Your First Assignment is to Write Your Own Obituary!

Recently a leadership coach explained how the first interview with a client began. He looked the person in the eyes and said to them, your first assignment is to write your own obituary! WOW, I can imagine how that 21-year old felt and reacted. Anyone would have re-acted about the same. It was a test and it was a wise one. Have you ever considered doing that? I had not. It is something often done once a person stops to ‘put their affairs in order’, but not in a training session for leadership for a management position right out of college. Maybe, list dreams of days to come, but that may be only wishful thinking. Certainly we can’t know our career path and the opportunities that will befall us. We can know and lay plans for how we choose to treat people and how we plan to react to good and bad behavior. Can we walk away from trouble? Can we discipline our life for balance of faith, family and work? Those and many more are the things dreams are made of and things that people will remember when we are gone. If we don’t aim for them now, it will certainly never happen. Today is not too late to write your own obituary.