After last month’s uber-cleansing garage clean-out and revelations, I now walk unimpaired across the floor, dodging only the occasional fur ball. The walk is both exhilarating and disconcerting.
Exhilarating because every step acknowledges weeks of effort that produced the results: space for a vehicle, letting go of inconsequential stuff, putting the past in the past and opening up space for the future. Disconcerting because the space is unfamiliar and disrupts my automatic, unthinking habits. (Where is that dog leash?)
New habits will soon take their rightful place and I can sleep walk about certain things. What I don’t want to go to sleep about is the mental space that opened up as I cleared out the past: Beyond the tangible stuff, what will I leave behind? What is my legacy? What’s yours?
A legacy is …
- something what we pass on to the next generation.
- what we’ll be remembered for.
- something we may never see come to fruition or know its impact.
“The legacy we leave is part of the ongoing foundations of life,” says business philosopher and author Jim Rohn. “Those who came before leave us the world we live in. Those who will come after will have only what we leave them. We are stewards of this world, and we have a calling in our lives to leave it better than how we found it, even if it seems like such a small part.”
Interested in steps to create your? Success magazine has 4 steps. 1. Grasp why your legacy is important. 2. Choose your legacy. 3. Focus your legacy. 4. Live your legacy now. Want support in the process? Call me!
The nuance I add to the distinction legacy is this: When you think of your legacy, don’t think last will and testament. Think last conversation and temperament.
Our daily interactions and deeds create a legacy of character, commitment and concern. The impact is felt right now in the lives we touch every day. Those of us who have the awesome opportunity to impact the younger generation, especially parents and teachers, know this to our core. This impact doesn’t stop after childhood. I see it occurring in the workplace every day.
As a manager, how did your last conversation make the person feel? Empowered or puny? As a co-worker, did you speak to your cubicle-mate as someone more or less powerful in face of their circumstances? As a leader, did you speak to your team’s greatness or limitations?
The impact of the legacy and whether it’s carried on or left behind is in the eye of the beholder.
Some larger-than-life legacies inspire and encourage us to dream big. Think JFK and the space program, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights, Mother Teresa and service to others, Steve Jobs and personal computing. The large-in-my-life legacies in the inspiring category are my parents, my brother, my high school band teacher (Mr. Lutz), close friends and a long list of managers and colleagues.
Some legacies of public figures, brilliant at the start, lose their shine and cause us to shudder. Think Enron and business ethics. Think Nixon and Watergate. Think Joe Paterno. I also have some legacies in this category. (BTW: It’s quite possible my name may show up on both lists. Like I said, the impact is in the eye of the beholder.)
John Maxwell in his The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership says it this way: “Too often, leaders put their energy into organizations, buildings, systems or other lifeless objects. But only people live on after we are gone. Everything else is temporary.”
As the leader of your life, how you treat others, day-in-and-day-out, is the core of your legacy. What do you want people to say about you when you’ve left the meeting room? What behavior of yours do you want people to emulate? What values and principles guide your communications, negotiations, leadership and business decisions? And two important follow-up questions: Are you living them today? If not, what do you need to change?
Even if you never touch a box in your garage, clearing out the past from your relationships to make space for a new, consciously created future is far better use of your time and energy. Besides, while most of us won’t be leaving a legacy of hospital wings or libraries, we’ll all be leaving a legacy of relationships. Choose your legacy and start living it today with all the generations in your life.
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