Social Anxiety
What's Going to be On Your Eulogy Resume?
A short exercise to get your thinking about how you want to be remembered.
While you’re working on your career, are you also giving thought to your eulogy resume?
Today we’re going to be doing an exercise.
It has the potential to change your whole life how you see yourself and how you project yourself onto the world, the impression that you make, the way you want others to see you, and so on.
So we’re going to keep it short and to the point and make it as. impactful as possible.
Now, the first thing I want to ask you is: how do you want people to remember you?
Take a few seconds to think about that. Yes, it feels generic. It feels vague. It feels like, uh, I don’t really care that much to answer this question.
Maybe your answer is: “However, they remember me is how they’ll remember me.”
Maybe you’re thinking: “No one really knows the real me, so why bother?”
So on and so forth. Okay. I get it. I understand. I feel you. This is why I do think this exercise is super important and I’m going to walk you through it
This is something that I have been pondering since the tragic death of a co-worker a few years back.
She was in a car with her husband and their son, one of their sons, and unfortunately, all three of them did not survive the accident. And it made me think. course, whenever tragedy hits close to home, it changes your whole worldview.
But it made me think about a particular TED talk, a TED talk by David Brooks on working on your eulogy resume.
It’s short. I highly recommend you go check it out if you haven’t heard about it, but here’s what he said:
“It occurred to me that there are two sets of virtues, the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral, whether you were kind, brave, honest, or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?
Now, we all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume ones, but our culture and our educational systems spend much more time teaching the skills and the strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light.”
Holy guacamole, if that is not the most powerful thing ever.
Short, sweet to the point, but has so much oomph in it. Because when I think of my co-worker, I think, oh my goodness, how she laughed at every chance she had, at every chance she could.
She was just that happy, radiating, glowing person on our team, always a smile on her face, no matter what. And that’s ultimately my lasting memory of her.
Even though there was friction between us.
I remember her by her character, not her work ethic, what her job title was or how she spent her weekends. I don’t remember any of that.
Those things just don’t pop up when I think about her.
Because, yes, people do remember how you made them feel more than anything else, but people will also remember, your quirks, the twinkle in your eye, what you stood for, and the values that you embodied.
And as I kept thinking about her, I realized well, no one will ever say anything like that about me. That won’t be on my eulogy resume.
Because, hi, I don’t laugh at everything. It’s quite the opposite. I ponder everything. I rarely burst out laughing. So, I already know that people are not going to remember me as a good, humorous person.
And I’m okay with that. I am. But it got me thinking, how do I want them to remember me?
Notice how I’m not saying, how do I think they will remember me? Because that’s a difficult rabbit hole to go down in, especially if you don’t have a lot of confidence in yourself. But how do you want to remember is a positive spin on it.
Which brings me to the exercise.
The point is to think of a word or a couple of words that you want people to associate you with once you’re gone.
Yes, I do have to bring up this concept of death because otherwise, the exercise doesn’t work. It’s futile.
So when I did this exercise for myself, I had to come up with a word.
All you have to do is say YOUR NAME + WAS + A WORD(S).
For me, it would be ROXANA + WAS + A SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR.
What is it that you see yourself as? You might not embody this word yet.
I’m at 10 percent myself of being a social justice warrior. You might not even be close, but what if you worked towards that word every single day? Yeah. Because that’s how you want to be remembered.
I want to be remembered as a social justice warrior, as an activist, as someone who spoke up.
And you can make a list.
There can be many different words and you can work towards them, but ultimately you must have a vision, right? A core vision of your eulogy virtues.
And what if you do your best to display these virtues, these characteristics that you admire the most in others at any given moment in time.
So align yourself with a higher moral standard, because your life, my life, our lives are built in moments. So every moment is an opportunity to show up how you want to show up.
Every moment is an opportunity to become the person you want others to remember you by, which is the whole point of the eulogy virtues.
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But just as an FYI, this exercise is not about them.
It’s not about anyone else. It’s about you. It’s about working towards the couple of words you want to embody and align yourself with.
And the bonus is that that’s the image people will have of you. at the end, which means that you successfully became the person you most wanted to be.
So for example, if being adventurous is important to you, and it’s something that speaks to you, then what are you waiting for? Book a flight, go on an adventure, come back, share your story, and talk about it.
And do that again, and again, and again. And that’s how you embody the word adventurous.
If you want to be spiritual, what can you do to become that?
So on and so forth. And this is not meant to depress you by any means but to make you think. If you have social anxiety, or you care so much about what others think of you, this exercise will redirect your thoughts to the actions you need to take.
You won’t have time to worry about what others think of you because you are going to focus on what you want to think of you, and then by default, that just happens to become what others think of you as well.
So my advice is to choose a word and let that word be your guiding principle every day, regardless of the situation that you find yourself in.
These virtues are things you’re going to take along with you until the end of your days. And then hopefully at your funeral, these are the same things that people are going to share about you.
And these are going to be the memories that you have implanted in them, and they will think of you the same way I think of my co-worker. I will always forever remember her as someone who was just happy and just had a smile on her face.
And I think that’s incredible to be remembered that way.
If you are having a hard time with some words, here are some ideas:
Wise, generous, kind, relaxed, easy going, thoughtful, fighter, activist, funny, intellectual.
Choose one that speaks to you, or come up with your own. Do the exercise, and see if that changes your mindset, your perspective, and how you show up in the world.
It has helped me tremendously to see myself in a new light and in the light that I want to forever be seen as.
If you don’t have a eulogy resume or haven’t thought about your eulogy virtues, it’s time to give it some thought. In the same way, you’re hyper-focused on your career, so should you be on the type of person people remember you as.
I'm Roxana
I went from being scared to ask a question out loud to hosting summits online. I love coffee, french crepes, and working from home. My mission? Help others build their social confidence to make friends, have conversations, and be comfortable around people!
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