How Do You Want to be (Publicly) Remembered When Your Life Ends
If it doesn't matter to you, it doesn't matter but if it does...
Most people likely don’t care, outside of their loved ones, about how they will be remembered after their life is over. Some might, however. How we’re carrying ourselves now, how we interact with people, is getting filed in people’s memories.
A recent example caught my attention, which then eventually jogged my memory of a contrary-thinking quote: Mike Leach was a well-known college football coach, successful in his work and known for his often offbeat humor and not taking himself overly seriously. He suddenly died in December, 2022.
Three years earlier, in a 2019 ESPN profile, he was asked a question.
“When people write the Mike Leach obituary, how do you want to be remembered?” Jeremy Schaap asked him.
The reply was on-brand for him. “Well, that's their problem. They're the one writing the obituary. I mean, what do I care? I’m dead,” Leach shot back.
The vast majority probably feel similarly in regards to how the people they worked with or interacted with feel about them and will possibly communicate about the deceased after they are gone. However, won’t our loved ones possibly care about how we are remembered and publicly communicated about?
Do you care about how you will be remembered outside of your loved ones if you worked closely with people in your profession, especially knowing that social media exists? Maybe not.
Observation: on social media, I’ve noticed when some people pass, the comments have been at times, ugly venting, often insensitive to surviving family.
We will be remembered, at least for a short while, by people outside our trusted personal circle by how we are interacting with them, especially when stress courses through our bodies. Too often, we aren't thinking about how we are conducting ourselves and how we're being experienced.
What inspired this article were the statements after a professional football coach, Dick Jauron, died at the age of 74. Look what his passing inspired people to stop their day, think and remember, and then communicate publicly about him.
Think too how his family and friends may have possibly felt reading what was being communicated, how it may have been comforting.
“The world… lost a great human being today. Dick Jauron. He was a special player, coach, husband, father, boss and especially, person!”
“His kindness was unmatched.”
“… one of the more genuine, respectful coaches I’ve ever covered. Really appreciated everyone around him and took the time to make that clear.”
“… almost everyone — really liked him.”
“… he was genuinely engaged in the conversation and in meeting me.”
“What a nice and humble man Dick Jauron was. … so respectful and supportive.”
That person made a powerful, positive, meaningful impression on people. He is no longer around to read or hear it, although he noticed how many people positively responded to him. His family probably greatly appreciated the outpouring of kindness.
While we don’t know for certain, the odds are higher rather than lower that Jauron may have treated those closest to him in the same way.
He invested in “humility, respect, kindness, appreciation, attention, engagement (within conversations) and support” in interactions and it earned him the dividends of trust, respect, admiration and in death, praise.
This newsletter — Reputation Intelligence — is written by Michael Toebe, and is a product of Reputation Intelligence - Reputation Quality, a firm which helps individuals and organizations assure a greater peace of mind, provide stress relief through reliable decision analysis, consulting, advisory and communications.
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