“The measure of a person is the love they leave behind.” This quote has been attributed to someone with a remarkable legacy, someone we are all familiar with, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I wasn’t able to verify for sure that this quote was directly from him. But it definitely seems like something Dr. Kind would have likely agreed with, even if they weren’t his words.

In this week’s podcast, we are going to dive into part two of our conversation on legacy, where we are rethinking legacy from the understanding that rethinking anything changes our minds. And when we change our minds, we change our lives. And when we change our lives, we change the world.

So, you can see why I thought legacy was a fitting topic for a podcast dedicated to extraordinary creatives and visionaries who not only want to create the lives of their dreams, but also have the hearts, minds, and spirits for changing the world.

So, get ready for today’s conversation, where we are reimagining legacy and taking the conversation so far as to include the miraculous, including the story of the loaves and fish, and also thinking about legacy outside the normal bounds of time and space. Thanks so much for being here and I hope you enjoy this conversation about reimagining, rethinking your legacy.

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 another episode of The Art School Podcast. I find it so funny sometimes how life conspires with whatever it is that brings the ideas and the timing for these episodes. I am so deep in legacy these days, thinking about it.

We are back in Iowa, my home state. This week, we had the opportunity to visit my grandparents, who I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and other family that were visiting. And then to come back up to my parents’ farm in Rudd, and just have more time together on the farm.

I am once again – I think I’ve done a few episodes in the past when I’ve been traveling here from the attic, the penthouse of the farmhouse, which has been beautifully updated actually. My parents’ COVID project was to refinish the second half of the farmhouse attic. And this is like 120 years old, I think, this house. So, refinishing the attic in that kind of home is no joke, and it’s a beautiful space.

And again, being surrounded by family, having this much family time is an opportunity for me to think about legacy, so many other conversations I’ve been having, again reflecting on the last year, the last 10 years made this seem like a really timely conversation to have.

And as always too, something in my life raises its hand as, hey, I’m related to this topic you’re thinking about, whether it’s for coaching or painting, or the podcast. And it has this particular feel to it where I trust it, even though on the surface I can’t immediately weave it together.

So, I shared a few of those stories in last week’s podcast, and here is another that I saved for this week. And it has so much to do with what I think can be the miraculous energy that we can infuse into our conversation in thinking about legacy.

So, a couple weeks ago, I had the most beautiful surprise delivery of dozens of roses. It was a riot of color, all different colors. And I pulled out one bouquet and there was another beneath it. And I pulled out that bouquet and there was another beneath it. And I was like, these beautiful flowers keep multiplying.

And it was not my birthday. There was no particular special event. It was just like a vessel of love, like a shipment of love from a beloved, dear friend. And again, it would have been an extraordinary enough gift and expression of love in itself. And along with it came this fragrance. I could smell it almost just wafting off the flowers, this energy of, “Oh there’s something here for you to think about and to consider about the miraculous and about legacy.” Because for sure, the person that sent it, the love that this person leaves in their wake is immense and has its own very special cosmic quality and it’s definitely part of their extraordinary legacy, living legacy.

So, these amazing flowers, roses for me too – I’ve probably talked about it here before – have many levels of significance, meaning, symbolism for me. And I was unpacking them, putting them in vases, and they just kept coming and kept coming. And then I had them in three different vases, and then I thought, they’re too crowded. These ladies need some space. And there’s enough. I can put them in every corner of the house. Everywhere you turn there are roses.

And as I kept getting out vases and redistributing the flowers, I was like, they just seem to multiply. I mean, I didn’t count them, so I’m pretty sure that they didn’t just compound and reproduce right on the spot. It felt like it. And that feeling though and my delight with this task of continuing to have to pull down more vases and give them new homes around the house and love that all around and just spend time taking this in, it reminded me of the story of the loaves and the fish.

And I was thinking about that story and about how the miracle of multiplying the two fish and the five loaves that were there from a little boy to feed the 5000, who had come to hear the teacher, Jesus, speak. And there wasn’t enough to feed them. The disciples said the people are hungry and Jesus said, “Okay, well what do we have?” And then there was a small boy there with two fish and five loaves. And he said, “Okay, start to pass that around.”

And then so, as the story goes, they kept passing and everyone had enough to eat his fill, and then they passed around and gathered five baskets of leftovers. And I was thinking, yeah, that’s what love does. That’s what faith does. You start with a gift that would ordinarily only nourish one or two people, and with love and faith, that ripples out. That gift is amplified.

And it had me thinking about how legacy can only happen without community, without connection to one another. Without relationship, there is no legacy. And again, the massive miraculous amplification effect that love can have for our gifts, for what we bring to the world.

And then I stated thinking about the fact that the person it the initial gift was a child, a boy with the two fish and the loaves, maybe just for him, maybe to sell, maybe for his family, I don’t know, but it was a child. And I just paused to think about the significance of that. Because I could feel it, that it takes this childlike quality to enter into this space where the miraculous can happen, where you could actually believe trust, and surrender that the gifts that you come with, he didn’t run home and ask for more loaves or run to the docks and ask the fishermen for more fish. He came as is with what he had.

And I think that’s significant that it was a child and that childlike ability to do that. He hadn’t grown into an adult either who thought, “Well, I should go off and be a better fisherman or be a better baker and bring back more. I should have done more.” It was a child.

And one could think that a child hadn’t had enough time to provide the raw materials for a gift like that or enough ability or enough experience. And yet, there was a child with no more, no less than what he arrived with, and then surrendering that, giving that up, sharing that, allowing that gift to be amplified, he didn’t do it. He came with a gift, surrendered it, let go, and gave it up to a greater force, something bigger, something greater. And again, it was transformed and multiplied, amplified, fed and nourished many. I think that is another key symbolism and also just literal aspect of the story here. And that that wasn’t on him to perform the miracle.

I really tried to pause and take this in because there’s a way, of course, our minds can dismiss and be like, “Well, that just occurred to me. These flowers arrived and then I made it into something more, thinking about how they multiplied and thinking about how it made me thin of loaves and fish and how love helps us multiply our gifts and can help us create an even larger legacy of love than we would ever be able to do on our own.

Because of course, legacy implies greater than ourselves. Because again, when we leave, we’re not taking it with us. It’s the love that we leave behind. And also, sidenote, following this kind of trust and intuition and whatever it is that’s telling me these things that are seemingly unrelated on the surface are very related. And if you stop and let then marinate and just listen to them, pay attention, feel the sparks of connection, let an energetic understanding occur before a literal one that can be translated into words or into a poem, a story, or a podcast episode, like trusting that process. That’s very much also the process that I follow for creating a painting, for creating a poem, for creating opportunities in business.

So, again, I really wanted to acknowledge that something was trying to communicate to me the significance of these stories weaving together. That there are the gifts that we bring. There is the way that we then offer them to the world and let go, and there is the trusting and giving it over to an energy of love that does multiply it and does nourish and feed many, and that there is an aspect of that that is ours, and then there’s an aspect that is not ours; not ours to do, not ours to figure out.

And so, people often ask, how do I know what is mine and what is not mine? And I’ve talked about that in prior episodes and it’s something that we dive into deeply in the Art School, that discernment process, that ability to trust yourself to know what is yours, what is not yours. And then, your ability to trust in something greater, to take your gifts and amplify that and how to align with that energy, line up with the flow of that energy.

And later this month, I am talking about that in an immersion that I’m offering, a limited three-day immersion that is going to be so accessible to anybody that wants to join and it’s called The Affluent Artist. And I chose that word, affluence, because it speaks to so many things that this work is about, including that aligning with flow.

Think of the word fluidity and flow, the root of that word affluence, it’s becoming an artist who is aligned with the flow; the flow of creativity, the flow of opportunities, the flow of creating a legacy, the flow of prosperity, the flow of being in love with and enjoying their work. So, if you want to learn more about that, that will be offered later this month. It’s a three-day mini-series and there will be information in the show notes.

But going back to, now, the topic of flow within the context of this conversation about legacy, because something else, if you’ve followed my work, you have heard me talk about is this importance of making the shift from survival mode to creative mode.

And I shared with you in last week’s podcast about how there as a time when I didn’t think legacy was for me because I was just trying to get my head above water and I mistook legacy for being something that I couldn’t have, that wasn’t available for me until like X, Y, and Z. Until I had some awakenings and had some deep conversations about myself, that that was no way to live in the world as a capital C Creative, and that I really am committed to this path of, as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “Of thinking and living greater than external circumstances, greater than any current or past feelings or thinking.”

And instead, in my own words, defining, knowing myself, who I am, committing to that, and creating that intentionally and on purpose. And I think this is a place where bringing in thinking about legacy can really help because when we are in survival mode, it cuts us off from the flow. It cuts us off from being affluent, being aligned with the flow of creativity, prosperity, just the life force that makes life alive and juicy and brings spark.

Thinking about legacy can help us access a greater, more clear, true vision of ourselves and help us see beyond our past and present circumstances that may be limiting us, our ability to create the lives of our dreams, our belief in ourselves, and our knowing that we have the power to change the world, our own and those around us, with our legacies of creativity and love.

And I shared last week too, I am grateful Martha Beck for many things. She’s amazing. Love her books. Love her teaching. And I most recently have read The Way of Integrity, her latest book. And these two phrases appear at one point in the book. And when I read them, it’s like they struck a chord that rang and rang in me.

And so, I am for sure pulling them out and they are serving as life-giving, soul-affirming mantras right now. And it’s, “Love courageously and create unabashedly.” I love the both of those. That resonated so deeply with me, with something that would define aspects of what I want my own life and legacy to be. And to that, I would also add to live freely.

And so, I was thinking back to the time when I didn’t think legacy was for me because I thought I had to get to, first, X, Y, and Z point in my life. And I realized that if I didn’t learn how, and no matter that circumstance or challenge, I had to access this place within me, open my heart so I could love courageously, where I could create unabashedly, where I could live freely, that I was never going to do it, even if I had worked so hard to create different circumstances in the world at a later time, that my capacity to love courageously, create unabashedly, live freely was only ever going to be as large as I was able to begin to forge in that moment.

The only moment I ever had was that present moment right there to be able to access this next level, this expanded capacity, this evolution of my own consciousness that would match, that would raise my energy to a point where I felt that yes, that’s who I ama and what I do. I love courageously. I create unabashedly. I live freely.

And that was a true turning point. And it’s always such a bugger to find out. Sometimes, you have those tuning points and then you have to revisit them again at later dates. Although I’m less surprised by that now. But again, it’s why I still resonate with the words of creative process, practice, evolution. Because we are as Ram Dass said, all humans, all walking one another home.

And for me, this conversation about legacy really illuminates that road, that walk home, especially when you get to some of the bumpier, more twisty, gnarly points in the road. And it’s another reason why I was drawn to include that Dr. King quote in this particular episode.

And I’ll just repeat it here, “The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy.” Because I can look ack at various points in my life and see where I was really allowing myself to deny my truth, my alignment with values, my alignment with the greater flow of things, I was allowing challenge and controversy that I was experiencing, I was allowing myself having human experiences, including difficulty, be a reason, an excuse for denying myself the opportunity to define and claim who I am, to define and claim, you know, this is what my life and legacy are and will be.

Another point that I wanted to weave into this conversation about legacy is also something that has the ability to shift our perspective and therefore change our minds and change everything. And that’s to think of legacy not only as being what you’ve inherited from your ancestors, your blood relation, and not only what you will pass onto any descendants or blood relations.

Maybe you’re already thinking about it that way, that the legacy that you pass down is not limited to your family. But have you ever considered that the legacy to which you belong is greater than just your family of origin?

And we touched on this a little bit last week when we thought about challenging those unhelpful legacies, those paradigms which we’ve inherited, which can include one I have definitely worked through and want to be an example of is that you can’t, quote, have it all as a woman. That you are either going to sacrifice your health, your wealth, your career, if you want children, your children, their wellbeing, if you are in a relationship, those relationships, that we can not operate from a place – this is the false lie legacy that is time for it to topple and crumble – that you can’t have all of these things and that something has to give.

So, that’s just an example of an unhelpful legacy that isn’t one that is just passed down from one particular bloodline, one particular family, but something that I know so many women across families, across cultures experience.

And on the flipside though, there is a way of thinking about legacy that is beyond your family of origin, your bloodline, that I know has been so empowering for myself and so many of my clients to consider. I think this can be particularly powerful as an artist.

Because let’s say that you are now a novelist and you didn’t grow up in a family of writers. Maybe everyone in your family grew up in Detroit and everybody worked in the automotive industry. Or you are a musician and everyone else in your family is a medical doctor.

And so, you feel like somewhat of an alien and you are just an anomaly in this world, this random happening of an artist and that it can be daunting because life can feel pretty short.

But what has helped me so much, and again helped my clients, is when I say, “Yeah doesn’t that feel just wrong, that life is so short and that you have to come into your full great creative expression in this lifetime?” So, what if you considered that those other artists or creatives or visionaries that you have long admired, respected, just been intrigued by, even if you didn’t want to emulate or inherit every aspect of their being or life, but something about them strikes a chord of recognition with you; deep recognition.

Contemplate that. Ponder that. Allow yourself to own it. What would it be like to consider that there is more of a spiritual lineage for us as creatives, more of a collective consciousness of creativity that runs through humanity. And it doesn’t need DNA or bloodline to pass it down. That it can exist outside of that and there is a power in just acknowledging that.

So many people have told me that, after I’ve suggested this exercise and suggested that they consider it, it has been a coming out, like, “Oh my gosh, you know what? I have a confession to make. I always secretly felt this relationship or connection to X, Y, and Z.” Whether it was a Sufi saint and poet who lived generations before in a completely different culture, or maybe it’s someone who is in a completely different medium or space but something about their courage, their pioneering spirit feels like a legacy that is more than something you’ve just thought about. It feels like it’s in you, like it’s in your bones.

I have so many examples of clients for whom this really created a deep inner shift that started to have, almost immediately, very fascinating ripple effects on the rest of their life and also helped create a deeper sense of connection within themselves and a settling within themselves.

Because I think rather than thinking about, “Oh my god, I only have less than 100 years on this planet to create, to channel all of this I feel moving through me,” there is something really sublime and settling in the centering sense of getting grounded when you, again, using that word affluence, when you know that you are stepping into this dream and aligning with something so great, so sublime that wants to channel through your life and is also greater than any of our individual lives, it existed before us and it will carry on beyond us.

And then, it leaves us with the question, if this is what we have then now here, what do we want to contribute to this flow, to this stream? I know for me, there are particular artists and particular poets who, once I was both told and in other instances came to this realization later myself, that my work shared things in common with these artists, individuals that I hadn’t been aware of before, that I hadn’t studied, that has been nowhere on my radar.

But then, when I did acquaint myself with my work, I understood the familiarity. I did feel that deep sense of recognition. And again, it affirmed something for me. It put to rest a persistent chatter, a distracting chatter about, “You’re just in this life for a short bit, flailing around trying to make your way.”

Again, it really settled something and helped me focus when I could feel on a visceral, physical, cellular, spiritual level that no, these were my people and this was part of my creative lineage and legacy to which I belong. It also helps quiet so many of those voices that are incessantly telling us that we need to prove ourselves, and instead helps us re-channel that energy, subconsciously and consciously, just doing the work we came here to do, living the life we came here to live and experience.

So, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I want to invite you to lean in and really work with me, coach with me. Take this information and don’t just consume it, but think about it, contemplate it, integrate it into your life and make it transformational.

I have a few different questions for you to consider this week. Going back to the very first quote, “The measure of a person is the love they leave behind.” That word measure, we all know about metrics. And this is something I’ve been thinking about lately. I was just sharing with the Art Schoolers who have already enrolled when we had our July workshop, I was sharing that something for me that I’m focusing on in this season of my life and of my business is that when it comes to the business aspect, that I want to redirect my focus from launching.

So, if you’re in the online business world, you’re familiar with the concept of launching. And while useful and I’ve done it and I can do it, I really feel that right now, it’s keeping me cramped and keeping me small, even if it has worked for me in the past in terms of numbers, that there is still something right now about it that is holding me back.

So, I want to focus this season on not so much launching, but rather leading. I want to live and lead my life from a place of love and great capital C Creativity and belief and knowing of what I’m doing, aligned with my values, really lining up even more so with that flow, with that creative flow, taking my own evolution as an affluent artist to the next level.

So, that is easier said than done because it’s hard to let go of what’s worked, especially when it’s been something that has worked and helped create success and helped pay the bills. But I’m sharing the example so that I can then turn it ack to you and say, is there any place in your life where there has been a metric, a measure of what you believed your legacy to be or that it needed to be that at one point served you, but now that you’re having these greater conversations about legacy and about your own evolution, are there metrics that you want to trade or that you want to be more flexible with or that you want to expand?

The second question that I wanted to propose to you is that are there particular challenges and controversies that make you change your stance, that make you move from the legacy that you know to be yours and instead limit your ability to access that place and limit your ability to believe in yourself, to be able to create the life of your dreams on your terms, aligned with your values?

So, what are, if any, those challenges and controversies that cause you to lose your footing? And not from a place of shaming yourself or judging yourself morally, but of awareness and discovery and understanding. Because right there too is such a wonderful opportunity to realign with that flow, to realign with that powerful, affluent energy.

And finally, and this is a very open-ended and I hope fun and juicy mysterious prompt. Think about that story of the loaves and the fish and the miraculous and what that might be telling you about your own legacy.

Another fun sidenote to that story, that energy was so prevalent. It was so strong, of that loaves and the fishes story. I knew it wasn’t just something random, a random but of thought detritus my mind threw up. It felt like something else, something that wanted to be known and thought about, acknowledged.

And also, again, one of those things that I’m like, “Is this just a for me thing to consider or is this something I’m meant to share?” And it definitely felt meant to share, especially since I’ve been contemplating this legacy topic so much.

And then, the very next day, we went to church and the gospel was about the story about the loaves and the fish. So, I don’t know, maybe somewhere my mind had tucked away liturgical cycles so well that I remembered that. But that just felt like an additional affirmation of, “Oh no, there is really something that wants your attention here.”

And so, for you listening to this podcast, I think the story, no matter your belief system, I don’t think it’s necessary to be a Christian or a believer of any particular faith. I think the moral of the story is one of human truth and significance.

In what ways do you see your opportunity to be like the child with the gifts? And in what ways can you imagine that love, the miraculous, something so much greater than you could take, transform, multiply, amplify your gifts to feed the many?

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you have enjoyed these episodes, if you’ve found them useful, meaningful, and you want to learn more and take this work deeper, one way you can be assured of doing that is by signing up for my newsletter. It’s free, it’s available by going to my website, www.leahcb.com.

Also, if you are feeling that the legacy work that I’m doing through the Art School, that the other in the Art School are doing by amplifying their gifts, letting them be multiplied in this incredibly extraordinary, brilliant, and supportive community, we would love to have you join us for the next round of the Art School.

We begin August 31^st. And if you sign up now, you still have time to be eligible for our August bonus workshop. So, if you have any interest or curiosity at all in what the Art School is all about, what kind of people join this community, what kind of goals and dreams they bring to it, what the program is like, what you can expect to experience, there are a few things you can do.

Again, sign up for my newsletter. That’s probably the number one way to stay in touch and stay informed. Again, that’s at www.leahcb.com. Also we have opened up a certain amount of spots for exploratory calls. These are free calls where you can hop on with a lovely member of my team who will answer any questions that you have. These aren’t sales calls. Just something we make available because fit really matters. It matters for you and it matters for us.

Also, I have coming up later this month a three-day mini-immersion. So, you are able to get a taste of the Art School, and not only that, but really create some traction and momentum in your life. It’s our Affluent Artist Immersion and if you’re interested in that, the link will also be in the show notes.

So, I have something special and I think particularly juicy for the end of today’s episode. And I had the opportunity to have such a beautiful conversation with a friend this week. We were meeting to talk about business and ended up talking about legacy.

And we had an unexpected and emotional conversation around this topic of particularly having it all, and not having it all as in everything available in the world, but really identifying what the core values were to us and allowing ourselves to move past any upper limits, obstacles, subconscious blocks.

By the way, I have so much fun, amazing, exciting material, content, and tools planned for this next Art School around addressing and removing subconscious blocks and channeling your subconscious energy, channeling that very creative energy that is, again, aligned with affluence and not in opposition to your goals. I’ll talk about that more in upcoming episodes, but just dog-earing that for now.

But anyway, we were talking about really allowing ourselves that this having it all for us meant we had identified these core areas of our lives that are dear to us. And then, how important it’s been for us, the legacy of others, how that’s influenced us to be like, “Oh, I see that. I see her doing that. I see that he’s done that. I see that they have created this.” And then therefore that helps me know that it’s also possible.

And then also, you come up to points in your life where because you are living the capital C Creative path, you don’t see external examples of people living the life that you want to have and you feel an aspect of yourself in opposition.

And this friend just so beautifully said that for her, then she just then realized that part of her legacy was to create her life in such a way that she was an example for others. That it didn’t have to be either your career or your health, or your wealth, or your creativity.

So, I wanted to share that. And an aspect of that that I want to highlight is we were having a conversation. And again, that this legacy happens in conversation. Legacy happens in connection to one another. Authentic, true, vulnerable, courageous connection.

Legacy happens in community. Authentic, courageous, true creative communities. And it is something that is my desire and my intention to be the legacy of the Art School, is that together you have this – what’s called in quantum physics – the observer effect.

The observer effect in quantum physics state that where you direct your attention is where you place your energy. So, you can see the connection to prior episodes that I have done.

Well, the way that I weave this into my visioning and my intentions for the Art School is that it Is not just one of us observing, directing our attention and then giving energy to a particular outcome, but instead it is a network of us. It is a community of us.

And I talk, speak, teach, coach often in the Art School about how we are normalizing the extraordinary, how success and becoming more conscious, more creative, more wealthy, more healthy, more kind, more loving, more stable, more centered, more peaceful, more at home with one another and ourselves, and also more expansive, we are normalizing those kind of extraordinary life experiences and ways of being.

And once again, that is a legacy that is happening in community, the community, the love there, the support, the collective energy and consciousness amplifies individual gifts, amplifies our ability to focus on collectively our individual outcomes but then also this greater objective and dream of creating a paradigm of thriving creative healthy artists, knowing that creativity is fundamentally a pathway to our deepest knowing, to our deepest gifts, and our ability to access healing, change, progress, evolution, not only for ourselves but for the world.

So, a lot to take for a walk and contemplate this week, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week and I look forward to talking with you next time.