Your Living Funeral
Used For 💡
Clarifying long-term purpose and meaning
Exploring personal and leadership legacy
Aligning daily behavior with deeper values
Interrupting autopilot and short-term thinking
Supporting ethical, human-centered leadership
Reframing success beyond metrics and roles
Group Size 👫
Solo, pairs, or small groups
Total Time ⏳
15–30 minutes
What This Is 🤔
Inspired by author and coach Fred Kofman, Your Living Funeral is a guided reflective exercise that invites leaders to step outside the immediacy of their roles and imagine their life — and leadership — from the vantage point of the end.
Participants are asked to imagine having lived a long, full life and to write the eulogy they would want a close friend to deliver at a “living funeral.” The focus is not on achievements alone, but on how they lived, how they treated others, and what kind of presence they brought into the world.
This is not a morbid or dramatic exercise. It is a perspective-shifting one.
Used thoughtfully, Your Living Funeral creates distance from short-term pressures and reconnects leaders with what they want their life and leadership to stand for — before it’s too late to change course.
How It Works 🔩
1. Set the Frame Carefully
Invite participants into the exercise slowly and respectfully.
Explain:
This is a reflective exercise about meaning, not death.
Participants can engage at their own depth.
2. Establish the Scenario
Ask participants to imagine:
They are at the end of a long, rich life
They have acted with integrity
They have built meaningful relationships
They are at peace with how they lived and led
A “living funeral” is being held, and a close friend is about to speak.
3. Write the Eulogy
Invite participants to write the eulogy they would want a close friend to read aloud.
When appropriate, holding the exercise in a cemetery or similarly reflective setting can add depth and perspective.
Encourage attention to:
How they showed up for others
What people trusted them for
How they handled power, pressure, and failure
What kind of leader — and human — they were
What they choose not to include in the eulogy
4. Choose Mode of Reflection
Solo: Continue with journaling
In groups: Share selected excerpts in pairs or triads (optional). No one is required to share.
5. Ground Back in the Present
Close by reconnecting the reflection to today: What does this perspective change about how you live or lead now?
Optional Prompts 📝
What do people thank me for?
What do they say I stood for?
How did I treat people when things were hard?
What did I protect — even when it cost me?
What kind of presence did I bring into rooms?
What would disappoint me if it were missing from this eulogy?
What You’re Practicing 🎯
Long-term perspective-taking
Purpose and meaning-making
Values-based sensemaking
Identity beyond role or title
Ethical reflection
Aligning actions with legacy
Why It Works 🏗️
Humans make better decisions when they zoom out.
By imagining life from its endpoint, leaders temporarily step outside the pressure of urgency, comparison, and performance metrics. This broader time horizon shifts what feels important, revealing misalignments between current behavior and deeper intentions.
The exercise draws on well-established insights from existential psychology and leadership development: clarity about meaning and legacy strengthens motivation, reduces regret, and supports more courageous, values-consistent action in the present.
Legacy isn’t built at the end of life. It’s built in ordinary moments, repeated over time.
What the Research Says 🔬
Across psychology and leadership research, meaning-making and self-transcendence are consistently linked to resilience, ethical behavior, and well-being. Both Abraham Maslow and Viktor Frankl independently concluded — late in their careers — that finding meaning beyond oneself is the highest and most stabilizing human motivation, surpassing even self-actualization.
Contemporary research supports this view, showing that reflecting on purpose, values, and long-term legacy increases clarity under pressure and reduces reactivity. In leadership contexts, this broader perspective helps shift focus from short-term performance to lasting impact on colleagues, loved ones, and society.
Pro Tips 🥠
Create psychological safety before introducing the exercise
Allow silence — this work needs space
Normalize emotional responses without amplifying them
Encourage writing freely, not beautifully
In groups, use pairs or triads rather than plenary
Always reconnect insights back to present-day choices
Common Pitfalls ⚠️
Rushing the exercise
Over-framing it as emotional or spiritual
Forcing sharing
Turning it into a performance or storytelling contest
Leaving the reflection disconnected from real-life action
Optional Debrief 💬
What surprised you in what you wrote?
What felt most important to include?
What feels missing — or underdeveloped — in your current life or leadership?
What is one small change you could make now to move closer to this legacy?
The Takeaway 🥡
Your Living Funeral is not about the end of life. It’s about remembering what makes a life worth living — while there is still time to act on it. In leadership, clarity doesn’t always come from doing more. Sometimes it comes from stepping far enough back to see what truly matters, and then choosing to live into it — today.