And welcome back to the unpopular playground.
This is, and this is Debbie. Ramon couldn't join
us tonight. He's going to be back with us. He'll
go over in detail about the four types of people
that you're going to need to avoid. The reason
why we need to put up boundaries and Debbie and
I are going to touch on these four things just
a little bit, but we definitely don't want to
miss out on Ramon's insight as well. So we're
going to do. a separate podcast for each one
of these. And the first type is narcissists.
And a little bit of information that I have here
is that they often seek attention and admiration
while disregarding others' feelings and boundaries.
And we want to help you protect your emotional
wellbeing from their self -centered behavior.
Debbie, what's the first thing that you come
up with in your head when you think of narcissists?
Life sucking entities, me too. And it seems like
a lot of people are real quick to call people
narcissists. But I think that within the age
of social media, they're a lot more prevalent
because they have a platform to put themselves
out to and to suck in more victims. No, I agree
with that. And it's hard today because people
don't socialize the way it's easy to become a
narcissist because you're just building yourself
up. and bragging about yourself, and there's
nobody there to cut you down and say, hey, not
as you are speaking. Yeah, that's I think that's
a lot of the problem today. And I think there's
such competition in the world amongst everybody,
age groups, sexes, everything. And everybody's
trying to be better than the next person. So
people are one upping. The other, the one uppers.
Oh my gosh. Great minds think alike. Yeah. And
I don't know after all the research that I've
done, because I was in a really crazy situation
and we'll deep dive into this when we talk with
Ramon on it. But probably the best thing that
I can think of from my experience is like a cult.
Like the narcissist leaders are. cult leaders,
if you think about that, because the Jim Jones
and all of the cult leaders, they isolate you
into their own little world and they want to
alter your reality. Yeah, a lot of people are
selfish and self -centered, but I think narcissists
is resources that you can look up. And that's
how I discovered that I was in that situation
specifically, but I'm looking forward to talking
about this and going into a deep dive on it.
I'm by no means an expert other than having had
the displeasure of being what's fun and getting
myself sucked into that. Another type of person
you want to avoid are energy vampires, the people
that drain your energy, enthusiasm, being overly
negative or demanding. And it's real important
with these types of people to set your limits.
What are your thoughts on that real quick? Those
are the people that I've had many that have worked
for me and Those are the ones you learn after
about a week You never say because right then
they're gonna see the life right at it and it's
okay I hope your day gets better by and move
on they never have anything positive to say they're
never in a good mood and It's these are the people
you need to avoid because they're feeling down
They want to bring everybody else down And I'll
tell you, there's times that I've had people
say to me, wow, you must have a great life because
you're always happy and cheerful. And they had
no idea that behind my facade, I had a husband
who was dying. I had to work, come home, take
care of him. But I never let it be known to anybody
that was around me. And I could have walked around
with all my sorrows, but that's what they do.
And it's like they mope. They're like, oh, droopy.
My staff, when they did that, I would walk behind
them and go, hey, come on. Let's go. Hip, hip,
hip. Come on. Get it. Your name's Debbie, and
you're the farthest thing from being a... The
third thing is manipulators. They use guilt,
shame, emotional blackmail to control others,
make clear boundaries to help you from being
exploited, and you're not responsible for other
people's feelings. And it's really weird, because
these... Manipulator and energy vampire. That's
all in the category narcissism. That all falls
into that mini cult or anybody else. They can
have a mini of one or many and they do all of
those things. How about you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah,
for sure. We'll try to manipulate you at some
time in your life. It's like a kid. They're going
to push your buttons to see how far they can
go. That's the way mankind is. What? You have
to realize that this is what's going on, and
you set your points and know this is not going
to work. It happens in business, it happens in
relationships, and they do it by shaming you,
they do it by guilt especially, is one of the
big things that they use. You have to know yourself
and love yourself, and you will be manipulated
because all of their tricks are not going to
work. Exactly. And if you're clear who you are
and overly caring about other people's feelings,
I think it's the feelings from what I've discovered
that they try to manipulate the most. If they
can get a grasp on your feelings and they try
to tell you how to feel and what you are feeling
and you're not feeling a certain way, they want
to try and monopolize and make a claim on how
you're feeling. That right there is a manipulation.
That's a huge red flag to know that it's a manipulation
tactic. And if you don't do what they want, then
they cast you aside, they accuse you of casting
them aside. And how that too is to manipulate
you. They make you think that, oh, here, let's
go here and we'll do this. And I brought you
something and a little gift or something. And
it's to make you feel that. They're doing all
these nice things for you and they make you feel
like they're buying you and so that you are indebted
to them. When you finally decide that at some
point you don't want to do something that they
want you to do and you have a mind of your own,
that's when the explosion goes off because you
are your own person and you can't be manipulated
anymore and then all hell breaks loose. Oh yeah,
I think I've had that experience where it's somebody,
I'm not going to mention who, but they would
do these little favors and be like, Oh, do you
want me to pick your son up? Um, all these little
things. Oh, let me go get this for you. I'm at
the store already. Do you need me to get you
something? And these many little things, it's
almost like death by a thousand cuts. So it's
by a thousand favors because these little favors
are not inconveniencing them. But then, you know,
they think that by doing this, then they're going
to ask one thing of you, but you're going to
have to completely rearrange your whole life.
And then they're going to bring up all of these
little things. Oh, I got you things. I picked
your son up. I did this and whatever. It's like
them giving you a bunch of pennies and they're
asking a thousand dollars from you. But then
want to talk about all the little pennies that
they gave you, how that's equal. And that right
there, my friends, is manipulation. Yes, it is.
And that's why all the different topics that
we talked about before, all of these, about getting
to know yourself and setting your boundaries
and that, all of those tie in. Once you learn
how to do all of those, when you run across these
people, you're going to know. how to handle them
because you already built up your abilities to
create your boundaries. Yeah. And if you don't
have those clear boundaries in those four areas
that we talked about before, and then the only
other thing that I have, the major one when I
did my research was critics. They're constantly
negative or over critical as individuals and
they undermine your confidence and your self
-esteem. Having boundaries can shield you from
unnecessary negativity and encourages a more
supportive environment. And it kind of goes back
to the Debbie Downer that you talked about. When
you mentioned your achievements, why you need
to keep some of your plans to yourself and let
your success be the publisher. Because if you
tell people things in advance, they're going
to say, oh, I don't think you can do that because
they don't want to do the extra work. So they're
going to criticize everything that you do. How
would you say that the critic is different? I
agree. I think the critics, a lot of times I
find people that criticize other people. It's
because they're so unhappy with them and their
inabilities to do things or accomplish things
that they put other people down because it makes
them feel better about themselves. And it's just
telling somebody, oh, you're never going to make
it. You're never going to do that. It's their
way of making themselves feel good, although
I don't know why it would make them feel good,
but they just don't want to see anybody succeed.
They are jealous of people that succeed, so that's
where the negativity comes from. If you take
somebody that they've grown up together and one
goes off and does something, makes a great career
for themselves, and the other one has a good
career in that, but will never say, Wow. That's
really great. And you did really well. No, they'll
always find them. I have a perfect example. Married
in, I bought a car and I went to visit my sister
and she said to me, I had Jimmy, which is a smaller
version. And when I got to her house, cause she
had a bigger family. I only had one kid and she
had the big board. I don't know what the hell
they were, but it was the big floor. So she goes,
Oh, how do you like your little car? And yeah,
it was just, it was a jealousy. It was like a
criticize at boasting that it was big. It's because
I had exceeded everything in my life above her.
And this was like, Oh, her car was bigger than
mine. Big deal. But that's what it is. That's
her only thing she can flex is the bigger car.
If I had a bigger engagement ring or whatever
else, there'd be a, oh yeah, that's nice. Can't
say something positive. Can't be encouraging.
It's just gotta be loaded with backhanded compliments
is what it sounds like. They just can't hand
out a compliment. And that's a shame, but it's
no reflection on you. They could, but it's much
easier to bring other people down so that they
don't have to do the work. Because I think success
is the success one. but don't want to do. It's
just easier to bring other people down than to
actually do the work to get there themselves.
That I'm still in the middle of researching some
great tips on how to practically set these boundaries
that I'm excited to be able to share when we
go into our deep dives. Our video podcasts are
only going to be available on YouTube. So if
you're listening, you definitely want to come
over to YouTube. That's going to be our new structure.
And we plan on having a bunch of for season four.
So it's like a little precursor when we kick
off our official season four in September when
we start going live where you can participate
in the conversation on whatever social media
platform you're listening to, which I know for
sure will be Facebook, Instagram, and I think
X as well, a few others. So that's gonna be really
exciting. I wanted to share that. And so we thought
we would share an introduction of these four
reasons to have boundaries. And you'll definitely
want to come over for the information on how
we're going to put out what you can do for some
practical advice on boundary. That's our theme
for the month and the types of people that you
need to avoid what we're going to do. You can
look forward to content at least weekly or audio
listeners, and we're going to have tons of extra
content. both video with our discussions and
on our social media, we'll try and have a little
clips of different types of tips, lists, et cetera,
that can help you with our themes for this season.
And then I'll let Debbie conclude. And what I
end with is all the information that we gave
you today. I want you to use that information
and think about it. Think about how you're going
to apply that to your everyday life and experiences
to make your boundaries to avoid being taken
by these sorts of people and figure out ways
that you can avoid situations that will get you
into problems with narcissists and how you're
going to make yourself not fall prey to their
little tactics. I couldn't agree more. We thought
that this would be a great place to start setting
boundaries and avoiding these types of people
because if you don't, it's going to take years
off of your life. You might be in high school
or young adults. These types of people are going
to prey on you first. All the best years of your
life are going to be sucked up if you allow these
people in your life and don't set those boundaries.
That's the whole in a nutshell. All right, so
we're going to conclude for now. Make sure to
tune in next week for our first deep dive on
the topic of narcissism and our experience with
that and some practical tips on that. And Ramon
will be joining us on that next week. Debbie,
anything else? No, just think about all the people
you know and think about what categories they
might fall in. Think about if you are going to
fall. All right. With that, stay curious, everybody.
Bye.