The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character
What are eulogy virtues, and how do you build them according to David Brooks?
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.
In The Road to Character, David Brooks studies historical figures — Augustine, Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower — looking for what shaped lasting character. His diagnosis is that we live in a culture saturated with self-promotion and personal branding, optimizing for a résumé nobody reads at a funeral. The eulogy virtues — kindness, courage, honesty, faithfulness — are built differently: through humility about your own limitations, through commitments that cost you something, through the long slow work of confronting your own faults. Below are the core practices his framework implies, each with its mechanism and a candid read on where the evidence is strong and where this is philosophical argument.
Practices
- Write your own eulogy first
- Know your two selves (Adam I and Adam II)
- Name and wrestle with your besetting weakness
- Make a commitment that transcends self-interest
- Practice structured humility
- Learn from suffering rather than managing it away
- Choose a character role model and study their biography
Write your own eulogy first
Draft what you want said about your character at your funeral — then measure the gap against your life now.
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.
Name and wrestle with your besetting weakness
Identify the one recurring moral failure and choose a practice that confronts it daily.
Make a commitment that transcends self-interest
Bind yourself to a person, cause, or calling that comes before your own preferences.
Practice structured humility
Regularly seek evidence that you’re wrong, limited, or have more to learn — and sit with it.
Learn from suffering rather than managing it away
Let a period of difficulty become a curriculum — ask what it is teaching you about yourself.
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
Reading about a practice changes nothing on its own. IX Coach turns these into a guided, adaptive routine — discerning where you are in real time and walking the practice with you, session after session.
IX Coach: 7 days free, then $40/month (about $1.30/day).