The One You Feed - How to Build a Family Culture That Brings You Closer and Makes You Stronger with Steven Shapiro and Nancy Shapiro

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

In this episode, Steven Shapiro and Nancy Shapiro discuss how to build a family culture that brings you closer and makes you stronger. They are a brother and sister duo, educators and creators of the “Our Family Culture” system. Steven and Nancy discuss the importance of intentionally shaping family culture to support children’s emotional well-being and resilience and they share practical strategies for identifying core values, developing shared language, and practicing consistent, meaningful actions within families. They highlight how conscious culture-building can strengthen family bonds, foster healthy development, and create a positive legacy across generations.To receive a 33% discount on the Our Family Culture app, enter the code WOLF at checkout!Key Takeaways:The concept of “family culture” and its impact on children’s emotional and mental well-being.The importance of intentionality in shaping family culture versus allowing it to develop by default.The role of core values in guiding family dynamics and behaviors.The significance of creating a supportive emotional environment for children.The challenges parents face in raising children, including mental health concerns and societal pressures.The idea of generational legacy and how parenting styles are often replicated or opposed by children.Practical strategies for families to engage in culture-building, including small, manageable actions.The dynamic nature of family culture and the importance of collaboration among family members.Tools and resources to facilitate meaningful conversations about values within families.f you enjoyed this conversation with Steven and Nancy, check out these other episodes:How to Manage Family Relationships with Nedra Glover TawwabHow to Make Great Relationships with Dr. Rick HansonPurposeful Living: Strategies to Align Your Values and Actions with Victor StrecherFor full show notes, click here!Connect with the show:Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPodSubscribe on Apple Podcasts or SpotifyFollow us on InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I think one of the challenges for parents and for people raising families is, in many cases, it's the first time that they've been the architect of their own culture. Most of the time we're culture passengers. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. After this conversation, I couldn't stop thinking about my son. He's 27 now, and like every parent, I can think of things I did well

and things I wish I'd done differently. Talking with Stephen and Nancy Shapiro reminded me of one core truth. You don't raise kids by having the right answers. You raise them by creating the right environment, what they call family culture, not just, ideas, but actions, shared language, small, consistent practices that define who we are. And while this is aimed at families, I think what they've created is really about how we create culture in all the groups we're part of, because culture is always there, operating

behind the scenes, and we always have a chance to improve it. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Stephen, hi, Nancy. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric. Great to be here. For those of you who are listening, you are not seeing this, but the three of us are sitting in a room together in Columbus, Ohio. And Stephen and Nancy are people that I've become friends with over the last year, two years probably. And I wanted to have them on to talk about something that they've created called Our Family Culture, which is really about how to create a culture, really in any group of people. So we're going to talk about that. But before we do, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their

grandchild and they say in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle one is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love and the other's a bad wolf which represents things like greed and hatred and fear and the grandchild stops and you think about it for a second they look up at their grandparent they say well which one wins and a grandparent says the one you feed so i'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. We love that parable, Eric. And both of us are educators and parents. And so we hear that parable through the lens of parents and families. And I think when you think about feeding as a parent, the minute a child's born, you make an immediate decision about feeding your child. Are we going to

nurse the child or are we going to bottle feed the child? And as you go a few months later, we're going to introduce solid food. How are we going to do that? And what's the best way to do that in the healthiest way? And as the kid gets older, we make decisions about things like, how do we we get them to eat healthy foods? How do we convince them to eat vegetables? Like, that's a constant parent battle. How do we get them to like fruits and vegetables and not become addicted to sweets and junk food? And so we think a lot about how we feed our child because we want their physical health to be good. And so I think in the line of this parable, we are also feeding our kids emotionally. We're feeding our kids not just food in their body, but we're

feeding them ideas and values that nurture their souls and their well-being. And so when I hear that parable. I think about as a parent, how do I make conscious decisions about what I feed my child emotionally, not just about what I feed my child physically. Makes sense. Yeah. And as a middle school counselor, I was a middle school counselor for almost 30 years. And so also a parent and an educator. And so when I think about that, I would add to that that the emotional food that we provide for our kids is what makes them who they are. And if we're not very intentional about it, how we are feeding them emotionally. What are our kids walking out of the house each day feeling?

Are they feeling safe? Are they feeling kind? Are they feeling protected? Or are they sensing stress and anger and perfectionism? What is it they're walking away with? And so when we talk about feeding our kids emotionally, we want to make sure that we are being super intentional about how we're feeding them emotionally because we have this, as you know, I'm sure,

this terrible crisis in mental health with young people. And so there's a lot of loneliness, depression, sadness. And so if we have this base of being well fed both physically and emotionally, then we're putting kids out in the world who are ready to tackle whatever comes at them. You used a word in there that I want to come back to, which is intentional. because we can talk about this in the culture of a family, but every group of people you put together ends up having a culture. For sure.

Whether you intend it or not, it does. And intentionality in that culture is what's critical for it to be the kind of culture that you want, whether that be your family, your children, that be a group of friends, a place that you work, a support group you're part of. There's always an element of we can just let it kind of shape the way it does or we can direct it to a certain degree. And I think what you guys are really focusing on is directing that culture to a certain degree. Now, you guys are not saying here are the five things you as a family must do. You're offering up, what, 50?

50 fundamentals? I think 44 at this point. That a family would go through or a group would go through. And choose, here are the 10, 12 that are really important to us, that represent who we are. And then what you're trying to do is then provide them with very small, very easy things they can do to build their family around that idea. Give us an example of an idea. Well, I think if you pull back, if you ask, we asked many, many parents as we were doing this work, both in our careers and then as market research in this work. What kind of kids are you trying to raise?

What kind of family are you trying to have? And what we found, and it was actually quite surprising, is most people, when they thought about what kind of kids am I trying to raise, would say, kind, honest, let's see. And they were kind of stuck. There was those two. Everybody wants their kid to be kind. Everyone wants their kid to be honest.

But usually people got stuck there. Now, that isn't to say that people don't care about a lot more things than that. Deeply and passionately. It's just that they're not at the front of people. minds. Right. And so what we're trying to help parents do is say, let's really plumb the depths to say, what do you really care about? What really makes your heart sing? What could a parent say about your kid at a parent-teacher conference that you'd be like, yes, that's the kind of kid we're trying to raise if we can identify those things and bring them to the forefront. And so you ask

for examples, I think one of the, in addition to practicing kindness or showing integrity or doing the right thing, a lot of parents really want their kids to be resilient. It's really important. when our kids are all going to face obstacles and hardships, and a lot of parents really want to make sure their kids are able to weather the storm. And so we have a fundamental called bounce back. When something hits you hard, we bounce back. Let's practice building our resilience. And there's a wide variety. I think some families are really committed to respect and hard work. Some families are really committed to creativity and self-expression. There's not a right way to have a family. It's just figuring out what kind of family you want to have.

But, Eric, what you said, I think, is very important about when you recognize the intentionality and the fact that all groups of people when they come together are a culture. So you either are a culture by default or a culture by design. And so what we're trying to do is, if I asked you about what your family culture was like growing up, I'm sure you would have some memories that would start popping up and thoughts that would come up. We do too. We were raised by the same parents. In the same home. In the same home, even. I don't know if you said that.

Oh, yeah, we're a brother and sister. You live in the same home? How'd that happen? That's so weird. But I think instead of just allowing culture to happen by default, we recognize that families don't identify as cultures necessarily. And so we're sort of elevating that idea that when you're a part of a family, you are a culture. And in fact, we want that culture to be the strongest part of who you are as you're building the person that you're going to become in the world. And we want that culture to be really deeply aligned

with what you care most about. Exactly. Like, why not? When you have a kid, you have dreams and hopes. How do you make those things come to life with intention and purpose? Yep. I want to jump back up for a second. I went a little deeper than I wanted to at first because I want to go back to something you said about kids' mental health crisis. So I have certainly read all of the data on this. And if you really pay close attention, there's some factors in there that are, you are being reported in ways that are not necessarily accurate. As in a certain number of years ago, we started reporting teen issues differently. And all of a sudden, you saw this jump go up because the way things were reported. So there's a lot of, there can be a lot of noise in that

data. And I'm not really here to debate that one way or the other. What I would like to do is actually say, as educators, as people who worked day by day with kids, what have you actually been seen, regardless of what the cultural narrative is. Yeah. I mean, I can speak to that in my work as a middle school counselor, and a portion of middle school is, it's a kooky time anyway, for kids. And by the way, I work with incredible kids. Like, there are some kids who are really grounded and really know who they are and what

they're about and are great leaders, but more kids are really trying to figure it out, and they don't know who to look to to figure it out. And so they're kind of unmoored. They don't know what they believe. They don't know what they think because, you know, think about the other food coming to them in their lives, the other feeds that they get. All of their social media stuff and just the normal peer relation and peer pressure and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of confusion for that young brain to try and figure out. One of the things I observed a lot is anxiety.

And the anxiety is usually rooted in, and this is really disturbing, but I'll say it out loud. I think a lot of kids feel like their entire childhood is an audition for a college admissions officer. Their really, their whole life is going to be determined by which college they get into. And so they're making decisions about what's important, about what they do in their life based on what will look good on a college application. And their fear is that if they don't get into the right college, their life will somehow be diminished in so great way. Well, or their parents fear. Their fear or their parents fear, which is what they're feeding their kids. Yep. Yeah. And so in some ways, rather than living to some sense, of values or some principles, they're really just trying to achieve some external validation

as opposed to having some sense of who they are independent of that. Right, right. I was saying to you, Stephen, the other day, I don't remember what I was listening to, but somebody was talking about purpose and about, you know, about people knowing what they want to do with their life. And they, I don't know how accurate this fact is, but it was interesting. They said, only two out of ten kids in their 20s really have any idea. And of those two out of 10, 80% of them are religious, meaning the vast majority of kids who have any real sense of where they're going in their 20s are the ones that are religious.

That makes sense, right? That makes sense because if you are raised in a home where religion is important and, and I think this is a critical and, it works for you because it doesn't for a whole lot of people. And it works for you. That's ideal. That's wonderful. What I like about what you guys have done is that you've moved beyond any sort of fixed belief system. And you've made the field wide enough for parents to be able to say, here are the things that are really important to us as a family.

And they can be whatever they are. You get to make your own unique sort of combination of them. And then the next thing I think is really important. And somebody who has a book coming out next year called How a Little becomes a lot. right it's about how little things accumulate and how trying to do too much at once often is unsustainable and as parents i mean i'm a parent my son is 26 now but as a parent i can think back on you give me some big program i need to start doing to build family culture it is not going to happen overwhelming i'm not going to be able to do it and so what you're providing are these

really small things an activity per day per week or a question or a short conversation that you can have as a family as a whole to talk about that idea. So if we're talking about bouncing back, about being resilient, there's little things to talk about and do each week in that regard. Right. So an example of that might be, so what would happen is you would get something each day, like you said. An example might be when you experience a disappointment, you know, people often try to

help you feel better by saying, don't worry, it's okay, you'll get over it, or a sadness or something. So the question might be, what is something that people could say to you that would feel better then? It's okay. Don't worry about it. And so we're asking kids to start identifying and families to start identifying when you are feeling upset, sad, disappointed, like a failure, whatever it might be, what can we say to you that's going to make you feel better? And this is aligned with the fundamental bounce back. So if we want to help you bounce back, what will be the right thing for us to say

that will give you so I got cut from the team it's like oh don't worry about it it's like I am worried about it exactly that didn't work so what would be useful and a kid might say might be useful for you

to remind me about that video we watched where Michael Jordan got cut from his team and about how that made him stronger and it's like oh if you say that to me that's going to inspire me a little bit more and so we're feeding parents

all of that stuff to help them build that culture about resilience in this case with the notion that each one of the fundamentals is action-oriented. There are values that are seeped in to these actions. So bounce back is the action. And so once you have practiced bounce back over and over, then all of a sudden, instead, it's shortcut. You don't have to go through all the different things. It's like, oh, gosh,

I didn't get the grade I went on my test. Oh, how are you going to bounce back? Right. I would say in some ways, like you're focusing on this, the way that this shows up. And I would say that's actually part three of the system. Part one, we've talked about a little bit, is alignment. Like, just identifying what do you care about. I mean, I think, and strangely, I know this is hard to express, but if people are listening right now, and I would just say to you, make a list of the 10 most important things

you want to raise your kid with or that you want to build in your church group or your, you know, focus, whatever group you want to focus on, most people have a lot, it's work to figure that out. Oh, it's a tremendous amount of work. So, like, if you start with that, so what we're providing people with this list is choose it. Now you've got alignment. Now we know what we care about. Second thing, language, right?

We've got words. So if we say resilience is important, we're giving you bounce back. Now, this is code word, and these become shorthand language. So now we have a way of talking about resilience in our family. We use the phrase bounce back all the time. I think one of our fundamentals is called Leave It Better Than You Found it. And it's a great one because once you get Leave It Better Than You Found it, your mind you will not walk past a piece of trash without thinking that is my fundamental i don't know

what they're called like razors right a razor which is just the simplest thing you can have and and when i tried to boil down everything that i believe in want to do all that into like one razor one sentence that i could use it was that i want to leave every person place or thing better than i found it it just gives me the simplest orientation if i'm like trying to make a decision between two things. Well, which is going to do that better? And so you said language is number two and then number three. Practice. Practice. Okay. So you got alignment. I know what I care about. Language. I know what I call that. And then practice, which is I get to bring that into conversations with my kids and actions with my kids. So it's both what we're providing with people is once you have,

and this is one per week. So say this is bounce back week. Throughout the week, we're going to give you questions you can talk to your kid about. We're going to give you scenarios you can present to kids, see, what would you do in this case? Videos, Eric, I think this is my favorite part of our system. I do, I mean, I think I watched all the seasons of YouTube. I mean, I watched literally thousands and thousands of videos to find these amazing, like, two and three minute videos that align with each of these fundamentals. So, like, if you're doing Bounce Back, there's this great video you can watch of Michael

Jordan being interviewed talking about being cut from the basketball team, for example, or there's a whole bunch of them. And so you're just in, you're in this conversation with your kids about Bounce Back, just for one week, and then you move on to the next one. And if there's 15 of them, you do them for 15 weeks. And then you turn around. You're back to bounce back. Yeah.

But eventually, over time, this is how culture gets built, this slow way where language becomes shared and conversation. In some ways, we're not only helping you build a better family and build better kids, we're actually helping people have better conversations with their children. And have better relationships with their partners if they're parenting with a partner. And just in general, being more intentional about their own lives, right? But this is intended. Most parents are going to take it on for the children.

But an example, me doing this podcast, just talking about this sort of stuff all the time, changed who I was on a, you know, on a consistent basis. We work with a gentleman named David Friedman who wrote a book, Culture by Design. And so he has done this culture building work in business. And when we read his book, in fact, at the end of it, we were sitting at Stevens' kitchen table. He's like, listen to this. and he reads out loud. And David says, many people often ask me if I use this same system when raising my family.

And the answer always is, I wish I had. And so it's funny because we're working with David and sort of building off of his system with our background and history and expertise. And there are a lot of people who have asked him in the work that he's done, do you have anything like this for families? And I have a feeling what's going to end up happening when families are using our family culture is people are going to say, hey, do you have anything like this for schools or for business or for it's so symbiotic that way? Right. Once you start thinking about culture, you suddenly recognize how, A, ubiquitous it is and how important it is. It is. Right. And you realize you're in a bunch of different cultures.

Yes. Unless you just stay at home all the time, in which case you're in a culture, you're still in a culture because you're watching TV or reading. or whatever, but yes, you're in one. And I think as soon as you start thinking about it, at least for me, I start to see it everywhere. And I start to go, oh, okay, that's a great culture. But this other one I'm in doesn't feel so good. Yeah, I think one of the challenges for parents and for people raising families is, in many cases, it's the first time that they've been the architect of their own culture. Most of the time we're culture passengers.

Rarely are we culture drivers. Yes. Right. I think one of the advantages, when I look at my own parenting journey, my wife and I were both educators. She was an elementary teacher. I was a high school teacher. The beauty for us was that we had five years of teaching experience before we had kids. So we had practiced creating a culture in our classroom.

And then when it sucked after the first year, we're like, okay, we can do better the second year. And by the third and fourth year, we figured some things out. We figured out what we cared about. We figured out how to make that live. For many people, like their family is the first time that they've actually been in charge of designing the culture. And that's a tough place to start because it's the most important culture you'll ever build. and it's your first try at it. Yep.

And many are simply unaware that that's what they're doing. When I heard about what you were doing, I certainly was like, I wish I had this when Jordan was little. We say that too, by the way. I mean, I feel like I did lots of things good, some things probably not so good. But there wasn't this level of intentionality and this level of consistency. And that's what I think is really important. it is the little things repeated because I created a program called wise habits and I think there's a lot of overlap and I set it up as there's like three core problems that we kind of

have to solve right first is just busyness everybody's super busy so whatever you do has to fit second is the problem of forgetting you just forget to do it yeah you have the best intentions on Sunday evening and by Thursday you're like what happened and then the last is way too much information way too many things to do do this do that you know and i don't mean i don't just mean like tasks i mean information like if you're like oh i want to be a parent i'm gonna want to be a good parent there's a thousand things coming at me a thousand different posts i could read eight blogs before breakfast right but none of that i won't say none of it rarely does that translate into a path forward because that path has to be consistent to a certain degree it has to go

in a certain direction. And then it needs to kind of loop back on itself, right? Because we don't get it the first time. And, you know, the first 50 times I was in an AA meeting, they say the same thing every time. I mean, you're both good and bad. I mean, like, you know, there are times I thought I'm going to kill me. I mean, if I have to hear this again, that's what's going to cause me to drink, right? If I have to listen to them, read these 12 steps again. And yet, it was the consistent going back to these foundations that I believe was one of the big reasons for transformation. It's because I was exposed to the same thing consistently again and again and again. The same idea, and that's partially what you guys are doing.

There's a Jewish system known as Musar that does this also. There's a certain number of traits or character virtues that you pick and you go through them, maybe 13, there's 13 of them, and when you get to end of 13, you start right back over, you do it four times a year and you keep going. And over time, you are deepening yourself further and further into these things. I want to ask a question about the language, though. I'm really intrigued by not values, but actions. Behaviorers.

Or behaviors. Say more about why that is that way. I think the reason it's that way is because when you look at a list, you know, there's lists of values. You can talk about trying to pick values. I mean, schools do this all the time. What do we value our businesses? What do we value?

How do we want to pick our core values? You look at the list, and the words, they're usually words, a single word, responsibility, respect, compassion, whatever the words are. And they mean different things to different people. So if the word respect is there and you come from a military background, that means something really different than somebody who is trying to make change in the world, policy change in the world. policy change in the world let's say and respect might look a little bit different and so when you look at those words there's a lot of different interpretations of them

in addition what we wanted to do was to have actionable behaviors so that you know if I think about oh we have to be respectful you know that's really hard but if I well that's not the best example in the end culture isn't what you believe it's what you do it's what you do right

that's how you know people you can go into the locker room and say a whole bunch of stuff right but the question is like now what? Now what? Do you, you know, if you're, I mean, coaches are great culture builders. I mean, every, every team has a coach that's trying to build a particular culture. That has to show up at practice. That has to show up in, in the way you talk to your team. That has to show up in how you respond when people violate. So behavior is what drives culture. For sure. There are, you know, underlying fundamental beliefs or values that shape that, but it's behavior that is the face of

culture. Right. What I think is really interesting about this is I do a lot of work with people on, figuring out values. And you're right, you give somebody a list of 50 values, and at least for me, that exercise was always paralyzing, right? It was just like, well, I agree with all of them. Like, who doesn't want respect? Who doesn't want honesty? Who doesn't want adventure?

Who doesn't want kindness? Who doesn't want? Sign me up for all of them. And, you know, the old maximum project management was if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. So choosing is difficult. And I think in your program, it's still difficult because you got 50 words. But I like this idea of instead of having to define a value and then define an action that goes with that value, you're kind of right to the actions.

And it seems like that that's a nice, it's a nice step that, I mean, life is complex. No system gives you the answers for everything that you come across in reality. But this is a, it is a shortcut, you know, leave it better than you found it. is a, I mean, I could tell you what the value is underneath it, but it's a pretty straightforward thing. Yes, do the thing. Bounce back, same thing. The ability to, okay, I bounce back when I'm in a difficult situation.

And language can also be fun. Like, we have a fun amount called love yourself, but not too much. Right. And so that's like confidence plus modesty. Right. Love yourself, but not too much. So, you know, it's when your kid is down on themselves, love yourself, when your kid's overdoing it, but not too much.

Right. And so it's, it's, in some ways, these are. shorthand so we can actually talk to each other about the way the actions are shaping up. And I think to a point you were making earlier, I think a lot of parents join up with our family culture because they want their kids to be a certain way. What they realize in the process is it's not just about what your kids are going to be like. It's about what you're going to be like. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. This is, family culture isn't just for the kids. We're all in this thing. Right. Because as you said before, behavior is critical. You can say all you want. You can have all the conversations you want about showing up for other.

This is another one from your list. But if you don't show up for your kids, it doesn't really matter. I mean, having the conversation is better than doing nothing. And the hilarious thing about this, I think a beautiful thing really is that if you say we show up for others and then, you know, somebody, you know, somebody dies and you're like, I should go to the funeral,

but I don't really want to. There's a show I have on. Your kid is going to say to you, hey, dad, what about show up for others? I feel like you need to go to that funeral. And suddenly, like, our kids can actually push us towards our family culture, values. And so that's a beautiful thing is when we're in this together with kids. I mean, a big part of what we're trying to do is shape family culture, not just fix kids. And I think creating these

conversations in your family is powerful. And one of the things that we have amongst our daily prompts is something we call vulnerability questions. And these are questions that ask parents to get vulnerable with their kids and talk about maybe where they fell short in living out that fundamental in their youth. And this is a really interesting conversation. So if you're practicing kindness this week. And the prompt may be, parents, tell your kid about a time when you were unkind to someone. Tell them a story about what happened and ask them for advice on what they think you should have done or maybe what you should do now. And so suddenly a parent sitting down with the kid and saying, you know, when I was in high school, there was this kid. And they're telling

this story. They're acknowledging their own failings. They're showing their own vulnerability. And the kid is saying, oh, geez, dad. That wasn't very nice. You guys. I know. I still feel I'm this old and I still feel bad. We all have those, right? We all have those. I'm glad to know that because I have one for sure that I, you know, I run through. I think I even when I was doing like AAMN's, tracked this person down and I'm sure they were like, big, you're like, why are you coming to me to talk about? As a school counselor, you have no idea how tempting it was to be like, trust me, you're going to regret this later.

It's so special when a parent can share that vulnerability and the kid can then say, Dad, you know, here's what I think you should have done. Here's what I would like to think I would do in that situation. Or maybe the kid says, Dad, can you find that person on social media? Have you ever, like, apologize to them? And suddenly, you're talking about what it looks like to practice kindness with your kid where they're advising you instead of you're advising them.

And that's really when culture gets deep. It's so empowering to it. I think that's when I say, speak when spoken to it. Is that on the list? That is not on the list. Not on the list. I'm not going to the funeral. Speak when spoken to.

So I want to go back for a second to this issue of being overwhelmed by all the choices. So we could get a values list of 50 values and you look at them and they go, they all sound good. I look at your list of values translated into action. Same thing. They tend to all look pretty good. How do you encourage people to narrow this down to what's foundational to you? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. We get overwhelmed sometimes when we look at it and when we talk about the fundamentals. Wait, which one is. So we have a lot of discussion about the different fundamentals. Well, we recommend when families start, when parents start this endeavor, is that they take the list of fundamentals separately and they go through them and look at them and see which ones are the most important to me. And so if you're parenting with a partner, then each of you does the list separately. You come together. The ones that you both

have, well, that's easy. And then the ones that maybe one of you has, but the other doesn't, then you have a conversation and you figure it out, which is one of our fundamentals, figure it out. But the other thing that is also true is that some of the fundamentals sort of overlap. Right. And that's okay, because you're just going to pick the ones that you want to do, and then you're going to not worry about the other ones. So pick the one that sort of best fits you and what it is you're trying to do. Yeah, and I would say we encourage parents to think about, I mean, everything's good, like you say, but if everything's important, nothing's important, what are the things that really matter to you? And so, for example, one of the questions might be,

if you went into a parent-teacher conference, what could the teacher say about your kid that you'd think, yes, that's not. And I'll give you an example. I would go into a parent-teacher conference for my kids, and the teacher would say, and they'd always set the grade book out, especially as the kids got older and they'd say oh well your kids turned in all their assignments and I'd be like okay like I'm glad they turned in all their assignments but like compliance is not really a core like it didn't make my heart sing that wasn't the thing unless you're me in which case compliance is a really big step exactly exactly so if it is that may be like oh my god thank God my kid is on Eric showed up this week right if that's the thing then that would be currency that's why I wouldn't

choose it maybe you would but you know like one time I went in for conference and the teacher said, you know, this was middle school. And they said, you know, your daughter Caroline, every day when the bell rings, she gets up, she walks out of the room and she stops at my desk on the way out and she says, thank you. And I thought, that's my kid. Yeah. Yeah. That's my kid. And so you have to think, what are the things that really make your heart sing? We have a fundamental called include others. And if you practice include others in your family and you make that a core part of your conversation and so, you know, that you have an include other. There's a week every 16 or 18 weeks, however many fundamentals you have.

And then you go in for that parent conference. And the teacher said, you know, we had a new student move in. And your kid went over and said, hey, I know you probably don't have any place to eat. Would you like to have lunch with us? You think, that's my kid. Yeah. And so it's when you think about what are the things your kids could do that would make your heart sing. Yeah.

That's the kind of kid. For some people, it's put in the work. We have a fundamental call put in the work. Some people will go into that conference and say, you know, your kid's not a natural student. But I've never had a student that will work and work and work at something until they get it right. Some people are like, that's my kid. Right. So I think it's like thinking about those things.

What are the things that you will really light up with joy when you see your kid exhibiting? Check in for a moment. Is your jaw tight, breath shallow? Are your shoulders creeping up? Those little signals are invitations to slow down and listen. Every Wednesday I send weekly bites of wisdom, a short email that turns out. the big ideas we explore here in each show, things like mental health, anxiety, relationships, purpose, into bite-sized practices you can use the same day. It's free. It takes about a minute

to read, and thousands already swear by it. If you'd like extra fuel for the weekend, you also get a weekend podcast playlist. Join us at one you feed.net slash newsletter. That's one you feed.net slash newsletter and start receiving your next bite of wisdom. All right, back to the show. When I think about doing values work with people, there is a number of different exercises that people can do. One that I particularly like is called pick a guide. And you think about someone you admire.

And then you reverse engineer, what is it about that person that makes me admire them? What are the qualities of that person? There's also a, you know, what, think about when you were happiest, when you were proudest, and when you were most fulfilled. Okay, what does that point at? And as a family culture, I think for me, thinking about the things that did make my son happy and fulfilled would be important parts of me choosing. Because, yes, of course, culture, I'm bringing most of it. But I also want to imbue it with some aspect of who they are.

I mean, now, again, if you're starting this with a six-month-old, you may not be a whole lot to work with the six-year-old may not have, you know, has not been very proud or fulfilled yet, some moments of happiness and many other moments of what the hell is going on? When you look at all the baby, you're just like there. No, I think you raise it an important point because people are entering this work with us at very different stages. You know, some people are at the early stage where their kids are three and four and they're like, we're just really forming who we are. Other people may enter where they have a 14-year-old and a 10-year-old, and it's never too late to focus on your family's culture. It's not. I mean, you know, high school coaches get kids who are juniors in high school, and they create a powerful culture on a team with a bunch of 17-year-olds. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I had a high school teacher who created a culture around him that totally, you know, I mean, made a huge difference. Yeah, so, you know, we can create culture at any stage of the game. But I think there are two things I would say about this. One is, when you have kids that are already behaving a certain way, some people will choose fundamentals because this is really important to me. Some people will choose fundamentals because my kid really needs this. So, for example, if you have a kid that really struggles with flexibility, you might choose roll with it as a fundamental.

And the reason you want to practice role with it is because you know your kid struggles with, like, adjusting when things. And so if we practice role with it as a family, and we make that a family culture thing, it will make it easier for my kid to be flexible. And that's great. So that's one, you know, you may choose it because you care about it or you may choose it because it's important for that kid. I think the other thing I would say about this is that when you have older kids,

and I think this is really exciting if you have older kids, is the choosing of the family fundamentals doesn't have to be done exclusively by the parents. When your kids are old enough, you can actually engage them in building the family culture with you. And they may do it for the same reason. They may say, this is really important to me. You know, they may be really committed to social justice, and they may want to fight for what's right to be one of your family's fundamentals. And that may challenge you to be a little more socially conscious because that... Or they may choose one that they want their parent to improve on.

Totally. Yeah. So listen generously. Well, you never, you know, when I talk, you just give me answers or give me solutions. I just want you to listen to me. Listen generously. Right. We practice that.

So that's really special when the kids are, our kids are participating in creating the culture. Now, they own it with you. And I think even if you have a kid that's, you know, a senior in high school and a junior in high school, like what an amazing last couple years with your kids in the home. I think I saw a statistic that I think parents will spend 90% of the time with their kids before they turn 19. Almost all the time you're going to spend with your kid is when they're young. Once they're gone, you'll see them in bits. You know.

We all. We know. You see them in bits. So if you really want to have that impact, even if they're 16 or 17, they're still with you every day. You still have some time. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about how doing this work has changed you guys. you've both said that your kids are up and out on their own so it's not going to have changed your direct family culture in that way what ways has it changed you personally

i think it just elevated our consciousness as well it's we've had a lot of very interesting talks about just what our parents taught us and what our family culture growing up was like um and you know for example our father passed away at the age of 56. We were both, and I was in my early 20s. Stephen is, of course, older than me, as I'm sure you know. As Courtney, he always has to point out. But my dad was very just naturally good at being an attentive parent and meeting us where we were. And so there are a lot of things that he taught us without being as intentional as we're trying to help people be. But what's interesting for us is that we see in our children. Our children, of course, never met our dad because he died before we got married. And so they espouse some of his values. We see it in them

because it was just passed through us because it was so important. And now they are living those values as well. And so to me, like that's one of the most beautiful things that has come out of it is like just even our noticing of oh my gosh look at what what you know emily just did that was something that dad would have been so so excited right it speaks to generational legacy it makes you think like what i'm doing raising my kids will exist in my family after i'm gone in both good and bad hopefully right right so like that's our challenge you know if i were to be doing some of those things my father has passed however there's a lot of behaviors there that i would be very unhappy to see in my child, right?

But it's the intentionality that allows you to kind of know that. When we started doing this work and talking about how we wanted to bring this work into the world, and there have been many iterations, one of the things we used to talk about was the people parent one of two ways. They either parent the way they were parented or the exact opposite of how they were parented. Yeah, of how they were parented. And not many people like say, you know, pick and choose like, oh, that was, that was, that

That was something that was really useful, but let's try and avoid talking to our kids this way. Right. Both doing what your parents did unthoughtfully or doing the opposite, neither one of those are choices. They're both just reactions. Exactly. Yes, 100%. And I think that is the importance of intentionality is that who knows where the things that happen automatically come from. They come from countless, you know, countless causes and conditions.

We could never unravel them. Yeah. We've thought about generational legacy a lot more. We've thought about what the legacy of our impact on our kids is going to be. And our kids are entering the age where they might consider having kids. And we've thought a lot about how this system can help support them in bringing some of the things that we brought to our family to their kids in a more intentional way. And then I think, just to be honest with you, I feel like I just become a better person in small ways over and over again. Not because I'm practicing the fundamentals, but because I wrote them. Because I wrote the content and because I watched all the videos and because all the work that we're doing surrounding these is just heightening my consciousness daily all the time.

I'm seeing places. And Nancy and I laugh because we can't watch, you know, if you watch a team win the championship, I guarantee you, guarantee you on that podium when they're talking about what it meant to be a champion, they're going to mention three or four different fundamentals. They're going to say them. We do this. We have to bounce back. We always said we stick with it. We look at each other and go. Put it in the work.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is, it's like, yes, we see the fundamentals everywhere. It's like they just show, they just like shine out. And so we're just being in this work has actually heightened our own personal consciousness as we love our lives about, you know, I do want to make a difference. I want my life to matter. And so I think about how am I making a difference every day. I think about leading it better than I found it. You know, I think about, you know, bounce back is a big one.

I mean, my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was three years old. And it was such a hit to our family. We had a baby and we had this three-year-old and the first thing we did was after we suffered for a little bit is like we have to help raise money to solve this problem. And we organized a family walk team for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and we invited people. We were raising 20, 30, eventually $40,000, our family team every year. And the money that we raised helped advanced diabetes research. But it did way more than that. What it did was it showed our kids that this is how we respond to hardship in the ship.

This is what Shapiro's do. This is the Shapiro way. When you get hit, you bounce back. You take action. You take positive forceful response as opposed to just letting yourself be a victim of hard times. And all the money we raised probably pales in comparison to what we taught our kids about how to show up when things get hard. This is what we do. And I think this is the thing that every family searches for is how do we,

How do we teach our kids through our example and through our conversations the way to be in the world that's going to be really an example of what we value the most? And it's a conversation we're having, unfortunately, very rarely unless we have some intentional way to do it. Well, we are as a culture. Everybody is unmoored. We're all too busy to think about anything. We're racing around. And meaning is it doesn't exist for a lot, a lot of people, myself included. It only exists to the extent that I take the time to find meaning.

And for me, articulate it and then make whatever halting attempts I make to live it because I could see why kids could feel so unmoored. Here's something that's interesting that I would think about is when the values that the family has actually end up being at odds with what the kid who comes of age and starts to, right, you may have a family that values being successful in the world. Now, we could argue whether that's a good value or not, but that is, okay, you are, you are going to be a success. And the child is, like, that's not the way I want to live my life. I don't want to orient my life around success, right? And so all of a sudden, you know, what, how does this play out in that scenario? Well, we're such, we're so early, we don't even know. But that's a great, it's a great question.

It's what it all falls apart. But, you know, mayhem. A seven. Well, first of all, we were careful not to create fundamentals that are like, specific. Like, I want my kid to make a lot of money. Like, it's not, there's nothing like that in it. These are, these are kind of core fundamental things. So, and so you may say, you know, I want my kid to put in the work. And in your mind, you might have been thinking, I want them to put in the work so they can get into med school. And they may think, I want to put in

the work on my art. Yeah. You know, I want to put in the work on my, in my fitness or in my relationships. So I think that the fundamentals are flexible enough that they, they can be applied different ways. But I also think there's probably some interesting conversations that happen. And I I think that's the important thing, though, is if you're doing this work, the conversations are happening. Exactly. Right? And that's where, for me, the problem was, and I see happening, is that the conversation

isn't happening. There's just someone saying, this is what's important or this is what we believe in. And the other person who doesn't believe that is either retreating into the corner and trying to hide or they're coming full bore in a fight, but there's not a respectful discussion about how, like you said, we could talk about, okay, maybe you don't value working you know, to the extent in the ways that I have, but do you value X, Y, or Z? And so I think it's back to the intentionality that I think this gives people in guiding what they want their family to look at.

And the openness to be able to have that conversation is critical. Yeah, we talk about it. I mean, one of the things we say is, you know, raising emotionally healthy kids in close-knit families. And so part of this is not just about raising kids who are amazing and live out amazing values, but it's also about being connected to each other. Yeah. And I think, I'm sure you've seen it. You're out of the restaurant and, you know,

families out to dinner and everyone's on their phone. Yeah. And I'm thinking, this might be a good time for you guys to talk to each other. This is probably some interesting. But again, it's hard sometimes, you know, one of the things I trained teachers. I was a teacher for many years, but I also trained teachers at Ohio State for probably 20 years.

And I didn't fully realize how hard it is to ask a good question until I trained teachers who were trying to lead a discussion incredibly unsuccessfully. Yeah, and getting certain kids to engage and even a good question is often a eye role. Yeah. So for us, part of what we're doing is we are taking all of our experience to design good questions for you. And also we have support videos in the app so you can like how to have a great conversation. Here's six tips on how to have a conversation work.

And so we're trying to help parents not just raise kids with these values, but also train parents at how to have effective and healthy conversations with their kids around those values. And those, in addition to the values that you shape and the way the fundamentals come to life, it's just teaching you to be more connected to your children and teaching them to be more connected to each other. And, you know, my wife and I raised three kids and I retired from education recently, and somebody said, what's your greatest accomplishment? And really, I'm so proud of all the work I did in schools and with kids, but I'm like, my greatest accomplishment is my wife and I raised three kids who absolutely love each other

and will take care of each other for life. Like, if the two of us were to Paris tomorrow, they've got. not each other. And that's, a parent can rest easy when they know that. That's a very healthy model, right? Not every person who is going to engage with our family culture or who even just is a parent engaging in life. It's hard out there. It's hard to be a parent. It's hard to be a parent who works. It's hard to be a parent who doesn't have a partner. It's hard to be a parent who had a partner and is not with that partner anymore or the partner no longer is alive. I mean, there are so many.

versions of family. To be a parent that's wrestling with their own emotional and mental issues. 100%. Oh, I could tell you so many stories, Eric, of people, like adults who would come into my office and exhibit the exact behaviors that their kids exhibit and they can't figure out why their kids are acting that way. It happened all the time because there wasn't that awareness. But I think it's really important to point out that you don't have to be a married

couple, I mean, Stevens family and my family were very different. I was divorced. I had two kids. One of my kids is autistic and needed and continues to need a lot of different kinds of supports than our other kids, and it impacted our family tremendously. And so we're very intentional about saying your parenting partner, because the parenting partner could be a spouse or it could be a parent of your, like it could be the grandparent of the child. It could be your neighbor across the street who you support each other on things. It could be one of your closest friends. A parent.

It could be so many different things. And so I don't want people to think, oh, if we do this, then we're going to have X, Y, Z outcome. It's like, no, if we do this, then what we're doing is making a commitment to trying to build the healthiest family culture possible and put out the best kids and the best vibes we can in this world because the world needs it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that you could do all of this, you know, you could take your program and do it all perfectly and still have family problems.

Of course. Life is just complicated and complex and difficult. And I also believe there are always, no matter the circumstance, wherever we are, there are ways to move in a positive direction. they may not be huge steps right a single mother with an autistic child has less just free cycles yeah to pour into this than maybe someone like stephen did and there are ways that you can make things better for yourself and your family little ways by being intentional about what matters that always sort of steers the ship in a better direction yes and there's no guarantees

Of course, like this, we all know as parents, like we know, you learn quickly. You don't control all this stuff. Right. But we certainly have probably more impact and the potential for more impact than we realize. And I think one of the things that Nancy and I have really struggled with, it's super hard. We've had so many focus groups with parents and parents of kids who are grown. And parental regret is so painful. It's so painful to talk to a parent who said, I wish we had, I wish I had spent more time with this or, you know, a really common.

is self-reliance. People are like, my kid doesn't know how to take care of themselves. I wish I had given them more responsibilities or put them in charge. I mean, practice self-reliance is one of our fundamentals. And there are activities like, have your kid change the air filter in your car? Your eight-year-old can change. I mean, I'm telling you, if you get on YouTube and look at how to change the air filter, you just unscrew a thing.

You open it up, you go to... It's really amazing. You go to O'Reilly's auto parts, and you ask for that model, and you just drop it in. But most people are like, I don't know how to change in it. totally you do if you just saw how easy it was so it's like he tried to get me to do it and she wouldn't do it it it brings flashbacks to me of any project i tried to do with my father and i was not good at it like i can't get the screw off and all of a sudden it's anger and fear yeah exactly you know like laundry my kids don't know how to you know there's so many things

you know there's that snow plow parent they used to talk about helicopter parent now they talk about snowplow parent. And snow plow parenting is the parent that gets in front of the kid and plows at all the problems away from them so that they can drive easily down the street. And if you want to raise a self-reliant kid, you have to let the kid shovel some of the snow themselves. You have to give them. And so again, it's all of this stuff where you start to give the opportunity for kids to, you know, you don't have to look back and go like, I wish I'd give my kid more of a chance to grow up in this way or to develop this thing. It's sad to reach that point. And we get one shot at this. And we're never going to

to do it perfect. But our hope and the reason that we're pouring our lives into this, we're retired. It's like, people are like, how's retirement? I'm like, I don't really know why are we working so hard. But we're working so hard because we really want to help parents have less parental regret and feel great about the kids that they're raising and feel like they've done their best and left it all in the field. We want to make a difference. That's it. One family at a time. That's what we're trying to do. Before you check out, pick one insight from today and ask how will I practice this before bedtime? Need help turning ideas into action? My free weekly bites of wisdom email lands every Wednesday with simple practices, reflection,

and links to former guests who can guide you, even on the tough stuff like anxiety, purpose, and habit change. Feed your good wolf at one you feed.net slash newsletter. Again, one you feed.net slash newsletter. Beautiful. I think that's a great place for us to wrap up. We will have links in the show notes to where people can get the app. There's a coupon code you'll have there for.

people to get a discount. Absolutely. And thank you both so much. It's been real pleasure. This was a lot of fun, Eric. Thank you. Great talking with you. Thanks, Eric. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.