A Big, Big Legacy With Not A Lot Of Money

April 27, 2011 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Legacy is demonstrated in different currencies – not just money, but in bodies, creativity and spirit.

Creating a movement is one way to build, live and leave a legacy, and here’s an amazing example: Bill McKibben speaking at PowerShift 2011 in Washington D.C. :


(Click here to open YouTube if video does not appear)

As of April 2011 people will have commemorated Earth Day for 41 years – at the first one, 20 million Americans came out to march and rally in support of a clean healthy planet. There are new leaders in the environmental movement. 

Also in April 2011, the third PowerShift Summit was held in Washington D.C.  The first, in November 2007, was a youth climate summit including more than 6,000 young people from all 50 states. They gathered at the University of Maryland for a weekend of training prior to the 2008 elections to learn how to rally for the creation of green jobs and restoring economic and environmental justice.

 In February of 2009, 12,000 young people from every state and Congressional District in the U.S. joined in the second PowerShift event. Over 6,000 of them participated in the largest citizen lobby day in history; thousands more in a successful demonstration to shut down the Capitol’s coal-fired power plant. 

At the 2011 event, a year after the worst oil spill disaster in the U.S., 10,000 youth leaders from around the country held a polluter protest in front of the White House, demanding that the President and Congress stand up to Big Polluters, like BP, and make them pay for their pollution. They also made hundreds of Congressional visits to demand protection of the Clean Air Act and that members of Congress stop taking money from corporate polluters. Using technology and social media, these young people organized numerous flash mob protest events to call clear attention to their message:

 “We and Our Future Matter”

 These events are just part of the work of the Energy Action Coalition. http://energyactioncoalition.org/about The EAC is a cooperative effort joining 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement.  Among their goals are coordinating efforts at the state, regional and national levels in the U.S. and Canada to win local support for their efforts and define their vision of a clean energy economy to solve our economic and environmental crises by moving their own communities beyond dirty energy to clean energy solutions.

 How much more could these young people do with the support of preceding generations who are currently in power (and whose leadership roles they will inherit)? As legacy building goes, these young people are way ahead of their elders.

They see that the infrastructure and support that will provide for their jobs, and careers that help make the world work better, are missing – not being developed because of the vested interests of an older generation addicted to a fossil fuel economy. They see the sad state of the planet they are inheriting, and they’re not happy about it. And they are taking action, even as members of the older generation with those old vested interests try to keep their heads in the sand about the science and what is happening to the planet, as the U.S. House of Representatives Energy Committee did in March 2011 in a formal vote to deny climate change.

Well, Bill McKibben is one of those leaders into whose shoes the younger generations will step – and they are stepping up. Keep your eyes and ears open for Moving Planet September 24, if you want to witness how one person and all the amazing people he inspires are approaching one of the biggest legacy projects ever.  Even better, consider participating so you can say it was part of your legacy, too.

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Are We Entering An Era of Caring?

March 11, 2011 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

I sure hope so.

This morning on the other side of the world, once again, the Ring of Fire snapped many people out of their alpha state thinking mode of going through their everyday motions, with big news.  The earth errupted 80 miles off the coast of Sendai in northeast Japan with an 8.9 earthquake was followed by aftershocks measuring 7.1, 6.5, and 6.4 in magnitude.  The tremor was felt in Tokyo, and generated tsunami waves up to 3 miles inland on the island of Japan.  Three miles.  Imagine that distance from where you sit right now (and then imagine the wave itself …)  The quake prompted tsunami warnings for much of the Pacific Rim, which in our part of the world includes Hawaii and the west coast of the U.S. and Canada, where evacuations resulted.

A Bloomberg television reporter covering the story said the wave that washed up on shore “was mixed with mud, with ships and cars smashing toward wooden houses, dragging those into rice fields, and basically bashing them into pieces.”  The quake was not as destructive as the 9.3-magnitude earthquake that shook Indonesia – the second-largest in recorded history in December of 2004, the tsunami from which killed more than 300,000 people in over a dozen countries – but you get the picture.

In the world of cause and effect, I don’t believe the Earth is trying to send a message of unification – we’re all in this together, as Marshall McLuhan has said “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We’re all crew.”

But I sure hope that is the result.

Modern technology has created an amazing transparency that gives us the opportunity to really experience the truth of that perspective  - toppling dictatorships in the Middle East and disasters thousands of miles away that can and do reach our shores, not just the one’s that happen on (New Orleans and Katrina) or near (Haiti) them - do affect us all in one way or another.

That technology allows us to see and learn about things that were once only in the hands of a privileged few, who we trusted to govern things until we learned that their control was more selfish and greedy than caring. It allows us to see – and experience – that we are not so far removed from the struggles of other humans who happen to speak different languages, wear different clothes and have different customs. And it allows us to take different actions to address these things.  As a nurse, I’d like to think that caring could be a really good underlying operating principle for humanity in taking those actions.

We all want the same basic things: to love and be loved, to be safe, to care for our families and friends, to be productive and feel accomplished, to be nourished and rest, and have our daily needs for healthy living addressed. Beyond that we want some time to share ourselves with others and pursue happiness through enjoyable activities and learning (which least often results from conspicuous consumption - just one of many forms of ineffective attempts to address whatever dis-ease might be troubling us).  There are plenty of those basics to go around, if only we care for one another and share ourselves.

Maybe disasters are a way of showing us that there are things to be afraid of, but that doesn’t include other human beings.  I don’t wish for more such challenges to pull us together.  I just wish that the lesson of ‘caring for others as we care for ourselves’ will take firm hold in the minds and hearts of everyone, and become a basic value and tenet of daily living.  I pray that with each such natural disaster (as there seem to be more and more of them) we really “get” this important lesson that results from our living planet’s communications.

Blessings to you all.
Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Living Your Best Life, Meaning, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas, Spirituality, Video Tagged With: , , , , ,

What Will The Monday Morning Armchair Quarterbacks Say About You?

February 7, 2011 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Another trademarked big football game (I understand I’m not to use its actual “super” name without permission) has come and gone.  Don’t know much about that, but this new decade, starting with the turn to 2011, started off with a bang for me.  After a great year in 2010, a quiet holiday season and New Year celebration, with some planning for where we would take Creating Legacy going forward, things got right out of hand. Okay, well save for having someone run a stop sign and T-bone the passenger side of my car just before the holidays.  (Did you know it’s gunpowder that makes air bags go off – and before you know it, too? Saltpeter, the critical oxidizing component of gunpowder has a very distinctive smell and covers everything inside the car, including you … but that’s another story.)

Not in any particular order, because the order somewhat evades me now, just after the new year I got food poisoning and was out of commission with fluid and electrolyte imbalance (I won’t go into detail) for the better part of a week.  Brain cells, among others, don’t work all that well without the right balance of fluids and salts available in the watery soup that makes up close to 70% of our physical bodies.

Just as I was coming back from that, I experienced the unexpected earthly departures of two friends and incredible members of one of my home communities. As with everyone, they both left incredible legacies – with varying degrees of financial structure and personal involvement – which were recounted by folks attending their memorial services.

My first experience of death was of a best friend in grade school.  I bring this up not to tie legacy to that subject, as many people do, but to reiterate that everyone has a legacy.  Even she did, departing at such an early age.  Some of the spark of how she defined herself and lived her life – which I got to experience and benefit from – lives on with me even today. 

One of my two community friends, while an amazing artist who produced a great number of beautiful paintings, also left the same sort of legacy – a memory of the day to day experience of her presence and its solidly supportive countenance, something she was constant about giving no matter where she was involved.  No doubt that is what each owner of one of her paintings will remember most, even if later only the beauty of the artwork carries on.  Both are significant contributions.

My other friend and colleague, who made a great deal of money during career had already established a trust to return some of those funds to cared about causes in an ongoing fashion.  In a new period of financial independence, he was working at other important projects without regard to whether they produced any income.  And making an incredible difference with both efforts, absolutely loving his life.

Both left too soon, and fortunately, quite deliberately left significant marks that will carry on.

It is the choice to consciously build such a legacy, born of experience, career, and success (financial and otherwise), contributed actively during the prime of one’s life, that fascinates me.  Particularly because I know, no matter whom you are or what your resources are, that everyone has the capacity to make a much bigger impact than they probably think they can. 

People notice and will talk about it after you’re gone, but will it be what you really want them to say about what you were passionate about and how you got involved?  For how many generations will that acknowledgment continue – will your grand- or great- or great-great-grandchildren (if you have progeny) know you and what you contributed? Will the communities you’ve impacted know what it is you want them to know about your choice to impact what was important to you – and for how many generations from now?

Yesterday would have been President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. Yes, as an American President (a legacy building effort in itself) he was known worldwide, so we expect that people will talk about his political legacy on such occasions. It will be done, as usual, in that Monday morning armchair quarterbacking way, where different views will be aired.  A perfect example is a recent Miami Herald article which focused on a three way debate over his legacy on war, taxes and government.

But again, you don’t need to have been a sitting president with a large library of work to leave a legacy. Anyone can do their work and live their life with a sense of personal meaning, and consciously create activities that not only demonstrate what they care about, but from which they actually build something tangible – from an artifact to a charitable foundation, and many other forms in between.  It can, and will be something unique to them, the only real questions are whether they – you – will define it and participate in it, and how long-lasting the impact of that effort will be.

With the right mindset, information and actions, it’s quite possible for your personal legacy to be something you clearly define, concerning something you care about from the depths of your heart and soul, that brings you a great deal of joy and satisfaction to create, and that benefits many, many people for a very long time. 

You have that power.  How will you use it?

I’m excited about our comprehensive legacy planning program The 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy that we’ll be rolling out in new forms in 2011.  It’s part of my legacy – and the mutual goal Eliza and I have set to help others create 100,000 legacies. It’s a big goal, so I’d better get back to work.  Please do be in contact if we can help you, or your clients, understand the full picture of what’s possible, and the steps to creating a legacy blueprint to make it happen.

Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Meaning, Purpose Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Seems There’s Plenty To Be Done

January 10, 2011 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Not sure where I first found Orion Magazine - read a blurb somewhere and subscribed.  Branding itself as “Amerca’s Finest Environmental Magazine” I’d have to say it lives up to that billing quite well.  It’s also a terrific legacy project (more on that below), that’s right up my alley since my legacy interests are focused on environmental preservation, conservation, sustainability and clean renewable energy technologies. But that’s why a particular article caught my attention recently.  It’s by biologist Sandra Steingraber, entitled “The Whole Fracking Enchilada”, and I it hope catches the attention of many people in generations currently alive and able (and willing) to respond –  for the sake of future ones.

Here’s an excerpt from Barbara’s article – hopefully you’ll see why it got my attention:

“THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS can be viewed as a tree with two trunks. One trunk represents what we are doing to the planet through atmospheric accumulation of heat-trapping gasses. Follow this trunk along and you find droughts, floods, acidification of oceans, dissolving coral reefs, and species extinctions.

The other trunk represents what we are doing to ourselves and other animals through the chemical adulteration of the planet with inherently toxic synthetic pollutants. Follow this trunk along and you find asthma, infertility, cancer, and male fish in the Potomac River whose testicles have eggs inside them.

At the base of both these trunks is an economic dependency on fossil fuels, primarily coal (plant fossils) and petroleum (animal fossils). When we light them on fire, we threaten the global ecosystem. When we use them as feedstocks for making stuff, we create substances—pesticides, solvents, plastics—that can tinker with our subcellular machinery and the various signaling pathways that make it run.”

It seems there is much to be done if we are to shift this planet and its people (not to mention other species) to a truly healthy, life-enhancing environment.  We must move away from our dependency on fossil fuels, and the products of the petrochemical industy and era.  Many legacy level projects could contribute to that end, from the successful women and men of the planet looking for what’s next and ready to give back in some way – large or small – and who are looking for a subject to wrap that ambition around.

As for the legacy that is the magazine, it started as the Orion Nature Quarterly in June 1982 as a program of the Myrin Institute, a private operating foundation based in New York. Later, the magazine operation move to The Orion Society, an independent nonprofit, which also conducted additional programming, moved the operation to Massachusetts and obtained 501(c)3 designation for its ongoing work. The magazine has lots of great topics, no advertising, an easily accessible online version and a very reasonable subscription price.  They basically want people to read the content.

The publication’s first Editor-in-Chief, George Russell clearly illuminated Orion’s underlying values, which stand today:  “It is Orion’s fundamental conviction that humans are morally responsible for the world in which we live, and that the individual comes to sense this responsibility as he or she develops a personal bond with nature.”

Hear, hear.  Almost 30 years later, his words couldn’t ring any truer. Seems we need to go another direction … very soon.  Will you be one of the enlightened leaders who helps turn this bus, and all of us bozos on it, toward a better destination?

I hope so. All the best to you, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Dolly's Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Thanksgiving Gravy Recipe You’ll Need For Sure

November 18, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

If you’re a turkey eater, that is … I definitely am, though highly susceptible to the effect of tryptophan. Some debate its impact, but being sensitive to chemicals I know it has a significant relaxation and sleep promoting effect on me.  (I’ve even started eating a bit of turkey before bed … and it works better than anything else I’ve tried as a sleep aid!)

But this is about Thanksgiving, and a reminder about how to make delicious gravy to go with that turkey … yet I must digress for just a moment more to say:

This is my favorite holiday of them all!  It’s a time to gather with family and friends, have a shared feast and and opportunity to focus on all the things in life there are be grateful for.  For some, it’s football … but for me it’s knowing that whatever troubles may be bothering us, that practice of gratitude can always overcome them – and is available every day of the year, reminding us that in this moment all is well.  So at the end of November here in the U.S. we set aside a day to remember and engage in this important practice.  Happy Thanksgiving!! 

As I’m practicing gratitude and noticing all the blessings in my life, I find the need to dig out the instructions so I can remember how to make a good pan gravy to go with turkey and mashed potatoes and all the other yummy dishes to be shared with dear family and friends.  So here you go:

First, I like to roast the turkey outside on our Weber kettle charcoal grill.  Saves room in the oven and makes a roast that is crisp on the outside and incredibly moist on the inside.  It’s REALLY easy, if you’ve never done it.  If you have a Weber kettle, here’s a link that will get you started.  However you cook your turkey, though, remember to save the drippings in the roasting pan!

For the gravy:

  • Staring with the drippings, and either in the pan itself (across two burners on your stovetop) or in a separate pot.  Skim off any visible fat with a spoon, then bring these juices to a simmer over medium heat.  Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. 
  • Using the cooled stock you made earlier in the day from the giblets, or pre-made broth (you’ll need about 3 cups), add a small amount of this liquid at a time to ½ cup of flour, stirring to make a smooth paste with a pudding-like consistency. 
  • Add the rest of the stock to the drippings in the pan, and then whisk in the flour mixture – again, a little at a time to avoid lumps. 
  • Bring this back to a simmer and cook, stirring until the gravy is well-blended, thickens and loses its floury taste.  Lower the heat if need be so the gravy doesn’t scorch or burn at the bottom of the pan. 
  • Season with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste, and maybe just a smidgen more of ground sage.  Then keep warm for serving. 

Then enjoy – the feast, the company, and all you have to be grateful for in your life!
Oh, and please pass the gravy …

Cheers to all y’all!
Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Living Your Best Life, Wellness Tagged With: , , ,

‘Tis The Season – Eat Well!

November 3, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Eating healthy can also be a yummy way to take good care of yourself.  We know that’s a prerequisite to having the positive life energy needed to make the world a better place!

That’s all important, because you have big important work to do in the world.  So you might as well eat nutritionally healthy food with properties that are good for you.  Spicing it up can be a great way to do that and enjoy it, too!

We recently came across a great recipe for Ginger and Cinnamon-Spiced Pumpkin Muffins – a great way to make use of a wonderful fall fruit, the pumpkin (yes, it’s actually a fruit since it has internal seeds).  It’s from the site of women’s holistic health and nutritional counselor, Irina Wardas, HHC.  Her adapted recipe is full of nutrients like beta-carotene, cinnamon and ginger which are well-known anti-inflammatory spices, and vitamin C from orange zest – all of which might even help reduce inflammation and relieve related pain. 

Grab the recipe and make some for yourself, your family and your friends - it’ll make your house smell great, too, so we have to add credit for some great aromatherapy.  You’ll find some other great and healthy recipes on Irina’s site, too.

And oh, enjoy the fruits of the season!!

Filed Under: Blog, Living Your Best Life, Wellness Tagged With: , , , ,

Power to the People! Power to Mamisma, Right On!

October 29, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Mamisma. What a great word. 

It was coined by publisher Harriet Rubin, author of The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women and Soloing: Realizing Your Life’s Ambition, and can best be described as the energy a mother bear has when she senses her cubs are in danger – and action taken not out of vengeance but out of the urge to provide for and protect future generations.  According to Rubin, it is “femininity defined by mature and maternal qualities.”

Those maternal qualities need not mean bearing and raising children, or even being a woman for that matter.  They are generative and creative.  Women, and anyone else possessing this feminine strength, can continue to exercise this sort of power long after child-bearing years are over.  Those qualities can be utilized and developed throughout the lifespan.

Mamisma is not about ‘machisma,’ the feminine version of machismo.  It is not about having dominion over others – but using one’s heart and smarts to make things better in a sustainable, healthy, happy way.  Power is, after all, the “ability to do” and the more one can get done, now and for future generations, the more power-full.

To me, mamisma is about the strength to protect and restore, to make beautiful, and to be strong and confident in bringing more good to the world. It is about taking care of oneself as well as others. Beyond putting on your own oxygen mask first, it is about getting what you want and need so as not to feel one iota deprived or resentful in then assisting, promoting or supporting others. It is about being willing to win and let others win, too – and finding resolutions that allow for both, rather than compromising.

It is a word to describe feminine power wielded by either gender, but it is especially important to women.  Our ‘power-struggle’ – at least in the U.S.A. – has been going on since the 1960′s; though truly it has been going on seemingly for centuries.

Gloria Feldt argues that it is time that women embrace their power - so we move beyond “justify[ing] our lack of progress by pointing outward,” rather than taking responsibility to move things courageously forward; and so we can really get to a point where women lead both themselves and others with intention toward fulfilment of human potential for now and future generations.

When we as women can fully embrace the type of power with which we are naturally endowed, and its importance, the sooner we can shift the world in more nurturing, growing, developing, just and innovative ways. 

The world needs more of that.  How can we support you in your exercise of that power?

Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Enlightened Leadership, Life Balance/Harmony Among Life Arenas, Living Your Best Life, Women and Girls Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Where Will You Make Your Impact?

October 21, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

There is much to do and many ways to set a course for good in this world! And Make A Difference Day on the fourth Saturday in October, is a great way to begin exploring your passion and potential legacy project. Here are a few extraordinary legacy project stories to give you ideas from the example of some remarkable people who have visions, hearts and hands, found the personal fortitude and external resources they needed, and set out to generate more good in the world.

Maybe some of these will trigger a quiet longing or have you look around your community in a different way. Follow your heart, your values, what calls you to action. Be inspired by an area of impact you’d like to enhance and extend.  And remember, your legacy project can be as large or as small as you wish! Look around your community and see what you choose to do!

Projects that Impact the Earth

Earth Day
This holiday is now celebrated in the U.S. and now around the world. It was first conceived in 1962 by Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin’s 35th Governor and that state’s U.S. Senator from 1963-1981, and it evolved over a period of years. Nelson was concerned that the state of the environment was a non-issue in U.S. politics and needed more visibility. He worked with then  Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John Kennedy to schedule a five-day, eleven-state ‘national conservation tour’ in September 1963. Earth Day really took hold after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, all but dead from industrial sludge discharge, caught fire in 1969.  This Earth Day environmental legacy spawned a chain of events, and people who individually, in different ways, took on the underlying concerns as their own individual projects … which became their personal legacies. The resulting momentum and synergy literally created the environmental movement as we know it today.

A Legacy Explodes Internationally
Last year, journalists called it “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”! Citizens in over 180 nations staged actions on International Day of Climate Action to demand a quicker response to climate change. The New York Times covered it on the front page. In Times Square people watched images of this movement flood in from every corner of the world on jumbo-tron screens. More than 5200 separate events were held around the globe. “These are the kinds of crowds that turn out for rock stars or charismatic politicians, but instead they are rallying around a scientific data point, they’re asking our leaders to lead — to pay attention to scientific reality, not political convenience” said founder, Bill McKibben. He has grown his legacy through a book, and website devoted to teaching people the relevance of the number 350 (parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere). This year, the second Climate Action Day was celebrated on 10-10-10 (October 10th, 2010) with work parties in 7000-plus separate events in about 188 countries. One man, concerned about one issue, now with a small and very committed team, has built a global effort involving millions of people on all continents. In 2010 even U.S. President Obama committed to returning solar panels to the White House (first installed by President Carter, and taken down by President Reagan).

Projects that Impact Education

A Living Legacy Carries Forward
Candace “Dacie” Moses demonstrated that everyone can contribute something — and with the right planning, what lives on beyond our lifetimes can simply be an extension of what was joyfully given during them. She was a librarian at the Carleton College in Northfield, MN, in the U.S. and the legacy she defined and lived, then left for future generations is the Dacie Moses House, where students gathered for freshly baked cookies, Sunday brunches (for up to 50 people), to hold conversations, watch TV or play the piano, snack from her refrigerator or call home from her phone. Dacie wanted that to endure, so before she died in 1983 at the age of 97, she donated her house to the Carleton Alumni Association. Her will instructed that it be used as it was during her lifetime — a hostel for students and alumni, an upstairs rented apartment that generated funds to maintain and improve the property. In a separate trust, she provided funds to pay for cookie making supplies and the cost of the Sunday brunches.  From the conviction of her values, her joy in life and a little bit of property, Dacie Moses both lived and consciously created an enduring legacy.

Building On A Great Idea
One of the ways to begin acting on a legacy idea is to examine what others are doing, and possibly fit the project you design in with an existing organization.  Legacy builders and veterinary students, Alison Barnstable and Laurel Redding, attached their project to both the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (where they were students) and later Heifer International by initially creating their legacy in the form of a research grant application called “Increasing Agriculture Productivity in Developing Countries.” They sought to have the Veterinary profession become more involved with addressing world hunger through a contribution to public health, knowing the importance of safeguarding animal health for human health. Including a plan to work with Heifer International — the organization started by farmer Dan West, devoted to distributing livestock and providing training for people around the world in environmentally sound agricultural practices integrating both farming and ranching — they received the grant. Their plan exposes other Vet students to public health and world hunger issues, gets them involved in helping to train community animal health workers and establishes information networks that allow Veterinarians to use their skills to have a greater impact in the lives of people worldwide.

Projects that Impact Girls and Women

Girl Power
There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. The Girl Effect is an incredible legacy project addressing this problem by focusing on solutions to major global issues like overpopulation, infant mortality, child health and community development, by focusing on these girls. A corporate responsibility project, it was begun in 2004 as the work of the Nike Foundation, the non-profit organization founded by NIKE, Inc. They’ve discovered that when girls have safe places to meet, education, legal protection, health care, and access to training and job skills, they can thrive — and they influence others to thrive, too.

Hope for Women Worldwide
Husband and wife team, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn created a legacy in the form of a book called Half the Sky that has grown into a movement, because they felt strongly that women need protective laws, including the right to hold property and bank accounts … but as they write, “Westerners invest too much effort in changing unjust laws and not enough in changing culture, by building schools or assisting grassroots movements.” They know cultural changes are needed everywhere, maybe even in your local community.  Could you support a woman or girl to stay in school or further their education, or participate with a group that benefits women? It would be a great way to get started.

Giving Women a Home
For Constance Collins-Margulies, seeing a homeless person for the first time at age 13, left an indelible mark in her heart and soul. It imprinted a question: “How can any of us be happy as long as one of us lives like this?” 40 years later, she set up the Sundari Foundation to promote the education, advancement and social inclusion of poor, disadvantaged and homeless women and children. The nonprofit’s first project was the Lotus House Women’s Shelter in Miami, a shelter that takes a holistic approach to care for its residents on every level:  body (through medical, dental, eye care and even safety training), mind (through counseling, mental health treatments and support groups and running a Thrift Shop to learn skills and raise funds for the project) and spirit (through things like art, music, crafts, book clubs, gardening, and field trips).

Projects that Impact Health

Pivotal First Step Creates Free Clinic
Faith Coleman was a nurse practitioner without health insurance when learned she had a malignant tumor growing on her right kidney. Her treatment cost about $35,000 and she mortgaged her home to pay for it, gaining with that experience the insight and determination to make a difference for others who likewise needed access to appropriate medical treatment.  After her recovery, she mustered up her courage and took one pivotal step, approaching a local physician with 60 years experience treating the indigent population, Dr. John Canakaris, with her idea for a free clinic — and to her surprise he agreed. Their efforts created the Flagler County Free Clinic in Florida, which started with eight volunteers treating eight patients and where now about 120 volunteers see about 80 patients every other weekend.

Projects By and For Youth

From The Hands Of Babes
Austin Gutwein wouldn’t have called it a legacy when he started at age 10. He just knew he wanted to make a difference when he learned about children his age in Africa orphaned because their parents contracted a disease called HIV/AIDS. So he decided to use something he knew and loved, basketball, as a way to help. On World AIDS Day 2004, Austin pledged to shoot 2,057 free throws, representing the number of children orphaned in a single school day because of AIDS. He got sponsors for his effort, and raised almost $3,000 USD that day — and then duplicated the effort with other kids around the country to create Hoops of Hope. His project is now connected to a humanitarian organization called World Vision, and the project he started has now raised over $1,000,000 for building a school and two medical testing labs in Zambia, providing caregiver kits and furnishings, building a water system in Kenya, and providing bicycles for caregivers … and enduring help and hope for many to come.

If You Think You’re Too Small
They say good things come in small packages. Great legacies often start small … and young. Emily Goldstein was a senior at Atherton High School in Louisville, Kentucky, when she and her partner Brandie Farkas were chosen among 16 teens from around the world to study polar bears in the Arctic. She and her partner, Brandie Farkas, both volunteers at the Louisville Zoo, entered the “Project Polar Bear” contest. For their entry they created a website at the Louisville Zoo to educate about the effects of climate change, and encourage individuals to help address it. Feeling each person can make a significant difference, they wanted to encourage each individual to take steps to address global climate change — which they can do through pledges on the website. And so far, people have made pledges that add up to a reduction of over 15 million pounds of carbon emissions of energy use. Emily has gone on from there to other projects which will create even more great legacies for her to live, and leave for the benefit of others when she steps away.

Corporate Social Responsibility Starts Young
Emily Matson and Julianne Goldmark started their Emi-Jay business as teenagers looking for the best hair ties. At the same time, they made a commitment to donate a portion of all proceeds to Locks of Love, an organization that helps disadvantaged children suffering from medical hair loss. Their organization of choice to support is a perfect match for their own business mission. This approach, part of a concept known as corporate social responsibility, is not lost on young people and neither is entrepreneurism. It seems that loss of this youthful outlook often comes with fear and ideas of scarcity. How can you regain your own youthful enthusiasm to do something that makes a difference?

Where Do You Want To Go From Here?

No effort is too small, no one is too young or too old to start their Legacy Project! From a local community project to a global enterprise, the difference is only a matter of scale built on your unique desires and circumstances. It all starts small, an empassioned idea coupled with action— and even tiny first steps can grow to planetary dimensions.

Who would you like to impact, and how? Let us know how we can help you express your passion and joy to make that happen. (EBC)

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Education, Personal Legacy, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas, Women and Girls Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just How Stupid Are We?

October 19, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

New Zealand’s Lizzie Gillett had a dream to make a difference. Her efforts may just help save the planet, too. She had an idea to tell an important story – before it is too late .  As she tells it, she “stalked” the accomplished UK film maker/director Franny Armstrong in an effort to make it happen.  And became a film producer herself in the process.

Armstong was impressed and together the two have taken the world by storm producing an incredible film called The Age of Stupid – a visual journey into global climate change and a world humans have a hard time imagining if it’s not addressed. So the film show them what they have difficulty anticipating for their children and grandchildren.  It’s unnerving, troubling, significant … and important to see – in order to really “get” it. 

In the process, they’ve created an amazing legacy. Can’t wait to see what they each do next.  Wonderful women, wonderful work. Check out their story here:

New Zealand’s Close Up features The Age of Stupid from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories, Meaning, Purpose, Video, Women and Girls Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Legacy ~ Live it or Leave it?

October 16, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 1 Comment

Legacy.  Hmmmmm.  Seems like a big, foreign subject to some.  It’s one you may not have thought about much, if at all. You may think of a legacy as something beyond you, that only others produce or leave behind as a mark of their great wealth on the world.

Not true.

Great legacies are being created in many different forms by people of all ages and walks of life.  They are creating legacies whether or not they are conscious of it.  I know that from having been asked to represent “unknown heirs” at intestacy proceedings.

No, that’s not a stomach condition – intestacy refers to the law of descent and distribution.  It’s what happens when someone dies without a will, and includes the court proceeding to determine “intestate succession.”  That is, who comes after someone who died without a will, and has legal right to their property for purposes of distributing it after death (if any after expenses are paid).  Since there is no will, and no named heirs, an attorney gets appointed to represent those heirs who are not readily known.  In some cases, I had to go find them; rarely an heir would turn up that nobody in the family seemed to know about.  That was always exciting …

Funny thing is that when doing all that legal work in the case of a person who didn’t think they even had enough property to warrant leaving a will, I almost always found that the person had left a significant legacy.  Puzzling.  Not enough property to consider writing a will to designate who it would go to, and yet enough of  ‘something’  to have left a legacy. In the course of investigation, I found people who had been touched or otherwise benefitted by the person who had died, in a very significant and tangible way that often had little to nothing to do with their wealth or property.

That’s what got me thinking that legacy is far more that the sum of one’s worldly property, real and personal, and deciding who to leave it for after you’re done using it – as the traditional view of estate planning would define it.  Legacy is a process.  It is a living thing – it is the way you reach out and touch people and how they remember you – for who you are and what you’ve done in life, moreso than for your stuff.  If you have financial and other resources to contribute to that effort, all the better. That’s not even necessary, though, to define and live your legacy and decide on the contribution you’ll make to this world.

There are those who don’t know they’re creating a legacy, and clearly there are others who are designing, living and creating legacy quite consciously - so they can also enjoy the creation, see it come alive,  joyfully witness the benefit it has for others – and if planned well, step away from it and see it carry on without their involvement for generations to come.  That is the real key to a legacy – how it carries on. 

These conscious legacy leavers likewise may or may not have a will or an estate plan, since they are separate considerations, though it helps with the ‘make it last’ part of legacy planning.  One note on that: it is important to have a will and/or estate plan depending upon your situation, for numerous other good reasons I won’t go into here.  Just don’t confuse that with your legacy. 

So consider your legacy – because yes, you, have one, too – you are developing it now.  Do you want to live it as part of who you are and the unique mark you have to make, the special contribution only you can provide, the way you will reach out to your world of people, places and things and how you will meaningfully impact them? Or do you simply want to leave it, for others to define based on their views of you after you’re gone? 

If you want to approach the impact you will make consciously and with care, we want to know you!

Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Personal Legacy
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