October 3, 2024 • 32 mins
Is your family's busy schedule leaving you stressed and overwhelmed? In this week's episode, Kevin and Bekah share their strategies for conducting a family energy audit to achieve greater balance and harmony.
Drawing from their experiences as entrepreneurs and parents of four, they discuss:
- The concept of energy givers and takers in family life
- How to evaluate your time allocation
- Aligning your activities with your family goals
- Practical steps to implement positive changes
Kevin and Bekah offer actionable advice on juggling work, family, and personal commitments while keeping faith and family at the center. They share personal anecdotes about family activities, serving in the community, and the challenges of parenting.
Whether you're a busy parent, entrepreneur, or simply feeling overwhelmed by life's demands, this episode provides valuable insights to help you thrive, not just survive, in your family life. Join us for a conversation that will inspire you to approach your family's energy management with intention and purpose.
Get your FREE copy of the Uncommon Freedom Energy Audit HERE!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show.
I'm Kevin Tinter and with me asalways, is my amazing wife and
co-host.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hey everyone, I'm Becca Tinter and today we're
diving into a topic that isclose to our hearts and crucial
for every family striving forbalance in this hectic world and
you know, balance is a wordthat I'm not I don't love, just
because I don't think everythinggets the same piece of the pie.
So I would say those strivingfor harmony.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I love that.
You're a genius, that's right,thank you.
We are talking about why youneed a family energy audit, and
we've been talking with someother people recently, and it's
just abundantly clear that whatwe're going to share today is
something that every Americanfamily needs, whether it's just
you and a spouse, or there'skids in the house, maybe even
grandkids.
(00:52):
This is going to be an awesometool, and we're also going to
teach you how to do this.
If you're feeling overwhelmed,juggling your career, your
business and family life, thisepisode is for you.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And truly, if you're just by yourself, we can each do
this exercise individually.
It's just the more peopleinvolved in your family, the
more complicated life gets, andso it is helpful to do it with
those that you do life with dayin and day out.
So we're going to explorepractical strategies to help you
thrive as a family unit, notjust survive.
So grab a pen and paper.
You'll want to take some noteson this one not just survive, so
grab a pen and paper.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
You'll want to take some notes on this one.
All righty, let's start by aquick little intro to family
energy audits.
Let's define what a familyenergy audit is, and we would
say that it's basically writingout your current family schedule
so you can see what you areactually spending time on, right
your current commitments.
Yes, this is your expenditureof your time.
Just like when you're trying tofigure out a budget, you're
(01:48):
going to actually track, gatherall your receipts, look at your
credit card statements, checkingaccount statements and actually
see what you're actuallyspending your money on.
This is in the same thing whenit comes to health.
Right, when people want to makea change, one of the first
things they can do is actuallytrack, and the mere act of
tracking things creates an extralevel of awareness.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Absolutely.
I 100% agree with that, andit's so powerful because so
often we make assumptions or wehave a perception about how
things are going but we don'thave a really.
We've talked about this when wetalk about relational issues.
But there are the facts andthen there are the stories we
tell ourselves.
And when it comes to wherewe're spending our time, the
facts are what is on ourcalendar, what we commit to and
have to show up for.
(02:28):
And many times you know, I know, for us, we start with like,
okay, we only have a few thingson the calendar and then all of
a sudden things get added on byother people, other members of
our family and things like that.
And the more people you have inyour family, the busier your
schedule gets.
So, as a reminder, we are afamily of six, ages seven to 17.
Everyone's living at home.
Still, we work from home and wehave a lot of moving parts.
(02:52):
Some of you have biggerfamilies, some of you have
smaller families.
The bottom line is it can getvery, very busy.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Sure thing All right.
Do you want to talk about whyit's so important for your
family to do Absolutely I meanwe were saying, just like
finances, most people have noidea where they're spending
their time.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's interesting even because we also run a
home-based business, a healthcoaching practice, and one of
the common things is people feelvery busy but they're not
always productive.
So it's actually really helpful, in addition to tracking your
health, your finances and yourtime, to also track your work
time and what you do with yourwork time, because a lot of us
(03:29):
give ourselves a lot of creditfor what we do and if we
actually took an account of it,we would realize how much of it
was productive time or, as afamily, how much was healthy
time that we're spending oncertain activities, and that's
what we're talking about today.
So it's going to be a wake upcall and likely a reality check
for most of us.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And most people.
When they do this, they'regoing to find that they're
spending less time on highleverage activities than they
think they are and they'reprobably spending a lot more
time on just low leverageactivities or almost wasted time
Like go look at your, look upyour screen time for the last
week and it'll blow your mind tosee how much time you spent on
apps and things like that thataren't really moving you forward
(04:09):
at all.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
All right, and actually, before you move on, I
know that one of the things thatwe've talked about in our
business a lot is how do we, youknow, how do we find more time,
get more time, manage our time?
And the truth is, if you canlearn to multiply time, that is
phenomenal.
But before you can even get tothe behaviors, the habits and
the systems for multiplying time, you have to audit your time.
And we're not talking justabout hours on our schedule.
(04:33):
We're also talking about ourenergy, which is a big part,
because a lot of time managementis actually energy management.
You know, when you're doingsomething you love or something
that's very productive, youmight feel amazing doing it, but
we all have the drains anddrags on our energy and
sometimes we spend way too muchtime on those things because
either we've committed to themor we're not even aware of them.
(04:53):
So we want to take a goodaccount of that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and everything that we talk about on this
podcast for the most part isultimately driving people
towards creating a life ofuncommon freedom, is ultimately
driving people towards creatinga life of uncommon freedom and
we've been massaging thisrecently and really uncommon
freedom is thriving in everyarea of life so that you can
reach your God-given potentialand maximize your impact on the
(05:16):
earth.
And as Christians, we think ofthat as a kingdom impact, as
God's kingdom on earth impact.
And so when you think aboutthat, how do you apply?
How does that apply to family?
It's how do you help your kidsnot just yourself reach their
potential, you know, how do youbuild the work ethic in them?
How do you help them developand like, discover and develop
(05:37):
their skills and abilities, thethings that they're likely to
want to do to feel like theyhave purpose in this world and
to just be able to have akingdom impact as a family, not
just as an individual.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yep, I agree.
So number two is the importanceof managing family energy.
So first we talked about kindof what a family energy audit is
, but now we're going to talkabout the importance of managing
that for a family, and so wewant to talk about energy givers
and takers in the family life,and another way to say this is
anchors and engines.
What I love about discoveringthis for ourselves within our
(06:10):
business context, within ourfriend group, church group,
community group, is that it'snot only valuable for ourselves,
but it's really important forour kids to learn this early on.
We talk a lot aboutassociations.
In your book you talk aboutrunning with lions and it's
important to understand how wereceive people as well as
activities.
So that's kind of what we'retalking about here is there are
(06:32):
activities that drain us or giveus energy, and there are people
that drain us and give usenergy, and it's important to
have an awareness of both.
We can't necessarily controlall of those things in our life,
but we can sometimes manage howmuch of it we let in when we
let it in, and I think even partof what you were mentioning
before about lifestyle design isteaching our kids, as well as
(06:52):
ourselves, how to have healthyboundaries with people.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Great.
So we also want to talk abouthow energy management can reduce
stress and improve familydynamics.
You know, one of the biggestthings, the biggest problems
that we have in America today isthat we are just too stinking
busy.
Big fan of Dr Kevin Lehman,who's a parenting expert, and he
talks about the fact that oneof the reasons our kids are
(07:16):
burnt out is because they haveso many activities.
You know, typically, you know Idon't know what the average is,
but there's a lot of americanfamilies where their kids aren't
just in one sport, they're inmultiple sports and they might
not even experience a sabbathbecause they're doing sports and
activities every single day ofthe week.
And the truth is it's notreally healthy for them.
(07:38):
The benefit that you thinkthey're going to get from
teamwork or whatever it might be, the know, the athletic
discipline, is being outweighedby just the fact that they don't
have any balance in their life.
And you know, this is also whythere's a lot of mid-teen
athletes that are actuallyburning out when potentially, if
they hadn't been worked so hard, they actually maybe could have
(07:58):
gone further and farther.
But you know, kids areexperiencing burnout, which is
something that was as rare inchildren as diabetes used to be,
and it's now unfortunatelycommonplace.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So and it could be, you know, musical or dance or oh
yeah, art classes, we're notany extracurricular as an
athlete I love sports.
But I remember growing up inclub sports weren't really a
thing growing up.
So we if we played for ourschool, we practiced with our
school and that was kind of it,and then we had seasons on and
seasons off.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Nowadays kids are doing things year round and
they're playing on multipleteams and traveling to opposite
corners of the country toparticipate at a very young
level and there are somebenefits to some of those things
, and if they fit with yourfamily, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But we've also seen families drain their finances
and use all of their family timeand energy to support things
like this, really in an out ofbalance, out of harmony way, and
so we just want to encourageall of us to take account of
that and see if it's servingyour family well.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So, when it comes to managing energy, we really want
to encourage you to help yourkids, your family, evaluate if
you're spending time with theright friends, with the right
family and the right teammates.
You know the reality is theremight be some teams that are
just a downright negativeinfluence on your kids or even
you.
I remember there was a it wassimilar to the Boy Scouts that
(09:13):
an activity that I did for abouta year or two with my dad.
My brother, dave, and I didthis and it was kind of fun, but
I remember my dad talking aboutthe fact that all the other
dads, all they wanted to dotogether was go out and drink
and, and so we decided to endour time in that activity.
I don't even remember what itwas called, uh, but that would
be an example of realizing, like, maybe the activity is good,
(09:34):
but the people you're spendingtime with aren't necessarily
good for you, and so it's justreally important to realize, you
know, we've had, we've hadfriends through the years where
you realize, man, yes, they'remy friend, but when I leave I
actually feel like my cup isless full because maybe they're
just very negative versus somefriends.
You leave you're like holysmokes, I feel energized, right,
(09:55):
and the reality is we want tolive a life where we're managing
energy and we're intentionalabout it and we're spending time
.
You know, and of course goeswithout saying, we all have
those family members.
That are the energy anchors andyou know sometimes they're
unavoidable.
But you also want to put somebarriers in place, or with
(10:17):
boundaries healthy boundaries tobe able to minimize and make a
plan for how you're going tohandle those types of energy
anchors.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yes.
And then when it comes to ourkids and I'm reflecting on, you
know, some of the activitieswe've had them do or stay in or
repeat.
It's been a lot of timesbecause of the culture that's
created in that activity,especially in sports.
That's where most of our boysspend time and it's because of
great associations with you know, the right coaches and the
right players and their familiesand people that we can do life
with.
It's where you kind of buildyour village of like.
(10:50):
How do we find the connectionsto spend long term time with
people, allow our kids to goover to their house or them to
come to our house, or it leadsto youth group connections.
Church and youth group areanother activity where, again,
we're looking for the rightpeople to speak into our kids
and being really conscious ofthat and teaching them really to
learn for themselves, becausewe're not going to control that
once they hit the teenage years,and so we're looking for them
(11:10):
to be discerning in that area.
So, let's talk about thebiblical perspective of
stewardship.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, we talk about stewardship all the time and we
know that God expects us tosteward our time, our talent and
our treasure.
And the reality is the thingsthat families are involved in.
They take time and a lot of itis also developing helping your
child develop their skill setsand things that are part of
their talent.
And then the other piece is thefinancial aspect, where you
(11:38):
know there are we've met andknown a lot of families that the
extracurricular activities area financial burden and the
reality is, most of the timethat probably isn't a good
decision for you.
If it's creating extra stressfinancially, it's time to scale
back, find a more affordableversion or maybe just take a
break for a season.
Maybe you need to take a yearoff and go build a side hustle.
(12:03):
A year off and go build a sidehustle and that a year later
that side hustle can pay for waymore than you ever thought
possible and the stress is nowcompletely gone.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know when that actually takes me back to.
You know when we weredeveloping our coaching practice
way back in 2011, 2012,probably 2012.
Yeah, you were in on thebusiness.
You wanted to build it with me.
You were a full-time policeofficer no longer really working
overtime, but still working atleast 40 hours a week and we
(12:33):
made some fundamental decisions,knowing that we were on a path
to build income to bring youhome.
That was your desired outcome,and we knew that it was going to
take getting lean in our timeand lean in our finances to do
that, and it was something wejust decided to go all in on.
So we cut back on our ownextracurricular activities.
Our kids were young enough thatwe weren't running all over the
place, but I think if we werespeaking to ourselves today,
(12:56):
wanting to do the same thing, wewould have had to balance out
not having our kids miss out onthings, but also saying what
could we say no to for this nextseason, which for us, was about
18 months that would allow usto build a life later that we
would be so grateful for, and wedid it in 2012, right, wasn't
that the year that this happened?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
2013?
.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, where we said no to a lot of extra things and
we lived very lean on ourfinances and we were able to
bring you home.
And that's the life we livetoday.
We work together, we parenttogether, we have a lot of time
together.
Our kids have had stay-at-homeparents really most of their
lives, and it's because of thedecisions we made 10 years ago,
(13:36):
11 years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The other benefit of taking a break is a lot of times
you think you enjoy thingsbecause you're in the routine
and then you take a break andyou don't go back to them, and
the fact that you're not goingback as a reminder, oh my gosh.
I was actually spending a lotof time on something that wasn't
as important to me as Iactually thought that it was
Like.
For me, that would have beensoftball.
I enjoy it and I would like todo it again at some point, but
(14:02):
it was something we did everysummer.
It was fun, it was enjoyable.
I still really miss it.
But at the same time, I've foundother hobbies that that I'm
able to do during the school daythat don't require, you know,
because a nighttime hobby foryou and I were having to go to a
softball field one or two timesa week, um, you know, at night,
(14:23):
like that would be a majordisruption for the family, um,
and and so it just was taking abreak.
There's gonna be some thingsyou take a break.
You're like, oh man, I reallymiss it.
And there's gonna be otherswhere you take a break.
You're like oh I'm actually okaywithout it, and so it can be
good from that standpointsometimes we just need
perspective by stepping back fora little while.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Uncommon freedom is a game changer, not only for the
focused leader, but also for therudderless sojourner seeking
direction.
When Kevin talks, I listen, Ilean in and always leave a
better man.
As the wisdom of Proverbs 3.13states, happy is the man who
finds wisdom and the man whogains understanding.
(15:02):
I want to warn you in advanceto prepare your spirit for a
heart and mind shift as you readthis book.
I have learned that convictioncomes when the heart is open to
change.
As I read this book, I wasmoved on several occasions to
evaluate my personal life andmake course corrections.
This isn't just a book.
It's a manual for creatinggodly leaders who we desperately
(15:27):
need today and especially asour children walk the earth in,
whatever it looks like 10, 20,30 years from now.
Who knows that?
We need leaders who embodythese things?
Because not only do we needpeople who are healthy and
wealthy and have the right heart, but we need people who know
(15:48):
where the spirit of the Lord is,there is freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
All right.
Number three is really thesteps it takes to conduct a
family energy audit.
So here are a couple of thepractical like hey, step one,
step two.
Let's go through these becauseit's not complicated, but you're
going to want to do the processwell if you want to have a good
understanding of really what'son your family's plate.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
So the first is to identifyenergy givers and takers, so
list common family activitiesand categorize them as energy
givers or takers and thendiscuss how we'll talk about how
you can involve all familymembers in this process.
So one of the things we want tobe careful of is that there's
some things in life you do andthey're not fun, and so we're
not saying that you want tocreate an environment where your
(16:36):
kids think, oh, everything isgoing to be fun, everything is
going to be an engine.
That's not the case.
But at the same time, it'simportant to evaluate what is
the best way for me to serve,what's the best activity for me
to be in?
You know, just as an example,you know, plugged in our church,
we typically serve once a month.
Yep, for me, greeting is notlike, I'm not an extrovert, and
(17:00):
so greeting is an energydraining activity.
Where I'm on the worship team,I love that.
You know I'm a semi giftedguitarist and being on the
worship team energizes me, andwe bring our kids along with
this and we give them options onhey, like, we want you to help,
(17:20):
but we don't tell our introvertoldest son hey, you're going to
be a greeter on Easter Sundaywhen there's hundreds of extra
guests.
And so I think, just doing theaudit and look at the activities
your family is spending time onand then talk about, are these
energy givers and energy takers?
When it comes to familyactivities like hobbies or
things that you do as a familyjust for fun, maybe you ask each
(17:44):
of your kids, list out some ofthe things you do and find out
is this something you enjoy orsomething that you could really
leave behind?
And if there's something thateveryone really could do without
, then get rid of that and focusmore of your time on doing the
activities.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Or it might've been something that was great for a
season and then, like, the ageof your kids changes and it's
not such a good fit.
Something that was great for aseason and then, like, the age
of your kids changes and it'snot such a good fit, or you
might find a better or differentway to do it.
So, for example, boating youknow we started in 2020.
It's an enjoyable familyactivity.
I would say for me, boating wasmore of an energy taker than
giver, even though I love beingon the water.
It was the before and after,like the setup and the teardown,
(18:24):
so to speak.
For you, I think it's more ofan energy giver and you were
willing to sacrifice the 45minute drive there and back.
So all those things meant likeit wasn't my favorite thing to
do, even though when I wasactually on the water with my
family I loved it.
But one of the things we did topivot is we eventually sold the
boat and stopped paying for youknow the expensive slip and
(18:44):
things and we rented or what'sit called.
It's a boat membership, so whenwe do go, we reduce some of our
drag.
So now we don't have to spend30 minutes getting the boat
prepped when we arrive and 30minutes or so, you know, putting
it away.
So we've reduced some of thatdrag.
We don't boat a lot right now,but it also means we're not we
haven't overly investedfinancially to where it's
(19:05):
disappointing when we don't go.
So I would say that was just away to learn to do it
differently.
So number one is to identifythe givers and takers of energy,
and don't forget it's not justactivities, it can also be
people.
So this isn't like you make alist of the people that suck in
your life, but it is good foreach of us and our children
sometimes to say to ourselveslike which people do I spend a
(19:26):
lot of time with that are notgood for me in the long term?
And if it's just like you know,well, these are the kids I go
to school with.
That's fine no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
The team that your work puts together.
If you don't necessarily enjoyhanging out outside of work with
those your coworkers, maybeit's creating your own team and
assembling, you know it's theperfect opportunity to upgrade
your circle.
Run with lions and you puttogether a softball team of
other families, you know, ifit's co-ed other couples that
you like and that have anedifying marriage, versus just
(20:16):
taking whatever you can get.
So it's about being intentional.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
We're going to do that someday, maybe if we're not
too old to play softball by thetime we get done.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If you're in the Gilbert Arizona area Parenting.
We're taking applications forcompetitive people who are very
rusty, but we're competitive.
If you suck, please don't apply.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
And if you're a superstar, we're probably not
qualified to play with you.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
But we'll take you on our team.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I had another thought on that Exactly.
Oh, I was also thinking when itcomes to people who are anchors
, engines, energy givers ortakers, this isn't like well,
I'm not going to spend any timewith people that need me because
there are.
There are assignments in ourlife, especially as Christians.
There are people that we arecalled to speak into, spend time
with love on, serve, and thatmay not be our favorite activity
(21:02):
, but it might be somethingwe're called to do or appointed
to do.
I think that you can stillmanage the amount of time you
spend with that person.
But we're not saying like I'mselfishly only going to spend
time with my three favoritepeople for the rest of my life.
But it is something to take tohave an awareness of, because
sometimes what we do is we spendtime in these scenarios or with
these people, but we don't knowwhy we don't feel great when
(21:23):
we're done.
We just say, like you know, I'mgrouchy when I get home from
something or I'm biting myfamily's heads off because I
just did a couple of coffeedates with people that honestly
sucked the life out of me, youknow.
Whereas if you start to payattention, then you say like hey
, I have 30 minutes or 45minutes, or I would love to chat
with you for 15 minutes insteadof giving you 90 minutes of my
in-person time.
(21:43):
So you start to figure out howto spend that time carefully,
like a bank account.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Preach it sister.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
All right.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
All right.
The next step is to evaluatetime allocation.
I jumped right ahead to that sobasically, we want you to assess
where your family time iscurrently being spent, and so
this is, you know, sitting downlooking at your calendar.
We've been talking a lot aboutusing an electronic calendar,
whether it's Google or somethingelse that's shared.
Uh, the great thing about thatis you have a record of what
(22:12):
you've been doing.
If you utilize it, like whenI'm trying to remember when do
we do something, I just go to mycalendar, I search and I can
find it, it's pretty cool, Um,so it's a great way to
incorporate that into your audit.
And then we want to make surethat our time allocation truly
aligns with our values.
So this is where you might lookat how much time you're
actually spending on TV.
(22:34):
There's a benefit to justunwinding, but the family
enrichment that happens watchingTV together versus playing a
game together or swimming in apool together or whatever it is
that your family you knowplaying pickleball, whatever it
might be, isn't going to be thesame.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Number three is to analyze the impact on family
goals.
So we're talking about familygoals and how activities
contribute to or detract fromyour goals.
So now let's talk about serving.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, so one of our goals is to serve monthly at
church.
We went through a long seasonwhere we just weren't at the
right churches where it madesense.
Our kids were at an age whereit didn't make sense.
But we want to serve once amonth and some people might
serve weekly.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, there's some amazing families out there that
are, and if you can do that,that is incredible because
churches need that kind ofvolunteer.
It's just for us, with ourfamily schedule in life.
We decided what we can do andcommit to long-term, and not
just short-term, is monthly.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
But the other thing is this is where we talk about
calendaring.
So you know we look at a couplemonths out and I let you know.
The worship team leader knowthis is when I'm available, they
schedule me and then we all doit together.
So you serve in the nursery thesame day, so that we're killing
two birds with one stone,because it's a busy Sunday and
then we let the kids know we'reserving as a family on this day.
(23:47):
But you know, we've had somechallenges with our kids working
, getting scheduled, even thoughon the front end we said you're
not working on Sundays.
You know getting scheduled onSundays and we're okay with them
working if it doesn't conflictwith church.
But it was regularlyconflicting, so we had to lean
in a little bit.
But uh, you know, justunderstanding, you know what are
your goals.
You know we've talked about wehaven't formalized this, but we
(24:09):
like taking missions trips aswell, and so we've planned some
of these.
We put these on the calendarwith the kids.
You know we think it's reallyimportant for the kids not only
to serve locally but to getoutside the country, uh, just to
have a better appreciation.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, and Carson's about to be 18.
And I mean he's done a numberof service activities in the
time he's been part of ourfamily multiple trips to Mexico
to build the trip to Kenya.
Um, I'm not sure if there'sother things, but specifically
the house building in Mexico ispretty regular, you know, like
feed my starving children.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Feed my starving children, which is a great local
thing that we can do.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Oh, and then we've you know, worked within the
foster community taking kidsshopping and things like that.
So you know again, in hislifetime we could always do more
, but we've definitely at leastonce a year done something as a
family to serve others, whetherit's locally or abroad.
There's definitely differentthings.
You know, we as entrepreneurshave more flexibility in our
schedules, but we're also just,I think, because we started our
(25:06):
marriage more with the what wewere aiming for and our
intentions.
We've been pretty intentionalabout how we set our family
structure up and gotten moreclear over time.
And it's not that other peopleare doing it wrong.
I just think other people justkind of like life happens versus
being yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And the only reason that we've done it is because
we're intentional about it.
I think there's some familiesthat naturally do it.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Our life is very busy and some family members serve
way more than we do, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
But if we didn't, if we weren't intentional about it,
if we didn't calendar it, itwouldn't happen.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So okay.
So step four is to create anaction plan.
So this means having strategiesfor increasing your energy
giving activities.
So what do we want to do moreof?
Who do we want to spend moretime with?
And then reducing energy,taking ones.
And, specifically, what's niceabout analysis of your life, I
think, is when we do our yearend review, which we're coming
up on and we're going to do anin-person event, I believe, in
(25:57):
December, and we're going totalk about this more and more as
we share this with other peoplebecause we want more people
than just the few people thatdid it last year with us to go
through this year end reflectionguide.
But one of the questions Ibelieve is like who do you want
to spend more time with and whodo?
you want to spend less time with?
What activity do you want to?
What activities or activity orhobby do you want to spend more
(26:18):
time on?
What do you want to spend lesstime on?
So we do that on a yearly basis, but you can't just do
something once a year and expectit to actually work out for
yourself.
So the strategies for bothenergy giving and energy taking
is, first of all, delete thethings that are energy taking if
possible, or reduce it.
We've talked about this before.
I think it was Darren Hardy whotalks about the rule of twos.
There's the people you canspend two days with, there are
(26:41):
people you can spend two hourswith and there are people you
can spend two minutes with, andsometimes we confuse those and
sometimes people change.
So if we have people that weused to be able to do two day
trips with and we've started tospend time together and it's
taking energy from us, theymight become someone we do a two
hour meal with or vice versa,and then calendaring our rocks.
So as far as our action planfor you and I, a big part of it
(27:07):
is every year going awaytogether and saying we're going
to take three family trips andwe're going to commit to those
and then also when we want to domore energy giving activities.
It's checking in on those daily, weekly and monthly.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And it's calendaring, you know a lot of times, people
like you're like well, if it'simportant, it'll just happen.
And the reality is, if it'simportant, then schedule it to
ensure that it happens.
And this is why we calendar ourdaytime, our retreats, our
dates with our kids.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Quarterly retreats.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
monthly dates, Different other things Like we
don't have to calendar churchbecause that's an automatic
given for us, but my monthlypoker game that gets calendared
every single month.
These are things that areenergy giving and they're
important enough that wecalendar them.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Absolutely and really .
You can tell where yourpriorities are by your bank
account and your calendar.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Bam.
All right, let's give somepractical tips for implementing
changes.
The first thing is to sit downand discuss upcoming schedule,
and the other thing is, ifyou're going into a busy season,
just share the light at the endof the tunnel.
We've had to do this with ourkids at different seasons and
it's really helpful to say, hey,this is what we have coming up
for the next four, six, eightweeks, whatever it might be,
especially if it's outside ofyour like kind of the normal
(28:13):
routine your family expects.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
You know like we travel occasionally and then
sometimes we travel closetogether.
It's not intended, that's notour favorite.
We like to spread it out forthe sake of our kids but, just
giving them a heads up.
Hey, we've got two trips in arow or we're leaving right after
we get back from fall break.
So heads up on that, they'vegotten very used to it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But next thing is to delegate tasks effectively
within the family.
So you want to look at whatmakes sense based on the child's
skill level and ability, theirschedule.
Just as an example, one of thethings that our kids do every
single morning is unload thedishwasher.
And we have one child who'smore of a morning person.
They get up, they geteverything done quickly.
There was a season when he wasunloading the dishwasher and now
(28:52):
we have another child whoseschool start time is much later.
So now we have that child doingthe dishwasher.
So, um, the there was a veryshort season.
We had our child who is theleast likely to get up on time
doing the dishwasher and it justcreated unnecessary stress.
So instead of like initially,it was like oh, we're going to
rotate through, so everything'sfair, and we quickly realized
(29:14):
this doesn't make sense and sowe kind of assign chores based
on what makes sense with thechild's personality.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We're going to parent you the way I like to say it is
we're going to parent youuniquely instead of equally.
Yes, I mean we do try to parentsimilarly when it comes to, you
know, discipline, rules,guidelines, privileges, yada
yada.
But the truth is, everybody isso different that, instead of
trying to do it equally andperfectly, it's like it's unique
based on your abilities, yourskills, your age, your maturity,
(29:41):
yada, yada.
Okay, and then the last part oflike the practical tips would
be to the importance of regularcheck-ins.
Anytime you want to improvesomething or measure it, you
want to have a regular feedbackloop, and so, for us, a lot of
this is our monthly and ourquarterly double debt time with
our kids, where we take them outtogether, both of us with one
of our kids, and just say, hey,what's a pulse check?
(30:01):
How's life going?
How are we doing as yourparents?
How are you doing on your goals?
How can we make improvements?
Same thing, when you and I goaway together once a quarter for
our quarterly retreats, we getthat time away.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
All right, let's wrap it up by talking about the
benefits of a well-managedfamily energy system.
So bottom line is you're goingto have less exhaustion and more
harmony.
So a lot of times you know thefights.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Who does not want more of that?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Absolutely.
The fights that happen betweencouples are when we're exhausted
and tired, and a lot of thestrife caused in our families
and your family is just becauseyou're running ragged and you're
exhausted.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, that's right.
So if you implement these ideas, we would love for you to share
with us how it impacts yourfamily.
So if you take the energy audit, give us some feedback.
We would love to know how ithelps or maybe what you've
discovered about yourself.
So really start your own energyaudit, you know this week, and
then share those experiences orquestions with us on social
media.
Yeah, and that's a wrap for thisepisode, and Kevin is currently
(30:59):
blocked on social media, so ifyou haven't heard from him or
seen him lately, he is in jail,for we don't.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I created a new Instagram account, so I am,
instead of the, kevin Tinter.
I am Kevin Tinter.
Okay, on Instagram, take two Ihave one post and it's my photo.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Rebuilding season for you.
Yes, you can find Becca Tinteron Instagram and Facebook, and
so, if you will, at least tag usor Uncommon Freedom.
We have our own business pageon Facebook, of course, so you
can tag us there.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
All right, friends.
That is a wrap for this episodeon family energy audits.
Remember, managing yourfamily's energy isn't about
perfection, for sure.
It's about making intentionalchoices that align with your
values and faith and pivotingwhen necessary.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Exactly, babe, and I know it can feel overwhelming to
start something new, especiallywhen you're already juggling so
much.
But let's make a commitment totake that first step, even if
it's just a small change,because it can make a big
difference in your family's life.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, and if you found this episode helpful,
please share it with a friendwho might be struggling.
We know there's a lot offamilies that are trying to
figure out the back to schoolroutine.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe podcast for more insights on
living with uncommon freedom.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
And thanks for joining us on the path to
uncommon freedom.
We will catch you next week Allright friends.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
please subscribe to the podcast for more insights on
blending entrepreneurship andthe entrepreneurial mindset with
intentional living.
You can follow us on socialmedia.
We are on Instagram, primarily,and Facebook, and you're going
to find daily tips andinspiration from us there.
You'll also find us on YouTubelots of shorts as well as our
(32:41):
video podcast.
And then please, if you enjoythis podcast, please leave us a
five-star review and share us,and remember to subscribe on
YouTube as well as whateverpodcast platform you're
listening to us on.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show.
I'm Kevin Tinter and with me asalways, is my amazing wife and
co-host.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hey everyone, I'm Becca Tinter and today we're
diving into a topic that isclose to our hearts and crucial
for every family striving forbalance in this hectic world and
you know, balance is a wordthat I'm not I don't love, just
because I don't think everythinggets the same piece of the pie.
So I would say those strivingfor harmony.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I love that.
You're a genius, that's right,thank you.
We are talking about why youneed a family energy audit, and
we've been talking with someother people recently, and it's
just abundantly clear that whatwe're going to share today is
something that every Americanfamily needs, whether it's just
you and a spouse, or there'skids in the house, maybe even
grandkids.
(00:52):
This is going to be an awesometool, and we're also going to
teach you how to do this.
If you're feeling overwhelmed,juggling your career, your
business and family life, thisepisode is for you.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And truly, if you're just by yourself, we can each do
this exercise individually.
It's just the more peopleinvolved in your family, the
more complicated life gets, andso it is helpful to do it with
those that you do life with dayin and day out.
So we're going to explorepractical strategies to help you
thrive as a family unit, notjust survive.
So grab a pen and paper.
You'll want to take some noteson this one not just survive, so
grab a pen and paper.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
You'll want to take some notes on this one.
All righty, let's start by aquick little intro to family
energy audits.
Let's define what a familyenergy audit is, and we would
say that it's basically writingout your current family schedule
so you can see what you areactually spending time on, right
your current commitments.
Yes, this is your expenditureof your time.
Just like when you're trying tofigure out a budget, you're
(01:48):
going to actually track, gatherall your receipts, look at your
credit card statements, checkingaccount statements and actually
see what you're actuallyspending your money on.
This is in the same thing whenit comes to health.
Right, when people want to makea change, one of the first
things they can do is actuallytrack, and the mere act of
tracking things creates an extralevel of awareness.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Absolutely.
I 100% agree with that, andit's so powerful because so
often we make assumptions or wehave a perception about how
things are going but we don'thave a really.
We've talked about this when wetalk about relational issues.
But there are the facts andthen there are the stories we
tell ourselves.
And when it comes to wherewe're spending our time, the
facts are what is on ourcalendar, what we commit to and
have to show up for.
(02:28):
And many times you know, I know, for us, we start with like,
okay, we only have a few thingson the calendar and then all of
a sudden things get added on byother people, other members of
our family and things like that.
And the more people you have inyour family, the busier your
schedule gets.
So, as a reminder, we are afamily of six, ages seven to 17.
Everyone's living at home.
Still, we work from home and wehave a lot of moving parts.
(02:52):
Some of you have biggerfamilies, some of you have
smaller families.
The bottom line is it can getvery, very busy.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Sure thing All right.
Do you want to talk about whyit's so important for your
family to do Absolutely I meanwe were saying, just like
finances, most people have noidea where they're spending
their time.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's interesting even because we also run a
home-based business, a healthcoaching practice, and one of
the common things is people feelvery busy but they're not
always productive.
So it's actually really helpful, in addition to tracking your
health, your finances and yourtime, to also track your work
time and what you do with yourwork time, because a lot of us
(03:29):
give ourselves a lot of creditfor what we do and if we
actually took an account of it,we would realize how much of it
was productive time or, as afamily, how much was healthy
time that we're spending oncertain activities, and that's
what we're talking about today.
So it's going to be a wake upcall and likely a reality check
for most of us.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And most people.
When they do this, they'regoing to find that they're
spending less time on highleverage activities than they
think they are and they'reprobably spending a lot more
time on just low leverageactivities or almost wasted time
Like go look at your, look upyour screen time for the last
week and it'll blow your mind tosee how much time you spent on
apps and things like that thataren't really moving you forward
(04:09):
at all.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
All right, and actually, before you move on, I
know that one of the things thatwe've talked about in our
business a lot is how do we, youknow, how do we find more time,
get more time, manage our time?
And the truth is, if you canlearn to multiply time, that is
phenomenal.
But before you can even get tothe behaviors, the habits and
the systems for multiplying time, you have to audit your time.
And we're not talking justabout hours on our schedule.
(04:33):
We're also talking about ourenergy, which is a big part,
because a lot of time managementis actually energy management.
You know, when you're doingsomething you love or something
that's very productive, youmight feel amazing doing it, but
we all have the drains anddrags on our energy and
sometimes we spend way too muchtime on those things because
either we've committed to themor we're not even aware of them.
(04:53):
So we want to take a goodaccount of that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and everything that we talk about on this
podcast for the most part isultimately driving people
towards creating a life ofuncommon freedom, is ultimately
driving people towards creatinga life of uncommon freedom and
we've been massaging thisrecently and really uncommon
freedom is thriving in everyarea of life so that you can
reach your God-given potentialand maximize your impact on the
(05:16):
earth.
And as Christians, we think ofthat as a kingdom impact, as
God's kingdom on earth impact.
And so when you think aboutthat, how do you apply?
How does that apply to family?
It's how do you help your kidsnot just yourself reach their
potential, you know, how do youbuild the work ethic in them?
How do you help them developand like, discover and develop
(05:37):
their skills and abilities, thethings that they're likely to
want to do to feel like theyhave purpose in this world and
to just be able to have akingdom impact as a family, not
just as an individual.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yep, I agree.
So number two is the importanceof managing family energy.
So first we talked about kindof what a family energy audit is
, but now we're going to talkabout the importance of managing
that for a family, and so wewant to talk about energy givers
and takers in the family life,and another way to say this is
anchors and engines.
What I love about discoveringthis for ourselves within our
(06:10):
business context, within ourfriend group, church group,
community group, is that it'snot only valuable for ourselves,
but it's really important forour kids to learn this early on.
We talk a lot aboutassociations.
In your book you talk aboutrunning with lions and it's
important to understand how wereceive people as well as
activities.
So that's kind of what we'retalking about here is there are
(06:32):
activities that drain us or giveus energy, and there are people
that drain us and give usenergy, and it's important to
have an awareness of both.
We can't necessarily controlall of those things in our life,
but we can sometimes manage howmuch of it we let in when we
let it in, and I think even partof what you were mentioning
before about lifestyle design isteaching our kids, as well as
(06:52):
ourselves, how to have healthyboundaries with people.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Great.
So we also want to talk abouthow energy management can reduce
stress and improve familydynamics.
You know, one of the biggestthings, the biggest problems
that we have in America today isthat we are just too stinking
busy.
Big fan of Dr Kevin Lehman,who's a parenting expert, and he
talks about the fact that oneof the reasons our kids are
(07:16):
burnt out is because they haveso many activities.
You know, typically, you know Idon't know what the average is,
but there's a lot of americanfamilies where their kids aren't
just in one sport, they're inmultiple sports and they might
not even experience a sabbathbecause they're doing sports and
activities every single day ofthe week.
And the truth is it's notreally healthy for them.
(07:38):
The benefit that you thinkthey're going to get from
teamwork or whatever it might be, the know, the athletic
discipline, is being outweighedby just the fact that they don't
have any balance in their life.
And you know, this is also whythere's a lot of mid-teen
athletes that are actuallyburning out when potentially, if
they hadn't been worked so hard, they actually maybe could have
(07:58):
gone further and farther.
But you know, kids areexperiencing burnout, which is
something that was as rare inchildren as diabetes used to be,
and it's now unfortunatelycommonplace.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So and it could be, you know, musical or dance or oh
yeah, art classes, we're notany extracurricular as an
athlete I love sports.
But I remember growing up inclub sports weren't really a
thing growing up.
So we if we played for ourschool, we practiced with our
school and that was kind of it,and then we had seasons on and
seasons off.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Nowadays kids are doing things year round and
they're playing on multipleteams and traveling to opposite
corners of the country toparticipate at a very young
level and there are somebenefits to some of those things
, and if they fit with yourfamily, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But we've also seen families drain their finances
and use all of their family timeand energy to support things
like this, really in an out ofbalance, out of harmony way, and
so we just want to encourageall of us to take account of
that and see if it's servingyour family well.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So, when it comes to managing energy, we really want
to encourage you to help yourkids, your family, evaluate if
you're spending time with theright friends, with the right
family and the right teammates.
You know the reality is theremight be some teams that are
just a downright negativeinfluence on your kids or even
you.
I remember there was a it wassimilar to the Boy Scouts that
(09:13):
an activity that I did for abouta year or two with my dad.
My brother, dave, and I didthis and it was kind of fun, but
I remember my dad talking aboutthe fact that all the other
dads, all they wanted to dotogether was go out and drink
and, and so we decided to endour time in that activity.
I don't even remember what itwas called, uh, but that would
be an example of realizing, like, maybe the activity is good,
(09:34):
but the people you're spendingtime with aren't necessarily
good for you, and so it's justreally important to realize, you
know, we've had, we've hadfriends through the years where
you realize, man, yes, they'remy friend, but when I leave I
actually feel like my cup isless full because maybe they're
just very negative versus somefriends.
You leave you're like holysmokes, I feel energized, right,
(09:55):
and the reality is we want tolive a life where we're managing
energy and we're intentionalabout it and we're spending time
.
You know, and of course goeswithout saying, we all have
those family members.
That are the energy anchors andyou know sometimes they're
unavoidable.
But you also want to put somebarriers in place, or with
(10:17):
boundaries healthy boundaries tobe able to minimize and make a
plan for how you're going tohandle those types of energy
anchors.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yes.
And then when it comes to ourkids and I'm reflecting on, you
know, some of the activitieswe've had them do or stay in or
repeat.
It's been a lot of timesbecause of the culture that's
created in that activity,especially in sports.
That's where most of our boysspend time and it's because of
great associations with you know, the right coaches and the
right players and their familiesand people that we can do life
with.
It's where you kind of buildyour village of like.
(10:50):
How do we find the connectionsto spend long term time with
people, allow our kids to goover to their house or them to
come to our house, or it leadsto youth group connections.
Church and youth group areanother activity where, again,
we're looking for the rightpeople to speak into our kids
and being really conscious ofthat and teaching them really to
learn for themselves, becausewe're not going to control that
once they hit the teenage years,and so we're looking for them
(11:10):
to be discerning in that area.
So, let's talk about thebiblical perspective of
stewardship.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, we talk about stewardship all the time and we
know that God expects us tosteward our time, our talent and
our treasure.
And the reality is the thingsthat families are involved in.
They take time and a lot of itis also developing helping your
child develop their skill setsand things that are part of
their talent.
And then the other piece is thefinancial aspect, where you
(11:38):
know there are we've met andknown a lot of families that the
extracurricular activities area financial burden and the
reality is, most of the timethat probably isn't a good
decision for you.
If it's creating extra stressfinancially, it's time to scale
back, find a more affordableversion or maybe just take a
break for a season.
Maybe you need to take a yearoff and go build a side hustle.
(12:03):
A year off and go build a sidehustle and that a year later
that side hustle can pay for waymore than you ever thought
possible and the stress is nowcompletely gone.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know when that actually takes me back to.
You know when we weredeveloping our coaching practice
way back in 2011, 2012,probably 2012.
Yeah, you were in on thebusiness.
You wanted to build it with me.
You were a full-time policeofficer no longer really working
overtime, but still working atleast 40 hours a week and we
(12:33):
made some fundamental decisions,knowing that we were on a path
to build income to bring youhome.
That was your desired outcome,and we knew that it was going to
take getting lean in our timeand lean in our finances to do
that, and it was something wejust decided to go all in on.
So we cut back on our ownextracurricular activities.
Our kids were young enough thatwe weren't running all over the
place, but I think if we werespeaking to ourselves today,
(12:56):
wanting to do the same thing, wewould have had to balance out
not having our kids miss out onthings, but also saying what
could we say no to for this nextseason, which for us, was about
18 months that would allow usto build a life later that we
would be so grateful for, and wedid it in 2012, right, wasn't
that the year that this happened?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
2013?
.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, where we said no to a lot of extra things and
we lived very lean on ourfinances and we were able to
bring you home.
And that's the life we livetoday.
We work together, we parenttogether, we have a lot of time
together.
Our kids have had stay-at-homeparents really most of their
lives, and it's because of thedecisions we made 10 years ago,
(13:36):
11 years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The other benefit of taking a break is a lot of times
you think you enjoy thingsbecause you're in the routine
and then you take a break andyou don't go back to them, and
the fact that you're not goingback as a reminder, oh my gosh.
I was actually spending a lotof time on something that wasn't
as important to me as Iactually thought that it was
Like.
For me, that would have beensoftball.
I enjoy it and I would like todo it again at some point, but
(14:02):
it was something we did everysummer.
It was fun, it was enjoyable.
I still really miss it.
But at the same time, I've foundother hobbies that that I'm
able to do during the school daythat don't require, you know,
because a nighttime hobby foryou and I were having to go to a
softball field one or two timesa week, um, you know, at night,
(14:23):
like that would be a majordisruption for the family, um,
and and so it just was taking abreak.
There's gonna be some thingsyou take a break.
You're like, oh man, I reallymiss it.
And there's gonna be otherswhere you take a break.
You're like oh I'm actually okaywithout it, and so it can be
good from that standpointsometimes we just need
perspective by stepping back fora little while.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Uncommon freedom is a game changer, not only for the
focused leader, but also for therudderless sojourner seeking
direction.
When Kevin talks, I listen, Ilean in and always leave a
better man.
As the wisdom of Proverbs 3.13states, happy is the man who
finds wisdom and the man whogains understanding.
(15:02):
I want to warn you in advanceto prepare your spirit for a
heart and mind shift as you readthis book.
I have learned that convictioncomes when the heart is open to
change.
As I read this book, I wasmoved on several occasions to
evaluate my personal life andmake course corrections.
This isn't just a book.
It's a manual for creatinggodly leaders who we desperately
(15:27):
need today and especially asour children walk the earth in,
whatever it looks like 10, 20,30 years from now.
Who knows that?
We need leaders who embodythese things?
Because not only do we needpeople who are healthy and
wealthy and have the right heart, but we need people who know
(15:48):
where the spirit of the Lord is,there is freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
All right.
Number three is really thesteps it takes to conduct a
family energy audit.
So here are a couple of thepractical like hey, step one,
step two.
Let's go through these becauseit's not complicated, but you're
going to want to do the processwell if you want to have a good
understanding of really what'son your family's plate.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
So the first is to identifyenergy givers and takers, so
list common family activitiesand categorize them as energy
givers or takers and thendiscuss how we'll talk about how
you can involve all familymembers in this process.
So one of the things we want tobe careful of is that there's
some things in life you do andthey're not fun, and so we're
not saying that you want tocreate an environment where your
(16:36):
kids think, oh, everything isgoing to be fun, everything is
going to be an engine.
That's not the case.
But at the same time, it'simportant to evaluate what is
the best way for me to serve,what's the best activity for me
to be in?
You know, just as an example,you know, plugged in our church,
we typically serve once a month.
Yep, for me, greeting is notlike, I'm not an extrovert, and
(17:00):
so greeting is an energydraining activity.
Where I'm on the worship team,I love that.
You know I'm a semi giftedguitarist and being on the
worship team energizes me, andwe bring our kids along with
this and we give them options onhey, like, we want you to help,
(17:20):
but we don't tell our introvertoldest son hey, you're going to
be a greeter on Easter Sundaywhen there's hundreds of extra
guests.
And so I think, just doing theaudit and look at the activities
your family is spending time onand then talk about, are these
energy givers and energy takers?
When it comes to familyactivities like hobbies or
things that you do as a familyjust for fun, maybe you ask each
(17:44):
of your kids, list out some ofthe things you do and find out
is this something you enjoy orsomething that you could really
leave behind?
And if there's something thateveryone really could do without
, then get rid of that and focusmore of your time on doing the
activities.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Or it might've been something that was great for a
season and then, like, the ageof your kids changes and it's
not such a good fit.
Something that was great for aseason and then, like, the age
of your kids changes and it'snot such a good fit, or you
might find a better or differentway to do it.
So, for example, boating youknow we started in 2020.
It's an enjoyable familyactivity.
I would say for me, boating wasmore of an energy taker than
giver, even though I love beingon the water.
It was the before and after,like the setup and the teardown,
(18:24):
so to speak.
For you, I think it's more ofan energy giver and you were
willing to sacrifice the 45minute drive there and back.
So all those things meant likeit wasn't my favorite thing to
do, even though when I wasactually on the water with my
family I loved it.
But one of the things we did topivot is we eventually sold the
boat and stopped paying for youknow the expensive slip and
(18:44):
things and we rented or what'sit called.
It's a boat membership, so whenwe do go, we reduce some of our
drag.
So now we don't have to spend30 minutes getting the boat
prepped when we arrive and 30minutes or so, you know, putting
it away.
So we've reduced some of thatdrag.
We don't boat a lot right now,but it also means we're not we
haven't overly investedfinancially to where it's
(19:05):
disappointing when we don't go.
So I would say that was just away to learn to do it
differently.
So number one is to identifythe givers and takers of energy,
and don't forget it's not justactivities, it can also be
people.
So this isn't like you make alist of the people that suck in
your life, but it is good foreach of us and our children
sometimes to say to ourselveslike which people do I spend a
(19:26):
lot of time with that are notgood for me in the long term?
And if it's just like you know,well, these are the kids I go
to school with.
That's fine no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
The team that your work puts together.
If you don't necessarily enjoyhanging out outside of work with
those your coworkers, maybeit's creating your own team and
assembling, you know it's theperfect opportunity to upgrade
your circle.
Run with lions and you puttogether a softball team of
other families, you know, ifit's co-ed other couples that
you like and that have anedifying marriage, versus just
(20:16):
taking whatever you can get.
So it's about being intentional.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
We're going to do that someday, maybe if we're not
too old to play softball by thetime we get done.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If you're in the Gilbert Arizona area Parenting.
We're taking applications forcompetitive people who are very
rusty, but we're competitive.
If you suck, please don't apply.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
And if you're a superstar, we're probably not
qualified to play with you.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
But we'll take you on our team.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I had another thought on that Exactly.
Oh, I was also thinking when itcomes to people who are anchors
, engines, energy givers ortakers, this isn't like well,
I'm not going to spend any timewith people that need me because
there are.
There are assignments in ourlife, especially as Christians.
There are people that we arecalled to speak into, spend time
with love on, serve, and thatmay not be our favorite activity
(21:02):
, but it might be somethingwe're called to do or appointed
to do.
I think that you can stillmanage the amount of time you
spend with that person.
But we're not saying like I'mselfishly only going to spend
time with my three favoritepeople for the rest of my life.
But it is something to take tohave an awareness of, because
sometimes what we do is we spendtime in these scenarios or with
these people, but we don't knowwhy we don't feel great when
(21:23):
we're done.
We just say, like you know, I'mgrouchy when I get home from
something or I'm biting myfamily's heads off because I
just did a couple of coffeedates with people that honestly
sucked the life out of me, youknow.
Whereas if you start to payattention, then you say like hey
, I have 30 minutes or 45minutes, or I would love to chat
with you for 15 minutes insteadof giving you 90 minutes of my
in-person time.
(21:43):
So you start to figure out howto spend that time carefully,
like a bank account.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Preach it sister.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
All right.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
All right.
The next step is to evaluatetime allocation.
I jumped right ahead to that sobasically, we want you to assess
where your family time iscurrently being spent, and so
this is, you know, sitting downlooking at your calendar.
We've been talking a lot aboutusing an electronic calendar,
whether it's Google or somethingelse that's shared.
Uh, the great thing about thatis you have a record of what
(22:12):
you've been doing.
If you utilize it, like whenI'm trying to remember when do
we do something, I just go to mycalendar, I search and I can
find it, it's pretty cool, Um,so it's a great way to
incorporate that into your audit.
And then we want to make surethat our time allocation truly
aligns with our values.
So this is where you might lookat how much time you're
actually spending on TV.
(22:34):
There's a benefit to justunwinding, but the family
enrichment that happens watchingTV together versus playing a
game together or swimming in apool together or whatever it is
that your family you knowplaying pickleball, whatever it
might be, isn't going to be thesame.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Number three is to analyze the impact on family
goals.
So we're talking about familygoals and how activities
contribute to or detract fromyour goals.
So now let's talk about serving.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, so one of our goals is to serve monthly at
church.
We went through a long seasonwhere we just weren't at the
right churches where it madesense.
Our kids were at an age whereit didn't make sense.
But we want to serve once amonth and some people might
serve weekly.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, there's some amazing families out there that
are, and if you can do that,that is incredible because
churches need that kind ofvolunteer.
It's just for us, with ourfamily schedule in life.
We decided what we can do andcommit to long-term, and not
just short-term, is monthly.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
But the other thing is this is where we talk about
calendaring.
So you know we look at a couplemonths out and I let you know.
The worship team leader knowthis is when I'm available, they
schedule me and then we all doit together.
So you serve in the nursery thesame day, so that we're killing
two birds with one stone,because it's a busy Sunday and
then we let the kids know we'reserving as a family on this day.
(23:47):
But you know, we've had somechallenges with our kids working
, getting scheduled, even thoughon the front end we said you're
not working on Sundays.
You know getting scheduled onSundays and we're okay with them
working if it doesn't conflictwith church.
But it was regularlyconflicting, so we had to lean
in a little bit.
But uh, you know, justunderstanding, you know what are
your goals.
You know we've talked about wehaven't formalized this, but we
(24:09):
like taking missions trips aswell, and so we've planned some
of these.
We put these on the calendarwith the kids.
You know we think it's reallyimportant for the kids not only
to serve locally but to getoutside the country, uh, just to
have a better appreciation.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, and Carson's about to be 18.
And I mean he's done a numberof service activities in the
time he's been part of ourfamily multiple trips to Mexico
to build the trip to Kenya.
Um, I'm not sure if there'sother things, but specifically
the house building in Mexico ispretty regular, you know, like
feed my starving children.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Feed my starving children, which is a great local
thing that we can do.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Oh, and then we've you know, worked within the
foster community taking kidsshopping and things like that.
So you know again, in hislifetime we could always do more
, but we've definitely at leastonce a year done something as a
family to serve others, whetherit's locally or abroad.
There's definitely differentthings.
You know, we as entrepreneurshave more flexibility in our
schedules, but we're also just,I think, because we started our
(25:06):
marriage more with the what wewere aiming for and our
intentions.
We've been pretty intentionalabout how we set our family
structure up and gotten moreclear over time.
And it's not that other peopleare doing it wrong.
I just think other people justkind of like life happens versus
being yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And the only reason that we've done it is because
we're intentional about it.
I think there's some familiesthat naturally do it.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Our life is very busy and some family members serve
way more than we do, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
But if we didn't, if we weren't intentional about it,
if we didn't calendar it, itwouldn't happen.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So okay.
So step four is to create anaction plan.
So this means having strategiesfor increasing your energy
giving activities.
So what do we want to do moreof?
Who do we want to spend moretime with?
And then reducing energy,taking ones.
And, specifically, what's niceabout analysis of your life, I
think, is when we do our yearend review, which we're coming
up on and we're going to do anin-person event, I believe, in
(25:57):
December, and we're going totalk about this more and more as
we share this with other peoplebecause we want more people
than just the few people thatdid it last year with us to go
through this year end reflectionguide.
But one of the questions Ibelieve is like who do you want
to spend more time with and whodo?
you want to spend less time with?
What activity do you want to?
What activities or activity orhobby do you want to spend more
(26:18):
time on?
What do you want to spend lesstime on?
So we do that on a yearly basis, but you can't just do
something once a year and expectit to actually work out for
yourself.
So the strategies for bothenergy giving and energy taking
is, first of all, delete thethings that are energy taking if
possible, or reduce it.
We've talked about this before.
I think it was Darren Hardy whotalks about the rule of twos.
There's the people you canspend two days with, there are
(26:41):
people you can spend two hourswith and there are people you
can spend two minutes with, andsometimes we confuse those and
sometimes people change.
So if we have people that weused to be able to do two day
trips with and we've started tospend time together and it's
taking energy from us, theymight become someone we do a two
hour meal with or vice versa,and then calendaring our rocks.
So as far as our action planfor you and I, a big part of it
(27:07):
is every year going awaytogether and saying we're going
to take three family trips andwe're going to commit to those
and then also when we want to domore energy giving activities.
It's checking in on those daily, weekly and monthly.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And it's calendaring, you know a lot of times, people
like you're like well, if it'simportant, it'll just happen.
And the reality is, if it'simportant, then schedule it to
ensure that it happens.
And this is why we calendar ourdaytime, our retreats, our
dates with our kids.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Quarterly retreats.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
monthly dates, Different other things Like we
don't have to calendar churchbecause that's an automatic
given for us, but my monthlypoker game that gets calendared
every single month.
These are things that areenergy giving and they're
important enough that wecalendar them.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Absolutely and really .
You can tell where yourpriorities are by your bank
account and your calendar.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Bam.
All right, let's give somepractical tips for implementing
changes.
The first thing is to sit downand discuss upcoming schedule,
and the other thing is, ifyou're going into a busy season,
just share the light at the endof the tunnel.
We've had to do this with ourkids at different seasons and
it's really helpful to say, hey,this is what we have coming up
for the next four, six, eightweeks, whatever it might be,
especially if it's outside ofyour like kind of the normal
(28:13):
routine your family expects.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
You know like we travel occasionally and then
sometimes we travel closetogether.
It's not intended, that's notour favorite.
We like to spread it out forthe sake of our kids but, just
giving them a heads up.
Hey, we've got two trips in arow or we're leaving right after
we get back from fall break.
So heads up on that, they'vegotten very used to it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But next thing is to delegate tasks effectively
within the family.
So you want to look at whatmakes sense based on the child's
skill level and ability, theirschedule.
Just as an example, one of thethings that our kids do every
single morning is unload thedishwasher.
And we have one child who'smore of a morning person.
They get up, they geteverything done quickly.
There was a season when he wasunloading the dishwasher and now
(28:52):
we have another child whoseschool start time is much later.
So now we have that child doingthe dishwasher.
So, um, the there was a veryshort season.
We had our child who is theleast likely to get up on time
doing the dishwasher and it justcreated unnecessary stress.
So instead of like initially,it was like oh, we're going to
rotate through, so everything'sfair, and we quickly realized
(29:14):
this doesn't make sense and sowe kind of assign chores based
on what makes sense with thechild's personality.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We're going to parent you the way I like to say it is
we're going to parent youuniquely instead of equally.
Yes, I mean we do try to parentsimilarly when it comes to, you
know, discipline, rules,guidelines, privileges, yada
yada.
But the truth is, everybody isso different that, instead of
trying to do it equally andperfectly, it's like it's unique
based on your abilities, yourskills, your age, your maturity,
(29:41):
yada, yada.
Okay, and then the last part oflike the practical tips would
be to the importance of regularcheck-ins.
Anytime you want to improvesomething or measure it, you
want to have a regular feedbackloop, and so, for us, a lot of
this is our monthly and ourquarterly double debt time with
our kids, where we take them outtogether, both of us with one
of our kids, and just say, hey,what's a pulse check?
(30:01):
How's life going?
How are we doing as yourparents?
How are you doing on your goals?
How can we make improvements?
Same thing, when you and I goaway together once a quarter for
our quarterly retreats, we getthat time away.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
All right, let's wrap it up by talking about the
benefits of a well-managedfamily energy system.
So bottom line is you're goingto have less exhaustion and more
harmony.
So a lot of times you know thefights.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Who does not want more of that?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Absolutely.
The fights that happen betweencouples are when we're exhausted
and tired, and a lot of thestrife caused in our families
and your family is just becauseyou're running ragged and you're
exhausted.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, that's right.
So if you implement these ideas, we would love for you to share
with us how it impacts yourfamily.
So if you take the energy audit, give us some feedback.
We would love to know how ithelps or maybe what you've
discovered about yourself.
So really start your own energyaudit, you know this week, and
then share those experiences orquestions with us on social
media.
Yeah, and that's a wrap for thisepisode, and Kevin is currently
(30:59):
blocked on social media, so ifyou haven't heard from him or
seen him lately, he is in jail,for we don't.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I created a new Instagram account, so I am,
instead of the, kevin Tinter.
I am Kevin Tinter.
Okay, on Instagram, take two Ihave one post and it's my photo.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Rebuilding season for you.
Yes, you can find Becca Tinteron Instagram and Facebook, and
so, if you will, at least tag usor Uncommon Freedom.
We have our own business pageon Facebook, of course, so you
can tag us there.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
All right, friends.
That is a wrap for this episodeon family energy audits.
Remember, managing yourfamily's energy isn't about
perfection, for sure.
It's about making intentionalchoices that align with your
values and faith and pivotingwhen necessary.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Exactly, babe, and I know it can feel overwhelming to
start something new, especiallywhen you're already juggling so
much.
But let's make a commitment totake that first step, even if
it's just a small change,because it can make a big
difference in your family's life.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, and if you found this episode helpful,
please share it with a friendwho might be struggling.
We know there's a lot offamilies that are trying to
figure out the back to schoolroutine.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe podcast for more insights on
living with uncommon freedom.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
And thanks for joining us on the path to
uncommon freedom.
We will catch you next week Allright friends.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
please subscribe to the podcast for more insights on
blending entrepreneurship andthe entrepreneurial mindset with
intentional living.
You can follow us on socialmedia.
We are on Instagram, primarily,and Facebook, and you're going
to find daily tips andinspiration from us there.
You'll also find us on YouTubelots of shorts as well as our
(32:41):
video podcast.
And then please, if you enjoythis podcast, please leave us a
five-star review and share us,and remember to subscribe on
YouTube as well as whateverpodcast platform you're
listening to us on.
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