Free Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World by Phil McGraw

the power to make people react. They thrive on a good fight, a good scandal, a good drama.
    Most children learn the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness. They’re brought up by their parents to understand that it’s okay to assert their own rights, but it’s not okay to be aggressive and trample on other people’s rights.
    Drama and crisis are currency to them because they love the power to make people react. They thrive on a good fight, a good scandal, a good drama.
    BAITERs never learn these lessons. Instead, they start acting out when they can’t get their way. As I said, boys are cruel to animals, start fires, and get into fistfights. The BAITER girls start dressing provocatively, using foul language, and engaging in sexual promiscuity at an early age.
    They are often very angry and arrogant, which shows just below the surface. Over time, their lack of impulse control and inability to relate to other people as human beings keep landing them in hot water. They have a low tolerance for frustration, a low threshold for engaging in aggression, and poor impulse control. This leads them into frequent conflicts with authority figures (teachers, law enforcement, supervisors at work).
    But for every time BAITERs get caught, they get away with their behavior much more often. The worst of them may wind up in juvenile detention and then jail or prison, but most of them seem to stay one step ahead of disaster and often escape any serious accountability. That means they are living in your world and readily able to mess with you!
    But for every time BAITERs get caught, they get away with their behavior much more often.

#6: They brag about outsmarting other people.
    BAITERs are braggarts, and if you pay attention, they will show you who they are. They actually brag about doing something that you and any halfway moral person would regard as cheating. But to them, it’s not being dishonest—it’s just being smarter than, and one step ahead of, the other guy, some sucker who got what he deserved.
    “I was just smarter than he was. I mean, we had this deal, and we were partners. But I knew what I was doing, and he didn’t, so I wound up with all the assets while he got all the debt. Now he’s bankrupt, and I’m way ahead.”
    He’s bragging about screwing his partner over, but he doesn’t see it like that. As I said, with no insight, BAITERs never know how what they’re saying is playing in the room. They’re so narcissistic, they think everybody will see things from their point of view. They say things like, “That guy is so trusting, he’ll be easy pickings,” or “She’s so asleep at the switch, she’ll never even see me coming ’til I’m gone.” “You snooze, you lose.” The fact that you are aghast and can’t believe what you’re hearing is lost on them.

#7: They have a pattern of short-term relationships.
    They can’t sustain a relationship because they’re hollow inside. They have nothing to give—although they can give the illusion of giving, even over-giving, to make you feel indebted. It’s nothing but a way to aggrandize themselves, however. Eventually people get what they give, and BAITERs don’t give enough, or anything at all, so whatever relationships they begin can’t last. They are incapable of making authentic human connections. You won’t have to ask many questions to tease this out of them because their favorite topic is themselves. As long as you will listen, they will spew it out.

#8: They live in a fantasy world marked by delusion.
    When it comes to how they see themselves, BAITERs are nothing short of delusional. They may see themselves as victims or in some exalted status but always in a manner that justifies and motivates their self-serving agenda. They are like “method actors” who live the delusion as though it were reality. They can almost be so convinced of and immersed in the fantasy that they could “straight line” a polygraph. Amateur liars will, when