The Family Board Meeting

Mike0:00Welcome to The Business of Family. I'm your host, Mike Boyd. Multigenerational wealth creation involves so much more than capital accumulation. The most successful families cultivate values, stories, knowledge and resources to pass on to the next generation, and they do it very intentionally. On this show I sit down with members of some of the world's most interesting business families to hear how they do it. To see where your own family stands, take the Business Family Diagnostic at businessoffamily.net.

0:42I'm so excited to introduce this week's guest who wrote one of the best and shortest how-to books that I have ever read. Jim Sheils was motivated by what he saw as one of the most tragic challenges of modern life, the disconnection of busy entrepreneurs from their families. Jim developed the family board meeting process to help business owners bridge the gaps between themselves and their loved ones. An avid surfer, successful real estate entrepreneur, and the author of the Amazon bestseller, The Family Board Meeting. I'm delighted to welcome Jim Sheils to the show. Jim, thanks so much for being with us today.

Jim1:25Thanks for having me, Mike. Good to be here.

Mike1:27Jim, you're a successful entrepreneur in your own right. Can you tell us a little bit about your real estate business and your personal story prior to writing The Family Board Meeting book?

Jim1:37Yeah, I've been in real estate investing. I went off on my own entrepreneurial journey about 22 years ago. And as anyone out there who owns their own business and is an entrepreneur knows, that's not easy. But real estate was good to me, worked hard into it, survived the crash of 2008. But about 10 years ago, I was going through a pretty big personal shift in my life.

2:02And all at once, here I was reviving a company through the 2008 meltdown. I was in the process of adopting my two oldest sons, which I'm sure I'll get into today. And I was just approved to donate a kidney to my father. And I think when you go through a point of critical on things like that, all at once, your values change, your depth changes, your awareness changes.

2:28And I just started to put a heavier value around family life. And that's pretty much how writing the family board meeting came about.

Mike2:35Wow, what an incredible story. It sounds like a moment of crisis that you learned a great deal from. I can't wait to hear more. Many of our listeners are founding generation entrepreneurs and wealth creators or their multi-generational families stewarding wealth for the next generation. Oftentimes, we tell ourselves the reason we're working so hard is to create and preserve wealth for our kids.

2:57and one day they'll understand the sacrifices that we've had to make for them. What's been your experience working with entrepreneurial families like this?

Jim3:07Yeah, unfortunately, Mike, that's what I've come to know and talk about in the book is the great entrepreneurial lie that we're doing this for our family, we're doing this for our family, and someday we're going to be able to give back. Someday we're going to be able to spend more time. The problem is someday never comes. And as you know, the name of my company for our family education company is 18 summers. Now the years are not all created equal. And what happens is there's some bad business advice out there saying you need to put your head down for five to 10 years, just focus on that. The other stuff you can come back to. And that's just not true.

3:42Family life is a fragile glass ball. And if you drop it too many times, it will shatter. And I think that a thing that people have to realize again, it was a mentor of mine said, the years are not all equal. There is a time to be building your business, but you have to be strengthening your family alongside it. You cannot sit on the distant sideline for years, and then you try to come back to it and revive it just because you have more capital to try to do so.

Mike4:08Interesting. And I think that's a common occurrence for wealthy families or even wealth creators and entrepreneurs that are coming up, creating wealth for the first time. Certainly, my experience reading your book, it just hit me immediately when I read that. So I'm really interested to hear more about some of the tools that you've developed working with these families to ensure that you can actually cultivate both at the same time. So assuming that money is taken care of, what is the next most important thing you believe business families should be focused on?

Jim4:41I believe people should be focusing on their children's education. The amount of change and shift that's occurring right now is just crazy. It's absolutely insane. And it's starting to reveal, you know, whether to default or not, traditional education is in disarray. We have pandemics, we have different things. And I always ask the question, what is school for? You know, I learned that from Seth Godin from a TED Talk. He asked that, what is school for? What is school for? And we all have to come up with our own definition.

5:15My definition that I've come up with, because we use a pretty alternative route of education for our kids, school should be there to help our children uncover and ignite their gifts and talents and prepare them for the practical affairs of life. And frankly, I don't think a lot of education does that. So I believe one of the most important things business families can do is start to fill in the gaps, start to get them that core curriculum that's just not being taught in schools.

5:45because that's what's really going to relieve some of the worry we have is our children are going to be okay once they grow up. Also, we all want to have a closer, deeper relationship. I haven't found anything stronger than sharing vital education with my kids to help bring us closer.

Mike5:59I'd love to explore that a little deeper. So you mentioned that you've got quite an alternative structure to education. Are you happy to share some examples with us about what you're doing and maybe what else others can adopt to fill the gaps, as you say?

Jim6:14Absolutely. Years ago, I did a survey interview with tons of my entrepreneur friends, just asking what were the toughest times that you've ever gone through? The toughest times in your life. And what I found was there was a matrix of about seven things, key things that we all go through in our life, but school does very little to prepare us for those things.

6:36You know, we're talking about things like going through periods of abuse, periods of unknown, periods of bad relationships, bad breakups, illness, death, and financial troubles. And I said, did school help prepare you for these tough times? And the answer was always no. And I said to these people, would you be willing to try to have your kids avoid some of these or at least be better prepared for these tough times?

7:02And 100% said, absolutely, yes. So what I found was with all the alternative education I got after formal education, there were three buckets that seemed to keep getting dumped into at specialized events that I paid a lot of money for going to mentors, and they weren't focused on in school. They were not even necessarily enhancement curriculum, let alone core curriculum.

7:22And those three areas were personal development, financial intelligence, and relationship skills. Those three areas are rarely focused on or even given merit in most education. And although I feel and I've seen now working with families for 10 years now, whether your child wants to become an entrepreneur or a doctor or an athlete or a dancer, these three areas will support them. No matter what they want to become, these areas will support them personally and professionally. So for me, I've given the awareness to my kids that I believe in the other school, that's important, but I believe this is more important because the odds are there is a way higher chance that they will absolutely use this than certain things they learn

8:09in school. So around seventh, eighth grade, I tell my kids, those are the core curriculum you should focus on and we give them some things to help with that because I know it will absolutely be used in your life.

Mike8:19Fascinating. And I love those three core curriculum that you focus on. Let's get into the family board meeting concept now. Can you share with us at a high level, at least, what it is? And can it really be adapted into a busy entrepreneurial lifestyle?

Jim8:39I look at my family as my most important clients, investors, key team members, even more so. And people might think that's a little insensitive, but that keeps me on my toes. These people are way more important in my life than anyone in my business. So I look at them as the most important investor, the most important team member, the most important investor.

9:03So that's a really important thing to do. And the family board meeting was designed to keep you in rhythm. without overwhelming you, because we want to have those moments of depth, that moments of connection. We don't want to get it to, oh my gosh, it's October of this year already, and I feel like I've fallen further apart from my kids. But we're not sure how to get below the surface. We're not sure how to stay consistent. We're not sure how to open up lines of communication. And that can be a real struggle. So when I created the family board meeting concept, it was done out of necessity.

9:34I was coming into the life of two young boys that I adopted, seven and five, and I was running a big business and I didn't want to miss the opportunity. I wanted to stay grounded and I wanted to have incremental growth. And that's exactly what the board meeting strategy was there for so that it wouldn't overwhelm. It would be potent and it would be easy to follow and understand.

9:54And now since we've done it, we have people writing to us that have been doing it almost a decade, same as I. And my wife says they seem to be our recharge station. With each one of my children, I come back from one of these meetings with just them, and it's a recharge. It's a reset in our relationship.

10:14And that's so important to continually do as you make this journey.

Mike10:17Certainly after reading it myself, I immediately implemented family board meetings. My daughter's a little bit young, but I implemented with my son and saw results from the very first meeting. and it was just incredible. And it still floors me how simple the concept is. Are you able to share a little bit of that with the audience now? Obviously, I want everyone to go and buy the book because it's an incredible read. And I think I breezed through it in all of one or two hours.

10:45It's short and sharp and to the point. But what's the high-level concept to whet everyone's appetite? How does this actually work in a practical sense?

Jim10:50Yeah, let's go through that. And the good thing about the book is if they decide to buy it, that's great. Because as you said, it's an easy read. I know how busy people are out there. I'm ADD. So being a busy entrepreneur with ADD, that's why I write short books. Mine gets picked up first in red because it's short and sweet.

11:10And it gets some, I think, some quick value out of it and action steps. And as you said, Mike, the solution doesn't have to be as complicated as we've made this problem. So I really wanted to get key fundamental action steps, principles that they could lean on. So we can talk about those now and I'll give it to everyone in a quick scenario.

11:29All I do is I have a quote unquote board meeting, an important meeting with each one of my children every quarter, every 90 days. We all know the 90 day markers and a lot of personal development things. And there's for science behind that we won't go into now, but every 90 days. So we're anticipating the next one. We're reflecting off the last one.

11:47You know, it's a really good way to come together. And there's only three guiding principles for my board meetings with my children. The first one is one-on-one. And if people hear nothing else today, Mike, I mean, nothing else. Just know that the potency and the power of one-on-one time is irreplaceable. It separates the parts to strengthen the whole.

12:09It takes away sibling rivalry. It puts the magnifying glass on a relationship in a positive way. I get one-on-one with each of my children at least once a quarter for a half a day. That is the founding principle that gives this results. That's what I feel. So I'm with them for a minimum of four hours one-on-one. The second guiding principles is without electronics.

12:32I'm glad I have electronics in my life. I wouldn't be talking to you across the ocean right now on this interview. But we have to disconnect to reconnect. You know, the studies are out there. We see the results of how often there's that quick buzz in our pocket, buzz in our pocket. And we honestly don't have complete focus quality time with our loved ones anymore.

12:54whether it's they are on their phone or we are so i have a rule on this no electronics my phone's going to be off your phone's going to be off now that my teens have them but when they were little obviously they didn't have one i said and we are completely tech free right now so we don't want distractions we're going to put the magnifying glass on the relationship right here and truly be here you know because if you know as well as i if i plan they planned a great day we get out there and an hour in i get a text that there's an emer work emergency i have now left the building

13:22I am not there and I've shown I care more about that problem than I do this beautiful relationship in front of me. So the second step is without electronics. And the third step is a fun activity of their choice with focused reflection at the end. And focused reflection at the end is just some time to talk and communicate.

13:41The shortest definition of experiential education, which I believe so wholeheartedly in, Mike, for learning deep lessons, instilling values, getting the best results, is experiential education is basically putting students in direct inspiring experiences and then saving time at the end for focused reflection, which is just time to talk and question to clarify those values, what learns and concrete the relationship in the day.

14:06So it's a beautiful way to put it together. And when you start to look at that, and if people are stepping back and going saying, hold on, so you're talking about every quarter, you get together with each one of your kids for a minimum of four hours, one-on-one without electronics, doing a fun activity of their choice, they plan the day, and you go along wholeheartedly, and spend some time at the end talking. That's it. And I say to them, that's it.

14:30It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. And when we keep that placement, one grows off the next, one grows off the next, one grows off the next. And I've seen results in my relationships that I talk about in the book and seen other families. Sometimes it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. It makes the time in between each one of these meetings closer and more understanding. It definitely has brought things below the surface. It's opened up conversations that would have never happened had we not set this stage.

Mike14:58Absolutely incredible. Can you share some of those results that you've either heard other families experience or that you've experienced yourself? Maybe some of the most surprising success stories from the family board meeting process?

Jim15:08Yeah, I think of a guy who a big marketing company and was going through a messy divorce, had two twin daughters, almost adult. I think they were 17. When he was getting the divorce, his business started to go down and he got a copy of my book and he read it and started to do it. Now these were twins.

15:35So he rarely had them separate, but he started to get to them in these separate meetings. and what came out of it from him separately from each twin was dad we never wanted the big business all we ever wanted was you and i think that gave him a reawaking in a family i know he's rebuilt himself happily remarried and still has a relationship with his daughters that's one that sticks with me then there's tons of ones that stick with divorced dads who you know really wanted to make the most of their time they weren't sure how to set the stage the desire was there but they didn't have a simple framework and they stepped in. And it's worked now for years.

16:14And then also my own story, which I know you read the book. So when my oldest son, who I adopted, my wife was in a very dangerous, abusive marriage, got married young to a high school boyfriend after college, had to get out of the situation, stood up for herself, got out and got full custody of their two sons. And I met her a few years later. They were seven and five. And we hit it off right away. I mean, famously. But there were trust issues, which there deserve to be, especially with my older son, Alden. When I came into his life, he was close to failing.

16:48The third grade, he was put on the spectrum for autism. And he suffered every night from night terrors. And if you don't know what those are, it's awful. Your child wakes up in a panicked state. It can take a long time for them to get back to bed. I started to have these meetings with them in that first year.

17:06And within that first year, my wife and I saw a shift, a total change. And within a year, he went from failing to getting this award of the most improved student. He was beaming when he got it. They retracted. They retracted the diagnosis of autism. It wasn't autism. It was stress-related. And they retracted that. And within one year, the night terrors were gone.

17:27And I would have given my entire real estate portfolio for those results. But I didn't have to. And I couldn't hand it off to medication or to counseling. There's a time and a place for those things. I believe both of those can have merit, but that's not what he needed. He needed to feel safe and appreciated with a father.

17:45That was that. And now he's on a trajectory that I wish I was on at his age. So that is probably my favorite story. That's probably the hardest one for me to tell still to this day. But it's definitely the one I'm most proud of. And when I started to tell that in little circles of entrepreneurial groups, they said, if you don't write this book and share this, you are selfish.

18:06So I did.

Mike18:08I'm glad you did.

Jim18:09Thank you.

Mike18:09It's an amazing story. You mentioned a couple of times there, inciting examples, dads building businesses. Is this book and this process just for dads? Or do moms and all parents get involved in the family board meetings with every child?

Jim18:25Yeah, mom guilt is just very deep, especially with successful entrepreneur moms. So this is for all relationships. Again, the power of one-on-one is huge. For a family, you got to separate the parts to strengthen the whole. So I've seen moms absolutely using it. So now when we started, it was more important for me because I was kind of the new guy on the block for me to get together with my sons.

18:49But now we do it with all of our families, separating those parts. So it's absolutely for moms. It's been used by uncles. It's been used by grandparents now. It's been used by older siblings with younger ones who have much younger siblings. So those principles can be shared around. And I basically have a board meeting with my wife every Wednesday.

19:10We do a long date every Wednesday with something fun that she has set up. Our phones are off and it's just the two of us. So that's what I do actually every week. But with my children, I do it every quarter. And I think this is something that people aim to do. I even know people with grown children now.

19:26They say, I can't do it every quarter. But they do this once a year, one time a year. And they've done it a few years now and said it's changed their relationship. Just this one day, set under that stage of one-on-one without their phone on doing something fun that's been planned in conversation without interruption, it's deep in their relationship just with one day in the year.

Mike19:46Yeah, that's powerful. I was actually going to ask a question about whether or not you've worked with multi-generational families or grandparents who have also utilized the method to build stronger relationships with the next gen or the wider family group. And it sounds like, as you've described, it's already happening.

Jim20:03Yeah, several, several.

Mike20:06One of the big things that we explore here on this podcast and in the related newsletter is multi-generational wealth and families stewarding businesses from generation to generation. And one of the critical things is that when you get to the third generation, there's usually so many cousins in the cousin consortium that few families actually manage to pass the business or the wealth beyond the third generation successfully because the family frays. And it's a breakdown of relationships, not a breakdown of wealth that is usually the story that plays out. So I think this is a fantastic yet simple tool that you've provided here.

Jim20:41Yeah. Yeah. And inheriting wealth is, you know, it is a big issue. And if there's not communication, there's not understanding, we try to throw money at things. And that is a really bad recipe. It's a terrible recipe. There is no substitute for quality time and communication, not money, not fancy private schools. And unfortunately, sometimes with wealth, we try to do that. And we hand it down without giving proper stewardship principles without giving lessons. And that's where you hear about second generation wealth going downhill, third generation wealth just completely imploding. And there are some things that I feel can be done to help. You can't completely eliminate, but you can help minimize the chances.

Mike21:28How do you feel about that on a personal level? How do you feel about your children inheriting wealth or perhaps the real estate portfolio? Is that a generational asset? Do you have a plan for your children in that regard?

Jim21:42Yes. What I've told my kids is our wealth is tied to certain core values. I will give you opportunities that I did not have. I will help set up those things, but I won't do the pushups for you. And our wealth is tied to certain core values. If you decide to deviate from certain core values within them, that's fine.

22:05But just know you will receive nothing. You will receive nothing. So I'm very clear on that because I love them too much and they know there's no bluffing in me. So if they decided to go down the routes of addiction or something like that, I will still love them, but I will not feed them money. I watched that happen in the affluent area that I grew up and it was a vicious circle that actually continued to spiral downward.

22:34So I tie the core values. They're going to work. They're going to contribute. There's going to be service and contribution components. And those are the core values that I've set. And there's not a ton of them, but there's a few. And if they deviate from those, that's fine. I'll still love them, but I'm not going to hand them anything.

22:51I think it was Buffett who said, I'll give my kids enough to do something, but not enough to do nothing. That's where I work, where I've told them, I said, I love you too much for you just to sit around. That's just not going to be. You're going to have your own gifts and talents. You're going to put them out there.

23:06I'll support that, but you're going to do the pushups. So that's kind of where I sit on it. I don't know if that's the most complete definition, but that's kind of my starting point for how I look at wealth with my kids.

Mike23:16It's a terrific definition. I love that. And one of the things we explore is family constitutions, family values, mission statements, things like that. And I love the values as the wealth that you pass down. I think that's a fantastic starting place. And I think that your children are in a fantastic position as a result.

Jim23:36Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping. I think that, again, there is such a desire to give and support our kids. And for people who are first-generation wealth, that can be hard to navigate. So the intention is always good. But I just was very lucky to see some examples of where an endless ATM machine for our children is not a good thing.

24:03I've never, ever seen it be a good thing, in fact.

Mike24:07We always want to give our children more than what we had, but it's not always the best thing for them. So I 100% agree. I want to get back to one of the things that I took from your book because I think it's really relevant with the situation that we're in now. It was a story that I read about a boy called Chaz that you cited in the book.

24:25And he responded to a question about quality time. And I quote, he said, Well, my mom works from home, so we really don't get the chance to spend much quality time together. That just hit me because I run technology companies. I've got the ability to work remotely. I typically travel a lot. And so when I'm not traveling, I'm often based at home.

24:50And I've always thought that it's an absolute blessing to be able to have lunch with my kids at home and then disappear back into the office and take the next round of calls. and I read your book prior to the pandemic and this big shift in everybody working from home. But I'd love for you to touch on that now. What advice would you give to those in the situation that are perhaps working from home for the first time, around their kids a lot more than they have been, thinking that that's terrific quality time? But as Chas cites, he actually thinks it's the opposite. Mom's always busy. She's working from home. I don't get the quality time.

Jim25:31Yeah. Well, that story has always stuck with me. And they're a great family. It hit me to the core as well because I, at that time, worked from home. And that was something that totally made sense. At first, when you said it, I'm like, that doesn't make sense. And then when I listened to it again and again and again, the live interview, taping, I said, oh my gosh, that makes all the sense in the world.

25:54because we're half in parenting. We're not really there. There's a quick, yeah, hey, how you doing? Oh, I got to take this. So you're not really there because quality time is more focused. It's more intentional. There's usually not that type of distraction. And so the stress of running your business, you make it happen. It can extinguish quality time, even though we're around them all the time.

26:19It's a very surface level. Again, I call it half in parenting. and it doesn't fare well. It doesn't give them a feeling of priority. And I think what people have to do when they're having to work from home is don't do that half-in parenting. Don't work puke in your living room. If you have your phone in your pocket all the time and you're taking a text right there, a phone call and getting on a heated business conversation in front of your family, you're intruding on pretty sacred ground.

26:49So what I've encouraged everyone, myself included, is to have a separate space in your home. I don't care if it's even a closet where you're going to take harder calls, where you're going to sit and do emails. You're not going to just, you know, impede over your family and do one here and take a call and be, you know, how dare them make noise in the living room when I'm trying to take a work call.

27:08You have to have clear lines, even if it's a simple little space in your home, in a closet. I even, for the first month of the pandemic, I have a 9 a.m. daily huddle with my investment team every day. and I went to the car every day because I found with four kids, three dogs, a cat, two rabbits, nine o'clock was really crazy. Everything was home. Kids were home. So I actually went to my truck in the driveway. And before I went back in, I'd take a few deep breaths.

27:40And does this eliminate all the times where we're not at our best or impatient or cranky? No, Of course not. But it does help alleviate a lot of it. Have that separate space. Take a few deep breaths before you reenter. And don't just be taking this over the family as you're sitting there. A text, an email, a Facebook thread that's probably not important. That does send a message.

28:03And it does give you that distance that our kids are feeling.

Mike28:03That's a great example. Let's switch things up a little bit now, I'd love to ask about failure. How has a failure or an apparent failure set you up for later success? Do you have a favorite failure?

Jim28:22When you have so many failures, it's like, which one do you pick off the menu? I think my failure and what I felt was a failure in the 2008 meltdown. It was an extraordinarily terrible time for me. I was heavily invested in California and Florida, which were on the the front lines of the issue. We lost 60% of value in a few months. We lost 40% of rents. It was a very intense time. But what I made the decision to do was I would sacrifice my own wealth to protect my investors. And most of my core investors were close family and friends.

29:00and that statement which we stood by survived when most people failed i think brought an air of respect and it also brought good karma to us where we survived so that that failure was very serious but how i handled it and how i treated my investors gave me a chance to trust my own character and integrity. And that brought me out stronger on the other side. So that was one.

29:31And then I remember one time, personally, one of my first board meetings with my second oldest, Leland, when he was six, and he had been afraid. I write, I talk about it in the book, and he had been afraid to climb the lighthouse. He did it. He was so proud. And we went to the beach and we're talking at the end of the board meeting. He said, dad, have you ever been afraid? And that sounds like something, you know, most of us guys would flex our muscles on and say, yeah, that's right. I was ashamed because I realized how do your kids relate to you if you're putting up this image that you've never been afraid, that you could take 10 bullets off the forehead and

30:05nothing will happen. They can't relate to you because you're telling me there's not a six-year-old out there that hasn't been afraid. Of course I was afraid. There was lots of things I was afraid of. So I started to say, oh, buddy, I'm sorry. I don't know why you might think I've never been afraid. Let me tell you about all the times I remember when I was afraid when I was around your age. So I think that was a failure of mine to set up this image or this persona like I was never afraid. That I don't think will serve the relationship or their true journey in the manhood. I said, of course I've had fears, but it's how we handle our fears and walk through

30:42them. So those were two failures. One as a parent, one as what I felt as a business owner that gave me the chance to step in deeper and had good results.

Mike30:48It's fantastic. And it gave you the opportunity to have that, I guess, as your focused reflection with your son.

Jim30:54Yes.

Mike31:01One thing I'd love to touch on again is the challenge that successful succession brings to wealthy multi-generational families. It's often these relationships and family dynamics that cause a destruction of wealth or a breakdown in the family. If we touch on adult relationships again, parents, siblings, spouses, I think the sibling relationship is particularly interesting and challenging as to become adult siblings living completely different lives, but they're tied together by perhaps an ongoing family business or family trust or something where they have to come together and steward something for the sake of the original family.

31:43Have you had any experience or do you have any advice to share for adult relationships in continuing that stewardship process in a healthy way?

Jim31:52First and foremost, I think it's probably one of the worst things that ever happened to business and entrepreneurship to try to force a child to go into the family business. Awful idea. I mean, it is so terrible and it has created so much strife in family life with good intention, but it's created really bad things. Don't do it. I have never tried to force my kids to the, to the watering, uh, trough of real estate investing. My oldest is showing curiosity.

32:21And now he's asked, Hey, can you show me how you're doing this? But I said, look, you're, your job. Don't worry about what I want. Worry about what you want. Okay. Do you hear me? Don't worry about what I want. Worry about what you want. What do you want to do? What are, where are your gifts and talents intuitively pointing you to go? When you give them that, they start to come up with some really cool things. But if I try to put them in a box and say, you're going to follow exactly what I did and what I do, man, that creates a seed of contempt. And that's not a good thing.

32:53So I encourage that not to happen. And secondly, I think it's okay to set core values and give no guarantees. And if you are going to have siblings involved with stewarding wealth, you better set up some really good guidelines. It's your job to set up those guidelines. It's like all of a sudden, if you and I are our brothers, Mike, and you think you're playing Australian rules football and I'm playing American football, well, that's going to cause some problems. So it's up to the coach just to say, here's the game we're playing and here's how it's going to be played. Setting some guidelines, not granular rules, but some guidelines. And I think when you give those

33:33guideposts, that can help the family a lot and set good example of not favoring one, of equal division, but also of core value. Like I said, I think one of the biggest ones where I've seen and unfortunately worked at a lot of people where they have not given the children the chance to work or to uncover their gifts and put them to work and they've fallen into addiction and they keep feeding them money.

34:02And I won't do that. There is zero bluff in me. I love them too much to continue to do that. I've seen that note. So it is okay to say no. It's okay to set money that you've earned around core values. I think it was Will Smith. He caught him and his wife. This was years ago. I had read about it.

34:20They caught their son bragging about their family being rich. And Will supposedly pulled his son aside and said, hey, I need to explain something to you. Your mom and I, we're rich. You're not. you're not rich now i'm going to help you with some things that i didn't have the opportunity to do but i just want to make sure you understand that you are not rich your mom and i are and that has stuck with me really really uh deeply because that makes sense he's not saying he wouldn't support but there's no there's no free ride it's not automatic that you're getting this we're going to help you with it but it's not guaranteed i think the guarantee is what's

35:00created a lot of second and third generation implosions.

Mike35:00It's a great story. And I love Will Smith. It's a great, great example. And the other thing that you touched on, having some structure, having some guidelines, reminds me of another guest we had on the show recently, Rob Robson, talked about four rules that he learned from Harvard Business School Family Enterprise Program. And one of those rules was structure is your friend. Yes. And I just think that's such a great, easy to remember quote, structure is your friend when it comes to planning family governance.

35:33Because oftentimes we shy away from that. We talk about constitutions, missions, visions, values, and it sounds very corporate. But those that do the work in family governance often have the structure to fall back on in the times when they most need it, when the times are stressful or relationships afraid. They've agreed the guidelines up front when times were good, ahead of when they may need them later. And it was just such a powerful lesson that I've always remembered as well.

Jim36:01It's a great saying. It's a great saying. I have a similar thing. I love that structure is your friend. I've been a big fan, as you know from the book, of the word rhythms. I love rhythms. That keeping of the beat. We put rhythms into our life. They don't put us in bondage. They free us. They produce more in life, not take away from it. When people say, oh, you're going to set a rhythm of going on a date with your wife every week.

36:30Yeah, I am because I'm not that organized. So if I set that rhythm in place that I know every Wednesday, 530 to 830, we're going on a date without the phone and doing something fun, just the two of us. I know it's there. If I sit on the calendar every quarter, I'm doing that with my kids. Boom. So there's a few rhythms I have in my life.

36:49And when I keep those rhythms, the beat seems to get stronger. And when I don't, things seem to fall apart. So rhythms don't take away freedom, they add freedom.

Mike36:59Fantastic. And I love that book too, Chop Wood, Carry Water. It's all about just show up, do the work, run your rhythm, and let go of the outcome.

Jim37:08Yes.

Mike37:08And it's amazing what you achieve.

Jim37:11Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Mike37:13I was actually going to ask about that next. Can you tell us about the process of using rhythms, lessons, experiences. Particularly, I'm curious around the desire to form lifelong parent-child connections. I thought that was something that when I read about it was really powerful because we're often looking at multi-gen, enduring relationships, both in business and family life.

37:38I'd love to understand the work that you're doing at 18 Summers and how families can put dinner practice.

Jim37:4318 Summers was something a mentor taught me. He said, Jim, this family stuff, If you're doing great, just remember you got 18 summers. He said, my daughters are still my daughters, but they're grown now and it's different. And at that time, I just adopted my sons at seven and five. And I started to say, holy cow, 11 summers left.

38:03And now he's almost 17. So I'm down to two. It goes. And the years are not all created equal. So he said, make the most of that time. And I even did research that showed the average person will spend almost 85% of all time they ever have with their children by the end of the 18th summer. because then they go off into their own part of the adult life and they're not around as much.

38:21It's just the way it is. And with being intentional, I think you can make the most of the time you have while they're still home. And that will set the stage to not have 15% of the time. That's the average. Maybe you'll still have 25, 30, 35% more time with them because you've set the stage to really be closer.

38:38And when I had to look at how do we help families be successful in business and successful at home, for me, it's been setting rhythms, sharing lessons and sharing experiences those are the three things when i set rhythms that are daily weekly quarterly in my family life yearly they they help bring us together they help keep us grounded they help deepen us when i've shared lessons like in those three areas that i told you about of personal development relationship skills financial intelligence it's brought us closer. And it's built my trust in them. They know there's no BS. I said, I will not lie to you guys. These lessons will matter. And they have their own BS detector. And now that they've been

39:21doing this kind of education for a few years, they have more faith. They're like, we get it. This does matter. And then experiences. I'm a big fan of experiential education. I think it's an incredible way to learn. So I always want to be creating experiences with my family, setting them up, having them scheduled, doing different things. We are definitely more of an experienced family and adventure family than we are a material family.

39:45And I've just found that there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone likes things, but I've just seen for the most part of the research I've done, it's the families that share experiences that are happier than the families that don't share experience and just have a lot of materials.

Mike39:57Really valuable lessons, I think, for the audience to hear. the final question that we have for you today that we ask everybody imagine you're writing a letter to your children what is one lesson or idea that you don't think many parents would mention but you consider important to understand

Jim40:14i'm going to go back to what i said before i think it's important for my children to remember they have certain gifts and talents that they'll be able to detect that they'll intuitively fill a pool for and i want them to have the courage and the comfort and the support to go for it. I can't tell them necessarily what that is. In fact, if I did, I could maybe give a little bit of observation, but they know what it is, not me. And I do not want, because when I've seen the breakdown of so many things, I do not want them trying to please me. And that's scary for a lot of parents, but I say it more and more to my kids all the time. When you're looking for a path of study

40:57or something, don't worry about what I want. Worry about what you want. That's what matters. And if you give them the space and the freedom to do that, I think they'll produce incredible things. So with my kids, I'll say, remember, you have gifts and talents. You have the ability to uncover them and ignite them. And don't worry about what I want. Worry about what you want. That's what I'm worried about. What do you want? I don't want to try to orchestrate it or put you in these strings of what I think. That would cheat it. That's not how you uncover yourself. You're going to do it.

41:30I'll support you. Don't worry about what I want.

Mike41:30That's an incredible lesson. I love that. Jim, I've greatly enjoyed this conversation even more than I enjoyed your book. I encourage everybody that's listening to order a copy. Like I said earlier, I breezed through it in an hour or two. It is short and to the point and super valuable. And I think the thing that resonates the most is the real-life practical stories that you tell in the book.

41:57A number of them hit home to me. And I think that's a really powerful way to storytell. So I thank you very much for making the time with us today. And I can't wait to share this one with the audience.

Jim42:09Great. Thanks again, Mike. Great being here.

Mike42:13Thanks for listening to The Business of Family. You'll find the transcript and key ideas from this conversation at businessoffamily.net, along with the Business Family Diagnostic. It's free, and it shows you where your own family stands. And if someone in your family should hear this episode, please send it to them too. I'm Mike Boyd. Until next time, take care.