Life is a Schoolroom, with Mike McCarthy
Mike McCarthy, author, CEO of FamBundance, and a founding member of GoBundance, shares the importance of creating a family constitution, writing “legacy letters”, being purpose-driven as an individual and as a family, and why "nothing is impossible to the brave and faithful".
Transcript
Welcome to Let's Talk Legacy. And today we have Mike McCarthy, who is the CEO of Fambundance, a community built to support entrepreneurial families and creating lasting, purpose driven legacies, which is what our show is all about, as well as the founding member of Gobundance and co author of The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families. So you do quite a bit. Let's dig in here. Your work in this area starts on a bit of a sad note. You lost your father a couple years ago.
Mike McCarthy:Yeah. I mean, you know, the legacy starts before my father passes away, because we are business partners and so, you know, we talked a lot as we were building a business together about who we, who are we really building this business for? And what are we really doing here? And it was twofold. One was, yeah, we wanted to have some level of financial security and freedom. Because my father grew up, you know, fairly poor, made it to the middle class throughout his adolescence, and then I grew up middle class, and it wasn't until my dad pioneered some things within the real estate brokerage business that it opened up an opportunity for him to build generational wealth, and I got to join him on that journey. Pretty early on, we built a region of real estate offices for Keller Williams was able to quadruple the size of it over the next 10 years, and that created a space for my dad and I to not only celebrate what we'd created together, but talk
Mike McCarthy:about, how do we protect it, and what do we want to have happen. So we did a lot of planning together on what legacy was, but it was a lot of hard structure stuff like the trust and the trustees and setting up the beneficiaries and but when he passed away, what really shifted in me was realizing that not only could he not take the money with him, it was really the memory of him and the loss of his love, that was the hardest to deal with, the money and and having it all set up made it easier, because we had a great plan, and he got to fulfill his wishes, to leave a legacy, build a company with his son. You know, he died with his family all around him, loving him. But you know, in his absence the last couple of years, it really shifted my focus back on to supporting entrepreneurial families, because I think one thing that we take for granted is how little time we actually have on this planet. And as we get older, time seems to go faster. I don't know about for
Mike McCarthy:you, but things seem to be speeding up, and I'm not getting any younger, and it really made me think like, yeah, leaving some money is great, but legacy is more about the culture that you have as a family and how you show up to support each other, appreciate each other, and really in what structure do you use to operate your family? I think a lot of families just sort of wing it. They don't necessarily have a set way of being a set up. You know, manual for how to operate a family doesn't really exist. But, you know, my works is to actually teach families how to create their own operating system for their family, and that really becomes the culture and the legacy that they leave behind. And when we plan for legacy, we spend too much time preparing the wealth for that the beneficiaries, and not enough time preparing the beneficiaries for the wealth. And I think that happens because as entrepreneurs, we're out trying to build the wealth, and we some sometimes lose
Mike McCarthy:that connection back to our family, where we can really help them to understand how we think about the world, why we're entrepreneurial, why we're leaders, and the more that we can rub off on them and spend time with them and connect deeply with those we love, then the more equipped they'll actually be to handle the wealth that we leave. But the wealth is second to the way that we've equipped them to lead in the world, and that's what's most important. So it really puts it, puts it in perspective when you lose somebody that you love, and you've actually built part of the legacy with them, and then it's just you sort of at the top as the patriarch now, and getting a lot of unwanted responsibility and taking it as I should, as the patriarch and handling things for my family, but yeah, it's been quite the journey over the last several years.
Gary Michels:Does it make life more enjoyable working daily to live the legacy, or is it harder?
Mike McCarthy:You know, maybe you should ask me that question next year, after I finalize my new estate plan, because I've been working on it since my father passed and so but I'm still having a good time with it, like I love getting families, kids, teens and parents all together, learning, creating their values, visions and rhythms, building, you know, memories and relationships with one another. And we're changing lives. We're we're actually building legacies.
Gary Michels:It's so crazy. Because people think a legacy is so much just as money, and you're really shedding the light here on the so much more than that, you know. And that goes back to that old fallacy of just because you have money doesn't mean you're happy, right? So you help families identify their values, cast vision for future generations, and build rhythms and traditions that bring the legacy from in their heads to the present. So what is, what does legacy mean to you in general? I mean, that's such a big part of what you're doing, but what does it mean?
Mike McCarthy:You know, I think it's to me, it's what we leave behind, but not necessarily the physical things. It's more of the memories that people cherish with us when we're gone, and the ways they think about us, and really the impact that we have on their lives that creates a ripple effect, and not only impacts, you know, my kids lives, but their kids lives, and then even all of their friends In the community, for me too. You know, legacy is personally, a lot of it is about community, helping people create their own legacies. And then for me, just helping people to transform. I believe that life is a is a school room that we've come to to learn our our lessons for this soul. And then, you know, hopefully we evolve while we're here. We're all humans. We're just doing the best we can. But when we do leave, you know, it's what we leave in the hearts of others that I think is, is legacy.
Gary Michels:You talk about putting together family constitutions. Talk a little bit about that.
Mike McCarthy:Yeah. So I think the family constitution is just basically a document that outlines the identity of of a family, who they are, why they are, and what their hopes and dreams are for the future. You know, it has a logo you design that represents who your family is, and then it talks about your your values, your visions and your rhythms. So basically saying, like, here's what we value, and here's what it looks like to show up and live these values, and then it's, here's how we actually show up and and live these values, day in, day out, week in, week out. You know, you have different connection points where you're able to use a ritual or a tradition to build bonds and create a sense of belonging and and to appreciate each other and also even to handle conflict. And so it's defining who are we as a family, and how do we actually show up and putting it in writing and then actually having the family, like all, review it together and sign off on it. But then even
Mike McCarthy:more so than that, like anywhere your trust documents go, and your will and your you know, your end of life contingency plan, your exit strategy, if you will, that has everything that someone needs to know, and you're gone like the family Constitution would be in there, and it would be a piece of history now that's hopefully passed to next generations, and hopefully there's multiple versions of it that my kids create their own versions of their own family constitution and so on and so forth, but it's something that really just helps the family understand what they can expect as being a member of this family and What they can't expect being a member of this family and and participating in estate trusts or whatever might come from it as a beneficiary.
Gary Michels:How deep does that go? Is it go just to like your immediate family, typically, your spouse, your kids? Does a family constitution go deeper? To brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents. How does that work?
Mike McCarthy:Well, definitely, you should be doing this, because this is just good. How do you build the culture of not only a family, but everything that I teach is based on what I learned, on how to lead a team in an extraordinary way, like part of actually, most of the reason that I'm successful is not because I'm so smart, but because I'm good at forming teams and leading teams, and so for me, that's, you know, it's, it's all about doing this work either way, to build a great family. I don't think we escape that like, you know, having a great culture in your family is something we really want to achieve. I think every family like, let's say, whoever's living under the same roof, or even that, doesn't necessarily apply, because then you have your kids grow up and they leave the house as long as much as you can of creating this sort of spirit of camaraderie in your home, that we're a team, that we stand together, that we know who we are in a perfect world
Mike McCarthy:over the next decade, what I would do is my goal is going to be to get that group together once a year, and then we make decisions on rhythm, tradition, values, vision to impact the future. So there might be, though, for each one of those individual families, they might latch on to some of what I'm teaching and what we're doing, but it's them who will be sitting around the dinner table together every day. They're the ones who are going to meet week in, week out. I might get to see them three four times a year, and so to expect it to be one cohesive sort of family constitution for that large of a group is probably not going to to be the case, but there's also going to be for future generations, they're going to have to read my family constitution if they want to participate in the legacy planning that I'm doing. But I think every family needs to set their own family constitution. And then I think the more you can have cohesiveness and overlapping and traditions that are the same
Mike McCarthy:across your whole extended family, then you'll be an even tighter unit.
Gary Michels:And it's dynamic, because, you know, families continue to grow as relationships happen, and sometimes families people leave the family, divorce and things happen. So it's, it's a movie, it's moving parts. It's like a company, right? It's crazy.
Mike McCarthy:Yeah, absolutely.
Gary Michels:Talk about legacy letters. What are legacy letters?
Mike McCarthy:So similar to the family constitution, a legacy letter would go along with your estate plan, and it would provide all of the sort of in between the lines and thinking and rationale for why you were leaving this trust and this estate and what you want and what its intended purposes are, what what you did not want to happen with it, and it really just outlines everything that one would need to know in order to understand the legacy you're leaving, which would also include some of the story of how the wealth was built potentially, and then also some of the values and ways of being that you feel are important as a human being and as a you know, a member of This family.
Gary Michels:Got it. Now you talk about the importance of legacy mean purpose driven. What does that mean?
Mike McCarthy:Well, I think it's just sort of everything we've been talking about, is who you are as a family and defining it and knowing that you know how you show up and the impact that you leave as a family ultimately is going to be the legacy that the family leaves collectively, you know. So the idea would be, let's make that purpose driven, and for me, that means rooted in who you are as a family, like aligns with your passions, your values, things that really come naturally to you, or that you really enjoy, things that bring bring joy to you, or make you come alive, and then being willing to find a greater cause, a greater purpose that you can pair with that, something that leaves an impact, you know, that makes it so that it's purpose driven. Your legacy is not undefined. You're actually saying, This is what I want. This is the impact that we plan to leave.
Gary Michels:You also talk a lot about legacy, being about rhythm, about values, rituals, and the key word here is belonging. I think belonging is such an important thing in every part of life, whether you're on a sports team or a company or feeling like you're part of it, not on the outside. Yeah. Do you have any examples of how you create that, or where belongings becomes such a big part of what you what you push and what you teach?
Mike McCarthy:Well, I think the first thing is, is in like, the way that you lead your household determines how much of a part of something, how much they belong or not. I think that you could really be creating great relationships with your kids. They could love you. You could love them. They could feel like they're a part of the family. But there's another layer to that, where if you meet with them regularly, and you have important discussions about values, about what we value as individuals, what we collectively value, actually defining what those values are as a family, and then, and then we look at our goals as a family, individually and and collectively, which is be the vision that we're we're shooting for? Would would come forth through the goals that we set, and we know, okay, who do we want to be as a family, and how do we want to show up to support each other and reaching our goals individually and collectively? And then, then the rhythm part of it is, how
Mike McCarthy:do we want to meet and greet and eat and do life together and celebrate birthdays and holidays and traditions and actually defining ahead of time what you want out of life, day in, day out, as a family and how you could best show up to support each other. There's something beautiful that happens when you take that process and instead of mom and dad figuring it out, or dad or mom. Mom on their own coming up with the full plan of what the family is going to be doing and what they're all about. The trick is to enable their desire to belong through this idea of authorship as ownership, like if they feel like they helped create the values and the family logo and the Constitution and they see their mark on the values and visions and rhythms of the family, then they're more likely to buy into them, and they're more likely to feel connected to the family, because they actually helped shape what that family is all about. And there's something powerful about shaping our own destiny
Mike McCarthy:and knowing that we took part in building something meaningful.
Gary Michels:Yeah. You know, like I said at the beginning the show, the show's about legacy. There's a difference, I think, between legacy, personal legacy and professional legacy. Do they align with you? And what is your professional legacy that you don't want to leave behind? And what is your personal legacy?
Mike McCarthy:Yeah. I mean, I could see that. I could see differences in them. For me, they all end up intertwining into the same, same vein. To me, the personal legacy, you know, I guess, could be more rooted in my family and the values, visions and rhythms that we're talking about. You know, my professional legacy is going to be maybe more about what I did in real estate and being a co founder of gobundance, and the places where maybe I did well professionally, and maybe the mark for professionally, meaning, where did I actually earn money for creating a service or doing something meaningful in the world, and money being sort of like Energy, and me attracting that energy of money through what I did professionally like so for me, the professional legacy, you know, yes, it's about building real estate companies, but it really falls back on the way that I sold Keller Williams and recruited so many agents and owners to Keller Williams is because I believe that through our
Mike McCarthy:education and training and a different business model, we could change lives. And at the end of the day, my that's my professional legacy, if you will, is rooted in that. We created gobundance to change lives. My professional legacy is rooted in that. But creating transformation in community is a personal legacy. So really, it's my personal legacy of wanting to bring people together and change lives that's really driving my professional legacy, or has has driven it in the past.
Gary Michels:What would you say if there was one sentence to sum up, what would be on your tombstone because you're so passionate about this, like, what would that sentence or two be? Mike was a guy that....
Mike McCarthy:That believed nothing was impossible to the brave and faithful.
Gary Michels:I love that.
Mike McCarthy:Which is the McCarthy family motto.
Gary Michels:Love it.
Mike McCarthy:Gotta show up with bravery, and you've gotta have faith that it's going to work out. You know, life is challenging, and I think when we're faced with challenges, we have to rise to the occasion, and that comes through courage.
Gary Michels:So where can listeners connect with you and learn more if they would just want to connect with you in any way? How would they connect with you?
Mike McCarthy:Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at GoMikeMcCarthy, also gobundance.com fambundance.com and then goMikemccarthy.com is just my website, if you want to reach out and talk real estate or speaking or facilitation or anything.
Gary Michels:Right on.
Mike McCarthy:Appreciate it.
