The Day I Fired My Wife| Rob Ferguson on Family First vs Business First | JTL 157

Rob Ferguson spent thirty years climbing to CEO of a $400 million company, then walked away to turn around a hundred-year-old family business with seventeen cousins on their payroll, selling it for more than $100 million. At fifty, standing on what looked like the top of the ladder, he realized there was no top, only more ladder. That question sent him into sixteen years of studying why family businesses, which create 78% of new jobs in America, so often fail, not for lack of capital or talent but because nobody in the family is willing to have the hard conversation about what comes first, the family or the business. In this conversation with Wayne, Rob unpacks the difference between a family first business and a business first family, why neither is wrong but confusing the two creates years of friction, and the governance rules he wishes he'd set before firing his own wife from a job she'd only started that morning. He also gets into how purpose changes across a lifetime: his purpose at eighteen was beating his mentor to a Cadillac and a swimming pool, his purpose at fifty is helping family businesses last long enough to matter. To learn more about Rob and the work he's doing at Ferguson Alliance, visit ⁠ferguson-alliance.com:⁠https://ferguson-alliance.com/ or connect with him on LinkedIn, search ⁠Rob Ferguson Alliance.:   / robertaferguson   For more episodes and resources, head to our ⁠Spotify channel: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ObOrJ1...