How to Leave a Legacy in Life and Work?

When I was a child, I lived in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where my father developed his honey business, then traded granola with my uncle, and they made a lot of money, especially in the late 1970s.

Note: This article is based on the blogger Glenn Sanford, who tells us about the importance of leaving a legacy of good and valuable impressions that we should add to others.

After that, my father introduced me to personal development by giving me a copy of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. He also taught me that good work is not about numbers but about people.

When he became an oil and gas investor, we moved to Oklahoma City, where he helped 12 companies go public through a reverse merger - the acquisition of a public company by a private company which resulted in the private company going public with no capital increase and no initial public offering (IPO).

The reverse merger is a less costly and time-consuming way to go public. It doesn't require raising capital for a traditional IPO, and I learned a lot in those years after helping investors with PR and other tasks. In addition, my father also lost all his money in those years. Investing is challenging and unsecured.

However, he got up again and went on. At the age of 84, he kept taking risks, trying and failing at new things; that is what it means to be an entrepreneur. He once told me that taking a job is more dangerous than starting a business. Many people have potential, but the comfort zone prevents them from achieving their full potential, and this is what I inherited from my father, a life of freedom and risk-taking.

For me, the legacy is not just about the material factor, although it is essential for your children and grandchildren. However, it is more about reputation, the memories you leave to others, whether you are an inspiration to them, the attitudes you have taken in your life, and your values that have stood the test of time.

Thinking about the legacy you will leave is like asking yourself “why?”:

• Why did you create this business?
• Why am I making sacrifices to promote this work?
• Why did I choose to go down this path and what do I hope will lead to me in the end?

But the right thing for me is to ask yourself, "Why not?"

• Why don't you get to work?
• Why don't you think about affecting others positively?
• Why don't you see how your business evolves over time?

You have to do something in life, and the question that starts with “why not” will enable you to achieve this. Even when you reach a point where you can retire, you will continue so that you do not lose your identity, and when you continue to build your goals and strive to achieve them, your influence in life increases, and this is what entrepreneurs do.

For me, goals are continuous, so no matter where you are or what you do, you can always make more impact. One of the ways I try to measure this in my companies is by my Net Promoter Score (NPS) by asking one question on a scale of one to ten: How likely are you to recommend this service, product, or company to a colleague or friend?

Depending on the answer, we identify key drivers and issues within the company, allowing us to focus on the simplest things that contribute to employee and client happiness and company development.

For me, Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an indicator of how well I am building the legacy I plan to leave and an indicator of how well I listen to those around me. My goal is always to add value to others, but if my NPS is around three or four out of 10, that means I'm not adding enough value or adding it in the wrong place.

When you think about your legacy, don't limit your thinking to profit numbers and the size of your business. Look for a long-term problem that you haven't been able to solve and solve it yourself.

By doing so, you will create a legacy of innovation, and you will add value to others. You may already know some of the things you can do, and there will be a lot of work to do, but when you finish it and take a look at it, you will see how much progress you have made, which is a legacy worth building.