Marketing in the Madness
Marketing in the Madness brings you expert insight and ideas for marketing success and gives you the tactics you need to grow your brand, your business and your career. You’ll hear from the heads of major brands to top influencers and female powerhouse leaders. Once a month, host Katie Street also shares top tips and strategies (as well as a few secrets) she’s learned from clients, networking and attending events.
Marketing in the Madness
Navigating Narcissism in Marketing: Power, Empathy & Authenticity with Becki Houlston
Unmasking Narcissism: Navigating Power, Empathy, and Authenticity in Business
Narcissism in the workplace isn't just a buzzword—it's a force that shapes the very core of leadership, team dynamics, and business culture. When narcissists rise to power, often amplified by the reach of social media and modern marketing, they bring with them a wave of manipulation, ego, and ultimately, disruption. But what if we could see through the charm and identify the traits that make these individuals so dangerous in the corporate world?
Welcome back to another eye-opening episode of Marketing in the Madness! This week, we’re diving deep into the complexities of narcissism in business with the insightful Becki Houlston, a seasoned coach and therapist who’s seen firsthand the damage narcissists can cause. Together, we peel back the layers of narcissistic behaviour, revealing how these individuals thrive in environments meant to foster collaboration and innovation.
In this episode, we don’t just explore the traits and tactics of narcissists—we also arm you with the tools to navigate these challenging personalities without compromising your integrity or mental health. Becki’s insights are drawn from years of experience working with leaders and teams affected by narcissistic behaviour, making this conversation essential for anyone looking to cultivate a healthier, more authentic work environment.
If you’re ready to dig into the realities of narcissism in the workplace, here’s a taste of what’s in store:
🚨 The Narcissism Epidemic: Discover how social media and marketing have unintentionally propelled narcissists into positions of power and the chaos they leave in their wake.
🔍 Spotting Narcissistic Traits: Learn to identify the subtle signs of narcissistic behaviour, from the grandiose to the covert, and understand why challenging these individuals can be so perilous.
💼 The Cost of Narcissism in Business: Becki shares real-world examples of the toxic environments narcissists create and the personal and professional tolls they exact on everyone around them.
🌱 Empathy as the Ultimate Counterbalance: In a world increasingly dominated by AI and automation, Becki predicts the rise of an "Empathy Age," where emotional intelligence and authenticity will become the true measures of success.
🛡️ Surviving the Narcissist’s World: Equip yourself with practical strategies to deal with narcissistic bosses, clients, and colleagues, ensuring you maintain your sense of self and integrity.
Becki’s wisdom and experience make this episode a must-listen for anyone navigating the tricky waters of business relationships. Her passion for helping others understand and overcome the challenges posed by narcissists is both inspiring and empowering, offering a fresh perspective on what it means to lead with authenticity.
Whether you're a business leader, marketer, or just someone keen to understand the dynamics of power and personality in the workplace, this episode is packed with actionable insights and strategies that will help you thrive in any environment.
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The fire of social media and watching how marketing and PR have all unknowingly elevated all narcissists into very powerful positions. It's not necessarily right for humanity, but it is something that we have to deal with in the world of business and in the world of marketing, where you really find out you're dealing with a narcissist, one day, you have to challenge them. In that instant, you become a threat. It was so horrible. He was so rude to us. Took no blame. He was so aggressive in every single way. And then he said something like, Don't worry, I won't spread a smear campaign about how terrible you are. They can never be wrong. Gaslighting is when you are intentionally manipulating someone else's model of the world, denying their feelings, denying their experience. The content that seems to resonate, that gets attention, that does brilliant, is authentic, open, real content that aims to inspire and help other people. One of the most powerful things is human connection. We've all got to get back to basics. So many industries have gone so far away from the core basics that we all need a reminder. And I think that's what AI will do. It will separate the week from the chat. Hi guys, and welcome to another I say this every time, but it's bloody true what is going to be an amazing episode of marketing and the madness. Now, I have someone rather special with me today, because not only is she an amazing coach therapist, but she's also my coach and therapists. So welcome. Becki Houlston, thank you. We're in different chairs for a change. I will This feels really weird, because usually it's you trying to get stuff out of me, and today I'm going to be getting stuff out of you. This is called payback. Yeah, yeah. Expect this session to be mean. Guys. No, it's not. It's gonna, I hope. Well, it's not going to be a therapy session. I mean, maybe we could live record my therapy sessions one day, but it maybe is going to be a therapy session for you and for your business, because we're going to cover quite a range of topics, but really well for me, I'll give some of the highlights of the things that I'm excited to hear about today or excited to dig into. Is one the kind of rise of almost narcissistic behavior when it comes to people promoting their personal brand, and what that means for brands and businesses when we communicate with them. But also, well, maybe you give me the highlights, Becki, you could probably frame some of the things that you want to talk about today better than I can. Well, you know, I think from my viewpoint, which is obviously very different in that I'm solely interested in people and their behavior and, you know, formally, actually helping them through their pain. So I spend most of my life understanding people's pain points. And a lot of my clients are entrepreneurs as well. So I'm very, very much in that marketplace globally. So I get to hear a lot within industries about what the pain points are and what the challenges are with people, and also the changes of evolution as well, especially with the forthcoming strength of AI as well. I'll come back to that. But I think what I'm finding really interesting with the, you know, the fire of social media and the monetisation of that is watching the narcissists and watching how, without realising it, marketing and PR publicity have all unknowingly elevated culturally, all the narcissists into very powerful positions. And now we've done that. We're having to serve them too. Yeah, scary. I mean, I watch some of the as much as I I mean, I feel mean saying this, but, and I'm maybe I will or won't call people out, but some of the podcasts that I adore and love, and the content is brilliant, and the interviewing style is brilliant, you can see those personalities, their egos growing, and that's exactly like you say, is influencing a whole load of people underneath them to act in a similar way. And it's not necessarily right for humanity or for people, but it is something that we have to deal with in the world of business and in the world of marketing, because every talk that I do at the moment, I was on a panel discussion yesterday, people ask questions like, do I have to elevate my personal brand in order to attract and engage an audience? And my kind of answer and view on that is, is yes, because humans, by humans, gone are the days because of the way the world is now gone are the days where businesses can show up with, you know, someone framed this quite nicely yesterday, actually, with pretty pictures and circles and shapes and, you know, that's enough for to capture people's attention. I'm not saying good design isn't enough. Well, I actually am. Yeah. Good design isn't enough anymore. People want to engage with people, you know, in a Tiktok generation, in a world where, you know, we've recently had covid, it was only four years ago and covid was here, people crave that human interaction probably more than ever. And we're all used to seeing that on, you know, because of Tiktok, the Tiktok generation is here to stay. You know, there's going to be something like, I think one of my recent podcasts said 60% of the workforce in the next, however, many years, couple of years, is going to be Gen Z, so we've got to be able to communicate with them. But that is a very human led approach. And how do you do that for your business without creating toxicity and a whole load of narcissists and people with huge egos. I mean, we're already worried about Gen Zed, we're potentially helping, you know, them, I don't know, get even display even worse behavior and show them that you need to be even more like this. So it's we've got to be careful, right? And I don't necessarily, I think, you know, Gen Z have actually got some different emotional development that we may not quite understand. But you know, they're not necessarily going to be led in that direction, which is why they're resistant to some of the things that we have emulated, and they're refusing to model that. But I think coming back to that point, I think if you're you know, marketing is Psychology, you know, it's just psychology on a platform, whatever that platform is, and it is a communication you're absolutely right. So why, in an era where we can contact brands at the press of a button, we can get in touch with millions of people at a press of a button, are we the loneliest planet and the loneliest society that has ever been? And obviously loneliness then impacts our mental health, our physical health too. So something isn't meshing and something isn't working, and I think it is because we've we've emulated narcissistic traits inherently in order to be profitable. And I think that is also our biggest vulnerability. You only have to look in recent history and look at the big recognisable brands, particularly within fashion, and watch the collapse of profitable brands within a night or over a week, because the leadership was toxic. Now, formally, the leadership would get away with that, and anybody my way or the highway, and anybody who didn't align with that was gone. And if you challenge that, even at a senior level, you know, punching people in boardrooms. And I've had many clients have been punched by very well known, you know, business owners and entrepreneurs and in boardrooms and, you know, and there is, there is no room for that behavior. And how was that ever acceptable? But at the same point, you know, if ever we're in a time where in order to survive and in order to be profitable, we've got to shout the loudest, but then if we look at what's, what's everybody's number one fear public speaking. Yeah, yeah, the confidence to stand up and speak. So what you've then got is a lot of people with absolute anxiety or a complete rejection of their passion, because they The reality is, they fear rejection, like most humans, guess who doesn't feel rejection in quite the same way a narcissist, right? So that's why they've become more prominent and elevated, and particularly, research shows they are attracted to not organisations that also support more of a narcissistic approach. So that will be politics, senior executives, police and military too. So they're very you'll find them particularly where and with a medical as well. Within the doctor field, you'll find them where there is an element of a hero. They can get some Hero points somewhere. But of course, everyone's probably, as I'm talking visualizing a male as we talk about the narcissist, but actually, females are narcissistic too. But what are we really talking about? Because if you go onto Tiktok, I don't know about you, everyone's using terminology that's come from the framework of traits of a narcissist, but I think we really need to be clear on what we're talking about here, because, you know a narcissist, there are different types of narcissists, and how you recognise them is you can't, yeah, and that is the biggest stealth problem that you've got, is you cannot recognise narcissists because they are so deeply those traits are deeply hidden now. I mean, I'm very astute at looking and contact and identifying narcissists, but I'll still get caught out. Yeah, well, I guess we all have narcissistic behavior and traits, right? So every single human is going to have an element of an ego. An ego isn't the same. Um, tell me the difference between, I'm gonna learn a lot today, um, having an ego. We've all got an ego survival, right? Yeah, so and yeah. And we have to embrace our ego and understand our ego and try to let go of some of the egotistical traits that we have. But tell me the difference between having an ego and being a narcissist, right? So an ego is a, you know, a part of us, the tears, our insecurities, come from our ego. Sometimes our kindness comes from our ego. We can't really, it's not really realistic to be egoless, so let's not weaponize the ego. Actually, there's a lot of connection that comes from ego, but in a narcissist is somebody who actually is only self interested, and that's not even selfish. It's beyond selfish. They're self interested. They are only looking for supply, and that supply is in in terms of the grandiose narcissist, is that they are the best and most powerful person, and so therefore they will always be making the most noise. They will always need to be right. And you they can also be very charismatic and very love bombing, I think, is a term that lots of people have got used to hearing so you won't know they are because they are actually making you feel fantastic, which sounds the opposite of someone who's self focused, because someone who's self focused is more likely to talk about themselves indefinitely and not really be interested in you. Now that part comes but it comes down the line, but the way you really find out you're dealing with a narcissist is because one day you have to challenge them and you have to say no, or you have to give them feedback, perhaps on a pitch or a project or some piece of work that they've done, and that is when you really find out that you're with a narcissist. Because in that instant, you become a threat. And when you become a threat, that's when the mask falls away, and that's when you find out who you're really dealing with. And when you're on the threat list, you don't come off the threat list. So there's only three positions to be with, a narcissist, a flying monkey, which is the yes person, the irrelevant, in which case you don't, you don't exist, or a threat, and you can oscillate. You could be the flying monkey at 11 o'clock in the morning, but by two o'clock in the afternoon, you're a threat. And the only thing that changed in the environment was you perhaps picked up on something that they'd done and gave them feedback. And this could be helpful feedback. So if you're also in senior leadership or a business owner and you're giving feedback or to a client, you won't know, but you've just gone on to threat list, and one of the and they use weaponry, right? So the ego doesn't use weaponry. It gets defensive. It goes well, I feel a bit hurt about that, and I might behave by being angry, or I might just, you know, get the huffle, create behavior that says I need attention or comfort because I can't express myself. But the reality is, with a narcissist, what you'll start to get is a smear campaign. But you won't know, because they will use that. They will use their other flying monkeys to create the smear campaign. So for example, they will devalue your the somebody else's business, which is really damaging in the world, world of work, right, right, but they're so good at it that they intuitively know where the weaknesses are in another person or in their business or in their campaign or in and they'll intuitively know that, and so they will then target the weakness. So they might come to you as a brand or as a marketing agency, and they'll say, they they will, they'll hit you where it hurts, and they will make you doubt your own ability. You know, even if your credentials super stack up, but they will make you doubt your ability. And if they do that enough, they start to psychically attack your belief system. I've had that with a client, I can literally think about who it is. It is a man, and it was so horrible because the team were working really, really hard, and this particular client was they didn't, they basically didn't want to pay the full amount of money for our services. So we and I will never do this again after that experience. This is a few years ago now, you know, probably we were a couple of years old, and also at a point where, you know, it was tough, I had a lot of mouths to feed, and we, we basically won a client, or took the client on when we shouldn't have done. We de, you know, we didn't even de scope. We just, well, we did de scope but we, as well as de scoped, also discounted, and we weren't able to do what we needed to do. We were relying on his team to do brilliantly at creating the content which we usually pick up, and they couldn't do that. But when and I warned him at the beginning, I was like, we're going to be heavily reliant on your team creating great content, we were continually feeding back, saying, because. Content isn't good enough. Doesn't work. It's not going to land. We were running the campaigns taking that content out to market. Of course, it wasn't landing because the content wasn't good. But it was our fault. It was 100% our fault. We parted ways and we went on a call with me, and Nicola, who stood with me, my head of strategy, and he was so rude to us, took no blame, basically tried to ask for a refund. And, I mean, I stood my ground, and I was like, Look, yeah, we told you this at the beginning. You know, we're only No, you didn't. Well, he had back. He was so aggressive in every single way. And then he said something like, basically said he won't spread, don't worry, I won't spread, a smear campaign about how terrible you are. So he actually used the language smear campaign he did. He's like, don't, don't worry. I won't tell everyone. I won't, I won't bad mouth you. I'm not like that. I was like, well, you obviously are. Otherwise you wouldn't even, why would that even come into your mind like he was it was almost like a passive aggressive comment. And I have had to come up against people like that a lot in my career, like, you know, nasty, backhanded take note. I mean, most of our clients, 90 95% of the people that I've worked with throughout my life and my career have been wonderful, can't you? And I'm very picky about who, you know, we've we're picking the client as much as they're picking us. But many times I've had to deal with this, you know, I can probably think of two or three in the five years that I've run street. That particular one was very, very bad. But there's, there's probably been another couple that I could, I can, I can see them. They are actually all men, right? But the distinguishing issue there was, you went back and you, in some way, not not in this way, but in some way, said you're wrong. Yeah, right. And you they can never be wrong, ever, ever, ever, ever be wrong. And so they use a technique called gaslighting, which, again, everyone's heard of, and the Tick Tock generation, they're kind of getting this gaslighting wrong. It's evolving into something that it doesn't mean. And you know, people accusing their partners of gaslighting just because they put a boundary down with the partner or they've disagreed with what somebody is saying. Gaslighting isn't disagreeing with somebody else's experience of something. Gaslighting is when you are intentionally manipulating someone else's model of the world. So denying their feelings, denying their experience, in order to manipulate them, and that's the change point, the change point in order to manipulate them, and that's to get your supply. Look, we no one, you know, we can all feel vulnerable when we're you know, when our wounds are exposed. Perhaps we made a mistake. We got something wrong. You know, it goes from school. You know you've done your homework. Yes, you know, we can all lie a bit, but that's not gas lighting. It's for the purpose of manipulation, for personal gain. And the other thing is, you'll note, when you when you confront a narcissist, you will instantly meet rage, and it's powerful rage, and it's very, very intimidating, whoever you are. But I think it's interesting you, you know you again, catalog that your experiences were both with men, but what about the female narcissist? How are they identifiable? Yeah, I mean, I've had some of those as well. I can now, you're we're talking about it, but they were not clients, just bosses, like people that I reported into. And it was on both occasions, I've had two, I think both, okay, one, it was unbearable. I could literally only stay working there for about three, four weeks, and I had to, I literally had to leave. I was, I can't, I cannot operate like this. It was, I think she found me a particular threat. And you know, I was standing up to her potentially, you know, she was actually, you weren't the flying monkey, no, the threat. Yeah, there's only two places you can be with her. And she was the CEO, and I reported into her of a big, I mean, be careful about what I'm saying here, of a big, big agency group, I think probably, you know, people that worked there the six times they're listening, or, No, I'm talking about, you know, they're huge, huge organisation. They probably had the damage done to them as well, because, you know, nobody's immune. We all needed therapy after working for her. I mean, it was, it was hard work. So do you think female, well, leaders, or, you know, female narcissists in the world of work represent differently to men. How can we spot they can do it really. It really depends on, again, what kind, what they've modeled, and how they use their power you but in general, the female narcissist. I mean, males also fit into this category, too, but they women tend not to get away with the sense of grandiose that men are revered for. You know, we can't say we're great on any level and it to be accepted. So we tend to lack the ability to. The grandiose. But, I mean, there are plenty of females that do have that, but they're even harder to spot the female narcissist, because they're lethal, because they will play the vulnerability card beautifully, particularly, you know, in relationships. And I think this is what people find the most confusing, is they seemed so vulnerable and kind and took care of somebody else's needs. But the reality is they were always devaluing you behind your back, always devaluing behind your back. And they're called the covert narcissist, and they will put that they're normally kind of very capable, but they will present themselves as being incapable, but only on simple things. So it could be, oh, you know, they'll always ask advice. They're brilliant at asking advice to reel somebody in, but the things they need advice on aren't things that are particularly taxing to that other person. Whereas, if I needed, you know, asking for help for me has been something I've had to learn. I will not ask for help. But, you know, they're very, very good at asking for help. But again, that's not to say that everyone who's good at asking for help is a narcissist, because here's the complex thing, it's never one thing. Yeah, it is only when you put lots of different behaviors together that you can understand that somebody is inherently narcissistic. There's also a difference between having narcissistic traits. So that might be self interest, it might be a sense of grandiose. You know, being very extrovert and dominating in a space and not really allowing anybody else to flourish doesn't mean that you're a narcissist, but it starts to become really damaging, really psychologically damaging when you start getting further up the scale into what's called narcissistic personality disorder, and also the covert narcissist and, you know, I've got clients that have been, you know, very accomplished male clients that have been the captains of their big industries. You know, they're used to doing billion pound negotiations and deals. I mean, they're hardcore, and they never knew they were in married to a covert female narcissist until they said no. So this in, you know, the male, the male part of this particular story that I'm thinking about would spend, had spent a lifetime trying to make his wife happy, and it was only when the demands became so ridiculous and he ultimately said no that she then discarded him in an instant. Wow. And that's the shocking part. The other part you you realise, where you don't realise you're with a narcissist, because you're stunned and you're shocked and you're confused, because one minute, everything was fine and you felt safe, and then a second later, you are being attacked, and you don't understand why, and you don't understand what's changed, and you'll try and make sense of it. The number one, the number one impact that I see from anybody who's been on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse, be it from work and of course, everyone we work with and the CEOs, they're also parents, they're also partners. And I think one of the most damaging things you can be is raised by a narcissistic parent, because they cripple you into such extreme self doubt that you never really get the opportunity to form your own identity, and you certainly don't learn how to put boundaries down, because the terror in your nervous system of learning, of saying no, is just not worth it, because you get discarded, they will give you away in a heartbeat. It's scary, isn't it, because the damage that can do in a well hugely damaging in your personal life. But when it comes to work, if you know, if you can recognise that you're working for or with a narcissist, it's it can. It can really stop you, you know, being able to excel in your career. You could even get, you know, dismissed. If there's someone quite senior, you know, they could start a campaign to get rid of you. I mean, one of the questions I did have, which I know well, I say, I know, my guess is that the levels are quite high when it comes to CEOs. What are the, what are the kind of stats around, how many, how many of the percentage of CEOs do you think would be a narcissist? By that, I mean the high end of the scale, yeah, I'm gonna put it quite high, 68% so the research that I found said 18% Oh, okay, low. But I question where I would like to know more about how that study was done, because if I think of any of the CEOs that are school high, not a narcissist, obviously we have to separate that from psychopaths as well. Yes, gets really juicy when psychopaths higher, but I don't know where that data came from. And I would challenge that the majority of the CEOs that I would put in mind wouldn't even engage. In a study. Yeah, they wouldn't engage in filling in any information about themselves, because why should they? Yeah, that's a very good point. So how can you choose them, right? Yeah, so I don't trust the stats, actually, but yeah, that if you look at, you know, online, that's the information you'll get. The difference, by the way. I mean, we know that there is a lot of psychopathy in high achieving leaders. But again, that goes back to my first point, which is we have created culturally, a whole way of doing business and a whole way of being successful in a narcissistic model. And until we start elevating authenticity and empathy, we're going to continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. And then, if you bring AI into the mix, when so many things will be replaced by a you know, AI, everything that has no fear of failure, has no fear of rejection, has none of that, where does that leave your human intelligence? And that is where the narcissist will become more exposed, because you can only fake empathy to a certain degree. So I actually feel that the next era, you know, with the Iron Age, we've had the tech age, with the next era, will be the empathy age. I like that. Well, I hope, I hope that. So it's a good empathy. So how do businesses that communicate for a living learn to be better with empathy and authentic communication? Particularly, there's a disconnect from serving the dinosaur culture of narcissism, and I think you can see that coming through. So there's two things that I want to think I want to kind of delve into here. One is we could teach AI to be narcissists, or to be it to be narcissistic, so to speak. So we've got to be very careful about what we put out. But if I think about, you know, the content that I put out, and where and when I get engagement, it's not when I'm when I'm kind of showing off, or, you know, deploying, maybe, you know, some of my more egotistical traits. It's when I'm being very open and real and authentic about my failures. That's what people people don't want to, you know, when it comes to human psychology in marketing and kind of thinking about how you're positioning yourself in your personal brand, which I think could be something really interesting for us to dig into. By the way, for me, I'm starting by thinking, what do I want to be known for? What am I trying to achieve? I've got two really simple goals with my content. Well, I say goals. Obviously, the overarching goal is to attract and win new new clients. I guess the secondary goal is to inspire women to grow in their career. So that's two things, my two objectives that I'm really trying to achieve. So first up, I'm going to talk intelligently and help people overcome the challenges that they have in their marketing. A lot of my content. Anyone will listen to this podcast who follows me on LinkedIn will see that kind of content. But I also talk a lot about, of course, how to empower women, how to grow in your career, how to overcome objections, how to position yourself better, how to break through that glass ceiling, the policies that need to change. But amongst that, I lace in human content about Katie, because people have to know and trust me and understand who I am so that they can engage with me. And I think if you don't you, there's a lot to think about right when it comes to personal brand. And I'm going to brand up something else, which I'm going to frame as professional brand. Because I'm doing, I am doing this professionally. It does include personal stuff. But really I'm doing this to grow myself in my career. So I'm kind of labeling it, you know, professional branding. And actually, in order to do that, you've got to lace in some some personal brand. But my key objective is to help people and to help them authentically. So it's not about showing up in a not aggressive way, but it's, it's, you know, I think you've we've got you when it comes to psychology, we've got to understand what it is people want to buy from people and how to engage with them in a human way, especially when we've got this AI, you know, the bots are taking over. They are, but I think you hit it there. It's about making a difference for you, yes, and what that is is a core value, and it's a core value driver. And when you meet it, you feel it, and you feel its authenticity. With a narcissist, they can bomb they can bombard you with noise and love bombing and gifts and compliments and all of that. But there's something inside that makes you go, don't quite trust this. I don't quite trust this, and I don't know why, and most people will then doubt themselves. Which will you know, rather than doubting? Hang on. Minute, are you disingenuous or what is it? What is your greater What is your greater position here? Whereas I think you know, alongside empathy has to be coming service. How am I serving people? And you know, through my uneducated eye, you know, I've watched so many brands come out of nowhere and flourish because they're really doing well with an authentic message that that is focused on my needs, yeah? But it's not done in bells and whistles and like, yeah, no, yeah, I'm the person. Yeah. It's done because I feel they really care about me, yeah? And that the narcissist doesn't really care about me, yeah? And that's fundamentally the difference, yeah. Yeah. So how do we communicate that effectively when the majority of people in their real world life, away from their professional skills, can't communicate emotional conversations outside of WhatsApp? I mean, that's a whole other subject, sort of moving away from the narcissist conversation, you know, Psych, human psychology, and what AI and technology is doing to how we behave, what's, what's the Becki view on that? The Becki view on that is we're becoming totally disempowered, yeah, and we're becoming, we're being numbed by tech. You know, our pacifier is tech. You know a baby, you know a baby soothes itself breastfeeding. We're all adult breastfeeders numbing ourselves on tech. But what are we numbing and why are we not able to contact our emotions? And why are we not learning how to contact our emotions? And what do we do with our negative emotions? And that's what we're missing, you know, my generation, you know we're part. You know, my parents were post war. I was raised by the Get on with it brigade, right? What are emotions we don't have those you know, your daughter has been raised that you have feelings and emotions and anxiety, but they're not being models of how to feel those feelings. There aren't any resources of how you manage them. So unless we, unless we become so sublimely emotionally intelligent, and I put that at a soul level, like it's it's not it's deeper than that. You know, we've got to be connected to our gut instincts. How can you become really deeply connected to your gut instincts and trust what you're feeling if you're numbing what you're feeling the whole time, and that plays right into the bots. But surely, there's a way we can use technology for good. It's good and bad for everything, right? So how, as a business? I mean, I guess from a marketing perspective, I've kind of got my own steer on this. But can you create? How can you because we are, we are all numbing ourselves on I mean, it's, I woke up this morning and thought I'm going to meditate, and then I didn't, because I sat on my phone for the 510 minutes that I was supposed to meditate for. Like, how do we how do we stop that technology? Like it can just overtake there's so much opportunity for good with technology, because if it's used in the right way, you know, there are some great technologies, like, I love the calm app that helps me with my meditation and, you know, listen to I don't know things to help me go to sleep or whatever it might be. There is. There are technologies out there that really help people with their mental health. My brother's been using a an app that he has a coach in, and he's like, in its it's an AI bot that is. And he's like, No, it's not perfect, but it really helps me when I'm feeling rubbish and I just need someone to talk to that's impartial, right there and then. But then I would say, when you're hungry, you know, a Kit Kat will give you something more than you have, but is it giving you any nutrition? No, no, true. Yeah. So I think there's a big difference, and that's the thing. If I think we're so thirsty for connection, yeah, so thirsty for connection that anything is better than the nothing that we had. So we also have to be mindful that we're not being led down a blind alley. Because, you know, one of the most powerful things is human connection, right? And obviously, is marketing. What you're trying to do is take that out into the Wilder, wider world. And I think we've all got to get back to basics. I challenged a CEO of a big insurance company A little while ago, who was banging on about values, right? It's a good guy, great leader, banging on about values, but in a way that he was so detached from the values he was talking about. Right now, a bot isn't going to see that, but I could see it because there wasn't any alignment between what he was saying. You know, although he was very clear about what the values were, and I and I, so I challenged him in a way that I wouldn't normally, because I've had to learn to, you know, confrontation. You know, a bot will be fine with confrontation, but humans have more issues with them, and we need to, we need to respect our human, you know, our human imperfections, right? Because they're going to be our greatest strengths. But anyway, I challenged this guy, and I said. Yeah, you don't understand values. I mean, there's balls of me inside. I'm like I said, you know, you don't understand values. Of course, we did. Of course we do. We employed blah blah agency, and we spent blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, on this, this piece of work, and now we know our values and La, la, la, la. And I said to him, very gently, I said, the reason I'm saying you don't understand values is what are your own personal core values? And he just looked at me like that. And I wasn't trying to humiliate him or shame him. I was trying to illustrate that until you understand your own core values and how they move you, and how they can be in conflict, and what it feels like when those core values are violated and compromised by people or environments. Until you felt it, you don't understand values, not really. Anyway, we did a values elicitation, the way I do it. And he at the end of that, was quite moved. And he said, I get what you were saying now. Now I know what values really are, yeah, and how to navigate them, but he had to feel them, yeah? So if we're not feeling things, if we're not feeling things, then how that's our whole trust system. It's our whole GPS system. As a human. It tells us what foods are good for us. It tells us what we want to buy. So in terms of marketing, that how do you align with authenticity and really bring out those authentic voices in a noisy world full of inauthenticity? Because one of the biggest things a narcissist will do is they'll make a lot of noise, but they'll lack the experience. I think for me, that's that's where the world is going. It's like you've got to market like a human, in a in a more human and authentic way. And I guess to a certain extent, ignore the narcissism in the world, because even the stats that you've kind of mentioned, there if only 18% of CEOs truly. I mean whether, whether we believe that or not. But, you know, hopefully there's more great, you know, great, great and good than there is narcissism in the world. So we need to, and even the narcissists hopefully have a heart, will, you know, engage with that helpful. The psychopaths don't have a heart, right? So they don't, but they're very good. They're very good at masking. But you know, if we we come back to, you know, one of the earlier points we made is because we've elevated narcissism in our politics, in all of the people that control and make big decisions for us. We all think we have to be like them, that if we're not brave, that if we don't stand in public, speak with total confidence, that we're a failure. So we're actually still sifting through lots of people who aren't narcissists, but feel they have to, they have to model those traits in order to be anywhere. And so we've got to give them a safe space to understand that they their humanness is, is everything? People buy humans? Yeah, and they buy trust. And I think so many industries have gone so far away from the core basics that we all need a reminder. And I think that's what AI will do. It will separate the wheat from the chaff. Yeah, totally. I think AI is here, and it's here to stay. It's only going to it's I was talking about this yesterday, when it comes to marketing, AI is that you either master it or it masters you, essentially, and it will master all of us. What we put in there's a really cool book, actually, by Mo Gore Dick called scary smart and the Internet AI, which has been around for ages. It's all just been blown up since chat GPT came out, and it's a bit more accessible for everyone to get their head around what it is, but it's in most platforms. But it's in most platforms. It's in most platforms I've been using for years to run up my business, to run our marketing campaigns. It's learning from what we put in, so our behavior informs the AI. So we've got to be really clever about what we put in, what we search for on the Internet, what the type and style of content that we put out, I feel like, from what I see happening, we're putting good in with the content that seems to resonate, that gets attention, that does brilliant is authentic, open, real content that aims to inspire and help other people, I think that is, you know, at the core, people want to engage with people like we say, be real. Show up as a human. Don't worry about your In fact, we were just chatting about, we were making a coffee, and one of the guys in the office, who's a solicitor, said to me, you'd be really proud. I did a video. And my advice for anyone looking to, you know, start to develop their own content, is just show up as you don't pretend or try to come across or be because it people will see it like there's no hiding from yourself, like, if you and if you're not a natural presenter, like, again, I've sat on a panel. Yeah. Yesterday, you know. And the guy, one of the who actually I love and know very, very well, Richard, he was like, I'm really nervous, and this doesn't feel natural to me, but he's brilliant, and he's got a lot of value to give. But he was just really open about that at the beginning. He was like, I'm really nervous, and I really don't like doing this. So if I come across rubbish, like, apologies, guys. I mean, he didn't, he absolutely smashed it. I mean, you could see a tiny bit, felt, I've got quite good, like, empathy with stuff like that, that maybe he was a bit nervous, but he spoke beautifully. He came. So I think if you're thinking about your personal brand and how to show up, unless you are incredibly narcissistic and you think you're brilliant anyway. Don't, don't worry about it. Show up as you. Be authentic. Be real, because people actually prefer that than you trying to mask your anxiousness or your, you know, vulnerabilities, because then you look at inauthentic and people don't want to engage with that, right? Yes, but I think that's okay when you're the captain of your own ship, yes, but exposing your vulnerabilities actually is really, really difficult for a lot of people, because their their relationship with feeling vulnerable comes from trauma. So putting, even putting yourself out there, you know, it's take, you know, it's been my least comfortable thing to do, but I know I've had to overcome it. And I used to have, even having my photo taken, was like, I was like, Chanda from friends. I would just sort of pull this funny. That's my one pose that I could do. And inside I was like, disappearing. And, you know, I had to work to overcome that, but also to understand that I was strong enough to to be vulnerable to strong enough to understand that I'm never going to be perfect. But for a lot of people, they don't have that development, and they're not in environments, relationships, families, businesses, where they can show their vulnerability, because the minute they do. What will a narcissist do with that? They will weaponize it against you. Yeah, and if you've had that experience, particularly if you've been raised by a narcissist, then, you know, being authentic and being you're vulnerable, the the alarms go off, you know, so they you know, we all learn to protect ourselves. We put up what's called Heart walls. We protect ourselves from even feeling what we're feeling. We cut ourselves off from the head and the heart and then, and then we wonder why we're overthinking. Yeah, so it's a very, you know, it's very complex. And I think we can all learn from each other, you know? I think that that's the amazing thing. We can all learn from each other. But if we take something back to a human fundamental basic, if you put two people in a room together, their heart rates sink, Oh, wow. I did not know that, yeah. So I use this, you know, it's one of the biggest parts of my job, is that sometimes some my clients are very chaotic, and they bring in a lot of distress, right? And I have to use my nervous system, my whole nervous system, to create that calm in the room. Because if that, if I'm not creating the calm, their chaos will lead is that what happens when I come in? Probably sometimes, because I know I'm basically like, feel like I'm Road Runner. Most of the time, like running around Road Runner. Yeah, I honestly feel like that, especially this week. We're gonna have a coaching session after this so we can delve into all of that. But is that so in reality, we're in you're in a meeting with your boss, you're in a meeting with a client. The Strongest Energy sets the tone, wow. That's how you defeat the chat bot. Wow, wow. Or you use the aspects that are an asset. And the same with there was some very good research done with doctors, right where they they the doctor just came in, gave, gave a placebo to the patient. And they, you know, they monitor they all had a certain condition, and they monitored how people recovered from the condition. And they they had one group where here's your medication, which was a placebo, and then they had another group where the doctors spent time connecting and talking and soothing the patient. And guess which group recovered better. Bear in mind, neither were given any medication. It was the group actually, that were had the time and the connection from the doctor, and that is our superpower, yeah. But if my intention is to harm you, or my intention is to take what you've got or destroy you to make myself look better, what's my nervous system bringing into the room? Yeah, well, toxic energy, I guess. And how does that trigger other people? It makes them feel like they need to protect themselves, so then it's very difficult to do your best self. And anyone who has been on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse, it's it will give you PTSD. It. It's psychologically so, so damaging and very difficult to recover from, because you'll you've learned to in order to survive it. You've learned to not trust your own self. And it's actually your own self, and the and reigniting that that puts you back through survival and learning to trust yourself again is, you know, is difficult, particularly if you're still, I mean, you know, especially for people, for example, co parenting with a narcissist, who would the floor will just keep, you know, in Harry Potter, when the staircase is changing. I mean, that's co parenting with a narcissist. And, you know, such a difficult thing to do, but there are ways to deal with difficult people. You know, we can't change them, and that's the biggest mistake. Most people's healing is suffering because they're trying to get the narcissist to understand their own behavior, and that is never going to happen. You're never going to get the snake to understand why it bit you. You know, for most humans, we make mistakes. We can say the wrong thing, we can be thoughtless, we can defend ourselves and hurt someone else without realising it, but we also have the capacity to apologize. The narcissist never did anything wrong. Everybody else has done something wrong. So if you're waiting for recognition from a narcissist, boss, parent, colleague, partner, family member, you're not going to get it. And if your healing is dependent on that you're going to be stuck in the trauma for a long time. So the so you have to let go of the need for their recognition number one. Number two, learn to put boundaries down, but pick your battles. You know, the big mistake that a lot of people make, particularly in business with difficult people, is they, you know, they realise they need to do put some boundaries down. You know, perhaps they need to protect their personal time. Perhaps they're getting emails at three in the morning, you know, 10 in the morning, you know, 10 at night. They need to put some boundaries down. And then they feel powerful. Yes, I've done this boundaries thing. I can put some boundaries down. And so then they start putting loads of boundaries down. And then they get walloped. And they get walloped by the narcissist, because the narcissist is going to completely mow through and punish you for those boundaries. Yeah, so you don't take your power by taking it from them. No, that's you know. Don't fight fire with fire. With a narcissist, you'll lose scary. Okay, I can the the narcissist I spoke to you about, is def was, yeah, definitely displayed a lot of that. I can really relate to that, and it's hard. I mean, for me, the only way was out. I just couldn't I just couldn't work like that anymore. The best way is no contact, yeah, and the best way is to get out. But then you know that can really activate a compromising fear of failure or rejecting a client, right? Yeah, you know, you don't want to, because also often. I mean, my experience of this is, you know, the the person that potentially is a narcissist is not necessarily the person that we're working with day to day. No, they're the flying monkey. Yeah, they're up there somewhere where, yeah, we're working with the flying monkey. And then the narcissist steps in, pressing all the buttons, yeah, and it's and it, and I feel terrible for the team and for the staff as well, like, it's hard, but, you know, it's, it's tough, because, I mean, I'm sure there are some things in there I'm thinking, gosh, you know, I sometimes I email with my staff late at night, or, you know, hopefully I'm not a narcissist. Am I a narcissist? You know me? No, no, good. Okay. You can say yes if you think I am no, no. Okay. And that's the other thing, right? It's not one thing. You can't, you know, on any given day, we can look at anybody behaving in certain ways and go, they're a narcissist. It is never one behavior. It's a whole suite of behaviors, which you all observe over time, yeah, and, you know? And there are, you know, there are, if you're only looking at one behavior, there are elements of, for example, people with neuro divergent one behavior might look like that's narcissistic, but they're not a narcissist, no. So we can't, you cannot judge someone on one behavior. You know, who does that? Yeah, because they've learned, now, they've learned about narcissists. Yeah, and they can use that as a weapon against their partner, against their staff, against their business partners. I mean, I wonder how many businesses, I mean, I've been involved in, you know, some of the fallout of this, where I've been dealing, you know, in a partnership where one partner is a narcissist, but you only find out five years down the line, and then trying to get out of that is just impossible. And they, you know, lawyers love a narcissist if they're representing them, because the money will keep going on, because they have to have the last word. So they keep starting the fights, keep starting the fights, keep starting the fights, and you don't understand why they don't go away. Can you turn into a narcissist if you've not, if like, if you've been around a narcissist for a long time? Are you more likely to narcissist? No, what you might be doing is modeling one for safe. You know, as I said, your world is having to, you know, our ideals of. Success, and what that person looks like is based on a lot of narcissistic traits with no room for vulnerability, because traditionally, the masculine has rejected vulnerability, so there's no place in business for vulnerability. Historically, yet we Yep, yeah, we all want to sell to humans. So let's get rid of all the human elements, yeah and yeah and sell to humans, right? And then you know that that's a difficulty. But no, it's narcissists are not identifiable from one trait, but narcissists will use now the information of narcissistic behavior. You're gaslighting me. Yeah, don't you come to me with your smear campaign, yeah? Or they'll go round. You know, yeah, my boss is a narcissist. My cousin's a narcissist, my dad's a narcissist, everybody's a narcissist, yeah, but they'll never know them. They'll never look at themselves. I mean, I've had clients. I did a lot of podcasts on this subject, which, which became very, very successful, and I got some really interesting people contacting me, but there was the odd one or two that I knew were narcissists, and one actually did come book one session with me, and I clocked very early on that this individual displayed None of the footprints of being a victim of narcissistic abuse, none, not one. But what they actually wanted to do was pick information from me that they were going to use to weaponize against their partner in a divorce. So they wanted the language, I mean, they weren't upfront about this, but I knew what they were doing. They were farming me. And I was like, Okay, I'm getting played here. This is interesting. And then so I, so I, you know, we went with it. And then towards the end, I turned the light back on him, and I asked him about his behavior in the relationship. And that's when he had to ask an answer. I think it's probably more a psychopath, to be honest, he and they have to answer honestly. It's just that no one will really ask them the right questions. And if you do get back that answer, you won't believe someone's actually going to be that vile. But he, he, as soon as I put the guns on him, he went nuts and wouldn't look at his own behavior at all, and left and never came back. Well, that's good because you've, you've identified, and I guess that's how you can deal with it, similar. Well, it's hard when you're an employee, right? Because if you've got a narcissistic boss and you want to keep your job, that's, it's what is the escape route, I guess, look for a new job, right? But then again, you lose, and that's the problem, right? You lose, yeah, but there is no what is the solution? The solution is to learn to play the flying monkey game. Is to understand what you're dealing with. It's to understand that the reason you're confused yourself full of self doubt is probably because you're on the receiving end of this behavior, and actually, how do they respond to you when you try and bring solutions, for example, or bring the problem to the table, not directly with the narcissist? I wouldn't suggest that. But again, you could be working in a business where everything's great, and then you have a change of leadership, and everything goes, you know, and you're still deeply attached and you know, and loyal to your company. You know, because people spend a lot of time getting people to be part of something, then you have a change of leadership and you're still in love with the part that you've been indoctrinated with. Take the police, for example. You know, there is great people in the police, and there are some horrific people in the police. It's good and bad in every industry, but that industry has an attraction to narcissists. And I guess you've just got to navigate life, isn't it? I mean understanding for me. You know, knowledge is power, so understanding and spotting these traits, not being too quick about your decisions, because, like you say, everyone displays different, you know, in different situations, in different times of their life, maybe under different pressures, they may display different behaviors. But if it's something that you're seeing continually, learn how to manage and deal with it. And also, we've got to shift our gaze away from are they a narcissist? We just need that for the understanding it doesn't matter if they're a psychopath or a narcissist or that, it's how am I being affected? That's where the real lens needs to go. How am I being affected? And what do I need to do to feel safe? Yeah, and learning that you know to trust yourself in something doesn't feel right. I mean, I'm sure you've done pitches and you're like, something doesn't feel right, yeah. I mean, it's weird, isn't it? Like I even get this, like, feeling inside my body in some sort of way when I'm just with someone that doesn't feel right, it feels awkward. I kind of had this yesterday at the event, there was someone I was talking to, and I just, I don't know, it just didn't feel sometimes there are just. Certain people that I meet in life, and I'm like this, I just can't flow with this. With this person. That's not necessarily saying they're enough means you can't regulate with them. Yeah, it goes back to the two heart the two nervous systems, yeah, com, you know, compliment each other, and our nervous system goes, there's something not safe about you. Yeah. It doesn't mean that they're a serial killer or something like that, but it means something about where they are or where they're at doesn't feel safe to you, yeah? And we have to ping that and listen to ourselves, yeah? But if you've been constantly told by a narcissist you're wrong, you won't trust that information. Yes, you've got to we've got to learn. Yeah, it's in, it's within you. You've got to learn right your own coping mechanisms, and therefore we've got to spend less time with the bots and more time with ourselves. So if you see people walking down, you know, we don't even walk down the street. No, I mean, I definitely didn't yesterday, because I was recording loads of videos, but most of the time, and I do try and do that now. I mean, my time with you has really helped me with all of this. Is, you know, if I go for a run, I don't necessarily want to take my headphones. I just want to hear the birds and, you know, hear the sea, it doesn't you, don't you. We're so used to listen to music, listen to a podcast, and please do listen to a podcast, but, you know, being disconnected and not thinking so now I'm like, Well, when I go for a walk with the dogs or go for a run, why don't I, yeah, unplug. Just go completely on my own and and hear what my head's got to say about life. And that's how, and that's what we've got to do. We've got to come back to ourselves and away from all the numbing. Yeah, because, you know, for most of my clients, you know, that hour in that room with me is the longest time they've never touched tech. Yeah, long this time. You never touch that phone. If you sit back for a minute, right? And you watch everyone on the walking around the streets. I thought to myself the other day, I thought, is everybody running multi million pound businesses that they get and they can't delegate because the amount of like stuff happening all the time, it's like, Why is everyone so busy? Because they following the sheep and No, and it's taking us away from our core selves, our core values, knowing what's important to us, knowing what our needs are, learning how to communicate our needs, same as a market, same as marketing, right? Yeah, but it starts with us individually, so we have to prioritise looking at ourselves, but not in the way the narcissist does. Yeah, you know that is how you caveat everything. Everything that isn't right for you, the more deeply connected you are to yourself. Keeps you safe, elevated and and physically improves your well being too. What a lovely way to end Becki. That was amazing. So there we go. Guys, trust in you. You have it within you. And yeah, I think that's a that's a great thing for everyone to take with them, whether you're thinking about your personal brand, your your position in your workplace, your marketing strategies, yeah, go go to yourself before you go anywhere else. Hey guys, me again. 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