A Final Thought
What will your legacy be?
Introduction
At some point, it’s all going to be over. We will be gone. We will be the gap in the missing man formation. How will we be remembered? What will our legacy be?
Depending on one’s perspective, this is either a morbid thought or perhaps a dose of reality that prompts us to examine ourselves and, if necessary, initiate some changes. I hope it’s the latter.
Lessons from the past 101 posts
What have you learned from the past 101 Tuesday morning posts (over two years!), where I have covered the Afterburner Success Partners course in weekly snippets? If you were taking this class in person with me instead of reading it in a blog post, I would have asked you at the beginning of the class to write down three things you hoped to learn on a piece of paper. I would ask you to write these questions down on one sheet of paper you would keep for yourself, and then on a second that you would give to me. Let’s assume for a minute you did this.
Because we are getting toward the end of the Afterburner Success Partners Course in the weekly blog post format, it’s time to bring these sheets of paper out and see if I met your expectations. Yes, we are on the 102nd Tuesday morning post to get through the course, but we have several more to go before we are complete. If you’ve stuck with me, we have been, as I previously mentioned, at this for over two years now. That’s a long time, but I hope you have enjoyed it and learned from it. The course is available on my website, and you can purchase the book via Amazon as well (click on the link in Note 5). Either makes a great gift, so please keep that in mind.
What did you write down? Pretend you did write down the three things you wanted to learn. What would they be? Just take a minute and do that and see what you come up with.
Let me tell you what a typical student’s desire for the course is: “I want to be happy.” “I want to be successful.” After these two, it typically includes things like wanting enough money to retire and setting a direction for their lives.
Here is the beauty of the Afterburner Success Partners Course: You have complete control of the answers. Happiness and success are in the eye of the beholder. Sure, there is the image of what society or social media says happiness or success looks like, but the fact is that we (you, as the case may be) control what that looks like. Now, let me say that, ideally, we figured this out early in life and have had a long runway to make all those things come true. For the average person, there comes a point in life when they realize they need to make some changes, and their definition of happiness and success must be tempered by their current situation.
So let me answer the question I posed to you at the beginning of this section: “What did you learn from the past 101 posts?” I hope your answer is that:
With the right plan, you define your own success story, achieve your dreams, and live your best life.
Yes, it’s totally up to you. I know people who are very happy with few material things in life, and I know people who have a lot and are miserable. And here is the news flash:
Mostly, almost exclusively, you are happy or successful because you choose to be.
Let that sink in for a moment. This is why I established Afterburner Success Partners, developed the course, wrote the book, and write these posts. If you’ve learned these two lessons, it will all have been a success. What’s even better? Refer someone who needs to know these things so they can learn too.
A final thought
I put the finishing touches on the online course in early 2024, and I wrote this section titled “A Final Thought” for the course in late March 2024. At that date, less than 90 days into the year, we had been to 8 funerals of people we knew close enough to want to attend their last rites. That’s about one every 1.5 weeks. One week, we attended three. We would go on to attend one more in 2024 for a total of 9 funerals in one year. All before June.
And when you go to funerals, you learn a lot about how a person lived their life. Some funerals have lots of people, some are in churches with large crowds, and some are in funeral homes with hardly anyone attending.
What will your funeral be like?
Have you ever thought about this: When the day comes for you to have your funeral, who will come and what will they say about you? I believe that if more people in this world thought about this, then the world would be a far different place. A better place. Yes, these are sobering thoughts indeed.
As you put together YOUR Life goals, I hope you consider your motivation for setting them, reflect on them, and use them to do good in the world.
What will your legacy be?
Addendum
Throughout the course, in my book, and in these posts, I dance around the importance of our faith and how success and dreams, for the sake of success and dreams, are really pretty empty without it. Periodically, I’ve referenced the Bible, a specific passage, or a mention that faith is a big part of our lives. I’ve pretty much left it there. We should consider that, at some point, yes, our lives will be over. Then what?
I know that as someone who has put their faith in Jesus as my savior, I will, in His time, be reunited in Heaven to spend eternity. It is my wish that you have that same desire and, perhaps as we consider the end of our lives, now is the time, should you need to make that commitment.
Throughout the course, I’ve referenced a website called gotquestions.org. I’ve relied on this website for many years to help me better understand many questions I’ve had. Indeed, it is, when needed, a part of my daily study time. Click on the link in Note 1 to learn more about making your commitment to Christ.
Over the years, I’ve come to better appreciate the work of Billy Graham, his son, Franklin, and his grandson, Will. Check out his website at the link in Note 2, and in particular, the tab “Grow Your Faith.” If you ever travel to or through Charlotte, NC, take some time to visit The Billy Graham Library, which is only a few minutes from the Charlotte airport, and you can learn more about this remarkable man and his legacy. Yes, I used that word, legacy, because this is what a true legacy looks like. A life well lived, lives impacted in a positive way, for eternity, that carries on long past his death.
If you are in Washington DC to view the sights or perhaps on business, take some time to visit the Museum of the Bible (Note 3). It’s a bit off the beaten path, but well worth your time. I’ve been there twice. In particular, you will learn that yes, our country was really founded on Christian principles and those principles are chiseled into many of the government buildings in Washington DC. That’s true, this country was founded on Christian Principles, regardless of what you hear others say and you can see it for yourself.
All that I’ve been teaching you is great and will make your life, and the lives of your family and others close to you better, but without your faith in Our Savior, it’s all just “Dust in the Wind.” Yes, that “Dust in the Wind” by the musical group Kansas, which draws its inspiration for this song from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:20:
“All came from dust and all shall return to dust.”
Click on the link in Note 3 to listen to the official video, turn on the captions, and hear this song like you probably never have before.
That’s all for this week!
Let’s help our friends and loved ones, shall we?
If you find the information in this post useful or enjoyable, please forward it to those you care about.
Then, simply say, “Search the internet for Afterburner Success Partners
to learn how to achieve your dreams and live your best life!”
The Missing Man Formation
What Will Your Legacy Be?
Afterburner Success Partners
http://absuccesspartners.com/
What’s in it for me?
If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must take meaningful, deliberate action that follows a proven path. Getting ahead is about learning what to do and then doing it over time.
Call to Action
Just. Do. Something. Make a decision on what you want or need to do, define the path, and get after it. Do it today.
Recommended Resources
See notes below for either of my books.
Up Next
When we need professional help.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
What does it mean to accept Jesus as your personal Savior?, gotquestions.org: https://www.gotquestions.org/personal-Savior.html
Bill Graham Evangelistic Association, billgraham.org: https://billygraham.org
Dust in the Wind, Kansas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2w6Oxx0kQ
Achieve Your Dreams: A Complete Guide to Live Your Best Life, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/3IxEFgy
Everyday Cooking for Everyday People Like Us, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/437OhVQ