Thank You Israel Bissell

By on July 13th, 2010 In Advice

“Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere”

We all know about Paul Revere’s “historic” ride to warn the American colonists about the arrival of the British, in large part thanks to the epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but there’s only one problem with it — it’s not entirely true. In fact, Revere rode from Boston to Lexington on the fateful night of April 19, 1775 for a grand total of 19 miles. What is not so well known is that at the same time another post rider carried the same message to the colonists while riding 345 miles from Watertown, Mass. to Philadelphia — you guessed it…Israel Bissell.

I started thinking about legacy this morning with the passing of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. For millions of people he will be remembered as the iconoclastic and bombastic rich guy who’s win-at-any-cost attitude and spending made a mockery of baseball’s free agency program. Yet to millions of Yankees fans he will be remembered as the greatest owner in Yankees history who during his tenure led the Bronx Bombers to 11 American League pennants and 7 World Series titles. It’s all about perspective. But can we control legacy?

I think when all is said and done with life all we really have is our legacy. I sure don’t know what mine will be, but I do know my ultimate goal in life is to leave the world a better place for my son — and that guides my decision making and actions. Truthfully though, as Israel Bissell can surely attest, we don’t have much control over our legacy, especially if we’re famous.

But most of us, and most of our clients, are not famous. Our legacies may not be as far-reaching as Paul Revere’s or even Israel Bissell’s, but we will have a legacy regardless. And for our clients, I suppose part of our job is to help ensure their legacy is worthy of some respect. A tough job in some cases (see Tony Hayward for example). So what can we do?

I try to follow the same general philosophy of those in the medical profession — first do no harm. Yes, we can create positive news and share great stories about our clients. And we must. But at the end of the day we also have to help them shape their legacy and the best way to do that is to do the best we can to guide them in a positive direction during tough times and help nudge them to do some good things for society while they’re out their hawking their products and services. That’s a decent perspective to have on what we do for a living.

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