Shows
The Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 44: Equality ≠ Symmetry — Who Decides When We Disagree?We are in a massive season of transition right now. After shifting our family structure and taking on new responsibilities, we are realizing that our old ways of making decisions just don’t work anymore.We used to strive for "Symmetry"—where everything felt equal and every vote was 50/50. But we’re learning that Equality ≠ Symmetry.In this episode, we wrestle with a hard question: When we disagree, who actually gets to decide?We explore the idea that Authority must live where Responsibility lives. If one p...
2026-02-0926 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 43: Why “Use Good Judgment” Isn’t Enough – What Kids Actually Need as Independence GrowsIndependence sounds great until it isn’t.A few weeks ago, our kids walked to a neighbor's house alone for the first time. It felt like a triumph. An hour later, Greg was pulling our 4-year-old out of a stranger’s car.In this episode, we unpack the post-mortem of that day. We realized the breakdown wasn't about “safety”, it was about decision clarity. Our eldest didn't ask for help because she didn't know she was allowed to be rude in a crisis.We discuss...
2026-01-2625 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 42: Storming & Transforming - A Roadmap for Periods of TransitionHappy 2026! We are back from New York and settling into a new reality in Delray Beach. For the first time in four years, our home is "Neufeld Only".We are currently in what we call the "Storming" phase. The routines aren't set yet, and everything feels like an experiment. But rather than looking at the friction as a problem, we are viewing it as a necessary part of the upgrade.In this episode, we share the roadmap we are using to navigate this transformation. Whether you are changing jobs, moving, or just resetting for the...
2026-01-1230 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 41: The "PayPal Mafia" Strategy, Disagreeing with Your Spouse & The "Belly Button" Rule (Listener Q&A)Why go through the massive effort of building a custom family culture from scratch? Why not just lean into religion or tradition instead of reinventing the wheel?In our final episode of 2025, we open up the mailbag to answer your questions. We discuss the tension between inheriting a system vs. building one, and why we are trying to raise the "PayPal Mafia" of families rather than just comfortable employees.We also break down the specific business frameworks we use to resolve parenting arguments without resentment, and how to handle the inevitable "But my friend gets...
2025-12-2237 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 40: Why Your Family Needs a Landline (It's Not Just Nostalgia) with Chet Kittleson of Tin CanWe often blame the phone for stealing childhood. But what if the issue isn't just the presence of the smartphone, but the absence of the landline?When the landline died, we lost a major opportunity for growth. We lost the environment where kids learned to organize their own social lives and navigate awkward conversations with intermediaries (“Hi Mrs. Neufeld, is Greg home?”). Perhaps most importantly, we lost the practice of "cognitive patience": the ability to just sit and listen to a voice, with zero notifications, games, or screens to distract us.To explore this, we sat...
2025-12-1539 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 39: Family AI – The Tools We're Using to Clarify, Coach, & Create at HomeWe did something that sounds crazy: We gave our 8-year-old an iPhone 15 Pro. But there is a strategy behind the screen.In this episode, we are exploring a new frontier: Family AI. We believe this is a pivotal moment where parents can either fear the technology or learn to lead with it. Our goal? To shift from being a "consumer family" (passive scrolling) to a "creator family" (active building).We break down our personal framework for using AI at home—The 3 C’s: Clarify, Coach, and Create.In this episode, we cover:The...
2025-12-0842 min
Raising Wild HeartsRise & Flourish Series: Your Body Knows- Intuition, Sound & Nervous System HealingIn this powerful live conversation from the Rise & Flourish event, guest host Danielle Neufeld sits down with Brooke Musial, founder of Musical Breathwork, to explore how our bodies are instruments of intuition — and how sound, breath, and play can help us move through fear, find flow, and reconnect to joy.Brooke shares her philosophy of embodied intuition, explaining how the body’s electromagnetic field, breath rhythm, and vagal tone shape the way we experience life. She reminds us that something as simple as singing while doing the dishes can regulate the nervous system, boost mood, and bring us b...
2025-12-0110 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 38: Choose Guilt Over Resentment (Boundaries Part 2)This week on The Most Important Thing, we start with a new family favorite game (Sardines 🐟) and end up somewhere much deeper: authority — what it means to claim it as adults and how to submit to it without losing ourselves.In this episode, we explore: Claiming authority (“adulting”) Moving out of “please the group” mode into values-aligned choices for our family Boundaries 2.0: revisiting decisions we made in survival mode Trusting our intuition and setting boundaries without emotional leakage The messy reality of changing roles and expectations with people who’ve helped us in earlier seasons Submitting to legitimate a...
2025-12-0140 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 37: Disagree and Commit – How Families Can Fight Without Falling ApartIn this episode of The Most Important Thing, we dive into why mastering “the art of disagreeing” is essential for building a resilient family culture and why the phrase “agree to disagree” is officially off-limits in the Neufeld household.Using insights from psychological safety research, Amazon’s “disagree and commit” philosophy, and our own experiences navigating our kids’ contrasting approaches to conflict, we explore how families can embrace disagreement without sacrificing connection or harmony.Here’s what we break down: The real meaning of psychological safety is not about avoiding tension, it is about welcoming disagree...
2025-11-2435 min
Raising Wild HeartsRise & Flourish Series: Rediscovering Yourself in MotherhoodMotherhood can sometimes make us forget who we are—but it can also be the catalyst that brings us home to ourselves. In this short but powerful Rise & Flourish series episode—recorded live at Rise & Flourish 2025 with Raising Wild Hearts guest host, Danielle Neufeld host of The Most Important Thing podcast— we explore what it means to trust your intuition, reclaim joy, and remember your wholeness after years of giving everything to everyone else.Sarah Gyampoh, one of our beloved Rise & Flourish speakers, shares her story of rediscovering her inner voice after burnout, the six-year transfo...
2025-11-1713 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 36: Breaking The Rules Together – Harnessing Trickster Energy as a FamilyThis week, we’re exploring an unexpected (but so necessary!) aspect of family dynamics: trickster energy—a playful, inventive, and boundary-testing spirit that helps us stay adaptable when life feels too rigid.The episode kicks off with a relatable parenting challenge:Maverick dreams of riding the roller coasters at Legoland for his 4th birthday, but he’s an inch too short to meet the height requirements. Do you stick to the rules? Cross your fingers for leniency? Or come up with a creative workaround?In this episode, we dive into: What trickster energy...
2025-11-1732 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 35: Don’t Tell Me To Calm Down – Turning Anger into Insight as a FamilyIf we’re serious about building resilient family culture, we have to talk about the emotions that actually show up in real homes — and anger is a big one.For both of us, anger has been tricky. We’ve tried to calm it, redirect it, send it to its room… but we hadn’t really named its purpose. So we started asking: What can anger teach us? And how can we work with it instead of against it?In this episode, we explore: Why anger shows up so fast — especially in families with young kids Brené B...
2025-11-1034 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 34: “Read the Room, Kid!” — Cultivating Shrewdness as a FamilyEnvy isn’t a character flaw—it’s human. Shrewdness isn’t cynicism—it’s discernment. In this episode, we explore how to normalize envy and develop the important skill of “reading the room,” so both kids and adults can stay kind while staying protected in real-world situations.Here’s What We Dive Into Why it’s important to explore the more complex parts of family culture While joy, connection, and kindness are essential, building resilience and wisdom means being willing to take a closer look at the murkier, less comfortable emotions too. What shrewdness really means It...
2025-11-0336 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 33: Our Biggest Takeaways from Six Months of Building Family CultureFor the past six months we’ve been deeply studying family culture, and we’re more convicted than ever that it’s The Most Important Thing.Top 4 Takeaways Start from strength, not scarcity Most parenting content starts from a place of deficit. We’re choosing a competence-first lens: you’re already doing a lot right—lean into those moments. Parenting is management; family culture is leadership Scripts fix moments. Culture shapes momentum. Make values explicit and lead the team, not just each child 1:1. Rituals = culture in action Two kinds matter: Alignment rituals (aka “necessa...
2025-10-2727 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 32: Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify, on How Family Builds GreatnessWhen you meet Cliff Weitzman, founder and CEO of Speechify, his magnetism is immediate. He knows exactly where he’s headed, and he’s willing to think harder and work smarter to get there. It’s the same energy that’s made Speechify the #1 text-to-speech app used by over 55 million people.But this episode isn’t about Speechify. It’s about the family that built him.Cliff grew up one of five siblings in a home fueled by ambition and unconditional love. His parents pushed the couches back on weekends for dance parties, spent time explaining h...
2025-10-2055 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 31: The Collison Brothers (An Extra Ordinary Family) We’re kicking off a side quest called Extraordinary Families — stories of real families whose everyday cultural habits added up to something remarkable. This week, we’re diving into the upbringing of Patrick and John Collison, the Irish brothers who went on to found Stripe, one of the most successful fintech companies in the world. But this isn’t a story about money, luck, or talent; it’s a story about culture. Here’s what we explore: 1️⃣ The Paradox of Environment How the Collison boys grew up in rural isolation without the internet but wer...
2025-10-1323 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 30: Mindset Reset Part 2 – Building a Culture of Growth at HomeIn the first part of our Mindset Reset series, we broke down common misconceptions about growth mindset and explored how it plays out in the everyday dynamics of family life.Now in Part 2, we’re taking things further by shifting the focus from the individual to the cultural level.Inspired by Mary Murphy’s Cultures of Growth, we dive into: How comparison, competition, and results-focused thinking lead to risk aversion and hiding mistakes A different approach: fostering an environment that normalizes mistakes, supports effort, and celebrates the process of learning Redefining competition: it’s not ab...
2025-10-0633 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 29: Mindset Reset – What We Get Wrong About Growth MindsetMindset isn’t just “fixed” or “growth.” It’s a spectrum—and once you see that, you’ll understand yourself, your kids, and your family in a whole new way.In this episode of The Most Important Thing, we translate insights from Mary C. Murphy’s Cultures of Growth into family life. What starts as a book about organizations becomes a practical guide for leading your home with clarity and calm.What you’ll learn in this episode: Why everyone flips between fixed and growth mindsets depending on context The four predictable triggers that shape mindset: evalu...
2025-09-2948 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 28 : How We Divide, Conquer, and Connect – The Shared Operating System Behind Our Marriage Every couple has to navigate how to divide responsibilities, whether it’s managing groceries, handling finances, or aligning on long-term goals. For us, the breakthrough happened when we shifted away from addressing everything on the fly and instead put a shared system in place to prioritize what matters most. What we’ve realized is that the specific system you use isn’t as important as simply having one. A system creates intentional spaces for conversations, moving them out of the daily chaos and into a structure that lets you focus less on managing tasks and more on truly...
2025-09-2239 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 27: Parenting Gurus and the Business of Anxiety🎙️ TMIT 27: This week, we explore a topic that hits close to home and raises some big questions: the booming industry of parenting advice — and how it’s built on the back of your anxiety.But it doesn’t have to be this way. Parenting challenges don’t reflect failure; they reflect purpose. The hard stuff? It’s what builds strong families.Here’s What We’re Breaking Down: Why so much of today’s parenting advice feels rooted in fear How post-pandemic influencer culture plays on guilt cycles and moments of vulnerability The psychology behind pain-point mar...
2025-09-1535 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 26: Sometimes Adults Suck – Leading Our Kids Through Conflict With Grownups🎙️ TMIT 26: Sometimes kids run into conflict with other kids. But sometimes kids run into conflict with grownups—teachers, coaches, camp counselors, even random adults in the community. And when that happens, most of us as parents want to swoop in and handle it ourselves.In this episode, we share a different path. One where we don’t jump in to solve the problem, but instead equip our kids to handle it directly. We call this leading from the bench, and it’s one of the best ways to help our kids grow their leadership skills and build family cult...
2025-09-0838 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 25: Culture Eats Parenting for BreakfastTMIT 25 🎙: This week we’re talking about the difference between parenting and building family culture, using a framework from Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson. Parenting is a lot like management—it creates stability through routines and logistics. But building family culture is leadership. It’s about shaping values, vision, and identity.We share how this shift in language helped us better understand what we’re doing at home—and why it matters now more than ever.In this episode: Parenting = management: routines, schedules, discipline, logistics Culture = leadership: vision, values, identity, belonging Where this idea comes fr...
2025-09-0153 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 24: How to Build a Dopamine Moat Around Your FamilyTMIT 24🎙️: From sugar crashes to screen-time meltdowns—what’s really going on in our kids’ brains?In this episode, we unpack dopamine: the energy juice that fuels motivation (and sometimes chaos). We explore how to build a “dopamine moat” around your family—so your kids can develop resilience, focus, and joy in a world of instant gratification.We talk about:• Why the crash matters more than the high• How to flip the seesaw and earn your dopamine• Simple tools for building motivation and buffering burnout• Sleep, breathwork, and what parmesan cheese has...
2025-08-251h 00
The Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT Teammates #4: Celebrating Girlhood with Tween Magazine Founder Mary FlennerWhat happens when your 10-year-old asks for a magazine and you realize there is not a single one you feel good about handing her? That is the moment Mary Flenner faced, and it led to Tween Magazine.Mary is a mom of three girls, a longtime marketing and content writer, and the founding editor of a lifestyle magazine designed just for tweens. Instead of pushing girls to grow up too fast, Tween celebrates silliness, creativity, individuality, and the joy of being a kid.In this conversation, we talk with Mary about:The origin story of...
2025-08-2126 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 01: Family Meetings (Re-Release)TMIT 01 🎙️: Our very first episode, now with video! (Spotify and YouTube only) “What works about the family meeting is that it’s a regularly scheduled time to draw attention to specific behaviors. If you don’t have a safe environment to discuss problems, any plan to improve your family will go nowhere." – David StarrWhat makes a weekly family meeting not just happen—but matter? In this episode, we kick off a conversation about one of the most recommended tools in family culture building. We dug into books, courses, and expert advice to identify the patterns, and w...
2025-08-1813 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 23: Why We Started The Most Important Thing (The Backstory Episode)Why We Started The Most Important Thing (The Backstory Episode)TMIT 23 🎙️ Every journey has a beginning, and this is ours. We recorded this episode a few days after 01 Family Meetings. We didn’t release it at the time because, well, it felt premature. But we also didn’t want to wait too long, so here we are.At the time, we really didn’t know where we were going but we did have a feeling: that family culture matters and more people will want to talk about it.In this conversation, we unpack the moments and micro-d...
2025-08-1126 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 22: Turning Family Vacations into Family AdventuresTurning Family Vacations into Family AdventuresTMIT 22 🎙️ What if your next family trip could be more than just a change of scenery? In this episode, we’re talking about how to transform a typical family vacation into a true family adventure—one that creates lasting memories, builds connection, and leaves everyone feeling fulfilled (even when things don’t go perfectly).We’re heading out on our own 14-day trip across the Pacific Northwest—Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier, and Seattle—and we’re sharing how we’re planning to approach it differently this time. Instead of just “living our lives in ano...
2025-08-0427 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 21: Seeing & Being Seen📺 Episode 21: Seeing & Being SeenIn this final episode on the Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto, we talk about what it means to truly see and be seen.“I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will try to let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you – truly, deeply seeing you.”Over the past 11 episodes, we’ve explored courage, compassion, boundaries, accountability, and joy. Here, we tie it all together with what might be the simplest practice of all: showing up as we are, and really...
2025-07-3135 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 20: Daring Greatly🎧 Episode 20: Daring GreatlyIn this penultimate episode of our Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto series, we reflect on one of the most courageous lines in Brené Brown’s manifesto: “The greatest gift that I can give you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly.”What does it mean to dare greatly as a parent? For Danielle, it’s reclaiming personal ambition and giving herself permission to live a full life outside of motherhood—without apology. For Greg, it’s stepping into deeper emotional vulnerability, particularly around his role as a dad.We talk about:
2025-07-2827 min
The Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT Teammates #3: Noah Zaltz on Building Family Norms🎙️ TMIT Teammates #3: Noah Zaltz on Building Family NormsIn this episode of TMIT Teammates, we sit down with our friend Noah Zaltz, a fellow investor, deep thinker, and someone who brings the same intention to family life as he does to his work.We explore what it means to create a family culture that feels like home, not through rigid rules, but by shaping a sense of “normal”—the daily rhythms, values, and habits that help kids feel safe, grounded, and capable of becoming their best selves.In this conversation, we cover: Why “normal...
2025-07-2432 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 19: Belonging🎙️ Episode 19: BelongingFrom the Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto:“We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other no matter what. You will always belong here.”In this episode of The Most Important Thing, we dive into one of the most fundamental human needs: belonging.We unpack the tension between raising kids with a strong family identity while also giving them the space to become their own people.Along the way, we explore: The difference between fitting in and belonging (thanks, Brené + 8th graders!). What it looks like to foster ind...
2025-07-2132 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 18: Facing Fear & Grief🎙️ Episode 18: Facing Fear & GriefIn this episode, we explore one of the hardest lines from Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto: “Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.”Danielle shares how she lives with acute medical fear and anxiety, and where it stems from.Greg reflects on watching both of his parents slowly fade before they passed—and how grief sometimes shows up not in death, but in disconnection.We talk...
2025-07-1443 min
The Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT Teammates #2: Julianne Annunziata Peters on Roots, Recipes & ReinventionTMIT Teammates #2: Julianne Annunziata Peters on Roots, Recipes & ReinventionWe’re joined in person by our dear friend and neighbor, Julianne Annunziata Peters. Julianne shares her family’s move from NYC to Delray Beach, how a serendipitous beach moment (thanks to our daughters!) reconnected us after decades, and the lasting legacy of her mother’s influence on how she now parents her own daughter.We talk about: Moving during COVID and finding home in a new place The bittersweet balance of nostalgia and new beginnings Honoring legacy while creating a family culture of your own T...
2025-07-1027 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 17: Spirit🎙️ Episode 17: Spirit“When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.”In today’s conversation, we explore what it means to bring spirit into daily family life. We reflect on how our personal spiritual practices may be invisible to our kids and discuss Dr. Lisa Miller’s research on how we are all innately spiritual beings.We share: How, without religion, our spirituality has (unintentionally) become invisible within our home Our story of synchronistically meeting in midtown Manhattan Lisa Miller’s three practices...
2025-07-0729 min
The Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT Teammates #1: Jennifer Zelman on Raising a Global Family🎙️ TMIT Teammates #1: Jennifer Zelman on Raising a Global FamilyWelcome to the very first episode of TMIT Teammates—our new segment where we talk with real families we love and admire about how they’re building culture at home.Our first guest is our brilliant and adventurous friend Jennifer Zelman. Jen is raising a blended family across two continents—splitting time between New York and Rome—and in this episode, she shares what that experience has taught her about parenting, presence, and letting go of perfection.We talk about everything from raising culturally open kids to releasing...
2025-07-0331 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 16: Joy🎙️ Episode 16: Joy“I want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude. I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.” — Brené Brown, Wholehearted Parenting ManifestoThis week, we’re talking about joy—what it feels like, why it can be hard to stay with, and how we’re learning to welcome more of it into our family life.We explore the kind of joy that sneaks up on you, the kind that’s layered with memory and meaning, and the kind that feels almost too good to fully le...
2025-06-3030 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 15: Accountability & Respect🎙️ Episode 15: Accountability & RespectThis week, we’re diving into two words that carry a lot of weight—and often get misunderstood in parenting: accountability and respect.We unpack what these concepts really mean in a family setting (hint: it’s not about obedience), and how we’re trying to model them at home—imperfectly, but intentionally.From birth stories to playground conflicts, we talk about: Why impact matters more than intent What Heart Repair looks like in real life (and how it’s based on Nonviolent Communication) How peer orientation pulled Greg away from his fam...
2025-06-2329 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 14: Boundaries🎧 Episode 14: BoundariesThis week, we’re talking about boundaries—inside our home and outside of it.The kind that protect our family culture… and the kind that make everyone just a little bit uncomfortable (in the best way).From Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto:“We will set and respect boundaries. We will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.”We start with the boundaries that live inside our home—around sleep, late-night conversations, and shared spaces (including one now-infamous, sticker-covered kitchen chair). We...
2025-06-1630 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 13: Compassion🎙️ Episode 13: CompassionThis week, we’re digging into self-compassion—not just as an idea, but as a practice we’re actively building at home.Our starting point: “We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other.” Because if we want to raise kind, resilient kids, it starts with how we treat ourselves.We each took Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Test 💝 to see where we’re growing—and where we’re stuck. Greg thinks about self-compassion often, but practices it poorly. Danielle scored high on self-kindness and self-judgment. We talk through what that mea...
2025-06-0934 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 12: Courage🎙️ Episode 12: CourageCourage usually gets the Gladiator treatment.We picture epic battles, high-stakes wins, and shirtless heroics.But in real life?It’s not just about “being brave.”This week, in Episode 12: Courage, we’re talking about what makes it possible for families to practice courage—not just in big moments, but to show up persistently courageous, day to day.🧱 The Most Important Thing:Courage needs scaffolding.Kids don’t learn to be brave just because we tell them to. They learn it through preparation.🧠 What We’re Lear...
2025-06-0225 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 11: Worthiness🎙️ Episode 11: WorthinessIn our newest episode—Worthiness—we’re continuing our journey through Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto.📜 “I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.”🌱 Worthiness = A grounded feeling and core belief that says, “I deserve to take up space in this world.”This one hits close to home.We have a child who is easygoing, adaptable, the family peacemaker. And y...
2025-05-2930 min
Kolbecast261 Lisa Popcak - Make It about RelationshipAMDG. In a continuation of last week’s episode, Lisa Popcak shares her advice for new homeschooling families, including what aspects of education matter most and what worked in her own family. “I had promised her… you will be 100% fine,” Lisa recalled. “And sure enough, she got recruited by her college… and got almost a full ride to be a pre-med student.”
Lisa reflects on her children leaving the home for college, navigating hard seasons in the home, liturgical living, and so much more.
Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant:
260 Flow & Connection through Learning, the first part of our conversatio...
2025-05-2836 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT Experiment Update #4 (+ Greg's Technology Corner)🧪 TMIT Experiment Update #4 + Greg’s Technology Corner!Our fourth experiment update—this time as a stand-alone episode. It’s a quick check-in on what we’re trying at home, how it’s going, and what we’re adjusting next.This week’s highlights:🏀 The “Talking Ball”At Friday’s family meal, we introduced new popsicles and a “talking ball” to help each person feel seen while answering three questions: what we liked, what we’d leave behind, and where we can improve.🧸 “The Love Game”Danielle and the girls invented a sweet new ritual—tossing stu...
2025-05-2614 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 10: Loved & LovableLoved & Lovable ❤️💗As a kid, you likely knew you were loved. But did you also know that you were lovable no matter what?We didn’t always get that message growing up, as we’ve since learned about one another. But we are all worthy of love, just as we are. So how do we internalize this as adults, and pass along the right message to our kids?With our tenth episode, Loved & Lovable, we’re introducing a new arc at The Most Important Thing, using Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto as our compass....
2025-05-2625 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 09: Back to Base Camp🎙️ TMIT 09: Back to Base Camp ⛺🧡After eight family experiments in three weeks, it’s time to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what’s emerging beneath the surface.In this episode, we return to TMIT base camp—our space for regrouping and sense-making. We talk through: What’s working What’s shifting And the invisible threads tying it all togetherTwo big ideas anchor this reflection: Keep it simple (“Floss one tooth.” 🦷): Small, consistent actions > big, over-engineered plans. Most of our changes took just 25–50 minutes a week. Name the invisible forces (“Make the implicit explicit.”): When we name what’s unspoken—mone...
2025-05-2213 minKolbecast260 Lisa Popcak on Flow & Connection through LearningAMDG. Catholic podcaster and co-founder/vice-president of CatholicCounselors.comLisa Popcak shares her wisdom on homeschooling and raising children in the faith. Lisa advocates for “flow” rather than structure in the homeschool day and paints a picture of what a rich— but achievable— prayer life looks like in a busy home. “We have to get away from the idea that our prayer life has to be rigorous,” Lisa says. “If our children are called to a rigorous monastic life, God will give them the grace for that. We have many saints who were… and many saints who went a different way.”
2025-05-2144 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 08: Family Money (+ Experiment Update)🎙️ TMIT 08: Family MoneyIn this episode, we explore how to make the implicit explicit when it comes to money at home. This isn’t a how-to talk about chores and allowances (no jars labeled Spend, Save, Share here). Instead, we reflect on the subtle ways money influences us—and how to start naming (and questioning) those influences out loud.TMIT about Family Money: Accept that money influences our family culture, whether we realize it or not.Our 3-step process to becoming more intentional about money: Reflect on our own money beliefs. Normalize money tal...
2025-05-1940 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 07: Family Movement🎙️ TMIT 07: Family Movement“Movement can be a pursuit, not a punishment.”In this episode, we explore how when families co-create movement that feels fun, chosen, and skill-building, they create lasting motivation and connection.TMIT about Family Movement: Building intrinsic motivation through Autonomy — “I choose this.” + Competence — “I can do this.” + Connection — “I belong here.”We also discuss: Why movement often becomes a “chore” instead of a joy—and how that shift happened during childhood and adolescence for Greg & Danielle. How the 🔗 Active 1 + FUN study leveraged self-determination theory to create co-active, side-by-side movement that built con...
2025-05-1525 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 06: Family Space (+ Experiment Update)🎙️ TMIT 06: The Most Important Thing About Family Space (with Experiment Update) “A room is only as good as you feel when you’re in it.” — Philip JohnsonWhat makes a home nourishing to its members? In this episode, we explore how space shapes family connection, creativity, and calm.Drawing on research from the Journal of Environmental Psychology, we discuss why perceived spaciousness matters more than square footage, and how small, intentional changes can transform how your home functions emotionally.TMIT about Family Space: How your home feels to your family matters more than what it looks...
2025-05-1322 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 05: Family PlayThe Most Important Thing About Family Play “The opposite of play isn’t work—it’s depression.” — Dr. Stuart BrownIn this episode, we explore why play isn’t just for kids—and why families who play together are more connected, creative, and resilient. Drawing from the work of Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, we unpack how play acts as developmental glue that holds families together.We discuss: What play actually is—not a strict definition, but a state of mind marked by joy, spontaneity, and freedom. Dr. Brown’s 7 properties of pl...
2025-05-1225 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 04: Family ValuesThe Most Important Thing About Family ValuesIn this episode, we dive into a foundational family topic: family values, and specifically, how they can be more than just words on a wall. We explore why values matter—not just for adults, but for kids too—and how research supports the idea that the way we communicate values shapes how deeply they’re understood and lived. We share a practical framework for making values REAL – Repeated, Embodied, Applied, and Literal – and some suggestions for each. Show Notes: “There’s A Better De...
2025-05-0924 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 03: Family Meals (+ Experiment Update)TMIT 03: Family Meals“Instead of feeling guilty because you don’t have the six o’clock thing, it’s about coming together as a family whenever you have the time.” - Jennifer Besh, as quoted in The Secrets of Happy FamiliesThis week on The Most Important Thing, we’re sharing updates from our first two experiments—family meetings and family stories. We also unpack the research (and our own hesitancies) around family meals: are they really as essential as everyone says? Or is the story more nuanced? Join us as we keep exploring how high-performin...
2025-05-0627 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 02: Family StoriesThe Most Important Thing About Family StoriesWhy do some individuals grow up with a stronger sense of who they are? In this episode, we explore the research behind family storytelling—how sharing the right kinds of stories at the right times can build resilience, self-esteem, and identity. We even came up with a simple mnemonic—STORY—to help us remember five practical ways to make storytelling a natural, powerful part of everyday life, and we talk about how we will experiment with these ideas both for our children and for ourselves. STORY M...
2025-05-0328 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeThe Most Important TrailerThe Most Important Thing: TrailerExploring how ambitious, busy families can build culture at home
2025-05-0301 minThe Most Important Thing: Exploring Family Culture and Leadership at HomeTMIT 01: Family Meetings🎙️TMIT 01: Family Meetings “What works about the family meeting is that it’s a regularly scheduled time to draw attention to specific behaviors. If you don’t have a safe environment to discuss problems, any plan to improve your family will go nowhere." - David StarrWhat makes a weekly family meeting not just happen—but matter? In this episode, we kick off a conversation about one of the most recommended tools in family culture building. We dug into books, courses, and expert advice to identify the patterns, and we distilled...
2025-04-3013 min