How to Create a Legacy To Be Proud Of
When We Think About Our Legacy We Plant Seeds For Living Our Best Life
How do you want to be remembered? What is your lasting legacy in this world? When we ask ourselves these questions we plant seeds for living a life that we ourselves can deeply value.
In January of 2019 I agreed to teach a class at UC Berkeley called Effective Leadership and Management. I took on this responsibility because I deeply wanted to understand what elements comprise a great leader and how we strengthen those inherent characteristics in ourselves. In this class, I assigned a book called A Leader’s Legacy by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. In a nutshell, the premise of the book asks us to consider the legacy we are leaving behind. We tend to question if an average person leaves a legacy, but I can assure you that they do. As we go about our day-to-day lives and do the work we do we do leave a legacy for better or worse.
The Work We Chose to Do
After my husband died seven years ago I was left with no life insurance and two children to raise alone. I had just started my company Ocean SF a sustainable and ethically produced sailing apparel brand and didn’t want to see that die as well, so I took on every side hustle I could find and fit into my schedule. I would often work 15 days in a row without a day off. Sometimes I would work all day and then take a catering job that night. Looking back I regret none of it because I taught my daughters how to work hard. Really hard. It was also an entrance into worlds I had before no idea existed.
One of my favorite side hustles was working for a wedding caterer where I catered 26 weddings one spring and summer. Another was working for a distillery where I bottled boutique liquor with other day laborers. Eventually, I gravitated to the jobs where I could have the most impact. Refilling a buffet of food was fun, but the impact I was making was minimal. Helping Gold Bar bottle whiskey had a significant impact because I saw in the owners the kind of dedication I had for my own company Ocean SF, and I wanted to be the sort of worker that I would like to have. That gig also had other perks which included meeting engaging people employed in the gig economy and for me lots of whiskey. Not everyone got whiskey, but I did, so I drank a lot of high-quality whiskey that year.
Finding Your Legacy & Providing Impact
My next side hustle became one of the most important things I would ever do in my life and one that provided the most impact. I answered an ad on Craig’s List looking for educators to train in educational therapy. I would be teaching language arts to struggling readers in K-6 grade. By this time I had spent four years teaching at UC Berkeley in their International Division Certification program. I taught marketing then, just one class per semester. With this experience, I was hired. The Learning Therapist job was close to home and I worked 3–6 p.m. leaving plenty of time to bottle whiskey, cater weddings, and build my brand Ocean SF. I was also a security guard once a month at Treasure Festival on Treasure Island, you can read more about that here.
The legacy perspective explicitly reveals that we make a difference. Then the only question remaining to consider is, What kind of difference do I want to make? — A Leaders Legacy
At the time I wasn’t thinking of legacy I was thinking of impact. I wanted my time to matter and I wanted to have a positive influence and make a difference no matter what I was doing. When someone you are married to for 20 years goes to work one day and doesn’t come back this gives you a very different view of the world and your place in it. I remember thinking at the time that everything I did moving forward would matter greatly to my daughters and it certainly has. I was changed by what happened and from then on I didn’t want to waste a single moment. I had no time for television, hanging out with people I didn’t like, or doing work for just a paycheck and because my heart was broken I felt entitled to do this for myself. In the past, I had let things slide. I would tolerate difficult situations so as not to cause problems, but no more. There came a point where I simply could not compromise.
When I was younger I thought my family would be my legacy and I would be the sort of wife and mother who played a supporting role and hosted large holiday dinners. Although this is still part of how I see myself, and after all of that catering I am an effortless hostess, there is still so much more that I can give and offer the world to establish a meaningful legacy.
Now, Im living in San Francisco. My children are both college graduates and I am still working on Ocean SF and advocating for ocean causes and paying fair wages to garment workers. Recently my daughter told me I should be doing more. She asked me why I’m not doing more for my city, and why I’m not more involved in politics and making things better for the next generation. I went home after this conversation and began to think seriously about my next chapter and what kind of impact I want to have and how can I use my platform to advocate for the causes I believe in.
As most of my peer group slows down I am feeling a need to speed up. I am not ready to slow down at least not yet. I want to continue to live my life in a meaningful way. My company Ocean SF not only sells clothes it trains women to be great leaders through my summer intern program and it acts as an advocate for ocean causes and ethical labor laws. I am exploring how I can do more than that but I am sure there is a way.
I want to continue to contribute to society and leave behind a legacy of service that protects the environment and the economically vulnerable while helping others to thrive and grow.
What’s your legacy going to be?