Rubin’s book, The Yellow Pad, is a reflection on legacy. I loved his leadership lessons and his ability to think about thinking. This was also his way to thank his family, his friends and the people who he wants to honor across his life. It’s his way of shaping and speaking to his own legacy.

I was on a panel this past week, speaking to high school students about servant leadership. A question came up about legacy. As the other brilliant panelists answered what that means to them, I started thinking about two aspects of legacy:

• Legacy as the work we do to carry ideas, initiatives, organizations, forward. We are living in and benefiting from the tenacity and vision of someone else.
• Legacy as being that person who establishes that new thing, who takes those steps into the unknown: building a family, a business, starting from nothing.

I reflected aloud to the students (and on instagram!) that I am the beneficiary and have the honor of carrying forward the hard work that others did to innovate and build from nothing:

• Wendy Kopp created Teach for America while a student at Princeton. Her vision changed my life. I put all my big plans on hold for two years to teach elementary school, and now all these years later I am still working in and serving in education. I benefit from her vision every day.
• Eula and her team who founded Free 2 Teach. They build this organization that I have the joy of serving, from their vision and a heart for children and teachers. I had lunch with someone this week who remembers their eager presentation asking for just anything that anyone had: binders, some paper, so that they could take it to start a little store for teachers.
• I benefit, as do our teachers and students, from people and organizations who give of the abundance of their labor: those who have started businesses, built something from nothing, or who steward resources carefully to be able to donate with generosity to build impact for kids, or the people who give the precious resource of their time to give back and power our work.

What kind of legacy are you shaping? And what kind of legacy will you leave? I think these are powerful questions to consider, as Rubin does, and spend time pondering.His and those who he worked alongside in some of the most powerful rooms in the world during some of the most complex junctions in our history.