The Best Pitch for Family Business I've Ever Heard — and It Came from Jerry Jones

Fellow steward,

I hardly watch TV. It's a distraction from reading (for me).

But I had multiple friends highly recommend Landman. 

The first season captivated me. One scene stood out from all the rest.

Jerry Jones makes a cameo. It's a beautiful scene.

Jones has a heart-to-heart with Monty, an oil tycoon billionaire in the hospital — stressed beyond belief and noticeably alone. His kids aren't there. He's failed to integrate his family into his work.

 Jones notices only Monty's wife and key associate visiting.

He shows up to give his friend heartfelt advice.

The best pitch I've ever heard for family business:

…I made up my mind a long time ago that I was going to work with my kids. They're involved in everything. They're involved in my leasing, oil and gas, real estate. And so when I got the Cowboys, I got it so that we could all work together. I thought I was doing it for them, but the one that got the most out of it was me. You're going to be sitting here in a hospital sometime in the future, lying here sometime in the future, and this room is going to be full of your business associates and the people you worked with all your life. And more than likely, your children and your family are going to be there because they're your children and your family. But you could have them there because they're the people that you spent your life with—the ones you worked with, the ones you fell down with, the ones you got up with, not just seeing them on Thanksgiving and Christmas. That's who you want to be with. So when that time comes, it's a celebration of your life, and you're not wishing you spent a little more time seeing a few more suns come up. That's the trip. That's the trip. Because that's going to be your glory. I'm pretty proud of them Cowboys. I'm pretty proud of the stuff that we've done in oil and gas. It pales in comparison to how proud I am to have lived my life working with my kids. You've got a chance to do something about that.

Family business is hard work. That’s why most people don’t do it.

“Proud to have lived my life working with my kids.”

Read that line again.

Jerry Jones has always been strategic and intentional. His endeavor to be a family business is his most strategic move.

He's integrating his work and his family to optimize this finite time on earth.

I don’t know much about Jones, but this scene shows depth to his business empire. Jones fills his weeks with meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

Jones knows we only get 4,000 weeks on earth.

Keep this advice close in the good times and the challenging times.

There’s something beautiful about family business that can play a long-term game most will not understand. Our competitors measure time in fund cycles. We measure in generations. 

Onward,
Matt