Secrets to Successful Professional Relationships

0:03I've been working and speaking with couples for decades. But over the last years, I've expanded the concept of a pair so that it involves friends, it involves co-founders, podcast hosts, creative pairs. And Cara Swisher and Scott Galloway are one of these creative pairs. people listen to them on their podcast. And what they hear is two people, each embodied in their own points of views, who disagree out loud in front of an audience, into the microphone, and tease each other, and challenge each other, and confront each other. And I thought, gosh, this is a kind of modeling that is so necessary at this moment.

0:50The focus is often on troubles in the relationship problems. We don't often actually get to see what does the good couple, the good partnership, the creative pair that holds the polarity actually sound like or look like. And this was my focus on this conversation as I met Cara and Scott.

1:26She never initiates sex after. Never, ever. You'll be waiting a long time for that, Scott Galloway. That probably, I could imagine, is something that brings clarity in the relationship between the two of you, no? Yes. Definitely takes that element off the table. Actually, I get along well with men because of that, I think. I really believe that. Because it never hovers on the being sexualized. Yeah. Not that it was. But yeah, in this case, not that it would. Yeah, yeah. I thought of that when I, you know, we had this brief exchange when you interviewed me on Pivot. And we were bantering about, you know, we should have a session, we should have a session.

2:12Yeah. And then I thought, why not actually? because you have a public persona as a pair on the podcast and then you are also the parents, so to speak, of your team that works for you and watches and learns from your dynamic. And then I thought, you know, there's so much to learn about people who work together and get along. And probably the best thing to ask as a start is, what would make this conversation useful interesting productive for each of you Scott go ahead that's not fair it is fair you know I I really come at this I my my objective here is I just want to express how grateful I am I want to cement what I think are the positives in our relationship.

3:07But yeah, for me, the only objective I have is to use this as a vehicle to express gratitude, to use it as a moment to take a pause and appreciate the relationship and appreciate just how fortunate we are. That's kind of it for me. I didn't come to this with a list of objectives. Wishes. It doesn't have to be as practical, but a wish. but this is a wish to be able to take a moment of pause and express my gratitude for what would you say this has been a wonderful relationship for me this is three years four years yeah i think it's been longer than that yeah and i i learned a great deal from care more personally actually than professionally and it's been very rewarding for me just on a lot of levels.

4:02I get to do something twice a week that I not only love doing, I look forward to our work relationship. I don't think of it as work. It's also financially exceptionally rewarding. I wish I'd had this 20 years ago when I needed the money, but it's given me, I have an objective around reaching influence around some things I'm passionate about. And this has provided that platform. And that platform, I am not a modest person. I think I'm remarkably fucking talented. But this platform is really mostly a function of Kara's brand equity that she brought to the table and her credibility. So I'm grateful for that.

4:41I feel as if a little bit I'm drafting off of Kara's presence in the marketplace. But yeah, just a word I would use is grateful. And I wanted to articulate that gratitude. That's something I'm not very good at. I make the mistake of believing that if I feel something that other people telepathically register those feelings. Like buying a birthday present but not giving it. That's right. Yeah, I'm waiting for my birthday present from Scott this year. That was it, by the way. You just got it. Thank you. That's very sweet, Scott. I have slightly different objectives. I'm really interested in why our relationship resonates with so many people.

5:15I'm really fascinated. For some reason, our relationship makes people feel better. I say this a lot on the show, but on the way here, I ran into a young woman who stopped me on the Street and said, yours and Scott relationship teaches me about relationships. And I said, why? And she goes, I don't know. I just feel better listening to it. And she was very emotional about it. And then I was waiting in line and an older woman said to me, oh my God, you and Scott. And it was so fascinating. And she's an artist and she talked about listening to it when she as art. And she said, you know, she was very upset about the state of the world, especially with Israel, and said, it makes me think a lot and calms me down, which was really interesting.

6:00And I was like, well, you know, we don't always agree. And she was very much said, that's okay. I learned how to disagree. And it was really interesting. So the relationship is reached into people and they learn how to get along with people they may not agree with. And I think I'm really interested in why that is. Sometimes it's chemistry, of course, there's chemistry, but what are we doing specifically that's causing that? Let's put that question out. I mean, I have immediate thoughts too, but I think that one way to start, Scott, would actually maybe go to, I'm actually more thankful for the things that I have learned from her personally than professionally, meaning something is seeping into the way that we register each other.

6:48And that then translates in the way that we have conversations with each other, can argue, disagree, banter. And the effect of that is what people get, is they see people who are arguing, but they're not hurting each other. They're not fighting. They are elevating each other for the sake of the topic that they are discussing and showing tension, healthy tension. The way I think of it is that, I mean, it sounds strange, but Karen and I are what Washington, D.C. is supposed to be. And that is you're supposed to send different viewpoints such that in a civil manner, under the auspices of connective tissues around fidelity and affection for our country and our commonwealth that we have civil and robust debate and argument such that you can craft better solutions.

7:45And we do that. We're here to save democracy. We're here. But I think what we engage in is what most people think of is that what a deliberative body is supposed to accomplish. You take people with different backgrounds, maybe different interests, and they talk about an issue and they see each other's points. They have empathy. they're civil, they demonstrate affection for each other, even though they disagree, and they come away with a more informed kind of, you know, better union. I mean, that is supposed to be our core competence as a species, is a form of cooperation, is debate, evidence, and argument.

8:20I think we're the only species that can do that, and we do that. We also don't, I mean, a couple things. None of us is so wed to our principles that we're not willing to acknowledge the other's points. And I think that people like that. But what you just said is very interesting. You said we show one relationship between two people, but we actually model what we expect from a nation, from a government. And there's something bigger that exists between us that transcends the two of us. I think that's a very important point. Well, we're talking about the things the government's supposed to be wrestling with.

8:58We talk about political issues, we talk about big tech, we talk about economics. And I do think that people want kind of a safe space to explore friction and disagreement without people dunking on each other and being mean or feeling as if somebody has to be the clear winner or, I mean, to a certain extent, we're neosporine for how coarse our discourse has become. But it's not just public, it's, you know, families and, you know, not being, there was a very funny thing I saw. It was a Reddit thing is my parents believe in QAnon. My kids love Hamas. I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, it was kind of funny way to articulate it.

9:39It's that people are finding a very hard time personally to get, to agree, to come to any agreement or to disagree in a way that everybody can walk away, you know, from it without feeling terrible. And I think it's because online has infected offline rather than vice versa, right? Things you wouldn't do. I mean, this is not a big revelation, but it really, people feel dunking is okay. The way they behave online is like Scott said, it's coarse, it's crude, it's reductive. It's, did you get that person? And I engage in it too. But I don't take it offline the way a lot of our culture has started to do.

10:21It puts people in boxes they cannot escape from. I mean, there's a word that you didn't use much yet, which is trust. That you won't throw each other under the bus. And that you like each other as people. And so that maintains the connective tissue. I think that one of the sentences people are experiencing the most in the attacks online at this moment is shame on you. Yes, very much so. It drives me crazy. For whichever thing you think or not think or do or don't do, it's shame on you. Do better. Say that? Do better. That's the one I hate. Do better. Be a leader. That's what I get a lot. Yeah.

11:06So I think that what people experience when they hear you is, first of all, they see two people who like each other. In a way, that's something that is often described of what used to exist in Congress as well. People disagreed, but they liked each other. They knew this is a good person. But it didn't destroy it. Your beliefs were not the only way by which people judged you. They also looked at how you relate to people at what you do. Not that you are a religious person and a secular person, but that you are a good person. Wherever you get your values in humanism or in religion. And so when people listen to you, your friction and the strength with which you each hold your positions and at the same time engage in the dialogue with the other.

11:57It's the opposite of the conflict avoidance that many people engage in at this moment. If I don't fully agree with you, I don't talk to you. Yeah. Or you don't bring it up, you know, and you secretly see. I think a lot of people secretly see or they feel like they can get in trouble for saying things. And that's, you know, if you talk about trust is I know sometimes we get into trouble for things we say, but I don't think it feels unsafe with each other. No. Right. You know, to express even when it's testy. you know, we've had some testy exchanges. Trans was one. There's not that many that I can recall, but, you know, we've had some testy ones and somehow we've survived it without disrespect.

12:37If that, and I think that's, I don't know where people lost that ability. Maybe they were holding it all in and now have been able to vomit up whatever comes out of their mouth or they sort of lost just, it's not really empathy. It's not really the word. It's, I don't know. It's just how you were raised. I don't know how else to put it. Although I wasn't raised that way. So tell me a little bit. I wasn't raised that way. What is your, well, actually, I'm very curious because I don't know myself. What is your background for each of you? I think you know this, Esther, but my dad died when I was very little.

13:09One side of my family is Catholic, Italian. The other side is sort of early American Baptist and much more traditional Southern. And my dad died, who was from that side of the family. And my mom remarried to a terrible person and wasn't, I would say, not the best parent. It was not there for me and my brothers, but tried her best, I guess, with the limited emotional range she had. And after that, my dad dying, I think we kind of raised ourselves in a lot of ways. Although I had the support of a great-grandmother who was wonderful. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah, my grandmother was really a savior on my mom's side.

13:55But I loved my grandmother on my dad's side, but we didn't see her as much. And if you think about the strengths and the resources that you bring to your interpersonal relations, what are some of the things you would say you honed in at home? And by the way, the resources don't always come from great stuff. No, it usually doesn't, does it? I can handle it and nothing much bothers me. You know, I think there's a, you know, highly functional is often a byproduct of the early death of a parent. I think I'm highly functional. And so I don't get too spun around or on it. I don't get, it's not that I don't lose my temper, but I don't, it's hard to get me bothered that much.

14:37And I always just move on to the next thing, move on, move on, move on, you know, just like, let's keep going. And I have an expression I have on one of my walls here, the chance favors those in motion. So it's always a moving forward kind of thing. Not in circles. If something bothers you, you tell him? Oh, yeah. Or you wait? Oh, no. She texts me at two in the morning. She'll wake me up. You tell him. He needs to know immediately. And if you need help, you turn to him? Yes, actually. I've asked him for a lot of stuff. I don't need a lot of help, honestly. I don't. I don't think you asked me for a lot there, actually.

15:13Which is exactly why I asked you a question about help. Because you've just told me in a roundabout way. I do. That's not true, Scott. I do when I have like legal things or investment things. I ask him, you know, I don't know if I ask him parenting tips. But I would, I suppose. But, you know, actually, no. He helped my son a great deal. He gets shy about it. But he really, I asked him to talk to my son about college. And he was a really important, between him and my brother, the most important people in helping my son figure out where he wanted to go to school. I would even say Scott was more influential.

15:48My son talks about him quite a bit, my 18-year-old. And so both my sons really like talking to Scott. So I would avail myself to, not for me, myself, but for my kids for sure. He's been a real asset to their lives. Beautiful, beautiful. How would you describe? Scott. Describe Bolle Husser. Just basic demographic background. Oh, origin story. Yeah, I was raised by a single mother who lived and died a secretary a lot of my life. Hands down, like the singular most important influence in my life. Blessed to be born in California in the 60s as a straight white male. Was she also a can handle it all?

16:33My mom? Yeah. Oh, yeah. My mom was very productive, worked hard. I like to work, and I think I picked up on that early from her. She worked very hard to make sure we were economically viable. I would say we were upper, lower, middle class. My household income was never more than, I think we peaked at$40 ,000. But born in California at exactly the right time, with exactly the right skin tone, sexual orientation. I mean, just had this like the full force, gale force winds of the greatest economy at the greatest time and the greatest state. I mean, my narrative used to be a son of a single mother.

17:14Aren't I awesome that I overcame these things? And then as I got older and matured, I realized that, yeah, I wasn't in the 99.9th percentile, I was in the 99th because of, you know, I got to go to UCLA for free. I got into UCLA. I mean, just when I didn't deserve to. So I had my background on, from the curb, it looks like it was not difficult, but a little bit challenged. But the reality was absent a male role model, I didn't have that. But absent that, I consider my background remarkably fortunate and blessed. And I got very lucky. I had a really good reference group. My friends as a young man were always very impressive, ambitious, hardworking, good people.

18:00And that was really kind of my family, if you will. I was an only child, so my friends were really my family. And I was really fortunate. That seems into your conversations about men. We do. It does. You've never said this to me, but I've inferred it from the way that you talk about young men and the need for young men for the solid friendships, the circle in which they evolve, etc so it makes sense yeah that's my practice it's not my prayer but every night before i go to sleep i call two friends and i rotate them but i don't text them but i i call and i have a live conversation with two friends every night and i've done that six of seven nights for the last 30 years wow uh and i rotate i go i go down um yeah so i was very fortunate very blessed around that but you know just pretty i was described my could you and your mom argue when you oh yeah i mean could you spark could you oh sure i mean i think i went through what i think a lot of young men go through that separating from the pack i kind of turned into an asshole when i was a teenager i was never mean to my mom but i wasn't as kind as i could have been but i moved back in with my mother i actually lived with my mom for a year when she was dying that made us very close you know we it was me and her against the world that that was very formative for me um but yeah we were I mean, other than that 17-year-old face where you're not very nice such that it makes it easier to leave home.

19:21I say now, nothing good happens because nothing really good feels cemented. Because anytime something good happened to me, I would call my mom. Literally anything. Oh, I met a nice woman at a coffee shop and I got her number. Oh, I just got my first bonus from Morgan Stanley. Like, anything good. And now, not there, right? So it doesn't feel like good stuff really happens. It's weird. It's like it doesn't really happen because she's not there to hear it. You can call me, Scott. There you go. I occasionally do. No, you do. It's so funny. I was just thinking you grew up with a single mom. I grew up very wealthy, I would say, which my brothers and I have tried to escape because we're very hard workers.

20:01We hated that, you know, the step up. You are a hard worker. But all my brothers are like that. We did not like the trappings of wealth at all and did not enjoy it. We didn't relish in it or become lazy because of it, which was interesting because it's easy not to think about money when you have money, but we really work hard. We really like work and earning things on our own. So that was interesting. But you're bringing it in a very necessary way in the economic realm. I'm also thinking simply when you describe dad wasn't there. There was no dad. There was grandma. Mom was somewhat present. I learned to fend for myself.

20:42I learned to just know I've got my own legs to stand on. I have to be self-reliant. Yeah, absolutely. But you probably called grandma when great things happened to you too. Yes. And so you have that combination between connection and self-reliance. We would talk every night, I would say, almost every night of my life, her life, for sure. Yeah, I know her phone. One of the few phone numbers I know was hers by heart, right? Of course, nobody remembers phone numbers anymore, but that's one I knew by heart, for sure. And then I listened to Scott describe calling mom, but also it's easier to be, what did you call a 17-year-old asshole when you actually have someone holding the fort?

21:25Yeah. And you can go, you know, and this relationship is solid and steady, so you can be bratty for a few years, you know? And I'm thinking that, I mean, I'm wondering to what extent does some of that also exist in your relationship? These formative experiences that you had, like being with a person, being with a woman with strong opinions, who holds things on her own, who works very hard. It's familiar to you. I'm your mother, Scott. Scott, I am your mother. I knew you would say this. But it's not I'm your mother, but it's more that you have learned to not be threatened. You have learned to enjoy, actually, even to welcome behaviors that in a different context are experienced.

22:13You know, I can imagine some people listening to the two of you and saying, what an amazing pair. They go at it and they like it, etc. And I can imagine other people listening to you or even working for you, for that matter, even on your team, who get tense when they see that tension and that animosity or that sparring come up because that for them was not at all something that said you're safe here you can fight but rather you're not safe here don't fight yeah my i mean i've never been in therapy but it's it's one thing that's very obvious about the relationships most important to me my key relationships are all very um my closest friends are either gay or very feminine i'm drawn to people who take care of me and i mean all of my best relationships are basically some version of homer simpson and marge and marge i'm the unwashed idiot frat bro and they're this caring decent person all of my closest friends are like gentle, nice, loving people.

23:23That's who I've always been drawn to. I have no idea if I'm trying to recreate the religion with my mother. And they're drawn to me because I think I provide a certain level of comfort and I don't know what it is, but every one of my close friendships is basically a very gentle, loving person and I'm the irreverent, aggressive, obnoxious one. Yeah, but I don't think you're as bad as you think you are. You know what I mean? I think there's - You play the part? Yeah, it is. It's a little cosplaying that's your idea of yourself. Often when people do come up to me, if they don't like something you said, I constantly say, Scott is an incredibly kind person.

24:02I think you have to, you know, and because he struggles with stuff, that should be a problem for you. Why? Because he's expressing struggling. And so once they start to think that way, They go, oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. No, I think you're not. You're a very generous and kind person with your time and your space. And I think you like being the bad boy, but you're not really bad. I know a lot of bad, bad people, and you're not one of them.

24:31One thing stands out for me in their interaction is that they have each other's back. They can argue, they banter, but they prop each other up. Cara says, I don't think you're as bad as you think you are. They hold a mirror to each other to see themselves in a more holistic way. So sometimes it's blunt, it's sometimes very honest, it's always caring. And it invites the other person to actually see themselves with greater honesty.

25:12We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why, in 2025, are late-night TV shows, like Jimmy Kimmel's show, still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, They're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times.

25:57This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable. For now, that's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Sometimes people present themselves as tough. Yeah. But for the purpose of covering what often is a very tender, gentle. I think you're talking about me. I am actually tough, but I also can be tender. It's okay to be tough. One time I was telling Scott, I was talking to someone who was in therapy every day of the week. You know, I guess when you do that, when you're in deep psychoanalysis, and I said, that's a lot of dice.

26:41And I don't think I have that many things to talk about about myself. And they said, you're blocking. That's right. Isn't that the word? They said, you're blocking. I said, well, it's working. Repressing, repressing. Yeah. I said, it's working. I'm very happy and you seem miserable. So I don't know what to tell you. And they're like, it's fake happy. I'm like, I don't think so. I think I actually am happy, but okay, sure. I have, I mean, we've met maybe three or four times that we have spoken together. I don't think of you as tough, but I do sometimes think you can be intimidating. Which Scott, who presents us tough, doesn't intimidate me at all.

27:18Paper tiger. You, however, do intimidate me sometimes. Really? Why? Because I'm not fully sure how you register me. So then I start to not really know. It's like, and with him, it's easier to see that under this carapace, there is something, you know, he has that smile and I, okay, got it, got it. But I don't know if, has nobody ever told you that you can be intimidated? I'm not as much of an open wound. That's absolutely true. I'm just not. It just isn't. Maybe I have a scar, but I certainly am not. You know, again, it's the moving on thing. It's like, can't be, I can always figure out a way to get out of it.

27:55And so that's, you know, I think about that a lot because how do people survive difficult crises, right? When, depending on what the crisis happens to be. Years ago, I did an Outward Bound, you know, there was a couple of them actually, and you go in the wilderness. And it's, I was very calm in crisis, like extraordinary. I was surprised how calm I was. I didn't panic. I got calmer and calmer as the situation got worse and worse. Right. Because sometimes in the face of threat, you can have fight, flight, freeze, or fix. Yeah, I think I'm the last one. The fix is the one that's often not added.

28:31So you become instrumental. You roll up your sleeve and you get to work. Right. And that's not necessarily a good thing because, you know, a lot of people, my wife thinks about things a lot, you know. And I'm always like, let's just move on. Like, just make a decision and go. Like, it's not going to get any better by mulling it. And I don't mull a lot. and perhaps I should, but I just don't have time for it. No, but how are you with those who do? I'm a little impatient, I would say. I think you end up in the same place. So it just seems like it's painful when people do that. The worry makes me think it'll take days off their lives.