Self-Worth with Jaclyn Steele

The New Science of Narcissism with W. Keith Campbell, PhD

April 07, 2021 Jaclyn Steele Season 2 Episode 64
Self-Worth with Jaclyn Steele
The New Science of Narcissism with W. Keith Campbell, PhD
Show Notes Transcript

Dr. W. Keith Campbell is on the podcast today to chat The New Science of Narcissism.  And who better to chat on this subject than the man who started this international conversation in the first place?  He literally wrote the book(s) on this fascinating disorder years ago and created the world wide interest we see today regarding narcissism.  It's such a giant cultural topic that even Taylor Swift herself writes about it in her song "I Did Something Bad."

Today though, we are talking about the actual traits of narcissistic personality disorder, the ramifications of flippantly labeling someone a narcissist, and how social media can be dangerous when it comes to culture-wide narcissistic tendencies.

Dr. Campbell is a wealth of information and knowledge.  So much so that even Joe Rogan had him on his podcast.  My hope is that you will derive all kinds of wisdom from this conversation and that Dr. Campbell's work will expand your mind like it has mine.  (I'm hoping he will be a repeat guest on Self Discovery, as well).

CONNECT WITH DR. CAMPBELL:

Website: https://wkeithcampbell.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/W-Keith-Campbell/e/B001K8QGAO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1616629493&sr=8-1

DR. CAMPELL'S BOOKS:

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Jaclyn Steele

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Unknown:

Part of it is the personality structure that's sort of useful for narcissism is having a big extroverted personality. If you ever kind of a bigger extroverted personality, and I do too, it's pretty easy to have that shift shift into narcissism because you can perform and when you perform, you get positive feedback, and it's pretty easy to inflate yourself.

Jaclyn Steele:

Hi, I am Jaclyn Steele, and welcome to self discovery. Howard Thurman so beautifully wrote, don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive, coming alive. That, my friends, is what self discovery is

Unknown:

all about. Where that man

Jaclyn Steele:

beautiful friends, I want to share something with you that I am so excited to share with you and something that has been heavy on my heart. And it is this, it is my belief that we are currently living in a self worth epidemic. low self worth is the root cause of so many of the issues that rub us raw, continuing to stay in a relationship where we are treated poorly are undervalued. This is a self worth issue. Spending money, we know we don't have an unnecessary consumer goods, because it will make us feel better for just a moment. This is a self worth issue, playing it small at work, even though we are killing it, because we are afraid to advocate on our own behalf. This is a self worth issue. Refusing to share our writing, or our art or our voice or our talent with the world because we are afraid of how the world will react. This is a self worth issue, having an idea or a work that lights us up, and then hiding it in the closet or on a hard drive or under the couch. Because we don't know how to label it or create a system to bring it to the public. This, at its root is a self worth issue. Wanting to start a business that offers a product or service that feels so aligned with our souls that our first instinct is to sing it from the mountaintops. But then self doubt creeps in and steals that voice that was on the verge of singing. This is a self worth issue. I have struggled with self worth issues for much of my life. I've shared many of them in this very podcast. And now, because of the experiences I've had and the work I've done around healing, reclaiming and empowering my own self worth. I feel called to offer services that can help you do the same. Understanding my own power has radically changed my life from the inside out. And my beautiful friends, we need your voice. We need your ideas. We need your business. We need you to make big bucks so you can do big things in the world. And most of all, we need the fullest version of you. As I've mentioned many times in this podcast, what the world needs is people who have come alive. And if we are living in low self worth, we are not fully alive. This is an invitation to work one on one with me in a safe and sacred container, where we will work on healing, reclaiming, and empowering your self worth. So you can grow that business usher in healthier relationships. Take leaps Your soul is longing for and live a life that feels like your own details can be found in the show notes below. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions. I'm sending you so much love. Now back to the episode. So you guys are about to hear from Dr. Keith Campbell. And I want to preface this conversation because this is a fascinating man. We didn't talk about this a whole lot ad nauseum in the interview but he has an extensive background in studying narcissism. He's literally written books about narcissism and he is responsible for We're starting the national conversation. And creating awareness around narcissism is super fascinating. He is somebody who loves life loves curiosity asks great questions. He was on the Joe Rogan podcast Fun fact. And I think you're really, really going to be fascinated by what he has to say on narcissism. So without further ado, here is my interview with Dr. W. Keith Campbell. All right, listeners, we are in for a treat. Today we have w Keith Campbell, PhD on the podcast. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, as well as the author of the narcissism epidemic, when you love a man who loves himself, and more than 120 peer reviewed articles. Dr. Campbell, thank you so much for being on self discovery today.

Unknown:

Thanks for having me, Jaclyn. And please call me Keith. Come on.

Jaclyn Steele:

So just a little background for the listeners, Keith and I, I am lucky enough to have practice yoga regularly with Keith in Athens, Georgia. So that's how we know each other. And you are such an interesting human. And you're so friendly and so approachable, despite all of your accomplishments, and all of your intellect. And I find that to be fascinating. So I want to start with the first question, which is this? Can you give us a little synopsis of what narcissism is? And how you decided to enter this particular field of research? Because from my understanding, you were studying narcissism way before studying narcissism was a cool thing to do.

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah, I think I made narcissism a cool thing to do. That sounds very narcissistic. I mean, it's kind of it. I mean, it's very strange to watch. But no, when we when we talk about narcissism, we're talking about an inflated view of yourself, people who think they're awesome, they think they're better than other people. There's often a need for attention or admiration or some sort of positive feedback from the world. So part of narcissism is about, you know, setting up your life, so you're getting the positive feedback you need. Another piece that's really important is this difficulty in relationships. So with narcissism, what you see is, people have problems with empathy, forming warm or caring relationships are very, so people can be very social and narcissistic. But those real depth deep relationships have a problem. So that's the short version of narcissism, you say grandiosity need for attention, and you know, lack of empathy. It's a little more complicated in psychology, because we talk about it as a personality trait. And that means everyone's got some narcissism, just just you know, some are really high, and some are really low, and most of us are somewhere in the middle. So usually, we talk about that way. But there's also a clinical disorder called narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD, which is this, you know, when your narcissism becomes so extreme, and you can't really control it, it starts to damage or impair your life, it can be classified as a psychiatric disorder. And that's relatively rare. But the problem is, when people talk about narcissism, you know, some people are talking about the trade some people talking about a disorder, some are just using narcissism is another word for jerk, because they don't, it sounds better than jerk, but they don't really know what narcissism means. So it gets really complicated that way. In terms of studying it, there's a, there's a big issue in psychology of the ego, you know why people think they're better than they are. And you see this in lots of things, we tend to, you know, we tend to take credit, when we succeed and blame the other people, when we fail, we tend to think we're better more attractive than we are, we tend to think we're better drivers than we are, we just everyone has a little bit of bias. And that's sort of the nature of the self. It's not a bad thing. It seems to be associated with health. But it's it's not even some people are really into themselves and some less so. And so when I was in grad school and doing and now it's really grad school, I started I started to look at that my dissertation was on narcissism and romantic relationships, just how people, you know, could use a relationship to boost their own ego. So long answer, but that's perfect. That's the way I kind of got I mean, that's sort of the psychological aspect is Yeah, you know, the interest the academic side, and then, you know, narcissism just made these appearances in the world, you know what I mean school shootings back and call or in but that was, that's really started looking at narcissism with that and then with selfies and social media and all these Oh, gosh, yeah. So, it narcissism kind of as the disorder for the age in a way I didn't set out to study it for that reason. It just was, you know, I'm like the bola guy or the, you know, the Coronavirus guy. You know, the guy's been studying Coronavirus for 20 years no one cared. And finally, like it was his time. So

Jaclyn Steele:

But how? I mean, yeah, perfect timing because social media, I definitely want to get into social media and how you feel like narcissism is affecting social media. But before we do that, my next question is the term narcissist new hinted at this, it's often thrown around. But like you describe in your book, we all have some narcissistic tendencies. With that being said, what are some symptoms of toxic narcissism, because I want to make a very, very clear distinction between somebody who might have some selfish tendencies, and somebody who really almost cannot help themselves from being so self centered and toxic and hurtful to their nuclear family, to their communities, etc.

Unknown:

So, that's a really interesting question. It's important, I think there's a couple ways I can get out that one issue is that there's two big pieces to narcissism and one is thinking, I really am a great person. I like myself, I have a lot of confidence, a lot of drive a lot of enthusiasm. I'm going to crush it. And that trait is kind of likable. It's not so bad. Sometimes somebody you got that person's cocky, but if they're just if you just have that trait, it's not so bad. The other piece of narcissism Oh, is Oh, by the way, I'm better than you. So I'm awesome. And oh, by the way, Jaclyn, I'm better than you. Let me show you why I'm better than you. Hey, guys, look how much better I am a Jaclyn. than Jaclyn. Oh, look at my new outfit. You have a new outfit like me, I guess not. Let's talk about my new outfit. So what happens is when you start using the inner your interpersonal relationships, your close relationships to boost yourself by putting down others, that's when it gets really toxic, you start. So it's so you, you manipulate people to feed to make your ego inflate. And that's a terrible way of phrasing it.

Jaclyn Steele:

But I don't think that's a terrible way of phrasing it all. No, not at all. And and I think, you know, for for people who are self aware enough to know about what their ego is and how it shows up, it makes so much sense that if you are consistently figuring out or trying to figure out ways in which you are better than somebody else, or speaking them speaking to them in ways that they show an angle or a side of themselves that you feel like is inferior to you, and it's boosting your self esteem. I feel like that makes so much sense.

Unknown:

So that is that is toxic because you're using people for for your own ego. Another way people do it are narcissistic, that that you see in relationships is using people as props. So I can have this really attractive girlfriend, really attractive boyfriend, I go, oh, look how awesome I am. Check out my girlfriend. Well, that doesn't seem as mean to your girlfriend because she's like, well, at least I'm attractive. I'm an attractive prop. But what it means is that your girlfriend is about about as valuable to you as a new car or a new Rolex. They're they're a prop. So it's it's not quite as toxic. But it's kind of toxic because you're using people as

Jaclyn Steele:

but it's super toxic.

Unknown:

Yeah,

Jaclyn Steele:

yeah, somebody is a piece of meat versus a human soul and an identity.

Unknown:

Yeah, I guess when you put it that way. It's a little dark. But that's what it is. It's like, it's like using people as accoutrements to make you look good. And so that's, that's another way you see it. And this is something you see sometimes with narcissistic parents, when they're like, look how great my child is look at my child perform, that reflects back on me, I must be really great to have a child like that. And some of those relationships get really dark over time. Once you start to wake up that you've been manipulated, you're kind of a tool and your parents puppet show

Jaclyn Steele:

is theirs. You know, I somebody who has experienced some of that, and I've shared some of my personal story on this podcast. So this won't be like a revolutionary moment for anybody listening. But when you grow up in that kind of environment, there's a lot to unravel as an adult when you realize what you have been introduced to and the way that you've been treated repeatedly. It's like unraveling a quilt you go, Oh, well, that was really toxic. And then that led to this and that led to this and that led to this and now here I am at 34 years old, going I have Got some deep trauma that I got to work through here because I don't want to pass that on to my husband or my children or my friendships or anybody in my circle. And as a child, we so often emulate our parents. So is there a danger? If you have a narcissistic parent? That that is passed down?

Unknown:

Absolutely. I think that the discussion? I mean, what you just said is, I got to figure this out, because I don't want it this to go to my children. I mean, I've had those thoughts. I mean, you know, it's just what happened happens with life for a lot of people, you know, my kids are probably having those thoughts like, Oh, my dad was a maniac, you know, I hope I'm lot more loving with my kids. So it's a, you know, circle of life in a bed. It's not Well, anyway. But yeah, I think part of the problem in your example is, as a kid, you can feel like with a narcissistic parent, you're getting a lot of needs met, you're like, I'm important. My father likes having me around. He thinks I'm cool, I am cool. And this is how I should live. And then it and then when you start to try to form warm relationships and more loving relationships, you're like, right, this is different. This, isn't it, this is kind of better, in a way I kind of like just being loved as a person and not have to perform and, and then then you start questioning things that, you know, one example I heard was, was a woman who said, You know, I was growing up, and it was like, I was in a movie set. And I just didn't know it was like an old Western. And I saw the building looked really good. But when I, when I became aware of what was going on, I realized it was all a set. It wasn't really a life, it was more of a set piece that I thought was a life. And then there's this, you know, there's trauma, there's pain, you got to change, and it's really pain. It's really hard.

Jaclyn Steele:

Yeah, it is, it's really hard. And you know, what I think is interesting is I grew up, and I don't I don't have anger around this fact. But I grew up in a performance based household. And I think both of my parents grew up in performance based households. So I think they were perpetuating what they knew. However, what I also find very interesting is I grew up in this Performance Base household, I performed well, I got good grades. I was, you know, the president of this, and on the homecoming court, and bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, then a couple of things, you hit the real world. And you do realize, wow, I have been acting my whole life. And now I don't know how to really be me. But then I entered a profession as a professional musician, as a full time performer. So I just continued to perpetuate that act. And while I love performing, I love writing music, I love interacting with crowds, there came a point where I thought, I want to be authentic, more than I want to be this persona or this personality. Now, who is this authentic person underneath all of these layers? Because I've been taught that the layers are who I am not the inner person.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's like the Russian nesting dolls, and they're like, just focus on the big one on the outside the big babushka, that's a you should be don't look on the inside. That's where I didn't know about the performance that's really interesting. And you know, part of it. And we're kind of glossing over this, but part of it is the personality structure that's sort of useful for narcissism is having a big extroverted personality. If you ever kind of a bigger extroverted personality, and I do too, it's pretty easy to have that shift shift into narcissism because you can perform and when you perform, you get positive feedback. And it's pretty easy to inflate yourself. And so you know, what happens is, people are kind of built for this, you know, you're built for the extraversion you built to perform, you get the feedback for it. And so there's nothing really pushing against it. There's no force in Hey, let's be real for a second, because you're getting all the feedback, which is all positive when you're performing. You're getting it from your parents. Anyway, you can get caught in that, I think, but when you look at performers, they have sort of high narcissism scores, as

Jaclyn Steele:

well. Absolutely. And I noticed that and I was so turned off by it, because I've seen it before. So not to say that I'm perfect in any way or I don't have any narcissistic capability, capabilities or susceptibility, because I know that I have narcissistic tendencies. But I think because I am familiar with narcissism, and I grew up around narcissism. It's when I see it or feel it, I'm triggered by it and I automatically want to withdraw.

Unknown:

I sometimes think about it in the performance world as you just don't want to believe your own press. That's part of it. You know, it's I think of it almost a bit of a Buddhist perspective. I mean, there's just personally, it's like, if you get attached to fame, if you get attached to performance, you're just screwed. Because you're never going to get what you want from someone else, someone else's feedback.

Jaclyn Steele:

It's so temporary, right, so temporary. And once that gloss wears off, you're left with who you are again. And for so much of my life, I think, partially, it's biological, partially it was environmental. I was very much a words of affirmation, kind of person. And I think because I was aware of narcissism, I also even in my performances, when I would get the words of affirmation, my tendency was to go, they don't mean it. That's not actually what they think. And so I think I overcorrected. And went to a place of low self esteem, low self worth. And now my pendulum is correcting. But it that is a tough position to be in. tough, tough, tough.

Unknown:

I'm, I'm going to reframe. I haven't thought about it this way. But in a way, it almost sounds a bit like an addiction. And people talk about narcissism like an addiction a lot, this sort of metaphor that you get addicted to ego in a way. And you can and you can see that when you get I mean, I could see it myself, you get addicted to the feedback. And then you go, Oh, my God, this is all fake, I suck, because I'm not the feedback. And then you're like, I'm a horrible person getting positive feedback. And this is that classic narcissism thing where you get the really grandiose, you know, fantasies and the self hatred. And you see this with people like, I'm you sit with me, I'm awesome. On the worst ever. I'm such a failure, why did I screw you know, that back and forth, and then over time you go, I just want to be an authentic person. Not great, but not bad, just kind of be a person. And it's hard to get to just be a person. I mean, it's a struggle.

Jaclyn Steele:

It's really hard. And I think, too, in my experience with narcissism, and I'm thinking of a person in particular that I know quite well, there is a lack of, like you said, empathy. And with the lack of empathy, and that emotional attachment, there's little to no vulnerability.

Unknown:

Because you're not connecting to people, right? You don't feel people and you're not connected to them. So you don't have that kind of emotional vulnerability. But you're probably vulnerable based on your ego, mania, vulnerability for negative feedback, your vulnerability for failure. You have those kind of rahner abilities. I mean, you've defend against them. Yeah, that's where that weakness would come

Jaclyn Steele:

in. Oh, what a fragile existence to its grandiose, but it is so fragile, because it can be shattered so quickly, and so easily with a few words.

Unknown:

Well, yeah, it's it's, it's, it's uneven. If you put everything on status, put all your energy into being the best being the highest status, the most important. First of all, you're not so you're always going to fail. But it's very competitive. It's a lot of energy and you're very unstable because you don't have love. Now imagine you're your Olympic athlete, and you've put everything into the Olympics. You have no relationships, because all you've been doing is competing your whole life. You lose your toast, you got nothing. You go to the Olympics, do you ever you have a family you have people you love you have people that are that don't care that you're that good at sports, because they think I skating stupid or scheme stupid, but they're still your friend because they like you. And you fail the Olympics. They go, Man, that's too bad. But hey, let's go have a beer. And it's a really important buffer, having those close relationships and people give that up for ego. It usually bites you in the ass at some point, because you can't be a winner forever.

Jaclyn Steele:

No, no, you can't. And we're built for connection. We are built for connection. Okay, next question. Can you share some of the mental and emotional traits that create narcissism?

Unknown:

That's, um, I think that I'm curious what you mean by that in terms of creating narcissists, as we talked about as the individuals, the personality structure, the individual, you're talking more about how it's shaped by the outside.

Jaclyn Steele:

I'm thinking that the personality of the individual, I have somebody in particular in mind, I know how this person grew up. And it makes sense to me that this person would almost out of self protection, become obsessive Li narcissistic. And so I'm just wondering how that manifests because I don't think we're born narcissists are

Unknown:

sort of that, well, there's sort of the pathways to it. And so what you what you see, it's, it's a good question. It's, you see, there's a big chunk of genetics with any personality trait, including narcissism. So about 50 60% of this is just the way we're wired. We're not necessarily wired for narcissism, but we're wired With these basic traits that will predispose us for narcissism, parenting matters a little bit, but not a lot. But what you see with these more grandiose, these more grandiose narcissistic kids is their parents are very permissive that parents put them on a pedestal, you know, that they thought somebody said about the golden child. So, so the parental force, and again, it's not as big as you'd think. But I thought parenting mattered a lot. It's not as powerful as you think. But what people report is that their parents kind of put them on a pedestal said, You're awesome. And then there's this weird stuff that we don't really understand that we call non shared environment, but it's what you get exposed to. So maybe you're young, and you get exposed to social media, when you're early and you get some positive feedback that's really reinforced, you know, like, I'm going to get into social media that's going to get my, my, my ego reinforced. Or maybe you're attractive. And so you're, it's good, you're easy to form relationships, or maybe you're really good at a sport, and so you get become very competitive. And that's where your ego gets reinforced. But the idea is, you're going to find yourself in an environment where your ego gets reinforced, and that's going to lead to the narcissism, the only thing you're going to see is you're just not gonna have the parent, you're not gonna have as much love with parents, because that's the buffer. So the parents that are more performance oriented, putting you on a pedestal aren't gonna have that there's not the affection there as much. So the narcissism is a good path. Sometimes you see trauma, of course, you know, because you see trauma and a lot of disorders that people when you know, that early trauma, it kind of makes personality, less fluid, people get kind of wounded and their personality gets fixed. And that can lead to narcissism, but it can lead to low self esteem to pray, it can lead to a lot of things. So sometimes that there are those early traumas Help Help. We'll make this more rigid than it should

Jaclyn Steele:

I have a question based on what you just said, Do you feel like in general, people who are highly narcissistic are also people who suffer from low self esteem?

Unknown:

it? No. It, what you find is you find that narcissism and self esteem correlate, meaning that people who are really especially, I mean, actually more grandiose than narcissism, I'm awesome. They also I like myself. So the classic self esteem measures like I like myself, I'm a person of worth at least equal to others. In a classic narcissism items are things like if I ruled the world would be a much better place, I wish someone would like, write my biography. And I like to look at myself in the mirror. So you can imagine if you like to look yourself in the mirror, and you think somebody should write your biography, your self esteem is probably pretty high, too. And that's what you tend to find that, that there's this that people are narcissistic, have relatively high self esteem. And to the extent they do they tend to be healthy, they tend to be happy, because they have high self esteem. If you have narcissism and low self esteem, then it gets more problematic because you have a lot of vulnerability and instability and you get reactive and so that so they're separable ideas, but they tend to kind of swim together.

Jaclyn Steele:

Okay, one question. Again, coming from what you just said, are people who are I mean, I know all narcissism is unhealthy, but people who tend toward a victim mentality, is there a correlation with narcissism there?

Unknown:

That so what you can find are sort of different manifestations. So the classic narcissism when I got into this, you think I mean, that you think of a, you know, the pro athlete or the presidential candidate or the bad boss or the bad boyfriend, and it's always somebody who's dominant, extroverted, self assured, cocky. Turns out there's narcissism in other ways. So with vulnerable narcissism, what you see are people who are who are narcissistic, but they don't have that dominance or that drive. So they, you don't really notice their narcissism. They're insecure, though. They're a little shy, but deep down, they're like, I'm not getting what I deserve in life. And that sometimes can present itself as a victim, like I would be famous, but everyone's out there getting in my way, and they haven't let me get ahead. Damn, all of them. I should be. I always remember this one guy from this is from the 80s. And he was watching Jeopardy, and he said, I should have won that Jeopardy show. And I'm like, dude, you should have put down that cheeseburger and try it out for jeopardy. Yeah, don't sit on the couch and win jeopardy. But that's that kind of classic vulnerability, where people have this, this idea that they want to be successful, this idea that they want high status, but they don't have the ambition or drive to do it. That's okay. narcissism.

Jaclyn Steele:

Yeah, with Sorry,

Unknown:

no, no,

Jaclyn Steele:

I was just gonna say with the victim narcissism Is there a pension for addiction then to alcoholism, drugs, etc

Unknown:

you find more of it you find some addiction and across narcissism but you'd find more with the vulnerability because that low self esteem you're like, I'm not getting the attention I want I feel bad. Maybe I'll medicate with the maybe I'll medicate with I don't know, whatever the kids are doing now, or are they going to therapy? So people who are you know, more vulnerably, narcissistic, they'll go into therapy because like somebody helped me I feel bad about myself. Where's the grandiose people? Like, I'm not going into therapy, the world should go into therapy to learn about how awesome I am. That's it. That's kind of difference between the two.

Jaclyn Steele:

Oh, I mean, I feel like this is just opening up so many doors inside my mind. Okay, why do you feel like social media is so dangerous when it comes to culture? Why narcissistic tendencies?

Unknown:

Well, social media, it gives people a platform to broadcast themselves and curate their own appearance and connect with other people. So when we first started looking at this, and and this has been, I can't wait for them, like 1314 years since we started saying narcissism and Facebook, which is crazy. And you see what's happened to the world. And it's been an utter disaster. But what you find is that narcissism is like being on stage. And so if there's a stage, people are narcissistic, like, there's the stage, I'm going to use this stage. So what am I going to do, I'm going to put out good content, I'm going to put filter, I'm going to make myself look good. And my pictures a little more than everyone wants to look good. But I'm narcissistic, I'm going to do a little more, I'm going to be a little better at it. The other thing we see on social media is people who are narcissistic, have more friends, or followers or connections or links, or whatever the unit is, they tend to, they tend to be really good at connecting with people, some of us just extraversion. And some, it's like, Hey, who wouldn't want to connect with Keith, boom, be my friend. And so when you look at, so when anyone looks at their social media network, their network is going to be over represented with narcissism, it's going to be kind of oversaturated with narcissism, because the people are narcissistic, going to be on there, they're gonna have more connections. So you're gonna have more of them in your social media universe. And they're going to be out there self promoting. So social media has been a really good driver for individual narcissism. It allows people that kind of, I mean, act like celebrities. What we originally thought, and this is when we wrote the nurse Jean twing. And I wrote this book, The narcissism epidemic before the collapse. I think we're pretty good. It turned out to be a pretty good book. Definitely. We got some of it right? Not 100%. But what you find is, over time, people with narcissistic gravitated these networks, but what we started seeing, and this is sense, oh, wait, no, no. And we started seeing people start getting depressed. So what happens is I'm on social media just going well, what's the social media world? Oh, that guy out there is killing it. He looks awesome. That dude over there is killing it. He looks awesome. That guy's killing, I suck. I feel bad, I'm not attractive. And so or you start to look, he's at this party. Why aren't I at the party with all the cool dudes? Why am I I'm a loser. And so they started calling it like FOMO fear of missing out the kids were calling it that FOMO. And what we call in the field, social comparison processes, you know, upward social comparison, which is essentially you look at people better than you and you feel bad about yourself. And so what we saw with social media is this rise in depression, especially with young girls or young women, partly because of the social comparison processes. And then people started pulling away from Facebook, and then go at Well, with Instagram and then Instagram about real narcissistic and they started moving to Instagram and then Snapchat, and now we've got kids running around on tik tok doing dance numbers, because it's not that threatening. So there's been this really interesting process it kind of a evolution of social media. But wherever you see it, the people in our system are the ones who are going to jump on it. Because it's a performance stage. Yeah, once you make the whole thing work,

Jaclyn Steele:

and that I mean, that makes so much sense. I watched such an interesting documentary this past weekend on HBO called fake famous. And it was a social experiment where these people interviewed 1000s of candidates. They took three people with super small Instagram profiles, and then built their accounts through bots. So they got fake followers, fake comments, fake lights, likes bla bla bla bla bla. And what happened was, Instagram didn't really care but Cuz the eyeballs were coming to their accounts, brands didn't really care because the people were still getting engagement in their posts. And one girl started getting all of these paid brand deals, even going on trips. And you realize that social media as useful as it is, it's not real. It is not real. The few accounts that I follow that are led by authentic people, they don't necessarily have big followings, but their content is genuine. And it's authentic, and it has value. But so many of the people with millions of followers, they won't even have a caption, you know, their photo is all about them and what they're doing, but also in this documentary, I'm gonna pause it for just a second.

Unknown:

Sorry, could you hear that? So sorry, no, no, no, I mean, it's always a clusterfuck. It's like all because you're not unless you're in person. And it's better in person. But yeah, it is. It's

Jaclyn Steele:

so much fun in person. At some point, my goal is to have my own little podcast studio. So it's in the works. We'll get there. Yeah, I think so too. Normally, he's not on the phone at all. Of course, it's like right in the middle of an interview

Unknown:

between you to fight for your flight by FedEx,

Jaclyn Steele:

so I'm going to keep going. Okay, let's do it. So. And in this documentary, they even this is so hilarious. They show how to take selfies in private planes. And you buy a$15 toilet seat, literally a toilet seat, and you put it up against a beautiful background, and you have a glass of champagne, and somebody shoots you from the side. And it looks like you're actually in a private jet. So so much of what we see on social media and the jealousy and the I wish I was at that party, I wish I had that person's life. It's not even real. They even did this like athletic selfie, or not a selfie, but a post picture of this girl and she was hiking in the redwoods in Northern California when actually she was in somebody's backyard in LA. And if you look close enough, there's a pole in the background because there's a fenced in yard. So we're creating this reality that is not actually reality. And we're putting our self esteem and our personal value into how many likes and how many followers we have.

Unknown:

I mean, I want to watch the show, because it sounds very interesting. And what's it I mean, just to kind of riff on what you're saying, What I find interesting is what is appealing about that, like what is appealing about that kind of fame.

Jaclyn Steele:

It made me sick, and at the end of the documentary, every single participant there were three they were all like this is not the life that I want. This isn't real and you realize the people that have these giant followings with all this engagement, they're hustling their butts off for a photo for a free product for a brand deal that may or may not have any long term meaning

Unknown:

I yeah, that's my sense with fame is that it's it's not that fulfilling.

Jaclyn Steele:

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Unknown:

And so the story I like to tell is my student Laura Berardi, who we actually did the first study on Facebook together. She did it. She did it. I was just the advisor is awesome. And, and it got some media attention. falsely, it was a bad story. It said, you know, the story went out like BBC News. facebookers are Narcissus, like, Oh my God, that's not what he said, but doesn't matter news is always wrong. So I said, Hey, Laura, go be famous and be awesome. And the first day she was like, This is great. It's so interesting and and then she started getting the hate mail and everything. And the next day, she's like, this Sox fame. Isn't that great? No, fame Sox. But you don't know it. Because everyone says fame is what you want. Until you get a taste of it. How do you know? Meaning it's, it sucks. But until you've had a taste, you don't really know. And so that's why I'm curious about these things. Because I wonder if people because famous, so cheap now, I mean, you can become famous, but you don't get paid. So there's, you know that there's a big difference between money and, and status. And so I'm always curious how people take to that. I think people are narcissistic and shallow, the fame would be more appealing because it kind of hits their buttons. But it's not very fulfilling, I don't think

Jaclyn Steele:

No, I think it's, I think it's a very short term high. And the, the, what's the right word?

Unknown:

For

Jaclyn Steele:

the attractiveness of being able to buy followers and buy likes, and accelerate this process of being liked, and loved and known, I can see how that would be attractive for some people. But long term, there's no meaning. There's no meaning. Those aren't real people. Those aren't real likes. Those aren't real relationships. So where does that leave you in the end, except alone and depressed and going? Well, what do I do now?

Unknown:

I did I did a podcast recently with the guy Chris Williamson was his name, but he was a reality TV star in Britain. You know, so he's like, he was like on Britain's Got Talent or something. Britain's bachelors I don't know. It's super good luck and dude, we're talking about about fame. And I said, Well, you know what happens these reality TV stars? And he's like the same. They're they think they're going to get something great from it, but they don't. I said, What What advice do you give them because be famous for something. his advice was like, go do something that you care about if you become famous, great, if not great, elicited something that matter. But if you go straight for fame, it's just empty. It's just kind of like cocaine for mood boosts. It's

Jaclyn Steele:

very short term, so meaningless, so meaningless. So how can one recognize if they are in a relationship with a narcissist, and then what they can, what can they do about it? Because in this podcast, I want to give people like micro tools to better their lives and empower their lives. Well,

Unknown:

if I had to describe kind of the classic narcissistic relationship, I used to use what's called the chocolate cake model, maybe I still will use it because it kind of works. But the idea is, if you have a choice between eating chocolate cake and broccoli or something healthy, you go home and eat the chocolate cake, and you feel really good for like, 1020 minutes because you're eating cake and you're stoked and your blood, you know, you're sugared. up, and then like, 30 minutes later, you're like, I hate myself fat. Why did he eat that cake? I'm getting the sugar crash, I'm a loser. Why do I always eat the cake? That's the process, this big rush and then it crashes. You eat the broccoli, you're like, I don't get any rush at all. I mean, it's okay. But 20 minutes later, like God, you know, I'm kind of a healthy person, I make the healthy choices I'm going to take on the day I kind of like who I am. You never get the rush, but you get some self esteem. And that process that model seems to go on with relationships with these more grandiose narcissist types where you find somebody started a relationship, you're like, this person's exciting, they seem really confident I really like it. They make me feel good. It's really fun and exciting. And you get a big rush but usually the way we run relationships in the US and in a lot of places now a lot of modern relationships is you you start a relationship because it's kind of exciting and fun, and somebody attractive. And then you move from this sort of this fun dating stage to more serious emotionally intimate stage. So you go Okay, we dated It was great. Let's get to know each other. Maybe I don't find you quite as attractive as I did, because I know you but I I have a real connection with You and You don't think I'm as awesome as he did you realize I'm kind of a knucklehead even though I sound like I have a PhD, but it makes me feel good because you know me and it's it's great to have animacy that don't have to pretend around you. So relationships go through that transition. Not narcissistic relationship. So when you're in a relationship with somebody really narcissistic and you guys, okay, we're done with the excitement, let's start having the substance, let's go from the sizzle to the steak, it doesn't happen. And instead, that person starts cheating on you or finding somebody else or not being that interested, you're like, Oh, my God, this person was just using me as a prop, or they're using me as a whatever. So often, what happens in these narcissistic relationships and makes them hard is they're really good at the beginning. They're really exciting. And then the problems emerge later that you don't start out with this person, like, yeah, I'm a deck, I'm narcissistic, I'm going to abuse you, I'm probably going to hit on your mom, because I just don't care. They never say that. It usually starts good. And so what happens is, if you're, if you're if you're trying to find emotional intimacy, and you're not finding that and instead, you're finding somebody who's treating you like a prop is game playing as manipulative is sort of shallow, materialistic. that's those are the kind of cues you see with narcissism. There's that lack of that emotional intimacy in the relationship. And unfortunately, what happens is when this happens, people go, what am I doing wrong? Right? Why isn't this happening? What? Why did I screw this guy up? Like,

Jaclyn Steele:

well, that's an interpolation. That's the manipulation piece. And if you're susceptible to it, or if you grew up in a household, where you experienced narcissism, the default is, I did something wrong, because you were told you did something wrong. And for me, personally, that has been a tough thing to unlearn that I'm not always at fault. That it's, it's, it's really, really, it's wild. I'm 34 years old, I'm an adult, but I'm still finding all of these little things about myself that I need to heal, and understand how to view in a healthy, boundary filled way. I'm 55 and 54. And I think I got self esteem when I was 53. So you got plenty of time, you're ahead of the game, believe me.

Unknown:

One of the terms people use a lot of time about narcissistic relationships is the term gaslighting. And the term comes from this old movie where one of the things the guys did to mess with the woman was he changed the lights in the kitchen, you know, some lights rise off. There isn't a lot of good research on that. So I don't really know. But it sounds right to me that there's this idea and the idea of gasoline is you make the other person think they're the crazy one. Like why are you saying I'm the crazy one? I yeah, sure I cheated on you. But it didn't mean anything. What's wrong with you? Why are you so judgmental? I mean, I thought I've been doing a great job. We have a great relationship. like God, I guess I kind of am a little bit of a downer. I guess I shouldn't be cool with him spending all my money on a Lambo and cheated on me. Yeah, I'll be what people should do.

Jaclyn Steele:

That manipulation is so deep. And it's a lot of times in my experience, not very obvious. It's subtle. And so it's very pervasive.

Unknown:

So it? It's,

Jaclyn Steele:

yeah, subtle isn't the right word. It's because like you said, like you said, In the beginning, it's great. But the residual effect becomes very bitter, and your return on investment in the beginning of the relationship, it becomes less and less and less and less and less and less.

Unknown:

Now that makes a lot of sense. The subtlety I think, is interesting, because I bet and I don't have research on this. So I'm not sure I don't know how much i'd bet is that other people will see it more than you do. So for you in the relationship, you might see this seem subtle, but you people outside are like subtle. This guy's a jerk. Why didn't you wake up to that? We known him for the whole time. But if but no one, you know, you're in a relationship. You don't listen to people, people won't tell you stuff. But often I think other people can see it. That's one of the things I I mean, as a personality psychologist and like if you want to judge people, we used to say the best predictor of you know, future behavior is past behavior. So behavior is line I forget who originally said it. But the idea is if this if you're having this bad relationship with this person, this person probably had a similar bad relationship with three other people in the past. So there's a pattern. But you might not know about that pattern because that person's not going to say, oh, by the way, here's my pattern. I probably is probably going to really suck for about six months. I just give you a heads up. Nobody's gonna To say that no, no. So you kind of have to look at this. You have to look at their, you know, their dating resume, you have to look at how they treat people. I always look at how people treat. I always look at how people treat weak people. I mean, that's I hate to give away my secrets, but it may sound a big secret I just people are usually nice to me because I have some status and extroverted but I watch up people treat the help, you know, and people that are disrespectful.

Jaclyn Steele:

Isn't that so telling? It is so telling. There is little that is grosser to me and more of a turnoff than somebody being rude to to, uh, you know, like a waitress or something like that. It is just so unbelievably disgusting, right? Yeah,

Unknown:

that's what you know, those of you been away. I worked in a restaurant one day, it was awful.

Jaclyn Steele:

I've totally been a waitress.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's so hard. I was a bellhop and I had to stand in. And that restaurant, I couldn't do it. My one day of I think there's a host, I wouldn't even a waiter as a host. They couldn't even do it. Yeah, hard. So yeah, that's the kind of thing I look at is.

Jaclyn Steele:

So for somebody who finds themselves in a narcissistic relationship, whether it be romantic, or it's a family relationship, or a friendship, what would be like some tangible steps that you would say that they can do to move forward and heal? Because it is something I know speaking from experience, that is really hard to undo. Especially if you've been in a relationship with a narcissist for a long time? Because it's hard to know, am I being the crazy 1am I overreacting? Or is my gut reaction actually the right one?

Unknown:

It's It's a challenging question, because I mean, there's a lot of things you can do, but but the challenge is how, how far to do them. So the basic stuff is protect yourself, you know, first, make sure this person doesn't have unnecessary power over your bank accounts or over anything else. build some allies, build some friends, because if this person's really destructive or toxic, they're probably toxic to a lot of people. So you could meet people like that. So you kind of know, and that way, you get some reality testing, you're like, yeah, my friend sees the same thing. my other friend sees the same thing. The guy's you know, old Secretary saw the same thing. We're all kind of we're all on the same page. So that way, you got your reality tested, and you've got some protection. And then the question is, what can you do and so that the, the obvious thing is when you go confront the person, say, like, you're arrogant jerk, and you're kind of suck. And that usually doesn't work. Because there's a lot of defensiveness with narcissism. So somebody says, Keith, you're arrogant jerk. You're like, I don't want to hear that you're you suck. So what I suggest and this doesn't always work, is if you don't focus on the ego, you don't say you're a loser, what you say is, hey, it'd be great if you were more loving or see how nice you were that person that was really awesome. So sort of encouraged that more pro social part of the Narcissus I mean, that part, that's not the narcissism. And focus on that more than bringing down the ego because sort of tried to add to the to the love or add to the compassion the person has either through reward or whatever I mean, but that's the way to frame it is thinking about how to make this person more loving. Mom, you're just you know what, you really put out the best dinner here and everything's perfect. And that's just I love how you make everything perfect all the time. What would be even more perfect, though, is if you actually told my kids how much you loved them, that would be really nice for the kids. And that would make it even more perfect. So make it you know, that's one one sort of technique. Other things people do or bail you to just get out of the relationship that can be hard, and that involves attorneys and things. One technique people suggest there is they I think they call it like to be a boring gray rock or whatever. So people will make themselves I mean, this is horrid, but I mean, I've heard this several people. You make yourself so boring, the person just isn't interested in you. And you. You're like, Well,

Jaclyn Steele:

yeah, and I feel like in my experience with narcissism, narcissists, like drama, and they like chaos. They like a lot of flurry around them. So if you become boring, they literally lose interest.

Unknown:

Yeah, the move on. Yeah, yeah. So that's one I hate to suggest it but that's one that people will suggest that seems to have some benefit and makes sense. Another is, I said at the work you always try to promote the person out so if you've got a narcissistic boss, you say, Katie, you'd be great. And then you'd be great at the Chicago office. They I don't think they could take you to good for him. You're too good for Chicago, man. I don't think you can do it. You couldn't make Chicago you promote him out. So that's the technique and the other technique with people really narcissistic is just manipulate them say you're awesome. You're awesome. But Keith, everyone said I was kind of an arrogant jerk. Yeah, cuz they're weak and they're jealous. You're really awesome. really key. Yeah, you're the awesomest I'm gonna have you around all the time to tell me how awesome I am great. Maybe you could promote me to as your assistant. And I'll just say you're awesome. You are. So what you find with people who are really high status Narcissus you go to DC and you'll see this is a stand in DC Oh, watch this all Capella, just throw a rock. Yeah, throw a rock and you'll see it. But you'll see that people you'll be surrounded by kind of sycophants, these kind of Yes, men or Yes, women who just tell you, you're great. So you can all gurus I mean, you start going in the spiritual realm, these narcissistic gurus, Oh, another discussion, oh, my God, but they will be surrounded by people. And so that's another way you can do it. If you want to become sort of a remora to a narcissistic shark. Now I don't, I wouldn't want to do that. I wouldn't want my daughters doing that. But if you're in a bad place, that might be the best thing to do. So there's, those are kind of some of the strategies they don't sound that great.

Jaclyn Steele:

Well, I mean, I think it's a complicated, complicated subject. I think for me, in my personal experience, getting therapy was really, really effective, because I got an unbiased view of what was really going on. Certainly, I was telling my side of the story, and so they get my side. But I found that it gave me strength enough to put up really healthy boundaries, or create distance when I needed to create distance. And that allowed me enough time for my own healing, to start to take place, I think when you are traumatized, and I've been diagnosed with PTSD by a therapist, so I have some like deep trauma in my life. But it took, stepping back, putting up boundaries, taking time and putting walls around that time for me to start the healing process. And that revolutionized my life. And it revolutionized all of my relationships, including my relationship with this narcissistic person, because I was able to, with that distance, frame the relationship totally differently. You know, we have labels in our lives, right? I'm daughter, I'm wife, I'm friend, I'm blah, blah, blah. And for me, it was really effective to remove the labels and go, that is another human being, I'm going to do my best to love them in a way that is unconditional, but has boundaries around my own heart, I'm not going to be sharing my most vulnerable moments, they're not going to be the person I pick up the phone and call first when I'm excited or when I need help. And that process was extremely painful. But at the same time, I feel like it gave me my life back.

Unknown:

In a lot of ways, I like that. So you're you basically found a therapist to serve as a reality test in a way to say total reality check. And you're like this, is it like, yeah, you're right. You're not the crazy one. Like, I'm not the crazy, like you said, You don't know because you could be lying to your therapist and all that. But but it's the reality is the therapist by know what they're doing, and you have some, some way of getting some space there out of the relationship. So I'm gonna steal that. The other thing you said that I thought was really important is you said, who you're going to call this share good things with. And that's one of the things people don't think about much in relationships is when good things happen. There aren't a lot of people you can call they're more people in call with bad news, the good news, because everyone everyone wants to hear that you failed. Because they can help. I mean, not the people are evil, but it's like, hey, it's an ego boost. Yeah. It's like, Hey, I can help you. But I don't feel like it doesn't hurt my feelings. Or like I'm not the one who failed. I can be a caregiver that makes me feel good. So I don't mind if you tell me you screw it out. But if you say you just you killed it. I just got this great thing and I'm like, God, damn Jacqueline, she's always getting that great thing. I never get that great thing and she's always gonna rub it my face share it to me, and I'm gonna have to knock her down a peg. That that is really hard not to have somebody to share good news with, but it's really threatening to somebody who's narcissistic. So I thought anyway, I just like you bringing that up. It's really interesting. capitalization and the relationships. Okay, okay. Yeah, it's it's a neat topic. But it's it's really rare to have people that you can that people can hear your good news and give you really positive feedback. Yeah, not a lot of people like that. No,

Jaclyn Steele:

there's not. There's, I mean, I haven't had a friendship at one moment in time where I got on a phone call, and this person said to me, you know, it'd be a lot easier to be friends with you, if you shared bad stuff instead of just good stuff. And it wasn't that I was sharing like, my accolades. It was like, I had a great day, how was your day? It was that kind of stuff. And I just realized, boy, that what you just said is so true. And it's not just that person. I have a question that I just thought about, is it common? Or is it rare that Narcissus find themselves in relationships with other narcissists?

Unknown:

It is more common than not, but it's not a very strong effect. So we talked about it and there's old effect we call him awfully, it just like goes with like, and you see this in a lot of areas. When we've looked at narcissism in relationships, we find that narcissism scores correlate meaning that people are more narcissistic tend to be with foreigners who are a little more narcissistic, but they're not perfect correlations. And to me, they're not perfect correlations they're relatively small. So my guess is what happens that people are a little bit you know, a little bit extroverted a little bit shallow materialistic probably are in the same environments. And I've kind of drawn to each other a bit and, and that probably works OK. And probably works better than somebody who's really narcissistic with somebody who's really not narcissistic, somebody who is really more caring or focus more in a loving relationship. So I think having the two narc, you know, I used to call this the Ken and Barbie effect, but they probably got rid of Ken and Barbie about 20 years ago, those were all dolls. From Mattel, I remember very into Ken and Barbie. Oh, yeah, you're very attractive. And so Ken and Barbie would always end up together because they were both so attractive. And so you imagine in relationships, that if you have these two people that are kind of attractive and shallow, and it kind of works out, you could see that being better than if one person is really attractive, another person is trying to find love or something from that person. But again, these are small effects. But you do find a little bit of that. Yeah,

Jaclyn Steele:

I asked because I witnessed a relationship over a period of a decade, where this is obviously my own diagnosis, because I do not have my PhD in psychology. But where two narcissists came together. And it was like watching a movie, it was like small explosion at first, okay, we're just going to ignore it. Then it was like bigger explosion, bigger explosion, bigger explosion, to the point where, you know, cops were being called and restraining orders were being taken out and somebody painted somebody else's car and you just go. Why is anybody participating in this craziness? And that is that sentence was one of the most profound things. My therapist said to me, she said, you know, Jacqueline, you don't have to invite crazy to the party. And I was like that, that and that's what I've been doing for much of my life. Because I'm a pretty inclusive person. I love to talk like you do. I love to make friends. I love to have relationships with other people. But that is something I will never forget. I was 24 years old. And it's shaped much of my life. You know, I

Unknown:

don't like Yeah, I like that phrase. I like the doc. Yeah, there's something about and you see this not just with narcissism, but with psychopathology that, you know, psychopathy and other sort of personality styles are disorders. That chaos is really appealing. Chaos is energizing, it's instability. And there's some there's some theories about why. But I think there's something that some people are really drawn to that because again, it's sort of fun at first, but it's just so toxic, you know, so, so toxic. And

Jaclyn Steele:

my hypothesis is that, and I could be totally wrong on this again, obviously, I'm not a psychologist, but my hypothesis is that when the chaos dies down, and they're left with just themselves, there's so much pain to dig up there, that it's easier to live in the chaos and to be distracted all the time.

Unknown:

Yeah, that emptiness that comes up that kind of just there's nothing there. You know, you've been living this really surface life and you look in, it's just like, oh my god, there's just the void. You don't want to spend too much time with that void. You just got to make something happen. Yeah, I think I mean, I think people do this and live these more chaotic lives. I have a pretty chaotic life myself, but there's usually more openness and like, oh, that'll be fun. That'll be fun. And then just doing too Much stupid stuff.

Jaclyn Steele:

Well, I feel like you're a very curious person by nature. I remember when I first met you, you just had question after question after question. And I love that. I feel like you're a lifelong learner.

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, that's I mean, I just wanted, I just want to figure out the human condition, I'm just having fun. And that's, that's really helped keep my ego in check. A little bit is that I like to be wrong. And I like to not know what's going on. I love learning. I just enjoy. And it's just, it's, again, learning is like a drug. It's like dopamine reward system. I mean, it's not I mean, it's just cocaine man, it's just come in a different form. And yeah, so it's not like, it's some beautiful thing. But I just love new stuff. And that. And the other thing is, when you're excited about things, people like that, they like energy, they like enthusiasm and draws people in. And you can have energy and enthusiasm without ego. This is great. That's great. Everyone's all happy. You just say check me out to check this out. So orienting your life towards growth, and richness. So I mean, this just to step it back, you know, often in psychology, we focus on some people focus on happiness, or like, I feel good positive emotion. Some people focus more on meaning I want to really meaningful life, I want this to mean something like this to mean something. And other people focus more on richness of experience. I just want to have these experiences, they're different. They're not necessarily good or bad. But they're all kind of interesting. And I learned from it, I've had a very rich life. And they're just sort of different ways you can approach life. And my personality is much more open and curious. So I always focus on the richness of God, I did all this cool stuff, it was really rich, Was it good? Well, some of it was that some of it was really bad. But it was interesting. So I think that's a way you can be engaged with the world and not have your ego dominate your engagement, just out of curiosity. And you can do it in other ways, too. You can do it with love, you can do with compassion, you can do with meaning, you know, people that set up religions or foundations or help people you know, you can have a lot of meaning and, and, and not have ego never really valuable life that way. There's just different ways you can Yeah,

Jaclyn Steele:

that's what I'm striving to do is the meaning route. And I think that's just the way my brain is wired to, I want to know the meaning of something. So speaking of meaning, your new book, the new science of narcissism is so meaningful. Do you want to drop any links or anything regarding the book? And of course, I will link to it on it on Amazon. But I mean, what a work, thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Because for people like me, who find themselves in relationships with others, with narcissism or who are curious about narcissism, your work is really revolutionary.

Unknown:

It's very nice of you to say thank you. I know it's true. I tell you, I, I have been studying narcissism since grad school. So it's been 30 years. I wrote the book just to get it on paper. So someone could pick it up and figure out like, somebody could grab my book. And then they can go read the academic literature, they can read anything else and know what they're talking about. But I also wrote it so I don't have to think about it anymore. And go think about new stuff now. So my job is that I just want to put it in. I just wanted to tie it in a package. I'm really grateful. It helps people but it's kind of just glad I did it. And it's out there. And I really hope it's useful. But I'm not attached to it at this point, I

Jaclyn Steele:

guess. Well, that's a very healthy, yogic way of looking at it. Oh, isn't I mean, yoga, we could do a whole podcast on yoga. I think it's so necessary, especially for people who have a tendency to live in their heads like I think both you and I do.

Unknown:

Yeah. Well, here's an interesting yoga example. I was at Bikram yoga today, which we now call I think the 26 and two and if you ever watch the Netflix documentary on you know Bikram yoga, it's I had erroneously narcissistic me to the point where I

Jaclyn Steele:

last sec.

Unknown:

Yeah, there's my favorite scene as he is in his throne in front of a class on a with an air conditioner. For your listeners. It's usually 104. When you do Bikram yoga, you're just dying, but he had his personal air conditioner and he had a Monica Beach Resort towel, that no one except me wouldn't recognize that but Monica is the it's like the classic Rockefeller Hawaiian resort. That's so elitist. You would never know unless you were like an elitist Californian. And he had that towel and I just cracked up so hard. He's rocking the Monica towel, then you will notice it next time it's orange with the classic Monica Flower Show. But But again, what's interesting to me is this guy just I don't know, I'm gonna be a great guy. I never trust movies. But if the movie is at all accurate, he seems incredibly narcissistic. Like, a lot of spiritual gurus. They make me laugh. I think they're a clown show. But it's a great practice. And I still do the practice. And if it weren't a narcissistic jerk, like his teacher who is probably, you know, ghosts, or whatever is probably far more realized and a far better person, it never would have got to the US. It took a maniac to get to the US and say, I healed Nixon. I'm here. So narcissism is a real mixed blessing in a lot of way. Yeah. And I it is such a hater.

Jaclyn Steele:

Well, and I think if if we can grow and expand ourselves enough to be able to take our emotion out of the relationship, we can see that there is beauty in it. Yes. You know, and I think that's every area of life. So, Keith, thank you so much for doing this podcast and I cannot wait to talk to you about your studies on iOS. Got to we're gonna do totally separate podcasts

Unknown:

on that one. I know

Jaclyn Steele:

cuz I could just talk to you all day long. Fascinating. Well, and I'm excited to learn about it, too. So thank you so much. One last question. Where can people find you online? If they want to connect with you? And I'll link all of it in the show notes.

Unknown:

Maybe w Keith Campbell, calm. Okay. books at your local bookstore. Go help them out. They're probably hurting right now. From the code. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's about it. Yeah. I'm easy to find. You don't need to find me.

Jaclyn Steele:

Well, thank you so so much.

Unknown:

Thanks, Jaclyn.