they may get more praise from the world they may have more enablers and be more emboldened the smart narcissistic folks get away with more which can make them more harmful if you are in a relationship with them there is a phenomenon that in narcissism I call it the sea Suite again you know why I did that it's appropriate because given how Corporate leadership positions do often pull for narcissism or at the very least they reward it but in this case the sea Suite is a cluster of qualities that actually set us up and kind of
make us drawn to them and make the love bombing more possible so the question I get asked repeatedly is what makes me you vulnerable to narcissistic folks it's kind of the wrong question because I think in a way we're all vulnerable to choosing them right that's what the sea Suite is about what makes us vulnerable to choosing the narcissistic person now the things that might make us personally vulnerable to being targeted initially are things like what we look like our social status our job money our connections our willingness to help them out we may seem
like an easily dominat Target there's any number of things may make us attractive to them but we aren't just sitting ducks there are things that make them attractive like I said again that's the sea Suite so I'm going to take you on a quick tour of the sea suite and talk about a few things actually that I didn't get to in the book and leave you to look up the rest in the book to learn about this okay so a lot of the sea site stuff it really plays to the strengths of the grandiose narcissistic
person but I'm going to round out how this stuff could also show up in vulnerable narcissism so let's start at the top the first seat is charm this is where the narcissistic and the grandio narcissistic people shine and what they're so good at they have the most Almighty charm right they know what to say they have the manners opening doors pulling out chairs taking your coat they know how to charm your grandmother when they first meet her and they are great at making conversation with anyone they'll notice a small thing about you and compliment you
on it they'll be deeply attentive they will be able to talk with ease to everyone from people who might be working at the party to the person throwing the party to everyone in between now the shiny socially skilled charm they have isn't as readily apparent in the vulnerable narcissistic person where there's more of a social awkwardness or even a social anxiety but the vulnerable narcissistic person's charm Mak come out in their willingness to be self-effacing to put themselves down and even imply that you are too good for them right so it's like oh no I'm
not too good for you you want to rescue them right again just as with so many things definitely not all Charming people are narcissistic and frankly not all narcissistic people are Charming but charm is one of those qualities that when we look back at the beginning of a narcissistic relationship it can confuse us because once the relationship gets really toxic and you look back and you wonder how the hell did I get into this mess and in many cases when you look back at the beginning it was the charm charm is a way for them
to get supply with new people and it works very well so even though that narcissistic people tend to be sprinters and sort of bring the T the charm in the short term it can be a foundational element of the seeds that will become the trauma Bond that's second C is charisma oh Charisma this is like charm on a stimulant this is the ability to hold the attention of a room when they walk in even if they aren't saying anything it seems like all the attention turns to them Charisma is compelling a charismatic leaves people feeling
at ease but simultaneously dazzles them Charisma is something we often see in leaders even when they are terrible leaders because they can hold a proud enthrall cult leaders are often quite charismatic too again Charisma is the grandiose narcissistic person's game now certainly some malignant narcissists can be charismatic which is a bit of a terrifying combination because the Charisma is so disarming and then the malignancy is so cruel again this is a common sort of cult leader pattern Charisma tends not to be a quality you see in people who are more vulnerably Nar narcissistic but again
I'm going to say this as a reminder not all charismatic folks are narcissistic and when you meet a non-narcissistic charismatic person though hold them close because that's a rare combination and not all narcissistic folks are charismatic and our third SE is confidence now for people who are so deeply int psychically insecure narcissistic people are superficially really confident it may come off as arrogance assuredness even contempt a sort of dismissive that's easy anyone could do that when people talk a big game we often believe them especially if they have had some success this is a tricky
quality because confidence can be reassuring we really believe the person has the goods to back it up since most people don't walk around talking and extoling their high levels of confidence that's not what most of us do that self assuredness when a person's really sort of ostensibly self- assured it's considered a good thing right it gets confusing down the road though when it with a confident we see someone who's confident and the first time things don't go their way they throw a tantrum and they start attacking everyone in the world and they start blaming everyone
else again the grandios and malignant folks are strong at the at The Confidence Game the vulnerable folks though come in with a sort of victimized Sullen petulant whiny confidence like oh that's so easy that's why I didn't bother doing it I need more of a challenge same disclaimer as with all the others not all confident people are narcissistic and this is more of the Mind F of it all that they come out as confident the narcissistic person does you believe in them cuz they're so confident sometimes they aren't even that good at what they say
they're good at and they're good at talking a big game but not actually playing it healthy genuinely confident people just aren't so noisy about their confidence they know what they know and they do it calmly and respectfully our fourth SE are credentials narcissistic people care deeply about status and so they get statusyes from a fancy University living in a fancy neighborhood driving a fancy car anything that communicates status this is tricky because we live in a world especially where dating is concerned but also in other situations like employment situations that these signifiers have meaning oh
they're a catch because they went to Harvard and came from some fancy schmancy family maybe not many narcissistic people are snobby they care about labels they care about status they care about where you live and can be dismissive of people who don't have those things this stuff is relative too the credential thing can be linked to whatever implies status at what ever level in a social hierarchy a person is in it might be the ivy league for some folks being from a certain neighborhood for other folks driving a certain kind of car for others Etc
you get the idea and because we are socialized to think that there is some kind of virtue that goes along with these credentials and there are not many people get pulled in by the person who looks good on paper all people with all the different kinds of narcissism can play this game even the aggrieved vulnerable narcissistic person who may have gotten it together to get some of these credentials though they are the group that's least likely to have this and credentials are more something that the narcissistic person accumulates though sometimes they may lie about having
them so be prepared for that the next C is curiosity when someone feels deeply attuned to and interested in us it's so seductive in some some cases it is a literal working through of what we didn't get in childhood and so for someone to be inquisitive about us it they that actually might be more seductive than charm or Charisma or attractiveness or being successful that curiosity is often a part of the love bombing stage and reflect some of the charm and the intense interest of that time unfortunately this curiosity may also be a bit of
a seductive interrogation where they're getting to know your vulnerabilities your greatest fears your sensitivities information that they will use down the road against you for example that romantic night a few months into the relationship when you shared your greatest fear a few years later you can see them playing on that greatest fear of yours in the relationship grandiose folks are best at this malignant folks are good at this too vulnerable people less so because they're often so preoccupied with their own distress but this is often not as shiny and big equality but only afterwards do
we recognize how it drew Us in and perhaps blocked some of the red flags now another C I actually didn't get a chance to get to in the book but does matter is comfort and you're like what Comfort yes the Comfort part may happen initially but it often doesn't when you first meet them you don't necessarily notice that their pattern of idealizing you and then withholding or withdrawing reminds you of a parent who did that or that their the narcissistic person's conditional love is what you experienced in childhood but this painful almost physically held comfort
of the narcissistic relationship can be part of what gets us stuck because it reminds us of what we went through in childhood and while this is a stretch for me to use the word me use the word comly it's an oldfashioned word for attractive while this ma this word comely attractive see falls under charm and Charisma it's a little different research shows that narcissistic people do rate as more attractive probably because they put more time into their appearance to get validation and physical attraction is usually why we notice people and so yeah there might be
that biological Comfort we feel in these relationships and that might might not be what draws Us in but definitely might be enticing and I'm also not saying you need to run away at the first sign of an attractive traing charismatic confident curious person it's to understand that these qualities that are very shiny and very evocative and very attractive can sometimes block us from seeing the truth of a person we want the magic to be real and so when the whole package comes at us whatever that whole package is to us we may miss their snark
the barbs the passive aggression the entitlement the reactivity the gaslighting and the little manipulations that start to show up the seas are what fuel that magic that we desperately want to be true or more likely if we even start to doubt it we get told that we're being cynical and fussy or even ridiculous for questioning a person's charm or charisma here's some advice to you question it pay attention despite how Charming or charismatic they are pay attention to what makes you feel uncomfortable and your body and your psyche sure enjoy the charm and Charisma ride
for a minute but don't set your clock or your future by it now if you want to read more about the sea Suite it's laid out in detail in my new book it's not you and here it's connected to our understanding of how all of us are vulnerable not only to being attracted to them but frankly in our fashion to being targeted by them and this book lets you know what you can do about it so get it it could change your life now come to a topic that I know I've circled around a lot
but it's this mistake that often gets people really kind of painted into a corner in narcissistic relationships which is the mistake of thinking that someone being smart or intelligent is a virtue smart is not a virtue so as I said I have circled this topic before many times but it I I said I think this very topic Bears its own video because it matters a lot especially when you're in the early phase of meeting or getting to know a new narcissistic person and it can inform the kinds of excuses you may make for them excuses
that may persist for years so among the many charms that many narcissistic people bring into a new relationship are things like charm charisma confidence being compelling they may be successful they may be really clever and sophisticated about the world and stylish or attractive and they may be smart really really smart I don't know where and when it happened that we thought being smart was on the same level or perhaps even more important than being empathic kind or respectful these things that I'm listing empathy kind kindness respect compassion they typically involve an our treatment of another
person in general smart frankly is really about the self but when we meet someone smart we often treat them at the same level maybe even higher when as those who actually possess real virtues such as empathy and compassion there are different kinds of smart right there's book smart someone who is well read who's educated who knows lots of stuff and we learned that they're books smart because they share it of course lots and lots of times which should be its own little red flag then there might be a person who has really high educational credentials
like a PhD or an MD or a law degree and I some with a PhD I can say this a person can have all kinds of fancy credentials but not have an ounce of Street smarts or be able to think themselves out of a paper bag so let's go to Street smarts right Street smarts are the Capac to sort of be able to go through the world in a smart and aware way figuring out workarounds being smart about how to get a deal done how how to get a problem fixed it's a a quick WT
wittedness thinking on your toes they know the right person to find it's a survival it's a survival mentality that's typically honed by experience and sometimes by adversity then there are people who are skill smart it may not look like book smart or educated smart but they have a really well-honed skill they may be a really great mechanic or electrician or smart Chef musician financially smart a smart person who knows how to make quilts it's almost more of an expertise but they're really really good at the thing they know and they're able often to communicate it
and solve problems around it and then there's just plain good old G Factor intelligence that's its own big topic right intelligence is being able to engage in novel problem solving solve problems you've never seen before to take a lot of information and integrate it have skills in verbal abilities and non-verbal abilities we can measure this but there are also different kinds of intelligence but then you know what I mean just generally I'm not going to get into a whole long thing about intelligence that whole idea of someone know's a high IQ intelligence many narcissistic people
think they're smart they really think of themselves as smart a study by Z zanowski and and their called colleagues showed that grandiose narcissistic people are higher in self-perceived intelligence and they also think that intelligence is an important and valuable characteristic to have but there is really very little data or convincing evidence that narcissistic people are actually documented more intelligent but the book smart and credential Smart in particular can be risky when it comes to getting stuck in narcissistic relationship ships we can make the incorrect assumption that well someone's smart so they're a safe person the
idea that a person who's smart is a good person especially if they have for example a good job then they might even get bonus points if they have a family oh you're smart and you have a family it must be a good person the mistake a person can make is they're smart they must be a decent person why why is being smart making someone a decent person smart is smart that's what it is it's not kind it's not warm it's not agreeable or empathic it can be person can be smart and be all those things
but it's not a guarantee smart may reflect time spent developing a skill intensely studying a lot it may reflect a need for admiration and the Quest for knowledge they want to share with lots of people it may reflect a competitive need to go to the best school and they get even more education and have a piece of status that might get them more admiration and validation smart may also be performative talk talking about things using language that nobody understands and then by default people think that they're smart because nobody understands them but smart at best
is a parlor trick a magic trick it's not a virtue but we're often as swoony as around smart people as we are when we're around really attractive people or really rich ones and at least with the attractive or rich ones we might already be thinking like o could be narcissism by we might be on our guard but we're often not on on our guard with really smart people listen folks I went to school for a long time and got all my little degrees of fancy degrees I got to tell you that process was actually quite
selfish I put my head down I did the work I focused on it and not much else not even that much on other people and in that process of getting all that education I met some kind wonderful people and I met some awful narcissistic people and sometimes the smartest ones were the most narcissistic in fact quite often and sometimes the Smart Ones were nice but the smart and the nice did not necessarily go together many people have said that their partner or family members or even their friends smarts was actually what confused them and often
got them and kept them stuck and even at times LED them to think that maybe this person in their life is not narcissistic how could they be they're so smart to which I would say if they also have no empathy and they're entitled and mean and grandiose and selfish and arrogant and manipulative then the smart what is that but the smart with throw people and not recognizing that the smart and the narcissism can and do go together like I said sometimes is a revelation for folks and the smart can be its own risk in a
relationship because you may believe that the narcissistic smart person has all the answers and you believe them they may be better gaslighters because we assume that they're right because they're smart so maybe they are right when they tell me that there's something wrong with me cuz they're smart they may get more praise from the world they may have more enablers and be more emboldened the smart narcissistic folks get away with more which can make them more harmful if you are in a relationship with them strangely we do tend to give out get out of jail
free cards to people if they are good at something I know that people can say a person could say mean things and be abrupt and have no empathy and be really entitled and abuses people in the workplace but gosh they're so smart they're such a good fill-in the blank lawyer doctor Professor business person teacher musician Chef actor philanthropist whatever the hell they are okay maybe they are good at that you can be in fact quite often can be good at something and still be narcissistic a person can be smart and do their smart things but
that doesn't mean that their abuse and their maltreatment doesn't sting it sure as hell doesn't give them the right to abuse and it's not an excuse for their harmful Behavior it's an important thing to remember as you navigate healing from trauma bonded and narcissistic relationships being smart is not a virtue and it doesn't imply if somebody's smart it doesn't imply that you're reading the situation wrong smart and narcissistic quite often go together some survivors especially those who grew up in narcissistic families may have been may have heard or been told that they are dumb in
a million different ways during their childhoods and the impact on confidence when you grow up like that may mean that you held yourself back in terms of higher education or you didn't have that support or belief in yourselves so when a person who has this history of being told they're dumb or not cultivating an intellect that didn't get cultivated and supported when they meet someone smart who's also narcissistic it can create some really terrible opportunities for abuse because the person who doesn't feel as smart may feel that they have no right to question the smart
narcissistic person the fact is yes you do because what they're doing is not okay I don't care if someone's curing cancer building a better smartphone solving the origin of the universe or cooking the perfect meal go do those things sure those things help all of us but to all the rest of us the amazing things that someone can do doesn't qualify as a free pass for being cruel to other people and if you work with someone who is like this this ult Ultra smart narcissist it's radical acceptance and it may or may not be worth
it to stick it out in the job some people can endure it if they feel that the so-called smart person is so smart or making such big contributions that they want to be a part of it others can't either way you have to understand that smart and narcissistic can and do co-occur and also remember that the narcissistic person does have to be the smart person in the room and they don't like it when there is someone smarter who shows up it's a threat for them and they will either mock or minimize the intelligence or skills
or knowledge of this ostensibly smarter person they might compete with them they might try to show off or embarrass them about what they know in front of others they might get into get passive aggressive digs into them or they may just skull off like a victim ultimately though if you meet someone who's really smart look alive pay attention to the stuff that matters the warmth the empathy the kindness the mutuality of regard their capacity to attune to you the psychological safety you feel with them patience that's the stuff that matters if they happen to be
smart to boot then awesome great but be careful to not let your sense of their smartness be a reason that you second guess yourself and trust me they might say things like well I went to Yale or I have a business so I have the family finances figured out what do you know about it if you don't know anything about money or I work at some fancy schmancy job so obviously I will know more about this than you it's easy to succumb when it's being pitched that way especially if you feel insecure about what you
know but don't I have been thinking about this video for a very long time actually and then someone pointed out to me uh news article about someone that everyone publicly thought was super smart and turned out to be big surprise a world class a-hole and that ended up starting this public debate between the folks that said they no longer wanted to get advice from this smart person and the people who defended this person my thought as I watched this debate sort of unfold is listen you want to learn from this person learn from this person
if what they're saying is actually well founded and it's helping you but always be willing to question it and don't let that person's need to use big obtuse words leaving you feeling as though you don't know anything and remember that maybe even if someone's offering some great so-called wisdom take their wisdom and then run they don't need to be your friend but don't excuse their bad behavior either remember those multiple truths I always talk about it's all about the multiple truths get the knowledge but expect little else and most importantly don't give the best of
yourself to them and listen I'm not naive I can sit here and say smart is not a virtue but depending on the nature of the smarts and what they have done with those smarts smart is attractive and it is compelling we may view it with some admiration view with admiration the amount of time that went into their education or in to developing their accomplishments so I absolutely can see how people are drawn to it admire it and even value it but by itself smart is not a virtue and it is definitely not a rationale nor
a justification for abuse and if they smarts or intellect or just knowing a lot about something leaves you doubting yourself from the jump from when you first meet them saying stuff to yourself like oh I hope I can keep up then there's a power IM balance there which is risky so if they do manipulate or Gaslight you're already at a disadvantage and no we don't need to understand why they're Behaving Badly just because they are smart we they they're Behaving Badly that's it and that that's where the sentence ends you can outsmart this smart narcissist
by remembering what qualifies as toxic behavior and in fact getting what you need to know from them and getting out and take care of you so the last 20 years in human Innovation let's face it 25 years have been absolutely stunning at my age I can look back to a childhood and Adolescence of rotary dial phones no answering machines only three channels on the TV no cable no VCR TV that signed off at 1:00 a.m. in fact the town I grew up in didn't even allow for touchtone phone service for many years even after big
cities had it right we used those purple mimeographs in school that were hand cranked there were no photocopiers I thought that when we finally could do things like play Space Invaders on an Atari was the fanciest thing I'd ever seen when I went to college in 1984 a Facebook was that book made of paper that had all the pictures of us freshmen and the cities that we came from I typed my college papers on a typewriter and I'd correct the mistakes with white out the first time I ever encountered email was at the beginning of
graduate school right so all of the things we see in our lives now happened in pretty short order and then life and Innovation happened and it happened fast innovation has always been happening in human history right television telephone radio cars movable type and at the time those Innovations came out they were just as astonishing as a smartphone that's in your pocket right and and a smartphone to me still is really astonishing I don't even need to name names you're going to know exactly who I'm talking about but if we look at a list of the
current bigname innovators in our world most not all but absolutely most and yes I am talking about the world of AI crypto Tech social media biotech those people who think you're going to live forever biohackers robotics cars that don't need gas cars that fly cars that don't need people to drive them you you have to be one grandiose mother to believe that those things could happen and many of the folks that made these happen like I said most but not all but the majority of them behind the successful launches of the biggest Innovations out there
in the past hundred years I'd argue through all of society have had a lot of narcissistic qualities or full-blown narcissistic personalities so again going back to the original question is narcissism required for this kind of big innovation and I actually think that the answer to this sadly maybe yes that the big Innovations the people behind them require narcissism it's a shame but to do this you not only have to have a dream that is beyond the pale a computer that will fit in your pocket a car that doesn't need a person driving it things like
blockchain and then truly believe that you can executed and that you have the right to execute it then you have to have the audacity to March into rooms and feel like you deserve the money to execute the idea and then you have to have the smarts to execute the idea and fight back on anyone else who might be coming in on your Innovation the grandiose Vision may be where it starts but the entitlement and arrogance and Fightin I guess are often how it gets executed it's also the low empathy so there's little regard for how
their demands the innovator's demands may be affecting other people like maintaining unreasonable demands from work teams such as stay all night sleep on the floor work constantly don't have a life so you can bring this Innovation to fruition and remember most Innovative dreamers do not bring their grandiose dreams to fruition it's only a small handful a tiny tiny tiny handful of people who who pull these grandio dreams off successfully and they are the ones we read about on social media and the News listen the innovators who don't manage to pull it off those are our
victimized vulnerable narcissists pounding their fists at the world and wondering why their great idea never got its turn it sucks but it's true but the innovators who managed to pull off their big big Ideas successfully when they first talk about their ideas they kind of sound a little out there right because once it happens they actually believe they're hype and so does everyone else and so we have to start listening to their bizarre proclamations about life and politics and business and since they either built or own the platforms we are stuck listening to we're kind
of stuck having to having to listen to them because they own the platforms historically this all tracks like folks like Edison Mr light bulb were called out historically as being very jerky and as awful people I don't think we have historical records on the personality of Gutenberg the guy who developed the movable type and the ability to start printing multiple versions of something but maybe who knows then there's that whole great man Theory right that history is made by this small subset of naturally selected so-called great men men of course who held certain traits that
made that turned them into history makers like courage or intellect but probably lots of narcissism in fact most of the folks in our history books are narcissistic but where does this leave us is the only place to get something like a smartphone from a narcissistic person listen every time I use my iPhone I'm still astonished that we once turned to an encyclopedia or the library and it would take quite a long time to get a factoid that I can pull from my phone in one second while I'm waiting in line to pick up the groceries
I pre-ordered using that same phone that will ultimately navigate me to my destination it is absolutely extraordinary what has happened with all these Innovations whether we like it or not is extraordinary but it raises a different issue human beings are naturally oriented towards this kind of innovation we are that's it makes us it's a unique species right and the innovators are narcissistic as a rule it almost seems like the qualities of narcissism and even to some degree psychopathy are preconditions to really hit it out of the park in The Innovation game they a person with
a great idea who's grandios and entitled and ultimately has power money and influence It's never enough for them that's the problem but in a way the successful innovators are portrayed as Heroes and that's risky we're told that these folks are good people people to Aspire to be like people we want to be close to maybe even have as partners and that's where it all falls apart because yeah for the innovators their work has resulted in major Leaps and Bounds in how we live it's Rewritten history not saying all these Innovations are good some of these
have harmed our planets in many ways and some of these Innovations do not benefit everyone but sure yeah for them it worked out how however we also need to learn that those qualities the personality qualities that bring on Innovation the grandiosity the get it done at whatever cost the obsessiveness the I don't care who I destroy in making this happen that to the innovator The Innovation is more important than any person and the conception of themselves as greater and mightier than anyone it may make computers in our pockets and things like that it's not fit
for human relationships and these should not be our heroes we can certainly admire what they created we can have the admiration for making the impossible seem possible for the conveniences that they have brought sure we can tip a grudging hat towards all of that but we will remain in this narcissistic mess of a world we are in if we admire them as people because then we normalize these patterns of narcissism we even make them seem aspirational be a dick invent some techy crypto AI thing and then you get to live like a bond vill villain
in a billionaire lirer or in some kind of Dr Evil spaceship or yacht and while 99.999% of us won't ever live like that nor really should we and then we turn around and give Innovative successful grandiose people a free pass in our lives It's Tricky and then over time and not even over time always the narcissistic innovador then seem desirable and then grandiosity entitlement arrogance being a dreamer they might seem like good partners and you know how that story ends I actually don't think that massive scaled up Innovation really ever happens without the presence of
narcissism or other dark tetrad traits such as psychopathy or melanism in the innovator these contribute to that almost obsessive quality innovators need and innovators don't get bogged down in agreeable stuff like helping other people kindness or empathy and they remain single-mindedly focused on changing the world on getting into the history books and delusionally believing that they have the right to do whatever they want and on top of that they do have to be really smart to boot so basically yeah Innovation requires narcissism and use the device but don't emulate or fall in love with the
innovator would love to hear your thoughts on that do you think there can be massive forms of innovation the kind of stuff that changes the world without the innovator being a little or a lot narcissistic thanks again
