There are people in this world looking to take advantage of others, whether they are classified as narcissistic, sociopathic, compulsive, or pathological liars. They operate differently from most people you will encounter, which makes them even more dangerous because they don’t stand out in an obvious way.
In this article, you’re going to learn how to detect some of those types, and we will be using Elizabeth Holmes as our primary example. She was able to raise nearly 1 billion dollars for her company, Theranos, which promised to run full blood scans with just a few drops of blood from your finger. This, of course, would have been a revolution in the medical industry if it were real.
Behind the scenes, Elizabeth and her boyfriend, Sonny, were hiding the fact that these tests did not and never worked. They defrauded investors and over a million people who got those Theranos tests expecting accurate readings, which, of course, was impossible.
Now, unfortunately, Elizabeth Holmes is not totally unique. The NIH reports that 6.2 percent of the U.S. has narcissistic personality disorder, and Dr. Paul Ekman says that no more than five percent of people are pathological liars. That’s still potentially 1 in 20 people. That’s why in this article, we’re going to explore how you can detect these dangerous personalities before they take advantage, since you’re probably going to encounter some of them in your life.
I’m not trying to label them exactly, but they often exhibit behaviors that are consistent with narcissistic personality disorder. First off, a large motivator for these types of personalities is having the world view them in a way that strokes their ego. They are hyper-driven to maintain the persona they have constructed. So keep an eye out for people with an intense focus on their image.
For example, Elizabeth Holmes wanted to be the female Steve Jobs. She wore black turtlenecks, copied his live demo slow reveal of the product, and hired a bunch of ex-Apple employees at the beginning of her company. Now, of course, lots of people have idols that they emulate, but a major tip-off that you’re dealing with a dangerous personality is that, in an attempt to maintain their persona, they will lie about seemingly ridiculous things.
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