Wealth of Wisdom

CHAPTER 17Practical Tools for Building Healthy Families

Christian Stewart¹

If your family is going to succeed over time, it needs to make itself into a learning organization. But what should you learn, and how will you learn together? As an individual with significant financial capital, you are in a special, advantaged situation. You can deploy financial capital to help grow your family's qualitative capital. If you have not been doing this to date, you and your family can start a learning journey together of figuring out how to invest financial capital to grow the other forms of capital. Improving trust and communication and helping family members acquire related skills is a critical part of this investment and a key topic for family learning and development. This chapter summarizes specific skills, practices, and resources that can be included in your learning and development curriculum.

Work on Yourself

There are two perspectives to consider as you read this chapter. The first is your individual perspective.

What can you do as an individual to improve the way you communicate and collaborate? The best lever for change within a family is to change the one person you can control—yourself. As a family leader, if you put a focus on your change efforts, you will also provide a role model for everyone.

What would best support you in your own learning and development efforts? Options include reading, enrolling in external learning programs, and engaging a coach or a counselor ...