The Mission Driven Mom Podcast

Imagine you’re driving through a city you’ve never visited before. You’re following every turn on the map exactly, and you’re completely lost. So you drive more carefully, pay closer attention, and get even more lost. At what point does it occur to you that maybe the problem isn’t you? Maybe the map is wrong. Resources from the Episode: The Mission Driven Life : The 7 Laws of Life Mission and How...

How many things do you know you should do that you still have a hard time living ? Resources from the Episode:     The Mission Driven Life : The 7 Laws of Life Mission and How to Live Them     Free Masterclass : How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life     Mission Driven Mom Academy : A step-by-step journey through the 7 Laws of Life Missio...

Thirty-two years ago I got married. And when I got married, I made a contract. It wasn't the marriage contract. (Of course I signed a marriage contract!) It was a contract with myself that I didn't realize I was making. It took me a long time to see that I had made a bargain with myself, a bargain with life, a bargain with God. And it went something like this: If I do X, then I'm going to get Y. R...

Do you ever wish you just knew ? Knew whether to keep your child home or send them to school. Knew whether to take the job or make the move. A lot of women tell me that's what self-trust is: if you really trusted yourself, you would just know . I don't think that's true. And I learned it sitting alone in my car on a cold afternoon, trying to make a really big decision for our family. Resources fro...

If you've been trying your heart out to be the very best mom or wife or steward of your health, and you're not making much progress, please stop beating yourself up. It really may not be an effort issue. Resources from the Episode: The Mission Driven Life : The 7 Laws of Life Mission and How to Live Them Episode 172 : Confusion, Clarity & Vision with Jennifer Hudye   AI-GENERATED TRANSCRI...

I want to tell you about one powerful night in a kitchen in Montgomery, Alabama. The man at the table was twenty six years old. He had a doctorate he had just finished, a wife asleep in the next room, and a baby daughter who had just been born. He also had a movement he never asked to lead: he was voted in. And the threats had started coming, sometimes thirty or forty per day. His house had even b...

Have you ever imagined how things would turn out in the future — the perfect man you'd marry, the beautifully obedient children you'd have — and then, years later, when things were messy and hard, you wondered what had gone wrong?  I did.  And what I had to learn was that the image I was holding all that time was not a vision. It was an expectation.  Resources from the Episode: Moth...

Have you ever had someone you love decide to walk out of your life?  Cadie did. Someone very close to her decided a few years back that they didn't want to be in her life any longer, and there's been no contact since. While Cadie was sharing with us her pain and struggle over this loss, we all had a profound realization: Even though she has no contact with this person, Cadie still has a relat...

I'm re-sharing an episode from a few years ago, about a mother who really inspired me. When I first told this story, women heard echoes of their own deepest desires in it. I think you might too.  It's about a woman named Jennie Butchart. Resources from the Episode Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th The Butchart Gardens - Brentwood Bay, British Columbia. Jennie's sunken garden,...

Years ago, when I was just beginning my classical education, I sat in a seminar where the presenters kept telling us to use our scholar skills. So I finally raised my hand and asked where I could find these scholar skills. The presenters, including the founder of my college, gave me a blank stare. Nobody had an answer for me. I could have just brushed this problem aside. But I cared about being th...

I'm a recovering rescuer. For me this shows up as me doing things for others that they should really be doing for themselves (often my kids).   I also sometimes jump in and try to fix a problem that isn't mine, or do something I was never asked to do—like call the doctor or plan the party or give dating advice. Of course, I'd tell myself I just "wanted to help."  But honestly, that...

Years ago I read a book by Robert Fritz that taught me something that has changed my life: that often we think we know what we want, but when we actually ask more questions and get down to our true motivations and intentions, we are really just reacting, not creating!  Resources from the Episode:   Robert Fritz Inc. - Robert's website, books, articles, and program schedule Creating Your...

You do hard things every day. You run a home, you carry other people's needs, you handle complicated things most people never see. You have so much more power than you realize. So why can one small, ordinary thing still fill you with dread? Having people over for dinner. A phone call. A visit you keep putting off. Something that should be simple, and somehow just is not. What's fascinating is that...

In Auschwitz, a man told Viktor Frankl about a dream. A voice had said he could ask one question, so he asked the only one that mattered: when would the war be over for him. Not for everyone. For him. The voice gave him a date. He believed it completely. I have not been able to stop thinking about what happened to him on that date. It changed how I understand what we are really doing when we call...

Thirty years ago, a man sat down for his morning quiet time in the middle of the hardest season of his life. His father had died far too young. He and his wife had been trying to start a family, and he had just learned he was infertile. His marriage was ending. And in that prayerful space, he said, "Okay, God, I'm ready to surrender my victim stance in the world. But I need to know: what's the opp...

I want to tell you something Abraham Maslow figured out while studying the highest levels of human consciousness. He had assumed, like most of us, that creativity belonged to a certain kind of person. The artists. The composers. The poets. The rest of us just didn't have that natural creative genius. Then he started studying people who were truly thriving and one of them stopped him. She was a hou...

Resources from the Episode:  Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th You know the feeling. Something happens. Maybe your husband sleeps in, maybe the house is a mess again, maybe a conversation goes sideways. And before you have said a word, there it is. A tightening in your stomach. A low hum of frustration you carry around for the rest of the morning. That feeling is drama. And i...

Resources from the Episode:  Mothers of Creation   - Provo, Utah - September 26th Episode 11 : Mission Driven Story: Jacques Lusseyran I want to tell you about a man named Jacques Lusseyran. He was eight years old when a classmate bumped into him in the middle of a crowded classroom and sent him crashing into the corner of a teacher's desk. His glasses didn't break. The arm of the f...

Resources from the Episode:  Mothers of Creation   - Provo, Utah - September 26th EP 159 You're probably not a victim. Except you kind of are.   Here is something I need you to know before you watch Frozen again. The moment everyone cheers. Elsa in her ice castle, belting "Let It Go," finally free, finally herself. That moment is not the triumph we think it is. That moment is Elsa p...

Resources from the Episode:  Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th David Emerald's book, Three Vital Questions MDM Academy     Most of us would never describe ourselves as victims. And yet — if someone asked you where you feel resentful, or stuck, or like things just keep happening to you no matter what you do — you'd probably have an answer pretty quickly. That's what...

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:  Free Training: How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life Seven Habits of Highly Effective People The 6 Geniuses   I asked my husband Blaine a question at the end of our podcast conversation this week. I asked him what all of our work in learning to understand and live principles has been worth to our family. And he got quiet...

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:  Free Training - How to Stop Feeling Powerless & Become the Expert in Your Own Life The Mission Driven Mom Academy Over the last month, I've been sharing stories from some of the women inside MDM Academy. These are not women who had more figured out than you do.  They didn't start with extra money, extra time, or some kind of unshakeable certainty....

Resources Mentioned in Episode:  The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom The Mission Driven Life by Audrey Rindlisbacher Visit TheMissionDrivenMom.com to download the free audio book of The Mission Driven Life   I want to tell you about a woman who changed my life. Her name was Corrie Ten Boom. And since I read her story for the first time in The Hiding Place , my life has never been the sam...

Resources Mentioned in Episode: Mothers of Creation - Join us September 26th in Provo, Utah | Use coupon code MOTHER at checkout to receive $50 OFF | Expires at midnight on Monday, 5/18   It's my birthday today. And every year, since it falls right around Mother's Day, this ends up being one of the most self-reflective times of year for me. So today I want to tell you a story. My story. I gre...

Resources mentioned in the episode: Mothers of Creation, Provo, Utah - September 26th Encore Training: How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life   I want to introduce you to Lindsey. She's a mother of five, a homeschooler, and one of the most principled women I know. But when she first came to MDM, she described herself the same way so many of us do. Floundering. A...