The Answers to the 3 big questions for our family.

I got very excited as I do when I read a book and learn something new, to try it out. I had to be careful to balance out my desire to just do what I wanted to do with the need for the rest of the family to be brought along with me on my journey.

I gave a very brief summary and there wasn’t a huge amount of excitement, in fact there was a bit of resistance, surely we are already good with this, why do we need this, what will it help with? I was loosing my excitement quickly and getting quite disheartened – it was all going to be too hard.

I persevered and shared my thoughts on what differentiates us as a family.

“We are a bicultural blended family, that values connection, love, kindness and the courage to experiment. The anchors for how we live our lives is a focus on providing a central Home base for our extended family, building our faith, having fun, and constantly learning.”

This didn’t have the desired inspiration that I was hoping for, I personally thought it was brilliant. It wasn’t until I shared more details around how I know we want us to be able to have the space and resources to support any of our extended family, be that the kids, mothers, sibling when and if they are in need, that the vision was created.

I then asked the second question – what is our top priority as a family?
This was very interesting. We had very different ideas here. Which was when I elaborated on our vision, that truely did give us the clarity and help us be on the same page. Giving us a big dream and then the first steps towards it.

I got excited again, here we were on the same page, with the same understanding. It was a great lesson in building that context and the importance of wording the North Star in a way that inspires.

I didn’t quite get to the defining objectives, we have a couple but nothing in the detail I would have liked, that will have to be for next time.

And then there is the last question. – I might have to try and remind myself to bring that one up each week.

Book review – The 3 big questions for a frantic family

The book starts by talking about what a business does.

What is the ultimate reason you are in business – core purpose.
So you remember why you exist and give your employees a sense of purpose.

What are the characteristics that are inherent in your organisation and that you could not knowingly violate – core values
Don’t have too many of these, there are core values, aspirational, permission to play and accidental.
Just focus on the core values – what are true at your core and what you are now.
Aspirational values are ones you wish you had.
Permission to play values are often generic – eg honesty, respect, integrity.
Accidental values are those that exist but are not necessarily good for the company – e.g you end up with lots of parents with young children, or you have lots of people who are single and socialising.

What does your company specifically do and for who – business definition.
One sentence definition of what a company does with no fancy words.
Be clear if you are a product or services company.

How do you go about doing what you do in a way that differentiates you from your competitors and gives you an advantage – strategy
Purpose is to differentiate your company and defines how you are going to go about doing it. Guides you on how you make decisions and drive direction on your goals. Understand your strategic anchors – what are your 3 big areas of strategic focus – your pillars.

What is your biggest priority and what do you need to accomplish to achieve it – goals.
Prioritise your goals, understand what one is the most important. – work as a team and ensure everyone has a common focus. – Take 1 issue at a time and understand what you need to achieve your goal and what you need to keep an eye on to make sure you keep the business running.

Who has to do what to achieve your goals – Roles and responsibilities
Everyone knowing what they have to do in order to accomplish the goals.

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Then the book goes on to simplify these for families. The book has a downloadable supporting PDF that can be accessed here – https://www.tablegroup.com/product/frantic/

The three questions are – taken from the above website –

WHAT MAKES YOUR FAMILY UNIQUE?

The answer to this question should be two or three sentences that describe how your family is different from any other family in the world. If you don’t know what differentiates your family from others, you won’t have a basis for making decisions, and you’ll try to be all things to all people.

WHAT IS YOUR TOP PRIORITY—RALLYING CRY—RIGHT NOW?

Rallying Cry: The rallying cry is a single, agreed-upon top priority for your family over the next two to six months. Without a top priority, everything becomes important and you end up reacting to whatever issues seem urgent that day. Defining Objectives: Defining objectives are the basic categories of things you’ll have to do to achieve your rallying cry. Without identifying those categories, you’ll be left with nothing but a general statement—and no context for getting it done. Standard Objectives: Standard objectives are simply those regular, perennial responsibilities that a family must pay attention to in order to keep its head above water. By acknowledging these ongoing responsibilities, families will avoid being distracted from what really matters.

HOW DO YOU TALK ABOUT AND USE THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS?

The most important thing a family has to do to keep its context alive is discuss it in regular meetings. If you answer the first two questions but don’t use those answers in daily, weekly and monthly decision-making, it will yield limited benefits. It can also be helpful to “score” your progress as demonstrated with the green, yellow, and red color key.

I loved this book. – I loved the story telling way it is structured and the content in it. I am super excited to start trying this out with my own family.

Book Review – The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer

This was a very engaging book to listen to, I enjoyed the humour of the author, several times laughing out loud.

Some of the part that really spoke to me where about how “if the devil can’t make you sin, he will make you busy, you have to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life”.

‘Hope, love, joy and peace are incompatible with hurry, all your worst moments will be with you in a hurry. ‘

This got me thinking about how we rush and try to fit more in, we don’t take joy in life, we don’t just be part of the present moment, we are always trying to get to the next thing, we never give ourselves time to just be in the moment or just be with the people we are with. We have our priorities all our of order. We need to make time for the important things, eating right, taking care of our bodies, we have developed socially acceptable addictions like binge watching TV.

It is the fight of our lives, we need to fight to create structure and practices in our lives that create a trellis that the vine that is our life can be moulded on.

‘The things that make for rest actually take emotional energy and discipline and when we get over busy, we get over tired and don’t have the energy for our spiritual rest and rebalance.”

John talks of 4 practices to help with unhurrying your life.

• Silence and solitude (much like the modern day meditation)
• Sabbath ( bringing back a day of no work, no hurry, just rest and recharge)
• Simplify ( removing excess from your life – think minimalist)
• Slowing ( your life is what you give your attention to)

After reading this book, I found myself being conscious of slowing down in traffic, when I am in a line waiting, I would just wait and see what is around me, stop getting frustrated and take note of the world in that moment.

I am already pretty good at living with what I need, I’m not a minimalist in the extreme but I wear all my clothes, I wear all my shoes, I use all my kitchen items. I know the moments when we get too much in the house as I get the desire to get rid of things, I feel the unbalance in myself, my house loses it’s sanctuary feel.

My husband and I have talked a few times about keeping one day on the weekend free from activities, I am going to be more conscious of this, to have a day where we just relax and recharge ourselves. No work, no housework, just being with family or ourselves and enjoying the house or nature. I would also love to make it a device free day but that might take a bit of work especially as I love reading on my kindle or with audible.