Legacy isn’t necessarily in the past. If we could reverse-engineer our lives with a focus on how we want to show up, and how others experience us, we could create our legacy on purpose, explains business consultant and career coach, Jeff Saperstein. In this paradigm we are living into our lives with the end in mind: How do you want to be remembered? What do you want to be remembered for? Because the truth is you get to choose, and you are creating your legacy every day in what you say and do and how you say and do it.
Jeff goes on to highlight the extreme toll we pay when we compartmentalize our lives and believe we can show up in various roles differently. For example, if we create a work persona that is different than our ‘at home’ persona, and may be different, still, from our ‘out with friends’ persona, we are wasting a lot of effort and energy in playing those roles, which inevitably leads to burn-out.
The determining factor is our awareness and willingness to be internally directed – aligned with our values, beliefs, and desires, rather than allowing external agents and forces to decide who we will be and how we will show up. First, of course, one has to have thought into and defined his or her core values and made the decision to stand by them regardless of the situation or people involved.
This is, in effect, intentionally choosing to take off our masks and stand in our authentic power. Then we get to embody our values in our everyday behaviors, words, and actions.
Laura and Jeff go on to discuss the prevalence of ‘contrived urgency,’ the prevailing behavior of being busy for busy-ness’ sake; of trying to to do it all and having it all done by tomorrow! Jeff encourages us to be a whole person through focus and specifics and spend some time in reflection on each facet of our lives: work, family, friends, spirituality, finance, health, etc… and recognize where we are in alignment and doing well, or have developed thinking and behaviors that are disharmonious to what we want to create for our lives.
They go on to dive into some of the tools they both use with coaching clients to help them see and understand the clues to recognizing and developing each person’s unique strengths for greater contribution and satisfaction in life and work.
As they near the end of their conversation, Jeff offers this wisdom: First uncover, then discover yourself! Meaning each of us has to peel back the layers to see all that lies within us, then discover what it means, what it allows us to offer, and become… and know that along the way it sometimes requires unlearning and relearning beliefs, ideas, behaviors that will serve us in healthier ways… so we can live our legacy forward – on purpose and with intention!
You can learn more about these ideas and the tools Jeff and Laura use at these links:
Jeff on Facebook
Jeff online
Jeff on LinkedIn
Jeff’s Podcast – Interconnected Individuals
Carla Harris TED Talk – Finding a Sponsor
The Start-Up of You book
StrengthsFinder
Explore Strengths with Laura
Jeff’s Bio
Jeff Saperstein helps highly educated, high performance, business professionals transition to find work that matters to them. Jeff is a San Francisco Bay Area based business consultant, author, university teacher, career coach, and podcaster, who empowers people to navigate their careers to lead a successful, happier life.
Jeff is particularly attuned to mirroring and reflecting feelings, emotions, and awareness in his intuitive listening ability and to connect the dots. He has a three-stage approach to coaching: self-awareness for your operational values and aspirations; market reality exploration; and building you network and online presence to bring the right opportunities to you.
