A Family So Tangled Nobody Knows Who Wrote the Poem. Sound Familiar?

I had it wrong.

For years, I've kept a poem in my notes attributed to the wrong man. Turns out, so has most of the world.

William Henry Channing wrote it — Chaplain of Congress, friend of Thoreau. He died in 1884. Never corrected the record.

Because the Channing family made it nearly impossible to trace. Three prominent Williams. One uncle. One nephew. One cousin. One poem bouncing between them across generations until nobody could say with certainty whose it was.

A poem about letting go of ego. Misattributed for 150 years because its author let go of ego.

Let's read this together and see what we can learn for family business:

To live content with small means. To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion. To be worthy not respectable, and wealthy not rich. To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes, and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.

— William Henry Channing

1. "To be worthy, not respectable. Wealthy, not rich."

Character is the durable asset. Most business schools will never teach that.

In family business, we are constantly tempted by the performance of success. The impressive title. The corner office. The headline acquisition. The exit.

Wealth is not what's in the account. It's what's in the relationships. The wisdom in decisions. The wellbeing you can't put on a balance sheet. That is wealth.

Rich is what you accumulate and showcase in things. Wealth is what you build in the things you can't see or count.

Real wealth is not of this world.

2. "Hurry never."

Two words. An entire philosophy only family business would understand.

Don't compress the timeline of something that was meant to compound.

Our competitors have to hurry. They have fund mandates. Exit timelines. A bigger fund to raise. A 2% management fee to justify.

We don't.

We're compounding relationships and trust. Great things take time.

Hurry never.

3. "Let the spiritual grow up through the common."

The extraordinary doesn't descend from on high. It rises from the front line.

Greatness is boring. Greatness is found in caring about the ordinary, until the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Transcending generations is the hardest work in business. It's a spiritual journey. It requires grace across time, across personalities, across differing visions of what the family is even for.

It's not the logo. Not the building with the family name on it. Not the trophy case in the lobby.

It's the spiritual growing up through the common. Every single day.

William Henry Channing wrote My Symphony as a sermon. Something to give away. He never sought credit. He wrote something worth passing on and let go of the ego.

That's the posture of a steward.

He died. The words lived.

What are you creating that will outlive you?

Write your symphony.

Onward, 

Matt

P.S. — The correct attribution (if my research is correct) is William Henry Channing, not William Ellery Channing. A small detail. Let’s be more like William Henry Channing.