MBA2470 Must Read: The Second Mountain By David Brooks

0:08Heyo! Welcome to the 100RMBA show where you get better at business with our real world business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm, and today's episode is a must-read episode. On our must-read episodes, I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights, and why you should read it too. Today's must-read is The Second Mountain by David Brooks. David Brooks is a respected New York Times columnist and brings us a metaphor that I find incredibly powerful. He describes life as a journey of two mountains.

0:45The first mountain is about achieving traditional success, your career, your status, financial security. But there's another possibility, a more important mountain, the second mountain. This is about finding your purpose beyond oneself. I picked up this book because I kind of feel like I might be on my second mountain right now. With the sale of my software company, Webinar Ninja, after working on it for over 10 years, I'm in a new chapter in my life and in my business, and I'm seeking new perspectives. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you what I learned from this book. I'm going to share with you if I did get that new perspective, what were my favorite takeaways, and what are some things that can help you in your life and your business, even if it's just a few things you can think about over the next few days.

1:26So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I want to start by sharing the subtitle of this book. It's called The Second Mountain, The Quest for a Moral Life. Now, I do think that that subtitle is a little bit misleading. It sounds like, you know, if you're on the first mountain, it's not a moral life. It's selfish. It's irreverent, whatever it might be. I don't really agree with that, but I do believe there are levels to life. There's levels to our work and how we dedicate our time and energy and effort and money. And this is why I wanted to get into this book. I actually heard it recommended by other entrepreneurs.

2:00So I cracked it open and said, OK, let's figure it out. Let's see what this book is all about. Let's start by what's the difference between the first mountain in your life and the second mountain? On the first mountain, our goals are usually those goals that society applause. Earn more money, climb higher in your career, be recognized, get awarded. I mean, every walk of life, every career, every path has some level of this. this climbing up the corporate ladder, the employee of the year, the silver or gold play button that YouTube gives you when you have a hundred thousand or a million subscribers.

2:38These are all kind of accolades people are reaching out for normally. This is totally normal, but often reaching the summit of these goals leaves people feeling unfulfilled. As I'm wondering, is this all there is? Or at the very least, they achieve the goal, they get the plaque, They get the award and they're kind of like, okay, that's great. What's next? And they just try to find other things to achieve and other things to accomplish. And soon enough, this kind of gets old. David Brooks, the author of this book, talks about his own experiences hitting a personal low despite his outward success in his career.

3:15It talks about his personal relationship with his wife, not working out, getting a divorce, feeling really unsuccessful and a failure in this area of his life. In one way or another, we can all kind of relate to something like that, an area of our life where we fail that. And that's what triggered him to think about, is there more to life than just trying to achieve the next rung, the next level of our career, adding another zero to our salary or our bank balance, whatever it might be. So how does this contrast with the second mountain? Well, the second mountain is all about seeking joy and fulfillment in things that are larger than ourselves.

3:51This might mean pivoting in a career, maybe deepening a relationship or dedicating oneself to a cause that's really meaningful to you, that matters, that helps the world or helps a group of people outside of yourself. Doing things that really don't impact you or you get a benefit from. Even if you're doing things for your own family, you actually generate some sort of happiness or some sort of benefit, even, you know, maybe peace of mind. But what if you did work that really didn't benefit you at all, just benefit others as really a thankless kind of effort? What would that be like? And he explores this concept of like, how do you actually get joy?

4:31Not happiness. Happiness is momentarily a state that you have when things happen, when events happen. But joy is an internal, everlasting feeling. How do you feel fulfilled and feel like every day means so much to you? Well, let's dig it a little deeper. Let's figure out what this all means. Here are some key takeaways or ideas that I pulled out of the book that I wanted to share with you. First is this word he uses called vocation. Brooks isn't talking about just a job or a profession. He's talking about a calling that consumes you, where your greatest passion meets the world's deep needs. This is like something you're compelled to do, that you would do even if you weren't paid.

5:13In fact, you would pay to do it. Take, for instance, a corporate lawyer who shifts their work to pro bono work for environmental causes or societal justice or serving people that can't afford a lawyer. They might find more satisfaction, more joy, more fulfillment in this service, in this way of doing their profession than ever before. Because they feel like they're actually doing work that needs to be done, that they're impacting people other than themselves with a great salary. Now, a quick asterisk here, okay? Brooks is not saying that money is bad, not saying that having money is a bad thing or accumulating wealth.

5:52In fact, he says that it's very hard to do a lot of these things or have the ability to do pro bono work, for example, if you don't have money, if you don't have something to sustain yourself. And he actually talks about that the first mountain is not a bad thing. The first mountain actually gives you that financial security so that you can climb the second mountain and feel free to do what you want and serve the people you want to serve and go after that cause that you're passionate about. And now I have an opinion about this and the balance of wealth and making money and serving a cause, but I'll share that later in the episode.

6:24Next, I want to share with you a takeaway in the book that's all about community. Brooks, David Brooks, the author, he really is stressing the fact that we have lost our communal spirit in the modern world. He suggests that fulfillment comes from re-engaging at a local level. Now imagine transforming a struggling neighborhood into a thriving community space where every person contributes and feels valued. This is the essence of Brooks's vision that if we help our communities, even our local communities, this will give us so much more joy and fulfillment than any career or any social ladder could ever give us because we're communal beings as human beings.

7:04We operate in communities. We thrive in communities. And these communities can also be online. They can be communities based on similar interests. This is something I'm incredibly passionate about and trying to grow in the future. One of the big projects that Nicole and I are working on this year is growing our own online community at the$100 MBA, because I'm a big believer that entrepreneurship is about holding each other accountable, is having somebody to be your cheerleader to push you on and somebody you could push on and support and motivate and let them know that, hey, keep on going. I needed that when I got started 20 years ago and had a hard time finding it.

7:44And I want to make it easier for other people to find their people, their community that could support them and they can support others along the way. Lastly, another takeaway I want to share with you is commitment. Brooks talks about this idea of commitment and emphasizes the commitments to spouses and family and vacation and faith and community is what anchors our fulfilling life. He gives an example of a couple who, despite personal differences and challenges, find deeper love and connection through the years of hard work and mutual respect they've had together, their shared experiences. They've been through so much that anything is fixable.

8:20And they've been through so much because they're committed to each other. Commitment is something that might be lost on a lot of people in recent days, but is really the backbone of anything that you're proud of. I'm so proud of this podcast that's almost 10 years old because of the commitment I made to it. Look at your own life. What are you proud of? Probably something that you've committed to for a very long time, or at least an exceptional amount of time that allowed you to really fall in love with it and create something incredible. Now, how to apply these concepts, these ideas to our business and our personal growth?

8:57As entrepreneurs, we can draw direct lines from these ideas to our businesses and personal lives. In my belief, embracing the second mound can lead us to create businesses that aren't just profitable, but are impactful and meaningful to others and ourselves. It's about leading with values, prioritizing your team members, and contributing positively to our communities. I feel like business is a great vehicle to do this, to fulfill these needs, and to tap into that joy. Much of Brooks's book is about people in careers, in jobs, and wanting to transition from that mountain to the second mountain.

9:33But we are lucky enough as entrepreneurs to have this incredible vehicle called a business that allows us to fulfill whatever we want. We're able to impact people in a positive way through our business. We're able to give to charity through our business and our revenue and profits. We can express ourselves. We can represent our values through our products and services. We can create communities that nurture and help each other. This is the beauty of entrepreneurship. This is what I love about being an entrepreneur. It allows you to do so much with this concept, this concept called the business.

10:07In my own journey, this book prompted me to reflect on my own legacy, the legacy that I'm trying to build and have been building for the last 20 years. It's not just about the bottom line and the profit margins and what that gets my business and my personal life. It's about the relationships I nurture and create along the way. It's about the impact I can have on the world and the people around me. Are we supporting our team members? Are we helping them get better? Are we helping them climb their second mountain as well? Brooks also discusses societal changes that can foster second mountain pursuits.

10:40He talks about creating institutions that encourage community and connection, like shared public spaces, co-working spaces, incubators, places that bring people together from different walks of life or business to prioritize a common goal or shared belief or ideas or ethics. Communities like this that are not just about profit can impact the community in a large way. Got me thinking, is this something I want to do in my local area? Build a sort of community that helps connect people and support them. Definitely something that we're going to be working on this year on the online side of things at the$100 MBA.

11:17All in all, The Second Mount by David Brooks challenges us to rethink our lives' priorities and redefine the true meaning of success. It was a really good read. I recommend you pick up this book because it's going to get you to think about your business in a different way, how you can use it as a vehicle to have long-term fulfillment and joy and feel like you're impacting more than just yourself. There's so many ways to do that, but this book is going to get you thinking about some ways that you might want to do that in different ways. Pick it up wherever you buy books, Amazon, bookstore. It's a pretty popular book.

11:48Again, The Second Mountain by David Brooks. Thanks for joining me on The$100 MBA Show. If you love what you hear, if you think this show is amazing, if you have gotten a great takeaway, an idea in any of our episodes, the best way to thank us is to hit follow on your favorite podcast app, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever it might be. Hit that follow button right now so you get our next episode automatically and you send that signal to the algorithm to say, hey, this show's all right. Thank you so much in advance for doing that. It means a lot to us that you subscribe to the show.

12:18Thank you in advance for subscribing. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. This book is not about tactics. It's not about strategies. It's not about tips or hacks. It's a mind shifting book. It's a new perspective, a new way to look at things kind of book. You may not want to plow through this book in one sitting. You may want to pick it up and read it every morning for breakfast. It gives you something to think about, something to ponder. It's not something that you're going to really take action on immediately with exercises. It's not that kind of book, but it's good to shift gears sometimes and have this type of read because it really gets you to think a little bit bigger, a little bit wider, a little bit more long term.

12:54Thanks again for listening and I'll check you again in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

13:08Thank you.