GLOSSARY

Abundance mentality: The view that there is more than enough to go around for everybody.

Agent of change: A person who brings about change in a relationship or situation.

Big rocks: Those activities that are the most important priorities in our lives.

Circle of Concern: All matters that a person or family is concerned about.

Circle of Influence: Those things that a person or family can directly impact.

Compass: A person’s internal guidance system consisting both of principles and the four human gifts.

Conscience: An inner sense of what is right and wrong.

Driving force: Something that motivates, excites, and inspires us and our family.

Effective family: A nurturing, learning, enjoyable, contributing, and interdependent family.

Emotional Bank Account: The amount of trust or the quality of a relationship with others.

Entropy: The tendency for things to deteriorate or fall apart.

Faithful translator: One capable of truly reflecting the content and feeling of another’s comments.

Family culture: The climate, character, spirit, feeling, and atmosphere of the home and family.

Family mission statement: A combined, unified expression from all family members of what the family is all about, what family members want to do and be, and the principles that will guide the family’s flight plan.

Family time: Weekly time set aside to be together as a family.

Four human gifts: See Self-awareness, Conscience, Imagination, and Independent will.

Framework/Paradigm: Our perspective or map or the way we think about and see things.

Habit: An established pattern or way of thinking and doing things.

Imagination: The ability to visualize something in our mind beyond the present reality.

Independent will: The ability to choose and act on our own inner imperatives and determinations.

Inside-out: Initiating change by changing self rather than trying to change others.

Leadership Influence: See Modeling, Mentoring, Organizing, and Teaching.

Mentoring: Relating to another individual in a one-on-one, personal, and helpful way.

Modeling: Setting a principle-based pattern for another person to follow.

Nuclear family: The core or essential family around which the extended family (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins) is grouped.

One-on-one bonding time: Regular time set aside to have meaningful, relationship-building interactions.

Opportunity minded: Being focused on bringing something into existence.

Organizing: Creating order and systems to help accomplish what is valued by the family.

Outside-in: Influenced more by external surroundings than internal commitments.

Paradigm/Framework: Our perspective or map or the way we think about and see things.

Pause button: Something that reminds us to stop, think, and act in a better way.

Primary Laws of Life: The basic principles or natural laws of effectiveness that govern in all of life.

Primary Laws of Love: Natural laws that affirm the inherent worth of people and the power of unconditional love.

Principles: Universal, timeless, self-evident, natural laws that govern in all of life’s human interactions.

Proactive: Being responsible for our own choices; having the freedom to choose based on values rather than moods or conditions.

Problem minded: Being focused on eliminating something. Compare with Opportunity minded.

Restraining force: Pressure that hinders or prevents us from achieving our goals.

Scarcity mentality: A mind-set of competition and being threatened by others’ successes.

Self-awareness: The ability to stand apart and examine our own thoughts and behaviors.

Sharpening the Saw: Renewal, rejuvenation, and re-creation of one’s spiritual, mental, social-emotional, and physical self and family.

Significance: A condition in which the family has developed a beautiful family culture and is making a larger contribution both inside and outside of the family.

Social will: The norms and the moral or ethical force created by the culture of the family.

Stability: A condition in which the family is predictable, dependable, and functional with basic structure and organization, and has some communication and problem-solving ability.

Stewardship: Something we are entrusted with.

Success: The condition in which the family is accomplishing worthy goals, feels genuine happiness, has fun and meaningful traditions, and is serving one another.

Survival: A condition in which the family is struggling physically, economically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually to live and love at the minimum day-to-day existence level.

Synergy: The result of two or more people producing together more than the sum of what they could produce separately (one plus one equals three or more).

Teaching: Intentionally sharing with, explaining to, and informing other people.

Transcending ourselves: Overcoming past negative scripting and becoming the creative force in our own lives.

Transition person: One who stops negative tendencies and cycles and becomes an agent of change.

Trim tab: A person who influences and helps set the direction of the family, like the rudder of a ship.

Win-win agreement: A shared expectation and commitment regarding desired results and guidelines.