Resume Virtues vs Eulogy Virtues: Building Character, Career, and Workplace Culture

Recently, I came across the idea of resume virtues vs eulogy virtues from David Brooks in The Road to Character, and it stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve spent most of my life building a resume.
Only recently did I realize I was also building a character.

Resume virtues are the ones we are taught to pursue.
Skills. Titles. Achievements. Degrees. Credentials. Promotions. The things that make us employable and impressive.

Eulogy virtues are something else entirely.

They are the qualities people remember when we are gone. How we treated others. How we showed up. Whether people felt safe, seen, encouraged, or changed because they crossed paths with us.

If we’re not careful, we can spend a lifetime chasing resume virtues. Striving. Pushing. Climbing. Competing.

And at the end of a long life of accomplishment, we may discover we don’t have much to say about the things that truly matter.

Of course, it’s never meant to be either/or.

A meaningful life requires both.

A career that never quite fit

For most of my life, I thought I was searching for the right career.

Something with meaning.
Something with impact.
Something that felt like it fit who I was.

My resume tells the story of that search.

I earned my undergraduate degree in Recreation and found myself working at a resort, facilitating ropes courses and teambuilding programs with corporate groups. Later, I completed a graduate certificate in Information Management.

Along the way, I worked in recreation and resort management, served as an administrative assistant, sold motivational sporting goods, worked in higher education, built websites, and eventually moved into marketing and communications.

Looking back, I built a fairly eclectic collection of resume virtues along the way.

But inside, I often felt a little lost.

Some roles left me bored out of my mind. When I worked as a web developer, I spent long days behind a computer screen with very little human interaction.

Other roles had the opposite effect. Marketing sometimes left me overstimulated. Too much exposure. Too much noise. Too many competing demands on my energy.

Nothing quite fit.

At least not in the way I thought it was supposed to.

How I’m wired

Part of what I’ve come to understand is how I’m wired.

In personality language, I’m an INFJ. People with this personality type tend to be intuitive, reflective, and deeply motivated by meaning and connection.

I also identify as a Highly Sensitive Person. That doesn’t mean fragile. It simply means my nervous system tends to take in more information from people and environments. I notice emotional undercurrents, patterns, and dynamics that others might overlook.

For years, I wondered if those qualities were liabilities in the workplace.

Now I see them differently.

They are part of how I build relationships quickly, make connections between ideas, and create spaces where people feel safe enough to speak honestly.

The virtues I was seeking

While I was trying to figure out my career, something quieter was happening underneath it all.

Alongside my resume virtues, I was seeking something deeper.

I was searching for the qualities that make a life feel meaningful.

This morning, while rereading A Return to Love, I came across a passage that captured it perfectly. Marianne Williamson writes that love isn’t material. It’s energy. It’s the feeling in a room, a situation, a person. We experience it as kindness, giving, mercy, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, non-judgment, joining, and intimacy.

Those words felt immediately familiar to me.

Kindness.
Compassion.
Peace.
Joy.

These are the qualities I have found myself returning to again and again.

Staying curious.
Keeping an open mind and an open heart.
Trying to move through the world with as little judgment as possible.

Looking back now, I can see that while my resume was evolving in one direction, my character was quietly growing in another.

When the personal and professional meet

Lately, I’ve been experiencing something unexpected in my professional life.

I’ve stepped into a new role focused on people, culture, and the employee experience. The title is still evolving. The formal description is still taking shape.

And yet the work already feels familiar.

Facilitating conversations.
Helping people feel heard.
Creating spaces where honesty and trust can grow.
Connecting people, ideas, and purpose.

For the first time, my professional responsibilities feel aligned with the deeper virtues I’ve been practicing for years.

Not just what I do.

But how I show up.

The eclectic resume that once felt confusing now looks more like preparation.

Each role taught me something. Each chapter developed a different skill. But the most important work was happening beneath the surface.

Learning how to listen.
Learning how to stay curious.
Learning how to hold space for people.

The energy we bring into a room

Many organizations focus almost entirely on resume virtues. Skills. Performance. Outcomes. Results.

Those things matter.

But culture is shaped by something else.

It is shaped by the energy people bring into a room.

Kindness.
Curiosity.
Generosity.
Listening.
Respect.

In other words, the very qualities we often associate with eulogy virtues.

Perhaps the workplaces that truly thrive are the ones that make space for both.

Competence and character.
Performance and presence.
Results and humanity.

A different way of measuring a life

For years, I thought the question was:

“What career is right for me?”

Now I’m wondering if the better question might be:

“What kind of presence do I want to bring into the rooms I enter?”

Because long after our titles fade, something else remains.

How people felt when they were with us.

And whether, even in small ways, our presence made the world a little kinder.

©2026 Lori Ann King