Family Board Meeting book, by James Quandahl

This idealist is an outline of the various chapters I'm initially thinking for this book-- next step will be to expand upon these ideas on my blog and start to fill in the pieces, stories, and overall direction for the book.

This is a process my wife and I have been developing since we were dating and it has helped us achieve wild success in multiple areas of our life.

When you are done reading this book you'll have a plan and roadmap to build and achieve the life of your dreams.

What do you think of this skeleton for the book? Comment below if you'd read this book. Or comment below if you wouldn't and tell me why not!

1. explain the seven spokes (mind, body, spirit, family, friends/community, career, and finances) and offer a quiz for the reader to take to determine where they are excelling, where they are average, and where they need work...

Then the reader can skip right to these chapters to improve, and then go to the chapter how to create a plan and the process for following up and calendaring.

I believe it is better to be a well rounded 7 or 8 in all buckets than a 9 or 10 in a couple, only to be a 3 or 4 in another. These examples are so common they've become cliches in the real world, books, movies, and TV shows:

Success is not grinding away at work for years, with your head down, to buy a big house and obtain an important job title only to look up and find your friends and family are missing or left behind.

It isn’t grinding away in the gym for hours and never “eating the pizza,” as guest Dr. John Delony shares, to obtain a strong, athletic, and impressive physical body only to have a weak spirit lacking practices of self-examination, gratitude, and other critical spiritual disciplines.

Finally, success isn’t constantly scrolling on social media, being addicted to the news, and watching hours of TV, while leaving no time to stoke your intellectual curiosity through reading a book, learning a new skill or hobby, or thinking deeply

2. Go through each of the seven spokes and explain success stories within each

Use a story from my life, examples and small habits to improve within that spoke, and then a story from someone well known to wrap up the chapter-- with a link to their bio, website, social, etc-- like John Lee Dumas did in his latest book.

3. Guide the reader on how to build a 20-year vision

20-year visions are far enough away that you have to think big and not know exactly how to achieve the goals. So you set two-three goal for each of the 7 spokes 20-years from now, and you don't worry about how to make it come true. That will come later in the annual meetings and your quarterly check-ins.

When I did my first 20-year vision I wrote in my career I wanted to be a podcaster, speaker, coach, and author... At the time I didn't have a blog, a podcast, and had never been a speaker.

Now I have a podcast with almost 50 90 minute episodes, over 100 4000+ word blog posts, and I've done multiple virtual speaking gigs.

That's just in one spoke! I've achieved similar success in all seven, and so can you.

4. The tools you'll need to be successful

White board with the days of the week on it
Monthly white board or paper calendar
Family board meeting workbook
Accountability partner (if you are doing this alone and not with a partner)
ETC

5. Family board meeting structure

Daily- plan out your day the night before- sit down and write down what you will do the following day from start to finish
Weekly- sit down with a calendar and write down things going on during the week- kids activities, meetings, workouts, bible studies, etc.
Monthly- review each bucket and the goals. Get a pulse on them. Re-group.
Quarterly- dig deep. Review long term goals and set goals in each bucket to help you get there
Annually- Plan out your next year- meetings, trips, What small milestones will help you get there? What do you need to focus on? What buckets are overflowing? What buckets are empty?

The benefits of an off site family board meeting (two day trip to the mountains) and the benefits of getting off grid and allowing creativity and inspiration to flood your senses.

6. In the annual meeting

Business trips
Fun trips - It’s important to plan out your year before your year plans you. You have to take control and only say yes to the things you want to do. Do what’s best for you and your family.
Be intentional- goals we wanted to achieve that we had to calendar- weekly business meetings, weekly bible study,
Think about how you want your ideal day to look- make that happen- wake up early and read the bible, or spend some time in solitude. You have to make it happen.
Reviewed 5 year and 10 year goals
Created goals in each bucket of things we need to be better at and things we need to continue doing - Monthly date nights, holiday rituals, read for 1 hour everyday, physical activity twice per day,

7. What are your values?

Guide the reader through how to pick their values... They already know what they are, but with gentle prompting and encouragement they can write them down and then lean into them as their strengths.

List of 100 values for people to start thinking and build their values from.

P.S. My family's values are:

Integrity
Love
Playfulness
Growth
Achievement
Trailblazer
Natural health

We also have mottos for each that we say all the time... For example one of our mottos is: Quandahl's Go For Gold and Quandahl's Leave it Better Than They Found it.

8. Also included in this is creating a family legacy: Family rituals / celebrations

This is a fun one... Borrow rituals and celebrations from your family, from your genealogy, or from books you are reading. Try them out and see how you like them. If you like them add them to your ritual book, so that you can remember them next year.

Do a recap after each holiday and write down what you liked and what you didn't- edit your family ritual book with that data.

9. Working the plan as a single person

10. Why do we need this foundational plan?

Can't we just wing it? It depends on what kind of life you want.... Do you want to create a legacy that impacts four generations from now? Or do you want to sit on the couch watching Netflix and eating chips? If it is the later, this is not the book for you.

Show what can happen when a family is strong, with big goals, and working towards them with the ferocity of a lion.

James Q