This is where I started.... Some stories about the 2 major influencers in my life, my parents. Transition into some thoughts on what this is about.
Lisa : (00:07)
Welcome
Lisa : (00:07)
To the building a life legacy podcast. My name is Lisa Gregoria and I am so glad you're here
Lisa : (00:25)
For 30 years. I was a elementary school PE teacher, and yes, we had a blast. I had a great time with all my kids and it was super fun to see those kids grow up and then become the parents of my next generation kids before I retired. It was awesome, but I had a class size of ranging from about 60 to about 110. And when we'd be all spread out in the gym, we were in rows and columns with about six feet apart, which was great for doing activities, jump and rope exercising and all that, the regular PE classes. But when I had to really have them listen, and I would explain something, I would bring them up close to me and I'd usually sit down on a bucket or a chair in front of them. And the kids loved it. They called it story time.
Lisa : (01:18)
And so that was our special time. And sometimes I just told stories about something silly that happened the week over the weekend or the night before, or I would tell something about health. I would teach a lesson or I would let allow them to share, or I would explain what was coming up next in our PE class. So if I said, okay, come on up for story time, the kids would scoot in and they'd sit on their seats and they'd look at me and kind of quiet down and be ready to listen. So friends it's story time, come on up.
Lisa : (02:04)
What is legacy? What is your legacy? That's a hard question because legacy can mean so many things to so many people. Um, for me, legacy means this is what I'm leaving for the next week. People to remember me for the next time they think of me or for the next generation or next year. So where does the legacy come from and how do we build our legacy? That's the question I hope to bring stories and laughter maybe some tears, hopefully good tears and just experience what leaving your legacy might be. And to do that, we're gonna have different examples from different people. I'm gonna start with and several stories of how I hope my legacy to be left and how I hope that I'm building my legacy about me. Well, I am almost 55 years old. I live in a small suburb of Texas. That's growing like crazy Dallas, Texas.
Lisa : (03:21)
And I grew up in Kansas. I have one brother he's a little bit younger than me, but we pretty much do so much of our lives are parallel. So he's gonna be on here a lot. His name is J we were raised by our parents, Dale and Mary, both of them who are looking down in heaven right now, let's start with how my legacy begins. The two most influential people in my life from when I was born was my mom and dad. Both of 'em are looking down from heaven, smiling on us right now. And those are stories I'm gonna tell later, but to get you into the gist and why this podcast was created as building a life legacy, we'll start there. Mom started as a school teacher and a pastor's wife. She was extremely innovative and taught at a lab school that was connected.
Lisa : (04:17)
It was a part of Princeton university, which means there was people on the other side of a two-way mirror that could watch her at any time as she taught first and second graders. I can't even imagine that that would even happen today, but it happened back then. So she had to be on her game all the time. She was the epitome of the power of positive thinking and she kept working on dreams, ideas plans, until she figured out a way that to make 'em work or to move on from that idea and go to a bigger, better idea. She transitioned her life than from teaching into. She was a mom took care of both my brother and I, and she, then she became a life insurance from life insurance. She started her own business as a certified financial planner. She loved, loved, loved to talked to others and hear about their dreams, goals, and plans.
Lisa : (05:26)
And she was the best cheerleader and to encourage you and anybody else to go for it. And she was such a great listener. She would sit and have some, have you sit down, take, tell me what your plans are. Tell me what your goals are. So there was this one time where she had, um, the girl, all the grandkids come and said, you need to invite all of your friends. Whoever wants to come at a certain time. And she had them all around the dining room table. They each had little notebooks that she had prepared. And I think they were all in high school. M may have been in middle school. He was the youngest, but they, most of them had a friend and she talked to them about financial planning and about what their goals are. And I bet if you talk to any of those kids, they would remember that story.
Lisa : (06:19)
And I know my daughter would because that's what she wants to do with her next phase in her career and her journey. Then there's dad. Dad was pastor he's pastor for 40 years. Lutheran minister. Yes. I'm a PK. Yes. The stories are true, but it wasn't all that. Now dad didn't get a call straight from when he was in seminary. So he didn't give up. And he went on to Princeton university for his master's degree. Yeah, he was super smart that may not have passed all the way down to me, but he was a brilliant, loved to read. He had dreams to reach and help others. But his favorite thing was to share and tell the story, not just the biblical story, but tell stories, just sit and tell stories. Dad started in Pennsylvania and then moved to Oklahoma city. And there's lots of stories that go with that.
Lisa : (07:21)
But then when I was in third grade, we moved to Topeka, Kansas. And then my brother was starting school the next year. So that's pretty much where we grew up a fantastic place to grow a family, fantastic place to grow up. I wouldn't have changed that for anything. So when we first moved there, my grandparents, my actually my mom's parents came to town and my dad took my granddad to the church to show 'em around. And my granddad said this parking lot would be an awesome place for a drive through nativity story because that's the way the drive through the parking lot went. It, you drove through one side, you could park on either side and circle around and come out onto the main street for the other one. So then that planted the seed. But dad didn't just want there to be one scene about the main scene.
Lisa : (08:19)
He wanted to tell the story. So there was nine different scenes in this story back then, you know, this was the late seventies. So cassette tapes was how you would listen to music in your cars. So he narrated the story. And when you pulled into the parking lot, you were given a cassette tape. Or even if you didn't have a cassette tape player in your car, you were given a tape recorder that you would listen to the narration as it went through y'all this was innovative, cuz you know, now we just have, you know, streaming or there's a FM radio that you could plug in and tune to the right station and listen to a story, which is amazing. But back then, it wasn't quite that simple.
Lisa : (09:13)
So the Sunday school classes, all you know, were decked out and I can promise you that any of those hundreds of people from back in the day in the seventies and eighties, they had a story about the drive through living activity and dad. And he was a forward thinker. He went straight to the evening news anchor person at the local station in Topeka. Kansas is the capital of Kansas. So it's not a tiny town and got her to narrate the story with him. You know, if you don't ask, you never know. And if you don't ask, okay, somebody says no, but if you don't ask, it will never happen. So go for it. So 15 years later, and I think they may still do that today, but I've been here for 30 years in Texas. So I'm not real sure, but that legacy has that story. And it, all of those people would have a remember that one time at the drive through living nativity.
Lisa : (10:25)
So when I started teaching forward thinking, I wanted my students way later in their life to have memories like that, where they would say, remember that one time when we had that kickball tournament and with real announcers and I got a badge from the coach, she gave me a badge because I was part of the crew. Or remember that one time a field day when we get to got our teachers wet or remember that one time where we had the jump rope contest or that one time we used pool noodles to beat on Lowe's buckets. And that was our fitness for the day. Yeah, we did all of that and it was all just because I wanted them to not have the fitness experience and learn about PE and have fun in class. But I wanted them to have an experience that later in life that they would look back and go remember that one time and smile so that my friends is legacy.
Lisa : (11:31)
When you can look back and say, remember that one time. So I guess go big, go big is one of our things. So here I am going big, going, bold being courageous and then ask, ask, cuz you never know the answer could be yes. And if it's no okay out somebody to ask somebody else, then you have to think of the details to make others think it was their idea, but not just their idea. Make them feel a part of the whole thing. 22 years ago, I started teaching at an elementary school in McKinney, Texas, my brother and I had been DJs. We'd started DJing and we'd done dances, school dances like high school proms and homecomings and such like that. We'd done some for middle school. And I said, I think we need to do one for the elementary school. And people thought I was crazy.
Lisa : (12:36)
Why do we need to have an elementary school dance? They're not dating anything. No, it's not a dance for dating. It's a dance for fun and for families. So we created the family dance and we encouraged the families to come and dance together and have fun. So I had to teach a bunch of dances, group dances to kids think like Chacha slide and the Y M C a, but then I had to create some more. So we had content for the whole two hours that we were gonna do this. So we did it. The first one was a Valentine's deal. And I had 900 people show up to our first dance and it was crazy. So every year after that, that I was at that school for 20, 20 years, 21, 22 years, we had our dance. It was so fun. And I can tell you so many stories from each one.
Lisa : (13:46)
It moved from being like a Valentine's theme to, we moved to all kinds of different themed teachers know this. When you're a teacher, you don't just teach at school from eight to three or eight to four or whatever the time is, you have to involve everybody. And your family becomes like your extended crew, whether you're needing help, laminating or cutting out something or grading papers or whatever. Well, my family was the extended crew to help me pull off these big events at home. Now I also had crew at school, never did this alone. I had teaching partners and I had wonderful, uh, team that I worked with. But at home they were the ones that helped me foster and um, create and come up with ideas to then grow into these big events. My parents were always, always supportive and willing to get involved, whether it was my dad building some step boxes because we were doing step aerobics back in the day or my mom helping me create posters or you know, vision boards or whatever.
Lisa : (15:13)
But the dances is where the family came in and everybody kind of chipped in and helped create. So a few years into the dances that we did, we decided to have the fairytale ball and I of course, took it home to my parents. And you know, I told my brother, cuz he was the DJ for the whole thing. And we were partners in our and are still our partners in our production company anyway. So we talked it over with my parents and I said, well, I wanna make this really big this year, cuz this is our first time to go away from like the Valentine theme. So we wanted to make it real big. Well, so my dad said, well, how about if you have everybody be introduced into the dance, like a fairytale ball. And I was like, okay, so picture, you know, one of those old stories where they have the, the guard at the front with the scepter.
Lisa : (16:13)
So yeah, that was my dad and he was dressed up and he had his scepter and he pounded it on the floor and introducing into the thing. Well, we couldn't introduce everybody because there would be thousand people, literally a thousand people that would come through there. So we made a video and um, this was before live streaming and all that. And we showed it up on the I'm pretty sure we put paper butcher paper on the wall and projected something or something like that the first year. So we created this video of dad introducing everybody into the fairytale ball. And so my mom on her own, she kind of quietly decided that she was gonna be part of this too, cuz she was kind of a stand in the background when mom and when dad would be on stage or, or, you know, at the pulpit or we would be on stage.
Lisa : (17:06)
Mom was always right there in the wing with a big smile to cheer us on. Well she decided she was gonna get a little more involved and she was going to be the fairy godmother. So she had this glitter, I don't know, makeup paste, something or another that she had. And she had a throne over in the corner and we had a spotlight over there and kids just kept wandering over to sit and talk to the fairy godmother. And after she would talk to them about all their wishes and dreams, she would put this glitter on their forehead and say, and all your wishes and dreams will come true because the fairy godmother said so weeks went by. I had no idea this was going on because I'm over here doing my, I mean I knew she was over talking to the kids and, and such and weeks went by and kids would come up, oh the fairy godmother told me, oh the fairy.
Lisa : (18:08)
I talked to the fairy godmother and she said, and I was like, wow. Talk about leaving a lasting impression. And that was the fairy godmother. So later on that year, mom came up to school and one of the little first critters, the fairy godmother is here. So she wasn't in costume or anything. And of course she had to go and listen to some more dreams. And of course she said, well the fairy godmother hopes, you have a wonderful day. And she was all of these kids, fairy godmother. I will never forget that. And those kids won't either. And those are the kind of things that create our legacy. And those are the kind of impressions that I hope to leave on people along my way, who I meet, who I run into, who I work with, who I do my daily life with. I hope to leave them like the fairy godmother.
Lisa : (19:02)
I hope all of your dreams will come true. 30 years ago, my brother and I were camp staff for the Lutheran church camp in Texas. And at our, I guess the training for the camp counselor training, one of the things was, was talked about if we had an idea of something to do as an activity or something, you had to ask yourself three questions first, is it safe? Is this idea, whatever it is, maybe it was a game or a contest. Is it safe? Number two, was it for the kids? Is it for the kids? For them to learn something, to have fun, to have a memory, to have an activity? Is it for the kids and number three and it always was the last thing will I be okay? Am I gonna survive after this? Is it gonna make me crazy? Am I gonna survive?
Lisa : (20:03)
But that's the last thing the first was it safe? And is it for the kids? Those are two things that I've taken with me through my life. So as I begin this podcast journey, is it safe? Well, I guess so maybe somebody will listen. Is it for the kids? Well, I hope so. I hope it's for everybody. That's out there. Will I be crazy after the end of this? Maybe. I don't know, but I'm gonna give it a go and we'll see how it ends. If you have a great idea or an idea that you think might be great. Ask, ask, tell somebody I have a great idea. Do you think we could do it, ask who you need to ask and then go for it. And if they say no, try to figure out a different way, but that's how it starts and that's how we leave our legacy. Anyway. I hope you guys have a great day and thanks for listening. And hopefully I will be back in a couple of weeks and you will tune in again, have a great one.