Legacy > Currency
Why Bill Walsh is my hero
Years ago, my friends Frank Gruber and Eric Olson launched the first ever Tech Cocktail Conference in Chicago.
I was honored to be asked to speak, and I thought it would be fun to talk about my SEO joke of trying to rank #1 on Google for the word douchebag.
As I gave my talk, I saw two guys standing in the corner, one with a t-shirt that read “legacy>currency” nodding vigorously. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was Gary Vaynerchuk and his brother AJ.
Gary was rapidly rising to prominence in the social media world because of his WineLibrary TV youtube videos and his wonderful message of inclusion and interaction.
He had recently posted a video about “Legacy > Currency” (this is 2008)
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJaNCmUBhcg[/embed]
“How are you going to be viewed when it’s all said and done…I’d prefer to have a million friends versus a million dollars.”
Later that night, we sat playing games and talking. I asked Gary what he meant about legacy.
“Micah, I am going to buy the New York Jets. I will build the largest liquor shop in the world. These things will happen. But they don’t matter. What matters is that people feel that I cared.”
Over the years I have thought about that comment (and AJ’s version of King Kong). What did I care about? Did I care about how the world effected me, or how I effected the world?
Bill Walsh, the legendary coach of the Stanford Cardinal and SF 49ers, has a long “coaching tree” and at one point something like 1/3 of the quarterbacks in the NFL had been coached by him.
What’s amazing about Walsh is that he was 49er head coach for only 10 years. In that time he revolutionized the game—with the “West Coast Offense”— and the coaching ranks—with the Minority Coaching Fellowship. There is literally no aspect of the game that hasn’t been altered in some way by Bill Walsh.
His legacy far outweighs any personal gain.
This morning I got an email from a friend about to announce that their company had been acquired. It was a wonderful outcome for all parties. His email was simple. “Thank you.”
Strangely, that email was the best thing I have received recently. A small acknowledgement that, for at least one person, I had a positive effect.
And it answered my personal question.
I care about how I effect the world. I want my legacy to be that I did something that warranted an email of thanks because the sender achieved greatness, or better yet, happiness.
Legacy is a tricky thing. We get caught up in the excitement of the hunt for currency. We worry about what we have (and don’t have). We worry about the events we get invited to (or not); the number of followers, friends and other measures of currency.
At the end of the day, chasing currency gives us the ephemeral dopamine rush our photo sharing apps strive for.
Legacy is forever.