Real Signs of Low Social Status

You're giving off subtle "I'm an employee" signals without knowing it

Money isn’t everything.

When you think of the concept of low social status, you’re most likely thinking of the behaviors and traits associated with working class, blue collar folk.

It’s easy for white collar office workers to laugh at the things poor people think are high status without realizing that they themselves are giving off tells of their own.

The fact is that you can walk into any company and immediately ID who the owner is. Even if they don’t have a Don Draper-style office with their name on it. Even if they’re dressed the exact same way as their employees. Even if there are no physical differentiators whatsoever.

You just know.

How is that possible?

The reality is that a lot of the traits that perma-employees actively cultivate and think are desirable are giving away their position on the totem pole (i.e. not the top).

If you’ve just started your business, you likely still display some of these low-status traits.

This is a VERY bad thing.

Like it or not, intangibles play a role in how far you go in life.

Think it’s shallow?

Too bad.

Not remembering people’s names

Most people think forgetting people’s names is a flex. The thought process is “I’m so important that people should remember me but I shouldn’t have to remember them.”

Sometimes I’ll meet someone after not seeing them for a long time and they’ll refuse to say my name until I say theirs first (try it out for yourself, once you see this in action you can’t unsee it, it’s shockingly common).

Remembering someone’s name doesn’t make you weak. It’s literally the opposite.

How do you feel about someone when they remember your name?

You admire them, and if you can’t remember theirs it makes you feel not-so-slightly inferior.

All the greatest men in history were/are VERY good at remembering names.

There are several anecdotes about Napoleon where he talked to a low-ranking enlisted soldier once, then ran into that same soldier years later and the soldier was shocked to find that he remembered not only his name but also the names of his family as well.

“Omg I’m so bad with names lol” ———→ Peasant mentality at its finest. “The way I make myself seem like a Big Deal is by making other people feel insignificant”.

No.

Truly important people have a way of making everyone else feel like they’re the important one.

You might only meet with an Actual Important Person for five minutes, but during those five minutes they’ll make you feel like you’re the most interesting human being on the planet.

No looking at their phone. No absent-mindedly saying “uh huh” while clicking away on their computer keyboard. No frantic standing up “sorry I have to take this call” Storming Out Of The Meeting While Staring Down At Their Phone And Answering It Before Even Leaving The Room-style interruptions.

Just undivided focus on you and intense interest in what you’re saying.

And next time you see them they’ll actually remember everything you said.

Owning the latest iPhone Pro Max 281948907

Being obsessed with gadgets is a low-status trait.

A lot of people clowned on Donald Trump during his first term for using a five-year-old Android phone.

The people who were surprised that a billionaire would own/use a five-year-old Android were just revealing the fact that not only are they themselves unsuccessful, but that they don’t even know a single successful person IRL.

The reason why upper mids and below are so obsessed with Apple products (and gadgets in general e.g. big TVs) is because those items are an affordable luxury.

Can an avg Joe who only makes $120k/yr afford to buy or do anything that’s actually cool?

No.

But he sure as shit can afford to upgrade to the latest iPhone Pro Max every year without breaking the bank. It’s 1/10th of one month of his salary (aka nothing).

Owning the latest Apple gadget is the only flex the common man has, and he WILL flex that muscle until it bursts.

The reason successful people don’t care about gadgets isn’t because they’re trying to be faux-humble in a corny Millionaire Next Door way, it’s because buying new iPhone just isn’t that interesting. That’s really all there is to it.

Productivity-signaling

Pretending to be busy all the time is the ultimate corporate upper middle class tell if I’ve ever seen one.

9-5’ers are in a constant competition among themselves to see who can most effectively pretend to be busy and productive.

The thought process is: “If I’m busy, it means that my time is valuable because I have so little of it, therefore I’ll seem important.”

Yet if you pay attention you’ll see that the guy who is actually The Man isn’t the one who’s working the hardest. It’s the one who pays everyone to work hard on his behalf so he doesn’t have to.

That’s literally what a business is. Employees sell their time/labor to an employer so he can use them as a collective resource that can do more work than any one person could on his own (and make a ton of money for himself in the process).

Your value-add as a business owner doesn’t come from your labor. You’re just one person. The amount of hours you can work in a day isn’t enough to move the needle (no matter how talented you are). That’s why solopreneurship is nothing more than a wannabe sigma male LARPing fantasy.

Your higher-level thinking and ability to effectively manage the people who work under you is what really makes the difference.

So whenever you hear someone talk about their “productivity stack” or “optimizing my workflow”, don’t be impressed. You’re talking to a Plebian Worker Drone extraordinaire.

Being angry all the time

Anger comes from lack of control.

A healthy chip on your shoulder can help motivate you in the early days and should be encouraged, but if you’re throwing adult temper tantrums and starting shit with strangers over real or perceived slights then you’re obviously at the bottom of the totem pole.

People who have nothing to worry about have nothing to worry about.

They have an attitude of amused indifference toward the things that rile up the masses: politics, people talking shit about them, sportsball, road rage, anything really.

The stereotypical angry douchebag boss is the guy who’s barely breaking even and is terrified that his business is about to go under.

Successful people Aren’t Like That.

Obsession with airline points/status

It’s SHOCKING how obsessed normies are with frequent flyer miles and their precious “status”.

I recently talked to a guy who took a flight with the stated reason “gotta keep up my status”.

It’s completely bananas.

People love to be catered to and treated like VIPs…but most of them just aren’t.

Signing up for a million different credit cards and playing the frequent flyer points game is the social status version of a military LARPer playing Call of Duty: you get to feel like the thing without actually being the thing.

You might be just another cog in in wheel in your day-to-day life, but when the gate agent says “we would now like to welcome our Diamond Platinum Medallion Elite Members, families with infants, and people in wheelchairs or those who need special assistance to board the plane” you get to strut to the front of the line while wheeling your 5 1/2 lb. hardshell case (with handlebar fully extended) behind you and feel like The Man Who’s Finally Getting The Treatment He Deserves.

That’s why avg people spend SO MUCH time thinking about their precious points.

Meanwhile if you actually own a business you’ll spend so much on your credit card that you’ll have unlimited points without even thinking about it. And if they all disappeared from your account for some reason you wouldn’t care because you can afford to just buy the damn ticket anyway.

Conclusion

This isn’t even close to an exhaustive list.

I could keep going all day on this topic, but I think you get the point.

The traits that corporate worker drones go out of their way to cultivate when trying to boost their social status are the very things that reveal that they have none.

Let this stuff go and you’ll remove the chains that keep you bound to your cubicle and your commute.