Happy Thanksgiving everyone and welcome to another exciting edition of Your Best Retirement! I’m Coach Ledford. When people ask us “What is this Your Best Retirement project all about anyway?” I love to jump into my elevator speech and say “It’s a place where where retired folks or folks who are on the path to retirement find information and inspiration on building health, wealth and living their legacy.”
I. Health, Wealth and Living Your Legacy!
We have spent a good deal of time the last few months going over the health factors that contribute to living Your Best Retirement. We began with Spiritual Health and then offered ideas for your physical, mental and social health as part of your plan. More recently we’ve started adding ideas for what to do with your wealth or the lack thereof. So today I’m going to add more to the third pillar of our program introduced by Alligator Curt last week on living your legacy.
II. “The Good, The Bad and Where Do We Go From Here?”
Dictionary.com defines Legacy as anything handed down from a predecessor to a group of beneficiaries. Naturally people think of this as property and other assets bequeathed to family, friends or other causes important the predecessor. Because the definition of legacy is much broader than just property and financial assets, our focus will be on the intangibles; those valuable lessons given to us by those who have traveled the road before us. We might first think of lessons from mom or dad but then it extends to grandparents, coaches, teachers and others who’ve had a major influence on our life. It’s not too early, in fact it’s time now for us to get our legacy house in order
III. “Great Starts are not as important as Great Finishes.”……Group Participation
Challenge Tracker Question:
I’m going to do something different this episode. I’m going to try to put on the screen here the Challenge Tracker Question /document and show you how to fill it out. If you’re driving don’t take your eyes off the road, you can look at this later. In the Challenge Tracker you will find this document called The Legacy Questionnaire. In Section One on Legacy or Lessons Handed Down: write down 3 or more lessons that were handed down to you by your predecessors. Do they still hold true? Are they still accurate? Has advances in technology made some of them obsolete? In Section II. write down one or more legacy lessons you want to be sure you pass on to those who follow you.
Download the Challenge Tracker by clicking the link below.
IV. Lessons are Caught not Taught
Look at the third section of the questionnaire where you’ve written down the lessons you want to pass on. Here is where you write down how you are going to personify, and exemplify that is “live out” that value or principle. To help with this we are including the List of Personal Values we handed out a while ago.
Example:
One side of my family believed “debt” was a bad thing. The other side had no problem accumulating debt and carrying it as just another payment to be made each month. As Over the years I witnessed the outcome of these two opposing views I came to believe in most cases debt is not good, it mortgages the future of those who have it and limits their opportunities where as a debt free person might be able to take full advantage of it. I’m going to definitely send that message down the line.
Another example from my lower middle class upbringing was investing in the stock market was equal to throwing money on a bon-fire. I see where at one time this may have been true, but over time this lesson hasn’t held true for me.
Also in my experience I did not have one example where those instructing me, parents, relatives or anyone else speak about money or where they wanted it to go after they were gone. My experience then at the end of their journey was there were many surprises and often bitter feelings among siblings who each had their own version of what they remember mom or dad told them. It’s sad to think that a dispute over who gets grandma’s yellow pie plate or grandpa’s shot gun causes siblings to not speak to each other for 30 years or more. This lesson changes with me. I’m going to be as transparent as I can with my family and provide rationale for how I want things divided up. I’m going to allow them to be mad at me or maybe even help me change my mind while I’m living, so that when I’m gone I have saved them the poverty of not having a relationship with each other perhaps for decades to come.
V. Conclusion
I hope you’ve been blessed by this exercise. If you have, hit the “Share” button below and send this to someone else. Make no mistake, Living and Leaving a Legacy is hard work, but it’s well worth it because unlike money or other forms of wealth, it will be continue to pay dividends for generations to come. It seems fitting to end this episode with a quote by Billy Graham taken from his book entitled “The Journey” where he writes: “Old age is Satan’s last chance to blow us off course. Don’t wait until the storms of old age threaten your hard won legacy. Now is the time to strengthen your faith. The stronger our relationship with Christ, the stronger our defense against the devil’s temptation.
VI. What Do The Scriptures Say?
Proverbs 1:8 Listen my son to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching, for they are a crown to sit upon your head and a chain to protect you around your neck.
Thanks for watching, reading or listening to this episode. Catch us again next week when will give you another tip, tactic or technique to live Your Best Retirement, until then I’m Coach Ledford, see you next time!
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