Outsmarting Narcissists: The Praise or Provoke Trap

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How do you talk to a narcissist?

I know what you want to say.

You don't.

You don't, Jefferson.

That's not reality.

It sounds nice.

It sounds really nice, but it's not reality.

Why?

Because more than likely,

you're related to one.

You're married to one.

You work with one.

Or you work for one.

There are people who exhibit narcissistic behaviors everywhere.

And there are those that we might deem a narcissist.

How do you handle it?

All that more coming up.

Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything.

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Thank you very much.

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Now, I'm not a therapist.

I'm not a psychologist.

You know this.

I'm a trial attorney.

That means I talk to a lot of people, usually in some of the most intense situations you can think of.

Cross-examination is one of those.

I can't think of anything that is more adversarial in a controlled way where people do not want to answer me.

They don't want to respond, but they're required to under oath because they've done something where somebody is now calling them to the mat.

They are now being held, they are now being held accountable for whatever they've done or they've said.

So they don't typically want to talk to me.

It's my job to ask questions in a way that is going to get facts, apply law to it, and advocate for my client.

One of those personalities that I see often are narcissists.

And I say that as a general term of people who exhibit extrong, a pattern of narcissistic behavior.

You know what I'm talking about.

You know what I'm talking about.

These are people that, if I were to say narcissist to you right now, you could close your eyes and think of one person, you could go,

this is a narcissist, somebody who always

puts it to make it about themselves, always plays the victim, never takes accountability, has

this inability to have empathy or sympathy or accountability for really anything.

We're going to talk about that right now.

You ready?

Number one, there's a mindset that I want you to have when you're dealing with people who exhibit these narcissistic behaviors, and it is a game.

That's the mindset that you are playing a game.

And it's a game that I call praise or provoke.

Meaning if I am not showering these people with praise, oh, how great they are, how wonderful they are, how credible they are, if I'm not reading everything else on their resume and just blasting and gassing these people up,

well, they will turn to provoke an argument with me, to try and create conflict where there is none.

Why?

To get that same level of satisfaction.

They want to create a problem.

They want to get me emotionally stimulated to where I am getting aggravated and upset.

You know this.

You can relate to this.

If you're not showering that person you're thinking of with praise they will turn to provoke and start a problem with you because they delight in your frustration just as much as they delight in your praise because it's all about control it's all about control let me tell you about this game this is a game you cannot win it's not it's to be clear it is not because of you It's not that you're not a winner.

You haven't failed.

You're not a loser.

It is a game that is set up to fail.

Have you ever played one of those carnival games?

You gone to like a local carnival, a real bad one.

Like you know Gunawell, they don't take care of anything.

They're just a few rusted bolts away from it all destroying itself.

You ever gone to one of those carnival games and you're like, I can do this.

I can toss the ring on the bottle.

I can pop the balloon.

I can shoot that basketball.

Not a problem.

And you try it and it doesn't work.

And you're like,

let me try it again.

And before you know it, you're $20 in on a game.

And it's like,

this is not beatable because it's not.

It's rigged.

The game is rigged.

It was never fair.

It will never be fair.

That's exactly the situation you're in.

It's not fair.

No, it's not.

And guess what?

It will never be fair.

You can only choose not to play it.

You can only choose not to play it.

So number one is this mindset when you are talking to these personalities that exhibit strong narcissistic behaviors or a pattern of it understand you are playing their game and you could say well i'm just not going to play that's true you cannot play

and that would be my advice ideally it's yeah you never deal with these people ideally yeah you don't talk to them but that again like i had started at the outset of this episode it's not reality oftentimes now you could say i'm out of here i'm not talking to you and you're gone.

It's just not practical.

It sounds good when somebody writes it in a comment.

It's not practical.

This is something where I want you to actually be equipped for real life.

And if I'm not doing that, then I'm not doing my job.

And then I'm not even following my passion.

And what's the point of that?

You're in a game called Praise or Provoke.

Get that in your mind when you talk to these people.

Doesn't matter what you do.

If you're not feeding them with control, if you're not feeding the monster with your emotions whether it's happy emotions or sad emotions

they will

they will turn into the worst types of personalities you'll ever experience where you go i i cannot do it and i know you want to fix it

that's what you're good i know if you're listening to this episode you're a good person

because you're trying to figure out

how do i do it how to how do i navigate these situations you want to fix it that's the rigged game.

That's the rigged game, baby.

It looks beatable.

It looks beatable.

If you could just explain to them how what they said hurts you,

if you could just put it just the right way, and all of a sudden the light bulb's going to click and

their eyes are going to open and they go, oh my gosh, I've said so many things that are so hurtful and you're right.

I should take accountability for this and I should be better about this.

That will never happen.

Don't do it.

Have the mindset of just, one, acknowledging you're in the game.

Two,

what are practical ways, Jefferson, of how we're going to handle these kind of conversations?

I'm going to tell you.

You want to use very neutral, flat statements.

Why?

Because they can't do anything with it.

We're tempted, in our default, to say things that are going to incite things that are going to prove to them why they're wrong and why we're right.

That doesn't work with narcissists.

They don't do empathy.

They don't do acknowledgement.

They don't do accountability.

So instead, we're going to use flat, neutral statements.

These are statements like, noted.

That's good to know.

Thank you.

Oh, interesting.

I don't know.

You hear just flat as can be.

You can't do anything with those.

You can't make something up in them.

You can't take it and run with it.

You can't twist them.

Flat neutral statements.

I love noted.

It's one of my favorites.

I'm talking to a client, not a client, excuse me, when I'm talking to somebody who's an adverse witness

and they make some kind of snide comment, and I know we're going to talk about the type of personalities I cross-examine that I consider to be typically very narcissistic in their behavior.

If I just say, noted,

can't do anything with it.

Can't do anything with it.

When you have flat neutral statements, you keep them very short.

You hear how they're very short.

They're not long.

If you can't keep it to one word, find one word that you like that you can go to over and over and over and over.

Even if it's okay.

You hear how I said that?

Okay.

It's not like okay.

Okay.

Or it's rude or try to have some kind of tone into it.

Okay.

Flat as can be.

So find a word, very short, very flat, that you can't do anything with.

Number three,

I want you to have this mindset of limited time, limited interaction.

This is not the time when you're talking with these kind of people to sit down with your, with your hot tea and say, let's talk it out.

I need to express to you all the things that have been boiling up inside me.

And I really just, I need to empty out my bag with you and help talk about this kind of stuff.

nope they're not going to do it they can't they can't understand they cannot

so when you get in those situations keep it very limited even if it's a time frame keep the conversations as short as can be when they start to lash out in different ways go to your neutral statements remember the game and keep it very short when you try to have a very quick clapback or a comeback It's not going to work.

It's never going to have the effect that you want it to have.

They don't don't do that kind of stuff.

I'm going to tell you right now a tip that I've used a lot with these type of behaviors in cross-examination.

Again, you take it however you want to take it.

I can promise you it works.

See, people who exhibit narcissistic behaviors don't care about you.

They care about everybody else.

Everybody else who they believe is watching them.

Don't care about about you.

They care about the audience, the crowd.

This is their stage, after all.

Didn't you know?

This is their platform.

Everybody loves them.

Everybody watches them, their audience, my people.

That's what they see in their world.

That's why they can't admit when they're wrong.

It would hurt the ratings.

It would hurt the views, right?

So, how do you use that to your advantage?

Let me tell you a story.

I was taking a deposition of an expert.

That's the type of people I usually cross-examine.

They show narcissistic tendencies.

Experts.

And it's not because they are an expert.

That's not the bad pattern, not at all.

There's some wonderful people that are experts of their field.

I'm talking the type that drink their own Kool-Aid so much

that, I mean, they just, they get drunk off of it.

The people who just get intoxicated by the sound of their own voice.

Now, they will,

it's often a very highly specialized topic.

Maybe it's a biomechanical engineer.

Maybe it's a very highly qualified accident reconstructionist, constructionist, or

some specific niche-down toxicologist.

Something that's very, very, very high-end.

We need these type of opinions in cases, real quick.

In certain, well, for sure in Texas and for sure in the U.S., you can't, I can't just go on the stand, or you can't just go on the stand and say, oh yes, I'm going to give an opinion about a toxicology report or something of, I just tasted this water and it has X amount of sodium in it.

You can't just say that if you don't have the credentials to back it up.

Anybody who's an attorney, you know Rule 702.

You have to show that you have qualified knowledge, skills, training to be able to make these kind of opinions.

Well, these experts know that.

And typically, if they've been in the field a very long time, they have a very high opinion of themselves.

And the good news is that's very good on paper to have a qualified opinion, but it's very bad for a jury.

Why?

Because...

they come across as a jerk.

They can come across as very snooty, very uppity, very full of themselves, because a lot of times they are.

The real experts that are awesome, and I mean, a good expert can make your case, a bad expert can totally break your case.

The ones that are extremely knowledgeable and are able to create the link between what's happening in the evidence and the law

and show you why and kind of teach you through it.

And also, they're just a likable person.

That's the kind of expert you want.

Well, I was deposing.

Now, this went into position in a case, a guy,

and he was extremely, I mean, I'd already known in the deposition, he was very, very full of himself.

So I was asking him questions about my client's injury, talking about the case, and he made this opinion that was

I couldn't even understand how he was making the opinion, but it was it was about my client's injury, saying that she couldn't have been injured in the car, but yet somebody else

who hit them, they had been injured, and he was okay with that.

Anyway, we started talking, and I asked him a question,

something pretty basic.

And he said something to the tune of, well, I mean, I would explain it to you, but I don't know if that would really do any good.

And the whole jury was like,

several of them kind of like gasped.

They're like, oh, like

their case was done after that.

He had hurt the opinion of the other side pretty bad.

So badly that the other attorney in closing argument had to kind of apologize for it and say, well, you can't,

whatever you think of him as a person, you understand his opinion here today.

Anyway, you got to be careful of those kind of people.

And the other attorney couldn't really do much about it, but it was just

a not nice guy who we all knew and the jury knew and the judge knew everybody in the courtroom knew he was a narcissistic type of behavior.

Now, what did I do in that case?

I referred to the jury.

He made an opinion and I said, if you think, and you think the jury's going to

like this opinion, is what I said.

I said, and you think the jury is going to like this opinion?

And he almost instantly, you could see he kind of just did the calculation in in his head and all of a sudden pivoted to say, well, I mean, well, it's not so much about like, you know, what I try to do in my experience, in my field, and he went on to just talk about himself.

Now, see, what I did was I talked about the jury.

How do you apply this to your own life?

They don't care about you.

They care about the audience.

When you can say something to the tune of others and people.

I've used this tactic many times.

This is how you do it.

So let's break it down.

Somebody says something that's

narcissistic or a narcissist is talking to you and they say something, you respond like this.

If you think that's a good look, or if you think others are going to like that, or I wonder what other people would think about this.

I wonder what your friend would think about this.

You name that friend.

I'm not sure if others would agree.

Anytime that you talk about others, or people,

I have seen many, many times, they will change their behavior almost instantly because it reminds them, they're not talking to you, they're talking to the crowd, they're people.

And they will adjust their opinion, adjust their tone to fit the audience, even if it's invisible.

In fact, especially when it's invisible, because you think all eyes are on them.

Anytime you can use the phrase, well, if...

If you think others are going to agree with you,

see, it's very simple to say.

Hey, look, if you think others are going to agree with you, or if you, I wonder what other people would think about this.

I wonder what other people would think about the way you just said that.

They will turn.

They will turn it.

They will make it better.

They will make it sound better.

They will make it sound more empathetic.

Make it sound more sensitive or sympathetic without actually exhibiting any of the real character traits.

So when you talk about others, the takeaway here is when you talk about others, they will pay more attention to what they are saying and give a more productive output than when they think they are just talking to you.

That's the takeaway.

Narcissistic behaviors are not fun to deal with, but they're everywhere.

And sometimes, you know what, every single one of us can exhibit a behavior that some might call narcissistic.

We can make things about us.

We can say things we don't mean.

The difference, the difference is the empathy.

If I can take accountability for what I said, if I can apologize,

if I can apologize, genuinely mean it, change my character, if I can empathize with what I said and I understand, if I can just say, you know, I can see how that affected you.

I can see.

Use the phrase, I can see.

I can see how that would upset you.

And really mean it.

Narcissistic people can't can do that.

All right?

So if you're wondering, I'm saying that to tell you, if you're sitting there thinking, am I the narcissist?

If you are asking yourself that question, you are not.

If you're asking yourself that question, you are not.

All right, the takeaway here, number one, understand when you're talking to a narcissist, you're playing a game.

It's praise or provoke.

Understand that you're in that game and it's rigged.

You cannot beat it.

Two, when it comes to responding, rather than engaging and inciting more of a conflict, which again feeds into the game, you're going to use short, controlled, flat statements.

and three if you need to use phrases that are going to give attention or recall to the crowd talk about others talk about people and they will adjust it rather than thinking they are just talking to you so use what you know about narcissists and use that to your advantage in a way that is safe all right cool if you enjoy podcasts and episodes like this to improve your communication.

Again, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast.

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You can find the links down in the show notes.

And if you are wanting to continue to improve your communication further and practice it, the School of Communication is live.

Again, the link is in the show notes.

All right.

As always, you can try that and follow me.