Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU Business School, where he teaches brand strategy, digital marketing, was named one of the world's 50 best business school professors.
He's also the founder of, like, something like nine companies and the author of two books, the first of which was a New York Times bestseller, and the latest of which, the Algebra of happiness, is just out and is a fun, provocative take on what really matters in life and what is also in his mind, an utter waste of time.
All of this accomplishment, not bad from a guy who grew up a kind of self described slacker in Southern California and kind of begged his way into graduating from UCLA with a sterling 2.27 gpA.
So in today's conversation, we dive into how Scott's upbringing, how being raised by a mom who was a fierce champion for him, made so many things possible, how he built a life of what kind of seemed like astonishing external success felt and looked like while he was simultaneously crumbling inside and then blowing up everything that got him to this place of perceived success and rebuilding life on a profoundly different set of values and expectations and measurements in his second act.
And of course, along the way, we touch on some of the ideas from his new book, the Algebra of Happiness, that will, without a gender, provoke you to think differently about what a life well lived is and how to get there.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
You know, I describe my childhood and me as unremarkably or remarkably unremarkable.
You know, just latchkey kid, single, single mom, only child, nothing that exceptional.
Nothing.
Just kind of sleepwalking through life.
Yeah.
Did you feel like that when you were a kid or looking back on it, is that sort of like your assessment of what was going on?
You know, I think you were a kid, you just don't know any different.
You know, the defining moments for me were my parents divorced, growing up with a single mom.
But it was the seventies, you know, I think we're about the same age.
It was just a different approach to kids.
Make sure that they're fed, make sure they're home by like, midnight, and that's about it.
It wasn't anything like what we're doing now.
Yeah, I mean, I remember in the summers going out to play kick the can, and literally, like, that was the.