The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 680: Scott Galloway: Action Absorbs Anxiety, Handling the Haters, Becoming an Excellent Storyteller, Reverse Engineering Your Success, The Importance of Novelty, and Why Praise Is the Most Underrated Leadership Tool

Starting point is 00:00:00 I am pumped to share that a project I've been working on for the past two years, my next book titled The Price of Becoming is now available to pre-order. Now, why are pre-orders important? Well, they help determine the book's placement in bookstores online, and they tell my publisher that they need to print a ton of these things so we don't run out like we have in the past when people have waited until launch week to buy it. So if you're going to buy it anyway, I'd love it if you would pre-order it, right now. Now, cool bonus for early pre-orders. If you go to learningleader.com and send us your

Starting point is 00:00:36 pre-order receipt from Amazon, we will send you a digital copy immediately. And we've put together some other cool pre-order bonuses you can see at learningleader.com. You may be asking, well, who's the book for? It's for eights and nines who want to be tens. If you're listening to this podcast, that means it's probably for you. You're doing really well, and yet you still have this to do even better. That's who the price of a becoming is for. It's a deeply personal book where I share some of my failures as well as how I've worked through them

Starting point is 00:01:12 and the story, science, and practical application of the more than 700 people I've interviewed over the past 11 years. I think this book could change your life. If you read it and implement the key actions shared in each chapter, I think it could be transformational. for you. Now, much more to come, but please go to LearningLeader.com and pre-order the price of becoming

Starting point is 00:01:38 right now. I would be so grateful. Thank you so much for your support. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes, go to Learningleader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader

Starting point is 00:02:06 Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. He's a serial entrepreneur and best-selling author of many books. He's built and sold multiple companies, advised on boards, and become one of the most provocative voices in business

Starting point is 00:02:22 and culture today. This is his fourth appearance on the Learning Leader show. His first time was more than seven years ago. During our conversation, we discuss how he's become more resilient to criticism and the specific mindset shift that made it possible. Then we talked about the role his mom played in building his confidence and how that shapes how he leads other people today. Then we talked about storytelling and why it's the most underrated skill in business. And finally, Scott shared what he wants his kids to say about him someday and whether his current life is actually building poor.

Starting point is 00:03:00 that we want all over the place, both personal and professional, my favorite kind of conversations. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy. My conversation with Scott Galloway. Scott, so this is your fourth time on the Learning Leaders show.

Starting point is 00:03:17 First time is episode 272. Seven years ago. I'm curious. I think you're a pretty self-aware guy. What have you gotten better at, noticeably, over the past seven years? I think I'm less sensitive or more immune to criticism.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Really? Yeah, it used to really upset me. A couple of times, people would say something about me, critical of me online or what I felt was unfair and it would really upset me. It still upsets me a little less so. I mean, on a personal level, you have kids, Ryan, right? So mine are 15 and 18, and when they're little, it's hard to imagine they're ever going to leave.

Starting point is 00:03:59 and now my oldest just got admitted to college and some kind of following him around the house. I think I've gotten a greater understanding of the finite nature of life. I think that happens as you get older for most of our species' existence on this planet. We died at the age of 35, so we can't really imagine we're going to live that long. So time goes faster than you think. So I think I have a better appreciation for time. I think I've gotten a little bit, or at least recently, I'm a little bit more trying to rediscover my taste for public failure. I'm trying to do more actions off the keyboard instead of just barking into a mic.

Starting point is 00:04:37 But yeah, I got a little bit more apiece with myself, I think. But that's a thoughtful question. I think I would need to ruminate on it longer. There's a couple quotes from an Esquire story I read about you recently, and this actually makes me think of one of them. So I want to bring it up and hear you riff on a little bit more. You said, if you want your life to last longer, if you want to be more and, formed about what you find interesting, what you find moving, what you find funny, what things really give you joy. You need to lean into your emotions. Otherwise, you're not sleepwalking

Starting point is 00:05:05 through life. You're sleep sprinting. That part hit me. You won't have experienced a lot. For me, this is a deliberate attempt to turn my 80 or 90 years on this planet into 150. Can you say more about that? Yeah, well, there's research that if you want life to go fast, just spend it alone and have a routine and never bust out of that routine because what makes life interesting is diversity and people because people are complicated and relationships are complicated. So I have no desire to go to India. It's never been something I'm interested in, but I'm going to India because I want to slow my life down and I want to market. I want to see the Taj Mahal or a bangle tiger with my kids. I'm an introvert. I'm very, it's very easy for me to stay home. I'd like to stay home tonight and

Starting point is 00:05:52 take an edible and watch Netflix. Instead, I'm meeting friends out who are in town. And it'll mark the time. So doing things that are unusual, that take you out of your routine, travel, relationships, that just slow time down. And then the other thing is, I try to laugh out loud. I try to absorb when I'm upset and lean into my emotions,

Starting point is 00:06:16 good and bad, because it just sort of marks the day and slows things down. Otherwise, if you get up every morning, do the same thing, eat the same thing, have the same relationship, the weeks is going to go really fast. And so I try to be disruptive around my time and do a lot of different things and push myself. But really, if I see something that moves me,

Starting point is 00:06:37 I try and stop, think about it, ask myself why it moves me, and try and cement that moment in my brain and just slow time down. Because it's just, I don't know the term as asymptotic. It just starts falling off of it. a cliff. You're going to see this months or months when you're 30, then in your 40s, they become weeks, and then in your 50s, they become days. And so I'm purposely trying to come up with a series of hacks around slowing time down. It seems that creating novel events. It's like when you go on

Starting point is 00:07:08 vacation, sometimes, even though they're great, I went on vacation with friends recently last summer, one of my buddies, Darren Stokes, who was with me, goes, man, it feels like we've been here forever. And it was beautiful. We were in the Bahamas. It was amazing. But it's because we were doing, things that we never do. And I think creating novel moments, I sense that you are really optimizing for novel. Yeah, that's a thoughtful way of putting it. Routine and the Rote, speed up time. And I like what you said, the novel and artisanship and emotion, slow it down. Yeah. So I try to do that. I love it. I mean, I listen to all your shows. I've told you this for years. And one of the things I know you get a lot of feedback on that I'll double down on is when you share your

Starting point is 00:07:50 And when you talk about your family and when you talk about your mom, you talked about your dad, one of the things you said about your mom, you said every time she'd revisit her will, she would put a little post it in it because she knew eventually I, meaning you, was going to read it. She would write notes saying, quote, you're the best thing in my life. And then she would write one, two months later that say, still are. I mean, that really moved me, man. And my parents are still my heroes to this day. And so it's cool to read that.

Starting point is 00:08:21 How did having someone like your mom impact you as a man, as a leader, as somebody who is going to make a difference in the world as someone that had so much belief in you? Yeah, another generous question. So I say I'm a middle-aged man who hasn't gone over the death of his mother. And I used to think that maybe I have a problem and I didn't grief counseling. But I kind of hope my kids feel the same way about me. I need to talk about my mom without getting emotional. and it's become, you know, my mom raised me on the salary of a secretary, lived and died, a single-hringerman

Starting point is 00:08:55 mother. But as you get older, you know, the good news is you get more thoughtful, the bad news, you get more thoughtful. And I think it's a good exercise to reverse engineer all of your success to the things that aren't your fault. What are the things that played a role in your success that you had no control over, you know, your luck, your good fortune? In the very first thing for me, it's a lot of things for me. It's got big government. I had assisted launch, Pell Grants, University of California, a technology financed by middle class taxpayers, DARPA, the internet, an incredible capital, deep pools of capital so I could raise money and an appreciation or an acceptance of failure. Most of the shit I've done is I've failed at. And America loves to, you know, forgive, I guess. But going to the very core, my mom every day implicitly and explicitly told me and communicated to me that I had value. And I think that

Starting point is 00:09:47 that built sort of a basic confidence, and that confidence manifests in different ways, whether it's the confidence to fail or approach strangers or believe you're worthy of love or that you'll add value to a company or that you can ask for tens of millions of dollars from someone, because why not? But I think that basic confidence, that initial pillar came from, my mom used to stop me. Like, I remember we used to go to, we used to get Delhi every night at this place called Juniors on Westwood Boulevard every Sunday night. And I was, I remember this, I was in high school about six foot, 130 pounds, terrible acne, you know, not Brad Pitt. Let's just put it that way. And my mom would stop in the middle of dinner and look at me and hold my hand and go, you are so handsome.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Do you know how handsome you are? And it was like, I knew I wasn't, but just this person telling me that, you know, or she would celebrate Sony my victories and there's still something very strange that it's mostly gone away, but are your parents still alive? Mm-hmm. Do you call them when something good happens to you? Yeah, absolutely. So anytime anything good happened to me, I used to call my mom, whether it was getting a bonus or Morgan Stanley or striking up a conversation with a woman at Starbucks and getting

Starting point is 00:11:09 her number, I used to call my mom and say, oh, you know, this happened to me in my mom. You know, it is you can brag to your parents or boast and it's okay. You know, they like to ask in your victory. And after my mom passed for a good decade, when something good happened to me, it's as if it didn't happen. It's the effect it is, is I travel a lot for business and I stay at really nice hotels because someone else is paying. And inevitably, just always, I get upgraded to the penthouse or the George Sank in Paris whenever I'm alone. And you're in some amazing hotel room overlooking the saint or view of Eiffel Tower. But if there's no one there with you, it's like it didn't happen.

Starting point is 00:11:51 If there's no one to share with, it doesn't happen. And for a good decade, when anything good happened to me, it was like it didn't happen because my first instinct was to call my mom and then her celebrating it, cemented it. It actually happened. It was just very strange to have this reflex when ever anything good happened to me, it felt like it didn't because my mom used to cement it. You know, it's kind of everything and you've got to get good at it. You got to call your friends, celebrate their victories, celebrate your own, tell people how much they mean to you. But something I've taken from my mom is just very straightforward.

Starting point is 00:12:28 You know, she was a good friend. She was a kind person. Absolutely the thing I do every day, no matter how much my kids pissed me off or whatever, at some point I find a way to say, I'm proud of you and I love you immensely. You know that, right? And they're They roll their eyes and I'm like, well, you know that, right? And I think that when they're older, I hope that they have that same kind of base or pillar of confidence that I've had my whole life. So, you know, just having someone in your life and every day telling them they mean a lot to you, they can't help but not believe you after a while. So I got that for my mom. I think that without that I probably would have had, and I still have it a little bit, a sense of masculinity that it was being the strong silent type.

Starting point is 00:13:08 But yeah, every day I tell my kids that I just think they're wonderful and they have. value. I think that's an amazing form of leadership. I'll share a little bit more why. When I think about the leaders, coaches, my backgrounds in sports that have impacted me the most, they're the ones that made me believe I was better than I was. They're the ones that pushed me and raised my level of performance higher than I even thought I was capable of. You're a leader within your company and companies you have been your entire career, your leader as a family man, taking what you learn from your mom and her instilling that belief in you. And I sense she truly believed it when she said that. I get that sense. I'm sure you do too, right? She's not just saying it to make you feel

Starting point is 00:13:52 what she believed it. How do you take that, that sense of belief in somebody and lifting them up as you lead people? Let's talk business for a second. You just talk about your boys. So you do that every day with them. How about from a business perspective and instilling belief in others, because you believe in them and you tell them that. Yeah, I've gotten better at it, but I'm still not good at it, but I was bad at it when I was your age. And that is, I thought being a leader was being the smartest person in the room. And I had trouble, especially I think with other men. I had this weird dynamic, and I think it affects a lot of us men, that if we say to a dude,

Starting point is 00:14:30 wow, you look like you're in great shape or you're ripped, you've been working out, or, dude, you're, God, you're handsome. or, you know, you just handled that situation so well, that somehow it takes away from your accomplishment or masculinity, that somehow it's a zero-sum game. And where that, unfortunately, permeated in my professional life is you don't realize there's so much currency you have. If you're in a management role or a leadership role, much less a founder, you have so much currency to pull someone into a conference room

Starting point is 00:15:06 go, you were outstanding in that meeting. I just read this, and I love this paragraph. God, where did you come up with this idea? Like, you worded it so well here. You literally see these people just light up. If you're the founder of a company and they went to work for you, it means that they think you're impressive, whether you're impressive or not, they think you're impressive.

Starting point is 00:15:27 And so what I've tried to be much better at is just a quick email saying, you handled yourself really well there, or this is great work. And I even do it, it's funny, I've gotten to know some, mostly through the podcast, some celebrities. And occasionally, I always used to that, if you're a Sierra or whatever, you get so many compliments,

Starting point is 00:15:48 they don't mean anything to you. Typically, I mean, we're just as fragile and narcissistic as anyone else. So I have a friend of mine who was in the biggest movie of last summer and I wrote to him, I'm like, dude, you just stole the show ho. You're always so outstanding. And he just wrote back and he's like,

Starting point is 00:16:03 why, why did you think that? And thanks so much. And I would think this guy would be like fielding millions of fans. And what you realize is that no matter how famous someone is, they love affirmation as much as anybody else. And the greatest wasted resource in history is good intentions that don't get articulated or good thoughts that don't get articulated. And then if you really want to have a big impact, especially among young people in your

Starting point is 00:16:29 company, when they do something well, just calling them out, especially publicly if you and do it, this is so good, right? Especially with young people, they need watering. It's like having a ton of capital and not spending it. And so the way I would say, I've always run my own companies, and I made the mistake of being a millionaire from a currency standpoint and not spending it. Because for some reason, I had some fucked up sense of insecurity or masculinity that I thought it was a zero-sum game, that if I acknowledged someone else was doing a good job or was impressive, somehow that made me less impressive. And that's a mistake I made. And I think I started to figure that out and course correct around 35 or 40. But what you want in a company, just from a shareholder

Starting point is 00:17:11 perspective, is the team of the best players wins. And half the battle is attracting the best players. But the other 50%, maybe even 51%, is retaining them because it's so expensive to find new good people. And loyalty is a function of compensation. It just is. If you appreciate people, they become loyal to you. And especially if you're good at what you do. And compensation, breaks down into several things. There's obviously economic compensation. There's experience and upskilling, but also just making them feel really good and like they're appreciated. When I worked at Morgan Stanley, I remember going into my year-end reviews. I had no idea. I'm not joking. I thought, okay, I could either be fired or get a 200% bonus, and I wouldn't be totally surprised here. I just have no

Starting point is 00:18:01 fucking idea how I'm doing. I think I'm good at this, but you never got feedback. You know, this was 90s investment banking culture where occasionally someone threw a chair at you or made fun of you. You know, it just wasn't, you got no real feedback unless I was a junior level analyst. You were sort of invisible until you fucked up. You got a lot of feedback when you fucked up. But as I've gotten older, I realize as a manager, if you aren't salting and watering young people with praise when they deserve it. And also, constructive feedback when they fuck up. But feedback, positive and negative, it's incredible compensation. So whenever someone does something good, I try to memo to selfie email. And then when I do their review at the end of the year, it's like, wow, this dude is

Starting point is 00:18:47 paying attention. And that is a form of compensation. Young people, if you give them a really thoughtful review and say, you know what, you've been our treasurer. If you ever want to be a CFO and you want to make more money. You're a single mother. I imagine you want to make more money. You understand them, you know them, you're working. I know you need flexibility. I know you're a single mom. I imagine you want to make more money. You need to take more courses. Here are three courses at NYU Stern. This is what they cost. I'm going to pay for it, but I need you to develop skills around balance sheet accounting. I mean, that person's just going to be loyal to you. That person is going to go, okay, this person is taking an interest in me and understands me and is willing to try and guide me a

Starting point is 00:19:30 bit. My reviews used to be one thing, a check. I took the Morgan Stanley approach. I'm like, people want money. They're good. You give them 60% bonus. They're not good. You give them 30%. Or you give them a zero bonus, which is basically like firing them. Now I realize as much feedback as possible in a thoughtful way. That is, I think, incredible compensation. And also just with, especially with young people praise, it's incredible currency, waste of currency if you don't leverage it. I think it also shows a very healthy culture than when it's a truth-telling environment. And again, friends of mine have helped me with this, but the instant you're thinking something positively about somebody, just tell them, text them, call them, see them, and say it.

Starting point is 00:20:08 If you're thinking it, don't wait, just do it, just say it. Think about when you get those texts. Like you said, this famous movie star who you would assume all he or she's good to go. They're fine. No big deal. And yet they still feel it just like the rest of us, how good it feels when someone says, that was awesome. I loved how you performed in that thing.

Starting point is 00:20:28 I mean, to me, it's just like, oh, I'm thinking it. Say it. Just say it. And then you get like, it creates this amazing dialogue and deepening of a relationship with another person. And ultimately, that's what, as you said, greatness is in the agency of others. That's what life is really all about. Yeah, I'm trying to be better at it because I've been inspired. One of my closest friends, Lee Lotus, he called me. I was on like out of the blue, he called me and said, I was with my uncle and my aunt.

Starting point is 00:20:53 And we were watching an old episode of Bill Maher. And he's like, I just can't tell you how proud of you I am. dudes don't speak to each other that way. He used to come over to my fraternity and we bombed to Will Rogers Beach in his 1984 Honda Civic and we get ridiculously fucking high and just sit on the beach and look at the sunset. And he's like, do you ever think you were going to be doing this?

Starting point is 00:21:14 He's like, it's just so incredible. And I can't tell you how meaningful that is. It just stops you in your tracks, right? And so I've tried to take a note from his playbook and reach out to people, even when you don't know them as well as you think you might need to, you know, and just say, wow, you're such an impressive person. You're so good at what you do. And I'm trying to get much better at that.

Starting point is 00:21:42 And you know, what you realize is there's this sort of this cartoon of grandparents who are like, oh, you're so good at this. And oh, you're such an impressive young woman. What you realize is they get it, right? They figured it out. That's all there is. We're a species that cooperates and relationships, your happiness is a functionary relationships. And so to not express affection and admiration is just like, you know, it's just this unbelievable, a wasted resource.

Starting point is 00:22:14 So, yeah, I'm glad you brought this up, but it's something, it's a reminder. I still sometimes think we have a tendency to think other people are telepathic and that, okay, I love this person and I think they're, Wonderful. They must sense it. Well, no, they don't sense it. I mean, yeah, articulate it. I can guarantee that when you're on your deathbed, you're not going to think, oh, shit, I gave too much praise of work and I told too many people how much they meant to me. That's just not going to happen. Yeah. Speaking of Bill Maher, Scott, I always kind of feel bad for the person that's sitting next to you when you're on that show. And sometimes even Bill, because...

Starting point is 00:22:50 Oh, on. Well, no. So there's some of them where you get a full-on applause after every single response or answer to a question. And the other person sitting there like, they had that weird look on their face like, who is this guy? How is he? Like, it's funny. It's like you have this probably conversations with the people who edit your podcast where you're talking about clips, right? Because clips are such a big deal. And there are certain guests that they're just clip machines. So this is like inside baseball lingo I have with my team of people who are my clip machines. Scott Galloway is like the number one clip machine in the world. James Clear, Morgan Housels, Cat Cole, Scott Galloway. I would say those are the

Starting point is 00:23:26 people in my mind that are clip machines, which leads me to a question, Scott, and that is around becoming an effective communicator because leaders, this is mandatory now. I don't think this is optional to become a great storyteller, to be able to communicate ideas, to be able to inspire and move people. You are as good at this as anybody I've talked to. Some of it's probably you're born with it. I know you've talked about your dad was really good at this, but how can someone who isn't maybe born with as much talent or skill as you get better at becoming an effective communicator where they become clip machines essentially. Well, again, you're being generous, but two things, Mar and then being a good storyteller.

Starting point is 00:24:08 So I have a huge ego. The Bill Maher format, I do a lot of media. I get really nervous before Bill Maher. I thought I was going to throw up the first time. Really? I thought I was going to throw up on the desk. It doesn't look like it. God, I'm so nervous on the show. My dad only watched two things on TV.

Starting point is 00:24:24 Maple Leafs Hockey. and Bill Maher. So every time I'm on, I think my dad's watching and I get very nervous. And the format is pretty intense. You come out on that. You know, they roll up the desk and Bill's not afraid to get in your face

Starting point is 00:24:36 and you can say something in articulate too bad. It's a very intense environment. But it's a format that's kind of well-suited for my sort of terse comments. And I'm an egomaniac. I go on after and I see all these nice comments and it makes me feel really good. And then one time I went on

Starting point is 00:24:54 with Jessica Tarloff. And immediately after the show, I immediately go to the YouTube to get the comments and I hear, all I see is Jess is a superstar. Jess is amazing. And I'm like, fuck. I just got so upset.

Starting point is 00:25:05 I want to have a podcast with her now. I know. And that's what I did. I called her and I said, I'm just so bummed out that everyone appears to love you more than me. So can we start a podcast together? And that gave rise to the Raging Moderates podcast.

Starting point is 00:25:20 If I could get my kid one thing, keep in mind, 10 years ago, we were trying to get all our kids to take computer science and Mandarin. That has not worked out. But the one enduring skill, I think, is storytelling. Your ability to find a mate, attract friends, attract cheap capital, get people to come to work for you, invest in you, is around your ability to look at data and develop a narrative arc and then express it in a compelling way. And I don't know if it's 49 or 51% nature versus nurture or genetics versus practice, but I have an unfair advantage because for 22 years,

Starting point is 00:25:52 I've stood in front of 160 fairly discriminating people who are paying a lot of money. And I have to tell them a story for 80 minutes nonstop. And it has to be worth it's 160 kids. You know, they're basically playing like $130,000 in tuition just for that one night. So you can't just show up and tell war stories. So you have to be an effective communicator. I got a lot of practice. I've taught 4,500 students over 22 years.

Starting point is 00:26:18 I get a ton of practice telling stories and obviously podcasting. If you want to be an effective storyteller, I would say the one basic, the stem of storytelling is the ability to write well. I think it forces you to manage your thoughts, think things through. So I think it's difficult to be a great storyteller if you can't write at a competent level. Now, in terms of developing those skills, what I would suggest is look at every medium, whether it's texting, LinkedIn, short form video, TikTok, long form writing, magazine article like writing, writing books, speaking, small groups. go through every medium and rank yourself and listen to yourself and decide what is my specialty and then go very deep around one and say, I am really good. For example, I'm good speaking in front of groups.

Starting point is 00:27:04 I'm not great one-on-one. I come across as aloof and insecure at the same time when I meet with people one-on-one. I'm just not, I'm not that effective. Are you sure that's true? I'm not strong. I'm much better. In front of a group of 1,000 people, I'm charming and likable. And I don't think I'm either of those things one-on-one.

Starting point is 00:27:21 I think people are genuinely disappointed to the downside when they meet me in small groups. I think I'm going to be much more interesting than I am. And then I'm not good on the phone. I've listened to myself on the phone. I'm not very good on the phone. Figure out your medium. There are so many different mediums. Figure out what you're great out.

Starting point is 00:27:38 It might be podcasting. Some people give, you know, I say they give great text. Whatever it is, are you visual storyteller and commit to being in the top 1%. So in my class, I say, pick a social media platform. I don't care if it's LinkedIn or TikTok, find out what you need to be in the top 1%. And I say by the end of the semester, you need to be in the top 1%. And a lot of people pick LinkedIn and say, I need to come up with a very niche content, business strategy for producing content, and we track it.

Starting point is 00:28:05 So it's developing a platform. In this resistant unsubscribe, I did the analysis to, I'm getting about 60 to 100,000 Uniques a day. To do that from a standing start, I would have to invest $4 to $8 million in keywords. So the ability to build your platforms by understanding storytelling and more specifically what type of storytelling resonates by the medium is an unbelievable asset. I think if you're a young person you want to be influential or economically secure, social media may make you want to shower after you use it.

Starting point is 00:28:34 It has been bad for my mental health. But in terms of economic power and influence, it's frightening how powerful social is right now. So rank every different medium you participate in, where you have skills, and then identify and challenge yourself to be in the top 10% within a year and the top 1% within three years, you're in the top 1% of podcasts or 1.6 million podcasts, 600,000 put out content every week. If you're in the top 6,000, you're in the top 1%,

Starting point is 00:29:02 you're probably at the top 0.1%. So it makes sense for you to go very deep around podcasting to invest in audio quality, producers, and say, okay, if I can be in the top 0.1% of storytelling in this medium, podcasting, I can make a good living and have a lot of influence. And then also around storytelling, the reality is your efforts are going to be inversely correlated to the size of the screen. And that is, if you're a great storyteller and you think I want to tell, I want to make documentary films, you don't need to be in the 0.1%.

Starting point is 00:29:32 You need to be in the 0.01%. The big screen is returning terrible, or terribly, I should say. TV, still a huge business, but it's kind of flat. but if you can produce content that is mostly digested off of the phone, whether it's a podcast or a short form video, that's champagne and cocaine. So that's the overlay. But if I could give my kids any one skill that I think is going to be enduring, it would be storytelling.

Starting point is 00:29:58 And that's what I do. My core confidence is storytelling. My superpower is attracting and retaining people that help leverage my skills. But yeah, it's kind of everything. You mentioned resist and unsubscribe. I think a lot of people, when we initially heard this, I like, really? Like, Scott, this seems rather ambitious. Is it even going to make a dent?

Starting point is 00:30:18 I don't know. Like, there's a lot of cynics out there. And you've stayed strong. It seems like it's making a big impact. But can you describe what is it, what it is, why you want to do? Because you could focus on anything and you're focusing a lot on this. Yeah, I would have just loved to hear what brought you to this point, how it's going, and how you wanted to go on beyond February.

Starting point is 00:30:39 I've typically been able to disassociate from politics. And when I saw Secretary Nome describe Alex Prattie and ICU nurse taking care of veterans as a domestic terrorist and say he was banishing a weapon with intent to massacre federal agents, it really rattled me. And Dan Harris from 10% Happier has this great saying that action absorbs anxiety. And I thought, okay, I'm sick of being so virtuous in action, you know, in courageous on a keyboard or a mic, I need to do something. And I think I understand the markets and economics. and I thought, what people don't realize is they have this weapon hiding in plain sight, and that is their spend or lack thereof. And that is the most radical act in a capitalist society is not participation.

Starting point is 00:31:20 And that is, if you look back to when the government most quickly responded and the scale of its response, it was six years ago when it flushed trillions of dollars in the economy and changed laws, not because 10,000 of people who were done it from COVID, but because the GDP crashed 31%. And if you look at when the president backs away from plans to annex Greenland or what feel like irrational tariffs, it's when either the bond market or the stock market goes down. So I thought, okay, how do you send a signal to be the market? 40% of the S&P is now determined by just 10 companies.

Starting point is 00:31:54 And those 10 companies, the soft issue there is they are especially sensitive to subscription growth or lack thereof. So I said, all right, we have a weapon hiding in plain sight. And that is you can get maximum leverage or impact with a minimal amount of consumer disruption by unsubscribing. So for example, if you unsubscribe from the paid version of chat GPT, which is $240, they're raising money at 40 times revenue, that's a $10,000 hit to their market cap. So what I'm trying to do is send a signal to Americans that maybe you don't need three streaming media of music companies. If you like me, you go onto AT&T's site, you might find that you have four AT&T contracts,

Starting point is 00:32:29 three of which are for BlackBerrys and iPads that have been in landfills for eight years. and that if enough people send a signal, even if it has a minimal, minimal impact on the subscription growth of these companies or gain some attention from media platforms such as this one, I want to create an incentive structure that's more balanced. I think these companies have figured or determined that the incentive structure is to enable the president, keep quiet, and he will give you passes from tariffs, enable you, maybe even provide debt financing for your data centers, whatever it might be. But I think at a minimum, I want to create an incentive structure that says there is a downside to enabling the president

Starting point is 00:33:12 when you yourself are texting people like me saying you hate yourself. So, well, that's not doing us a lot of good. So the idea is how do you have maximum impact with a minimal amount of consumer disruption? It is, I want to be clear, it's kind of one bite at a time. I don't think I have changed the behavior of any of these companies, but I've heard from probably 20, 20% of the CEOs. And just as an analogy, the most famous economic strike, I believe in the US was the Montgomery bus strike. And there was a cinematic moment that people remember

Starting point is 00:33:43 where a brave young woman refused to give up her seat. But actually what fomented change was an 11-month carpooling effort organized by Dr. King, where thousands of carpools shuttled people to work. And the municipal bus system was losing a quarter of a million dollars a month. And after 11 months, they decided to change or desegregate their bus system. So I wanted to do something. I wanted to send a signal. I wanted to try and change incentive structure. I think we've accomplished the first. I don't think we've accomplished the second, but at a minimum it feels really good to be doing something with other people. We'll end up with probably two million unique visitors to the site. As you probably know, I've been just a total media whore. We've been everywhere. And I like to think we're having an impact. And even if it's just a a gnat on an elephant, enough gnats will take down an elephant.

Starting point is 00:34:36 What's it look like moving forward? Yeah, that's a really good question, right? And I'm very open to ideas. It's taken a lot of my time. And I thought, okay, it was meant to be just for February, but it feels like it's building momentum. And so I don't know if I evolve it, like, you know, make it like meta-march or, you know, focus on a smaller group of companies from March, or I just keep it going.

Starting point is 00:34:58 Or I say, I'm going to leave the side up. Here's links to make it easy to unsublishment. subscribe and I pull back from it and maybe empower some other people or some other resistance sites. There's a bunch of them out there. So I'm trying to work through that. But I just agreed to do an event in Minneapolis called the Resistant Unsubscribe event where we'll sell out the Pentages theater there and probably get 1,200 people. So, you know, the reality is I'm not, I'm not entirely sure what to do. We've established a lot of momentum.

Starting point is 00:35:27 I'm curious how it affects you, actually, because you've openly stated how. how it's created, I think, a lot of people online to say bad things about you. And maybe you've done a good job of not looking at those things. I know that's hard to do. That's what I was curious about is, would you have to hand something like this off, even though you're the reason that it's gained momentum because of whether it's the CEOs of these powerful people, these billionaires, or whoever, now you get invited to those events.

Starting point is 00:35:59 I know you've gone to some of them. I think you call them the Masters of the Universe events. I wondered how it's affecting you in those rooms with some of those people. They're like, Scott, you're one of us. Like, what are you doing, dude? Let somebody else do that. How has that been for you? Yeah, well, so first off, there is no battle without casualties.

Starting point is 00:36:18 And on the whole, it's been, I think, positive for me emotionally. It feels good to do something. I was in Switzerland last week, and I had, on average, two or three people a day come up to me fist pump me or high five me and say, resist and unsubscribe. Wow. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from people. I've had two speaking gigs canceled. And they said it's not because we don't agree.

Starting point is 00:36:42 It's just you're sort of politically hot. I had the largest software company in the firm headquartered in Seattle, which will go nameless, call me this morning and say, they spent about three quarters of a million dollars, either each quarter or each six months on my podcast, say, we're going to wait and see, we're going to pause the campaign and see what you're doing in March, which to me is basically saying, look, boss, I get it. That's the right. They get to advertise or not advertise. But I just saw that blatantly as them saying, look, we're not going to advertise if you continue to try and encourage people to unsubscribe. So look, nothing's for free, but

Starting point is 00:37:23 one of my role models is Sam Harris, and he has this great saying that comforts me and that is if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, and I have both those things, then you have an obligation to speak out and speak your mind because most people don't have that luxury. I believe what's going on here in our government is wrong. I want to do something more than just vote or even go to a protest. I feel like I'm in a position on my platform and make a difference. And if I lose some speaking gigs or some of the people who I hang out with, I don't get invited to their dinner parties or they call me and kind of read me the riot act, although most call me and say, I've heard from about 20% of the CEOs. They'll call and say the following. We get what you're doing. You got to understand it's difficult for us to go first. We have an obligation to shareholder value. I mean, they're very smooth.

Starting point is 00:38:11 They're not threatening. With drawing advertising is sort of a call it a passive aggressive that I understand, though, that they're like, why are we financing this effort? But I would say on the whole, it feels really good to be doing something, Ryan. I mean, and the downside, you know, I went on pure. Pierce Morgan the other night and they had a MAGA guy, forget his name, saying, you're being unpatriotic and desperate. Like it's pathetic what you're doing.

Starting point is 00:38:38 And you run the risk of public failure and embarrassment if you throw a party and no one shows up or you lose all your advertisers, that would be bad. But my attitude now and it goes back to time is I'm gonna be dead soon. Is this all going really fast? Am I gonna look back and think, oh fuck, I lost Microsoft as a sponsor?

Starting point is 00:38:58 Or some people on the right thought this was stupid and unpatriotic. And other people thought it was kind of like roll their eyes or that it was, you know, kind of a waste. Or am I going to think, you know, right on. I tried to do something. I think it's going to be the latter. I want to show up with a carpool and try and make a difference. And whether it's, I'm showing up on a moped or I'm showing up with a tractor trailer, depending on the success of this movement, I want to be that guy.

Starting point is 00:39:27 I want to be someone who was unafraid. You know, some of my heroes, whether it's Hillary Clinton or Muhammad Ali, or the people I admire, I was just at a, this can sound douchy. I was at a restaurant, opera ski, and, you know, life of privilege. This couple, they obviously fucked up. They got up and they started dancing. In a place that's a ton of alcohol and people start dancing on tables and they dance as if no one is watching. That's how I want to live my life. I want to be a little fucked up and I want to dance.

Starting point is 00:39:57 like no one is watching. Like, okay, if you're sober, you're like, oh, those people look ridiculous to be dancing. You know, you know what? You're just like really enjoying life in doing what they want to do. I want to live life that way. I want to, if I make some mistakes,

Starting point is 00:40:13 I lose some money, so be it. I want to be that guy that was like, yeah, I was like ready, fire fucking aim on this thing called life. It's like a closer, but I do have a few more questions. One of them that I've heard you talk about recently, recently, it's really cool to see what's going on with Profi markets and how it's gone from nothing to now. It feels like a really big time thing. You and Ed talked about that you were

Starting point is 00:40:39 going to try to get ProfG, the media company, built up so you could sell it for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. And I thought, that's kind of weird because Prop G is you. Why would you want to do that? Why wouldn't you want to keep it as your kind of megaphone, your you built this amazing platform, why would you want to sell something like that? One of my capitalists, I'm insecure about money and I'm always looking for another exit. I try to be very transparent about my ambitions. I've heard you say that before, but that still surprises me because then what? You've built this thing that's your microphone from nothing.

Starting point is 00:41:18 The first time we recorded, you had not had that yet. And now you have something that's potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars just basically from you. you talking into a microphone and on stages and writing books and all that other stuff, YouTube videos, whatever, you've won. You've kind of won. Why the need for another cash out when you've already cashed out tons? Yeah, so it's a couple things. One, I'm just wired that way, where I want to have enterprise value and build value. And even if I end up, I'm at a point now, I think we've talked about it. I hit my number seven, 10 years ago now, and I, every year, I look at how much money I have above that and I either spend it or I give it away. So the money

Starting point is 00:41:55 isn't profound for me. It's still meaningful because I still have economic security, even though unless I really fuck up, I'll be fine. But in order to scale, I think businesses are like sharks. If they're not moving forward and growing, they're dying. And also, the key to building a big business, the team of the best players wins. The only way, at least for me, I've been able to find really talented people and get them to act like owners is to make them owners. So I give equity away. I've never sold a company owning more than, you know, I usually give away between 30 or 40 and 70% of the company. And what I do is I sit down the people, especially the really talented ones, and you spot them.

Starting point is 00:42:33 This is politically incorrect, but I think 10% of your employees at 120% of the value and the other 90% are negative 20. That's not to say you don't need them, but in every organization, there are just some people who are driving just so much value. And what I do is I sit them down and I say, okay, this is the company. This is how we're going to build it together. and I'm going to give you 3% of the company or 5% of the company. I'm going to sell it for three to six times revenues, which means you're going to get this much money. And I have a history of getting these things to exits.

Starting point is 00:43:01 I find that is the only way to really hold on to outstanding people. And I think one of the mistakes that founders make is like, I'm making a shit ton of money, I have a nice life, and this is fun for you, so you're going to be fine. No, young people, especially the young people I try to attract, they have the same ambitious goals around economic security that you have. It's like, well, Scott, you're not the only person that wants to fly private someday. You're not the only person that wants to give away a bunch of money to philanthropy.

Starting point is 00:43:28 You know, I do too. And so what I do is I say, okay, and by the way, what you described was the first three or four years of the business. I thought it was done, a fun thing, maybe a little bit of influence, maybe a nice living, run my life still through the expenses, just sort of a nice little business. And then it started scaling more right place, right time than anything because podcasting has taken off. So to create enterprise value, I have to create voices other than mine. So China decode, I'm not on it, property market, I'm on one day a week, even though it's five days a week.

Starting point is 00:44:03 Raging Moderates is going to five days a week, I'll be on two of the five. So I'm trying to diversify a little bit away from Scott where I'll be able to point to 60 or 70 percent of the revenue. I will not touch. then we'll probably launch another one or two podcasts in the next 12 months. But I think it is very difficult to retain really talented young people without the prospect of an exit that will build real economic value for them. Also, I just enjoy it. I think I'm good at it. I've had two exits. I find it fascinating. I want to go after CNBC. I think we're going to be 80% of NBC with 10% of the

Starting point is 00:44:44 means of production costs, we now have bigger audiences than them in the core demographic, because it's basically their average viewership, I think, is 67. Our average viewership is age 34, and that's who advertisers want to reach. So I'm very focused on how to create enterprise value and create something that's saleable. Now, if I sell it, let's be honest, that doesn't mean anyone's going anywhere. No one's going to buy us and give us a bunch of money just for a bunch of mics and production equipment. We're all going to have to sign four or five year agreements. And that's been the way in almost every firm I've sold, but I'm very focused on enterprise value. I want to enjoy myself and I want to create economic security for other people at this point.

Starting point is 00:45:23 So I am very focused on enterprise value. I don't want to have a company where people come in, work for two years and then go somewhere else. I want to have a place where I can find super talented people and say to them, okay, this is how I'm going to make you a millionaire in the next four years. It makes a lot of sense, especially around attracting people that are very, very talented. the young ones who you want to have like, oh, they have big upside. They have lottery tickets that they're investing in. One of the other things that came up recently is,

Starting point is 00:45:51 I thought it was Deon Sanders quote, and I think it applies. What he said is look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, pay good. You've been open about getting cosmetic surgery recently. And I don't know any guys who are open about that. Literally, I don't know any. You're the first one.

Starting point is 00:46:12 and you're on camera all the time. One, what made you want to do that? And why be so open about it? I regret being open about it because it's become a meme online and it's a bit embarrassing. Has it? Well, I mean, people in my comments, I don't know. I try to live my life transparency. That's probably, that was probably too much information.

Starting point is 00:46:31 But basically, I have pretty serious dark circles around my eyes. As someone who's always had a little bit of body dysmorphia, it became something I could, it's the only thing I could see when I was on TV. I decided to get it fixed. But yeah, and I talked very openly about it. I would bet within 10 years, 50% of men over the age of 50 who have money, we're going to have shit done.

Starting point is 00:46:53 Absolutely. I don't blame anybody. Guy, girl, you have to look at that person every single day multiple times. If you don't feel good about it or there's something, maybe a small thing that you don't feel good about, why not?

Starting point is 00:47:06 I don't regret it. I'm not sure I should have been as open about. it but yeah I did it it was pretty easy and I would say to anybody you know do it makes you feel good about yourself and also it's not it's not easy being mediocre looking it takes real effort yeah I also think I probably suffer a little bit from I grew up very very skinny with bad acne I think maybe I'm a little little too focused or a little too self-conscious about my looks and I I really feel for young women in the age of Instagram I just can't imagine how they're not

Starting point is 00:47:40 obsessed with their looks because the benchmark just keeps getting higher and higher and more unreasonable. I do think, though, you've said this, but America and maybe the world is ageist and looksist. You can act like that's bad to say, and it's not correct, but it's true. It just is, especially if you're going to be on stages and on TV and on video all the time, if you look old or out of shape, again, this sounds terrible, but I think People will start hire another people unless you're just remarkably, remarkably talented as a storyteller. So you still probably have a shot. But I just think that's the reality of the world we live in.

Starting point is 00:48:20 We don't want to talk about it. New York is the ultimate tip of the spirit for a capitalist society. And it's optimized for two people. Hot women and rich guys. For everyone else, it's a soul-crushing experience. And we can talk about the way the world should be and the way the world is. That's the way the world is. And it's a little less awful in the corporate world and in other parts of the world because they're not as loxist or as ageist.

Starting point is 00:48:40 But, you know, I coach a lot of young men. I'm like, start working out. A, it's just good for your head. Women and employers are attracted to big muscles or a guy who's in shape or someone who's in shape, not because it looks good, which it does, but because it reflects that you show up, that you have discipline, that you can commit to something. And we live in an age now where there's just so much emphasis in so many unreasonable expectations. and we're really agist. My last company was an analytics company, and I hired a developer who was maybe 47, 48,

Starting point is 00:49:15 and most of my developers were in their 20s. And it was such a weird vibe. He'd be in a meeting, and it was this, I sensed like all the other young people were like, dude, what happened? Well, you're not running a tech company by now? Like, what happened? Like, oh, you know, to be that age

Starting point is 00:49:30 and not be in charge of everything was, you know, you had fucked up, if you will. Look, there's the way the world should be, there's a way the world is, and I think you do the best with what you have. I think it's super important. I coach a lot of young men, and I have something called the Rule of Threes. I hate, and I'm venturing into other waters here, I hate the in-cell movement, because if you look throughout history, through 99% of men through 99% of history have been

Starting point is 00:49:57 involuntarily celibate. There's very few things any man in the world right now would rather be doing than having sex. And women have a much finer filter for mates than men. So throughout history, only 40% of men have reproduced, 80% of women. So it's like, okay, welcome to the human species where the majority of us are involuntarily celibate. It's better in the America, in Western Europe and America, 75% of men get an opportunity to reproduce. But I hate this movement where you just sort of resign yourself to, well, it's women's fault,

Starting point is 00:50:28 they're choosier, and it's like a badge of honor. I just, I'm involuntarily celibate. Oh, fuck that. You're a V-cell. You're voluntarily. And what I say is the rule of threes, if you work out three times a week or more, if you spend at least 30 hours a week working outside of the house, and you put yourself in the company of strangers working on the agency of something bigger than yourself, church group,

Starting point is 00:50:51 nonprofit, sports league, whatever it might be, just by doing those three things, you put yourself in the top 5% of attractiveness of young males. And if you're in the top 5% for long enough and you develop the skills to approach people and express friendship and romantic interest while making them feel safe, and most importantly, you get used to know. Anyone who's had great yeses has had a shit ton of nose. There were hundreds of nos for you to get to a top podcast, right?

Starting point is 00:51:17 My guess is you probably have a great partner. That involved a lot of nose along the way. You get used to know. If you can be in the top 5% and learn how to mourn and move on from rejection, at some point, I tell this to the young men I mentor, you will be voluntarily insolibate, which is fucking awesome.

Starting point is 00:51:35 So all these men claiming to be in cells, no, you have given up you're lazy or full of shit. You're voluntarily celibate. And welcome to the fucking work week boss. We all had to work hard to find good jobs. No one has the right to a living. No one has the right to reproduce. If you want to score above your class economically or romantically, well then get out a big spoon and get ready to eat shit. It's what every one of us has done.

Starting point is 00:52:00 And for some reason, you've decided to like blame the world or immigrants or women for your economic or your romantic problems. Fuck that. Level up. One more question. Love it. This is the champagne question for my friend Jason Gaynor. Scott, we're meeting a year from right now, one year. Or you're with, let's say you're with your boys and your wife and you're celebrating. You're popping bottles. You got champagne everywhere. It's going crazy. What are you celebrating? God, so funny. Two things immediately popped in my mind. My son just got into college and I'm just constantly worried about my boys, Ryan. I didn't worry about them when they were little unless they were sick. They were just safe and they were home. And now I'm just worried about them all the time.

Starting point is 00:52:43 I'm just, are they doing okay at school? One's quiet. Is he okay? I don't know if it's them or I'm just getting more anxious as I get older. But my kid just got into a fantastic university. We're so proud of him. I'd be celebrating his first year, having fun, good friend group, a couple dates, got his heartbroken, maybe broke someone's heart, went to a bunch of football games, and was gearing up for his sophomore year. That to me would just be an incredible victory. And then, too, to be blunt, I'm very focused on Democrats taking back control of Congress. I'm going to spend a lot of my time, treasure, and talent. I'm moving back to the U.S. because I want to be, quote, unquote, part of the resistance. I'm very upset about the state of America right now,

Starting point is 00:53:29 and I would imagine a lot of your listeners don't agree with me. But I feel as if everything that got me or almost everything they got, you know, it's easy to credit your grit and your character for your success. But as you get older, you get more thoughtful. And as we referenced during the show, I reverse engineer to government programs, respect for immigrants, immigrants built my companies, massive investment in technologies, competitive markets where the government didn't weigh in and pick winners and losers, assisted lunch. My mom, I speak openly about this when I was 17 and I got into UCLA.

Starting point is 00:54:02 was just me and my mom, my mom terminated a pregnancy. And if we'd live somewhere in the South and she'd been forced to carry a baby to term, I wouldn't have been able to go to college. I would have had to support my mom and a newborn. So all of these things that put me in this seat with you here now, I feel like a lot of them are under attack. And I find it very rattling.

Starting point is 00:54:21 And I also think men my age, I'm older than you, but if you're a white heterosexual male born in the 60s, you've had unfair prosperity. You've had an unearned advantage. I've had literally fucking hurricane, wins in my sales. I got to go to UCLA when it had a 74% admission rate. I got undergrad and grad seven years of college for $7,000 in tuition. I got into Berkeley graduate school with an undergraduate GPA of 2.27 GPA. You're talking about a different time. I have raised hundreds of

Starting point is 00:54:50 millions of dollars in capital because of these deep, deep capital pools because of rule of law and fair competition and not the government weighing in and deciding who should get to acquire Warner Brothers or who didn't. As I said, said, immigrants built all my companies, you know, best people my companies from Canada, from Afghanistan, from Argentina. I feel like everything that got me here to this point today is under attack and that I have, and I think if you're a man my age who has had not been called to serve in Vietnam, this is basically the story of my life as it relates to America. Unprecedented historic prosperity with the lowest taxes in history. That describes my

Starting point is 00:55:30 relationship with America. So I have a debt. And so I want to get very involved in restoring what I think of the traditional values. It gave me so much prosperity. To summarize, I want to make America America again. And so for me, it would be celebrating my boys' freshman year at college and the Democrats taking back control of Congress. I think the overwhelming number of people in America, Scott, are independent, they're raging moderates. I really do. Show me a moderate Republican. I'll give money.

Starting point is 00:56:08 Yeah, I like the Tala Ricos of the world. I mean, I just think so many are in that boat. And so they're kind of homeless. We're probably going to lurch to the left, unfortunately. But anyways. Yeah, but my point is just like, I think, what do people want? I think they just want reasonable people. 100%.

Starting point is 00:56:25 That's what we want, right? We want someone who's just reasonable. Yeah. honestly don't care what letter is by somebody's name. I would just like someone to be. Bill Mitt Romney and George Bush seem really like, well, right now. I mean, I'm a hardcore Democrat.

Starting point is 00:56:39 And I look back and like, yeah, I'd be fine with Mitt Romney. I have no, yeah, you know, W, like, probably the worst decision of the 21st century going to Iraq. But other than that, I'm pretty good guy, pretty reasonable. Yeah. And you know, I'm almost as unpopular on the far left as I am on the far right. The far right thinks I'm a Libtar,

Starting point is 00:56:54 the far left thinks I'm gonna pass day. And to your point, unless we have, have real structural reform around gerrymandering or Citizens United, we're just going to end up with extremists on the left. I didn't tee you all that that question was coming, but I love that your first thought too was about your family. I think that's really cool. That makes me feel good. Scott, where would you send my viewers, listeners to learn more about you online? Fuck, right. I'm everywhere. It's more where can we send them to avoid me? I'm like AOL in the 90s. You stick your hand in a cereal box. You're going to pull out an AOL disc. I'm everywhere.

Starting point is 00:57:26 I, Prof. Galloway, my newsletter, all my podcasts, to resist is futile. I'm over exposed at this point. Well, thank you for choosing to do this one again. Fourth time, I want to keep doing a man because, like I said, I got a jacket on number five. What happens? Yeah, whatever you want. Can we do it in person? Where are you going to be? Are you going to be in Florida, New York? Where are you going to be? Where are you? I'm in Ohio. I travel wherever, though. Ohio. We're in Ohio. Dayton. You lived in Columbus for a little bit, right? Yeah, Worthington. I caddyed a Worthington country. Yeah, I was just there last night with my brother. That's where he lives. So I go there quite a bit. Yeah. I totally see you running for office in Ohio. No, no, no chess. Center right. Right. Ryan, that's my sense of you. Why do you say that? You just strike me as a reasonable guy, a moderate, but you pay sports. I don't know. I'm making a lot of stereotypes right now. I would think you're sort of, I again, my guess would be your center right. I just think of Ohio, family guy, learning leader. I don't know. You tell me. Where are you on the political spectrum?

Starting point is 00:58:23 I don't even know. That's why I said pretty homeless, pretty independent. I think if you actually think for yourself about every single issue, there is no chance you can be one or the other. That's why I don't understand the far ends of it. And when I see that you get hated on by both sides, that's when you know you're probably an independent thinker. Yeah, 100%.

Starting point is 00:58:40 Do you go to South West? No, I've never been. I know you and Kara are going, right? Or your whole team is going. Yeah, my whole team's going. If you ever want to go, I can figure that out. Okay. You love that.

Starting point is 00:58:50 They would love you. Yeah. Yeah. I love Austin. I think Austin's fun. Yeah, it is great. Awesome. Well, thank you.

Starting point is 00:58:55 Yeah, next time I'd love to do it in person, where you end up here. Are you going to move back to Florida? We'll probably split time between Florida and New York. It depends where my kid gets into school. You know, I found out it's harder to get your kid into a high school now than it is into. Oh, your younger one. Yeah, yeah, I have a 15-year-old. So now we've got to start worrying about him.

Starting point is 00:59:14 It never ends. How old are yours? You got a gaggle, right? Yeah, I do. We have five. Our oldest is 19. Our youngest is 11. So all the college stuff, yeah, it's a lot.

Starting point is 00:59:23 lot. It's a lot. It'll work out in terms of the college stuff? It has. You know what? I played sports, so I didn't really do college visits. I just met with the head football coach. And yeah, I like that offense. And so that's why I went to the place where I went. Where did you go to school? So I originally went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and I finished my career at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. It's a mid-American conference. So, you know, very average career, but it was fun. But now I've won on actual college visits with my daughters. And I'm like, this is great. University of Tennessee was fun. Ohio State where one of ours is going to go.

Starting point is 00:59:55 It's like these were so much fun. I was impressed. I loved it. I missed out on that because of sports. Not that I would have ever traded that for anything. But fortunately, the process has been great. I know you went like on a tour with your older one.

Starting point is 01:00:07 I remember hearing about. And it sounds like you guys bonded over those trips. It's great. America does a small number of things really well. Technology, movies with men in capes and tights. We make the best weapons in the world. And hands down, the American University experience land grand, fraternity sororities, fall leaves, football games is singular. And I would say this, everyone, it's a story of privilege, but you have the opportunity to do a college show with your kids.

Starting point is 01:00:33 It's a gift. It is so much fun. And like you said, it's going to make you want to go back. My tour guide from the University of Tennessee, I've literally tried to hire this guy. He's a student body president of the whole school or whatever he's in. And I was blown away by how good. He was funny, you know, perfect timing, exceptionally high EQ, you ethnically ambiguous kids. It's exactly what it was. Yeah. I was like,

Starting point is 01:00:54 this guy's awesome. My daughter's like, she's getting embarrassed. I'm like, what do you mean? He's great. Right? You want to find exceptional people and like find a way to get him to work with you.

Starting point is 01:01:02 That's really the whole game of life and building a business. So anyway, this is awesome. I really appreciate it and look forward to the next one for sure. Thanks, trying. Congrats on all your success. It is the end of the podcast club.

Starting point is 01:01:18 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 you learn from this great conversation with Scott Galloway. A few takeaways from my notes. Slow time down deliberately. Scott talked about how he's become more intentional about creating novel experiences as a way to make life feel richer and longer. The research backs this up.

Starting point is 01:01:49 Action we all can take. put one new experience on your calendar this month. It doesn't have to be a big thing, maybe a new place, new people, new skill. The goal is novelty in trying to create as many of those novel experiences as possible. Next, see it, say it, say the thing now. Whether it's appreciation or a hard truth, people appreciate you letting them know where they stand. When you're thinking something great about someone, tell them, immediately text them, call them, write them a note, say it to him in person.

Starting point is 01:02:25 If something needs to be said, the best time to say it is now. I hadn't heard this quote before, but it makes a lot of sense. Action absorbs anxiety. Scott said it simply, and I think it's one of the more portable takeaways from this entire conversation. When you feel stuck, you don't need a better plan. You need to move. Do one thing today that you've been postponing and notice what happens to how you feel afterward. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and

Starting point is 01:02:55 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 because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show and you rate it. Hopefully five stars and you leave a thoughtful review 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, so much. Talk to your soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 680: Scott Galloway: Action Absorbs Anxiety, Handling the Haters, Becoming an Excellent Storyteller, Reverse Engineering Your Success, The Importance of Novelty, and Why Praise Is the Most Underrated Leadership Tool

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.