A Leaders' Life of Insignificance

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