Scott Galloway RETURNS: Men Are Struggling More Than Ever – Here’s the Brutal Truth

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1:06Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. The moment a boy loses a male role model, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated at that moment than graduate from college. It ends up that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and neurologically much weaker. And I think just recognizing that and recognizing the importance that once a boy doesn't have male mentorship, society, the community, the mom has to figure out a way to get. And also men our age have to figure out a way to surround that boy with men.

1:39What I advise young people, especially men to do is if something inspires you to really slow down and kind of wade in it and trying to understand why it moves you. When you find something funny, try and laugh out loud and really absorb the emotion. And if something moves you, allow yourself to get emotional and even cry. Because I find one, it slows time down, which I'm trying to do. And it just informs your life. And I'll hear from the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and they'll want to come talk to me and they want to talk about how much they miss their mom. There's such a reservoir of men who want permission to talk about their emotions and just don't think they can.

2:13Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. And joining us today is Scott Galloway, a dear friend, a bestselling author, an incredible podcaster, a professor, but also a dad. And this is a book, the title of the book is Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway. Now, Scott, I'm showing you my new age innovation. I downloaded your book on Apple iBooks and read it on the way to Australia. I thought it was so real, so authentic and raw that I congratulate you and I've been giving it out as gifts to people. Thanks, man. These are pre-Christmas gifts from me to my buds because it's just so important.

2:55And obviously, you and I did the Lost Boys series together. But what did you see that made you feel the need to write this book right now? It's always good to be with you, Anthony. By the way, congrats on your—I don't know if success is the right word, but I'm seeing you everywhere. You're having a real impact. So the initial moment I got very interested in the topic was when a young man named Alex Kearns, a 19-year-old, apparently got messages from Robin Hood saying he owed them$600 ,000, was distraught, next morning took his own life. And I started doing a lot of research around young men and suicide and depression, and the data was just so overwhelming.

3:38If you walk into a morgue and there's five people died by suicide, four are men. And, you know, one, only one in three men under the age of 30 is in a relationship. It's two in three women. You think, well, that's mathematically impossible. It's, it's not because women are dating older for more economically and emotionally viable men. Uh, you have 63 % of men under the age of 30 say they're no longer even trying to date. Um, 45 % of 18 to 24 year old men have never asked a woman out in person. One in seven men are now qualify as NEATs. That is, they're able-bodied, but they're neither in education, employment, or training.

4:14So it just feels like we have an entire generation of men who are sequestering from society. And I just sort of got very interested in the issue. I also relate to these young men. People say, you wrote it for your boys. I feel like I'm concerned about young men's welfare because I do have boys. But the connection was more, I relate to them personally. My boys, I mean, it's sad to say, but my boys won't be immune, but they'll be less susceptible to a lot of this stuff because they're raised in a household that has money. I was not. And so I feel, I look at this and I think they're by the grace of God go I.

4:53And a lot of the on-ramps to a middle-class life available to me, great state-sponsored education. When I applied to UCLA, the administrative rate was 74%. This year it's 9%. I got assisted lunch, Pell Grants. I just feel as if if I came of age in the same situation today, I would have very easily been one of these young men who was struggling. I also, I have screen addiction now. I can't imagine what it would have been like with my 19-year-old brain. So I relate to the topic. I feel as if people aren't talking about it and there's a lack of empathy. I think we would have weighed in with more empathy in programs had it been another demographic because the sort of unfair, unearned advantage that you and I received, we're holding 19-year-old men accountable.

5:42It's almost as if, I mean, to a certain extent, I'm the wrong messenger here because people see me and they think, well, boss, you had a 3 ,000-year head start. I'm like, I get it. Be angry at me. But don't be angry in a 19-year-old male that just doesn't have the same wind in a sails that you and I had. Well, I mean, yes, I agree with that. I think that you and I have a lot of common bonds, even though we both grew up on different sides of the country. We were growing up in the same umbrella of the culture, if you will. But what you write about, and I've learned stuff about you in the book. I mean, you had bouts of depression.

6:17I thought you wrote beautifully about your mom and the economic anxiety that she had. And you even talk about this because lots of children of divorce. You don't want to be a quote-unquote super spreader of your own trauma in a divorce. And you talk about your personal storytelling. But what part of your story, Scott, was the hardest to write about, but you felt it was the most important to include? It's a generous question.

6:47Like, you grew up economically strained. I know you grew up with two parents, but money was a thing. And I don't think, I think if you grow up with money, you can have sympathy for people who don't have money, but I don't think you can have real empathy. I just don't think people recognize when you grow up as a kid and you don't realize how many different levels it hurts you or reduces your confidence. I felt as if there was a ghost following me and my mom around whispering, you're not worthy. You know, we had all these, what I call little conversations, like all my friends up were signing up for this driving school.

7:29Mom, I need to sign up. No, we signed up for the shitty driving school where this guy showed up in an old Vega. When I'd win, my team would win a baseball and we'd all go to Farrell's. My mom would kind of sequester me and I'd realize because my mom wasn't worried about who was going to pay. Did she have the money and didn't want to be in a comfortable position? When I didn't get into UCLA the first time I applied, a bunch of my friends, parents, a few of them, I remember them saying, well, you're such a smart kid. Get on a plane tomorrow and go to Michigan and refuse to leave until they see you.

8:02And it's like, I didn't have a credit card. Like I wasn't going to get on a plane for fucking an hour. I mean, you just don't realize what it's like when you don't have them. I've been on a plane maybe three times up until that point. And you start believing you're not worthy of higher education, or you're not worthy of finding a maid, or you're not worthy of getting a good job. A lot of that was washed over by my mom, gave me something that I think is more important than even maybe economics, and that is every day, just small little ways, told me she loved me and she thought I was wonderful. And I still think that's the base of my confidence today.

8:38And then some of the stuff that's less virtuous. I don't think I was very kind, Anthony. I think up until the age of 40, I pretty much saw everything through the lens of what's in it for me. I was never mean. I was never unkind. But I was not philanthropic. I wasn't interested in really helping people unless I saw a route to it coming back to me. And it's sort of a, you know, I'm not proud of it. I don't, I think I I could have been such a better man, quite frankly, with just a little amount of effort. At a very early age, I had a lot of success. And I lost it all, then got it back, then lost it all again.

9:18And just a few more kind words, a little bit of effort, a little bit of more grace with my ex-wife, a little bit. I just could have been a better man. And I write about that. And the book is more about my shortcomings and my struggles trying to figure it out. And that's, you know, it's hard to put up the mirror sometimes. And we tell ourselves a story that makes ourselves seem that all our success is a function of our character and our grit and our failures are a function of the markets. Most of my failures, Anthony, if I'm really honest, have been a function of my lack of character. And writing about that isn't a lot of fun.

9:55I think you're being a little bit hard on yourself, but I identify with you a great deal because it brought me back. It was one chapter you were talking about your success anxiety and it brought me back to like my first day on the trading desk at Goldman, Scott. And so I remember it very vividly. I had a hard time moving from the bed to the shower. Okay. So I woke up at 5 a.m. I had to take the train into New York where I was living in Tarrytown. The movement from the bed to the shower. I didn't want to get in the shower. I had so much anxiety and I had the full-on imposter syndrome going, like, who the hell am I to get on the phone now and to declare myself a research analyst and a research expert to some 50-year-old portfolio manager.

10:45There I was at the ripe old age of 27. And I felt this underconfidence. I felt this anxiety. Now, people say to me today okay they see me at 61 and they're like oh you know you you seem like joe confidence when did you make the transition scott like when did it was it age 40 i mean for me it probably wasn't believe i mean it's sort of ridiculous to tell you this but it wasn't until i was 50 that i realized you know i got this i can throw the ball i can get the ball into the hoop if I'm shooting it. I can throw the ball down to the end zone if I need to score a touchdown. But, you know, what did you make that transition from the uncertainty to the confidence that you have today?

11:32It doesn't sound, I can. I try to be as raw as possible and just say what I'm thinking instead of running it through a land acknowledgement or politically correct filter. I think for me, it was women. and that is when I was growing up, I was exceptionally tall, exceptionally thin, and I had bad acne. And so I was kind of, I looked like Ichabod Crane with bad skin. And then I got to UCLA and I made the crew team. I was always an athlete, but I would never have the size to continue to play football or basketball. And I joined the crew team at UCLA. And one of the wonderful things about UCLA is every athlete has access to the trainers and everything.

12:11And they put me on this high carb five meal a day diet and put me in the weight room every day. And I went from my 150 to 190 in about 27 months. And I took this drug called Accutane and my skin cleared up. And all of a sudden women were interested in me. And I got Melanie Kagan, this woman, this like wonderful, high character, attractive woman, like quite frankly, just we fell in love with each other. And I had never had a relationship, much less someone who was high character who just loved me. And I think that kind of gave me just so much confidence that I'm worthy of a good person's love on that level.

12:56I knew my mother loved me. I knew I was always going to have friends. But the confidence to approach a woman who was, quite frankly, higher quality than me and have her, I was in a relationship with her for about a year, it just gave me a sense of self that I'd never had up until that point. And then there's a bunch of little things, getting a job at Morgan Stanley, I like you, I read at 21 or 22, I started at and Stanley, and some confidence, also some of that imposter syndrome. But I think if I look back and think the thing that really kind of gave me a base and the thing that worries me about young men now is that they don't have as many venues to demonstrate excellence and find relationships.

13:42Because I think someone who you can kind of bear your soul with, and quite frankly, on a lot of levels, be naked with, and they still choose you, you know only one in three men have that confidence now under the age of 30 because only one in three men are in relationships so yeah my mother's irrational passion for my well-being getting a job at morgan stanley getting into ucla and there were all sorts of little things but i think it was like having a high character person just want to be with you i that i had never had that before. I was a late bloomer, you know, sexually and from a relationship standpoint, and just having a really high character person, you know, interested in me on that level, like gave me just a lot of confidence that I'd never, I'd never had confidence on that level.

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15:45Named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code OPENBOOK at checkout. That's A-U-R-A frames.com. Promo code OPENBOOK. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now. Get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. I mean, it's a good segue because one of the lines in your book that I highlighted, And I think one of the most powerful lines, frankly, is being a good dad means being good to women. And so that relationship certainly impacted you, but I think, I think it's true. It's almost biblical, the line, actually, you know, it, the idea that you have to be good to some, your, your son's mom, your daughter's mom.

16:33And by the way, irrespective, if there's a breakup or a divorce, you got to make sure you're taking care of them and you got to make sure that you're thinking about it holistically. Talk a little bit about that because you point this out. I think it's so relevant to being a man. It's not about dominance or bravado, and I'm sort of paraphrasing your book, but it's really about responsibility. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I do think the best thing you can do for your boys is just to be really good to their mother, even if you decide to get divorced. When I look back on the things that were difficult for me, not having my dad very involved in my life was hard, but what was harder was he was not kind to my mother.

17:16We were economically strained. He was not kind to her. It just created a ton of anxiety. When you're the only kid in a house and your mom is just a chocolate mess, there's no way to avoid it. And so, yeah, and I try to practice that now. I try to, and by no means am I a perfect partner. I have a lot of flaws, but, you know, when their mom gets angry at me and lays down the law, like, I listen and I back down. And I want them to see that being a man does not mean asserting dominance. Like, you know, I want them to know that, I don't want to say mom's in charge, but We revere her. And there's a protection and a reverence that should be instinctive for them around women.

18:08And that in itself might sound sexist, but I just think if you want your kids to have good relationships with women, you can tell them whatever you want. They're not gonna, they're kind of sort of listen to what you say, but they're absolutely gonna watch what you do. too. Just looking back, the most stressful thing in my life wasn't an absence of my father. It was the economic strain and the fact that my mom, my dad wasn't kind of my mom. It was really, really hard on her. And so I have tried to learn from that and be, you know, so anyway, in sum, you know, be good to your kids, be good to your kids' mom.

18:50And I don't even say wife, Because even if you split up, you can still be good to their mom. I've been through a lot of this stuff, so I empathize with it. And by the way, I have my whole list of, I have a phone book filled of shortcomings. But it's another chapter in here where you talk about men, young men being emotionally weaker than ever. But there's also emotions that are actually culturally forbidden for men to express. So what happens to a society when we have, so what emotions do you think are culturally forbidden to express? You write about them in the book. And then what do you think happens to society when we don't express them?

19:28Well, just going back to very, if there's a single point of failure, if you wanted to reverse engineer to the single point of failure for a boy becoming a man, it's when he loses a male role model to death, divorce, or abandonment. And what's interesting is that girls in single-parent homes have similar outcomes of college attendance and self-harm. The moment a boy loses a male role model, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated at that moment than graduate from college. It ends up that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and neurologically much weaker. And I think just recognizing that and recognizing the importance that once a boy doesn't have male mentorship that the society, the community, the mom has to figure out a way to get.

20:10And also men our age have to figure out a way to surround that boy with men. And even just saying the boys need men was triggering five years ago. And now the dialogue's become much more productive. Going to people our age or older, I'll talk about this in the book, from the age of 29 to 44 for 15 years, I didn't cry a single time. I didn't cry when my business went under, when I got divorced, when my mom died. I forgot how. And it's really more of an unlock to what I advise young people, especially men to do is if something inspires you to really slow down and kind of wade in it and trying to understand why it moves you.

20:47When you find something funny, try and laugh out loud and really absorb the emotion. And if something moves you, allow yourself to get emotional and even cry. Because I find one, it slows time down, which I'm trying to do. And it just informs your life. And I'm not exaggerating when I'm with other men sometimes and something moves me and I tear up talking about a story. I feel as if all the men around the table look at me and they are jealous. They're like, I could, I wish I could have a six pack of that to go. Like, I don't know how to do that. Interesting. And I could really, I could really use some of that.

21:25And the reason we choke back is that we've been taught for thousands of years that if we express emotion, it signals weakness and that another man might kill us and eat our family and take our shit. So it's just a natural reaction to not want to express that kind of weakness or vulnerability. And I can't tell you, Anthony, I write about my mom. I'm a 61-year-old man that's still not over the death of his mother. And I'll hear from the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and they'll want to come talk to me, and they want to talk about how much they miss their mom. I mean, there's just such a reservoir of men who want permission to talk about their emotions and just don't think they can because it'll signal weakness on an earnings call or something.

22:16So it's been a big unlock for me. Yeah, I mean, listen, there's so many good parts about the book, the vulnerability, the reveal, the honesty. You say something about service that you and I totally believe in. I think this is one of the reasons why I feel so close to you, even though we don't hang out every day, but I feel like we're kindred spirits. You're a big believer in creating opportunity for others. I live for that. I know you live for that. And tell us how that helps almost become like an antidote to isolation and resentment. How does it help, Scott? As you get older, you become more thoughtful.

22:54That's the good news. The bad news is you become more thoughtful. And I recognize that I had not planted that many trees, the shade of which I won't sit under. And it was time for me to catch up. And what I have found about trying to get involved in some stuff where I can provide opportunities for other, it's not ethical. It's not philanthropy. I think of it as consumption. I just think it makes me feel really strong. It makes me feel really American. It makes me feel really masculine. So I'm shocked at how much personal satisfaction I get. I don't think of this philanthropy. I think it's consumption.

23:31And guys of our generation, with 5 % of the population from 1945 to 2000, America registered a third of the economic growth globally. We had destroyed Germany and Japan. We were just, China wasn't up yet and running. We were just basically out of monopoly on the global economy. And then within that 6x prosperity, the majority of it was crammed into the third of the population that was right, heterosexual, and male. I mean, the two of us, we're exactly the same age. We really did hit the lottery. But we now have a debt. And that debt is we have to try and shove the ladders back down for younger people.

24:07And when you look at the economics, first time in a nation's history, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And you look at just the cost of housing, cost of education, all the ways you save money, build economic security, get ahead the certification you need to get ahead. They just don't have it as good as us. So a lot of this, quite frankly, is just a nod back to, I just feel It's like one of my favorite shows, season one of True Detective, Matthew McConaughey tracks down Woody Harrelson and wants his help solving a murder, and Woody Harrelson wants nothing to do with him.

24:41And Matthew McConaughey reminds him, looks at him and goes, you have a debt. Because earlier in the series, Matthew McConaughey basically covered for Woody Harrelson. And I feel like society is constantly reminding me when I get to do the things I do, I have a voice in my ear going, you have a debt. And I know that voice is accurate and just common sense. And I didn't hear that voice until I was in my 40s. And the thing about it such that I don't sound like I'm doing too much virtue signaling is it makes me feel strong. It makes me feel like a good person. It makes me feel very American. So I get a lot out of this stuff.

25:21And I don't, you know, I just, I'm starting, I finally, I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. When you talk about these relationships that we have as men, some parts are related to power, some parts of it are related to belonging. What's most resonating to you? Like, let's say you had a young guy in front of you. Maybe they were at a bank or maybe they were in the art world or something like that. what would be the resonating message? Is it, because most people are trying to seek a little bit of both, right, Scott? But isn't belonging, I think, more therapeutic? Every study on, I wrote a book on happiness because I struggle with it.

26:02And every study across ethnographies, geographies comes down to the same thing, and that is deep and meaningful relationships. So I think for men to have really strong relationships, it means they have to be economically viable. I think that's one of the cruel truths of capitalism. Men are disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability. I'm not saying you need to run Goldman Sachs, but at least be viable. Don't be an economic liability on your partner or your family. And I think that men just are going to have a very, marriage has become a luxury item. And that is you have a one in four chance of ever being married.

26:38If you're in a lower quintile income home as a man, you're three in four chance if you're in the upper quintile. And men, we don't like to have this conversation, but men are disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability. Beyoncé could work at McDonald's and marry Jay-Z. The opposite is not true. So find a path to economic viability. Unfortunately, I think that's a must. And then work on yourself. Forgive yourself when you screw up. Try and have a kindness practice. You mentioned an artist. I had this whole thing about don't follow your passion, and follow your talent. But I think the key is for young people, or let me go to how I mentor young men.