Influential Legacy?

What is your legacy? Really, what are you leaving behind for those you love to remember you by?

A year ago today my Father, Sam Palazzolo, passed away after what can only be described as a courageous battle with Alzheimer’s Dementia for several years. The last years of his life were not indicative at all of his life’s legacy or the influence he had while here. He was a single individual who touched many with the “love” that oozed from his being.

I spent the last year performing keynote addresses, seminars/workshops/webinars and coaching one-to-one around the country/internationally. I always made a point to introduce his favorite statue, a James Fraser bronze titled “End of the Trail”. To my Father this bronze represented how he wanted to “go out”, or his legacy as he saw things. The bronze represents a rendering of a despondent Indian and his forlorn horse, an enormous hit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, that has come to symbolize the decline of Native Americans, "a moving parable of a losing people," as the sculptor put it. I was fortunate enough to view it in Oklahoma City (http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org).

From my Father’s perspective the statue represented giving life your all. He used to tell me when all is said and done, that he wanted to be remembered by everyone as someone who gave it all he had. He wasn’t the fastest individual; didn’t believe that he was the smartest; but did believe in himself and that he had the persistence to be the best!

The result of giving everything he had touched many. To know him was to love him, because he loved you! That was his greatest legacy, LOVE.

In remembering his spirit today, I’d ask you to reach out to those you love and tell them that you love them. Amazing things will happen for you when you do…Some old-doors will probably shut (My Father would say that they probably should have shut a long time ago!). Some new-doors will open, and it is these new doors that you will find the most peace/harmony in walking through.

So what is your legacy? Drop me a note at spalazzolo@pathosleadershipgroup.com and let me know.

Thank you for all the love and support you have shown me and my family over the last year. I can’t tell you how much comfort your warm thoughts and prayers have done!

Sam P.