Transcript of Scott Galloway: Stop Chasing Passion and Build a Career That Pays Off | Career | YAPClassic New

Today's episode is sponsored in part by Huel, Intuit, Blinkist Fabric, and Zocdoc. Huel makes nutritionally complete meals that you can drink. Get 15% off with my code YAP15 at huel.com/yap15. Intuit QuickBooks Bill Pay lets you manage and pay your business bills directly inside QuickBooks. Learn more at quickbooks.com/billpay. Blinkist turns the world's best nonfiction into 15-minute reads or listens. Grab your free trial plus an exclusive 30% discount at blinkist.com/profiting. Protect your family with term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/profiting. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high-quality in-network doctors. Go to zocdoc.com/profiting to book a doctor today. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com/deals. Yap Gang, the old rule book to success is broken. Earlier this week on Monday, we talked about how simply working hard isn't enough anymore to get ahead. But when you zoom out for a second, the conversation gets even bigger. Today's Yap Classic explores why success actually feels harder for younger generations in the first place, and nobody breaks that down quite like Scott Galloway, entrepreneur, NYU professor, and bestselling author.

Major economic shifts, changing social dynamics. The world we live in today looks totally different than the one that our parents grew up in. In this episode, we dig into what's really driving that and why understanding it is the first step to building a life that actually works today. So buckle up, take notes, and thank me later.

Young Improveters, we have Scott Galloway on the show.

He's also known as—

What a thrill. What a thrill. Oh my gosh. You're welcome.

So Scott, let's get started in terms of your upbringing and your childhood. You say your childhood was remarkably unremarkable, and I'd love to understand, do you think that you would've thought you would've become, you know, the uber successful person that you are today or anybody around you at that time? Uh, I'd love to hear about your childhood.

Born and raised, uh, by, or by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. Really, you know, remarkably unremarkable. I didn't do that well on the SAT. I did okay academically, but it wasn't a sob story. We had a nice life. We took nice vacations. I had someone irrationally passionate about my wellbeing, which I think is kind of one of the key pillars of success, that being my mother. I had nice friends. So, but it was, I graduated from high school with like a 3.2 GPA, 1100 on the SAT. But the difference was the big hand of government lifted me up. The admissions rate at UCLA when I applied was 76%, and I had to apply twice, but they let me in. And I still got, you know, I rewarded their faith in me with a 2.27 GPA undergraduate GPA. And then a second stroke of luck, Berkeley decided to let me into graduate school. And then I kinda got my act together, but I've often up until the age of 40, I talked about my background as if I overcame something. And what I realized, Holly, as I got older, and I just gained a little bit more perspective, you know, I started to hit the lottery.

Being born a white heterosexual male in the mid-'60s meant that I came of age when there was free, amazing state-sponsored education, see above, UCLA and Berkeley. I came into my professional earning years with the processing power and the, the kind of the rise of the internet. And the thing I always remind myself of, my freshman roommate in college was born a homosexual male and was dead of AIDS at the age of 33. So I try to always keep in mind that a lot of my success isn't my fault. So the first 40 years of my life, I would describe my upbringing as something that I overcame. Now I realize that I was more blessed than probably 99% of the public, but fairly unremarkable upbringing.

Yeah. It's really interesting. We have something in common, which is we both graduated with 2.27 GPAs from under—

like, no kidding.

Exact GPA.

Where'd you go to school?

I swear.

Where did you go to school?

I went to New Jersey Institute of Technology. And so it was an engineering school. And you know, I was too immature to do well in college at the time. I was always very smart, but just not book smart. But it still was a great experience. And you say the same, that college really set you off to be successful. And had you not went to college, you wouldn't have gotten this social, you know, experience that you needed. And same thing with me. So I'd love to hear about how college was beneficial for you and what do you think are the key factors of young people's success right now?

Yeah, it was transformative for me. And the way things have changed since I was a kid, my mom was really excited that in the 3rd grade, I got sent to 5th grade for math and English. Uh, but the thing is men don't mature as quickly as women. And I went to UCLA when I was 17. And I was just too immature to handle it. I abused alcohol. I ended up in the emergency room once, terrible grades, almost got kicked outta school. But I joined a fraternity and I always say it was one of the best things, the decisions I ever made, 'cause it shrunk a 30,000-person community down to something manageable for me. And I was around 22-year-old men. And I remember getting a big brother and him saying to me, you know, you need to stop smoking so much pot and take your studies more, you know, more seriously. I needed that. I did have no male role models in my life. So I think greatness is in the agency of others. So it was a chance for me to make connections with people. I did learn a little bit, not a lot, but it was really, for me, it was just kind of marination.

It was a chance to develop social, you know, social and kind of life skills. I still think college is a great plan B. I think it gets a lot of disparagement because people are looking for excuses to make themselves feel better 'cause it's become so unattainable because it's so expensive or so exclusionary. So I actually think we need to dramatically expand freshman seats. It's not for everybody, but it's for a lot of people. I also think we need to dramatically expand the way we think about college and include 1- and 2-year certifications in things like specialty construction or health tech or cybersecurity. But also, Hala, I don't know, I mean, going to UCLA, I played sports. It was just a great time. And I learned a lot about myself. I fell in love for the first time, got my heart broken for the first time. Played sports. It was just a wonderful way to kind of develop your formative years. So I have very fond memories of college. And while I acknowledge it's not for everybody, I do think that we need to do a better job of making it more accessible for more people.

'Cause I do think a lot of people benefit from a college experience. I think it's a wonderful experience. And had I not had it, I'm a talented person. I work very hard. I think I'd make a good living selling cars or copiers. But I wouldn't have, uh, wouldn't have been able to register the type of success and influence and economic security without, uh, the certification and experience that, uh, that's offered by colleges.

Yeah. And I'd love to learn more about that because I know that you've done some research or, or you're familiar with some data about how, how it's almost a requirement to have a pedigree and to have a college degree in order to attain, you know, that 1% level of success that so many of us who are listening to a show like this are, are wanting to achieve.

Yeah, I would describe it as certification. Um, and we're in a certification economy, and that is about 50 years ago, 1 in 4 jobs required a college degree. Now it's 3 in 4. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a traditional BA, but a certification, a different, you know, a Class 3 driver's license or scuba instructor certification, or, you know, whatever it might be. The opportunity to stand out in a LinkedIn economy that says, I'm different, I have skills, you know, a CFA, a CPA, all of these things, you know, a professional, if you will, some sort of certification, a degree in nursing are just so important in terms of developing currency. And I think you're— I think the first piece of advice I give to people on a very basic level economically is get to a city and get certified. Two-thirds of economic growth over the next 50 years is gonna take place in 20 super cities. If you play tennis, you know that when you play with someone better than you, your game naturally rises. And when you're in a city, you're playing tennis against the best in the world and it's competitive and it's difficult and it's expensive, but your game gets stronger.

Uh, in addition, uh, you want to get some sort of certification. It doesn't have to be a traditional 4-year BA degree, liberal arts degree, but you need something that when people see your profile on LinkedIn, they go, okay, this person has specific skills. And it all kind of bubbles up to, I think your primary mission in your 20s is not to follow your passion. I think that's terrible advice. I think it's to find your talent. And that is figure out what you're good at and then really invest a lot of money in becoming great at that thing. And if you're great at something, the accouterments of being great, money, camaraderie, relevance, influence, pride, will make you passionate about whatever it is. So that's your job, I think, coming out of school, is figure out what you're good at and try and become great at it.

Yeah, I think that's really smart advice because a lot of people, you know, go try to find follow their passion, but they're not necessarily good at it. So I recently had Alex Hormozi on. He's a really smart guy and he said something that I thought that you may find interesting. He was talking about focus and he was saying how a lot of young people right now, they're not spending enough time on one thing. They're, you know, not getting the success right away. They're not getting progress right away and they're kind of dropping it and moving on to the next shiny object. And so I'd love to hear your perspective about the importance of focusing on a goal once you've sort of set out for that thing?

Well, metrics are important, whether it's working out or whether it's forcing yourself to get out of the house a certain number of days a week to try and make more connections, whether it's saving a certain amount of money per, per month, you know, what gets measured gets done. So the goal is a dream with a deadline. I think it's important to have a few metrics. I think it's also to figure out kind of reverse engineer, like where do I think a decent, A decent exercise to say, where do I wanna be in 5 years? Well, I wanna have a graduate degree, right? Well, I wanna have $100,000 in savings. Well, I wanna be living in a major city, whatever it might be. And then reverse engineer the likely steps and skills that you're gonna need to get to that point and just kind of work your way backwards. And greatness is sort of like, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. And then try and reverse engineer it or bring it down granular. Like, what do I need to get done this week? If I'm gonna have a graduate degree in 5 years, What do I need to get done this week?

Okay. I need to get applications for undergraduate schools. I'm going to save $100,000 in 5 years. That means I need to save approximately, I don't know, $14,000 a year, assuming a certain interest rate. That means this month I need to save $1,200. Well, I can't, but I can save $600. What would that mean in terms of my spending this week? Uh, but basically come up with a big goal and then try and reverse engineer it into bite-sized bites that are doable. Um, because I just think, like I said, small things add up to very big things very fast. Compound interest is sort of the most powerful force in the universe. Supposedly Einstein said it, although he didn't, it was someone else. But when you're your age, Hala, my general thought was, I'm not gonna save money 'cause I'm such a baller. At some point I'm gonna make tens of millions of dollars. But time goes really fast. And I think if I could give you a magic box and you could put 10 grand in that box, and get $100 grand back, how much would you put into that box? And the answer is probably a lot.

You might even sacrifice or trade off some short-term things. Well, that box is just time. And it was yesterday when I was your age and I woke up and I'm my age and I'd wish I'd been more disciplined. You know, I got lucky later in life professionally, but I took a lot of risks. I could have ended up in a bad spot. And your insurance policy is just saving a certain amount of money. The algebra of wealth is pretty straightforward. Find your talent, Through focus, live like a Stoic or live below your means. Trying to always save money from a very early age. It's really powerful. Diversify, don't go all in on anything. It's dangerous. The market's bigger than any one individual. Don't put all your money into Dogecoin or Google, diversify, and then let time take over. The best performing investors are actually dead people 'cause they don't trade a lot. So, you know, you may wanna go all in on your own business at some point. You may wanna borrow money to improve yourself, whether it's through college or some sort of certification. But generally those steps, you know, focus, stoicism, diversification, and then letting time take over are sort of not surefire, not surefire ways to get rich, but best practices.

So, you know, the good news is I know how to get you rich. The bad news is the answer is slowly. But there is an algebra to it.

That's really interesting stuff. And I'd love to go back to your story because I think that there was a very transformative point in your life. So when you were 26 years old, um, I believe you were 26 years old, your mom got terminally, terminally, terminally ill with cancer. Mm-hmm. And at that moment in your life, you made a decision that really impacted what we were just talking about, focus, your goals, and what you really wanted in life thereafter. So I'd love to hear about that moment in your life and the decisions that you made. As a result of it.

Yeah, I was kind of a fuck-up until that point. I had some potential. I was smart, or, you know, I had some natural gifts academically, but that I didn't really apply myself. I was lazy. I was just sort of your classic underachiever. I don't think I was a very high-character person. I didn't think much about other people. And it was just me and my mom, and my mom got very sick. And I remember coming home. I remember the weekend she was discharged from the hospital early after surgery and massive chemo, and I just didn't know what to do. And she was very sick. And I did, you know, I'm like, do I get a nurse? Do I get her to a hospital? No hospital will take her. And I remember thinking, and it sounds very crass, how I remember thinking, I just wish I had more money. I can't take care of my mom. And there's certain instincts that take over, I think, with any child, but especially the only child, and especially the only child who's a male, who's supposed to, you know, all these instincts bubble up that I was failing as a man and I was failing as a son.

And I decided there and then that I didn't decide to be rich. I don't think you can make that decision. There's a lot of luck that comes along with it, but I decided that I was gonna get my act together because I wanted to take care of my mom. And that's really when I, I just started getting very focused and I've worked very hard from that point. I got very, very, uh, serious about work and trying to establish economic security. And I feel as if there's always kind of two key moments around transitioning from becoming a child to a grownup. And I would describe myself at the age of 26 as kind of a man-child. I just focused on partying and trying to have bigger experiences and trying to have, you know, date more and more awesome women and have more and more interesting experiences and just like more. I just always wanted more and never really sated my appetite and didn't really have kind of what I call long-term satisfaction around anything. And then my mom got very sick and that was very eye-opening for me. So I feel like I grew up there.

And then the next place you grow up, I think, is when you have a kid. And that sort of, you know, so birth and death are kind of the seminal moments in your life. And also the lesson I would offer to young people is that kind of 0 to 25 is really happy. There's a lot of studies on happiness and happiness in terms of longitudinally looks like a smile. And that is 0 to 25 is Star Wars, beer, college football games, it's just awesome. 25 to 45 is what I call the shit gets real time of your life. You find out that you're not gonna have a fragrance named after you, or you're not gonna be senator. You find out that work is hard. You have some financial stress. Maybe you have kids, which is very stressful. Someone you love and loves you immensely gets sick and dies. And it's just, it's really a punch in the gut. You're just not ready. I don't think anyone can prepare you for that. Relationships are stressful. The workplace is stressful. And then something happens wonderful at 45 or younger if you're soulful, and that is, you start to find joy in weird things.

I remembered, I don't know if your parents were ever like this, but I remember my mom like ordering a salad and the salad would come and she'd grab my hand and say, "Look at this salad, look how beautiful this is." And I remember thinking like, "What is she talking about?" But now I can relate to that 'cause I take my dogs for a walk, I'm in London right now in Hyde Park and they have this, I'm not even into art and they had a freeze festival and they had all this outdoor sculpture. I'm not into any of this stuff, but I couldn't help but stop and just marvel at it. And I'm not sure I would've stopped to smell the statues, if you will, 20 years ago. So what I tell young people who are struggling with the fact that their life isn't living up to their Instagram feed, or maybe what their parents or their university told them would happen by the time they were 30, that is life, that you're going through what everyone goes through, and to keep on keeping on, that one foot in front of the other, that happiness waits for you, but there's just no getting around it.

Some people sooner than others, life hits you pretty hard, pretty fast. When you hit your 20s. And I, I can't say it's easy, but what I can tell you is everyone goes through that. And for me, the places I grew up were around, uh, losing my mom or when she was really sick and wanting to take care of her and then realizing it wasn't all about me when I had my first kid.

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I find this really fascinating that you're talking about this. I had a conversation with Arthur Brooks. Uh, a couple months ago, and he talks about this concept of fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence. Mm-hmm. And when you're in your 20s and your 30s, you've got all this fluid intelligence. You're able to problem solve, you're innovative, you're crushing it at work. And once you reach like your mid-40s, your 50s, that's when you have crystallized intelligence. And a lot of people fail because they're trying to chase that fluid intelligence that they had in their 20s and their 30s, and they can't compete. With, you know, the younger generation. And really what they need to do is turn into a coach or a teacher and start teaching the younger generation if they want to, you know, have that second, you know, phase of happiness or success in their life. And a lot of people miss that. And so it's just one of the lessons that I'm really starting to unfold on this podcast is like, you've gotta put in the work when you're in your twenties and thirties because you'll be, you know, way better off doing it now than waiting until you're 40 and 50.

Cuz it's, it's much harder later on to attain that level of success if your goal is monetary success and being, you know, very financially well off. Yeah.

Like we're, we're siblings from another mother here that, and let's start with, it's not necessarily the right way, but it's what I'll call the capitalist way. And that is, I believe America becomes more like itself every day. And that is, it's a loving, generous place. If you have money, it's a rapacious, violent place if you don't have money. So, You know, you were born or you live in a capitalist society. Money is important. And wealthy people don't talk a lot about money. Uh, I almost think it's sort of unfair because I think they want to hide. They want to pretend that they're just such geniuses that they don't think about money. That's like saying Roger Federer doesn't think about tennis. If you want to be good at money, you need to think about it a lot. And I'm not saying being obsessed with it, because there's a dignity to living below your means, moving to a lower cost area, kind of working to live, not living to work. But if you are ambitious, as I imagine the majority of the people listening to this podcast, um, get rid of or dispel the myth of balance.

Uh, I had almost no balance when I was your age. I worked pretty much all the time. Young people always find time to drink and to mate. Those instincts are so powerful that you'll find opportunities. But in terms of— I had no hobbies. I didn't, you know, I didn't do, from kind of the age of 25 to 45, I don't remember much else but working. And unless you're smart enough to inherit money, you're going to have to work your ass off. It's a competitive marketplace out there. And I really don't know anybody who's been very successful economically that hasn't spent the better part of 20 years doing pretty much nothing but working. And it comes at a cost. I always say it cost me my marriage, it cost me my hair, and it was worth it. And that sounds very crass, but the reason I can take my boys to World Cup, you know, kick off early from work and take my dogs, you know, to the park, I'm in great shape for a guy my age. The reason why I have so much balance now, Hala, is 'cause I had almost none when I was your age.

And it all goes back to this notion that you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. And what you wanna do is you wanna, in my opinion, burn a lot of fuel when you're young, because you don't have usually to have dogs, you don't have spouses, you don't have kids. You have the energy, you're learning a lot. I came outta UCLA, again, kind of unremarkable, and somehow I got a job at Morgan Stanley in fixed income. And my peers in the analyst class were just better educated and more talented than me. And I decided that every Tuesday morning I was gonna go to work and I was gonna stay till Wednesday night. I would work through the night, I'd work 36 hours straight. And it kind of demonstrated it. I told everybody I came to play. I was capable of doing it. I was physically very fit. I was mentally pretty strong. And I didn't have dogs or kids or a spouse waiting for me at home. I was living with my mom. I had nothing going on. So the time, I think of it kind of as an aviation reference or a rocket reference.

You need to get to outer space. And the atmosphere is very thick when you're just starting. You need to focus, you need to guide guide yourself on the launchpad, and then you need to burn a lot of fuel. And if you can get some success, if you can save some money, if you can get a reputation, if you can establish business relationships, if you get some credibility in the marketplace, when you do punch through out of the inner orbit into the outer orbit, your efforts get rewarded more. Like, I have momentum now, so I can cover much more ground with less fuel than most young people can because I have contacts, a reputation, existing business relationships, et cetera. But you gotta burn that fuel when you're young. And the other thing I would tell you is time goes really fast. So I'm always about, you know, head down, get on it. It sounds very boomer. And I wanna acknowledge again, it's not the right way, it's just my way, but I'm glad I made those sort of sacrifices when I was younger, 'cause it goes really fast and I get to really enjoy myself now.

And anyway, so give up the myth of balance. It just, I think it's a myth.

Yeah, I totally agree there. I mean, I have a similar story in terms that I feel like I was sort of a late bloomer too, and I hustled like crazy in terms of my work ethic. I know for 5 years ago I started this podcast and I, now I have a business, a social agency, a podcast network, all this stuff.

And all I did was work for 5 years straight.

Mm-hmm. And delay gratification and not go out with my friends. And I lost so many friends and I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years and I didn't get married and all these things. That you're supposed to kind of do. Yeah. But I don't regret it at all because I've achieved this level of success that I feel like had I not done that, there's no way I would've been where I am today. And now I'm actually on the younger side of everybody else who I'm competing with. Mm-hmm. Because I focused so hard for, for a period of time and all I did was have this singular goal of learning everything about what I needed to learn about, about social and podcast and, and whatever. And of course I had other experiences that helped me before, but I have a lot of guests on the show that disagree. Agree with this point of sacrificing your relationships, for example, to focus on wealth and success. I had Daniel Pink on the show and he said that the number one reason for regret is this thing called connection regret. He studied over 16,000 people and it's, it's this regret of not staying connected to the important people in our lives.

So, mm-hmm, I'd love to understand if, if you think there's any sort of decision-making framework that we should have in terms of you know, how much do we really want this thing compared to our relationships? Or just your advice on, is it really impossible to manage all of that and have everything in your opinion?

Everyone is gonna know someone, at least on Instagram, that is good looking, in great shape, has a great relationship with their parents, makes a shit ton of money, and has a food blog and donates time at the ASPCA. Assume you are not that person. You have to pick your punches. I think as a young person, you wanna be very focused on your career. I think in terms of relationships, um, I'm familiar with Daniel Pink's work and Adam Alter's done a lot of work around regrets, um, on your deathbed, if you will. And a lot of it comes down to not staying in touch with people, not living the life that you wanted to live, being who you were, you know, doing things for other people or trying to please other people. And the number one regret is people wish they'd been less hard on themselves. They wish that they'd been more forgiving. Of their failures. But anyways, I do think that when you're young, you can get— just as you can make small investments or save a small amount of money when you're young and it adds up to big, big amounts when you're older.

I think small investments in relationships when you're young, small consistent investments pay off. So I think the things you wanna stay focused on are work first and foremost. Uh, number 2 is, um, fitness, mental and physical strength. And that is run long distances and lift heavy weights in your mind and in the gym. I think you get that time back. I think if you work out 30 minutes a day, you're gonna be able to, you know, you're gonna be, you get that time back every day. You're just more energetic. You feel better. You have more opportunities. You're able to work harder. You have a broader selection set of mates. You feel better about yourself. You're kinder, more confident. I do think though, you can invest in relationships early and often, quick text messages to people. Having the confidence to express interest in being friends with someone, talking to strangers, accepting dinner invites, trying to really push the limits of your comfort zones around putting yourself in a, creating serendipity. You know, I met the mother of my children at the pool at the Raleigh Hotel, 'cause I walked in and said, I am going to go talk to this woman.

I said, before I leave, I'm going to go and speak to her. And my son's middle name is Raleigh. So there's a balance. I think those three things, work, relationships, and fitness are kind of the only things you should be focusing on. But I think you can get a lot of traction as a young person. Young people get invited to a lot of stuff. They're very social. Quite frankly, they're very attractive. So you're gonna have more opportunities as a young person. There's more third spaces with a lot of other people, whether it's Coachella or the gym, it's just packed with a lot of young people. You wanna take advantage and try and make investments in that as often as, is this feasible? And what I find, generally speaking, is that young people are really good at scaling socially, that they figure out those opportunities, and also being aggressive, talking to strangers, being open to stuff, because it's really important who you end up with, specifically who you have kids with, is probably the most important decision you'll make in your 20s and 30s. It's not where you go to work, it's not where you live, A good partner will help you aggregate success and wealth.

A bad partner, you know, just kind of screw up everything. So what you want to do is you want to put yourself in a position to have as many opportunities as possible. Uh, so I do think it's a balance, um, over time. Uh, there's a lot of research that shows that happiness is a function of how many deep and meaningful relationships you have. But once you have those relationships, you want to ideally starch out the economic anxiety, of which there's a lot in America if you aren't secure. So I think you wanna, again, going back to our original notion, I think work requires a lot of energy, but just as you make small investments every month, a small investment every day, reach out to somebody, do you wanna grab brunch this weekend? Add a quick text message. I thought you did so well in that meeting. I'm so impressed with you. Talking to a stranger that you might have some interest in romantically. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. We've kind of conflated this. We're also, our lawyers are supposed to meet at the studios of MSNBC and decide if we're interested in each other.

Things have gotten so weird around mating and human sexuality. It's okay to express interest in somebody. And if you don't know the difference between expressing interest and harassing someone, you have bigger problems. But I worry people your age aren't making friends. They aren't connecting romantically. They aren't finding mentors. We're all, none of us are going to, few of us are going to work anymore. We're definitely not going to the mall. None of us are going to the movies anymore. So where do young people find those third spaces? So work, relationships, and fitness is kind of my, if you will, my triangle or my pyramid.

Yeah, I think that's excellent advice and I wanna spend a big chunk of time talking about young men and, and marriage and mating inequality and all that stuff. Cuz I feel like it's so interesting. But first, uh, let's kick off with some stuff in your book Adrift. You talk about the American dream in your book and I think there's lots of like ties into what we're talking about right now. And so back in the day, it used to be that you work hard and you know, you could ultimately do better than your parents, but kids our age and young people. I shouldn't say our age, but young people out there right now, they're not doing better than their parents were. People in their 30s are not doing as well as their parents were when they were 30 or 40. Can you talk to us about why?

So sure. So first off, if you were born in 1941, there was a 93% chance you were gonna do better than your parents. So unless you had some sort of physical or emotional, you know, disability, you were gonna do better. Now it's 49%. So for the first time in the history of America, a 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That creates tremendous shame, anxiety, and rage because the ultimate compact a population has with its society is that if I play by the rules and work hard, my kids will do better than me. And now you have over half of people under the age of 30 not living with a friend or romantic partner, they're living at home. So you have constant reminders that you're not doing that well called mom and dad. And this creates anxiety and rage and shame for both the parents and the kid. And I think a lot of our dissatisfaction and polarization in our country right now stems directly from that. I think it is a concerted effort that has taken place deliberately. The entrenched incumbents will claim that it's these big, this impact of these uncontrollable, big, intractable forces, polarization or globalization or network effects.

I think it's been a concerted decision by people a bit older than me to transfer wealth from young people to old people. People under the age of 40 used to control 19% of the nation's GDP. Their wealth amounted to 19%. In the last 40 years, it's gone from 19 to 9. A person over the age of 70 is now 72% wealthier than they were— people over the age of 70 were 40 years ago. But a person under the age of 40 is 22% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago. And you think, well, what's happened? Is the economy slowed down? No, productivity continues to rip upward and to the right. This weird thing happened in 1971 where basically wages and productivity followed each other like two snakes intertwined. The nation became more productive, wages went up. Nation got a lot more productive, Wages went way up. And then in 1971, something happened, and that is wages flatlined. And that is we decided that the majority of the spoils of increases in productivity— and now we produce more in a month than we did an entire year in the '50s— would go to shareholders. And there's some benefits to that.

The markets go up. It makes it more attractive to start a business. We have the best capital markets in the world, but the wage earners or the middle class or the young who get the majority of their income through current income started falling behind. So you think, well, okay, why did that happen? It happened because we decided to make it happen. And that is the two largest tax breaks in American society are mortgage interest and capital gains. Who owns stocks and homes? People my age. Who rents and makes their money through current income? People your age. So while each year I likely have more income than you, because it comes in the form of capital gains, dividends, selling stocks, I pay a lower tax rate than you do. That makes no sense. So, and then if you look back on, well, how's this happened? Our leadership, our elected representatives are the oldest in the world. And every year they get older because they have figured out a way to create incumbency where 95% of the time the incumbent is reelected. So we have a Speaker of the House that is 81, a Senate Minority Leader that is 82, a Senate Majority Leader that is 72, and a president that if he's reelected, will leave the West Lawn for the last time in Marine One at the age of 86.

And his competitor will be an obese, obese 82-year-old if he gets reelected and leaves for the last time. And then the first two states that dictate the presidential race are Iowa and Maine, two of the oldest states in the union. So what do you have? You end up with programs like Social Security and people— that's a third rail. I can never run for office because I've said I don't think Social Security is executed well. Why are we, when I say we, why are you and your cohorts, working cohorts, and I'm still one of them, I'm under the age of 50, why are you transferring $1.5 trillion of wealth every year to the wealthiest cohort in the history of the planet, US seniors? Shouldn't it be the other way around? So why, the cohort that has killed it and is wealthier gets $1.5 trillion from young people in the form of Social Security. I'm not saying we should do away with it. There's no reason why I should ever get Social Security. There's no reason my dad should be getting Social Security. And people say, well, it's a pension, I put money in. The average Social Security recipient will take out 2 to 3 times what they put in.

It's called Social Security tax, not Social Security pension fund, meaning that a tax goes into the kitty such that it might help people, other people benefit the country, and you might not benefit directly from it. So everything we've done, I would argue, over the last 50 years has been to execute a transfer of wealth from young people to old people. And as a result, we end up with a breaking of the most basic of social compacts, and we end up with rage and shame. And I think we can fix it. We need to bring down the cost of education. Kids can no longer access the middle, the middle, you know, the American dream as easily. Housing has skyrocketed because We made taxes lower, some money went into the market. If you already own a home, it's great. But what if you're trying to buy a home? It's gotten so incredibly expensive. What if you're trying to get a degree? So I think we have, we can, the bad news is we have transferred all this wealth from young to old people. The good news is these are problems of our own making and we can unmake them.

But we have to revert to where past generations were, and that is willing to make sacrifices to invest and the health of younger generations. And some, you know, they talk about the greatest generation. Baby boomers are by far the greediest generation. It seems like everything we do is such that we can upgrade, upgrade Nana and Pop Pop from Carnival Cruises to Crystal Cruises. It needs to stop. We need to start investing in young people.

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What do you think the implications are for the future if we don't start investing in young people?

Uh, violence and revolution. I mean, what you have here, it has so many knock-on effects because who it's really hurt is young men. And that is a lot of the jobs that young men used to have as on-ramps into the middle class were generally industries that over-indexed male— manufacturing, frontline work. Those jobs have been outsourced overseas. In addition, once we leveled the playing field academically, women just blew by men. Women are more mature, they're more disciplined, they're better at delaying gratification. And over the next 5 years, we're gonna have 2 women graduate from college for every 1 man. Now you think, well, fine, women deserve it. It's time. It's their time. There's a lot of knock-on effects here though. So we don't like to talk about this on the left, but essentially women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. Or put another way, a woman with a college degree isn't interested in marrying a man without a college degree. Marriage has become a luxury item. If you're a man and you're in the upper quintile, there's a 75% chance you'll get married. If you're in the lowest quintile, it's a 25% chance you're gonna get married.

So you have a lot of loneliness on both ends. And you have this mating inequality where if Tinder were a country, it would be like Venezuela. And that is, if you have 50 men and 50 women on Tinder, 42 of the women will show all of their attention to just 8 men, leaving 42 men fighting over 8 women. Because women have a much finer filter around mating. Guys see a picture on Tinder and go, "Oh, she's cute, swipe right." Women have much finer criteria. And when they can apply it to everybody, 'cause everybody is available online, or at least theoretically, they become, they get a chance to implement their filter. Whereas before we had these geographic mating ring fences, you went to temple every Friday, there were 8 single women and 8 single men, and you kind of all slowly but surely, you know, paired off and figured it out. Now the top 10% of attractive submissive males engage in what I call Porsche polygamy. And that is they get 80 to 90% of the interest, which doesn't lead to long-term relationships and quite frankly, bad behavior. 50 to 90 in terms of attractiveness for men do okay or the same, but the bottom half of men in terms of attractiveness have been totally shut out of the mating market.

It makes them angry, detached, they're more likely to be prone to misogynistic content. They think it's a woman's fault. They're more likely to believe in conspiracy theory. They're less likely to believe in climate change. And generally speaking, online dating has just made it a little bit shittier for all women. So what we have is an entire cohort of what I call emotionally and economically unviable men. And so women are leveling up and it's great, but they're not interested in the men our society is producing right now. And the most violent, unstable societies in the world all have too many of the same thing. And that is a broke and lonely young man. And we are producing too many of them. So leveling up and making a massive investment in young people, vocational programming, more seats, freshman seats in universities, tax, fiscal, tax and fiscal policy that restores some of that income and wealth to younger generations that will level up all young people, but it'll have a disproportionately powerful effect on men who have taken the brunt of some of these structural changes over the last 40 years.

I am like loving this topic. And I have a really funny story to share that I think correlates with a lot of your data and, and research. So I have a social media client. His name is Marshall Goldsmith. He's this legendary executive coach, bestselling author. I manage his social media. Yep. And so whenever he meets with me and my business partner Kate, he's always telling us like, I don't understand how you girls aren't married. He's like, and he's just like, all the young men today, they're just terrible. You guys have to marry down. My daughter had to marry down. If you guys wanna get married, you've gotta think about marrying down. And he is like, the only way you guys are gonna get married is if, if you marry down, which I like, we laugh, we're both in happy relationships, but, and we laugh at him cuz we're like, okay, Marshall, like, But it actually correlates with what you're saying. So I'd love to understand, you know, what is marriage rates like in this country? Are people getting married less and how does that impact the economy and impact, you know, society overall? Well, it depends on the cohort.

Wealthy people, kind of middle income to upper income, their marriage rates are holding mostly strong. People are having kids later in life or having fewer kids. So we could run into a birth dearth, which is bad for the economy. Fewer people to support those Social Security payments. And another myth is overpopulation. It's time we just stopped talking about it. And that is when you have a kid, that kid, you're sure that kid will take resources, maybe produce carbon, maybe eat meat or other crimes against humanity. But most likely that person, that kid, that baby girl or baby boy is gonna come up with wonderful innovation that makes the world a better place. You need more people. And this notion of overpopulation, there's certain parts of the earth that are overpopulated, But just get on a plane from New York to San Francisco, look down 100 times, 95 times there's nothing. There's literally nothing. And so we wanna encourage economically and emotionally viable people to have kids. Kids are a wonderful thing. It's, you know, I would've never thought it. I had no interest in kids, but I've really, really enjoyed it. You know, the marriage rate's flat to declining across society as a whole, but it really gets, it's really fallen off a cliff for people who are middle or lower income or on the bottom, the bottom median.

And I never thought I would have said this. I never wanted to be married. I don't think you have to be married to be happy, but generally speaking, people are happier when they're in some sort of committed monogamous relationship. And at the end of life, you're talking about Steven Pinker, generally speaking, the things they remember the most are family. They don't wanna be around awesome people or famous celebrities when they go, they wanna be around loved ones. Kids who, you know, they love immensely and who love them immensely. So the issue I see is I see a lot of young men who are becoming economically and emotionally unviable. They get excluded socially. They don't find a job. They don't make money. They don't get out. They don't develop social skills. They don't develop professional skills. And they, once they hit a certain point, they almost become kind of unviable. And also a romantic relationship is a great guardrail. You know, stop getting high every night, get in shape. You know, we make each other better. Spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, they motivate each other. They're competitive. And to compete is a Greek term that means to strive together, to make each other better.

When the Olympic athletes were training, they found if they trained together, they made each other faster. And mates, friends, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, parents, you know, they're great guardrails. And when you isolate young men who have that, again, that immature prefrontal cortex, and then they can find a reasonable facsimile of dopamine that you used to get through playing sports or from starting a business or from making money or from kissing someone for the first time. When you can get a reasonable facsimile of that dopamine hit on your phone or on your computer, it lowers your mojo to get out of the house and those skills continue to atrophy. So, you know, one of the things I tell young men, I coach a lot of young men, you have to get out of the house every day. You have to force yourself to meet strangers. You gotta start making money. I don't care if you think it's below you. I don't think, you know, work at a CVS, turn on DoorDash, turn on Uber, whatever it is, get a taste for flesh, start making money. Money's a wonderful thing. And the key to making more money is to make some money.

Go up to a stranger, join a church group, a softball league, a writing group, a junior college class, whatever it is, and force yourself to approach strangers to express an interest in conversing with them, an interest in being their friend, and maybe, who knows, even an interest in a romantic relationship. There's nothing wrong with that. I do think men get a lot of mixed signals, that approaching anybody is considered like dangerous, if you will. And I think some of the wonderful thing about men is that they're more aggressive, but aggressive doesn't have to mean anything resembling any sort of physical violence. It can mean initiating conversations. And the people I get the most feedback from, feminists don't like what I say, or a lot of feminists don't like what I say, although they're coming around to it. Some famous feminists have now acknowledged there's a real problem taking place with younger men. Young men sometimes resent it 'cause they feel as if I'm calling them incels and they've been stereotyped. It's like, just 'cause I'm an introvert doesn't mean I can't add value to society. That's fine. I'm just, by far the cohort that is most supportive, hands down, are mothers who say, my daughter's killing it, she's at Penn, my other daughter's working in PR in Chicago, and my son's in the basement playing video games and vaping.

We have, we are losing an entire generation of men. And I think a lot of it comes down to a need to redefine masculinity such that men feel comfortable embracing their masculinity and also recognizing that masculinity isn't just purely the domain of people born As males, that masculinity and femininity are both wonderful attributes that can be shared by men and women, but to re-embrace and celebrate what I call a modern or mature form of masculinity. But I think that your generation is suffering from a crisis of loneliness, a lack of connection to each other, and a lack of connection to the country. And those Japanese soldiers who went into the hills at the end of World War II accomplished nothing. Nothing great is accomplished alone. If you're spending a lot of time alone, you're not gonna accomplish much. I don't care, you need to be around other people. You need to find new relationships. That is even more than anything, more than economics, more than certification. The thing I would wish for people in their 20s and 30s is that they have more opportunities to establish more relationships. I think it's, and I just came off this riff about working all the time, but you can establish a lot of deep relationships at work.

I didn't have a lot of romantic relationships in my 20s. I was very immature, I was very insecure. But I had great relationships at work. I had great friendships. I, you know, became very involved in my mom's wellbeing. So I always say that, you know, kind of love is out there. What's difficult for women is that they're so unfairly judged through the lens of romantic relationship, their success or lack thereof through one type of relationship. And you can't force that. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, but you should always think, okay, how do I have really wonderful productive relationships and make little investments every day? And some of that is forcing yourself into uncomfortable spots, initiating conversation with someone in the line at Starbucks, asking someone a coffee out at work, expressing admiration for someone and trying to establish a friendship. And because we spent so much time alone in the last 2.5 years, we think, "Oh, I'd rather stay home and watch Netflix," or young men think, "I'd rather stay home and play video games or trade on Robinhood or watch porn." No, you need to get out there. You need to get out there.

Yeah.

I, I love that you had this conversation with us because most of my listeners surprisingly are male. I have like an 80% male audience who are these young men that you're talking about. Yeah. And so I'm really happy that you had this conversation and, and for the women who might be listening, I feel like we all feel this, right? We see other women doing really well. We probably have a cousin or a brother or somebody who's struggling. What can we do as women, whether it's in terms of How we look for a partner and, and our perspective on that, or, you know, what should we be doing? Because obviously I, I don't think we're gonna get, um, affirmative action taken away or anything like that. Uh, and I, I think women are gonna continue to kind of thrive in the workplace. And the other thing I wanted to pick your brain about is the fact that leadership is still men, right? Politicians are still men. So there's still a lot of work to do. And so I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that. I know that was kind of—

I'll take that. I'll take that in reverse order. So there's been more— the one thing all of our elected officials have in common is about 95 or 98% of them have college degrees. We've decided that kind of realistically is the logical criteria for who we want to lead our nation or make big decisions. But we're inherently very sexist as a culture, uh, when it comes to leadership and elected representatives. We've been graduating more women from college for 40 years than men. And yet only 28% of our elected officials are female. We conflate voice and height with leadership qualities. So show me a 4'10" woman with a high-pitched voice who's incredibly smart, incredibly hardworking, and hello, president of local school board. Show me a guy who's fairly smart, but tall and has a great voice, that guy's name is Senator. So we need to educate early on what it is, what's required, what are the key components of being a good leader, and also how people modulate for that. We just instinctively think of leadership as being powerful, and we associate powerful with certain audio and visual sensations. So I think some of it, some of it is just education.

The other thing is, I think we, um, you asked me for advice on, uh, women, younger women, and what I would say is is that I don't wanna say lower your standards. What I wanna say is be open to the coffee or the second coffee. And that is the problem with online dating is it's very two-dimensional. You see their looks and then you make an assumption around their wealth. And women have three criteria for mating, or at least the research shows. Number three is kindness, number two is intelligence, and number one is resources. And so it's natural that they will make a judgment and then they will make kind of a zero, one, yes or no call. What I would suggest is pushing the limits of your comfort zone to give more people a chance. And if the date goes okay, but not great, be open to a second date to see if it goes from okay to good and then maybe to great. Every long-term relationship I've had, I wouldn't have guessed at the beginning it was going to become a long-term relationship. And we live in such an economy where there's so much fluidity of opportunity that we end up never really pursuing opportunities to their to their potential.

It's like, well, that wasn't great, that wasn't magic, so I'm back on the apps, or I'm just not interested, or I'd rather stay at home and watch Netflix and work. I think that there needs to be a meeting of the minds. I think men need to get their act together emotionally and economically. I think we just need better men. And part of that is more men my age need to take more of an interest in younger men and help mentor them. I think we just need better younger men. And what I would ask here, you know, is that women think, okay, how can I be more open to exploring stuff and see if it might lead somewhere wonderful? Because the wonderful thing about human sexuality is it involves smell, it involves vibe, it involves humor, it involves seeing how that person behaves around their family. And I think a lot of people, especially women, will say, in the beginning, I didn't have that type of interest in this person and it grew. They're, they're, their criteria are more subtle and more what I'd call long-term. And we live in an economy and a society that discourages that type of long-term exploration.

Does that make any sense? I always get uncomfortable giving women advice cuz I don't feel I can relate to it.

No, it does make sense. I'm very aligned with a lot. Like you don't have to worry about that with me. Like I'm aligned with so much of what you're saying. The last thing I wanna talk about in terms of this, And then we can kind of close out cuz I know that you have to go soon. Um, so I had gotten outta a relationship 2 years ago. Now I'm in a, a happy new relationship, but I was with somebody for 10 years. And I remember that when I used to go out, I, you know, would get approached by men all the time. They would come up to me all the time. Now men, I would find that like younger men still have like, you know, the 10, uh, I look a lot younger than I am. And so younger men would still approach me, but people my age, men my age would would never come up and talk to me when I was single. And I thought this was so strange cuz I had been out of the dating game for 10 years. And so I'd love to hear your perspective on like men actually getting the confidence to approach people in person cuz I feel like people need to hear about this.

Yeah. So I think men have gotten a lot of mixed signals here. There was an ad that Gillette ran, uh, you know, Gillette, the best a man can get during the midst of the MeToo movement. That basically tried to redefine manhood. And there was this one scene that really rattled me, and that is a guy sees a really attractive woman and he stands up to go approach her, and his friend gets in the way and says, "No, no, no, no, don't do that. Not cool, not cool." And I thought, that's where we are? Like, men aren't supposed to approach strange women? And the people, I find the thing I don't like about telling men how to behave and to tone it down their aggression down is that it's people who already have mates telling them to do that. It's like, where, where are we supposed to find, where are people supposed to meet each other? And again, I'm making reductive comments here and I don't have the research on it, but I think women, especially women, younger women, would actually appreciate in a thoughtful, respectful way, men taking more initiative. And I consistently hear from young women, no man ever approaches me.

Because I think men have been given mixed signals. One, they lack confidence, 'cause quite frankly, their lack of confidence is common sense. They're not going to college, they don't have jobs, they're just not, they're not impressive young men, and they're failing. And they know that, and they're getting that cemented every day by their parents and the world telling them, okay, you're not living up to the expectations we have of people. But also this notion that approaching a stranger or asking someone out— a third of relationships begin at work. What's the general viewpoint on sex at work? That it's almost borderline illegal. And if a man or a woman is in a very senior position, they should be verboten from relationships at work. They can take that shit off campus. There's a lot of awesome things to being a senior-level person in business. One of them should not be leveraging your power to find romantic relationships. but I've had 3 weddings. My last company that I sold was L2. I've had 3 weddings in the last month for people at L2, including one wedding where they met at L2. That's wonderful. So it's okay to, at work, you have to be very careful.

You wanna make sure, especially if you're senior to that person, not to abuse your power, but it's okay to express romantic interest. And I worry that we've been sending mixed signals to men. Men need to embrace their masculinity, but first we have to identify what is masculinity. I think of it as garnering the skills and strengths such that you can protect and advocate for others. And a lot of it is being, okay, a little bit more aggressive. I think that woman's interesting. I'm gonna go talk to her. If she's not interested, I will get that vibe almost right away. We will both part company. I will be polite. And you know what? You're both gonna be fine. You're both gonna be fine. And that rejection or that ability to endure that rejection is a function of your success. The reason I am successful is I've had businesses failed and it never destroyed my confidence. It dented it at the time, but it didn't stop me from going out and starting another business. And the reason I've always been able to, not always, but most of the time been able to attract potential mates that are more interesting and much better looking than me is that I'm not afraid of rejection.

If I'm standing in line somewhere and I'm attracted to someone, I'll start talking to them, or when I was a younger man, and I encourage younger men to do that. And if she's polite, but not interested and you can pick it up, that's fine. You're gonna be polite and you're both gonna move on with your lives. So success is a function, success professionally and romantically is a function of rejection, specifically your willingness to endure it. And my advice to young women is that when, like I said, just play things out a little longer and see where it goes. See where it goes.

Yeah.

Well, I feel like this has been such a great discussion. We covered a variety of topics. We didn't get through everything I wanted to, but I feel like we covered a lot of ground. I always end the show with two last questions. Sure. And here's where you can say anything that you feel like is really important that you wanna share with my audience. So what is one actionable piece of advice you can give my young improfitters so they can become more profiting tomorrow? What is one thing they can do today? To become more profitable tomorrow?

Look at your phone, look at the, the screen time, find 4 to 8 hours of wasted time, Robinhood, TikTok, Twitter, um, streaming, and reallocate that time into fitness and making more money. Try and find 8 hours in your phone, take 4 of it and put it into fitness and put 4 of it into either working more at your current job. I don't believe in side hustles. If you have a side hustle, it means your main hustle isn't working. The best way to economic security is to take the time you were gonna spend on a side hustle and put it into your main hustle and make your main hustle amazing and become great at it. But find, try and find 8 hours out of your phone. We spend way too much time in our phones. I probably spend 2 hours a day on Twitter. I'm addicted, it's terrible. But find 8 hours a week in your phone and put 4, reinvest 4 into fitness, and 4 into money.

Yeah, and real quick, what is the power of exercise in your opinion? Like what does exercise do to everyone?

We're a physical species and there's a ton of research that shows if you exercise 3 to 4 times a week, you're less likely to have a stroke, a heart attack, you're more likely to be kind, you're much more likely to be successful. The most common attribute of Fortune 500 CEOs isn't that they went to Ivy League schools. It's not even that they're white or male. Like 490 of them work out 5 times a week. You'll be kinder. You'll have a broader selection set of mates. I believe anybody your age should be able to walk into any room and know, and this is a goal, and know that if shit got real, you could kill and eat everybody or outrun them. You want to feel physically strong, fast, and fit. It's not about being skinny. It's not about being ripped. It's about being a stronger version of yourself. You'll be much more mentally healthy. It's how you process anxiety. It's how you process anger. It's key. And people accuse me of fat shaming 'cause I talk a lot about exercise. I know some people who are very big and are very strong, and that's a wonderful thing.

I do CrossFit. There's a huge contingent of lesbian firefighters, and these women are so strong and so inspiring and don't care about the traditional norms around esthetic as indicated by this heteronormative fashion industrial complex, and they are inspiring. That's what you wanna move to. You wanna be a stronger version of yourself, lift heavy weights and run long distances in the gym and in your mind. Yeah.

I ask that question because I always tell everyone you have to work out. It's not something that you can skip. It's really important. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

A recognition that a lot of my success is not my fault. I try to be grateful. I try to recognize that I'm hugely blessed and I try and, you know, I just look at how first 40 years of my life, I was the kid who overcame single mother growing up without a lot of money. And then as I got older, I realized that being born a white heterosexual male in the '60s was hitting the lottery. My freshman year roommate in college was exactly the same as me, except God reached into his soul and made him homosexual, and he was dead of AIDS at 33. And neither of us had any choice over our sexuality. So every day I wake up and I realize that a lot of this is a function of being in the right place at the right time. It makes me more grateful. It makes me more appreciative. It makes me enjoy stuff more. And it makes me wanna try and create more opportunity and more good fortune for other people.

That's really powerful. Scott Galloway, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Hala, to resist is futile. I'm everywhere. I'm @ProfGalloway on Twitter. I have a newsletter called No Mercy, No Malice. My new book is called Adrift: America in 100 Charts. I have a YouTube show. I'm starting, I'm doing a show on, The BBC called Tech Explorer with Scott Galloway. So to resist is futile.

I'm everywhere. Amazing. Congratulations on all your success. I love this conversation.

Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Holly. Congrats on your success.