Five years from now, a group of 10 people are going to gather in a spectacular red building clinging to the side of a mountain in Japan. Each will have traveled thousands of miles to celebrate you. Let's take a minute and picture what happens at this celebration.
Let's assume that everything about this party will be impacted by what you do in the five years between now and then...
Who will be there? Is this going to be a routine gathering of your current officemates? Or maybe it will include luminaries from many different walks of life? Which would you prefer?
What will they say about you? At the moment, this gathering is entirely a product of your imagination, so you get to decide how the participants celebrate your accomplishments. They might crow about how you made more money than anyone else, and managed to add two new wings onto your home. Perhaps they will talk about the five children - not your own - that you put through college.
If the gathering was today, would you worry that the attendees wouldn't have enough to celebrate?
How might they compare your accomplishments five versus 10 years' past? In retrospect, would any consider today - this very day, when you went through this imagination exercise - a pivotal moment in your career? Did you accomplish more in the five years following today than the five years preceding today?
Your answer depends on two things:
1. Whether you take this exercise seriously.
2. Whether this exercise spurs you to change anything about your life.
It's all too easy to wait for some day in the future, when you will finally get serious about your legacy. Many of us wander through life, doing well but not exactly wringing every possible joy and accomplishment out of life. If you're okay with a "pretty good" approach to life, don't change anything. But if you want 10 people to gather to celebrate a truly spectacular life... then perhaps it's time to up your game.
The real value of this exercise is that it may spur you to do something different. "Different" doesn't necessarily mean harder or better. It might mean deciding that enough is enough, and it's finally time to leave your hometown... or to move back to your hometown.
Before you rush away and skip this exercise, consider this: investing five minutes in your future might be the smartest thing you ever did.
So before you answer another 50 emails or stumble off to another three meetings, close your eyes and picture yourself five years from now, at the head of a long table. All there raise their glasses to toast you, and one by one, each says something about you.
What do they say?
