The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 578: Scott Galloway - Adding Surplus Value, Asking For What You Want, Ketamine Therapy, Crude Humor, Being Moved To Tears, & The Algebra of Wealth

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

Order our book, The Score That Matters https://amzn.to/3xbhAdD Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Create surplus value - What can we do to give more than we take? "The key is to figure out what you can do that others can't or are unwilling to do. Hard work is a talent. Curiosity is a talent. Patience and empathy are talents." "Helping others makes me feel strong." Scott's recent experience with Ketamine Therapy - "It clarified my thinking. It's helped me stop keeping score. It also made me grateful for my wife. Did you ever get a gift when you were a kid that you weren't expecting and you couldn't afford it? Something you never imagined having." I got a $45 Banh skateboard from my mom's boyfriend Terry. It was a moment of sheer surprise and joy. My wife kept popping in my head and I kept thinking, god I get to hang out with this person, get to have kids with them, get to build a life with her. It was this overwhelming feeling of wonderful joy and surprise. It was very clarifying and rewarding for me." "You Gotta Ask" - Scott met his wife at the Raleigh Hotel pool in Miami. He saw her from a distance and promised himself that he wouldn't leave the pool without introducing himself to her first.  In order to do anything of significance in your life, you must take an uncomfortable risk." Scott is married to Beata Galloway, a real estate developer born in Germany. Together, they have two sons. One of them has the middle name, Raleigh. Why Crying is Important - "It informs what's important to you." Why Scott uses crude humor - It's used to connect with people. And people are either afraid or not able to do it. When Scott was 13… One of his mom's boyfriends handed him two crisp 100-dollar bills after he asked him about stocks. Terry (his mom's boyfriend) told him "Go buy some stock at one of those fancy brokers in the village." Once there, Scott met a mentor named Cy Gordner who helped him learn about the markets. Show up when it matters — Michael Bloomberg's policy. "If a friend gets a promotion, there is no need to call. You'll get dinner with them at some point. But if a friend gets fired, I have dinner with them that night in a public place where everybody can see me. Because I remember when I got fired from Solomon Brothers — I can tell you every person that called me. That meant something. When I was made partner? I have no recollection of that whatsoever." Last year Scott had 340 inbound speaking requests. He accepted 30 of them. His average rate is $112,000 per speech. "The stimulus that attracted my attention with the most urgency was money, not as a means of establishing economic security, but to feed my addiction: affirmation from others." The role of Luck - Being born in America in the 1960s and two (most importantly) Scott's mom. Though she was raised in a household with little affection, she couldn't control herself with her son. "For me, affection was the difference between hoping someone thought I was wonderful or worthy and knowing it." (Emotional) Scott is a dynamic communicator: A turn of phrase is a way of expressing something, in writing or speech, that stands out in some particular way. One of the key indicators of long-term success is the "willingness to endure rejection." Whether this is walking up to a stranger at the Raleigh hotel, a cold-calling sales job, or asking people to be on your podcast. How to build wealth? Focus (mastery, find your talent), Stoicism (this is about saving more than you spend), Time ( 21 years with your money in low-cost index funds, you will earn 8 times your money), Diversification (Your kevlar). Once you earn some money, assume you are not Steve Ballmer or Mark Zuckerberg. Use a variety of investment vehicles. Going all on one company or asset class is not the optimal choice for most of us.

Nothing really wonderful is going to happen to you without taking an uncomfortable risk. Scott Galloway, CNN Plus host and professor of marketing at NYU Stern. I think Mark Zuckerberg is the most dangerous person in the world. You actually don't talk about your wife very much. You also don't seem to be afraid to cry. Our flaw in our species is we don't realize how fast time is going to go. Stop keeping score. I'm going to actually talk about this a little bit.

No one's thinking about your shit as much as you are. We don't realize words are just words. advice to my young self, and it's basically the following. I absolutely know how to get you rich. That's the good news. The bad news is the answer. Notion combined your notes and docs into one space that's simple and beautifully designed with the power of AI built right inside, not a separate AI tool or browser tab.

In fact, I just used it the other day to help coordinate editing notes with my podcast producer. I love Notion. Notion AI turns knowledge into action from summarizing meeting notes and automatically generating action items to getting answers to any question in seconds. If you can think it, you can make it. Try Notion for free when you go to notion.com slash learning leader. That's all lowercase letters, notion.com slash learning leader and start turning ideas into action. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Notion.com slash learning leader.

Welcome to the Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated, email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk

to 666866. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Scott Galway, one of my favorites, is a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, where he teaches brand strategy and digital marketing to second-year MBA students. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's founded not a nine. firms, including L2, Red Envelope, Profit, and Section 4. In 2012, he was named one of the world's 50 best business school professors. His most recent book is called The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security. Also, Scott's podcast, The Profgipod, is one of the few that I listen to every single week. During this conversation, we discuss what it means and how to create, quote surplus value in your career.

Then Scott shares the number one skill he's teaching his two sons. And we talked about what he learned from his recent ketamine therapy. And then we finished with Scott describing the four ways to build wealth. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Scott Galloway. Scott, welcome back. Great to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. Thanks for having me around. I was reading chapter four of your most recent book about your mom's boyfriend, Terry.

You were talking to him about wanting to learn about the stock market and he hands you two crisp $100 bills and says, go down to the village and meet one of those fancy stockbrokers. And you made a guy named, I may pronounce his name wrong, Cy Gordner, I believe. Can you tell me what happened next? Yeah, first of all I changed his name and then he reached out to me and said I could use his name. His name's Cy Serro. So, yeah, eighth grade didn't have a ton of friends. I mean, it wasn't a sob story, but I didn't have a lot of friends. And my mom's boyfriend, I started asking about stocks,

gave me two crisp $100 bills, walked into Merrill Lynch, sat in the reception area, and no one paid any attention to me. And I got kind of nervous and self-conscious. So I walked across the street to Dean Whitter-Smith Reynolds, I think it was at the time. And this woman came out. I remember big jewelry, said, how can I help a young man? And I said, I have $200 and I pulled it out of my pocket and these two $100 bills went flying everywhere. And she said, wait right here.

And she brought me a cellophane envelope. And I remember just, you know, how there's certain images that are just burnt into your memory or consciousness. And I remember seeing the picture of Benjamin Franklin in the part of the cellophane. You could see in the envelope. And this young man with big kind of frizzy. Harry came walking out and I said hi I'm Cy Sarah welcome the Dean Winter and he took me back to his little cubicle his little stall he was a new broker and I told him I had 200 bucks and he started teaching me about the market you know when there's more buyers and sellers the stock goes up

and he kind of showed me the bidding system for stocks and earnings and why you know to try and understand their business and so we decided to take my 200 bucks and buy 16 shares of Columbia Pictures. And every day for the next two years from Emerson Jr. High School, we had a payphone booth. You're probably too young to remember those. I would go to the payphone booth at lunch at 1255 and I would put two dimes in and I'd call Cy and he'd update me on the markets. And I did that every day for two years and probably once a week I'd walk into Westwood Village and I was bored and just hang out with him and he'd give me another lesson on stocks in the market. And, you know, I've made a lot of money starting and selling businesses, but I've

I've made most of my, most of my wealth has been always being in the market in, specifically in stocks. So just that kind of inspiration and I think I understand the stock market better than your average bear and it's been hugely beneficial to me. But more than anything, it's a story about the importance of having male role models. In addition to my mom's boyfriend, this guy who just took an interest in my life, he would call my mom once a month just to check in and say nice things about him. And it was purely selfless. You know, we didn't have any money. My mom was a secretary. So he was just doing it because he was a nice man.

And, you know, it's a lesson about the markets, but more than anything, it's a lesson about the importance of men getting involved in the lives of boys that aren't their own. That's why I love it and you write about it in your acknowledgement section as well. How do you try to pay that forward? I feel like this is a big part of your life today is pouring into other, especially young men. Can you just share your overall philosophy on that now as you've progressed in your career? Yeah, sure, but before I sort of break into my song of virtue signaling, which I'm good at, let me just acknowledge up front until the age of about 40, maybe 45, I never really did anything philanthropic. I never really did anything that I didn't see an endgame to helping me,

professionally or financially or personally. So I was an exceptionally non-generous, non-philanthropic person. And, you know, a few things happened, nothing dramatic, but incrementally, I realize that in my, I love the vision of manhood that Richard Reeves outlined in this book of this notion of surplus value, that up until the age of 21, 25, you're very much kind of in deficit value. You're taking resources from the public school system, from government, the love your parents provide. You're just constantly taking from society. And at some point, you ideally create enough value, whether it's taking care of others, being in surrogate. service to your country, creating economic value, creating a business that pays other people, doing a great job at work, whatever it might be, where you get to a point where you're giving

or producing more than you're taking, surplus value. And companies in the corporate world, it's easier to understand. It's called profits, right? Certain amount of inputs goes into a company. At some point, more comes out, and that's called profit. But when personally do you start creating surplus value? And I think that's a decent definition of when a boy becomes a man. And quite frankly, a lot of people never get there.

A lot of people are a drain on their relationships, a drain on society, and never really get to a point of surplus value. What I see, I'm writing a book now, my next book is going to be on masculinity. I think a decent test of masculinity or a decent proxy for it is the extent that you want to take care of yourself. You want to be self-reliant. You want to be strong. You want to be skilled. Then you want to get to a point where you're a protector of your immediate family, then the people have kind of extended family, then your community. But I think the real sort of test of masculinity or real expression of masculinity is to get involved in the life of a boy that is not yours.

Because the need there is just so dramatic, Ryan. There are so many, there are literally millions of young men who grow up without a single male role model in their lives. And that is because of some unique dynamics in the U.S. We have the second most single-parent households of any country in the nation, just behind Sweden. A lot of our neighborhoods that are lower income, a lot of the men are in common. incarcerated, you have a school system K through 12 that just doesn't have men. 92% of kindergarten teachers are female, 70% of high school teachers, like 80% of K through a primary school. So there are millions of young men who grow up, or boys, I should say,

without a single man in their life. And we celebrate single mothers as we should. I was raised by single mother malign in my life. But the research is pretty clear. The kind of single point failure for when a male starts to come off the tracks is when he loses a male role model. He becomes much more likely to kill himself, much less likely to go to college, much more likely to be incarcerated. So the question is how do we fill that void? And unfortunately, and I say this somewhat snarkly, the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson have screwed it up for all of us, because there's now a feeling in the zeitgeist where if you're a man and you express interest in a boy's life, people are suspicious of you. There's something wrong with you. You'd be up to something

really, really sinister. And as somebody who had just a bunch of men fill that void in my life, there are so many men out there with love to give with paternal or fraternal emotions and giving that they would like to share with young men and boys. But they're worried about, I was on Bill Maher, and he just immediately stopped and said, no, I'm never getting involved in a 15 year old boy's life, that would be, you know, and the whole audience laughs, that's a really unfortunate part of our society. When a 30-year-old woman who maybe hasn't had kids yet or has kids has the strength and the skills to get involved in a teenage girl's life because she can relate to her, we don't immediately think she might be a pedophile. So I think we have to

move to a part of our society where if you're successful, it's almost a little bit expected that you would get involved in a young man's life who may not have the blessings. of having male role models. What was the inflection point or what caused this shift in your life? You said you weren't philanthropic, you weren't really giving back until 40-ish, mid-40s. What happened? You know, I don't know if it was a specific event. The good news about getting older is you become more thoughtful.

The bad news is you become more thoughtful. And that is my rap, I don't know what you're, but everyone has a narrative. They tell other people and they tell themselves. And my narrative up into the age of 40 was, you know, kind of check my shit out. Raised by a single mother, didn't have a lot of money, didn't get into college initially, and I overcame all these obstacles, and now I'm making a lot of money, and, you know, just kind of check me out. The story of overcoming obstacles. And then as you get older, if you're honest with yourself, you start having a sober conversation around the reality.

And the reality is I wasn't born in the 99.9th percentile, but I was born in the 99th, to be born a white heterosexual male in the 60s in California meant you got free education that was accessible at some of the greatest institutions in the world. I went to UCLA with in there was a 76% admissions rate. I had to apply twice, but now it's 9%. It was $1,200 a year. Now it's $24,000 or $34,000, depending up your in-state or out-of-state. And then I graduated with the 2.27 GPA. And what did I do? I got to go to graduate school at Berkeley, another fairly esteemed institution that let me in with a 2.27 GPA. And then I came of age when processing power was coming online, started companies when the internet was just firing up. I just had so many gale force winds of my back that I had to

just finally acknowledge. This isn't a story of overcoming anything. This is a story of just putting up sales when they're these typhoon-like winds. And also just a general recognition that giving or getting involved in other people's lives makes me feel strong. It makes me feel successful. It makes me feel masculine. I don't think of it as generosity or community-minded. It just makes me feel good about myself. There's studies now that one of the fastest ways to snap,

when people come to the emergency room, severe depression, a lot of times they keep them awake. Supposedly that resets it. On a broader level, they're finding with young people who are depressed or down, that one of the quickest ways to get them out of that is get them immediately involved in a nonprofit helping others. Get them out of their head and start helping others. And I just found a little bit later in life, I still wouldn't describe myself as a philanthropic person. I give away a lot of money, but that's pretty easy. But it makes me feel strong. It makes me feel successful,

and I want to model that for my boys. And also, Ryan, do you have kids? Yeah. How old are your kids? 17 down to 9. Oh, yeah, you have a mess of them. How old? Yeah. I'm sorry, how many? Five. Jesus Christ. Okay. So. Last time we talked about this, you said you're in Vietnam. I'm like, we're still there.

We're still fighting that battle. My God. That is, that's a village. That's a, that's a zoo. Like, you, I mean, you see what it's like. When you have five kids, you're just going to have some kids that are going to have problems or issues. And that's just a lot going on. And what you discover is that, like, young boys, one of the ones,

they had a certain age, they'll listen to their friends, and they'll listen to their friends' dads, but they stop listening to you. So the importance of other adults in their lives that are good role models is really important. And just the data, I think of myself as a data person, it's just so overwhelming. This is the most anxious, depressed generation of young people in history. The purchasing power has gone down while their expenses for education and housing have skyrocketed. So they have less opportunity for the first time in the history of our country. A 30-year-old, average 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That's never happened before.

And concurrently, they're reminded every day that they're not killing it. They're not, oh, they're not at the Amman Hotel, the Amman-Gerry in Utah. They don't have incredible abs. They don't have a hot boyfriend or girlfriend. They haven't made $3 million trading Solana or Bitcoin. It's like things are tougher for them, but they're low. lack of success is just thrown in their face a million times a day by algorithms, addicting them to joy, disappointment, inspiration, upset.

So I think there's just an enormous opportunity that can be somewhat filled by, I think it has to be a bunch of things. I think it has to be government social programs that can do things at scale. But I do think there's an enormous opportunity for men to get involved in a boy's life. And for me, it's just, It's just a small nod when I do stuff back to America, which gave me enormous opportunity to other paying it a little bit forward and recognizing to some of the men who were really good to me and filled that void in my life.

But it's not, I don't even think it is philanthropy. It's sort of paying a debt owed. And it makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel just better about me. One of the things you talked about recently that I haven't heard you speak about much. I listen to pretty much all your shows. you talk about your boys a ton and I love it. I love your stuff when you talk about being a dad. I think you probably get that feedback all the time. But you actually don't talk about your wife

very much, your partner. In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard you say her name. I know her name. I've looked it up online, but I don't think I've ever heard you say her name until recently you got ketamine therapy and one of the results of that was a lot of gratitude for your wife. Which surprised me because I hadn't heard you talk about that before. Maybe you're just private. or why, but I'm curious to hear more about the importance of your wife and your life and what that ketamine therapy did to help you say, okay, I'm going to actually talk about this a little bit. Yeah, so you're right. Her name is Bayada. I don't speak about her on the pods. And it's because she has said, don't mention me. Really? Why? Yeah. Because I looked up online, it looks like she was a

complete baller, like her career, commercial real estate, from Germany, I believe, right? Just absolutely crushing it. She doesn't want you to talk about her, though? No, she's, yeah, she's, look, she's an impressive woman, worked at Goldman Sachs. She has an MBA. She's for most of our joint career, she's made more money than me, not that that's everything. People meet her, people meet us and they immediately assume that I'm exceptionally wealthy. And the reality is when we met each other, we were both broke. And I'm really blessed. And what I would say is, and she's just very early on said, do not talk about me. She didn't find reward from it. And also, I like keeping that. part of my life. I'm so exposed on so many dimensions of my life, Ryan, as you are. That was just

one nice, like, secret or thing to keep quiet. And it's funny, the most emails I've ever received was about my description of my ketamine therapy that I did. Have you done ketamine, Ryan? I have not. No, you said you got to be good at drugs to do it. And I don't think I'm, I'm not very experienced, so it probably wouldn't be good for me. Yeah. And I would say that, you know, we're not friends, but we're friendly. Unless, you have a psychiatrist who recommends it because let me be clear. It's showing incredible benefits for people with trauma and PTSD and veterans and people who suffer with severe addiction and depression.

But this shit is not to be taken lightly. It was more intense. I did it not want to call it recreational, but more out of curiosity in a friend of mine owns a clinic. But it is not to be taken. It's like you see a roller coaster and you think, wow, that looks scary, but I'd like it. And then you get on this thing.

and it is 10 times the dips and velocity and unknown that you'd anticipate it. Anyway, one of the things that came up, the way I would describe it, is there's no discovery in the therapy, at least it wasn't for me, which makes sense, you can't invent things in your consciousness. They're either there or they aren't there. What it does is it clarifies, expands, and cement some things.

And one of the things that came out that you're referring to is the most visual or the, the most visual, most obvious images and thoughts where I have these beautiful pictures of my boys are on my phone and they came in and sort of this crazy 4D high-deaf relief and they were just there and the word that kept coming up was impossible and that is and you can feel this or you can relate to this as a father you know that relationship is singular you know that the that what's unusual for me is they're really the only people that I would do more that I care more about I care about myself. I'm not even sure I can even say about my partner. I'd like to think that,

but I'm not sure at the end of the day if it's true. What I know is true is that it's more important to me that my kid's well-being than my own. And the way I feel about them, the complexity, the joy, the commitment, the sense of empathy, the concern I have for them, it just, it took me very deep around that and it was very, very rewarding. And the word that kept popping in my mind was impossible. It would be impossible for them to ever understand it, like this great secret I have until they have their own kids. And that was very just sort of rewarding to kind of play around and explore that. The thing that was more surprising is that when my wife did come into the picture,

and it was this, again, another beautiful image of her, it took me back to this moment again. This is my mom's boyfriend who popped up a bunch. She was kind of my father figure for a while. Have you ever received anything when you were a kid that was, you weren't, it was so out of your reach monetarily or just it was such a big gift you never considered it you never it was never even in the realm of pot the possible for me i had a two dollar skateboard that we bought at cammart i liked the skateboard and i remember you know kids kind of making fun of it a little bit it was this basically a piece of plywood on steel wheels and there was something called a bane skateboard b a h and it was

45 bucks it was shaped like had the silhouette of a great white shark it had these incredible clear wheels and cool trucks made by a different company. But it might as well have been 45 million bucks. We just, my mom and I had the idea of me spending 45 bucks on anything was ridiculous. Anyways, my mom's boyfriend came home with this thing, this box, this rag tag box. I think he did that on purpose, so I wouldn't be expecting it. I think he took it out of the brand name box and opened it. And there was this brand new Bane skateboard. And just that feeling of joy and like, I don't deserve this. And how did I get this lucky? I can't believe it's mine. It's sort of like not something I really could ever attain. That was the sensation I had when these images of my wife came in. And it was so

rewarding because I think like a lot of marriages, sometimes I see what's imperfect about my relationship. I focus on, I spend too much time on the things that I don't love about my partner. And it just came into full view that I kind of hit the lottery here. And I promised myself I wasn't going to call anyone until the ketamine wore off. I wasn't going to call anyone for 24 hours. And of course, I got out and called her and said, you're my Bain skateboard. And it was very, you know, I explained it to her. It was very meaningful for her. But it was nice. It was just nice to have that clarification because the most important decision you'll make, and I say this in the book, talking about financial security, the most important decision you'll make in your life is who you decide to have

kids with. Because you're in each other's life for 25 years and you're going to be in each other's life financially, emotionally, physically, hopefully. You raise kids together, the way you approach the world. And I have ransom friends who are just so successful on every dimension and have a and not, you know, it's not they have a bad spouse, but I would describe them as having a real partnership. They haven't figured it out. They're not that invested in each other and they're constantly measuring each other and keeping score. And they have a life that's just not as rewarding. And then I have other friends who aren't as successful on many dimensions, but they have a fantastic partner and everything burns a little bit brighter.

And so it just kind of struck me that this was not only a blessing or a gift, but also the thing that came out and I said this a lot, but again, the thing about this academy trip, nothing new, just cementing and going deeper around things you already know. You know, it was real motivation for me to do something I was preached, but I don't know what was doing that, is stop keeping score. And that is with friends, with business partnerships, with my spouse, with past girlfriends,

how much are they contributing? How much am I contributing? And it can never get out of balance. I should find a series of relationships where I'm getting more than I'm giving. And as you get older, I think a huge unlock, and I'm not suggesting anyone takes shit or abuse. I, on a regular basis, shed friends.

But stop keeping score. Envision the kind of son, brother, father, uncle, husband you want to be, and be that, aspire to be that, person and put the scorecard away because you're naturally going to inflate your own contribution and sometimes unfortunately minimize theirs and just aspire to be the kind of person you want to be. I've done this with my father. My father wasn't around when I was young. I think I had a lot of issues with that, a lot of resentment. And I fell into that trap of thinking my mom's insane and my dad's not.

You know, when you come from a divorced parents, you have a tendency to side with one over the other. And I stopped doing that and said, but what kind of son do I want to be? I want to be a generous, loving son that's there for my father, distinctive whatever I think. However, you know, all the bullshit in our past. And that just was an unlock for me. And I get reward now from being that way. And it just reminded me that I have this, I'm incredibly blessed on that level and just to reaffirm like, okay, articulate to yourself, what kind of, what kind of partner do you want to be? And then stop thinking about if and where, you know, she doesn't measure up to my, what I'll call, unreasonable standards. or thinking about what I've done for her and what she's done for me.

You know, that's just, that's just a path to unhappiness or constant frustration. So the therapy was interesting, but the real fun part was getting this Bain skateboard in the form of my partner. There's this great video, Scott. You may have seen it of Steve Jobs. And he's, I think, 10 or 11 years old. He's retelling this time from his childhood. And he said he wanted some spare parts to build a frequency counter. And he wanted to call either Hewlett or Packard.

I forget which one of the two. It doesn't matter. But anyway, he looks them up in the phone book and he sees, he finds their name in the phone book and calls them at home. And he said, hey, this is Steve Jobs. I'm 11. I'm 12 years old. Can I have some spare parts to build a frequency counter?

And the guy responds. He said, sure, come on in. You can come into the office. He invites him into the office, gives him the spare parts and gives him a job. And Steve Jobs says, I was in heaven. And then he ends the video by saying the difference between people who dream about things and those who actually do them is they have the willingness to ask. And that is my way of asking you.

And I want to encourage people to ask because you are at the Raleigh Hotel. I believe in Miami, Florida years ago. And because your willingness to go up to a stranger, looks like I assume a very attractive stranger and ask them a question, change the entire trajectory of your life. Can you go back to that day at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami, Florida and share what happened? I tell the story in my strategy class at the second year MBAs at Stern. And it's really simple. I was at, I was single living in Florida, kind of living in an arrested adolescent lifestyle.

And I went to this, I went to the Raleigh pool to meet a friend in the middle of the day. They had like a pool party and DJ. So it's the, you know, it's the midday sun. And I see this woman that, I'm very. very attracted to and I promised myself before I leave I am going to speak to this woman. And it's not like this woman was sitting there with a sign saying come speak to me. She was with another woman, another guy. As far as I knew that was her husband or her boyfriend and wearing literally nothing.

And to walk up, and you know this Ryan, to walk up and what I'll call open under the brightness of the midday sun without the benefit of alcohol and open. remember thinking, okay, I've been there now and I remember thinking, okay, I'm just going to go home and work out. I'm just going to get out of here. And I'm like, no, I promise myself. So I just went over and I said, hey, where are you guys from? And, you know, the net of it is, you know, several years later, our middle son's name is Raleigh after Raleigh Hotel. And what I tell young people is nothing wonderful, nothing really wonderful is going to happen to you professionally or personally without taking an uncomfortable risk.

The only way you score above market above the mean is you are willing to take an uncomfortable risk and you develop the core competence of success. The key to success, real success, professionally and personally, is the willingness to endure rejection. And it's my core competence. I ran for sophomore, junior, and senior class president in high school, lost all three times based on my track record.

decided to run for student body president where I went on to wait for it lose I applied to nine schools I got rejected from all nine of them I appealed got into UCLA I applied to 11 business schools got into two it is all you need you know the TSA and the CIA have to about a thousand percent you have to about 300 to get into the MLB Hall of Fame to be successful you just need to bat a hundred but you just need to step up to the plate a lot if you're in not getting rejected a lot, if you're not reaching out to people who aren't emailing you back, if you're not constantly trying to find mentors who are kind of out of your weight class and they

don't respond to you, if you're single and you're not approaching people and expressing in a thoughtful way that makes them feel safe that you are interested in them, you know, romantically. I mean, don't be a creep. Don't go up and start talking about their looks or whatever. you're never going to score above your weight class. And so the key, and the reality is, even look into your organization, if you work at a company, the most overcompensated people relative to their effort are always the same people.

It's salespeople. And the reason why the most overcompensated is that 90% of us are not willing to endure real rejection. It's humiliating. It can upset. It can ruin your day. You go up to somebody, you take the chance, You think about it, you see them, you go up, you start a conversation, and they're not nice to you.

And quite frankly, that happens a lot. They're just not, for whatever reason, they're not open to talking to a stranger, or they have no interest in hearing about your new business. Or no, they don't want to grab coffee with you and be your men, whatever it might be. Most people are not willing to endure that rejection. And I was from a very early age. I was always able to kind of ask, you know, my first company. I called the CEOs of the biggest companies in the world, and I said, can I get a meeting? And most of the time, I couldn't even get past the assistant.

I didn't get my emails returned, whatever it might be. But occasionally it happened to me. I endured a lot of rejection from women. I endured a lot of rejection from friends and friend groups that were kind of outside my pecking order in the social hierarchy of junior in high school, junior high school and high school. But the absolute, I've started nine businesses. I'm generously two, two, four, and three. But all you need is those two. And because I was willing after failures and businesses that literally drove into, you know,

flew into a mountain and went out in a ball of flames, I was willing to get up, mourn for a little bit, and then move on. I eventually got there. Only one out of seven businesses are successful. So if you start nine, you're probably, that means you're probably going to have a successful business. That's the way I was, So the ability to endure rejection, the ability to forgive yourself, that's what I think is really

difficult for most people. They do something, they say something, they screw up, they make a bad investment, they say something unkind, they handle a relationship poorly, they, whatever it might be, they say something stupid in a meeting, and they just can't get past it. And I have a pretty decent number of friends who are staggeringly successful up until the age of 35 or 40, and then they go out on their own and they do something. And it doesn't maintain the same trajectory they had working at a large hedge fund. They start a small hedge fund.

And they have trouble getting past that first failure. And, you know, it was almost sort of a blessing for me. My life had a lot of failure from a very early age. I wouldn't even call failure, whatever they call it, your way to, on your way to success. But all reverse engineering back to the best decision or, you know, the most important thing, finding a great partner, solely a function of, you know, scoring above my weight class, and I'm not being humble. Anyone who knows both of us would agree

was because I was willing to take an uncomfortable risk. That rejection is so huge. I lost a starting quarterback job in college to Ben Rathesberger at Miami University. I don't know you don't watch a ton of American football, but he went on to have a good group. If you're going to lose to one of the greatest quarterbacks in the last 20 years.

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, getting rejected and having the head coach look me square in the eyes and say, he gives us a better chance to win than you do, So you're going to either be the backup or change positions is an awesome thing to happen when you're 19, 20 years old. To be told that the person who adds the most value is who gets to play. And so that after I get done playing, I played after college and a little bit later I transferred and played somewhere else.

But my first job, Scott, was in sales. And for 12 years, that's what I did. Smiled and dialed for the first few of those 12 years before I got into some of the senior leadership roles. And there's nothing better than either people again. ignoring you, hanging up on you, asking why are you calling me over and over and over. So not only losing a job, having a guy look you dead in the eyes and tell you that you don't add enough value, then getting rejected in sales will set you up. Now if somebody ignores me when I ask them to come on my podcast, okay, next.

I mean, you know, it's just part of the deal. I think you're saying maybe. Not yet. That was what we always said in our sales job. He didn't say no. It was not yet. It's like, no, actually the guy told you, you know, to never call me again, but I'm like, I'm going to keep going. I think, though, you're right, though, that willingness to just make the next call, to make the next ask, to keep going, to keep going is so huge.

So I'm glad you brought that up because I think being able to approach somebody and do that, it's just the people I've seen who sustained excellence over an extended period of time are usually really good at that. But I want to transition to another point, something about you that I really admire. I think one of the ways you build trust with people, whether you're leading a team in sports or in business, is I think you laugh together, I think you cry together, and I think you do hard things together. And the first two of those you are exceptionally good at. So I want to talk about humor and I want to talk about being moved to tears. You do not seem to be afraid to make crazy, wild jokes, which are quite funny. at all times and you also don't seem to be afraid to cry. So let's start with the crying first.

How did you get to a point to where you're willing to get on the microphone or on a stage and be moved to tears? So from the age of 29 to 44, I didn't cry for 15 years. I lost the ability. It's like you forget how to cry. I didn't cry when my mother died.

I didn't cry when I got divorced. I just lost the capacity to cry. And then I remember, I was watching a movie. I was watching, I think it was Remains of the Day with Anthony Hopkins. And I had this weird sensation I didn't recognize. And I was tearing up. And I thought, oh, this feels kind of good. I was on a plane.

Something about the pressurization or the altitude in planes makes me very emotional. And I thought, this feels really nice. And I started getting better at it. And I decided I was really going to lean into it. And I had a series of cognitive tricks when I was on stage in front of large groups of people or in front of my class where I would disassociose. from what I was feeling and I think men do this 98% of the time such that I wouldn't get emotional because I was taught at the moment you got emotional you lost all credibility you lost all sense of manhood

you were vulnerable you know someone was going to see your vulnerability and kill and eat you know it's just you're taught as a man that it's just like exposing your rear flank or whatever that's just not what you do and what I have found is that if I lean into it and I've gotten I think I'm really good at it now and I never planned but I don't let anything get in the way of it unless it's totally inappropriate. If I'm in a job review with someone, I don't start crying. But what I would tell men is that, especially young men, is it its real gift because it informs what's important to you. There's, you know, there's a scene in modern family where the father Jay is talking about his dad and how stoic he was and he's not sure if his dad knew how much he loved him. And I was so moved by it.

And then I thought, okay, why am I so moved to it? I thought, well, are there important people in my life that maybe don't know that I feel very strongly about them? Am I moved by patriotism? Am I moved? You know, to not, the ability to cry, it sort of helps inform what is important to you. Because when you think about it, I mean, life

is a series of activities and things that happen to you, but what it's really about is the series of emotions you feel and reward. And to shut those down, you're just kind of living life at 40 or 50% because you don't really know what's important to you. You don't know what moves you. So what I recommend is when people find a piece of,

I'm not into art, but occasionally if a piece of art, I think that's nice, I will force myself to stop and think, why do I like this? What is it about this that moves me so I can better understand myself? And when I lean into emotion,

or I don't lean out of emotion, it's helped me understand what is really important to me. And also, just to be crass, it's been a huge component, I think, of differentiation and what has helped me connect with people because there's an enormous white space, if you think about a marketing term, for white straight guys to talk about their emotions.

It's just something we're taught not to do. And so didn't cry for 15 years. Now I cry at the drop of a hat. And it's a gift. It helps inform me around stuff, around the laughing, lean into that. I didn't laugh a lot when I was younger. I was voted most comical in high school, which is strange. But I've never been someone who laugh. I always made other people laugh. I didn't laugh out loud. And then when I decided was, I need to get better at laughing. And now when I find something funny, you know, for about 15 years now, I train myself to laugh out loud and really lean into it. And laughter creates people around you start laughing. And then when people around you start laughing, and then when people around you start,

laughing, you laugh. I remember my father, who's a Scottish guy, very charming. He would tell a joke, and at the end of the joke, he would start laughing so hilariously at his own joke. You had no choice but to laugh. So leaning into this stuff and ignoring this kind of BS vision of your own masculinity and what makes you weak or vulnerable, it gives you such a richer life because you're going to figure out, you know, when I would cry on weird stuff, when Bob Dole is lifted out of his wheelchair and salutes George Bush at George Bush's funeral. I'm like, that brings me to tears. I'm like, well, why? And I'm like, well, I appreciate service. The country means a lot to me. I feel a little bit guilty and a little bit weird that I've never had a chance to serve my country.

Well, should I be serving my country? It just, it creates a layer of complexity and it informs you that without which your, you know, your emotions, your real raw emotions are basically illuminate. They like the landing path or what's important to you. So I tell, I try and encourage young men, you know, within reason to really try and lean into your emotions because it's going to illuminate a more rewarding life. It's going to tell you what's important to you. It's going to tell you what your kids mean to you. It's going to tell you what subjects inspire you.

So for me, it's been a gift, and it's something I just didn't do when I was your age. What's your process to come up with the initial jokes on the Prof G pod when you're going to, especially with Ed, it feels like you want to make him think you're crazy, you want to make him laugh before you go into the market show on Prop G. It's really important to have role models because you can sort of lean into someone else's genius and say, okay, this person just understands. this so well and is so insightful and I'm going to really get into it and try and understand it. And one of my intellectual role models is Jonathan Haid, my colleague at NYU Stern, who I think is actually one of the most influential scholars of the last decade, if not the last century. And he's just written this wonderful book called The Anxious Generation.

And he wrote a book called The Righteous Mind. And essentially he talked about cancel culture. And I really started getting into this notion that, okay, it's fine to hold people accountable. It's fine to say, no, I disagree with you, or I think that's inappropriate. But our society has created a series of algorithms that create a reward system for finding something inappropriate or making a cartoon of someone's comments, creating into something that it isn't, and then pressing on the soft tissue, calling them out, dunking on them, even to the point of shaming them, and even in some instances, impacting their career professionally. I remember getting an email from my department chair at NYU 10, 12 years ago, saying microaggressions would not be tolerated and went on to list a series of what I felt were just ridiculous things that qualified as microaggressions. And I remember thinking, okay, the thing I don't like about, I don't like about this environment is we've all become so sensitive that we don't realize what words are just words. when people say I don't feel safe or words or violence,

I just don't think that's true. And something I do, I try to do on the pod is I am purposely profane and vulgar. I mean, I'd say some pretty salty shit on the pods. And sometimes it makes the producers uncomfortable. The network Vox has always been very supportive of me. Sometimes it makes my co-host care uncomfortable. Edd usually doesn't make uncomfortable.

He's a 25-year-old dude. But there's a strategy behind it. The first is I am generally a profane and vulgar person. And I think more people are thinking stuff, profane and vulgar things than we'd like to admit. Also, I find that I'm a progressive. I consider myself a hard-carrying liberal or whatever the term you want to use is. And what I don't like about the left is that we come across as just fucking humorless, that we can't laugh at each other, we can't laugh at our differences, that we're just so quick to say something offends up.

or reverse engineer to have something is discriminatory. You know, my co-host, Kara Swisher, is a lesbian. And I'm constantly saying, where's your German Shepherd? Or did you drive a Subaru there? I'm saying things that, and here's what happens. She pauses and then she laughs and she gives everyone permission to laugh. And she makes fun of my sexual orientation and my kind of boneheaded things that are more she feels are more commonly assigned to someone born as a male, whatever you want to call it.

And when you look back in history, the great liberals that the great social commentators oftentimes were comedians who were exceptionally profane, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, you know, George Carlin. And I'm like, how does the left take this back? And I see it as a role in a service. If Kara and I can be, no questions that were progressives, but if we can be profane and make make vulgar jokes and make fun of people's differences, recognizing that sometimes I go too far. I used the term tallest midget once and this family, I don't know, but as affiliated with the school, reached out to me and said, our child suffers from dwarfism and this makes people feel bad. And they were right. And I said, I'm not going to use that term anymore. You're right. I shouldn't be

saying that. And I'm open to learning. I'm open to, I was at a South by Southwest speaking to like 4,000 people and a guy stood up and said when you dress up as a woman in your videos, it makes my transgender daughter feel bad. It feels like you're mocking her. And I just had never thought about that. And I said, I'm not entirely sure I even understand that. I'm still not making the connection, but I don't need to make the connection. I'm, you know, I want to be an ally to other fathers, so I'm going to stop. So I screw up, you know, on a regular basis and I stop. But until then, I'm going to speak my mind. I'm going to be crude. I'm going to be vulgar and I'm going to try and take humor back for the left. I think the right is something I admire

about them is I think they're a little bit less sensitive. I think they can be I think they roll with the punches a little bit more and I think it's hurt people on the left to not to not be willing to laugh at ourselves, not make fun of each other in a thoughtful caring way. What do you do with your friends? You mock each other and but it's not mean-spirited and there might be you know you got to be careful that you're not, you know, disparaging people as a group or trying to, you know, in any way of diminishing them. But I am very crude. It offends some people. Most people roll their eyes and look around for permission to laugh and laugh. But I want to take, I want to stop this nonsense that we're all getting scared to say something for fear we're going to offend each other.

It's okay. We should all, we should all, I love actually what, should, I forget who said this. But in some, I think gestures should be taken with the intent they're given and not the opportunity to make someone else feel bad or show your own virtue points by highlighting what's wrong or right with that statement. And when I make these jokes, I'm trying to be funny. I'm trying to highlight, you know, I'm trying to be really irreverent. But it's somewhat strategic. I really do think the left needs to take itself less seriously. And I think jokes about sex and whatever it might be. I think they're funny.

I think we need more of it. It also connects you with people. I remember the difference between when you are friends and then the step you take when you're friends who can bust each other's balls. And when one of my friend groups made fun of me recently about getting this fresh spray tan to try to look decent on Zoom, it was like we've crossed this chasm that I love now, that we can rag on each other. And that is a whole other level of friendship than where you're just kind of polite and

nice. That's just like the person you meet at a cocktail party that you won't be friends with. And I think that's important. And I feel like you bring that and give permission in a way by the way you speak to do that, which leads me to my next thought about you, Scott, which is the ability to be an effective communicator, both written and verbally. And I have some old stats so maybe you can update them. I think you told me these last time, but you said 340 inbound speaking requests in a year. you accepted 30 of them and your average rate was $112,000 per speech. I'm guessing all of those numbers are higher now or maybe not the accepted number because you're trying not to travel as much.

But people will pay large sums of money just to hear you get on a stage and talk and share useful slides and stats and mainly to hear you tell stories. I think from a leadership perspective, it is a vital skill for us to get good at speaking on a stage or speaking one-on-one or running your Monday morning meeting really well. And I am amazed at how often I'll go to speak for a company. And I usually go after the CEO or the CEO will introduce me. And it's evident that the CEO has not practiced very much and they're not that good at it, which blows my mind. There are some obviously exceptions, but there's still a lot that they're like, I have too much other stuff to worry about. To me, this is one of the most important things.

So can you, I know some of this comes from your dad, you told me about last time, but can you talk about the importance of developing great communication skill, both written and verbally? If I could give my kids anyone's skill, it would be storytelling. Our superpower as a species is our ability to communicate, is verbal communication and cooperation. And when, you know, we used to sing songs around the campfire that they would tell kids, do not, this is when you plant the crops. Do not go over the hill. They are not friendly over there. whatever it might be. This is how you sail, this is how you fish.

This is how our ability to communicate and tell stories is a means of helping young people hold on to stories. It's the reason why Mc Jagger gets to have sex with a 30-year-old ballerina is that it is wired into us. That storytelling is important to the species and that people who are great storytellers should command positions of influence and that they're attractive.

And the easiest way to communicate the true good storyteller is to be clever and funny. Right? I always say to it, I always say to guys, young men, if you can make a woman laugh, you can date her. She'll go out with you. You know, people love to laugh. And laughing is the kind of ultimate or the, you know, the apex predator of storytelling. So your ability, you know, taking Mandarin or taking computer science, I have no idea if any of those things are going to pay off. But if you can write well, I say that, I kind of think that's where it's, it all starts, is your ability to coordinate and organize your. your thoughts in the written language. I think that is exceptionally difficult. If you can write an outstanding email or an article that is cogent, compelling, well-organized, perfect grammatically, it cements your brand with two core associations, one you're smart and you're educated. And you generally speaking can't write well without both of those things. Not necessarily credentialed. My mother was a wonderful writer and she left school in the eighth grade.

but she was educated. She learned it herself. She read a lot. That is ground zero, I think, for being an impressive person as people who can write well. You receive a really solid emails from someone that just lays it out in a thoughtful, great turn of phrase, great analogies. And there's just not getting around it. Okay, this woman is smart. This woman is smart.

So I think it starts there. And then the ability to capture a crowd is super important. the ability to communicate using visuals and data and storytelling and humor. I think that, I mean, that's, at the end of the day, to find your talent is a gift. I really didn't figure mine out till later in life, but my talent is storytelling and communications. And I try and do it across different mediums, whether it's books, presentations, talks, podcasts, television. I try and go cross mediums.

Some I'm better at than others. I've kind of given up on TV. I've figured out I have a face for podcasting. I'm not successful at television. I've had either four or five TV shows and they've either been canceled within two or three months or canceled before they even aired.

So that's learning. I enjoy writing. I've done well. I'm still not there yet. I've had best-selling books, but I've never had like a runaway book. Like Ryan, I know you've had some stuff that's done really,

I've never had like the big hits, so I'm still trying there. You know, I've never quite, quite gotten there. The place I've been really fortunate is around speaking. And I purposely talk about money. I think that the zeitgeist of or the social more of not talking about money is largely the incumbents want an asymmetry of information. People senior in an organization know what everyone's

making and it's to their advantage because of the mid and junior level people knew what everyone was making. They might a expect more from wealthy people in society, but also say, why is Bob making 40% more than me? I don't understand this. And so there's this general notion that the incumbents and the wealthy in corporations and senior level people in corporations know what everyone's making, but you should not talk about your salary money. Anyway, so I'm very open. I'm my peak earnings here from speaking. I made $5 million in 2021 from speaking, but that was COVID where you could walk into, I could walk into my garage studio, turn on Zoom and make $50,000 for an hour long speech. Now it's all in person again where I charge much greater fees. And people will call me and say,

how do you make money speaking? I'm like, we'll spend 20 or 30 years working your ass off, develop domain expertise. You don't just raise your hand and say, I want to get paid to speak. And I also write a book that is interesting and that people find interesting and then really practice. Steve Jobs is a great storyteller. He's just outstanding. Jensen Huang, when you hear him speak, you want to buy stock. When Jeff Bezos wrote that investor letter in 1997, he read the thing and like, okay, sell the house and just buy Amazon stock. He was able to just in a very cogent, sober way, say these are the things we're focused on and this is why we're going to build a huge company i don't care if you're churchill or hitler they were both great orators you know they both could get a group of people

to do amazing and evil things because of the power of storytelling i'm going to get shit for including churchill and hitler in the same breath but the i think you've done it before there you go most likely but look you're blessed you there's some of it's genetic you're tall athletic and have a great voice. So you're starting on second base with respect to storytelling. But it is something that if you're not, even if you're not genetically blessed, even if you, supposedly it's the biggest fear, right? It's people fear public speaking more than death. You got to be competent at it. You may never be great at it. Maybe it just doesn't come to you, but you have to be competent. And now there's so many tools in programs and speaking courses and opportunities. But I tell young people, you got to lean

And you got to volunteer to get presentations. You got to, because that is, if you can, if you have the gift of gab and you can tell stories, you'll always make a living. First thing my dad told me when I got a real job, be able to get up in front of a group of people and speak. And I know that's uncomfortable, but practice get good at that. And it reminded me of something you wrote in your most recent book, the algebra of wealth. The key is to figure out what you can do that others can't or are unwilling to do. A lot of people are unwilling to do that.

hard work as a talent curiosity as a talent patience and empathy are talents and i feel like that's one of the keys to economic security as you write about in the algebra of wealth is figuring out what you can do that others can't or are unwilling to do as we close out scott that's one of the biggest takeaways for me from the algebra of wealth again another amazing book and your writing i can actually hear i read it i didn't listen to the audio i appreciate you sending me an early copy but I could hear your voice. So I almost feel like maybe there are transcriptions from the podcast, literally that show up with minor editing in the book. But that's one of the things of when it comes to creating wealth and creating economic security is overall figuring out what you can do that others can or are unwilling to do.

Can you give me the general thesis and expand from that? Yeah, the spine of the book is an equation for building wealth. And it's one, I call it focus. You could also call it mastery. And I think a lot of young people make the mistake of believing they should follow their passion. And I don't want to kill anyone's dream, but what I would say is find your talent. And that is try and find something that if you invest it requisite 10,000 hours, grit, perseverance, you could be an artisan or a master in the top 10% if not the top 1%.

And then try and layer it over an industry where there's a 90 plus percent employment rate, which is 99% of industries. Sports, I mean, the industry you were in, you were probably in the top 0.1%, but the employment rate in the NFL of all football players is probably 0.01%. So you made it to 99.9.9, but unless you made it to 99.99, you weren't going to make a living.

And I think you have to have an honest conversation around, all right, I mean, if you're, if in any industry, almost any industry, you got to the same level of excellence you did in football, you'd make millions of dollars. But in football, you make it to just 99.9, and you get cut your sophomore year or you get benched. So have a sober conversation around the industry. And unfortunately, some of the passion fields, people mistake for hobbies. And it's like, my passion is to be a DJ.

Well, okay, you have to be, you have to be again in the top 0.1 or 0.01%. Because here's the thing. It may not sound like fun to be a tax lawyer. But if you're in the top 10% of tax lawyers, you're most likely going to have a really nice house, be able to take care of your kids, be able to take care of your parents, have camaraderie, respect, relevance, money to do really cool things, maybe even at some point fly private, probably have a larger selection set of mates than you deserve. And all of those things will make you passionate about whatever it is.

So the first thing is focus and mastery. The next thing is I call it stoicism. It's really about the basic notion of Morgan Housel says this. I love the way Morgan phrases stuff. No one's thinking about your shit as much as you are. Try from a young age to develop a savings muscle and gamify saving money. When I was in college, if I didn't get $3,300 together over the summer, I wasn't going back to school. So we used to gamify it, me and the other five kids in the fraternity who didn't have a lot of money.

We would go on a whiteboard every day and talk about how much money we spent that day. That's summer, summer of 84. I spent $73 a week total on everything. Living rent, I lived on top ramen bananas and milk. And our big treat every Sunday night, I was never the athlete you are, but I wrote on the crew team. We'd get the coupon for $3.99, all you can eat at Sizzler. And we used to go in and literally 32, you know, guys from the crew team clear out the place. But I developed a savings muscle early.

I lost it for about 20 years because I thought it was going to be such a baller that I started spending a lot of money. But trying, I mean, it's pretty basic. Wealth isn't about how much money you make. It's about how much you save. And there are hundreds of thousands of civil servants that never make more than $80,000 or $90,000 a year, but because of forced savings plans and discipline, they end up millionaires when they die. You know that adage that you become the sum or the average of all your five closest friends. That's true in terms of politics, weight, income.

But it's not true in terms of wealth. They'll make the same amount of money, but some end up in a family. much better place than others. So there's a series of savings behaviors that if you start when you're young and you can deploy just a little bit of capital and create that army that will grow on itself, you know, the whole notion of compounding, letting time, which is the next part of the equation take over. Our flaw in our species is we don't realize how time, how fast time is going to go. The majority is haven't lived past 35. So it's almost impossible to imagine that you're going to be alive in 30 or 40 years, but you are. And even just investing in the S&P, you know,

SPY index funds that have grown 11% the last 15 years and 9% since the beginning of the S&P, you think, well, that sucks. But 11% a year means that in 21 years, you got eight times your money. And the 21 years sounds unfathomable at the age of 25. But when you get to 46, you go, Jesus Christ, that went fast. So try and tap into or try and ignore or overcome the flaw in the species and appreciate just how fast time is going to go. and if you master something, you make more money than you spend, you live a little bit like a stoic,

you develop a savings muscle, and you let time take over, you're going to wake up with a lot more money than you'd anticipated. And then finally, diversification. This is where I really screwed up. I always went all in on my companies, even when I had a chance to take some money off the table and put it in different things, diversification is your Kevlar. You can get shot in the chest and have a really bad investment or have a company go out of business. But if you're diversified and really make an effort to put money in different things that aren't correlated, which isn't easy. It hurts, but it's not fatal. And I was always 120, 130.

You know, when I started my first company profit, I was always putting more money in it. Even when I was offered a chance to buy or take investors, no, no, double down, double down, red envelope goes public, stock goes down, borrow money to buy more stock. And the media loves the story of Steve Baumers saying to Goldman Sachs, how much money can I borrow, borrows and buys more Microsoft stock or Mark Zuckerberg turning down $20 billion. Assume you are not Mark Zuckerberg. As soon as you can, once you have some capital, start diversifying because the beautiful thing about capitalism in the market is that because of population growth and gains in productivity, as a whole, the market is up into the right. You don't need to be

a hero. You don't need to find the needle in the haystack, buy the whole haystack. So the sum of the book is kind of advice to my young self, and it's basically the following. I absolutely know how to get you're rich. That's the good news. The bad news is the answer is slowly, but we can get you there with a series of fairly straightforward, not easy, but understandable behaviors. And my mistake all the time was I thought, and I had signals along the way, I'm smart, I'm talented, I'm lucky. At some point I'm going to get that 10, that 50, that $100 million windfall. And let's hope that happens, but just in case it doesn't, let's have a plan B that says by the time I'm 50 or 60, I'm going to be financially secure.

And there is a series of basic behaviors and strategies that will get you there. It's an amazing book. It's called The Algebra of Wealth, a simple formula for financial security. It's like your other books, funny, really well written, and no wasted space. I work with Jim Levine as well as a book agent, so I know Jim is helpful with saying, get rid of that fluff. And so it's a great partner to have to say, like, let's make this the fewest number of words possible. And I feel like that's what the algebra of wealth is. And I highly, highly

recommend people read it. Scott, you're a role model and a mentor for me. I know you don't fully realize that and you have millions of people who are. But I just want to publicly say thank you for all that you do. Every time I see one of your new podcasts pop up, I get excited. I know when they are coming out, but I'm still excited. So I'm grateful for you, man. And I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. I mean, that's right. That means a lot coming from you. Thanks very much. You're being very generous and and congrats on your success. Thank you, man. We'll talk soon. Okay. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learningleader.com, let me know what you learned from this

great conversation with one of my favorite Scott Galloway. A few takeaways from my notes. How to build wealth. The four ways. Focus, which is mastery. Find your talent. Then Stokew. This is about saving more than you spend. Reflect, pause. We need some silence. Then time. The way to get rich? Slowly. In 21 years with your money in a low-cost index fund, you will earn eight times your money. It takes time. Then diversification. This is your Kevlar. Once you earn some money, assume you are not Steve Balmer or Mark Zuckerberg, who only went all in on one thing. Use a variety. of investment vehicles going all in is usually not going to be the best choice for most of us. Then one of the key indicators of long-term success is your, quote, willingness to endure rejection, whether this is walking up to a stranger at the Raleigh Hotel, as Scott did to his future wife, or cold calling in a sales job like I had, or asking people to be on your podcast,

which I've done and currently do. If you are not willing to endure rejection, you are probably going to struggle. And then I love the idea of creating surplus value. What can we do to give more than we take? And as Scott said, the key is to figure out what you can do that others can't or are not willing to do. Hard work as a talent. Curiosity is a talent. Patience and empathy are talents.

What can you do that others can't or are not willing to? Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Scott Galloway. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify or Apple Podcast,

and you subscribe to the show and you rate it, hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk you soon. Can't wait.

Thank you.