Who is up?

All the cards are seamlessly the same (all of them even say Vice President). So, what are we exchanging here? Because it isn’t information. We are exchanging status. Establishing a pecking order of who is up and who is down.

“You have a reservation at Dorsia on a Thursday. I have one on Friday.” Just that very subtle reflection is enough to trigger Bale in the scene. “Let’s see Paul Allen’s card.”

Even in a room full of execs with a title, money, fancy clothes, a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town–it’s still not enough. Because despite all of the status, there was someone else missing–someone has more.

A powerful lesson that more is rarely the answer to our problems. There will always be someone with more status. And if you let it, it will consume you.

What we do brings status. What we measure brings peace.

Brilliant scene.

…

Came across this piece from Learning A Day that is worth sharing:

“I was thinking about an anecdote from a book by late Vanguard founder John Bogle. This was an exchange Bogle witnessed at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island in New York.

The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responded – “Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.”