INBOUND Bold Talks: Kenny Nguyen "How to be the Coolest Person at Your Funeral"

So for those of you that stayed around, what the hell is wrong with y'all? Because I'm about to give a talk on funerals. Who wants to hear about death at a marketing conference? Seriously, come on, guys. I'm just kidding. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be here and share with you some very personal stories about my life. And so, let's take a little quick round of audience members. How many people here have actually thought to themselves, how would my funeral look like when I'm gone? Man, y'all are weird. I'm weird too, though, so it's all good. So, to me, I'm a proud Louisianian. I'm from Baton Rouge, but I live in New Orleans. I'm so proud of that. If you ask me, I say, who dat? Go Saints, go Tigers. I'm one of those rabid fan bases, and I always imagined my funeral from the scene to the to the mood, to the stories being told, to be something along the lines of this. Y'all know what that is? That's a second line. For y'all that don't know what a second line is, it's an awesome procession where basically, this is really what it is, a bunch of musicians, dancers, singers, they get in a line and go down a strip in a city, like our city New Orleans, and they just dance and have the time of their lives. This right here is actually an image of a funeral, believe it or not. You would think you would see this at a wedding, but no, this is the kind of celebration they have. This right here is a physical manifestation of a eulogy, and that's just beautiful. And the reason why I think about how would my funeral look like when I'm gone is because I've been through a lot of death recently. I've seen more death than I feel like I should have in the last 2 years. And just to actually show you how much death I've seen, how many people here, by a show of hands, have actually been to 2 or more funerals in the last 2 years? 5 or more? 7 or more? 10? That takes a lot of toll on you. And here's the thing, I've been to 10 funerals over the last 2 years, and oddly enough, I learned a lot of things. And you might be thinking, wow, Kenny's really creepy. He's the type of guy that learns stuff at funerals. And it's just not one of those things where I think to myself, man, I really got to get my shit together. Actually think to yourself, wow, there's a lot of realizations that you can think of when you watch someone pass away and the legacy they live on. For example, this is what I always wanted my funeral to be, right here. Oh, the video didn't play, no worries. It's basically a bunch of jazz musicians going down, but what I've always imagined my funeral to be was like a second line, was a celebration, and the realizations that I did make was that, number one, people, when it comes to funerals, Never talk about your resume. They talk about their usually. No one's ever gonna say, I hope not, gonna say, "Hey, thank God Kenny Nguyen works 60 hours a week." They're gonna say, "Man, Kenny Nguyen is a pretty awesome dude. He brought me that quesadilla when I need to study in college, and I passed my exam. Without him, I wouldn't be successful." Those are the kind of cool stories that people tell at funerals. The second is that based on the person's impact that they have on the world is how large the actual community around the funeral actually is. And finally, the third is that there is never a shortage of stories at funerals. The hardest part about a funeral is that life goes on. It's not the actual event, it's after the funeral. Life goes on, it's adjusting. And stories, or eulogies, are a very powerful way to preserve someone's legacy. I always thought to myself, "How can I be the guy that has the most eulogies? Wouldn't that be a cool feeling?" Eventually, that led me down a path to think, what if there was a way I could challenge myself and challenge my life to be a better person than ever? And that's when I had the crazy idea of how to be the coolest person at your funeral. And today, I want to share with you some of the realizations that I've made. And along with the actual title here, I have some extraordinary guests with me today. Up here is Mr. Kerry Arsenault, the guy with the Cajun hat on, or the cowboy hat. Next is Mr. Jeff Wright, and the person next to him is my godmother, Huynh Tran, and they're all awesome people. And these people here have taught me plenty of lessons. Each has taught me a different lesson, but these lessons together, merging together, has taught me one central challenge. And that challenge for everyone today is how can you craft a life story that others would love to tell? And you can never answer this. You can answer this question with more questions, such as, are you capable of noticing and loving the little things in life? 2, are you truly a community person? And 3, 3 is, are you willing to take a lifetime to build your reputation? And now while I wish I can give you all the answers, I can only show you the path. And I have plenty of guests up here today who may no longer physically be with us, but they've taught me such incredible lessons that I think y'all should know as well, with the first one being Mr. Kerry Arsenault. And so Mr. Kerry right here is actually one of my dad's closest friends. And the funny thing is, can you imagine this guy right here? He's like 6'3", avid hunter, Cajun cowboy, pretty much, hanging out with my father, who is a 5'7" pushing 5'8" immigrant man with a really thick accent, hanging out in a bar after work. That's kind of hard to think about, but the thing is, these two got along so freaking well. And what's so cool about that is Mr. Carey became a part of our family, and so when he passed away recently, It was devastating. And I never got a chance to actually know Mr. Carey as the person. I always knew him as my dad's family friend. It wasn't until his funeral where I learned an incredible story that I want to share today. And what that is, is that, so Mr. Carey here and his wife, every week, went to a Buddhist temple. And every week, when they went to a Buddhist temple, her wife, or his wife, would always get her shoes dirty walking in the path. That's my, like, I'm getting my shoes dirty, little thing, but, you know, sumi, it sucks. But what it is, basically, is he realized, my wife's shoes are always getting dirty when we go to the temple. What can I do about this? And so he met the head monk at the temple and said, is there anything you can do about this? My wife's shoes are getting dirty. And he said, no, we don't have enough resources to create, like, a pathway or pavement. Like, I'm sorry, but, you know, maybe your wife can avoid the path. Mr. Carey didn't like that. What he did instead was incredible. And no one really knows the story about this man. What he did actually was he found the resources to actually build a path himself in front of the temple, so his wife, to this day, never got her shoes muddy again. And that's the amazing thing about Mr. Carey is that he was always able to find the little things. His heart— everyone here is capable of love. But the true love that he had was the love that I'm going to go out of my way to make sure I find the little things in life that matters. Because the key that Mr. Carey had was that he learned and took notice, because the little things can lead to the biggest things in life. Not only would his wife never ever have muddy shoes, everyone else that goes to that temple, including myself, has never had muddy shoes either. Such a little impact makes the biggest impact on the community. Next person I'd like to introduce you to is Mr. Jeff Wright, and he taught me what it is to be a community person. And this guy right here is like the smoothest businessman I know. He owned multiple creative agencies, was a great mentor. I never graduated college myself. However, though, he was one of the best professors I ever had. I remember that we were so excited, always going to get lunch together, and he was late for our lunch about 2 years ago, And he kept apologizing to me and saying, "Hey! I'm late for lunch; I'm so sorry. I'm gonna make it up to you." Like, "I will ask you— and I'll tell you everything that I know about running a successful business!" So when we sat down for lunch, we were pressed for time, I started going off, hey this what I wanna do through my creative agency, I have so many ideas. I kept goin' off like machine gun. Finally stopped me said whoa-whoa-you need really rethink this. I want to tell ya somethin'. This was one of most Yoda-esque type statements ever. He said... He said, "Kenny, all those ideas are great. However, though, you haven't learned how to live until you learn how to give." And I, to myself, I was like, what does that mean? And I was so blind. And he said, "Look, Kenny, let me tell you something right here. I have a great business, but the thing is, that doesn't fill my life. I work to suit my life, but I donate my time to fill my life." I never got that. Until about a month later. And a month later, we were scheduling our next meeting. Unfortunately, I had to miss that meeting because I had a trip that weekend, and he passed away that weekend, very suddenly. I wish I could take him out to lunch again and ask him so many different questions, but I can't. I wanted to ask him, "What did you mean by that?" And a couple years later today, here I stand in front of you, I've learned that, and I'll share that a little bit later, how I took that lesson. But Jeff was great. He was a true community person. In the community, Mr. Jeff Wright here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, my original hometown, everyone wanted to be like Jeff. Every community needs a guy like Jeff because he was always the guy in the community when shit hits the fan, he'll basically go in calmly and figure out a scenario or a solution. He was incredible. And what he taught us is so important today is that you truly haven't learned how to live until you learn how to give., and Jeff truly had that in him, and I tell everyone here, please think about this, is that how do you want to live your life? Do you want work to suit your life, or do you really want work or donating your time to fill your life? Now, the final guest I have on stage here today is my godmother, Huynh Tran. She is amazing, and here's the thing, is that I've never got to know her in my later teenage years, which is a very big shame. I got to know her during my younger years when I was a wee— I'm like barely even taller, but like my wee years, and it was so cool because we always spent Vietnamese New Year together, we always had dinner with our families together, her husband was my dad's best friend, my godfather, it was amazing, she was always there for us, and I always felt like she was like a second mother to me. Here's the thing though, as I got older, as I hit my teenage years, I started making excuses why not to go see her. "Oh, I'm too busy. I have to go party. I have a business to run." All these crazy excuses that to this day, to me, doesn't make any freaking sense. I'll never forget, this happened 3 weeks ago, I got a call from my dad in the middle of my workday. And my dad is one of those guys that will never call during work. He's so focused, and he wants his son to be focused. And he said, "Hey, Khiem," which is my Vietnamese name, You need to head up to New Orleans. Gwenn, my godmother, is in critical condition. I've never cried at the office in my whole entire life, but that was the one moment where I had so much guilt of so many things I wanted to ask. I rushed in the car, drove up to New Orleans, wanted to tell her so many things and learn so many things. I felt like just because she was always here, she would always be there. I never realized that life has a time limit. You never realize that. That's the funny thing. It's like life actually has a time limit. It's up to us to really figure out how do we maximize that time limit. And she definitely did hers, but I never knew that. And so when I went to the hospital, I was— I couldn't even cry. I was so struck— stricken with guilt. I didn't know what to say. I kept telling myself, if we make it through this together, you can bet that I will make it up to you, and I will tell you everything that's been going on with me. I would love to learn from you. She didn't make it through the night. And because she didn't make it through the night, there was a lot of regrets that I had, but I eventually overcame them. And it wasn't until her funeral that I learned the most incredible stories about her. Let me show you. This is an actual picture of her funeral, right here. And think about this. This is like, it felt like over 400 people. It felt like a concert. Like, the funeral was so packed that just right here is like 1/4 of the size that it was. And that's just crazy to think about. And I was walking around asking, like, "Who are all these people?" And my father said, "You know, she wasn't the only godmother to you. She was like the mother to the whole Vietnamese community." And I was like, "What?" And I found out she was serving food to, like, the poor. She was working at the church on, like, holidays. She was taking care of her sick family. I found all these incredible things that she wasn't only my godmother, she was the whole community's godmother. And that right there really struck a heart in me, and I learned a term that day, and this is the term: "Và chèt nì dà ngòi, chèt nì tinh." And what that means is that when an animal dies, you can sell the skin, but when a human dies, they leave a reputation. And that really left an impression on me, because I never realized how big of a reputation she had. I can only dream to hope to have that reputation with her. The amount of people at that funeral was incredible. And what I learned after that was something I'll never forget. Was that what her— one of her family members told me this, is that, "It takes a day to make a bad reputation, but it takes a lifetime to make a good one." And from that, it really changed the way I see the world. And that's when I really thought to myself, being a good person isn't about a marathon, it's how you actually live your life. And to recap what we learned today, how can you craft a life story that others would want to tell? Because I can never tell my eulogy, you have to tell your eulogy. You— she can't tell her eulogy for you unless you do great things. And so today, we've learned that number one, noticing the small things in life, love, can lead to the biggest things in life. Next, actually learning how to give will actually allow us as human beings to live. Finally, actually understanding that it takes a lifetime to build a great reputation and embracing that, that would truly change the way you see the world. And so, over the last couple years, I've had to change my mentalities quite a bit. And so, I'm really proud to say that You know, I own a company, a creative agency called Big Fish. Well, that's cool and all. I thought to myself, if I were to die tomorrow, what's my claim to fame? I don't want them talking about my work. I don't want to do that. And so I had this crazy idea of, I want to make my city of Baton Rouge better. How can I do that? What did Jeff want? His goal was always to make the creative city of Baton Rouge better. And I thought to myself, what if I could do something like this? So how many of y'all have actually heard of 99U? It's pretty cool. It's by Behance with Adobe's company, and they basically held a bid to hold 28 different events all across the world, and I pitched for Baton Rouge because I knew this would be a great opportunity to actually have the creative communities come together and really make an impact on the city of Baton Rouge, and we won the bid for Baton Rouge, and that was one of the most exciting things I've ever felt because I feel like this is the time where I can actually relook at my life, and I hope everyone can do this and have this moment as well, is to think to themselves, what is work, and what is meaningful work? There's a very big distinction between that, and while after this conference, I might not truly never know the impact that this had on the community around us, I don't need to, because the people there will tell those stories for years to come. Just like here in HubSpot, as we walk away from years now, maybe HubSpot will never know the impact that it had on y'all. However though, y'all will tell that story Because there are people here that have certain types of feelings, and that's the secret of, by the way, answering that call. Like, what's the secret? What's the answer to that challenge of actually telling that story that other people would be excited to tell? And the answer to that is that others will tell the story for you. Those questions I told you earlier, number 1, you know, are you noticing the little things in life? Number 2, are you a community person? And number 3, are you willing to take your lifetime to make a good reputation? Those don't have answers. They don't. They simply don't. You can't just— everyone is different. However, though, everyone can find a path to get on those answers, and with that path, others will find whether or not you did it well or not. And so, to close this talk today, I'd like to say, you know, I use this quote all the time in my speeches. I really hesitate whether or not I should include this quote, I thought to myself, you know, is this a quote just for presenters, or it's actually for remarkable people? And how many people here know the poet Maya Angelou? She's an awesome poet, and I'm sure you all have seen this quote before. And I can't tell you enough, while it's, I think it's completely overused, there is no quote better here today that truly says what a remarkable person, and this quote truly encapsulates what a beautiful person to be at a funeral. How can you be the coolest? Because people will forget what you said, People forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And if you remember this, you will make your funeral count. Each of us in this room today have only one funeral in our lives. Let's make it count. And once we make it count, we're going to be enjoying one hell of a second lime. Thank y'all.