A conversation with Scott Galloway — from Fixable Live

This is an episode we think you’d enjoy of Fixable, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective. Hosts Anne and Frances sat down with the Dawg for a conversation on loneliness, resilience, inclusion in the workplace, raising healthy boys, and what it takes to be personally and financially successful. They wrap up with an unexpected emotional audience Q+A. Fixable is a podcast hosted by two of the top leadership coaches in the world: CEO and best-selling author Anne Morriss and her wife, Harvard Business Professor Frances Frei. Together, talk to guest callers about their workplace issues and solve their problems – in 30 minutes or less. You’ll always be left with meaningful and actionable advice that can apply to you no matter your position on the company ladder. If you want to hear more Fixable, find it anywhere you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Here's your report.

• 0:01Speaker 01

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• 0:56Scott Galloway?

  Episode 314, 3040, a code covering St. Louis, Missouri, 1914. World War I began, and the world's first red and green traffic lights were installed in Cleveland. How do you get a dual-lit toaster out of your rectum?

• 1:12Scott Galloway?

  I don't know, but I wish you'd hurry up. It's getting painful.

• 1:17Scott Galloway?

  What does that have to do with anything? Nothing. I just love ass-plate jokes. Go, go, go!

• 1:33Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 314th episode of the Prop G Pod. Daddy's vacation continues, so in place of our regular scheduled programming, we're sharing an episode of Fixable, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective that features a live conversation between yours truly and host Anne Morris and Francis Frye from the TED 2024 conference back in April. Anne is a CEO and bestselling author, and Francis Frye is a Harvard Business Professor. On the Fixable podcast, they give you weekly episodes solving listeners' toughest work problems with meaningful and actionable insight in 30 minutes or less. The episode we're sharing today explores a lot of today's most pressing issues, including the loneliness epidemic, inclusion in the workplace, and personal success. So with that, here's Fixable Live, a conversation with yours truly, Scott Galloway. I'm self-conscious saying my name.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another week of Fixable. We have something really special for you today. A few weeks ago, Frances and I traveled to Vancouver to attend the TED conference. And while we were there, we taped a live episode of the show. Our very first live episode. Our first, but not the last.

• 2:39Speaker 05

  Oh, it's far from our last. It was too much fun.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  We had a really good time. And we had a special guest with us, who we will introduce in just a minute. But we got to talk about some really interesting aspects of life and leadership and the world right now.

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Yes, I think we've covered DEI, masculinity, Gen Z in the workplace.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  The big three, baby. Yes, in a shocking turn of events, we also covered the power of emotions, something our listeners know I care a lot about. So today, we're sharing part of that conversation with you, and hopefully we'll get to do another live show sooner rather than later, so stay tuned.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  Well, Scott Galloway, welcome to Fixable.

• 3:23Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  And congratulations on your fabulous talk.

• 3:26Scott Galloway?

  Go on. Go on. I'm so desperate and addicted to your affirmation, so, Daddy, can I have some more?

• 3:39Speaker 04

  For our listeners and for anyone who missed it, you really just killed it up there. So how this is gonna work, this is actually our first live show, so thank you all for being part of this experiment. Anything can happen up here. And we're gonna talk for a while, then we're gonna do some direct, live Q and A with the audience. So we want to start by saying nice things about you, Scott, if you'll indulge us. We are very big fans of yours, like most lesbians.

• 4:08Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for saying that.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Ladies who love ladies also love Scott Galloway.

• 4:14Scott Galloway?

  Oh, that's so nice. Thank you for that.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  And I want to come back to that with a serious point before this conversation is over, but let's start with who you are, for the record. You're a professor at NYU Stern, you're a bestselling author, you have a new book dropping momentarily, The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security. You're founder, advisor to countless organizations. You've been on the board of some of our most iconic companies, including New York Times. You are a beloved podcaster, best known for Prof G and for co-hosting Pivot with celebrity lesbian Kara Swisher.

• 4:52Scott Galloway?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  And you're a husband, father of two growing boys. Is there anything you want to add to that list? Any plot points we missed before we dive into this?

• 5:02Scott Galloway?

  No, I just want to say I'm really enjoying this podcast so far.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  Scott, as you play all of these various roles in the world, it seems like you are driven by a higher mission, a purpose, something bigger than yourself right now. Is that how you think about your work? And how would you articulate your mission?

• 5:25Scott Galloway?

  It's not as noble as you're saying. My first obligation is to me and my family. I've been very driven by economic success. And I'm not proud of that. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. So from day one, I had two goals. I wanted to be rich and awesome. Literally, that's what I wanted. And then I got one of those things. And I got blessed at an early, fairly early point in my life with like, okay, I have some reasonable semblance of economic security. What do I want to do? And I decided I wanted to teach. The thing that's been really super rewarding is kind of falling into this topic of struggling young men. It's like, you know, you find something and it just resonates and you see the data

• 6:09Scott Galloway?

  and you think people aren't talking about it. And it was like putting on something that felt so comfortable for me because I was one of those men.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:17Scott Galloway?

  Right? Growing up, I didn't have a great deal of economic success. Didn't have a lot of romantic success. And I thought if I faced the same incredibly well-resourced technology companies trying to convince me to have a reasonable facsimile of life behind a screen with algorithms, that I did need a job, I could trade crypto on Coinbase or trade stocks on Robinhood, that I did need to go out and take the risks of finding friends. I could find them on Reddit or Discord. That I did need to endure the rejection and start working out and have a plan such that I could be attractive to women and endure the rejection that is inevitably part of mating. I just could have been one of these guys.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:59Scott Galloway?

  I relate to these young men. It's like there by the grace of God goes I. So. I can speak to it, I think, with some relevance. And I just saw a tremendous opportunity. There's so many advocates for so many groups. And because people who look like me have had so much advantage for so long, there's a lack of empathy despite the data for how, just how much young men are struggling. That they're paying for the sins of the advantages that I had and my dad had. But if you look at the stats, three times as likely to kill themselves, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. In the US, we're gonna have two to one male to female to male college grads. It's also really bad, in my view, for women. Because women, if we're gonna have an honest conversation around mating,

• 7:43Scott Galloway?

  at least in the hetero world, women mate socio-economically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. And the pool of men who are horizontal and up is shrinking. And some of that is a huge victory because women are doing really well. And we should do nothing to get in the way of that. The thing I saw was that there was this unproductive conversation because of this void filled by what I call the manosphere, where it was this thinly veiled misogyny. It starts offline. They highlight the problems and then they talk about being fit and taking control. And then it just comes off the rails. And they start talking about women as if they're property and that they need to, you need to show off your masculinity by getting things.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a slippery slide.

• 8:24Scott Galloway?

  And, and then, oh, and take my crypto university course. So I thought there was an opportunity for, okay, how do we start talking about an aspirational vision for masculinity? That says empathy is not a zero-sum game. Gay marriage should not hurt heteronormative marriage. Civil rights should not hurt white people. So being an advocate for young men who are facing real issues is in no way anti-women. This is when a man has failed. Is when he starts blaming women or he starts blaming immigrants. Then you know we've lost him. And that he has given up on a truly modern form of masculinity. So I just, I saw an opportunity. It felt good. And it resonated with the marketplace. And it's just kind of come organically.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Let's talk about DEI for a second.

• 9:09Scott Galloway?

  Sure.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  Just to get the crowd warmed up.

• 9:12Scott Galloway?

  We'll go to the easy stuff first.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It seems like DEI is at its best. And we get pulled into a lot of these conversations. Seems like this work at its best really is about making workplaces fair and inclusive for everyone on the payroll. And one of the things that I think we get stuck on, and Professor, I want to get you in here, is that there should be just tremendous room for common ground here.

• 9:38Scott Galloway?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Not only because the goals are shared, but when you actually do get it right, everybody wins.

• 9:44Scott Galloway?

  Yep.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  How do we talk about it, or do this work in a way that really does bring more people into it?

• 9:53Scott Galloway?

  Professor?

• 9:54Speaker 05

  We wrote an op-ed for the New York Times with our colleague Carrie Elkins that said, you know, the mistake that the critics of DEI get is it works.

• 10:04Scott Galloway?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Like, all of the progress you were talking about.

• 10:07Scott Galloway?

  Yep.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  It all happened because people understood the demographic tendencies associated with success. They didn't want to have outcome-based success. I've never met a DEI program that wants her to be outcome-based. It's all equal access. We've been having unequal access. To me, I think there is all of this common ground, but I don't think that that's what's behind the desire to tear it down. I think the desire to tear it down has much more to do with misogyny and much more to do with racism. We always want to step over race, always want to step over race and get to someone else. And it's the stain on this country. We have never stopped and confronted what our issues are with race.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  So I find there to be simmering misogyny and racism, and I don't find it any more complicated than that. And I adore people who want to go towards the socioeconomic. I grew up poor as well. But please, stop stepping over race to get there. It's the wrong thing to do.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  I mean, one of the things that I get stuck on is when we actually get into the trenches of doing this and roll up your sleeves and do the work of trying to make organizations better.

• 11:21Scott Galloway?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  There is real progress you can make within the constraints of changing organizations. I mean, there's a famous statistic that 70% of change efforts fail. So, great, so DEI is tracking roughly to that 70%, but you don't throw out the goals of the work. You learn from the 30% that is working, and it feels like there's an... Just an absence of grace and an absence of charity and compassion around this conversation right now. That feels like it's There's something else going on. That there's something else going on. And just back to where we started, to me, it's the opportunity cost that is so painful. Because you speak to young men in crisis.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  And when this work is done well, they are brought into the fold and given opportunity that they didn't have before. And so I think the frustration that we are both feeling right now is that we're getting so distracted by the conversation about DEI that we're stopped putting energy into actually making progress on it.

• 12:27Scott Galloway?

  I think there's so much nuance here. I think it's such an interesting. I love the word you use, grace. That we shouldn't be afraid to talk about this and you say something not elegant, or I say something not elegant, and that person is canceled. Or that we shame them and we get virtue points for shaming them. Because first off, I'm the beneficiary of affirmative action. I got Pell Grants. I had unfair advantage.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 12:50Scott Galloway?

  Raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. Our household income was never over $40,000. And so I feel passionate about that. And also, if you're born, and this is wonderful. In America, I believe now, you have more advantage or less disadvantage if you're born gay or if you're born non-white than if you're born poor. And it didn't used to be that way. The academic gap, the G-MGAP in 1960 was double between black and white than between rich and poor. And now it has flipped. And there's this wonderful progress that it's not as tightly correlated any longer about race or sexual orientation.

• 13:32Scott Galloway?

  So my view is, all right, do we need to recalibrate what it means? The criteria for who we advantage or disadvantage? And where I think we can come together is that about 70% of those criteria overlap. But if you're from a non-white family where there's two parents and mom is a baller at her law firm and making a shit ton of money, that kid has a greater likelihood of attending college than some white kid from Appalachia. So. I think we can come together and say, look, the key is to recognize some people have disadvantage through no fault of their own, but also recognize that things have changed.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  I don't know how much time you spend with professional, DEI professionals or DEI parts of organizations. They're amongst the most compassionate people, big tent people. They care about socioeconomic, they care about veterans, they care about race, they care about gender. So this straw man of DEI cares only about this and they will somehow advantage. And by the way, I've never seen these groups advantaged. I've just seen the disadvantages closed or attempting to do it. But DEI is big tent and what you're arguing for is big tent. That's the part that I genuinely don't understand is we seem to agree and yet

• 15:00Speaker 05

  we want to tear down the very thing that in its absence, it's going to be hard to take care of people that are disadvantaged. They say it's for big tent reasons, but literally they've not spent any time with any of the DEI professionals I've spent time with, which is at almost every large company in the world. So I don't understand the vitriol behind it, which is why I think there's something cruel behind it. I don't think it's a, it doesn't feel logical to me.

• 15:30Scott Galloway?

  Well, I think you have to discern between, so for example, where I think some people have made the mistake is they like the attention, they get accolades from people, and then they decide that they're going to go after all DEI without understanding nuance. I think DEI still has relevance in corporations. I don't think corporations have come as far as campuses. You know, when there's, what is it? There's more CEOs named John than female.

• 15:53Speaker 05

  I think, I think women just caught up to John.

• 15:55Scott Galloway?

  Just caught up to John? So what that says is, all right. But if you look at people under the age of 30, women have made huge progress on almost every level. Sometimes they're actually superseding them because they're getting more educational attainment. But something happens, and what I think the data reflects is, once you decide to leverage your ovaries, wham, the corporate world doesn't like you. Once a woman decides to have kids, she goes to 77 cents on the dollar. That means there is neither equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes. So I think DEI still has a place in corporations. I would argue, professor, that at most universities, we have done a pretty good job. And again, I go back to UC, that I think it's going to be a more

• 16:38Scott Galloway?

  productive conversation where we can all agree on getting to a similar place where there's more support universally around alumni and faculty, where it's based on income, as opposed to based on visible characteristics. I also think it does harm to people of color when their classmates sometimes often question if and why they're there. I think that they pay the price for that. So I think it requires a lot of nuance.

• 17:12Scott Galloway?

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• 17:53Scott Galloway?

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• 18:15Scott Galloway?

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• 19:00Scott Galloway?

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• 19:22Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The regentic trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof?

• 20:07Scott Galloway?

  Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/provg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash prof G for $1,000 off.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Let's talk about those young people graduating, going into the workforce. There's a lot of chatter about Gen Z at work. And we got a lot of great questions about what do I do with my Gen Z employees? Do you find that this is truly a different generation? I mean, to me, it feels like they just have the courage to ask for things that We should have asked for. Should have asked for.

• 20:55Scott Galloway?

  It's a double edged sword. For the most part, they're a superior generation. Evolution works. They're more facile with technology. They understand the world better. They're more civic minded. They're more social minded. They're also, I find, more emotionally fragile. And that because of over parenting, helicopter parenting, which I'm capable of, because of social media, because we clear out the obstacles for them, by the time they get to college, they have a bit of a princess in the pea syndrome. And that is, the first time they get their heart broken, the first time they get a C, the first time they face some sort of injustice, they have real issues. I think they're too emotionally fragile.

• 21:37Scott Galloway?

  I love what the dean or the chancellor of Michigan State put up, the banner on freshman orientation. She put up a banner that said, "If words offend you, call your parents and tell them you're not ready for college." You know, I get so, I used to get so many emails from department heads about microaggressions. And I thought, isn't the point that we're supposed to turn them into warriors? That they're supposed to really, and by the way, the

• 22:02Speaker 04

  So how, let me just interrupt you a second. So how does, how do organizations do that? Because there are all these companies and teams absorbing this generation. How do leaders build resilience? In a very practical, this is a show called Fixable. So in a very practical way, how do leaders of teams with Gen Z team members build resilience in, in this newest generation in the workforce?

• 22:31Scott Galloway?

  Well, I think, I think you're going to forget more about this than I'm going to know. I am somewhat cynical about a corporation's role. What I have found is, generally speaking, for-profit companies are so good in America at making money, they should be trusted to do nothing else.

• 22:49Scott Galloway?

  I don't think social media is going to protect our children. I don't think they give a flying fuck about your kids. But let me put it this way. I think they're amoral. I don't think they're bad people. I think they're amoral. I think their job is to make money and they will make a series of incremental decisions on the path to hell such that they can become rich. And America to be rich is to be loved. It's to be respected, admired, have a broader selection set of mates, give you your kids health care, so you won't make incremental decisions that end up hurting other people that maybe aren't in your neighborhood. We need laws. We need laws that said, "We're going to sue your company if you discriminate. We're going to sue your company if you send a 14-year-old girl who's having suicidal ideation an email saying, 'Here's some images on suicide we thought you might like.'" And the email includes images of nooses, pills, and razors.

• 23:32Scott Galloway?

  That happened in the UK. So this notion that we're going to call on CEOs better angels and that they're going to become social engineers, you want to be a good company. You want to be good in the community. But I think we need less virtue signaling from companies and less expectations from them, and we need more laws. I just don't trust companies to figure this shit out. I trust them to put out Instagrams saying, "Black Lives Matter." Okay. What does that mean? Or to stand up and say, "I recognize we're on hallow grounds of Native America." Okay, you're going to give it back? If not, shut the fuck up.

• 24:13Scott Galloway?

  So I think we need more laws, but I'm a bit cynical about companies as this whole Bono, Red, Agents of Change. I think their job is to provide people with economic security, and I think it's our job to have laws to ensure that if you are making less money because of your gender or your sexual orientation, that we hit that company really hard in court. I mean, really hard, and create an algebra of deterrence that says, "Accidentally, unwittingly, if you're paying this group less, we're going to really hit you so hard such that you put in place the practices to ensure it does not happen again." But I think we fetishize these corporations and their leaders so much that we expect

• 24:57Scott Galloway?

  their better angels to show up. And every new... Sam Altman, the hushed tones, "I'm worried about AI."

• 25:05Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, we should think about that. I've seen what this can do. I'm really concerned. We've had forty congressional hearings on child safety online. We've had zero laws. But we think Sam Altman's gonna be different? We can't trust these people. We can trust them to do what they're good at, which is make money. So I find a lot of these initiatives, quite frankly, are virtue signaling and aren't that effective. I think we need laws.

• 25:28Speaker 04

  All right. We're gonna go to the audience for questions. Yeah, we're gonna go for it. And so this is our last question, and then we're gonna bring in our fabulous TED audience. This is my serious question about your lesbian fan club. And this is my theory of the case.

• 25:40Scott Galloway?

  All right.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  One of the gifts of being queer, and... There are many. There are many, for the record. But you have more freedom to stand in front of the list of human attributes that the world has labeled masculine and feminine, and decide what's gonna work for you.

• 26:00Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  You are fiercely competitive. You have lots of protector energy. You're also very willing to cry in public, for example.

• 26:13Scott Galloway?

  Right.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  You seem to have given yourself this same freedom, which, in my experience, is quite rare.

• 26:21Scott Galloway?

  You're being generous.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  As lesbians, we applaud you. Game recognizes game. But what made that possible for you? Yeah.

• 26:30Scott Galloway?

  I never thought that crying would be such an attribute. I didn't cry from the age of twenty-nine to forty-four. I didn't cry when my mother died. I didn't cry when I got divorced. I didn't cry when my company went Chapter 11. For fifteen years, I didn't cry. I forgot how. And my biggest fear, I think about death a lot. It's actually quite empowering. My biggest fear is I'm at the end. And I struggle with anger and depression, which means I'm in the past too much. I have trouble forgiving myself. I made a couple mistakes on stage today. I'm gonna beat myself up all fucking night tonight. I won't be able to forgive myself. I'll feel good. I'll go online. And I know, I can tell by the vibe that I'll get a bunch of nice compliments. I'm too addicted to other people's affirmation. It's really pathetic.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  You're human, Scott.

• 27:14Scott Galloway?

  Oh, anyways. For God's sakes, I'm 59. At some point, I'll just need me. But my fear is I'm so stuck in the past, and I'm so in the future all the time because I'm successful. And to be successful, you have to be constantly thinking about the future, that I'm never actually here. And you get to the end of your life, and you think, okay, unbelievable prosperity, people that love me that I loved immensely, was never there. Never there. And one of the ways I have discovered I can slow down and be in the moment is to really lean into my emotions. When I find something funny, I force myself to laugh out loud. I have a weird, unattractive laugh. But it informs what I find interesting.

• 27:57Scott Galloway?

  When I'm inspired by something, I stop and I think, why does this move me?

• 28:04Scott Galloway?

  I'm much more emotive. If I see a guy who looks cool, I'll go up to him and say, "I just think you look so fucking cool, boss." And it puts me in the moment, and it makes me, it's like, okay, I'm finally living my life because I can register those emotions. So my advice to people, especially men, is if you aren't leaning into your emotions, if you aren't inspired, if you're not laughing, if you're not just loving the shit out of sex and communicating how much you're enjoying it, if you're not crying, you're not really here. I can guarantee you, at the end of your life, you're not going to go, "Jeez, I wish I'd cried less. I wish I'd laughed less.

• 28:46Scott Galloway?

  I wish I'd told people how cool I thought they were less." So for me, it's like cathartic. It's like, fucking finally, I'm living my life.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  And did you make a decision? What happened at 44?

• 28:58Scott Galloway?

  To start crying again.

• 29:01Scott Galloway?

  It wasn't any one thing. And I don't know if you feel this way.

• 29:05Speaker 05

  I'm gonna start crying. You just brought out the man in me. I'm gonna start.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  I'm unleashed.

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• 29:49Speaker 02

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• 30:15Scott Galloway?

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• 30:59Scott Galloway?

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• 31:23Speaker 04

  Well, we got a bunch of great submitted questions, but I want to reward people who showed up here. So if you have a question, raise your hand. We have some lovely mic runners.

• 31:32Scott Galloway?

  And please introduce yourself.

• 31:33Speaker 08

  My name's Chad Byrne. I'm a longtime Tittsster, and I'm just so thrilled that you're here. Thank you for organizing this.

• 31:38Scott Galloway?

  Thank you.

• 31:39Speaker 08

  There's a statement in our culture, at least in America, that I grew up with, which is "No pain, no gain." How do you feel about suffering? Do you think you have to suffer to be successful?

• 31:50Scott Galloway?

  Well, okay, so I do a survey of my kids. When I say my kids, I mean my students every year. How much money do you expect to make by the time you're 30? And they expect to be in the top 2% of income earners by the time they're 30. And then they use the word "balance." And I'm like, "Okay." Do you have rich parents? No. Uh, give up on the balance part. I'm not suggesting you can't stay fit. I'm not suggesting you can't find a mate. I'm not suggesting you can't have a good time. But unless you're smart enough to be born rich, if you want to be wealthy in a competitive economy, uh, plan to do pretty much nothing but work for 20 years.

• 32:34Scott Galloway?

  That's what I found. I've had periods in my life where I've had balance, been in great shape, good relationships. That's usually when I'm losing money. And from the age of 25 to 45, I'm not proud of this, I did nothing but work. I mean, almost nothing. I'd tried to work out. I still found time to drink and try and have the occasional mating opportunity. But for the most part, I just worked because I wanted economic security. And what I tell young people is they can have it all. They just can't have it all at once. And so have a sober conversation with yourself. And by the way, I'm not saying that's the right way. It was my way. It cost me my hair. It cost me my first marriage. It cost me a lot of stress, and it was worth it.

• 33:19Scott Galloway?

  Because now I have a great deal of balance in my life. And so I just suggest all young people have a, an honest conversation around the trade offs. You can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. You know, Jay-Z followed his passion and got rich. Assume you are not Jay-Z.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  That's a great question.

• 33:35Speaker 09

  I've got two kids that are 10 and 12. And it dawned on me, I'm 52. It dawned on me about a year ago, I was sitting in a case study class with Harvard Business School folks. And they were teaching us about authentic leadership and ethics and diversity and all these great things about how to run great companies. And I was like, man, I've been pretty successful in my life. I'm just learning some of this stuff now. What if I learned this when I was my kid's age? What if I learned this when I was 10, when I was 12? So I started sharing some of those concepts with my 10 and 12 year old and found they could grok it. And I'm just curious, you know, two things. One, what's something you wish you knew when you were 10 or 12? That would have helped you have been a better leader?

• 34:20Speaker 09

  And how would you have taught it to your kid or to yourself or to the kids that you were surrounded with?

• 34:25Scott Galloway?

  If there's one skill, someone asked me, I always kind of go to business. If there's one skill I could give my kids, it would be not computer programming or STEM or biology or Mandarin or anything. I try and teach them, and I'm trying to do this to my kids, to be storytellers. I think that is the skill that stands up to the test of time. You want to be an entrepreneur, you gotta be a great storyteller. You want to score above your weight class romantically, you gotta have a good rap.

• 34:56Scott Galloway?

  And your ability to communicate your ideas in a compelling way to either raise money, to handle difficult situations with people, to attract someone of high character, to be friends. It comes down to storytelling. So that is the one skill I'd want to give to kids. But, you know, I mean, I have teenagers all the time calling me and asking me for advice. My 16 year old has never asked me for advice on almost anything. And it's kind of heartbreaking. It's like, do you know how important I am among young men?

• 35:31Scott Galloway?

  So, I don't know, I would just, I would just want to tell myself, you know, figure out storytelling and everything's gonna be fine. You guys have any thoughts? You have sons?

• 35:39Speaker 04

  The conversation we've been having recently around the dinner table is about comfort with discomfort being the ultimate superpower. And that all of their hopes and dreams are in the zone of discomfort. And so if they can get even a little bit more comfortable with even this, the physicality of being uncomfortable.

• 36:00Scott Galloway?

  That's great.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  Then, then it, life opens up in dramatic ways.

• 36:05Scott Galloway?

  I love that. So just along the lines, the thing I love about, I don't know if you're encouraging your boys to do sports or kind of competitive academic, whatever it is. The thing I took away from crew was, at some point, it was such a gift to me, and I was easily the worst athlete at UCLA, is that at one point, the air coming down your esophagus is literally on fire. You can't feel your legs. You are about to pass out. I'm not exaggerating. You're about to pass out. That's at 800 meters and you go to 2,000. And what it gave me was that when I'm really like so depressed, I see no way out. I'm at my limit. I cannot work any harder. I cannot take this emotional disappointment anymore.

• 36:49Scott Galloway?

  I'm so upset at myself. I just can't handle anymore. What crew and sports gave me as a young man is I realized when you're at that point, you're actually about at a third of your limit.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  Yes, our older boy decided to wrestle this year.

• 37:03Scott Galloway?

  It's a great sport.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  It's a great sport.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Rough as a mom to watch your boy.

• 37:08Scott Galloway?

  It's a great sport.

• 37:08Speaker 04

  It's very hard to watch because he would just go and get the shit beat out of him. He's never been happier. He's never had more confidence. It's amazing.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  And now he does, now he does pull-ups every night until exhaustion. It's been the most amazing thing.

• 37:24Scott Galloway?

  Love that. People will often say, what's the key to your success? I'm like rejection. I ran for sophomore class president, junior class president, senior class president, lost all three times. Based on my track record, I ran for student body president where I went on to wait for it, lose.

• 37:39Scott Galloway?

  Applied to nine schools, got into one, waitlist, I mean rejection. Oh my god. I can't tell you how many women have rejected me. And that's the key. Never losing your sense of enthusiasm. And so your son, the fact that he's losing wrestling matches and is still enthusiastic about it. That is a gift.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  That's what I tell him every morning at breakfast. Send him back out there.

• 38:05Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Scott Galloway?

  Bring home an L. Bring home another L.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Go get it, big guy. Go get it.

• 38:12Scott Galloway?

  That's great.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  All right. Well, I think we have to wrap there. It's a great way to end.

• 38:17Scott Galloway?

  Thank you.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Scott, you're a total star and it was our privilege to host you on the stage on the show.

• 38:24Scott Galloway?

  Thank you.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  All right. Thank you, everybody.

• 38:26Scott Galloway?

  Thanks, everybody.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Thanks for listening. If you want to figure out your workplace problem together, please send us a message. We would love to have you on the show. Email [email protected] or call 234-FIXABLE. That's 234-349-2253. And if you're under the age of 35, you can also text us. Honestly, any way you want to communicate with us, we are delighted to hear from you. We are so grateful for everyone who's written, called, texted. We couldn't make the show without you, quite literally. Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  And me, Frances Fry.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  Our team includes Izzy Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Fanfan Chang, Michelle Quint, Corey Hagem, Alejandra Salazar, and Roxanne Highlash. This episode was mixed by Louis at Storyyard.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And tell a friend to check us out.

• 39:40Speaker 10

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• 40:39Speaker 10

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