How to Stop Traffic and Leave a Lasting Legacy with Your Stories

Many years ago, I was trying to make a quick run to the coffee shop before picking my kids up from preschool. I was already running a little late, so the coffee stop was ambitious, but nevertheless, I was going for it. As I came to an intersection, the light turned green (yay!) and I was just about to go when a cop pulled right in front of my car and stopped traffic for a funeral procession.

“Oh no,” I thought. Oh no as in—it was terrible someone passed away and… oh no as in—now I was definitely going to be late for preschool pickup. I had barely finished that thought when… the procession was over. I mean it seriously couldn't have been more than a few cars. The cop left. The intersection cleared. And we were free to go. Except I didn’t. I sat frozen in place. The guy behind me had to honk because I was so lost in thought.

You see, earlier in the day, a friend and a colleague of mine said to me, “I don't tell stories because I don’t have any.” She didn’t seek stories because she didn’t expect to find any there. She didn’t tell stories because she thought no one would want to, much less need to, hear them. She didn’t consider that her life was, is, and always will be a collision of a million little stories, paths taken, decisions made… a constant unfolding story.

And that's when I realized, sitting at the intersection, the two could be connected—my story-less friend and the way-too-short funeral procession. Of course, there are many reasons a funeral procession might be short (weather being at the top of the list), but on my mind that day was this: in the end, it really does come down to impact.

How we impact the people around us. Do we make a difference in their lives—influence behaviors that make things better? Do people learn from us? And are we curious enough to learn from them? Did we add value or perspective? Do we help them see the value they bring… simply by living their own unfolding story and intersecting it with our own?

This is my deepest hope and belief of what’s possible for you… and after all this time we’ve spent together…. That when it is your last day above ground, I have no doubt the room will be filled with people and that it will be so loud because everyone will be sharing the stories you once shared with them. They’ll tell the stories of the stories they told you — because you always wanted to hear them. And they’ll tell the stories that you created together, messy-middles and all. Big or small, there will be endless stories of the way you made a difference in their professional and personal lives.

What more could we ask for from a leader? What more could we hope for as a leader? I hope when it is your procession going by, that there's an impatient person sitting at the stop light and that they have to wait for so long that they are forced to ask themselves……. Who was that? and ……..what kind of a person was so worthy to make such a difference?

All because you had the courage to tell your stories—big or small—to influence and inspire others and the awareness that they matter. That is how you leave a legacy. That is how you live forever.