What do you want to be remembered for?

Here it is again, a life-long learner's candy: the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies guide arrived recently and as I am reading through it, I am reminded of writing about this very event in my personal journal last June (I did not dare to blog back then). I checked the entry and it goes something like this:

"Now the common challenge - how to narrow the list of courses. It is all very familiar - I am torn between subjects on writing (mostly memoirs, but not only), skill improvement and literature. I usually check out the entire content just for fun to see what's new, what are the trends and the changes to the curriculum. I wonder if this is strange to some. 

Together with the guide from the UofT, the Royal Ontario Museum's guide arrived. Aside from its awful smell and the fact that it's not digital, I found the legion of Chinese terracotta soldiers interesting and will try to see it as soon as it opens. This story grasps my imagination: Ying Zheng was the First Emperor of China and according to the guide “he built an empire that at its height rivalled that of Rome's and would prove to be more enduring. When he died, the First Emperor left behind extraordinary tomb structures and he interred himself with an army of terracotta warriors, each one unique." It seems like Ying Zheng took the subject of legacy very seriously.

I am immediately reminded of another story I came across recently - I found it while reading Cinderella to my kids at bedtime. It is about Charles Perrault, Cinderella's author, who was born in 1628 in Paris and who worked as a civil servant in King Louis' Ministry of Finance. He lost his position there at the age of 67 and devoted the rest of his life to writing children's fairy tales. According to Wikipedia, he published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals in 1697 and "its publication made him suddenly widely-known beyond his own circles and marked the beginnings of a new literary genre, the fairy tale." Apart from Cinderella, his well-known stories included Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots. Charles died in Paris at the age of 75 and enjoyed his fame for the last 8 years of his life. He started building his true legacy at the age of 67. Isn't that astounding?”

I do not know the details of Ying Zheng's true motivation behind his terracotta army; nor am I aware of the reason for Charles Perrault’s delay in pursuing his fairy tale writing career. Frankly, it’s not really important. For me, both of those examples illustrate polar opposite approaches to the concept of legacy – one being strikingly elaborate and intentional and the other almost accidental. 

The point of this post is a simple one: I would like to encourage you to reflect on your own approach. Are you working on your legacy or are you just working? 

For a more serious take on the subject of legacy, please check out a recent post at HBR Create Your Legacy as a Leader by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi. 

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