What Marcus Aurelius Got Wrong About Legacy

Most people think legacy is something you build at the end — a monument, an inheritance, a name on a building "someday." That's the first lie. The second one is even more common: legacy is what you leave behind.

In this solo episode, I break down the two lies about legacy almost everyone believes — and why both of them are keeping you from building one right now.

Inside this episode:

• The moving-truck moment that made me question everything I'd chased
• The three questions I asked myself in the field — and the sad answer to all three
• Why your legacy is a Kairos problem, not a Kronos problem
• What Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Deuteronomy actually say about inheritance (hint: it's not the greeting-card version)
• Marcus Aurelius vs. the Spartans — and the tension that reframes how you should live today
• The one question to ask yourself before you go to bed tonight

If this hit you, share it with one person who needs to hear it today.

📖 The Kairos Code audiobook launches August 1. Join the launch team → kairoscode.com/250

Connect with Josh Kosnick: https://joshkosnick.com/connect

Chapters:

0:00 What did you leave in someone today?
1:17 Welcome + audiobook launch team (Aug 1)
2:18 Two lies people believe about legacy
2:51 The boxes in the basement
4:56 If you died tonight, what would they say?
6:09 Lie #1 — Legacy is a future event
7:14 The to-be list and the to-feel list
8:38 The DM that arrived 8 years later
10:46 Lie #2 — Legacy is what you leave behind
12:57 My father-in-law's boots
14:01 What scripture actually says
16:25 Why I started this podcast
17:25 Marcus Aurelius pushes back
19:08 The Spartan view — timē and kleos
21:08 Kronos vs. Kairos
22:03 What did I leave in someone today?

#SpartanLeadership #Leadership #Legacy #Kairos #FaithInBusiness #JoshKosnick #TheKairosCode #Mindset #Entrepreneurship #SelfImprovement

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Transcript

Your legacy is being written today, in this moment. It's in every action you take, in every action you don't take. It's in every interaction you have with another human being. You are leaving a piece of yourself behind in every room you walk out of, right now, today. Legacy isn't a single decision some time off in the future.

It's an accumulation, and the more we can wrap our brains around that, the more cognizant we can become of this, the more intentional we can be every single day we're blessed to wake up. Nobody builds a reputation in one grand gesture. It's built in a thousand small ones, the ones when nobody's watching.

You can hand someone a fortune, sure, and they'll forget your face in ten years. You can give someone five, just five undivided minutes at the right moment, and they'll carry it for the rest of their life. Build a legacy because it's right, not because you'll be remembered for it. And before you go today, I want you to ask yourself one question: What did I leave in someone today?

Not what did you build, not what did you check off your to-do list. What did I leave in someone today?

Welcome back to Spartan Leadership. I'm your host, Josh Kosnick, and this is your podcast for leadership, inspiration, and impact. Today will be no different. We got another solo episode, mano e mano with you in your ears. We're coming from the house today. Alec and I realized that as we're selling this farm, and as we wanna maximize our time with it, that anywhere in this place can be a podcast studio.

So we're having some fun with it. So that being said, I also wanna give a reminder as this comes out, we are launching the audiobook of The Kairos Code on August 1st, and if you're not part of the launch team yet, we'd love to have you. We need your help to hit those bestseller lists. If you go to thekairoscode.com/250, join the team and we'll keep you updated as August 1st rolls around.

But I do need your help, so if I've impacted you through these podcasts or in any other way- Please help me out. Now that being said, today we are going to get into a fun episode. One I d- I talk about legacy a lot. That being said, we... I don't think we focused solely on legacy in a podcast interview. And a few weeks ago we did the two truths.

That was very popular. If you haven't listened to that yet, please do. It got some great feedback, great reviews. Today we're gonna talk about, talk about two lies people believe about legacy. So two lies, we'll call this one, but this is strictly on legacy, and both of them are keeping you from building one today.

Now I wanna interject a little bit how I got to this point and where I found these lies to be pervasive in our society. Most of you know my story and how I was forced out of my business. I've written about it in The Kairos Code. If you haven't read it, again, audio's coming out here shortly, or you can pick up hardcover, paperback anywhere.

That being said, I'm not gonna go into the whole story, but there's one piece of that story that led me to discovering these two lies that we tend to believe about legacy. So after I'm forced out of that business and wasn't allowed to go to, back to my offices, collect my belongings, or say goodbye or anything, a few weeks later, or maybe a week later, I don't even remember the timeframe, a moving truck shows up with all my boxes, and I was too distraught, too in my feels to even consider opening those boxes for weeks.

And one day, I think it was about 30 days later, a few weeks later, I made my way down to the basement, got enough courage to pop those boxes open and start going through that stuff: awards, trophies, accolades, designation certificates, uh, a lot of books. Those meant something to me. I still have those on my bookshelf today.

Everything else, not so much. I had this epiphany that if I died today, all of this stuff would just collect dust on a shelf. It'd be something that my kids or wife might look at and be like, "Dad was successful." They might feel a sense of pride, but it's just stuff. And you've all heard this famous quote, but it bears repeating, "We've never seen a U-Haul following a hearse," because we can't take it with us.

So as I sat there, again in my feels, crying, kind of going through this stuff, I had this epiphany. I'm like, "Man, did I chase or pursue God like I was pursuing these accolades, positional power, title, money, all that, the, all that stuff? Did I chase my wife and my relationship with my wife like I was chasing my next set of goals?

And did I spend as much time on attention with my kids as I did with my work calendar?" And the sad answer to all three of those questions was no. And when you have everything, or perceived to be everything, ripped away from you, like I did so abruptly, you realize you have very few things that matter: your relationship with God, your relationship with your spouse or partner, and your relationship with your kids or those that you lo- love most.

So at the moment that I felt like I had nothing, I actually had everything that I needed. And so let me ask you this question as I tell that story. If you died tonight, what would people say about you at the funeral? I want that to settle in. If you died tonight, what would people say about you at the funeral?

Now I want you to ask yourself the harder question as if that one wasn't hard enough. Is that the same thing you're actually working toward right now? Would you be the same... Would they say the same things today as you were hoping they'd say sometime down the road? I often have coaching clients of mine, teams, masterminds, do an obituary exercise where they write their own in the future.

But that being said, we back into that, and I say, "Is this what they'd say about you now?" Because if there's a gap there, we wanna be working towards closing that gap. So as you've sat with those two questions for a moment, realize most of us are not aligned on that legacy. So lie number one, let's get into this.

Legacy is a future event. Eh, sometime 30 years down the road. Eh, I'll get to that tomorrow. The first lie is that legacy is some- something off in the future. People treat it like a monument, something you build at the end or something you'll worry about in your retirement years or maybe someday I'll make enough money I can posture a university to get my name on a building.

Maybe you've thought of that. Maybe you've said that to yourself. Maybe you said something to the effect of, "Eh, I'll get to that when I've made it, once the kids are grown, once the business sells," something of that nature. So here's the truth. Your legacy is being written today, in this moment, and here's how I define that.

It's in every action you take, in every action you don't take. It's in every interaction you have with another human being. I want you to think about that for a moment. We're leaving a piece of our legacy behind every single moment, but you're not cognizant of it. And so this only happens when you're able to start your day with intention.

So let me give you a little hack. I know you all have a to-do list. I have a to-do list. I separate my today list from my to-do list. But what if You started each day and created a to-be list and a to-feel list and started thinking about more the legacy that you're leaving right now every single day or have the potential every day you are blessed to wake up.

You are leaving a piece of yourself behind in every room you walk out of right now, today, every Zoom room, every real room, every conversation you have at your kid's baseball game or a dance competition if you're in my world. But this is why people procrastinate on things that actually matter, because they believe this lie.

The call to your kid, the hard conversation, the mentorship you keep meaning to offer, the call to mom or dad if they're still alive, and then one day you realize when they are no longer alive that you can't make that call. Most of us have filed it under someday instead of today. So legacy isn't a single decision sometime off in the future.

It's an accumulation, and the more we can wrap our brains around that, the more cognizant we be- can become of this, the more intentional we can be every single day we're blessed to wake up. Nobody, and no one when I say nobody, builds a reputation in one grand gesture. It's built in a thousand small ones, the ones when nobody's watching.

I got a DM maybe a couple years ago, and I hadn't talked to this individual in, I don't know, eight years maybe. I interviewed him at my financial firm, and he has been following me on social and whatever, and he just left me a DM to tell me how much the conversation I had with him meant to him and the trajectory of his career, even though he did not become a financial advisor of mine.

And he was telling me about the success that he's had, but how much something I said stuck with him in that conversation. So think about that. I had one interaction with this person. He didn't become an advisor of mine. I might've been disappointed that he said no I don't know. I don't remember. But what he remembered was something that I said to him that transformed his life.

So as I share that story, you still think one conversation, one comment is something to blow off? Nothing is too small to matter. You just gotta be intentional. You just gotta think that your legacy is being built today. I'll give you one more story. As I told you, I'm selling this farm, but this farm got me through a very difficult period in my life.

And when I was doing 75 Hard, I'd take rucks through the trails. We have miles of trails that we keep manicured, and I'd walk up the fence line up to the highest point on the farm, which isn't very high, but we do have a little bit of a rolling hill. And there's a corner fence post, and I can see over the whole 80 acres.

And that, every time I went up there and looked over the land, I'd think about what God was orchestrating in my life, seeing the nature, seeing the landscape, understanding that this farm, this land, wasn't even on my radar when I was running the financial firm. What's interesting is I could have afforded it, but it wasn't even a part of my vision.

The fact that this piece of land came at that season to get me through the most difficult season of my life, I know it'll be a sad day when this farm sells, but I will have nothing but happy memories and joy that comes to my heart as this goes forward. The fact that I've been able to show people and it have...

them have transformational experiences on this property, I know will last into the future for many years. All right, let's get into lie number two. The lie number two is legacy is what we leave behind. Eh, like an inheritance. We think of leaving behind money, real estate, cars, stuff. So that's what most people think inheritance is.

Here's the truth. It's not about what you leave behind. Again, I go back to that example. The hearse doesn't follow in the... or U-Haul isn't following the hearse. That stuff is left behind. But it's not about what you leave behind. It's about what you leave in others. Stuff is just stuff. And although that stuff may bring a positive memory of the person that left it to you, people may remember you by the things that you gave, I'm sure.

We'll go with that, and I have some stuff from people that have passed on. But what they're truly going to remember is how you made them feel, what difference you made in their life. Something you said, how you lived made them believe in themselves before they actually believed in themselves. You can hand someone a fortune, sure, and they'll forget your face in 10 years.

You can give someone five, just five undivided minutes at the right moment, and they'll carry it for the rest of their life. Think back to that potential advisor I interviewed and what he carried with him. So right now, just a little test. Think of someone who's shaped your life, an idol, a mentor, a parent, aunt, uncle.

grandparent, a boss that was a great leader, someone that's shaped you, are you thinking about what they gave you or how they made you feel when you were around them? I'll give you a little hint. Almost nobody answers what they gave me, unless it was an intrinsic gift. It wasn't a trophy, it wasn't recognition from the stage, unless they said something very meaningful about you.

But that is typically what they made you feel is what you're gonna remember. So let me give you... I've heard my father-in-law's story as well, my untimely... That my father-in-law had an untimely passing through suicide. I have stuff of his. I have some boots that when I put them on, I think of him every time. I have a couple of his pocket knives.

I have some of his guns, 'cause one of our favorite things to do together was go planking, shoot guns, teach gun safety, blow off some steam. Those things mean a lot. I have some other things. I have some plaques in my office that he had in his office. I think of him every time. But what I truly think of him is what I wrote in the book, how much of a spiritual mentor he was to me.

How he taught me soft power is another way to be a very strong leader, not just hard power. How he loved his family and those he did business with, his friends. How he shared his heart with others. All the lessons he taught me, I will remember and carry with me, and are what I'm teaching my kids more than any of the stuff that I have of his.

The stuff creates a nice memory and makes me think of him, makes me say a prayer, and it's brief. The stuff he left in me, I carry that with me every day. So that's actually a good example. Those boots that I wear, I don't wear them much in the summer. Spring, fall, winter, sure. But when I put them on, I think of him.

When I take them off and they sit in the, on the boot rack or in the mudroom or whatever, they're out of sight, out of mind. It's a really good analogy to think about. The stuff that he left inside of me, though, all those things I was talking about earlier, I'm living those out every day. I'm remembering those every day.

So let's go biblical on this. What does the Bible say about legacy? Because some people love to... A lot of people love to take scripture out of context. So as I was going down this topic, I've always been interested in what ancient historians have said, biblical theologians. So I wanted to know what scripture actually says about this topic, not the greeting card version, the real version.

Not the one where someone pulls one quote from the Bible and says, "This is it." No. There's actually two stands here, or two strands here I should say, as I looked into this, and they do, they actually do look like they contradict each other, and they don't But there, there's a lot of that in the Bible. So Proverbs 13:22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance."

On the surface, that sounds a lot like lie number two, but let's look closer. Proverbs 22:1 and Ecclesiastes 7:1 both say, "A good name is more desirable than great riches." Okay. A name, not a net worth. And then there's Ecclesiastes chapter 2. The preacher, at the height of his wealth and his power, laments leaving his labor to one who did not labor for it, and he calls it vanity.

This is the strongest word on the subject in the entire book. Laments leaving his labor to one who did not labor for it. Do you know how many second generation businesses fail? It's over 50%. You know how many businesses make it to the third generation? Less than 10%. Actually, it might be less than five. So someone that did not labor for it is not going to appreciate it like the founder, like the person that started it.

So Ecclesiastes chapter 2 has the strongest words on this subject because this isn't me making a modern argument against inheritance. This is the wisest, richest man in scripture saying it 3,000 years ago from the inside, having already built the fortune. The thread running through all of it, scripture's real legacy language is about character and faith carried forward in people.

Teaching, name, integrity, not the estate. Deuteronomy chapter 6 says, "Teach it to your children when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise." That's what my father-in-law did for me. He was living it He was preaching it. He was teaching it. So this isn't a will. That's a daily deposit. Now, I wanna talk, or just, uh, interject personal story here.

I think I might have mentioned this at least once on the podcast, but the reason I started the podcast, my marketing guy at the time had all the great marketing reasons, and then those all sounded good, but I needed a deeper purpose behind it. And I came up with, because I was in the financial planning world, I had delivered death claims from two years old to 90 years old.

I knew I wasn't immune to that. I lived in that world. I knew it could happen to me, so I was very cognizant of that. So I went back to him and I said, "I'll do it, but my purpose is that my kids will always have my voice, that if anything happens to me, this podcast will live into perpetuity, and they will always know what Dad sounded like, what Dad thought at the time, some different wisdom, how Dad asked questions."

That was my purpose, and still is today behind this podcast. Yes, I want to impact the world, but I, I do always want my kids to have my voice. I mentioned ear- previous podcasts we're two generations from being forgotten. Well, that's changing because of the fact that we have a digital footprint, and if you write a book, that's another way.

So let's go to what the stoics say. Now, I wanna push back on myself for a second because a good idea should be able to survive some tension, right? So Marcus Aurelius would've hated this episode, and I'm a big fan of Marcus Aurelius. In Meditations, he basically says, "Don't chase legacy at all." His words, "People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too."

That's fair. That's utterly fair. He points out that Alexander the Great and his mule driver both ended up as dust. Same fate, no difference. Being remembered, he says, is worthless. Okay. That's fair, Marcus. And on the other hand, I don't think that anyone living today wants to not be remembered, that their life wasn't worth anything.

I think this is more of a redirect. His point is this: stop performing for the memory of strangers 100 years from now. I'm gonna say that one more time. Stop performing for the memory of 100 strangers 100 years from now. Focus entirely on the virtue of this action right now. Most of us have probably heard memento mori.

Remember, you will die. He didn't write that to depress himself. He wrote it to strip away vanity so he'd act rightly today and without needing applause for it. So here's my reconciliation with his words and my thoughts, and this is worth sitting with. Aurelius, Marc- isn't actually disagreeing with me.

He's agreeing with the cure for lie number one, act now, and he's freeing us from lie number two even further. Don't just stop chasing stuff. Stop chasing credit. Build the legacy th- because it's right Not because you'll be remembered for it. Build a legacy because it's right, not because you'll be remembered for it.

People will do their own remembering of you. Now, this is Spartan leadership. Let's go into what the Spartans believed. This is where it gets personal for me, because this is the world my podcast lives in. The Greeks had two words for this, cleo- kleos and... I may butcher these, by the way. Any Greek listeners, please chime in and correct me.

Kleos and timé. Timé is where you're standing right now, how people treat you today based on what you've actually done. So I would equate this to chronos, right? Kleos is what's said about you across time, carried in on other people's mouths long after you're gone. Kleos literally comes from the word to hear.

Glory only exists if someone hears about it and repeats it. That's why we remember quotes from Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus or the Bible Whatever it may be, it's carried forward and repeated. So that's not a monument that you built, that's a story living in someone else's mouth, someone else's mind.

Here's the line that says it best. It's the epithet at Thermopylae. Now, if you remember Thermopylae and the movie 300, the Spartans, right? "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie." Legacy in that instance was entrusted to a stranger to carry it forward, not carved by the dead.

It was spoken by the living. But here's the tension, and it matters. Kleos required an audience. Achilles chose a short, glorious life over a long, anonymous one. Brad Pitt played that character very well in the movie Troy. Different movie. Both great. I loved them. But that's the version of legacy chasing Aurelius warned us about.

The healthy version is to build the standing through the actual deeds and let Kleos take care of itself. The Spartans had a, a wisdom beyond their years, and that's why I loved naming this podcast The Spartan Leadership Podcast, because they had so much to teach us, and it's been taught in so many ways throughout the years that we still talk about them to the, to this day.

So we're... Here's where this all comes home for me. Chronos is the clock. Kairos is the moment that matters inside the clock. It's a defining moment. Legacy, that's a Kairos problem, not a Chronos problem. Chronos is gonna happen regardless until our clock expires, right? People file in under Chronos someday down the road when I'm 30 years older, when I sell the business, all those different examples I've already given.

But remember, legacy is the Kairos problem. But this is also why people never actually build. They never actually build it. They never actually think about their future vision and then back that into how they're gonna live each day. I wanna go back to my earlier suggestion. Instead of just a to-do list, write a to-be list today.

Write a to-feel list today. Every Kairos moment, every appointed, weighty interaction you have, it's a legacy deposit. You don't leave a legacy at the end of Chronos. You make one in every Kairos moment. Legacy isn't the chapter. It's every page, every day. So let's bring it back and close it where we started.

It's not about the stuff. It's about the feeling. And before you go today, I want you to ask yourself one question: What did I Leave in someone today. Not what did you build? Not what did you check off your to-do list? What did I leave in someone today? All right, Spartans. This has been an awesome conversation.

It was awesome for me to put this together. I, I care deeply about leaving a legacy, not to be remembered by strangers, but to by, be remembered by those that matter most to me, and leaving an impact or mark in this world in some way. I believe we're here for a purpose, a reason, and we gotta act that out on a daily basis.

So please share this episode far and wide. Share it with someone that needs to hear it today. Older, younger, same age, someone that needs to hear it. Someone needs to hear these words today. Please share it with them. Remember, the good and great are the enemies of possible. Lead like a Spartan today