Scott Galloway: “It makes me feel like a baller.”

Prof G says being generous with his wealth makes him feel good. It feeds his ego a bit and lets him help other people. I get it. I’m not wealthy, nor have I ever been, but I’m working on it. Currently broke af working two gigs. I’ll get there though.

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but I will say that my father and adoptive mom made sure we never went without. Gotta give them credit for that and a lot of other things. I was sent to a grocery store down the road a few mornings a week to buy a gallon of milk for cereal. I wasn’t ever ashamed that I was paying for said milk with a pouch of loose change. 10/11/12-year-old me knew money was money. It made sense to use the coins that accumulated in the cup holder when you could. It wasn’t until years later that it clicked, “Oh. We were broke.”

My family lived in a neighboring town for a few years because it was the only place we could find a house. We all still went to school/worked in our hometown though. My two younger brothers and I used to walk around by ourselves in the summer. We would rotate between the two school playgrounds, two parks, and the library.

 On one particular day, our parents scrounged up five dollars in quarters to get some cookies from Subway. A high schooler was running the shop that day. I’m assuming he was in high school because he was a couple of heads taller than me and skinny with acne. I made my order, he handed over the little white cookie bag, and then I started sorting out my change on the counter. “That’s okay, I got it.”  Three little boys (10, 5, & 4 y.o) walked away with a bag of cookies and five dollars to spend another day.

It’s been a good twenty years since that random act of kindness. I must be a sentimental guy because I never forgot about that moment. He was working at Subway during the summer, so if he was a high schooler like I guessed, there was a good chance he was saving money for school clothes. If he covered the cost of our treat himself, that five bucks was close to an hour of his wages. That man was a baller.

I won’t lie. Seeing that a handful of people read my posts gives me motivation to keep writing. So I guess what I’m about to share now is a bit of brag. In my first few years working as an English “teacher” (영어 원어민 쌤)   in Korea I was paying off some college loans and credit cards in addition to sending what I could to my little brothers. $50-100 doesn’t seem like a lot unless you have four younger brothers separately asking for a little help now and then. I was blessed with some scholarships to help with college, and then I chose to make a life on the other side of the Earth, so you know I was going to Venmo them some cash whenever they asked. Helping out family, not much of a brag. Don’t worry, that’s coming. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I was a high school English “teacher” at a boys’ high school the first year and a half I was in Korea. Then COVID hit and for some complicated reasons, I had to switch visas, apply to the local city board of ed., and become an elementary school teacher. About 7 months later, I was walking through the downtown area I frequented, on my way to my go-to bar, when I heard “MYNAME-쌤 (teacher)?” I look to the left to see a couple of my boys, who had graduated high school since I last saw them, sitting outside a pub smoking. (Korean drinking/smoking age is 19)

I stopped to chat. They invited me inside to say hi to some more of my boys and a few of their friends from another school. They offered me some food and plenty of soju. At some point, I stopped the server as she was walking by and handed her my card as discreetly as possible. Like any good 쌤, I paid the bill. That’s my baller moment.

Admittedly, dinner and drinks were worth a bit more than a few cookies, but I also had a significantly better wage than a high schooler in the middle of nowhere. If you ever read this sir, you taught me the value of generosity back then, and I’ve done my best to pass it on.  

That’s all folks.