How to Outsmart the Narcissist

This comes from Bill Eddy, who is an author, attorney, and psychologist, and he’s written books like Splitting, BIFF, and The Five Types of People That Will Ruin Your Life. And he says, “You use your statements.” And this is especially true if you’ve got somebody who’s just completely out of control and just losing their mind on you. You show empathy, attention, and respect, EAR. And I know what you’re thinking. You don’t want to show them empathy, attention, or respect because you don’t empathize with them. You don’t want to give them attention. And you certainly don’t respect them. I get it. This is to outsmart the narcissist, remember? So if you act the way the narcissist expects you to act, then they know they have you. If you act in a way that they don’t expect you to act, just like in number one, where we said to just agree with them, this is where you’re giving them a little bit of attention, and remember, that’s what the narcissist wants. They want attention. So you’re just giving them just enough to say, “I see that you’re upset. It must be difficult to travel,” or whatever it is that you want to say to them, but you’re just saying it without emotion. Just show them a little bit of empathy, attention, and respect.

The third thing you can do is figure out leverage against them, even if you’re not negotiating with them in a formal sense.

Figuring out a way that you can gather around them and find their inconsistencies and figure out what it is that they’re saying that they’re lying about. Catch them in their lies. Now, what I want you to do when you’re doing this, though, is not show them right away what you’ve got, because if you’re showing it to them in real time, then they’re constantly outgaming you, which they’re very good at. I mean, narcissists are master manipulators, especially covert narcissists. Covert narcissists are great at looking wonderful to 99% of the world. I know, I’ve had to deal with them myself, and if you want to know more about covert narcissists, make sure that you check out my video on covert narcissism in relationships, and I will drop a link to that video below. But in the meantime, while you’re gathering leverage and you’re gathering motivation for them to want to have a conversation with you or do what you want them to do, you’re just gathering, gathering, gathering. You’re using, you’re waiting to use that leverage at a time that is most opportune for you, and the time that you’re going to use that is when you have them fully surrounded and there’s no… it’s like air-tight. It’s like soldiers that are surrounding a city or something like that. There’s no escaping because that’s when they go crazy and their true colors show through, which again is more leverage that you’ll be able to potentially use down the road. Okay.