Trump’s Toxic Leadership, How to Stop Underselling Yourself, and Firing Bad Clients

Scott Galloway reflects on Robert Mueller as a role model for masculinity, explains why pricing is a signal and how to charge what you're worth, and weighs in on whether firing bad clients is a luxury or a necessity. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [email protected], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. 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

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body with a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 1:01Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior like beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:36Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to Office Hours of Prop G. 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 for next time, you can send a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected] or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in our next episode. What a thrill. You're welcome. Okay.

• 2:00Scott Galloway?

  Question number one. Our first question comes from Jackie on Hudson on Reddit. They ask, "Hi Scott, this is not a question about politics or policy or markets or stocks. It's a question about civility. Donald Trump's post after the death of Robert Mueller is so heinous and cruel, I don't know what to say to my two sons. How do we move through society today when the president's comments are just evil? His comments do matter. Thank you for all you do." Well, Jackie on the Hudson word, I couldn't agree with you more. Robert Mueller, captain, I'm constantly asked for roles of masculinity, and I think there are few better role models

• 2:41Scott Galloway?

  or people who epitomize masculinity than Robert Mueller. So, captain of his lacrosse, hockey, and I believe baseball teams. So, not only an exceptional athlete, but his colleagues felt that he was the right one to lead those teams, went to Princeton, clearly a scholar, and then enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. No bone spurs, no deferments, no draft dodging, decided to go where he was called to serve his country, where he served honorably, was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and a Purple Heart for injuries registered during the Vietnam War. Contrast that with someone who was born into wealth, dodged the draft,

• 3:25Scott Galloway?

  and then consistently is about himself, not about service, not about just doing the work, not about fidelity. Robert Mueller, I personally, as someone who has been married and divorced, quite frankly, Robert Mueller was married for 60 years, 60 years. Imagine the kind of work and commitment and loyalty. Married his high school sweetheart. When he was asked to engage and lead what was a very politically charged investigation, the quote-unquote Russia Report, just did the work, didn't make it about him. Contrast that now with many of the people young men would naturally look up to as role models, whether it's the President

• 4:09Scott Galloway?

  of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, or Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world. What do these people have in common? I don't know, five marriages? 22 children constantly punching down, mocking people, including the disabled. And this has, I think this is registers huge damage. If you're a 21-year-old male, you've essentially had your brain wired through puberty focusing on people who are more certain and competent, who pursue popularity, not principle. This has to have taken a toll on young men. So I think this is, I think the damage here is just so lasting.

• 4:54Scott Galloway?

  I think we're, and creating, I talk about the fact that we're evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males. I worry that we're just evolving millions of assholes who believe that masculinity correctly is a wonderful thing to be exhibited, but that masculinity is total performative bullshit and that our discourse should get increasingly coarse. So I hope and believe that a lot of people, and there's been a lot of pushback from both sides of the aisle that say, Robert Mueller was an outstanding role model in contrast to the very small person who was criticized. In some, I think Robert Mueller had pieces of better men in his crap than the president.

• 5:37Scott Galloway?

  So when he is buried, he will be laid to rest with full military honors, which he absolutely deserves. Captain Robert Mueller, United States Marine Corps, rest in peace. Question number two also comes from Reddit. Louis asks, hi Scott, I'm coming up on my fifth year running a custom furniture and furniture restoration shop. My primary customers are individuals with furniture that has sentimental value, for example, mom's desk or the jewelry box my father gave me. I started the business with the idea of serving the everyman, but I quickly realized that the price required to do the work properly isn't an everyman price. As a result, I still find myself struggling with the instinct to underprice my work, which often means I underprofit.

• 6:22Scott Galloway?

  Do you have any advice for how to break the reflex of undervaluing my own work? Well, I don't know. Boss, you know, the, you know, the answer here, charge more. You can always lower the price, but I'd have, first off, I immediately go to like a YouTube video, a time lapse video where it says someone came in looking to recreate their mom's desk. And then it shows you over the course of a month, building this thing and getting online, buying some keywords and boss, just double or triple your prices. And if someone says, I love it, but I can't afford it, decide to discount it. I don't, I would imagine for something like you're doing, you're absolutely probably underpricing it. Now, at the same time, the way you know you're underpricing it is that

• 7:04Scott Galloway?

  your demand exceeds your supply. So if you're not getting a lot of business, it means you aren't underpricing it. But I think this is about, what you're doing was literally out of central casting for time lapse videos on YouTube that are well done, that will go viral, and then you will get inbound offers to refurb or recreate people's furniture. And you should charge a real price for it. And the way I would think about it is how many hours does this take? What is your time worth? And then double it because you're going to have overhead and marketing costs, or maybe even triple it. And, you know, price yourself like a true artisan. Also, pricing is a signal. And that is, I've found that as I have raised my prices in consulting, I actually, I did get more clients. You can

• 7:46Scott Galloway?

  always lower your price, or I got higher prestige clients because pricing is a strong signal in an artisanal business. Consulting is artisanal. It's, I'm saying my brain is smarter than yours and it's been crafted by smart cells, if you will. So I think this is a business where you want to send a pretty strong signal in terms of your pricing. So look, boss, this, the answer is simple. If you're getting more business than you can handle, then raise your prices. And I would do a great deal of marketing and time lapse video around the process to inspire some inbounds. And don't be afraid to throw out. A big number. You can always, you can always take it down. And scarcity is the key to marketing what you're doing.

• 8:29Scott Galloway?

  I'm in the business or one of my business lines is speaking. I charge between 150 and 250,000 dollars to speak somewhere. My prices are zero or crazy. If it's a nonprofit or someone I know, I won't charge anything. But if it's a corporation, I charge them a crazy amount of money. And for everyone that says, no, that's marketing because they see my prices and they go, Jesus Christ. And they'll tell people that dude, that crazy professor costs a quarter of a million dollars. By the way, I charge more for that if I have to use a passport and go to go abroad. Go abroad, if you will. Anyways, it sends a very strong signal. Now granted, you can't just triple your prices and expect revenue to flow in, but you should have an assessment. You also, I hate to say this, you may want to use AI, may want to upload everything about your business

• 9:13Scott Galloway?

  and ask it about pricing strategy and marketing strategy. But the hard, I find the hardest thing about business is pricing. I've always struggled with pricing around what to charge people for what service. But it does sound like innately you understand that you are underpricing your product and pricing is a signal. Anyways, not a lot of insight there, but I very much enjoyed the conversation. Thanks very much and congrats on your job and just the skill you have. I'd love to have a skill. I can't change a fucking light bulb. Seriously, I can't. I can literally can't build anything useless. I'd be dead 100 years ago. Instead, I'm living large. Thanks for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break.

• 9:58Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Nutriful, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand used by over one and a half million people. With age comes knowledge, patience, and for some, hair loss. Didn't say it was all good things. And for those who want to do something about it, there's Nutriful. Nutriful has formulas built for men at different life stages. They have Nutriful Men for guys age 18 to 49, plus the new Nutriful Men 50 and older. That's the first product of its kind specifically for men over 50. You can now address the key root causes of thinning wherever you are in life. Grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in just three to six months. Start Nutriful today and make the hat optional. Visit nutriful.com and enter promo code PROP G for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping.

• 10:43Scott Galloway?

  Find out why Nutriful is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at nutriful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code PROP G. That's nutriful.com promo code PROP G.

• 11:01Scott Galloway?

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

• 11:46Scott Galloway?

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

• 12:08Scott Galloway?

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

• 12:53Scott Galloway?

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

• 13:16Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Paul from Toronto emailed us. Hi, Scott. Longtime listener here. I'm a partner at a small design firm where we've adopted a no asshole rule for clients. We've realized that the stress and friction of difficult clients far outweigh the revenue they bring in. From a scaling perspective, do you view firing bad clients as a luxury or a fundamental requirement for a young company to grow? Best to you and your team. Oh, dude, this is easy. It's a luxury item. I mean, I'd work with fucking arsonists when I'm starting a company. I'm about to take on an advertiser that I am totally morally conflicted on because I want to grow the revenues of the company and I want to pay my people well. Yeah, great. Firing bad clients? Good for you. That means you have more business than you know what to do with. It's a services firm, which means that you're in the top 10%.

• 14:00Scott Galloway?

  So, yeah, it's great to be a purist. But you know what sucks as a purist? Is going fucking hungry and not being able to pay your rent. So if you're in a position that you can fire your clients, do it. I can't think of a moment where I've... I had some of the... Oh my... When I started Profit, you should have seen the Joey Bagadonas clients I was bringing on. They weren't bad people, but I had this one guy in San Francisco, South of Market, who was selling something called the Spirit Flag, which was this cheap flag that people would buy. And he paid me, I think, $8,000 to do the marketing strategy for the fucking Spirit Flag. I had another guy that built just a plastic...

• 14:42Scott Galloway?

  Screen that you put in front of a fire and it made colors and you wanted advice and you paid me, I think $2,000 to help them market it. Now granted, I ended up selling profit for $33 million about, I don't know, 10 years, eight years later, what was it? How long ago? Eight years later and by that time we'd have big clients, William Sonoma and Levi's and the like. When you're starting out, Christ, short of, I would work with anybody that had a pulse and their check cleared. So if you're in that position, have at it. But, you know, I was willing to put up with assholes. What's the definition of an asshole? There's a term for it. What's the synonym of asshole? Client. They're,

• 15:24Scott Galloway?

  they're paying you. They get to be assholes. Now, if they're extraordinarily difficult and it's no longer worth the effort and it's just toxic, then fine, resign the client. But this is the mother of all good problems. But don't make the mistake of thinking that you have the luxury of building a small firm while avoiding all assholes. I love the services business, except for the clients and the employees. By the way, I've worked with assholes in my company and I've put up with them because they're talented and I need people. In a small business, it's hard to recruit people. My last company had just such a fucking enormous asshole and we had to deal with this person because this person was that talented. Am I proud of that? Would I, would I have loved to, to absolutely fire this person? Yeah.

• 16:08Scott Galloway?

  But guess what? Assholes have a tendency to recognize their value and recognize why they can be. Why are people assholes? Because they can be. Why am I so worked up? Why am I so worked up? Anyways, it's situational. If you're blessed with more business than you need, then fine, fire the ones that either aren't paying very well or are hard to get along with. But yeah, this is the mother of all good problems. But yeah, if it's a choice between growing the firm and being able to pay people well and having health insurance, then yeah, work with assholes. There's a word for that. Work. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice

• 16:49Scott Galloway?

  recording to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

• 17:04Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Janer. Kami Rika is our social producer, Brad Williams is our editor, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod from PropG Media.

• 17:23Speaker 05

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.

• 17:54Speaker 06

  Booking.com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise

• 18:06Speaker 06

  to a stay surrounded by nature.

• 18:13Speaker 06

  That's nice.

• 18:16Speaker 06

  Go on, book it. It's easy. Booking.com. Booking dot yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 07

  The Viori Core Short moves with you.

• 18:28Speaker 07

  With everyday versatility and classic athletic fit.

• 18:33Speaker 07

  It's the one short for everything your day brings. Invest in your happiness and get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/kore20. That's V U O R I dot com slash K O R E two zero. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.