The Diary of a CEOThe More Successful You Are The Longer You'll Live! Will Storr
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,007 words- 0:00 – 1:26
Intro
- WSWill Storr
You shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be Beyoncé, because the chances are they can't. (bell ringing)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Will Storr is an award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books. His ideas are disruptive, challenging, and life-changing. And some of them will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable.
- WSWill Storr
People don't like to talk about this stuff. The 99% of self-help books never mention genes. They, they want to promote the idea of, "Well, I can be whoever I want to be," but a huge amount of who we are is who we were born as. That myth of you have full control over yourself as a human being, that's the problem. It's not about embracing your flaws, it's about accepting your flaws. Our lives are full of status pursuit. The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets. But that was true 10,000 years ago, it's true today. The brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order. The lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became. If you take two smokers, the one higher up is less likely to die of a smoking-related disease than the one lower down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's mental.
- WSWill Storr
It matters massively.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do we advance in the status game?
- WSWill Storr
There are kind of three general types of status games that we can play. First game is a-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (laid-back music) Will,
- 1:26 – 8:55
Your early years, how was your self esteem shaped In those years?
- SBSteven Bartlett
first of all, thank you for being here. Um, take me right back then to your early years, 'cause I think wh- when I was reading through your different books here, throughout them you have glimpses of your own perspective, and it-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... hints back to what I read about your, your early years.
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, so take me back, right back to the start, you know, before the age of, let's say, 12.
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm. Okay, so, yeah, um, I was brought up in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, um, middle class family, very Catholic. Um, it was quite a Victorian, um, strict, superstitious religious upbringing. Not the happiest upbringing, I have to say.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WSWill Storr
Um, because my parents were very strict, my father was very strict especially, um, and, uh, they were very much in the grip of their ex- kind of, Catholic belief system, which I just didn't never, like, always baffled me even as a kid, just like, "What? How, how," you know? How can you believe this stuff? And I went to a Catholic school, so, s- so... A- and I was quite a, I don't know, I was probably a diff- if you were to ask them, they'd say I was a difficult child, um, because I was pushing against that all the time, you know? I thought it was crazy, I wasn't very good at authority and rules, so it was a bad fit, I would say. Um, and I think that's what's, you know, one of the things that, that's kind of driven my interests into adulthood. My, y- you know, my, my, my second book, The Heretics, was looking at why do otherwise smart people believe, end up believing these crazy things? 'Cause my parents are smart people, but, um, yeah, you know, they believe in heaven, hell, Satan, all of that stuff. I, I think that's how my childhood has informed my interests as an adult, trying to figure out how, how that happens.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In your, in your book, Selfie, you s- you talk a lot about self-esteem-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and the role that plays. What was your... Give me the context of your s- how your self-esteem was shaped in those early years?
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) Ah, well, um, how it was shaped in its early years, I guess it was poorly would be the answer. Um, I think the, you know, because my behavior 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 gonna end up in prison, you're going to end up in care. Um, uh, yeah, so, s- s- so there was very little kind of positive feedback in my, in my childhood, which I think is... That, that causes damage that you're never gonna get over, I, I believe.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think you, you never get over that damage?
- WSWill Storr
Yes, because I, I think, you know, we're all born with a certain kind of personality, with a certain genome, and that, that's not fate. That doesn't define who you're gonna be forever. Um, but, but, but it sets you on a certain course, it makes you vulnerable to a certain kind of mindset. Um, and, you know, it... I, I think a good childhood, a good upbringing can, you know, correct that to a certain degree, but a bad one can, can set it on a sort of negative course. And I'm quite a neurotic person, I'm anxious, I, I've always worried a lot. So, so when 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 dangerous, that people are out to get you, all of that stuff, that, that, that, that, that, that reality isn't safe, I, I, I... A- a- and then, you know, what happens is your brain is still being formed really up until your, your mid-20s, you know? That, that is in your mid-20s when, when that, that, when those kind of learning processes, um, uh, stop. 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 that's, those are the years in which your brain is learning how the world works. And, and, and so, yeah, so I, I don't think it's fixable.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That, that's one of the, the ongoing, um, conversations, or debates, or things that I've kind of been chewing over from doing this podcast and, and listening to, to people from all walks of life that have achieved amazing things that still have, um, underlying trauma or sort of self stories that are controlling their, their, their life and their behavior. And I, I, I spent a long time talking to people about whether you can ever truly eradicate some of these traumas, they're like the puppet master that's con-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in the back room controlling your, your, your biases and all these things. 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 gonna be there.... and is that- is that where you find- find yourself, but in terms of your belief, that we can diminish the power of-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... those stories. But they'll always be there.
- WSWill Storr
Absolutely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
That's exactly right, that's what I believe.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
Exactly, yeah, that we can definitely diminish their power. And, uh, you- you know, I'm 47 now. And it still amazes me that you- you still, you never stop learning, and you never stop learning about yourself, you never lot stop learning about things you get wrong. And I've gotta stop doing that, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
It's overly simplistic to think of consciousness as this battle between reason and emotion, um, uh, but- but- but there is something like that going on. You know, like our- our emotionality is usually in charge of what we're thinking and what we're doing, 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 right to respond in anger and hostility at that person." And then the next day you think, "Oh, maybe I wasn't." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- WSWill Storr
You know? So- 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 validating your em- initial emotional response, which is, you know, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. So- so I think what you're doing when you're learning, for me anyway, is- is you're learning actually... He- I mean, almost to parent yourself, to- to turn that voice in your head into a- someone that isn't gonna 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- you make. You're looking for that- that balance all the time, and you're looking to spot... I think you're looking to spot those occasions in which you're making the same mistake over and over again, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Have you got a harsh judge in your head?
- WSWill Storr
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I have. You- you know, I'm self- I'm self-employed. I've been a- I've been a writer for, you know, without an employer for 20 years. You- 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, (laughs) to do eight hours plus work a day. Um, so- so I think to, it's kind of weird, I think- I think to achieve any- 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. Like I read recently that the ideal parent is kind of firm, but also kind and caring and understanding. And- and I think that's what, I think that's- if that's the ideal parent, I think that's really, that- that's- that's the ideal of who should be inside our own heads, really. You gotta have that balance. Um, and I think you can go- you can go wrong in either direction.
- 8:55 – 17:49
Your book selfie, the inspiration
- SBSteven Bartlett
what was the... I mean, I love the name.
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
It was very of the time in 2017 as well.
- WSWill Storr
It was, yeah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, what was the inspiration behind writing this book?
- WSWill Storr
Right, so the book before that was called The Heretics. And The Heretics was, as I said before, it's gonna be inspired by this idea of what- how do smart people end up believing crazy things? A- and so that- that book was all about when we have these stubborn beliefs that kind of, that- that- 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 gonna have to bluff through it. So I thought, well that's, you know, I don't understand that. So, um, maybe I should try and find out. So I was a journalist at the time, it was a day job. And so I started interviewing lots of people who changed their minds, like in big dramatic, kind of powerful ways. Um, one of those guys, um, was this amazing psychologist called Professor Roy Baumeister. Um, he spent his kind of early professional career in the self-esteem era of the '80s, you know, when... And this is the era I was brought up too, when everything was about self-esteem, when it was all about, the- the kind of message out there was, "If you want to be successful, just love yourself. You're amazing, you're fantastic. You can do anything that you want." You know, it's Whitney Houston, um, the greatest love of all is yourself. It was- it was that kind of era. And I remember it from school, I remember like, you know, teachers saying to me, "The problem with you, Will, is you just have low self-esteem." And they always used to call it, self-esteem, a social vaccine. And if you- if you loved yourself, it- it meant that you would be more successful, you'd be happier, you'd have a better marriage. And you know, in America they- they thought that self-esteem was gonna solve homelessness, um, gang culture, um, teenage parenthood was a big moral panic of the time, they thought it was gonna cure that. So he was like, "Well, is it true? Is this actually true?" And so they looked into it and they found actually that there was no evidence that- that any of this was true, that- that every study that quoted it as being true just referenced another study, and you went on this breadcrumb trail of studies, they were all just quoting each other and there was no actual evidence any of this is true. And they tested, they- they actually tested to see whether that self-esteem myth was true or not. Um, and it wasn't. Um, it wasn't true. (laughs) Um, it- it was- it was originally based on this idea that they, this- this observation that schoolchildren who did well in exams also had high self-esteem. So they assumed that having high self-esteem made you good at exams. But actually, (laughs) they had high self-esteem because they'd done good in their exams. It was- it was the other way around. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
Because it's obvious in retrospect, but that's what they, you know... So that- that was the error they made. Correlation causation, that old chestnut. Um, so- so he, um, published this study, and the initial response was just, you know, it was absolutely torn to pieces. Um, it was either ignored or attacked. Um, but slowly, he was proven to be right. And so when I was... I- I wrote a profile of Baumeister, and, um, you know, he was a fascinating guy. Um, and then what I realized was that this idea had, um, not just changed a person, but it changed a culture. Like the whole culture of the West, Britain, America, Canada, and lots of Europe-... when I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, we- we- we were just obsessed with this idea, and it's- just- it was just wrong. It's completely wrong. So that was the- that's the heart of Selfie, which is this- this idea of in- how- how- how did selfie culture happen?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
How did we become so self-obsessed? And- and the self-esteem movement is- was a big part of that story, and it's the kind of- it's that- it's the kind of central story of the book.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Chapter Zero-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, The Dying Self-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... was a- was quite difficult to read.
- WSWill Storr
Oh, okay. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I thought it was a very, um, you know, you explore topics like suicide and, um, your own sort of self-doubt and things like that, and, um, your own suicidal ideation at times. Why- why did you choose to start the book in that way?
- WSWill Storr
I suppose I wanted to start the book there to show, you know, why this matters. You know, wha- wha- where I ended up with the book was th- this idea that we live- that we are, in the West, individualists. You- you know, we see the world as made up of individual pieces and parts, and we are individually responsible for our fates. We're individually responsible for our success and our failure. And there's lots of good things to say about that. You know, it's- it's an extremely motivating way of organizing your thoughts, organizing your life. Um, you know, I am responsible for me, and- and I will take care of me. Um, but it's also kind of savage, you know, a- and, um, it- it- it means, you know, that- that kind of Western myth we have is the, um, you know, that you can do anything that you want. Just put your mind to it. You can achieve it. Th- that- that kind of mindset. Um, but- but very often, we fail. (laughs) A- and so if it's true that you're responsible for your success, then it only logically follows that you're also, um, responsible for your failure. Um, a- and so, um, these individualistic ideas accelerated in the 1980s, and that was because of a variety of things. It was the self-esteem movement partly, but the self-esteem movement became successful because we- because of the Thatcher-Reagan revolution, is my argument, neoliberalism, that we changed the economies of the West. We changed the game. You know, uh, before the 1980s, we were much more collective. It was much more, um, y- you know, socialist. E- even in America, the top rate of tax was 90%. You know, it's- it's extraordinary. Uh, um, so- but- and- and then the economy started going wrong in the '70s, so the neoliberal revolution happened, and- and the idea, the central idea that, you know, Reagan and Thatcher pursued was, "We're gonna increase competition wherever we can, so reduce the social safety net, privatize everything, just everyone's got to be competitive." And it changed who we are, you know? It- 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. A- and so we became more, um, competitive as a people, and- and what- what psychologists find is a major study that found that since, um, the, you know, the onset of neoliberalism, levels of perfectionism have increased massively in the UK, in America, and in Canada. Uh, and, um, perfectionism is implicated in suicidal ideation, in eating disorders, in steroid abuse, and- you know, and self-harm and so on and so on and so on. So- s- so that's why I wanted to begin the book there, is t- to show why this matters, you know? The- the- this- it isn't just a kind of abstract academic exploration of the self. You know, I wanted to begin with, "This is how it affects people."
- SBSteven Bartlett
If perfectionism can be quite an insidious, um, 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 and the world about, um, about that?
- WSWill Storr
Um, I- I- I think, uh, you know, I like the idea of, you- you know, I think the idea that I kind of develop is- i- i- in Selfie, partly it's about self-acceptance rather than self-love. I think s- self-love, um, is that, you know, where I used to be a massive fan of Big Brother, when Big Brother was on. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- WSWill Storr
A- and- and there was always this thing in Big Brother where, um, somebody would behave completely obnoxiously. They'd be like rude, aggressive, just deeply unpleasant, and they- they would always defend themselves in the same way. They'd go, "Well, I'm just being me. That's just me. And if you don't like me ..." You know? And- and I think that's- that's the self-esteem movement talking. It's like, "I'm my- I'm gonna be my authentic self, and if you can't handle that, that's on you." And I think that's wrong. You know, you know, we're a social animal. We've- we- we have evolved to exist cooperatively, 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," um, mindset. So I think self-acceptance is different than self-love. Self-acceptance is, "I'm a flawed, broken animal," (laughs) you know, as we all are. And, you know, a- a- a little like what we were talking about earlier on, it's about being that harsh but loving parent rather than that- rather than being your own defense lawyer-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
... you know, being- being that kind of harsh but loving parent. And being accepted, b- b- you know, ha- having this acceptance that you are a flawed and limited animal. Like, you know, you- you- you shouldn't raise your children to believe that they can be- be Beyoncé if they wanna be Beyoncé, 'cause the chances are they can't. She's like an extraordinarily talented and driven individual. (laughs) She's the one in a billion, you know? (laughs) So, uh, y- you know, y- y- it's- so I think that's an unhealthy message to- by which to raise our children and also, you know, talk to ourselves. It is much more about understanding our- our- our strengths, our flaws, and kind of finding the right games to play, to find that- that little corner of the world in which we can feel, um, of value. I think that's- that- that's what we should be trying to do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Had your parents told
- 17:49 – 20:57
Would you have been happier if you were told you could succeed?
- SBSteven Bartlett
you that you were Beyoncé, and had those schools told you that-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you were Beyoncé-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... would you have been happier, do you think?
- WSWill Storr
Um ... I mean, I wa- I was sometimes told that- that I could succeed at school, but I just wasn't applying myself, and, "It's such a waste. It's such a waste."
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's a backhanded- yeah.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. Um-But, uh, it's so weird, the school thing. I, I, I mean, I, I have to say, I think I went to a really bad school. Uh, uh, it, um, it was a comprehensive school. Um, you know, you hear these stories about t- teachers that inspire you, and, "Oh, if it wasn't for this teacher..." I never had that teacher. (laughs) They were all just really bored and resentful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WSWill Storr
I remember g- going to class, and there's one teacher who just opened his folder, "Where were we?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WSWill Storr
He just read, he'd read from his folder for about 50 minutes, and that would be the history lesson, you know. A- and that, that was the school I went to. It was miserable. And I, and I'm, I, I always wanted to be a writer, and I was always in trouble. I was always this sort of problem student. And I had this English teacher who was quite nice, called Mr. Lanaway (laughs) . And I thought, "Well, you know, I'm gonna write, start writing short stories in my spare time, and I'm gonna give them to my English teacher, as, as just a way of getting, like, 'Look, you know, I've written this thing.'" And so I gave him a, a couple, and then I, and I think I gave him number three (laughs) , uh, uh, you know, after writing on, on a third weekend, thinking that I, that he was... Oh, in my head, he was thinking, "Oh, Will's w- you know, William has found this thing that he's actually applying himself to. How amazing." And he said to me, "Ugh, you know this is all just extra work for me, don't you?" Like that, so he kind of scolded me for giving him extra work to do. So I stopped, I stopped writing those, you know, short stories (laughs) . And, and I just think if I'd, if I, if I'd have actually been encouraged to be a... I was never encouraged to be a writer by my school or, you know. I, I wrote a school magazine, and that, that caused me all kinds of trouble as well (laughs) .
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WSWill Storr
So, so, so I was, I wa- I never actually had any encouragement. And I, I, I do kind of think that if I was actually encouraged, um, to be a writer, I would have probably got there sooner and probably been a better writer today.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Well, on that point of Beyoncé, though, it seems to me that if someone had turned around to you and said, "You, you are Beyoncé, and you can do anything. You could be an amazing writer," it seems to me that, that, that actually might have helped.
- WSWill Storr
Yes. Yeah, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WSWill Storr
But that, but that's what I mean about identifying your strengths. Like, I think for me, writing was a strength. But nobody ever... And if, and if that was identified, a- and if somebody said to me, "God, you know, you should carry on writing these." Literally, if one person, one adult said to me, "These short stories are, you know, they show real promise. You should carry on writing these," it would have blown my mind. I'd have go- I'd have definitely carried on. Um, but I just stopped, you know. I just stopped. Uh, I, I, I, it, so yeah, but that's what I mean, is I, I think the mistake is, um, somebody, when I, i- in the research for Selfie, this Harvard psychologist, Brian Little, said it's the myth of unlimited control, that myth of you can, 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. A- and, but actually, I think what, what, what you should do is identify, what is this person passionate about, you know, and what are they actually, what are they actually good at? And if, and, and if, and if, and if somebody saw promise in me as a journalist or a writer, then that, that's what they sh- they should have encouraged me in. But it was actually just a battle.
- 20:57 – 27:02
Am I actually making decisions?
- WSWill Storr
- SBSteven Bartlett
In, um, in, in the ch- in the chapter The Good Self, in that book, chapter four, you talk about, um, the different forces that are controlling our behavior.
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, uh, it made me think, I've, you know, that I've also had this, this ongoing thought about how control of, of my life I... over what the forces are that are actually controlling my life. 'Cause we tend to believe, obviously, as we would, from this first-person view, that I'm making my decisions. But when I (laughs) ... It sounds quite... I don't care, I'm gonna say it. When I reflect on the stories I've heard from men regarding their behavior before they've ejaculated-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and after they've ejaculated, it is pretty, it's... And I actually said this in, like, podcast number four-
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... when no one was actually listening, and it was just me un- under the stairs in Manchester. I said, "The change that I saw in my behavior, or how I felt, before and after ejaculation, is extreme."
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I watched Rogan talk about this. He described it as being, before ejaculation, at the back of the bus.
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you're just fucking being swung around. The-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
He said, "It's foggy. There's papers everywhere." And da, da... And then he says, post-ejaculation, it's like you zoom forward onto the wheel of the bus and go, "Oh, fuck. What was going on there?" (laughs)
- WSWill Storr
Yes (laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you gain back control.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And just this, um... It, for me, that was one of the clearest signs that my decision-making a- is not as intentional as I thought it was (laughs) .
- WSWill Storr
No, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and you talk about that kind of thing a little bit in that chapter. You talk about a study where, um, men are asked, um, a variety of different questions while they're masturbating.
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can you, can you share that study, and also, like, what you learned from it about the way that we make our decisions?
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) Well, I haven't... That, that was... I haven't read about that study for a, a good five years now. But I think it was something about... They were asked a series of questions about, um... Well, were they asked a series of questions about what they would do in certain s-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, it's like their sexual preferences.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So it was like, "Would you, would you be attracted to an animal? Would you be-"
- WSWill Storr
That's it, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know. Quite disturbing.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. A- and, I, I think before they'd masturbated, their, their answers were much more extreme, in the direction of, "Yes, I would have sex with an animal." (laughs) "Yes, I would pressure somebody into having sex," than they would after, um, masturbation. And I think most men can r- can read that study and go... You can relate a little bit to-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- 27:02 – 30:56
How our genes control us
- SBSteven Bartlett
the age of perfectionism. How does one stay alive? One of the interesting things in that chapter was, um, you kind of debunk this idea that alcoholism, for example, and a lot of these things, you know, that I've spoken to guests about on this podcast that they've suffered with, um, don't necessarily stem from having a unhappy childhood.
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've got a friend that, you know, he's very public about the fact that he became an alcoholic, and, um, I, I guess I believed it was because of traumatic early events. I, I tended to believe that that was the case. But you debunk that quite clearly, um, and, and kind of accept that personality is the causal factor in, in most of our predispositions.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. I, I think one of the things that I've, th- that, that I've learnt, um, well, certainly from researching that book was the, just the incredible power of personality and the incredible power of the, of, o- of our genes. Um, it's really, people don't like to talk about this stuff and because it, it, it, it, it... They, 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. They, they want to promote that idea of 100% self-control, I can be whoever I want to be. Um, but, but, but, but, but genes are so important. Uh, and as I said, it's not that they d- dictate who we are or, you know, or, um, you're b- you're, you're born with a kind of blueprint and that's all you're ever gonna be. Um, b- but you are born with a certain kind of genome, you know, with a certain level of, n- likely neuroticism, openness to experience, extroversion, um, agreeableness, you know, how, how kind of happy or kind of angry or competitive you are and so on. And so you're born kind of with a certain prevailing wind, and then your childhood experiences mostly, um, will, um, do the rest of that wiring up. So by the time you're in your, in, in your kind of 20s, you're kind of who you are. Like not 100% 'cause still traumatic experiences can break you to pieces, you know, you're in f- you know, th- you know, lots of things can change, but you're kind of who you are. As I said, p- 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, that a huge amount of who we are is just how we were, who, who we were born as, you know? And I've got that addictive personality. I was an alcoholic. I haven't... I, I had to give up drinking when I was 26 'cause I'd lost control of how much I was drinking, and I still struggle with kind of, you know, sugar now. I, I, I've swapped booze for sugar is, is my p- problematic behavior, which is much easier to manage. Um, so, so, so I get it. And, and, and, but, but, but yeah, it's, it's not, it's... I, I think part the fact that we're these storytelling animals, um, w- I think, uh, since '70s, since the s- probably the s- well, even the '60s, we've had this kind of, um, therapy culture which wants to go archeological digging in our pasts to- for the causes of our, um, all of our problems. And you know, I, I think there's a, th- th- there is a certain amount of, um, truth to that stuff. Like I, you know, I, I'm, I'm sure our childhoods, uh, affect us. Um, but, but, um, there are, th- we t- we tend to blame everything on our childhoods, everything on our parents, a- and I think alcoholism is one of those things that it's mostly genetic, you know? You've either got that problem with addiction or you don't.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Could it- can it- can it be accelerated by trauma, though? Because, uh, you know, when I- when I speak to psychologists, they often talk about it- it being a form of escapism-
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, in many ways, and other drugs and, you know, other self-medications being a form of, like, trying to escape pain or trauma.
- WSWill Storr
Definitely, yeah. It g- I- I- I think how- how to think about it is that it's, um- You could have a vulnerability to it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
Um, a- and that's the genetic component. Um, and if something bad happens to you, then you're much more likely to kind of fall into that trap.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Versus someone else who doesn't have that.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah, versus who doesn't. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that point of storytelling,
- 30:56 – 42:46
Story telling
- SBSteven Bartlett
you mentioned storytelling there in our, um, in our narrative. Your- your book in 2019 was about storytelling. I, having worked in marketing, was very compelled to- to read this book for the probably- You know, we talked before we started recording, that a lot of people will see a book about- with the word "storytelling" on the front of it-
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and think that they can use it from a marketing capacity or in a business sense. What have you learnt about how people can tell great stories in the context of business and marketing?
- WSWill Storr
Yeah, well, um, so quite- quite a lot. I teach, uh, I- I teach business storytelling at Section4, which is a American, um, ed tech, um, uh, organization. So I- so I- so I- I do a- a- a course there on- in the science of storytelling for business. Um, and- and, you know, we- we are storytelling animals. We- we- we think in story. We- we, um, you know, narrative is basically, you know, eh, h- how we experience ourselves and- a- and life. And so, as I say in that course, if you're not communicating with story as a marketeer, you- 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- a lot of the stuff we've been talking about is important, um, especially, um, the idea that people think with their feelings. You know, they- th- it's feelings first, story second. The story justifies the feelings. 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, um, how they feel about the world, how they feel about themselves, how they- how they feel about, um, you know, justice and, uh, what their values are. And so 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- s- s- so before you can sort of write the story, you need to figure out how they feel about the world.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So a bad story, then, would be one that was... 'Cause, you know, I- 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, grown to be a very big business, maybe 1,000 employees worldwide. We were- Um, we started out as a- as a marketing agency, never had a sales team because we- we focused on telling stories. 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-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... from Apple or Coca-Cola, whoever it was, um, I would actually start by talking about me and my relationship with my mother.
- WSWill Storr
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And that would be the first sentences out of my mouth when I walked on stage. If there was 1,000 people or 15,000 people there, it would be about my mother. And through that story about my mother and my- and my, um, upbringing and my battles and all those things, 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, and that meant we never needed a- a- a s-, um, a sales team. I've always believed that if I'd walked on stage and started with a case study-
- WSWill Storr
Yes. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) ... I would have- I would have- I would have had to have a sales team at Social Chain knocking on doors.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah, definitely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make. When they pitch, when they- when they speak on stage, when they post on social media, I think they have a- they believe that th- the listener wants big numbers and to how many views they got for their clients or f- uh, you know. And it just doesn't seem to be consistent with reality.
- WSWill Storr
No, it's not. I mean, so what you're doing when you're going into about your mother is you're connecting emotionally.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- WSWill Storr
So people are, you know, wanting... They're on your side immediately, and- and you're making them feel good. You're making them feel things emotionally. Um, the- the- the kind of framework that I use for business storytelling is the- is the- is that, you know, essentially, people's brains process reality, um, in the same way, and that's the, uh... You know, so- so they're the hero of their story. You're not the hero standing on the stage. The company that- that- that's selling to you isn't the hero. They're the hero of their own story. Um, they are, you know- they- they've got goals they're trying to pursue. We all have, you know, that- which are the plots of our lives. We-
- SBSteven Bartlett
The audience.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah, the audience, the person you're selling to. Um, and then th- th- th- there's a brilliant story analyst called Christopher Booker who wrote this amazing book called The Seven Basic Plots, and he writes about, um, archetypal characters in storytelling that he calls light figures. And so the light figure is- Uh, the example he uses are the three ghosts in, you know, Christmas Carol, the Charles Dickens Scrooge story. So Scrooge is the hero of that story, uh, but the three ghosts come in to show him Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future. They help him get what he needs, which is to become a better, more selfless, more generous, more loving, giving person that they- they... so they- they are gonna- they arrive in his story to kind of show him the way to help him get what he needs. And so that- that- that- that's what I argue. That's the appropriate positions for most companies and organizations and leaders is not to be the hero because your audience feels like they're the hero. You're the light figure. You're there to help them get what they want. 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. You're presenting as the hero. What people really want to know is, "How can you help me get what I want?" And- and- and that's- that's the story that you have to tell.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What kind of example can you give me to really make that- m- 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- I mean, I- I... My- my brain went to Nike for some reason because Nike's-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. Yeah, w- well, that's... Oh, and N- Nike's a really interesting example. So s- s- so obviously, one of the things that Nike have- uh, has done recently is it's, um, done that ad campaign around Colin Kaepernick, which is, you know-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
... controversial, but did them... I think- I think their sales went up to, like, 6%, like, uh, a- after that- that a- that ad campaign. And that's a really good example of, um, a- an organization who is, um, um-... behaving as a light figure. So that Colin Kaepernick, er, campaign has nothing to do with shoes. (laughs) There's, you know, the, what they're not doing is going, "Our shoes will make you run 8% faster. We've got these sprung soles. We've got these amazing laces that won't trip you up," or whatever. You know, their, their, their stats list is not in there. It's, it, it's, it's purely, it, they, they're telling a story. They've figured out that their client base are mostly believing cer-, you know, this set of beliefs around the world. And, and those, those are goals. You know, people who, you know, the, the, the target audience that they're, um, they're a- a- appealing to want to achieve this kind of racial, social justice, and it's important to them. So, so what Nike are basically saying is, "You know, we are light figures in this story. We," you know, "we, we are, we, we are on the side of the Colin Kaepernicks, of the people who are kneeling. You know, we believe that Black lives matter." Um, and, and so they're presenting as a light figure. And, and if you think about it rationally, it's kind of crazy. Like, why would a shoe company have this political thing? But it's because of the storytelling. Because, because they're presenting as a light figure, who were, who was engaged in the kind of, y- y- you know, this particular mission in the world. And, you know, in, in order to kind of, to, to, to, to, to kind of join the mission, you, you buy the Nike shoes. And, and, and it, and it worked. You know, it works really well. I mean, er, er, one of the archetypal examples, um, that, that I talk about, that I love is, er, that there was, um, an ad that was broadcast, I think it was in the '60s by Volkswagen. And it was the first kind of modern adv- adv- advert. It was the first, it was the first advert that you would look at and recognise as the kind of advertising that we do today. So before this Volkswagen ad, um, c-, you know, all ads were just stats lists. "Here's this amazing," you know, "tyre," and, you know-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
... "This'll get you naught to sixty" and whatever. Um, and, and then this Volkswagen did this amazing ad where, um, it just, it was black and white, because it was still in the days of black and white. And they had, um, it just showed this guy. It was all snow, it was a big blizzard outside. And this guy gets in his car, he turns, it's like, it's like, you know, just before dawn. Turns on his ignition, drives his car through the blizzard, through the blizzard, through the blizzard. Opens these huge shed doors, and then you hear this big engine start up, and out drives this snowplough. And it's how does the guy who drives the snowplough get to the snowplough? And it says Volkswagen. And that's it. Really simple, really effective story. And it's showing Volkswagen as 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. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
I don't believe that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
Like, a- a- and they certainly weren't making any factual claim in the sense that, "We are better than Land Rover," and whatever, whatever, whatever, "at doing this because of this stat." It, that, it was as simple as that, and it revolutionised marketing. It changed everything because they'd figured out that kind of light figure form of storytelling.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And in that, are they saying that the Volkswagen, Volkswagen enables you to be the hero that moves the snow?
- WSWill Storr
Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So-
- 42:46 – 57:20
Why does status matter?
- SBSteven Bartlett
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.
- WSWill Storr
Great. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I- maybe it's just, you know, the way I'm compelled or whatever, but it was really, really fascinating and very- it felt very relevant. Status as a topic.
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why- why does status matter? And what is status, for people that don't understand the word?
- WSWill Storr
Okay. So- so- so it matters massively, and- and- and I... And the reason I wanted to write that book is because people just don't really talk about it very much. Th- e- even though it- our lives are full of status pursuit, people just don't talk about it very much.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Status or status? Which one is it?
- WSWill Storr
Well, s- Americans say stah-tus.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- WSWill Storr
Brits tend to say stay-tus. But I guess-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'll say status.
- WSWill Storr
... it's both. Yeah, it's- it's both.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- WSWill Storr
Um, uh, so- so- so I- I think one of the- one of the- one of the- one of the kind of reasons people kind of tend to not like this subject is that when I s- when I sort of make the argument that we're all motivated by status pursuit, they kind of then think I'm saying, we all wanna be rich, we all wanna be famous, and that's not what I'm saying at all. What- what I'm saying is that we all want to feel of value. So, we evolved as th- as these, you know, tribal animals, and to be successful in the tribe means two things. You've got to be good at connecting with other people, so- so being accepted and h- and- and- and fermenting a sense of belongingness with other people. So that's belongingness, that's connection. That's not status. 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- i- i- you know, when we were living in the- in the tribes, um, uh, 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- and I mean, as we all know, survival and reproduction are the basic most fundamental, um, drives we have a- a- 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 s- you know, people would try and get status in the tribes. Um, and- 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. (laughs) The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets. So, it's this huge, um, huge component of human behavior, but it's subconscious, so we don't like to think about it sometimes. 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 we- that somebody considers us to be of lesser value.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, you said at the start about the... When you introduce this topic, people will have kind of an allergic reaction-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because they're think- they think you mean, and it goes back to what we were saying about your audience receiving that message-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in a bad way because of where it frames them.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It frames them as being kind of narcissistic-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and s- and selfish and, you know-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and those that no- nobody wants to admit that they- they are s-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... selfish or they are-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, they're concerned with status. They don't wanna admit it it's true. (laughs)
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. Yes, yes.
- 57:20 – 1:01:02
Can we be to consumed by status?
- SBSteven Bartlett
where we can be too consumed with status and that can cause us to have, um, adverse personal consequences?
- WSWill Storr
Um, 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. The first game is a dominance game. And so the dominance game, we share with animals, we've been playing dominance games for millions of years, and they are what they sound like they are. They're about aggression, but also the threat of aggression, um, bullying, you know, that kind of thing. It, it, when, whenever we force somebody else to attend to us in status, that's dominance. Um, there's success games, which is, I think, the best of human nature. Um, competence. So when, when you're, 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. So that's how you were of value to your tribe, competence or being good at something. But there's also virtue. Um, i- um, you know, we, we, we can play virtue games. And so in the tribe, that means that you know the rules of the tribe, you enforce the rules of the tribe, you know the rituals, you believe in the spiritual stories. Um, so virtue isn't just about being selfless and kind and loving to the, your, your tribal members, it's also about being an enforcer. And I think, you know, there's no such thing as a pure game. That's the other thing to kind of point out. Like a, like, like you can, you can see, um, a boxing match is 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 a dominance virtue game. And I think the, I think the worst games, I th- 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, I, I'm raising status by enforcing rule, b- by following rules and knowing the mor- the moral rules. The dominance, um, uh, component is, "I'm going to force you to do it." So, s- so, y- you know, that's what you see on social media a lot. Those, you know, cancel culture mobs, people attacking each other for believing the wrong things, that's a virtue dominance game. Um, at their very worst, a virtue dominance game... You know, in the book I write about the rise of the Nazis, I write about, th- the fin- the final chapter which kind of brings the whole thing together is, uh, the story of the rise of the communists in the Soviet Union, uh, from the perspective of status. And, and, you know, that, that's also a virtue dominance game. They're not interested in competence (laughs) in, in, in success, they're interested in, "You're gonna believe this, and if you don't, we're gonna punish you."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, there's a lot of that going on at the moment.
- WSWill Storr
There's a lot of that going on at the moment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There is.
- WSWill Storr
And I, and I think a lot of it is because, um, you know, t- trying, trying to be kind of open-hearted about it, I, I wrote about this in Selfie and, and I wrote in, in, in The Status Game, is that since the global financial crisis, life has got harder, especially for young people. Success sc- you know, like it's hard to get on the property ladder, uh, people are leaving university with student debt, there's massive underemployment for graduates. We've got what they call elite overproduction. We've been producing too many smart, educated people for the roles to fit in. It's, it's, i- i- y- y- you know. A- a- and we're now entering a new recession, apparently. So, i- so life is much harder for Millennials and Gen Zs than it was for Boomers and Gen Xers. So success games are harder to play. So what you're s- I think what you're seeing is online, people, people get status wherever they can, so they, they start playing virtue games instead.
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the alarming things you talk about in this book is that, um, status... Did I say that right?
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, that's the English way. I needed to... 'Cause obviously-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) It's fine. You're not American. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) "And, and that will harm my status with people."
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Attack me in the comments section.
- WSWill Storr
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um,
- 1:01:02 – 1:12:09
We live longer with higher status
- SBSteven Bartlett
this idea that status games actually have an impact on our health and mortality-
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that we will die younger if we have lower status.
- WSWill Storr
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What evidence have you, have you got, have you f- g- got or found to support this idea?
- WSWill Storr
Well, there's lots of evidence. Um, there, there's a big- a lot of it comes from this guy called Dr. Michael Marmot, who is just- did this incredible set of work, which he calls the Whitehall Studies. So obviously, Whitehall is the bureaucracy that kind of runs- that, that kind of takes the or- you know, the, the civil service that kind of works for the government. So it's an enormous organization. It's highly stratified. And so Marmot, um, uh, looked at, um, kind of health outcomes for people on different levels of that kind of hierarchy, that status game, and found that the, the, the, the, the, the, the lower you went down that status game, the worse health outcomes became. So the obvious thing is, oh, that's just because if you're being paid less, you maybe can't afford the personal trainer-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WSWill Storr
... you, you know, you're eating worse. But it wasn't that- that wasn't the case at all. Literally, one rung down below the very top, so sort of very, very wealthy, successful, high-status people, had worse health outcomes than the person at the very top. Um, so, so, so it really did seem like, um, the brain is highly attuned to where we sit in a pecking order. And th- the lower, the lower we are down in that pecking order, the more unhealthy we became. Another set of scientists looked at this in a, in a laboratory. So they took a bunch of monkeys, um, uh, uh, who, um, obviously like us, very hierarchical. They play status games. And, um, they deliberately fed... It's a terrible experiment. It's very un- (laughs) It's pretty awful. But they deliberately fed them a terrible diet of, like, fast food, like chocolate and crisps, so they, so, so they ended up having a high level of atherosclerotic plaque, which is, you know, so they're, they, they were getting clogged up basically, you know, and vulnerable to heart problems and so on. And they found that it was the same, that the lower you went down the monkey pecking order, the more likely the monkeys were to die of these heart-related diseases because of their bad diets than the ones at the top. And then importantly, they, um, conspired to change the hierarchy of the group. I don't know how they did it, but they changed, maybe 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 the change in hierarchy. So if a monkey went up, they became less likely to die. And so, so, so then you might ask, "Well, this is crazy. Like, why is this?" And so, 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? So you know, we're social animals. We- our brains are constantly monitoring how we're doing in the world. What are our levels of connection? What are our levels of status? We have this status detection system that's constantly monitoring our level of status. And so, so, so the idea is, uh, that, uh, when the brain, um, registers that we, we, we are, you know, dropping in status, or we're not too high in status, uh, it prepares ourselves. It changes the way our, our, our genes work and our, and the actions of our cells change in such a way, um, that it kind of prepares us for kind of trouble. Um, so inflammation goes up, uh, anti-viral response goes down. Um, and so, so the body changes in such a way that we become more ill.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's a really, um, (laughs) a narrative in there which some might deduce from hearing all of that, which is that your level of success relates to your health. And this, I'm gonna say it in a really gruesome way, which is, the more successful you are, um, the longer y- you'll live. O- obviously there's loads of factors at play.
- WSWill Storr
Yes. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, if you're eating burgers and smoking-
- WSWill Storr
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and doing Class A drugs, you're, that's gonna probably be a, a stronger sort of determinant in your outcomes.
- WSWill Storr
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But, 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-
- WSWill Storr
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... then they will be...
- WSWill Storr
They're less likely to die if they're higher up.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But, but there's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Quite, quite alarming, isn't it?
- WSWill Storr
As you said, there's so many confounds.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WSWill Storr
I mean, life is much more complicated than that. There's, there's al- there's always other- you know, it, it is true that people ha- you know, smoke and don't smoke and, and so on. But, but, but, but you know, what Marmot finds is that, is that if you take two smokers, the one higher up is less, is less likely to die of a smoking-related disease than the o- than the one lower down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In the status.
- WSWill Storr
In the status game, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Ladder or whatever.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- WSWill Storr
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:45:54
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