I was having a conversation with one of the most interesting people I am connected to recently and the exchange was around legacy.
My friend said he doesn’t care how he is remembered and while he may think that’s his truth, I can’t believe any one of us truly don’t care if others remember us when we’re no longer here. Abraham Maslow and Tony Robbins respectively break down our hierarchy of motivational needs as for survival/certainty, safety/variety, belonging/connection, respect/significance, and self-actualization/growth and contribution.
We all want to feel significant because that is one of the primary ways we evaluate our enoughness in the world we live in, and in order to ensure we create a legacy we can be proud of, we must work towards the becoming of it daily.
While most people think of ‘legacy’ as something intangible it’s S.M.A.R.T to realize it’s about the imprint we make on the hearts and minds of those who knew of us and how their accounts of us impact who others will believe us to have been.
Placing our own self-worth in the hands of a stranger means we are giving an outside ruler full access to our esteem account and no matter how good their acceptance of us feels, we stand to lose far more than we stand to gain by leaving our self-image up to someone else.
You are the sovereign ruler of your own inner kingdom and your emotional state is the floor in your internal highrise of awareness that will determine your perspective.
Our legacy is the jackpot we get to win when we are true to our authentic and Divinely creative selves.
Some might call it luck when someone has a lot to leave behind but Earl Nightingale best defined luck as “opportunity meeting persistence”. You have to put yourself in the right place at the right time in order for the collision of desire and reality to take place, and your intention is the driving force behind it.
How you treat the people on your path along the way and how you made them feel is how others will remember you because your inspiration has the potential to create movement and change in their lives.
Eleanor Roosevelt famously said people won’t remember what you said or did but they will always remember how you made them feel, and that is the legacy we must be concerned with. Not just how people will remember us in the end, for the accomplishments we achieved and all the things we did, but for how we made those around us feel about themselves when they were with us.
Remember that your legacy is the culmination of all that you’ve done, who you did it with, and how you influenced others by who you became in the process.
After probing my friend he left D.E.N.I.A.L behind (which stands for Didn’t Even kNow I Am Lying) and admitted he wanted to be remembered for his food, just proving the point that we all want to be remembered for doing SOMETHING positive while we’re here.
You have this same choice and it’s what you choose in this now moment that makes all the difference.
A closing sentiment I want to leave you with, for inspiration, I first heard Oprah share in an interview and then happened to find her sharing in an acceptance speech for the “Hall of Fame” at an awards show.
It comes from a poem by Maya Angelou, Oprah’s sister-mother friend and mentor, called “To Our Grandmothers” and the key line Oprah paraphrased in this speech called “I COME AS ONE, BUT I STAND AS 10,000 TO THE 10TH POWER!”
You get to be the fruit for other ‘seeds’ to blossom just by your sheer impact and impression on them as a fellow creator in this world. Your influence is the example you set for others to follow their own truths in a world veiled by illusions.
Choose to create your legacy by the choices you make in the moments leading up to the next now moment, for this is the only moment you have any true influence over.
Choose wisely my friend, you’re worth it and the world is waiting for the gift you brought here with you!
Much love,
Laura JE Hamilton
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