Kobe Bryant has just finished his incredible 20 year career with the Lakers.  For many, he is one of the best basketball players of all time second only to Michael Jordan.  For others, they were inspired to take up the game of basketball watching his career.  This brings up the idea of legacy.  Legacy means that which is handed down.

There are many examples of people and books that have an enduring legacy.  The Bible, The Lord of the Rings, and To Kill a Mockingbird are all books that people have heard of.  This is because these books have had a massive impact on people, have inspired people, and have even caused people to change the way they think.  With respect to sports, people know athletes like Babe Ruth when it comes to baseball; Michael Jordan when it comes to basketball; and Pelé when it comes to soccer.  This is because these people set new records in their sports, brought originality to their games, and inspired other athletes who became successful as well.

Enduring legacies are due to the massive influence that these books and people have had on their own generations and subsequent generations.

Before the internet, a person’s legacy was generally limited to loved ones and the people with whom he or she worked closely.  In order to get a wide-spread legacy, one had to work extremely hard to build a platform to get himself or herself known.  If a person wrote a book, then that book might influence others, but that depended on how well that book was marketed.

The internet, however, has changed the way people leave their legacies in three ways.

1. You will be able to reach a wider audience than ever before

Unlike before, where you had to go from city to city, school to school, church to church, and so on in order to get your message heard and achieve maximum impact and influence and help people in order to build a positive legacy (which could quickly absorb your funds) now you need less money but more creativity because the internet is accessible anywhere in America, and it is cheaper to use the internet to get your message heard than using the traditional ways.

An example of this is Andy Weir’s book The Martian.  Weir began publishing the book serially on his website.  His readers would give their input, and then he would adjust the book based on their feedback.  When he finished his book, he released it on Kindle at 0.99 cents per eBook.  He sold 35,000 copies in three months.  This attracted the attention of a publishing company, who published the book for him.  In less than a year, Twentieth Century Fox bought the rights to the book, and the movie came out last year becoming extremely popular.  It ended up making more than $630 million.

The internet was the channel that led to Weir’s wide-spreading of his story.  A non-celebrity like Weir would have had an extremely difficult if not an impossible time trying to get his story heard before there was wide accessibility to the internet.  Because of the internet, he reached an extremely wide audience and it shows in the number of book and movie sales he achieved.

2. You will influence people you will never meet

While influencing people you will never meet has been around since books, and more pronouncedly since radio and television, it has become more pronounced with the internet.

Take, for example, Michael Hyatt.  Michael Hyatt is the former CEO and chairman of Thomas Nelson, a publishing company.  Hyatt started a blog in 2009, which has grown to have more than 600,000 subscribers.

He writes about personal and professional productivity as well as leadership, and he has had a very positive and wide-spreading impact on many including myself.

Had it not been for the internet, Hyatt would have been confined only to his field of work, which was book publishing, but now he has been able to increase his impact and influence to include the fields of leadership and personal and professional productivity.

He will never meet all 600,000 of his subscribers or even talk personally with them, but his message has influence on these subscribers.

3. You will gain maximum impact with less difficulty than ever before

I heard one time in an ancient story that there was a half-god who was given the choice of two destinies: he could live as an immortal, but no one would remember who he was, or he could go to war and die a war hero, and he would always be remembered.  He chose to go to war and die a war hero in order to be remembered, and his name continues to be known until today: Achilles.  The story is the Iliad, the prequel of the Odyssey.
This story highlights how important legacy and remembrance were in the past.  In the past, it was extremely difficult to be remembered and to have a widespread impact and to inspire others except for war.  Luckily, we live in an age where that is no longer necessary for us to be remembered.

More than 3.2 billion people have access to and use the internet.  Being remembered and handing down what you have learned and want to hand down is easier than it has ever been.  In addition, your impact will be maximized if you effectively use the internet and get your message heard.

This raises several questions for us.

Is your life’s work worth sharing on the internet and living on digitally after you?  Will your work make a difference in other people’s lives, even those who may live long after you?  Will your work inspire others?