Legacy and the Life You’re Building

What would people actually say about you tomorrow? Not the polished bio or the curated grid—real stories, told in kitchens, over coffee, and in the soft silence after a hard day. We sit with grief, clarity, and the unsettling but liberating question of what truly outlasts us, then turn that insight into simple daily practices that anyone can start today.

We walk through a vivid “begin with the end in mind” exercise and pause where it matters: family, friends, colleagues, and community. From there, we unpack why the resume fades while character endures, and how the “tyranny of the urgent” drowns out the whispers that build a life—deep conversations, bedtime stories, quiet check-ins, and the slow work of listening. Drawing on the Harvard Study of Adult Development, we underscore a core truth of personal growth: good relationships keep us happier and healthier, and they are the living archive of our legacy.

This conversation blends personal story and practical tools. You’ll get a simple daily compass question to cut through noise, a weekly calendar audit to make space for presence, and specific micro-actions that compound—one whisper before every scream, one honest text before the inbox, one page with your kid before the scroll. We don’t chase perfection; we choose alignment, repair quickly, and return often. Legacy becomes a practice of attention, a pattern of kindness, and a feeling others carry forward long after we leave the room.

If this resonates, subscribe for more grounded conversations on self-worth, confidence, and intentional living. Share this with someone who needs a gentle nudge today, and leave a review to help others find the show. What whisper will you follow before the day ends?

We would love to hear your feedback! Click here to tell us what you think.

https://sagesolutions.buzzsprout.com

If you are interested in one-on-one coaching, email us at:
[e-mail]

**Legal Disclaimer**
The Sage Solutions Podcast and content posted by David Sage is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. No coaching client relationship is formed by listening to this podcast. No Legal, Medical or Financial advice is being given. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice, diagnosis, or treatment of a psychotherapist, physician, professional coach, Lawyer or other qualified professional. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The opinions of guests are their own and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the podcast.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Welcome to the Sage Solutions Podcast, where we talk
about all things personalgrowth, personal development,
and becoming your best self.
My name is David Sage, and I ama self-worth and confidence
coach with Sage CoachingSolutions.
I usually start this podcastwith a bit more energy, ready to

(00:27):
dive into a topic with a clearplan.
But today is a little different.
Last episode, I shared with aheavy heart that my stepfather
John passed away.
He was an important guest ofthis podcast as well.
It's been just over two weeksnow.

(00:50):
And ever since I lost him, myworld has just felt a lot more
empty and just off.
Grief is a strange but powerfulteacher.

(01:11):
It strips away everything thatdoesn't matter.
And in the quiet moments, in thewaves of sadness, it holds up a
mirror and forces you to look atyour life.
So that's what I want to talkabout today.

(01:31):
Because for me, through a lensof loss, this topic has taken on
a whole new meaning.
What is the legacy that you areleaving?
And not just as a theoreticalexercise, but I want us to treat
this as a real, tangible, andurgent question.

(01:54):
What is the story of our life?
And are we living it in a waythat we'll be proud of?
Before we get into it, our goalwith this podcast is to share
free, helpful tools with you andanyone you know who is looking
to improve their life.
So take action.

(02:14):
Subscribe and share this podcastwith them.
Alright, let's take a step back.
I want you to take a deep breathwith me.
Inhale and exhale.

(02:34):
I'm going to ask you a question,and I want you to sit with it
for a moment.
Because it's a heavy one.
If today were your last day onearth, what would people say
about you tomorrow?
Not what do you hope they'd say?

(02:55):
Not the polished version thatyou've curated on social media.
But what would they actuallysay?
What would your partner whisperto their best friend about the
love you gave?
What story would your childrentell their own kids about who
you were?

(03:16):
What would your colleagues say,not in a formal eulogy, but over
coffee about the kind of personyou were in your day-to-day
life?
This, my friends, is the topicwe're diving into today.
The legacy that you are leaving,and more importantly, are you

(03:37):
living your life right now in away that creates it?
There's a powerful exercise,often used in leadership and
personal development, that Ithink is really relevant for
this conversation.
So I'm gonna walk you throughit.
It's called Beginning with theEnd in Mind.
And it happens to be one ofStephen Covey's seven habits of

(04:01):
highly effective people.
So close your eyes for a second,if you can.
Of course, if you're driving,keep them open.
But just bring your mind inward.
I want you to picture yourself afew years from now, walking into
a service.
It's a memorial.

(04:22):
As you get closer, you see thefaces of your family, your
closest friends, people fromyour community, colleagues from
your work.
There are flowers everywhere.
Soft music is playing.
And then you see a picture atthe front of the room, and it's
you.

(04:43):
This is your funeral.
Now stay with me here.
I'm not trying to be morbid.
This is meant to be a clarifyingexercise.
Now four people are going to getup and speak.
First, a member of your family.
Maybe your partner, your child,a sibling.

(05:09):
Second, one of your dearestfriends.
Third, a colleague from yourprofessional life.
And fourth, someone from yourcommunity, maybe a club, a
charity, or a spiritual groupthat you were a part of.
What would you want them to say?

(05:31):
What character traits do youwant them to remember?
What contributions do you wantthem to highlight?
Do you want them to talk aboutyour kindness, your integrity,
your generosity?
How do you want them to rememberyou?
Do you want it to be as someonewho was always present, who

(05:54):
listened deeply, who made themfeel seen and heard?
Or do you want them to talkabout all of the hours that you
logged at the office, thepromotions you got, the car you
drove?
Okay, open your eyes.
Are you living today in a waythat would lead them to say

(06:14):
those things?
And if not, it might feel alittle bit like a gut check.
But when someone you love dies,you spend a lot of time telling
stories about them.
My family and I have been doingthat, both before he passed and
after.

(06:35):
Whether we've been gathered in aliving room, a hospice center,
or on a phone call.
Many of my conversations havebeen memories of John.
And something has becomeincredibly profoundly clear to
me.
Nobody is talking about how manyhours he worked.

(06:57):
Nobody is mentioning thepromotions he got.
Nobody's telling stories abouthis resume.
Even his coworkers primarilytalked about his character, his
reliability, and yes, his workethic.
But the stories that we'retelling are about his character.

(07:20):
We're talking about the way thathe would drop anything to help
someone, no questions asked.
We've been laughing about hisrepetitive jokes and unique
sayings or johnisms that hewould say at literally every
opportunity.
I keep remembering how I wascompletely overwhelmed when my
car wouldn't start after work inbelow zero temperatures.

(07:44):
Stranded in Milwaukee withthings stolen out of my car.
I was lucky enough to have notone but two different people
show up and help me, both myfather and my stepfather.
And whenever Hannah wasstruggling with the grief and
loss of her father, John was thefirst one to be there.

(08:06):
Because he understood what itfelt like.
That was his legacy.
Not the stuff he accumulated.
Not even his beloved Ford F-150.
But the love that he circulated.
It was in the small daily actsof kindness.

(08:28):
It was in the feeling of safety,support, and protection that he
gave us.
It was the way that he madeother people feel.
And it has forced me to askmyself with a level of honesty
that is frankly prettyuncomfortable.
What stories will be told aboutme?

(08:48):
If my life were to end tomorrow,what would be the recurring
theme in the memories of in thememories that people share?
Would it be about my presence ormy preoccupation, my kindness or
my critique?
My love or my ambition?

(09:08):
For so many of us, there's ahuge gap between the person we
want to be remembered as and theperson that we actually are day
in and day out.
We all want to be remembered asloving and present.
But if you spend dinnerscrolling through emails on your
phone, that's not exactly it.

(09:31):
We want to be remembered as asupportive and caring friend.
But if we're always too busy topick up the phone and call or to
ever hang out, that's gonna bepretty unlikely.
We want to be remembered for ourintegrity, but maybe we cut a
corner here and there to getahead.

(09:52):
It's this gap.
This is where our legacy getslost.
It may be a slow fade, a dailydrift away from our deepest
values.
We don't wake up one day anddecide to live a life that's out
of alignment.
It happens in the small,seemingly insignificant choices

(10:14):
we make every single hour.
There's this quote by thephilosopher William James that
has been echoing in my head.
The great use of a life is tospend it for something that will
outlast us.
Our inbox will be deleted, yourto-do list will be thrown away,
the money in your bank accountwill be spent or transferred.

(10:37):
Even the awards on your shelfwill eventually collect dust in
a box.
But the kindness you showsomeone, the wisdom you impart
to a child, the encouragementyou give a friend who is
struggling, that has a rippleeffect.
That is what outlasts you.

(11:00):
That is the currency of truelegacy.
It's the love, the lessons, thelaughter you create.
The problem is what I call thetyranny of the urgent.
We are drowning in things thatfeel urgent.
But they are rarely important inthe grand scheme of things.

(11:21):
That email that just came in,the notification on your phone,
that minor crisis at work, thesethings scream for our attention,
and we give it to them.
Meanwhile, the truly importantthings, the things that lead to
a life well lived and a legacythat outlasts us.
They don't scream, they whisper.

(11:44):
Having a deep, uninterruptedconversation with your partner
whispers.
Reading a bedtime story to yourchild whispers.
Calling your aging parents justto check in, whispers.
Taking a walk in nature to clearyour head, whispers.
Working on that passion projectthat truly lights you up,

(12:08):
whispers.
It's easy to think of legacy assomething for presidents and
philanthropists, with big marblestatues and buildings with their
names on them.
But the truth is a real legacyis much more intimate.
It's woven into the hearts andminds of the people that we

(12:28):
interact with every day.
Your legacy is built in themoments that you choose to
listen to the whispers insteadof the screams.
It's a daily practice of puttingfirst things first.
It's asking yourself over andover, is this the best use of my
time, my energy, and my liferight now?

(12:53):
Is this action building the lifeand the legacy that I want?
My stepfather didn't buildskyscrapers or find a cure for a
disease.
But he did build a legacy oflove, care, and reliability in
the hearts of every singleperson he knew.

(13:16):
And that will outlast him.
It will ripple through us andthrough our children.
That is a life well spent.
Losing someone you love givesyou what I can only describe as
a brutal clarity.
The grief, the loss, the paincuts through the noise of

(13:40):
everyday life.
The petty annoyances, the emailsthat felt so urgent, social
media drama, the worries aboutwhat other people think, it all
just feels empty, it falls away.
It becomes meaningless static.
At least temporarily.

(14:01):
And it's in that silence, Iguess, the silence of the pain,
that you can finally hear thewhispers of what truly matters.
The health of yourself and yourloved ones.
A moment of real connection, ashared laugh.
Maybe even a sunset.

(14:22):
This experience ended up leadingme down a bit of a rabbit hole.
And I found myself rereading aconclusion from a study.
It was the Harvard Study ofAdult Development.
It's one of the longest studiesever done on human life.
It was tracking people for over80 years.

(14:46):
They wanted to know what thesecret to a happy, healthy, and
long life was.
And after decades of data, theanswer was stunningly simple.
It's good relationships.
The study director, doctorRobert Waldinger, summed it up
by saying the clearest messagethat we get from this eighty

(15:08):
year study is this.
Good relationships keep ushappier and healthier.
Sitting here in the midst ofthis grief, I can tell you that
I've never felt the truth ofthat statement more deeply.

(15:28):
In the end, all you have is thelove that you've given and the
love that you've received.
The quality of your connectionsis a huge part of the quality of
your life.
And it also happens to be thefoundation of your legacy.
The amount of people thatvisited John during his cancer

(15:50):
journey illustrated more clearlyto me than anything I've ever
seen that he was a livingembodiment of that study.
Now, his life wasn't perfect,and he shared some of the
mistakes or changes he wouldhave made had he known that this
would be the outcome when we hadthe episodes where I interviewed

(16:14):
him.
But he spent a lot of his timeinvesting in relationships with
people.
He put those relationshipsfirst.
And the return on thatinvestment will be a room full
of people overflowing with loveand gratitude for the man that
he was.
What more could any of us hopefor?

(16:37):
The hard part is living thattruth when you're not in this
moment of crisis and pain.
How do we hold on to thisclarity when the urgent
notifications and demands ofdaily life come screaming back?
Now I don't have all theanswers.
I'm taking this a day at a time.

(17:00):
But I can share what thisexperience is teaching me.
The biggest lesson is this.
Don't wait.
Don't wait for a tragedy to tellpeople how you feel about them.
Don't wait until you retire tospend time on what you love
doing.
Don't wait for a diagnosis tostart prioritizing your

(17:23):
well-being.
The legacy that you want toleave has to be built today.
It might be it might be builtbetween 8 and 9 a.m.
when you choose to make your kidbreakfast instead of checking
your email.
It's built on your lunch breakwhen you call your mom or
significant other just to sayhi.

(17:44):
It's built at 7 p.m.
when you put your phone away andlisten, truly listen, to how
your partner's day went.
So here's the challenge for youand for me.
First, let's stop thinking ofour legacy as some grand future
project.
Instead, let's start asking asimple daily question.

(18:09):
In any given moment, with anychoice, we can ask ourselves, is
this action building the legacyI want to leave?
Is scrolling on Instagram for 20minutes building it?
Is gossiping about a coworkerbuilding it?
Is staying late to finish a taskthat could wait until tomorrow
building it?

(18:29):
These questions weren't meant toinspire guilt.
They're meant to be a compass, agentle nudge back towards your
own North Star.
And second, let's look at ourcalendars for the next week with
these new eyes.
Not with the eyes of aproductivity machine, but with
the eyes of a mortal human beingwho's going to make mistakes and

(18:53):
has a finite amount of precioustime.
Where in your schedule have youmade time for the people who are
truly important to you?
Where is the space forconnection, for joy, for
presence?
If it's not there, the good newsis that you are the one who
holds the key, the pen, and youcan open the door.

(19:17):
You can write it in.
Maybe it means scheduling anon-negotiable family dinner.
Maybe it means blocking out oneevening for yourself to read or
walk or just be still.
Maybe it's putting a recurring15-minute reminder in your
calendar to call a friend.
These are the small hinges thatswing the big doors of a life.

(19:42):
John's legacy wasn't built inone grand gesture.
It was built over a lifetime ofshowing up, of telling jokes,
and of just being there.
Grief is a heavy, painful thing.
And if you're going through itlike I am, I highly recommend
that you go back and listen tothe episode that we did on

(20:04):
grief, which featured my wife,Hannah, as she talked about the
grief of losing her father, andhow it was a heavy, painful
thing, and that it takes time.
But if we let grief have time,it can also be a gift.

(20:25):
It's another expression of love.
It can be an invitation to wakeup, to live with more intention,
more love, and less fear, tohonor those that we've lost by
living our own lives more fully.
John's story has now beenwritten, but his legacy, his

(20:47):
kindness, his caring, his humor,his unwavering support that
lives on in me and in everyonethat he loved will live on.
We started today with a heavyquestion.
What will your story be?
And the beautiful, empoweringtruth is that you are the

(21:09):
author.
Your legacy is not somethingthat happens to you when you
die.
It is something that you arecreating right now, with every
choice you make, every word youspeak, and every action that you
take.
Your story is still beingwritten.

(21:29):
Every single day you are theauthor.
So I ask you, what is the storyyou want to tell?
And I urge you to make it astory of love, of courage, of
connection and integrity, astory that outlasts you.
So start writing it today.

(21:51):
And remember, you are enough.
And you deserve to fill up yourinner cup with happiness, true
confidence, and resilience.
Thank you for listening to theSage Solutions podcast.
Your time is valuable, and I'mso glad you choose to learn and

(22:14):
grow here with me.
If you haven't already, don'tforget to subscribe so you don't
miss out on more Sage advice.
One last thing.
The Legal Language.
This podcast is for educationaland informational purposes only.

(22:34):
No coaching client relationshipis formed.
It is not intended as asubstitute for the personalized
advice of a physician,professional coach,
psychotherapist, or otherqualified professional.