The More Successful You Are The Longer You'll Live! Will Storr

shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be Beyonce. The chances are they can't. Will Storr is an award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books. His ideas are disruptive, challenging, and life-changing. And some of them will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable. People don't like to talk about this stuff. 99% of self-help books never mention genes. They want to promote the idea of well, I can be who you want to be. But a huge amount of who we are is who we were born as. That myth of you have full control over yourself as a human being, that's the problem. It's not about embracing your flaws. It's about accepting your flaws. Our lives are full of status pursuit. The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets. That was true 10,000 years ago, it's true today. The brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order. The lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became. If you take two smokers, the one higher up is less likely to die of a smoking-related disease than the one lower down. That's mental. It matters massively. How do we advance in the status game? There are kind of three general types of status games that we can play. First game is the Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Will, first of all, thank you for being here. Um take me right back then to your early years, cuz I think when when I was reading through your different books here, throughout them you have glimpses of your own perspective, and it hints back to what I read about your your early years. Um so, take me back right back to the start, you know, before the age of let's say 12. Mhm. Okay, so yeah, um I was brought up in Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Um middle-class family, very Catholic. Um it was quite Victorian, um strict, superstitious, religious upbringing. Not the happiest upbringing, I have to say. Why? Um because my parents were very strict. My father was very strict, especially. Um and uh they were very much in the grip of their kind of Catholic belief system, which I just didn't never like always baffled me even as a kid. Like, what you know, can you believe this stuff? I don't want to a Catholic school. So, so and I was quite uh I I was probably a difficult If you were to ask them, they'd say I was a difficult child. Um because I was pushing against that all the time, you know, I thought it was crazy. I wasn't very good at authority and rules. So, it was a bad fit, I would say. Um and I think that's what's, you know, one of the things that that's kind of driven my interests into adulthood. My you know, my my my second book, The Heretics, was looking at why do otherwise smart people believe end up believing these crazy things? Cuz my parents are smart people, but um yeah, you know, they believed in heaven, hell, Satan, all of that stuff. I I think that's how my childhood has informed my interests as an adult, trying to figure out how how that happens. In your in your book Selfie, you you talk a lot about self-esteem Mhm. and the role that plays. What was your Give me the context of your how your self-esteem was shaped in those early years? Uh well, um how it was shaped in those early years, I guess it was poorly would be the answer. Um I think the you know, because my behavior was not great, the continual message I would get from teachers and parents was that you're you know, you're a bad person, you're going to end up in prison, you're going to end up in care. Um uh yeah, so so so so so there was very little kind of positive feedback in my in my childhood, which I think is that that causes damage that you're never going to get over, I believe. Do you think you you never get over that damage? Yes, because I think, you know, we're all born with a certain kind of personality, with a certain genome, and that that's not fate. That doesn't define who you're going to be forever. Um but but but it sets you on a certain course. It makes you vulnerable to a certain kind of mindset. Um and you know, it I think a good childhood, a good upbringing can you know, correct that to a certain degree, but a bad one can can set it on a sort of negative course. And I'm quite a neurotic person. I'm anxious. I I've always worried a lot. So, so when if you take that kind of natural personality type, high neuroticism, and add into that a childhood which kind of reinforces that sense that the world is dangerous, that people are out to get you, all of that stuff, that that that that that that reality isn't safe. I I I and then, you know, what happens is your brain is still being formed really up until you in your mid-20s. You know, that that it's in your mid-20s when when that that when that kind of learning process is um uh stop. And so, it's very hard and probably I would argue probably impossible to reverse 18 years of that kind of feedback once it's happened, because that's those are the years in which your brain is learning how the world works. And and so, yeah, so I I I don't think it's fixable. That that's one of the the ongoing um conversations or debates or things that I've kind of been chewing over from doing this podcast and and listening to to people from all walks of life that have achieved amazing things that still have um underlying trauma or sort of self stories that are controlling their their their life and their behavior. And I I I spent a long time talking to people about whether you can ever truly eradicate some of these traumas. They're like the puppet master that's in the back room controlling your your biases and all these things. And my conclusion over the last literally weeks has been that we can diminish the power that our early traumas have over us, but they're always going to be there. And is that is that where you find find yourself but in terms of your belief that we can diminish the power of those stories, but they'll always be there? Absolutely. That That's exactly right. That's what I believe. Exactly. Yeah, that we can definitely diminish their power. And you know, I'm 47 now, and it still amazes me that you still you never stop learning, and you never stop learning about yourself. You never stop learning about things you get wrong. And got to stop doing that, you know. It's overly simplistic to think of consciousness as this battle between reason and emotion. Um uh but but but there is something like that going on. Like, you know, our emotionality is usually in charge of what we're thinking and what we're doing, you know, we respond emotionally, and that voice in your head then tells a story about what you're feeling. And usually it's to justify that emotion. It's to say, yes, you were right to feel like that. You were right to respond in anger and hostility at that person. And then the next day you think, oh, maybe I wasn't. You know, so so um I think what we call what used to call reason, that reasonable voice in your head actually often isn't reasonable. It's just justifying and um validating your initial emotional response, which is, you know, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. So, so I think what you're doing when you're learning, for me anyway, is you're is you're learning actually what I mean, I mean, almost a parenting yourself to to turn that voice in your head into a someone that isn't going to be a harsh judge or uh on the other extreme, someone who's just going to accept and validate and defend everything every behavior you do, every thought you have, every mistake you make you make. You're looking for that that balance all the time. And then you're looking to spot I think you're looking to spot those occasions on which you're making the same mistake over and over again, you know. Have you got a harsh judge in your head? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I have. I I you know, I'm so I'm self-employed. I've been a I've been a writer for, you know, without an employer for 20 years. You you kind of I think you have to have a harsh judge to get yourself out of bed, to get yourself in front of the computer, to do 8 hours plus work a day. Um so so so I think to It's kind of weird. I think I think to achieve any anything significant, you've got to There's got to be a harsh harshness to I'm just trying to think whether judge is the right right word. Like, I read recently that the ideal parent is kind of firm, but also kind and caring and understanding. And I and I think that's what I think that's If that's the ideal parent, I would think it was really that that that that's that's the ideal of who we should be inside our own heads, really. You got to have that balance. Um and I think you can you can go you can go wrong in either direction. Your book Selfie. Yeah. Um what was the I mean, I love the name. It was very of the time in 2017 as well. Last year. Um what was the inspiration behind writing this book? Right. So, the book before that was called The Heretics, and The Heretics was, as I said before, it's going to be inspired by this idea of why do how do smart people end up believing crazy things? And so, that that book was all about when we have these stubborn beliefs that kind of that that are irrational, that we don't let go of. So, I was hanging out with Holocaust deniers. I was hanging out with creationists, UFO believers, people like this. Um and then in the promotion for that, I was asked again and again and again by people, so what makes people change their minds? You're saying that people can never change their minds. And I didn't have an answer to that question. I kind of have to bluff through it. So, I thought, that's, you know, I don't understand that. So, um maybe I should try and find out. So, I was a journalist at the time as a day job, and so I started interviewing lots of people who changed their minds, like in big dramatic kind of powerful ways. Um one of those guys, um, was this uh amazing psychologist called Professor Roy Baumeister. Um, he spent his kind of early professional career in the self-esteem era of the '80s, you know, when and this is the era I was brought up to, when everything was about self-esteem, when it was all about that the kind of message out there was, "If you want to be successful, just love yourself. You're amazing. You're fantastic. You can do anything that you want." You know, it was Whitney Houston, um, "The greatest love of all is yourself." It was it was that kind of era. And I remember it from school. I remember like, you know, the teacher saying to me, "The problem with you, Will, is you just have low self-esteem." And they used to call self-esteem a social vaccine. And if you if you loved yourself, it would mean that you would be more successful, you'd be happier, you'd have a better marriage, and you know, uh, in America they they thought that self-esteem was going to solve homelessness, um, the gang culture, um, teenage parenthood was a big moral panic of the time. They thought it was going to cure that. So, and he was like, "Well, is it true? Is this actually true?" And so, they looked into it and they found actually that there was no evidence that that any of this was true. That that every study that quoted it as being true just referenced another study. And he he he went on this breadcrumb trail of studies. They were all just quoting each other and there was no actual evidence that any of it was true. And they just they they actually tested to see whether that self-esteem myth was true or not. Um, and it wasn't um, it wasn't true. Um, it was it was originally based on this idea that they this this observation that, um, school children who did well in exams also had high self-esteem. So, they assumed that having high self-esteem made you good at exams. But actually, they had high self-esteem because they'd done good in their exams. It was it was the other way around. It's kind of it's obvious in retrospect, but that's what they you know, so that that was the error they made. Correlation causation, that old chestnut. Um, so so so he, um, published this study and the initial response was just, you know, it was absolutely torn to pieces. Um, it was either ignored or attacked. Um, but slowly he was proven to be right. And so, when I was I I I wrote a profile of Baumeister and, um, you know, he was a fascinating guy. Um, and then what what I realized was that this idea had, um, not just changed a person, but it changed the culture. Like, the whole culture of the West, Britain, America, Canada, and lots of Europe, when I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, it was obsessed with this idea and it's just was just wrong. It's completely wrong. So, that was the that's the heart of Selfie. It was this like this this idea of an inner How did selfie culture happen? How did we become so self-obsessed? And and the self-esteem movement is was a big part of that story and it's the kind of it's the it's the kind of central story of the book. Chapter zero. Yeah. Um, the dying self was a was quite difficult to read. Ah, okay. Yeah. I thought it was a very, um, you know, you explore topics like suicide and, um, your own sort of self-doubt and things like that and, um, your own suicidal ideation at times. Why did Why did you choose to start the book in that way? I suppose I wanted to start the book there to show, you know, why this matters. You know, where where I ended up with in the book was that this idea that we live that we are in the West individualists. Yeah, you know, we see the world as made up of individual pieces and parts and we are individually responsible for our fates. We are individually responsible for our success and our failure. And there's lots of good things to say about that, you know, it's it's an extremely motivating way of organizing your thoughts, organizing your life. Um, you know, I am responsible for me and and I will take care of me. Um, but it's also kind of savage, you know, and, um, it it it it means, you know, that that kind of Western myth we have is that, um, you know, that you can do anything that you want, just put your mind to it, you can achieve it. That that that kind of mindset. Um, but but very often we fail. And so, if it's true that you're responsible for your success, then it only logically follows that you're also, um, responsible for your failure. Um, and so, um, these individualistic ideas accelerated in the 1980s and that's because of a variety of things. It was the self-esteem movement partly, but the self-esteem movement became successful because we because of the Thatcher Reagan revolution is my argument, neoliberalism. That we changed the economies of the West. We changed the game. You know, before the 1980s we were much more collective. It was much more, um, you know, socialist even in America the top rate of tax was 90%. You know, it's it's extraordinary. Uh, um, so so but and and then the economy started going wrong in the '70s, so the neoliberal revolution happened and and the idea, the central idea that, you know, Reagan and Thatcher pursued was we're going to increase competition wherever we can. To reduce the social safety net, privatize everything. Just everyone's got to be competitive. And it changed who we are, you know, it it when you change the rules of the game of life, you change the people who play that game, which is what my latest book is about really. And so, we became more, um, competitive as a people. And and what's what psychologists find is a major study that found that since, um, the you know, the onset of neoliberalism, levels of perfectionism have increased massively in the UK, in America, and in Canada. Uh, and, um, perfectionism is implicated in suicidal ideation, in eating disorders, in steroid abuse, and, you know, and self-harm, and so on and so on and so on. So, so that's why I wanted to begin the book there really to show why this matters. You know, this this it isn't just a kind of abstract academic exploration of the self. You know, I wanted to begin with this is how it affects people. If perfectionism can be quite an insidious, um, issue in Western cultures where we're getting more individualistic, what is a better approach do you think to take for What is a better message to share with society in the world about, um, about that? Um, I I I think, you know, I like the idea of you know, I I I I think the idea that I kind of develop is in Selfie partly it's about self-acceptance rather than self-love. I think self-love, um, is that you know, I used to be a massive fan of Big Brother when Big Brother was on. And and there was always a thing in Big Brother where, um, somebody would behave completely obnoxiously. They'd be like rude, aggressive, just deeply unpleasant. And they they would always defend themselves in the same way. They'd go, "Well, I'm just being me. That's just me. And if you don't like me, you know." And and I think that's the that's the self-esteem movement talking. It's like I'm my I'm going to be my authentic self and if you can't handle that, that's on you. And I think that's wrong, you know, you know, we're a social animal. We've we we we have evolved to exist cooperatively. And I think when individualism, I think there's a lot to say in its defense, but when it goes too far, that's where it becomes it becomes that kind of screw you mindset. So, I think self-acceptance is different than self-love. Self-acceptance is I'm flawed, broken animal, uh, you know, as we all are. And, you know, a little like what we're talking about earlier on, it's about being that harsh but loving parent rather than that rather than being your own defense lawyer, you know, being being that kind of harsh but loving parent. And being accepted, you know, having this acceptance that you are a flawed and limited animal. Like, you know, you you shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be be Beyoncé if they want to be Beyoncé cuz the chances are they can't. She's like an extraordinarily talented and driven individual. She's the one in a billion, you know. So, uh, you know, so I think that's an unhealthy message to by which to raise our children and also, you know, talk to ourselves. It is much more about understanding our our strengths, our flaws, and kind of finding the right games to play, to find that that little corner of the world in which we can feel, um, of value. I think that's that's what we should be trying to do. Had your parents told you that you were Beyoncé and had those schools told you that you were Beyoncé, would you have been happier, do you think? Um, I mean, I was sometimes told that that I could succeed at school, but I just wasn't applying myself and it's such a waste. It's such a waste. Yeah. Um, but it's so weird, the school thing. I mean, I I have to say I think I went to a really bad school. Um, it was a comprehensive school. Um, you know, you hear these stories about teachers that inspire you and I wish it wasn't for this teacher. I never had that teacher. They were all just really bored and resentful. I remember going into class and there's one teacher who would just open his folder, "Where were we?" He'd he'd read from his folder for about 50 minutes and that would be the history lesson. You know, and that was the school I went to. It was miserable. And I and I'm I always wanted to be a writer. And I was always in trouble. I was always this sort of problem student. And I had this English teacher who was quite nice called Mr. Lanaway. And I thought, "Well, you know, I'm going to write start writing short stories in my spare time and I'm going to give them to my English teacher." It's just a way of getting like, "Look, you know, I've written this thing." And so, I gave him a couple and I think I gave him number three, you know, after written on a third weekend, thinking that I that he was In my head he was thinking, "Oh, Will's, you know, William has found this thing that he's actually applying himself to. How amazing." And he said to me, "You know, this is all just extra work for me, don't you?" Like that. He he kind of scolded me for giving him extra work to do. So, I stopped I stopped writing those, you know, short stories. And I just think if I if I if I'd have actually been encouraged to be I was never encouraged to be a writer by my school or, you know, I I wrote a school magazine and that that caused me all kinds of trouble as well. So, so so I was I never actually had any encouragement and I I I do kind of think if I was actually encouraged, um, to be a writer, I would have probably got there sooner and probably been a better writer today. On that point of Beyoncé though, it seems to me that if someone had turned around to you and said, "You you are Beyoncé and you can do anything. You could be an amazing writer." It seems to me that that that actually might have helped. Yes. Yeah. Yes, but but that's what I mean about identifying your strengths. Like I think for me writing was a strength, but nobody ever And and if that was identified And if somebody said to me, "God, you know, you should carry on writing these." Literally, if one person one adult said to me, "These short stories are you know, they show real promise. You should carry on writing these." It would have blown my mind. I would have got I would have definitely carried on. Um but I just stopped, you know, I just stopped. Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh so yeah, but that's what I mean is I I think the mistake is Um somebody you know, in the research for Selfie, this Harvard psychologist Brian Little said it's the myth of unlimited control. That myth of you can you can you know, you have full control over your yourself as a human being and that means that you can do anything. That's the problem, you know, that's the problem. Uh and but actually I think what what what you should do is identify what is this person passionate about, you know, and what are they actually what they actually good at. And if and if and if and if somebody saw or promising me as a journalist or a writer then that that's what they they should have encouraged me in, but it was actually just a battle. In um in the in the chapter the good self in that book chapter four, you talk about um the different forces that are controlling our behavior. Mhm. And uh it made me think I've you know, that I've also had this this ongoing thought about how control of of my life I over what the forces are that are actually controlling my life cuz we tend to believe obviously, as we would from this first-person view, that I'm making my decisions. But when I It sounds quite I don't care, I'm going to say it. When I reflect on the stories I've heard from men regarding their behavior before they've ejaculated and after they've ejaculated it is pretty it's And I actually said this in like podcast number four when no one was actually listening and it was just me and under the stairs in Manchester. I said the change that I saw in my behavior or how I felt before and after ejaculation is extreme. And I watched Rogan talk about this. He described it as being before ejaculation at the back of the bus and you're just being swung around the He said it's foggy, there's papers everywhere and then it and then it says post-ejaculation, it's like you zoom forward onto the wheel of the bus and go, "Oh, what was going on there?" Yeah. And you gain back control. Yeah. And just this um it for me that was one of the clearest signs that my decision-making as is not as intentional as I thought it was. Yeah. Um and you talk about that kind of thing a little bit in that chapter. You talk about a study where um men are asked um a variety of different questions while they're masturbating. Mhm. Can you can you share that study and also like what you learned from it about the way that we make our decisions? Well, I haven't that was I haven't read about that study for a good 5 years now, but I think it was something about they were asked a series of questions about um Were they asked a series of questions about what they were doing in certain Yeah, it's like their sexual preferences or something. Would you would you be attracted to an animal? Would you be That's it. Yeah. Quite disturbing. Yeah. And I I think before they'd masturbated their their answers were much more extreme in the direction of yes, I would have sex with an animal. Yes, I would pressure somebody into having sex than they would after um masturbation. And I think most men can can read that study and go you can relate a little bit to Not not that I'm saying that you know, most men would have sex with an animal, obviously. But but but how our how our um how our thinking is different. And and and you know, I I and and and I love studies like that because it I I feel like it You know, when we when we when we when we when we when we feel a different way, we do almost become a different person. Like I remember writing in Selfie about um you know, when I'm trying to lose weight again and on Monday morning, I'm absolutely resolute. It's like I'm going to keep my calories down. I'm going to exercise every day. I am a machine. I'm a stoic. I'm athletic. You know, that's who I am. But by Friday evening, I'm just like, "Ah, sorry, I'm going to go back. I I need to have some chips." You know, and it's like it's not just that you feel a different way. It's almost that you've become a different person, by which I mean you have a different personality. You're much more loose and happy and good to be around on Friday than you are on Monday if you're like that. Uh but you have a different value system. You On Monday, I value this set of things. I value discipline and order and structure. And on Friday evening, I value fun and laughter and pleasure. So it's it's it's so it's so it is that we almost you know, I think pre- and post-ejaculation, we almost become a different person. Monday Monday morning versus Friday night, we become different people. So I think that you know, we we we're so fluid in in who we are depending on how we're feeling. We don't want to be there. No, it's not how we think of ourselves. We think of ourselves as a yeah, certain kind of person. Yeah, with with this as a certain boxed-in set of values and behaviors. I think you know, there's probably somewhere above 50% of people listening that can relate to that Monday issue of you know, on Monday I am you know, a Greek god and I am disciplined and I am everything I'll become everything I want to be on by you know, by next week. Um and then something happens. How does I would be remiss if I didn't ask. What can you tell us about how to stop or how to maintain or be consistent as our Monday selves? Is there anything you've learned about the psychology there that might help us to be our Monday selves come Friday? So in in Selfie, I write about um how important it is to change our environment rather than try rather than change try and change ourself. Mhm. Uh I I I I I I I I I I and the kind of exact the the kind of story that I tell is I call it the the lizard and the iceberg where if you take a lizard from the desert and pop it on an iceberg, it's going to be a very unhappy lizard. If you put it back in the desert, it's going to be happy and thriving and wonderful and nothing has changed in the lizard. It's the environment that's changed. And I and I and I and I think part of being an individualist and is that we look into into ourselves, to our behavior to um explain the causes of our behavior. But actually, you know, so much of of of our behavior is controlled by what's going on around us by by our environment. You know, and the reason we feel you know, Friday on Friday is cuz cuz it's Friday and that has a cultural resonance. That is Friday night. Yeah, I think thank it's Friday and and we're on 5 days a week so we feel different. Um so so so I think a lot of it is about changing our environment. You know, there is a lot to say about you know, if you take yourself to the gym, you've changed your environment. Um if you um if you can check certainly with things like weight loss, I mean it's a lesson that I never seem to learn, but do not have that stuff in the house. Oh my god. It is guaranteed that you will eat it. Um you know, it's it's it's a drug uh and and so I so I so I think I I I I I think maintain your environment to maintain yourself. You know, I I I think that's that that's one of the one of the key takeaways that I've learned. How to stay alive in the age of perfectionism? How does one stay alive? One of the interesting things in that chapter was um you kind of debunk this idea that alcoholism for example, and a lot of these things that you know, that I've spoken to guests about on this podcast that they've suffered with um don't necessarily stem from having an unhappy childhood. Mhm. I've got a friend that you know, he's very public about the fact that he became an alcoholic and um I I guess I believed it was because of traumatic early events. I I tended to believe that that was the case, but you debunk that quite clearly. Um and and kind of assert that personality is the causal factor in in most of our predispositions. Yeah, I I think one of the things that I've that I've learned um well, that certainly that from research in that book was the was the incredible power of personality and the incredible power of the of the of our genes. Um it's really people don't like to talk about this stuff um because it it it it they they feel it's disempowering. So whenever you read a self-help book most of them, 99% of self-help books never mention genes because it's unhelpful. They want to promote that idea of 100% self-control. I can be whoever I want to be. Um but but but but but genes are so important. Uh as I said, it's not that they dictate who we are or you know, or um you're you're you're born with a kind of blueprint and that's all you're ever going to be. Um But but you are born with a certain kind of genome, you know, with a certain level of likely neuroticism openness to experience, extraversion, um agreeableness, you know, how how kind of happy or kind of angry or competitive you are and so on. And so you're born kind of with a certain prevailing wind and then your childhood experiences mostly um will um do the rest of that wiring up. So by the time you're in your in in your kind of 20s, you're kind of who you are. Like not 100% cuz still traumatic experiences can break you to pieces, you know, you're you know, lots of things can change, but you're kind of who you are. As I said, you know, people don't like that idea because it really goes against our individualist kind of credo of you can be Beyoncé if you want to be. But it is nevertheless true that that a huge amount of who we are is just how we were who who we were born as. You know, and I've got that addictive personality. I was an alcoholic. I haven't I I had to give up drinking when I was 26 cuz I'd lost control of how much I was drinking and I still struggle with kind of you know, sugar now. I I I've swapped booze for sugar is is my problematic behavior, which is much easier to manage. Um so so so I get it and and and but but but yeah, it's it's not it's I think part of the fact that we're these storytelling animals um I think since 70s, since it's probably this well, even the 60s, we've had this kind of therapy culture which wants to go archaeological digging in our pasts for the causes of our um all of our problems. And you know, I I think there's there is a certain amount of um truth to that stuff. Like I I'm sure our childhoods affect us. Um but but um there are we tend to blame everything on our childhoods, everything on our parents. I think alcoholism is one of those things that is mostly genetic. You know, you've either got that problem with addiction or you don't. Can it Can it Can it be accelerated by trauma though? Because you know, when I when I speak to psychologists, they often talk about it being a form of escapism in many ways and other drugs and you know, other self-medications being a form of like trying to escape pain or trauma. Definitely. Yeah, I think how how to think about it is that it's um you can have a vulnerability to it. Yeah. Um and that's the genetic component. Um and if something bad happens to you, then you're much more likely to kind of fall into that versus someone else who doesn't Yeah, versus who doesn't. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. On that point of storytelling, you mentioned storytelling there in our um in our narrative. Your your book in 2019 was about storytelling. I having worked in marketing was very compelled to to read this book for the probably, you know, we talked before we start recording that a lot of people will see a book about with the word storytelling on the front of it and think that they can use it from a marketing capacity or in business sense. What have you learnt about how people can tell great stories in the context of business and marketing? Yeah, well, so quite quite a lot. I teach a I I teach business storytelling Section 4, which is a American EdTech organization. So I So I do a course there on in the science of storytelling for business. Um and you know, we we are storytelling animals. We we we we think in story. We we you know, narrative is basically you know, how we experience ourselves and and life. And so as I say in that course, if you're not communicating with story as a marketer, you're not you're not communicating. You know, logic and facts and data and statistics, that's not the language of the brain. The language of the brain is a beginning, middle, and end, a character overcoming obstacles. I think a lot a lot of the stuff we've been talking about is important, especially that idea that people think with their feelings. You know, they it's feelings first, story second. The story justifies the feelings. And so if you want to tell persuasive stories, you need to first understand exactly who you're communicating with, and you need to understand how they feel about the world, how they feel about themselves, how they how they feel about um you know, justice and what their values are. And so that means understanding them kind of tribally. What what groups do they belong to? Who are their heroes? Who are their villains? What motivates them? What demotivates them? So So before you can sort of write the story, you need to figure out how they feel about the world. So a bad story then would be one that was cuz you know, I I thought about this a lot in my previous business was very successful in storytelling. So my first company, Social Chain, it's going to be a very big business, maybe a thousand employees worldwide. We were we started out as a as a marketing agency, never had a sales team. Because we we focused on telling stories. Those stories were told on social media and on stage by me. So when I would go up on stage and talk about our agency to try and win business from Apple or Coca-Cola, whoever it was, I would actually start by talking about my my relationship with my mother. Mhm. And that would be the first sentences out of my mouth when I walked on stage if there was a thousand people or 15,000 people there. It would be about my mother. And through that story about my mother and my and my upbringing and my battles and all those things, eventually you'd learn about our business and what we do and about the great work we do. But that was the preface of it and that meant we never needed a a sales team. I've always believed that if I'd walked on stage and started with a case study, Yes. I would have I would have I would have had to have a sales team at Social Chain knocking on doors. Definitely. And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make. When they pitch, when they when they speak on stage, when they post on social media, I think they have a they believe that the the listener wants big numbers and to hear how many views they got for their clients or for yeah. And it just doesn't seem to be consistent with reality. No, it's not. I mean, so what you're doing when you're going into about your mother is you're connecting emotionally. So people are you know, wanting they're on your side immediately and and you're making them feel good. You're making them feel things emotionally. The the kind of framework that I use for business storytelling is that is that is that you know, essentially people's brains process reality um in the same way. And that's the you know, so so they're the hero of their story. You're not the hero standing on the stage. The company that that that's selling to you isn't the hero. They're the hero of their own story. Um they are you know, they've got goals they're trying to pursue. We all have you know, that which are the plots of our lives. The audience. Yeah, the audience, the person you're selling to. And then there's a brilliant story analyst called Christopher Booker who wrote this amazing book called The Seven Basic Plots. And he writes about um archetypal characters in storytelling that he calls light figures. And so the light figure is the example he uses are the three ghosts in A Christmas Carol, the Charles Dickens Scrooge story. So Scrooge is the hero of that story, but the three ghosts come in to show him Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future. They help him get what he needs, which is to become a better, more selfless, more generous, more loving, giving person. So they So they they are going to they arrive in his story to kind of show him the way, to help him get what he needs. And so that that that that's what I argue, that's the appropriate position for most companies and organizations and leaders is not to be the hero because your audience feels like they're the hero. You're the light figure. You're there to help them get what they want. So when you go straight in with here's all my awards, here's what this person said about me, here's some statistics and stuff, you're not a light figure, you're presenting as the hero. What people really want to know is how can you help me get what I want? And and and that's that's the story that you have to tell. What kind of example can you give me to really make that make me understand that in a real practical sense? Is there a brand you've seen do this really well? Is there an example of a I I mean, I I my brain went to Nike for some reason. Yeah, yeah, well well, that's Nike's a really interesting example. So So obviously one of the things that Nike has done recently is it's um done that ad campaign around Colin Kaepernick, which is controversial, but did them I think I think they sold them up like 6% like after that that ad campaign. And that's a really good example of an organization who is um behaving as a light figure. So that Colin Kaepernick ad campaign has nothing to do with shoes. There's you know, what they're not doing is going, our shoes will make you run 8% faster. We've got these sprung soles. We've got these amazing laces that won't trip you up or whatever. You know, that they're stats-less. It's not in there. It's purely they're telling a story. They've figured out that their client base are mostly believing certain you know, this set of beliefs around the world. And and those those are goals, you know, people who you know, that the target audience that they're they're appealing to want to achieve this kind of racial social justice and that's important to them. So So what Nike are basically saying is you know, we are light figures in this story. We you know, we we are we we are on the side of the Colin Kaepernicks, of the people who are kneeling. You know, we believe that black lives matter. And and so they're presenting as a light figure. And And if you think about it rationally, it's kind of crazy. Like why would a shoe company have this political thing? But it's because of the storytelling, because because they're presenting as a light figure who who is engaged in the kind of you know, this particular mission the world. And you know, in in order to kind of to to to to to kind of join the mission, you you buy the Nike shoes. And And it worked. You know, it works really well. I mean, one of the archetypal examples that that I talk about that I love is there was an an ad that was broadcast, I think it was in the 60s by Volkswagen. And it was the first kind of modern ad advert. It was the first It was the first advert that you would look at and recognize as the kind of advertising that we do today. So before this Volkswagen ad, you know, all ads were just stats-lists. Here's this amazing, you know, tire and you know, this will get you naught to 60 in whatever. Um and then this Volkswagen did this amazing ad where it just it was black and white cuz it was still in the days of black and white. And they had it just showed this guy. It was all snowing, it's a big blizzard outside. And this guy gets in his car. He turns it's like it's like, you know, just before dawn. Turns on his ignition, drives his car through the blizzard blizzard blizzard blizzard. Opens his huge shed doors and then you hear this big engine start up and out drives his snowplow. And it's how does the guy who drives the snowplow get to the snowplow? And it's just Volkswagen. And that's a really simple, really effective story. And it's showing Volkswagen as this light figure. We are helping the hero achieve what he wants. And you know, I don't believe that the Volkswagen was particularly good at driving through blizzards. I don't believe that. And they certainly weren't making any factual claim in the sense that we are better than Land Rover and whatever whatever whatever doing this because of this stat. It was as simple as that. And it revolutionized marketing. It changed everything because they'd figured out that kind of light figure form of storytelling. And in that are they saying that the Volkswagen Volkswagen enables you to be the hero? That means the story is about And Nike is saying that the Nike shoe associated it Kaepernick enables you to be the social activist hero. Hero, exactly. Yeah. Kaepernick was. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. I'm just going to change a few things about my few of my companies, I think, based on that. Yeah, I think I think we I think in the course of business we all forget that emotion is the most important thing. I'm thinking about all the newsletters that my companies have been writing. I've got various companies and the newsletters they write and the videos we make and how and how sometimes we we think that facts and figures and information is what the viewer is looking for in their lives, but the most compelling way to draw them in to whatever we're doing, whether it's a newsletter or a tweet or whatever, is by putting emotion first and and really thinking about what the emotion of the the content is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And with the with the Nike example, I mean, we we live in uh since the global financial crisis, we live in heightened political times. And so so, you know, and and people are always tribal. And and And so, you know, one of the big things that that that that successful kind of persuaders do is is to make those tribal appeals. Um and, you know, sometimes it works with Colin Kaepernick, like with the Gillette razor campaign, it didn't work because you're kind of essentially attacking your target audience. Um uh so that was, you know, less successful. Um I think there was a terrible Pepsi ad with Kendall Jenner. about that. Where where where where where they were kind of basically Yeah, where where where it was just making this Well, it put a a super rich uh beautiful model, white woman, as the uh the hero against social injustice. And drinking a sugary drink is going to help Yeah, you know, so It's just all off, isn't it? Yeah. So so, I think organizations are sensing that partly how we can be a light figure these days is by is by is by presenting as people who are assisting in these the the these political goals that have become very important to people, especially young people. Um and some people are getting it right, some people are getting it wrong. There's a real science to it though, isn't there? Yeah. The more we've spoken, I've realized how how there is a a science to it when you understand the the roles and also the audience, the roles of the characters in your content or your piece, and also where the it's really about where the audience sees themselves, as you say. Yeah. And how they feel represented. As you probably know, Vodafone are one of our amazing sponsors on this podcast. If you're a small business owner listening right now, this tip is for you. The only constant in business, as you'll probably know if you run a business, is change. Your business, your team, and your company culture need to be designed to embrace and welcome change. When the world changes without you, change-resistant businesses and teams often get left behind. And that's why I've partnered with Vodafone Business and their V-Hub to help small businesses access the knowledge they need to embed that philosophy into their companies, a philosophy of change. The V-Hub has completely free resources, tips, insights, and expert one-on-one V-Hub digital advisors to chat with you so you can stay at the very forefront of change. Search V-Hub by Vodafone now. Your 2021 book, The Status Game. This is the book that when I was reading through all of my notes, I have by far the most amount of notes on because I maybe it's just, you know, the way I'm compelled to whatever, but it was really really fascinating and very felt very relevant. Status as a topic. Why why does status matter? And what is status for people that don't understand the word? Okay. So so so it matters massively. And and I and the reason I wanted to write that book is because people just don't really talk about it very much. Even though our lives are full of status pursuit, people just don't talk about it very much. Status or status, I wish I knew. Well, Americans say status, Brits tend to say status, but I guess it's both. Yeah, it's it's both. Um so so so I I think one of the one of the one of the one of the kind of reasons people kind of tend to not like this subject is that when I when I've sort of made the argument that we're all motivated by status pursuit, they kind of they think I'm saying we all want to be rich, we all want to be famous. And that's not what I'm saying at all. What what I'm saying is that we all want to feel of value. So we evolved as as these, you know, tribal animals, and to be successful in the tribe means two things. You've got to be good at connecting with other people. So so being accepted and and fomenting a sense of belongingness with other people. So that's belongingness, that's connection, that's not status, that's something else. But once we're in a group, in a tribe, we want to rise within it. We want to feel that we are of value to other people. And so back in the days when our brains were evolving in the in you know, when we were living in the in the tribes, um the more status that you earned, uh the more and better food you'd get, the safer your sleeping sites, the safer your children would be, the greater your access to your choice of mates. So I mean as we all know, survival and reproduction are the basic most fundamental um drives we have as living things, and status, when you rise in status, your chances of survival and reproduction just go up and up and up and up. So when you're in the tribes, the most you know, people would try and get status in the tribes. Um and and the more more status you got, the better everything else became. And so that was true 10,000 years ago, it's true today. That is still true today. The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets. So it's this huge um huge component of human behavior, but it's subconscious. So we don't like to think about it sometimes. We like to deny it even though we all love to feel of value and we are all very very sensitive to any indication that we that somebody considers us to be of lesser value. You know, you said at the start of that that when you introduced this topic, people will have kind of an allergic reaction because they're think they think you mean, and it goes back to what we were saying about your audience receiving that message in a bad way because of where it frames them. It frames them as being kind of narcissistic and self and selfish and, you know, and those are no nobody wants to admit that they they are selfish or they are, you know, they're concerned with status. They don't want to admit it. It's true. But nobody wants to say I'll say it. It's just the way that we are. But and then you you went on to say that, you know, people don't like to admit they want to be famous, but I tend to believe that a lot of people do want to be famous. And in that book you talk about children in particular when they're asked what they want to be when they're older. It's quite pretty alarming, right? Yeah. And that and that's I mean that's that's again an indicator of the rise in individualism that that's the the the more and more kids in the West since the '70s have been saying that we want to be rich, we want to be famous. But there are all kinds of status games that we can play, and I think I think the I I think the one of the important things to understand about status games is is is that the brain is so obsessed with status, it it assigns kind of status points to anything. So for so so for some people, for lots of people, the accrual of money, that's their status game. That's how they're measuring their status, how much money I've got. But for other people, for in it can be how simply I live, you know, I know someone who um he's a lovely guy, but he considers himself to be sort of not materialistic, and he's a very much in the wellness space. And he um tell you know, he was telling me last year that he's, you know, he takes his kids to their private school. But at the school gates, you know, he's got this beaten-up old car that he's had since he was a student, and he's got masking tape around the the the the the wing mirror, and he was sort of talking, "Oh, you know, all the other parents have got these big Mercedes and Audis and BMWs, but I've just got this thing." Um and and I think he he he was trying to express the fact that he just didn't care. He just didn't care about his his status. But for me, he he did care. That car was every bit as much of a status symbol for him as the, you know, the brand new Mercedes um four-wheel drives were for the other parents. It's just that he was playing a different status game. In his game, having a crap car is is a high status thing. The same as the aristocracy in Britain. So, you know, if you if you remember the British aristocracy, you'll look down your nose at people who have a brand new Japanese Lexus or whatever. They drive up beaten-up Land Rovers. And so so so so it all depends what game you're playing. Different different games um use different things to symbolize status. And and and so so that so that's how that game works. Lots of people play the fame game. Lots of people play the money game. Um other people don't. You know, if you if you were if you were hanging around with Gandhi in India, you wouldn't be playing the the money game. You you you you you you would have got more status for living the more simply your life became, the more status in that group you would earn. It's so true. I've played all those games in my life and still playing many of them. I'm not here to lie, so that's that's just what it is. Um and I I think really interestingly on that as well is um one of the status games I was playing when I was a little bit Well, I say insecure, but clearly I'm still insecure if if I'm still playing status games status games now. Um was how much designer stuff can I buy and champagne can I buy in nightclubs. I played that game between 18 and 24. And then when I actually got money, when I actually was successful, I actually saw Louis Vuitton as a lower status thing. So I just started wearing all black and got rid of all of my designer stuff because I now think that it's different game. Yeah. game I'm playing now. And so I don't now I have an allergic reaction to anything designer because to me Yeah, it's weird. I think it's low status. I think in my head it's low status. true. And and in the book I write about this the this hilarious study where they figured out because in in the in the luxury goods game, the bigger the logo, the lower the status. And they figured out that that that I forget the exact measurements, but a certain amount of um logo space, um you know, like half an inch, um, smaller meant, you know, $500 more on the on the price. And the most expensive designer stuff has a logo on the inside. There's no logo on the outside. And so as I and what that kind of speaks to is that again the whole world isn't one status game. There are kind of almost infinite status games. And people we're not particularly we're not that interested in what people outside our games think of think of us. It's much more about what people who play in the games with us think of us. And so, you know, in in my wife is the former editor of Elle magazine. So you know, so I you know, that fashion luxury world. Um, you know, people signal to each other. I will see a handbag and it will just be invisible to me what that handbag means, what the meaning of that handbag is. But the person the owner of that handbag won't give a first what I think about their handbag. They're interested in what what what you know, that woman over there who knows about that handbag knows. And they'll know by the quality of the stitching, by a tiny little detail on the corner of that bag that that is a really good bag. And that's what matters cuz that's that's the game. They're playing a game with that person. They're not playing the game with me, so they don't care what I think. It's so you know, I have this very unproven, um, thought that just came to mind when you were saying about the size of the logo, that when you're at the very when it comes to luxury goods, at the very bottom of the status uh ladder, you want the biggest logo possible. Yes. You want it you want it all over the car. And if you think about something like, you know, people, you know, where they are in that in that status thing, they will have they will wear a tracksuit of that logo. And then as you rise financially or in status, you the logos you say get smaller and then it disappears. So if you look at billionaires, they're not wearing Jeff Bezos is not wearing a Louis Vuitton tracksuit Amazon basic, yeah. It's all plain. With the billionaires, it's all very plain. They they have the yacht. They're playing that game. Yeah. Yeah, they do. How many feet is the yacht? But super interesting. Makes me wonder do do we actually really care about these things? Do we actually really, um, we I I spend we spend our lives telling ourselves that we want that Birkin bag. We we we really genuinely love the Lamborghini. But do we do we actually like the Lamborghini or we just do we just just like what it's signaling about us? Well, I don't want to over I don't want to over, um, kind of I must over promise the story. Like like I think there's a danger where you can say, well, a Lamborghini is 100% status. There's nothing else. I I think that's that's not quite fair on Lamborghini. They're amazing machines. And I've never driven a Lamborghini, but I'm sure it's a fantastic experience. You know, I you know, I've driven sports cars a couple of times and it's been amazing. So so it's not just status. Like it is it's incredible to have a Leica camera that take amazing photographs. So so so you are you are getting something extra for your money, but it's but but but mostly I think what you're getting is is status. That that's really mostly what you're getting. And it's worth it. I mean, I don't want to fall into that trap of being condescending to status. It is a fundamental human need that we feel our value. And, you know, if we're playing a high level status game with lots of Lamborghini owners, it's really really hard to feel a value in that group. So you've got to work really hard. So that's why a brand new Lamborghini for somebody playing that game will feel as good as a you know, as a dirt bike to somebody playing, you know, a game over there. Like one might cost multiples more than the other, but it will feel just as good because they're worried about they're only really concerned about what the other people in there their game are thinking. So so so so yeah, we we do care. And it's it's a good thing because it's that, you know, the book does talk a lot about the negatives of status pursuits, but it also talks a lot about the positives of status pursuits. I mean, civilization, technology that that's what you get, um, when people want to pursue status. When when somebody wants to become the best technologist, the best vaccine designer, the best, um, you know, the best charity. We want to save the most lives. That's humans at their best. And that's also status pursuit. But it's good. It's positive. What is the toxic downside of being addicted to status though? And and and my sub question to that is that is insecurity and sort of a lack of self-worth a predictor of being addicted to status games? Being human is a predictor of being addicted to status games. We're all addicted to status games. And Do you not think people that were bullied and that didn't and that were that were that were low status in childhood in some context are those that then seek status most as adults? Um, maybe, but again I again I I do think that personality comes a lot into play. Um, like anything, some people are more interested in status than other people. Like Elon Musk is obviously incredibly interested in his own relative status and that's a big driver for him. Um, Jeff Bezos, you know, Beyoncé, you know, these people, um, are are very highly attuned to the status game and that's what pushes them pushes them pushes them to work harder than I will ever work. Um, so I don't I don't necessarily think it's about, um, low self-worth. It might it's probably to do with, um, genetic things like extraversion, agreeableness, which is a personality, um, component. If you're low in agreeableness, you're competitive. It's that kind of type A personality. So so there's definitely a genetic component to it. Definitely. But there's also, you know, class comes into it. People on the lower socioeconomic groups have much less access to status games. So so you know, I think that's why you know, if you're a working if you're if you're if you're a poor guy raised in a housing estate in Stockwell and you're only the only available status games to you are Tesco's bakery and this gang over here, I know what I'm joining. You know, it's changed the way that I see some of those issues that you know, we are we are programmed to we are programmed to crave connection and status and we will find connection and status wherever we can. And so I I so I I think that explains you know, when people are running gangs, it's not cuz they're naughty. It's not cuz they're bad people. It's because they're just doing what they're designed to do when they're in an environment where there aren't many status games to play. There's just not a lot of options. It's interesting because when I I think I think of some of my friends that I that I believe in my own, you know, ill-informed observation are addicted to status the ones that are really addicted to status, the ones that are really pursuing it are actually pursuing it at the cost of connection. Mhm. And and what I mean by that is my my richest most successful friend that I have that lives in a massive mansion in the middle of nowhere because that's the place they could buy the biggest house and has all the sports cars is is also the loneliest. Yeah, that's that's a really good observation. I mean, status and connection, they're separate things. So we crave by, you know, nature both of them. You know, people are tend to be happier when they're more connected. But status is a separate thing. And I think that's right. I think that's absolutely correct. Some people's that people's dials are set. I I consider myself somebody who is relatively high in need for status, which is why I ended up writing books for a living. But I'm relatively low in need for connection. I don't really have much of a social life. I don't really want one. You know, I'm not bothered particularly. Um, so so you know, everybody's dials are set in different ways. Some people have relatively low need for status and they're relatively high need for connection and they're surrounded by friends and they're probably happier than I am. I'm sure they're happier than I am. Is there instances where we can be too consumed with status and that can cause us to have, um, adverse personal consequences? Um, yeah, I suppose Okay, so in the book I write that there are kind of three general types of status games that we can play. First game is a dominance game. And so the dominance game we share with animals. We've been playing dominance games for millions of years and they are what they sound like they are. They're about aggression, but also the threat of aggression, bullying, you know, that kind of thing. Whenever we force somebody else to attend to us in status, that's dominance. They're success games, which is I think the best of human nature, competence. So when you're when you're when you're thinking about how do we become a valued member of our tribe? Back in the days when our brains were evolving, we could be the best honey finder, the best storyteller, the best hunter, best finder of tubers. So that's how you're a value to your tribe, competence, for being good at something. There's also virtue. You know, we we can play virtue games. And so in the tribe, that means that you know the rules of the tribe, you enforce the rules of the tribe, you know the rituals, you believe in the spiritual stories. Um, so virtue isn't just about being selfless and kind and loving to the your tribe members, but it's also about being an enforcer. And I think, you know, there's no such thing as a pure game. That's the other thing to kind of point out. Like you can you can see, um, a boxing match as a dominance game. It's pretty clearly a dominance game. But it's also got a virtue element to it. There's some rules in boxing. You can't go and just go and kick them in the groin. You know, like there has to be some virtue in there too. So you call that a dominance virtue game. And I think the I think the worst games I I think the the games that are most destructive are what I call virtue dominance games. So a virtue dominance game is one in which I I'm raising status by enforcing rule by following rules and knowing the moral the moral rules. The dominance, uh, component is I'm going to force you to do it. So so you know, that's what you see on social media a lot. Those cancel culture mobs, people attacking each other for believing the wrong things. That's a virtue dominance game. At their very worst, a virtue dominance game, you know, in the the I write about the rise of the Nazis. I write about the find the final chapter which kind of brings the whole thing together is that the story of the rise of the communist in the Soviet Union from the perspective of status and you know, that that's also a virtue dominance game. They're not interested in competence in in success. They're interested in you're going to believe this and if you don't, we're going to punish you. Yeah, that's a lot of that going on at the moment. There's a lot of that going on at the moment and I and I think a lot of it is because you know, to try and try and be kind of open-hearted about it. I wrote about this in selfie and and I wrote in the status game is that since the global financial crisis, life has got harder especially for young people. Success get you know, like it's hard to get on the property ladder. People are leaving university with student debt. There's massive underemployment for graduates. We've got what they call elite overproduction. We're producing too many smart educated people for the roles to fit in. It's it's you know, we're now entering a new recession apparently. So so life is much harder for millennials and gen zeds than it was for boomers and gen x's. So success games are harder to play. So what you I think what you're seeing is online people people get status wherever they can. So they they start playing virtue games instead. One of the alarming things you talk about in this book is that status. Did I say that right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the English way I need to do it because I've got your accent. And that will harm my status. Exactly in the comments Um this idea that status games actually have an impact on our health and mortality that we will die younger if we have lower status. What evidence have you have you got have you got or found to support this idea? Well, there's lots of evidence. There's a big a lot of it comes from this guy called Dr. Michael Marmot who is just did this incredible set of work which he calls the Whitehall studies. So obviously Whitehall is the bureaucracy that kind of runs that kind of takes the order you know, the the civil service that kind of works with the government. So it's an enormous organization that's highly stratified. And so Marmot looked at kind of health outcomes for people on different levels of that kind of hierarchy that status game and found that the lower you went down that status game, the worst health outcomes became. So the obvious thing is that's just because if you're being paid less, you maybe can't afford the personal trainer, you know, you're eating worse. But it wasn't that that wasn't the case at all. They actually one rung down below top. So still a very very wealthy successful high status people had worse health outcomes than the person at the very top. So so so it really did seem like the brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order and the lower the lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became. Another set of scientists looked at this in the in the laboratory. So they took a bunch of monkeys who obviously like us very hierarchical that status games. And they deliberately fed this is a terrible experiment. It's very pretty awful. But they deliberately fed them a terrible diet of like fast food like chocolate and crisps. So they so so they ended up having a high level of atherosclerotic plaque which is you know, so that they were getting clogged up basically and vulnerable to heart problems and so on. And they found that it was the same that the lower you went down the monkey pecking order the more likely the monkeys were to die of these heart related diseases because of their bad diets than the ones at the top. And then importantly, they conspired to change the hierarchy of the group. I don't know how they did it, but they changed them maybe they took out the top monkey. But they changed the hierarchy of the group and they found that the health outcomes changed in lockstep with the change in hierarchy. So if a monkey went up, they became less likely to die. And so then you might ask what this is crazy. Like why is this? And so the closest answer that scientists have come is a whole field called social genomics. It's a new field. And social genomics is all about how does our social world affect the function of our genes? So you know, we're social animals. Our brains are constantly monitoring how we're doing in the world. What are our levels of connection? What are our levels of status? We have this status detection system that's constantly monitoring our level of status. And so the idea is that when the brain registers that we are you know, dropping in status and we're not too high in status it prepares our cells. It changes the way our genes work and our and the actions of our cells change in such a way that kind of prepares us for kind of trouble. So inflammation goes up, antiviral response goes down. So so the body changes in such way that we become more ill. There's a really um a narrative in there which some might deduce from hearing all of that which is that your level of success relates to your health. And this I'm going to say it in a really gruesome way which is the more successful you are um the longer you'll live. Obviously there's loads of factors in play. If you're eating burgers and smoking and doing class A drugs, that's going to probably be a stronger sort of determinant in your outcomes, but but generally speaking if two people are eating the exact same thing, if they're living the exact same lifestyle in terms of what they're consuming and the way that they're living and the only variable is their level of success in a status game. Yeah. Then they will be They're less likely to die if they're higher up. That's true. Yeah. Quite quite alarming, isn't As you said, there's so many confounds. I mean life is much more complicated than that. There's there's always you know, it is true that people smoke and don't smoke and and so on. But but but but you know, what Marmot finds is that is that if you take two smokers, the one higher up is is less likely to die of a smoking related disease than the than the one lower down. In the status In the status game ladder or whatever. Interesting. Yeah. And one of the other things that I wrote down reading that book was workers at the bottom of the office hierarchy have at ages 40 to 64 four times the risk of death of their I guess administrators means managers Yeah. at the top of the hierarchy. Yeah. That's from the Whitehall studies. Yeah, that's part of what Dr. Marmot found. Yeah, it's crazy. So so they're really significant. It's not marginal. They're you know, when you when you it will be marginal from one layer to the next, but when you actually look at the whole game, it's very significant the the differences the health outcomes from the top and bottom. It's absolutely mental. I've never really considered that idea before that status is playing such a significant role in my biological situation. Um The same is true for connection. So when we're lonely, the same thing happens. The lonelier we are, when we lack status, the same thing we know, we we have inflammation goes up, antiviral response goes down which is bad for us in the long term. And it's the same with the social genomics people say it's the same with loneliness which is why loneliness is bad for our health too. The other thing that was I found particularly interesting was that when we lose our status, the consequences of that can be pretty morbid and that suicide is often the result of people losing status and the speed in which they lose their status. Yeah. Yeah. So so this is why I never believed the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories. I think he did kill himself because he just had this huge drop in status. It just makes him incredibly vulnerable to suicidal thought and ideation. So so yes, it's not just drops in status. It's especially sudden drops in status makes us very vulnerable. And also I found it was interesting the research says it's it's also being left behind. So if we if we stay still and everybody else is every everybody around us accelerates, that that also makes us vulnerable to potentially you know, anxiety, depression and potentially suicidal ideation. That in particular is quite an alarming thought that if you're in a group of five friends best friends and four of the best friends do really really well professionally in in their careers, whatever just because of the context in which you're existing, you might become depressed because your four friends did well. And this this in some respects might explain jealousy. Of course it does. Yeah, I mean I mean that's I mean you know, we we've evolved to um want to feel of value, but unfortunately being of value is kind of relative. Like if everybody is equally valued, then nobody's valued. Do you know what I mean? We're all on the same level. So it's I think that's where it can become quite damaging and that's where life can become quite exhausting especially in this kind of highly competitive neoliberal world that we live in where everybody's pushing pushing pushing to succeed pushing to succeed. You know, it's true. You know, I hate we hate it when our friends become successful parts of us always going to because it kind of devalues what you know, what we have. You know, it's just an unfortunate byproduct of the of the status game. You talk about how we look up to people who are like us. Yeah. But we also seem to be more jealous of people that are like us. Yeah. Because they because they are the the clearest evidence of our own inadequacy. Yeah, it's that was a really sort of kind of naughty para paradox for me to get my head around when I was writing the book. And the closest solution I could come to it was so when you look at the how how human social groups work there's a really amazing researcher in America called Joseph Henrich who studies this stuff and has written about a couple of books about this. And he talks about how how we learn. And so in those again those groups in which we evolved which we sort of look to to figure out why we are like we are. What you'll find is that is is that is that when you were growing up, you know, young people look they identify high status people from which to learn. And those high status people um are going to be like them in some way. They're probably going to be the same gender, and they're going to have the same kind of interests and you know, that kind of thing. And and so that so this mechanism switches on, which is copy, flatter, conform. So, you start copying their behavior because the brain goes, "Well, this person's high status. I want to become high status." Um so so if I want to become high status, of course I've got to do everything they're doing. So, if I do everything that they're doing, I'll you know, it'll work. So, it switches on. So, and then we've got the flatter process, which is I I need access to this person. I want to be around this person to be able to learn everything that they're doing. And you do that with you know, flattery is a good way of doing that. It's like um you know, "Oh, you're amazing. I love this What a great book. What a great podcast. You're amazing businesses." And then you know, so so we'll let people in who treat us that way. And conform, you you do what you do what you do what you're told. You you behave. And so and so and so you know, you can see you can you can think about that when you think about celebrities. You know, like I I remember when I was seven or eight years old, I was obsessed with this guy called this guy Nick Kershaw. And I remember seeing him on TV AM and he was crossing his legs in a certain way with his ankle on his knee and his leg sticking out. And I just found myself sitting at school in the same way as Nick Kershaw. You know, so so so like that my copy my copy, flatter, conform mechanism had switched on. That's interesting. I I I I think that's how I I think that's how kind of fame works. I I think it's that we we we we see people who feel like a piece of us, but a highly successful piece of us. Like that person's like me, but amazing. And so so this very ancient evolved mechanism switches on, even though we're probably never going to meet that person. They just switch on and we become and so you you know, you'll notice that um people read the same books as their idols. They dress the same way as their idols. They might even you know, I find I mean, I'm embarrassed about it, but I think it's probably very common. When I when I've watched a stand-up comedy special and I've loved it, I'll find myself talking like that comic the next day and like using their inflections a bit. Um it's just kind of weird, you know, or laughing like them, you know. So so generally speaking, we're quite envious creatures. We don't like high status people. And but there's a very narrow class of people that we identify with. And those are the people that feel like super successful versions of us. Like we we we relate to them, we identify with them. And and that's when that very evolved ancient mechanism switches on, which I call in the book copy, flatter, conform. Yeah, it's so interesting. Much of what you've described as well as explains influence marketing and why it's so effective. Why we why, you know, if some if you look up to someone, they can sell you anything. Absolutely. Yeah. that's what the whole industry is based on. Um the other the other point that you talk about in the book around the role that status is playing, which really alarmed me and and made me ponder quite a lot, was about how s- our pursuit for status is more important than our pursuit for money when we've kind of addressed the money topic. And how, you know, many employees would would rather accept a higher status job than a pay rise. Yeah, different job title. Yeah. That's That's pretty alarming. Yeah, it's it's Well, it it is, but it's not that surprising when you think about the evolution of the brain. We haven't evolved to crave money cuz money hasn't been around long enough. We've evolved to crave status, and money's just one way that we can measure status. But there are loads of other ways we can measure status. So so so it doesn't you know, it doesn't have to be money-based, you know. So and as you said, there there was a quite a major study. I think it was 15,000 people in the UK that they surveyed and found that most would accept a diff- a high status job title over a modest pay rise. Yeah. So, instead of, you know, I've got Jack sat over there. He's the producer director of this podcast. So, Jack, what's your job title right now? Um I'd have to say director / producer. Okay. So, if I change Jack's job title to CEO of the podcast, Yeah. versus giving him a 1,000 pound pay rise, he'd probably take the CEO of the podcast. He He's Yeah. Yeah. He's just a director. But he's also a smart thinking because because you know, when we're judging other people's status, it isn't just how much money they have. In fact, We never the money's often invisible. The the title says a lot. So, if you were to, you know, make Jack's, you know, he's my podcast CEO, he's more likely then to go on and get a better job somewhere else, higher status, more money because of that bump in status. So, it's actually the instinct is correct. It's a smart to move to take the So, I could reduce his salary by half by giving No, I think that That's the thing. I I think we're so sensitive to reductions in status that it's that will never fly. That's interesting. Um you talk about the cues as well within status games that we we kind of look for. What are those four cues? Yeah, this is this is again Joseph Henrich's work where he looks at um the the you know, how do we identify the people that we want to copy, flatter, conform? Um so there there there are various cues. Um one of them is um uh with they they call them success cues. So so in um the hunter-gatherer tribe, it might be a hunter has a big necklace of teeth, one tooth for every creature that he's killed. Um you know, so so so so so that's why we have jewelry these days cuz it's it's a success cue. And it it's amazing when you read about the detail because the you know, the brain is is some neuroscientist call it a all of the time um monitoring our environment for for for status cues and you know, playing that game. And and so so we're constantly monitoring other people's body language. Um we we can measure someone's relative status versus uh you know, submissive versus dominant in 43 milliseconds. That's how quick when we see somebody we we measure how dominant or submissive they are in in terms of status. So so that's how quick it is. So so so we're looking at things like um successful interruptions in conversation. The more successful interruptions you make, the higher status you are. Like we've all been in situations, maybe you not for a while, where you're trying to get a word in edgewise and everyone's just everyone's just like maybe in a family situation and you just think, "Oh, it." I sit with Mogan on the podcast so I can't get a word in edgewise with him. But that's But that's that's actually a a perfectly valid point. He sees himself as higher status than you. Yeah. And so he and so and and so both of your games subconsciously were playing a status game. And so so so we are um we we so so that's another way. We're also measuring another cue is how other people are are attending to that person. So, if we notice lots of people are attending to a person, we will automatically assume they're worth attending to. And so what's interesting um Joseph Henrich writes is is that is that these effects were designed to work in small groups of people because that's how we we evolved in very small tribes. They weren't evolved to um operate in in a global environment modern media and the internet. So, you get these feedback loops where lots of people are looking at one person, so more and more people start looking at that person, then they get reported in the press, and then more people start looking at them. And they call it the Paris Hilton effect cuz I think when they figured out what was going on, Paris Hilton was the big why is she famous person? But you might as well just call it the Kardashian effect or whoever the latest person is that ev- that that that happens to be really famous and then no one can quite work out why. It's because it's a feedback loop. Once you lots of people start looking at that one person, everyone just piles in and cuz the brain's are assuming they must be high status. They must be worth attending to if everyone's attending to them. People attend to them and then, you know, you've also talked about how their their health outcomes would be better potentially as well. So, shouldn't cues go up. cues go up, you know. It sounds like a wonderful life to live. So, should we all start pursuing status? Well, no. We Well, we again, I'd say we all we all we already are, but but I think you know, another way that all this research has made me understand the world a lot better is that when we look at very high status people, really rich, wealthy, successful people, half our brain is just jealous. It goes, "Oh, lucky them." And we imagine they have this brilliant life and they're so happy and everything's wonderful. But with the other half of our brains, we know that's not true because when you meet very rich and successful people, they're often not happy. Right? Yeah, exactly. There's suicide, there's alcoholism, there's workaholism. You know, they're like they're not happy. Their marriages don't last. So so it it made sense of that to me. It And that's And it's actually quite a nice understanding that it that that that there isn't this this hierarchy of happiness where the the richer you are, the happier you are because we're all playing individual status games. So, you know, that those people playing high level status games, the millionaires, the billionaires, the Elon Musks, they're competing with the people immediately around them. They're competing like Elon Musk is competing with Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook. So so they're no happier than the people at school who are competing to be the best Well, I don't say no happier. That's the general I mean, I don't know. But but but but but but but but you know, the higher you go, the harder that game becomes. So so so so you know, that's taken away a lot of that I wish I was this, I wish I was that. Yes, I'd love a yacht. You know, but still, you know, I'm not naive anymore to how how difficult and punishing that life can be at the very top because you're not competing with me anymore or the people down there or, you know, or even above me. You're competing with people. They're competing with the people who who they're playing against. And they're all highly successful, highly motivated um incredible individuals. It it's it's become really interesting, this whole um space race. Yeah. Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. You go, "Really? You all really care about Exactly. Exac- But the other thing to say about that is, and this is again how I've changed. I mean, I'm a lefty. I've always been a lefty. But this book has really opened my mind to the idea that actually we do benefit from these people. Not just in the obvious ways. They they hire a lot of people. They give you know, people get meaning and purpose from their jobs. They people get to live a life and pay their mortgage from their jobs. They pay taxes that keeps the you know, that keeps the countries running. So they're they're they're doing all that. But also with the space race, they're competing because they're playing a status game. That's obvious. But but science and technology benefits from that too. I mean they I mean I don't you know, they they will no doubt be a number of innovations that that that are hugely useful to humanity that come as a result of this you know, this space race or races like it amongst these highly motivated top level players. Chapter 29 of this book you you kind of you talk about how we can advance in the status game. Status game, factor again. And the seven rules of the status game. How how do we advance in the status game? And what do you mean by advance? Do you mean win? No, cuz you can't win. I mean that's the thing. I think the brains the brain has this story that we live by where where where and stories contain happy endings and happy ending is if I achieve this and I'm going to be happy. And again, we it's weird cuz we know that's not true when we've lived a bit of life because you know, but but we still kind of believe it. If I get this if this next book sells a hundred thousand, then I'll be happy. And it's like I know that's not true, but so so so so you you don't ever win it. That's an illusion. That's the storytelling brain, you know, just giving you a bit of a lie to keep you motivated. I I I think there are there are various ways that you can succeed in the status game. You know, some kind of are quite practical. I think I think one of the most practical is that is this amazing revelation that status is more valuable than money to most people. And it's free. Like we have status to give. And You can save money as I've just said. You can get you can get call him a CEO and you can get pay him half. Unbelievable. I wish I'd known this earlier. But we can but but we you know, but but but we so we have loads of opportunities in our lives to give status to to to our employees, to the people around us and we often don't. And you know, and so so I think that and that feeds back in a kind of real politicky kind of slightly cynical way. Is if we are generous with status, people are going to want to be around us and they're going to want to work with us and they and and and some of that status will wash back. So so I think you know, don't treat status as if it's a limited resource. In the business context, I think there's a really it's not in that final section, but one of the other sort of light bulb moments for me in the business context was this difference between competition and rivalry. So when you first think about competition and rivalry in business, you think that's the same thing, but it's not. So competition is bad and rivalry is good. So when I'm talking about competition, I'm talking about a corporate structure like Enron. So that's the example used in the book. So Enron famously had their rank and yank system where the top I think it was 15% got promoted. I think they were judged judged them at least twice a year. Everybody in the company got judged. The top 15% got promoted, the bottom got fired and the middle were just terrified. So that's competition. So so competition is is a sense of all against all. You go into work and it's a war. And you've got to grab and you know, and and I think that that's when you end up with extremely toxic and ultimately potentially corrupt corporate cultures because status is very hard to come by. And um So that's what you want to avoid. And you know, it's thought that like a very moderate amount of competition is quite good to motivate people, but it very quickly goes wrong. The alternative to that is rivalry. Now rivalry is is healthy and a massive motivator. And rather than being all against all, rivalry is one against one. So that's one individual against one individual or one group, one team against another team or one organization against another organization. And rivalry is characterized by having the status competition that's characterized by lots of near misses and skirmishes. So you can think about Apple and Microsoft had had a period where where where they were great rivals and that rivalry kind of pushed them on. And in the book I tell the story of the true origin story of the iPhone, which is quite amazing. And it begins when Steve Jobs Steve Jobs' wife was friends with somebody from Microsoft. And she would have regular parties, barbecues. And so this Microsoft executive, this unnamed Microsoft executive would come to the barbecue and be bragging to Steve Jobs. And and one day he was bragging to Steve Jobs saying, "We've solved computing. You know, it's over for you guys. We've figured it out. We've got these tablets with these styluses. They're going to change everything." And then the next day, the Monday, Steve Jobs comes into work furious because his rival Microsoft is is dragging their faces in saying, "We've solved computing." And he says, "Let's let's show these pricks how it's really done. It's not done with styluses, it's done with fingers. That's how it's done." And that became the iPad, which well that became the iPhone. Well first it was the iPad, but they released the iPhone and then it reemerged as the iPad. And as Scott Forstall, who was the guy that told that story, said it was very bad for Microsoft that Steve Jobs ever met that guy. But that's the true origin story of the iPhone, this device that's changed the world, is status and rivalry. This guy from Microsoft rubbing Steve Jobs' face in it at a barbecue. So so that's healthy. That's good. Well, not good for Microsoft, but that's that's what you want to be in a corporate sense, in an organizational sense. You want to be you want to be encouraging rivalry and not competition. Interesting. I've always tried to make sense of my my love of rivalry. And I've always I've always wondered if it was the toxic flaw in me or because it seems to be such an unbelievable motivator. I'm so I'm so I've always said competitive, but now I'm hesitant to say that word, but I'm I'm always looking for a rival. Even you know, I have 10 friends who are in a fitness competition. And every month we hand out these fake awards. There's gold, silver and bronze. Yeah. And four days out I won gold last month and then four days out from this month, my friend, good friend of mine, he's managing director of one of my companies, Ollie Voncheff, he starts talking to me. And I was so happy he did because I realized that in those last four days of the month I was going to do I was going to work out three hours four hours a day to beat him. And it was and it's almost I I reflected on what I saw in Michael Jordan's documentary where Michael Jordan would it would seem look for rivalries. He would so much so that he would make them up. And when they went and asked the other person if it had happened, they'd go, "No, that didn't happen." But Michael Jordan had created a rivalry in his head to motivate himself. There's actually a clip on YouTube called It Became Personal With For Me, which is just a compilation of Michael Jordan repeatedly saying a story that might have might not have or might have happened and then saying it became that's when it became personal with me. And then it shows him slam dunking on that person or winning another title or whatever. This constant search for rivalry as a as a motivator. That's fascinating. That's exactly right. Yeah, that's that's fascinating. And and so that that that description you say of somebody who's highly successful constantly looking for rivalries, I think that's that that that's correct. And and I also think it's it's a mistake to think is it healthy or like is it toxic? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I think I think one of the things I try not to do in my books is to categorize what's good and what's bad. It just is. Because because in real life reality, it's usually a trade-off. Most things are trade-offs. And so yes, in lots of sense if you're playing your success games, it will be it's a good thing. It's it's a massive motivator. It worked for Steve Jobs, it worked for Michael Jordan. Sounds like it is for you. But it doesn't mean it's a hundred percent good thing. It if you start losing, that's going to become a source of a lot of misery for you. So I think we often make mistakes when we try to figure out whether something's good or bad because I think the reality is that most things are trade-offs. You're completely right. It is a trade-off. And working out for three four hours a day was not a good idea. Yeah. There was a significant cost to that with my my relationship with my sleep, with you know, with my productivity. So it is a trade-off. I guess it all depends what your objective your objective ultimately is. You've written um a number of books now, many many books, more books than I I think I'll ever write in my life because I I think I struggle to to to write books. And you know, you find yourself in a place in life now where you're is 40 Seven. 47. It was difficult to find find your age online. I had to I had to go back to an article I think where you said you were 38 and do the math. So I wasn't sure if you're 47. But um what else are you are you in search of in your life personally? What else if I I I've asked this question in maybe the last I don't know, 10 episodes to my guests, but if if if your overall happiness was a a recipe consisting of a set of ingredients, what are you looking for personally now in your life to fulfill that happiness recipe? That's a very good question. So I I think that one of the thing one of the things I've done recently is I've I've not started yet, but I've I've it's going to be happening this month is I'm going to start volunteering to a charity because I feel like as we've already spoken about, one of the things I don't have is much connection. Like I've got a great marriage, but beyond outside the marriage, I don't really see people that much. And I feel like because I don't have children, I don't actually do anything for anyone else. So it's going to I felt like I was becoming quite a selfish life. Everything was just about other my apart from my dogs who I I'm obsessed with. I don't do anything for anything else. So so I I figured that's that that's a bit of a hole in my life. So that's why I'm I'm going to start volunteering. If I've got to be interviewed by this charity, but assuming that goes well. So I think I I think that's a whole. And And I do um I I do want to sort out the connection side of things. Like I've started having semi-regular meetups with some old school friends recently, which has just been an absolute joy to to see these people after, you know, so long. And I kind of I kind of in my head start telling the story that it was me that had failed all my exams and was a total disaster. But it was amazing to sit around the table with all these lots of That's a lawyer and you know, there's all these successful people. We all failed our exams. It was just a really bad school. But we all kind of succeeded um regardless of that. Um so so so that's been a that that that's that that's been really fun. And we've had to kind of um yeah, so so so so I think it's I think it's moving the dial on connection. That That's what I'm missing. We have to become more and more intentional about that connection, I think. I feel like men probably more so. Definitely, yeah. You know, and it's one of the things I've said to my five friends is I've said to them, you know, as we get older, when it's a birthday or when there's a a wedding, make sure we all go because it's going to become increasingly There's going to become increasingly more excuses as to as to why we shouldn't go or we can't go. We live further apart. We have families. We Yeah. And you really I feel like as a man you really have to fight for that connection as you age and so Yeah, I mean I I I kind of I kind of really do believe that there are basic biological differences between the genders on average. You have to say generally speaking. Even if there's huge overlaps, of course. We're more alike than we are different. But I think on the average, I think, you know, uh men and women are, you know, that there are differences. And I I do think that one of them is how we manifest socially. I think you know, um women are much better instinctively at at the group. Yeah. You know, whether that's um politically or um uh in a friendship context, there just there just there just seems to be a men just seem to have have an instinct for going it alone. Yeah. And women seem to have an instinct for the group. Going it together. Yeah, going it together. That's a lovely way of putting it. Yeah. And um and and I and I think that you're right. I think men especially have to fight against that. I think that's why the suicide statistics are so much worse for for men. And And I And as the suicide expert I spoke to for Selfie said, the solution isn't that men should be you know, should be more like women. Um because that's you can't change biology. But But But I think you're right. I think especially with the social connection, we have to push ourselves a bit harder. And I always notice with the social stuff, it just seems to always happen where when you've got a social appointment coming up, you think, "Oh, what did I say yes to that for?" But then that that's like 100% of the time we think, "Oh, I don't want to go." But then when you go, you go, "Oh, I'm having a great time. This is amazing. I should do this more often." And that's also 100% of the time. It's so weird that um we we seem so like men especially seem to be so bad at predicting how much we're going to enjoy social occasion. On that point with the suicide expert, you know, because much of the narrative I do hear regarding male suicide is that we we just need to talk more. And we're often with that argument often comes that this the subpoint that if you look at how women are open and communicate with their social circle, with their you know, their their friends and they they say, "I'm feeling this. I'm going through this. Blah blah blah blah." Men don't do that. So men need to do more of that. Yeah. What What did you learn from your conversations with that suicide expert? Well, his view and mine, too, um is that I don't think I like Sure, talking helps. But But But But just saying to men you should be more like women is not that helpful. And actually what we need to do is figure out what are men like and um and um start trying to develop solutions that are specifically designed for men. I just think saying to men, "You should learn to cry." I haven't cried for years. You know, it's like it's it's just not um it's not fair on men. It's not smart. There needs to be more work done in how can we actually help men in a male-friendly way? You know, um I I I I think that's I think that's um the way to go. What are men like? What are men like? Cuz cuz you know, you said we have to figure out what men are like and then cater to cater to their unmet needs. I'm guessing in a in a in a way that kind of they can relate to. What is that? Well, again, I think you've got to be very careful by by by by not generalizing. There's a huge variety in what men are like, you know. But But But But But just to sort of underline the fact we're talking sort of generally speaking here, my sense is that, as as I said before, women are much better in your great words at going together. But But whereas men tend to be more tend to be more by instinct going alone. And And like everything, that's a trade-off. Um And And the negatives are um uh that we are, you know, we are less good at talking to other people and and sharing our kind of burdens. I think that I mean, I've got no scientific evidence to back this up, but my my impression is that that that male identity um often is focused more around success, personal success. So I think I think that's why you see lots of male suicide in middle age. Cuz in in middle age, men assault these in their bodies. They state their careers might grind to a halt. Their um relationships with their children might start going wrong. They might get divorced. And divorce, you know, you know, uh yeah, it's not good. So so so I And I think that that's where men um particularly might get into trouble. When when men feel like, "I'm not a success. I'm not looking after my family. I'm failing in my job." It's that sense of being a failure. Um I Yeah, I think I think that's very very hard for men. The suicidal ideation you describe in Selfie, was that linked to those reasons? Yeah, I I think I think it's connection and status for me. I mean, the the the last time I had it having really badly was when I moved back from I lived in Australia for 4 years and did quite well in Australia as a freelance journalist. But came back with nothing. No job because I was a freelancer. And so yeah, and then for a while I just thought I was going to have to start doing day shifts, you know, uh in magazines. Like it was bad. I just felt like I'd everything had gone wrong. And so I think that was very much connected to um status. I mean, I'm very bad because in the in the book I recommend um playing lots of games, playing multiple games. The science is pretty clear that um the more status games people play in their life, the more sources of status they have, the more groups they belong to, the more stable their personality, the happier they tend to be. And as I as I said earlier on, I I just do I tend to do writing. That's kind of what I do. That's partly the the selfish reasons for the volunteering. I I want to have another source of status to protect myself against the inevitable getting older thing. When we realize that status games are like a comparative thing. So, um you know, being a journalist, if there's a journalist that's the editor and is doing amazingly well, then and you're underneath. And then there's somebody at the very bottom of the the the ladder. Um the person at the bottom of the ladder is going to be lower status just by measure of comparison. So does that mean that in some regard, in the society we live in that is based on status, there will always be someone at the bottom that is feeling that way because just by a measure of comparison, there's going to be someone else who is making them feel inadequate or like low status. Yeah, there's always going to be a hierarchy. You can't remove the hierarchy from the human It's how we process reality. I mean, when you go into any social situation, if you meet If you If you're introduced to five strangers, you know this. You know, like you'll you'll have a conversation within minutes, you'll start getting a sense of who's up there, who's down there. And it'll be You know, your brain's just calculating. You can't stop it. It's going to happen. And And And And you can't stop it because everybody else is doing it to you, too. You know, so you know, that that's something other people give to us as well is that is our sense of status. We sense it from other people. Um so so so so so there will always be people, um you know, at the bottom in inverted commas. But there are a few things to say about That sounds grim. But there are a few things to say about that. The first thing is that um again, we all play individual little games. So so so it isn't as though the cleaner in the office feels like they're competing with Michelle Obama. Cuz if they did, they would just they'd just throw themselves out the window. That's not how life works. That cleaner is comparing themselves to the other people in their life, who they work with, their families, their cousins, they you know, so so so they're not feeling horrific because they're not the King of Thailand. So so that's that's not how it's working. It's not Life isn't that brutal. Two, we have amazing imaginations. And And you know, we're very good at buffing ourselves up and finding ways of of of see you know, seeing our value. And I think in a in a in a healthy organization, as I say in the book, you can go to a meeting as the lowest status member of the organization in that formal status game, make a fantastic contribution, and leave feeling like the king of the world, like the best person in the room. And that And if that's a healthy organization, that's how you'll be made to feel, too. You'll be like, "Oh, that's brilliant. That's amazing." So so so so even within those kind of formal games that we play in life, we can still have a encounter, an experience in which we actually feel hugely of value. Um so so so so so there's also that to say. So And there's also, you know, life is a never-ending game. As long as we're not suffering from depression, we're a mentally healthy person, we're a little bit optimistic, we're backing ourselves a bit. You know, that's that's what people are like. You know, I'm I feel like I'm going to I have the capacity to achieve X, Y, and Z. You know, so so so so so so yes, um there will always be people at the bottom, but but A, they're probably not going to stay there for very long cuz the game's so fluid, and B, that that that doesn't mean that they're condemned to a life of constant misery and torture. And and as you said earlier, they can, you know, they might also play for a Sunday league team and be top of the league and captain of that team. Or they could be religious. I mean, their religion is a status game. And that's a virtue game. It's a You know, and and it's often a healthy um virtue game. You know, in a religious game, I've got to follow the 10 Commandments and go to the church and or do whatever I've got to do, and then I become a high-status Christian or whatever. And that's and that's you know, that's a big journey I've gone on. I used to be very angry and hostile about religion because of my background, but but now I see that religion, although it's not for me, it's hugely valuable to people um because it gives them a status game to play. And meaning and purpose. And Exactly. I was the same. I was religious up until I was uh 18. Very religious household, and I rejected it quite passionately for many years until I stopped caring about it. So, now I'm just like, do what you like. I don't care. Yeah, exactly. Which is a funny arc we kind of go through where it's like the aggression against it and then the acceptance of it. Um We have a closing tradition on this podcast where where the previous guest asks the next guest a question. Okay. All right. In the diary diary. So, I get to read it now. Jack keeps the diary until this point. Um we The question left for you is, when it all gets too dark, what helps you find the light? When it all gets too dark, what helps you find the light? I mean, creation. I I mean, it's that really is true. If I'm feeling depressed, um I just I've got this It's about cheesy, but I've got this little I've got this little saying I say to myself in the head, which is the only way out is art. And and so, if I want to feel good, I'll go and do some work, do some writing. And if I'm proud of it, it'll sort of pull me out of it. So, that that that's kind of what helps me see the light, my my my art. And how does that relate to the status game book? Status game. Massively, because I I feel good about myself. You know, if if I This is my game, writing. And if I feel like I've written something good, I feel like there's hope. And it kind of gives you a psychological status boost. Absolutely. Yeah, cuz we you know, we we we we we have this imaginary audience in our heads. We're not just being judged by other people, we're being judged by ourselves. So, so so yeah, that I think that's hugely important. Will, thank you. Incredibly illuminating, and it's given me a a tremendous amount of food for thought. You know, when we do this podcast, I'm always selfishly looking for um ways that I can make changes to my life or understand the decisions I'm making so that I can make decisions more in line with my values or more in line with where I want to go. And I think your this book in particular, the status game. I I pause every time I say it cuz I'm scared to get the wrong word. The status game. Yeah. This book in particular, the status game, um is is one of those that is in tremendously illuminating because it explains so much. It's almost like it's turning a light on in a huge room that I didn't even know was there. Um and really revealing to me what what what the forces are that are controlling um much of my decision-making for better or for worse. It's not to say that I will abandon abandon trying to abandon those forces because I don't actually believe I can. I think that's who I am. But being more conscious about them, which I think is exactly what this book allows you to do as they relate to your relationships, your personal life, your business, is I think something that we can all benefit from. So, thank you for writing such an amazing book. And thank you for writing all of these amazing books, but this one in particular um is my favorite, the status game. Came out last year, I believe. Um Yeah. Just out on paperback 2 weeks ago. On paperback 2 weeks ago, and I've had a lot of people that specifically cuz you've had a few conversations with some friends of mine really raving about this book. So, I highly recommend everybody checks it out. Um of all these books, I love them all, but this one in particular is my favorite. And I can't I can't be more excited to see what you write next. Fantastic. Thank you for your honesty as well. Not everybody is so willing to be so open and honest, and I think there's something so um so important because it's it's human and it's truthful about the way you're willing to be honest about your own struggles in your life and the things that you're searching for as it relates to connection and those things. That is we're all we're all going through the same battles, and hearing that from you as well, I think is particularly important. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your amazing questions, too, Steven. I had a really good time. Thank you. I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. Crafted are a brand that sell really meaningful, affordable men's jewelry. And I've been a Crafted customer, I think, for about 3 years now. The piece of jewelry I wear the most, I want to introduce you to the pieces and why I wear them, is the sand timer, unsurprisingly. And the thing for me about sand timers, it's probably the most clear reminder that our time here on Earth is finite. And when you live in such a way where you can literally see your time pouring away, and you realize that it is scarce and that we're not all here forever, you start to make better decisions. You stop worrying about pettiness and trivialities that consume our lives. I always have this Crafted sand timer around my neck as a reminder of that. And this is why I wanted Crafted to sponsor this podcast, because I can use their meaningful jewelry every episode to deliver a meaningful message. My girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when I was having a shower, and she said to me that she tried the Huel protein shake, which lives on my fridge over there, and she said it's amazing. Low calories, you get your 20 or the grams of protein, you get your 26 vitamins and minerals, and it's nutritionally complete. 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