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Building a Legacy

Dean Patton

Typically, when you hear someone talking about a legacy, you usually think of someone old or recently passed away. When I ask people about their legacy, they usually say that they will worry about it later. In reality, we don’t have to wait to start building our legacy. We can start building our legacy today…right now. Some of the common ways to build a legacy is related to our faith, family, finances, career, and community.

Faith:

For those who are religious, your faith is a huge component of who you are. It probably means the world to you. When you’re building your legacy by your faith, it starts by you personally growing in your faith. This can be accomplished by reading religious books and applying those lessons to your everyday life. Then, it continues by sharing your faith and helping people grow in their faith. This could be in small groups, mission trips, teaching your children or grandchildren, or even one-on-one conversations with friends.

Family:

If you’re like me, family is extremely important. I love spending time with my family. How we interact with our family and relatives can create a positive or negative impact on our legacy. Some positive impacts we can make is frequently talking to our family members, eating meals together, helping them through challenges, and being a part of their lives. If you’re ever tempted to cause drama…DON’T DO IT. It could potentially have long term effects. At the end of the day, quality time is one of the biggest factors with creating a great legacy with your family. It can be as simple as going fishing or playing cards. Creating great memories can have a lasting impact.

Finances:

When we hear someone talking about a legacy, finances and the inheritance is normally one of the first things that we think of. In order to be able to pass down an inheritance, we need to start getting our finances in order today. The last thing that we want to do is pass down debt to our children or grandchildren. Personally, I want my finances to be a blessing not a burden. I want my finances to be able to impact as many generations as possible. The inheritance is a big part of it, but we don’t have to wait until the inheritance for our finances to help build our legacy. Teaching our kids how to manage money is a huge way to make a positive impact with their finances. Helping our kids get through college with minimal or no debt is a huge blessing to help them start their careers. We can also give to those in need or make donations to a church or a charity. There are many families that are living paycheck to paycheck. Helping these families can be a huge blessing. There are many churches and charities that are also making a huge impact on our community.

Career:

Our career can help build a legacy. When we retire, how will we be remembered by our colleagues. Did we do a good job? Did we come to work on time? Were we easy to work with? These are some of the questions that are usually talked about when we retire. If you are in a leadership position, people will remember how you interacted with your employees and how you treated them. Taking care of your employees is a great way to build your legacy. Creating a positive work atmosphere can help with this, as well. Another way to take care of your employees is helping them achieve promotions, pay raises, or bonuses. This helps them provide for their family.

Community:

There are many ways to help our community. It starts with our innermost community…aka friends. Building strong friendships and helping them grow as people can create a lasting legacy. Many of the great memories can also have a lasting impact. The next step is getting to know and helping our neighbors. One way to do this is to have neighborhood barbeque and invite them to watch a football game. This can be a good opportunity to get to know the wants and needs of your neighbors. Once you get to know you neighbors, you can see how you can be a blessing. The next step is serving your community and/or church. There are endless opportunities to volunteer in your community and/or church. It could be volunteering at a food pantry, school, tutoring, etc.

Final thoughts:

There are a lot of different ways to build a legacy. It can be difficult to tackle each of these areas at the same time. Honestly, we are going to have different seasons of our life it easier to focus more on a specific area. If you are in school, it may be harder to build a legacy in your career, but you may have more time to build a legacy with your family, friends, and community. This is just one example. There are limitless possibilities of how to balance these options. I would figure out which areas that you are the most passionate about and start there. I would encourage you to pursue each area at some point.

If you need any advice or help building a legacy, send me an email at patton.financialcoaching@gmail.com

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