Article 5: What If Your Legacy Isn’t Measured in Metrics?

May 5 — 2 min read
Written by Dr. Chris Thompson

Legacy is often described as what you leave behind, but what if it’s actually what you set in motion?

We’ve been taught to think of legacy in terms of what has your name on it, buildings, endowments, publications. But your truest legacy may be the energy you sparked, the questions you inspired, the system you made wobble.

Respectful Disruption Leadership invites us to define legacy not by permanence, but by provocation.

The uncomfortable truth is this: metrics can be manipulated. But memory, how you made people feel, cannot. That’s the part that stays.

What if:

• Your boldest move wasn’t scaling a program, but seeding a new way of thinking?

• Your legacy isn’t your resume, but the lives that got wider because of you?

We spend so much time trying to “make a mark.” But maybe legacy isn’t about a mark. Maybe it’s about momentum.

Ask yourself:

• Who’s continuing your work in ways you can’t control?

• What questions did you leave behind that are still shaping the conversation?

• What doors did you leave open that others are now walking through?

A building can bear your name and still be forgotten. But movement? Movement echoes.