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

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0:01:13 Hey everyone, Scott Galloway here. Today on The Lost Boys, Anthony Scaramucci and I dig into a big
0:01:19 question. What does it mean to be a man today? We explore how masculinity is evolving and what that
0:01:23 means for relationships, families, and community. I share the principles I try to live by, and Anthony
0:01:27 opens up about the values he learned from his father. Let’s bust right into it.
0:01:40 Welcome to Lost Boys, the podcast where my friend Professor Scott Galloway and I dig into the unique
0:01:46 challenges young men are facing today and what we can do about it. In this episode, Scott and I talk
0:01:51 about the changing definition of masculinity and how that impacts young men’s lives, relationships,
0:01:58 and families. You’ll hear Scott’s definition of what makes a man today and a story of the best
0:02:05 thing I was ever forced to do. Here’s my conversation with Scott Galloway. We’re going to focus on what it
0:02:13 means to be a man and how young men need to be engaged with their family and their community. And so
0:02:21 for me, I’ll just speak for myself briefly. I’ve always felt this. I’ve always felt three or four
0:02:26 things about my life. Number one, charity starts at the home. Number two, I’m still connected to my
0:02:33 roots. I am talking to you right now from a home that’s two miles from where I grew up in the neighborhood
0:02:39 that I was in. Many of my cousins have, you know, fortunately, unfortunately, some of them have done
0:02:46 very well. Some of them have not done well. But I have felt this commitment to my family to make sure
0:02:53 that there’s been tuitions paid or medical expenses taken care of or cars bought in an effort to stay
0:02:59 in the game. I use this example and I don’t want to make this a political discussion, but I’ll just say
0:03:04 this to you, Scott. There are two families and you tell me which family is going to do better. There’s
0:03:11 one family where it’s a blue collar family and the there’s one kid in the family has done very well
0:03:17 and they have made a decision to help out the other family members, you know, and again, I’m not talking
0:03:22 about buying Mercedes, but just making sure that there’s cars available or medical care and things like
0:03:29 that. The second group, they have one person that’s done very well, but they charge admission.
0:03:36 They charge admission to their swimming pool. Which family do you think from a perspective, you know,
0:03:40 from a holistic perspective is going to do better? And by the way, you can apply that to the world
0:03:49 because the United States has got 4% of the population, 26% of the economic output, and we got to
0:03:54 be very, very careful. This is a masculinity issue and it does spill over into politics, by the way,
0:04:03 but we have to, we have to think about who we are as people and how we want to define ourselves inside of
0:04:07 our families and our communities. What are your, what are your thoughts there? So I’ve struggled with trying
0:04:12 to come up with a series of constructs that people can hold on to, to turn to around masculinity that
0:04:18 doesn’t in any way diminish femininity or doesn’t in any way acknowledge the challenges that women still
0:04:22 face. I’m struggling with it. I’m writing a book on it and I have not figured it out or how to thread
0:04:28 that needle. But one construct I have come up with is that I see the concentric circles of masculinity.
0:04:34 And that is the core circle is you got to take care of yourself. You got to be strong. You got to be
0:04:38 mentally healthy. You got to surround yourself with people to make you feel good about yourselves.
0:04:43 Every day you got to get up and say, I’m going to, I’m going to sleep well. I’m going to work out.
0:04:48 I’m going to eat well such that I can be strong and I need to take care of myself. I need to be
0:04:53 economically viable. Once you achieve that and you’ve taken care of the core, you got to fix your own
0:04:58 oxygen mask first. You know, that’s what they tell you on a plane. You can’t, you can’t save other
0:05:01 people. If you’re not healthy, if you’re not strong, that’s the first thing you got to do. Once you
0:05:06 achieve that, you go to your second circle. And that is you really help take care of your immediate
0:05:13 family. And I know a lot of men who are just so impressive on every exterior dimension. And I don’t
0:05:17 think of them as real men because they have a shitty relationship with their family and their kids and
0:05:23 they don’t take care of them. Now, Elon Musk just gave, we found out had his 13th kid and
0:05:29 the mother of that child is suing him for sole custody. And it came out that he has not seen or
0:05:34 asked about the kid since the kid that was born, since the kid was born. That’s the exact opposite
0:05:39 of masculinity. Yeah. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re circle outside. Once you can take care of
0:05:43 yourself. And if you’re worth 400 billion, you can take care of yourself is you take care of your
0:05:49 immediate family. Otherwise you just fail every metric as far as I’m concerned. And that means a
0:05:55 lot of forgiveness. Your, your siblings, your parents, your, your cousins, they’re going to
0:05:59 fuck up. They might be jealous. They might be nice people. They might be addicted to drugs. The
0:06:04 definition of family is people you help and you otherwise wouldn’t hang out with because they’re
0:06:09 family and you take care of those people unconditionally. The next circle out is extended
0:06:13 family in your community. The next circle out, I think is trying to take care of citizens.
0:06:18 And then the ultimate outer ring, the ultimate expression of masculinity is that you plant
0:06:23 trees, the shade of which you will never sit under. I think that’s the ultimate expression of
0:06:29 masculinity is you take a bullet for, you provide resources, you think long-term, you help people
0:06:34 who are never, ever going to even have the chance to say thank you. That is the ultimate, that is the
0:06:39 goal. That is the brass ring. Because what that means is, and you can’t skip any of the circles,
0:06:46 you got strong. You took care of yours. You took care of anyone in your community or you helped out.
0:06:50 And sometimes helping, sometimes taking care of people is not helping out, letting them hit rock
0:06:55 bottom, not enabling them, whatever it might be, tough love, whatever you want to call it. And then you
0:07:00 start investing in your community and your country. That is the true, truest form of masculinity. And the
0:07:05 way I described you, Anthony, is you gave me a ride home and the driver is your cousin, right?
0:07:08 Yeah. He’s my, yeah, my second cousin. Exactly.
0:07:09 Your second cousin.
0:07:14 So I bet my only family for the most part, it was my mom who passed away.
0:07:22 My father wasn’t very, I did not have a big family. So I didn’t develop that intimacy or that familial
0:07:27 obligation. I just, I never felt it until I had kids. I just didn’t have a, I didn’t have a family,
0:07:34 big family in the U S you’re something out of one of those kind of sitcoms. You’re kind of, my sense is
0:07:41 you feel a very strong sense of, of obligation to that, that second circle out that, all right,
0:07:47 I took care of myself. I’ve made some money. Now I’m going to take care of my cousin. I think you
0:07:53 were even telling me your, your cousin who was a clamor and hurt himself. And now he’s your driver.
0:07:53 Is that correct?
0:08:00 Well, you have a really good memory. I mean, I’m so impressed. So my, my, my cousin hurt himself.
0:08:06 And so he’s frankly home and I help subsidize his lifestyle because I, I don’t want him to feel bad
0:08:13 about himself. And I got to make sure his rent is paid and his family has enough food and housing and
0:08:21 shelter. His son who was clamming with him is actually my driver. And so my 66 year old cousin
0:08:28 who I grew up with, and I’ll tell you this cause you’ll get it. Cause we were latchkey kids. And this
0:08:32 is another weird thing about life, right? We’ve got all this helicopter parenting going on right now,
0:08:38 but my mom and dad were exhausted, Scott. So they, you know, I, I was at the station diner,
0:08:44 which was by the rail station at two o’clock in the morning at age 11, eating pancakes with my cousin,
0:08:50 Bobby, uh, who’s the one I’m referring to that has the two bad hips as a result of all the years of
0:08:57 physical work. And so my attitude is we were there together as kids and, uh, our lives are separated
0:09:01 through fate and luck and, you know, hard work and determination and all those other things. But
0:09:06 it’s a lot of things that happen in your life that are lucky and I don’t want to leave him or anybody
0:09:13 behind. And I think, I think it’s important message about masculinity. It’s not just what you have,
0:09:19 but how can you make others feel that are in your environment? And I think, I think, again,
0:09:25 there’s a political angle to this as well. You know, uh, the Neo Victorians that ran America
0:09:30 at the end of the second world war understood this no police oblige that I’m referring to.
0:09:37 And they were like, okay, we got to figure out a way to create rising living standards around the
0:09:42 world. And if we can do this successfully, there’ll be less violence and there’ll be more
0:09:51 comity. I, I, I like you. I don’t want to live in a barbed wire security compound in a McMansion
0:09:57 while my fellow neighbors and or my family are struggling. I think, I think it’s very,
0:10:03 very important to understand that. And as wicked of a person as Henry Ford was, he did say something
0:10:11 brilliant about social engineering. He said, I want to make sure that these workers can afford the car
0:10:16 or the product that they’re manufacturing. And I got to make sure they’re in a single family home
0:10:23 with a good school system. Cause I don’t want them descending on my Dearborn Michigan mansion with
0:10:30 tiki torches and pitchforks. And, and I think that’s, I think that’s being masculine. Am I,
0:10:36 do I have that wrong? This masculinity more than just beating your chest? I think, I think there’s
0:10:42 masculinity Scott. And then I think there’s hyper masculinity, which is almost borderline evil,
0:10:48 which is almost insincere. Yeah, this is a tough one. So there’s an, another,
0:10:55 another construct and Richard Reese talks about this is surplus value. And that is,
0:10:59 and I say this to my boys, I’m like, you’re negative value right now. What do you mean? I’m like,
0:11:05 okay, think about, think about the school you go to all these teachers, all this money, all this,
0:11:11 these textbooks, coaches, what are you doing for them? What do you mean? What are you doing for them?
0:11:15 What are you doing for your English teacher? What are you, what are you doing for these people?
0:11:19 All right. Well, I should go to school. You’re adding negative value. You leave every day, your school
0:11:25 with negative value, a ton of people investing in you. You’re not giving back. And you’re adding negative
0:11:33 value around the household. Your, your mom, your dad, we’re investing so much in you. And quite frankly,
0:11:39 some people never get to surplus value. I know a lot of adults that are a constant emotional and
0:11:45 even a financial drain on their parents and their siblings. At some point, what I say to, what I say
0:11:50 to them is, okay, when you become a man, it’s not a, it’s not a religious ceremony. It’s not anything
0:11:56 about getting a job or an age or a birthday or getting to drink alcohol or have sex. I think when
0:12:03 you cross over into manhood is when you have on a net basis are adding surplus value. You’re creating
0:12:09 more jobs. You’re creating more tax revenue than you’re taxing our government, right? You’re, you’re
0:12:15 doing more to defend your country. You’re investing more in your country than it has given you. You
0:12:23 witness people’s lives. You listen to more complaints than you complain. You solve more problems in people’s
0:12:29 lives than you create. And some people never get there. Some people, you pay more taxes.
0:12:38 Exponentially, you pay more taxes than government services you have absorbed. I absorbed hundreds of
0:12:45 thousands of dollars in taxpayer benefits going. I went to UCLA and Berkeley for seven years, total tuition,
0:12:51 $7,000. That must’ve cost them at least a few hundred thousand dollars. At the age of 27, I came out a
0:12:58 quarter of a million dollars in debt as I see it to California taxpayers. And until I exponentially
0:13:03 gave that money back and I did, okay, the stock market, I did the math. The stock market is returned
0:13:09 11%. I figured I owed, I actually owed California taxpayers 30 years later. I owed them 11 million bucks
0:13:16 and I gave it back because I wasn’t adding surplus value. It’s easy to say, well, I’ve created jobs,
0:13:24 whatever. But you want to be the guy, the guy that is helping people out. I’m not saying be a martyr.
0:13:29 I’m not saying engage in relationships. You’re not getting something back. But I think this notion of
0:13:34 surplus value, you are giving more than you’re taking because through your life, you’re going to
0:13:38 have to take more, especially as a kid. And there’s times when you need to take, there’s times when you’re
0:13:44 like, okay, I’m struggling. I need other people’s help. And part of being successful is knowing when to reach
0:13:49 out and ask people for help and to accept it. I had, I went to this, one of these wine things and
0:13:55 I’m not into wine. And the guy was super successful guy, runs like the biggest appliance company in
0:13:59 Turkey, very wealthy guy. And he said, whatever I can do for you guys. And he goes, and also he said
0:14:02 to me, he goes, and also I never ask a friend for anything. And I’m like, well, then you’re not a real
0:14:07 friend. Occasionally got to ask people for help. Otherwise people just feel like they’re your, you know,
0:14:12 they’re your beneficiary or whatever. But this notion, I really liked this idea of,
0:14:18 of young men should be thinking at some point, my crossover to manhood, and it might not happen.
0:14:22 I don’t think it happened for me until I was in my thirties. I looked at every relationship as,
0:14:28 am I getting more than I’m giving? If I’m not getting more than I’m giving, I break up with this
0:14:34 person. I get divorced. I, I end this business partnership. And then you realize when you get
0:14:40 older, you’re like, you got it all wrong. The whole point is to add surplus value. You want to leave
0:14:47 business relationships thinking, wow, that we got more from that guy than he got, right? That’s the
0:14:57 point. That means you win. So I like this notion of masculinity being kind of defined as surplus value.
0:15:01 Now people will say, well, couldn’t you argue that’s about femininity too? And I think it’s a fair point,
0:15:09 but it’s about, all right, really take stock of your life. It’s not a given that people are
0:15:14 supposed to help you. The government is spending a shit ton of money to defend the shores, have roads,
0:15:20 have someone answer the phone when you call 911 and then come spend, send really talented people to try
0:15:28 and revive you. If you OD on something, right? You OD and you take government services, you fucking owe the
0:15:35 government a lot of money. You have an obligation if, and when you get better to start helping other people
0:15:40 recover. And there’s different ways to add surplus value. You can do it by being supportive. You can do
0:15:48 it by being, you know, being a caregiver. You can also do it by giving away money. But I think at a
0:15:55 fairly early age, I want my boys to start thinking about, you know, when am I going to get to this point
0:16:00 of surplus value? Because, and I tell them every day, you are a long way away. Be clear. Look at all the
0:16:07 investment. Our government, people you’ve never met, your teachers, your parents, your grandparents are
0:16:14 investing in you. You are racking up a debt. You have a debt. And at some point, hopefully you’ll pay it
0:16:20 back and you’ll pay so much of it back that you’ll enjoy the pride and the masculinity of venturing into
0:16:26 surplus value. But I like this construct, this meaning, almost like an accounting term, surplus value.
0:16:29 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:17:48 My name is Sean Ramasvuram. For Today Explained, I’m outside the Air and Space Museum in Washington,
0:17:51 D.C. with one question. Do you think we should go to Mars?
0:17:54 I don’t think you should live on Mars, no.
0:17:56 I don’t know why just Mars.
0:18:03 I think as Earthlings, we are a nosy group of people. And I really don’t think that we have
0:18:10 any business going to Mars. Our knowledge about the solar system and the universe will grow
0:18:18 substantially. I think maybe we should just leave Mars alone, just stay with Earth.
0:18:20 Like, so many innovations are going to come out of it because so many different companies
0:18:25 are going to be fighting to get, you know, that first ticket to Mars. So I feel, I feel like
0:18:28 we should. But at the same time, we should solve some problems here first.
0:18:33 I think we need to expand what we know, what we see. Honestly, for our own benefit.
0:18:35 We should go way beyond.
0:18:40 Today Explained from Vox is taking a summer sojourn on Mars. Join us.
0:18:45 This week on Net Worth and Chill, I’m joined by Alison Stoner, the multi-talented performer
0:18:50 and author of the upcoming book, Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything.
0:18:55 From backing up Missy Elliott as a kid to starring in Disney’s Camp Rock and transitioning
0:19:00 into mental health advocacy and creative direction, Alison reveals how they’ve navigated dealing
0:19:04 with the finances of child stardom while staying true to their authentic self.
0:19:11 I uncovered that many people had been taking money in various ways since I was a child without
0:19:17 me really knowing or understanding. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com
0:19:30 I did something as a youth that I did not want to do. My old boss, Jeff Bozzi, who is an amazing
0:19:36 guy, head of investment banking at Goldman, brought me into his office. I was 27 years old and
0:19:42 he said, okay, you’re now a student sponsor. I said, excuse me? He says, yeah, you’re going
0:19:46 to go up to the Bronx. You’re going to find a kid and you’re going to sponsor them. You’re
0:19:51 going to take a piece of your salary and you’re going to pay for this kid’s Catholic school
0:19:58 education up in the Bronx. And I was like, I don’t want to do that. First of all, I don’t
0:20:03 have the money. Secondly, I’ve got my own school debt and I actually don’t want to do this.
0:20:08 And he said, well, that’s fine, but you’re doing it. This is a direct order for me. And so
0:20:13 I actually did it. And I’m not embarrassed to tell you, I didn’t want to do it. But I
0:20:19 went up to the Bronx, met the 13 year old boy, got him into the Monsignor Scanlon Catholic
0:20:27 school. His public school education was a disaster, Scott. Could barely read or write. All right.
0:20:32 So now I’m invested. I got him a tutor and I sat with him on the weekends and then I drove
0:20:41 him around in my little Honda Civic, my 1987, this is 1992. This is my 1987 Honda Civic. And
0:20:49 now I’m invested. Then I helped him find a foster dad. And then I helped him pay for his two year
0:20:59 SUNY old Westbury associate’s degree. And he’s now in Hudson Yards working security with a wife
0:21:06 and three kids. And he’s got a real job and he’s got a real life. And it’s 32 years later and we’re
0:21:11 still very, very close. And it’s one of the most meaningful. I’m not patting myself on the back.
0:21:16 I’m just pointing out to be one of the most meaningful things I’ve done in my life. And I learned more from
0:21:25 him than I did. And I believe this, I learned more from him than he learned from me. And I’ll tell you
0:21:29 this. And my brother wouldn’t mind me telling you this because we’re very close and he is someone
0:21:35 that got addicted to drugs and, and spends a lot of time in drug counseling, spends a lot of time
0:21:43 sponsoring people. When my brother entered drug rehab for the first time, this young African American kid
0:21:51 was 16. He’s now 46. It was 30 years ago. And he turned to me, oh, you white people, you white people
0:21:57 have the same problems that we do here in this black community. And yes, the answer to that is yes.
0:22:03 And so, so, so, so the point I’m making about masculinity, and I want to ask you this question,
0:22:09 is vulnerability in masculinity, Scott? I believe it is.
0:22:15 Well, you can’t, you can’t help others until you help yourself. And sometimes part of helping yourself
0:22:21 is recognizing you need help and accepting help. There’s a lot of resources out there. You know,
0:22:25 it’s hard to build a big business without raising capital. And if you’re not doing well, you got to,
0:22:29 you got to, you got to raise human capital. You got to get other people’s help.
0:22:34 Otherwise, you’re never going to, much less take care of yourself, you’re never going to be in a
0:22:37 position to take care of others. And what you reached at a much younger age than I did
0:22:44 was that sense of surplus value and masculinity in the sense is you were helping out a kid when you
0:22:49 didn’t have a lot of money. I never helped anyone until I had a lot of money. Right. Oh, by the way,
0:22:53 I didn’t want to, Scott. That was the whole point of the story. Yeah, but you did. I got pushed into it.
0:22:58 Okay. I’m very grateful that you, I always call Jeff and tell him, you know, you, you didn’t refuse.
0:23:04 You could have refused or you could have done a shitty job. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t do anything
0:23:08 philanthropic. I don’t think I, the only time I ever gave money away before the age of 40 was so I could
0:23:12 go to some cool party and hang out with hot women because we were clinical. My favorite was when I
0:23:17 first moved to New York, there was this thing called save Venice. And it was a bunch of young people.
0:23:21 And we get dressed up in this costume thing. And we had 500 or a thousand bucks. Supposedly we were
0:23:26 saving Venice from the floods. Yeah. Fuck us. Jesus. What a bunch of douchebags.
0:23:31 But I wanted to, the only time I was ever philanthropic was to go to these events.
0:23:35 And then if some stuff happened to me and it just kind of dawned on me that all I have done
0:23:43 is just been like, not a parasite, but I’ve just taken, taken, taken. And what, what you demonstrate
0:23:51 or demonstrated is that if you think about going to the point where things come off the tracks for a boy,
0:23:56 and we talked about this, I think in the first episode, is when they lose a male role model or
0:24:01 they have no male involvement in their lives. And here’s the thing. People think that they have to
0:24:06 be a baller, that they have to have their own kids, economically secure, have some money in the bank
0:24:13 before they can help a young man. That is not true at all. It comes down to this. Are you a good person?
0:24:19 Are you a good person? If you think I’m a good person, you can help out a young man. And it’s not,
0:24:23 you don’t have to pay for their school. You don’t have to have amazing advice, amazing life experience.
0:24:30 You just have to be there and show this, show a boy that you as a good person are interested and
0:24:36 invested in their success. You think they have value. That’s it. If you can clear that bar,
0:24:43 you can add a lot of value to a boy’s life. And I think there are millions of men out there that
0:24:48 maybe don’t have their own relationships, don’t have their own kids. And they think, well,
0:24:52 I’m not a baller. I can’t help a young man or I shouldn’t get involved. No, nonsense. Are you
0:24:58 trying to lead a good life? Are you a good person? Do you think you could show up and show a boy that
0:25:05 he has worth just spending time with him? Then you are in a great, that is 90. Young men don’t look up
0:25:11 and think, oh my gosh, this guy, he’s, he’s the head of M&A for a bulge bracket investment bank.
0:25:15 They don’t give a shit about that. They just want someone to take interest in their life and listen
0:25:20 to them. Maybe give them a ride, maybe take them to a ball game, maybe listen to them, whatever it might
0:25:26 be, just kind of be there. And they will start by virtue of you being there and showing up and taking an
0:25:32 interest in their life. They’re going to say, okay, this, this, this nice man who’s leading a
0:25:37 virtuous life thinks I have value. And if you do that enough times, the kid will start to believe it,
0:25:43 that he has value. And this is the point of failure. The single point of failure
0:25:51 failure is when a boy loses a male role model. And I would like to see immediately in family court,
0:25:56 one out of three men has no contact with their children after six years. Some of it is their
0:26:02 fault. Some of it is family court. Family court is very biased against men. You know, a guy loses,
0:26:06 he’s, he’s almost owe his custody, is given to the, to the mother in the relationship.
0:26:13 There, it is very hard sometimes for the financial reasons for the, for the man to stay involved as
0:26:19 much as he’d like in the child’s life. Also, quite frankly, I think a lot of spouses are so angry. I
0:26:25 think there’s so much rage that they weaponize the kids against each other. And whoever is living with
0:26:30 the kids wins. I mean, occasionally, you know, they might say, oh, mom or dad, 92% of the time the kids
0:26:37 go to the mom. And I have seen this firsthand. The kids are weaponized against dad.
0:26:41 And sometimes they deserve to be because dad basically abandoned them. My father basically
0:26:48 took off, but I’ve seen other situations where essentially, I mean, where essentially the guy
0:26:53 or essentially the man has real trouble staying involved. And I think there needs to be a zeitgeist
0:26:59 that the moment either through death or divorce or disease, there are no longer men involved in a
0:27:06 boy’s life. The community has to get involved in putting men back into that kid’s life because,
0:27:10 and then immediately you hear this woke bullshit of, well, what do you mean? Women can’t serve that
0:27:15 role? No, they can’t. They can’t. Boys need men in their lives. And what’s interesting is if you look
0:27:22 at the studies in single parent homes, girls have the same outcomes, same rates of college attendance,
0:27:26 same rates of self-harm. What it ends up is that while boys are physically stronger,
0:27:33 they’re mentally and emotionally weaker. And here’s a crazy stat. Two 15-year-olds
0:27:40 sexually molested. The boy, a boy and a girl, the boy is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in
0:27:47 life. They’re weaker. That doesn’t make either crime any less heinous. But the reality is boys are
0:27:55 emotionally and psychologically, they’re weaker. And so I think we have to pay more attention to,
0:28:07 all right, ages should just be a common, a common sort of approach or cultural norm that the moment
0:28:13 a boy does not have male role models or men involved in his life, we’ve got to get men involved in his
0:28:18 life. And it used to be coaches. Now after school programs are being cleared out, right? It could have
0:28:25 been the military. And you have millions of boys now who the first male role model they have is a prison
0:28:31 guard. So, so, you know, and I’ve, I’ve said this, I’ve said this a bunch. I said this on Bill Maher,
0:28:36 if we want better men, then we have to be better men that we have to immediately move in. And, and
0:28:41 here’s the good news. You think, well, I’d like to help. I’m one of those men. There’s this great movie,
0:28:47 Magnolia. Actually, one of Tom Cruise’s better films. I think it was Paul West Anderson, Paul
0:28:52 Anderson. And the guy in it, great actor, I forget his name. He’s a bartender. And he says, I have,
0:28:57 I have so much love to give. I just don’t know where to put it. And I think there are so many men
0:29:02 out there who are good men who have love to give fraternal and fraternal love, and they just don’t
0:29:08 know where to put it. It’s really easy. Find a single mother at your workplace, amongst your friends,
0:29:15 your extended family, wherever it is, or a boy who’s struggling and ask the mom or even the dad or the
0:29:20 parents, is it cool if I hang out with this kid? Would he like to go to a ball game with me? Would he like
0:29:25 to come over and wash my car? Would he like to hang out? They are, these, these young men who are kind
0:29:32 of wandering, for lack of a better term, are everywhere. They are everywhere. You will find
0:29:38 them at work. The easiest way is to find the single mothers. And you’re going to find the mothers are so
0:29:44 receptive, you know, to, to this type of involvement because they get it. They immediately realize there
0:29:51 are just certain things that a mom can’t do for her son. They’re just, there’s just a certain
0:29:58 relationship. I don’t know if it’s the depth of the voice, the size, ability to open up. There’s a
0:30:03 phenomena, I think of myself, and I’m sure you do, as being great dads. Once the kid hits, once your son
0:30:08 hits 14 or 15, he’s more likely to listen to your friends than you.
0:30:14 Amen. He’s more likely, that’s why I’m sending all my kids your way, Galloway. Okay. All my kids
0:30:20 are coming your way. And mine to you. But I get, I mean, you realize this is what I do for living. I get,
0:30:28 I’m, I’m boasting out. I get, I get a large number of young men asking me for help. Do you think my son’s
0:30:35 ever asked me for advice? No way. Dad’s an idiot. Dad doesn’t know. But just, we have about one minute
0:30:40 left. And I just want to finish up on this one thought. I want you to channel it. And I’m going
0:30:48 to give you a minute to say it. So I want you to think about your self-worth. How much is it tied to
0:30:55 your philosophy, your principles, your parenting, your money? Because there’s many different ways
0:31:00 to describe wealth. And so let’s pretend you’re, channel your Gordon Ramsay for a second.
0:31:06 I’ve never watched Gordon Ramsay, but I think. Yeah. Meaning you’re, you’re a cook.
0:31:12 Yeah. You got to put one part this, one part that. Sure. You know, Anthony, I, I just got to,
0:31:20 the honest answer is I get 90% of my self-esteem for my money. It’s pathetic. Okay. I, it’s growing.
0:31:25 The 10% that’s growing is I want to be a good citizen. I want to raise patriotic, loving men,
0:31:32 but I got to be honest. My whole life I’ve, I’ve identified my self-worth based on money
0:31:40 and it’s been, I, and I realized it’s unhealthy. It’s been, I won’t call it an obsession, but it’s,
0:31:46 it’s been a severe focus of mine. And just not until 10 years ago that I said, okay, money’s the ink in
0:31:50 my pen, but it’s not my story. It can make, you can write certain chapters. It can make certain
0:31:55 chapters burn brighter, but I got to focus on other things. And now I’ve decided my purpose
0:32:02 is to raise, again, loving, patriotic men. And also to try and like, like we were saying before,
0:32:08 help people I will never meet that that’s, that’s why I am here. But until 10 years ago,
0:32:19 my self-esteem or lack thereof came from money and women. And I didn’t, I don’t think I had a lot
0:32:25 of strong values. I don’t think I had a very strong base. I didn’t have any religious code.
0:32:29 My dad wasn’t that involved in my life. I don’t think I had a strong moral footing or grounding.
0:32:33 I think whatever character I’d have established to that point, I was never mean. I was never
0:32:41 a bad person came from my friends, but it wasn’t until well into my forties that I started realizing
0:32:48 the character is a lot more than how much money you have. I didn’t get that. And unfortunately in a
0:32:55 society like ours, it will convince you every day, thousands of times that as long as you have
0:33:02 money, you’re high character. And I fell into that trap and I’m still too focused on money. I’m still
0:33:11 too, you know, I’m still, I still evaluate my own self-worth too much based on how much money I made
0:33:18 or lost in the, this year. Now recognizing, you know, uh, the key is, and I think I’m going to get
0:33:24 there when I die, it’s going to be at home surrounded by people who love me. That’s the goal, right? And I
0:33:29 need to have enough money to do that. But I crossed that threshold a long time. Now I’m very focused on
0:33:33 making sure that at the end, there’s a lot of people who are not afraid because they’re going to be taken
0:33:38 care of, but they’re really sad because they’re going to miss me a lot. And up until just 10 years
0:33:43 ago, I just wanted to make sure I had more money than all of my friends. And if I didn’t, I felt a
0:33:48 shame. So I am still working on that. It’s not something I have figured out. I think it’s something
0:33:53 that infects a lot of us. And I think it is very hard for a lot of young men to ever get to the
0:33:56 point where they’re in a position where they feel like they can take care of people because they have
0:34:01 so little economic opportunity. And I think a lot of shame comes from it. You know, at some point in
0:34:06 future episodes, I hope we’re going to talk about public policy because I think what haunts a lot
0:34:12 of men is their inability to take care of others. And it’s something that we need to work on because
0:34:19 it just attacks your self-esteem. I know it attacked mine. Well, listen, it’s brilliant on so many
0:34:24 different levels, but it’s extremely honest. I would say the same thing about myself, but I think as I’ve
0:34:30 gotten older, I want to impart to people that there’s a blend of things that are equally important. And
0:34:37 I’ve seen people that have become overly focused on money, not where it’s 90% scabber, it’s 110%.
0:34:37 Yeah, it’s everything.
0:34:44 And they’ve driven themselves crazy. But all right, well, this has been a terrific day and
0:34:49 I appreciate your time this morning. And we’ll be back with a few more episodes.
0:34:51 Good. Thanks, Anthony.
0:34:54 Thanks for joining us for this episode of Lost Boys.
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0:35:17 Lost Boys is a production of Salt Media and the Casablanca Strategy Group.
0:35:22 Barbara Fadida and Keith Summa are executive producers. Tanya Salati is our researcher.
0:35:25 Holly Duncan-Quinn and Stanley Goldberg are editors.
0:35:31 Special thanks to Christina Cassese, Mary Jean Rivas, and Drew Burroughs.