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.
Rene' Vidal
Hypothesis: Competitors with “weapons” will always be the “oppressors”. Men’s Wimbledon champ Djokovic is currently 48-1 largely b/c he developed an average forehand into a real weapon. And as much as I loved Agassi, he was always at the mercy of Sampras and his huge serve.
Isn’t discussion regarding assessing what tweak has most upside more valuable than strength vs. weakness dialogue?
Alan Weiss
I don’t understand your point. Building on strengths is more than a “tweak” as your own example seems to suggest. I will tell you this: If there’s anything more boring than watching 100 MPH serves and a volley or two if you’re lucky, it must be women’s field hockey. Professional tennis can bore a ground sloth.
Rene' Vidal
Further clarification/debate:
“The more you know about behavior, organizational dynamics, etc., the better you;ll be as a coach.”–Weiss, Million Dollar Coaching
My point is that sometimes the weakness that needs to be shored up can be the difference-maker or ‘accelerant’ if you will-once addressed. If self- assessment reveals high marks for communication, chutzpah, experience, the like, but short on statistics and measurements, then…
Rene' Vidal
have fallen asleep many a time in the 1st game to awake at match point – not a bad deal. contrasting styles today is missing, borg and mac geezers of tennis..title ix the fault of revenue drain sleeper collegiate sports..
Alan Weiss
I like the guys who play at the net, and had some personality. Nastasse, Connors, MacEnroe. The rest of these guys seem like sissies.
Peter McLean
Unfortunately, with those big racquets and clay surfaces, etc. those days seem to be long gone. Connors was great to watch because he not only was extremely skilled, but seemed to enjoy it and to help others enjoy it. I felt the same way even watching replays of Australian great John Newcombe. I haven’t followed Wimbledon this year, but I think you still see some of that close net skill come out in doubles play – and the sense of enjoyment too, as well as the faith in their skills. If you’re just grunting and groaning and never enjoying it, you make the money but what’s the real point? (As consultants, too!)
Alan Weiss
And the grunters and screamers, like a guy in my gym who lifts lighter weights than I and screams with each lift. Give it a rest.
Rene' Vidal
As painful as this mornings dweeb at gym sharing with female exerciser (hopefully not as seduction strategy) fact that he doesn’t bring work home, likes to draw line among other sorrows – living multiple lives, all bad. I was balling through abs circuit.