What We’ve Learned in Six Months of Building Family Culture

The Most Important Things we've learned (so far)

Author

Danielle & Greg Neufeld
October 27, 2025

Hi friends,

Six months ago, our journey started with a question: How do ambitious, busy families build culture at home?

Since then, we’ve been researching, experimenting, and having a lot of fun. We’ve learned a lot about what creates a strong, resilient family culture, but the biggest lesson has been a mindset shift: 

We realized we can let go of the parenting messages that whisper “you need to be doing more, handling it better”, and start seeing our families as capable teams, built through everyday moments of joy and connection. 

This shift has left our whole family feeling more at ease in the present moment and fully equipped to enjoy each other. We’ve seen firsthand that when families see themselves as capable teams, everything changes — the home gets lighter, and the future feels less urgent. That’s why we’re on a mission to grow the number of present families — families who see themselves as a team, focused on today while climbing their own mountains together.

Here are our Top 4 Takeaways from six months of The Most Important Thing:

1. Start from strength, not scarcity

Most parenting starts from what’s going wrong or missing. We’re choosing a competence-first lens: we’re already doing so much right — let’s lean into those moments.

2. Parenting is management; family culture is leadership

Scripts fix moments (maybe). Culture shapes lives. As leaders of our families, we have an opportunity to align with our partners, make our values explicit, and lead the team, not just “fix” each child 1:1. 

3. Rituals = culture in action

Anything we do repeatedly becomes ritual. We’ve been thinking about it as two buckets that are equally important:

• Alignment rituals (not sexy, but trust-building): weekly standups, quarterly financial check-ins, problem-solving at family meetings.

• Connection rituals (so fun, anticipation builds all week long): special meals, game at family meetings.

4. Presence is the reward

We started in April, thinking this was about building a bright future state, but the magic has been what’s happening in real time. We’ve realized that all this work on family culture was never about someday. It’s about actually enjoying being right here, right now, together.

If you take one thing from this episode, let it be this:

Don’t wait for the right time to start shaping your family culture — this is the time. Lean into one ritual that’s already working and build from there. 

Thank you for being part of this growing community of families who want to be intentional and have fun together.

Six months down, 60 years to go!
Danielle & Greg

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