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.
Gregory R Pearson
Completely agree Dr. Weiss – that is the political ‘correctness’ that has been crushing our country. I believe it has its inception in the democratic party’s attempts to divide people into little groups by race and gender to try to create issues and win votes – divide and conquer. Now every form we fill out has to ask about our race, etc.
Alan Weiss
There is a vicious circle wherein you promise people whatever you can to get their votes, then have to deliver on those promises by increasing the burden on others, then promise still more to more people….
Ana M. Lovera
I agree with you, I remember trying to explain more or less the same concept to a team once, and people were questioning why individuals from different genders or races should not be “given a chance” at higher positions in the organization, and I told them: the success of the company requires that people in leadership positions do an excellent job regardless of who they are, so one should focus on learning and perfecting the skills and earning the merits required for a leadership role, and not ever to expect to be “given a chance” at it. People aren’t particularly thrilled by that answer, they keep coming back on the concept of “equal opportunity”, and so I tell them: I don’t disagree with you, but let me ask you this: your kids are about to take a flight, who do you want as their pilot, the best pilot, or the one who was given a chance due to his or her gender, age, race, background etc? People question then, is it okay that the high leadership in organizations is not diverse? I tell them absolutely not, diversity is a great, important and necessary value, but an organization wishing to be truly diverse should expect to take a pill and become diverse overnight, they have to create and nurture an organizational culture where anyone can learn, grow, flourish and develop him or herself to the best they can be, only then diversity in the leadership roles will happen naturally.
Alan Weiss
I don’t want to give a heart surgeon a “chance” because he or she should have a chance. I want the most talented, best heart surgeon around. Period.