[First name] — this is your second Coached Weekly. Quick refresher: it's your career strategy email which contains the tactics, tools and hacks that I've seen work in real careers.

My goal is to make this the highest ROI thing you read each week. It takes just 5 minutes to read but it’s the kind of stuff you’ll reuse for years. I’ve coached people for over a decade — this is the best of what I’ve learned, distilled into a short tactical email.

How to write with authority

Surprisingly, simple words in our emails can subtly undermine our authority. Phrases like 'I think', 'sorry', or 'maybe' might sound polite, but they actually project uncertainty, not confidence.

Here are some before-and-after examples to illustrate:

• Projects uncertainty: "I'm no expert but I think we maybe should do..."
  Confidence: "We should do..." or "I recommend we do..."
• Overly apologetic: "I'm so sorry for the delay..."
  Just right: "Thanks for your patience"
• Before: "Just wanted to check in, how is everything going with X"
  After: "Checking in — what's the status of X?"
• Before: "Apologies for [missing your email / an error / contacting you]"
  After: Pay attention to the times you say sorry for things that really aren't your fault. Then, try to actively reduce them.

Remove those phrases from your everyday vocabulary — and start being more direct — and you'll start to appear more confident in your communication.

Why I think “leaving a legacy” is just BS

🤥 Is it even possible?

I read somewhere that the 5 inventions that’ve had the biggest impact on human history were: fire, gunpowder, the transistor, the condom and the Internet.

Probably true.

And yet, I don’t know who invented any of them! (Can you?)

If people who permanently changed humanity have been forgotten, how realistic is it for us to expect our careers to leave lasting legacies?

🤔 Who’s “they”?

“I want people to remember me when I’m gone,” we tell ourselves.

But who exactly are these “people”?

Case in point:

Back in 2014, the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team played a game on “Giants of Africa Day” to honor the great Nelson Mandela. Post-game, the interviewer asked the goalkeeper, “What does Nelson Mandela mean to you?”

He has no idea and responds: “Obviously, he was one of the most known athletes in history… A great person, both on and off the ice.”

🤦‍♂️

If an athlete doesn’t even know who Nelson Mandela is… at an event to honor Mandela’s legacy… a year after Mandela’s death… then how can we expect the average person scrolling TikTok in the year 3000 to remember who we were?

It's worth considering: You do so much in your career and make a ton of sacrifices. But who are you really doing it for? Is it for yourself and the people close to you, or for random future people who won't even remember you when you're gone?

🫣 “Legacy” is a cop-out

Marketer Seth Godin makes a brilliant (yet uncomfortable) point:

Day-dreaming about “changing the world” (or leaving a legacy) is just an escape from doing the hard, dirty work of changing just one person’s life in the present.

And I think that’s spot-on.

It’s kinda like reading self-help books as a way of avoiding the boring reality of building our skills, or brushing up our resume (hint hint: Resume Worded is super helpful if you’ve been putting it off!) and applying for jobs in the present.

🧬 Legacy is a byproduct, not a goal

Do you think the people who left a legacy actually cared about leaving a legacy?

I don’t think so.

I think most of them had their feet firmly planted in the here and now, and spent 100% of their attention struggling with the problem in front of them.

I mean, would Thomas Edison have been able to go through 9,999 different lightbulb attempts if his mind had been focused on his autobiography instead of obsessing over tungsten and current coils?

I doubt it.

And that’s the irony:

The only way to leave a legacy is… by focusing all your attention on something that isn’t a legacy.

It's far more realistic and rewarding to focus on the impact you're making now, rather than how you'll be remembered when you're not even alive to see that impact. Prioritize fulfillment in the present – it's the only time you're guaranteed to experience it.

🥺 Legacy is disguised people-pleasing

When we’re at a crossroads in our career and we don’t know what to do, very few of us would think, “Lemme go open up a poll and let 500 random people decide.”

So why let 500 strangers from the future decide what you do?

Remember:

Care what some people think, not what all people think.

Instead of focusing on being remembered by strangers, try being a good mother, father, sister, brother, friend or colleague right now.

Because while your accomplishments probably won’t be remembered in 100 years, your actions can change the lives of those around you right now. Reminds me of a quote: "20 years from now, the only people that will remember you worked late are your kids."

When people say they focus on legacy, what they're kinda saying is they're focusing on what others think about them, not personal fulfillment. This mindset is at the core of many career mistakes and a lot of unfulfillment – it's essentially just another form of people-pleasing.

So, why am I harping on about this?

I've seen too many people get stuck chasing this vague idea of legacy, making it harder to set concrete career goals and harder to focus on what really matters in their careers right now and the impact they could make on themselves today.

Some final (more upbeat 🥲) takeaways I want you to remember:

• Be honest about what you want. Money, satisfaction, helping others - all valid. Just don't disguise it as building a legacy. You can't optimize for legacy, but you can optimize for clear, personal goals. What do you really want from your career?
• Your decisions today shape your career more than any imagined future legacy. So focus on making good choices now.
• Don't overthink stuff, civilizations come and go. Idk, I feel it takes the pressure off when I realize we're just a blip in time.

A little different today, but hopefully my rant gives you some food for thought and encourages you to look at your career goals from another angle.

If you want clarity in what you should be aiming for, and to find out what actually drives you: I'd recommend this 3-minute impact assessment that was built with actual PhDs and career coaches. It reveals how you truly operate — your hidden patterns, what motivates you, why you work the way you do.

If you haven't tried it yet, you really should. People who've taken it keep saying things like "this explained everything" and "I wish I had this years ago." It'll genuinely help you make better career moves. Takes less time than your commute (unless you work from home). Try the Coached Impact Assessment now.

Speak soon,

Rohan Mahtani

Founder at Resume Worded

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