The Hidden Power Behind Legacy Builders — LinkedIn Live #11
Mario Haneca and Elsbeth Van Lienden on the three-factor equation behind legacy-building entrepreneurs. Featuring Pieter Hemels' New York waiting list, the Future Proofing Index reframe, and the invitation to the Indigo Elephant Summit on 17 September.
Most conversations about legacy stay in the financial and family realm. How much am I passing on. Who inherits what. What structure protects the wealth.
That is one kind of legacy. It is not the kind we mean when we work with leaders at The Indigo Elephant. And it is not the kind that shows up when the deeper question is asked: if you were gone tomorrow, what would people be talking about?
Elsbeth on legacy as imprint
Elsbeth's frame in the Live: legacy is what leaves an imprint. Not the house. Not the acquisitions. What did you do that created something meaningful in the world? What would your soul recognise as its actual contribution?
In her experience, legacy never appears as something negative. It always shows up as contribution — something meaningful to the self, and therefore also to others. The two are not separable at the level of soul.
Legacy is what leaves an imprint. What am I doing that my soul would recognise as: yes, this is what I am here for?
The three-factor legacy equation
From my side of the conversation, I have come to see legacy as an equation with three factors. Each of them matters. Missing one weakens the whole.
Factor one: clarity on your soul mission. How clearly can you name what you are here for as a human being — beyond role, beyond title, beyond achievement? When entrepreneurs operate from that clarity, everything they build carries a different signature.
For many, this awareness arrives unconsciously. You end up with what you thought you wanted — one boat, three apartments, a Harley Davidson, the third wife — and you notice a specific kind of emptiness that no amount of financial success fills. That emptiness is the soul asking a different question.
You end up with one boat, three apartments, Harley Davidson and your third wife — and you realise there is still emptiness.
Factor two: alignment between personal mission and company purpose.
As entrepreneurs scale, the company acquires a purpose of its own. Where we see leaders at their best is precisely at the point where their personal mission and the company's purpose lock into each other. When these are disconnected, the entrepreneur is only waiting for the exit — the moment the money comes and the question 'what now?' surfaces, unanswered.
This is measurable. In our organisational scans we see: the biggest outcomes consistently emerge where these two are linked. It is also what Harvard has documented over decades — conscious leadership linked to company purpose produces returns up to fourteen times the market over fifteen years.
There is no dividend you pay for including meaning. There is a hidden cost for not including it. Meaning is not optional.
Factor three: room for unique contribution from your team.
Today's workforce operates on three levels. Some come to work for the money — enough to live. Some come for growth and career. And some come for what is closer to a calling: work they would show up to even without financial pressure, because it is the place where their unique gift becomes visible.
When a company becomes what I sometimes call a temple of meaning — where employees can bring both heart and soul to the workplace — something specific happens. You stop chasing people. You become a magnet.
Two weeks ago we spoke with Pieter Hemels in preparation for the Summit. He shared something worth pausing on: he has recreated his company in New York as a truly soul-designed organisation. And there is now a waiting list of people who want to work there. That is what the third factor looks like in operational form.
There is now a waiting list of people who want to work for that company. That is what the third factor looks like.
Elsbeth on why C-level talent leaves
Elsbeth added something in the Live worth quoting directly. Many C-level leaders who leave their positions are not leaving because of the numbers or the title or the compensation. Something else is happening at a deeper level.
Their soul cannot land there any longer.
The transition The Indigo Elephant is inviting is not primarily an exit from leadership roles. It is a reconnection with the reason those leaders stepped into the role at the first place — before life happened, before business happened, before the economic dynamics dragged them into a game they did not sign up for. The question worth sitting with:
If I reconnected with my soul mission today, what conversations would I have differently? What decisions could I make? How would this look?
Their soul cannot land there any longer. That is what most exits from senior positions actually reveal.
The Future Proofing Index and the debt reframe
Last week's LinkedIn Live introduced the AEX Futureproof Index research — the finding that the top 23 AEX-listed companies collectively cost society 30% more than they yield when social and ecological impact is measured in hard euros.
The reframe worth carrying forward: high financial shareholder value combined with low future readiness is not neutral performance. It is debt being accumulated — exploited employees, exploited nature, pollution someone else pays to clean up. Externalised costs that eventually return.
This year we have seen fires across Europe. The illusion that these were someone else's problem — France's, or Holland's — has become impossible to sustain. The fallout arrives everywhere. And with it arrives a collective awakening: decisions that look good short-term but hurt societal and environmental long-term are no longer aligned with what most people actually feel.
The Indigo Elephant's own legacy
Elsbeth articulated the vision in the closing minutes of the Live in a way worth reading carefully.
The big vision is to help build a new society and a new economy grounded in a different set of principles — with consciousness as one of them, alongside several others. The driving factor underneath everything we do.
The how, though, is deeply pragmatic. Organisations are the driving forces that create new societies and economies. That has been historically true. So the entry point is always the organisation — walking beside leaders who feel they might have found the key to closing the gap between what is crumbling and what is being birthed.
Closing the gap between the old that is crumbling down and the new that is being birthed. Slowly, steadily, without disrupting the business.
This does not require reinventing your life overnight. It starts with sitting down, reconnecting with soul mission, and having the honest conversation with your team. What is one thing we could do differently — because these new principles are now valid? From that new awareness, you can reinvent yourself. Your team. Your company. Slowly, steadily.
That is the legacy we see for The Indigo Elephant — helping leaders and organisations make that transition without breaking what is working. Bridging old and new with pragmatism and soul in the same room.
The Summit — one week away
Everything in this Live is preparation for the Indigo Elephant Summit on 17 September — a three-hour online session with five speakers on the architecture of the new society, in terms of business and leadership. Elsbeth captured what each brings.
Bob de Wit — emeritus professor, author of Society 4.0. Speaks about artificial super intelligence and what it demands of us: a closer look at what human intelligence actually is, and what we are here for.
Deborah Henderson — Wall Street veteran. Speaks about the money system and how she foresees its coming reshaping.
Lance Diaresco — former Google, former Disney. Speaks about the shift from a "me" to a "we" society, discernment, and how a CEO can step up and play a different game. Shares his personal transition story.
Pieter Hemels — founder of the Future Proofing Institute, founder of Future Proof. Shares his lived experience of building from soul — the relentless choices, the assignments he refused, the waiting list that followed.
Esther Wagelaar — guides us into being a living version of what we are becoming. Brings the future into the now. Weaves together what we have heard across the day.
Continue the conversation
Frequently Asked
What is the three-factor legacy equation?+
Legacy, from The Indigo Elephant's frame, is a function of three factors that must be present together. First: clarity on your soul mission as a human being, beyond role and title. Second: alignment between your personal mission and the purpose of the company you are building. Third: room for your team to contribute their unique gifts — what makes the company a magnet for talent rather than a chase. Missing one weakens the whole. Present together, they compound into something larger than the sum.
What does 'meaning is not optional' mean in practical terms?+
For leaders taking a long enough time horizon, the return on investment of building meaning into the organisation is measurable. Harvard research has documented up to 14x market outperformance over fifteen years for purpose-integrated companies. There is no dividend paid for including meaning — there is a hidden cost for excluding it, showing up in burnout, retention, disengagement, and eventually market position. The AEX Futureproof Index sharpens the same finding from the other end.
Why do senior leaders leave when the numbers still look good?+
In our experience, most senior-position exits do not primarily reflect compensation or title dissatisfaction. Something deeper is happening: the leader's soul cannot land in the role any longer. The gap between what they came into leadership to do, and what the position now requires them to do, has grown beyond what they can carry. Reconnection with soul mission is often the beginning of a very different conversation — one that can lead to staying in a transformed way, rather than leaving.
What does Pieter Hemels' New York waiting list tell us?+
Pieter has recreated his company in New York as a truly soul-designed organisation. Rather than chasing candidates, he now has a waiting list of people who want to work there. This is what the third factor of the legacy equation looks like operationally: when a company becomes a temple of meaning where people can bring both heart and soul, attraction replaces recruitment. Pieter shares his full lived experience at the 17 September Summit.
Is this an all-or-nothing shift?+
No. And it should not be. What Elsbeth captured in the Live: reinvention happens gradually, without disrupting what is currently working. It starts with sitting down, reconnecting with your soul mission, and asking one honest question with your team: what is one thing we could do differently, now that these new principles are valid for us? From that new awareness, you can reinvent yourself, your team, and your company — slowly, steadily, and coherently.
What is the Indigo Elephant's own legacy?+
Helping build a new society and a new economy grounded in a different set of principles — with consciousness as one of several. Because organisations are historically the driving forces that create societies and economies, we enter through organisations. Walking beside leaders who feel they might have found the key to closing the gap between what is crumbling and what is being birthed. Pragmatically, without disrupting the business that must keep running while transformation happens.
There is no LinkedIn Live next week. Instead: the Summit. Three hours. Five speakers. One coherent field. See you there.
Imagine your business becomes a legacy for humanity.
