As we finished up the BeccaCon21 conference, I shared something at the very end that I want to share here.
On my refrigerator, I have a picture of my favorite person in the world. My grandma. She’s with two of her best friends, plus me and my best friend from high school (who is the granddaughter of the other two women). The five of us are all sitting at dinner together and we were so tight growing up. Such a knit-together little group and each one of those four women made an impact on me that remains with me to this day. That picture was the last time all five of us were together in the same place.
Three of them are gone now, and for the two of us who remain, we often talk about how our lives will be forever changed because those three women were such a big part of our first 25 years of life.
Every time I look at it, I think, “I love those women, and I wish they were still with me.”
They left craters in our lives that made us different. Their lives mattered in a way that their absence is a reminder of that change.
I keep that picture on my refrigerator to remind me of them, and how much I loved all three of them, and how much they loved me. And I keep it there to remind myself that I want to leave craters like that behind when I’m gone. I want to be the person that someone leaves their picture on the refrigerator because I made enough difference to them that they will miss me when I’m gone and that they will be different because I was part of their life.
To remind me of the crater I want to make.
Not everyone is equally as driven by “impact” but even relationships can leave a crater. I am pretty sure my grandmother didn’t have any Influencing Strengths. But she was still the most important person in my life, outside my parents and sister. She’s more responsible for my formation than almost any other person I know. That kind of influence is just astounding. To have that much import in someone’s life.
It’s beautiful.
One of the things I had to ask at the end of the conference was: what kind of crater are you trying to make?
Some of us are making craters in ways we don’t even understand. To our children or our siblings or parents or spouse/partner or grandparents. We’re making craters relationally in a way that some one or two or three or five people will be forever changed by. And we often don’t see just how important we are, or how necessary our work is. We really need to remember that. Every time I choose a person, I’m teaching them how important they are, how much they matter to me and to the world. When I listen to a person, I’m teaching them that their voice matters. When I empathize or stabilize, I’m leaving an impact. Forever.
Some of us want to leave craters like that with our readers, or we want our platform to matter in some way. We want our influence to long outlive us. We want to be remembered. And that kind of drive will bring us to our late nights and to our knees. Or we want to entertain or uplift or make people’s lives better. We want to explore or understand or help or know. But we have some kind of imprint to leave (even if it’s unintentional).
One of the benefits of Significance is that it doesn’t take me much listening to hear the crater in your life story. Wherever it lands (or has landed), I can hear it. And it inspires me. It’s one of the reasons I do what I do. I want to help people have beneficial legacy. To have an impact that outlasts their lives.
What is your crater? What/who do you want to outlast you? Who do you want to miss you when you’re gone? What do you want to survive you?
<3 Becca <3
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