AskMenOver30

Consider how narcissists are far more likely to end up as high paid lawyers, surgeons, and CEOs.

It's not that they are fundamentally better at their job, it's that their mentality makes them believe they are suited for the position, and that self belief accelerates their attainment of these positions.

Non-narcissists can tap into that power by willfully lying to themselves.

This has been the domain of self-help gurus for as long as there have been self-help gurus.

That being said, the trick is to know you're lying to yourself and believe the lie anyway, and most people fail on one side or the other of that.

But if you can believe it, like telling yourself that you are worthy of a promotion, even though Johnson two cubicles down has far more paper diplomas or degrees or something than you do, then you'll act as if you honestly do deserve it over Johnson, and so, therefore, there's a chance that that will actually influence the outcome of a better job. whether you get the promotion or not.

It's not a guaranteed thing to work, but the thing is, is that narcissists don't have an off switch. They don't pick and choose when to be narcissistic. They are always narcissistic.

Which means that they roll the dice by believing that they are worth a particular thing far more often than a person who attempts to earn the position by raw talent and skill.

When I was young, I had a friend who believed that if you had infinite self-confidence and continuously approached women with the desire to get them to go out on a date with you, that no matter what, you would always succeed.

You might get turned down 999 times, but one in a thousand pretty much no matter how bad you look, or whatever else is wrong with you, you will succeed.

Believing in yourself is the same way. You might fail 999 times and then succeed the one time, but the people that don't believe in themselves above their actual abilities will never try the thing a thousand times, And so they'll never succeed, or at least won't succeed at the same rate as the person who doesn't deserve it as much as they do.