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He built a $2M business. Then his dad locked him out.

This episode breaks down what happens when your dream turns toxic — especially when it’s tied to family.

We talk about what it really means to rebuild, reinvent, and walk away from something you poured everything into.

Topics we cover:

– The emotional cost of family business

– What to do when trust breaks

– Reinventing after betrayal

– Why some dreams aren't worth saving

This is the dark side no one prepares you for.

➡️ Go ahead and hit that like button!

New podcast episode! What would you do if you built a $2 million **business** and were locked out? This episode sparks a conversation about **redefining yourself** and **personal growth** after achieving your dream. Learn about **how to reinvent yourself** and developing a **growth mindset**.

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.

Ryan, imagine you built a $2,000,000 business, and then your dad locked you out of it. Would you fight, flee, or completely reinvent yourself?

I think I would go completely reinvent.

Okay. Mhmm. Complicated answer. I think it depends on the circumstances. But

I think it it I

think it's worth a a longer conversation because today, I think I wanna tackle what happens after your dream turns toxic. Right? Especially if it's involving your own family. There can be some very complex dynamics there, and I think it's worth, digging into.

I think the other interesting dynamic with this one is, why is the job market for ex founders like damaged goods? Why do we treat ex founders as damaged goods?

I don't know if they're if I treat them as damaged goods. We'll see. I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I totally agree with that. But I'd be curious what what data you've got to support it. I think that's just it's interesting how sometimes success can become a trap, for especially for small business owners and founders.

So we've got kind of two thoughts here. One is around founders, you know, fam family businesses, and the other is around, founders and the the traps of success. Where do you wanna start first?

Let's go with the first one. Okay. So

you are started a business,

grew

it, it's being successful, and now you're getting pushed out by your family. I think well, you said you'd walk. Right? That you would just walk away and reinvent yourself. I think I would probably dig my heels in, renegotiate, claim my equity, and and fight for what I've built.

I will I will tell you, and maybe this is because of I've been in a situation like this. It wasn't with my family, but it was with a, a high school friend. We started a business together. Alright. And a long time business partner that for even to this day, years later, I don't know why I was shoved out of the business.

I mean, I know I I my assumptions because the investors didn't like the way I did things, and so, you know, I became the odd man on the totem pole. I was forced to figure it out. Like, there was no there was no winning in trying to reclaim. It was just it just it would have burned bridges more so. It would have been just disastrous.

And so I think just walking away and building bigger, better I mean, I'm so much more happier today

Right.

Than if I'd have than the even the misery that they stuck with, the two partners that stayed in the business. Mhmm. They were miserable for the few years after that. Right. So I think some of it

when I say it depends, I I think that's what I'm going after is I think it depends on the power dynamics. Like, I've been pushed out of a couple of companies, several of which I had equity in, but I wasn't the founder. Right? I was employee number, you know, five or whatever. And in that sense, I don't really have a whole lot of leverage.

And if the founders lost trust in you, there's not a whole I mean, you can try to win that, but even if you win, I still think you lose. Like, even if you convince them to hire you back, I just think your job's gonna suck. And in that instance, I think it's better to walk than it is to try to fight for something that you don't really wanna keep. Like, that's more than likely just ego getting in the way.

Well, I think that plays for all of them, though. Because, like, even in my case, I was one of the founders. I was equal

to one business.

And I think I think where it gets even worse if it's family, and if there is an equity share, you know, maybe you weren't the founder, but you're the, you know, son or daughter that is inherited part of the company, but the parent is still around. I think if you try to fight, are you just gonna damage your family relationship? Yeah. Like, or is it is it better to and and I don't know how many people can actually, you know, separate the business from the personal. I've seen dozens of cases where the the family you know, there's a rift in the family for, you know, at least a generation Yeah.

Versus I I think the best thing is just to walk away. Preserve your family relationship, just walk away and rebuild your career.

Yeah. I think a lot of people mistake loyalty for lifetime service. Yeah. I I don't think they're the same thing. I think you can be very loyal, but then there also comes a point where it's just not healthy for either side, and it's hard to see that when you're in it.

But once you see it, I think it's it's pretty obvious that you need to preserve the relationship and walk away. You can find another job. You can start another company. You're you can't create another family.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't you can't decide. I mean, I guess, you know, depends on what you believe and whatnot. You know, there are people that build, you know, brotherhood relationships and, you know Mhmm.

You're my brother more so than my blood brother and and whatnot. But Right. At the end of the day, your blood family is you're right. Can't be replaced. I think

a lot of it does depend on the power dynamics, though. Right? Like, I think about celebrities, professional athletes who hire their mom or their dad as their agent. The agent technically works for the celebrity, and so this you know, if the agent tried to push the celebrity out of the business, that's not gonna go anywhere. Right?

Because the talent is the talent. So I could see Is

that called a conservative shift? Didn't we see that with, like, Britney Spears?

With Britney Spears? Yeah. I don't know all the details of what happened to Britney, but it sounded like it was awful. I think a lot of it depends on what the cap table looks like, who really owns what. And if the investors, if your dad funded it, if, you know, you've got a smaller slice of equity than the people you're sideways with, that's not a fight you're gonna win.

And I think it's a it's a side note to anybody founding a company. That stuff early on doesn't sound as important as getting customers, recognizing revenue, you know, all all that kind of stuff. But that behind the scenes legal is life or death for an organization. So you've gotta be very intentional about the way you structure that organization, because if nothing goes wrong, you're never going to look at it. But if something goes wrong, it defines the future.

And it, and it defines the roles and responsibilities of what happens when things break. And so regardless of how much you love somebody and trust somebody, if you're going into business with them, hire a good lawyer and spend some time thinking about what would happen if this goes sideways. Because if you don't think that through in advance, you're gonna end up in a very bad place.

Well, I think the I mean, that's that's good advice, but what happens when you're the son or daughter that, you know, grew up in the business with your parents, and, you know, you start running the business Mhmm. And your parents are gonna hand it over to you. That's the plan. Why would anything be otherwise noted? And then, you know, you start driving the business successfully, and then the parent search may be losing control, or they start playing more golf, or start less being less involved, but keep taking all the profits.

I think that's more realistic scenario than people starting a business with their parent in their, you know, late twenties, thirties, forties, whatever it may be. I think it's more likely when you're when you're born into the family business and when things go sideways, when the torch hand off is not very clear. Because at some point, especially if the parents started the company, they're gonna wanna get a return out of the business. And if it's a very profitable growing business, they're going to be taking cash out for the fifteen, twenty years they put into it. And if you're the the, you know, one of the child, children or the the son or daughter that's taking this over, and you're the one creating the growth, you're probably gonna be a little frustrated that your parents are taking all the money out of the business.

Yeah. I had a client in that exact situation. He started a business with his dad, I think, right out of college. Dad provided most of the capital and connections, but he was running the business. And he's been running it now for, I don't know, let's say twenty years.

But mom and dad technically still own the majority of the business. They're just wanting mailbox money. And he brought me in to help coach him and and do a little bit of strategy work. And I was like, like, you're in, like, five different businesses that have very little to do with each other. Like, what's the vision here?

Why does this thing exist? And he couldn't answer it because it just existed to make money. And I was like, That's not a strategy, bro. Like, we've gotta be better than that. But he couldn't make any progress because his parents just wanted to see the money keep rolling in.

They were all very results oriented people. And, we're not very interested in a vision conversation. So sure enough, I'm not working with him any longer. And when interest rates went up, he found himself in a world of trouble. And I think the business is now half of what it was when I was working with him.

How do you make work not suck when your coworkers are with you at family Thanksgiving dinner?

Is is it at Thanksgiving dinner, or is it when you basically have dinner with them, you know, quote, unquote, every night? Or Yeah. You grew up with them having dinner every night, and you may be in your twenties or thirties now with your family. But

Right. When your

is your employer.

When your family and your coworkers are the same people. Yes. Yes. How do you make work not suck? Because that sounds like that's either gonna go real well or real bad.

I've got I'm not seeing a lot of options in the middle.

What's crazy is I'm sure, just like you, I've seen this go successful and Mhmm. Earlier in many ways. But it's it's interesting. There are more phrases in business, like, you don't go in business with your family, you don't hire family. But then how many of these companies have you walked into?

And it's like, oh, yeah. My brother does this. And, I mean, I'm working with a company right now where the wife is this the head of sales, and the brother is, like, the finance guy. And

the I worked with a company that had three brothers that were like, one was head of sales, one was head of operations, one was head of administration, and, and I think mom had some equity too. So that that was an interesting one because you've got a very complex ownership structure with mom in who's not involved in the business at all, but owns a significant portion of it.

That one

was fun.

But did those brothers own company or they just work at it?

No. They mom and the brothers owned it together.

Okay. So that's one scenario, but I think what we wanna talk about are those that just work for their family.

Oh, okay. So you just work in the business. You don't necessarily have an ownership stake in it.

There may there may be some future something or another where, you know Sure. Mom or dad wouldn't inherit it to you or you're gonna take it over. But

Right. There's a handshake agreement.

There are far more people working for their parents or their parents' company than and I I think you can even have this in in forget the ownership stake for a second. Mom or dad may be a VP in the organization, and they've hired their son or daughter at the company they work for that they don't have ownership stake into.

Oh, okay. So that that's an even different one. Because I was thinking about small businesses. But

I think it still classifies in the small business space. I think it's that's you're probably gonna see that in, you know, companies with couple 100 up to a couple 100 employees. You know, once you start to get into a couple thousand, you you might work in different departments or, you know, you're just a number at the at the corporation. But, you know, I'm still talking the more the the m space than the b the s space in SMB. But I I think the question is is when your parent is your coworker, regardless of who owns the business, If things aren't going well, that can make work suck.

Absolutely. So how can you make work not suck when you want to still go home at night and be able to sit across the dinner table with your parents, whether you live with them or you're visiting them. Right. Because the ramifications of this could be huge. I mean, this creates family rifts.

Right? Where Oh, yeah. Grandparents don't get to see their grandchildren, you know, parent child don't talk to each other for years. I mean, it can literally destroy the foundation of the family because of a professional career.

Yeah. What's the worst example you've ever seen? Don't name names.

Honestly, you're asking me, so I'm not thinking of anything. I'm sure if you give me a second, I could think of something. But at the moment, I'm not thinking of anything crazy. Nope. I got one.

Okay. Nope. Bad example. It was too bad. Bad example.

Well, it was well, actually, no. Okay. I give you a couple. One of them was, parents started the company, brothers were running it, and literally, it created a divide in the family where the business split in two, and they were rival competitors and competing against each other. Now, admittedly, that's more like they were owners and founders and all that stuff.

Yeah. So I'm trying to think of I'm trying to think of, an employment one. I mean, I've seen dozens of cases where, you know, the brother's working for the business and the brother has to get fired. Mhmm. The son or daughter's working for the business, and we have to help shepherd them out to get a job elsewhere.

Mhmm. But I don't I'm trying to think of one that's been, like, headline worthy. Well, Adidas and Puma, aren't they, like, rival towns?

I think they were brothers. Yes. Yeah. I and I think they started as brothers in kind of the lower costs grocery space, got sideways and split off, and now their companies compete against each other. Yeah.

Just because you hate your family doesn't mean you can't both be successful.

Well, that's that's the Adidas and Puma story, isn't it?

It is. It is. I I think and I think, is it Lidl or Aldi's, maybe both, is another example of family members who started in a business together. Something happened. They no longer see eye to eye.

They split, and now they've competed against each other for a long time. But I'd I'd forgotten about Puma and Adidas. I thought that that's crazy. That one's been going on for over a hundred years. Right?

Oh, yeah. And the the fact that they're both massive companies now. It's crazy. They're like Absolutely crazy. Like the town, like, literally divided down the middle and I think so.

Red versus blue and

yeah. There are a couple of examples of organizations that that has done this well. The Guinness family did this very, very well. Guinness was owned, you know, by, I believe, by a single family for a couple of hundred years. But they spent a lot of energy kind of investing in the, character of the children and making sure that everyone's very values aligned and stuff like that.

So they were very intentional. A more modern example I've seen working pretty well is the Kathy family that owns Chick fil A. They've got a very large family and lots of people in the business, but it's it's complicated. In some places, the grandson is over his uncle in the organization. And so that one, I think, could be pretty tricky, and it seems to be from at least from the outside seems to be working pretty well.

Yeah. But let's let's get them to more practical things because, like, they're all Okay. Whether they work for each other or not. Like True. That that's that the the work work doesn't really suck.

And that's

If you're a billionaire?

You inherited billions of dollars. You're choosing to be in the desk and report to your uncle. That's fair. That's fair. So, like, that's a good point.

Down to, like, literally the everyday person that has to, you know, no control.

I do think though from a from a practical standpoint, I think it's important to remember that we can have different roles in our relationship. Right? And so maybe this is, a little bit theoretical, but hopefully we can make it practical, is is that the way we interact as family is similar but different than the way we interact at work. Right? Like if if I was my dad's boss at work, there is one dynamic when we're at home.

That's a different dynamic at the office. And we need to understand what area we are in and what the rules of engagement are in the zone that we're in. Because I think it can be very easy for people to just kind of forget where they are and begin acting in a certain way that's appropriate at work but maybe not appropriate at home. And so I think some sort of a clear rules of engagement around what is what's okay and what's not okay here, and what's okay, what's not okay there. That would be probably the first thing I would recommend for anybody who works with family, sitting down and talking about those rules of engagement, be very helpful so that we're at least on the same page about what right and wrong looks like.

I mean, I'm gonna take a quote from, Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, the infamous Jack Sparrow. He says the only rules that really matter are these, what a man can do and what a man cannot do. And I think it comes down to, like, can you accept that you work with your parent or your Mhmm. Child or children, and can you draw those lines? Mhmm.

Because if you can't, you're setting yourself up for disaster and disappointment. And if you can, it can be a successful divide between professional and personal. And Right. If if you can't do that, then the best thing for you to do is is to look for another career path. Right.

To

walk away. Mhmm.

What's more practical? Because, you know, the economy's crazy. Probably job hunting is not the best. I mean, if you're really good at what you do, then there's there's probably opportunity. But as we've said in previous podcast, there's a ton of noise out there right now.

Right. I think the I don't think it's a lack of jobs in the market. I think it's a lack I think there's just so much noise that the process is hard. So changing your career okay. You can't accept the fact you work with your parent, or your child, and this is a frustrating situation.

You know, job hopping is is a thing, but it's gonna take months to get there. What do you do today? You're you're the child.

Yep. You're you're You work for mom and dad.

Yep. Your parents is is set in their ways. They're not going to change their ways. They are who they are. Mhmm.

And you're frustrated. What do you do?

I would sit down personally and say, hey. We're we both got three different hats here. Right? One hat is me as your son. The second hat is me as your employer or or employee.

Sorry. If if I work for mom and dad. And the third hat might be a little fuzzy, but it's me as the potential inheritor of this business. Right? If you guys are looking to transition this business to me at some point in the future or a sale or whatever that is, like I either am or I could be an equity holder in this business.

So we got three different hats here and we need to talk about what you want the future to look like. What's your vision for the future? Me as your son, me as your employee, me as a potential owner. Because most of the pain and frustration, most of the things that I've seen make work suck is when people take one set of rules from one zone and apply it to the other. Right?

I'm your dad, therefore, I treat you like my son when we're having equity conversations. And that's a different zone, so there's different rules, so there's different roles and different ways that we need to engage. And sometimes people just don't even think about the fact that they were making assumptions there. So laying that out at the beginning and saying, I think there's three conversations being had here at once. Let's break them up and talk about each one individually.

As a son, I love you guys. As an employee, this really sucks. As a business owner, I'm interested in potentially being a long term, you know, owner of this business, but we've got to figure out how to make all three of these pieces work, or we're gonna have to talk about some different options.

Great in theory, but I think You don't

think I could pull that off? I could totally pull that off.

I I think you could, but Okay. Yeah. But you're you're a coach. Like, you're you're basically giving your own advice to yourself, whereas I get that from a like, in theory, that sounds good, but I'm frustrated. I'm pissed off.

I I'm I'm burned out. I have to go to this family function and put on a smile. Like, everything you just said is great in theory, but that doesn't solve my problem today. And equity is not even a conversation we've had a conversation on. Like, that's making a bunch of assumptions on there.

Right? So it's like, how how I've gotta work with this person, and I gotta be at a family function this weekend. What can I do to make work not suck? Like, I I I think one of the things is is you can only control you. Right?

Alright. True.

So so if you can only control you, you can't control the other party. How can you make work not suck? I mean, I agree with you. That conversation needs to be had, but you gotta get yourself out of the mindset to be able to have that conversation. And I don't think anybody's having that conversation today if they're frustrated, burned out, pissed off, etcetera.

Yeah. It is certainly not a conversation you wanna go into hot. You you wanna have a level head before you engage at that level.

Well, you're not even let's just be real. You're not even gonna think about having that conversation because it's a waste of your time. Yeah. Like, it's it's

it's becoming a me versus them conversation as opposed to a win win, and that's why I say it's

great in theory, but that that assumes the person is in a higher caliber mindset and prepared to have that conversation. And let's be honest, most people are not. They're ready to burn the bridge down and walk away because they're frustrated.

Especially when emotions are involved.

Exactly. So then the question is is how can you reduce how can how can you get yourself out of that so that you can then have that conversation?

Yeah. It's it's laying the groundwork for it.

So alright. I do wanna I do wanna come back to the the what can somebody in a frustrated situation do. Okay. But to Tom's point, what's what's the bright side of this? And and I wanna say I wanna say this.

There's a reason why there are more negative conversations about working with family than positive. Yes. And I do think it's because of the the steps we're taking to make it positive. But what what could some positive things be when this goes right? Like, what is this going right look like?

I've seen siblings or family members who can be successful, and and work does not suck, but work's actually great because of shared values and kind of a a foundation of trust. Like, I've known you for a long time. I know what you're good at. I know what you're not good at. We can have those honest conversations, and we have a shared set of values that means we're we're generally gonna see things the same way.

When working with family does not suck, it's usually because those things are

possible. I

can also say usually when working with Family Works is typically there's more people involved in the organization, so it creates a little more balance. Whether it's the family member reports to a different boss or the job description is what's more defined in the role and the expectations. I think I think one issue or when it goes well is when, like you said, the expectations are aligned. Yes. And and everybody can have the mature conversation, kinda like what you were talking about earlier.

When you are in a place to do that, or when you have that conversation upfront before it starts. Mhmm. I think too often, we just kinda go, well, I raised them well. So therefore Yeah. They'll be a good employee, and that does not equate.

No. But I think I think on the on the positive side and there's been a there's, I mean, there's been a lot of examples of this going well. And you hear about them in, like, larger successful organizations or family offices versus I do think it actually happens, on a smaller scale in the stories you never hear.

Mhmm.

But, I mean, the thing the thing about, like, you don't talk about, like, life accomplishments. If you could do this together with your with your parents and the the child with the like, that's legacy building.

Oh, it's beautiful. And then, you

know, just the the accomplishment you can achieve as a family, as a team, and, you know, bring building that family legacy, together.

Yeah. Where I've seen it work, there's there's honest conversations around expectations, both on the work side and on the personal side. I know I worked with a guy very, very successful. He's got two kids and one of his kids has zero interest in being a part of the business. And the other one's still trying to figure it out.

But their openness about that has really improved the quality of their personal relationship because there's none of these hidden expectations. None of these unspoken assumptions that you're going to take over the business someday. It's like, Thanks, dad, but I'm not interested. And he's mature enough to hear that and to live with that. I think there's also time set aside for not work relationship building.

So we're we have the time that we work and we talk about work, and then we have the time that we're family and we're not talking about work and making sure that you're investing equally or, you know, at least invention investing intentionally in both of those is where I have seen working with family actually become a good thing.

Yeah. I I think there's a lot of a lot of good. I would love to hear some stories, yeah, out there where where things have gone well. What, you know, sparked this topic on was scouring, Reddit Mhmm. About an individual that got pushed out, you know, worked for their their father and got pushed out of the business.

Mhmm.

And trying to figure out how to how to move forward.

I've got a good friend who works for his wife's business. She's very successful. She's I think she's fired him through at least three times that I know of. Last I heard he's back working for her again. That would be an interesting case study in in what not to do, because I think it's, I think they're making a ton of money, but I think it's destroying their marriage.

So there's there's probably some takeaways that they could get from this episode.

Oh, that's another one. We we've been talking about, father father son, mother daughter. Right. But what about husband wife?

Husband wife's gotta be maybe the most tricky.

Yeah. I don't know if my wife fired me or I fired her, but it didn't end well.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't I can't see that, it's a very I would say it's a very unique couple that can spend that much time together and not have it suck. Alright.

So let's let's reframe the organ or the conversation here. Okay. So a minute ago, we paused and we said, we're assuming that we've got a a frustration with a family member in the you know, you work for your your parent. Let's just say it's a son working for your father, and you're frustrated. And you gave the advice of having this, you know, sit down conversation, but we gotta, you know, still gotta show up to work tomorrow.

Right. I think there's another side to that as well that we need to address is what's the the optics of the other professionals in the business that aren't family members? What's their perception of this dynamic? You know? Is it the the the parent is not leading the organization or their department well?

Is the the the son getting preferential treatment? Or is there politicking where it's like father versus son? You know, there I think there's so many different things on how family can be perceived between the politics, the perceived, you know, well, I'm I'm I'm sure you've had many of these too where it's, like, the son is lazy. And the rest of the organization is pissed off because the lazy son owns a salary, and everybody else is busting their ass.

Yeah. And he's not pulling his weight.

So I think I think there's also there's it's not just if you are the individual. It's also if you're in the organization and you have to work in this environment.

Yeah. I think there's so many scenarios there. So so maybe let's talk about recommendations of what to do if you're in that situation. I would say a couple of things come to my mind. I would say the organization probably knows the dysfunction.

So anything that you think is going on, they're seeing at two to three times the volume. That, you know, family dynamics within an organization are gonna just reverberate throughout the organization, get louder and louder as they go. I think the expectations are higher. It's it's kinda like being the coach's son. Right?

Like, no matter how much he plays, no matter how much the coach plays his son, people are gonna complain because you're, you know, it's it's never gonna be enough. Right? So so there are higher expectations on you if you've got family in the, you know, in the leadership, in the quarter office, whatever that would be. So so you've you've gotta not only pull your weight, but you've also got to maybe go a little bit more above and beyond because the expectations are gonna be higher. I got a couple others, but what about you, Ryan?

What what advice would you give to somebody who's working in a business where their some family member is in in the senior ranks?

I mean, I'm gonna go back down into, like, what's the job definition? What's the goal, what's your career path, what's the KPIs and metrics. I mean, I'll hit on the, you know, the everybody gets pissed off, the coach's son perceives plays more. Right? Right.

I I think it come that comes down to scoreboard metrics.

Mhmm.

If if you're the person in the seat and you know everybody's thinking you're getting preferential treatment, you're but you're busting your ass, the scorecard doesn't lie. Right. So I think just point back to the numbers of, look, I'm I'm pulling my equal weight. Here's my numbers. Here's my metrics.

Here's this. And I think when you can pull people back into that common, you know, performance metric now, if if you've been written up 16 times, and, and you're, you know, the lowest man on the totem pole, yeah, I think the scorecard's not working in your favor, and you probably should find another job.

Yeah. Probably probably should take it themselves.

Fired, or everybody pissed off at you. But, I think it comes down to to that from the peer perspective. I think if you're if you're one of those individuals where you're frustrated with with them and you think there's preferential treatment, I would challenge you to look at the KPIs. Yeah. If you think that they're it's unfair, like, are they meeting their numbers?

Now, it it I don't turn this into, like, a me versus them and a, you know, you can't be toxic about it. Because Right. We turn this into a toxic environment. Well, guess who's gonna get fired?

Yeah.

It's it's

not junior. Yeah.

And then I I think if you're the parent and you're frustrated, I think this goes back to what's the accountabilities you expect of your your children. It goes I mean, I hate to make this super simple, but if you expect them to do the chores on Saturday, you probably had a conversation about expectations. Mhmm. So set the expectations for the role. I think also make sure it's clear on what your expectations are to the other team members.

Mhmm.

Again, I I don't think this is too much different than when, you know, a skilled individual walks into an organization and gets the spotlight on them, and everybody's disgruntled or frustrated, or or they're making us look bad. It's the same thing. It just makes it easier to call it out because it's like, oh, well, it's his son. Mhmm. Well, it's really a cop out, and we do it whether it's a family member or just another skilled professional.

But I think at the end of the day, it goes back down to the fundamentals. What's the vision? What's the journey? What's the culture? What's the results?

And hold the the areas accountable to it.

Yeah. I think that clarity of expectations up and down and side to side is is crucial. Because if I work for my dad, and he and I do not have the shared understanding of what success looks like in my job, we're never gonna be okay. And if the people who also work for my dad don't know what to expect of me, they're always gonna feel like I'm not doing my job. Right?

So that kind of clarity, I think, comes from whoever the senior leader is. They've gotta create that clarity for the organization, or they're setting their family members up for failure.

Yeah. Well, if you're the if you're the family, if you're the the son or daughter in this situation, I think this is where you could use Vision Journey Culture results to your advantage. Mhmm. If you've got if you've got team members that think you're getting preferential treatment, just sit down like, what do you think the vision is that my, you know, parents have for me in this role? And what you'll find out is they've got assumptions that they're assuming.

And by just going, okay. What do you think the vision is? Okay. Let me tell you what it actually is. Okay.

What do you think the journey here is for me? And clarify. I think it's it's go through that motion, and what you'll do is is we know the assumptions, you know, is to make an ass of you and me. Right. Well, let's just remove the assumptions from the equation and get clarity on what the real problem is.

I I think even the same thing for if you're getting, if your parent again, if you're the individual and your parent has these expectations of you, but they're not being clear about it, this is the thing. What is your vision for me in this role? What what journey, what processes do you expect me to follow or, you know, what, you know, goals, etcetera? Right. Culture should be giving because it's the company culture, and then just make sure you're aligned on the KPI and results.

Right. Why why am I here?

And I do think, you know, as a as a father, it's we tend to we tend to put goals on our especially, like, me and my boys. Uh-huh. There's there's the minimum bar, and then there's the higher bar. And I always hold them to the higher standard. And I think I think this no.

More intentional is I'm very clear with my children. Like, this is the bare minimum I expect of you. But this is what I hope for you. Mhmm. This is what I would like to see you achieve, but this not achieving this is not failure.

Right.

Not achieving this is failure.

Mhmm.

And and I think I think sometimes parents don't talk about they only talk about this one, and so it's just the perpetual grind for excellence.

Mhmm.

Because we always want more for our children.

Right. And that can be exhausting and demoralizing to them.

Right. So then some cases, I think you got this some of these individuals, you know, you got a parent that is expecting higher standards for you. They're throwing a lot at you because they have higher standards for you. And then you've got the coworker that's like, well, it's not fair. He's getting all the work, or he's getting the deals, or he's getting the projects.

He's getting preferential treatment. Right. It's like, at the end of the day, it everybody's I don't wanna say wrong, but the the the the son is being held to a higher standard than the coworker, and the coworker's being pissed off because the father is being a father to a son. Yep. And so I think that's where going back in and going, okay.

What's the vision here? What's the journey? You know, I've yet to meet somebody when I've come in and said and and and I don't mean this in, like, a a family relationship. I mean, I mean, companies in general. When I've gone in and said, I'm gonna hold this person to a higher standard, but that also means they're gonna get these other benefits and perks.

Do you want in on this? Well, no. I really don't wanna work the extra hours, or I don't want to put the extra work in. Okay. Then you're good at your current pay, your current rate, like, you're good?

Yeah. I'm good. Okay. So then I don't wanna hear anymore about getting preferential treatment when Right. They're literally operating on a higher caliber plan.

Yeah. And and I think I think that's a lot easier to do it in a professional setting with multiple professionals. It's just harder when it's a family dynamic because I think a lot of those, like, family values and family culture and family expectations that come from childhood and being raised Mhmm. Are just assumed in the workplace.

Yeah. They're never spoken of. They're just assumed.

The the the invisible system.

The invisible system.

Quote to quote Aiki, it's the invisible system because we assume what we what we did as a family carries over into the professional world.

Right. And if everyone's not on board with that assumption, which I'm pretty sure they are not, there's gonna be gaps and frustrations.

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