S11 Ep1: David Brooks, Columnist/Author
Oct 15, 2026 · 24 min · 10 segments
David Brooks, writer at The Atlantic and author of several books including…
Oct 15, 2026 · 24 min · 10 segments
David Brooks, writer at The Atlantic and author of several books including…
David BrooksGuestRyan RydzewskiHostGregg BehrHostWell, we'll get into it, but I, I wanna start, David, with, uh, one of your most recent essays for The New York Times, which was called A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible, which is basically an essay about the value of choosing to do difficult things.
You write that all around us, there are people who endure tedium to learn the violin, who fall off stair railings learning to skateboard, who go through the arduous mental labor required to solve scientific problems, and who agree to take a job managing other people, which is truly hard.
And it struck me while I was reading that piece that you're basically describing the work of the people who've joined us today, and the work of the students and learners they serve.
And I'm just curious, can you talk about what got you thinking about doing difficult things, and the value of those difficult things? Like, why this topic, and what surprised you as you dove in?
Yeah, it started because I, I think we sort of have a very incomplete definition of ability in this country, and we tend to define ability the way college admissions officers do, which is the ability to do well on standardized tests and the ability to do well in academic settings.
And I'm not gonna tell a group of superintendents that these things aren't important.
I would say I've a few problems with the system that we've set up, and really inherited from the 1970s, or actually really the 1930s to 1950s.
A guy named James Conant at Harvard decided we were gonna sort people not by who their fathers were, which is good, but we were gonna sort people by intelligence, and we defined intelligence academically.
And to me, the problem with that is first, the game is rigged, so the children of rich families have an advantage every step of the way.
By eighteen, children of the rich are seventy-seven times more likely to go to Ivy Leagues.
And to me, the people I really admire, uh, it's the people who are changed all the years of their life, who are different at thirty than they were at twenty, who are different at forty than they were at thirty, who are different at seventy than they were at sixty, and they just keep growing.
And so to me, the most important thing for any human being is the ability to just be curious and keep learning through life.
And one of the things, great things I got out of school was I was taught new things to love, new books to love, new subjects to love.
And so to me, that desire, when you really find something you wanna do, you will walk through walls for that thing.
Well, we'll get into it, but I, I wanna start, David, with, uh, one of your most recent essays for The New York Times, which was called A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible, which is basically an essay about the value of choosing to do difficult things.
You write that all around us, there are people who endure tedium to learn the violin, who fall off stair railings learning to skateboard, who go through the arduous mental labor required to solve scientific problems, and who agree to take a job managing other people, which is truly hard.
And it struck me while I was reading that piece that you're basically describing the work of the people who've joined us today, and the work of the students and learners they serve.
And I'm just curious, can you talk about what got you thinking about doing difficult things, and the value of those difficult things? Like, why this topic, and what surprised you as you dove in?
Yeah, it started because I, I think we sort of have a very incomplete definition of ability in this country, and we tend to define ability the way college admissions officers do, which is the ability to do well on standardized tests and the ability to do well in academic settings.
And I'm not gonna tell a group of superintendents that these things aren't important.
I would say I've a few problems with the system that we've set up, and really inherited from the 1970s, or actually really the 1930s to 1950s.
A guy named James Conant at Harvard decided we were gonna sort people not by who their fathers were, which is good, but we were gonna sort people by intelligence, and we defined intelligence academically.
And to me, the problem with that is first, the game is rigged, so the children of rich families have an advantage every step of the way.
By eighteen, children of the rich are seventy-seven times more likely to go to Ivy Leagues.
And to me, the people I really admire, uh, it's the people who are changed all the years of their life, who are different at thirty than they were at twenty, who are different at forty than they were at thirty, who are different at seventy than they were at sixty, and they just keep growing.
And so to me, the most important thing for any human being is the ability to just be curious and keep learning through life.
And one of the things, great things I got out of school was I was taught new things to love, new books to love, new subjects to love.
And so to me, that desire, when you really find something you wanna do, you will walk through walls for that thing.
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