Secret Service Agent: Never Label Someone A Narcissist! This Habit Makes People Hate Talking To You!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ex-Secret Service interrogator DESMOND O’NEILL reveals the 4-step formula for difficult conversations, how to decode narcissism, the secret to communication and real connection - AND debunks the biggest myths about interrogation! Desmond O’Neill is a former special agent for the US Secret Service with over 30 years of experience in negotiation and interrogation. He has worked for the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) training and conducting research on interrogation, and is a co-instructor for the online platform ‘Beyond Bulletproof’, covering influence, communication, and confidence. He explains: ◼️Why you should never label someone a narcissist ◼️The No.1 habit silently ruining your communication ◼️Why “me me me” syndrome is sabotaging your relationships ◼️How gaslighting really works, and how to shut it down fast ◼️Why your brain lies to you when emotions take over 00:00 Intro 04:48 What Are Your Experiences? 06:23 Experience With Violent Interrogation 08:34 How Do I Have a Difficult Conversation? 09:58 How to Spot When Someone Is Gaslighting You 11:19 PLAN Framework 14:58 The Hardest Conversations You've Had to Navigate 19:40 If They Do This, They're Lying 21:52 Be a Better Listener 24:08 Controlling Comes From Listening, Not Talking 24:33 Asking Questions 28:38 Obvious Body Language to Look Out For 31:28 Finding Resolution With People 33:38 What if They Start Insulting You 35:31 How to Keep Your Emotions in Check 37:07 How to Stay in Control 40:11 Me Me Me Syndrome 43:06 Ads 44:08 How to Get Someone to Open Up 46:30 The Difference Between Manipulation and Influence 48:49 Influencing People 51:27 How to Build Trust 55:03 How Do You Get Trust Back? 55:27 How to Be a Great Leader 56:36 Making Decisions 1:01:02 Own Your Decisions 1:05:29 Ads 1:07:39 Building Rapport 1:11:47 Main Takeaways 1:13:33 Don't Tell People You Understand 1:17:14 What Decision Do You Most Regret? You can learn more about ‘Beyond Bulletproof’, here: https://bit.ly/43SKyMW The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Adobe - https://Adobe.Ly/OneBetter Rubrik: To learn more, head to https://rubrik.com Function Health: https://Functionhealth.com/DOAC to sign up for $365 a year. One dollar a day for your health.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've ever worked in a startup, you already know it's chaos. It's speed and it is survival.
0:04.9	And now with AI accelerating everything, that speed has only increased. Startups are landing enterprise
0:09.5	deals even earlier than before, but what comes with those deals is regulatory requirements,
0:14.9	something a lot of early stage businesses aren't equipped to handle. And a SOC too, if you know what
0:19.6	that means, isn't always enough.
0:21.8	When having the right kind of security is the difference between making a deal or breaking a deal,
0:26.8	you need to have a plan in place. Vanta, who are a sponsor of this podcast, have an AI and
0:31.1	automation system that makes it easier to meet buyer expectations in just days. And they continuously
0:36.4	monitor your compliance so any future
0:38.2	deals are never blocked. With AI changing regulations, their team knows exactly what's needed
0:43.1	and when it's needed. And they've built the fastest and easiest path to get you there.
0:47.5	If you're running a startup in this appeals, you can visit vanta.com slash diary and get a thousand
0:52.7	dollars off. That's vanta.com slash diary for $1,000 off.
0:56.9	And the bigger win, your peace of mind.
1:00.1	I've got a difficult conversation I want to have with someone.
1:02.3	Yeah. And they might be a narcissist.
1:03.8	So let's stop there. Because if you just blatantly label somebody as being a narcissist,
1:08.0	you're not going to be able to really understand who this person is and why they are the way they are. But when you need to go into a dark conversation, to make things simple, there are four things that you can do. Because we all have those conversations. We have a supervisor who we feel is overlooking us in a promotion, maybe our spouse we got in a fight with, be a friend who's betrayed us. And they're cloaked in so much emotion or so much tension
1:27.8	that you don't know how to handle that.
1:29.4	But there's also three things that you should stop doing, such as stop telling people
1:33.4	you understand.
1:34.3	Telling them you understand.
	...

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