Chase quality so relentlessly that status becomes irrelevant.

When you care enough about how good the thing is, the questions of rank and recognition start to feel like distractions from the actual work. Not because you have risen above them morally, but because they are less interesting than the problem in front of you. That is the most reliable route past status anxiety, since it replaces the concern rather than suppressing it.

Pick one piece of your work and take it further than anyone requires, purely for the quality of it. Notice how the hours feel while you are inside that. It is the same absorption that makes other people’s positions stop mattering so much.