A Personal Note: This is My Legacy
What Will People Remember About You?
I opened my email one day last week to learn that someone I have written about more than once in my blog, Dan Miller, was ending his podcast of 17 years due to a recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Although I had not been in contact with Dan in a few years, I was devastated. Dan was The One who literally got me started in following my dream almost 15 years ago.
The news challenged me to think back to where this all started. It took a minute… Somewhere around 2010 or maybe 2011, (I’m not great with remembering numbers), I took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at my church. I loved everything about the program and still follow Dave through his Entreleadership Podcast. At one point in the program he mentioned his good friend, Dan Miller who had written the book, 48 Days to the Work You Love. Although I loved my job as an elementary school counselor, I’ve always been someone who is interested in growing and improving in my career. So I read his book, and started remembering a dream I had always had to write and publish a book myself. I had already written a few children’s stories that I was using in my classroom lessons but what should I do with them next? How do you actually get something published? And were my ideas even worth trying to do something with them? Remember this was before the advent of Amazon’s publishing arm and the path to publishing was confusing, exclusive, and expensive.
I became a devoted follower of Dan’s weekly podcast and in one crazy, impulsive, and uncharacteristically brave moment, I wrote in to the podcast and shared my dream with him. I had a lot of questions… Was it worth pursuing at all? Should I publish my children’s stories? How? I didn’t really expect to get an answer and if I did, I thought it would be “Don’t bother. The world has enough children’s stories already. Who are you to think you could accomplish something so big and challenging?” (Obviously I had a pretty strong inner critic.)
Imagine my surprise and delight when I tuned in the next week and Dan read my question on the air! In his usual warm and encouraging way he told me of course I should follow my dream and publish those stories! I was energized and had a new mission. In those days, Dan lived a convenient few hours away in Franklin Tennessee and I attended every training he had, including one on how to publish and market a book.
Dan Miller lit a fire under me and one year after that memorable and inspiring podcast, I had my first published book in hand and I have been on fire ever since. As of 2024, I have nine picture books and four lesson plan books for elementary school counselors. I wrote a personal book about my life vision and mission, The Call: Perfect Dream, Imperfect Life which Dan wrote a lovely testimonial for. I created a coaching business, Dream Achiever Coaching, to help others discover and make their dreams a reality.
The year 2023 was a challenging one for me. Call it late life crisis (I’m well past a mid-life crisis) or something else but I began questioning if I wanted to continue contributing to and working both of my businesses. It’s a lot and I’m still the solo-preneur of it all. I even had a client ask me, “How much longer do you think you will continue?” I stepped back and looked at it all… was it worth it? Do people even care? Am I making a difference? Was there something else I should be doing with “this one wild and precious life?” (Mary Oliver, poet).
After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that there was not really anything else that I’d rather do. Both of my businesses give my life meaning and purpose. It is how I try to make a positive impact in the world, however small it may be.
Then the blog post from Dan landed in my email box. I’m going to quote it here:
On December 7, 2023, the doctors discovered I have very advanced pancreatic cancer that had already spread into my liver and into my bones and told me the prognosis is not good at all.
Well, this gives me a unique opportunity to live out the principles I have taught all these years. Think about the way that I present life and how to approach things that are unexpected and unwelcome. I tell you to “never let your circumstances determine your attitude.” I’m getting an opportunity now to test that out. Did I really believe those things, or was I just giving lip service to some kind of principles that I read in a book somewhere?
My legacy is firmly embedded in people like you, people that I’ve had the privilege of interacting with in the past few years. You are my legacy. You are now the torchbearers of these principles that I borrowed from the previous great thinkers.
Joanne and I have lived the life we loved for 55 years together. And we’ve loved having the opportunity to inspire others to do the same. We have lived our dreams. I don’t have a a bucket list of things I’ve not done. Anything Joanne and I wanted to do, we’ve done.
I’ve loved creating new adventures, and now I’m anticipating an incredible spiritual transformation.
Thank you for being who you are and for carrying a tiny flame from me to the many who you now have an opportunity to influence.
While I know that Dan was speaking to the thousands of people that he influenced over the years through his podcast, his trainings and his coaching, his message also felt deeply personal to me. And that’s the kind of person that he has always been: kind, warm, encouraging balanced with a get off your butt and get the work done attitude.
I am proud to be part of his legacy and a torch bearer of his principles.
