[00:00:00] Scott Galloway: I believe America becomes more like itself every day, and that is, it's a loving, generous place. If you have money, it's a rapacious, violent place. If you don't have money. You were born or you live in a capitalist society. Money's important. Wealthy people don't talk a lot about money. They want to pretend that they're just such geniuses that they don't think about money.

[00:00:17] That's like saying, Roger Federer doesn't think about tennis. If you want to be good at money, you need to think about it a lot. A lot of the jobs that young men used to have as on ramps in the middle class were generally industries that Overindex mail, those jobs have been outsourced overseas, and over the next five years, we're gonna have two women graduate from college, from every one man.

[00:00:36] What we have is an entire cohort of what I would call emotionally and economically unviable men and the most violent, unstable societies in the world all have too many of the same thing, and that is a broke and lonely young man, and we are producing too many of them.

[00:00:56] Hala Taha: What is up young and profiteers? You're listening [00:01:00] to YAP, Young and Profiting podcast, where we interview the brightest minds in the world and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Hala Taha. Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen, learn and profit.

[00:01:27] Hey Scott. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:01:30] Scott Galloway: Thanks for having me, Hala. 

[00:01:31] Hala Taha: Very pumped to have you on the show today. So young and profiteers, we have Scott Galloway on the show. He's also known as Prof G. 

[00:01:38] Scott Galloway: What a thrill. . Oh my gosh. You're welcome. 

[00:01:42] Hala Taha: Scott is an entrepreneur, professor at NYU Stern School of Business, bestselling author, public speaker, and host of the top podcast Prof G Pod.

[00:01:50] He's also been called the Howard Stern of the Business World by the New York Times. And he's the author of four New York Times bestselling books, including his latest release [00:02:00] Adrift America in a hundred charts, which tells the story of America through a hundred charts with the goal of examining our post pandemic future and how we got here by analyzing data from the year 1945 to the present day.

[00:02:12] Scott has really unique and smart perspectives on topics like the American Dream, work life balance, masculinity, and happiness. And his messages are ones that I believe that all you young and profiteers need to hear. So Scott, let's get started in terms of your upbringing and your childhood, you say your childhood was remarkably unremarkable.

[00:02:33] And I'd love to understand, do you think that you would've thought you would've become, the Uber successful person that you are today, or anybody around you at that time? I'd love to hear about your childhood. 

[00:02:44] Scott Galloway: Born and raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died, a secretary, and really, remarkably unremarkable. I didn't do that well on the SAT, I did okay academically. It wasn't a sob story. We had a nice life, we took nice vacations. I [00:03:00] had someone irrationally passionate about my wellbeing, which I think is the, one of the key pillars of success. That being my mother, I had nice friends, but it was, I graduated from high school with a 3.2 gpa, 1100 on the SAT.

[00:03:14] But the difference was the big hand of government lifted me up. The admissions rate at UCLA when I applied was 76% and I had apply twice, but they let me in and I still got, I rewarded their faith in me with a 2.27 gpa, undergraduate gpa, and then a second stroke of luck. Berkeley decided to let me into graduate school and then I kinda got my act together.

[00:03:35] But I've often, up until the age of 40, talked about my background as if I overcame something. And what I realized how as I got older and I just gain a little bit more perspective. I started hit the lottery. Being born a white heterosexual male in the mid sixties meant that I came of age when there was free, amazing state sponsored education, see above UCLA and Berkeley.

[00:03:58] I came into my professional [00:04:00] earning years with the processing power and the kind of the rise of the internet. And the thing I always remind myself of my freshman roommate in college was born a homosexual male and was dead of AIDS at the age of 33. So I try to always keep in mind that a lot of my success isn't my fault.

[00:04:15] So first 40 years of my life, I would describe my upbringing as something that I overcame. Now I realized that I was more blessed than probably 99% of the public, but fairly unremarkable upbringing. 

[00:04:27] Hala Taha: Yeah, it's really interesting. We have something in common, which is we both graduated with 2.27 GPAs from under like exact gpa.

[00:04:36] I swear. I went to New Jersey Institute of Technology, and so it was an engineering school and I was too immature to do well in college at the time. I was always very smart, but just not book smart. But it still was a great experience. And you say the same, that college really set you off to be successful.

[00:04:55] And had you not went to college, you wouldn't have gotten this social, experience that you [00:05:00] needed. And same thing with me. So I'd love to hear about how college was beneficial for you and what do you think are the key factors of young people's success right now? 

[00:05:09] Scott Galloway: Yeah, it was transformative for me and the way things have changed since I was a kid.

[00:05:14] My mom was really excited that in the third grade I got sent to fifth grade for Math and English. But the thing is, men don't mature as quickly as women. And I went to UCLA when I was 17 and I was just too immature to handle it. I abused alcohol. I ended up in the emergency room once, terrible grades almost got kicked outta school.

[00:05:33] But I joined a fraternity and I always say it was one of the best things that decisions I ever made cuz it shrunk a 30,000 person, community down to something manageable for me. And I was around 22 year old men and I remember getting a big brother and him saying to me, you need to stop smoking so much pot and take your studies more seriously.

[00:05:52] I needed that. I did had no male role models in my life. So I think greatness is in the agency of others. So it was a chance for me [00:06:00] to make connections with people. I did learn a little bit, not a lot, but it was raised for me. It was just kind of marination. It was a chance to develop social and kind of life skills.

[00:06:10] I still think college is a great plan B, I think it gets a lot of disparagement because people are looking for excuses to make themselves feel better, cuz it's become so unattainable, because it's so expensive or so exclusionary. So I actually think we need to dramatically expand freshman seats. It's not for everybody, but it's for a lot of people.

[00:06:27] I also think we need to dramatically expand the way we think about college and include one and two year certifications in things like specialty construction or health tech or cyber security. But also Hala. I don't know going to UCLA, I played sports. It was just a great time and I learned a lot about myself.

[00:06:45] I fell in love for the first time, got my heart broken for the first time, played sports. It was just a wonderful way to develop your formative years. So I have very fond memories of college and while I acknowledge it's not for everybody, I do think that we need to do a [00:07:00] better job of making it more accessible for more people.

[00:07:02] Cause I do think a lot of people benefit from a college experience. I think it's a wonderful experience. And had I not had it, I'm a talented person. I work very hard. I think I'd make a good living selling cars or copiers. I wouldn't have been able to register the type of success and influence in economic security without the certification and experience that's offered by colleges.

[00:07:25] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I'd love to learn more about that because I know that you've done some research or you're familiar with some data about how it's almost a requirement to have a pedigree and to have a college degree in order to attain that 1% level of success that so many of us who are listening to a show like this are wanting to achieve.

[00:07:45] Scott Galloway: Yeah, I would describe it as certification. We're in a certification economy and that is about 50 years ago, one in four jobs required a college degree. Now it's three and four. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a traditional ba, but a certification, a different, a class three driver's license [00:08:00] or SCUBA instructor certification or whatever it might be.

[00:08:04] The opportunity to stand out in a LinkedIn economy that says I'm different. I have skills, cfa, a cpa, all of these things, a professional, if you will, some sort of certification a degree in nursing are just so important in terms of developing currency. And I think you're, the first piece of advice I give to the people on a very basic level economically is get to a city and get certified.

[00:08:26] Two-thirds of economic growth over the next 50 years. It's gonna take place in 20 super cities. If you play tennis, you know that when you play with someone better than you, your game naturally rises. And when you're in a city, you're playing tennis against the best in the world and it's competitive and it's difficult and it's expensive, but your game gets stronger.

[00:08:42] In addition, you want to get some sort of certification. It doesn't have to be a traditional four year br, BA degree, liberal arts degree, but you need something that when people see your profile on LinkedIn, they go, okay, this person has specific skills. And it all bubbles up to, I think your primary mission in your twenties is not to follow your [00:09:00] passion.

[00:09:00] I think that's terrible advice. I think it's to find your talent and that is figure out what you're good at and then really invest a lot of money in becoming great at that thing. And if you're great at something, the accoutrements have been great money, camaraderie, relevance, influence, pride will make you passionate about whatever it is.

[00:09:19] So that's your job. I think coming outta school is figure out what you're good at and try and become great at it. 

[00:09:24] Hala Taha: Yeah, I think that's really smart advice because a lot of people. Go try to find, follow their passion, but they're not necessarily good at it. So I recently had Alex Hormozi on the episode, didn't come out yet, but he's a really smart guy and he said something that I thought that you may find interesting.

[00:09:40] He was talking about focus and he was saying how a lot of young people right now, they're not spending enough time on one thing. They're not getting the success right away. They're not getting progress right away. And they're dropping it and moving on to the next shiny object. And so I'd love to hear your perspective about the importance of [00:10:00] focusing on a goal once you've set out for that thing.

[00:10:03] Scott Galloway: Metrics are important, whether it's working out or whether it's forcing yourself to get out of the house a certain number of days a week to try and make more connections, whether it's saving a certain amount of money per month, you know what gets measured gets done. So what is it a goal is a dream with a deadline.

[00:10:18] I think it's important to have a few metrics. I think it's also to figure out reverse engineer, like where do I think a decent. A decent exercise, say, where do I wanna be in five years? I want to have a graduate degree. I want to have a hundred thousand dollars in savings. I wanna be living in a major city, whatever it might be.

[00:10:33] And then reverse engineer the likely steps and skills that you're gonna need to get to that point and just work your way backwards. And greatness is like, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. And then try and reverse engineer to bring it down granular what do I need to get done this week?

[00:10:47] If I'm gonna have a graduate degree in five years, what do I need to get done this week? Okay, I need to get applications for undergraduate schools. I'm gonna save a hundred thousand dollars by in five years. That means I need to save approximately, I don't know, [00:11:00] $14,000 a year, assuming a certain interest rate.

[00:11:01] That means this month I need to save $1,200. I can't, but I can save 600. What would that mean in terms of my spending this week? But basically come up with a big goal and then try and reverse engineer it into bitesize bites that are doable. Because I just think, like I said, small things add up to very.

[00:11:18] Big things very fast. Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. Supposedly Einstein said it, although he didn't it with someone else. But when you're your age, Hala, my general thought was, I'm not gonna save money cuz I'm such a baller. Some, at some point I'm gonna make tens of millions of dollars, but time goes really fast and I could, if I could give you a magic box and you could put 10 grand in that box and get a hundred grand back, how much would you put into that box?

[00:11:42] Answer is probably a lot. You might even sacrifice or trade off some short term things. That box is just time. And it was yesterday when I was your age and I woke up and I'm my age and I wish I'd been more disciplined. I got lucky later in life professionally, but I took a lot of risk. I could have ended up in a bad spot.[00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] And your insurance policy is just saving a certain amount of money. The algebra wealth is pretty straightforward. Find your talent through focus. Live like a stoic or live below your means. Try and always save money from a very early age. It's really powerful. Diversify. Don't go all in on anything.

[00:12:16] It's dangerous. The market's bigger than any one individual. Don't put all your money into Dogecoin or Google diversify and then let time take over. The best performing investors are actually dead people cuz they don't trade a lot. So you may want to go all in on your own business. At some point you may want to borrow money to improve yourself, whether it's through college or some sort of certification.

[00:12:35] But generally those steps, focus, stoicism, diversification, and then letting time take over are not sure far ways to get rich, but best practices. So the good news is, I know how to get you rich. The bad news is the answer slowly, but there is an algebra to it. 

[00:12:51] Hala Taha: Yeah, that's really interesting stuff and I'd love to go back to your story because I think that there was a very transformative point in your life.

[00:12:59] [00:13:00] So when you were 26 years old, I believe you were 26 years old, your mom got terminally ill with cancer. . And at that moment in your life, you made a decision that really impacted what we were just talking about, focus, your goals and what you really wanted in life thereafter. So I'd love to hear about that moment in your life and the decisions that you made as a result of it.

[00:13:21] Scott Galloway: Yeah, I was a fuck up until that point. I had some potential. I was smart, I had some natural gifts academically, but that I didn't really apply myself. I was lazy. I was just sort a classic underachiever. I don't think I was a very high character person. I didn't think much about other people.

[00:13:36] And it was just me and my mom. And my mom got very sick. And I remember coming home, I remember the weekend she was discharged from the hospital early after surgery and massive chemo. And I just didn't know what to do. And she was very sick and I didn't, I'm like, do I get a nurse? Do I get her to a hospital?

[00:13:50] No hospital will taker. And I remember thinking, and it sounds very asshole, I remember thinking, I just wish I had more money. I can't take care of my mom. And there's certain instincts to take [00:14:00] over, I think with any child, but especially the only child and especially the only child who's a male, who's supposed to, all these instincts bubble up that I was failing as a man and I was failing as a son, and I decided there, and then that I didn't decide to be rich.

[00:14:13] I don't think you can make that decision. There's a lot of luck that comes along with it. But I decided that I was gonna get my act together because I wanted to take care of my mom. And that's really when I just started getting very focused and I worked very hard. From that point, I got very serious about work and trying to establish economic security.

[00:14:28] And I feel as if there's always two key moments around transitioning from becoming a child to a grownup. And I would describe myself at the age of 26 as a man child. I just focused on parting and trying to have bigger experiences and trying to have date more and more awesome women and have more and more interesting experiences and just like more, I just always wanted more and never really stated my appetite.

[00:14:52] And didn't really have kind of what I call long term satisfaction around anything. And then my mom got very sick and that was very eyeopening for [00:15:00] me. So I feel like I grew up there. And then the next place you grow up, I think is when you have a kid and that, so birth and death are the seminal moments in your life.

[00:15:08] And also the lesson I would offer to young people is that kind of zero to 25 is really happy. There's a lot of studies on happiness, and happiness in terms of longitudinally looks like a smile. And that is zero to 25 is Star Wars beer, college football games. It's just awesome. 25 to 45 is what I call the shit gets real time of your life.

[00:15:29] You find out that you're not gonna have a fragrance named after you or you're not gonna be senator. You find out the work is hard, you have some financial stress, maybe you have kids, which is very stressful. Someone you love and loves you immensely, gets sick and dies and it's just, it's really a punch in the gut.

[00:15:44] You're just not ready. No one, I don't think anyone can prepare you for that. Relationships are stressful, the workplace is stressful. And then something happens wonderful at 45 or younger if you're soulful. And that is you start to find joy in weird things. I don't know if your parents were ever like this, but I remember my mom like ordering a salad [00:16:00] and the salad would come and she'd grab my hand and say, look at this salad.

[00:16:03] Look how beautiful this is. And I remember thinking like, what is she talking about? ? But now I can relate to that cuz I take my dogs for a walk. I'm in London right now in Hyde Park and they have this, I'm not even into art and they had a freeze festival and they had all this outdoor sculpture. I'm not into any of this stuff, but I couldn't help but stop and just marvel at it.

[00:16:21] And I'm not sure I would've stopped to smell the statues, if you will, 20 years ago. So what I tell young people who are struggling with the fact that their life isn't living up to their Instagram feed or maybe what their parents or their university told them what happened by the time they were 30, that is life that you're going through what everyone goes through.

[00:16:39] And to keep on keeping on that one foot in front of the other. That happiness waits for you, but there's just no getting around it. Some people sooner than others, life hits you pretty hard, pretty fast when you hit your twenties, and I can't say it's easy, but what I can tell you is everyone goes through that.

[00:16:56] And for me, the places I grew up were around losing my mom or when she [00:17:00] was really sick and wanting to take care of her, and then realizing it wasn't all about me when I had my first kid. 

[00:17:06] Hala Taha: Yeah. So I find this really fascinating that you're talking about this. I had a conversation with Arthur Brooks a couple months ago, and he talks about this concept of fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence.

[00:17:19] And when you're in your twenties and your thirties, you've got all this fluid intelligence, you're able to problem solve, you're innovative, you're crushing it at work. And once you reach like your mid forties, your fifties, that's when you have crystallized intelligence. And a lot of people fail because they're trying to chase that fluid intelligence that they had in their twenties and their thirties, and they can't compete with the younger generation. And really what they need to do is turn into a coach or teacher and start teaching the younger generation if they want to, have that second phase of happiness or success in their life. And a lot of people miss that. And so it's just one of the lessons that I'm really starting to unfold on this podcast is like you've gotta put in the work when you're in your [00:18:00] twenties and thirties because you'll be way better off doing it now than waiting until you're 40 and 50.

[00:18:05] Cuz it's much harder later on to attain that level of success if your goal is monetary success and being very financially well off. 

[00:18:15] Scott Galloway: Yeah. Like we're siblings from another mother here. That, and let's start with, it's not necessarily the right way, but it's what I'll call the capitalist way. And that is, I believe America becomes more like itself every day.

[00:18:26] And that is, it's a loving, generous place if you have money. It's a rapacious, violent place if you don't have money, so you were born or you live in a capitalist society. Money's important and wealthy people don't talk a lot about money. I almost think it's unfair because I think they wanna hide.

[00:18:41] They want to pretend that they're just such geniuses that they don't think about money. That's like saying, Roger Federer doesn't think about tennis. If you want to be good at money, you need to think about it a lot. And I'm not saying being obsessed with it because there's a dignity to living below your means.

[00:18:55] Moving to a lower cost area, working to live, not living to work. But if you are [00:19:00] ambitious, as I imagine the majority of the people listening to this podcast get rid of or dispel the myth of balance, I had almost no balance when I was your age. I worked pretty much all the time. Young people will always find time to drink and to mate.

[00:19:13] Those instincts were so powerful that you'll find opportunities. But in terms of, I had no hobbies. I didn't do from the age of 25 to 45, I don't remember much else but working. And unless you're smart enough to inherit money, you're going to have to work your ass off. It's a competitive marketplace out there.

[00:19:32] And I really don't owe anybody who's been very successful economically that hasn't spent the better part of 20 years doing pretty much nothing but working. And it comes at a cost. I always say it cost me my marriage, it cost me my hair and it was worth it. And that sounds very crass, but the reason I can take my boys to World Cup, kick off early from work, and take my dogs to the park, I'm in great shape for a guy my age.

[00:19:56] The reason why I have so much balance now hola, is cuz I had almost none when I [00:20:00] was your age. And it all goes back to this notion that you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. And what you want to do is you wanna, in my opinion, burn a lot of fuel when you're young because you don't have usually to usually have dogs, you don't have spouses, you don't have kids, you have the energy.

[00:20:16] You're learning a lot. I came outta UCLA again, unremarkable and somehow I got a job at Morgan Stanley and fixed income. And my peers in the analyst class were just better educated and more talented than me. And I decided that every Tuesday morning I was gonna go to work and I was gonna stay till Wednesday night.

[00:20:34] I would work through the night, I'd work 36 hours straight. And it demonstrated it, it told everybody I came to play. I was capable of doing it. I was physically very fit. I was mentally pretty strong. And I didn't have dogs or kids or a spouse waiting for me at home. I, I was living with my mom.

[00:20:49] I had nothing going on. So the time I think of a kind of a, as a aviation reference or a rocket reference, you need to get to outer space. [00:21:00] And the atmosphere is very thick when you're just starting. You need to focus, you need to guide yourself on the launchpad, and then you need to burn a lot of fuel.

[00:21:07] And if you can get some success, if you can save some money, if you can get a reputation, if you can establish business relationships, if you get some credibility in the marketplace, when you do punch through out of the inner orbit into the outer orbit. Your efforts get rewarded more. Like I have momentum now so I can cover much more ground with less fuel than most young people can because I have contacts, a reputation, existing business relationships, et cetera.

[00:21:31] But you gotta burn that fuel when you're young. And the other thing I would tell you is time goes really fast. So I'm always about head down, get on it. It sounds very boomer and I wanna acknowledge again, it's not the right way, it's just my way. But I'm glad I made those sort of sacrifices when I was younger cuz it goes really fast and I get to really enjoy myself now anyway.

[00:21:52] So give up the myth of balance. It just I think it's a myth. 

[00:21:57] Hala Taha: Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our [00:22:00] sponsors. This episode of YAP is sponsored by Click Up. Managing a team of 10 or more means making every hour in the workday count your team's efficiency and productivity can mean the difference between wins and losses,

[00:22:13] projects tackled and accounts maintained. Imagine how much more those 10 plus individuals could accomplish together with an extra day of work each week, a whole extra day. That's how much time you'll save with Click Up the one app to replace. Click Up is a collaborative work hub that brings together everything organizations, managers, and teams need to do better, work faster, all in one place.

[00:22:36] When I first launched the app, I had a team of about 20 volunteers that was running my social and my podcast, and once I started my company YAP Media and then offered our services to the public, we grew so fast and then our piecemeal approach to project management just wasn't cutting it anymore. With paying clients, I knew that we had to get better organized.

[00:22:54] We couldn't do everything through chat spreadsheets and email and think that it would somehow work smoothly. There was [00:23:00] just too much to keep track of and too much on the line. It was too piecemeal of an approach. So we decided to look for a project management tool and I evaluated everything on the market, every single tool that's out there, I studied and studied all the features, and then we ended up landing on click up.

[00:23:17] It was by far the best choice for us to manage our work across our creative and social teams, and we've never looked back. Click Up has saved us so much time at YAP Media. It's increased our productivity and even our team morale because when you're organized and efficient, work is actually more fun. You can spend more time on being creative and less time being bogged down.

[00:23:36] Click Up is one tool to. All of your tasks, projects, docs, goals, spreadsheets, and more. Click up is built for teams from one to over a thousand. It's packed with features and customization options that no other productivity tool has, so you can work the way you work best. Whether you're in project management, engineering, sales, marketing, or hr, click Up has easy to use solutions that create a more efficient [00:24:00] work environment.

[00:24:01] Join the more than 800,000 highly productive teams using. Click Up today, help your team of 10 plus be more efficient and productive with Click Up, use code YAP. That's YAP to get 15% off of Click Up's massive unlimited plan for a year. That is a great deal. This means you can start reclaiming your time for under $5 a month.

[00:24:21] Again, you can sign up today at clickup.com and use code YAP for 15% off. Take your productivity to the next level with Click up today. This episode of YAP is brought to you by Justworks. Small business owners you don't need me to tell you that the hiring market is tough right now. Top talent has options and that means that you need to be more competitive and step up your game.

[00:24:44] Are you looking for a way to offer benefits just like bigger corporations do? I know I am, or maybe you're looking for an easier way to onboard and manage remote employees. Justworks could be the perfect HR solution that you've been looking for. Justworks makes it easier for you to start, [00:25:00] run, and grow a business.

[00:25:01] They're a cloud-based platform that enables managers and employers to quickly and securely access benefits, payroll and other HR functionality from anywhere at any time. They have an intuitive self-service user experience that makes admin tasks easier for you and your employees. With 24/7 expert support, with Justworks, you have access to certified HR consultants who can provide tailored guidance and best practices for managing remote employees across all 50 states.

[00:25:28] They help you comply with labor laws, payroll tax requirements, health insurance plans, they're like an angel for any entrepreneur because who can afford a C-suite? HR executive Justworks can help you. And my favorite part about Justworks is that you have the access to the same benefits that were previously only available to large corporations.

[00:25:49] So think health, fitness, and financial perks, that's gonna make us so much more competitive to attract top talent. And their pricing is totally transparent. There are no hidden fees. You always know exactly [00:26:00] what you're paying for and YAP fam you don't have to do it all yourself anymore. Run your business with confidence with Justworks.

[00:26:07] Let them handle all the HR stuff. Take a look at Justworks transparent pricing by visiting justworks.com/pricing. That's justworks.com/pricing for details.

[00:26:22] Yeah, I totally agree there. I have a similar story in terms that I feel like I was a late bloomer too, and I hustled like crazy in terms of my work ethic. I know for five years ago I started this podcast and I now I have a business, a social agency, a podcast network, all that stuff. And all I did was work for five years straight and delay gratification and not go out with my friends.

[00:26:46] And I lost so many friends and I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years and I didn't get married and all these things that you're supposed to do, but I don't regret it at all because I've achieved this level of success that I feel like had I not done that, there's [00:27:00] no way I would've been where I am today.

[00:27:02] And now I'm actually on the younger side of everybody else who I'm competing with because I focus so hard for a period of time and all I did was have this singular goal of learning everything about what I needed to learn about social and podcast and whatever. And of course I had other experiences that helped me before, but I have a lot of guests on the show that disagree with this point of sacrificing your relationships.

[00:27:26] For example, to focus on wealth and success. I had Daniel Pink on the show and he said that the number one reason for regret is this thing called connection regret. He studied over 16,000 people and it's this regret of not staying connected to the important people in our lives. So I'd love to understand if you think there's any sort of decision making framework that we should have in terms of how much do we really want this thing compared to our relationships or just your advice on is it really impossible [00:28:00] to manage all of that and have everything in your opinion?

[00:28:04] Scott Galloway: Everyone is gonna know someone, at least on Instagram that is good looking in great shape, has a great relationship with their parents, makes a shit ton of money, and has a food blog, and donates time with the ASBCA. Assume you are not that person. You have to pick your punches. I think as a young person, you wanna be very focused on your career.

[00:28:21] I think in terms of relationships, I'm familiar with Daniel Pink's work, and Adam Alter's done a lot of work around regrets on your deathbed, if you will. And a lot of it comes down to not staying in touch with people, not living the life that you wanted to live, being who you were, doing things for other people or trying to please other people.

[00:28:37] And the number one regret is that people wish they'd been less hard on themselves. They wish that they'd been more forgiving of their failures. But anyways, I do think that when you're young, you can get just as, you can make small investments or save a small amount of money when you're young and it adds up to big amounts when you're older.

[00:28:53] I think small investments in relationships when you're young, small, consistent investments pay off I think the things you want to stay focused on are [00:29:00] work first and foremost. Number two is fitness, mental and physical strength. And that is run long distances and lift heavy weights in your mind and in the gym.

[00:29:11] I think you get that time back. I think if you work out 30 minutes a day, you get that time back every day. You're just more energetic. You feel better, you have more opportunities. You're able to work harder, you're have a broader selection set of mates. You feel better about yourself, you're kinder more confident.

[00:29:26] I do think though you can invest in relationships early and often. Quick text messages to people, having the confidence to express interest in being friends with someone, talking to strangers, accepting dinner invites, trying to really push the limits of your comfort zones around putting yourself in a creating serendipity.

[00:29:44] I met the mother of my children at the pool of the Raleigh Hotel cause I walked in and said, I am going to go talk to this woman. I said, before I leave, I'm going to go and speak to her. And my son's middle name is Raleigh. There's a balance. I think those three things, work, relationships, and fitness are the only [00:30:00] things you should be focusing on.

[00:30:01] But I think you can get a lot of traction as a young person. Young people are get invited to a lot of stuff. They're very social, quite frankly. They're very attractive. So you're gonna have more opportunities as a young person. There's more third spaces with a lot of other people, whether it's Coachella or the gym.

[00:30:16] It's just packed with a lot of young people. You want to take advantage and try and make investments in that as often as feasible. And what I find generally speaking is that young people are really good at scaling socially, that they figure out those opportunities. And also being aggressive, talking to strangers, being open to stuff because it's really important.

[00:30:37] Who you end up with, specifically who you have kids with is probably the most important decision you'll make in your twenties and thirties. It's not where you go to work. It's not where you live. A good partner will help you aggregate success and wealth. A bad partner, just screw up everything. So what you want to do is you wanna put yourself in a position to have as many opportunities as possible.

[00:30:56] So I do think it's a balance over time. There's a lot [00:31:00] of research that shows that happiness is a function of how many deep and meaningful relationships you have, but once you have those relationships, you want to ideally start out the economic anxiety of which there's a lot in America if you aren't secure.

[00:31:12] So I think you want, again, going back to our original notion, I think work requires a lot of energy, but just as you make small investments every month, small investment, every day, reach out to somebody. Do you wanna grab brunch this weekend at a quick text message? I thought you did so well in that meeting.

[00:31:27] I'm so impressed with you talking to a stranger that you might have some interest in romantically. There's nothing wrong with that. We've conflated this. We're also, our lawyers are supposed to meet at the studios of MSNBC and decide if we're interested in each other. Things have gotten so weird around.

[00:31:42] Mating and human sexuality, it's okay to express interest in somebody and if you don't know the difference between expressing interest and harassing someone, you have bigger problems. But I worry people your age aren't making friends, they aren't connecting romantically, they aren't finding mentors.

[00:31:57] We're all, none of us are going to, few of us are going to work [00:32:00] anymore. We're definitely not going to the mall. None of us are gonna the movies anymore. So where do young people find those third spaces? So work, relationships and fitness is my, if you will, my triangle or my pyramid. 

[00:32:10] Hala Taha: Yeah, I think that's excellent advice.

[00:32:12] And I wanna spend a big chunk of time talking about young men and marriage and mating, inequality and all that stuff cuz I feel like it's so interesting. But first, let's kick off with some stuff in your book Adrift, you talk about the American dream in your book, and I think there's lots of like ties into what we're talking about right now.

[00:32:30] And so back in the day, it used to be that you work hard and you could ultimately do better than your parents, but kids our age and young people, I shouldn't say our age, but young people out there right now, they're not doing better than their parents were. People in their thirties are not doing as well as their parents were when they were 30 or 40.

[00:32:50] Can you talk to us about why.

[00:32:51] Scott Galloway: Sure. So first off, if you were born in 1941, there was a 93% chance you were gonna do better than your parents. So unless you had some sort of physical or emotional [00:33:00] disability, you were gonna do better. Now it's 49%. So for the first time in the history of America, a 30 year old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30.

[00:33:09] That creates tremendous shame, anxiety and rage because the ultimate compact a population has with its society is that if I play with the rules and work hard, my kids will do better than me. And now you have over half of people under the age of 30 not living with a friend or romantic partner that living at home.

[00:33:24] So you have constant reminders that you're not doing that well called mom and dad. And this creates anxiety and rage and shame for both the parents and the kid. And I think a lot of our dissatisfaction and polarization in our country right now stems directly from that. I think it is a concerted effort that has taken place deliberately.

[00:33:42] The entrenched incumbents will claim that it's these big, this impact of these uncontrollable, big intractable forces, polarization or globalization or network effects. I think it's been a concerted decision by people a bit older than me to transfer [00:34:00] wealth from young people to old people. People under the age of 40 used to control 19% of the nation's GDP.

[00:34:06] Their wealth amounted to 19%, and the last 40 years has gone from 19-9. Person over the age of 70 is now 72% wealthier than they were people over the age of 70 were 40 years ago. But a person under the age of 40 is 22% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago. And you think what's happened is the economy slowed down.

[00:34:26] No productivity continues to rip upward into the right. This weird thing happened in 1971 where, Basically wages and productivity followed each other, like two snakes intertwined. The nation became more productive, wages went up. Nation got a lot more productive, wages went way up. And then in 1971 something happened, and that is wages flatlined.

[00:34:47] And that is we decided that the majority of the spoils of increases in productivity, and now we produce more in a month, and we did an entire year in the fifties, would go to shareholders. And there's some benefits to that. The markets go up. It makes [00:35:00] 'em more attractive to start a business. We have the best capital markets in the world, but the wage earners or the middle class or the young who get the majority of their income through current income started falling behind.

[00:35:10] So you think okay, why did that happen? It happened because we decided to make it happen. And that is the two largest tax breaks in American society. Our mortgage interests and capital gains. Who owns stocks and homes? People my age. Who rents and makes their money through current income? People your age.

[00:35:27] So while each year, I likely have more income than you because it comes in the form of capital gains, dividends, selling stocks, I pay a lower tax rate than you do. That makes no sense. And then if you look back on how's this happened? Our leadership, our elected representatives are the oldest in the world.

[00:35:45] And every year they get older because they have figured out a way to create incumbency where 95% of the time the incumbent is reelected. So we have a speaker of the house that is 81, a Senate minority leader that is 82, a Senate majority leader that is 72, and [00:36:00] a president that if he's reelected, will leave the west lawn for the last time in Marine one at the age of 86.

[00:36:06] And his competitor will be an obese 82 year old if he gets reelected and leaves for the last time. And then the first two states that dictate the presidential race are Iowa and Maine, two of the oldest states in the union. So what do you. You end up with programs like Social Security and people, that's a third rail.

[00:36:23] I can never run for office because I've said I don't think social security is executed well. Why are we, when I say we, why are you in your cohorts, working cohorts? And I'm still one of them. I'm under the age of 50. Why are you transferring a trillion and a half dollars of wealth every year to the wealthiest cohort in the history of the planet?

[00:36:43] US seniors? Shouldn't it be the other way around? So why the cohort that has killed it and is wealthier gets a trillion and a half dollars from young people in the form of social security. I'm not saying we should do away with it. There's no reason why I should ever get Social Security. There's no reason why dad should be getting Social [00:37:00] Security.

[00:37:00] And people say it's a pension. I put money in. The average Social Security recipient will take out two to three times what they put in. It's called Social Security tax, not Social Security Pension Fund, meaning that a tax goes into the kitty such that it might help people, other people benefit the country and you might not benefit directly from it.

[00:37:16] So everything we've done, I would argue over the last 50 years has been to execute a transfer of wealth from young people to old people. And as a result, we end up with a breaking of the most basic of social compacts and we end up with rage and shame. And I think we can fix it. We need to bring down the cost of education.

[00:37:37] Kids can no longer access the American dream as easily. Housing is skyrocketed because we made taxes lower. So money went into the market. If you already own a home, it's great, but what if you're trying to buy a home? It's gotten so incredibly expensive. What are you trying to get? A degree. So I think we have, we can, the bad news is we have transferred all this wealth from young to old people.

[00:37:57] The good news is these are problems of our own making and we [00:38:00] can unmake them, but we have to revert to where past generations are and that is willing to make sacrifices to invest in the health of younger generations. And some, they talk about the greatest generation, baby boomers are by far degree generation.

[00:38:14] It seems like everything we do is such that we can upgrade. Upgrade nana and pop up from Carnival cruises to crystal cruises. It needs to stop. We need to start investing in young people again. 

[00:38:23] Hala Taha: Yeah. And what do you think the implications are for the future if we don't start investing in young people?

[00:38:29] Scott Galloway: Violence and revolution. What you have here, it has so many knock on effects because who, it's really hurt as young men, and that is a lot of the jobs that young men used to have as OnRamps in the middle class were generally industries that over index mail manufacturing, frontline work, those jobs have been outsourced overseas.

[00:38:47] In addition, once we level the playing field academically, women just blew by men. Women are more mature, they're more disciplined, they're better at delay gratification, and over the next five years, we're gonna have two women graduate from [00:39:00] college, from every one man. Now you think fine women deserve it.

[00:39:03] It's their time. There's a lot of knock on effects here though, so we don't like to talk about this on the left. But essentially women made socioeconomically, horizontally up men horizontally and down. Or put another way, a woman with a college degree isn't interested in marrying a man without a college degree.

[00:39:18] So you have a lack of mating. Marriages become a luxury item. If you're a man and you're in the upper quintel, there's a 75% chance you'll get married. If you're in the lowest quintel, it's a 25% chance you're gonna get married. So you have a lot of loneliness on both ends. And you have this mating in equality where if Tinder were a country, it would be like Venezuela.

[00:39:36] And that is you have 50 men and 50 women on twin Tinder. 42 of the women will show all of their attention to just eight men leaving 42 men fighting over eight women because women have a much finer filter around mating. The guys see a picture on Tinder and go, oh, she's cute. Swipe right. Women have much finer criteria and when they can apply it to everybody, cuz everybody is available online or at least [00:40:00] theoretical.

[00:40:00] They become, they get a chance to implement their filter. Whereas before we had these geographic mating ring fences, you went to temple every Friday, there were eight single women and eight single men. And you all slowly but surely, pair it off and figured it out. Now the top 10% of attractiveness of males engage in what I call Porsche polygamy.

[00:40:18] And that is they get 80 to 90% of the interest, which doesn't lead to long-term relationships and quite frankly, bad behavior. 50 to 90 in terms of attractiveness for men do okay or the same. But the bottom half of men, in terms of attractiveness, have been totally shut outta the mating market. It makes them angry, detached.

[00:40:35] They're more likely to be prone to misogynistic content. They think it's a woman's fault. They're more likely to believe in conspiracy theory. They're less likely to believe in climate change. And generally speaking, online dating has just make, made it a little bit shitier for all women. So what we have is an entire cohort of what I call emotionally and economically unviable men.

[00:40:55] And so women are leveling up and it's great, but they're not interested in the men our society is [00:41:00] producing right now and the most violent, unstable societies in the world all have too many of the same thing, and that is a broke and lonely young man, and we are producing too many of them. So leveling up and making a massive investment in young people, vocational programming, more seats, freshman seats, and universities, tax and fiscal policy that restores some of that income and wealth to younger generations that will level up all young people, but it'll have a disproportionately powerful effect on men who have taken the brunt of some of these structural changes over the last 40 years.

[00:41:32] Hala Taha: We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. This episode of Yap is brought to you by Sabio. YAP fam are you feeling stuck at your current job or like it's too big of a risk to make a change? So many of us have felt that way, but I want you to understand that if you want your life to change, you need to make a change.

[00:41:51] And that's why I wanna tell you about Sabio. Sabio is a coding bootcamp and developer community that's been voted best Coding Bootcamp by course report five [00:42:00] years in a row. At Sabio, you'll learn to code and gain real life experience and finding a job is built into the program. So there's no need to feel intimidated by starting a job search in a new field.

[00:42:10] Sabio is gonna help you do that. In just 17 weeks of remote learning. .You'll graduate from Sabio ready to start a real high paying tech job. Sabio's alumni are working at the most innovative tech companies all over the world, and there's so many different types of tech jobs you can get into with this type of education.

[00:42:26] Like a UX designer, marketing specialist, or even a professional video gamer plus Sabio is extremely affordable. They have different scholarships and financing options that make it even easier for you to get started. There's so many new opportunities in tech, and this is the perfect time to break into the industry with Sabio. 

[00:42:43] Right now, YAP listeners can qualify for a thousand dollars scholarship towards the cost of their bootcamp at Sabio. Just mention YAP when you apply or speak to admissions, visit my special url, that's sabio.la/yap to learn more. Again, that's Sabio, [00:43:00] sabio.la/yap. And that link is in our show notes. Don't wait. Go to sabio.la/yap and start your new career today.

[00:43:07] This episode of YAP is brought to you by Invesco. In every episode of YAP, we turn wisdom from the brightest minds in the world into actionable advice, an effort to help you live out your most young and profiting life. Today our friends at Invesco are sharing some tips on using ETFs or exchange traded funds to beef up your finances.

[00:43:30] Why invest in ETFs? Because there's a solution for whatever your portfolio needs, whether you're exploring ways to manage volatility, seeking income and diversification opportunities, or looking for tax management strategies. Invesco has over 200 ETFs to help you meet your financial goals. I consider ETFs to be lower risk investments because they hold a basket of stocks or other securities, which increases diversification.

[00:43:56] It's a great way to build a diversified portfolio. [00:44:00] Discover the possibilities at invesco.com/ETFsolutions. That's Invesco with no t, invesco.com/ETFsolutions. Before investing, consider the funds investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Visit invesco.com for a prospectus with this information, read it carefully before investing.

[00:44:23] Risks are involved with investing in ETFs, including possible loss of money. ETFs are subject to risks similar to those of stocks. Invesco Distributors incorporated. If you shielded away from challenges, you wouldn't be the person you are today. Need to hire someone who loves a good challenge as much as you do to find them fast.

[00:44:41] You need indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract, interview and hire all in one place. Don't spend hours on multiple job sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all with Indeed. Find top talent fast with Indeed, suite of powerful hiring tools like Indeed, instant match [00:45:00] assessments and virtual interviews.

[00:45:01] My favorite thing about Indeed is how much time and headache I save with their screening and assessment tools, they have over a hundred graded assessment tests your applicants can take from cooking to coding, and this saves so much time because you get to filter out candidates for the right skills and culture fit before you go onto any next steps like an interview.

[00:45:20] Indeed assessments can even give you a window into how candidates will be on the job. In fact, on average, applicants who scored proficient plus on the reliability assessment were nearly eight times more likely to consistently attend work according to US Indeed data. How cool is that? As an entrepreneur, I know the worst thing is having to let somebody go when you hired them because they're not a good fit either culturally or skill wise.

[00:45:45] First of all, it makes me feel bad to let them go. It wastes money, it sets the team back, and it wastes everyone's time. It's a total lose situation. With Indeed assessments, you can save your time, money, and avoid all the headaches and heartaches involved with [00:46:00] hiring. Join the over 3 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast.

[00:46:06] In fact, when I was in the corporate world and open for a job opportunity, the first place I would go look would be indeed.com because that's where the cream of the crop talent hangs out and looks for their next opportunities. Indeed knows when you're growing your own business, you have to make every single dollar count.

[00:46:23] And that's why with Indeed you only pay for quality applications that match your must have job requirements need to hire you need indeed. Visit indeed.com/profiting to start hiring now. Again, just go to indeed.com/profiting. Terms and conditions apply.

[00:46:44] I am like loving this topic and I have a really funny story to share that I think correlates with a lot of your data and research. So I have a social media client. His name is Marshall Goldsmith. He's this legendary executive coach, bestselling author. I manage his social media and so [00:47:00] whenever he meets with me and my business partner Kate, he's always telling us like, I don't understand how you girls aren't married.

[00:47:07] And he's just like all the young men today, they're just terrible. You guys have to marry down. My daughter had to marry down. If you guys wanna get married, you've gotta think about marrying down. And he's the only way you guys are gonna get married is if you marry down. Which I like. We laugh, we're both in happy relationships, but, and we laugh at him cuz we're like, okay, Marshall.

[00:47:27] But it actually correlates with what you're saying. So I'd love to understand what is marriage rates like in this country? Are people getting married less? And how does that impact the economy and impact, society overall? 

[00:47:41] Scott Galloway: It depends on the cohort. Wealthy people, middle income to upper income ha their marriage rates are holding mostly strong people.

[00:47:47] Having kids later in life or having fewer kids. So we could run into a birth, which is bad for the economy, fewer people to support those social security payments. And another myth is overpopulation. It's time we just stop talking about it. [00:48:00] And that is when you have a kid, that kid, yeah sure. That kid will take resources, maybe produce carbon, maybe eat meat or other crimes against humanity.

[00:48:09] But most likely that person, that kid, that baby girl or baby boy. Is gonna come up with wonderful innovation that makes the world a better place. You need more people. And this notion of overpopulation, there's certain parts of the earth that are overpopulated, but just get on a plane from New York to San Francisco, look down a hundred times, 95 times, there's nothing.

[00:48:29] There's literally nothing. And so we wanna encourage economically and emotionally viable people to have kids who are a wonderful thing. I would've never thought it, I had no interest in kids, but I've really enjoyed it. The merit rates flat to declining across society as a whole, but it really gets, it's really fallen off a cliff for people who are middle or lower income or on the bottom median.

[00:48:54] And I never thought I would've said this. I never wanted to be married. I don't think you have to be married to be happy. [00:49:00] But generally speaking, people are happier when they're in some sort of committed, monogamous relationship. And at the end of life, you're talking about Stephen Pink. Generally speaking, the things they remember the most are family.

[00:49:12] They don't wanna be around awesome people or famous celebrities. When they go. They want to be around loved ones. They love immensely and who love them immensely. So the issue I see is I see a lot of young men who are becoming economically and emotionally unviable. They get excluded socially. They don't find a job, they don't make money, they don't get out, they don't develop social skills, they don't develop professional skills.

[00:49:36] And they, once they hit a certain point, they almost become unviable. And also a romantic relationship is a great guardrail. Stop getting high every night, get in shape. We make each other better. Spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, they motivate each other. They're competitive. And to compete is a Greek term that means to strive together to make each other better.

[00:49:57] When the Olympic athletes were training, [00:50:00] they found what they trained together. They made each other faster and mates, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses. They're great guardrails. And when you isolate young men who have that, again, that immature prefrontal cortex, and then they can find a reasonable facsimile of dopa that you used to get through playing sports, or from starting a business, or from making money, or from kissing someone for the first time, when you can get a reasonable facsimile that dopa hit on your phone or on your computer, it lowers your mojo to get out of the house and those skills continue to atrophy.

[00:50:34] So one of the things I tell young men, I coach a lot of young men, you have to get outta the house every day. You have to force yourself to meet strangers. You gotta start making money. I don't care if you think it's below you. I don't think work at a cvs, turn on DoorDash, turn on Uber.

[00:50:48] Whatever it is, get a taste for flesh. Start making money. Money's a wonderful thing. And the key to making more money is to make some money. Go up to a stranger, join a church group, a softball league, a writing group, junior [00:51:00] college class, whatever it is, and force yourself to approach strangers to an express, an interest in conversing with them.

[00:51:06] An interest in being their friend and maybe who knows, even an interest in a romantic relationship. There's nothing wrong with that. I do think men get a lot of mixed signals that approaching anybody is considered like dangerous, if you will. And I think some of the wonderful thing about men is that they're more aggressive.

[00:51:22] But aggressive doesn't have to mean anything resembling any sort of physical violence. It can mean initiating conversations. And the people I get the most feedback from feminists don't like what I say or a lot of feminists don't like what I say, although they're coming around to it. Some famous feminists have now acknowledged is a real problem taking place with younger men.

[00:51:39] Young men sometimes resent it cuz they feel as if I'm calling them in cells and they've been stereotypes. Just cuz I'm an introvert doesn't mean I can't have value to society. That's fine. There's some fairness. By far the cohort that is most supportive hands down are mothers who say, my daughter's killing it, she's at Penn.

[00:51:56] My other daughter's working in PR in Chicago, and my son's [00:52:00] in the basement playing video games and vaping. We have, we are losing an entire generation of men. And I think a lot of it comes down to a need to redefine masculinity. So it's that men feel uncomfortable embracing their masculinity and also recognizing that masculinity, isn't it just purely the domain of people born as males, that masculinity and femininity are both wonderful attributes that can be shared by men and women, but to rebrace and celebrate what I call a modern or mature form of masculinity.

[00:52:28] But I think that your generation is suffering from a crisis of loneliness, a lack of connection to each other, and a lack of connection to the country. And those Japanese soldiers who went into the hills at the end of World War II accomplished nothing. Nothing great is accomplished alone. If you're spending a lot of time alone, you're not gonna accomplish much.

[00:52:46] I don't care. You need to be around other people. You need to find new relationships. That is even more than anything, more than economics, more than certification. The thing I would wish for people in their twenties and thirties is that they have more opportunities to establish [00:53:00] more relationships. I think it's.

[00:53:02] And I just came off this riff about working all the time, but you can establish a lot of deep relationships at work. I didn't have a lot of romantic relationships in my twenties. I was very immature, I was very insecure, but I had great relationships at work. I had great friendships. I, became very involved in my mom's wellbeing.

[00:53:18] So I always say that, kind of love is out there. What's difficult for women is that they're so unfairly judged through the lens of romantic relationship, their success or lack thereof through one type of relationship. And you can't force that. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. But you should always think, okay, how do I have really wonderful, productive relationships to make little investments every day?

[00:53:40] And some of that is forcing yourself into uncomfortable spots, initiating conversation with someone in the line at Starbucks, asking someone a coffee out at work, expressing admiration for someone and trying to establish a friend. And because we've spent so much time alone in the last two and a half years oh, I'd rather stay home and watch Netflix or young men think I'd rather stay home and play video games [00:54:00] or trade on Robinhood or watch porn.

[00:54:02] No, you need to get out there. 

[00:54:04] Hala Taha: Yeah. I love that you had this conversation with us because most of my listeners, surprisingly, are male. I have an 80% male audience who are these young men that you're talking about. 

[00:54:15] Scott Galloway: Really? 

[00:54:15] Hala Taha: Yeah. And so I'm really happy that you had this conversation and for the women who might be listening, I feel like we all feel this, we see other women doing really well.

[00:54:27] We probably have a cousin or a brother or somebody who's struggling. What can we do as women, whether it's in terms of how we look for a partner and our perspective on that, or what should we be doing? Because obviously I don't think we're gonna get affirmative action taken away or anything like that.

[00:54:46] I think women are gonna continue thrive in the workplace. And the other thing I wanted to pick your brain about is the fact that leadership is still men, right? Politicians are still men. So there's still a lot of work to do, and so I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that. I know that [00:55:00] was rambling,

[00:55:01] Scott Galloway: I'll take that in reverse order. So there's been more. The one thing all of our elected officials have in common is about 95 or 98% of 'em have college degrees. We've decided that kind of realistically is the logical criteria for who we want to lead our nation or make big decisions, but we're inherently very sexist as a culture when it comes to leadership and elected representatives.

[00:55:20] We've been graduating more women from college for 40 years than men, and yet only 28% of our elected officials are female. We can play voice and height with leadership qualities. So show me a four 10 woman with a high pitch voice who's incredibly smart, incredibly high hardworking, and hello, president of local school board.

[00:55:40] Show me a guy who's fairly smart but tall and has a great voice. That guy's name is Senator. So we need to educate early on what it is, what's required, what are the key components of being a good leader, and also help people modulate for that. We just instinctively think of leadership as being powerful, and we [00:56:00] associate powerful with certain audio and visual sensations.

[00:56:03] So I think some of it is just education. The other thing is I think we you asked me for advice on women, younger women, and what I would say is that, I don't wanna say lower standards. What I wanna say is be open to the coffee or the second coffee, and that is the problem with online dating is it's very two dimensional.

[00:56:21] You see their looks and then you make a, an assumption around their wealth. And women have three criteria for mating, or at least the research shows. Number three is kindness. Number two is intelligence, and number one is resources. And so it's natural that they will make a judgment and then they will make a zero one yes or no call.

[00:56:38] What I would suggest is pushing the limits of your comfort zone to give more people a chance. And if the day goes okay, but not great, be open to a second date to see if it goes from okay to good, and then maybe to great. Every long term relationship I've had, I wouldn't have guessed at the beginning it was going to become a long term relationship.

[00:56:56] And we live in such an economy where there's so much fluidity of opportunity [00:57:00] that we end up never really pursuing opportunities to their potential. It's that wasn't great. That wasn't magic. So I'm back on the apps, or I'm just not interested, or I'd rather stay at home and watch Netflix and work.

[00:57:13] I think that there needs to be a meeting of the minds. I think men need to get their act together emotionally and economically. I think we just need better men, and part of that is more men my age need to take more of an interest in younger men and help mentor them. I think we just need better younger men.

[00:57:28] And what I would ask here is that women think, okay. How can I be more open to exploring stuff and see if it might lead somewhere wonderful. Because the wonderful thing about human sexuality is it involves smell, it involves vibe, it involves humor. It involves seeing how that person behaves around their family.

[00:57:47] And I think a lot of people, especially women, will say in the beginning, I didn't have that type of interest in this person. And it grew. Their criteria are more subtle and more what I'd [00:58:00] call long term. And we live in an economy and a society that discourages that type of long term exploration. Does that make any sense?

[00:58:08] I always get uncomfortable giving women advice cuz I don't feel I can relate to them as well. 

[00:58:12] Hala Taha: No, it does make sense. I'm very aligned with a lot like, you don't have to worry about that with me. Like I'm aligned with so much of what you're saying. The last thing I wanna talk about in terms of this and then we can close out, cause I know that you have to go.

[00:58:25] So I had gotten out of a relationship and I wasn't planning on asking this question, but I think it's interesting. So I had gotten outta a relationship two years ago. Now I'm in a happy new relationship, but I was with somebody for 10 years and I remember that when I used to go out, I would get approached by men all the time.

[00:58:40] They would come up to me all the time. Now men, I would find that like younger mens still have the, I look a lot younger than I am and so younger men would still approach me, but people my age, men my age would never come up and talk to me when I was single. And I thought this was so strange cuz I had been out of the dating game for 10 years.

[00:58:58] And so I'd love to hear a [00:59:00] perspective on like men actually getting the confidence to approach people in person. Cuz I feel like people need to hear about this. 

[00:59:07] Scott Galloway: Yeah. So I think men have gotten a lot of mixed signals here. There was an ad that Gillette ran Gillette the best a man can get during the midst of the Me Too movement that basically tried to redefine manhood.

[00:59:18] And there was this one scene that really rattled me and that is a guy sees a really attractive woman. And he stands up to go approach her and his friend gets in the way and says no. Don't do that. Not cool. And I thought, that's where we are. Like men aren't supposed to approach strange women.

[00:59:32] And the people I find, the thing I don't like about telling men how to behave and to tone it. Their aggression down is that it's people who already have mates telling them to do that. It's like where are we supposed to find, where are people supposed to meet each other? And again, I'm making reductive comments here and I don't have the research on it, but I think women, especially women, younger women, would actually appreciate in a thoughtful, respectful way, men taking more [01:00:00] initiative.

[01:00:00] And I consistently hear from young women, no man ever approaches me because I think men have been given mixed signals. One, they lack confidence. Cuz quite frankly their lack of confidence is common sell sense. They're not going to college, they don't have jobs. They're just not, they're not impressive young men and they're failing.

[01:00:17] And they know that, and they're getting that cemented every day by their parents in the world. Telling them, okay you're not living up to the expectations we have of people. But also this notion that approaching a stranger or asking someone out a third of relationships begin at work.

[01:00:32] What's the general viewpoint on sex at work? That it's almost borderline illegal. And if a man or a woman is in a very senior position, they should be verboten from relationships at work. They can take that shit off campus. There's a lot of awesome things to being a senior level person in business. One of them should not be leveraging your power to find romantic relationships.

[01:00:53] But I've had three weddings. My last company that I sold is L2. I've had three weddings in the last month for people at L2, including one wedding where [01:01:00] they met at L2. That's wonderful. So it's okay to at work, you have to be very careful. You wanna make sure, especially if you're senior to that person, not to abuse your power, but it's okay to express romantic interest.

[01:01:14] And I worry that we've been sending mixed signals to men. Men need to embrace their masculinity, but first we have to identify what is masculinity. I think of it as garnering the skills and strengths such that you can protect and advocate for others. And a lot of it is being okay, a little bit more aggressive.

[01:01:30] I think that woman's interesting. I'm gonna go talk to her if she's not interested. I will get that vibe almost right away. We will both park company, I will be polite and you know what? You're both gonna be fine. And that rejection or that ability to endure that rejection is a function of your success.

[01:01:47] The reason I am successful is I've had businesses failed, and it never destroyed my confidence. It deed at the time, but it didn't stop me from going out and starting another business. And the reason I've always been able to, not always, but most of the time, been able to attract [01:02:00] potential mates that are more interesting and much better looking than me, is that I'm not afraid of rejection.

[01:02:06] If I'm standing in line somewhere and I'm attracted to someone, I'll start talking to them. Or when I was a younger man, and I encourage younger men to do that. And if she's polite but not interested and you can pick it up, that's fine. You're gonna be polite and you're both gonna move on with your lives.

[01:02:21] So success is a function. Success professionally and romantically is a function of rejection, specifically your willingness to endure it. And my advice to young women is that when, like I said, just play things out a little longer and see where it goes. 

[01:02:35] Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like this has been such a great discussion.

[01:02:38] We covered a variety of topics. We didn't get through everything I wanted to, but I feel like we covered a lot of ground. I always end the show with two last questions and here's where you can say anything that you feel like is really important that you wanna share with my audience. So what is one actionable piece of advice you can give my Young and Profiteers so they can become more profiting tomorrow?

[01:02:57] What is one thing they can do today to [01:03:00] become more profitable tomorrow? 

[01:03:02] Scott Galloway: Look at your phone. Look at the screen time. Find four to eight hours of wasted time. Robinhood TikTok, Twitter, streaming and reallocate that time into fitness and making more money. Try and find eight hours in your phone. Take four of it and put it into fitness and put four of it into either working more at your current job.

[01:03:22] I don't believe in side hustles. If you have a side hustle, it means your main hustle isn't working. The best way to economic security is to take the time you were gonna spend on a side hustle and put it into your main hustle and make your main hustle amazing and become great at it. But find, try and find eight hours outta your phone.

[01:03:37] We spend way too much time in our phones. I probably spend two hours a day on Twitter. I'm addicted. It's terrible. But find eight hours a week in your phone and put four, reinvest four into fitness and four into money. 

[01:03:48] Hala Taha: And real quick, what is the power of exercise in your opinion? What does exercise do to everyone?

[01:03:55] Scott Galloway: We're a physical species, and there's a ton of research that shows. [01:04:00] If you exercise three to four times a week, you're less likely to have a stroke, a heart attack, you're more likely to be kind, you're much more likely to be successful. The most common. Attribute of Fortune 500 CEOs isn't that they went to Ivy League schools?

[01:04:12] It's not even that they're white or male. It's that 490 of 'em work out five times a week. You'll be kinder, you'll have a broader selection set of mates. I believe anybody your age should be able to walk into any room and no. And this is a goal and know that if shit got real, you could kill and eat everybody or outrun them.

[01:04:30] You want to feel physically strong, fast, and fit. It's not about being skinny. It's not about being ripped. It's about being a stronger version of yourself. You'll be much more mentally healthy. It's how you process anxiety. It's how you process anger. It's key. And people accuse me of fat shaming cuz I talk a lot about exercise.

[01:04:50] I know some people who are very big and are very strong and that's a wonderful thing. I do CrossFit. There's a huge contingent of lesbian firefighters and these women are [01:05:00] so strong and so inspiring and don't care about the traditional norms around aesthetic as indicated by this heteronormative.

[01:05:07] Fashion industrial complex, and they are inspiring. That's what you wanna move to. You wanna be a stronger version of yourself, lift heavy weights and run long distances in the gym and in your mind. 

[01:05:18] Hala Taha: I ask that question because I always tell everyone, you have to work out. It's not something that you can skip.

[01:05:22] It's really important. And what is your secret to profiting in life? 

[01:05:27] Scott Galloway: A recognition that a lot of my success is not my fault. I try to be grateful. I try to recognize that I'm hugely blessed and I try and I just look at how first 40 years of my life. I was the kid who overcame single mother growing up without a lot of money.

[01:05:45] And then as I got older, I realized that being born a white heterosexual male in the sixties was hitting the lottery. My freshman roommate in college was exactly the same as me, except God reached into his soul and made him homosexual and he was dead of AIDS at 33, and neither of us had [01:06:00] any choice over our sexuality.

[01:06:02] Every day I wake up, I realize that a lot of this. Is a function of being in the right place in the right time. It makes me more grateful. It makes me more appreciative. It makes me enjoy stuff more, and it makes me want to try and create more opportunity and more good fortune for other people. 

[01:06:17] Hala Taha: That's really powerful.

[01:06:19] Scott Galloway, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? 

[01:06:23] Scott Galloway: Hala to resist his futile. I'm everywhere. I'm Prof Galloway. On Twitter, I have a newsletter called No Malice. My new book is called Adrift: America in 100 Charts. I have a YouTube show. I'm starting, I'm doing a show on the BBC called Tech Explorer with Scott Galloway.

[01:06:39] So to resist his futile, I'm everywhere. 

[01:06:42] Hala Taha: Amazing. Congratulations on all your success. I love this conversation. Thanks for coming on. 

[01:06:46] Scott Galloway: Thank you, Holly. Congrats on your success.

[01:06:49] Hala Taha: I have to say, YAP fam, I really enjoyed this conversation. Scott Galloway is brilliant and [01:07:00] he has a real knack for making complicated social, political, and economic issues, so simple and clear and in a way that makes us perk up and pay attention. While Scott's views may seem highly critical and may be a bit negative towards modern America. The data doesn't lie, and the only way to start to improve things is to understand what exactly is going on under the hood.

[01:07:22] Scott believes America is a shadow of what it once was, and the issues we face as a country were only accelerated and magnified with the pandemic. There's a widening gap of income between the rich and the poor, declining access to proper education, declining marriage rates, reduced social mobility, and a dwindling middle class.

[01:07:42] According to Scott. Americans today have less money, less friends, less time, less love, and consequently less of a chance at living out the American dream than previous generations had. America is clearly adrift, but that doesn't mean we're hopeless. We [01:08:00] still have agency over our own lives, Young and Profiteers, and there's lots of people out there that are still thriving.

[01:08:06] Scott and I share many of the same perspectives about life. Our twenties and our thirties are mostly meant for working. Work life balance, if you wanna be extremely successful, is somewhat of a myth. Scott said, if you wanna be good at money, you need to think about it a lot. Now, I'm not saying work yourself into the ground, but be realistic and understand what you truly want.

[01:08:29] And if you put in the groundwork now and stay focused, things will accelerate and get easier. As you get older, you have more resources, a bigger network, more contacts, more credibility, and as a result, you get rewarded more with less effort. But it starts with the hard work. Right now, relationships, work in exercise are the top three things you need to be focused on. Young and Profiteers. 

[01:08:54] If you really wanna live out an extraordinary life, and to have time for all of those. It means dropping [01:09:00] unproductive things like tv, social media, if you're not using it for business, excessive partying, drugs, video games. You can have time for all the important stuff if you put yourself on a schedule and get serious.

[01:09:15] Get out of the house, meet communities, meet people, fall in love, and make memories. I have to say I loved both reading Scott's book as well as interviewing him. He definitely opened up my eyes to some new perspectives and taught me things I never knew before. And I hope he made you think critically too and made you think about your life and gave you new insight to better navigate through everything, especially for all of my young men listeners.

[01:09:40] I hope you take he to his advice. Thanks for listening to my interview with Scott Galloway on Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[01:09:47] And if you listen, learned and profited from this episode, share it with your friends and family, and drop us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. These are the best ways to support me and my team at YAP Media.

[01:09:59] You guys can also [01:10:00] find all of our episodes on YouTube, and you can always reach out to me on Instagram and TikTok @yapwithhala or you can find me on LinkedIn by searching my name, Hala Taha. I wanna shout out my amazing YAP team. You guys are so incredibly talented and I'm so lucky to have you all. This is the podcast, princess Hala Taha signing off.

[01:10:33] Voice Over: It could be information to change your life forever or the something you should know. Podcast could just be something interesting. Ram Sadie talking about being rich. The old definition of Rich had a lot to do with how much money you accumulated, but it wasn't about how to spend it. It was more about how to get it.

[01:10:51] But okay, so once you get it, what do you do with it? In our culture, everybody tells you how to save, but nobody teaches you how [01:11:00] to spend it. Something you should know, wherever you listen.