The More Successful You Are The Longer You’ll Live: Will Storr

[0] You shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be Beyonce.

[1] The chances are they can't.

[2] World Store is an award -winning author of six critically acclaimed books.

[3] His ideas are disruptive, challenging and life -changing.

[4] And some of them will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable.

[5] People don't like to talk about this stuff.

[6] 99 % of self -help books never mention genes.

[7] They want to promote that idea of, I can be whoever we want to be.

[8] But a huge amount of who we are is who we were born as, that myth of you have full control of yourself as a human being.

[9] That's the problem.

[10] It's not about embracing your flaws.

[11] It's about accepting your flaws.

[12] Our lives are full of status pursuit.

[13] The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets.

[14] But that was true 10 ,000 years ago, it's true today.

[15] The brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order.

[16] The lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became.

[17] If you take two smokers, the one higher up is less like to die of smoking -related disease than the one lower down.

[18] That's mental.

[19] It matters massively.

[20] How do we advance in the status game?

[21] That there are kind of three general times of status games that we can play.

[22] First game is a...

[23] Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO.

[24] I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

[25] Will, first of all, thank you for being here.

[26] Take me right back then to your early years, because I think 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 early years so take me back right back to the start you know before the age of let's say 12 okay so yeah I was brought up in Summage Wells in Kent middle class family very Catholic it was quite a Victorian strict, superstitious, religious upbringing, not the happiest upbringing, you have to say.

[27] Why?

[28] Because my parents were very strict.

[29] My father was very strict, especially.

[30] And 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.

[31] It's like, what, you know, how can you believe this stuff?

[32] to a Catholic school.

[33] So, so, and I was quite a, 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.

[34] You know, I thought it was crazy.

[35] I wasn't very good at authority and rules.

[36] So it was a bad fit, I would say.

[37] Um, and I think that's what's, you know, one of the things that's kind of driven my interests into adulthood.

[38] My, you know, my, my, my, my, my second book, The Heretics was looking at why do otherwise smart people believe, end up believing these crazy things?

[39] Because my parents are smart people.

[40] But yeah, you know, they believe in heaven, hell, Satan, all of that stuff.

[41] I think that's how my childhood is informed my interests as an adult, trying to figure out how that happens.

[42] In your book Selfie, you talk a lot about self -esteem and the role that plays.

[43] What was your, give me the context of how your self -esteem was shaped in those early years.

[44] Oh, well, how it was shaped in those early years.

[45] I guess it was poorly would be the answer.

[46] I think the, you know, because my behaviour 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.

[47] Yeah, so there was very little kind of positive feedback in my, in my childhood, which I think is, that causes damage that you're never going to get over, I believe.

[48] Do you think you never get over that damage?

[49] Yes, because I think, you know, we're all born with a certain kind of personality, with a certain genome, and that's not fate.

[50] That doesn't define who you're going to be forever.

[51] But it sets you on a certain course.

[52] makes you vulnerable to a certain kind of mindset.

[53] And, you know, I think a good childhood, a good upbringing can, you know, correct that to a certain degree, but a bad one can set it on a sort of negative course.

[54] And I'm quite a neurotic person.

[55] I'm anxious.

[56] I've always worried a lot.

[57] So 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 day.

[58] dangerous, that people are out to get you, all of that stuff, that reality isn't safe.

[59] And then, you know, what happens is your brain is still being formed really up until you in your mid -20s, you know, that is in your mid -20s when those kind of learning processes stop.

[60] 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 those are the years in which your brain is learning how the world works.

[61] And so, yeah, so I don't think it's fixable.

[62] That's one of the ongoing conversations or debates or things that I've kind of been chewing over from doing this podcast and listening to people from all walks of life that have achieved amazing things that still have underlying trauma or sort of self -stories that are controlling their life and their behavior.

[63] And I spent a long time talking to people about whether you can ever truly eradicate some of these traumas.

[64] They're like the puppet master that's in the back room, controlling your biases and all these things.

[65] 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.

[66] And is that where you find yourself, but in terms of your belief, that we can diminish the power of those stories, but they'll always be there.

[67] Absolutely.

[68] That's exactly right.

[69] That's why I believe, exactly.

[70] yeah, that we can definitely diminish their power.

[71] And, you know, I'm 47 now, and you still amazes me that you still, you never stop learning and you never stop learning about yourself.

[72] You never stop learning about things you get wrong.

[73] And I've got to stop doing that, you know.

[74] It's overly simplistic to think of consciousness as this battle between reason and emotion.

[75] But there is something like that going on.

[76] You know, like our emotionality is usually in charge of what we're thinking and what we're doing.

[77] 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 a right to respond in anger and hostility at that person and then the next day you think oh maybe it wasn't you know you know so um i think what we call what we 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.

[78] So I think what you're doing when you're learning, for me anyway, is your learning actually, I mean, almost apparent yourself to turn that voice in your head into someone that isn't going to be a harsh judge or 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.

[79] You're looking for that balance all the time.

[80] 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.

[81] Have you got a harsh judge in your head?

[82] Absolutely.

[83] Yeah.

[84] Yeah, definitely.

[85] Yeah, I have.

[86] I, you know, I'm self -employed.

[87] I've been a writer for, you know, without an employee for 20 years.

[88] 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 eight hours plus work a day.

[89] So I think to, It's kind of weird, I think, to achieve 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.

[90] Like I've read recently that the ideal parent is kind of firm, but also kind and caring and understanding.

[91] And I think that's what, I think that's, if that's the ideal parent, I think that's, that's the ideal of who should be inside our own heads really.

[92] You've got to have that balance.

[93] And I think you can go, you can go wrong in either direction.

[94] Your book, Selfie.

[95] Yeah.

[96] What was the, I mean, I love the name.

[97] It was very of the time in 2017 as well.

[98] It was, yeah.

[99] What was the inspiration behind writing this book?

[100] Right.

[101] So the book before that was called The Heretics.

[102] And the Heretics was, as I said before, it was inspired by this idea of how do smart people end up believing crazy things?

[103] And so that book was all about, when we have these stubborn beliefs that kind of 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 was going to have to bluff through it so i thought no 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.

[104] And so I started interviewing lots of people who changed their minds, like in big, dramatic, kind of powerful ways.

[105] One of those guys was this amazing psychologist called Professor Roy Baumeister.

[106] He spent his kind of early professional career in the self -esteem era of the 80s, you know, when this is the era I was brought up too, when everything was about self -esteem, when it was all about the kind of message out there was, if you want to be successful, just love yourself.

[107] You're amazing.

[108] You're fantastic.

[109] You can do anything that you want.

[110] You know, it was Whitney Houston.

[111] The greatest love of all is yourself.

[112] It was that kind of era.

[113] And I remember it from school.

[114] I remember, like, you know, as teacher saying to me, the problem with you will is you just have low self -esteem.

[115] And they used to go self -esteem, a social vaccine.

[116] And if you loved yourself, it meant that you would be more successful.

[117] You'd be happier.

[118] You'd have a better marriage.

[119] And, you know, in America, they thought the self -esteem was going to self -homelessness, the gang culture.

[120] Teenage parenthood was a big moral panic of the time.

[121] and they thought it was going to cure that.

[122] And he was like, well, is it true?

[123] Is this actually true?

[124] And so they looked into it and they found actually that there was no evidence that any of this was true.

[125] That every study that quoted it as being true just reference another study.

[126] And he went in this breadcrumb trail of studies.

[127] They were all just quoting each other.

[128] And there was no actual evidence, any of this is true.

[129] And they actually tested to see whether that self -esteem myth was true or not.

[130] And it wasn't.

[131] It was originally based on this idea that they, this observation that school children who did well in exams also had high self -esteem.

[132] So they assumed that having high self -esteem made you good at exams.

[133] But actually, they had high self -esteem because they'd done good in their exams.

[134] It was the other way around.

[135] God is this obvious in retrospect.

[136] But that's what they, you know, so that was the error they made.

[137] Correlation causation, that old chestnut.

[138] So he published this study and the initial response was just, you know, it was absolutely torn to pieces.

[139] It was either ignored or attacked.

[140] But slowly he was proven to be right.

[141] And so when I was, I wrote a profile of Baumeister and, you know, he was a fascinating guy.

[142] And then what I realized was that this idea had not just changed a person, but it changed a culture.

[143] 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.

[144] and it was just wrong.

[145] It's completely wrong.

[146] So that was the, that's the heart of selfie.

[147] It was this idea of, you know, how did selfie culture happen?

[148] How did it become so self -obsessed?

[149] And the self -esteem movement was a big part of that story.

[150] And it's the kind of, it's the kind of central story of the book.

[151] Chapter Zero.

[152] Yeah.

[153] The dying self was quite difficult to read.

[154] Oh, okay.

[155] Yeah.

[156] I thought it was a very, you know, you explore topics like suicide and your own sort of self -doubt and things like that and your own suicidal ideation at times.

[157] Why did you choose to start the book in that way?

[158] I suppose I wanted to start the book there to show, you know, why this matters.

[159] You know, where I ended up with in the book was this idea that we live, that we are in the West individualists.

[160] Yeah, you know, we see the world as met up of individual pieces and parts and we are individually responsible for our fates.

[161] We are individually responsible for our success and our failure.

[162] And there's lots of good things to say about that.

[163] You know, it's an extremely motivating way of organizing your thoughts, organizing your life.

[164] You know, I am responsible for me and I will take care of me. But it's also kind of savage, you know, and it means, you know, that kind of Western myth we have is that, you know, that you can do anything that you want, just put your mind to it, you can achieve it, that that kind of mindset.

[165] But very often we fail.

[166] And so if it's true that you're responsible for your success, then it only logically follows that you're also responsible for your failure.

[167] And so these individualistic ideas accelerated in the 1980s, and that was because of a variety of things.

[168] It was the self -esteem movement partly, but the self -esteem movement became successful because of the Thatcher, Reagan, revolution is my argument, neoliberalism, that we change the economies of the West.

[169] we changed the game you know before the 1980s we were much more collective it was much more you know socialist even in america the top rate of tax was 90 percent you know it's extraordinary and then the economy started going wrong in the 70s so the neoliberal revolution happened 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 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 competitive as a people and and what's what psychologists find is a major study that found that since the you know the onset of neoliberalism levels of perfectionism have increased massively in the UK in America and in Canada And perfectionism is implicated in suicide ideation, in eating disorders, in steroid abuse and, you know, and self -harm and so on and so on and so on.

[170] So that's what I wanted to begin the book there, to show why this matters.

[171] You know, it isn't just a kind of abstract, academic exploration of the self.

[172] You know, I wanted to begin with, this is how it affects people.

[173] if perfectionism can be quite an insidious 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 about that um i think you know i like the idea of you know 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 is that you know I used to be a massive fan of Big Brother when Big Brother was on and there was always a thing in Big Brother where somebody would behave completely obnoxiously they'd be like rude, aggressive, just deeply unpleasant and they would always defend themselves in the same way they go I'm just being me that's just me and if you don't like me you know and I think that's 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.

[174] You know, you know, we're a social animal.

[175] We've, we, we, we have evolved to exist cooperatively.

[176] 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.

[177] So I think self -acceptance is different than self -love.

[178] Self -acceptance is I'm flawed, broken animal, you know, as we all are.

[179] 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 defence lawyer, you know, being that kind of harsh but loving parent and being accepted, you know, having this acceptance that you are a flawed and limited animal.

[180] Like, you know, you shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be Beyonce if they want to be Beyonce because the chances are they can't.

[181] She's like an extraordinarily talented and driven individual.

[182] She's the one in a billion, you know.

[183] So, you know, so I think that's an unhealthy.

[184] healthy message by which to raise our children and also, you know, talk to ourselves.

[185] And it's much more about understanding our strengths, our flaws, and kind of finding the right games to play, find that little corner of the world in which we can feel of value.

[186] I think that's what we should be trying to do.

[187] Had your parents told you that you were Beyonce and had those schools told you that you were Beyonce, would you have been happier, do you think?

[188] I mean, I was sometimes told that I could succeed.

[189] at school, but I just wasn't applying myself and it's such a waste.

[190] It's such a waste.

[191] But it's sort of weird the school thing.

[192] I mean, I have to say, I think I went to a really bad school.

[193] It was a comprehensive school.

[194] You know, you hear these stories about teachers that inspire you and, oh, it wasn't for this teacher.

[195] I never had that teacher.

[196] They were all just really bored and resentful.

[197] I remember going to class and there's one teacher to just open his folder, where were we?

[198] He'd read from his folder for a few.

[199] 50 minutes and that would be the history lesson, you know.

[200] And that was the school I went to.

[201] It was miserable.

[202] And I, and I'm, I always wanted to be a writer.

[203] And I was always in trouble.

[204] I was always this sort of problem student.

[205] And I had this English teacher was quite nice called Mr. Lanoway.

[206] And I thought, oh, you know, I'm going to start writing short stories in my spare time and I'm going to give them to my English teacher.

[207] It's just a way of getting like, look, and I've written this thing.

[208] And so I gave him a couple.

[209] And I think I gave him number three, you know, after written on a third weekend, thinking that he was, oh, in my head, he was thinking, oh, well, Will's, you know, William has found this thing that he's actually applying himself to.

[210] How amazing.

[211] And he said to me, you know, this is all just extra work for me, don't you?

[212] Like that?

[213] So he kind of scolded me for giving him extra work to do.

[214] So I stopped, I stopped writing those, you know, short stories.

[215] And I just think 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 wrote a school magazine and that caused me all kinds of trouble as well.

[216] So, so I was, I never actually had.

[217] had any encouragement.

[218] And I do kind of think if I was actually encouraged to be a writer, I would have probably got there sooner and probably been a better writer today.

[219] On that point of Beyonce, though, it seems to me that if someone had turned around to you and said, you are Beyonce and you can do anything, you could be an amazing writer.

[220] It seems to me that that actually might have helped.

[221] Yes, yeah, yes.

[222] But that's what I mean about identifying your strengths.

[223] Like I think for me, writing was a strength.

[224] But nobody ever And if that was identified, and if somebody said to me, God, you know, you should carry on writing these.

[225] Literally if one person, one adult said to me, these short stories, you know, they share real problems you should carry on writing these.

[226] It would have blown my mind.

[227] I'd have definitely carried on.

[228] But I just stopped, you know, I just stopped.

[229] So, yeah, but that's what I mean.

[230] I think the mistake is somebody, you know, in the research for selfie, this Harvard psychologist, Brian Little said it's the myth of unlimited control, that myth of.

[231] 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 and but actually i think what what you should do is identify what is this person passionate about you know and what they actually what they actually good at and if and if and if and if somebody saw promising me as a journalist or a writer then that that's what they should have encouraged me in but it was actually just a battle In the chapter The Good Self, in that book, Chapter 4, you talk about the different forces that are controlling our behaviour.

[232] And it made me think, you know, that I've also had this ongoing thought about how control of my life over what the forces are that are actually controlling my life because we tend to believe, obviously, as we would, from this first person view, that I'm making my decisions.

[233] But when I, this sounds quite, I don't care, I'm going to say it.

[234] 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, and I actually said this in like podcast number four, when no one was actually listening and it was just me under the stairs in Manchester.

[235] I said, the change that I saw in my behavior or how I felt before and after ejaculation is extreme.

[236] And I watched Rogan talk about this he described it as being before ejaculation at the back of the bus and you're just fucking being swung around the he said it's foggy there's papers everywhere and then it says post ejaculation it's like you zoom forward onto the wheel of the bus and go oh fuck what was going on there and you gave back control yeah and just this um it for me that was one of the clearest signs that my decision making 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 do you talk about a study where um men are asked um a variety of different questions while they're masturbating 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 five 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 certain Yeah, it's like the sexual preferences So it's like would you Would you be attracted to an animal?

[237] Would you be quite disturbing?

[238] And I think before they'd masturbated 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 masturbation And I think most men can read that study and go You can relate a little bit to Not that I'm saying that most men would have sex with an animal Obviously How our thinking is different.

[239] And, you know, and I love studies like that because I feel like it, you know, when we, when we feel a different way, we do almost become a different person.

[240] Like I remember writing in selfie about, you know, when I'm trying to lose weight again.

[241] And on Monday morning, I'm absolutely resolute.

[242] It's like I'm going to keep my calories down.

[243] I'm going to exercise every day.

[244] I am a machine.

[245] I'm a stoic.

[246] I'm athletic you know that's who I am but by Friday evening I'm just like oh sorry I'm going to get 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 but which I mean you have a different personality you're much more loose and happy and good to be around on Friday than you're on Monday but you're like that but you have a different value system 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.

[247] So it is that we almost, you know, I think pre and post ejaculation, we almost become a different person.

[248] Monday morning versus Friday night, we become different people.

[249] So I think that, you know, we're so fluid in who we are, depending on how we're feeling.

[250] We don't want to be there.

[251] No, it's not how we think of ourselves.

[252] We think of ourselves as a, yeah, a certain kind of person.

[253] Yeah, with a certain boxed in set of values and, behaviours.

[254] 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.

[255] And then something happens.

[256] 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?

[257] Is there anything?

[258] about the psychology there that might help us to be our Monday selves come Friday.

[259] So in selfie I write about how important it is to change our environment rather than try and change ourself.

[260] And the kind of story that I tell is I call it 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.

[261] If you put it back in the desert, it's going to be happy and thriving and wonderful.

[262] And nothing is changed in the lizard.

[263] it's the environment that's changed.

[264] And I think part of being an individualist is that we look into ourselves to our behaviour to explain the causes of our behaviour.

[265] But actually, you know, so much of our behaviour is controlled but what's going on around us by our environment.

[266] You know, and the reason we feel, you know, Friday on Friday is because it's Friday and that has a cultural resonance.

[267] That is Friday night, yeah, thank fuck it's Friday.

[268] And we've done five days of week.

[269] works, we feel different.

[270] So I think a lot of it is about changing your environment.

[271] You know, there is a lot to say about, you know, if you take yourself to the gym, you've changed your environment.

[272] If you, if you can change, 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.

[273] Oh my God, me, man. It's guarantee that you will eat it.

[274] You know, it's a drug.

[275] And so, So I think maintain your environment to maintain yourself.

[276] You know, I think that's one of the key takeaways that I've learned.

[277] How to stay alive in the age of perfectionism?

[278] How does one stay alive?

[279] One of the interesting things in that chapter was you kind of debunk this idea that alcoholism, for example, and a lot of these things that I've spoken to guests about on this podcast that they've suffered with don't necessarily stem from having a unhappy childhood.

[280] I've got a friend that, you know, who's very public about the fact that he became an alcoholic.

[281] And I guess I believed it was because of traumatic early events.

[282] I tended to believe that that was the case, but you debunk that quite clearly.

[283] And kind of assert that personality is the causal factor in most of our predispositions.

[284] Yeah, I think one of the things that I've, that I've learned, well, certainly learned from research in that book, was just the incredible power of personality and the incredible power of our genes it's really people don't like to talk about this stuff and because it 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 that they want to promote that idea of 100 % self -control I can be whoever I want to be but but but genes are so important and as I said it's not that they dictate who we are or you know or um you you're born with a kind of blueprint and that's all you're ever going to be.

[285] But you are born with a certain kind of genome, you know, with a certain level of likely neuroticism, openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness, you know, how kind of happy or kind of angry and competitive you are, and so on.

[286] And so you're born kind of with a certain prevailing wind and then your childhood experiences mostly will, do the rest of that wiring up so by the time you're in your kind of 20s you're kind of who you are like not 100 % because still traumatic experiences can break you to pieces you know you've 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 Beyonce if you want to be but it is nevertheless true that a huge amount of who we are is just how we were, who we were born as, you know, and I've got that addictive personality.

[287] I was an alcoholic.

[288] I haven't, I had to give up drinking when I was 26 because I'd lost control of how much I was drinking and I still struggle with kind of, you know, sugar now.

[289] I've swapped booze for sugar is my problematic behavior, which is much easier to manage.

[290] So I get it.

[291] And, and, but, but, but, but, but, it's not, it's, I think part of the fact that we're these storytelling telling animals, 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 past for the causes of our, all of our problems.

[292] And, you know, I think there is a certain amount of truth to that stuff.

[293] Like, I'm sure our childhoods affect us.

[294] But there are, we, We tend to blame everything on our childhoods, everything on our parents.

[295] And I think alcoholism is one of those things that it's mostly genetic.

[296] You know, you've either got that problem with addiction or you don't.

[297] Can it be accelerated by trauma though?

[298] Because, you know, when I speak to psychologists, they often talk about it being a form of escapism in many ways.

[299] And other drugs and, you know, other self -medications being a form of like trying to escape pain or trauma.

[300] Definitely.

[301] Yeah, I think how to think about it is that it's, um, you could have a vulnerability to it.

[302] Yeah.

[303] And that's the genetic component.

[304] And if something bad happens to you, then you're much more likely to kind of fall into that draft.

[305] Versus someone else who doesn't happen.

[306] Yeah, exactly.

[307] Okay.

[308] On that point of storytelling, you mentioned storytelling there in our narrative.

[309] Your book in 2019 was about storytelling.

[310] I, having worked in marketing, was very compelled to read this book for the...

[311] Probably, you know, we talked before we start recording that a lot of people will see a book about...

[312] with the word storytelling on the front of it and think that they can use it from a marketing capacity or in a business sense.

[313] What have you learnt about how people can tell great stories in the context of business and marketing?

[314] Yeah, well, so quite a lot.

[315] I teach business storytelling section four, which is an American ed tech organization.

[316] So I do a course there in the science of storytelling for business.

[317] and you know we are storytelling animals we we we we we 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 marketeer 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's beginning middle and end a character overcoming obstacles I think a lot of the stuff we've been talking about is important, especially the idea that people think with their feelings.

[318] You know, it's feelings first, story second.

[319] The story justifies the feelings.

[320] 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 feel about, you know, justice and what their values are.

[321] And so that, 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 because you know i thought about this a lot in my previous business was um very successful in storytelling so my first company social chain it's you know growing to be a very big business maybe a thousand employees worldwide we were um we started out as a as a marketing agency never had had a sales team because we focused on telling stories.

[322] 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 me and my relationship with my mother.

[323] And that would be the first sentences out of my mouth when I walked on stage.

[324] If there was a thousand people or 15 ,000 people there, it would be about my mother.

[325] And through that story about my mother and my upbringing and my battles and all those things.

[326] 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.

[327] And that meant we never needed a sales team.

[328] I've always believed that if I'd walked on stage and started with a case study, I would have had to have a sales team at social team, walking indoors.

[329] And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make.

[330] When they pitch, when they speak on stage, when they post on social media, I think they have a, they believe that the listener wants big numbers and to hear how many views they got for their clients 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 through but your mother is you're connecting emotionally so people are you know wanting they're on your side immediately and you're making them feel good you make them feel things emotionally the kind of framework that I use for business storytelling is that is that you know essentially people's brains process reality um in the same way and that's the you know so they're the hero of their story you're not the hero standing on the stage the company that that's selling to you isn't the hero they're the hero of their own story um they are you know that they've got goals they're trying to pursue we'll have you know that which are the plots of our lives the audience yeah the audience the person you're setting to um 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 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.

[331] So Scrooge is the hero of that story.

[332] But the three ghosts come in to show him Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future.

[333] They help him get what he needs, which is to become a better, more selfless, more generous, more loving, giving person.

[334] So they are going to, they arrive in his story to kind of show him the way to help him get what he needs.

[335] And so that's what I argue.

[336] That's the appropriate position for most companies and organizations and needs is not to be the hero because your audience feels like they're the hero.

[337] You're the light figure.

[338] You're there to help them get what they want.

[339] 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.

[340] You're presenting as the hero.

[341] What people really want to know is how can you help me get what I want?

[342] 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 mean i my brain went to nikey for some reason yeah yeah well that's oh nike's 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 cappernic which is controversial, but did them, I think they're something up to like 6 % after that ad campaign.

[343] And that's a really good example of an organisation who is behaving as a light figure.

[344] So that Colin Kaepernack campaign has nothing to do with shoes.

[345] What they're not doing is going, our shoes will make you run 8 % faster.

[346] We've got these sprung soles.

[347] We've got these amazing laces that won't trip you up or whatever.

[348] You know, their stats list is not in there.

[349] it's purely they're telling a story they've figured out that their client base are mostly believing this set of beliefs around the world and those are goals you know people who you know 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 are light figures in this story.

[350] We, you know, we are, we are on the side of the Colin Kaepernick's of the people who are kneeling.

[351] You know, we believe that Black Lives Matter.

[352] And so they're presenting as a light figure.

[353] And if you think about it rationally, it's kind of crazy.

[354] Like, why would a shoe company have this political thing?

[355] But it's because of the storytelling, because because they're presenting as a light figure who was engaged in the kind of, you know, this particular mission in the world.

[356] And, you know, in order to kind of join the mission.

[357] you buy the Nike shoes and it worked you know it works really well I mean one of the archetypal examples that I talk about that I love is there was an ad that was broadcast I think it was in the 60s by Volkswagen and it was the first kind of modern advert 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 tire and this will get you nought to 60 and whatever and then this Volkswagen did this amazing ad where it just it was black and white because it was still in the days of black and white and they had it just showed this guy it was all snowing to a big blizzard outside and this guy gets in his car he turns it's like you know just before dawn turns in his ignition drives his car through the blizzard the blizzard the blizzard opens these huge shed doors and then you hear this big engine start up and out drives is snowplow and it's how does the guy who drives the snowplow get to the snowplow and it's just Volkswagen and that's that really simple really effective story and it's showing Volkswagen is 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 doing this because of this stat that it was as simple as that And it revolutionized marketing.

[358] It changed everything because they'd figured out that kind of light figure form of storytelling.

[359] And are they saying that the Volkswagen, Volkswagen enables you to be the hero that Exactly, yeah.

[360] And Nike are saying that the Nike shoe, associating it with Colin Kaepernick, enables you to be the social activist hero.

[361] Hero, exactly.

[362] Like Colin Kaepernick was.

[363] Yeah, exactly.

[364] Fascinating.

[365] I'm just going to change a few things about my, a few of my companies, I think, on the basis of that.

[366] Yeah, I think we, I think in the course of business, we all forget that emotion is the most important thing.

[367] I'm thinking about all the newsletters that my companies have been writing.

[368] I've got various companies and the newsletters they write and the videos we make and how sometimes 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 really thinking about what the emotion of the content is.

[369] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[370] And with the Nike example, I mean, we live in, since the global financial crisis, we live in heightened political times.

[371] And so, you know, and people are always tribal.

[372] And so, you know, one of the big things that successful kind of persuaders do is to make those tribal appeals.

[373] And, you know, sometimes it works with Colin Kaepernach, like with the Gillette, raise the campaign, it didn't work.

[374] because you're kind of essentially attacking your target audience.

[375] So that was, you know, less successful.

[376] I think there was a terrible Pepsi out with Kendall Jenner.

[377] Oh, gosh, I was thinking about that.

[378] Where they were kind of basically, yeah, where it was just making this, yeah.

[379] Will it put a super rich, beautiful model, white woman as the hero against social injustice?

[380] And drinking the sugary drink is going to help.

[381] Yeah, you know.

[382] It's just all off of that.

[383] Yeah, so I think organizations are sensing that, partly how we can be a light figure these days is by presenting as people who are assisting in these these political goals that have become very important to people, especially young people.

[384] And some people are getting it right, some people are getting it wrong.

[385] There's a real science to it, though, isn't there?

[386] Yeah.

[387] More we've spoken, I've realised how there is a science to it when you understand 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.

[388] And how they feel represented.

[389] 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.

[390] Great.

[391] Because maybe it's just, you know, the way I'm compelled or whatever, but it was really, really fascinating and felt very relevant.

[392] Status as a topic.

[393] Why does status matter?

[394] And what is status for people that don't understand the world?

[395] word.

[396] Okay.

[397] So, so, so it matters massively.

[398] And I, 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, because you, people just don't talk about it very much.

[399] Status or status?

[400] Well, Americans say status, British tend to say status, but I guess it's both.

[401] Yeah, it's, it's both.

[402] So, so, so I think one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, subject is that when I sort of make the argument that we're all motivated by status pursuit, they're kind of, they think I'm saying we all want to be rich, we all want to be famous.

[403] And that's not what I'm saying at all.

[404] What I'm saying is that we all want to feel of value.

[405] So we evolved as these, you know, tribal animals.

[406] And to be successful in the tribe means two things.

[407] You've got to be good at connecting with other people.

[408] So being accepted and fomenting a sense of belongingness with other people.

[409] So that's belongingness.

[410] That's connection that's not stated that's something else um but once we're in a group in a tribe we want to rise within it we want to feel like 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're 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 of 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 we're in the tribes the more you know people would try and get status in the tribes um 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.

[411] So it's this huge, huge component of human behavior, but it's subconscious.

[412] So we don't like to think about it sometimes.

[413] 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 somebody considers us to be of lesser value.

[414] You know, you said at the start of that, that when you introduce this topic, people will have kind of an allergic reaction because they think you mean.

[415] 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.

[416] It frames them as being kind of narcissistic and selfish and, you know.

[417] And nobody wants to admit that they are selfish or they are, you know, they're concerned with status.

[418] They don't want to admit it.

[419] It's true.

[420] But if everyone wants to say, I'll say it.

[421] It's just the way that we are.

[422] And then you went on to say that, you know, people don't like to admit they want to be famous.

[423] but I tend to believe that a lot of people do want to be famous.

[424] And in that book you talk about children in particular when they're asked what they want to be when they're older.

[425] It's quite pretty alarming, right?

[426] Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's, again, an indicator of the rise in individualism that that's more and more kids in the West, since as Evan has been saying, we want to be rich, want to be famous.

[427] But there are all kinds of status games that we can play.

[428] And I think one of the important things to understand about status games is that the brain is so obsessed with status.

[429] it assigns kind of status points to to anything so for 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 it can be um how simply i live you know i i know someone who um he's a lovely guy but he considers himself to be sort of not materialistic and he's very much in the wellness space and he um you know was telling me um 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 wing mirror and he was sort of talking oh you know all the other parents have got these big Mercedes and nowdies and vm w's but i've just got this thing and and and i think he he was trying to express the fact that he just didn't care he just didn't care about his his status.

[430] But for me, he did care.

[431] That car was every bit as much of a status symbol for him as the, you know, the brand new Mercedes four -wheel drives were for the other parents.

[432] It's just that he was playing a different status game.

[433] In his game, having a crap car is a high -status thing.

[434] The same as the aristocracy in Britain.

[435] So, you know, if you remember the British aristocracy, you'll look down your nose at people who have a brand -new Japanese Lexus or whatever.

[436] They drive up beaten up Landrovers.

[437] And so it all depends what game you're playing.

[438] Different games use different things to symbolize status.

[439] And so that's how that game works.

[440] Lots of people play the fame game.

[441] Lots of people play the money game.

[442] But other people don't.

[443] You know, if you were hanging around with Gandhi in India, you wouldn't be playing the money game.

[444] You would have got more status for living.

[445] The more simpler your life became, the more status in that group you would earn.

[446] It's so true.

[447] I've played all those games in my life.

[448] I'm still playing many of them.

[449] I'm not here to lie, so that's just what it is.

[450] And I think really interestingly on that as well is 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 I'm still playing status games now, was how much designer stuff can I buy and champagne can I buy in nightclubs?

[451] I played that game between 18 and 24.

[452] And then when I actually got it.

[453] money when I actually was successful, I actually saw Louis Vuitton as a lower status thing.

[454] So I just started wearing all black and got rid of all of my designer stuff because I now think that it's a different game.

[455] Yeah, it's a different game.

[456] Yeah.

[457] And so I don't, now I have an allergic reaction to anything designer because to me, yeah, it's weird.

[458] I think it's low status.

[459] I think in my head, it's true.

[460] And in the book, I write about this hilarious study where they figured out because in the luxury goods game, the big.

[461] the logo the lower the status yes and they figured out that the 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 five hundred dollars 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 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.

[462] It's much more about what people who are playing the games with us think of us.

[463] And so, you know, my wife is the former editor of Elle magazine.

[464] So, you know, that fashion, luxury world.

[465] You know, people signal to each other.

[466] I will see a handbag and it will just be invisible to me what that handbag means, what the meaning of that handbag is.

[467] But the owner of that handbag, the first fuck what I think about that handbag, they're interested in what, you know, that would.

[468] woman over there who knows about the handbag knows.

[469] 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.

[470] And that's what matters because that's the game.

[471] They're playing a game with that person.

[472] They're not playing the game with me, so they don't care what I think.

[473] It's so, you know, I have this very unproven thought that just came to mind when you're 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 ladder, you want the biggest fucking logo possible.

[474] And you want it all over the car.

[475] And if you think about certain, like, you know, people, you know, where they are in that status thing, they will have, they will wear a track suit of that logo.

[476] And then as you rise financially or in status, the logo, as you say, get smaller and then it disappears.

[477] So if you look at billionaires, they're not wearing, Jeff Bezos is not wearing a Louis Vuitton track suit or a Burmese and basics.

[478] Yeah.

[479] It's all plain with the billionaires.

[480] It's all very plain.

[481] they have the yacht they're playing that game yeah yeah they do how many feet is the yacht but yeah super interesting makes me wonder do do we actually really care about these things do we actually really um we i spend we spend our lives telling ourselves that we want that burkin bag we we really genuinely love the lamb bikini but do we do we actually like the lamb bikini or we just do we just like what it's signaling about us well i i don't want to over i don't want to over um kind of almost overpromise the story like I think there's a danger where you can say well a Lamborghini is 100 % status there's nothing else 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've driven sports cars a couple of times and it's been amazing so it's not just status like it is it's incredible to have a like a camera that's like amazing photographs so so you are getting something extra for your money, but mostly, I think, what you're getting is status.

[482] That's really mostly what you're getting.

[483] And it's worth it.

[484] I mean, I don't want to forage that trap of being condescending to status.

[485] It is a fundamental human need that we feel of value.

[486] And, you know, if we're playing a high -level status game with lots of Lamborghini owners, it's really, really hard to feel of value in that group.

[487] So you've got to work really hard.

[488] So that's why a brand -new Lamborghini for somebody to play in that game will feel as good as a, you know, as a dirt bike to somebody playing, you know, a game over there.

[489] Like one might cost multiples more than the other, but it'll feel just as good because they're worried about, they're only really concerned about what the other people in their game are thinking.

[490] So, so, so, yeah, we do care.

[491] And it's, it's a good thing because it's, you know, the book does talk a lot about the negatives of status pursuit, but it also talks a lot about the positives of status.

[492] pursuit.

[493] I mean, civilization, technology, that's what you get when people want to pursue status.

[494] When somebody wants to become the best technologist, the best vaccine designer, the best, you know, the best charity, we want to save the most lives.

[495] That's humans at their best.

[496] And that's also status pursuit.

[497] But it's good.

[498] It's positive.

[499] 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 in that didn't that were that were low that were low status in childhood in some context yeah are those that then seek status most as adults um maybe but i again i i i i i Again, I do think that personality comes a lot into play.

[500] Like anything, some people are more interested in the status than other people.

[501] Like Elon Musk is obviously incredibly interested in his own relative status, and that's a big driver for him.

[502] Jeff Bezos, you know, Beyonce, you know, these people 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.

[503] so i don't i don't necessarily think it's about um low self -worth it might it's probably to do with genetic things like extraversion agreeableness which is a personality um components if you're low in agreeableness you're competitive it's that kind of type a personality so so so i so there's definitely a genetic component to it uh 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 a poor guy raised in a housing estate in Stockwell and 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.

[504] And so I think that explains, you know, when people are joining gangs, it's not because they're naughty.

[505] It's not because they're not because they're just doing what they're designed to do where they're in an environment where there aren't many status games to play.

[506] They're just not a lot of options.

[507] It's interesting because when I think of some of my friends that I believe in my own, you know, ill -informed observation are addicted to status.

[508] The ones that are really addicted to status, the ones that are really pursuing it, are actually pursuing it at the cost of connection.

[509] And what I mean by that is my richest, most successful friend that I have that lives in a massive mansion in the middle of nowhere because that's the place that he could buy the biggest house and has all the sports cars is also the loneliest.

[510] Yeah, that's a really good observation.

[511] I mean, status and connection, they're separate things.

[512] So we crave by, you know, nature, both of them.

[513] You know, people are, tend to be happier when they're more connected.

[514] But status is a separate thing.

[515] And I think that's right.

[516] I think that's absolutely correct.

[517] Some people's, their people's dials are set.

[518] I consider myself somebody who is relatively high in need for status, which is why I ended up writing books for a living.

[519] But I'm relatively lonely needing to fit a connection.

[520] I don't really have much of a social life.

[521] I don't really want one.

[522] You know, I'm not bothered particularly.

[523] So, you know, everybody's dials are set in different ways.

[524] Some people have relatively low need for status, and they're relatively high need for connection.

[525] And they're surrounded by friends and they're probably happier than I am.

[526] I'm sure they're happier than I am.

[527] Is there instances where we can be too consumed with status and that can cause us to have adverse personal consequences?

[528] 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.

[529] The first game is the dominance game.

[530] And so the dominance game we share with it.

[531] animals.

[532] We've been playing dominance games for millions of years.

[533] And they are what they sound like they are.

[534] They're about aggression, but also the threat of aggression, um, bullying, you know, that kind of thing.

[535] Whenever we force somebody else to attend to us in status, that's dominance.

[536] Um, there's success games, which is, I think, the best of human nature, um, competence.

[537] So when, when you're thinking about how do we become a valued member of our tribe, um, 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.

[538] So that's how you're of value to your tribe.

[539] Competence, we're being good at something.

[540] But there's also virtue.

[541] You know, we can play virtue games.

[542] And so in the tribe, that means that you know the rules of the tribe.

[543] You enforce the rules of the tribe.

[544] You know the rituals.

[545] You believe in the spiritual stories.

[546] So virtue isn't just about being selfless and kind and loving to your tribal members.

[547] It's also about being an enforcer.

[548] And I think, you know, there's no such thing as a pure game.

[549] That's the other thing to kind of point out like a like 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 kick them in the groin you know like there has to be some virtue in there too so you call that dominance virtue game and i think that i think the worst games 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'm raising status by enforcing rule but by following rules and knowing the moment the moral rules the dominance 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 cancer 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 book I write about the rise of the Nazis are right about the final chapter which kind of brings the whole thing together is the story of the rise of the communist in the Soviet Union from the perspective of status and you know that's also a virtue dominance game they're not interested in competence 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 think a lot of it is because you know trying to be kind of open -hearted about it I wrote about this in selfie and I wrote in the status game is that since the third financial crisis life has got harder especially for young people success, 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, you know, we're now entering a new recession apparently so life is much harder for millennials and gen Zenz and it was for boomers and gen X's so success games are hard to play.

[550] So what you're, I think what you're seeing is online, people, people get status wherever they can.

[551] So they start playing virtue games instead.

[552] One of the alarming things you talk about in this book is that, um, status.

[553] Did I say that right?

[554] Yeah.

[555] Yeah, that's the English way I need to because I'm not American.

[556] And that will harm my status.

[557] Exactly.

[558] Exactly.

[559] Exactly.

[560] This idea that status games actually have it impact on our health and mortality, that we will die younger.

[561] if we have lower status, what evidence have you got or found to support this idea?

[562] Well, there's lots of evidence.

[563] There's a big, a lot of it comes from this guy called Dr. Michael Marma, who just did this incredible set of work, which he calls the Whitehall Studies.

[564] So obviously, Whitehall is the bureaucracy that kind of runs, that kind of takes the, you know, the civil service that kind of works with the government.

[565] So it's an enormous organisation, highly stratified.

[566] And so Marma 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.

[567] So the obvious thing is, oh, that's just because if you're being paid less, you're maybe can't afford the personal trainer, you know, you're eating worse.

[568] But it wasn't that, that wasn't in that case at all.

[569] Literally one rung down below the very top.

[570] So still a very, very wealthy, successful high status people.

[571] had worse health outcomes than the person at the very top.

[572] So it really did seem like the brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order.

[573] And the lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became.

[574] Another set of scientists looked at this in a laboratory.

[575] So they took a bunch of monkeys who, obviously, like us, very hierarchical, will they face status games?

[576] And they deliberately felt it's a terrible experiment.

[577] and it's very awful, but they deliberately fed them a terrible diet of, like, fast food, like chocolate and crisp.

[578] So they ended up having a high level of athelosclerotic plaque, which is, you know, so they were getting clogged up, basically, and they're invulnerable to heart problems and so on.

[579] And they found that it was the same, that the lower you went down the monkey pecking order, the more likely the monkey's worth to die of these heart -related diseases because of their bad diets and the ones at the top.

[580] And then, importantly, they conspired.

[581] have to change the hierarchy of the group i don't know how they did it but they changed them but they took out the top monkey but they changed the hierarchy of the group and um they found that the health outcomes changed in lockstep with a change in hierarchy so if a monkey went up they became less likely to die and so so then you might ask what this is crazy like why is this and so the closest answer that scientists have come there's 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.

[582] So, you know, we're social animals.

[583] Our brains are constantly monitoring how we're doing in the world.

[584] What are our levels of connection?

[585] What are our levels of status?

[586] We have this status detection system that's constantly monitoring our level of status.

[587] And so the idea is that when the brain registers that we are, you know, dropping in status, we're not too high in status, it prepares ourselves.

[588] It changes the way our genes work and the actions of our cells change in such a way that it kind of prepares us for kind of trouble.

[589] So inflammation goes up and if our response goes down and so the body changes in such a way that we become more ill. There's a really a narrative in there, which some might deduce from hearing all of that, which is that your level of success relates to your health.

[590] And this, I'm going to say it in the really gruesome way, which is the more successful you are, the longer you'll live.

[591] Obviously, there's loads of factors, you know, 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.

[592] 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.

[593] then they will be...

[594] They're less likely to die if they're higher up.

[595] Yeah, that's true.

[596] Yeah.

[597] It's quite alarming, is that?

[598] As you said, there's so many confounds.

[599] I mean, life is much more complicated than that.

[600] There's always, you know, it is true that people, you know, smoke and don't smoke and so on.

[601] But, but, you know, what Marmot finds is that if you take two smokers, the one higher up is less like to die of smoking -related disease than the one lower down.

[602] In the status.

[603] In the status game.

[604] Ladder or whatever.

[605] Yeah.

[606] Interesting.

[607] Yeah.

[608] 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, at the top of the hierarchy.

[609] Yeah, that's from the White House studies.

[610] Yeah, that's part of what Dr. Mark.

[611] Mark is.

[612] Yeah, it's crazy.

[613] So they're really significant.

[614] It's not marginal.

[615] It's not marginal.

[616] It'll be marginal from one layer to the next.

[617] When you actually look at the whole game, it's very significant.

[618] The differences, the health outcomes.

[619] from the top and bottom it's absolutely mental i've never really considered that idea before that's status is playing such a significant role in my biological situation um the same is true for connection for so when we're lonely the same thing happens the lonely we are when we lack status the same thing we know we we we have that our information goes up and our response goes down which is bad for us in the long term and there's the same with uh the social genomics people say it's same with loneliness, which is why loneliness is bad for our health too.

[620] The other thing that I found particularly interesting was that when we lose our status, the consequences of that can be pretty morbid.

[621] Yeah.

[622] And that suicide is often the result of people losing status and the speed in which they lose their status.

[623] Yeah.

[624] Yeah.

[625] So this is why I never believe that Geoffrey Epstein conspiracy theory is I think he did kill himself because he's just at this huge dropping status.

[626] It just makes him incredibly vulnerable to suicidal.

[627] thought and ideation.

[628] So, so yes, it's not just drops in status.

[629] It's especially sudden drops in status makes us very vulnerable.

[630] And also, I found it was interesting.

[631] The research says it's also being left behind.

[632] So if we stay still and everybody else, everybody around us accelerates, that also makes us vulnerable to potentially, you know, anxiety, depression and potentially suicidal ideation.

[633] That in particular is quite an alarming thought that if you're in a friends, best friends, and four of the best friends do really, really well, professionally in their careers, whatever, just because of the context in which you're existing, you might become depressed because your four friends did well.

[634] And this, in some respects, might explain jealousy.

[635] Of course it does.

[636] Yeah.

[637] I mean, we've evolved to want to feel of value, but unfortunately being of value is kind of relative like if everybody is equally valued then nobody's valued to what I mean we're all in the same level so it's that 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 we hate it when our friends become successful parts of us are always going to because it kind of devalues what you know what we have you know it's just um 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 clearest evidence of our own inadequacy yeah it's that that was a really sort of um kind of naughty 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 um how the fun how how human social groups work um there's there's a really amazing researcher in america called joseph henrich who studies this stuff and has written a couple of books about this and and and he talks about how how we learn and so so in those again those groups in which we evolve which we've sort of to figure out why we are like we are.

[638] What you'll find is that when you were growing up, you know, young people look, they identify high -status people from which to learn.

[639] And those high -status people are going to be like them in some way.

[640] 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.

[641] And so this mechanism switches on, which is copy, flatter, conforms.

[642] So you start copying their behavior because the brain goes, well, this person's high status, want to become high status.

[643] So if I want to become high status, of course, do everything that they're doing.

[644] If I do everything that they're doing, it all work.

[645] So it switches on.

[646] And then we've got the flatter process, which is, I need access to this person.

[647] I want to be around this person to be able to learn everything that they're doing.

[648] And you do that with, you know, flattery is a good way of doing that.

[649] It's like, you know, you're amazing.

[650] I love this.

[651] What a great book.

[652] What a great podcast.

[653] You're amazing businesses.

[654] And then, you know, so we'll let people in who treat us that way.

[655] And conform, you do what, you do what you're told, you behave.

[656] And so, and so, you know, you can, you can, you can, you can think about that when you think about celebrities, you know, like I, I, I, I remember when I was seven or eight years old, I was obsessed with this guy called this guy, Nick Kershaw.

[657] And I remember seeing him on TVM and he was crossing his legs in a certain way with his ankle on his knee and his leg sticking out.

[658] And I just found myself sitting at school with the same way as Nick Kershaw.

[659] you know so like my copy flatter conform mechanism is switched on so i i think that's i i think that's how kind of fame works i think it's that 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 these very ancient evolved mechanisms switch on even though we're probably never going to meet that person they just switch on and we become and so you know you'll notice that um people read the same books as their idols they dress the same way as their idols.

[660] They might even, you know, I find, I mean, I'm embarrassed about it, but I think it's probably very common.

[661] 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, like using their inflections a bit.

[662] It's just kind of weird, you know, or laughing like them, you know.

[663] So generally speaking, we're quite envious creatures.

[664] We don't like high -status people.

[665] But there's a very narrow class of people that we identify with.

[666] And those are the people that feel like super successful versions of us.

[667] Like we relate to them, we identify with them.

[668] And that's when that very evolved ancient mechanism switch on, which I call in the book copyflatic and form.

[669] Yeah, it's so interesting.

[670] Much of what you've described as well as explains influence marketing and why it's so effective.

[671] Why, you know, if you look up to someone, they can sell you anything.

[672] Absolutely.

[673] And that's what the whole industry is based on.

[674] The other point that you talk about in the book around the role that status is playing, which really alarmed me and made me ponder quite a lot, was about how 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 rather accept a highest status job than a pay rise.

[675] Yeah, a different job title.

[676] Yeah.

[677] That's pretty alarming.

[678] Yeah.

[679] Well, it is, but it's not that surprising when you think about the evolution of the brain.

[680] We haven't evolved to crave money because money hasn't been around long enough.

[681] We've evolved to crave status.

[682] And money is just one way that we can measure status.

[683] But there are loads of other ways we can measure status.

[684] So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be money based.

[685] And as you said, that was quite a major study.

[686] I think it was 15 ,000 people in the UK that they surveyed and found that most would accept a high status job title over a modest pay rise.

[687] Yeah.

[688] So instead of, you know, I got Jack site over there, he's the producer, director of this podcast.

[689] So Jack, what's your job title right now.

[690] What do I say director slash producer?

[691] Okay, so if I change Jack's job title to CEO of the podcast versus giving him one thousand pound pay rise, he'd probably take the CEO of the podcast.

[692] Yeah, yeah.

[693] But it's also smart thinking because because, you know, when we're judging other people's status, it isn't just how much money they have.

[694] In fact, the money's often invisible.

[695] The title says, a lot.

[696] So if you were to, you know, make Jack, you know, he's my podcast CEO, he's more likely than to go on and get a better job somewhere else, higher status, more money because of that bump in status.

[697] So it's actually, the instinct is correct.

[698] It's a smarter move to take the title than the grand.

[699] So I could reduce his salary by heart if I do it.

[700] No, I think we're so sensitive to reductions in status that is that we'll never fly.

[701] That's interesting.

[702] You talk about the cues as well within status games that we kind of look for.

[703] What are those four cues?

[704] Yeah, this is, again, Joseph Henrich's work where he looks at, you know, how do we identify the people that we want to copy Flatican form?

[705] So there are various cues.

[706] One of them is with, they think on success cues.

[707] So in the hunter -gatherer tribe, it might be a hunter, has a big necklace of teeth, one -tooth of every creature that he's killed.

[708] You know, So that's why we have jewelry these days because it's a success queue.

[709] And it's amazing when you read about the detail because the, you know, the brain is, some neuroscientist who has his status detection system.

[710] So we are constantly all of the time monitoring our environment for status cues and, you know, playing that game.

[711] And so we're constantly monitoring other people's body language.

[712] we can measure someone's relative status versus, you know, submissive versus dominant in 43 milliseconds.

[713] That's how quick when we see somebody, we measure how dominant or submissive they are in terms of status.

[714] So that's how quick it is.

[715] So we're looking at things like successful interruptions in conversation.

[716] The more successful interruptions you make, the higher status you are.

[717] Like we've all been in situations, maybe you're not for a while, where you're trying to get a word in edgewise.

[718] And everyone's just like, maybe in a family situation.

[719] And you just think, oh, fuck it.

[720] I have to hear Smorgon on the podcast, so I can get fucking read and edgeways with him.

[721] But that's actually a perfectly valid point.

[722] He sees himself as higher status than you.

[723] And so both of your games subconsciously were playing a status game.

[724] And so we are, so that's another way.

[725] We're also measuring another cue is how other people are attending to that person.

[726] So if we notice lots of.

[727] of people who are attending to a person, we will automatically assume they're worth attending to.

[728] And so what's interesting, Joseph Henry writes, is that these effects were designed to work in small groups of people, because that's how we evolved in very small tribes.

[729] There weren't evolved to operate in a global environment of modern media and the internet.

[730] 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 because 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 that happens to be really famous and then no one can quite work out why it's because it's a feedback leap once you lots of people start looking at that one person everyone just piles in and because the brains are assuming they must be high status must be worth attending to if everyone's attending to them people attend to them and And then, you know, you've also talked about how their health outcomes would be better potentially as well.

[731] So shouldn't...

[732] Their success cues go up.

[733] Their success cues go up.

[734] You know, it sounds like a wonderful life to live.

[735] So should we all start pursuing status?

[736] Well, no, we...

[737] Again, I'd say we already are.

[738] 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 because I lucky them and we imagine 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 workahism you know they're like they're not happy the marriages don't last so it's made sense of that to me and that's and it's actually quite a nice understanding that there isn't this hierarchy of happiness where the richer you are, the happier you are, because we're all playing individual status games.

[739] So, you know, those people playing high -level status games, the millionaires, the billionaires, the Elon Musk's, they're competing with the people immediately around them.

[740] They're competing, like Elon Musk is competing with Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook.

[741] So they're no happier than the people at school who are competing to be the best, well, not I say no happier, that's in general, I mean, I don't know.

[742] But, but, but, you know, the high you go, the harder, that game becomes.

[743] So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, you know, that's taken away a lot of that, oh, I wish I was this, I wish I was that.

[744] 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 or, you know, or, or, or, or even above me, you're competing with people, they're competing with the people who they're playing against and they're all highly successful, um, uh, incredible all individuals.

[745] It's become really interesting this whole space race.

[746] Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk.

[747] You go, really, you all really care about public markets.

[748] Exactly.

[749] But the other thing to say about that is, and this is again how I've changed.

[750] I mean, I'm a lefty.

[751] I've always been a lefty.

[752] But this book has really opened my mind to the idea that actually we do benefit from these people.

[753] Not just in the obvious ways.

[754] They hire a lot of people.

[755] They give, you know, people get meaning and purpose from their jobs.

[756] People get to live a life.

[757] and pay their mortgage from their jobs.

[758] They pay taxes that keeps the, you know, that keeps the countries running.

[759] They're doing all that.

[760] But also with the space race, they're competing because they're playing a status game.

[761] That's obvious.

[762] But science and technology benefits from that too.

[763] I mean, I don't, you know, there will no doubt be a number of innovations 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.

[764] Chapter 29 of this book, you kind of, you talk about how we can advance in the status game, status game, and the seven rules of the status game.

[765] How do we advance in the status game?

[766] And what do you mean by advance?

[767] Do you mean, win?

[768] No, because you can't win.

[769] I mean, that's the thing.

[770] I think the brain has this story that we live by, and stories can take happy endings.

[771] And a happy ending is if I achieve this, then I'm going to be happy.

[772] And again, it's weird because we know that's not true when we've lived a bit of life because, you know, but we still kind of believe it.

[773] If I get this, if this next book sells 100 ,000, then I'll be happy.

[774] And it's like, I know that's not true.

[775] But so you don't ever win it.

[776] That's an illusion.

[777] That's the storytelling brain, you know, just giving you a bit of a lie to keep you motivated.

[778] I think there are various ways that you can succeed in the status game.

[779] You know, some kind of are quite practical.

[780] I think one of the most practical is that is this amazing revelation that status is more valuable than money to most people.

[781] And it's free.

[782] Like, we have status to give.

[783] We can save money, as I've just said.

[784] You can call him a CEO and you can pay him half.

[785] It's unbelievable.

[786] I wish I'd known this earlier.

[787] But we can, but we, so we have loads of opportunities in our lives to give status to our employees, to the people, around us and we often don't and you know and so I think that and and that feeds back in a kind of real politicy 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're 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.

[788] So when you first think about competition and rivalry in business, you think that's the same thing.

[789] But it's not.

[790] So competition is bad and rivalry is good.

[791] So when I'm talking about competition, I'm talking about a corporate structure like Enron.

[792] So that's the example I used in the book.

[793] So Enron famously had their rank -in -Yank system where the top, I think it was 15 % got promoted.

[794] And then they were judged at least twice a year.

[795] everybody in the company got judged.

[796] The top 50 % got promoted, the bottom got fired, and the middle were just fucking terrified.

[797] So that's competition.

[798] So competition is a sense of all against all.

[799] You go into work and it's a fucking war and you've got to grab and, you know, and I think that's when you end up with extremely toxic and ultimately potentially corrupt corporate cultures because status is very hard to come by.

[800] And so that's what you want to avoid.

[801] And, you know, it's thought that a very moderate amount of competition is quite good to motivate people, but it very quickly goes wrong.

[802] The alternative to that is rivalry.

[803] Now, rivalry is healthy and a massive motivator.

[804] And rather than being all against all, rivalry is one against one.

[805] So that's one individual against one individual or one group, one team against another team, or one organization against another organization.

[806] And rivalry is characterized by having this status competition that's characterized.

[807] characterized by lots of near misses and skirmishes.

[808] So you can think about Apple and Microsoft had a period where there were great rivals.

[809] And that rivalry kind of pushed them on.

[810] And in the book, I tell the story of the true origin story of the iPhone, which is quite amazing.

[811] And it begins when Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs' wife was friends with somebody from Microsoft and she would have regular parties, barbecues.

[812] And so this Microsoft executive, this unnamed Microsoft would come to the barbecue and be brave.

[813] Bragg into Steve Jobs.

[814] And one day he was bragging to Steve Jobs saying, we've solved computing.

[815] You know, it's over for you guys.

[816] We've figured it out.

[817] We've got these tablets with these styluses.

[818] They're going to change everything.

[819] And then the next day, the Monday, Steve Jobs comes into work, furious, because his rival, Microsoft, is dragging their faces in it saying, we've solved computing.

[820] And he says, let's show these fucking pricks how it's really done.

[821] It's not done with styluses.

[822] It's done with fingers.

[823] That's how it's done.

[824] And that became the iPad, well, that became the iPhone.

[825] Well, first it was the iPad, but they released the iPhone, and then it reemerged as the iPad.

[826] 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.

[827] 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 on a barbecue.

[828] So that's healthy.

[829] That's good.

[830] Well, not good for Microsoft.

[831] But that's what you want to be in a corporate.

[832] sense in an organizational sense you want to be um you want to be encouraging rivalry and not competition interesting i've always tried to make sense of my um my love of rivalry and i've always i've always wondered if it was a toxic uh 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 always looking for a rival yeah even you know i have 10 friends we're in a fitness competition and um every month we hand out oh, these fake awards.

[833] There's gold silver and bronze.

[834] Yeah.

[835] And four days out, I won gold last month.

[836] And then four days out from this month, my friend, good friend of mine, he's managing director of one of my companies, Oliver Onchev, he starts talking shit 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 work out three hours, four hours a day to beat him.

[837] And it was almost, I reflected on what I saw in Michael Jordan's documentary, where Michael Jordan would, it would seem look for rivalry.

[838] he would, so much so that he would make them up.

[839] And when they went and asked the other person if it had happened, they'd go, no, that didn't happen.

[840] But Michael Jordan had created a rivalry in his head to motivate himself.

[841] 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 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 motivator.

[842] That's fascinating.

[843] That's exactly right.

[844] Yeah, that's fascinating.

[845] And so that that description you say of somebody who's highlighted as we're constantly looking for rivalries, I think that's that that's correct.

[846] And I also think it's a mistake to think, is it healthy or like is it toxic?

[847] Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

[848] I think one of the things I try not to do my books is to categorize what's good and what's bad.

[849] It just is.

[850] Because in real life, reality, it's usually a trade -off.

[851] Most things are trade -offs.

[852] And so, yes, in lots of sense, if you're playing your success games, it'll be it's a good thing it's a massive motivating it was for Steve Jobs what's for Michael Jordan sounds like it is for you but that doesn't mean it's a hundred percent good thing 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 and 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 there was a significant cost to that with my relationship it with my sleep with you know with my productivity so it is a trade -off and i guess it all depends what your objective yeah 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 um i think i struggle to to write books and you know you find yourself in a place in life now where you're 47 47 it was difficult to find find your age online i had to go back to an article i think where you said you were 38 and do the math.

[853] So I wasn't sure if you're 40, sorry.

[854] But what else are you in search of in your life personally?

[855] What else, if I've asked this question in maybe the last, I don't know, 10 episodes to my guests, but if your overall happiness was a recipe consisting of a set of ingredients, what are you looking for personally now in your life to fulfill that happiness recipe?

[856] That's a very good question.

[857] So I think that one of the things I've done recently is I've not started yet, But I've, I've, he's going to be happening this month.

[858] It's 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.

[859] Like I've got a great marriage, but you're outside the marriage.

[860] I don't, I don't really see people that much.

[861] And I feel like, because I don't have children, I don't actually do anything for anyone else.

[862] So it's going to, I felt like I was becoming quite a selfish life.

[863] everything was just about either my, well, part of my dogs, who I'm obsessed with, I don't do anything for anything else.

[864] So I figure that's a bit of a hole in my life.

[865] So that's why I'm going to start volunteering.

[866] I've got to be interviewed by this charity, but assuming that goes well.

[867] So I think that's a whole.

[868] And I do, I do want to sort out the connection side of things.

[869] Like I've started having semi -regular meetups with some old school friends recently, which has just been an absolute joy to see these people after, you know, so long.

[870] And I kind of, I kind of, in my head, started to tell the story that it was me that had failed on my exams and was a total disaster.

[871] But it was amazing in secret.

[872] And with all these, lots of, that's a lawyer and, you know, there's all these successful people.

[873] We all failed our exams.

[874] It was just a really bad school.

[875] But we all kind of succeeded regardless of that.

[876] So that's been a, that's, that's been really fun.

[877] And I've had to kind of, Yeah, so I think it's moving the down on connection, that that's what I'm missing.

[878] We have to become more and more intentional about that connection, I think.

[879] I feel like men probably more so.

[880] Definitely, yeah.

[881] 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 wedding, make sure we will go because it's going to become increasingly, there's going to become increasingly more excuses as to why we shouldn't go or we can't go.

[882] We live further apart.

[883] We have families.

[884] Yeah.

[885] And you really, I feel like as a man, you really have to fight for that connection as you age.

[886] Yeah, I mean, I kind of, I kind of really do believe that there are basic biological differences between the genders.

[887] On average, you have to say generally speaking.

[888] I mean, there's huge overlaps, of course.

[889] We're more alike than we are different.

[890] But I think on the average, I think, you know, men and women are, you know, that there are differences.

[891] And I do think that one of them is how we manifest socially.

[892] I think, you know, women are much.

[893] better instinctively at the group yeah you know whether that's um politically or um uh in a friendship context they just there just seems to be of 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 going it together that's a lovely way of putting it yeah and um and i and i and i think that you're right i think men especially have to fight against that.

[894] I think that's why the suicides are so much worse for men.

[895] And as the suicide expert, I spoke to for Self, we said the solution isn't that men should be, you know, should be more like women because you can't change biology.

[896] But I think you're right.

[897] I think especially with the social connection thing, we have to push ourselves a bit harder.

[898] 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 does I say yes to that for but then that that's like a hundred percent in time we think oh I don't want to go but then when you go you go oh I've had a great time this is amazing I should do this more often and that's also 100 % at time it's so weird that we seem so like men especially seem to be so bad at predicting how much we're going to enjoy a social occasion on that point with a suicide expert you know because much of the narrative I do here regarding male suicide is that we just need to talk more and we're often And with that argument often comes the sub -point that if you look at how women are open and communicate with their social circle, with their friends, and they say, I'm feeling this, I'm going through this, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[899] Men don't do that, so men need to do more of that.

[900] Yeah.

[901] What did you learn from your conversations with that suicide expert?

[902] Well, his view and mine too is that I don't think, like, sure, talking helps.

[903] 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 that 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 think that's i think that's um the way to go what are men like what are men like because because you know you said we have to figure out what men are like yeah 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 like you've got to be very careful but but by not generally Yeah, yeah.

[904] There's a huge variety in what men are like, you know.

[905] But just sort of undline the fact we're talking sort of generally speaking here.

[906] My sense is that, as I said before, women are much better in your great words at going together, whereas men tend to be more by instinct going alone.

[907] And like everything, that's a trade -off.

[908] And the negatives are that we are, you know, we are less good at talking to other people.

[909] and sharing our kind of burdens.

[910] I think that, I think I've got no scientific evidence to back this up, but my impression is that that male identity often is focused more around success, personal success.

[911] So I think that's why you see lots of male suicide in middle age, because in middle age, men start using their bodies, their careers might grow into a halt their relationships with their children might start going wrong they might get divorced and divorce you know yeah it's not good and I think that that's where men particularly might get into trouble 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 yeah I think I think that's very very, very hard for men.

[912] The suicidal ideation you described in selfie, was that linked to those reasons?

[913] Yeah, I think it's connection and status for me. I mean, the last thing I happened really badly was when I moved back from, I lived in Australia for four years and did quite well in Australia as a freelance journalist, but came back with nothing, no job because I was a freelancer.

[914] And so, yeah, and then for a while, I just thought I was going to have to start doing day shifts, you know, in magazines.

[915] Like, it was bad.

[916] I just felt like everything had gone wrong.

[917] And so I think that was very much connected to status.

[918] I mean, I'm very bad because in the book, I recommend playing lots of games, playing multiple games.

[919] I mean, the science is pretty clear that the more status games people play in their life, the more sources of status they have, the more groups of.

[920] they belong to, the more stable their personality, they're happier they tend to be.

[921] And as I said earlier on, I just, I tend to do writing.

[922] That's kind of what I do.

[923] That's partly the selfish reasons for the volunteering.

[924] I want to have another source of status to protect myself against the inevitable getting older thing.

[925] When we realize that status games are like a comparative thing, so, you know, being a journalist, if there's a journalist, that's the editor and is doing a, amazingly well, and you're underneath, and then there's somebody at the very bottom of the ladder.

[926] The person at the bottom of the ladder is going to be lower status just by measure of comparison.

[927] So does that mean that in some regard, in the society we live in, that is based on status?

[928] There will always be someone at the bottom that is feeling that way.

[929] Because just by a measure of comparison, there's going to be someone else who is making them feel inadequate or like low status.

[930] Yeah, there's always going to be a hierarchy.

[931] You can't remove the hierarchy from the human.

[932] is how we process reality.

[933] I mean, when you go into any sort of situation, if you, if you introduce to five strangers, you know this, you know, like you'll have a conversation and within minutes, you'll start getting a sense of who's up there, who's down there, and it'll be body language, it'll be who's got the jobs, who's got the clothes.

[934] You know, your brain's just calculating.

[935] You can't stop it.

[936] It's going to happen.

[937] And you can't stop it because everybody else are doing it to you too.

[938] You know, that's something that other people give to us as well, is our sense of status.

[939] We sense it from other people.

[940] So, so, so, so, so, so, so, So there will always be people, you know, at the bottom in inverted commas.

[941] But there are a few things to say about, that sounds grim, but there are a few things to say about that.

[942] The first thing is that, again, we all play individual little games.

[943] So it isn't as though the cleaner in the office feels like they're competing with Michelle Obama.

[944] Because if they did, they would just walk, they just thrown themselves out the window.

[945] That's not how life works.

[946] That cleaner is comparing themselves to the other people in their life.

[947] They work with, their families, their cousins.

[948] They, you know, so they're not feeling horrific.

[949] because they're not the king of Thailand.

[950] So that's not how it's working.

[951] Life isn't that brutal.

[952] Two, we have amazing imaginations.

[953] And, you know, we're very good at buffing ourselves up and finding ways of seeing where a value.

[954] And I think in a healthy organisation, as I say, in the book, you can go to a meeting as the lowest status member of the organisation 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.

[955] and if that's a healthy organization that's how you'll be made to feel too you'll be like oh it's brilliant it's amazing 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 so there's also that to say and 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 stick.

[956] We're backing ourselves a bit.

[957] You know, that's what people are like.

[958] You know, I feel like I'm going to, I have the capacity to achieve X, Y and Z. You know, so, so, so, so yes, there will always be people at the bottom.

[959] But, but A, they're probably not going to stay there for very long because the game's so fluid.

[960] And B, that that doesn't mean that they're condemned to a life of constant misery and torture.

[961] 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.

[962] Or they could be religious.

[963] I mean, religion is a status game and that's a virtue game and it's often a healthy virtue game, you know, in a religious game I've got to follow the Ten Commandments and go to the church and do whatever I've got to do and then I've become a high status Christian or whatever 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 now I see that religion, although it's not for me, it's hugely valuable to people because it gives them a status game to play.

[964] And meaning and purpose.

[965] And I was the same.

[966] I was religious up until I was 18, very religious household, and I rejected it quite passionately for many years until I stopped caring about it.

[967] So I'm just like, do what you like.

[968] I don't care.

[969] Yeah, exactly.

[970] Which is a funny arc we kind of go through where it's like the aggression against it and then the acceptance of it.

[971] We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest asks the next guest a question.

[972] Okay, right.

[973] In the diary.

[974] So I get to read it now.

[975] Jack keeps the diary until this point.

[976] 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 mean that really is true if I'm feeling depressed I just I've got this it's but cheesy but I've got this little I've got this little saying I say to myself on the head which is the only way out is art 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.

[977] So that's kind of what helps me see the light, my, my art. And how does that relate to the status game book?

[978] Status game.

[979] Massively, because I feel good about myself.

[980] You know, if I, this is my game, writing, and if I feel like I've written something good, I feel like there's hope.

[981] And it kind of gives you a psychological status boost.

[982] Absolutely.

[983] Yeah, because 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 yeah that i think that's hugely important well thank you incredibly illuminating and it's given me 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 you're this book in particular the state of game.

[984] I pause every time I say it because I'm scared to get the fucking word.

[985] The status game.

[986] This book in particular, the status game, is one of those that isn't tremendously illuminating because it explains so much.

[987] It's almost like it's turning a light on in a huge room that I didn't even know was there and really revealing to me what the forces are that are controlling much of my decision making for better or worse.

[988] It's not to say that I will try and abandon those forces because I don't actually believe I can.

[989] 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.

[990] So thank you for writing such an amazing book.

[991] And thank you for writing all of these amazing books.

[992] But this one in particular is my favorite, the status game, came out last year, I believe.

[993] Just down paperback two weeks ago.

[994] On paperback two weeks ago.

[995] And I've had a lot of people specifically, because you've had a few conversations with some friends of mine really raving about this book.

[996] So I highly recommend everybody checks it out of all these books i love them all but this one in particular is my favorite and 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 human 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.

[997] So thank you.

[998] Thank you.

[999] Thank for your amazing questions too, Stephen.

[1000] I have a really good time.

[1001] Thank you.