Howard Schatz
David Brooks.
- Dan Schawbel is a bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and host of the "5 Questions with Dan Schawbel" podcast, where he interviews world-class humans by asking them just five questions in under 10 minutes.
- He recently interviewed political and cultural commentator David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times.
- Brooks said that you shouldn't "live in the ego," where you find yourself driven to just make a mark, and don't actually commit to anything.
- Brooks also discussed the loneliness he felt in the moment where he had "total freedom," and how it drove him to really commit to himself to relationships and the things that he was passionate about.
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While you might think famed New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks has it all, he reached a low point in his life and had to get back on his feet. I had the opportunity to speak with David on my podcast, 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel, about his new book "The Second Mountain," which chronicles his journey towards a more fulfilling life in a world that is increasingly self-centered. The first mountain of David's life was focused on building a successful career, but now he's found that his second mountain is about cultivating healthy relationships.
In the below conversation, he talks about why you don't need to achieve your goals before helping other people, why commitment is important to living a meaningful life, how to overcome loneliness, why attachment is much better than having personal freedom, and gives his best career advice.
Dan Schawbel: Do we have to achieve personal goals before serving others?
David Brooks: No, some people do their second mountain first. What I do think you have to do is not live in the ego. Like a lot of people, I grew up wanting to start my career, wanting to make a mark, wanting to be well known, and those were ego-driven goals. If you're driven by the goals of the ego, you're on the move, you're working, and you're not really committing yourself to other people and to relationships. So I do think something has to shock you out of the ego and get you down living within your heart and soul, you're longing for others, and you're longing to do something good. And for me, it was a valley. I think some people get blasted out of their ego by some great love. They fall in love with something, a cause or a person. Something has to happen for you to just live at the center of yourself and not at the surface of yourself.
Dan: Why is commitment the key to creating a meaningful life?
David: I tasted freedom at one point. I was out of a marriage and I was living alone. I had a life of total freedom. I could do what I want. I could move where I wanted. I befriend whom I wanted. And I learned that freedom sucks. Political freedom is great, economic freedom's pretty good, but social freedom sucks, 'cause you're unattached, you're unremembered, you're isolated, and have no real commitments. And the people who are remembered have given themselves away usually to family or to a vocation or to a community or to a philosophy or faith. And those people are planted down and those people have really tight relationships because they serve not just themselves, it's the thing they are in love with.
Dan: What's the best way to overcome loneliness?
David: Make friends. Pay attention to other people. One thing I learned when I was in the valley is you can't pull yourself out on your own. Somebody has to reach down and pull you out and show you a better way of living. I got involved in a community of people, about 40 DC kids aged 17 to 22 and then maybe ten adults more my age, and we would just meet every month and just throw our crap on the table in total vulnerability. Those kids really showed me how to do relationships. What they have is emotional transparency. You know what they're feeling all the time. And they gave that gift to me, a little, and so I was listed out by the generosity of others.
Courtesy of Dan Schawbel Dan Schawbel.
Dan: Why should we choose attachment over personal freedom?
David: Well because if you ask people on their deathbed, what is the most important thing in their life, 99 percent of them will say their family or friends. They always talk about relationships. And if there's one thing we know about joy, it's what emerges out of relationships.
I make this distinction in the book between happiness and joy. Happiness is when you win a victory, get promoted or your team wins the Super Bowl. Joy happens when you transcend the self, you forget the self. You're out in nature, and you sort of feel merged with beauty of nature or you're in love with somebody and you feel merged with them or you're serving a civil rights cause and you feel merged with your fellow protesters in pursuit of something just. Happiness is good, but joy is better and if we aim toward joy our life will go well.
Dan: What's your best piece of career advice?
David: I was given a good piece of advice early on. When you just get out of college, just say "yes" to everything because you never really know what you like and you have to try things on.
The second piece of career advice is early in your career do something completely crazy because your horizon risk will be a lot wider than it would be than if you do something conventional, where your horizon of risk will stay small.
Third bit of advice is to pay attention to identity capital. If you can do something interesting than forever after in every job interview, in every dinner conversation, people will ask you "what was it like to be a yak herder in Mongolia" and you'll have peace of identity capital.
The final thing I'd say is to get to yourself quickly. A lot of people have some far goal, but think "I should go get a graduate degree before I do that job" or "I should prepare this way before I do that." If you know sort of what you want to do, just start doing it, and the practice of it is more valuable than anything else.
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