The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Can Young Men Find Happiness? (A Lost Boys Special)

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

This August, we’re sharing episodes of Lost Boys in our feed. In this episode, Dan Harris joins Anthony Scaramucci and Scott Galloway to explore why anxiety is hitting young men so hard and what strategies can actually help. Subscribe to Lost Boys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a true story. It happened right here in my town. One night, 17 kids woke up, got out of bed, walked into the dark, and they never came back. I'm the director of Barbarian. A lot of people die in a lot of weird ways. We're not going to find it in the news because the police covered everything all up. On August days.

This is where the story really starts. Weapons. Megan Rapino here. This week on a Touchmore, we are joined by my longtime U.S. Women's National teammate Ali Krieger. We talk about her post-retirement plans, the current generation of soccer players, and, of course, her boots. Sue and I also get into big WMBA trades and share a new workout of the week, one you can do from your own home. Check out the latest episode of A Touchmore wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Hey, everyone, Scott Galloway here.

As part of our Lost Boys series, today's episode is a conversation with Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier. Dan joins Anthony Scaramucci and me to talk about the growing anxiety of my young men and how mindfulness, self-awareness, and redefinition of masculinity can offer a path forward. Let's bust right into it. Welcome to Lost Boys. in this podcast, my friend, Professor Scott Galloway and I dig into the unique challenges young men are facing today and what we can do about it. In this episode, Scott and I talk with Dan Harris, the journalist and author of the best-selling

book 10% Happier. Dan is a smart guy who has put a lot of thought into how we can all manage the stress and anxiety in our lives, something that's very important for young men today. We talk about the hit Netflix series, Everyone is talking about. Adolescence. And we get some great advice from Dan on how young men and all of us can be more socially engaged. Here's my conversation with Scott Galloway and Dan Harris. So joining us now on Lost Boys is Dan Harris. He's a former co-anchor of ABC's Nightline. He's also on the weekend edition of Good Morning America on ABC News. He spent over two decades reporting

on major national, international events. A pivotal moment in his career was an on-air panic attack in 2004 that prompted him to embark on a journey of self-discovery, leading him to become a vocal advocate for meditation and mindfulness, particularly for skeptics of those things.

He's the author of the best-selling book, 10% Happier, How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress without losing my edge. I must say to Dan and Scott, I have sent that book out to probably 50 people, Dan. I'm a huge fan of that book. And found self-help that really works, a true story.

And he's also got an application out there, 10% Happier Meditation App and Podcasts. So thank you for joining us, Dan. The topics, as I know Barbara has briefed you on, is our situation with America's men, you know, sort of the 18 to 35-year-old who's gone wayward. Scott's got wonderful statistics this. But before I bring you in, I just want to go to Scott for a second about the challenges that

young men are facing. Everyone is talking about it, Scott. I give you a lot of credit for this because you've been chipping away at this and now I'm sorting to see a mushroom cloud of activity come out from you dropping the first bombs. I guess before we go to Dan, are we at an inflection point, sir, in terms of this issue? Well, that's a generous thing to say. But yes, Yeah, and I first brought this up five years ago, and immediately the gag reflex was you're a misogynist because all the people on this pot have had so much unfair advantage for so long

that there was a natural resistance to talking about the struggles of young men because, let's be honest, we had a 3,000-year head start. From 1945 to the next 60, 70 years, the greatest prosperity ever recognized and the modern economy was recognized in the U.S., and it was sequestered even further,

all of that prosperity was crowded into the 30% of Americans that had pale skin and outdoor plumbing. So naturally, people just weren't that empathetic. The conversation has changed so dramatically because the evidence, four out of five suicides are male, 12 times more likely to be incarcerated, three times more likely to be homeless or addicted,

the data is so overwhelming. And the cohort I credit, with that pivot in the conversation, the dialogue, it can be described in one word, mothers. Feminists, right-wing, left-wing, all have come together and said, something is going on with my son. And so the conversation has become a lot more productive. I can't take the difference between me going on a podcast and talking about this issue five years ago in the comments and the difference now is night and day. So I think the, I think the dialogue has gotten a lot more productive. And I'll use this as a segue to ask Dan a question. Dan, you really have, to a certain

extent, you know, we never talked about cancer, and then we started talking about cancer. I remember when my mom got breast cancer, I couldn't talk to my friends about it because it was embarrassing. And then we started talking about cancer openly, and it's been a huge unlock. And I think in the last 20 years, we've started talking about mental illness, and it's been a huge unlock. And one of the taboos that I think you have played a role in unlocking is men talking about anxiety. Because for a man to admit that he was having a panic attack, made you less masculine, made you less strong. And you have done that. And the numbers, one in seven teens globally claim they have severe mental illness. People have panic attacks without getting into details.

I have someone in my life that is struggling with anxiety and panic attacks. Can you talk a little bit about not only you talk about how to address it, but if you given any thought to what we can do as a society to try and stem the flow of anxiety, of depression amongst our young people. I know you have kids. Any thoughts? I do. I do have thoughts. This is just a huge topic. I'm trying to figure out where to start. I do want to just double click on what that's such a douchey expression, but I'll use it anyway on the point you just made, Scott, and about, you know, the need to rethink masculinity. And I know you've been working on a book

along those lines because I listen to you a lot. And I think it's incredibly important. And I think you're right. We're at a moment where it is, it's feeling more and more urgent. You may have already addressed this, but the Netflix show, Adolescence, which is just incredibly powerful

and really goes right at these issues. So, yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And in terms of both men and boys and women and girls and everything in between, we do have anxiety rising globally and what can be done about it. Well, there are many, many things to say about this, but I would say the number one thing, and this is relevant to masculinity as well, is that we are isolated, lonely, disconnected, stuck in our own little worlds on our phones. and that is, I believe, one of the major contributors to this spike in anxiety we're seeing all over the place. We as a species did not get to the top of the food chain because we're the strongest.

We have no talons, no wings, don't have sharp teeth. We're not particularly big when compared to other charismatic megafauna. We got to the top of the food chain because of our ability to cooperate, collaborate, and communicate. All of that is militated against, by most aspects of our modern culture,

which emphasizes tech-driven isolation, individualism. And this, if we don't have this social connection, if we don't have positive relationships, we wither. And to me, it just seems very clear that if we can get people to get more intentional about having positive relationships in their lives, it will go a long way toward addressing anxiety.

How would you do that? Like, what programs could we do such that? So first up, I agree, we're mammals. Anyone who has dogs realize dogs, when they're, the worst thing you can do to a dog is leave it alone. You put an orca in a tank alone, it literally goes crazy. And I would describe us as that there's a 35% uptick in social anxiety among young people with COVID lockdowns. I saw it with my youngest. Him not being, I thought he'd be fine.

There's a chance to hang out with your parents and watch Netflix. He really struggled, not being around a bunch of kids here. every day. I mean, really struggled. But what can we do? Recognizing we're mammals and people need to be around each other, especially young people, what do you think we can do to just get kids in the company of other kids? And here's just another stat. The number of kids, high school kids that sees their friends every day has been cut in half in the last 20 years. That's an incredible statistics. It's statistic and it's incredibly disturbing. I am not, just to be clear much of a policy thinker, a systems thinker, I'm much more about what can you as an

individual do. So I'll just put that out there as a caveat before I answer your question. I think for a parent, it's about thinking this through very clearly and understanding that if you're not helping your kid get FaceTime with other kids, you're hurting your child, not deliberately, but once you know, you know and you can take better steps to make sure that your kids are getting that face-to-face interaction. Now, if I'm directing my comments to somebody slightly older, a young man, or actually this could go for anybody who's feeling disconnected or lonely, the number one piece of advice is to volunteer. Get out there, do something useful for somebody else. This is the most empowering and ennobling thing. It reminds you of your own innate

worthiness. It puts you in contact with other people. It's incredibly helpful. I want to talk about the toxic side of this if you don't mind, Dan, but you're a social observer. It's the void. I mean, this is the theory I've tested on a few of our other guests. I want to get your reaction to it. Is the void getting filled by toxic masculinity? Is the void getting filled by hypermasculinity? I worry about that. You know, it's interesting. My own life, you know, I look at the culture and I see many examples of toxic masculinity. I don't love that phrase because I do feel like it has been weaponized a little bit to make men feel bad about being men. So, yeah, I think it's accurate.

There is, for sure, a version of masculinity that is quite toxic. So it's technically an accurate term. But sometimes there's something about the dialogue that has, I think, made it harder to reach men because we've somehow sent the signal either explicitly or implicitly that you're wrong or bad for just having a penis. And so I do want to just signal that I'm not trying to be. overly, and this is another word that I worry about using, but overly woke here when I talk about toxic masculinity.

I do see many, many avatars of unhealthy masculinity in the culture, the Tates, for example. But in my own life, I don't know if you guys know Strauss-Zellnick, the very successful businessman. Sorry, we're going to say something like that. No, no, I'm just going to let you know, Dan Strauss is a very close person. personal friend of mine and for 25 years. Okay, so you and I are connected by one degree of separation. Strauss is a very good friend of mine for about a decade, and I've been recently

doing his work out, the guy's almost 68, he's an incredible shape for any age, and he works out every day. He's got this thing called the program, and a lot of young men are in the program, and I go once in a while, and meeting young men, and these are like finance bros. Let me stop For your second, Dan, Dan, so Scott, do you know Strauss? If you don't know Strauss, he's Take 2 Entertainment. I do. I do. Okay, good.

Grant that thought. And he wrote a great book on this, by the way, on longevity, which I'd like to say that. It's called Ageless Fitness. Exactly. I'd like to say that I adopted some of it, but I'm still eating junk food and fast food. But go ahead, Dan. You know, Strauss is not overly, like, finger wagging about, like, eating cookies. He eats cookies.

You see, it's more just like get active, which I think is another, you know, get physically active. I think this is another great piece of advice for young men because it does put you in contact with other people if you're doing it, you know, in a group setting. And it also is great for your mental health. But having said that, it's through the program. I've met a lot of young like finance bros, guys who when I was growing up would have had, you know, a massive amount of casual misogyny just baked into their everyday conversation. And the young men I'm meeting are much more sensitive. And that may, you know, sensitive in a good way. They're just, they're really earnest and interested in talking about improving their own mental health.

And that may just speak to the type of people that Strauss attracts. But it's interesting to me because I do look at the culture and I see to your question, Anthony, that there are these great examples of how to do masculinity poorly. And then just in moving through the world, I see young men who are much less casually misogynistic than the world that I grew up in. And frankly, I hate to say this, that I participated in. Yeah, I was just thinking, I grew up on I dream a genie.

Yes, Master, go to your bottle, Jeannie. I mean, it's, I would say, given what we were fed as young men, You know, it feels as we should get an Alan Alda award. Anthony's holding up an I Dream a Jeannie bottle. But also autographed by Barbara, see? Oh, wow. Yeah, so I have a free pass for my wife. This will probably get cut out of the thing,

but just so you know, I have a free pass from my wife. I have dinner with hers. I have dinner with Barbara once a year in June at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the Polo Lounge. unfortunately she brings her 92-year-old chaperone who happens to be her husband, but any event, I thought you would enjoy that, Scott. I love that. Seriously?

That's a flex. That is a flex. I mean, you know, for Galloway, for somebody, your vintage, this is a huge flex, right? Let me just, let me just really name drop here. See this? No, that's, that is very, all right. I'm sure that's getting cut out, Harris, but that, I had to flex that on Galloway. You know, he's got, he's got me by about six.

inches in height and God only knows what else. So I had to I had a flex that on them. So Dan, returning to our regular schedule program here. So I'll paint a scenario for you. You're a 19 to 24 year old male and you're still living at home. You're struggling. You find you find that you're having a tough time connecting with school connecting with work connecting with potential friends or romantic partners. And you find that your only kind of source of relief might be video games, isolation, maybe porn. And you might recognize that you're struggling with stress or anxiety. And you get into social situations and you, you know, you get that feeling. Your chest starts tightening. You start gulping for air. And all you can think about is just getting out of that situation back to

where you're comfortable again. Try and advise that young man or a young woman. We all struggle with it. I have panic attacks. One at it, I do 50 talks a year. 0.66% of the time, every 150 talks, I have a panic attack. I don't, I can't figure out why it happens, but it feels like I'm dying on stage in front of 400 people.

And I have to stop to talk and everyone freaks out and is worried. advise a young man or a young woman who recognizes they're having this panic and this anxiety on specific cognitive behavior's practices that you have used that you think that they would benefit from. Well, one thing to say is if you're freaking out about exposing yourself to social situations and you're young, recognize that this is not your fault. First of all, you're not alone. You're not like uniquely dysfunctional. This is very, very common. And it's my generation, our generation that created a world for you where you got insufficient training in how to do this. In part, this is massively exacerbated by COVID, but in part because we as grownups

didn't really understand that we needed, we started helicopter parenting and we needed to create a world for you where you're out bumping up against other kids and getting scrapes and getting insults and learning how to build up your psychological immunity. And that's on us. And so what I want to first remove hopefully is, is the shame. And then second, and this goes to masculinity, and I know this is something you think about a lot, Scott. It's like rethinking what is masculinity? Strength is part of it, but what is real strength? Real strength, I like in Buddhism, and I try to practice Buddhism,

that one of the ancient symbols is a lion, which is a great symbol of ferocity, but it has nothing to do with dominance. It has to do with the courage to face your own shit. to face your own mind. And that is what is required in order to do the work to take the risk, to go out into social situations, which is going to make you uncomfortable, to make you gulp for air possibly, to provoke a starburst of self-critical thoughts in your mind. But that is courage.

And how do you overcome fear? You face it in manageable, little steps. So take a little risk. Divulge something personal to somebody you trust at work and see what happens. Go to the party that you otherwise wouldn't go to, but tell yourself you only have to go for five minutes. Baby steps of facing what scares you.

And over time, it won't scare you as much. That is real baller courage. Dan, you write beautifully about this. Give us a few examples of how you've done this. in your own life? Well, I still have panic attacks. Right now, the big place of panic for me is claustrophobia. So I've had a lot of trouble over the last couple of years on elevators and airplanes. I, to a certain extent, blame COVID for this because when COVID hit, I moved to the suburbs. I wasn't in the city. I wasn't on elevators anymore. And I wasn't flying. And then when I went

back to all of that, I really started to struggle. And, and panic. feeds on itself. And so the only remedy is to face it, to actually put yourself in the situation that scares you. So I would literally ride elevators at the Westchester Mall with my shrink, who would help me to work with cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a psychological term of art, to face what was scaring me, to learn how to engage in supportive self-talk, to talk myself through it. And it really has. helped. And by the way, if you, we can go wherever you want here, but if you want a very specific answer to Scott's question earlier about cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to work yourself

through the shit that scares you, whether it's social or anything else, I'm happy to talk about that because there's a lot to say there. Talk about it if you don't mind. We many of us believe that we have to have an inner drill sergeant in order to succeed. If we, if somebody else talked to us the way we talk to ourselves, we would punch that other person in the face. And we believe, consciously or subconsciously, that we need this inner drill sergeant in order to get anything done. In fact, all the data show that an inner coach is much more likely to get you to your goals. And this is referred to in the psychological literature as self-compassion. So learning to talk to yourself, the way you would talk to a good friend or to your kid or a mentee, there's a ton of data to

that shows that this is extremely helpful, especially in situations where you're scared. So you don't, I mean, it's very helpful to go into situations that scare you with a friend. And by the way, I would recommend that. But you can be your own friend in this regard, and it's slightly cheesy, but just learning to talk to yourself this way. And it, just as a little technical tip here, to use your own name when you're talking to yourself. So I just say, dude, like, dude, I'm getting on a plane. I'm worried about panicking in front of a bunch of strangers.

Dude, like, you can, this is just going to be a bunch of physical sensations, breathlessness, pounding in the chest that you have experienced a million times and you're still alive. You can deal with this. That little, that ability to talk to yourself that way is a trainable sense. skill for anyone and extremely helpful. We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from SOFI Small Business Lending. Your small business owner, you need capital to find new opportunities and grow,

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Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five. orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. My name's Sean Ramos for him. For today, explain. I'm outside the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., with one question, do you think we should go to Mars? I don't think you should live in Mars, no. I don't know why just Mars. I think as Earthlings, we are a nosy group of people, and I really don't think that we have any business going to Mars. Our knowledge about the Solar System, and the universe will grow substantially. I think maybe we should just leave Mars alone,

just stay with Earth. Like so many innovations are going to come out of it because so many different companies are going to be fighting to get, you know, that first ticket to Mars, so I feel like we should. But at the same time, we should solve some problems here first. I think we need to expand what we know, what we see. Honestly, for our own benefit.

You should go way beyond. Today, Explained from Box, is taking a summer, Sojourn on Mars. Join us. Dan, you have kids, right? I have one 10-year-old boy. And when you hear, when you see a show like adolescence, when you hear about struggling young men,

how has it changed your approach or informed your approach to fathering? Well, first of all, adolescence scared the show. shit out of me. Really rattling. It's one of the most, just out of the level of craft. It's just one of the most, in terms of the acting and the filmmaking and the writing, it's just one of the most extraordinary pieces of art I have personally consumed in a long

time. And absolutely, you know, with a 10-year-old boy, like, I couldn't get him out of my head, my son out of my head throughout the whole thing. And so how does it impact my approach? First of all, I think a lot about making sure he has healthy relationships. And we think he's an only child. And so we think a lot about making sure he sees his cousins a lot and making sure that he has really good friendships that we are helping to nurture

and that our house is a comfortable place for him and his friends to hang out. So I think about that a lot. And then second, and again, I know this is something that you've spoken about a lot and you've been an inspiration for me in this regard, Scott, is trying to both model and preach a little bit to the extent that preaching is ever successful with a child, a different concept of masculinity, that strength does not come from denying my emotions, from compartmentalizing, from self-medicating with alcohol, and I'm not saying that all drinking is bad, but if you're doing it not to feel your feelings, I worry about that,

from showing respect to my wife in front of my son. I really think about trying to model a kind of fierce masculinity that is the ferocity that we referred to earlier in Buddhism, of the ferocity that says, yeah, I have panic attacks, and I can admit that to the world. I can talk to you, my son, about this, that hopefully normalizes it for you. So, yeah, to me, that's all part of radio,

a healthy boy slash man now. Anthony? I, you know, I don't, I don't really want to add to me adding anything with the tract, actually, because I think what you're saying is so, so direct. I guess one, one final question for you, Dan, because I watched that Scott's suggestion. I follow, obviously, we all follow Scott on social media that the whole world does. And I, I watched the whole show. I asked my wife and my mother-in-law to watch it.

My mother-in-law turned it off. She said that she was getting anxiety. To quote her, I'm 79 years old. I'm getting too much anxiety, and I shut it off. I get it. So that's my final question for you, sir. How do we get people to breathe through what they see going on in this generation of young men? Well, I think it's totally fine not to watch adolescents, and I get it. It's incredibly stressful. It's also extraordinarily beautiful. But the larger thing is what you said there at the end, Anthony, about breathing through what's going on not only with men and boys right now, but also in the whole

world. This is a destabilizing time. So I'll leave you with one little axiom that's very helpful for me. And I think I spoke about this a little bit with Scott on Pivot a couple of months ago. Um, action absorbs anxiety. I love that. There is, there is, there is so, it can feel so powerless to sit and watch adolescence or to watch the fucking news these days. For many of us, Do we feel totally powerless and helpless and, and then we get into a toilet vortex of anxiety? You have more power than you think. You can take action in your sphere locally. It doesn't even have to have anything to do with the issue you're worried about.

You could just be marginally more helpful to the people in your environment. As I often say, like, what's it like when you hold the door open for somebody? If you're paying attention in that moment, it feels good. that feeling is infinitely scalable the world is filled with opportunities to be helpful so i have a i have a fairly uh crass but it's an honest story i coach young man and this kid who's a junior college and doing okay but hasn't having issues called me and i could tell he's beaten around the bush and i said what's wrong and he said i you know i had sex uh with a strange partner. I'm pretty sure he paid for it, but that's neither here nor there. And he said,

and I'm feeling funny when I'm urinating, and I'm a little bit freaked out about it. And I said to him, and then he goes, but it's probably nothing. I'm sorry. And I could tell the moment he said it, he was really embarrassed. I'm like, boss, today, now, get to the doctor, get tested. On your way to the doctor years are going to start feeling better. Because it's not the STD that you're going to regret, if you have it or don't have it, it's how much anxiety you put yourself through. I'm like, get to the doctor now, take charge. If you got something, if you got something, they can most likely address it, clear it up, because exactly what you're saying. And I realize this is not a Hallmark Channel story, but the moment you start to take action against something,

you start to relieve the anxiety. And he called me the next day, he was fine. And he was fine. he was just like, you can just hear this giant fucking 24-hour, like, sigh of relief. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember, I don't know if you guys remember, probably too much information, but in the, in the 90s, we were raised to believe that if you had unprotected sex, I meant you had AIDS. I grew up in San Francisco in the 90s. And if I had unprotected sex, it meant, oh, I'm Magic Johnson, but not as famous.

I know I have AIDS. It's not a question. I know I have it now. Yep. And now, and then what I started doing was regularly getting tested. and it just it just absolutely made me feel you know took all of that bullshit away

because when you're real I love the work that my colleague Adam Alter does on end of life he goes into palliative care and he surveys people who are literally at the end of their life which brings from a lot of perspective and their regrets are in reverse order

they wish that they'd stayed in better touch with friends too they wish they'd led the life they want wanted to lead, not the life their church or their parents or society wanted them to lead, but their number one regret is they wish they'd been less hard on themselves. And the thing you were going to regret in your life is not getting fired. It's not the breakup. It's not a stock that gets cut in half. It's not the STD. It's how much anxiety and punishment you put yourself through. That's the thing dying people regret. It's not what happened to them. It's how they responded to what happened to them. And to your point,

And I say this, I constantly parrot you, Dan, action absorbs anxiety. You got a problem, start to address it, and you immediately feel better. It's such a great lesson. I mean, if I, if this whole Lost Boys series, people get out of that one sentence, the whole thing is worth it to me. It's such a great lesson, and I'm going to start saying that over and over again, Dan. Thank you. And thank you, by the way, for joining us.

We promised in and out in 30 minutes, and very, very grateful to that. Most handsome voice in podcasting, Dan Harris, seriously, man. No doubt. Seriously. So fucking dreamy, literally. Listen to that voice. Yeah, it's funny, my wife doesn't feel that way. Somehow my voice isn't stupid for her.

Harris, they never do. But thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dan Harris. Thanks, Dan. On Lost Boys. It's a total pleasure. Big fan of both of you. Really appreciate you including me in this.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Lost Boys. If you'd like more information, please go to our website, www.lossboys. In our next episode, Scott and I talk about the financial and economic challenges young men are facing today and how they are very different than when Scott and I were growing up. So be sure to like, follow, and subscribe to Lost Boys wherever you get your podcast.

And please, share it with someone who cares about this or should care about this and let's spread the word. Lost Boys is a production of Salt Media and the Casablanca Strategy Group, Barbara Fadita and Keith Summa, are executive producers. Tanya Salati is our researcher, Holly Duncan Quinn and Stanley Goldberg, our editors. Special thanks to Christina Cossessi, Mary Jan Rebus, and Drew Burroughs.