Ep #143: (Part 1) Understanding and Rethinking Legacy

On today’s podcast, I’m going to invite you to rethink legacy. And any time we engage in rethinking, what I think is available for us is really changing our mind. And when I speak of changing our mind, I’m speaking of the capital mind, the essence of who you are. And I’m sure you’ve heard, when you change your mind, you change your life.

Among other things, one of the ways I’m going to invite you to rethink legacy is to consider this definition, this possible definition among many, and it’s one of my own. And that is that legacy is a summary or a description of how we have used, are using, did use our creative power.

And for those of you thinking, “But wait, I’m not creatively powerful. I’m not in a position to think about my legacy,” I think there will be so much in this podcast that changes your mind and I’d like to remind you of the quote from creative genius Alice Walker, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” And you certainly don’t want that to be your legacy.

Also, once you have acknowledged and honored and embraced that you are in fact powerful, then consider this quote from the one and only Toni Morrison, “As you enter positions of power and trust, dream a little before you think.” And that, my friends, is precisely one of the ways we are going to spend this time together today; pausing to dream a little before we think and rethinking everything that’s possible for us along the way, changing our minds, changing our lives, changing the world.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Art School Podcast. I am really glad that you are here. I’m looking forward to this conversation, to say the least. Also, I thought about taking a picture of my desk right now because, I won’t say it’s littered with notes and notecards and post-its and index, but one might walk in and say that.

One might walk in and think, “Oh my god, how does this woman ever get anything done?” And there was a time when I would have been the first one on that bashing train, beating myself up. But once I stopped resisting how something in me knows, self-organizing intelligence, self-organizing creativity, it knows what it’s doing.

And when I can be vulnerable enough and courageous enough to surrender to that, because it certainly doesn’t adhere to a lot of the rules and norms that you’re conditioned to think, you know, are the ways to secure success and security and belonging and recognition and fulfilment, once I started challenging those kinds of constructs and paradigms, I began to find more and more freedom.

And my innate creativity and whatever it is that wants to flow through me started to be able to do that with so much more joy and ease. Which is very much related to today’s topic on legacy. And also, again, on how I arrived at what I’m going to share with you today, which is – we’re going to touch on a lot of things, but it’s by no means an exhaustive – yes, it’s just one podcast episode. There’s no way we’re going to exhaust everything in this one conversation.

Also, I think there are a lot of angles I’m introducing that I’m going to assume are as new and fresh for you, that help you really rethink things. Because it did for me. Because there were ways I hadn’t approached it before and I also, just the way that this topic and everything that I’m sharing today came about, came about in a very organic way.

I couldn’t have planned it this way. By my own, I really felt and feel like something, life has been conspiring to weave a lot of seemingly disparate things together to make new connections and connections that have created meaning and insight and healing and growth and evolution for me in my own life, new levels of understanding, and that I also feel are not just for me but really feel like it’s one of those places where it’s what wants to happen and what wants to be shared with all of you.

And so, I hope this lands with you as well. I hope it leaves you not only with plenty to think about, but that it really does change your mind in ways that maybe you’ve been looking for, that it trips certain triggers, and then therefore flows downward, outward into changing your life in ways that are deeply meaningful to you and others in the world and that you have been seeking as well.

So, I might, just a note, pause here and there, again, because this is not a linear lecture by any means. And the way by which it was created definitely was not linear, step-by-step rational, but rather this, let’s say, collection of constellated occurrences and stars of insight and synchronicities and happenstance and really a tapestry of thought and energy. And so, I’m going to do my best to paint that for you today, to share that tapestry, weave that with you, for you today.

So, one of the ways that I started thinking about legacy was actually to think about my former resistance. There was once upon a time when I would not have wanted to talk about legacy, or to do an episode on it, to coach on it. Because I think, on one hand, maybe my initial knee-jerk would have been, “Boring.” The ways that I was exposed to legacy before, I think I probably just thought it feels boring, it feels heavy.

And maybe what was underneath that too was I was dismissing it as, “Legacy is not for me. I’m just trying to make it. I’m trying to get my head above water. I’m trying to get beyond survival mode and into this land where I can create unabashedly, love courageously, live freely. And so, legacy is not for someone like me. Legacy is for people who have got it all figured out and a big fat bank account and time to spare and who are living securely, squarely in great amounts of more money than they know what to do with, more time than they know what to do with, more influence than they know what to do with.

And so, I dismissed myself, which is probably also what the subconscious was moving, to have the knee-jerk be boring, not for me, was just a way of disqualifying myself from something that is absolutely for me. It’s absolutely for all of us.

As I mentioned in the intro, one of the ways I define legacy is it’s the summary, it’s the story of our creative power, how we use it, how we wield it, how we own it or don’t, how it came to be, and what we believe its lasting story can be, the story that we can create with our creative power.

And again, the definition of power being, like, to be able. What do we believe we are able to do in this lifetime? What do we believe is available to us? And if you are familiar with my work, you know that one thing I am so passionate about is believing we are able to be fulfilled and to be fully expressed, knowing that we are able to create our dreams on our terms, that we can create our dreams, we can create our vision, and it doesn’t need to come at the expense of our soul, of our families, of our health, of our planet, of one another.

But rather, what’s possible is a new paradigm where a rising tide lifts all ships, where our own lives are dignified and have value and we are deeply well and fully empowered and loving and that that doesn’t take away from anyone else but rather that is just more wellness that’s available to the world, more abundance, more love, more creativity, more health.

And I think there is no way you can talk about legacy and not also talk about the power of our stories about who we think we are and who we think others are. We are constantly constructing out own reality and we don’t do this in a vacuum. We are also informing and influencing one another’s social realities, which is the entire reality that we live in. and we are being influenced by others.

And something I wanted to weave into today’s discussion is that I think one of the exciting things about legacy and the way that I’m going to talk about it is that legacy, really being what it is for a creative powerhouse – and you get to choose. If that’s you, it’s absolutely an option on the table for you. For someone who is like, “Yes, I’m a creative powerhouse,” then we get to talk about legacy as something that defies the laws of time and space, the conventional laws of time and space.

So, I’ll get to that, again, in a little bit. But one of the ways – just a little spoiler now – is that we are all connected. I think legacy is much less interesting if you think of yourself as an island, as every man or woman, person, for themselves, but legacy comes alive, is infused with the energy of miracles. We’ll also talk about that in a moment, when we embrace that we are all one, though many.

And it’s my own particular view that that is not just, like, spiritual hyperbole, but when you consider that from an actual literal interpretation, what does that mean, we are all one? It means, outside of space and time, there is no separation. We are not separated by time. We are not separated by space. Therefore, speaking in terms of physics, we are all connected, all things, all events, right here, right now in the present moment.

So, it’s this great paradox to think of legacy because we often think of it and will use this construct, because it’s helpful in the three-dimensional reality in which we live, to think of legacy as backwards, forwards, on this linear timeline. And also, think of it, again, as being able to step outside those bounds and be all things everywhere at all times here and now.

And if that’s a mind-bending leap, you don’t have to wrap your entire mind around it today, but just open the windows and feel some of that energy come in and let it steep and just let it sink down into your psyche and stir something up in there for a while and see what comes up for you later.

A lot of what I’m going to be talking about with you concerning legacy is really about questioning all limitations, questioning, questioning, questioning all limitations, not only about how powerful you think you are or who you think you are, but how you think life works and how you think the world works.

Because just taking this curious creative questioning approach in one area, even if it seems very unrelated to a place in your life right now that seems urgent, that seems like it requires so much of your energy, opening the doors, questioning limitations in a seemingly unrelated area can have a profound and oftentimes mysterious effect in changing your life in these other areas. So, just consider that as well as we go about today’s discussion.

So, I’ll back up a little bit. A little of the backstory on some of the ways that this topic has been swirling around and really culminating, coalescing, coming to the surface this summer.

You heard me mention going to the Joe Dispenza epic meditation week, the event in Cancun in June where I meditated for hours and hours a day. Sometimes, I lost count. Sometimes, I think it was eight to 10 hours a day. And they were long glorious days and long full days too. I think sometimes there, altogether at the event, 12 to 14 hours a day. Again, I kind of lost track of time.

And that one of my most profound takeaways from that event, influences from that event – and I talk about this in episodes just recently previous to this one, is the realization of the power of where we direct our attention, our focus, and how that really is creating our life, and that whatever we are giving our attention to is how we give our life force to something. And that’s how we create.

How do we create but directing our attention and our awareness and for how long on a certain area? And to realize what a choice we have in that, to not be at the whim of our mind and let it go willy-nilly here, there, thinking that the world is directing it. But really, realizing the power that we do have.

And I’m going to say it again; where we place our attention is where we place our energy. And that is our life force. And where we place our life force, giving life to anything is giving life to that thing. That is then what becomes life for us and then that’s what grows in life and in the world.

Already you can see how this would lead someone to think about legacy. So, just said again in another way, where we put our attention and our awareness and how long we’re able to sustain it there, this is already changing our mind, which changes our lives. And this is determining so much, even if you’re not on board with 100% determining who you are, I think we can agree it’s determining so much of who we are, what we are creating.

It is mapping not only our own destiny, but then also who we are, what we are creating, creating our own destiny is then interwoven into how we contribute the energy that we’re bringing, the contributions we’re bringing, the presence that we are bringing to the world, and therefore others.

So, I left that event with also lights on in places where it had been dark before for me with a, “Holy smokes, I am really giving too much of my attention and awareness to things that I don’t want to give life to,” to thinks that if you asked me, “Leah, do you want this to be part of your destiny? Leah, do you want this to be part of your legacy?” I would say, no, that’s a hard, clear no.

And yet, here I realized how much of it I am being distracted by things. And I’m not shaming myself, but it was actually just the opposite, like the way of loving and honoring my life and the opportunity that I have to love and honor the lives of others and the world. It was just a great a-ha and awakening and made me realize where I want to take myself more seriously, want to take my attention and my awareness and my own creative power and my own legacy and destiny so much more seriously.

And when I say more seriously, I know that it’s easy for our minds to immediately leap to, “Oh, now it’s a burden and now it’s this almost puritanical, heavy, oppressive weight of piety and responsibility,” but I can tell you, it does not feel like that at all. It feels like an awakened passion, authentic care and love and aliveness. It feels like a deep honoring and love and regard for myself, for those I love, for anyone that I have the tremendous opportunity to share an orbit with in this lifetime.

It doesn’t feel oppressive or like a yolk of burden. It feels like love. It feels like a realization, a remembering that, “Oh yes, if I am really true to myself, why wouldn’t I be so much more considerate to myself about where I place my life force, where I direct my life force and energy and attention?”

It also feels like this great sense of being loved, I guess in the way that it feels like I matter. I do matter so much more, like, where I place my life force, my life force matters. And it’s that sense I think that many of us are so deeply craving that who we are and what we do, and as we are just built deeply matters. And that you don’t have to go beyond that. You don’t have to distract yourself and reject yourself, move outside of yourself to become more than who you’re built as. It’s a ceasing of being distracted by those voices that are like, “Come on, hustle for your worth, prove yourself, convince the world that you belong here, justify your existence, earn your air.”

It’s just a realization of, “Oh, I cannot tolerate giving my attention and awareness to that and knowing about it anymore.” Like, now that I know, oh my gosh, I can’t unknow. And that’s got to change.

So, the Joe Dispenza meditation event got me thinking, changed my mind, changed my life to say the least. And then, as the summer rolls on, we had our week at Lake Michigan with my family, the Campbell family, my siblings, their families, my parents, and it was wonderful and it was chaotic, as a house full.

And we of course want to share a house because you want to get up and have coffee in the morning together at the same coffee pot. There’s something about rubbing elbows to grab coffee mugs and hanging out in the kitchen. And there’s something too about saying goodnight and now walking to a separate house but just down the doors. We just wanted to be in a space like that.

And my parents have nine grandchildren now. I have three, and then I have six nieces and nephews so far. And it’s 12 all the way down to one. And so, in the midst of all this, which is, you know, that kind of family setting is a living, breathing legacy in itself. And the ability to love being with one another, even when it’s chaotic sometimes, and maybe because it’s chaotic sometimes is also part of what a legacy can be.

And I just want to weave that in because I think too many times, particularly in this culture, we think of legacy very narrowly as work product. And by no means do I ever want to give the sense that I would define it so narrowly. Not at all.

And also, as part of this week at Lake Michigan, we had some family meetings about cessation planning. Cessation planning because my parents’ farm, they farm the ground that my father’s father farmed and that his grandfather farmed, the home that I grew up in is the home that my dad grew up in, and that his parents really worked – it was the first land, the first home they ever owned, and my dad, their family moved in when he was about nine.

And so, this too goes back even more generations and we can trace when our family were immigrants and didn’t own anything, you know. And I can see all the way to the present how this history, these generations of people working to better their lives led to where I am today, where we have a farm because we enjoy it, but not because we need to rely on it for our food.

It definitely nourishes our soul. That is for dang sure. But we are on dependent on it or the weather or the land to make sure that we have enough to eat or that our children have enough to eat or clothe them or send them to school.

So, we were having this meeting about our family farm. And my husband and I and some of my siblings, we also have bought farm ground, and we were talking about when the time comes, when my parents are no longer there, what will happen to the farm.

And we really wanted this to be a conversation. And I had conversations with my siblings beforehand. We all did, about really wanting to honor our parents, their legacy, what their lives, what they have created for us as a family and in our community. And also honoring our grandparents and those before that we never knew or never met.

And we didn’t want this to be a transactional conversation, but a legacy conversation, and a very expansive conversation about legacy. Because obviously, for my parents, they have worked their whole lives to create this and to build this and through many ups and downs and, you know farm crises and all of that. And it’s really been beautiful and amazing what they have done and what they have created.

And for sure, this is why I think being an entrepreneur, definitely you are able to think of it as an opportunity for spiritual evolution because I think I saw what my parents were doing as that, that they were entrepreneurs in a way too where it built them what they built. Like, they we rebuilding what they built and building themselves in the process. And there was this beautiful synergy.

And they built soul in that process and character and family and also a thriving business and a thriving life as farmers. And so, this is all part of what we were wanting to honor in these family cessation, farm cessation planning meetings.

So, that really got me thinking about legacy as well. And then too, we also had a couple of dear friends who are moving and are off to an exciting new chapter in their lives and who have had profound impact on our life and the life of the community, who they are as individuals and as a couple in their marriage, who they are as parents, who they are in their careers, and that really gave my husband and I an opportunity to reflect as partners and as a family and as individuals.

We can see how much these friends have been such a gift and such a blessing and role models. And we had opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate that and communicate that with them. And we found so much value in that pause, the goodbye parties and the goodbye dinner and just the contemplation of them moving gave us – and it did remind me too of that Toni Morrison quote about, “As you enter positions of power and trust, dream a little before you think.”

Because I think we all always have the potential to be entering positions of power and trust and it behooves us to realize that we’ve been thinking and been thinking and sometimes you have to step back and carve out space for the dreaming. Otherwise, you’re not rethinking. Otherwise, you just continue with the status quo. Otherwise, you just might go on thinking, “I’m not really having any influence in the world. Why do I really need to change? It’s really just my life. It’s not making a big difference. I’ll get to it at some point.”

And this is one of the reasons why the Art School is so dear to me, because I do believe that we are all always being invited to step into power, to step into positions of trust with ourselves and others, and we could just carry on as we’ve always been carrying on and not realize actually how unthinkingly maybe we’re carrying on legacies, historical legacies that need to be interrupted, that could stand a little rethinking or just a demolition and a complete gutting and renovation.

But the speed of modern-day life, it doesn’t always facilitate that. And so, one of my dreams for the Art School, and it’s been satisfying and deeply gratifying to say the least, is that it is this space to step back and dream before you think, to rethink things. Not saying dream and then replace that completely with new thinking or doing, but really to reconnect with what are your values? What are your values?

How are you thinking of yourself? And are you thinking of yourself too small? Do you think you don’t have a legacy? Do you think you don’t have an impact or influence? Do you think you’re not connected? Do you think that who you are, what you say, what you do, what you create doesn’t matter or that it doesn’t matter enough?

And I know, that still happens for me so much. So many times when I feel myself butting up against something, sometimes it’s procrastination, sometimes it’s this, like, chronic low-grade fever feeling of fatigue or stress or unhappiness, or just irritation or resentment or something. And then, oftentimes, that’s when I need to step back and dream a little and reconnect with a dream, think of what I’ve been thinking about, what I’ve been believing, ask myself is that where I want to place my attention? Get really clear again on what I do want to give my life force to, that dream, and not just continue on the hamster wheel of thinking things that I’ve always thought before or that other people are thinking and seems to work for them more or less.

So, this event of our friends experiencing these major life events and transitions and milestones gave us pause to consider their legacy and honor it our own and gave us an opportunity to have some deep conversations, again, as individuals and as a couple, what do we want intentionally our legacy to be?

It was also this great opportunity – and this happened too as a result of that family farm cessation planning meeting was we spent more time talking about the legacy we really honor and appreciate and value in those that we love.

And sometimes, they’re not people that we even know that well, but talking about how, “Isn’t that fascinating how we don’t know them that well, but as an example, as role models, they’ve changed our lives. They’ve helped us construct our reality. They’re part of our social construct and we’ve been informed by their example. As the saying goes, if you don’t see it, you can’t be it.

And it really led to this series of wonderful conversations about this really immersive, intense in the best way, organic mutual gratitude practice where we didn’t think of it as that at that time, but really, that’s what it feels like to me now is considering, gosh, we have so many amazing friends. And I hesitate to even mention some specific people here because then become immediately aware of the so many that I’m leaving out. It’s like an embarrassment of riches. How many wonderful people are in our lives as friends, acquaintances, colleagues, coworkers, or that we just have been aware of and exposed to, and realizing how they influence us and impact our lives and how we learn from them, and how we want to, now that we see it even more clearly, how we want to stop and say, “Hey, it’s no accident that this person is in my life and that I admire this thing about them so much, how can I honor that even more? Where do I want to integrate that in my own way in my life?”

And along this vein, I also want to point out that it’s easy in a conversation, like the one we’re having about legacy, to feel that burden. Like, “Oh gosh, now I have to be something. Now I have to have my name on buildings or do something with my life. I’m not doing anything that special with my life.”

And here’s the thing. And again, this was so clear when we were thinking about the abundance of people in our lives who don’t have their name on buildings and have had such a profound influence, you know, just deeply on our lives. We were both getting moved to tears thinking about some of these people, talking about them.

So, I also want to say that your who you are is your legacy, and I’ve said it before in this episode and in other episodes and I want to say it again, that you being, like, the truth of who you are, and following your heart, aligning with your soul, wanting to be discerning about why you’re here and what your gifts are and that your gifts are your gifts, they are not only more than enough for everything that you need in life, but it’s also for your heart’s desires and for your dreams.

So, your own particular innate, natural way is your legacy. So, rather than legacy work feeling like a burden, I want you to consider that it’s really an unburdening, that owning, loving, living out in such a way where your legacy just shines, it’s really this process of letting go of anything that’s not you, honoring and loving what is true to you and letting go of anything that it’s not.

And that this is not about trying to get it right by some external standards, but it is about being whole and reclaiming the parts of you that maybe you have rejected because it didn’t seem like it was acceptable or it didn’t seem like it would help you make your way in the world.

So, legacy work can feel like an unburdening, an unburdening of those things that you are not. And also, it can feel like a remembering. And literally putting yourself back together, making yourself whole again, remembering who you really are and falling in love with that and living courageously and fully from that place.

Trust me, I am so familiar with making something that I could be in love with a burden. And it all usually begins with, “Oh gosh, I’m not enough the way I am. My way is not enough. My way is actually weird or it’s not right and I need to improve myself or adjust myself or just try harder, damnit, and do something that’s very unnatural for me.”

It’s so easy for me to go back to those ways. So, it’s so useful for me to stay awake and have conversations like this and remember what it is to come from my truth and come from my wholeness. And then, like I have said before, in the beginning when you’re living from your own heart and from your vision and from your truth, it really requires heroics because there isn’t a lot of external evidence that shows up immediately. In my case it did not anyway, in the world, but it feels true and it feels real. It feels like you are capital REAL, real.

And that is the first and very real and very sacred and legitimate manifestation of living by your truth. And then, stick with it and things start to fall into place. And it seems like aligning with yourself is really aligning with the universe is aligning with the flow of things.

And if I can stay the course and stay true to myself, life, it works that way. And then, with time, you see that it also works in the world. It has worked, just speaking very specifically and practically, it’s worked for me in art.

I went a very nontraditional route. I started as an attorney, and then even with going into art, I did that in a very nontraditional, unconventional way. Same with my approach to coaching. Same with my approach to coaching. Same with my approach to writing. Same with my approach to business. And in the past, I’ve gone through these moments where I’m like, “oh, do I really need to buck the current? Can I really trust my own way?” And time and time again, it has born out that that answer is yes, that having that faith is an essential part of my creative process and that what I’ve created, my art, my life, my business, are like the artifacts of that faith, are the manifestation of that faith and of that creative consciousness is practice, and trusting that greater creativity, intelligence, spirit wisdom, and trusting, I.E loving myself very deeply and staying with myself through the process.

And I do think that is one of the particular flavors of my own legacy. My dear friend Betsy had written on this post that I shared on social media I’d shared where this zinnia garden that we have in the background along with this old Irish quote that says, “What fills your eyes fills your heart.” And it’s a picture that definitely fills my eyes every day and fills my heart. They’re my flowers. There is our dream home that we constructed, dreamt, drew, designed, built. And my beloved dear amazing people in the world all live in that home.

So, that particular capture made me think of that quote, you know, what fills your eyes fills your heart, and Betsy had commented underneath, “You guys made all that. It wasn’t there and then it was, and now it fills you up. Magic and beauty of the highest order.”

And, I mean, leave it to the brilliant Betsy to write pure poetry on a social media post. But it’s inevitable for her because it’s just who she is. And I wrote it down because it was such a gift to read that. And particularly as I was thinking about this legacy conversation, because if I think about acknowledging and honoring and cherishing – because that also helps with the amplifying of my own creative gifts and power and legacy – part of mine is coming from faith and taking time to dream a little before I think. And trusting that, if I dream it, it can happen. It can manifest. I can create it. I can cocreate it. I can participate in the creation of a reality that wasn’t there before.

I just love this line that she wrote, “It wasn’t there, and then it was.” It wasn’t there and then it was, “Magic and beauty of the highest order.” And now it fills you up.

And I thought too, when I read that, I thought of the Art School and why I love it so much and love the people. I don’t even want to say my clients. The people moving through it so much, because that’s why they’re there. Because that’s not just my legacy. It is a core part of what I think I have to model and be an example of and practice and cultivate and move through in this lifetime.

And I also think of it as modeling an example because I know it’s not just me that has that ability, that has that power. That is available to everyone. You all have the power to imagine, to dream a little, to rethink your worlds, to reimagine them and then recreate them.

You can all live by this and have this be part of your legacy where you made that. Like, it wasn’t there and then it was. And now it fills you up. That gets to be part of everybody’s life story. And too, I think back to the Toni Morrison quote, you know, that’s part of what’s available to you as you enter into positions of power and trust.

So, I paused for a moment right there to assess where I am with everything I wanted to share with you and to take a breath. And I realized we’re at 44:44. I love those numbers. So, 44 minutes into this particular episode, and here’s how – well, as I’ve gone, I’ve internalized knowing how far along I am moving through content and episode is that I have all of these notes and note cards laid out on my desk, but I haven’t rolled my little roller chair over the halfway mark yet on my desk.

So, I know I am not going to be able to get into this episode everything that I wanted to get into this episode. And so, I also feel like there’s so much in today’s that I want to pause, and we will reconvene next week and definitely continue this conversation with, like a friend of mine said affectionately, or some of my more woo but super scintillating and exciting genius ideas, ways of thinking about creative legacy, and that includes how legacy, thinking about it this way as a creative powerhouse, as a miracle-worker is really defying the laws of time and space, is really doing miracle work. And how we’re going to challenge some traditional ways also that we’re taught to think about legacy and in doing so open your mind, open your heart, unleash your creative genius to new possibilities for reimagining your life and your legacy.

So, now, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I would love for you to lean in and really work with me, coach with me. Take this information and don’t just consume it, but be Creative, capital C Creative. Take this information, contemplate it. Take it for a long walk. Journal. Talk about it with a trusted other. Meditate about it. Pray about it. And then implement things in your life. Integrate it into your life. Make new choices, new decisions, new moves, create something new so that you take the information and make it transformational. That’s where the magic happens.

So, what I want to offer you today is really an open-ended question and an invitation to consider that you are not listening to this episode by just pure chance, random chance, that it’s not a meaningless accident, that’s something in you has been wanting to have this conversation. What is that? When you consider that this episode is meant for you, you were meant to hear it, how might it affect things that you’ve been thinking about, the way you’ve been going about things?

Also, I would invite you to think about those people whose legacies have very profoundly impacted your life and maybe in more nuanced ways have impacted your life, and what other people might say are aspects of your own legacy.

And I love thinking about this. A legacy can be that when people think of you, they smile. And another that comes to mind is years ago, I thought about when one of my great aunts passed away, one of her children wrote a beautiful tribute to her in her obituary in the bio and part of it said, “Mom loved to laugh.”

I kept that and then wrote out some lines of my own that I thought would be wonderful, if my children would remember me by some day including, “Mom loves to dance. And laugh.” And too, along the way I’ve also collected things that people have said to me that I think have been such great gifts and reflections of my legacy, including what I shared with you today, from Betsy, “It wasn’t there and then it was, and now it fills you up. You guys made all of that. Magic and beauty of the highest order.”

I keep so many emails, print them out, cards from painting clients who say that just any time they see the painting it brings them so much joy. It brings beauty and meaning. It makes their house feel more like their home and they love having it be part of their families.

So, for you, start going about collecting just different bits of clues about what your legacy is. Because you absolutely have one and it can have a tremendous impact on your life and how you go about things moving forward, what you decide to give more attention, energy, creativity, and life force to, and what you decide is not meant to be part of that legacy, it’s not contributing to it. It’s much easier to have the kind of clarity and effortless ability to let those things go. Not trying to force yourself into better habits or stop a bad habit, like social media, any of that. It just becomes more clear and more natural when you’re asking the big questions that legacy asks of you.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. You know, part of that which I talked about today in regards to legacy is not only the importance of community, it’s just the inextricable element of community in legacy. And I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge all of you for making this legacy work for me possible.

I also, in thinking about this, realized perhaps I can be more intentional in the ways that I ask community to help me with my legacy work. For instance, I wrote, when I was able to have the honor of being featured in Dr. Tererai Trent’s book The Awakened Woman, I shared that one of my dreams was to reach one million people with this message, with this work.

I didn’t know at the time – it was so terrifying for me to say that out loud then. Still it sometimes is because to my rational mind, it just wants to shut down. It does not know. It does not have a past paradigm of seeing how I will ever do that.

And one of the realizations I’ve had is, well, that’s because it’s relying way too much on itself. It’s not inviting in something greater than me, including community. And so, I’m for sure not asking all of you to make my reaching the million people vision a reality. That’s not all on you. But you might be a part of that for me, so I don’t want to be remiss because I’m feeling vulnerable or scared about that.

I want to go ahead and ask, if you are moved to share this episode, any episodes, to share the podcast, to share the work, you can do that too by going to iTunes and leaving a review. You can share a screenshot on social media. It all matters. It truly, truly all matters. I would be so grateful.

Also, if you are feeling that the legacy work that I am doing in the Art School, the place where we are a community of people who are doing extraordinary things from a deeply natural, empowered, safe, strong place, we are over and over again living out this experience of, we did that, we made that. It wasn’t there, and then it was, and now it fills us up. Magic and beauty of the highest order.

And it fills not only us up, but the entire community. Because as everyone there has experienced, a rising tide lifts all ships. One person’s win in the group contributes to the energy and the momentum and the success of everyone, truly the success, the elevation, the consciousness moving forward, it is a collective experience and it is quite extraordinary.

So, if the Art School has been calling you and you feel that it is part of you living out your legacy, of you living your most fulfilled life and greatest creative expression of yourself of who you came to be and what you came to contribute and experience and do, then we would love to have you.

The fall session begins August 31^st and if you enroll early, you will still be eligible to take part in the last installment of our summer workshop series. These are workshops that when I have offered similar workshops, even though I don’t repeat my workshops, each one is organic and fresh and new – when I’ve done this in the past and offered them a-la-carte, they’ve been anywhere from $250 to $850.

But when you enroll early, it’s included at no extra cost and it gives you a chance to jump in and prime the pump, learn the content, and get coached, experience the coaching of others and connect with the community, and just helps rev the engine so that when we all start together on that Tuesday August 31^st, you feel like you’ve got a jumpstart, you’re excited, there’s momentum, and you’re ready to go.

Also, if you have any questions, are curious still about if the Art School is the right fit for you or just want to feel things out, we have also peed team sessions for exploratory calls. So, you can book an exploratory call with a member of my team. And please know, this is not a sales call. We don’t like or believe in the scarcity or bullying feel of high-pressure sales at all. We don’t like administering them or being on the receiving end.

So, that’s not what this call is about. That’s not what you will experience. It’s simply something that we wanted to offer because it benefits you and it benefits us. You get your questions answered. You get to feel out if this is the right program, the right time, because that kind of chemistry and fit matters. And it benefits us because it matters on our end too.

One of the secrets – I guess not secrets because I’m telling you now – but part of the special sauce of Art School magic, I should say, is that everyone who is there loves being there. And I have had so many people say, “I just knew I needed to work with you. I just knew I needed to be in the Art School. Something in me knew it.” All of their own volition. And then, we have the program. And the doors are open and the opportunity is there and I truly believe that it’s kind of meant to be, a matching up of destinies and legacies. And it’s born out as well that those people contribute so much to the community, contribute so much to the rising energy, elevating the consciousness, the energy, the experience, the success of the group. And they have an amazing experience.

I want for this to be, for you, if you join the Art School, like hands down one of those times where you say, “That was one of the best things I ever did for myself. That was a fork in the road that changed the rest of my life and I’m still feeling the impact and the ripples of that.”

That is what is available. So, to figure out if it is the option that’s right for you, we decided to offer these complementary, free exploratory calls. And if you’d like to schedule one, you can email us, support@leahcb.com with exploratory call in the subject line and we will take care of you and get you all the details.

And also, any other questions you have or things you’re curious about, you can also check out my website, www.leahcb.com and connect with me on Instagram. I would love to see you there. My handle is @leahcb1.

So, for today’s closing, I don’t have a quote for you today. I have an additional coach with me question. How could thinking about legacy change your mind and change your life and change the lives of others?

Have a beautiful week, everyone. Thank you so much for being here and I look forward to talking with you next time.