The Year We Turned Pro (2026)

Happy 2026, Friends! 

We are officially back from a magical winter break in NYC, and we have returned to a very different reality here at home.

For the first time in four years, we are officially a "Neufeld Only" operation.

With our youngest now in school full-time, we decided to transition away from full-time help. We’re telling ourselves that this is "the year we turned pro" (though some friends are just calling us “adults, finally!”).  

But, as anyone who has ever upgraded their phone (or life) knows... no matter what catalyzed the new operating system, it usually comes with a few bugs, a lot of glitches, and a system crash or two before it runs smoothly.

We like to call this the "Storming" phase: that very messy part where the old routine is out the window, but the new one is still under construction. 

Luckily, we’ve survived this ride before. We felt it when we jumped from one child to two, and we definitely felt it when we moved three times in seven months. We’ve always survived, but this time we’re hoping to strengthen. 

In this week's episode, we share the 3 Commitments we are making to navigate this new chapter without judgment:

1. Align the Leaders First. Before we changed a single thing for the kids, we spent weeks aligning our "heads and hearts". We had to be honest about where we wanted to show up and, more importantly, where we didn't want to show up (e.g., who hates the morning drop-off?). We’ve learned the hard way that the team cannot function if the leaders aren't on the same page.

2. Name and Embrace the Chaos. We are over-communicating to the kids that everything right now is an experiment. We are documenting what works (and what doesn't) on a poster board in the dining room. We also framed this change as a "promotion"—they outgrew the need for a manager, so they are stepping into more responsibility.

3. Define and Reality-Check Expectations. It is unfair to expect our kids to execute tasks we haven't yet skill-built with them. Danielle shared a story in this episode about the anxiety she felt as a child trying to help with dinner parties but not knowing "how" to do it right. We are focusing on making the implicit explicit so we don't set them up to fail.

We might be in a storm, but we aren't panicking. We know that turbulence isn't a sign that things are breaking—it's a sign that our system is ready for an upgrade.

So if you, too, are going through a transition, whether it be a new job, a move, or just a new year, this episode is for you. Thanks for joining us in the trenches. 

Listen to the full episode here: 
🎧 Apple Podcasts
🎧 Spotify
📺 YouTube

Here’s to Navigating New Fields, (get it?!)
Danielle & Greg

P.S. We compiled all our family staples into a "Neufeld Family Recipe Book" for our holiday card this year, if you’d like to take a look!

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