Is Your Work Your Paycheck or Your Legacy

There are some things that you do for money. Other things, bigger, more important things, you do for legacy.

You might need a job to survive. A job is something that you do in exchange for money. Work, however, is something different. Work is about your legacy, the difference that you make, your contribution.

Legacy is about how you live your purpose. It’s about who you are at your core. It’s about character. It’s about what you do—and what you don’t do.

Money provides you with freedom. It provides you with choices. It allows you to, in some ways, make a greater contribution. But it isn’t your legacy.

You aren’t King Tut, and no one is going to bury you with your money and your worldly possessions. Your banker isn’t going to attend your funeral (but your lawyer just might). Having your name on a building isn’t legacy, especially if the only contribution you made was financial. A legacy is about much more than how much money you acquire.

A paycheck may be necessary; everyone needs money to live. But legacy is optional. Legacy is intentional. It means you have to make a contribution. It requires that you give of yourself something that benefits other people.

Legacy doesn’t require that you have a lot of money. It doesn’t require that you are famous (a lot of really famous people are famous for being famous and are leaving no real legacy). Legacy requires that you produce something worthwhile and that that something is passed into the future.

You might have a job to make money, but your work is about your legacy. It’s wonderful if your job and your work are the same thing, but if they are not, you need to give yourself over as much as possible to your real work. That’s your legacy.