About 15 years ago, I went with a friend to New Hampshire, where he was busy going door-to-door

canvassing people on a political campaign. And what we discovered within a few minutes of getting

there is that at least in the neighborhood we were in, none of the houses had doorbells. It took

a little while to figure out why, and then it came to me. If we know you, come on in. If we don't,

go away. Hey, it's Seth, and this is a Kimbo.

We'll be back in a second to talk about family, but first, here's a message from our sponsor.

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This week's rant is particularly simple to describe, but I hope that you will take a few cycles

to think about it, because it explains an enormous amount about our culture and about some of the

changes that we're going through right now. As you've heard me talk about before, marketing,

culture, community, it tends to be driven by two things, status and affiliation. Not just among

humans, but we're just going to talk about humans today. Status and affiliation. Status is who's

up and who's down. Is somebody moving up in status or down from this interaction? What Keith John Stone

wrote about in his breakthrough book Impro, more than 50 years ago, is that theater is nothing,

but status roles, who's up and who's down every single scene of any worthwhile play or movie,

is about the shift in status roles and affiliation. How are you compared to the Godfather?

Is Godfather moving up or down? Are you moving up or down? That is what happens in every scene.

An affiliation? Affiliation is who's to my left and who's to my right? Am I fitting in?

So all you have to do is go to the high school cafeteria to see these two factors at work

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