3 embarrassing moments that changed my life

Shaan Puri (0:00)

All right, today, I'm going to talk about some embarrassing stories that happened to me. These are three moments where I felt that sting of embarrassment, but something changed in me because it was so painful. As they say, sometimes the wound becomes the door.

I think in every social situation, I am fundamentally, at some level, just actively trying to avoid embarrassment. Probably even more than trying to avoid pain and death, because I don't even think about those, but I definitely think about ways I could be embarrassed. And yet, embarrassment seems to find me, and it finds me somewhat often. And there is an upside to the embarrassment. After the sting wears off and the pain is gone, there is usually some sort of learning, some sort of growth, some sort of benefit. But even knowing that, I don't go look for embarrassment. I still actively try to avoid it. So the first story, I recently sold a company and made more money than I've ever made in my life. And with that gain comes the obnoxious problems that nobody wants to hear about, where you're just sort of like, I don't know what to do anymore. And so I hired this coach, this sort of like life direction coach. And he has me take a personality test at the beginning. And he tells me, his personality test is gonna be kind of weird. It's not like a normal one. But he's like, don't worry, just answer all the questions. So I'm answering all these questions. Some are about work, some are about personal life, some are about relationships. I answer all these questions. I thought it was pretty straightforward, pretty easy. And I tried to answer them as honestly as possible. A few weeks later, he says, you wanna see the results of that test? Yeah, absolutely. He pulls up this slide, like there's like all these categories and I have low scores on all these categories. And there's one score where I'm off the charts and I squint and I lean in to Zoom to see what it is. And it just says narcissism.

I had, no joke, 110 on the scale. It was over 100 on the narcissistic personality tendency score. And as a narcissist, I was like, that's right.

I win. And so I'm like, what is this? And he's like, yeah, so you scored very high on this thing. Is this guy calling me an asshole and like arrogant and narcissistic? And am I? Wait, I kind of am. What does that mean? And so my head is swirling. I'm not even listening to him for the next five minutes. I'm just, again, thinking about myself and proving his point. And I actually learned something pretty valuable about myself. And I'll share with you the lesson. Probably most of you won't score 110 or 115 on the narcissism scale, but maybe some of this might apply to you.

So the thing about this trait is it's not a judgment or an insult, but it is something to be aware of.

Okay. So he was like, people who have this trait, what it means is that they feel like they are special and their life and their life is going to be special and that the norms of the world, the averages, the rules of the world don't fully apply to them. Sound familiar? I was like, yes, actually, I remember filling that in on the test. Absolutely. And I've always taken great pride in that, of not wanting to be ordinary, of wanting to be extraordinary, of wanting to have a special life, of feeling like, great, you can tell me all the averages. Those don't apply to me. I'm the outlier.

And he goes, that's served you, hasn't it? I say, yeah. Well, what's served you can also screw you. The dose makes the poison. If you believe that to be true, then you're not going to accept that you shouldn't go start a business. 90% of businesses fail.

Well, I'm special. I'll be different. And it'll get you to go take action. But the thing about it, why it's called narcissism, instead of just self-confidence or self-belief, is you don't know what it is that's special about you. There's a vague sense that there's something special, that something is going to happen to you, but you don't have any specificity on it. And because you don't really know it and really understand it and really understand the specifics of it, it's fuzzy. And when it's fuzzy, you go searching for validation in other places.

Meaning you want others to see you as special because it validates that thing inside you that you felt was special about you. So you might be more active on social media, creating content or public speaking. And I'm like, well, yep, yep, check, check, check. Definitely have oriented my entire life around that. That sounds correct. There's a danger in that and seeking that validation of your specialness from others, because you'll get a high, high when you get it, but you'll get a lower than normal low when you just lack it. Not even somebody says something bad about you, but you don't feel seen as special.