Pod Insights The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway Choosing Between Career and Family, Scott’s Best Relationship Advice, and Being a Dad About this episode Scott wraps up our “Best Of” series with an episode on relationships – from dating and marriage to parenting and family. He answers questions on moving for work while staying close to loved ones, how to invest in your partnership, and what it really means to be a father as kids pull away. Scott shares lessons on balancing ambition with family, building stronger connections, and embracing the challenges of love and parenting.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:46 Scott Galloway? Welcome to Office Hours with Prof G. We're wrapping up our three-part series featuring some of our favorite Office Hours moments. This episode is all about relationships from dating and marriage to parenting and friendship and what I've learned along the way. Let's bust right into it.
2:04 Speaker 03 Hey Scott, it's Connor from Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm a 31-year-old lead software engineer at a cybersecurity company and I'm reaching out for some life and career advice. I work fully remote and although I love my company and was recently awarded a quarterly performance award, I've been struggling with the isolation that remote work has brought to my life. Since COVID, I found myself spending nearly every day working from home, often rolling out of bed just minutes before my first meeting. This past fall, I attended a summit in Seattle where I spent a week working from the office and it was a game changer. The focus, structure, and energy of working in person felt like a major boost to my productivity and overall happiness.
2:49 Speaker 03 Since then, I've been seriously considering relocating to Seattle to work in the office daily. I think it could be a great move for my career and would help me regain the structure I feel like I've been missing. My wife is fully on board with the idea. She's lived all over the world and grew up in Raleigh and I think that she would welcome a change in scenery. And her job is fully remote and she enjoys working remotely, so moving for her would be pretty seamless. Here's the challenge. I have a three-year-old niece here in North Carolina, not far from me, who means the world to me. Her dad is my twin brother and he's been through a long and difficult battle with addiction, but is now in recovery. How do I balance my desire to work in the office and possibly accelerate my career
3:33 Speaker 03 with my desire to stay close with family and be a consistent present for my niece? Thanks so much, Scott. I've been a huge fan of yours for a long time now, ever since Winners and Losers back on YouTube, and I really appreciate the work that you do.
3:48 Scott Galloway? Jesus Christ, can he be my uncle, Connor? You sound like such a thoughtful, impressive young man.
3:55 Scott Galloway? The first thing you should do is just take stock of your blessings. Let me get this, you're 31, you're a lead software engineer. It sounds like you're in a good relationship with your wife. You have a wonderful relationship with your niece. You obviously deeply care about your brother. I imagine he deeply cares about you and you're close with his family. I mean, you're just, you know, you're the man, you're definitely a role model for other men and people around you. I think you move. I think it's important that you establish economic security and personal growth and emotional growth and happiness for you and your wife. You guys are going to be, my guess is probably starting your own family pretty soon.
4:38 Scott Galloway? And I think between FaceTime and maybe more than, you know, the occasional flight back to Raleigh, you can still maintain a really close relationship with your brother and your niece. Look, I think they would miss you, but my guess is they love you a great deal and want you and your wife to be happy. And I believe that, and I don't, I think anyone who has, who's ambitious, young and talented should be in the office. You're going to make more money in the office. You're going to make, you're going to make deeper relationships. You're much more likely to get promoted. It's in being in a city when you're young and you don't have kids and you kind of dance between the raindrops and have a smaller apartment and enjoy all the benefits of a city like Seattle. Jesus Christ, a lot of rain, a lot of rain. I think you'd do this, brother.
5:22 Scott Galloway? I, when you move and you shake it up a little bit, you may look back and say, we didn't do better, but it was the right move. I'm in London. I don't love it here, but it was the right thing because it was good for my kids. It was good for a change. And I think, I think if your brother's on the path to recovery, I don't know. I think you're focused on yourself right now. What would your niece want for you when you were, when she's 25? She would look back and think, I have this wonderful uncle that loved me a great deal and I loved a great deal. But what I wish was that he was incredibly happy, that he was doing what built economic security for him and his family, made him and his wife the happiest. And you're still going to be able to be an outstanding uncle, which it sounds like you are in some, in some. Seattle, here you come.
6:09 Speaker 04 Hey Scott, I hope you're well. My name's Patrick. I'm 28 years old from the UK. Thank you so much for all your work and for your constant inspiration. My question is related to something that you've mentioned before, which I believe is where you sit down with your partner and you discuss your goals, either for the coming year or for the five years coming. And you work to support each other on those goals. I've entered a fairly new relationship and coming up to the new year, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to have one of these conversations with my partner. And I was looking for some structure on how you have those conversations. Thank you so much for the work that you do. I'm a massive fan of your work and please keep it up. The dog. Thank you.
6:49 Scott Galloway? Dude, how dreamy are you? British accent. You're thinking about investing in your partnership, even though you're a year in. When I was a year in, I was like, hey, do you want to go to St. Bart's? I mean, I was not thinking the way you were thinking. So kudos to you and your partner is very fortunate. I've given several best mantos and I always give the same toast and it slightly horrifies and delights everybody. I think there are three things to remember in a partnership. One, put the scorecard away. And that is decide what kind of boyfriend, husband, lover you want to be. And just be that person and stop thinking, well, her parents were in town and I was really nice to them. So when my mom comes to town, she needs to be really nice. I mean, I'm not saying get walked all over.
7:30 Scott Galloway? But decide what kind of, what kind of partner you want to be. And try and hold yourself to that expectation. And if you're on the plus side, if you're offering more than, than your partner is, you win. That's great. That's, that's surplus value, which is, I think is one of the key metrics to masculinity. You give witness to people's life. You notice them. You absorb more complaints than you give. You create more tax revenue than you absorb of, of social services. I think surplus value is a decent metric for masculinity. Also recognize that you'll likely naturally inflate your own contributions and diminish theirs, even if it's unintentional.
8:13 Scott Galloway? So as a result, if you keep score, it just, you end up frustrated and anxious. So I stopped keeping score across my relationships and it's been a big unlock.
8:23 Scott Galloway? A year in, I would try and express as much physical desire as possible. I think affection, not just sex, but affection and sex, say, I choose you. I think women want to be wanted. And I think that that it's fun. It's nice when you're young and I think we're meant to procreate and be physical. And it's what separates you from being romantic partners from friends. So anytime you feel you want to hold her hand, you want to, you know, lie on top of her and express affection while you're watching TV. You know, I think these things are wonderful. I think that's what you're supposed to be doing. And then third is never let your partner be hungry or cold.
9:06 Scott Galloway? I have found that probably 50% of my major blowups with my partners have been when I look back on it, that they were either hungry or cold. Always have a pageant and a power bar, wherever you are, wherever you are. So my, one of my methods is, or what I talk about, or what you're referring to, sitting down and talking about goals and unlocks is more for, I think, a relationship that's a little bit more mature. You're still in an exploration, getting to know you kind of phase of year in. But I think more just specifically, when I think of partnership, you're giving witness to their life. You're, Mel Robbins, who is on our podcast, consideration and admiration. You, you recognize that they're into something and you go out of their way. You go out of your way to get tickets for it.
9:52 Scott Galloway? You know, she likes a certain meal, so you go ahead and you order that. You admire them. You want them to occasionally be on a stage where they get claps from strangers, or you brag about them behind their back or in front of people. Mine is a little bit, I think, what I do with my partners, not every year, we sit down and say, okay, all costs, logistics aside, what would be really cool to do? That's why we moved to Europe. But I think the fact that you're even thinking this way means you're like in the top 1% of boyfriends. Most men do not think this way. Thanks so much for the question.
10:28 Scott Galloway? We'll be right back after a quick break.
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14:20 Speaker 05 Hey Scott, I'm going to comment on your favorite subject, you. Thanks for everything you do and for being vulnerable and discussing the hard stuff about being a man and, more importantly, being a dad. Your comments about taking body blows as a parent and the need to feel like a dad in a Hallmark commercial during your last podcast that really hit home. They were basically a body blow in and of themselves for me. As a father of a 12-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son, I'm working through exactly what it means for me to be a dad during those years. You're bang on. It's certainly not at all what I imagined. And while they're tremendous kids, as a dad, I can't help but feel as though I'm
15:04 Speaker 05 missing something due to the fact that my relationship is not two-way. Or as you said, I'm really struggling with this debtor relationship as they become themselves. I understand this is a healthy and necessary process for my kids, but I can't shake this feeling that I'm still doing something wrong due to the fact that my kids want to share so little of their lives with me. Any suggestions you might have to make this next stage of parenting a little easier? How do I learn to accept my role as a debtor in this relationship and find new ways to enrich my relationship with my children in this new landscape? Thanks so very much for your wisdom, Colin in Canada.
15:48 Scott Galloway? Hey Colin in Canada, so "I hear you," said every dad, anywhere. I grew up thinking that my, can't wait till my kids watch World War II history documentaries with me and come with me to CrossFit because they're gonna find me so impressive and wanna be like me that they're gonna just be naturally really into anything I'm into. I've been thinking a lot about the notion of masculinity and the rite of passage when a boy becomes a man. And I love what Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, says. He uses this concept of surplus value. And I've actually sat my boys down and explained this concept and I said, "Okay, right now, there's all these people at your school trying to help you damage the muscle in between your
16:32 Scott Galloway? ears such that it grows back stronger. You're not doing a lot for them. Your parents are paying them some money, but you're not adding a lot of value there." You are in a society that, for the most part, really values children. We're living in London right now and they spend a lot of money such that you can have the tube to go to school. They spend money on building malls, you can go play mini golf or whatever it is, and you're not adding a lot of value back. You're not making any money, you're not paying any taxes. We love you immensely. We think about you all the goddamn time. We're constantly thinking about the lunch and filling out the forms so you can go on field trips. We're constantly thinking about ensuring that you have the right pillows because one of my kids is allergic. We're just constantly working on you and you are not constantly working and thinking about us. It's negative value.
17:18 Scott Galloway? How you become a man is you start adding more and more value. And when you become a man is when you flip to the credit side. Is that right? You add surplus value. And that is you start doing more for other people. And I do little things called what a man does. And that is I say, okay, when visitors show up, a man immediately jumps to his feet, goes and gets their luggage and puts it in their room. A man pours, as soon as new water comes to the table, a man looks around and pours water in empty glasses. A man, when he's with women, pays for everything. If that sounds sexist, it is. I don't care. I still think men should pay for women in almost any context. And at some point, I say, you're going to start adding surplus value, hopefully. Some men never do.
18:03 Scott Galloway? Some men raised in environments where they're coddled, they never get to a point of adding more value than they're taking from the government, from their friends, from their family. And I think part of being a man, quite frankly, or part of being a father, is to be blunt. We get less than we give. And there's a certain reward in that. We take blows. Quite frankly, I'm sometimes devastated by the fact that I try so hard with my kids. I call my kids every night at the same time. You'd think they'd start to figure it out. I FaceTime them. I try to do these workouts with my oldest. I try to check in on my son and see what's going on with him. And on a regular basis, my son doesn't pick up. And I don't hear from him, even though he knows I'm calling him at 9:00 PM.
18:48 Scott Galloway? My youngest, sometimes, when he picks up the phone, says, literally picks up the phone like this. What? What? Well, I was just calling to check in. Oh, okay. And he's doing something else, checking out his hair in the reflection or on, I can tell he's on some sort of app or something. I think at the end of the day, the best advice I can give any father is just time. And that is, I hate the notion of quality time. I think that was invented by men who don't spend a lot of time with their kids to feel better about themselves. There's no such thing. The thing about those key moments when you kind of connect with your kids is that you're in the car taking them to school and they just sort of tell you something about someone they like or they ask you a question.
19:30 Scott Galloway? That's kind of the garbage time, or Ryan Holiday from The Daily Stoic taught me this term, garbage time. Try and find as much garbage time with your kids as possible. I think at the end of the day, what they're gonna remember, you know, maybe you weren't a great dad, or you were a dork, or I don't know, they didn't think you were cool, whatever it might be. But they will remember that you were there, that you were there. And then I would also say, I thought my kids would be into the things I was into, and what I realized is if you want to be a good dad, first you have to get them into something, whatever it is they take to ceramics. My kids got really into Premier League football. I am not interested in sports, but now I go to Premier League football all the time. And I find games in different cities, and I try and do one trip alone with each of
20:12 Scott Galloway? them. And we go together. I'm leaning into what they're interested in, because you realize, if you don't lean into what they're interested in, you're just not gonna have that much overlap. I was asked to speak at my kid's school in front of his whole class, and he said he might not be comfortable with me doing that. He thinks it would be embarrassing. That was like a spear through my fucking heart. The chance to like demonstrate what I do, and I'm good at it, in front of my son and his classmates, that was just so exciting for me, and he just decided I'm kind of embarrassing, and he doesn't want me there. Literally like a spear through my fucking heart. But that's what we do. We take those spears. We add surplus value. We acknowledge we're not gonna get as much back as we put in. And why do we do that? Because we're men, and that's what men do.
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