The Legacy of Less: How Subtraction Became My Greatest Leadership Tool

By Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey

Subtraction Strategist, Speaker, and Author

I was 12 when legacy first became real to me – long before I had language for it.

That year, my mom, a single parent and self-employed massage therapist, made a decision that quietly rewrote my future. We moved a few blocks… across an arbitrary school district line. Suddenly I wasn’t headed into a building where overstretched teachers broke up fights between classes, where teen pregnancy was common at thirteen, and where textbooks were a luxury.

Instead, I walked into a nationally ranked public school filled with AP classes, jazz band, debate team, and adults who expected me to aim high because they were prepared to help me get there.

At 12, I saw – viscerally – how uneven the starting line is. Talent, brilliance, potential… all determined not by merit, but by zip code and the systems behind them.

That moment became the quiet engine of my life’s work: ensuring more people have a real chance to reach their full potential.

My career took me from Harvard Yard to refugee camps in the Middle East, from grassroots nonprofits to Fortune 500 boardrooms. Along the way, I coached thousands of leaders who weren’t just striving to succeed. They were striving to matter.

But while I was helping others rise, I wasn’t extending the same care inward. A period of profound burnout, a divorce, and a near-fatal car accident became my unlikely teachers. Each one forced me to confront a truth I had skillfully avoided:

Purpose without self-preservation is a slow form of self-erasure. Legacy doesn’t require martyrdom. It requires alignment.

So I began subtracting. First somewhat desperately, and then with growing clarity and intentionality. I let go of roles that drained me, habits that scattered me, expectations that weren’t mine to honor. And in the space that opened, I built Subtract to Succeed™ – a humane, systems-based approach to doing more good without doing more.

The method is simple:

Stop: return to presence and truth.

Drop: release what’s not yours to hold.

Roll: move forward in integrity with what matters.

This practice has helped thousands of leaders reclaim energy, alignment, and impact. But more importantly, it’s helped them stop abandoning themselves in the name of service or success.

Which brings me back to legacy.

To me, legacy isn’t a monument we leave behind; it’s the daily pattern we live into. It’s the compound effect of brave, aligned choices that say:

My life matters while I’m leading it – not only when it’s remembered.

Legacy is modeling to my clients, and to my younger self, that we don’t have to sacrifice our health, relationships, or humanity to create something meaningful.

We can lead in 3D (investing in ME, WE, and WORLD) without being consumed by any one dimension.

Who inspired me to lead this way? My mother, first and always. Her decision at 12 taught me that leadership is often unglamorous – rooted in courage, logistics, and love. And the mentors, refugees, executives, and students I’ve worked with have reinforced it: real leadership is relational, embodied, and purposeful.

My legacy, I hope, is helping others reclaim theirs – by subtracting what diminishes them so they can fully inhabit what they’re here to do. And if I’m lucky, some twelve-year-old girl, standing at her own arbitrary line, will feel the impact of that clarity… and cross it to write a powerful legacy of her own.

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