Blake Brewer spends his days on a mission to inspire 1 million people to write a letter to a loved one that will say the hard things, mend relationships and build bridges to a confident future.
After dealing with the loss of his father, Brewer created The Legacy Letter Challenge to empower people to express their feelings in writing to their children or other loved ones to impact their lives and futures.
Brewer was swimming with his father in the waters of Hawaii when his father drowned. In the hazy trauma following the tragedy, Brewer's mother gave him a letter from his father that he had brought with him on the family vacation. At 19, reading his dad's words changed Brewer's life.
"Through this letter my dad was present for me in my darkest moments. His voice was with me," Brewer said.
Baton Rouge men and women have joined Brewer on his Legacy Letter Challenge letter writing movement, believing that a city launch will positively impact Baton Rouge. On Wednesday, Oct. 9, around 200 people gathered together at the Renaissance Hotel in Baton Rouge to learn how to write a letter. Brewer coached the participants in the room on how to format and draft a letter to their children or a loved one.
Not just any letter, but a specific letter to leave a legacy.
"Are you preparing your kids for the challenges they'll face?" Brewer asked the audience.
Legacy Letters Challenge launch at the Renaissance Hotel.
Sitting down to write something is daunting for many people, so Brewer and his team have broken down the process into eight actionable and accessible steps: introduction, apology, promise of unconditional love, declaration of pride, statement of belief in the other person, memories, life advice and closing.
Brewer emphasized expressing accountability for the apology section — communicating unconditional love and the pride of who their loved one is, not what they've done.
During each event, Brewer introduces each section and provides time for people to write a rough draft with the aid of the Legacy Letter workbook. The workbook contains room to write and an appendix section with character traits and phrases.
To prepare the workbook and presentation, Brewer used leadership and parenting principles from authors like Ken Canfield, Meg Meeker, Paul Tripp, James Clear and John Maxwell to help him develop the template of the letter.
"I know that this letter is, in a lot of ways, not easy to write," Brewer said, "but the reward comes at the end."
Baton Rouge city launch
Born in Shreveport, Brewer has lived in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, but he has many ties to Louisiana. Launching Legacy Letters in Baton Rouge included strategic business partnerships and a library collaboration.
"We want to create something that is sustainable," he said. "When businesses purchase our program, they are doing it for impact, but they also realize the value in it. The letter helps their employees grow in emotional intelligence and become better teammates."
Ben Brewer and Mary Stein work together to bring the Legacy Letter Challenge to the city through the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Library is partnering with the Legacy Letter Challenge to offer workshops, writing sessions and online tools to patrons with their library card.
Mary Stein, East Baton Rouge Parish Library assistant library director, said that the library's first interest in Legacy Letters was the opportunity to increase literacy and provide more writing opportunities for adults. Writing letters is a good exercise for people learning to read.
"We have a lot of adults who come here for leisure programs or business programs or consumer health and education wellness programs, so we already have a tradition of offering workshops and support groups," Stein said. "We intend to use the same template in the workshops in the library. The Legacy Letter is right up our alley, because it's achievable."
The library staff has attended sessions with Brewer, and they can provide support and instruction to anyone wanting to write their own Legacy Letter. Groups can go together to the library or individuals can attend Legacy Letter sessions. The library will also provide a checkout option for the online toolkit and webinar.
"The library's mission statement talks about access and connecting people, not just information and resources, materials technology, but also experiences, to make this positive difference in our lives," said Stein. "To me, it's about moving the needle forward and building capacity for our citizens, our community here. It's positive, it's intentional, it's real. It allows for real sharing, thoughtful communication."
Stein believes the power of the letter is that people can come back to them and read the words whenever you want.
"The very act of translating something from your brain, where it's floating around and constantly changing, into something that is concrete on a piece of paper is a transformative thing," she said.
Ripple effects
The day of Brewer's father's death was the worst day of his life, he said. But, his father gave him the gift of his letter, which gave Brewer purpose. From stages and rooms all over the country, Brewer now shares about the day he felt most alone and most vulnerable in order to spread the power of a letter.
"To come to Baton Rouge, where there are like 200 people sitting there writing this letter, creating this for their family and doing the thing that at one moment was just an idea is amazing. It's so rewarding to be able to honor my dad in that way," Brewer said. "The impact, the ripple effect of that is going to be — we can't even measure the ripple effect on the city."
Visit www.legacyletter.com/batonrouge for more information on how to write your own letter. A Legacy Livestream will occur from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 11 online.