Leaving a Legacy – Its not to late Act Now

| February 2010 Posted in Blog, Business | Comments

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I have had this word Legacy running through my mind constantly for the past 24 hours or so and I am wondering what my legacy will be? What will I leave for my children? Years after my death will colleges use my life, my business for a case study? Will business owners look to my legacy as an example or model to follow in establishing and developing their own businesses?

I am 27 years old, no formal education beyond High School, I currently am attending a community college, I own and operate my own business, of which I am content with but not completely satisfied with. I feel that there is more, more to do, more opportunities to be had. I wonder about my future and the decisions I am making today and how they will impact my legacy.

Why is this so important to me? For starters I have always had dreams of being “important”, meaning I want to be someone of authority someone with answers to peoples problems, I want to be a “household name”. Not in the sense that General Electric is, but more like Apple and Stephan Covey. I want to help people in important ways like Apple and Covey have. Apple is revolutionizing technology providing great tools for families, students and business. Covey has helped thousands of people change their lives, improve their families and enhance their businesses. His legacy will go on for years after his death, people will be using his profound ideas to solve problems and change things for decades to come!

I realize that there are some who do not become who they attempted to be until after their death. Some Artist and Poets become “famous” only after their death and then their legacy is realized. That however is not expectable to me! I have a good 60 years ahead of me in this life and many still in my young age where I am able to accomplish this desire.

In thinking about this desire and the word Legacy I have realized a few things where I need to find focus in my life in order to obtain my desire to establish a solid legacy. And don’t get me wrong, its not all about business and money, there are other things too. I want my children to be associated through name to an honest man who worked hard to help others.

John Maxwell, author of numerous books on leadership, said, “It’s been said that there are two kinds of people in life: those who make things happen and those who wonder what happened. Leaders have the ability to make things happen. People who don’t know how to make things happen for themselves won’t know how to make things happen for others.”

Maxwell went on to say, “What you do with the future means the difference between leaving a track record and leaving a legacy.”

That is exactly where I am going to start! My Future!

I think one of the biggest factors that determines the outcome of our future and thus creating our legacy is our careers. This is one of the most important decisions we make in this life. To support this I only need suggest that you evaluate your life as it is. Does your family suffer because you spend weeks on the road? Do you spend late nights at the office every week? What are the habits you have come accustomed to that could prove my point? For some people their careers are the most important thing to them in this life and thus everything else is an additive, and you know that’s fine too. But really take an unbiased evaluation of your situation and think about it.

There are six things we should evaluate when making the very important decision of what we should do for 40 hours a week every week of our lives.

Level of Interest
Aptitude and Training
Should be Challenging
Provide Self-worth
Enjoy Each Day
Provide Sufficient Income

Take a quick minute and review your career and ask yourself those questions. Then ask yourself what will my legacy be if I am doing something every day that feels like a dead end?

I understand that today in our present situation, where our economy and societies are trying to recover, some people are struggling to find work and are doing whatever they can to survive.

And on the other hand, did you know that experts have said more fortunes are made during a economic crisis then any other time?

I read an article just last night entitled, Set aside 10% of your work for retirement not 10% of your income. The idea of the article is to work on creating an additional income while working at your current job. Not anything new, it is actually the same thing I have heard for years. It is the same thing that every MLM business preaches. I think this time it hit home because of the way it was presented.

For every 10 hours you work at your job, spend 1 hour working on your side business. This side business does not have to be something huge, it does not have to be something you want to convert into a full blown business. It can be a simple way to generate an extra couple of hundred dollars a month. It my be something that you plan on only doing for a while then throwing away after it has yielded the result you wanted. The key is to avoid setting aside more than 10% of your work. Other wise you will get burnt out and quit before you even get started. And not only that, but your family will start to struggle as well. All things in moderation, it is important to keep your life balanced.

If you feel like your job is a dead end, if you feel like what you spend 40 hours a week every week of your life doing is unimportant and meaningless, find something that fits into the first five essential points above and make that the thing you do to set aside 10% of your work.

Really quickly I want to point out a part of this article that was really intriguing to me:

“… [This] will help you reach your goal of early semi-retirement decades earlier than you would otherwise be able. It is not inconceivable you could reach the point of being financially capable of quitting the 9-5 world permanently within 5 years of implementing this plan. How? It’s simple: set aside 10% of your work efforts to income-generating side products in addition to saving the regular 10% of your income for retirement.”

I point that out for two reasons, I think that it provides motivation and helps your more fully understand how it works and how it works properly.

This idea sounds great right! I think it does, I think it actually works! However, I do want to suggest two additional things to consider before making the attempt. To be sure that you have your ducks in a row, so to speak.

First, create your plan…Lay out the next five years the best you can with what you know
Second, take your time deciding what your going to do.

If you have this planned out, you have picked your “muse” (read the article), then your ready to give it a go!

If your interested in changing your future and creating a legacy that you and your family will be proud of, then hopefully my suggestions will help you do that!

Starting somewhere to change our future will be “…the difference between leaving a track record and leaving a legacy.”