The realization came like a thunderbolt: Carl was wasting his legacy. A combination of things pointed him to it. His wife had talked glowingly of the legacy that her dad had left, in just the way that a wife has of sending a message without seeming to send a message. Carl had let the comment pass. But then, a couple weeks later, one of the guys at the golf course had joked that Carl was leaving quite a legacy when the delicate subject of Carl’s latest slip up came up. Carl had laughed the comment off. Yet late that night, the juxtaposition of the comments about the two legacies, his father-in-law’s good and his own not so much, struck him like lightning. Carl’s only question was what to do about it.

Attention

Attention is all we have. Pay attention to that which you pay attention. If you want to improve your legacy, just give it a little thought. The observer affects the observed. The universe’s nature is to change according to the attention we give it. We don’t control the change, but we certainly influence it with our attention. And our attention influences us. That’s the nature of addiction, which starts slowly with the sparest bit of attention but then grows with the more attention we give its object, until the object is in control. We interact with the things to which we devote attention, and the things to which we devote attention interact with us, shaping us. Sometimes, those things even seize us. Don’t give yourself to things that distract, detract, and destroy. Instead, give your attention to larger things, greater things that lift you up and build you up so that you can do the same for others. Giving your attention to your legacy is giving yourself to a higher thing because your legacy lies outside yourself, above and beyond. 

Intention

Intention, then, begins with attention. If your intent or desire is to shape and improve your legacy, you have already taken the first proper step by giving your legacy your attention. To turn attention into intention, reflect. This guide’s greatest contribution to your legacy is to help you reflect over it. Consider your legacy. Mull it. Dwell on it. And as you do so, you’ll begin to shape your legacy, and your legacy will begin to shape you. Intention is simply the desire to see an end brought about. Yes, we pave our road to hell with good intentions. Intentions are not all that a better legacy takes. Actions must follow. But we’ll get to action. First, though, give your legacy your attention long and hard enough to begin to develop some intentions. Those intentions will soon come. And slowly, you can turn your intentions to action as you develop a forward, outward, and upward outlook.

Purpose

Both attention and the intentions that follow it grow out of your purpose. Without purpose, why intend? Intentions arise out of aims. Why aim for anything if nothing has any purpose? Articulating and clarifying your purpose produces aims, which produce actions. You may choose your purpose. Indeed, you must choose your purpose, or you do choose your purpose as the sum of your aims and the actions your aims produce. You could, of course, simply proceed with your unspoken aims and actions, as we all do. Yet when you articulate your purpose, you hold it up for your own examination, where you can clarify and confirm it. Your declared purpose will gradually produce aims and actions in the direction of your purpose. You choose your aim. Is it to raise, safeguard, and bless a family? To love and care as others have loved and cared for you? To heal, guide, and encourage? To give hope to the despairing and sight to the blind? To lighten others’ burdens? If you wish to leave a certain legacy, your chances of doing so increase exponentially when you connect your purpose with it. Indeed, make leaving a legacy your purpose, and then define the legacy you wish to leave.

Faith

A legacy is at root a product of faith. Faith is acting on credible things you firmly believe to exist on the most reasonable grounds but evidence of which you do not yet see. The world has a structure that draws things together into meaning and purpose. The meaning descends to the material, arranging and patterning it into recognizable items and entities, each with their own purpose. And that purpose has to do with the creator who arranged the universe in this very way. The ideal around which the creator structures the universe is the deepest regard for the other through oneself, what our language labels love but which goes so much deeper and farther than any word could convey. Indeed, the creator conveys the world’s purpose and our purpose within it not only with a word but with an account. And that account is the unity that the creator displays within himself and the one whom he loves, whom he gave to the world in complete sacrifice to show his love for the world and to save the world through him. Place your trust in the world’s structure as the creator revealed it, in the love he showed for us through his Son. Let your legacy grow out of the richness of that love, which nothing can shake.

Direction

So, faith points to the unshakeable purpose to love one another as you love yourself, not merely as a moral injunction but also as that which gives the world its structure and meaning. The direction that your love takes is up to you, your heart, and your circumstance. With your purpose in your heart and mind, and your legacy before you, look around. Who and what do you see? For whom can you care and should you care? See whatever grand or meager opportunity lies before you and then pursue it. First, provide for yourself and your family. You cannot serve others without caring enough for yourself to do so. Providing for your family is an essential aspect of caring for yourself, for your family cares and provides for you. Legacies begin with the immediate, the near and available. You cannot care effectively for others until you have cared for your family and yourself. When you have done so, see who is next at hand, and care for them, too, in the way most fitting to your talents, resources, and circumstances, and to their needs. Let your legacy flow out from you in concentric circles until you have exhausted your reach. You’ll see and know whom to help and how to help, as long as you keep your legacy in mind and your purpose in your heart.

Beneficiaries

You need not search the world for beneficiaries to your legacy. Your natural beneficiaries are likely already around you. If your parents are still living, they may need or benefit from your care. If you are married, your spouse certainly stands supreme as the natural object of your affections. If you have children, they too take their place alongside your spouse as your natural and deserved beneficiaries. Grandchildren, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, and other blood relatives have their own place within your natural orbit of benefit. In a different way and to a different extent, your neighbors by their proximity attract your natural attention and affection. Your community, church, and school also have their natural place among your affections, as do your co-workers or other members of your vocational community. You don’t have to honor any of these members of your family or communities of shared interest. But it would be natural and appropriate that you do so. You need not go looking for people to love and bless with your agency, aim, and legacy.

Tools

You also have some traditional social practices and some special legal routes or tools to help you construct, shape, and extend your legacy. The next few paragraphs name and briefly describe some of those practices and tools. The following chapters address several of those practices and tools in much greater detail. Don’t feel as if you have to reinvent the wheel with your legacy. Social and legal constructs can do much of the work for you. 

Volunteering

Volunteering is a natural step toward building a legacy. Volunteering, as a perfectly sound and socially acceptable act, can happen virtually anytime and any place, wherever you see the need. Start small. If you’re not already connected with a community of volunteer service, try offering a hand at the local soup kitchen, homeless shelter, community center, or humane society, where the programs are already in place for untrained volunteers. Go with your spouse or friend, or take along your child or children. Letting your spouse and children see you serve others is a legacy in itself. Your church or school should also have volunteer opportunities if you can’t find another program nearby or want to start in a community where you already have connections. If you’ve just never been the sort to do something deliberate for others, then volunteering helps get you out of yourself and into the frame of mind to care for others. Volunteering is a great way to start on a legacy.

Charity

Charitable organizations have a special tax-exempt status that helps them raise tax-deductible donations and enables them to receive donations and other forms of income without paying federal income tax. Those and other advantages, described in a later chapter, make charities a powerful force for good in America. The nonprofit sector, as charities are also known, is a third leg of the American economy along with the for-profit sector and government. Your local community will likely have several charities, including the soup kitchen or homeless shelter at which you may serve. To extend your legacy, get more involved with a charity. Make regular donations, serve as a volunteer, or take a position on one of its committees or on its board. And if you really catch fire for volunteer service, consider taking a staff or executive director position at a charity, or even starting your own, as a later chapter describes and you can read much more about in the guide Help with Your 501(c)(3). Charitable-organization leadership will surely build your legacy.

Foundation

Foundations are another type of organization closely connected with charitable causes. A foundation is a funding organization established by an individual, family, or corporation. A foundation funds the charitable work of other organizations. If you or your family accumulate or acquire wealth that you wish to dedicate to helping charitable causes, you may start a foundation. Some family foundations are substantial enough to employ family members as managers or in similar capacities to carry on the legacy, long after the original benefactors have passed on. Alternatively, if you have some funds but not enough to establish your own foundation, you can participate in your community foundation’s work by establishing a smaller fund within it, designated for your favorite charitable cause. 

Gifts

Gifts, like volunteering, are another traditional social construct to facilitate a legacy of love, care, and generosity. Regular gifts to family members or others can certainly build a legacy of kindness, support, and generosity, while making significant differences in the recipients’ lives. Individuals may give regular sums to family members or others up to the federal gift tax amount, after which the recipient must pay a gift tax. Your gifts may be of cash, investments, or real or personal property. Generous individuals who find that they have an excess of income over what they need to live in their later years may find that they wish to share that excess while still living. Regular gifts to adult children or grandchildren, or in trust to minor grandchildren, can strengthen the bond on both sides, both giver and recipient. You can make a big difference in others’ lives through gifts.

Bequests

Legacies also arise out of inheritances. Whether your wealth when you pass on is substantial or just enough to leave a little something behind, the typical means by which Americans do so is to execute a will making bequests. Through your will, you direct the personal representative of your estate to transfer your assets at death, net of anything you owed, to your designated beneficiaries of your estate. Bequests of specific sentimental items can confirm special memories and ties between the giver and recipient, while bequests of cash or other tangible or intangible property of value can do likewise while also making enormous differences in the recipients’ lives. See later chapters for detail on what a will is, when you should have a will, what happens if you don’t have a will, and how a will can aid your legacy. 

Trust

Legacies also arise out of trusts. A trust is a financial vehicle to manage assets for one who cannot or should not manage those assets on their own. You wouldn’t, for instance, bequeath substantial assets to a minor grandchild who might spend them all on toys. Yet you also might not want to bequeath substantial assets to a mentally disabled adult child, a financially irresponsible adult child, or an adult child who was subject to the coercion of an untrustworthy spouse. In those and similar instances, you might instead place property in trust, managed by a responsible family member or by a bonded professional or corporate trustee. Trusts enable benefactors to ensure the support of family members or others for generations. A later chapter provides more detail about what a trust is, when you might want to establish a trust, how you do so, and how to find the right help to do so.

Guardianship

You can also ensure a legacy of care for others who cannot care for themselves, through guardianships. A guardian is one who stands in the position of a custodial parent for a minor child ward or incompetent adult ward, to make decisions for the ward’s health, education, and welfare. For instance, in many states you may grant a responsible family member or friend a limited power of attorney for guardianship of your minor child, while you are overseas at work, away on an extended vacation, on a military assignment, hospitalized for recovery, or otherwise indisposed. In your will, you may also express your wishes for the guardianship of your minor children, subject to probate court approval, in the event of your demise. You may likewise arrange a similar guardianship for your adult mentally incompetent child, spouse, sibling, or other family member. Guardianship plans and recommendations can be a huge legacy for the most needful of those whom you leave behind.

Conservatorship

You can likewise ensure a legacy of sound financial management for others who cannot manage finances for themselves, through conservatorships. A conservator doesn’t decide on the ward’s health, education, or welfare. A guardian plays that role. A conservator instead manages the ward’s financial affairs. You may, for instance, have an adult child who, though marginally capable of the child’s own welfare and personal care, lacks the knowledge, judgment, and skill to handle financial and legal affairs. Arranging a conservatorship to manage the finances and legal affairs of a family member or other close acquaintance for whom you are responsible can be a great way to leave a legacy of care. 

Powers

Powers of attorney can be another legal tool to shape and ensure a legacy. One common power of attorney involves your personal healthcare. You may readily put in place a durable power of attorney for healthcare, designating your spouse or another trusted family member or friend to make decisions about your healthcare in the event that you are unable to do so on your own. Injury, illness, hospitalization for surgery, and other events and circumstances may make you unable to express your wishes for life-saving treatment or other healthcare interventions. Having that trusted person in place can relieve your family of significant confusion and stress, while ensuring your appropriate care. You can similarly put in place a power of attorney over your financial affairs in your absence for travel, military service, or other reasons. Keeping your affairs responsibly in order through powers of attorney promotes your legacy. A later chapter explains powers of attorney and their legacy benefits in greater detail.

Reflection

To what do you give most of your attention? Do you think you could spare some of your attention for your legacy? How would you characterize your purpose at the highest level? How would you characterize your purpose at lower, more practical levels? How do you articulate your faith? Do you live with a sense of direction? Who are the natural objects of your affection, those who are most obviously close to you whom you love and for whom you care? Would they also be your natural beneficiaries, those whom others would assume would be your heirs? Do you volunteer? Are you connected with any specific charitable organization? If you had the wealth to form a foundation, what would be its concern or cause? Do you have someone in your life who cannot make decisions on their own and would, in your absence, benefit from a guardianship, conservatorship, or trust? Do you have a durable power of attorney for healthcare in place? Should you grant a trusted family member or advisor financial and legal powers of attorney to assist you with those affairs?

Key Points

• Give due attention to your legacy, and it will shape you as you shape it.

• You can be intentional about shaping and improving your legacy.

• Your intentions grow out of your purpose as you clarify and confirm it.

• Connect your purpose with the trust you place in the world’s creator.

• Keep your legacy in mind and purpose in heart to give you direction.

• You have natural beneficiaries to help focus your legacy.

• You also have practices and tools to shape and pursue your legacy.

• Volunteering is a great way to start and build a legacy.

• Serving and leading a 501(c)(3) charitable organization builds a legacy.

• Forming a foundation can extend and amplify your legacy.

• Gifts up to the federal gift tax limit can bless those closest to you.

• Executing a will distributing your estate can ensure your legacy. 

• Adopting a trust in connection with your will can guide your legacy.

• Granting a guardianship can promote your legacy.

• Arranging a conservatorship can promote your legacy.

• Granting powers of attorney can protect your legacy.

Read Chapter 5.