And hello to you and welcome to the Richard Nicholls podcast. 

The personal development podcast series that's here to help inspire, educate and motivate you to be the best you can be. 

I’m psychotherapist Richard Nicholls and this episode is titled Dealing With Entitled People And if you're ready we'll start the show.

Happy new year you beauties. It's 2023. Are you fed up with all the adverts for summer holidays yet? I literally had emails on christmas eve telling me to book my holiday before everyone else takes the spaces. And I get it its a sales technique isnt it. Make people think that something is scarce and it encourages us to buy it now. I remember reading some research about peoples desires for a wage increase. That doesnt sound like a bad idea does it. But when you survey peoples values and choices you actually find that people prefer to have less of an increase if it meant that someone else wouldnt. Give people a fictitious scenario of either everyone gets a large increase or only you get a small one and more people choose the smaller increase because it means theyre getting something the others dont. Very odd. But humans can feel entitled sometimes cant we. A bit like going christmas shopping and being surprised that its busy because everyone else is doing the same. It makes no sense to be angry that when you go shopping, there are also other people shopping. But sometimes we do. We think How dare ALL these people want to buy things at the same time as I do. It might only pop into our mind for a moment and it might not always be a conscious thought it might just be a feeling, and emotion, a frustration. Thats entitlement. If you want to buy a pack of 20 toilet rolls even though you really only need a 6 pack. Yet you criticise other people for stockpiling, then your double standards are because you see yourself as more entitled than other people. Its a bit like taking the day off work to go to alton towers. I live in the midlands so alton towers is the theme park of choice when you want something a bit more grown up than drayton manor park and zoo in Tamworth. So you'll get a load of mates who book the day off work in advance and plan to go together and then when we get there there'll be someone in the group who gets angry at still having to queue to get on a ride. "But it's a wednesday! Why arent all these people at work" because they booked the day off dave just like you did, thats why.  There are double standards that we sometimes need to look out for in ourselves so that we're not surprised if we upset people and lose friends. And if you have people in your life like this but you dont want to walk away, you just want to be able to tolerate them thats not going to be that easy. You might have to accept that some people dont see their attitude as a problem and they arent willing to change.  

Likr I so often say nothings a problem unless it causes problems but What do we do if someone is consistently taking advantage of us because they feel entitled to? The answer is fairly obvious, its just hard. I would say the answer is simply to not give into them. Like being a parent, if you're going to change your mind over something when youve already said No, then youd better make sure theres a good reason for it and that the kid understands it. Otherwise the lesson they learn is "everyone gives in to my demands eventually if I ask enough times" which continues to feed their sense of entitlement. Now I will say here that a lot of entitled people dont realise that theyre behaving badly. They have an external locus of control and their worldview is that the only way to get their needs met is to change the outside world rather than change their needs. This is why its generally best to have a more internal locus of control than an external one. So hold your shape, you want them to learn to change themselves not try and change you. and they can learn. it just takes a bit of time. Why people create this personality trait is unique to them. Sometimes it's neglectful parenting, sometimes simply inconsistent parenting. Inconsistent meaning that if one parent said no then they could just go to the other parent who'd give in easier. In those cases its a bit easier for adults to learn to be more understanding and less selfish but with a neglectful upbringing, with absent carers that can push people one way or another. One way, as I've said before, makes them look for rejection everywhere they go and so can become very clingy and maybe too selfless to be healthy and another way is to see other people as never good enough for us and we can become somewhat narcissistic. Narcisism as a personality trait puts you above everyone else because other people are instinctively unreliable to us but as we develop we do see that other people can actually be trusted sometimes, that a lot of people are good people. And so the only way to explain why we feel we need to look down on others is because we have a grandiose sense ourselves. A donald trump style attitude that if we take too far ends up pushing everyone away feeding the original belief that other people cant be trusted and so growing evermore this feeling that we are better than everyone and are more deserving. Now narcisistic personality disorder is quite rare in comparison to just having a brother with a grand sense of entitlement but often it can come from similar foundations and experiences. And I think its worth acknowledging that to ourselves when having to deal with people like that. That its not necessarily that they THINK highly of themselves or THINk badly of others. Its a feeling thing not a thinking thing. Sure they feed each other the feeling can influence thoughts of course and vice versa but personality traits are unconscious and automatic. They dont even realise theyre doing it and criticising them for it feels unfair to them not just because they didnt know they were doing anything wrong but because the issue itself gives them a feeling that they deserve praise more than other people. Hard to accept and not easily forgivable. But with a little understanding it can make it easier to challenge them over their sense of entitlement without getting angry yourself which hopefully keeps them more calm too so that we can live a bit more harmoniously. So hold your shape, stick to your beliefs. If this time next year you dont want to visit your sister on new years day because she lives 4 hours away and you'd have had a late night  even though she expects you to drive an 8 hour round trip for a buffet lunch then tell her youre not going. Its not your fault that her expectations are different to yours. Use your but, not your buttock butt, but a B U T but. It might not be easy to say it but if you say "thanks for the offer. It would be lovely to see you but..." Then you're not damaging their sense of entitlement so much that they double down on it but youre still putting yourself first. "I would love to see you but I've already arranged something that afternoon." "I wish I could, but I just won't have the energy" We should be able to say things like that and hold our shape. We shouldnt be bullied, manipulated and forced into doing things we dont want to do if there's really no benefit to it. This is where assertivness comes into play. Being able to express an opposing opinion without being aggressive. Being able to say "i'd love to share the cost of your birthday weekend away but I have a lot of outgoings at the minute. You'll have to count me out this time, but you'll be in my thoughts. I hope you have a lovely birthday" is not an easy thing to say but its do-able. I can imagine the responses now though I dont know about you. they'd stamp their feet and say "but I want you there" how do you answer that? I think its simply with "I'm flattered thank you. But you'll still have a great time without me I'm very sure" but what about if they try to make you feel  guilty? What if they say "but without you it will be too expensive and will have to cancel it. You'll ruin my birthday." It might be true, probably not, but hey. Just say "i wish things could be different, I haven't bought a lottery ticket for a long time, maybe now would be a good time." That sort of thing. Now I'm assuming that anyone who needs to hear this is because they'd be on the receiving end of someones entitled attitude. But it might be that its you that feels this sense of entitlement and might need to examine your relationships and interactions with other people. It might be that youve felt constantly let down by other people because you have regular rejections from them and it hurts. It does, we cant ignore that. Even the slightest of rejections might hurt as much to you as if you've just been cheated on and dumped without any warning at all. Understand that about yourself and recognise the difference between what you are entitled to and what you worthy of. Those are 2 different things. L'oreal have used "because you're worth it" in their slogan for almost 50 years. Well, it started with because I'm worth it but the message is the same isnt it. That we are worthy of looking after ourselves that we are worthy of the most expensive hair dye in the world. Which was a very brave thing to put in an advert, but it worked. Whether its hair dye an honours degree or a romantic relationship we are all worthy of these sorts of things. But are we entitled to them? No. Am I worthy of sleeping with any woman I fancy? Yes, but I'm not entitled to. If I grew up feeling entitled to that then I could have ended up being a very nasty character, but if I grew up feeling worthy of it then I'd take more chances to ask girls out. Unfortunatley I grew up not feeling either of those and I'm so glad I met my wife when I did. I'm a very lucky man but thats another story. Our worth and our entitlement are 2 very different things arent they. 2 athletes are both worthy of a gold medal. They are born with the same worth, the same value, we should all be born equal. But if one works harder, trains for longer, makes greater sacrifices goes through more pain. And even though a lot of athletic success is down to luck, to genetics, they're lucky to born with athletic dna and lucky to not have an injury the day before a competition. But no matter what one of them is going to be more entitled to the gold medal than the other one is. Their worth is still the same, but what theyre entitled to is going to be different. And I think we all need to be aware of that. Over the last few years we have become a very angry species because so many feel entitled to their opinions about things. And if someone disagrees then it feels as if in rejecting our opinion theyre rejecting us. Which shouldnt be the case. First off it sounds harsh to say it but we are not all entitled to an opinion about something, I'll put that out there. I am not entitled to an opinion about what you should do with your life. I am not entitled to an opinion about something I do not have enough of an understanding about. I know very little about economics and the studies of capitalism vs socialism. I know even less about what makes a great football player. So if someone says what's your opinion richard. I cant offer one. The truth is I have to trust someone who DOES understand it and take their advice. Because if someone spends 20 years of their life studying it, researching it and writing about it then THEY are entitled to an opinion not me. And the same applies to many many things that I dont know enough about. I'll forget that I dont and I'll offer an opinion about something and I deserve to be criticised for that and I need to be ok with that because thats how we learn. Right times up for today. Cos I need to record another episode now about some of the hidden effects of childhood trauma, which should be very interesting.  for my listeners on patreon ready for monday because they ARE entitled to it. Cos they pay like 60 quid a year, which is still a bargain if you ask me but I'm still super grateful so thank you if you're a patron of mine  have a nice few days  and I'll be back before you know it. See ya.