ROSS SWAN

LEAVING YOUR LEGACY

Ross Swan

The first step to leaving a legacy is knowing what it is, and how you can leave one behind. Well, to me a legacy is what impression or mark someone leaves behind. It’s something that can continue to grow and be an influence on others after you have gone. It can be viewed as a legacy that you leave behind with a former employer, or in a bigger sense, of life in general. These legacies, if they are truly authentic, would not be different, just a subtle difference in the context.

Also, your legacy does not necessarily mean the later stages of your life, although people do tend to think of it more at that stage as they become more reflective in their passing years. You should be reflecting and working on your legacy every day. In essence, its how you go about living your life. It’s you.

One thing you need to understand is that you are actually leaving a legacy whether you are conscious of it or not. Whatever the impact of your behaviour will be your legacy. So, as you would think, all legacies are not necessarily positive, the questions to ask is, how do I want mine to be, how do I want to be remembered? Remember, people only ever remember you by how you made them feel. So if you want to leave a positive legacy, it needs to be about people and what positive impact you made on them. If you are focussed on something less human, for example, an architect building a spectacular building. It will only be remembered by how it mage people feel when looking at it and when inside.

Ask yourself, ‘what do I want people to remember me for’ or simply ‘how do I want to be remembered’? I put questions like this to my coaching clients, and I have never yet had anyone respond with a legacy you would consider negative.

Even though, at their current juncture in life it probably is. The key to leaving a legacy to be proud of, is to understand your purpose in life. That is, what do you believe you are on this earth to do. point it, then it can create a disconnect. This can lead to certain undesirable leadership behaviour issues cropping up. Being unsure or unaware of your life purpose it can create anxiety as you are most likely will revert to living with your ego rather than your inner self. So, what differentiates good leaders from others, they always have a conviction of purpose. Its purpose that creates the drive and leaves the legacy. This comes from within you, it gives you consistency and balance, two important leadership traits. subsets of the bigger picture, your life purpose which you may discover at any stage of you evolve through life. For example, for a 30-year-old your purpose could just be having a happy family. When the children grow older, and you have more time to focus on other things, then you could be in a better position discover what’s next. Either way you need to enjoy the journey so put positive energy into whatever is happening in your life at that moment.

For this article, I am using the word leader in the broader sense. That is, you as a leader of self or you as a leader of a team. To add to this, throughout my years coaching leaders, I have found that successful team leaders have one thing in common. The all can successfully lead themselves. So the behaviours are, in essence the same, just the context is different.

As a leader, or one who is in a leadership role, if you are unsure of your life purpose and not yet quite able to pin-

The thing to understand is not to get to stressed if you don’t believe you have clarity of your overriding life purpose. Just focus on the purpose at that time. For example, this can evolve as we age, as a 30-yearold your purpose could just be having a happy family. When the children grow older, and you have more time to focus on other things, then you could be in a better position to discover what’s next? The point here is that focussing on a purpose is key. I am a good parent, employee friend etc. etc. To me, these are all the

Notwithstanding, it all comes from within you, and that authenticity doesn’t change. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person you are at age 20 will be the same as who you are 60. It just means that at 20 you are still discovering the real you, something you will continue to do as you age through the years. That’s the beautiful experience of life.

Which comes to you first, your legacy or your purpose? To me it’s not a chicken and egg thing. Legacy is the key. It will help you find purpose as it reveals to you the person you want to be. The real you as it comes from within. In essence, your legacy becomes you purpose.

As a leader, or one who is in a leadership role, if you are unsure of your life purpose and not yet quite able to pin-point it, then it can create a disconnect. This can lead to certain undesirable leadership behaviour issues cropping up.

So, as I started earlier, ask yourself the question, ‘what do I want people to remember me for’ or simply ‘how do I want to be remembered’? These feeling questions answered honestly will connect you with that inner self. You then convert your answer into behaviours as it doesn’t happen by chance. You must work hard on being the person you want to be.

It also takes courage to stick with those behaviours and not be influenced by who’s around you. When you find it tough, go back to your response and how you want to be remembered.

This should reenergise you. If it doesn’t then go back and ask the question again, the answer may have changed.

I have had clients who have looked at the legacy they want to leave several times a day, because it was a long journey from were they to where they want to be. They needed a lot of reminding and these ‘pit stops’ gave them the fuel to keeping moving forward. I as write this sentence I started to smile because I can picture them with fondness, because they were all successful in living the legacy they wanted to leave.

And, yes, you can do it to. Remember, your life does matter, so leave a positive legacy you can be proud of.

About Ross Swan

CEO Soul Inspired Leadership

Pte Ltd

Ross is a perceptive and responsive leadership consultant, coach, and trainer, with broad experience in varied industries worldwide continually helping leaders to reduce their stress in managing people.

Ross is also a dynamic speaker and podcaster with outstanding skills in communication, presentation, training, teambuilding, and interpersonal relations. He works internationally with his projects encompassing many diverse cultural backgrounds.

Throughout the years, Ross has developed a growing desire to put an ongoing emphasis in bringing more soul into business and he believes that the most effective leaders stay true to their authenticity by being soul inspired and it starts by being able to lead yourself.

You can catch Ross at: www.soul-inspired-leadership. com https://www.linkedin.com/in/ rossswan1/ https://twitter.com/RossSwan2