There are people in this world who look to take advantage of others, whether they are classified as narcissistic, sociopathic, compulsive, or pathological liars. These individuals operate differently from most people, making them even more dangerous because they don’t stand out in obvious ways.
In this article, you’ll learn how to detect some of these types, using Elizabeth Holmes as our primary example. Holmes managed to raise nearly $1 billion for her company, Theranos, which promised to conduct full blood scans with just a few drops of blood from a finger. This, of course, would have revolutionized the medical industry if it had been real.
Behind the scenes, however, Holmes and her boyfriend, Sunny, were hiding the fact that these tests never worked. They defrauded investors and misled over a million people who expected accurate readings from the Theranos tests, which was impossible. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Holmes is not unique. The NIH reports that 6.2% of the U.S. population has narcissistic personality disorder, and Dr. Paul Ekman estimates that no more than 5% of people are pathological liars. That’s potentially 1 in 20 people.
In this article, we’ll explore how you can detect these dangerous personalities before they take advantage of you, since you’re likely to encounter some of them in your life. I’m not trying to label them exactly, but they often exhibit behaviors consistent with narcissistic personality disorder.
A significant motivator for these personalities is having the world view them in a way that strokes their ego. They are hyper-focused on maintaining the personas they’ve constructed, so be cautious of people who have an intense focus on their image. For example, Elizabeth Holmes wanted to be the female Steve Jobs. She wore black turtlenecks, copied his live demo style, and hired many ex-Apple employees at the start of her company. Of course, lots of people emulate their idols, but a key indicator of a dangerous personality is when they lie about seemingly ridiculous things to maintain their persona.
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