Small Shifts That Shape Your Legacy

I saw this post recently, and it really stuck with me:

As a mom, I love that, and it spoke to my heart.

But when I think about the bigger picture of my life, I think it goes ever further:

My biggest accomplishment in life will never be money. It will be the lives I touched.

That’s not just because I’m an author or a speaker. It’s not just because I work with global companies and top-tier leaders. It’s not even just because of this beautiful community we’ve created.

It’s all of that, and.

Because what I really mean when I say “the lives I’ve touched” is the personal interactions I have every day. I’m conscious of every interaction I have with people, because even a small interaction touches someone else’s life. 

Live Your Legacy Every Day

Your legacy isn’t something you create later in life—it’s unfolding in every small moment, every interaction.

Take a second to reflect: Who have you connected with today?

Think back on your day up until now... How many people have you emailed, texted, spoken to, or even just made eye contact with? Even if it’s still early in your day, if you really sit with this question, I’m willing to bet it’s at least a few or maybe even dozens.

✅Members of your household and family.

✅Your kiddo’s bus driver.

✅Your postal worker.

✅The barista at your coffee shop.

✅The driver you let merge in front of you.

✅The person you held the elevator for.

✅That group email to your team.

It adds up quickly. Every single one of those encounters is an opportunity—because how you show up in those moments makes an impact in this world.

When I partner with companies to help them carefully craft a program that develops leaders’ professional skills and gives them tools for personal development, the entire goal is to equip those leaders with what they need to build their individual legacies.

One of the things I always remind every new group is that their legacy comes down to a really simple question:

🌱How do I want people to feel when I walk out of the room?🌱

Most people think about legacy as something they’ll leave behind. But the truth is, your legacy is built in real-time—through every choice, conversation, and interaction.

You build your legacy moment by moment, with each choice you make.

So here’s my question to you:

Are you living your legacy⸺or just planning it?

Are you conscious of how the things you say and do impact the people around you? Are you aware of the energy and the emotions that you bring to your daily interactions? Are you intentional about how you show up in each moment of your day?

Negativity is a constant in our lives. Challenging people, difficult emotions, the endless news cycle, and even the relentless voice of our inner critic can drain our energy and dim our focus. But how we navigate these moments doesn't just shape our daily experience; it defines the legacy we leave behind.

Learning to shift from automatic reactions to conscious choices is the key to living your legacy, moment by moment. 

Dealing with Negative People Without Losing Your Peace

Almost every time I deliver a keynote, I get one of two questions:

❓How can I help a negative person in my life adopt this tool?❓

Here’s what I tell them:

First you have to start by releasing the idea that you can control other people or their behavior.

For most people, especially those of us who are focused on leaving behind a positive legacy, this is the biggest block. You want them to be better. You know there are tools that can help them. You feel responsible for making sure you’re paying forward every resource you find. 

But trust me when I say that this will only set you up for disappointment and frustration. Even if you’re just dropping gentle hints and tips to them, every time they dip into their negativity and do or say something that rubs you the wrong way, your frustration is only going to be amplified by the feeling that they just didn’t listen to you or do what you said.

You have zero control over that. Zero. 

So start there. Dealing with negative people isn’t really about changing who they are or how they think. Start by releasing any expectations or beliefs you have that you can control other people. 

When you focus on trying to control other people’s responses, you lose sight of your own legacy, which is built on your reactions, not other people’s.

That doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a slow process of rewiring your brain to recognize those moments when you expect that someone should listen to you or do what you say—even if it’s because you think it’s in their best interests—and reminding yourself that you can’t control their beliefs, choices, or actions.

Every single time you feel that instinct start to bubble up, Stop. Remind yourself that this is something you cannot control. 

But developing the mental strength to navigate interactions with negative people doesn’t end with releasing the belief that you can change other people—that’s just the first level. 

The second level is making sure you have the tools to keep their negativity from impacting you.

That’s just as heavy a lift as trying to recognize what’s outside of your control and rewire your brain. You have to develop tools to release that expectation and also preserve your own peace.

It would be great if it was just as easy as deciding to ignore them, but it’s not. 

Mastering Your Emotions

We don’t cultivate our growth or our legacy by negating our natural human responses.

There will be moments where you feel anger, sadness, disappointment, heartbreak. Navigating negative emotions is a normal part of this human life. Your legacy isn’t about avoiding those emotions; it’s about the choices you make in response to those emotions. 

Your legacy grows from being a human who experiences those thought emotions and still chooses grace, compassion, gratitude, and optimism. 

🧠Learning to handle the whole range of mental emotions is true mental strength.🧠

Let me show you what that looks like…

I’ve been working with two elite athletes recently—two young gymnasts who have been training since they were very young.

One of them had developed a fear that felt debilitating; she just could not seem to get past it. She and I have been working on how to move through that fear so that she can continue to pursue her goals.

As we talked about where this fear came from, I noticed something really important: This was not a new fear. It was something she had worried about her entire career. The difference now was just that it had become something she felt she couldn’t overcome, and it was consuming a lot of energy and attention.

That kind of thought loop can become a self-propelled cycle. The more we focus on the fact that we’re afraid, the bigger the fear feels, the more of our mental power it consumes, and the less confident we feel about facing it.

Shifting the Focus

If I’d asked her to focus on all the times she hadn’t noticed the fear, she would’ve continued that negative cycle. I would’ve still been asking her to think about the fear.

Instead, I asked her to think about the amount of bravery she’d shown, in spite of that fear. She’d accomplished so much, done so many incredible things, even with this quiet fear always inside of her. She’d competed, won medals, learned complicated (and even dangerous) new moves and skills, all in spite of this worry.

Trying to fight the fear was never going to bring her the peace she needed to move forward. It would just create a constant sense that she was failing, because you can’t white-knuckle your way out of fear.

Focusing on everything she’d done in spite of the fear showed her the incredible strength she possessed. 

She didn’t need to fight that fear. She just needed to have the confidence to realize that even when she was afraid, she could perform and excel. She could feel her fear and not allow it to become the dominant emotion. She had that mental strength, and she’d been honing it all these years.

Courage lives alongside fear.

So rather than trying to power through her fear, we just needed to figure out why it had suddenly become so prominent. Then we could work on redirecting those thoughts and rewiring her focus.

I experienced this in my own life recently as well. I’ve been searching for a new home and working with an amazing realtor, who is also a friend. I trust her, knowing she has my best interests at heart. I was very clear about what I wanted and needed in a new place, and she had been keeping her ear to the ground and booking showings left and right.

But nothing I saw hit all of my requirements. After one showing, I told her I was starting to feel pretty hopeless.

As an expert and a professional, she was totally honest with me. She told me that I might just need to adjust my expectations a bit because I probably wasn’t going to find everything I wanted in one home.

I really started to focus on that advice. My energy really dipped that day, and I was feeling low.

New Thoughts Open New Doors

As I was lying in bed that night, I knew I just needed to send my thoughts in a different direction because the feelings of overwhelm and disappointment were getting too big.

I recognized that those feelings were totally natural in this situation, but I also knew that staying there wouldn’t do any good. So I thought to myself, “God, just show me how easy it can be.”

And guess what?

A few days later, I found exactly what I was looking for.

If I’d stayed in that negative space, it would’ve continued to consume all my mental energy. Instead, I redirected my thoughts away from how hard it all was and chose to believe that there was the possibility that it could be easy.

Just by not letting those negative thoughts take center stage, I opened up mental space to look for a different solution. And with that freed-up energy, my brain had a chance to remember that there was a rental house being renovated on my friend’s street.

So I sent her a text asking if she knew what was happening with the house up the street.

Turns out, the renovations were almost done, and the owner was just about to put it back on the market. It had every single thing I was looking for, plus a few bonuses—like the fact that I’ll be living on the same street as my wonderful friend, whose son also happens to be one of my son’s good friends.

If I’d stayed stuck in that negative loop and stayed focused on the narrative that I couldn’t get everything I wanted and that the process was inevitably going to be really hard, I don’t think I would’ve remembered about that house on her street. I’d probably have signed a lease on something that wasn’t quite right, and I would’ve worried that I was just setting myself up for another move in a year.

The Small Choices That Shape a Life Well Lived

Building your legacy starts with learning how to navigate challenging people and challenging emotions so that you don’t let that negativity cloud your vision and you don’t pass that negativity on to the people around you.

You can’t control how other people feel, including how they feel about you, and that’s an important perspective to keep in mind. You can’t control how other people will receive you. But you can control what you put out into the world, and you can be intentional about making sure those choices align with what you want your legacy to be.

✅You can choose to intentionally try to avoid being the negative voice looping in someone’s mind as they’re falling asleep at night.

✅You can choose to be the person who doesn’t add fuel to someone else’s negativity.

✅You can choose to be the person who reminds people of their greatness and courage when they’re feeling fearful or overwhelmed. 

We think that we go through seasons of uncertainty, but life is always uncertain. What is certain is the moment we’re in and what we’re choosing in that moment. 

While we might not always see how our choices affect the world around us, we can believe that when we make a conscious effort to bring our best selves forward, those decisions create a positive ripple. It all begins with being present and mindful about how we engage in each moment. 

🌱 That’s the control you can control. 🌱

We’re so conditioned to focus on the future that it takes practice to sink into the present and respond with the intention that comes with flowing through each moment, but that’s truly where our legacy grows. 

So as you go about your day, ask yourself: How am I showing up? Each moment is a chance to make an impact...

It's asking the cashier how their day is going and really listening to what they say. It’s offering an encouraging word to a colleague. It’s extending patience to a loved one. It's in the quiet moments of reflection when you choose kindness over judgment, understanding over reaction. 

These seemingly small interactions, multiplied over a lifetime, are the true building blocks of your legacy, your biggest accomplishment.