This Simple Habit Can Change Your Family's Life: Disconnect to Reconnect

00:00:00
Put these devices aside,

00:00:03
they understand how important
the phone is to you,

00:00:06
so don't make them think that
it's more important than them.

00:00:15
No. Oh, that's better, right, babe?

00:00:20
Yeah.

00:00:22
Yeah. She founded an
architectural concrete company.

00:00:27
He founded a hundred million
dollars clothing company.

00:00:31
She took the world by storm
as a social media star.

00:00:34
He took the world by storm as
a famous serial entrepreneur.

00:00:37
Together we started a business.

00:00:39
And had babies.

00:00:40
Now we're figuring out
the best ways to do.

00:00:42
Both. Join us as we learn from other
entrepreneurs going through the same life

00:00:47
struggles.

00:00:48
As they share their life.
Hacks about success, love.

00:00:51
Kids, and everything in between.

00:00:53
You guys will know this one
family that eats together,

00:00:58
prays together, stays together.

00:01:02
Dinner is better than we eat together.

00:01:08
Welcome to the Pretty and Punk
podcast. I'm your host, Dan Caldwell.

00:01:12
I'm here with my.

00:01:14
And I'm ly beautiful wife. I don't
know, dunno how we keep cutting.

00:01:18
Each other off. You jump off a little
bit earlier there. Stop it. Okay,

00:01:22
so we got another great
podcast for you guys,

00:01:24
and it's something
reasonably simple, but so,

00:01:29
so important.

00:01:30
What we believe in after we were
just having a discussion about this,

00:01:33
it's so simple.

00:01:33
Am surprised that not everybody does.

00:01:36
It.

00:01:36
It's something that I believe could be
the most important thing you do with your

00:01:41
family. But before we jump into
that, I really do. Here we go.

00:01:45
Before we jump into that, you're
fired. You're fired. Hey guys,

00:01:49
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00:01:52
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00:02:19
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00:02:23
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00:02:27
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00:02:32
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00:02:34
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00:02:39
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00:02:44
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00:02:51
And thank you again, and
let's get back to the show.

00:02:54
With people so overwhelmed
and so overworked and

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everybody's faces in their devices,

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people are just not doing this.

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And it's really so simple.

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And if you're not doing
this and you start tonight,

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you're going to notice that it's
life changing. Something so simple.

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So we have to talk about
reclaiming family dinners.

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It's something that's so simple, but
yet so many people are not doing it.

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They're not having
dinner together anymore.

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That's shocking. It's shocking.
When I looked at the statistics,

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I was shocked because this is something
that's incredibly important to my

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family, to our family,

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but I could see how the habit of,

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okay,

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well I'm going to keep my phone nearby
just in case if I get a business call

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or I have to respond to
this person or that person.

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But really digging your heels in
and putting the boundaries up.

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And there's a lot of fun ways to do it.

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And especially when the
kids see you put these

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devices aside,

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they understand how important
the phone is to you.

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So don't make them think that
it's more important than them.

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I'm not saying that you are,
but sometimes subconsciously,

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we always have this thing in our hand.

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I'm more aware because I'm worried
about EMFs and all that stuff.

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That's a whole different podcast.

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But when they see something that's
near and dear to your heart,

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you never want to have them think
that that's more important than their

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emotions. So it's really
nice to have some kind.

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You can buy a basket that you throw your
phone into at dinnertime or just have

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that little, what is it? Not habit,

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but that this thing
that you do every night,

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you put them aside and you make
sure that your family is the

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most important thing. And we pray in the
morning, we pray at night, but we also,

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our family likes to pray
over our family and our meals

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every time that we eat.

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And the rules, the two
rules that we have are,

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we're going to say prayer and
we're going to put our phones

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aside and nobody's going to be looking
at their phones or talking about their

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phones. So

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those things that you don't
realize how simple they are.

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There was a survey of over 6
kids where they asked these kids how

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they felt when their parents were on
their phone of 32% of 'em felt unimportant

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when their parents were using their
phones. And that's something that is,

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and I would've thought it
would've even been higher.

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And it probably is in some ways.

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It's just that when we're on our phones
and it's hard because if you're a

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business owner, you know, probably conduct
most of your business on your phone.

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You're emails, you're looking at
your website, whatever you're doing,

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you're probably doing all of it
on your phone nowadays. I mean,

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a lot of people still use their laptops.
We don't ever use our laptop hardly.

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Most our stuff is on our phone.

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So it's hard when your kids come up to
you and they see that you're in your

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phone all the time. And we always try
to explain to our kids we're working,

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we explain to them, as
soon as we say that,

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we've made it a habit to explain
exactly what we're doing.

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We show them in our business what we
are doing so they understand what it

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is. So not only do they get
an understanding of business,

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but they also understand why
it's important that we're
doing what we're doing.

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And we also in our family,
we include our children.

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I'll never forget this
moment that my mom actually,

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I remember her breaking down.

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I was in the store and I
wasn't quite old enough.

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I started handling customers
when I was eight years old.

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And I know that that sounds really
young, but we're very capable.

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I was taught how to weigh the jewelry,

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calculate the cost and
handle the customers.

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But I was much younger.

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And she told me she'll never forget
the day she was talking to a customer.

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And she'd always say, just one
minute, I'm with the customer.

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Just one minute I'm with the
customer. And I was so frustrated,

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I was young,

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I grabbed her face and I turned it towards

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me.

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So she would look me in the eyes
for more than I'm with the customer.

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And she broke down and it was
hard for her because she had to do

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this. This is what was
putting bread on the table.

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And sadly she was a single mom.

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And I say sadly because
if I could just have her

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relive her life, if I
could just rewind time,

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I wish that my dad was there and they
were doing the team thing together.

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That's how it was supposed to
be. But sadly it fell apart.

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And that's not going to
happen in our family.

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I will do everything to prevent it.

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And I have a husband that
will do the same thing.

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We're going to be here for our
kids, going to fight for it.

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But the thing that I will never forget

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how it made her feel, and I
could just imagine the struggle.

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I know sometimes I want to say
I'm almost done this email,

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but I will put down the
phone. And this isn't dinner,

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but I'm just saying I know that you
guys are all struggling with this thing.

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So I know that that hits, we all struggle
with it. A parenting heartstring.

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This isn't easy, it's not an easy thing.

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But the one thing you can make is that
if you set these boundaries that we're

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going to have dinner
together, it's easy to,

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once you've made that commitment to
just build around that commitment.

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I'm so sorry, I told this long story,

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but the whole point was after that moment,

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my mom included me more
because her solution to that,

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she was always trying to find a solution.

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She included me more in the
business even at that young age.

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And that made me feel loved. And
I found you and I in our family,

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that's one of the reasons because I've
told you this story and several other

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stories,

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but we include our kids because
we have to do business and things.

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So we've included our children and
that makes them feel more loved.

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But at dinnertime, all of it goes to the.

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Side, all of it.

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It helps them feel important when you do
this because when you put it all aside,

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it lets them know how important
these family dinners are to you.

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And you know what?

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I think it just goes back
to when I was growing up,

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we didn't have cell phones, so
we always had family dinners.

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And I always remember those moments,

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those conversations that we had as a
family and just sitting down together

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and enjoying a family dinner
together. And I know even though now

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more so we eat out a lot,

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we do eat at home too. And you
make great family home dinners.

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I think we eat more in than out for.

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Sure. Now we do. But there was a time
period where we were eating out a lot.

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Well, you and I, you and I. But now
that we're on this healthier lifestyle,

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and the one thing that's really
great about having family meals

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together, since the babies are very young,

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they acquire to your taste buds.

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We never order off a child's
menu. They eat adult dishes,

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we share our meals with them.

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And this is important to me because
when I do go out, I don't want to be,

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we've never been to a McDonald's or
anything like that because of for

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health reasons. We understand what's in,
and that's a whole different podcast.

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We have doctors on it,

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but there's a lot of things that shouldn't
be going into your bodies and into

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your kids' bodies. And
when I was pregnant,

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I ate very differently

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and I have trained my children to enjoy

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eating different food,
eating healthy foods.

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And so when I eat out, I want
everybody to enjoy that dinner.

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I want to go to a nice fancy place
that serves healthy, yummy food.

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And actually, one of the things I
saw when I was reading up on this,

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I was trying to find a stat. I said,

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let's bring a stat so we
can actually show a stat.

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But one of the things that I found
that I didn't expect to see was how

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having a family dinner together,

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that they had done a study and
I didn't write down the study,

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but they had done a study that
showed how a family having dinner

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together helped kids have better eating
habits. Right, exactly. Obviously,

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because eating, they.

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See what.

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Are eating, the parents are watching,
they're watching what they're eating,

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and they're all eating together. So
they're all eating the same things.

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And so it encourages healthier eating,

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which is a great thing, a great,

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maybe something that you
might not expect from that.

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And I really like the idea of just
bringing your family together and having a

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great conversation and the
kids conversating and talking
about their day and you

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guys having these conversations. In fact,

00:12:00
we talked about maybe giving out some

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work tools that you can use during
your dinner to ask questions.

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Yeah, conversation starters. There's
been something wrong with our email,

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but I will set it up on our
Instagram or I'll do a post and then.

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We can, yeah, so message us
on our Instagram. It's not
ready right this second,

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but message us on our Instagram and we
will send you that list of conversation

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starters that you can have at dinner.

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Recipes, all that stuff. So

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I can't stress how important this is.
One, obviously everybody's connected,

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and two, if you start from a young age,

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they will be eating healthy.

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And that also stimulates
self-discipline for yourself.

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As I said, when I was
pregnant, I ate different,

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I cut a lot of things out of my life.

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I no longer ate the bad, just
everything. Really, really,

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really rich in nutrients
and start some kind of,

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oh my goodness.

00:13:05
Ritual.

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No ritual tradition. A tradition.

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So obviously you're having
dinner together every night,

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but try to come up with
something that is going to

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be a family tradition that hopefully
carries on until your children are

00:13:23
adults and they do it with their
children. So my mom really,

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I always make Hungarian food. I make

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non, non Hungarian food, but one of
food, American food, American food.

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American food.

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American food. But I don't want
to say American, not just burgers.

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Really everything I make is
very well thought out and

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healthy. It needs to be nutrient rich.

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I'm still healing and my kids are
growing, their brains are growing.

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I just want to build, I want to
give them all the tools that I can.

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And then when they're older and I already
see it when they go to parties and

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stuff, I don't say,
oh, you can't eat that.

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But I do see they'll have this
big bite of a, I dunno, cupcake.

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Or something, something bad for 'em.

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Something that I.

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Would usually try, not
usually because it looks.

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Nice.

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They looks so pretty and wonderful and
they'll have a bite and they'll be like,

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I don't.

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Want it. They'll one bite it. They're
like done. They're just not used to, well,

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they're not used to that much sugar. They
don't like it. I've seen Daniel, when,

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what was he eating a couple weeks ago?

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He was eating a cupcake or
something like that, right?

00:14:28
He ate a bite of a cupcake and
he was like, okay, that's enough.

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That was too much.

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Fun. So that's the really cool thing.

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You know what else is super important
is how we have the kids help with the.

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Dinner.

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Dinner. Yes. It's like
include them dinner,

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not just making the dinner because
they're still a little young actually.

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You make them get up there sometimes
and move the food around and what do you

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call that? Moving the food around.

00:14:50
Right? Because I want to be
independent when they grow up.

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I never want them to depend on
someone to make them a meal.

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I don't want them to get together
with someone, just be, oh,

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because she'll do my laundry and
cook for me. No, my brother and I,

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we were raised in a way where we
knew how to cook for ourselves,

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clean after ourselves so we could
fall in love with the right person.

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That's all the equipment that I
want to equip them with that same

00:15:17
confidence in themselves so they're able
to fall in love with the right person.

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But as I was saying, yes, I love
them to help and when they help,

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they have this proud feeling
like, I did this, I made it daddy,

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I made it too. I made it.

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And helping put out the
plates and the forks and.

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Clean.

00:15:36
And stuff and helping to clean
up. Yeah, that's important.

00:15:38
All that stuff really
gives them confidence and

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just that communication that we have
together. Can you help with that?

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It's giving them a task to
do. I think I see it come,

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I don't know how it actually
plays out in their lives,

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but I do know that when they're doing it,

00:15:57
I see us all working together
and it's just something that,

00:16:00
I think one of the things I'm
really proud of when we do that.

00:16:03
Together. And I like the
tradition part where we have,

00:16:07
my mom really loved the
way I loved her spaghetti.

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And then I changed the
recipe when I grew up and

00:16:17
I added more vegetables and I changed
a few things and she fell in love with

00:16:21
my spaghetti. So for us,

00:16:24
spaghetti night was really special.
Now for, it's special for us.

00:16:28
Too.

00:16:29
Still a spaghetti night. We put a special,

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what is it? Oh my gosh,
I'm losing my words.

00:16:37
Tonight is it's okay, I'll cover.

00:16:38
For is small brain I cover for you. But
the thing that you put the table cover.

00:16:42
Table cover my gracious table tablecloth.

00:16:45
So we'll put a special tablecloth
on the kids love it when dad

00:16:50
does date night for me.

00:16:52
Obviously when you have the little kids
and you don't have babysitting and you

00:16:56
have the kids do something else and
you have your candle lit date night,

00:16:59
well they love the candlelight.
So we have the candlelight,

00:17:02
we have spaghetti night and
then I make the healthiest

00:17:06
spaghetti. The meat that I've found,

00:17:10
it's got beef organs. It's
just the healthiest thing.

00:17:14
And I make it taste so good.
And they have so much fun.

00:17:18
And that's our little
tradition, spaghetti night.

00:17:23
Spaghetti. They love it, tastes good.

00:17:24
And then they feel like
they were a part of.

00:17:26
It. Yeah, they're a part
of it. The lights are dim.

00:17:29
We have the candles tablecloth, and it's
just a special night. We're actually.

00:17:34
Due for one of those. Let let's
plan on doing one this week.

00:17:37
And for someone else,
it could be pizza night.

00:17:40
My daughter doesn't really
like pizza. We all love pizza,

00:17:43
but she doesn't really like it.
She'd rather have spaghetti.

00:17:46
But for someone out there.

00:17:47
Maybe good pizza, I should say good pizza.

00:17:49
Well, no, like the pizza that we,

00:17:51
I don't know why she used to like it
and we put tons of vegetables and yummy

00:17:56
things that she loves, but
she's just over it right now.

00:17:59
So spaghetti night's our thing.
But maybe someone out there,

00:18:03
it could be pizza night or Gula night or

00:18:08
whatever.

00:18:11
Taco's coming out, taco.

00:18:12
Tuesday, whatever it is, you could start
your own family tradition. Unless you.

00:18:16
Only have one, you actually can do
this. Even when you go out to eat,

00:18:20
it's really about the conversation that
you can have together and keeping the

00:18:24
excitement,

00:18:25
keeping the phones out
of the dinnertime out of

00:18:30
the moment.

00:18:31
It's just people being in the
moment having dinner together and

00:18:36
enjoying each other's company. Right.

00:18:38
Oh, stop for a second. This just
reminded me for, what did I remind you?

00:18:42
This reminded me, they're such
a good viral video out there.

00:18:47
There's an interview.

00:18:49
They're interviewing the parents who
if you could have dinner with someone,

00:18:54
anyone in the world, who would
you choose? And one couple,

00:18:58
the wife said Justin Bieber.

00:18:59
And then her husband got mad and then
they chose all these different people like

00:19:04
Marilyn Monroe.

00:19:05
Then they interviewed
the children and do you

00:19:10
know what the children said? What'd
they say? The parents cried. My parents,

00:19:15
my mom and dad,

00:19:17
all the kids chose having
dinner with the parents.

00:19:21
I cried.

00:19:23
And you know what it's so sad about
that is that it's probably because we've

00:19:28
lost this.

00:19:29
We've lost the tradition of
sitting down together as a family,

00:19:34
putting away our phones
and our computers and

00:19:39
the day and really just bonding
and connecting with each

00:19:44
other in a way that you don't do through.

00:19:47
Most of the day when they're
having dinner with their parents,

00:19:50
they can't lose them to anything.

00:19:53
I mean, listen, that's why we've
lost most of this for that.

00:19:56
We're not getting a lot of this back.

00:19:58
I mean the world has
changed, right? We have ai,

00:20:02
we're about to have robots in
our house. Oh, not us. The whole,

00:20:06
we're absolutely getting a robot. No,
we're not getting a robot for sure. Robot,

00:20:09
yes we are. No, we we're. Get a robot.

00:20:12
Strangles you in the middle of
the night, you'll change you.

00:20:14
AI robots so we can forget it. Do all
those things we don't want to do. I.

00:20:18
Don't care. I'll clean the
house. I enjoy it. I enjoy.

00:20:21
It. But we're never going
to get some of this back.

00:20:25
I mean those years of the fifties and
the leave it to beaver and whatever

00:20:29
used to happen back in the day,
we're just not going to get it back.

00:20:34
But the one thing.

00:20:34
If you choose to live this slow and.

00:20:36
Simple life, but we can make
conscious decisions like this, I mean,

00:20:39
you're not going to be able to get rid.

00:20:40
What I mean is you're not going to be
able to just get rid of your cell phone

00:20:42
and not have one. It's how we run
our businesses. It's how we connect.

00:20:47
It's how we do the
things that we're doing.

00:20:49
And it allows us to be able to do things.

00:20:51
It gives us the ability to be able to
have a meeting with our partners in

00:20:56
Japan and so we don't have to fly over.

00:20:59
There. It gives us the
freedom a hundred percent.

00:21:01
We have much more freedom
having these devices.

00:21:05
But then there's the
balance. There's the balance.

00:21:08
When you don't need to
have it, don't have,

00:21:10
because I feel like
sometimes you are just not so

00:21:15
much me, but maybe it's men.

00:21:18
They're just used to having their device
by their side, they're grabbing for it.

00:21:22
It's a habit. Habit. It's habitual.

00:21:25
I'm very.

00:21:26
Much with it. I'm don't really
need that right now. It's like.

00:21:28
I'll walk out of the room
and I go grab my phone first.

00:21:30
He gets nervous and we
don't keep phones anywhere.

00:21:34
I think it's going to going to.

00:21:34
Ring any second when it's time wind down.

00:21:36
It's like I get 300 phone calls a day.

00:21:38
You just don't need those
bad MF from all that.

00:21:41
Stuff. I mean, listen guys,

00:21:45
this is the one thing that you guys
can do. It's easy and it's easy to do.

00:21:50
It's so lovely.

00:21:51
And if you just make a conscious
decision and announce it to the family,

00:21:54
if you got to sit the family
down and say, look guys,

00:21:56
this is what we're doing from
now on start today. It's so easy.

00:22:01
And I promise you,

00:22:03
I promise you that it will change
the dynamic of your family,

00:22:09
the way you guys communicate and make a
conscious decision to communicate like

00:22:14
that at dinner. It will change
how your family connects.

00:22:18
And it's one of the.

00:22:21
Things that we do. It's.

00:22:22
One of our favorite things.

00:22:23
It's of our favorite times.

00:22:24
For me too. And so if
you have any comments,

00:22:28
if you guys are having great dinners
out there, if there's things that you.

00:22:31
Have to add and if you have any
tradition, tell me about your tradition.

00:22:34
What do you do? You do?

00:22:35
What's your weekly thing or your monthly
thing or biweekly thing? Tell me I.

00:22:39
Love it. We would love to hear it. And
if you know anybody that this might help,

00:22:42
of course share the program. We would
love that. You guys can do that for us.

00:22:45
Please leave a comment.
Please leave a review. Review.

00:22:50
Kids love it. We love.

00:22:52
It.

00:22:53
And it.

00:22:53
Helps the show.

00:22:54
I think we're at number
12 on the parenting list.

00:22:59
And oh yeah, that's great.

00:23:00
Of you guys. We love you guys so much.

00:23:02
Thank you guys for listening. Yes,

00:23:04
thank you so much and we'll
catch you guys next week.

00:23:06
God bless. See you next.

00:23:07
Week. Thank you for listening to
the podcast. Want to see more?

00:23:12
Write open, subscribe button below.

00:23:15
I really hope this you
today. God bless. Thank you.