An intergenerational family is a living organism. Every generation has to be the first generation again.

Once a generation stops seeing itself as the first generation and only stewards of a burden passed on to them, the decay sets in.

The flip-side is that if you change too much, you might destroy what's already there.

Careful deliberate experiments - like testing the ground for quicksand - is the way to go. But you're still moving things forward, not just managing the decline.

The people in your family are your most precious resources.

You'll want as many of them to see productive use as possible.

If you value the contribution of every member of your family, a grandparent is not going to retire at 65 if it can be helped, and you'll encourage the children to start helping at a very young age.

Your key technology to help manage your family enterprise through the generations is story-telling.

If you don't master the creation of myth and lore around your family, it'll quickly fade.

Your family enterprise is an enterprise that by definition never ends. You can't ever win, buy you can always lose.

It's a daunting task, and you will never see all the fruits of your labor.

If you'd not be willing to build a cathedral that takes 300 years to finish, or to plant a tree that takes 150 years to grow, you don't have the endurance it takes to build a family. So then you should focus on building something less ambitious like a billion dollar company.

Building a family, really building it, that takes extraordinary courage and long-term vision, and also heroic sacrifice.. Sacrifice in the knowledge that the true results will be seen by others who follow you, never by yourself.

Building a family starts with a decision by two courageous souls who decide to subordinate their own desires to a larger joint goal.

They give up a lot of individual freedom, because what they can accomplish together is so much larger than either of them.