How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. We work 90,000 hours in a lifetime chasing someone else’s dream. We have to stop pursuing what other’s think you should, and make our own purposes count.
You see it every single day: People working nonstop, chasing their dreams, or the dreams they think they’re supposed to accomplish. And they’re focused on that. And we forget that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. We all work for a purpose. And most of the time that purpose is good, right? We’re working to achieve a title, or to achieve more pay, or for pride, or to provide. We’re not working for nefarious purposes.” So what are you working for? Have you ever stopped to consider why, or for who?
For Stephanie Prestridge, it’s about the special moments with loved ones and lifting those around her. “I have this belief that my job is to lift and I emphasise that to my family, to my staff, to my children. Our job is to lift those around us. That’s our theme. Our family theme. My personal theme.” It can be lifting someone’s day, helping to lift someone’s burden, or just lifting someone’s smile or spirit. “And it has been my theme for years because, if we’re lifting up others, then we are living a great life.”
Stephanie says she’s blessed to be a lawyer and loves every minute of what she does, but it has its challenges. “I found that people came to see me because they were planning to die. They were planning for what could happen if they die, or what would happen if they die. And that’s important because those things do happen, but very few came to me planning to live. And I don’t just mean financial security or money. They were contemplating only circumstances that occur when death occurs, not what could happen if you live a happy, healthy, fruitful life. And it hurt me.”
People are concerned with how their estates will be divided, or they want a chunk of land or antique jewellery collection to go to this person and not that person. “I don’t know if they ever stopped to question why, but I did. I looked at them and said, Why? Why are we doing it this way? Tell me the story. Because there’s always a story. And what I found was people were using things to carry on the story, or to replace a memory. They were transferring a thing, not the story. Just the thing. I fell in love with the story and I wanted to be a part of sharing that - that the focus was not on the thing but on the story. Where people stopped to ask, Why? What happened? What’s your story with that?
I have this belief that our job is to lift those around us.
Saving the Dodo species Saving the Dodo species has been very important for the peninsular region.has been very important for the peninsular region.
Lineage is about living because if you are truly living you are changing lives one moment one experience at a time. That’s what Lineage is about. It’s about living, about experiencing and transferring those moments that matter because then you’re changing lives. Lineage is not grounded in ancestry or DNA or blood type. And that is what we think it is. Lineage is alive. It is who you are, who you were, who you will become. Because it’s living those moments you pass down, that ground your day, that give you the courage, the faith, the ability to step forward to the next event. It’s a living, breathing experience.” For Stephanie, we need our stories to ground us, to lift, to encourage and to remind us. “It wasn’t the China collection we received, and it wasn’t the piece of property we received. It was the story behind it. The thing is nice, but it’s the story that transforms.
Stephanie credits her grandmother, Flo, for prompting this change in perspective. Flo was preparing her own estate and decided to send out an email, requesting that her family members tell her what they might wish to inherit, but with a catch: Whatever they wanted, they had to include why they wanted it. And it was the most illuminating experience because I heard from cousins, aunts, and uncles. They wanted the dishes or they wanted this particular wardrobe, but they wanted it because it had this memory associated with it. And I learned so much about my family and how they saw events or how they experienced an event that I never knew, that I never understood. I might have been standing right next to them and I didn’t know. That meant more to me than the things that were transferred.
Lineage Lives is the medium Stephanie has chosen for us to share the stories and the memories instead of the things. I want to use this platform as a reminder that those moments, those stories, those experiences - good and bad, happiness or disappointment - that they matter. I want people to open themselves up to the opportunity to feel what they are feeling and use that to lift up the people around them.
I remember one morning getting up to make cinnamon rolls for my son. It’s the silliest thing! It’s cinnamon rolls! And I was thinking, I wonder if he knows that I love him.” Stephanie is always wondering if recipients of her clients' possessions know why those possessions they’re passing on matter so much. “Do they know what happened with that thing? Why that thing matters? Because if they don’t know why the thing matters, don’t give them the thing. It doesn’t matter at all. Tell them your story. That’s their Lineage. Because that’s what changes their lives - not a necklace, not a business, not a pie pan. That moment is what matters. That’s what got me here.”
There are moments Stephanie has that are worth more than any physical item she could possibly inherit, like the grounding part of her days growing up when her grandmother would reach over in the car and pat her exactly five times on the leg. There’s also her mother’s knack for always knowing when to bring hot tea and toast, which has evolved into the ultimate comfort food. “I associate that exclusively with my mother. Sometimes we were talking about really important things. Sometimes we were just enjoying the quiet. And I think that’s really important because there was a lot of fluctuation in our lives. We all make poor decisions. We’re having to live the ebb and flow of certain decisions. That toast and tea was like a deep breath. A gathering of your courage to meet your day or before you ended your day.”
With Lineage Lives, Stephanie hopes to build a community platform of sharing and engaging with others and their stories. “I want a community where all these different people find sameness. That’s the good we have to see in each other. I want a community of goodness, of conversation ... And have people cherish the conversation more than the thing because we are such a thing-driven world.” As for the Lineage Lives emblem, it represents many different themes for Stephanie - connections, embraces, lasting relationships and ongoing cyclical journeys. She loves that the symbol is met with questions, not assumptions. “That’s what I love about Lineage and about this symbol. People see it and ask, What is that? What does it mean? Well, let me tell you my story …”
Tea with toast, five pats on the leg, and a pie pan for cinnamon rolls. Those are all a part of Stephanie’s Lineage.
What’s your Lineage?
Lineage is alive. It is who you are, who you were, who you will become. Because it’s living those moments you pass down, that ground your day, that give you the courage, the faith, the ability to step forward to the next event. It’s a living, breathing experience.
A Piece. A Whole.
For every item purchased, there is a significant donation. Where too? That’s up to you. Lineage is a brand for givers, not takers. For those who value others, are most valuable to us. Lineage is for thinkers, that are also doers. There’s no value in thinking if you don’t act. Giving back is a minor act of kindness.
We cross many paths along our way. Making nearly 400 friendships in a lifetime, but maintaining only a handful. There are people that define your moments, and there are moments that define your people. Stop chasing new ones, and make the real one’s count.
If a moment drift by in a minute. There’s 40 million moments in a lifetime. I have come to realize that each moment is precious. To stop chasing new ones, and make a few of them last.
Where theres a wish, theres always a way. The thing is, dreaming has no age limit, and it frees your soul. It takes you places you haven't been. It makes the impossible, possible. If you could close your eyes right now and any 3 wishes in the world. What would they be?
How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. We work 90,000 hours in a lifetime chasing someone else’s dream. We have to stop pursuing what other’s think you should, and make our own purposes count.