Role Model: Jon M. Huntsman, Sr.
by Miki Saxon
Read all Role Model posts here.
These days, people are fixated on success and finding ways to live longer. The latter doesn’t particularly interest me, but I’ve been conscious of the former from early on.
The first thing I did was figure out what “success” meant to me and I’m happy to say I’ve accomplished exactly what I set out to do. I suppose I could still screw it up, but I’d have to work very hard and have no reason or incentive to do so.
Interestingly, I defined it the same way that billionaire Jon huntsman did and for the same reasons.
“I have attended many funerals in my life,” Huntsman said, adding that he had conducted almost 200. “I have never heard in a funeral that this person made a lot of money or is politically very strong. They never discuss that. In a funeral, people discuss how this person was kind or gracious or had character and integrity. … For some people who are not kind, thoughtful or gracious, their funerals are very short. Nobody has anything to say. I learned from the funerals that we must plan our funerals when we are young. Plan your funeral, start early, by being kind.”
One has to wonder what will be said at the funerals of those who choose to do business and act like Travis Kalanick.
Huntsman wrote several books, among them his 2014 memoir Barefoot to Billionaire: Reflections on a Life’s Work and a Promise to Cure Cancer,
“I desire to leave this world as I entered it — barefoot and broke. To many, that may seem like an odd, unrealistic, even foolish thing. Not to me. Too many wealthy people hoard their riches, believing that dying with a large bank account is a virtue. I read about one woman who died and left her dog $10 million. What’s a dog going to do with that kind of money? Help other dogs? I see it another way: If I die with nothing because I have given it away, humanity is the beneficiary.”
Through both word and deed we all can learn from Jon Huntsman — most especially those who move in the world of tech where kindness is in such short supply.
Image credit: Wikipedia
