The ONE THING Boys Need From Their Father | Scott Galloway

Were your parents together? Were they divorced?

They were together. They got divorced when I was a teenager, so. But they were. They never showed each other love. It was just not emotionally safe feeling. I didn't feel physically like I was an under harm, but emotionally, it just didn't feel safe.

Yeah, look, they were doing their best.

You know, it's like they only had the tools they had.

So. Yeah, and it's good, at some point you just forgive them. Right. If they tried. I think the box every parent needs to check is to be a better dad or mom. Mom to you than your father. Your mother was to you. And my dad checked that box. And, you know, there's a lot, you know, that I took from that relationship. And also, when your parents get divorced, as mine did, you have a tendency to sanctify once and demonize the other. You have a tendency to go, one was wrong, one was right, and what you realize is neither is perfect. But the reality is, Louis, is that my dad. And it was a different age. My dad kind of left it. When I was nine, he moved to Ohio. I didn't see him a lot, and that was not ideal. Fortunately, I had a lot of men. I'm doing this live thing tonight downtown in la, and I've invited two of my ment. Two men who got involved in my life randomly when I was a kid. And I reached out to them, they're in their 70s and 80s, and said, will you come to this thing tonight? That's cool, you know. One was a stock bro. I, I, I. My mom's boyfriend gave me 200 bucks and said, go to one of those fancy. I started asking about stocks, and he said, Here's $200 going to those fancy brokerages in Westwood. And I walked him with $200 at the age of 13. Like, what do I do into Dean Witter? And I said, hi, I have $200. And they said, wait here. And this guy with this ju fro came out named Cicero. And he goes, I'm Cyro. And he took me back to his cubicle and he gave me my first lesson in the stock market. And he said, when there's more buyers and sellers, the sellers raise the price until there's fewer buyers. He gave me a first lesson, and then I came back the next day. And he said, all right, let's look at some stocks. He's like, what are you interested in? I'm like, well, I love the movies. And Close Encounters of the Third Time had just come out. And he said, okay, Columbia Pictures is the Company that made it. It's a stock. We bought 16 shares of Columbia Pictures for like 12 bucks a pop. And every day for two years, I used to go into the pay phone booth at Emerson, put in my two dimes and call to check in on my stocks. And once or twice a week, I'd go into the Dean Witter Reynolds office in Westwood and he'd give me another lesson on stocks. And he used to call my mom, and he wasn't trying to sell her. We had no money. And he would just say nice things about me to my mom. I used to hang out with this guy in his office for a couple years until I went to high school. And this is a flex, but I'll make it. I've made a lot of money starting and selling companies. I've made tens of millions of dollars investing in stocks. I've been investing in stocks since I was 13 because of Cy. Sarah. Wow. So in addition to giving me, like, some confidence that this nice, impressive man liked me, you know, it taught me this incredible life skill around investing. So is he coming tonight?

Is he coming tonight?

Yeah, he's coming tonight.

That's cool.

Yeah. First time I've seen him in 45 years.

No way.

Yeah, we stay in contact over text.

You haven't seen him?

I don't see him in 45 years.

That's incredible. You're seeing him tonight?

Yeah.

That is cool. Send me a photo of it.

But I was really lucky. I had. I had this. This guy and his girlfriend noticed that my mom and I. You know, it's just my mom and I one day knocked on our door and he said, does your son want to come horseback riding with us? And he and his girlfriend used to take me to horseback riding. And just having men in your life, that can give you a little bit of advice and not only that, just give you the sense you have value. Yes, I think is huge. But anyways, back to it sounds like. When did your dad pass?

Three years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. So look, I think as you get older, you try and focus on the good things. You try and forgive your dad and whatever you think he got wrong, you try and course correct around for your own boys. I think that's the basis of trying to be more human, evolve. But the one thing, the one thing I would. I mean, I've had five one things. But the thing I really took away from my father, his real flaw that, quite frankly, was not great for me and took some time to repair. I think the best thing you can do for boys is just treat their mother really well. They just see it. I really go out of my way. I take some real arrows from my wife sometimes in front of the boys, I really try to demonstrate emotion and affection around her. I defer to her judgment in front of the boys. I just try to make sure the boys know that their mother is really valuable and they see it by the way I treat her. I think that's going to create much more healthy relationships for them. I think that's the best thing you can do for your boys, is just treat your. Even if you're divorced, just be really good to the mother. Because my dad wasn't. And I think it really, quite frankly damaged my relationship probably with women. Or maybe I'm just like a lot of people looking for trauma from my parents and I'm just a selfish person. But I think I could have been kinder to women when I was a young man. I don't think my dad was a great role model for that. Men are struggling. 4 times as likely to kill themselves. 3 times as likely to be addicted or homeless. 12 times the likely of being incarcerated. If you go into a morgue and there's five people that died by suicide and four men, if it was any other group, I think we weigh in with programs and empathy. I think more and more of them are going to be alone in a room with a screen.