The Legacy Drawing Board

We don't set out to wrong or harm others, but we will.  How we make amends is dependent on the forethought we exercise during calm times.  Invest the time to design how you apologize will direct the influence of your legacy.  

Your story doesn't need a spinoff, reboot, or a sequel.  Take the time to craft your story and keep maintain it as a relationship with your audience, not a transition to gain attention or generate revenue.  All your story needs is a beginning, a middle, an end, and your courage to end it when it is complete.  

About 1 in 10 adult children are severing relationships with their parents.  Parents are left shocked and confused.  Listen to understand the driving factors and how storytelling can keep your family intact and you relevant in your children's lives.  Your legacy is not your children; it is the relationship with your children.  

Move beyond show and tell and embrace show, tell, and do.  Align your thoughts, words, and deeds to delivery a clear and consistent message.  Virtue signaling is not virtuous.  When you show, do you display and do you reveal?  The former is transactional; the latter is relational.  Design your story to balance and to integrate show, tell, and do.  

Autumn marks the transition to shorter days and cooler temperatures.  The laziness of summer gives way to the resumption of school schedules and work loads.  It is a time of harvest, to bring forth the fruits of seeds planted in the spring.  Your legacy is a labor of love.  Take the time to reflect on your efforts.  Listen to renew your aspirations and travel on new roads.  

You were never meant to carry on another's legacy.  Legacies can inspire and encourage.  They can point to a direction, but not determine a destination.  How you deliver your legacy matters.  It is part of the message.  Listen to ensure your legacy is a blessing, not a burden.  

Have you built your legacy on a platform or a stage?  Does your legacy facilitate exchanges and participations or passive viewing and listening?  Listen to see the difference between a platform and a stage and how that difference influences the impact and direction of your legacy.  

Americana is the tapestry of our collective history, folklore and culture.  It identifies, unites, and inspires us to go west and to the moon.  What is the collective history, story, and culture of your legacy?  Listen to explore and to articulate the cultural artifacts and symbols that characterize your legacy.  

"Water seeks its own level."  "Still waters run deep."  Water's physical properties direct the nature of its flow.  Water's function is dependent on its movement in controlled measures.  What is the nature of your legacy's flow?  How are you directing its flow?  Listen to explore the path your legacy is traveling and whether that is your intended direction.  

Our legacy is more than than what we did.  It is also what we did not do.  Guidelines and standards help us navigate through temptations and peer pressure.  As you build you legacy, have you clearly demarcated the lines you will not cross?  Your character and legacy are defined by your adherence and respect to these lines.  

Patience is a virtue and a gift.  When you practice patience, you gift others the space to grow.  Patience is not passive waiting.  It is a unselfish decision to allow others to find their place at their own pace.  Patience enriches storytelling by supporting deep interactions and appreciating nuance.  Exercise patience and your legacy enriches.  

Jaclyn Orent, co-founder and CEO of Cultural Catalysts Network, provides practical insights to the seasoned corporate leader to the recent high school graduate on how to improve the world by mastering self.  Listen to see how sharing your vision, compassion, and energy will widen your scope and deepen the impact you have in improving the world.  

Shepherd leadership is a better model than servant leadership.  The servant model detracts from leadership by its redundancy, passivity, and limited scope.  If you are not willing to serve, you are unfit to lead.  Shepherds are proactive protectors who do not wait for instructions to lead their flock to safety and pastures where they can prosper.   

The Japanese art/architecture form of kigumi builds houses without nails.  Nail-less structures have the space and flexibility to absorb the shock of earthquakes, are less likely to have wood splitting from changes in humidity, and accommodate seamless assembly and replacement.   Have you built your relationships to withstand stressful forces?  Do you lead by joining people together as opposed to...

Approximately 12.5 million Americans are solo agers.  Some never planned to spend their latter years alone.  Changing trends in active disengagement reduce the reach of our social networks and strain community cohesion.  Many will be left wondering what their legacy will be.  Listen to transition from life planning to legacy building.  

We are flawed beings who stumble on our journeys.  Often, we looked for a way to correct our course.  We can supply each other with that by designing offramps of grace and mercy.  Listen to be a beacon of humanity to those who are at points of great need.  

Danielle Philips created the They Were Here Foundation to build a legacy for her daughter Angelina, who died from cancer.  The foundation provides a space for grieving individuals to keep the voices of departed loved ones alive through storytelling.  Listen to hear how others are choosing to honor lost family and friends by bringing memories to life.  

A composite baseball bat is a technological wonder that compensates for a hitter's limited skill by producing towering homeruns that surprise even the hitter.  A wooden bat is less forgiving when the hitter fails to execute.  Contact at the wrong place can lead to a spray of wood in the field with the batter walking back to the dugout with only the handle in hand.  The wood bat has heft that provi...

Explore your legacy as cinema.  Produce your life story as a filmmaker. Develop a script from a vision, "cast" the people in your life by building meaningful relationships, and collaborate with other artists to enrich and to clarify your story.  Make your legacy the best picture possible.  

Stained glass was referred to as the "Bible of the poor."  We can use the process of creating stain glass as a model for designing and building our legacies.  Is your legacy accessible and understandable to the masses?  Does it reflect, reflect, and diffract sunlight into a dance that fills dark rooms with hope and joy?  Listen to infuse your legacy with the beauty of the rainbow's richness.

Garbage in, garbage out.  This is the essence of system designs.  Pivot to beauty in, beauty out for your legacy design.  Listen to blend and balance design concepts from art and engineering to build your intended legacy and a reserve for recentering it when things go awry.  

Who are your role models for mentorship as you begin to mentor?  The Bible provides us with five examples of men who fulfilled the fundamental responsibility of mentorship: protecting the mentee.  Initially, this will be from external threats.  As the relationship matures, the mentor will need to protect the mentee from internal threats.  Mentors take on this duty because they serve a higher purpo...

It's important to pause from legacy building to legacy evaluation.  Set aside time to reflect and to ask others about your legacy.  How fit is it in terms of delivering your message and touching the lives of others?  Examine it for its strength, flexibility, mobility, and balance.   

Writer Farley Ledgerwood identified the four kinds of people you need in your life: 👤 The person who won't let you quit. 👤 The person who won't let you pretend. 👤 The person who makes you feel less alone just by existing. 👤 The person who knew you before the armor.  Listen to examine your relationships and what direction you want them to go.

Do you show before you tell?  Have you established your identity before assuming responsibilities?  Listen to appreciate the importance of placing indicatives before imperatives in your legacy design and building.  Doing so will position your legacy to empower than to burden.