Scott Galloway: Do This In Your 20s To Make Millions In Your 30s

24:29You're going to be dead soon. Why wouldn't you squeeze as much juice out of this lemon as conceivable and afford yourself the opportunity to be happy and be sad if you need to be. But I think of stoicism as, again, life isn't about what happens to you, It's how you respond to what happens to you and decide what is in your control. And try and be good to yourself, try and forgive yourself, and also just try and be humble. You are never more prone to a really big mistake than right after a big win. Because here's the thing, you start thinking you're good at picking stocks. You start thinking you're so skilled at work.

25:06It wasn't that someone senior to you took an interest in you and championed you. You start thinking, oh, I'm great at real estate. I just didn't get lucky and buy a home at the right time. So be trying, just trying to ignore the market when the market tells you you're a failure. And this is personal too. You know, there's been moments in my life where I thought, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to work again. I think I've ruined everything. I don't think I'm ever going to make a very good living. I remember thinking, saying to my partner at the time, let's move to a low cost neighborhood of Charlottesville or Raleigh-Durham.

25:41I'm going to teach, try and write, make decent livings and just have a really nice life. And my partner's like, that's giving up. And I'm like, well, that's not giving up. But I thought, this is it. I just need to substantially downgrade my expectations. And I don't mean to say that that's not a great life. I remember thinking after my divorce, I don't think I'm ever going to have someone who I can share my life with again. I'm like, this just is never going to happen to me. I'm an unattractive, broken man who's never going to find a partner again. I believe that for a short time. And I think that it's important that everybody recognize that you are the answer to a firm's problem.

26:21You can find someone who you can love and is going to love you a great deal. the key is getting up putting yourself in a place of success getting out of the house being friendly being risk aggressive surrounding yourself with people and exercise nutrition that makes you feel good about yourself such that when the winds kick up again your sails are up and i've always tried to do that i'm i've had a lot of failure but i was always had my sails up such that when the winds kicked up again, I was in a position to rumble, so to speak. Because I know a lot of people who are very successful and then they hit some failure, a personal failure, a death of a parent they can't quite get over, a divorce, a company that fails, and they get stuck.

27:08They can't forgive themselves. They can't forgive others. They can't forgive the market or they lose their mojo, whatever it is. And two, three, five years, seven years goes on and they just haven't progressed and their skills start atrophying, their confidence starts atrophying. So what I say is put a statute of limitations. Whenever anything bad happens to you, you got to put a statute of limitations on it. A parent dies, within 12 weeks, you should still be sad and thinking about your parents, but you should be able to function. You go through a real emotional trauma or a breakup. Well, how serious was it?

27:48how much time? What's the statute of limitations? A business goes out of business? Okay. Mourn for a little while. What is that? Two months, three months? But if you aren't better, if you aren't back sending out emails, trying to raise money, going out, trying to meet new people, whatever it might be within that timeline, you need to reach out for help and get unstuck because time goes really fast and your skills atrophy in a sort of a downward spiral. and something I've always been able to do is mourn and move on. Churchill said the key to success is the ability to move through failure without losing your sense of enthusiasm.

28:24And I've tried, I've been pretty good at not losing my sense of enthusiasm. You're, you know, you've got brilliant ideas. I think you're a good business person, but you talk about not just following your passion, but your talent. And I think that what you're most talented at is communication. I've seen you speak live. I've seen you, I listened to the pod. I've seen your videos. You do such a good job at picking really sharp words and sharp phrases. And just small examples like accoutrement. I've noticed that you love that word. And I've never heard anyone use it as much as you. And I'm like, oh, I love that word.

28:58When he uses that word, it's a beautiful word. Or you sign your emails with life is rich. You've got beautiful phrases. I think that... By the way, I even had a chat GBT where I uploaded like 150 of your blogs and I would ask it questions to like help give me like ideas for phrases because you're really good at that. Who do you steal from when it comes to, or who are you inspired from when it comes to language? I mean, you seem like someone, if I had a guest, like you're a George Carlin guy, something like that. Who do you steal like some of your delivery from or inspired by for writing? Because you're really good.

29:29And do you have like a bank of like, when you see a phrase, you're like, oh, I'm going to take that phrase and use that somewhere. If you don't have a kitchen cabinet of people that you learn enough about that you can mimic them. You're trying to play a team sport solo. You're on the field alone. And I didn't figure that out until I was older. So I absolutely, when I see something inspiring, I read maybe one book a year. People think I'm well-read. I'm not, but I'll find a book that's really meaningful and I'll try and read it two or three times so I can adopt it into my gray matter. Like Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Slow and Fast.

30:02I've read that book a few times and I know everything about loss aversion theory. I know a lot about the relationship between money and happiness. I read Observations of the Bystander by Peter Drucker. I read Sapience several times. I want to really embed stuff. Lately, I write down things in my phone that I just think are fucking hilarious, like jokes. I wrote down something today as a prank when my doctor walks in. I put on gloves. I'm going to try that. I love my doctor. I love the idea of him walking in and me snapping on gloves just to see his reaction. We were talking about Trump today, and I saw this great quote that said, consequences rarely show up lubed.

30:42I love that. I just, whenever I see something that really, I just think, you know, I love going out in the public, except for the fact that the public is there. You see these things every day, and I will write them down and incorporate them into my rap. And especially great phrases, You know, greatness is in the agency of others. I remember my VC said that. I'm like, that just makes so much goddamn sense. I'm going to use that over and over and over. So I have a lot of inspiration. I surround myself with really intelligent young people. I know that's ageist, but I think young people have a different frame on things that help me.

31:21so but to not to not sort of if you're just reading something and not you don't take away stuff you're going to remember you haven't really read it you haven't really absorbed it but it's all all manner of stuff i think um um you're you're right i'm totally inspired by george carlin i think he's fantastic on society i'm inspired by ricky gervais i'm inspired by this comedian named michelle wolf i think she's fantastic but yeah i've read a lot about muhammad ali i think He's, you know, be courageous, be poetic. But yeah, absolutely every young person should find a couple of people they find really inspiring and try and learn everything about them and what they said, such that you can kind of turn on your Muhammad Ali.

32:01And, you know, Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, you know, four foot ten. I find her inspiring around policy or geopolitics. So I've read a lot about her. Our, you know, our memory is long and our reach is far. I love that. She used to say that about America to its enemies, right? Basically, a really eloquent way of saying, don't fuck with us, boys. And I just love that this 410 woman, only in America, can wield the most powerful nation in the world in terms of our foreign policy abroad. And I found her, and she was an immigrant. I just found her inspiring, so I wanted to learn more about her so I could be her on occasion.

32:38Anyways, build a kitchen cabinet of people. Scott, I got my notes app here. It's called Funny Phrases. and I just, I collect these. I'll give you three of my funny phrases on here. They're completely out of context, so you won't get it, but you'll get it because you do, sounds like you do this too. When somebody's thick, you could say that they're built like a baguette. I like that. Somebody's got the body of a baguette. Okay, next one. If you want to talk about something that other people are avoiding, you say, look, I'm going to address this like an envelope right now. That's a dad joke. I like that.

33:13Another one would be for CEOs who have bad, you know, a terrible sense of vision of the future. If the CEO was the shooter at JFK, he would have died of natural causes. I love these little, little isms, little phrases, little sentences. You're going to lose this game. Okay. So he looks like a suicide bomber that's having second thoughts. This is more serious. I absolutely, I absolutely love this one. This is more true life advice. your goal isn't to get the apology, but to forgive the perceived debt. I love that. I love that. I wrote this thing down. This is really bad. I'm teaching my son about sex ed.

33:54So I walked into his room with a banana and a condom and he said, what's the banana for? And I said, I can't get hard on an empty stomach. I literally think that's the funniest fucking, that just hit Sam. That literally just hit Sam. I just think that's so inappropriate. Anyways, sorry, guys. This is like getting into a rap battle with Tupac. I'm going to put away my swipe file right here, even though I just had a good one. I'm going to give up. You win. What are you excited about right now? What are some things that are going on in the world or products or ideas or trends? I think you talk a lot about stuff that's wrong with America, with the world, with culture, with society, but I want to know the opposite.

34:37What are you pumped about? That's not easier for me. I mean, to be blunt, I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. I think a lot about loneliness. I think a lot about struggling young men. I think about the threats of AI. What am I excited about? I work with a really talented group of people that are really inspiring. I love the work we're doing. I just really enjoy it. I get to travel a lot with my kids. I got kids that are at a great age and I get to do a ton of fun stuff with them. That's really intoxicating. I get to have a really nice life at this point and I'm just enjoying it with a partner.

35:15I'm just really leaning into my kids. Just the Hallmark shit. I'm just really having a nice time with the people closest to me and I'm healthy. I got good, healthy kids. The boring stuff, man. It's not anything kind of, I mean, I'm going, I'm on my book tour this week. I go to LA for Bill Maher, and then I'm meeting a bunch of college buddies and I'm going to stagecoach. And then I go to Miami for a bunch of speaking gigs. And then I go home to London. I mean, I just have a, I have a really nice life right now and everyone I care about is healthy. I feel relevant. So I just have such a wonderful life and I'm trying to slow time down so I can really appreciate it because, there's no getting around it.

36:03I had lunch with Ted Sarandos, which I realize is a name drop, but I'm desperate for your guy's affirmation. But his wife wrote a book on grief and there's this great line. She has this great line and that is, grief is love's receipts. And I just love that. I just, if you really care about, I didn't have a lot of grief until the age of 40. And I realized It was because there was no one in my life that I really loved or really loved me other than my mom. And so, you know, what I would bless or wish for anybody is they have a lot of grief in their life because what it means is they have loss. And when you have loss, it's because you had something wonderful in your life and you miss it.

36:43So I'm just trying to appreciate how just nice things are. And really, you know, I don't, you know, I'm not really excited about, you know, the Euro finals in Germany, although I am excited about the European finals in Germany. I'm just enjoying myself. I'm rounding third. I have a really nice life right now. I'm just trying to enjoy it because I know everything everywhere ends. What do you say for people who are not rounding third? Like people who are just batting lead off right now. So you talk a lot to young people. One of the phrases I really liked or one of the quotes I really liked was that opportunity is a function of density.

37:20You said, get to a place that is crowded with success. What do you mean by that? because that seems like really good advice for people. Well, and sort of the motivation for the book was, you know, that study that you are kind of the average of your five closest friends. There's this weird study that peer group, the five people you hang out with, you end up being the same body mass index. You end up with similar political values, same job, same neighborhood. I mean, it's just weird. You become the same person. What's different though, where there's greater variance is that of those five people, even though they make kind of similar incomes, one will end up poor, three will be okay, and one will end up quite wealthy.

37:56And I tried to understand the behaviors that are different and the strategies between the person that ends up financially secure and the others that are less financially secure. And there's some general best practices around youth. You absolutely want to get to a city. If you're ambitious, I'm not suggesting this is the right way, it's just my way. If you're ambitious and you want to have influence or economic security, before you collect dogs and kids, you got to get to a city two-thirds of economic growth is going to happen in just 20 cities. And so if you're really ambitious, I mean, get to the biggest city in your nation, then get to London if you're in Europe or New York in the US, or if you're in tech, San Francisco, because those cities are really competitive and you're going to be playing.

38:38You know how when you play tennis against players better than you, your game elevates? When you're in a big city, you're playing against the best players in the world. It's hard to live in Brooklyn. It's expensive, which means you got to be really good at what you do. And you're surrounded by people who are going to inspire you and who really will elevate your game. And at some point, you'll probably have to move out of the city because it's difficult with kids. But while you're young, get to a big city. Try and find really high character, successful people to hang out with. Just find people you want to be like or that you admire professionally and personally and try and establish those friendships and try and hang out with them because you rise or fall to the level of your peer group.

39:22And the thing about cities is you're just bumping off opportunities. And I've moved to London and my reductive analysis of the US versus Europe is the US is still the best place to make money. Europe's the best place to spend it. So if you're in the making money part of your life, it's hard to beat the US. I didn't appreciate the American economy until I left it. People start from yes here. How can we work together? How can we build something together? How can we make money together? London, it's sort of like a very polite, indefinite maybe. There's very little actual organic value creation in London.

39:56It's people servicing other people's wealth that they made elsewhere. There's nothing like America that says to a young person, if you work your ass off and you're really good and you get a little bit lucky, things can happen for you here. Hey, quick message here, because you know that feeling when you send a wire and it actually works? No friction? Well, I've used Mercury for years now, and let me tell you, it just works. And that's why I use it for not one, not two, but eight of my companies. From credit cards to invoices, I have everything in one place. There's no janky dashboard. I'm never told, please visit a local bank branch.

40:32None of that tomfoolery. And a few months ago, I landed a big client. And the first thing I did, I sent them a clean, branded invoice. Boom, deal closed, cash in the door. That's the kind of banking experience I want. And that's why I use Mercury. So if you're running a startup and you want banking that feels like it's built in this century, well, go to Mercury.com and get started in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bankless services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members, FDIC. All my British friends, they say that they grew up being afraid of tall poppy syndrome, meaning they didn't want to stick out because their teachers would tell them, shut the hell up, get in line.

41:08whereas in America it's if you do something interesting even if you fail you're rewarded as being a hero of like well that's awesome man you got after it even if you even if it sucked the outcome wasn't good you we praise you for getting after it and I think that's a very unique American thing compared to Europe in Europe if you stick out you're chastised. Well not only that but people say in America we embrace failure that's not true but we do tolerate it. And so only one out of seven businesses succeed. So my strategy has been to start nine businesses. And I got to two wins and all you need is one.

41:43And if you aren't trying really hard and taking risks and failing and then knowing going to pull the plug and move on, you're not taking advantage of the American embrace of risk and failure. I've never had trouble raising money because of past failures. People didn't mind that. As long as you're treating your investors well, as long as you were a decent person, you didn't do anything stupid or unethical, people don't have a problem funding you again. I've had a lot of failure professionally, but I've never had, let me put this one, when I couldn't raise money, it wasn't because I had failed before.

42:17And that's true in relationships. So yeah, the embrace or the acceptance of failure in America is singular and it's a wonderful thing. And if you aren't trying and taking a lot of riskier. You aren't taking advantage of an economy that's one of the few in the world, one of the few societies. I mean, if I was born in China, I'd probably be in jail because I'm outspoken and say stupid things. If I was born in Europe, I think I'd be a talented business person, but I wouldn't be an entrepreneur that had recognized this success because they don't embrace failure or that's wrong. They don't tolerate it the way we do.

42:50Can I ask you a question about hard work. And the reason being is I found some what read as contrary things in your work, or at least in your story and what you write. And so Sean and I have talked a lot about this, about hard work. And I think people who say they work 80 hours a week for a really long time, I think they're either lying or they did a lot of bullshit work. I think it's to work 80 hours a week for an extended period of time, it's incredibly challenging. And you talked about in this book, as well as some of the other blog posts, you're saying, in my 40s, I grinded my ass off. All I was focused on was money.

43:28And it worked out. But that's all I did. And I'm happy I did it. But it was really hard work. But then I read about how you delegate a ton. I think you said something even as crazy as like, you have someone pick out your clothes, and you wear mostly the same thing. You have your workout outfit, and then your work outfit. and how you at Prof G Media, you said something like, you only meet with their executive producer twice a month. You only have one hour meeting once a week with the editorial team. You haven't planned vacations in 20 years and all you do is focus on a handful of things. But even though you're crazy productive now, I don't know, are you still grinding?

44:06And looking back, knowing what you know now, could you have gotten to where you've gotten without that 80 hour a week for multiple years work ethic? Well, things have changed dramatically for me now. I'm not working nearly as hard. And I hire a lot of people and I'll over, not over hire, but everyone works hard, but I don't. I mean, when you have a small business and you don't have a lot of money, you know, you just, you got to get, everyone needs, you need to work hard. You need to set an example and you need to create an environment where everyone's working hard. I'm not sure I was ever working 80 hours a week consistently.

44:40I definitely had weeks like that. But when I look back on it, kind of, I don't know, 10, 20, 10, 15 years, I don't remember much else other than work. I mean, I worked out when I had kids. I tried to spend some time with my kids. I still found time for fun and vacations, but I would vacation two weeks a year. Now I vacation a lot more than that. But I don't see any way around it. It's really interesting. My kids, when I say my kids, to my students. I'll ask them how much money they expect to be making by the time they're 35. And about 90 % of them expect to be in the top 1%, which is$750 ,000 a year in America.

45:19And then they'll talk about that. That's what I expect, but I'll say, what's most important to you in your life and moving forward? And a lot of the time they say balance. And I'm like, so you expect to be in the top 1 % by the time you're 35, but you also believe you're going to have balance in your life? I mean, I don't, I've never seen that. I don't, you can have it all. You just can't have it all at once. And, and by the way, that's, that may not be the way to go. You may sacrifice, you may say, I want to live a nice kind of balanced life. I'm going to move to a suburb of St. Louis, coach Little League, work 40 hours a week, be a good citizen, find a good partner.

45:56You know, coach Little League, have a nice life. Nothing wrong with that. But the majority of the people I know, the young people think they're going to be in the top 1 % and also a balance in their life. And I just think it's ridiculous. I'm like, okay, the only way to get there to achieve that is if you have one thing and that's rich parents. Otherwise, expect to go all in on your career or scale back your expectations around your economics and your influence because it's a competitive market. And one of the things people can control is how hard they work. I don't think you want to work so much that you sacrifice your health or your relationships, there is going to be some trade-off with your relationships.

46:33I didn't see my kids a lot when they were little. I was divorced. I think it was a contributor to that. I was always working in services companies and never saying no to any opportunity. The CMO of Samsung, can you be in Seoul tomorrow for a board meeting? Sure I can. I mean, I just said yes to everything to try and move the company forward. But I, for a long period, worked very, very hard and sacrificed a lot and it takes a toll. And I did it such that I could have a lot more balance now. But yeah, this notion, the myth of balance, get over it. If you expect to be influential or economically secure, you're not going to have a lot of balance for a long period of time.

47:15Some people are such geniuses that they can work a modest amount of time, make a lot of money, work out, have a great relationship with their parents, be fit, donate time at the ASPCA and have a food blog. Assume you are not that person. So just have a sober conversation and also have a sober conversation with your partner. How much money do we expect to have? Who's responsible for making it? What's your approach to spending? Where are we going to live? The number one source of divorce is not infidelity or lack of shared values. It's usually got something to do with money, and also 70 % of divorce filings are filed by women who still, and we don't like to say this because we like to pretend women have no agency and that they're just doughy little foes, is the man loses a business, becomes broke, or has a mental breakdown.

48:06When a man loses his status as a provider, he's very inclined to be on the wrong end of divorce. So I think a lot about young men. I think a lot about financial security. I think every man should start with the notion that he's going to be responsible for the economic well-being of his household. And by the way, sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who happens to be better at that money thing than you. And that's a wonderful thing. But start from a position of this is my responsibility. And make sure you're aligned with your partner around this stuff.

48:41Because the thing we don't talk about is that your kids are going to have higher blood pressure if you're economically strained. Kids in low-income households have greater systolic resting blood pressure than kids in middle and upper-income homes. You're much more likely to get divorced. You're much more likely to have a stroke. You're much more likely to be the victim or the perpetrator of domestic violence when you don't have money. I mean, America becomes more like itself every day, and that is it's a loving, generous place for people with money. It's a rapacious, violent place for people who don't have money.

49:13So all this bullshit that money doesn't buy you happiness, oh my God, is that a myth? I'm not saying you need to be incredibly wealthy, but middle-income people are happier than poor people and wealthy people are happier than middle income people. That's the bad news. The good news is that it tops out. You get diminishing returns. And you have to be cognizant of when you do get to some level of economic security, That's the means. The ends is such that you can have an exhale, release the anxiety that you feel, and then use the opportunity to really spend a lot of time with your loved ones and cement those relationships.

49:53And the problem is you get on the sadonic treadmill and you become so absorbed in your own success and your professional identity and money and making more money that you never get to the ends. You wake up a wealthy person or someone who's financially secure, has always thought about their economic well-being and you don't really have a great relationship with your kids or you never really leaned into your partnership and thought okay let's take time to really enjoy each other's company let's do nice things your parents die before you have a chance to really spend time with them as adults i think that happens to a lot of people they just get so caught up and i need the next promotion i need the next amount of money and once i get here i have someone very close to my life.

50:34It's a family member and I'm taking them to Africa and they're making excuses, but our kids in the choir, they were making excuses. I'm like, you realize this is your last chance to go to Africa before you're dead, right? You're 50 fucking years old. When do you go? When you're 70? But you got to get back to work an extra day. I mean, what are you thinking? We're going to be dead soon. And I just think so many people don't realize how fast it's going to go by and never really, never really like super, not only super lean into the relationships, but just allow themselves just to have a great time.

51:08I'm going to stagecoach this week. I'm going to go to country music festival. I can't stand country, but I'm going, I'm going to buy a pair of boots. I'm going to, and I'm going to have a great time and I'm going to do an edible and I'm going to drink a shit ton and I'm going to have a rested adolescence with my friends and I'm going to look ridiculous. And it's like, yeah, why not? Why the fuck not? What am I going to do? Watch C-SPAN all weekend? I mean, anyway, I can't stand it when people who are blessed with being in this country have some level of economic security, have people in their life that love them and they love, and they don't like crazy lean into it because you guys are younger than I can, it just goes so goddamn fast.

51:50It's just crazy. It is just crazy how fast it goes. Anyways. Well, I don't know how to respond to that, Scott. Here's what I do know. I feel like I learned something and I feel a little bit bad inside. At the same time, I feel a little bit good and you made me feel a little bit bad and I need to go and I need to like burp or something. I need to get a little bit out of my system. I just need to unwind from that. Do they not have Zoloft in London? you know i haven't hit the antidepressant i just did ketamine therapy though that was a trip no i'm trying to i'm trying to just you know like the good news is i hate my life less and less every day so um i'm sort of getting there i'm sort of you're like if mitch hedberg had a podcast and opened an llc are we gonna talk about are we gonna talk about my book do you think i got therapy with you guys on these Joey Bag of Donuts podcasts.

52:47Are you going to bring up my book? Yeah. Tell us, tell us about the book. Okay. We talked a little bit about the book, but tell us, the floor is yours. Make your case as to what I'm going to get out of this book. Cause I'm going to buy it and I'm going to read it. Thanks for that. But I'll read it with a different level of enthusiasm. If you give me a little teaser of what I'm going to get out of it. Okay. So the algebra of wealth is the following, you know, find your talent, focus, workshop your twenties in an industry that will pay you. Once you have a certain amount of momentum professionally, really try and develop a savings muscle.

53:19Wealth isn't about how much you make, it's about how much you spend. Try and just get to the point at a fairly early stage where you spend less than you make. That is very difficult. The brightest companies and minds in the world are all here to convince you that an upgrade from economy to economy comfort to economy plus to business classes and investment in yourself. No, it's not. It's consumption. Don't try and impress other people with your shit. No one's as concerned with your shit as you are. You don't need to order a bottle of vodka at a club for 450 bucks. Get a Hyundai, for God's sakes.

53:49Travel coach. Save money. Start saving money early. Lean in if you're young. Lean into your advantage. And that is, you have a lot of time. Develop that savings muscle. Diversify the moment you have any real capital. Start diversifying. That way, no matter what happens, you have Kevlar. You can have a stock go to zero and a bullet hits you in the chest. It doesn't kill you because you're diversified. And then take advantage of the flaw in the species, and that's time, and recognize that time will go faster than you think. And if you're just a little, show a little bit of discipline, a little bit of maturity, a little bit of that savings muscle early, that the S &P is up 11 % a year since 2008.

54:26Well, that sounds boring. Now, that means every 21 years, your investments are up 8x, and that 21 years will go really fast. So hope you sell a bestselling book. Hope your company goes public. hope you, you know, your album goes double platinum or some rich uncle dies and leaves you everything. But just in case, make sure you're financially secure. And I can get you there. If you follow these principles and show a little bit of discipline, a little bit of maturity, because the good news is I can get you rich. The bad news is the answer is slowly, but we can get you there. So the algebra of wealth equals focus plus stoicism times time times diversification.

55:05That's the formula. That's the formula. You're the formula guy. Like you've, a lot of your talks, you use formulas to explain stuff. You've had the algebra of happiness, now the algebra of wealth. All right, is this going to be a whole algebra of blank series? Because anytime I see that, I'm into it. If it's an equation, I'm into it. Yeah, so humans need constructs to remember things. You can read a book and if it doesn't have constructs or visualizations, it's pretty easy to forget about it. So I really like constructs, equations. I wrote the algebra of happiness algebra of wealth out today and I just I'm about to sign a three book deal I'm writing the algebra of masculinity the algebra of work and the algebra of mating those are three topics I'm super interested in and I want to try and do enough research where I can distill it down to some best practices That people can hold on to Well, I want to talk about the first variable in this you said focus Uh, because we talked about stoicism.

55:58I know about time. I know about diversification, but teach me about focus I'm i'm pretty bad at at focus trying to get better Give me a couple words on focus as part of this equation. If you have a side hustle, you need to find a different main hustle. You're better off with the time you spend on a side hustle, investing that incremental effort in your main hustle. And if you constantly find a side hustle is fine if you're investigating a new main hustle. But the way you get wealthy is not a variety of things. It's being really great at one thing. So that's the focus. And the term we use is mastery or ninja-like capability.

56:34but try and find something you could become great at. And that's not easy. But also, again, we talked about this before, find it in an industry that's not very sexy. Because if you're in the top 10 % of tax law or of installing HVAC or energy efficient HVAC, or you're in the top 10 % of people who know how to install soapstone kitchen counters, you're going to make a really good living. And taking care of your kids is just so much fun. Being able to be there for your parents is economically is just really exciting and really a lot of fun. And I think young people mistake passion for their hobbies, not recognizing when they get older to be able to give money away, to be able to do nice things, to be able to relax with your partner.

57:26It's just super enjoyable. It's almost as fun as, you know, spinning tunes. I mean, that shit is fun. That is really enjoyable. And so put yourself in a position when you're a little bit older, because it'll go really fast, to just do wonderful things with people you care about. And the way you get there is by making more than you spend, saving. But the first thing you got to do is find a focus. You know, find something. You know, we live in a specialist economy. me. Try and just think, could I be great at this? Could I be great at this? That's not the question. Because if you become great at it, trust me, you'll become passionate about it.

58:06And you can't become great at anything you hate. That's just going to automatically be screened out. I'm not suggesting drudgery is the way. If you find something drudgerous or whatever the term is, you're just not going to be great at it. But I found consulting. I didn't know what consulting was when I was in college, even business school. I figured out, wait, people will pay you to rent your brain? Wow. And I was always really good at establishing these proxy father-son relationships with powerful men. And then basically my core deal with them is I understand brand better than you. You're the CMO.

58:40I'm going to make you the CEO in three years. In exchange for that, you're going to pay my company a million dollars a year to answer very deep, hard questions. And I figured that out it kind of my late 20s, which was a blessing. And then when I sold the company, I'm like, I don't want to be in services anymore. It's a young person's business. I'm sick of being on planes. So I had to workshop my life again. And then I figured out, okay, I'm a good teacher. What does it mean to be a good teacher? It means you have to be a good storyteller. But what if I storytell in different mediums? Could I make money in books?

59:07Could I make money speaking? Could I make money in podcasts? And I figured out, yeah, I'm good at this. I could even be great someday. And that mastery has led to a really nice life. But I've always tried to spend reasonably, spend less than I was making, sometimes more than others. I finally learned to diversify the hard way. I lost everything twice in 2000 and again in 2008 because I thought it was so awesome that whatever is my focus is just naturally going to be successful through my sheer force of character. That's not true. So I started diversifying. and just kind of followed these basic principles and let time take over and really started saving a lot of money in my 40s.

59:50I deployed an army of capital to start fighting and killing for me and my family in my sleep. And that army just grew in a bull market and came home with just immense spoils for me because I deployed this army early and often and I kept adding to it. I feel like, here's a tank. All right. Okay. I'm saving money. I'm not going to have the fat apartment. Right. Okay. Here's some more artillery. Go kill more people and come home with money. That's a little bit much. Anyways. We're still working off in that one. Yeah. I'm still working through that one. Wrong choice. Wrong choice of words. Accoutrements, the accoutrements of my army.

1:00:31Scott, thanks for coming on, man. And everybody go buy the book, the algebra of wealth. He has to be number one on the charts because he needs our affirmation and let's give it to them. Thanks, guys. Thanks for your success. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Sean. And thanks, Ari. Thank you. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.

1:00:58Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter, they shape us. And as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s? You're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money, $50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

1:01:28If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust members FDIC.