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Creating a Strong Family with Guests Joe & Mell Hashey {Episode 240}
418 Plays1 year ago
If you're listening to this, chances are good that family is extremely important to you and your spouse; you're gonna love this episode! The Hasheys are experts at teaching how to prioritize loved ones, create systems for these priorities and combat distractions and other influences that tempt us to put family on the back burner.
Join us as we learn some incredible tools for ensuring our families remain a top priority!
Listen to the Hashey's Strong Family Project podcast here.
About Outnumbered the Podcast:
Two moms, parenting a combined total of 19 kids and finding joy in the chaos.
Join Audrey and Bonnie as they share real parenting tips for real people through humor, advice and compassion.
Whether it's tackling how to teach kids to work or discussing where to turn when you're all out of patience, these two experienced moms are here to offer authentic tips for raising children joyfully.
Join us:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@outnumberedthepodcast
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Subscribe to our emails here: https://mailchi.mp/639f54432095/outnumbered
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Transcript
Introduction to Outnumbered the Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Guest Introduction: Joe and Mel Hashi
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the show, everybody. We are excited to have two guests with us today. It is always a party with the four of us here. Welcome to Joe and Mel Hashi. Thanks for coming, guys. So excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, so we wanted to have the Hashis on the podcast because they stand for strong family values. And you guys know that is a big priority of ours and a big value of ours as well. But I love to hear other people's perspective and see how they are making a difference in the world in promoting these values.
Prioritizing Family Over Careers
00:00:58
Speaker
Let's start off with a little intro. We do have a bio from them, but we do want to hear kind of how you guys got into this and why this is so important to you.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, it'll go first. I want you to take the lead on this one. Yeah, happy to share. So my personal background is a high school teacher and coach and youth sports coach and started my own company during that time, which got too busy. I couldn't do both, even though I love teaching and coaching. I had to decide on how to spend my time. We had a company that took off and Mel's done the HR and finances for it as she was a social worker and has her MSW.
00:01:35
Speaker
Uh, and then came on to do the, to do the book work and help guide our company. And most recently as pertinent to this podcast, we decided to move across the country to a town where we know no one and re hit the reset button on our family and our lives. Love it.
00:01:52
Speaker
That's right. And when I was working for five years as a social worker, one of the things that I never was quite sure about was whether I was going to stay home or not with my kids. And once I had my second son, I decided that I was going to stay home full time. And we've always been really tried to focus on our family as the top priority. And it's been a work in progress for the last 15 years. And moving across the country, I think, was the pivotal moment for us.
00:02:16
Speaker
that we really now focus 100% on the family. Joe's home all the time working from home, but he's around us much more. So it's really been a big piece of us growing as a family.
00:02:27
Speaker
That's so great. I love what you're saying about the stay-at-home-mom part. I personally wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom myself, but I always knew that I'd have something else. I just thought I'd have a part-time job or something, and it was so interesting to me just how fiercely I wanted to spend all my time with my kids when I started having kids. Lucky for us moms, there are many of us that are able to make that work, but unfortunately for the dads, that's less common, so great for you guys that you have figured out a way to make sure that Joe's home more often as well. I love that.
00:02:54
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate it.
From Workaholism to Family Focus
00:02:56
Speaker
And part of the dedication to the strong family values, it wasn't always like that. Like you mentioned, I was a bit of a workaholic and I was, I was running morning fitness sessions from six to seven teaching high school from seven 30 to two 53 o'clock was the next fitness session run that till 7 PM. And then Mel would have the kids in bed by the time I got home and things were out of whack. I was like full time work and she was like full, full in on the family. And we ended up in a balance point in the middle of that. Everything was working, but it wasn't ideal.
00:03:24
Speaker
And it came to the realization that we're spending more time on our business organization than our family organization, which is the priority. And we needed a readjustment of our goals. Yeah. When I, when I had my first son, um, when she, when he was just born is when we decided to move our gym from our basement to an actual facility. So suddenly we were not really together very much. And I think we just with communication over time figured out a way to make it work. And I think we're in a pretty sweet spot right now.
00:03:52
Speaker
It's still very busy, but we're together much more. Yeah, I love that. That's so great. What's interesting too to me is it seems like a lot of the world has maybe made some of these adjustments lately. It seems like as soon as everything shut down for COVID, people were like, oh, oh, actually?
00:04:07
Speaker
Well they either learned actually I want to be home with my family or actually we have some serious problems we need to figure out because we haven't been together and we don't know how to treat each other right so I think that those of us that are realizing that strong family values are important the last few years have been like it's time to shift something we don't want this frenetic pace anymore we want to be home.
00:04:27
Speaker
Absolutely right.
COVID's Impact on Family Priorities
00:04:28
Speaker
And fortunately we were in the first camp where we got to spend more time together. And you liked it. Yeah. Yeah. So it worked out, but we had a company. We were in a state that shut down fitness studios for almost nine months. And I have employees that we all kept, we kept paying them off to help support their family. We had eight rental properties. They passed a rent moratorium. So everyone stopped paying rent.
00:04:47
Speaker
And we're still paying mortgages and employees and school was closed and now we're homeschooling on top of it. And it's like that there's an analogy. Like if there's a little pebble in your shoe, you might not stop and fix it. But if it gets sharpened off and you have something like, all right, I need to stop pause and fix something feels off. Like the pain gets to be too much and then you have to address it. And for us, and I know it didn't work out for a lot of people and it didn't work out for us in a lot of ways, but it did work out for us in this way.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I think a lot of it, what he just said too, was you have to be very aware of what's going on in your family. So as soon as COVID closed schools, and I noticed how the teachers, and I know it was all new to them, what was happening via online learning, I just was so unimpressed. And it took me about six months, because this was maybe in March, to decide
00:05:34
Speaker
I'm just going to homeschool them this year. And I never regret that because I know them so much more. I know their needs so much more. I'm able to advocate for them in ways I never would have understood had I not been the teacher mom for that year. Yeah, that's a really great perspective. And I don't know that everybody has that good of a perspective when it came to those crisis schooling months.
00:05:55
Speaker
That was hard for a lot of people, so good for you. It was. Well, I met a mom through the gym who homeschooled, and I think because I saw her do it and in discussing it with her, I realized that it was doable for me. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it just takes somebody to be an example to you, right? Okay, so as you may know, we love to ask our guests if they have a funny parenting moment to share because we know that parenting is hilarious if we can just keep our senses of humor, right? So do you guys have something you'd like to share with us?
00:06:21
Speaker
Sure. I actually gave this a little bit of thought. So I took my son, Everett, who's five, to a doctor's appointment just a couple of weeks ago. And we always joke about how I don't want him to grow. I want him to stay little and never be like a big boy. And he looked at me and he said, my mommy, my body does what my body does. And it was just the funniest thing. And now we shared it with my older two boys. And we pretty much repeat that often now. It's become like a
Humor in Parenting: A Family Joke
00:06:47
Speaker
family joke. It was just so cute.
00:06:48
Speaker
That is adorable. I bet my teenager would love to say that when he eats all my leftovers and I'm like, where's all the food? My body does, but my body does. That's right. It applies everywhere. And some bathroom jokes. Oh boy, we could really make that one work too. Yeah, you could.
00:07:05
Speaker
Okay. Oh yeah. Did you have something to do? Oh yeah. Yeah. I want to steer around the bathroom jokes, even though those are the funniest ones to keep it clean as your podcast where they have questions. After dinner, the kids like to go outside and our youngest will be like, Hey, let's go lift rocks. And like, he just likes to show how strong he is, like lifting up rocks and dropping them.
00:07:27
Speaker
And then we started like, the rocks out here are kind of crumbly. So the kids are throwing them against this big rock and started to break them. And then one bounced off a big rock down the hill and shattered my windshield of my truck. And we're like both, all three of us looking at each other like, where's the adult that should have stopped us from doing this? That was just recently. It was kind of, it is what it is. Like that stinks.
00:07:55
Speaker
But you have to find the humor in it, you know, because otherwise you're just going to be upset all the time. Well, I can't get angry because I was also throwing rocks. Right. And frankly, how neat it was that you were a part of the shenanigans so that you guys kind of all destroyed your shoulders and were like, oh, well, instead of you stumbling across the boys being mischievous, right? What's going on here?
00:08:14
Speaker
Exactly. And I love that that shows that you are willing to take the time to have some fun with your kids, even if it might end up not the way you anticipated. You thought it was just going to be harmless fun and end up causing some damage. But that's parenting, right? Everywhere you look, things get messed up and things get broken and fingerprints are on the wall. And if you can't accept that for what it is, just normal life, you're going to be really upset for a lot of the parenting years. That's true.
00:08:43
Speaker
All right, so you mentioned some of your reasoning for getting into this space of strong family values is because you just recently realized how important it is. But what took you from, oh my gosh, we really want to put time into our family, too. We need to share this with the world. That's a big jump sometimes for some people. What got you going there?
Inspiration for Starting a Family Podcast
00:09:03
Speaker
Well, I think that we realized that we were putting together, we were doing some things in our family repeatedly every day, whether it's family dinners or the values that we got started. And we were seeing a lot of positive change in our family. And other people would come to us and visit us here in our new house because we have like a little guest loft. And they would say, wow, you guys have something really cool happening in your house. You should talk about it. You should do a podcast. And this is when I was like, what?
00:09:28
Speaker
You know, we're just doing our family thing. But I think getting that feedback from others that they thought that we were doing something that could impact other families got us kind of that fire lit underneath us.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly right. It was kind of the push from others and that you mentioned earlier like feeling cold to motherhood is like you felt it more later on in your life like as like Mel felt cold. She's got to be something hero. We have time.
00:09:58
Speaker
like volunteering more at the school, volunteering more with the church, and then just feeling a calling to start getting in these more serious conversations because we know if you have to teach something, it shows that you have to learn it first. And so selfishly, we want to learn more about it. So it provides us focus to learn more.
00:10:16
Speaker
And as a stay at home mom perspective, people would come to me and say, you know, what are you going to do for you? What's your career going to be? You know, how are you going to focus on that? And I thought to myself, I'm pretty happy, you know, being a mom to my boys. And I was very happy to just support Joe and whatever he needed at his work, because we had a company, I started doing the books for the company. So I didn't feel this need to do something else. And I kind of just thought through prayer, you know, something will come someday.
00:10:45
Speaker
So I kind of feel like the podcast and sharing this path we've come up with is that calling that I've been waiting for instead of having some other kind of need to go do my own career somewhere. This I think is where I've been led. Oh, that's so great. I'm so glad you shared that because I see that a lot too. I help a lot of moms start a business for themselves after those baby years, right? When you're starting to feel like you have a little bit more time.
00:11:07
Speaker
And so many times it's something related to family. It's like, well, I have this experience doing this, so I want to share it with others. Or I am actually really good at this because of these years of being a mom. And I think that's just so beautiful that we can take these talents that we've been given and the experience we have of putting it into our family and developing it, and then we can go out and impact the world. So I think that's so great that you shared that. I love it.
00:11:29
Speaker
I also love that you said, Joe, that you recognize that this is something you need to improve on. I think so many times we listen to people on the internet and we think, well, that's all great for them. They're an expert. But clearly none of us are an expert in raising families. Every kid brings their unique challenges. Every day brings its unique opportunities to teach and learn. And what a great humble way of looking at it is like, we got lots to learn, so let's dive in and learn from some experts. That's great.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that. It's the old adage, what you focus on is what you find. We used to do this at conferences when I was speaking in the fitness industry to like, Hey, I think it's a Tony Robinson, like, Hey, look around this room, find everything yellow. And like, everyone focuses and like, all right, close your eyes. How many red things do you see? And people are like, well, I was only focusing on this other thing. I didn't see anything that that's in that world. And so to put our focus on this is what we're starting to find and learn more from.
00:12:22
Speaker
And we thought that doing the podcast together, if anything, it helps us focus on becoming better parents. We didn't want to take on another responsibility that took us away from our family.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. So that you're saying, oh, I have something that I can serve the world with, but it's actually going to serve my family at the same time. That's so great. Exactly. Yep. Okay. So since you are sharing the importance of these family values with the world, I was going to ask you what you guys think is the biggest culprit of these family values
Defining Family Values and Parenting Education
00:12:55
Speaker
eroding. Like, do you see that happening in the world? And why do you think that is?
00:13:00
Speaker
Oh, that's a great question. I have two thoughts on it. I want to say these are the right answers, but I have two thoughts on it. Uh, the first thought is it actually comes from like Jim Collins, good to great. Like people use vague terms too much with family values. Okay. I want to have a good family. Like I want to have a good relationship with my kids, but they don't go any further to define what that looks like. And that is like the good to great moment for families. Like.
00:13:24
Speaker
yes, I want my kids to grow up with values. Okay, what are they? Well, you know, values, like, okay, what are they? And like, that's the leap that not enough families have taken yet. And they're trying to get there and trying to come up with like what the values are. And if you don't establish your family values, society's gonna establish them for you. Kids are gonna get values from their buddies, from their classmates, from their teachers, from their coaches, some good, some bad. You're just leaving your child up to filter through all of it. If you're not telling them and providing a framework for them to see the world,
00:13:53
Speaker
And so I think that actual just defining it moves them from being so ambiguous to being a little bit more solid is I think that just the little friction that people are facing.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I think before you even get to the values, people oftentimes are not taught how to be a parent. You kind of go through your childhood and I suppose you hope that you have a good example, but you don't necessarily take a class on how to be a parent. We took a class on how to change diapers and what to look out for when you have your first infant.
00:14:25
Speaker
But really the parenting, it's not really taught. So I think we are trying to put our ideas out there as like, here's a resource to structure and strategize your family system, instead of just follow falling into it and hoping for the best. So that's really been I think our focus is providing a strategy.
00:14:44
Speaker
And I think there's so much out there these days distracting kids. So if you don't have your values set in your family, or if you're ambiguous about it like Joe said, social media or other ideas are going to draw your kids away. And I think we always see the values as the foundation. So when we send our kids out there, they have something to filter what they're hearing through.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yes. Oh, I love that so much. When you said that, Joe, about making sure that you fill your kids up so that the world can't, I just pictured this sponge on the counter. That's what kids are. They're just little sponges, little dry sponges. What can I suck up? The first time your five-year-old comes home from somewhere and says a naughty word, you're like,
00:15:23
Speaker
Oh, yep, you just sucked that right up and thought that you'd spit that back out. And so if we're not constantly filling them up with good, with our love and our confidence in their abilities and whatever morality we want to teach them and these values that are important to us, like you said, they're just going to suck it up somewhere else. And then they're going to spit it back out at home and we're going to go, what is this? We did not teach you this, right? But we maybe dropped the ball somewhere.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly right. We actually were speaking to someone the other day and they used a sponge idea where you suck every, you soak everything in and until you're actually, until pressure is put on you, you don't know what's inside. So when your kid is tested in some way and that sponge gets squeezed, that's when you find out what's inside their heart and their mind. We talked to our kids a lot about protecting their heart and protecting their brain almost like if they have like this wall.
00:16:12
Speaker
So, don't let things in, like garbage in, garbage out, like don't let things in, whether it's what you're watching, if you hear things at school, you have to be strong enough to walk away from it if you don't want that in your heart. Oh, that's so great. Yeah, the pressure. Yeah, when you're under pressure, what comes out? I love that. So good.
00:16:29
Speaker
And I even have on our kitchen table right now a little post-it note with a Bible verse, which is, oh gosh, I wish I had it in front of me. But it's basically protect what goes into your heart. I can't remember where it was from. I think it's from a proper, but... That's so great. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Okay, so we're talking about the culprit of these eroding family values. Now what happens, we talked a little bit about this, but what happens as a consequence
Instilling Family Values for Identity
00:16:51
Speaker
of this? So if we don't pour this stuff into our kids and don't teach them how to grow up and be the kind of adults we want them to be, what can we expect?
00:17:00
Speaker
So as part of like the abstract is this saying, I'm guilty of saying it and I've heard a lot of other parents say it.
00:17:09
Speaker
where they, this is almost a tough truth I tell myself, so hopefully it doesn't offend anyone, but when we talk about our parents, we'll say, they did the best they could with what they had. That is us kind of being dismissive of trying to grow ourselves forward, and I'm worried about my kids saying that about me someday. I'm worried about it now, though, while I still have an opportunity to fix it. It's not to make anyone feel guilty,
00:17:35
Speaker
And in a lot of ways that is true, but I am scared about like, if they look at a picture on the wall of me in their house and like, what story is going to come out of them? Am I the person that tried my hardest to raise them and teach them values or left it up to society and more ambiguous? But on a more concrete level, we see a significant amount of mental health issues of early 20 year olds. And there's some research on it. We were just reading about yesterday that
00:18:03
Speaker
They're, they're pointing their finger to, they don't know who they are and they're going out in the world. And that creates a lot of mental health issues. If you can't define what you are, what your life is about, what you, what's your purpose, all these things can come from a, from a household and give them a leg up when they go out. And they're just like, if they leave it ambiguous to my earlier point where they're just like kind of happy, kind of good. And they go out there and like, Hey, what am I doing out here?
00:18:28
Speaker
And then they start thinking like, am I doing something wrong? Is it something with me? Like you're protecting your children when they go out and setting them up for success. This reminds me of an example with our oldest, a 13 year old. One of our family values is be genuine. And he takes that one to heart very much. He knows very much what he enjoys. He loves to build with Legos. He loves to just use power tools and create things and build things and take things apart. Whenever like if a toaster breaks in the kitchen, he asks for it and takes it apart and figures it all out.
00:18:58
Speaker
So I think what instead of just being like wow you really know who you are that's great because it's one of our values and we're constantly reinforcing the importance of being genuine. When he goes to school he does not really get enticed into drama because he knows who he is but I think he knows that because we're always reinforcing that he knows who he is.
00:19:20
Speaker
So if that's because it's one of our values where we're talking about how he embodies it when he goes out into the world, he doesn't have to figure out who he is as much because it's so well instilled at home. And I would worry that as adults, if we want our kids to grow up and be successful, I think everybody would say that about their kid. But again, what's the strategy? I always tell my kids, you don't just wake up one day and know how to be an adult. You're not going to wake up when you're 18 and know how to do your laundry.
00:19:47
Speaker
You're not going to wake up when you're 20 and know how to cook eggs. Like these things don't just, you know, download into your brain overnight when you become an adult, quote unquote. So that's why we try to strategize now so that when they do go off on their own, they know what to do and don't have to flounder. And I was listening to a podcast, Dennis Prager. I love what he said. He says people shouldn't waste their time on trying to find themselves. They should figure out who they want to be and go for that. So different. I thought that was really powerful.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, it is different. And to your point about the identity thing, you know, in this amazing modern world we have where we have access to any kind of information and really any person we want across the globe doesn't matter, there is this real temptation to
00:20:32
Speaker
try to find yourself somewhere else, right? Where's the tribe where I fit in? And I think that family is the number one fight against that, right? No, no, no. Actually, we're going to figure it out here together or we're going to decide who we want to be and we're going to go towards that, right? And I do think that the world sometimes leans a little bit too much on the child, like, well, tell us who you want to be. They don't
00:20:57
Speaker
or 15 or 20. They look to their parents or they should look to their parents as examples to say, this is who we should be. This is what's important.
00:21:05
Speaker
When they turn 25 and 30, they want to shift that a little bit. Great, but that's our job. It's not our job to just leave it up to them and see what comes out of it because it's going to be bad. It's not going to be great. That occurred to me when I was thinking about the questions you sent over. That did occur to me that with social media and with just the ideas that culture is presenting, culture is almost taking a lot of the power away from parents.
00:21:27
Speaker
So we really want to have a strong, like we're very, when we say strong family environment, like yes, we work out and we're strong physically, but strong in terms of our family culture being strong, we want them to filter these ideas through what we have going on here, because it is very scary world these days to send your kids out there and just, we'll see what happens. We're not okay with that. So we try to form the foundation here so that they know what to do, even though they, of course they're going to grow up and have their own values. And we just hope that we gave them a
00:21:56
Speaker
Good foundation. Right, right, exactly.
Introduction to Strong Family Path
00:21:59
Speaker
I love that. Okay, so speaking of these tools that you help parents with, tell us more about your strong family path concept. I love this idea and I want to hear more about it.
00:22:11
Speaker
Great, okay, I'll start. So we have seven different components of the path, and we kind of organically came up with a lot of these. They were things we were implementing throughout the day and week in our family and were able to conceptualize it into this path. And they don't necessarily lead to each other, but they all kind of come together in this synergistic way.
00:22:29
Speaker
So one of them is having core values, which we've covered a lot already. Another is goal setting. So we have a system of goal setting where we think it's important to teach kids not just, hey, what's your dream that someday this thing will happen? We actually set annual visions and 90-day check-ins. And then we actually do a little weekly commitment every week. And our five-year-old, even this morning in his little circle time at preschool, I was there for it. They did squats. And he's like, oh, this is part of my weekly commitment.
00:22:58
Speaker
So he's very aware already that he's working towards a goal. So that's really an exciting piece Another we have is the morning routine So we want our kids to wake up in the morning and have a purpose and we want them to contribute to the family So it's not like well get out of bed and do a chore It's you get out of bed you do a little workout and you contribute in the kitchen Yes, you can call it a chore, but we prefer to call it a contribution So they do their piece and they do a journal and set some goals for the day
00:23:30
Speaker
So what's the next one? Yeah, family dinners, which are kind of our informal conversation time and something that we lacked earlier on. So I was working 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and that became an informal conversation time for us to come together and discuss things. And we have the evening debrief, which is what milk
00:23:49
Speaker
insisted this was on the path and I was a little hesitant like hey I want to keep this path as short as possible for people because it's more practical the fewer steps and she said hey well this happens a lot where putting kids to bed and they're in their own environment and they're most comfortable and they're have their stuffed animals and that's when I asked the question hey what about
00:24:09
Speaker
this puberty video I have to watch or whatever it is like it's that's when the deeper conversations come up when they are comfortable and Mel used to call them doorknob conversations because it's like hey you want to get to bed yourself as a parent your hands on the doorknob and you're about to leave and then they ask the question and then you have to have the discipline to close the door and go back and have the conversation with them because you don't know when or if they'll bring it up again and so we decided to make sure that that landed on the path
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest opportunities I think in this whole path is being able, as you know, as a parent, you can't be selfish. It's a very selfless thing to do to be a parent. So as much as I want to go to sleep or go watch my TV show at the end of the day, if one of the kids brings something up, I make sure I sit down and we talk about it till it's done. We problem solve, we discuss, whatever. And those are oftentimes those topics that might not be appropriate for the dinner table or in front of the five-year-old, because I usually put him to bed first.
00:25:02
Speaker
So that's been a really special time and a bonding time for us as a family. And I think it's something that might just not, if you don't allow for that time, I think you'll just lose that and the kids won't come to you. All right, we have two more steps. And one is relationships, which is something that we learned during COVID time is that we have to manage the relationships in the household. And there are more than parents together, kids together, because we were a little bit rudimentary in our thinking initially.
00:25:32
Speaker
the relationships of how do we feel can how do we feel personally do we need to recharge time does Melanie to recharge time our relationship together our relationship with each kid and then the kids together. And so we have to keep our fingers in the pulse if something is a little bit off trying to figure out which relationship
00:25:50
Speaker
Like the two older ones have started to picker a little bit. Like that relationship is under some friction. So what we do are activities to help strengthen that relationship for a little while, get them some time apart, then get them some time back together and smooth it over. And if we're feeling really burnt out, you got to raise your hand and say it and then recharge instead of trying to exist like that. And it's able to move us a lot forward. I'm not good at math like Mel is.
00:26:15
Speaker
but to do nine or 10 exponent for all the potential relationships in the family. It's a lot to manage, but to keep your fingers on the pulse of what's going on in the lens of relationships, how they view themselves and how they view others in the house.
00:26:29
Speaker
And so much of that relates to how well we communicate together. So we try to strive to take a walk every day, if not every other day, just a 15 to 45 minute walk. And that helps us to reconnect and discuss what's going on with each kid. Or if I sense one child struggling with something, we can discuss it ahead of time. It helps us to be on the same page, keeps us connected, and then it helps us to help the child advocate for what they need.
00:26:54
Speaker
or whichever relationship we're talking about, individual or siblings or whatever the case might be. Like for example, for a couple weeks our kids were just all sick so they were home from school and all of a sudden we were feeling disconnected and I was like, Joe, what is going on? And then I realized we haven't gone on a walk in two weeks because the kids kept needing us and being home.
00:27:14
Speaker
So it helped us to just reconnect and know, keep a pulse like Joe said on each of the relationships in the house. And the final aspect of the path is the family meeting. So we have the family dinners and in our family we've decided to schedule a weekly
The Role of Family Meetings
00:27:30
Speaker
meeting. So usually it happens every Saturday during dinner and it's more formal than just the regular
00:27:37
Speaker
We talk about how we've embodied a core value that week. We just have discussion topics where we can discuss whatever needs to happen schedule wise or if there's an issue that we're dealing with and we include the children in giving us solutions. And oftentimes that's really powerful because they want to learn how to problem solve. And if they solve the problem themselves, they have more of an, they have a buy-in to actually follow through with it.
00:28:04
Speaker
And then we each go around and do some tough truths if needed. So it's like a loving way to give a criticism in a positive way to try to help them out. Whether it's, you know, I've noticed lately you haven't been giving a lot of good eye contact when you're talking with us. Let's work on that.
00:28:19
Speaker
So it's not punitive. It's more like I love you and because I love you I want to share this thing that I want you to work on and we encourage the kids to also call us out in a loving and kind way if there's something that we're doing that might be bothering them because it's important that we're fallible people. We're not perfect of course. And finally we give compliments and a firm handshake or I go around and give hugs.
00:28:43
Speaker
I love it. I love those tough truths. We really need to do that more in our house, but I have to be humble enough to hear them. It's a powerful moment. We have to reflect taking it. I'll get it every once in a while. Our middle child's like, dad, sometimes in the evening I see you on your phone.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yes, I'm doing work, but I'm not going to use that as an excuse. I'm just going to say, you're right. I am on my phone. I'm going to work on it, like hear it. So he doesn't hear me giving excuses for something that he sees. And then the next week I'll say, Hey, have you noticed how I've been doing on it to like elevate him as being a part of a team and having value and contribution versus me just saying, Hey, I'm the doll. I get to do that.
00:29:22
Speaker
Right, we don't like the phrase, because I told you so, or because I'm the adult. We really want the kids to understand why we're doing what we're doing. We want them to see that they have a lot of value in the family. They provide value. Because we use the analogy of a river. Like, it's a rushing river. Like, where you want to be is on the other side. You're on this side. You're not going to be able to jump and do it all at once. Like, drop one rock in the water and step on that. And then drop the next rock in and step on that until you get all the way across. And usually that first rock.
00:29:51
Speaker
is having a meeting with if they have a spouse and then defining what success looks like like things are off like here's where we want to go now let's figure out how to put these rocks down together so we can get there and that usually happens in a family meeting and I would advocate hard for just doing something simple whatever is easiest for your family first
00:30:11
Speaker
And so if core values seem very daunting, like, okay, let's start with the family meeting each week and just start communicating with each other. We can do core values three months from now. That'll still come up. And so let's go one step at a time on the path.
00:30:25
Speaker
Right. And I think the powerful thing about the path is that it's not like you have to go from one step to the next. Yes, ideally, the core values should be the foundation. But if it's if you really have nothing, like you feel very, very overwhelmed by it, pick the one thing that seems to make the most sense or that you already have going on, like maybe there's kind of a morning routine, and you just tweak that a little bit.
00:30:46
Speaker
Or maybe there's that time in the evening where you notice your kids are oftentimes asking for your attention and you're kind of struggling with that. Maybe put your focus on that one piece. And I think as soon as you get one piece going and you see some progress, you know that forward motion of getting some things done and seeing some progress with your kids.
00:31:04
Speaker
will hopefully motivate you to try to do the other steps or to pick one next step, that we've big proponents of one step at a time. When we were deciding during COVID that I was homeschooling, we decided to move across the country. We had to still homeschool, show our house because we had to sell it, find a house to move into, and I was extremely overwhelmed, almost to like paniclevel.
00:31:28
Speaker
And then Joe just said, well, hey, what's the next step or step or what's that next rock we can toss into the river to step on? And every day I would have to just kind of tell myself, what's the next thing I can do? And kids are oftentimes really good at getting you to step there. They're at step 500. Like our kids would say, well, are we going to move and then buy a four wheeler?
00:31:47
Speaker
That's like step 500 like we're on step three right now So just that mindset of what what's one thing you can do today? Even if it's starting to give hugs in the morning I give each of my kids a hug as soon as they walk in the kitchen and if I miss it They tell me they give me a hug So just something really small and simple I think sometimes we overwhelm it and think we have to do it all Just a little thing like that can make a big impact and clearly the kids notice when I forget to hug them
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think to provide some clarity and peace of mind here's something very tactical that parents can do is right down the list of What you think is in deficit right now? These are all things we want to work on Choose three to five you work on them for 90 days And then you see how you did and then you choose three to five for the next 90 days and now to those forward It's the old rocks comp concept do the biggest things you can't handle more than that you can't do a whole list and practically get it done and
00:32:43
Speaker
live in a 90 day world, push yourself on it week to week and see what you can do and then just choose the next three to five. Those are such good tips. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that. The one step at a time, right? Yeah, that's how we survive. Yeah, it is how we survive even now.
00:33:00
Speaker
It does happen probably more often than not where parents are on the same page and kids are a little resistant at the beginning and it's a great question. I've got a couple thoughts on it because there are a couple of different levels. First level your household and then there's your extended family, which is a whole different level. If they see you go on a different path and perhaps they taught you or they're all going, then it gets to be a little bit juggle, but we always go home first.
00:33:24
Speaker
and so first thing is we role model it and we see how it impacts our life. They don't always have to go along at the beginning and so we'll role model things. Just the other day I was out just yesterday we were out in the driveway doing a little exercise. I don't say hey like this is important for your life come do this. I'm like hey this is important so I'm going to show you that I do it and then all of a sudden they're like carrying logs up a hill and look at me like this is too easy and the role modeling
00:33:49
Speaker
aspect of it is powerful with a mindset like this isn't gonna all happen at once our philosophy is constant gentle pressure and whether that's between between us like hey let's let's get this podcast started let's get this thing started like let's nudge it forward or between us and the kids
00:34:07
Speaker
I think the mistake is just doing a big confrontation. All right, we're gonna do a complete 180 in this family. We're gonna go in this direction and everyone's like, well, what the heck? We've been going this way forever. So it's constant gentle pressure and role modeling, play a huge role. And then the last piece of it is once you create the standards, hold the standards. It's not done with a high heart rate. It's not done yelling. It's just consistency. Like here's what we stand for and here's why. And then we're just gonna keep doing this. We're serious people and we're not gonna let things flip-flop.
00:34:36
Speaker
Because the beginning if you didn't have them and then you do have them kids will try to like get away with things they're master negotiators and Change is is tough for them and they're gonna see if they can resist against it And if you just handle it calmly like hey, this isn't gonna serve you if we keep going down this path So it's important to me that I keep going down this path of family growth and development So I'd love it if you were on board if you're not on board today, I'll ask again tomorrow
00:35:00
Speaker
And I think we're talking a lot about values today. And the exciting thing about starting our podcast and talking about the Strong Family Path is we're talking to families who, some who don't even have kids yet, they're just newly married, some who have a baby, some who have teenagers.
00:35:15
Speaker
So I think in an ideal world, you would go through and figure out your core values before you even have kids. So you can start that process right away. Someone asked us, well, what about family meetings? How old does the kid have to be? You can have a family meeting between parents with a baby right there, and they will just grow up and see that, which is what he was talking about, about role modeling.
00:35:35
Speaker
But the exciting thing also, if you're starting the path a little bit later, let's say you have teens, I think it's important for the adults to discuss some core values first, but to include the kids in the process and seeing what kind of things they value. And if you could figure out how to implement that and include it, that'll be super bond forming for the family.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah. One other thing you can do is try to make it relatable to whatever they like in life. And let's say your kid likes sports and they like this particular team. You say, do you think they like to show up and win championships or do you think they, they practice it and they meet about it and they do their, their routines and whether, or it's orchestra. Do you think the orchestra just shows up and plays all their instruments at once? Like, what would that sound like? It takes some behind the scenes lifting for you to see that end result. That includes practice. That includes working together.
00:36:25
Speaker
And that includes a lot of things. So all these successful organizations that you like and you have your posters up on the wall, like they do these things. Yeah, all you see is sometimes the successes or you might say, Oh, it must be nice for that family. But it's all that behind the scenes work. And I don't even want to call it work, but effort and strategy that really pushes everything forward.
00:36:46
Speaker
Wow, so many great tips. I see a lot of moms, especially if large families feel like they're taking on all the burden of this sort of
Mutual Goals and Children's Involvement
00:36:54
Speaker
thing, right? Maybe because they're the stay-at-home mom, and so they see the problems a little bit more than dad does, and so they take on all this obligation responsibility.
00:37:03
Speaker
I love it being a family effort, right? And if you can really communicate it to the other spouse, hey, I really need you to get my back on this, that's helpful. But also to have the kids buy in, like guys, like Audrey's 20 year vision she's always talking about, guys, what do you want to see when you come home to visit with your...
00:37:22
Speaker
future spouse and children. How do you want to be treated? What kind of relationships do you want to have? It can be really exciting for them to dream that as well. You guys have shared so many great tools to get them bought in, so I love that. Thanks. Yep, sure.
00:37:35
Speaker
Hey, you're welcome. And thank you for the 20-year vision until Mel was talking about it yesterday, after we chatted before. Well, I already told the kids about it at dinner. I was that excited about it, because I want them to start thinking in those terms. Just like I said earlier, you don't just wake up and know how to adult, or you don't just wake up and know how to do something. You have to act on it, and the choices you make now impact that. So I was very excited by that. So thank you again, Audrey.
00:37:58
Speaker
Okay, so you guys have shared so many great tips and tricks. Thank you so much. But tell me exactly where you guys see yourself in this role of guiding parents into this place of adopting new family values. You have a podcast, right? And then what's your approach there to helping families get a head start on this?
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, so the first thing we do to just mention the podcast briefly is that we have the strong family project podcast. And then on our website, strong family project comm we give away the steps the path and how we implement them. And we give away 50 examples of core values like trying to get people to jumpstart. And so we see our role is as kind of defining what success looks like. I mentioned earlier, Audrey did a great job with a 20 year
00:38:38
Speaker
vision. Like, hey, you have to have a definition of success if you want to get there, you have to know where you're going to go. And so we're just kind of nudging people like, hey, come up with where you want your family to go, because this is important. Otherwise, it's just going to happen. And you just don't want to guess and wander around and see what happens.
00:38:55
Speaker
And so here's some supplies and here's some nudging to say, just be intentional about it. You don't have to believe what we believe. You don't have to adopt our core values. But here's the structure in which it works for us. I like to use the analogy of exercise. Like there's a lot of different exercise that works for people. You can go out and run, you can lift weights, you can
00:39:14
Speaker
do crossfit, you can go to orange, you can do a whole, you can do yoga, you can apply, like all these things work if that's what you really enjoy doing. And so, but you got to move and you got to do things intentionally. And that's what we're trying to do for family saying, Hey, here's, here's a path that you can intentionally walk down and then choose how it fits for your life.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, and on top of the podcast and the website, we're working on a book together that goes into this further. And we hope eventually to maybe even have in-person events where we could actually help families in person if they're really struggling to get a piece of the path going. Because one time, one of Joe's friends was visiting us, and he was really enjoying how we were running our family meeting. And just being there physically and watching us do it gave him a lot of perspective and almost motivation to go home and do something similar with his family.
00:40:03
Speaker
That's kind of what I do for businesses currently. So I do business consulting from the fitness industry. People fly out. They say, here's everything that's going on. What do I need to do in the next 90 days? We talk about it for a couple of days. They leave with a plan. They go do it. They come back now that it's.
00:40:17
Speaker
It's funny how much effort we put into business, like I said earlier, but not our family organization. The same thing is possible. So some people can take all the free content, which is great, and then do it themselves. Some people just need a little guidance. And so we hope to build connection through in-person events.
Family Structure and Child Development
00:40:33
Speaker
I know we're both on in the online world, but we get a huge value out of meeting people, even if online and getting to know them a little bit better. So we'd rather affect a handful of families than 10,000 people listen that we never hear from.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I've never been to Colorado, so if you're going to host it, do it there. I'd love to count. We're lining up some of the people that we really like in this industry, like you and Audrey. Maybe we can have some guest speakers and get them out here and introduce them. It's so interesting, too, as a last thought, Joe, that you're comparing business and family because in the early days of our podcast, we actually had a guest on who does the same thing, who teaches people.
00:41:10
Speaker
how to run their family like a business that you are the CEO and you have, you know, all the effort, like you said, we put into we have business plans and, and, you know, these mantras and, you know, all these organizational tools to make things run smoothly and how sometimes little effort in contrast with our families and how powerful that can be to treat it like, like an organization that you know will succeed. So I love that. So great.
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah, it has to be very intentional about it. That's an excellent point. It's almost a negative connotation like, well, this is the home and it should be ambiguous. And we have to break down those barriers a little bit and say, there's things we can learn from it. There's things that we don't want to do. There's things that we do want to do. And kind of the path is what we found has worked from things that we've garnered from family life, from coaching, teaching, social work, and from the business world.
00:42:00
Speaker
And kids, I mean, they always say it at school, kids love structure. And I think that structure, again, you go to a classroom, like today I was at the preschool and they have a very specific order of how they do things at school. And we see our kids thrive at home because we have the structure. You know, if we miss a family meeting because the weekend either Joe was out of town or something came up, they noticed that they feel the lack of it. So I think structure at home is very powerful. Yeah, I love that.
00:42:29
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We have loved chatting with you. Will you please tell our listeners where they can find you and come listen to the podcast?
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's an honor to be on there. We're at strong family project on every podcast platform. You can think of just like outnumbered, we're probably on the same ones. And then our website, strong family project.com is where you can download the path for free and check out the articles that we have there for you. Awesome. Thanks for having us. That is great. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a very good time. We appreciate it. And thank you for sharing the laughs with us and the value and learning and Mel, like I said, has taken a lot of notes from what we've chatted about. Thanks so much guys.
00:43:07
Speaker
Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.