Systems For Success

How do you develop strong relationships that keep the family thriving for generations? David Bentall joins me today to bring some insight into just that with his years of multi-generational family business experience! For more than two decades, David worked in his family’s real estate and construction business, and during his tenure as President and CEO of Dominion Construction, the family business doubled in size with almost $300,000 in sales! As the successor of such a thriving business, he’ll share with us his experience as the NextGen leader, the appointed president who guided his family, and the owner who sold his shares then worked for the next family. So if you too want to build a business set to last for generations after you, this episode is perfect for you!   Listen as we draw out David's experience as a NextGen leader on: Choosing mentors and heroes that effectively inspire and guide family business leaders. Developing emotional intelligence in next-gen family leaders. Fostering the 9 family leade

Learn how to build your family’s relational bank account as Tim and Michelle share how to create healthy boundaries between family members, how to create a cadence of communication in the extended family, and how to deal with failure both in your personal life and in business in a way that helps you and your kids see it as a growth opportunity. This is a rare opportunity to hear the wisdom Tim and Michelle Seneff are gaining as they learn to navigate challenging business and family transitions and intergenerational family dynamics in a way that brings deeper meaning and even joy. Tim Seneff worked up through the ranks of the private investment firm his father started. He eventually becomes President of CNL Financial Group which has formed or acquired companies with assets of over $25 billion. But everything started to change when a significant health crisis shifted his perspective and the focus he wanted for his wife and five kids. This forced them to grapple with two critical questions:  What happens when th

2020 was a crazy year that gave us unique opportunities for profound learnings that can only happen when life is disrupted.  We all learned more about ourselves, our relationships, our purposes and our values.  Join our family as we gather around the table to share some of our highest impact learnings from challenging circumstances, accomplishments and mistakes.   This entry from one of Lachelle’s 2020 reflection may give you some encouragement on your journey:  When the world is chaos, when the boat is being rocked and the waves and the wind are large and wild, I have found my footing. I'm proud of us and proud of me. I love what we've created in our little family, how we see the world, the joy that keeps us going.  We look for beauty. We are able to be flexible.  We grieve and grow, but we don't stay low.  We rest and we go.  We create the experiences and work towards the attitudes we want to keep, that serve our lives.  We are certain of our foundation, the solid rock. He is unshakable and has proven such

This is a rare opportunity to sample the secrets of multigenerational families from the leader of a successful billion dollar a year 120-year-old family business with 341 family member shareholders. What Are the Traits of a Successful Multigenerational Generation Family? They know the family story. They know who they are. They are clear on their values and live them out. They understand trust is important within the family and reinforce that through words and   actions. They are clear on the direction they want to go as a family and move in that direction. Each successive generation is empowered to design their own destiny, building on the strengths and values of the prior generations. They value family unity and affirm each family member, but don’t endorse behavior contrary to family values. They intentionally nurture good relationships amongst all members of the family, regardless of differences. They make sure spouses of family members, and adopted children, feel like family by blood. How to Develop the

This is a golden opportunity to hear the author of, How to Make Your Family Business Last, Mitzi Perdue, distill a combined 280 years of her own family’s culture-building wisdom into one hour. You’ll gain real life lessons and gain practical tools you can use to create and maintain a healthier family culture that could endure for generations. Mitzi combines the experiences of two long-time family businesses: her father Ernest Henderson co-founded the Sheraton Hotel Chain and her late husband Frank Perdue was the second generation in the poultry company that today operates in more than 100 countries. You’ll be captivated by Mitzi’s genuine passion to share practical tips and tools that have helped her two long-running families flourish together for more than seven generations.  “When family members love, support, and encourage each other, there is a flourishing of the human soul that is incomparable.” — Mitzi Perdue Episode Highlights: Developing family traditions and gatherings that keep the family together

The world has forever changed. It’s time to catch the current and make your own wave.  What can you learn from the currency of success patterns from the past that will help you adapt to and succeed in a post-COVID-19 world? Learn how you can accelerate the innovation of a more ideal future—now and beyond the current challenges—by adapting past learnings to current realities.  Gain valuable insights from Kevin McGovern who has founded over 25 companies, six of which have become world/category leaders (such as SoBe Beverages), and has been lead negotiator/principal in over 15 global joint ventures.  Learn from the experience of a super successful, seasoned entrepreneur and how he is applying the lessons he has learned from his past onto the future of his investments, businesses, and well-being of his family! Find out how you can catch the current and make your own wave to make a positive impact on the world! Episode Highlights: Kevin shares his process of applying specific entrepreneurial learnings and life ex

Developing and preserving family wealth and strong values takes great effort. What can you do to make sure your next generations are building on what’s important to your family rather than blowing it? Why is the most common pattern “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”?  Most families within one generation develop tangible and intangible values they are proud of. But all too often that which is valuable to one generation is not effectively transferred to future generations. In this episode, we’ll introduce you to two families that have managed to pass various forms of wealth to six or seven generations, including family businesses that have endured for over 200 years. Pierre DuPont shares a real-life case study of hard-earned lessons from his family which has been one of the wealthiest families in America for many generations. You’ll gain great wisdom from his intention to help other families and business leaders create a more positive, multi-generational legacy. Learn from the experience of wor

Never before have so many families struggled with incorporating what happens in business with what happens in the home. The pursuit of work-life integration has become more important now than ever.  But what exactly, does that mean, and how do you do it? Business can be an endlessly fascinating subject that encourages the exchange of ideas and eager discussions about the future. Or the constant demands of business creeping into the home can cause undue stress in the family and disintegrate relationships. How do you deal with the reality that the responsibilities of business can sometimes feel more urgent than the important everyday needs of your family?  How do you bring your work life into your home life in a way that is healthy for you and your family?  Join us in this episode as our family discusses how you can integrate your work into your family in ways that benefit both your business and your marriage. Find out how you can create healthy boundaries, support each other’s goals and use your work as an opp

Relationships are the greatest treasure in life that we could ever have. In this episode, you’ll learn how you can improve your relationship with your parents or adult children.  The quality of the relationship you have with your family does matter. Having that best friend type of relationship with your adult children or parents is one that you’ll truly enjoy for the rest of your life. Join us as we discuss how to identify and truly value the differences in each family member, how we can appreciate them through a love language that they speak and keep a mindset of grace. Find out how you can overcome challenges between adult-children and parent relationships, as we’ll also tackle topics related to forgiveness, honesty, and love. Episode Highlights: The friendship relationship between parents and their adult children Staying curious with your kids and having the same curiosity towards our parents Understanding and speaking their love language What it means to have a mindset of grace Thank you Thanks again fo

Nobody said parenting would be easy! Especially, when your kids are growing into adulthood. They are ever-changing, and everything happens very fast.  Are you being a good parent to your adult child? Are you still treating your 21-year-old the way you treated him back when he was 14? Many parents struggle to navigate their role in their children’s life as they transition into adulthood. Just like how your child evolves and grows, so should your relationship with them. As parents, you must learn to relate to your grown-up child appropriately. You have to learn to listen more and let them talk about their thoughts and feelings. How do you create a strong bond with your adult adult-children? Join us in this episode, as we talk about navigating roles and relationships between parents and adult children. You’ll learn about the common beliefs that surround the parent and adult-child relationship. As well as the 4 phases to intentionally transition our parenting approach throughout the stages of our children’s lives

How Mothers Shape the World Both our married children recently had their first babies—two beautiful girls! As I’ve watched these new mothers learning to lead our precious granddaughters, it caused me to ponder the power of a mother’s leadership to shape our world. In our society, we don't always think of parents as being equivalent to "leaders." Leaders, we believe, are heads of state, prime ministers, elected officials, CEOs of powerful corporations, media personalities, and others. Those people, we think, are the real movers and shakers of society. Are they? In the organic cocoon of the family and home, character forms. And the character of each individual forms society. The person who makes decisions on war and peace in a political leadership position, the person who makes decisions that build or destroy companies comes from a home which shaped him or her. More specifically, that person came from a mother. One thing all human beings have in common is that we all had mothers. Our mother might have been grea

The Busy Executive’s Magic Elixir Exercise is one of the greatest systems for increasing your effectiveness as a leader in business and/or family. Exercise is so powerfully beneficial in multiple ways that it can be said to be the mother lode, the fountain of youth—the magic elixir. Physical activity helps you in body and mind. It is clinically proven to reduce depression. It brings clarity of thought and reduces stress, energizing you to function at peak performance. It can even improve your sex life! What’s not to like? Apparently, quite a bit, if we judge by the all-time high epidemic of inactivity in our world today. Physical inactivity is now one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The situation is grave. Yet we all know that getting enough exercise is challenging. Most of us sit for hours at a time each day: at a desk, behind the wheel, or on the couch in front of a screen. Even when we are away from work, we spend many waking hours in sedentary screen-facing as we entertain ourselves with Faceboo

What Will Your Family Look Like Seven Generations From Now? I was really on the hot seat. I felt like I was being interrogated! Almost a hundred people were staring at me as I stood under the bright lights. One after another they bombarded me with deeply personal questions like: "What is your deepest fear in regard to this?" and "What is behind that fear?" and "Isn't this really all about you wanting control?" I had to answer too. Was I sweating it out! The scene of my mental torture was a conference in Miami for families and family business owners. The facilitator of the conference had asked me that morning to volunteer at her session if no one else did. I had easily agreed. I am not uncomfortable on stage. I figured I’d be up there for a couple of minutes and that would be it. Simple. Yet the hour-long grilling was so intense, I wished I had never agreed to be a guinea pig! The facilitator has a proprietary system for how to solve problems by asking effective questions. The questions were effective all righ

Time is precious in our high speed, high-pressure world. We want to achieve more for ourselves, our families, and maybe for our communities. In order to do so, we need time, and we need to look for ways to maximize that scarce modern commodity: time.   We often try to beat time by spending less time resting. We eke out one more hour of watching a late night show or using social media. We fuel our tired selves with caffeine.   Such a lifestyle, though, hurts us in both the short and long terms. Less rest has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and decreased longevity. Studies show that losing as little as three hours of sleep in a night can halve the effectiveness of the immune system!   Too little rest affects our minds as well as our bodies. It can result in depression, paranoia, and even hallucinations. What’s more, we become irritable with those we love and work with. We lose focus. Creativity becomes just too big a hill to climb, subtracting from our joy in life and work.   Let’s think about the flip side

With the start of another new year, many people find themselves making health goals, from fitness to diet, to sleep or earlier mornings. This fascination with health related New Year’s resolutions may be the result of two back to back holidays when most people eat too much, do too little and feel too bad. Or maybe we all have the inherent conviction that the best way to improve our lives is to start by improving our health. And the start of a new year gives us the perfect launching point to begin new health journeys. My wife and I have found ourselves focusing more on our daily health practices over the years as we need increased energy and effectiveness for our busy family and business lives. We’ve found that abundant health doesn’t come from just focusing on one or two areas at a time but by making continual progress in 8 areas that foster wellness, vitality and ultimately effectiveness. Prioritizing Health with a Busy Schedule  With busy families, businesses, jobs, social activities and causes...and throug

An inside look at what inspires us, what we are learning and how we’re planning to support each other's progress in this new year. This round table discussion takes place right after we did our 2019 annual family goal setting retreat.   A Powerful Philosophy of Progress Research shows that 80% of people give up on their New Year's resolutions by about the 2nd week of February!  The reason? What most people call 'resolutions' are really just desires or fun things they wish would happen. The majority of people don't actually "resolve" or declare a new standard of intent that is backed with a specific plan to accomplish it. Why do we make these new resolutions or goals at the beginning of a new year?  Because the date on the calendar makes us feel like it is time for a  fresh start.  And it is a good opportunity to reflect on the last year and set some new intentions for the next year. But what makes us happy is not setting new goals once a year.  What makes us happy is the process of making regular progress on

Realizing Dreams: Reality Show Round Table Our family is launching an experiment called Fulcrum, a business that we think will make a difference in our city. We thought we'd share a bit about it with you and most importantly give you an inside scoop into the process as we will be on a learning curve and we hope that this will encourage some of you either as individuals, as families or a group of friends to dream great dreams that you think will make a difference in your world, your community and your city and take action to start pursuing those dreams. Overview of Fulcrum Fulcrum is a movement in the city of Yakima that we hope will bring creative people together to live, to work, to learn, play and build innovative solutions that will benefit our city and our county and ultimately the world. Fulcrum is a movement in the community of Yakima that brings creative people together to live, work, learn and play while they build innovative solutions that will benefit our valley and the world. The Fulcrum building

Hi Systems for Success Family! Well we just finished the 2018 midterm elections and it seemed there was more focus and more debate generated by these elections than any I remember in many years.  And some of the conversations and debates around this have made me want to address something in this episode that I think is really important to the future of this country.   I had a conversation with one millennial recently who was really frustrated with some of their friends for thinking they could just not vote and still complain about the way things were going…or that other of their friends could vote for politicians and policies that focused on increased government control, taxes and redistribution of wealth and still expect to see the same abundance for their kids as they experienced.  Then there was a public opinion poll from Harvard's Institute of Politics, that came out right before the elections that said likely voters claimed to favor socialism over capitalism by something like five points, and the majorit

How to Examine and Take Control Your Life   Most people begin their lives reacting to whatever life does to them. This may be okay for an infant. But as adults, it’s important to develop the skills required to examine our lives, cultivate our personal values and make decisions that reflect those values. Many people find themselves reverting back to this reactive state in adult life because they aren’t intentional about making decisions and evaluating the outcomes of those decisions.   I love how Tony Robbins explains life. He uses the metaphor of a raging river to describe life. You can read more from his book, Awaken The Giant Within. And this is what he said:   “Too many of us don’t make the majority of our decisions consciously...in so doing, we pay a major price. In fact, most people live what I call ‘The Niagara Syndrome’. I believe that life is like a river and that most people jump on the river of life without ever really deciding where they want to end up. So, in a short period of time, they get caugh

I’m going to do a little rant today on a subject that impacts every single one of you every single day.   The success of individuals, families, companies, and nations rises and falls on this subject.  This subject is often not talked about much in the home…sometimes as hush hush or as embarrassingly glossed over in homes and schools as the birds and the bees.  Yet our understanding of this subject has a significant influence on the height of our happiness, the breadth of our impact on the world and the depth of our bank account.   Wanna know what the subject is? Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s a one-word answer. Money. Okay, when I say that word, “Money” what thoughts come to your mind? What emotions fill your heart? I was raised in a religious environment where the prevailing notion about money was that it was somehow evil or at least that it caused a lot of bad things. I actually had a mindset that was a bit afraid of it or at least afraid of having too much of it and I didn’t even know how to define what too muc