Rethinking Narcissism

Malkin kicks the party off with a great rendition of the Narcissus myth.

Here’s the short story.

Narcissus is a divinely beautiful young man. Everyone adores him and falls in love with him. And… He ignores them all.

One of the characters that falls in love with him is the mountain nymph Echo. We’ll talk more about her in a moment.

Another one of the people who falls in love with and is ignored by Narcissus gets so upset he goes to the goddess Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance. He begs her to curse Narcissus. She agrees.

Her curse? Make Narcissus feel the same unrequited love he has bestowed on so many.

How? She magically makes a clear spring so still that it becomes like a mirror. When Narcissus bends over to drink some water he sees his own reflection. And, he falls in love. He tries to talk to his reflection but gets no reply. He tries to kiss his own image but it just ripples away. At last, he dives into the spring and goes deeper and deeper—never to return.

Take that myth, add in some 20th century psychologists analyzing our tendency to fall *too* in love with ourselves and voilà! We have our modern conception of narcissism.

So, that’s the surprising truth about narcissism.

In excess, it’s dangerous. Too much feeling special/good about ourselves and we have the most obvious and extreme clinical cases of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

And…

The other extreme is *also* not healthy. If we have too little sense of importance we become what Malkin describes as an “Echoist.” We lose our voice and our capacity to show up with power and passion in the world.

Let’s go back to the myth of Echo for a moment. At one point, Echo was a vibrant mountain nymph. But, apparently she was just a little too chatty for the goddess Hera who gave her a curse that made her lose her voice and merely be able to echo what others say. Eek.

So… All of that to say that one of Malkin’s big distinctions and contributions to the field of narcissism research is the fact that narcissism exists on a SPECTRUM.

We’ll talk about that a bit more in the next Big Idea.

For now, remember another Greek concept formulated 2,500+ years ago—around the same time they were creating these myths: NOTHING IN EXCESS! It’s all about a healthy moderation. Pretty much always.

A modern scientific concept that captures the same idea? The Yerkes-Dodson law.

We talk about it in The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler. He refers to it in the context of finding that sweet spot where you stretch yourself just outside your comfort zone but not *too* far outside of it. Here’s how he puts it: “If you want to trigger flow, the challenge should be 4 percent greater than the skills. In technical terms, the sweet spot is the end result of what’s known as the Yerkes-Dodson law—the fact that increased stress leads to increased performance up to a certain intensity, beyond which performance levels off or declines. In real-world terms, it’s not much at all.”

We also talk about this in our Notes on Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. He refers to it as the “Inverted U” and tells us:

“That’s what is called an inverted-U curve. Inverted U curves are hard to understand. They almost never fail to take us by surprise, and one of the reasons we are so often confused about advantages and disadvantages is that we forget when we are operating in a U-shaped world.

* The psychologists Barry Schwartz and Adam Grant argue, in a brilliant paper, that, in fact, nearly everything of consequence follows the inverted U: ‘Across many domains of psychology, one finds that X increases Y to a point, and then it decreases Y. … There is no such thing as an unmitigated good. All positive traits, states, and experiences have costs that at high levels may begin to outweigh their benefits.’”

Alright. Spectrums. Yerkes-Dodson. Inverted U’s. Got it. Now for some details on that spectrum.

The Narcissism Spectrum. That’s from a chapter called “From 0 to 10.” Here’s the quick take.

First, we need to let go of our tendency to see everything as “black and white, good or bad.” As Malkin says, “There are gradations and nuance to almost everything in life, including attitude, emotion, and personality.”

“So instead of regarding narcissism in all or nothing terms,” let’s draw a horizontal line.

0 at the far left. 10 at the far right. Like so:

|———————————————————————|

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Abstinence Moderation Addiction

At 0, you’re *never* comfortable feeling special in any way. You are an Extreme Echoist. At 10, you’re addicted to feeling special all day every day and you’ve lost your ability to dial it back. “Life at either of the extremes, whether at 0 or 10, isn’t a particularly healthy place to be.”

You can also play around the edges at 1, 2, or 3. Malkin calls this type a “Subtle Echoist.” Not as unhealthy as the most extreme, but also not where we want to play.

7, 8, or 9? That’s where we find “Subtle Narcissists”—which are far more common than the raging 10’s. Same thing applies: We don’t want to live from here.

The target? Right in the middle—where we have a healthy sense of ambition without the need to compulsively feel special/better than others OR not special.

And, you know what the tether is to that nice and healthy center?

Love.

If you’re on the Narcissistic side of the spectrum, that means caring more about OTHER people. When we get too filled up with self-importance, we fall into the trap of seeing other people as objects and become rude and domineering. Solution? Get out of your cocoon of self-absorption (as Barbara Fredrickson puts it in Love 2.0) and cultivate your love and compassion.

If you’re hanging out on the Echoist side of the spectrum, it’s time to dial up your love for yourself. Allow yourself to feel special, receive support and praise with an open heart.

So… Where do YOU tend to play? And… How can you +1 your love just a little more today?

P.S. Curious what creates unhealthy narcissism? Malkin tells us: “He seemed, in fact, to feel deep shame over ordinary human frailties and failings. And that, it turns out, is the quickest way to engender unhealthy narcissism.” <— Embrace The Gifts of Imperfection + Self-Compassion!!

P.P.S. Malkin has a really cool test in the book to help us get a sense of where we land on the spectrum. It’s available online here. (I highly recommend as we flex our self-awareness muscles.)

The test measures three things: your levels of Narcissism Deficits, Healthy Narcissism, and Extreme Narcissism. Ideally, you want to score low on the Deficits and Extreme side of things and high on the Healthy. “People who score higher on this factor tend to:

• Be calm, optimistic, and cheery

• Possess high self-esteem

• Excel at giving and receiving emotional support

• Experience a sense of purpose in life

• Be self-disciplined

• Be trusting, enjoying closeness and emotional intimacy

• Feel deserving, but not overentitled

The two statements that best define healthy narcissism are ‘I like to dream big, but not at the expense of my relationships’ and ‘I can reign myself in when people tell me I’m getting a big head.’”

I LOVE this: “I like to dream big, but not at the expense of my relationships.”

P.P.P.S. Years ago, we did a note on Jean Twenge’s The Narcissism Epidemic. One of the important points Malkin makes is that her research failed to account for healthy narcissism, making her conclusions less robust than they could be. Go science! Always evolving…

That’s from a chapter called “Advice for Parents” in “Part IV: Promoting Healthy Narcissism.”

First, let’s recall the Latin roots of the word parenting. It literally means “to bring forth.” As in, to bring forth the best qualities latent within our children. And, of course, within OURSELVES.

Malkin walks us through four different parenting types and how to cultivate healthy narcissism in our kids. We talked about the same paradigm in our Notes on Angela Duckworth’s Grit.

The super-quick review: There are two primary variables. Warmth and Control. You can be high or low in either. Authoritarian parents have high control and low warmth. They’re kinda like drill sergeants. Not good. Permissive parents have high warmth and low control. They’re the “Do whatever you want” parents. Not good. Then we have Neglectful parents who, as the name implies, simply don’t care and aren’t present. Obviously, not good.

The ideal? Authoritative (or Wise Parenting): High Warmth AND High Control. We lovingly create boundaries while providing secure love as our kids explore the world and actualize.

Guess what? The same exact rules apply whether you want to cultivate grit or healthy narcissism. (Note: In your KIDS *and* in YOURSELF.)

Here’s how Duckworth puts it: “Indeed, over the past forty years, study after carefully designed study has found that the children of psychologically wise parents fare better than children raised in any other kind of household. In one … [study], for example, about ten thousand American teenagers completed questionnaires about their parents’ behavior. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, social class, or parents’ marital status, teens with warm, respectful, and demanding parents earned higher grades in school, were more self-reliant, suffered from less anxiety and depression, and were less likely to engage in delinquent behavior.”

How’re you parenting yourself and your kids?

Celebrate what’s working. And… Anything need work?!

P.S. Malkin gives a number of practices for parents. Ranging from modeling vulnerability (one of the hallmarks of a narcissist is their discomfort with and dissassociation from emotions—therefore, we want to model being aware of and comfortable with our emotions) to setting limits and coaching them (“Tell your child what to do, instead of what not to do.”).

He also tells us “‘You can’t get close enough to touch someone without stepping on their toes.’ We inevitably hurt the people we love. The key to happy relationships with our children—or with anyone, for that matter—isn’t being perfect. It’s having the courage to acknowledge when we screw up. That’s repair work, and it’s central to developing healthy narcissism.”

I love that. Check out this +1 called Repairing Relationships for how I apply it to our family!

Those are the final words of the book from the final chapter called “A Passionate Life.” Let’s focus on this beautiful line for a moment longer: “Healthy narcissism is where passion and compassion merge, offering a truly exhilarating life.”

We drew our Echoist to Narcissist line above to see that Healthy Narcissism was right in the middle. Now, let’s draw two Venn circles. We have the Passion circle on the right. And the Compassion circle on the left. Where they meet? THAT’s where we want to play!

We’re fired up by big, purpose-driven and ambitious dreams. And, we’re equally, deeply committed to showing up fully with love.

Idea: Let’s do that! Sending love and gratitude,

-B