Tending to Your Legacy—Now

Legacy isn’t a far-off milestone. It’s not something we write in our retirement speeches or only whisper about in eulogies. Legacy lives in the daily—how we move, how we show up, how we speak truth even when our voices tremble. It's in the spaces we refuse to shrink in, the people we pour into, and the choices we make even when no one is watching.

I’ve always known I was carrying something more than just my own dreams. My legacy isn’t just mine. It belongs to my daughter, whose short but radiant life continues to guide my every breath. Each year, her birthday comes around, and I feel the ache of what could’ve been—and the strength of what still is. Her memory reminds me to honor joy and grief at the same time. To make space for both. To let legacy be tender and tenacious all at once.

It belongs to my father, too. A brilliant, principled man whose wisdom shaped the way I lead, the way I listen, the way I hold the line even when others let it go slack. His absence still leaves me unmoored. But his voice? It’s in me. Every time I tell the truth that others won’t. Every time I refuse to shrink.

And then there is my mother. A lighthouse in every storm, a fierce and faithful presence whose love anchors me. Her legacy is quiet power—the kind that doesn’t shout, but never wavers. She taught me how to show up when the world tries to look away. How to love fully, lead deeply, and hold both grace and grit in the same hand.

My son walks with me in this, too. He is my why. My reminder that every step forward matters. That the choices I make ripple into the future he's inheriting. I work hard not just to protect his possibilities—but to model what it means to walk in your purpose with integrity, with courage, and with joy. The world will try to write our stories for us; I want him to know he holds the pen.

And then there’s the rest of my family. The ones I don’t see or talk to every day. The ones whose presence still steadies me. They may not know it, but I work for them, too. For their legacies. For their futures. For the memories we’re still making and the stories we’ve yet to tell. Our connection is part of my why.

This is what legacy looks like: messy, magnificent, and deeply personal. It’s in the moments when I choose clarity over comfort. When I coach a client toward a bold decision. When I rest—without guilt—because I know I’m not meant to burn out in service of a system that never loved me to begin with.

When I coach clients—especially Black women and people of the global majority—I often hear this quiet ache: I want to feel like I’m doing work that matters. And my response is this: You already are. You are building legacy when you say no to what drains you. When you demand to be heard. When you rest, not because you’re weak, but because you’ve earned it. You are legacy in motion.

I’ve walked into so many rooms where I was the “Only.” Only Black woman. Only voice naming harm. Only one willing to say, “This isn’t working.” And in those moments, I felt the weight—not just of representation, but of responsibility. Because I knew I wasn’t standing there alone. I knew I was carrying the hope of countless Black women who came before me—who carried vision in their wombs, resistance in their spines, and hope in their bones.

Legacy is not just handed down—it reaches forward. It loops and stretches across time. Maya Angelou once wrote, 

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” 

That’s legacy: refusing to be diminished by systems not built for you. Choosing instead to reshape them, reimagine them, or walk away and build your own.

And let’s be honest: legacy work is not always romantic. Sometimes it’s thankless. Sometimes it’s lonely. But it is always necessary.

I think often about the power of intergenerational storytelling—the ways our elders taught us not just through words, but through how they endured. And how we, in turn, must be willing to evolve what we’ve inherited. Legacy isn’t mimicry. It’s evolution. It’s saying, I honor the sacrifices made, but I will not pass down this same trauma. It’s saying, I see what was normalized, and I choose differently.

I’ve been mentored by women who poured into me when I didn’t yet see myself clearly. And I’ve mentored others, not because I had all the answers, but because I believed they deserved a soft place to land, a mirror to reflect their brilliance back to them. That’s legacy. Not replication—but amplification. Not perfection—but presence.

I’ve stood firm in boardrooms not just to make space for myself—but to make space for those coming next. I’ve challenged harmful norms because I knew that silence would cost too much for the next generation. I’ve told the truth in rooms where it was easier to stay quiet—because someone, someday, might walk through a door I refused to let them close.

This work—through Five/6teen Consulting, through writing, through coaching—is my offering to that future. It’s legacy in real time. Because I believe in collective liberation, in disruptive leadership rooted in love, in the power of our ancestors walking with us. Because I know the spaces we build today will shape who rises tomorrow.

To those of you building your own legacy: tend to it with care. Your small, daily choices matter. The way you speak to yourself matters. The boundaries you set, the people you mentor, the communities you uplift—it all matters.

So today, I invite you to reflect:

• What are you planting that someone else might harvest?

• Who are you becoming in the quiet moments when no one is clapping?

• What will they say not just about what you did, but how you made them feel?

This is legacy.

And you’re living it—every day.

Because legacy isn’t later. It’s now.