What Legacy are You Leaving?

What kind of legacy are you leaving behind, and how are you impacting the lives of those around you?

Today, I want to talk about legacy, inspired by the memory of my mom, whose birthday is June 3rd. Even though she's no longer with us, her legacy continues to shape my life and the lives of many others. 

As we reflect on the legacies of those who have impacted us, let's also consider the legacy we are creating. Whether through small gestures or significant commitments, we are continuously leaving a mark on the lives around us. Thank you, Mom, for the legacy you’ve left in my life.

This episode is dedicated to exploring what it means to leave a legacy and how we can be mindful of the impact we have on others every single day.

In this episode:

Personal Reflection on Legacy:

•   Celebrating my mom’s life and legacy through family traditions.
•   Reflecting on the impact of influential people during my childhood.

Defining Legacy:

•   Understanding that legacy is not only what we leave after death.
•   Realizing legacy is created in everyday interactions and actions.
•   The importance of being authentic while building your legacy.

Impact on Others:

•   How small actions and gestures can leave a lasting mark.
•   Examples of encouraging and supporting others despite personal challenges.
•   The influence of positive interactions in a world often focused on negativity.

Continuing My Mom’s Legacy:

•   Involvement with Girl Scouts as a way to honor my mom’s memory.
•   Supporting my daughter and other girls through leadership and mentorship.
•   Balancing personal challenges with the commitment to leaving a positive legacy.

Encouragement to Listeners:

•   Identifying the legacy you want to leave.
•   Small, meaningful ways to impact others daily.
•   Reflecting on the legacies left by important people in your life.

Resources:

Couples Goal Setting Workbook
⁠Rebuild Program

Couples Goal Setting Workbook

Level 10 Relationship Assessment

Follow Katie Rössler on Instagram

Check out the podcast website

Transcript

I am recording this on June 3rd. And for those of you who don't know, June 3rd is my mom's birthday. She's no longer here with us to celebrate. So today I want to talk with you about legacy.

I'm recording this on June 3rd. And for those of you who don't know, June 3rd is my mom's birthday. She's no longer here with us to celebrate, but today I want to talk about, but today I want to talk with you about leaving a legacy. 

Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day to day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Ressler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code.

Welcome back to the podcast. So as I shared today is my mom's birthday.

And even though she's no longer here on earth, I still love to celebrate it. Take my kids to go get ice cream. We play fun music and we dance and we still celebrate this day because it's the day my mom was born. And for me, it's really special. It makes me think about legacy. It makes me think about the legacy I'm leaving, the legacy my mom left, the legacy all of us are leaving.

So today I want to talk with you about the legacy that you're leaving. 

[00:01:00] When I think about the people who made the biggest impact in my life, I kind of laughed at myself because I realized I'm in that age range. Like now I'm about the same age they were. And that's a little scary, but it is also rewarding because it's showing me that this is the time now where I'm going to impact obviously my children, but my children's friends, the people that, I come in contact with.

So it feels like a big responsibility, but it also feels like, wow, Everything I do has some good meaning to it. It feels like a sense of purpose. I always laugh that, you know, my favorite teachers growing up, yes, they were in their forties and fifties, but they did not leave their legacy once they died.

They left their legacy in the moment of working with me and helping me. They were alive when they were leaving their legacy. and often when we think about leaving a legacy, we think about that [00:02:00] happens after we die, but it's not true. Again, think about the people who made an impact in your life.

It was while they were alive. It was the interactions. It was the way they helped you. They coached you. They taught you the way that they encouraged you or challenged you. It was in the now, in the moment. And yes, you may reflect on the legacy later on, but it is being left Now, now that feels a bit like a tall order for some of you.

I understand that. But when we talk about life balance and we talk about stress management and overwhelm, something we need to be aware of is that in all of that, We're also leaving some form of a legacy, kind of how we're going to be remembered. Now, I'm not saying now you need to go fake it till you make it and act like everything's okay.

It is about being authentic. But I think when I think about the people who left legacy in my life, they were honest. They were authentic. They [00:03:00] also made sure that I didn't feel like their problems were my problems. They were able to encourage me and support me. And I could still know that, Hey, you know, they're having some challenges or a bad day.

Now, obviously when I think about the people who left a legacy in my life, I'm thinking about my childhood and my teen years and young adult time. And so it is very easy to be wrapped up in only ourselves and not fully see what was going on for the other people. But again, I'm the age those people were now.

And I'm thinking, wow, how much life they were going through, how many things they were facing and the challenges life gave them. And yet they were still able to show up and leave a legacy in my life. And I just think that's encouraging. I think it's encouraging because often when we're so wrapped up in our own lives and the pain we're going through, the challenges we're facing, the stress, all the things we're juggling, we often forget [00:04:00] that we're still making an impact in people's lives.

When we smile at them, when we encourage them, when we ask them how they're doing, when we remember something they shared a week or two ago and we check in on how that's going, right? Like these things leave a mark and they encourage people. And then the time and in a time in our, world, in our society where it's just so much easier to attack, to put someone down to only see all the hurt and the pain and the negative.

We can equally also look at ways that we can create joy in our lives, create moments of, I am careful to say happiness because happiness is fleeting and happiness is usually about external things, right? But we can really create those joy filled moments within us that then impact other people that support other people and still be authentic to what's going on in the world, still share the [00:05:00] challenges we're facing in our lives.

So what does legacy mean to you? What type of legacy are you leaving now? And in whose lives? One of the things that was important to me after my mom died was to support not only my daughter, um, who was my oldest daughter at the time, but other kids. You know, I loved growing up babysitting and, in college, I worked with, you know, fellow students who were struggling with the transition to go into college and then in grad school, of course, I was doing counseling.

So I was supporting kids and teens during that time. And I missed that when we moved to Germany. I didn't. I don't have that piece anymore. I just had, I was raising my kids. But what I found was we had our local troop of the Girl Scouts. Yes, in Germany, we have Girl Scouts too. If you're based in America, then you know.

but we had this group and a friend, uh, pretty soon after my mom died said, Hey, just think about it. But, you [00:06:00] know, next school year, we're going to need support. We're going to need help. And your oldest can come in and be a daisy and, and you could help lead. And I was like, wow, actually, this is kind of perfect timing of filling my cup because I was in the Girl Scouts.

And no, my mom wasn't a troop leader, but it was something I could be doing, that I know she would have done if she was in my shoes. She would have absolutely been like, yep, I'm there. I will help. I'm going to be a part of it. And it felt like me passing on some of her encouragement of her, her support, the things she would have done with my daughter, you know, activities and things that just would have made my daughter feel like, ah, you know, my grandma's here.

And I thought, well, this is a beautiful way for me, not only to continue that legacy in my daughter's life, but also to impact other girls, to impact how they see themselves, to impact how they understand the world around them, to [00:07:00] show them what respect looks like, to show them that they have an equal voice, that they matter.

And so I was, I was in, that was an easy, yes. And it's something I've continued to do year after year, no matter how much I have on my plate and how stressed I feel. I still realize that this is leaving a legacy and that I might be a troop leader. They remember. 10, 15, 20 years from now, because I said something that was encouraging to them, or, you know, I challenged them to be stronger or to, be able to face something they were dealing with, with another girl in the troop.

Right. And all of a sudden they learn those better communication skills and they want to go on and help others in the same way. I don't know, but it's something that I realized like, wow, this is a piece of legacy. It's the same as being a counselor. I, I don't know if you've ever thought about the job of a therapist, but you work with someone and then you're done.

Hopefully there's a point where they, don't need you anymore. And then you [00:08:00] don't usually hear from them again. You don't know what impact you've made. You don't know. It's not like I built a product and now I can see that it's still being purchased and you know, people are still enjoying it and I can watch videos of people enjoying it.

No, like. I don't know. And I don't know the impact of our work, you know, going forth. Like, did it impact the people around them? Well, the beautiful thing of, you know, practicing therapy for 15 years is that I do sometimes get to hear from people who come back and share, Hey, this is how you've impacted me.

And this is how I am passing it forward. Right. This is how I am sharing with others the things you taught me, whether they're a teacher, whether they have clients in the service based industry, whether they are just in a corporate work world, and they're going, hey, you know, I learned this skill. Let's do this.

Let's try this in our, our team building exercise. And I just think that's so cool because there are times where we don't know if we're leaving a [00:09:00] legacy or not. There are times where we feel a little bit like we're floating on an island by ourselves going, do I matter? Does this matter? And that is so impactful when you can hear from someone, some feedback about something that you did, you said, just even your presence, right?

Just even being there, showing up that it impacts people. That it leaves a legacy. So as I reflect on my mom and I reflect on the legacy she left in my life and so many others, I just think about the key words that I want to continue in my own legacy. And some of the things that she was amazing at is she loved with all of her heart and she loved you no matter what you did.

She was super encouraging and a major cheerleader, my biggest cheerleader, which was hard when she was gone to then go, okay, now I have to cheerlead myself. She also was able to speak truth to you in a very loving and [00:10:00] kind way. And she was an observer more than a talker, total introvert. Um, but she would always pay attention to what was going on.

And really notice and she was the type who two or three weeks later asked the question to check in on that thing that you had shared that you were struggling with. She was an avid, prayer warrior. So she was always reflecting on those around her. And those are the pieces that I want to continue in my own legacy is that, that kindness, that honesty.

the love and encouragement, the ability to cheerlead people through whatever they're facing and not to judge them. And also, to be able to think on them and not only on myself to reflect on, you know, their hopes and dreams for their lives, the things that they'd like to see different and to do what I can to support them.

also recognizing that I have my own hopes and dreams and things I want to support for myself. So creating [00:11:00] that balance of doing both. So those are the pieces of her legacy that I'm continuing. And I encourage you to think about the people who impacted your life, whether they're alive or not. What is the legacy they left in your life?

What would be some of the words or sentences you would use to describe it? And how do you want to pass that forward? What does that look like? You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be volunteering. You can just be, you know, the fun basketball parent in the neighborhood or that, the goofy, woman who, cut all that.  

You could be the fun basketball dad in the neighborhood who gets all the kids together and goes, Hey, let's, let's shoot hoops and just have fun. You could be, the one who knocks on your neighbor's door and says, Hey, I heard you were sick. I made you some soup. You could, um, write handwritten letters.

What? To people that just need a pick me up, right. And randomly put it in your neighbor's box. When you see maybe they've had a challenging day. You can do it anonymously if you want to. We can impact people's lives in small ways. It doesn't have to be so big. But [00:12:00] we're always leaving a legacy, and I challenge you to think about the legacy you're leaving.

And again, you can go through hard times, you can be in a challenging time right now, and really need more of other people's legacy left in your life, but also to do something kind, to do something supportive. encouraging to be able to leave a legacy in somebody else's life. I, tell you that there are times in my life where just even a stranger giving me a smile at the right time was a big pick me up that day.

Having that friend call me and just say the right words, not even knowing they needed to. Has been huge or receiving the handwritten letter, you know, from a family member or friend where you're like, what, this is amazing. Like it lights me up and it has left a mark in my life. I can remember those letters because they're very few and far between now.

Right. And [00:13:00] thank you to those of you who do listen to this and write those letters. Those have been really impactful because life's been challenging. And if I think about the legacy, I want to leave, I realize life will never be perfect or ideal, but the legacy is still here and I can still be leaving it no matter what.

So thank you, mom, to the legacy you've left in my life. I celebrate you today and I hope, dear listener, that you'll take some time to think about the legacy that you're leaving and what you'd like it to look like. If it's not what you want, how can you start to shift that? What are ways you can start to leave that mark?

Because you're leaving a mark, whether you realize it or not. And dear listener, here's to finding our balance code.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners just like you to find this podcast too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below.

[00:14:00] Discovering your balance code doesn't have to be a one person journey. You can have a team and I'd love to support you. So here's to finding our balance 

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