Male Roles, Obligations and Options for Building a Fulfilling Life With Scott Galloway

A fulfilling life is not a frictionless life. It involves developing competence, taking responsibility, building relationships and hearing “no” without deciding that you are finished.

That principle connects a remarkable number of the challenges facing boys and men today. Physical health, financial stability, romantic relationships and a sense of purpose are not separate projects. They influence one another, and all of them require engagement with a world that cannot be controlled from a phone.

In my conversation with Scott Galloway, we agreed on much of that foundation. We disagreed about some important things, including alcohol, the incentives of technology companies and how to evaluate public role models. Those disagreements are useful. Building a good life requires the ability to consider evidence, distinguish expertise from opinion and learn from people without adopting everything they believe.

Table of Contents

• Start With a Code, Not an Image
• A Practical Plan: Reclaim Time and Put It to Work
• Dating Requires Courage, Safety and Less Mutual Blame
• Learn From Role Models Without Requiring Perfection
• Technology: Useful Tools, Powerful Incentives
• What Structured Service Can Provide
• Alcohol: Connection Matters, but So Does Context
• Cannabis: The Backdrop Matters
• Pornography and the Cost of Avoiding Effort
• Anger Can Become Its Own Reinforcement
• Testosterone and Aspirational Masculinity
• Young Men Need Opportunity, Not Just Better Advice
• Universities Should Create More Openings
• Aging Well Includes Making Room for Others
• Male Mentorship Is a Practical Place to Begin

Start With a Code, Not an Image

There is an important limitation whenever older men offer advice to younger men: we do not know exactly what it feels like to be their age today.

When Scott was a teenager, staying home meant choosing between a limited set of television programs and going outside to find something to do. Today, a young person can carry entertainment, gambling, pornography and seemingly unlimited social interaction in a pocket. The alternatives to taking real-world risks have become extraordinarily compelling.

Experience still matters, but it needs to be combined with humility, data and actual conversations with young people. We should be willing to update our thinking when they tell us we have missed something.

Scott’s starting point is that everyone needs a code: a set of principles that helps them make a higher proportion of good decisions over time. Religion, family, sports, military service and professional environments can all provide one. His early experiences in athletics and at Morgan Stanley gave him standards for how to behave before he had fully developed his own.

The purpose of a code is to guide decisions, not to create a convincing image of success. It should help answer ordinary questions: Do I keep my commitment? Do I retaliate when someone is rude? Do I spend another hour scrolling, or do something that improves my life?

Provider, protector and procreator

Scott organizes his model of positive masculinity around three roles. He is clear that this is a framework that worked for him, not a complete description of every worthwhile male life. He also does not regard masculine and feminine qualities as exclusive to men and women.

• Provider: Develop a plan to contribute economically and support a household.
• Protector: Build the strength, skills and stability to help other people feel safe.
• Procreator: Channel the desire for sex, connection and family into constructive action.

Being a provider does not necessarily mean earning more than your partner. When Scott’s partner earned substantially more than he did, contributing meant taking on more domestic work and helping manage their finances. The responsibility is to contribute, not to defend a particular income hierarchy.

Likewise, protection is not primarily about looking intimidating. Scott described the satisfaction of knowing that his children are asleep, his partner feels supported and the family has enough stability to focus on what matters to them. Money and status are means. Taking care of people is the end.

His third category can be misunderstood. Wanting sex does not entitle anyone to it. But desire can motivate someone to exercise, practice kindness, improve hygiene, develop competence and risk rejection. Scott met his partner after initially losing his nerve, leaving a hotel and then returning to introduce himself. That initial attraction eventually became a family.

The useful question is not whether desire exists. It is what you do with it.

The missing ingredient: service

Scott also identified a limitation in his three-part framework: it needed a more explicit emphasis on service.

His simplest test is whether you are organizing your life around attracting attention or helping others. A related idea, influenced by Richard Reeves, is creating surplus value: contributing more care, support and usefulness than you demand in return.

That does not mean calculating every friendship as a transaction. It means moving beyond the assumption that a good relationship is one in which you get the better deal.

Scott said he did not fully understand this until his 40s. Earlier, he wanted a partner who gave more than he did and a job that paid more than he contributed. Parenting made the alternative unmistakable. His children cannot repay the hours of worry, money and attention invested in them. That is not a flaw in the arrangement. Giving is the point.

A Practical Plan: Reclaim Time and Put It to Work

Broad principles are useful only if they change behavior. Scott mentors a small number of young men who are struggling, and his first practical exercise is a phone audit.

He asks them to open their phones and examine where their time goes. He also acknowledges his own vulnerabilities, including speculative options trading and pornography use. The purpose is to reduce shame enough to have an honest conversation, not to pretend that the mentor has everything solved.

His premise is straightforward: a young person may lack money, credentials or connections, but often possesses a valuable resource in time. Screen-time records can reveal hours that could be redirected toward building a different life.

1. Train at least three times a week

Scott’s first priority is physical training. Strength, endurance, speed and flexibility offer different ways to become more capable. The goal is not for every man to develop the same body.

There is also a psychological component. Training provides repeated experiences of doing something difficult and seeing improvement. It creates a place to practice effort rather than simply think about becoming more disciplined.

Scott speaks enthusiastically about exercise as a tool for mood. That enthusiasm should not be confused with a claim that exercise replaces professional treatment when depression requires it. The practical point is that regular movement belongs near the foundation of a healthier life.

2. Earn money outside the house

His second priority is work that puts a young person into contact with other people. Driving, service work, task-based jobs and trades can all be starting points.

The first job does not have to express your ultimate purpose. It can teach punctuality, communication, reliability and how businesses operate. Earning a little money also helps make the process of earning more less mysterious.

Scott’s emphasis on leaving the house is deliberate. For someone already isolated, the social structure of work can matter alongside the paycheck.

3. Join people doing something together

At least three times a month, Scott asks his mentees to participate in a group pursuing a shared objective. That might be a sports league, writing group, religious community or nonprofit.

Shared activity makes connection less abstract. You do not need to walk into a room and manufacture an interesting personality. You can show up, contribute and become familiar to people over time.

Service also redirects attention. If you are constantly evaluating your own inadequacies, helping someone else creates an opportunity to do something useful rather than continue the internal argument.

4. Practice making an approach

The next step is initiating contact. It can be as simple as inviting someone to a game or asking whether they would like to get coffee.

Scott deliberately reframes the exercise so that receiving a rejection counts as success. The objective is to make a respectful approach and discover that disappointment is survivable.

You cannot control another person’s answer. You can control whether you act respectfully and remain willing to try again.

His broader point applies to friendship, work and dating. Almost everyone you admire has accumulated far more rejection than their public success reveals.

Dating Requires Courage, Safety and Less Mutual Blame

Young men often describe a daunting set of expectations: be attractive, financially successful, physically fit, emotionally attuned, confident and incapable of saying the wrong thing.

Young women describe a different frustration: men who avoid explicit interest, emotional responsibility, difficult conversations or the work of repairing a relationship.

I shared a message from a longtime female friend who wanted men to be more accountable, romantic and protective. There was real substance in her concerns. There was also a lot for a young man to absorb if he was still trying to establish basic habits and economic independence.

Both experiences deserve consideration. We need standards for how partners treat one another without turning those standards into an impossible entrance exam.

A respectful invitation is not a demand

I raised the concern that an awkward approach can now become public through phones and dating-related apps. Scott pushed back on the idea that a respectful invitation ordinarily places a man’s entire reputation at risk.

His advice is to express interest in a way that allows the other person to feel safe, accept a lack of interest and leave politely. Fear of embarrassment should not become a permanent justification for avoiding connection.

At the same time, concerns about assault and personal safety cannot simply be dismissed. Scott argued that online content can distort perceptions of dating danger, but broad population statistics do not determine the safety of an individual encounter. The constructive lesson is to avoid letting inflammatory stories replace judgment, boundaries and attention to the actual person and situation.

Women’s progress is not men’s defeat

One of Scott’s strongest arguments is that women’s greater independence should motivate men to develop, not encourage resentment.

When women are less economically dependent on a partner, men need to offer more than the fact that they can provide a paycheck. That is a change in expectations, not evidence that women have caused men’s difficulties.

Scott described the need to rebuild the alliance between men and women. I find that framing useful. A culture that teaches the sexes to regard each other primarily as threats undermines cooperation, intimacy and family formation.

The alternative is not to deny harmful behavior by either sex. It is to stop making every difficulty evidence that the other sex is the enemy.

Remember how little time there is

Scott also described an unexpected source of courage: his awareness of mortality.

Recognizing that life is short helped him express affection, acknowledge admiration and take professional risks. It became harder to justify withholding love merely to avoid looking needy.

Most people are not spending nearly as much time thinking about our failures as we imagine. They return to their own lives. That does not make consequences unreal, but it puts ordinary embarrassment in perspective.

Learn From Role Models Without Requiring Perfection

Choosing good reference points matters. Comparing yourself only with people doing worse can make stagnation feel like achievement.

Scott’s understanding of admirable behavior has also changed. He once confused masculinity with demanding respect from a ticket agent or retaliating against a driver. He now admires men who can absorb an insult, recognize that someone may be having a difficult day and decline to escalate.

Our discussion of Elon Musk brought out a genuine disagreement. I emphasized the scale of his technical ambition, including SpaceX, electric vehicles and Neuralink, and the possibility that building a path to Mars reflects a protective vision for humanity.

Scott acknowledged those achievements and said he considers Musk, and big tech more broadly, a net positive for the world. His criticism concerned conduct: whether extraordinary power is being used to protect others, whether online attacks punch down and whether successful people adequately acknowledge the systems that helped make their success possible.

These are different dimensions of evaluation. Someone can be an exceptional innovator without being the model you choose for every aspect of family life or public behavior.

I offered Jocko Willink as another example: someone whose discipline, family commitments and consistency provide a very different model. A young man can learn courage from one person, kindness from another and financial judgment from a third.

Admiration does not require wholesale imitation. Nor should allowing for human imperfection mean excusing serious harm.

Criticism and commercialized humiliation are different

Powerful people should face scrutiny. Scott and I both acknowledged that criticism can hurt precisely because some of it identifies something real.

But there is a difference between a thoughtful critique and a business model built around humiliation. Online antagonism can attract attention, generate comments and produce advertising revenue. Nuance often competes poorly with an accusation or a fight.

Scott was candid about his own fear of exposure and imposter feelings. He has professional and personal decisions he regrets. That admission matters because public conversations can otherwise create the impression that giving advice requires having lived flawlessly.

We need accountability and proportion. We also need room for people, especially young people, to learn from mistakes without treating every mistake as a permanent identity.

Technology: Useful Tools, Powerful Incentives

Neither of us argued for eliminating technology companies. They create useful products, support businesses, connect friends and distribute education at extraordinary scale. This article exists within that environment.

Scott’s concern is the business incentive to capture more of a person’s time. A product can be useful in one context and displace sleep, exercise, work or relationships in another.

For a young man struggling to establish a life, the danger is not simply encountering bad content. It is repeatedly choosing low-friction substitutes for experiences that develop real competence:

• Online interaction instead of learning to build an in-person friend group.
• Speculative trading instead of developing dependable earning skills.
• Pornography instead of tolerating the uncertainty involved in intimacy.
• Scrolling instead of leaving the house and participating.

Scott also worries about unrealistic comparison. A person who is financially struggling can receive a continuous stream of images suggesting that everyone else has wealth, a perfect body, an extraordinary partner and access to exclusive experiences.

Phone use is not always a search for pleasure

I offered a different way to think about compulsive phone behavior. Describing every phone interaction as a “dopamine hit” can miss an important feature: people often keep checking even when they do not want to and are not particularly enjoying it.

That pattern has similarities to a compulsive loop. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, performing a compulsion does not provide a durable resolution of the obsession, and the cycle continues. This is an analogy for understanding behavior, not a diagnosis of everyone who uses a phone excessively.

The distinction matters. Sometimes the useful question is not, “What reward am I getting?” but, “Why am I repeating this action when it is not helping?” For clinical context, the National Institute of Mental Health’s overview of OCD explains the actual disorder.

Recognizing the loop creates an opportunity to interrupt it. A screen-time audit is one concrete way to make an automatic behavior visible.

Individual responsibility is not the entire solution

Scott does not believe parents can solve this alone. Devices are embedded in schoolwork and social life, and removing a child entirely from digital communication can create its own difficulties.

He proposed three policy approaches:

1. More competition through antitrust enforcement. His argument is that dominant platforms leave too little room for alternatives built around different safety standards.
2. Reconsidering liability for algorithmically promoted content. He distinguishes hosting a post from actively selecting it for wider distribution and argues that the latter should carry greater responsibility.
3. Age restrictions and phone-free school environments. He favors keeping younger adolescents off social media and creating settings where constant device access is not the norm.

These are policy proposals, not descriptions of settled law. For background on the liability debate, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the relevant statutory starting point.

Scott sees lobbying and political fundraising as major obstacles to reform. I was more optimistic that leaders of technology companies could recognize the problem and help change it. He remained skeptical that goodwill would consistently overcome financial incentives.

Our shared objective was clear: retain the benefits of technology while reducing the extent to which it displaces young people’s development.

What Structured Service Can Provide

My visit to the United States Naval Academy offered a striking contrast to the isolation we had been discussing.

The midshipmen had demanding schedules, physical training, competitive sports, shared meals and substantial restrictions on phone use. They came from different backgrounds, but the questions they asked were consistently about becoming more capable physically, mentally and emotionally.

I left feeling hopeful, and also challenged to improve my own standards. It was a reminder that disciplined, engaged young people are very much present.

Scott connected that example to his support for mandatory national service. His proposal is broader than military service. It could include senior care, animal welfare, conservation or other work serving a public purpose.

He sees several potential benefits:

• Contributing to something larger than personal advancement.
• Meeting people outside one’s usual economic and social circles.
• Learning to evaluate others through competence and character.
• Developing friendships, mentors and practical skills.

We should distinguish the value of those experiences from the separate debate about making service mandatory. Still, the underlying principle is applicable now: purpose often grows through useful participation, not through waiting to discover a perfect personal mission.

Alcohol: Connection Matters, but So Does Context

Scott and I differ substantially on alcohol. It is worth preserving that disagreement rather than manufacturing a consensus.

My position is that, when the question is strictly physical health, not drinking is preferable to drinking. I have also emphasized that a very low intake is different from frequent or heavy consumption. The objective is to help people understand what they are doing, not tell every adult how to live.

Scott’s concern is social isolation. In his own life, drinking sometimes helped create friendship, affection and romantic connection. He worries that rejecting alcohol, combined with remote work and fewer gathering places, can remove opportunities for people to meet.

He argues that the risks of loneliness can outweigh the risks associated with modest drinking. That is his social argument, not a recommendation that alcohol is necessary for connection or appropriate for everyone.

Being social is the goal, not drinking

We agreed that isolation can be deeply harmful. But alcohol can compound isolation when someone drinks alone, feels worse afterward and becomes less likely to engage with life.

Context therefore matters enormously. A person who is exercising, working and seeing friends is in a different situation from someone who is withdrawing, sleeping poorly and using substances to avoid discomfort.

Scott himself emphasized avoiding substances alone and avoiding use when it will undermine the next day’s responsibilities. He also acknowledged that a history of addiction, becoming aggressive while intoxicated or receiving repeated concern from others changes the equation.

For information about patterns of use and warning signs, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provides a useful reference.

Work events and phones add risk

I have seen alcohol contribute to serious problems in academic settings, particularly where students, trainees and faculty with unequal power were drinking together. An event framed as a chance to discuss research can become something else entirely.

Phones introduce another layer. A poorly judged remark can be recorded and circulated far beyond its original setting. Scott acknowledged how fortunate we were not to have cameras following us through our adolescence.

His hope is that society will develop more grace. My concern is that people still have to make decisions within the current reality. Lowering inhibitions can facilitate affection, but it also lowers the filters that protect judgment.

Scott also proposed studying whether a lower drinking age, with a more gradual introduction to alcohol, could improve social outcomes. That is a proposal for investigation, not an established conclusion or a statement of current U.S. law.

Cannabis: The Backdrop Matters

Scott described using a 5-milligram THC edible roughly twice a week when he has difficulty winding down. He experiences it as beneficial. He also recalled obtaining cannabis for his mother when she had stomach cancer because it helped her nausea.

Those experiences are meaningful, but they do not make cannabis uniformly beneficial.

I emphasized particular caution for young people with a predisposition to psychosis or bipolar disorder, especially with high-potency THC. Cannabis can also produce very different subjective effects: some people experience less anxiety, while others become much more anxious.

Feeling that cannabis helps with sleep does not mean it leaves sleep unchanged. THC can suppress REM sleep, and stopping can produce a rebound in vivid dreaming.

The larger behavioral context matters here, too. A young man already struggling with apathy, inactivity and withdrawal should not assume cannabis will help him establish momentum. Improving the foundation comes first.

Scott’s experience and my cautions are not mutually exclusive. A substance can feel useful to one adult while being a poor choice for someone else. The CDC’s cannabis health information provides additional context on potential risks.

Pornography and the Cost of Avoiding Effort

Scott’s central concern about pornography is not simply that it exists. It is whether readily available, highly stimulating sexual content weakens the motivation to pursue a real relationship.

He used his own college experience as an example. Part of what drew him onto campus was the possibility of seeing friends and meeting women. He wonders whether constant access to lifelike pornography would have reduced that motivation at a stage when he was already struggling academically.

This is an important hypothesis, but it should not be presented as proof that every person who uses pornography becomes less motivated. Scott explicitly called for better research into problematic use and its consequences.

The practical concern is substitution. Real intimacy involves communication, effort, listening, vulnerability and another person’s independent desires. A digital substitute can remove nearly all of those demands.

A useful behavioral question is whether consumption is helping you participate in life or making it easier to avoid participation.

We also discussed a principle of behavior change: moving away from an unwanted pattern is easier when there is something meaningful to move toward. Reducing pornography use is not the whole project. Building friendships, dating, improving health and becoming more comfortable with real interaction provide a positive direction.

Anger Can Become Its Own Reinforcement

Sexual content is not the only material capable of capturing attention. Anger and frustration can be highly reinforcing.

I discussed research on brain stimulation and our laboratory’s interest in circuits connecting frustration, arousal and motivation. The broader point is that anger does not necessarily resolve itself through repeated engagement. A person can continue consuming provocative material and feel increasingly activated rather than satisfied.

This helps explain why outrage can be so difficult to leave alone. The experience may feel like conviction, leadership or moral clarity while also functioning as a self-reinforcing state.

Scott recognized that pattern in himself. He described feeling a rush when identifying an injustice, followed at times by anger that leaves him depleted for days.

That distinction is valuable: something can feel energizing in the moment and still produce a poor emotional outcome. Before treating outrage as evidence that you are doing something useful, ask what action it produces and how you feel afterward.

Testosterone and Aspirational Masculinity

Scott disclosed that he uses physician-supervised testosterone therapy and experiences benefits in strength, sexual function and his sense of vitality.

That is a personal account, not a universal prescription. I emphasized that externally administered testosterone can suppress fertility. Decisions about treatment require medical evaluation and attention to individual circumstances.

Our broader discussion concerned how male energy is directed. Initiative, competitiveness and willingness to take risks can be destructive, but they can also support entrepreneurship, protection and courage.

Scott pointed to the Carnegie Hero Fund, which recognizes people who endanger themselves to save others, as an example of risk-taking used in service rather than cruelty.

He rejects two extremes: equating masculinity with domination, and treating masculinity itself as inherently toxic. The aspiration is a person who can act decisively in a crisis and behave considerately in ordinary social life.

We also discussed the frustration some men feel when criticism of harmful male behavior seems permissible while criticism of harmful female behavior seems taboo. The productive response is not another contest over which sex is worse. It is consistent accountability for conduct, without assigning virtue or blame solely through gender.

Healthy agency includes responsibility. It should not require assuming that every relationship problem is a man’s fault or that concern for men diminishes concern for women.

Young Men Need Opportunity, Not Just Better Advice

Personal habits matter. They are not the entire explanation for economic anxiety, educational disengagement or loneliness.

Scott argues that a young man should not be treated as though he personally received every advantage available to earlier generations of men. Historical privilege and present vulnerability can both be real.

He emphasized male suicide, addiction and incarceration, as well as the growing educational gap between boys and girls. His argument is not that women’s educational gains should be reversed. It is that concern for boys should be possible without treating it as opposition to girls.

Economic expectations complicate the picture. Scott argues that men are still disproportionately judged as potential partners on their financial viability, even as establishing financial security has become difficult for many young adults.

It is reasonable to tell someone to develop skills, show up and work hard. It is also reasonable to examine whether housing, education, taxation and public spending provide credible routes to stability.

The intergenerational imbalance

Scott’s strongest economic criticism concerns the transfer of resources toward older, wealthier generations.

He questioned why affluent retirees should receive the same public benefits as people who depend on those benefits to avoid poverty. He also criticized tax structures that favor accumulated assets over income earned through work, including the effects of payroll tax caps and benefits tied to homeownership and investment gains.

His proposals are politically contentious. The underlying distinction is important: protecting older people from deprivation is not the same as maximizing benefits for every older person regardless of need.

Healthcare prompted another disagreement. Scott strongly favors a single-payer system, citing costs and the burden of medical and dental debt. I shared his concern about the burden on families but did not endorse that particular solution.

We do not need to agree on every mechanism to recognize that financial insecurity affects health, family formation and a young person’s sense of possibility.

Universities Should Create More Openings

Higher education provides another example of institutions that can protect established people while limiting the next generation’s opportunities.

In science, senior investigators can continue occupying laboratory space and grant resources while younger researchers struggle to establish independent work. I argued for making more room for the next generation, while preserving the mentoring value of experienced scientists.

I described Lubert Stryer as a constructive example. After closing his laboratory, he continued sharing ideas and engaging with younger scientists without maintaining the same claim on research space and funding.

Scott sees a parallel in university faculties more generally: institutions can become reluctant to make room for new perspectives when established faculty remain indefinitely.

Bet on people who are not exceptional at 18

Scott’s own educational history is central to his argument. He entered UCLA on appeal, struggled academically and later attended Berkeley for graduate school. He remembers California as willing to give an ordinary young person another chance.

He has since donated $20 million to the University of California. His point is not merely personal gratitude. It is that an institution cannot reliably identify everyone’s eventual contribution at age 18.

He worries that selective universities increasingly concentrate opportunity among wealthy families and unusually accomplished teenagers, then treat rejection as evidence that everyone else belongs on a lesser path.

His proposed alternatives include:

• Expanding university enrollment rather than treating selectivity as the primary measure of excellence.
• Increasing access to vocational programs and apprenticeships.
• Reducing the connection between family wealth and educational opportunity.
• Examining school funding disparities tied to local property wealth.
• Using institutional resources to create more routes into the middle class.

College is not the right or only route for everyone. Trades and apprenticeships should not be presented as consolation prizes. The larger objective is a society with multiple credible paths, rather than one narrow gate through which everyone is expected to pass.

Aging Well Includes Making Room for Others

Scott was candid about feeling uncomfortable with his age despite having health, financial security, a partner and two sons. His concern is partly about losing vitality and becoming physically vulnerable. Biology eventually imposes limits, however disciplined someone is.

That admission connects the personal and institutional themes of our conversation. Older people can reasonably want more healthy years while also recognizing an obligation to support those coming behind them.

The question is not whether older people deserve care. It is whether those who have accumulated resources, experience and influence are using some of them to make the next generation’s path more navigable.

Male Mentorship Is a Practical Place to Begin

Scott’s most immediate proposal does not require legislation: more men should become dependable, constructive presences in the lives of boys and young men.

He is especially concerned about boys who lose access to a male role model through death, divorce or abandonment. This is not an argument that single mothers cannot raise good sons. Scott was raised by a mother he deeply loved. It is an argument that mothers should not have to provide every kind of support alone.

A mentor does not need to be wealthy or possess a degree in adolescent psychology. Scott described young men asking him about a diet of pineapple juice and creatine, or announcing plans to abandon a good job and move to Alaska after seeing an appealing program.

Sometimes adding value means asking a few obvious questions. Are you eating adequately? What happens to your current responsibilities? Have you been outside? What is the plan after the exciting first step?

Different mentors can provide different things

My own mentors served different roles. A coach helped me learn to lift weights after skateboarding injuries. Academic mentors, including women, helped me find my way into science. My father and I had difficult periods after my parents separated, and eventually developed a better understanding of each other.

I sought mentors out. Scott made an important correction: many adolescents do not know that they need a mentor, much less how to find one. Adults should not wait for a struggling teenager to produce a well-formed request.

Scott’s early interest in investing was encouraged by an adult who gave him money to buy stock and a broker who patiently explained markets over the phone. Decades later, that attention still mattered to him. A neighbor also invited him horseback riding, recognizing that he and his mother could use additional support.

These were ordinary acts of inclusion with lasting consequences.

Be consistent, useful and appropriately involved

A constructive starting point can be a shared activity, an invitation coordinated with a parent or participation through an established mentoring organization. The objective is a trustworthy relationship, not a dramatic rescue.

Scott describes responsibility as expanding circles: care for yourself, your family, your extended family and your community. For him, helping a child who is not your own is an especially meaningful expression of success.

That brings the conversation back to service. Building strength, earning money and developing confidence are worthwhile. Their deeper value becomes clearer when those capacities make someone else’s life more secure.

A fulfilling life is not built by avoiding every rejection, discomfort or obligation. It is built by becoming more capable of meeting them, and using that capability to contribute.