What Kind of Person Are You?
“And as he interpreted to us, so it came about… Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph…” Gen 41:13; 14
First off, I want to apologise for missing last week Wednesday’s post in this series of What Kind of Person Are you. In fact, I did not post any piece on any platform for the entire week. One of my close followers on Medium inquired as to why there was no post from me during the week. I was encouraged as much as I was disappointed. I was encouraged to know that there is at least one person out there who is looking forward to reading my posts. It makes my writing all worth it, even if it for that one person. On the other hand, I was disappointed because I let someone down, I let you, my readers, down.
I could not post because I had to prepare for an engagement as part of my day job. Yes, I hear you. With proper planning, I should have been able to meet my commitment to you still. And I accept that without making any excuses. But eh, I am human after all.
So what was it that made me not put in my piece? Let me simply say it was a career-defining matter. I was attending my first performance review with our Group CEO, in my capacity as CFO of one of the smaller Opcos in the Group. It was a big moment, or that is what I considered it to be. For years past, I have worked behind the scenes to prepare my previous CFOs for such meetings. Now, I am the one in the hot seat.
You will agree with me that such a meeting is not one of those to wing it. One should ideally not wing any meeting for that matter. Any successful meeting is the result of good preparation. My former bosses taught me so. In my particular case, I needed to make a good first outing. There is no second chance for first impressions, as they say. So I had to put in all the time I could to do some research and study our presentation well. The meeting was six months financial and non-financial results crammed into a forty-five minutes presentation, including Q&A. And I believe presentation experts suggest that the shorter the performance, the more one needs to prepare. Of course, I was nervous. But that is a good thing. It keeps one on their toes. In the end, the efforts paid off judging by the informal feedback afterwards. Did I think I could have done better? The answer will always be yes.
According to Dale Carnegie, “There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practised, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” One will always wish they did their presentation or gave their speech differently.
The point of all the hard work and preparation? I wanted to be sure that the audience will remember me or at least not forget me right after the last of our forty-five minutes was up. Whatever we do will make not be worth our while if people forget us the very next minute we are gone.
That was the profound thought that occupied my mind during my flight back from Johannesburg to Kabul. No, not the entire flight, please. The thought came to mind after I finished watching a movie that I had rejected to watch during my last three or four flights on Emirates. I had to watch it this time because there was no other “new movie” on offer that I had not seen before. Either that is an indication how frequently I travel with Emirates or of how limited movies Emirates have to show. I will let you decide. As much as I enjoy watching films about the black struggle in America, the synopsis of this particular movie did not tickle my fancy.
“Young Thurgood Marshall faces one of his greatest challenges while working as a lawyer for the NAACP. Marshall travels to conservative Connecticut when wealthy socialite Eleanor Strubing accuses black chauffeur Joseph Spell of sexual assault and attempted murder. He soon teams up with Sam Friedman, a local Jewish lawyer who’s never handled a criminal case. Together, the two men build a defence while contending with racist and anti-Semitic views from those who deem Spell to be guilty.”
The movie is titled Marshall, featuring Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther). Boseman played the role of Thurgood Marshall who was the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. An intriguing biopic, I must say. Enough said. One dialogue got me thinking about the subject of this post. It was a scene of an altercation between Marshall and Friedman. In the heat of the moment, Friedman retorted phrases which I think summarise what we all must be afraid, passively or actively.
Here is what Friedman said:
“What do you have?
You have nothing to lose.
No, you just sweep through town, stirring up all kinds of ugliness, then move right on.”
Here is the kicker. Friedman continued:
“No one will ever even remember you were here.”
I think Friedman said those words to hurt Marshall because, deep down, to be forgotten is something we despise and it is our desire for people to remember us. I believe this to be true whether we like to admit it or not.
But more importantly, we should consider why people will remember us. It will be better to be forgotten than to be remembered for the wrong reasons. Therefore it is better for us to take control of that memory. And I promise you. It is in your hands to define that memory. Take charge of your legacy while you still have the strength to shape it. I very much like the visualisation exercise that the late author Steven R Covey introduced in his infamous book — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In the third chapter of the book — Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind — Principles of Personal Leadership, Mr Covey introduced the exercise of visualising being in our very own funeral.
“Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life… What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?”
This powerful exercise teaches us that we can control how people remember us if we can actively think about the end even at the beginning; if we pay attention to it.
In the end, there will be two things involved — people will forget you or they will remember you. If people remember you, there will be two things involved.
“You will only be remembered in life for two things: The problems you solve or the ones you create.” — Dr Mike Murdock:
In my own words, there are two types of people. The question is, are you a person who
1) Will be remembered for the problems you solved? or
2) Will be remembered for the problems you created?
My daily goal is to make an impact, make a difference and help at least one person get closer to their dreams or closer to realising their potential. I seek to do this in every area of my life, family, friends, and work. I have been called for job offers because someone, somewhere remembered me for a problem I helped them solve.
If you are not getting the reward that you desire, then most likely you are not solving a problem.
So let us choose to lead a life that people will remember for the problems we solved and not for the ones we create. And we can have a eulogy that we will be proud to call our own.
