasonable, but they don't do that. They take those sentences and they string them apart and they'll pick out one word and flip it. And all of a sudden, they're the ones that look like the victim. That's the play, is they will flip that script to twist it and make it look like they're the victim. They're the ones under attack when you know that's not the truth. Silence can never be misquoted. And if you do anything at all, we're going to stay neutral in the conversation. When I say neutral, I'm meaning you are refraining from saying things that are hurtful. Because they will lay this trap expecting you, hoping that you will say something ugly. You will say something disrespectful, rude in some sense, to put them down, because that's what they've been doing, right? They've been throwing these arrows and no problem. But as soon as you do, oh, they act like, woe is me, and you're the worst person alive. And now you're trying to play the comparison game, and it's You're going to be out of depth very quickly when you go into that who's more wrong. So often when you want to stay neutral in the conversation, that means you're going to be saying, "Noted. That's good to know. Okay. I hear you." You're going to be using these little bitty phrases, meaning you're not going to continue to give conversation. You're not going to put back and put a defense back and say, "Well, yeah, what if, but what about?" That's going to just make it worse with a narcissist. Instead, you want to be neutral in that conversation. Go, okay, noted. Thank you for saying that. I understand. Anything that gives them no ability to grab onto, nothing for them to carry on to in the conversation. So the more neutral you can be on a, just a monotone, nothing that's engaging in any way, nothing that's pressing back on them, that's going to be a source of strength. And number 3, I want you to understand where you need to go in your mind when you're communicating communicating with a narcissist. There is this tendency that we have within us to make them want to understand our point of view. It's very easy to get into this push and pull of, oh my gosh, they just— they're not listening to me. They only think about themselves. How can I get them? What can I say to click on the light bulb and make them think about what it's like on my side. Not going to happen. I hate to break it to you, but it's not going to happen. They can't. They can't do that. All right, so stop trying. Stop digging that hole time and time again and expecting them to fill it. It's just going to be an empty hole. Instead, I want you to get to a place in your mind where you think to yourself, instead of, man, they never— they only think about themselves, where you switch to say, it is time that I think about myself and my peace of mind and my source of strength and where I go to, where I draw my strength from, who I draw my strength from. Because there are friends and people in your life that want to fill you, that want to give to you. They want to be part of filling your cup. Narcissists will only take, and they will continue to take, and they'll continue to pour out. So understand there are givers in relationships and takers in relationships, and it's the same way in a conversation. So go into that mindset of you're not going to get that apology from them to say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. You're right. I was totally stubborn. I was totally ignorant. I was so unreasonable in this. I was disrespectful. Most likely never going to happen. So instead, understand that you don't need an apology to validate feelings. You don't need an apology to feel like a bow has been tied on that conversation. You can finally lay it to rest. No, you just need to put down the shovel and keep on walking. All right. Okay, here is the part that is my favorite. I get to answer a question from a follower. If you don't know, I have a newsletter where I send out a communication tip once a week right to your inbox, and you'll have a— there's sign up for it if you haven't joined it yet, is in the show notes there at the bottom. And I get to email people and they ask me questions and I get to respond. And I have one Right here, picked. This is my other phone. All right, let me pull it up. This one is from Mary Ann over in North Carolina. Jefferson, oh my goodness, I love your content. Thank you very much, Mary Ann. So I have a situation. I am a divorced mother, single mother with 2 kids, uh, and my ex-husband is a diagnosed narcissist. We have a very difficult time communicating, and I'm not sure exactly how best to handle the situation. I have found certain ways to communicate, but everything I do seems to make it worse. Can you please help me? Maryann, I'm really sorry about that. That is super difficult, but I know that just you asking that question means that you're a good mom. All right. So I'm going to give you some tools. I'm going to put them in the context of what I have seen work in my world, all right? Because what you're living with, I can't relate to that way. That's, that's not the context environment that I'm in. But I know that what I'm going to tell you will help you, all right? It's the same type of, of tools. Narcissists, right, like we talked about, they only think about themselves. So often I have to use key phrases that use the word 'you.' So somebody's giving me some type of threat in some way, some veiled threat, or trying to instigate something, and I know that they're kind of out on a ledge with it, I will typically respond, "If you think that's a good look for you." "If you think that's a good look for you." And what I'm doing when I say that is I am hinting at the fact that other people are watching. See, a narcissist is very protective of their reputation. They care a lot about what other people think because they always have to be the best, right? They always have to be the best, the top number one spot. And so any time they say something that is kind of on that instigative level and I say, well, if you think that's a good look for you, often the only choice they have is to pull back because I use that key phrase, look for you. I gave that keyword you. They're going to take a step back and go, okay, wait, well, maybe, yeah, maybe if I did that, other people may not like that. So I need to back off of that. Or I might say something like, and you think that's okay? And you think that's okay? I'm trying to indicate to them that there is a world outside of this conversation to remind them so that they go, oh wait, that's, that's not going to put me in the best light right now. That's not the smart play. I'm going to back off of it. Cool. So maybe you can use some of that. Another thing to do is try to communicate over text in certain conversations, because phone, you can't— unless you, you can record the conversation, which I don't want to get into that. But if in text, at least you have a record of that conversation, what has been said. And then I would say number 2, you try to point out every contradiction that there is Maryanne. Meaning, let's say something is said 3 weeks ago and you have a record of that. Well, it's now present day and something that they said does not match what they said previously. You can easily say, "This is a contradiction, period." See how I did that? "This is a contradiction, period." You are inviting them to go, "What do you mean? What are you talking about?" And then you're going to call their bluff in that way. You're going to use the quotes of the prior conversation that they had, that you keep a record. In other words, when it's on the phone, typically they can say, I never said that. What are you talking about? You're crazy. I never— I would never say that. And you know good and well that they did. All right. So that's a good way of making sure you have a record of it as best as you can in many ways. And then I would say also, you want to make sure that when you are talking to these people, in your world, when you talk to that narcissist ex-husband, you want to be as neutral as possible, just like we talked about. So it's a lot of, yes, got it, understood, thank you, noted, evenly as you can, because it's not going to escalate that situation. It's going to try and be a, what they call, a gray rock. Oh, and one more thing, Maryann, you want to make sure that when you are texting Specifically, don't go for long texts. Don't do that. Don't send paragraphs. Don't send pages. I would keep it to a max of one sentence because the longer you give somebody an explanation, they're not going to respond to the whole thing. Narcissists will pick out like one word or one sentence, one little part of the text and flip it. And that's what they'll respond to. And you're going, what do you— that's not even all what I was talking about. I'm making the point of X. You made it too long. So a word of caution is avoid the long texts. You just want to keep it short and sweet. Few words, maybe just 3 words if you can. And then that way there's just not anything for them to draw on and they're not going to be able to lay any kind of trap for you. If you enjoyed today's episode on how to talk to a narcissist, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. And if you would, leave a review. This podcast is up wherever you listen to your podcast, whether it's on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, and it would mean a lot to me if you leave any kind of star or review, even if it's a topic suggestion or any kind of feedback at all. I personally look at it myself and it really means a lot. And as always, you can try that and follow me.
