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.
Matthias Bohlen
Alan,
what do you mean by “Being prescriptive in marketing and diagnostic in delivery, instead of the reverse.” ?
Alan Weiss
You start to consult after you get paid. That’s when you tell the client what should be done. Before that, you’re marketing, being diagnostic with the client to help determine the buyer’s needs and where you can best add value.
John Tangney
Thanks for the post. Just a couple questions…
If “the good news is that they are all remedial” then how can these be “signs of the … apocalypse”? I don’t understand how something can be remedial and at the same time a harbinger of doom.
Also, what’s up with billing by time unit? Fixed-price billing is a shortcut to scope creep, no?
Alan Weiss
John, I think you’re being a tad too literal. Maybe I believe that even doom can be prevented.
Time based billing is for amateurs and no one will ever get rich charging for their time. Scope creep occurs anywhere when consultants allow tasks to creep in not required by the objectives. That has nothing to do with billing.
Have you read any of my books?
Anton Chuvakin
Love (and believe) all of them, but hate “Over-specializing and focusing on narrow markets.”
Doesn’t focus make you stronger?
Alan Weiss
Focus, yes, but not specialization.
Anton Chuvakin
Thanks A LOT for your response, Alan. I’d love it if you can clarify it. If one doesn’t specialize, he would be a generalist and their advice would not be “special” and just like everybody else’s. Where is the magic and where do “value-based” fees come from then if you don’t have anything special?
Or maybe we mean different things by specialization? I usually equate it to focusing on a particular area. And in your books you tend to praise focus very much.
Joseph
Dr Alan,
Doesn’t Mercedes and other luxury brands focus on the narrow market (compared to the whole population)? Isn’t their success purely because of their focus on narrow market?
I’m little puzzled. May be your advice is for consulting and not for product companies?
Thank you,
Joseph
Alan Weiss
Of course it’s for consulting! But you still have to take a broader view. Mercedes used to be technology driven (“engineered like no other car in the world”) selling high priced cars to wealthy people. Today, they are product and market driven and sell very inexpensive cars, as well. They’ve taken the risk of going downscale to broaden their markets. Volkswagen ranges from tiny cars to Bentleys.
In general, the more buyers you can lure, the better off you are in turbulent economies. That’s usually true for products, and always true for consulting.
Alan Weiss
Anton, the problem is you’re talking about methodology and input. Never specialize on the input side, as in “sales training” or “strategy retreats” or “focus groups.”
Concentrate on the output side: greater profit, better repute, higher retention. Provide the intellectual capital and thought leadership that enables you to establish trusting relationships with buyers. That makes you “special” to a lot of people.
Narrow focus is insane in consulting. Can some get away with it? Yes, they are exceptions, and the business is boring and tedious.