Influencers from Around the World – How to Persuade Yourself to Re-set Your Priorities in Life

Hoh Kim has been a guest blogger for Influence PEOPLE since I began the Influencers from Around the World series seven years ago. Hoh and I became friends when we went through the Cialdini certification training together.

Hoh has his Ph.D. in Culture Technology from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; his dissertation title was “Psychological and neural influences of public apology on audience responses in corporate crisis situations.” I know you’ll enjoy his post that reflects on life and death.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

How to Persuade Yourself to Re-set Your Priorities in Life

Death has power. Even thinking about death influences our emotions. What power will it have for you? Thinking about my own death makes me to reflect my life. Yes, my life as a whole, not just the career success or marriage or kids, my whole life as a “grand picture.”

If you reflect from the future and look back on your life as a whole it will let you know what your priorities should be. Think about it for a moment; if I die at the end of this year my colleagues will not be a priority but my closest friends and family will be. If I die in the next year a promotion will not be my priority but spending more time with my loved ones, traveling, or happy times in the my home will be. If I die in three years, networking dinners or cocktail parties will not be my priorities but learning carpenter skills, which I’ve wanted to do for many years, will be. But I didn’t take action…

Of course, I don’t mean you have to quit your job right away and travel around the world with your friends and family starting tomorrow. Thinking about my death expands my viewpoint on life as a whole because I look at the big pictures and priorities.

There is a tool that can help you to think about your death: Obituary written by yourself before you die (here, “before” could mean from one year before to 40+ years before).

Visit your preferred news website and find your preferred people who already passed away. Read their obituaries and try to write your own one. You may already read the story. Some people actually wrote their obituaries before they die.

• Huffington Post: Seattle Author’s Powerful Self-Written Obituary Goes Viral
• NY Times: My Own Life – Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer

I have a draft and sometimes I revise it. It helps me to think about my life as a whole and set my priorities. Even you can ask trusted friends and loved ones to write your obituary from their perspectives.

What is it to do with the persuasion? Writing your own obituary and thinking about your death in the future will persuade you to reset your current life priorities. Your death has a real power because thinking about death makes us think about life.

Hoh Kim, Ph.D.
Founder, Head Coach & Lead
Facilitator, THE LAB h
E-mail: hoh.kim@thelabh.com
Home: www.THELABh.com