Living For Legacy
If you were to ask the average Millennial whether they have started building their legacy, you may just get a puzzled expression in return. But if you asked them, “Have you started building your empire?” You might get a resounding “Yes!” This concept of legacy feels sadly like a dying one. A vision that was buried with our ancestors. There was one line in a previous article, that inspired me to write this. It says, “We’ve turned into a generation of project managers. We live from project to project, rather than living for a legacy.”
Legacy is more than a collection of things, or money, or even a name on a building. It’s the impact that’s left in the hearts and minds of people. You see, when I think about my family history, I’m struck by one serious realization. That is, my family are survivors. We are generations full of people that have defied the odds, and come out winners. I know this is true, because if it weren’t, I simply wouldn’t be here. When I hear the stories about what my grandparents sacrificed and endured, it makes me all the more determined not to squander my own life. It makes me think, “what do I want to leave behind?” And I would like to ask you the same question. However, our current social climate isn’t helping us out with building legacy. Politically, there is no longevity. Leaders just aren’t in office long enough to do the work that creates lasting cultural change, financially most Millennials are in debt, the property market has boomed to the point that first home buyers just won’t be a first home buyer, and there are more Kickstarter campaigns for new businesses that inevitably fail than you can poke a stick at! It’s a morbid truth, but there has to be a way through the cultural adversity.
Legacy isn’t something we can afford to procrastinate about. It’s not an exam you can cram for, or an essay you can pull an all-nighter on. It’s not something to establish in old age, but a life-time creation. I once heard a great man say, “If your vision does not go beyond your lifetime, then it will not be sustained after you’re gone. (My paraphrase)” Beginning a legacy now is essential if we want our children and grandchildren to carry it.
When I think about my legacy, it is synonymous with the vision for my life. I want to see a whole generation change the way they think. This certainly feels like a massive undertaking, and to be honest, way beyond my capabilities. But this is why it works so well with a legacy! Because it’s not just about me, what I’m doing, and how I’m going to achieve it. It’s about every person that partners with me, and every person that carries on after me. So no, maybe I won’t see that vision fulfilled in my lifetime, but it certainly will in the generations after me. Why? Because I’m building my legacy around it. That’s the beautiful thing about legacy. It goes way beyond goals and projects. It’s bigger than deadlines and board meetings. It’s about impacting generations.
Back to the Millennials. What a unique group of humans we are. Being the first generation in the Western world to be unaffected by war (the armed-forces excluded), we’ve somehow created a cloud of entitlement that hangs around us. It’s an attitude that says, “I’m deserving of anything that I want, and I don’t need to work to get it.” There’s a defensiveness that follows us around, and it literally questions anything that even smells like a ‘rule’. (Case in point, the ‘Hipster’ sub-culture) Now before I get heckled with angry-worded letters, I’ll admit, I am part of this Millennial group. I understand the challenges they face today, but I’m not blind to the self-inflicted drama we’ve landed in. You don’t have to look far to find that generally, we are taking longer to achieve some ‘life goals’. We are marrying much later, having kids much later, buying homes later, and landing our dream jobs later too. Oh, and let’s not omit the incredible debt we’re trying to pay off. When I look at these few facts, it’s no wonder to me that there is no importance placed on legacy. Because frankly, it’s not a priority. Am I suggesting that every single one of us needs to build a huge empire that we can then pass down to our children? No. There will be many of us that do that very thing. But legacy is so much more than that.
Legacy is as much about the intangible as it is the tangible. The great Maya Angelou said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” If anyone were to ask the question about what impact I had in the world, I’d want them to say, “She helped me change the way I think about some things. She helped me see myself and the world differently. She helped me realise I’m much greater than I thought I was.” Is that a tangible legacy? No. But the ramifications are exponential!
So here is my challenge for you. Start to reassess the things that you do through the lens of legacy. Start to sort through the chaos of life and decide what is helping you build a legacy, and what is not. But first, you must decide, what is that legacy you want to leave behind?