Notes on Being a Man, and Advice for Young Men Who Are Feeling Lost — Scott Galloway

Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) is a professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and a serial entrepreneur. Scott has founded nine companies and served on the boards of The New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Panera Bread, and Ledger.

His latest book is Notes on Being a Man, and I deeply believe in Scott’s mission and messages with this book. We are sitting on a tinderbox and need to address the elephant in the room: young men need help.

In high school, I won the lottery by chancing upon one coach whose influence saved me from the fates of many of my male friends: jail, overdoses, DUI deaths, and more. Ever since, I’ve searched for ways that we might nudge young men towards optimism and better lives. Left unaddressed, the potential for violence and societal disaster is also high. Testosterone and aggression will go somewhere, so best to channel it.

I’m hoping Scott’s book will act as a virtual mentor for young men who are feeling lost, stuck, angry, or despondent about the future.

But what am I so worried about? Here are just a few stats from Scott’s book and appearances:

• Men are dropping out of college at higher rates, leading to a graduation ratio of roughly 33:66 (men:women).
• The percentage of young men aged 20 to 24 who are neither in school nor working has tripled since 1980.
• 45 percent of men ages 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person.
• Between 2008 and 2018, the share of men who hadn’t had sex in the last year rose from 8% to 28%.
• On dating apps like Tinder, the top 10% of men (in attractiveness) receive 80–90% of all swipe-rights.
• This dating imbalance contributes to increased susceptibility to misogynistic or extremist content online.
• Men are twice as likely to be suspended from school for the same infraction as girls (behavior-adjusted).
• Boys in single-parent households perform worse, while girls’ outcomes remain relatively stable.
• Men are 3× more likely to overdose.
• Men are 4× more likely to commit suicide.
• Men are 12× more likely to be incarcerated.

I asked Scott if I could reprint “The Scott Method” from his new book, and he and his publisher kindly agreed. It does a good job of highlighting the no-BS tough love + practical tactical combo that makes Scott who he is.

Enter Scott . . .

When friends ask if I’ll mentor their sons, I always say yes. We focus on four things—fitness, nutrition, money, work. Master these and they’ll be in a place to start exploring relationships. 

It’s worth repeating: many men think they have to be a mix of Aristotle, Gandalf, and Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid to mentor a younger person. That’s horseshit. The questions I get asked are easy, and a cat could give the advice I do. 

I ask questions as mundane as: When’s the last time you ate a real meal? What do you eat and drink during an average day? Red Bull, Cheetos, sativa gummies? How do you think those might affect your body and brain? So . . . you work in retail, and/or you earn four hundred bucks a week at Chipotle? How much of that goes to online sports betting? A hundred dollars a week? That means you’re spending a quarter of your income on gambling. How are your relationships? Are you dating? What’s your relationship with your parents like? What about your relationship with yourself? What’s your story? Do you have a plan, a blueprint, a map? If not, let’s come up with one. You can adjust it, swap it out in six months or a year—nonetheless, you need one. Do you want to apply to junior college? Skip college, enter the workforce? Move out of your childhood bedroom and start having sex with strange women? First you need to make some money. 

Young men have a single source of capital: time. Where to find it? On their phones. By tracking their activities, we reallocate those hours to more productive places. 

I’m eternally amazed by the number of college-age kids who live at home and who are convinced their parents are the enemy. Yes, your parents can be tone-deaf, uncool, a source of frustration, but give me a fucking break—they’re not trying to undermine you or wreck your life. Unless home is a hellscape, and they’re abusing you, assume everything they do comes from a good place. Don’t want to obey house rules? Then stop taking your parents’ money and find a fifth-floor walk-up. Accepting their support means taking their advice. 

Next, we unlock their phones. Not so I can judge them or be absolute—I watch porn and spend too much time on TikTok, too. By analyzing screen time, we free up eight to twelve hours a week. From now on, they’ll agree to spend thirty minutes a day, not two hours, on TikTok. Two hours a week watching porn are reduced to forty-five minutes, and six-plus hours spent on Reddit, Discord, Coinbase, Robinhood, are distilled to two. 

Many young men don’t take advantage of their muscle mass, bone structure, and testosterone to get physically strong. From now on, they’ll work out three, later four, times a week—we download an app to track progress. The goal is to start small and build up. 

Get to Work . . . 

These days, anyone with a phone and a driver’s license can make money driving for Lyft or doing chores on Taskrabbit. If you want to make money, you first need to start earning some via a part-time job. A nice thing about making money is that you start developing a taste for it—think Dracula and blood. Money, you realize, is fun and interesting, and making it is a good feeling. Why not see if you can make more? If you work at CVS, do you have the skills and organization to get a job at Whole Foods and earn even more money? 

Along with fitness and work, I also ask young men to place themselves in an unfamiliar situation in the company of strangers three times a week in the agency of something bigger—a writing or cooking class, a nonprofit, church, a sports league. The only rule is that within the month, they have to introduce themselves to everyone there. Starting with hello, then asking a stranger out for coffee. The other person might say no. The next day, they have to call and tell me how they feel. It might hurt, but guess what? They’re not mortally wounded, or bankrupt, they’re still standing, and that’s everything. Now do it again until they start developing a callus. The more nos they get, the more they can calibrate what works and doesn’t. The key, the skill, the talent, the mastery, the ninja artisanship no one teaches, is that the greatest, most specific skill a young man can develop is his willingness to endure rejection. 

The above works for most young men—others need more of a sounding board. It’s freakishly easy to add value to a young man’s life. One young man in his twenties told me he planned to move from Washington, DC, to Alaska. Not sure why—I think he saw a special on the Discovery Channel once. 

SCOTT: Do you have a job in Alaska? 

YOUNG MAN: No. 

SCOTT: Friends? Relatives? Any support system? 

YOUNG MAN: No, it’ll be a fresh start. Wait, I forgot to tell you—my mom was just diagnosed with Parkinson’s. 

SCOTT: Parkinson’s? 

YOUNG MAN: I think that’s what the doctor said. 

SCOTT: Why are you being such an idiot right now? Don’t quit your job in DC, you’re making a hundred grand a year! 

YOUNG MAN: Oh, okay, good point. 

SCOTT: Also, it sounds like your mom is really sick. I’ll bet she needs you. Is this really the right time to move? 

YOUNG MAN: Hadn’t thought of that. Probably not. 

SCOTT: Here’s some more advice. Bank enough money so you have six months of cushion. Take a week off, fly to Alaska, and see if you like it—you might really hate the place. Also, if I were you, I’d get a job there first, before you move. Also, your mom needs you. 

YOUNG MAN: Wow. I didn’t think of any of this. Thanks, Scott. 

A lovely colleague once asked if I’d be willing to mentor her son, a college sophomore, pre-med. Dan was feeling low because he’d torn his Achilles tendon playing football and was out for the season. 

SCOTT: Are you on the fast-track to playing in the NFL?

DAN: [laughs hysterically] 

SCOTT: In that case, everything’ll work out. How’s college overall? 

DAN: Really good. I’m having second thoughts about med school, though. 

SCOTT: Stick it out another year. The world won’t end if you quit and do something else. 

DAN: Okay. 

Dan was fine, I told his mom. The Achilles injury was a setback, but college was good, he had strong relationships, went to church, and was in regular touch with family members. As a successful professional, his mom expected him to follow a certain groove, and right now her son wasn’t grooving—so what? Parents across the United States would pray for problems like these. 

Finally, I remind young men to cut themselves slack and stop being so hard on themselves. Reminded daily of their own perceived physical and financial shortcomings in a numbing, dumbing, deep-pocketed digital ecosystem designed to make them feel like screwups and cultural outsiders while simultaneously persuading them they can have a viable social and work life on their phones—while other voices online whisper that the world is against them thanks to women, trans athletes, and immigrants—their judgment and sense of reality take a beating. Adolescence is hard, the twenties harder, as one’s potential begins narrowing, more is at stake, perspective is limited, and any/all career decisions feel dispositive (see above, limited perspective). 

One high school senior I met got rejected by his parent’s alma mater. It devastated him. I told him he would still go to college, that there are a hundred great schools in America that double as the best hundred schools in the world. He would get into one, move into a dorm, drink too much beer, hang out with his friends, meet and have sex with women, test his limits, and have a thoroughly amazing time. In five years, when he and I caught up, the only thing he’d be upset about would be how upset he once was. 

S-C-A-F-A 

My anger and depression issues started when I was in my thirties, probably passed down from my dad. I’ve never been clinically diagnosed for depression, never taken an SSRI. In my thirties, though, I began developing grudges against myself and others. I had a hard time moving past things, would get triggered by something trivial, could feel my blood thickening, and I’d feel hollow and down. I still have trouble getting past things, and periods when I feel nothing—my average daily mood doesn’t always sync with my privilege and blessings.

It’s not one issue or trigger that makes me anxious, it’s more about me. The nerve fibers of the spinal ganglia penetrate our guts, where they identify pain, pressure, and more. What makes me go dark is less a function of a bad phone call or a shitty investment decision than my own brain and body chemistry. Once, I was on the phone with my sister when she remarked I always seemed pissed off about something. “I have to be honest,” she said. “You have less right to be angry and upset than anyone I know. I mean, look at your life.” 

She was right, though I’m still a long way from mastering happiness. These days, I pick up the warning signs more easily that I need to pay more attention to myself. If I haven’t exercised, the intensity and frustration that builds up in my body and brain are displaced. I get snappish, monosyllabic, and self-absorbed. I start role-playing aggressive situations in my head that never happened, like a face-off with a coworker, a cab driver, or an unfriendly barista. These simulations are verbal, never physical. The biggest giveaway is I start thinking about the Holocaust. 

I realized certain behavioral changes could help snap me out of it. I came up with the terrible mnemonic SCAFA, short for Sweat, Clean eating, Abstinence, Family, and Affection—my five pharmaceuticals. 

Sweat and exercise are good for resetting my system. They’re the closest thing we humans have to a cheap, indiscriminately available youth serum—and they make me a nicer person, too. Clean eating means I try to eat home-cooked food versus gorging on trans fats or too many over-seasoned restaurant meals. Abstinence means no alcohol and weed—a short ban against whatever hits my pleasure sensors. Finally, I spend time with my family, even if my sons are being awful and demanding, absorbing as much affection as possible from them, my wife, and our dogs. Love my dogs. 

Note: If you feel low, go back to the basics: Sweat, Clean Eating, Abstinence, Family, and Affection. Take care of your brain and body and the rest will follow. 

****

From Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway, published by Simon & Schuster. ©2025 Scott Galloway. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

More on Scott:
Scott has won multiple Webby and Best Podcast awards, and his New York Times–bestselling books have been translated into 28 languages. Across his Prof G Pod, Prof G Markets, Raging Moderates, and Pivot podcasts; his No Mercy / No Malice newsletter; and his YouTube channel, Scott reaches millions. His prior bestselling books include The Four, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona, Adrift: America in 100 Charts, and The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security. 

Photo credit: Lukas Rychvalsky

The post Notes on Being a Man, and Advice for Young Men Who Are Feeling Lost — Scott Galloway appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.