What does it actually mean to “be a man” in 2025, when so many boys and men feel broke, isolated, and stuck? In Notes on Being a Man, Scott Galloway makes a blunt, surprisingly tender case that we’re failing young men, and paying the price in loneliness, “deaths of despair,” and a widening gap between expectations and reality.
He argues we’ve overused the phrase “toxic masculinity” while underinvesting in the things that help men thrive: role models, purpose, structure, and real community. His framework is simple but demanding, built around three pillars: Protect, Provide, Procreate—not as chest-thumping slogans, but as a call to create “surplus value,” giving more than you take.
This summary distills Galloway’s most useful ideas on work, health, friendship, love, and fatherhood—so you can take what helps, and leave the rest.
