Day 6 - At Laida beach.
Thousands on thousands of people. A throng. Some thongs.
Some without any thong on.
Seriously, the huge numbers of people and my sense of
alone-ness (enhanced by the fact that I could not speak Spanish) got me
thinking: “In the crowd of humanity, who am
I really?” In the context of 7.5 billion people on this
planet, what is significant about me?
This got me thinking about the importance I ascribe to my work and my
self.
One more thing has me thinking about this now as I write. This week marks the second funeral in the
last two weeks of people I have known well.
It also brought tragic news of a relative who suffered a massive brain hemorrhage
and may not see consciousness or his family ever again. The Bible says it’s better to attend a
funeral than a party, because it causes you to think about how you are living
your life. (Ecclesiastes 7:2). So, I am thinking about life and invite you to
consider your own.
On that beach in Spain while walking the Camino, and now
today surrounded by the loss of friends, relatives and acquaintances, this is a
reflection on living a life of insignificance.
Like many leaders, I have always had a sense of importance
and significance to my life. This motivated
and drove my leadership aspirations
and future thinking. The leadership
seminar and book industry contributed by feeding this theme into my psyche and
understanding of leadership. As a result, I have always looked for something
better, greater and farther for which to strive. Embedded in my thinking was always that I’d
be part of a ‘breakthrough’, a significant team or an innovative thing. On reflection, I have fulfilled some of those
aspirations. However as I looked at that
crowd on the beach in Laida Spain, a reality hit me full force. Like the waves pounding the surf, humans like
me come and go throughout history. Life
rolls along. Wave after wave. A new swell of humanity hits the beach every
generation. Ha - in 30 years from now I
likely won’t even be top of mind to my own kids! Few people are remembered. Few leave a legacy that humanity will store
in its collective memory, or benefit from materially.
Leaders live to leave legacies, to impact others, to ‘make a
mark’. We have been enculturated into
this characterization of leadership.
“You can do anything…You can be a change-maker in the world” and many
other catch phrases populate leadership seminars and even parental guidance. However, there is an insidious nature to this
because it can – as it did in my case – inflate significance, diminish the
present and drive a striving for future results that robs our impact on the
here and now.
I challenge you as a leader to shift from a mentality of
legacy to service. Legacy too often is a
selfish thing. It’s about what you can leave behind; how you will be remembered. Service is about showing up in the today to
say – “How can I be of help?”
Finally, to all legacy-builders and world-changers:
- Go to a funeral to remind yourself what is most important. Discern what is most remembered from a life lived.
- Legacy isn’t so much what you leave behind in terms of professional or social impact. A rude truth is someone else will eclipse your work down the road. True legacy is the character DNA you introduce to your family and others who live and work around you. That DNA will exist in the background, profoundly influential in the lives of those who remain after you have gone.
- Calculate the cost of the ‘big thing’ you have committed to pursuing with your life. In the grand scheme of things, is it worth the price you are currently paying? How could you pursue this differently?
- We have dreams to pursue but only today to do. Don’t live in your future to the extent that you lose today, because today is all you have.
On Day 14 at the Albergue Meurelo, before I set out on my
last day of walking the Camino, I reflected again on this theme and wrote:
“I am significant to
God and of insignificance to man. In the
grand scheme of the world, I am a drop in the ocean. That does not define me as an insignificant
person, but it does pull me back from grandiose notions about my role in
planetary impact. Most of us live local
lives. That has nothing to do with value
or significance in God’s eyes, because he knows our name & calls it out
among the billions of people on this planet.”
Harv