Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Emily McIntyre

Wendy Smith, co-founder of Future Legacies LLC, gave the Lord an ultimatum while sitting in her vehicle in the Bevill State Community College parking lot, moments before going to speak to 400 high school students from Walker and surrounding counties.

“I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘I have coached thousands of entrepreneurs and professionals, what do I know about coaching teenagers? If I crash and burn in here, I am done, God,’” Wendy remembers. “I’m not going to be working with teenagers anymore.”

 What had begun as an invitation to teach one class of night school developed into weeks of Wendy teaching local students. Her sessions were so well-received that the Upward Bound Program invited her back to be the keynote speaker for The Great Escape, an event hosted by BSCC that centered around pushing students toward college or trade school.

 Wendy was 20 or 30 minutes into her motivational speech when a teenage boy stood up, pushed his way to a center aisle of the auditorium, and called to Wendy, beckoning her to come to him. Not wanting to lose the crowd, Wendy played along and walked as she was being summoned.

The teenager caught Wendy off guard when he gave her a bear hug and whispered in her ear, “You’re doing great. You’re telling our story. Keep telling it.”

 The young man had no idea about Wendy’s parking lot ultimatum. Instead, he was Wendy’s Macedonian Call, and what seemed to be an interruption at the time was actually God shifting Wendy’s heart from being solely focused on corporate America to including the next generation in her presentations.

 “And at that moment, I just knew I couldn’t stop working with teenagers,” said Wendy. “It’s funny how things work out. You can have your future reach out, grab you, give you a hug, and make you feel very welcome, to the point you can’t resist it.”

 Now Wendy’s curriculum and her story provide hope and strategies for high school students of all types, including those whose parents are struggling. Her story resonates with so many students because their experience mirrors her childhood growing up in Nauvoo, Alabama.

 Wendy is an overcomer. Her story reveals to high school students, and adults as well, an abundant life beyond the crushing and heartbreaking cycle of addiction and abuse.

 “I hate to say how challenging that world was, but I think people need to hear success stories like mine and my stepmom’s, the woman who raised me. They need to hear triumphant stories of those in the community who didn’t repeat the cycle of addiction and abuse,” she said.

 Wendy was five years old when her biological mother gave up her parental rights. She relates that her birth mom was an alcoholic and addict, and her father struggled with drug addiction that got worse over time. Both of her parents were in and out of prison. 

 Ultimately, compassion was the force needed to set a new trajectory for Wendy’s life, and the woman who raised her saw value when she “chose to love a scrawny six-year-old girl and her baby brother.”  

 Her stepmom, a success story within herself, was a strong woman who instilled within Wendy at the age of 6 the courage, intuition, grit, and vision necessary to break through the challenging world formed by neglect and drug addiction. A mom of three, she went from working for minimum wage to becoming an award-winning regional manager with only a high school diploma. All the while, she was navigating the challenges at home.

 “One day, I asked my stepmom how she had been so successful in her career, with no college and having not worked for 15 years while raising someone else’s children,” said Wendy. “She thought about it for a minute and said, ‘I try to always leave people better than I found them.’”

 Her stepmom’s answer provided the philosophical framework for Wendy’s current business endeavors, as she and the Future Legacy® team help individuals and work teams across the U.S.

 “Adult or teen, each of us have a story. It is what we were born into, blessed with or burdened with,” adds Wendy. “I call it your inherited legacy.” “

 Inherited legacy” is a term Wendy coined while teaching students who attend the night school in Jasper. She needed a phrase to help them grasp their situation’s injustice and begin to reimagine their future.

 “You didn’t have a say in the circumstances that you were born into and grew up in. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t get to pick your parents, your schoolteachers, or what demographic you grew up in. You don’t get to choose those things,” says Wendy. “But you can choose how you use every piece of that inherited legacy to make yourself stronger, wiser, and more resilient. You can use that as fuel to build your Future Legacy. Which is where the name of the company comes from.”

Before forming Future Legacies LLC with her business partner, Krista Hawkins, Wendy spent 16 years as a leadership and business coach for a Fortune Top 50 company. She graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration from Birmingham-Southern College in 2000.

These two highly qualified women, who had worked together for years in corporate America, decided to start their brand. They had similar core values and future goals, and both wanted the freedom to spend more time with their families.

Future Legacies LLC is actually three separate companies underneath a singular umbrella. Future Legacy Partners, Future Legacy Leaders, and Future Legacy Wellness are designed to equip clients with the necessary tools and education to build and enjoy entrepreneurial and professional success, health and wellness, and an abundant life.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have grown every year we've been in business and looking to scale that further in 2022,” says Wendy. “A root system is in place to continue to grow and expand. I don’t want to pretend that I know what the future holds, but I know that everyone on our team is willing to work really hard, love people, and leave them better than we found them.” 78 

 For more information about Future Legacies, please visit www.ourfuturelegacy.com.