Episode 408: Robert Greene: Are We All Narcissists? + Tips for Self-Awareness

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One of your things was, and I think it was 48 Laws of Power, was to be kind of like, to kind of be flamboyant in a way, to stand out, right? That's one of your points. So at what point is someone being authentic and that's who they are versus putting on a show or an act because they know they're being somewhat

manipulative because they know, like a Madonna, for example, or that if they don't stand out,

they'll just kind of like fade into the background. Well, the quality of being a kind of a show-off

is something that you either have or don't have. It's hard to put it on.
It's hard to fake it. You know, what you can do is you can learn.
You sense when you're a child, when you're eight years old, that when I'm dramatic, when I make a show of something, when I have a tantrum, people pay attention to me. Right.
And then you learn, if you're a manipulative type or you're power-h power hungry, learn how to use that energy. Maybe you become an actor.
Maybe you become a politician or whatever. Okay, and you channel it into that.
And you learn to exaggerate it. You learn to use it for effect.
But I don't think you can turn an introvert into someone who likes to show off and be an exhibitionist. I think it's very difficult because you have to kind of have pleasure and enjoy that element of getting that kind of attention.
And not everybody has that, you know, so the art of seduction is all about that. The art of seduction, I talk about the nine types of seducers.
Right. And one of them is the type that we're talking about here.
Right. And what I'm trying to say is you out there, the listener, you fit one of these nine archetypes.
It's sort of who you are. You were wired that way.
And the game is to be aware of who you are. Oh, I'm a siren.
I'm a rake. I'm a charmer.
And then to exaggerate it, to bring it out more. And I talk a lot, my view of humans is we are all actors.
None of us go around in our social lives just being who we are. We don't tell people, oh, you don't look so good today.
You know, oh, your screenplay sucks. We are the opposite, right? We learn early on to act.
Some people are better actors than others. But you need to be an actor in life.
And I don't think there should be anything negative attached to it. It's just your question is, how do we know whether it's authentic or not? I think you can feel it to a degree.
So, you know, when you see a performer and they're giving everything, there's a sense of, you know, it feels real. Yeah, you do.
Sometimes there are people that are rock stars and musicians or actors, where it does feel like they're kind of having to fake it. I mean, we can sense the difference.
When something's contrived, you feel. Right.
Yeah. I mean, you know, now circling right back again to human nature, you're talking a lot about how we're all some level, we're all narcissistic to some capacity, right? But I found it interesting.
You were saying that the deep narcissists tend to end up being quite successful in life. They can be.
Right? They'd be like a CEO of a technology company. So is it because, tell me, well, why don't you talk about that a little bit? I'm interested in that.
Why? Why do you think they can be? Well, okay, so to do that, I have to explain why we are all narcissists. I'll try and make it as brief as possible.
You don't have to be brief at all. I love having you here.
I don't want you to ever go. Okay.
Be as long-winded as possible. Okay, don't tell me that.
You're going to regret saying that. I will not, trust me.
Well, I'm trying to say to the reader of this book,

get off your high horse. Stop saying, oh, it's the other person who's aggressive.
It's the other person who's got envy, not me. I love that when you said that.
It's always that person who is that person. Yeah.
No, you are implicated. We're all cut from the same cloth.
We all have the same flaws. We all have the same tendencies.
We all have selfish narcissistic tendencies. We are all to some degree self-absorbed.
So get over this. The person who says, oh, no, I'm not a narcissist is the biggest fucking narcissist of them all because they're singling themselves out as if they're superior.
Right. It's a sure sign of narcissism.
Where does it come from? It comes from the fact that when we were children, we had a lot of attention, most of us, not all of us, had a lot of attention from our parents. And then a point is reached when we're four years old, maybe a little earlier, where they start withdrawing that attention because they realize we have to be independent, because they have other siblings to attend to, because they have other things.

So you're not getting that intense attention that you got from the mother or even the father

early on.

And it's a very painful moment.

You have to start to learn to be independent.

And the process that we go through is we develop a self, an image of ourselves.

It's almost like you're looking at yourself and it's projected on a wall.

And that self has good qualities. You love that self.
It has, you know, it has things that you're comfortable with. It has certain tastes and desires that you, who you are, and you like that.
And so, in those moments when you feel pain, when you feel abandoned, when you don't feel you get your attention, you're able to withdraw into yourself and not feel so bad. You're able to get the love from yourself.
You don't depend it on other people. You're not aware of that process because it all happened unconsciously.
But psychologists have demonstrated, have cataloged it. It's a very real phenomenon.
And so slowly, unconsciously, you develop this idea of yourself, this kind of ideal version of who you are. And as you get older, this tendency gets stronger and stronger.
You like other people who share your own values. You like other people who flatter you.
You like people who like you. These are all signs of your self-absorption of your narcissism.
There's nothing negative about it. Stop judging yourself.
Every single person you know has these tendencies. Even St.
Teresa had these tendencies, all right? It's so true, though, when you think about it, right? Like, we tend to like the people who like us the most, right? That's just what we do, right? Like, if someone flatters, they'll say, oh, you're so great, you're so nice, you're so this, you're so that. Because it makes you feel good, you want to be around that person, obviously.
And look on social media. Who do you glom on to? You glom on to the people who have the same values, the same ideas as you, because they're like mirrors to yourself.
Mirrors to yourself. You're looking at yourself when you look at them, and their nice feelings and their good ideas are your good ideas as well.
So you're a narcissist. Just admit it.
Now, some people are what I call deep narcissists, and they had a childhood that was different. They come usually from some, maybe a broken home.
There are two things where things can become dysfunctional. A, the parent neglects them or is abusive, and the love and affection that they expect is actually the opposite.
All right, so they're not able to develop that self that is able to love because they feel they actually hate themselves. The inner self you were saying, yeah.
Or B, the parent overwhelms them with attention and suffocates them to the point where they're not able to develop an independent self. Either way, that self-image that we come to love is aborted.

It doesn't grow.

It's not organic.

And so when the child reaches five or six years old, in those moments of pain, when they're not getting the love they need, instead of turning inward, they have to turn outward.

They have to become a performer.

They have to act out to get attention. They have to throw a tantrum.
They have to be extremely dramatic. And sometimes that drama is very exciting.
We've seen children like that who are always performing. They're very cute.
They're very charming. They know how to get attention through their wit, through their antics, right? Okay.
But it can come from an inner emptiness. They're acting out.
They have to. It's the only way they can get the love and attention they need.
So I compare it to a thermostat that you have in your brain. So let's say there's a 50% mark right in the middle.
That's where half of your attention is to yourself and the other half is towards other people. And the higher you go up on that towards 100 is the more you're capable of putting yourself into the thoughts and minds of other people, getting outside of yourself.
The lower down you go, the more self-absorbed you become. So we naturally, I call us functional narcissists.
We're able to function in this world. We're narcissists, but we can function well.
And we're normally at that halfway point. Sometimes we rise above because we're very interested in people.
Maybe we fall in love or maybe because of work, we really have to focus on people. We can rise to 60 to 70.
But then when we're depressed, we kind of go down and we get more self-absorbed. We go down to 30 and 40.
But that thermostat will raise us up so that we never get too self-absorbed because we'll pay a price for that. Deep narcissists can never get above that mark.
They're always down below. They don't have that thermostat.
They're always locked inside of themselves. And as they get older, they have to become more and more dramatic to get that attention.
Now, that could become a very positive trait, or it seemed to be, because it can be charismatic, right? So you learned as a child when you were five or six years old to be very dramatic to get attention. Now, imagine you've been doing that for 15, 17 years, and you're in your 20s, you're like a master at getting attention,

right? And you have this kind of energy where I need love from you people. I need love from you.

And it's very seductive. And people will give you that loving energy.
You're a master

magnet at attracting that energy, right? But it comes from an inner emptiness.

And at some point,

it can turn against you.