Speaking Up

CHAPTER18Legacy

My father would say, ‘She did pretty good, for a girl.’

—Ginger Graham

We forget that as executives we’ve acquired a hard-fought body of knowledge. When we retire, we go away and it’s lost. That’s such a waste.

—Steve Blank

The famous psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson (1902–1994), suggested that the middle adult years, ages 40 to 65, are characterized by the need to give back to the next generation:

The fashionable insistence on dramatizing the dependence of children on adults often blinds us to the dependence of the older generation on the younger one. Mature humans need to be needed. Each adult must have some way to satisfy and support the next generation. A person does best at this time to put aside thoughts of death, and balance ...