A father's seven-line letter to his son
I was sharing with a group of family business CEOs recently how we Think In Centuries at Century.
We all agreed on something: family business is a gift wrapped in suffering.
We had some chuckles. The kind you laugh at because it's true.
It's a gift when we remember the game we get to play, and that we get to choose what to optimize for.
We don't have to play the game our competitors play. We're not a financial instrument for the fund. The world around us wants to run the finite game, the one with a finish line at the next raise.
The game we get to choose in family business is so much richer than the exit. It's the work and the journey in front of us, with our team and our family. The reward is playing the game for a very long time with people you like, admire, and trust.
I stumbled into a note, inside the incredible book Theo of Golden, recently that captures this sentiment of living a full, rich life that we all aspire in family business.
Here's the parting note after he passed away, written from a father named Theo to his son:
I am a grateful old man.
A proud father.
Press on, dear boy.
Seek truth.
Make beauty.
Live well.
I love you, my son.
Till heaven,
Theo
(He wrote it to his son. Read it for your daughter too.)
I've been trying to understand why this note strikes such a chord with me.
It captures a life well lived.
Grateful. Gratitude is the antidote to suffering. It's what unwraps the gift. It gets us closer to love.
Press on. The act of pushing through hard things. Hard things are what make us. If we never did the hard things, we'd be a fraction of who we're supposed to be.
Seek truth. A lifelong job that requires humility. As Anaïs Nin put it, we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. Our inner world decides what we're able to see. Seeking truth is an inside job.
Make beauty. It lives in the little things. The things you can't keep score of. The depth is in the ordinary moments, once we slow down enough to notice them. (I'm still working on this one. Trying to do a better job of hearing the birds, jumping on the trampoline every time my kids ask and hearing the leaves clapping in the breeze.)
Live well. This is the whole note in two words. Not live big. Not live long. Live well. The fullness of life is not something you arrive at. It's something you practice, on the ordinary Tuesday, with the people already in front of you.
Till heaven. The quiet reminder that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
This journey of family business is rich because it is hard, not in spite of it.
The suffering is real. So is the gift. Gratitude is what tells them apart.
Onward,
Matt
P.S. I keep coming back to "live well." The fund is optimizing for the finish line (exit). Theo was optimizing for the walk.