What’s Your Deathbed Advice?

Imagine yourself on your deathbed, perhaps answering your granddaughter’s question about what you did with your life. What would you say? Probably not that you had a 10 percent increase in profit in the third quarter of a particular year. If she asked for your words of advice to help her make her life a success, how would you respond? For many of us, we have to strive so hard to succeed in business that it’s often difficult to balance our business, family and personal lives.

As I have gotten closer to retirement, I have certainly given this more thought. I have a nine-year-old granddaughter and six-year-old grandson, and I suspect I may be faced with answering these kinds of questions in the not too far distant future. Hopefully, it will not be on my deathbed!

I suppose we all hope we have had a positive influence on other people lives, including the people who have worked for and with us, and also our customers. Having a higher calling and purpose than just making money should be important when we ponder our lives and contributions.

My former boss and mentor Bill McIntyre was instrumental in developing a very concise mission statement for our company back in the early 1990’s. It is: To Enhance the Value of the Businesses We Serve. The beauty of this mission statement is that it works for our company as it relates to our franchise members, and it also works for our franchise members to guide them with their customers. To us, it means much more than making money. The value of any business is also tied to the enhancing the quality of the lives it influences.

I hope my answer to the questions posed in the opening will have a lot to do with influencing the lives of others in a positive way, both in my business and my personal life. It would serve us all well to think of our deathbed advice as we go about the high calling of our daily lives, personally and professionally.