The book's most powerful exercises, pulled into one place you can actually work through — starting with the one that woke me up.
How to use this: Go slow. Be brutally honest — no one else has to read this. Write by hand if you can; something about ink makes it true. Do one exercise at a time, and don't move on until you've actually answered. This isn't homework. It's the work.
This is the exercise that changed everything for me. Picture your own funeral. The question isn't whether you'll die — it's whether you're living the life you'd want spoken over you. Writing it down exposes the gap between the man you are and the man you mean to be, while you still have time to close it.
If your funeral were a year from today, what would you want your spouse, your kids, and your closest friends to honestly be able to say about you?
Now the hard part: write the eulogy you're afraid would actually be true if nothing changed.
What is the single biggest gap between those two — and the first change that starts to close it?
The instincts that once kept you alive — control, hustle, isolation, staying ready for the next disaster — can quietly become the cage that keeps you small. You don't have to erase your past. You get to turn it into a training ground.
Name a survival pattern you still run (e.g., control, over-working, going it alone, keeping people at arm's length).
Where did it come from — what was it protecting you from back then?
Where is it still running your life today, even though the threat is gone?
Rewrite it. What would the free version of you do instead?
Character is who you are when no one is watching. Integrity isn't situational — it's forged in the small, unseen moments long before the pressure ever comes.
Where in your life is there a gap between who you appear to be and who you actually are?
What's a small compromise you've told yourself doesn't matter?
What would change — starting today — if you lived as if everything were already seen?
Real strength at home looks like presence, not control. Leading a marriage means showing up emotionally and spiritually — not managing, not providing from a distance. (Not married? Answer for the closest relationships you're called to lead well.)
This week, where were you truly present with your spouse — and where were you just providing?
Where are you trying to control instead of lead and serve?
Name one specific way you'll show up with presence this week.
Success isn't measured by what you accumulate — it's measured by what you leave in the people who follow you. Live with your future self, and your children, in mind.
What do you most want your children (or those who come after you) to carry from your life?
Write a short letter to your child(ren) — what you most want them to know, in case they only ever read this.
© 2026 Ken Allen. All rights reserved. For your personal reflection.