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.
Nicholas Okumu
Good practical advice Alan.
Craig Ellis
Reminds me of your “Reasonable Progress” memo from several years back which I have pasted in a couple of places in my home. You probably still have it, but I’ll email my copy to you just in case. I’ve often wondered recently, if you were to re-write it, what would it read like today after years of reflection and experience – if any difference?
Alan Weiss
Thank you!
Craig Ellis
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes on this topic:
“You are the way you are because that’s the way you want to be. If you really wanted to be any different, you would be in the process of changing right now.” Fred Smith, CEO FedEx
Alan Weiss
This is the piece Craig Ellis mentioned, my thanks to him:
Reasonable Progress
Folks, I cannot control and can barely influence your talent and your discipline. Oh, I can help with skills development, and give you goals and accountability targets. But when you boil it all away, there is a God-given talent and a determination to get things accomplished that is pretty much innate.
Starting at square zero, you should consummate your first sale in about six months. (Sooner is quite possible, and somewhat later is quite acceptable.) In one year, you should be self-sustaining, with sufficient business in-house or in the pipeline to support your current lifestyle.
Assuming that you’ve actually tried to learn and apply my ramblings, and that you’ve participated in workshops, the Forum, Mentor Summits, mastermind groups, read the monthly newsletters, and so on, and you’re still behind those targets, it can mean only a few causes are at work:
• You are afraid, not just of failing, but possibly also of succeeding. Your self-esteem is far too low, and you are protecting yourself and not taking risks. (What if you’re successful and someone finds out you don’t deserve it?!)
• Your value isn’t sufficiently articulated and/or presented so as to make a compelling case to a buyer, so that money and time are not being shifted to you from other things.
• Your personal style, language, behavior, and/or business etiquette are wanting, and the buyer is uncomfortable or annoyed in your presence.
• You have done the right things, but not consistently. You don’t realize that 10% is an average “hit rate” for predators and the best baseball hitters are successful only a third of the time. You need to do the right things repeatedly and consistently.
• You look at your pursuit as an avocation, not an occupation. You are easily distracted; you don’t really need the money; you care more for affiliation needs than income; you want to play with esoteric methodology forever instead of dealing with pragmatic results.
I have known people who have “made it big” after taking two years or more, but they are rare and usually had to overcome, dramatically, one of the bullet points above. More commonly, if you’re just not seeing results, you could be in a “doom loop.”
Look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.