Ethical Will

Can I tell you a story how I made last year’s Holiday a more meaningful experience?

I give talks all over the country, speaking to people about how to improve their family relationships and parenting skills. Last November I gave a talk to a large group of corporate managers who were interested in improving their family and personal relationships. In the course of my seminar, the group and I discussed the difficulties of maintaining cohesive family ideals and goals in the face of the very busy lifestyles of the family members. Daily family conversations, a staple of our parents and grandparents, are now more difficult to arrange. The verbal legacy of values and ethics these discussions can impart are more difficult to reinforce as a part of normal family interactions. The managers and CEOs at this meeting expressed to me their struggle and frustration to find opportunities to teach or pass on to their children the values, principals, morals or ethics that they have found to simply make life work. We ALL share this struggle.

That seminar, set in the holiday season, prompted my thought – how can I outline and pass along to my children the important things I have learned, and am still learning, about life?

We are all familiar with a will or trust, a document that outlines special items such as family heirlooms to pass along to our children. I decided to write a will – a living “Ethical Will”. An Ethical Will is a document designed to pass ethical values from one generation to the next. Instead of concentrating on material items as in a will or trust, I would present to my family a personal statement of my treasured values and beliefs: those things that I have come to believe are the most important things I have learned about life. I did not want my family guessing what I stood for and feel passionately about: I wanted to spell out this ethos, this spirit of belief, and present this document as a gift.

So last December, I went to the local stationery store and bought 8 sheets of parchment-like paper and wrote and printed my Ethical Will. The creation and giving of this Ethical Will to my family added layers of meaning to the Holiday season.

What follows is my very personal, but very heartfelt document that is my “Ethical Will.” Feel free to use these points as a clues or building blocks to help you look deep and start defining those things that are important to you. I would like to encourage you to give this gift from your heart to your family. Pass along to those you love the values, principles, morals and ethics that have enriched your life. And enjoy your holiday season!

I Mark Hobbins do hereby bequeath my beliefs, experience and knowledge to my family.  I do this in hopes that no descendent of mine will ever wonder what I strove to stand for.  I acknowledge before all that I have made many mistakes and was less than my best too much of my life. I have sought to teach my children what I know – what I have felt – and what I have seen.  I hope they will forgive me for my feeble attempts and at times my over-zealousness to have them learn what I know.

1. My greatest achievement was marrying Diane – my greatest joy is being together
2. Wherever my family is it is heaven to me
3. Attitude is a constant companion and empowers those who master it 
4. Being thankful is a hallmark of greatness
5. In humility we find our greatest strength
6. Your family is your greatest work and reward
7. Work is the magic for everything – learn to love it everyday
8. Kindness begins at home and extends to everyone especially those who are different
9. There is no reward in loving the lovable – Charity is loving those who mistreat us
10. At the end of the day your family will always love you and welcome you home
11.  We are shaped by the effort not always in the accomplishment
12.  United we prosper – divided we fail in - all things, especially marriage
13.  I achieved more when I did not listen to my own fears
14.  Learning is a life-long pursuit – Feed the mind and spirit every day
15.  Discover your life’s work and never tire of pursuing it.  Money will always follow what you love to do

About Mark Hobbins

For more than 20 years, Mark has helped families whose children had gone too far down the road of self-defeating and even self-destructive behaviors -- families who needed intervention to rescue the child and heal the family. Mark created FamilyIQ with the mission of prevention, of building stronger, and more fulfilling families today.

Mark Hobbins has enjoyed an illustrious career in mental health and therapeutic education.  He is a co-founder of the Aspen Education Group and is a past member of the Colleague Panel for the Council on Accreditation of Services to Families and Children. He is a consulting expert for numerous media outlets including CBS, NBC, ABC, People Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, LA Times, and the NY Times. He has consulted with and appeared on various television shows throughout the world including BRAT CAMP, Britain's Youngest Boozers, Tyra Banks and Dr. Phil shows. Mark has authored and co-authored many articles, courses and workbooks.