Valuetainment - “The Single Point Of Failure For Boys” - Scott Galloway WARNS Absent Fathers Create BROKEN Men

00:00:00.000 Scott, what was your relationship like with your father growing up?

00:00:03.200 What was that like?

00:00:06.120 Well, I'll answer and then I'll put the question back to you.

00:00:08.700 My dad was married and divorced four times as far as we know.

00:00:12.580 My mom was his second marriage.

00:00:14.740 He started his third marriage while married to my mom.

00:00:17.520 Wow.

00:00:17.900 You know, not a very sophisticated person.

00:00:19.880 When they got divorced, he moved to Ohio, so he wasn't very involved in my life.

00:00:23.620 He wasn't a bad father, never abused me, but wasn't as generous with his time and affection with me and also made my life difficult because my mom and I struggled economically and he could have been just a little bit more generous.

00:00:38.580 He would have made our lives much easier.

00:00:40.200 So my relationship with my father was pretty distant, and then as he got older, a big unlock for me, Patrick, was I said, okay, instead of having a scorecard and thinking, okay, he was this good or not good a father, that's how good or not good a son I'm going to be, I thought, I really enjoy time with my father.

00:00:59.060 I want to think of my – what kind of son do I want to be?

00:01:01.500 I want to be a loving, generous son, so that's who I'm going to be, and I'm not going to put away the scorecard.

00:01:06.100 And when I did that about 20, 30 years ago, it was a huge unlock for our relationship.

00:01:10.340 And the learning and the advice I would give anyone is instead of keeping score on your

00:01:15.900 marriage, your friends, ask yourself, what kind of husband do you want to be?

00:01:20.920 What kind of member of the congregation of your church do you want to be?

00:01:24.300 What kind of business partner do you want to be?

00:01:25.640 What kind of boss do you want to be?

00:01:27.280 And just be that man and put away the scorecard because you'll naturally inflate your

00:01:31.640 contribution to the relationship and accidentally diminish theirs. And if you have a scorecard,

00:01:36.480 you're always going to be upset or angry or feel like you're not getting the better end of the

00:01:41.340 deal. So what the unlock I got from my father was just be the person in that relationship you

00:01:47.780 envision and put away the scorecard. And that was a huge unlock for me and made my relationship

00:01:54.300 with my father much more productive. What was your relationship like with your father, Patrick?

00:01:59.780 My dad and my parents got a divorce twice to each other.

00:02:03.880 They married each other and divorced each other twice.

00:02:06.380 So married, sisters born, divorce.

00:02:09.360 Remarry, unborn, divorce.

00:02:11.680 So in Iran, I would see my dad once a week.

00:02:14.040 In Iran, the Friday was the Sunday here. 0.77

00:02:17.180 So we had one day off.

00:02:18.600 So I would hang out with my dad on Friday.

00:02:19.900 It was the best day of the week for me.

00:02:21.000 When we went to Germany at a refugee camp, I didn't see my dad for a year and a half.

00:02:25.040 And I didn't have a male role model.

00:02:27.480 Then we came to the States, I would see my dad once every other week.

00:02:30.800 And then, of course, I joined the military.

00:02:32.380 But he was my hero.

00:02:34.300 Since I was six years old, I wanted to be him.

00:02:36.700 The guy was a cashier at a 99-cent store, regular guy, eighth grade,

00:02:41.080 dropped out to support his parents in Iran, came from a very, very loving family.

00:02:46.860 I mean, these guys have each other's back, and it was very weird for him to get a divorce.

00:02:52.260 But they had each other's back, his side.

00:02:54.240 but uh you know a part of this scott for me is like you know how you're coming to be like you

00:03:00.100 know i wish you did this and i wish this and i wish that how how much of him do you see in you

00:03:06.680 now where at what point maybe you were critical and now you're like you know what he used to sell

00:03:11.440 and and i learned how to sell i think from him you know he used to is there anything that you

00:03:15.560 look at now the way you raise your voice that maybe you picked up from him well okay so a couple

00:03:22.580 things. First off, it sounds like you had a strong male role model, even though maybe just

00:03:27.960 logistically wasn't around as much. If you reverse engineer to the single point of failure when a boy

00:03:33.440 comes off the tracks, it's to one point, and that's when he loses a male role model. When a boy loses

00:03:40.480 a male role model through divorce, death, or abandonment, at that moment, he becomes more

00:03:44.900 likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college. And what's interesting is that girls 1.00

00:03:49.780 in single-parent homes have similar outcomes to girls in dual-parent homes. They're a little bit 0.99

00:03:53.960 more promiscuous because they're looking for male attention in the wrong places, but they have the 1.00

00:03:57.520 same rates of college attendance and the same income, same rates of self-harm. It ends up that

00:04:02.620 while being physically stronger, boys are neurologically and emotionally much weaker than

00:04:08.380 girls. So one thing we need to instill into our society is that the moment there's a divorce or a 1.00

00:04:13.460 death, the community needs to weigh in and the mother needs to recognize that boys need men in 0.98

00:04:18.860 their lives. And even just saying that five years ago triggered people, especially on the left.

00:04:22.900 What, women can't raise boys? No. Lie to my life, my mother. But boys need men in their lives. As 1.00

00:04:30.800 it relates to my dad, the biggest lessons I took from my dad around fathering, quite frankly,

00:04:36.580 he tried. He checked an instinctive box around evolution, and that is he was a much better

00:04:42.640 father to me than his father was to him. His father was alcoholic and actually abusive of him.

00:04:46.680 my father was never abusive to me. So he checked the primary box. The thing I have taken away is

00:04:53.540 my father was not physically affectionate with me. I have gone the exact opposite way. I kiss

00:04:58.540 my boys. I read with them. I constantly hug them. Unfortunately, when my oldest turned 16,

00:05:08.100 he no longer wanted to let me hug him, but now he's come back a little bit. I try to be just

00:05:13.600 physically affectionate I tell my boys every day and if I can't get a hold of them on the phone I

00:05:19.880 text them that I love them and I'm proud of them and I try and give them a reason why because I

00:05:23.980 didn't hear that and I realized how important it is but on the flip side I like you I make my living

00:05:31.300 storytelling and and I make an exceptional living telling stories finding data creating a narrative

00:05:38.680 arc and then getting on podcasts or writing books or getting in front of a corporate audience I

00:05:43.580 do a lot of speaking gigs. And I got that from my father. It's through no fault of my own. I

00:05:49.800 practice a lot because when you teach, you get a chance to, it's like being a comedian doing

00:05:54.260 standup. You, you get to practice your stuff. I get to practice my stuff, or at least I used to

00:05:58.700 twice a week in front of 160 kids paying a lot of money vis-a-vis tuition. So I had incredible

00:06:04.240 practice, but I think 51% of it, I inherited from my father. My father could hold a room like no

00:06:10.060 one's business really oh yeah he's fantastic really he was a great storyteller yeah and he

00:06:17.200 had this scottish accent he was handsome so that's why he probably was the reason why he was married

00:06:21.780 four times and divorced four times but there's no reason why you can't be grateful even if you're

00:06:27.060 even if your parents didn't didn't intentionally give something to you you know i'm tall i have

00:06:33.040 broad shoulders and i i'm a decent storyteller and all of those things i got from my father so

00:06:37.320 There's no reason I can't be grateful for those things.

00:06:39.660 I'm looking at a picture.

00:06:40.780 I don't know if you see it or not.

00:06:41.820 This is your Berkeley graduation.

00:06:43.920 Can he see it, Rob, or no?

00:06:45.300 Is it shared with him on his end?

00:06:47.320 Okay.

00:06:47.780 So I see a picture of you, 1992, flashback, Berkeley graduation,

00:06:53.280 dad in the background, big smile on his face.

00:06:56.220 You got your smile with the whole, I wish you could see this.

00:06:58.920 What a cool picture this is.

00:07:00.180 You posted it 27 weeks ago.

00:07:02.360 You know, to me, my father showed up.

00:07:04.180 I'm at boot camp at South Carolina.

00:07:07.320 And they say, so, but David, who's going to come and visit you?

00:07:09.820 I said, nobody.

00:07:10.440 I don't have any family coming.

00:07:11.440 They live in L.A.

00:07:11.960 They don't have the money to fly.

00:07:14.420 So I'm upstairs in the barracks, and then a guy named Wiggins, he says, your dad is here.

00:07:19.360 Come on, but David.

00:07:20.160 I said, there's no way my dad is.

00:07:21.240 I'm telling you, your dad is here.

00:07:23.360 I said, my dad can't come.

00:07:25.680 He says, there's a man with a sombrero on.

00:07:28.580 He's downstairs.

00:07:29.420 He's telling everybody he's your dad.

00:07:30.600 I said, dude, he's not going to come.

00:07:32.100 He told me he's not going to come down.

00:07:33.540 I go downstairs, Scott.

00:07:35.420 My dad drove 2,500 miles.

00:07:37.700 He rented a car.

00:07:38.600 They didn't ask him how many miles he was going to put on.

00:07:40.580 He returned the car $2,499 a day with 5,000 additional miles.

00:07:44.380 He was at graduation.

00:07:45.720 It was priceless to see the guy there with me at the military.

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00:08:33.200 If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.

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Valuetainment - March 13, 2026

“The Single Point Of Failure For Boys” - Scott Galloway WARNS Absent Fathers Create BROKEN Men

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