Living for the Eulogy
The art of using wealth to become a "more interesting person"
Hi,
When I die, I hope it’s said, “he wasn’t the best writer or the fastest runner or much of a cook at all, but he cared the most.” What would you like people to say about you?
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In this edition:
Resume virtues vs. eulogy virtues
Using wealth to help shape the kind of person you hope others remember.
There’s often a point during the holiday season when I stop feeling human.
It usually happens somewhere around the fourth or fifth explanation of “what I do” during a gathering of high school classmates at a bar in my hometown. But it’s also known to happen at office parties, where I find myself repeatedly detailing holiday travel plans and listing the number of kids I have and their ages.
In those moments, I feel more like a billboard than a living person. Here’s everything you need to know about me in three seconds, as you race by to grab another drink at the bar or a second helping from the conference room buffet.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with those conversations on their own. But when you spend hours with people only at the surface level, it wears you out. Eventually, you leave and wonder if you actually spoke to anyone at all.
As I’ve prepared my talking points for this year, I’ve thought more about how much goes into chasing those things — those billboard messages — just to have something to talk about. Why do we feel so pressured to obsess over accomplishments rather than presence?
I don’t know who the richest person is that I’ve ever met. Nor who had the highest IQ. Or who owned the nicest house or fastest car.
But I can easily name the people I’ve met who, when they leave a room, leave behind a kind of static electricity. What they offer isn’t a list of their merits, degrees, job titles or pictures of their new boat. They offer stories. They offer a kind of attention that makes you feel like the most important person in the room.
Legend has it that writer Barry Hannah, when teaching, once gave a student a bad grade on their paper, writing across it: This just isn’t interesting. When the student asked how to make it interesting, he bluntly replied:
Try making yourself a more interesting person.
What makes a person interesting can’t be found on a billboard.
Nor is it found on a resume.
Are you living for your resume or obituary?
In The Road to Character, columnist David Brooks wrote about the two sets of virtues we cultivate: resume virtues (the skills and accomplishments that show up on LinkedIn) and eulogy virtues (the qualities people remember when we’re gone, like kindness, courage, generosity, wisdom).
Most of us spend far more time optimizing the first. That’s understandable. Resume virtues get rewarded. They build careers, social status, incomes — the raw material of a financial plan.
But as Brooks writes:
“The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.”
One is about what we do. The other is about who we are.
Financial planning, strangely enough, sits right at this intersection.
The resume virtues build the capacity; the eulogy virtues shape the purpose.
You can save fiercely, invest wisely, max out accounts and hit your “number,” but those are resume-side actions. They’re important. They give you options. But they don’t automatically dictate how you’ll live or what your life will stand for.
You see this in real people.
Warren Buffett is a resume-virtue world champion: 60-year leader of Berkshire, billionaire, disciplined, analytical, strategic. But his most admired trait arguably isn’t compounding or stock-picking; it’s his philosophy of giving most of it away. “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%,” he once said about philanthropy — pure eulogy virtue.
That admiration was obvious in the response to a recent Morningstar article highlighting Buffett’s non-financial advice — a list anchored not in market wisdom but in eulogy virtues like kindness, integrity and patience. For instance:
“Kindness is costless but also priceless.”
Or think about John Wooden, the legendary UCLA coach, who was obsessed with character over achievements. As he once said:
“Make each day your masterpiece.”
That wasn’t motivational fluff. It was his way of saying that the inner life is more important than the outer scoreboard. And he told players that success was “peace of mind,” not trophies.
Or consider Viktor Frankl, who wrote that life is not about pursuing happiness but pursuing meaning. His idea:
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how’.”
That’s true eulogy-virtue wisdom — exactly what people tend to forget to bring into their financial choices.
What this means for money
Most financial plans are built on resume virtues: reliable saving, disciplined investing, hitting milestones, avoiding mistakes.
But a fulfilling financial life, I would argue, is guided by eulogy virtues:
How do I use money to be generous?
How do I create time to deepen relationships?
How do I build a life aligned with my values, not just my goals?
How do I ensure I’m proud of the way I earned, spent, shared and lived?
The shift is subtle but profound: instead of asking “How do I get more?” you’re asking “Who do I want to become?”
Crafting a better story
Mary Oliver is one of the bestselling poets of all time. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
But Oliver is remembered for her words, not her awards. For her attention, not her acclaim. The essayist and editor Maria Popova once called her “the patron saint of paying compassionate attention.”
And the line most people know —
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
— is essentially a eulogy-virtue question disguised as poetry.
One way to bring this into your own planning is to think about people who reach retirement financially ready but emotionally unprepared. They haven’t thought about legacy, purpose, identity. They have the resume virtues but haven’t built the eulogy ones.
In fact, research shows that retirees strongly tied to their work roles are more likely to experience diminished well-being after leaving the workforce.
Jimmy Iovine, the producer and entrepreneur, captured this perfectly when reflecting with Rick Rubin on what happens when the identity you’ve built — the resume version of yourself — disappears. After decades in the music industry, he described how disorienting it can be to step out of that role:
“Nobody wants to give up the uniform… Without it, they don’t know who they are. They feel naked.”
People feel lost when they’ve only ever worked on their resume virtues.
To tap my inner poor man’s Mary Oliver, a simple reframing question can unlock everything:
“What do you want the people you love to remember about you — and how can your money support that version of you, starting now?”
Think about it. Write it down.
Researchers have found that people who crafted identity stories were “better able to make peace with their transitions… expressing more positive sentiment about their current situations than those who did not craft such stories.”
Because ultimately, your financial life reflects both kinds of virtues.
You need the resume virtues to build security. But it’s the eulogy virtues that give life meaning — and turn a financial plan from a spreadsheet into a story about a “more interesting person.”
Notes to my future self:
What makes a person interesting can’t be found on a billboard. Nor is it found on a resume.
Two sets of virtues we cultivate: resume virtues (the skills and accomplishments that show up on LinkedIn) and eulogy virtues (the qualities people remember when we’re gone, like kindness, courage, generosity, wisdom).
What do you want the people you love to remember about you — and how can your money support that version of you, starting now?
Until next time,
J.S.