You Ask, I Answer: Narcissism as a Success Trait?

In today's episode, Dave asks the very interesting question Is there any truth to the idea that successful people are inherently narcissistic? Okay, so to answer this question, we first should probably define what that means. Um the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health, which is now in its fifth edition, the DSM five, um, clearly defines narcissism as part of narcissistic personality disorder. And uh what does that mean? What is what is what is that narcissism?

Let's look at the definition. It says a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, fantasy or behavior, need for admiration, and with lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood, as indicated by at least five of the following. Now, I should also disclose before we go on, I am not a mental health professional at all. If you are dealing with a situation or a person for whom you have responsibility, you should be helping them s receive qualified treatment treatment from a qualified healthcare practitioner. Some dude on the internet with a podcast or a YouTube channel, is not a qualified healthcare practitioner, right?

I have no medical degree whatsoever. This is not medical advice. Um you should absolutely seek the care of a qualified medical mental health care practitioner. Um if you or someone that you have responsibility for that you care about, um, may be encountering the challenges that come from any kind of personality disorder. So, with that disclaimer out of the way, narcissistic personality disorder, according to the DSM five, is uh a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and with a lack of empathy beginning by early adulthood, as indicated by at least five of the following, has a grandiose sense of self-importance, e.g., exaggerates his achievements, expects to be recognized as superior without actually completing achievements.

Two is preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty, or perfect love. Three, believes that they are special and can only be understood by or should only associate with other people or other special people or institutions. Four, requires excessive admiration. Five, has a sense of entitlement, such as an unreasonable expectation of favorable treatment or compliance with his or her expectations. Six is exploitative and takes advantage of others to achieve their own ends.

Seven, lacks empathy and is unwilling to identify with the needs of others. Eight is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of them. And nine, shows arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes. Now remember, according to the DSM, you need at least five of those to qualify for a narcissistic personality disorder. Are successful people inherently narcissistic?

Maybe. One, what defines a successful person, right? What do you define as success? Are we talking financial success, political power, uh, influence, happy? Are people, you know, are people who are deliriously happy, are they successful?

Um, you know, there's the old Bob Dylan quote uh a man wakes up in the morning, goes to bed in the evening, and does whatever he wants in between. That's success. So, what do you define as success? If we adopt the culturally common model that someone who is financially successful is is a success, right? They have acquired a lot of money or property or things like that, or are in a position of significant power, maybe they're a government official of some kind, then do these nine traits co-occur.

Again, it's kind of a mixed bag because all of these traits exist in all of us to some degree, right? And this is the this is the challenge and why we need to consult with qualified healthcare practitioners, because we have all of these things uh inside ourselves. These are part of the normal human experience. It is only when they are out of balance or exaggerated, uh, or uh the definition I tend to use personally is when they impair your ability to accomplish what you want to accomplish, do they become a problem, right? Everyone has been at a point where they've wanted admiration, right?

Perhaps successive or not. Everyone has believed at one point or another in their lives that they were special. You know, maybe it was written you're very young and you you had a caring uh parent or a good caregiver. Maybe it was uh as an adult when you found that special romantic partner that made you feel special. Uh everyone has had some kind of fantasy of success by whatever metric of success you choose: money, beauty, love, power, you've had that fantasy of that I really want this life to be this way.

The problem is when that impairs your ability to work with others. And I think one of the key defining principles here in the definition is lack of empathy. When you lack empathy, when you don't understand what your behaviors and things are do to other people, what effects you have, what effects you cause, right? If you don't understand base causality, then it becomes a problem. Are successful people, financially successful people, powerful people, do they have these traits in disordered ways?

Certainly the people who are very publicly successful can have these. And we've seen no shortage of examples of famous entertainers, famous politicians, uh things who have very clearly checked off a number of the items on this list, right? And in ways that impair their relationships with others in ways that uh can make them dangerous people to be around. But is narcissist uh the way Dave's question is phrased here implies that you need to have some level of narcissism to be successful. Again, by this definition of having that need for advert a admiration and lacking empathy, I would say no.

No, in fact, the lack of empathy, at least these days, gets you in trouble, right? It can impair your success rather than promote it. There is for sure a cultural bias towards people who come across as very confident, who come across as very important, self-important perhaps, who have a very high opinion of themselves. People like other people that have confidence. People like other people who can inspire that sense of confidence in themselves.

And so there is that bias, but that lack of empathy is a major stumbling block. Because if you lack empathy, or a system for managing that lack of empathy, if you don't, if you are not a particularly empathetic empathetic person, um, you need a system in place to help you guide you when when you run into situations where you're not sure what to do. People lose trust in you very quickly, right? Because they get the sense that you don't really understand them, that you're not looking out for them, and that you don't actually care about them. And that can be very problematic for being successful because the reality is in in today's world, especially, you need other people to succeed.

Um much as it would be nice to entertain the fantasy that that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and you did it all by yourself. The reality is that's not true for anyone because at the very least, you have to make money, and people other people have to give you that money. I mean, unless you're out there robbing banks, um, there you you need other people to cooperate with you in order to get money from them. So there is some level of empathy required for that. Now, someone who has traits of narcissism does not necessarily have narcissistic personality disorder.

Again, this is part of the human experience. So I'd be very cautious in even using the term narcissism. Um, particularly when you're talking about judging someone else's success. Be very cautious about that. Because it's not again, it's something that that I would not tackle myself.

I would say, oh, let's leave that to some mental health professionals to make those decisions. But you absolutely do know when you're dealing with somebody who has a lack of empathy. And that somebody you probably probably doesn't feel great to do business with them. It probably doesn't feel great to uh to talk to them, uh, to go out to coffee with them and things like that. So I would say the opposite is true, that successful people generally um do not lack empathy, at least people who are sustainably successful, who who have been successful over a long period of time and you know didn't accidentally get rich quick or inherit a whole bunch of money or uh things like that.

People who have been successful over a long period of time probably have a good deal of empathy. They that's not to say they don't have egos, but they probably have a good enough amount of empathy that they would not be considered narcissistic. Thanks for the very interesting question. Again, I am not a mental health care practitioner. So if you or someone you have responsibility for, uh, is running into challenges in life because of things like narcissistic personality disorders, please see a qualified professional to get the care that they need.

Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon. If you like this video, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.