239. The #1 Thing Standing Between You and the Life You Want
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Release Date: 10/03/2025
262. Rituals, Family Stories & the Moments That Hold Us Together with Bruce Feiler
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Welcome back to the podcast! Today’s conversation is one I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I’m sitting down with bestselling author Bruce Feiler to talk about families, transitions, rituals, and the stories that shape us. I first came across Bruce’s work years ago through his article The Stories That Bind Us, and it completely changed the way I thought about family culture and the role our stories play in our kids’ lives. One of the things Bruce shares in this conversation is that strong families aren’t strong because they avoid hardship—they’re strong because they...
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261. The Pursuit of More
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we want to talk about something that we think almost every family can relate to—the pursuit of more. More money, more success, more stability, more opportunities, more experiences. And on the surface, none of those things are bad. But recently, we’ve both had some conversations and experiences that made us pause and ask a deeper question: what are we really pursuing—and why? For most of our lives, we both felt this constant pull toward “more.” And if we’re honest, a lot of it came from the belief that the next milestone would finally be the thing...
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260. Confidence Isn’t a Feeling, It’s an Identity! Here’s How to Build It For You and Your Kids
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Welcome back to the podcast! Today we’re talking about something that we truly believe impacts every area of your life—your confidence. This conversation came from a recent event Chris spoke at, where the theme was connection, and it led to a powerful realization: before you can truly connect with others, you have to have confidence in yourself. For a long time, Chris struggled with confidence in a way that might surprise people who see him today. There was a season where he didn’t like himself, constantly compared himself to others, lived in regret and fear, and didn’t keep...
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259. Why Parents Struggle to Stay Healthy (And What to Do About It) with Ben Brown
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Welcome back to the podcast. Chris here! Today I’m sitting down with someone who has become not just a client, but a coach and a friend—Ben Brown. And if there’s one thing I want you to take from this conversation, it’s this: your health isn’t just about how you look… it determines how you show up in your life. One of the first things we got into was why health is often the first thing to fall off for parents. And honestly, it makes sense. The moment you have kids, your priorities shift. You want to give everything to your family. But what we talked about is how that can actually...
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258. Slow Down and Follow the Light: How to Keep Your Family Connected During Busy Seasons
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
Welcome back to the podcast! Today we want to share a little bit about how we’re thinking about this upcoming season—heading into the busy summer months—and how we’re trying to bring more joy, connection, and intention into our daily family life. Like most families, this time of year can feel really full. Between sports, school events, work, and everything else, it’s easy to feel like you’re just moving from one thing to the next. And recently, we found ourselves pausing and asking a simple but really important question: Are we actually happy right now? Not just getting everything...
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257. How to Create Your Family Mission, Vision, and Values! Family Brand® Foundations
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
We’re really excited to be with you this week because this is something we’ve been working on for a long time—figuring out how to make this whole idea of creating a family brand as simple, practical, and meaningful as possible. We know what family life feels like. It’s busy. It’s full. There’s always something going on. And because of that, anything we create for families, we’re constantly asking ourselves: is this actually useful, or is it just one more thing to add to the list? Most families want to be more intentional. They want to define their values, create a shared vision,...
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256. LIVE Family Check-In with My 9-Year-Old (Family Brand Method)
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
In this episode of the Family Brand Podcast, Melissa sits down with a very special guest—her nine-year-old daughter, Indie—to do something the Smith family does every single week: a family check-in. Instead of just talking about the concept, they actually walk through a real check-in live on the podcast, giving listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how these simple conversations help their family stay connected and intentional. The Smith family has a weekly rhythm where they gather for a short family meeting and individual check-ins with each child. The goal isn’t to lecture or correct...
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255. Family Book Club: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
One habit that has created some of the most meaningful conversations in our home is something surprisingly simple: family book club. It’s not formal or complicated. Sometimes it’s just reading a book over a few weeks and sitting down on a Sunday to talk about it for twenty minutes. But those conversations have opened the door to ideas and discussions that might never have happened otherwise. Recently, our family read the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and it sparked one of the most practical conversations we’ve had in a long time. At first glance, the...
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255. Consistency: The Real Divider Between Good and Great
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
What separates high performers from everyone else? It’s not talent. It’s not intelligence. It’s not even experience. It’s consistency. In this episode, Chris and Melissa unpack why consistency might be the single greatest differentiator in business, parenting, marriage, health — and life. Chris shares something he teaches in sales leadership: the highest performers are consistently coachable, consistently curious, and consistently willing to refine their craft. Ironically, it’s often lower performers who assume they’ve “already figured it out.” The best stay students. That...
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254. Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows: Take Back Your Focus
Family Brand: Take Back Your Family
This episode was sparked by one of Chris and Melissa’s classic “walk conversations” — the kind where something clicks, and you realize it needs to be shared… They begin with a powerful testimonial from a Family Brand family who realized they were spending more time talking about what they don’t like in the world — politics, division, noise — than they were talking about their own values. And that insight led to a bigger question: Where are we allowing our attention to go? Because wherever your attention goes, your energy follows. Chris shares how easy it is to get pulled...
info_outlineClarity: The First Step Toward the Life You Actually Want
What if the reason you’re not living the life you want isn’t because you’re lazy or unmotivated — but simply because you haven’t gotten clear on what you truly want? In this powerful conversation, Chris and Melissa kick off a two-part series on living with intention, starting with the one thing that has to come first: clarity.
They unpack why clarity is so often missing in our lives — from distractions and busyness to fear of what the truth might require from us. Chris shares how clarity is the gateway to intentionality and why it’s impossible to build a life on purpose without first defining what matters most. Together, they discuss how too many people settle for “good” and miss out on “great,” how the phrase “I don’t know” lets us off the hook, and why it’s so important to confront our deeper desires even when it’s uncomfortable.
The episode also dives into the practical side of clarity. Chris shares how he and Melissa once created a “creation list” for their marriage and life — and how that act of defining their goals completely transformed their future. They offer a simple exercise for listeners: reflect on five key areas (faith, family, fitness, finances, and fun) and define what’s most important in each right now. Even one sentence of clarity in a single category can start a powerful ripple of change.
This episode is an invitation to stop drifting like a tumbleweed and start designing a life you love — one that reflects your deepest values and highest purpose. Clarity takes courage, but as Chris and Melissa remind us, everything you want is on the other side of getting clear.
LINKS:
All Links Family Brand!
Episode Minute By Minute:
00:00 – Kicking off a two-part series on clarity and intentionality
01:00 – Defining “intentional” and why it matters
03:30 – Clarity as the gateway to intentional living
05:00 – Why clarity is hard: noise, fear, and feelings of unworthiness
07:00 – “I don’t know” — the most dangerous phrase in our vocabulary
09:30 – How “good” can become the enemy of “great”
11:00 – Creating a “2.0” version of your life after success or change
12:30 – The power of vision boards and the “creation list”
15:00 – How couples drift apart when they stop dreaming together
16:30 – Getting clear individually, as a couple, and as a family
17:30 – Everything you want is on the other side of clarity
18:30 – Why focusing on what you do want matters more than what you don’t
19:30 – Practical exercise: the five F’s of life
20:30 – Homework: Identify where you’re least clear and define what you want
22:00 – Final encouragement: clarity can change everything