How to Leave a Legacy You’re Proud Of: An Open Letter to Professionals at Every Career Stage
Legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy
Black excellence, you gon’ let ’em see
If having walk-on music before a big executive meeting were the norm, without question, I would choose Jay-Z’s “Legacy” from his 4:44 album. The moment the child coos, “Daddy, what’s a will,” and the beat drops, I am reminded why the lessons matter, why the failures are needed, and why my inner motivation fuels every decision I make.
Unlike many professionals, I don’t wake up and chase after a title. I’m not much concerned with being “the Black version of [insert established tech mogul name here].” I am motivated by one single aspiration: to instill the lessons, values, and resources I didn’t have growing up into my children, teams, and mentees, and continue a lineage of Black excellence.
My legacy will remind little Black boys and girls what is possible; that academics can be your escape and your way out of a bad situation, and that wealth is nothing if you don’t give back to your community.
In a world that craves instant gratification and is obsessed with building “personal brands,” it’s time we challenge ourselves to think bigger than the upcoming promotion, daydream beyond the retirement party speech, and answer the question, What is the legacy I want to leave?
What Does it Mean to Leave a Legacy?
The word itself, legacy, can feel overwhelming or something that should be reserved for politicians, civil rights leaders, and executive officers of global companies. Quite the contrary, we all possess a higher purpose that is greater than ourselves, and it is our responsibility to discover it, nurture it, and share it within communities and workplaces.
Legacy is the belief system or core values you instill in others. It’s the actions you demonstrate and teach to others — whether you mean to or not — and it’s the torch of a mission that you hope to pass onto the next generation.
Perhaps you are a working mother, and your mission is to shatter the idea that you have to choose between being a mom and being a great employee. And you hope to show your children, spouse, and boss that you can choose your adventure; life doesn’t have to choose for you. And your resilience becomes your legacy, and without having to live 200 years, your actions have impacted generations that haven’t even been conceived yet. They’ll say, “If my great-grandmother could do it, I can do it.”
You could be a college student who wants to evolve the way we communicate in the classroom and ensure every child has the tools and resources for success. You accept a teaching job in a small town and begin to work with students each day. Over time, you make connections and coordinate community fundraisers to better support teachers and their classrooms. With each fundraiser, you raise awareness on the systematic issues that plague generations from ever having a fighting chance at success. You may never run for office, you may not have a glamorous library named after you, but your resourcefulness, combined with your passion for equity, changes the conversation surrounding education at the local level. You’ve taught each child that they are, indeed, worth the same opportunities as every other kid. And it’s that confidence that drives them to do good work as they get older.
Maybe your greatest hope is to enrich the lives of those who connect with you. You simply want to be a loyal confidante and be a calming presence when those you care about are facing adversity. So you actively listen when others speak, you show-up and prove to be dependable, you keep your word. Quietly, you’re demonstrating how honesty and loyalty can be two of the most important — and rare — virtues to have, especially in the workforce. And specifically, in the workplace, you’re a cornerstone of the company’s culture, inspiring a psychologically safe space for your team. And they become managers and leaders who cultivate a culture of psychological safety for their teams in the future.
Why Should We Care About Leaving a Legacy?
Believing that “you only live once” isn’t just a convenient excuse for impulsive behavior or a cringe-worthy reminder of 2011. It’s a limiting belief that encourages us to overwhelm our lives and our schedules with short-term sprints to fleeting finish lines. We’ve been conditioned to think about what we’ll regret on our deathbed, but often never think about the memories we’ll leave our loved ones with long after we’re gone. The next generation inherits our lessons, resources, and opportunities. By leaving them with only our accolades, we are leaving them empty-handed.
We’ve all experienced some form of advancement due to someone’s legacy. May it be a world leader who challenged cultural norms, a teacher who transformed the way we saw ourselves and the world, or a grandparent whose work ethic was unmatched, determined to create a better financial landscape for the family, and give back to the community. We are all here because of someone, and many of us strive to live up to a legacy that was left before us. When we abandon the idea of legacy or don’t allow ourselves to think about what we want to leave long after we’ve left the office building or life altogether, the doors that we closed for ourselves stay closed for others.
With a mindset focused on legacy rather than one lifetime, we open ourselves and others up to limitless possibilities. We’re able to create things money can’t buy: opportunities for others, shared space among different groups of people, cultural evolution, and most priceless of all, peace of mind. Zachariah George, the Cape Town-based co-founder of Startupbootcamp Africa, puts in more succinctly, “The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone. But the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”
How to Find Your Purpose
If you’ve never given thought to your legacy, you may feel unnecessary pressure to come up with the most prolific answer to a question about the lessons you hope to leave behind. I’m here to reassure you; it doesn’t have to be that complicated.
For me, things really came into focus at two different points in life. The first, when I attended Clark Atlanta, a historically Black college and university. Growing up in Delaware — in a single-parent household — I wasn’t exposed to Black excellence. Before being guided by the shepherds of my own, I was destined to be a statistic. Thankfully, I was shaped and groomed by educators who were intentional with their time, resources, and were likely thinking about the legacy they wanted to leave. Life would lead me to Clark Atlanta, and I knew the moment I stepped on campus, there was a story to share with my community back home. I needed others to know there was a way out of poverty that didn’t involve crime and unsavory avenues of survival.
The second time was when I began to lead a team at Google. I didn’t see them as labor or products; I saw them as people with visions of their own. I would come to find, that’s quite a novel idea in tech. The more I listened and mentored, the more I found professionals knocking on my door for help. Very quickly, I realized countless employees are dazed and confused on how to succeed, how to stay authentic at work, and how to shape their careers. Maybe they didn’t grow up in a rough neighborhood, but they’re lost in their own way.
My aspirations compounded, and I began to develop my mission and passion for teaching and mentoring others, amplifying Black and Brown voices in tech, and again, instilling the lessons into the next generation so that they don’t have to struggle and learn the hard way.
Consider asking yourself what the world needs more of and what we could do without. Perhaps your purpose is to shape a reality that resemblances that vision.
Whether you’ve accepted your first job at a summer camp or have your sights set on retirement in the near future, you’re primed to live a legacy that can set the next generation up for success. You can live out your mission and carry yourself in such a way that your imprint can’t be erased or forgotten once you’re out of sight. The most remarkable truth is that we all have the ability to influence change. It’s only a matter of who and what to influence.
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