I recently had the honor of interviewing Mel H. Abraham for my Podcast, Living Intentionally with Amy Smalarz. As a single father, he did all he could do to raise his son the best he knew how. Yet, during the interview, he talks about the day his son, Jeremy, came home from school with a drawing of him. At school, the teacher asked the class to draw a picture of their parents and he had drawn his dad, Mel, with a phone in each hand and a phone ringing on the desk...
That is not how Mel wanted to be remembered. That is not how he wanted to be seen and felt by his son, whom he loved more than the entire world. As Mel says, his greatest gift is being a father to Jeremy!
While each of us may not be an entrepreneur, we seem busy and do not make time for ourselves. However, we need to practice the habit of making time to reconnect with what we are doing each day. We can take a moment to ask ourselves: "Why am I doing this?"
The day Jeremy brought home that drawing, Mel decided that his business was no longer for business sake but for life sake. And he has spent his days working toward or living up to the Legacy he wants to leave behind.
But what's not shared in the Podcast interview and what I want to share with you now is our discussion afterwards -- and a discussion I have had with a few guests. It's about not leaving a Legacy but LIVING your Legacy.
While the word change is subtle, the meaning is drastically different. I have run into people, as I'm sure you have, that talk about their legacy when they are gone. Or maybe you have been asked "What would your eulogy say?" This is the idea of leaving your Legacy. It's what someone says about you when you are no longer alive and they think back on what you did, what you accomplished.
What is more interesting to me is LIVING my Legacy. So, it's not about what people say when I'm gone but how I make people feel and what they say -- now...every day.
That is something that makes people uncomfortable because we don't want to be judged right away. We don't want to be in the spotlight or held accountable for our actions.
But to LIVE your Legacy, excuses are no longer accepted -- it's just you.
But if you ask me (which you didn't but I took the liberty of asking myself), I would much rather prefer to live each day with Intention, to LIVE my Legacy. Why bother with excuses? I am me and I live each day to be my truest, best self...
Sure, I am no where near perfect [phew! because perfect can be so boring!] and I make my fair share of mistakes. But here's the thing...I make mistakes trying to be my best self. I make mistakes putting my positive intentions into action. So even if I fall short of my goal for the day, I have at least been pushing myself into the direction I want to be heading in life.
And this is where it all comes full circle. By my LIVING my Legacy, my business is not existing just for business, money sake. Yes, I need revenues and profits to continue, hire more people and make a greater impact. But my Business is about helping other people be their truest, best selves...Supporting and coaching them to build their own 'home' within themselves...To live each day with greater Intention. I'm in the Business of LIVING my Legacy, not leaving one behind.