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.
Tim Wilson
Ok Alan, it looks like you have quite of few in the DASM in the hall of fame. When do we get to vote on DASM company of the year?
Alan Weiss
Good idea, I’ll work on the voting!
Bob Ligget
I have been a Brooks Brothers kind of guy and was very happy when they finally opened a store here in Salt Lake (I’d grown up with Brooks in Philadelphia). Interestingly, this store has the very best and very worst salespeople I’ve encountered in retail. The “worst” mis-measured me for a new suit. When it was ready, I couldn’t even get the pants on! He never apologized, was totally indifferent, and left another salesperson to fix the problem. The “best” remembers what I like, makes helpful suggestions, is friendly but not obsequious. When he discovered I hadn’t bought a BB shirt in a long time, he offered me a very hefty discount to try one and tell him what I think. Sure, sold. However, in the spirit of DASM, a note to Brooks HQ about my suit experience elicited zero response. And while the store manager was apologetic, he did nothing beyond hoping my experience wouldn’t discourage me from buying there again! Unbelievable? I wish it was.
Mark Faust
In the mid-80’s Brooks Brothers was a different experience. The first salesman I ever encountered still remembers my name and preferences and only has seen me a dozen times over the years. I imagine I’m getting a similar experience as to what JFK and Lincoln received.
Robert Campeau rolled the brand into Federated in the late 80’s and the culture seemed to devolve and get watered down. He managed for profit and not a more holistic set of growth objectives and it stunted the company. What is amazing is that a remanent of employees still live and breath the old culture, while there is a revolving door of strategy and people.
Ironically I get exemplary service from one of the outlet stores where I stumbled in one time and yet still get several calls a year that fill periodic needs of mine through their continued follow up. The company is need of a turnaround. The brand deserves better.
There current CEO is sitting on a great opportunity.
Alan Weiss
Old-line store, old-line mentality. Send the tailor out to lunch. Send the customers to another store.
Alan Weiss
The problem is that a first experience can decide everything, and I’d never enter that store again. Last night I was at a ballet performance, my wife’s on the board, and the artistic director made it a point at a reception to introduce me to the owner of a men’s store in Providence. I had heard some good things about it, and the owner was sponsoring the evening, and told me he loved my car which I had left outside before we went to dinner. (My car is not an expense, it’s a taking point.)
But he was wearing the strangest outfit I’ve ever seen. I had on an Armani suite from Bergdorf Goodman, and he had on about seven layers of clothing and what looked like two vests. Perhaps it was trendy, but the ballet crowd (that portion which can afford his clothes) ain’t that trendy! Now, I don’t know if I’ll visit.