What Do You Want to Be Known For?

A question I've been sitting with quite a bit lately is: What do you want to be known for?

And I like the question so much better than: What's your why? Or What are you building?

Over the last 20 years, when asked the "What are you building?" or "What's your why?", the questions are easy to overwhelm you and make you feel less than. Sometimes the "what is your why" question can make you feel like you haven't accomplished enough.

Whereas: What do you want to be known for? The question offers flexibility. Flexibility to make you think more about who you are. It's almost like saying to a kid: WHAT do you want to BE when you grow up? Rather than: WHO do you want to be when you grow up?

And it's interesting that it can take someone (me) being 51 years old to start to fully thinking about the differences. When people used to ask my kids when they were little, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I don't remember thinking anything about it. I probably asked kids that question myself years and years ago.

The older you get, the more you might rethink the words you use and the questions you ask. Today, "what do you want to be when you grow up", is a terrible question.

The last few months, I've been thinking about two moments in my life that have helped me understand why.

You Already Do

Years ago, around 2017, I had an early mentor who was helping me in a variety of capacities as an entrepreneur, business owner, and in the early days of speaking.

The mentor was sharing and giving me a lot. A lot of insight. A lot of strategy. A lot of business guidance. And this was not something I was compensating the mentor for their time for. This was just somebody who decided to take interest in me as a business owner and share his insight.

He had been mentoring me for some time, and at one point he gave me something so big that I was just so taken aback by the magnitude of what he shared.

I said:

"Oh my goodness. How will I ever repay you?"

And he said:

"You already do."

I asked, "I do? How?"

And he said:

"I see you. You pay it forward. You cascade what others pour into you and you share it with others. Paying it forward IS the repayment."

He called that cascading impact.

He explained that when he was mentoring people, he was looking for the type of people who wouldn't keep what they learned in a vault, but rather would look around for others that they should then become this person for.

I didn't have those words for myself at the time. In 2017, someone else saw it in me.

That's Okay. You're Evolving.

Fast forward almost a decade to 2025. While attending an event in a room with a few thousand people. It was a room I had been in several times before. But this particular time, I didn't feel the same in the room. The room didn't feel the same with me in it. I didn't feel like I fit in. I didn't feel like I knew anybody. I didn't feel like they knew me. The feeling was odd.

I remember thinking quietly to myself:

Why am I in here? What has changed prompting me to feel like I do not fit in this room, any longer?

The feeling wasn't a negative feeling, nor was I feeling negative about the people in the room; but something felt different with me. It was just this really odd feeling that had set in with me, as I navigated to my seat in the audience. Loud music on, many people talking to each other before the next speaker took to the stage.

And I ran into a friend. We hugged. Said hi. Took a picture. Exchanged general niceties to catch up since we had last seen each other at a retreat the previous month.

And then I leaned in. Only she could hear me.

I said:

"Something's off. I feel uncomfortable in this room, today."

She understood the context. She grabbed my hand. Reassuringly. She leaned in so only I could hear her and said:

"That's ok. You are evolving."

And then she hugged me.

That's it.

You're evolving.

It was almost like I had never heard that word before. I had been feeling like I was somehow wrong for feeling different. "Evolving" gave that feeling a completely different, empowering definition.

It was a very pivotal moment. Someone I respected tremendously was reminding me:

You don't have to stay attached to the same identity forever.

One identity in a season, isn't a life sentence. One thing isn't all you are ever called to be.

What Do You Want to Be Known For?

Humans have belief systems, and sometimes we don't fully understand what drives those belief systems. Sometimes we don't even understand the labels for those belief systems. Allowing myself to be more present with my thoughts this year, has made me realize I have felt this way for a long time without being able to label it.

And then someone asked me: What do you want to be known for? Oh. That's different. Maybe that's the difference between asking: What are you building? What's your why? One asks me to look at what I'm building.

The other gives me the flexibility to think about who I am.

And maybe that's also why I've been thinking so much about the green bench lately. When you become known for being wildly successful at one thing, it can be a blessing, and if not careful it can also inhibit you from evolving into what is next. What you are building doesn't have to become a singular identity you carry forever.

You can appreciate and be proud of it. You can recognize everything it gave you. You can cascade the impact of what others poured into you. And you can evolve. Maybe that's why "What do you want to be known for?" feels so different to me at 51.

It doesn't require me to ignore everything that's already happened in order to decide what happens next, and it doesn't ask me to pick one thing and be that forever.

It gives me permission to recognize what has already been there.

And it gives me room to evolve.

Maybe we have been asking kids the wrong question all along.

Not:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

But:

What do you want to be known for?