Creating Memories From Joy

July 26, 2010 By 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: 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy, Impact, Joy, Legacy, memorable

Native American Wisdom on Legacy

June 21, 2010 By 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: Decision making, Enlightened Leadership, Impact, Leadership, Legacy, Long term value, Native American, Power, Powerful, Sustainable, Wisdom

What are your Memorial Day plans?

May 24, 2010 By 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: Creation, Impact, Legacy, Memorial Day, National Moment of Remembrance, Poppies, Veterans

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

May 2, 2010 By 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: American Bar Association, Heart, Impact, J. Kim Wright, Law, Lawyers as Peacemakers, Legacy, Make a Difference, Social Good

Increasing The Power of Feminine Energy on the Planet

May 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There is an amazing legacy project that starts today and runs for the next week – that you can access from the comfort of your home.  It’s called the Inspiring Women Summit.

The Summit is directed toward women for sure – as the primary demonstrators of feminine energies on the planet - in an effort to support them in greater use of the power of the feminine viewpoint and approach in the world.  And we here at Creating Legacy support that, because we want to see the power of the feminine viewpoint get stronger in terms of the way the world works.  Cultivating and nurturing a culture of contribution – living a legacy approach to life – certainly embodies that. 

However, while the word feminine – just check the dictionary – is most often defined with sex and gender characteristics, feminine and masculine (for that matter) are gender neutral terms.  Each of us possesses both feminine and masculine traits.  A great comparison of those qualities is available here (you may have to adjust the items under the proper columns depending on how it shows up on your computer, but you can download the Google version into Word). 

It is really how culture and sex role stereotypes have influenced you that will determine how comfortable you will be with expressing the feminine or masculine qualities you have access to.  And the context you are operating in will also be an influence – or a challenge to rise above and choose to use a different tool than the expected.

When I was training to be and practicing as a Registered Nurse, most nurses were female.  Not all.  But despite the highly scientific and technical aspects of the nursing profession, the fact that it was founded on caring put it squarely in the feminine domain and thus only a few strong guys were attracted to it.  That is not so true anymore.

Unlike my female predecessors and pioneers in the law, who may have been one of 5-10% of women in their law school classes, when I went through law school, my class was about 30% female.  Today, in both medicine and law – both previously the provinces of men – women make up about 50% of the graduating classes.  The focus on reading, research, writing, oratory and advocacy skills that make up legal education are clearly “something girls can do” … well, and thus do well in practice, too.  But historically, culturally, lawyers were men – not because women were not capable.  Even the skill sets of the law might be considered feminine in nature when compared with the hard physical labor of construction or combat jobs …

I’ve had two previous careers that gave me a lot of opportunity to consider the difference between a feminine and masculine approach to the subject matter and related tasks of the work.  I’ve seen males take a feminine approach to aspects of the work, and I’ve certainly seen (especially in law practice) females do their best to take on a masculine approach to the work – often thinking that is what they had to do to ‘compete’ in the workplace or the courtroom.

Well, it’s not true.  Either gender can use, hopefully the best of, the feminine or masculine energies in approach to their work.  What’s great about the Inspiring Women Summit is that we’ll get a chance to explore more of the feminine approach - as well as how women can emerge as stronger leaders in the world.  In my view, it’s certainly time in history for a greater emphasis on the feminine, from everyone.  And no, I’m not trying to be emasculating as some in the culture might suggest.  I’ll be the first to take on and use masculine energies when I need to.  It’s just that I know the difference … have a more varied toolbox perhaps than folks who insist on sticking with rigid sex role stereotypes. 

I have my parents to thank for this.  They taught me that I could do whatever I wanted to do based on merit, not on gender.

I wonder how clear these distinctions are for the generation of women who follow mine.  At the baby end of the baby boom and the leading edge of Generation X, I know the struggles of my predecessor women professionals and business owners - the trail blazers – that allowed me to be more of a pioneer with my work, discovering, designing, and building new approaches as opposed to just getting a foothold.  How do the women who come after view their power (‘ability to do’) to take on the important work they have in life and then make amazing contributions they have to make?  And their role – if not trail blazer or pioneer, how do we best characterize what they are up to?

Would love to hear your thoughts on that.  Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Coaching, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories, Life Balance/Harmony Among Life Arenas Tagged With: Baby Boom, Culture, Feminine, Feminine and Masculine Qualities, Generation X, Inspiring Women Summit, Law, Legacy, Medicine, Nursing, Registered Nurse, Sex role stereotypes, Women

Elegant Endurance

April 27, 2010 By 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: Collaboration, Contribution, create, creating, enduring, Enlightened Leadership, future generations, Legacy, legacy project, living legacy, Women

Legacy In Story

March 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Remember last year’s Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino?  It is a story about the clash of deeply held cultures and beliefs, and about the common values of life that unite us all.  The story itself is one of legacy, as is Mr. Eastwood’s lifetime of work.

For whatever else it depicts, Gran Torino focuses in on how we impact others, how we are called upon to create that impact, whether or not we respond to the call, and what we leave behind to benefit them (that is uniquely ours to give) when we discover and feel called to give it.  The story is as powerful an example of legacy in development as any I can think of.  I wasn’t so crazy about the ending, but for purposes of the movie, it fit.

I was especially moved by an excerpt from the lyrics of the title song:

Your world
Is nothing more
Than all
The tiny things
You’ve left
Behind

So tenderly
Your story is
Nothing more
Than what you see
Or
What you’ve done
Or will become
Standing strong
Do you belong
In your skin
Just wondering

And I am wondering the same.  Do you belong in your skin?  Are you comfortable there?  Are you truly exercising your unique gifts and giving back from there to make the world, your little corner of it, a better place?

We have each been endowed with gifts and talents that we are especially good at, that may well be easy for us, and even enjoyable – that can also benefit others. Will you tap into the pure joy and personal meaning that comes with doing what’s easy and enjoyable for you … for others? It doesn’t take hard work to help others, just good work – the kind you’re ready and willing to do.  Will you grow into and become those attributes and consciously leave behind those tiny things that you can, or maybe even something more? Are you contributing to life in the ways only you are able?

Start by recognizing today all you are good at and all you are grateful for … then build from there.

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories, Meaning, Personal Legacy, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas Tagged With: Legacy, legacy in story, life impact, s, story, values

Legacy is Becoming A New Trend

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Used to be when I used the word legacy, people cocked their heads to one side like a curious puppy hearing a new command for the first time. Huh?

It gives me great joy to see the concept out from under the wraps of heads of state and philanthropists with enormous financial estates. While these folks may or may not create great legacies, it seems more and more people are stopping to consider what their lives really mean, and what difference it will make for them having been on this planet. And, oh boy, that’s where it starts.

I read a great post by a guy named Chris Guillebeau in Seattle, Washington, USA. Chris has a great take on his own legacy and his post inspired the comments of a great number of kindred legacy spirits including me. If you’re interested in these notions, you may well find it a great read too!  I couldn’t have said better what he did if I’d written it myself, and I swear I didn’t hire him to write about it. These notions of giving back and social entrepreneurship are springing up spontaneously all over the place. I am so glad to see the trend forming.

I am struck how common the concept of creating a legacy project seems to be among Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials – even more than it is with people often of considerably greater financial means in the Boomer and beyond generations. There is a legion of humans developing on this planet with a penchant to give forward (as well as give back) and make a difference. And it is from that mindset they will find the means to get it done. You don’t have to start with a great deal of wealth or power to ‘leave a legacy.’ You just have to care about something and decide to act on it. Money can be raised to support something worthwhile.

What would you throw yourself into, whole-heartedly, that would be a joy to promote and even raise funds for if you had to because it did so much good and made you feel incredible?

Filed Under: Blog, Meaning, Personal Legacy Tagged With: Collaboration, Contribution, Generation X, Generation Y, giving forward, Leadership, Legacy, mindset

American Labor For Sustainability – Woo Hoo!

January 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Mainstream America is coming to an understanding of the need to get behind efforts to clean up the planet.  The American labor movement has for some time supported expanding “green jobs” that will help create a cleaner, renewable energy economy and address global climate change.  Three unions recently took additional action and announced their support for the science-based targets called for by the IPCC to reduce greehouse gas emissions that cost us all, and future generations, far more than any savings offered (to anyone) by maintainining the status quo in our current fossil fuel based economy.  More on this story here: http://www.labor4sustainability.org/post/unions-call-for-science-based-reductions-in-greenhouse-gases/

Learning the issues and taking action to be for the right kinds of change, are legacy level leadership activities! Right on!

Filed Under: Blog, Dolly's Legacy, Enlightened Leadership Tagged With: Action, Add new tag, Clean Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Legacy

The Solar Race Is On – Now There’s a Developing Legacy to Get Behind!

January 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Many of you know my personal legacy is devoted to environmental protection, conservation and support for the development of clean, renewable energy technologies. Now that folks seem to be getting the sense that global climate change is happening, addressing it is important and that it is economically and common sensically viable to do so (not only crucial to life as we know it on Earth), it seems the race to innovate and initiate new solutions is on.  Yea!!

From the Las Vegas Sun news online comes the story of the race between Nevada and Arizona to be the first to employ solar energy production and storage.

Imagine: what would the world be like if we all were racing to create better solutions, especially to environmental problems?  From my perspective, it would allow us to eventually get away from fossil fuel based energy production, which is important why?  Again, from where I live on the ocean it would stop us from killing the ocean and a crucial food chain all us Earthians depend on.  The ocean is not the vast resource we once thought, that we can treat as a giant dumping ground (and unfortunately have).  Between doing that and adding carbon to the atmosphere, which the ocean tries to help moderate by absorbing it and creating carbonic acid (H20 + CO2 = carbonic acid), not to mention unsustainable fishing practices, the ocean and its resources are dying. 

Here’s a picture of where we’re going if we don’t race to find solutions.  This is not just a scary story, we’re already actually on our way to this end:

Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen from Earth Touch on Vimeo.

It was a video shown in Copenhagen as part of the effort to urge global solutions to climate change (of which the ocean acidification I mentioned is part).  Consider your children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit from the current generation if we don’t get behind efforts to change things for the better. 

Knowing this, what solution could you race toward as part of your consciously chosen life legacy?  Let us know how we can help you!

Filed Under: Blog, Dolly's Legacy, Enlightened Leadership Tagged With: Change, Clean Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Legacy
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