How To Create A Modern Day Legacy

Legacy in the Making is the fascinating new book where authors Mark Miller and Lucas Conley provide readers a toolkit for how to be a modern day legacy builder for your company/brand.

The tool kit provides the roadmap for leaders who can harness the power of long-term thinking in a short-term world; the skill needed to create a modern day legacy.

The fascinating part of the book is the stories from the authors’ exclusive interviews with modern legacy thinkers who are transforming business as we know it – stories from The Honest Company, Grey Goose, Taylor Guitars, Girls Who Code, and the San Diego Zoo.

“These are the legacy builders that are out-performing rivals, attracting and keeping the best talent, and changing the way others engage with their work and think about their own legacies in the making,” explain the authors.

Modern day legacy building is a new kind of legacy creation that simultaneously encompasses what was and what will be. Modern day legacy building leaders bridge the past, the present, and the future. “Legacies in the making will always benefit from traditions. Being perpetual means ensuring that those traditions, however, never become too traditional,” says Conley.

Miller and Conley encourage modern day legacy builders to involve their employees. For example, by encouraging its employees to let the brand’s beliefs inspire their behaviors, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company sparks a positive feedback loop. Their empowered employees create Wow stories, guests leave with lifelong memories, and the brand maintains an active channel of inspiring case studies that inspire other employees (resulting in more Wow stories, attracting more guests, and so on).

In this example rather than reading from its brand’s history, The Ritz-Carlton employees are helping to add to it – authoring its legacy each day to drive growth, relevance, and impact.

Equally important to legacy building is to clearly communicate your brand’s/company’s why. “Most brands talk about what they make and how they make it. Not enough communicate why,” says Miller. Referring to author Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, Miller shares that your what and how (products and services) will resonate more with consumers and colleagues when the why behind them is communicated, authentic and meaningful.

Another step in modern day legacy building is to encourage your employees to focus on the future to bring the past forward. The authors’ example for this is Lexus, which asks what drivers will want years from now, not just today – thereby providing Lexus a consistent pipeline of unconventional ideas to drive its legacy in the making into the future.

“Whereas traditional legacy is static, modern legacy can no more be cemented than time itself,” says Miller. “Embracing this active interpretation of legacy building—one in which your story never ends—involves continually reconciling past achievements and future goals while building your brand in the present.

Prepare to be inspired as you read Legacy in the Making.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

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