What’s Your Legacy

What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

When it’s all said and done, most of how people are going to see you is in your control and your actions dictate that. People who lie a lot are deemed lairs and people who act silly and aren’t afraid to speak up are deemed confident, but no matter what negative or positive image people have of you now, there’s always time to build and improve it.

There’s a very powerful exercise in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where you imagine four people getting up to say a few words about you at your funeral. They talk about the type of person you were, what you stood for, and how you lived. The first speaker is a family member. The second is a friend. The third is someone from your community. The fourth is someone you worked with for many years.

The idea is to visualize the scene in great detail, and then write down the type of things you’d like those people to say about you. How will you want them to remember you after you’re gone? Actually write out what you’d like them to say.

Once you feel like you’ve nailed it, you’ll have a solid idea of what you’re aiming for in life, the type of memories you want to create, the legacy YOU truly want to leave.

If you want to be seen as a creative artist (painter, writer, musician) then start putting your work out there on social media for the world to see. You want to be seen as the type of person who cares about the body and promotes healthy eating? Then join health forums, help educate those around you, and live the life you promote. Maybe you want to be seen as the passionate traveler? Then get out there and start seeing this huge world around us. You can get a round trip ticket to London for as low as $635. (If you spend $45/weekend at bars over 4 months, that’s $640)

This exercise helped me figure out that, among other things, I was severely lacking in my passion to actively improve people’s quality of life in my community. Since then I’ve been volunteering to teach kids how to read but that’s just the first of many needed steps forward.

But this is just MY vision. What does yours tell you?

Other notes: Thanks to those who sent me their Resumes last week as part of my free career consulting services giveaway. I’ve been working hard to update each one along with giving you helpful insights into improving your web presence and hope to hear some of your success stories/new potential careers very soon.