What Does Masculinity Mean Today? (A Lost Boys Special)

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1:39Hey everyone, Scott Galloway here. Today on The Lost Boys, Anthony Scaramucci and I dig into a big question. What does it mean to be a man today? We explore how masculinity is evolving and what that means for relationships, families, and community. I share the principles I try to Levi and Anthony opens up about the values he learned from his father. Let's bust right into it.

2:06Welcome to Lost Boys, the podcast where my friend Professor Scott Galloway and I dig into the unique challenges young men are facing today and what we can do about it. In this episode, Scott and I talk about the changing definition of masculinity and how that impacts young men's lives, relationships, and families. You'll hear Scott's definition of what makes a man today and a story of the best thing I was ever forced to do. Here's my conversation with Scott Galloway. We're going to focus on what it means to be a man and how young men need to be engaged with their family and their community. And so for me, I'll just speak for myself briefly.

2:49I've always felt this. I've always felt three or four things about my life. Number one, charity starts at the home. Number two, I'm still connected to my roots. I am talking to you right now from a home that's two miles from where I grew up in the neighborhood that I was in. Many of my cousins have, you know, unfortunately, unfortunately, some of them have done very well. Some of them have not done well. But I have felt this commitment to my family to make sure that there's been tuitions paid or medical expenses taken care of or cars bought in an effort to stay in the game. I use this example, and I don't want to make this a political discussion, but I'll just say this to you, Scott.

3:32There are two families, and you tell me which family is going to do better. There's one family where it's a blue-collar family, and there's one kid in the family who's done very well, and they have made a decision to help out the other family members. And again, I'm not talking about buying Mercedes, but just making sure that there's cars available or medical care and things like that. The second group, they have one person that's done very well, but they charge admission. They charge admission to their swimming pool. Which family do you think from a holistic perspective is going to do better?

4:10And by the way, you can apply that to the world because the United States has got 4 % of the population, 26 % of the economic output. and we got to be very, very careful. This is a masculinity issue and it does spill over into politics, by the way, but we have to, we have to think about who we are as people and how we want to define ourselves inside of our families and our communities. What are your, what are your thoughts there? So I've struggled with trying to come up with a series of constructs that people can hold on to, to turn to around masculinity that doesn't in any way diminish femininity or doesn't in any way acknowledge the challenges that women still face.

4:50I'm struggling with it. I'm writing a book on it and I have not figured it out or how to thread that needle. But one construct I have come up with is that I see the concentric circles of masculinity. And that is the core circle is you got to take care of yourself. You got to be strong. You got to be mentally healthy. You got to surround yourself with people to make you feel good about yourselves. Every day you got to get up and say, I'm going to sleep well. I'm going to work out. I'm going to eat well such that I can be strong and I need to take care of myself. I need to be economically viable.

5:21Once you achieve that and you've taken care of the core, you got to fix your own oxygen mask first. You know, that's what they tell you on a plane. You can't, you can't save other people if you're not healthy, if you're not strong. That's the first thing you got to do. Once you achieve that, you go to your second circle and that is you really help take care of your immediate family. And I know a lot of men who are just so impressive on every exterior dimension. And I don't think of them as real men because they have a shitty relationship with their family and their kids and they don't take care of them.

5:50Now, Elon Musk just gave, we found out, had his 13th kid and the mother of that child is suing him for sole custody. And it came out that he has not seen or asked about the kid since the kid that was born, since the kid was born. That's the exact opposite of masculinity. You're, you're, you're circle outside. Once you can take care of yourself, and if you're worth$400 billion, you can take care of yourself, is you take care of your immediate family. Otherwise, you just fail every metric as far as I'm concerned. And that means a lot of forgiveness. Your siblings, your parents, your cousins, they're going to fuck up.

6:27They might be jealous. They might be nice people. They might be addicted to drugs. The definition of family is people you help and you otherwise wouldn't hang out with because they're family. and you take care of those people unconditionally. The next circle out is extended family in your community. The next circle out, I think, is trying to take care of citizens. And then the ultimate outer ring, the ultimate expression of masculinity is that you plant trees the shade of which you will never sit under. I think that's the ultimate expression of masculinity is you take a bullet for, you provide resources, you think long-term, you help people who are never, ever gonna even have the chance to say thank you.

7:04That is the goal. That is the brass ring. Because what that means is, and you can't skip any of the circles, you got strong. You took care of yours. You took care of anyone in your community or you helped out. And sometimes taking care of people is not helping out, letting them hit rock bottom, not enabling them, whatever it might be, tough love, whatever you want to call it. And then you start investing in your community and your country. That is the truest form of masculinity. And the way I describe you, Anthony, is you gave me a ride home and the driver is your cousin, right? Yeah, he's my second cousin, exactly.

7:40Your second cousin. So I bet my only family for the most part, it was my mom who passed away. My father wasn't very, I did not have a big family. So I didn't develop that intimacy or that familial obligation. I just, I never felt it until I had kids. I just didn't have a family, big family in the US. You're something out of one of those kind of sitcoms Because you're kind of my sense is you feel a very strong sense of obligation to that that second circle out that, all right, I took care of myself. I've made some money. Now I'm going to take care of my cousin. I think you were even telling me your cousin who was a clamor and hurt himself.

8:23And now he's your driver. Is that correct? Well, you have a really good memory. I'm so impressed. So my cousin hurt himself. And so he's frankly home. And I help subsidize his lifestyle because I don't want him to feel bad about himself. And I got to make sure his rent is paid and his family has enough food and housing and shelter. His son, who was clamming with him, is actually my driver. And so my 66-year-old cousin, who I grew up with, and I'll tell you this because you'll get it, because we were latchkey kids. And this is another weird thing about life, right? We've got all this helicopter parenting going on right now, but my mom and dad were exhausted, Scott.

9:06So they, you know, I was at the station diner, which was by the rail station at two o 'clock in the morning at age 11, eating pancakes with my cousin, Bobby, who's the one I'm referring to that has the two bad hips as a result of all the years of physical work. And so my attitude is we were there together as kids and our lives are separated through fate and luck and, you know, hard work and determination and all those other things. But it's a lot of things that happen in your life that are lucky. And I don't want to leave him or anybody behind. And I think it's important message about masculinity.

9:42It's not just what you have, but how can you make others feel that are in your environment? And I think, again, there's a political angle to this as well. You know, The neo-Victorians that ran America at the end of the Second World War understood this no police oblige that I'm referring to. And they were like, OK, we got to figure out a way to create rising living standards around the world. And if we can do this successfully, there'll be less violence and there'll be more comity. I, like you, I don't want to live in a barbed wire security compound in a McMansion while my fellow neighbors and or my family are struggling.

10:27I think it's very, very important to understand that. And as wicked of a person as Henry Ford was, he did say something brilliant about social engineering. He said, I want to make sure that these workers can afford the car or the product that they're manufacturing. And I got to make sure they're in a single family home with a good school system because I don't want them descending on my Dearborn, Michigan mansion with tiki torches and pitch forks. And I think that's being masculine. Do I have that wrong? Is masculinity more than just beating your chest? I think there's masculinity, Scott, and then I think there's hyper-masculinity, which is almost borderline evil, which is almost insincere.

11:17Yeah, this is a tough one. So there's another construct, and Richard Reese talked about this, is surplus value. And that is, and I say this to my boys, I'm like, you're negative value right now. What do you mean? I'm like, okay, think about the school you go to. All these teachers, all this money, all these textbooks, coaches, what are you doing for them? What do you mean? What are you doing for them? What are you doing for your English teacher? What are you doing for these people? All right, well, I should go to school. You're adding negative value. You leave every day your school with negative value.

11:52A ton of people investing in you, you're not giving back. You're adding negative value around the household. Your mom, your dad, we're investing so much in you. and quite frankly some people never get to surplus value i know a lot of adults that are a constant emotional and even a financial drain on their parents and their siblings at some point what i say to what i say to them is okay when you become a man it's not a it's not a religious ceremony it's not anything about getting a job or an age or birthday or getting to drink alcohol or have sex i think when you cross over into manhood is when you have on a net basis are adding surplus value.

12:33You're creating more jobs, you're creating more tax revenue than you're taxing our government, right? You're doing more to defend your country, you're investing more in your country than it has given you. You witness people's lives, you listen to more complaints than you complain. You solve more problems in people's lives than you create. And some people never get there. Some people, you pay more taxes, exponentially you pay more taxes than government services you have absorbed. I absorbed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer benefits going. I went to UCLA and Berkeley for seven years, total tuition$7 ,000.

13:17That must have cost them at least a few hundred thousand dollars. At the age of 27, I came out a quarter of a million dollars in debt, as I see it, to California taxpayers. And until I exponentially gave that money back and I did, Okay, the stock market, I did the math, the stock market is returned 11%. I figured I owed, I actually owed California taxpayers 30 years later. I owed them 11 million bucks and I gave it back because I wasn't adding surplus value. It's easy to say, well, I've created jobs, whatever. But you want to be the guy, the guy that is helping people out. I'm not saying be a martyr.

13:55I'm not saying engage in relationships or not getting something back. But I think this notion of surplus value, you are giving more than you're taking because through your life, you're going to have to take more, especially as a kid. And there's times when you need to take. There's times when you're like, okay, I'm struggling. I need other people's help. And part of being successful is knowing when to reach out and ask people for help and to accept it. I had, I went to this, one of these wine things and I'm not into wine. And the guy was super successful guy, runs like the biggest appliance company in Turkey, very wealthy guy.

14:27And he said, whatever I can do for you guys. And he goes, and also he said to me, he goes, and also I never ask a friend for anything. And I'm like, well, then you're not a real friend. Occasionally you got to ask people for help. Otherwise people just feel like they're your, you know, they're your beneficiary or whatever. But this notion, I really liked this idea of, of young men should be thinking at some point, my crossover to manhood, and it might not happen. I don't think it happened for me until I was in my thirties. I looked at every relationship as, am I getting more than I'm giving? If I'm not getting more than I'm giving, I break up with this person.

15:00I get divorced. I, I end this business partnership. And then you realize when you get older, you're like, you got it all wrong. The whole point is to add surplus value. You want to leave business relationships thinking, wow, that we got more from that guy than he got, right? That's the point. That means you win. So I like this notion of masculinity being kind of defined as surplus value. Now people will say, well, couldn't you argue that's about femininity too? And I think it's a fair point, but it's about, all right, really take stock your life. It's not a given that people are supposed to help you.

15:41The government is spending a shit ton of money to defend the shores, have roads, have someone answer the phone when you call 911 and then come send really talented people to try and revive you if you OD on something, right? You OD and you take government services, you fucking owe the government a lot of money. You have an obligation if and when you get better to start helping other people recover. And there's different ways to add surplus value. You can do it by being supportive. You can do it by being, you know, being a caregiver. You can also do it by giving away money. But I think at a fairly early age, I want my boys to start thinking about, you know, when am I going to get to this point of surplus value?

16:27Because, and I tell them every day, you are a long way away. Be clear. Look at all the investment. Our government, people you've never met, your teachers, your parents, your grandparents are investing in you. You are racking up a debt. You have a debt. And at some point, hopefully you'll pay it back and you'll pay so much of it back that you'll enjoy the pride and the masculinity of venturing into surplus value. But I like this construct, this meaning, almost like an accounting term, surplus value. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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18:40I did something as a youth that I did not want to do. My old boss, Jeff Boise, who is an amazing guy, head of investment banking at Goldman, brought me into his office. I was 27 years old. And he said, OK, you're now a student sponsor. I said, excuse me? He says, yeah, you're going to go up to the Bronx. You're going to find a kid and you're going to sponsor them. You're going to take a piece of your salary and you're going to pay for this kid's Catholic school education up in the Bronx. And I was like, I don't want to do that. First of all, I don't have the money. Secondly, I've got my own school debt and I actually don't want to do this.

19:22And he said, well, that's fine, but you're doing it. This is a direct order for me. And so I actually did it. And I'm not embarrassed to tell you I didn't want to do it. but I went up to the Bronx, met the 13-year-old boy, got him into the Monsignor Scanlon Catholic school. His public school education was a disaster, Scott. Could barely read or write. All right, so now I'm invested. I got him a tutor, and I sat with him on the weekends, and then I drove him around in my little Honda Civic, my 1987. This is 1992. This is my 1987 Honda Civic. And now I'm invested. Then I helped him find a foster dad.

20:03And then I helped him pay for his two-year SUNY Old Westbury associate's degree. And he's now in Hudson Yards working security with a wife and three kids. And he's got a real job and he's got a real life. And it's 32 years later and we're still very, very close. And it's one of the most meaningful, I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm just pointing out, it's one of the most meaningful things I've done in my life. And I learned more from him than I did. And I believe this, I learned more from him than he learned from me. And I'll tell you this, and my brother wouldn't mind me telling you this because we're very close and he is someone that got addicted to drugs and spends a lot of time in drug counseling, spends a lot of time sponsoring people.

20:56When my brother entered drug rehab for the first time, this young African-American kid was 16. He's now 46. It was 30 years ago. And he turned to me, oh, you white people, you white people have the same problems that we do here in this black community? And yes, the answer to that is yes. And so the point I'm making about masculinity, and I want to ask you this question, is vulnerability in masculinity, Scott? I believe it is. Well, you can't help others until you help yourself. And sometimes part of helping yourself is recognizing you need help and accepting help. There's a lot of resources out there.

21:39It's hard to build a big business without raising capital. and if you're not doing well, you gotta raise human capital. You gotta get other people's help. Otherwise, you're never gonna, much less take care of yourself, you're never gonna be in a position to take care of others. And what you reached at a much younger age than I did was that sense of surplus value and masculinity in the sense is you were helping out a kid when you didn't have a lot of money. I never helped anyone until I had a lot of money. Oh, by the way, I didn't want to, Scott. That was the whole point of the story. Yeah, but you did.

22:10I got pushed into it. Okay. I'm very grateful to Jeff. I always call Jeff and tell him, you know, you. You didn't refuse. You could have refused or you could have done a shitty job. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't do anything philanthropic. I don't think I, the only time I ever gave money away before the age of 40 was so I could go to some cool party and hang out with hot women because we were clinical. My favorite was when I first moved to New York, there was this thing called Save Venice. And it was a bunch of young people. And we get dressed up in this costume thing. and we had 500 or a thousand bucks.

22:39So supposedly we were saving Venice from the floods. Yeah, fuck us. Jesus, what a bunch of douchebags. But I wanted to, the only time I was ever philanthropic was to go to these events. And then some stuff happened to me and it just kind of dawned on me that all I have done is just been like, not a parasite, but I've just taken, taken, taken. And what you demonstrate or demonstrated is that if you think about going to the point where things come off the tracks for a boy, and we talked about this, I think, in the first episode, is when they lose a male role model or they have no male involvement in their lives.

23:16And here's the thing. People think that they have to be a baller, that they have to have their own kids, economically secure, have some money in the bank before they can help a young man. That is not true at all. It comes down to this. Are you a good person? Are you a good person? If you think I'm a good person, you can help out a young man. And it's not, you don't have to pay for their school. You don't have to have amazing advice, amazing life experience. You just have to be there and show a boy that you as a good person are interested and invested in their success, that you think they have value.

23:52That's it. If you can clear that bar, you can add a lot of value to a boy's life. And I think there are millions of men out there that maybe don't have their own relationships, don't have their own kids. and they think, well, I'm not a baller. I can't help a young man or I shouldn't get involved. No, nonsense. Are you trying to lead a good life? Are you a good person? Do you think you could show up and show a boy that he has worth just spending time with him? Then you are in a great, that is 90. Young men don't look up and think, oh my gosh, this guy, he's the head of M &A for a Bolts Bracket Investment Bank.

24:29They don't give a shit about that. They just want someone to take interest in their life and listen to them, maybe give them a ride, maybe take them to a ball game, maybe listen to them, whatever it might be, just kind of be there. And they will start, by virtue of you being there and showing up and taking an interest in their life, they're going to say, okay, this nice man who's leading a virtuous life thinks I have value. And if you do that enough times, the kid will start to believe it, that he has value. And this is the point of failure. The single point of failure is when a boy loses a male role model.