Making money is really simple. The process might not be easy, but it's actually really simple. What I care more about is why. We need to unpack this concept of legacy, this concept of building something beyond ourself. Welcome to the Legacy Creator podcast, a show dedicated to giving you the tools you need to build a profitable, purposeful, and powerful business that lasts. I'm your host, Ashton Smith. I'm a sixth generation entrepreneur who is passionate about helping you think bigger so that you can actualize your goals and build your legacy.
Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to the Legacy Creator podcast. This is our first official episode, and we are starting off with a bang. I want to begin and I want to start our time together by asking a question: what does it really mean to build a legacy? I'm curious, what do you think?
So for those of you that love a good definition, like I do, I actually want to read off a couple of the definitions of the word legacy. The first definition here: an amount of money or property left to someone in a will. So this is a really obvious one. The second one, though, is my favorite: "the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past or of a person's life." That's powerful. That's so powerful. Long-lasting impact of specific events or actions.
So what I really want to highlight here is that building a legacy implies that you are thinking bigger than present day, number one, and you're also thinking bigger than yourself. You're really considering how to create long-lasting impact. It goes beyond success for accolades that we want to add to our list. It goes beyond money. It goes beyond all of these smaller desires, which there's nothing wrong with these desires, with wanting to achieve, with wanting to make money. You know, those things give you options, right? But I think that there is something really important about thinking beyond that, about thinking deeper than that. At the end of the day, making money is pretty easy. Might might not always feel easy, maybe simple is the better term there. Making money is really simple. The process might not be easy, but it's actually really simple. What I care more about is why. Why are you creating money through your company? What is that money going towards? What is it supporting? Right? And of course, it's going to support your livelihood, it's going to support your family, but at some point in business, we reach a place where we have more options. We have we have more to work with, and we have more that we can do, more impact that we can create. And I think that we need to unpack this this concept of legacy, this concept of building something beyond ourself.
So I want to unpack the importance of this topic, um, as well as what the day in, day out work looks like. What does it really look like? You know, I think when we say building a legacy, it sounds glamorous, it sounds fun. I like the sound of it, obviously. Um, it's in the name of the podcast. It sounds glamorous, it's kind of like how entrepreneurship sounds glamorous, right? But in actuality, it's like probably five to ten percent of it is actually glamorous.
So let's kind of, let's kind of dive into a little bit of history here. So as you will have heard in the introduction of the podcast, I am a sixth generation entrepreneur, and this fact is one of my biggest driving forces in life and especially as a business owner in my family. Um, and I want to kind of kick off here by breaking down uh the history here for you at a high level. And don't worry, we're getting to a point here. I'm going to reference my notes so I get this accurate. Okay, so my great-great grandpa, he was a brick mason. He helped build Elon College in the late 1800s. My great-great grandpa hauled stones and sand and helped build some of the major highways in our area, some of which I believe I even drive on today. My great grandpa, he followed suit and he was in the brick mason business. And then my grandpa, he also followed suit in the hauling and highway building business, but later on he went to actually start a company with my dad in 1984. And from there my dad and my grandpa worked together for years, but later on my dad bought my grandpa out, and they actually built their company to be in the top one percent in their industry in the country, and he went on later to sell the company. So all of these people that came before me, you know, they were in a totally different line of work, and blessed them for doing so. I don't know how I would do out in the heat and sun. If you're watching this on YouTube right now, you can tell I have a very fair complexion. Nonetheless, so they were in a totally different line of work, right? But they paved the way for entrepreneurship to be so deeply woven into the fabric of our family.
And, you know, I think about my dad because obviously I've had the most interaction with him. He he passed on business mindset, which let's be real, mindset is everything, and that's coming from myself. I am more of a strategist, I'm more of a business coach that dives into strategy and tactics, etc. But business mindset is everything. Uh, he also passed along just the entrepreneurial spirit, um, and a higher level business and knowledge as well, and that's been so integral to my journey and the way that I operate. I firmly believe that it's part of, if not the full reason why, I've been able to create the success that I've created in my business so far.
So why am I sharing this? Why am I sharing this history? We think about life and business situationally, when in reality things are unfolding generationally. I want you to really sit with that. We get so swept up in the day in, day out in, you know, the problems or the imposter syndrome or what's not working, we think so short term sometimes, and we think situation to situation to situation, and that kind of gets us into this hamster wheel where we're always reacting in the short term. But actually, things are unfolding generationally, and I'm so intrigued by my family line, by these people that went before me because I firmly believe that what they have passed down generation to generation to generation—some of these people I've never ever met before—they have they had no idea. They had no idea that what they were doing decades and decades and decades ago would impact me, my sister, our future children, grandchildren. So our simple yes today has a ripple effect of impact on those that follow behind us, and this is really the heart of what I want to get at today. And, you know, we may make big decisions, big, big, monumental decisions that, of course, change the trajectory of where we're going and and our business. But sometimes it's even the simple yeses that change the trajectory of your family line, and I I want you to really sit with that today. You know, I I highly doubt that my great-great grandpa was thinking about this when he was, you know, building highways, when he was building Elon College. I highly doubt he was thinking about this. And I don't say this to add pressure, I just say this to expand our mindset a little bit and to see the true potential for power and impact that we have. You know, I mean not just as business owners, right? You can even have this power and being a mom and the way that you raise your children, right? Or the way that you go about your marriage, but of course entrepreneurship opens so many other doors, and it's not just what you pass down monetarily. I think the most important things that you can pass down are mindsets and beliefs and the way that you view the world and the way that you view life.
So our society is all about instant gratification, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to kick off this show with this discussion. Our society is so swept up in wanting a result tomorrow. You know, like the other day, I think this was yesterday, my husband, Josh, and I, we we needed to order some Swiffer replacements, and we have guests coming over this weekend and we needed to clean. Nonetheless, we we ordered it at like eight in the morning, and it literally arrived our doorstep in like two hours. I mean, we live in a world where we we have everything at our fingertips, and if we're not careful, we can start to kind of carry this convenience into our mentality in the way that we view business and what we're we're building for the long term. But what I want to get at here is that good things take time. How many times have we heard that? Lasting success, I really really want to reiterate that word, lasting success, legacy, long-term impact takes time. It really does. And they also require us to think bigger. We have to know that the day in, day out process is refining us. When we try to rush to a destination, I laugh because I'm like what destination are we going to? I think sometimes we think that there's a nirvana that we're going to somehow end up in, you know, when we hit these goals or we make this money, but how many times have you achieved a goal and you get there and you're like, "this is great but like there's more," because we're designed to want more. So I just think that that's funny. But all that to say, the process is refining us, and when we try to rush to the destination or the goal or the outcome, we actually do a disservice to ourselves because when we achieve success too fast, when we hit a goal too fast, sometimes we can't actually sustain it, and it's more important that we sustain our growth, our success, etc. than just getting there quickly, you know? And at the end of the day, although building a legacy and and focusing on the long term, it's a big, big purpose of this podcast, um, it is, it is not glamorous work, it's just not. Uh, you really do have to believe in what you're building, and I want to kind of shift gears here a little bit, um, and share a little bit about my story and what quote unquote "building a legacy" has looked like for me over the last four plus years, because I think sometimes from the outside looking in it's easy to see other people that have achieved maybe a goal that you have or, you know, it just appears that they have everything together. Let me just be the first on episode one to assure you that I do not have everything together. Um, I am the first to tell you, to admit to the world that fast success was just not my story. And, you know, we work with clients and I have so many friends and acquaintances in the online space, um, in the business world where their success was a lot faster than mine, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's all about your background and where you came from, and so on and so forth. But fast success was just not my story. So I just want to break down my journey for you at a high level.
2017 was the first year that I dipped my toe into the world of entrepreneurship. I started um a blog, and that blog was in existence for the purpose of empowering women, which I I laugh at that to this day because it's just so broad, but we all start somewhere, you know? And I think that that's important to highlight because I did not start my business journey saying, "I want to build a legacy." I didn't. I didn't start there. I didn't start with a big vision. I was like, "I want to do something fun. I want to leverage my passions. I want to leverage my strengths." So I started a blog. Meanwhile, in the background, my husband and I, we for a very short period of time, we launched an agency. Uh, he is a developer, so we leveraged his skill sets and I was more hands-on with the marketing realm. That never really took off in the way that we envisioned, though. Um, shortly after that, in 2018, I transitioned our blog space and community into a print publication. It was called The Authentic Woman, and it was a non-retouched magazine where we featured stories of women, and it was such a fulfilling journey and such a fulfilling project to work on. We traveled to photograph, and I got to do a ton of writing, which is one of the things I love most. But we built the community, we built a movement, we had a lot of incredible connections and, you know, we sold magazines, and it was awesome. But that business never really got to the level of profitability that I wanted and needed. And as I was getting closer and closer to actually getting married to Josh at the time, um, I was thinking more about how can I build something that could sustain me, could replace my income, right? So for a short time, I dabbled in life coaching. Throwback if you remember that short season, you'll have to let me know. But in 2019, we founded The Awakening, so that's our current company, and we started by introducing our membership. Spent a lot of money, time, tears getting that up and running. I'll probably save this story for a future episode, but when we were getting our membership up and running, I invested twenty thousand dollars into an ads and funnels expert with the promise of making that money back and more. And we didn't make any money. So that was devastating, and that was how this company actually started. Um, but in six months time after that happened, we were able to grow our membership community. We were able to really start gaining traction at this point because my mindset and my energy and my effort shifted. So we'll talk more about that in a later episode too. But spent all of that year building up the membership. 2020, we introduced coaching. We booked out within a few weeks. 2021, we introduced our group coaching program. Last year, we rolled out our Omni Channel plan, and this year, so far, we've launched our VIP experience and the podcast. So you can kind of see that slow progression there. Started really, really slow because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I want to give you that high level overview just to allow you to kind of get familiar with my story and my journey and my experience and all of the companies I've dabbled in. Um, but also to show you that my story was not fast success. And, you know, like I said, some of our clients have grown so much faster than that. So it's not to say that your success and your growth has to be slow, but it's to say that there's a reason why you're on your journey. There's a reason why you are faced with, you know, the problems or the wins or the business that you have today. It is all preparation. I want to encourage you to stay focused on your journey, stay focused on where you are, stay in your lane. It is all working out for you. Okay?
So after running our current company for about four years now, I've really come to find that again, it's not about racing to the finish line. That is such a disservice. It's not about even strategy. Strategy is a supportive element, but that's not the full picture. And what I can really pair it down to is a few key things, a few key skill sets that I want to leave you with today. Okay, so if you are focused on achieving short-term wins, amazing. And simultaneously, if you're focused on, "I want to build something bigger than me, I want to build something that lasts," I want you to I want you to hear this.
So the first thing, the most important—one of the most important things I should say—is discipline. And I know that some people are going to roll their eyes and disengage. I remember being so early on in entrepreneurship and I just wanted somebody to give me the plan, give me the 10-step plan, break it down for me. I'm an action taker. If you give me a list, I will get that ish done, like ask my husband sometimes. I'm sure it frustrates him. I know it does. But I wanted this 10-step, X-step plan, you know? Um, but it's not really about that. It's not about the answers, it's because your journey is not gonna be the same, and business principles and strategy and tactics can help, but what really matters is your discipline. How are you remaining disciplined as you're building your business? It's not really about motivation. You know, I have a lot of people that message me and they ask, "how do you stay so motivated? How do you say so motivated? How do you consistently show up?" And I am like, "Home girl, I am not always motivated. I do not always feel like showing up to work." This morning, actually, I was like, "I don't feel like doing anything today," but you know what? I am doing it because I believe in what I'm building, and in those moments, it's not about exercising motivation, it's about exercising discipline. It's about keeping your vision in mind and allowing discipline to be the thing that carries you forward. Okay?
So discipline is the first thing. The second thing here is resilience. And this is so, so crucial because in business, there are going to be so many times where you fall down. Oh my gosh, I have a long list of quote-unquote "failures," if you want to call it that, just times where I have fallen on my face, and I have not wanted to get back up sometimes, but that's where resilience has to kick in. And I think that this is a muscle that we're constantly flexing and we're constantly learning how to grow. I had a lot less resilience when I got started, I did. I was a baby entrepreneur. My feelings got hurt and I fell down once, I was so upset, and and that's okay if you need to take time to process when you mess up, when you fall down. But what matters again is like getting up and and doing what you need to do to honor your vision. And I think that there is a balance there because you may experience seasons where it's not about getting back up in that moment, it's about resting and recuperating. There are seasons of ebb and flow and push and pull, so you kind of have to know where you're at. But you will know when you are being called to get back up and keep going. You're going to be rejected, not everyone's gonna like you. You're gonna fall down, you're gonna lose clients, you name it, you name it. You might lose money, I mean, I have lost some money, um. And so this is where we have to exercise resiliency. Okay?
The final piece here is vision. Okay, this is probably the most important thing and I don't want you to tune out because I know that this is a topic that a lot of people talk about. A lot of people talk about vision. You know, it's important for you to have your five to ten year vision, and I preach this, but I know that the more that you hear a message, the more that you can become desensitized to it, and so I just want to reiterate this to you and I want you to have an open mind and an open heart. Vision is the most important thing. You need to know where you're going, and if you are a new entrepreneur and you're just in that startup stage, like I was in 2017, and and my mission, my business plan was to empower women, you know, I have a lot of respect for that girl. She started, she said "yeah," she put herself out there. She had no idea what she was doing. Okay, so if you're in the startup stage and your vision is maybe smaller than someone else's or it really is about the stability of revenue and client base, that is okay. You honor that vision, you keep that vision at the forefront, and as you grow and as you achieve those goals, expand your vision. It's going to be a natural part of the process. But you need to take the time and the space, integrate more white space into your schedule, people, to hear your thoughts, to sit with your desires, to sit with the things that are coming up for you. You need to create the space to allow your vision to unfold and become clearer and clearer and clearer. Now let me just say this as a disclaimer, your 10-year vision that you have today most likely is going to change. Most likely it's going to unfold in a different way, and that's okay. It doesn't matter that you get it perfect, that's not the point here. The point is that you are aspiring towards a larger vision and you have clarity in this moment on where you want to go, and let that change, adapt, that's totally fine. But if you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? You're going to be walking around aimlessly. Okay, so vision is the most important thing, number one, for you as a founder, but number two, as you grow a team, as you grow a community, you need to have something at the forefront. You want people to catch the vision of what you're building.
Okay, so take that as a piece of homework, ask yourself how can you start thinking bigger about what you're building.
Take these prompts to your journal, take them with you on your walk, sit with these on your drive, but ask yourself these questions as we kind of close out our time together: how can you start thinking bigger about what you're building? Allow room to dream, allow room to expand. How can you have patience for the things that take time? Where can you exercise patience right now? And even more than that, you know, if something comes to mind where you're just feeling stuck and things are taking so long, really consider what lessons can I take away from this? What am I learning? What am I learning in this process that's taking forever? What can I take away from it? And then, you know, what's the thing that drives you? What is your why? What impact do you want to leave behind? And that can be both present day. How do you want to impact your family or community? Anyone that comes, you know, into uh interaction with your work, how do you want to impact them? And how do you want to impact the people that you leave behind? You know, if we get really, really big with it, what do you want to leave behind and and how are you building that today? It may be that, you know, it's in the little things that you're doing, it's in the little actions that you're taking. Maybe it's like, "I'm showing up today. I'm putting myself out there today. I'm gonna go sell today. I'm going to record that podcast episode. I'm gonna launch that podcast." Maybe it's the little things, you know, or or maybe it's it's big things like, "I need to pivot what I'm doing. I need to change what I'm doing. It's not an alignment. It's not what I want to build." Maybe it's getting honest about the fact that you need to make time for what you want to build. Maybe you're in that scaling stage and you've just been saying to yourself, "this is where I want to go, but I don't have time. I don't have the time to create that." How can you make the time? Okay, big and small, what impact do you want to create?
Okay, so as we close out, know that the path, it won't be easy. I am not going to lie to you, the path will not be easy, but when the vision is so strong and the desired legacy is so clear, it all becomes worth it. You are here for something bigger than you, and I cannot wait to see that vision unfold.
