TMIT 09: Back to Base Camp

🎙️ TMIT 09: Back to Base Camp ⛺🧡

After eight family experiments in three weeks, it’s time to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what’s emerging beneath the surface.

In this episode, we return to TMIT base camp—our space for regrouping and sense-making. We talk through:

• What’s working
• What’s shifting
• And the invisible threads tying it all together

Two big ideas anchor this reflection:

• Keep it simple (“Floss one tooth.” 🦷): Small, consistent actions > big, over-engineered plans. Most of our changes took just 25–50 minutes a week.
• Name the invisible forces (“Make the implicit explicit.”): When we name what’s unspoken—money messages, family values, personal struggles—we get to choose what stays.

We also share moments from our community that have moved us:
Kids asking for movement after dinner.
Families starting rituals.
Adults finding words—and courage—they didn’t have before.

There’s something special happening here. And we’re just getting started.
Come join us at base camp—and get ready for what’s next. 🧡

📩 Sign up for our newsletter at TMITpod.com for bonus resources and behind-the-scenes reflections.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld, and
together we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hey, Danielle.
Hi, Greg. Happy whatever day of the week
it is, we are here today to reflect.

(00:24):
Yes. We've covered 8 topics so far,
from family meetings to money conversations, and we're
thrilled with the feedback we'regetting and also the anecdotes.
Yeah, you guys, people are listening.
It's not just us here. Who knew?
Who knew? That's very exciting.
Shall I share some of the anecdotes that I've heard over
the past couple of weeks? Yes, please.

(00:46):
OK, great. One of my friends, one of our
friends told us that she, after listening to the Family Stories
episode, now has the courage to share some struggle stories with
her kids, which is incredible and I'm so thrilled.
And quite a few family meetings happened this week to varying

(01:09):
degrees of success and hilarity.Reminds me of the Elon Musk
saying that success is uncertainbut entertainment is guaranteed.
Keep it going, people. Keep.
It going. And I heard about family meals
that happened for the first timein a while.
But my absolute favorite feedback has been from the kids.
So not our kids. Not our kids.

(01:29):
They wouldn't listen. They don't listen to us, but you
know how that goes. So we got to talk to a couple of
kids who would listen to the Family Stories episode and
really enjoyed that and asked their parents about Family
Stories afterwards. And then just today I heard
about a boy who listened to TeamIt with his mom in the car and

(01:50):
suggested that they do family movement after dinner.
Love that. Me too.
Incredible, epic, so exciting. We live for these little
anecdotes, so please, please share them.
Yes. Please share them.
We have a newsletter, TMIT pod.com.
You can sign up for the newsletter and we'll share our

(02:13):
episode tip sheet for the 1st 8 episodes and that's where you'll
be able to hear from us with future episode announcements and
more Easter eggs. Yeah, and reply and let us know
how things are going. We want to hear there is no
detail too small. Yep, we're just high at
tmitpod.com if you want to reachout.
Cool. Cool.

(02:35):
So today we're returning to Basecamp to take stock and
reflect on the 1st 8 episodes. Yeah.
So we're calling this episode back to Basecamp because
Basecamp is a really important term in our family.
It's a concept that I first readabout in M Scott Peck's The Road
Less Travelled, where he talks about marriage as a base camp,

(02:58):
as a place where two people commit to taking solace and
resting up because life is aboutclimbing your own mountain.
And so the base camp is really where you can have an
opportunity to reflect and rest and gather supplies for your

(03:23):
next journey. So marriage is a base kid.
I think that this applies to thewhole family as well.
Yeah, because family isn't aboutthe summit, right?
We are preparing each member to climb their own mountain.
But family is where we build ouremotional, spiritual, and

(03:43):
relational muscles for the outside world.
It's the place that we get to return to again and again to get
clear, get connected, and prepare for what's next.
So today we're asking you to join us at The Most Important
Thing Base Camp, and we're glad you're here.
We really are. Yeah.

(04:05):
It's been really special. Cool.
So let's talk about our first eight episodes, not the Cliff
Notes. You can see the tip sheet for
that. We'll send that to you if you
sign up for the news. But the consistent themes and
through lines that we've discovered along the way.
So Greg and I spent a little bitof time reflecting both

(04:25):
individually and then together we did a table read, if you
will, on some of these themes. And I think it really comes down
to two overarching themes. One is to keep it simple and the
other is to make the implicit explicit.
That's right. So let's get into it.

(04:47):
Yeah, so I've got this saying that I love.
It's a little weird because I throw it out at random people
and they're like, what are you talking?
About this is true. It's.
Called floss one tooth. So I'm a very intentional
flosser and I believe oral hygiene will keep you alive very
long in life. I'm a convert.
Yep, but if you want to get started in flossing your teeth,

(05:10):
don't say tonight I'm going to floss all my teeth.
Just floss one tooth and then floss 2:00 tomorrow.
So the idea is that we start with something small, right?
I actually love this idea from Doctor Becky, who says if the
first step feels too hard, then make it smaller.
And obviously you really embody that with your favorite model of

(05:30):
floss one tooth. That's.
Right. But weirdness aside, I think
that what we've seen is that it just starts with one small
thing, right? You know, I remember sharing
some of my favorite birthday stories with the girls while
emptying the dishwasher a couplemornings ago.
That it doesn't have to be thesehuge moments.

(05:51):
It can just be these tiny moments of magic.
And like I think you said earlier, Greg, is that they
build upon themselves and eventually it becomes like a
ball rolling downhill. Yeah, if you take the first
step, it's not much time. That small step builds inertia
that makes me want to do more, and the kids notice, which makes

(06:13):
me want to find more to do. Now we're all a lot closer
already, and it's only been three weeks.
Beautifully, said Craig. The other thing I like thinking
about when it comes to keep it simple is start small and see
what sticks. If we are starting small, we can
throw a bunch of things against the wall.
And this goes back to this idea of being open to being

(06:35):
adaptable, like combining meals with family movement.
Last Friday was amazing. And if we had been rigid about
bedtime, which we usually are, it wouldn't have happened that
way. But just accepting that, OK, we
are allocating space and we are going to provide some structure,

(06:57):
but then we're going to let inspiration strike within that
container, I think is a really, really important aspect of
keeping it simple. So setting some structure.
I love this idea that Ed Catmill, who's the Co founder of
Pixar, talks about. He says that creativity thrives
within constraints. So if we can just set up,

(07:20):
allocate some time, whether it'sa family meal or a family
meeting and be loose about the agenda, then the members of our
family will fill it beautifully.But it is our job to to create
that opportunity. That said, it's only a short

(07:42):
amount of time. Yeah, it we're not talking about
hours and hours, right. Most of our, most of our
experiments have been 25 to Max 50 minutes.
Yeah, throughout the week. That's right, you know, kids
love the anticipation build. Like they just like asking about
when the next time that we're going to do.
Something at least our kids do at.
Least our kids and and when we have a date and we're like, Oh

(08:04):
yeah, we're going to do that again this Friday.
They're like wow, so cool. Yeah, I think that's true.
I think that they also appreciate the ritual of it,
right? These rhythms that they can rely
upon, that really have, that really involve the whole family.
That's right. Yeah, so keep it simple, but
just get going. Floss one tooth and then the

(08:27):
other is to name the invisible forces.
Play the tape all the way through and make the implicit
explicit. So what do we mean by this?
Well, I think it shows up a lot in family stories where what we
learned in the research is that we don't want to stop at what
happened, but really share what it means to us individually.

(08:49):
And then also, a big aha moment for me was about sharing
struggles too, not just successes.
That's not really something thatcomes naturally to me.
But once you tell me that, I'm like, oh duh, of course.
Yeah, we're all on the same teamand it's kind of weird that we
would ever posture or hide anything about the challenges in

(09:11):
getting to the path, you know, in getting to the place that
we're at today. So just think about it that way.
Yeah, for me it's not about posturing, it's just it would
never even occur to me as being relevant.
Right. And now, you know, three weeks
into this experience and these experiments, I am understanding
why they make me more relatable and more human and are the most

(09:36):
relevant. I love that you said that it
would never occur to you becausemost people out in the world it
does occur to them and they hideit.
Well, that's just not me, but yeah, so I think, I think those
are the two things. Yeah, those are the big three
lines. So keep it simple and make the
implicit explicit. And this actually our takeaways

(09:57):
from our first eight experimentsremind me a lot of Bruce Filer's
big three lessons from his book The Secrets of Happy Families,
which I read not too long ago. And he says adapt all the time,
talk a lot and have fun together, go out and play right.

(10:18):
And so I think that those are also great keep it simple type
of strategies for setting the foundation of family culture.
Right. So we were doing the things.
And and we're going to keep doing things we're.
Going to keep doing the things. So this has been an excellent
phase, one of the most importantthing.

(10:40):
So where do we go next? It's a great question.
I feel like we've really laid a solid foundation and as we take
stock, I really, I feel like we've really laid a solid
foundation and that these first eight episodes and eight
experiments feel like a completeset.
The feeling I've been getting lately is 1 of exhale, like take

(11:04):
a pause, reflect on where you are and keep these going.
And so as I take stock of where we've been and where we're
going, I keep coming back to this metaphor of building a
house. In our first eight episodes, I
feel like we cleared the space, we poured intention into the

(11:24):
ground and we named that family culture matters and deserves to
be intentionally pursued. I feel like we've raised the
structure, the frame and the beams, if you will.
Like I feel like we have a framed out house.
We talked about practices that shape our day-to-day.
So the bones of the house have taken shape and now we're moving

(11:48):
into a different phase, not one that's going to add more
structure right away. But when I think about what's
next, I've been thinking about the emotional wiring of the
house and asking myself what flows through the walls of our

(12:10):
home. And so that's where I'd like to
focus our next journey on this internal architecture, if you
will, The invisible systems thatmake our family feel safe, seen,
and worthy. It's the part of the house
that's harder to visualize, but I think it's impossible to live

(12:32):
without. I love where your heart is at
with that. Thank you.
Yeah, no, I really do, and I'm excited to keep going.
Me too. All right.
Love you, goosey. Love you, goosey.
Hey guys, if you're still here, you're definitely our kind of
person. Thanks for spending this time
with us on The Most Important Thing.

(12:52):
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