Covert Narcissism: How to Spot Them & Protect Yourself

The covert narcissist will remain empty and unfulfilled because they're perpetually focused on what others have, how others do things, and what they're entitled to without the work ethic and commitment to actually realize it in the real world. They're perpetually striving rather than leading lives of consistent committed work output, connection, or success. They dream of success or fame, and they do find ways to get close to these people, but they almost exclusively work behind the scenes to destroy the success of others. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. Are you ready to listen? Welcome to another episode of Decoded. I'm your host, Busy Gold, and today's episode is all about covert narcissism. When success makes you a target, spotting the covert narcissist in their natural habitat. Now, before we jump into this episode, if you have had any sort of repetitive success in your life and you are a highly empathetic and committed and loyal person that can also get easily distracted and overwhelmed and maybe have more of an avoidant or disorganized attachment style, you've likely attracted these people to you like a moth to a flame. Now, on the flip side, some of you are going to be watching this and have to face the fact that you might actually categorically fit some of the things we're describing today. Whoever you are, whether you find yourself on one side of this issue or the other, there are things that we can do about it. And this episode is not intended to belittle or shame anyone. It's to point out the very nature of covert narcissism and who they target and what their tactics are. So we can learn to spot the tactics in motion in a real-time environment. So instead of falling victim to the trick or the deception, we call it out in real-time. We hold people accountable and we do it in a loving and supportive way that hopefully allows us to salvage some relationships because at the end of the day, I believe that all human beings are capable of radical change if they have the right tools. But you have to be willing to look in the mirror and take ownership of your behaviors. And I think you're going to see today why that is so challenging for a covert narcissist. All of their protective mechanisms prevent them from being able to do this. In essence, their protective mechanisms put them into a state of projection and delusion that I'm sure is very confusing to them. I know that many of them can't see their way out of it. But if you're honest with yourself and you find yourself on the side of the covert narcissist in today's podcast, I encourage you to start to ask some questions because when I lay this stuff out, guaranteed there's going to be a few of you that realize, oh my god, this is me. This is actually far more common than I think many people understand. And what I find to be one of the saddest parts is a lot of the people who would actually hit all the check marks of covert narcissism actually come from stable loving households in Break Method. Much of the body of my work is actually exposed that in fact, the more trauma or instability you experience in early childhood years, and the less you look to your primary caregivers as a place of support and love and trust, the more hyper-independent you become, the more as a byproduct you have increased self-trust. And depending on where you fall in the brain pattern spectrum, you may have extremely high levels of empathy, but also pattern recognition. For people that end up on the left side of the brain pattern spectrum, one of the trauma responses that you may naturally have developed is the ability to discern when somebody is becoming increasingly more unstable emotionally, so that you can either placate or people please, right, the fawning would fit under that umbrella as well, or some people avoid and withdraw. That's another mechanism that would be more in the flight category. And others actually just dissociate, which would be more aligned with potentially the freezer flop. But in all of these circumstances that I'm laying out for you today, fight would not actually be a go-to protective strategy. If fight is your go-to protective strategy, you are not a target typically for a covert narcissist. The covert narcissist targets highly successful, committed and loyal people, who again, tend to be over-committed and distracted, but more than that, they target people who tend toward either fawning or dissociating, because that's what allows this system to perpetuate over time. So as you're looking at this, if you know your brain pattern and you've done it before, if you're on the left-hand side of the spectrum, you're very unlikely to fit into these parameters. Though there are select circumstances that the abandon control covert can actually mimic some of these mechanisms, but at the end of the day, one of the keystones of covert narcissism is that they lack empathy fundamentally. The abandon control covert pattern doesn't actually lack empathy. So their behaviors may check almost all of the boxes, but at the end of the day, they may pull back or even regret what they've done because their empathy kicks in at the last stage. So if you're that person where you're doing it and maybe you feel justified and you're not aware until the last second, you realize, like, oh, God, I'm really hurting and damaging people's lives, or like, I'm doing something wrong here, and that empathy kicks in at the last second, congratulations. You are not a covert narcissist. You are just likely the abandon control covert pattern. But when we go into the right side of the brain pattern spectrum, that's where we see these personality disorders cluster, and we see things like borderline and covert narcissism. And because the brain pattern perspective is to fixate on what others are thinking about you and how others are seeing you, this creates this prime space for delusion, projection, deflection, splitting to all confrontant centers, protective mechanisms. And typically, the further you are out on the right side of the brain pattern spectrum, the lower level of self-trust you have. So the more it matters what other people think about you and you have a desire to curate or control how you think others are seeing you. We're on the left-hand side. They're more like a honey badger. They don't care. They're just going to do what they do. So no matter which side of the spectrum you're on and which side of the system you end up noticing signs and attributes with today, I want you to go into this knowing that in no way is this intended to guilt or shame you or belittle you. These are real-world issues that happen far more commonly than I would even love to admit, but they happen everywhere. When I see clients stay in and out and I realize my sample population is skewed because I'm getting people who are reporting mental health struggles. So obviously, the data is going to be skewed there. But the amount of people that I see day in, day out with a variety of different positions within that right-side brain pattern spectrum that would present with something like a personality disorder, it's roughly 70% or more of my client population. So you're not alone. That's literally my whole hypothesis about mental health struggles in general is that mental illness is a distorted lens of seeing the world around you. It's the distorted perspective of reality. So in turn, we then start to create these self-deceptive messages that keep us locked in these repetitive loops where instead of seeing our blind spot, we actually operate with confirmation bias. We fill in all these gaps and we just feel justified everywhere we go. So piggybacking on that concept, where we see things like covert narcissism, borderline personality disorder, typically there is this looking up to power dynamics or wanting to be like somebody or emulating somebody that a left-side spectrum person would never experience. So the right-side spectrum people naturally more commonly had more stable childhoods where there was a safer environment to seek out love and validation from a primary caregiver. And unfortunately, that cures the petri dish for this pattern to grow. And I've said it before on podcast episodes, I am not suggesting that you get divorced and ruin your kids' lives in pursuit of hyperindependence. That's not what we're saying here. But the data shows consistently that if you enable and placate your child, especially in those early years of two to five, he's like, oh, isn't that so cute? Oh, they're just a toddler. They're going to outgrow it. When you protect a child's protective mechanism and delusion, it persists, it doesn't go away. It finds other sinister ways to creep under there and start to feel justified. So no matter which side you're on as we dissect this conversation, know that there is still emotional freedom for you. There is still dignity for you. Even if you listen to this episode and you feel like you got stabbed through the heart and you're like, oh my God, I'm a covert narcissist. That's okay. Just like with addiction, admitting it is the first step. Everybody is capable of radical change, but you have to be able to face yourself in the mirror and say, that's me. I'm the asshole. Because that moment is what actually changes lives. In break method, there is an arc between module one and two that we call the I'm the asshole moment. At some point, everybody that gets results has it. Some people laugh about it. Some people cry about it. And others drag their feet and don't want to face it and then eventually have to. So I hope that this episode can be that tough love slap in the face for you. Because even if you leave today's episode having to face the gravity of behavior mechanisms that you exhibit and damage that you've caused in your life, you are one statement of ownership and apology away from fixing things. So if you listen to this episode and you realize, oh my God, I am guilty of this. I do this. Most likely the person on the receiving end, if you go to that person, you say, I see it also clearly. I'm so sorry. Take ownership for any of the things, any of the things that we're going to go through today. Most likely that person's probably too forgiving on the other end, frankly. And that's a whole other episode that we'll work on with self-preservation. But they're most likely going to be overly forgiving. So the reality is if you can take some of these notes in today's episode, look yourself in the mirror and face some of the destruction that you may have caused in other people's lives with your actions, you can change. You can change too. You're a person too. Just because that you're acting out some of these destructive patterns, it doesn't mean that you're not a person and you don't deserve dignity and compassion because you do. And even though I have run into this quite a bit in my career, I still have compassion and empathy for people who have harmed me. And I think you should too. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. If you're listening to this and you have had a lot of personal success in your life, you have likely attracted these people to you like mods to a flame. And you probably realize that some of your highest moments of success are coupled with what? Some incredibly deceitful, destructive, conniving behavior behind the scenes. Not everybody, unfortunately, is capable of cheering for you. A lot of people are secretly waiting to cut you down. And this is where the covert narcissist enters the conversation. Unlike an overt narcissist who becomes very bragging and boastful, covert narcissists hide behind shyness, false humility, and even quirkiness. Their quiet envy becomes a toxic undercurrent in every one of their relationships. The central theme and driver of covert narcissism is always envy. But as I was dissecting this episode to bring through to you guys, it became clear that many people can flay jealousy and envy. So I think it's important that we separate these two out. They're both negative emotional states, but jealousy is characterized by a fear of loss and insecurity that leads to resentment. Envy by contrast is when a person perceives that another person has traits or characteristics that are desirable that they themselves actually feel that they lack. So to put this into a situation, let's say that you tend toward jealousy and intimate relationships and you see your partner talking to somebody, you could experience both jealousy and envy simultaneously. You may see them talking to this other person, and if your brain scans this person and you say they're attractive, they're smart, they're funny, they seem so confident, those acknowledgments of all these qualities then shift back to you. And if you compare yourself to them and it activates your insecurity, you've now experienced envy. But simultaneously, if you're watching this happen, your envy might actually be the segue into jealousy, where you actually fear you may lose your partner to this other person. This interaction between jealousy and envy is very important because typically the envy comes first. There actually has to be something of high value noticed first before that feeling of scarcity is activated. And what do jealousy and envy actually have in common? It is this concept of scarcity. A feeling that there isn't enough of something that's accessible to you or even in you innately. Covert narcissists experience both a central and chronic state of envy. And unlike their overt counterparts, these types are actually concealing a fragile ego. Their feelings of inadequacy actually prompt them to express their envy through undermining other people. It's often done in a passive aggressive and manipulative and well planned out way. The planning and long term strategy to undermine other people highlights their awareness and the motive that's at play, which is a key feature for covert narcissists. And for this reason, it is essential for us to understand the underpinnings of these mechanisms, how to pull back the curtain and actually spot the magician's trick before it's too late. Covert narcissists experience constant comparison. This comparison may be expressed in seemingly positive terms in their own mind. I can do that. I should be doing that. That should be mine. Each of these expressions actually seems to be grounded in self-belief, however, the opposite is true. It's a type of quiet delusion of grandeur that's shared by their overt counterparts. These types often have big dreams. And to the people around them, these big dreams may even seem out of touch or unmatched with their output in the real world. Some around them may simply see them as dreamers, but the underlying mechanisms are actually far more sinister. They silently resent others and they do it for a long time, all while trying to get closest to the person that they most resent. Rather than expressing the envy openly, they harbor a type of toxic, unspoken resentment. And when their attempt to undermine their target is actually underway, then they start to express this in a very skewed victim narrative. This bitterness is something that friends and family may actually start to pick up on themselves, but the person can't actually admit it to themselves. Instead, they cling on to their narrative of false humility. A key feature of covert narcissism is the victim skew. It's a byproduct of projection, deflection, and splitting. Their envy is framed as a sense of injustice. This person feels undervalued, overlooked, or passed over. Their quiet delusions of grandeur about their capabilities cause them to justify or minimize the harm that they're doing or even planning to do to others. Fueled by their defense mechanisms of projection, deflection, and splitting. Projection is a defense mechanism that causes a person to attribute their own unacceptable thoughts and feelings onto others. Deflection is when a person avoids facing uncomfortable emotions or experiences or even ownership of behavior by shifting blame onto someone or something else. And splitting is when a person divides things into extremes and can't live in a world where there can be any sort of context or nuance. Examples of this would be idealization and devaluation, which we go over in depth in the Love Bombing episode. This sort of seeking out during the idealization phase is part of what has likely driven them to find their target in the first place. Putting them up on a pedestal, seeing only the positive or exaggerated qualities, only in an attempt to one day seek to destroy them. For the covert narcissist, self-esteem is built on a fantasy of superiority, but a physical reality that looks like false starts, poor finishes, or no momentum at all. The covert narcissist engages in their most malicious behaviors toward those they admire the most. A nod to the idealization and devaluation cycle that I just mentioned. And their tactics of destruction include, number one, gaslighting and manipulation. Distorting events, expressing veiled criticism, subtly chipping away at others' achievements to make themselves feel better about their own inadequacies, or even finding subtle ways to try to take partial ownership for someone else's achievement. It's important to note that with covert narcissism, they sometimes experience actual delusions, but not all. Some carry out these tactics well aware that they are doing it, working overtime secretly craving admiration and the need to feel superior, expressed through passive-aggressive tactics. In other words, some are operating in such deep self-deception that they don't realize that they're seeking to destroy someone's life, but others absolutely know that they're doing it and are doing it intentionally. Your brain isn't broken. It's running an old code. BreakMethod is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions, and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, just logic-based rewiring in 20 weeks or less. Head to BreakMethod.com and see what your brain is really up to. Number two, they can't admit fault for mistakes or shortcomings. They instead target scapegoats and use these victim narratives to distract those who may be starting to ask questions or put the whole picture together. Even when asked in an appropriate and empathetic manner to take ownership, the covert narcissist either doubles down on previous efforts or starts to become withdrawn or evasive, relying on sneaky, rumor-mill-style tactics to try to shift the narrative. Number three, in relationship dynamics, this type relies on triangulation, telling different manipulative versions to each person involved. The covert narcissist thrives when there's little oversight. They can create inroads to the people that they want to get closest to, all the while their envy is finding steady ways to chip away at the person that they're trying to deped a stool. When the oversight actually catches up with these incongruent season errors, the cat and mouse game is up. The best and only tactic to confront a covert narcissist is to cut off the triangulation. Bring the conversations out into the light, screenshots, adding people onto the chain of communication if needed, and when their tactics surface in front of the other people involved, it's only a matter of time until their victim narrative takes center stage. They start to create conflict wherever they go, and it's often driven out of paranoia and jealousy. They may resent someone's success or a loved one's close friends, and in turn seek to damage someone's reputation, triangulate, or create drama, all while pretending to be the victim. In fact, covert narcissists experience something called Shadenfreude, a type of joy at curating and watching the misfortune of others. This experience allows them to feel temporary relief from their own pain and envy while giving them a platform to feel superior. And it's often connected to rumors and victim narratives that were crafted in an attempt to elevate yourself during the very curated misfortune. Piggybacking on this topic of paranoia, I think it's important to remind you that the covert narcissist does have a tendency to withdraw into fantasy, a place where their sense of importance is inflated, and they're able to escape into a reality that is free of their missed opportunities or inability to follow through. This type often has grandiose dreams that don't match the objective record of their output or their abilities. And just when you think, they'd have to take responsibility, right? Oh no, it continues to get worse. Sadly, when their behavior is exposed, the deeper the feeling of insecurity and the perception of threat becomes. When a person without covert narcissism would easily be able to say, oh my god, I had no idea let this happen, oh my god, I'm so sorry that I let you down or did something shady. It was a mistake, but I see what happened here and I think I can fix that. The covert narcissist, they hit their worst. You know why? Because covert narcissists lack real empathy. A fundamental lack of empathy is a keystone of narcissism. And though the expression is hidden with covert narcs, they might actually learn how to perform empathy. It's never going to be felt or embodied. Their sense of self pity and entitlement overrides any ability to care about what they've done to others, the damage that they've caused or even what they're about to do. All they can focus on is what they feel they need or have been lacking. The truth is the covert narcissist will remain empty and unfulfilled because they're perpetually focused on what others have, how others do things and what they're entitled to without the work ethic and commitment to actually realize it in the real world. They're perpetually striving rather than leading lives of consistent committed work output, connection or success. They dream of success or fame and they do find ways to get close to these people, but they almost exclusively work behind the scenes to destroy the success of others. Covert narcissists for this reason are attracted to successful people, especially those who have high levels of empathy and are often wildly over committed and distracted. So if you're a successful entrepreneur listening to this, you're probably laughing because everything I've listed so far, it probably feels like this episode is about you. And if you're laughing about it, it's probably because you lack self preservation, you overdue for others and you are constantly distracted with how much you have on your plate. You in fact are the foil of the covert narcissist. You are everything they want to be, but aren't. Those targeted by covert narcissists are often extremely forgiving, placating and far too empathetic. In most cases, all of the warning signs are there. You just minimize them and try to see the best in people. Having been through this multiple times, I would encourage you to listen up to this list to identify covert narcissists. And for you guys, if you're listening to this episode and it actually feels more like a call out of your own behavior, good. I hope this is the first step to rewiring. I work with clients like you every single day. I work with clients with a wide range of personnal disorders and other mental health labels. And these are all simply a byproduct of distorted self deception. You are not a monster. And if this describes you, all that's happening is that you're currently trapped in a cycle that's holding you back from your true potential. Do you want to create drama and chaos everywhere you go? Do you want to take people down to make yourself feel better? Or do you actually want to heal because it is possible? And if you're a friend of a person you suspect may be a covert narcissist, you are probably afraid to hold them accountable so that it doesn't turn on you. While I sympathize with the situation you're in and you're probably not wrong, as a friend, you should have to hold people accountable to the truth, to integrity and decency, even if that means it turns on you. Sadly, the people who most frequently get pulled in this web of covert narcissism are similar in brain pattern type. Maybe you are naturally inclined toward the victim narrative yourself, or you're attracted to the experience of powerlessness or helplessness at the injustice of some oppressor's hands. Only to find out, guess what? You may be getting duped. This may be a deflection or a projection. No matter what role you find yourself in in this discussion, there are some key takeaways I want you to leave with. Covert narcissists are not yet successful, fulfilled, purpose-driven or productive. They desperately want to be, and they may have creativity or gifting or acquired skills on the inside, but will they ever truly realize these out in the real world until they break this cycle and learn to take ownership and address their scarcity and lack? I don't think so. If you're a successful entrepreneur, it is critical that you listen up and you learn how to notice these cycles happening around you before it's too late. So are you ready? Here we go. The top 10 ways to identify a covert narcissist in your circle. Number one, they appear humble or even shy and quirky, but underneath, everything is comparison. Their humility is a mask. Underneath, they're constantly measuring themselves against you and others. Number two, they give backhanded compliments. Praise is laced with poison. Even when they're saying something positive about you, the subtext or the inner monologue is, I could do that too or that should be mine. Number three, they live in their victim narrative. In their mind, they're always overlooked, underappreciated or misunderstood. Four, they project their envy onto you. They accuse you of being the things that they themselves are. Number five, they deflect any accountability. The second you try to hold them responsible, they flip the script. They tell you, you're the narcissist, you are toxic, and you're the problem. Number six, they create conflict out of paranoia. A friend's success, a partner's close relationship, or even a co-worker's compliment can spark suspicion and drama. They get stuck in their own mind of projection and blame. Number seven, they experience shade and Freud. They quietly enjoy your setbacks and may even create setbacks for you. Your struggles make them feel temporarily superior. Number eight, they thrive in ambiguity. They exploit roles that have blurry job descriptions, vague expectations, or even unspoken agreements because it lets them manipulate you without clear evidence. Number nine, they drain your energy. Everything with them is venting and conflict prone, and there's never any sense of ownership or the ability to poke holes in their own narrative. Number 10, they're drawn to empathy like mods to the light. Covert Narcissus bank on you being passive, over accommodating and distracted. They target heart-centered, mission-driven people because your compassion is the perfect foil for their envy and division. In next week's episode, we're going to be exploring the root of personality disorders and compare and contrast narcissism with borderline personality disorder. I want you to remember, I believe every single person is capable of radical healing. I've seen nearly every diagnosis come back to center, and none of this information is intended to put you down or shame you. It's intended to be a flashlight that can lead you to the tools that will actually help you break this cycle. You don't have to live in these cycles of self-deception. You can rewire and you can live a life free of comparison, self-doubt, envy, jealousy and fear. I've seen it time and time again, but I'm telling you, it's not going to be because you listen to podcasts, journal or meditate. You have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and do the structured work that makes you face all of your blind spots. It's going to be hard. It's going to be painstaking. You're probably going to hate the person that helps you walk through it. But at the end of the day, that structured work is what will change your life forever. That's what I do with nearly 12 to 15 clients every single day. People always ask me, what is the best first step? I always say it is brain pattern mapping. It is our best way to see what's actually happening underneath the hood. There's no shame in saying that something has to shift. There's literally only freedom waiting for you on the other side, but you have to be able to face yourself in the mirror. You have to be bold enough and brave enough to put up your hand and say, I hate this, but I think that's me. Nobody on my team, if you come to us and say, I listened to this episode and I'm worried that that might be me. Nobody's going to shame you. Nobody's going to think you're a monster. We're here to help all humans reach their full potential and get out of these patterns of self deception. Even the people in my life that have harmed me the most, I still have empathy and compassion for. I understand the mechanisms that drive the behavior itself. Yeah, it hurts when the behavior is targeted at you. I wish we could all avoid it, but I understand it fundamentally. I can still love and pray for those people despite the behaviors that they justify to themselves. Before we leave this episode, I want to leave you with just a little bit of a snapshot from my childhood that I think really sets the stage here. I think it's important to remind yourselves that covert narcissists have to experience jealousy and envy. And to experience jealousy and envy, you have to perceive some sort of fundamental lack in yourself. Now, when I was a little kid, if I had to kind of summarize my interactions with women growing up, my interactions with the two women that had the most time spent in influence over my life, it would be my mother. And I still struggled to call her my stepmom because she wasn't much of a stepmom, but my dad's wife. And the common theme with both of these women was jealousy and envy. So I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that. And as a child, when you have to grow up too soon because you don't trust your primary caregivers and you see this behavior in action, the thought process is like, wait, aren't you adults supposed to be like protecting me? Why am I able to see this and see the mechanisms at play, but you guys are operating in self deception? And the answer is, I believe for both of these women, my mom and this other person, it was a byproduct of borderline personality disorder. They couldn't see their way out of it. These mechanisms that we talked about today of projection, deflection and splitting were so pronounced that they did craft a delusion. I was in a podcast last week with a psychiatrist and we were talking about what really differentiates some of the personality disorders. And it is really that there is this element of delusion where they are not necessarily operating in objective reality. Having dealt with this not once, but twice. I can tell you being on the receiving end, it does something to you. Number one, each person still has free will in this life. And we all have our unique elements and our DNA and what makes us individualized in our spiritual architecture. So I do believe that plays a role in it. But when you get these inputs from women who seem like they want to destroy you and tear you down, you have two options. You can retaliate and hate women or you can find empathy for them and you can set yourself out on a mission like I did to try to bring women together to help us dissolve some of these walls, some of this competition, some of this catting. So I think it's motivated me to try to build bridges with women rather than to see women as the enemy. But many others that experienced what I did start to see women as the enemy and they become the very thing that they hate. I want to give a couple of examples because I think somebody may be listening to this and you're like, what are some examples of how that would come out in day-to-day life? And I'm going to give this example because when I say it, a lot of people are like, I'm sorry, what happened? So to set the stage, I was about, I think I was nine or 10 years old. My parents had gotten divorced when I was seven or eight. And my dad brought his new girlfriend home to see us. And my dad being the crafty gentleman that he is, I think really knew that she was moving in but wanted it to feel somehow like we invited her. We'll leave that shenanigans for another episode. But basically she kind of moved. She was living with us and I was a daddy's girl. I like, I was my dad's whole world. I had a younger sister, but I definitely was like the, I was the center of my dad's universe up until this point. And remember, I had also experienced that backlash with my mom. So I already had this history of, you know, eight, nine years of my mom hating me for being, you know, the apple of my dad's eye or whatever phrase people use. So then we get to this point where this woman's now living with us. She's very young, very beautiful, and she's not very nice to me. But the tactics, remember we're talking about covert narcissism, which has a lot of overlap with some of these borderline tendencies. It's this subtle, sneaky attempt to tear you down and gaslight you. So this one morning I wake up and I had a house where there were like family pictures everywhere. My dad was, even though he was a single parent for a while, he took us on vacations all the time. So there's just like all these pictures of me and the family around and even like pictures of me on my horse, like dance competitions, ballet, gymnastics competitions, all that. So one morning I wake up and I'm walking down the hallway and I start to notice that any picture that I am in has been removed from the wall. But if I'm not in the picture, it stayed up on the wall. So pictures of my sister were allowed to stay up on the wall, but any picture that had me in it was removed from the wall. So I go to my dad and I'm like, hey, notice anything on the walls? And he's like, no, what do you mean? I'm like, she removed every picture that I'm in off the wall and she kept everything of my sister, like care to explain. And my dad goes, maybe she's cleaning them. Now, obviously I knew this was a lie and I had no problem at this point in my life pushing back in a sarcastic way. And I was like, really, she's cleaning them. Is that we're going to try to keep up this narrative right now? Eventually my dad, he's very clear on what happened. He doesn't actually believe she's cleaning these pictures, but this is a perfect example of how she feels about me and a step that she's trying to take to try to like remove me from her life. It's subtle. It's not like she came to me and was like, I hate you. I'm going to remove your pictures off the wall. But it's psychologically manipulative for somebody that young to have to walk around their house and be like, wait, how come all these pictures are up over the rest of my family, but anything I'm in has been fundamentally deleted from my house. So that's just one small example. And those of you that grew up with a parent with borderline, you know that there are literally hundreds of thousands because living with people like this, it's speckled throughout your entire day. And honestly, this was similar to my relationship with my mom. So when you go through this experience, you start to recognize the patterns pretty quick. And it really wasn't until later on into my twenties that I worked in a job where I was really surrounded by women all the time in very like vulnerable and intimate spaces where I became really committed to breaking down these walls of competition and envy and jealousy that women have with each other. Because for me, that never existed. I can't explain it to you, but when I was a little kid and I would see somebody beautiful, I wasn't like, that should be me. How dare they? I actually had a like really strong sense of self-trust and confidence that honestly was likely a byproduct of how my dad parented me. I was always in things that had very specific structures. So competitive anything. And when you do that, you actually really learn how to commit in early stages, see something through on your own accord, right? Without your parents like nurturing you or helping you. Like I was kind of thrown into the gauntlet on a lot of things. So I had to learn to be resilient. I had to learn to be committed and I had to learn to sit there and evaluate accurately my successes and my failures without my dad blowing smoke. Like if I've f'ed something up, it was very clear that I f'ed something up. So ultimately those childhood inputs are what give you the ability to really know who you are and what you're capable of. So praise God that was parented into me along with a lot of other nightmare situations. But that stuck with me. So never have I ever gone into a situation where I thought I'm somehow lacking or tried to compare myself to another person. In fact, when I see women or men who are successful who are crushing it, I'm like, heck yeah, take notes. I want to get closer to this person. How do I, how do I learn from you? How do I take notes on what you've done that's made you so successful so that I can do that? But at the same time, I also have never had the desire to look up to or emulate somebody. So there's this kind of celebration from the sidelines where you want to kind of like knock somebody and be like, yes, good job. There's so many women that I see on social media right now that I've had the honor of connecting with on podcasts and other speaking engagements where it's like, I don't look at them and feel a lack in myself. I look at them and, and feel like we're all in it together. I feel a sense of enjoyment and excitement that women are capable of crossing this threshold and that we can actually be kind and compassionate to each other. So remember that if you want to be like that, the area that you have the most work to do is on whatever made you feel like there's something lacking and scarce inside of yourself. Because if you can fix that and you can learn how to commit to things and follow through, you can achieve anything in this life. But if everything is this victim narrative and envy and comparison to other people that allows you to justify destroying other people, you're going to stay stuck. And frankly, you should stay stuck because the more access you have to people, the more lives you're going to damage unless you actually do the work to fix it. So keep that in mind. If you want to work on one thing, it's why do I feel like I am not enough or I'm in some sort of scarcity or lack on my own that's leading me to feel jealousy and envy because not all of us feel that way. I see beautiful women and can look at the woman and be like, damn, that woman's so hot. I don't, that doesn't make me feel like there's something lacking in myself. Another example of this, because people frequently will ask me questions about this and shout out to this beautiful lady. I've always been friendly with my ex-husband's wife. I don't gain anything by making enemies out of people who are beautiful and intelligent. The more the merrier, the more people like that I can surround myself with the better. But that comes from a place of not feeling like there's anything missing in you. So if you were listening to this episode and you felt like your behavior and inner monologue is more aligned with that covert narcissist type, that's where you have to do the work. And you don't have to be ashamed to say that. There are people in break method that work on that all day long, every single day. So we want to help you. There's no shame in saying it. And just know that that's the wound that ultimately has to get filled. And until you feel that, you're probably just going to keep doing this to people and getting them caught in your wake as you attempt to become successful and famous. So keep that in mind. There's only freedom waiting, but that freedom comes when you can sit yourself across from the mirror and take radical ownership without projection, without victim narratives, without deflecting, and without splitting things into these high contrast moments, because life does exist in the gray. People make mistakes, but people also do great things. People can have great qualities and they can have crappy qualities. If I'm really overwhelmed and exhausted, I can be a total a-hole. And if you ask me, do you think you're just an a-hole? I'd be like, hell yeah, I was an a-hole. We're all capable of doing bad things, but if you take the bad things and you decide that we should wash away all of these good qualities and just focus on the bad, you're probably splitting and you're probably doing that as a way to justify to yourself harming somebody else or destroying somebody else's life. And it's just not what we should do as human beings. We should be adults, have conversations and bring things out into the open. So I hope that this episode spoke to you, whether it hit you in the heart because you feel like it's about you or because you feel seen because you've experienced this nonsense so many times. If you need any further counsel on this or this has happened to you so many times before that you just need somebody to see you in your story, you're always welcome to DM me on Instagram. More often than not, other female successful entrepreneurs will reach out to me and they're like, oh my god, when you talked about this because I've talked about this on a couple podcasts. People are like, that exact thing happened to me. So if you just need somebody who gets it to hear what happened to you and give you a high five and tell your body, you can hit me in the DMs. But until then, I hope that this episode spoke to you. I hope that you do something about it. And if you're the type of person who has allowed these people into your inner circle multiple times, might be time to learn the lesson, might be time to notice the warning signs and do something before you let them destroy the fabric of your community and customer base because the writing's on the wall. And placating and tiptoeing around it isn't actually going to prevent it from happening. You got to just face it head on. So lots of love to all of you. Thank you as always. The podcast is still constantly in the top five. I'm so grateful to all of you. Keep sharing the episodes. And next week we go into borderline and narcissism and what the defining lines between the two we can look at. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Share it far and wide. I will see you guys next week.