Women Who Out-Earn Their Partners, Trump’s War on Science, and Managing Depression

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1:44Welcome to Office Hours with PropG. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at PropGmedia.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it on our next episode. What a thrill. First question. Our first question comes from Randy from Washington, D.C. They say. Hey, Stat. This is Randy Braun from Washington, D.C. You talk a lot about what happens when men make gops and gops of money and how that allows them to be a protector and a provider.

2:26But I want to get your perspective. What about women who make gobs and gobs of money? What's your take on that and how they function in their household or in our society? So to give you some context, I'm married to a fantastic man. We're both huge fans of the show. He has a great salary, a great job, a wonderful career. And a few years ago, I started my own business and it's been really successful to the point where there are some years where I out earn him now well into the six figures. It's something that works for us in our marriage. We're a team. We have three kids. I could literally only do the work that allows me to perform like that financially because he is such a supportive husband and father.

3:04But it just strikes me that it's something I haven't heard you talk a lot about. You know, as a boy mom, I love the content that you're putting out there for young men. But I also have a daughter and I'm curious what perspective you would offer her vis-a-vis income, earning and relationships. Thanks so much and give my love to Karen and Ed. Randy, a couple things. One, first off, thanks for the question. And second, congratulations. I think we celebrate success and we should. It sounds like you're doing great. And it sounds like you and your husband are a fantastic team. Everyone's different. That's the beautiful thing about human sexuality.

3:41I've always been really drawn to women who are, for lack of a better term, professional ballers. My first wife was the COO of several e-commerce companies, a CPA, MBA, just a super impressive professional. And my girlfriend in between my marriages was a doctor who was a surgical resident. That just turns me out. I'm just very drawn to women who have their act together and impressive professionally. That works for me. And then my current partner is very confident. Anyways, I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's sort of a must usually for women with men. Now, part of the reason that I think a lot of marriages are struggling or one of the things that's creating a problem in marriages is that, one, while women are ascending professionally and picking up more slack in that part of the relationship, and that is the economic viability of the household, a lot of men haven't picked up the slack domestically, emotionally, or logistically.

4:41And that is a lot of women are saying, okay, if I'm now making all the money and I'm still taking care of the kids in the household, then okay, boss, what the fuck are you bringing to the table? So the women's or women's ascent professionally has not been matched by men's ascent domestically. It doesn't sound as if that's a problem for you. It sounds as if you have a great partnership and you respect each other's viability. And it's not like your husband is home playing video games and hasn't worked in three years and you're off working your ass off and then coming home and getting food on the table.

5:15So what's not to love about your partnership and the way you're approaching it? I think when things a bit come off the tracks is when I think a man's self-esteem sometimes is more connected to in a healthy way, his economic viability. And when he is not doing well and not only attacks his self-esteem, but also if it's benchmarked against his wife is doing better, which obviously is key because he got to put food on the table, it can make him feel very insecure. And this is the crazy one. They become much more likely to get divorced when the woman starts making more money. Now, is that because the woman is not as attracted to her partner or because the partner, the male, gets insecure and quite frankly, becomes just more difficult to live with?

6:00I bet the answer is yes. I think you have to do a few things as a man. And one of the first things is take economic responsibility for your household. And I realize how sexist that sounds, but I think in a capitalist society, if you want to be successful as a man, and again, this isn't the way things should be, it's the way things are, you need to be economically viable. And sometimes economic viability and taking economic responsibility for your household as a man is getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who happens to be better at this whole money thing than you. And now that more women are graduating from college than men, you're just going to have more and more situations where the woman's background and credentials lend herself to greater economic opportunity.

6:46And it is your role as the dude to step up and either fill that gap and be more supportive around the household, root for that person. I think one of the keys to a healthy relationship is really advocating for your partner, really enjoying and appreciating and creating stages that strangers applaud for them. What can I tell you? There's some basic truths here, and that is the gender roles come out instinctively, and that is men are disproportionately evaluated on their economic well-being. And so you have to at least be aware of that, and the dude has to be aware of that and say, well, if I'm feeling insecure, that's natural, but I need to get over it in this age, and I need to lean into the importance of the partnership and economic viability in the household.

7:30Anyways, congratulations on what sounds like a great partnership. Question number two. Thanks, Prof. G. Prof. Kevin here from Gainesville, Florida. And over the last 23 years, I've worked in a leading department performing cutting-edge research in the public domain. And the projects are all competitively funded from NIH, NSF, USDA, other government funding agencies. And that's every test tube, every hour of tuition, you name it, all funded by public resources. And all of our data go into public domain. In that time, I've trained 130 undergraduates, 20 graduate students, many postdocs, and dozens of scientists from 18 different countries all came here because we were the place to go.

8:12And over the last 10 years, funding just hasn't grown at the cost of science. Now, NSF, NIH, and other agencies have been cut to the bone. So the question is this, how do we make national leadership understand that by cutting public science does not just hurt academic science, it destroys our standing in the world and cuts the pipeline of talent to America's technical workforce? Where are our future scientists going to come from? Our priorities are really screwed up. Thanks for the question, Kevin. What do we do about it? We elect new leaders. I just don't think there's any educating the current administration around university funding and what is arguably the most successful private-public partnership in the world is the relationship between government, university research, and then how that university research spills over into the private sector and creates shareholder value, which creates income and a great deal of prosperity and taxes and tax revenue and then the wheel spins.

9:17We're better at that than anyone in the world. Under Trump's budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year, U.S. federal government funding for basic research would fall by more than a third, or approximately 34 percent, from$45 billion to $30 billion, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I'm not balanced here. I think this is, I used to compare oftentimes my Trump to Hitler in his first term, and my dad would call me and say, okay, Scott, you're being alarmist. Hitler had his own private armies. Well, now Trump has his own private army, and that is someone that has been militarized, isn't really targeting people based on their behavior, but on their identity, is wearing masks and is there for theater, whether it's chemotherapy or diabetes drugs or weapons or LED panels or energy efficient technology, the spillover from research funded at universities has been arguably the greatest investment in history.

10:21And generally speaking, what I see is a common theme across the Trump administration, and that is, let's have a sugar high now. Let's party with champagne and cocaine and stop making the requisite long-term investments. I'm beginning to believe the government's job or the key theme that we lack right now on a kind of a basic or a couple of basic levels is one, the most effective governing doesn't get headlines, that anything that gets news probably isn't very good governance, and it's the hard, boring shit that moves the needle. This is yet another example of government refusing to do their job.

10:52What is their job? To think long-term and prevent a tragedy of the commons and do the boring, shitty work that doesn't get some in some lab somewhere, someone is getting funded to hire the most talented people in the world who are, by the way, PhD students. And they decide I'm the best and brightest. I come up through the ranks. I'm identified as a fucking genius and hardworking, maybe a little strange. The PhD students are a little strange, but strange in a good way. In some, we're in violent agreement here, boss. And there is no quick fix other than to find or elect leaders who recognize their job is to make long-term boring investments, that don't get press releases, that don't have Fox News and CNN running over here to talk about this, to avoid your trips to an island.

11:37But think about the hard work that doesn't pay off. What is the job of every elected politician to plant trees the shade of which they will not sit under? I appreciate the question. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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15:19Welcome back. On to our final question from Practical Zone 2476. There we go. I'm going to read the question here. Hello, Professor. You've been open about your struggles with depression, and I thank you for that. Is there any advice you can give people with similar issues about how to not let depression take away your ambition? how did you manage to be a high-performing depressed person while for many depression sucks away all of their ability to bring their ideas and dreams to life also can you share some thoughts as a parent about protecting your children from being negatively impacted when you're going through a phase of darkness thank you so much for sharing so i don't read these questions i don't see these questions before i read them and i'm a bit self-conscious here because I have no domain expertise in psychiatry.

16:03So the first thing I would say is it's really important if you're feeling down to try and discern between being depressed or sad and when you're really struggling and it's getting in the way of your life. And the first thing is speak to someone, whether it's someone who has struggled with depression, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a trained mental health professional. But I'm not going to be able to give you a series of things that say, this is how you snap out of depression, because I think what I feel sometimes, I think I'm more prone to anger and depression and sadness than most people, but I'm not sure I would ever be clinically diagnosed as depressed.

16:36I have never been on pharmaceuticals. And by the way, I don't in any way disparage or make a judgment on that. I'm not qualified to. I can only tell you what happens with me. And that is, I have a tendency to see the glass as half empty. I go to the negative. I have trouble forgiving people. I hold grudges. I get angry. I role-play. I imagine confrontations with people, not physical confrontations, but verbal confrontations. And I get angry and upset and small slights bother me. This is a really unattractive, huge flaw in me. And I recognize it. And more than anything, I have trouble forgiving myself.

17:17I say something stupid. I do something unkind. I make a bad investment. I make a stupid decision. I handle parenting the wrong way, which I do almost every fucking day. And I just get so upset and angry at myself. I have a difficult time forgiving myself. And that anger, that acid wears out my veins, my arteries, and I just go numb and get depressed for a few days and go very inward, go very introverted, get kind of listless and see everything very negatively. There's some basic things I do. I tell myself, one, if I'm embarrassed or angry at someone else, I just think, okay, my job, the best revenge I can have on anything that's gone wrong, if I'm angry at the world or angry at anybody else, is to have a fucking amazing life.

18:02Two, to be grateful and recognize that if I look at my life, my worst day is better than most people's best days. And also something I think is a little bit unique about my perspective is I am a rabid atheist and recognizing I'm going to be dead soon. And so is everyone else that I care about or care about what they think that they're going to be dead soon. Why would I not allow myself to be happy? Why wouldn't I forgive myself? Why wouldn't I just enjoy this given that we're all going to be, you know, in the ground sooner than we like? I find that actually quite liberating that why on earth would I be upset about this?

18:34It just doesn't fucking matter. Why would I care what they think? They're going to be dead soon. And so am I. Why would I be embarrassed or angry that I'm not more successful when no one's going to remember me anyways in 50 or 70 years? Why wouldn't I just enjoy my relationships, love people as much as I can, forgive myself, and appreciate all of my blessings? I do have, that's kind of my cognitive behavioral therapy, constantly checking my thoughts, saying, okay, stop it, stop it. You're incredibly blessed and fortunate. It's all going to be over soon. Show some empathy. You don't know what's going on with that person.

19:09Be kind to yourself. You've done well. You have good kids. You have great relationships. I try to check that shit at the door. An actual sort of practical means of trying to say, I can tell when I'm going dark. I start getting very quiet. I start not wanting to work out. I start seeing everything really negatively. I can sense, okay, I'm going dark. And then I have actual, not cognitive behavioral therapy, but behavioral therapy to try and set myself out of it. And I call it SCAFA. And it's the acronym for S-C-A-F-A. And I'll take you through each of them. The first is I try to sweat. Something about jet lag triggers a propensity for depression.

19:51I think the last time I had what I would call a scary episode of depression, I was at the top floor of this amazing hotel in Hong Kong called The Upper House. and I had gone to like Brazil for a client. I think it was, it was the client, Natura, this great beauty company. And then I flew all the way to Hong Kong to meet with, I think it was Lane Crawford, the department store there. And something about all of that jet lag just did something to my amangala or whatever, my hypothalamus or whatever part of your brain regulates emotion. And I was so fucking depressed. I just remember sitting there looking in the reflection of the window at this amazing hotel, just so upset thinking, how did I, what series of bad decisions led me to this situation where I'm not anywhere near someone who cares about me.

20:40If I died right now, no one would care. And my thoughts just started getting increasingly ugly. And I no joke, canceled my meetings, rushed to the airport and flew home to see my partner and kids because I I was just in such a weird place. I had never felt that down before. But anyways, a long-winded way of saying, when I travel, the first thing I try and do is I try and sweat. I find that sweating resets my system. So that's the first thing I do. C for clean, I try and eat clean. I try to make an effort to not have sugary or fattery or really buttery food and just eat, try and if I can eat at home and really purposely try.

21:22I do think that sugary, shitty food is not good for you. A is for abstinence, not an abstinence from sex, but an abstinence from alcohol and THC. I love alcohol. I love THC. I think I'm good at it. I think the vast majority of the time I'm able to weave those things into my life in an integrative fashion that enhances my life. But when I feel myself going dark, I just cut that shit out because I'm worried that I'm banging my sensors with the wrong thing and I'll end up going even further, even if it gives me some sort of temporary relief, it'll take me down even further. So abstinence. F is family.

21:56I find being around my kids and my partner really helps me. It helps ground me. One, because my kids, generally speaking, or kids can be so awful that it forces you to take yourself out of feeling sorry for yourself and focus on whether or not your kid is going to remember to put on his or her shoes before they go to school. But I find family very grounding. And then the A is for affection. I find human touch and weird things like I let the dogs on the couch and I'm not feeling well. I'll even say to my kids, I'm not feeling great. Can we watch some TV together? And they know I'm upset and they're sort of used to it and they say, sure.

22:30And I think my youngest who's more affectionate will just sort of naturally flop his legs on mine. I try to be, you know, I try to be affectionate with my partner. I find that that really helps me, that human touch helps. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. Apologies for the word salad, and thank you for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursofpropgmedia.com. Again, that's officehoursofpropgmedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

23:09This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our assistant producer is Laura Janair. True Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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