What's Actually Missing From Most Men's Lives | Scott Galloway

Key Takeaway

If you want to be in the top 5% of young men, do three things: work out at least three times a week, work at least 30 hours outside the house (remote work lacks essential guardrails), and engage with strangers doing something bigger than yourself at least three times monthly through nonprofits, church groups, or sports leagues. Then practice the superpower of rejection—apply for jobs you don't deserve, approach people cooler than you, ask out people seemingly out of your league. Your ability to mourn, move on, and endure 'no' is the key to success.

Episode Overview

Scott Galloway discusses his new book 'Notes on Being a Man,' exploring both macro-level policy solutions and micro-level personal advice for addressing what he sees as a crisis among young men. He presents data on men's struggles with mental health, education, and relationships, while offering a three-part framework of masculinity (protect, provide, procreate) and practical advice on building economic viability, embracing rejection, and developing kindness as a superpower.

Full Transcript

Transcript of What's Actually Missing From Most Men's Lives | Scott Galloway from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Dan: Hey, hey. Welcome to the Ten Percent Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. My guest today is one of the busiest humans in the entire media landscape. Here are, uh, just a few of his activities. He co-hosts the hugely popular Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher. He, uh, also, uh, is the host of his own podcast, the Prof G podcast. He's also a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. He gives speeches all over the world. He's very active on social media and YouTube. He's a regular, uh, commentator on CNN and other cable news outlets.

And every year or two, he puts out a book, and his latest is called Notes on Being a Man. So today, we're gonna talk to him about his prescriptions for being a better man and a happier human being, no matter what your gender is. We'll be right back with Scott Galloway. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. If you haven't already checked out my new-ish meditation app, Ten Percent with Dan Harris, I would love for you to do so. Many people fall prey to the myth that taking care of yourself is somehow self-indulgent One of the big aims of this app is to disprove that, to make the argument that actually taking care of yourself is a public service.

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You can get a free account, and then Northwest grows with you. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/happierfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/happierfree Scott: Hey, Scott. Before we jump in, how you doing? Anything, uh, you wanna get off Dan: your chest? Uh, any questions or concerns? Scott: This is a genuine moment of gratitude. There... Every once in a while, someone says something, and I adopt it as my own because I find it so instructive, and it's a handful of sayings.

And I constantly parrot one line of yours. Do you know that line? Dan: I do, and I'm a little worried because it's not actually my line. Scott: Well, b- brother, we're in the entertainment YouTube business. Take credit for everything. So the line is, the line is... And I, I tell this to young men I mentor, and I have a story around this. It's kind of a raw, uncomfortable story. Um, I mentor some young men, and a young man called me, and he... I could tell he was upset.

And I said, "What's going on?" And he said, "I, I'm feeling funny down there." I'm like, "What do you mean?" And, like, mo- the moment he said that, I'm like, "Oh, you're worried that you have an STI." And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "Okay, first off, anyone who's had sex has at some point had unprotected sex accidentally, and everyone who's had unprotected sex has convinced themselves the next day they have an STI. So you're not alone. Most of us have been there." And I said, "As my good friend Dan Harris says the following, 'Action absorbs anxiety.' You need to get off the phone.

You need to make an appointment with a doctor. You need to go find out that you're either fine, or it's something that can be easily treated, as most STIs can. And the moment you make that appointment, you're gonna feel better." And anyways, a few days later, called me back, told me everything was fine and that his mental health had really been struggling and that I am constantly telling people, "Action absorbs anxiety. Action absorbs anxiety. Move against the problem as quickly as possible, and you're gonna start feeling better." Anyway, so this, you are now part of my repertoire Across every medium.

And I apologize for the somewhat profane story, but it kind of brings home, like, what a lot of young men and a lot of young people are dealing with. Dan: Well, A, I love profane stories. Um, uh, so keep them coming. B, thank you. I appreciate it. And yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll take credit for having been the person who said the line to you, but somebody else said it. I don't know who. As my meditation teacher says, we're part of a lineage of thieves. Scott: I like it.

Dan: Okay, so let's talk about your new book, uh, Notes on, on Being a Man. Let me just ask an overarching question before we get too deep into this. W- I have a lot of female listeners. Uh, why should they care about this? Scott: Because women aren't gonna, and society aren't gonna continue to flourish as long as men are flailing. And who wants more economically and emotionally viable men? Women. I understand there's an understandable gag reflex when you s- ever start advocating for men because I'd say five or seven years ago, the people that, quote-unquote, at least see men, maybe not even advocate for them, were unproductive voices who blamed women for men's decline.

And You know, my kind of premise or pillar here is that part of, I think, masculinity and part of, uh, what it means to be a man is to celebrate the progress of women, and I think men played a big role in that. And, uh, to celebrate the, uh, progress of our sisters, our mothers, and our daughters, and that it's not a zero-sum game, that we can still hopefully be the afterburners for women's progress. Twice as many have been elected to Parliament in the last 30 years, 23% increase just in the last...

since COVID of C-level female executives. We now, in urban areas, women are making as much as men, especially under the age of 30. So I understand the gag reflex of like, "Oh no, it's one of those guys," but I think that we can walk and chew gum at the same time and still recognize the real challenges that non-whites and women face, especially in the workplace once women have kids. I would argue that's where there's, there's still serious discrimination and issues. While at the same time recognizing that if you walk into a morgue and there's five people who've died by suicide, four are men, and that one in three men under the age of 25 are still living at home, and that men really do, young men really do seem to be struggling.

And talk to, talk to someone who has brothers or sons, and they're gonna nod their head and say, "Okay, I'm a feminist. I'm, I'm deeply committed to the progress that women have made and ensuring that progress maintains its tra- trajectory." But they can also acknowledge there is, there is definitely something going on with our young men. Dan: I would argue, back to the question of why should women care, um, that as I read your stuff and listen to you talk about it, a lot of your advice is applicable to anybody, and that includes action absorbs anxiety and, and many other things you talk about.

So there... I just wanna signal to the listener, no matter what your gender is, there's a lot here for you. Okay. Have you say a little bit more about What you call this crisis among men and boys. You, you, you did describe it, uh, in, in a certain amount of detail right there, but is there more to say? Give us a sense of how bad things are. Scott: Young men are more risk aggressive, and that can be reckless or it can be courageous, right? You can be someone who helps others.

You can be, you can be a lover. You can be an addict. You can be, you know, as Richard Re- Reeves said, you want someone who is invaluable in a shipwreck and acceptable at a dance. There's an award called the Carnegie Award that's given out to people who literally rush into burning homes, put their own physical safety in danger to save someone else, a stranger. Last year, they gave out 83 awards, 77 were men. So a lot of this risk aggressiveness results in bad things: overdoses, unnecessary violence, reckless behavior.

But some of that testosterone and that, that aggressiveness or recklessness, if you will, can be heroic. It can be, and has played, I would argue, an important part in society. But since 2000, the deaths of despair, drunk driving, opiate overdoses, suicide, the incremental deaths of despair amongst young men has claimed 440,000 lives. So we have lost more young men incremental to what we were losing before 2000 to deaths of despair than the number of young men we lost in World War II And anyone who has kids...

Dan, how old are your kids? Dan: I have one boy. He's 11. Scott: One boy. Okay, so this is what's gonna happen to you. At about the age of 15, you're gonna have a Halloween party or something. This just happened to us. I have a 15-year-old son. His whole class comes over. The boys are dopes. I mean, they're fine, but they're dopes. They can't look you in the eye. They're dopes. There will be three or four 15-year-old girls who could be the junior senators from Pennsylvania.

So biologically, biologically, girls are maturing faster than boys. A boy's pre- pre- prefrontal cortex doesn't catch up until the age of 25. A senior girl in high school is ef- uh, com- competing against a senior boy for a college spot is effectively competing against a 10th grade girl. Seven in 10 high school valedictorians are girls. The majority of 70 to 80% of our primary school teachers are female. I would argue the education system is biased against boys. Boys are twice as likely to be suspended on a behavior-adjusted basis as girls, a Black boy five times as likely.

And if you were to reverse engineer to the single point of failure for when a boy comes off the tracks, it's when he loses a male role model to death, divorce, or abandonment. And at that moment, when a household becomes a single-parent household, and we say single parent, nine out of 10 times, that means mom is, is, has stuck around to raise the kid. At that moment, the boy in that household becomes more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college. Now, what's interesting is a girl in a single-parent hou- uh, home has similar outcomes as a dual-parent home, similar rates of college attendance, similar, similar rates of self-harm.

What it ends up is that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and neurologically much weaker than girls, and the lack of male involvement and male mentorship is the kind of biggest single point of failure. And even saying that boys need men in their lives five years ago was triggering to some people. What, women can't raise men? I was raised by a single immigrant mother on her own, lived and died a secretary a lot of my life. But the research shows that boys need men in their lives.

I, I think it's just healthy to acknowledge that boys and girls are different, and that's okay. And that's not in any way meant to show a lack of respect or dignity or unique or absolute, uh, obligation to provide the same rights and opportunities for the non-binary community or the LGBTQ community. But put five-year-olds, five-year-old girls and boys in a room with cars and dolls and tell me that there's not something in the batter that makes these two genders fairly unique and distinctly different. And on the left, we had trouble even acknowledging that until a few years ago, and acknowledging that there are unique needs for both genders.

But the data here is so stark, and, well, I'll wrap up this word salad, Dan, is that because of the unfair advantage you and I garnered, 1945 to 2000, the US garnered a third of the world's prosperity with 5% of the population. We had six X the level of prosperity in the last half of the 20th century. And of that six X, the majority of it was crowded into the third of the US population that was white, male, and heterosexual. So the way I see it is I- I've been able to s-- I've been on a horse that runs 18 times faster than everyone else in the economy I have unearned advantage.

I had typhoon-like sales of winds of opportunity in my sails. But the issue is, should a 19-year-old boy be paying the price for my unearned advantage? So we need to discern the difference between the opportunities presented to young men and the problems facing them, and the unfair advantages that we received, and ask ourselves, should a younger generation of men be paying the penalty for our unearned advantage? Dan: Well, unpack that a little bit 'cause I'm not sure I understand it. So we, we have, at the top of the spectrum, men, you know, vastly disproportionately represented in the, you know, the list of CEOs of Forbes 500 companies and, and in the list of the world's billionaires and soon to be trillionaires.

Vast over-representation of white men. Um, and yet we also, you're arguing, have, uh, uh, uh, you're arguing with some pretty compelling data, have some pretty profound problems am- especially among young men these days. So, uh, am I close to what you're, um, trying to point at? Scott: I think that's right. I think that there's still, at the CEO level, until three years ago, there were more CEOs named Bob than there were female CEOs. I mean, so there's no doubt about it. You get into our generation, there's just a disproportionate amount of advantage that was registered by men, uh, with a specific skin tone and, you know, a s- a specific sexual orientation.

But if you go all the way down to the, you know, an 18-year-old, there's now 50% more women in college than men. It's now 60/40, and it might be two to one in the next five years in terms of college graduation because men drop out at greater rates. And then you look at the fact that many of the on-ramps to the middle class that non-college graduate men used to have in manufacturing... I mean, we all knew. Did you know the guy in high school, he clearly wasn't gonna go to college?

Maybe drank a little bit, maybe smoked a little bit of pot, wore a Journey shirt, but he could fix your car, and that guy was really good in wood, metal, and auto shop. There was a job. There was a place for that. By the way, wood, metal, and auto shop have gone away. They're no longer even offered in high school. Where does that guy go now? And when you've seen our manufacturing base, not, not evaporate, we still have a strong... We're the second-largest manufacturer in the world, but when a lot of the on-ramps go away, and also when online dating and the number of venues where men can demonstrate excellence to a potential mate...

Let me, let me back up. There's this cartoon of a woman in her 30s who didn't find romantic love. Let's call her Lisa. And there's this cartoon that Lisa focused on her career, and yeah, she's successful and financially independent, but she never found romantic love. What a tragedy for Lisa. Okay, this is what the data shows. Lisa is just fine. And fertility rates actually go up as women make more money. So the notion that if you sacrifice your career or sacrifice personal relationships for your career, you end up alone and depressed, that's just not true.

Women over the age of 40 are now giving birth to more kids than women under the age of 25. It's directly correlated. Birth rates are now directly correlated to income. A man who hasn't cohabitated with a woman by the time he's 30 uh, or been married, it, there's a one in three chance he becomes a substance abuser. In general, when women don't have a romantic relationship in their lives, they tend to pour that energy back into their friend network and their professional lives. When men don't have the guardrails and benefit of a romantic relationship, they oftentimes pour that energy back into video games, conspiracy theory, porn, the manosphere, and online.

And so while we like to think of this tragedy of women who don't find romantic love, the reality is, and the data reflects this, men benefit more from relationships than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies. True story. Widowers are less happy. Women live longer in relationships two to four years, but men live four to seven years longer. And when men, fewer and fewer men are seen as economically or emotionally viable and have fewer venues to demonstrate excellence, which men need to do to mate.

You talk to people who've been married longer than 30 years, 70% say one was much more interested than the other in the beginning. It was almost always the man that was more interested. But the woman will say, "I liked the way he treated his parents at church. I liked the way he danced. He was funny. He was-- I worked with him and he was outstanding." Where does a young man demonstrate excellence now? Not as many are going into work 'cause of remote work. Church attendance is at an all-time low.

Many are doing remote schooling. The result, and then we have the biggest, most indomitable foe in the world called Big Tech trying to convince them to stay on their screen all goddamn day. Where do young people find each other and fall in love? And the outsourcing of our manufacturing base, biology, economics, and a mating market that has been especially difficult for men who no longer have venues to demonstrate excellence has resulted in a loneliness crisis that has been especially hard on young men. Dan: So in your view, what can be, what can and should be done about this?

Scott: Well, that's the good news. I think there's a lot that can be done. Um, let's start with education. I think, and I'm parroting a lot of my, kinda my Yoda on this is Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. I think we should red shirt kindergartener boys. I think boys should start kindergarten at six, girls at five. I just think that equalizes the maturity level. And there's actually data showing that the youngest boys in each grade are more likely to be depressed, uh, later in life 'cause they're smaller and have trouble in school.

So start boys in kindergarten at six, girls at five. I think we need to increase the pay, especially for after-school uh, participation in sports and coaching such that we get more men in K through 12. You're naturally gonna champion the person that reminds you of yourself, and we have very much feminized K through 12. Uh, and there's very few male role models for young men in K through 12. I think we need more vocational programming. I think any university that has over a billion dollars in endowment that doesn't grow its freshman class faster than population growth should lose its tax-free status 'cause it's no longer a public servant, it's a hedge fund with classes.

Dartmouth has an $8 billion endowment. They-- Their freshman class is the size of what a good Starbucks serves over a weekend, and they're in the middle of nowhere. They could let in 8,000 students, not 800. I'm not suggesting that Harvard let in everyone, but if you have the endowment the size of the GDP of Costa Rica, letting in 1,200 kids means you've decided you're LVMH, not a public servant. So dramatically encouraged through tax policy, uh, expansion of our freshman class, non-traditional four-year degrees in things like nursing, specialty construction.

I'm a huge fan of mandatory national service People now see young Americans, only one in 10 young Americans feel good or very good about the country. We desperately need Americans to get young men and women to get out there and see how wonderful other Americans are from different ethnicities, sexual orientations, ethnic groups, demographic groups, and realize that the rich kid from Boston has his own struggles, and the gay kid from a low-income neighborhood in Lubbock, Texas, is not that different than me. And what I find is that we're actually not that divided when we meet each other.

We're being divided by online algorithms. But I'm not talking about military service necessarily. I'm talking about elder care, working at a nonprofit, being a smokejumper. But I think we are desperate to restitch the threads of America, and I think, uh, one or two years of service, mandatory service at the age of 19 or 20 would restore that sense of patriotism and give young people a chance to see just that the real threat is income inequality or climate change or the CCP or Russian soldiers pouring over the border in Ukraine.

It's not their neighbor. Americans are wonderful. They're, they're an interesting group of wonderful people. And the reason why we had so much great legislation and cooperation, bipartisan cooperation through the '60s and '70s was because most of our leaders had served in the same uniform. So-- And also, uh, and I apologize for roaming on, tax policy. 60% of 30-year-olds used to have a child. Now it's 27%. You think, well, they don't like kids? No, they can't afford to have kids. We have weaponized housing permits. Once you get a housing permit, you decide you're concerned with traffic.

You want fewer houses built. Once you have a college degree from an elite university, you applaud when you hear that the admissions rate has gone from 74% to 9%, as it has at my alma mater, UCLA. We need to dramatically recalibrate and transfer wealth back from old Americans, who are 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago, to younger Americans who, under the age of 40, are 24% less wealthy. And the incumbents will use words like globalization and network effects. Bullshit. This has been a conscious decision by old people who elect old people to transfer wealth from the young to the old.

Every year, the largest transfer of wealth in history happens, $1.3 trillion from young people to old in the form of Social Security. So we are transferring money from a group that is less wealthy to the wealthiest generation in the history of the planet every year. I'm not suggesting we cut it off for people who need it, but Dan Harris and Scott Galloway should never get Social Security. We need to do away with mortgage interest rate deduction and capital gains deduction because who owns homes and stocks?

People our age. Who rents and makes their money from current income? Young people. Stop robbing money from young people. Build 8 million houses in 10 years. Every 10% housing increase decreases birth rates by 1%. It ends up that housing prices are an effective form of birth control. People can't af- young people can't afford the certification to get ahead in college. They can't afford a house to start building a family in a monogamous relationship and building towards something together. And yet Pop-Pop and Nana are upgrading from Carnival to Crystal Cruises.

We need more effective tax policy. We need to recognize the biological differences. We need an educational system that recognizes, uh, expands more opportunity for the middle class. We can-- We have screwed this up. We can unscrew it. There are common sense solutions for all of this. Dan: Yeah. I mean, I find many of Scott: your policy prescriptions to be really compelling. Dan: Support for today's episode comes from Square, and they've got big news. During Square's biannual releases event, they launched a wave of innovative new tools to help local businesses run faster, smarter, and more profitably from AI that answers your toughest business questions to tech that simplifies food orders and tracks every dollar.

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They're a must. Try Gusto today at gusto.com/happier and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/happier. One more time, gusto.com/happier. And the interesting thing about the book is you speak both on a macro level, as you've just done, and also on a micro level, like what can an individual do? And you, you lay out this three-legged, uh, legged stool of core responsibilities for men as you view it, and they are, um, protect, provide, and procreate. Can you walk us through those?

Scott: Yeah, and I'm, I'm being serious here. I'd love your feedback 'cause I, I don't... I'm not sure I nailed it here, and I've gotten some really positive feedback. So I think you have to be-- I think at the outset of your career, a man should assume that at some point he will have to take economic responsibility for his household. And sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive if your partner happens to be better at that whole money thing. My partner was working at Goldman when we had our kids.

I was an academic. I wasn't making very much money, so I picked up the slack at home. And I think that's also part of taking financial responsibility, is figuring out who, who is going to actually make money here. But I don't think it's a bad idea for a guy to assume that in a capitalist society, he's gonna be disproportionately evaluated on his economic viability. I think the, the society disproportionately and unfairly evaluates men on their economic viability. I'm not talking about the way the world should be.

I'm talking about the way the world is. I think a man will disproportionately evaluate himself on his economic viability. And also, to be blunt, 75% of women say economic viability is key to a mate. Only 25% of, uh, men say that. In sum, and this is snarky, but I think there's some truth to this, what Chris Rock says, "Beyonce could work at McDonald's and marry Jay-Z. The opposite is not true." I think men need from the, from a very early age to decide that they're gonna be economically viable and have a plan.

I think you need to be a provider or at least assume at some point you'll need to be a provider. Two, protector. I think the whole shooting match, the reason why you get skills, strengths, economic security, is so that you can protect people. You wanna protect yourself. You wanna protect your family. You wanna be in a position to protect your neighbors, your country. That is the whole shooting match. And what is so disappointing, I think, about some of the people we would naturally look to as roles of masculinity, whether it's the president or the wealthiest man in the world, I think where they absolutely trip over themselves in terms of a scorecard around what it means to be a real man is they do not use their resources and talent to move to protection.

When you remove funding for HIV positive mothers, when you punch down, when you mock the disabled, there could not be anything-- When you implement policies that, that prey on some of the most vulnerable in our nation, there is nothing that could be less masculine. Real men break up fights at bars, they don't start them, and if you think about the most traditionally masculine jobs, fireman, cop, military, what do they do? At the end of the day, they protect. And I think we have to train our boys from a very young age that you are bigger, you're physically stronger, you're blessed with incredible-- this incredible substance called testosterone, which means you move to action, but it is always in the c- in the context of protecting others.

It is a tragedy that women don't feel safe on the sub- the subway in New York. Women should be able to cross the street because they see men on that side of the street. So I think from an early age, we gotta say protection is the whole, is the whole shooting match. And then the third and final thing, and this is more controversial, procreation. I don't think there's anything wrong when I found my partner or saw my partner, I wasn't thinking I'd like lower rates on auto insurance The reason I took a risk and approached her is quite frankly, Dan, I thought I would really like to be physical with this person at some point.

And I think that wanting to have romantic and sexual relationships with people and learning the skills to express interest while making someone feel safe is something a father and a mother need to treat their boys. Women still expect men to make the approach. They still expect men to show that initiative. And the most rewarding thing in life is getting a chance, in my view, is getting an opportunity to partner with someone and raise a family and build something with someone. And it starts, it starts with being attracted to somebody and making an approach, and our young men aren't even making an approach.

42% of men 18 to 24 have never asked a woman out in person. 62% of men aren't even trying to date. So I think we need to stop demonizing the romantic and sexual interest of young men. They are not m- the vast majority of-- There have been some very high-profile instances of men abusing their power, and those men should be brought to justice. But at the same time, I think that wanting to have a relationship with someone, expressing romantic interest, taking chances, taking risks, getting used to rejection, showing some perseverance, developing excellence, I think that's a wonderful thing.

And a, a movement I hate is the incel movement, somehow that it's a badge of honor to be involuntarily celibate. Have you followed this movement at all, Dan? Dan: Yeah, of course. I think it's, it's, uh, one of the darkest aspects of the so-called manosphere. Scott: Well, and here's the bottom line. The, the m- for 99% of history, 99% of men have been involuntarily celibate. I was involuntarily celibate for the first 19 years of my life. I really wanted to be incelibate, but no one would participate in my program.

So what did I do? I leveled up. I went to UCLA. I got a plan. I started working out. I started dressing a little bit better. I got girl friends that could help me figure out how to behave around women, maybe introduce me to some of their friends when they saw I was a good guy I learned how to endure rejection. I learned how to have a sense of humor. I mean, all of these things, a kindness practice. But I think that fire of desire, it can be destructive or it can be put into a casing or a fire cylinder and creates incredible progress.

But I think young men wanting to have romantic and sexual relationships is a gift when it's channeled correctly, and I think men should embrace that and be motivated by it. Dan: So you s- you say you've gotten some pushback on this three-legged stool of, uh, protect, provide, procreate. Is it that people, and I, and I get this, think maybe it's retrograde or old-fashioned, or that there are many men who just don't fit that paradigm? Scott: The criticism's that va- that's valid is the criticism that hurts.

So I'll tell you the criticism that hurts, um, that Scott, getting, getting money and a mate worked for you. Maybe that's not the solution for everybody. Not everyone like you, Scott, is obsessed with money. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it, but I'm a little bit addicted to it. It's been a real focus of mine 'cause I didn't have a lot growing up. And that Uh, relationships, romantic and sexual relationships aren't the end-all be-all, that you can be happy without those, and sort of this get out, kill it professionally, and get laid, that, that there's gotta be a more modern vision of masculinity.

And I think there's some validity to that criticism, but I would argue in what I would call as an emerging cult of therapy, where every one of life, life's obstacles is translated to trauma and someone else's fault, that not a- not all, but many of these problems amongst young men, if we can give them the context, the skills, and the resources to find a good job and be more attractive and viable mates, that a lot of these issues won't go away, but will be, um, lessened, if you will.

So I've gotten a lot of feedback on these men need to work on themselves more. Can women be providers and protectors? And to your point, I think a lot of these attributes are important and valuable for women, and I don't think masculinity or femininity, they're social constructs, are sequestered to people born as men, as males or females. I think a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculinity. I think a lot of men demonstrate wonderful femininity. I personally am drawn to men. Most of my friends are more feminine in nature, 'cause I have men in my life, quite frankly, that take care of me and are just very nurturing.

That's the kind of man I'm attracted to as a friend. So these attributes aren't sequestered to either gender. What I would argue, though, is that from a very young age, in utero, when you have that burst of testosterone, that there are certain behaviors that men have an easier time l- leaning into, and that there's nothing wrong with them embracing it, and that maybe it serves, it can serve as a code. I think everyone needs a code. Some people get it from the religion. Some people get it from the military.

I got my first co- code from my first job, actually, or from their family. I think for a lot of young men who are struggling, I think an aspirational code of masculinity can serve as a real guide point. But I've gotten a lot of, you know, uh, mostly, I would say, 90% support, but the 10% criticism feels, weighs large on you. Uh, and also, I think when you enter-- I'm not saying I'm entering the culture wars, but I am making statements here that are cultural. As a middle-aged white dude, I just think people are a little bit suspicious of whatever you're gonna say, and there's been so many unproductive voices that claim to be advocating for men, but what they're really advocating for is their stupid crypto scam or saying that masculinity is about performative virality or dominance that have been just so unproductive in the space that there, generally speaking, is kind of an understandable gag reflex.

One of the most frustrating things that I hear and I have never said once is that men's dissent is women's fault. It isn't Women's ascent is gonna be a key component of how we fix this problem. If we hadn't put women in the factories in World War II, the war would've taken longer to win. I still think we would've won it. But if we hadn't provided some workplace protection for women in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, we'd be a second-rate economic power to China. And as someone who has always had partners and spouses who've worked, I think it's been ...

I think women's ascent is to be celebrated, and we should do nothing to get in the way of that. And the majority, if you notice, of my policy solutions are focused on empowering young people, not just men, but empowering young people. And I think that the constant tilting of economic power away from young to old has been really hard on men, young men. But the bottom line is the majority of my policy solutions are on lifting up all young people. Dan: You have taken some hits during this, um, press tour, which by the way, the, the book has been incredibly successful, so, uh, congratulations on that.

I'm curious, have you learned anything about dealing with criticism? Scott: I wanna put the question back to you. I'll answer it, but I wanna hear your view. I, I'd like to say Well, okay, I know theoretically that if you're, if you're never getting any criticism, you're not saying anything. You know, one of my f- one of my heroes is Margaret Thatcher, and she has this wonderful quote about anyone who hasn't made enemies hasn't really said anything. I like what Sam Harris said, that if you're economically secure and have people who love you unconditionally, and I have both those things, you have, you have an obligation to speak your mind.

And I think in academia we have a tendency to find out what the orthodoxy is and that we all bark up the same tree. And as my colleague Jonathan Haidt says, when you do that, you get stupid. So I purposely try to wade in dangerous waters. I enjoy it. I enjoy the attention On a regular basis, I say something indelicate or just baseline stupid, and the internet is happy to weigh in and just, just clock you. And I'd like to say, "Oh, it bounces right off of me, I learn from it, I move on." It hurts me.

It, it damages my mental health. I'm much better at it. I used to freak out when I'd get attacked on Twitter. I actually decided to get off of Twitter 'cause I just found the algorithms were just promoting constantly yelling, "Fight, fight, fight." But I've learned that this too shall pass. One of my big sources of trying to deal with stress I get from criticism or when things just generally go wrong for me is I get a lot of power and comfort from my atheism. I believe at some point I'll look into my son's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end, and it's empowering for me because what I remember or try to remember is everyone I'm worried about what they think about me, 'cause shame is a powerful feeling, right?

Shame, shame could get you killed. If you were shamed or expunged from the community just 100 years ago, you were probably gonna die alone in the forest, so it's a powerful emotion. But what helps me is the belief that everyone I'm worried about, their view of me, is gonna be dead soon and so am I. And so why wouldn't I say what I think, take some risks, take some hits, try and move the ball forward? I'd like to think my heart is in the right place and I'm more data-driven than most people.

I'd love to say, "Oh, it rolls right off of me. I know I'm making progress." It upsets me. It ruins my weekend sometimes, quite frankly, Dan. It's ma- take, it takes a real toll on my mental health. How about you? How do you deal with criticism? Dan: Well, I'm not as courageous as you or Sam Harris. Um, I don't always agree with you or Sam, um, even though I have a, a ton of admiration for both of you. My admiration, um, comes not only from the fact that I often do agree with both of you, but, but even on a deeper level from your willingness to challenge your own tribe, which is really hard, counterrevolutionary.

Um, and yeah, I, I've made the decision thus far, and I may change my mind, it's not really part of my job on the planet to be provocative, and I'm, I'm not sure anybody really cares about my views on policy issues. I'm more of the human Xanax and, uh, trying to provide people with tools that they can use in their own life to cope with all of the opinions they're hearing and all the news they're, they're dealing with. Um, and I think another part is that my training for 30-plus years was as a journalist.

It's not really in my nature to have hard and fast views on things. I'm often, you know, because of my training, living in the ambiguity because my job has been to hear from many, many different sides on all issues. Scott: I assume you occasionally stumble on one of my pods. I'm pretty profane and vulgar, and there's a strategy behind it, I very much believe, and that is I think the left has really given up and ceded a lot of ground and power because of being overly sensitive and having what is perceived as just no sense of humor.

And if you look back on some of the social commentary that was most powerful from people like Richard Pryor or Lenny Bruce or George Carlin, they were progressives and they were really profane. And I think on the left, we would be well advised to take back profanity and be seen as people who see that part of accepting and tolerating each other is the ability to rib each other, and that being profane and vulgar sometimes is just really funny. Dan: Yes. Scott: And it doesn't mean you're mocking anyone.

It doesn't mean you're diminishing anyone. People say to me, "Why are you so profane?" I'm like, "There's a strategy here. We need to take profanity back from the right 'cause we're seen as overly sensitive, and quite frankly, it's really unattractive." Dan: I'm with you on this, and I suspect some of my audience will be mad. I think the, the one asterisk I would put on it is, and you already said this, but I just wanna reemphasize it, it, as long as you're not punching down, and as long as you're not erasing the hu- humanity of people who are weaker than you, then yeah, I, I, I personally am all for it.

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That's L-E-E-S-A.com, promo code HAPPIER for 25% off select mattresses, plus an extra $50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. Leesa.com, promo code HAPPIER. Before I lose you, there are a bunch of really, I think, hard-won nuggets of wisdom in your book that I'd love you to run through, not only because I think they're really important for young men and the type of things that I would say to my son, but also I think they're, they're helpful for anyone. So I'm just gonna read a few of them to you and then just pick the ones you wanna talk about.

Um, get out of the house, avoid isolation. Um, take risks, be willing to feel like an imposter. Be kind. I've heard you say that one of the biggest mistakes you made earlier in your career was not not being kind. Be reckless with your emotions. Be willing to show some emotions. Follow what you're good at. Follow your talent, not your passion. Acknowledge your blessings and create opportunities for others. Okay, so I listed a bunch of things there. Any of those, uh, strike your fancy? Scott: Men ages 20 to 30 are spending less time outdoors than prison inmates.

Nothing wonderful is gonna happen to you on a screen, and you have to acknowledge as a young person that 40% of the S&P is 10 companies, and those 10 companies have one objective, and that is every day get you to spend one, two, three more seconds on your phone and sequester you from the most important rewarding thing in life, and that is relationships. And they'll make it easy, and they'll make it seductive and addictive, and you have to fight that power and get out of the house and touch grass and meet other people.

If you're a young man and you find you aren't making progress, if you wanna be in the top 5% of young men, you only need to do three things, and I have data on this. One, work out at least three times a week. I think physical strength is incredibly important. It's been my antidepressant for 40 years. I've worked out four times a week for 40 years. And when I don't work out four times a week, I start feeling it. I start feeling sorry for myself. I start thinking really negative thoughts.

Dan: Yep. Scott: So work out three times plus a week, and work at least 30 hours a week outside of the house. Remote work is a disaster for young people. You need the guardrails and the learnings of being in an office and putting up with that BS and having to dress a certain way, having to behave a certain way. You need that training and those guardrails. And then at least three times a month, be in the agency of strangers doing something bigger than yourself, nonprofit, church group, sports league.

And then what I tell young men is once we do that for a couple months, we're gonna make an approach. We're gonna express potential friendship to somebody. Uh, we're gonna maybe even ask someone out for coffee, and this is the goal. No. I'm gonna call you the next day, and most likely I'm gonna find out they said no And that's the point. And then the next day you're gonna find out you're okay, and you're gonna get used to no. You're gonna get used to applying for jobs you don't deserve.

You're gonna get used to approaching and expressing interest in friends that you perceive as cooler than you. You're gonna get used to asking people out who you think might be out of your weight class. And the key to anyone who has punched above their weight class economically or personally is no. Your ability to mourn and move on and endure rejection is the key to success. I ran for 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade presidents. I lost all three times, and based on my track record, I decided to run for student body president, where I went on to, wait for it, lose.

But my ability to endure rejection is my superpower. I applied to a ton of colleges. I got rejected from all of them. I got, uh, w- in on one on appeal. Applied, applied to nine graduate schools, got into one. I can't tell you the amount of rejection I've endured from women, but the reason I'm economically secure and get to hang out with someone much higher character and much hotter than me is I have never been afraid of no. Get out of the house. Take more risks outside of the house.

Take fewer risks online. Don't be mean or aggressive to people. Don't engage in conspiracy theory. Don't gamble online. Take risks outside of the house. Approach people. We talk about the incel movement. I hate that movement. I hate remote work. Follow your talent, not your passion. Young people, the worst advice they get from college, from s- luncheon speakers at colleges is to follow your passion. Anyone who tells you to follow your passion is already rich, and the guy telling you to follow your passion made his billions in iron ore smelting.

This is your job in your 20s. Find something you're good at and could be great at in an industry that has a 90-plus percent employment rate. You wanna be an actor, own a restaurant, a nightclub, a jewelry designer, a fashion designer, fine. But if you're not getting bright signals you're in the 1% fast, find something more boring where the top 50% make a good living and the top 10% fly private, which is what tax lawyers get to do if they're just in the top 10%. And then the accoutrements of being in the top 10% of anything, camaraderie, relevance, influence, money, will make you passionate about whatever that thing is Forget the rest.

Oh, kindness. Let me go to why women are attracted to men. Number one, we don't like to talk about this, is the ability to signal resources. The keyword there is signal. You don't have to have a Range Rover and a Panerai. You have to have a plan. I'm in school to learn how to install HVAC energy heaters. I go home at 11:00 'cause I got sh*t to do the next day. I'm responsible, right? That is attractive. You s- you are signaling resources through integrity and hard work and discipline.

Two is intellect. The, the person who makes the best decisions for the tribe, the tribe lives longer, so it's hardwired into us to be drawn to intellect. The fastest way to communicate intellect is humor. If you can make a woman laugh, she will have coffee with you. And it's, it's hard to tell someone to be funny, but what you can tell someone is have a good sense of humor. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at other people's jokes. Smile a lot. Don't be afraid to laugh out loud.

And then the third thing, and this is the secret weapon in mating, and there's data around all of this. The secret weapon in mating that dudes don't figure out is kindness. Women instinctively believe they will be vulnerable at some point during their life, likely during gestation. They are smaller physically than men. They notice when men practice acts of kindness towards people who can never pay them back And I was not naturally a kind person. I was not born kind. I saw everything as a transaction. I wanted to get more than I was giving.

And what you recognize as you get older is that a kindness practice can create a muscle of kindness where it becomes natural. So every day as a young man, try and think at least a few times a day, I'm gonna try and express kindness, whether it's saying something nice to an old couple who look good on the street, whether it's helping someone put their overhead bag, whatever it is, right? Complimenting someone, having the confidence. This is really hard for men to say to other men, "Wow, that was so impressive, that presenta-" Just expressions of, of, of admiration.

Just small acts of kindness. That is the secret weapon in mating that young, most young men haven't discovered, and it's also the secret weapon professionally because you wanna be put in a room of opportunities when you're not in that room, and the way you do that is at every opportunity you have to do a solid for a friend, you do it. You hear about a job, rifle through your contacts. Does anybody I know be good for that job, right? When you-- something happens bad to a friend, you run towards them.

Anyways, I think y- you know, these are all things... The book is more about where I screwed up than what I got right and where I recognized I had screwed up. But, um, I think I covered about half of them. I figure I, I forget what the rest were, Dan. Dan: You did great. There, I'm looking down at my list of questions. I c- I c- I could go, uh, several more hours with you, but we are unfortunately out of time. I just, I just wanna say in closing, like I view you very much, Scott, as a man in the arena.

You're, you're, you're, you're willing to go out there, mix it up, say what you think, f*ck up, clean up after your f*ck-ups. Um, and, uh, yeah, I just have a ton of admiration for that, and I'm, I'm rooting for you. Scott: I appreciate that, brother. It means a lot coming from you. And I, I also, I've learned a lot from you. I've, I've struggled with some of the same anxiety you struggle with, and you've been more vulnerable than I am, and I appreciate that you're out there with it 'cause people look at you and they think this is this sh*t together handsome guy, and I saw that video of you getting off a plane 'cause you couldn't handle it, and that was a real unlock for me.

It was like, okay, if that happens to that guy, when it happens to me, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm weak and not worthy. So I think I, I really do appreciate how transparent you are. Dan: Thank you, Scott. I wanna remind everybody, um Of Scott's many contributions to the media universe, you should check out his podcast with Kara Swisher, Pivot. He also has several other podcasts, including the Prof G Podcast. He does a lot on YouTube and on social media, and, uh, his new book, uh, is called Notes On Being A Man, and it's just the latest of many, many books.

I will put links to everything Scott Galloway in the show notes. Go binge. Scott, thank you again. Scott: Thank you, brother. Thanks, Dan. Dan: I wanna thank everybody who works so hard to make this show. Uh, Ten Percent Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vaziri. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

Also, one quick ask before I let you go. Uh, head on over, please, to danharris.com to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Every Monday, I drop a little bit of goodness into your inbox. Mondays, especially Monday mornings, can be super stressful, so that is when I drop in one useful nugget that you can operationalize in your life immediately, either from ancient wisdom like Buddhism or from modern science. It's short, it's easy to read, it's worth it, it's free. Sign up at danharris.com