638: How To Be The Parent Your Kids Deserve with Mike & Lindsay McCarthy

Summary

Podcast Summary: Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod
Episode 638: How To Be The Parent Your Kids Deserve with Mike & Lindsay McCarthy
Date: May 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Hal Elrod sits down with Mike and Lindsay McCarthy, co-authors of The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families and creators of its companion Playbook, to discuss intentional parenting. Drawing on their deep personal experience and their work with families through the “Fambundance” organization, the McCarthys share practical strategies, routines, and frameworks for building a thriving family culture, instilling values, and creating a sustainable family legacy — all while navigating the challenges of real life (and real kids).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of Family Intentionality and The Miracle Morning Adaptation

• Early Struggles: Lindsay shares that messy, unstructured homeschool mornings motivated her to seek a daily anchor for their young kids.
  • “As a homeschool mom, if I only got through the CHARMS, it was a successful day.” (03:54 - Lindsay)
• Customizing the Practice: The McCarthys adapted Hal’s S.A.V.E.R.S. framework for kids, creating the C.H.A.R.M.S. routine:
  • Creativity, Health, Affirmations, Reading, Meditation, Service (03:57, 04:20)
  • Service was particularly important: “One of our personal family values is to be servant leaders, so we bake that into our everyday morning ritual.” (03:57 - Lindsay)
• Concrete Examples: For creativity, kids played and did art (“they had a whole little art studio in our kitchen” 04:41). For service, children asked daily about their contribution: “Mommy, what can I do for service today?” (05:00)

2. Building a Family Operating System

• Structure at Home: Mike brought his business systems mindset into parenting:
  • “I always want a system for how we do things. That’s what made me successful in business, and I’ve tried to really bring that home into the family so that we can be as systematized as possible.” (14:40 - Mike)
• Creating Culture: The family developed a visible set of values, mission, and rituals, even etching their family values on the wall (09:43).
• The 'Dream, Define, Do' Framework:
  • Dream: Setting individual and family visions/goals together.
  • Define: Clarifying identity, mission, beliefs, and values.
  • Do: The actionable family operating system and rituals, including meetings, goal-tracking, and memorializing milestones (11:24 - 13:05).

3. Family Meetings: Structure & Impact

• When & How: Began when kids were ages 4 and 8, started weekly, now twice a month. Meetings evolved as the kids grew (18:31 - 18:39).
• Format:
  • Start with a “Gratitude Shower” — Each member gets gratitude from others and states why they’re grateful for themselves (19:16).
  • Calendar/Planning Review: Shared scheduling and anticipation of milestones or trips (19:23).
  • Goal-Setting: Every family member has a “hard goal” and a “fun goal.” Example: Ember’s hard goal is finishing 7th grade; her fun goal is volunteering at an animal shelter (19:59 - 20:08).
  • Highlight Reel: Recapping “peak experiences” and recognizing each other for living the family values (“calling them up” vs. “calling them out”—22:19).
• Evolution: As kids aged, meetings moved from overt structure to shared vocabulary and cultural habit (38:17 - Lindsay).

4. Fambundance: Transforming Family Dynamics

• Background: Stemming from Mike’s role as co-founder and CEO of GoBundance (a mastermind for driven entrepreneurs), he saw the need to involve whole families, not just high-achieving parents (23:00 - 26:06).
  • “If things aren’t right at home, it’s hard to enjoy anything.” (26:12 - Mike)
• Fambundance Events: Multi-day immersive experiences where families create their legacy blueprints through facilitated conversations, shared challenges (family Olympics), and lots of play (31:12 - 33:38).
  • Kids and teens participate in breakouts; families produce their own “family constitutions” — a complete document on values, mission, conflict resolution, and traditions.
  • Notable Quote: “You leave with the legacy blueprint… you now have the structure. That’s the most important part of being intentional.” (29:02 - Hal)
• Accessible to All: For the first time, Fambundance is open to non-GoBundance members, aiming to expand its impact (34:06 - Mike).

5. Real Talk: Imperfection & Challenges

• Not Picture-Perfect: Mike and Lindsay are candid about their family’s ups and downs.
  • “To be honest, we’re not that… we’re 75% sure out of 100. We’re not perfect at any of this stuff.” (15:46 - Mike)
• Adapting to Teenagers: Parenting methods evolve constantly; older kids require more relational leadership rather than control (13:05; 13:26).
• “90% Connection, 10% Correction”: Especially relevant with teens. Mike details his recent struggles supporting a suicidal son, highlighting the importance of focusing on connection, supporting passions (joining a car club and helping launch an auto business with his son Tyler), and providing meaningful, not material, support (42:02 - 45:30).
  • “10% correction and 90% connection. That is to make sure that 90% of my interactions… are all around things he cares about… and try to limit it to 10% of the shit he does not want to talk to me about.” (42:02 - Mike)
  • Hal: “If that’s the one lesson people walk away with, I think it applies to all relationships.” (45:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Hal, on Family Rituals:
  “Most of us parents are unintentional — myself included. And then we look back with regret. No matter what age your kids are, this episode will help you be the intentional parent your kids deserve.” (02:11)

• Lindsay, on Family Meetings:
  “We always start with gratitude… [then] go over the calendar… Everyone’s working on a hard goal and a fun goal.” (19:16 - 20:02)

• Mike, on Family Legacy:
  “The legacy really is about the values, traditions, the ways that you treat each other, and even the ways that we treat milestones in our lives.” (15:56)

• On Parenting Through Crisis:
  “A year ago, Lindsay and I were going through hell with our son. He was suicidal… But he was willing to be admitted into a hospital to get the treatment that he wanted… and came back with a different perspective.” (38:57-40:04 - Mike)

• On Manifestation:
  “I have enough examples in my life where you’re like, I just set the intention and maintained faith in it. And it magically happened in my lap.” (44:18 - Hal)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 03:34 – Lindsay shares the origin of CHARMS and daily family rituals
• 09:43 – Mike discusses systematizing family values and home culture
• 11:24 – Introduction of the Dream, Define, Do family framework
• 18:31 – Evolution of family meetings and structure
• 19:16 – The “gratitude shower” and meeting format detailed
• 23:00 – The origin story of Fambundance and decision to serve whole families
• 31:12 – Logistics and structure of Fambundance summer events
• 34:06 – Breaking Fambundance open to non-members
• 38:57 – Candid discussion of mental health struggles with teenage son
• 42:02 – “90% connection, 10% correction” rule for teens

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Resources & Links

• Miracle Morning for Parents & Families (book & playbook)
• Fambundance Family Legacy Event: July 13–19, 2026, Lake Lawn Resort, WI
  • fambundance.com (Includes event details, webinar sign-up, and registration process)
• J. Hobbs (Jeremy Reisig) music on Spotify (Miracle Morning song, Grateful, Evolve, etc.)

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a masterclass in practical, real-world family leadership, delivered with warmth, honesty, and lots of actionable ideas. The McCarthys don’t pretend to be perfect — instead, they model vulnerability, growth, and the life-changing power of intentional parenting. If you want to create a family culture that gives your kids deep roots and lasting wings, this episode offers a blueprint worth following.

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For more details, resources, and to join an upcoming Fambundance event, visit:
fambundance.com

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Summary by Achieve Your Goals Podcast Summarizer – June 2026

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the achieve your goals podcast. The show that empowers you to wake up to your full potential and achieve your biggest goals and dreams. I am your host, Hal Elrod and I invite you to join us each week as we share actionable strategies to take your life to the next level, as well as interview world class experts and entrepreneurs who have achieved extraordinary goals themselves. And we ask them to give you a peek behind the curtain and teach you exactly what you need to do to do the same. Ready? Here we go. Are a parent, you are not going to want to miss this episode with my good friends and co authors of the Miracle Morning for parents and Families, Mike and Lindsay McCarthy. I've known Mike and Lindsay for over a decade. We co authored this book. We were neighbors for many years and they're two of my favorite people because they're two of the most intentional human beings on the planet. Specifically when it comes to parenting. You're about to learn how creating family values, operating family meetings and and other rituals that are taught in the Miracle morning for parents and families playbook. These systems and rhythms enable you to create a culture in your family that not only creates love and connection, that not only instills values in your children that you want them to have, but creates a lasting effect so that long after they're adults and they're out of the house, they want to keep coming back. And they're living their lives in a way that is consistent with the values that you instilled. And the reality is, most of us parents are unintentional and myself included. And then we look back with regret going, oh man, I really wish I would have done this or that. No matter what age your kids are, if you are a parent, this episode will help you be the intentional parent that your kids deserve. Mike McCarthy. Lindsay, so good to be with you.

[B]

You too, Hal.

[A]

That was such a formal introduction. We were talking about, like, we do life together. For those that don't know, we vacation together, we do dinners. We used to be neighbors. Sadly, I moved out of the neighborhood,

[C]

so that's regrets it too.

[A]

I know. Yeah, a little bit every time I see you guys. But then I see some of our other neighbors and I'm like, ah, that was a good move. You know who you are.

[C]

It averages out.

[A]

Yeah, it averages out.

[B]

Didn't want to deal with the hoa.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So again, for those that you've been on the podcast, I don't even know. I didn't check the episode. It's been probably a couple of years Since y' all were on, But I was talking about our book together, the Miracle Morning for Parents and Families. This is the revised and updated edition that y' all came to me, and you're like, hey, hey, We've learned so much as a family. We want to update the book, which was cool. So we did that. And then y' all came up with this. This, to me, they go together so well. But it's. This is the Miracle Morning for Parents and Families playbook, the companion guide to the Miracle Morning for Parents and Families. And I just want to start here, because this is, like, kind of our work that we've done together in the world. And I want to say this before we transition into what y' all are up to right now, which is the reason that we did this book together is because, Lindsay, you approached me with Tyler, who was like, six or seven at the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just little. And you're like, hey, Hal. I was spe an event. You're like, was it one life fully lived that I was speaking of?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Like, my son wants to read you his affirmations. You know, they were, like, arranged by the Alphabet. Right. And I was like, this is amazing. And you're like, yeah, we do, like, our miracle Morning, but we adjusted the sabers into a new acronym called charms. You know, creativity is the sea. Right. And I was just so blown away. I was like, do you guys want to write that? Like, you're literally the embodiment. And at that point, and even since then, like, my kids don't do the Miracle Morning, so I wasn't even qualified to write the book from that stance. So with all of that, how did. Let's actually start here. How did y' all start doing the Miracle Morning with your kids? Where did that come about?

[B]

I guess I could take that one. So when our kids were young, we homeschooled them, and, you know, our mornings were a little messy. And so the charms, as we came to call them, they really, like, anchored our day. And as a homeschool mom, like, if I only got through the charms, it was a successful day.

[A]

Nice run through the charms real quick. For those that don't know.

[B]

Yeah. So charms is creativity, health, affirmations, reading, meditation, and service. And so, like, service was the one we kind of really added. The other ones are kind of adaptations of the savers. But one of our personal family values is to be servant leaders. So we're like, why don't we bake that into our everyday morning ritual?

[A]

Yes. I love that. Yeah. And creativity is also New and different in that it's not part of the savers. And it just makes sense for when you're having kids do it. Right.

[B]

It was part of scribing, but the kids didn't know how to write. Ember was 2, Tyler was 6. Like, they were just learning letters. So we expanded it to be creativity. And they could.

[A]

What would they do? Play color?

[B]

Yeah, we'd give them. They had, like, a whole little art studio in our kitchen, and they had paper and scissors and crayons and markers,

[A]

which is for kids. Like, so they're getting to play. Could be. It could have been a P. If it was P, it'd be play. And then service. What did that look like every day?

[B]

I mean, basically chores, but it was

[A]

contributing to the family.

[B]

Yeah, family contribution is what we like to call it. So they were picking up their toys, but every day they would kind of come to me and say, mommy, what can I do for service today? So it was really just like, getting them in the mindset of it's not all about me. We're a family. We work together. It's teamwork.

[A]

Beautiful. Love that. So it's instilling values, plus personal development. Like, there's so many layers to the benefits that the kids and the family as a unit experiences. Mike, you're a founder of GoBundance, one of the co founders. And is that where we met? Do you remember? Okay.

[C]

Well, actually, I first saw you at One Life.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[C]

There. And then later spoke at gobundance. And then became friends.

[A]

And then, yes, we have become very good friends. Oh, by the way, this dude, thank you for this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This bracelet that I got in the mail, I was like. I was like, this is big. I don't know that I'd wear this. But now I told her. So I put it on. I was like, I'm kind of getting used to this. I think I'm gonna keep it on.

[C]

You always wear it when you're going to see me. At least I literally said that.

[A]

Yeah. I'm like, sweetie. I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to wear this every day, but I'm definitely going to wear it. I'm going out to dinner with Mike and Lindsay tomorrow and have it on the podcast. So who brought the miracle morning in? Like, who read the book first?

[C]

I think we saw you speak first.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And then we read your book or we saw you speak, went to a Tony Robbins event together, and then read the book, and then we're like, on fire. On fire. And just sort of like momentum with our family wanting to personal development and not wanting to let our, the fact that we had young children get in the way of that. Because I think a lot of us let our that be our biggest excuse. Like, oh, I'm too busy. I don't have time to carve out for myself. Sure. When really that's the best thing you can do for yourself as a father or a mother who's overworked and tired and stressed is to take time for yourself. And when you really get to the bottom of it, the savers, the charms, they're really about carving out time for yourself for self care.

[A]

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[C]

Well, I think the first thing to say, which brings us kind of full circle is the reason that we did a second edition and did a playbook to begin with is so much about parenting in the five years be between publishing the first edition and publishing the second edition. And we realized that the first edition was great. It did a lot for parents. But what we learned was that there was a lot of work that needed to be done with the family that was really like exercises and things where we needed to have conversations and really get together and make decisions together, compromise, conflict, and have it be healthy and done in a way that was good for teachers, teaching our children how to do it in the future, but also good for us as a family in the present. And so we started to do more and more with our family meetings that became really crucial. We started to do more and more with, like, our family goals. Those are two of the crucial, I think, elements of the Miracle Morning for Parents and Families playbook that we teach. And when we moved to write the latest playbook or workbook that we're working through right now, it's not released. It's not for public consent consumption. It's something that you just get. If you come to our fanbundance events. But it got a couple similar exercises to the Miracle Morning for parents and families, but it's very different. And it's almost like the first of Miracle Morning lays the foundation. The Playbook lays another foundation and is for, I would say for when you have younger kids, it works really well. Like, I would say like the 4 to 12 range.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Is when we kind of wrote that we had like a lot of wisdom. You know, it's like every time you master one level of parenting, then they

[A]

get older and you're like, you're like,

[C]

I don't know how to handle a 16 year old. I don't, I don't know this model, this version. Where's the, where's the instruction manual?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So what we ended up doing is creating a blueprint that was really to start to create culture within the family. So it goes beyond just our rituals and our rhythms related to personal development and carving space and time out, but actually how we behave, behave, how we interact, how we agree to do life together. And so we created sort of a three prong framework in our latest work, which is dream, define and do. And so when you look at what a family does together, it's much like what a team does. They're dreaming about something they want to create or individually get out of their role in the job, in the company, in the team, or they're thinking about collectively what are our goals, what are our dreams. And then define is all about our identity, who we are, what our mission is, what our beliefs are and what our values are. And then the do part is the interesting thing. It's the operating system for a family. And so now we're creating an operating system for a family that looks a little different than when we had younger kids. So now we have a kid.

[A]

How old are your kids now?

[C]

17 and 13. And the 17 year old might as well be 27.

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[C]

He's super independent. He knows what he wants, knows what he's into. He's very intelligent.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So it requires very little. Like he thinks he already knows everything.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So, you know, we're in a different stage of parenting where we're now trying to build a adult relationship with our kids and we're trying to leave a legacy that's really about keeping the family together and making sure that our kids come back to, to us.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I love Jim and Jamie Shields and they talk about the forward for this 18 summers. And I agree we need to cherish that because that's when we can tell them this is where we're going.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And you're coming with us. Like, and we lose that sort of control. So I get their paradigm.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But I like the paradigm of if you do it right, there's the 19th, 20th, 21st summer.

[A]

What are the next 80 summers after the first 18? Yeah.

[C]

What do those look like? Can we have adult relationships where they come back? And so the family legacy blueprint, which is what we've been working on now, and this really consists of all the exercises that we've been doing over time with families in fanbundance. And fanbundance is what you mentioned is the events that we do where we bring families together, where they get facilitated through define, dream and do. Because sitting around the dinner table where one parent has to be the prodder or the go getter, that's like pushing everyone forward, which can be a challenge.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Even if you're the greatest. Greatest leader in the world, it might even make it more difficult. Yeah. Because they're just tired of hearing it all being led. Yeah. Being they're like exhausted of all the leading already going on.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so, you know, if you can sit down and do this workbook, though, I think it really. And Lindsay can talk to, like, her perspective of it. If you do it in an environment where there's other families, we really make it fun and really accessible so that it's really, like, in quick 30 minute increments. You're having, like, pretty serious conversations about stuff that matters a whole lot when it comes to, like, efficiency things being smooth and easy at home. Like, a lot of that is just a matter of how intentional we are on the front end. And you mentioned that I bring a lot of my intentionality and business into the way that we lead and run our family. And I think that's true. I always want a system for how we do things. I'm very system focused. That's what's made me successful in business. And I think I've tried to really bring that home into the family so that we can be as systematized as possible. And so we run the plays. And to be honest, we're not that, you know, we're 75% sure out of 100.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

You know, we're not perfect at any of this stuff. So I don't want to profess or come across as, like, I've hung out

[A]

with you enough to know you're not. Yeah, she's, you know, but she's closer to perfect.

[C]

I almost had the audience convinced they were believing me for a minute. That I had it all figured out, but, no, I don't. It's like, it is very difficult. And the work we do lays the foundation for a legacy to be built. A lot of people think the legacy is about the financial structures and the wealth and the IRAs and the retirements, the 401ks, the things we do with all of the money that we make in the wealth. But the legacy really is about the values, traditions, the ways that you treat each other, and even the ways that we treat milestones in each in our lives. Like, there's a lack of sort of rites of passage that we've lost in our world, where I think it's important to really celebrate. And some of them are rites of passage that they didn't have back in the day. Like when you get your first cell phone or your first debit card or, you know, there's these certain times when we want to memorialize them, but if we don't get intentional and write down what we're going to do, then we'll never do it.

[B]

It.

[C]

Yeah, we might like, oh, I remembered we were going to do this thing, and you might squeeze it in. Yeah. But if you're intentionally, like, hey, this is how we want to do this for our. This part of our child's milestone. And we have so many of them, that memorializing those is another thing that I think is really important to a family legacy, like remembering those moments where you move from one stage to the next.

[A]

Well, I agree. And I mentioned that, how intentional you guys are at parenting, and you just hearing you say that, Mike, like, that's like, whoa. Most parents aren't thinking about any of that. And I love what you're saying in terms of, like, when the kids are like, there's these stages of life, the whole 18 summers concept, as our friend Jim Shields wrote that book. But after the 18 summers. Yeah. How about the next 50 plus after that? And that you're thinking down the road in terms of legacy, not just being. Leaving money to the kids and setting them financially. Like. Like, that's not what brings happiness and fulfillment. It's like, it's culture, it's values. It's who they are, how, as you said, how they relate to each other. I want to go to you, Lindsay and Mike. You'd mentioned that y' all have family meeting, and that's detailed in the book. I'd love for you to walk us through. What is a family meeting? Like, what does that look like? How often do you have them? Are you perfect at them?

[B]

We're not perfect at them. Our goal right now is to do two a month and back up.

[A]

Like, talk about the evolution. Like, talk about when you. How old were the kids when you started family meetings? And then you can kind of lead us up to, like, what was it like before when they were younger and how has that evolved?

[B]

Yeah, so we probably started family meetings when the kids were, like, 4 and 8Y.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And we did them weekly.

[B]

Yeah, we did them weekly. And we literally had a whiteboard painted on the wall in our kitchen, and we would write up. We had, like, little balance sheets for the kids. And, yeah, we wrote up the calendar. We had, like, a quote for the week. The whole design is just to keep us on the same page.

[A]

And so what types of things are you talking about?

[B]

Yeah, so something that's been very consistent. We always start with gratitude. We do something we call a gratitude shower. So each person in the family will say, wow, they're grateful for dad. And we'll go around and each person gets gratitude.

[C]

And then they say why they're grateful for themselves. And then we go to the next person.

[A]

Okay, so you start with gratitude. And then what's.

[B]

Always start with gratitude to kick it off. And then it really depends on what we're working on. But we always go over the calendar. If we have, like, a vacation or something coming up or a milestone. Like, Mike was talking about a rite

[A]

of passage or you mentioned goals, family goals. What are some family goals that you guys have together?

[B]

To visit grandparents a certain amount of times, to travel together. The kids each have individual goals. Everybody's working on a hard goal and a fun goal. Okay, so, like, I think Ember's hard goal right now is to finish seventh grade.

[A]

Okay. She's 13, right?

[B]

She's 13.

[A]

That's her hard goal. Okay. And then. And then there's a fun goal.

[B]

And her fun goal. Do you remember her?

[C]

Fun to volunteer?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

At the animal. Animal shelter once a.

[A]

And that, by the way, shows how you guys have instilled the value of service. Her fun goal is volunteering. Right. Which, yeah, it's incredible if you struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep. I have a supplement that I take that I've taken for about three years now virtually every single night. I highly recommend it. It's called Nightcaps by Cured Nutrition. It is a CBN and CBD oil supplement. And CBN supports your body's natural sleep rhythms throughout night for deep restorative sleep that leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to rise in the morning. Highly recommended. I Book. In my days with Cured Nutrition, I take their flow gummies in the morning. I take nightcaps at night. And you can get 20% off of both of those products. As a listener of the achieve your goals podcast, head over to curednutrition.com/hal. That's cured nutrition.com/forward/hal and use the discount code HAL for 20% off, off your entire order. And if you do a subscription, which I do a monthly subscription for both of those products, you get an additional 20% off that stacks on top of the 20% as a listener. So you can save a bunch of money and it'll help you fall asleep and stay asleep again. Cured Nutrition nightcaps in the evening. And I start my day with flow gummies every single morning. And I hope these products will help you and enhance your life as they have have for mine. Enjoy the rest of the episode. So family goals. And then what was the other one you talked about? You said family goals. So we do.

[C]

We also do peak experiences. So we'll talk about like what are all of the highlight moments that we've had? What's the highlight reel since our last meeting?

[A]

Okay, got it.

[C]

So we'll call out in that time. When did you see somebody living the values? So that's a place where we'll actually bring our values to life and be like, yeah, Ember was really a resilient warrior at the dentist this week. She got, she got a tooth pulled or whatever and was

[A]

Tyler. So you're recognizing the kids and calling out what they did and. And then what was he just going to ask you?

[B]

We're calling them up, as we call them.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Versus calling them out. Calling out is when you're in trouble.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Calling up. Okay. And so the fambundance. Let's talk about that. You co founded GoBundance with our David Osborne, another Miracle Morning co author, Miracle Morning millionaires Pat Hyben Road who did One life fully. One life Fully met.

[C]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

There's so much. Everybody's got their own things and then integrates together. So you founded gobundance and then didn't you sing? Like, weren't you the person or you were the couple that decided to do fambundance. Talk about that. Because you were leading this men's mastermind for wealthy men who wanted to build legacies and have this great family. But it was all integrated in success more than it seems like than and fulfillment. What was the branch off to? Fambundance.

[C]

So I ended up becoming the CEO of GoBundance. I was a co founder and then became CEO in. In 2015.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And the reason I did was because I had just replaced myself in my real estate business. And I was like, oh, I have some free time. And I immediately filled it with something else to do, just like any entrepreneur would do. So I take this other role on. And I immediately had this, like, sense of regret because I realized that I had just traded, like, time with my family for this opportunity to lead another company. And I'm like, do. Why am I doing this, really? And when I looked at that, what I was trying to do was transform men's lives. The reason I took the CEO role was because I really believed that I could give back to GoBundance members what it had given to me because it had transformed my life. I had David as a mentor. We did all of the things that we teach in gobundance. We did in our lives, flourished with abundance. And so I felt this. This duty, this call, being the youngest of the elders, to, like, take the reins and make sure that we steward this thing forward into a place where it would service other people beyond just myself. And so in that time, I thought through it and realized that actually, the best thing we could do for these men was to serve their families. One of the things we would hear more often than not was that there was trouble with their children, challenges with their wife or something that related to family. They would all have hot buttons. Some of them were overweight. So there was a lot of that health challenges that we've addressed. We've had guys go from overweight to losing hundreds of pounds, and we've created transformation. We've helped guys restore their marriages. We've had helped guys repair their relationships with their children. But we were doing events where no matter how I sliced it, I was taking them away from their families. And no matter how I could justify it in my brain, they were using their families as the excuse to go out of town. I'm doing it for them. And the reality was, if I was being honest with myself on behalf of them, they were really doing it for themselves because they liked what they got out of being in the room with a bunch of other high achievers. They liked what they felt when they closed a big deal. And the truth is that in some cases, that's true. But in a lot of cases, what we found out was that they would close big deals and not feel as good as they thought they should, and they would be in the room and they would not be talking about the biggest deals that they did. But they'd be talking about how they were troubled by something in their marriage or something with their kids.

[A]

And so because their doing the big deals, they're right. They're thriving there and then they're struggling at home. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And just, just like if things aren't right at home, it's hard to enjoy anything. Yeah, right. Yeah. You could be closing billion dollar deals, but if your kids are sick, money matters zero. Yeah. So when I realized that we started throwing family events and the first one was in our backyard, we had no idea what we were doing. Jeremy Reig, who works with you as well in the. In the Miracle Morning app and has worked with you for many years.

[A]

I just talked to him right before we walked.

[C]

Friend of ours, but he facilitates our fanbundance events. He has for over a decade now. I love having his energy at our events, his music, but we make it fun. And so this heavy thing which is legacy and it's really like for the entrepreneur, they also have to look into the depths of their soul and know that they're not going to live forever.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There's another part of it, of why they avoid that. It's easy to just go do business and not worry about the fact that someday day we're not going to be here anymore and focus there. So I found it to be my role within GoBundance to sort of lead the charge around families to make sure we do family events. So twice a year we bring families together. We work for the mornings a little bit, 30 to 45 minutes. Family values, family values, family rhythms, family goals. If you come to our events, you get the playbook that will help you create your entire family. Legacy Blueprint, which would be a family constitution, would actually have a mission, vision, values, beliefs, the perspectives. It would have more in depth like conflict agreement, like resolution agreements. It would have deeper, I guess, content than your standard sort of the book Miracle Morning for Parents and Families playbook that we did. Yeah. This would take you to.

[A]

It's twice as thick, so three times as thick.

[C]

Yeah. When you go through it, you end up with the family constitution and it's basically this is how we operate.

[A]

All right, let me ask you a question. How many apps are you using for your personal development? Maybe a meditation app like Calm or Headspace, an affirmation app like I am or Think Up, a book summary app like Blinkist, a journaling app like 5 Minute Journal, a visualization app like Envision, an exercise app like 7 Minute Workout and maybe even a habit Tracking app to keep it all together. That is a lot to manage and a lot to pay for. What if you could replace all of them with just one app? Yes, it is called the Miracle morning app and it is essentially seven apps in one. Hundreds of guided meditations and breathwork tracks, a full library of affirmations, plus tools to create your own visualization prompts for 10 key areas of your life. Guided workouts from 2 to 10 minutes long, book and audiobook summaries of top, top personal and professional development books and a journaling tool with guided prompts. The wheel of life or a blank page to write freely. It simplifies your morning, saves you money and helps you start every day with clarity, purpose and energy. And it's one of the only apps in this space with a 4.9 out of 5 star rating. Try it free for 7 days. Just search Miracle Morning in your app store or go to miraclemorning app.com to get started. All right, back to the show. What I love about doing because I've done fan abundance events, obviously, front row dads events, you know, it's like, it's stuff that I know I will not do on my own. You know, you guys are rare and that you actually are some of those intentional parents that I know. Or it's like getting your kids to do it is like pulling teeth sometimes or you just. For me, I think it's a lack of confidence in my ability to lead. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing, you know, Know. And I think this definitely. I know the miracle morning for parents and families in the playbook have helped, but I know, like when I go to a fan abundance event, especially if the kids are there, it's like, hey, we're all doing this together, right? They're looking. It's not mom and dad. It's like, oh, oh, everybody's doing it and they're playing music and we're all having fun. Okay. Right. So it's like the enviro. It's this safe environment. It's this container where you connect, collaborate with your family, create the family constitution. And then when you go home, you're literally, you leave a different family. You leave, leave with and. And you now have the structure. Right? That's the most important part of being intentional. It starts with the front end work and then now you go home and you've got the legacy blueprint and you're like, hey guys, right? Remember, we're starting our first family meeting this week and they're Bought in. Because they got bought in, not just by mom and dad, but by this entire fanbundance community. Right. That's like together doing it, deciding it's a positive thing. So now they're like, okay, yeah, we're doing like you. Literally, they're agreeing at the event. Event. And then it's like, all right, our first. We're. Hey, we're headed at home. Our first family meeting's tomorrow Sunday. Right? Like, okay, great. So talk about. For anybody that might not listen the whole podcast for some reason, when is that event? What is that event? Because I know I can't go. I'm speaking that week with my daughter at an event, but it's going to be July. Summer event.

[C]

July 13th through the 19th. And it's in Lake Devlin. It's in Wisconsin. It's at Lake Lawn Resort. Beautiful resort that's right next to a lake. So we'll be doing a ton of lake activities. That part of the country, if you haven't been there, that time of year is absolutely beautiful. We chose it specifically for the climate and to have access to water and to also not be where it's, you know, 110 degrees.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's also close to three different airports.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[C]

Yeah. And it's basically, it's a full week, but really the meat of the event happens in the first three days. So the 13th, 14th, 15th, and the morning of the 16th are when we actually facilitate not only the work the families do together, but I forgot to mention that we do break out the teens and the kids into their own separate.

[A]

I was going to ask you, what are the age ranges?

[C]

Yeah. So usually a kid can start participating around five. And we do offer babysitting. If you have a lot of kids that are above 5, but you have one kid that is under, they're welcome in the room. But if they're disruptive, then we would ask that we find a babysitting solution or a daycare solution. But we welcome families of all ages and sizes. We actually have had a family of 10 at one of our fanbundance event, believe it or not, but it's a mix of, like, doing the work and then play in the morning, and then actually the afternoon is totally free for play.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And then in the evening, we get back together for lunch and then some more work. We usually do, like, a shark tank where the kids actually work together in groups to present. Present a product that they design on the fly to the parents. And then the final night at dinner, we do a little work and Then we have a talent show so the kids actually tell Joe dances, lip sync, sing. We've had some pretty good like pianists like play some Coldplay. Coldplay that I was like, wow.

[A]

And then what is. And Jeremy Reisig, who's one of our best collective, best friends.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Formerly Brother James, now known as J. Hobbs, the musician, the Miracle Morning song and many of his own. Do you have a favorite J Hob song, by the way?

[C]

I mean, you're next, Lindsay.

[A]

Think of what yours is going to be.

[C]

I like evolve a lot.

[A]

Evolve, that's a good one.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I was wearing a shirt earlier.

[C]

Always a fave.

[A]

Grateful. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Grateful.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. That's. I think that's my favorite because I helped him.

[B]

Animal is a good one too. Kids always love that.

[A]

Abracadabra is fun too.

[B]

Abracadabra is fun.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Shout out to. If you don't know, go to Spotify, listen. Look up J. Hobbs. You can listen to the Miracle Morning song Grateful Evolve. So many great songs. But so yeah, he's there leading, singing, performing. He's a great facilitator, right?

[C]

Yeah. He helps design the events. So I co design with him. But then I get to be in the audience because I'm designing this event just as much for myself to be able to do the work with my family as anyone else. The other thing that's interesting is this is the first time ever that we've opened the event to non gobundance members. So we're trying to. To help more families and spread the love and create a bigger community of families that really want to do this work together. So I think that's a big thing to mention is that if you've not been a part of gobundance or you thought that you had to be a part of GoBundance to come to fanbundance, or you were interested, you've heard of and wanted to check out GoBundance. This would be a good chance to bring the family.

[A]

What's the website to get the details.

[C]

So if you go to fambundance.com There's a couple of things. One, you could register for the event. There's a short three or four question survey and then we would set up an interview just to screen to make sure it's a match in good fit. I'm also doing a podcast next Wednesday. I think the day it'll be the

[A]

day this comes out.

[C]

The day of this podcast drop. It's a webinar at 12pm Central and there'll be registration link for that on fambundance.com as well.

[A]

Spell fanbundance for F A m B

[C]

U u n D a N C E fam bun dance. Okay dot com.

[A]

Where did that name come from, by the way?

[C]

So go abundance.

[A]

Remind me. It's abundance.

[C]

So David came up with gobundance, which was to go towards abundance.

[A]

Okay, got it.

[C]

And then fambundance. I was going to call it Go families. Tracy knew that I was already doing this family event. And by the time David's wife, by the time I got to tell her, like, oh, I'm going to call it go family, she had already already called it fanbound. They created a logo and stuff. So I was like, okay, okay.

[A]

I guess that's what we're going.

[C]

I guess that's fanbundance.

[A]

So fambundance.com the event is July 13th through 19th.

[C]

And also just to mention is the first three to four days are when we do the work and then the last four days. So basically the. The 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th we're just gonna play. Ah. So it's just family vacation.

[A]

This is a vacation.

[C]

It's a family vacation where you're gonna leave with some mean being created. It'll be a way easier lift than you think. And maybe Lindsay could just speak for the wives sake because yeah, anyone who's familiar with gobundance knows it's a bunch of hard charging guys and like they might think like fanbundance is like, you know, we're going to try to fix the wives and fix the, fix all the problems at home and that. It's going to be intense.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But it's not really like that. I don't know if it's not intense.

[B]

It's actually really fun. And you know, right off the bat, J. Hobbs is up there playing his guitar and there's like a conga line. And something we do throughout the event too is these family Olympic games and you win fan books so you win like fake hundred dollar bills. And we'll give them out for people dancing, for people raising their hand to answer a question. So you might get these really shy kids coming in. They don't know anybody. Shy wives too. They don't know anybody.

[A]

You can be a shy wife sometimes.

[B]

Yeah. By the end of day, day one, they're all raising their hands to get the mic, running around like. It's magical.

[A]

How many years, I mean, you guys been doing. You guys are pros. You've been doing this for how many years now?

[C]

Over a decade.

[A]

Wow. Wow.

[C]

That one, I think we did our first one in 2016, I think.

[A]

Yeah. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So we're right at that.

[A]

So now. So now I want to circle back to the stage that your kids are at right now.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

All the work that you do for other families, like how that's being integrated into your family. Family. So you talk about legacy, what that looks like. So what does family life look like right now? Challenges included? Right. I know it's, you know, but what does it look like? And what's the future look like for you and for the family? And as we have one turning 18 in the next year and, you know, one turning 14 when I think as

[B]

they've gotten older, in my opinion, it's gotten more fruitful because we started when they were little. So now it's like not weird.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For us to call a family meeting or be talking about goals, talking about a five year vision. Like these are things you've been talking

[A]

about since they were exactly part of their vocabulary.

[B]

It is part of their vocabulary. And I think that's the cool thing about fanbundance too. It kind of creates this shared language, not only with our family, but the other families who come and participate. So it's not so out there anymore.

[C]

I mean, I just want to be totally transparent in that a year ago, Lindsay and I were going through hell with our son. Like he was suicidal. I share that knowing that he would be okay because of where he is now and also because of how proud I am of how he went to seek help. He really raised his hand and asked for help through his counselor and was willing to be admitted. Admitted into a hospital in order to get the treatment that he wanted. But it was interesting because in the middle of it all, there was sort of this tension around like, I hate all that values family culture that you do. So there was this little part of him that was sort of like rebelling against what we had, all these structures we had created.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I think, though, after he went through some treatment and he talked to some counselors and he spent some time with people in the hospital that were like far worse off than he was and

[A]

had a far worse family life. Yeah, I'd imagine.

[C]

Yeah. Came back with a different perspective. And then what I've done in the last year is to connect with him, really leaned into what he loves. He loves cars. So like in the last year, year I've joined a car club. Bought an expensive car to join said car club.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Bought a car condo to store all the cars.

[C]

But also decided that. That I could See that he had such passion in the automotive space and he was probably going to do this for the rest of his life. And I was sort of looking for some business opportunities and so I was like, hey, why don't I try to start some businesses in the auto space? So Tyler's actually going to work all summer in an autobo body shop that he actually is going to get to own two and a half percent of.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Equity wise. And he'll use money that his grandfather left him in trust to buy the two and a half percent and it's actually two and a half percent of two different body shops. And then he'll go work ground floor, ground up and learn and have this opportunity. My job is to turn it into 20 body shops.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And his job is to just learn how to really run one really well. And then we'll see where that goes. But I say that all because it's really about the integration of. I'm not giving Tyler a free ride anywhere he has to go work all summer long.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In a hot autumn shop, sweaty, dirty in order to earn. And yes, he's getting to invest. But he could lose his money too. Like that. We could fail at what we're trying to do here. And then he'll learn. Learn a whole set of lessons there. But this season of life for me is a season that I've really followed this rule of like 10 correction and 90 connection.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that is to make sure that 90 of my interactions and conversations and even reasons for us to. To be dialoguing are all around things. Things that he cares about that are all positive and uplifting that he wants to talk about and that I make sure that I try to limit it to 10% of the shit that he does not want to talk to me about. That I do have to talk to him about that 10%.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I can't just let him show bad behavior and then. And not address it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But my goal right now is to make sure that our wealth and my success doesn't ruin him and make him think that he can just do whatever you want, send it in and he's

[A]

gonna be taken care of by.

[C]

Yeah. And he knows that that's not true. We've been very clear with him. And. And I really think that the latest work that we've done with the blueprint, it's all about creating a family constitution and a legacy letter so that in the future when you leave, you can perpetuate in hope and wish and share with future generations that they would continue to do certain things. Things if they choose, if they're still effective. Like, we're not trying to like, pigeonhole them and control them from the grave with our money or anything like that. We're just putting together a set of documents that say, like, hey, if your son is interested or somebody's interested in a certain business, maybe we should look at can we get into that business instead of can you work in that business? Maybe there's a opportunity that for me as a business entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, and an opportunity for you as a grant floor employee. And so we found that with my son, which happened in lightning, like, fast. Like, it manifested so fast that I was. I almost got whiplash. And it feel like it all feels right. And I was very clear that I wasn't going to go chase it. And it all sort of is coming to me.

[A]

Yeah. That's a whole other podcast on manifesting.

[C]

And like, you know, I've been doing my visualization.

[A]

Really? Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It is interesting. Like, not to go off topic, but manifestation. Right. Like, it's like my logical brain is like, no, you got to do the things. And then I have enough examples in my life where you're like, I just set the intention and maintain faith in it. And it like, magically happened to my lap.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How does that. I don't know how that works, but there's something to it for sure.

[B]

So hopefully the same will happen with any. She wants to be a hairdresser, whatever.

[C]

A bunch of slimes, Whatever she wants to do. Our job is to give them the flint and kindling and not give them the fire.

[A]

I really want to just highlight what you just said, which is the 90% connection. 10% correction. If that's the one lesson people walk away with, you know, from this is like, I think it applies to all relationships. Yeah, Right. And I know I've been guilty in the past of being the opposite. Where with my kids. 90 and with teenagers, that's the thing is that if you go 90% correction, as you know. Right. You've probably. We've all learned the hard way, you lose that relationship. Use that connection. They can't wait to get out of the house and never see you again. You know what I mean? Like, even as a spouse being married, sometimes it's like, oh, you're this. You're seeing all the things that are being done wrong. And usually it's just projection of how you are treating yourself. Right.

[C]

Which 99 and 1 with spouses. There you go. Cool.

[A]

Well, so fambundance.com is where people can get because I really think that if you can make it to that event, if you're looking for a vacation that the summer and something that is proactive for your family, it's not just the kids on their screens all day, which as you have teenagers, that's like the constant battle is as soon as you put that screen in their hand, it's like it's real hard to to get them off the devices.

[B]

This resort has human foo spa.

[A]

So I saw, I was on, I looked at the website. The lake looks gorgeous.

[C]

It's going to be a lot of fun if, if anyone can make it. We highly suggest it. And we plan to keep opening up some future events in the future too is the first one. And you know, we're looking forward to meeting some cool families.

[A]

Nice. All right, well, miracle morning for parents and families. Miracle morning for parents, families, playbook. Fambundance.com to join the lake summer family adventure. Mike and Linds, I love you guys.

[B]

Love you too.

[A]

I can't wait to go have dinner together as we wrap this thing up. All right. All right, goal achievers, I love you. Have a great week. Check out fanbundance.com if you can bring your family there. You'll be happy that you did. And I'll talk to you next week.

[C]

Thanks for listening.

[A]

To learn more about the achieve your

[C]

goals podcast and to get access today's show notes, transcript and exclusive content from Hal Elrod, visit HalElrod.com podcast thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the achieve your goals podcast.