BRX Pro Tip: Are You Living a Resume Life or a Eulogy Life?
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips, Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I thought this was an interesting question and probably one we should all be asking ourselves. Are you living a resume life or a eulogy life?
Lee Kantor: This is something that David Brooks, the author of the book The Second Mountain, talks about. He wrote about this concept, and it really kind of makes you think. He asked, are you living for your resume or are you living for your eulogy?
Lee Kantor: Your resume virtues are things that will get you ahead in your career. And, you know, these are your skills, these are the things you’ve accomplished, titles, deals you’ve closed, things like that. But your eulogy virtues are the things that people say about you at your funeral. Were you kind? Were you there for people? Did you make a difference in individual people’s lives or your community’s lives? Those are two different things.
Lee Kantor: And at some point in your life, you’re going to have to ask yourself, if someone was giving your eulogy today, what would they say? Are they going to be talking about how many deals you closed and what a wiz you were at PowerPoint, how much revenue you generated? Are they going to talk about how you showed up for people? And if you got too many things on your list that are about business, and deals, and money, and things and stuff, you might want to use that as kind of a gut check for how you’re building your life, and your business, and your relationships.
Lee Kantor: And the best part about this exercise is you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can build a successful business and you can be someone people genuinely want to remember and will remember. So, it’s not an either/or. It is an and. So remember, are you living a resume life or a eulogy life? David Brooks says you can do both.
