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.
DJ Crane
This seems to be an effective posture to strike, both for the benefit of the prospective client and the consultant. I think it’s possible to be both assertive and humble. The opposite of humble is arrogant. And assertive is different than arrogant.
Alan Weiss
I don’t agree with the humble part. I don’t want a humble lawyer or designer or car dealer. I don’t know why anyone would want a humble consultant. This is a myth driven into people’s heads either by some kind of ingrained Puritanism or by inferior people who insist that humility is important because they have very little to be proud of. I think the clergy should be humble, but not my doctor.
Eric Fetterolf
Seeking clarification on how you interpret humble.
I interpret humble to incorporate the ability to admit when I am wrong or do not yet have the solution to a problem. Arrogant individuals cannot admit to either.
Since you have, frequently, admitted your ignorance “two weeks ago” and how you’ve improved since that time, is that not a reflection of humility?
Alan Weiss
You’re playing with sophistry. That’s an admission, factual if metaphoric. But it’s not humility and, besides, I’m talking in a business context. You seem determined to make some nuanced point. Humble doesn’t help in successful marketing. Period.