What Marcus Aurelius got wrong about legacy

A moving truck full of my old life showed up in my driveway about a month after I was forced out of the business I built.

Awards. Trophies. Accolades. Designation certificates. A lot of books.

I was too gutted to open the boxes for weeks. Then one day I made my way down to the basement, got enough courage to pop them open, and sat in the middle of the pile.

The books meant something. They still sit on my bookshelf. Everything else was just stuff.

That's the moment this episode is really about.

If I had died the day those boxes arrived, everything inside them would have collected dust on a shelf. My kids or my wife might have looked at it and felt a small sense of pride. But it was just stuff. And you've heard the line — we've never seen a U-Haul following a hearse. It doesn't come with you.

Sitting in that basement, I asked myself three questions I want you to sit with today.

Did I chase God like I chased those accolades, that positional power, that title, that money?

Did I chase my relationship with my wife like I was chasing my next set of goals?

Did I spend as much time and attention on my kids as I did on my work calendar?

The answer to all three was no.

When everything you thought was everything gets ripped away from you like it did for me, you realize you have very few things that actually matter. Your relationship with God. Your spouse. Your kids. The people you love most.

At the moment I felt like I had nothing, I actually had everything I needed.

So I recorded this solo episode on legacy. Two lies almost every leader believes about it. And a third voice — Marcus Aurelius himself — that pushed back on me hard enough I had to sit with the tension before I could deliver the point.

Lie #1 — Legacy Is A Future Event

The first lie is that legacy is a monument you build at the end.

You hear it in the way people talk. "I'll worry about that in retirement." "Once the kids are grown." "Once the business sells." "When I've made enough to put my name on a building." "Someday."

Here's the truth. Your legacy is being written today, in this moment.

It's in every action you take. It's in every action you don't take. It's in every interaction you have with another human being. You are leaving a piece of yourself behind in every room you walk out of right now. Every Zoom room. Every real room. Every conversation at your kid's baseball game or your daughter's dance competition.

You just aren't cognizant of it.

That's why people procrastinate on the things that actually matter. They file it under someday instead of today. The call to your kid. The hard conversation. The mentorship you keep meaning to offer. The call to mom or dad while they're still alive. And then one day they aren't and the call can't be made.

Here's a small hack that helps me stay awake to this.

I already have a to-do list. I already have a today list, separated out from the to-do list. Now try adding a to-be list and a to-feel list. Who am I going to be today. How am I going to make people feel today. Two lines. Written before the calendar owns you. It reframes the day.

Nobody builds a reputation in one grand gesture. It's built in a thousand small ones. The ones when nobody's watching.

I got a DM a couple years ago from a guy I interviewed at my financial firm probably eight years earlier. He didn't become an advisor of mine. I probably walked out of that meeting a little disappointed. I don't even remember exactly. What I remember is his message. He wrote to tell me how much a single conversation we had shaped the trajectory of his career. Not because he came to work with me. He didn't. Because something I said in that room stuck with him for eight years.

One interaction. Eight years later. That's a legacy deposit.

If you still think one conversation or one comment is something you can afford to blow off, you're believing the lie.

Lie #2 — Legacy Is What You Leave Behind

The second lie is the one that runs deeper. Legacy is inheritance. Money. Real estate. Cars. Stuff.

Here's the truth. It's not about what you leave behind. It's about what you leave in others.

Stuff is just stuff. People may remember you by things you gave them. Sure. I have some things from people who have passed on. But what they'll actually remember about you is how you made them feel. What difference you made in their life. Something you said or how you lived that made them believe in themselves before they were able to believe in themselves.

You can hand someone a fortune and they'll forget your face in 10 years. You can give someone five undivided minutes at the right moment and they'll carry it the rest of their life.

I want you to do a small test right now. Think of someone who shaped your life. An idol. A mentor. A parent. An aunt, uncle, or grandparent. A boss who was a great leader. Someone who shaped you.

Are you thinking about what they gave you, or how they made you feel when you were around them?

Almost nobody answers with what they gave me. Unless it was an intrinsic gift.

My father-in-law had an untimely passing through suicide. I have his boots. I put them on and I think of him every time. I have a couple of his pocket knives. I have some of his guns because plinking together and teaching gun safety was one of our favorite ways to blow off steam. I have some plaques from his office. Those things create a nice memory. Brief.

The stuff sits in the mudroom out of sight, out of mind. What he left inside of me, I carry every day.

He was a spiritual mentor to me. He taught me soft power is another way to be a very strong leader — not just hard power. He loved his family, his friends, and the people he did business with. He shared his heart with others. Those are the lessons I remember, carry, and teach my kids more than any of the stuff I have of his.

That's what legacy actually is.

What Scripture Actually Says About This

A lot of people love to take scripture out of context on legacy. So I wanted to know what it actually says. Not the greeting card version.

Proverbs 13:22 says a good man leaves an inheritance. On the surface that sounds a lot like lie number two.

But keep reading.

Proverbs 22:1 and Ecclesiastes 7:1 both say a good name is more desirable than great riches. A name, not a net worth.

Then there's Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Solomon, at the height of his wealth and his power, laments leaving his labor to one who did not labor for it. He calls it vanity. That's the strongest word on this subject in the entire book. And it isn't coming from a modern voice arguing against inheritance. It's coming from the wisest, richest man in scripture, 3,000 years ago, from the inside, having already built the fortune.

Do you know how many second-generation businesses fail. Over 50%. Do you know how many make it to a third generation. Less than 10%. Someone who did not labor for it does not appreciate it like the founder does.

The thread running through all of it — Deuteronomy chapter 6 says teach it to your children when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise. That's not a will. That's a daily deposit.

That's exactly what my father-in-law did for me. He was living it. Preaching it. Teaching it.

Why I Started This Podcast

Let me interject a personal story here. It matters for what comes next.

The reason I started this podcast wasn't the marketing pitch my marketing guy at the time gave me. His reasons were good. They weren't enough.

The real reason was this. I came out of the financial planning world. I had delivered death claims to families with kids from age two to grandparents at ninety. I knew I wasn't immune. I lived in that world. I knew it could happen to me.

So I told him — I'll do the podcast. But my purpose is that my kids will always have my voice. If anything happens to me, this podcast lives into perpetuity. My kids will always know what dad sounded like, what dad thought, what wisdom dad had at the time, how dad asked questions.

That was my purpose then. It's still my purpose today.

We're two generations away from being forgotten. That's the historical average. That's changing now because of the digital footprint most of us are leaving. Or the book you might write. Or the podcast you might record.

Which brings me to the pushback I owe you.

Marcus Aurelius Would Have Hated This Episode

A good idea should be able to survive some tension. So I want to push back on myself.

Marcus Aurelius would have hated this episode. And I'm a big fan of Marcus Aurelius. Meditations is on my shelf.

His words — people who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too.

That's fair. That's utterly fair.

He points out that Alexander the Great and his mule driver both ended up as dust. Same fate. No difference. Being remembered, he says, is worthless.

Okay Marcus. Fair.

On the other hand, I don't think anyone living today wants to feel like their life wasn't worth anything. That nobody would remember them.

I think Marcus is doing a redirect, not a rebuke. His actual point is this — stop performing for the memory of strangers a hundred years from now. Focus entirely on the virtue of this action right now.

Memento mori. Remember you will die. He didn't write it to depress himself. He wrote it to strip away vanity so he'd act rightly today and not need applause for it.

So here's my reconciliation with Marcus and where he actually agrees with me.

He's agreeing with the cure for lie number one. Act now.

And he's freeing us from lie number two even further. Don't just stop chasing stuff. Stop chasing credit for what you leave behind.

Build a legacy because it's right, not because you'll be remembered for it.

Read that again. Build a legacy because it's right, not because you'll be remembered for it.

People will do their own remembering of you.

What The Spartans Believed

This is Spartan Leadership. So let's go to what the Spartans believed. This is where it gets personal for me because this is the world my podcast lives in.

The Greeks had two words for this. Timē and kleos. And any Greek listeners, please chime in and correct me if I'm butchering the pronunciation.

Timē is where you're standing right now. How people treat you today based on what you have actually done. I would equate that to Kronos — clock time. The now.

Kleos is what's said about you across time. Carried in other people's mouths long after you're gone. Kleos literally comes from the word to hear. Glory only exists if someone hears about it and repeats it.

That's why we still repeat quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, or the Bible. Kleos is not a monument that you built. It's a story living in someone else's mouth, someone else's mind.

The line that says it best is the epitaph at Thermopylae. If you've seen the movie 300, you remember the Spartans. "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie."

Legacy in that instance was entrusted to a stranger to carry it forward. It wasn't carved by the dead. It was spoken by the living.

But here's the tension. And it matters.

Kleos required an audience. Achilles chose a short, glorious life over a long anonymous one. Brad Pitt played that character well in Troy. Different movie. Great movie. But that's the version of legacy chasing Aurelius warned us about.

The healthy version is to build your standing through the actual deeds today, and let kleos take care of itself.

The Spartans had a wisdom beyond their years. That's why I chose to name this podcast the Spartan Leadership Podcast. They had so much to teach us, and it has been taught in so many ways throughout the years that we still talk about them today.

Kronos Is The Clock. Kairos Is The Moment.

Here's where all of it comes home for me.

Kronos is the clock. Kairos is the moment that matters inside the clock. It's the defining moment.

Legacy is a Kairos problem, not a Kronos problem.

Kronos is going to happen regardless. The clock runs. But people file legacy under Kronos. Someday. Thirty years from now. When I sell the business. All the examples I already gave you.

Remember — legacy is the Kairos problem. That's why people never actually build it. They never think about their future vision and back that into how they're going to live each day.

Go back to the earlier suggestion. Instead of just a to-do list, write a to-be list today. Write a to-feel list today. Every Kairos moment, every appointed weighty interaction, is a legacy deposit.

You don't leave a legacy at the end of Kronos. You make one in every Kairos moment.

Legacy is written on every page, every day. Not saved for the last chapter.

Action Items From This Conversation

This is where I want to slow down and give you something you can actually use this week. These are pulled directly out of what I walked through in the episode, filtered through what we coach at Kairos. None of these require more money. All of them require more honesty.

1. Write Your Own Obituary — Then Back Into It

I have coaching clients, teams, and masterminds write their own obituary in the future tense. Then we do the harder work. We back into it. Is this what people would say about you today?

This week: Write the obituary you'd want read at your funeral. Not the resume version. The people version. Then read it out loud and answer honestly — is that what my life is actually building toward right now? Wherever there's a gap, that's the work.

2. Add A To-Be List And A To-Feel List

Your to-do list is running your day already. That's Kronos. Add the two lines that turn Kronos into Kairos.

This week: Every morning, before you open email, write two sentences. Who am I going to be today. How am I going to make the people I encounter feel today. That's the calendar item nobody schedules but everybody wishes they had.

3. Make The Call You Keep Putting Off

Every one of us has a name. Mom. Dad. Kid. Old mentor. Old friend. Someone you keep filing under someday.

This week: Pick one. Make the call. Not a text. Not a like. A call. Five undivided minutes if that's all you have. That's the whole point of this episode.

4. Audit What You're Actually Leaving In People

You're leaving something in every room you walk out of right now. The problem is nobody is paying attention to what.

This week: Before bed, take three minutes and ask yourself one question. What did I leave in someone today. Write down the answer. Do it for seven days. You'll be shocked at what you notice.

5. Teach It On The Way, Not At The End

Deuteronomy 6 says teach it to your children when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise. Not "leave it to them in the will." Teach it now.

This week: Pick one lesson you'd want your kids or the people you lead to carry when you're gone. Teach it in a moment this week. Dinner table. Car ride. Walk. Kairos moments are the classroom.

Five Bridges Challenges

These are mine, not scripture's and not the Stoics'. But they came directly out of this conversation, and they line up with the Five Bridges of Kairos — Spiritual, Internal, Relationships, Environment, Legacy.

Challenge One — Spiritual Bridge. Am I pursuing God the way I've pursued accolades, titles, and money in past seasons of my life? Where is the gap between the two, and what's one thing I'll do this week to close it?

Challenge Two — Relationships Bridge. Who is the one person in my life who would say, if asked at my funeral, "I wish I'd had more of him"? What single action this week narrows that gap while I'm still here to take it?

Challenge Three — Legacy Bridge. If I strip away every trophy, every title, every dollar — what am I actually leaving in the people closest to me? Name it. If you can't, that's the work.

What I'm Leaving You With

It's not about the stuff. It's about the feeling.

I care deeply about leaving a legacy. Not to be remembered by strangers a hundred years from now — Marcus is right about that. To be remembered by the people who matter most to me, and to leave a mark on the world in some way. We're here for a purpose and we've got to act it out on a daily basis.

Before you go today, ask yourself one question.

What did I leave in someone today.

Not what did you build. Not what did you check off your to-do list. What did I leave in someone today.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Older, younger, same age. Somebody needs these words today.

The good and great are the enemies of possible.

Lead like a Spartan today.

Inspire & Impact,

Josh