Coaching practices for David Brooks Road to Character
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For David Brooks Road to Character, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- There’s a quality — real courage, say, or quiet generosity — that I admire deeply but have no idea how to actually grow in myself, and I want to find a real person who built it under pressure and trace how they did it, because right now it just feels like an abstract wish.
- I’m in the middle of something hard that I can’t just fix or outrun, and every instinct is to numb it or power through and get back to normal
- I’m staring at a choice where the smart, strategic move and the right thing to do point in different directions, and I keep trying to find the angle where doing good also wins
- There’s one moral failing of mine
- I’ve gotten so used to being the one who’s right that I’ve stopped really listening, and I can feel it closing me off
Practices that may help
- Choose a character role model and study their biography
Find a person — living or historical — whose eulogy virtues you admire and study how they built them.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Learn from suffering rather than managing it away
Let a period of difficulty become a curriculum — ask what it is teaching you about yourself.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Know your two selves (Adam I and Adam II)
Distinguish the self that wants to build and achieve from the self that wants to be good.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest. - Name and wrestle with your besetting weakness
Identify the one recurring moral failure and choose a practice that confronts it daily.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Practice structured humility
Regularly seek evidence that you’re wrong, limited, or have more to learn — and sit with it.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Make a commitment that transcends self-interest
Bind yourself to a person, cause, or calling that comes before your own preferences.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Track character, not just outcomes
Evaluate your decisions by who they made you, not only by what they produced.
Phronesis: Aristotle’s Practical Wisdom - Write your own eulogy first
Draft what you want said about your character at your funeral — then measure the gap against your life now.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Building character through deliberate repetition
Choose one character quality you want to embody and perform one specific act of it daily until it no longer requires effort.
Aristotelian Eudaimonia: Flourishing Through Virtue
Related concerns
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character At Work
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character Before Bed
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character With My Team
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- Adam I Adam Ii David Brooks
Distinguish the self that wants to build and achieve from the self that wants to be good.
Know your two selves (Adam I and Adam II)
- David Brooks Humility
Regularly seek evidence that you’re wrong, limited, or have more to learn — and sit with it.
Practice structured humility
- Eulogy Virtues
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
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