Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / The Legacy Code: What Will Remain When You Are Gone

Transcript

The Legacy Code: What Will Remain When You Are Gone · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

0:00
Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome back to strategize, adapt, and overcome.
0:05
Speaker 1: I am Brad Young, and I'm genuinely glad you're here
0:09
Speaker 1: with me today because this is the one that everything
0:12
Speaker 1: else in this series has been quietly leading toward. Let
0:16
Speaker 1: me start with a question, and I want you to
0:18
Speaker 1: sit with it, honestly, because nobody hears your answer, but you.
0:22
Speaker 1: If everything you are chasing right now suddenly worked out
0:26
Speaker 1: all of it, the money, the titles, and the winds,
0:29
Speaker 1: and then one day it all faded, the way everything
0:34
Speaker 1: eventually fades.
0:36
Speaker 2: What would actually be left.
0:39
Speaker 1: Not the trophies, not the numbers on a screen, when
0:42
Speaker 1: the noise finally goes quiet.
0:45
Speaker 2: What remains?
0:47
Speaker 1: What did you leave in the people around you, in
0:49
Speaker 1: the world you passed through, in the lives you touched
0:51
Speaker 1: along the way. Take a real second with that, because
0:56
Speaker 1: most people never ask it until it is too late
0:59
Speaker 1: to do anything about the answer. And that question, the
1:03
Speaker 1: question of what remains, is the entire subject of today.
1:08
Speaker 1: We have walked a long road together in this series.
1:10
Speaker 1: We learned the patience of the warrior who waits for
1:13
Speaker 1: the right moment. We face the enemy inside our own heads.
1:17
Speaker 1: We learn to bend like water when everything changes. We
1:21
Speaker 1: mastered the art of the unseen. We learned to read
1:24
Speaker 1: our ground before the fight. We learned that no warrior
1:27
Speaker 1: wins alone. We learned that discipline beats motivation. We learned
1:31
Speaker 1: how to lose without being destroyed. And last time, we
1:35
Speaker 1: lifted our eyes to the horizon and learned to see
1:37
Speaker 1: the battle before it arrives. Today we look past the
1:40
Speaker 1: horizon entirely. Today we talk about legacy. Sun Sue understood
1:45
Speaker 1: something about this that most people miss. He wrote that
1:48
Speaker 1: the supreme excellence is not winning every battle, but achieving
1:52
Speaker 1: your aim in a way that endures, in a way
1:54
Speaker 1: that does not have to be fought again and again.
1:57
Speaker 1: He knew that a hollow victory, one that leaves nothing
1:59
Speaker 1: stand behind it was barely a victory at all. The
2:03
Speaker 1: wisest commanders fought not just for the win in front
2:05
Speaker 1: of them, but for a peace and a strength that
2:08
Speaker 1: would outlast them. That is the mind we are building today,
2:11
Speaker 1: the mind that thinks past its own lifetime. So let
2:14
Speaker 1: us get into it. Here's the first truth I need
2:17
Speaker 1: you to sit with today. You are writing a legacy
2:21
Speaker 1: right now, whether you mean to or not. Every single
2:25
Speaker 1: day you are leaving marks on the people around you,
2:28
Speaker 1: The way you treat the person who can do nothing
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Speaker 1: for you, the example you set for the ones who
2:33
Speaker 1: are watching you when you do not realize it. The
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Speaker 1: words you say to your children, your teammates, your friends,
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Speaker 1: words that will echo in them for decades after you
2:43
Speaker 1: have forgotten you ever spoke them. Legacy is not something
2:47
Speaker 1: you build at the end in some grand final gesture.
2:51
Speaker 1: Legacy is being written this morning, and how you show
2:55
Speaker 1: up in who you choose to be when it cost
2:57
Speaker 1: you something. Think about a stone mason building a cathedral,
3:02
Speaker 1: the kind that takes one hundred years to complete. That
3:05
Speaker 1: mason knows something profound. He knows that he will never
3:08
Speaker 1: see the finished building. He will lay his stones, do
3:11
Speaker 1: his careful work, and die long before the last piece
3:14
Speaker 1: is set and the door's ever open. And yet he
3:17
Speaker 1: carves each stone as though it matters, because it does.
3:21
Speaker 1: He's not building for himself. He's building for people he
3:24
Speaker 1: will never meet, for a beauty he will never witness.
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Speaker 1: He plants his labor into something bigger than his own life.
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Speaker 1: And that is the mind of a person who understands legacy.
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Speaker 1: Which one are you right now? Are you building a cathedral?
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Speaker 1: You will never fully see laying careful stones for the
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Speaker 1: ones who come after you, or are you only building
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Speaker 1: for the applause.
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Speaker 2: You can hear today?
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Speaker 1: Let me bring this out of the cathedral and into
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Speaker 1: a real life, because this is where it truly matters.
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Speaker 2: I want to tell you a story.
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Speaker 1: I am going to change some of the details to
3:57
Speaker 1: protect the people in it. But this happened, and it
3:59
Speaker 1: has stayed with me for years. I once knew two
4:01
Speaker 1: leaders who ran organizations of a similar size in a
4:05
Speaker 1: similar season, both with real power and real influence over
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Speaker 1: the people beneath them. We will call the first one
4:12
Speaker 1: the monument, and the monument was obsessed with one thing
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Speaker 1: above all else, and that thing was himself. He wanted
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Speaker 1: his name on everything, He wanted the credit for every win,
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Speaker 1: and he wanted to blame for none of the losses.
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Speaker 1: He hoarded knowledge instead of sharing it, because knowledge shared
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Speaker 1: meant someone else might rise. He kept his people small
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Speaker 1: so that he would always look big by comparison. He
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Speaker 1: built everything to point back at himself, one giant monument
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Speaker 1: to his own importance, and for a while that monument
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Speaker 1: stood tall and impressive. People feared him, people flattered him,
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Speaker 1: but here's what happened when he finally left. The moment
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Speaker 1: he walked out the door, the whole thing began to
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Speaker 1: crumble because nothing he built had ever been designed to
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Speaker 1: stand without him at the center of it. He had
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Speaker 1: taught no one, he had lifted, no one. He had
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Speaker 1: poured all his energy into a statue of himself, and
5:02
Speaker 1: the second he was gone, there was no one left
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Speaker 1: who knew how to carry it forward, and no one
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Speaker 1: who even wanted to. Within a couple of years, the
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Speaker 1: thing he spent his life building was gone, and so
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Speaker 1: was his name, remembered only with a shrug. He built
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Speaker 1: a monument, and a monument is a dead thing. It
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Speaker 1: does not grow, it does not spread, It just slowly
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Speaker 1: weathers away. Now let me tell you about the second one.
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Speaker 1: We will call her the gardener again, though in a
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Speaker 1: different way than before, because this time she was planting people.
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Speaker 1: And the gardener understood something the monument never grasped. She
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Speaker 1: knew that the truest measure of a leader is not
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Speaker 1: what they build, but what continues growing after they are gone.
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Speaker 1: So she poured herself into her people.
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Speaker 2: She taught everything she knew.
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Speaker 1: Instead of hoarding it, she lifted the ones beneath her,
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Speaker 1: even when it meant they might one day surpass her,
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Speaker 1: especially when it meant that she gave it away freely
6:00
Speaker 1: and absorbed blame quietly. She built strength in everyone around
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Speaker 1: her so that the whole thing could stand without her
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Speaker 1: holding it up. And here is what happened when she
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Speaker 1: finally left. Nothing crumbled. In fact, it flourished. The people
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Speaker 1: she had lifted stepped up and carried it forward better
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Speaker 1: than before because she had made them capable of it.
6:22
Speaker 1: And more than that, those people went on to lift
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Speaker 1: others the same way she had lifted them. Her way
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Speaker 1: of doing things, her values, her example spread outward through
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Speaker 1: person after person, most of whom never even knew her name.
6:34
Speaker 1: She did not build a monument. She planted a forest,
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Speaker 1: And a forest keeps growing and dropping seeds and growing
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Speaker 1: again long after the one who planted the first tree
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Speaker 1: as turned to dust, same power, same season. One built
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Speaker 1: a monument to himself that crumbled the day he left.
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Speaker 1: One planted a forest of people that is still spreading
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Speaker 1: right now. That is the difference between fame and legacy,
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Speaker 1: and it is one of the most important differences there is.
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Speaker 1: So ask yourself, honestly, which one are you becoming the
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Speaker 1: monument building a statue that dies with you, or the
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Speaker 1: gardener planting a forest that outlives you. Now, I want
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Speaker 1: to break this down into something you can actually understand,
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Speaker 1: because legacy is not some vague mystical thing reserved for
7:18
Speaker 1: the famous and the powerful. It is a way of living,
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Speaker 1: and any of us can build it starting today. The
7:25
Speaker 1: first thing you have to understand is that legacy is
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Speaker 1: measured in people, not in things. This is the truth
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Speaker 1: that reorders your entire life once it finally lands. We
7:35
Speaker 1: are taught to measure success in what we accumulate, the possessions,
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Speaker 1: the achievements, the pile of things we can point to
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Speaker 1: and say, look what I gathered. But every one of
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Speaker 1: those things fades, breaks, gets sold, or gets forgotten. What
7:50
Speaker 1: actually endures is what you put into other human beings.
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Speaker 1: The wisdom you passed on, the confidence you gave someone
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Speaker 1: who did not believe in themselves, the example that changed
8:01
Speaker 1: how another person chose to live. Those things do not
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Speaker 1: weather away. They walk around on two legs and carry
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Speaker 1: you forward into a future you will never see. The
8:11
Speaker 1: Stoics understood this with piercing clarity. Marcus Aurelius who held
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Speaker 1: more worldly power than almost anyone in history, reminded himself
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Speaker 1: constantly that fame is fleeting, that the applause of the
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Speaker 1: crowd is empty, and that the only thing truly worth
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Speaker 1: pursuing is a life of virtue that benefits the common good.
8:30
Speaker 1: He knew that the emperors before him were already half forgotten,
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Speaker 1: and that he would be too. So he did not
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Speaker 1: live for the monument. He lived to be useful, to
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Speaker 1: be just to leave the people in the world around
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Speaker 1: him a little better than he found them. That is
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Speaker 1: a legacy that does not depend on anyone remembering your name.
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Speaker 1: It is woven into the very fabric of what comes
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Speaker 1: after you. The second thing you have to understand is
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Speaker 1: that the deepest legacy is the one you cannot control
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Speaker 1: or claim credit for. This one humbles people, and it should.
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Speaker 1: The finest thing you will ever leave behind is often
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Speaker 1: something you will never get to witness, and something no
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Speaker 1: one will ever trace back to you. It is the
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Speaker 1: kind word you gave someone on their hardest day, a
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Speaker 1: word they will repeat to their own child thirty years
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Speaker 1: from now, without ever knowing where it came from. It
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Speaker 1: is the standard you held that quietly raised the standard
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Speaker 1: of everyone who watched you. Legacy, in its purest form,
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Speaker 1: is not a plaque with your name on it. It
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Speaker 1: is an influence that spreads so far and so wide
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Speaker 1: that it stops belonging to you at all and simply
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Speaker 1: becomes part of how the world works. Soon, Sue taught
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Speaker 1: that the greatest victories are the ones so complete and
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Speaker 1: so quiet that they are barely noticed, the wars prevented
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Speaker 1: before they ever start, the strength built so deep that
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Speaker 1: no enemy dares detested. There's a kind of legacy exactly
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Speaker 1: like that. It does not announce itself, It does not
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Speaker 1: need the credit. It simply keeps doing good, quietly in people,
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Speaker 1: in places you will never know, long after you are gone,
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Speaker 1: and the person mature enough to build that kind of
10:01
Speaker 1: legacy has let go of the need to be seen,
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Speaker 1: which is the very thing that traps the monument forever
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Speaker 1: inside his own crumbling statue. The third thing you have
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Speaker 1: to understand is that living for legacy changes how you
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Speaker 1: live today. This is where it stops being philosophy and
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Speaker 1: starts becoming a way of walking through an ordinary mourning.
10:22
Speaker 1: When you truly grasp that you are writing your legacy
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Speaker 1: right now in this moment it transforms the small choices.
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Speaker 1: You become more patient with the person in front of you,
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Speaker 1: because you understand you might be the one who changes
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Speaker 1: the whole direction of their life without ever knowing it.
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Speaker 1: You become more honest because you are building something meant
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Speaker 1: to outlast you, and things built on lies do not last.
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Speaker 1: You become more generous with your knowledge, your encouragement, your time,
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Speaker 1: because you finally understand that the only wealth that survives
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Speaker 1: you is the wealth you gave away. The Stoics practice
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Speaker 1: remembering their own mortality, not to become morbid fearful, but
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Speaker 1: to become clear. They kept death in view precisely so
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Speaker 1: they would stop wasting their days on things that did
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Speaker 1: not matter, and start pouring themselves into things that did.
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Speaker 1: When you remember that your time is limited and that
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Speaker 1: everything you gather will pass to someone else, you stop
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Speaker 1: clutching so tightly at the small stuff. You start asking
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Speaker 1: a better question in every situation, not what can I
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Speaker 1: get out of this?
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Speaker 2: But what can I leave behind in this?
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Speaker 1: And that single shift, asked a thousand times across a
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Speaker 1: thousand ordinary days, is how a legacy is actually built.
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Speaker 1: So let me give you something practical to carry out
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Speaker 1: of here today because I never want to just fill
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Speaker 1: your head with ideas and send you off with nothing
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Speaker 1: to actually do with them.
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Speaker 2: Here's your framework for this week. Three moves.
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Speaker 1: Run them and watch the way you live begin to change.
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Speaker 1: The first move is to write your own eulogy and
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Speaker 1: then live backward from it. I know that sounds heavy,
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Speaker 1: but stay with me because it is one of the
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Speaker 1: most clarifying things you will ever do. Sit down quietly
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Speaker 1: and imagine the end of your life. And imagine the
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Speaker 1: people who knew you best standing up to speak about
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Speaker 1: who you were. What do you want them to be
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Speaker 1: able to say honestly and truthfully, Not what you wish
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Speaker 1: they would say, but what you would want to have earned.
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Speaker 1: Write it down, and then look at the gap between
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Speaker 1: that person and the person you are being today.
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Speaker 2: That gap is your instruction.
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Speaker 1: Every day from now on you get to close it
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Speaker 1: a little by choosing to become the person your own
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Speaker 1: eulogy describes. The second move is to pour into one
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Speaker 1: person this week, with no expectation of credit. Pick someone
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Speaker 1: you can lift, a person on your team and your
12:40
Speaker 1: family and your circle, someone who could use what you
12:43
Speaker 1: know or who you are, and give it to them freely,
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Speaker 1: teach them something, encourage them in a way that sticks
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Speaker 1: open a door for them that they could not open alone,
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Speaker 1: and do it quietly without needing them to thank you,
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Speaker 1: without needing anyone to know it was you. Because that
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Speaker 1: is what planting a forest actually looks like on a Tuesday.
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Speaker 1: It is one seed placed into one person with no
13:09
Speaker 1: thought of the applause. Do that this week and you
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Speaker 1: will feel the difference between building a monument and growing
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Speaker 1: a forest. The third move is to choose one value
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Speaker 1: and make it visible in how you live. Legacy is
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Speaker 1: not passed down through speeches. It is passed down through example,
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Speaker 1: through the things people watch you do. When you think
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Speaker 1: no choice is that important, So pick one value that
13:30
Speaker 1: you want to outlive you. Honesty, kindness, courage, steadiness, under pressure,
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Speaker 1: whatever it is, and this week live it out loud
13:39
Speaker 1: on purpose, especially in the small moments where it would
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Speaker 1: be easier not to, Because the people around you are
13:46
Speaker 1: always learning from you, whether you intend to teach or not,
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Speaker 1: and the value you embody consistently is the value that
13:52
Speaker 1: will keep walking forward in them long after you are gone.
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Speaker 1: Right your eulogy and live backward from it. Pour into
13:58
Speaker 1: one person with no need for credit. Make one value
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Speaker 1: visible in how you live. That is how you stop
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Speaker 1: building a monument and start planting a forest. Now, I
14:08
Speaker 1: want to say something important before we close, because I
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Speaker 1: never want this to be twisted into something it is not.
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Speaker 1: Living for legacy is not about becoming obsessed with how
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Speaker 1: you will be remembered, and it is certainly not about
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Speaker 1: performing goodness so that people will think well of you.
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Speaker 1: That is just a subtler version of the monument, building
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Speaker 1: a statue in the minds of others instead of in stone.
14:30
Speaker 1: The Stoics were clear that virtue must be pursued for
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Speaker 1: its own sake, because it is right, not because it
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Speaker 1: earns applause or remembrance. The truest legacy is built by
14:41
Speaker 1: the person who does good, even when they are certain
14:45
Speaker 1: no one will ever know it was them. So do
14:47
Speaker 1: not chase the memory of yourself, chase the goodness itself,
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Speaker 1: and let the legacy take care of itself. The forest
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Speaker 1: does not grow because the gardener wanted to be famous.
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Speaker 1: It grows because the gardener loved planning. Let me leave
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Speaker 1: you with this before we go. The world will keep
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Speaker 1: telling you that legacy means monuments. It will point you
15:10
Speaker 1: towards the statues, the buildings with names carved into them,
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Speaker 1: the fame that flares up bright and then quietly gutters out.
15:17
Speaker 1: And so most people spend their whole lives trying to
15:21
Speaker 1: build a monument to themselves, gathering things and credit and applause,
15:26
Speaker 1: only to discover at the end that a monument is
15:28
Speaker 1: a dead thing that crumbles the moment they can no
15:31
Speaker 1: longer prop it up. Sunsu knew twenty five centuries ago
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Speaker 1: that the enduring victory is the quiet one, the one
15:37
Speaker 1: built so deep it needs no defending. The stoics knew
15:41
Speaker 1: that the only legacy worth leaving is a life of
15:44
Speaker 1: virtue poured out for the good of others, a life
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Speaker 1: that does not need to be remembered to have mattered.
15:50
Speaker 1: You are writing your legacy right now, not someday, Right now,
15:55
Speaker 1: and how you treated the last person you spoke to,
15:58
Speaker 1: and the example you set this morning, and the values
16:01
Speaker 1: you are quietly teaching everyone who watches you live. You
16:04
Speaker 1: do not get to choose whether you leave a mark.
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Speaker 1: You only get to choose what kind. And the most powerful,
16:10
Speaker 1: most lasting mark you can ever leave is not a
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Speaker 1: monument with your name on it. It is a forest
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Speaker 1: of people made stronger, wiser, and kinder because you pass
16:19
Speaker 1: through their lives.
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Speaker 2: That forrest will.
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Speaker 1: Keep growing and dropping seeds and growing again long after
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Speaker 1: your name is forgotten. And that is a victory greater
16:27
Speaker 1: than any statue could ever be. So this week, imagine
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Speaker 1: the person your own eulogy describes and begin living backward
16:34
Speaker 1: from that person. Today, pour yourself into someone with no
16:37
Speaker 1: need for the credit, and make one value so visible
16:41
Speaker 1: in how you live that it cannot help but take
16:43
Speaker 1: root in the people around you. Because when the noise
16:46
Speaker 1: finally goes quiet, and it will, what remains is not
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Speaker 1: what you gathered. What remains is what you gave and who.
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Speaker 2: You help become.
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for spending this time with me today,
17:00
Speaker 1: and thank you for walking this long road through the
17:03
Speaker 1: whole series with me. If this episode reached something in you,
17:09
Speaker 1: do me a favor and share it with someone whose
17:12
Speaker 1: life is quietly making you better and let them know
17:15
Speaker 1: they are part of the forest you are grateful to
17:18
Speaker 1: be standing in. And make sure you follow the show,
17:22
Speaker 1: because we are just getting started. In our next episode,
17:27
Speaker 1: we take everything we have built across this entire series
17:31
Speaker 1: and we bring it into one place. We're going to
17:34
Speaker 1: talk about wisdom, about how all these strategies, the patience,
17:40
Speaker 1: the discipline, the vision, the legacy come together into a
17:44
Speaker 1: single way of living, because knowing the strategies is one thing,
17:48
Speaker 1: but weaving them into who you are day after day
17:53
Speaker 1: is where the real mastery begins. Until then, plant your forest,
17:57
Speaker 1: live your values out loud, and keep moving forward.