0:00:03 Support for Prop G comes from better health. Kids are always learning and
0:00:08 growing, but as adults sometimes we lose that curiosity. Your back-to-school era
0:00:12 can come at any age. Therapy can help you reconnect with your sense of wonder.
0:00:16 If you’re thinking of starting therapy, you might want to try better help. It’s
0:00:19 entirely online and designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your
0:00:22 schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a
0:00:27 licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.
0:00:32 Rediscover your curiosity with better help. Visit betterhelp.com/profg
0:00:40 today to get 10% off your first month. That’s betterhelphlp.com/profg
0:00:45 Support for Prop G comes from NerdWallet. Starting your credit card search with
0:00:49 NerdWallet, smart. Using their tools to finally find the card that works for you,
0:00:54 even smarter, you can filter for the features you care about. Access the latest
0:00:58 deals and add your top cards to a comparison table to make smarter decisions.
0:01:03 And it’s all powered by the Nerds expert reviews of over 400 credit cards. Head
0:01:07 over to nerdwallet.com/learnmore to find smarter credit cards, savings
0:01:13 accounts, mortgage rates, and more. NerdWallet, finance smarter. NerdWallet
0:01:23 Compare, Incorporated, NMLS 1617539. I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No
0:01:33 Malice. Grief is the receipt for love. Grief and love, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:45 Since the recovery of six hostages bodies in Gaza, I’ve been pondering grief. As
0:01:51 others have said, grief is the price we pay for love, a testament to the depth
0:01:56 of our connection. It isn’t just about losing a loved one, it’s about losing
0:02:04 what they represented to our family, community, and nation.
0:02:10 We share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, including our capacity to
0:02:18 grieve. Scientists have observed mourning in various species, cats, dogs, dolphins,
0:02:24 and primates. Natalia, a chimp in a Spanish zoo, carried the body of her
0:02:34 deceased infant for months. That’s grief, raw and undeniable. Anthropologists argue
0:02:40 that the anticipation of grief is key to attachment. Our fear of losing a child
0:02:46 drives us to ensure their well-being. We cooperate and treat each other well to
0:02:52 avoid the pain of loss. Paradoxically, mourning also brings us together and
0:02:58 fosters community. On a larger scale, many wars end when the collective grief
0:03:05 becomes unbearable, highlighting grief’s power to both divide and unite.
0:03:11 This capacity for mourning is deeply personal. When our Vishla Zoe passed, our
0:03:16 other dog, Gangster, retreated to his crate for days. More disturbingly, our
0:03:21 youngest son began making his bed and following every parental instruction, a
0:03:28 clear sign of distress. Burial rituals predate civilization and aren’t limited
0:03:35 to Homo sapiens. In Spain, researchers found a 430,000-year-old Neanderthal
0:03:42 burial site. The earliest known human burial, roughly 100,000 years old, was
0:03:48 discovered in Kavza, Israel, where archaeologists unearthed 15 skeletons,
0:03:55 seven adults, and eight children. A 12-year-old boy lay in a rectangular grave,
0:04:02 arms folded, with deer horns placed on his chest. The care taken speaks volumes
0:04:10 about the love felt for this child. From Mesopotamia to Rome, Egypt to China,
0:04:15 burial rites have been integral to preserving human dignity and fostering
0:04:21 community. Even today, actor Nicholas Cage has constructed a pyramid mausoleum
0:04:27 in New Orleans, his iconic performance in Leaving Las Vegas perhaps granting him
0:04:34 some eccentric latitude. Our empirical understanding of grief comes largely
0:04:38 from George Bonanno, a clinical psychologist who challenged the
0:04:43 traditional Kubler-Ross model. Instead of five stages that are understood to be
0:04:50 universal, Bonanno identified four distinct trajectories, resilience,
0:04:59 recovery, chronic dysfunction, and delayed grief or trauma. Resilience,
0:05:04 by far the most common, is a trait Bonanno argues we’re hardwired for.
0:05:09 It’s messy, hence his phrase “coping ugly.”
0:05:13 Mo Gaudet, former Chief Business Officer at Google’s
0:05:19 Ex-Development, shared his process for grieving his son’s death.
0:05:24 One, grieve fully, allowing all emotions.
0:05:30 Two, research and accept the finality of death,
0:05:36 committed acceptance. And three, take a leap of faith,
0:05:40 believing in something beyond the physical.
0:05:46 Mo’s approach, while idiosyncratic, reflects the universal human experience of
0:05:53 seeking meaning beyond death. Mo explained, quote, “acceptance means
0:05:57 understanding that this is your new baseline.
0:06:00 I will never receive another hug from my son.
0:06:06 I will not hear his voice on the phone or see him play music ever again.
0:06:12 That’s my new baseline. I will stop pretending otherwise.
0:06:16 Committed means I can still improve my own life
0:06:21 and the lives of those around me.”
0:06:29 The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has caused immense grief on both sides.
0:06:35 Israel’s trauma on October 7 likely had a wider and deeper impact than 9/11 did in
0:06:40 the U.S., given the relative size of the populations.
0:06:44 The recent recovery of six hostages bodies from Gaza’s tunnels
0:06:49 sparked the first general strike in Israel since the war began.
0:06:53 Tens of thousands are demanding a ceasefire and the return
0:06:57 of remaining hostages. This outpouring of grief might be a
0:07:02 turning point, illustrating how grief can both drive us to war
0:07:09 and compel us to seek peace. Note, I’m skeptical.
0:07:12 Packing my son for his return to boarding school earlier this week
0:07:18 was emotional. Putting away his size 10 new balance shoes,
0:07:23 cologne, and first razor, I thought again about a different darker parental
0:07:30 pain. The anguish of Hirsch Goldberg Pollan’s parents.
0:07:34 Seeing them speak at the Democratic National Convention when Hirsch was
0:07:39 reportedly still alive made the abstract parade of death
0:07:48 painfully real. As Stalin cynically noted, quote, “One death is a tragedy.
0:07:54 A million deaths is a statistic,” unquote.
0:08:01 Arlington National Cemetery with over 400,000 graves is a microcosm of American
0:08:06 history. It conducts about 150 funerals weekly
0:08:11 with the third U.S. infantry regiment guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier
0:08:18 24/7/365. From civil war soldiers to freed slaves,
0:08:23 astronauts to Supreme Court justices, Arlington honors a diverse array of
0:08:28 Americans who’ve shaped our nation. It’s not just a cemetery, but a place
0:08:33 of healing for families of the fallen. A testament to national
0:08:38 gratitude and respect. During the Civil War, the Union seized
0:08:43 an estate belonging to Confederate General Robert E. Lee,
0:08:47 building a cemetery there for thousands of soldiers killed by forces
0:08:52 under Lee’s command. Arlington was also the site of Freedman’s
0:08:58 Village, a refugee camp for former slaves that evolved into a thriving
0:09:03 community. Section 27 holds the graves of an
0:09:09 estimated 3,000 Black Americans who escaped slavery.
0:09:14 President John F. Kennedy rests there, honored by an eternal flame.
0:09:17 General George C. Marshall, Winston Churchill’s
0:09:22 organizer of victory in World War II, lies nearby.
0:09:26 Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy,
0:09:30 and Ira Hayes, a Native American from the Acomel
0:09:36 Awodam tribe, who was one of the six Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima,
0:09:41 also call Arlington their final home.
0:09:45 The Veterans Health Administration serves nine million veterans
0:09:52 across 1,300 facilities. Arlington, in its way, is a health facility
0:09:58 for grieving families. The resources and ceremony committed to it
0:10:05 comfort those who’ve lost loved ones. It’s 355 million Americans
0:10:09 saying to military families, “We recognize your loss.
0:10:15 Your sacrifice has meaning, and we care.”
0:10:21 By custom and law, Arlington is off limits for political content.
0:10:25 Yet, during a ceremony marking the anniversary of an attack
0:10:30 that killed 13 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Trump campaign
0:10:37 saw an opportunity for content. When stopped, they became abusive.
0:10:42 Trump advisor Chris Lasavita later posted footage of the event,
0:10:47 hoping to “trigger the hacks” in the army.
0:10:51 This desecration of Section 60 poured salt on
0:10:58 open wounds. As Ben Kessling, a former Marine officer, wrote,
0:11:03 “Section 60 is one of the most sacred places for this generation of troops.
0:11:08 It is where those who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
0:11:12 Those graves are visited not by tourists looking for historical figures,
0:11:17 but by mothers and fathers visiting their fallen son or daughter.
0:11:24 In Section 60, wounds are still raw.”
0:11:27 Trump’s actions dishonored not just those who served,
0:11:32 but America itself. The man who called U.S. troops killed in
0:11:38 combat “losers” and “suckers” has found a new low.
0:11:43 His disrespect for America and for those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice
0:11:48 in its defense is increasingly common. However,
0:11:51 this specific behavior at Arlington is unique
0:11:58 in its callousness. Grief is the price we pay for love.
0:12:02 Our grief testifies to the depth of our connections,
0:12:08 to individuals, communities, and nations. There’s a word for Trump’s actions at
0:12:15 Arlington. Desecration.
0:12:20 Life is so rich.
0:12:22 you
0:12:24 you
0:12:27 (gentle music)
0:12:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:05 Support for this episode comes from The Current. The Current podcast is back with an exciting
0:00:09 new season featuring marketing executives from the world’s most influential brands.
0:00:13 Tune in to hear what’s driving conversation in the fast-moving world of digital advertising.
0:00:17 The unique insights from brands is diverse as Hilton, Instacart, Moderna, Major League
0:00:22 Soccer, and more. And in this presidential election season, The Current explores when
0:00:26 a national political advertiser like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and
0:00:33 a major CPG brand like Hershey can learn from each other. Listen in and subscribe to The
0:00:40 Current at TheCurrent.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00:43 Support for Prophety comes from Fiverr. Hiring top talent takes months, costing you time
0:00:49 and opportunities. Well, what if you could build your dream team today? With Fiverr Pro,
0:00:54 it’s possible it’s your all-in-one solution for premium freelance talent, offering hundreds
0:00:59 of categories to outsource complex projects. Immediately, their dedicated hiring experts
0:01:03 will help you find your perfect match. Plus, get access to project management tools, flexible
0:01:08 hiring options, and more so you can meet your hiring needs with ease. And the best part
0:01:13 is there are no hidden membership or subscription fees to get started. Visit pro.fiverr.com
0:01:19 to sign up and use code PROPHETY for 15% off any service.
0:01:23 Episode 315, 315 is the area code covering the North Central area of New York State. In
0:01:29 1915, the iconic Contour Coca-Cola bottle was patented. True story, I watched a documentary
0:01:33 on cocaine the other night and I’ve decided that from this point forward, I’ll do a little
0:01:38 blow before I watch anything. That’s right, my new viewing partner, White Girl Interrupted.
0:01:51 Go, go, go!
0:01:56 Welcome to the 315th episode of the PROPHETY pod. In today’s episode, we speak with Simon
0:02:01 Sinek, an international speaker and bestselling author of the books Start With Why, The Infinite
0:02:07 Game, and Find Your Why. I become friends with Simon. He’s one of my, like, speaking
0:02:12 thought leaders slash, I don’t know, friends, if you will. I met Simon or spent some time
0:02:17 with him at Summit at Sea, which I went on, I guess it was more than a year ago now, and
0:02:20 I had one of those moments with him that I will remember for the rest of my life. He
0:02:26 was in London and we were eating at Grangers, which is lovely, which is lovely. And when
0:02:30 I’m out in London, it’s usually twice a day, sometimes as much as five, sometimes as little
0:02:35 as zero. Someone will come up to me and say something nice. And someone locked eyes on
0:02:39 me, came over and I’m like, “Here it comes.” And they came up and said, “Your work is
0:02:43 just so meaningful. Thank you so much.” And I said, “Oh, that’s really nice of you.”
0:02:47 And he shook Simon’s hand and kind of laughed, but he would meant it for Simon, not for me.
0:02:52 And it was one of those moments where I realized what a fucking narcissist I am. Anyway, Simon,
0:02:57 and it happened again during the same lunch before Simon. He has a huge following and obviously
0:03:03 his content really resonates with people. All right, what’s happening? I’m back from the long
0:03:11 holiday. I take most of August off. I got a little distracted and that is my podcast partner on the
0:03:15 other podcast. I have another podcast if you didn’t know called Pivot. And it’s with this
0:03:20 little lady named Kara Swisher and we were invited to the Democratic National Convention.
0:03:26 So, got my ass to Chicago, interrupted my holiday only to find out my security clearance had not
0:03:30 been cleared. I mean, they let in, what’s that guy’s name? Charlie Kirk. They let in like every
0:03:35 Joey Bagadona influencer in the world. It’s like, if you had, I don’t know, over 800 followers on
0:03:40 Instagram, they let you in. But I found out when I landed there that my badge, my security clearance,
0:03:46 had not been approved. So, I immediately took to whatever it was, some social to bitch about it.
0:03:52 And the conjecture was why are you not being allowed into the United Arena? I started going
0:03:57 over my history. I have never been arrested, released a dog. I was held up at, I was imprisoned
0:04:01 at the Nobu Chicago waiting to get into the DNC. Generally, I found the DNC, I thought it was very
0:04:07 well orchestrated. Too long. Too long. It should be three days not four days. Generally, like a great
0:04:13 vibe. I went to the one in 1996. I’ve always been a bit of a political junkie. And I went knowing
0:04:18 nobody and I met this guy and we ended up sharing a room so we could, I was so broke when he was
0:04:23 broke too when we were both there, total tourists. And I think we lied about our names to get into
0:04:27 a bunch of parties. I got to see Al Gore dance at one of the parties. That was kind of the highlight.
0:04:33 Anyways, but I was at the Democratic Convention. What was it? I guess that was 28 years ago when
0:04:38 Clinton was renominated for his second term. I spent time in New York. By the way, New York’s
0:04:42 on fire. It’s just on fire. I don’t care what anyone says. I think New York right now is in a golden age.
0:04:47 That’s about it. I’m mostly just talking about, oh, I went to Nat Tuckett. That was wonderful.
0:04:51 Anyone who’s been there, it’s basically a sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s
0:04:56 absolutely gorgeous. The thing I love about it is my kids can roam free and get into trouble.
0:05:01 Although it’s such a bummer they keep finding all these great whites everywhere around there. So
0:05:07 I’m just a total mess when my kids go into the water. And then I ended with an idea to speaking
0:05:14 in Brazil. Oh my God, beef, beautiful people. And what I think is arguably the best hotel in the
0:05:21 world right now, the Rosewood, Sao Paulo, what is not to like about Brazil? Seriously. I mean,
0:05:25 it’s just such an amazing, I think it’s probably my favorite place to go, right? It’s actually
0:05:29 my favorite place to go. Yeah, that’s outside of the US. I absolutely love it there. And I went to
0:05:34 the XP conference, which had 50,000 people. It made me want to buy stock in Brazil or buy,
0:05:40 I don’t know, the ETF on the Bolsa or whatever. I think it’s such an impressive culture and people
0:05:46 work hard and love to play hard. The people and the dress there, I was especially impressed with
0:05:52 the dress. Now, granted, I saw a pretty limited slice between the Rosewood and the Soho since
0:05:56 Sao Paulo, but it really is an impressive culture and had a wonderful time there. Just so fucking
0:06:00 far. Is there anything you can do about that, Brazil? Just a little too far. And speaking of
0:06:06 which, on the 11-hour flight yesterday, which leaves at 4 p.m., which makes no fucking sense,
0:06:11 I totally loaded up on movies. I watched “The League” or “The Syndicate of Un-Gentlemanly Warfare,”
0:06:15 which is a Guy Ritchie film. I enjoy his films because they’re so beautiful. And he has beautiful
0:06:22 men and beautiful clothes. And then I watched, oh my God, “Saltburn.” Jesus Christ. I had to
0:06:28 stop it because it was just like too much for me. It was like a little too much for the dog to
0:06:33 handle. I just kind of put my head in between the pillows and was like, “Calm down, take me to
0:06:39 a park with a bunch of tennis balls.” Anyways, an outstanding, what do I call it, outstanding?
0:06:44 Great. Hovering between great and outstanding. But Jesus Christ, that shits a lot. And a real twist
0:06:50 at the end, kind of like a crime game level twist that I did not see coming. I did not see coming.
0:06:54 I can usually guess everything that’s happening in the movie. I’m the kind of jerk that in the
0:06:58 movie leans over to my partner and says, “Oh, you know, the butler did it or whatever.” But yeah,
0:07:03 I did not see that one coming. And then I watched “Napoleon.” “Napoleon” because I like war films.
0:07:08 I thought it was pretty interesting. I did not realize that Napoleon was so obsessed with Josephine.
0:07:12 I thought it was interesting. I would not want to live in France in late 19th century. It seemed
0:07:18 like a pretty violent place where everybody would have their time in the sun and then they cut their
0:07:25 heads off. But I love warfare. I’m interested in war history. Napoleon’s Bonaparte or Napoleon’s
0:07:30 Waterloo, if you will, or him venturing into Russia, started with 400,000 troops, returned
0:07:37 with 40,000, was exiled once, then came back. And his troops really embraced him and then exiled
0:07:41 twice. I just thought it was, I thought it was fascinating. Was it a great film? No. Ridley Scott
0:07:46 is just fun to watch because he gets so much, such big budgets. And the cinematography was so
0:07:50 incredible. And Joaquin Phoenix is obviously a fantastic character. Anyway, those are my
0:07:56 three films. So in order, salt burn, I would definitely see but brace yourself. Napoleon,
0:08:03 if you like war history and the League of Ungently Warfare, I’d say pass or wait till it’s
0:08:07 on Netflix or it’s already on Netflix. I just thought it was just okay. All right, enough about
0:08:13 our travels. We have some news to share here at PropG. Starting next week, we are launching another
0:08:19 podcast called “Raging Moderates.” It’s a PropG podcast co-hosted with our favorite political
0:08:25 gangster and rising star, Jessica Tarlov. If you don’t know Jessica, she is a co-host on the five,
0:08:29 Fox’s weeknight news program and plays a key role in special coverage for the networks.
0:08:35 Everything’s so polarizing. I think it myself is kind of, I don’t know, squarely in the middle.
0:08:38 And I love the term “Raging Moderates.” I said leading up to the election and if it works, maybe
0:08:43 after. Let’s try and explore all views of this using data. Essentially for business reasons,
0:08:48 we should not be doing politics because you just turn off people. Advertisers don’t like it,
0:08:52 but I can help it. I’m interested in it. I think it touches on everything, society, technology,
0:08:56 the economy. And I think it’s, if you want to understand America, if you want to understand
0:09:02 our economy, you need to have some basic rooting in politics. Plus, I just think it’ll be fun.
0:09:08 Anyways, so with that, we hope you enjoy “Raging Moderates.” Love that title. Love that. I came
0:09:13 up with that. I came up with that. A weekly podcast from the PropG universe. New episodes will be
0:09:20 right here on the feed every Tuesday to resist is futile. We’re fucking AOL in the 90s. You stick
0:09:30 your hand into a cereal box and you’re going to get the dog. We’ll be right back for our conversation
0:09:39 with Simon Sinek. Support for PropG comes from Netsuite. There’s no sure far way to predict what’s
0:09:43 coming next to your business. You can look at lots of graphs. You can listen to all of my podcasts.
0:09:48 You can even consult a high-price psychic, though I don’t recommend it. So how can you prepare for
0:09:52 anything when there are so many unknowns right around the corner? Smart businesses have gotten
0:09:56 themselves future ready with Netsuite by Oracle. Netsuite is a go-to business management suite
0:10:01 for almost 40,000 companies offering everything you need to stay on track, no matter what tomorrow
0:10:05 brings. Netsuite combines accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more into one
0:10:10 simple platform offering a single source of truth. Get real-time insights and data you can use to
0:10:15 make the right decisions faster than ever before. Don’t get caught looking backwards. Get ahead of
0:10:21 the curve and stay focused on what’s coming next with Netsuite by Oracle. Speaking of opportunity,
0:10:27 you can download the CFO’s guide to AI and Machine Learning at Netsuite.com/PROF. This guide is free
0:10:39 to you at Netsuite.com/PROF. That’s Netsuite.com/PROF. Support for this show comes from Betterment.
0:10:43 Do you want your money to be motivated? Do you want your money to rise and grind?
0:10:48 Do you think your money should get up and work? Don’t worry, Betterment is here to help.
0:10:52 Betterment is the automated investing and savings app that makes your money hustle.
0:10:56 Their automated technology is built to help maximize returns, meaning when you invest with
0:11:01 Betterment, your money can auto-adjust as you get closer to your goal. Rebalance if your portfolio
0:11:06 gets too far out of line and your dividends are automatically reinvested. That can increase the
0:11:11 potential for compound returns. In other words, your money is working like a dog while you can be
0:11:17 sleeping like one and snoring like one too. You’ll never picture your money this same way again.
0:11:21 Betterment, the automated investing and savings app that makes your money hustle.
0:11:26 Visit Betterment.com to get started. Investing involves risk. Performance is not guaranteed.
0:11:35 Support for Prop G comes from Mint Mobile. If you’re serious about keeping your budget in
0:11:40 check, your monthly expenses are one of the first places to look. And one thing a lot of us over
0:11:45 pay for is our phones, especially between all the hidden fees and other nonsense phone companies
0:11:51 throw at you, which is why Mint Mobile is doing things differently. When you switch to Mint Mobile,
0:11:55 you can get three months of premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month. All of Mint
0:12:00 Mobile’s plans come with high-speed 5G data and unlimited talk and text. Plus, you don’t need
0:12:04 to worry about getting a new device or phone number. Just bring those with you over to your new
0:12:09 Mint Mobile plan. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan
0:12:15 for just 15 bucks a month, you can go to Mint Mobile.com/PropG. That’s Mint Mobile.com/PropG.
0:12:22 You can cut your wireless bill at 15 bucks a month at Mint Mobile.com/PropG. $45 up from payment
0:12:27 required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above
0:12:33 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.
0:12:51 Welcome back. Here’s our conversation with Simon Sinek, an international speaker and best-selling
0:12:55 author of the books Start With Why, The Infinite Game, and Find Your Why.
0:13:00 Simon, where does this podcast find you? I am back home in Los Angeles.
0:13:06 So, let’s bust right into it. You describe yourself as an unshakable optimist, and I’m
0:13:11 a naturally pessimistic person. So, I’m curious, how do you maintain your optimism,
0:13:14 especially in challenging times, and what advice would you give to someone
0:13:19 who tends to be, like myself, kind of see the glasses half empty, if you will?
0:13:26 So, optimism doesn’t mean I’m naive nor blind, and it’s not blind positivity. It’s not looking at
0:13:32 a broken world and be like, “Everything’s fine. That’s not how I am. I’m quite cynical a lot of
0:13:37 the time.” But I generally believe that the world tends toward good, and I believe that even if we’re
0:13:42 in darkness, that if we come together and work together, we will get through this, and we will
0:13:46 come out better than we went in. So, it’s the undying belief that there’s a light at the end of the
0:13:52 tunnel. And you’re sort of known as the leadership guy or the why guy, I guess. Break down for you,
0:13:56 what is the definition or the key to effective leadership?
0:14:01 I think leadership is an incredibly misunderstood subject. I shouldn’t really
0:14:09 have to write books about it. I visited rural Kenya recently and met some people who we would
0:14:16 describe as poor. And one of the mamas, she organized a women’s empowerment group where
0:14:19 they sort of help each other out, and she was telling us how she does it and how she
0:14:24 overcomes some of the challenges. And literally, she was telling me stuff that I’ve written about.
0:14:29 In other words, she’s a brilliant natural leader, and she doesn’t do it out of some sort of
0:14:33 philosophical construct. She does it because it’s practical and it works. And if people are
0:14:38 seen and heard and taken care of and feel like they can trust each other, they’ll take risks,
0:14:43 they’ll open up, they help each other. For me, leadership is the awesome responsibility to see
0:14:48 those around us rise. And what we can do when we’re in a position of leadership, whether it’s
0:14:52 formal or informal, rank does not mean that you’re a leader. It just means you have authority.
0:14:57 But if you’re in a position of formal or informal leadership, that you look to the left and look
0:15:01 to the right and say, “What can I do to support?” You’ve often talked about the distinction between
0:15:05 natural born leaders and leadership developed as a skill, and you’ve said that you think it can be
0:15:10 developed. If someone is young, I think I want to have developed those leadership skills. What are
0:15:17 some exercises for doing that? I mean, first of all, I don’t believe leaders are born. I think that
0:15:21 some people have an education when they’re younger. They have a coach, they have a parent,
0:15:26 they have a guardian, somebody in their life, a teacher who does something right. They model
0:15:30 some themselves after that person, and they seem to learn it younger, or they have some trials and
0:15:35 tribulations, and they learn to overcome and rely on other people, whatever it is. But even
0:15:40 some of the great leaders that we admire, if you look back, whether it’s Steve Jobs or Mahatma Gandhi,
0:15:45 you see that they were learning and they didn’t get it right a lot of the time, especially when
0:15:50 they were younger. They learned those skills. For me, fundamentally, the single best thing
0:15:58 a young person can do is really learn to be a friend, learn to put away a device, and learn how
0:16:04 to engage with another human being, learn how to be there for someone, learn how to accept help
0:16:09 when it’s offered, learn how to ask for help, and all of these pretty fundamental things about
0:16:15 adolescence. When we’re very, very young, the only thing we want or need is the approval of our
0:16:19 parents. Look, daddy, look what I made. Watch me jump over the step, and then we give them positive
0:16:23 reinforcement, and all that serotonin flows, and it feels really good. And literally, nobody else
0:16:29 matters except mom and dad’s approval. That’s it. When we reach adolescence and all the hormones
0:16:36 start flowing, we make this change, this conversion where we now crave the approval of our friends
0:16:43 and our peers. Very stressful for us, very frustrating for our parents who are watching
0:16:48 us change. Really essential for a human being to learn to acculturate for the wider group outside
0:16:53 of their immediate family. And so it should be natural that we learn to ask for help from friends
0:16:58 and learn to give help to our friends. So to be a great leader, learn friendship.
0:17:03 You’ve equated it to being a parent that is leadership. What did you mean by that?
0:17:09 Well, you don’t get to choose your kids, but you love your kids and you want to raise them to be
0:17:14 the best that they can be. You don’t often get to choose your team if you’re promoted into position
0:17:22 of leadership, but you still get to celebrate them and try your best to help raise them to be the
0:17:27 best that they can be. And there are a lot of similarities and a lot of things that you can
0:17:32 learn about leadership you can learn from parenting books. For example, affirming a child’s feelings.
0:17:36 You know, dad, I’m sad. No, you’re not. It’s fine. It’s good. What do you have to be sad about? Your
0:17:43 life is great. That’s bad parenting. You want to affirm the kids feelings. Same at work, you know,
0:17:47 to talk people out of their feelings makes them feel unseen and unheard. Good leadership overlaps
0:17:52 a lot with good parenting because it’s interaction with other human beings working to see them build
0:17:57 confidence and be the best that they can be. And sometimes we have to be patient to let them try
0:18:02 again. What do you think the biggest mistake that leaders or managers make? I mean, you mean you
0:18:07 talk about management versus leaders. Nobody wakes up in the morning to be managed. Nobody says,
0:18:12 “I’d like to be managed, please.” But we would all like to be led. And I think what you’re doing is
0:18:16 highlighting the problem. A lot of leaders act like managers. You can manage a process, you can
0:18:21 manage a company, but you can’t manage people. You can lead people. And I think when we start
0:18:29 managing people as if they are a process, things start to break down. And I think another very,
0:18:35 very, very common mistake that newly minted leaders make is they believe that their intelligence
0:18:41 or capacity or their ability to give answers to every question is what gives them their credibility
0:18:46 to lead. And so you’ll see a lot of leaders lying, hiding and faking. They won’t admit if they don’t
0:18:50 know something. They won’t say, “I don’t know.” They won’t ask for help because they fear that
0:18:55 undermines their credibility, which is completely false. We get a lot of questions about mentorship.
0:18:59 So I’ll turn the question to you. What advice would you give someone who’s looking for a mentor?
0:19:05 How do they go about finding a mentor? So when my career was just sort of getting going,
0:19:12 I was introduced to this guy named Ron Bruder. Ron, a very, very accomplished entrepreneur,
0:19:18 really successful. And he was charming and lovely and super helpful and wonderful in our meeting.
0:19:24 And about a week or two later, I called Ron, who’s a very busy man, and he took my call.
0:19:29 And a few weeks later, I called him again. I needed some advice. And he took my call again.
0:19:34 And at some point, we went out for lunch. And eventually, this sort of mentor-mentee relationship
0:19:40 evolved. And I thought of him as my mentor. And I remember we became quite close. And I remember
0:19:45 I was leaving his house one day, and I used the M word for the first time. And I put my arm around
0:19:49 him as I was saying goodbye. And I said, “You know, Ron, I’m glad you’re my mentor.” And he said
0:19:55 something back I didn’t expect. He said, “And I’m glad you’re mine.” And this is what I think
0:20:01 great mentor relationships are, which is it’s both of us are mentors and both of us are mentees.
0:20:05 Somebody who’s had more experience is still learning about the world from somebody who’s
0:20:09 asking for help. However, I think they do evolve like friendships. I don’t think you can go up
0:20:13 to some random person and say, “Will you be my mentor?” Just as you can’t go up to some random
0:20:18 person on the street and say, “Will you be my friend?” It’s a relationship. And for me, the
0:20:23 definition of a mentor is someone who always has time for you. And it can’t be one-sided. You
0:20:26 can’t simply just because someone’s accomplished and you’re not, you can’t just go up to them
0:20:31 and think they’re an asshole because they don’t want to mentor you, just like you can’t think
0:20:34 someone’s an asshole because they don’t want to be your friend. It’s a relationship. And there’s
0:20:39 a lot of sacrifice that comes with it. What I love about mentorship is a mentor is not a champion.
0:20:46 I think people mistake them. Like in a company, you can have champions who can go to bat for you
0:20:50 and put in a good word for you. You can get that promotion. And the best mentors are not in your
0:20:55 chain of command. They’re either outside of your department or even better outside of the company.
0:20:59 And the only thing they care about is you and your growth. And there’s nothing they can do to
0:21:05 interact, intervene. It’s a very pure relationship where you both learn, you both give, and you
0:21:10 show up for each other. Yeah, it’s interesting. I really have had a lot of mentors, but I’ve
0:21:15 never ever asked anyone to be my mentor. I’ve asked for help. Or I said, “Can we grab coffee?”
0:21:19 And like you said, the relationship, the relationship evolves.
0:21:25 Talk about the tension between self-actualization and putting a group’s needs first. You write
0:21:29 a lot about this. Does that tie into what you’ve spoken about regarding leadership?
0:21:39 I mean, you’re hitting a nerve for me. Mas loves hierarchy of needs. That’s self-actualizations
0:21:47 at the top. Mas left me with a bit of a mistake, which is if you look at the hierarchy of needs,
0:21:51 at the bottom, the most basic need he articulates as food and shelter.
0:22:02 And the third rung up is relationships. Now, I’ve never heard of anybody dying by suicide
0:22:06 because they were hungry. I’ve heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely.
0:22:11 In other words, it seems to be inconsistent with reality that food and shelter would come
0:22:19 number one, but not entirely. Basically, being human is a paradox. Every moment of every single day,
0:22:23 you and I are both individuals, we’re ourselves, but we’re also members of groups. We’re members
0:22:30 of teams, churches, families, whatever it is. And we are confronted with little and big decisions
0:22:34 on a regular basis. Do I put myself first at the sacrifice of one of the groups? Or do I put
0:22:39 the group first at the sacrifice of myself? And people debate this. You always put yourself first
0:22:42 because you can’t help the group unless you’re healthy. You always put the group first because
0:22:45 they won’t be there for you unless you take care of them. And the answer is you’re both right
0:22:50 and you’re both wrong. It’s a paradox, and it’s difficult, and it’s messy. And so Mas love only
0:22:57 considered us as individuals. As individuals, if we lived like great white sharks, 100% correct,
0:23:03 number one would be food and shelter. But as members of groups, it’s different,
0:23:08 and there’s new ones. And so it’s this constant battle between the two. And the thought of living
0:23:13 an entire life to get to the top of a pyramid called self-actualization, where we look down at all
0:23:21 the unactualized people, seems antisocial versus shared actualization, which is raising the team,
0:23:28 raising the company, raising the society, raising the nation. That to me seems more pro-social.
0:23:35 And so good leaders, I think, are doing that. They recognize the paradox. They struggle with
0:23:42 the paradox. But at the same time, they work tirelessly to bring the group that we all rise
0:23:45 together to share an actualization, that we all are working to something bigger than ourselves.
0:23:52 I saw you on the Diary of CEO podcast, and you spoke about people struggling to make friends.
0:23:57 Can you say more about why you think modern society makes it so difficult for people to
0:24:04 develop deep, meaningful relationships? I mean, there’s a host of reasons. No one reason
0:24:09 is the reason. I mean, it’s easy to blame cell phones and social media, and they definitely
0:24:13 play a role, and I think they definitely exaggerate it. I don’t think they’re the sole cause.
0:24:17 Parenting is a big part of it as well. I mean, you and I have gone to restaurants,
0:24:23 and you look over to the table next door, and the parents have slapped an iPhone or an iPad in front
0:24:28 of their little children because they don’t want noisy kids at dinner. They could have brought
0:24:34 colored pencils, and so parenting is a large part of it as well. You see this in education
0:24:38 reform. You talk to teachers or superintendents. They’re all in favor of education reform. Even
0:24:43 the students are up for it. It’s the parents who are often the most resistant because I want you
0:24:49 to reform education, but just don’t experiment on my kids. Cell phones are the same. Schools
0:24:53 want to get rid of them. It’s the parents who are put pressure to say absolutely not, you may not.
0:25:04 I think it’s dramatically exaggerated by the devices, but I also think it’s the
0:25:11 whole thing. Our society, and this goes back a few decades, we’ve over-indexed on rugged
0:25:18 individualism, where it’s all about you, your strength, and we don’t value as much team
0:25:25 celebration, team effort. We did this, not I did this. I don’t know if you ever saw Elizabeth
0:25:32 Gilbert’s TED Talk, but it was magical, and it was hugely helpful to me. She talks about the concept
0:25:40 of genius, and then the pre-renaissance. A genius was a daemon, a spirit that lived in the walls,
0:25:47 and if you did something great, people would say of you, you had your genius. Your genius was with
0:25:51 you, so you couldn’t take full credit for your accomplishments. If you failed, people would say,
0:25:56 “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess your genius wasn’t with you.” You couldn’t take full credit, but you never
0:26:01 had to beat yourself up if it didn’t go so well either. At some point in the renaissance,
0:26:07 having your genius became being the genius. Now, if you accomplish something great, people said of
0:26:12 you, “You are a genius, and now you’re labeled and straddled with that stress for the rest of your
0:26:17 life, and the fear of not being the genius anymore becomes part of the identity, which I think is
0:26:23 part of the failure.” But I think what we’ve done is it’s all part of the package of this over-indexing
0:26:29 on this rugged individualism, especially in America, where we’ve heroized CEOs, and we’ve heroized these
0:26:34 individuals who none of them accomplished their stuff by themselves, but we don’t celebrate the
0:26:41 team, the group, as much. I think it’s acidal. I think it’s part of one of the unfortunate side
0:26:49 effects of Jack Welch and Milton Friedman economics of the ’80s and ’90s, which we’re trying to undo
0:26:55 over the course of these years. Yeah, I think it’s also not uniquely American phenomena, but American
0:27:00 phenomenon. That is, we like to think we live in a meritocracy, and anyone can be anything,
0:27:06 and that’s a very nice aspirational bumper sticker. But if you believe that, the dark side of that is,
0:27:11 well, if it’s truly a meritocracy, and anyone could do anything, then if you don’t end up wealthy,
0:27:16 and in a position of influence, you fucked up. I mean, I know you know this, and I know this.
0:27:20 A lot of our success is not our fault. At the same time, when we screw up, a lot of that is not
0:27:25 your fault. But it feels very American to put pressure on people that if you don’t end up in a
0:27:35 certain position, it’s on you, brother. I completely agree. I mean, I’ve always tried to live with the
0:27:50 formula, the notion that success is the zero sum of effort, talent, and luck. And you want to
0:27:55 get keep those things somewhat, they’re imperfect, and they sort of go like this, but at some point,
0:28:02 they lead to one. So for example, if you win the lottery, no effort, no talent, pure luck, not
0:28:08 stable. If you work really, really hard, but you’ve got no talent, you had no luck, you’re
0:28:12 not going to succeed either. And it’s just really frustrating. And if you have talent that you don’t
0:28:17 capitalize on, again, and so I think you and I both recognize that we’ve tried to steer in our
0:28:23 careers in a direction where we’re more likely to do better than not. Like if I’m really good at math,
0:28:29 I should probably point myself in a direction where math is needed. And if I’m, you know,
0:28:35 maybe not be a football player if I have no athletic ability, no matter what my dreams are,
0:28:39 you know, so we try and point ourselves, we have an unfair advantage because of our natural gifts,
0:28:45 work hard and hope that things work out, you know, you cross your fingers a little bit and
0:28:52 it happens. I’m not the most disciplined person in the world. I have seriously bad ADHD, which means
0:28:57 I struggle to read books. People think I’m really well read. I’m not. I’ve written more books than
0:29:04 I’ve read. And yet I found ways to navigate these things rather than make them bowls and chains.
0:29:10 My sense is you also have a pretty authentic voice, but it’s not easy to manage. I’ve mostly
0:29:16 been able to screen out feedback from social media, mostly, but some of it gets so angry and so
0:29:21 vile. Sometimes it’s difficult to screen out. What do you do to manage and try and maintain
0:29:27 that authenticity without, you know, getting upset all the time and all the shit we get online?
0:29:32 Yeah, I work very hard not to be political. Like I don’t give to candidates. I don’t endorse
0:29:38 candidates. I won’t go to fundraisers. I believe in bipartisanship. So I’ve spoken at Republican
0:29:42 congressional off-sites. I’ve spoken to Democratic congressional off-sites and I give them the same
0:29:48 message because I want unity. So if I preached bipartisanship and picked aside publicly,
0:29:55 then I’d be full of it. So one part is, is I believe that the work that we do is bigger than
0:30:01 politics. And so I try and play at that level. And who I vote for is my business, registered
0:30:07 independent. And I also, in terms of like, because the overwhelming pressure, especially when anything
0:30:13 happens socially, the overwhelming pressure from friends and fans alike to weigh in, it is sometimes
0:30:21 well, high stress, high pressure. My rule has always been that I will, that I will only say
0:30:25 something publicly if I believe that I can be additive. And if it takes me a week to come up
0:30:31 with something that’s additive, then I’m going to wait a week. And it’s very hard to resist the
0:30:40 pressure, but I don’t want to simply add to noise simply because a certain base wants me to join
0:30:46 their side. My rule is it has to be additive. It has to be additive. And by the way, sometimes
0:30:52 I have nothing to say that’s additive. And so I will sometimes be conspicuously quiet. I only
0:30:59 want to contribute, not just, not just virtue signal. It’s funny. I actually thought about you
0:31:04 because in an unusual context, when all these videos emerge, JD Van saying that the world is
0:31:12 being run by these lonely, hateful people without children who have cats. I’m one of them. I thought
0:31:18 of you. I thought, Simon has never been married. It doesn’t have kids. I know you really value
0:31:22 your relationship with your nieces and nephews. And my sense of you is you have a lot of friends
0:31:28 and a good support network. Do you get lonely? Do you feel like you’re judged sometimes for not
0:31:33 going the traditional route in terms of relationships and kids? 100%. So those are two
0:31:42 different questions. I’ll deal with the second one first. So I have a friend who was in a very,
0:31:51 very dysfunctional 16-year relationship. He had, it was just chaotic and dysfunctional. And she’s
0:31:55 been out of it for a few years, but she’ll freely admit that she probably should have been in it
0:31:59 for a year. And she always felt that she could fix him and save him. I don’t know what it was,
0:32:05 16 years of a committed monogamous relationship. I’ve never been married.
0:32:13 My longest relationship was three years. And the world judges me. When I go on dates, like,
0:32:18 women will say to me, “What’s wrong with you?” Some of my friendships are better and closer and
0:32:24 more loving than a lot of marriages or monogamous relationships. And certainly, the life that I
0:32:28 live and the friends that I have are better than that relationship. But why is it that society
0:32:33 says that she’s healthier and I’m unhealthy or she’s correct and there’s something wrong with me?
0:32:38 When people say, “Why haven’t you been married?” I might say, “Isn’t it obvious I haven’t met the
0:32:44 right person yet?” Like, “Isn’t that obvious?” For whatever reasons, I think we’re starting,
0:32:49 we’re in a time now where people are becoming more open to different types of relationships,
0:32:55 that people can be in union without a marriage, raise a family without the marriage. And society,
0:33:00 for the most part, says, “So long as you’re good parents and so long as you’re doing right by each
0:33:05 other and the kids, have at it.” You don’t necessarily need the religious or the legal
0:33:11 document to have the family. And society is more open to that than it used to be. And so,
0:33:19 I’m hoping that society starts to recognize that having fulfilling friendships, having fulfilling
0:33:23 relationships, and by the way, many people would say that the only difference between a close
0:33:27 friendship and a marriage is you can have sex with your spouse. But it turns out you can do
0:33:33 that with friends too. You can be very fulfilled. So, I think you’re right. I absolutely have been
0:33:40 judged my whole life. And the older I get, the judgment is even harsher. And yes, like any human
0:33:45 being, I get lonely. I get lonely. People in relationships get lonely. But yes, of course,
0:33:52 I get lonely. But this is why I love my niece and nephew so much, is because I don’t have my own
0:34:01 kids. They have a little bit of my DNA. And I get to give love to these aspiring magical little kids,
0:34:05 not a little anymore. And I get to impart everything that I’ve learned and who I am
0:34:10 in a way that a parent can’t. I can get away with stuff as an uncle that a parent can’t,
0:34:16 which I know contributes to their lives. And I love that. And they’re both at camp right now,
0:34:20 and I miss them desperately. You know this. You know this. When you had kids that profoundly
0:34:28 changed everything about the way you viewed your life. And I see how you bring your son
0:34:31 with you. So, I’ve just been watching your Instagram and how you bring your son on your
0:34:35 business trip. And you bring your son to games. And you know, you’re trying to give him the
0:34:42 craziest experiences that he can have. And what an amazing thing that, like it’s an amazing thing
0:34:48 to live an amazing life. It’s even more amazing to share it. And define amazing however you want.
0:34:52 But to go on an adventure with a person, I find vastly more fulfilling than going on an adventure
0:35:02 alone. We’ll be right back. Support for PropG comes from LinkedIn. As a B2B marketer,
0:35:06 you know how noisy the ad space can be. If your message isn’t targeted to the right audience,
0:35:11 it just disappears into the noise. With LinkedIn ads, you can work with precision and reach the
0:35:16 professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. With LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities,
0:35:21 you can reach them by job title, industry, company and more. You’ll have direct access to and build
0:35:27 relationships with decision makers. That’s a billion members, 130 million decision makers
0:35:31 and 10 million C level executives. You’ll also be able to drive results with targeting and
0:35:37 measurement tools built specifically for B2B. In technology, LinkedIn generated two to five times
0:35:42 higher return on ad spend than any other social media platforms. And 79% of B2B content marketers
0:35:47 said LinkedIn produced the best results for paid media. Start converting your B2B audience
0:35:51 into high quality leads today. We’ll even give you $100 credit on your next campaign.
0:35:58 But a LinkedIn.com/Scott to claim your credit. That’s LinkedIn.com/Scott. Terms and conditions
0:36:07 apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Support for this podcast comes from Huntress. Keeping
0:36:12 your data safe is important. However, if you’re a small business owner, then protecting the information
0:36:18 of yourself, your company and your workers is vital. And comes Huntress. Huntress is where
0:36:23 fully managed cybersecurity meets human expertise. They offer a revolutionary approach to managed
0:36:28 security that isn’t all about tech. It’s about real people providing real defense. When threats
0:36:33 arise or issues occur, their team of seasoned cyber experts is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a
0:36:39 year for support. Visit huntress.com/propg to start a free trial or learn more.
0:36:46 A Spotify, no matter the type of small business you own, upgrading your lighting or refrigeration
0:36:51 can save you energy and money on your electricity bills. And we’ve got you covered with incentives
0:36:55 to reduce the upfront costs. Visit bcihider.com/incentives to learn more.
0:37:03 I’ve gotten to know you a little bit. And what’s interesting is we’re, we’re actually quite similar
0:37:08 in terms of our profession. And I think I’ve achieved you more so, but achieved certain levels
0:37:12 of success and thought leadership, whatever the hell you want to call it. But what really struck
0:37:17 me was one of the major differences on the, on the front end, I think people say, oh, they’re
0:37:22 similar doing the same thing the same way. You’re really about kind of ideas and impacting people.
0:37:27 And whenever I start to talk about business or we share business ideas or talk about money,
0:37:32 your eyes glaze over. And for me, and I’m not, I’m, I’m not proud of this.
0:37:37 Money is like right up there for me or business or like building successful business that I can
0:37:43 monetize. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve got much better at sharing it. But you’re, you really are
0:37:48 about the ideas. I’m more about the ideas for me are really interesting and I love it. But it’s
0:37:54 a means to, I want to build a robust business. And, and I thought was just so we’re built much
0:37:59 differently that way. Any thoughts? I mean, you’re right. You, you like the money and the success
0:38:05 and the ideas are the means to that. And I’m the opposite, which is I like the ideas and the
0:38:12 business, if the ideas are good, then the business will follow as for me, the, the, the value that
0:38:17 other people put on, on the things that I put out in the world are proof that the, the ideas have
0:38:22 value. Jesus, I sound awful. I, we’ve got to cut this out. That’s like, your rap is so much better
0:38:28 than mine. And then that, that is such a better way. Did you know, no, I, and I’ll tell you why
0:38:37 I disagree with you is you’re honest. Like if, like if investment banks took their stupid purpose
0:38:41 statements down about how they want to help the world or share something or build economies,
0:38:47 which is complete nonsense. And if CEOs of a lot of companies simply said, look,
0:38:53 we’re just here to make cash. I want to get rich. I want the people around me to get rich.
0:38:58 These shareholders want to get rich. We’re going to help them get rich. And we’re going to try and
0:39:03 make a great product for you in order to get rich. I had actually be, that’s what they’re doing.
0:39:07 We all know that’s what they’re doing. They’re just lying to us and saying that other things are
0:39:14 more important. And so the honesty, quite frankly, means that I know what I’m getting and I know how
0:39:20 to invest. And I know how to, I know what level of trust or what barriers or what to believe.
0:39:25 And so, because right now it’s so hard to know what to believe because everybody’s bullshitting us.
0:39:32 And so I find your attitude so refreshing. And you and I are tortured by different things.
0:39:38 And we’re tortured by the, probably the thing that we put second. Like I’m, I’m tortured
0:39:43 that I’m not good at the structure stuff. And like, and you, you sort of say, you know,
0:39:46 you’re more successful than me in terms of this thought leadership, which I don’t even see.
0:39:54 I mean, you’re, you’re, your game is so good. And I, I’m like, I, even though when we first met,
0:40:02 we, I remember when we first met and I was like, okay, it’s kind of a little bit grumpy,
0:40:09 definitely pessimistic where I’m optimistic. I like him. I respect his work, friendship, maybe,
0:40:13 right? And the more I’ve gotten to know you, and we don’t know each other well, but we’ve
0:40:19 hung out a couple of times. I really, I really love spending time with you because I see us as
0:40:25 yin and yang. And I see us as, as actually trying to do the same thing. You have a bigger heart than
0:40:31 you give yourself credit. And you’re, you have a lot more warmth and kindness than you give yourself
0:40:36 credit. I’m probably better at the shit that I beat myself up about them, you know, than I
0:40:41 realize or that I give myself credit for. And you and I make each other uncomfortable because my
0:40:45 strengths are your weaknesses and your weakness, and your strengths are my weaknesses. And that’s
0:40:52 the discomfort, which is spending time with you just reminds me what I suck at. And I’m sort of
0:40:56 having a minor love affair with you and your work. Like when I see you pop up on my Instagram,
0:41:00 constantly, by the way, well done. To resist this futile. I’m AOL in the 90s.
0:41:06 Constantly. Whatever your algorithm, you nailed it. Like I, I actually had to mute you just for
0:41:14 a week just to have a breath. You know, your stuff is getting better. You’re clearer. And I just,
0:41:20 I sit quietly and go, fuck, that’s good. I love how we turn my interviews into me, but back to you.
0:41:25 Well, I’ll share something about me and I, I want, I want you to respond. You said something that was
0:41:29 really interesting. And that is you’re kind of a function of what’s tortured you. I grew up with
0:41:36 real economic anxiety. So it’s just a, it’s a ghost and a demon or, you know, a monkey on my
0:41:41 back. I just can’t shake. I’m always thinking about money. I’m very, very worried about being poor
0:41:47 again. And it’s hugely motivating, but also anxiety driven. And that is sort of my,
0:41:52 I don’t know if it’s my cross to bear, but it plays too big a role in my life.
0:41:57 What do you think it, it tortures you and where does it come from?
0:42:04 So what I know about the concept of why this, which is this thing, this deep seated inspiring
0:42:08 thing inside all of us, one of the things that I’ve learned about it is the thing you give to
0:42:11 the world, the thing you have, that gives you valuing in the world and to your friends and your
0:42:17 relationships is also the thing you need the most. And so it makes perfect sense to me in this balanced
0:42:22 equation of this thing you crave is this thing you fear, you know, that makes perfect sense to
0:42:28 me and that you grew up without means you’re afraid of having going back there. My torture is
0:42:37 I really, really bad ADHD in a time where it was never diagnosed. You know, I was just considered
0:42:43 a hyperactive. My parents, by modern standards, did a lot of the wrong things. I don’t fault them
0:42:50 for it. There was no, there was no, you know, they, they did the best they could with a hyperactive
0:42:55 kid who couldn’t focus and didn’t do schoolwork. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Do your
0:43:00 homework and I didn’t do it. And I’m like, I don’t, you know, and so, you know, I, I’m, I really
0:43:07 struggle to build structure and business is nothing more than structure. That’s what it is. And I
0:43:13 carry like when I talk to people who are brilliant operators and some of my, some CEO, entrepreneur
0:43:17 friends who just, I watch the structures that they’ve built. Now, are they operating, you know,
0:43:22 are they changing the world? Are they contributing to society? No. But my goodness, they built these
0:43:27 remarkable, and I get so insecure because for them it comes so easily. And for me, I really struggle
0:43:34 with it. And I’m to the point where I just stay quiet in those meetings when people like talk about
0:43:39 finance in front of me and they use all the financing jargon or an investment jargon and
0:43:43 they just assume I know it all because I’m at a point in my career where I guess others do.
0:43:49 I literally just have to go quiet out of sheer embarrassment. And so I carry a lot of discomfort
0:43:59 that I really don’t understand money. I don’t understand it. I’m not good at it. And any money
0:44:09 that I’ve made was an accident. And I see people who are contributing to society less work less
0:44:15 hard on the work that they do. And I see them make way more. And I’m not mad at that, but it
0:44:22 makes me feel like, come on, fucker, like up your game, you know. And I feel insecure in the worst
0:44:27 of times. And the best of times, I surround myself with people who are really good at it.
0:44:35 I ask advice, I’ve called you for things that are probably remedial, but to me, they’re advanced.
0:44:40 And just learn to get over the discomfort of asking for help
0:44:43 from people who I fear will judge me because they know so much more than I do.
0:44:48 Yeah, I think what you just described, though, having a lack of financial literacy,
0:44:58 I think you’re describing 97% of America. And I want to be clear. I’ve been wealthy three times.
0:45:02 And the reason why it’s been three times is because twice I lost it all because I was not
0:45:09 financially smart. I could have held on to my wealth. And instead, I was bought into this kind
0:45:16 of VC, fomented zeitgeist of go all in on something. And if you really, if you persevere and never
0:45:20 give up, I should have given up. I should have sold my stock or diversified. Instead, I was going
0:45:27 like 120% in on things. And then some things out of your control, some things in my control,
0:45:32 I just screwed up. But, you know, when the dot bomb implosion happened, I got broke again.
0:45:35 When the great financial recession came along, because I hadn’t been smarter and diversified,
0:45:40 I got broke again. And I think some of the, I hear some embarrassment or self-consciousness
0:45:45 in your voice, I think it’s especially prevalent among men, because they assume if you’re successful,
0:45:51 that you’re not really successful in America as a man, unless you’re financially extraordinarily
0:45:57 successful, and that you just accidentally wake up and get money, right? We’re supposed to be
0:46:01 you know, we’re supposed to wake up and accidentally have, you know, a five o’clock
0:46:06 shadow, a deep voice, a desire to procreate and be just really good at money. Otherwise,
0:46:10 we’re really not men. Do you think that in America, I wonder if one of the things that
0:46:17 creates loneliness among men is that we’re not, we’re so evaluated now, I think women are so
0:46:22 disproportionately evaluated on their aesthetics, but at the same time, men are so disproportionately
0:46:27 evaluated on their professional and financial viability. Do you think it creates more separation
0:46:30 and loneliness that men don’t have these kind of conversations or they feel embarrassed to have
0:46:36 these conversations? That’s such a good question, right? You know, sort of, as you talked about,
0:46:42 which is, you know, what are people posting on Instagram? All social media is marketing. And
0:46:46 if you’re not marketing, you’re not using it, right? Like, whether you’re marketing yourself or
0:46:50 something, it’s, that’s just what it is. All social media is marketing. And so, it’s fun to watch,
0:46:55 as you said, sort of how people market themselves. So, how women market themselves tends to skew
0:47:02 beauty, you know, and how men market themselves tends to skew wealth, you know, standing in front
0:47:08 of the Ferrari, the rented Ferrari. And I think you’re, I think you’re right. And just like we,
0:47:12 and there’s a, and to your point, there’s a lot of conversation about the dangers of social media
0:47:20 for women about creating unrealistic expectations of beauty, especially for young girls, and that
0:47:25 there’s no conversation about the unhealthiness of social media creating unhealthy expectations
0:47:30 for young men and boys. We don’t have that conversation at all. I think you’re 100% right.
0:47:38 And you and I have both talked about this, you know, the dangers of a lonely man, you know, you,
0:47:44 you know, show me, go to the Middle East with, you know, 25% unemployment in a shame-based society,
0:47:48 you’re a virgin and you’re living at home, you know, show me, show me somebody who’s committed
0:47:53 a mass homicide. And I’ll show you somebody that’s generally a lonely man.
0:48:00 Just as we wrap up here, I’ve had this whole wrap about if there’s one enduring skill that you’d
0:48:05 want to accrete to your children, it would be storytelling. That is the key to success across
0:48:10 almost every industry or real success. At the end of the day, you and I make a living storytelling.
0:48:15 And you’re, you’re outstanding at it. You know, I’m one of the, I don’t know,
0:48:19 30 million people that saw your kind of TED Talk that sort of, I don’t know if it made you famous,
0:48:23 but definitely took you to a new level without trying to be trying to be as
0:48:30 immodest as possible. What have you done? And what are your practices and hacks such that you can
0:48:36 maintain sort of your elite, you know, elite athlete status as a storyteller?
0:48:42 Thank you for that. Can I tell a story? I’ll be here all week, try the veal.
0:48:46 It was a former Undersecretary of Defense who was giving a speech at a large conference,
0:48:51 1,000 people, whatever. And while he’s giving his remarks, he takes a sip of from his coffee
0:48:56 that he’s holding in the Styrofoam cup and he smiles and he interrupts his own presentation.
0:49:01 And he says, you know, last year I spoke at this exact same conference, except last year I was
0:49:06 still the Undersecretary. And last year they flew me here business class. There was somebody waiting
0:49:10 for me at the airport to take me to the hotel. I got to the hotel. Somebody had already checked
0:49:13 me in. They just gave me my key. I came down in the morning. There was somebody waiting for me
0:49:18 in the lobby. They brought me to the same venue. They took me in the back entrance. They took me
0:49:23 into the green room and they handed me a cup of coffee and a beautiful ceramic cup. He says,
0:49:27 “I’m no longer the Undersecretary. I flew her coach. I took a taxi to the hotel. I checked
0:49:31 myself in. This morning I came down and took another taxi to the venue. I came through the front
0:49:36 entrance, found my way backstage. And when I asked somebody, “Do you have any coffee?” They pointed
0:49:41 to the coffee machine in the corner and I poured myself a cup of coffee in this year’s Styrofoam
0:49:46 cup. He says, “The lesson is the ceramic cup was never meant for me. I deserve a Styrofoam cup.”
0:49:54 I’ve tried to remember that. That it’s okay to enjoy the ceramic cups. It’s okay to
0:50:01 think about the ceramic cups. One ceramic cups. But at the end of the day, remember that it’s not
0:50:06 being given to me. It’s giving to the position I held in this moment. And when I move on,
0:50:11 they’ll just give it to the next person. It was never meant for me. And I think what that does
0:50:17 are two things. It reminds me where I come from, what I’m entitled to, and it also helps me live
0:50:23 in absolute gratitude. That anything that I get, all the ceramic cups I get to enjoy, I am grateful
0:50:29 for every one of them and think I deserve none of them. And so when you ask me sort of like what
0:50:36 helps me stay true as a storyteller, I think it’s very simple, which is I don’t view myself as an
0:50:41 expert. I view myself as a student. I generally think of myself as an idiot. I’m just more comfortable
0:50:49 with the idea of admitting it these days. And I really like learning. And so the stories I tell
0:50:54 are not actually for your benefit. The stories I tell are to help me make sense of the world.
0:51:00 And the stories I tell help me understand complex things. And if I’m going to explain something
0:51:04 to you, the best way I know how to do it is by telling the story that helped me understand it.
0:51:10 Last question. In five years, kind of first things that come to your mind,
0:51:16 if you’re sitting here in five years and the following one or two things that happened to you,
0:51:20 and that was success, what are those things? What boxes are you still looking to check?
0:51:31 I’m very sorry. I can’t answer the question. I’m living proof that having a plan means nothing.
0:51:37 My entire career was, I would never want to be a public speaker. I never wanted to write a single
0:51:43 book, let alone five. Like nothing I’ve done in my career was in the plan. My plan was thrown out
0:51:51 ages ago. I had one. It didn’t go that way. And so to me, the folly of a plan, it’s like
0:51:58 planning how many miles, it’s like planning which highway you’re going to take and how many miles
0:52:03 you want to drive per day, but not knowing the destination. It’s like figuring out these way
0:52:07 points. Like in three days, what city will you be at if you’re driving across countries? Like,
0:52:13 which direction am I going in? And my focus tends to be so far over the horizon to a
0:52:20 vision, an unrealizable idealistic vision, and the path that I take, I’m agnostic.
0:52:25 And so you’re asking me to tell you what the way point will be. I could tell you something,
0:52:33 and I can guarantee you it won’t happen. So I’m just trying to find the most efficient and fun path
0:52:39 to that crazy, far away place that I know I’ll never get to. And that’s
0:52:42 unnerving and more fun.
0:52:47 Wasn’t it Eisenhower that said plans are useless, but planning is invaluable?
0:52:56 And I think that’s true. I believe in backup plans. I believe in alternative routes. Like if
0:53:02 this one’s blocked, I’m going to go that direction for my career. I believe in going slowly in the
0:53:06 right direction versus speeding off in the wrong direction. So when companies talk about growth at
0:53:14 all costs, I’m like, for what reason? And I’m okay knowing that other people are driving faster
0:53:19 than me, because I know at some point they’ll hit a road. Not that I’m in competing against them.
0:53:23 I just know this from experience. When I was young in my career, I used to go to a guy.
0:53:29 He was very successful. He did similar things as me. He made a ton of money. I made none.
0:53:34 And he would say stupid shit like, I’m not getting out of bed for more than $25,000.
0:53:39 I won’t even get out of bed. And I was like, oh, shit, I do stuff for free all the time because
0:53:44 I really want to talk to somebody or meet somebody or sounds like fun. And he basically
0:53:49 spent most of the time I went to him for advice calling me stupid. Well, I can guarantee you’ve
0:53:55 never heard of him. And my career has faster passed him. And it’s not a competition and
0:54:02 there’s no gloating. For me, the lesson is I’d rather play the slow, steady game than the fast
0:54:08 game where I can show off to everybody. And understand how I think about my career. No
0:54:12 matter how much success I have, however you want to define it, I always think I’m still at the
0:54:17 tip of the iceberg because there’s so much more work to do. And I think focusing on what’s beneath
0:54:21 the ocean, I think keeps you humble and keeps you focused on all the work that has to be done.
0:54:25 But you’re asking me to tell you how much iceberg is going to be above the ocean and I couldn’t
0:54:30 tell you. Simon Sinek is an international speaker and bestselling author of the books,
0:54:37 Start With Why, The Infinite Game and Finder Why. He’s also the founder of The Optimism Company,
0:54:41 which provides programs for leadership development. He joins us from his home in Los
0:54:46 Angeles. Simon, I always enjoy spending time with you. We are so, you’re the most different person
0:54:51 I know that is the same person. And I think that’s what I enjoy so much about spending time with
0:54:57 you is we’re so similar from an exterior standpoint. And you just come at stuff from such a different
0:55:02 perspective as was me and it really illuminates. You just pointed something out to me that
0:55:07 it was sort of puncturing and that is sometimes I think when I’m advising people and I draw my own
0:55:12 experiences in, I think sometimes I’m boasting rather than just helping and I want to be more
0:55:18 cognizant of that. Anyways, brother, it’s always great to speak to you and congrats on everything.
0:55:24 Thanks. And I’m loving getting to know you. I really am. You know, you snuck up on me.
0:55:29 Go on. Like when I see your shit everywhere, legit, I smile like a proud parent. I’m like,
0:55:36 yeah, man, go, you know. And I just, I’m really, I can’t wait to come back to London and spend
0:55:38 more time with you, but properly. I appreciate that.
0:55:55 Out of happiness. I’ve been thinking a lot about grief. This was a rough weekend for me as I’m
0:56:03 sure it was for a lot of people. The news of the hostages being murdered by Hamas in Gaza, specifically
0:56:11 the story of a 23-year-old American Israeli Hirsch Goldberg, Pauline, who was wounded and
0:56:17 abducted by Hamas during the Nova Music Festival Massacre. He was held hostage for almost 11 months
0:56:23 until his body was recovered from Rafa in the Gaza Strip on the 31st of August, 2024. And I’ve
0:56:30 been thinking a lot about why that specific situation has inspired so much collective grieving,
0:56:38 given there’s spent so much death and destruction, both obviously among those killed on October 7th
0:56:43 and those taken hostage, but also so much grief and so much death and destruction
0:56:52 registered by people in Gaza. Why is this young man’s death so rattling? And I think it’s for a
0:57:01 few reasons. One, you can relate to it or they put a face on it. I saw the parents speak at the
0:57:08 Democratic National Convention and just seeing the grief, just so, just the just profound sadness and
0:57:15 anxiety on their parents’ faces. Any parent just looks at them and immediately kind of understands
0:57:20 or comes close to that horror and it puts a face on it. Whereas when we see news,
0:57:25 it just seems somewhat a little bit remote or distant, if you will. So I think it’s putting a
0:57:31 face on it. The story of parents obviously is very a gripping one. If you’re a parent, you just feel
0:57:42 such immense sadness. And I think what it does though, it informs your life. And that is what
0:57:46 you hoped for. And what I’ve tried to do last night, I was a real funk to try and get out of it,
0:57:53 was I thought, okay, the reason I have these fears, the reason I’m so worried about grieving is one,
0:57:57 anthropologically, it makes me a better father. It makes me think about protecting them. I’ve already
0:58:04 called my son today. It does make you a better, it does attach you to them. That fear of potentially
0:58:07 experiencing that grief, putting a face on it obviously from a current standpoint.
0:58:14 But also, as I think about this, it really is a function of the blessings you have. The
0:58:18 grief you feel is because you were put in a position where you were able to attach to others
0:58:22 and you were able to experience what is the most important thing in life and that is deep and
0:58:28 meaningful relationships. And some, I hope all of you listening out there, I would wish for all
0:58:33 of you a lot of joy and deep and meaningful relationships that don’t register grief, but
0:58:38 present the possibility of grief, which is nothing again, but receipts for love and means that you
0:58:44 have people in your life that you care a great deal about. This episode was produced by Caroline
0:58:48 Shagren. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burroughs is our technical
0:58:53 director. Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will
0:58:58 catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our
0:59:02 PropG Markets Pod. That’s right, the PropG Markets Pod, wherever you get your pods for the new
0:59:17 episodes every Monday and Thursday. Woohoo! Ka-ching! Mo money! Light up the rail. I want some Bolivian
0:59:23 marching powder. Where’s the, where’s the Dom Peragnon? I want some channel. I want for some bursace.

0:00:02 Support for PropG comes from NerdWallet.
0:00:05 Starting your credit card search with NerdWallet, smart.
0:00:07 Using their tools to finally find the card
0:00:09 that works for you, even smarter,
0:00:12 you can filter for the features you care about.
0:00:14 Access the latest deals and add your top cards
0:00:17 to a comparison table to make smarter decisions.
0:00:19 And it’s all powered by the Nerds Expert Reviews
0:00:22 of over 400 credit cards.
0:00:25 Head over to nerdwallet.com/learnmore
0:00:27 to find smarter credit card savings accounts,
0:00:29 mortgage rates, and more.
0:00:31 NerdWallet, finance smarter.
0:00:36 NerdWallet Compare Incorporated, NMLS 1617539.
0:00:41 – I’m Anu Subramanian from Vox Media.
0:00:43 While I see them all around the city,
0:00:46 I’ve never ridden in an autonomous vehicle myself.
0:00:48 I do have some questions about the tech.
0:00:49 You may as well.
0:00:51 – Hello, from Waymo.
0:00:54 This experience may feel futuristic.
0:00:55 – This is so cool.
0:00:58 – Vox and Waymo teamed up for an in-depth study
0:01:00 about AV perception.
0:01:02 And what they found was that as people learned more
0:01:04 about Waymo, their interest in choosing one
0:01:07 over a human-driven vehicle almost doubled.
0:01:09 – Person approaching.
0:01:13 – Waymo can see 360 degrees and up to 300 meters away,
0:01:15 which helps it obey traffic laws
0:01:17 and get you where you’re going safely.
0:01:19 Swiss Re found that compared to human drivers,
0:01:23 Waymo reported 100% fewer injury claims
0:01:26 and 76% fewer property damage claims.
0:01:30 And speaking of safety, folks identifying as LGBTQIA
0:01:33 and non-binary showed the highest interest in AVs
0:01:35 and women showed the greatest increase in interest
0:01:36 after learning more.
0:01:40 – Arriving shortly at your destination.
0:01:43 – So that actually felt totally normal.
0:01:45 AVs are here and the more you know,
0:01:47 the more exciting this tech becomes.
0:01:49 You can learn more about Waymo,
0:01:51 the world’s most experienced driver,
0:01:53 by heading to Waymo.com.
0:01:56 – Welcome to the PropG Pods Office Hours.
0:01:58 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions
0:01:59 about business, big tech, entrepreneurship,
0:02:01 and whatever else is on your mind.
0:02:02 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:03 – Hey, Scott and team.
0:02:04 – Hey, Scott.
0:02:04 – Hi, PropG.
0:02:05 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:06 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:07 – Hi, Professor G.
0:02:08 – If you’d like to submit a question,
0:02:09 please email a voice recording
0:02:11 to officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:02:14 Again, that’s officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:02:16 So with that, first question.
0:02:19 – Hi, PropG, long time listener,
0:02:22 dating back to the we crashed days.
0:02:25 Anyway, I’m Ruth, I’m from the Bay Area, San Francisco,
0:02:27 and originally from New Zealand.
0:02:31 My question relates to the conversation you have often
0:02:33 about Tesla not reaching its milestone
0:02:38 in regard to self-driving autonomous cars.
0:02:41 My question is, why isn’t there more discussion
0:02:44 about what Waymo has already achieved?
0:02:47 I get that Alphabet isn’t a car company,
0:02:49 but if you look at the streets of San Francisco,
0:02:52 it seems now that every fifth car is a Waymo.
0:02:55 So why aren’t we saying that Waymo’s cracked it
0:02:57 and that they have the potential,
0:03:01 should they wish to go into business with Jaguar
0:03:05 and sell autonomous cars?
0:03:06 – That’s very interesting.
0:03:08 I had trouble focusing on your question
0:03:09 ’cause you have such a lovely voice,
0:03:12 but a shrimp on the bottom, oh, wait, that’s Australia.
0:03:15 Anyway, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced
0:03:18 that Alphabet is investing an additional $5 million
0:03:21 into its self-driving car unit, Waymo.
0:03:23 Porat said in the company’s Q2 earnings call,
0:03:25 this new round of funding will enable Waymo
0:03:26 to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous
0:03:27 driving company.
0:03:29 This announcement follows Waymo’s
0:03:31 second city-wide expansion in San Francisco.
0:03:34 Just in June, Waymo removed its wait list
0:03:36 and opened Waymo rides to all San Francisco users.
0:03:37 What are the numbers?
0:03:40 Waymo currently provides 50,000 paid trips weekly
0:03:42 in San Francisco and Phoenix
0:03:44 and has completed two million trips to date.
0:03:46 Waymo’s unit within Alphabet generated
0:03:49 365 million in revenue in Q2 of this year.
0:03:51 That’s up 28% year on year,
0:03:53 but incurred losses of 1.1 billion
0:03:55 up from 813 million the previous year.
0:03:57 Some context on what the rest of the industry looks like.
0:04:00 General Motors autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise,
0:04:02 recently announced it’s indefinitely
0:04:04 delaying the production of the Origin,
0:04:07 which is a self-driving shuttle meant for city use.
0:04:08 This came after Cruise lost its permit
0:04:09 to operate in San Francisco
0:04:11 due to an incident with a pedestrian.
0:04:14 When they say incident, meaning it ran over a pedestrian
0:04:16 and I think like a bull backed up behind it
0:04:18 to make sure to finish the job.
0:04:20 Also Bloomberg reported that Tesla is delaying the launch
0:04:22 of their RoboTaxi by two months.
0:04:24 I think self-driving, it’s not quite up there
0:04:26 with this consensual hallucination of headsets
0:04:29 in terms of shitty business decisions,
0:04:31 but on a cost basis, this or a shareholder basis,
0:04:35 this has probably been a disaster for these companies.
0:04:37 And because GM just doesn’t have access
0:04:38 to the type of cheap capital
0:04:40 where they can keep losing billions of dollars,
0:04:42 their adventures in self-driving,
0:04:43 I would imagine, come to an end.
0:04:44 They just don’t have the money.
0:04:46 And Waymo, the reason why this gets so much attention
0:04:48 is Elon Musk.
0:04:49 And that is he has been,
0:04:51 investors or shareholders of Tesla
0:04:54 are literally like a person on the corner
0:04:57 trying to get home or get to a dinner or whatever.
0:05:00 And they’ve been waiting for their taxi for 11 years.
0:05:02 I think he started talking about self-driving.
0:05:05 According to Elon Musk, it’s always kind of many on him
0:05:07 and like next year, this year, next year, and it never is.
0:05:09 Tomorrow is never today.
0:05:12 Anyways, self-driving has been a gigantic head fake.
0:05:14 It kind of falls under the line of what Bill Gates said
0:05:15 that things that are supposed to take three years,
0:05:16 take 10 years.
0:05:18 This is definitely taking 10 years.
0:05:20 The other thing I don’t buy around Tesla
0:05:22 and the excitement is that how would Tesla,
0:05:24 and this goes to your question,
0:05:27 be able to capture even assuming that self-driving gets here
0:05:28 at some point, it gets ubiquity
0:05:30 that everyone is thinking it’s gonna get.
0:05:34 How does Tesla control self-driving to the extent
0:05:35 that it captures the margin?
0:05:37 I don’t get it here ’cause it seems like Waymo,
0:05:39 to your point, is in the lead.
0:05:41 It doesn’t get nearly the attention.
0:05:42 It probably deserves one.
0:05:43 They made a tactical mistake
0:05:46 and that is they started in San Francisco.
0:05:50 In San Francisco, while having a ton of innovative companies,
0:05:52 the population in the zeitgeist here
0:05:56 is very suspicious of corporations and big tech.
0:05:59 I bet they get a lot less pushback in Phoenix
0:06:00 where people are just like,
0:06:02 “You know, on my way to the,”
0:06:03 I don’t know, “What are they doing?”
0:06:05 Phoenix, I love Arizona.
0:06:07 My dad lived there, beautiful sunsets.
0:06:09 Anyways, it’s coming.
0:06:10 I always thought it should happen in airplanes
0:06:15 ’cause about 80 or 90% of air crash disasters
0:06:17 or air disasters are pilot error
0:06:19 and that it seems to me you’d want a computer up there
0:06:22 but that won’t happen because people need to see some old guy
0:06:24 with thick gray hair who just makes you feel safe
0:06:26 and have them come on the intercom
0:06:28 and say, “Folks, just a little light chop.
0:06:29 “Nothing to worry about.
0:06:30 “Please make sure your seatbelts are fast.”
0:06:33 And anyways, that makes me feel better.
0:06:35 Self-driving, it’ll be here at some point.
0:06:37 It’s not gonna nearly live up to the hype,
0:06:39 I don’t think, around the economics of it.
0:06:42 Tesla is using it as a weapon of mass distraction.
0:06:44 Google has probably spent more money than they would like
0:06:46 but they’re sort of all in here.
0:06:47 I don’t know.
0:06:48 I mean, the only thing I would say
0:06:50 about Waymo not getting as much attention
0:06:54 is that the founders of Alphabet aren’t tweeting
0:06:59 about their ketamine or calling their daughter dead to them
0:07:00 because she went through transition
0:07:03 or saying ridiculous things or launching rockets into space.
0:07:05 I mean, must just get so much attention around
0:07:09 anything he does and Tesla Bulls are looking for an excuse
0:07:12 to justify how this car company,
0:07:15 which should trade at 15, 20 times earnings
0:07:17 is trading at 100 times earnings.
0:07:18 Anyways, start with me under in question,
0:07:20 but love your voice.
0:07:22 Go New Zealand, start a podcast.
0:07:23 Start a podcast.
0:07:25 Question number two.
0:07:28 – Hey, Prof. G, I’m John from Portland, Oregon.
0:07:30 I recently started listening to your pod
0:07:33 and I really appreciate the practical insights
0:07:36 you give on business, marketing, and life,
0:07:37 particularly the insights you give
0:07:40 around raising two young boys.
0:07:42 I’m a father of two little boys myself.
0:07:45 Curran, who’s 10 and Towns, who’s eight.
0:07:48 Both of them love sports, especially soccer.
0:07:50 Recently, we’ve been watching a lot
0:07:52 of the Summer Olympics together
0:07:54 and while we were watching the games,
0:07:58 a new Nike ad titled “Winning isn’t for Everyone” came on.
0:08:00 Now, as a father, I’ve tried to instill the values
0:08:04 of empathy, respect, and kindness to my boys.
0:08:06 When they compete on the soccer field,
0:08:08 I have them focus on their effort,
0:08:11 not the outcome of the match or other people’s opinions.
0:08:15 However, the messaging I watched them soak in from Nike
0:08:17 was the complete opposite of this.
0:08:20 Now, my charitable assumption is that Nike
0:08:22 was trying to communicate how difficult it is
0:08:25 to be the best at something.
0:08:28 However, what they described to me was not greatness,
0:08:30 but an immature, anxious individual
0:08:32 bent on power and dominance.
0:08:35 But my question to you is, as a father,
0:08:37 who’s trying to instill empathy, kindness,
0:08:40 and generosity into his boys,
0:08:43 how would you address this ad by Nike to them?
0:08:46 Do you think the ad missed the mark?
0:08:48 And what are alternative messages
0:08:50 Nike could have communicated about competing
0:08:52 at the highest level?
0:08:55 Thanks again for all the insights in the pod.
0:08:56 If you’re ever in Portland, Oregon,
0:08:59 I’d love to buy you a drink.
0:09:00 – First off, John from Portland.
0:09:02 Thanks for the thoughtful question and congratulations.
0:09:05 I believe that when I am at the end,
0:09:08 I’m gonna look back and the days I’m gonna miss,
0:09:11 the salad days, if I get to go to something called Heaven,
0:09:13 which I won’t and I’m fairly certain
0:09:16 that doesn’t exist, another talk show,
0:09:19 is that Heaven for me would have been going back
0:09:21 to my house where I had young kids.
0:09:25 I just think the noise, the chaos,
0:09:28 I remember my son coming into our bedroom
0:09:31 with a basket of his cars, almost like an offering
0:09:33 that if you let me come in bed with you,
0:09:35 you can have these cars.
0:09:39 And just these moments of like, I just felt so,
0:09:40 I don’t know, like I had a purpose,
0:09:44 like I was working for a reason and these,
0:09:45 I mean, really God does reach into your soul
0:09:48 and turn on a switch, you never knew it existed.
0:09:50 But anyways, congratulations.
0:09:51 I hope you have the presence.
0:09:54 I did mostly to realize these are the salad days
0:09:56 and what you look back on is the happiest time in your life.
0:09:58 Not that you’re not gonna be happy the rest of your life,
0:10:03 but for young kids at home, boys, oh, I’m jealous.
0:10:05 My boys are now about to be 14 and 17.
0:10:08 My 17 year old is into his own thing, that’s great.
0:10:11 My 13, about to be 14, still hugs me,
0:10:13 still wants to hang out with me, which is nice,
0:10:14 but you’re in the sweet spot.
0:10:16 Anyways, back to your question.
0:10:19 So Nike’s gotten kicked literally in the nuts
0:10:21 for the last, last five years at stock,
0:10:21 it’s been cut in half.
0:10:23 It’s gone from being the premier marketer
0:10:25 to sort of what I think is probably
0:10:27 an activist target at this point.
0:10:28 I actually love this ad.
0:10:31 And that is, I think that there is a balance
0:10:34 between kids having a certain amount of empathy
0:10:36 and especially boys having a little bit
0:10:38 of what I’ll call a killer instinct.
0:10:40 And I realize how obnoxious that sounds,
0:10:42 but they sort of, everyone gets a trophy.
0:10:45 Zeitgeist that I think has developed in athletics
0:10:46 has gone a little bit too far.
0:10:50 I do think there’s something to success
0:10:53 and competitiveness that the Nike brand embodies
0:10:56 that I think is actually healthy for young people.
0:11:00 And I mean, when you think about branding,
0:11:02 Nike and Adidas have much different positionings,
0:11:04 but they both work.
0:11:08 Adidas is the joy of sport and it’s more track and field.
0:11:10 It’s more, I would argue, their premier sport right now
0:11:12 that defines them is probably football,
0:11:15 or as you Americans call it, soccer, a team sport.
0:11:18 It’s competing, it’s greatness in the agency of others.
0:11:21 It’s a little more socialist, a little bit more European.
0:11:25 Nike is Michael Jordan, individual achievement.
0:11:28 And the statement that summarizes the Nike brand for me
0:11:30 is you didn’t win silver, you lost gold.
0:11:33 And I think there’s, I kind of like that positioning
0:11:36 and the ad you’re talking about, I actually really like.
0:11:38 It’s like, I’m not there to be on a team.
0:11:39 I’m there to be a monster.
0:11:41 And I think a little bit of that,
0:11:43 especially among young boys, among young girls too,
0:11:47 I think competitiveness is built into our species
0:11:49 because it’s important, it’s key to innovation
0:11:52 and moving the world forward.
0:11:54 I’m competitive with the other members
0:11:56 of the marketing faculty and NYU Stern
0:11:57 and I think that’s a good thing.
0:11:59 And I also realize that competition and cooperation
0:12:02 are sort of this gangster wanting to achieve
0:12:04 for yourself individually and being,
0:12:06 having some of that competitive spirit
0:12:08 and some of that monster inside of you
0:12:11 in conjunction with cooperation and winning
0:12:15 and then having empathy for people who maybe can compete.
0:12:16 I think that’s a nice positioning.
0:12:20 And I think Nike has basically accurately perceived
0:12:22 that everything’s got a little bit too far
0:12:26 in terms of competition has become less quote unquote,
0:12:27 competitive.
0:12:29 I think there’s room for both.
0:12:31 So I kind of like the ad
0:12:33 and I don’t think there’s anything wrong
0:12:35 with building a little bit of that killer instinct
0:12:39 into your son’s DNA.
0:12:41 Does that mean they can’t have empathy?
0:12:43 Does that mean they shouldn’t cooperate?
0:12:46 No, but I like having a little bit of grit,
0:12:48 a little bit of, a little bit of like,
0:12:51 I don’t know, killer instinct in them.
0:12:53 But again, thank you for the question.
0:12:55 And isn’t it wonderful?
0:12:57 What a blessing to be a father of boys.
0:13:00 We have one quick break before our final question.
0:13:00 Stay with us.
0:13:06 Support for PropG comes from Mint Mobile.
0:13:08 If you’re serious about keeping your budget in check,
0:13:11 your monthly expenses are one of the first places to look.
0:13:14 And one thing a lot of us overpay for is our phones,
0:13:16 especially between all the hidden fees
0:13:18 and other nonsense phone companies throw at you,
0:13:22 which is why Mint Mobile is doing things differently
0:13:24 when you switch to Mint Mobile.
0:13:26 You can get three months of premium wireless service
0:13:27 for just 15 bucks a month.
0:13:30 All of Mint Mobile’s plans come with high-speed 5G data
0:13:31 and unlimited talk and text.
0:13:34 Plus, you don’t need to worry about getting a new device
0:13:36 or phone number, just bring those with you
0:13:38 over to your new Mint Mobile plan.
0:13:40 To get this new customer offer
0:13:42 and your new three-month premium wireless plan
0:13:43 for just 15 bucks a month,
0:13:46 you can go to mintmobile.com/propg.
0:13:48 That’s mintmobile.com/propg.
0:13:51 You can cut your wireless bill at 15 bucks a month
0:13:53 at mintmobile.com/propg.
0:13:57 $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month.
0:13:59 New customers on first three-month plan only.
0:14:02 Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:14:04 Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.
0:14:06 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:14:11 Support for PropG comes from Masterclass.
0:14:13 They say youth is wasted on the young.
0:14:15 I mean, can you imagine if only your job
0:14:17 was to go to school and learn?
0:14:19 Well, if you’re past your university days,
0:14:20 there’s still plenty of time to learn
0:14:21 if you know where to look.
0:14:23 That’s where Masterclass comes in.
0:14:25 Masterclass is the streaming platform
0:14:27 where you can learn for more than 200
0:14:30 of the world’s greatest minds for just $10 a month.
0:14:31 And annual membership with Masterclass
0:14:33 gets you unlimited access to every instructor.
0:14:37 Plus, you can access Masterclass on your phone, computer, TV,
0:14:38 or even in audio mode.
0:14:42 And according to Masterclass, 88% of members
0:14:44 report that Masterclass has made a positive impact
0:14:45 on their lives.
0:14:47 I checked out Masterclass myself.
0:14:49 I watched Bob Iger’s Masterclass.
0:14:52 I wanted to learn about managing the creative process
0:14:54 and being a CEO.
0:14:57 Plus, every new membership comes with a 30-day money back
0:14:59 guarantee, so you can start your learning journey today
0:15:02 risk-free and with an open mind.
0:15:04 Right now, you can get an additional 15% off
0:15:07 any annual membership at masterclass.com/propg.
0:15:11 That’s 15% off at masterclass.com/propg.
0:15:17 Masterclass.com/propg.
0:15:19 Support for PropG comes from Vanta.
0:15:20 Customers aren’t going to support your business
0:15:22 if they don’t trust you.
0:15:23 It doesn’t matter if you’re starting or scaling
0:15:26 your company’s security program, demonstrating top-notch security
0:15:30 practices, and establishing trust is more important than ever.
0:15:31 Vanta can help you do both.
0:15:36 Vanta automates compliance for SOC2, ISO 27001, and more,
0:15:38 saving you time and money while helping
0:15:38 you build customer trust.
0:15:41 Plus, you can streamline security reviews
0:15:43 by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security
0:15:45 posture with a customer-facing trust center,
0:15:48 all powered by Vanta AI.
0:15:51 Over 7,000 global companies like Atlassian, FlowHealth,
0:15:54 and Quora use Vanta to manage risk-improved security
0:15:55 in real time.
0:15:59 Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/propg.
0:16:05 That’s vanta.com/p-r-o-f-g for $1,000 off.
0:16:08 Welcome back, question number three.
0:16:10 Hey, Prof. G. This is Nick coming in from Chicago.
0:16:13 Long time listener to the podcast.
0:16:15 I just read through your new book, The Algebra of Wealth.
0:16:18 I thought there were a lot of great insights from you in there.
0:16:22 One insight I particularly loved was following your talents,
0:16:25 not your passions, and how you should follow what skills
0:16:30 and talents you find in your early 20s and to your 30s,
0:16:34 and act on those that separate you from what you’re doing.
0:16:36 Act on those that separate you.
0:16:39 My question is, what happens when the skills and talents
0:16:41 that you find you have are not aligned
0:16:44 to high-income earning careers?
0:16:47 In my particular case, I’ve worked in education
0:16:48 for over the last five years.
0:16:49 I really enjoy it.
0:16:53 I think the interpersonal skills and mentoring of young people
0:16:55 is something I’m really good at.
0:16:57 The problem is I don’t see it aligning
0:17:00 with the highest salary in the long term.
0:17:02 So if the goal is financial security,
0:17:05 which I want as much as anyone else,
0:17:09 how would you frame aligning your talents and skills?
0:17:10 An industry is like education
0:17:13 that don’t particularly pay as well as others.
0:17:14 Thank you, Prof. Chi.
0:17:16 I really appreciate you and your work.
0:17:17 – Oh, this is a tough one.
0:17:20 If you’re the best at anything,
0:17:22 you’ll generally find a pretty good way to make a living.
0:17:23 I have a friend who’s now a principal
0:17:25 of a junior high school.
0:17:27 He’s a protocol friend.
0:17:28 I haven’t talked to him in a long time.
0:17:31 He started out actually in investment banking.
0:17:33 His name is Ed Hayek.
0:17:35 He’s this tall, handsome guy.
0:17:37 And he like me started investment banking.
0:17:39 He didn’t like it, ended up in education.
0:17:41 I got, he made a lot of money and now he’s principal.
0:17:42 I think of a junior high somewhere
0:17:44 or high school about to retire.
0:17:46 But my guess is he’s made a pretty decent living
0:17:47 for himself.
0:17:48 You’re not going to be a millionaire
0:17:50 or multimillionaire in education.
0:17:53 I mean, it’s very kind of situational dependent.
0:17:56 I think some school districts have pretty good ways
0:17:58 of helping teachers get wealthy slowly.
0:18:01 And that is usually a pretty good retirement plans.
0:18:03 But you have to assess whether or not
0:18:05 the psychic income compensates
0:18:07 for the lack of financial income
0:18:08 that you might get in another industry.
0:18:11 In terms of teaching, if you’re a good teacher,
0:18:13 you can translate those skills to a lot of different things.
0:18:16 Whether it’s going back and getting an MBA,
0:18:18 you sound pretty young and becoming a consultant.
0:18:19 I’m a teacher.
0:18:22 My gangster competence is the gangster competence
0:18:24 in our economy that you’d likely have.
0:18:26 And that’s an ability to communicate
0:18:29 and capture the attention of individuals in a classroom.
0:18:31 I think anyone who can keep the attention
0:18:33 of a 15 year old for an hour,
0:18:35 talking about history or math or biology
0:18:37 or whatever it is you teach,
0:18:40 can probably be a pretty decent consultant,
0:18:44 probably be someone who’s in communications.
0:18:47 But at the end of the day, you’re a storyteller.
0:18:49 And can you translate those skills to something else?
0:18:51 Sure.
0:18:53 But I would have just an open and honest conversation
0:18:55 around what your income expectations are,
0:18:57 where potentially in a school district,
0:18:58 you could make good money.
0:19:00 Also, I don’t know if you have an interest in teaching
0:19:02 in college, but I decided to teach at NYU.
0:19:04 I decided, okay, I thought at the time,
0:19:06 I’m done economically, what do I wanna do in my life?
0:19:10 I thought I wanna teach and join the faculty at NYU.
0:19:13 My first year, I made $12,000 as an adjunct professor
0:19:15 ’cause universities have decided that in order to pay
0:19:18 this really inefficient, unproductive corrupt guild
0:19:20 called tenure, they need to draft people
0:19:23 who want dream of teaching at college
0:19:25 and pay them much less than market.
0:19:26 And that’s like I said, is market.
0:19:29 But adjuncts, clinical faculty.
0:19:30 But I was very good at it.
0:19:32 I was arrogant, whatever, I’m good at it.
0:19:35 And I put more and more butts and more and more seats
0:19:38 and colleges are a business.
0:19:40 And slowly, but surely, I got to the point
0:19:42 where I think I was making probably the benefits,
0:19:44 housing, matching pension, all that shit.
0:19:47 I was probably making around 300 grand a year.
0:19:50 I say was seven years ago.
0:19:54 Virtue signaling alert, I gave back all of my compensation
0:19:57 for the previous 15 years such that I could continue
0:19:59 to bite the hand that feeds me as I’m doing now.
0:20:02 Anyways, the best at anything usually figures out a way
0:20:04 to make a good living.
0:20:05 So I think this involves some soul searching,
0:20:08 some discussions with people you trust
0:20:10 and open an honest relationship with your partner
0:20:11 to get alignment.
0:20:13 And also, I don’t know if you’ve thought about an MBA
0:20:17 or graduate school, but graduate schools love teachers
0:20:19 as they should as they demonstrate a lot of skills
0:20:21 and a lot of concern for the commonwealth.
0:20:23 I’m sorry, I can’t be more prescriptive here.
0:20:26 I appreciate the question.
0:20:27 That’s all for this episode.
0:20:28 If you’d like to submit a question,
0:20:29 please email a voice recording
0:20:31 to officehours@proptimedia.com.
0:20:34 Again, that’s officehours@proptimedia.com.
0:20:46 This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.
0:20:49 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
0:20:51 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:20:52 Thank you for listening to The Property Pod
0:20:54 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:20:57 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice
0:20:58 as read by George Hahn.
0:21:01 And please follow our Property Markets pod
0:21:03 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
0:21:05 every Monday and Thursday.

0:00:01 – Welcome to our home.
0:00:04 – It’s maybe a bit long to spend with people we barely know.
0:00:08 – On September 13th, a guarantee you won’t wanna leave.
0:00:10 – Speak No Evil is filled with teeth clenching,
0:00:13 seek clawing suspense.
0:00:14 – Something’s not right with him.
0:00:16 – I’ve always wanted a family like yours.
0:00:19 – James Mackabur will scare you speechless.
0:00:20 – No!
0:00:21 – We’re gonna kill us.
0:00:23 – We’re just sad to see you go.
0:00:28 – Speak No Evil.
0:00:30 – Only in theater, September 13th.
0:00:33 – The collab that you always wanted is finally here.
0:00:35 Tim’s and Nutella.
0:00:37 It’s time to enjoy Nutella in a new way
0:00:40 with your favorite Tim’s baked goods and beverages.
0:00:42 Try them all today at participating restaurants
0:00:44 in Canada for a limited time.
0:00:47 ♪ It’s time for Tim’s ♪
0:00:51 – I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:54 I’ve known Greg Scho of the CEO of Section for years.
0:00:59 Section’s focus is upskilling the enterprise for an age of AI.
0:01:02 AI Thought Partner, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:12 – This is the summer of AI discontent.
0:01:16 In the last few weeks, VCs, pundits, and the media
0:01:21 have gone from over-promising on AI to raising the alarm.
0:01:23 Too much money has been poured in
0:01:27 and enterprise adoption is faltering.
0:01:30 It’s a bubble that was overhyped all along.
0:01:33 If the computer is what Steve Jobs called
0:01:36 “the bicycle for our minds,”
0:01:40 AI was supposed to be our strongest peddling partner.
0:01:44 It was going to fix education, accelerate drug discovery,
0:01:47 and find climate solutions.
0:01:50 Instead, we got sex chatbots and suggestions
0:01:53 to put glue on pizza.
0:01:56 Investors should be concerned.
0:02:00 Sequoia says AI will need to bring in $600 billion
0:02:03 in revenue to outpace the cost of the tech.
0:02:06 As of their most recent earnings announcements,
0:02:10 Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft
0:02:13 are estimated to generate a combined $40 billion
0:02:15 in revenue from AI.
0:02:18 That leaves a big gap.
0:02:21 At the same time, the leading AI models
0:02:24 still don’t work reliably, and they’re
0:02:27 prone to ketamine-like hallucinations.
0:02:30 Silicon Valley speak for, they make shit up.
0:02:35 Sam Altman admits chatGPT-4 is, quote, “mildly embarrassing
0:02:38 at best,” unquote.
0:02:42 But he’s also pumping up expectations for GPT-5.
0:02:45 Unless you’re an investor or an AI entrepreneur,
0:02:47 though, none of this really matters.
0:02:49 Let’s refocus.
0:02:54 For the first time, we can talk to computers in our language
0:02:58 and get answers that usually make sense.
0:03:01 We have a personal assistant and advisor in our pocket,
0:03:04 and it costs $20 a month.
0:03:11 This is Star Trek 58 years ago, and it’s just getting started.
0:03:15 If you’re using AI as a bubble as an excuse
0:03:17 to ignore these capabilities, you’re
0:03:18 making a big mistake.
0:03:19 Don’t laugh.
0:03:21 I know Silicon Valley tech bros need
0:03:26 to win after their NFT metaverse consensual hallucination.
0:03:29 And as you’re likely not reading this on a MetaQuest 3
0:03:34 purchase with Dogecoin, your skepticism is warranted.
0:03:41 For all the hype of AI, few are getting tangible ROI from it.
0:03:45 Open AI has an estimated 100 million monthly active users
0:03:47 worldwide.
0:03:50 That sounds like a lot, but it’s only about 10%
0:03:53 of the global knowledge workforce.
0:03:56 More people may have tried chat GPT,
0:04:00 but few are power users, and the number of active users
0:04:02 is flatlining.
0:04:05 Most people bounce off, asking a few questions,
0:04:09 getting some nonsense answers, and return to Google.
0:04:12 They mistake GPT for better Google.
0:04:15 Better Google is Google.
0:04:18 Using AI as a search engine is like using a screwdriver
0:04:19 to bang down a nail.
0:04:22 It could work, but not well.
0:04:25 That’s what Bing is for.
0:04:28 The reason people make this mistake?
0:04:34 Few have discovered AI’s premier use case as a thought
0:04:36 partner.
0:04:39 I’ve personally taught more than 2,000 early adopters
0:04:44 about AI, and section has taught over 15,000.
0:04:47 Most of them use AI as an assistant,
0:04:49 summarizing documents or contracts,
0:04:52 writing first drafts, transcribing or translating
0:04:54 documents, et cetera.
0:04:58 But very few are using AI to think.
0:05:01 When I talk to those who do, they
0:05:04 share that use case almost like a secret.
0:05:07 They’re amazed AI can act as a trusted advisor
0:05:10 and reliably gut check decisions,
0:05:14 preempt the boss’s feedback or outline options.
0:05:18 Last year, Boston Consulting Group, Harvard Business School,
0:05:21 and Wharton released a study that compared two groups
0:05:27 of BCG consultants, those with access to AI and those without.
0:05:32 The consultants with AI completed 12% more tasks
0:05:36 and did so 25% faster.
0:05:39 They also produced results their bosses thought
0:05:42 were 40% better.
0:05:44 Consultants are thought partners,
0:05:48 and AI is super soldier serum.
0:05:54 Smart people are quick to dismiss AI as a cognitive teammate.
0:05:56 They think it can automate call center operators,
0:06:00 but not them, because they’re further up the knowledge work
0:06:01 food chain.
0:06:07 But if AI can make a BCG consultant 40% stronger,
0:06:09 why not most of the knowledge workforce?
0:06:11 Why not a CEO?
0:06:15 Why not you?
0:06:18 Last fall, I started asking AI to act like a board member
0:06:21 and critique my presentations before I sent them
0:06:24 to the section directors.
0:06:27 Even for a long time CEO, presenting to the board
0:06:29 is a test you always want to ace.
0:06:32 We’re blessed with a world class board of investors
0:06:37 and operators, including former CEOs of Time Warner and Akamai,
0:06:39 also Scott.
0:06:41 I try to anticipate their questions
0:06:44 to prepare me for the meeting and inform my decisions
0:06:46 around operations.
0:06:51 I prompt the AI, quote, “I’m the CEO of Section.
0:06:55 This is the board meeting pre-read deck.
0:06:58 Pretend to be a hard charging venture capitalist board
0:07:01 member expecting strong growth.
0:07:03 Give me three insights and three recommendations
0:07:08 about our progress and plan,” unquote.
0:07:14 Claude and ChatGPT Force performance was breathtaking.
0:07:18 AI returned 90% of the same comments or insights
0:07:20 our human board made.
0:07:22 We compared notes.
0:07:26 They were able to suggest the same priorities the board did
0:07:30 with the associated trade-offs, including driving enterprise
0:07:33 value, balancing growth and cash runway,
0:07:36 and taking on more technology risk.
0:07:41 Since then, I’ve used AI to prepare for every board meeting.
0:07:45 Every time, AI has close to a 90% match
0:07:47 with the board’s feedback.
0:07:51 At a minimum, it helps me know most of what Scott is going
0:07:55 to say before he says it, a free gift with purchase.
0:07:58 The AI is nicer, doesn’t check its phone,
0:08:01 and usually approves management comp increases.
0:08:04 Let’s call it a draw.
0:08:06 Think of what this could mean for any
0:08:09 of your high brainpower work.
0:08:11 Less stress, knowing you didn’t overlook
0:08:14 obvious angles or issues.
0:08:17 A quick gut check to anticipate questions
0:08:21 and develop decent answers, which you will improve.
0:08:24 And a thought partner to point out your blind spots,
0:08:27 risks you forgot to consider, or unintended consequences
0:08:29 you didn’t think of.
0:08:33 Whether interviewing for a job, admissions to a business
0:08:35 school, or trying to obtain asylum,
0:08:40 I can’t imagine not having the AI role play to better prepare.
0:08:44 Other scenarios where AI has helped as my thought partner?
0:08:46 Discussing the pros and cons of going
0:08:48 into a real estate project with several friends
0:08:50 as co-investors.
0:08:52 Getting a summary of all my surgical options
0:08:56 after uploading my MRI to fix my busted ankle
0:08:58 so I can hold my own with my overconfident time
0:09:00 starved Stanford docs.
0:09:03 Doing industry and company research
0:09:07 to evaluate a startup investment opportunity.
0:09:11 Right now, the smartest people in the room
0:09:14 think they’re above AI.
0:09:18 Soon, I think they’ll be bragging about using it.
0:09:20 And they should.
0:09:24 Why would anyone hire a doctor, lawyer, or consultant
0:09:27 who’s slower and dumber than their peers?
0:09:29 Why would you hire someone with a fax number
0:09:31 on their business card?
0:09:34 As Scott says, AI won’t take your job,
0:09:39 but someone who understands AI will.
0:09:44 Here are some ideas of how to use AI as a thought partner.
0:09:48 One, ask for ideas, not answers.
0:09:50 If you ask for an answer, it will give you one,
0:09:53 and probably not a very good one.
0:09:54 As a thought partner, it’s better
0:09:57 equipped to give you ideas, feedback,
0:09:59 and other things to consider.
0:10:01 Try to maintain an open-ended conversation that
0:10:06 keeps evolving rather than rushing to an answer.
0:10:10 Two, more context is better.
0:10:13 The trick is to give AI enough context
0:10:16 to start making associations.
0:10:21 Having a generic conversation will give you generic output.
0:10:23 Give it enough specific information
0:10:26 to help it create specific responses–
0:10:29 your company valuation, your marketing budget,
0:10:32 your boss’s negative feedback about your last idea,
0:10:34 and MRI of your ankle.
0:10:39 And then take the conversation in different directions.
0:10:43 Three, ask AI to run your problems
0:10:45 through decision frameworks.
0:10:48 Massive amounts of knowledge are stored in LLMs,
0:10:52 so don’t hesitate to have the model explain concepts to you.
0:10:56 Ask, how could a CFO tackle this problem?
0:10:59 Or, what are two frameworks CEOs have
0:11:01 used to think about this?
0:11:07 Then have a conversation with the AI unpacking these answers.
0:11:11 Four, ask it to adopt a persona.
0:11:16 Quote, “If Brian Chesky and Elon Musk were co-CEOs,
0:11:18 what remote work policies will they
0:11:19 put in place for the management team?”
0:11:21 Unquote.
0:11:23 That’s a question Google could never answer,
0:11:28 but an LLM will respond to without hesitation.
0:11:34 Five, make the AI explain and defend its ideas.
0:11:38 Say, why did you give that answer?
0:11:40 Are there any other options you can offer?
0:11:44 What might be a weakness in the approach you’re suggesting?
0:11:48 And six, give it your data.
0:11:51 Upload your PDFs, business plans, strategy memos,
0:11:54 household budgets, and talk to the AI
0:11:57 about your unique data and situation.
0:11:58 If you’re concerned about privacy,
0:12:01 then go to data controls in your GPT settings
0:12:06 and turn off its ability to train on your data.
0:12:11 When you work this way, the possibilities are endless.
0:12:12 Take financial planning.
0:12:15 Now I can upload my entire financial profile–
0:12:18 assets, liabilities, income, spending habits,
0:12:24 W2, tax return– and begin a conversation around risk,
0:12:27 where I’m missing opportunities for asymmetric upside,
0:12:30 how to reach my financial goals, the easiest way
0:12:34 to save money, be more tax efficient, et cetera.
0:12:36 The financial advisor across the table
0:12:41 doesn’t, in my view, stand a chance.
0:12:45 She’s incentivized to put you into high-fee products
0:12:48 and doesn’t have a billionth of the knowledge and case
0:12:50 studies of an LLM.
0:12:53 In addition, she’s at a huge disadvantage
0:12:56 as the person in front of them, you,
0:13:00 is self-conscious and unlikely to be totally direct or honest.
0:13:03 Quote, I’m planning to leave my husband this fall.
0:13:04 One quote.
0:13:10 We all crave access to experts.
0:13:13 It’s why people show up to hear Scott speak.
0:13:16 It’s why someone once paid $19 million
0:13:19 for a private lunch with Warren Buffett.
0:13:23 It’s why, despite all the bad press regarding their ethics
0:13:26 and ineffectiveness, consulting firms
0:13:29 continue to raise their fees and grow.
0:13:32 But most of us can’t afford that level of human expertise.
0:13:37 And the crazy thing is, we’re overvaluing it anyway.
0:13:41 McKinsey consultants are smart, credentialed people.
0:13:44 But they can only present you with one worldview that
0:13:48 has a series of biases, including how to create problems,
0:13:51 only they can solve with additional engagements.
0:13:53 And what will please the person who
0:13:56 has a budget for follow-on engagements?
0:14:01 AI is a nearly free expert with 24/7 availability,
0:14:06 a staggering range of expertise, and most importantly,
0:14:08 in humanity.
0:14:10 It doesn’t care whether you like it, hire it,
0:14:12 or find it attractive.
0:14:16 It just wants to address the task or query at hand.
0:14:18 And it’s getting better.
0:14:23 The hardest part of working with AI isn’t learning to prompt.
0:14:25 It’s managing your own ego and admitting
0:14:28 you could use some help and that the world will pass you by
0:14:31 if you don’t learn how to use a computer, PowerPoint,
0:14:33 AI.
0:14:36 So get over your immediate defense mechanism.
0:14:39 AI can never do what I do.
0:14:44 And use it to do what you do just better.
0:14:49 There is an invading army in business, technology.
0:14:52 Its weapons are modern-day tanks, drones,
0:14:55 and supersonic aircraft.
0:14:58 Do you really want to ride in the battle on horseback?
0:15:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:15:04 Life is so rich.
0:15:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:15:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:15:13 (light music)
0:15:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:03 The collab that you always wanted is finally here Tim’s and Nutella
0:00:08 It’s time to enjoy Nutella in a new way with your favorite Tim’s baked goods and beverages
0:00:12 Try them all today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time
0:00:22 Hey Deb, what is going on with that McMuffin? Oh, it’s a mighty McMuffin sausage and double the bacon on one McMuffin
0:00:28 So you don’t have to choose you should get one. It’s perfect for you. How so you’re not the decision-making type
0:00:31 Oh, I can make decisions
0:00:35 Now should I get it with an iced coffee or a hot one? Oh, maybe both
0:00:40 Should I order in the app or in person? Should I get one hash brown? Oh boy
0:00:43 The mighty McMuffin for a limited time at participating McDonald’s in Canada
0:00:49 Episode 314 through and for Zurich are covering St. Louis, Missouri in 1914
0:00:55 World War one began and the world’s first red and green traffic lights were installed in Cleveland
0:00:59 How do you get a dual-ed toaster out of your rectum?
0:01:03 I don’t know, but I wish you hurry up. It’s getting painful
0:01:10 What does that have to do with anything nothing I just love asplay jokes
0:01:28 Welcome to the 314th episode of the prop 2 pod daddy’s vacation continues so in place of our regular scheduled programming
0:01:34 We’re sharing an episode of fixable a podcast from the Ted audio collective that features a live
0:01:41 Conversation between yours truly and host and Morris and Francis Frye from the Ted 2024 conference back in April
0:01:47 And is a CEO and best-selling author and Francis Fray is a Harvard business professor on the fixable podcast
0:01:53 They give you weekly episodes solving listeners toughest work problems with meaningful and actual insight in 30 minutes or less
0:02:00 The episode we’re sharing today explores a lot of today’s most pressing issues including the loneliness epidemic inclusion in the workplace and personal success
0:02:05 So with that here’s fixable live a conversation with yours truly
0:02:08 Scott Galloway. I’m self-conscious saying my name
0:02:13 Hey everyone, welcome back to another week of fixable
0:02:17 We have something really special for you today a few weeks ago
0:02:22 Francis and I traveled to Vancouver to attend the Ted conference and while we were there
0:02:28 We taped a live episode of the show our very first live episode our first but not the last
0:02:30 Oh, it’s far from our last. It was too much fun
0:02:38 We had a really good time and we had a special guest with us who we will introduce in just a minute
0:02:43 But we got to talk about some really interesting aspects of life and leadership and the world right now
0:02:47 Yes, I think we’ve covered DEI masculinity
0:02:50 Gen Z in the workplace the big three, baby
0:02:58 Yes in a shocking turn of events. We also covered the power of emotions something our listeners know I care a lot about
0:03:04 So today we’re sharing part of that conversation with you and hopefully we’ll get to do another live show sooner rather than later
0:03:06 So stay tuned
0:03:16 Well Scott Galloway welcome to fixable. Thanks for having me and congratulations on your fabulous talk go on
0:03:25 So desperate and addicted to your affirmation so daddy can I have some more?
0:03:32 For our listeners and for anyone who missed it you you really just killed it up there
0:03:37 Well, so how this is gonna work. This is actually our first live show. So thank you all for thank you for coming
0:03:41 Being part of the experiment. Yeah, anything can happen up here
0:03:48 And we’re gonna talk for a while then we’re gonna do some direct live Q&A with the audience
0:03:53 So we want to start by saying nice things about you Scott if you’ll indulge us
0:03:58 We are very big fans of yours like most lesbians. Thanks for saying that. Yeah
0:04:05 Ladies who love ladies also love Scott Galloway. Oh, it’s all right. Thank you for that
0:04:07 And I want to come back to that with a serious
0:04:13 Okay point before this conversation is over, but let’s start with who you are for the record. You’re
0:04:18 Professor at NYU Stern. You’re a best-selling author. You have a new book dropping
0:04:24 Momentarily the algebra of wealth a simple formula for financial security
0:04:27 Your founder advisor to countless organizations
0:04:32 You’ve been on the board of some of our most iconic companies including New York Times
0:04:35 You are a beloved podcaster
0:04:43 best known for prof G and for co-hosting pivot with celebrity lesbian Kara Swisher, and your
0:04:49 Husband father of two growing boys. Is there anything you want to add to that list any plot points?
0:04:54 We miss before we dive into no, I just want to say I’m really enjoying this podcast so far
0:05:02 Scott as you play all of these various roles in the world, it seems like you are
0:05:08 Driven by a higher mission a purpose something bigger than yourself right now
0:05:15 Is that how you think about your work? And how would you articulate your mission? It’s not as noble
0:05:20 As you’re saying my first obligation is to me and my family
0:05:26 I’ve been very driven by economic success, and I’m not proud of that. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money
0:05:30 So from day one I had two goals. I wanted to be rich and awesome
0:05:32 literally that’s what I wanted and
0:05:36 then I got one of those things and
0:05:42 You I got blessed at an early fairly early point in my life with like okay
0:05:45 I have some reasonable semblance of economic security. What do I want to do?
0:05:50 And I decided I wanted to teach the thing that’s been really super rewarding is
0:05:54 Kind of falling into this topic of struggling young men
0:06:00 It’s like, you know, you find something and it just resonates and you see the data and you think people aren’t talking about it
0:06:07 And it was like putting on something that felt so comfortable for me because I was one of those men right right growing up
0:06:10 I didn’t have a great deal of economic success
0:06:14 I didn’t have a lot of romantic success and I thought if I faced the same
0:06:20 Incredibly well resourced technology companies trying to convince me to have a reasonable facsimile of life
0:06:24 Behind a screen with algorithms that I didn’t need a job
0:06:32 I could trade crypto on Coinbase or trade stocks on Robin hood that I didn’t need to go out and take the risk of finding friends
0:06:40 I could find them on Reddit or discord that I didn’t need to endure the rejection and start working out and have a plan such
0:06:45 That I could be attractive to women and endure the rejection that is inevitably part of mating
0:06:49 I just could have been one of these guys, right? I relate to these young men
0:06:53 It’s like there by the grace of God goes I so I can speak to it
0:06:57 I think with some relevance and I just saw a tremendous opportunity
0:07:01 There’s so many advocates for so many groups and because
0:07:07 People who look like me have had so much advantage for so long
0:07:10 There’s a lack of empathy despite the data
0:07:17 For how just how much young men are struggling that they’re paying for the sins of the advantage that I had and my dad had
0:07:22 But if you look at the stats three times as likely to kill themselves twelve times as likely to be incarcerated in the US
0:07:26 We’re gonna have two to one male to female to male college grads
0:07:31 It’s also really bad in my view for women because women if we’re gonna have an honest conversation around mating
0:07:40 At least in the hetero world women made socioeconomically horizontally and up men horizontally and down and the pool of men
0:07:45 Who are horizontal and up is shrinking and some of that is a huge victory because women are doing really well
0:07:48 And we should do nothing to get in the way of that
0:07:51 The thing I saw was that there was this unproductive conversation
0:07:57 Because of this void filled by what I call the manasphere where was this thinly veiled misogyny?
0:07:59 It starts offline
0:08:03 They highlight the problems and then they talk about being fit and taking control
0:08:10 And then it just comes off the rails and they start talking about women as if they’re property and that they need to you need to show
0:08:13 Off your masculinity by yeah, it’s a slippery slide
0:08:16 And and then I wouldn’t take my crypto university course
0:08:23 So I thought there was a an opportunity for okay. How do we start talking about an aspirational vision for masculinity?
0:08:29 That says empathy is not a zero-sum game gay marriage did not hurt heteronormative marriage civil rights did not hurt white people
0:08:34 So being an advocate for young men who are facing real issues is in no way
0:08:41 Anti-women this is when a man has failed is when he starts blaming women or he starts blaming immigrants
0:08:43 Then you know we’ve lost him
0:08:46 And that he has given up on a truly modern form of masculinity
0:08:54 So I just I saw an opportunity it felt good in a resonated with a marketplace and it just kind of come
0:08:56 organically
0:09:00 Let’s talk about DEI for a second sure just to get the crowd warmed up
0:09:09 We’ll go to the easy stuff first. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like DEI it’s at its best and we get pulled into a lot of these conversations
0:09:16 it seems like this work at its best really is about making workplaces fair and inclusive for everyone on the payroll and
0:09:20 One of the things that I think we get stuck on in person
0:09:23 I want to get you in here is that there should be
0:09:27 Just tremendous room for common ground here
0:09:31 Not only because the goals are shared, but when you actually do get it, right?
0:09:34 Everybody wins. Yep
0:09:36 how do we talk about it or
0:09:42 Do this work in a way that really does bring more people into it
0:09:44 professor and
0:09:47 We wrote an op-ed for the New York Times with our colleague
0:09:52 Carrie Elkins that said, you know the mistake that be the critics of BEI get is it works
0:10:01 Like all of the progress you were talking about it all happened because people understood the demographic tendencies associated with success
0:10:06 They didn’t want to have outcome based success. I’ve never met a DEI program that wants her to be outcome based
0:10:11 It’s all equal access. We’ve been having unequal access to me
0:10:18 I think there is all of this common ground, but I don’t think that that’s what’s behind the desire to tear it down
0:10:24 I think the desire to tear it down has much more to do with misogyny and much more to do with racism
0:10:31 We always want to step over race always want to step over race and get to someone else and
0:10:36 It’s the stain on this country. We have never stopped
0:10:38 and
0:10:43 Confronted what our issues are with race. So I find there to be simmering
0:10:51 Misogyny and racism and I don’t find it any more complicated than that and I adore people who want to go towards the socio-economic
0:10:53 I grew up poor as well
0:10:58 But please stop stepping over race to get there. It’s the wrong thing to do
0:11:06 I mean one of the things that I get stuck on is when we actually get into the trenches of doing this and
0:11:09 Roll up your sleeves and do the work of trying to make organizations better
0:11:15 Mm-hmm. There is real progress you can make within the constraints of changing organizations. I mean there’s a famous
0:11:21 Statistic that seventy percent of change efforts fail. So great
0:11:25 So DEI is tracking roughly to that seventy percent
0:11:33 But you don’t throw out the goals of the work you you learn from the thirty percent that is working and it feels like there’s an
0:11:37 just an absence of grace and an absence of
0:11:44 Charity and compassion around this conversation right now that feels like it’s
0:11:48 It’s there’s something else going on that there’s something else going on and the
0:11:51 Just back to where we started that the to me
0:11:56 it’s the opportunity cost that is so painful because you speak to young men in crisis and
0:11:58 When this work is done well
0:12:06 They are brought into the fold and give an opportunity that they didn’t have before and so I think the frustration that we
0:12:09 are both feeling right now is that
0:12:16 We’re getting so distracted by the conversation about DEI that we’re stop putting energy into actually making progress on it
0:12:20 I think there’s so much nuance here. I think it’s such an interesting. I love the word use grace
0:12:26 That we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about this and you say something not elegant
0:12:31 Or I say something not elegant and that person is cancelled or that we shame them and we get virtue points for shaming them
0:12:37 Because first off, I’m the beneficiary of affirmative action. I got Pell grants
0:12:39 I had unfair advantage
0:12:44 Raised by a single immigrant mother lived and died a secretary our household income was never over forty thousand dollars
0:12:51 And so I feel passionate about that and also if you’re born and this is wonderful in
0:12:57 America, I believe now you have more advantage or less disadvantage if you’re born gay
0:13:04 Or if you’re born non-white than if you’re born poor and it didn’t used to be that way the academic gap
0:13:07 achievement gap in 1960 was double
0:13:12 between black and white then between rich and poor and now it has flipped and
0:13:20 There’s this wonderful progress that it’s not as tightly correlated any longer about race or sexual orientation
0:13:29 so my view is all right, do we need to recalibrate what it means the criteria for who we advantage or disadvantage and
0:13:35 Where I think we can come together is that about 70% of
0:13:38 Those criteria overlap
0:13:45 But if you’re from a non-white family where there’s two parents and mom is a bollared or law firm and making a shit ton of
0:13:47 money that kid
0:13:51 Has a greater likelihood of attending college than some white kid from Appalachia
0:13:54 so I
0:13:58 Think we can come together and say look the key is to recognize some people have
0:14:04 Disadvantage through no fault of their own but also recognize that things have changed I
0:14:10 I don’t know how much time you spend with professional DEI professionals or in DEI
0:14:17 Parts of organizations they’re amongst the most compassionate people big-tent people they care about
0:14:24 socioeconomic they care about veterans they care about race they care about gender so this straw man of DEI
0:14:31 Cares only about this and they will somehow advantage and by the way, I’ve never seen these groups advantaged
0:14:35 I’ve just seen the disadvantages closed or attempting to do it
0:14:40 But DEI is big-tent and what you’re arguing for is big-tent
0:14:48 That’s the part that I genuinely don’t understand is we seem to agree and
0:14:55 Yet we want to tear down the very thing that in its absence. It’s gonna be hard to
0:15:00 Take care of people that are disadvantaged. They say it’s for big-tent reasons
0:15:04 But literally they’ve not spent any time with any of the DEI professionals
0:15:08 I’ve spent time with which is at almost every large company in the world
0:15:15 So I don’t understand the vitriol behind it, which is why I think there’s something cruel behind it
0:15:19 I don’t think it’s a it doesn’t feel logical to me
0:15:24 Well, I think you have to discern between so for example where I think some people have made the mistake is they like the attention
0:15:30 They get accolades from people and then they decide that they’re going to go after all DEI without understanding nuance
0:15:36 I think DEI still has relevance and corporations. I don’t think corporations have come as far as campuses
0:15:41 You know when there’s what is it? There’s more CEOs named John and female
0:15:45 I think I think women just caught up to John just caught up to John
0:15:48 So what that says is all right
0:15:54 But if you look at people under the age of 30 women have made huge progress on almost every level
0:15:57 Sometimes they’re actually superseding them because they’re getting more educational attainment
0:16:02 But something happens and then what I think the data reflects is once you decide to leverage your ovaries
0:16:10 Wham the corporate world doesn’t like you once a woman has decides that kids she goes to 77 cents on the dollar
0:16:14 That means there is neither a quality of opportunity or a quality of outcomes
0:16:21 So I think DEI still has a place in corporations. I would argue professor that at most universities
0:16:24 We have done a pretty good job
0:16:29 And again, I go back to you see that I think it’s going to be a more productive conversation where we can all agree on
0:16:37 Getting to a similar place where there’s more support universal around alumni alumni and faculty
0:16:44 Where it’s based on income as opposed to based on visible characteristics. I also think it does harm to people of color
0:16:51 When their classmates sometimes often question if and why they’re there. I think that they pay the price for that
0:16:54 So I think it requires a lot of nuance
0:17:05 Support for the show comes from green light a new school year is starting soon and for your parent
0:17:07 You already know how vital important it is for your child
0:17:10 But why limit the learning to the classroom?
0:17:16 You can also take this opportunity to teach your kids about important financial life skills for that we recommend green light
0:17:22 Green light is a debit card and money app for families parents can keep an eye on kids spending in money habits and kids can learn how
0:17:26 To save invest and spend wisely and with a green light infinity plan
0:17:33 You get even more financial literacy resources and teens can check in thanks to family locations sharing literally this morning
0:17:40 My kid is trying to figure out a way to get to I think it’s Glenwood Springs or something in Colorado for some amusement park with a bunch of his friends
0:17:47 And I can fill up his green light card and I get inside and how we spending I just think it’s wonderful
0:17:49 The best endorsement I can give is that we were a green light family
0:17:52 Before they ever started
0:17:57 Advertising on this podcast join the millions of parents and kids who use green light to navigate life together sign up for green light today
0:18:01 And get your first month free when you go to green light comm slash Scott
0:18:07 That’s green light comm slash Scott to try green light for free green light comm slash Scott
0:18:15 Support for prop G comes from quints. Do you ever open your closet and think yikes? What did I buy that?
0:18:20 I know some of you listening find that a little too relatable fashion fads come and go
0:18:25 But classic pieces can stand the test of time. That’s why you might want to check out quints
0:18:28 Quints offers luxury clothing essentials at reasonable prices
0:18:35 You can find seasonal must-haves including a hundred percent European linen shirts from $30 performance polos and versatile active wear
0:18:41 All Quints items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because Quints partners directly with top factories
0:18:49 Cutting the cost of the middleman plus Quints products are made with premium fabric and produced in factories that use safe ethical and responsible
0:18:56 Manufacturing processes our producer Caroline tried quints herself and she said it is entirely changed her life
0:19:00 180 degrees not true
0:19:05 But fill your closet with timeless pieces you’ll be wearing for summers to come with quints
0:19:10 Go to quints comm slash prop G for free shipping on your order and
0:19:12 365 day returns. That’s
0:19:18 Q-u-i-n-c-e comm slash prop G to get free shipping and three hundred sixty-five day returns
0:19:21 Quints comm slash prop G
0:19:25 This is an ad by better help
0:19:30 What are your self-care non-negotiables? It’s hard to make time for the things that keep you healthy
0:19:37 But being consistent with self-care is like working a muscle and when life gets crazy that muscle keeps you strong
0:19:43 Therapy is the ultimate self-care and better help makes it easy to get started with affordable online sessions
0:19:50 You can do from anywhere never skip therapy day with better help visit better help comm to learn more. That’s better
0:19:52 H-e-l-p comm
0:19:59 Let’s talk about those young people graduating going into the workforce
0:20:02 There’s a lot of chatter about
0:20:08 Gen Z at work and we got a lot of great questions about what do I do with my Gen Z employees?
0:20:12 Do you find that this is truly a different generation?
0:20:16 I mean to me it feels like they just have the courage to ask for things that we should have asked for
0:20:19 Should have asked for
0:20:25 It’s a double-edged sword for the most part. They’re a superior generation evolution works
0:20:31 They’re more facile with technology. They understand the world better. They’re more civic-minded. They’re most social-minded
0:20:35 they’re also I find more emotionally fragile and
0:20:42 That because of over parenting helicopter parenting, which I’m capable of because of social media
0:20:47 Because we clear out the obstacles for them by the time they get to college
0:20:51 They have a bit of a princess in the peace syndrome and that is the first time they get their heart broken
0:20:55 The first time they get a C the first time they face some sort of injustice
0:21:00 They have real issues. I think they’re too emotionally fragile
0:21:07 I love what the the Dean or the Chancellor of Michigan State put up the banner on freshman orientation
0:21:13 She put up a banner that said if words offend you call your parents and tell them you’re not ready for college
0:21:17 You know, I get some I used to get so many emails from department heads about
0:21:23 Microaggressions and I thought isn’t the point that we’re supposed to turn them into warriors
0:21:28 That they’re supposed to really and by the way that they let me just in represent
0:21:32 So how does how do organizations do that because they’re all these?
0:21:35 companies and teams absorbing
0:21:41 This generation. Mm-hmm. How do leaders build resilience in a very practical?
0:21:48 Show called fixable. So in a very practical way, how do leaders of teams with Gen Z?
0:21:52 team members build resilience in in this
0:21:55 newest generation the workforce
0:21:57 well, I
0:22:00 Think I think you’re gonna forget more about this and I’m gonna know I
0:22:05 Am somewhat cynical about a corporation’s role what I have found is generally speaking
0:22:11 For-profit companies are so good in America at making money. They should be trusted to do nothing else. I
0:22:18 Don’t think social media is gonna protect our children. I don’t think they give a flying fuck about your kids
0:22:22 Or let me put it this way. I think they’re amoral. I don’t think they’re bad people. I think they’re amoral
0:22:27 I think their job is to make money and they will make a series of incremental decisions on the path to hell
0:22:30 Such that they can become rich and America to be rich is to be loved
0:22:35 It’s to be respected admired have a broader selection set of mates to give your kids health care
0:22:39 So you will make incremental decisions that end up hurting other people that maybe aren’t in your neighborhood
0:22:42 We need laws
0:22:45 We need laws that said we’re gonna see your company if you discriminate
0:22:51 We’re gonna see your company if you send a 14 year old girl who’s having suicidal ideation and email saying here’s some images on
0:22:59 Suicide we thought you might like and the in the email includes images of nooses pills and razors that happened in the UK
0:23:05 So there’s notion that we’re gonna call on CEO’s better angels and that they’re gonna become social engineers
0:23:09 You want to be a good company? You want to be a good in the community?
0:23:15 But I think we need less virtue signaling from companies and less expectations from them and we need more laws
0:23:24 I just don’t trust companies to figure this shit out. I trust them to to put out Instagram saying black lives matter
0:23:27 Okay
0:23:33 What does that mean or to stand up and say I recognize we’re on hallow grounds of native America
0:23:36 You’re gonna give it back if not shut the fuck up
0:23:42 So I think we need more laws, but I’m a bit cynical about
0:23:47 Companies as this whole Bono red agents of change
0:23:51 I think their job is to provide people with economic security
0:23:57 And I think it’s our job to have laws to ensure that if you are making less money because of your gender
0:24:01 Or your sexual orientation that we hit that company really hard in court
0:24:08 I mean really hard and create an algebra of deterrence that says accidentally unwittingly if you’re paying this group less
0:24:15 We’re gonna really hit you so hard such that you put in place the practices to ensure it does not happen again
0:24:18 But I think we
0:24:24 fetishize these corporations and their leaders so much that we expect their better angels to show up and every new
0:24:31 Sam Altman the hush tones. I’m worried about AI. Yeah, we should think about that
0:24:38 I’ve seen what this can do. I’m really concerned. We’ve had 40 congressional hearings on child safety online. We’ve had zero laws
0:24:44 But we think Sam Altman’s gonna be different. We can’t trust these people. We can trust them to do what they’re good at
0:24:50 Which is make money so I find a lot of these initiatives quite frankly our virtue signaling and aren’t that effective and then we need laws
0:24:57 All right, so I’m gonna go to the audience for questions. Yeah, we’re gonna go for and so this is our last question
0:25:01 And then we’re gonna bring in our fabulous Ted audience. This is my serious question about your lesbian fan club
0:25:08 And this is my theory of the case. All right, one of the gifts of being queer and
0:25:11 There are many there are many for the record
0:25:20 but you have more freedom to stand in front of the list of human attributes that the world has labeled masculine and feminine and
0:25:23 decide
0:25:25 What’s gonna work for you? Yeah
0:25:28 You are
0:25:37 Fiercely competitive. You have lots of protector energy. You’re also very willing to cry in public for example
0:25:41 You seem to have given yourself this same freedom
0:25:45 Which in my experience is quite rare
0:25:50 You’re being generous as lesbians. We applaud you game recognizes game
0:25:52 But what?
0:25:57 What made that possible for you? Yeah, I never thought that crying would be such an attribute
0:26:04 I didn’t cry from age of 29 to 44. I didn’t cry my mother died. I didn’t cry when my I got divorced
0:26:10 I didn’t cry when my company went chapter 11 for 15 years. I didn’t cry. I forgot how and
0:26:16 My biggest fear I think about death a lot. It’s actually quite empowering my biggest fear is I’m at the end and
0:26:20 I struggle with anger and depression, which means I’m in the past too much
0:26:26 I have trouble forgiving myself. I did made a couple mistakes on stage today. I’m gonna beat myself up all fucking night tonight
0:26:30 I won’t be able to forgive myself. I’ll feel good. I’ll go online
0:26:36 And I know I can tell by the vibe that I’ll get a bunch of nice compliments. I’m too addicted to other people’s affirmation
0:26:42 It’s really pathetic. Oh, you’re human Scott. No, anyways for God’s sakes. I’m 59 at some point. I’ll just need me
0:26:51 But my fear is I’m so stuck in the past and I’m so in the future all the time because I’m successful and to be successful
0:26:55 You have to be constantly thinking about the future that I’m never actually here and you get to the end of your life
0:26:57 And you think okay
0:27:01 Unbelievable prosperity people that love me that I loved immensely was never there
0:27:10 Never there and one of the ways I have discovered I can slow down and be in the moment is to really lean into my emotions
0:27:18 When I find something funny, I force myself to laugh out loud. I have a weird unattractive laugh
0:27:23 But it informs what I find interesting when I’m inspired by something I
0:27:26 Stop and I think why does this move me?
0:27:30 I’m much more a
0:27:37 Motive if I see a guy who looks cool. I’ll go up to my seat. I just think you look so fucking cool boss and
0:27:44 It puts me in the moment and it makes me it’s like okay. I’m finally living my life
0:27:48 because I can register those emotions so my advice to
0:27:53 People especially men is if you aren’t leaning into your emotions
0:28:00 If you aren’t inspired if you’re not laughing if you’re not just loving this shit out of sex and communicating how much you’re enjoying it
0:28:02 If you’re not crying
0:28:06 You’re not really here. I can guarantee you at the end of your life
0:28:13 You’re not gonna go. Geez. I wish I cried less. I wish I’d laugh less. I wish I’d told people how cool I
0:28:20 Thought they were less. So for me, it’s like cathartic. It’s like fucking finally. I’m living my life
0:28:24 Did you make a decision? What happened at 44 to start crying again?
0:28:32 It wasn’t any one thing and I don’t know if you feel this way. I’m gonna start crying you just brought out the man in me
0:28:34 I’m gonna say
0:28:37 I’m unleashed
0:28:47 Support for this podcast comes from huntress keeping your data safe is important
0:28:53 However, if you’re a small business owner then protecting the information of yourself your company and your workers is vital
0:28:59 In comes huntress huntress is where fully managed cybersecurity meets human expertise
0:29:02 They offer a revolutionary approach to manage security that isn’t all about tech
0:29:09 It’s about real people providing real defense when threats arise or issues occur their team of seasoned cyber experts is ready
0:29:17 24 hours a day 365 days a year for support visit huntress comm slash prop G to start a free trial or learn more
0:29:27 This episode is brought to you by Mazda when you drive a Mazda you’ll find out why rsu v’s won more
0:29:29 2024
0:29:37 Access top safety picks than any other brand as of June 2024 find out what makes Mazda different at Mazda.ca
0:29:46 This episode is brought to you by Dyson on track Dyson on track headphones offer best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range
0:29:53 Making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise canceling enabled
0:29:59 soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort and a range of colors and finishes Dyson on track
0:30:08 Headphones remastered by from Dyson Canada.ca with ANC on performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage accessories sold separately
0:30:15 Well, we got a bunch of great submitted question, but I want to reward people who showed up here
0:30:18 So if you have a question raise your hand, we have some
0:30:25 Lovely mic runners and please introduce yourself. My name is Chadburn. I’m long time to turn and just so thrilled that you’re here
0:30:32 Thank you for organizing this. Thank you. There’s a statement in our culture at least in America that I grew up with which is no pain
0:30:37 No gain. Mm-hmm. How do you feel about suffering? Do you think you have to suffer to be successful?
0:30:40 well, okay, so I
0:30:45 Do a survey of my kids when I say my kids and me my students every year
0:30:48 how much money do you expect to make by the time you’re 30 and
0:30:53 They expect to be in the top 2% of income earners by the time they’re 30 and
0:30:56 Then they use the word balance
0:30:59 No, okay
0:31:01 Do you have rich parents?
0:31:03 No
0:31:08 Give up on the balance part. I’m not suggesting you can’t stay fit. I’m not suggesting you can’t find a maid
0:31:10 I’m not suggesting you can’t have a good time
0:31:16 But unless you’re smart enough to be born rich if you want to be wealthy in a competitive economy
0:31:21 Plan to do pretty much nothing but work for 20 years
0:31:24 That’s what I found
0:31:29 I’ve had periods in my life where I’ve had balance been in great shape good relationships. That’s usually when I’m losing money
0:31:36 And from the age of 25 to 45, I’m not proud of this. I did nothing but work. I
0:31:39 Mean almost nothing. I tried to work out
0:31:44 I still found time to drink and try and have the occasional mating opportunity
0:31:49 but for the most part I just worked because I wanted economic security and
0:31:53 what I tell young people is they can have it all they just can’t have it all at once and
0:31:59 So I have a sober conversation with yourself. And by the way, I’m not saying that’s the right way. It was my way
0:32:01 It cost me my hair
0:32:03 It cost me my first marriage
0:32:05 It cost me a lot of stress and it was worth it
0:32:09 Because now I have a great deal of balance in my life
0:32:14 And so I just suggest all young people have a an honest conversation around the trade-off
0:32:16 So you can have it all you can’t have it all at once
0:32:20 You know Jay-Z followed his passion and got rich assume you are not Jay-Z
0:32:23 That’s a great question
0:32:26 I’ve got two kids that are 10 and 12 and
0:32:33 It dawned on me. I’m 52. It dawned on me about a year ago. I was sitting in a
0:32:39 case study class with Harvard Business School folks and they were teaching us about authentic leadership and
0:32:45 Ethics and diversity and all these great things about how to run great companies and I was like man
0:32:52 I’ve been pretty successful in my life. I’m just learning some of this stuff now. What if I learned this when I was my kid’s age
0:32:54 What if I learned this when I was 10 when I was 12?
0:32:59 So I started sharing some of those concepts with my 10 and 12 year old and found they could grok it
0:33:05 And I’m just curious, you know, two things one what’s something you wish you knew when you were 10 or 12?
0:33:08 That would have helped you have been a better leader and
0:33:15 How would you have taught it to your kid or to yourself or to the kids that you were surrounded with if there’s one skill?
0:33:20 Someone asked me. I was kind of go to business if there’s one skill I could give my kids
0:33:26 It would be not computer programming or STEM or biology or Mandarin or anything
0:33:30 I try and teach them and I’m trying to do this my kids to be storytellers. I
0:33:37 Think that is the the skill that stands up to the test of time. You want to be an entrepreneur. You got to be a great storyteller
0:33:40 You want to score above your weight class?
0:33:42 Romanically you got to have a good rap
0:33:48 And your ability to communicate your ideas in a compelling way to either raise money
0:33:52 To handle difficult situations with people to attract
0:33:55 someone of high character
0:33:58 To be friends it comes down to storytelling
0:34:01 So that is the one skill I’d want to give the kids
0:34:04 but
0:34:09 You know, I mean I have teenagers all the time calling me and asking me for advice
0:34:12 My 16 year old has never asked me for advice on almost anything
0:34:17 And it’s kind of heartbreaking. It’s like, do you know how important I am among young men?
0:34:22 So I don’t know I would just I would just want to tell myself
0:34:26 You know figure out storytelling and everything’s gonna be fine
0:34:31 You guys have any thoughts you have sons the conversation. We’ve been having recently around the dinner table is
0:34:36 about comfort with discomfort being the ultimate superpower and
0:34:44 That all of their hopes and dreams are in the zone of discomfort. And so if they can get even a little bit more comfortable
0:34:51 With even this the physicality of being uncomfortable. That’s great. Then then it life opens up
0:34:56 I love that dramatic ways. I love that. So just along the lines the thing I love about
0:35:00 I don’t know if you’re encouraging your boys to do sports or kind of competitive academic whatever it is
0:35:03 the thing I took away from crew
0:35:11 was at some point it was such a gift to me and I was easily the worst athlete at UCLA is that
0:35:17 At one point the air coming down your esophagus is literally on fire. You can’t feel your legs
0:35:20 You are about to pass out. I’m not exaggerating. You’re about to pass out
0:35:23 that’s at 800 meters and you go to 2000 and
0:35:31 What it gave me was it when I’m really like so depressed. I see no way out. I’m at my limit
0:35:38 I cannot work any harder. I cannot take this emotional disappointment anymore. I’m so upset at myself
0:35:44 I just can’t handle anymore what crew and sports gave me as a young man as I realized when you’re at that point
0:35:48 You’re actually about at a third of your limit. Yes, our older boy
0:35:55 Decided to wrestle this year to great sport. It’s a great sport as a mom to watch
0:36:00 Very hard to watch because he would just go and get the ship beat out of him
0:36:03 He’s never been happier. He’s never had more confidence
0:36:10 It’s amazing. I mean now he does pull-ups every night until exhaustion
0:36:13 Yeah, it’s been the most amazing thing. Love that
0:36:16 People will often say what’s the key to your success on my rejection?
0:36:22 I ran for sophomore class president junior class president senior class president lost all three times based on my track record
0:36:25 I ran for student body president where I went on to wait for it lose
0:36:33 Applied to nine schools got into one way listen. I mean rejection. Oh my god
0:36:35 I can’t tell you how many women have rejected me and
0:36:38 That’s the key
0:36:40 Never losing your sense of enthusiasm
0:36:45 And so your son the fact that he’s losing wrestling matches and is still enthusiastic about it
0:36:51 That is a gift. That is a gift. That’s what we tell him every morning at breakfast
0:36:54 Send them back out there. Yeah
0:37:01 Bring home an L bring home another L. Don’t get it big guy. Don’t get it. Yeah, that’s great
0:37:04 All right. Well, I think we have to wrap there. It’s a great way to end
0:37:12 Thank you Scott you’re you’re a total star and it was our privilege to host you on the stage
0:37:14 Thank you
0:37:16 Thanks everybody
0:37:30 Thanks for listening if you want to figure out your workplace problem together, please send us a message
0:37:37 We would love to have you on the show email fixable at Ted comm or called two three four fixable
0:37:40 That’s two three four three four nine two two five three
0:37:45 And if you’re under the age of 35, you can also text us
0:37:51 Honestly any way you want to communicate with us. We are delighted to hear from you
0:37:57 We are so grateful for everyone who’s written called texted. We couldn’t make the show without you quite literally
0:38:05 Fixable is brought to you by the Ted audio collective and Pushkin Industries. It’s hosted by me and Morris and me Francis Frye
0:38:15 Our team includes Izzy Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Ban Ban Chang, Michelle Quint, Corey Hagem, Alejandra Salazar and Roxanne Highlash
0:38:18 This episode was mixed by Louie at Story Yard
0:38:24 If you’re enjoying the show make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and tell a friend to check us out
0:38:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:10 This episode is brought to you by Dyson On Track. Dyson On Track headphones offer best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range, making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts.
0:00:19 Get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise-cancelling enabled, soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort and a range of colors and finishes.
0:00:25 Dyson On Track headphones remastered by from DysonCanada.ca
0:00:30 With A&C on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage, accessories sold separately.
0:00:37 Only Murders in the Building is back for a new season on Disney+
0:00:47 Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez return alongside a star-study guest cast as the trio takes on Hollywood, where a studio is making a film about their podcast.
0:00:52 Amidst all the glitzing glamour, there’s a new mystery. Who tried to kill Charles?
0:00:57 Only Murders in the Building season 4, streaming August 27th exclusively on Disney+.
0:00:59 Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com
0:01:07 Welcome to The Propgy Pod’s Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business big tech entrepreneurship and whatever else is on your mind.
0:01:08 Hey, Propgy.
0:01:09 Hey, Scott and team.
0:01:09 Hey, Scott.
0:01:10 Hi, Propgy.
0:01:11 Hey, Propgy.
0:01:11 Hey, Propgy.
0:01:12 Hi, Professor G.
0:01:20 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours@propgymedia.com. Again, that’s officehours@propgymedia.com.
0:01:22 So, with that, first question.
0:01:28 Hey, Prop. This is Jack, coming to you from horse and bourbon country in Lexington, Kentucky.
0:01:30 My question today is about non-compete clauses.
0:01:34 I work in medical device sales specifically and spine surgery.
0:01:40 And so, because I have a highly specialized field, I’m subject to a non-compete clause in my employment contract.
0:01:49 And so, my question to you is, from a personal level, is this even going to affect me, the supposed Lina Khan and FTC ban on non-competes?
0:01:55 I saw in the news recently that the ban was upheld in the courts and is supposed to go into effect in a couple months.
0:01:59 So, does that mean that all of our existing contracts are now void?
0:02:14 And how do you differentiate between giving employees the freedom to strike it out on their own and build something for themselves versus maybe switching companies and taking very, very protected IP with them and leaving the door open for IP lawsuits left and right?
0:02:17 And apart from all of that, will this even matter?
0:02:25 Well, is it ever going to come into effect or will it be stuck in litigation for years and years until maybe Trump gets elected and fires Lina Khan and we all pretend this never happened?
0:02:28 I’d be curious to hear your thoughts and I appreciate all of your content.
0:02:30 Thanks for the interesting question.
0:02:32 So, what are non-competes?
0:02:41 They’re labor contracts that prohibit workers from taking a new job with competitors or starting a competing business during a set amount of time after their employment with a company.
0:02:43 This can sometimes be years long.
0:02:48 Typically, though, if you go on what’s called garden leave or non-compete, they have to pay you during that time.
0:02:54 Sometimes, though, a non-compete can mean you just can’t go to work for anyone who is considered a competitor.
0:03:00 According to the FTC, nearly one in five Americans, about 30 million people are subject to non-compete agreements.
0:03:05 Many experts believe non-compete agreements are behind the stagnation of middle-class income workers’ pay.
0:03:18 The FTC ban on non-compete agreements is scheduled to take effect this fall on September the 4th. According to the FTC, the new ban on the non-competes could lead to the creation of 8,500 new businesses per year and wage increases totaling 300 billion per year.
0:03:24 President Biden fully supports a ban on non-compete agreements, saying that they are designed simply to lower people’s wages.
0:03:27 So, what will happen to your non-compete contract?
0:03:34 According to the FTC, existing non-competes for the vast majority of workers will no longer be enforceable after the rules of fact update.
0:03:48 Existing non-competes for senior executives who represent less than 0.75% of workers can remain in force under the FTC’s final rule, but employers are banned from entering into or attempting to enforce any new non-competes, even if they involve senior executives.
0:03:57 Employers will be required to provide notice to workers other than senior executives who are bound by an existing non-compete that they will not be enforcing any non-competes against them.
0:04:17 Okay, so my view on this is non-competes are horrible for the economy. And there are a few things I love more about the Biden administration and the competent people they hire that don’t end up in jail or don’t end up, I don’t know, saying their boss is an idiot.
0:04:29 Then what he has done at the DOJ and the FTC with Lena Kahn and Jonathan Cantor, so let’s look very meta. Corporate profits have been at an all-time high, an all-time high.
0:04:37 Meanwhile, wages as a percent of GDP have been flat for 40 years. Consumers or workers have not gotten a raise unless they’re in the top kind of 10%.
0:04:48 Why? Because every fucking thing we do is a transfer of work and time, i.e. money, from young to old, poor to rich, and from workers to shareholders.
0:05:00 There’s a healthy tension between capital and labor. And during, for example, the ’60s and ’70s, it got out of control and labor became too profitable and there were no profits in corporations and the stock market went sideways.
0:05:11 Hugely mediocre returns for the better part of 20 years and it was hard to attract investment capital and grow. And so labor had too much power and there was a series of regulation.
0:05:22 The activist investor popped up and since then, since then, Washington has been weaponized by corporations and almost everything that happens favors the corporation and shareholders.
0:05:32 And this is all tied back to compensation that has increasingly been focused on shareholders. The result is a war on labor and non-competes are a manifestation of that.
0:05:41 Do you realize there are now sanitation workers, i.e. trashmen, and even hairstylists that are subject to non-competes? These are total bullshit.
0:05:53 Now, if you’re a very senior level executive that is making millions of dollars and is access to the most sensitive IP of the company, those non-competes will still be enforceable for a while.
0:06:07 I get that. I get that. If you’re the one top engineer figuring out an LLM for Meta and Microsoft calls and says, “Wow, we’ll pay you 50 million bucks, maybe you should be forced to take a year or two year off because of the IP.”
0:06:16 However, however, confidentiality and NDAs cover that type of IP theft. It’s not like it’s IP theft, lullapalooza. I’ve been subject to non-competes.
0:06:27 When my company, L2, was acquired by Gartner, they had two forms of retention. One was a non-compete. And as soon as I said, “I am out of here, I hate it here,” and that’s being generous, saying, “Hate.”
0:06:37 They immediately started sending me nasty grams on legal letterhead saying, “If you do anything that competes with Gartner, anything at all, we’re going to sue you to the ends of the earth.”
0:06:46 The better way to create a non-compete is, quite frankly, is money. And they did that as well. And it’s one of the reasons I hung around for 14 months, not 14 days.
0:06:56 Let’s just say it was a cultural misfit, the dog in a large corporation headquartered in Connecticut. Good people, just not my people, if you will. And I wasn’t theirs.
0:07:07 Anyways, this is an outstanding move by the FTC and by the Biden administration. This transfers some of the power, some of the economic well-being, back to labor.
0:07:18 Who are you most worried about? Shareholders or a single mother who’s a hairdresser who can’t go to another fucking hair salon because she signed a non-compete in order to feed her and her family?
0:07:30 This is total bullshit. This is what government is supposed to do. Non-disclosure agreements? No fucking way. This is wonderful legislation. They should have never existed. You want people to stay with your company?
0:07:35 Then here’s an idea. Pay your people. That wasn’t dignity.
0:07:37 Alright, question number two.
0:07:58 Hey, Prof. G, this is Kevin from Boston. Huge fan of listening to you and following you since your now infamous WeWork article. A lot of the things you say about the country, the markets, being a father, being a man, just really resonate with me and I really appreciate all you do there.
0:08:16 My question is around this concept of surveillance pricing. I’m not sure you’ve seen it, but the Federal Trade Commission issued an order against eight companies that offer products and services that incorporate data about consumers’ characteristics and behavior that determine what they end up getting charged.
0:08:34 It’s not a surprise that this sort of practice happens in the general market, but I’m curious to get your take on whether or not you think this is illegal. The Federal Trade Commission should kind of opine on what they should focus on. I know you’re a big advocate for higher regulation.
0:08:39 Very curious to hear your take and appreciate your response to all you do.
0:08:56 That’s a really interesting question. The FTC has ordered eight companies to provide information on how they use personal data to set prices based on individual shopper characteristics. The FTC aims to understand the surveillance pricing market where the consumer data, including credit card information, location and browsing history, may lead to different prices for the same product.
0:09:13 The FTC noted that third-party intermediaries reportedly use technology, including advanced algorithms and AI, to do so. FTC Chair Lena Kahn said that firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk, now firms could be exploiting this vast-driven personal information to charge people higher prices.
0:09:25 The eight companies the FTC sent orders to include MasterCard, Revionix, Bloom Reach, JP Morgan Chase, Task Software, Pros, Accenture, and McKinsey & Company. I’m curious why McKinsey & Company is involved there.
0:09:37 I have two minds here. I think this happens all the time. I think if you’re browsing or coming into a site from one site that says you’re probably a certain consumer, I think they can do variable real-time pricing.
0:10:03 There’s real-time pricing based on when you buy. Think about pricing discrimination of an airline. If I want to fly Friday to Sunday last minute, I may pay four, six, eight times the price for the exact same seat as someone who booked three weeks before and is staying more than seven days because clearly they’ve figured out, all right, I’m a business traveler, which means someone else is paying, which means I’m fairly pricing sensitive.
0:10:26 So there’s all sorts of discriminatory pricing. It happens. Prices change on hotel sites, I’ve noticed. The thing I really don’t like, which I think is illegal, when I’m bought football tickets for Premier League, I’ll be shopping for tickets, I’ll put them in my card, I’ll wait a minute, and they’ll say, “Oh, Wes, I’m about to check out.” The price has gone up. I think that is probably illegal and those companies will probably get swiftly, I don’t know, punished if you will, as they should.
0:10:52 But I believe the price discrimination should be legal. You know, I mean, to a certain extent, I used to get student discounts. Is that surveillance pricing, where you know someone is a student, so you offer them a discount? Seniors, you know, they do it by age. They do all sorts of stuff that, quote-unquote, “leverages your personal data to give you different pricing.” I’m in favor of competition, breaking these guys up, not over-regulating how they determine their pricing.
0:11:11 So, I’m sort of on the side of businesses a little bit here that should have the opportunity to charge a business person more. But I do think most of these problems go away. If you just have more competition and as a rule, they’re charging everyone less money because they know their competitors, BC&D, will do the same.
0:11:26 I think this will be interesting. I appreciate the question. Sorry, it’s not a more thoughtful question. But in some, I think pricing, discrimination, and different prices for different people has been going on forever and will continue to go on one way or another. What we need is more competitors in the marketplace.
0:11:28 Thanks for the question.
0:11:34 We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.
0:11:44 Support for PropG comes from Vanta. Whether you’re starting or scaling your business company’s security program, demonstrating top-notch security practices and establishing trust is more important than ever.
0:12:00 Vanta automates compliance for SOC2, ISO 27001, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing trust center, all powered by Vanta AI.
0:12:18 Over 7,000 global companies like Atlassian, FlowHealth, and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and improve security in real time. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to Vanta.com/PropG. That’s Vanta.com/PropG for $1,000 off.
0:12:33 Support for the show comes from Fundrise. Venture Capital is widely seen as one of the most lucrative asset classes in the world. Go look at the S&P 500. Nearly every major tech company on that list was once funded by venture capital firms producing billions of dollars in profit in the process.
0:12:50 The hard truth, however, is that the biggest venture funds are almost entirely funded by institutional investors like endowments and sovereign wealth funds. So unless you knew a guy who knew a guy, you and 99.9% of individual investors do not get to participate in the pre-IPO growth of any of those blue-chip companies.
0:13:09 The Fundrise Innovation Fund aims to change that. It’s a more than $125 million fund. It holds some of the most buzz-worthy pre-IPO tech companies in the world, and it’s designed specifically for individual investors. This time, you can get in early at fundrise.com/PropG. That’s F-U-N-D-R-I-S-C.com/PropG.
0:13:24 Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risk, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the Innovation Fund’s Prospectus at fundrise.com/innovation. This is a paid advertisement.
0:13:35 Support for this podcast comes from Huntress. Keeping your data safe is important, however, if you’re a small business owner, then protecting the information of yourself, your company, and your workers is vital.
0:13:46 In comes Huntress. Huntress is where fully managed cybersecurity meets human expertise. They offer a revolutionary approach to manage security that isn’t all about tech. It’s about real people providing real defense.
0:14:01 When threats arise or issues occur, their team of seasoned cyber experts is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for support. Visit huntress.com/PropG to start a free trial or learn more.
0:14:03 Welcome back, question number three.
0:14:16 Hey Scott, Mickey here from Denver, Colorado. I love listening to your show, not just because of the content, but because of the way it’s delivered. You have an authentic style, and it keeps the listeners coming back for more.
0:14:28 A few episodes ago, you mentioned that it took you a long time to find out that storytelling was one of your core competencies. I was fascinated by that because I’d never heard it described as a core competency before.
0:14:42 So here’s what I’d like to know. What was your journey like? How did you get from being a timid rambler to the expert storyteller you are today? What advice do you have for those of us who want to add storytelling to our set of skills?
0:14:52 And finally, how do you take an abstract talent like storytelling and turn it into a practical skill for building a business? Thanks for all the inspiration. Can’t wait to hear what’s next.
0:15:08 Mickey from Denver, your voice sounds like it was generated by AI, but it’s nice. You could do voiceovers. You could do like a local dealership. You could be like, “Hi, this is Mickey from Ford of Basalt, Colorado. Come on in to check out our new F-150 Lightning.”
0:15:26 Anyway, you have a nice voice. Okay, what was the question? Storytelling. The first time I kind of noticed it was when I was eight. And that was my father. I just started recognizing that people seemed to gather around my father and were just enthralled by him.
0:15:35 Whatever room he went into, a semicircle would form around him. And I remember asking my mom, “Why do people like Dad so much?” And she said, “He’s charming.”
0:15:50 And my dad has this Scottish accent and is funny and has a strong jawline. He’s quite handsome. And he would tell these stories and these jokes and a twist of phrase. And then he would do what is the easiest way to get people to laugh at your joke.
0:16:07 He would bust out and laugh after he ended his joke. And he was also had a good turn of phrase. He was thought of himself as kind of a big picture thinker. And he would have people over and regard him with stories about, you know, what is the key to a successful management. It’s a good job description.
0:16:25 And I just noticed very early that kind of storytelling and being able to hold a room was really important. And then it wasn’t really storytelling. But I wasn’t in kind of junior high school and high school. I was exceptionally tall, exceptionally thin, and I had really bad skin.
0:16:43 And that wasn’t a recipe for getting a ton of dates. And I found that my ability to get a date or have someone hang out with me or have friends hang out with me was a specific form of storytelling. And that was humor. And I really spent a lot of time thinking about, not thinking about, but trying to be funny.
0:16:59 I won most comical. And Steve Martin, I’m dating myself in my high school poll, which is kind of a thing around storytelling. I didn’t really decide who I was going to be a great storyteller. And the first time I thought I might have a talent for this was in graduate school, I was selected.
0:17:07 I love this because I get to talk about me. In graduate school from Berkeley, I was selected as the student speaker to give the commencement speech at our graduation ceremony.
0:17:17 Other people recognizing that you have a decent gift to gap makes you think, wow, maybe I could make a living at this. But I never even then thought of myself as a storyteller or someone who’s going to make a living there.
0:17:36 But what has really helped me is I would say there’s really kind of, there’s a few things. One is, I think to be a great storyteller, you need to be a competent writer. I think writing, the ability to write and string together your thoughts and long form writing helps organize and kind of really strain the muscle.
0:17:43 I think writing is the most difficult thing I do, but it damages the muscle and it grows back stronger across all communication. I think that is the base.
0:17:50 If you show me an incredible storyteller, I’ll show you someone, even Ronald Reagan wrote lovely notes who can write fairly well.
0:18:08 Then the second, it sounds very passe, but getting a lot of practice. Now, keep in mind for 22 years, I stood up in front of 60, 100, 300 consumers and told a story for 80 minutes called a class at NYU Stern where they were paying me a lot of money to be very entertaining and insightful and educational for 80 minutes.
0:18:18 Above I charged my classes at one point, we’re getting $170,000 in tuition per class. And then consulting is essentially storytelling through writing through PowerPoint. So what are we going to do?
0:18:27 We’re hopefully going to have some talent, but you can’t control that. We’re going to get comfortable writing. We’re going to put ourselves in a position of speaking in front of others, which can be painful, but it’s important to do that early.
0:18:41 And then we’re going to find a medium. And I do this in my class. There’s so many mediums now to be a storyteller, TikTok, medium, writing long form posts on medium, sub stack, texting is a form of communication, obviously writing books, writing articles, speaking.
0:18:51 I mean, there’s just so many putting out, you know, putting out YouTube videos, whatever it might be, your ability to tell a story on a different medium is, in my opinion, the key skill.
0:18:59 So what are you going to do? You’re going to start practicing. You’re going to pick a medium. You’re going to say, what would it mean to be on the top 1% of people on Instagram?
0:19:09 That means I would need this many followers and this type of engagement. I do this in my class. I task everyone with picking a medium and saying, I’m going to be in the top 1% on LinkedIn by the time this class ends.
0:19:22 And you figure out the nuance and the subtleties of storytelling in that medium. Be clear. This is the gangster skill. Storytelling, storytelling never goes out of style. It is enduring.
0:19:31 That’s all for this episode. If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours@proptimedia.com. Again, that’s officehours@proptimedia.com.
0:19:41 [Music]
0:19:52 This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:20:04 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our PropG Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

0:00:04 Support for Prop G comes from 8 Sleep. 8 Sleep is revolutionizing the way we
0:00:09 sleep with their innovative sleep technology known as the Pod. They’ve
0:00:13 just launched the newest generation of the Pod, Pod 4 Ultra, which can cool
0:00:17 down each side of the bed by 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping
0:00:21 you and your partner cool during the hottest nights. And the best part? It’s
0:00:25 easy to add to any bed. Just add the Pod to your current mattress like a fitted
0:00:33 sheet. Go to 8Sleep.com/PropG and use code “PropG” to get $350 off Pod 4
0:00:37 Ultra. It currently ships to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and
0:00:40 Australia.
0:00:44 This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from
0:00:48 Charles Schwab. Each week hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab’s chief investment
0:00:52 strategist, and Kathy Jones, Schwab’s chief fixed income strategist, bring you
0:00:56 fresh insights on what’s happening in the markets and why and what the
0:01:00 implications might be for your portfolio. Join Kathy and Liz Ann as they
0:01:03 explore questions like, “How do you evaluate corporate bonds that look
0:01:07 interesting?” and “What sectors are on the move right now?” Download the latest
0:01:13 episode and subscribe at Schwab.com/OnInvesting or wherever you get your
0:01:20 podcast. Today’s number, $80. That’s the cost of Costco’s new emergency food
0:01:25 bucket, which includes freeze-dried meals that will last up to 25 years. True
0:01:28 story yet, I remember when I shot my first turkey. Boy, were the people at the
0:01:32 Costco frozen food section surprised.
0:01:46 Little team DadHumor, little Costco membership retail DadHumor, they’re
0:01:52 welcome to PropG Markets. What is going on today, Ed? I usually introduce you as
0:01:56 media analyst. Have we given that shit up? Media analysts, whatever that was?
0:02:01 Okay, I need to put this to rest once and for all. Our company is called
0:02:06 PropG Media, so we called me the analyst of PropG Media, and you keep on
0:02:10 thinking that I’m calling myself a media analyst. I’m the analyst of PropG.
0:02:13 Thanks for straightening that out. By the way, that category, that puts me into a
0:02:18 new employment category with much lower salary and no benefits. No more dental
0:02:24 for you. No more dental for you. All right, so we’re doing something different today.
0:02:27 We’ve got a fun one. Tell us what we’re doing. Yeah, we’re doing an “Ask Me
0:02:30 Anything” episode, so we’ll be going through our listener questions that we
0:02:34 received on Instagram and on Reddit and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone who
0:02:38 sent in questions. We’ll try to get through as many as we can. Are you ready to go,
0:02:43 Scott? Let’s light this candle. Okay, how did Scott and Ed meet? I don’t remember.
0:02:46 I don’t remember. You don’t remember? I remember very well. I know it was a
0:02:52 bathroom, but I primed to remember where. We’re off to a good start. Here’s the
0:02:57 ball through the RNC in Milwaukee. Oh my god, that’s my favorite stat. Grinder
0:03:02 crashing in Milwaukee during the RNC convention. I just fucking love that.
0:03:09 Anyways, go ahead. How did we meet? I’ll preface it with this. It was about four
0:03:15 years ago. I was in college, and I was feeling generally pretty lost about what
0:03:21 I wanted to do with my life. All of my friends were becoming bankers. All of
0:03:26 them were becoming consultants. And for whatever reason, I didn’t want to do it.
0:03:31 I was stewing over this for a while, and I decided to create a list of all the
0:03:37 people I most admire and whose careers I wanted to replicate. And I decided I’m
0:03:40 going to just create this list and see if I can go help any of these people. And
0:03:45 Scott was on that list. So at the time, I was a big fan of Pivot. I had been for a
0:03:52 while. One day I’m listening to Pivot, and Colin Scott say, “Please welcome Joanna
0:03:56 Coles, who is a friend of mine because she is the mother of my best friend and
0:04:02 roommate from the boarding school I went to in Massachusetts.” So I heard that. I
0:04:06 didn’t even listen to the interview, and I immediately put my phone down and
0:04:09 reached out to Joanna and said, “Can you please introduce me to Scott Galloway?”
0:04:14 Which she did. I connected with Scott over email, and then he offered to get on a
0:04:20 phone call with me. I think you’re on a beach in Mexico at the time. Yeah, and
0:04:25 he offered me an internship and the rest is history. In my mind, it was a total
0:04:31 no-brainer to reach out to you because I think this is the learning. I had already
0:04:36 done all of the mental work ahead of time that I needed to know that if there’s an
0:04:40 opportunity to meet Scott Galloway, I have to take it. I think that’s sort of my
0:04:45 takeaway. It’s like, I mean, 90% of your career battle is figuring out that
0:04:49 question. What do I want to do? That’s the hardest part. Once you figured that out,
0:04:54 it’s sort of autopilot. I knew I wanted to work with you. So yeah, that’s how
0:04:58 we met on a phone call, I guess. Yeah, thanks for that. Those were generous
0:05:02 words. It made me feel nice to hear you say that. I didn’t know some of that
0:05:06 stuff. You’re obviously privileged in the sense that you came with huge
0:05:11 credentials coming out of Princeton. And to be fair, you knew somebody, you’re not
0:05:16 a netbo hire, but you knew someone who I’m friends with. And some people, because
0:05:22 of the income of the household they grew up with, don’t have access to
0:05:27 friends who know people in positions to hire them. I remember growing up
0:05:31 thinking, all my friends, when they were playing at college, like, oh, my dad’s
0:05:35 friend is on the board of advisors for the University of Wisconsin. And I’m like,
0:05:40 my mom doesn’t know anybody. We have no contacts. But anyways, the lesson
0:05:45 here is that, or the lesson for me, in my approach to hiring. So Joanna Calls
0:05:51 called me and said, “I have someone you have to hire.” And I take Joanna very
0:05:55 seriously. She’s super smart. She’s built companies herself. She’s one of the few
0:05:57 people from the magazine industry. For those of you who don’t know Joanna Calls,
0:06:02 she was the chief content or creative officer for Hearst.
0:06:03 An editor-in-chief of Cosmo, too.
0:06:07 Yeah, editor-in-chief Cosmo, which at one point was the kind of biggest magazine
0:06:10 in the world. And she’s just a very impressive woman. She’s now, I think, the
0:06:14 co-owner of The Daily Bee. She’s taken that over, which is, in my opinion, going
0:06:19 to be like pushing a rock up the hill. “Best-elected, Joanna.” But she called me
0:06:25 and said in no uncertain terms, “I have someone you have to hire.” And
0:06:29 that’s the way I hire. If somebody I trust, who I think is really smart, is
0:06:36 willing to put, not their reputation, but put their full-throated endorsement
0:06:41 behind someone, I’ll hire them. Because here’s the thing. Interviews, for me, are
0:06:45 not worthless, but they’re almost worthless. The best interview I’ve ever had
0:06:49 was with someone at L2. She came in and she just blew my socks off. I’m like,
0:06:56 “This person is so smart, so composed, has such presence.” And everyone else is
0:07:00 like, “Okay, fine, let’s hire her.” Two days after she started, she went on
0:07:05 disability. And she refused to tell us what was wrong with her, because that
0:07:10 would be an invasion of her privacy. But she used to show up to the parties. And
0:07:14 it took us, like, nine months to figure out a way to fire. Like, just went on
0:07:18 disability and wouldn’t even tell us why she was on disability, but was well
0:07:22 enough to show up for any social thing we had. That was the best interview I’ve
0:07:26 ever had. I don’t remember doing the phone call with you, but I don’t need to
0:07:31 remember, because I was going to hire you, because someone I trust and respect
0:07:36 said, “I have to hire you.” She said, “This kid is so impressive.” She said, “He’s
0:07:41 friends with my son. We hang out with him. I don’t know if this
0:07:45 was true. Vacationed with you, and he’s just such an impressive young man. You
0:07:49 have to hire him.” So I knew I was hiring you when I got the phone with Joanna.
0:07:53 I can’t tell if that reflects well on me or well on Joanna.
0:07:58 Well, you’ve been a fucking disaster, so I call her and tell her. She owes me.
0:08:02 I’m like, “You owe me.” Yeah, 100%. No, that’s reference hires is, I think, the big
0:08:06 learning here. Moving on to a question for you. Scott, could you address the
0:08:11 rumors that you were, in fact, Joe Bruin, the UCLA mascot during your time at
0:08:16 UCLA? So that is a hundred percent true. This guy named Brady Cannell, who was the
0:08:21 president of my fraternity, was the Bruin Bearer and came up to me and said, “You
0:08:24 should be the Bruin Bearer.” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And he said,
0:08:30 “The mascot at the football games is this giant bear in a Disney costume.” And so I
0:08:38 said, “Okay.” And so I tried out and I became the Bruin Bearer at UCLA in 1983. I
0:08:42 was a freshman and I traveled with the football team. I tried out for the
0:08:45 football team and ended up dancing around on the sidelines in a fucking costume.
0:08:49 And it was an interesting experience. I traveled with the football team for a
0:08:55 season and me and the other bear would get ridiculously fucking high and stay
0:08:59 out past the curfew. Can you believe it? I remember, we went to the
0:09:05 fiesta bowl in Arizona and we were playing against Miami. And so me and
0:09:10 Harry Hirschman, the other bear, we went out and as you do, when you’re 19 in
0:09:14 Arizona, we got ridiculously fucked up in a Mexican restaurant, ended up back at
0:09:18 our hotel with a couple women. And we just partied like four in the morning.
0:09:23 And then the next morning, I got a call from like the Dean of Spirit Squad or
0:09:27 whatever she was doing. And she came to our room with another guy, I guess for,
0:09:31 I don’t know, Gravitas and said, “I’m putting you on a plane home. You have
0:09:36 violated NCAA Athletic rules. You were not in bed by 10.” And I’m like, “Let me
0:09:43 get this. I don’t have to march around in a 140-degree fucking costume,
0:09:46 wildly hungover, and you’re pretending that’s a punishment?”
0:09:47 He said that.
0:09:51 Yeah, she was a lover. I was so hungover. I think I had to, I’m not exaggerating.
0:09:54 I think I had to excuse myself from distressing down in this meeting to go
0:09:59 throw up in the bathroom. I’m like, “I’m not throwing a football. I don’t need to
0:10:07 be, no one sees me. I’m in a hot box. I’m in this costume. I’m in Arizona. I’m
0:10:12 going to be in a fur-lined costume making dumb poses. It’s going to be, it’s
0:10:15 literally going to be 140 degrees in there.” And you’re acting as if that’s
0:10:19 a punishment. And her only comeback was you’re going to have to play for your
0:10:25 own flight home. And I’m like, “Well, okay.” And so it ended up that was all
0:10:29 like, “Oh, bullshit.” And they’re like, “Fuck, you get in the costume and get to
0:10:36 the Fiesta Bowl.” But yeah, I did that. I was Joe Bruin for a season of the Mighty
0:10:39 Bruins when we went to the Fiesta Bowl. Not something I talk a lot about,
0:10:43 although I used to, I used to try and get girls up to my room in the fraternity
0:10:46 to see the costume. I’d be like, “I’m the Bruin Bear. You want to see the costume?”
0:10:47 Do what? No.
0:10:49 It didn’t work a lot. Yeah, yeah.
0:10:50 It’s something to talk about.
0:10:54 It is something to talk about, yeah. So yes, true. I was the Bruin Bear in 1983.
0:10:58 Well, I did not know that. I feel like I know every dumb factoid about you.
0:10:59 I did not know that.
0:11:03 So next one, Ed, what does your portfolio look like?
0:11:11 So my portfolio is very simple. It’s all ETFs. So S&P 500 and then some wider
0:11:18 baskets to Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 1000 Value. Very simple, plain portfolio.
0:11:24 I don’t think about it. I basically don’t touch it. The reason I don’t think
0:11:29 about it is because I’m at a point in my career where worrying about stocks is
0:11:34 basically just a waste of time. The highest ROI investment I can make is just
0:11:39 being really, really good at my job. So to me, that means spending my time developing
0:11:44 writing skills, developing speaking skills, understanding markets, meeting
0:11:49 people, reading obsessively. That’s what I spend my time doing. So, you know, I
0:11:52 don’t really pay that much attention to the portfolio. I take, you want some more
0:11:59 tea, I take 5% of my income and put it in my 401k. Luckily for me, Scott offers a
0:12:06 5% contribution match. So in effect, that’s 10% of my income that’s being
0:12:12 invested to build an asset base. I plan to start cranking that number up over time.
0:12:17 But, you know, I live in New York and I spend a fortune on rent and food and
0:12:21 alcohol and experiences, all of these things that I want to spend money on.
0:12:28 So, for me, 5% makes a right amount of sense right now. But I think the idea is
0:12:33 that, you know, once I start making really, really highly meaningful income,
0:12:36 that’s when I’ll start being a little more strategic and a little bit more bold
0:12:41 with my investments. Maybe I’ll look at real estate, maybe venture, maybe private equity.
0:12:45 Those are all things I’m thinking about. But at this stage, just a plain
0:12:48 passive ETF portfolio, that’s what makes the most sense for me.
0:12:52 I’m just saying, I mean this sincerely, you’re so much smarter than I was at your age.
0:12:57 You’re investing in the right places. You’re taking a disciplined approach.
0:13:01 Even if you’re, you know, you’re going to be remarkably successful, but on the
0:13:08 options, you’re not. As long as you, you know, continue to figure out a way to get 10% of your
0:13:14 earnings into these ETFs. When you’re my age, regardless of whether you’re a baller or not,
0:13:18 and what you’ve achieved or not achieved economically, you’re going to be fine.
0:13:20 And I didn’t, I did not realize that when I was your age.
0:13:24 Who are your inspirations in and out of the business world?
0:13:30 Well, it sounds, it sounds, Pat, but I get a lot of inspiration from work.
0:13:35 I love surrounding myself with super intelligent creative young people. I get a lot of inspiration
0:13:39 from you guys. Same thing happened at L2. I’ve always been pretty good at surrounding myself
0:13:42 with young, smart people that have a different lens on the world.
0:13:48 I get a lot of just the, of inspiration from the people I work with. I don’t have,
0:13:54 I try to, I have a few people in my life that, or that I’ve tried to get to know a lot about
0:13:59 and they provide me with inspiration. I admire Muhammad Ali’s courage.
0:14:02 I feel like I’ve heard you say that you also admire, like,
0:14:06 I found this interesting how poetic he was. Is that right?
0:14:11 Well, the key to success is storytelling. And this is a guy who decided he was going to say,
0:14:18 “I am so pretty.” And he would do poetry at pre-boxing hearings, whatever you call him.
0:14:26 And he was just not afraid, very principled, decided that his principles around not going
0:14:31 to Vietnam were not an opinion. It was a principle and refused to go. And they stripped him of his
0:14:36 medals. They basically impoverished him. Obviously outstanding at what he did.
0:14:42 I just thought this, this guy was courageous. I mean, it sounds dumb, but I think of people
0:14:49 like Richard Simmons, who was outwardly gay before it was cool. And I remember this one moment, I was
0:14:54 at LaGuardia in the middle of winter, it must have been 20 degrees out. And this guy in front
0:14:58 of me at TSA takes off his trench coat and he’s wearing a sweater, except it’s not a sweater,
0:15:07 it’s back hair. And he has a sparkly tank top, short short dolphin shorts, K-Swiss and athletic
0:15:17 socks. And the whole airport stops and TSA stops and they go, “Richard.” They go, “Richard.” And he
0:15:22 cleared, made space around him, asked me to step back, which I did. And he stepped back and threw
0:15:32 his arms into the air and went, “Hello, LaGuardia.” No way. And the entire terminal stopped for a
0:15:41 moment and then erupted in applause. Wow. And I thought, “This guy is just so fucking unafraid.”
0:15:46 So like, have you ever been in a club or at a place and somebody gets on the table and starts
0:15:52 dancing and they’re dancing as if no one’s watching them? I’m like, “God, I want to live my life like
0:15:59 that. I want to be Richard Simmons, the bridge for me to get to that fearlessness as an embrace of
0:16:05 atheism. It just doesn’t matter if you make a fool of yourself or people don’t like you or you get
0:16:11 shamed or you do something stupid or you take a risk and you have public failure. You know,
0:16:17 it really doesn’t matter. What matters is while you’re here having an amazing life. And the only
0:16:23 way you’re going to have a truly amazing life, a life that’s better than the environment you are
0:16:29 born into and what logically the world would reward you with, is that if you have a little bit of
0:16:35 Richard Simmons and Muhammad Ali and you, and that is you are willing to risk public shaming,
0:16:41 you are willing to live out loud, and that you very early decide what is the difference between
0:16:46 an opinion and a principle. I mean, I just love that Richard Simmons story. Yeah. I tend to have
0:16:53 a similar view on the people who inspire me. I mean, I love people who really understand humanity
0:17:00 and for whom you can see that understanding through their work. I love comedians. I mean,
0:17:10 you know, my favorite person in high school was Louis C.K. It’s a little, I mean, he had his issues,
0:17:14 so it’s hard to say that now. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone deserves their heroes,
0:17:20 and I think it’s important that you masturbate in front of your coworkers. I mean, that’s a great
0:17:29 role model. Sorry, sorry. Okay, if I whip this out and just have a little bit of fun, just FYI,
0:17:33 that is not a part of the employee handbook here at just, you know, I’m sorry, go ahead.
0:17:37 You’re role models. The question was inspiration. I wouldn’t call him a role model, I call him
0:17:48 inspiration. Oh, he’s backtracking. Stay with us.
0:17:57 Support for the show comes from Fundrise. Artificial intelligence is poised to be one
0:18:01 of the biggest wealth creation events in history. Some experts even anticipate AI could add more
0:18:07 than $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Unfortunately, your portfolio probably doesn’t
0:18:11 own the biggest names in AI. That’s because most of the AI revolution is largely built
0:18:16 and funded in private markets, which means that the vast majority of AI startups are going to be
0:18:20 backed and owned by venture capitalists, not public investors. That’s why the Fundrise Innovation
0:18:25 Fund exists. The Innovation Fund pairs $100 million plus venture portfolio of some of the
0:18:29 biggest names in AI with one of the lowest investment minimums the venture industry has
0:18:33 ever seen. AI is already changing the world, but this time you can get in early with the Fundrise
0:18:41 Innovation Fund. Get in early at fundrise.com/markets. That’s F-U-N-D-R-I-S-C dot com slash markets.
0:18:45 Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives,
0:18:49 risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found at the Innovation
0:18:57 Fund’s prospectus at fundrise.com/innovation. This is a paid advertisement. Support for this
0:19:01 podcast comes from Huntress. Keeping your data safe is important. However, if you’re a small
0:19:07 business owner, then protecting the information of yourself, your company, and your workers is vital.
0:19:13 In comes Huntress. Huntress is where fully managed cybersecurity meets human expertise.
0:19:17 They offer a revolutionary approach to managed security that isn’t all about tech. It’s about
0:19:22 real people providing real defense. When threats arise or issues occur, their team
0:19:29 of seasoned cyber experts is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for support. Visit huntress.com/propg
0:19:40 to start a free trial or learn more. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zell.
0:19:47 So, I’m on this job listing site and I get a message from a recruiter for a small shipping
0:19:54 company. The recruiter said all I needed to do was send $500 to cover mandatory software training
0:20:01 and job was mine. Scams are happening like this more and more because of the change in technology.
0:20:08 The sky’s the limit on scams. So says Deborah Baxley, a mobile payments and fintech consultant of
0:20:16 over 20 years. Never be pushed into a sense of urgency. Always sit back, think twice if something
0:20:22 seems too good to be true or a little bit weird. Think about it. But there are steps you could
0:20:27 take to help protect yourself. You should never give out any what we call PII in the industry,
0:20:32 personal identifying information, which includes everything from your mailing address, your social
0:20:38 security number, any kind of banking information. Encountering a crime like this can be a little
0:20:48 disorienting. Stranger than fiction even. Almost like you’re in a TV show. Come in Safe Squad,
0:20:54 we got a 10-3. That’s why Safe Squad was made. The hottest new fictional crime drama all about
0:20:58 how to protect yourself from financial crimes. Copy that dispatch. We’re on it.
0:21:08 Remember, never send money online to people you don’t already know and trust.
0:21:11 Learn how you can spot the signs of a scam so you don’t have to call the Safe Squad
0:21:27 by visiting www.bax.com/safesquadhq We’re back with Prof. G. Markets.
0:21:32 Top non-economic books everyone should read. Do you have one?
0:21:36 I have a bunch but none of them are that profound. So like the books that really moved me,
0:21:42 I remember distinctly as a kid, my father has Mild Epilepsy, which he failed to inform me
0:21:47 of my mom and I started having fainting spells and it was really traumatic at the time. I’d be
0:21:53 in school and I’d see something unusual or a weird film or something and I would not feel
0:21:58 well and I’d get up and I’d pass out. And it was kind of, you know, at the time it was traumatic.
0:22:04 Like, you know, the Galway kid keeps passing out. And I read this book called The Great Brain
0:22:10 and it was a series of books about a kid living in I think, I don’t know, 1800s America.
0:22:14 And there’s a scene where these kids are in a lake and there’s a rush of water
0:22:20 or on a river and one of them drowns. And the kid, the protagonist, he says,
0:22:24 “Something happened to me that’s never happened to me.” And he says, “I fainted and I passed out.”
0:22:29 And I remember thinking it gave me such comfort to read that that happened to other kids
0:22:35 and to kill a mockingbird. I remember thinking I’d like to be like that guy,
0:22:40 the Atticus Finch kid. I remember thinking I would like to be like quiet and strong and not
0:22:46 necessarily like be a protector, not feel as if I have to always be like, like get in people’s
0:22:52 faces, just be quietly strong. Books had had a huge impact on me in high school where one,
0:22:57 the diary of Anne Frank and the Winds of War, I started reading about World War II and just the
0:23:04 amount of sacrifice that people had made, that kind of made America what it is today and the
0:23:10 freedoms we enjoy and what happened to Jews in Europe in World War II, that had a huge impact on
0:23:15 me. And then the other author that had a huge impact on me was Jonathan Irving. And he used to
0:23:23 just write these books about, that felt so real, but these people were just so fucking strange.
0:23:30 And they put people in the weirdest situation about it. Someone gets hit in the face of the
0:23:38 baseball and it changes their life or the story of a home for unwed mothers and it provided abortions
0:23:45 and this love story that takes place in this context about a wrestling coach whose mother is a,
0:23:49 I mean- That was my favorite growing up weirdly, world according to God.
0:23:53 But I felt like everyone thinks they’re a little bit weird. I think deep down we all think we’re
0:24:00 hiding some freak and maybe not all of us. I feel like I’m a weird kid. And that gave me comfort
0:24:06 that the whole world is weird, that you don’t need to feel strange or ashamed because you’re
0:24:11 unusual or think weird things, that the whole world is fucking weird and everyone’s pretending not to
0:24:17 be. But those books really moved me. Like they really made me feel something. I haven’t read a
0:24:24 non. The reality is in the last five years I’ve written almost as many books as I’ve read. I
0:24:29 read so much during the day that I don’t get relaxation from reading at night. What about
0:24:34 you Ed? What’s changed or what’s been seminal for you? I mean, the question, what should everyone
0:24:40 read? I personally think everyone should read the Odyssey. I just think if you want to understand
0:24:45 storytelling at a very fundamental level, that is the book that you have to start with.
0:24:53 It’s basically, aside from the religious texts, the most influential book in history, it invented
0:24:59 this idea of the hero’s journey, which is the template for pretty much every story in our society
0:25:06 today. The character in Odysseus is super interesting to me and probably my favorite
0:25:14 character. The context here, every hero in these stories in Homer has what’s known as an apathet,
0:25:18 which is basically like the adjective that’s attached to your name. It’s like being called
0:25:23 the incredible Hulk or whatever. So you have like swift-footed Achilles and earth-shaking
0:25:28 Poseidon, all these characters. The apathet for Odysseus, the one adjective that is used to
0:25:35 describe him, was this word, “polutrapos.” It’s a very weird word. It means “of many different ways,”
0:25:44 which basically is saying he was anything moment to moment. He would change his nature,
0:25:50 like another way you could say is like a man of twists and turns. It’s just such a unique,
0:25:56 that was his superpower, basically. His superpower was the ability to read situations,
0:26:04 read people’s emotions, and adjust his behavior to get along with people, to make things work,
0:26:11 depending on the context. I just think it says a lot about humanity, that of all of these heroes
0:26:17 with these different superpowers, strength and speed and lightning bolts. The one that we exalted
0:26:26 most was this word, “polutrapos,” this guy who would change his behaviors from context to context
0:26:32 to make things work. I like this next one. “Ed, do you plan on becoming like Scott when
0:26:36 you’re his age? In other words, are you planning to really lean into the erectile dysfunction?”
0:26:42 Okay. Do you plan on becoming like me when you’re my age?
0:26:42 No.
0:26:46 Fair enough. Let’s move on.
0:26:51 Well, no, actually, what I will say about this, because I do kind of get that question a lot,
0:26:59 like, “Oh, where is this going for you? What’s the trajectory?” The answer to that is,
0:27:05 “I don’t know, and I’m fine with that because I’m making good money, and I’m getting better at it,
0:27:09 and I’m enjoying it, and I think that if you’re ticking those three boxes,
0:27:14 you’re headed in the right direction, so you just got to enjoy it, see where it takes you.”
0:27:23 What I can say is that there are fundamental aspects of your life and your career that I do
0:27:25 want. I think that’s probably the way to think about it.
0:27:26 The plane.
0:27:37 So that’s one of them. You make a lot of money, and I think I have to be real with myself and
0:27:44 recognize that money is very important to me. I want to make a lot of money. I like nice things.
0:27:51 I like the freedom it gives you. That’s something for sure that I want. I also think that I like
0:27:57 that you make money doing something that you’re actually good at. It’s not like you bought
0:28:04 a bunch of crypto and it went to a million and you just ended up rich. You get to say that you
0:28:12 genuinely earned that money because of your talents and your hard work. Like I said, I love money,
0:28:19 but I think I love it even more when I’m 100% certain that I deserve it and it’s mine,
0:28:23 and that’s a big part of it. The third thing I’ll say, and this is the most important one
0:28:27 in my opinion and kind of related to the thing that you were saying about Richard Simmons,
0:28:36 I think that you in your career have figured out a way to express yourself fully, I think.
0:28:42 And to me, this is like the number one thing you need to do in life, and I think it’s actually
0:28:47 really surprisingly difficult to do because when I look at, I mean, I haven’t been around that long,
0:28:52 but when I look at my life, the times I’ve been least happy were the moments where for whatever
0:28:59 reason I felt kind of unable to express myself fully. And the times I’ve been most happy when
0:29:04 I felt motivated and confident to express myself. And I think it’s just so difficult to do because
0:29:10 there are just so many little things in life that can get in the way of that. I think the ability to
0:29:18 express yourself is a luxury that you have to work hard to achieve. And I think that you have
0:29:23 achieved that. You’re in a unique position where you’re not only empowered to express yourself,
0:29:29 but you’re economically incentivized to do so. Well, one, that’s kind and generous,
0:29:34 but a couple of things. One, then again, I’m not humble. I think I’m remarkably talented. 49%
0:29:38 of what you’re talking about has come from my talent. The other 51% was shit that wasn’t my fault,
0:29:44 being born in California in the ’60s, being born in America just got very, very lucky.
0:29:50 And the other thing is when you’re 26, you’re exactly right. You really don’t have any idea
0:29:55 where you’re going to be. It’s like you have your plan and then God laughs. And when I was 26,
0:30:00 I was a second year in business school. I had started a brand strategy firm in business school.
0:30:05 25, by the way. When I was 25, I had gone to Berk. I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin
0:30:11 to go to business school. And I just switched to the high school of business because I’d fallen
0:30:15 in love with someone. And I said to her, she said, “We’re going to business school together.”
0:30:18 I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to UT Austin.” And she said, “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I said,
0:30:25 “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I followed her to Berkeley. And coming out of Berkeley in the ’90s,
0:30:30 I ended up in tech. What if I’d come out of UT? Would I’ve ended up in energy? I doubt I would
0:30:38 have started an e-commerce company. I mean, your life is a function of fractions and inches
0:30:43 and small decisions and small things that happen outside your control and timing and missing or
0:30:49 getting a, you know, a subway to somewhere. So I was trying to reflect on just how fortunate I am.
0:30:53 You’re tracking right now in terms of your currency in the marketplace, the skills you’re
0:31:00 developing, the economic base. The most rewarding thing that will happen to you will be finding
0:31:06 someone to have to build something with and to have kids with. I didn’t figure that out until
0:31:10 I was in my 40s. But that has been the most hands down, the most rewarding thing.
0:31:16 By the way, this is a personal question for me. Why did you wait so long?
0:31:17 I loved being single.
0:31:22 But you went off to business. I mean, it sounds like you were down to drop everything for a
0:31:25 partner, pretty young.
0:31:31 Yeah. But Ed, here’s the thing. She was much hotter than me. She was much, much hotter than me.
0:31:39 No, look, I, I’ve been married before and I didn’t like it. And I was fine.
0:31:44 When I moved to New York, I was 34. I was making good money. I was single and I really liked it.
0:31:49 I liked being selfish. I liked doing my own thing. I liked going to St. Bart’s and
0:31:55 having brunch with fabulous people and going out and getting shitty drunk. And I just loved it.
0:31:59 And I didn’t think I would ever, I didn’t think I would ever have kids.
0:32:00 Really?
0:32:01 Yeah. I didn’t want kids.
0:32:02 Why?
0:32:04 I just couldn’t stand being around them. Have you been around kids?
0:32:07 I think you are awful.
0:32:09 I’ve always assumed I’ll feel differently about mine.
0:32:13 You’re 100% right. I, I still am not interested in other people’s kids.
0:32:18 God reaches in your soul with your kids. And by the way, it’s a slow, it’s not a switch.
0:32:23 It’s a dim. After you have kids, you know, it’s not, I wasn’t in love with my
0:32:26 sons when they were right when they were born. It’s really true what they say. You kind of fall
0:32:31 in love with them. And, but I wasn’t planning on it, but I fell in love with someone who said,
0:32:34 I want to have kids. And I said, well, I’m not getting married again.
0:32:37 And she called my bluff and said, I don’t need to be married to have kids.
0:32:41 And so we pulled the goalie and we’re like pregnant three minutes later.
0:32:47 But having kids, it started out something terrifying and upsetting. And I wasn’t excited
0:32:53 about it. And it’s ended up being like literally, you know, I would say 70 to 80% of the real reward
0:33:00 and feelings of satisfaction. I have stem from something around family. And I love work,
0:33:04 but work is, it’s a ton of fun. It’s almost like a hobby at this point, because I’m in
0:33:09 the privileged position. I’m not needing to do anything. But really, when I think about work
0:33:14 and you guys, I want to pay you really well, even overpay you and try and train you to develop some
0:33:19 economic security like you’re doing such that you can focus on your relationships and your family.
0:33:36 Because as you get older, that’s what it’s all about. We’ll be right back.
0:33:42 This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.
0:33:47 Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab’s chief investment strategist,
0:33:52 and Kathy Jones, Schwab’s chief fixed income strategist, analyze economic developments and
0:33:58 bring context to conversations around equities, fixed income, the economy, and more. Join Kathy,
0:34:03 Liz Ann, and their guests as they share insights on what might be moving the markets and why,
0:34:06 as well as what indicators they are watching for signs of change.
0:34:11 They’ll also answer investor questions on everything from how sectors are evolving
0:34:15 to what the bond markets are telling us, to where to look for opportunities
0:34:20 and considerations for your portfolio. You can download the latest episode of On Investing and
0:34:31 subscribe so you never miss an episode at Schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcast.
0:34:36 This episode is brought to you by Mazda. When you drive a Mazda,
0:34:44 you’ll find out why RSUV’s won more 2024 IIHS top safety picks than any other brand
0:34:50 as of June 2024. Find out what makes Mazda different at mazda.ca.
0:34:55 This episode is brought to you by Dyson on Track. Dyson on Track headphones offer
0:35:00 best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range, making them perfect
0:35:05 for enjoying music and podcasts. Get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise-cancelling
0:35:10 enabled, soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort, and a range of colors and finishes.
0:35:17 Dyson on Track headphones remastered by fromdysoncanada.ca with ANC on performance may vary
0:35:20 based on environmental conditions and usage accessories sold separately.
0:35:32 We’re back with Prof. G. Markets. Scott, what’s in your wallet? What card gets used the most and why?
0:35:35 My amix black card because I’m trying to impress other people.
0:35:45 That’s right. Daddy throws down black. Hello. Hello, ladies. I pay $5,000 or maybe $7,500 a year
0:35:50 for a card that has no incremental benefits other than they took a visa and spray painted it black.
0:35:53 Is that right? There are no other benefits? Or you probably just don’t,
0:35:58 you can’t figure out how to use the points. I’m sure there are. I don’t use them.
0:36:05 Oh, my God. The benefits are so lame. They’re wine tasting in a hot air balloon in Napa Sonoma.
0:36:11 I was like, what am I, 80 fucking years old? It’s such lame shit and their travel agency
0:36:18 is so bad. It used to be good and now you’d much rather use Expedia. Expedia is 10 times better
0:36:25 than what amix offers in terms of travel services. They have their kind of amix benefits. They have
0:36:29 their late checkout thing, which occasionally I use it free room. I’m great, but I think you
0:36:35 get that with a platinum card. It is literally pure signaling. That is all it is. It is pure
0:36:42 signaling and I will do it until, until I’m dead. I will bury me with my Centurion card. I love that
0:36:46 thing. There’s some crazy stats. There used to be, I remember this a while ago, there were 10,000
0:36:51 black cards in America and 5,000 in Manhattan. I thought that was hilarious. Makes sense.
0:36:56 Let’s get another question here. Scott, you’ve had some personal beef with Elon Musk. Could you
0:37:03 explain what happened? Oh, no, I don’t have beef with him. I don’t know him. We just report on him
0:37:09 a lot. He said a couple of things about me online, which I think were mean, but no. I’ve probably
0:37:13 been more hostile towards him than he’s towards me because I don’t think he thinks about me a whole
0:37:18 lot. If you’re going to talk about technology and society, you’re going to talk about Elon Musk.
0:37:22 He is probably one of the defining, if not the defining character of our age.
0:37:30 And there’s some things I really admire about him. I think his brain, his fearlessness, his
0:37:36 innovation, his understanding of technology, his embrace of just massive risks doubling down after
0:37:41 he sold PayPal to try and build a rocket and a car company. It’s basically like every eight-year-old’s
0:37:46 fantasy. Like I want to build a rocket and a car company. I think it’s just an inspiration on a lot
0:37:51 of levels. And then there’s some things about him that trigger me. I think being critical of other
0:37:56 people’s parenting is sort of off limits. But when he puts this out there and tweets about it and
0:38:01 puts this out there for personal consumption, I think he’s inviting review. He said to Jordan
0:38:07 Peterson talking about the woke mind virus that he lost his son to the woke mind virus and that
0:38:14 his daughter went through transition. The way he describes it is that his son is dead.
0:38:22 And it is so rattling for a father to hear another father describe their child that way.
0:38:29 And when I think about how many young men look up to this guy and that the model he’s portraying
0:38:33 is so antithetical to the notion of what it means to be a man, in my view, there are some basics
0:38:39 about being a real man. And the first is that you move to protection. Like you don’t need to
0:38:45 understand gay people. You don’t need to understand whoever it is, what’s going on. The moment someone
0:38:53 is threatened, your first instinct as a man should be to protect. And that ground zero of that
0:38:59 is your family. And to ever say that, regardless of what you might feel about kids going through
0:39:06 transition or but to say that publicly that your child is dead to you, I just find that that is
0:39:14 such a terrible role model. It’s just such a just such a awful example for young men. And so I have
0:39:19 this like really conflicted view of the guy. And I don’t know, I used to think he was going to be a
0:39:25 net positive for society. But I worry that we’re training an entire generation of young men to
0:39:32 be coarse, to abuse your power to not pay people the severance you own them to spread conspiracy
0:39:39 theories that someone might be gay such that they have to move their home to spread conspiracy theory
0:39:46 about a gay love triangle of the speaker’s husband who’s who’s assaulted. I mean, it’s so it’s so
0:39:54 homophobic. It’s so transphobic. It just it’s like it’s just like the last role model that young men
0:39:59 should be looking up to. And the thing that’s so tragic about it is there’s so many amazing
0:40:04 reasons to look up to this guy, right? So it’s not a beef. I don’t think he thinks about me. He did
0:40:10 reach out to me via friend once and say, I think Scott’s been unfair. I’d like to meet with him.
0:40:15 And I didn’t want to meet with him. And I said maybe as an excuse, I said maybe some time we’ll
0:40:22 all get together for drinks or something. But I just find him, it’s like you were talking about
0:40:27 the classics. I feel like it’s a Greek tragedy. I mean, he’s think about this, Ed. He’s a man who
0:40:31 has I think 12 kids now and he doesn’t live with any of them. And he lives with a loaded gun next
0:40:38 to his bed. I don’t know. I’m very I probably he probably lives rent free in my brain much more
0:40:44 than he should. But no, that’s that’s about it. Enough about Musk. Ed, what is your relationship
0:40:48 like with your parents and your siblings? Well, my relationship with my parents, my siblings are
0:40:55 pretty good, but they’re very different. My parents are not together. And I think that
0:41:04 my relationship with my parents has been fraught at times. I think that’s the case with everyone.
0:41:14 And I think the biggest realization that I think pretty much every kid has is a lot of people
0:41:20 talk about this. But the idea that your parents are people too. I think that was a big one for me.
0:41:30 And learning how to get along with them at a very human level. Yeah, I found an interesting thought
0:41:38 with my parents recently, or in the past few years, where, you know, I was thinking, I really
0:41:42 want to understand my parents and I want to get to know them at like a very personal level.
0:41:50 And the only way that I can do that fully is by being able to be vulnerable with them.
0:41:57 And they also need to be vulnerable with me. I think as a parent, that’s probably very difficult
0:42:02 to do because your instinct is to protect your child, I would assume. And you don’t really want
0:42:08 to show your child the vulnerable side of yourself because you don’t want to fuck them up for whatever
0:42:14 reason. But I realize that it’s just something that I want to know about my parents. I want to know
0:42:20 what are the biggest mistakes that they made? What things do they wish they’d done differently?
0:42:26 What are they embarrassed about? What are they insecure about? Just that I have some notes moving
0:42:34 forward. And anyway, I sort of said this to my parents, but I also said, but I recognize it’s
0:42:38 probably difficult for you. So what I’m going to try to do, and I’ve been trying to do this in
0:42:46 general, is signal as best as I can to you that I’m fine. I’m never going to, I’ll ask for your
0:42:51 advice on things, but I’m never going to come running to you in like a crisis and be like,
0:42:56 you need to help me. I’m drowning. Like, you need to figure something out for me. Because
0:43:02 what I want to do is get to a point where I can interact with you as a peer,
0:43:08 and where you feel that you can express things you’re concerned about without this feeling that
0:43:17 you’re kind of, you know, placing undeserved burden on your child. And I want you to understand
0:43:22 that I’m strong enough and I’m capable enough to hear what you have to say and be empathetic towards
0:43:27 it. I think it’s great you’re thinking that way, especially at your age. That’s a lot more
0:43:33 self-actualized than I was at your age. But just a couple of things. As a parent, like you said,
0:43:39 you kind of said, I would be scared to come to them in a crisis. Like, what I find is I really
0:43:45 want my kids to know if they ever get in trouble, if the bills get too much, if they have their
0:43:54 heart broken, that they can come home, that I am their hammock safety net, like no judgment,
0:44:00 anything goes wrong, I should be your first call. And I think they want to know that. I think,
0:44:04 I mean, you’re impressive enough where I don’t think they’re going to have trouble treating
0:44:11 as a peer, but I think especially dads really want, as a dad, I really want my kids to come
0:44:14 to advice. I think one of the most, I don’t call it disappointing, but frustrating things for me
0:44:20 is, and I realize it’s natural, is not exaggerating. I’ll get 30 or 40 emails today from young men
0:44:25 looking for advice. My kids never asked me for advice. And it’s sort of like, I wish they would.
0:44:30 I wish at some point they would say, dad, occasionally they ask me for stuff, but not
0:44:38 really. Well, that’s super young, I mean. About to be 14 and 17. But so I just, let me put it
0:44:43 this way, don’t in any way think that you are coming to your parents for advice or comfort
0:44:48 is a burden. It’s what they want. It’s what makes them feel important and close to you.
0:44:54 And also just try and make a habit of calling your mom as often as possible,
0:44:57 just to say hi and check in. I think moms need that more than anything.
0:45:03 But the way you’re thinking is the right way, realizing their life here or their time here is
0:45:12 finite and making an effort to get to know them. Okay, something more fun. You’re a young single.
0:45:17 I’m actually not single anymore. What? Ed Elson. I thought we were close.
0:45:22 Actually, it’s not true. I don’t want to be close. But I thought I would have known that.
0:45:26 Okay. The fans want to know, are you willing to go public with this relationship?
0:45:28 Well, what does that mean? Yeah.
0:45:31 How did you meet? Who is it? How long have you been dating?
0:45:34 So she clearly, she has poor vision and poor judgment.
0:45:39 What happened? How did Ed Elson find someone?
0:45:44 I’ve known her for a really long time. We went to college together. We were
0:45:50 very good friends and it was kind of, it was very sort of random and we kind of at one point
0:45:55 realized that we really liked each other, which was interesting having been friends for a really
0:46:01 long time. So how long have you guys been dating? Quote unquote? Three months, I want to say.
0:46:06 Ed’s got a girlfriend. This is very exciting. Our producer has a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend.
0:46:11 This is very, everyone’s, this is, this is good. Everyone’s hooking up. I’m glad.
0:46:16 I’ve got a kind of sappy lost question here. Scott, are you proud of Ed?
0:46:24 Am I proud of Ed? Proud. No, the prouds, the proud’s the wrong word. I’m not proud of Ed.
0:46:28 Look Ed, you’re a, you’re a nice kid to have on this because I think you’re going to be a good
0:46:33 role model for other young men. I think you, you, you equate yourself well. I think you’re
0:46:37 reserved. I think you’re kind. I think you’re smart. You work hard. You give good financial
0:46:42 advice. I think you’re a good role model for young men. I can, I can hopefully, you know,
0:46:47 I can be somewhat of a role model by boasting about my success. You’re going to be a more
0:46:50 effective role model though, because they’re going to relate to you. They’re going to see
0:46:55 how you’re behaving and the mistakes you make and the victories you have. So when we, when we
0:47:00 were doing this podcast, I was, I thought it was really important to have a young person. And I
0:47:03 think it’s, I think it’s nice. I think you’re setting a good example for other young men.
0:47:10 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:47:14 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon.
0:47:17 Mia Silverio is our research lead and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:47:21 Thank you for listening to ProfG Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:47:24 We’ll be back with a fresh take on markets on Thursday.
0:47:26 [Music]
0:47:28 [Music]
0:47:38 [Music]
0:47:44 [Music]
0:47:48 [Music]
0:47:52 [Music]
0:47:56 [Music]
0:47:59 ♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪

0:00:02 This is an ad by BetterHelp.
0:00:05 What are your self-care non-negotiables?
0:00:07 It’s hard to make time for the things that keep you healthy,
0:00:11 but being consistent with self-care is like working a muscle.
0:00:14 And when life gets crazy, that muscle keeps you strong.
0:00:16 Therapy is the ultimate self-care,
0:00:18 and BetterHelp makes it easy to get started
0:00:21 with affordable online sessions you can do from anywhere.
0:00:24 Never skip Therapy Day with BetterHelp.
0:00:26 Visit betterhelp.com to learn more.
0:00:29 That’s better, H-E-L-P, dot com.
0:00:33 Your mom hates it when you leave six half-full glasses
0:00:34 on your nightstand.
0:00:37 It’s a good thing mom lives on the other side of the country.
0:00:39 And it’s an even better thing that you can get
0:00:43 six Ikea 365+ glasses for just $9.99.
0:00:45 So go ahead, you can afford to hoard,
0:00:47 because Ikea is priced for student life.
0:00:50 Shop everything you need for back to school at Ikea today.
0:00:56 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:59 Josh Brown, the CMBC commentator and hedge fund manager
0:01:01 has become one of our favorite people.
0:01:03 We asked him to do a guest post.
0:01:05 This is adapted from his forthcoming book,
0:01:07 You Weren’t Supposed to See That,
0:01:09 coming out September 4th.
0:01:12 Optimism as a Default Setting, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:18 At the turn of the 20th century,
0:01:22 banker J.P. Morgan was the most powerful man on Wall Street,
0:01:25 perhaps the most powerful man in the world.
0:01:28 Finance in those days was still the wild west,
0:01:32 largely unregulated and prone to boom and bust cycles,
0:01:35 much more violent than anything we see today.
0:01:39 On several occasions, Morgan personally orchestrated
0:01:41 emergency measures to stop bank runs
0:01:44 that might have otherwise taken down the financial system,
0:01:47 typically increasing his own wealth in the process.
0:01:53 Shortly after one of those near misses, the Panic of 1907,
0:01:57 an old friend of Morgan’s from Chicago came for a visit.
0:02:00 The friend was, in the phrase of Mark Scousen,
0:02:04 from whom I got this story, a perma bear.
0:02:07 No matter what the market did,
0:02:09 his outcome was always pessimistic.
0:02:14 As usual, he and Morgan got to talking about the markets,
0:02:18 and as usual, Morgan’s friend saw poor omens
0:02:20 in every market indicator,
0:02:24 while Morgan saw only buying opportunities.
0:02:27 Eventually they headed out for lunch,
0:02:30 and walking up Broadway, Morgan’s friend
0:02:32 was admiring the towering skyscrapers
0:02:36 that were starting to define the Manhattan skyline.
0:02:37 Impressed, he acknowledged
0:02:40 they had nothing like them in Chicago.
0:02:44 Eventually, Morgan stopped, turned to his friend.
0:02:49 Funny thing about these skyscrapers, he said,
0:02:51 not a single one was built by a bear.
0:02:57 Six years before that conversation,
0:02:58 Morgan had completed his purchase
0:03:02 of Andrew Carnegie’s entire steel operation
0:03:06 for the unheard of sum of $480 million,
0:03:09 hundreds of billions in today’s dollars.
0:03:14 You don’t do that deal and amass that kind of wealth
0:03:16 with a persistently negative outlook.
0:03:21 Count the perma bears on the Forbes 400 list
0:03:23 or the amount of pessimists who run companies
0:03:25 in the Fortune 500.
0:03:28 You will find none.
0:03:32 Winners and men and women of foresight and ambition
0:03:35 do monumental things.
0:03:38 Pessimists watch them from the sidelines,
0:03:42 making a list of all the reasons things won’t work out.
0:03:45 The losers do get to win sometimes too,
0:03:49 but their victories tend to be pyrrhic,
0:03:52 as every calamity ultimately leads to opportunity
0:03:54 when the dust clears.
0:04:00 In 2009, deep in the depths of the great financial crisis,
0:04:03 I saw Sam Zell speak to an audience
0:04:06 of real estate investors and developers.
0:04:11 He told us that kings will be made in that moment.
0:04:14 He had nothing left to sell anyone,
0:04:17 having blown out of his massive real estate holdings
0:04:20 just three years earlier in a time of optimism.
0:04:24 Old Sam had seen too many of these cycles.
0:04:27 He knew that you always bet on positive outcomes
0:04:29 and you bet heavily when you’re alone
0:04:32 on that side of the trade.
0:04:35 It doesn’t always work, but it mostly does.
0:04:39 Pessimism is intellectually seductive
0:04:42 and the arguments always sound smarter,
0:04:45 especially when they dovetail with our own worries.
0:04:49 In the early years of the recovery from that crash,
0:04:52 Sam’s advice, which Morgan would have echoed,
0:04:54 was hard to follow.
0:04:57 Even four years later in 2013,
0:05:00 when the stock market finally made it back
0:05:04 over the 2007 high, optimism was scarce.
0:05:09 I remembered distinctly how hesitant investors were
0:05:12 to think positively about the future back then.
0:05:15 On financial social media,
0:05:17 saying things might work out okay
0:05:21 was practically an invitation to be mercilessly ridiculed.
0:05:25 There were all sorts of reasons not to trust the recovery
0:05:27 and if you know anything about the media,
0:05:30 then you know they had been relaying these reasons
0:05:33 to us morning, noon, and night,
0:05:38 repeatedly admonishing us lest we get too optimistic.
0:05:41 Valuations were high, they said,
0:05:44 while earnings would surely disappoint.
0:05:46 Interest rates would rise.
0:05:49 Various debt crises would ensue.
0:05:51 Demographics were unfavorable.
0:05:55 Obama’s healthcare plan surely meant the end of America.
0:05:57 A looming government shutdown that fall
0:06:01 would surely be the nail in the coffin.
0:06:05 And yet, somehow none of those things would sink us.
0:06:10 2013 turned out to have been the best year for stocks
0:06:14 since the Halcyon days of the late 1990s.
0:06:17 The Dow Jones industrial average finished the year
0:06:22 up 26.5%, its best finish in 18 years.
0:06:28 The S&P 500 had its best annual return in 16 years,
0:06:32 capping out the year with an almost 30% return,
0:06:36 ending December at a new record level.
0:06:40 The NASDAQ soared 38.2%,
0:06:45 led by an emerging group of biotechnology and solar stocks
0:06:47 that put on an extraordinary show
0:06:50 for a new generation of growth stock enthusiasts.
0:06:55 According to S&P Dow Jones’ indices,
0:07:00 457 of the S&P 500’s large cap stock,
0:07:04 roughly 90% of the index components, were up on the year.
0:07:10 More than two thirds of them had gains of 20% or more.
0:07:15 A new car company came out of the woodwork that year,
0:07:18 and its relatively unknown CEO, Elon Musk,
0:07:21 appeared on the cover of Fortune Magazine
0:07:24 as businessperson of the year in December.
0:07:30 Tesla’s stock was up over 350% in 2013,
0:07:33 kicking down the door to a new era
0:07:38 while clearing the cobwebs of the Aught’s decade crisis away.
0:07:42 Tesla’s rise and Musk’s wholly unorthodox approach
0:07:45 to building his business represented the start
0:07:47 of something entirely different
0:07:48 from what we were accustomed to.
0:07:52 This brought out as many haters and doubters
0:07:55 as it did fans and acolytes.
0:07:58 What was clear to both sides, however,
0:08:00 was that something was changing.
0:08:04 Netflix had made its transformation
0:08:07 from the company that mailed you physical DVDs
0:08:09 to a streaming platform that changed
0:08:14 the way we watched television and movies forever.
0:08:17 Its stock rose 300% that year,
0:08:21 becoming one of the hottest growth stories in the market.
0:08:25 Best Buy mounted a notable comeback that year,
0:08:28 notching a 240% return for investors
0:08:31 who hadn’t given up on the company.
0:08:35 BlackRock shares returned more than 50%
0:08:39 as the stock market recovered and the company surpassed
0:08:42 all others in terms of assets under management
0:08:47 with the ETF giant breaking above $4 trillion.
0:08:50 For every negative you could have cited
0:08:54 about the environment of 2013 as stocks reached new heights
0:08:58 and smashed through a wall of skepticism.
0:09:01 There were plenty of reasons for optimism.
0:09:04 You just had to work a little harder to find them.
0:09:09 This was true then and it is true now.
0:09:11 It will always be true.
0:09:14 And despite all that we were worried about
0:09:16 and all of the unimaginable things
0:09:19 that have befallen us since then,
0:09:21 the stock market has been just fine.
0:09:26 Over the last 10 years, the S&P 500,
0:09:29 assuming the reinvestment of dividends,
0:09:34 has returned over 230% or roughly 12% per year.
0:09:39 Today, we are once again contending with all sorts
0:09:42 of other threats to our future wellbeing.
0:09:45 Earnings expectations, we are told,
0:09:49 must ultimately revert lower once companies run out
0:09:51 of price hikes they can put forth,
0:09:53 while the cost of employing people
0:09:57 and running a business will surely increase.
0:09:59 Profits are too high and must come down.
0:10:05 There’s the 2024 presidential election to be fearful of too.
0:10:09 As of this writing, the contest features, quote,
0:10:11 an unhinged insurrectionist criminal tyrant
0:10:16 who wants to wipe his ass with the constitution, unquote,
0:10:19 and a vice president who’s been thrust into the role
0:10:23 after her party chased the bumbling old man out
0:10:25 after having spent the last 18 months
0:10:30 telling us he was perfectly healthy and up to the job.
0:10:34 Surely, a nation of 350 million people could do better.
0:10:37 Somebody has to win,
0:10:38 despite the fact that millions of people
0:10:42 wish their choices were someone, anyone else.
0:10:47 So we’ll vote and live with the consequences.
0:10:50 A few people on the winning side will be elated.
0:10:54 Most of us will simply be relieved that it’s over
0:10:58 or possibly terrified by the prospect of what comes next.
0:10:59 There is more.
0:11:04 We’re surely on the precipice of World War III
0:11:07 with China, Iran, and Russia
0:11:11 allying themselves against Ukraine, Israel,
0:11:13 and the rest of the free world,
0:11:15 which the United States represents
0:11:18 and supports both financially and militarily.
0:11:22 We’ve got thousands of gas-lit students
0:11:27 and their mendacious professors openly supporting terrorism,
0:11:29 kidnapping, mutilation, rape,
0:11:32 and murder on college campuses across America.
0:11:37 TikTok’s China-controlled algorithms gleefully pump
0:11:40 the most divisive content they can surface
0:11:42 directly into the national bloodstream.
0:11:46 Higher interest rates have put the housing market
0:11:49 into a deep freeze.
0:11:52 You can’t buy and you most certainly can’t sell,
0:11:55 risking a 100% increase in your mortgage rate.
0:12:00 The national debt is ballooning by trillions of dollars
0:12:03 as the cost of servicing it all threatens to become
0:12:07 our budget’s single biggest annual line item,
0:12:09 potentially supplanting social security
0:12:11 and defense spending.
0:12:14 Gas prices are high.
0:12:15 The rents are even higher.
0:12:17 Food prices are outrageous.
0:12:20 Hotel rooms and flights are egregious.
0:12:22 And despite the fact that nearly everyone
0:12:24 has gotten a wage hike in recent years,
0:12:29 the cost of living still seems to have outpaced it.
0:12:33 Talk to the average person on the street
0:12:36 and there’s almost nothing good worth saying.
0:12:39 The polls are nearly unanimously negative.
0:12:42 It’s bad and likely to get worse.
0:12:44 What is bad?
0:12:47 What is likely to get worse?
0:12:49 I don’t know, it, everything.
0:12:52 Okay, nice talking to you.
0:12:58 My point is that it’s easy to make lists of the problems,
0:13:02 of everything that could go wrong or get worse.
0:13:05 I could do it with my eyes closed and so could you.
0:13:09 It’s much harder to have the imagination
0:13:14 and the courage to talk openly about what might go right.
0:13:17 What might improve?
0:13:20 What unexpected thing could have a remarkable impact
0:13:23 on how we work and live and change things for the better?
0:13:27 Paradoxically, these types of improvements
0:13:29 come along all the time.
0:13:32 Given the long-term trend toward progress
0:13:36 and convenience and lengthening lifespans,
0:13:37 we ought to be more comfortable
0:13:39 discussing the positives than we are.
0:13:44 But the bad stuff lands like a thud,
0:13:47 generating headlines and invoking worst case scenarios
0:13:50 that drown out the sound of anything else.
0:13:53 The good stuff creeps up on us,
0:13:57 occurring slowly and quietly in the background
0:14:00 as we gradually and unobservantly
0:14:03 grow acclimated to it without even realizing.
0:14:10 It’s rare for us to feel it or remark upon it in real time.
0:14:14 The media has no vested interest in reminding us of it.
0:14:19 But the optimists are eventually proven right,
0:14:24 not every day, but always and eventually, indisputably.
0:14:29 It just takes a while to be able to see it play out.
0:14:31 Even if you don’t believe me,
0:14:33 make your investment in the future anyway,
0:14:37 just in case I end up being right again.
0:14:39 Plant your seed regardless.
0:14:41 If you end up being right in your pessimism
0:14:43 many years from now,
0:14:45 we will all have bigger problems
0:14:48 than what our investments are worth.
0:14:52 Being optimistic all the time is difficult.
0:14:57 But having any other disposition as a default setting
0:15:00 makes little sense when you’re investing for a future
0:15:02 far out in front of us.
0:15:07 – Life is so rich.
0:15:09 (gentle music)
0:15:12 (gentle music)
0:15:16 (gentle music)
0:15:18 you

0:00:01 (upbeat music)
0:00:03 Support for Prop G is brought to you by Viori.
0:00:05 Are you sick and tired of traditional old workout gear?
0:00:07 Viori wants to provide you with a new perspective
0:00:08 on performance apparel.
0:00:10 Everything is designed to work out in,
0:00:13 but also look and feel great outside the gym as well.
0:00:15 Viori’s products are incredibly versatile.
0:00:17 You can wear them running, training, stretching,
0:00:18 or just lounging around.
0:00:22 Viori sent me the Elevate Core Shorts and Stratotec tee.
0:00:24 And I like the way they feel that form-fitting.
0:00:25 I feel strong in them.
0:00:26 I feel sleek in them.
0:00:28 I feel like a jungle cat.
0:00:31 Viori is an investment in your happiness.
0:00:32 For our listeners,
0:00:34 they are offering 20% off your first purchase.
0:00:36 Get yourself some of the most comfortable
0:00:39 and versatile clothing on the planet at Viori.com/PropG.
0:00:43 That’s V-U-O-R-I.com/PropG.
0:00:49 Support for the show comes from Mercury.
0:00:52 Financial operations are needlessly complex.
0:00:54 With Mercury, you can simplify them with banking
0:00:57 and software that power your critical financial workflows,
0:00:59 all within the one thing every business needs,
0:01:01 a bank account.
0:01:03 And with new bill pay and accounting integrations,
0:01:04 you can pay bills faster,
0:01:06 stay in control of company spend
0:01:08 and speed up reconciliation.
0:01:10 Apply in minutes at mercury.com.
0:01:13 Mercury, the art of simplified finances.
0:01:19 Episode 313,
0:01:20 through and through is Iarico,
0:01:22 covering Detroit, Michigan in 1913,
0:01:24 the first travel gas station opened
0:01:28 and the U.S. Post Office began parcel post deliveries.
0:01:28 True to it.
0:01:30 I like to be supportive of the post office
0:01:33 and I’m constantly paying mail escorts.
0:01:36 That’s good.
0:01:39 Go, go, go!
0:01:49 Welcome to the 313th episode of the PropG pod.
0:01:52 We are still on holiday as it’s August.
0:01:53 I’m going very European.
0:01:55 As a matter of fact, my other podcast, PIVITCH,
0:01:57 I had to just slip in a PIVITCH yesterday
0:01:59 and I was still August and I’m like,
0:02:02 what’s the point of Scott Free August if you have Scott?
0:02:03 It’s kind of the key to a luxury brand,
0:02:06 which I am not, but is scarcity.
0:02:08 And also the key to living past,
0:02:10 whatever middle of the past today,
0:02:13 is taking a lot of vacation.
0:02:14 Let’s bring this to me.
0:02:15 Let’s bring this to me.
0:02:19 I have basically from the age of 27 to 47,
0:02:22 pretty much didn’t do anything but work.
0:02:24 Cost me my hair, cost me my marriage.
0:02:25 And it was worth it.
0:02:26 It was worth it.
0:02:28 Okay, anyways, still on holiday.
0:02:30 So in place of our regular scheduled program,
0:02:33 we have a real treat for you.
0:02:35 One of the top podcasters in the world
0:02:39 and sort of talk about having a moment.
0:02:42 Here with us today in the podcast studio is Andrew Huberman.
0:02:45 We discuss with Andrew common misconceptions
0:02:47 surrounding health, nutrition and exercise.
0:02:49 And also ask a lot of questions
0:02:52 about testosterone replacement therapy.
0:02:53 Asking for a friend.
0:02:55 So with that, we hope you enjoy our conversation
0:02:59 with the founder and host of the Huberman Lab,
0:03:00 Andrew Huberman.
0:03:04 – Professor Huberman, what does this podcast find you?
0:03:06 – I am currently in Los Angeles.
0:03:07 Where are you?
0:03:11 – I’m in London, but I was telling the team here.
0:03:13 I was asked if there was anyone in the world
0:03:17 I wanted to have on this podcast, who would it be?
0:03:21 And of course I said Barack Obama, but you were number two.
0:03:23 You literally, we’ve been trying to figure this out
0:03:24 for six months.
0:03:26 So we really are excited to have you here.
0:03:28 Let’s bust right into it.
0:03:30 We’d love it if you could start us off with
0:03:33 two or three insights regarding
0:03:35 sort of slang conventional thinking
0:03:36 about our physiological health.
0:03:39 What are some things that we think we know
0:03:43 that we don’t about our health, our nutrition, exercise?
0:03:45 Go wherever you want.
0:03:46 – Sure.
0:03:49 Well, the first one I think will be surprising
0:03:52 only to some, but I think nonetheless
0:03:55 is really important to start off with, which is it?
0:04:00 There is so much evidence, both real world experience,
0:04:03 as well as now just fantastic science
0:04:06 to support the fact that sleep is the foundation
0:04:08 of our mental health and physical health.
0:04:11 And of course, by extension, performance in any endeavor.
0:04:16 Academic, cognitive, musical, mathematical, sports, et cetera.
0:04:17 Why do I say this?
0:04:20 Well, let’s just take the mental health piece.
0:04:24 There’s a beautiful study published not long ago
0:04:26 looking at over 80,000 subjects
0:04:30 where they essentially looked at these people’s relationship
0:04:34 to light during the daytime exposure to sunlight,
0:04:36 exposure to artificial light,
0:04:38 as well as exposure to light at night.
0:04:40 Something that we know disrupts things
0:04:43 like melatonin production, melatonin being important
0:04:46 for making us sleepy, and a bunch of other things too.
0:04:48 And essentially what they found
0:04:52 was that there are two separable components to light,
0:04:54 our sleep patterns and our mental health.
0:04:56 And the basic takeaway is the following.
0:05:00 People who strive to get ample amounts of light,
0:05:03 especially sunlight in their eyes early in the day,
0:05:05 as well as people who just have bright lights on
0:05:08 and get outside for a walk every once in a while,
0:05:09 look outside a window,
0:05:11 step onto a balcony during the day,
0:05:15 have far superior mental health than people that don’t.
0:05:17 In addition, people that suffer from,
0:05:18 and they looked at a huge number
0:05:21 of different mental health conditions,
0:05:26 depression, anxiety, PTSD, manic bipolar disorder,
0:05:28 those people experience diminished symptoms
0:05:30 of all those conditions.
0:05:32 Okay, so that itself is very important.
0:05:33 And it’s also important to point out
0:05:36 that screen light rarely is bright enough.
0:05:38 And indoor lights rarely are bright enough.
0:05:39 If you’re lucky enough to work in an environment
0:05:42 with a lot of big windows, floor to ceiling windows,
0:05:45 and get a few walks during the day, you’re doing great.
0:05:48 But most people are in relatively dark environments
0:05:51 during the day as it relates to this mental health thing.
0:05:53 The second thing that’s really important
0:05:57 is that darkness at night is a separable,
0:05:59 but also important component.
0:06:01 And I don’t think it gets as much attention
0:06:03 and that it really deserves attention.
0:06:04 For instance, in this study,
0:06:08 they showed that people that get nighttime light exposure
0:06:11 suffer far worse symptoms of all mental health conditions
0:06:12 than people that don’t.
0:06:13 And this is separate and different
0:06:15 from daytime light exposure.
0:06:17 This is what’s important to understand.
0:06:19 In addition, people that really strive
0:06:21 to darken their nighttime environment,
0:06:22 dim the lights towards sleep,
0:06:25 keep the sleep environment dark,
0:06:28 enjoying many, many physical and mental health benefits.
0:06:30 In fact, there was a study published
0:06:31 in the Persings and the National Academy of Sciences
0:06:34 not long ago that showed that even a fairly
0:06:37 lower intensity light in the room,
0:06:40 as one sleeps with eyes closed, presumably,
0:06:41 unless they have an eye mask on,
0:06:44 will disrupt morning glucose levels.
0:06:45 It’s a dramatic effect.
0:06:46 And so what is this telling us?
0:06:49 Does this mean we have to be in pitch black at night
0:06:52 and we have to be in bright sunlight all day long?
0:06:55 No, what this means is that we should all strive
0:06:58 to get some sunlight in our eyes early in the day
0:07:00 to brighten our work environment,
0:07:04 maybe include if you suffer from lack of energy
0:07:07 or diminished mood, whatever time of year,
0:07:09 not just in Scandinavia and the depths of winter,
0:07:12 but maybe invest a small amount of money,
0:07:14 and by the way, I don’t have any relationship
0:07:16 to these companies, a small amount of money
0:07:18 into a 10,000 lux LED.
0:07:20 These run $100 or less.
0:07:23 You can even use a ring light that’s designed for selfies.
0:07:25 You’re getting more photons, more light energy.
0:07:27 We know that this improves mental health
0:07:29 and physical health focus and energy
0:07:31 in dramatic ways, sunlight being the best.
0:07:33 And if people are concerned about excessive sunlight
0:07:35 because of sunburn, we can just quickly say
0:07:37 that when the sun is low in the sky,
0:07:39 low solar angle sunlight, as it’s called,
0:07:41 the UV index is very low.
0:07:42 So getting outside and getting some sunlight
0:07:44 in your eyes early in the day
0:07:47 is a absolutely important thing to do
0:07:48 for our mental health and physical health.
0:07:51 And then at night, making some attempt to dim the lights,
0:07:53 if you have to be on a screen, dim the screen,
0:07:54 there are other things one could do,
0:07:56 but dimming the lights and trying to make
0:07:58 that sleep environment dark,
0:07:59 the most inexpensive way to do that
0:08:03 is with a comfortable eye mask or something of that sort.
0:08:04 This seemed like simple things,
0:08:05 but what we’re really talking about here
0:08:09 is a primordial mechanism that is in all of us,
0:08:13 whereby photons, light energy, arriving at the eye
0:08:15 and then passing through the lens of the eye to the retina,
0:08:17 which is the essentially a piece of your brain,
0:08:19 believe it or not, you have two pieces of brain
0:08:21 lining the back of your eyes like pie crust,
0:08:23 activates a specialized set of neurons,
0:08:26 they’re called intrinsically photosensitive melanopsin
0:08:27 ganglion cells, but the name doesn’t matter.
0:08:30 And then they transmit an electrical signal
0:08:32 to an area of your brain that sits right above the roof
0:08:35 of your mouth called the suprachiasmatic nucleus
0:08:37 that sets in motion an enormous number
0:08:40 of things within your brain and body,
0:08:41 the release of certain hormones,
0:08:44 the release of certain neurotransmitters,
0:08:47 things like dopamine, serotonin, certain peptides,
0:08:49 that essentially if you do that in the early part of the day
0:08:52 and a few times throughout the day, that light exposure,
0:08:57 you’re going to be more awake, feel better,
0:08:58 physically and mentally throughout the day,
0:09:02 and you will have an easier time falling asleep at night.
0:09:05 Now, the tricky thing is that light exposure
0:09:07 in the evening and at night,
0:09:10 it doesn’t take very much in order to disrupt,
0:09:12 for instance, your melatonin activity.
0:09:13 There’s a wonderful laboratory
0:09:16 at Harvard Medical School, Charles Eisler’s lab,
0:09:18 that has shown that even 12 seconds
0:09:20 of very bright light in the middle of the night
0:09:21 will quash your melatonin levels.
0:09:24 Now, if that happens every once in a while, no big deal.
0:09:26 But if you’re somebody who is in a bright light environment
0:09:29 at 10 p.m. and having trouble staying asleep,
0:09:31 you know, you go to sleep at midnight, 12 30,
0:09:33 and then you are waking up at three in the morning.
0:09:36 Chances are your evening and nighttime light exposure
0:09:37 has something to do with that.
0:09:38 There could be other things too, right?
0:09:40 Too much caffeine late in the day, et cetera.
0:09:43 And this is a big part of what I believe is related
0:09:45 to the mental health crisis that we’re seeing
0:09:49 not just in young people, but in adults as well,
0:09:50 where people are waking up at the middle of the night,
0:09:51 they’re looking at their phone, you know,
0:09:54 then in the morning, they’re not feeling rested,
0:09:56 then they’re overindulging in caffeine.
0:09:57 And by the way, I love caffeine.
0:10:00 I’m a heavy user of caffeine, I’ll admit that.
0:10:02 Overindulging in caffeine, but they’re staying indoors
0:10:04 and putting on sunglasses, driving to work.
0:10:06 They’re in an environment that’s well lit enough
0:10:08 for them to, you know, carry out their duties,
0:10:11 but they’re never getting this strong circadian signal.
0:10:13 And we know that basically every mental health condition
0:10:15 is made worse by this type of behavior.
0:10:17 And that every mental health condition
0:10:18 that we are aware of is made better
0:10:21 through these simple zero cost adjustments
0:10:24 to our interactions with light.
0:10:26 – So Andrew, now do exercise,
0:10:27 and then I’m gonna ask you
0:10:29 to do the same thing for nutrition.
0:10:32 So with respect to exercise, it’s very clear,
0:10:36 moving our body, okay, exercise is essential
0:10:38 for immediate and long-term health.
0:10:39 And I don’t have to list off the reasons.
0:10:41 Cardiovascular health, which of course relates
0:10:42 to brain health.
0:10:44 As a neuroscientist, people ask me,
0:10:47 what’s the best thing I can do for my brain?
0:10:48 Keep my memory, et cetera, as I age
0:10:51 and be healthier mentally.
0:10:53 And it’s simple, get great sleep every night.
0:10:56 And then I explain one of the ways to do that.
0:10:58 And if you don’t get great sleep for a night,
0:11:00 have some things in place that we can talk about
0:11:01 to adjust for that.
0:11:03 So sleep is the foundation of that.
0:11:05 But then it’s exercise.
0:11:06 We need to move.
0:11:07 What does the literature tell us?
0:11:11 The literature tells us that we should all walk a lot.
0:11:12 Why?
0:11:14 Well, walking is, if you’re doing it briskly,
0:11:16 is that, you know, comes zone two cardio
0:11:18 that we hear a lot about these days.
0:11:22 That’s great for everything for metabolic health.
0:11:24 So managing glucose insulin and mitochondrial health,
0:11:25 et cetera, et cetera.
0:11:28 But we can break things down into a simple formula.
0:11:30 That I’ve been fortunate enough to have followed
0:11:32 for the last 30 plus years.
0:11:36 So I got into this when I was about 16, 48 now.
0:11:37 And it’s the following.
0:11:40 If you do three sessions of cardiovascular exercise
0:11:43 per week, in any format, I would say that you can do
0:11:45 without injuring yourself.
0:11:47 So for me, I like to run.
0:11:50 But actually, if I cycle, I end up with some back stuff.
0:11:51 And so I run.
0:11:53 I like to run or swim.
0:11:55 It’s a little hard to get access to a pool sometimes,
0:11:56 so I mainly run.
0:12:00 If you do three sessions per week, one longer session,
0:12:03 you know, say 45 to 60 minutes long, slow distance,
0:12:04 kind of just, you know,
0:12:06 just barely able to have a conversation,
0:12:08 maybe a little bit faster.
0:12:09 One session that’s a little bit quicker,
0:12:12 maybe 30 minutes where you’re pushing a bit harder,
0:12:14 you know, where it’s hard to hold a conversation,
0:12:16 but you’re not sprinting all out.
0:12:18 And then one session that is very brief,
0:12:21 maybe just 10, 15 minutes where, you know,
0:12:24 you do some sort of sprinting, not all out,
0:12:26 but, you know, 10, 15, maybe 20 seconds,
0:12:28 then rest 30 seconds to a minute,
0:12:32 and then repeat anywhere from five to eight times.
0:12:33 We know that if you do that,
0:12:36 you’re hitting a number of important metrics for health.
0:12:39 First of all, you’re creating that kind of base
0:12:40 of aerobic activity.
0:12:42 You know, this is not gonna prepare you
0:12:43 to be a marathoner, of course,
0:12:46 but you’re getting that zone-to-ish cardio
0:12:48 that’s good for so many things.
0:12:52 The faster clip exercise, which is slightly aerobic,
0:12:53 it was slightly anaerobic, excuse me,
0:12:56 but still mostly aerobic, where you get your heart rate up.
0:12:57 That’s gonna do a number of different things
0:13:00 in terms of your conditioning and your ability
0:13:01 to tolerate these, you know,
0:13:04 kind of more stressful cardiovascular sessions,
0:13:05 not just in these sessions, but in life.
0:13:06 And I’ll talk about that.
0:13:10 And then the shorter bout of exercise,
0:13:14 one day per week, is essentially giving you access
0:13:15 to your VO2 max, right?
0:13:17 It’s improving your VO2 max,
0:13:19 which is your ability to bring more oxygen
0:13:21 into your system overall for any number of reasons.
0:13:22 This is great.
0:13:25 Okay, let’s just translate why all that is great.
0:13:26 Well, first of all,
0:13:28 life involves sometimes taking a long walk,
0:13:30 hopefully with loved ones or a hike,
0:13:32 or you maybe carry a kid or a backpack
0:13:35 or a picnic basket some distance.
0:13:38 It sometimes involves sprinting for the flight
0:13:39 that’s gonna take off.
0:13:41 It sometimes involves doing some, you know,
0:13:43 hard work in the yard or moving stuff
0:13:46 or helping people with suitcases or helping a friend move.
0:13:49 These are like, these transfer to real-life conditions.
0:13:54 And I think the best exercise regimen has this translation
0:13:55 into real-world activities.
0:13:59 Now it’s also vital, and we know this for men and for women,
0:14:02 that we do some sort of resistance training.
0:14:03 That resistance training can be done
0:14:05 probably two or three days per week
0:14:08 and can be very effective done as whole body workouts,
0:14:11 keeping up, you know, three sets per major muscle group,
0:14:13 you know, three sets for quadriceps,
0:14:14 three sets for hamstrings,
0:14:17 three sets for biceps, triceps, back, chest shows,
0:14:18 you know, three times per week,
0:14:19 maybe two times per week
0:14:21 if somebody doesn’t have more time than that,
0:14:24 totally in a session of about an hour,
0:14:26 or you could split things up,
0:14:27 which is I’ve opted to do one day a week.
0:14:30 I, you know, train my legs ’cause that’s very important.
0:14:32 These are large muscle groups to keep strengthening the legs.
0:14:35 One day a week I train the torso,
0:14:36 you know, some pushing and some pulling,
0:14:39 you know, some dips, one to do push-ups.
0:14:40 This is also important that resistance training
0:14:42 doesn’t necessarily mean going to a gym.
0:14:43 You could have stuff at home
0:14:45 or you could just use body weight can be very effective
0:14:47 if you’re doing it correctly.
0:14:49 And then one day a week,
0:14:50 you know, your sort of biceps, triceps, calves,
0:14:53 maybe some additional abdominal work.
0:14:55 Some people like me are fans of training the neck
0:14:57 just for stability and postural purposes.
0:14:58 It’s not about having a big neck.
0:15:01 In fact, you know, I don’t think I’m particularly big neck
0:15:02 relative to my head size.
0:15:04 You know, it’s just, it’s about posture,
0:15:05 which is so important,
0:15:06 especially nowadays with all the texting.
0:15:09 Three days per week takes about an hour per session.
0:15:12 Of course there are, and most people focus
0:15:15 on the aesthetic consequences of this, right?
0:15:17 Because training with resistance
0:15:19 is one of these rare instances in life
0:15:21 where you actually get a window
0:15:22 into what the results will look like.
0:15:24 People, I should just say,
0:15:26 people who are concerned about getting too big,
0:15:27 keep this in mind.
0:15:29 You will never get any bigger
0:15:32 than you appear at any moment in the gym from a workout.
0:15:34 So that, but resistance training is peculiar
0:15:37 in the sense that, you know, like if you do a set of curls,
0:15:39 the biceps get bigger, but that’s transient,
0:15:40 but you’re getting a visual window
0:15:43 and a, you know, a sensory window
0:15:44 into what it’s going to look and feel like.
0:15:47 Should you give it proper rest and nutrition to recover?
0:15:48 That said, I should caution,
0:15:52 I think that the male audience mainly oftentimes
0:15:54 will get very excited about getting stronger
0:15:56 and will throw their bodies out of proportion
0:15:58 and will also make themselves subject to injury.
0:16:00 This is the guy with the big upper body, no legs,
0:16:03 or who is always complaining
0:16:05 because they insist on squatting heavy every time
0:16:06 or benching heavy or whatever.
0:16:09 So, but the point here is that resistance training
0:16:11 is not just about aesthetic changes.
0:16:14 It’s about keeping your muscle healthy as an organ,
0:16:15 which is vital for longevity.
0:16:18 It’s about the nerve to muscle communication
0:16:21 remaining healthy, which is vital to brain health.
0:16:24 In fact, many of the tests for things like Alzheimer’s
0:16:27 and other forms of dementia involve looking, for instance,
0:16:29 at changes in distal muscle size.
0:16:32 So, you know, atrophy of the calves as people age
0:16:34 is associated with age-related cognitive decline.
0:16:36 Now, these things are correlated, not causal,
0:16:38 but we know that people that resistance train in a way
0:16:41 that includes the distal portions of the limbs,
0:16:43 so that the calves, the legs, et cetera,
0:16:45 not just doing some, you know, pressing while seated,
0:16:47 you know, kind of simple stuff,
0:16:49 but more elaborate compound exercises,
0:16:51 being able to jump down off a block,
0:16:52 even if it’s a small block,
0:16:55 maintain cognitive function far, you know,
0:16:57 further into life than people who don’t.
0:16:58 And that has to do with the fact that, you know,
0:17:01 nerve transmission from what we call the upper motor neurons,
0:17:03 the neurons in the brain that control the lower motor neurons
0:17:06 and the spinal cord that then control the muscles,
0:17:09 that whole pathway is vital for essentially, you know,
0:17:11 brain-to-body communication.
0:17:13 And there’s feedback in a way that, you know,
0:17:15 it’s not going to reverse Alzheimer’s,
0:17:17 but it can certainly adjust the slope
0:17:18 of age-related cognitive decline,
0:17:20 which everyone experiences, you know,
0:17:23 in the correct direction, the direction you want.
0:17:24 So there’s that reason.
0:17:26 The other reason is when you have muscle
0:17:27 and you’re exercising your muscles,
0:17:29 even if you don’t have a lot of muscle,
0:17:31 you are improving your metabolic health.
0:17:33 You can eat more comfortably and know that,
0:17:36 especially protein foods are gonna be metabolized
0:17:38 and not converted into body fat stores.
0:17:41 You’re staving off different kinds of insulin resistance.
0:17:42 So what we’re basically talking about
0:17:43 is three days a week of cardiovascular training.
0:17:46 It might sound like a lot, but it’s one one hour session,
0:17:48 a 30-minute session and a 15-minute session.
0:17:51 And then we’re talking about two or three hours
0:17:53 per week of resistance training.
0:17:54 And that might sound like a lot,
0:17:56 but it goes by pretty quickly.
0:17:58 And, you know, there are a lot of different routines
0:17:59 for this out there.
0:18:00 You don’t need to purchase one.
0:18:02 Actually, at our podcast website,
0:18:04 we put a foundational fitness program
0:18:06 that’s zero cost to access.
0:18:07 You don’t even need to sign up.
0:18:08 If you want to sign up for a newsletter, you can,
0:18:10 but you just go to huberunlab.com,
0:18:13 go to newsletter, and just see the foundational fitness
0:18:15 protocol sets and wraps alternatives
0:18:18 for different exercise choice.
0:18:21 It is very important, and this is among the more important
0:18:23 points about exercise that I don’t hear often enough,
0:18:26 one of the best ways to get and stay in excellent shape
0:18:29 is to make sure that you do not get injured.
0:18:31 And this is super important.
0:18:33 It means easing all of this slowly over the course
0:18:36 of a month or two, if you’re not trained up.
0:18:38 Pick exercises, both for cardiovascular training
0:18:42 and for physical training that you can do consistently
0:18:43 without hurting yourself.
0:18:45 And I think people get a little too obsessed
0:18:46 with exercise variety.
0:18:50 Do the same things and use progressive overload
0:18:52 or slow the cadence or really focus more
0:18:54 on the muscle contractions.
0:18:56 Obviously, try and keep boredom at bay,
0:19:00 but one of the major ways that people get hurt,
0:19:01 and I hear this over and over again,
0:19:04 is a friend invites you to try a workout.
0:19:06 And even if you’re not a competitive person,
0:19:08 someone’s like, let’s go try this thing
0:19:10 and you take a class, taking a new class.
0:19:12 There’s always this new class, new workout,
0:19:13 or a friend invited me to do something.
0:19:15 And then you hear about it.
0:19:17 My back thing is out or my shoulder.
0:19:21 You can really throw off your entire health program
0:19:23 with a nagging injury.
0:19:25 So avoid those injuries as much as possible.
0:19:27 And this is true for the young folks and the older folks.
0:19:31 You really, really want to guard your physical health.
0:19:33 Unless you’re a competitive athlete,
0:19:36 your goal is to train five to six times per week
0:19:38 and get a full day of rest once per week.
0:19:40 Your whole life, I hate to say it.
0:19:41 You can take a week off every once in a while.
0:19:43 If you get, usually for me, that’s if I get you,
0:19:46 you know, a cold or a flu or travel or something,
0:19:48 or you’re not sleeping well because of life stress,
0:19:51 but not getting hurt is so key.
0:19:55 So pick exercises that allow you to train hard enough
0:19:56 and not get hurt.
0:19:58 And then the last point about this is I think
0:20:01 about 85 to 90% of workouts
0:20:05 should be at about 85 to 90% of what you could do.
0:20:10 So for instance, not every set to failure,
0:20:14 not every run needs to end with a sprint.
0:20:16 You know, if that sprint is something in you
0:20:18 and you want to do it, don’t go all out.
0:20:20 And then I would say the remaining workouts
0:20:22 could be at a slightly higher intensity.
0:20:25 But don’t worry about keeping some gas in the tank.
0:20:27 Also for people that aren’t athletes,
0:20:30 keep in mind if you do a hard resistance training workout
0:20:32 in the morning, you’ll have more energy,
0:20:33 but in the afternoon, you’ll tend to be tired.
0:20:35 And that has to do with oxygen uptake.
0:20:37 You can get a divert away from the brain.
0:20:39 So there’s exercise, I think in a nutshell.
0:20:41 – And nutrition?
0:20:44 – Yeah, so this is a fun one because never
0:20:47 in any scientific or health community
0:20:50 have I seen more fighting about anything.
0:20:54 It’s almost amusing how much fighting occurs around this.
0:20:56 And I think at the same time,
0:20:59 there’s a key principle that emerges from all of it
0:21:01 that everyone seems to agree on,
0:21:04 which is that it is going to be best to get the majority,
0:21:06 meaning 75 to 100 if you’re really strict,
0:21:11 but 75% or more of your food intake from non-processed
0:21:13 or minimally processed foods.
0:21:16 Now, is it the case that processed foods are terrible?
0:21:20 Well, they can be, but the reason getting the majority
0:21:22 of one’s food intake from non-processed
0:21:23 or minimally processed foods.
0:21:26 So this would be, if it’s in your nutrition plan,
0:21:28 you know, things like meat, fish, eggs,
0:21:33 chicken, fruits, vegetables, rice, oatmeal, pastas,
0:21:38 things like that, is that it sets you up to eat foods
0:21:41 that have macronutrients, of course,
0:21:42 protein, fat, and carbohydrates,
0:21:45 but also micronutrients that you need
0:21:48 and that generally tend to be pretty filling
0:21:50 compared to more processed versions of those things,
0:21:51 packaged version.
0:21:53 Now, does that mean that rice is a,
0:21:56 because it comes in a package, is a processed food?
0:21:58 Well, sort of, that’s, I didn’t say minimally,
0:22:00 but when you produce a sort of single ingredient food,
0:22:03 of course you can put other things in it, right?
0:22:06 Butter, olive oil, nuts in low quantity
0:22:07 seem to be healthy for us.
0:22:11 Nuts and seeds in low quantity, they’re very calorie dense.
0:22:14 And then of course, it’s up to you, or all of us,
0:22:17 to decide you want to be a vegan, a vegetarian,
0:22:18 and omnivore, which I happen to be,
0:22:21 or there are these carnivore folks.
0:22:23 So we, you could be in any one of those categories,
0:22:25 and the first thing I said would still be true.
0:22:28 The other thing that we know is immensely important
0:22:30 is to support the gut microbiome,
0:22:32 because it has relationship to brain health,
0:22:34 immune system health, cognitive function,
0:22:36 and of course we have microbiomes in our nose,
0:22:38 in our urethral, our eyes, you know.
0:22:41 But the gut microbiome is so vital.
0:22:43 And the best way to support the gut microbiome
0:22:46 is to consume one to four servings
0:22:48 of low sugar fermented food per day.
0:22:49 These exist in all cultures.
0:22:54 So things like kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, Greek yogurt,
0:22:58 again, low sugar versions of these, low sugar kombucha,
0:23:02 you know, it is not necessary to take pill form probiotics.
0:23:03 It’s not, if you’re doing this.
0:23:05 It’s also important to get enough prebiotic
0:23:07 and probiotic fiber, which you’ll get
0:23:08 if you’re consuming fruits and vegetables.
0:23:11 And we all know dark leafy vegetables,
0:23:13 fruit with colorations of berries,
0:23:14 although berries can be kind of expensive,
0:23:17 but if you can afford them some berries,
0:23:20 you know, oranges, you know, the kind of rainbow of fruits,
0:23:24 they, those also include, of course, fiber.
0:23:26 And of course we know that excess sugar isn’t good.
0:23:28 Now people who really understand nutrition
0:23:31 will say, well, it’s calories in, calories out.
0:23:32 It’s the laws of thermodynamics.
0:23:34 So yes, you can lose weight on a, you know,
0:23:36 on a hamburger and milkshake diet
0:23:40 if it’s, you know, less calories than you burn each day.
0:23:41 But you’re going to lack micronutrients.
0:23:42 You’re not going to get enough fiber.
0:23:44 Your gut microbiome will suffer.
0:23:47 And so by eating mostly whole foods
0:23:48 and minimally processed foods
0:23:50 and thinking a bit about the gut microbiome
0:23:53 with respect to fiber, prebiotic and probiotic fiber,
0:23:56 so fruits and vegetables, as well as ingesting
0:23:58 some low sugar fermented food each day,
0:24:01 you’re going to feel significantly better.
0:24:03 Your weight management, if that’s your thing,
0:24:05 is going to be far easier.
0:24:08 There’s also something that is starting to emerge
0:24:09 in the literature.
0:24:11 And Kevin Hall at NIH is doing work in this area,
0:24:13 but people in this general space are starting to talk about,
0:24:17 which is when you eat foods close to their whole
0:24:20 or minimally processed state,
0:24:23 the brain can make the correlation.
0:24:28 It’s a subconscious correlation between kind of food taste,
0:24:32 volume, macronutrient content.
0:24:33 So like if you eat, for instance, a steak,
0:24:37 or let’s say an orange, in either case, you’re tasting that.
0:24:40 There are also amino acids from the steak going to your gut.
0:24:42 Your gut is actually signaling your brain unconsciously
0:24:45 about how much more to eat and signal satiety centers.
0:24:47 And there’s this whole learning.
0:24:51 It’s a system, a neural system, and a hormonal system
0:24:52 that’s very prone to learning,
0:24:54 so that you start to associate your appetite
0:24:56 with how much you need to eat
0:24:58 in order to get the proper amount of amino acids,
0:25:01 which is largely why we eat, I’m going to talk about this,
0:25:05 the amino acid foraging idea, plus essential fatty acids.
0:25:08 And we tend to get better at not overeating
0:25:10 for what we need, right?
0:25:12 We tend to get enough of what we need, but not eat too much.
0:25:15 Now, when you eat foods in combination like a sandwich,
0:25:16 that’s not a bad thing.
0:25:18 I love a really good sandwich,
0:25:21 but it’s harder to ascertain
0:25:24 what you’re getting from each component.
0:25:27 And people often will overeat foods in combination.
0:25:30 So it doesn’t mean you have to eat every ingredient separately,
0:25:32 but there’s a lot of learning that takes place
0:25:33 when one moves more towards whole foods
0:25:35 or minimally processed foods.
0:25:38 And this is, I believe, and this is just hypothesis.
0:25:39 This is one of the reasons why
0:25:41 when people go on an elimination diet,
0:25:44 like they decide to just eat meat or become vegan
0:25:47 and really focus on healthy fruits and vegetables,
0:25:48 that they feel so much better
0:25:51 and often lose a lot of weight.
0:25:54 They must still be obeying the calories in and calories out,
0:25:56 laws of thermodynamics in order to lose weight,
0:25:58 burning more than they consume, that is.
0:26:02 But there’s a learning there at the level of the brain
0:26:04 and the body of, oh, when I eat this,
0:26:06 it’s very satisfying, feels nutritious.
0:26:09 When we’re eating highly processed foods,
0:26:11 there’s a tendency to bring, and we know this
0:26:14 by beautiful paper published a few years ago,
0:26:17 people tend to over consume food.
0:26:20 They don’t register their satiety as well.
0:26:22 So this would be like macaroni and cheese and muffins
0:26:25 and things like that, things that could survive
0:26:27 on the shelf a very long time,
0:26:29 even in their final ready-to-eat form.
0:26:32 And when people eat those foods,
0:26:36 I don’t think it’s just a disruption of metabolic health,
0:26:37 which we know occurs over time,
0:26:40 but also a disruption of the brain-to-body communication
0:26:44 around what we need, what’s satisfying, and what’s enough.
0:26:47 So this business of how the brain and body learn
0:26:49 to associate experience with nutrition,
0:26:51 with what’s healthy for us and what’s unhealthy for us
0:26:55 is both cognitive and conscious, as well as unconscious.
0:26:58 And it relates to the fact that we are largely
0:27:00 amino acid foraging and fatty acid foraging.
0:27:01 It is true, there’s no such thing
0:27:03 as an essential carbohydrate,
0:27:05 but most people, including myself, enjoy carbohydrates,
0:27:08 and they do provide fuel for certain forms of exercise.
0:27:10 And in my experience, I can think better
0:27:12 when I have eaten some carbohydrates,
0:27:14 at least in the previous few days.
0:27:16 We’ll be right back.
0:27:21 Support for Prop G comes from Life360.
0:27:23 We all know the feeling.
0:27:24 You’re about to walk out the door,
0:27:26 you do the phone keys wallet pat down,
0:27:28 and realize your wallet isn’t in your pocket.
0:27:30 It isn’t on the table or the nightstand,
0:27:32 or even yesterday’s pants.
0:27:34 Now what, what are we gonna do?
0:27:37 Next time, skip the hassle and stock up on pile trackers.
0:27:38 You can attach them to your keys,
0:27:40 slip one in your wallet, or anything else
0:27:41 you don’t wanna lose.
0:27:44 You can even put one on your pet’s collar.
0:27:45 Anytime you need to find something,
0:27:48 you can use the Life360 app to either ring your tile,
0:27:51 or track down its location if it’s really lost.
0:27:52 You can even track a stolen item
0:27:53 without tipping off thieves.
0:27:55 There’s also a lost and found QR code
0:27:57 that if someone finds your keys,
0:27:59 they can easily get in touch with you.
0:28:01 And if you lose your phone and can’t access the app,
0:28:04 get this, you can double click on your tile,
0:28:06 and it’ll ring the phone even if it’s on silent.
0:28:08 So I can relate to this,
0:28:11 I’m always about five minutes away from losing my keys.
0:28:13 You can keep track of what’s important to you with tile.
0:28:16 Visit tile.com today and use code “PROFG”
0:28:19 to get 15% off all tiles.
0:28:21 That’s tile.com code “PROFG”.
0:28:26 Support for “PROFG” comes from Mint Mobile.
0:28:29 Some things get better when they’re complex, like paella.
0:28:30 Rice, that’s simple,
0:28:33 but then you mix it with a million spices and ingredients.
0:28:36 It’s delicious, not everything can be paella, though.
0:28:37 Take phone contracts, for example.
0:28:39 They’re complicated, they suck,
0:28:41 and they taste way worse than paella.
0:28:43 Mint Mobile is here to make wireless
0:28:44 a whole lot simpler and affordable.
0:28:46 By switching to Mint Mobile,
0:28:47 you can get premium wireless service
0:28:49 for just $15 a month.
0:28:52 You get unlimited talk and text and high-speed 5G data.
0:28:54 Plus, you can bring your own phone and phone number
0:28:56 when you get a new Mint Mobile plan.
0:28:58 To get this new customer offer
0:28:59 and your new three-month premium wireless plan
0:29:02 for just 15 bucks a month,
0:29:04 go to mintmobile.com/propg.
0:29:06 That’s mintmobile.com/propg.
0:29:09 Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month
0:29:12 at mintmobile.com/propg.
0:29:14 $45 up from payment required.
0:29:15 Equivalent to $15 a month.
0:29:17 New customers on first three-month plan only.
0:29:20 Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:29:23 Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.
0:29:25 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:29:31 Support for the show comes from Mercury.
0:29:33 Mercury knows your financial operations are complex.
0:29:34 Founders and finance names
0:29:36 have to pull together different tools,
0:29:38 reconcile transactions from different sources,
0:29:40 and struggle to get accurate answers.
0:29:43 With Mercury, you can simplify your operations
0:29:44 with banking and software
0:29:46 that power your critical financial workflows,
0:29:49 all within the one thing every business needs,
0:29:50 a bank account.
0:29:52 And with new bill pay and accounting capabilities,
0:29:54 you can pay bills faster,
0:29:55 stay in control of company spend,
0:29:57 and speed up reconciliation.
0:29:59 Apply in minutes at mercury.com
0:30:01 and join over 200,000 ambitious startups
0:30:04 that trust Mercury to provide the precision control
0:30:06 and focus they need to transform their financial workflows
0:30:09 so they can perform at their best.
0:30:13 Mercury, the art of simplified finances.
0:30:16 Mercury is a financial technology company in Audubank.
0:30:18 Banking service is provided by Choice Financial Group
0:30:21 and Evolve Bank & Trust, members FDIC.
0:30:31 So I’m trying, I’m 59.
0:30:34 I look at my health holistically, good on sleep,
0:30:38 okay on nutrition, what kills me is travel and alcohol.
0:30:40 And I wanna break this down.
0:30:41 I’m trying to reduce,
0:30:43 I just drink a shit ton of alcohol.
0:30:45 I believe what Winston Churchill said,
0:30:47 I’ve got more out of alcohol than it’s gotten out of me.
0:30:50 I’m good at it, not an addictive personality.
0:30:51 I’d really enjoy it.
0:30:54 But as I get older, I realize my 59-year-old liver
0:30:55 just can’t process things
0:30:57 the way a 29-year-old liver can process.
0:31:00 So I’m purposely trying to wind it down.
0:31:02 At the same time, just being very transparent,
0:31:04 I love to be high.
0:31:06 And I love the feeling of being
0:31:07 under the influence of substances.
0:31:08 And so I have-
0:31:10 Which substances are your-
0:31:12 Well, I don’t really do a lot of stuff.
0:31:16 What I’ve done is I’ve tried to dial back alcohol
0:31:18 and I’m doing edibles now.
0:31:20 And I do edibles two, three times a week.
0:31:22 They help me sleep, I enjoy them.
0:31:24 I realize there’s no free lunch here.
0:31:26 But if it’s realistically,
0:31:28 if a lot of people you speak to
0:31:30 who are like to think of themselves as high-performing people
0:31:34 but also enjoy the right term is.
0:31:35 I need a more optimistic term
0:31:37 than getting fucked up or partying or whatever.
0:31:40 But recognize they need to reduce their alcohol intake.
0:31:43 One, is there a type of alcohol that’s less punishing?
0:31:47 And two, if you are going to do THC or something else,
0:31:50 is there something that on a risk-adjusted basis
0:31:53 has the highest ROI in terms of feeling good
0:31:55 to minimum damage on your body?
0:31:58 Let’s assume I am never going to be Andrew Huberman.
0:32:01 I’m just not going to be fully optimized.
0:32:04 I want to run at 80 to 90%,
0:32:06 but also quite frankly,
0:32:09 give into a lot of the guilty pleasures around substances.
0:32:13 What is the old Navy of substance abuse
0:32:16 where I get 80% of the high for 50% of the damage?
0:32:19 – Great questions.
0:32:24 And I should say, optimization is something
0:32:27 that we have to think about on a day-to-day basis.
0:32:28 So it is true.
0:32:30 I did rounds of sauna and cold this morning.
0:32:32 I did, I did.
0:32:34 I got up really early, a friend came over.
0:32:35 I haven’t seen him a while ago.
0:32:38 Earlier than I would have liked and did sauna and cold.
0:32:40 And I did train yesterday, but there are days,
0:32:45 I miss days and it happens and life.
0:32:46 So I don’t want to give the impression
0:32:51 that my entire life is geared around protocols
0:32:52 to the point where I don’t do other things.
0:32:54 I went out to dinner with friends last night.
0:32:55 I experienced stress in life.
0:32:57 We could talk about that, like anyone else.
0:33:02 So I would say this, figure out the minimum amount
0:33:05 of alcohol that you’re happy to drink
0:33:08 that makes you feel like you’re living life.
0:33:10 So maybe that’s a drink a night.
0:33:11 Maybe that’s two a week.
0:33:14 Maybe that’s stacking a few more toward the weekend,
0:33:16 whatever’s gonna work there.
0:33:18 And provided that your sleep is good,
0:33:20 meaning we know it’s gonna disrupt
0:33:21 your sleep architecture somewhat,
0:33:23 but provided that you don’t have
0:33:25 excessive daytime sleepiness,
0:33:27 provided that you are not getting
0:33:29 an increased frequency of colds and flus,
0:33:30 you’re accomplishing your work,
0:33:32 I would say you’re doing great.
0:33:35 Especially since you’re visibly fit.
0:33:39 If you can do the three cardio vascular training sessions
0:33:41 and the two, this is the training sessions
0:33:44 that I just described without dissolving
0:33:47 into a pile of cells on the floor afterwards,
0:33:50 even when you’re doing a 85% of intensity
0:33:53 or let’s say 85% intensity of what you could do,
0:33:55 you’re doing great, you’re doing great.
0:33:59 Now, with respect to alcohol,
0:34:01 the stress lowering properties
0:34:05 and the fact that it is often associated
0:34:07 with social events and the fact that
0:34:09 this is related to stress somewhat,
0:34:11 but it also takes our mind off of things
0:34:13 we probably don’t wanna think about.
0:34:15 It marks a transition point
0:34:17 for a lot of people at the end of the day.
0:34:19 It’s hard to dump thoughts.
0:34:21 So like, okay, they have a drink
0:34:22 and then they’re like into the evening
0:34:24 and then next morning they’re up and at it again.
0:34:27 That’s a perfectly healthy and understandable thing.
0:34:28 Now, with respect to cannabis,
0:34:30 so this is interesting,
0:34:32 I just did a four hour interview,
0:34:35 it hasn’t been released yet with a researcher
0:34:36 who works on cannabis.
0:34:38 I’ve done a solo episode about cannabis
0:34:40 and this interview was actually sparked
0:34:43 by a clip that we had put on Twitter on X
0:34:46 and then he jumped at it.
0:34:48 He insisted certain things in it were wrong
0:34:49 and then he came in and we had a discussion
0:34:51 and turns out we’ve realized far more things
0:34:52 than we disagree about.
0:34:54 Let’s put it this way.
0:34:56 There is some evidence, some,
0:35:00 that high potency, meaning high THC cannabis use
0:35:03 may exacerbate or be correlated
0:35:06 with serious mental health issues,
0:35:08 psychosis in some people.
0:35:10 But obviously that’s not happening for you.
0:35:11 Here’s what I learned from him,
0:35:12 which is very interesting.
0:35:15 We hear so much about how today’s cannabis
0:35:17 isn’t yesterday’s cannabis.
0:35:21 You know that weed in the 70s was so much milder
0:35:22 than weed today.
0:35:23 And indeed that’s true.
0:35:26 It’s being engineered, grown,
0:35:28 to have much higher concentrations of THC
0:35:30 or varying levels of THC,
0:35:32 so one can select what they like.
0:35:35 In smoked form or vaped form,
0:35:37 this is what I learned.
0:35:41 People are remarkably good at adjusting their,
0:35:44 let’s just call it like the depth and number of toks
0:35:49 in order to achieve a fairly consistent blood level of THC.
0:35:54 So if they happen to have higher concentration cannabis,
0:35:55 and by the way, I also learned,
0:35:56 and I’ll just pass this along for folks,
0:35:59 ’cause as I learned, I like to pass things along,
0:36:00 there are reasons why it’s,
0:36:02 you’re not supposed to call it marijuana anymore.
0:36:06 There’s a whole story there that’s laid to cultural issues
0:36:09 and some issues potentially related to racism.
0:36:13 It’s very, so just as they say, look it up,
0:36:15 you know, or look it anywhere, right?
0:36:18 It’s interesting, so that’s why I’m calling it cannabis, okay?
0:36:20 Cannabis or weed, so in smoked form,
0:36:22 people seem to be very good at regulating their intake
0:36:27 to achieve a kind of a fairly consistent level
0:36:32 of THC in the blood from one intake session to the next.
0:36:36 Edibles, however, it’s far more difficult
0:36:38 to regulate the blood level
0:36:41 because one can eat a whole cookie or eat an edible
0:36:42 or eat half a cookie,
0:36:44 and so unless you’re using the same source,
0:36:46 this is where people sometimes find themselves
0:36:49 in a very different mental state than they intended.
0:36:51 Now, is there tolerance, is it addictive?
0:36:53 These things are still heavily debated.
0:36:55 I would argue, and this is not based
0:36:56 on randomized controlled trial,
0:37:00 that people who are heavy cannabis users,
0:37:01 when they don’t have their cannabis,
0:37:03 they get pretty cranky
0:37:05 because a lot of people use it to manage anxiety,
0:37:07 and there’s some interesting studies taking place
0:37:09 about looking at genetic polymorphisms
0:37:11 and tendency for anxiety in people
0:37:14 who really prefer cannabis to other drugs
0:37:17 because it does seem to be, for them,
0:37:18 a way to adjust their anxiety.
0:37:21 I will say that taking cannabis before sleep
0:37:22 may help you fall asleep.
0:37:26 It is definitely, Dr. Matt Walker talks about this,
0:37:27 the world expert on sleep, really.
0:37:29 It’s dramatically reducing the amount
0:37:31 of rapid eye movement sleep that you’re getting.
0:37:34 So if you are in a stage, or a phase of life
0:37:35 where things are particularly stressful,
0:37:37 keep in mind that rapid eye movement sleep
0:37:39 is when neuroplasticity and learning occur,
0:37:41 but also where we learn to uncouple
0:37:43 the emotional load of daily experiences,
0:37:46 largely through the experience of vivid dreams.
0:37:48 And this is why when people come off of cannabis,
0:37:51 they oftentimes get very, very intense dreams
0:37:53 because there’s a REM rebound.
0:37:54 So just keep that in mind,
0:37:56 but if your life is in order
0:37:57 and you’re not experiencing excessive stress,
0:38:00 and like you, you don’t have an addictive personality
0:38:03 and you like an edible every now and again,
0:38:04 you know, I never tell people what to do
0:38:06 as long as you know what you’re doing.
0:38:07 I don’t think there’s any evidence
0:38:11 that it’s bad for other aspects of health.
0:38:15 Is it going to make you better remembering things?
0:38:16 Probably not.
0:38:19 If you’re high while you’re trying to learn things,
0:38:20 and there’s a whole literature there
0:38:23 that people often misunderstand where they hear,
0:38:25 well, if you’re gonna learn on under the influence
0:38:28 of a given drug that you should then get tested
0:38:29 while under the influence of a given drug.
0:38:30 And that’s not true.
0:38:33 It just turns out that people who use a drug like alcohol
0:38:37 or cannabis consistently while studying for their bar exam,
0:38:40 just get better at cognitively performing
0:38:42 while under the influence.
0:38:44 But that’s not a reason to do more of it.
0:38:47 So I would say it sounds like you’re in a really healthy range.
0:38:49 And like I said, you’re visibly fit.
0:38:52 Your life, presumably, is more or less how you want it.
0:38:57 And so, edible a couple days a week at the appropriate dose
0:39:00 where you know you’re not gonna get past that threshold.
0:39:02 So don’t let someone give you an edible and say,
0:39:05 hey, this is great and go cookie for cookie
0:39:07 with what you normally take.
0:39:10 That’s a cautionary note.
0:39:12 – I went to this event called Summit.
0:39:14 And it’s sort of the way I describe it as learning man.
0:39:17 It’s a cross between Ted and Burning Man.
0:39:20 I actually can totally see you there speaking.
0:39:21 I’m sure they’ve asked you to speak there.
0:39:23 And I really enjoyed it.
0:39:27 It was on a cruise ship on this Virgin Cruises ship.
0:39:29 And I went up to grab a drink at the bar
0:39:30 and he said, oh my God, someone ordering alcohol.
0:39:32 And I said, what do you mean by that?
0:39:33 And he said, none of these kids,
0:39:35 you know, they’re all in their 30s high performing,
0:39:39 very successful people in the tech industry.
0:39:41 And within about 30 minutes, someone came up to me
0:39:43 and offered me mushroom chocolates.
0:39:46 And what I figured out is there’s this movement
0:39:50 among aspirational, high achieving young people
0:39:53 to substantially reduce their alcohol intake,
0:39:55 but they still wanna be high.
0:39:56 And they’re doing mushroom chocolates
0:39:58 and a mix of all kinds of other shit
0:39:59 that I couldn’t even figure out
0:40:03 or remember all the acronyms.
0:40:05 But they’re basically have decided,
0:40:06 and I think in general,
0:40:07 wealthy people wanna believe
0:40:09 they always have a better mousetrap,
0:40:12 but they had decided I’m gonna nurse one drink
0:40:14 and then I’m gonna do my mushroom chocolates
0:40:15 or something else.
0:40:18 Can you give me a sense or A, that trend
0:40:21 and B, what you think, is there an upside to it
0:40:23 or is this again, wealthy people liking to think
0:40:25 that they’ve found something better?
0:40:26 – But I don’t think it’s just wealthy people.
0:40:30 I think we’re seeing this trend away from alcohol.
0:40:31 Although there’s still a lot of this country
0:40:32 in the rest of the world
0:40:33 to now call it a regular basis.
0:40:35 And in some sense, in a healthy way, right?
0:40:39 Like shot of liquor, you know.
0:40:40 I mean, I love Russian Banyas.
0:40:42 I go to, ’cause I love sauna and cold.
0:40:45 And so if you go to a proper Russian Banya,
0:40:48 there’s not just gonna be sauna and cold.
0:40:51 The Russians there are gonna have a couple shots
0:40:53 of alcohol also.
0:40:56 So they know how to do it for them.
0:40:59 So here’s what I feel obligated to say.
0:41:02 First of all, the clinical trial data
0:41:04 on psilocybin mushrooms for the treatment
0:41:07 of major depression is very impressive,
0:41:09 but it’s still illegal.
0:41:11 And those are high dose sessions.
0:41:15 So those are people ingesting anywhere from two and a half
0:41:17 to in some cases, what’s called a heroic dose,
0:41:20 you know, five grams of psilocybin mushroom,
0:41:21 you know, five grams of psilocybin.
0:41:23 You’re what a colleague of mine who works
0:41:25 on this calls behind the circuit board.
0:41:29 You’re not like doing, I mean, it’s a very,
0:41:30 it’s an experience.
0:41:32 Not necessarily what I recommend.
0:41:34 People can get very scared in there, you know,
0:41:38 you have to work or the clinician, still illegal,
0:41:39 but there are trials.
0:41:42 The studies of higher doses have shown some very interesting
0:41:44 clinical efficacy, but it has not yet passed
0:41:47 into past FDA approval.
0:41:51 Likewise with MDMA ecstasy treatment for PTSD.
0:41:53 Right now that’s a big issue because the FDA is soon
0:41:55 going to decide, but the early recommendation
0:41:57 to them was to not approve.
0:41:59 We could talk a lot about that.
0:42:02 But micro dosing, taking lower dosages
0:42:05 of psilocybin mushroom, which by the way,
0:42:08 just activates a serotonin receptor that seems
0:42:13 to lead to more communication, let’s broadly speaking,
0:42:16 more communication at sort of like resting
0:42:18 network activity is broader.
0:42:20 The brain areas that normally we’re talking
0:42:21 to each other very little, we’re talking to each other
0:42:25 more in that kind of in the default mode.
0:42:27 That’s what some of Robin Cardard Harris’s work
0:42:29 at UCSF and others have shown.
0:42:33 And it very likely enhances the capacity
0:42:36 for neural plasticity for rewiring of neurons.
0:42:38 Now, a lot of people confuse this and think,
0:42:40 oh, well, if they just take psilocybin,
0:42:42 they’ll quote unquote get plasticity.
0:42:45 But we have to remember that plasticity is designed
0:42:46 to be a directed process.
0:42:49 You touch a hot stove, you get one trial learning
0:42:54 by way of neural plasticity that hot stoves are bad to touch.
0:42:56 Okay, that’s directed plasticity.
0:42:57 It’s adaptive.
0:43:00 When you learn a new language, it’s you sit there
0:43:03 and you have to absorb the information, make errors,
0:43:07 adjust for those errors and you get plasticity over time.
0:43:09 When you quote unquote just take a drug
0:43:12 that opens up plasticity and air quotes,
0:43:14 that’s not necessarily a good thing
0:43:16 because you’re making the brain vulnerable
0:43:19 to rewiring in a very non-specific way.
0:43:23 So this is why traditional forms and these modern forms
0:43:25 of clinical trials using psychedelics of any kind,
0:43:28 MDMA, which is more or less a psychedelic,
0:43:29 they were considered one nowadays,
0:43:32 as well as psilocybin, LSD, et cetera.
0:43:35 They’re talking to the person, they do rounds of therapy
0:43:38 with that person off the drug before and after,
0:43:41 the person’s working through something or things.
0:43:42 So it’s directed.
0:43:45 Whereas when you just take something and go experience life,
0:43:50 it’s non-specific opportunity for non-specific rewiring.
0:43:52 Now, there is zero evidence to my knowledge,
0:43:56 there’s zero evidence that microdosing can improve
0:43:59 mental state as it relates to depression or mood,
0:44:01 but people report this quite a lot.
0:44:02 And that makes a little bit of sense
0:44:06 because it augments serotonin pathways in the brain
0:44:08 through one receptor in particular.
0:44:09 But, and if you think about the major treatments
0:44:12 for depression, and these are very controversial now,
0:44:15 but the SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,
0:44:17 the net effect is to increase the amount of serotonin
0:44:19 at the synapse, the availability of serotonin.
0:44:22 And we know that other antidepressants,
0:44:25 which rely more on dopamine or epinephrine, et cetera,
0:44:28 that relief from depression,
0:44:29 whether or not it’s through cognitive behavioral therapy
0:44:31 alone or drug therapy or combination,
0:44:35 is a neuroplasticity phenomena.
0:44:38 It’s about reorienting the person’s thinking
0:44:40 about who they are, about what’s possible in the world,
0:44:42 about what happened or what’s likely to happen.
0:44:44 It’s about creating more optimism.
0:44:47 So it’s less about serotonin per se
0:44:50 than the opportunity to rewire the brain
0:44:53 and one’s cognitive and emotional status.
0:44:54 So when these people are saying,
0:44:56 okay, I’m gonna not drink alcohol,
0:44:59 and then instead I’m gonna take some psilocybin,
0:45:01 they’re boosting their serotonin a bit.
0:45:02 Presumably they’re also doing this
0:45:07 because the day after drinking is always a bit of a withdrawal.
0:45:10 There’s the anxiety some people refer to,
0:45:12 there’s the puffiness, a lot of it,
0:45:14 might be for aesthetic reasons.
0:45:15 You can’t sleep very well often,
0:45:17 and the sleep isn’t of high quality.
0:45:22 Let’s also face it, a lot of people make mistakes on alcohol.
0:45:24 And whether or not they make mistakes on psilocybin,
0:45:27 I don’t know, I’m sure there’s an opportunity for that.
0:45:29 Jumping off the ship would be a bad idea.
0:45:31 People have done stupid things on psychedelics,
0:45:33 but if you look at the lethal dose
0:45:34 of something like psilocybin,
0:45:38 it’s unbelievably high relative to the lethal dose of alcohol.
0:45:42 If you look at deaths and problems created by alcohol,
0:45:44 including bad decision making,
0:45:49 I mean, these are astronomical rates of bad errors
0:45:53 at every level, professional, interpersonal,
0:45:55 life damaging, life ending, et cetera.
0:45:57 So it kind of makes sense to me
0:45:59 why people would be orienting towards things
0:46:02 that have less of the danger and more, still some,
0:46:05 but more of the kind of state shifting,
0:46:07 being able to relate to people differently
0:46:08 in that elevated serotonin state,
0:46:10 they’re very likely to at least think
0:46:13 or experience a kind of more empathic engagement.
0:46:14 And we’re seeing a lot of this,
0:46:18 the episode that we did about alcohol
0:46:21 in the Huberman Lab podcast, “Humility Aside,”
0:46:23 that was the most listened to podcast episode
0:46:26 for like two years running out of all podcasts,
0:46:27 like all podcasts.
0:46:29 And I was surprised ’cause there’s somebody
0:46:31 who doesn’t really indulge in alcohol much.
0:46:33 I thought, well, we should probably just do an episode
0:46:34 about alcohol, enough people drink
0:46:36 and let people know what they’re doing,
0:46:38 but I’m not anti-alcohol.
0:46:41 And I noticed it unveiled three things.
0:46:43 One, the people who really love alcohol
0:46:45 were pissed off that they had that knowledge.
0:46:48 They’re like, “Ugh, now I know how bad it is for me.”
0:46:50 – I know, I’ve tried to ignore it.
0:46:53 There’s no ignoring the two of you, your answer.
0:46:56 – The second is that people who didn’t like drinking,
0:46:58 maybe if they have less alcohol dehydrogenase,
0:47:00 genetically, maybe they just didn’t like it,
0:47:03 they finally felt validated to say,
0:47:05 “Hey, I don’t wanna drink it terrible for me.”
0:47:07 And then, and that was a big category of people.
0:47:10 And then I think the third category is the larger group,
0:47:13 which is the people who like alcohol,
0:47:16 but they also wanna take care of their health
0:47:17 and they wanna be able to live life,
0:47:18 including maybe have a drink
0:47:21 for a very large number of years.
0:47:23 And they realized that throttling back a little bit
0:47:26 and savoring it, maybe, this is Peter’s thing,
0:47:28 maybe focusing on a higher quality alcohol,
0:47:31 or you asked what alcohols are going to be best or worse,
0:47:33 low sugar alcohols in general,
0:47:34 not because of the sugar per se,
0:47:35 but because of the hangover.
0:47:38 So like brandies and things like that,
0:47:41 cognacs are generally not as good for you
0:47:46 in terms of the hangover component as a clear vodka.
0:47:50 If I drink, I like a white tequila soda and wine.
0:47:52 That’s it, that’s like my thing.
0:47:54 Especially with Mexican food on a hot day,
0:47:55 that’s like nothing better.
0:48:00 – Coming up after the break.
0:48:03 – In my mind, there’s no reason to do TRT.
0:48:07 And a lot of kids, because of social media,
0:48:10 they see the muscles, they see the vasculature,
0:48:12 and they also, if they try it,
0:48:15 they realize that it makes effort feel good,
0:48:17 and it does increase libido vigor, et cetera,
0:48:19 but it will shut down your sperm production,
0:48:20 and it has effects on the brain.
0:48:23 – Stay with us.
0:48:30 – Support for this podcast comes from HIMS, Confidence.
0:48:31 It’s the one thing that a lot of us wish
0:48:33 we had just a little bit more.
0:48:36 Well, that and hair.
0:48:37 And for men, they’re often connected.
0:48:38 HIMS wants to help.
0:48:40 HIMS is a men’s healthcare product
0:48:42 that provides access to a range of hair loss treatments
0:48:44 all from the comfort of your couch.
0:48:45 With doctor trusted treatment options
0:48:47 and clinically proven ingredients,
0:48:49 they’ve got different treatment options
0:48:51 so you can find the one that works best for you.
0:48:53 The process is simple and 100% online.
0:48:55 Just answer a few questions,
0:48:56 and a medical provider will determine
0:48:57 if treatment is right for you.
0:49:01 If prescribed, your treatment is sent directly to your door.
0:49:03 HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers,
0:49:06 so if you feel like you’re losing a part of yourself,
0:49:07 with your hair loss,
0:49:09 get HIMS and get your confidence back.
0:49:11 Start your free online visit today
0:49:13 at HIMS.com/PROVG.
0:49:16 That’s H-I-M-S.com/PROVG
0:49:18 for your personalized hair loss treatment options.
0:49:21 HIMS.com/PROVG.
0:49:23 Results vary based on studies of topical
0:49:25 and oral minoxidil prescription products
0:49:27 requiring online consultation with a healthcare provider
0:49:30 who will determine if a prescription is appropriate.
0:49:32 Restrictions apply, see website for full details
0:49:34 and important safety information.
0:49:38 Support for the show comes from LinkedIn.
0:49:39 As a B2B marketer,
0:49:41 you know how hard it can be to cut through the noise.
0:49:43 If your message isn’t targeted to the right audience,
0:49:45 it just disappears into the void.
0:49:48 Thankfully, LinkedIn ads can precisely reach the professionals
0:49:51 who are more likely to find your ad relevant.
0:49:52 With LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities,
0:49:56 you can reach them by job title, industry, company, and more.
0:49:58 B2B buying cycles are long
0:50:00 and your customers face incredibly complex decisions.
0:50:02 LinkedIn ads allow you to build
0:50:04 the right relationships, drive results,
0:50:07 and reach your customers in a respectful environment.
0:50:08 You’ll be able to build relationships
0:50:10 and have direct access to decision makers,
0:50:13 a billion members, 180 million senior level executives,
0:50:15 and 10 million C level executives.
0:50:17 You’ll also be able to drive results
0:50:18 with targeting and measurement tools
0:50:20 built specifically for B2B.
0:50:23 In technology, LinkedIn generated two to five times
0:50:24 higher return on ad spend
0:50:26 than other social media platforms.
0:50:28 Simply put, LinkedIn is a partner
0:50:31 who respects the B2B world you operated.
0:50:33 You can start converting your B2B audience
0:50:35 into high quality leads today.
0:50:38 LinkedIn will give you a $100 credit on your next campaign.
0:50:42 Go to linkedin.com/scott to claim your credit.
0:50:46 That’s linkedin.com/scott, terms and conditions apply.
0:50:50 Support for this podcast comes from Huntress.
0:50:51 Keeping your data safe is important,
0:50:53 however, if you’re a small business owner,
0:50:56 then protecting the information of yourself,
0:50:58 your company, and your workers is vital.
0:51:00 And comes Huntress.
0:51:02 Huntress is where fully managed cybersecurity
0:51:04 meets human expertise.
0:51:05 They offer a revolutionary approach
0:51:07 to manage security that isn’t all about tech.
0:51:10 It’s about real people providing real defense.
0:51:12 When threats arise or issues occur,
0:51:14 their team of seasoned cyber experts
0:51:18 is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for support.
0:51:22 Visit huntress.com/propg to start a free trial or learn more.
0:51:29 – What are your thoughts on testosterone replacement therapy?
0:51:30 – Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this.
0:51:33 So I’m 48 years old, I’m very open about this.
0:51:34 I always have been.
0:51:38 I did not touch any hormone augmentation of any kind,
0:51:40 but then at 45, I decided to run an experiment
0:51:44 taking a very low dose of testosterone sippinate,
0:51:46 but also something called HCG,
0:51:48 human chorionic gonadotropin,
0:51:50 which allows you to maintain sperm production
0:51:52 because, well, I intend to have children
0:51:54 and I don’t want to kill my sperm.
0:51:57 And basically, when you take testosterone exogenously,
0:51:58 you shut down your sperm production,
0:52:01 maybe not entirely, but it can be problematic.
0:52:03 So first things first,
0:52:04 and I’m assuming we’re talking about men here
0:52:08 because women are now doing testosterone replacement therapy
0:52:10 and low doses for libido and for vigor and other things,
0:52:12 and women make testosterone too,
0:52:15 but as long as we’re talking about men,
0:52:17 I can’t emphasize this enough.
0:52:20 Young guys, meaning if you’re younger,
0:52:21 I just don’t see how,
0:52:25 unless somebody has a hypogeladol condition,
0:52:27 which you can be tested for,
0:52:32 why males younger than 35 and probably 40,
0:52:34 if you’re doing things to take care of yourself
0:52:38 with sleep, with exercise, nutrition, managing your stress,
0:52:40 keeping your body composition,
0:52:41 you don’t have to be 5% body fat,
0:52:44 in fact, that’s probably bad for testosterone
0:52:46 for most people unless you’re naturally like that,
0:52:48 but keeping your body fat percentage somewhere
0:52:51 between 10 and 15% or something,
0:52:55 in my mind, there’s no reason to do TRT,
0:52:59 and a lot of kids, because of social media,
0:53:02 they see the muscles, they see the vasculature,
0:53:04 and they also, if they try it,
0:53:07 they realize that it makes effort feel good
0:53:09 and it does increase libido, vigor, et cetera,
0:53:11 but it will shut down your sperm production
0:53:12 and it has effects on the brain.
0:53:14 So here’s my stance on this,
0:53:16 and I’ll just again be very open about what I do.
0:53:20 I personally find that the recommended dose
0:53:23 for most people that’s kind of just out the gate
0:53:26 that these clinics do is they’ll say 200 milligrams,
0:53:27 typically of testosterone, sippianate per week,
0:53:30 so that’s one CC, one ML.
0:53:34 That for me would be like catastrophically too high.
0:53:36 I’m very sensitive to this stuff.
0:53:37 So what I highly recommend is people go
0:53:41 and get their testosterone checked and free testosterone.
0:53:44 So the range, the reference range in the US
0:53:46 is somewhere between 300 and 900 in other countries,
0:53:48 I think it goes up to 1200,
0:53:50 but keep in mind there are some people
0:53:55 who have testosterone levels of 500 or 350 or 400
0:53:58 who feel great, their libido is strong,
0:54:01 their recovery from exercise is strong, they feel great.
0:54:04 There are a number of other hormones that impact this.
0:54:06 Don’t look strictly at the number.
0:54:08 So if you’re a young person and you’re interested
0:54:11 or you’re curious about testosterone therapy,
0:54:12 please go get your blood levels checked.
0:54:14 And it is true that unless you are
0:54:17 below 300 nanograms per deciliter,
0:54:19 technically you don’t need replacement.
0:54:23 Now, if you happen to be 500 and you feel like garbage,
0:54:26 please also get your free testosterone checked, okay?
0:54:27 Because if that’s too low,
0:54:29 that means the testosterone you’re making isn’t available.
0:54:32 And if your estrogen is too high or too low,
0:54:34 this is important, well then that could be an issue,
0:54:36 meaning this is a complex scenario.
0:54:38 But what’s happening is people are just going
0:54:40 and getting on TRT and saying, oh, 900 is best.
0:54:43 Now, if someone does decide to explore
0:54:44 testosterone replacement therapy,
0:54:46 there are a couple of things to know.
0:54:49 First of all, get your blood levels checked before, during,
0:54:51 and should you decide to come off after.
0:54:52 Very open about this.
0:54:55 I was sitting, I was doing all the behaviors right,
0:54:56 as best I could.
0:54:58 Also taking a few supplements that we know
0:55:00 can slightly improve testosterone, not in a major way.
0:55:02 Things like Tonga, Dolly, Fidoja.
0:55:05 For me, increase my testosterone significantly.
0:55:07 I was sitting around 750,
0:55:09 but I was feeling some afternoon fatigue
0:55:11 that felt unusual for me.
0:55:13 And decided to run an experiment
0:55:17 of taking basically three 30 milligram dosages
0:55:20 of injectable testosterone sippinate per week.
0:55:24 And I eventually converged on something a little bit
0:55:26 similar to that, spacing it out a bit more,
0:55:28 but essentially 100 milligrams per week.
0:55:28 I feel fantastic.
0:55:33 It definitely makes effort feel great, okay?
0:55:36 Now, the problem is that’s a consequence
0:55:38 of a bit more what we call sympathetic drive,
0:55:41 which has nothing to do with sympathy, emotional sympathy.
0:55:44 It makes you kind of more forward center of mass in general.
0:55:46 It’s a higher level of stress.
0:55:47 You have to be careful you’re still managing
0:55:48 to get great sleep.
0:55:50 I also, as I mentioned, take HCG.
0:55:54 And if people want children at any point in the future,
0:55:58 and you’re gonna take testosterone at any exogenously,
0:56:01 at any level, you have to offset that with HCG,
0:56:03 which is more or less like luteinizing hormone
0:56:04 which stimulates the testes
0:56:07 to continue making their own testosterone
0:56:09 and therefore spare sperm production.
0:56:12 And or you could go bank sperm,
0:56:14 although I would strongly recommend
0:56:15 maintaining your sperm production.
0:56:18 And they’re now at home kits that allow you to discern
0:56:21 if you’re still maintaining sperm production.
0:56:22 Here’s how I feel about this.
0:56:25 Get the behaviors right, sleep, exercise, nutrition,
0:56:29 stress management, explore healthy supplementation.
0:56:30 And I would say the things for supplementation
0:56:32 that makes sense for most people who can afford it
0:56:36 are a quality fish oil, so quality omega-3s,
0:56:39 get above a gram per day of the EPA form,
0:56:42 maybe two grams for a variety of reasons.
0:56:44 Get some form of probiotic, prebiotic.
0:56:46 You could supplement this like, you know,
0:56:48 people know and often associate with AG1,
0:56:50 you can do it that way or you could eat more fruits
0:56:52 and vegetables, you know, I mean,
0:56:56 there are a number of things in addition to AG1
0:56:58 that is why I think it’s good for me.
0:57:00 But again, this is not a sales pitch for AG1.
0:57:03 This is to say, make sure your foundational nutrition
0:57:04 is gonna take a multivitamin.
0:57:07 This is basically what I’m saying if you can’t afford that.
0:57:10 And then I do think that many people can get
0:57:13 what they want without going on TRT
0:57:15 by making sure that you’re training hard,
0:57:18 but not more than an hour per session.
0:57:22 You know, if you’re gonna do TRT, yes, it’s true.
0:57:24 You can probably get a bit less sleep and still recover.
0:57:27 Because normally sleep deprivation over time
0:57:28 would diminish your testosterone levels.
0:57:30 When you’re taking it, it’s always tapped off.
0:57:32 But that’s not good either because you’re challenging
0:57:35 the heart in ways that normally wouldn’t be challenged.
0:57:37 So this could be a whole discussion,
0:57:39 but I really think that people need to pay attention
0:57:41 to the fertility piece.
0:57:43 And then to really take the minimal effect,
0:57:45 if they decide that TRT is right for them
0:57:47 to take the minimal effective dose,
0:57:49 many people think testosterone, good,
0:57:50 estrogen, bad if you’re male.
0:57:53 That is heavenly false.
0:57:56 If you crush your estrogen levels taking,
0:57:59 unless you need to reduce your estrogen levels,
0:58:01 you will have poor memory.
0:58:03 Your cardiovascular health will suffer
0:58:05 because you’re gonna have less sort of pliability
0:58:07 of the capillaries and vessels
0:58:09 that innervate your brain and body.
0:58:10 And in addition to that,
0:58:12 estrogen is critical for libido.
0:58:16 And so a lot of people who take testosterone,
0:58:18 get high levels of testosterone,
0:58:20 then crush their cortisol and/or estrogen levels
0:58:23 using pharmacology, high doses of anastrasol.
0:58:26 They might be better off taking low doses of anastrasol
0:58:28 or, which is a aromatase inhibitor,
0:58:30 you know, aromatase that converts
0:58:32 testosterone to estrogen or not at all,
0:58:36 and letting their estrogen, you know, float up a bit,
0:58:37 but be in the proper ratio
0:58:39 with that now elevated testosterone.
0:58:41 And this is so critical.
0:58:43 You know, maybe it’s because I’m male,
0:58:45 presumably I hear a lot from young guys
0:58:46 who are like, “Hey, should I get on TRT?”
0:58:48 I think that’s a big no.
0:58:51 Don’t do it until you’re doing everything else right.
0:58:53 And I’ll also say, I’ve gone off.
0:58:55 Didn’t experiment when I went off it
0:58:56 and continued to do things right.
0:58:59 And you do feel kind of achier after exercise
0:59:00 and a little bit lousy,
0:59:02 but you can come off these things.
0:59:03 You need to continue to take HCG
0:59:07 to make sure that you continue to make your own testosterone.
0:59:09 You can, you know, reactivate things.
0:59:12 But I think it was the right decision for me at 45.
0:59:15 All my other health metrics, LDLs and suffering in place.
0:59:17 And I will say this,
0:59:20 that it can provide the opportunity to do more work,
0:59:22 both cognitive and physical work.
0:59:26 And I’ll also say that it did not create a big change
0:59:27 in my body composition
0:59:28 because I had always been eating well,
0:59:29 sleeping well to begin with.
0:59:32 And I didn’t change the way that I trained that much.
0:59:34 And I’ve gone off and just kind of maintained.
0:59:37 And so I think it is definitely something
0:59:40 people are paying more attention to and trying,
0:59:42 but they need to be extremely thoughtful.
0:59:43 – What do you think of creatine?
0:59:44 – Creatine is great.
0:59:47 Creatine has a ton of literature for creatine,
0:59:50 mostly for sake of cognitive enhancement.
0:59:52 That the conditions of cognitive enhancement
0:59:54 are sort of unique in those studies,
0:59:56 often like cognitive enhancement, wallet altitude,
0:59:58 or cognitive enhancement after sleep deprivation,
0:59:59 these kinds of things.
1:00:00 But five to 10 grams,
1:00:03 and I say that because people are of different body size,
1:00:04 but it’s 100 kilograms.
1:00:07 So I take 10 grams of creatine per day.
1:00:10 I’ve been doing that since I was 16 or 18.
1:00:11 I’ll take breaks every once in a while.
1:00:15 You’ll gain five to 10 pounds of water weight
1:00:16 within your muscles,
1:00:17 mostly within the muscles when you take creatine.
1:00:20 And then you’ll urinate that out if you come off it.
1:00:21 I mentioned that because a lot of women
1:00:23 don’t want to take creatine
1:00:24 because they don’t want that extra weight,
1:00:25 but it’s mostly muscle weight.
1:00:27 And a lot of women can really benefit
1:00:29 from more muscle and strength.
1:00:31 For all the reasons we talked about before.
1:00:33 But there’s excellent data for creatine.
1:00:34 Keep in mind on a blood test,
1:00:36 your blood creatinine levels will be increased
1:00:37 if you’re supplementing creatine.
1:00:39 So don’t be alarmed.
1:00:41 But it’s very hard to get that five to 10 grams per day
1:00:44 from food sources because a big steak,
1:00:46 a big rib eye steak probably only has a couple of grams,
1:00:48 or three grams of creatine.
1:00:49 How many of those are you really gonna eat
1:00:51 without causing other issues?
1:00:53 What are your thoughts on TRT?
1:00:54 – I started doing it two or three years ago.
1:00:56 I do 80 milliliters.
1:00:57 Is it a week, injection-
1:01:01 – Wait, just ’cause people will get 80 milligrams,
1:01:03 I guess, which is a very low dose.
1:01:05 – Yeah, and the way I would describe it is,
1:01:06 I started doing it three or four years ago,
1:01:09 lost the strength of the gym, lost the muscle mass,
1:01:12 not the same virility or whatever you would call it.
1:01:16 And I just thought, and my trainer said,
1:01:20 “You’re fine, you have what you should have at 56,
1:01:23 “but why wouldn’t you take it back to 45?”
1:01:26 And I took it, and the way I would describe it,
1:01:28 Andrew is, I would say it kinda makes it
1:01:29 three to five years younger.
1:01:30 I just, weird things,
1:01:33 like I felt like my skin was a little bit different,
1:01:34 just a little stronger than the gym.
1:01:37 – Well, I feel better at 48 than I did at 25,
1:01:40 and I think that’s because I take better care of myself
1:01:41 with respect to sleep.
1:01:43 I used to work 100 hours a week.
1:01:46 I would literally, my ex-girlfriend Keegan
1:01:48 was still jokes about this from time to time,
1:01:50 like we went on so many vacations
1:01:53 where I would collapse into the laptop, meant the end.
1:01:54 Like I was working on grants,
1:01:57 where I was working as a junior professor,
1:01:58 before I got 10 years away.
1:01:59 I mean, you’re familiar with this.
1:02:01 I would literally work until I would collapse.
1:02:05 And that’s not healthy, and in my 30s too.
1:02:07 And I had a lot of vigor, but I would say,
1:02:10 TRT can definitely bring that forward.
1:02:12 I think based on conversations
1:02:14 with my colleague, Robert Sapolsky,
1:02:17 it’s clear that it makes you more like yourself.
1:02:19 So if you’re a slightly obsessive person,
1:02:20 it’s gonna make you more obsessive.
1:02:22 If you’re a very competitive person,
1:02:23 it’ll make you more competitive.
1:02:26 If you’re more altruistic and empathically tuned,
1:02:27 it will likely exacerbate that.
1:02:31 It sort of, I think it raises the tide kind of on everything.
1:02:33 It makes you what I call forward center of mass.
1:02:34 So I figure on anything,
1:02:36 we can either be back on our heels,
1:02:38 flat footed or forward center of mass.
1:02:40 And so if it’s work, you’re forward center of mass.
1:02:42 If it’s kindness, you’re forward center of mass.
1:02:44 You feel like you have more to give.
1:02:46 And that’s that elevated sympathetic drive
1:02:47 that we talked about earlier.
1:02:50 – That’s literally the best out I’ve ever heard
1:02:51 for testosterone.
1:02:52 So two quick questions.
1:02:54 You’ve been very generous with your time.
1:02:55 The first is around exercise.
1:02:57 The second one’s a professional question.
1:02:59 My dad, this is one of the nicer moments for my father.
1:03:01 My father was in the Royal Navy
1:03:03 and he had this thing called the Royal Navy Fitness Handbook.
1:03:06 And it was burpees, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups.
1:03:08 And we used to do that together from a very young age.
1:03:09 And it really stuck with me.
1:03:11 And I’ve been like you, I’ve been working out my whole life.
1:03:14 And I started doing it with my boys, 13 and 16.
1:03:17 I call my boy on FaceTime, who’s a boarding school.
1:03:19 And I put him through like a eight to 12 minute
1:03:21 kind of multi-dimensional, you know,
1:03:23 push-ups, some Arnold presses with the weights,
1:03:27 assisted pull-ups, cash out with some burpees.
1:03:30 Do you have any thoughts on or advice for dads
1:03:33 who are trying to get their teenage boys into working out
1:03:36 in terms of kind of the right way
1:03:38 to work out your teenage sons?
1:03:41 – Yeah, well, just to make sure I close the hatch
1:03:42 on that TRT conversation,
1:03:44 ’cause he says that an advertisement for it,
1:03:47 there are some health risks of blood pressure,
1:03:50 blood profiles and people need to think about that
1:03:52 and work with a really qualified physician.
1:03:54 – And some cancers, right?
1:03:57 Like prostate cancer, if you don’t monitor it, is that right?
1:04:00 – There’s the belief among urologists
1:04:02 is that it does not cause prostate cancer.
1:04:04 If you have a pre-existing prostate cancer,
1:04:05 it might exacerbate it.
1:04:06 When people have prostate cancers,
1:04:08 they often put them on and endrogens.
1:04:10 – But it’s also hard and brain protective, isn’t it?
1:04:12 What I’ve read, is that true?
1:04:15 – I think if you’re doing TRT properly,
1:04:18 proper dosages for you, it’s gonna be highly individualized,
1:04:20 that you’re taking care of the other hormones
1:04:22 in those pathways properly,
1:04:24 not caution them nor letting them get out of hand.
1:04:28 That you’re taking the fertility thing into consideration.
1:04:30 I think that it can be very beneficial
1:04:33 because it allows you to do the work you need to do,
1:04:35 cognitive work, the cardiovascular work.
1:04:37 I mean, if you’re running more as a consequence
1:04:40 of taking TRT and also able to do all the other things
1:04:43 in your life, then you’re net better off, right?
1:04:46 But people who take it and then get lazy about things,
1:04:48 you are net worse off.
1:04:49 Okay, now in terms of exercise,
1:04:52 I mean, I was fortunate that when I turned,
1:04:55 I was always very physical, soccer, skateboarding,
1:04:56 swimming, et cetera.
1:04:59 I was never particularly excellent at any of those sports,
1:05:02 just good enough to kind of hang in there.
1:05:04 You know, I got a girlfriend when I was 16.
1:05:06 She was a year older than I was.
1:05:08 And I heard their former boyfriend was like a football player
1:05:09 or something.
1:05:11 And I was like this skinny skateboard kid.
1:05:12 So I started doing my pushups and my pullups.
1:05:16 And I will say that, so it was the first girlfriend effect.
1:05:20 And then I found like, whoa, I really like exercise.
1:05:22 I feel like there’s a kind of direct relationship
1:05:23 between effort and outcome.
1:05:25 And I always ran also.
1:05:27 I loved, and I still love running.
1:05:29 So I would say that for young people
1:05:31 and encouraging young people to exercise,
1:05:33 find out what physical activities they really enjoy.
1:05:37 For me, it was running and I did like weightlifting.
1:05:39 So encourage them to play sports
1:05:41 because of the social dynamics
1:05:44 and to be physical with respect to, you know,
1:05:47 just fitness and thinking about fitness.
1:05:49 I think what you described as excellent, you know,
1:05:54 10 to 15 minutes daily even because they’re young, right?
1:05:56 They can recover of body weight type stuff.
1:05:58 So dips, pullups, et cetera.
1:06:02 One of the best pieces of advice I heard recently
1:06:06 and mindset advice, if he comes from a physician
1:06:09 by the name of Gabrielle Lyon, L-Y-O-N,
1:06:12 who’s a medical doctor and she knows a ton
1:06:15 about nutrition and training for men and women.
1:06:17 And her husband happens to be in the SEAL teams.
1:06:19 I have a number of friends in the community.
1:06:20 And she said, you know,
1:06:24 goals aren’t really the way to think about things.
1:06:26 Standards are the way to think about things.
1:06:29 This is very much borrowed from the military community
1:06:32 to think, as you mentioned, Navy a few minutes ago.
1:06:33 When you have a standard for yourself
1:06:36 that you should be able to do five sets of five pullups,
1:06:39 for instance, on your birthday every year, no matter what.
1:06:43 Or that you should be able to do three sets of 25 full pushups.
1:06:45 – I remember the presidential fitness awards.
1:06:46 It was like I used to train for one year,
1:06:48 I had a growth spurt, I couldn’t do the seven pullups.
1:06:49 I didn’t get the number four.
1:06:51 And I like, I’ve spent the whole year
1:06:54 trying to figure out how to get back to seven pullups.
1:06:56 – Right. And so when you have goals,
1:06:59 it’s very easy to reach a goal and then lapse, you know?
1:07:00 But when you have a standard,
1:07:01 you’re always staying above that line
1:07:04 and you have the opportunity to exceed that standard by a lot.
1:07:06 But you never let yourself drop below that standard.
1:07:09 It sets kind of an alarm on the low end
1:07:10 that’s also very high.
1:07:13 And I love this concept because it’s like,
1:07:14 you have a standard for yourself.
1:07:15 You have a standard of behavior,
1:07:18 you have a standard of fitness
1:07:21 that translates to certain activities
1:07:25 so that you never are unable to meet that standard.
1:07:25 And if you’re standard,
1:07:27 and this is a very jockel-willing-ish,
1:07:29 but if you’re standard is,
1:07:32 you’re gonna train every morning at 4.30, no matter what,
1:07:34 except those rare occasions where travel
1:07:35 or something inhibits it.
1:07:37 Well, then you’re doing it no matter what.
1:07:40 Whereas if your goal is to get up at 4.30 and train,
1:07:42 it only sets this high bar.
1:07:45 I’m sure there’s a natural psychology to this, right?
1:07:49 You know, that you need to achieve that thing
1:07:50 and then you check that box.
1:07:55 Whereas the standard means a low end critical threshold
1:07:57 that you stay above,
1:08:00 but there’s really no upper end either.
1:08:02 And I think the best situation is,
1:08:03 well, kind of like the one that sounds like happened for you
1:08:04 and certainly happened for me
1:08:06 where I discovered I love to run.
1:08:08 I mean, the only thing I’m upset about
1:08:09 about training my legs yesterday
1:08:11 is that I generally take a day off
1:08:13 after training legs to recover
1:08:15 and I wanna train again today
1:08:17 and that just feels great, right?
1:08:19 So I would suggest that they do
1:08:21 mainly body weight resistance training.
1:08:23 I know that there’s a shift now
1:08:26 toward allowing kids to do resistance training,
1:08:29 but here’s my feeling about being a young person,
1:08:30 which I was once,
1:08:33 which is that the more variety of movement
1:08:34 and sports that you do,
1:08:37 the better off you are in life and fitness.
1:08:38 All the people I know
1:08:40 who are hyper-specialized in some sport
1:08:44 don’t seem to stay with that sport a long time.
1:08:46 They get injured, they’re not fit.
1:08:48 I mean, the gymnasts are the exception
1:08:48 because they seem to do
1:08:50 all the different dynamic movements.
1:08:53 They’re strong and they have speed and they have agility.
1:08:54 But I think it’s great fun
1:08:55 to try a bunch of different sports.
1:08:57 And then if you’re an athlete,
1:08:58 sure, focus on one,
1:09:00 but with respect to fitness,
1:09:03 I’m not a huge fan of really young people’s,
1:09:05 you know, lifting heavy weights in the gym.
1:09:07 And I’m gonna get a lot of flack for this
1:09:10 because Olympic lifting is sport in its own right,
1:09:13 but I didn’t really start lifting heavy
1:09:14 until I was in my 20s.
1:09:16 And that for me was like,
1:09:19 I’ve never gone below three repetitions of anything.
1:09:21 So I’ve never done a single rep max of anything.
1:09:22 And people always go, there’s no way that’s true.
1:09:24 And it’s absolutely true.
1:09:25 I’m interested in using it as a tool
1:09:27 to accomplish something,
1:09:29 strengthen in some cases hypertrophy
1:09:32 and staying healthy is my main focus now.
1:09:34 And I will say this,
1:09:36 I got laughed at, teased in college
1:09:39 because I’d be out for a run on mornings
1:09:40 where everyone else was doing their kind of Sunday,
1:09:42 fun day drinking.
1:09:44 I got teased for studying
1:09:46 when other people were kicking back.
1:09:49 When I was a professor and I would go to meetings,
1:09:51 I would sneak off to the gym at lunch hour
1:09:54 ’cause I couldn’t sit all day without losing my mind.
1:09:57 And one day I was in the gym at Cold Spring Harbor laboratories
1:09:59 in New York, this is where people go for meetings.
1:10:01 And it’s kind of a science summer camp.
1:10:05 And one of the most successful biologists in the world
1:10:07 still came into the gym and I was like,
1:10:08 oh, and I was sort of embarrassed.
1:10:09 Like I’d been caught doing something.
1:10:12 And I said, wait a second, this is your meeting.
1:10:13 And he said, yeah, you know,
1:10:15 I can’t be in these meetings all day.
1:10:16 It drives me crazy.
1:10:17 And I looked at him and I’m like, okay,
1:10:18 this guy has great posture.
1:10:19 He’s fit.
1:10:21 He was in his mid sixties then.
1:10:22 He’s still that way now.
1:10:25 I thought to myself, okay, here I’ve been like
1:10:27 guiltfully running off to exercise to take care of myself.
1:10:29 The culture has changed a little bit now.
1:10:33 But if you’re in whatever dominant culture is around you,
1:10:34 beware, that’s what I always say.
1:10:37 Even if you’re hanging out with rebels, beware, right?
1:10:40 You know, it’s good sometimes to rebel against the rebels,
1:10:41 right?
1:10:42 Just keep it.
1:10:44 It’s not just about independence of thought.
1:10:46 It’s that develop habits that you know are good for you.
1:10:49 And when the dominant culture is, you know,
1:10:51 dude, why are you working out or why are you studying?
1:10:54 Like, trust me, and you can tell your sons this.
1:10:56 I know you know this for yourself in five, 10 years.
1:10:58 People are gonna be coming to you for advice
1:11:00 because they’re the ones carrying 40 pounds of extra weight
1:11:03 or 20 pounds of extra weight or their libido is shot
1:11:05 or they’re wondering why they hate their job
1:11:06 or their relationship.
1:11:08 And I’m not saying that I had all the answers,
1:11:10 but I’ve noticed that the people who are willing
1:11:12 to take really good care of themselves
1:11:13 and not in a vain way.
1:11:14 This isn’t about vanity.
1:11:17 It’s taking care of yourself so that you can do more
1:11:21 in the world for other people, especially,
1:11:21 but also for yourself.
1:11:24 Like be the strong one who can help other people.
1:11:27 And once your sons, I think, realize that they’re gonna be
1:11:30 the best version of themselves for themselves,
1:11:32 but also they’re gonna be the go-to person
1:11:35 that can help everybody in whatever domain
1:11:36 they happen to be in.
1:11:38 I think that feedback loop is so powerful
1:11:42 because you feel like, wow, I understand what self-care is.
1:11:45 I can refill the gas tank just through these behaviors.
1:11:49 – Last question, at the end of in the ’40s,
1:11:52 after World War II, physicists became celebrities,
1:11:54 Einstein, Teller, Oppenheimer.
1:11:56 I feel like we’re having a little bit of that moment
1:11:58 where neuroscientists, I think of you and Sam Harris,
1:12:01 are becoming famous.
1:12:03 And Sam, more on the philosophical side,
1:12:06 you more on the optimization of almost like
1:12:08 how to live a better life through fitness
1:12:11 or just optimizing, I mean, thoughtful about your nutrition,
1:12:13 your sleep, your fitness.
1:12:14 I get, I don’t know if you get these calls.
1:12:16 I get these calls from other faculty at other universities
1:12:18 and they, in as polite a way as possible,
1:12:22 try to say to me, my research and domain expertise
1:12:24 has so much more heft and depth than yours,
1:12:27 yet you’re so much more successful than me.
1:12:30 Can you advise me on what I need to do?
1:12:32 You’ve got to be one of the most famous
1:12:34 and successful, most influential,
1:12:39 creating great economic security for you and your family.
1:12:42 Can you give any advice around what were some,
1:12:44 if there are any hacks or best practices?
1:12:46 We’ve talked a lot about optimizing for fitness.
1:12:50 Talk about now optimizing for someone who is credentialed,
1:12:54 who has expertise, but wants to be Andrew Huberman.
1:12:57 What are the two or three hacks, platforms,
1:13:00 best practices that took you from a neuroscientist
1:13:04 to someone who’s had a really remarkable influence?
1:13:05 – Thanks for the question.
1:13:08 So my dad’s a physicist and so I grew up hearing
1:13:10 about the golden age of physics and, you know,
1:13:13 Feynman and like Gelman and all that.
1:13:15 And I think the interest in physics is,
1:13:17 you know, physics is everywhere, right?
1:13:21 And so it’s universal and explained correctly
1:13:24 is really enchanting.
1:13:26 The brain and neuroscience is everything, right?
1:13:29 It’s sadness, it’s grief, it’s happiness, it’s depression,
1:13:33 it’s addiction, it’s fitness, it’s all of that.
1:13:34 And so it’s universal.
1:13:36 And I would say that we’re now also entering the age
1:13:41 of where math and AI are gonna become really important
1:13:42 for public discourse.
1:13:45 So I would say the following.
1:13:48 And as a fellow academic, you know that, you know,
1:13:50 when one sticks their neck out there publicly,
1:13:52 like I understand there are gonna be people
1:13:55 in the academic community who are happy about that
1:13:57 and Stanford has been immensely supportive,
1:13:58 immensely supportive.
1:14:00 And I’m very grateful for that.
1:14:01 There will be people who are critical
1:14:03 around specific points or the general idea
1:14:06 of somebody doing what I do or what you do.
1:14:08 There will be people who feel that way
1:14:10 because of jealousy, there will be people who feel that way
1:14:12 because they genuinely feel like it’s not being packaged
1:14:14 or delivered in the way that they would prefer.
1:14:16 And that’s all fine and good.
1:14:17 I would say point number one is
1:14:19 if you’re going to be public facing,
1:14:22 as you know, you’re not gonna satisfy all those people.
1:14:23 You’re just not.
1:14:26 At the same time, I think people can feel intention.
1:14:29 You know, I think people sometimes focus,
1:14:31 there’s kind of a gravitational pull around
1:14:35 like cold plunges and supplements and weight lifting
1:14:38 that I think sometimes interesting topics
1:14:39 that I really enjoy.
1:14:41 And then each one has an interesting science
1:14:44 and then discussion around it, which I thoroughly enjoy.
1:14:46 But I think sometimes they overlook the fact
1:14:49 that like 90% of what I talked about on the podcast
1:14:52 is about neural mechanisms, endocrine mechanisms.
1:14:54 I’ve worked on cold physiology
1:14:57 and to try and teach biology and the package
1:15:00 in sort of protocols for health
1:15:02 and then teach protocols for health
1:15:04 in a way to people who are interested in that.
1:15:06 And then also, you know, get them in a bit enchanted,
1:15:08 hopefully about biology.
1:15:10 But the number one takeaway for people
1:15:12 that want to do some public facing work
1:15:17 or to allow people to appreciate what they do
1:15:20 is they, I can’t emphasize this enough
1:15:22 if I could like put this on a billboard in Times Square,
1:15:25 I would accept no one who looks at billboards anymore.
1:15:29 You have to be the pure version of yourself.
1:15:32 And this is why not everyone does this.
1:15:34 So I have, I’m gonna sound like a name dropper
1:15:35 but I’m very fortunate to be close friends,
1:15:36 very close friends.
1:15:38 We communicate daily with Rick Rubin,
1:15:41 like the Rick Rubin from NYU, right?
1:15:42 For the start of record label,
1:15:44 it worked out well at NYU.
1:15:45 And Rick understands this,
1:15:48 that there’s a certain energy that people have
1:15:51 when they’re really engaging in things in its pure form.
1:15:53 They’re not thinking, are people gonna like this song?
1:15:57 Is it gonna be top chart song like the last one?
1:15:58 Are people gonna like this podcast?
1:16:01 It’s just like, I’m a very curious person
1:16:03 and I’ve lived a life of adventure.
1:16:05 One of my heroes, I have several,
1:16:08 Joe Strummer being one of them
1:16:10 and the great Oliver Sacks being another, right?
1:16:13 A neurologist, public facing author
1:16:14 who was also ridiculed by the way
1:16:17 for doing what he did until he became famous enough
1:16:19 that then he got appointments at multiple universities.
1:16:20 They kind of came back for it.
1:16:22 Very interesting story.
1:16:24 And Oliver was a very curious person.
1:16:26 They once said, it’s in his book.
1:16:28 It says, you know, Oliver will go far
1:16:30 provided he doesn’t go too far.
1:16:31 He was a methamphetamine addict.
1:16:32 He was interested in bodybuilding.
1:16:34 He was also a closet homosexual
1:16:36 and that came out at the end when he, you know,
1:16:39 and he had a bunch of things about his personal life
1:16:43 that explained sort of, you know, not just that
1:16:44 but explained who he was in a big way
1:16:47 but up until then he was just Oliver being Oliver.
1:16:48 He loved sea creatures.
1:16:51 He was always talking about the things he loves.
1:16:54 I’m a very curious person and I love adventure.
1:16:56 And I grew up basically
1:16:58 because of my family structure changing
1:17:01 in a big pack of guys, some female friends as well.
1:17:02 That’s kind of driven my life.
1:17:05 I’ve interacted with people at the kind of extremes
1:17:07 of adventure and extremes of career
1:17:09 in fitness and health and science.
1:17:12 And so what I bring forward is my,
1:17:16 it feels innate desire to learn, organize
1:17:20 and disperse information that I find very useful
1:17:22 for mental health, physical health and performance
1:17:25 along those adventures that are just simply my life.
1:17:28 So I’m just being Andrew Huberman.
1:17:30 And I’ll come right out and say, you know,
1:17:31 people say all sorts of things.
1:17:32 They’ve said all sorts of things about me,
1:17:35 good and bad and everything in between.
1:17:37 But what I just said, it like really describes
1:17:39 who I am at my essence.
1:17:43 And if somebody is like an entomologist
1:17:48 or works on, I don’t know, like a lipid signaling
1:17:51 in the gut or whatever people study,
1:17:55 if they can tap into like the essence of why they do that
1:17:58 and then teach it from that pure place,
1:18:01 they will be potentially the biggest podcast in the world,
1:18:03 the best selling book in the world.
1:18:05 So it’s not so much the subject matter
1:18:07 as the energy that one brings to it,
1:18:10 but that energy as Rick has pointed out over and over again,
1:18:11 and this is why he’s so successful,
1:18:13 cannot be manufactured.
1:18:15 Whatever it is that makes you,
1:18:18 you, your relationship with your father,
1:18:21 your interest in fitness, your appreciation
1:18:23 for what young people are now going through
1:18:25 and the challenges they face, the desire to like,
1:18:28 you’re just being Scott in the world.
1:18:30 And that’s why people orient toward you.
1:18:31 And so these colleagues that are like,
1:18:35 wait, why is it that Huberman and Galloway and Harris
1:18:37 are like, well, ’cause Sam’s just being Sam.
1:18:39 So I think you just,
1:18:42 it’s the enthusiasm and the energy that one brings to it.
1:18:45 And if there’s a universal quality to that,
1:18:48 then sure, it will have bigger reach.
1:18:51 But ultimately, like this is kind of how all public facing
1:18:54 intellectuals, scientists, health, you know,
1:18:55 they call us influencers,
1:18:57 but that’s kind of like unfair at some level
1:18:59 because it’s really about like the passion
1:19:01 and energy that you bring to it.
1:19:02 This is a long-winded question.
1:19:03 You asked for a half,
1:19:05 but I would say these people need to be them
1:19:06 and if being them is sitting in their office
1:19:08 and kind of like grinding away
1:19:10 on why someone else has something and they don’t,
1:19:11 well, then guess what?
1:19:12 They’re exactly where they belong.
1:19:14 – Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist
1:19:17 and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology
1:19:20 and by courtesy, psychiatry and behavioral sciences
1:19:22 at Stanford School of Medicine.
1:19:24 His laboratory’s most recent work focuses
1:19:27 on the influence of vision and respiration on brain states,
1:19:29 such as fear and high attention focus
1:19:31 and developing rapid and effective tools
1:19:34 for mitigating stress, improving sleep
1:19:36 and other physiological metrics.
1:19:39 Andrew’s popular podcast, The Huberman Lab Podcast,
1:19:42 is often ranked in the global top 10
1:19:44 and frequently listed as the number one show
1:19:47 in science, education and health and fitness.
1:19:50 He joins us from Los Angeles.
1:19:52 Andrew, like there’s a lot of big podcasts
1:19:54 that are having a lot of influence.
1:19:58 I think having an impact around people’s physical fitness
1:20:00 and feeling good about themselves
1:20:03 and feeling strong and feeling attractive
1:20:04 and feeling healthy.
1:20:06 I really think what you’re doing is profound.
1:20:10 So it’s just great to see your ascent and the influence.
1:20:14 I think you’re doing really good work
1:20:18 and it feels like you are exactly what you said.
1:20:20 It’s so rewarding to see someone doing exactly
1:20:22 what they should be doing and I think you’re doing that.
1:20:24 So really appreciate your time.
1:20:25 – Oh, thank you.
1:20:28 I’ve really enjoyed that conversation.
1:20:31 I hope we can further it on or off, Mike, in the future.
1:20:35 And I think of you as somebody who’s posing those conversations
1:20:36 in a way that has an optimism to it.
1:20:39 Like there are solutions and I’m an optimist too.
1:20:40 So that resonates.
1:20:41 So thanks so much for hosting me.
1:20:42 I really enjoyed it.
1:20:43 – It’s our pleasure, Andrew.
1:20:44 Thanks, brother.
1:20:50 – This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.
1:20:52 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
1:20:54 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
1:20:55 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pub
1:20:57 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:20:59 We will catch you on Saturday
1:21:01 for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn.
1:21:04 And please follow our Prop G Markets pod
1:21:06 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
1:21:08 every Monday and Thursday.