Your Legacy is Now
Life is not a search for meaning from others, it’s about the creation of meaning for yourself.
For over 30 years Alan Weiss has consulted, coached, and advised everyone from Fortune 500 executives, state governors, non-profit directors, and entrepreneurs to athletes, entertainers, and beauty pageant contestants. That’s quite an assortment of people, and they run into the thousands. Most of them have had what we euphemistically call “means,” and some of them have had a lot more than that. Others have been aspiring and with more ends in sight than means on hand.
Alan Weiss states:
I’ve dealt with esteem (low), narcissism (high), family problems, leadership dysfunctions, insecurities, addictions, and ethical quandaries. And I’ve talked about them through the coronavirus crisis. But don’t get the wrong idea. About 95% of these people have been well-meaning, honest (to the best of their knowledge), and interested in becoming a better person and better professional. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be talking to me.
I found the equivalent of the “runner’s wall” in their journeys, where they must break through the pain and the obstacles and then can keep going with renewed energy and spirit. But runners know how far they must go after the breakthrough, be it another half lap or another five miles. There is a finish line.
I’ve found that people in all positions, even after the “breakthrough,” don’t know where they are in the race, let alone where the finish line is.
They do not know what meaning is for them. They may have money in the bank, good relationships, the admiration of others, and the love of their dogs. But they have no metrics for “What now?” They believe that at the end of life there is a tallying, some metaphysical accountant who totals up their contributions, deducts their bad acts, and creates the (hopefully positive) difference.
That difference, they believe, is their “legacy.”
But the thought that legacy arrives at the end of life is as ridiculous as someone who decides to sell a business and tries to increase its valuation the day prior. Legacy is now. Legacy is daily. Every day we create the next page in our lives, but the question becomes who is writing it and what’s being written. Is someone else creating our legacy? Or are we, ourselves, simply writing the same page repeatedly?
Or do we leave it blank?
Our organic, living legacy is marred and squeezed by huge normative pressures. There is a “threshold” point, at which one’s beliefs and values are overridden by immense peer pressure. Our metrics are forced to change.
In an age of social media, biased press, and bullying, we’ve come to a point where our legacy, ironically, is almost out of our hands.
Yet our “meaning”—our creation of meaning and not a search for some illusive alchemy—creates worth and impact for us and all those with whom we interact.
Alan
Blue state politicians, California and New York in particular, in my opinion, would rather tank the economy based on lies (covid is a proper concern but way overblown and the numbers prove it), just to discredit the president and get him out of office by any means necessary, then when their states have gone to hell in a hand basket economically, they will cry the blues to Washington to bail them out. Unfortunately for them, Donald will get reelected, and their efforts to tank the economy will fail. As for those on unemployment, many workers don’t want to elevate themselves, good economy or lousy. I heard a wise man once say, we are where we are in life because that’s where we really want to be, whether we’ll admit that or not. That saying is really about taking individual responsibility for our habits, our choices, our social circle, the information we consume, and the path we choose, etc. Most people with no net worth have the latest smartphone, a flat screen tv in their home, and a Netflix subscription. When I started my business (and I’m sure you would agree with me) I didn’t own a television in my apartment, or any furniture. I drove a used car, and had the cheapest phone plan I could get to free up any cash to put into my future. “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
Alan Weiss
I really enjoy opinionated posts, thank you. But I wish you’d have the courage to provide your name.
Alan
We have the same first name, Sir.