Charlie Kirk's Life Advice for Young People: Building Character, Reading Books, and Finding Success Without College
Enjoying this? Share it with someone who needs to see it.
Up Next
Charlie Kirk's Advice to a 13-Year-Old Homeschooler on Becoming an Informed Citizen and Courageous Adult
2:11
Charlie Kirk Debates College Student on Whether Higher Education Is a Scam in America
7:22
Charlie Kirk Defends Trade Schools Over College Degrees in Heated University of Wyoming Debate
9:59
Charlie Kirk's Life Advice for Young People: Building Character, Reading Books, and Finding Success Without College
Charlie Kirk shares his philosophy on success, education, and building a meaningful life with young people across America. From starting Turning Point USA at 18 without a college degree to emphasizing the importance of reading 100 books a year, Kirk challenges conventional wisdom about higher education while stressing the critical role of character, self-control, and courage. He addresses questions about career paths, dating, politics in schools, and what it truly means to live a fulfilling life in modern America.
Charlie Kirk started Turning Point USA when he was 18 years old. He never went to college, and it ended up being a great decision for him. He took a gap year and has since built one of the most influential conservative youth organizations in America. His perspective on education challenges the conventional narrative: not everyone in this country needs to go to college. In fact, Kirk believes there are way too many people going to college in the country.
When asked about advice for young people who want to make a similar impact, Kirk emphasizes several core principles. First, strive to be a better person every single day because character is a reflection of the soul. Learn something new every single day. It doesn't matter where you go to college or if you go at all—it's just a piece of paper. What matters is who you are as a person.
Success requires willingness to keep pushing on and enduring when things get really, really tough. Kirk stresses the importance of taking relationships with people older than you very seriously and memorializing those conversations forever. While he believes smartphones are destroying the country, he acknowledges one thing they're good for: recording. They're excellent at capturing voice memos or conversations. Next time you sit down with a grandparent or a business person, record those conversations. You're going to want them.
The Power of Personal Responsibility
When you encounter difficulty, train yourself to blame yourself. Train yourself to say, "It's my fault. What did I do wrong?" Kirk acknowledges this is hard. It's really easy to blame others, and it might actually be somebody else's fault. But find something you could have done differently. If you get in the practice of doing that, you'll be a stronger person.
Kirk encourages young people to immerse themselves in eternal knowledge. There are two types of knowledge: practical knowledge and eternal knowledge. Practical knowledge is knowing who the governor is. Eternal knowledge encompasses things that never change—also called wisdom. The more wise you are, the more cheerful and happy you will be.
Despite the country's problems and ridiculous leaders, Kirk reminds young people that they live in a wonderful country and have been given a tremendous gift. Don't get into the habit of complaining that everything around you is terrible and awful. Believe that your actions matter, apply yourself accordingly, work harder every single day, and after a decade of that, you'll be in a pretty good place.
The Reading Revolution: 100 Books a Year
When a 17-year-old high school student and Turning Point USA chapter member asked for advice on debating more, Kirk's response was direct: debate less and read more. You need to read at least 100 books a year. If you aren't reading 100 books a year, you're not serious about your intellectual journey.
Kirk acknowledges some might say that's too many books, but points out you can listen to them too. His advice is to spend less money on booze, alcohol, drugs, and nightclubs and more money on audiobooks. Your life will be better. He tries to be a living example of that, attempting to read 100 to 120 books a year. He's always listening to stuff, always reading stuff. While he doesn't remember it all, he remembers a fair amount of it, and it creates you into a happier, deeper, wiser person. The more you dedicate yourself to reading, debating will become easier.
Teaching Wisdom Over Knowledge
When an after-school teacher for fourth and fifth graders asked about giving advice to youth in a corrupted society, Kirk highlighted what he considers the most important element of education: it should be about developing wisdom, not just knowledge.
Wisdom is the understanding of things that do not change. It's the most important thing you can teach a young person. The country is filled with knowledge-based institutions but lacking wisdom-based institutions. Wisdom is understanding the deeper permanent topics that will be true 200 years from now and were true 200 years prior. For example: Are human beings naturally good or not so good? What is good? What is evil? What is mercy? What is compassion? What is justice? What is truth?
These questions are much more important for people to grapple with than being able to name the five members of the California legislature. That's fine—that's knowledge. But the West is experiencing a crisis of wisdom. The remarkable thing about wisdom is that anybody can access it at any time. It doesn't require a college degree or special credential. Anybody can be wise.
The most common way people get wisdom is through suffering. That's why old people are so wise—they've suffered a lot. Through suffering, you end up getting wisdom. Good times do not make you wise. Difficult times do.
Living a Happy and Fulfilling Life
Kirk believes students don't hear enough on college campuses about how to live a happy and fulfilling life. People should be thankful for life—it's a gift, a beautiful thing. True appreciation of the deeper and eternal things starts with wonder. When landing in the area, Kirk saw incredible natural beauty and mountains that looked like they were literally on fire. This kind of beauty makes you wonder what else out there is beautiful and worth preserving, what else is eternal and elevated, what else should we try to go above and beyond to make sure doesn't get corrupted or destroyed.
This appreciation starts with gratitude—being thankful for life, consciousness, existence, and things that are deeply objectively good. Conservatives want to design a society that gives preference to choices, actions, and behavior rather than complaints, grievances, or the mobilization thereof.
Kirk emphasizes that the greatest battle people experience in life is the struggle within. Young people must be told that self-control and the improvement of their own character is the thing they must prioritize above anything else. It's a disservice to tell young people the greatest struggle in life is against racism or other external forces. The greatest struggle is whether you can control your own impulses, wake up early to go to work, and commit to becoming a better and more developed human being.
Conservatives believe that happiness is a choice. People can be happy regardless of how bad things are falling apart in the country. They're happy to be alive and thankful for their existence. Happiness is a choice. If you go around trying to find happiness, you'll seek pleasure over virtue. If you try to find happiness as a state, it's nonsense. Happiness is a choice, a state of mind, something you must commit yourself to and work at.
Kirk encourages people to ask themselves daily: "What am I thankful for today?" While not trying to diminish suffering—everybody is going through something serious—the question remains: What does it mean to live a fulfilling life? Walking around always looking for something worthy of protesting, tearing down, deconstructing, or disassembling is not the answer. Instead, consider whether making certain choices—stopping drinking, stopping drugs, stopping complaining—might improve your life a little bit. Taking responsibility for your actions leads to seeing the fruits of those choices.
The Real Struggle: You Against You
At the core of Kirk's philosophy is the belief that the real struggle is you against you. If you devote yourself to saying you'll be happy as soon as there's universal healthcare or as soon as a certain person is elected, that happiness will never come. The reason so many people are searching for purpose is because students have been told not to go find responsibility, but to go find immediate pleasure and gratification.
Instead, people should prioritize things that challenge them. Character is developed in the challenge. Strength rejoices in the challenge. Sometimes it's a good thing to live through tougher circumstances as a 17, 18, or 19-year-old. It'll make you a tougher person in the long run.
Making College Work If You're Already There
When a college senior expressed concern about not knowing what to do with life while spending money on school, Kirk clarified an important point: When people say college is a scam, they're saying institutions are charging too much money and the value proposition is inverted. But students shouldn't use that as a victim mentality and say they can't get any value out of it. Find the value. Hold onto the value.
Kirk asked the student about their skills. The student revealed they love talking, dialogue, and exchanging differences. Kirk pointed out this puts them in the top 1% of the country—99% of people hate talking. The greatest fear in America is public speaking, more than death. Every single company on the planet needs somebody good at communicating. Whatever you do, try to gravitate toward the thing you like and you're good at.
Kirk's advice to the senior was clear: finish the degree. After investing that much, it would be foolish not to. If it were a freshman, the conversation might be different. Get your degree in whatever it is, and then if it's useful, great. If not, so be it. Try to find things at the intersection of your skill and your passion—that's where you'll succeed best in life.
The biggest thing is to be a lifelong learner. Don't stop learning just because you might not be in college.
Dating, Relationships, and Being a Man
On the topic of dating for young conservatives, Kirk is not a huge fan of dating apps. He holds an opinion that will surprise many: you should not date people with different politics than you. Date with the intent to marry. Dating is not a hobby—it's an interview process. Kirk acknowledges this is a minority opinion on most college campuses, where dating is a mechanism for companionship amongst other things.
The advice is to hopefully only date people in alignment with your values. That doesn't mean you can't have friends who disagree with you, but dating is very serious. Try to associate or marry or date somebody who shares your deeply held values.
Kirk addresses what he sees as problems with men in general who have difficulty finding women. Most men are beta males with very little to any detectable testosterone. Men, especially in this time of moral and societal chaos, need to get back into what it means to be a physically and mentally strong man. Kirk believes this includes stopping watching pornography and working out on a regular basis.
According to surveys Kirk references from listeners, the most desirable quality young ladies look for in men is self-control. Young ladies say they cannot find a young man who can control himself. That's a big deal.
Kirk's advice: try to be the best version of yourself. Then be very clear with women, respectfully, about what you want and your intent. A lot of men are intimidated by women, partly because the entire culture has basically trained men to be intimidated by women—they might accuse you of something or whatever. Kirk encourages men to be very direct rather than trying the friend approach for a while. Just be a man and say, "I like you. I want to take you on a date."
Politics, Age, and When to Start Having Important Conversations
A Turning Point USA high school chapter member who drove an hour to see Kirk shared that his parents immigrated from Vietnam with basically no money and now own their own private business—a living example of why white privilege does not exist, according to the student. His question centered on trying to open up controversial topics at school when no one wants to talk about them. Are politics just not for everyone? Should there be an age when people should be able to have these conversations about politics?
Kirk's response: all ages should talk about politics, though the voting age should not be lowered. He applauded the student for his leadership at Turning Point and pointed out the audience standing for hours just to hear about political philosophical debates as evidence that interest exists. In high school, Kirk suggested, there's something refreshing about the fact that not everyone wants to talk about politics all the time.
As for what age conversations should open up, Kirk suggested around 12 years old—fifth or sixth grade—is when politics should start to be discussed, though not too deeply at first, just at a surface level.
The Courage Crisis and Building Character
When 13-year-old Grace, who has been homeschooled since kindergarten and watches online Hillsdale College courses on the Constitution, asked for advice on becoming a more informed and involved citizen, Kirk's response focused on character and courage.
He encouraged her to learn something new every single day and focus on what it means to be a good person with strong character, especially when entering the world of social approval. Courage is what's missing in the country right now—there's a courage crisis. Moral courage is the most necessary yet absent characteristic in men.
George S. Patton and Aristotle both emphasized courage. Aristotle said courage is the ultimate virtue, and without it, there are no other virtues. Think about that: if people aren't courageous, you don't have honesty, justice, beauty, or wonder. If people don't have courage to act, nothing else follows.
At age 13, Kirk wants young people to commit themselves to a life of courage. Courage is doing the right thing when you don't know how it's going to work out. Courage is committing yourself to the correct course of action regardless of the cost associated with it.
Kirk finds hope in the amount of young homeschooling children rising up in the country. He defines success with a hypothetical New York Times headline in 2050: "America's sudden, shocking, and inexplicable right turn can be traced back to homeschooling explosion during COVID-19." That's what success looks like.
