CHATS WITH PAT: Who to Leave Your Legacy to | Ep. 63
Tim Tebow once said “There’s a big difference between inheritance and legacy. Inheritance is what you leave behind; legacy is what you leave it in. It is true that every eye reading this will pass away someday, and most of us will be forgotten within generations of leaving this Earth.
We don’t take the tangible, material items that we possess along with us when we die. But it is true that our legacy touches and stays with the lives that we impacted along the way. On the most recent podcast with the founder of No Grey Areas, Joseph Gagliano, and our host Patrick McCalla, dive deep into the conversation of leaving behind a legacy you’re proud of.
It's a known fact that we can’t do everything, so we have to select time-valuable journeys and experiences that contribute to our overall purpose. So what kind of Legacy story are you writing?
Be sure to go back and listen in on Pat’s latest interview with Joe Gagliano.
You can also watch the video version on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next inspiring and motivating interview!
https://youtu.be/BY5jtXVO1Qg
Want to submit your questions to ask Pat?
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The NO GREY AREAS platform is about the power, importance, and complexity of choices. We host motivating and informative interviews with captivating guests from all walks of life about learning and growing through our good and bad choices.
The purpose behind it all derives from the cautionary tale of Joseph N. Gagliano and one of sports’ greatest scandals.
To know more about the true story of Joe Gagliano, check out the link below!
Transcript
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Welcome to the No Gray Areas podcast.
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You're tuning in to a segment called Chats with Pat
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in these sessions.
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Pat will answer questions submitted by you while elaborating on previous conversations with our podcast guests.
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Let's dive in.
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Legacy is a fallacy.
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Okay, hear me out because it's going to be worth your time. Joe Gagliano, whose story really launched the No Great Areas podcast platform, was a guest or return guest on the podcast, and he and I were recently talking about the importance of legacy, and it reminded me of an illustration that I used so many times back when I would speak to crowds.
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I would ask everybody in the crowd to stand up. So right now, as a listener, you can imagine maybe a thousand people in the audience and you hear them all stand up. And then I would say this. I would say, if you can remember the first and last name of your grandparents remain standing, the first and last name of your paternal and maternal grandparents.
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So for me, it would be Earl and Betty Nystrom and Fred and Flora McCullough. I told them, if you can do that, stay standing. And you would see maybe just a few people sit down here and there, but almost everybody would stay standing. And then I would say this if you can name the first and last name of your eight great grandparents, stay standing, there would be a pause.
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You'd see people kind of thinking and then you would hear this almost a thousand people, 30,000 people in the audience, almost a thousand people would sit down and then I would tell the audience this. I would say, You know what this means? This means that within a few decades, for most of us, our own family won't even remember our name.
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Seems kind of depressing, but. But there is hope in this. The reality is the truth is, is that when you and I think of legacy, we usually think that it's a statue that's going to be built for us. It's going to be our names written in history books. But that's really not what legacy is. If it is, that's bad news.
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But I would suggest that that legacy is is deeper than a statue erected for us or our names in the history book, because that's not going to happen for most of us. So let me reframe legacy for us. First of all, as I reframe legacy, we need to ask this question. Who's my audience?
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See, again, history has proven statistics prove that most of us will be soon forgotten by almost everyone that we interacted with in our life.
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So the question is, when it comes to your legacy, who's your audience that you really care about?
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Who are the people
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that you truly want to leave things of value to?
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Who's your audience? Another way to reframe legacy for us is is what is it? How would we define legacy? I listened to an interview recently with Tim Tebow, and Tebow said this such a great quote.
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He said, and I quote, There's a big difference between inheritance and legacy. Inheritance is what you leave. Legacy is who you leave it in.
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This goes back to again, who's your audience? Inheritance is something that you leave. It's resources that you leave. Legacy is who you leave it in. Who are the people in your audience that you truly want to leave a legacy with?
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I wrote my father in law and Mother in Law a letter recently. They're amazing people, and I was sharing with them in this letter much of what I'm saying right now. I shared with them The reality is that within a few decades, a lot of their own family wouldn't remember their name. And that could be a depressing thought, except that I said when people like them live the lives that they lived, they're going to leave a legacy in their their children, in their son, in laws and daughter in laws and in their grandchildren and in the great grandchildren.
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What kind of legacy what kind of things of value are they leaving? They're leaving things like like loving each other a respect, hard work. That's the kind of thing that's the legacy that they're leaving. And even though future generations may not remember their name, future generations will be living out those qualities and characteristic sense of of a healthy life because of the way they lived.
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That's legacy. Here's a definition that I like of legacy.
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Legacy is about passing on things of lasting value to those who will live on after us. So ask yourself what lasting values are you leaving
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for those
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who
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you
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value?
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What lasting values are you leaving for those that are in your tribe?
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The ones who really mattered to you? So maybe as I try to reframe legacy force, I can help us understand it this way to use this analogy. Legacy is like a tree that you're living under. Legacy is like a tree that you're living under. And you didn't choose that tree. You were given that tree. You inherited that tree, so to speak.
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Some of us inherited an old tree. It's an old oak tree that's maybe, you know, you know, 60, 70, 80 feet tall. And the roots go deep and that legacy goes way back. Some of us inherited a rather shallow tree. Maybe the roots are shallow and and it's a rather new tree, and it doesn't go back very far.
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Some of us inherited a great legacy that we want to continue, and some of us, unfortunately inherited a crappy legacy. Here's the good news. You can tear that tree out. You can tear that tree up. Bad news is you can tear that tree out. See, the good news is, if you inherited the crappy legacy legacy, you can tear that tree out.
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And the legacy that you pass on to those that go beyond you can be something beautiful. Bad news is, if you inherited a good legacy and you're not careful, you can tear that tree out. This is why my wife and I named our firstborn son Josiah, because he's one of my favorite characters in the Bible. Josiah was one of the only good kings in Israel.
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There was there was, like 30 some kings, and almost all of them were evil, dysfunctional messes. But Josiah was a great king. Here's the interesting thing. Josiah did not inherit a good legacy. Josiah's father and grandfather were two of the most wicked kings. And when I was a young man and I was struggling with the legacy that I inherited, Josiah Story was a story of hope because I realized that you can change your legacy.
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Josiah did. His father and grandfather were wicked dysfunctional, horrible, horrible people. That's the legacy he inherited. But you know what? Just I did. Became king at eight years old. And at 18 years old, he turned the entire nation back to God. You see, Josiah got out the ax and chop down that tree, that legacy. And he ripped out those roots, and he left a different legacy.
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Here's the question I deeply affected Joe, and one that you and I need to wrestle with ourselves.
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What legacy am I leaving?
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Not to the masses,
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but to those closest to me.
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What legacy am I leaving? What things of value am I leaving to those who are closest to me? So here's my challenge for you.
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And I would. Oh, I would highly encourage you to do this because this is life changing. I promise you. I did this years ago. This is how you can define what kind of legacy you want to leave and live out to make sure that that's the legacy you leave. I want you to take a piece of paper and I want you to write down those that are closest to you.
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You're probably going to have if you're married, you can have your spouse on there. You're going to have some family on there, maybe a parent's children, siblings. You're going to have your children on there. If you have children, you may have some some some close, close friends. But I want you to write down a name. And then in one sentence, I want you to write down what they would say in one sentence when they walked up at your funeral.
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If you die before them and they walk up and they look at your casket, what is the one sentence you want them to say?
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You want your spouse to perhaps come up and say they cherished and respected me. The greatest partner through this adventure called Life. That's the one I wrote for my wife. That's exactly what I want her to say when she walks up and she looks at me.
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If I die before her, I want her to say he cherished and he respected me. And he was the greatest partner I can could have through this life called an adventure. This adventure called Life.
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What would you want your spouse to see? What would you want your children to say? What would you want your close friends to see?
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And he said, When I die, I want God to simply look at me and say,
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Well done.
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You were faithful.
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Hey, I'd love to hear your comments. You can comment below or you can email me at info at no gray areas dot com in for it. No gray areas dot com like follow subscribe live and share.
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Let's live out our legacies.
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Living on purpose for a purpose.
