When things are not addressed...
When things are left unaddressed...
“The storm did not create the weakness in their family tree. It just revealed what they had been avoiding.
When the old pecan tree in the Durands’ front yard finally split, everyone walked out into the drizzle to look at it. From the sidewalk, it still looked impressive. Deep roots. Wide branches. A hundred memories carved into the trunk.
But up close, the middle told a different story. The trunk was hollow. Somewhere along the way, growth had quietly stopped in the center while everything on the surface kept looking strong.”
I keep coming back to that image, because it is how a lot of high capacity families feel right now. The business looks healthy. The assets are in place. The story sounds good in a shareholder letter. But inside the family system, there are places where things have stopped growing.
The first job of leadership is not to protect the image of strength. The first job is honest diagnosis. To name where the middle is soft, even if the outside still looks fine.
This is the opening frame for a new five part series I am writing on types of “trust fund kids” and what is actually happening in the systems around them, not just in their behavior.
If you lead a family, a firm, or a legacy, here is the question I would start with:
Where does your world look strong on the outside, but feel unaddressed in the middle?
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