The Greatest Game of All Time
You’re fashionably late as you walk into the rooftop cocktail party, an hour and twenty minutes late. You’ve never looked your best. You are dressed to the nines. You arrive with two beautiful guests by your side. As you enter the party from the helicopter landing, you hear the clacking of Prosecco glasses, laughter crisscrossing conversations and the ice breaking in the cocktail shakers.
When you enter the room, the energy changes, the room shifts, the conversations lower, and everyone’s eyes gaze in your direction as if you’re a lion being shown off in the circus. You are late to your own party and you arrive in style. All eyes are on you. You’re about to make a speech, and just before you do, you walk to the middle of the room. You lead people's heads in your direction. The party goes silent.
Everyone is looking at and admiring you because you have one thing above them that they secretly want, but will never admit. Something taboo to bring up. A universal game we all play to survive. It started as soon as you showed up at the party. The Game of Status.
This game we all play, if done well will put you ahead of 99% of people. The game will elevate you to heights beyond anyone and create social proof far higher than anyone around you will ever reach. The golden key that unlocks our dreams. It starts with one thing.
Status.
As soon as we connect with someone, we are competing for status, even if it’s subconsciously. We want to be around those with ‘high status’, who are living the cool life, who seem successful, who look like they have it all.
I recently read The Status Game by Will Storr and there are three types of status games:
Dominance game: status is imposed onto others by force. Prehistoric way of gaining status (alpha male = the strongest one).
Virtue game: status is given to those who are best at respecting the established rules. Eg: religions, North Korea, cults etc.
Success game: status is given to the most competent. Eg: the funniest, the smartest, the most knowledgeable, the best at doing X, etc.
There are different leagues to status games. Someone in your friendship group could have the highest status, but when they have their business meeting (a different league) they have the lowest. There are different games going on everywhere.
This is why everyone is obsessed with influences on TikTok, Instagram and other forms of social media. The big ones who have a cult following are seen as having extremely high status and importance.
What can we learn from this?
Our status impacts every aspect of our life. We become sad and depressed when we lose our status. We become happy and thrilled when we increase our status. And what’s worse than losing status? Humiliation.
It cancels out all the status points we ever collected. And terrible outcomes follow;
- People commit suicide
- Develop PTSD
- Mental Illness
- Unethical ways to gain status
Status can either work against you or for you. It can make your life magnificent or a hell hole. It all depends on how you approach and play the game.
You know the expression “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”? Fuck that.
Love the game, cause it’s the best one we got. Own the game. Play by the rules. Love the players too. Because we’re all in this together.
Don’t let the world tell you who you are, tell yourself who you are first.
Game on.
Until next time,
Brody
PS
Some books on Status
The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
The Art of Seduction - Robert Greene
The Status Game - Will Storr
