When I have asked them what makes them successful…

When I have asked them what makes them successful, a number or exemplary sibling teams have told me that their parents - sometimes on their deathbed - entreated the siblings to imagine themselves as the bundle of sticks in one of Aesop's fables. If you take a bunch of sticks together, you can't break them, the story goes. But if you take the sticks one at a time, they snap.

— from Legacy / The Logbook (Legacy/Epilogue) · Perpetuating the Family Business: 50 Lessons Learned from Long-Lasting Successful Families

In the book

Leave them better than you found them. When I ask people how they want to be remembered, the wisest answer I have heard is the one a man once gave me: "that I left my family in better condition than I found it". Hold the family together — remember Aesop's bundle of sticks, which cannot be broken together but snaps one at a time. Don't let differences drive you apart; ask for forgiveness, give it freely, and refuse to hold a grudge. […] Aim at a good name, not a big name. The metric is the people you touched, not the dollars you stacked. Hold the family together. A bundle of sticks; give and ask forgiveness; build empathy, not blame. Refuse entitlement. Use no blessing at another's expense, and never feel you are owed. — Legacy / The Logbook (Legacy/Epilogue)

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