The School of Greatness - Professor G: This is Why Millennials Are the Most Anxious & Unhappy Generation

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Have you bought your tickets to Summit of Greatness 2024 yet?! Get them before they sell out at lewishowes.com/ticketsToday, Lewis welcomes Scott Galloway, a renowned professor and author, to discuss his book, "The Algebra of Wealth." Scott delves into the concept of an economic war on the young, explaining how policies over the past few decades have shifted wealth from younger to older generations. He emphasizes the importance of financial security, discussing strategies like finding your talent, exercising financial discipline, and understanding the value of time. Scott also touches on the emotional aspects of life, sharing personal experiences about fatherhood, emotional growth, and the importance of building a fulfilling life beyond material wealth. The conversation provides a deep understanding of the economic landscape and offers practical advice for achieving financial and personal well-being.Buy Scott’s new book, The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security for yourself and a friend!In this episode you will learnhow economic policies have shifted wealth from younger to older generations and how this impacts today's youth.Scott Galloway's formula for achieving financial security, including the importance of finding your talent and developing financial discipline.the impact of parenthood on financial priorities and how becoming a parent can drive greater financial focus and purpose.the significance of emotional well-being and the benefits of seeking therapy and embracing emotions for a more harmonious life.practical strategies for balancing financial security with personal fulfillment and building a fulfilling life beyond material wealth.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1636For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:George Kamel – https://link.chtbl.com/1568-podRob Dial – https://link.chtbl.com/1597-podJohn Maxwell – https://link.chtbl.com/1501-pod

Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes and I am so excited to invite you to the Summit of Greatness 2024 happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13th and Saturday, September 14th for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special.

Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com slash tickets and get your tickets today, and I will see you there. For the first time in our history, a 30-year-old is not doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That's never happened in the history of the country. Really? It's morally corrupt, and it's mutual self-assured destruction.

What are the behaviors and what are the strategies of the person who makes about the same amount of money but ends up financially secure? And it comes down to some pretty simple things. The first is... Entrepreneur and professor Scott Galloway. He's the author of the new book, The Algebra of Wealth, Scott Galloway. The Howard Stern of the business world. Scott Galloway, thanks again for joining us. We have a youth that is more anxious, depressed, obese, addicted, and generally unhappy than ever. Really? From the age of 29 to 44, I didn't cry. I didn't cry when I got divorced. I didn't cry when my obese, addicted, and generally unhappy than ever. Really. From the age of 29 to 44, I didn't cry. I didn't cry when I got divorced.

I didn't cry when my mother died. I just kind of forgot how. I want to be someone that no matter what happens, is a great dad. Having empathy for young men who are four times more likely to kill themselves, half as likely to go to college, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. That in no way should take away

from the challenges that women still face. Wow. The wife in the relationship starts making more money than the man. The guy is three times more likely to be on erectile dysfunction drugs. If I could give a piece of advice to anyone who's successful and thinks I would really like to be very wealthy, it's the following. Welcome back, everyone in School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Professor Scott Galloway in the house. Good to see you, sir. Thanks, brother. Good to see you. Thank you for being here. Very excited about this. I've been loving your content lately, and you've got a book called The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security.

And one of the things that you just said before we started was that there is a war on the young. There's a war on the young when it comes to money and the transfer of money and wealth. Can you explain what that means? Sure, so I think that almost every major economic policy over the last 30 years is really just an elegant transfer of wealth from young people to

old people. What do I mean by that? So the two biggest tax deductions are capital gains tax deduction and mortgage interest rate. Who owns stocks and homes? People my age. Who rents and makes their money from earning? People your age and people your staff's age. There is just some scary stats. The average seven-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. Interesting. So when I was 25 on an inflation-adjusted basis, I was making about 80 grand a year. These kids are making 55. Minimum wage, which is a decent proxy for how we value youth labor, has been at $7.25 for a while, despite the fact the NASDAQ has absolutely skyrocketed. Every year,

we transfer $1.5 trillion from young people to senior citizens in the form of social security, despite the fact that is the wealthiest cohort in the history of the planet. You can just look at almost any social policy, and usually it involves a transfer of wealth from the young to the old. The ultimate intergenerational theft just happened, and it was COVID. And that is a million people dying would be bad, but what would be tragic is that people my age lost wealth. So we put $7 trillion into the economy. 85% of it wasn't spent. It was saved. Where did it end up? It ended up in the market. So it sent housing and stock prices skyrocketing. Who owns 90% of stocks? The top 10%. So if you don't have, and meanwhile, young people are the

ones that have to pay it back. If you don't have churn and disruption, all you're doing is ceding advantage to the incumbents and taking advantage away from the entrance. So when you bail out the baby boomer owner of a restaurant, all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 26-year-old graduate of a culinary academy that wants her shot. The reason I'm going to bomb to the Beverly Hills Hotel and go to Stagecoach and get to live the life I lead is because in 2008, we bailed out the banks, but we didn't bail out the economy and we let the economy crash. And so as I was rounding third and coming into my prime income earning years, I got to buy Apple, Netflix, and Amazon for eight to 12 bucks a share. Netflix closed yesterday at 600 bucks a share. Where do young people

find value right now? Because what we decided is let's keep everything artificially elevated. All that was was a transfer of wealth from young to old. So almost every major economic policy, in my view, is nothing but a transfer of wealth. The result is people aged 30 to 34 in 1990, 60% of them had at least one child, now 27% too. Is it because they don't like kids? Or maybe they just can't afford it. 55% of people my age are extremely proud to be American. It's 18% among people under the age of 25. They're not proud to be American. They're enraged. And then you speedball it with social media where every day, 210 times a day, they get a notification. It's basically someone vomiting their wealth and pretending it's poetry. And they're reminded every day, okay, unless I have a hot boyfriend, have just made millions of dollars selling DojaCoin,

or my options at Google have vested and I'm worth three million bucks that I have screwed up. And the result is for the first time in our history, a 30-year-old is not doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That's never happened in the history of the country. Really? That creates rage and shame, right? And the result is we have a youth in our culture that is more anxious, depressed, obese, addicted, and generally unhappy than ever. And it turns every cut into an opportunistic infection. You know, whether it's the protests around Palestine, Me Too, Black Lives Matter, I'm not in any way saying those don't,

that that's not real emotion and passion, but there's a level of rage and incendiary poured on everything. Because young people look up, they look at other industries and they think, it feels like everyone's doing well. I know there's massive prosperity and I also know I'm not sharing in it.

So I think my generation looks at youth not as the future, but as nutrition. Interesting. Now, what about baby boomers today? Weren't they in the 60s and 70s thinking, oh, you know, we can't make enough money and it's hard to survive? Or is it just things costed less where they could get a home at a reasonable age back then?

Weren't baby boomers thinking the same thing? Well, I call myself Gen X, but I'm technically a boomer. I'll just give you an example. I went to school down the road here, UCLA. When I applied to UCLA, the acceptance rate was 76%. Wow. This year, it's 9%. Why is that?

Because me and my colleagues wake up every morning and ask ourselves one question. How can I increase my compensation while reducing my accountability? And the strategy for that is to LVMH higher education. What do I mean by that? Take admissions rates way down, and then the value of the incumbent degrees goes way up, and we can charge more and increase tuition faster than inflation. Wow. So now we have at MIT 10 administrators, 10 people who don't teach for everyone who does

teach. No one ever gets fired. It's a really well-paying job. We've done the same thing in housing. Once I have a house, I become really concerned with traffic and density in my neighborhood. And I show up to the local review board and I make it very hard for new housing permits to be issued. What do you know? Housing prices have gone in the last four years from $290,000 to $410,000. And you couple that with the acceleration in interest rates, that means the average mortgage for the average house in the U.S. has gone from $1,100 a month to $2,200. Or put another way, one-third of young people can afford a house now. Just a few years ago, it was two-thirds. So they can't afford

to get an education, or it's not accessible. They can't afford housing. They don't make the same money we made. I mean, no wonder they're pissed off. And they're opting out of America. They're not having kids. They feel bad about America. And I think this is, I think the incumbents will throw up their arms and create this illusion of complexity.

They'll use words like globalization and network effects. No, when the $35 billion increase in child tax credit comes along, which would benefit young parents, that gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill. That doesn't make its way through. But the $135 billion a year cost of living adjustment upward for Social Security recipients, that flies through Congress. So the problem with our democracy is the term demo. And that is simply put, we have senior citizens voting in senior citizens who vote themselves more money at the cost of youth. EC has become a cross between the walking dead and the golden girls.

I don't think these people relate to the challenges that young people face. I don't think they understand the technologies that are making them depressed. We've had 40 hearings on child safety and social media. We've had zero laws passed. So does Speaker Pelosi, who had her first daughter when Castro declared martial law in Cuba, does she really understand the struggles of young people? No, but the people who vote her in and give her money understand social security and tax breaks. So this is in the face of unprecedented prosperity. We have a generation of people who are doing less well. It's morally corrupt and it's mutual self-assured destruction. Wow. That was ugly. How are you doing? opportunity and abundance for me. Maybe I'm not looking to get rich overnight, but I want to have

a path where I can have time off and travel a little bit here and there and just have good times and be able to buy food with friends and go out, but also make sure that I have an opportunity for financial success. You talk about a simple formula for financial security. Is it possible to have financial security and financial abundance at the same time? And if so, what are the two? I appreciate the segue to the book. Look, so I'll go through the formula. And that is, first off, if you're someone who just got out of college, it means you're already in the top third in terms of opportunity because two thirds of Americans don't end up with a college degree. And this book isn't for someone who's struggling to pay their credit card bills and needs to cut up their... This isn't a Susie Orman book. This is for people who think, I'm going to make a reasonable living.

I'm fairly disciplined. I have my act together. But I want to have financial security at an age, a younger age, than if I made bad decisions. And the study that inspired the book is the following. We all know that study that shows that you are the sum and then the average of your five closest friends. We like to think we have a lot of impact on our kids. The reality is their peer group has more influence. So five people hang out together. You become the same body mass index, the same political views. You go to the same schools, root for the same teams, end up in the same neighborhoods, the same political views, you go to the same schools, root for the same teams, end up in the same neighborhoods, make about the same amount of money.

What's different is across those five people, despite making similar incomes, one will end up wealthy. Why is that? Well, that's the whole point of the book. What are the behaviors and what are the strategies of the person who makes about the same amount of money but ends up financially secure? And it comes down to some pretty simple things.

The first is, in order to have financial security, you gotta make money. There's just no way around it. And I find that that's more about focus than it is about what I'll call passion. The worst advice you can give a young person is to follow your passion. Because usually what that means

is a lot of young people will conflate passion with hobbies. You were an athlete. That has about a 0.1% employment rate. So unless you're getting green lights very early that you're in the 0.1%, I would suggest you leave that industry earlier rather than later. Fashion, opening a restaurant, a club, being a DJ, all 90 plus percent opening a restaurant, a club, being a DJ, all 90 plus percent unemployment rates. The key is to find your talent. What could I develop ninja-like mastery in an industry that has a 90 plus percent employment rate? And then your ability to make money or the money, the accoutrements that that mastery will offer, economic security, camaraderie, relevance, a broader selection set of mates than you deserve.

People start laughing at your jokes when they're not funny. That will make you passionate about whatever it is. If you can develop mastery around anything and it provides you with a good life, you become passionate about that thing. Keep in mind when people tell you to follow your passion, it usually means they are already rich and they made their money on iron ore smelting. Find your talent. Workshop through your 20s. I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. Took chemistry, no.

Thought I was going to be an athlete. Got to UCLA, no way. Thought I was going to be an investment banker. I was awful at it. And finally, I kept workshopping and I found something that I could be good, maybe even great at. Once you find that, the next part of the equation is what I call stoicism. It should just probably be called discipline. And that is recognize real reward comes from things other than

material items. And try to be that person that drives a Hyundai versus a BMW until you have absolutely too much money to spend. Don't be the guy ordering a bottle of Grey Goose to impress potential mates. Don't be the person that gets seduced by every offer every day to upgrade from economy to economy plus. I had it this morning. I was ordering, or yesterday, I was ordering food in New York. And right after I ordered from Joe and the Juice, my tuna cotto, hey, would you like to order, would you like to add flourless chocolate cake for 12 bucks from baltazar boulangerie yeah i like cake boom right there are so capitalism is so amazing at taking godlike technology that's tested thousands of times a second to hit you at your weak point and get you to spend more money so i don't want to pretend it's easy but just try and develop

something resembling a savings muscle based on the notion that most studies show that real happiness does not come from things. And also recognize that no one is as impressed with your stuff as you are. Be the guy or gal that figures out a way to save 100, 200, 300 bucks a month in your 20s. Develop a savings muscle. Some people never develop that muscle. They can never flex it because they just never develop it. And just everybody has a superpower with respect to wealth. Use superpowers, time. And the next thing, that's the next part of the equation, because try and ignore a flaw in our species where because we have spent for 98% of our tenure on this planet, we have lived less than 35 years,

we cannot imagine that we're going to get old. We can't imagine. You're probably going to live another 70 years, maybe 60 years. It's impossible for the human brain to grasp that. It's also impossible to calibrate it and to recognize just how fast it's going to go. I was at UCLA yesterday. That was 40 years ago. It feels like yesterday. And 11% a year, well, that's what the S&P has been up since 2008. That sounds really meddling. 11% a year means every 21 years, your investments are going up eightfold. And if I could give you a magic box, and if you could figure out any way to put 10,000 bucks in there, and you're going to $80 back in what will feel like an instant, and ask anyone over the age of 40, it goes really fast. The question then becomes, what kind of sacrifices would you make to put that money in that box?

So appreciate how fast time is going to go. And then finally, diversification. And this is where I got really hurt. Recognize that 49% of your success and your failures are not your fault. And then 51% of it is out of your control. Individual performance will always be trumped by market dynamics. Because the fact that I was involved in how awesome I am and the signals I was getting from the market, or I started a company, it's public on the NASDAQ. I was that guy that borrowed against his stock to buy more stock. Interesting. Right? So when OA came along and my company hit the great financial recession, chapter 11, I went

from being worth $30 or $40 million on paper to negative $2 million. And this typically happens about the time as it did with me that my oldest son had the poor judgment to come marching out of my girlfriend. And sitting there at the age of 42, feeling like I already failed my son on his first day, and then looking back and thinking, if I'd just been a little smarter, if I'd just taken some money off the table and put it in a low-cost index fund and let time take over. And didn't touch it. And just left it. Don't trade it. Don't day trade. If I just made a little bit of sacrifice,

been a little bit more mature, then I wouldn't have that kind of real severe mental anguish I felt. And a lot of people say when they see my stuff, well, Scott, I'm in my 40s. It's too late for me. I'm like, well, that probably means you're going to live another 50 years, right? People are living longer and longer. So bind your talent, something you're good at that you could become great at in an industry that'll pay you well, that has a 90 plus percent employment rate. Take advantage of how fast time will go, diversify, and develop a savings muscle and try and understand that happiness doesn't come from stuff, right? Because what you will become passionate about is being able to take care

of your kids. You're going to just love being able to help out your parents. You're going to think it's just awesome to take your wife to the Hotel du Cap in the south of France. That is so much fun. It is so wonderful. And because I can do that now, I am passionate about the really boring things I have done to get here. I started an analytics company and a strategy firm, Snooze. I didn't even know these things existed. But this ability to have balance now is just so rewarding. And having built it with a partner, and my last thing I'll say, all of this is set in the context of, I think wealth is a full person project. There's a myth that wealthy people are not good people, that they had to crawl over others. Generally speaking, really wealthy people are really good people. Because in order to achieve real wealth, you have to be able to

be in a room of opportunities when you're not in that room. You have to acquire allies along the way. So if I could give a piece of advice to anyone who's successful and thinks I would really like to be very wealthy, it's the following. Bring love and forgiveness to your personal and professional relationships. The fastest way to snatch financial insecurity from the jaws of financial security is divorce. I got divorced. It cost me 60% of my wealth overnight. Wow.

You split half and then you have greater expenses, 60% overnight. Show me a smaller or medium-sized firm or something that's doing really well that all of a sudden isn't. I'm going to show you professional divorce. I'm going to show partners that aren't getting along with each other. I'm not suggesting that everyone should stay married. I'm not suggesting that everyone should become a doormat. But generally speaking, really successful people don't have a scorecard. They're generous. They're people that want to be around. They're people that other people are constantly wanting to help. Greatness and wealth is in the agency of others. Wow. And there's so

many places I could take this. The first thing I want to ask you about that came up for me is if someone's in their twenties or thirties and they thinking I haven't saved anything, but I also don't believe in the future of the financial system because I've been lied to or I've been manipulated or I've been sold something that I felt like was going to happen. How can we trust the government? How can we trust big businesses? How can we trust business leaders who maybe are unethical or maybe there's only a few who are, but they're the loudest that we see online or whatever it might be? And you know what? Life isn't guaranteed, So let me live my

life to the fullest now. What would you say to someone who's thinking that way? Sure. I mean, it's a recipe for unhappiness at a later stage. But America has a lot of problems, but it's the least screwed up country in the world. I mean, the American markets are phenomenal. Remember China? It was just a fait accompli a few years ago that China was going to be the biggest economic power in the world. In the last three years, China shed $6 trillion in market capitalization. We have seven companies that have added $4 trillion in the last 12 weeks. Our economy is growing faster than any economy of any mature nation, with the exception of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our inflation is the lowest. Our markets are touching new highs. And this goes to diversification,

and it kind of makes the same point again. Any one stock has a 50.1% chance of going up on any given day. But if you picked any five stocks in the S&P and held them for 10 years, no one has ever lost any money. So if you're one of those folks that, quite frankly, is sort of, you only live once and you don't believe in America, I can't help you. I just, I don't, you got to believe, this system, I can show you a ton of evidence that if you're patient over the long term, the American markets are totally unparalleled. And I'm not suggesting you might want, at some point, want to diversify and buy some European stuff or Japanese bond index.

This is a good problem. Yeah. But unfortunately for all of us, we're going to have to figure out how to make the world a better place because it's going to be here a while. I think the last human will draw her last breath in quite a while. a while. So just in case you end up making it to 80 or 90 or 100, and just in case you decide to have kids despite how cynical you are about the future, put yourself in a position where you just really enjoy yourself. The YOLO stuff, I'm not suggesting don't have youth, have some fun. I'm not suggesting you just don't spend any money, make stupid purchases. That's what youth is about. But at least try and think,

how do I at some point start saving a little bit of money? Not as much for the capital, which will grow immensely because time is on your side, but such that you just have that muscle. So when you start making some money, you know how to spend less than you save. Make it easy for yourself. Find out if your employer has any kind of matching vehicles or things where they take money out of your paycheck. Because if you're like me, you spend everything that is within your grasp. Take it out of your grasp. Round up on an Acorns app.

And don't fall into the trap of believing you're smarter than the markets and think you can outperform the markets. And here's the thing, you don't need to. You don't need to find the needle in the haystack. Buy the whole haystack. Focus on what you're good at. Outsource all the investment, you don't need to. You don't need to find the needle in the haystack, buy the whole haystack, focus on what you're good at, outsource all the investment stuff, low cost ETFs. Anyone on CNBC or advertising and Barron's or the Wall Street Journal,

it's a really elegant, well-polished grift. All alternative investments added together have underperformed the S&P by the amount of their fees. So if you want to take 20% or 30% of your savings and play stock picker or buy crypto, have at it. And who knows, you might get lucky. Who knows? You probably won't. And that's fine. That's a life lesson. I learned the hard way that I don't know any more or any less than anybody else. And I don't need to. Because with demographics and innovation and the culture that is financially driven in the United States, over the medium and the long term, the markets have been up and to the right for the last 150 years.

Yeah. I love that you talk about this stoicism approach towards the formula for financial security. And there was a, I think you've talked about this, I can't remember in the book or I think I saw a video of you online saying something like you didn't cry for like 10 or 15 years of your adult life. I don't know if that's the accurate timeframe, but there was 10 or 15 years you didn't cry. And some men could go to the extremes.

I'm going to be extreme with my emotions and regulate them and never show emotion. I'm going to be so disciplined and so stoic to make sure I'm financially secure. But then you don't have intimacy in your relationship or you're not available emotionally, whatever it might be. So where's your stance on being emotionally available and also being stoic at the same time so your emotions don't get the best of you? So I think of stoicism as not being emotional,

but recognizing that there's things you can control and things you can't. And life isn't about what happens to you. It's about life isn't about what happens to you. It's about how you respond to what happens to you. So try and control what you can control. And when you do really well, recognize a lot of it isn't your fault and try and be humble. And when you have an investment that gets cut in half or you say something unkind or you get laid off,

also recognize a lot of that isn't your fault and mourn for a little while and then forgive yourself. As it relates to emotion, I talk a lot about this in my book. From the age of 29 to 44, I didn't cry. I didn't cry when I got divorced. I didn't cry when my mother died. I just kind of forgot how. Also, I think I had this screwed up sense of masculinity, that being in control and being strong, including not demonstrating my emotions, somehow lent to my own image of my own manhood or masculinity. And then when I started crying again, what I realized is that A, it feels pretty good. And two, it informs your life. It shows you what's important to you. And so what I would recommend to anybody, especially men who tend to have a more difficult time with this, is when you

find something funny, learn how to laugh out loud. When you are moved by something, stop and really be moved by it. When you're inspired by something, just wallow in it. Why does this move me? And it'll inform your life. Otherwise, you're sort of just kind of sleepwalking through life. The wonderful thing about being sentient is you can register a series of emotions and sensations. And to not register those things, A, you walk through life less informed than people who can register them. You're just not as good at life and you're not enjoying it as much. So I'm not suggesting, you know, the only thing I would say is try not to give in too much to anger, check it back a little bit. I draft a lot of really ugly emails.

And I give myself the night and I don't send them, right? Almost all of the time. And I try to talk to people before I make any big decision to try and save me from myself sometimes. But for God's sakes, I mean, really enjoying a sad movie, really leaning into the shit that inspires you, really verbalizing how much you're enjoying things, whether it's sports or sex or watching a movie, laughing out loud. We're here for no time. Why wouldn't you register those emotions? And I find that it's really healthy. And unfortunately with men, there's just this weird orthodoxy that's evolved that the less emotion we show, the more manly we are. I haven't found that to be the case.

Yeah. When did you start to tap back into emotions then? Was it something that you were self-aware of? Did someone give you feedback and say, hey, you really don't show any emotion except for maybe anger or frustration or nothing? It wasn't purposeful or it wasn't planned. It wasn't anything learned. It was kids. There was just certain things. When my kid would come into the room, we were stupid. We didn't let our oldest sleep with us in the beginning. And he'd come into the room with this little basket of cars like as a peace offering if we'd let him into our bed with us and i think about that now and i get very upset you know i get emotional and i think about my mom and

all the like the sacrifices she made i get emotional but instead of having a screen that immediately checks it back i feel it and it makes me feel that love for my kids. It makes me feel really wonderful about being a dad. It makes the sacrifices and the, I put up with from these little things much easier. So for me, the thing that really sort of pulled the finger out of the dike, if you will, or broke the seal was kids. Really? Yeah. A hundred percent. How old were you when you had your first kid? I started late. I was 42. Yeah. I'm 41 and I'm, I'm starting the process of, you know, you're just getting on it, getting started with thinking about when in the next year or two, there's no perfect time. Let me, I'm very good at running other people's lives. Just do it.

Just do it. It's, it's, it's really tough. Yeah. The first few years, there's just no good, there's never a good time to have kids is what I found. What was the biggest thing you learned about yourself after having kids? And what was the biggest thing you learned about money after having kids? Well, it's sort of relaxing to, I mean, up until the point I had kids, my general thought every day was how can I be more awesome and be around more awesome and be around more awesome people and experiences? And I want more money. All right. That was a big focus

of mine. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. I was very focused on economic security. I didn't want to change the world. I didn't have any desire to be a good person. I don't want to be a bad person. I wanted a lot of money. That was really important to me. And growing up in a household that was financially strained kind of created those embers or that fire. What did I learn about myself having kids? It's relaxing to all of a sudden not be thinking about yourself. It's sort of cathartic because this is Friday. On Fridays when I was single, it was like, how can I hang out with more fabulous people? How can I meet more people where I can make more money?

How can I be at a cooler place? How can I be at a cooler place with hotter people making more money? And it was just sort of never enough. That was like conscious or unconscious thinking? Just lizard brain. And we're a competitive species. The reason that we're all smarter, stronger, faster than our ancestors is we're competitive some of it's built into us some of it is healthy when you have kids it's like i'm not worried about how fabulous the place i'm

having brunch on sunday is and who's going to be there it's like okay i know i'm going to soccer practice and the first few years it's tough because i'm a selfish person and that didn't foot well to being a new father. And also, I think there's a bit of a myth that having kids like, you know, bright lights and angels singing, I really didn't enjoy having babies. I thought babies were awful. And I'm like, what is everyone? Everyone's lying. This is awful. Wow. And then about two or three, when they start recognizing you, they become less awful awful and then it kind of flips and they actually become fun yeah and then before you know it it's just sort of for the first time in your life you care about something other than you or for me more and that's cathartic and

wonderful and it gives you a sense of purpose that once you're gone maybe if you've treated this child better than you were treated and you provided surplus love, it kind of checks an instinctual box. I've never felt sated across anything. You said off mic before I got here, oh, you're everywhere. I'm like pissed off I'm not more everywhere. My book was number one on Amazon two days ago. That's not what I'm thinking about. I'm number nine right now.

Why did I fall to number nine? So I've never been sated and something's broken in me. Fine. The only time I ever feel satisfied, there's a few moments they happen randomly. I'll be on the couch watching Premier League football or something. My kids, my boys will roll in. They sit down and they automatically throw their legs over mine. The dogs come in, they jump on us. And I'm like, okay, this is it. I can't imagine. I can't imagine more kids. I can't imagine more dogs. I just like, this is it. It's the only time I ever feel that way. Only time. And I'm an atheist. I think a lot about the end. And I believe that I'll look into my son's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end. I do not believe there's an afterlife, but I also know I'm going to

just feel more comfort. Like I actually did something. Like I checked a really big cosmic box because I've tried to be, and I am, you know, I try to be a great father. I'm not, but I know I'm a good father. What did I learn or what did I feel? The first thought I had is I need more money. Really? The U.S. becomes more like itself every day. It is a loving, kind place for people with money. It's a rapacious, violent place for people without money. Low-income homes, the kids have higher resting blood pressure than the kids in middle or upper-income homes. This is a violent, ugly place for poor people and than the kids in middle or upper income homes. It's a, this is a, this is a violent, ugly place for poor people and for the kids. And one in five kids live in a household

that is food insecure. So my, I didn't have these romantic visions of self-worth and happiness. When my first son came marching out of my girlfriend, I was like, I need more money. Do you feel like when you, it sounds awful. I mean, it's, I was like, I need more money. Do you feel like when you, it sounds awful. I mean, it's, I don't sound awful. Do you feel like it's, I think it's your instinct saying, okay, this is going to be more of an expense. It's going to take more time. And you know, I've got to invest in this. How do I go find more resources to support and provide for this family that I'm building? Yeah. Um, when you, do you think something unlocks in men when they have a child to support them in becoming more financially abundant? 100%. I always made enough money to have the perception of wealth.

I'm talented and I'm hardworking. I always made enough money to have a nice place to live, nice clothes, head to St. Bart's for the holidays. But once I had a kid and it was a kind of a strange time in my life economically as referenced before, I'm like, okay, it's no longer about me. And there's no faking it when you have kids. When you're young and you're single, you can crash on a friend's couch. You can move to Houston and do crazy work on a whatever, an oil platform or what have you and make a bunch of money. Once you have dogs and kids, there's just certain expenses and responsibilities you have. And I do think it's important. I'm writing a book on masculinity now. I think a decent place to start for a man is to take economic responsibility for your household. And sometimes that means getting

out of the way of your partner who's better at this whole money thing and being more supportive of her career. That's also part of taking economic responsibility. It's about having honest conversations with your partner about what economic weight class you expect to be in and who's responsible for it and what's your approach to spending. Young people almost never have those conversations. But I think that that stuff is incredibly important. And what I say to young people is they can have it all, they just can't have it all at once. I made huge trade-offs when I was younger and even in your age. I didn't see my kids much before the age of five because I got very motivated, but having kids really focused me on doubling down or really knuckling down, bearing down, whatever the term is,

on doubling down or really knuckling down, bearing down, whatever the term is, so I could have economic security because I felt a very healthy sense of obligation to be a provider and a protector. I think that's a good thing. I think men should feel that way. And I embraced that and I said, okay, I'm going to stop drinking as much.

I'm going to drink less. I'm going to get very focused on work. I'm going to be smarter. I'm going to get very focused on work. I'm going to be smarter. I'm going to start saving money. I moved to Florida to avoid, to lower my burn so we could start saving more money. And then the typhoon-like winds of an unprecedented bull market just literally launched me into space. Really? But if I hadn't had some of that maturity that I think was forced on me by having a kid, I'm not sure, I wouldn't have recognized the same prosperity. So for me, it was very,

very focusing. Interesting. So you feel like for most men that you've connected with who have kids, they get focused when they have a kid on their career or their finances or saving or investing, and they just get a little bit smarter on that? I mean, a lot of it is specific or individual. And the key question is, what's your relationship? As it relates to kids, what's the relationship you have with a partner? So I have a very competent partner who makes good money and has really thoughtful, like I'm the spender. She's much more frugal.

Yeah, she was born in Poland. So she was waiting you know, waiting in line for fish when she was a kid. So she's, if we're up to her, we'd have just Krugerrands buried in the backyard and maybe take a huge risk and buy like Deutsche Bonds. I'm the more risk aggressive one. I'm the one that likes to spend. I'm more of the YOLO. The best households are households that bring together. And both of those things are good, a mix of personality traits. But having a competent partner who can help you with the kids and the immense responsibilities you can partner with around not only the family, partner with romantically, partner with financially,

I think that's important. So I wouldn't just tell everyone have kids. What I would suggest is if you got a great partner and a lot of people, specifically women, are deciding now that they don't need a partner. And I think that's actually quite liberating, good for them. But do they have people in their life that can help? Because it's a lot. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of financial responsibility. But I would tell almost anyone that is making a decent living on up that having kids is incredibly rewarding. Incredibly rewarding. And for me, it was focusing. Yes. We're talking about the algebra of wealth, a simple formula for financial security. On page 49 in your book, you say that the most important economic decision you'll make

in your life is not what you major in, where you work, what stock you buy, or where you live. It's who you partner with. And when someone is wanting to choose the right partner, a lot of people, my past was choosing based on chemical bonding, sexual attraction, chemical bonding, feeling good, and not really asking those courageous questions about the future, about financial decisions, about spending, saving, all these different things. What would you say are three questions that young people should be asking each other when they're entering a relationship to see if the potential for a healthy and happy long-term relationship is even possible knowing that money challenges, a site for 37% of the problems in divorce,

is around money challenges. Yeah, well, you sort of got to one of the answers. So the first is, and young people are very good at asking this question over and over, is sex and affection. That basically says, I choose you. It's really important. And young people are very good at determining whether that works or not. The second is values. Weird stuff like, where do you expect to be living in five years? My ex-wife expected to be or wanted to be living very close to her parents. I had not considered that. I did not think about that. Do you want to live in a city? What's your approach to religion? There's just a lot of questions around values. And then the third one you referenced that people don't talk about is money. 70% of divorce filings are filed

by women. We have a tendency to stereotype women as being these doughy victims that have no agency. And men is like dopey predators, right? It's Marge Simpson, incredibly high character, never makes a mistake. And it's Homer Simpson who is an idiot, but deep down an okay guy. And the whole, all life is Homer coming over his idiocy while Marge is just this incredibly high character person. And I can statistically prove that there's a lot of good women and there's a lot of good men. And there's some bad women and some bad men. But women, I believe, and we don't like to talk about this openly and honestly, value economic security more in a mate than men do. 75%

of women say that economic viability is a key criteria in a mate than men do. 75% of women say that economic viability is a key criteria in a mate. For men, it's only 25%. Wanting the woman to make money or have security. Or that it's important. In the relationship. Yeah. In some, women are much more attracted to a man because of his financial security than a man would be to a woman because of her financial security. And then it gets speedball and online dating, which is where everyone is meeting now. And the problem is that people don't give each other enough chance, especially, quite frankly, women who, if you talk to married couples, 75% of them will say that initially one was less attracted or interested in the other. And it's almost always that the woman was less attracted to the man. Women have a much finer filter than men because the downside

of sex is much greater for women. And they have a much stronger instinct to find someone who can protect their young. And so they are much choosier than men. So guys are driven by aesthetics initially online, but they're less choosy. Oh, she looks cute, or she looks nice, or she looks like she works out. Swipe right, swipe right, swipe right. Women are choosier. In addition, we have this unfortunate trend in society where young men are falling further faster than in any time in history, and women, generally speaking, meet socioeconomically horizontally and up. I'm sorry. Women meet horizontally and up socioeconomically, men horizontally and down. I'm sorry, women made horizontally and up socioeconomically, men horizontally and down.

And the pool of men horizontal and up is shrinking. Meanwhile, and this is wonderful, no group of people has ascended faster globally than women. There are more women seeking tertiary education now than men globally. And when you look at some nations don't like women going to college, that's a remarkable stat. The number of women elected to parliament globally, the elected body, has doubled in the last 30 years. There are more women, single women in the US now that own homes than single men. There's going to be potentially nearly two to one female to male college grads in the next five years. And by the way, we don't want to do anything that gets in the way of that. That's amazing. But what we also have to acknowledge is that if we don't figure out a way to produce more economically and emotionally viable young men, we're going to have a lack of household formation. Because regardless of the Hallmark

Channel movie you see, women generally speaking aren't interested in men who aren't socioeconomically at the same level or superior to them. Oh, there's all kinds. When the wife in the relationship starts making more money than the man, the guy is three times more likely to be on erectile dysfunction drugs. Really? And a lot of that is his own issue, his own weird sense of masculinity and his own insecurity. But again, those 70% of divorce filings filed by women, and we never want to have an

honest conversation about this, right? Because anything that in any way might portray one sex as not being our vision of how the sex is portrayed in media means you're anti-women. I don't think that's true at all. 70% of those divorce filings, and the number one source of that divorce filing, there's really three things. He has an emotional breakdown, he loses his business, or he declares bankruptcy. That's the biggest cause for women wanting to file for a divorce. When he's no longer a viable provider. Wow. People think it's values or infidelity. It's not. It's almost always related to money. Money creates kind of opportunistic infection. It's sort of like there's just more likely and most anger, most households coming apart, financial stress usually is creating the context of anger and disappointment.

It's the underlying issue behind why someone's resentful or angry or stressed or overwhelmed. It lowers the immunity system of everybody around the household. Wow. So when a woman is with a man that makes less than them, can they truly be sexually turned on and feel emotionally safe as well? I think so. But the data shows it's not as easy. shows it's not as easy. Guys can find and partner with... Guys have no trouble being attracted to a woman who is not financially secure. Now, some men are like that. I'm making huge reductive

generalizations here, but there's some data around this. Women, if you're on Tinder and you're a guy who's, um, making $80,000 in his five, nine, uh, um, I'm sorry, making $130,000 and you're five, nine, you're as attractive to a woman as a guy who's six, two making 80,000. So it's about $10,000 per inch. So everyone talks about height, your ability to signal women are attracted. generally speaking, the research shows, to men based on three reasons. The third is kindness. They don't want someone who's going to be a good person. They're impressed by men who are good to their parents and kind and go out of their way to help people when there's no reciprocal expectation. The second is intelligence.

Because the smarter you are, the more likely you are to make good decisions and protect your family's offspring and by the way the fastest way to communicate intelligence is humor i've always said if you can make a woman laugh you can kiss her wow and then the most important thing though to women and people don't like to admit this is the man's ability to signal future resources it It's not even he has to be rich now, but he has to have his act together such that he looks like he will be a decent provider. And the number of people, the number of men we're producing that qualify in this category is shrinking as women get... It's the high heels effect. 50% of women say they won't date a man

shorter than them. I bet it's 80%. They're just not as drawn to men who are smaller than them because it's very instinctual. I need someone who will protect my young. Metaphorically, women are getting taller every day. They're killing it. Financially, education, intelligence, opportunities, resources. Women are killing it. And it's amazing.

We shouldn't do anything that gets in the way of that. The question is, how do we lift up men? Who wants more economically and emotionally viable men? Women. Why are men not doing as well in today's society? And why are, versus women continue to thrive, which is a great thing, but why aren't men thriving equally or at the same pace? So I'm parroting Richard Reeve's great work of boys to men. There's a lot of reasons. Biologically, men mature later. Their prefrontal cortex is literally 18 to 24 months behind a girl's. So two seniors applying to college, a boy and a girl, 17 year old boy and girl,

essentially the girl is competing against a 15 year old. Oh my gosh. So they, think about, think about school. What are the behaviors we promote in school? Be organized, be a pleaser, sit still. Basically education is set up for girls. I couldn't do it. And there's a lot of shame when boys, you know, just, man, it's so challenging. I couldn't do it. And there's a lot of shame when boys just- Man, it's so challenging. My 13-year-old, the idea of my 13-year-old sitting in still for an hour and a half and listening to French verbs, I think it's literally torture for him. Yeah.

You also, so they're biologically inferior. They're also emotionally and mentally less strong. While boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and mentally much weaker. So we have the second most single family households in America as any country in the world. We're second to Sweden. Wow. And when we say single-family home, single-parent home, 92% of the time it's a mom. What's interesting is the girl in that household has similar outcomes, college attainment, self-harm.

They seem to be doing just fine with just a single mother. A boy falls off the tracks. The moment he loses a male role model, he becomes much more likely to be incarcerated, addicted, or kill himself. It's also a really, really scary stat. Two 15-year-olds sexually molested a boy and a girl. The boy is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in life. That's not to say either crime is any less heinous. But what it ends up is that boys are emotionally and mentally much weaker than girls. And the single point of failure is when they lose a role model, a male role model. And there is an entire generation of men.

The dad's gone. 70% to 90% of people in schools are women. There's more female per capita fighter pilots than male kindergarten teachers. There are just very few men in primary education. So you have a whole generation of boys who are growing up with absolutely no contact with men. And so when I think about what it means to be masculine, you take care of your stuff. You're together. you have a plan, you're kind, you have surplus value, you begin to take care of your family, you're a protector, you're a provider, you start to contribute to your community. I think the ultimate expression of masculinity, it's more a call for action,

is for a man to get involved in the life of a kid that's not his. And there's especially a huge need for young boys. And my mom was always really good at this. Her boyfriend stayed in my life. I had a guy across the hall come over one day and introduce himself to my mom. And then the next weekend he came over and said, would your son like to learn how to horseback ride? And I used to go out to a ranch in Calabasas with this guy for the better part of two years every other weekend. And he taught me how to ride a horse. And he talked to me about stuff. And the thing is, you don't have to be a baller. You just have to be a guy trying to live a virtuous life. And quite frankly,

Michael Jackson and Catholic Church have screwed it up for these men because there's an air of suspicion when a young man wants to, or a man wants to get involved in a boy's life. There's a feeling, well, what's wrong with him? And here's the thing, 99.9% of men have a feeling of paternal and fraternal love. And sometimes they don't have a place to give it yet. And what I would urge all men to do is there's an enormous cadre of young boys who need men in their life and aren't getting it. This whole monologue you just shared was very powerful for me because I grew up experiencing sexual abuse by a man that I didn't know when I was five. Struggled all through school.

I mentioned this before we started talking. Just in the special needs classes, feeling like I was laughed at, made fun of. I was also very young for my age, so I could have been in the year prior. So it was even like, just even harder for me to learn, comprehend, remember things, sit still. Like reading a page in a book,

it just felt like I had to read it over and over again for an hour and I still didn't know what the book was saying in one page. Standing in front of a room and just felt like I had to read it over and over again for an hour and I still didn't know what the book was saying in one page standing in front of a room and just stuttering reading aloud it was just always like it just felt humiliating and like I was never going to learn anything it was kind of like the school years and also I got a 760 on my SATs and I remember we we grew up or we lived in Ohio both of us for a period of time. And Ohio State, I think today still is the largest university in the country, or maybe one of the largest in the world. And their acceptance rate is probably 99%. And I didn't even get into the

Ohio State. My grades were so bad. My SATs were so bad. So I just kept remember thinking, then my dad at 21, he got into a car accident that left him in a coma for many months. And for 17 years, kind of brain dead in a sense where he was alive, but emotionally and mentally not all there. Yep. So I kind of lost that male mentor figure. Yeah. And I remember just thinking, man, this is really challenging to overcome these things. Now as an adult, I look back, and I'm grateful for all these things. Now, as an adult, I look back and I'm grateful for all these things and I've found meaning in them all. And they've given me a sense of purpose to overcome these challenges. I've learned great skills through the pain and the sadness. I've had to adapt in other ways and I've had to really find value in other ways other than school, right? But those things can shape men, the feeling of

insecurity, self-doubt, not good enough from school, when women tend to be thriving in school settings. So women are thriving in their youth where men seem to be struggling. How can men in general overcome all the adversities and challenges they face? And I can already see that people are going to be saying, men have it way easier than women. And men have been probably oppressing women for so long. So why even talk about trying to help men when women need to have the platform for the next thousands of years and men can figure it out on their own?

What should we be talking about when it comes to developing young men and how can we do it in a way where everyone is on board for men's growth while continuing women's growth? Well, first off, thanks for your courage sharing that. I didn't know any of that about you. Look, so to your last point, men have had advantage. Look, so to your last point, men have had advantage. It's entirely true. But the problem is young men are now paying for the sins and the advantage that I registered. Because if you look at young men, I just got, I hit the lottery being born a white heterosexual male in 60s California.

I hit the lottery. 76% admissions rate at UCLA, basically free, came into professional age when the internet was coming online. I mean, I'm successful. A lot of my success is not my fault. I was in the right place at the right time. The best strategy for being successful is where you're born and when and how you're born, right? So I had the right skin tone, the right sexual orientation, and I was born in the right place at the right time. None of that was my fault. The notion that empathy is a zero-sum game

really reduces the quality of the dialogue. So civil rights didn't hurt white people. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage. And having empathy for young men who are four times more likely to kill themselves, half as likely to go to college, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated, that in no way should take away from the challenges that women still face. Women still see their earnings power decline dramatically once they decide to have kids. That's an issue we need to be thoughtful about. Social media is preying on girls. Self-harm has gone way up among teen girls because of just as they're coming into puberty, they never get to leave the high school cafeteria. My

colleague Jonathan Haidt has written. I mean, we can have empathy for different groups and it's not a zero-sum game. But to not acknowledge that young men are struggling is just to ignore the data. And unfortunately, because people have a gag reflex around having empathy for this group that has had so much advantage, we don't have a productive conversation. And then you have families and young men who see what's going on. They see this void and into it, unfortunately, have stepped some really unproductive voices. Because a lot of kind of the manosphere, if you will, it's really just thinly veiled misogyny. It starts off fine. Be fit. Be action-oriented. Make money. But then it turns into this kind of feel that women are

make money but then it turns into this kind of feel that women are property I would never let my girl go out with her friends get a supercar you know just it turns into just this weirdness where it really is just anti-women and so I think a lot of people when you start talking about young men they have an understandable gag reflex. So I think we just need to have a more productive conversation. One of the things you talked about, Richard Reeves suggests that we hold boys back a year, that girls enter at five and that boys enter at six. But I think you've had more obstacles and adversity. I was raised by a single mother, but I grew up in a loving household at the University of California. UCLA was 76% admissions rate. I had to apply twice,

but I got in. I didn't struggle with dyslexia. I was an underachiever, but I was tested well. I would put it back to you. You were successful despite the odds. You had some real serious. Yeah. My brother was in prison also when I was eight years old for four years. So I wasn't allowed to have friends during that time, small town Ohio, because everyone knew. Your brother was in prison. Yeah.

And so. Okay. And so here you are. By all exterior standards, you're a baller. Like you're a success. Guys look at you and think that's the guy I want to be. What are the two or three things if there's two or three things that you felt help you address and overcome these very real obstacles that you face because i don't feel like i have the answer two things that come to mind as you say that number one is seeking out male leaders right

and mentors and coaches i think sports I don't know if saved me, but gave me a channel and a platform to channel anger, resentment, shame, frustration into productivity, I guess. Developing myself and having the right coaches every season, having a really strong coach for the most part, except for maybe a semester or two in college.

Having someone that I could look up to and respect that gave structure. Every day you've got to be here at the right time, otherwise you're going to get in trouble. That gave us positive energy, positive attitude. That gave us goals for the next three months. That celebrated and acknowledged us and also gave us some tough love. I thrived off of that. When my dad got injured, I think I had the, I don't know,

the intuition or just the survival strategy to say, who are the men who are around his age that I can reach out to for support? So I had a few key kind of like male leaders who had, you know, married with kids who had money, who had just stable jobs. And I was like, what do I do? Right. And they were fortunate enough to mentor me for periods of time. So I kind of had that intuition to seek mentorship and coaches in my 20s and 30s.

And I continue to do that today. I think this podcast has been helpful for 11 years, finding men like you and saying, Hey, we're doing this 11 years, 11 years every week for 11 years. Wow. Um, so I think finding coaches and mentors and, and really being coachable to the best of my ability. It doesn't mean I haven't made tons of mistakes in my twenties and thirties. I'm 41 now, but that would be number one. The second one, I don't know if this is an unpopular answer, but is allowing myself to heal and diving into therapy, emotional coaching, and allowing all the shame and insecurity and doubt inside of me that drove me with anger and frustration to make it, transforming that or alchemizing that into a more peaceful, harmony, forgiving energy towards self and others.

Kind of like you talked about in the very beginning is like learning forgiveness and this emotional regulation. I think being on a continual journey of healing has allowed me to feel more at peace about myself. And allowed me to transform what is the reason behind all these things? What's the meaning behind all these things? reason behind all these things? What's the meaning behind all these things? And how can I make sure that my life is purposeful and lean towards purpose and service rather than destruction? Because I could have easily done that and had periods of time that I was more destructive energy, competitive versus collaborative, angry versus loving. And it got results, but it didn't give me peace and harmony so for the last

11 years i've been transforming that energy more into healing love versus anger and resentment that's encouraging because i i share a little i wasn't nearly the athlete you are but i played sports and i got a lot of that camaraderie and guardrails and coaching from coaches. It also teaches you that when you think you're at your wits end emotionally or mentally or physically, that you're not even close. Because you push yourself so hard, you find, wow, my limits are much greater than I'd ever imagined. But something that gives me hope, I'm 18 years older than you. The self-awareness and the confidence you speak about seeking help,

that just didn't happen in my generation. We didn't even call it... We called it when someone was struggling mentally, a woman was struggling mentally, we called it a nervous breakdown. It was a breakdown, a nervous breakdown. It wasn't wasn't oh they're mentally ill or they're struggling and they need help they're weak and they're women and women have nervous breakdowns and strong men do the right thing they just kill themselves but they're not allowed to like being like i'm i can't even imagine when i grew up in 70s california like a man saying I'm really struggling emotionally and mentally and I have these insecurities and I need therapy

it was more like this kind of S bull that was real self absorption and I don't know well that's how I grew up too in the 80s and 90s in Ohio I couldn't express how I felt to my peer group I couldn't put my arm around a friend of mine without them saying,

get off of you, fag. What are you doing? Don't touch me. And showing any type of weakness or emotion wasn't allowed. And so that drove my competitive edge to be like, okay, I'm going to prove people wrong. I'm going to be great in sports.

I'm going to be driven and succeed. But I'm definitely feeling very emotionally angry and kind of empty in a lot of ways when i would succeed i was even more enraged i was like why isn't this giving me the peace that i feel like i'm supposed to have the love the self-respect and i just hated myself for decades and i was just like okay there's only's only a couple of ways you can go. I can go into drugs and destruction and breaking things and hurting people and thinking of self, or I can go inward and try to heal in some ways or transform my energy or emotions to try to create a more harmonious environment inside so that I can hopefully create a harmonious environment

to create a more harmonious environment inside so that I can hopefully create a harmonious environment around me, the friends, family, the business I create, whatever it might be. Otherwise, why exist? Why be here? Might as well take my own life. So I think that's probably what a lot of men think about. It's like, if I don't know how to get out of these emotions, why am I even here? And I know growing up for me, I would say that so frequently. Why am I even here? And I know growing up for me, I would say that so frequently. Why am I even here? What's the point of my life? I would get in trouble in school, go to the principal's office and just say, I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead over and over again.

And I think that's more common with men, young men, young boys who maybe don't have healthy male figures in their life or don't know what their purpose is or behind or getting made fun of or haven't hit puberty, all these different things. And what you're saying about men having great male role models and reaching out and supporting them the best way possible, I think is for you, it was encouraging. And for me, it was encouraging. This must be something in the water in the valley because you and Rich Roll are literally the most self-actualized men I've met in the last few years but the fact that you are even self-actualized enough to know these deficiencies you have and how to address them when i was 41 i thought the answer to

everything was i just need to make more money and be more awesome and have more women in my life and just be more of a baller. That's going to solve everything. I just, I never had the self-actualization you have to say, well, there's some going on here and I need to be thoughtful about it and try and pull it apart and then reassemble it. So I think it's nice. I trust and hope. I mean, that's the reason I think you're probably so successful at this is I think a lot of guys probably don't have that skill set and sometimes aren't even able to recognize it. But I didn't, I just, I'm just sort of blown away listening to you talk about this at your age because I didn't think this way at all. I thought money and just kind of more was going to solve everything.

I did that. I mean, when I hit 30, you know, I was a multimillionaire. I was successful at a personal brand. I had followers, I was a multimillionaire. I was successful. I had a personal brand. I had followers, all these different things 11 years ago. But I was in complete breakdown in my intimate relationship, a business partnership that I had. My health was getting out of whack. And I just felt like all these things were hitting against me around the same season of life. And my best friend, who's actually here right now, he was like, I don't want to hang out with you anymore if you're going to act this way.

Right. Something's off. Right. And that triggered me. Maybe it was my fear of being alone or not having friends because I didn't have many growing up. But I was like, oh, let me take a look at this, where I thought I had the answers because I was successful. I was making money. I had a beautiful girlfriend.

All these things that I thought I was supposed to have. But I was the common denominator of all these big breakdowns in my life. And I was just really reactive in interactions. If I felt like someone was taking advantage or abusing me, I wanted to fight them physically. I wanted to yell at them. You know, if someone cut me off in the street, I was like, get out of my car, scream at someone.

Like those type of triggers. 100% I get that. That I felt like I needed to defend myself. Yeah. And I think it was the only way for me to not go down a destructive life was having a great friend say, I don't like the way you're showing up. He had the courage to kind of confront me in a loving way,

but he was like, I don't want to hang out with you if you're going to be like this. And that. Confrontation, uh, con, confrontation or just conversation

and me being like okay maybe I don't like myself either and I've done the things that I thought I was supposed to do I was a pro athlete made million dollars got the girlfriend moved to Los Angeles from Ohio like why am I still not happy becoming more of a baller

didn't make me happier. It created more destruction. So I was like, something has to shift. And that's when the journey started and it's still continuing 11 years later. There's a couple of things in there. One, you were smart enough, and a lot of men don't have this, to have guardrails.

It is really hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. And we're raising a whole generation of men that don't, one in seven men in America doesn't have a single friend. One in four can't name a best friend. And you have these tech companies, some of the most deeply resourced genius individuals are basically trying to convince young people

that they can have a reasonable facsimile of life behind a screen and on an algorithm in their basement. You don't need friends. You have Discord and Reddit. You don't need to go through the pain of trying to get a job and the discipline required. You can trade stocks and crypto on Robinhood and Coinbase. You don't need to go through the humiliation and expense and drama of trying to find a mate and getting your act together and being attractive. That's hard. That stuff's hard. You've got you porn. And so you have a whole group of young men who are sequestering from society and they never have those guardrails. And these individuals, they're prone to conspiracy theory. They're much more prone to misogynistic content. They start

blaming women. They start becoming nationalists and blaming immigrants. They're less likely to believe in climate change. And some, they just become really citizens. But what you're talking about, I mean, quite frankly, it just gives me more hope for young men that that is even a conversation a lot of young men are willing to have. Because it was a conversation we just didn't have. We didn't even think of having it when I was younger. I didn't have it either. And I think I probably would have gone to death or destruction or prison had I didn't learn how to have that conversation and look within.

Because it felt like there was no way out. It felt suffocating. I either have to make more and still be miserable, or what's the other option? I'll be destructive. I've suffocating. I either have to make more and still be miserable or what's the other option? I'll be destructive. I've got two final questions. I've got a lot of questions, but if people want a part two, comment below that if you're fascinated by this as I am, leave a comment below on YouTube or on social media that you want more with me and Scott. I'd love to have you back on sometime you're back here in town. Before I ask the final question,

Scott, I want people to get this book, The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security. I went through a lot of this already, and I just love your approach. And I love how simple you make challenging things understandable. But there's just so much. I love it when I can read a chapter on a page. And that's what you pretty much do throughout this entire thing. Thanks for that. So for me, I love that because I can read a chapter and a page. And that's what you pretty much do throughout this entire thing. So for me, I love that

because I can dissect it better. But it really talks about more than just money, but the relationships, stoicism, discipline, friendships, make sure you're hanging out with rich friends, having financial conversations often,

all these different things that I think a lot of people struggle doing. Rich high character friends. Rich high character friends. Not just W2. Exactly. So the next time you come on, we'll talk more about it as well.

But people can go get it. Take it from number nine on Amazon back to number one. Let's go get that back up there. You're everywhere on social media. So people can find you everywhere. You've got your own podcast as well. You're on YouTube channel.

But just search Scott Galloway anywhere and you'll see your content. The final two questions for you, Scott. This is a hypothetical scenario that I ask everyone at the end of my show. It's called the three truths. So imagine you get to live as long as you want. You get to continue to create the life you want. You see your family, friends grow up. You write more. All the things you do, they come true. But it's the last day. For whatever reason, in a hypothetical scenario, you have to take all of your content with you.

This book, this interview, every piece of content you ever create is gone from this world. But you get to leave behind three final truths or three lessons. And this is all we would have of your content left in this world. What would be those three truths for you? Three truths. Wow. I'll go in reverse order from least important to most important.

Physical fitness, feeling strong is really important. Develop a sense of just how important it is to be strong and healthy and really focus on your physical and your mental health, Young, because at some point, regardless of no matter how hard you tried, it starts to diminish. So do you want to diminish from a nine or from a four? So this is not a dress rehearsal. This is not a rental.

This is it. Something that gives me tremendous power is knowing or believing it's going to be over soon, that you are going to die. It's going to happen sooner than you think. And I said this earlier, I do believe at some point I'm going to look into my son's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end. That gives me tremendous, not only courage to try and be more expressive with my emotions, but also helps me recover from embarrassment and trauma because I realize in 50 to 70 years, everyone I'm worried about what they think about me is going to be gone and I'm going to be gone. Yeah, I find it

quite liberating to have a sense of the finite nature of life. And the last one is don't have a scorecard. Decide the dad you want to be, decide the spouse you want to be, decide the friend you want to be, decide the business person you want to be. When I was your age, if I wasn't getting as much from a business relationship or a spouse, I was upset, angry, back in their face. I was that guy like you. Someone honks at me, disrespects me. I got to restore the world to its natural equilibrium and speed up and honk at them.

Someone disrespects me at the airline counter. Do you know who I am? I mean, just all that bull. Put the scorecard away and think like, at the end of the day, what kind of citizen, what kind of man, what kind of husband, what kind of friend do you want to be? And live up to that.

And the whole point is not to have equivalence. The whole point is to cash out with surplus value and to recognize that the objective isn't to wait for the apology but to forgive the perceived debt. And so something that was liberating for me and I wish I'd figured out sooner was to put away the scorecard, to just envision the man I wanted to be and live up to that and not keep scoring for anything in terms of how people treat me or respond to me. Because you naturally are going to inflate your own contribution and

diminish others. And it was just so liberating to think, okay, this is who I'm going to be. And that's my North Star. Wow. That's beautiful. Scott, before I ask the final question, I just want to acknowledge you for your evolution, your journey, and your service to the world. Oh, thanks, man. You've got so much great content out there. Appreciate that.

Not just your books, but your teaching and your perspective of living in relationships and money and how to be a good man is a beautiful reminder that we all need. And I'm just so grateful that you're leading the way and you're using your story and your message and service to so many of us. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Greatness. For me, that a different way of answering is a tombstone. Thank you. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Greatness. For me, that's a different way of answering as a tombstone. Like you get three words on your tombstone. I want mine to be generous citizen dad. I want to be someone who is patriotic, who really loved America. I want to be someone

that no matter what happens, he was a great dad. And that I was generous. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that definition. Thanks, brother. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast.

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