Our Family Startup: Building Families that Last
By: Matthew Wood
Tags: Relationships, Love, Happiness, Purpose, Family

“Above all, there was the ability to build and build and build-never stopping, never looking back, never finishing-the institution … In the last analysis, Walt Disney’s greatest creation was Walt Disney [the company].”

- Richard Schickel, The Disney Version (this quote also appears in Built to Last by Jim Collins.)

Built to Last. I read Jim Collins’ business classic during my JD/MBA program as I attempted to take a fledging nonprofit a small group of friends and I founded a few years before and transform it from an abstract idea to a lasting institution. I became obsessed with the idea that there was a formula — a method — that if implemented in the exact right way, in the exact right order, it would ensure that not only this idea, but any other idea I pursued with passion, would lead to success. I poured over countless books, devoured business case studies, absorbed lectures on business and law, desperately seeking this recipe for success.

But, I never did find that magic formula. Our nonprofit closed its doors after four years. My other ventures did little more than fill my Google Drive with business plans and “global expansion” strategies that lived in the stars of my mind. But with each failure, I picked up a lesson here, a principle there, learning from the painful experience of devoting yourself tirelessly to a concept only for it not to work as the result of simply a bad idea or, the more likely scenario, a lack of drive and discipline to bring it to life.

While I pursued this entrepreneurial dream, my wife and I were also embarking on a venture of our own: our family. After seven years together, we were married just 5 months after I graduated from the JD/MBA program, and we made a commitment to love one another and be true to each other for as long as we both shall live.

How do you build a family that lasts? How do you build a family of enduring love and happiness? How do you fall more in love each day? How do you build a family that continuously makes progress toward its ultimate goal of discovering everlasting happiness?

As we set sail on this new adventure, my entrepreneurial desire to find a formula that worked, to build the idea machine that turned concepts into reality, bled over into our family life. I didn’t want just an average family; I wanted an extraordinary one. I wanted a family so full of love and laughter that we would challenge the best of fairy tales. But how?

I didn’t know where to begin, so I followed the same process I did in school. I read a lot of books, listened to podcasts and videos and even priests talk about marriage (an odd resource given the facts of the matter), and despite the search, I noticed a disconnect between my startup and family pursuits.

So much of the family and marriage advice was about avoiding disaster and the “five steps to avoid divorce.” That made no sense to me. That’s like starting a business with the sole purpose of avoiding bankruptcy. I didn’t want to avoid a shipwreck; I wanted to sail to the horizon, with my family on board, and the map provided simply didn’t get me to where I wanted to go.

So I turned to resources that had worked for me — that spoke to me — that I understood and believed in after testing firsthand. I starting pulling in principles like purpose, core values, and culture to our family life. My wife quickly jumped on board to this unconventional approach and started applying lessons from thought leaders like Brené Brown and the Dalai Lama. We didn’t have the answers. We simply knew where we wanted to go, we knew the playbook provided didn’t get us there, and we were willing to try anything and everything if it brought us one step closer to our goal of everlasting happiness.

Our process was as follows:

Identify a principle or practice — stemming from a book, a podcast, article, movie, ideas from anyone and anywhere — that could have lasting, positive impact on our relationship or family; Collaborate together to transform that principle or practice so it could fit within a family setting; Implement the principle to our family; Refine the concept by routinely checking-in to evaluate the progress, keeping what works, and discarding what doesn’t; and Repeat.

We followed this process over and over again with a singular purpose of building a family of enduring love and happiness. No idea was too outlandish and no person too small or too big if they possessed a principle or practice that could add value to our family. We were like hunters on a mission desperately searching for tracks and clues that would lead us to the prize. Always in motion, constantly moving, never allowing ourselves to settle for the status quo or a family culture that was “good enough.”

And through this process of defining our goal and embracing the process of continuous change, we noticed we were growing closer together, laughing a little more, crying a little less, holding hands as we embarked on the challenge of our lives together, on the same team, with the same goal. We had taken the first steps toward intentionally building a family that lasts.

We don’t have all the answers. Some days are complete and utter chaos with one step forward and two steps back. But for us, embracing this process of continuous change to achieve our singular purpose has been the cornerstone of our family, and after seeing firsthand the joy and happiness that fills our home, we wanted to bring this to you. Not only the process, but also some of the principles we’ve learned along way to hopefully make your journey a little faster, a little smoother.

So what’s our plan? Why did we start Our Family Startup? “[T]o build and build and build-never stopping, never looking back, never finishing” so at the end of our days, “our greatest creation” will be our family.

Originally published at https://ourfamilystartup.substack.com.

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