This is a transcript excerpt from a YouTube interview (Connor Beaton with Scott Galloway) about raising young people—particularly young men—to have grit across different economic backgrounds. Galloway emphasizes the centrality of economic security to health and family stability, recommends family-level budgeting and shared responsibility when finances are strained, and describes tactics to instill grit (sports, early service jobs, physical fitness, summer work). He also notes structural generational wealth shifts—younger adults are less wealthy than past cohorts—and shares personal anecdotes (his mother’s $18,000/year secretary salary; his early jobs) to illustrate lessons.
Questions this video answers
$18,000 a year.
24% less wealthy.
72% more wealthy.
Chapters
I think one of the things that stood out is, you know, I didn't grow up in wealth. Yeah, I struggled financially for a long time, but have managed to do fairly well for myself. My wife and I have managed to do very well for ourselves. And one of the things, admittedly that I've grappled with is I think I've seen what you have been describing, you know, in the sense that many of the people that I know who were born into affluence and extreme wealth or even just a good amount of wealth, have struggled to find a depth of motivation to go out into the world and find some sort of path to meaningful to them and to contribute. And so I'm. I'm actually just curious from a personal level how, how you handle both ends of the spectrum. You know, like, what would you say to people who are struggling financially and trying to raise their kids in a family? And then what would you say to people that do have that affluence and kind of are aware of that factor of that, you know, that elephant in the room that maybe their kids won't want to work as hard, like, what do you do with them? How do you think about handling some of those situations? I know I'm basically asking you for massive life advice right now, which you're like, I wish you didn't ask me that question.
This is. I'm writing a book called the Algebra of Wealth and that is strategies for Establishing Economic Security. Because money is something we don't talk about a lot, especially as men. We're just supposed to be ballers that figure it out silently. And it's just in a capitalist society, it's just hugely important. There's no getting around it. And they say money isn't everything, right? Relationships are everything. But without a certain level of economic security, relationships are just straying. Kids who live in homes that are economically strained have greater standing, blood pressure, you're more likely to have a stroke, be obese, suffer from cardiac problems, be depressed. Violence in the home, when you go below a certain level of economic security. And so I think it should be a kind of a family mission. And that is. All right, look, we're not. My mom was very straight with me. I remember when my two kids took off. My two kids, my two best friends in seventh grade took off from Emerson Junior High School for a private school, Windward, because they started busing. And I'm going to be honest, the initial integration efforts in lausd for a 12 year old were shocking for us and for them and the School was violent. It was strange. It was just a weird place. And so my two friends immediately got pulled out and sent to private school. And I went home and said, okay, I need to go to private school. I need to go to Windward. And my mom sat down with me and said, okay, Scott, it's time you knew, I'm a secretary. I make $18,000 a year. Let me take you through our budget. And it just like, for the first time, I'm like, oh, money's a thing. And I don't have as much as my friends. And we lived in a nice neighborhood. We lived in a small condo in a nice neighborhood. And most of my friends were affluent and just kind of letting me in on the joke and showing me what costs, what helped me. And money came. Not a little bit of a game, but a strategy I sort of understood at an early age. And I think bringing your family in on these efforts and also being very serious about it. This is how much we need every month budget. This is what everyone's expected to do to contribute. Your contribution is to be thoughtful about how much money you spend or whatever. You know, turning off the lights, you know, whatever it might be. Helping out. Cleaning. We used to clean the house on Sunday. You know, we didn't have people cleaning our house. Every Sunday morning, we got up and we cleaned the house. And I think involving your family and saying, okay, some level of economic security is something we're all engaged in because it's bad for our family when we're not. It's stressful for me, mom and dad. It's stressful for you. So here's our budget. Here's how we get past that. This is each of our jobs. Because economic security isn't a function of how much you make. It's kind of more a function of how much you spend. And you can be very happy and economically secure if you just kind of live like a stoic and don't get into that lifestyle. Creepy. And, you know, all the stuff that Suze Orman talks about, credit card debt, not, you know, ignoring expenditure. So that's on the, you know, the. The side if you're struggling. And by the way, it doesn't always work. Some families just have a tough time their whole life. The other side, how to instill a level of grit with your kids. This is something we all struggle with who are blessed with some level of economic security. And what I can, I observe is all my friends talk a really big game about cutting their kids off after college. They all say the Same thing, or most of them, they're going to get whatever they, they can do whatever they want, I'll pay for their college and then boom, it's over, you're on your own. Because that's important, right? And this is what happens. They graduate from college usually and they're good kids, most of them are good kids, right? They can't live in New York. They get a job, a decent job making 50, $55,000 a year, which is decent for a recent college grad, but they can't live near their parents, they can't live in anywhere near the same neighborhood. So they said, well, let's just help them out. Oh, they have a kid, we want to help them buy a house. So you give them some. What kid? What 28 year old? I bought a house at 28. What 28 year old can buy a house right now? I don't care what city you're in. So you help them a little bit more and slowly but surely you're kind of supporting your kids. And it's easy to talk a big game, but it's not like they're drug addicts that you're cutting them off. It's that they're good kids or this is what I see happening. And they don't end up dependent upon you, but they end up kind of needing your support and it's hard to break out. And it's a societal issue because for the first time in history, a 30 year old is. For time in the history of the US a 30 year old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at the age of 30. My generation has basically taken a lot of economic, has done well. If you're under the age of 30, you're 24% less wealthy than you were 40 years ago. People over the age of 70 are 72% more wealthy. So we have tilted the economic table towards old people and incumbents. And so it's just harder, it's economically more stressful for young people. Now what I try and do is I'm trying to instill some level of growth grit in my kids. I try to get them involved in sports, I try to push them physically. My dad gave me a gift and that was physical fitness. He got me doing burpees and sit ups and this Royal Navy workout when I was like 11. And that stuck with me. Pushing myself really hard in college sports gave me a sense of confidence. My first job at Morgan Stanley, I used to work. I worked, I had to, I had no choice. Work exceptionally hard and that gave me a certain level, I think, of grit. Best thing you can do for economic security is to be born the right person at the right time in the right place. A lot of it is not your fault. I would say much of your success and your failure isn't your fault. But trying to instill a level of grit in your kids, you know you need to do it. But I don't have the answer. I do it through sports. I'm trying to get my 15 year old a summer job at a place like CVS where he has to put up with the public. I mean, he's used to being on the other side, saying, yes, I'll have, Do you have Sprite? He says to the flight attendant, and then playing with his flat seat or whatever, right. So I want him on the other side of that coin. I grew up in service jobs from the age of like 13, I was a box boy. That was real important for me to get a sense for what it's like. And you learn some wonderful things. Last point I'm blabbering on. A lot of people were really generous to me. I remember I was a box boy at Westward Ho and occasionally someone would give me 10 bucks, take their groceries out to the car and they'd give me 10 bucks and would make my day. I was like, oh my God, I can go to a movie in Westwood and to Swensons. I, I, if this happens twice, if, if, if lightning strikes and I can get a date, I can go on a date. I mean, it just, it just. And so I'd like to think that some of my recognition of how easy it is to make someone's day because people, I think people, Americans are generally generous people and anyways, athletics, you know, values, grit, jobs. But if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears because it's something I think we all struggle with.
