No Mercy / No Malice: Friending

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1:42I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. You are the average of your five closest friends. And in a country facing a loneliness epidemic, the math on friendship, especially among young men, looks bleak. The question isn't whether to add new friends, but how. Friending, as read by George Hahn.

2:08This year, I wrote a book called Notes on Being a Man. My publisher is billing it as a path forward for men and parents of boys. Sounds pretentious. It's also my life story, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Working on the book, I observed a pattern. My friends were, are, key to the trajectory of me. According to Pew, 61 % of U.S. adults say having close friends is extremely or very important for a fulfilling life. The shares of people who say the same about marriage, 23%, children, 26%, and making a lot of money, 25%, pale in comparison. And yet, American males have fewer friends than they used to.

3:02Three decades ago, 55 % of men reported having at least six close friends. More than enough for a pickup basketball game. Today, only 27 % of men can say the same. Worse, 15 % of men say they have zero friends, a five times increase since 1990. Read that sentence again. Nearly one in seven men today don't have a single person they can call to shoot hoops, grab a drink, or catch a movie. What happens to those men when the shit gets real? One horrifying data point, men account for three out of every four deaths of despair in America. Too many men are stuck, isolated, unproductive, and prone to obesity.

3:56They're addicted to drugs, gambling, porn, and whatever other substances provide a dopa hit with minimal friction. They are susceptible to misogyny, conspiracy theories, and radicalization. They make inadequate mates, employees, and citizens. Can we turn this around? Yes, we have to. That's why I wrote the book. Here's an excerpt about making friends. Friending The best thing anyone can do to improve their own success is make friends with people of high character who are ambitious. You are the average of your five closest friends. For the past three or four decades, my friends have mostly been men.

4:49For a long time earlier in life, women represented two things to me. They could either help make me rich or I could maybe sleep with them. Men could help me out professionally. This was the stupid, closed-minded, transactional, and sexist way I approached my life until well into my 40s. No longer. I've spent the past 10 years developing really strong friendships with women and am especially close with the women I work with. One female colleague has been with me 15 years, another 25. I love my male friends for reasons that have nothing to do with me getting ahead. Your goal at any age is to surround yourself with impressive, good, nice people.

5:38As you get older, though, the lanes in which you might feel comfortable, narrow. The idea of going on a mandate or investing in a new friendship feels more difficult. The older you get, the more you just want to hang out at home, see your partner and kids, pop a gummy, watch Netflix, and maintain links with the friends you have without putting effort into new ones. Socially engaged men face the decision of whether to cap the number of their friendships or not. My advice? Never shut down possibility. Get in the way of chance. I'm always on the lookout for new friends. As were the average of our five closest friends, wouldn't it make sense that I'd want to keep expanding and upgrading that friend group?

6:26The goal isn't to surround myself with doppelgangers. It's more about me learning, getting better, thinking differently. I find friends by pushing the limits, by not being afraid to put myself out there, by going beyond my comfort zone, like staying home and watching Netflix, by assuming other people are on the lookout for friends too. Example, George Hahn reads the audio version of my weekly newsletter. During COVID, he came out with a bunch of very funny viral videos. One day I sent him a tweet. Can we be friends? Sure, he wrote back. What are you doing now? Nothing, I said. Okay, said George.

7:06Let's grab coffee. An hour later, we were having brunch in Soho. Recently, the CIO of an investment firm texting me out of nowhere. I think we'd be great friends. Think of it as friendship cold calling. It takes courage and resilience. If others aren't interested, they're not interested. If they bite, you might find yourself having breakfast or lunch with someone great. These days in my quest for immortality, I've been getting PRP injections, platelet-rich plasma. The doctor draws my blood, spins it in a centrifuge, and re-injects it into my shoulders. It's supposed to relieve aches, pains, and stiffness.

7:50I've gone a few times and have gotten friendly with the doc, a young, good-looking guy in his mid-40s. Last visit, I asked him about himself. Was he single, married, partnered, gay, straight? Did he have kids? straight, single, and childless. He appreciated my offer to set him up. We began talking about raising boys. Turns out he's the team physician for the New York Rangers. He suggested we go to a hockey game. Would my sons be interested? A decade or two ago, I would have said no. Not his fault. I wouldn't have been confident enough. He was too impressive, and I would have been intimidated. It would have been too important to me to not admit I wanted him to like me and for us to become friends.

8:40This happens to a lot of young people in America. For various reasons, their self-esteem gets so battered from hitting roadblock after roadblock while watching others succeed that they give up, foreclose on taking any more risks, whether it's applying for a job or approaching a woman. Don't bother, they tell themselves. You're not worthy. You're not that guy. In my 30s and 40s, I went to every social event, found the most powerful people in the room, and became their friends or invited them to golf so I could get their business. And for reasons too exotic for me to comprehend, I was struggling with happiness?

9:19I said yes to the hockey game. The four of us had a great time. Note, you're the average of your five closest friends. Never shut down the opportunity to meet and learn from new people.

9:38Life is so rich.

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