Monday, January 31, 2005

fambiz.com : Articles

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Time Well Spent

Good Sons are often the result of time well spent. Time spent in playful example. Time spent in conversation. Take as an example the way President Teddy Roosevelt spent time with his children.

In reality, many simple things go into making something of value. So it is with fathers and sons.

There is much that can be learned by the example of Teddy Roosevelt the father. As with any effort the results are what matter. It is in the results where Teddy Roosevelt the father may out- shine Teddy Roosevelt the President.

Visit The Good Sons Club Web Site

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr - recollections of a son

Saturday, January 29, 2005

When Family Is Important , Have an Important Family!

One part of the Good Sons Club mission is to wed the idea of family being important to having an important family. Meaning: that the family acting as a united whole is a conrtibution to a wider community.

Both, the Hershey and Gilbreth family examples illustrate this.

The power of a family to make contributions starts with family founders who have a big vision of what family can accomplish.

The Good Sons Club aims to find model families to use as insightful examples. We hope they serve to stimulate you to make family important and to have an important family.

You may know of family stories that we should include. Your contributions are most welcome!

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The Gilbreth Network: That Most Famous Dozen

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Todays Tools For Leaving A Legacy

The Good Sons Club will be on the lookout for tools to help you instil a family legacy of Growth-Unity - Contribution & Longevity.

Help is available with Legacy or Ethical Wills & Memoirs

Ethical Wills: Preserving Your Legacy of Values

Legacy Memoirs - Publish Your Life Story, Autobiography or Family History

Monday, January 24, 2005

Sweet Lessons From Milton S. Hershey

What can a childless couple teach about extended family?
  1. Hershey was himself the product of an extended family. Hershey's extended family, provided an appropriate amount of mutual aid and support.
  2. The childless Hersheys invested time, effort and money in developing an orphanage school. In effect, creating a family through a sort of adoption process.
  3. Hershey focused on efforts to create opportunity and deal with adversity within a localized community.
  4. The Hersheys used philanthropy to establish a long legacy.

The childless Hershey couple created a town. This should be sweet inspiration for today's childless couples. Inspiration, to provide homes. Inspiration, to develope dynastic thinking. A lesson in how when family is important, good sons develop important families.


Thursday, January 20, 2005

Milton Hershey School - Milton S. Hershey: His Legacy Continues

Milton Hershey School - Milton S. Hershey, 1857-1945

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

More on Global Extended Families

Adam Bellow author of IN PRAISE OF NEPOTISM points out that by the 1820s, The Rothschilds had five brothers, each having a "nominally independent" company in five different countries.

England, France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany each had a branch of The House of Rothschild. Bellow points out: "Capital was often pooled and directed toward specific enterprises, or to bail a brother out of a scrape, as Nathan saved James during the Revolution of 1830 in France."

The Rothschild brothers exercised a disciplined global extended family capable of taking advantage of opportunity and dealing with adversity.

Of course, this discipline was instilled by a visionary family founder. This discipline arouse not from a middle class, nor did it rise from an aristocracy. No, the founder was from the humblest of beginnings. The family founder was from a Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt.

Might there be some humble men amongst us, bearing many sons, willing to instill in them, the habits of good sons?

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Global Extended Families

Could The House of Rothschild be the model for future families?

The Rothschilds emerged from a ghetto to form a strong extended family. Rothschild households in foreign countries acting with unity for mutual aid and support. Using carrier pigeons ,like modern families use the internet, family leaders exercised influence over vast distances.

Monday, January 17, 2005

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Sunday, January 16, 2005

Questions on Family

Look, with fresh eyes, at all the institutions we participate in.

Look at Businesses, Churches, Schools, Clubs, Associations, Unions, Cities, States and all our Government Agencies. All have the following in common: All have an institutional desire to Grow, to have Unity within, all desire Longevity and all seek social and/or economic Contributions from their members.

Are the above institutional desires the logical elements of a larger desire? Isn't this the larger desire to have power? Power, defined as an ability to take advantage of opportunities & overcome adversity. Surely, we have that same larger desire for our families?

Do we?

Now, ask yourself. Do we have the same institutional desires within our families? As a society do we expect families to grow? Actually, we have come to frown on large families. Also, have we not come to live in silos of nuclear families far removed from our extended family?

Do we place a strong emphasis on family unity? Here do you see outside pressures and cultural attacks often overwhelming or interfering with family unity? Also, among extended family, have we not developed expectations of independence that emphasizes establishing boundaries? Have we largely achieved independence from extended family only to become dependent on largely indifferent institutions?

What about our expectations of contribution from family members?
As people are prepared to ask "what can you do for your country"?
Are we prepared to ask what we can do for our extended family?
Is either effort less noble than another.

As for longevity, have we generally stopped building expectations of long lasting legacies ? Is this not evident from how property, wealth and businesses pass on from one generation to the next? When we seek out our geneologies, is it for any practical reasons? If we do not have long lasting legacies, are there consequences? How can a family's legacy relate to their ability to seek out opportunity or deal with adversity?