A few weeks ago, fellow Kamazooie member, Brad, posted a blog on preserving your financial legacy. At that time, I commented that I wanted to come back and talk more about the non-financial legacy so here comes that.

If you know me, or if you've read my blogs, you may have caught on that I'm a little preoccupied with legacy. Maybe its a fear of dying, or maybe it’s because I struggle with the dreaded "meaning of life". Maybe still, I've seen some great men and women and I aspire to do as well as they did to leave a mark on the world. I also read a lot of books on the subject of achieving success and happiness by writers like Stephen Covey and Deepak Chopra. I've also read a very good one recently by a guy that usually writes techical books, named Clayton Christensen, titled "How Will You Measure Your Life". All this to point out again, that I spend a lot of time and self study on this topic. It likely also has some connection with surpassing that dreaded 50-year milestone where you've definitely not checked out yet, but you are able to see the exit sign from here.

So what has all of this preoccupation with the meaning of life done for me? Well it has allowed me, in my own mind, to summarize some key findings and goals for living my life. If you want the Coles Notes version of what I've come up with, here goes:

• Don't hurt people - its a no-win situation.
• Find out what makes you happy and pursue that with passion - but respect item 1, above.
• Try to raise you kids with good clean values like, love, respect, tolerance, hard work at work and hard play at home. Your kids are your real living legacy of course. (For those of you who may have read an earlier blog about my Mom, you know I consider myself very lucky that I had such great parents so I'm a little bit of living legacy right there I guess)
• Learn to laugh at yourself - because we're all very funny at times.
• Give people the benefit of the doubt. My experience is that 9 times out of 10, I was wrong when I thought they had negative intentions.
• Do your best to be open-minded and not lock into a particular viewpoint if you don't have to. I've found that it can be quite embarrassing to be wrong when you thought you were so right.
• Listen more than you talk and think about talking only when your not supposed to be listening.
• Live in the moment and love the one you're with (its quite important to adopt this one only in a spiritual way except when you're with your significant other ;-)
• Try to find the time to help others out - it really does come back in spades ala "Pay it forward"

So there it is, one small person's view of how to live a good life. The other thing that I've learned in business and in personal life is, getting something right usually involves discipline. Yet another thing is that if you keep practicing something (discipline), it becomes your nature and pretty soon it’s not challenging to be disciplined anymore. You've probably seen people that are really nice all the time. They always remember to say and do the nicest things and you wonder, "Hmm, is that really the way they are, or are they just putting that out there". What I've found is it really doesn't matter as long as it is a consistent behavior; whether they do these things out of their nature or out of a disciplined approach, they've taken that on; the effect is the same, they take the time to recognize things and wish people well and generally make your day a little better and that's good enough for me.

But that's not even what I sat down to write about today, I want to talk about living your legacy. I think it is Stephen Covey's 2nd highly effective habit that says

"Start with the end in mind." His example, which truly applies to legacy is, "Imagine someone getting up to deliver your eulogy. What do you want them to say about you as a family person; about you in your community; about how you lived your life?"

Think about that, maybe even take the time to write some of those ideas down. If you did, you would have your living legacy. If you focused on the gaps, you would have the plan for the things you should start working on; the things you have yet to become disciplined at.

I'm not saying I have perfected my life, it is definitely a work-in-progress but there is a plan and it is progressing. I welcome your thoughts on what you believe is the recipe for good living and leaving a legacy that you and others will be proud. If you know me and are comfortable enough, I would also be happy to hear what other parts you think I should work at becoming more disciplined at. I wish you well in finding your own meaning of life and to further refining your own work-in-progress.