[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] You're listening to casual talk radio where common sense is still the norm whether you're a new or long time listener. We appreciate you joining us today. Visit
[email protected] and now here's your host, Ler. A very happy New Year's to everyone out there listening. I am currently sitting underneath an electric robe of sorts. The furnace is running, but the furnace is not able to keep up with the level of cold we are currently dealing with. It's cold. We got some snow out of nowhere, ice. I had a contractor here earlier said he slipped on ice. Not at my place but somewhere else because my place has ice melt all over.
[00:00:50] But it just cold snap out of nowhere, frigid cold temperatures, perfectly in season for a mat. Just seemed untimely because we're fresh off of a little bit of warmth as I had to go down and take some photos under duress. So right now I look awful on purpose. I purposely look awful because anytime I'm made to take a photo under duress, I generally do not show up. I purposely make myself look like a bum.
[00:01:19] Again, if the photo is under duress, if it's my own photo or I chose to do it or it's with someone that I generally like, you know, then sure, I'll step it up. But if it's under duress, I look like a bum. Now there's one exception. I took a photo with a co worker, very attractive co worker. She was the one that I don't want to say forced but strongly encouraged me to take. This photo was at Padre stadium. This is 2010, maybe ish. And I, I have the photo and I look terrible. To be honest, it's interesting. I looked a lot like my brother in the photo, which was weird. But I look terrible compared to what my mental impression on myself is. And she's like, no, no you don't. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is, this is pretty bad. That's, that's pretty bad from a guy who at one point was like 150 something pounds. You know, I'm looking at this and I'm like, yeah, that's pretty bad. And she's like, no, it's just posture and everything else. Well, it wasn't posture at the time.
[00:02:27] I had gone on a little bit of a diet.
[00:02:31] I switched up the diet a little bit and I, after I did that, I was down to 175 and that's like the lowest I could go comfortably without starving effectively.
[00:02:45] And then, you know, I've Kind of wavered a little bit, but nowhere near what I was in that photo. Nowhere. Not even close. Like, right now, even. I'm not even close to what I was in the photo. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm not where I was in the photo.
[00:02:57] The reason I'm telling that is because right now, as I'm sitting underneath this freaking blanket, yeah, I can, you know, age, it hits. Age, it hits hard. You feel it, you experience it, and it's sudden. You know, if you. Some people are. They played sports when they were kids or they, you know, you can remember being just. I don't want to say unstoppable, but you were dominant in your craft.
[00:03:28] That was, for me, in the workplace, energy. That was the definition. Energy. I just had energy for days. And I think a lot of what I'm experiencing now is a byproduct of some of the companies I worked at, because, like, I worked at, you know, Staples at a point, and that was a nightmare. And then I worked different call center where I was abused, not physically, but just as a worker.
[00:03:53] And all the travel, you know, flying here to four, you know, being shipped over across country, left and right, back to back trips, and I. That's when I got to the point I swore off getting on a plane because it was, like, not gonna work for me, brother. Train I'm cool with. But our government doesn't want to help the train system. Train system doesn't want to upgrade to keep the times. They don't even have wireless. So I. I kind of said, all right, well, I guess that means I'm not gonna be taking a trip unless I'm taking my own car. And I don't like driving cross country. I used to, you know, but physically, again, age, it hits. It hits hard, and it sucks.
[00:04:33] I was thinking I would talk about a topic that's near and dear to my heart, because I have been a subject of this from a past situation, and I hate to bring the person up, but I think it's important because others may have dealt with this or experienced it or seen it or heard it.
[00:04:52] My second. Yeah. Second girlfriend ever, who to this day.
[00:05:01] And I know how she thinks. She doesn't understand that I know how she thinks, but I know how she thinks. I can read her, especially now. I think when I was younger, I didn't really understand how to read her very well, but I could predict how she would behave to some degree. And then as we got through what we got through, it became clear she just was Very weak minded. That's just the truth of it. She was weak minded. That's why we connected in the first place. She was weak minded. She was generally attracted. She made a move and I was. At that time, I wasn't telling anybody. No, that's just how I flowed. That rhymes. So I said, you know, all right, let's roll this and see what happens. And, you know, we. I think we connected on a basic level, but friends get in the way with girls. They listen to their friends and things happen. And then I had somebody who was jealous.
[00:06:00] It was a weird being a teenager. It was a weird time.
[00:06:06] That whole experience was just strange. It was just strange. And I own my part of it, which was she was weak minded. I didn't. I knew that when I met her, but I didn't push back like I probably should have, because at the time, that was not me. I would not push back simply because you're weak minded. If you want to roll, we can roll and give it a try, see what happens. That's kind of a little bit too open, a little bit too flex. So it happens when Covid hit, then I think I told the story. And if you're new, welcome, by the way. But I had made the. On the phone, I'd called up anybody I had a contact for just to check on them, see how they were doing, make sure they're okay, you know, Covid was a tough time. And I'm not even talking health, I'm talking financial.
[00:06:48] Some people ended up homeless. I mean, it was bad. So I was checking on people just to see, how are you doing? Is there anything I can help you with? And some people were grateful. And she, she was one of the people I called. I debated doing it because I knew how she would react, because again, I can read her. But to me, I always took the stance. It's like, if you're part of my history, you're part of my history. And I'm not going to judge because of something that happened. When we're teenagers, I'm kind of thinking we're grown. We should be able to mentally accept our role in what happened. And more importantly, accept that we are now grown and we should not be sitting holding on to that baggage because we understand the role each of us played. It was not a one sided thing that caused us to break up. There's never been. I'm not even talking, just myself.
[00:07:40] There's never been a relationship where it's just one person's fault that the thing separates. That's not the way it works, it's an action, reaction, causality. That's what it all is. That's how ours was. The bottom line is that I knew at the time she was weak minded. That's why we got together.
[00:07:59] She was a very jealous sort. She listened to friends who told her whatever because they didn't like me anyway.
[00:08:05] They didn't like me because I was a very welcome, friendly person who had a lot of friends, some of them female, some of them male. And I rolled like that. That's just what it was. But if you were to talk to certain of these people that I could name, if I were going to. I'm not, but if I could, you were to talk to some of these people, they'd laugh at you for some of the stuff that was proposed at the time. So this person, my second girlfriend, she would, if you were to speak to her now, she would call me a narcissist. She would say that I was a narcissist. Then she would say, I'm a narcissist now and again. I can name at least four people. Women that if they had heard her say that, they would laugh in her face because it's the furthest from the truth. But it got me thinking, there may be other people where that word gets thrown at them. And this is a symptom of.
[00:09:00] I've always said our U.S. education system is failing our young folks. I believe that that's one example because it gets thrown around too much, this idea of being a narcissist. It gets thrown around and it's been bastardized from what it was originally intended to be used for.
[00:09:17] And it's why I accepted.
[00:09:20] I know for a fact you feel this and why you do it's because you don't know the definition of what you're saying. But I can feel there's no narcissism there.
[00:09:35] And I can have people tell the story about why it's not the case.
[00:09:39] Let's step back.
[00:09:42] Narcissism's origin. I'm talking just the origin. So it goes back Sigmund Freud.
[00:09:48] So the origin of narcissism took a totally different form.
[00:09:55] It took on a form where you have just this unreasonable level of energy around something that you don't let go, that you, this is what it is. It's not necessarily yourself all the time. You could have a narcissism because you believe as an example, you think your kid is the most gorgeous child walking the planet and nobody else's kid can touch yours.
[00:10:24] You think Your wife is the most beautiful thing in this world, legitimately. You think your parents are the richest. People like you have this syndrome, I'll call it quote unquote, where you think something about someone, not necessarily yourself, that's unreasonable. That's the origin of narcissism. Well, if you think of that definition, Sigmund Freud posited that there's different levels to that. One level applies to everyone, starting from when you're a kid. What is it? You know what it is. When we're a kid, especially if you're in sports, but not just. You think you're unstoppable. You think you're gonna live forever. You think you're untouchable. You think you can beat everybody down. You think you can outrun everybody. You think you're never going to get injured. You think you're hardly ever going to get sick. You think there's nothing you can't do.
[00:11:25] You think you're at the top of the world. You think everything's easy. It's going to be easy. Easy work.
[00:11:33] You think you can figure everything out. That's a form of narcissism and it's inherent to kids. All of us have felt that at some point this narrative that we're untouchable and that could be in the school, right? You believe because of who you are, I'm better than all these people. Or just sports. I'm better than all these people. Or some young girls feel like they're just more attractive than everybody else. That narcissism is inherent to us even at a young age.
[00:12:08] It's in our DNA to feel that way. We don't shame those kids when they feel that way. We don't tell them that it's wrong. We encourage it. The parents encourage that. You've heard it. Hey, slugger, let's get out of. We encourage that. We encourage our kids to be those top performers. We encourage our kids to. To end up being a valedictorian. We encourage our kids to be honor roll students. We encourage our kids to be top of the class. We encourage our kids to go rotc. We encourage our kids to go to President's Club. We encourage our kids to be the principal's favorite or whatever accolade. We encourage that. Why do you think there's such a thing as Advanced Placement classes in the first place? It's not because we think that the kid should be there.
[00:12:59] It's because we want our kid to be the top of the class.
[00:13:03] We want our kid to excel beyond the normal That's a form of narcissism on the parents side.
[00:13:11] So what Freud was talking about is the idea that narcissism is. It's everywhere. It's not that certain people are narcissists, certain people are not. It's not the way it works. It is the narcissism is everywhere. It applies everywhere. But there's also self preservation forms of narcissism. The drive to procreate, the need to do it, that what they refer to as the baby fever, the need to procreate. The thought that you have to carry on your genetics, have to carry on your DNA has to carry on. It has to be a legacy. That's a form of narcissism.
[00:13:51] Now if we accept all that, and I encourage you to by all means look up Sigmund Freud's writings. I know there are some people that don't like to read for some reason.
[00:14:02] Do an audiobook if you have to. But I encourage you to educate yourself about what narcissism used to be and what its origin was and the intent behind it. And you'll understand there is no such a binary decision as to a person being a narcissist or not. We have bastardized the term. That's not what it means. What it means is simply something that is every, that's endemic in everybody. Everybody has it, everybody should have it. In some cases it's healthy, in some cases it's not healthy. But we all have it to some degree.
[00:14:39] Now narcissism is different from, from narcissistic personality disorder, which is a specific something. But it is a trait where narcissism applies. But it goes way beyond this.
[00:14:56] Here's where I want to try to draw those parallels so you can hear the how I felt hearing that attributed to me and why I knew you got your definition. You're off this as an example a grandiose sense of self importance. The idea that you are self important above and beyond everybody else around you. Well, let's step that back. At the time that this was first attributed to me as far as something that was said at that time I was probably the most unfortunately outright person there was.
[00:15:37] To the point I was stolen from multiple times because I was so outright, because I put myself out there, because I was willing to welcome in those kids who didn't have the toys that I had. Those kids who didn't have the games I had to the point that I was willing to take at the time. I had a disabled. We had a neighbor who had a disabled child. And I was, I was willing to walk him to and from school.
[00:16:05] There were so many situations that I can think of where I purposely put myself out for somebody else's benefit, to my detriment. Money that I gave that I was not going to get back. I can tell a story. I can't remember the girl's name anymore. It doesn't matter. But I almost slapped her because of her response to what happened in that situation. Countless other situations involving women where I put myself out. So I disagreed with the idea of grandiose sense of self importance. Where she was taking that statement is the fact that at the time, there was a strong push from me to improve how I presented. Everything that I was doing that might have been perceived as self importance. It wasn't. You take somebody who does nothing at all and you say, I got to step it up. I've got to be a little bit more talkative. I got to smile a little bit more. And that came from a different girl, lesbian girl. A good friend of mine who I could tell that story not for here, but she was one of the ones who was trying to encourage me to come out of that shell. That was where I came from. Well, you can't have it both ways. If you don't like that I'm in a shell, so I should come out of the shell or you don't like that I'm out of the shell and I should go out of the shell. You can't have both ways. You got to choose. I chose to come out of the shell ever slightly. And to me, I took what I started doing and I crafted it into the person I would eventually become.
[00:17:47] A lot of that took a lot of that took some practice from communication and a good mentor.
[00:17:55] The good mentor is the person who told me there's a way that you present yourself with confidence. And as long as your confidence is irrefutable, don't worry about it. You're always going to have people who are going to flack on you, but you just need to make sure that whatever you put out there cannot be refuted. That's how I present. That's how I presented the work with my client. They don't like it because they're not used to it. Because in this area, everybody is in a shell.
[00:18:23] Everybody's used to tiptoeing around everybody else. There's no pride, there's no self worth. There's no being proud of being a specialist. Like you think of sports teams, they don't out here, they don't Believe in the Kobe Bryant's. You know, they don't believe in, in the Michael Jordans. They don't believe in the Scottie Pippen. They don't believe in this type of person who is the leader of the team and that person should elevate everybody else. They don't believe in that out here. So it's a shock because I come in and I'm just doing a basic job. I've had them, I've had management witness me in action because they're hearing great feedback but the rest of the team is embarrassed because they don't know how to do that. Well, you do, you're just afraid to. That's the truth. See, I say that, but I'm telling you the truth. It's fear. Now if you want to learn, come to my session, hear how I'm doing it, see what I'm doing, which is nothing. I'm just asking basic questions and I put myself in the seat of the customer and I try to think of it from that angle. It's very simple. Everybody can do it. That's what is self important to that Nothing. It is thinking. I'm actually, it's a thankless job. I get gratitude. But the point is that I'm thinking in the mind of the customer. By definition it cannot be self important because I'm the one who doesn't matter. In fact, I even told management the job doesn't care about me. It doesn't care if I get sick, it doesn't care if I get injured. I've never called in sick for this because there's a lot to do. I was just working today, realizing I'm making significant progress, but there's still a lot and it's unraveling this ball of yarn and I've got a major project coming up here soon and I'm, it's. I'm a one man show and I'm going literally as fast as I can execute. But I'm older, I'm nowhere near what I would be in my 20s. There's pros and cons. One of that is I have significantly more skill to be able to adapt to that. But I don't have the same energy that I used to have.
[00:20:22] There's no, I'm putting myself out purposely so physically, mentally there is no self importance. There wasn't back then. That is, I've got to step up to get to where I want to go. Everybody should be that. There's no shame in that. And that's not narcissism. Another one is preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success or power.
[00:20:47] The key word there is unlimited. Everybody wants to be successful. Most people want to have some form of control of their life in the form of power that cannot be taken from them.
[00:21:01] When you hear me say that, you're like, well, of course. But it's not as obvious to certain people. They don't understand that drive to get to that is rooted in reality. It is. You see how hard it is out there, and you know what you gotta do? You gotta hustle. My brother, who passed away in 2023, used to talk about. We used to talk about all the time, him and I, about hustling. Hustling is simply doing what you need to do to get where you're trying to go. It's that. And that could be anything. For some, that's drugs. For some, that's crime. For me, it's work. It's hard work.
[00:21:41] I had to bust because I did not have that same opportunity like many of the people did. And I was screwed over by a lot of people when I was younger and didn't know any better. People that promised me that they would do something and were lying to my face or were intended to use me for their game. That happened at least three times. I can think of. One of them was a city councilman. He's dead now. But the point is, I understood it's not about unlimited, but success. You have to shoot for it.
[00:22:14] Even Zig Ziglar, as much of a scam artist as I think that dude is to this day, talked about success and he talked about the path to success. How could it be that somebody who discusses success and makes a lot of money shilling that to a bunch of people is not a narcissist by definition of the fact that it's preoccupation? See, that's why some people have distorted the word narcissism for their own definition, to try to make themselves feel better. Because some psychiatrists may have told them that's what it is when it's not. If you're shooting for success and you're working towards success, you are not a narcissist. If you are addicted to your work, you are not a narcissist. This is something where no human that I can think of in the United States at least, would ever fit this kind of criteria. The idea that you just would be top of the world, maybe Floyd Mayweather, maybe. Other than that, I can't think of anybody else that would fit that singular criteria, because everybody Wants to be successful.
[00:23:21] The idea of unlimited, what does that mean if you're still working for it? That you're working for it, you're earning it. That is not. It's. They're confusing the idea of an entitlement for success versus earned success. They're two different things. Entitled success. Sure. Again. Floyd Mayweather earned his, though. So I can't even. That's what I'm saying. I can't think of anybody who has an entitled success. Somebody who just did not, would not, cannot, never would work for success, but expects the world given to them on a platter.
[00:23:58] I can't think of any. Anybody. Or maybe Hillary Clinton. Other than that, no belief in one's own uniqueness or superiority.
[00:24:08] Here's where I disconnect a bit.
[00:24:12] Belief in one's own uniqueness. The word uniqueness is misleading in this context because by definition, every single human being ever created is unique.
[00:24:25] If you don't believe in your uniqueness, you become, what? Generic? If you're generic, you are nothing. And by nothing, I'm saying that society will not accept you if you do not stand out. If that were not the case, how. How is it that we have the concept of influencers? How is it that we have the concept of celebrities? How is it that we've had the concept of all these different comedians and all these different acts? If Andre the Giant did not believe in his uniqueness, he never would have been anything but a sideshow. Remember, there used to be circuses that would make fun of those people. Society cannot run if you do not embrace uniqueness. So I disagree that believing in your own uniqueness is a negative trait. It's not.
[00:25:14] What they likely mean is taking your uniqueness as making you superior to other people.
[00:25:23] Okay, but that's not what it says. But that's probably what they mean, that something of your uniqueness makes you better or superior to everybody else out there. Once again, I can't think of anybody who fits that criteria in anybody that's ever been born. I can't think of anyone that's maybe Liberace. Other than that, I can't think of anyone who fits that singular criteria of a superiority complex as a result of uniqueness. But I want to stress you should feel unique and you should be proud of being unique. And nobody should ever make you ashamed to feel unique because your uniqueness is how you contribute to society in your own way. And you should be proud of it. And nobody can take it away from you. That does make some people nervous. The idea there's something they can't take from you. That's power.
[00:26:19] If they can't take it from you, you should never want to be just one of the pack. Because when you're one of the pack, you. You're easily forgotten. Some people are okay being easily forgotten. I believe most people don't want to be easily forgotten. That's my opinion.
[00:26:34] A need for excessive admiration.
[00:26:38] What's excessive? It's a subjective word that doesn't mean anything. Excessive is in the eyes of people who are beholding it.
[00:26:47] But what does that mean? It doesn't really mean anything. If you're looking for validation because you've not gotten it, is that excessive?
[00:26:57] If you're a female who has not gotten the recognition that she believes that she should get in the workplace and you're busting your tail and you finally keep calling out to people, look, I'm here and I'm doing the work and I expect some recognition from you people. Is that excessive admiration? Is that a need for excessive aberration? I would argue no.
[00:27:18] See, we have to quantify what it's asking. If you are not being served by the target audience, you have every right to call that out for what it is. If people are not respecting you for your unique skills and contributions, you have every right to call that out. Don't take simply because somebody else doesn't like it as a negative trait. It is. You feel underserved. You feel that's. It's a disservice to you the way you're being treated and you're calling it out for what it is. You have every right to do that. It's going to offend some people. That's their problem, not yours. That is not narcissistic personality disorder. That is. I was underserved and I'm calling it out because if I were wrong, the whole Martin Luther King era, we're saying that each and every one of them had a disorder. No, they didn't. This is a group of people who was being. They were being ignored. They were being. People were pretending they didn't exist. They were being treated like lesser than human.
[00:28:19] And they. They called it out and they spoke out and they had every right to do it. We were fine with it. Then in modern society, people are not fine with it because it makes them nervous, because they're not used to it. They're not used to being called out on their nonsense. That's what that is.
[00:28:35] Which goes to the next one. A sense of entitlement. I talked about, again, difference between Regular earned success versus entitled success. If you feel entitled, yes, I can argue a case if you earned it. Absolutely not.
[00:28:53] Interpersonal exploitation.
[00:28:56] This is the big one, isn't it? What does that mean? Interpersonal exploitation. Interpersonal exploitation in a generic definition. Ironically, most people do it all the freaking time. Most do it all the time. Am I guilty of interpersonal exploitation when I was a kid? Absolutely. Because as kids, that's what we do. We turn each other against each other to get what we want. Because we're kids, we only care about what we want at that time. But when I grew older, there are times when you'll see, and usually it's in the workplace, you'll see something where, okay, if I don't, if this person does this, this is going to happen, or this person doesn't do that, this is going to happen, or something where I need to manipulate the situation.
[00:29:46] It all goes to what is your basis for doing it? What is your motivation for doing it? And what do you expect to get out of doing. Doing it if you're doing it for. To avert disaster, right? A company shutting down or something. You know, there's somebody that's toxic to the culture. There's something where a customer is toxic or something you're doing. I'll, I'll tell the story on this one because it ties in.
[00:30:09] I worked at a company, this was 19, let's see, 2001, 99, 2001, somewhere around there, long time ago. Worked at the company, it was through a temp agency at first. And then they were going to convert me to permanent. I never did get converted, but that was the plan. But I started as a temp, basic routine job. I couldn't stand the job, I couldn't stand the people. But it was a job and whatever, right? So then I get. They're creating a new role for me. We're doing all this other stuff and I get into this. They build a new office. They got acquired or, you know, money was shifted in new office and the whole nine. They hired a new receptionist gal. Receptionist gal. Sat probably 20ft away, okay, by the front door. Every time I would come in, I say, hey, how you doing?
[00:30:58] Good. Okay, cool. Go back to my desk, leave. See ya. That's it. That's all I would do with this girl. She was not, I was not trying to hit on her, Nothing. Just, hey, how you doing? Whatever, whatever, whatever.
[00:31:10] Sales guys would hit, hit on her like crazy. She's laughing, she's giggling, she's doing all this other stuff with me. It's just like a deadpan face. There's no anything behind it. She's fake and phony is what it is.
[00:31:22] When they had some kind of presentation or something with somebody, and I embarrassed the manager because he was an idiot. So I had to embarrass him. I just asked a question to the guy who was presenting, and that guy agreed with me, already knew I was right and the manager was wrong, and this guy exposed him, and he didn't like that, so he terminated the contract. So I get called into a room with HR and this guy, and they're saying, yep, we're terminating the agreement. And you know this because of this, that and the other, you know, we don't think you're fitting in as a team. Whatever. And there was another situation that the manager made a bad call and we lost the customer. It was just bad all around because of this guy. No problem.
[00:32:00] And I knew, no. And then she called out the hr. She even called out, yeah, there was a complaint of sexual harassment. Like, sexual harassment from who? Receptionist. I never talked to her. She says, you did that. I said. I said hello when I walked in and goodbye when I left. There was no interaction whatsoever with this person. Manager chimes in, he's like, yeah. She said something to me. This is what I'm talking about, is where you are influencing internal to get rid of somebody or to change the situation. I told them in the room, and I told the manager right to his face. I looked him dead in the eye and I said, I understand. This has nothing to do with any sexual harassment. That's a lie. Whether she said it or you did, I don't care. This has nothing to do with quality of work because my supervisor already says I'm irreplaceable, because I am. This has everything to do with you. You're going to kill the business because you're getting rid of the person who's keeping this thing afloat. I'm breaking down what's factually true. Everything I had created is what kept the sales cycle going because I had refactored all the work that previously was manual. And I created a new process that got more deals done quicker. And without my process, they were going to crash and burn. It wasn't that hard, but it took a level of technical skill that none of them had. The suit wasn't told. He wasn't told that I was being let go. They waited for him to be out of the office. So he pinged me after the fact saying, what the heck happened? I'm like, He. They fired me, whatever. I don't know. Or terminated the contract. I should say terminated the contract. And they gave a bunch of excuses, but I know what it was. And he said, we're screwed. Next thing I know, month later, business shuts down. Why? Because sometimes people will do that. They'll stab you in the back just because they have that right. There is basic ego, even. That's not narcissism. It's a basic ego trip. It's just. You got embarrassed. You got caught with your pants down and Vaseline off the side. You got embarrassed. You don't like that. And so you're gonna get rid of that threat, but you're. Basically. There's an image floating around about a manager. He's standing on a board over a cliff, and the worker.
[00:34:10] And the worker is standing on the cliffside with the wood, and the manager's pointing the gun at the workers. They kill the worker, the manager's gonna fall off the cliff. That's what this was.
[00:34:18] Happens all the time. That's not narcissism at all, but it's ego, and that happens all the time. And it gets misconstrued with narcissism. That was not a. He was not a narcissist, I can tell you. He just got embarrassed because this little black kid is coming in here, usurping his authority, making him look bad. When I'm trying to help you and you're not listening and you're overriding my decisions. When the supervisor gave me the authority and you're taking it over because you think you know what you're doing, and then you want to point blame back at me, and I don't play that. And I'm a threat to you because I'm. I'm calling you out and I'm embarrassing you. I'm frankly trying to get you fired. Because I knew he was going to kill the business and I needed him out of there. But I wasn't going to go and accuse somebody of sexual harassment or some other underhanded technique like he was doing. I just kept doing my job and then asked other people for validation. Is this the way you would do it? Like I would do it and get the validation to embarrass him, and then he goes around and makes all these excuses and does that. That is not narcissism. That's just ego. It should not be confused with narcissism. Even if you're doing some of those things that a narcissist might do, it does not make you a narcissist. And you do not have narcissistic personality disorder. You just might have a bad ego or it might just be a prick.
[00:35:39] Lack of empathy. I love this one. Lack of empathy is always misused.
[00:35:47] A person can be empathetic on a selective basis. A person can choose when they're going to be empathetic to something. A person can choose not to express empathy, but they feel it. Empathy is something that's internalized in many people. It's not something that they have to show you. They don't have any obligation to show it to you. You can empathize with somebody else's situation. I'll give you a very fantastic example with my client. My client when I walked in the door, they were sold a product and they spent six figures, mid six figures on something that they had requirements for. But the requirements were not well understood by the vendor who built the solution.
[00:36:28] The the part the party that basically hired me on to help clean this up, they didn't understand what it was that they bought. So they didn't buy the right licenses necessary to get the right solution specifically for my clients needs. They bought it for a completely different reason. So when the client's coming around with all these different requirements and they work quick, they have new requirements all the time.
[00:36:51] This organization was not prepared to do anything about it. So they hired some people to write a bunch of code which was terrible code frankly, because they didn't know what they were doing because they didn't understand the platform.
[00:37:03] When I was brought in, they just wanted me to sit there and try to work with this nightmare of a solution. And I'm trying to tell them I can't fix what you're asking because this is too far gone. I've got to rebuild it. I don't want to. This is poorly built. Nobody understands it. It's not well documented. The requirements are a joke. No person here has a clear picture and you got slackers all over the place. They don't want to hear that. But I'm telling them the truth because I understand my client and I'm hearing my client and their frustrations with the solution and the fact they're working around it instead of using it. So I empathize with my client's plight. I don't empathize with people who don't didn't know what they were doing and are not willing to admit they didn't know what they were doing. This goes then when we talk about the preoccupation with fantasies of power, when we talk about Belief and superiority, need for admiration. These. This organization practices a lot of these narcissistic personality disorder traits, and I've called it out on many of occasions because they're not empathetic to the client's plight either. The client's telling them, this ain't working. They're not willing to do what's necessary to make it work. So I had to force the issue and piss some people off. And I've had people pull me to the side and say, you know, you kind of mean, you kind of rude. No, I'm not. I'm telling you the truth of what you need to hear. You sold them a bill of goods. They're not satisfied with it. They're trying to get. They're trying to be satisfied with it because they spend a lot of money on it and shouldn't be like this, but it's not going to work the way you're doing it. We're finally on that track, but now we burn. I've been working with the client coming up on three years now, and it took at least a year before I was able to get enough power to be able to start the process. And then you. I still have. It's like pulling teeth. Various people and these. This is a lack of knowledge. These are people that just have no knowledge, have no skill, had no talent. Some of them are just lazy. But I think some of them just had no skill or they misrepresented the skill. So there's that. And I'm dancing around the minefield of it. Meanwhile, I've got the client who's really working with me, and they see that I'm trying to work for them best I can. But I hear their plight. I hear what they're trying to do. I hear their frustrations with it. I hear that we have situations and I've got it reasonably clean, but I have to take their messaging and I have to be that advocate for them. So when I hear people say, okay, then you're this.
[00:39:29] Really. When I'm the one busting tail for hours on end, sometimes 60 hours a week for this. But it has to make sense why I do it. I'm doing it because they got sold a bill of goods. I'm not going to just put myself out there for everybody, but I will put myself out. When you got sold a bill of goods and you're willing to pay me what I want in order to fix it, and I'll work with you and you're willing to flex with me then. Absolutely. When we're Talking business, that's a different situation. On the personal side, then I look at it the same way. There are certain things I do better than you. That's just what it is. I would love to teach. I like teaching. I was in a relationship where I had to teach her how to cook because she didn't know how to cook. She, hey, don't worry about it. Who cares? If you learn how to cook with somebody who knows how to do better than you, then you won't suck when you move on to another guy. Like, that's how I took, that's how I took it back then.
[00:40:25] You know, that's what it was. So in summary, because I've gotten through most of the big ones in summary, my messaging to you, I have a call to action to you.
[00:40:36] If you are tempted to throw around the term calling somebody a narcissist, I want to tell you, chances are the person that you're talking to is not a narcissist. Chances are the person that you're talking to probably has a pretty strong ego. Chances are the person you're talking to might be a prick. Chances are the person that you're talking to might have a disorder of some kind.
[00:41:00] They might be something else. Chances are they're not a narcissist. It's rare to see a true narcissist in what it is really we have to look at. Just because you don't like the way they treat you, or you don't like the way a person acts, or you don't like the personality of a person, or you don't like the way the person talks, or you don't like the overconfidence of a person. Those are not narcissism. You have to look at the bigger picture. It's a bigger thing. It's nowhere near just a basic ego something. A basic ego something is a basic ego something. It's fine to just say you're a prick. It's fine to just say you're a big headed prick. It's fine to just say you are an arrogant prick. It's fine to call these as what it is. We should stop using the term narcissism to describe hardly anybody. Even Donald Trump doesn't really rise to the level of a narcissist because Donald Trump worked to get to where he is. Is he close to it? Absolutely.
[00:42:07] Absolutely. But he worked. He worked to get to where he is. He has empathy. He does empathize with things. He absolutely does. He doesn't think he is unique in any Regard other than the fact that he feels like nobody else is doing certain things. Donald Trump, he's close though, right? He does have the superiority complex. He does have a need for excessive admiration. He does have, in some cases, some of the exploitative about him. So he's close. He's close.
[00:42:42] I'm saying, though, for your personal situation, it's rare you're gonna find somebody that is truly a narcissist. Because if we accept that Donald Trump is a narcissist, compare Donald Trump to the person you're thinking of calling a narcissist, and I guarantee you you're not going to find anything close other than the fact that maybe somebody is a prick or somebody is a little bit arrogant. But, you know, it's levels. You know that Trump is levels above anybody you would call a narcissist. So just think about it. Consider before you throw that word out there. Maybe the guy's just a prick, maybe the girl's just a whatever. They're not a narcissist, they're just a whatever and be okay with that instead of trying to validate it. And if you are one of those psychs, some of those shrinks that let's say, and it's mostly women go to after leaving a relationship and you're tossing around narcissists to help describe and help validate, to help that girl feel better, stop it. Because you're not helping that girl in the long run. You're making it worse for her. Because if she takes a basic ego trait and attributes it to narcissism, she's never going to be in a strong relationship. She's never going to be in a healthy relationship. She's always going to be looking over her shoulder and watching her back, and she's always going to be a basket case if you do that. Be honest with her and say, maybe the dude is just a prick. Maybe you two are just not compatible. Maybe he was just a whatever and move on. And just be honest and don't lie because you know it's a lie when you say those things and use those terms and those words. I am not saying that you should think differently about somebody you feel strongly about. All I'm saying is think, consider, right? Whether the word narcissist is really the appropriate word to describe said purpose. I'm not saying you should get away from that. You shouldn't. You should get away from if you feel like it doesn't make sense.
[00:44:37] I would say there's always two sides to it. Think about what role yours played. Accept your role and accept their role and understand that sometimes it just doesn't work. Doesn't make them a narcissist. It may make just just a prick. And be cool with a simple definition that lets you move on without the baggage attached to oh, oh, oh.
