Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / How To Build A Rock Solid Family Culture With Just One Dinner Per Week with Rhett and Ang Barbour

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How To Build A Rock Solid Family Culture With Just One Dinner Per Week with Rhett and Ang Barbour · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  So if you want to craft a family culture, this is it. This is the canvas on which to build that. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with our good friends, Rhett and Ange Barber. Barber, thanks for jumping on here today. Absolutely.
• 0:17
  So the barbers are in super summit mode, I found out. So they're doing back-to-back various summits, summits for their immediate family, summits for their extended family. So you guys are doing right. But that was last month. We're not talking about that anymore. We are on to the multi-generational family meal. This is the one tradition that if we could get you guys to try one thing.
• 0:43
  Man, this is what does it. This is what flips your family into a multi-generational kind of family. And so you guys need a tool like this. This tool exists. There's lots of ways to do it. And so I wanted Red and Ange to come on here for two reasons. One is they're going to share with you guys a case study for how this works and how it has worked for their family. And I think that's really important. As you guys have heard,
• 1:03
  Over the last three podcasts, we're just unpacking the elements of how to do a multigenerational family meal. And I think it's important just to, okay, this is how it'll work for another family. The second reason is they are our community coaches in the Family Teams Accelerator for this month. So the upcoming month. And we want you guys to dive in there. So the month of February is going to be all about...
• 1:25
  the multi-generational family meal. And so we want you guys to take time to really understand that. So Rhett and Andrew are going to be doing a coaching call in the accelerator. And so if you guys have questions that kind of get brought up by their story and what they're going to share in a minute, definitely take note of those and jump into the accelerator and you can talk to them about that.
• 1:44
  about those things and we also just remind you guys have at familyteams.com slash meal a little one pager if you want to like have a little template i always found this is what i was looking for when we first started with somebody please just give me the super easy template so i could just kind of paint by number how to get this thing going so yeah familyteams.com slash meal you can get that but we also want to go deeper we also want to like really fill out why this is such a
• 2:09
  Yeah, I would love to hear from you guys. Kind of walk me through where you were when you first started to think about this tradition. I would love to hear both, Rhett and Ang, your perspective and how this worked out for you guys.
• 2:22
  Yeah, my first thought is like, since you're just talking about how we're kind of gearing off this weekend of summit and this week of summits, you know, this is the first time we're doing a full, like a family summit with our kids involved and our youngest just turned 10. And it's like, this is really the first time we were able to engage them in it. But a multi-generational meal or Shabbat, like you can engage them out the gate, you know, literally like,
• 2:45
  First day at the table, you can start implementing this where I think a lot of the tools that we use as a family at first start off just tools that he and I are using. But this meal is something that can really impact the whole family and everybody can get involved in, which is the beauty of it. Yeah.
• 3:04
  Yeah. And when I think about it, Jeremy, it's like, to me, the, the, the, the root word is culture. You know, I think so much of kind of like finding everything that we're doing, every, all these podcasts, all these, all this stuff with, with our families trying to like engage deeper. It's, it's, I feel like so much is asking the question, what is our family culture? What is it going to taste like, smell like, feel like, be like, and what would, you know, I sometimes think about like,
• 3:34
  uh how will they describe their childhood right um so so what this really started uh how this started for me was like uh was was as a 26 year old or is i probably more like a 22 year old kind of like reflecting on my childhood and asking questions about as so many people do like how
• 3:55
  what is my take on my childhood? Like, how did I experience the culture of my family? You know, because when you're in it as a kid, you either are just complaining and whining or you just don't know any different. But as you kind of step out and you enter your own family development, you start to go, oh,
• 4:14
  That's how I experienced that. And so one of the things I noticed as we were starting a family, really just getting married was, you know, I always say it like my family was incredible growing up.
• 4:27
  Loved my parents. We had a really pretty healthy experience holistically. But the main culture driver was our sports teams and eating out at Mexican restaurants six nights a week. So, you know, which had its own culture and there were awesome things to it. But one of the things that we kind of really were asking is like, under what conditions could be?
• 4:54
  We create something where the culture of the family was centered in the home.
• 4:59
  And we created an environment and a culture where long-term, not just us, but our children and potentially multiple generations would want to find themselves around our table more often. Because we all know, tables where so much happens, conversation, your hungry stomachs are being filled, and your hungry hearts are being filled at that spot. Yeah.
• 5:27
  Just to kind of, to answer your question about how, how it's kind of kicked off. I think it was really about what culture do we want in our home? And if you're asking the question, you kicked us off, Jeremy, by saying like, if there's one thing to implement, I, I really feel like, and I didn't really maybe know it when we were starting into this rhythm, but in, after having done it for almost 20 years, every week.
• 5:53
  You know, bringing first and foremost, our nuclear family around the table, but then potentially starting to engage the generations that are also in our city with our family. You start to see how it is a hub and it becomes a hub of whatever your family is and what you want it to be. So, yeah.
• 6:14
  Yeah, I think about the Mexican restaurant reality. Like we still do that, you know, with Rhett's family and it still is connected to seasons of sports, you know, but those seasons are short lived. So it might only be January through May that we're having these kind of one off moments with the extended family where they're coming to one of our kids, you know, volleyball matches or something. And then we're going out to eat. But what's great about this meal is it's every week. Everybody knows the night of the week that it's going to be so you're going to be.
• 6:43
  you know, 10, 15, 20 years down the road, our kids have those place markers in their week where they know this table is always open. I don't have to wait until there's this other event happening that dictates that.
• 6:55
  Yeah. Oh, so good. Now, what I'm really curious about, too, is like how the different ages, because you guys have done this for a long time. So a lot of people listening to this are just going to start. They've got little kids. So there's really kind of always two pictures I always want to give people, maybe three. There's like the picture of just getting started with the littles. Then there's the picture of kind of where you guys are at now, which is like you've got teenagers, you're trying to figure out how to.
• 7:20
  craft a culture that is sticky and they really want to stay a part of. And then there's the future vision, what this could look like. Wow. With, you know, grandkids someday or, you know, how that could look. So, yeah, like I like to walk through each of those things and talk through, okay, what was it like at the very beginning? How did you get started? You know, what was it like with little kids trying to do this? You know, I think the way we started was in asking that question, it was always frustrating.
• 7:46
  it was always future driven, right? It was like, it was starting with a picture, a snapshot in our minds of like, what could this look like 30 years from now, four years from now? Yeah. And so what, and then you start to just use your brain to kind of reverse engineer a bit and go like, what would I need? What would we need to do with this one-year-old, three-year-old and five-year-old now that might exist
• 8:13
  Get them to want to be at this table 40 years from now and not just out about obligation, but out of desire. Right. And how could, and so early on, we were asking questions like, how do we make this super fun?
• 8:28
  And exciting for the young kids. Not that we thought we would try to sustain that forever. But, you know, it's different. When you're starting something brand new, we're not talking about stepping into an already existing multi-generational family meal. We're talking about starting something from scratch. And so we were just asking questions like...
• 8:48
  how could we set this night apart? How could we set this singular meal apart so that, uh, cause we were doing it intentionally, but the kids, right. When you have a one year old and a three year old, they're going, it's just dinner time. Right. And so we were like, okay, um, what we, we implemented special drinks, uh, which is such a nondescript term, but it was just like, you get a special drink. It could be Coke. It could be juice. It could be chocolate milk, anything that was just like something that, uh,
• 9:18
  Tangibly was different. You know, so I always think about setting something apart that in culture, again, comes back to that word, like culture is always defined by these, the different things, like what is different about this from something else? And so you can really start to go, how can we make this night different?
• 9:35
  And it meant that we had to shift some things in our other nights, in our, you know, Sunday through Thursday night or Saturday through Thursday. Because, for instance, you know, when our kids were little, milk was a very common drink. And so we actually like shifted, OK, at dinnertime from now on, it's just water. And like they still had milk maybe with breakfast. But for our Shabbat meal, it was like, OK, you can have regular milk or chocolate milk. And eventually we introduced sparkling grape juice.
• 9:59
  And it was like that for a little kid was like, oh, this is amazing. I get to have this thing. We had dessert. So we made sure, okay, unless it's maybe somebody's birthday, we're not doing dessert any other night of the week. We're going to save that for this one night. And maybe if there's leftovers, we'll have that the next night. But it was like those simple things. We had a candle set.
• 10:20
  that we brought in and we never light a candle any other night of the week. And so for a little kid to, again, be kind of odd and help with lighting it, those things at that young age set it apart. But I also want to go back to like when I said awkward, it was a little weird because this one-year-old or three-year-old –
• 10:37
  As excited as they are, they don't see the bigger picture, you know, and so we have to kind of like set ourselves up for not being let down or thinking it's going to be something bigger than what it is for a one year old's brain. And so a lot of times in that season, too, we intentionally tried to either have some young like single couples over.
• 10:58
  Or invite ourself to somebody else's house that was doing this so that we could kind of get that bigger experience, see maybe where this was going, or also kind of like curate the night to if we were hosting somebody, you know, to make it a little more special. Yeah.
• 11:15
  Yeah, something else we did. We would sing more of like a call and response type song on this night. We would, you know, drink out of different types of glasses on this night. You know, and what we were seeing is like, okay, and we could...
• 11:31
  then you start to transition to the season that we kind of have ended up in right now, which is those things have stayed... The why or the concept has stayed consistent, but the how has shifted, right? So no longer is it like...
• 11:47
  ooh, the kids are super excited about a song that was a really like kid-based song. Okay. And we've started to adapt different, you know, keeping the night the same, keeping the concept the same, but then, oh, being flexible to adjust. How can this be something that we want to create energy and culture around? You know, so now we try to have like the one night a week where we do like a game night. Hmm.
• 12:15
  Or we bring the kids into the conversation of who would you like to invite into this table potentially to create more energy and excitement around it? The type of meal is different. You know, early on, it was super simple because they didn't really care what the meal was. And now it's something that.
• 12:33
  You know, our whole family can get around making or building together, especially our older kids really love to cook. So sometimes they're cooking or they want to run away with this really amazing dessert. And we're like, great, however you want to jump in with that. But the expectation for the actual food preparation early on was super low because we wanted it to be sustainable and life giving for all of us so that we could iterate and build over the years.
• 12:55
  Yeah. And now lots of times Shabbat is the meal where more hands are helping make the meal than any other night of the week. You know, in another night of the week, you might just be like, hey, you know, 16 year old son, you're on dinner duty and it's considered dinner duty. Yeah. For Shabbat, it's like.
• 13:14
  It's more of an experience that we're all like, look what we're creating together. And so we, there's no, I mean, you know, say there's no limit is a bit ridiculous, but there's kind of no limit on the budget for a Shabbat meal at this point. There's no like, you want the nice cheese? Let's go get the nice cheese. You want, you know, like it's just giving them some autonomy and ownership over like, what do we want this to feel like, taste like and be like. And again, what's crazy is.
• 13:42
  is 20 years in to hopefully a never-ending meal that, you know, rhythm we are, there's this like, it's week after week, after week, after week. And, you know, it's, it's wild to think like,
• 14:00
  How many, I mean, whatever, do the math on that. 20 years times 52 weeks or close to it. And you get so many opportunities to just like pound the nail in like over and over again. And to the point where legitimately now it is, and it wasn't because we told it was, it was not like we wrote something on the wall that said, Shabbat is the most important night of our week. It wasn't like we pounded the like memory verse. It was just like...
• 14:28
  Because they saw us hold the line on this. You know, we may not hold the line on...
• 14:35
  Every other rhythm we have or every other thing that helps us kind of run our family to the extent to which, as you said at the beginning, this one, we just saw the value of having a set point in time that is dependable. It's known, you know, you know what it's going to smell like, you know what it's going to taste like, you know what it's going to sound like, you know when it's going to be, where it's going to be. And the belief now after 20 years, I really think this is true, is that my kids, our children believe this will not go anywhere.
• 15:05
  This is impeniproval. This is a set thing that will not leave. You know, and that's, I think that's invaluable to a culture. Something like that. Well, and they've seen us not bend. Like the only thing that we will cancel that evening for is literally a wedding or a funeral. Yeah.
• 15:25
  And so even if we're out of town with the whole family, we're still celebrating this night. You know, we're still practicing it. If we're out with extended family, they're being joined in into that. And so when we do have to skip one for a certain reason, we feel it like all of us feel it. We're all like, oh, looking forward to the next one where we get to have it again. And so that's really shifted the culture for them.
• 15:46
  That's good, man. I love how you guys are kind of saying, look to families, this is the canvas on which you build your family's culture. And you guys have described this has built our food culture. This has built our fun culture, right? This has caused our kids to have a deeper identity of who we are.
• 16:04
  And a lot of people don't realize those those are really important. And a lot of us, we don't have like we've there were probably times in our family's history. If you could somehow get in a time machine and go back 100, 200, 300 years, you might find a family that you're, you know, that you're descended from that had a culture. But a lot of us have lost that. And so we are kind of amorphous and this is causing people to really get lost.
• 16:27
  And so if you want to craft a family culture, this is the, this is it. This, this is the canvas on which to build that. So, um, uh, that, that is, uh, I love that as being kind of like a, a main reason I would love to kind of downshift into, so we've talked about kids, talked about culture. Um, I'm curious what this is doing to, uh, Rhett and Anja's soul. Like, um, because there's a lot of people, I think when they hear this, they, um, they
• 16:51
  Yeah, it's like, what does this do for an act? Because I've watched people, kind of something happen inside of people, the parents themselves, like that are trying to practice this. This is doing something to our soul. I think it's designed to do something for our soul. So I'd love for you guys to share as you think about that for yourself, how has this impacted you personally?
• 17:09
  Yeah. Well, one thing to note, I think, you know, if we rewind back to the beginning stages of implementing this, this kind of Ebenezer of sorts, it was, you used the word awkward, but it wasn't necessarily when, you know, it's sometimes hard to remember what life was like when we had the three under three kind of reality or whatever, but it wasn't always awkward.
• 17:35
  as refreshing as we've wanted it to be early on. I mean, nothing is refreshing. Right. But again, so I just, so before I get into how it is now and how it became that, I think it was really important to, to keep the, that vision of long-term culture in mind. Um, because what would be really easy to say is like, man, let's just wait. This just is, it actually feels like more work. Um,
• 18:03
  It feels like a lot to take on. We're so tired. We're so busy. We'll just wait until our kids are whatever. And I'm like, man, I mean, we've been having a lot of conversations with young couples right now, getting ready to have kids, not just about this rhythm, but in general, start immediately with whatever you want your culture to be like. I just would implore.
• 18:24
  Because it's not just about training your kids, you're training yourself, right? Like to rest, to believe in this, to prepare for it, you know? Yeah. So, so that's my kind of initial thought. And then, yeah, now...
• 18:39
  And even then, what we would do is we would purpose to try our best to create a space where it was also life-giving for us. And so what that meant early on sometimes was we would be getting ready. I'd be coming home from work on a Friday or whatever, and we're all exhausted. And instead of just crashing into trying to create this epic family meal that would inevitably flop when you have infants and toddlers around...
• 19:09
  We would choose, and it's a discipline, but we would choose to stop 30 minutes earlier than we would have. And instead of crashing into it, we would try to just usher in this night together.
• 19:24
  and just simply be present with one another, sometimes with a glass of wine on the back porch or something like that. And the kids would purposely be, you know, we don't, we didn't do this a ton. We tried to avoid it, but it was like, it was worth putting our kids in front of, you know, wild kratts or something like that for 30 minutes so that we were prepared. We had taken a deep breath and really welcomed kind of like a spirit of rest and worship in the home. Mm-hmm.
• 19:52
  as we're trying to cultivate that culture long-term because we really felt like if we didn't do that then we're just going to be at odds with one another and it would just kind of feel like another night um and so but as time progressed uh what what has started to happen is lots of times now that 30 minutes which we still do um it kind of gives us a chance to connect before we go into that because again if you're if you're saying that this is as as
• 20:17
  much of the crux of your family's culture as we're saying it is, then it takes purpose. Yeah. It takes presence. And you can't just haphazard your way into it. And so we really wanted to be connected. And then now, after building that rhythm and those structures and the sustainability of it is, now it is like we feel it. Like when we sit at that table on a Friday night,
• 20:47
  It's choosing to say having unhindered, unboundaried time together.
• 20:57
  And the beauty of that, whereas every other night of the week, I don't know if people relate with this, but every other night of the week, it's like dinner. We're different from a lot of the world in that, yes, we do have a nightly dinner at the table, but it's almost like everyone's kind of waiting to go finish their homework or. Get a shower. Or do the thing and prep for the next day or I got to grab, I got to get.
• 21:19
  And this night is just like, there's nothing. There's nothing else planned. It's unboundary time. We can sit at the table. Sometimes we'll be sitting at the table for an hour and a half to two hours. And we'll be like, man, my back kind of hurt. Do you want to go to the gym room? Just because it's such a sweet time where you're just, there's nothing. The phones aren't around. Yeah.
• 21:40
  you know, there's just nothing distracting. You're fully present. And so, yeah, it's been really helpful for us. I think what I feel when we kind of kick off Friday, you know, cause we try to practice some kind of Jewish traditions with our Shabbat. So Rhett blows the shofar, we have a candle that we light and it just feels like the biggest deep breath. And we get to have that every week, not just like once a month or even once a quarter, if we're going out on a retreat,
• 22:08
  Like it's like the whole family, the whole just atmosphere within our home is just like taking this deep breath and rest. And it kind of feels like you remember, like before we ever started doing this, if you had a three day weekend and you kind of felt like that, like, oh, I can just like kick back and take the extra time I want to play a game or sit and do nothing because I have the time and space.
• 22:31
  This has allowed us almost to create that space, even though we just have the normal length, you know, the Saturday, Sunday off of work and Friday night. But it's we've curated that for our family.
• 22:43
  Yeah. We, we feel it, you know, it's one of those things like we're, we're choosing, we kind of treat this, not just the meal, but we kind of create a full 24 hour rhythm around that's kicked off with this meal where we just shut everything down and really choose to rest. Um, and, and for that, like when we don't experience that, when they're, when we're, when we have the wedding or the funeral or there, or what, I mean, it is like,
• 23:10
  whoa, we need that. Like the next Friday can't come soon enough because we're like, there is something in us that just gets so rejuvenated and so put it at rest. Yeah. Souls in the depths of who we are. So, yeah, that's so good. I definitely feel the same. And I, I, yeah, I was picturing as you guys were talking, you know, I think some people trying to imagine what this might be like, you know, try to picture your, the ideal Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Yeah.
• 23:40
  Now, I know many of us don't experience that in any kind of ideal sense. And part of it is that it's a week or annual thing. And so it's not like we get out of practice. And so we have all these, you know, expectations. And oftentimes, you know, because of like just tension or whatever, like it just falls short. You're like, oh, well, maybe next year.
• 24:09
  If you did this every week and therefore you were able to slowly iterate your way towards that ideal. And then you experience that every week. Right. Like, why isn't it worth it? Oh, because my kids might have a, you know, sport event. I don't know. Like there's all kinds of excuses, but once you really see the vision and the beauty of,
• 24:28
  It's difficult not to see that it's worth the challenge of getting this thing established and getting to experience this. Your soul and your children's souls will be crafted in a way by the Lord through this gift that he's given us. This was his idea. This wasn't our idea. We don't follow this religiously, but we just think it's a beautiful gift. And we've seen how it impacts family. Yeah.
• 24:51
  That's super helpful. I'd love to hear if there's anything last thing you guys would want to say to families listening to this before we transition again. You guys will have an opportunity to chat with Rhett and Ange in the accelerator if you want to jump in. And we're going to just be talking about this meal. We have an online community where we're talking about these things throughout the month of February. And so jump in there. You get a playbook.
• 25:13
  and you will get access to Retinange as well as we'll be doing a town hall with our family at the end of the month. And so we'd love to have you guys in there. Also a tutorial we're going to make for you guys so you guys can see how our family does this. But yeah, any last words to the families listening to this? Yeah, it comes back. I would just wrap with, well, one, I would respond even to what you just said there. Like if you could, what a great thought experiment.
• 25:40
  what if I could have the perfect Thanksgiving meal every week? Yeah. Without all the chaos and without all the family tension and without, it's like all of the best parts of this. If that is at all enticing, if that feeling of being at home and having, and being at peace and being together and having intimacy and relationship, if that culture is, is desirable, I really think that initiating this rhythm is,
• 26:10
  is the most powerful way you could possibly do that. Um, and then the final thing I was, I want to, I want to jump in that. So the, I know that you guys already had a episode where you kind of talked about sustainability, but yeah, having the perspective of like, this is a marathon and I'm, I'm getting 52 races in this year and every other year after versus, you know, Thanksgiving or Christmas, you might be preparing the whole week before that big meal, like pulling out the fine China or,
• 26:36
  cleaning the meal or coordinating with everybody that's coming, getting the decorations together. And, you know, this starts so much more simply. And you can, like, iterate every week, but also every year, every season. So for our family, even though we've been doing this for 20 years, this year, literally, like,
• 26:52
  three months ago, we just broke out the fine china for the first time. And, you know, so now it's like, okay, we're at our Shabbat table and we have the fine china. But before that, it was our dollar Ikea plates that it didn't matter if a kid threw it on the floor. And before that, it was paper plates because that's what we had time and bandwidth for, you know? And so like, just having that perspective rather than the like, this is our one shot for the year and we have to get it all right. It's like, it's okay if this week's a little off. Yeah.
• 27:18
  Because we're going to do it again next week, you know? And so like that allows us to step into it with the freedom, with the peace, with the connection and presence being the focus rather than this like ethic thing. Yeah. And my final words would be, you're always creating a culture.
• 27:34
  So, um, intentionality in the culture you want to create is imperative. Yeah. You, you will end up somewhere and then, you know, it's cliche at this point, but will you end up somewhere on purpose? And this is a way to be purposeful in the, in creating that culture in your family.
• 27:52
  Yeah. Well, so we've never been in a culture that is attempting to shape our families like the kind of culture we're in now. All the media, all the individual specific things that all the portals and man, we need tools that are powerful to fight back. Yeah.
• 28:09
  on those things that are trying to shape our culture according to whatever kind of ends that those different companies and different technologies have. And so we need to create a space just for our family. And I think this is the time to do it, guys. If you're thinking about doing this, please, we would love to coach you through the process of getting this going.
• 28:30
  coach you through. Sometimes the initial stages can get a little bumpy or clunky. And so we want to be there to help you guys think through, okay, how do we, how do we do better next week? I love what Ange said. This is a marathon. You got 52 shots of this a year. So don't freak out about, you know, having a,
• 28:46
  bad experience, just like come back on and we'll talk through it. And there'll be so many families that'll be, that'll love to just encourage you guys as you are trying to craft that family culture. And man, we're just telling you guys, five, 10, 15, 20 years later, you'll look back and go, oh my word, I love my family. Like there's something was created because we actually decided to be intentional. So awesome. Thank you so much, Red Nance, for jumping on here today.
• 29:11
  Absolutely. Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.