Where Will You Make Your Impact?

October 21, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

There is much to do and many ways to set a course for good in this world! And Make A Difference Day on the fourth Saturday in October, is a great way to begin exploring your passion and potential legacy project. Here are a few extraordinary legacy project stories to give you ideas from the example of some remarkable people who have visions, hearts and hands, found the personal fortitude and external resources they needed, and set out to generate more good in the world.

Maybe some of these will trigger a quiet longing or have you look around your community in a different way. Follow your heart, your values, what calls you to action. Be inspired by an area of impact you’d like to enhance and extend.  And remember, your legacy project can be as large or as small as you wish! Look around your community and see what you choose to do!

Projects that Impact the Earth

Earth Day
This holiday is now celebrated in the U.S. and now around the world. It was first conceived in 1962 by Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin’s 35th Governor and that state’s U.S. Senator from 1963-1981, and it evolved over a period of years. Nelson was concerned that the state of the environment was a non-issue in U.S. politics and needed more visibility. He worked with then  Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John Kennedy to schedule a five-day, eleven-state ‘national conservation tour’ in September 1963. Earth Day really took hold after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, all but dead from industrial sludge discharge, caught fire in 1969.  This Earth Day environmental legacy spawned a chain of events, and people who individually, in different ways, took on the underlying concerns as their own individual projects … which became their personal legacies. The resulting momentum and synergy literally created the environmental movement as we know it today.

A Legacy Explodes Internationally
Last year, journalists called it “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”! Citizens in over 180 nations staged actions on International Day of Climate Action to demand a quicker response to climate change. The New York Times covered it on the front page. In Times Square people watched images of this movement flood in from every corner of the world on jumbo-tron screens. More than 5200 separate events were held around the globe. “These are the kinds of crowds that turn out for rock stars or charismatic politicians, but instead they are rallying around a scientific data point, they’re asking our leaders to lead — to pay attention to scientific reality, not political convenience” said founder, Bill McKibben. He has grown his legacy through a book, and website devoted to teaching people the relevance of the number 350 (parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere). This year, the second Climate Action Day was celebrated on 10-10-10 (October 10th, 2010) with work parties in 7000-plus separate events in about 188 countries. One man, concerned about one issue, now with a small and very committed team, has built a global effort involving millions of people on all continents. In 2010 even U.S. President Obama committed to returning solar panels to the White House (first installed by President Carter, and taken down by President Reagan).

Projects that Impact Education

A Living Legacy Carries Forward
Candace “Dacie” Moses demonstrated that everyone can contribute something — and with the right planning, what lives on beyond our lifetimes can simply be an extension of what was joyfully given during them. She was a librarian at the Carleton College in Northfield, MN, in the U.S. and the legacy she defined and lived, then left for future generations is the Dacie Moses House, where students gathered for freshly baked cookies, Sunday brunches (for up to 50 people), to hold conversations, watch TV or play the piano, snack from her refrigerator or call home from her phone. Dacie wanted that to endure, so before she died in 1983 at the age of 97, she donated her house to the Carleton Alumni Association. Her will instructed that it be used as it was during her lifetime — a hostel for students and alumni, an upstairs rented apartment that generated funds to maintain and improve the property. In a separate trust, she provided funds to pay for cookie making supplies and the cost of the Sunday brunches.  From the conviction of her values, her joy in life and a little bit of property, Dacie Moses both lived and consciously created an enduring legacy.

Building On A Great Idea
One of the ways to begin acting on a legacy idea is to examine what others are doing, and possibly fit the project you design in with an existing organization.  Legacy builders and veterinary students, Alison Barnstable and Laurel Redding, attached their project to both the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (where they were students) and later Heifer International by initially creating their legacy in the form of a research grant application called “Increasing Agriculture Productivity in Developing Countries.” They sought to have the Veterinary profession become more involved with addressing world hunger through a contribution to public health, knowing the importance of safeguarding animal health for human health. Including a plan to work with Heifer International — the organization started by farmer Dan West, devoted to distributing livestock and providing training for people around the world in environmentally sound agricultural practices integrating both farming and ranching — they received the grant. Their plan exposes other Vet students to public health and world hunger issues, gets them involved in helping to train community animal health workers and establishes information networks that allow Veterinarians to use their skills to have a greater impact in the lives of people worldwide.

Projects that Impact Girls and Women

Girl Power
There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. The Girl Effect is an incredible legacy project addressing this problem by focusing on solutions to major global issues like overpopulation, infant mortality, child health and community development, by focusing on these girls. A corporate responsibility project, it was begun in 2004 as the work of the Nike Foundation, the non-profit organization founded by NIKE, Inc. They’ve discovered that when girls have safe places to meet, education, legal protection, health care, and access to training and job skills, they can thrive — and they influence others to thrive, too.

Hope for Women Worldwide
Husband and wife team, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn created a legacy in the form of a book called Half the Sky that has grown into a movement, because they felt strongly that women need protective laws, including the right to hold property and bank accounts … but as they write, “Westerners invest too much effort in changing unjust laws and not enough in changing culture, by building schools or assisting grassroots movements.” They know cultural changes are needed everywhere, maybe even in your local community.  Could you support a woman or girl to stay in school or further their education, or participate with a group that benefits women? It would be a great way to get started.

Giving Women a Home
For Constance Collins-Margulies, seeing a homeless person for the first time at age 13, left an indelible mark in her heart and soul. It imprinted a question: “How can any of us be happy as long as one of us lives like this?” 40 years later, she set up the Sundari Foundation to promote the education, advancement and social inclusion of poor, disadvantaged and homeless women and children. The nonprofit’s first project was the Lotus House Women’s Shelter in Miami, a shelter that takes a holistic approach to care for its residents on every level:  body (through medical, dental, eye care and even safety training), mind (through counseling, mental health treatments and support groups and running a Thrift Shop to learn skills and raise funds for the project) and spirit (through things like art, music, crafts, book clubs, gardening, and field trips).

Projects that Impact Health

Pivotal First Step Creates Free Clinic
Faith Coleman was a nurse practitioner without health insurance when learned she had a malignant tumor growing on her right kidney. Her treatment cost about $35,000 and she mortgaged her home to pay for it, gaining with that experience the insight and determination to make a difference for others who likewise needed access to appropriate medical treatment.  After her recovery, she mustered up her courage and took one pivotal step, approaching a local physician with 60 years experience treating the indigent population, Dr. John Canakaris, with her idea for a free clinic — and to her surprise he agreed. Their efforts created the Flagler County Free Clinic in Florida, which started with eight volunteers treating eight patients and where now about 120 volunteers see about 80 patients every other weekend.

Projects By and For Youth

From The Hands Of Babes
Austin Gutwein wouldn’t have called it a legacy when he started at age 10. He just knew he wanted to make a difference when he learned about children his age in Africa orphaned because their parents contracted a disease called HIV/AIDS. So he decided to use something he knew and loved, basketball, as a way to help. On World AIDS Day 2004, Austin pledged to shoot 2,057 free throws, representing the number of children orphaned in a single school day because of AIDS. He got sponsors for his effort, and raised almost $3,000 USD that day — and then duplicated the effort with other kids around the country to create Hoops of Hope. His project is now connected to a humanitarian organization called World Vision, and the project he started has now raised over $1,000,000 for building a school and two medical testing labs in Zambia, providing caregiver kits and furnishings, building a water system in Kenya, and providing bicycles for caregivers … and enduring help and hope for many to come.

If You Think You’re Too Small
They say good things come in small packages. Great legacies often start small … and young. Emily Goldstein was a senior at Atherton High School in Louisville, Kentucky, when she and her partner Brandie Farkas were chosen among 16 teens from around the world to study polar bears in the Arctic. She and her partner, Brandie Farkas, both volunteers at the Louisville Zoo, entered the “Project Polar Bear” contest. For their entry they created a website at the Louisville Zoo to educate about the effects of climate change, and encourage individuals to help address it. Feeling each person can make a significant difference, they wanted to encourage each individual to take steps to address global climate change — which they can do through pledges on the website. And so far, people have made pledges that add up to a reduction of over 15 million pounds of carbon emissions of energy use. Emily has gone on from there to other projects which will create even more great legacies for her to live, and leave for the benefit of others when she steps away.

Corporate Social Responsibility Starts Young
Emily Matson and Julianne Goldmark started their Emi-Jay business as teenagers looking for the best hair ties. At the same time, they made a commitment to donate a portion of all proceeds to Locks of Love, an organization that helps disadvantaged children suffering from medical hair loss. Their organization of choice to support is a perfect match for their own business mission. This approach, part of a concept known as corporate social responsibility, is not lost on young people and neither is entrepreneurism. It seems that loss of this youthful outlook often comes with fear and ideas of scarcity. How can you regain your own youthful enthusiasm to do something that makes a difference?

Where Do You Want To Go From Here?

No effort is too small, no one is too young or too old to start their Legacy Project! From a local community project to a global enterprise, the difference is only a matter of scale built on your unique desires and circumstances. It all starts small, an empassioned idea coupled with action— and even tiny first steps can grow to planetary dimensions.

Who would you like to impact, and how? Let us know how we can help you express your passion and joy to make that happen. (EBC)

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Education, Personal Legacy, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas, Women and Girls Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Legacy ~ Live it or Leave it?

October 16, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 1 Comment

Legacy.  Hmmmmm.  Seems like a big, foreign subject to some.  It’s one you may not have thought about much, if at all. You may think of a legacy as something beyond you, that only others produce or leave behind as a mark of their great wealth on the world.

Not true.

Great legacies are being created in many different forms by people of all ages and walks of life.  They are creating legacies whether or not they are conscious of it.  I know that from having been asked to represent “unknown heirs” at intestacy proceedings.

No, that’s not a stomach condition – intestacy refers to the law of descent and distribution.  It’s what happens when someone dies without a will, and includes the court proceeding to determine “intestate succession.”  That is, who comes after someone who died without a will, and has legal right to their property for purposes of distributing it after death (if any after expenses are paid).  Since there is no will, and no named heirs, an attorney gets appointed to represent those heirs who are not readily known.  In some cases, I had to go find them; rarely an heir would turn up that nobody in the family seemed to know about.  That was always exciting …

Funny thing is that when doing all that legal work in the case of a person who didn’t think they even had enough property to warrant leaving a will, I almost always found that the person had left a significant legacy.  Puzzling.  Not enough property to consider writing a will to designate who it would go to, and yet enough of  ‘something’  to have left a legacy. In the course of investigation, I found people who had been touched or otherwise benefitted by the person who had died, in a very significant and tangible way that often had little to nothing to do with their wealth or property.

That’s what got me thinking that legacy is far more that the sum of one’s worldly property, real and personal, and deciding who to leave it for after you’re done using it – as the traditional view of estate planning would define it.  Legacy is a process.  It is a living thing – it is the way you reach out and touch people and how they remember you – for who you are and what you’ve done in life, moreso than for your stuff.  If you have financial and other resources to contribute to that effort, all the better. That’s not even necessary, though, to define and live your legacy and decide on the contribution you’ll make to this world.

There are those who don’t know they’re creating a legacy, and clearly there are others who are designing, living and creating legacy quite consciously - so they can also enjoy the creation, see it come alive,  joyfully witness the benefit it has for others – and if planned well, step away from it and see it carry on without their involvement for generations to come.  That is the real key to a legacy – how it carries on. 

These conscious legacy leavers likewise may or may not have a will or an estate plan, since they are separate considerations, though it helps with the ‘make it last’ part of legacy planning.  One note on that: it is important to have a will and/or estate plan depending upon your situation, for numerous other good reasons I won’t go into here.  Just don’t confuse that with your legacy. 

So consider your legacy – because yes, you, have one, too – you are developing it now.  Do you want to live it as part of who you are and the unique mark you have to make, the special contribution only you can provide, the way you will reach out to your world of people, places and things and how you will meaningfully impact them? Or do you simply want to leave it, for others to define based on their views of you after you’re gone? 

If you want to approach the impact you will make consciously and with care, we want to know you!

Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Personal Legacy

Creating Memories From Joy

July 26, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Here at Creating Legacy we know that great legacies are inspired, thoughtful, heart-filled, beneficial, touching and meaningful.  They tap into the powerful human attributes every one of us possesses – of being generous, wise and creative.  So we also know they are not limited to the rich and powerful (both relative terms anyway …), they are the province of anyone who chooses to create something that others will benefit from, and remember for having been bettered somehow.  Which is a very satisfying thing to do. Thus we know that great legacies are pursued mainly by those ready to create memories from joy.

And how they deliver those memories is through the development of powerful, positive, and beneficial results to the world through a design that makes them workable, systematic, and enduring.  That’s all the “how to” we cover in our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program, after we help you get in touch with your passion, desire and vision for doing so.    

But why even go there?  Because there are benefits of a great legacy – for both giver and receiver.

GREAT LEGACIES ARE MEMORABLE.  A great legacy, or its impact, is remembered.  Certainly it is remembered by whoever benefits from the project or contribution. 

You may create significant impacts everyday just by virtue of consciously choosing who you want to be and how you want to you approach others or your work – you put in a little more effort than required, you leave something a little better than you found it, you choose to pay a particular kindness to someone even if just in passing.  It truly is a conscious mindset – instead of just stepping over the piece of glass on the path, you choose to pick it up so no one else will injure themselves. 

It is from this same legacy level way of being and doing that much larger legacies are built. They are an expression of your personal values.  People notice that sort of positive or constructive action, and they remember you for it – fondly. 

Actively choosing to create a project or enterprise that similarly impacts a chosen environment or community you care about will also be remembered in an even more significant way.  What you create may affect people immediately close to you, like actual or chosen family, or even members of distant global communities, depending on the type and scope of your legacy.  Some of them you may never actually know, but they will know of you, through your legacy … and kind contribution.  And because your impact is so memorable, others may want to participate or even replicate your efforts. 

No matter what, the process of building and watching your legacy grow is something that you will remember for sure – and be glad of.  Creating your legacy, contributing the benefits only you can while you can, will prevent that sense of regret later on of the things you could have done, but didn’t – like smelling more roses or eating more ice cream, but on a grander scale.

GREAT LEGACIES ARE JOYFUL.  Legacies consciously designed to create sustainable positive benefits encompass a true sense of delight both for you, and for those who benefit. For you, that may take the form of amusement in playing with the original idea, a sense of pride for the cheer or comfort delivered to others in the process, gratitude for seeing the end result play out and the impact your work has – or all three and many others.  For the recipients of your contribution, joy may be expressed through a sense of delight, great relief, or deep appreciation for the benefit or experience they may not have otherwise had. 

Developing a legacy project can provide a true sense of awe and wonder about how the process of creation works.  The experience of being a part of something that grows and morphs into a real contribution and that attracts the attention and involvement of others, can also provide a sense of real connection with the Divine or ‘oneness with the universe,’ however you define that.  During the process, people and resources just seem to show up, experiences just seem to happen effortlessly, and you may have other special experiences that seem to tap into the greater good. 

These are special brands of happiness and well-being that are profound elements of true joy – that you can choose to cultivate.  How would you like to be remembered, or for what? Look first for those things that bring you the most joy when you think about that as your contribution.  The pride you’ll feel for actually having done it – knowing it will live on an benefit folks who may never actually know you - will far outweigh anything fame has to offer.

The elements of great legacies can be grasped and mastered by anyone, and developed in your own unique way.  What are the sparks that inspire you – that stir inside you when you take the time to entertain them? What are your good ideas, the ones you consider sharing with others – but might be a bit shy to admit? 

Yes, those.  Right there.  The ones you might be reluctant about.  They seem like really are good ideas that mean something to you, and would mean something to others, but you may question your own ability to create them.  Well grab hold of your thoughts, and at least write them down somewhere to give them their first bit of “mass.” 

You’ll be on your way to making something from nothing – exercising that innate creative ability with which all
humans are endowed. 

Great legacies don’t happen overnight.  But once you get started, you might be surprised how, stepwise, you can systematically develop your good ideas, find needed support to nurture and grow them – and how they can turn into enduring, beneficial solutions that are both memorable and exceedingly satisfying to see working in the world. 

What are you waiting for, you creative being? 

Want to know more?

  • To learn more about legacy development from inception to completion and all the different ways to create one, check out our 7 Steps to Creating Your Legacy program and join us the next time we offer it!
  • Sign up for our Creating Legacy Kit and we’ll send you our complete 14 Elements of Great Legacies complimentary e-course – and you’ll get our twice monthly Legacy Journal and updates on upcoming programs and other offerings.

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Meaning, Purpose Tagged With: , , , ,

Native American Wisdom on Legacy

June 21, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 2 Comments

Legacy is all about powerful, positive leadership.  It is about looking forward, thinking long-term, and creating something sustainable – not just focused on current income, but on long term value. 

I found a quote recently that aptly addresses all these considerations.  As a lawyer, I found the source to be quite remarkable, though not surprising.  While coming from an entirely different ethnic background and part of the planet, I share many Native American philosophies on living and working in harmony with our planet Earth – and in tune with what they call Great Spirit.

So what is this legacy wisdom – this significant piece of enlightened leadership?  It’s this:

“In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions
on the next seven generations.”
(From the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy)

How would your life and your work be different if this was your decision-making focus?  What would you be doing differently? How quickly can you shift to that mindset and make the changes you need to make? 

The world is waiting for your own exercise of real power – the power to do good while doing well, and the power to positively impact the people around you and those who follow (and who follow them, and follow them, and follow them …).  Are you up for that challenge? 

Our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program has been a joy to deliver – and to watch what participants develop from there.  Keep an eye on the site to get details on how you can do something different in your work and life to incorporate this wisdom and make a positive impact on your partcular corner of this world!  Sign up for the Creating Legacy Kit (top right) and we’ll keep you posted on upcoming events.

Here’s to a better planet 7 generations from now – heck, hopefully yet during this generation!  Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Now We’re Getting Somewhere – Introducing The B-Corp

June 1, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

In the business world there’s been this tension between making money and doing good.  At least for an emerging group of leaders.  Sure, making money – being a viable enterprise – is exceedingly important.  It’s hard to be an ongoing enterprise, enduring for the long-term, without effective revenue generation and cash flow management no matter how you structure things. 

But more and more there are people who eschew (love that word!) the notion that business is only about profit.  It used to be that business was not just about making money – for oneself or one’s shareholders – but also about adding value and doing something good in the world: innovating new high-quality products that last longer than one season (or one year …), building infrastructure, caring for people when they are sick or injured …

Yet, in the world of corporate law, for-profit corporate officers can run into trouble if they engage in activity designed to do anything other than produce a profit, since their duty of loyalty is to the shareholders who funded the operation in hopes of getting the greatest return on their investment.  This, of course, has led to making  money as an end unto itself.  And that focus has led to a lot of people dissatisfied with the jobs they go to every day, just to earn a buck without much in the way of personal or professional satisfaction.

Many of us in business, particularly I’m happy to say the women entrepreneurs around the world, are starting to consider that such return might come in the form of value other than a dollar, euro, ruble or yen (insert your other favorite monetery currency here).  Those who consider themselves social entrepreneurs will be glad of this first: enter the Benefit Corporation which made its debut in the state of Maryland recently.

Rather than a primary focus on ‘shareholder value’ (which is creating as much money as possible for corporate owners) – the duty of those running a for profit corporation, the B Corp, like a true social enterprise, can lawfully focus on the needs of everyone connected to the company: shareholders, officers, staff, customers/clients, vendors, communities.  That’s a very different focus. So long as the public or social benefit that may serve as the mission of the enterprise is clearly stated in the corporation’s Articles of Incorporation (so investors know what that is and that their investment will not just be focused on money-making but rather value-making and money-making), then the officers and management of the company can legally seek to confer such benefits on people other than shareholders. 

Not only can they, but in doing so they must measure and report their beneficial results so that those efforts can be publically tracked.  Think of it as a hybrid of the for profit and non-profit corporation.  Click here to read an interesting example from the HuffingtonPost.com.

Seems a bit sad that we had to carve out a special legal definition for this.  But I’m glad Maryland broke ground with it. 

Actually, their law is based on the work of non-profit B Lab, a Pennsylvania company that certifies companies committed to social responsibility.  They provide an Impact Assessment for those who aspire to run socially responsible operations, help them save money and raise capital, and give them a forum to meet other kindred spirits in business. 

Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the co-founders of B Lab, feels there are more and more investors who want to invest their money in truly mission-driven companies.  He was quoted in Bloomberg-Businessweek recently saying: “I think it’s becoming increasingly not only acceptable but sought after by mainstream investors.”

That’s some good news for a change, eh?

Might your legacy project fit into a B-corp structure?  Seems like a good option for many who might need to raise capital to get their project going rather than having to rely on raising charitable donations.  We look forward to watching the development and stand ready to help you figure it all out.

Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Business Mastery, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What are your Memorial Day plans?

May 24, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Memorial Day in the U.S. is upon us again. Thought of as the holiday that ushers in the end of school and the beginning of summer, it is so much more than that. Memorial Day is also a very special day in my family.

The holiday, originally May 30 of each year, was set aside as a day of remembrance for those who have died in the service of our country and its ideals of freedom. Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971, which moved the holiday to the last Monday in May and created the three-day weekend form of the holiday.  That simple change in structure caused it to shift from a day of remembrance to the official first weekend of summer fun. Some feel that diluted the focus of Memorial Day, and in their own form of legacy are making efforts to restore it to its original date.

Another Memorial Day related legacy resulted from the effort of Moina Michael. In 1915, she was inspired by a poem, and conceived the idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She wore the very first one and raised money selling poppies to benefit servicemen in need. The tradition spread with the simple creation of a simple artifact – artificial red poppies – sold to support war orphaned children and widows in France and Belgium. Later, just before Memorial Day in 1922 the Veterans of Foreign Wars began selling the artificial poppies nationally. Two years later this developed into a program to sell artificial poppies made by disabled veterans, an effort that continues today in VA Hospitals.

In another form of legacy, an organization called No Greater Love began a campaign in 1997 to create the National Moment of Remembrance. It encourages Americans to take a few brief moments from sale shopping, barbecue gatherings, and other festivities at 3 pm local time, to focus gratitude toward the patriots honored, and remember the real meaning of the holiday. These efforts by the NGL organization – formed as a nonprofit in 1971 to provide annual programs of friendship and care for those who lost a loved one in service to our country – resulted in a Congressional resolution passed in 2000.

You can support and participate in these legacies through buying and wearing a poppy, and stopping for a moment of silent thanks each Memorial Day. Work something into the plans you are making now. 

My family’s remembrance always includes an outdoor barbecue with friends, as it was the first U.S. holiday my parents celebrated after their post-WWII immigration from Eastern Europe to seek citizenship here. The bravery of those who helped them make their way through war-torn Poland and Lithuania, slave labor in Germany, and work in the resettlement camps there before reaching the freedom to live and work here, is something we always remember … and celebrate gratefully. Each person’s brave acts of contribution toward that end is a legacy in itself – allowing me to be here writing this today, and to experience of working with you.

Great legacies are often born from needs first identified through challenges and difficulties – sometimes even a mistake. An effort to make something better turns into an expanded mission and some sort of business-like structure to carry it forward.

What do you see that needs doing? How would you go about starting? Who else would you involve and what structure might it take? And, as you contemplate Memorial Day, how will you make an impact in this world in an enduring way … so it is memorable and positively affects many? 

These are all questions we can help you answer, and with those answers help you create something beneficial for which you can feel personally proud and satisfied.  And we’d love to do that!

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Living Your Best Life Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Legal Profession Look Out! A Change is A-Comin’!

May 2, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

A great legacy has been born, and I’m proud to be able to announce it!  J. Kim Wright’s book “Lawyers As Peacemakers” has been published by the American Bar Association and is now available.  We also did a fabulous Creating Legacy Studio interview with Kim, about her legacy journey to this point – “A Legal Rebel’s Legacy Story” – and a recording of it is available for download on The Studio program site.

I’ve been on this journey with Kim since just after the turn of the new millenium (can you say Y2K?) – actually a lot longer than that, only I didn’t know her.  We were both restless and somewhat disillusioned with the legal profession.  Okay, not so much the profession, or even lawyers themselves, but the system within which we all had to practice.  We (and it turns out a number of others) felt there had to be a better way to use the law to serve clients and help make their lives and businesses better.  So we started making stuff up, borrowing from other traditions and professions, and fitting these new approaches into the structure of the law.

Yeah, they were teaching negotiation techniques when I went through law school.  And mediation – facilitated negotiation providing parties assistance to resolve their own disputes without a third party making the decision for them – was coming on the scene.  (This dates me, I know, since most post- college age people have at least heard of mediation and have some sense for what it is – thank God.)

But many of us longed for more civility and more constructive … yes, well, healing, approaches to legal problems.  Why should the health care and spiritual professions be the only ones to heal with their work? 

The information age being what it was back when Y2K posed what turned out to be not so much threat and disaster as hype (oh and the media has gotten better with the latter since then hasn’t it?  But I digress …), the powers that be put me together with Kim Wright and it’s been a totally kindred legal experience ever since.  I was retiring from law practice then, to pursue the more developmental and creative sides of what I did with clients - help them prevent legal intrusions, have successful businesses and happy lives, and even make things better in the world.  And Kim was, dare I say, hell-bent on improving the way law is practiced: the entire profession.

As a legacy story, this book publication has all the great elements:  Kim discovered her passion and interests, knew who she wanted to serve and benefit, figured out a structure that worked for her and has now created a number of artifacts that will persist in producing social good – this book being one of many others and no doubt some to come.  And she did it all on a shoe-string with her guts and grit and determination and heart.  For her efforts she has already been recognized as one of the ABA’s Legal Rebels for 2009.

Who says a great legacy requires a large financial estate? Even with that, it still takes the underlying guts and grit and determination and heart first – to persist and pursue and bring something beneficial to life.

In the 528 pages of  “Lawyers as Peacemakers” Kim provides the reader with the first comprehensive look at the myriad approaches talented and caring lawyers have developed to do just what we were dreaming about when we met.  If she hasn’t personally met and interviewed all the pioneers in this movement to tell the stories of how they work together, heal and bring peace to conflict and discord, she knows 99% of them.  And she is their — our — champion. Heck, she’s a champion for the entire legal profession and the people it serves – with her help in a more therapeutic way. It is my fervent hope that her impact is huge – even while I recognize how hard it is to turn a ship as large as an entire profession.  Even a few degrees on the trim tab, like Kim has made, can make a big difference.

Kim tells me that while writing the book she gathered enough additional information to write a follow up companion to it and not repeat anything she talks about in Lawyers As Peacemakers.  I hope it will soon follow her magnificaent first book! 

May the positive change continue as others get on board.  Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Elegant Endurance

April 27, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

So far we’ve talked about a legacy project starting with an idea and as it takes on mass, it grows. Included in that growth is a definition of the roles and processes it takes to become a reality so the project can unfold smoothly, deliver its benefits and then others can carry it on without your direct involvement. In that way …

Great Legacies Are Enduring. The project takes shape and each aspect of it is developed with an identifiable and replicable method – a system that others can learn, teach to many others and have any important course corrections along the way. Your legacy begins to take on a life of its own.

Part of the process is to build a network around you.  Others who are moved by your project want to be involved, ususally in a very collaborative way too. From there, it can develop exponentially. The money needed to build it appears, either because you can contribute it or because funding is available from others – or both. Professional services needed to expand the project are identified (and may even be contributed).

The other people who show up to help operate it and carry it on will also allow you to let go. You can step away, knowing it will continue as designed, to accomplish its defined mission and create a benefit for the intended recipients that can last for many future generations. 

Templates, and tons of existing resources, exist to help you create your legacy. Starting with only your passion, your good and beneficial idea can be developed using time-tested structures and methods that allow you to get it started, involve others in a systematic way, stay involved as long as you like and then step aside to allow it to continue to make a positive enduring difference in the world.

Add the following to your Legacy Notebook under “Element 12 – Enduring”:

  • Is there a template out there – another individual and/or their existing organization or business operation – that is doing the sort of thing you’d like your project to do?
  • Or is there someone else or an organization that’s doing something completely different, but whose process could be applied to get the sort of results you’d like to bring about?
  • Write down the ones that come to mind, and as you notice more, jot them down here, too.

Here’s to your best life…
Cheers!

Dolly and Eliza

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Personal Legacy, Purpose Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Height of Career? Time to Get Busy For Love …

March 27, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 1 Comment

Whether at the end of one successful career or in the middle of your third career, the reward is to really get busy with what you love – making the sort of contribution that working merely to create earned income doesn’t allow.  Making that sort of career transition isn’t always easy…

http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/former_paul_weiss_lawyer_is_busy_giving_away_money

Giving away money is only one way to do it - but it’s not about the money.  It’s about the effort and expending it realizes something money can’t buy.  It’s an experience available to all successful business owners and professionals. 

Our media likes to tell the stories of the ‘big splash’ with lots of dollar signs, but there are plenty of others waiting to be created … and told.

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Legacy Stories, Meaning, Personal Legacy, Purpose

What Legacy Is Your Life?

March 16, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

We’re often asked when the notion of legacy first came to us.  Dolly certainly learned the term while studying the law of estates and trusts, an offshoot of the law of property.  Working in medicine for so many years, I thought much of legacy was about healthy living during a lifetime and being in service. Both of us thought legacy always seemed like so much more than a person’s real and personal property, land, buildings, money, watches, jewelry, art collections, farm equipment, etc., etc. …

When Dolly was practicing law in Austin, Texas, she was often appointed as attorney ad litem in probate cases to represent and protect the rights of the unknown heirs of a person who died “intestate” – without a will.  Such people either didn’t know about writing a will or must have felt that they didn’t own enough property it.

Note to self:  if you are reading this now, you probably own enough property to warrant writing a will.  If you have a computer, you quite likely have a checking account, maybe even a savings and some investment accounts and credit cards.  You may also have other things that are legally titled in your name like vehicles and a house or some land.  Your heirs, the people entitled to that property by law at your death, will have to go through a whole lotta rigamarole in court, known as a probate proceeding, to be able to do anything with the stuff that is in your name if you don’t leave written instructions in a will.  Once the will gets proven up as legal in court (probated), it can be “administered” and things can be handled and distributed according to your wishes under court supervision. (Preferably leave instructions in a trust document that allows you to avoid the court proceedings for the most part, so things can be handled privately — and hire a good lawyer to help with all this because this blog post is probably as far from legal advice as you can get).

But I digress from Dolly’s original thoughts and message …

Back to the unknown heirs.  Dolly never intended to practice probate or estate law.  On top of that, she was now in the position of practicing law where her clients were people no one was sure existed or could find.  So her first task was to find her clients. Then the property to be distributed under the law of intestate succession (who gets what when there is no will) – often a home and/or a vehicle or two – could be given to the people who were expecting to get it.

Occasionally she would actually find some long lost relative. Often is was a child born from a relationship the deceased had that no one (often including the child) knew about – a half-sibling to the heirs who got to meet through this strange courtroom process – so the property could be divided up and distributed properly.

Even in cases where there was not much property, Dolly tells me she remembers being  so surprised during the investigation by how the deceased person was remembered.  Often, it was quite fondly for some small act of kindness they had done, a contribution they had made in the way they participated in their community, something they had built, or even some small but pertinent piece of advice and support they’d given along the way.  It wasn’t about their stuff.  That was the least of it – and yet, what this whole probate process was making the biggest deal about.

In every case, someone was remembered for something beyond their worldly goods.  They were remembered for who they were — what their life was really about.

All this started Dolly wondering how amazing the world might be if people consciously thought about who they are and what contribution they have to make to others.  What if they sized up their own strengths, talents and gifts, and consciously decided to make a positive difference, to seek to be remembered for good rather than for purposes of fame or power? 

The unique assets of each person, which might well include their property, could be used to benefit others, and they would get to hear about how they’d made a difference and be appreciated for it during their lifetime.  In turn, that gift of thanks would create a real sense of joy and fulfillment that would produce a self-perpetuating desire to do more, because it feels good not because there is some remuneration or vast dollar amount in it.  Hmmm, can you just hear John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ playing in the background …

Thinking about legacy as your life, rather than your stuff, seems to us to be the larger notion of what a legacy truly is.

*How would you be engaged in life differently from that perspective?
*What would you start doing or stop doing or become involved in right now?
*Who would you reach out to? What are you waiting for?

Interesting food for thought.  What say you about your life and your legacy?

Cheers!  Dolly and Eliza

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Life Design, Meaning, Personal Legacy, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas, Purpose Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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