It’s breathtaking looking at prices today and thinking about what things are really worth. I know, I know, worth is whatever someone else is willing to pay. What a bore.
But, what if you’re not in this to be a seller? What if your interest is the wellbeing of your family, and selling isn’t your end game? Where, instead, you’re caring for your investments, like your love for a child, in perpetuity. Would you ever sell your child? Most of the time, the answer is no. Thanks for the memories!
When you’re working in a family business, as I do, you understand the fear of disappointment real early. There’s nothing worse growing up than having a parent tell you: “We’re disappointed in you.” That’s pretty much as bad as it gets.
So, when you screw up in a family business, you don’t simply run the risk of ruining the day and leaving it behind at 5pm. You actually run the risk of ruining Christmas—for the rest of your life. And I love Christmas. So it’s serious business working in a family. Fear of failure, like it or not, is an incredible motivational speaker. It’s always whispering in your ear.
When I first started working with Dick, I’ll never forget the change in expression whenever we started talking business. If I started talking about a new customer relationship, everything else around us didn’t matter. Because that was the most important thing in the room no matter what. It still is, twenty-plus years later. That seriousness hasn’t changed one bit, nor has my fear of failure. There’s a lot riding on getting things right.
Action Line: That, in a nutshell, is what it means to be a fiduciary.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
