[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: Hello, everybody. So here's a question-- how can
you seem more confident, more gracious, more charming when
inside you're anxious, annoyed, sleep deprived, and
on a short fuse? Hmm, good question. Is it OK to pretend to be
somebody that you're not? If people are looking at
you for some confidence when all around you is
chaos and calamity, how do you go about
being yourself while also being charming
and also being calm and also being authoritative? These are good
questions, aren't they? And today, we're going to unpick
those questions with our friend Viv Groskop, who is here because
she's got a new book out, "Happy High Status." What does that mean? We're going to be talking
about that with her. If you don't know Viv, she was
last here in 2019, actually, on International Women's Day. 2019 seems like another
country altogether, doesn't it? [LAUGHTER] And she's the host of
"How to Own the Room." She was talking about her
book and the beginnings of her podcast then. If you haven't listened
to it, it's incredible. She's now done 157 episodes. It's in the top 1%
of podcasts globally. Her most recent interviewees
are Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Fatima Whitbread. She's had guests, including
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Margaret Atwood,
Professor Mary Beard, and Logan Roy from "Succession,"
Brian Cox. It's an amazing and
fascinating listen. And she started her
career in comedy. She was initially a
journalist and a writer then started a career
in comedy by doing a hundred live stand-up
gigs in a hundred days when she had three children
under six years old. Wow. Why did she do that? It's interesting. Let's find out. And as I mentioned,
she's the author of the book "How to
Own the Room," which is "Women and the Art
of Brilliant Speaking." "Lift as You Climb-- Women, Ambition, and How
to Change the Story," "The Anna Karenina Fix." And as a performance
coach, she works with women and senior teams
in business and organizations, helping them to redefine
leadership and authenticity. You can learn a huge
amount from Viv. I have. So please welcome a very
warm welcome to Viv Groskop. [CHEERING, APPLAUSE] VIV GROSKOP: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. SPEAKER: Welcome back. VIV GROSKOP: Oh, thank you-- SPEAKER: Very good to see you. VIV GROSKOP: --so much. SPEAKER: Come and have a seat. VIV GROSKOP: Cheers. Thank you. What a lovely introduction. I was listening to all of that. And as you were saying, how
do you become more confident? Do you have to become
like someone else? What do you do if you
want to be at ease? I was thinking,
yes, yes, tell me! Tell me! I think my obsession with this
is born of my own feeling that, how do we do those things? So I really wanted to
open up that conversation. And I think those questions
are at the heart of who we are. And you were mentioning
the last time I was here was in 2019 talking about
"How to Own the Room." And since then, our lives
have been completely turned upside down. It's not always the case
that we're together as much as we used to be. And I think these
questions of who we are, how we present as
authentic to people in lots of different
circumstances, like how do you do that
on screen, something we wouldn't have even
thought about 10 years ago. SPEAKER: You called it-- VIV GROSKOP: It's so-- SPEAKER: --"How
to Own the Zoom." VIV GROSKOP: --sharp. "How to own the Zoom." I never wanted to write
about how to own the Zoom, but it's become
part of our lives. Before COVID, I always
tried to say to people, don't go on those calls
if you can avoid them. Like, do less of those. SPEAKER: Don't say that here. VIV GROSKOP: I know, I know. But do as few of
those calls as you can and make the calls valuable. But, of course, now,
it is part of life. So how we define confidence
and leadership and this ease that you were hinting at--
it changes all of the time. And it's so important
for us to share what that might look like. And the idea behind
"Happy High Status" is trying to open up people's
concept of what confidence looks like, because
it's not fixed. It's not that you're born
with it, some people have it, some people don't-- no. We all have it. It's just busting it
out when you need it and feeling comfortable in
uncomfortable situations. SPEAKER: Well, I'd love to
unpack that and get more into what that
means, but perhaps-- you alluded to this-- your journey of
getting interested in this topic-- and I mentioned
the crazy stand-up beginning of that journey VIV GROSKOP: Crazy,
crazy stand-up. SPEAKER: Well, it
sounds crazy to me and, I think, most people. So what made you
fascinated by this? And maybe take us
through why you've done some of the
different things that you've done in this journey
of unpacking and understanding this issue, because you've
thought about it so deeply. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
I was a journalist, as you said, for most
of my 20s and my 30s. I was mostly writing
for The Guardian, The Observer, the
Financial Times, worked for pretty much
everybody as a freelancer. And I had-- as my
children were being born in my late
20s, early 30s, I had a very free career
as a freelancer. I didn't have a boss that
I could blame for my life. And so, yeah. [LAUGHTER] And so when I started to
have a bit of a sort of itch around my mid 30s as my
children were getting a little bit older, and
they weren't babies anymore, I suddenly had sort of a-- I wasn't always
bored with my work, but I felt there was
something missing. And I realized that
I really wanted to perform because it
was what I had always wanted to do as a child. I used to watch Tracey
Ullman and Victoria Wood and all of those performers
when I was little. And I loved the
energy that they had. SPEAKER: You were
drawn to comedy. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, I
was drawn to comedy. And I realized-- and I think
a lot of us realize this as we get older-- if you are a creative
person, there's nobody stopping you from
doing the creative things that you want to do,
apart from yourself. So by that age, I realized,
oh, nobody comes and taps you on the shoulder and says,
oh, you look confident. Why don't you try comedy? You have to tell
that to yourself. SPEAKER: Yeah. VIV GROSKOP: So I was old
enough then to realize that. I was stupid enough
to give it a go. My husband, who I'm--
thank God-- still with-- because you said, why
would you do that? That's exactly what
my husband said. He was patient
enough to support me through doing a
massive career change and going out every night
for a hundred nights in a row, consecutive
nights-- doing this when my kids are very small. And I realized that
at the heart of trying to do something
new with your life, even if it's not something
so public as stand-up, it is a question
of self-confidence and how much you
believe in yourself. And I realized, oh,
it doesn't matter how much I learn about
how to work a crowd, how great my material is. Like, those things are a given. They've got to be really good. It's all about what you read. The second that
somebody walks on stage, do they like themselves or not? Are they comfortable
with themselves? Are they a nice-- I don't want to say
the word "nice" person, but are they kind of OK? And I realized that it's that
confidence that a lot of people are really lacking
in, and it stops us from doing so many things. And the more I studied
this and talked to people about this, which grew into this
podcast, How to Own the Room, and talked to other
performers about it, I realized that
it's so subjective. You really have to
discover it for yourself almost as an artistic act. And I realized over time as
well that we have so many amazing examples now of
what confidence looks like, which, if you compare it
to, say, 50 years ago, you wouldn't have
seen then YouTube, a million examples of
Instagram Lives, Ted Talks. We're completely
surrounded by examples of-- I don't even want to
call it confidence. I mean, I want to call it happy
high status because it's often somebody like Greta
Thunberg who is a quiet, nonbombastic,
nonextrovert speaker who really cuts through because she
learned how to give impact in 60 seconds whilst being herself. We have so many great
examples of that. So what I wanted
to encourage people was to find a way of being
in themselves that feels good to them and not be
hamstrung by this idea that, oh, only confident people
can do certain things, or I can only speak
up if I'm confident. No, it doesn't work like that. SPEAKER: So I think at
the heart of the genesis of the book in "How
to Own the Room" is this notion of confidence. And you slightly
reject the word, so you said there a few things. You want to look confident,
put the audience at ease, but you might not
feel confident. We're not born confident. We find it within ourselves. And then you've chosen
to use different words to describe it more. So can you help
us understand how you reach that conclusion
about what confidence is and [INAUDIBLE]? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, I really
wanted to-- obviously, we have to use the word
"confidence" in the same way that we have to use the
words "public speaking," even though everyone hates
what that represents, but these are what
these things are. But I try to move it
away from confidence because I feel there are
so many people who've received mixed messages
about confidence, often from childhood. And some of this is cultural. Some of it's to do with bias-- all kinds of messaging that
we receive from family, from culture, from patriarchy,
from hierarchy of either, you're too confident. Why don't you pipe down? Or, oh, you're not
confident enough. Why are you so shy? We hear people
saying these things to children all of the time. But they are usually
pretty empty. So when I see people
saying that to a child, I often think, well, that
child is very sensitive. Maybe they're going to grow up
to be a writer or an artist. You know, why are you asking
them to step up and be someone they're not? That's not what confidence is. And similarly, if people are
quite outspoken or joyous, it doesn't make them
overconfident and arrogant. So many cultural
things here as well. Britishness can be a very
interesting flashpoint for what we think of as confidence. We often think, oh,
Americans are confident. British people are not. And we have all of these
ridiculous stereotypes that are unhelpful. And in acting, in
comedy, in improv, there's this idea
of status, which was originated by the
director, Keith Johnstone through the '60s and the '70s. And it's all about
where you stand in relation to other people. So do you make other
people feel comfortable? That's what happy
high status is. Do you seek to impose and
lord it over other people? That's high status. Do you defer to other people? That's low status. And whenever we're
watching an interaction, you can observe this
in your own family-- who's up, who's down, who's got
the most status, who hasn't. It's got nothing to do with
really how much money you've got, what kind of car you've
got, all of those things that we traditionally
call status. It's to do with
the relationships. And you mentioned about
Brian Cox, Logan Roy, being on the podcast. And succession is a
great example of this because everyone in
succession has status. They have amazing
social status and wealth and all of those
stereotypical trappings. But the whole status
play of that drama is about their emotional
status in regard to each other-- who's
up, who's down, who's in favor, who's out of favor. And so this idea of
happy high status is all about not
participating in that, not trying to get one over on
other people or defer to them or suck up to them. It's about being in a generous,
magnanimous energy, where you allow anything to happen. SPEAKER: So I think we
can understand a bit more about that. By the way, we'll
come to all of you for questions and conversation
with Viv in a moment. As I look at the book-- and
you were kind enough to share an early copy of it with me-- one of the things you do
in this is you bring it to life, this idea, through a
whole array of different ways of looking at it. For example, "Be
like a comedian. Be like a wise guy, mafia
energy without the murdering." VIV GROSKOP: Yes,
without the murdering is an important part-- [LAUGHTER] --of the mafia energy. SPEAKER: Maybe just pick
one example like that and just talk about how
you bring it to life through a particular
lens or two [INAUDIBLE].. VIV GROSKOP: That
was really key for me when I first started
performing stand-up was how do you get people to
realize that you're in charge? And when you think about that
energy of a wise guy or someone in the mafia, I'm
thinking Robert De Niro and anyone you can think of
from "Goodfellas" or "Sopranos." Those people just
own the room, and you wouldn't mess around with them. The flip side of that is,
because they would kill you. [LAUGHTER] But how do you bottle that
energy and use it for good? Because before they kill
anyone, the attraction of-- SPEAKER: They still
have the status. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, those kind of
people is they're charismatic. They're generous. You want to please them. They make you feel as if the
sun is shining upon your face. I mean, how do you achieve
that, especially as a woman, and especially as
somebody who isn't-- say, if you want to have
wise-guy energy, obviously, you can't do that unless you
look like an Italian American from the 1970s. So how do you do that if you
don't fit into this mold? And so I became fascinated with
this idea of how you create that status for yourself. And there is a story
of Ray Liotta being cast in "Goodfellas"
and how he had a meeting with the director. And at the moment that they
were due to meet in this hotel-- so this must have been, I
guess, late '60s, early '70s, before the movie was made. And they had this meeting in
the hotel, and part of the hotel was closed off for a
completely separate reason, and there were some
security guards. And the director
watched Ray Liotta come in, negotiate with
security guards about whether he could go
through, and then accept that he wasn't
going to be allowed to go through as not playing
the character but as himself. And he realized in that
moment, the director-- oh, that guy-- he
can play someone who is happy high status. And I can see if, as an actor,
he can then transform that into something more sinister. But I know that he's got
that compassionate, yes, I will comply with your
security requirements, but I'm still keeping my status. He's got that energy. And that status is
something that we read all of the time in other people. The thing I think is
really interesting is that predominantly over the
last 100 years of TV and film and watching things
like "The Apprentice" or all kinds of business
scenarios and tech scenarios, we predominantly see this
energy or this status and this charisma from men, and
from particular kinds of men often. And I'm just so fascinated
to see and work out and open this conversation
as to, well, what else does it look
like, because it can look like a million
different things. And I know from the
podcast, from everyone, from Hillary Clinton to
Professor Mary Beard, Anne-Marie Imafidon,
Abadessios and Sade-- I know that there's no answer. It's individual. You have to make
it up for yourself. If there was a rule
book, we would already have equality and parity
across all things. There isn't. So it's really about
finding that permission to uncover your inner wise guy. SPEAKER: So when you
embarked on the-- we'll come back to different
archetypes maybe of happy high status. When you embarked on your
journey of the podcast, you were presumably
thinking, well, who would be
interesting to have on? And what do I want
to ask them about? So help us understand how
you thought about that, because you've got a
fascinating-- you've alluded to a fascinating cast
of characters [INAUDIBLE].. How do you go after
them [INAUDIBLE]?? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, the
podcast was, in some ways, counterintuitive. And it was a bit of a-- I always think it's a bit
of a measure of me having-- I hate the expression
"imposter syndrome." I don't think it
really exists, and I could get into a whole
conversation about that. But an insecurity-- I
had an insecurity when the book came out,
"How to Own the Room," that this is just me. This is just what I think. This is what I've
observed in stand-up. This is what I think about
Michelle Obama's performance style. This is what I think about Joan
Rivers, all of these things. And when the book came out, I
just had this real feeling of-- the book is really
good, by the way. But I had this real
feeling of, oh, no, this is a really
selfish act that I've imposed upon the world. And who is it for me to tell
people how to own the room? And because I felt that
way, I thought, well, if I make a podcast,
then I can just interview loads of other
people and ask them. So lots of books
grow out of podcasts, but my podcast grew out of my
own insecurity about my book. Go psychoanalyze that. SPEAKER: You had unhappy
low status [INAUDIBLE].. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, exactly,
unhappy low status. And it was also that I was-- I'm always desperate to uncover
more about this because I'm fascinated by the fact that
we have all been educated for the last 100 years. Broadly, we could have
more global literacy. I hope we will continue to
have more global literacy. It's not perfect. But broadly, our
education level is high. Our literacy levels are high. There's broadly democracy,
et cetera, et cetera. And yet, so many stereotypes
and biases persist. So many people feel small,
feel they can't speak out, feel they're held back. And so many people are laboring
under this misconception that there's some
sort of rule book or Machiavellian manual
that will uncover everything for you, and it's just not true. And so I wanted
to use the podcast to uncover that and show
there isn't a perfect way to give a speech. There isn't a perfect way
to stand up and speak. It doesn't matter who you are. You can find a way to do it. SPEAKER: Yeah, and actually, one
of the things interesting when you listen to an
array of interviews is how different the
perspectives are, even from people who come
from similar professions or actresses or sport
[INAUDIBLE] or whatever. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, the
really interesting thing I've discovered, because they
are all quite distinct, all of these guests--
but the thing that often emerges as a commonality
is generational differences. I really noticed that
anyone I interview who's broadly over 50 or 60
and anyone who's under 35-- their views are going to
be completely different. So a lot of women I've
interviewed who are older will talk about trying to
maintain certain standards or dress a certain
way or repress certain parts of themselves. Aline Santos of Unilever-- SPEAKER: Aline, yeah,
we know her well. VIV GROSKOP: --was
fantastic example of this. When she was the first
woman in the boardroom, she made sure she wore a
suit with padded shoulders. She had glasses
with a clear glass, so people would think
she was a serious person. And for younger women,
when they listen to that, they just think, I would
never want to work in a world where I had to do that. And much younger
women saying, well, I don't want to go to a company
where I can't wear trainers, because that's mad. So there's very interesting
superficial differences. Often, they can reflect
an industry as well. Certain industries
still have norms. And trying to open this
out, showing people that a lot of this is
about picking your battles and recognizing context. For me, I can go
into any situation and pretty much
speak however I want. There's no repercussions,
really, other than on me. But when you're in a job,
there are certain norms. SPEAKER: The generation divide
is really an interesting one. I don't mean to interrupt,
except that you just sparked a story about Aline Santos. I'd like-- VIV GROSKOP: Oh, she's so great. SPEAKER: --to share from me
because many of the teams here know her. She's a senior
leader at Unilever. She was behind the campaign
for Real Beauty, which is an iconic shift in
how advertising was done. And she was telling
me she grew up in Brazil at the time the
movie "Alien" came out. Do you know this? VIV GROSKOP: Yes, she loves-- SPEAKER: I think
you mentioned this. VIV GROSKOP:
--telling this story. It's a great story. SPEAKER: Let me just
tell it for a minute. But her name is Aline, but
the translator for the movie misspelled "Alien," and
they spelled it Aline. And so she was
known as the alien at her school, which
she didn't like. And then she went
to see the movie. And it's the first
real movie where the lead character is an action
woman, Ripley, which is-- VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
Sigourney Weaver. SPEAKER: Sigourney Weaver. And she was like,
OK, that is me, and that was what [INAUDIBLE]. So a bit like your
approach here, she suddenly found
somebody who had probably unhappy high status
in the case of Ripley, but that really lifted her out
of feeling bullied and being tagged as the alien. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, those
kind of stories, I think, are so important because
they show that, yeah, she's a very powerful and fascinating
woman who doesn't look as if she would have experienced-- SPEAKER: Experienced that. VIV GROSKOP: --bullying-- SPEAKER: Exactly. VIV GROSKOP: --or
something like that. And yet, to hear her
tell that story is-- it's very sweet and funny. SPEAKER: So we might
get her in, actually. He's prompting me to think
about inviting her in to tell her story. VIV GROSKOP: She's great. But she's a great
example of old school. If she turns up, she
will wear a power suit. SPEAKER: And so let's go
to the other end, though. So you said to the
younger generation that you're talking
to-- what are you seeing that's different there? VIV GROSKOP: Well,
younger people are resist-- oh, no,
I sound about 156 now that I'm saying this,
but I am, basically. My children will be like,
but you are really old. And they are asking
me about things that happened in the late
'90s, and we refer to it as the olden times. [LAUGHTER] But that's fair
enough, you know? I met my husband in 1998, and
I didn't own a mobile phone, and he had to explain to
me what Ask Jeeves was. And when I told him I was
coming here today, he said, oh, are you going to
Ask Jeeves are you? [LAUGHTER] Yeah. SPEAKER: We've got some people-- VIV GROSKOP: Poor old-- SPEAKER: --who were at Ask
Jeeves still [INAUDIBLE].. VIV GROSKOP: Oh, brilliant. OK, yeah, so I do
remember those times. But it's so different the
expectations that people have. I'm not a big fan of the labels
of millennial, Gen X, Gen Z, et cetera. They just describe behaviors in
the way that imposter syndrome does too, but just broad brush. But broadly speaking,
there's definitely a resistance to hierarchy, and
hierarchy is a form of status amongst younger people, which
I think is really positive. Unfortunately, it doesn't
always marry with reality. And I've done so many events
where I have a young woman in particular. I've done so many
events for women because "How to Own
the Room" was at first aimed predominantly at women. And a young women might
put her hand up and say, I can't get heard in a meeting. I have so many
contributions to make. Can you tell me how to get
my point across in a meeting? And I would perhaps
give some tips. And then her boss would come
up to me at the end afterwards and say, I really wish
you hadn't done that. She's someone who thinks
that she can run the company and has no experience. [LAUGHS] And so
there's a tension there and this idea as
well that I think is fascinating of how many
people can be around the table, can be on the board. And then some people
will say-- and I think it's a Ted Talk--
get a bigger table. OK, well, how big are you
going to make this table? So there's a lot of resistance
and discomfort there. And it always ties in for me as
well with stand-up and comedy because, in that
situation, have to accept and you have to force the idea
of, I've got the microphone. You better listen to me. And that energy is very
contrary to the democratization of power and speaking
that a lot of us are investigating at the moment. So I think being able to move
between these modes, which is what happy high status allows
you to do, you sort of stand back and think, is
this a good time for me to speak and put
my point across? Yes. Is this actually a time for
me to listen really, really carefully? Maybe that would be better-- being more judicious, not
always speaking up just for the sake of it. I think speaking up
for the sake of it has become a really
overrated phenomenon. SPEAKER: Right. VIV GROSKOP: And I
say this as somebody who's just been speaking
for about five minutes. But a lot of us could
do with being more quiet and listening more. And the older I get, the more
I try to do that and make space for other people. SPEAKER: Fascinating and so when
you came to put this together-- this came out of, I
guess, reflecting on lots of the interviews you've done. What spurred you to craft this? And it's very rich with
chapters, examples, vignettes, examples of people who exhibit
the different traits you talk about. What led you to this? And how did you think about
structuring [INAUDIBLE]?? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, it
was really that this idea of happy high status first
came up for me when I first started doing stand-up. And it completely
changed the way that I responded to
hostile situations or difficult moments,
to being heckled, to getting one-star
reviews, to getting-- you have the stress
of getting everything from a one-star review
and a five-star review for the same show. So how do you know
if it's any good? SPEAKER: So for those of you
who haven't done stand-up, just take us through. What's it like being heckled? And how do you react to it
before and after thinking about this? VIV GROSKOP: So to align it
with this idea of status, in a heckle situation, if you
are too high status and too forceful in responding
to a heckle, the audience is going to see,
oh, that person is really being triggered. They're very sensitive. They can't take it. So you have to be
able to turn it around in a way that almost feels like,
all right, you want a piece? Yeah, come on. What else? You have to have something that
has a bit of ease about it. So learning how to almost-- it's called
incorporation in comedy. You try to incorporate
these things whilst also sending the
subtle message of, yeah, this is not a free-for-all. You don't want that to spread. But then sometimes you do have
to literally shut somebody down because they're bothering
the rest of the audience. So having that
very subtle feeling of when you can be forceful,
when you can be gentle. And sometimes
early on in comedy, I would realize I'd come down on
a heckler really hard, too hard for my benefit, and actually
kind of crushed them. And that's something I
really feel uncomfortable about in comedy
sometimes, actually. So you have to learn how to
just handle those situations with a bit of subtlety. And the person I was always
observing this in outside of stand-up, which
was around the time I started developing the ideas
for the book and the podcast, How to Own the Room,
was Michelle Obama. So the second chapter
about "How to Own the Room" is all about her. And when the book
came out in 2018, she was the person everybody
wanted to talk about. And she, for me, is a perfect
example of happy high status, as is Barack Obama-- very at ease, magnanimous. There's a fantastic
piece of footage of-- there's loads of footage
of Barack Obama being happy high status. There's one way he's
being interviewed about economic policy,
and he just catches a fly while he's being interviewed. [LAUGHTER] I know. I mean, and other
ones where he's talking to somebody in
a situation like this, and someone on the front
row is talking to him very aggressively about gun control
and how there shouldn't be gun control. And he leans into
the conversation. He rolls his
sleeves up and says, tell me more about
why you think this. And that's happy high
status is leaning into a difficult conversation,
hearing people out, not agreeing with them,
but hearing them out. And people were always
saying to me, where can I read more about
happy high status? And eventually, I
thought, OK, well, yeah, I'll write the book. Because you can read
a lot about status in the context of theater
and comedy and performance in Keith Johnston's work. But to apply it
to everyday life, that's a whole other
experiment that I'm trying to introduce here. SPEAKER: And help
us understand how you think about being
yourself but portraying happy high status if your
self is feeling anxious, as I was saying
at the beginning, concerned, didn't sleep
very well, short fuse, but you want to portray
happy high status-- VIV GROSKOP: Is there
something you want-- SPEAKER: --where you're to be-- VIV GROSKOP: --to tell us, man? SPEAKER: --authentic? [LAUGHTER] VIV GROSKOP: Yeah. SPEAKER: This is a
different show altogether. VIV GROSKOP: [LAUGHS] Well-- SPEAKER: Yes. VIV GROSKOP: --yeah. SPEAKER: Well, I've
got [INAUDIBLE].. VIV GROSKOP: There's a
chapter in the book, which examines the idea of, just
be yourself, just relax. And I was always told
this early on in stand-up. Like, just be yourself. And I was like, my self wants
to go and dig a hole and die. Like, I can't just be myself. So what does that look like? I conceive it as who you are
when you're not under pressure. So this could be if you
have a good relationship with your family-- not everyone does. But if you have
people in your family that you feel comfortable
with, what does that feel like? If you're with your
friends, who you get on with and who really like
you and you like them, what does that feel like? Certain work colleagues, you
just feel at ease with them. That is your happy high status. And it's not going to
look the same on everyone. For somebody, it's going
to be your whole court, and you tell jokes, and
you love a bit of banter. For someone else, it's going
to be you're supportive, and you're calm, and you're
the person who's quite peaceful or the peacemaker. There's a million
different ways. It's everyone on the planet
has a different means of being. We see that. You know, in our
everyday interactions, we don't expect
all of our friends to be the same or all of our
family members or colleagues to be the same. Everybody has different energy. So it's thinking about that. And I give-- there's lots of
exercises on the book about how to identify those moments
and almost step out of them and see yourself
in those moments. So you can think, oh, yeah, I'm
being happy high status now. Oh, that's what it feels like. That's how I behave. That's how I sound,
and identifying it. And then the more you
identify it, the more you see when you are it effortlessly
without even trying-- the more you can
think, well, how can I try and bring
that into a situation that is really pressured? How can I be like that when
I'm in a job interview? Not that anybody here should
go for a job interview. [LAUGHTER] SPEAKER: Internally. VIV GROSKOP: Internally. How can I be like that when I'm
under a spotlight and people are expecting something of me? Because we are all
always the same person. We are all always
the person that we are with our beloved friends and
family and beloved colleagues. SPEAKER: You're just trying to
access the low-stress version of yourself-- VIV GROSKOP: Yeah. SPEAKER: --and bring it to
that moment in some way. VIV GROSKOP: Exactly, exactly. And also, the more you
think about it in yourself, the more you observe
it in others. So I give loads of examples from
film and TV, politics, sport, business of people we
can look at and think-- "Succession" is a great example,
and I've got a lot of stuff about Shiv in there. I don't want to
spoil the ending, but she does not have a
happy-high-status ending. But there are many moments in
that when Shiv as a character is one of the most
happy high status because she's
inhabiting her power. She's finding out who she is. And the actress who
plays Shiv, Sarah Snook-- she's Australian,
and she talked a lot about how, in the
beginning of filming, she wasn't certain about
finding quite the right accent. So she decided that
one of Shiv's mode of-- her modus operandi would
be to sit back a bit and maybe just watch things and only
very judiciously comment, because she wasn't
100% sure about ad libbing and improvising. A lot of the dialogue
is improvised. And that's how she found
Shiv's happy high status. So the more you think
about it in yourself, the more you learn to see it. Drama is an incredible
place to watch out for high status, when a
character is pushing too hard; low status, when
somebody defers; and this happy high status,
when this middle position. In "Succession," I always say
the most consistently happy high status is Connor, who is
the sibling who doesn't really care. He doesn't really want
to win the-- he is in-- SPEAKER: He thinks he's going
to be the president of the US as far as [INAUDIBLE]. VIV GROSKOP: Well, yeah,
but he's happy high-- SPEAKER: That's quite happy. VIV GROSKOP: He doesn't really
care whether he actually is or not. He just wants to give it a go. And again, I don't suggest
any of the examples that I give ever are
a person to aspire to. So I'm not saying, let's
all be like Connor Roy because he's a great person. It's about recognizing that
these qualities are subjective and recognizing that the
most important thing is to be OK with yourself. That's the first thing
that people read in you. SPEAKER: And that's
really interesting. I picked out a bit
in the book where you say, there are situations
where you can't be yourself, where being authentic
is sort of a bad move professionally and so on. So how do you deal with
that kind of tension? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
context is so important. And it's like what
I was saying earlier about the limitations of certain
industries, of your position in a hierarchy, because
hierarchies we might pretend that they don't exist-- they always do, whether they
are stated or unstated-- and recognizing
that sometimes what you think of as
your authentic self might be incredibly dangerous
in some environments, and you have to be
judicious about that. I've talked a lot
to women especially on the podcast about
this, especially in corporate
culture, where people are trying to subtly
change things or switch up. Let's go from being a
culture where everybody has to wear shoulder-padded
suit to being a culture where you can wear trainers. That actually has been
quite a slow thing. If we'd come into--
well, we couldn't have come into an environment
like this 30 or 40 years ago because it
wouldn't have existed. But if we had, we would all be
dressed completely differently. And the makeup of this room
would be completely different. So these things do
change over time. So you have an ability to push
that boundary of authenticity. And I think, in a way, that's
all of our task in our work and in our lives is to
create progress by saying, well, I know we've
always done it like this, but let's just try something
slightly different. But you have to be
very judicious and wise about the boundaries of that. You can't just go in
and say, well, this is my authentic self,
and I'm a naturist. So everybody, get used to it. SPEAKER: Yeah. VIV GROSKOP: Right? That might be your
authentic self. Good. Go and do that on the weekend. No judgment. You can't be your authentic
self in every situation. But you can not be inauthentic. You can be more neutral. You don't have to be fake. SPEAKER: Right, just be a
slightly different version of yourself. VIV GROSKOP: You can be the
authentic version that is appropriate for that context. SPEAKER: Yeah that's a
good way to think about it. I want to come to the
audience for questions. So if you're in the room,
you can access the mic. If you can't, you have to send
an email later or something. So please do come to the mics. And you alluded
to this a bit when you spoke about how few role
models there were historically for women to see what happy
high status looked like. What have you found about the
differences for women and men? You talked about the generation. Your podcast was very much
focused on women initially. But I think you've developed
a view that, actually, this is much more broad. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah I
feel very strongly that many of the issues that we
talk about in relation to women are broader. And the word "intersectional"
has anticipated this for-- me, I'm like, oh,
intersectionality is a thing. Yeah. It's so much broader
than relating it to one group of people. I always want to do this
work on behalf of women and with women and
speaking to women because it sort of drives
me crazy that the progress that we've made is so slow. But I also recognize how
transferable that conversation is and how important it is. Now, I just interviewed
the comedian Tom Allen on the Happy High Status
episodes of the podcast, where I'm getting lots
of people to examine what does that mean to you. And he talks about,
he's a comedian. He's gay. He had a very stable upbringing,
and his parents really encouraged him to
be a performer. But he found that, as soon
as he started performing, he was constantly experiencing
feelings of self-sabotage and not feeling
comfortable with himself and always putting
himself down, which didn't come from his background. It just came from
his own inner critic. And he calls this being
confidently insecure. So allowing yourself to be
insecure, be vulnerable, have doubts about
things-- of course. He says, on stage, people don't
really want to see a comedian. They want to see a human
being, and a human being is vulnerable, is insecure. So be that, but
be it confidently. Don't be ashamed of it. And so many
conversations like that have reminded me that we have so
much to learn from each other. And sometimes it's
often the opposite. When Brian Cox was
on the podcast, I always start that
asking, what does it mean to you to own the room? And he was on with his
wife, Nicole Ansari, who has a cameo in the final
episode of "Succession" as one of Logan's mistresses. [LAUGHS] Brilliant
that she got that role. And she gave a
beautiful description of what it means to
own the room and how it's about feeling at ease
and making other people feel at ease. And when I came to ask
Brian Cox what does it mean, he said, well, I don't
understand the question. It just sounds very
proprietorial to me. I don't like the idea
of owning the room. I don't understand
why you're asking. [LAUGHTER] SPEAKER: And in that
moment, what was he doing? VIV GROSKOP: And his wife
turned to him and said, well, of course you think that,
because you own every room that you walk into. [LAUGHTER] SPEAKER: Just by
saying that, exactly. VIV GROSKOP: And you haven't
ever had to think about it. So that flip side
of the conversation is also really
interesting, is examining entitlement and
people who don't even realize that they have
it, because I always say power is not given. It's taken. Those who have
entitlement-- they're not going to want to give it up. It's a bit of a
waste of time trying to convince them to give it up. But to hear them talk
about it and to open up that conversation and
show, well, not everybody feels that way, not everyone
walks into a room and owns it-- I think it's really fascinating
and really important. SPEAKER: That's a great
episode, by the way. I think the particular dynamic
with a couple like that is really amazing to see. I wouldn't do it myself. [LAUGHTER] Go ahead. AUDIENCE: Brilliant. VIV GROSKOP: Hi. AUDIENCE: Hi, Viv. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed and
lovely tips as well. Also, please don't
consider this a heckle. Like, no crushing-- VIV GROSKOP: [LAUGHS] AUDIENCE: --if that's OK. I'm just really intrigued about
when it comes to having status and, obviously, as your
role as a podcaster. When it comes to
prerecorded things, obviously, having status
is a little bit harder. How do you use
status and confidence when you're working in a
prerecorded sort of context? VIV GROSKOP: Why
do you specifically ask about prerecorded? Are you thinking because
it's not live, therefore it needs to be perfect? Or you have the
chance to edit it-- is that what you're thinking? AUDIENCE: Yes, like, I find
that when I'm in a room and I can bounce off
other people's energy and things like that, I find
that a little bit easier. But actually, when
you're talking to either a camera
or just a microphone, and actually you have to get
it really well first time, it's sometimes a
little bit harder. And I think that's where I
find the status is harder to work on. VIV GROSKOP: Oh, I
love that question. Thank you. Yeah, I've struggled a
lot with that myself. And when I first started
performing comedy, I used to-- obviously, in comedy, you
start by doing 5 minutes, and you do 10 minutes,
and you do 20, and that's your club sets. And then you're trying to
get to an hour for Edinburgh. And really, want to be
rinsing and repeating the whole time because you
can't just turn up and do new stuff every time. You don't know if
it's going to work. And if you want to
do it professionally, then people need to see that
you have something that can be replicated and is consistent. And I found that I was so
much better off the cuff. I struggled with
scripted material. A lot of professional
performers who are amazing do struggle with
scripted material. And I used to
always think, oh, I want to make a new rule that
all comedy is unscripted. Nobody's allowed to
prepare anything. You just have to
turn up and talk. But, of course, that
would be incredibly self-indulgent and rubbish. So I would question really this
pressure that you're putting. You have to recognize that
every situation, every context is different. You can't bring the same energy
to an unscripted performance or a live interaction that
you can to something scripted. For example, I would often host
an award ceremony or something where there's a script,
and it's all prewritten of who's going to win the
awards and all of that. And sometimes there's 27
awards, and it's really going to go on quite
late, and people are going to get quite drunk. And I would be sometimes
tempted to ad lib to lighten it. But then that's going
to make it longer. And really, I'm only doing
that to make myself feel good so that I don't feel so
cringe about going through it. And sometimes you have
to just accept, ah, this is my job to do
this, and it's scripted. I'm just going to try
and lift it off the page as much as I can to bring
lightness and improvisation and spontaneity to my face,
my voice, my eye contact, my interaction with the person. It doesn't always
have to be the words. It can be in lots
of other things. It can be in your
physicality or the energy that you bring to it. This is exactly what actors
have to do every single night at the theater. They don't do it the
same every single night. They find a different
way to channel that emotion, a different
way to lift that script so that it never feels scripted. And then sometimes I'll tell
people in work settings this, and they say, yes,
but I'm not an actor. I can't do it. Well, actors are
also human beings who have simply
disciplined themselves to bring an energy
to something scripted but recognizing that
not everything needs to be the same. And you can be good in loads
of different scenarios, some you might excel and some
you might be not so great at. That's fine. But you can be good enough in
many, many different contexts. AUDIENCE: Wow, thank
you very much for that. Thank you so much. VIV GROSKOP: You're welcome. SPEAKER: I didn't
mention in the intro, but you also work a bit with
particularly groups of women and women in business
and in media and so on. Is there something
different you advise there? And also for a group
like this, they want to explore some
of these concepts aside from reading the book
and studying it really hard. Are there one or
two things you'd say, look, let's get started
with trying this or that? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, there's
two questions really that you're asking there. One is about is this
gendered, because I do work a lot with women. And the other is about, where do
you get started in all of this? So the gendered question
is really interesting, and I'm finding this
with opening this up with "Happy High Status." And I'm finding
that men do have-- and this is a huge
generalization, but the questions I'm
getting often from men-- that was a very good specific
question, by the way. They're often quite blanket,
and they're quite sort of, how do you become
more confident? Or what do you do if you work
with somebody who's arrogant? They're often quite general,
whereas women's questions are often more focused on
their own insecurities. What do I do if I feel this way? What do I do if I
always tell myself this? They're more internally
focused rather than looking for some sort of
rule book about confidence. So the most important
thing to take away there is there is no rule book. This is not Machiavelli. This is not trying to
say, stand like this, and everyone will think
you're Donald Trump. No, thank you. That's not for me. Like, I'm sure somebody
can write that book. In fact, I think "The
Art of the Deal" might-- SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] VIV GROSKOP: --be that book. Of course, there are
lots of different ways to inhabit power,
but this is not about having a shortcut to being
the most confident and amazing person in the room. In terms of where to get
started on this, of course, resources-- there are
loads of great podcasts. As well as "How
to Own the Room," there's an amazing book
by Caroline Goyder Called "Gravitas," which is a brilliant
exploration of how to be calm and in your own energy. She's a brilliant voice coach. There are so many
great resources. But I would say, there is
no shortcut to doing it. I'd rather people actually
didn't read my book or listen to my podcast
and actually did it. I give loads of advice
in all of the stuff that I put out about
how to actually do it, and it's things like if
you go to a birthday party or you have a celebration
at work, tap the glass and say three sentences
about the person. Get used to creating
moments where everyone turns to look at you, because it's
those moments that we're afraid of and that
we're not used to being happy high
status in those moments. And there's no reason
other than millions of years of human evolution-- [LAUGHS] There's
no reason why we should feel scared of everyone
looking at us and so-called judging us. Often, they're not. They're actually thinking
about what they're going to be having for tea. SPEAKER: Yeah. VIV GROSKOP: Learning
that it isn't about you and it's OK for everyone
to turn and look at you, and you say these things, and
you might say something stupid, and it might go
wrong or whatever. It doesn't matter. There'll be another day. Creating those opportunities
is the most important thing. And do it before you're ready. Please don't wait
until you're ready. This is especially for
women and other people who are not in
traditional alpha groups or who aren't easily
picked for leadership. Don't wait until you're ready. You are never ready. You have to get it wrong. You have to be comfortable
getting it wrong. SPEAKER: That sounds
very scary, though, so-- [LAUGHTER] You just encouraged
us to do something, but then you've made it
sound very concerning. So how-- VIV GROSKOP: [LAUGHTER] SPEAKER: I'm nervous now. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah. SPEAKER: How do
you force yourself to jump in and do that? Can you find a lower
stress [INAUDIBLE]?? VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
well, that's why I say, vote of thanks,
three sentences, or even one sentence, asking to do an intro
for somebody rather than-- so many people are
waiting to do a keynote without actually
having spoken in front of people for 3 minutes. Volunteering for low-key things
or creating those moments but not thinking,
I can't do this because I haven't
done a Ted Talk. That's what I'm talking
about, about being ready. Obviously-- well, I
mean, I don't know. I'm quite reckless about this. So I do think the more
moments you can think, oh, I think I want
to say something now. Tap, tap, tap. Here I go-- yeah
that is the way. It's not to do this. So it makes me laugh. Like, in real life,
when you ask somebody to go on a date, when you
ask somebody to marry you, when you tell somebody that
you're having a baby, right-- all of these amazing,
incredible moments are the most important
moments of our lives of personal, emotional moments. We don't script those. We don't think,
oh, I better think about what I'm going to say
and how it's going to come out. And I better have
some bullet points. We allow ourselves when those
are the heaviest, scariest, most life-changing moments. And we let ourselves be who
we are in those moments. So if we can bring some of the
energy and the unpreparation and the spontaneity
of that into a work environment in a way that
is low key and safe-- so maybe enlist a
friend or a colleague to support you or start
clapping if you've kind of got a bit carried away with it all. Have some backup. Have some support. There are ways to do this. But don't wait
until you're ready, because we are never ready. SPEAKER: Well, I
love that idea of you don't have to do the conference
keynote as your first foray into this. VIV GROSKOP: No, no. SPEAKER: Well, that
makes it a bit easier. VIV GROSKOP: No. Ideally, being
the-- this warm-up-- even if the warm-up is
just, welcome, everybody. Thanks for coming. Here's so and so-- volunteering
for those kinds of things and often as an extra,
not waiting to be asked. So many people also
waiting to be asked, waiting for their boss to say,
I've chosen you to do this. No, Seth Godin, choose yourself. SPEAKER: And there's something-- I haven't got the
quote written down in here that really
struck me which was the stories we tell ourselves. And you said, look, it's easy
to say, I hate public speaking. But what you should
be saying is, I hate public speaking
when I'm not prepared, and it's a huge audience,
and I don't know the topic. So you just redefine the
area of concern a bit. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, I'm
obsessed with specificity. [LAUGHS] SPEAKER: Yeah, it's very good. VIV GROSKOP: So specificity
is so important because nobody really hates anything or
finds anything difficult. You need to drill down into why. And I've come to
this thinking, really through talking so much about
public speaking and presenting, everybody knows what
we're supposed to do. There's no mystery to any of it. We all know that all the
different ways of preparing and how if you group
things in three, they're easy to remember. Have an intro and an outro
that you know what to say. And know your first words,
know your last words, all of these things. But it's not what to do. It's why. Why are you not doing it? And that's going to
be the specific thing. And if you can get to
grips with why, then you can start thinking,
oh, OK, yeah, I do need to be extra prepared. Or I do need to make sure that
I have a list of 10 data points that I can refer to. And then the rest
of it, I can ad lib. But finding your way of doing
it with your own specificity, because we're all different-- that's what's going to work. SPEAKER: Really good. Thank you. Anybody else have any
questions that you want to ask or contributions
you want to make? While you think
about that, you've been on-- it looks
like a mission. If you kind of construct
it from now and look back, you've been on this mission
to explore confidence and happy high status and how
other people think about it, and you've distilled
it into this. Where does your
mission take you next? Will it be done when
everybody in the room is getting up and
asking questions? When will you know
that you've kind of-- VIV GROSKOP: That's
such a great question. SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]? VIV GROSKOP: I feel like
this is-- it's endless. And that's something that I
find actually really depressing and daunting. And I have to constantly
motivate myself and remind myself that it's OK. [LAUGHS] And it doesn't
all have to be fixed. There can be so
many moments when I'll think, oh my
god, I've been talking about this for five years now. Like, the podcast's been
going for five years. This is really the
third book that I've written about this, so
"How to Own the Room," "Lift as you Climb,"
"Happy High Status." And sometimes I'll get asked
a question from the audience, and I'll just think, oh, no. Are people still
feeling so small? When is this mission
going to be over? And it isn't, because our human
vulnerability and insecurity and the pressures of life
are constantly changing, and they're really difficult.
And so, for me, it's not so much where
does the mission end or what's going to prove
if the mission has worked. It's more, how do I dig
deep to stay motivated and want to keep
talking about this, because I think it's so urgent. I can't stand it that
people feel small. SPEAKER: I hope you
get energy from talking to groups like this. We've got time for a
quick final question. Sorry, I've managed
the time a bit badly, but if you
can be brief, thanks. AUDIENCE: Hi, Viv. VIV GROSKOP: Hi. AUDIENCE: Thank you very
much for your convo. I wanted to ask,
what do you think about the idea of
developing an alter ego? Imagine something
like, for instance, Kobe Bryant being The Black
Mamba whenever he's playing and he has to deliver in
the most important moments. And walk me through
how you think about the concept of
developing an alter ego and how, for example, you
think about it in the context of happy high status. VIV GROSKOP: Oh. AUDIENCE: I'm just really
curious about your [INAUDIBLE].. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
love that question. So it's always been
fascinating to me that Beyoncé, who is clearly
massively happy high status-- I mean, we'd have to
invent a whole other word to call her happy high status. For her, that is
Sasha Fierce, right? So she has created
this alter ego. And you often hear performers,
especially performers who are really quite bombastic
and can own a stadium who've had to think about this. I saw an interview the other
day with Tina Turner where she said, when I'm at home and
I'm having a cup of coffee, I am not Tina Turner. Like, it's too exhausting
to be Tina Turner every day. And I need to save her
up and bust their out. I've had the same interesting,
slightly different energy kind of comment from the
novelist Ann Patchett, who says, when she's at home-- she actually takes
her husband's name when she's at home in
her day-to-day life. And she's just quiet, and
she does all of her stuff, and she does her writing. And then when she goes
on tour, she says, I put on my Ann Patchett head. And she almost imagines it
like a papier-mache head that she puts on of, yes, I am
now the novelist, Ann Patchett. I think sometimes these
things are relevant for people with a public persona, and
it's actually to do more with public and private. For everyday life, I
don't know how useful it is to pretend to be something
you're not, and certainly-- SPEAKER: Generally stressful,
in my experience, yes. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah, don't tell
other people you're doing it, definitely. [LAUGHTER] But sometimes it
helps me more, I would say, for me, personally--
and I do this a lot as a performer. I might do it if I'm doing
something like this-- is to think of a word. Like, it could be "wow,"
or it could be "calm," or it could be "kind," a
word that I want to channel for that particular moment. It could be anything,
like "precision," "clarity," "generosity." You can use something that's
specific to the task, your task in hand in this
moment, to convince these people of this thing,
to give them this thing. That, for me, is more
useful as a gift than to try and convince myself
that I'm very, very bad imitation of Sasha
Not-Very-Fierce. SPEAKER: That's a great idea. I love the idea of putting
on the scarf of confidence or the hat of high status
rather than trying to pretend to be somebody you're not. VIV GROSKOP: Yeah,
or just having an intention, an
intention like clarity or excellent delivery of data. That would not be mine, but
I'm sure other people would find it really useful. Or generosity, all of
these things, especially things that you think
are in short supply-- to channel that one intention. SPEAKER: Unfortunately, time
for us is in short supply. Did you see what I did there? VIV GROSKOP: Seamless, seamless. SPEAKER: Can I just
say, it's always a pleasure to talk to you,
Viv, and to read your work and to listen to your stuff. I learn so much, and I know
that our audience here has done. So could you please say a
big thank you to Viv Groskop? VIV GROSKOP: Thank you. SPEAKER: Thank you very much. VIV GROSKOP: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] SPEAKER: Thank you, everybody. VIV GROSKOP: Thank you. SPEAKER: Thank you, everybody. And thank you very much, Viv. Thank you, everyone. VIV GROSKOP: Aw, thank you. SPEAKER: Have a good day. [MUSIC PLAYING]
