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.
Noah
I’m really surprised not one of those players thought “enough is enough” and dropped him.
Alan Weiss
The players have more class than he does, the moron. Now watch some program hire him within a week!
Tim Wilson
Alan,
I watched the tape and several others where the AD was interviewed as well as the coach that was fired. Three observations:
1. While the coach’s behavior is revolting, can’t help think it’s symptomatic not only in the athletic arena but also in the workplace. Too many individuals in positions of authority believe yelling and insulting people is how you express yourself and get one’s point across.
2. The AD is like a lot of managers afraid of firing their star employee out of the mistaken belief they won’t be able to find someone as good. So they keep them on thinking they will change, they won’t. They only fire them when they’re forced which by then, the damage is done and the situation may be unrecoverable.
3. Learned helplessness on the part of the players and other coaches. Too many players and coaches mistakenly believe that they are supposed to accept this kind of abuse. For whatever reason, only job they can get, only school they can get in to participate in their sport, or on scholarship, they’re afraid to say of do anything. For those who refuse to be treated in such a manner and can transfer they do, but, too many on them believe they have no other choice but the take the abuse because they believe their options are limited.
What is interesting is we see similar behavior in the work place and it’s reflective on people’s work product and how they treat customers. If you have a boss that is yelling at you the time, is it any surprise we as customers receive the outcome of that conduct visited upon us?
Unfortunately I think you’re right someone will give this guy a coaching job because they believe that’s how one is suppose to coach.
Alan Weiss
I suspect his bullying may be because he basically feels inferior and tries to drag everyone down to his perceived level of inferiority. But you’re right: a poor leader, a poor boss, players and parents either unwilling or uninvolved. The athletic director should go tomorrow.