Mining Recent Adversities for Legacy Seeds

If you pressed me to nail down one specific moral to this story, it would be to expect the best while preparing for the worst. I don’t say to be negative, we can find plenty of doom and gloom by simply tuning into anything calling itself news. The reality is that there will never be a perfect time for anything or a break from the adversities we’re forced to deal with just because we recently fought through something significant. The silver lining I’ve found is that the reflection I’ve never enjoyed (and still have to force myself to engage in today) is exactly where we can identify the seeds hidden within each adversity so we have a shot at taking ownership of our equal or greater benefit. As we do that consistently, through the big ones and the small ones, the compounding continues and we’re more equipped for whatever follows. Expecting the best provides us with the level of awareness necessary for recognizing it when it happens.

I’ve mentioned the legacy idea a few times already, and I drove that point even harder throughout Leveraging Leadership Growth. In complete transparency, I’ve seen very few people willing to continue sowing through and beyond their toughest seasons without having a clear picture of the lasting impact they want to have on others around them. When it’s just about us, that juice sometimes ain’t worth the squeeze. But when we accept the responsibility for passing on the lessons we’ve learned through our own adversities with hopes of making a difference for the people following behind us, a legacy is indeed what we’ll leave.

With that in mind, invest the time to work through these five questions designed to help you mine your recent adversities for legacy seeds:

1. What recent adversity or quiet disappointment still carries weight?
2. What blind spot or habit did it reveal, and what seed (e.g., doing more than paid for, cooperation, or a pleasing personality) was hidden?
3. How could a decisive choice to keep sowing—rather than withdraw—strengthen your definiteness of plans or your relationships?
4. In what ways might nurturing this seed improve your influence without title and the legacy people will actually feel?
5. What three small, immediate actions can you take this week to plant and nurture it?

The energy and focus you dedicate to this can turn recent bad situations into leadership gold - IF you start treating today’s disappointments as tomorrow’s harvest from this point forward. When you do, my hope is that you’ll be ready to lean into the full harvest available to you and lead from wherever you stand - so that’s how we’ll tie all this together.