First impressions get all the attention, but last impressions are the ones people repeat.
REFLECTION
WHAT THIS MEANS
Endings carry disproportionate weight in memory. How you left a job, a team or a relationship is what gets described later, largely because it is the most recent and the most emotionally loaded thing available. A good beginning can be erased entirely by a careless exit, and the reverse happens too.
When something is ending, take the extra week to do it properly. Finish what you said you would, say thank you specifically, leave the place in order. It costs very little at the time and it is the version of you discussed in rooms you are not in.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Which goodbye do you wish you had handled better?
MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION
- Talk to people who failed at what you want to do. Their stories cost less than repeating their mistakes.
- Read biographies of people you admire. The middle chapters are always messier than the headlines let on.
- Generational wealth usually starts boring: a savings account, a skill, one good decision repeated for decades.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.