To Plant A Walnut Tree: How to Create a Fruitful Legacy by Using Your Experience

The most unselfish thing you can do with your life is to plant a walnut tree. If you plant a walnut tree, you won't see it fruit for many years - you're investing for your children. You are planting something for generations yet to come. At the end of your life you need to be able to say, 'I planted a walnut tree.' For the twenty-something executive coming up for breath or the Chief Executive at the top of their game, To Plant A Walnut Tree is a rallying call to use your experience from day one, and to plant the seed for a fruitful legacy. It's about finding the practical answer to the What's Next? or Is This It? questions, in order to climb an even higher tree. In To Plant a Walnut Tree Trevor Waldock issues a personal invitation to reshape your life and find a pathway to share wisdom in a practical way - something he calls eldership. Elders provide perspective, and they hold leaders to account. Their wisdom may be needed to solve a problem, understand a dilemma, resolve a conflict or map a pathway through complex and unfamiliar territory. Privileged with the gift of experience, they can see the broader perspective, from climbing the even higher tree and taking the longer-term view. They make way for, and they guide, generations to come. We can all aspire to live this way. The discovery that one's life can be a journey that makes sense, not just for oneself in the short term, but also for others in the future can be life changing. It is not limited to gender or culture or education. It creates hope across the whole life span and brings about meaning to the everyday. Waldock's revolutionary thinking may be the key to examining many of the challenges society faces at all levels - it speaks to leaders in all aspects of life, be they in business, health, education, or local and national politics. It bridges cultures and it encourages the sharing of wisdom and experience across them.

About the Author :
Trevor Waldock is one of the best-known, and best-respected, executive coaches in Europe and has worked at the most senior level in organisations across all sectors. The author of The 18 Challeges of Leadership, he is also the founder of Emerging Leaders, a charity, which aims to bring the best of leadership development to the poorest of communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Review :
Everything I read in his new book held my attention and often touched me - his searching, his humility, the quality of his descriptive writing, the narrative, the humanness and indeed the eldership that he displays.I like what I have read very much and I believe it will hold readers well. I fully endorse the conclusions and he has found a great way to convey it to others. - Sir John Whitmore, author of Coaching For Performance To Plant a Walnut Tree profoundly touches the heart of what many are pondering and plants the seed of a new way of thinking about our leadership contribution. The journey many of us take seems to stop at a clear and sometimes unfulfilling point now we have reached the top, what s next? Trevor's well argued and passionate answer is to become an elder, one who knows what they can uniquely do that the world of tomorrow needs. It will inspire you to renew how you bring your humanity to the work you do with and for others. - Dr Gerry McSorley, Senior Leadership Fellow, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement Highly readable, with the pace of a novel and what it teaches has profound use for any leader or aspiring one. To plant a walnut tree, means to look to your legacy. Leadership has its own glass ceiling, this is a thoughtful and entertaining exploration of what might lay beyond it... Highly recommended. - Talent Management Review