Office Hours: Halal Investments, Career Guidance for Recent Grads, and Making Decisions When You’re Angry

Scott offers advice on strategies for economic security and investing, especially when you have religious restrictions. He then provides tips on how to secure a job after graduating from college. He wraps up by offering advice on how to effectively make decisions while angry. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic 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.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

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• 0:49Speaker 01

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• 1:41Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected]. First question.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Hey Prof G, this is Mohammed from Toronto and I wanted to ask for your thoughts in an area that I feel is underserved by more mainstream financial wisdom. As a practicing Muslim, I am precluded from investing primarily in interest-based assets such as bonds. It's only been a few years since I've graduated and started working and I've used this restriction so far to hold more cash and pay off my student loans, put a down payment on a house and invest primarily in index funds. However, how would you factor this restriction into a longer-term investment thesis in an inflationary environment? Should I be shifting the "safer" portion of my savings from cash to commodities, REITs, paying off my mortgage early, or something else entirely? Love the show, thanks for your thoughts.

• 2:40Scott Galloway?

  Mohammed from Toronto, thanks for the thoughtful question. So first off, you have to acknowledge that whenever you put restrictions on the universe of investment options, your returns are probably going to be lower. So for example, I don't invest in Meta. And I felt at the end of last year, in October, when Meta was trading at six times earnings, it was trading at a lower multiple than Ford Motor. I predicted that it would be one of the best performers. The stock has tripled. You know, it's better to be lucky than good. And that would have been great. That would have been great for my portfolio, but I have decided to exclude certain companies from my investment universe. So your returns are likely going to be lower. And that's okay.

• 3:19Scott Galloway?

  You know, your principles and the comfort that your spirituality or religion gives you is you've done the math and it's worth it to you. So some key principles that guide Islamic investing. My understanding, prohibition of interest, or I think it's Reba, so investments in conventional interest-bearing instruments, you know, fixed income bonds or conventional bank accounts are not allowed. Garar, something around, I think it's prohibition of uncertainty. Haram, which I believe is like you can't be in the sin stuff, gambling, alcohol. But my sense is like any large market, and this is, I think, about a three-plus trillion-dollar

• 4:00Scott Galloway?

  market, and that is the Islamic finance industry, they have workarounds. And that's a great thing about capitalism, is people realize there's a lot of individuals like you. And there are investment vehicles catered to practicing Muslims, Islamic bonds, Islamic mutual funds, equity investments, real estate investments. So I think the universe is out there and I think there are people doing the work for you in terms of deciding what you can or cannot invest in. In terms of paying off your mortgage, first off, I think someone your age should not be in cash. I think you should always try to be putting money to work. And I'm actually thinking of paying off, and this is a privileged position. I'm thinking of paying off some of my mortgages because I think to refinance one of my mortgages,

• 4:45Scott Galloway?

  they're quoting me six or seven percent. I'm like, I'm not sure I know how to beat that consistently. And at my age, I don't want to take a lot of risk anymore. So maybe I'm better off taking money if I have it and paying down loans that are charging six or seven percent. Two years ago, it was smart to kind of lever up because I could borrow money at 2.375%. So if I had a home, which I did in Florida, that had gone up dramatically in value, I took out a second on it at two and three eights and invested in the market in diversified funds and thought, chances are I'm going to beat that interest rate. Now it's not so clear. So paying down debt, especially high interest debt, isn't a bad solution. At your age, you sound young and being a little bit more aggressive.

• 5:28Scott Galloway?

  I would say index funds and funds that comply with your beliefs. There's a lot of them out there. So I think you should be able to figure this out. Get out of cash, pay off high interest loans. I understand that you got out of your student loans for a reason, but most people when they ask me if they should pay off their student loans, they say it's a function of the interest rate. If the interest rate is, say, lower than four percent, which oftentimes it is, just hold on to them. That's good debt. There's good debt and bad debt. If you have credit card balances that are 15, 18% or 12% or anything approaching or greater than double digits, pay that off. But it sounds like you're thinking about this the right way. And the fact that you just have additional cash and are thinking about investing means

• 6:10Scott Galloway?

  you're ahead of the game, that you're ahead of probably 80% of America or 90% of people your age. And there are vehicles for that comply that cater to someone with your specific concerns. The only thing I would check with this type of esoteric fund is fees. You always want to do, you want to be diversified. You want to be in also real low cost. The difference between Vanguard charging you, I think it's three basis points. And most brokers who will in general charge you about 1% of assets. 1% doesn't sound like a lot, but it takes a third of your returns way over the long term. When you factor in compounding. So there's an industry that catering to you that you can access.

• 6:51Scott Galloway?

  Don't be in cash, pay off your high interest debt, be diversified. And make sure you're not paying high fees. I wonder if Vanguard offers something that caters to your market, but you're well ahead of the game. You're thinking about investing, you're saving and you're building economic security for you and your family. So well done. Mohammed from Toronto. Go Leafs, go Leafs. Next question.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Hi Scott, this is Matt from Colorado. I'm a big fan of the podcast and I find your takes refreshing and particularly insightful. A little bit of background on me, I'm headed into my final year of university at a non-target school. I chose this university for the reason that I would graduate debt free despite getting into more competitive universities. I have a strong GPA and internship experience in management consulting this summer. However, I'm running into some, some headwinds with the market conditions being what they are for full-time recruiting. I'm curious if you have any strategies for dealing with uncertainties surrounding the early stages of a career? Thoughts on best learning environments to start a career in?

• 8:01Speaker 04

  And any practical steps you would take for somebody in my position? Thank you.

• 8:06Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for the question. I don't care how strong the economy is. When you get out of college, it does not feel easy to get a job, or at least it's never been easy for me. I graduated from Berkeley in 1992 and 40% of us had a job on graduation, meaning the majority of us didn't have a job. And I interview well, I'm talented, I had good certification, and I had to interview a ton to get job offers. And then ultimately ended up getting a couple of job offers with consulting firms and then thinking, do I really want to do this? And I decided to do my own thing, but that's not what you asked. Look, I don't think there's a silver bullet here. I think it's finding the alum from your university that are in industries or companies or adjacent that you're interested in and emailing them and trying to get a coffee or find more,

• 8:51Scott Galloway?

  leveraging the career services of your university. Sometimes, depending on the university, they're not that great. Doing LinkedIn searches for your friends to see if they have any connections to people. And quite frankly, just not being afraid to ask, be persistent, and maybe even a little bit obnoxious. There was all those stories when I was trying to get a job in investment banking about, and I never did this, about people showing up in the lobby with muffins and saying, I'm here in the lobby with muffins, will you interview me? But I don't think it's wrong to email someone, and when you don't hear back from them, to email them again. And that hunger, that persistence, being a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of a pest, I think those are life skills that are useful in every aspect of life, being super aggressive.

• 9:35Scott Galloway?

  So I don't know, other than contacting alumni, friends of friends, cold emailing people, experimenting with a really strong letter, using ChatGPT to incorporate, you know, get good at ChatGPT and get it to not only write you a great letter, but maybe become, you know, start learning about a specific, very deep niche in the field you're interested in going into and expressing that domain expertise in the letter, that I'm super interested in how AI is impacting the, you know, the mining industry. You know, you want to basically be able to answer some very basic questions in the outreach, and that is, why me? Why am I interested in your company?

• 10:20Scott Galloway?

  You know, you've got to kind of pretend you were born to work at whatever it is, Monsanto. And then what is it I'm doing to maintain that point of differentiation? But at the end of the day, getting a job right at college, it's kind of a numbers game, and it's a willingness to get out a big spoon and eat shit. And what do I mean by that? You've got to call people that don't want to hear from you. It's embarrassing to ask people for favors and reach out to alumni and call your mom's cousin who might know someone in this industry and just follow up and bother them. It really is a numbers game. And show real persistence here. And then really think hard about the interviews and the companies and the people. I find sort of a hack or a trick. Whenever I was doing an interview, I would get across my point.

• 11:04Scott Galloway?

  And the moment I felt it was going well, I'd start asking them questions. I find that people love to talk about themselves. And at the end of the interview, we'll think, wow, I really like this person. Because people like anyone that likes them. And one way to express your goodwill towards someone is to ask them about them. The other thing to keep in mind is the majority of CEOs did not come from Ivy League schools. I wouldn't be self-conscious. You know, if you feel as if you need to have a story for why you ended up at that university, I don't even think you need it. You know, let you speak for yourself. And I just wouldn't. And graduating debt-free is a great reason to go to a school. And you have a strong GPA, internship experience. But what you are going through is what everyone goes through.

• 11:49Scott Galloway?

  I, no matter what the economy was, I've never found it's like super easy. Unless you're at an elite school, a business school, and a boom economy, it's always kind of hard. So you're where you should be. But how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Every morning, you're going to send out three, five, eight emails, follow-up, follow-up emails, get really organized, disciplined about it. And just when you think, oh, God, I'm sick of the rejection, that means you send out another two or three emails, or call people, or contact them, or try and come up with unique, innovative ways to get in the door. A trick, or mentioning something, or sending them something, or following up with a handwritten note, whatever it might be. Best of luck to you. We have one quick break before our final questions. Stay with us.

• 12:35Scott Galloway?

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• 13:38Scott Galloway?

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• 14:23Scott Galloway?

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• 14:47Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  Dear Prof G, do you have a timeline or checklist on making or not making a decision when you're angry? My assistant at work, a higher education institution, is a young, single mother who is celebrating her son's graduation from high school. She asked to work from home for the week to celebrate with her son and family, all of whom are flying in from out of state. At the ripe age of 34, this young woman will be an empty nester next week, and I believe this is a milestone moment for her son and for her. My workplace, however, has no work from home policy. Word got out that I have allowed her to do this. HR called my boss, who then called me. It is possible that I will be reprimanded.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  I do not want to make an irrational decision or do something hasty, like search for other employment or quit my degree program, which is free due to my employment status. As a manager, I thought I had the autonomy to make these types of decisions, but it has become clear that I do not. Knowing this, how do you make decisions when you feel threatened or are angry with your working environment? Thanks for your time and consideration. Clayton.

• 15:58Scott Galloway?

  Hey Clayton, thanks for the question. So in general, making decisions from anger

• 16:04Scott Galloway?

  is fine as long as it's planned. There's this great picture, I think it's of Khrushchev at the UN, and he's literally banging on the desk with his shoe. But the picture has enough perspective, or it's, the wide angle is broad enough such that you see his feet, and he's still wearing both shoes, meaning that he brought a shoe to bang on the desk, meaning he was planning to get angry. I write angry emails all the time. I struggle with anger. I lash out. I've gotten better as I've gotten older, but what I do is a couple of things. One, I'll write an email and really like let it flow, and then I don't press send, and I wait 24 hours and I read it again, and most of the time I decide not to send it.

• 16:48Scott Galloway?

  And then when I get mad at somebody close to me, you know, it's true, you usually hurt or get angry at the people close to you because they're in proximity to you and you know that for the most part they'll forgive you, which is, you know, which is bad, right? But when I'm about to fucking lose it, and that happens to me a lot. I really try to check myself and you recognize as you get older, a lot of times your anger is more a function about you, your context, and not what that person has done. They've just triggered you. At the same time, I occasionally do blow up at my kids and I don't think that's necessarily terrible. I don't want to traumatize them. You know, their mom will say to me, that was an outsized reaction. And I'll be like, well, they're going to get run across outsized reaction their entire life. And it's okay

• 17:32Scott Galloway?

  if that happens and they can learn to deal with it. And it's okay for me to apologize and say, apologize, this is what's going on with me. And this is why I got so angry at, you know, you not cleaning up the dog shit or whatever. But in terms of a work context, the bottom line is it sucks to be a grown up. And regardless of how head up their ass policies they have, and not letting a woman work from home when her kid has graduated from high school, that's just, I don't know. It strikes me that that that organization is choosing policy and scale and standards over empathy. I just can't imagine anyone. The reason why I have policies is so you can scale and such that people feel like they're working in an equitable workplace. And I can't imagine any of your colleagues

• 18:14Scott Galloway?

  being angry that they gave a woman whose kid is graduating from high school an opportunity to work from home for a week. Now, could would everyone start asking? Maybe, but I don't know. It just feels like they could deal with it. But look, they're in charge and you sign the back of their checks. In other words, you cash them and you have to deal with it and you have two choices. You know, if you can't fix it, you got to stand it, as Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain said. Was that, was that the other guy? I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, so you have a couple of choices. You can either, you can go to them and say, this is why I think we should do it. And who knows? You don't know what they're going to do. It doesn't sound like they've responded yet. And I think your position is entirely defensible. I think erring on the side of empathy and just being

• 18:59Scott Galloway?

  a good person is always a pretty good plan B. And that sounds like what you're trying to do here. And then if they tell you can't do it, they get to make that decision and then you have a decision. And that is, do you want to stay at that firm long term? And you have to make a series of trade offs, but there's just no getting around it. I think you've got to do what they want. And I think you, you, you make your case. You can say, I disagree, but let's be honest. This isn't a democracy. You're in charge and I'll do what you tell me to do. And then over the long term or the medium term, I wouldn't have an emotional reaction to it. I'd get back to work and then you got to decide based on a series of probably good and bad things and trade offs at that company. If it's, you know, somewhere you can put up with the downside, including decisions like this,

• 19:43Scott Galloway?

  or if you want to look for a different job. Thanks so much. And I think your instincts and your empathy are, are, are right on in terms of the decision you made about this, about this young woman. Thanks for, thanks for the question, Clayton.

• 19:58Scott Galloway?

  That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected].

• 20:15Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Shagrin. Jude Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.

• 20:31Speaker 06

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• 21:00Speaker 07

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