The Topic
Let's talk about LEGACY. When we think of legacy, the first thing we have in mind is that it is such a big deal and not really our stuff as we do not want to build any legacy but just enjoy life. However, when we reverse engineer our life from the point where we are breathing the last few breaths, the legacy would mean something meaningful that is left behind for the people we loved.
The Learning Points
What is actually legacy?
Legacy to me is something that I can leave behind without physically there or alive. Usually, it refers to some values that are committed to the community where people benefited from it. The bigger the impact, the greater the legacy is. Nevertheless, having the guts to think about building a legacy is something that is going to be challenging yet fulfilling at the very end of the road.
Why does legacy matters?
Obviously, we will think of why legacy matters? Shouldn't we just keep the YOLO lifestyle and care less about legacy and others. As I started to study more about successful people and happy people, I find a similarity that is very glaring. All of them are committed to helping. It may not be physically helping someone, but it can go in the forms of monetary, changing policy, improving facilities, building schools and many more. We see billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Brandson all staking into space travel which they would like to make that as part of their legacy as the pioneer of opening up the commercial space travel. Bill Gates with Melinda Gates have also tirelessly work on fighting diseases and improving the hygiene level of the rural and underdeveloped regions. All of which is to left themselves with a legacy.
To be honest, when a person has already achieved a certain wealth level, more money will no more excite the person. Thus, building legacy is a life long thing to work on and that is also one of the great motivation and light for finding a purpose in life. Many have lost on what they want to do in their life and ended up with bad habits that would affect their senior life.
Tikkun Olam - Serving the world
Learning the concept of Tikkun Olam from Judaism which is mentioned by Maverick Foo from his sharing on a webinar. From Wikipedia, the phrase means aspiration to behave and act constructively and beneficially. In other words, to act beneficially would be to be a benefit to others. Many times we think that serving others is something that we can do only when we are wealthy and able. Yet, it is not the case. All the business, literally are serving people with certain products or services. Values can only be generated by holding on to this concept of Tikkun Olam.
How to start?
Speaking of which, different people may be at a different stage of life. Here are four stages that I get from Maverick's sharing:
- Survive - literally survival mode where we are earning less than 100k per year and need to work 24/7 to survive. This is one of the hardest parts in life and I am currently in this stage. As for legacy, we do not need to think about it. Just focus on building revenues that could at least get us through the survival mode.
- Sustain - a transition stage before we get into the comfort zone. This is where we have 12 hours of working hours and start to earn around 500k per year. In this stage, we can start with a small legacy like donations to local charity institutions.
- Scale - this is where we are going on a big swing with 1 million income per year and having the flexibility to work at flexible hours but still need to be committed to the business. Here, we are seeing a bigger legacy can be made like building a CSR team that could help some needy people, create jobs and so on.
- Soar - this is the peak of all where we are earning an approximate 10 million per year and having the financial freedom to do whatever we want at any point in time. Of course, it does not mean that we can totally disregard business as that is part of the passion and legacy as well (providing job opportunity). Yet, the legacy part is elevated to a recognition level. People like Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, Michael Bloomberg, Jack Ma and so on are all trying to build their place in this field.
So back to the question on where to start, it is important that we know where are we currently and work towards the next level.
To a satisfactory life
For me, a satisfactory life would mean at least staying at the Scale Level where I have flexibility in my work as well as a good income to live on. Personally, I would not want to be worrying about money but worrying that my business is not impactful enough. Thus, starting my part in the education business to train people in creativity is the starting point for me to build my fortune as well as legacy.
Inspiration
Legacy is really something that we should all think about at least once a year to really get to know what we really want in life. Losing our direction in life and even our own identity is really something not to be taken lightly as it will lead us to a limbo world without an exit. We do not want to get trap in that situation and suffer for the rest of our life. Hence, it is good that we can boldly face this question from time to time and ask ourselves, what do we really want to do in our life time.
Reference
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Record
Daily Inspired #00 - My Beginning
Daily Inspired #01
Daily Inspired #02
Daily Inspired #03
Daily Inspired #04
Daily Inspired #05
Daily Inspired #06