PNTV: The Road to Character by David Brooks (#295)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, the Road to Character by David Brooks. The Road to Character. David Brooks is an Op Ed columnist for the New York Times and a best selling author of a number of books. This is a great penetrating read on how to cultivate character and virtue in modern society. It's packed with a bunch of great stories of moral exemplars who have really embodied the qualities that David talks about and encourages us to embody. We've got a philosopher's note, bunch of big ideas. We're going to look at five of my favorite ideas now. We're going to start with resume virtues versus eulogy virtues. We live in a world that is all about the resume virtues and spends very little time helping us focus on the eulogy virtues. But if we actually checked in and said what's ultimately most important, most of us would say the eulogy virtues more than the resume virtues. The stuff that helps us get ahead in life is it's important to a degree. Of course we need to have certain skills that we can use to achieve worthwhile goals. But ultimately what people are going to say about us at the end of our lives is what matters most. Yet we spend almost all of our time thinking about the resume virtues and very little time thinking about the eulogy virtues. This is essentially what the book is all about. Is noticing that he uses a metaphor of Adam 1 and Adam 2 based on a rabbi's book where he talks about the two different creation stories in Genesis. Apparently Adam1 was really kind of the resume virtue achievement oriented, externally oriented creation myth story. Right then Adam 2 was more of the internally focused character based virtues based eulogy virtues stuff. So he talks about the fact that our current society is pretty much all about Adam1 or these external resume virtues. And we need to balance the scales a bit more. It's not that we need to get rid of the the resume entirely. It's important to be able to achieve, but we need to see that we live in a culture that he calls the Big Me, kind of the ultimate ubiquitous selfie culture that's all about the self. Well, life is about more than just ourselves. It's about cultivating character. So think about it from a very practical sense. What do you aspire to have people to say about you at the end of your life? What are those virtues that mean the most to you? Is it kindness or bravery or patience or presence? What is it? What are the qualities that you truly want to embody and Is now a good time to live in more integrity with those eulogy virtues? That's our first big idea. Second big idea. The book has a series of chapters in which David describes different moral exemplars ranging from Dorothy Day to Dwight Eisenhower, some other extraordinary people. And the first step, the first chapter, is the summons. These great people who live with deep character have answered a call. A vocation is literally a calling. It's when you're called to do something. And he says, look, we need to stop asking the question, what do I want from the world, right? What do I want from the world? Like, what am I fired up about that I really want to do? He says, we need to ask that question a little less and. And replace it with the question, what does the world want from me? What is the world asking of me? What need is out there that meets my deep intrinsic joy that I really enjoy doing, that meets the different needs, but quit answering it from the perspective of what do I love to do, that passion, mindset, and start from the opposite side of outside in. What does the world really need? What can I give to the world? He uses Viktor Frankl and James Stockdale has some examples as well. Viktor Frankl, of course, in man's search for meaning, he's in the Holocaust. He lost his wife, his mother and his brother in the Holocaust. And yet in this situation, he chose to play the role as well as he could. And he used it as an opportunity to give others who were there a deeper sense of meaning. And he said, if I survive, I'm going to share this process, this meaning, therapy, logotherapy, with the world. That was his meaning. That was what he believed the world was asking of him in, in that moment. And he committed to playing his role. Well, obviously, he would never have chosen to be in that role, but in that role, he chose to play it well. So the question for you is, what is the world asking from you? What are you here to give to the world? From being a father or a mother to other ways you can express your gifts in service to the world? James Stockdale is another example that I talk about in the note. North Vietnamese prison camp for seven and a half years. He chose to play that role well. He was the commanding officer of hundreds of individuals who were imprisoned, and that was his role. He would never have asked to be imprisoned in solitary confinement multiple times. But he said, look, this is what the world needs from me. This is what my men and what my country need from me. At this point, that's what I'm going to do to the best of my ability. That's the first step in the Road to Character is answering the summons. And you can't do that, by the way, if you're constantly being bombarded by external stimuli. We need to have our eyes and ears open, David tells us, and be sensitive to the quieter, deeper voices. And we're not going to hear those deeper voices if we're manically chasing the extrinsic resume goals all the time and or constantly being blown up by notifications and emails and entertainment. We've got to slow down long enough to actually hear the. The call in order to respond to it. Once we hear that and we respond to it, then it's time to conquer the self. The second chapter was Self Conquest talks about different individuals who went through the process of mastering themselves. Right. The example that I use or the big idea I pull from this chapter in the note is based on William James. William James, classic psychologist, philosopher, 1877. He wrote a little essay called Habits and he says, look, you need to change. You need to master yourself. You need to conquer yourself such that your nervous system works for you and you're automatically doing the things that are best for you, rather than always needing to negotiate and wrestle with your lower self. He says, you need to start a habit with a ton of strength and resolution. It's got to be an important part of your life. Boom. I'm all in. We talk about this in habits 101. The little ideas that William James gave in 1877 is what everyone has echoed since. You got to start strong, but then you don't want to be a hero in the beginning. William James says, if you want to install a new habit, have strong resolve, make it important, and never miss a day, period. No exceptions. You make an exception, you might as well start again. We talk about this in habits 101 and superhuman by Habit. Tynan talks about it. If you miss one day, make the next day's most important thing. Catching up. Never miss two days. If you miss two days, you've basically killed your habit, is what these great teachers say. So in your process of conquering yourself, are you mastering that process? Are you kind of faltering a little bit? Check in, figure out what the number one habit is you can install and go out and do it and check out habits 101 if you haven't yet. Lots of good stuff in there that I've been told has been helpful for people. Fourth big idea is the hero turns their weaknesses into strengths. Really cool idea here. We touched On a similar idea in Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, he says that there are advantages and disadvantages. And David, in this book, tells us that. Uses an example of the ancient orator in Greece, Demosthenes. Right. Who apparently stuttered, and people said, look, oh, wow, he became a great speaker in spite of the fact that he stuttered. And other people said, no, he became a great speaker because he stuttered. And he took that weakness as an opportunity and a signal that he needed to work harder to become better. And his weakness is what led to his strength. It's a really powerful way to flip it around. And he uses this story in the context of Samuel Johnson, who had all kinds of weaknesses that he constantly worked on throughout his life, and those weaknesses became his deepest strengths. So we need to think about it that way. We need to look at what our weaknesses are, and we need to have the humility, which we're going to talk about in a moment. Humility is our number one virtue in dealing with our weaknesses and the ability to even look at it and say, we do have weaknesses, because in a culture of me, we don't even look at what's wrong with us. We're just too busy experiencing all of our awesome. We need to slow down, have the humility, say, look, I've got some weaknesses here, and then have the tenacity to turn that weakness into a strength and see that you've probably done that in different ways in your life. I've certainly done it. One of my deepest weaknesses in the past was being super up and super down. Inconsistent moods. Right. Well, looking at that weakness and looking at my own genetic weaknesses, which I've talked about before, my father's struggle with alcoholism, his father's struggle, which ended in suicide. I've got some deep, ingrained challenges, a weakness in that regard. But it's that weakness that has led to my greatest strengths now, which is stability of purpose, stability of rituals that keep me plugged in. Eating, moving, sleeping. I never would have been as strong as I am if I didn't have those weaknesses. And I had to make that shift to see it that way in order to do something about it rather than complain about it. Have the humility to recognize it, then do the work required to take the next step. And then more recently, I realized, wow, I've got a lot of big ideas of what I want to do creatively and with a vision of how I want to impact the world. But I had too many ideas. It was a weakness. And as I simplified everything in my life, creatively and professionally with our business. I'm now excited to make that prior weakness of chasing too many ideas into my greatest strength of I'm one thing, this is what I'm focused on. I'm all in on this weakness to strength. Think about your weakness or weaknesses you may have in your life and think about how you can make them part of your deepest strength. That's what heroes do. That's what we want to do. Fifth big idea is from the last chapter in the book. So David makes the point that this isn't a seven points to creating character in your life, right? He shares stories and he shares his own inspiration in understanding how he can humbly walk this road of character. And in the last chapter, he recaps a lot of the different kind of big ideas, practically speaking. And he creates what he calls a code of humility. And the first principle of that code of humility is to live for holiness. When we are committed to a road of character, we live for holiness, not for happiness. Too many people in the Adam 1 Roman resume virtue culture, Big Me culture hedonically chase what they think is going to make them feel the best. And ironically and paradoxically, when you do that, you tend not to feel too great. Because happiness, as David tells us and Viktor Frankl tells us and all the great teachers, is a byproduct of your commitment to something bigger than yourself. So live for holiness, live for service, live for connecting to something bigger than yourself, and let happiness be a byproduct of that pursuit. That's a big idea and something we want to embody. And you do that by going all the way back to our first idea of embracing the eulogy virtues on a consistent basis. You answer the summons by looking at your life and looking at the world's challenges and saying, what is the world asking from me right now? Then we take the step in conquering ourselves, developing positive habits, and turn our weaknesses into strengths as we fully give ourselves to the world. That's a really quick look at this great book. I highly recommend it. It's a deep, challenging, penetrating read and I think you'll love it. If this resonated with you, check it out. What was your favorite big idea? What are your top eulogy virtues you're committed to living on a more consistent basis? Get on that. Have another awesome day. Look forward to sharing more. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos. I share on YouTube so I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. 10 bucks a month Join the Optimal Living Membership program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best optimal living books out there. Old school classics, Positive psychology, Modern stuff, Mindfulness, Peak Performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc. And what you may not know is that in addition to the PNTV episodes, I create PDFs on all these great books. So six page PDFs. Let's take a look at one of them. Joseph Campbell, you want to figure out how to live your hero's journey? 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