This quote from Sean Connery captures how business owners often feel as they graduate from their businesses and become alumni… or maybe it should be how they feel. I think Sean is pretty level headed in this interview.
The interview takes place as production of Diamonds Are Forever (DAF) winds up in 1971. At the time, it was thought DAF would be his last Bond film. As background, Lazenby had just flopped in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Connery was reprising his portrayal of Bond to save the franchise. The interviewer asks whether Sean was worried about how Bond is perceived as an affront to women’s new independent spirit.
“If you’ve made something and you leave it around and somebody picks it up, everybody will pick it up and see it as something else or look at it in a different way and I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it after you’ve done it and have committed oneself to doing it that way initially…”
What I think he’s expressing here is that after you’re gone from the scene, others will interpret the story and critique your work and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it. So my advice is, do the best you can. Build the strength of the business and the value of the investment then turn it over, at a fair price, to someone you think will care for it (or alternatively who will pay more for it) and then move on; knowing they will critique your work with the luxury of not having to figure it out from the inside, which is always more challenging.
