Attending a friend’s
funeral reminded me of the importance of maintaining connections, and not
letting other people do the talking for you.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
JAN 14, 2025
We lost a good friend recently. This
happens far too frequently as we get older and, of course, makes you think
about your own mortality. Funerals, or celebrations of life if you prefer, are
sad and painful occasions. But they’re also striking reminders – as you’re
inevitably surrounded by old friends, peers, and co-workers from multiple
ventures and decades – that you’ve done a fairly miserable job of keeping in
touch over the intervening years with many of those folks who were an important
and meaningful part of your life at some earlier point.
It’s a costly, selfish, and
short-sighted mistake to consciously or unconsciously shut out the people from your past. They may bring
treasure, they may make trouble, they may need help, but whatever the
prospects, it’s worth the risk and I’ve found that it’s almost always
rewarding.
Similarly, no one loves a mournful
service, but the good news at these events is that it’s not too late to catch
up, make amends, and invest the time and the effort to reconnect and jointly
recall those years of giving it your all. To remember the time when you were
wholly immersed in the crucible of creating something new. And among the things
you built together in those scary, harried days were friendships and lifelong
bonds. Friendship has no expiration date, as my dear, departed friend used to
say. Friendship is something readily rekindled – like some old and
precious gift that’s been stowed and forgotten, a treasure too often taken for
granted or wasted.
Make the Effort to Reconnect
With the slightest effort and a brief
exchange, you can find your way back to the warmth and closeness – to the pain
and sweat – of a time when time away from task was grudgingly endured while
time at “work” was energizing and exciting. You can readily relive the freshly
reborn affection of a group of novices who worried endlessly, wondered if
they had the stuff, both loved and lost on multiple occasions, and laughed at
themselves and one another mercilessly. A gangly group of beginners who grew through
tough shared times into a team when they learned just how much they needed,
trusted, and depended on each other.
And they knew one more thing – one
truth above all – that they would all hold near and dear. They knew that what
they went through together bound them forever and meant more to them than they
ever thought it could.
The eulogies were a somewhat different
story and yet they were also instructive in a couple of important ways.
Why You Need to Tell Your Story
First, this was a ceremony to honor a
man who was, above all, a compulsive and convincing storyteller – sometimes
right, but never in doubt – and an example for aspiring entrepreneurs
everywhere. Storytelling is a critical skill for everyone, but especially for
new business-builders who need to show their multiple audiences a compelling
vision and a clear path to get to the promised land. What you learn way down
the line is that what you’re saying and selling may not be what your listeners
are hearing, taking away, or coming to believe.
What was clear to me from the various
eulogies is that – in most cases – the outsiders, the civilians, and frankly
anyone who wasn’t there in the trenches can come away with ideas and tales of a
time and a business based on stirring stories, tall and heroic tales, shiny
objects, fantasies, and superficial impressions that have very little to do
with the substance and the underlying realities of what actually went on. And,
more important, what hard choices and sacrifices were made along the way.
Business-building is not about
learning the tricks of the trade, seeing what you can get away with, blatantly
taking advantage of others, or determining how close to the edges of propriety
you can come. These aren’t things worth glorifying and they’re certainly not
what we want to teach our incoming employees or our kids.
Sadly, these attitudes are how we end
up with corrupt and convicted felons as our leaders. In terms of lessons left
behind, I think the least we want to come away with is that, even if things
weren’t always done the right way, they were always done for the right reasons.
It’s Time to Rewrite Those Last Rites
Second, I’ve come to believe that we
need to radically change the whole end-of-life process. Instead of bereft
family members, forlorn friends, and remote relatives trying to fill the bucket
of grief with saccharine sentiments, prophylactic projections, and Hallmark
hagiographies the decedent would probably hate, we should start writing our own
eulogies before we die.
I don’t say this solely in the
interest of improved accuracy or recollection. I say it because instead of
having Mary tell us how much Dad loved Sally, or Paul saying how proud his pop
was of sister Sue, we’d presumably hear these things directly from the horse’s
mouth. We’d also create an opportunity for confessions, compliments,
acknowledgments, and unfiltered recitations of lessons learned, by and from the
source. This would be far better for all concerned – and a lot more interesting
and informative.
Death isn’t an ending – our loved ones
live on in our memories, in our actions, and in our hearts. But it just seems
like a fuller and fairer way for the folks about to leave us to honestly share
a lot of history, heartache, wisdom, and apologies for errors and omissions,
time spent unwisely, sentiments and feelings unshared, and thoughts and ideas
that may have simply been too hard to say in person, but which really needed to
be said.
Too many people never get a chance. At
the end of the day, no one tells your story better than you do.
