The Invisible Status Game We’re All Playing - Episode 19

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever noticed how some people walk into a room and people instantly listen to them? And then other people walk in the exact same room and somehow they're invisible. Not because they're less intelligent or less worthy, but because of something deeper happening underneath the surface.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Oh yeah, I know. I noticed that we usually, for some reason, we're constantly reading confidence, insecurity, shame, status, self-worth. And most of us don't even realize it. So there is this strange invisible game happening all around us. And most of us don't even realize we're playing it.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

You know the new book I'm reading, What I Wish I Knew About Luck by Tina Sealing. I read something really interesting in there that I thought we could talk about today. I just started it. I'm not that far into it. But she talked about this really interesting game that one of the teachers at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The research shows that identity is not fixed, but rather an ever-changing story influenced by the people around us in the situations we encounter. And she talks about this game called the status game that we all pretty much unknowingly play on an everyday basis. So the status game, according to her, she says, in this exercise, each player is given a standard playing card to hold against their forehead, visible to everyone except themselves. Players are instructed to interact based on each other's perceived status, with aces, kings, and queens representing high status and low-numbered cards, such as twos and threes, representing low status. Very quickly, the players figure out their own status. High status individuals attract attention and praise, with others eagerly listening to what they have to say. Meanwhile, those assigned low statuses are usually ignored and or interrupted. The emotional impact is immediate and palpable. With those with high status feeling empowered and those with low status feeling demoralized. Your story, shaped in large part by how others treat you, influences everything you do. It determines whether you see yourself as a passive puppet pulled by external forces or as a powerful puppeteer shaping the world to your will. The truth is, you have the agency to write and rewrite your story. By consciously crafting the narrative about who you are and the control you have over your future, you can transform how you perceive the world, how you engage with it, and how others treat you. Like the students in our class, the shift in perception positions you to actively create a life aligned with your goals and aspirations. Adjusting your story is not merely an act of imagination, it's a bold step towards charting your path to the future.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Oh wow, so the people with high status cars got attention. People listened to them, included them in your story. And the people with low cars got interrupted, ignored, dismissed. And what is crazy is that people actually out there to just become the car they thought they were or they thought they are. So this happens quite often. You go to a party and you feel maybe everyone is like a dress nicely, and then you showed up to the party and you know that you're not up to the up to par.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

You start feeling insecure.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Insecure and you identify yourself with a low car number per se. Oh, I'm a three. All these people are eight, fucking, aces, whatever. Right? But and I get it, it's just it's a society thing that we created, right? It's all make believe. That's the way I see it. Because you have to dress dress nicely, where you show up a little, you know, again, like I said, not up to par, but immediately plays a role the how you're going to show up and how you're going to navigate in the party. Right. Unless you have this huge ego and a huge bank account. But even if you do, some people are gonna judge you. Right?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

It is like a tricky, tricky game.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Exactly. I realized when I was reading this how much this really happens in real life all the time, not with the cards, but with the stories that we carry about ourselves. How your sense of yourself is influenced by your environment and is always evolving, the invisible status game we're always playing, how insecurities silently shape our lives, and how shame changes the way we show up, why some people shrink themselves, and how we stop living like the card you think life handed you. I think a lot of people don't realize these stories start really young. And you don't wake up one day and decide, like, oh, I'm I'm not enough, I'm not good enough. Usually something teaches you that, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yep, like maybe uh bullying uh when you were at school or rejection when you were younger, or maybe somehow criticism, growing up poor is a big one. Yeah. Being left out, feeling embarrassed about maybe you're physic, feeling embarrassed about anything.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Anything you're too skinny, you're too fat, you're too slow.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, you're too white, you're too dark. It's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yep. Yeah, trauma's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Chaotic households.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, that one, of course, gonna shape you, even if you don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Right. And just general feelings of like being different, right? No matter what it is. And over time you start unconsciously assigning yourself like this value. And the dangerous part is you stop questioning it and you just start living from this identity that other people have like almost curated for you.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Unless you take control of it. I have a really good story that might resonate with a lot of people. Speaking of like bullying or rejection kind of thing. When I was young, I'll never forget this. I was in fifth grade, and I still remember the feelings I felt that very day. I was uh Mr. Brucker's class and two of my good, good friends, like we were solid. I found a note on the floor. It was like crumpled up on a little, you know, post-it note kind of thing. Crumpled up on the floor. It was like right around our desks. We were sitting like in a row. And I just picked it up. I happened to pick it up, I don't know why. And I opened it up and I read it, and it was like, I don't remember the exact words, but I remember exactly what I was wearing. I'll never forget it. I had like on this teal and purple and white sweater, like a long sweater, and it had a unicorn on it. I remember, I don't even wear sweaters, and maybe that's why, but I remember that it had like strings coming off, like a like the unicorn hair, you know, the strings were coming off a sweater. And it was just like cute, and I was wearing it and whatever. So I pick up this note and I read something to the effect of like, I can't believe how ugly Kim's sweater is.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

So you saw your name on the note?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yes. And we should something to the effect of like we should tell her boyfriend, because I had a boyfriend at the time, his name was Jimmy, and he didn't go to that school, he went to another school in the same town.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

And it said, like, I wonder, something like, I wonder if he knows that she dresses like that or something ridiculous. The the thing that hurt the most was that it came from my two friends. And also the thing that hurt the most was it was my first interaction with like this rejection feeling, you know, and this criticism that I didn't even realize happened, like behind people's backs because I wasn't that type of person. I didn't talk about people behind their backs.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Okay, let's let's go back to your emotions for a second, because uh you just you're kind of surfing it too quickly. So you picked up the note, you were wearing a cute sweater that at some point you thought the unicorn is sweater.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Oh no sweater, apparently.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah. But then but you were before you wore it, you were okay, I'm just wearing my sweater, it's a unicorn sweater, right? I just want to get to the point about the the the story you said about the cards that we all feel like a wicked assign with. So your your best friends write a note about you, by your sweater, and right after you picked up the note and you read it, you were shattered.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Right. Yeah, it was like uh I didn't know the world was like that. I was naive to that. I didn't realize people talked about you behind your back or judged you or anything like that. I was a child. I loved my friends, I was so happy, I was a good kid, I had lots of friends, I was confident, I was secure with who I was. I didn't care about clothes, I didn't care about how I dressed or what I looked like. I remember I wore sweatpants up until that point. I didn't care about any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

So how do you feel after? I just again just want to go a little deeper in here because again, that was a moment that shaped you for life. And this happened to all of us at some point. We go through uh something in life. It changed the way we perceived the world.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, I was in shock. I and it did change the way I perceived the world because up until that point, I thought people were just nice and your friends were just your friends, and they're always kind to you. And you know, people aren't mean. I didn't see mean in the world. I didn't see that in the world.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And what made you change after that? How were you after you read that note?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

I just remember the shock of it and the awareness from that point going forward that people can hurt you. And I I honestly never experienced that before, that point.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, created some sort of a new identity moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah. From then on, I was like, I started changing my clothes for sure. You know, my mom will always tell me, like, yeah, you wore sweatpants to like fifth grade. You didn't want anything to do with like jeans. Like, forget it. I didn't want jeans or anything else. I just wanted comfortable sweatpants because I didn't know people cared about that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, people underestimate how much shame changes your actual behavior. Right. It changes your body language, your tone, your eye contact.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah. I became hyper-aware of other people's opinions and I started becoming really self-conscious about things. And that's when I started like changing my clothes, caring about my hair and what I looked like. Up until that point, I really didn't care about those things because I was just genuinely showing up as myself, having fun and, you know, playing with my friends and games and school and whatever. I was just being authentic to myself. And then I felt like after that occurred, I had to show up as somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Like I had to Yeah, because shame changed your energy. Right. It changed your personality. And people underestimate how much shame changes your behavior. All that affects you.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, my confidence for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And it it changed how I showed up for sure. About like how they say, like, how much space you take up in a room. I didn't show up the same confident way to a room, you know. I made myself less visible.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Less visible, yeah, because you weren't feeling confident.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

So you're you're started trying not to be noticed.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

You try not to say the wrong thing. You were even questioning your own thoughts moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Oh yeah. You I, you know, you start watching what you say, watching what you wear, watching what you do in front of people, just analyzing everything you do before you do it rather than just showing up as your authentic self.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah, have a huge impact in all of us. Because we actually feel yeah, we become smaller because of those things.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Exactly. And I know that that is a pivotal moment from my childhood where I started showing up smaller than who I used to show up as.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yep. The crazy thing, Kim, is that people respond to that energy. We all do, right? When we see someone like that. Yeah. You know, when someone is shy, when someone is insecure, their tones, the way they look at you, they bring this aura that you can read. I I'm really good at reading people. Yeah. I hate when people when people are talking to me, but they're not looking into my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, I don't think people do that because they're bad or evil or intentionally doing that. I think we don't realize that we're doing it. Because, you know, humans constantly mirror confidence and uncertainty.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

That's right. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

But I remember up until that point, again, I didn't think about that stuff. I didn't think about judging people by their clothes or anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So again, like when you picked up the note, it's just right in there when you read it, it activated or embedded a code of shame in your brain. Right. After all this year, you'll still remember that.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

And you remember how that affected you and how you were carrying yourself for so many years, and that became your personality. We don't even notice it. We just think that, oh, I picked up the wrong sweater, they hated it, they're my friends, to they're talking about me, but now you have like this, you know, the battle like they're my friends, why they shouldn't be talking about me. Is the sweater that ugly?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, I never confronted them. I never told my mom. I never told anybody because I was embarrassed and I was I felt shame that A, my friends were talking about me, B, I was wearing something that people didn't like. And C, I just felt so bad that people judged that way. But I just, I just remember feeling this incredible amount of shame. And I wouldn't, I was like, I will never discuss this story with anybody or like tell anybody what happened because I was so embarrassed that that happened, even though only those two girls knew.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

At some point you even have to be fake because you feel betrayed and they're being fake, even though when they wrote that. But the thing is sometimes we do write stuff not in a way to hurt hurt others. It was just maybe an observation. But the way they did it, you know, they didn't mean to hurt you. Of course they didn't want you to see the note. But um, sometimes we they wrote it maybe just as a thought of an expression of it wasn't nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

No, it was not meant as just the thought. It was meant like they were talking shit for sure. Yeah. And I know that, you know, right after I moved to the neighboring town, but I know that I showed up so differently to that new town because of that event. Like I know that it shaped how I showed up. And in the new town, I struggled to make connections from then on because before that event, I was friends with everybody. And I was like, I don't want to say like Mrs. Popularity, but like I had friends of all classes, right? Like high, middle, low class. I didn't care. I didn't see that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And I was just friends with everybody and I liked everybody and I showed up as genuinely as I could. And when I moved to the new school, I didn't. I didn't show up like that. And I struggled from then on through high school to make solid connections. I had friends, but they weren't solid connections. And another really quick story about how shaming shapes you or something perceived as shaming, I'll never forget that, you know, my dad was this was like the 80s, and my dad was like a heavy smoker, and my parents were divorced. And so I would stay over his house on Thursday nights. And Friday morning he would bring us to school. And we, you know, he would smoke in the house and in the car. So like I must have reeked like a smoke bomb, you know. And so we went, he was driving us to school on that Friday morning, and we went and stopped and picked up one of my friends that lived in the neighborhood. And I go in her house to get her. So this was the day before cell phones. Yeah. Days before cell phones. I go in her house to get there, and her mom's getting her ready for school. And again, this was like fifth grade, maybe even fourth, I'm not sure. And so I walk in and her mom was like, whoa. And she's like waving her hand in front of her nose. She's like, You smell like smoke, like big time or something like that. And I was like, That's so bad. I was like, oh, and I again had no concept. And now I I I'm blatantly aware of those smells, but like I didn't know that I was walking around smelling like that because my dad was smoking. I had no idea. But I'll never forget like the shame I felt in that moment. And that was something I couldn't control, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

You know, a lot of kids, you know, back in the 80s, a lot of kids were exposed to that. But, you know, of course, you don't want to show yourself like, oh.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah. But so then ever, you know, after that, I was like hyper aware of how I smell. And I was just super embarrassed to go to school on Fridays because I didn't want to smell like smoke. And I would hide under the covers at my dad's house in the morning, like just to try to keep the smoke off of me. And until we were ready to go, I would then I'd take the blanket off and then go in the car and just like hyper aware of it because I I felt so embarrassed and shameful that I smelled like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that that happens to a lot of other kids too. But some other kids, you know, they don't care. Like, oh yeah, it's my dad smoking. You probably thought that too. But the thing is, rejection, we all take rejection in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, I felt less than, and I felt then I felt like, you know, I wanted to hide and worrying what people thought and how and that shame. Like I started internalizing all of that.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, like uh we don't like to be put in a box.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

No. Well, we want to be accepted. And I didn't and I felt, you know, now I was different. I was the outsider now. I I stunk like smoke.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

It just felt like there was something wrong with me.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah, I bet.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

And I think a lot of people listening probably know exactly what this feels like, especially if they've struggled with depression, anxiety, trauma, bullying, rejection, failure, insecurity, all those things. You start feeling like I'm I'm the low card in the game, right? You're the two or the three.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, the stories become self-fulfilling. You know, what's dangerous is once you believe you're a low status person, you start acting accordingly. You know, you hesitate, you're overthinking, you stay quiet, we avoid opportunities. We don't put ourselves out there anymore. You know, or we just we just go out there with a huge uncertainty and feeling so insecure.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, you settle, you start settling for things.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And another thing that we tolerate disrespect.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah. And life starts reinforcing the story, not because the story was true, though, because none of those things were true about me, but because I started living from it. So when I moved to the new town, I'm acutely aware of all these insecurities now that I have brewing, because these people brought them to my attention. Whereas before I was not even aware of them. But now I'm like hyper-vigilant about all the things, right? How I look, how I smell, what I'm wearing. And so I start kind of backing away from people and kind of building up these walls because A, I don't want them talking about bad about me. B, I don't want to disappoint every anyone. C, I'm just like embarrassed. So I start living this life where I'm just want to be accepted and I'm not being true to myself.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah. And that's why this is bigger than confidence affects relationships, careers, friendships, business opportunities, leadership, everything.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It does because before I I would have classified myself as a leader. And it's taken me a long time to break out of that. It's taken me like 30, 30-ish years to kind of break out of that be and start reclaiming who I used to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Who I was born to be. But my whole life for 30, 35 years, I avoided opportunities and I didn't put myself out there. And I stayed in this kind of like shell of who I was. And I know that I did not give my the best side of me to the world. And so the really sad thing about it is I never stopped to question why I changed. I just accepted that as this is who I am and this is how it should be. I never realized that those incidences were shaping who I was becoming.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Our identities get shaped basically at school. It's a big chunk of it, right? And from our parents also.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

And I think that so many people, I think everybody struggles with this to some degree, right? In different areas of their life. Like these incidences that happened to us through somebody else, we're allowing them to shape who we are.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I think rebuilding your life starts with realizing you may have been conditioned, but you're not permanently assigned that role.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Exactly. So when I became aware of those incidences that had shaped my life, I realized that I needed to get back. To who I was before that, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

So over the past years, when I've been doing all this inner work and addressing all these issues, I realized that I have to shift that. And changing that stuff happens through small moments and new experiences and speaking differently about myself and showing up to a room differently than I did before. I have to carry myself differently, right? And rebuild the trust that I have with myself. So it takes a lot of showing up differently.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

And we don't even notice it when we just bring in these insecurities.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah. I I will say that I've always known that I am greater than how I was putting myself out into the world. I've always had that inner knowingness.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

But I didn't know that those stories, those incidences were holding me back and keeping me stuck. I didn't know that that's where my where I stopped. Right. You know, like I didn't and I didn't know that those caused me to retreat, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

But the thing is you realized, you noticed, like, hey, no, no. Yeah. Something went wrong. I have to do something about it. You didn't let that identity to be part of you forever. I saw you knew like, no, this is I have to change, I have to make a real shift here in my life. And the sad thing came is that a lot of people did just embrace that as their identity. That's who they are. And they didn't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I started seeing like a pattern showing up in my life over and over throughout the years of I would hold myself back from being or doing something that I really wanted to do, whether it was like in business or with friends or whatever, just showing up, like how I really wanted to show up, but I would hold myself back. And I started seeing how it was derailing my life and like the goals I wanted to achieve. And so after I noticed that pattern, it was almost like I couldn't unsee the pattern.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

And I thought to myself, I have to do everything in my power to change that.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Change it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And so I knew that that meant like working on confidence and self-esteem and putting myself out there in situations that I hate because I hate doing because I feel exposed. Right. But I knew that was the only way through it.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

The only way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

I was never going to get to the other side of it if I didn't push through those feelings. Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

In life, it gets easier, right, when you start working on those issues. Right. Because and now you're gonna basically find yourself again. Yes. Like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

You know, why I wasn't afraid. Yeah. You know, now I'm gonna wear the clothes I like.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Now I'm just gonna Now I'm gonna go buy myself a unicorn sweater.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So you now you are finding basically the real you. Yeah. Right? Because the truth is people are often responding to the identity you're unconsciously projecting.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Maybe the goal isn't becoming the loudest person in the room. Maybe the goal is simply no longer walking into rooms believing you're the low card.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Because a lot of people are living their entire lives based on stories that were handed to them when they were too young to even question them. And maybe rebuilding your life starts there. Not becoming someone fake, but by finally realizing you were never that low status card that you thought you were.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

If this episode resonated with you or helped you in any way, we'd love for you to share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you're ready to go deeper, we created something for you. Head over to Ken and Kimp Podcast.com where you can get access to our full library of rebuild guides. These are step-by-step tools designed to help you actually apply what we talk about here. And if you want to connect with us, join our private Facebook community, the Rebuild Room, where we're having real conversations about rebuilding your life. We'll see you in the next episode.