How To Leave A Lasting Legacy As A Travel Coach
By Jessica Grace Coleman
We all want to make sure our time on this planet isn’t wasted; we all want to spread our
message, help people, and make a lasting difference in the world. But how can we actually
do this through travel coaching? What are the steps we need to take? And how can we
design our legacy to make sure we continue helping people even after we’re gone?
What Is A Legacy?
“What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see” – Lin-Manuel
Miranda, Hamilton.
First of all, let’s look at what a legacy actually is.
Legacy can mean a hundred different things but, simply put, your legacy is the impact you
make – on other people and on the planet in general – even long after you’re gone. It’s the
thing you’re remembered for. It’s the positive effect you have on those who come after you.
It’s planting the seeds that will one day turn into a beautiful garden – a garden that future
generations get to enjoy and benefit from.
And, for those of us who feel passionately about leaving this planet at least a little better
than how we found it, we need to actively think about, plan, and design the legacy we want
to leave behind.
Let’s not leave it to chance – as one of my favourite authors, Donald Miller, says, “Fate is a
terrible writer.” We can do much better.
Why Should We Worry About Our Legacy?
There’s an African proverb that says: “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”
Basically, when we die, all of our memories, stories, anecdotes, and lessons learned, plus all
the information and wisdom we’ve accumulated throughout the years, die with us – unless
we make a real effort to make sure that doesn’t happen. If we don’t, then when we die, our
own personal libraries will burn to the ground.
Which I think is a pretty terrifying thought! So, we need to ensure our library doesn’t burn to
the ground. We need to make sure that as many people as possible become card-carrying
members of our own awesome travel coaching library. And, these days, there are so many
ways we can do this.
How Can We Design Our Own Life Purpose?
Before we can even think about our legacy, however, we need to decide on our life purpose
– why we’re doing the work we’re doing, and what we hope to achieve with it all.
Most people go through life without even thinking about things like life purpose or legacy,
but as a travel coach, you’ll no doubt have already worked on things like your mission, your
Big Why, your North Star, and all the other things we get taught to do as heart-centred
entrepreneurs.
If you haven’t already identified your life purpose (and remember: it’s not something we
have to find or discover, it’s something we get to create for ourselves), here are a few fun
exercises you can do.
The Lifetime Achievement Award Exercise
Imagine you’re coming towards the end of your career and you’re being given a lifetime
achievement award for excellence in the field of travel coaching. Visualise the awards
ceremony and imagine that your favourite traveller, actor, writer, entrepreneur, artist, or
whoever is introducing you. What would they say about you in their intro speech? Why
would you be receiving this award? What amazing thing have you done to deserve it?
The Eulogy Exercise
Many people swear by writing their own eulogy in advance, though this might be too
morbid for some people. Thinking about how you want to be remembered and what you
want people to say about you when you’re gone can, however, help you think in terms of
life goals, life missions, and your life purpose.
The Novel/Film Climactic Scene
I wrote a whole book about this (Write Your Life). Basically, this involves picturing your life
as if it were a novel or a film, and writing your life story ahead of time as a way of planning
the big things you want to achieve in life. So, what would you want to happen in the final,
climactic scene?
I highly recommend writing your scene in the third person, as it gets you thinking about your
life from a different perspective. It can also help you put a little distance between what your
life is like now and how you want it to be, so you can think about it more objectively.
Back-Up Your Life Like You Back-Up Your Computer
We all get paranoid about something happening to our devices and losing all our hard work,
our photos, and everything else… but not as many people are concerned with what happens
to all their experience, knowledge, and memories – a whole lifetime’s worth – if something
were to happen to them. It’s like losing your phone… but on a much bigger scale.
I believe, therefore, that we should all ‘back-up our lives’ in the same way we back-up our
computers and phones.
Generally, you can back-up your life by:
- Writing a book (autobiography, memoir, how-to guide, novel) – or paying someone
else to write it for you. - Starting a YouTube channel or social media account for your life purpose.
- Writing a journal to be passed down to the next generation.
- Creating an online course or holding webinars on your specialist subject.
- Teaching people in real life through seminars and speeches.
- Sharing your stories and memories with friends and family members.
- Starting a blog or writing articles for other publications,
- And so on.
Every time we ‘back-up’ a part of our life, we’re adding to our legacy in little ways, so it’s a
great place to start.
How To Leave A Legacy As A Travel Coach
The good news is, if you’re a travel coach – or any kind of coach or content creator – you’re
probably already adding to your legacy with the content you put out there.
The thing we have to remember is that it’s not just the information you put out there that
creates your legacy; it’s also how you make people feel, the inspiration and motivation you
give them to go out there and book their dream trip, and the ways in which you help them
transform themselves and their lives. This kind of legacy is priceless, as it can have a ripple
effect on so many other people.
I’ve already mentioned how you can back-up your life in general, but here are a few ideas
specifically for us in the travel coach space.
Create your own travel coaching framework – and then back it up!
Many of you will already have your own framework – perhaps a framework on how to
transform through travel, or how to coach your clients through a specific problem – but do
you just use this framework within your coaching sessions themselves, or have you backed it
up?
This could mean: putting it into a video course, creating a training around it that can live on
the internet, writing a book using the framework as the structure for the chapters, creating
a challenge around it that you can turn into a PDF and put for sale on your site, and so on.
Find a way to pass on as many of your ‘lessons learned’ as possible.
If you’re anything like me, you have a million ideas a day and are prone to suffering from
Shiny Object Syndrome. I just have so much I want to teach people, so many stories to pass
on, and so many ideas for all sorts of things, and I don’t want to lose any of it.
So, ask yourself: what’s the best and easiest way I can package this information to pass on
to people? I do it in several ways. I have my podcast, where I know the episodes will remain
available for people to listen to even years down the line. I have my books, which again, can
always be bought online. And I have my online Academy – an education portal where I can
put all of my books, courses, challenges, guides, PDFs, and anything else I create. How could
you package your information and hold it all in one easily accessible place?
Tell your own travel transformation story – and then back it up!
As a travel coach (especially if you’ve been putting yourself out there online), you’ll no
doubt have told people your personal story hundreds of times. But have you backed it up?
Have you presented it in such a way that people can easily access it, and hold onto it, both
now and in the future? Have you told it somewhere in your exact words, exactly how you
want to tell it?
The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to write a book. It doesn’t have to be a huge book,
and it doesn’t have to hit any bestseller lists (so take that pressure off yourself right now!),
and you don’t even have to write it yourself if you don’t want to. There are so many
ghostwriters and biography services out there that, if writing isn’t your thing, it doesn’t
matter.
You don’t even have to go down the daunting route of getting an agent and a publishing
deal. I self-publish all my books, and I love it – I’m in control of every creative decision and I
can get my books out there as soon as I’ve written them. Writing a book is one of the best
ways you can leave your legacy.
Put yourself out there as much as possible.
This might seem obvious, but the more you put yourself out there, the more people you’re
likely to help – both now and in the future. So pitch yourself to that podcast, email that
journalist, keep putting out consistent content on social media, and do everything in your
power to get your story and your message out there.
You have no idea of the ripple effect this can cause, helping people all over the world, and
over several years (and maybe even generations – just think how many people still read
How To Win Friends And Influence People – and that was originally published in 1936!).
Add a purpose-driven element to your business.
Leaving a legacy can be about knowledge and wisdom, but it can also be about money. Yes,
you can leave money and assets to people in your will, but are you making the most of
having your own business in terms of supporting charities and other charitable projects?
If you’re not regularly giving to charity through your business, I suggest doing so – and not
just occasionally, but by ‘baking it’ into your business model. I give 10% of book sales, as
well as 5% of any online sales, to an amazing global outreach project called Give The Goodness Global. I found them on Instagram, and after sending them a message asking if we
could collab, we decided to join forces. It can be as easy as that.
This not only makes you feel amazing, knowing that you’re helping other people, but it can
also add to the legacy you leave behind in a big way. It also gives you a huge reason to keep
going on those tough days when everything feels far too overwhelming – a win-win for
everyone.
Start Planting Your Garden Now
By deciding on our life purpose and designing our legacy ahead of time, we get to be in
control of the mark we make on the world. So, start planting those seeds right now – and,
whatever you do, make sure your library doesn’t burn to the ground!
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Jessica Grace Coleman – also known as The Travel Transformation Coach – is the author of
Intentional Travel Transformation, host of The Travel Transformation Podcast, and founder
of Flip The Script Travel Transformation Services.
You can find out more about Jessica at www.traveltransformationcoach.com , on Instagram
@traveltransformationcoach or on TikTok @traveltransformation.
