Hard Pass.
My grandfather, “G-Dad,” wrote me a letter when I turned 16.
A gentle invitation to spend the summer working in the family business.
My response: Hard pass.
I loved hoops. Nothing else. The summer was all about basketball.
There was no follow-up. No second letter. No nudge from my parents on his behalf. G-Dad let time pass. He knew that pushing would have ended it before it began.
Years later, Novak Djokovic put words to what my grandfather already understood.
In a 2015 interview, Djokovic was asked what drove his exceptional success on the court. His answer was almost embarrassingly simple:
"I can carry on playing at this level because I like hitting the tennis ball."
The interviewer pressed him asking whether there are players who don't, he continued:
"There are people out there who don't have the right motivation. I can see it. But I don't judge."
There has to be passion to do something for a long time.
There has to be passion to be great. Being great requires taking the pain.
You can't fake the love of hitting the ball. Not for a year. Certainly not for a career.
My grandfather gave me the greatest gift a steward can give: he gave me the choice. No pressure. No guilt. No expectations dressed up as legacy.
So when the hard moments come and over the past twelve, they have come, I had no animosity to carry and no one to blame. I chose this path. I chose this as my life's work.
I love hitting the family business ball.
It's a calling.
A question for both seats at the table:
If you're the current generation: Are you giving the next gen the space to actually choose? Or are you mistaking inheritance for invitation?
If you're the next gen: Are you treating this work as a calling? If you're not, figure out what is, and go do that. Your family business deserves a successor who loves the ball. So do you. Don’t pick it because you think this is the easy path. (It’s not.)
When you love what you're doing, you can't lose.
You're playing the way you played on the playground on a Friday afternoon, the whole weekend stretched out in front of you.
Onward,
Matt
P.S. The hardest act of stewardship may not be inviting them in. It may be holding the door open and saying nothing while they walk past it. My grandfather understood the door.