Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World (9 page)
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Authors: Phil McGraw
The “Bad Guys”/“BAITER” Secret Playbook
“Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.”
—Dale Carnegie
If BAITERs lead such dysfunctional lives, how do they manage to succeed? How can they take advantage of the rest of us with such apparent ease? How does that scheming home-wrecker steal your husband? How does that con man swindle you out of your money? Why does that brown-nosing, sycophant suck-up, backstabber get the promotion you deserve? How do they get next to you, worm their way into your confidence, gain information, and then use it to betray you? How does the abusive husband get his wife to stay with him despite his cruel and demeaning treatment of her? How
do
molesters find and get close to vulnerable families and children?
In the previous chapter, you learned how to identify a BAITER (Backstabbers, Abusers, Imposters, Takers, Exploiters, Reckless) and how to do a “life scan” and a “situation scan” to determine potential threats in your life and the lives of your loved ones. You discovered how to spot those in your life who are potential threats by “grading their paper” against the “Evil Eight” identifiers.
1. Do they see the world through a lens of arrogant entitlement and frequently treat people as targets?
2. Do they lack empathy?
3. Are they incapable of feeling remorse/guilt and fail to learn from situation to situation?
4. Are they irresponsible and self-destructive, and do they disregard the well-being of others?
5. Do they thrive on drama and crisis?
6. Do they brag about outsmarting other people?
7. Do they have a pattern of short-term relationships?
8. Do they live in a fantasy world, marked by delusion?
In addition to learning to “listen” to your instincts, you are now equipped with “BAITER Radar,” sensitized to these identifiers that make these dangerous people much easier to detect in your life before they can sink their fangs into you. Simply by doing some homework, either you can gather enough history to “out” them or you can make important attributions about and to them, based on observations of behaviors that you are now trained to recognize in real time.
Even though you’re now armed with a checklist, you must guard against being in denial or being lulled to sleep. I have spoken about an “urgent awareness” because it is beyond likely that these BAITERs are already in your life right now, maybe as close as the person sitting next to you on your couch. Remember, in the new “Life Code” that I am proposing, giving the “benefit of the doubt” is an outdated, obsolete, and naïve concept that can be extremely dangerous. Once again, I am
not
asking you to become cynical or highhandedly judgmental. But I
am
asking you to attend to factual, observable information to determine the required level of self-protection, which can range from paying extra-close attention to someone all the way to lacing up your running shoes and heading for the hills (or anywhere, as long as it’s far away from the toxic and dangerous individual).
And, by the way, subtlety in these endeavors is not always your friend. Sometimes you will encounter people who are “on the bubble” as to whether they are going to exploit you. You don’t want to tempt someone by projecting yourself as such an inattentive, easy target that they just can’t help take the shot. There is a reason that banks, stores, and casinos have “uniformed” security officers who watch not just the customers but also the employees. An overt show of force, an obvious layer of security, will deter a large percentage of potential bad guys.
My dad used to say, “You put a fox in the hen house, and he will have chicken for dinner every single night.” He was right, and so am I when I tell you that if you don’t watch the people in your life as they deal with your money, your family, your reputation, or even your mate, you are at a much higher risk of being exploited than if you maintain an
obvious
level of vigilance. In short, watch the people in your life, and let them know they are being watched. This is not about being paranoid; it is about being vigilant and urgently aware.
And the less you know about those you are watching, the closer you need to watch. Is this a sad state of affairs? Maybe, but it is what it is, and pretending it isn’t only makes it worse.
So, now you know that you need to spot them, and you have the tools to do so. But, now you need to do more than just spot them; I want you to understand
how
they think and
how
they take advantage of you and your loved ones. It’s time to get inside their heads to unlock and master their secret “playbook.” This is the playbook that jumped off my office wall after looking at all the BAITERs in my life and slapped me right in the face—bam! I already knew that they lied, cheated, and stole. What I hadn’t articulated to myself or anyone else is
how
they actually did it and got away with it.
In the BAITERs I’m describing, we’re talking about a breed of exploiter that can be complex and multilayered, so I want you to learn their specific tricks, tools, and tactics. You’ve got to not only see them but know how to neutralize them so they will decide they are better off moving on. They do that because, all of a sudden, you’re just way too much trouble to put one over on. You need to understand their playbook—their strategic plan, their tactical manual. I get that poking around “inside their head,” while very interesting, can be very unsettling.
As a clinical psychologist, a courtroom consultant, an author of books on human behavior, and the host of the show focused on human functioning, I’ve spent decades dealing with BAITERs and their victims, and I know as well as anyone what’s involved in truly becoming familiar with these people. To predict their behavior, you have to see the world through their eyes and let your mind take a walk on the dark side. You need to have the same dialogue they have with themselves. You have to be able to switch gears and think like
they
do.
So, let’s open up the BAITERs’ secret “playbook.” And let me be very clear about why. Think about this analogy: A father has a precious daughter who has reached her teenage years and is ready to start dating. Now Dad, having himself once been a hairy-legged teenage boy fueled by pure testosterone, has some insight into how these young men think. So, he wants to be his daughter’s “friend at the factory” and tell her all of the tricks and traps that a horny, young teenage boy may use to, well…get next to her.
To predict their behavior, you have to see the world through their eyes and let your mind take a walk on the dark side.
If Dad tells her every “pick-up line” and every strategy or angle a boy is likely to use to compromise her, she is way ahead of the game. If Dad tells her that a boy is likely to say, for example, “If you loved me, you would,” and then some dude, in fact, uses that lame line, bells are going to go off like crazy in her head. She’ll be thinking, “Wow, this guy is as predictable as an old plow horse! He better come at me with more game than that, because I’ve got his playbook.” But if nobody ever bothered to sit her down and let her know what they’re going to come at her with, she would be much more vulnerable than she is once her dad briefs her.
The same is true for you. This is
our
“sit-down,” and I want to tell you what the BAITERs are going to come at you with. My hope is that, like the father’s daughter, when it happens to you—and it will—you will say, “Wow, this is exactly what Dr. Phil and I talked about. They’re doing exactly what he said they would. They’re going to need a lot more game than that to get to me, because I have an urgent awareness and I value myself too much to be used and exploited.” Dad was trying to keep them out of his innocent daughter’s pants. I’m trying to keep them out of your pockets, your home, and maybe your pants too!
So, here are what I call the “Nefarious 15.” They are the 15 most nefarious “tactics,” behaviors, or strategies BAITERs will use to “get to you,” hurt you, and take what is yours.
I’m going to start you off with a challenge here because sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between someone who genuinely is a friend and has an interest in you and your life and someone who is trying to ingratiate and enmesh himself into your life with an ulterior motive. If, for example, we’re talking about child molesters, who are certainly a subset of BAITERs, they are masters at “grooming” not only their child victim, but the victim’s family. I once dealt with a tragically perfect example. Karen, a single mother in her late 20s, had a 9-year-old boy who, for the purposes of this book, I will call Jeffrey. Karen worked two jobs in an effort to provide for herself and her son. She was extremely anguished over the fact that she didn’t have more time to spend with Jeffrey and that he had no male role model in his life. The hours between his dismissal from school and her arrival home at about 7 p.m. were a particular challenge.
Her neighbor, Don, was a 40-something man who lived across the street. Don was
supposedly
divorced with no children and was eager to volunteer to do things with Jeffrey. After some time of “building a relationship” with Karen and Jeffrey (actually grooming them), he told her it was crazy for her to be paying a babysitter for those after-school hours (he identified the “need”) because he got home from work about the time Jeffrey would arrive from school. “Let me help out here. I think the world of Jeffrey, and I’m happy to look after him, take him to the park, drive him to baseball practice, or whatever he might be interested in. I’m happy to do it, and it would save you money, give him a male role model, let you take a deep breath, and not worry so much about him being okay. I want to—it would be a gift to me” (and there’s the “solution”).
Of course, as you can imagine, such a kind offer, which fit so well into what was needed, seemed to Karen like an answer to a prayer. It was several months later that Jeffrey began to show signs of withdrawing. He became uncharacteristically sullen and moody. He began to come up with excuses not to see Don. To make a long story short, Don had infiltrated his way into their lives by building a relationship. He “understood” Karen and her challenges, he empathized with her as a mother, and he wanted to “help.” He identified a
need
and then provided a
solution
. This gave him access, and he began grooming Jeffrey. First he expressed an interest in what Jeffrey was into (music, sports), and then it was horse-play, wrestling, tickling, and playing. Then it was porn movies just playing in the background, and then it escalated to the unthinkable, and this innocent boy was serially molested and ultimately raped. This sick, perverted BAITER came at mother and son with a mask of sincerity and an offer to help. He didn’t snatch him off the street; he got himself invited into their lives and home.
In this example of terrible perversion, the BAITER’s target is an innocent child, but even more often, the target is you and your money, reputation, job, spouse, or social position. Whether the BAITER’s personal poison is perversion or greed, he (or she) must be identified and defended against when he attempts to work his way into your world. The BAITER grooms you just like they do a child, which is why you must lose your childlike trust in favor of making data-based attributions to the people in your world.
In addition to recognizing
needs
and weaknesses and providing seeming
solutions
, another infiltration tactic is the BAITERs’ use of flattery. These people are basically “con artists.” They instill confidence by appealing to your ego and your innate need for approval. You’re going to shake your head over what I am about to tell you, but this is a powerful insight not many people have because it isn’t talked about much. Research has shown a very strong connection between who we choose to believe/trust and the level of acceptance we feel from that person. Here’s the deal (part of which is obvious and part of which is not): We tend to believe people who we like. And here’s the key part: We tend to like those who like us. So, by extension, if someone wants to gain your trust and be believed by you, one of their most powerful tools is to make you feel liked by them. So, by further extension, if someone is trying to get you to buy into their agenda, they can advance their cause and gain more and more access and information, all just by “loving you up!” They will flatter you, laugh at your jokes, agree with your positions, support your efforts, and on and on, right up until they strike.
They instill confidence by appealing to your ego and your innate need for approval.
In Hollywood, I am especially attuned to this because it seems to be the “capital city” for flattery and insincere declarations by dysfunctional sycophants looking to get ahead. There are some good, warm, and genuine people in what has now become my world, but we do appear to have more than our share of BAITERs. And Hollywood certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on this sick system of self-destruction because you’ll find it in the NBA and the NFL and anywhere there is a hierarchy. If all you are ever hearing is what you want to hear, be afraid. Be very afraid.
When someone tells you your outfit looks nice or your haircut is flattering, it’s sometimes hard to know whether they’re being sincere. But you will develop “measuring sticks” that work for you by listening to your instincts. For example, I’m always cautious of people who enthusiastically say, “Oh, you are sooo funny!” or “That is sooo funny!” but without actually laughing. If it was sooo funny, why aren’t they sooo laughing? And if they’re not sincere, if they are “working you,” it behooves you to figure out why. Trust me; they aren’t putting all that energy into you for no reason. They are setting you up for something, and whatever it is, it won’t be a gift to you.
