Notes on Being a Man — a Live Conversation with Ben Stiller

Scott Galloway joins actor, director, and comedian Ben Stiller live at 92NY for a conversation on modern masculinity – friendship, fatherhood, purpose, and building a life filled with meaning and connection. They discuss why mentoring young men has become controversial, how masculinity can evolve without reverting to old stereotypes, and the cultural forces leaving men lost in the digital age. Scott also opens up about his relationship with his parents, the lessons of forgiveness, and what it means to find fulfillment as a partner and father. Scott's new book, Notes on Being a Man, is out now. 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

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:01Speaker 02

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• 1:33Scott Galloway?

  Episode 373. 373 is a country code for Moldova. 1973, The Exorcist premiered. True story, supposedly The Exorcist is coming out with a sequel, but this time it's about trying to get the priest out of the boy.

• 1:50Scott Galloway?

  Go, go, go!

• 2:00Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 373rd episode of the Prop G Pod. So what's happening today? We're going to do something a little different. We're sharing the live recording of a recent event we did at the 92nd Street Y here in Manhattan with our friend Ben Stiller. We talk about modern masculinity, friendship, fatherhood, purpose, and how men can build lives filled with meaning and connection. It was an interview on my book, Notes on Being a Man. You're probably sick of me talking about it, but this was a, this was a good one. Ben is a really thoughtful guy and funny and, you know, kind of, kind of just what you would imagine. And also just a quick plug for Ben's documentary that just was just released on Apple TV, Stiller and Mira, Nothing is Lost.

• 2:44Scott Galloway?

  It's a documentary directed by Ben about his parents, the comedic duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Mira. The film explores, or the documentary explores, a professional partnership, marriage, and the impact it had on Ben. It is surprisingly, is it surprising? I won't say surprising. It's just very thoughtful and moving. So anyways, Stiller and Mira, Nothing is Lost. Check it out. So with that, here's our conversation.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  All right. Hi, everybody.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Hi, Scott.

• 3:24Scott Galloway?

  So if you're looking for the ultimate sell signal, it's when Ben Stiller is interviewing me. Literally sell everything, cats living with dogs. The earth is rotated off its axis. Like this, quite frankly, this shit just doesn't make sense.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  You asked me and I said, yes.

• 3:40Scott Galloway?

  I appreciate that.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm a fan. So I've written a little preamble that went longer than I thought. I promised we're going to talk a lot with Scott, but I just had to get this out. And I thought this is going to be my introduction. Okay. I've been a fan of Scott's ever since I saw him going off on a rant on Bill Maher's Real Time about four or five years ago about Twitter and the internet and the future of technology. And I think crypto. And I understood about 30% of the words he was saying, but he said them so fast and so assertively and with such confidence that I thought I understood all of it. And what I did understand was so crystal clear and his analogies were so clever that it made me think I could actually understand Bitcoin. Turns out I don't, but I did realize that I love listening to you.

• 4:23Scott Galloway?

  Thank you.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  And then I started listening to his podcast with the great Kara Swisher,

• 4:30Speaker 04

  who I also became obsessed with, and their hilarious banter back and forth, like an old married couple, talking about super sophisticated ideas made me feel like I could be a part of a world. I always was intimidated by tech and finance. And at one point, before I even met Scott, I was so taken by his turn of phrase, this is true, that I literally started a file in my notes app of Scott Galloway quotes, which I pulled up, this is from like late in 2023 or early 2024. And these are just random quotes that I had that I wrote down that I thought were worth writing down. Here are a few, okay. Tesla is a drunken tourist with a Hublot watch.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  No idea what that means, but I love it. You can't read the label from inside the bottle. Oh my God.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  You just said mendacious algorithms. And I was like, yes, I don't even know what, I mean, I guess I know what that means. You have to let your inner child develop an outer man. That's great. Three things I hate most in life are shoelaces, keys, and passwords. Do you remember saying that?

• 5:37Scott Galloway?

  I do.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Eight percent of elected officials don't understand technology. We'll get into the statistics in a second. Vertical content, own the hardware, own the rails. I had no idea what vertical content was when you said that, but then I heard it and it made me want to get some.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  I started to look him up on Twitter, on YouTube. I would watch his rants about technology and the internet and being a male person. And I started to hear him talk about mentoring young men. And then the somewhat controversial sounding idea that young men in our society were at risk and needed older male father figures to guide them. So then I'm like, is that what he's all about? Is he like, is that like his full-time job? He's like into Boy Scouts and things? And, you know, I just wanted to know, who is Scott Galloway? What does he do, actually? Besides memorize statistics? The man knows more statistics at the top of his head than any human being I've ever met. Quick, Scott, just give me a statistic right now.

• 6:32Scott Galloway?

  Forty-five percent of men 18 to 24 have never asked a woman out in person.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Thank you, okay. Then I learned that he was really wealthy and he had a plane. And I really wanted to know, like, what does this guy do? And the more I watched him, the more fascinated I was with how he could just distill down the ideas of this very complicated culture that we're living in, that goes a million miles an hour, and make things seem clear and simple, and also had a point of view about what it was to be a person, more specifically, a man. This is when I realized, even though I don't know what he actually does, I wanted to be Scott Galloway. Just made out. He actually embodied all the traits that I wish I had, except being bald, though he pulls that off.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  But he's tall, articulate, smart, funny, has a plane, and is tall. And I never in a million years would want to go on as a pundit on Bill Maher or MSNBC. Yet everything he says, I agree with, and I'm like, yeah, that's the guy who I want to be. And then I realized that we actually do have a lot in common, because we both went to UCLA. Started the same day. Same time, right? We're basically the same age, we were weaned on the same beautiful 70s TV, Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Six Million Dollar Man. And that's actually all we really have in common, I realize.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  I quit school, went back to New York, and so we never probably crossed paths, because I was only there for like nine months. Well, there's a lesson there, kids, drop out of school. Yeah. I could have probably met you if I rushed the Jewish fraternity, but instead I stayed in my apartment on Hill Guard and learned to juggle.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  And not meet girls. Now, Scott, you've written a book that I think is part autobiographical, part handbook, part manifesto, and completely engrossing. I found it incredibly honest and revealing, and at the end, very emotional. I think you were willing to be vulnerable and real about your feelings of ego, anger, insecurity, and it just makes this book very personal and relatable. And even though it's kind of, in ways, a self-help book, and you include a lot of charts and graphs on economics and employment, it's really written as a no-holds-barred, honest memoir, too. And I think what you're writing about here is both personal exploration and also a sort of call to arms on how to help.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Raise young men based on your own experience. And, you know, I think in this day and time, it's always strange. It's a strange thing to talk about when you talk about mentoring young men. Because I think a lot of people sort of misinterpret it. And I was watching you on the Today Show the other day. And you said, you know, even they said it at first, like, oh, this is like seemed controversial at first, what you were talking about. But, you know, really, what? Why is it so controversial? Now I'm gonna start asking you a question. Why is it so controversial to talk about mentoring young men?

• 9:19Scott Galloway?

  Well.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  If you think, if you agree with that idea.

• 9:23Scott Galloway?

  So first off, to set the groundwork, the statistics are pretty stark, right? If you go into a morgue and there's five people died by suicide, four are men. We have a homeless and an opiate problem. But what we really have is a male homeless and a male opiate problem. A third time, three times is likely to be addicted, three times likely to be homeless, 12 times to be incarcerated. And if, so the problem is pretty present. And to the right's credit, the right, or the far right really, recognized the problem and started talking about needing to lift young men up. The problem is the remedy from the far right. And the voices that filled that void.

• 10:06Scott Galloway?

  Their suggestion was that we return to the 50s where women and non-whites had less opportunity. That's not the answer. And they began conflating masculinity with coarseness and cruelty. At the same time, the left hasn't been that helpful because their advice when talking about the struggles of young men is to say, well, if you're only more in touch with your feelings, you don't have problems, you are the problem. And they're basically, their advice is act more like a woman. And I don't think that's helpful either. And so there's an opportunity.

• 10:39Scott Galloway?

  The gag reflex is understandable because, let's be honest, we've had a 3,000-year head start. And since 1945 to 2000, the US registered a third of all economic prosperity globally, which is 5% of the population. So essentially, Americans registered six times the prosperity of the rest of the world. And then you take that 5%, and all of that prosperity was largely crammed into the third of the population that was white, male, and heterosexual. So when they hear a white dude talking about, "Oh, poor men", they immediately have a gag reflex, like, "Oh, shit, it's that Andrew Tate weirdness again trying to set me back", that feels that there's an inverse correlation

• 11:24Scott Galloway?

  between women's ascent and men's descent. And the reality is, the reason we won World War II and men got to come home heroes is because we embraced women in the factories. Hitler wanted women to stay at home. And we said, "Fuck that. Women can make P51s. Let's get them in the workplace." Had women not entered the workplace, had we not had the advancement of non-whites and women through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, America's economy, just on a very, you know, economic, a toy level, would have crashed. So the Left, I think, does not recognize that empathy is not a zero-sum game. Civil rights didn't hurt.

• 12:05Scott Galloway?

  White people, hetero-- or gay marriage didn't hurt hetero-normative marriage. But when you started talking about men, there was a gag reflex from the Left that, "Wait, you're one of those guys", that your discussion of men is thinly veiled misogyny, that the answers are always going to be setting back the wonderful rights that we've acquired for non-whites and for women. And so I get it that there's a bit of a gag reflex. And effectively, what's happening is-- Young men are being held responsible for our unearned privilege. We got more opportunities than we deserved.

• 12:48Scott Galloway?

  A lot of our success is not our fault. When I applied to UCLA, the admissions rate was 74%. When we applied, now it's 9%. Homes are now six times as expensive as they were when we were buying homes. Incomes have gone up twice as much, right? The cost of education has gone up sevenfold. And a young man is now, um, one, only one in three men are in a relationship under the age of 30, two in three women. You think, well, that's mathematically impossible. It's because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. And a lot of the jobs that were on ramps for men into a middle-class lifestyle have disappeared.

• 13:32Scott Galloway?

  And then you talk about the ultimate enemy, which is big tech, trying to convince men and attaching a profit motive, trying to convince young people that can have a reasonable life, facsimile of a life on a screen. And so the result is a young generation of men who don't have nearly the opportunities that we had, but are being held liable and accountable for the opportunities we had. And the result is you just would never have a special interest group killing themselves at four times the rate of the control group and not weigh in with programs. And so when you go to the Democratic National Convention, as I did, you see this parade of people talking about the very real challenges facing special interest groups, but there's

• 14:14Scott Galloway?

  not one mention of the special interest group that's fallen further faster than any group in America, and that's young men. So I think the gag reflex is understandable. I get it. But if you really start looking at the data, you recognize that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can still address the problems facing women. A woman, once she has kids, goes to 73 cents on the dollar versus men. That's a problem. Social media is unfortunately attacking the self-esteem of young girls, and the rates of self-harm and cutting have doubled since social and on mobile. That's a problem. We can address it. But we can also recognize that young men are really struggling. And that our country isn't going to continue to flourish and women aren't going to continue

• 14:59Scott Galloway?

  to ascend if men are flailing. And what I would offer up, and this is, the conversation has become so much more productive than when I started talking about it five years ago and immediately got this wild pushback, oh, you're Andrew Tate with an MBA. You know, the pushback, the dialogue has gotten so much more productive. Governor Moore, State of the State address, said he's going to focus administration this year on the struggles of young men and boys. And the cohort that has advanced the conversation and made it much more productive is simple. It's mothers. And what's happened is, mothers, I get a lot, my fans are young men, but my supporters are women, mothers. And they say something

• 15:42Scott Galloway?

  like this, I have three kids, two daughters, one son. One daughter's in PR in Chicago, one is at grad school in Penn, and my son is in the basement playing video games and vaping. Mothers see what's going on. There is a lack of economic opportunity, a lack of romantic opportunities, and the deepest-pocketed firms in the world have connected profit and revenues to sequestering young people from relationships and anything else in their life, and then taking them online and enraging them. And unfortunately, men with a much less mature prefrontal cortex are much more susceptible to this. So I think the dialogue, the good news is, the dialogue has become much more productive. This would have been out of the

• 16:24Scott Galloway?

  gates five years ago, seen as two old white dudes trying to keep women down. Speak for yourself.

• 16:31Scott Galloway?

  But, this was, hey, I, college graduate.

• 16:42Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I'm sorry things haven't worked out for you. By the way, he just said, he was just saying, he was just saying to me off the, offline, I'm like, what are you working on? It's like, Meet the Parents Forum. I'm like, it's good to see you're finally making some money from that shit. Anyways. But look, why was it so controversial? Why was it so controversial? No, the art world, the art world needs that. The art world needs that, Ben.

• 17:06Scott Galloway?

  Sorry. The gag reflex is understandable, is what I'm trying to say. So what do you actually do?

• 17:15Speaker 04

  I'm totally serious.

• 17:18Scott Galloway?

  What do I do?

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz like, I know you're a professor.

• 17:21Scott Galloway?

  Right.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  But you're also like, super rich and you're super successful. I know cuz I got a ride on your plane once. That was exciting.

• 17:30Scott Galloway?

  Just cuz you're famous, I'm a total star.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah. But seriously, though, like, what is this combination that you've put together, being a professor, who also is like, very good at business? Like, what is it that you actually spend your days doing besides memorizing statistics? Because how do you know all these statistics?

• 17:47Scott Galloway?

  I did a lot of...

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Because it's insane how many statistics you know.

• 17:51Scott Galloway?

  I did a lot of drugs in college, stay in school.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  But like, what's your, like...

• 17:57Scott Galloway?

  What do I do?

• 17:58Speaker 04

  When you're not doing a book tour.

• 17:59Scott Galloway?

  How do I make money? What do I do? What do you wanna know?

• 18:01Speaker 04

  What do you... How do you spend your time? Just, just...

• 18:04Scott Galloway?

  So, let me...

• 18:04Speaker 04

  How much time do you spend thinking about this stuff versus teaching versus running your company?

• 18:09Scott Galloway?

  So, kinda, three buckets. I spend about a third of my time writing. I write a newsletter, I enjoy writing books. About a third of my time on media, podcasts and television. And about a third of my time, quite frankly, on investments, where I go on boards. And because I've lived in Europe the last three years, I'm on leave from NYU, so I'm not teaching. But typically, one of those things, a third of the time, would be teaching. But I consider myself, at the end of the day, a teacher. And my superpower, or my core competence, is communicating. I make a lot of money and get more relevance than I deserve and can have an impact cuz I'm a good storyteller. As you can see, I'm not a modest person. But my superpower...

• 18:52Scott Galloway?

  My superpower is that people such as you think I work harder than I do. I don't work... I used to work very hard, I don't work nearly that hard anymore. And the secret to scaling and making money and having more relevance and impact than you deserve is my superpower, and I'm great at this. I'm great at attracting and retaining really talented people. Prop G Media... People think it's amazing that you can draw these graphs and all this, right? I got 25 people at Prop G Media. And Catherine Dillon is here, Drew Burrows is here, I...

• 19:25Scott Galloway?

  New employees, Billy Bennett. I don't know if anyone... Anyone else from Prop G here?

• 19:32Scott Galloway?

  Mary Jean, my assistant is here, my chief of staff. My point is, and this is, I always try to reverse stuff to a learning. Greatness is in the agency of others. And I'm not saying that to be politically correct. If you want to have outsized opportunities economically or from a relevance standpoint, you do this. I mean, I can't, Seven's must have taken at least three or four people, right? Three, four, five people?

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Uh, no. I did it all by myself.

• 19:58Scott Galloway?

  Four hundred? I mean,

• 20:02Scott Galloway?

  my point is, um, I'm a...

• 20:04Speaker 04

  No, you're saying delegating in a certain way? Uh, or what is, is it, is it choosing? This is an interesting thing to me, like choosing the people who work with you and making those choices that someone that is so good at what they do that you can then relax and go, I know this person is going to handle this for me. Is that...

• 20:20Scott Galloway?

  It's everything. The only thing, the reason I get to live the life I lead is because I was always able to find really good people, give them a bunch of ownership. I've, so the way I've made money is I've started and sold companies. But when I sell the company, I typically never own more than thirty or forty percent of it because I'd rather have thirty or forty percent of something that gets sold for a lot of money. And the way, the only way to get people to act like owners is to make them owners. And so I've always given away more than half my company to the employees. And as soon as I find someone good, I hold on to them. I've been working, I've known Mary Jean for 25 years. I've been working with Catherine Dillon for 15 years. Drew, our tech guy, who I think is here tonight, I've been working with 12 years.

• 21:02Scott Galloway?

  So it, it sounds, it sounds passe, but greatness is in the agency of others. So what do I do? I teach, I communicate. Uh, and I'm very fortunate to have people, great people around me who, who scale my efforts and create a lot of economic opportunity and relevance that I wouldn't have otherwise.

• 21:23Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back after a quick break.

• 21:31Scott Galloway?

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• 22:16Scott Galloway?

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• 22:31Scott Galloway?

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• 23:16Scott Galloway?

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• 23:42Scott Galloway?

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• 24:27Scott Galloway?

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• 24:53Speaker 04

  Just to get back to what you were talking about before I interrupted you about it. It's interesting to me when you say these role models for young men and you talk about mothers.

• 25:02Scott Galloway?

  Yep.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  Can you talk a little bit, because in the book you talk about your childhood a lot and your parents.

• 25:10Scott Galloway?

  Yep.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Can you talk a little bit about how they influenced you growing up, having divorced parents?

• 25:18Scott Galloway?

  Sure.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  What role your mom and your dad, but really how your mom affected you?

• 25:24Scott Galloway?

  So, I've cried twice this week on national TV. First on The View and about two hours ago on, oh no, it's not cool. I was just on The Daily Show, and I'm not exaggerating. Jordan Klepper literally moved his hands across and held my hands and looked around like, oh, fuck, I don't know how to deal with that. Um, like raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary lied in my life. And one of the basic takeaway is the following, and I try and do this and um, uh, Bauda is here. We do this, I think, really well. If you say to a kid, regardless of uh, my mom worked very hard. We didn't have a lot of money. It was just us, me and her against the world.

• 26:05Scott Galloway?

  But if somebody tells you every day in small and big ways, implicit and explicit, that they just think you're wonderful. You know, I was, by the time I was 16, I was six feet with bad acne and 120 pounds. I wasn't like, I didn't have huge social capital. Let's just put it that way. But when someone's telling you every day that you're wonderful, you can't help but start to believe it. And I think that confidence has always been resident inside of me, you know? And she um, I, I was just really blessed when I reverse engineer all of my, you know, what's happened to me. The base of it is someone who just was just, you know, every day convinced me I was a good person or that I was worthwhile. My dad wasn't around. My dad left.

• 26:49Scott Galloway?

  My dad um, was a handsome man with a Scottish accent, which meant in seventies California, you could not only think with your dick, you could use it.

• 27:01Scott Galloway?

  Married and divorced four times, as far as we know. And uh, so he left when I was eight and he wasn't, you know, he tried. I forgive, gave him later in life because I think the primary box you have to check as a, as a dad is to be better to your son than your father was to you. And my dad was a much better father than his son, uh, dad was to him. His dad was an alcoholic and physically abusive to him. And he was pulled out of school at the age of 13, lied and joined the Royal Navy where he was jumping into freezing water in a wetsuit at the age of 18 to come home after two years, sending all his money home because he wanted to come to America. Where his mother informed him she'd spent all his money on whiskey and cigarettes.

• 27:45Scott Galloway?

  And it was angry at him when he was upset because she said, what was I supposed to do? I'm bored. So my dad didn't have a lot of great role models in his life. But, you know, he tried, checked a box. I inherited the gift of storytelling. And he, he, he made the smartest decision that had the most impact on my life. And that is he and my mother decided to immigrate to America. A lot of my success is not my fault. So their decision to get on a steamship at the ages of 20 and 21 and come to America, I'm just very grateful. And in divorce, you have a tendency, I think, to sanctify one person and demonize the other. And I did that.

• 28:28Scott Galloway?

  I didn't speak to my father for years at a time because I would get very angry when I would think about, he could have made my mom and my life much easier and he didn't. And you, you know, you hold on to that resentment, right? I don't know. I will, a lot of us have complicated relationships with our parents. But the learning here, or the big unlock for me and what I would tell anybody, it's just made me much happier is that growing up, my approach to relationships was transactional. Am I getting as much from this friendship as you are? With a girlfriend, oh, my parent, your parents are in town and I hung out with your dad. That means you got to hang out with my, with my parents. And if you don't, or, you know, everything was a transaction.

• 29:13Scott Galloway?

  I had a scorecard around every relationship and including my father. All right, I'm not going to be a better son than you were a father to me, full stop. I'm just not. And then what the biggest unlock or one of the biggest unlocks from my life that started my father is I said, okay, what kind of son do I want to be? What kind of friend do I want to be? What kind of partner do I want to be? What kind of investor do I want to be? What kind of business partner do I want to be? And then hold yourself to that standard and just put away the fucking scorecard. Because you always inflate your own contributions and diminish theirs. And you end up unhappy, you always end up. And I decided I wanted to be a loving, generous son regardless. Can I ask, what point did you, in your life, did you make that shift? A few weeks ago.

• 29:58Scott Galloway?

  Under the influence of mushroom chocolates, I'm reconsidering it. No, about, quite frankly, not until I was about forty or forty-five. And as soon as I decided I want to be a generous, loving son and put the bullshit away, our relationship just got much better. And, and I realized I, you know, forgave him for his flaws, recognizing, you know, he did try. And a lot of his DNA, a lot of his risks have played, paid huge dividends for me. So there's no reason I can't be grateful for those things. I want to flip it back to you. You had a different relationship. Your parents married long-term. I get the sense, from the things I've read about you, it sounded like you grew up in

• 30:40Scott Galloway?

  what I would call a very stable, supportive, loving household. But that's the exterior image.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, Upper West Side, New York, seventies, parents who are a comedy team, relatively stable. You know, like, it was a different ti- it was a, you know, I, I just literally, I just made a documentary about my family and that whole experience. And there's so much that I can identify with what you're saying in terms of getting to a point in your life, for me, where it took me to get to a point in my life where I could appreciate that point of view of looking, of what kind of relationship do I want to have with my dad as opposed to holding on.

• 31:20Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Because I had a great dad. And for, in a way, though, the daunting, of course, I always had stuff with him, as any son does, but the daunting thing was, for me, was that he kind of was, had cast a big shadow in terms of the way that people reacted to him, because they, he was a very generous guy, a very loving guy. So like, for me, it was hard to, I, I was in, sort of in conflict, because I was like, well, yeah, but he's my dad, and you don't really know, like, and he was great as a dad, too. It wasn't any some, some secret of like, what he was really like, but it's still challenging. But to get to that point, for me, was when I had kids, and I wanted to kind of get into this with you a little bit, that point where you kind of matured to a point where you could say, okay, I want to have this kind of relationship while your dad is still alive.

• 32:03Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 04

  You know, you wrote in the book about, there's a little section where you talk about your parents' friends, who you grew up with, who, you know, were very, kind of these larger-than-life characters, sort of, when you were a kid, and then they got older. And you talk about how, when your mom's friend...

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Was older and she you basically she you needed someone to help take care of her and she left you things. And you just you wrote there's a little mention there where you say like I couldn't quite be that I couldn't be there for her. The way that maybe you felt you should have at the time. Um, and I really it really resonated with me because I I felt like and then you said, you know, as you matured, you were able to figure that out. But looking back, you said like, I wish I had shown up more for that. And I it reminded me of a time when a parents, my parents friends, two of their very close friends, one of them was very sick when I was in my thirties.

• 32:54Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  And I couldn't deal with that of this this guy who I remembered as a kid was like, like I loved him so much and I and he was on his deathbed. And I had, I couldn't go to visit him.

• 33:05Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  And I felt awful about it because and at the time I just couldn't deal with it.

• 33:09Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  Um, and I feel like you really talk so eloquently in the book about you write so eloquently in the book about. How you got into this place with your kids of really wanting to be something. And have a relationship with them that maybe you couldn't have when you were younger. And I think that to me is like one of the themes in the book, the idea of. You know, of growing and changing as a person and and when you get to these points in your life where you're able to appreciate those things.

• 33:35Scott Galloway?

  So the backstory is uh my mom's best friends and my godfather were uh were Carson and Charlie Evans. And remember the first time. You remember people for the if they're. If you registered in motion for a first time with them and I remember thinking for the first time. These people were cool and rich. I'd never met cool, rich people before. They lived in the Hollywood Hills and they'd have parties with live bands and cool music. And everyone seemed beautiful and Carson was gorgeous. She was literally and Charlie had a business. They were kind of the toast of the town and he took an interest in me. And I remember going to his business.

• 34:16Scott Galloway?

  And it didn't look like I was going to go to college. So when I was a senior, I started spending time at his printing company in the valley. And he was trying to get me used to the thought that I might go to work there. And um they were the toast of the town anyways. Uh Charlie um lost his business, lost everything. Carson said, I'm leaving you, went into the garage, killed himself. And.

• 34:40Scott Galloway?

  My, fast forward 20 or 30 years later, um, my mom is sick and I'm living with my mom. I'm doing a lot of virtue signaling right now, but it's true. I was living with my mom and Carson calls. And by this time, Carson was a raging alcoholic addicted to painkillers. And she said, I'm coming, I'm, I'm coming. I'm like, no, no, we're fine, we're fine. And then up rolls from San Diego to Las Vegas. This canary yellow Corvette with a little Scottish terrier and 12 bottles of Johnnie Walker red. And she says, I'm staying here. I'm here to take care of my best friend. And she used to make hot pockets for us. And unfortunately, the image that will always stay in my mind is me walking in, getting there on a Sunday night from New York and Carson naked on her back with these enormous enhanced breasts

• 35:24Scott Galloway?

  and a maintenance worker and it said Carlos. And they were fooling around on my mom's couch. And the weird thing is it was such a strange time in my life. I'm like, this fits. This fits. And, and just going back, you know, and then things resolve. My mom passes away and Carson, um, uh, about three years later, I couldn't get her meds. Or, and I guess without opiates, you're basically, she died without, cause her, her, your system, it was passed away. And I get a call saying, uh, you're the only beneficiary of her will. She, you're the sole beneficiary. And quite frankly, I could have found time. I should have found time.

• 36:09Scott Galloway?

  I called her every once in a while, but I didn't find time to go see her and I'm not proud of that. It's just a lack of character, right? Uh, to not find time to go, you know, spend time with a woman who took care of your mom at the end. And there were just certain things I couldn't do for my mom that Carson did do. It was fucked up and drunk as she was all day. She was a huge, huge asset to me at a critical moment. So I got all excited. I was sad, but then I got excited about potentially a windfall. And, and she had a safe. And I'm like, oh my God, there's gotta be something good in there. And it was like, uh, some weird stuff, some photos and this gold belt. And I used to remember her wearing it of these big $5 Indian head gold coins.

• 36:54Scott Galloway?

  And I think the belt was probably worth like, I don't know, 20 or $30,000. And I thought, I'll just hold on to this in case shit really gets real. I need to shove something up my ass and move to New Zealand or something. And so I put in a dresser. It is never a good idea for me to try and hide anything. And then a few years later, a friend of mine got divorced. And I was moving and I said, you can have all my furniture. I'm moving to a smaller apartment. And about five years later, I did, I just like really needed some money. I'm like, oh, I'll sell the belt and gold had spiked to like, you know, a million dollars an ounce or something. So I go on this frenzy looking for that goddamn belt. I can't find it. And then fast forward another 24 months later, my friend Adam goes, by the way,

• 37:39Scott Galloway?

  you know, we have this great costume jewelry. Uh, we found in one of the, the dressers you sent me. I'm like, that thing's probably worth like 80 grand by now. And he's like, oh, my 13 year old's been wearing it to his eighth grade because he thinks it looks, makes him look like a rapper. And I'm like, does he have it at school right now? Cause if he does, could you go get it? Like, he can't lose this thing. But these gold coins are a reminder that at the end of the day, like you can be the toast of the town. You know, these people had everything. One guy sticks a rifle in his chest, you know, Charlie. And the other dies addicted to opiates. And I don't have any like Hallmark channel lessons here, other than relationships or everything.

• 38:23Scott Galloway?

  And just to recognize a lot of your success and a lot of your failures, not your fault. And you don't know what's going to happen. Anyways, you probably, that was probably more than you wanted.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Thank you and good night, everybody. It's been great talking to you, Scott. Um, well, I mean, does talk about, you want to talk about, uh, marriage and relationships?

• 38:43Scott Galloway?

  No.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  No. Okay.

• 38:46Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, sure.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Well, I thought was like really, I, I love how much you talk about marriage in, in the book because, um, you obviously are invested in your marriage and we both have long-term marriages and, um, you give interesting, I think, great advice about what makes a marriage work. Um, you had a bunch of statistics about how married people, uh, live longer and are happier or they're happier.

• 39:16Scott Galloway?

  So.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm just, I know they are.

• 39:20Scott Galloway?

  You're really selling this.

• 39:23Scott Galloway?

  His wife is here.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  No, no, I'm happier now. I'm like, I'm in, but this actually is about the arc of happiness that you have in the book.

• 39:30Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  It's interesting. He has a graph about the arc of happiness, which is like in, across your lifetime, and it kind of goes like a big smile.

• 39:36Scott Galloway?

  Smile, yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  And I found it to be very true.

• 39:39Scott Galloway?

  So this is, I'll try and bring this back to the book about men, and that is, so there's this cartoon of a woman in her 30s who doesn't have romantic love. It's like the greatest tragedy ever. You know, poor Lisa never found romantic love, and now she's in her 40s and she has cats. What a tragedy. Guess what? Lisa's just fine. All of the research shows the following. Men need and benefit from relationships much more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies. True. This is true. Widowers are less happy. Women do live longer in relationships. They

• 40:21Scott Galloway?

  live two to four years longer. Men live four to seven years longer. If a man hasn't cohabitated with a woman or been married by the time he's 30, there's a one in three chance he'll be a substance abuser. When women don't have a romantic relationship, they oftentimes pour a lot of that energy back into their friend network and their professional lives. When, when men don't have a relationship, they pour a lot of that energy back into online content, nationalists, nationalism, misogyny, anti-immigration. They start blaming other people for their problems. The bottom line is, men need, especially young men, need guardrails, and there is nothing like the guardrails of a relationship and especially

• 41:04Scott Galloway?

  marriage. And when I, I'll flip this back to you, but when I was younger, when I was, you know, in my 20s, 30s, and even into my 40s. Everything was about more. I wanted more money. No matter how much money, I want more money. Relevance. I want more relevance. No matter how fabulous my experiences are, the people I was hanging out, could I hang out with more interesting people? Well, I'm in St. Bart's for New Year's. To St. What about F1 for New Year's? I just more, I want fucking more. Just never quite sated. And the only time I have ever felt sated is when I'm with my boys and my partner Beata,

• 41:45Scott Galloway?

  and we look at each other and we know we've done something right, and it's a hassle and it's the end of the night, and the kids instinctively throw their legs over ours and we're on the couch, where I know they're safe, I know they're protected, I know they're loved, I know they love me immensely. It's the only time I've ever had a moment where I thought, okay, I get it. I could go now. I don't want to go now, but I get it. This is it. This is enough. Only time in my life where I've ever felt stated. And what I would say to, I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to have kids. I just didn't. I thought, you know, being single and alone in New York is a empty and meaningless experience, but as far as empty and meaningless experiences go, it's pretty damn good.

• 42:27Scott Galloway?

  And, and then I found someone who wanted to have kids and said, I'm not interested in a long-term relationship with kids. I'm like, fine. Uh, we'll have kids. And now, hands down, and all the research shows this, the happiest people are generally part of a family. And I think the part of masculinity is, the greatest reward I feel is making them feel like they're noticed and they're loved, being a provider for them, making them, hopefully that they feel protected. But it is the most unexpected means of finding purpose and meaning in my life. And the, the most wonderful thing, it's not even making money that's great. It's making it with people. It's making it with a team.

• 43:11Scott Galloway?

  When I met my, my wife, I had no money. She had no money. We built a great life together. We had no kids. We have these two boys who get less awful every day. But doing that with someone else, when you don't. When my mom passed away, one of the hardest things about that was every time something good happened to me, I would call my mom. I got my first bonus from Morgan Stanley, call my mom. And you know, your mom can just wax on, she just loves hearing about great things. I just, I met a woman in a coffee line and I got her number. Well, good for you, that's so wonderful, you're so handsome, it's no surprise. You know? And for a good five, 10 years, every time something good happened to me, it was as

• 43:53Scott Galloway?

  if it didn't happen, because without calling my mom, it was like, it wasn't cemented, it was like, it just didn't happen. And so now with a wife and kids, it's like, good things happen again. Like, we are building something together, and hands down, the most rewarding thing in my life. And if I could have any sort of public policy, in some, we need to put more money into the pockets of young people such that they can afford to mate and build loving, secure families. 60%

• 44:30Scott Galloway?

  60% of 30-year-olds used to have at least one child 40 years ago, now it's 27%. And it's not some cool anti-kid thing, oh, they're worried about the climate, they can't afford to. And also, when you have a lot of young men who aren't economically viable, we don't like to have an honest conversation about mating. Men mate socio-economically, horizontally and down, women horizontally and up. Beyonce could work at McDonald's and marry Jay-Z, the opposite is not true. 75% It's the truth, folks, 75% of women say economic viability is key to a mate, only 25% of men. So when men are not doing well economically, we have an absence of mating. We have an absence of what is the opportunity to do the most rewarding thing in the world,

• 45:15Scott Galloway?

  and that is build a family, where you get to that point of building something with someone else. And without those opportunities, you know, it's tough on women, but it is absolutely disastrous for men. Because without the guard posts or the guideposts of a relationship, a man really comes off... The tracks. So the question is, how do we figure out a way to lift up all young people, which I think will disproportionately benefit men right now because they're kind of falling off of the tracks. And that is, they don't have the money, the confidence, or the skills to find a partner. And when I think about the most, it just makes me very upset and rattled

• 45:57Scott Galloway?

  to think that the most rewarding thing in my life is effectively off limits. Marriage is the new luxury item. Four fifths of people in the top quintile of income earning households get married. Only one in five men in the lowest quintile ever have an opportunity to mate. And unfortunately, that's more the average or more typical in history. Only 80% of women have reproduced in our species on the planet, only 40% of men. Because the natural state of kind of barbarism and a society just left where it doesn't redistribute money back to the middle class, the natural order is Porsche polygamy, where the few men who are anointed money or so talented or lucky they get a lot of money, they have

• 46:37Scott Galloway?

  multiple mates. And the majority of the lower 90 of men don't have any. And a society collapses on itself because those men get angry. And the most dangerous person in the world is a lonely, broke, young man. If you look at the most unstable, violent societies in the world, they have a disproportionate number of young men without a lack, who have a lack of economic and a lack of romantic opportunities. And I think right now, the reason why we have elected an insurrectionist president is because young men are failing. And young people pivoted hardest from blue to red, 20 to 24. And the second group to pivot hardest was 45 to 64 year old women. And my thesis is that's their mothers. Because if your son isn't doing well, you don't give a shit about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine

• 47:22Scott Galloway?

  or transgender rights. You just know your kid, your son isn't doing well. So I think we have all sorts of reasons to make a huge investment in younger people, not just men, all younger people, right? The $40 billion a year tax credit for children gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill. The $120 billion cost of living adjustment for social security flies right through Congress. Old people have figured out a way to boat themselves more money. Our elected representatives are a cross between the Golden Girls and the land of the dead. And they keep transferring more money from young people to old people. A person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy than they were than a person that age 40 years ago.

• 48:04Scott Galloway?

  People our age are 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. What does that mean? It means young people are struggling, the more anxious, the more obese. And it is especially hard on young men, because we don't like to talk about this. But when a young man has fewer opportunities to be a provider, he is harshly judged in society. Women are disproportionately and unfairly evaluated on their aesthetics. Men are unfairly and disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability. And we are producing way too many economically unviable men. It is bad for household formation. It robs young men of the greatest opportunity for happiness, to build something with someone else. And it makes a nation unstable and violent.

• 48:57Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

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• 50:03Scott Galloway?

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• 51:12Speaker 04

  Talking about masculinity in a marriage, this is just something I was thinking about. Like, how important is it for men in a marriage, do you think, to maintain like that, that thing of feeling like a masculine man? Because that's, you know, do you know what I mean?

• 51:32Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, just in terms of, like, you talk about masculinity in young men, but like, as guys get to our age, you know, I feel like guys our age start to try to grasp on to, holding on to something as you start to get older.

• 51:46Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, look, I don't, I don't think of it. The honest answer is I don't know. I haven't parsed the role masculinity plays in a, in a.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  What do you think about in your, in your own marriage?

• 51:59Scott Galloway?

  Okay, so I've given a couple, I've given a couple best man toasts and I'll give you the exact toast I give for a successful marriage. This is my, my feeling. Uh, one, put away the scorecard. We talked about this. Just decide the kind of husband you want to be and always try and be in the plus column. By the way, I think that is the litmus test for when you become a man. I think there are a lot of males that grow really old and never become men. And I think the ultimate litmus test is the following. It's the term surplus value. You create more, every one of us is absorbing 20, 30, $60,000 a year in tax, other people's tax revenue. If you call 911, someone shows up. If you need to go to the hospital, they'll take care of you. There are brave men and women handling very expensive equipment to try and defend our shores from people who would like to kill us. All right? So we have a debt.

• 52:44Scott Galloway?

  So do you create more economic value and jobs than you absorb? Do you notice more people's lives than notice yours? At some point, do more people complain to you than you complain? It's okay, you, you want to, the moment a man, and some men never get there, to a point where they are adding more economic value, adding more love, adding more concern, absorbing more complaints, making more people feel good about themselves and maybe made you feel good, that's the whole fucking shooting match is surplus value. So anyways, keep, put the scorecard away. My first suggestion in these toasts. The second is the following. Always express, always express physical desire, sex and affection. It's what says, I choose you.

• 53:28Scott Galloway?

  I think women want to be wanted. I, I, but sorry, I, that's my experience. And I think having a really robust, always wanting to express your desire and express affection, I think that says to your partner, our relationship is singular. I think it's hugely important. And finally, and maybe most importantly, never, ever let a woman be cold or hungry.

• 53:59Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  I was afraid I wasn't gonna have enough questions. But, man.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  It's great to listen to you talk. I got one more thing I want to talk about before. There are questions from the audience and I really want to read a bunch of them because I-

• 54:18Scott Galloway?

  Well, first off, what do you think makes a successful marriage?

• 54:21Speaker 04

  Oh, shit.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  I think you have to want it and you have to appreciate what you have. And for me, that's where I got to. It took me a little bit to get there. And really, I think that's the thing in marriages that go on a long time is that you get used to each other and you take for granted what you have. So to me, it's like always, every day, not taking it for granted. I had that ability because I wasn't together the whole time. The separation, came back together.

• 54:51Scott Galloway?

  What was the moment where you realized this is worth investing and re-upping? What was it?

• 54:55Speaker 04

  When I didn't have it.

• 54:59Speaker 04

  I mean, when I had time to really sit with, you know, being on my own, think about it.

• 55:03Scott Galloway?

  And was it loneliness or not sharing your life with someone or not being in a family unit?

• 55:08Speaker 04

  It was all of those things and having the space, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. Like, I was just like, I realized, oh, I miss this. And, and yeah. And then I felt very fortunate that I actually was able to, you know, come back and that we were able to come back. But like, the great thing is, is like every single day, that's never a question for, you know, now at this point. But I'm here to interview you, Scott.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  No, I wanted to, in what you were saying, before we go to the questions, I wanted to talk about, pick up on what you're saying about the surplus value thing. And in the book, you talk about how much you love your family, which I found really moving. And I've got a friend who's an author, George Saunders, great author, who's written in his short stories and novels about the idea of loving bigger and outside of your own family unit. This idea of like, you know, of having that willingness to sacrifice outside of those in your immediate blood relations. And you wrote, I just wanted to read this before, because I thought it was really moving.

• 56:21Speaker 04

  And it is what you write about your- Relationship and how you change in terms of appreciating that. You say, "I lost my self-absorption for a moment and thought about the millions, maybe billions of people in a constant state of despair over the well-being of their children." And this is talking about the family unit, which we all feel that connection with our children. But facing everyday things they can't control, that aren't their fault or they're doing, that threaten their kids' well-being, except it feels like it's your fault. "Our only real job here is to ensure our kids survive and prosper. Any threat to this survival and hopeful prosperity is the ultimate failure. It cuts to tissue and emotions you didn't know existed."

• 57:05Speaker 04

  So that idea of what you feel for your own kids, how important do you think the idea of empathy is for those outside your immediate circle is in terms of how we go forward in the world? I think about it in terms of having done work with refugees and seeing the, I think, the horrible attitude that our government has towards people who are vulnerable and how important it is to have that empathy. Is that something you think about?

• 57:34Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I couch it in the, I talk about the three legs of the stool of masculinity. Be a provider. I think it's important that men at least attempt from a very early age to be economically viable. But the whole shooting match, the whole reason why you make money, establish strength, establish skills, is you move to the second leg of the stool and that is protection. And what really worries me about our current leadership, so just naturally, young men are going to look to the most powerful person in the world and the richest person in the world for leadership as an example around masculinity. They're just going to model those people, whether we want them to or not, because the president's the most powerful person in the world and the richest man in the world has won this game called capitalism.

• 58:17Scott Galloway?

  And what I just find so disappointing and so incredibly damaging, and I think it's going to haunt our young men for decades and it'll take a ton of time to reprogram them, is that these individuals are not taking their prosperity and moving to protection. If you cut aid, if you're the richest man in the world and you're cutting aid to HIV-positive mothers, that should be a reputational extinction event. That is just...

• 58:47Scott Galloway?

  That... The whole point, I think, of masculinity is take care of yourself. Be real... Get really fucking strong. A man under the age of 30 has incredible bone structure, more double-twitch muscle, and this amazing substance called testosterone. I jokingly say, "Any man under the age of 30 should be able to walk into any room and know if shit got real, they could kill and eat everybody or outrun them." And when you get physically and emotionally and mentally strong, right? You're gonna feel better about yourself, you're gonna be less prone to mental illness, you're gonna be more attractive to potential mates. Who breaks up fights at bars? Really strong, confident people. Who starts fights at bars? People who don't feel very good about themselves.

• 59:29Scott Galloway?

  So, you protect yourself, you get strong, you protect your family. Then you start protecting your community. And the ultimate expression of masculinity, full stop, is you plant trees the shade of which you'll never sit under, right? Well, you're talking about your work as refugees. That's the whole... That's the whole shooting match. And I don't say that to be virtuous. I say that it took me forever to get there. I was so focused on myself and taking care of myself and making money. And I'm not naturally... I'm not naturally a kind or philanthropic person. And I'm embarrassed to say that, but it's true. These were things I had to learn and I had to appreciate. But what you realize is that if you can get to that outer ring of protecting people you'll never meet,

• 1:00:12Scott Galloway?

  Jesus Christ, that makes you feel like a man. And I'm not suggesting that that's not reward that women can't get. I think they actually have those nurturing instincts come more easily. But that's the whole point of leaning into your manhood. Be really fucking strong, be really talented, make a shit-ton of money, get influence, be smart, be generous, be kind, and then start, if you can, protecting others. That's the... That's the basis of masculinity. If you think about the most masculine jobs: military, fireman, cop, at the end of the day, they protect. And I think that a lot of men, the men we're supposed to look up to, have totally missed the boat on protection. Like, why on earth would you make that much money

• 1:00:56Scott Galloway?

  if you didn't use it to protect people? It just... It makes absolutely no goddamn sense to me. And these are the worst role models for young men. They've conflated masculinity with coarseness and cruelty? That's, that couldn't be more any anti-masculine. Being sued by two women concurrently for sole custody of that child because you've never seen that child? Elon Musk? That, that couldn't be any more anti-masculine. Punching down, and our nation, quite frankly, is not very nurturing or masculine right now. 20% of people, Americans, are under the age of 18, but 40% of kids under the age of 18 are on food stamps?

• 1:01:41Scott Galloway?

  That means we have decided we are no longer in the business of protecting the most vulnerable. Our nation is losing its roots of protection and masculinity. I think, I think, I think women heal. I, I think the most successful families and the most successful alliances in history, and I'm gonna work on, hopefully, flipping Congress, and I wanna get involved in politics in terms of helping someone retake the White House, but restoring? That, that is so pandering to this audience, but, but I think the theme for the next 10 years in America has to be restoration of alliances.

• 1:02:24Scott Galloway?

  Alliances with our great trading partners, alliances between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats that see themselves as Americans before their parties first. But also, I think we need to restore the greatest alliance in history, and that's the alliance between men and women. And what each gender has done a great job of is trying to convince themselves that it's the other gender's fault. I know, I know when a young man is like unsavable, he starts blaming immigrants for his economic problems, and he starts blaming women for his romantic problems. It's like, I, there's nothing I can do, boss. You've lost the script. And at the same time, just to be an equal opportunity critic, uh, criticizer here, a lot of young women have absolutely no empathy for young men.

• 1:03:07Scott Galloway?

  There's this movement on TikTok where women are saying they won't date. They've stopped dating because they're worried about being unalived. I don't know if any of you have seen these things have gone viral, meaning they're worried they'll be murdered by this violent pathological group called young men. And here's the data. If a man goes on a date, he's 16 times more likely to go home and hurt himself than hurt his date. You're four times more likely to get hurt on the car ride over or choked during dinner than to be hurt by a man. Men are dangerous. Young men are not doing well and they're dangerous, but they're dangerous towards themselves. And just saying to young men, "You don't have problems, you are the problem." We need empathy from women. Women have to lead this dialogue, especially mothers. And young men need to recognize,

• 1:03:53Scott Galloway?

  we need to celebrate the progress of our sisters and mothers. But for God's sakes, I have seven and a half billion points of evidence that the greatest alliance in history is the alliance between men and women. The happiest households in the world bring a combination of masculine and feminine energy. And by the way, two women can bring masculine and feminine energy. I'm drawn, my close friends are generally more feminine. I like nurturing, caring men. I'm more drawn towards feminine attributes in men. None of these qualities are sequestered to people born as a certain gender. But young men have an easier time leaning into more masculine attributes. And we need to recast them as something wonderful. There's no such thing as toxic masculinity.

• 1:04:36Scott Galloway?

  There's cruelty, there's abuse, there's violence. Those couldn't be more non-masculine. But for God's sakes, let's lift each other up. This shit, men and women together, bringing a mix of that incredible femininity and masculinity, that's the whole fucking shooting match. That's the most rewarding thing ever. So let's decide we're allies again instead of finding reasons why it's the other gender's fault. Let's get out there.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  All right. We're getting close to the end, so I'm gonna just ask a couple of these questions. Oh.

• 1:05:15Scott Galloway?

  Thank God.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  This was your idea.

• 1:05:18Scott Galloway?

  Thank God.

• 1:05:19Speaker 04

  This is not about stiller soda.

• 1:05:21Scott Galloway?

  It's so good to see you finally making some money.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:05:24Scott Galloway?

  Stiller soda. Ben doesn't drink. That's why we'll never be close. But so he started...

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  Chocolate mushroom.

• 1:05:32Scott Galloway?

  He started a soda line. What's mine?

• 1:05:35Speaker 04

  I asked for your input on branding. Because you do branding.

• 1:05:38Scott Galloway?

  You just wanted access to my social. It's like when candidates call me for advice. They just want my money. Cheers, brother.

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  Cheers, man. Cheers. Good to see you.

• 1:05:45Scott Galloway?

  Good to see you.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  Okay, here's a couple of questions and going off of what you just talked about, which was pretty profound. How big a role, how big of a role does repressed emotion play in this young men, all men issue? And is therapy helpful?

• 1:06:04Scott Galloway?

  I don't feel really qualified to comment on that. I'll just say from a personal standpoint that I'm not an adolescent psychiatrist. I just don't have any domain expertise here. And people are constantly fond of reminding me on Twitter that I have no domain expertise in this area.

• 1:06:21Scott Galloway?

  What I will say is the following, this is just personal. From the age of 29 to 44, I didn't cry. Do you cry a lot?

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  I do more now.

• 1:06:29Scott Galloway?

  Now, yeah.

• 1:06:31Scott Galloway?

  Meet the parents for.

• 1:06:36Scott Galloway?

  We really needed that.

• 1:06:40Scott Galloway?

  Anyways, from the age of 29 to 44.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  You're not getting invited to the premiere.

• 1:06:45Scott Galloway?

  From the age of, from the age of 29 to 44, didn't cry once. Didn't cry when my mother died, didn't when my company went Chapter 11. You know, just didn't, didn't cry when I got divorced, just didn't, just lost, I forgot how, literally forgot how. And then I started again. And what, the advice I would give to any man is that life goes, especially as you get older, life starts falling off a cliff. Years become quarters, quarters become months, months become, and I'm an atheist. I think at some point I'll look into my kid's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end. But it kind of liberates me to be a little bit more fearless with my emotions.

• 1:07:26Scott Galloway?

  And what I started doing, and it's been just a gift, is when something moves me, I weep up and I cry. And unfortunately, it's gone a little bit overboard. I cried on The View and The Daily Show. But my suggestion or advice to men is don't fall into some sort of fucked up sense of masculinity that, there's a good reason why men don't want to cry or exhibit weakness. Because for about 99% of our time on this planet, if you exhibited weakness to another man, there's a decent chance he might sense that weakness, kill you, have sex with your wife, and then eat your children. So men have been taught instinctively not to in any way exhibit weakness. Vulnerability is not something that's hardwired into our DNA.

• 1:08:08Scott Galloway?

  But if you see something that inspires you, you need, in my opinion, my advice would be to stop and really bask in it and try and understand why this thing inspires you. This piece of art, this piece of design, something you've read, read it again and really try and understand and inform your emotions. Why does this move you? Try and let yourself lean into crime. When you find something funny, do your best to laugh out loud because you need to slow life down, you need to inform yourself. And I find that I'm much less prone to real anxiety and real anger, both of which I suffer from, if I'm more in touch and registering emotions.

• 1:08:53Scott Galloway?

  I just think it's healthy, informs your life, it slows life down. In terms of at what point that type of repression impacts a kid psychologically, the honest answer is I don't, I don't feel like I have the domain expertise. Why are you crying more, Ben?

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  Because I, I don't know. I mean, I think, I mean, also like, you know, when you're an actor too, like you're sensitive sometimes, you know? And it's like, kind of like that stuff is actually stuff that you try to somehow be in touch with. But like in life for me, I think I just value everything that I have, I'm more self-aware. And maybe, I don't know, maybe it's because life, you know, things I've gone through in life, losing my parents, appreciating that, them as people, watching my kids grow up, seeing how they become people, cats in the cradle.

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  Is true, you know, on a certain level, it's life happening to you. So I, I, I feel like it's a good thing, too. And I think what you're talking about also is not just, it, it, you're talking about like stopping and experiencing the moment of what's happening in terms of like something that moves you, like actually, because we're just all going a million miles an hour with social media and TV and life and everything. If you're saying like, stop and actually experience the moment and think about what you're feeling and feel it. And, and just be, be in the moment. And that I think is a very important thing, too.

• 1:10:27Scott Galloway?

  We're sentient beings. The, the fear or the danger is you rip through life, maybe make some money, maybe had a couple of kids. But did you ever really feel anything? Like at the end of your life, like, did your life really happen?

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:10:39Scott Galloway?

  So my sense is if you're committed to squeezing as much juice out of this lime called life as possible, if you aren't regularly practicing feeling shit, your life will go like that. And at the end of your life, you're going to regret not having slowed it down and being what it is to be human. It's sentient means feeling. I'm not good at it, I'm getting better at it. But I think it's great advice for all men. Live your life, feel shit, lean into it.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  Do you feel like when you watch something or listen to music or watch a movie or something, it like unlocks something for you? Or do you find it just happening in real life more?

• 1:11:14Scott Galloway?

  Oh, I get a lot of it from art. I can't watch Modern Family without tearing up.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  I do think Meet the Parents 4 might.

• 1:11:22Scott Galloway?

  Really bring it out?

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:11:29Speaker 04

  All right, I'm gonna do one last question.

• 1:11:31Scott Galloway?

  How did I agree to see this shit?

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  What is your perspective on the role of a man that is a father of a girl? How do you have that, uh, how do you have that some impact without a male child to show the way? I'm, can you, here.

• 1:11:47Scott Galloway?

  Couldn't quite. A doctor wrote this.

• 1:11:50Speaker 04

  Or the person.

• 1:11:52Scott Galloway?

  I think, and my wife's gonna kill me when I say this. We have two boys and she wanted a third and I said, no. Uh, I was so freaked out about, I mean, the reality is you have your world of work. You have your world of friends. You have your world of kids. Something comes off the tracks with one of your kids. And your whole world, you know, that's it. The whole world just shrinks to that kid. And like most people, we knew people who'd had issues with their kids. I mean, not huge issues, whatever, you know, pick your acronym. And my attitude was we're good. We know our two kids are pretty, you know, either gonna be good or great. Let's cash out of the table. We're pushing our luck, our odds.

• 1:12:38Scott Galloway?

  And also, to be blunt, I wasn't making a lot of money. And the most stressed I've ever felt. When Beata gave birth to our first child, it was right during the teeth of the great financial recession. And I was basically broke. I'd basically lost everything. I've been rich three times, which means I've lost it all twice. And the great financial recession came along and just wiped me out. And the first thing I felt when Alec had the poor judgment to come marching out of Beata at the wrong time.

• 1:13:12Scott Galloway?

  I did, it was not bright lights and Beata will confirm this. It's not bright lights and angels singing. I was, the first thing I felt was kind of like shame and anxiety. Cause the, the paternal instinct kicked in and I'm like, I have had, I've made so much fucking money and I've just blown it. I was so narcissistic and egotistical thinking I should double down on my own companies. I was that idiot that borrowed stock against this company to buy more stock and. You know, never diversified, in it to win it. I'd read these articles about. You know, Bill Gates putting all of his money into his company and Mark Zuckerberg turning down a billion dollar, you know, just, and I bought so into that kind of macho.

• 1:13:54Scott Galloway?

  And then we had a kid at exactly the wrong time for me. And I, I was so, quite frankly, I was just worried I wasn't going to have the economic security to handle three kids, especially in New York. So, yeah, I don't, I don't want to pretend where I was headed with this. One of my biggest regrets is not having a third and not having a girl. Because, and now it's for selfish reasons because girls take care of their dads. But I don't know if I have any specific advice on parenting girls versus boys. You have a daughter, so.

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 1:14:33Speaker 04

  Wrong person, yeah.

• 1:14:34Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Speaker 04

  All right, listen, this has been great. I, I seriously, you are incredible. Scott Galloway is incredible. What a resource, what an amazingly, could talk for another two hours here.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  And, uh, yeah. Thanks, everybody, for, for coming. And buy the book, it's really, really good. And I hope you do what you said and you'll get more involved in this next, uh, election cycle. All right.

• 1:15:04Scott Galloway?

  Thank you. Thank you, Ben.