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The Price of Kindness

The Price of Kindness

We all know someone who is kindness through and through. I’m sure you can think of a handful of people in your life who exude kindness 24/7. Half a dozen names come to my mind, both men and women, who are shining examples of what it is to be kind. It’s like kindness is their default setting.

To be completely honest… I’m not wired that way. It’s not that I’m unkind, but I don’t have that inherent and overt goodness. It’s okay. I have other great qualities.

But when I think about what it is to be kind, it doesn’t always mean going out of your way to help strangers and give compliments and donate your time. Sometimes kindness is as simple as holding your tongue.

Easier said than done if you have the potential to be a snarky loudmouth.

(And yes, I have that potential.)

When I find myself about to criticize someone, I want to pause and ask myself a few questions:

1. Does their behavior affect me?

It’s worth a minute of thought.

Does my neighbor’s appearance/car/politics/pets/kids/music/hairstyle truly impact my personal happiness? Probably not. Because we are each the ones responsible for our own personal happiness. I am responsible for my happiness.

If someone has a hobby or style I don’t share, or a passion for something I don’t particularly care about, that doesn’t make it wrong.

2. Will any good come from my commentary?

Will it change anything? Will I feel better somehow? If so, what does that say about me? And again, why am I associating someone else’s actions or habits with my own happiness?

Most of the time, I can choose a path of kindness simply by withholding judgement and biting my tongue.

The beautiful part about it is that doing so costs me nothing. Sometimes taking the high road is as easy as remaining silent.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

Do You Have a Young Reader

Do You Have a Young Reader

This morning my husband and I mentioned to our daughters how much less we see them reading these days.

When it comes to our 12-year-old, the reason is clear. She’s addicted to screens. The girl who used to tear through a dozen giant novels per week has tapered off significantly. She still reads at night, when she’s not allowed to have any sort of screen in her room, but it’s become apparent to us that we need to further curb her screen use during the day. And I’m reluctant to let her keep reading e-books on her phone, because the temptation to click over to something else is too great. She needs good old-fashioned pages in her hand.

My 10-year-old is a different story. She has yet to discover the same love of reading that her sister and I share. When Mike and I mention that we’d like to see her invest more time in reading, she comes back with the maddening response: “I can’t find any books that I like.”

Keep in mind that we’ve spent hours in libraries with her. We’ve suggested every genre you can imagine. Checked out dozens of books for various age groups and on varying topics. At times we’ve made suggestions; at other times we encourage her to explore on her own. No luck. There are a few graphic novels she’ll read repeatedly, but not much beyond that. It’s pulling teeth to get her to crack the cover and at least read the first page of something new.

Mike made a good point this morning when he told her that it’s like food. There are a million wonderful foods out there, but you’ll never know if you won’t even give them a try. “It’s the same with books, Ivy,” he said. “You’ll never know if you’ll like a book because you won’t even try it.”

She is almost always willing to try new foods, so I’m hoping this comparison gets through to her.

When she says that she can’t find any books that she likes, or worse, that there AREN’T any books out there that interest her, a little piece of my inner nerd core shrivels up and dies.

There are so many wonderful books out there. Book addicts don’t despair about the adventures they might not complete in their lifetimes, they fret over the books they’ll never get to read.

For the time being, we’ll keep trying. We’ll make suggestions and let her choose on her own. We’ll explore both the public library and the shelves in our home. And yes, we’ll keep letting her reread those graphic novels until she’s ready to branch out. And if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

Little Changes

Little Changes

“It’s kind of weird how I spend most of my childhood at school.” Ivy made note of this one morning while checking the clock to be sure she wouldn’t be late for choir practice.

It’s true. Kids spend a huge amount of time at school.

When we embark on our family travels, we’re together 24/7 (and yes, that gets to be a little much after a while). But back home the kids reenter the school system and we quickly fall back into our home base routines.

Sometimes, in the course of these routines, I get too focused on checking a task off of my to-do list and not on the person in front of me. A week or so back from our most recent trip, I began to notice that while my daughters got ready for school, I’d have half-hearted conversations with them, but with my focus largely on my laptop.

It didn’t sit well with me, so I don’t do that anymore. That laptop stays closed.

The same was true in the evenings. The girls would be home but more of my attention would be on my computer screen than on them.

(Granted, this can be a gray area, because my daughters are often both home by 3:30 and I’m usually not ready to stop working that early. But still, Mike and I have both been known to keep our computers up and running well into the evening hours.)

I don’t do that anymore, either.

When they’re here, I’m trying not to check my email or worry about my to-do list. Instead we have conversations, play cards, cook together.

Time moved at a snail’s pace when they were young and we were sleep deprived. But that’s not the case anymore. It’s true; it goes fast.

Emilia’s about to turn 13. I’m hoping to do better at making the most of our time together. I want to be present with her. That doesn’t always mean being off on an international adventure. Sometimes it just means having time together before she leaves for school. And yes, she’s perfectly capable of getting herself ready; that’s not the point. I like to have a little bit of time with her. We’ll pack her lunch together or sometimes she’ll ask me to curl her hair.

I work a lot. I’m very productive. There’s no reason why I can’t put the phone down and close the laptop when my kids, whether they’ll admit it or not, would really like some attention.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

Adult(ish)

Adult(ish)

When I was a kid, I used to think that being an adult involved having lots of plans. Because adults always seemed to know what was going to happen next. Adults fill kids on the plans as it’s time to put them into action. Plans just seemed very adultish.

So when I eased into adulthood (I’m still working on it… it’s a work-in-progress), I figured I’d better plan things.

What we don’t realize as kids, however, is that the adults around us are constantly having to adapt the plans. Or sometimes the plans aren’t even really plans, they’re just events that come up. To a kid, it all seems so orchestrated.

I love plans. I think calendars are totally sexy.

But the more adultish I get, I realize that plans are just really loose guidelines.

A casual discussion yesterday (okay, it was casual for me, but I see in hindsight that my husband had been “planning” this discussion in his mind for quite some time) added three additional trips to our schedule for 2020. Not to mention three substantial physical endeavors that go along with those trips – but those are details for a later post.

This year’s travels are shaping up to be more than double what I anticipated just one month ago. I had plans, but now I have new plans. That’s completely okay. With a few deep breaths and some time to wrap my mind around what’s to come, I remember that adaptability is more important than having set plans in place.

Reminding myself of this makes me feel like I just might have a handle on what it is to be adult(ish).

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

We’re Going to Camp

We’re Going to Camp

​Mike and I are four days back from our four weeks in Mexico. We were there, in part, for warmth and to escape the Idaho winter. Our main objective was to visit friends and family – and to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday (Jesus wasn’t the only one born on December 25th, you know).

We were also there for work. One of our primary goals in launching The Business of Us and The Sweet Life is to organize a series of Mastermind retreats. We visited a number of venues, from hotels to vacation rentals to spaces that fall somewhere in between.

We signed two contracts for two retreats. The first contract we signed the day before we left and the second one on the DAY we left, right before heading to the airport.

Some of our friends were surprised to learn that we booked two different venues. Why not simplify things and have everything at one place? But we have two different groups in mind. The first retreat will be for writers and the second for couples.

We found the perfect place for the writers’ retreat – beautiful, tranquil, unique, inspiring.

And…

We found the perfect place for the couples’ retreat – luxurious, romantic, 5-star, and small enough that we’ll only have 7 couples in attendance.

The first place was almost too calm for the couples, but perfect for writers.

And the second place was almost too romantic for the writers, but perfect for couples.

Both retreats take place in June which is a perfect time to visit Todos Santos. Not too hot like August, not too buggy as it is later in the year, or too busy as it can be over the holidays.

So we started thinking… June… school is out… it’s time to go to camp! The kids get to go to camp, why not the adults?

Writers Camp and Couples Camp.

We’re structuring each so that people just have to get themselves to the airport, we take care of the rest. Everything from transportation to sunscreen to drinks and gourmet meals. And we fully recognize that this needs to be something special. We need to give people more than just an opportunity to have a drink by the pool.

That got the wheels turning faster. Salsa lessons, art classes, writing exercises, beach walks, yoga, relationship building, massages. Different activities for the different groups. We’re walking that line of building the perfect itinerary – enjoyable, inspiring, enlightening, shared experiences of a lifetime – without totally running people ragged.

So now the work begins. We’ve invested a lot in this because we believe in it. Now we have to make a go of it. We’re building websites, compiling footage, and working to be the living proof that the systems we’ve developed and the principles we live by work. They work for writers. They work for couples. In both aspects of our lives, we strive to look forward, to be our best, and to continue to learn and grow.

Chances are we haven’t yet met most of our attendees. We might have a few friends interested, but for the most part I suspect we’ll be making new connections. In any case, we’re super excited about this new adventure, so we’ll continue to share the journey.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

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