The Legacy Drawing Board

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.   

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.  

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.