Contrary to conventional wisdom, a legacy isn't what's written in your obituary. It's what you create every day. And with a dark pandemic driving 51% of us to think more about our mortality, it's high time we started today. Join CJ McClanahan on Success 2.0 as Alan Weiss, PhD, identifies how to create your legacy – today.
What We Discuss in this Episode:
- Life is not about a search for meaning, it's creating meaning. It's not a search that has a destination, it's happening organically every day.
- Creating meaning entails identifying why the world is different because you lived in it. Have you led a trusting life, have you planted a garden, have you impacted someone in your circle?
- The last 30 years have created enormous pressure to compare to ourselves to others. Further, instead of becoming more knowledgeable, we've just gotten louder.
- In focusing on the needs of others, you help yourself. When you teach others, you learn more than they do. The act of helping others builds you as a person.
- Celebrate when you identify that you're drowning in stress and information. Isolate the sources that are the most valid to help you become the person you want to be.
- Whether you're an optimist or a pessimist will determine how your life plays out that day. We must train our brains to move toward the positive end of the spectrum more frequently.
- Part of being alive and finding meaning is being in touch with the physical world around you.
- We don't focus on the simple, because we've convinced ourselves that the simple can't be true.
Mentioned in the Podcast:
Alan Weiss, PhD
Alan Weiss is a consultant, speaker, and bestselling author. Described by the New York Post as "one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America," his consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, and more than 500 leading organizations. His new book is Your Legacy Is Now: Life Is Not a Search for Meaning from Others—It's the Creation of Meaning for Yourself (Routledge; March 18, 2021). Learn more at alanweiss.com.
