What Defines You?

Last Saturday I attended a funeral of a close business associate. His name was Dan. Dan was in the mortgage business. I was technically employed by Dan since he held my mortgage license. I had known Dan for almost 2 years. What I loved about Dan was his great smile and the generousity and sincerety behind the smile. I saw Dan every Monday in my business networking group. As you know the mortgage industry as all but collapsed and the real estate industry is in the same state. No matter how bad things seemed, Dan was not going to let the negative energy pull him down. I considered his energy my lifeline to get through this crisis. He passed away on October 16th. The Saturday prior he rode 35 miles on his bike (a regular routine). He died in his sleep from a clogged artery. The priest at the funeral said that because Dan was such a giving person and we loved taking from him that we clogged his artery. My first reaction was to stand up and scream that the mortgage industry did it. But obviously I restrained myself. I reminded myself that the blame game has to stop and start with me. As I listened to the rest of the service I found out who Dan really was. There were very few people there in comparison the to total (which was alot since the large church was full) that had anything to do with what Dan did Monday through Friday during the days. What I found out that Dan had another life outside of work. He was know for volunteering for any initiative that had to do with housing and feeding the homeless. He was known to go down to the harshest parts of Minneapolis and pick up the homeless and hungry and bring them home. There were people in the audience that has sincere gratitude for what he had done for them. I thought about my own funeral. If I passed today my funeral would more than likely have lots of attendees (I do know alot of folks) however who would they be? I can tell you that the majority would be through the real estate and mortgage business. Do is what I do defining who I am? What Dan did for a living did not define who he was. I have always thought that by not marketing my name and my photo on bus benches that I would avoid this. Well I believe I was wrong. Who I am today is defined by what I do. So the question is what am I going to do about it going forward? Dan had just turned 60 so he did have some years on me so the postive thing is I can accomplish this over the next dozen years. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.