Legacy isn’t just what you build. It’s also what you refused to break along the way.

Any account of a life includes the things that did not happen because you declined. Friendships you did not sacrifice, people you did not undercut, corners you did not cut when cutting them would have been easy. Those absences are invisible, which is why they earn no credit, and they are at least half of what people mean when they say they trust you. Restraint is a form of building.

Think about one thing you are currently tempted to trade for a result. A promise, a friendship, a standard. Decide in advance that it is not available.