The Trebek Effect

“Who was … Alex Trebek?”

I just finished his bio yesterday (“The Answer Is . . .: Reflections on My Life,” published July 21, 2020). Trebek was able to publish it 292 days before he passed. He had everything to live for. He was happily married for 30 years (to a wife 24 years younger, with two beautiful children by her). He made $10 million per year (reportedly). He didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. His show aired 7,000+ episodes during its 35-year lifetime … yet he taped 46 days out of the year. He won six Daytime Emmy Awards, including five for Outstanding Game Show Host, also being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and a Peabody Award for "Jeopardy!" in 2012. He lived for almost 81 years, after being born and raised in a heavily polluted mining town (Sudbury, Ontario, Canada), where the average life expectancy was likely much shorter (although his father made it to 77 or 78 and his mother made it to 94 or 95).

I last posted on LinkedIn on March 15, 2020, just two weeks after my last day in a true work office. Prior to that, I had posted on April 23, 2019, and before that, June 17, 2017 … so not exactly prolific. My most-viewed post (2,065) was written more than five years ago. So my concern was (maybe like many of us on LinkedIn) that I didn’t have much to say that anyone would be particularly interested to hear.

That was, however, before I read ~400 books in three years, 85 of them biographies or memoirs (conservative estimate). I also helped edit a biography about a celebrity chef and the life lessons he left behind … as well as the book of a longtime friend battling challenging medical issues … while completing nearly 50 years of journaling myself.

So what I’ve donned “The Trebek Effect” had a significant impact on me … and now prompts me to ask each of you:

If you had 20 months to write, edit, and publish a ~300-page summary of why your own life might matter to others, what would *you* say? What steps would each of *you* take, right away, to ensure that others could benefit from your character, vision, purpose, and example? What would be *your* memorable pre-epitaph?

Please do respond … and don’t put it off. Your answers will likely influence the course of the book I end up leaving behind. Thanks in advance for being an instrumental part of my life.