Welcome to the very first episode of TMIT Teammates—our new segment where we talk with real families we love and admire about how they’re building culture at home.

Our first guest is our brilliant and adventurous friend Jennifer Zelman. Jen is raising a blended family across two continents—splitting time between New York and Rome—and in this episode, she shares what that experience has taught her about parenting, presence, and letting go of perfection.

We talk about everything from raising culturally open kids to releasing the pressure to optimize, and what it means to stay connected as a family when your environment is constantly shifting.

• How Jen and her husband decided to move their family to Rome
• What it’s like raising four kids in a blended household
• Letting travel shape your family values (without over-planning it)
• Teaching kids inclusion, resilience, and perspective through experience
• How Jen’s childhood shaped the kind of mother she wants to be today
• The beauty of doing hard things together—and the gift of slowing down

TMIT Teammates is about making the invisible visible—talking honestly about how families actually work, grow, and support one another in real life.

Thanks for listening—and thank you Jen for kicking this off with us. 🧡

“I want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude. I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.” — Brené Brown, Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto

This week, we’re talking about Joy—what it feels like, why it can be so hard to stay with, and how we’re learning to welcome more of it into our family life. We talk about the kind of joy that sneaks up on you, the kind that’s layered with memory and meaning, and the kind that feels a little scary to fully experience.

We also talk about foreboding joy (thanks Brené), how joy has changed since becoming parents, and why practicing vulnerability and gratitude actually expands our capacity to feel it. Greg opens up about how mental health plays a role in how he relates to joy—and Danielle reflects on how she’s reclaiming personal joy outside of motherhood.

Plus: We introduce a new segment!
TMIT Teammates kicks off with our dear friend Jennifer Zelman, whose story of raising a blended family across Rome and New York is full of perspective, humor, and wisdom. She shares what living abroad has taught her about parenting, presence, and letting go of the pressure to optimize everything.

💡 Episode Highlights

• The difference between joy and happiness (and why it matters)
• “Layered joy” and the power of nostalgic moments
• Foreboding joy: when our brains rehearse tragedy instead of presence
• How Greg’s diagnosis shaped his relationship to joy
• The value of silly, spontaneous moments in building family culture
• Jen Zelman on travel, resilience, and raising culturally open kids

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
And stay tuned after the episode for TMIT Teammates—real talk with real families we love and admire.

🧡 As always, thanks for being here. If this resonated with you, share it with a friend or drop us a review—it really helps.

🎙️ Episode 15: Accountability & Respect

This week, we’re diving into two words that carry a lot of weight—and often get misunderstood in parenting: accountability and respect.

We unpack what these concepts really mean in a family setting (hint: it’s not about obedience), and how we’re trying to model them at home—imperfectly, but intentionally.

From birth stories to playground conflicts, we talk about:

• Why impact matters more than intent
• What Heart Repair looks like in real life (and how it’s based on Nonviolent Communication)
• How peer orientation pulled Greg away from his family too early
• And why “respect” might need a serious rebrand

We’re also sharing an experiment we’re trying with our kids—a Family Heart Repair Journal—to help build the muscles for empathy, reflection, and repair.

This one’s about power, connection, and the tools kids need to own their actions and stay close.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto – Brené Brown
• Nonviolent Communication – Marshall Rosenberg
• Conscious Discipline – Dr. Becky Bailey
• The Road Less Traveled – M. Scott Peck (concept of “bracketing”)

🎧 Listen now and let us know what shows up for you. And if it resonates, share it with someone else building family culture on purpose.

This week, we’re talking about boundaries—inside our home and outside of it.

The kind that protect our family culture… and the kind that make everyone just a little bit uncomfortable (in the best way).

From Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto:
“We will set and respect boundaries. We will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.”

We start with the boundaries that live inside our home—around sleep, late-night conversations, and shared spaces (including one now-infamous, sticker-covered kitchen chair). We talk about the practices that feel solid, the ones we’re still fumbling through, and how family meetings help us navigate the thorny stuff with more intention and less drama.

Then we zoom out to boundaries with the outside world—where things tend to get trickier.

We explore:

• Saying no without over-explaining
• Navigating extended family dynamics
• The tension between being kind and being clear
• Why some boundaries feel easy to hold, and others feel like heartbreak
• What it means to protect the emotional climate of your home

Plus: Why “Spending Saturdays” might be our favorite new family tool

Before setting a boundary, ask yourself:

• How is this aligned with my values—not just my mood or my fear?
• Does this need to be said… by me… right now?

We’re still learning, too.
If you’ve got a family boundary that’s working—or one that’s still in the chaos phase—we’d love to hear about it. Message us on IG @themostimpthing.

And don’t forget to check out TMIT 01: Family Meetings if you haven’t yet—because family meetings > family meltdowns.

This week, we’re digging into self-compassion—not just as an idea, but as a practice we’re actively building at home.

Our starting point: “We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other.” Because if we want to raise kind, resilient kids, it starts with how we treat ourselves.

We each took Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Test 💝 to see where we’re growing—and where we’re stuck. Greg thinks about self-compassion often, but practices it poorly. Danielle scored high on self-kindness and self-judgment. We talk through what that means and how we’re each working to shift.

Then we each designed a small experiment:

• 🟨 Danielle’s Pause Pass: a little laminated card she holds up when she’s overwhelmed. It’s her way of saying: “I’m not shutting down. I’m resetting.”
• 🧠 Greg’s Public Naming: saying out loud when he’s starting to veer off track, so he can catch himself before spiraling.

We also explore the difference between tender and fierce self-compassion, how our kids absorb the way we talk to ourselves, and why this modeling really matters.

Because the way we treat ourselves teaches our children how to treat themselves.

• 🎧 Listen to Episode 13: Compassion
• 💝 Take the Self-Compassion Test (under 5 minutes)
• 🟨 Make your own Pause Pass – a simple visual tool for “I need a moment.”
• 📘 Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown – where our definition of compassion begins

Courage usually gets the Gladiator treatment.
We picture epic battles, high-stakes wins, and shirtless heroics.

But in real life?
It’s not just about “being brave.”

This week, in Episode 12: Courage, we’re talking about what makes it possible for families to practice courage—not just in big moments, but to show up persistently courageous, day to day.

🧱 The Most Important Thing:

Courage needs scaffolding.
Kids don’t learn to be brave just because we tell them to. They learn it through preparation.

🧠 What We’re Learning:

🏗️ Deliberate practice builds confident action.
Whether it’s a spelling bee, a tough conversation, or a hockey tournament, we can rehearse for hard things—together. As Bill Belichick says: “Practice execution becomes game reality.”

🔁 Mistakes aren’t failure—they’re feedback.
From Peloton instructors to portfolio managers, high performers in every field know: You’re not winning every time. You’re learning. Federer only won 54% of the points in his career—and still won 80% of his matches.

🎧 In This Episode, We Unpack:

• Why “just be brave” isn’t enough
• How preparation turns into courage
• What it looks like to normalize mistakes at home
• Why we want our kids to stay in things long enough to get good
• The family cheer, family meetings, and other everyday ways we build a culture of courage

💡 Experiments We’re Trying:

• Roleplaying how to handle disappointment before it hits
• Naming acts of courage in family meetings
• Writing down the “misses” to normalize the process
• Helping our kids shift from outcome-thinking to process-thinking

✨ Favorite Quote:

📚 Further Reading:

• The Art of Winning by Bill Belichick
• Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

🎙️ Episode 11: Worthiness

In our newest episode—Worthiness—we’re continuing our journey through Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto.

📜 “I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.”

🌱 Worthiness = A grounded feeling and core belief that says, “I deserve to take up space in this world.”

This one hits close to home.

We have a child who is easygoing, adaptable, the family peacemaker. And yet—we’re learning that those same qualities can lead her to shrink. To accommodate. To keep the peace and stifle her wants.

So this week we’re asking:

How do we raise kids who believe they are worthy—without needing to be helpful, quiet, agreeable, or easy to love?

How do we help them trust that it’s safe to rock the boat and still belong?

🎧 In this episode, we talk about:

- How worthiness differs from loved and lovable

- Why adaptable ≠ low need

- The invisible ways some people learn to disappear—and how we as a family can support them in claiming space

Each person in our family deserves to know they don’t have to earn their place. They belong—not because they’re easy or exceptional—but simply because they’re here.

Our fourth experiment update—this time as a stand-alone episode. It’s a quick check-in on what we’re trying at home, how it’s going, and what we’re adjusting next.

🏀 The “Talking Ball”
At Friday’s family meal, we introduced new popsicles and a “talking ball” to help each person feel seen while answering three questions: what we liked, what we’d leave behind, and where we can improve.

🧸 “The Love Game”
Danielle and the girls invented a sweet new ritual—tossing stuffies and naming something kind or true about the other person.

📼 Family Stories
We watched Greg’s childhood home videos. Lots of music. Even more nostalgia.

🕓 Family Meetings
Family meeting #4 featured an attempt to learn to twerk! Lots of laughter. Greg may or may not be a natural at the booty jump.

We also debut a new segment: “Greg’s Technology Corner” — where we share tools that are genuinely helping our family life run smoother.

1. Limitless Pendant (by Limitless.ai) ⏺️
   An always-on AI recorder Greg wears daily. It bookmarks moments, reflects on conversations, and helps generate prompts each morning—like how to show up better for your kids.
2. 
   
3. Canon SELPHY CP1500 Photo Printer 🖨️
   A compact 4x6 photo printer that’s fast, portable, and produces gorgeous prints.