Talking to Strangers, Taking Risks & Making Millions - Scott Galloway

Scott Galloway welcome to the show Chris yours is the only podcast I will do except anyone who asks me anyone anyone I'm a [ __ ] let's be honest you're the [ __ ] of the podcasting world I am but I'm an expensive [ __ ] that's my thinking that's a high class hooker I think they're technically referred to as we all do things for money we don't want to do and I've always said I'm a [ __ ] but as I've gotten older and gained some currency I'm an expensive [ __ ] you know peaky blind is you seen that I do that guy that guy is uh Oppenheimer Killian Murphy yeah yeah yeah Kellan Murphy says uh he's turning to Grace that is this prostitute girl uh working in his bar and he says we're all [ __ ] Grace we just have different prices and we sell different parts of ourselves all of us do things I I'm I think prostitution should be legalized I've never understood why it isn't I think sex trafficking should absolutely be illegal and people should be put in prison uh and I think that's a perfect example of how when something is made illegal social media supposedly solves The Impossible in about 24 hours and I think we should make a lot of things illegal but I think people should be able to do what they want with their body and I think if you look at a lot of relationships it's kind of I don't know a couple it's the the Shades of Gray between that and prostitution are are are pretty difficult to to sus out God I'm sure this is a hate crime and we're going to get all sorts of [ __ ] well look you're from the left so I'm I think I'm safe I've got my leftist card fully front and center today I remember I heard you say that you think all young men should be required to watch the movie her and take a class on dating Dynamics why like I think that the ability to initiate contact with strangers go up to a friend and say hey do you want to go to a you know do you want to go golfing this weekend or do you want to hang out go to a football match this weekend I'm trying to encourage my boys to talk to strangers and I think the most rewarding relationship um in life is uh a romantic and potentially a sexual partnership that results in kids and a family I do think that that I didn't think it was going to be the most rewarding thing in my life and it ended up being the most rewarding thing in my life and the reason why I have such an outstanding partner is because I learned early how to endure rejection and how to initiate even be I'll use the word aggressive with strange people I would email people I didn't know and ask for a meeting at a venture capital firm I would uh when I was a senior in high school I wouldn't get invited to parties you know what I would do I would show up uninvited and it was embarrassing for about five minutes and then I went in and no one was going to kick me out and I had a great time I was always aggressive and I've always been aggressive professionally and personally and if you want to punch above your weight weight class get used to rejection and initiating conversation and of course and as you pointed out eloquently uh people claim that somehow this is a bad thing and then every survey shows that women want men in most cases to initiate the contact and express the interest so I think to teach a young man to go up to force himself when I used to walk into a bar when I was a young man I said within 15 seconds of my dad taught me this you need to start talking to a strange woman within 15 seconds of walking into a bar if you're there your friends a woman that's a stranger or specifically find a strange woman an unusual woman who just seems very very strange and weird no you walk into a bar if you're in a strange setting social setting you walk into a party any room go up immediately to a stranger doesn't necessarily have to be a strange woman and start talking to them and I think those skills and that confidence and quite frankly that ability to reject or endure rejection are a key component of professional success the difference between people who make good money at work and people who make outrageous money it's only one thing their willingness to endure rejection because that is a key component of selling and selling is the difference between being the CFO the COO and the CEO and you might decide I'm just not up for that but the reason why the most overcompensated people in every organization relative to their talent are all one person one title and that's salesperson is they are willing to endure rejection and if you want to be overcompensated or you want to romantically punch above your weight class then get used to rejection and if I'm trying to give my boys anything it's the ability to endure rejection it's the same for friends so many of the people that I've connected with as friends have come about from me not caring about sending a DM this is why here's my hot take of the week everybody should become a club promoter for at least two months at some point in their life because if you've given out wristbands on the street for some dead ass bar club to try and get people in hey guys where are you going tonight I know that you're going to the club that's really busy and you know the name of and is highly reliable for a good night but how about you come to this one that you've never heard of before down a dark alley like the uh online lack of rejection or lack of fear of rejection that you go through from just sending DMS so many of the good things that have happened in my life have come about due to random DMS and the same goes from friends too so many of my best friends we met via the Internet and they said dude I love this thing that you do while we met at this place and then you have a bit of residence online you turn into real world friends and these are now some of my best friends so it's business it's relationships it's friendships it's money it's adventures and opportunities yeah 100% And and unfortunately you start to lose that as you get older because your ego grows when I was young and I was hungrier for money I used to just constantly ping strangers send out emails send out proposals this is how I can help your firm or my friend knows you could we grab coffee I was really aggressive and now that I've gotten older and had some success I've lost some of my my ego's grown and I'm like I'm not going to reach out to them but what you said about friends um with some people who are quote unquote I reached out to the I don't think there's anything wrong with this I re I somehow got introduced to the owner of Chelsea and um it was a big my my son is a huge Chelsea fan and it's been such a difficult season for him I mean it's just been so hard on and last night the whole household was on eggshells cuz you know they went up 21 and he's like we're going to blow it again and you see this 13-year-old pacing back and forth in front of the TV and we're just freaked out that they're going to that you know Tottenham which is the better Club this year and they won and he jumped up and down and he was so like literally dropped to his knees was so happy and I put it on video and I text messaged it to this guy who I introduced I don't know that well the owner of Chelsea and he texted me back right away and a like and we should get together and it's like I I I'm not sure my whole life I would have had that confidence and what you realize is that people of any stature or standing it might mean more to people and you should probably make an effort to be more generous to people who don't have that sort of status or power but what you realize is everybody wants friendship everyone wants to be congratulated I mean I got to think that I was thinking about to there for a billionaire he has taken so much [ __ ] this year he I don't think he can go to Chelsea games because it gets such grief I mean CME me a river but it is never it is never um I I don't think you can be too kind of I don't know wanting or Reckless with compliments or reaching out to people now what what you went what you talked about teaching mating Dynamics I think a huge gift for young men that they need is how to express interest in Friendship interest in potential romantic interests without while making that person feel safe and and what what a lot of young men I've been taught and you've talked a lot about this is that expressing that sort of Interest automatically deems you a preditor or that something wrong and that's just not true and even in in work situations you have to be more thoughtful about it you have to tread more lightly but one or three relationships begin at Work men have been T told any expression of romantic interest in work could get you a trip to HR and potentially out of the company that any man potentially who expresses sexual interest or romantic interest to a stranger is a creep and none of those are true none of those are true and if you talk to most couples what you find who have been together 20 and 30 years is that at the beginning of the relationship one of them usually the man was more interested than the other and it took a certain amount of elegant persistence to convince that person and that they should go out with them and then demonstrate Excellence demonstrate kindness gener demonstrate generosity and and I worry that young men aren't getting an opportunity to participate in what is the most rewarding thing in life in my view and that's develop a family and kids because they're not being taught how to endure rejection or how to approach people in a random environment uh uh while making the other person feel safe yeah I think women also could do with being taught that the old world they maybe T learned from their mothers and older sisters from the '90s and the ughs about you know treat him like you don't like him and like you're not interested and why men love [ __ ] you know there was this entire genre of books that came about that was um create additional mate value in yourself by extending the Chase and making him work a little bit harder but in a post me too World anything close to a no by most men apart from the predatory ones which it's not going to stop in any case anything that verges on a know is a [ __ ] no get away from me anything shy of an absolute yes and complete openness and receptiveness to a guy is that and I I do wonder whether I don't know there's like a reticence that both guys and girls have got now of reaching out to people and it's so 100% it's so averse to the way that again I was a club promoter the only way that we filled the events for 15 years was by being the person that would continue to send annoying DMS over and over again until someone actually decided to come out so my threshold for messaging someone is so much lower that it is for pretty much anyone else and you hit the nail on the head with that thing with the Chelsea owner no one on the planet is upset and not going to reply to a cool cute video of a 13-year-old boy celebrating that his favorite sports team just won like that's like that's a universally unobjectionable content to send to someone yeah and and even at this age I'm worried that like oh I don't want to be perceived as harassing someone who's more important than me but it's um I do get in my podcast office hours I have had an increasing number of women dial in and ask for dating advice and the dating advice I give them is look you shouldn't lower your standards but but try a second coffee to see if in fact this person does start to slowly meet your standards because women naturally have a much finer filter and unless you know there's just data a lot of times people weren't interested in the person at first and then they got to know them they found out they were kind they found out they were funny they found out there's something about their smell that they liked they got you know they became attached to them they love spending time with them and the problem in an online dating format is it's sort of like you know I make a snap decision and it's over and that's it they're off they're you know that's it it's over so what I tell men is create more initial opportunities and for women my advice is like if there's nothing there a and you really just know you're not into this person fine but if you walk in and say it's got to be someone at least 6 feet who makes at least six figures just recognize that's 6% of the population and that you may you may not find the same volume of potential mates you may be fishing in a pool that's not a pool it's it's a tiny puddle and see what see if there's other ways you know other things develop give give a second coffee a chance um but it's it it I think it's really disappointing because I think not only are men struggling and without women are lonely but they do a much better job of maintaining relationships without a romantic relationship they're just better at maintaining life and love and professional SE success when a young man doesn't have the prospect of a romantic and sexual relationship he doesn't he doesn't shower he doesn't work as hard as he should he doesn't save money for a house he drinks too much he gets hide too much and I'm making huge generalizations here but the data Bears this out this stuff is so important and so we need more thirds bases Parks recre recreational leagues um more educational opportunities more church I dare say more religious institutions more Parks you know the barber shop more random opportunities more nonprofits I'd like to see national service compulsory national service for everyone that gives people a chance to fall in love I'm an investor in a bunch of Israeli companies I can't get over how many co-founders and husbands and wives met in the military because they had an opportunity to demonstrate Excellence uh to each other in in in the pursuit of something bigger than each of them yeah the co-ed the co-ed spaces where people can be competent and they can show that they have a degree of excellence and ambition like competence is sexy right it doesn't matter whether you're a guy or a girl and what you're looking for someone that is competent at doing a thing like wow that's cool that's hot well this is this is the this is what we don't talk about or doesn't get a lot of press at academic institutions there is a preponderance of people on The Faculty who are married to one another and typically typically oftentimes it was a professor and his or her pH student uh student or they they knew each other and they were on the faculty together there's a lot of inter office romance why because if you're the premier thought leader in gap 2 Accounting you may not be great in a bar setting but you're opportunity to demonstrate Excellence to people who find this stuff interesting makes you attractive you're a Chad to someone who lives on Excel there you go you're and an Excel chat and 99% of these relationships were consensual and really positive things even when they didn't work out so I I I I'm all about and you know this is probably setting myself up for disaster and my companies I always allocated a lot of money for uh social stuff I want them to meet each other I want them to be friends and something I celebrate is when they get married I've had I've been to six weddings of people who've met at my companies and what I tell the senior level men and the senior level women is if you're above a certain seniority in the company your fly is up and locked the power asymetry here is just too great The the opportunity for abuse is just too great it's awesome to be a senior level executive in a company it means money it means status you have other opportunities off campus so if something happens here you're just at fault let's just say that right here but other than that the the company policy is the following use your common sense so when I was running my nightlife business one of the the way that it was structured was a couple of owners at the top couple of senior managers above us block of maybe about about 10 to 15 uh junior managers and then a ton of guest listers below them so each manager had a team of around about 30 people something like that and each of these people it was their job to bring people to the nightclub got a event going on on Thursday or Friday or whatever and they made a commission and then the managers made a commission on the commission and so on and so forth kind of like a sales like typical sales setup right y but as you were talking about that power a symmetry there we're talking about 18 usually 18 to 20 year olds some times like 18 to 22 year olds and it's young guys who are living away from home for the first time ever they're the ones that choose who gets to dance and hostess at the nightclub they're the ones that choose who gets the preference on shifts they're the ones who gets to choose who goes into VIP and all the rest of it so there's power there even though everyone was 18 19 20 there was a power differential and me and my business partner finded the boys if we found out that they'd had sex with one of our staff and it was £10 for the first time it happened 20 for the second time it happened £40 £80 and then 100 100 100 100 100 we find them and we told them we were like look if you do this you are putting both your own money and the company at risk there is a risk that's associated with this there are five other events companies with just as many hot girls who love partying just as much as you guys do go and decimate them from the inside go and cause all manner of strife because without a doubt there was a 50% chance that if the manager one of the managers had sex with one of the staff that worked for us within a couple of months they'd leave like that was an amazing member of Staff like that was a really great guest Lister or that was a really great hostess or she worked really well on the till or did whatever and she's gone now because you've broken her heart or then the manager he loses his head because she's now talking to one of the other managers and then it causes internal strife between the guys so we we disincentivized it financially and the boys just accepted it as part of the course uh so yeah I think power I'm I'm just shocked that 20 PBS would be would actually make someone think twice about having sex you'd be surprised when you're when you're in the northeast of the UK 20 pounds goes an awful long way long way that what I've tell what what I've always said and I've I mean it sounds like basic training but I think the first thing you tell especially a man in a corporate setting especially a young man is that instinctively men will mistake kindness for sexual interest and women will mistake sexual interest for kindness and just be cognizant of the fact that because a woman is nice to you does not mean she has any romantic or sexual interest in you and in a corporate setting you need to be very careful because correctly or incorrectly if there's a problem the most likely HR and the powers of be in society and Twitter are going to find the man culpable and and that's probably right because the man is usually the person who initiates and men get it wrong more often than women they just get it wrong so I mean but once you're cognizant of this power Dynamic once you are if you tread lightly and you ask someone out to Coffee which isn't that threatening yeah okay use your judgment you're all grown-ups you're all grown-ups there was a I go to a gym in Austin that is super cool and all of the guys and girls that go there are in like crazy shape and the Machines fantastic and the culture and the atmosphere is amazing and they put a reel out a few months ago and it was um advice for a guy um the sort of guy approaches the camera and is like I'm going to show you how you should approach girls in the gym uh and then it turns around the camera turns around and there's a group of six girls all stood in the line looking very hay and they go just don't flick their hair and walk off and I was like oh am I [ __ ] high here like what is it this is the exact opposite of what we need like just don't like just don't approach like girls in the gym hang on a second if you go to the gym especially a gym like that one which is very specialized and you know it's selected for a very like specific type of person how many other places are there where you're going to find someone who has that particular Niche obsession with Fitness and the gym to me seems like the perfect place to approach people yeah it's so I'm with two minds about this I think that I think some women get approached so much and just want to go to a gym where they just want to work out that I think they can send signals by just putting on headphones right um what I would tell my boys is if you're on a treadmill next to somebody and you want to try and strike up a conversation do it and you might find you might sense right away that they're just not interested they're there to work out they are not looking to meet anybody and guess what you're both going to be fine and what you don't want to do is sit around and stare at at somebody and make them uncomfortable I think that's even worse so pick up on visual cues and if you on the way out you know run into them and start a conversation with them great and you'll hopefully be able to figure out pretty quickly if they're if they return your interest um but don't you know look this is this is what it means to be an adult and hopefully you have good role models and there's some trial and err here and that is you You' said this the difference between a creep a story a story that's a romantic comedy that's told 40 hours years later as in this great soft Lighting in someone who's a creep is the perceived attractiveness of the person who initiates the contact and the problem is the person and you said this who initiates the contact doesn't know how you're going to attractive you're going to perceive them and what I what I do respect and I've seen this with women when I'm out with my young friends and they approach someone someone and she's clearly not interested most women are kind most women will be thoughtful and polite and and they have to develop their own skills around how to wave off um um interests that they're not interested in in a polite and dignified way because most women I find are kind and also when I've been out with guys and a woman uh I have seen more of this recently women now approach men of bars I never that never happened to me when I was younger or maybe it was just me but I've been without a couple of my younger buddies at work and women will actually come up and start talking I've never seen that before I think it's wonderful and I just think as a guy just in terms of karma you are always down to hang out be nice buy drinks to any woman who comes up to you because my brother for the universe you want to encourage that type of behavior you want to encourage it there's not enough 100% 100% but the skills show me a guy who's good in a random situation at a party or is good meeting strangers either strange men he's sexually interested in or strange women he's sexually interested in I'm going tell you guy's going to probably make more money than he deserves because that ability to open that ability to initiate a relationship is kind of that's half the battle in a corporate setting what else would be on your syllabus for teaching young men what they should focus on in life and prioritize well you did this early but I think Fitness just for mental health um uh getting used to working out early my dad was in the Royal Navy and he started me working out when I was like I don't know 13 and it just sort of stuck with me like I didn't do it a lot till I was 17 or 18 but it just sort of was ingrained in me um I think having a plan even if that plan changes always just sort of having a plan always be able to say if someone asks you what are you what are you thinking you're going to do the next five or 10 years you don't have to stick to it but oh I'm planning to go to college and then I'm going to get a degree you know when I was 17 I thought I was going to be a pediatrician and chemistry disabuse me of that notion um but always have sort of a plan that you can articulate to somebody um I would say uh try and um and this is something I didn't want to do be more in touch with your emotions and that is be more honest with people tell them when you're upset reach out to people ask for help when a woman upsets you uh or a friend upsets you you know it bummed me out that you didn't call me back or you were not nice to me in front of the guys and I don't understand why I I mean there's a certain amount of that pecking order and socialization you need to endure growing up but I wasn't in touch with my emotions I didn't tell my mom I loved her until I was much older and I wish I'd said that more often I wish that I had told women and romantic Partners when my feelings were hurt or how I truly felt about them I was one of those guys that would was never wanted to appear weak or vulnerable so I would never share my emotions and I think that screwed up a lot of uh relationships or diminish them so be much more in touch with your emotions be much more willing to express your emotions why what's on the what's on the other side what's the positive on the other side of doing that well there's opportunities to have friendships and relationships sometimes sometimes people are waiting for you to say I'm really bummed out that maybe you don't want to be my friend or that you don't like me as much as I like you and not only that there's so few people who are willing to say that at a young age it it demonstrates confidence and I think people find that really attractive I mean and if they don't that's the wrong kind of person also you go into this this kind of fun house of your emotions in a reality where you don't know what's important to you you start convincing yourself you don't care you don't mind and you never really get informed my attitude is when a movie really moves you um ask yourself why am I inspired by this and then because that'll help help inform what interests you when something really upsets you really lean into the upset and ask why is it upsetting me so much and otherwise you're just sort of walking around with blinders on you don't know really what's important to you you don't know who you want to spend time with so to not lean into your emotions and register them when you give up a lot because you're going to find out later in life oh yeah no I liked you too or no I would have been friends with you or yeah we were interested in hiring you but you didn't follow up you weren't persistent whatever it might be right uh you should have applied a second time you should have applied to University the second time whatever it might have been right and also you just miss on the opportunity to feel closer to people and and have some sense of what's important to you what inspires you what makes you sad where you know I don't think I ever told someone until I was well into my 30s that something they did upset me I had this notion that I'm me big strong man I don't get upset at things I you know everything deflects off of me I don't care yeah I'm a I've started working with a therapist over the last few months here in Austin who worked with a friend that's way more way more [ __ ] up than I'll ever be so I figured look if she can see through his [ __ ] she can definitely deal with mine and uh there's layers to this you realize you know just even talking about your emotions or being prepared to say them isn't quite the same as actually feeling them feeling them fully you know having your emotions and your mind rest where your feet are and uh there's layers and layers to this that I've realized especially maybe people that listen to podcasts like mine or yours who are interested in Psychology and human nature and can rationalize or explain away what they're feeling oh that's the negativity bias or that's the abalene Paradox so that's you know I understand that this is because of my it's the B bystander effect or some of the [ __ ] right like they they've got some mental model that allows them to explain what's going on inside of yeah James Clear talks about something similar and whatever whatever and I realized that for a good chunk of people way more than might like to admit it that's a protection mechanism their ability to rationalize and explain away what's happening inside of their minds gives them an excuse to not have to feel their feelings fully I thought of you this last week and did you see what happened with Caleb Williams the quarterback for USC no so this kid is probably gonna I think he's probably gonna be the highman trophy winner and is probably going to go number one in the draft and he's playing against Wasing Washington and he blows it and they're going to lose the guy breaks down and begins sobbing and immediately runs over to the stands and jumps up and Embraces his mother and his mother puts this notebook over his helmet so that the crowd can't see him crying and his father comes over and consoles him and I thought oh my God this kid doesn't even realize he has moved masculinity so far forward and the the ability to give into that sort of emotion and do it publicly you know so much of this [ __ ] up sense of what it means to be a man is around bearing your emotions and when you look at suicide rates uh and how they're now it used to be 3 to1 male to female and it's approaching four to one one of the key components of that is men do never learn how to express their are struggling and because they're taught from a very early age that real men don't express that sort of upset so when you see this guy who's probably the premier quarterback in college football this really like big handsome ridiculously strong guy in front of national TV jump up into his mother's arms I mean it sends such a good signal to young men that it's okay to be emotional it's okay to be disappointed I also think that's such a gift to I mean you're not a parent yet you really as a parent all you really want you want two things you want your kids to be happy and successful but you also want to comfort them like any chance you would get as a parent to comfort your child it's just so rewarding it's like okay I have purpose and I remember seeing that literally the whole nation saw that moment and I thought that kid unknowingly just moved masculinity forward and just reduced the likelihood or increased the likelihood that a young man is going to have an easier time expressing to a family member a non-family member I am really upset and that is key to solving that is key to getting out of a really really dark place and I thought oh my God it's such a moving moment so anyways Google uh Caleb Williams and you'll see the video it's really it's very raw it's very very moving and I was just I thought it was oh God I I I think this kid doesn't realize uh what a of Ro model is I love that story that's awesome uh I a lot of people on the internet especially guys will talk about uh not showing vulnerability in front of a female partner because it's going to lower her perception of you and you know but the absolutely are women out there who will see vulnerability as a weakness now I think if your female partner is unable to see you show bear your emotions without thinking that you're less of a man I think that's a sufficient red flag in the relationship to be good that you're getting out of it in any case but when I talked about this a little bit recently guys took it one step further and when I said Okay so let's say that you have a concern about showing emotions to your partner what about showing emotions to your friends and there were a whole bunch of people in the comments that were like no no no no like even doing that even doing that is too far and you go oh okay this is just your way of rationalizing and coping with not wanting to show your feelings this isn't to do with you can say it's because of the outcome the negative outcome that you're going to get in some relationship and she's going to leave you for Chad who's actually a stoic Giga like Giga turbo like Andrew Tate but no it's not it's just that you don't want to feel your feelings I had Chris Bumstead on the show who just won his fifth Mr Olympia phys classic physique title this weekend and I think he if he doesn't cry on stage he's kind of welling up as his you know fifth time that he wins you know the hottest man on the planet award like the most jacked Greek god man on the planet award uh and he told me the story about when he he broke down and cried in his girlfriend's arms six weeks before one of his Olympia competitions and he told me that because that's actually what happened and that's how he felt and you're talking about the most hyper masculine looking lifting heavy weights sweating doing the full thing like he's the he's the sigma male meme and yet for him he was fine to do it so yeah I think a lot of what the modern culture of masculinity is doing is kind of repurposing the male denial of emotions into some more rationalized approach of oh yeah but you don't want your friends to see you weak because then they're going to they're going to move on and find a different friend or oh yeah you don't want your girlfriend or your wife to see you we CU she's going to leave you and sleep with the guy next door it's like all right well so you're just never going feel your emotions at all that doesn't seem very adaptive that doesn't seem like a very good solution so I think a lot about this because from the age of 29 to 44 I didn't cry I forgot how to cry like if someone said in the next week you got to you got to cry once or if you cry once you're going to get a million dollars I would have to have I would have to learn to do it again I forgot how to cry I didn't cry when my mother died I didn't cry when I got divorced didn't cry when my businesses failed just forgot how to cry and now I probably well up and downright cry once to twice a week and it's a real gift to me and I I have noticed though I have registered different responses from different parties I cry on my podcast if I get if I start talk if I get a question from a listener and I start talking about it and I get upset I will I will get emotional and I find that people really respond well because it helps them puts them in touch with their emotions that yeah I was really upset when I had to put my dog down I get I get tremendous positive support from strangers whenever I'm I'm emotional amongst my friends we all especially at this age when one of us isn't doing well and shares I mean men are just so good at sharing like just how [ __ ] awesome they are all the time oh yeah I just made a million dollars on this trade I'm selling my company or and we put up this Instagram facade this Instagram meets Arnold Schwarzenegger meets you know David Beckham facade to each other or meets Carl icon whatever the and then when you really get behind it and you find out I'm really struggling um you know I'm I'm my Dad's sick and I just had my business is not doing well and I'm worried about money or I have a friend whose child just had a real mental health breakdown and what I find though is when especially as men get older they are really I find really supportive and receptive to one another as I think women are incredibly receptive to each other's emotions and vulnerabilities um across uh your parents your parents want to comfort you it's a feature not a bug for them they they want to comfort you um I've had mixed reactions from my romantic partners and that is and maybe I've chosen the wrong women I don't know but oftentimes I feel like when I have expressed vulnerability and emotion and weakness that they don't like it and are less attracted to me uh that they feel like I'm not going to be as as viable or as robust a protector and provider when I am depressed and down and that if I talk about it there's some lip service to how are you doing but at the end of the day they don't have at least and this might be my flaw they don't have a lot of patience for weak men yeah and I sense this is weakness yeah I wonder how much of that is a selection effect for the kind of women that you're going for the kind of uh let me give you one of my spiciest new ideas I've got this idea of surplus mate value which is when you have a relationship in which there is a disparity in mate value between the man and the woman you can basically look at that disparity kind of like a bank account that you can withdraw from uh so for one of a better word the man can mistreat the woman like not reply to texts or come home late or you know like break promises or do whatever and the girl will stick about because there is this disparity now a girl that's healthy with a good sense of self-esteem may not do that regardless of how much disparity and mate value there is but as a good example Chris Bumstead this dude his wife's like a 10 she's a fitness model and super smart and like was a doctor and stuff as well but he's like number one in the world like it's Fu it's impossible to be like as have as high mate value as he does so one of the things that actually came out of the comments was well of course Chris Bumstead can cry in his girlfriend's arms look at who he is he's like the hottest thing on the planet like of course he can do that Brad Pit of course he can cry in his girlfriend's arms he's Brad Pit so this idea of surplus mate value I think is interesting but another one is if you are going after girls and women who are looking for that hardcore protector provider and you then start to crack that facade a little bit or crack the uh yeah maybe they are going to respond to that in a in a slightly interesting way I just it's what I've seen I look at um you know my dad I I just like at the moment my dad lost his job and he kind of deserved this because he was never really engaged or showed up for his marriages but um I generally found I'm choosing my words carefully because this sounds really judgmental I generally found and maybe it was the kind my dad's been married and divorced four times but the moment my dad stopped being a great provider the the the the women were out and I think it's because they were like you said they were getting so little on every other dimension that if he wasn't at least going to be at a minimum a bare minimum be a good provider like when he got fired and when he was 52 and couldn't get another job within six months she was gone Y and and quite frankly he kind of had it coming because what you're basically saying is you got to bring something to the table right and but it's still I think we have a tendency to sort of what's the term bager Vance to assume that all men are naturally have a predisposition top being the bad guy and all women are these incredibly High character good people and the reality is and I think there statistics that show this on a Balan scorecard that there's mostly most women are really good people most men are really good people uh but it's not like it's not like me women aren't you know don't have their own needs and have a scorecard out in terms of when they exit a relationship and unfortunately Society has stigmatized mental health to the point that there's so little of it still I think it's been destigmatized across every demographic except straight men I think if straight men Express uh a certain level of mental health vulnerability they're not going to be CEO of this company I mean I just I've seen it I've been on boards um a male CEO who takes a break and if he were to say I'm I'm I'm struggling with my mental health that guy's not GNA be CEO and maybe that's wrong it's the male equivalent of being uh early 30s engaged and as yet childless as a woman when you're going for the job interview and the boss is like I mean she's going to be she's going to be here for 18 months and then she's going to be full of children yeah we're going to lose her yeah there's I mean everyone has to deal you're right everyone has to deal with their stereotypes in the workplace and how it sets them back but again it just results in um I don't know results in bad behaviors that makes it I mean I there's definitely something around all right and I don't know if we should be teaching it at schools but we're getting to the point now where where you know mental health is becoming such a big issue for men as it relates to suicide side I mean what we're finding is essentially is that while men are physically stronger women are emotionally and mentally stronger I mean that's if you were to distill it down and so I think um I don't want to call it additional Focus but at least more focus on men's mental health is so critical to a healthy Society there's this really moving ad on Mental Health in the UK where it's two guys two friends they look like in their 50s or 60s and it shows them at different football matches and one guy is really enthusiastic and happy all the time and the other guy's just much more sedate and kind of calm and a little you know a little kind of I don't know just sort of melancholy and then it shows up and it says it says you know mental health or struggles uh aren't always what they appear to be and then it shows a game where the guy one guy shows up and puts his friend's cap down in a seat and it's clear you know his friends gone and it was the guy who was really effusive and happy MH and the whole point is is unless you're willing to open up about what's really going on with you and unless you invite your friends to open up about what's really going on with them you just don't know and they might be the guy rooting and that seems really happy you don't know and so I don't I don't know the approach I don't know the mechanisms but this every year the ratio of people committing suicide goes up for men it's now it's now going to AFF to one I got this from Rob Henderson's uh blog among 15 to 24 year olds 80% of the suicides are male a boy who is sexually molested and a girl who is sexually molested uh later in life and by the way they're both equally heinous crimes no no no one is a lesser crime against humanity the boy is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in life and again that's not in any way to say one crime is is less hideous than the other but we're just finding out we never thought this boys are just emotionally and mentally weaker I heard you say a really interesting take which was the overcompensation and the kind of extreme aversion that every single person has to pedophilia to an older man spending time with younger boy that isn't his son or some member of his family has created a massive dir of role models of men that will take young boys under their wing you know even now for me as a guy who's got a an audience of you know many of whom are in their teenage years and stuff like that even if I was to think about like [ __ ] even sending a message to somebody like that there's something in me that I It triggers almost like an allergic response that I'm so a ver to that that Dynamic has been given such a very particular type of brand which is older men younger boys should not be interacting really unless you're the caregiver because so many of the stories that reach the Press are about people that have taken advantage of young boys in that way has left an awful lot of potentially super valuable caring nurturing relationships just left by the wayside and when I heard you say that I thought I thought it was a very interesting idea I think this is a huge problem because we know we can diagnose when the single point of failure for when men come off the rails and that is they lose a male role model and I was talking to um uh Rick Wilson the political strategist of the Lincoln project and he got a motion I was on his podcast um the enemies list and he talked about his father was was in a terrible car accident and was in a coma for 2 years and his father's business partners neighbors all these men stepped in taught him how to fly took him to games and he said it kind of dis saved me kind of kept me on track and so when you're dealing with a society where we have the second most single parent family homes and when we say single parent family homes we mean a household led by a mother you know you know the same data the girls have the same outcomes College depression you know same income boys have dramatically worse outcomes when they lose a male role model so the question is all right we could fill that void with other men that aren't necessarily biologically related related to the boy but here's the problem people suspect any man that wants to be involved in a younger man's life I mean the Catholic church and Michael Jackson have [ __ ] it up for all of us when I was on Bill Mah I said if we if we want better men we need to be better men we need to get involved we need to to seek out and find boys and young men who are struggling and need some help because they're everywhere they're literally everywhere your Nanny's kid my nanny's kid is sticking at home doesn't know what to do doesn't know whether should join the Navy is is gambling on crypto like needs a small amount of advice right they're everywhere my friend's son who will not listen to his father and is making bad decisions but will listen to his father's friends you've pointed this out right the father's friends the family's friends can have more impact than the actual parents because you have a healthy gag reflex to what your parents say yeah your dad sucks but Scott Scott's cool he plays guitar that's right he has a podcast he lets us play on PS4 until 3 in the morning he a podcast and the same is true of my friends my are my sons my sons are now having a health or gag reflex everything I say but they find a lot of my friends really interesting and my friends will say the exact same thing and they'll listen and nod their head it to get involved in a young man's life is so rewarding there's this wonderful movie I think it's Wes Anderson and actually one of Tom Cruz's best films uh called Magnolia and the guy there's a bartender in it and he says I have love to give I just don't know where to put it and I think there are so many men men your age that feel fraternal love would really feel like they could help a young man or a boy in his life when I I stayed in touch I made really good friends with my stock broker when I was 13 my mom's boyfriend friend who stayed involved in my life after they broke up gave me 200 bucks I marched into Westwood Village I went into Dean Witter and I met this broker this 30-some year old broker named cero and we inv we bought six he gave me a lesson in the markets we bought 16 shares of Columbia Pictures and every day for two years no joke at Emerson Jor High I'd go to the phone booth I'd put in two dimes and I'd call saigh and he'd spend 10 minutes on the phone talking about my stock that day Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a hit so the stock was up a dollar Casey Shadow was a bomb it's down and he gave me a lesson of the markets and he was really nice and like a good man my camp counselor taught me how to program he stayed in touch with me and taught me how to program I had all these random men in my life none of them ever in any way did anything inappropriate also we categorize or we stereotype gay men who may want to get involved in a young man's life pedophilia does not over index amongst gay gay men anymore than it does amongst straight men granted should a mother or parents be thoughtful about who's getting involved in their son's life yes but the vast majority of men the vast majority of men who want to get involved in a young man's life do it for the right reasons and it's hugely important and when I was on Bill Maher I said we need to get involved in men's lives and Bill marah immediately said what you just said he said no way if I got involved in a 15-year-old boy's life they start saying I was a pervert and that is there in lies the problem there is so much fraternal and paternal love out there from men who would like to find a young man or a boy to help out it's hugely rewarding for them it's profoundly meaningful for the boy and people are afraid of it and look as skew at it and it's got to stop it's got to stop the majority there are so many good men out there that have love to give but just don't know where to put it before we got started you were telling me about some Legion or limb that you had lopped off because because I'm old you're aging and and parts of you parts of you break I've been thinking about this for a while um you know we talk a good bit between us about the plight of young men and them finding their place in the world and all of the rest of it but there's an interesting like period of Life at least that I'm in at the moment which is St starting to realize that I'm I've probably passed the peak of how fit that I'm going to be how physically attractive that I'm going to be now I can complement that with status and wisdom and Grace and confidence and poison all of the rest of the stuff but this is such a weird thing to talk about aging gracefully as a man not just in the way that you look but in the way that you think about yourself you know not having the same level of energy that you may be used to and all the rest of it and with diet and training and things you can extend it but when you get to whatever 3540 it is a you sort of hit this top of a hill and then you start to roll down the other side and you're like well it's like the story of the first time that your son beats you at basketball you realize that you've kind of passed the crown on a little bit what do you say to Young to guys who are in their 30s and 40s and realizing that age is no longer just a number but actually a thermodynamic of their life yeah we feel your pain said three and a half billion women um I mean what you just described uh women feel this worse than men and because reality is how old are you Chris 35 okay so this is the bottom line in terms of the romantic or sexual Marketplace your currency is going to continue to go up because you're going to get wealthier over the next 10 years and unfortunately unfortunately women are disproportionately valued on their uh physical appearance in terms of sexual currency and Men unfortunately or fortunately are disproportionately valued on their economic strength and influence and yours is going to increase so you know in Sex in the City they called it the power flip and that is you your your currency in the marketplace is probably going to increase over the next 15 years in terms of your own physicality I mean you work out a ton I mean you're probably not going to feel it I felt it at 47 when I really felt the slow down like I just couldn't I was used to be able to row you know 2,000 meters and whatever it was seven and a half minutes and no matter how hard I trained I just couldn't any longer you know there's just certain things that just start to go away and your body starts to starts to break down and then what's weird is the perception of I used to be the youngest person in every room I'd walked in I was I was I got I had a lot of success early one kid yeah I was always the youngest person in the room I'm oh that's the young guy that's he's the he's a young entrepreneur and then one day I walked in and I was the oldest and I felt like I was never the same age yeah but in terms of physically uh a guy like you and this is why you really want to establish really strong I mean you really I just I I it goes back to that advice for young men you got to establish physical fitness habits and nutrition habits and sleep hygiene because because if you aren't in every guy that's 35 should be able to walk into any room and know [ __ ] out real they could kill and eat everybody or out run them one or the other because if you don't have it by the time you're 35 or 40 if you're not strong or fast or agile by the time you're 35 or 40 oh my God by the time you're 50 you're just going to be a [ __ ] hot mess and you're not only gonna you may live as long but the quality of life from 50 to 80 are just going to be substantially worse so I don't I don't buy you're you're going to be fine until you're 50 what happens at 50 is is you get these kind of constant reminders that life is finite and you can't stop time and that's that's kind of devastating and also uh or scary I should say not devastating and also supposedly because for 98% of our time on this planet we didn't live much past 35 or 40 our brain can't literally can't process how we look so when I see myself in the mirror it's devast devastatingly strange to me it's like it's horrifying The Uncanny Valley of yourself yeah you're like okay what is that alien being that shouldn't should have died 15 years ago from a from a bone cut hunting a mammoth or something but it's aging is I'm fascinated by it it does uh as you know the physical part of it is hard um but those habits you set in your 20s and 30s good or bad will carry you or not into your 40s and 50s but there's just no getting around it men have it so much better than women because when a woman hits her 40s and 50s it just gets we can maintain our our our romantic or sexual currency it is much harder for a woman Society I find that Society in terms of the marketplace for maing is really hard on young men uh like guy guys in their 20s it's just hard to get arrested because the the women the most attractive women in their 20s generally speaking are usually dating up age-wise they want men that are more emotionally and economically viable so a guy in his 20 just 20s just has a really hard time wants to be in a relationship I remember thinking in my 20s I'd be such a great boyfriend and I just couldn't get arrested just couldn't get arrested and then I think the world becomes uh increasingly fair to them in their 30s and then disproportionately advantaged to them in their 40s and the exact opposite is true of women well this is why the the discourse online is dominated by people in their 20s right and that means that at the moment The Mating Market is very much W betide young men men are falling behind twice as many men are single than women this is how many men haven't had sex and can't get a swipe on Tinder and so on and so forth but I think you're right I think that the the scales are run about balance in your 30s and then they pivot back in your 40s and there's a I you know in my in all guys more juvenile moments they there is a a very bitter kind of satisfaction that the women who maybe denied you when you were 22 are potentially going to be chasing after you when you're 42 and it's a incredibly immature mindset but it's definitely one that I see on the internet for all of the struggles that young men are having in mating um as younger men the fear is that they never develop those skills and they end up loone their whole lives and that that lack of a romantic relationship leads to economic insecurity depression and they're just unviable mates the rest of their lives they never dig out of that hole but I've always said New York is the bob sled of a capitalist society and it kind of indicates where the whole world is going and the reality is New York is optimized for two types of people for 40-some successful men and 20 20s something attractive women and it's a it's a [ __ ] Disneyland for both those groups and for everybody else it's a soul crushing experience be a nice guy who's got his act together in your 20s or 30s a good person but you're not making bank you can't get arrested be an interesting woman attractive single in her late 30s or early 40s in New York that's not a good place to be either and I feel like the world is becoming more like New York and less than less and what we need is more places and opportunities for men and women to really get to know each other and spend time with each other such that they and again sort of fall in love instead of this kind of like swipe left or swipe right Society or this consumptive culture but yeah you you're Chris I you're gonna be you're gonna be just fine I appreciate that I as my nonpedophilic uh elderly adviser here thanks for that thanks for that I'll get a t-shirt that says that that could be your your epigraph uh one of my friends Alex hosi has uh masculinity in six words Do no harm take no [ __ ] and I think that that's a a nice summary dude I appreciate the hell out of you uh thank you for all of the support and continuing to shill my memes on CNN or wherever else it is that you go Bill Mah uh what's next you've got two books next year One book at least next year I got a book coming out on financial literacy called the algebra of wealth I'm starting to think about writing a book on masculinity although everyone I'm run into is writing a book on masculinity or trying to redefine it and you know just doing the same thing got my podcast got my you know I got my sons for another five years so I'm trying to lean into that a bunch we just went to the uh brenford man was it brenford yeah Bren I'm sorry brenford West Ham game on Saturday we're going to Arsenal seevilla tomorrow night so I'm just really enjoying the [ __ ] out of that look at you being completely anglicized from your totally I'm drinking tea right now look at this I'm drinking tea it's pretty milky that's kind of that would be that would be considered a builder Brew in certain areas of the UK but you are down south so I'll I'll give you I'll give you that uh I'm a Rangers I'm a Texas Rangers Fan they won the World Series so we've swapped nationalities in terms of our sporting desires uh Scott Galloway ladies and gentlemen Scott I appreciate you I can't wait to have you back on to talk about financial literacy and whatever the hell else you write next thanks congrats on your success if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe