The Why and How of Everyday Legacy Mindsets (Part 6)

We all wake up with the same amount of minutes

We're navigating daily with a 24 to live it

How you choose to move is your Legacy

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Lyrics from the song 'Hourglass'

By Gowe

The fifth P of Everyday Legacy Mindsets is Perspective.

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Legacies are defined by your impact on others, your environment, and what you leave behind. Each of us lives and leaves our Legacies through every interaction moment by moment. Therefore, they are compelling, relevant, and vital to all of us.

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You are living and leaving your Legacies right now, so why not decide to take steps to leave the ones you want??

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As a reminder, the five P's that support Everyday Legacy Mindsets are Purpose, Principles, Personal, Present, and Perspective.

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Your perspective is your point of view. It represents how you see the world at any given time and is driven by past experiences. Your perspective allows you to distinguish different things relative to one another, discerning their comparative significance.

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Your available range of perspectives is limitless. The problem is you forget you have a particular vantage point, and it is not the only one. You think you see the world as it is instead of seeing it as you are – or from your standpoint.

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If you do not recognize you have a particular perspective, realizing others are available to you can be challenging.

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Movie directors provide an excellent analogy. A film's director is responsible for determining every shot's perspective, just as we are responsible for the perspectives we bring to each of our life situations. The best ones decide their points of view with a high degree of skill and intention.

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Directors choose the camera's position, distance, and angle, whether it remains stationary or moves, and the speed, direction, and movement qualities.

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They decide where one scene falls in relation to the others before and after it and how one transitions into another—the amount, direction, and quality of the lighting.

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We have not mentioned sound, music, or the subject being filmed. These are only some of the possible options directors use to get the outcomes they want, but you get the idea.

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The same is true for you. Your choices of viable ways to show up, initiate, or respond at any given moment are endless. You only forget they are.

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We all do. Without realizing it, a lot of our responses become automatic. They are habitual. If we do not consider our options, we act without thinking about whether they match how we genuinely want to respond.

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Thus, the assertion, 'I had no choice,' is false. Comprehending that you always have more choices than you recognize is fundamental to the responsibilities of Everyday Legacy Mindsets.

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I had never heard the words terminally ill stand-up comic before. The incurable 28-year-old comedian says in her routine that she hears from people all of the time that they cannot imagine being her, to which she retorts, 'I cannot imagine worrying about my credit score.' What an absurd example of a shift in perspective.

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A vital aspect of what governs your perspective is your time horizon. A time horizon is a designated point in the future when you evaluate your actions and the resulting outcomes and determine the changes you want to make.

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Multiple time horizons are integral to Everyday Legacy Mindsets. You realize you create your Legacies in the present, yet the impact of your actions, decisions, and words has consequences in the future.

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The rule of seven represents a way to make decisions quickly using multiple time horizons. Before deciding, ask yourself, how will I feel about this decision seven minutes from now, seven months from now, and seven years from now? It prompts your imagination to consider, in the present moment, its implications for you and others over time.

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Many indigenous cultures contemplate outcomes over seven generations. You quickly see how time horizons influence your perspectives.

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When you integrate your perspectives with the other P's, such as purpose, you introduce 'beginning with the end in mind,' provoking you to consider your influence over time. ?

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Teams and Organizations

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Compare the C.E.O.s of publicly traded American companies, whose results are judged quarterly, with the decision-making criteria of owners of multi-generational family businesses or the aforementioned indigenous tribes, and you appreciate how time horizons affect your perceptions.

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By definition, family businesses that continually draw on family members to lead their businesses are not pulling from the best and brightest. The family pool is too small for that. However, the longer time horizons employed by leaders of family businesses result in them frequently outperforming their more outwardly capable competitors. ?

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We know we all get the same minutes in a day.

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The question is how you choose to use them. Do you recognize and embrace the responsibility of Everyday Legacy Mindsets or not? Can you acknowledge that each of us makes a tremendous number of mistakes? It cannot be any other way.

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Yet you can clarify and focus your attention and intention on what matters most, practice compassion for yourself and others, adjust course, and try again.

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I implore you to choose the approach of conscious awareness offered by Everyday Legacy Mindsets to live and lead with fewer regrets on behalf of yourself, your families, your teams, your organizations, and your communities.

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Worthy Considerations:

1.????Do you believe you see the world as it truly is or from your specific perspective – from who you are?

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2.????Are you open to the perspective that you always have more choices than you want to acknowledge if you are willing to consider them? How would developing more options improve the quality of your interactions?

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3.????Are you willing to take the responsibility of imagining your life as a movie? What perspectives would you employ as your life director? How can you up your directorial skills?

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4.????Do you begin projects with the end in mind? What prevents you from taking the same perspective to your life, to live and lead with fewer regrets?

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5.????What time horizons do you, your teams, and your company consider? How would developing the practice of drawing on multiple time horizons improve your decision-making?

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Please connect with me to learn how you can employ the perspectives that help you live and lead to benefit yourself, your family, your team, and your organization. I welcome the conversation.

Robert Hackman, Principal, 4C Consulting and Coaching, helps people live and lead with fewer regrets. He grows and develops leaders through executive coaching consulting, facilitation, and training of individuals, teams, and organizations. He is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He facilitates trusting environments that promote uncommonly candid conversations. Rob is also passionate about the power of developing Legacy Mindsets and has conducted over 50 Legacy interviews with people to date.

A serious man with a dry sense of humor who loves absurdity can often be found hiking rocky elevations or making music playlists. His mixes, including Pandemic Playlists and Music About Men, can be found on Spotify.

Bravely bring your curiosity to a conversation with Rob, schedule via voice or text @ 484.800.2203 or [email protected].