Legacy Planning: Family Meeting Revisited

I listed my values (as brought up through this legacy planning process); I also quoted our "final" (actually, preliminary, first-draft-final) "Family Vision" statement as hammered out with the kids. I thought it might be interesting to look back on the "Family Vision" statement Sarita and I came up with (with a lot of help primarily from Terry Hunt) back on March 12th, and then, a list of the values (M's and L's!) of other family members (besides myself) that led up to our joint (all 6 of us) "Family Vision." I think it's interesting how and where various members' values coalesced and separated. . . .

So. Family Vision Statement as Sarita and I were able to state it on March 12th:

We, the Holzmanns, strive to live as a family iwth a purposeful and focused Christian culture. We value education and work that inspires the passion and skills for each person to pursue his or her Christian calling. We aspire to family harmony, consensual decision-making, and living life with integrity, balancing positive action, such as philanthropy, business decisions and intervention, with reflective prayer.

Honestly: I look at that satement and compare it with what we as a complete family unit came up with on March 31st, and I like our full family statement much better.

(Something else I should probably note: While Terry's influence was probably too great on March 12th [I think some of the slightly "strange" language came from his attempts to summarize what he thought he was hearing us say], when it came time for us as a family to come up with our statement, Terry had little if any influence. We really "did it on our own." Except--and this is why I mention it here--I want to acknowledge that I don't think we could have come up with such a statement on our own. What I mean is: We needed Terry and Greg--someone--to take us through the process. Even if we had fully understood the process, I don't think we could have done it on our own. The dynamics were different. We were able to speak with one another a bit more freely, I think . . . just because we had someone else lead us. If I had tried to lead the conversation, I sense, somehow, we wouldn't have been able to be quite so open . . . or something.)

Anyway.

And then for the other family members' values.

I won't reveal who said what. But I want, simply, to demonstrate both a lot of the commonalities and the differences.

Person	Most	Least
1	Relations w/ Family	Achievement
	Relations w/ Friends	Social Status
	Relations w/ God	Adventure
	Make a Difference	Career
	Approval	Generosity
2	Make a Difference	Passion
	Approval	Education
	Achievement	Social Status
	Frugality	Adventure
	Intelligence	Career
3	Relations w/ Family	Adventure
	Relations w/ God	Social Status
	Education	Loyalty
	Health	Passion
	Make a Difference/Generosity	Acceptance
4	Relations w/ Friends	Relations w/ God
	Happiness	Passion
	Acceptance	Spirituality
	Achievement	Security (Job)
	Intelligence	Frugality

Yes. We obviously have some . . . diversity within our family! And I'm not wholly comfortable with all of it. We had a few places in which different members challenged each other and questioned how we could possibly move forward under the circumstances. . . .

I will be curious to see how all of these things continue to work themselves out in the future!