It’s all part of the plan
A few years ago, we started taking a weekend in November or December to do annual family strategic planning. We believe that if we think it’s important enough to do for the business, then it’s certainly necessary to do it for our personal lives and family.
We received a ton of interest into our framework. Not many couples were actively sharing their strategic planning methods at the time. So we wanted to share our process. Below is our outline from our annual weekend getaway.
Note that this format is always changing for us, and has never been the same, with each year being a building block for the next. Again, everything is evolving and growing. :)
Getting Started:
Don’t underestimate the power of comfort. Comfort in your daily routines, your home base, your ability to easily get off track by watching your favorite Netflix series. Each year, we make this a deliberate activity, something to look forward to, by making it an experience. We are usually spending a day or two somewhere else to ensure our minds can detach from our normal state of being.
Pick a space or place: In 2017, we kept it simple and decided to spend time at some of our favorite working spots during our morning sessions. We then booked space at the downtown Hilton for our afternoon and evening sessions in the available lounges.
This year, we’re heading to Zion National Park for a few days! Whether you go far away or stay close to home, pick an inspiring space.
Agenda the day’s activities: We typically start with breakfast together, a followed by a morning session, a brain lunch break, an afternoon activity where we keep the conversations going(workout, hike, etc.) and then our evening session. Each block of time was bucketed out and kept us on track while working through each exercise and conversation.
Plan fun breaks: This should be fun! It’s an experience! Plan some fun breaks for lunch and dinner where you can spend some quality time together. Each year, we get fancied up and have dinner at a nice restaurant to indulge a bit.
Set intention together: Before we get started, we each have to define what success looks like at the end of the retreat. This will allow you both to understand where to focus time and what is most important to your Partner in crime. You both need to feel great about the investment, and it starts with knowing.
Exercises:
Instead of outlining all of our exercises here in this blogpost, we figured we would just share our full document we created to guide ourselves through planning. Certainly this was created for our needs and point in life, but hopefully it will serve you as a starting point if you and your family are interested in giving this process a try! If you happen to have any questions or want to talk with Krista or myself about our process, don’t hesitate to reach out here, on Instagram, Facebook, Email, wherever works for you. We’d love to chat.
Check out our Strategic Planning Framework here!
In case you were wondering what the Franks family foundations might look like, here they are! We’re super stoked about them, and ready to tackle the next chapter of life with these as our north star.
Our Core Values
Be Your Best Self
Be true to your own personality, spirit and character.
Live the Intentional Life
Define your vision and values, then stay true to those things.
Pursue Growth & Awareness
Seek possibility, progress and discovery. Be curious and adventurous. Allow the world and experiences to change you.
Work Hard
Work is any activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. Be clear about where to focus that effort in order to achieve the highest results.
Trust Life & Others
Trust that life is happening for us and not to us, including the opportunities, challenges and people that come into our lives.
Value Relationships
Seek to find and nurture deep, meaningful relationships that are built on trust, respect and value.
Our Mission
May we always show up…for ourselves, for each other and for life.
We believe in possibilities.
We pour energy into meaningful relationships.
We are explorers not tourists.
We live with intention and not by circumstance.
We invest in experience over things
We love with open hearts and minds
We work together.
We dive deep instead of swim on the surface.
We embrace the evolution of ourselves and others.
We build a life worth living.
We’ve got our foundation, our goals, and our hearts and eyes are wide for what’s to come in 2020. It’s surely going to be a year to remember in more ways than one.
Stay tuned :)
Phil
