What we leave is our legacy.

One of my favorite sayings.

When our time comes and we’re buried in the cold & lonely soil, what will those who’ve come to gather have to say? Positively or negatively, the end of your life will have had an effect on those closest to you as well as those around the world.

There are no do-overs and you’ll never know when your last goodbye will be…

You see, death has given me a reality check so big that I was forced to live the life that I want.

Allow me to explain…

My father was an absent parent throughout the most crucial years of my life. The only things I knew about him were health issues, excuses, and his love for his advertising and promotions company.

9 months after his 60th birthday he was in the hospital…again. Having not been around him for years I expected to be stone cold, emotionally. However, the moment I saw him on the bed, I crashed and wept. I left the room and wept for a man I didn’t really know too well for the majority of my life.

After his passing and the service I became reflective on any good things that I could remember. What I remember about him can be broken down into three things that have helped me as I develop personally and professionally and will help you as you imagine what people will remember about you when your time comes.

1. Hustle. My father took a handful of pills and two shots every day and couldn’t even wear regular fit clothes. Despite that, he drove a 1990 Stanza with over 300,000 miles to school districts, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations pitching fundraiser ideas. He poured more money into that car than it was worth until the early 2000’s. He took action doing the things that he wanted. Despite his poor health, he made hundreds of thousands of dollars on his own doing what he loved. Nothing else mattered.
2. Determination. We saw our father the most when we were younger. When he came over he and I would go over homework and play chess. Most of the time I never got to finish my homework because his thirst for knowledge and dedication to education meant reading the instructions, verbally defining the unorthodox words. If the definition wasn’t known, we would look up that definition in “The $40 Dictionary” (that name was given to the dictionary so we’d know the investment made on the dictionary was not to be taken for granted). If we didn’t know all of the words in the definition given we would look up that word and so on and so forth. It was tedious and digressive, however it was done for a point. That point is to better those around you
3. Stubbornness. It’s one thing to have determination, but the will to never back down from the best is an entirely different thing. I remember playing chess with my father when I was maybe 7 or 8. I would play an absolutely disgusting blunder and I was forced to go back and verbally analyze the position and find a better move. Or sometimes he would turn the board around and I had to verbally analyze the position from the other perspective.

“The will to be great takes nothing short of a virtually irrational stubbornness.” – Tweet this quote!

We are all connected. The impact you have on another individual’s life will have an impact on another individual’s life which will then have an impact on another individual’s life. You live on in the actions that you took.

That is why it is important to understand that your dreams, your goals, your aspirations, your questions, and your passions cannot wait until tomorrow. How will you live today? How will the world be better off because you have lived? How much better will you feel having done the things in life that you’ve always wanted to do wanted to do?

Go Create Something Awesome Today… the world depends on it. You depend on it.

Tweet @erickhoxter