In theory, you can’t put a price on family happiness.
In practice, I think I can put a price on it.
I’m friends with a woman who inherited a billion dollars. Once, when I was mentioning to her that I was going home for Thanksgiving, she told me she would give up her entire inheritance if only she had a family to go home to.
She explained that she and her brother had quarreled. Their quarrel ended up in court, and they haven’t spoken since. She felt that the court case destroyed her ability to ever trust him again. But even so, she’d give up her whole inheritance to have the emotional support of a loving family.
That means, for at least one person, the value of a close, loving family exceeds a billion dollars. I bet for most of your clients, their deepest source of happiness or misery is their family relationships.
In view of this, investing the thought, energy and time to create close and enduring family relationships is as important as anything a family can do.
Frank Perdue understood this, and he wasn’t about to leave it to chance. Busy as he was building a Fortune 500 business, he still put tremendous effort into creating and supporting a culture of family cohesiveness.
When we were courting back in 1988, he told me that having a close family was one of the most important things in his life. People asked me if I was involved in running the business. The answer was no, but I was involved in something equally important to Frank: working to foster a culture that nurtured the family cohesiveness.
Here are some of the things we did that your clients might consider doing:
