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.
Sachin Ganpat
Great advice. I myself am trying to get referrals without much luck, until I started to do #2, describing my ideal prospect. You also stand a better chance if the referral source arranges the meeting.
A question about #5, how do you feel about web meetings such as Skype, Webex or GoToMeetings? I’m in the Caribbean, and here inter-island flight fees are exorbitant.
Alan Weiss
Agreed, Sachin, that Skype or its equivalent would make sense when island-hopping is exorbitant. But event there, if it means sealing a major deal, I’d get on the plane.
Ian
To add to point 2 – Linkedin can be a huge boon here. If you’re connected to your key contacts who would be happy to give you referrals you can see who their other contacts are and suggest specific people you’d like to be hooked up with.
Or alternatively, use the search function to search for the sort of people who’d make ideal clients (industry, job role, etc.) and see who you have as common contacts and ask them.
A question for you Alan. In point 1 you suggest asking “your list” for referrals. Would you do this for your entire mailing list – newsletter subscribers etc. (I don’t remember any of these emails from you) – or go for a subset of people you’re a bit closer to and you know would refer you with confidence.
Ian
Alan Weiss
Ian, the problem is that I don’t think contacts on linkedin are valuable at all for corporate buyers in large organizations. They buy from peer reference or public IP.
As for lists, use a triage: Highest potential call, next highest potential email, lowest potential when you get around to it. But subscription lists and contact lists are two different things, and I wouldn’t confuse the two. You might have had a better experience, but that’s my observation.
Ian Brodie
Hi Alan – world’s slowest reply, sorry…
In terms of list – I’d agree a personal contact list is different to a mailing list – that’s why I asked – just wanted to make sure that’s what you were talking about.
Linkedin-wise, it works for me. I don’t mean Linkedin contacts as in people you don’t really know you’ve connected with. They work in a different way. I mean your real contacts. The people who would get you in via a peer reference into corporates. Linkedin just gives you that extra bit of visibility into who they know. My experience has been that a lot of your good contacts are connected to all sorts of people you didn’t realise they knew.
Ian
Alan Weiss
Ian, no argument, if something works for you, that’s fine. I simply find Linkedin full of people looking for favors, jobs, and handouts.
Ian Brodie
It probably is, but I guess I’m not communicating the point very well.
This is not about those people. It’s about connecting with the people you know well who are well connected into the places you want to get and using Linkedin simply as a tool to get more visibility into their network. Like them sharing their little black contact book with you so that when you ask for a referral you already know who they know (or at least the subset that they’re connected with on Linkedin) and can be highly specific in what you ask for.
Ian
Alan Weiss
No argument. I just find that investments of time in Linkedin are far better used elsewhere, but that’s me!
Gemma
Hi Ian and Alan,
sorry to be late to the party. I regard Linkedin as just another source of traffic. As with all these things, knowing the character of a good customer will save you lots of time.
My main point about Linkedin is that it gets past the “gatekeepers”. I have other strategies, only as a newbie consultant getting past that line of defense is important. And as Ian says, it’s not just about referrals but also as a source of information.
Alan Weiss
Stop calling yourself a “newbie.”