Family Brand: Take Back Your Family

Hey guys, Melissa here this week!  Did you know that at the age of 9 your daughter has already reached the peak of her confidence? Research shows that from the ages 7-14 years old your daughter's confidence naturally drops 30% of what it was. When our daughter Ivy turned 9 I knew I had to figure out how to preserve her excitement and confidence in life for as long as possible.  We have two special...

As you know, we take family and family culture seriously around here. It is one of our greatest passions in life to help families create a last name that stands for something. We love helping identify the unique identities and values in every family. We call it finding your "family brand." With our work here at the Family Brand, we get to see how God has designed each family differently and for a...

Hey Guys, Chris and Melissa here! When we talked about this week's episode we both had the exact same idea in mind. It's a simple question that anyone can usually answer right away.  What are you most afraid of?  Did a bunch of feelings come up reading that? You aren't alone, everyone has fears that they experience daily and we've even had conversations with our kids recently on how to handle and...

Hey guys, Chris and Melissa here! Before you listen to this episode, we have a question for you...think back to the last conversation you had. Did you listen to respond or did you listen to hear?  Those two things may sound the same but when put into practice they have very different outcomes. In today's episode, we have an open discussion about learning to become better listeners and creating spa...

Hey guys! Chris and Melissa here, have you ever had a tingle in the back of your mind, a little idea that makes you want to step out and try a new experience with your family? One of the questions we get asked most is "Why did you decide to move to Hawaii?" and while it was a leap of faith there are steps we've been taking for years that helped support our move. We each have had our own share of a...

Hey guys, Chris and Melissa here! There are so many cliches and sayings in our culture revolving around money, like "We can't afford that" or "Money is the root of all evil" or even "We're never going to get ahead" and we get it we have said those exact phrases once or twice in our lives and even when we started making more we leaned towards being negative.  But then we realized that the way we in...

Hey guys, Chris and Melissa here! With summer now just right around the corner, we like most families started dreaming about vacations and what we should do this year. That is why we are excited to share with you this week one of our favorite things to do as a family.  If you follow us on Instagram, you may already know the answer….it's road trips!  Our love of road trips started a few years ago w...

Hey guys, Chris and Melissa here! Recently, we posted on Instagram about how our 4th anniversary was almost our last, if you've listened to Family Brand for a while you know that there was a point in our marriage where we almost gave it all up and were considering divorce. After that post, we were surprised by how many reached out to us because they are in a similar situation. Messages like "How d...

Hey guys, Melissa here, if you're a parent of young kids you've heard the phrase "Just wait until they're teenagers!" That saying is always been something that makes me pause and think. I get that most of the time this comment is made in good fun, but as you know, we take the language we use with our family seriously. Sayings like this make it feel like we're setting our kids up for failure before...

Today we have two of our favorite people in the whole world as our guests to remind you that YOU are a powerful creator. In this episode, we are joined by our two oldest boys Tate and Tanner. Not only are these two amazing young men our sons, but they are also young entrepreneurs. It's true, our boys are the owners and founders of a company called "Create or Complain." If you've listened to us bef...

Hey, guys! Mellisa here, as you may already know, a few years ago I hung up my nursing scrubs and traded them in for a real estate badge.  My journey has been nothing short of incredible. When someone first mentioned real estate investing, it was always something that piqued my interest but I didn't know if I was capable of it and I doubted that I would be able to do anything with it. You may be i...

Isn't it crazy to think it has almost been one year since the world hit the pause button? Much like the 911 attack, it seems like everyone remembers the exact moment when the country went on lockdown. In great detail, you could probably describe where you were, what you were doing, who you were with, and how it felt.  This week in the Smith house we have been thinking a lot about mental health.  N...

TRIGGER WARNING: Today we have an honest conversation about mental health and addiction. If this topic hits a little too close to home or if you are in the middle of feeling loss we invite you to listen to one of our previous episodes and come back to this one when you are ready.  Hey guys, Chris here! As you know, 2020 was a year of highs and lows. When things were good they were good, when they...

As the stack of moving boxes have gotten smaller and life in Hawaii starts to settle down, the energy in our house is beginning to ramp up. Not the fun kind of energy either. We've noticed that the kids are more competitive, quick to fight, and more irritable.  When we took a step back to see what was going on, we realized that we weren't listening to our own advice.  If you have listened to the p...

If we were to take inventory of all the changes that have occurred in our family over the last year it would probably make the average person's head spin. We moved to Hawaii, got a new house, the kids are in new schools, the list goes on and on. Oh yeah... all of that during a global pandemic.  If you feel stressed just reading that last paragraph, you are not alone. However, we are not naive enou...

2021 already has mixed reviews depending on who you ask. It's true, the world is loud right now and unfortunately, a lot of the noise is negative.  Despite the noise, we want to assure you that it is absolutely possible to raise a family today without fear of the future. Today we want to encourage you to stop looking at the future through the lens of fear and uncertainty but instead through the le...

They say two of the hardest and greatest things you can do in life is to find your purpose, and become a parent.  In this episode, Chris plays the role of the interviewer as we take a deeper look into Melissa's story as she continues to explore and navigate both.  Only a few years ago you could find Melissa working as a nurse and learning the ropes of this new adventure called motherhood.  Listen...

There are defining moments in our lives where we have the opportunity to decide how we will show up and who we are going to be. In these moments we can recognize that we are the authors of our story. We have the opportunity to "pick up the pen" and write our own version of what our life will become. Chris shares more about his personal Mantra of "Pick up the Pen" and how it continues to guide his...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Or now that we're living in Hawaii, Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau'oli Makahiki Hou! Listen in as we share our best ways to close out 2020 (what a year!) and ring in 2021. Set your standard New Year's Eve plans aside, and join us in trying something different this year! This powerful exercise has the ability to make this year, your family's best year yet! If you love t...

How to create a magical place for your family regardless of where you live, and how our journey of selling our home this week led to us having realizations about powerful lessons our home has taught us without us knowing it. We also share how we said goodbye to our home in a way that allowed us and each of our children to experience immense gratitude and closure as we move on to the next chapter o...

The foundation of EVERYTHING we love to talk about lies in this episode! Do you ever feel like your family is being pulled in every direction? How do you make sure that you're not? In this episode, we discuss how to get CLEAR on what's most important to your family, how to trust your intuition to make decisions that are best for your family, and what it takes to believe that you are on the right p...

Ponder this: "The more children know about their family's history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successful they believe their family functions"-Bruce Feiler In this episode, we talk about how simple it can be to learn about your family's history, and why it's so important for your family. Also how the past can hold a lot of clues...

We believe the language spoken in your home will shape how your children see themselves for the rest of their lives. Every time we speak it creates something. But WHAT are we creating? Join us as we discuss several examples on how the language we use has created things that we want, and also things that we didn't in our family. Also suggestions on how you can level up you language at home. And no,...

Welcome to the Family Brand Show! Our mission is to inspire people to take a stand for their families and create an intentional culture in their home. Many people say that small businesses are the backbone of our country. We believe that families are the backbone of this country and the stronger the family the stronger the business and the entrepreneur We believe, as Mother Teresa once said… "If y...