Fame is the number of people who know your name. Legacy is the number who’d say it kindly.

Those are two different counts, and only one of them has much to do with you. Recognition measures how far your name travelled. Whether somebody says it warmly measures what being near you was like, and you can run the first number up fast without moving the second at all. That is why plenty of well-known people are not remembered fondly by anybody who actually worked with them.

The second count gets built in ordinary moments with people who can do nothing for you. Be useful to one of them this week with no audience watching.