Timely to Timeless

George Koukis Speaks Personally on
the Lasting Value of a Legacy Perspective

As an entrepreneur and businessman, I have understandably been required to make long- and short-term plans throughout my career. I have set timelines, developed and distributed schedules, and created forecasts that spanned years into the future. However, through all of the preparation I have remained cognizant of my truest aim-to leave a virtuous and ethical legacy that will outlive and outlast any pre-determined timeframe.

To this end, while I understand the need for programs and procedures that map out the course of action, I have never allowed myself to be tethered to them, always aware that what I’m striving to build is not defined by the parameters of Point A to Point B, but is timeless, extending past any limitations or conditions, restricted only by the depth and breadth of my imagination and ambition.

So let me share with you what I think is a very straightforward “word picture” of this concept from Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, which describes society at some future point.

In this society, books are outlawed and “firemen” are responsible for burning any that have escaped–451 degrees Fahrenheit is said to be the temperature at which paper disintegrates to ash.

“’Everyone must leave something behind when he dies,’ my grandfather said. ‘A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built … or a garden planted. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching,’ he said. ‘The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.’”

If we want our lives to have meaning—to achieve some measure of success or greatness during our time on the planet—it is imperative that we maintain an unwavering focus on ensuring our works and contributions will be there a lifetime—and lifetimes beyond our own—as with Bradbury’s gardener.

 Practical Application for Ethical Leadership

Greatness Demands Turning 'Timely' to 'Long-Term' to 'Timeless'

As business leaders, we live in a world driven by time. We set our alarms at night to startle our weary bodies into motion a few short hours later. We voice program our Echoes in seconds; set home alarms, thermostats, and holiday lights with the tap of a mobile app; and can know what’s taking place in our homes without even being there just by consulting our phones. We work tirelessly to free up extra minutes for the office, the gym, or the commute. And we do it all against the relentless tick of the clock, which is probably ironic as our clocks no longer tick.

With the technology advances of the last 10 years we’ve ushered in a new age of even more immediate time “management”—we check calendars and task lists with our email from the road or standing in line at Starbucks, and need only glance at our smartphone to learn what we’ve missed, what’s happening right now, and what’s coming up since the last minute we looked down.

We’ve programmed ourselves to genuinely believe it’s this instant access that keeps us on track, on task, and on time—efficient contributors to all we’re involved in.

As a society, we are programmed to think in the “now” rather than to pause and consider the longer-term implications our daily actions and decisions have on our lives, or on the lives of others—personal or professional—as the future unfolds. We especially do not think about where our actions fall within the grand scheme that could be called our potential legacy—that thing of great value that will outlast us, and for which we are uniquely suited to deliver to the world.

And the reason for this seemingly glaring omission in our thoughts and focus is often painfully simple. We have never truly considered our unique flavor of giftedness and critically examined ourselves to discover, based on these talents, what our dream really is or what our legacy really could be.

In willingly tethering ourselves to the minute hand, we often let our most unique
opportunities to make meaningful and lasting contributions slip beyond our grasp.

What do we want to accomplish in life? What legacy do we want to leave for ourselves, our families, our communities, and fellow citizens of our planet? If we ourselves have failed to define our ultimate goal, it should come as no surprise that we do not, and actually cannot, pursue that goal with the single-minded priority it must be afforded to achieve it, ensuring that each and every action we take fits within the parameters of that all-consuming long-term objective.

Instead, we all too often confuse frenetic activity and busyness with substance and the stuff of legacy.

The risk of course is that we will achieve today’s fleeting business goals at the cost of something far greater—our own unique dream or contribution—something that could change the world, or even a small piece of it, for generations to come.