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.
Joe
Alan
Next time you rent …. make it a Tesla.
Alan Weiss
Does a Tesla have the range for that drive? That’s what worries me about electric cars and why I think they’re third-car novelties.
Colleen Francis
Enterprise policies like this are a hold out from the day when they were exclusively serving the insurance replacement market and people rarely took the cars on vacation. They don’t fill the cars up when they are returned becuase it erodes profits and each branch manager is paid a commission on the profit from their branch.
This is a great example of a company’s business practices ot keeping pace wit their market and customer requirements.
Alan Weiss
Good point. It shows they are asleep at the switch strategically, and oblivious to feedback. The internet reviews of the company are ghastly, but they simply don’t care. It’s a Mickey Mouse operation focused solely on short-term profit.
Peter McLean
I didn’t have that issue trekking across Canada over Christmas with Enterprise or any other car rental Co. – all filled up or noted if it was slightly below the full line. Perhaps it was just a local thing. Very shoddy. Hope they pay attention to your post.
Internet says most expensive/recent upgrade to Tesla puts it at 315 miles range. That doesn’t sound confidence-inspiring, but adequate for that one-way trip.
Alan Weiss
Tesla consistently over-exaggerates its range, turning off the air conditioning and staying under 65 MPH. I’d take a quarter to a third off of any Tesla estimate. My Rolls Royce or Bentley can do 300 miles on one tank, and it takes two minutes to fill the tank at any one of a zillion gas stations. It takes forever (30 minutes at absolute best) to recharge a Tesla fully IF you can find the apparatus, otherwise, it takes overnight plugged in like a toaster. No thanks. It’s a toy, and it’s losing money hand over fist.
Peter McLean
Hilarious. Don’t have any experience with them over here in Australia. I did see a couple of charging stations in car parks recently in Toronto, but couldn’t see myself doing it.
Did Tesla ever “make” money? I thought it was all government subsidies and investors?
ALAN WEISS
Tesla is a charity, gaining government subsidies and lobbying for penalties on internal combustion engines while losing money daily. Musk is a fantasist, not an entrepreneur. Right now, you’ve got a card heavily lade with batteries dependent on government handouts with huge quality problems. But the drivers feel good about themselves, especially when disrupting a trip to find a plug.