How to Erroneously Define your Legacy

What I love about helping entrepreneurs and business owners define their legacy, is that at any moment you don’t know where a conversation might go. You see as far as I’m concerned every human is looking to define their legacy, even if they don’t use that particular language right now, and you might not.

In this context, we are talking about legacy future, once our souls are no longer on this planet. Some are under the impression that legacy is only to be found in material circumstances.  Some are carrying the presuppositions from family as to what a “legacy should” look like. 

Some are only focusing on the external shifts that need to happen to create a future legacy, rather than shifting their own internal experience. And for some, which is where we are focusing on today, they are struggling to define their future legacy, from their present mindset and legacy.

Perspective on legacy

Let me share with you a story from my upbringing as to how defining our future legacy from the present moment can show up.  I come from what would be categorised as a lower-middle-class family.  We went on package holidays and stayed with relatives, but we didn’t stay in hotels and certainly not five-star hotels. I didn’t do that for a very long time.

So when a previous mentor asked me to describe the best holiday I could think of, and they actually mentioned luxury hotels, I didn't know what that was. When I was being pushed to define my best holiday in terms of a luxury hotel, I could only describe it from my present state based on my past legacy which didn’t involve them. 

I couldn’t make it real. I could say it physically out loud. But I couldn’t feel it as real in my soul that this could happen as I didn’t have any emotional markers in my past or present legacy to assist me. And as such it was an exercise that didn’t land with me, that is to say, it didn’t make a transformational impact on my desired legacy.

You see what I was experiencing, like so many of my 121 clients, is cognitive bias as related to creating a legacy goal. Cognitive bias is systematic thinking that occurs when you are processing and interpreting information in the world. Cognitive bias is the brains' way of simplifying information processing, like trying to speed up a computer.

And whilst it might speed things up, it can also lead to a bias as to how you make sense of the world and reach decisions as something as large as your legacy.

If I was to ask you, what would be your dream legacy you want to create? As you might be trying to process that question.  And to your unconscious mind that I know is, it’s okay to sit and be with that question at a later date if you want to.

The only option available to you is to answer the question from your present state as in the present moment who you are right now. That is using all that you know, all that you perceive is possible. Using All that you’ve seen those before you create as their legacy.

Defining legacy

Therein can be why we can erroneously define our legacy. Because what if you don’t know what you don’t know. What if your legacy is beyond your current scope of perception? What if the problem with the Walt Disney quote of “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Is that we can’t dream it, because we have no reference point or knowledge from which to dream?

Can you feel the weight of that one, what if your dream future legacy is beyond your current scope of knowledge? For me, this is where the power and the fun starts as a master transformational coach. Because for my clients as well as being their biggest cheerleader and biggest challenger, I’m also going to add to their Chief Inspirer onto the list.

Well, I can’t take credit for that one.... one of my 121 clients who define themselves as a visionary, asked that when they signed up for their last 12-month program with me, they were specifically hiring a Chief Inspirer to enable them to dream bigger.

That’s part of my role when you are creating your future legacy, including the impact that you want to have in the world, to inspire you and hold your vision as truth, maybe sometimes even before my clients can see it.

I want to focus on how you can expand your future legacy thinking so extend your knowledge base from which to dream. And the 1^st exercise I want to do for you, is against my usual style of coaching.

What I want to do is to hack your reticular activating system. Or RAS for short. Your RAS is a bundle of nerves at your brainstem that filters out unnecessary information so the important things can go through, more of less like a sieve. I want to hack your RAS to consider areas regarding future legacy, that you may or may not have considered before.

What legacy could be

A note to your ego-mind that legacy exists in the present and the future, for you and for others, and no judgement exists when even considering what legacy you want to create. So when you want to dream, when you want to consider what your legacy may be, do NOT bring judgement. Bring acceptancy, opportunity and happiness.

Here are some examples from myself, from clients and for you to consider of potential aspects of what a legacy could be:

• Set up a charity
• Invested in property for those after you
• Visit new countries around the world
• Enable your children to emerge from college/ university debt free
• Donate % of profit of business
• Pay off mortgages for family members
• Establish your company as a b-corp
• % of your work is pro-bono
• Visit your dream luxury hotel/ resort
• Talk on the largest platform about your mission
• Buy a family vacation house in cash for the whole family to use
• Become the lead in a reality show about female-owned businesses
• Be a leader in your community
• Write 3 books that are published to critical acclaim
• Create a scholarship each year for new entrepreneurs in my industry
• Engage in collaborative philanthropy on issue of clean water and sanitation

 So as you read this your mind will have absorbed or let go of those which may resonate or those to expand your knowledge base. Cause remember we are looking to expand before we even create your legacy.

Taking action

Taking these ideas onboard how can you easily and efficiently gain rich knowledge to enable your legacy to seed from? I want to give you some quick tips but you need to take action yourself.

Stay curious - This is actually one of my central values, having a forever curious mind. How can you be curious? In- and outside of your industry. In- and outside of your business format. For yourself.

Reading – Reading has to be shown to be so important. Read novels and literature and outside of your expertise zone. I see this with people all the time, they read within their zone of expertise. Read other things. Expand your creative mindset. Read things randomly from outside. Because you never know where a seed may germinate from.

Listening to podcasts - such as my own podcast Wielding Legacy 

Observe those creating legacies - We do so much in our life from what we call modelling. Modelling is a fancy term for observing people and trying what they do. It’s like trying on a hat. Who is creating a legacy that you admire?

Self-reflection - What your soul desires to create legacy wise. The answer to creating your desired legacy is not external. If you don’t know the how right now, welcome to the club. Most people don’t. When I’m working with visionaries, with people who are creating such a large future legacy, if they can only just conceive what that legacy is, they have no clue on how to do the how of it. So welcome to the club.

Creativity – I’m going to ask you to allow yourself to be open and experience creativity in a wide range of forms. Creativity also by doing, not just by watching. Creativity can be found in so many places. Cooking is creative, get in the kitchen. Gardening, it’s painting, it’s pottery, it’s going to a wonderful exhibition. For some, it maybe just be being in nature.

Connect – Connect with other people. If you don’t have a tribe of other people yet, that’s something to look at filling. Look for other people who are on the same path who are looking to create a large legacy for themselves. Connect with yourself, this goes back to point 5, connect with your inner self because you have the answers. Connect with nature, for the lessons that the original mother has for you.

Learn something for no purpose other than for pure enjoyment - I’ll let you in on a secret. One 121 client that I was working with, an amazing talented soul, had just come to start working with me. Was already on the path to burnout, had forgotten how to have fun, how to do anything that had not a purpose in business.

Reading, watching TV, friends, everything came back to business. She forgot how to do something for herself. So what would you like to learn? It doesn’t have to relate to qualifications, it can be anything like horse-riding.

Remember my story about the luxury hotel? All of these 8 points that I have just given you, there are ways you can show how this treads through my story. The only way I could even understand that I want to go to a luxury hotel was to stay curious. It was something I did not know. I immersed myself, I listened, I watched. I visited hotel websites and watched so many films to see if this was something I wanted. I was modelling it.

If anybody wants to go anywhere and you are not sure you want to, do this exercise. If part of your legacy is living somewhere or owning a property. Go and use this methodology.

Go and use Google maps. Go and walk along the street. If you can physically go somewhere, even if you can’t stay there. (Go to a luxury hotel just for a coffee) The smells and everything else that you experience will bring it to life for you.

Then you can work out if it is something you actually want to do, something you desire to do before you even achieve it.  It’s the same premise if you are considering moving or property being part of your legacy, go and tour houses, visit local areas and try the legacy on, like a rehearsal to see how it feels. It’s like a dress rehearsal. I’m inviting you to be curious, to expand your knowledge. As we work together, to build your legacy.

Before we actually define legacy, expand your knowledge base from which to dream and conceive from.

If you're looking for support to move your business and life forward, you can work with me in the following ways:

Firstly a 90 minute on demand session, for a super boost of top-line strategy for how to kick off your 2022 for success.

Secondly a private accelerator day in person or on Zoom and 30 days of support, including 2 121 sessions. 

And if you are ready to work together 121, then why not come and listen to the podcast over on Apple Podcasts called Wielding Legacy