Why Young Men Are Struggling Right Now with Oprah & Scott Galloway (Transcript)

One out of four men can’t name a best friend. One out of seven men don’t have a single friend. And what I would say is there’s a lot of factors around this, but something to be cognizant of is that…

OPRAH WINFREY: Can I just stop you for a second? Is that unusual? Is that new?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: It’s getting worse. And typically, when a man isn’t, women are relationally more invested or more talented establishing relationships. And typically, they use their friends as a means of gaining confidence to enter into a romantic relationship.

Whereas a man, if he doesn’t have a relationship by the time he’s thirty, there’s a one in three chance he’ll be a substance abuser. And also, there’s a cartoon, Oprah, of the poor woman in her thirties that didn’t find romantic love, and she’s in a big sweater looking out on a rainy day listening to sad music. What a tragedy. That’s a cartoon.

The reality is men need relationships much more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies. Widowers, it’s true. Widowers are less happy. Women live longer in relationships. They live two to four years longer. Men live four to seven years longer. So men actually need relationships more.

Technology and Isolation

What I would argue or what I would be cognizant of the fact when you’re talking about loneliness is you’re up against the deepest pocketed, most talented companies in the world with godlike technology who are trying to do one thing, and that is sequester you from your other relationships.

They’re either trying to get you glued to the phone, and one of the ways they glue you to the phone is by enraging you, elevating content that makes you angry at your neighbor, elevate content that makes you start blaming the other gender or blaming immigrants for your problem. And this is being done on purpose.

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, they didn’t start out as malicious.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: But I’m in marketing. We used to think that it was sex itself. Then the algorithms found something that sells even more in terms of gluing you to a screen, and that is rage. So I’m not suggesting we censor these folks, but they will elevate content. They will figure out your political leanings, your fears and then start elevating content that enrages you because enragement equals engagement, equals shareholder value.

So keep in mind, the amount of time you spend on a screen as a young man, and biologically your prefrontal cortex isn’t as developed as a woman. It doesn’t catch up until you’re twenty-five. The executive function, the need for dopamine is much more dangerous for a young man.

Keep in mind that you will find they are trying to essentially convince you you can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen. So keep in mind, you are up against a foe that is trying to separate you from the outside world.

And very simply mathematically, the more time you spend on a screen, the less likely you are to have loving relationships, the less money you’re going to make, the more likely you are going to be to engage in self-harm, the more likely you are going to blame other people. In sum, the worse your life gets based on how much time you spend on a screen.

We are mammals. We are meant to be outside and in the company of others. And we have for-profit companies trying to convince you to go the other way. So you’re up against some very significant foes.

The Importance of Male Role Models

On the idea of role models, the single point of failure if you reverse engineered a boy coming off the tracks is when he loses a male role model through either death, divorce or abandonment. We have more single parent homes than any nation in the world other than Sweden.

And what’s interesting is that girls in single parent homes have the same outcome, same rates of college attendance, same income as dual parent homes. A boy, when he loses a male role model, at that moment is more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college.

What it ends up is that while boys are physically stronger, they’re emotionally and mentally much weaker. And what we need, quite frankly, is we need more men to step up and fill the void. There are three times as many women applying to be big sisters in New York as there are men applying to be big brothers. So we have an obligation to get involved in a young man’s life, right?

And just to summarize here, if we want better men, we have to be better men.

Notes on Being a Man: A Guidebook

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, I have to say, I think of this book, Notes on Being a Man, as a guidebook. And from your personal perspective, for how men can begin to show up in the world. You talk about everything from fitness to nutrition to money to work and how to meet women.

The thing that struck me was that men eighteen to twenty-five, forty-five percent of men eighteen to twenty-five have not engaged personally on asking a woman out for a date. I find that to be shocking. Almost half of young men have never asked a woman out in person.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: And there’s a bunch of factors around that. One, it’s difficult. I mean, it’s just not easy. One of the key skills I think a man has to treat or try and give his son is how to express romantic interest while making that person feel safe.

And this is only anecdotal evidence. When I go out and I’m in social situations, I’ll have women approach me and say, “I’m here. I’m single and I’m ready to mingle. I look amazing. And a man hasn’t approached me in three months,” right? And eighty percent of women still expect the man to make that initial approach.

And also to a certain extent, men’s interest in romantic and sexual relationships has been pathologized. Like there’s something wrong if you want to meet women and ultimately have sex. And I think we need to start celebrating it because a man’s desire to be in a relationship and quite frankly to have physical encounters is fire.

That is, it can be destructive. You spend too much time with porn, you start objectifying women, it can lead to misogynist or dangerous places. But that fire can also be captured in an engine and create tremendous progress.

Celebrating Healthy Desire

Wanting to have sex if channeled correctly, which it is for most men, makes you want to dress better, smell better, have a kindness practice, have your act together, develop the resilience and the confidence to approach someone and maybe they’re not interested and guess what? You’re both going to be fine. These are key attributes.

We need to celebrate men wanting to have relationships and making an approach. And if you don’t develop those skills and that resilience and those calluses from rejection, you’re going to struggle in other parts of your life.

So the most rewarding thing in life is relationships, full stop. And I think the most rewarding relationship is building a life with someone and having kids. I’m not saying you have to have that to be happy.

And quite frankly, just to be raw about this, when I saw my partner who I’ve had kids with, I wasn’t thinking I’d really like lower rates on auto insurance. I was thinking, just to be blunt, I would really like to have sex with her. And that forced me to be a better person to try to have a kindness practice to demonstrate excellence. And eighteen months later, we had our first son.

So let’s stop demonizing men for wanting to procreate. It’s a wonderful thing as long as you channel it into wanting to be a better man. The only thing I can guarantee you is that anything wonderful in your life is going to have a lot of no’s, full stop.

And unfortunately, men aren’t getting to know because they’re afraid to, or they have what they think is a cheap substitute for these relationships online.

Scott’s Personal Story: Parents and Divorce

OPRAH WINFREY: So let’s talk for a moment about your younger years, your parents, and what happened between them and your life after their divorce. That was all a huge, huge influence on you. How did your mother and father shape who you are as a man?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I was raised by a single immigrant mother, lived and died as secretary, light of my life, right? And my father, like a lot of us, was a very handsome Scotsman, not very sophisticated, left at the age of thirteen.

And just to be crude, he was a handsome man with a Scottish accent in seventies California, which meant he could not only think with his d*, could listen to it. He was married and divorced. I can’t believe I just said that on Oprah. Yeah. Was married and divorced.

OPRAH WINFREY: I can see how you could think with it. I’m just trying to understand how he listens to it. But anyway.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Married and divorced four times. Started his third marriage while he was still married to my mom. My father was not an especially high character person in terms of how he treated women and how he treated my mom.

The Impact of Male Role Models

And so not having a male role model around, he moved away, I think took quite frankly a toll on me. But the worst part about it was he wasn’t very good to my mom. He wasn’t nice. And the lesson I carry forward as a father, I do think the best thing you can do to raise good men, quite frankly, is just to be a very loving, supportive partner.

You want good men who are more secure and better in relationships, they will model you. You can tell them whatever you want. They’re just going to watch what you’re doing. The first rule as a man is you need to be very good to their mother. Even if you end up going through divorce, the more generous you are, the kinder you are, I think your sons are going to notice that and going to model it.

My mom was every day, when you get older, you get more thoughtful. That’s the good news. The bad news is you get more thoughtful. And you start thinking about, how did I get on Oprah, right? And the way I got on Oprah was, one, I’m a product of big government. The generosity and vision of California taxpayers and the regions of UC, I got to go to UCLA and Berkeley for almost no money.

Had a seventy-four percent admissions rate when I applied. This year was nine percent. But also, just the irrational passion for my well-being and my mother every day. I remember going to lunch with my mom. I was a teenager. I was five foot ten with terrible acne, one hundred and ten pounds. And she would literally stop and go, “You are so handsome. I can’t get over it.” And she would sit there and stare at me.

Anyway, if you say to a kid every day in explicit and implicit ways, “You’re wonderful,” I think at some point they start to believe that.

OPRAH WINFREY: So that confidence is still within. That’s really one of the first things I underlined on page twenty-eight when you said this is something for us all to remember: having a good person express how wonderful you are hundreds of times changes everything. I was tethered. I thought I’d never thought of it that way before. Having a person express how wonderful you are hundreds of times actually tethers you in a way that nothing else can.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Yeah. Yeah, I was grounded. And the thing is, and this goes back to mentorship, and there’s a lot of men in this audience. And by virtue of the fact you’re here, you probably have your act together more than you realize. And there’s a fear that you need to be a CEO or a baller or an adolescent psychiatrist to get involved in a young man’s life. It is so easy to add value.

What I would suggest is masculinity is taking care of yourself, taking care of your community, taking care of your country. But I think the ultimate expression of masculinity is to get involved in a young man’s life. And the place to start is with single mothers in your workplace. You just want to come over and watch a ballgame. Would you like to hang out? I’m watching my car this weekend. Would you like to come over? But that really is the single point.

And even just saying that boys needed men a few years ago was seen as triggering. What? Women can’t raise men? Of course, they can. But the research is clear. Boys need men, and there’s an absence of them in our society right now.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. I remember years ago doing a show, and a lot of women, single mothers, getting offended when the experts said at that time that you can be a great mother, but you can’t be a father. Because a lot of mothers think that they are also the fathers, but men need male role models, period. That’s what you’re—

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Yeah. One hundred percent. And also, to be clear, I think that masculine—we talk in the book about masculine and feminine energy—that masculine energy can be brought in a household headed by two women. That feminine energy can be brought, that mix—I think a mix of masculine and feminine energy is the greatest alliance in history.

The genders have done a great job of convincing themselves that it’s the other gender’s fault. And I hold on to that: the greatest alliance in history is a mix of the wonderful kind of healing, nurturing, gracefulness of femininity and the more risk aggressive, more what I’ll call protective instincts of masculine energy.

But I want to be clear, neither of those attributes are sequestered to people born as men or women. My closest male friends tend to be more feminine in nature. I’m drawn to men who are more caring. But I do think masculinity comes easier to people born as males. And that if they need a code, they can lean into an aspirational form of masculinity. I think that we all need a code, and I think young men are desperate for some sort of guardrails.

Developing a Code for Masculinity

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. On page one hundred thirty-seven, you say, “Every man needs to develop a code, a series of adjectives or behaviors that guide and define his everyday behavior.” So, how do young men develop a code amidst so much, you know, divisiveness and distractions? How do you get a code?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, people get it from different places. They can get it from their religion. They can get it from the military. They can get it from their family. I got my first code, I would argue, from my workplace. There was just a way you approached work and other people, and I started to—that was very helpful to me.

But what I put forward in the book is I think masculinity can serve as a code, but an aspirational vision of it, specifically: be a provider. I think every man at the outset of his career should assume at some point he might have to take economic responsibility for his household.

OPRAH WINFREY: Because you believe that’s one of the tenets of being a man.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I think in a capitalist society, men are disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability and also the way men evaluate themselves. And if you’re not economically viable, I think you’re going to have a tough time having the self-esteem, having society respect you, and quite frankly, mates.

And we don’t like to say this out loud, but seventy-five percent of women say economic viability is key to a mate. Only twenty-five percent of men say this about women. So the reality is, as much as we’d like to think it doesn’t matter, when the woman starts making more money than the man in a household, the likelihood of divorce doubles, the use of erectile dysfunction drugs triples because the man feels worse about himself.

I am not suggesting that we do anything to get in the way of women’s ascent economically. It’s wonderful. We need it. Quite frankly, it won World War II because we put women in factories and it has saved our economy that women are killing it. It’s an amazing thing.

But as a man, you should assume at the beginning, you need to find the certification and demonstrate the discipline and the will to be economically viable. And sometimes that means getting out of the way of your partner and being more supportive of her because she happens to be better at that money thing than you. That is also a form of masculinity.

But I hold on to the fact: if you are not economically viable as a man in this economy, in this society, not saying it should be this way, but it is, you are going to struggle. You’re going to struggle in terms of what society thinks of you, what you think of yourself, and quite frankly, what a lot of women think of you.

Economic, being a provider. Two, protector. The whole point of prosperity, the whole shooting match is such that you can move to being a protector. Think about the most masculine jobs: firemen, cop, military. At the end of the day, they protect.

And then the ultimate expression of masculinity: planting trees the state of which you will never sit under. You want to be a provider, you want to be a protector, and you want to be a procreator. And I think that vision of masculinity as a code can serve as really wonderful guardrails for a young man.

Mothers Sounding the Alarm

OPRAH WINFREY: In the introduction, you say you heard from a lot of moms who say something like, “I have a daughter who lives in Chicago, works in PR, another daughter who’s at Penn. My son lives in our basement, vapes and plays video games.” You believe that a lot of mothers are also the ones who are sounding the alarms on what’s going on with young men.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: The dialogue, Oprah, has gotten so much more productive. Five years ago, when I saw this data and I started talking about it, the reaction was pretty much a gag reflex. Because the reality is people who look and smell and feel like me have had a three thousand year head start.

From 1945 to 2000, America registered a third of all economic growth, which is five percent of the population. So we had six times the prosperity in America. And then all of that prosperity was essentially shoved into a third of the population that was white, male, and heterosexual. So I have had gale force hurricane winds in my sails. I have had unfair advantage.

The problem is, is that we are holding nineteen-year-old men accountable for my privilege. They do not benefit from the same unfair advantage that I had, and that’s probably a good thing. But we are holding them accountable. Young men are on any metric really struggling.

And the alliance between men and women needs to be restored such that we can be the afterburners for their success and their ascent as women. But also I do think women play a role in not falling into this trap of thinking, “Well, you’ve had a three thousand year head start. I don’t feel sorry for you.” You know who wants more economically and emotionally viable young men? Women.

Brandon’s Story: Loneliness and Mental Health

OPRAH WINFREY: So let’s bring in more of the men in our audience. Let’s take a look at this video that Brandon posted on Instagram.

BRANDON: I don’t know if I’ll ever be a husband or a father. And that really, really hurts me because that’s all I’ve wanted since I was a kid. And it eats at you. And you wonder if you’re ever going to get what everyone else has, if you’re good enough, if you deserve it, if it’s something that’s meant for you. And I’ve had to come to terms with maybe it’s not. And while that brings tears to my eyes and makes me as sad as someone could be, you just got to trust God’s plan. But I can still dream.

OPRAH WINFREY: Brandon, why do you think you feel that way? What’s behind it?

BRANDON: I’ve struggled with that alone feeling my entire life. I got to live my dream job as a sports reporter on TV, and people would see me on NFL sidelines interviewing the biggest stars. But behind the scenes, I was struggling with that alone feeling.

I thought I met my wife, the woman I was going to have kids with, and unfortunately it was a really toxic relationship and breakup and it put me at a spot where I was suicidal and didn’t want to live anymore. And so I had to check into a hospital, get help, and I realized for the first time that I wasn’t alone.

And I took that moment and I decided to, similar to what you’re doing, be hopefully a vulnerable man that can help others. And so I created the mental game where I interview athletes and celebrities like Terry Crews, Nate Burleson, Kevin Gates, these men who you think might not have any problems in the world, and they struggle with the same things as me and other men in this room.

And I also go all over the country and try to speak. We’ve been to forty-six states, spoken to over two hundred and fifty thousand kids, adults, men, women, just trying to show that, look, it’s okay to be alone and to be vulnerable as men, but you have to show those emotions. I watched my dad my entire life hold it all in, and it wasn’t until the night that I called him and said, “Hey, I’m going to take my own life,” that we ever talked about mental health.

OPRAH WINFREY: So, is all that talking and speaking about it, has it helped you resolve your own?

BRANDON: Yeah. I mean, I was emotional watching that video. We locked eyes as soon as it started playing because I posted that three weeks ago on a Friday night not thinking it would do anything and it had five million views when I woke up. Because I think a lot of other men felt just like me. So it is like therapy. I go to therapy. I spent two weeks in the hospital. This has become my purpose to help myself and others.

I think what I’ve learned traveling the country and working with these athletes and celebrities and just anyone that’s struggling with their mental health, specifically men, is a lot of us feel the same way as I did in that video and that’s why it went viral. But we’re scared of what our peers, other men in the room, women will think of us.

I mean, I gave up on dating. I want to get married. I want to have kids one day. But since, you know, I lost who I thought was going to be my wife and the mother to my children, I kind of put all that energy in me. So, I’m not on dating apps. The rejection thing, that’s the biggest thing I’m scared of.

I would never go up to someone at a bar and say, “Hey, you’re beautiful. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.” Don’t drink anymore. I’m sober. I struggle with addiction. Maybe in my younger days in college, I’m cool. Alright? You get no, great. Go to the next one. Now, as being someone that’s thirty-two—what Scott said here earlier about rejection, how did that land with you?

BRANDON: I mean, it hit hard because, it’s funny, my professional life, I took all of the risk I could possibly do, leaving a job as an NFL reporter and starting my own thing.

The Challenge of Self-Love and Dating

Personal life, I have no interest in that just because of that fear. And so rather than risk that, I’d rather pour that energy into myself, going to the gym, working on my business, working on my mental health. I think loving yourself, I didn’t love myself until like a year and a half ago. And it took me a long time to get to that point.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. What’s your question for Scott?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think, for me, it bounces off that of how can you balance loving yourself, but also trying to find that person to love. I feel like for the first time, like I said, I do love myself, and I’m ready to date. I want to get married one day and be a father and have kids, but it’s like, how do you balance the two? Can you do both at the same time?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So, just feel like I need to disclose. I have no domain expertise or training in psychiatry. And so, when you talk about mental health issues, I can talk to you about my own mental health issues. But I don’t ever want to supplant the notion that you should talk to professionals and get real advice. I’m speaking to someone who’s been through a lot of what you’ve been through. But my advice is anecdotal.

So just that asterisk. I coach a lot of young men. And I have enough respect for you not to PG thirteen or whitewash my content. When men, usually young men, the young men I work with usually want to move out of the parents’ house. They want to start making some money.

And then ultimately, what they end up is, when they start trusting me, I’d really like a girlfriend. And I go through a series of exercises. And the first thing I ask them is, would you have sex with you? What do you look like? Do you take your appearance seriously?

Do you have a plan? Do you have a kindness practice? How do you demonstrate excellence?

OPRAH WINFREY: Basis of that, I love the way you talk about you emphasize kindness so much in “Notes on Being a Man.”

What Attracts Women to Men

SCOTT GALLOWAY: There are three reasons women are attracted to men sexually. And there’s a ton of research here. Number one, and we don’t like to talk about this, is the man’s ability to signal resources. All right? We don’t like to admit that. It’s important.

Number two is intellect. Because instinctively, people who make good decisions for the tribe, the tribe lives longer. So women are drawn to intellect. The fastest way to communicate an intellect is humor. And just so I can offend everybody, it’s a joke, but we can be funny about this.

This is my impersonation of a woman: “I’m laughing, I’m laughing, I’m naked.” If you can make a woman laugh, the only dates I ever got were people I can make laugh. If you can make a woman laugh, she will likely have a coffee with you.

And then the third thing, and this is the most underleveraged secret weapon in mating, kindness. Because women instinctively know there might be periods in their life through gestation or because they are smaller physically that they need someone who baseline is kind, right? So a kindness practice.

I’m not proud of this.

OPRAH WINFREY: You say you were not always kind.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I’m not proud of this. I was not born with the kindness gene. And when I had kids, I realized that they were going to model me. I believe, like anything, you can develop a practice. And every day I tried to do something that demonstrated generosity towards someone with no reciprocal expectation.

OPRAH WINFREY: When did you realize you were not a kind person?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Professionally, when I realized that I could have been so much nicer. I could have…

OPRAH WINFREY: Were you unkind? Were you an ahole?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Never mean. Never unkind. But what you realize is that everyone has capital. When you’re young, you have more time than money. When you’re older, you have some money. I’ve got some early success. I would have been so easy for me to lift young people up.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yep.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I was never mean. But it would have been so easy for me to say, “You were just outstanding in that meeting.” Or “I’ve been watching you. I think you’re going to do great. This is where I think you could improve.” I just, it’s so easy. And you don’t have to be a baller.

I now stop, I saw an old cut on virtue signaling right now, but it’s true. I saw an old couple on the street. They looked amazing. It was one of those New York couples. And I stopped them and I said, “You guys just look amazing.” And I could tell it made them feel good, and it made me feel better about myself. And now, after doing this for twenty years, it’s common practice.

But these are basic reasons why women are drawn to men. What I would say to you is it sounds like you’ve worked a lot on yourself and you’re ready. Boss, there’s no free lunch. If you want to make real money, if you want to hang out with someone higher character than you and better looking than you, quite frankly, get ready to eat s* because it involves rejection over and over and over. Nothing wonderful will happen to you without taking an uncomfortable risk.

And a lot of it is just practice. Get used to no. And when I tell these men I mentor, church group, sports league, whatever it might be, and then you’ve got to express friendship or romantic interest, and this is what’s going to happen. You’re probably going to get to no. And then you’re going to call me the next day. I’m going to say, “Are you all right?” And that person’s going to say, “Yes.” I’m going say, “Okay, now the next time, it’s two approaches.” You’ve just got to build some calluses. There’s no easy way around it.

No is the path to wonderful yeses. Got that, Brandon?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I got it. I’m going to try my…

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Thank you. The humor part helps.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.

OPRAH WINFREY: I applaud you, Brandon, too, for allowing yourself to be so vulnerable on that tape. That’s why you got five million responses because people respond to your heart.

Jermaine’s Story: The Crisis Nobody’s Talking About

OPRAH WINFREY: Jermaine is twenty five. And first, here’s a quick look at one of his TikToks.

JERMAINE (in video): America, I’m not going to lie. I really think that us as men, the male pop, we are literally having a crisis that nobody is talking about. There are so many men that I know that are struggling with mental health and depression, especially in these times where the economy and money and jobs, more men don’t have jobs right now. More men are going through financial struggles.

More men my age who got degrees, who went to college, who did all the right things, cannot find jobs, and nobody’s really talking about it. And, yeah, we’re seeing these stats that say, “Oh, less men are having kids, less men are getting married.” Do y’all think that’s by choice? That is not by choice. This is not our father’s and our grandfather’s economy.

Why would I sit here and put myself in a bigger bind of trying to get married, have a kid, and buy a house if I can’t even survive on my own? And I feel like nobody is talking about this. And, eventually, this has to become a part of the public conversation as society is moving forward.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. We are having that conversation right now. We are. We are. So, ask and it’s given. So, what’s your question?

JERMAINE: Yeah, I think my question, and relating back to the video, is that I think we’re having a conversation about men who are just in the basement and just unsure where life has taken them. What we’re not having the conversation about is men like me, who did do the right things. You go to college, you have the right job, you don’t really struggle necessarily with relationships with women or whatever, but you do have this kind of fear of, I’m doing all the right things right now at twenty five. How do I stay on track with the way the political climate is going, the way the economy is going? This is a whole new era that we’re in.

And so my question is just, what do you say to men who are twenty five who are on the right path, doing the right things to stay focused and stay ahead of the curve for the future when it looks very unpredictable here in the United States?

Economic Solutions for Young Men

SCOTT GALLOWAY: You just wish as you got older, could you could wrap your arms around people and give them the confidence they deserve. You know, I had your looks, I’d be the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination right now.

Look, this pivots to solutions. But the reality is my generation and old people have figured out a way to continue to vote themselves more money. People over the age of sixty are seventy two percent wealthier than sixty year olds forty years ago. People under the age of forty are twenty four percent less wealthy.

Marriage is the new luxury item. If you’re in the top quintile of income earning homes, there’s a four in five chance you’ll get married. If you’re a man in the bottom quintile, there’s a one in five chance you’ll get married. Unfortunately, income as it relates to college, certification, confidence, the ability to put yourself in environments for mating, it’s really unfortunate. It’s now related to the income of your parents.

So what I would suggest is the following. Realize that a lot of this is not your fault and forgive yourself. And two, as citizens, there are common sense solutions, but they’re not that romantic or don’t make for good TikToks. We need twenty five dollars an hour minimum wage.

We need, you know what would be the best thing for young men right now? Universal childcare. Where a man is at the greatest risk of self harm is in the year after he gets divorced. He loses his primary relationship. One out of three men no longer have contact with their children six years after divorce.

That is the zone of suicide. And why do young people get divorced? Is it a lack of shared values? No. Is it an infidelity? No. It’s financial strain. So if we want healthier loving households, it’s pretty damn easy. My generation needs to stop hoarding so much wealth with economic policies that benefit us.

For the first time in our nation’s history in two hundred seventy five years, a thirty year old isn’t doing as well as his or her parents were at the age of thirty. National service, tax credits for third places, twenty five an hour minimum wage, more vocational training, universal childcare, Pell grants.

When I went to UCLA, admissions rate was seventy four percent. This year it will be nine percent. I went for seven thousand dollars total tuition. My first house in San Francisco cost two hundred and eighty thousand dollars which I bought when I was twenty eight.

But now my generation has weaponized college and housing. Once I get a degree in a house, I want the admissions rates to go down. And all of a sudden, I become concerned with traffic, and I don’t like any more housing permits. This is pretty damn simple. We got to put more money in everyone’s pocket here.

I’ve got to stop buttressing my own wealth with your credit card, deficit spending that elevates my wealth and robs economic opportunity from you. The greatest thing we could do about the loneliness crisis and the mating crisis, pretty damn simple. Put more money in your pockets, full stop. Makes sense, Amessa?

JERMAINE: Makes sense. Thank you.

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank you, Jermaine.

Redefining Toxic Masculinity

OPRAH WINFREY: Let’s talk about the term toxic masculinity. Yeah. Now, you say that this elicits all sorts of reactions, and you call that phrase the emperor of all oxymorons. What’s your take?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I don’t think there’s any such thing as toxic masculinity. I think there’s cruelty. There’s abuse of power. There’s violence. But masculinity is supposed to get in the way of those things.

Women need to cross the street when they see men because they feel safer, right? It breaks my heart that you hear in New York, women are afraid to get on subways, they’ll say because there’s too many men. So from a very young age, we have to teach our boys, you’re a protector. That’s how you demonstrate masculinity. It’s not just physical.

Real men break up fights at bars. They don’t start them. Your default operating system as a man should be to weigh in and protect. That’s why we’re here. We have denser bone structure, better double twitch muscle, and this amazing thing called testosterone. And the whole reason we’re given that is such that we can protect people. Move to that.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. So some women heard we were talking to men today and wanted to be here. Maria Claire, what do you want to say?

A Woman’s Perspective on the Crisis

MARIA CLAIRE: I just want to say your household name in my apartment of three twenty five year old women. So I’m very, very grateful for the work that you’re doing. And really, anytime I hear this conversation being advanced, it brings me a lot of joy and hope to see thought leaders just stepping in, wanting to protect, and honestly redeem and restore my generation because, I mean, I’m heartbroken by what’s going on. And I’m heartbroken for everyone in this room. I’m heartbroken for myself.

OPRAH WINFREY: What breaks your heart the most?

MARIA CLAIRE: The desperation. It breaks my heart for me and my girlfriends that I talk to that any hope and desire that be married with kids is faith driven because if you look at the facts, there’s no reason to it. You know? Why would I hope that someone would want to say “I do” to me a bunch of times throughout my life if they can’t even use the word to eat?

And it’s heartbreak and it’s not anger, because I know that it’s a systematic problem. But I think that’s a very, very profound distinction, that it’s heartbreak and not anger. It’s not anger, it’s heartbreak. And, I mean, I could talk all day about how I think big tech is the enemy of community and fruitful relationships, and social media almost ruined my life. And I can only speak for myself when I say that, but it really almost did.

How Can We Love Each Other Well in This Generation?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And I think it is ruining some lives. I think it will continue to do so if we don’t do something about it. But I guess my question for you is something a little bit more abstract and loftier. In the midst of this crisis, how can we love each other well in this generation? How can we show up for each other? And what type of encouragement do men need to hear from their peers?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I just don’t think there’s any getting around it. I think we have robbed prosperity and opportunity from your generation to transfer it to mine. The democracy is working too well. Old people have figured out a way to vote themselves more money.

I would suggest that in terms of how we show up for each other, I think big tech is part of the problem. I think synthetic relationships for people under the age of eighteen should be outlawed. I think social media, there should be no social media under the age of sixteen, no phones in schools. My colleague at NYU, Jonathan Haidt, has done a lot of great work around this.

But what I would suggest is that getting out, saying yes a lot, yes to invitations. I think young people do have more agency than they recognize. And the key to happiness, I think, is almost entirely correlated with how much time you spend out of the house. And so what I would say to any young person is try to say yes to as many things as are out of the house.

And also, I feel like young people through Instagram and online dating have developed a series of red flags where they immediately say, “Oh, he’s not over six feet,” or “She doesn’t have a certain color hair,” and they write off each other. So this is the reality of human sexuality. Men are much less choosy. We’re much more promiscuous.

Where Can Men Demonstrate Excellence?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: The reality is men need venues to demonstrate excellence. And if you talk to people who’ve been married longer than thirty years, almost always one was more interested than the other. And it was usually the man that was more interested than the woman. But what happened is, at church, I liked the way he treated his parents. I found out he was really talented. He made me laugh.

Where does a man demonstrate excellence right now? They’re not going to church. Remote work, I think, is the worst thing to happen to young people. A third of relationships begin at work. And ninety-nine percent of them are consensual. It’s not like it’s all predatory. I’ve had eleven marriages at the companies I’ve started. And I’m like, I had no idea they were sleeping together. Did anyone know? And they got married. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Anyways, what I would say is that vote for people who are going to recognize that young people need to share in this prosperity, but also to realize you do have agency, right? And getting out, being friendly, being open, that’s the only advice I can provide. And try and put away the phone because two hundred times a day, you’re going to get a reminder that you’re not living up to this fake life that someone else is pretending to have.

OPRAH WINFREY: I see you guys nodding. Everybody’s nodding because it feels like you’ve gotten this, right? You know this is happening.

The Strength to Endure Rejection

OPRAH WINFREY: So Jack is in our audience, and I hear, Jack, you read Scott’s book and you have a question about dating.

JACK: I do. Yeah. A lot of excerpts from your book stuck with me, but one in particular is a call back to the point you were making on how one of the most important strengths a young man can develop is a willingness to endure rejection. Yeah.

I love to go to run clubs and try to be intentional about going to third spaces with my friends. And we often talk about how many strangers are we going to say hi to? How many people are we going to ask to coffee? And we say five, ten, and then we check in at the end and it’s usually zero. It might be one. What would you tell your twenty-five-year-old self who may have felt that way, or maybe you never felt that way, but for all the men that you mentor, what do you tell them?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So, look, I live a life that is just my parents wouldn’t believe, right? I’m here with Oprah, right? And when I reverse engineer those things, they come back to irrational passion for my well-being of my mother. I’m a product of big government. I got assisted lunch, Pell Grants, public school. My mom accessed family planning. If we hadn’t had access to that, we would have been in poverty.

So it really upsets me that immigrants built my companies. I ran tech companies. It really upsets me that America today seems to be attacking everything that got me kind of where I am.

If I could go back in time, I would say forgive yourself. Because I remember thinking, “Oh gosh, I had companies go bankrupt that I’d started.” I endured a lot of rejection from women. I wish I could go back and say, “All right, you can add value to a company. You will make someone happy. If you keep trying and you’re a good person, you will make money.”

But my superpower, quite frankly, and this is the superpower I’d want everyone to inherit by doing what you’re doing, approaching strangers, my superpower is rejection. Specifically, I’m willing to endure it. I applied to nine graduate schools. I got into zero. And then one let me off the waiting list. I can’t tell you the amount of rejection I’ve endured from women.

And the ability to mourn and move on, I mean, I get a lot of power from my atheism. And I believe at some point I’m going to look into my boys’ eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end. And embracing my insignificance and your insignificance makes me feel so much better because when I say something stupid or I endure some form of rejection, it gives me comfort to know they’re going to be dead soon and so am I. And it doesn’t matter.

So why on earth would I not squeeze as much juice out of this line called life and establish the ability to mourn and move on? So what you’re doing is a key practice because the ability to endure rejection again, it’s kind of everything.

Everybody sees the guy or the gal who has it all. I can’t imagine everything was a yes for you. I can’t imagine the amount of no’s you got to get to this point. But the ability to look in the mirror and go, “That’s okay. We’re both going to be fine.” It’s everything.

The fact that you’re out, you’re at run clubs, you’re even having these conversations with other men, I’m not worried about you. You should be mentoring me. You’re going to be just fine.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay, Jack.

Why Can’t Women Find Men Who Meet Them Where They Are?

OPRAH WINFREY: So Ann Marie, what did you want to say?

ANN MARIE: So this has been such a great and enlightening conversation. I have so many thoughts that I want to add. I have to say, a lot of my friends, we’ve just completely given up on dating. We’re more focused on our family and our friends and our careers.

And for me, personally, I feel like I’ve gotten to a point where I really love the version of myself that I’ve become. I put a lot of work into her. I’m really focused on my career and emotional independence and it feels really great to be in that space. So I thought when I started dating again, that would actually make dating easier.

But I feel like it’s getting so much harder to actually find someone who is willing to come to the table and meet me where I am. So my question for Scott is, as women continue to level up more and more, why do you think that we can’t find as many men that are willing to meet us there?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So what you said was really telling, that you’re pouring your energy into family, friends, and work. That is very telling. That’s more indicative of women than men. And that is women tend to channel that energy, that romantic energy, or lack thereof, or interest into very positive things, whereas men sometimes channel it into negative things.

The reality is my message, I’m not here with a message of hope on this because the reality is women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up. Women generally speaking, and this isn’t true for everybody, but generally speaking, women who graduated from college don’t want to date men who didn’t graduate from college. Not always, but generally speaking.

It’s the high heels effect. And again, this is an uncomfortable conversation. Fifty percent of women say they would never date a man shorter than them. I think that’s bullsh*t. I think it’s more like eighty percent. I think women instinctively want to, they feel that could physically protect them.

And the problem is or the issue is, and it’s both a wonderful thing, but something that’s created knock-on effects in mating, is that women metaphorically are getting taller every year. And men appear to be getting shorter, what I’m saying metaphorically.

And the divorce rates have skyrocketed. And seventy percent of divorce filings are from women. And it’s because, and it’s actually for some good reasons, women no longer feel like they’re economically indentured servants. They have their own game and their ascent economically has not been matched by men’s ascent emotionally and logistically.

So women wake up and say, “Okay, I’m making more money than you. You’re not pulling your weight at home and you’re kind of not there for me. You’re not really noticing me.” And so a lot of women are doing the math and exiting the relationship.

What I would say is what you’re feeling, quite frankly, I think is what a lot of women are feeling. And a lot of women say there are no good men to date or there are no men to date. No, there just aren’t that many men they’d want to date.

And so where I try to go to solutions is how do we lift up young people such that they’re all or more of them are economically viable, which I think will, on the margin, lift up or disproportionately impact young men.

But just the fact that you said you’re self-conscious or aware enough to pour that energy into really productive things means you’re going to be fine. I don’t think romantic love is the be-all end-all for everybody. It’s really rewarding. But I think you can find what I’ll call that sort of purpose, relational love in a lot of different areas.

And the fact that you’re even thinking about how you channel that energy into stuff that’s more productive, you’re the role model for young men right now. Not everyone’s going to find romantic love right away, or it’s going to happen, it’s going to take longer. But how do you transfer it into more productive means that make you a better person, a better citizen, a better sister, a better daughter?

So anyways, it’s a long-winded way of saying, right on. You’re being a productive human. You’re going to be happy regardless if you find that or not. And I just wish more men would take your lead and say, “All right, maybe things aren’t working out for me romantically. I’m going to continue to work on myself. And I’m going to pour that energy into other relationships.”

OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, that’s what Brandon did. That’s what he said at the very beginning.

What Can Parents Do to Help This Generation?

OPRAH WINFREY: So we have another question. Mike, what’s your question?

MIKE: So thanks, Scott. This really touches home for me. My wife and I have triplets, twenty-four years old. My one son graduated from college. He’s doing pretty well. He lives in Chicago, works for a big firm. My son actually has a job, but he’s not happy with it at all. My daughter went on to get a master’s degree.

My question to you is, as you stated earlier, this is the generation that we don’t see outdoing their parents, my wife and I, kind of troubling to us. What can we do as parents? What advice would you have for this generation? And what can we do as a society to help out?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So the first thing is you and your wife need to forgive yourselves, recognizing the market’s bigger than any individual performance. So by virtue of the fact you’re really involved in your kids’ lives, that’s probably the most important thing, just being there and present.

But I do think we need to acknowledge that, again, there are programs, economic and social programs, to help lift young people up. One out of three young men under the age of twenty-five is living at home. One out of five men, right, is living still at home at the age of thirty. So the number of people living at home, men living at home has doubled.

And it creates rage and shame across our whole culture because whether you want to or not, you’re kind of by them living with you, you’re kind of a reminder they’re not doing well and you also take it on like, at the end of the day as fathers and as mothers, we feel like that’s our one job, right? And so when it’s not going well, it just attacks our self-esteem.

So without knowing your specific situation and not having a domain expertise to counsel you in a thoughtful way, what I can say is this is an issue facing America. I think it’s our biggest issue. And we need to stop sending to DC across between the Golden Girls and the land of the dead. Two-thirds of Congress is going to be dead in twenty-five years. Do you think they’re really worried? Do you think they’re really worried about you or the national deficit or climate change?

So my point is young people, vote, get out. And also as a parent, forgive yourself. You’re doing your best. And a lot of this is out of your control.

MIKE: Yeah. One more, because as you said, being there in the home. My parents didn’t know where the heck I was when I was these guys’ age. Is that helpful, or is that a hindrance?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I actually think it was a good thing.

The Impact of Overprotection

I think we overprotect our kids offline and underprotect them online. Won’t let a nine year old. Two thirds of nine year olds have never walked down a grocery shopping aisle alone, but they go online where they interact with strangers and bots.

I used to leave my mom’s house at 9 AM on a Saturday morning with an Abba Zaba Bar, a Schwinn bike, thirty-five cents, and she wouldn’t see me for fourteen hours. I got bullied. I got into trouble, and it was great for me. It was great for me. I developed resilience, a sense of adventure, camaraderie.

I’m not suggesting anyone should be traumatized, but we overprotect children. The two things that appear to be spiking teen depression are one, when social went on mobile and also the concierge bulldozer parenting of my generation, where we clear out every obstacle for kids.

And then they get to college and they get their first D or they get their heart broken and they literally freak out. They’ve never known that. So it’s a combination of things. But I think the over parenting of my generation, I don’t know if you’re guilty of this or not, but I would not come home till 11 PM. My son’s five minutes late from school. We call MI6 in the CIA.

So I think some of it is overprotection. I don’t think it’s been a good thing for kids. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike.

A Letter to His Sons

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank you for this book. Thank you. Thank you. You’re all getting it. All right. At the end of the book, I love the message. It’s a long message. So I wanted you to summarize. You write a message to your sons. What is the ultimate message that you want to give them and want to give to the world through this book?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, so at the end of the book, wrote a letter to my sons.

OPRAH WINFREY: Which I think everybody should write a letter to their sons.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Sure. Why not?

OPRAH WINFREY: Because I was reading that, I was thinking, yeah, everybody should write a letter to their sons.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: One, I first and foremost, I want them to know how immensely I love them. Two, I want them to realize the best decision their dad made and the best decision they made was being born in America. I really do think there are certain wonderful attributes, some of which unfortunately appear to be on pause right now. I hope they haven’t gone away.

But I hope that they always appreciate how fortunate and blessed they were to be born in America and that they reinvest in America. And then more than anything, that they take care of their mom. Thank you.

Closing Reflections

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank Notes on being a man. Scott Galloway, big shout out. Thank you, New York. Beautiful. Thank you. You have a great day. Wow, that was interesting. Thank you, guys. Thanks for coming out on a rainy day in New York City. Thank you. Thank you.

So what will be your takeaway?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Be kind.

OPRAH WINFREY: Be kind. Get out to the ballot box and vote.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Vote. Vote. Yeah.

OPRAH WINFREY: That was one of my big takeaways too. It’s clear. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My big one was take care of your mom. I just lost my dad this year, so very important to me.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Be an active participant in the redefinition of masculinity.

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, now. Okay. I love that. I love that. Don’t just listen to this conversation. Go do something. Go mentor a younger man. Go mentor a younger man.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Men have struggles too, and I can accept that, and we can work with it.

OPRAH WINFREY: We can work with it, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My takeaway is that men don’t want to be told how to be men. We want to feel like men. So create spaces for men to thrive, to access the full range of emotions that we have access to, and model behavior.

OPRAH WINFREY: And model behavior. Did you have a takeaway, Rainer?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Be okay with rejection. Go for it. Like, don’t worry about getting told no. It’s okay.

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank you all for being here. Thank you so much. You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I’ll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.

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