Scott Galloway: Why boring investing builds real wealth

1. 0:00 – 2:00

   Intro

   1. SGScott Galloway0:00

      Let's be honest, it's the boring (censored) that makes you rich. And the most unbelievable way for generating wealth and long-term economic security is... And then, once you do that, you can become a super tax avoider. (laughs) That sounded awful. (laughs)

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:16

      Scott Galloway, one of the world's leading voices in business and finance is back. His mission is to help millions of people build incredible wealth and live a life of economic security.

   3. SGScott Galloway0:26

      If you're trying to build wealth, you wanna lean into your advantages. Your advantages in your 20s are flexibility and time. So take risks, find your talent, not your passion, it has a 90+% employment rate. Or become an owner, not an earner, and develop an army of capital that goes out and kills for you at night, and then invest it.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:43

      What if you're not young?

   5. SGScott Galloway0:44

      Focus on the things you can control. One thing that is within your control is spending. But 98% of us will spend everything we get our hands on. It is very hard to have the discipline to take money that is within your grasp and invest it. And we don't appreciate the power of investing and compound interest.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00

      My team brought a bucket of sand to illuminate the power of compounding interest. This is investing £1,000 a month over the course of 12 months, starting at the age of 25. If you left it and kept investing at that rate, by the age of 65, it would look like this.

   7. SGScott Galloway1:15

      And the young man who says, "I have £500. I gotta wait till I have a million before I start investing." The way you get a million pounds is by investing that 500. And this notion that it's too late for me, I'm in my 40s, I'm gonna ignore finances, ah, bull (censored) .

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:26

      So what is the set of steps?

   9. SGScott Galloway1:27

      Let me make it easy. First thing...

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

       Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang, we've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know. And the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you, and enjoy this episode.

2. 2:00 – 3:15

   Why Some Become More Rich Than Others

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:00

      Scott, you've written a book on wealth, money, finance. Why? And why does it, why does it matter?

   2. SGScott Galloway2:12

      Uh, this is kind of a memo to my 25-year-old self. I've been rich three times. And the first two times I lost it. And I didn't grow up with a lot of money. It's been very important to me. I think America, and mostly in Europe, but especially America, America becomes more like itself every day, in that is it's a generous, loving place if you have money. It's a rapacious, violent place if you don't. I think economic security is really important. And I think there's a series of habits and character traits that, uh, can help you get to economic security. You know that study that you become the average of your five closest friends? Same body mass index, same politics, same sports team, same neighborhood. Uh, what they don't talk about is that amongst those five people, even if they're all making about the same amount of money, one will end up much more economically well-off than the other four. And I'm trying to understand the behaviors of that one person who becomes economically secure by the time they're my age without making a lot more money than their colleagues.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett3:14

      Do

3. 3:15 – 8:43

   Where Do We Learn About Money?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett3:15

      you think we're taught about money? W- where d- where did those people, that one in five, where did, where did they learn about money?

   2. SGScott Galloway3:22

      Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think... So, the honest answer is, I don't know. What I would say, uh, sociologically, is that rich people talk about money, and it's considered taboo for employees and middle class and lower class and women to talk about money. Like, you're told not to talk about your salary at work. Asymmetry of information will always benefit the person that has symmetry, that knows the information. The boss of a company knows what everyone's making, but he tells his or her employees not to discuss their salary because Lisa might find out that Bob is making 30% more for doing the same work. So there's a bit of a zeitgeist that tells people not to talk about money, that it's like talking about porn or that it's vulgar. And I think you need to start talking about money and maintain a certain level of financial literacy from a very early age. Because Roger Federer talks about tennis. If you wanna be good at anything, most people wanna be good at money, and to be good at something you need to understand it, and to understand it, you need to talk about it. So I'm very transparent with how much money I make, what I do with it. But talk to your friends about mortgage rates, talk to your friends about how much money they make, what they're doing with it, where they lost money. And people aren't transparent about it, especially, I think, about men. We're supposed to be just, like, accidentally wealthy. And to ever talk about our financial problems is to admit that we're not ballers or that we're not masculine. And so I encourage people from a young age to start talking about money and understand it and be transparent about it.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett4:49

      Where did you learn about money? W- 'Cause I think about my own life, and I think there's key moments of, quite frankly, luck-

   4. SGScott Galloway4:56

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett4:56

      ... where I was exposed to information because I was invited into a room, physically, literally into a room, or I was, through no decision of my own, someone came into my life.

   6. SGScott Galloway5:07

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett5:07

      Um, or in my case, maybe one of the biggest blessings I ever had is when I went off, dropped out of university and pursued entrepreneurship-

   8. SGScott Galloway5:14

      Yeah.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett5:14

      ... my brother decided to go be an investment banker for 11 years in London.

   10. SGScott Galloway5:17

       Yep.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett5:18

       And then, when I had my first exit, he messaged me one day and said, "Hey, I'll manage your money, and I'll quit my job and come work with you full-time." And that's my older brother. So, like, life gave me the greatest gift anyone could ever have been given.

   12. SGScott Galloway5:33

       I- th- th- that, that, that rings so true. So I think of three things as you said that. The first is, the smartest thing I ever did was being born a white heterosexual male in California in the '60s, because it gave me unfair advantage, it gave me access to free education in the University of California, and access, 76% admissions rate when I applied to UCLA. The admissions rate this year is 9%. I came of professional age in the '90s when the internet was coming online. So I'd sort of had these winds at my back. And also, uh, just to be blunt...... everyone who was raising capital looked, smelled, and felt like me. They were all White heterosexual males. And I didn't even realize at the time what privilege or unfair advantage I had. So w- the first is just, just sheer luck. The second is environmental. I grew up, I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. And people who don't grow up with mon- people who grow up with money just can't really truly empathize with what it's like to grow up without money. I felt as if there was this ghost following me and my mom around, constantly whispering in our ear, "You're not worthy. Your mom fucked up, which means you, you aren't worthy." And so I very early decided that I was, that economic security was really important to me. And I wanna be clear, you can't make a decision to be wealthy, a lot of it is luck. But I was gonna be very committed. My goal in life from 0 to 45 wasn't to be a good person, it wasn't to save the whales, it wasn't to, to have strong relationships, it was to get economic security. So I started connecting the dots around money pretty early. And then along the lines of what you were talking about, um, my mom had a boyfriend, and, um, (laughs) and people don't talk about this, you know how in certain dramas they reference a second family, where a guy has an entirely other family despite the fact he's married? My mom and I were that second family. Her boyfriend for seven years was a wonderful man named Terry, really nice to me, spent every other weekend with us, super generous to me, uh, he was also married with another family, so we were that second family. But he was a good man, and he was a, he was actually a good role model for me. And one weekend I was asking him, "What is a stock?" And I was 13. And he said, "Here's $200." He gave me two crisp $100 bills and said, "Walk down to one of those stock brokerages, those fancy stock brokerages in Westwood Village, and buy some stock, and if you don't buy it by Monday afternoon or by the time I'm back next weekend, I'm taking my money back." So at 13 I marched down to Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner Smith, was in the lobby, I was ignored, I got intimidated, I walked across the street to Dean Witter Reynolds, another brokerage, and this young guy named Si Serro came walking out and said, "Hi, I'm Si Serro," and he gave me my first lesson in the markets, and I bought 14 shares of Columbia Pictures.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett8:15

       At 13 he gave you a lesson in the markets?

   14. SGScott Galloway8:17

       Yeah, at 13. And every day, every weekday for the next three years, from Emerson Junior High payphone booth, I'd put two dimes in and call Si, and he would say, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a hit, which means that Columbia, uh, Studios is gonna make a lot of money so people are buying more stock." And then I'd go into his office, I didn't, I didn't have a ton of friends, and so I would just swing by Dean Witter and he would always give me a lesson in the markets.

4. 8:43 – 13:04

   Where Would We Be Without Those Connections?

   1. SGScott Galloway8:44

   2. SBSteven Bartlett8:44

      Had those two men not shown such generosity to you with their time and with that $200 bill, have you ever played out in your mind where you might be?

   3. SGScott Galloway8:53

      I think we all do that, like Sliding Doors, that movie, you know, things are s- th- eh, it's like, life is such a series of... You know, I, I promised myself I was gonna approach this strange woman at the Raleigh Hotel in the middle of the day who was sitting by the pool, who was sitting there with another woman and another guy, and without the benefit of alcohol it's not easy to open, you know, a conversation with a strange woman, and I walked out to get my car and I said, "I promised myself I was gonna speak to her," I was very drawn to her, a beautiful woman. So I went back in, I just rolled right up and I said, "Hi, I'm Scott, where are you guys from?" And this was at the Raleigh Hotel. Long story short, 18 months later our first son's middle name is Raleigh, right? And what I tell people is that unless you're willing to take an uncomfortable risk, nothing wonderful is ever gonna happen to you. I mean, a really uncomfortable risk. What you're doing here is an uncomfortable risk, it's public failure if it doesn't work. This podcast platform you're starting, you know, this, most people aren't willing to take these risks. And a lot of this, not to get existential, a lot of this comes down to a huge unlock for me has been atheism. I think I have a very solid grasp of the finite nature of life. You're a young man, you're gonna be my age in an instant, and the thing you're gonna recognize is that, okay, in 30 or 40 years, everyone whose opinion you are worried about is gonna be dead. And I have found that has been an enormous unlock for me, knowing that I'm gonna at some point sooner than I'd like look into my kids' eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end, so I'm comfortable expressing my emotions, or more comfortable. I'm comfortable taking uncomfortable risks knowing that if I call someone and ask them to invest, if I approach a strange woman in a bar and introduce myself, if I call a, an employee who I would never think would consider working for me, I'm not afraid of rejection because I realize everyone I'm worried about being shamed by is gonna be dead soon and so am I.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:36

      (laughs)

   5. SGScott Galloway10:37

      And so why wouldn't you live out life, w- well, why wouldn't you live out loud, why wouldn't you squeeze so much juice from this, you know, uh, uh, lemon called life? It's really been an enormous unlock for me, 'cause the reality, Steve, is that most people are not willing to take uncomfortable risks that might result in public shaming. It's embarrassing to get rejected by a pote- to express interest in someone and be sort of rejected. It's embarrassing to try and raise money and be rejected. It's embarrassing to start a business and not have it work. The majority of people aren't willing to take those uncomfortable risks, and the reason why you get outsized return as an entrepreneur, the reason why you get outsized returns when you're willing to approach strangers and ask for mentorship, friendship, express romantic interest, is because you are willing to endure rejection. The most overcompensated people in any organization are the salespeople. In terms of how hard and how smart they are, how hard they work and how smart they are relative to their compensation, hands down the most overcompensated people that everyone resents are the salespeople, because they are willing to get out a big spoon in each shit. "Do not call me again." "Okay, so what you're saying is I should follow up in a couple weeks."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:49

      (laughs)

   7. SGScott Galloway11:49

      Right? That type of rejection, that type of risk, that type of public failure, 99% of people are not willing to endure. I ran for sophomore, junior, and senior class president in high school, I lost all three times, and based on my track record I decided I should run for student body president where I went o- went on to, wait for it, lose.And it never really got in the way of my confidence, you know. And that's the key. If you want... And unfortunately, young men are told, you know, "Don't try hard," or they feel like a loss of agency, or especially romantically, they're told, "Be careful in terms of expressing romantic interest." And if you don't know the difference between expressing interest and asking someone out for coffee and harassing them, you've got bigger problems. But I think a lot of young men have feel like their agency has been taken away, they feel like the game is rigged, so they're not trying, and quite frankly, they're spending much too, too much time on a screen or in their homes, so they're not putting themselves in a position to have something wonderful happen to them. And on a very basic level, I'm almost entirely sure that I can guarantee you that nothing really wonderful, I mean, really wonderful, is gonna happen to you inside of your home on a screen.

5. 13:04 – 20:21

   No Matter How Old You Are You Can Still Make More Money

   1. SGScott Galloway13:05

      Your success is a function of your ability to endure rejection, and increasingly, how much time you spend outside of your house, off a screen.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett13:13

      What if you're not young? Because what you described there, that... All of that was me at 18.

   3. SGScott Galloway13:18

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett13:19

      I had just dropped out of university after w- going to only one of the lectures. And I had these four credit cards which had about, I think, combined about £1,000 on them-

   5. SGScott Galloway13:29

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett13:29

      ... I'd maxed them all out. My parents weren't speaking to me. I'm three hour, three hours away from home, roughly, up in Manchester. More than that, six-hour round trip in Manchester. And I'm 18, I've got no kids, no mortgage, no nothing, and I'm in-

   7. SGScott Galloway13:42

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett13:42

      ... this room that I can't afford to pay for. So in... I was so clearly at the bottom with nothing to lose-

   9. SGScott Galloway13:47

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett13:47

       ... that every roll of the dice was a potential win.

   11. SGScott Galloway13:50

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett13:50

       So I was rolling that motherfucker.

   13. SGScott Galloway13:51

       But you kept rolling them.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett13:52

       Oh, over and over-

   15. SGScott Galloway13:53

       Okay.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett13:53

       ... and over and over again.

   17. SGScott Galloway13:54

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett13:54

       But, but I, I, I wonder sometimes, 'cause there's probably gonna be someone listening that's, you know, 47-

   19. SGScott Galloway13:58

       Yep.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett13:59

       ... three kids, mortgage-

   21. SGScott Galloway14:00

       Yep.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett14:00

       ... comfortable job, just about cutting it every month, one holiday a year, experiencing the same dissatisfaction with their life, but-

   23. SGScott Galloway14:08

       Yeah.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett14:09

       ... they can't roll like I could when I was 18.

   25. SGScott Galloway14:12

       Look, the reality is when you have kids, everything changes. The... I think the, probably the darkest moment for me, maybe personally or professionally other than losing my mom, was the moment that was supposed to be the happiest, and that was when my first son was born. And you think that when this child... When you... You know, this child's introduced to the world, it's gonna be bright lights and angels singing. For me, if... I felt humiliation and shame and fear because I had made a lot of money, but I had gone all in. And this is a lesson from the book, The Power of Diversification. I'd gone all in on this one company, Red Envelope, which went public in 2002. It was an e-commerce company I started. And I thought, and had been taught by the venture capital community, that if you throw yourself at something and you're talented... And I thought, "I'm a baller. I'm really good at what I do," you gotta go all in, and I kept investing every spare dollar I had and threw myself at this thing. And then, a strike at the port, a software glitch, and the credit crisis. In 2008, our stock went from seven bucks to Chapter 11 in, like, three weeks. And I ended up not being worth 10 or 12 million, but being worth, worth negative two million, 'cause I was one of those idiots that borrowed against their stock to buy more stock.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett15:19

       Ah.

   27. SGScott Galloway15:20

       And then my child has the poor judgment, my oldest, to come marching out of my girlfriend, and the first thing I felt was failure on a massive level. Like, my first emotion when my son was born was, "I have failed to live up to my core responsibility as a man, and that is to take care of my child." And it was just... It was just a really ugly emotion. And that's a lesson in the book, and that is, the moment you aggregate anything resembling some sort of n- uh, decent amount of capital, you wanna look at it, and you wanna diversify like crazy. Because if I'd just taken a little bit of money off the table and invested in index funds or in real estate or bonds, I would've been so much better off. But everyone's told, "You can have it all. You can... You, you know... Y- y- y- you can be successful if you just go all in, never give up." Well, actually, the market will trump individual performance every time. And last week, my... The investment I was most excited about, this healthcare tech startup, great CEO, tier-one investors, elbowed my way into the deal. I put five million bucks in. I found out last Friday it's a zero. It just didn't work, zero, shutting down. But here's the thing. I never invest more than 3% of my net worth now in any one thing. So while it hurt, I have Kevlar in the form of diversification. So I took a bullet to the chest, knocked me off my feet, I get up. I was bummed out for an hour, that was it, because I never go all in on something. And people are taught, especially young people, especially men who are more risk-aggressive, go all in on something because the people who are the wealthiest people in the world kind of went all in on something. And what they don't tell you is the moment they have capital, they start diversifying like crazy. So you wanna diversify. You don't need to find the needle in haystack. You can buy the whole haystack. And especially, unfortunately, in the American economy, not as much in the UK economy, it continues to be up and to the right. And the S&P and the NASDAQ are sort of self-filtering mechanisms because they kick out companies that aren't great, and they bring in new ones. They kick out Kodak, and they bring in Salesforce. If I had learned that diversification when I was a younger man, I would've saved myself... Uh, not only would I be... Have saved myself a lot of economic harm, I would've saved myself a lot of mental anguish. So diversification, and that's one of the key components of my algebra of wealth, diversification, people don't recognize how powerful it is 'cause it sounds boring. And you have people like Bill Ackman saying, "It's not concentration, it's conviction." You know, and then they beat on their chest, like, "Check out my shit." No, diversify and get rich slowly, because here's the thing, life goes so goddamn fast. "Wow, life has gone slowly," said no one ever. Now, back to your person who's 40, 45, they're gonna live another 40 years-They're probably gonna work another 30. You wanna lean into your advantages. Your advantages in your 20s are flexibility, you wanna workshop careers, find some- find your talent, not your passion, start saving a little bit of money. A little bit of money when you're young is a lot when you're older. Try and develop that savings muscle. A hundred bucks a month, a thousand bucks a month, oh my God, 2,500 bucks a month, if you can do that in your 20s, you're gonna be fine when you're my age. Even if you don't go double platinum or sell a book or be a baller in business, you're fine. Your plan B is all set. That's your advantage when you're in your 20s, is time. When you get to your 40s, your advantage is the following. One, hopefully you're in a relationship with a partner you can align with around financial, um, e- objectives, your approach to spending, your approach to earning. Y- you can see the runway, "All right, I'm gonna retire in 30 years. I need 15 to 25 times my, my nut to be in the bank to retire. I spend about $120,000 a year, that 20 times that I would need 2.4 million." Well, my... Now work backwards. How much would I need to save over the next 30 years to get to 2.4 million, assuming 8% a year? The landing lights are on, you can start to plan your life. "I'm not gonna get there. I can't save this much. I got kids in college." Okay. When do your kids go to college? Can you take that burndown to 80 grand by moving to Mexico City or Costa Rica or to St. Louis? But you have the advantage of knowing your path. Ideally, you have a career where you can make some money and start saving a little bit. Ideally, you have a partner where you can get alignment around working together to get that financial security. But most people in their 40s are under the impression their life is over. I mean, they're probably gonna live to be over 100. And e- e- so okay, so you don't have 80 years, you only have 60 years left, but you still probably got another 30 years working and making money, and you kinda know what you need, right? Uh, so I think there's advantages at every age, but this notion that "It's too late for me, I'm in my 40s, I'm gonna ignore finances," no, bullshit. You just need to have an adult conversation with yourself.

6. 20:21 – 23:27

   When To Take Risks And When To Diversify

   1. SGScott Galloway20:21

   2. SBSteven Bartlett20:21

      Do you think it makes sense then to go kind of risk on when you're young and then go diversified once you're older? 'Cause you just wanna highlight there for people that are, you know, uh, like I was when I was 18, to kinda go all in and to make those big bets when you have nothing to lose. And the minute you have something to lose, whether that's your mortgage, y- you know, you got children to take care of, or now you've got wealth to then go risk off, is that the kind of approach you would suggest to life?

   3. SGScott Galloway20:45

      I, I think generally speaking, you can't be as risk-aggressive when you have kids, um, when you're younger. Look, if you screw up here, y- you're, you're, you're likable enough that you can probably find couches to live on f- for two years-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett20:58

      (laughs) .

   5. SGScott Galloway20:58

      ... if you needed to. If you like-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett20:59

      (laughs) .

   7. SGScott Galloway20:59

      ... just got in over your skis, uh, you could find a way to dan- when you're young, you can dance between the raindrops. I lived in New York, I had two, two roommates. When I started my business, my girlfriend paid our rent and I... because I didn't, I didn't have kids or dogs. There's just a certain level of responsibility and things you gotta take care of as you get older. When you get a little bit older, don't go all in on anything. If you're gonna start a business, use other people's capital, ring-fence it, don't get seduced into... The worst thing that can happen in your 30s and 40s is you start a business and you start failing slowly, you just don't know. The worst type of business is one that gives you just enough green signals that you keep investing more time and more money. The red envelope, people, that's what people know me for, that's the worst thing that can happen to somebody, 'cause it failed slowly, it failed over 11 years. I started an e-commerce incubator in New York backed by Goldman Sachs, Maveron, um, JPMorgan, it was out of business in eight months 'cause of the dot-com meltdown. That's a blessing. The best thing that can happen is success, the second-best thing is fast failure, the worst thing that can happen to you is slow failure. You can't have slow failure when you're 30s and 40s. So you wanna make sure that if you go in on something, you ring-fence it, "I'm leaving my job, I'm gonna try and start my own business, I'm gonna spend two years doing it. A certain amount of capital, no more than maybe 10, 20% of my capital." Because hitting a wall and failing at 50 is, is much more devastating than hitting a wall or failing at 25 or 30. You can get up again, you're fine, you can press the restart button a bunch of times. So you wanna take advantage of that in your 20s and 30s and workshop a bunch of things. I'm not saying hop around, I'm not saying, "Oh, I don't love this, it's not my passion," no, that probably means it's just work. But if you're not making progress, if you're not making money, if you're not getting roles in films, if you're not... If everything's just really hard, really hard, you're in a position at that age to say, "You know what? I'm gonna leave Milan and move to Munich or I'm going to Dubai." You have flexibility when you're young, you have geographic flexibility. Lean into your advantage. It's a heck of a lot easier right now to make money in Dubai than it is in Caracas, right? You'd rather be good in a great economy than outstanding in a mediocre economy. You have geographic flexibility. Lean into your advantages, your flexibility, your ability to recover, your ability to workshop.

7. 23:27 – 27:05

   Should We Go For Our Dream Jobs?

   1. SGScott Galloway23:27

   2. SBSteven Bartlett23:27

      What would you do if one of your sons said to you... How many sons have you got now?

   3. SGScott Galloway23:30

      I got two.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett23:31

      You got two sons, right?

   5. SGScott Galloway23:31

      That I know of.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett23:32

      (laughs) That you know of. One of your sons comes to you and says, "Dad, I would like to be a... I've read your book, um, all of your books and I, I think they're great but Dad, I'd love to be a professional actor."

   7. SGScott Galloway23:45

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett23:45

      And then your other son came to you and said, "I wanna be a musician."

   9. SGScott Galloway23:49

      I don't wanna crush anybody's dreams. Uh, I go for it, I'll be supportive, um, but this industry, let's just look at the economics. Musician and acting has a 99% unemployment rate. So you gotta be in the 1%. And I want you to set up benchmarks for determining what it means to be in the top 1%, right? 80, uh... The most talented actors in the world are in a union called SAG-AFTRA.And by the way, it's not easy to get your union card. You gotta be in a Broadway play. You gotta be recognized. That's a big moment. It's like getting your PGA golf tour card, right? You get your SAG-AFTRA card, it means you're one of the 180,000 most talented creatives in the world. Last year, 83% of them didn't have health insurance 'cause they didn't make more than $23,000. So, you not only need to be in the top 17% just to have health insurance, you probably need to be in the top 10%, realistically the top 1%. I know a lot of working actors, if I said, "This is the guy from this show," you'd be like, "Oh my God, that guy's amazing?" He's not making a lot of money. I mean, everybody talks about Tom Cruise. The majority of working actors, you would say, "Well, I know that woman, I know that man. They're great." They make an okay living. If they had achieved that level of excellence in almost any other industry, they'd be, they'd own a house and a second house in Ibiza. So if you wanna be an athlete, an actor, a model, an artist, open a restaurant, open a nightclub, have a jewelry line, be a fashion designer, I don't wanna crush anyone's dreams, but let's have a sober conversation that if you aren't getting bright green lights that you're in the top 1% really quickly, and we put some guardrails on it, we're gonna do this for two years, three years, can't pay your rent in two or three years, Dad's gonna stop paying your rent at some point, or maybe I'll continue to pay your rent, but I need you to start workshopping another career. Because here's the thing, people of- young people oftentimes mistake their hobbies for their passions. And what I would suggest is, and what I can guarantee you, is being successful at anything, passion comes from mastery. Mastery comes from being a ninja at something. I'm renovating a house and there's this guy installing our soapstone, who's the soapstone guy. He's an Iraqi immigrant, dropped outta high school. He knows everything about so- soapstone. He can talk to you about the vein in the soapstone and which quarries a- a- and he makes... I've been very open with him. I've talked about it in my book, he made 1.3 million pounds last year. He's the soapstone guy. I can't imagine when he was a kid, he and I bonded over football, I would bet, I don't know this, I would bet he dreamt of being a football star and playing for Iraq in the World Cup at some point. I doubt at the age of 17 he thought, "My... I'm hoping in 15 years I'm installing soapstone and renovations for American douchebags in Marylebone." I can't imagine that was his dream, right? But here's the thing. He has an amazing life. He takes care of his kids. He takes care of his parents. He gets to take amazing vacations with his wife, which makes him passionate about soapstone. So yeah, go be a fashion designer. But let's be honest, if you're not making enough money to pay your rent within two years and you're not making enough money to, say, form a family in five years, we're gonna workshop something else.

8. 27:05 – 31:18

   Having Money Is Fun!

   1. SBSteven Bartlett27:05

      This requires such a mindset shift in the current world, because obviously the slot machine, the casino, the Las Vegas of validation is Instagram and TikTok.

   2. SGScott Galloway27:14

      That's right.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett27:14

      Now, if I announce on Instagram that I'm a tax lawyer, for the next f- 10 years-

   4. SGScott Galloway27:19

      Not a great Instagram page.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett27:20

      ... it's not gonna increase my chance of getting laid either. But if I say that I am, I don't know, if I say that I'm part of Chelsea Football Club, I'm in the, you know, the Junior Academy-

   6. SGScott Galloway27:31

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett27:31

      ... or if I say that I'm starting a business, I'm probably gonna get laid more in the next 10 years.

   8. SGScott Galloway27:36

      Well, the only pushback I would get is that you have to be one of the 10 best soccer players in the world that year to play for Chelsea. That is really hard. That is really... That means you're the best player in Senegal, and then you go... I mean, you just have to be godlike talented. The best 10% of tax lawyers, that's tens of thousands of them, fly private and get laid more than you think because they fly private and they can afford, they can find someone and give them a wonderful life. So, uh, I mean, look, in a capitalist... I'm not saying this is how the world should be. I'm saying this is how the world is. Economic security provides you with all sorts of opportunities for experiences, for relationships, for romantic opportunities, and it is sexy to be great at anything and get economic security from anything. And I can't tell you, I love taking care of my kids 'cause at one point I was worried about my ability to take care of my kids and not worry about it. And this is where happiness comes from. It's great to be in a prestige industry and be a baller. I get reward from some of the fame I have right now. I'm sure you get reward from it. But the thing that is really rewarding as you get older is I can lean into my relationships with my sons and I don't have that economic fear I had the first time my son came marching out on my girlfriend. That is so rewarding. I can take care of my dad. I don't have to worry about it. My, my dad's 90, gonna be 94 in a few weeks, and he lives in a really nice home, and he has a full-time kind of health aide, and it's about a quarter of a million dollars a year to take care of my dad. And if you look at, okay, that's post-tax, there's no tax credit for it, so it's about $400,000 in pre-tax income. My sister, who does really well, but not as well as me, we have a great partnership. She handles it logistically. I handle the money. And being able to do that and not have it be a source of stress in my life and know that my dad is taken care of well, okay, i- i- uh, it'd be great to be a football player. Trust me, when you get to my age, that feels really good. That feels really nice. And the m- the, the, the means to the ends, the means... Money is a means. It's really important. It's hard to be happy in a capitalist society with economic stress. The standing blood- the resting blood pressure of kids in low-income homes is higher than kids in middle and upper mid because they sense the anxiety from Mom and Dad. I remember, you know, losing my jacket when I was in the eighth grade, and it was gonna be just a horrible day 'cause I had to go home and tell my mom jackets cost 33 bucks, all in my head, very upsetting.... the ability to take care of your kids, your parents, do wonderful things. Money a- affords you so many wonderful things that getting to a certain level of economic security is the means. But the ends, the reason you get to economic securities is so you can free up and be free of anxiety and have some additional time so you can focus on the ends. And the ends is deep and meaningful relationships. I spend the majority of my money on travel and experiences with my family and friends. I spend a shit ton of money, and I absolutely love it. There's no reason to hoard money. Once I hit my number ... I hit my number seven years ago, and I started thinking, "I could be a billionaire."

   9. SBSteven Bartlett31:03

      What was your number?

   10. SGScott Galloway31:05

       Uh, my number was 100 million.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett31:06

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SGScott Galloway31:07

       Uh, by the way, my number when I got out of college was a million, and then by my 30s, I thought, "Well, if I had 10 million, I'm done." And then things got so expensive, and my greed glands kept going, and my number was 100 million.

9. 31:18 – 32:41

   Why Should You Have A Number Of How Much Money You Need?

   1. SGScott Galloway31:18

   2. SBSteven Bartlett31:18

      Why have a number? Why did, why do people listening need to create a number? What's the value of having that sort of line in the sand?

   3. SGScott Galloway31:26

      Well, you need a goal, and you need to be thoughtful about how much money you're gonna need. So if you figure out I'm gonna need a, I'm gonna need 80,000 pounds a year to live. Uh, uh, the definition of rich is having a ton of shit and impress your friends. The definition of wealth is knowing that the passive income that you would get from growth from your stocks or dividends or incomes or rental income is greater than your burn. So you work, you work out of d- out of a, uh, option, or you work because you want to, not 'cause you need to. That's the definition of wealth. So having a number is just backward integrating into, okay, um, I want to have at least $3 million a l- a year to live the life I wanna live. All right? Assuming a 4% return, that means I need $75 million. So I round it up to 100 million, right? I got exceptionally lucky to get there. By the way, see above. In 2008, I was broke. I was broke at the age of 42, 43. That did not feel good. I got very lucky, started a company, bull market the last 16 years, right place, right time, exceptionally lucky. But you should be able, you should have a number. You should say, "This is the amount of money I need, and once I get to this number, enjoy it and start giving it

10. 32:41 – 37:18

    How To Make 9-Figures

    1. SGScott Galloway32:41

       away."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett32:42

       We, we really need to... 'Cause I'm thinking about... The lens that I kind of think about this conversation through is, like, different stages in my own journey and the advice that I would have wanted from you at different steps in my journey. And I, I just flashed back to working in those call centers, where I was making just about enough money to... Well, to be fair, if I'm being completely honest, I did have disposable income. But I, when I was poor, I was reckless with my money.

    3. SGScott Galloway33:05

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett33:05

       So I would get the 500 pound disposable income on payday, leave the call center, go and buy-

    5. SGScott Galloway33:10

       Magic.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett33:10

       ... a 400-pound TV-

    7. SGScott Galloway33:11

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett33:11

       ... flat-screen TV, and put it in a room where the TV was as big as the wall of my room.

    9. SGScott Galloway33:15

       Right.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett33:16

        And I, I'm trying to, I'm really trying to zoom in on that person who is so far away from nine figures.

    11. SGScott Galloway33:21

        Yeah.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett33:21

        And they're like, "Okay, Scott, I wanna be Scott Galloway."

    13. SGScott Galloway33:23

        Yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett33:23

        So what is the set of steps or the mindset, the fishing rod I need-

    15. SGScott Galloway33:26

        Got it.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett33:26

        ... in my mind to become Scott Galloway, nine figures?

    17. SGScott Galloway33:29

        Well, the first is, the first is, some of it is luck. A l- again, a lot of my success in... If I had been born in Europe, I don't think I'd have that number. Europe's not as forgiving of entrepreneurs that have failed. I've had a lot of failure. If I lived in China, I think there's a decent chance I'd be in jail. So the smartest, again, the smartest thing I've ever done was being born in California in the '60s.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett33:47

        So you're saying to move? Does that matter?

    19. SGScott Galloway33:49

        What's that?

    20. SBSteven Bartlett33:50

        Should I move city? Like-

    21. SGScott Galloway33:51

        Oh, if you're young, the first thing you wanna do is to get to one of 20 supercities. If you're... I'm just talking about someone who wants to be an economic animal, right? Y- you might-

    22. SBSteven Bartlett33:59

        (laughs) Who doesn't?

    23. SGScott Galloway34:00

        Okay, but it's, uh, some people might say, "Scott, it's your way or it's not the right way. I wanna teach, coach football in my little village outside, uh, in the Amalfi Coast. I can make 55,000 euros working, running a small bakery and have a really nice life." Or-

    24. SBSteven Bartlett34:17

        I don't think they would have clicked.

    25. SGScott Galloway34:18

        More power to you. That's not the majority of the people I hang out with. Majority of the young people I hear from realize that capitalism, that wealth equals relevance and love in a capitalist society, and they wanna be economically very secure. The easiest thing, the best piece of advice is, one, get credentialed. We live in a LinkedIn economy. What you did, your success is especially impressive because on average, people who get a college degree earn 50 to 100% more over the course of their life. There's an entire set of industries that are off-limits to people that don't have credentialing. I went to work for Morgan Stanley. We not only didn't hire people without college degrees, we didn't hire people that didn't go to one of eight universities when I applied. Eight. You had to g- not only go to college, you had to go to one of eight colleges to get a job at Morgan Stanley at that time. So if you can, get credentialing. The second thing, not everyone's cut out for college. I get that. The second thing is get to a supercity. Two-thirds of all economic growth over the next 30 years is gonna take place in one of 20 cities. So if you're really in that small town in Italy, you wanna get to Milan as quickly as possible, and then, if you can, you wanna get to London as quickly as possible or Munich or a bigger city. And then, quite frankly, if you have total geographic agility and flexibility, ignoring the ridiculous INS of the US, you wanna get to New York or San Francisco, because to be good in San Francisco is much better than being amazing in Stuttgart.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett35:46

        (laughs)

    27. SGScott Galloway35:47

        The amount of economic... Here's the thing. I'm, I'm a mediocre, I'm a mediocre surfer. I've even, actually even given it up. But when I was young and I used to go to Hawaii and the waves were perfect, I started believing I was a good surfer. Or I go to Aspen after a fresh coat of snow and I'm like, "I'm a decent skier." No, you're not. The snow and the waves are fucking amazing. Anyone could be a good skier in this shit. Get to where the waves and the snow are amazing, and that's generally speaking in cities, and when you're young, you can be in a city 'cause you can live in a 400-square-foot apartment. You can be out of the house all day. You can dance between the raindrops and make money. But when you are in a city... You know how when you play tennis, if you play with someone much better than you, it elevates your game?

    28. SBSteven Bartlett36:30

        Mm-hmm.

    29. SGScott Galloway36:30

        When you're in a city, you're playing against Serena Williams every day. Everyone is smart.Everyone is well-dressed. Everyone is working hard. Everyone is taking chances. And you are surrounded by people who are very successful, and you are gonna bump off professional and personal opportunity every day. Do it while you're young, 'cause when you start collecting dogs and kids, as I did in my 30s, I could no longer afford to stay in New York. So I had to move to Delray Beach in Florida. When I say have to, we had a wonderful life down there. There's not a fraction of the opportunities in Delray Beach for someone in their 20s and 30s. Now, I already had professional momentum, but Sunday to Thursday night, I was commuting to New York, 'cause that's where the action was. So one, credentialing, but two, absolutely get to one of 20

11. 37:18 – 40:02

    Where You Should Live To Be Financially Successful

    1. SGScott Galloway37:18

       supercities.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett37:18

       When you say 20 supercities, I- I thinking now, we're having this conversation in a world where AI seems to be the biggest topic of conversation.

    3. SGScott Galloway37:26

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett37:26

       It seems to be ripping up m- many industries. But it, I also reflect on that, and I go, "Where is the AI opportunity gonna be?" If that is the biggest wave coming into shore in terms of opportunity, um, should I be playing my sort of geographical, um, decision-making based on artificial intelligence? 'Cause everyone's raving about how big of an opportunity that is. And technology generally over the next 10 years seems like it's really gonna eat up a lot of, uh, industry.

    5. SGScott Galloway37:49

       Yeah, I don't, I don't know if it'd be possible to determine geography based on AI. What I would say is, okay, you know, every, literally, uh, a third of my class, NYU, they get on a plane for San Francisco the day they graduate. There's just, within a seven-mile radius of San Francisco International Airport, there's been more wealth created I think in the last six months than, than Germany's created in the last decade. NVIDIA's worth more than the entire UK stock market. NVIDIAs, they make the, they're basically, they make the brains for artificial intelligence. They make a GPU, which is essentially a microchip that powers all of AI right now. And no one can buy them fast enough. Now, they have 30,000 people. I would bet 10 or 15,000 of them are worth at least $10 million now. Right?

    6. SBSteven Bartlett38:38

       Because?

    7. SGScott Galloway38:39

       Because the 30,000 employees got stock options. And when a company goes from, from 300 billion to three trillion, it means everyone is getting rich. That doesn't happen that often in Dortmund.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett38:53

       (laughs)

    9. SGScott Galloway38:54

       It doesn't happen that often. It doesn't happen. I'm being kind, right? You grow up in Ingolstadt, you either go to work for Audi, nothing wrong with that, make a good living, but if you're young and you think, "I really wanna get in front of the biggest waves," you want to go to one of several cities. You wanna have the winds at your back. So if you're young, what do you have? You have agility geographically. But going back, you initially asked me, "What's the algorithm? What are the steps?" And I tried to... The, the book's called The Algebra of Wealth. I tried to distill it down to a, a, a small number of, of features. The first is focus. Go all in on something. Once you find, you workshop in your 20s, once you find something you're really good at, that you could be in the top 1% at, and here's the key part, as we referenced before, that has a 90-plus percent employment rate, and 90% of industries have that, but if you can be in the top 10% of an industry that has a 90-plus percent employment rate, you're gonna make really good money. First thing, focus. Try not to have side hustles. If you have a side hustle, it means your main hustle isn't working. Use side hustle to workshop new main hustles, but once you find something you're really good at, go all in on it.

12. 40:02 – 42:39

    How Do You Get Out Of Your Current Job Situation

    1. SBSteven Bartlett40:02

       Can I pause there just as we keep going? 'Cause I wanna just provide counterarguments just in case that certain people are objecting in their own minds. I, I think about me in the Southwest of England as I grew up, and I was in Plymouth working at a McDonald's. I worked there for two days.

    2. SGScott Galloway40:15

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett40:15

       But I worked in retail, in shops and stuff. What I had at that moment, I, in hindsight, was a void of information. So... M- I could only work at, like, a clothing store and a McDonald's because I didn't have any other information. And if a kid hasn't gone to university or if someone listening to this hasn't, hasn't got the information and they've stumbled across, across this podcast, but they're working in, I don't know, like, a equivalent of a Wendy's or a Burger King, for example-

    4. SGScott Galloway40:44

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett40:44

       ... and they just, like, "How do I get out of this Burger King, Scott? I'm a cashier at Burger King."

    6. SGScott Galloway40:51

       Yeah, look, I, I don't... I, I, I wanna be clear. I think there is a certain downside to the notion that we live in a meritocracy, and it creates a lot of rage and shame among young people, and that is the notion that, in America especially, anyone can be anything. Well, not really, boss, 'cause the problem with thinking we live in a meritocracy is that if you don't make it, you fucked up. It's your fault.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett41:13

       Yeah.

    8. SGScott Galloway41:14

       And there's dignity in every work. What I would say to someone working at a Burger King or in fast food that wants something bigger, work really... I was on the board of Panera Bread, which is a fast food chain or quick service. They call it QSR. They don't like the term f- Someone who was hardworking and showed up at work every day on time and worked with their colleagues and acted like they owned the place, probably within two years could be managing the place and making 60 or 80 grand a year. Now, I'm not suggesting you go all, all in on food, but there's always dignity in work. There's always opportunity for people who work hard and act like owners and are good people and try and look out for other people and are good managers. That might just be for you a means to an end where you're workshopping other stuff to say, "How do I get to, to school? How do I get to training? How do I find a better job? How do I save for a one-year apprenticeship program to become an electrician? How do I start meeting people?" You gotta pay your bills. There's dignity in all work. I coach a lot of young men, and the first thing I say is, "You gotta start making some money." And they're like, "I'm not gonna work at CVS or at McDonald's." I'm like, "Yeah, you are, 'cause you need a taste for flesh." The best way to make a lot of money is to start making a little bit of money. But have a plan. "I want to be the assistant manager of this McDonald's. I want to save enough money so I can go back to school. I want to save enough money so I can move to Dubai or move to London and get a job there that might be higher paying."

13. 42:39 – 45:19

    Good Places To Make Money Vs Bad Places To Make Money

    1. SGScott Galloway42:39

    2. SBSteven Bartlett42:39

       Is there anything about the CVS or the Burger King or the whatever that I should be looking at to check that it has room for me to grow there? Is there anything that... You know, if we're starting by making a little bit of money-

    3. SGScott Galloway42:50

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett42:50

       ... is there any good place to make a little bit of money versus a bad place to make a little bit of money?

    5. SGScott Galloway42:55

       Well, growth sort of solves all problems. So if you're working at a Chipotle-Doug McMillon, who's the CEO of Walmart, started st- uh, loading trucks. He worked in the loading docks. But he was also working for the retailer that grew faster than any retailer in history. So is your company growing? Uh, first thing, growth kind of solves all problems, right? If you were mediocre at Google, you did a lot better than if you were great at General Motors the last 20 years, because one was growing, one wasn't. So is it growing? Two, is more situational. Do I have someone who's emotionally invested in my success here? Is the manager of the store like me and saying, "Keep doing this, I'm gonna get you an assistant manager job at the store down the street"? Am I learning, right? Am I getting skills that challenge me? Is this a little bit hard? That's okay. Is it stressful? That's okay too. You don't want stress? Go be a security guard in a parking lot. No stress, no upside. The market is really good at trading up. The more stressful and intense, and like, "God, I can't keep up here," that probably means you're learning, that probably means you're gonna make more money. So am I learning? Do I have senior level sponsorship? Am I at a company that's growing? Am I in a city where there's economic vitality? Do I have flow? Flow of interesting people, flow of interesting friends that I might start another business with, flow of potential rem- One in three relationships begin at work, and every HR has hairs on fi- HR manager's hair is on fire right now. One in three relationships begin at work. We don't talk about that. A third of all relationships begin at work, and 99% of them are consensual, right? Young people have to find a place to, to find other mates, if you will. But there's a ser- And then, more importantly, I think than all of this, is assembling a kitchen cabinet of people that will... you can be really honest with. "I'm working at Burger King. I think I'm doing pretty well there. They wanna make me..." Managers at In-N-Out Burger make about 110, $120,000 a year in, in the US, and they're even given a chance to participate in profit-sharing. And I'm not suggesting being in fast food the rest of your life, but have a plan. And then you gotta have a kitchen cabinet. Put together a group of three, four people who know you, who you trust you, and you can be totally transparent, "This is how much money I'm making. These are my opportunities. These are... this is what I'm good at, what I'm not good at. What do you think I should do?"

14. 45:19 – 49:10

    How Do You Find A Mentor?

    1. SGScott Galloway45:19

    2. SBSteven Bartlett45:19

       And who are those people in terms of, are they people that are ahead of you in, in the race of life? Or are they...

    3. SGScott Galloway45:24

       First off, don't approach someone and say, uh, "I find your... I want you to be my mentor," right? 'Cause that's a high bar, and a lot of people are really busy. It's like, "Hey, uh, I- I'm, uh, y- I think you're really impressive." A neighbor, someone who's made... Uh, it doesn't have to be a baller, but someone who's living a virtuous life, who seems smart and nice to you. "Can I get some advice from you? Can I... would you mind? I just have questions. Can we do a call? Can we have a coffee?" There are a lot of people out there who want to help younger people and take it as a compliment. "Can I get your advice?" Ask them for advice. Don't make big decisions without talking to other people. It is really hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. Really hard, right? Check in with people. Save, save yourself from yourself. So that kitchen cabinet. And if you're like, if you're a young woman working at a Burger King, and y- uh, hopefully you meet some people and say, "Hey, uh, can I just get some advice from you?" And by the way, it might be someone else working at Burger King, and you're like, "This person has her act together. This person just has her act to... She's just smart." We all know those people.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett46:29

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SGScott Galloway46:30

       We meet them, and we work with them, like, "You know, this person just-"

    6. SBSteven Bartlett46:32

       Yeah.

    7. SGScott Galloway46:32

       ... "kind of switched on. They just seem to have better judgment around certain issues." So, uh, what I would say is, have a plan, don't be afraid to make changes, put together a kitchen cabinet, realize there's dignity in all work and any company, even something that seems lowbrow, like fast food, those organizations need talented people to go up the ranks and make money, because the turnover is enormous.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett46:55

       Mm-hmm.

    9. SGScott Galloway46:56

       So I think there's opportunity and dignity in any work.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett46:59

        You said something really interesting, which I, I don't think I've ever had anybody talk about before, which is, you said don't ask someone to be your mentor. And I, frank- I get asked to be someone's mentor several times a week, as I'm sure you do.

    11. SGScott Galloway47:10

        Yeah.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett47:10

        And I've never given people advice on why that isn't the right, right approach. But you said there that you don't think that's the right approach. So I wanted to just pause and ask you why.

    13. SGScott Galloway47:19

        Well, you don't go up to a strange person and say, "Do you wanna have sex?" You go up and say, "Do you wanna have con- in- do you wanna have a conversation? Do you wanna have another drink? Do you wanna grab coffee? Do you wanna go to the movies? Can I ask you a question? Can I get some advice from you?" You ease into the relationship.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett47:35

        Yeah.

    15. SGScott Galloway47:35

        Because to ask someone to be your mentor is just very intimidating. The person has to go, "Do I wanna meet with this person every month for the next five years and then break up with them if it... you know, if I'm not enjoying this relationship?" So you don't need to say, "Will you be my mentor?" That sounds like a lot. Just, "Can I get your advice on something? I really respect you. Uh, I think you're so smart about this stuff. I'm, I'm facing some issues in my life, some questions. I'd love to just get your advice. Can we grab coffee or can we do a five or 10-minute call?" If someone emails me and says, "I'm thinking..." I get a lot. "I'm thinking about starting a business. I'm thinking about going to business school. Can I get some time?" I try to say yes, and I say, "I can do, I can do a 15-minute Zoom call with you." If someone asks me to be their mentor, there's just no way. I don't, I don't have time to... You know, I, I can barely mentor me right now. I, the-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett48:19

        (laughs)

    17. SGScott Galloway48:19

        The... I just don't have time to commit to being someone's mentor. But if someone emails me and says, "I need advice around this specific issue," and then what happens? You hear that they're, you know, raised by a single mother like me, they're a good person, they're struggling, their sister's got an eating disorder and they're struggling with it, and they're trying to... they're thinking about starting a business and you're like, "Oh, no, no, don't do that right now. You've got a good job." Like, you just make some... you just help them with some common sense decisions. Common sense. And then what happens? You become emotionally invested in their success. And then they email you a month later and you're like, "What's going on?" And you wanna do another call. You know, ease into it. So anyways, I think it's much easier to just ask someone for help and for advice. And I think there's a lot of people out there...It doesn't have to be a baller like Steven Bartlett. There's a lot of smart people out there that can give you good advice.

15. 49:10 – 56:58

    The Psychological Formula For Networking

    1. SGScott Galloway49:10

    2. SBSteven Bartlett49:10

       'Cause I think this is really important. I, I don't think I've... As I said, I don't think I've had anyone talk about this, but you get a lot of messages. Have you been able to figure out exactly why some of them perk your interest, so much so that you'd give them 15 minutes on a Zoom call? Is there, is there a sort of a psychological formula that gets to you?

    3. SGScott Galloway49:32

       Well, the first is... Okay, first off, brevity. When I get, like, a long, you know, a novel, I'm just not gonna get through it. Uh, obviously, and this is hard to control, but they reference someone you know, or they re- they make a connection. "We're both graduates of Berkeley," or, "I met you, I came up to you and said hi to you at Cannes," or, "We have a mutual friend," or, "I too was raised by a single..." They make some sort of personal connection, and they make the ask very crisply. "I'm writing 'cause I'd love some advice around this." "I'm writing 'cause I'd like an introduction." "I'm writing 'cause I'm applying for your position for managing editor for Prop G Media." Just, like, get to the point, what's the ask, and try and make some sort of personal connection. And the other thing I would say, although I hate... You know, and I don't wanna encourage people to do this, be persistent. 'Cause a lot of times I get an email and I think, "Oh, that's a good kid. I should really set up a call or something," and then I go on to the next 85 emails I have, and I don't even remember getting that email. So, I would say don't be afraid to hit again and just say, "Hey, just putting it at the top of your inbox. Know you're busy. If I can grab 10 minutes of your time, I'd be really appreciative." And also, don't get discouraged if they don't get back to you. That's okay. It's not a reflection on you. Go onto the next. Just don't... Write it off. That's okay. D- don't worry about it, don't worry about it.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett50:51

       I have a, I have a bubbling thesis on this, that, um, if you just taught kids, you know, your kids, my k- future kids how to ask for things in life, the impact that that would have on their long-term trajectory is unbelievably profound. Because I... If I think back through my life, when I was 18 years old stealing those pizzas in Manchester, or every step along the way, some of my big pivotal moments in my trajectory were sending an email.

    5. SGScott Galloway51:16

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett51:16

       And... Yeah, pretty, like, yeah, pretty much all of them started with sending an email. But we don't teach people how to send an email. And you're-

    7. SGScott Galloway51:25

       Right.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett51:25

       You're on the receiving end of thousands of emails every month, or, or whatever, so you can see bad and good from a bird's-eye view. And the things you've just said there, I completely agree with. The, the size of the, the message, um, s- being specific in the ask, as you said, um, playing to ego in some way, letting them know that you've read something you've done, or you're interested in them-

    9. SGScott Galloway51:43

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett51:43

        ... or you know someone, all those things, has such a big, such a big impact. I think it... If you think about your life and you go, "Okay, I'm gonna live for a h- I'm gonna live a hundred years, and I'm probably gonna ask for things 10,000 times." If I can increase my success rate of those asks by 10% because I'm just more thoughtful in how I ask for things, my life could end up in a completely different place.

    11. SGScott Galloway52:04

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett52:05

        Kind of like what you said about you only need a couple of wins to really be successful in life. You only need... If you send ten em- ten emails, you only need, like, one person to say, "Yes, I'll invest."

    13. SGScott Galloway52:12

        That's it. And, and be willing to endure the rejection of the nine. I had a kid, this young kid come up to me. I was just in Cannes. "I'm a big fan. Can I take a picture with you, a selfie?" "Yeah." Boom, 10 seconds, take a selfie. Sent me an email yesterday with a picture of the selfie and said, "We met. We didn't have a chance to say hi. I'm struggling w- I'm..." And he was quite vulnerable. He told me about some of the stuff he was going through and said, "I'm struggling." And, uh, "Would you mind doing a 10 or 15-minute call with me?" And he includes a picture of me and him. How the fuck am I gonna say no to that, right? Anyway, there... You know, there's all sorts of tricks and trades, but the willingness to take that risk, the willingness to reach out to strangers, that's the key to success. That's... I mean, it's the reason I have kids. It's the reason I'm wealthy. Um, nothing wonderful is gonna happen to you without, um, uh, taking an uncomfortable risk. So, I think about this with my boys. I used to force them or ask them to speak to a stranger every time we were outside of the house. My oldest one has no problem, my youngest one doesn't like it. Really hard. "Okay, we just sit outside the door for 10 minutes. Just go ask 'em what breed their dog is over there. Just go over there. Just ask 'em about their dog." 'Cause he... I think a good strategy, especially for young men who, uh, for some reason seem to be sequestering and becoming much more isolated, whenever you're in a line, talk to the person in front of you and behind you. Just talk to them. Just get used to opening. Just get used to eye contact. Just get used to being friendly and having a conversation. 'Cause I think people are spending so much time indoors and behind screens, they're losing the ability to establish professional and personal connection. So, I think a certain cognitive behavior or, or training around how to be friendly and how to endure rejection.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett53:56

        One of the most revealing things I've, I've noticed about you as a person is what you just said about that kid that emailed you yesterday.

    15. SGScott Galloway54:02

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett54:03

        Because as you said it, I could see the emotion in your face.

    17. SGScott Galloway54:07

        Yeah, look, what do you want? As a species, you wanna feel certain things, right? You wanna feel... You know, the most rewarding things are sensations and feelings. And I get really moved by these kids sometimes, you know, you relate to them. I relate to young men who are struggling 'cause I was one of them. And so this stuff really, sometimes, it... You know, what you want in life is a, a group of people who are emotionally invested in your success, and then as you get older, the most rewarding thing is to let other people let you be emotionally invested in their success, right? I want my boys to love me, but what is the most rewarding thing is that they let me love them. That's the most rewarding thing, right? There are these vessels that I get to pour this, like, affection into. That's the most rewarding thing as you get older. So yeah, I think about this stuff a lot, and I get-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett54:54

        Why did he move you?

    19. SGScott Galloway54:56

        Well, just the picture. And I, I don't wanna divulge, but he's struggling. He's really going through some issues, uh, uh, with addiction and self-harm.... and depression. And, and also, by the way, is obviously a very talented kid, is very smart, is working in... You know, has a high profile job, and is struggling with addiction and self-harm. I mean, and, and you think, "Jesus, this shit is real," right? "This is really, really tough for this kid." And, uh, you just realize, I think so many young people, we're raising... My colleague at NYU wrote this book that's... This is the book we wish we'd written. Uh, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett55:36

        Oh, yeah.

    21. SGScott Galloway55:37

        It's literally the most inf- he's now the most influential scholar probably globally. And the takeaway is, we're raising... Despite our prosperity in the US, we're raising the most anxious, depressed, obese, and addicted generation in history. And you can just sense it. There's so many young people out there that are really struggling, that aren't happy, that don't have the opportunities that my generation had, and then 200 time- 210 times a day, they're reminded that they're not doing well as someone else vomits their faux success and experiences all over them. That, "Oh wait, I didn't make, I didn't, I didn't make a million dollars in NVIDIA and I'm not partying in Saint-Tropez? I'm a failure?" Right? And their, their opportunities for professional and romantic success are going down. People aren't dating. One out of three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend. You know, I mean, there's just so many... You can just tell young people are really, really struggling. And I think about that a lot, and, uh, you know what? It moves me because a few fortunate decisions, a few random emails, you know, things could've been much different for me. And I, I... So I really, I do relate to these, especially the young men. I relate to the struggles they're facing.

16. 56:58 – 1:01:48

    How To Be A Great Decision Maker

    1. SGScott Galloway56:58

    2. SBSteven Bartlett56:58

       You s- you talked about making decisions in The Algebra of Wealth. Um, I get asked this a lot. Um, uh, kids come up to me at the end of a talk that I do, or some other event, and will ask me about decisions, like-

    3. SGScott Galloway57:11

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett57:11

       ... jump off points in their life. As you zoom out on life, is there anything that I can know about how to be a great decision-maker over the context of 50 years of life?

    5. SGScott Galloway57:21

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett57:21

       Is there anything about how to make a decision?

    7. SGScott Galloway57:24

       Greatness is in the agency of others. You're, you're not... This bus- the business you built is not gonna get beyond a certain point unless you have the ability to attract and retain really talented people. Great decisions are in the agency of others. We have some weird notion of leadership. I used to think leadership, when I was a younger man, was quickly assessing the situation, deciding what we should do, and then advocating for my course of action. That was leadership. And it was more important to be, to be right than effective, or to get people to agree with my decision than to make the right decision. What you want is you want to get to the correct decision that has the best outcome for everybody and be open to change and evolving. And the way you do that... I don't make a big decision now without speaking to at least three people. So you wanna make better decisions? Then slow the process down, do slow and fast thinking, and get the benefit of other people and expertise.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett58:18

       Is there any decision that I should make slow versus fast? Is there a framework for how to know what... You, you know, sometimes I think, I find in business that the cost is the time I waste trying to make the decision. And then sometimes in business, the cost is the outcome of the decision.

    9. SGScott Galloway58:33

       Well, yeah, there's been books written about this. But basically every day, there's thousands or hundreds of decisions you have to make instantly. Like, do I go on the red light? Do I not go? Do I... You know. There's a ton of things you have to do saying, "Thank you," "Pardon me," whatever. There's a ton of decisions you have to make every day. So we get into a framework of sometimes where we don't slow down and have the luxury of making a good decision. The other thing is, that I've tried to do, is I try to screen out unimportant decisions. And this is a luxury, but as I've gotten a little bit of money, I don't make decisions around anything. I mean, this sounds weird. I don't order... When I'm in a restaurant, I don't order. I basically ask the waiter to order for me. I have a uniform at work. I don't pick out my own clothes. I have a group of people who manage... You know, I'm saying, "You're in charge of all decisions here." I try to focus only on the decisions I can bring a lot of value to so I can spend a lot of time being really thoughtful about them. Um, but generally speaking, for a young person that's not in a position of outsourcing a lot of decision-making, what I would say is get a kit- again, goes back to the notion of a kitchen cabinet. Get a group of people who will... You might end up at the same place, but they'll say, "Have you thought about this?" Or, "Why wouldn't you just do... Why wouldn't you just have, you know, do X, Y or Z?" Or I think, you know, who have the leadership skills and know you well enough to go, "You know, Steven, I think you're making a mistake here." When I was 26, I started a company called Prophet Brand Strategy, a strategy firm. Six years later, when I was 33, I was offered 55 million for it, uh, from SapientNitro and another firm called Cyient. 55 million. I owned 60, 70% of the company. So I would've been done, but I was under the- "No, this is the internet. It's gonna be huge. Uh, we're gonna be worth a billion." I... If I just had a board, if I just called a couple people, they would... I know they would've said, "What the fuck are you thinking?" I was doing three million a year in consulting and this firm offered me $55 million. If I had just talked to someone, they would kind of go, "Let me get the... Okay, so Scott, you've been offered 18 times revenues for a small strategy services company?" Also around relationships, right? When I talk to some of my friends or younger men I know who are really upset with their spouse, I'm like, "Be clear. Yeah, this is an issue, but you're not bringing a lot of generosity and forgiveness to the relationship. And if you don't bring those things, your marriage to this person or anyone else is not gonna survive." I didn't figure this out till I was older. But you will always naturally inflate your own contribution to the relationship and some- and, and diminish theirs.... and the relationship is never gonna be in perfect harmony or balance. So in those periods of deficit, you've gotta bring forgiveness. You've gotta bring patience. Otherwise, no long-term relationship is gonna survive. And also, be pretty clear, if you split up right now, just know you're gonna lose 70% of your net worth. Maybe 60, but plan on 70. You split everything, and then the cost of lawyers... And I can guarantee you, if you have to sell a house, that'll be the exact wrong moment to sell it. It's just karma. Just karma. So, just keep in mind, there's a lot of good reasons to stay together in a marriage and try and figure it out.

17. 1:01:48 – 1:03:39

    Is Marriage Good For Wealth?

    1. SGScott Galloway1:01:48

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:48

       Is marriage good for wealth?

    3. SGScott Galloway1:01:49

       Oh, yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:50

       Really?

    5. SGScott Galloway1:01:51

       Oh, yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:51

       'Cause I don't wanna lose 50, 70% of my money or whatever.

    7. SGScott Galloway1:01:54

       Well, you'll have that guy on, who's on TikTok all over the place saying it's a failed technology. The majority of really wealthy people, uh, have long-term relationships and are in a monogamous relationship. They're married because the team is a fantastic way to build wealth.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:08

       But if, if the stats are true and, you know, 50-whatever, 50-whatever percent of people are getting divorces, doesn't that mean that if I'm building wealth, there's a 50-odd percent chance that I'm gonna lose half of it if I'm married or more?

    9. SGScott Galloway1:02:20

       Well, first off, if you have wealth going in, get a prenup.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:23

        Yeah.

    11. SGScott Galloway1:02:23

        But what I would say is, um... And first off, that number's a bit misleading because marriage is becoming a luxury item. Two, uh, it used to be 95% of wealthy people got married and 85% of middle class and poor people got married. It's dropped to less than half among poor people. The bottom line is no one wants to mate with poor men, and, uh, wealthy people attract a lot of mates. And generally speaking, really wealthy people... I mean, there's all this, you know, there's all these... It's fun to do TikToks about Jeff Bezos on a, on a yacht with his new girlfriend and everything, but the majority of wealthy people are actually, uh, uh, staying married. And the team is really powerful. You know, we're both working together. We're both making a lot of money. That is really powerful in sharing one set of expenses. You're gonna focus on the logistics of our life or our family, and my wife's the professional baller, right? The team, the team is powerful. So this notion that you shouldn't get married or... I'm not s- I'm not suggesting that marriage is for anybody or stay, stay married no matter what. I'm not suggesting that at all, but there's just no getting around it. The team is much more powerful than the individual. And if you, if you break down the numbers of people who are wealthy, they, generally speaking, invest a lot in their relationships.

18. 1:03:39 – 1:06:17

    Relationship Investing Is The Key To Wealth

    1. SGScott Galloway1:03:39

       Wealth is a whole-person project. There's a myth that rich people are bad people, that Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, that billionaires crawled over other people to get there. It's just not true. What you generally find among wealthy people, especially people who've made their own money, is that the rea- one of the reasons they're wealthy is they've collected allies along the way. And just as compounding is so powerful with small investments when you're young, bringing some generosity to people when they need help, being a good friend, occasionally checking in, "How are you doing?" Helping people find jobs when they lose a job, being kind. Those little investments you make as a young person really add up, and you're gonna find this. I have all these great friendships now with people who I was never great friends with. But because we made small investments in each other over 20 or 30 years, just checked in, "How are you doing? Congrats. Oh, you're doing this. Congrats on your wedding." Maybe not even close friends. You wake up in your 50s, and you have millions of dollars in terms of a relationship. You feel close to these people. You feel like a real nice sense of comity with them. You really... Uh, a- and this is very true of wealthy people. You wanna be put in a room of opportunity, even when you're not there. So Google did a study. When they put out a job opening for a product manager, they'll get 200 resumes within a few hours. They invite the 20 best in. 80% of the time, the offer that's made is made to somebody who has a evangelist, advocate friend in the company. So this is who you need to be. You need to be that person who's like, "Oh, there's a job opening here? I have this woman who would be great," and then connects them. You need to be in a room. You wanna be a, a successful professionally, be successful personally. Go out, make friends, be kind, invest in them, help them when there's no obvious reason to help them. And those investments pay off. And generally speaking, and this is a n- not a popular narrative, the majority of very wealthy people I have met, and I've met a lot of them, are kind. They're generous, very civic-minded, very good mates. So this trope of, you know, of Monty Burns lighting cigars with the $100 bills and owning the, the nuclear power plant and pouring, you know, radioactive waste into the river, that's a cartoon. The majority of self-made people who are really wealthy are good, kind people because you have to have allies along the way to be really successful.

19. 1:06:17 – 1:08:11

    Can Anyone Start A Company?

    1. SGScott Galloway1:06:17

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:17

       Can anyone start a, a company, in your view? Can anyone become a successful entrepreneur?

    3. SGScott Galloway1:06:22

       Oh, no. Y- There's, there's certain attributes that most people don't have.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:27

       What are those traits?

    5. SGScott Galloway1:06:29

       First and foremost, you have to be really risk-aggressive and have that willingness to fail. You're willing to take huge risks. I speak to people all the time who say, "Well, I'm gonna go get a job at Google or JP Morgan for a few years, then I'll have the credibility to start a business." I'm like, "You're not an entrepreneur." Most entrepreneurs, 70% of entrepreneurs, are immigrants that don't have access to corporate Britain or corporate America. By the way, if you have access to Google... All these kids come to my office hours. When I say kids, I mean students. And they wanna ask... They don't wanna talk about brand strategy. They wanna talk about careers. And they say, "Oh, I have an offer from JP Morgan or Google, but I'm thinking about starting my own business, and I know you've started a lot of business." And they think I'm gonna say, "Go for it." I'm like, "Don't be a fucking idiot. Go to work for Google."

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:11

       (laughs)

    7. SGScott Galloway1:07:12

       On a risk-adjusted basis, the most unbelievable platform for generating wealth and opportunity and long-term economic security is the American corporation. These are unbelievable platforms to get rich with some certainty, slowly and sometimes quickly, in the tech community. If you have access to those platforms, unless you hate it and are terrible at it, you should go that way. The majority of entrepreneurs are immigrants. And why, why is that? Because they didn't have any choice. They didn't have access to corporate America. They had to open a dry cleaner. They had to start a soapstone company. Entrepreneurship, you have to be risk-aggressive, willing to take risks. Two, to be really successful at it, you have to be, um, a great salesperson, you have to be willing to convince people to invest, buy your products. You have to be willing, most importantly, to sell people on your vision and believe that you're a good person, that if you're successful, they're gonna be successful.

20. 1:08:11 – 1:10:01

    The Power Of Storytelling

    1. SGScott Galloway1:08:11

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:11

       What's the best way to train that muscle, if I'm young?

    3. SGScott Galloway1:08:16

       Gosh, I don't know. For me it was, um ... Look, I- I think the core competence you would want any kid, your kid to inherit, if I could give my kids any skill... I remember in the b- Tony has preschools and, or I'm sorry, high schools, they had Mandarin. And th- that was just stupid. Or computer science. I believe that replacing history and civics class with computer science, you get Mark Zuckerberg, you get these mendacious fucks who are billionaires but don't care about the health of the commonwealth. The greatest skill you can develop or that you would want your kids to have, that will stand the test of time, is storytelling. The ability to craft a narrative and then convince people, get people engaged in your narrative and think, "Oh, your company makes sense." You're not gonna come in and say, "I'm starting a software company." You're gonna say, "This is the technology. This is the marketplace. This is why society needs this. These are our unique skillset." And you can craft it into a story that is compelling, right? It's the key, it's the key to scoring above your weight class romantically, right? Communicating a plan, communicating kindness, communicating empathy, communicating, um, humor, right? Any industry, Jeff Bezos' 1997 shareholder letter, you read that letter, you just wanna buy stock. I don't care how overvalued it is. When you listen to Jensen Huang talk about the future of AI and biology and healthcare, you're like, "Well, maybe I should buy it even though it's trading at 110 times earnings." If you wanna be a great CEO, you gotta be a great s-... I don't care if you're Maya Angelou, Rishi Sunak, or you know, Jensen Huang, the core competence of any really successful person or the core competence that's gonna get you real influence and economic security is storytelling.

21. 1:10:01 – 1:12:54

    How Does The Average Person Develop The Skill Of Storytelling?

    1. SGScott Galloway1:10:01

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:01

       So, yeah, it, it, it's so interesting because, um, I completely agree with everything you've said about how at the very heart of wealth creation as an entrepreneur, but, but more generally in life, whether you wanna be a president or prime minister or a philanthropist, is this idea to craft narrative, but, um, the average, how does the average person develop that skill when they don't, they're not a lecturer, they don't have students that they can speak in front of, they don't have a podcast necessarily that people are gonna listen to? But if we both agree that it's such an integral skill, a transformative life skill.

    3. SGScott Galloway1:10:32

       Oh, there's a million ways. The f- uh, uh, w- uh, the first thing I assign my students, my kids in the class is pick a medium. It can be Instagram-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:41

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SGScott Galloway1:10:41

       ... it can be X, it can be threads, it can be Pinterest, LinkedIn, public presentations, speaking, radio podcasting. Identify what it would mean to be in the top 1%. You can go online. What are the top 1% of followers on Instagram? How many followers do you need to be in the top 1% on Instagram? By the end of this semester you need to be a top 1% storyteller on a medium. I'm really good at this. You're really good at podcasting. I'm really good in front of a large crowd. I'm not very good on the phone. I'm pretty terrible one-on-one.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:15

       Hmm.

    7. SGScott Galloway1:11:16

       I come across as aloof yet insecure at the same time, which isn't easy to do.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:19

       (laughs)

    9. SGScott Galloway1:11:20

       So I know the medium, I'm not good on the phone. I'm, I've become a proficient writer. I, I aspire to be a great writer. I'm good now. Someday I'll be great. But I know my mediums and I practice storytelling every day. I'm either writing, I'm either speaking, I'm either podcasting. If you're young, oh my God, the mediums... Are you good on TikTok? Get a smartphone, get a, you know, iMovie, start editing, and every day make small iterations and changes and commit to being a s- great storyteller. And the wonderful things about these mediums in the economy and these technologies is you can be a great storyteller anywhere, from any background and from any location. I'm not suggesting that you, that everybody has the same opportunities, but the opportunities... The reason why Hollywood is struggling, the reason why the writers for striking for four months only got a 5% increase in pay is that there are 1.7 billion people on TikTok, and 850 million of them are creators, which is a fancy term for storyteller. And assume 1% of them are outstanding storytellers. All of a sudden, eight and a half million new storytellers have come into the media market, and the half a million in LA who think their work is so fucking precious and are trying to figure out why their industry is in decline, like, you're competing against eight and a half million new storytellers that aren't asking for pet bereavement leave or for a trailer with catered food. The ability to tell, craft a narrative, find your medium and then say, "I'm gonna be in the top

22. 1:12:54 – 1:16:25

    What Is The Algebra To Storytelling?

    1. SGScott Galloway1:12:54

       1%."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:55

       What is the algebra to storytelling, if there had to be one? If you, I know you've not had time to think about this.

    3. SGScott Galloway1:13:00

       Oh, that's really interesting. I haven't thought about that. I think of it as, one, you just have to be a compelling... I mean, it sounds terrible, but y- like, I have a handsome voice.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:09

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SGScott Galloway1:13:10

       I was, I have a face for podcasting. I've had five TV shows. They've all been canceled within like four weeks. Podcasting is my medium. Television is, television is not. You've done really well-... on podcasting and video, right? That says something. I would say that more than anything, it's tapping into people's emotions. Like, how do you make someone feel something? I mean, you wanna be smart, you wanna say interesting things, but how do you really connect with someone and make them feel something? The white space I'm trying to occupy is, I'm trying to be a white heterosexual male in his 50s who's open about his emotions. That's a white space. Guys my age don't talk about their failures, they don't talk about the way they feel about their kids, they don't talk about, you know, how devastated they were when their mother died. That shit's just not talked about among men of my demographic. That's the white space I'm occupying. So you need to say, okay, what am I gonna make people feel that other people aren't spending a lot of time evoking, getting people to understand those emotions? It's, uh, I think the specific crowds out the general, you wanna focus on a niche. Own something. All right, I'm gonna be in the top 1% of this medium, and I'm gonna develop domain expertise. I'm gonna be the person that understands Ethiopian cuisine, and I'm gonna bring romance and make people feel something, and I'm gonna connect it to family, and I'm gonna connect it to African culture, and I'm gonna connect it to maternal love and c- whatever it is. But think about it, what emotions do you want people to feel? And then every day, it's just hand-to-hand combat, every day. You know, w- before we were off mic, you said we were both kind of... In the last two years, both of our careers have sort of hit a tipping point. I feel like I've worked my ass off for 35 years, and all of a sudden, I'm an overnight success. And you said, "What was the one thing?" And I can't point to any one thing. It was a series of little things. It's kind of the Mr. Beast secret sauce. It's iteration. Every day, they test things. They make things just a tiny bit better. So commit to excellence. You put out a podcast, you put out a Medium post, you put out a PowerPoint presentation lever- about AI, whatever it is, try and find a mechanism for feedback and commit to just being a little bit better the next time you do it.

Episode duration: 1:49:59