She admits to this: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: conversation is flirtation. And gradually you, the reader, realize that you are complicit in her project, that Popkey wants to be liked, and to be likable she must seduce. Popkey’s genius is in reproducing her narrator’s dual experience, participating in a dialogue while processing what is being said to her, thus interior and exterior, with all the attendant tangents, riffs, backtracks and corrections. And that unwrapping, that denuding, is always, inevitably sensual.” Here’s Popkey explaining how eroticism animates a conversation: “This is the natural outcome of disclosure, for to disclose is to reveal, to bring out into the open what was previously hidden. It ends in 2017 in California, with her living in the San Joaquin Valley and working in Fresno, wiser, even hopeful.Įach of these 10 conversations - with other women, with a stranger in the bar and later a hotel room, with her mother, even listening to a recording of a woman who was at the party where Norman Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele, and more - are intense, intimate and, unexpectedly, sexual. It begins in 2000 when the unnamed narrator is 21 (“daffy with sensation, drunk with it”), working in Otranto, the tip of Italy’s heel, a summer job minding the children of Argentinian psychoanalysts. What a strange title, more like a label or a subhead, and yet how fitting, because each of the 10 chapters in Miranda Popkey’s singular approach to novel writing is a conversation. Yet our “meaning”-our creation of meaning and not a search for some illusive alchemy-creates worth and impact for us and all those with whom we interact.They’re creating a lot of buzz - but are the books everyone’s talking about (and buying) worth your reading time and money? In an age of social media, biased press, and bullying, we’ve come to a point where our legacy, ironically, is almost out of our hands. There is a “threshold” point, at which one’s beliefs and values are overridden by immense peer pressure. Our organic, living legacy is marred and squeezed by huge normative pressures. Is someone else creating our legacy? Or are we, ourselves, simply writing the same page repeatedly? Every day we create the next page in our lives, but the question becomes who is writing it and what’s being written. That difference, they believe, is their “legacy.”īut the thought that legacy arrives at the end of life is as ridiculous as someone who decides to sell a business and tries to increase its valuation the day prior. But they have no metrics for “What now?” They believe that at the end of life there is a tallying, some metaphysical accountant who totals up their contributions, deducts their bad acts, and creates the (hopefully positive) difference. They may have money in the bank, good relationships, the admiration of others, and the love of their dogs. They do not know what meaning is for them. I’ve found that people in all positions, even after the “breakthrough,” don’t know where they are in the race, let alone where the finish line is. But runners know how far they must go after the breakthrough, be it another half lap or another five miles. I found the equivalent of the “runner’s wall” in their journeys, where they must break through the pain and the obstacles and then can keep going with renewed energy and spirit. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be talking to me. About 95% of these people have been well-meaning, honest (to the best of their knowledge), and interested in becoming a better person and better professional. And I’ve talked about them through the coronavirus crisis. I’ve dealt with esteem (low), narcissism (high), family problems, leadership dysfunctions, insecurities, addictions, and ethical quandaries. Others have been aspiring and with more ends in sight than means on hand. Most of them have had what we euphemistically call “means,” and some of them have had a lot more than that. That’s quite an assortment of people, and they run into the thousands. Your Legacy is Now Life is not a search for meaning from others, it’s about the creation of meaning for yourself.įor over 30 years Alan Weiss has consulted, coached, and advised everyone from Fortune 500 executives, state governors, non-profit directors, and entrepreneurs to athletes, entertainers, and beauty pageant contestants. The Million Dollar Consulting® Hall of Fame.
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