[00:00:41] Mark Divine: Yeah. So, I’ve been a magnet for narcissists my entire life. 

[00:00:45] Rebecca Zung: Oh, no. 

[00:00:46] Mark Divine: Can you tell me why? Obviously, I must have grown up with a pretty strong narcissistic, you know, energy in my family. I think probably both my mom and dad, but Is that a pretty common thing? You know, if you grew up with narcissists, you tend to be like a magnet for them?

[00:01:00] Rebecca Zung: Or you become one, I think is what happens. I know I’ve, we used to say that I was too, but you know, you definitely want to keep that energy away from you now. I say, I think what happens is they sense vulnerabilities in people and. If you tend to have that vulnerability, it’s almost like sharks with blood in the water.

[00:01:23] Rebecca Zung: Like they see that. And if you don’t have that vulnerability and you, you learn to close off that vulnerability, then they’re not going to come near you anymore. I always say it’s sort of like Glinda, the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. You remember how the wicked witch came near her and she said, go away.

[00:01:44] Rebecca Zung: You, you, you don’t have any power here. Go away. And the wicked witch was like, Oh my God, I’m staying away from her. It’s because Glinda had that authentic power. She knew who she was. And so the wicked witch was like, I’m not going near her because she didn’t have that vulnerability. So what narcissists look for are people who have like that opening that there’s that vulnerability.

[00:02:08] Rebecca Zung: Is it energetic? 

[00:02:09] Mark Divine: Is it a behavior? 

[00:02:10] Rebecca Zung: Well, it’s energetic. It’s really energetic, actually, because they know. They can sense they’re going to be able to control that person in some way, whether it’s going to be the person’s going to do something for them. They can manipulate them in some way that they can get them to do things for them, that they can get them to buy their story, provide services for them, you know, whatever it is.

[00:02:39] Rebecca Zung: They look for that kind of wounded person who’s going to give them what they want or feel guilty or feel that there’s a, that opening for them. 

[00:02:53] Mark Divine: In some of my prep, I noticed that you kind of started down this path because of a narcissistic business partner. Now, tell us about that situation. Like how did that come about?

[00:03:05] Mark Divine: You know, what was your blind spot? Well, how did that, you know, you end up in a partnership. And describe some of the stuff that went on that was unsatisfactory. 

[00:03:14] Rebecca Zung: Yeah, I mean, I will say it actually kind of even started. I mean, that was one. But in a way, it’s been a long time coming for me. Because, you know, my mom was an alcoholic and I grew up kind of super fast.

[00:03:29] Rebecca Zung: Right? And I think what happens when you have to grow up fast, Is you, you become a pleaser in a lot of ways in your personal relationships. And so, while I was a very strong advocate as a lawyer, in my personal relationships, I was a lot of a, a pleaser. It was like, Don’t leave me. It was like kind of a bonding sort of a thing.

[00:03:54] Rebecca Zung: Like I have to do this in order to prove my value. And in order to prove my value, I will go above and beyond because the way my value is proven is. Look how hard I work. Look how good I am. Look how much of a perfectionist I can, you know, all of the things, right. Which is probably why I became a lawyer.

[00:04:16] Rebecca Zung: What all, you know, my dad’s a doctor and Chinese. So he’s like Chinese and German, you know, so like I’ve been so conditioned to prove my value in so many ways. And so that, that kind of sets me up to be a good lawyer. Target for a narcissist in a lot of ways, because narcissists look for people who are going to do things for them and make them look good.

[00:04:41] Rebecca Zung: And so I was bullied as a kid, which is another thing. And I think that what happened for me was I ended up in a situation where. I didn’t really want to be in the situation, but I kind of went along with it because I, I didn’t want to say anything and I didn’t speak up. Okay. Well, all right. And, and then as I was deeper into it, you know, the person was like, Oh, I have stuff going on with my family or I have this or that.

[00:05:15] Rebecca Zung: And, and so I found myself going along to get along, which I think is, Very common with empathic people, right? Cause they don’t want to speak up. They don’t want to be the bad guy. They don’t want to be the one who, who, you know, is, Oh, this person has a lot going on with their family. I, well, I have a big heart, so I don’t want to make the, I don’t want to make waves.

[00:05:38] Rebecca Zung: I don’t, okay. You know, I don’t want to be the bad guy. And especially if it’s a covert narcissist, which I didn’t even know that Yeah. 

[00:05:47] Mark Divine: Tell us more about that, by the way. 

[00:05:49] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. So a covert narcissist. So before I got into this situation and I, and I can tell you, I practiced law for a long time and that the word narcissist just became a buzzword, you know, in the last several years, that word wasn’t around.

[00:06:04] Rebecca Zung: And so for me, a narcissist was a male, uh, Misogynistic, bragging, kind of big ego, big ego, the demanding type. You know, that’s what I thought a narcissist was. I didn’t think a narcissist was a female kind of passive aggressive. Everybody else thinks the person is so nice. So kind giving. It could be a male who’s also like that, but what a covert narcissist is, is everybody else thinks this person is so kind, so wonderful, and they only reserve it for the person that you’re dealing with.

[00:06:46] Rebecca Zung: Let me just 

[00:06:46] Mark Divine: describe my brother in law. 

[00:06:48] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. And everybody else thinks 

[00:06:50] Mark Divine: everybody thinks they’re just awesome guys. So amazing. 

[00:06:53] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. And, and then you’re the only one who sees this underside, this underbelly of them. And I call them the pro grabbers, like what me, I would never, what are you talking about?

[00:07:07] Rebecca Zung: And so, you know, it’s this inadvertent email that you just got left off of. Then. And. Oh, I thought you were on that email chain. How come you didn’t end up at that meeting? Everybody else was on or the of course, I’m going to finish this business plan and then it never gets done. And then you just end up doing it for them.

[00:07:31] Rebecca Zung: And then they take credit for it. Um, you know, those kinds of things. And you just end up with your stomach and knots and you feel sick to your stomach and, and, you know, Uh, you’re awake at night, you can’t sleep, you end up with skin conditions and all of the things because everybody else thinks, Oh my gosh, aren’t you so lucky to have this person in your life?

[00:07:54] Rebecca Zung: They’re so kind. And you’re going, Oh yeah, 

[00:07:57] Mark Divine: yeah. You know what I noticed with the, the narcissist that I let in my front gate? is, and this is one of the big tells for me, is they always put me on a pedestal, right? There’s only one way to go when you’re put on a pedestal, right? And that’s down. And they’re the ones that are going to pull the chair out, or pull the pedestal out from under you.

[00:08:19] Mark Divine: So be very careful if someone is overly fawning, overly, like, you are amazing, you know, you’re the best thing ever, you’re, I’ve learned so much from you, I got that one quite a bit, you know, and I want to learn everything from you. I’m gonna suck your brain. I’m like, okay. No, I don’t think I want my brain sucked anymore.

[00:08:36] Rebecca Zung: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:08:37] Mark Divine: No, thank you. And everyone who’s come into my business like that has stolen from me. Like stolen clients, stolen, entire business lines, stolen my integrity. 

[00:08:47] Rebecca Zung: Well, that was another thing. It was like, oh, I didn’t know how to put the money into the business bank account. So I had to put it in my personal account, but I’ll transfer it over later.

[00:09:02] Rebecca Zung: That was another one that I heard. 

[00:09:07] Mark Divine: That’s amazing. /

[00:09:07] 

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[00:11:05] Mark Divine: Hooyah. Let’s do this. Devine out.

[00:11:13] Mark Divine: That is delicious. You had, you had some experiences based upon your, you know, obviously, it happened because of your blind spots growing up with your mom’s trauma and her unresolved narcissistic tendencies. I had a similar situation. That’s why I was very kind of curious. And I’m sure people listening are going like, yeah, I mean, that’s me too.

[00:11:33] Mark Divine: So I want to avoid that. This down the road, because it’s pretty painful when you get sucked in one of these relationships, or if you have to deal with someone, even, you know, even if you can’t get them out of your life, right? Let’s say it’s a close relation family member. You still need to protect yourself.

[00:11:49] Mark Divine: So, how did you, like, what were the steps that you took to begin to learn how to deal with narcissists or what you call high conflict personalities? I love that by the way. That’s 

[00:11:58] Rebecca Zung: cool. So, the first thing was I, I didn’t even know this person was a narcissist. I mean, I started studying it deeply. I feel like my whole life has been a confluence of events to get me to this point because I was already.

[00:12:12] Rebecca Zung: A, an expert on negotiation. I, you know, written a book. Robert Shapiro wrote the foreword for that. I was already the keynote speaker at the American Bar Association on the subject of negotiation. So, you know, I would definitely say it was already a, an expert on negotiation. I started deeply studying narcissism and I was starting to apply it to my trials, to my court cases.

[00:12:41] Rebecca Zung: And all of a sudden I started seeing movement in these personalities and I thought, wow, okay, I’m definitely onto something here. And at the same time, I was studying the YouTube algorithm and starting to study digital courses and, and then COVID hit. And I did one video on how to negotiate with a narcissist and that totally blew up and all of a sudden I, you know, here I am with tens of millions of views on YouTube and that’s how I ended up doing what I’m doing now.

[00:13:20] Rebecca Zung: But I really sort of fell into this niche, if you will, because I just really started deeply studying it. And figuring out how to apply what I was learning to what I already knew. And I just feel like I was sort of chosen by the creator to, to be doing this work. I, I honestly feel like I was tapped to do this.

[00:13:51] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. 

[00:13:51] Mark Divine: Yeah. I think that’s, that’s neat. You know, you’re in flow and you’re doing the right thing when, when these things come together and they just click like that and then boom. That’s awesome. You know, one video to have that response is extraordinary. You obviously hit a vein, and it makes me wonder, like, how big is this issue?

[00:14:07] Mark Divine: It’s probably much, much bigger than anyone really imagines. 

[00:14:11] Rebecca Zung: It’s huge. I mean, I’ve really started tapping into it even so much deeper now because I’m starting to do corporate programs and all sorts of things, and I know, you know, it’s 15 percent of the population as far as the DSM 5 goes, as far as, you know personality disorders that lack empathy.

[00:14:30] Rebecca Zung: But then if you add in high conflict personalities, that’s another 10 percent of the population. And yes, there may be some overlap, but not completely. And I just really think that’s a low number because I mean, personality, it’s a continuum 

[00:14:43] Mark Divine: too, right? 

[00:14:44] Rebecca Zung: Total continuum. And there’s a spectrum and people aren’t going in to get tested for it.

[00:14:50] Rebecca Zung: I mean, so there’s that company spent 360 billion on high conflict personalities. I think last year, managers are spending up to 42 percent of their day dealing with high conflict individuals now, so it’s definitely an epidemic. 

[00:15:08] Mark Divine: I remember, you know, I was in the SEALs, you probably know that from your prep, but um, I think the military is a bastion of narcissists.

[00:15:17] Mark Divine: And borderline personality types because it attracts people who have traumatic childhoods because it’s safe, it’s structured, it’s rigid, you know, you get told what to do every day, you don’t have to, you know, the decisions really come around the mission, but you don’t have to make too many good life decisions when you’re in the military, your career is kind of laid out for you.

[00:15:37] Mark Divine: And I imagine like big bureaucratic corporate entities are similar, right? They’re attractive to narcissists. Yeah. Would you agree? 

[00:15:46] Rebecca Zung: Narcissists are going to go after anything of any one of value. So I always say to people who, because they, it’s, it seems so counterintuitive because they’re devaluing people all the time, but narcissists don’t attach themselves to you because you have so little value.

[00:16:01] Rebecca Zung: They attach themselves to you because you have so much. 

[00:16:05] Mark Divine: And before I get into kind of like your process for negotiation and what you call slay, which is pretty cool. I still want to understand, like if, if I’m. If I’m listening to this and I’m, I’m kind of new, right, and I haven’t gone to like open AI chat GPT and ask it about narcissists and how to identify a narcissist, like what are some of the big tells?

[00:16:27] Mark Divine: What should I be careful for? What words should I look out for? What feelings, right? Also, like what, what should I be looking out for that says, okay, pay attention, red light, red light, here’s a narcissist. 

[00:16:41] Rebecca Zung: First of all, they’re too good to be true. It’s a person that’s just too good to be true. You know, everything is just lining up perfectly because they use mirror neurons to become the exact perfect person for you.

[00:16:57] Mark Divine: What’s a mirror neuron? Where they’re trying to mirror your energy and your words. Interesting. Yeah, just try to sync up so they can manipulate you. 

[00:17:06] Rebecca Zung: Exactly. Yeah, they’re very, very good at reading people. That is one of their survival mechanisms. So they’ve been able to read people from the beginning. And so they know exactly how to be what you want.

[00:17:20] Rebecca Zung: And so they’re very good at manipulating at the beginning to be, you want. Exactly what you want. And so, I mean, if you like, you know, ginger ice cream, I love a ginger ice cream. Oh, I love place. Oh, I love place. Oh my God. I love that. That obscure rock band. That’s the, my favorite too. Everything you like, they like, and it’s just this soulmate that you’ve been.

[00:17:44] Rebecca Zung: Where have you been all my life? And, and they want to get to that next level as soon as possible. And, and this is in business or personal as well, by the way. And so I found this in the business relationship. It’s, they promise things that are just out there and it’s, let’s sign that contract, let’s get married in Vegas.

[00:18:04] Rebecca Zung: Let’s move in together. Let’s meet the family. Let’s it’s. 

[00:18:08] Mark Divine: Like, whoa, slow down. 

[00:18:10] Rebecca Zung: And you’re saying slow down and a normal person would be like, yeah, okay, sure. We’ll take it at your pace or whatever. But a narcissist is like. Why wait? Why should we wait? We’ve waited way too long. Let’s move. Let’s move. Let’s move.

[00:18:27] Rebecca Zung: They don’t want you to think. So they’re moving. They want to move. They want to lock you in as fast as possible. You can’t breathe in this relationship at the beginning. 

[00:18:39] Mark Divine: Is there any secret passage, phrase, decoder, ring, thing you narcissist that’s going to Well, 

[00:18:50] Rebecca Zung: I mean, they usually don’t have good relationships with pretty much anybody in their past.

[00:18:57] Mark Divine: There you go. Give me your references. How about that? 

[00:19:01] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. I mean, they don’t have very many friends. They don’t have good relationships with any of their exes. Everybody’s terrible, awful, stupid. It’s always 

[00:19:11] Mark Divine: everyone else’s fault. 

[00:19:12] Rebecca Zung: Yes. 

[00:19:13] Mark Divine: Yeah. Um, you found that there’s a lot of narcissists that you’re across the courtroom from.

[00:19:20] Mark Divine: And so let’s get into how do you negotiate with these people? Like how do you come out in a win if you find yourself in a conflict with someone? 

[00:19:27] Rebecca Zung: Well, there’s a couple of things I, I think to lay the, what I call the prefatory that I think is important to kind of understand about narcissists before we even go there.

[00:19:37] Rebecca Zung: And that is the trauma piece of it and who you’re dealing with. And that is. Because I think it’s so important for people to understand this piece of it. And that is that they were Formed as a result of trauma and childhood. And what I mean by that is that all of us, when we are in stress mode, our brains emit chemicals, which are hormones, which are adrenaline and cortisol.

[00:20:09] Rebecca Zung: And cortisol is extremely toxic to our body, as we all know. And cortisol, when we’re. Dealing with that as children can actually cause damage to the limbic system part of the brain. It can actually cause a restive development to the limbic system part of the brain. And so what happens is, as they get older, as children grow up, there’s a lag in development between the limbic system part of the brain and the neocortex part of the brain, the thinking judgment part of the brain.

[00:20:45] Rebecca Zung: And so when they are adults and they are now presented with situations that cause them to be triggered, such as they’re slighted, or they feel like they’re going to experience a loss of control, or they’re going to be exposed for some reason. That causes the limbic system, part of their brain, to now take back over, take over, and it actually literally shuts the neoplasm down.

[00:21:14] Rebecca Zung: cortex, part of their brain down. And now you are just dealing with that part of their brain and in layman’s 

[00:21:22] Mark Divine: terms, it shuts down reasoning and it’s just all conditioned emotion reaction. 

[00:21:28] Rebecca Zung: Correct. And it could be rage that you’re dealing with at that point, but you’re certainly not dealing with anybody who’s rational at that point.

[00:21:38] Rebecca Zung: And so what happens is literally memory is affected. And something happens then called narcissistic blindness, and they’re literally unaware of the collateral damage that they can cause to others and even to themselves during this period of time. And certainly during what we call the discard phase, which can be brought on by themselves or the other person, they can’t think in anything other than terms of.

[00:22:13] Rebecca Zung: Black and white, you’re either for them or against them. That’s the only way they think. They turn on a dime. So if you’re not for me, then you’re against me. And so during that discard phase, that’s when the smear campaign, all of that comes in. And so now you’re my enemy. Now you’re against me. So now you’re only dealing with this emotional center part of the brain.

[00:22:40] Rebecca Zung: And the scary thing is that. That you now are dealing with this person who will actually self sabotage to take you down. And so you cannot communicate or negotiate with a person who is, has a cluster B or a narcissistic personality disorder in the same way that you can with a rational or reasonable person, you just can’t.

[00:23:10] Rebecca Zung: So that’s why I really like to lay that foundation. Yeah. For a number of reasons. One is that if you can look at it that way and understand, then First of all, you can start to take yourself out of the equation as far as taking it all personally and go, Oh my gosh, why doesn’t this person see all the things that I did for them and how good I was to them?

[00:23:40] Rebecca Zung: And why can’t I get closure? And why don’t they acknowledge me? And all the things, because I certainly dealt with all of that myself, you know. But they just, they literally don’t see it. I mean, it’s, it’s gone that this is shut down over here. You got to stop that because you’re going to be decimated if you.

[00:24:06] Rebecca Zung: Continue that hope in that line, especially if you’re trying to negotiate something, even if it’s not a litigation, even if it’s just a, a family situation or, you know, something at work or whatever it is, you have to take yourself out of it and you have to start looking at it as if you’re a third party observer and understand that this is a person almost as if you’re dealing with a person who’s on the spectrum or something.

[00:24:36] Rebecca Zung: The brain is just literally different. 

[00:24:39] /

[00:24:39] Mark Divine: Where do we start? How do you get out of the situation and be able to look at it as a, as an objective observer instead of being completely Objective observer. So 

[00:32:01] Rebecca Zung: the first thing, you know, I say put a invisible shield down around you and say step one, don’t run, you know, just start observing, don’t absorb.

[00:32:11] Mark Divine: That’s fascinating. And generally, you know, I mean, what you’re describing sounds very familiar to me, yet a lot of these people are very successful. 

[00:32:20] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. Respond, don’t react. And I like to give people little things to do. I’m half Chinese, right? So I always say, I always wear jade, but never jade. Never justify, argue, defend, or explain.

[00:32:37] Rebecca Zung: Because you’ve never seen a narcissist go, Oh my God, you’ve totally convinced me. Thank you. Thank you. I really see the light now. I see your side. That’s never happened in the history of narcissists ever. So don’t waste your breath. So that’s the first thing for yourself. Justify, 

[00:32:57] Mark Divine: argue, defend, and what was the E?

[00:32:58] Mark Divine: Explain. Explain. Yeah. I’ve heard those through Al Anon before. That, that’s classic. Okay. 

[00:33:05] Rebecca Zung: Don’t, don’t bother. So that’s, you know, just for your own sake and your own sanity, just start there. But for S. L. A. Y., the way you have to think of it is approaching it from. The only thing that motivates a narcissist is something called narcissistic supply.

[00:33:24] Rebecca Zung: And supply is what feeds them. It’s their, it’s their food. It’s their lifeblood. It’s their oxygen. It’s feeding that ego, right? And so S stands for strategy. What is it that you want? What’s your vision? Where do you want to go? Visioning where you want to go. And then creating that vision. And then L is leverage.

[00:33:47] Rebecca Zung: What is the motivation for a narcissist? Okay. So diamond level supply versus coal level supply. So diamond level supply is reputation. That is a one for a narcissist or high conflict personality, how they look through the world. They will protect and defend that at any cost, at any cost. The myth. Is that narcissists just want to win.

[00:34:15] Rebecca Zung: That is not true. They also love the game of manipulating. They love the moving the goalposts. They love the, the enjoyment of seeing you squirm. There’s the sadistic part of it. 

[00:34:32] Mark Divine: Right, 

[00:34:32] Rebecca Zung: right. But they actually love the game of manipulating you and the sadistic piece of it. So what you have to do is. Create leverage such that you are threatening a source of supply.

[00:34:46] Rebecca Zung: That’s actually more important for them to protect or defend than the supply that they get from manipulating you. So that is threatening that diamond level supply, that reputation piece. So whenever I’m coaching somebody, which I teach people like. Okay, what’s the diamond level supply? What’s that reputation piece?

[00:35:09] Rebecca Zung: Because that’s how you build your leverage and you build your leverage through your text messages, through your emails, through your witnesses, through all of that, because they’re always lying. They’re always inconsistencies. There’s always bad behavior. There’s always things that you can do to threaten that source of supply.

[00:35:31] Rebecca Zung: And that’s what you do. And then. A is anticipate. Anticipate the type of narcissists you’re dealing with, whether it’s covert, grandiose, or malignant. And then there’s a toolkit that I give people, which is, Dozens and dozens of ways to deal with them. And then why is the you and that’s your mindset, your authentic mindset, knowing that you have the power, knowing that you have the way to deal with them and staying on the offensive.

[00:36:03] Rebecca Zung: And that’s my favorite part, which is. The Glinda, the Glinda the Good Witch. Go away from here. You have no power here. 

[00:36:12] Mark Divine: Yeah, I mean it sounds to me like you have to fight, right? Like that’s, that’s the uncomfortable part for a lot of people. It’s like, I don’t want to fight. But you can’t just oftentimes tell a narcissist just to go away, and you’re just gonna go away.

[00:36:26] Rebecca Zung: You’re never gonna go away. You have 

[00:36:27] Mark Divine: to fight fire with fire, and that can be really uncomfortable for people. That’s probably why it’s very helpful to have a coach, you know, who can walk you through the process. Or hold your hand, you know. 

[00:36:37] Rebecca Zung: Yeah, so I mean, I’ve trained hundreds of coaches now in my certification program.

[00:36:42] Rebecca Zung: I tell them it’s really about conflict resolution because You know, most people say, yeah, I don’t want to fight. And I’m like, okay, well, if you don’t want to fight, you have to create leverage when you’re dealing with a narcissist, because otherwise you’re going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars into this and way down the road, you know, or, you know, a boat without oars, you know, because they’re going to come after you, unfortunately.

[00:37:09] Mark Divine: Do you see most of this in, like, romantic relationships, marriages that fall apart because of this, or business relationships? Oh, both. Both? 

[00:37:18] Rebecca Zung: Probate litigation, a lot of that, defamation. I mean, I saw a situation, I wrote about it in my book, where this woman who was amazing, she was with like a Fortune 50 company, she was a CFO, and she was promised a position as a CEO with a company, and she got there, and The, there was no job for her, but they gave her the money.

[00:37:47] Rebecca Zung: It was in Asia. I should, they gave her the money and they gave her an office, but they just didn’t give her the position. 

[00:37:56] Mark Divine: That’s random. Yeah. I’d take the money and go work somewhere else. Okay. Thanks. I won’t be in my office today. 

[00:38:02] Rebecca Zung: Yeah, but they just didn’t give her the position and. Who’s like a total narcissist guy who was running the company.

[00:38:11] Rebecca Zung: And I mean, it was awful situation, you know? I mean, there’s narcissists everywhere. They’re literally everywhere. 

[00:38:19] Mark Divine: So your book, Slay the Bully, How to Negotiate with a Narcissist and Win, again, I want to go back to this, like, so prevention is the best medicine, right? How do we prevent getting in bed, so to speak, with a narcissist?

[00:38:36] Rebecca Zung: Yeah, if you can see the signs early on, I mean, I’m so much better at it now. I’m so much better at it now. I mean, and I just, I defend my light with my life. And I just. You know, I’m so much better at just saying, people are so concerned about being nice. Right. And I have decided, like, I, I know that I’m a good person and, and just knowing deep down that you’re a good person and you can also have boundaries.

[00:39:07] Mark Divine: Yeah. And it’s okay to say no. I’m practicing no’s. I had a coach who said, go collect no’s. So, you know, collect a thousand no’s before you say yes to anybody again, right? That’s a good one, right? Narcissists, you know, growing up in that narcissistic borderline, those, those type of trauma environments. You know, you’re afraid to say no.

[00:39:27] Rebecca Zung: You’re just so worried. You’re conditioned to always say yes. You’re so worried about how you’re going to look, or if people aren’t going to like you, or if people are going to be mad at you, or if you feel guilty, or all the things, and because of all your own trauma and all the things. I’ve really been okay with I’m a good person, and I can have boundaries.

[00:39:55] Rebecca Zung: And those two things can exist in the same world, but you know, nice got me run over and a doormat and sleepless nights and feeling like crap about myself and all the things that I don’t like. I don’t know if I really like the term nice anymore. Yeah, 

[00:40:18] Mark Divine: it’s, it’s kind of a broken term. You can be assertive.

[00:40:22] Mark Divine: And, like you said, you can have boundaries, you can say no, and you’re still a nice person. The narcissists might not call you nice, but that’s their problem. This idea of boundaries is really important. A really, another really good tell that you’re about ready to get in bed with a narcissist, business wise or otherwise, is when you try to set what you think is a reasonable boundary.

[00:40:44] Mark Divine: And they get all bent out of shape. If that’s happening to you, then run away or press the pause button. 

[00:40:53] Rebecca Zung: And that’s when you go, Oh, okay. I don’t need this person in my life. And that’s okay. I always say, wish them well, but over there. 

[00:41:01] Mark Divine: Distance, right? 

[00:41:03] Rebecca Zung: You know, it’s okay. I have wonderful people in my life. I have amazing friends and amazing family and a lot of love.

[00:41:12] Rebecca Zung: And the good people. Will continue to be in your life. And I always say, stop trying to make not your people, your people. Some people are not your people, 

[00:41:25] Mark Divine: right? 

[00:41:26] Rebecca Zung: Not everybody’s going to be your people. 

[00:41:28] Mark Divine: It’s true. That in fact, I think the simpler we can keep it, the more happiness and peace we’re going to have the fewer commitments, the fewer entanglements, the, the fewer high quality people in our lives.

[00:41:42] Mark Divine: It’s going to lead to a lot more, you know, just mental freedom. And, you know, I’m trying to disentangle myself from a lot of business stuff. These days, you know, it’s, it’s difficult, but you know, business organizational stuff has a long tail. If you’re the entrepreneur slash owner of creator, you know, and you, and you tend, you know, I know a lot of entrepreneurs are in a similar boat, because if you start something that has a lot of potential and it’s exciting.

[00:42:08] Mark Divine: Then you’re like a, you know, moth to the flame for the narcissist, right? 

[00:42:13] Rebecca Zung: Totally. Yeah. Well, they attached themselves to value as I said Yeah, 

[00:42:19] Mark Divine: your books lay the bully anything else about it that you think listeners would be interested in? Um, you know, need to know, uh, from our conversation that we missed.

[00:42:27] Rebecca Zung: It’s just, I always say that narcissists are way more afraid of you than you are of them. They’re actually very, very, very fearful people, very fear based people. And the more strength that you gain, the more authentically powerful you are, and the more you stand in your authentic power. The more you will start to see them back down, you, you really start to understand this when you start to understand like heart coherence.

[00:43:00] Rebecca Zung: And that’s the thing. And so, and you know, your heart is actually five seconds ahead of your brain. And so more that you really understand that. And you start to actually influence that. The room and you, and you can even do this over zoom too, but the, the more that they sense that you’re no longer afraid of them, the more that they will actually start to back down and back away from you again, it’s kind of how we started to open up this conversation.

[00:43:30] Rebecca Zung: That you can start to influence the power of the room and people will think what you tell them to think. They absolutely will. You and you alone define your value and narcissists are absolutely more afraid of you than you are of them. 

[00:43:47] Mark Divine: That’s fascinating. Sounds like, you know, to reclaim your power, it’s going to take some practice.

[00:43:53] Mark Divine: So do you have videos or, you know, how do you, besides hiring a coach, like I can see hiring a coach if you are in a conflict and you need help to get out of it or through it. If I just wanted to like develop the confidence to be able to project my power to, you know, to set the boundaries to. You know, to not be a doormat for the next narcissist who rolls into my life.

[00:44:15] Mark Divine: How do I learn those skills? 

[00:44:17] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. So, I mean, I have my S. L. A. Y. program, of course, which is slayyournegotiation. com, but I, I mean, I have phrases for disarming narcissists, which people can get at disarmthenarc. com. That’s a really great place to 

[00:44:31] Mark Divine: start. Disarmthenarc. com. 

[00:44:33] Rebecca Zung: Yeah. I mean, phrases for disarming narcissists is a great place to start.

[00:44:37] Rebecca Zung: I mean, I would say the very first thing to do is just Just start with, I’m not going to be in conversation with somebody who’s going to be disrespectful to me. It doesn’t matter who you are. If it’s your mom, your boss, your sister, your brother, who doesn’t matter. I mean, whoever it is, if you’re a human being on this planet, you are entitled to be respected.

[00:45:00] Rebecca Zung: And so you put that invisible shield down around you. And you just start to look at them as if they’re a two year old having a tantrum on the floor and you can just start using phrases like, you know, I can see that you’re upset. We can have this conversation later. And I don’t care what they say to you.

[00:45:18] Rebecca Zung: They can say, you know, you’re an a hole or whatever. You can just say, Thank you for the feedback. I know. Whatever. I appreciate 

[00:45:26] Mark Divine: that. 

[00:45:26] Rebecca Zung: You don’t have to, like, you just let it go into the air. You don’t have to take that on. That’s their stuff. You can just say, I agree with you that that’s your opinion. I agree that that’s what you think.

[00:45:41] Rebecca Zung: I hear you. I understand that that’s what you think. You don’t have to Get into it with them. You know, I teach people how to have tone. Like instead of going up in tone and louder, you just go lower in tone, lower in tone. And, and when you speak with them, speak, don’t use absolutes, always, never, because the more you do that, they seize on things, they’re looking for things to seize on, right?

[00:46:07] Rebecca Zung: So if you say always, like if you want to say they’re late, you know, say you’re late 87 percent of the time or whatever, because I know it’s a lot, but whatever, you have to be very specific because they’re going to look for things to seize on. So never use. Like curse words or whatever, because that’s all you just use your bad word, whatever you called me a name.

[00:46:28] Rebecca Zung: Don’t don’t call them a name because they’re always looking for things to. on. So, you know, I teach people how to interact with them in, in certain ways so that you’re always going to be able to focus with them. And I mean, there’s a very specific way to do that. to be able to interact with them so that you can get things accomplished and get what you want accomplished so that you’re not constantly triggered.

[00:46:58] Rebecca Zung: But I mean, those are just a few things, but you, the bottom line is you want to protect your energy, protect your peace, protect your boundaries, and just know that no matter who it is, no matter who you are. What the conversation is, you are entitled to respect period. 

[00:47:17] Mark Divine: That’s terrific. And I know that that type of communication training is so valuable.

[00:47:21] Mark Divine: We’ve done some in the past with some of our clients, but it is something that just should be taught in school. You know, like how do you teach assertive communication is so important, you know, because, you know, most communication runs the gamut from passive to passive aggressive to aggressive. And you’re going to find all of those in the narcissistic personality disorders.

[00:47:40] Mark Divine: But assertiveness, it takes some skillful means, right? If you don’t grow up with that communications now. 

[00:47:45] Rebecca Zung: Totally, totally, totally. So important. So important. I mean, I it’s helped me tremendously, tremendously. Hey 

[00:47:55] Mark Divine: everyone. This is Mark Divine, founder of Seal Fit and Unbeatable Mind. And I’m super stoked to announce that my new book, Uncommon, is due out from St.

[00:48:05] Mark Divine: Martin’s Press, next week. This summer, July 16th, and we’ve launched a pre order campaign. You can learn more about that at readuncommon. com to try to get early awareness for the book, which I hope will help a lot of people where I go and do a deep dive on the five mountains. Of personal mastery physical mental emotional intuitional and spiritual uncommon simple principles for an extraordinary life Check it out at read uncommon.

[00:48:31] Mark Divine: com And thank you for your support and being part of the change you want to see in this world. Hooyah Divine out. Well, thank you so much for the work you’re doing. RebeccaZung. TV. That’s, that’s the YouTube channel. I would love to find that video that blew up that you’ve created in 2020. 

[00:48:48] Rebecca Zung: Oh, that was How to Make a Narcissist Panic.

[00:48:50] Rebecca Zung: I went from zero to 100, 000 subscribers in 10 

[00:48:54] Mark Divine: months. Get out of here. That is amazing. Yeah. I gotta figure out how to do that. I need my gotcha video. And then you’ve got winmynegotiation. com. You referenced another site earlier. Oh yeah, 

[00:49:09] Rebecca Zung: well winmynegotiation. com is my free Crush My Negotiation prep playbook.

[00:49:13] Rebecca Zung: But Disarm The Narc gets you free phrases. I’ve got all kinds of freebies, yeah, 

[00:49:19] Mark Divine: for 

[00:49:19] Rebecca Zung: people. And where do people 

[00:49:21] Mark Divine: find your S. L. A. Y. program? Is that the winmynegotiation. com? 

[00:49:23] Rebecca Zung: Oh no, that’s slayyournegotiation. com. That’s slayyournegotiation. 

[00:49:26] Mark Divine: com. Okay. You got a lot going on there, Rebecca. 

[00:49:28] Rebecca Zung: I know so many . My certification, well, you know, if you go to my website, rebecca zung.com, there’s a lot of things there.

[00:49:36] Rebecca Zung: Got it. But yeah, my Instagram is at Rebecca Zung. Okay. 

[00:49:40] Mark Divine: So awesome. Well, great conversation. Really, really interesting. Very helpful for me so I can slay the the narcissist. Slay the narcs in my life. . 

[00:49:49] Rebecca Zung: That’s right. Keep them away. Yep. 

[00:49:51] Mark Divine: Got the light shield up already. 

[00:49:53] Rebecca Zung: All 

[00:49:54] Mark Divine: right. Appreciate your time. And really nice to meet you and go keep slaying.

[00:49:58] Mark Divine: All right.