LUKE BURGIS: Discerning What You Actually Want

Most ambition advice is about how to reach the top of the mountain. Luke Burgis points out that many of us have an upstream problem: we’re climbing a mountain we don’t actually care about. Michael and Megan sit down with Burgis, a Wall Street suit turned entrepreneur turned philosopher, father, and author of several books on desire. They unpack why not all desires are created equal, how to unearth the ones that lead to real satisfaction, and what the monastic tradition offers those of us who will never be monks. This conversation gives you a way to separate what you actually want from the noise of mimetic desire.

Memorable Quotes

“Ambition without a sense of self or a differentiation of self is just a highly sophisticated form of conformity.”“You can get really good at achieving goals without wondering whether they’re the right goals in the first place.”“A simple exercise is just: Name the models of your desire. Who are the people who have given you your own desires?”“One of the easiest ways to kind of determine whether a desire is thin or thick is: Does it persist through different seasons of life, through different environments, through different friend groups, through different relationships?”“A lot of people go straight to productivity and organization… before asking the most important question: Should I even be trying to integrate this at all?”“Each person has an unrepeatable calling, something that only they can do with their unique history and situation and context. I think our thickest desire is oriented towards living out of a personal vocation... Thick desire is a signpost to a calling which can be lived out in and through our work.”“Being in communion means learning how to be a differentiated self with a calling while also being part of something bigger. And sometimes that creates a little bit of tension, and our instinct is to flee any form of tension or any anxiety. And I think there’s a lot to be learned from sitting in the tension to be a part and to be oneself.”“Which kinds of communities and groups flatten any kind of distinctiveness? And which ones actually allow people to evolve and to be part of the whole, or to be part of the body without demanding that they be something that they’re not, or demanding that they sacrifice their integrity?”

Key Takeaways

Your Ambition Might Be Borrowed. Mimetic desire means we absorb what we want from the people we watch. Whose careers do you track closely, with mixed feelings? Naming our models of des