Status Malfunction

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

The Tao Te Ching, as translated by Stephen Mitchell

One of the most important lessons in modern psychology is that the human mind malfunctions in specific, predictable ways.

The study of these malfunctions - pioneered by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for their work on prospect theory - is becoming more widely known as the field of cognitive bias. Today, there's a growing industry of books and speakers on the topic, including New York Times bestsellers like:

• Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
• The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

But no one is talking about the biggest mental malfunction of all: the mother of all cognitive biases.

That's because it's so common - so utterly ubiquitous - that it's difficult to see and impossible to fully ignore. Just as fish don't notice the water that surrounds them, we're steeped in information about a quality that warps almost every facet of how we think, how we act, and how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world.

That quality is social status. I've already used it three times in the previous paragraphs to manipulate your thoughts.

You probably didn't notice. ¹

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Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better...

Every minute of every day for your entire life, a non-trivial part of your brain has been devoted to keeping track of how you measure up against the rest of the world. Without very much effort, you could rattle off a list of things like:

• Who is more attractive than you are.
• Who is stronger than you are.
• Who is wealthier than you are.
• Who is more influential than you are.
• Who is more powerful than you are.
• Who is more famous than you are.
• Who is better than you are in some specific area of skill. (Regardless of whether or not you're skilled in that area at all.)

Humans are social creatures - we're built to survive and thrive in groups. Group behavior confers many advantages when it comes to ensuring survival in an often-hostile environment, but it also introduces intra-group competition for scarce resources. The individuals who prosper within the group tend to be the ones who most successfully compete on obvious reproductive survival dimensions (like beauty, wealth, strength, group political influence, etc) and those that innovate by inventing a useful new dimension to compete on - that's why humans have direct incentives to explore, create, and build skill in millions upon millions of different areas. ²

That, in short, is the whole idea of social status: how do you stack up against others along some specific dimension, and where do you have a fighting chance of being considered the best? Relative status is often tricky to calculate precisely, so we rely on status signals: visible indicators of a more subtle, hard-to-quantify quality.

And so a substantial amount of our cognitive resources are devoted to tracking our current status and changes in our status relative to others. Likewise, many things that factor into our emotions and behavior boil down to this: does this (or will this) improve my social status in some meaningful way?

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Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous

I'd list some examples of status-motivated thought and behavior, but there are so many it's probably not possible to produce a complete taxonomy.

Have you ever dreamt of being a movie star? Performer or musician? Professional athlete? Astronaut? CEO? Politician or world leader? Celebrity? Those are all occupations that carry significant social status, and the status is a huge part of the compensation for the otherwise extreme demands and sacrifices required to break into, compete, and maintain position in those fields. That's status-motivated cognition.

Ever wanted to buy a Rolex or a gold Apple Watch? A Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Tesla Model S? A private jet, or your own yacht? A private island? That's status-motivated cognition.

Ever wanted to win a Nobel Prize, be Time Magazine's Person of the Year, win an Oscar, or be awarded some prestigious medal of honor? That's status-motivated cognition.

Ever felt envy when someone accomplishes something impressive, buys something cool, or receives some sort of difficult-to-attract attention? That's status-motivated cognition too.

This sort of thought and behavior pattern operates at all levels. Celebrity gossip is everywhere, and some people are famous primarily for being famous. Keeping up with the Joneses is as common as ever. We notice things that win awards, and happen to know the names of the wealthiest people in the world. We have favorite sports players and teams, and their performance on game day affects our mood. Believing you'll finally like yourself once you accumulate just a little more renown, only to find that, after attaining it, the reward was a mirage... but maybe the next goalpost will finally deliver the happiness you seek.

And we can't forget the legions of salespeople who are happy to promise you fortune, fame, and attractiveness of all sorts - if only you buy today. (Don't delay!)

Then there's the ugly: fighting dirty to win. Talking trash about the competition. Putting down people we envy. Investing self-identity in political parties, turning words into weapons to make one side look great and the other side look terrible - as if there were only two sides to the issue in the first place, truth and accuracy and rational governance be damned. Lawsuits. Group discrimination, oppression, and violence. Gang fights. Wars. Genocide.

All forms of status-motivated cognition: it's a difference of degrees, not of kind. The mother of all cognitive biases.

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Defining Status Malfunction

So, here's a handy heuristic: the more attractive an option looks in terms of status, the more likely it is to have significant drawbacks or pitfalls (given extreme competition for that status), and the more likely we are to ignore or undervalue those drawbacks and pursue that option anyway, which is a pretty dumb thing to do, and we should stop ourselves from doing that if we can.

I call this tendency status malfunction. The greater the potential perceived status increase, the higher the risk of serious error or malinvestment.

I'll let you in on a secret. Most of my work to date, and most of my planned work in the future, involves identifying and disarming status malfunction, and choosing to do something more effective instead. If you're able to inhibit your status seeking tendencies long enough, it's trivial to find ways to get better results in a more reliable and less expensive way.

• Want to learn business? Skip the MBA (status malfunction) - just learn the fundamental principles yourself, then go out and use them in a real business.
• Want to pick up a new skill? Don't worry about being the best (status malfunction) - just figure out what you want to be able to do, then practice doing that in an efficient way.
• Want to have a rewarding career? Don't work at a prestigious company, chase venture capital, or go out and hire a bunch of people to grow fast (status malfunction) - start your own business, keep it small, control your costs and commitments, and grow it only as much as you want to given your other priorities.

I've spent many years debugging this part of my mind: trying to ignore status factors long enough to figure out what I really want, then spending my time doing that instead of mindlessly seeking attention and approval. It works so well that it almost seems like an unfair advantage, and it's applicable to pretty much every part of life. But it's difficult - status-motivated cognition can be inhibited, but it never really goes away. The mental and emotional hooks are just too deep. But practice makes status malfunction easier to notice, easier to block, and easier to redirect attention once you notice it.

Now, I'm much better at noticing status malfunction on the fly, and it's not as difficult to inhibit. It's nice whenever status signals appear, but I don't consciously pursue them anymore. It's the pursuit of status that usually gets you into trouble. I'm not immune to the siren song of status - not by a long shot - but I've managed to build a healthy resistance.

This is a major factor in why my work tends to be polarizing: some people love it, and some people hate it. On the one hand, I'll never run out of things to talk about - there are millions of ways to get better results in important areas of life if you're willing to ignore the sexy/shiny distractions and focus on doing what works. On the other hand, I'll always have a vocal segment of status-oriented readers who will be offended by any recommendations that don't appear to be a direct path to substantial renown.

Example: Status and Skill

The First 20 Hours is a great example of this. Skills are often used as social signals, since performing better than others at something visible and valued is a way to differentiate yourself. Accordingly, skills are often valued to the point of being considered parts of our core identity. Competition and perceived status encroachment or upsmanship are met with distain, scorn, and reciprocal competition and upsmanship. ³

Here's a different way of thinking about skill: independent of status, acquiring a new skill is always a win from a capability standpoint, since the skill opens up new options and opportunities. Some skill in an area is always better than no skill.

From a status perspective, being average is terrible, since it doesn't differentiate you from others, and doesn't improve how other people think about you in a meaningful way - if anything, being perceived as average decreases your status in the eyes of some people. From a capability perspective, being average is fantastic, since it lets you accomplish things you otherwise couldn't do without that average level of skill.

That's the thing: you can accomplish millions of valuable and meaningful things with skills that are mediocre in every way.

Being able to build skill in any area in short periods of time is a fundamental advantage that provides extreme value. We all learn how to do thousands of things over the course of our lives, and so it stands to reason that learning how to be a better beginner and improve quickly is the most valuable thing to learn about skill acquisition.

And yet the vast majority of attention, conversation, and research on skill acquisition focuses on mastery: how to become the best in the world or achieve flashy results, claiming the skill as a status signal. Claiming mastery is high status, but doing the work necessary to get there is low status, so everyone is interested in the former, not the latter.

That's a classic example of status malfunction, and it's everywhere. It's in the ten years to overnight success pattern that shows up every time someone new appears in the spotlight: everyone notices the success, but few pay attention to the effort. In the immortal words of Ronnie Coleman, just before squatting 745 pounds: Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight.

It's the same in business. The real core of commercial success is finding a valuable problem, solving that problem, selling the solution, keeping your customers happy, and not being stupid with the money you make. That's it. Do that well in a consistent way, and you'll prosper.

But that doesn't sound as impressive or exciting as chasing credentials from top universities, raising millions of dollars in venture capital, being featured on Techcrunch, making money on the internet while you sleep, or driving a brand new BMW if you can figure out how to recruit a few more people into your multi-level-marketing downline to sell magical bottles of lotion at a 10,000% markup to people who believe they'll be able to drive a brand new BMW if they can figure out how to recruit a few more people into their multi-level-marketing downline to sell magical bottles of lotion at a 10,000% markup.

And so it goes. Guess which strategy gets better results in the long run?

Avoiding Status Malfunction

So how do you go about avoiding status malfunction?

It's not easy, but it's worth it. Here are a few things that'll help:

• Decide what you really want. Here's a useful thought experiment: assume that you can have everything you want except status, attention, recognition, and fame. You'll succeed in every way, but no one will ever know. How does that change your goals and priorities? The results will be close to your true priorities, and you'll make more progress if you focus on those things.
• Understand that status, fame, and attention from external sources is fickle by nature. Even if you get them, you won't have them for long, so it's probably a better idea to invest in results that are longer-lasting and more within your locus of control.
• Learn to pause and reflect whenever you think about doing something primarily to impress other people. Is it necessary? Is it wise? Will they care, or change their actions based on your behavior? Is it in line with your other non-status priorities, or is this a temporary departure or distraction that feels good? Does this get you want you really want?
• Don't envy the status-seeker. It's a generalization, but many people who compulsively chase status are struggling with their own inner demons, mental and emotional. They often accomplish impressive things by using that struggle in a productive way, and that's fantastic. They're still fighting a very real battle, and given the choice, you probably wouldn't want the demon. Be wary of comparing your inside vs. another person's outside. If you're free of the compulsion, be thankful you don't have that battle to fight.
• Ignore opinions. Everyone has their own goals, values, and priorities, and that's okay. You'll always be able to find more than a handful of people who will tell you what you're doing is wrong, suboptimal, misguided, or stupid. Do what you're doing for your own reasons, and find people who will support your efforts.

It's not foolproof, but being aware of the pattern is half the battle, and you'll find it easier to notice situations where status malfunction is a significant risk.

Status and attention are nice to have, but substantially overrated. Decide what you want, figure out a smart strategy, then put in the effort required to get it.

Ignore the crowd.