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Tag-Team Parenting

Tag-Team Parenting

This morning over breakfast, I told Mike about a project I’m working on and that I’m falling behind schedule. His immediate response was to carve out a portion of the day during which he would take the girls out and occupy them for a few hours.

This is a perfect example of tag-team parenting, which is one of the most important aspects of our family travels.

Mike and I work every day, whether we’re at home or abroad. Doing so when we travel sometimes presents challenges. I’m currently writing from Mexico, where we’re contending with unreliable internet and insatiable mosquitos.

The true difficulty in remaining productive work-wise when we travel is balancing work life and family life. My daughters aren’t interested in whether or not I’ve made headway with my latest work-in-progress. They just want to go to the beach.

If both Mike and I were fighting for time to get through our respective to-do lists without considering the other person, our household would quickly implode.

The key to keeping that from happening is tag-team parenting. If Mike knows I’m on a deadline, he’ll offer to take the kids for an hour or two. I do the same for him when I know he’s under pressure.

Acknowledging what your partner needs and then stepping up to help them is both simple and powerful. It’s about thinking beyond yourself. It’s about giving.

If Mike and I didn’t both have this mindset in place, I doubt we’d travel for months at a time to other countries. Our trips would have more stress and less enjoyment. By trading off the parental duties, we each allow the other the time and space needed to stay productive. And when we both keep current with our work, we’re able to enjoy our time together as a family without worrying about what didn’t get accomplished.

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

On Purpose

On Purpose

What is purpose? What does it mean to dedicate one’s life to a just cause?

I immediately think of a detail from the movie The Professional.

In the movie, before Jean Reno’s character gets entangled with Natalie Portman’s character, one really important part of the script is that he cares for a house plant.

He dotes on his plant, misting it with a water bottle, cleaning its leaves, lovingly placing it in the sun during the day and bringing it inside at night. This might seem insignificant, but it’s meant to humanize him and show his capacity for empathy. (He’s a hitman, after all, so this is kind of important).

Every life needs another life to care for, even if it’s just the life of a plant. Without life to care for, humans break down (depression, anger, violence).

Dedicating my life to a just cause, for me, means being vulnerable and empathetic. Caring for life around me, whether that’s my family or strangers I encounter. Showing kindness and love, withholding judgement, and working to bring a bit of joy to those who need it.

All of this got me thinking about how other people construe purpose and how we tend to judge them if we don’t understand them.

Examples…

If you’re not into pets, it’s easy to think “dog people” or “cat people” are ridiculous.

If you’re not into gardening, you might think some people are crazy for how much time they spend in their garden.

If you don’t have kids, you might think other families are obnoxious.

You might think people who don’t eat meat because they don’t want to harm animals are fanatics.

But before we judge, we need to stop and think, because in all of these instances we’re seeing expressions of humans caring for and honoring other life. I think even when we can’t relate, we need to respect that.

The exception, of course, is when a person’s behavior negatively impacts those around them. The parents who are oblivious to their screaming toddler; the irresponsible pet owner.

In most cases, however, the act of a human caring for and honoring other life brings more joy than harm.

If we really pay attention, we can probably see a thousand instances of it in the course of any single day.

Personally, I think that’s a beautiful thing.

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

Find a Way

Find a Way

Last week our shoes were borrowed by the neighbor’s dogs. (You read that right). The dogs are super friendly, always greet us when we come and go, and I always take time to pet them.

Then one day we had to leave our shoes outside because they were muddy. The next day the shoes were gone.

Surely no one had stolen our stinky sneakers, right?

But they were gone.

Our only real concern was the GRIT challenge we’re doing. We were about to start our 4th consecutive month and the challenge involves daily workouts. Our shoes were kind of important.

Could we find a place to buy shoes in this tiny town? We’re in a relatively small town in Mexico and we didn’t bring much. We don’t have anything resembling spare pairs of shoes unless you count flip-flops. Would we have to drive all the way to Cabo to buy new shoes? Or make a day trip to La Paz?

Or we could just do everything barefoot on the beach, we reasoned. That would work too.

While I was working out how we’d complete our workouts without shoes, Mike began wondering if the neighbor’s dogs might have something to do with our missing sneakers. He widened his search for the shoes to include the entire dirt road we’re on.

He found them down the way, placed high on a fence post. Someone had found the shoes and placed them up there so the dogs couldn’t continue to chew on them.

My shoes are fine, perhaps a little tenderized. Mike had to tie segments of his shoelaces back together to keep them functional. But they’re still functional.

At no point throughout this debacle did we think that a little detail like lack of shoes would stop us from completing a challenge that we’d committed to. When I commit to a challenge, I want to be nothing short of unstoppable. I truly believe that if you’re determined to get there, you’ll always find the path.

We have will, so we’ll always find a way.

Shoes help, too.

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

Record Keeping

Record Keeping

​My daughters periodically ask me to tell them stories about themselves when they were younger.

I have a few favorites, like when we came home from a camping trip and Ivy, having grown accustomed to peeing in the wild, dropped her pants to urinate on our front lawn.

Then there was the time Emilia came home from school looking very sad. I asked her what was wrong.

“I’m sad because George Washington died before I had a chance to meet him.”

Sometimes I’ll bring forth stories that no one else in the family remembers. At first, they question if it really happened, but then concede that I must be right.

Why am I right?

It’s not that I have a better memory. Or that I think I’m always right. (I know how to be tremendously wrong).

I’m right because I’m the one who wrote it down. I’ve recorded these memories after they happened. I not only have written records, but the act of writing about things cements the memories into my brain.

Some of these stories are recorded in books that I’ve published and some in private journals. We can’t hold onto everything and we shouldn’t want to – it’s not about living in the past. But keeping some of the gems from being forgotten makes a difference.

Humans have a really arrogant knack for being sure that we’ll remember something. But later comes… and it’s gone. It could be a memory or task or where the car keys are or why we walked into the other room. The mind isn’t as dependable as we’d like it to be.

When it comes to memories, the really good stuff, like a child squatting on the front lawn, or her sister lamenting a death that occurred 208 years before she was born, it’s worth taking a moment to write it down.

It doesn’t matter how we record the memories, in books or journals, on video or audio, but if we take the time to preserve them, they’re not lost forever. And one day, our children just might thank us.

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

Traveling Minors

Traveling Minors

At the ages of 10 and 12, it’s time my daughters take a greater role in navigating the logistics of airline travel. After all, I was only 15 when I left for my first study abroad program in Russia.

Not that I think they’re ready to ship off to Eastern Europe, but they are quickly approaching an age when they might be traveling without us. This possibility becomes more real when you consider that their grandparents live in Mexico.

Emilia, in particular, gets downright gleeful at the prospect of traveling by herself.

I try not to take it personally.

We decided that on our current trip (I’m writing from somewhere over the Sea of Cortez), they would lead us through the airports and deal with boarding passes and make sure we’re at the correct gate on time.

We had the best of intentions.

When things get hectic as they do with travel, we, as parents, tend to take the lead and bulldoze through the situation. That’s how boarding the first flight went.

We regrouped during the layover.

“Okay,” I said. “Are you two going to lead us to the gate?”

“Yes!” Emilia said, and then immediately turned in the wrong direction.

Ivy spotted the “B” gates and got us on track.

“Ooh, look,” said Emilia. “There’s a café!” She stood spellbound outside of a coffee shop, where an ad displayed sugar-laden beverages masquerading as coffee. “Can we?”

“No,” I said. “We’d better get to the gate.”

They led us the rest of the way and we arrived to find that our group had already boarded.

While today was a good introduction, just dipping the toe into the water, I realized that we need to have an extensive conversation on time and how to manage it before trying to give Emilia the lead. In her charge, we would have all missed our flight because we’d be standing in line to pay seven dollars for coffee-flavored sugar topped with whipped cream.

I need to communicate that:

• Getting to the gate is a higher priority than sugar
• Planning should be done in regard to boarding time, not departure time
• If you don’t see a sign for your gate, you can always try turning to look in the other direction… or ask your little sister

So maybe we’re not quite ready for solo travel. That’s okay. We’ll work on one little piece at a time, and eventually we’ll have it all covered, from using airplane mode to filling out customs and immigration forms.

They already know the single most important part of traveling: Always know how to say “thank you” in the language of the country you’re visiting. They have that one down, so they’re well on their way.

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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