The Diary Of A CEO Clips - Why Following Your Passion Is The WORST Advice… | Scott Galloway

What would you do if one of your sons said to you, "How many sons have you got now?" I've got two. You've got two sons that I know of, that you know of. One of your sons comes to you and says, "Dad, I've read your book, all of your books, and I think they're great, but Dad, I would love to be a professional actor." And then your other son comes to you and says, "I want to be a musician." I don't want to crush anybody's dreams, so I'd go for it and I'll be supportive. But this industry, let's just look at the economics. Musician and acting has a 99% unemployment rate, so you've got to be in the 1%. I want you to set up benchmarks for determining what it means to be in the top 1%.

The most talented actors in the world are in a union called SAG-AFTRA, and by the way, it's not easy to get your union card. You've got to be in a Broadway play, you've got to be recognized. That's a big moment. It's like getting your PGA golf tour card. You get your SAG-AFTRA card, and it means you're one of the 180,000 most talented creatives in the world. Last year, 83% of them didn't have health insurance, because they didn't make more than $233,000. So you not only need to be in the top 17% just to have health insurance, you probably need to be in the top 10%, realistically the top 1%. I know a lot of working actors. If I said, "This is the guy from this show," you'd be like, "Oh my God, that guy's amazing." He's not making a lot of money. Everybody talks about Tom Cruise, but the majority of working actors, you would say, "I know that woman, I know that man, they're great," and they make an okay living. If they had achieved that level of excellence in almost any other industry, they'd own a house and a second house in Aspen.

So if you want to be an athlete, an actor, a model, an artist, open a restaurant, open a nightclub, have a jewelry line, be a fashion designer. I don't want to crush anyone's dreams, but let's have a sober conversation: if you aren't getting bright green lights, that you're in the top 1%, really quickly, and we put some guardrails on it, we're going to do this for two years, three years. You can't pay your rent, and two or three years in, Dad's going to stop paying your rent. At some point, or maybe I'll continue to pay your rent, but I need you to start workshopping another career. Because here's the thing: young people oftentimes mistake their hobbies for their passions. What I would suggest, and what I can guarantee you, is that being successful at anything, passion comes from mastery. Passion comes from being a ninja at something.

I'm renovating a house, and there's this guy installing our soapstone, who's the soapstone guy. He's an Iraqi immigrant who dropped out of high school. He knows everything about soapstone. You can talk to him about the vein and the soapstone and which quarries, and he makes... I've been very open with him. I've talked about my book. He made 1.3 million pounds last year. He's the soapstone guy. I can't imagine when he was a kid, he and I bonded over football. I would bet, I don't know this, I would bet he dreamt of being a football star and playing for Iraq in the World Cup at some point. I doubt that at the age of 17 he thought, "I'm hoping in 15 years I'm installing soapstone in renovations for American douchebags." I can't imagine that was his dream, right? But here's the thing: he has an amazing life. He takes care of his kids, he takes care of his parents, he gets to take amazing vacations with his wife, which makes him passionate about soapstone.

So yes, go be a fashion designer. But let's be honest: if you're not making enough money to pay your rent within two years, and you're not making enough money to form a family in five years, we're going to workshop something else. This requires such a mindset shift in the current world, because obviously the slot machine, the casino, the Las Vegas of validation is Instagram and TikTok. Now, if I announce on Instagram that I'm a tax lawyer for the next 10 years, that's not a great Instagram. It's not going to increase my chance of getting laid either. But if I say that I'm part of Chelsea Football Club, I'm in the Junior Academy, yeah, or if I say that I'm starting a business, I'm probably going to get laid more in the next 10 years. The only pushback I would get is that you have to be one of the 10 best soccer players in the world that year to play for Chelsea. That is really hard. That means you're the best player in the sport, and you just have to be godlike talented. The best 10% of tax lawyers, that's tens of thousands of them, fly private and get laid more than you think, because they fly private and they can afford to find someone and give them a wonderful life.

So, in a capitalist society, I'm not saying this is how the world should be. I'm saying this is how the world is. Economic security provides you with all sorts of opportunities: for experiences, for relationships, for romantic opportunities. It is sexy to be great at anything and get economic security from anything. I can't tell you how much I love taking care of my kids, because at one point I was worried about my ability to take care of my kids and not worry about it, and this is where happiness comes from. It's great to be in a prestige industry and be a baller. I get reward from some of the fame I have right now, and I'm sure you get reward from it. But the thing that is really rewarding as you get older is that I can lean into my relationships with my sons, and I don't have that economic fear I had the first time my son came marching out of my girlfriend. That is so rewarding. I can take care of my dad. I don't have to worry about it. My dad's 90, going to be 94 in a few weeks, and he lives in a really nice home, and he has a full-time kind of health aide, and it's about a quarter of a million a year to take care of my dad. If you look at it, that's post-tax; there's no tax credit for it, so it's about $400,000 in pre-tax income. My sister, who does really well but not as well as me, we have a great partnership. She handles it logistically, I handle the money, and being able to do that and not have it be a source of stress in my life, and know that my dad has been taken care of well, okay, it'd be great to be a football player. Trust me, when you get to my age, that feels really good. That feels really nice.

The means to the ends, the means, money is a means. It's really important. It's hard to be happy in a capitalist society with economic stress. The resting blood pressure of kids in low-income homes is higher than kids in middle and upper middle class homes, because they sense the anxiety for Mom and Dad. I remember losing my jacket when I was in eighth grade, and it was going to be just a horrible day because I had to go home and tell my mom. Jackets cost 33 bucks, all in. In my head, very upsetting. The ability to take care of your kids, your parents, do wonderful things. Money affords you so many wonderful things. Getting to a certain level of economic security is the means, but the ends, the reason you get to economic security, is so you can free up, be free of anxiety, and have some additional time so you can focus on the ends. And the ends is deep and meaningful relationships. I spend the majority of my money on traveling experiences with my family and friends. I spend a ton of money, and I absolutely love it. There's no reason to hoard money. Once I hit my number, I hit my number seven years ago, and I started thinking I could be a billionaire.

What was your number? My number was 100 million, by the way. My number when I got out of college was a million, and then by my 30s I thought, well, if I had 10 million I'm done. And then things got so expensive, and my greed glands kept going, and my number was 100 million. Why have a number? Why did people listening need to create a number? What's the value of having that sort of line in the sand? Well, you need a goal, and you need to be thoughtful about how much money you're going to need. So if you figure out, I'm going to need 80,000 a year to live, the definition of rich is having a ton of money and impressing your friends. The definition of wealth is knowing that the passive income you would get from growth from your stocks, or dividends, or income, or rental income, is greater than your burn. So you work out of an option, or you work because you want to, not because you need to. That's the definition of wealth. Having a number is just backward integrating into: okay, I want to have at least $3 million a year to live the life I want to live. All right, assuming a 4% return, that means I need $75 million. So I rounded up to 100 million. I got exceptionally lucky to get there, by the way. See above: in 2008 I was broke. I was broke at the age of 42 or 43, and that did not feel good. I got very lucky, started a company, bull market the last 16 years, right place, right time, exceptionally lucky. But you should be able to, you should have a number. You should say this is the amount of money I need, and once I get to this number, enjoy it and start giving it away.

If you love the Diary of a CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor and become part of the 15% of the viewers on this channel that have hit the Subscribe button. It helps us tremendously, and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests for