A Game That is Never Won

The world wants you to play status games – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.

“I've worked hard, for my entire career, to keep my life balanced with my job. In my book, I write about my Tuesday date nights with my wife. For over thirty years, I had a hard cut-off on Tuesdays. Rain or shine, I left at exactly 5 pm and spent the evening with my best friend. We would go to a movie, have dinner, or just go window-shopping downtown together.

Nothing got in the way of that. No meeting, no conference call, no last-minute question or request. If you had something to say to me on Tuesday afternoon at 4:55, you had better say it on the way to the parking lot. If there was a crisis, we are going to wrap it up by 5:00.

Those Tuesday nights kept me sane. And they put the rest of my work in perspective. I resolved a long time ago to not be one of those entrepreneurs on their 7th startup and their 7th wife. In fact, the thing I'm most proud of in my life is not the companies I started, it's the fact that I was able to start them while staying married to the same woman; having my kids grow up knowing me and (best as I can tell) liking me, and being able to spend time pursuing the other passions in my life.

That's my definition of success.”

The large majority of people would probably agree with Marc Randolph, the co-founder of Netflix, on his definition of success. Except would a lot of people admit that it is similar to their definition of success? It doesn’t involve status. It doesn’t involve super yachts and rubbing elbows with movie stars. It doesn’t involve being a public-facing figure sitting courtside at an NBA game.

Status during the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Magazine.

I think many people wish they wanted more status or to make more money than they actually do. Deep down, a large majority of the population doesn’t want exuberant amounts of money or status but society leads them to believe they should. And if they don’t, they are scared of the consequences that might lie on the other side. You are told to always chase status because status equals success. Except, for most people, status isn’t what they desire or truly want. The definition of success is different for them. Different from what society portrays it to be.

I love the Marc Randolph quote because it is his definition of success and it doesn’t concern anyone else. It is singular. He could ultimately chase status but chasing status is chasing someone else’s version of success. He finds success is singular and success is relative to you and not others. I think most of us, myself included, would say that his definition of success sounds like a wildly successful life. 

Sure, there is a certain standing you must hold to leave every Tuesday right at five, no matter what is occurring. I would like to think that most of us later in our careers could reach that level of status. It is not just because he is the co-founder of Netflix, it is because he has strict values he adheres to and it is not a completely ludicrous request. Maybe there is something to be learned from this? The co-founder of Netflix, the most subscribed to on-demand streaming service in the world, probably knows a thing or two about success and what truly makes a person successful. Maybe it isn’t all about status and money.

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Chasing status and chasing success have an inverse relationship. If you forever chase status, you will probably land short of what you know to be your true definition of success. You might end up “successful” in the eyes of others but that is the quickest way to lose yourself. Doing whatever everyone else is doing and wanting what everyone else is wanting. Chasing other people’s dreams. Ending up unhappy. Status games are a game you can never win.

Part of the reason why we chase prestige and chase these big-time gigs that pay big-time money is that we don’t have any idea of what truly lights us up. We don’t know what we truly want. So naturally, we default to the scripts of success society sets forth. 

People act like they enjoy their work because a convention exists that says you should. Existing in a high status job you hate is a social pass because it is high status. Except, none of these people would do this job if they weren’t paid for it. Do we really think a lot of people would still want to go to med school if it didn’t have the status attached to it? Sure, some doctors truly enjoy what they do, but behind any unpleasant work is money and status. It is a scary game to play because money and prestige can convince you to stay in a career for a very long time even if you don’t like it.

Chasing prestige is dangerous. It distorts your beliefs about what you enjoy. This is why we chase ideals and work on projects that we want to like but truthfully don’t like. It is a good way to waste time. Attaching prestige or status to something allows people to believe it is what they should chase. It is what attracts people to participate even when there is no value.

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On the other side of ignoring status is finding what we love to do. It is a long, laborious path. It takes a very long time to get paid for something that invigorates you. And most of the time, at first, the work you truly enjoy doing won’t pay you or pay you well. You must play a low status game. 

Playing a low status game is a much better way to spend your life than living in the prison of a job you hate. If you spend your whole life chasing status doing jobs you hate you will never do great work. The beauty in it is you don’t even need to chase prestige or status to do great work. If you do something well, you will create prestige and status behind it. Time can change anything. Newspaper reporters and local news anchors used to be celebrities when that was our primary news medium. Now, it is Twitter personalities. You can even build a company from the ground up and make it incredibly prestigious to work for. Prestige and status will come, don’t chase it. Instead, chase doing great work or chase finding what you love.

The way to truly get paid is to do great work. How do we do great work? How do we really get paid the big bucks? For one, it is to not be normal and comply with whatever everyone else wants or whatever everyone else is doing.

Take it from Jeff Bezos.

“In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?

I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?” They both smile and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal.

This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.

We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.

You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.”

It is not chasing status. Status is not distinctive. Status is what everyone chases. It’s normal. Success is rooted in what makes you distinctive. Part of the reason why everyone has a slightly different definition of success. Distinctive is one of few and can’t easily be replicated. Distinctiveness helps to fill voids in the world that exist. Sometimes, voids that we didn’t know existed. No one thought we needed an online bookstore that would grow into a tech company that is a borderline monopoly. The void wasn’t clear until years later.

Not everyone sees these voids and not everyone can do work they love for a living. The world tries to suck you into the vortex of being typical, playing the status games. Doing what you love requires you to continuously put energy into it. It requires you to be you. However, the beauty of it is this is how you do great work. Great work requires work but it is work you are willing to bear no matter how cumbersome.

If you love something you will work on it for a very long time. If you work on something for a very long time, you will get good at it. If you get good at it you will get paid. The money will come but the biggest question lies in you getting there. How do you get paid because of the great work you do? 

One of the biggest conundrums I have found is trying to chase doing something you love. It really comes down to two options.

1. Get a job close to the work you want to do and with each promotion, get closer to combining your career and passion.

2. Have a job that affords a lifestyle to chase whatever your passion may be.

Sure, all people don’t want to be low status, if at all. It doesn’t need to be that way. Option 2 affords you the luxury of attending to your basic wants and needs. It allows you to have some sort of comfort and sanity. It allows you to do as you please and not have your work disrupted by the pressure of your livelihood being reliant upon it. It also allows you to hopefully do the great work we all seek.

Chasing work you love doesn’t have to be binary. You don’t have to have every ounce of your livelihood poured into it or you can’t do it at all. You can have a job that affords you a lifestyle to chase it. It helps to minimize the risk. By the work you love not being your main source of income, it can ensure you are doing it out of interest and passion and not for accolades.

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Status games are hard to resist but they are not how you do great work. Life is more of a status game than ever before thanks to social media. People post the crazy highlights of their life to show how they have made it or to show how successful they are. But social media never tells the whole story. It sends the wrong message. All we see is the result, not what it took to get there. It emphasizes the outcome, not the process. 

Status games are outcome-oriented but for great work to be done, it must be process-oriented. The process is what we should work for. Sure, logging off at 5 pm on a random Tuesday won’t light up the headlines but living life in a job you hate won’t light you up either. Should we try to appease others and look the part or live a happy, healthy life that doesn’t get all the clicks and views? I favor the latter.

Playing the status game is the quickest way to lose yourself and the quickest way to be unfulfilled with your work. On the other side of not getting caught in the rat race, lies a path where you are you and you work on what you please. That is how you really get paid in the game of life.

Appreciate you reading.

-Scantron