Good Life Project - Reimagining Success | Scott Galloway

Episode Date: July 23, 2019

Scott Galloway (https://www.profgalloway.com/) is a Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business where he was named “One of the World’s 50 Best Business School Professors” by Poets & Quants in 2012. He is the founder of Red Envelope, Prophet Brand Strategy, and L2 Inc., and has served on the boards of directors of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His latest book is The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning (https://amzn.to/2ye6WkR). In today's conversation, we go deep into Galloway's surprising "origin story," how the fierce devotion of a single mom and an education system that opened its arms despite "questionable" credentials made possible so much. And, we explore how the changing face of today's society, education, and economy calls us to reexamine how we define and pursue success in all parts of life.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU Business School, where he teaches brand strategy, digital marketing, was named one of the world's 50 best business school professors. He's also the founder of something like nine companies and the author of two books, the first of which was a New York Times bestseller, and the latest of which, The Algebra of Happiness, is just out and is a fun, provocative take on what slacker in Southern California and kind of begged his way into graduating from UCLA with a sterling 2.27 GPA. So in today's conversation, we dive into how Scott's upbringing, how being raised by a mom who was a fierce champion for him, made so many things possible, how he built a life of what kind of seemed like astonishing external success felt and looked like while he was simultaneously crumbling inside and then blowing up everything

that got him to this place of perceived success and rebuilding life on a profoundly different set of values and expectations and measurements in his second act. And of course, along the way, we touch on some of the ideas from his new book, The Algebra of Happiness, that will without a doubt provoke you to think differently about what a life well-lived is and how to get there. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series

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The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You know, I describe my childhood and me as unremarkably or remarkably unremarkable. You know, just latchkey kid, single mom, only child, nothing that exceptional, nothing just kind of sleepwalking through life.

Yeah. Did you feel like that when you were a kid or looking back on it, is that sort of like your assessment of what was going on? You know, I think you're a kid, you're just not any different. You know, the defining moments for me were my parents' divorce, growing up with a single mom, but it was the 70s. You know, I think we're about the same age. There's just a different approach to kids. Make sure that they're fed, make sure they're home by like midnight, and that's about it. Yeah. It wasn't anything like game we'd all play. In the middle of the street.

Yeah, right. Until all hours of the night. Until somewhere like a chain of parents calling each other finally found where the crowd was. And we all went running home. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, totally different. I mean, because you're raising two kids now, right? Yeah, two boys, eight and 11.

And it's just such a contrast, right? Just so involved in their lives. And there's something actually kind of relaxing when I was single and on the weekend would come, it wasn't stressful, but it'd be like, all right, what's the most fabulous, interesting series of things I can do this weekend? And then when you have kids, you have kids, right? Yeah. It's sort of your life is just, well, we know what we're doing. We're doing what the kids, you know, we're doing little league and then we're doing a play date.

And then we're watching, you know, whatever it is, you know, Shazam on Saturday night. But it's kind of, it's not nearly as much fun, but, or I shouldn't say it's not as much fun. It's not as fabulous, but it's sort of relaxing, right? You just kind of know what you're doing this weekend. Yeah. Well, I guess that's why a lot of people turn to religion, right? They're sort of like, these are the rules of the game. Yeah.

A lot of the decisions are made for you. That's right. So you mentioned your kids were, your parents were immigrants. Where'd they come from? Dad, Scotland, mother, England, both, you know,

neither of them got past eighth grade, pretty impoverished households and, you know, have this great gene that we've inherited. And I think it's the secret sauce in America is this kind of risk-taking immigrant gene. And they said, we want better lives. And both came here on a steamship in the late fifties. With their families, I'm assuming. No, just them.

Oh, no kidding. Yeah. And they met, they actually met at a dance. But it's, you know, it's just. How old were they when they came? I think they were in their, I think mid to late 20s. So young. Yeah, kids, right? Yeah.

But, you know, people, I think when they see some 6'2", bald white guy wearing a blazer, they assume that I'm fifth generation, you know, Mayflower or something. I'm like, no, I'm an immigrant. Or kids of immigrants. Because it was sort of the classic immigrant mentality, sort of like a part of your upbringing also about work ethic or a focus on certain trajectories or career paths or education. You know, I think I've always had a sense of, you know, for me, it was about my parents were risk takers. They worked hard. They didn't have the benefit of education. And for me, it's always struck me the contrast in the opportunities they had and the opportunities I had.

And it wasn't necessarily because I was raised in this wonderful environment. It was because I was born in the best zip code in the world to be born in California in the 60s as a heterosexual white male. And I'll come back to why that was literally the winning lottery ticket. Because through the 60s and 70s, America basically had a monopoly power. The best or most productive economies in the world, Germany and Japan, had been leveled. And in World War II, the third largest economy in the world, Germany and Japan, had been leveled. And in World War II, third largest economy in the world was Argentina. So we basically had monopoly power for a good 34 years.

So if you were a white guy in corporate America, you could do really well. And when I grew up in California, the University of California, which is seminal in my life, decided it wanted unremarkable kids and give them remarkable opportunities. So I got into UCLA. You asked me about my childhood. I was mediocre in terms of grades, but I didn't test well either. I just wasn't kind of... But the UCLA

was looking for kids who were unremarkable to make them remarkable is the way I would describe it. And then I rewarded the vision and the generosity of the Regents of UC and California taxpayers with a 2.27 GPA to UCLA. And then somehow I got into graduate school at Berkeley. But yeah, I've always said the difference, my parents were harder working and I think more talented than me. But the reason, you know, I'm here with you and I've had this kind of, a lot of economic security in my life, which my parents never had,

is because two reasons. One, the irrational passion that my mother had for me, and two, the University of California, being born in a place of state-sponsored education and in a society that values risk-takers and values hard work, gives you a ton of opportunity. And the reason I brought in kind of the white heterosexual male part of this, and I write about this in the book, is my roommate my freshman year was a white male who was homosexual. And to be born in the 60s as a white homosexual male

was literally the unluckiest thing in the world. Because if he'd been born probably in the 50s, he probably would have found a monogamous relationship. If he'd been born in the 70s, the AIDS cocktail would have caught him. But unfortunately, he was born at just the wrong time. And that is he began having a series of relationships in his 20s and then contracted HIV and science didn't catch him fast enough. And I always thought, same guy, same fraternity, same college, I was the luckiest guy in the world, literally, that my timing couldn't have been better and his timing just couldn't have been worse.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting also because it really does bring up the notion of how many things end up dropping into our path that have profound impacts on every part of our our existence that we have literally zero control over and can claim you know like zero um responsibility for 100 and it's you as a species we're so good at crediting our character and our hard work for our success. And then we credit the markets for our failures.

And the reality is I don't have any such delusions. You know, I don't, if I was born, even in China and Europe, which are, you know, productive, interesting societies, I've started nine businesses. Generously, I'm kind of three, four, and two. I don't know if any other society would tolerate the failures I've had and still let me get to where I am now. So it's, yeah, it's, you know, go USA. And that's one of the things that's so disturbing about some of the rhetoric right now around anti-immigrant, you know, being literally demonizing immigrants, because it hadn't been kind of the warm embrace of the U.S. for my parents, and if it hadn't been for, I'm also really rattled by this education scandal, and I'm part of the problem because as academics,

I teach at NYU, we're kind of drunk on exclusivity. Every year we brag about how impossible it is to get into school. And you hear people at parties say, well, I could never get into the school I went to now. And they say that with pride and it's a bad thing because on a risk adjusted basis, your kids may be a little bit better than you, but they may be a little bit worse, but they're probably gonna be kind of similar to you

in terms of intellect, work ethic. And if they can't get into the school you got into, which is kind of the caste system in the US, we have a caste system of higher education here. Then they're not going to do as well as you. So something that I find profoundly disturbing is that the kids who used to have remarkable opportunities to go to remarkable schools now go to good schools. And the kids that used to go has tripled in the last 30 years, they haven't increased their seats by one because we all as academics love being a luxury brand. And we've kind of lost the script.

We forget that we're public servants. Yeah. I mean, I guess what's the answer to that, though? I know it's a really big, complicated issue. But I'm actually really curious because you've been living a solid chunk, like a solid chunk of your recent adult life inside of that world. And kind of speaking out, do you see a clear path to a different way? Well, there's a lot of things. It's obviously a nuance and complicated problems.

And some of the reasons it's getting harder to get into kids' schools are there's good things going on. There's more and more girls going to college. The number of girls that are going to college has increased exponentially. 70% of high school valedictorians are girls. And that's a great thing. More kids going to college. These are all good things.

Some of the things that I think we could do that would increase the supply, and that really is the problem, it's a supply-side problem, is I believe we should start taxing endowments over a billion dollars if they don't grow the number of seats they have faster than the population growth.

So the head of admissions for Harvard last year said that we could have doubled the incoming freshman class and not sacrificed any quality. Based on the size of their endowment. Well, not even, distinct of the endowment, they've said that the number of applications we got,

we could have doubled the number of admittees and not sacrificed any quality. And my viewpoint is with a $38 billion endowment, well, then do it. And so the notion that you sit on $38 billion, if you're not growing your public service faster than you are your endowment, you're not a nonprofit, you're a private enterprise, and you should be taxed. I think tenure is essentially an incredibly rapacious tax on young people. And that is, the basis of tenure is really noble, and that is Galileo. You want to protect scientists and academics when they say the world is not flat, you don't want them burnt into steak, right? So the pursuit of truth and protections are wonderful in terms of the initial notion. What it's turned into is an extraordinarily expensive union that lacks the artisanship and that lacks the kind of commitment to quality. And what we have is social services for the undereducated, food stamps and welfare and unemployment insurance.

And we now have welfare for the overeducated, and it's called tenure at universities. And tenure just translates into debt on young people. And young people are coming out of school now with so much debt. And I think to a certain extent a lot of us in the academic or the college system prey on the hopes and dreams of middle-class families and convince them to take on massive amounts of debt so people who, in my opinion, verge on or are fully in the circle of incompetence so they can maintain what I would say are ridiculous salaries and job security. And that's tenure. It's lifetime employment. When a university awards tenure, it typically has to put $2 to $5 million aside in reserve because basically what they're saying is

we know this person's about to become unproductive for 30 or 40 years so get rid of tenure uh start taxing endowments unless you increase the number of seats at the school i think we need some sort of marshall plan where we work with the states to build fantastic public university north carolina does a great job the majority of their kids are from the state. Also, and this sounds politically incorrect, but I think that we need to focus on more middle-class kids from the U.S. We let in a lot of foreign students under the auspices of diversity. We don't let them in for diversity. We let them in because they pull full freight. They pull full freight. They pay full freight, excuse me. So there's a, the fastest way to increase your kid's likelihood of getting into a college is there's a box in every application you can check that says,

I will not pursue financial aid of any source. You check that box, your ability to get in goes way up. And foreign students, at least the graduate programs I've taught at, foreign students are usually these interesting, charming, rich kids. And I think it's important that you have foreign students. I do think they add diversity, but that's not what we're letting them in.

We're letting them in for money. And unfortunately, between legacies, between wealthy parents who make donations and between wealthy foreign students who you've seen get crowded out of the university system or crowded down into lesser schools that are more expensive is good middle-class kids. If you're remarkable, remarkable poor kids actually have a decent shot at going to a great school now. And that's kind of our ointment in academia is we realize we see

the evidence of some of the bad things we're doing, but our ointment in academia is we realize we see the evidence of some of the bad things we're doing, but our ointment, if you will, our neosporin, our pain reliever is that we let in some remarkable kids from low-income households. But the reality is the majority of kids aren't remarkable. I wasn't remarkable at 18, were you? No, not even close. Yeah. So, but where did you go to school? Sydney, Binghamton, State University. Yeah. Okay. State University. That's a great school.

You did your family, didn't have to go into debt. It wasn't this incredibly tense, big decision where the whole family's hopes and dreams are on your shoulders because they're borrowing against their pension fund to pay for you to go to school. And my guess is it gave you opportunities and contacts, skill set to try and figure out what you're going to do with your life. And I worry that those opportunities are just going away. You're either remarkable. And we, essentially in the U.S., we've fallen out of love with the unremarkables. We used to love unremarkable people and say, let's give them remarkable opportunities. Go to Stanford, start a company by the time they're 24, raise hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, scale a company and be billionaires by the time they're 30.

And whereas the kind of the kids who are just average, well, it's the Hunger Games and you either are a celebrity or you die kind of a violent death. Yeah, and I think it's not, I mean, you see it clearly in education. You also see it, I think, in corporate America these days. I mean, the phrasing high potential, like what is one of the earliest jobs,

you know, like so many talent departments is let's identify the quote high potential people as soon as we can, so we can give them extra attention, extra resources, extra relationships to the same thing. I mean, when you come out of college, you still have no idea which way is up. And, you know, who is high potential and who is not, even that label. I mean, everyone is high potential and who is not, even that label.

I mean, everyone is high potential given adequate attention and resources and nurturing and mentorship. I find it really fascinating how that follows you straight into the job world these days where they're trying to identify. And then just like you said, what about everybody else? Like, does that mean that we're just, you know,

the other 90% are just subject to live in the great twilight, you know, for the rest of their existence, rather than saying, well, what if we all have that thing? And it's like, let's just figure out what it is in each of us and sort of like figure out how to get us into the place and doing the things that allow it all to come out in whatever way it will. I mean, the idea of tenure that I want to sort of like revisit,

I get and I agree with what you're saying. And at the same time, there's this really interesting thing happening on campuses. Jonathan Hay writes about this in his last book about the sort of, there is a moral thing going on where it's like, if you speak outside of what is the correct line of dogma within especially the institution, you get attacked.

You get attacked by every level within the organization. So what you need that, like you need to actually have the universities, the colleges, the community colleges, be safe places where you can have conversations around these topics that are not necessarily in line with what you're supposed to be telling. How do you create that space for the professors to be potentially the voices of constructive provocation

without that same prediction? So it's a great point. The whole, the basis of academia was, or I think it was either Socrates or Plato, was to provoke. And the idea that this provocation created so much controversy, they decided to move it to a safe place,

actual land outside of the city where people were encouraged to provoke each other. And that was sort of the basis of the first university. And then those people needed protection, and that was tenure. Realistically, and I can see in the humanities or maybe at the law school, I still think tenure has even medical research, bioethicists. I can see why you can make a solid argument that they need protection. At the business school, we're not saying anything that controversial. As a matter of fact, in the marketing department, we haven't really said anything in 30 years. We're talking about FASB rule A versus rule B, influencer marketing versus segmentation.

There's just not a lot of – tenure's gone from, I think, a very noble thing to basically just overpaid job security. Now, what you're talking about, Professor Hyde is a colleague and has done amazing work. It goes into this notion that, first off, campuses have become totally intolerant places. They have become not places of free discourse. In almost any room I walk into, I'm considered a progressive and probably left the median in the room. At NYU, I'm considered this, you know, this crass kind of conservative. It's just there's no tolerance for alternative viewpoints right now. And universities are very few. And you see these really, Sam Zell is this billionaire real estate business person in Chicago, was disinvited from the UCLA Business School because there was so much controversy over some of the things he'd said about the workplace and his treatment of unions. And the fact that – and Sam isn't exactly hard right wing.

And so the notion that universities can't tolerate that sort of discourse is really frightening. Now, I don't immediately see the link that professors need tenure. I think it's more of a gestalt. I think it's more of a, I haven't heard anyone get fired or was saved by tenure. I think this is just a very unfortunate environment, especially at universities at different coasts have never known any sort of controversy. And they start talking about things like microaggressions and triggers.

And these are kids that have developed what I call a princess in the peace syndrome because their entire lives, they've had this concierge bulldozer parenting where their parents make their lives. And I'm parroting all Jonathan Haidt here, so I need to footnote him. But their parents have cleared out every obstacle.

So they're physically safer than they've ever been, but they're more emotionally fragile. And as a result, you get kids who come to college and they hear something in the classroom that offends them and they stand up and they shout down the professor or we're seeing record. And Jonathan's whole, his big prediction, and it's coming to fruition.

There was an article on CNN just yesterday. We're seeing record admittances to emergency rooms of kids doing self-harm and attempting suicide. And if you think about anything, you have kids, anything that can take you off track faster, it's something happening to your kid. And we have record levels of teen depression, especially among young girls. And it's a combination of this dangerous cocktail of one concierge parenting and bulldozer parenting where kids aren't able to develop any immunities. We've been using so many safe wipes on their lives. They have no immunities. And two, the rise of screens where kids, the number of kids who see their friends every day has been cut in half in the last 10 years.

The number of males that are not having sex has tripled under the age of 30. So yeah, less teen pregnancy, less drunk driving. These are all good things. But teen suicide way up, number of people interacting with each other, social skills, preparation. So there's some very dangerous trends out there. But I'm still someone who believes that tenure, for the most part, is nothing but a tax on youth. Yeah. And like we said, not an easy problem to solve.

But on the one hand, it is. On the one hand, you only just cut it. On the other hand, it's not, because it's really nuanced. And like you said, the culture is changing, and not just the culture on campuses, but the culture of parenting, the culture of family, the culture of technology, and how that's literally changing the social dynamic of the way that we exist. And also our openness to conversation with people who don't

agree with us rather than from a standpoint of rage and call out from the standpoint of, look, I don't agree with you, but tell me what's on your mind. Tell me what formed your opinion. I still may not agree with you at the end of this, but let's talk about it because something has brought you to that point in your life and something's brought me to this point in my life and we don't see eye to eye. So let's at least understand what brought us here. Yeah, and there's, I forget who said this,

so I can't credit him, but separating the person from the ideology. And I decided a couple of years ago, I mean, as an example, I'm progressive. I go on Fox once a week and it's because I want to get out of my bubble. And I don't buy into what they say. And I find myself not physically not liking the people on Fox. I want bad things to happen to Sean Hannity. And I'm not proud to say that, but I don't like the man.

And I hope he is not successful. And what I realized is that if you start evaluating people based on their ideologies, you shut off 50% of professional and personal opportunities. You know, just immediately half the people in the world you don't like and aren't going to like you. And so the ability, and when I find it's going on Fox, I go on Cavuto, I go on Stuart Varney. I like them. They're nice people. And we have a more civil argument about our disagreements and we can come together. And I was to be all the elected leaders had military service. And so there was a certain level of camaraderie there. And then when you look at, I think the biggest culprit here is that whereas we used to spend five hours a day in front of the television, we're now spending six hours a day in front of a screen. And the underlying operating systems of these screens have a business model that literally promotes

rage and divisiveness because the key to selling more advertising is more engagement. And the key to more engagement, unfortunately, as a species is we're quite tribal, is rage. So stories on anti-vax get a lot more rage and a lot more clicks. So these very controversial topics, topics that get people angry, topics that help identify you as being far left or far right, such that the algorithm can serve you increasingly extreme content to whichever side you belong to. And then you just get more and more outrage and we get more angry at each other. Yeah. And then you lay it on top of technology, which is designed to promote addiction.

Yeah, and biomechanically addicted. Intimate reinforcement, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Random rewards. Sort of like it just triggers. 100%. I must have more of whatever is being served to me. Are you addicted to a platform? I'm addicted to a platform. Are you addicted to any of them?

I'm old enough to modulate it, but I know I'm addicted. Yeah, of course. Which one? Well, I mean like my cell phone. Yeah. For me, for the most part, I think it's actually probably just texting. Texting, yeah. Messaging, yeah.

But I'm constantly, I mean, I feel like I'm aware of the problem. Yeah, yeah. And I love putting it down and stepping away. You can modulate. Yeah. But can't our 14-year-old boys modulate, right? Right, because also their brains are being shaped, you know, like at a time when they're interacting with these things in a way that we never did. Like by the time we hit this stuff, we were, you know, like sure, there's neuroplasticity,

we keep growing and changing, but fundamentally, our brains are not going to be rewired and rewired the way that like kids coming up now who are just living and breathing from the earliest moment on. Yeah, and we- Nobody knows what the effect of that's going to be. We can say, you know, I'm Scott Gallow and I'm addicted to Twitter. And it's the way my dad, I never understood, both my parents were smokers and ultimately ended up taking my mom's life. And I just never understood this addiction, this hold on our household that smoking had. And my dad said, I used to do it when I was bored and there were friends and it

was interesting. And it was like, every one of them was a friend. It was something to do and it solved the boredom. And it was an immediate easy rush through what was a fairly mundane life. That's what Twitter is for me. Twitter is my smoking. If I'm bored in any way, I want a quick little hit, a quick little drag. I just pull up Twitter and I see, you know, I see what's happening and I see how people respond. I do it for reaffirmation. I want people to like my stuff, retweet it. I want to hear their comments. But that dopamine hit and it's, you know, it's clinically proven.

You get it right before you check it as you take it out. It's the anticipation. That's exactly right. So it's, yeah, that's my smoking. But it's, we do, circling back to Professor Haidt, there is an emerging mental health crisis among our teens. It's going to be, and you're already starting to see it's getting pretty serious. And it's actually more prevalent among girls because boys bully physically and verbally. Girls bully relationally. And what these platforms are is they're nuclear weapons for bullying relationally.

And not only do you not get invited to the popular girl's birthday party, but you see it play out in real time while you're alone in your room. And it's really damaging and harmful. I almost wonder sometimes whether somebody who knows that the other end of their behavior is a person or a group of people who are being bullied and not invited and not included, then almost willfully overshares in a way that is designed to target that person um who they know will be watching afterwards it's it's kind of terrifying it's very very different world it's like bullying isn't new but the mechanisms by which it goes out into the world and creates harm are changing dramatically mayday mayday we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. The other thing that I think is kind of, and again, neither of us are Luddites. We live and breathe, and there's great benefit to technology. Is the idea of using devices and technology as a way to strip boredom and solitude and contemplation and reflection from our day-to-day existence. I mean, it used to be like you were forced just to be bored. You were forced to kind of ponder the daydream, to think about stuff any number of

times throughout the day. And there's value to that. There's value to your growth as a human being. There's value to your understanding of the world. There's value to your creativity, your cognitive process. It makes us who we are to no small extent. And that is basically being annihilated right now because once we become addicted to whatever's the thing that we become addicted to, it's on us 24 seven. And we don't have that space anymore. And I often wonder what that's taking from us

and how that is affecting our ability to go out and live good lives, meaningful lives, spacious lives. Yeah, or even just think about, I don't know, when you were a kid, I came home, my mom was still at work. I came home like 3, 3.30 from school, and basically I had three hours alone. There was no activities, not until I was older and I was playing sports. It was kind of cartoons and just boredom, But, you know, you invent your own stuff.

Now when I think about my kids, how over-programmed they are, my guess is there's upsides and downsides I haven't really thought of through. Yeah, no. It's a whole new world for kids and parents. Let's fill in a couple of gaps. You ended up going to UCLA. Yep. Coming out, what did you do right after that?

I worked at Morgan Stanley for all the wrong reasons. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life professionally. I almost didn't graduate. I was on academic probation five or six times. How do you go, by the way, from graduating with 2.2 to Morgan Stanley? I lied about my grades. They didn't check. I had several offers, and the reason I went with Morgan Stanley was I heard they didn't drug test and they didn't check the reason I had several offers and the reason I went with Morgan Stanley was I heard they didn't drug test and they didn't check your transcripts and so I lied about my grades got a job and I wasn't going to graduate and I literally when I had like UCLA I had failed seven classes and you get credit if you get a D so I went to a bunch of professors and I asked them to change. I said, look, I have a job at Morgan Stanley.

I live at home with my mother. If I don't graduate, I'm going to have to get a job. I got a job installing shelving or I got Morgan Stanley if I can just get out of here and free up a seat for someone more deserving for me. That was literally the pitch. And I went to five professors. I needed another three classes. And I got the same reaction from I went to five professors. I needed another three classes. And I got the same reaction from four or five of them. They look at me, look at me and just discuss, shake their head,

and then sign the form and ask me to get out of their office. So I got like a semester's worth of credits in an hour by just going to people I got an F's from. So I got a job at Morgan Stanley because it was the late 80s and investment banking was cool. And I thought I was going to be, you know, Richard Gere from Pretty Woman doing deals on the Concord. I had no idea what I was going to be doing. And that's what you did. You got a job. I worked my ass off for two years.

It was a great training. Didn't like it, but it was, you know, it's just important to figure out what you don't want to do. And I got a great training. I think I got a lot of the skills and discipline that I didn't get at UCLA because I was too immature to appreciate the opportunity I had there. So from there, you ended up going back to grad school after that then? Yeah. I fell in love with someone and I thought I need to go back to grad school. I don't know what,

most people who go to business school, business school is really for the elite and the aimless. In this economy, if you're good and you have- That was law school. Yeah. That was my choice. Yes, and if you're smart, ambitious, good pedigree, you go, but you don't know what you want to do with your life, you go to grad school, or at least you go to business school.

Because if you were good at what you, if you're good, have a good undergrad degree, and you know what you want to do, you can just kind of do it. At this point, business schools become so expensive, the opportunity costs, it really doesn't make sense to, you can just kind of do it. It doesn't, at this point, business schools become so expensive that opportunity costs, it really doesn't make sense to go unless you're kind of aimless. So that fit me perfectly. And so I applied to a bunch of school. I applied to seven schools or nine schools. I got rejected from all of them. You know, I got rejected from Indiana. I got rejected, I mean, the long list of schools I got rejected from. And I got into UCLA and Berkeley again.

And essentially the same thing. They basically said, you're a fuck-up, but you're our fuck-up, and we'll let you in. And native son of a single mother in California. And I fell in love with somebody. I got off the wait list at University of Texas. And I said, well, I'm going to UT. And she said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. And I said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. So I basically followed, going back to this notion of serendipity, I'm going to UT. And she said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. And I said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. So I basically followed, you know, going back to this notion of serendipity.

I followed somebody to Berkeley. I didn't really have any desire to go there. And, you know, just had, again, a wonderful, I got my act together, studied much harder, did really well academically. And kind of got, you know, I sort of, if you will, bloomed at like 26 or 27. And now, and this goes back, I think unless you've bloomed by the time you're like 15 in our society, you get set back. And what's unfortunate is your economic trajectory is largely set in your 20s.

It's, if you don't come off the flaptop at a slope and you're a jet going pretty fast, pretty hard, you know, it's hard to get your career started at 35. And so it's kind of, it's discouraging how important it is that young people get professional trajectory literally right out of college. And then what is the basis of that slope of their trajectory? The quality of the program they go to. It's a caste system. Different schools recruited the Ivy Leagues than they do at junior colleges. It's a caste system. Different schools recruited the Ivy Leagues than they do at junior colleges. It's just a different life,

different opportunities, different income, everything. But I mean, I guess the question is what is the metric by which you're measuring success with that?

Fair point. Is it how much you're going to earn over the course of your lifetime? Is it the power and the prestige that you get?

Yep. Because what I don't see, and I've seen all the data that supports that, but what I don't see, and I've seen all the data that supports that, but what I don't see is the data that just supports that that same trajectory is either set in your 20s or will follow measuring the metrics of meaningfulness, purpose, genuine happiness, and all these other things.

And I feel like there's this real reevaluation of what are the metrics by which we measure success in our lives. David Brooks, I guess, has like this new book out that Double Mountain, whatever he calls it, about how many people are actually dropping into this space and saying, okay, so this has been the first mountain. You know, we used to call that the midlife crisis, but I feel like a lot of people are being much more intentional about that and just kind of revisiting, yes, these decisions early on may take me down this path. But I've seen what that looks like a lot earlier these days.

And I'm not so sure that's what I want from life. I think that's a really fair point. So first off, there's some bias here, environmental bias, because at the business school, I'm just surrounded by capitalists and uber capitalists. And we're very focused on economic security or economic prosperity. And the data is, so what is the relationship between money equals, you know, does money equal happiness? And the majority of the research shows there is a correlation between money and happiness, but it tops out. And that is the difference between making $25,000 a year and struggling economically and feeling food insecure and worrying about your kids and worrying about whether your parents can education, to go to Disneyland once a year, feeling as if you could absorb an economic shock and it wouldn't ruin you, being able to buy kind of some nice stuff, maybe some diligence for everyone, which by the way, is probably about

$80,000 a year household income in St. Louis and about $600,000 here in Manhattan. So a lot of it is a function of where you are. But there is a relationship. There is a correlation between money and happiness. But once you get to that point, it flatlines. Now, a lot of people say billionaires are less happy than millionaires. That's a myth too. They're not any more happy, but they're not any less happy. It just flatlines. And what's difficult to do, and I think a lot of us lose the script around, is once we get to a certain level of economic success or security, having the self-awareness to get off the hamster wheel and say, well, more money won't necessarily lead to more happiness.

So what are the things that drive my happiness? And should I start investing in those things now? Because when you're on the hamster wheel for 10, 20, 30 years, and I tell my kids, yeah, you do need to pursue economic success. I can with relative certainty tell you that the difference between making $40,000 a year and $200,000 or $300,000 a year in the tri-state area, you will be happier versus just sticking at $40,000. But it's important to be mindful of once, if you're fortunate enough to get to that point, what are the things that drive happiness out of, you know, just pure economics? And a lot of people don't do it. And I'm sure you know this,

it all comes back to one thing, that, you know, all the studies show the same thing. The Harvard Grant study, the largest, are you filming this? Largest longitudinal study in history on happiness, it all comes back to the same thing. And that is the depth and number of meaningful relationships. Love full stop.

That's the greatest first line of any academic study ever. And what you're referring to is this study done over 80 years survived three principal scientists because they all started dying. And then the last principal scientist was charged with summarizing this 80-year study in the best first sentence ever in an academic study. Happiness is love full stop. Do you at work feel respected and admired? And not only that, do you respect and admire other people? Do you at home feel loved and feel a sense of mutual support? And do they feel love from you and mutual support? And then among your friends, do you feel a sense of camaraderie and joy? And do they get a sense of camaraderie and joy from you? And the interesting thing was not only feeling it, but feeling a sense that you're

providing it to other people, that that's exceptionally important to happiness and longevity, actually, that's the caregivers that live longer. But that is, it's hard to remember, okay, you develop economic success, that's that you can facilitate and lubricate the relationships because it's upsetting to not be able to provide for yourself and your children. It's upsetting not to be able to help your parents. It's upsetting not to be able to live where you want to live. It's upsetting to have economic stress. It's the number one source of divorce is not infidelity. It's a religion or not getting along.

It's financial stress. But having the mindfulness to at some point get off the hamster wheel and say, okay, what makes me happy? Yeah. And also, I mean, building on what you were saying about money and sort of having a threshold, you know, looking at one side of the equation is how much we earn. The other side is how we spend it. And this is something that you talk about and you write about as well. And there's actually great research on it. It's the experiences, it's not the stuff. You've also shared a story that I think on the surface of it isn't sort of, it doesn't have a linear relationship

to how much you've earned, but it really is underneath it, which is your ability to be with your mom in her final months. Yep. So thanks for bringing that up. And you touched on a bunch of stuff. And so just segueing into the book,

I have a series of equations that I review in the last session of my class, which, you know, as a brand strategy class at a business school, so none of this, all of this is obtuse and not anything anyone asked me to do, but this session is well-received.

And I try to distill a bunch of these things down to a basic set of equations. And you mentioned three of them. One is people constantly overestimate the amount of happiness they'll get from things and underestimate the amount of happiness they'll get from experiences. So the learning there is basic, you know, drive a Hyundai and take your, you know, take your wife to Africa, right? The definition of rich is passive income that's greater than your burn. So young people focus on their income, adults, smart people focus on their burn. Because I would say my father's rich. My father, between Social Security from him and his

wife and his pension from the Royal Navy is $48,000 a year. And they spend 40. They spend no money. And he's rich. I have, and I'm not exaggerating, I have a half a dozen to a dozen friends here in New York who make between one and $3 million a year as managing directors, investment banks, partners at law firms, and between an ex-wife, child support, home in the Hamptons, three kids at Grace Church. They spend all of it, sometimes even a little more. And I'm telling you, these guys can literally, I'm sure they wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat. You know, what happens if I lose my job? What happens? They're poor. So, you know, the focus on the burn and getting to that right equation is hugely important. And then the last

thing you mentioned, and I want to acknowledge I was in a position to do this because I had some money. I worked for NYU, which was incredibly flexible and generous with me. But when my mom got sick, you know, it was just me and my mom growing up. It was literally just me and her against the own set of experiences, and decided I was going to really go kind of all in on making my mom's departure nice, just as she had made my entry into the world pretty nice. And there's a lot of research on how rewarding it is, or I would say instinctively fulfilling, to raise children, but there isn't a lot of research on how rewarding it is to take care of your parents or contribute to your parents at the end of life. And again, I want to recognize that a lot of people aren't in a position to do that. They have their own kids, their own economic needs. But for me, it's something that I, you know,

I feel like I'm totally virtue signaling right now, but it was very rewarding. And it was a very strange time in my life because during the day, I was managing my mom's health care. She decided she wanted to die at home, which had its own series of complexities, and not be in a hospital. And two, at night, I would go downtown to the strip, get shitty drunk, and party with entrepreneurs and strippers. So my day and my nights were—it was a very strange time in my life. But, you know, something—there's a sitcom in there somewhere, but it was very rewarding to be that involved in my mom's last six months.

Yeah. Were there any, I mean, during that whole window of time, were there any moments or awakenings or conversations that just stand out as really defining how important it was for both you and her to have that time in that way together. You know, I've always thought that if when people, are your parents still around? Yeah. So when your parents go, if they go slowly, it's tough on them and it's good for you because nothing goes unsaid. I mean, I remember, I remember I used to just sit next to my mom sometimes and would get upset, and I would tell her how upset I was that she was dying.

And it made her feel better that her son was just so upset. I know that sounds ridiculous. And she used to, when we'd go over, she would leave for me her will, and she'd constantly write post-its on this legal document saying, you are the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. I still have it. The love you feel with your kids and your parents, if for whatever reason you're in a position where the situation catalyzes communicating that, it's just incredibly rewarding. And, you know, those moments, that is when you become immortal. That's when like, okay, I'm a blink on the cosmic, you know, eyelash, but this blink matters, right? Because the world wants to prosper, the species wants to evolve. And in order to do that, it takes

the most important actions and it makes them the most rewarding, right? So food, sex, camaraderie, cooperation, all these things are the most rewarding things. And the secret to the species is people having an irrational passion and love for one another. And so when you have those moments where you can communicate that, I mean, it is the most rewarding thing. And I didn't have the ability to communicate that. And my mother didn't really either. She's European. We weren't very emotive.

So that was sort of a blessing and very rewarding moments. Yeah. You mentioned at the same time, you were like living this dual life. I know you eventually married the woman that you went to Berkeley with. Yeah. That didn't work out.

Yeah. And you went into this window. Yeah. It sounds like, you know, intense professional success and simultaneously personal chaos. Yeah, it was, but it was chaos of my own making. I almost feel, I'm not sure chaos,

I became an island. I just, I was working in San Francisco, working around the clock in internet companies, pursuing money, pursuing kind of fame or fabulousness in tech in a relationship primarily because I met a woman in college and we fell in love and went to business school together and we had a nice relationship. But I didn't like San Francisco. I didn't like the Internet. I didn't like e-commerce. I didn't like myself.

I didn't like being married. And I just decided to press reset. And I was in a position to do that because I had some money. And also a lot of it was selfish and a lack of character. I used to come to New York and see men in their young 30s with some money and think, oh, we're single. And I think, I want that life. I want that life. I was just very selfish.

And we didn't have kids, so it was like a bad breakup. It was like an expensive breakup, not a divorce. And moved out back here and decided to pursue, you know, changed my life dramatically, resigned from the board of the company I'd started and joined the faculty at NYU where I'd been, you know, teaching for 17 or 18 years. But yeah, and it's strange. I just became an island. I didn't want to stay in touch with my friends.

I didn't, my mom was gone. So I didn't have any family. And I just became literally like a, you know, a caveman who would occasionally leave for food or sex. I mean, that was it. And I would just stay in my apartment and do a little bit of work, have kind of pretend jobs, advising hedge funds. And it's like a survival, and I did it for a few years,

and it's like a survival instinct kicked in because if you want to die as a male, just be alone. You stop eating as well. You don't have much human contact. I'm naturally an introvert and a bit fine on my own, but something kicks in and it kicked in. I said, like, if I don't start reestablishing some relationships, getting more engaged, you're going to, you know, in the science here, men die when they're alone. They need, women are better at creating a cave and just slowly but surely the brain says, all right, you're no longer adding value. You're no longer hunting prey.

You're no longer part of the clan. You're no longer caring for anybody. And it stops sending out that hormone that clears out the bad cholesterol. When I met my, you know, second wife, and it was when my mom was sick, part of it was there's certain rules I think you got to maintain when you're taking care of a sick parent. You got to have a life of your own. I used to leave every weekend. You know, because the unfortunate thing about death is he never or she never shows up when they're supposed to. So it was like, oh, this is it, you know. And then I would leave, and I'd say, no, I got to leave.

And that happened like six or seven times. This was the last week and it wasn't. But I met, yeah, in that time on one of those weekends, I met who would ultimately be my wife and the mother of my kids. What was your mom's passing? Do you feel like that played a role in your sort of reevaluation and openness to stepping back into the relationship and sort of reclaiming a different value set? You know, I think everybody goes through this stuff when they lose somebody. I think the harshness and finite nature of life hits you. And it's, it goes back to the book. So happiness, there is an arc of happiness and it's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, is it a smile? Yeah, it's a smile.

You know, kid, your, your youth is college football, exploration of the drugs and relationships spilling into adulthood. It's a ton of beer. It's just a ton of fun, right? And then you hit your mid-20s and maybe you figure out you're not going to be a senator or have a fragrance named after you. You don't maybe live up to the professional success that right away that you'd hope for, maybe your parents convinced you you were going to have. And I think more than anything, somebody you know and love gets sick and dies. I think that, at least for me, was like the first time I'm like, wow, life is harsh and it's finite. And for me, it's kind of resulted in a heavy, some people get religious spirituality.

I found atheism, which for me has been incredibly motivating because I think a finite sense of the nature of life is very motivating to invest in relationships today and tell people things. And I think I'd like to think I've become not only a happier person, but a better person. And, you know, some people get, it also can have a kind of a negative attribute on you. When my mom died, and I think a lot of people experienced this when they was a parent, they get stuck. You know, they don't quite snap out of it. It's sort of like you're supposed to mourn for like, you know, one of the algorithms I have is one of these equations is the key to success is your ability to mourn and move on. Everybody knows tragedy. Everybody gets fired.

Everybody has economic stress. But your ability to process it and then move on is a key component of success. It's like that great Adam Grant. Is it Adam Grant or somebody who talks about here's what people think the line of success looks like. And it's just a straight 45 arc up. It's not. It's a bunch of scribbles in different directions. But for me,

the harshness and loss of my only family member was really devastating, and it took me too long to recover from it. And I realized two to three years into it that I still wasn't over it and that I needed help. I needed to speak to other people who were mourning, and I needed to kind of just snap out of it and engage with other people. But I think that moment happened. Everybody faces tragedy, so I don't think there was anything that unique about my tragedy or about losing my mom. Everybody loses their parents, but for me it was very seminal moment in my life,

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as a driver for examining and really embracing the here and now, which is interesting because I think it can cut either way. It can either cut towards that or it can cut towards almost like nihilism and basically saying, why why, like why bother? There is no retribution.

There is no judgment. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the atheism, you know, I prescribe to is a tremendous respect for other people's beliefs because that's kind of the basis to respect for nonbelievers, right? I also think there's a lot of closeted atheists out there. And I was- Also closeted, I mean, it's the fastest growing group. Fast growing group, yeah. It's like kind of independence, right? But I think that, and I think about this with my kids a lot, I think when I'm near the end, there's going to

be a point where I look into my kids' eyes and know it's the last time I'm going to look at them and that our relationship's coming to an end. And that's profoundly sad. But it's also really motivating. I think I got a little bit more now. This is it. You know, I think this kind of notion that, all right, you know, get up and dance and tell people you admire them. And, you know, I think that's, you know, order the good wine. I think that's a healthy way to live your life and not be too short-term, too selfish or whatever. But, yeah, I like to think that it's been a positive attribute.

I didn't know that. It's the fastest-growing, I don't even call it religion. Call it the nuns, the non-affiliated. Oh, yeah. Okay. Basically people, and even, and those are not necessarily atheists actually, but those may include people who in some way, shape or form consider themselves spiritual,

but don't adhere to any religious affiliation or path or dogmatic scriptures, but they are, you know, they're somehow connected to the greater consciousness. The force. Which is interesting, because guys like Sam Harris, you know, about atheist also would consider himself like probably in that group, of consciousness. The force. Which is interesting because guys like Sam Harris, you know, about atheists,

also would consider himself like probably in that group, like there's a sense of connectedness to something larger and respect for consciousness. But it is interesting how that choice

affected people. I sometimes wonder whether adherence to more of a traditional or religious tradition leads to, you know, and again, a lot of the behavior change that's affected by that is, well, if I'm going to be judged after this, then I need to live a moral life. Yeah, I need to do better. potentially moral decisions, but not necessarily decisions that would lead you to engage more fully in relationships

in the moment and being fully present and engaged in whatever you're doing, because that's not necessarily what's prescribed by, in fact, it's almost sometimes the exact opposite. You know, it's about your just rewards coming. Moral constraint for society to exist. Yeah, we do need a code. I never used to buy into marriage.

Now I think it's probably a good thing because without marriage, you'd probably bail. And sticking with it is a good thing over the long term. The happiest people tend to be ones who are married with kids. But I find, and it kind of goes to, I've been thinking a lot about masculinity lately. And I find that, I found in my observations that the things that defined I got, I think masculinity, and I imagine embracing your gender, I think just embracing your gender is very rewarding. And as an American male, I think more about masculinity because I relate to it more, obviously. And I found that the things that drove kind of the vines you swung on as a young man, you know, being kind of more professionally successful, kind of generally being awesome, being ripped. I used to work out a lot. I was a marginal athlete in college.

And then I used to go to the gym not to be healthy, but to just be fucking huge, right? And be ripped. And just to be generally like a better part be fucking huge, right? And be ripped. And just to be generally like a better partier than anybody, more outrageous, more fun. All those things made me feel manly. And I got a lot of reward out of it. And then as you get older as a man, some kind of other things start, some other vines start popping up. Being a good neighbor, you know, you like to think you do it for the right reasons, but it also makes you feel important. It makes you feel like you're kind of, it makes me feel masculine. I think taking interest in the wellbeing of a child that isn't yours shows that you're,

you know, you're Simba, you're a lion that's like caring. You're so strong and so good and so talented that you have the bandwidth and the capability to start helping other people. Voting makes me feel strong like bull. You know, just these masculinity, hopefully over time, begins to evolve. And one of the things I talk about in my book is, you know, it's the difference, I think, between being a boy and a man. What are these, how can you embrace masculinity, but the right type of masculinity? I think that last part is really key. Yeah.

Because what we're saying is the swing of the pendulum all the way to the other side for a long time. But now I think at least there's a real conversation. So say more what you mean by that? Meaning what would be labeled these days toxic masculinity. Yeah. Well, which right now, unfortunately, in my view is considered all masculine. I think toxic and masculinity have become redundant, which I think

is dangerous. I think there is a positive form of masculinity. And I think, you know, we're not good. We're not a society that's good at capturing the pendulum at the bottom, at the middle. It doesn't exist. So it's like you can never see it, but there's a lot of really interesting conversations, I think, around what it means to be masculine. And almost all of them immediately connote something, a negative reaction. Yeah. I mean, what I'm excited about is that it seems like those conversations are happening and they're happening in a more open way. And they're also, they're happening between people of different genders. Do you think they're happening? I'm curious, and I'm asking to learn not to make a statement here,

but do you really think they're happening? Because my sense is, I go on, I do a lot of these podcasts. I go on TV a lot. I'm supposed to go on MSNBC on Wednesday and talk about toxic masculinity. And the thing I regret is that I think it's difficult to have an open conversation about it in a public format. Because if you don't sort of pile on and take on what I would call a very, very progressive slash left view of it, that as a heterosexual white male, I'm sort of already kind of guilty and I need to acknowledge my shortcomings that unless you go that way, there's like a one in 10 chance you're gonna say something stupid

and your career is gonna be fucked. Yeah. Okay. So three things. One, MSNBC. So the minute you try and have this conversation through a mass media outlet, it can't be the way it needs to be had.

Yeah. Public. Because it's so short. It's so a talking point. Well, and also because what did you say earlier? Like what gets aired on those things? The only thing that actually gets aired on mainstream media is stuff that is highly polarizing and soundbite. Sensationalist. Right. So it's got to be short, which means there's no room for nuance. And it's got to be polarizing. And that, because that draws eyeballs, sadly, that's the way our brains are wired.

So do I think these conversations are being had and can be had in a genuine and constructive and nuanced way? Yes. Do I think that they're happening that way on Twitter, on mainstream media, even on some conversations and some more alternative forms of media?

Not a whole lot. But what I do see is in more private forums, in private conversations, in small groups, in dinner conversations, that the question is being raised in a way where it's more genuine and where people aren't showing up with the intention of being dug in

and trying to just force the other person to adopt their point of view. But I think my sense is that a lot of people's heads are spinning right now because we were raised in a culture that taught us, this is the way that you are, this is the way the other person is, and this is the way you behave towards each other.

And what we're now seeing is that all the assumptions, the socially appropriate assumptions about the way to behave in the world and the way that we step into our gender identity are just what we were taught. They're not necessarily the way that it, that leads to the best experience of life and the most respectful relationships

and the greatest amount of human flourishing. And yet we're struggling, and I'm raising my hand right now, right? I'm probably just telling you what's on my mind. Because I was taught as a kid, what was quote respectable. Yep. You know, and now what I'm learning as an adult is that the things that I have been doing my whole life,

if it's as simple as holding a door for somebody, whether it's regardless of gender, regardless of age, I was just taught you hold doors for other people. And what I'm learning now is that that is sometimes seen as an affront. And then it gets, that is sort of like the simplest expression. But my sense is that there's a lot more awareness that we don't actually know

what is the choice or the action to take, which is respectful of other human beings. And because of that confusion in a private way, in a safe space, we're more open to having those conversations. At least I think people who identify as male are more open to having those conversations. At least I think people who identify as male are more open to having those conversations. My sense is that most others have been more open to those conversations for a long time. But I think in particular, people who have sort of adopted a hyper-masculine male identity

have not been open to that conversation. And the nature of what's going on, like in our culture, it's kind of really forcing you to re-examine a lot of your assumptions that took you to this place in life, at least for me. And sometimes it's, yeah, I want to move into the world and be kind. Like that is about my ultimate goal

within the consciousness of other people. I just want to be kind. And the confusion comes when I don't necessarily understand what that means from a behavioral standpoint. And I think that's leading to some interesting pain, but also conversation in the right place, in the right way. Yeah, and there's, unfortunately, there's no calibration.

So we've conflated what I would argue, or the media has, criminal behavior. Some of the behavior that has taken place in professional settings is not even, We've conflated what I would argue the media has, criminal behavior. Some of the behavior that has taken place in professional settings, it's not even inappropriate. It's not immoral. It's criminal. Then you hear about other things, what's going on with Joe Biden. It's all conflated.

It's all part of the same sort of toxic, quote unquote, toxic masculinity. And I don't, I quite frankly, I don't buy that you are questioning whether the open door, you know, deep down, opening a door for a woman, I think, I think that's 100% fine. And if someone says to you, you know what, I was raised without,

in some ways, intimating or communicating, I'm not as strong or as worthy, please stop doing it. You would say, fine, but don't shame me. I mean, I don't take, it's like Jonathan Haidt, he says the gestures should be received with the intention they were given. Right. But the intention of the receiver is that you've just offended me or you've just diminished me in the context of our relative power. And or if you make an assumption about the gender identity of that other person and that then causes you to behave a certain way.

That's where I'm saying I am genuinely in a space where I am just re-examining everything. But we're in a situation though, where if you're going to hold doors open for people, let's assume you're going to offend some people. You're going to screw up every once in a while and do it in the wrong situation. I think it's still worth the risk. It's still worth the risk because when we move to this general neutral society where anything can be a microaggression or a trigger, we stop being almost like human. It's like we're trying to sand off all the rough edges

that make us works of art as opposed to just balls that all look like ball bearings. And there's some stuff that, you know, obviously use your common sense. Don't ever physically intimidate somebody. Don't, you know, occasionally I'd shake some guy's hand and it's like he's literally trying to like rip my hand off. I'm like, dude, what's going on here? But it's an interesting conversation. I would argue it's just starting to be a conversation. It's mostly been, I don't want to call it revenge, but I think women have had to navigate such bullshit for so long in the workspace that finally that they have voice, finally they have some power. I also think there's some other dynamics going on. I think the mainstream media is in the business of shaming people because there's effectively what I would call a software revolution going on with the middle classes. It's gotten the crap kicked out of it so badly for 30 years that they are now going after people they perceive as wealthy and powerful and shaming them.

There's an industry in that. And the majority of people watching ad-supported media now are from the lower middle class because advertising has become a tax that only the poor, the technologically literate have to pay. So you have these entities that are basically in the business of kind of what I'll call shaming traditionally powerful cohorts. And I don't think it leads to a productive conversation. Yeah. No, it's interesting.

I think I would agree that I feel like we're in the very beginnings of this. You think we're in the second inning? If that. Yeah. If that. But what I do believe is that even if the conversations aren't happening in the way that I think are the most constructive way right now, the fact that they have begun

and they're starting to broaden, I feel like at some point, like we'll find our way to more constructive shape. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I feel like, you know, at least the game has begun in a better way. So we'll see where it all leads to. Circling, kind of coming full circle.

So you're in New York now, you're married, you got a couple of kids. Yep. And teaching at NYU, still doing some business consulting. Yep. When you think about as a partner in life, as a parent,

the world that you want to live in and also on some level create for your kids to live into. What do you feel is sort of the most important elements? You know, a lot of what you said really resonates. How do you give your sense, how do you give your kids this chocolate and peanut butter of grit and drive and competitiveness and wanting? I do believe in a capitalism that inherently involves winners and losers. I think people

who are better, work harder, take more risks should get more. At the same time, how do you ensure they develop a really strong sense of empathy and kindness? And there's so many things that are set against them. I went to public schools. I had rich friends. I had poor friends. And we're just all better off for it. We all saw, we all empathize. I aspired to be more like my rich friends. And I saw they were going to great schools. And I thought, well, they're not as smarter than me. I can go to a great school. And at the same time, one of my closest friends was a black kid named Ronnie Drake, who was a middle linebacker. And at the same time, one of my closest friends was a black kid named Ronnie

Drake, was a middle linebacker, and his only way out was athletics. That was his only way out. That's the only way he was going to college. And I think I'd like to think I developed a sense of empathy for kind of his upbringing and the obstacles he had to overcome. So how do you, those are the two things you want. I want hungry, hungry kids, you know, focused on evolutionary progress, wanting to be better than their, their parents, competitive, you know, at the same time, I want, you want really empathetic, kind kids. And I don't, sometimes those two are in direct opposition with each other, but I'd say that grit and empathy. Is that also the reason why you devote the last class in your business grad school course and an entire book now to sort of zooming the lens out from business and saying, can we talk about life for a moment?

Yeah. So it's, I mean, quite frankly, it's sort of a commercial process. I've only, this is my second book and my process for coming up with books is pretty straightforward. I do a class. So I did a class on the four platforms, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. It was the most popular class. I then did a video on it. The video got a million views. Okay. I can turn this into a book. It's sort of like my screening, my test, my Petri dish, if you will. And then the last class, The Algebra of Happiness, did a video, got 2 million views. Okay, so this is what I'm going to do as a second book. I'm not trying to make the world a better place. I'm not even trying

to make them better people. I'm trying to respond to the fact that kids initially think, when I say kids, they average ages 27. They come to business school because they want to develop the currency for economic success and economic opportunities, mostly a professional. But what they're really coming from, at least that's what I think they think they're coming from, what they're really coming for is they want to be happy and they want to develop a narrative of satisfaction in their life. And in a capitalist society, professional success is usually a pillar of that. So we kind of cut to the chase, cut to the ending of the movie. What is, let's assume most of you

are gonna achieve some level of economic success. The average salary coming out of NYU Stern School of Business is $112,000. So if you're just average at 27, you're making $112,000. So that may not, these kids have much greater ambitions than that. That's a lot of money. On any relative scale, that's a lot. Even in New York, that's not a bad living, right?

So then the question becomes, okay, why are you really here? You're here because you want, imagine your last 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years of your life, and you look back on the arc and the 10 years of your life, and you look back on the arc and the narrative that is your life, how are you going to feel about it? And how do you make the investments now and develop a code now such that when those last 10 minutes, 10 years pop up and they're going to be here, the one thing I'm 100% certain of, it's going to go faster than you think. I mean, you remember, I literally remember getting out of college, remember moments, and I just blinked and it's now. I just can't get over it.

So I say to these kids, what are the things you could do? What is the code? What are the algorithms? What are the equations you could start following now that increase the likelihood that when you're at that point, you're going to look back and think, okay, I didn't check every box, but I have my pen out and I feel pretty good about what's happened. Man, which feels like actually a really good place for us to sort of start to come full circle. So hanging out in here in the context of this podcast called The Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life is, I think, is to feel like you have, it goes back to the grand study,

I don't think anyone at anyone's funeral says he was too kind, he was too generous. I think it's impossible. I don't think anyone ever complains. You got to take care of yourself. You got to fix your own oxygen mask before you fix other people. Be successful. But no one ever complains that this person was too generous and too kind. And you want to put yourself, I think business school should put

yourself in a position economically to do that for yourself such that your oxygen mask is fixed. So then you can start affixing masks to other people and lead a rewarding life of all those, you know, as you said, happiness is love full stop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who helped make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment

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