Run Your Family Like A Boss
Episode 252
Are you running your family like a well-structured organization, or does it feel like chaos and misalignment? In this episode of Integrative You Radio, we dive into how the same principles that make businesses thrive—clear values, communication, and accountability—can transform your household dynamics. Discover how identifying your personal and family values can eliminate conflict, streamline decision-making, and foster stronger relationships with your partner and children. From navigating parenting differences to reducing daily stress, we break down how to create a "playbook" for your family, ensuring that everyone is aligned, empowered, and working together. If you’re tired of feeling like your household is always in reactive mode, tune in to learn how applying business strategies to your family life can bring harmony, structure, and long-term success. What you’ll learn: Mindset Shift is Crucial – Overcoming the "Why Me" mindset requires reframing challenges as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks. Action Over Victimhood – Instead of dwelling on hardships, taking proactive steps can lead to empowerment and positive change. Resilience Builds Success – Developing resilience through self-awareness and persistence helps navigate life’s difficulties with confidence. Quotes: "Your struggles don’t define you how you respond to them does."- Dr. Nicole "The moment you stop asking ‘Why me?’ and start asking ‘What’s next?’ is when real growth begins." - Dr. Nicole Find Integrative You Radio On: Website Youtube Apple Spotify Curious about Integrative You? Dive into Integrative You Radio with Dr. Nicole Rivera, where she explores the intersections of holistic health, personal growth, and living in alignment with your core values. Each episode provides insights and practical advice to help you achieve a more fulfilling and energized life. Links: Website: Integrative You Instagram: Dr. Nicole Rivera Unlock your true potential and start creating the life you desire — enr
Topics: family, values, integrative, business, communication, mindset, unknown, feel
Key takeaways from this episode
- ### Episode: Run Your Family Like A Boss
- Transform family dynamics by implementing business strategies like clear values, communication, and accountability.
- Identifying personal and family values is crucial for minimizing conflict and aligning decision-making.
- Shifting from a reactive to a proactive mindset empowers the family unit and fosters resilience.
- Developing a family "playbook" ensures everyone is united, contributing, and working towards common goals.
Pull quotes
This is the place where you become limitless. **Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior.
We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs, so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare.
If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place. **Unknown:** But buckle up because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive.
Transcript
**Unknown:** Welcome to Integrative U Radio, hosted by Dr. Nick Carruthers and yours truly, Dr. Nicole Rivera. This is the place where you become limitless.
**Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior. We are also covering how those topics affect the human and family dynamics. We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs, so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare. If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place.
**Unknown:** But buckle up because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive. This is Integrative U Radio. What is up, my friends? I am not thrilled about my background right now, but hey, I live in an Airbnb for about three more weeks and off to finally having a house.
**Unknown:** But today, we're diving into an expansion of some of our recent content and our recent challenge, which was all about determining your values so that you can make better decisions, more inspired decisions as you navigate twenty twenty-five. And this brought me to really think about the step beyond your own personal values, which is your family values. And for those of you that don't have a family yet, this applies to your extended family. This applies to your parents, your siblings, and then of course, it plays a role in eventually starting your own family.
**Unknown:** And so take it as a crash course in human behavior, human communication, and human connection. And so what's kind of interesting is that over the years, I have always been so amazed with the principles that I learned about business and how they very, very much apply to running a household, running a family, creating better communication, creating better connection, and decreasing chaos. And in the work that I do, at least, I hear a lot of similarities that nobody can get on the same page, communication is lacking, you know, relationships feel like two partners are becoming more and more distant. They are, quote-unquote, "growing apart." Kids are not being understood, they're being rebellious.
**Unknown:** Parents are not always understanding why kids are behaving a certain way or making certain decisions, and the list goes on. And when I think about my earlier journey as an entrepreneur, the same thing happened in business, is why did I find myself getting so triggered or upset in certain situations, or being so triggered by certain behaviors on... of individuals on my team? Why did I feel like no one was on the same page?
**Unknown:** Why did I feel like communication was so difficult? Why did I feel like we were just kind of going round and round and round on a merry-go-round or a hamster wheel? And why did it feel like there was chaos and constant fires to be put out? So a lot of synergism, um, synergy when it comes to what I hear from people running a household, in addition to what it felt like as being a unenlightened entrepreneur.
**Unknown:** And when I decided to actually embark on more business training and formal education, I embarked on getting a certification called Scaling Up, which was created by Verne Harnish. And essentially, what I really liked about it is that there was a lot of focus on the people aspect of business. This was not about marketing techniques and schemes and, you know, running paid advertisements and how to get more followers and how to increase your revenue. This was about the foundational things that create visionary companies.
**Unknown:** They create companies that you and I both know of because they have such a big name, but these are also companies that have persevered past a hundred years. So they've, they've persevered past the original founder. And the only way a company can persevere and, and persist past its original founder is if it has a really, really, really strong foundation. And that foundation is really rooted in its people, in its values, and in its mission.
**Unknown:** And the values part is so significant. And so I got introduced to this concept because the people part of business was my pain point at the time. And I got introduced to this idea that it's because no one had a playbook. No one had a set of foundational rules of how to show up and how to not show up.
**Unknown:** And I was like, "Hmm, okay, tell me more." And because I was very stuck in that moment, and I was having a really hard time with the, the exercises and the questionsMy mentor at the time reverse engineered it for me to meet me where I was at. And, and I love this tool so much because I use it regularly now. And he goes, "Okay, what are the top things that piss you off in your business?" I was like, "Oh, well, that's easy. Let's, let's talk about it." And I'll just give you one because it was probably the most foundational one, and it was when people would not take accountability for solutions.
**Unknown:** They would go into this, you know, figurative fetal position of, "I don't know how to do this, and I need someone to help me, and I don't know what to do, and oh my gosh, everything is falling apart, and, you know, like, send help, send help." And that was something that really bothered me. A secondary thing that really bothered me, which usually ended up going hand in hand, was when people would cut corners because of whatever reason they had. They would cut corners, and they wouldn't, they wouldn't give that project or that customer or that simple task, they wouldn't give it a hundred. They would, they would give it a, a fifty or less.
**Unknown:** And that really, really bothered me because my motto was, how you do anything is how you do everything. If you are gonna cut corners here, then you must be cutting corners in a lot of other places. And this was somewhat rooted in my experience as a waitress. Um, first of all, one of my values is experience.
**Unknown:** So this-- I didn't know this at the time, but this is a personal value, not a company value or a family value. Experience is one of my personal values. So when I was a waitress, again, I didn't know this, but I was fully embracing that value, and the reason being is because it didn't matter if I was having a good day, a bad day, if I felt like crap, I gave a hundred. And that is because I wanted to make sure that the people sitting at the table were having an amazing experience.
**Unknown:** Because at the end of the day, you don't know the story. You don't know if these people go out to dinner every single day, and it's just a average day for them. You don't know that if maybe there's a couple sitting in front of you, and they are on their last leg about to get a divorce, and they are out trying to rekindle their romance in order to stay together. You don't know if these people are dirt poor, and they saved up for an entire year to come out to that dinner.
**Unknown:** You don't know. So how dare I, as the, the experience curator, bring my bad day to the table, bring my stomach ache to the table and ruin their experience? That's not fair. That's not okay.
**Unknown:** And that's just, that, that is just a value that I s- I stand behind. That is a value that is very, very, very important to me, and I want the same in return, which of course can piss you off when you don't get the same in return. So when I created my business, I wanted the same thing for my customers. I wanted them to have the best experience possible, and it-- like, because especially it was my name on the line, it was absolutely fucking enraging if someone was going to cut corners and not give them that experience they deserve because they're having a bad day or they had a fight with their partner.
**Unknown:** Like, th- you don't bring that to the table, and that was, that was a rule, an unspoken rule that I had in my business. And what I mean about unspoken is that I didn't necessarily say, "Here is one of the values of our company, and if you violate this, one, it's gonna create a l- a, a lot of problems, and two, y- you're, you're grounds for termination because you're not a fit for this culture." So when you think about this, some of this is happening in your house already, in your family. Like, your kids know, like, "Don't do that in front of Mom. Don't say that in front of Mom." But they don't know why.
**Unknown:** They don't understand the deeper meaning, the deeper understanding behind it. You might not even know the deeper meaning or deeper understanding behind it. You know that when your kids do this or your husband does this or your wife does that or your mom does this, that it really ticks you off, but you don't necessarily know why. And that's the beauty in values is that you start to understand why certain things are a hard no for you, why certain things are a heck yes, why certain things are gonna piss you off, and why certain things are gonna light you up and give you energy.
**Unknown:** It gives you-- the-- you have all the feedback in your current life, in your current environment. It's just reverse engineering it to understand it. Then the beauty of it is when you're able to understand your own personal values, also your partner understanding their values, and then coming together to create family values, which really at the end of the day is just an aligned parenting technique and also an aligned communication and working together technique as partners. Because if you understand how both of you think, you understand how both of you operate, then you're able to come together with a customized way of doing things, a customized way of communicating, a customized way of structuring your day, your week, your month, your year.You have a better idea of what vacation will serve everyone, opposed to, "I wanna do this." "No, I wanna do this." You have a better idea of what type of curri- extracurricular activities your kids should be in, what type of school you're gonna choose, what type of food you're going to feed your family.
**Unknown:** Like, it, it takes the questions out of everything. It takes the fighting out of everything when you have this level of clarity. And also, let's be real, we all have heard the term good, good cop, bad cop in a parenting situation, and that's because kids will prey on the cracks. Because you and your partner, chances are you have a different set of values, but you've never actually brought the values together to see where the overlap is and to see how that formulates a parenting structure or methodology.
**Unknown:** So now, your kids will see where mom says yes and where dad says no, and vice versa, and they're going to then prey on that, and they're going to leverage it. And then they're gonna leverage it to the point that you guys are, are... the turmoil is between the two of you as partners. It's not, it's not between the kids.
**Unknown:** "Why did you allow them to do this, and why did you allow them to do that? And why did you say yes? Why'd you say no?" And it's because you've never actually had the ability to understand each other's values and to come together as to how does that play a role in how you communicate and align with your kids. I feel very fortunate that I did a lot of this stuff prior to having Q because now that I work with so many families, I see the, the ripple effect, and it doesn't...
**Unknown:** it's not once the kid is born and older and, and has, you know, has a voice and an opinion. Like, this starts, like, the, the, the conflict starts in the pregnancy. The, "Oh, I wanna do a home birth." "No, no, no. What are you, crazy?
**Unknown:** We need to be in a hospital in case something bad happens." And like, you know, oh, breastfeed, bottle feed. Who's gonna stay home? Who's not gonna stay home? You know, nanny, daycare, m- mom and dad, grandparents come over, like, watch the kid.
**Unknown:** It, it's like, literally, once you have the kid or the pregnancy, that's when you really see the alignment or misalignment between two individuals. Because when it's just the two of you, you know, we can... we can sugarcoat things a little bit. We can spend more time apart.
**Unknown:** You know, we have more of that time and freedom. You could sweep some things under the rug, like no big deal. You know, I'm just gonna let that, let that be, and I gotta go to work. But it's when the kid is in the mix, you see all the cracks in the communication.
**Unknown:** You see all the misalignment in your values. And so it's just a feedback mechanism. It's not to say, "Oh, this person is bad for me," or anything like that. It's an opportunity.
**Unknown:** Every challenge is an opportunity. And so that's really the beauty of it is if you can understand your own values, you can radically change how you show up in all of your relationships, especially your romantic relationship. And then if you're able to leverage the understanding of your own values in order to then curate what does it look like inside of our family, then you're gonna not only have a, a lot better of communication with your children as well as your partner, but you're also going to be able to have a lot less chaos because decisions are being made that are aligned, and you know why they're aligned. It's not, it's not the idea anymore that someone is...
**Unknown:** um, sacrificing is not the right word. It's not that someone i-is having to bend or someone i-is having to, um... what is the right word that I'm looking for right now? You guys know what I'm saying though, is it's a matter of, you know, you guys are making decisions that are aligned, and it's no one feels defeated.
**Unknown:** No, not one person feels like, "I'm just gonna do it your way," which, you know, we call demand relationship, which that shit gets real old, real quick. So the moral of the story is, is that there is actually, for those of you that are entrepreneurs, for tho-those of you that have been in corporate models, you can actually take a lot of wisdom away from what you've observed and what you've experienced in those models. You know, in corporate models and, and properly run entrepreneurial businesses is there's a lot of meetings. There's a lot of meetings that, with very specific frameworks and very specific structures in order to get everybody on the same page, for everyone to know what they're responsible for, for everyone to know what they own.
**Unknown:** And then, of course, there is someone directing the whole thing that's making sure that everybody's accountable and everyone's producing. Imagine running a household like that. Imagine running a household where everybody knows exactly what they own, and they know that they're accountable to that, and they're required to actually show that they have produced results. They've produced outcomes with the thing that they own.
**Unknown:** You know how many times I hear it and I see it is, "Do the dishes, do some chores, do this, do that." This could be to your partner. This could be to your kids, and, "I'll just do it." But what if you... like, you don't do that at work. You tell somebody to do something, and then you're like, "I'll just do it.
**Unknown:** I'll, I'll do everybody's job because they don't wanna do it." You don't do that.You, you literally will give them feedback and say, "You better do this or this is your consequence." But of course, when we're doing things in a strategic way, this isn't about threats, especially you're not, like, kicking your kid out of the house per se. But this is about strategically approaching it so they understand why this is something that needs to be done. And at, at the end of the day, you know, there are consequences. So if you don't wanna do anything, and mom and dad have to do all of these extra chores, guess what the weekends look like?
**Unknown:** They don't look that fun, 'cause mom and dad have to do all these things that you're not willing to help with. So you're gonna be the one who's not gonna go out and have fun and do X, Y, and Z because mom and dad are too busy doing this. It... So the...
**Unknown:** y-y-there's a lot of ways that you can, you can go about this so that your child is more willing to be accountable to it as opposed to just saying, "Oh, we're gonna kick you out of the house if you don't do this." So again, look at the things that you feel like have really, uh, that you've really valued inside of, of, of a work environment or you've really seen move the needle in, you know, in your entrepreneurial business. And obviously, if, if you're like, "Oh, my entrepre- entrepreneurial business is a shit show," then, you know, you should, we should work on that. But really, at the end of the day, it starts with understanding your own values first because if you can understand your values inside and out, you can have more strategic conversations with your partner on how to align your values, and it makes sense. It's, again, it doesn't feel like one person has to compromise, that both of you can come together and say, you know, "I operate this way for this reason.
**Unknown:** I spend money in this way for this reason. I s- I like to spend time doing this for this reason." And you know, you bring it together, you are able to align, and then you cascade that. Remember too, and i-if you ever had a boss that came to you really unprepared, really, like, flustered, confused, unprepared, you're like, "Mm, okay. Good talk, man," and you don't take it seriously, and you definitely don't necessarily act on it, and there's no, uh, there's probably no positive outcomes that come.
**Unknown:** So for you to constantly have conversations with either your partner or your kids that are out of frustration or unstructured, you know, you don't have your exact bullet points to make your point. You don't have the, the bullet points of this is what's going on, this is what I need you to do, call to action, and this is how you're gonna be accountable to it. Okay. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. See you later. If... When you approach it from that perspective, they, they're like, "She ain't messing around.
**Unknown:** He ain't messing around." Like, all right, like I, I better, I better listen. This conversation was a lot different than in the past when, "Oh, I can't believe you didn't empty the dishwasher again," and da, da, da. So you can be very, very strategic in how you communicate that you get taken more seriously, and not to say that you don't get taken seriously. It's just your tone, your confidence, your presentation, it makes a difference.
**Unknown:** This is why people spend years and a lot of money to become great public speakers because you don't, y-you don't just wing it. It-it's a, it's a practice. It's an art. In order to speak in a way that people listen, to speak in a way that people take action, it's, it's an art, and really, as parents, we should be mastering that art.
**Unknown:** We, we shouldn't just be winging it, and that's, and that's one of the biggest lies I think that is out there is that you just wing it as a parent. You know, it-it's, it's funny because, you know, people love to share when you're pregnant or having a kid. They love to share all of the, "Oh, just wait for this," and, "Oh, my gosh, this," and this age, and, "Oh, my gosh," and, and I just took everything with a grain of salt. I'm like, okay.
**Unknown:** And I don't find any of it to be true, my truth. And, and I, and I tried to think about it like, why? Are we that different? Are we that weird?
**Unknown:** And I think it really comes down to the fact that I'm running my family like I run a business, not to say that that means I'm stringent and I'm the CEO of my house. It's just I'm using, I'm using strategy, I'm using tools, I'm using structure. And to some people, when you say that on a high level, it could sound really strange, but we just have regular rhythms in our house. We have rhythms of Nick and I have a meeting.
**Unknown:** We don't... You know, Q's still really little, but it's like if he was older, we're not gonna have a meeting with a child until we meet, so then we're on the same page. There's no cracks in it that they can take advantage of, and then you cascade that message down. It's the same thing that would happen in a management.
**Unknown:** You know, director and, and, and superior, they're having a conversation, getting on the same page before anything is cascaded down to any of their employees. It's, it's about that alignment. And so, you know, we're making sure that communication is key. We're making sure that we are understanding our values.
**Unknown:** We're also making sure that we're not just subscribing to, like, what is normal because we make every decision based off of our own personal values and our family's values, and we also decide how we are going to spend our money and invest our money based off of our values. So, you know-Things that we spend money on, other families can look at us and think we're fucking crazy. But I can also look at other people that spend money on toys and things and, you know, that I think is crazy. Like, you know, we experience, as mentioned, is, is important for me, but adventure is really important to Nick.
**Unknown:** So we realize that adventurous experiences coming together are very valuable for our family. So if we're gonna go on a vacation or a weekend trip, we wanna make sure that there's that beautiful balance. There's gonna be adventure, so something with nature, if it's gonna be a beach, if there's gonna be hiking, if there's gonna be a, a mountain skiing, snowboarding, whatever. But then there's also the experience that I can go have a fancy meal if I want to.
**Unknown:** I can go do a little shopping if I want to. You know, we, we find places that have that beautiful blend. Like, how cool is that when you could be so hyper-specific on how you curate a vacation, how you curate a weekend getaway that both people are being served, and then in turn, the kids are being served because you're essentially curating and cultivating their values. So the moral of the story is, is that understand your personal values, and it's n- it, it's, it's a work in progress always.
**Unknown:** You don't... You could always question your values. You could always feel like your values evolve. That's totally normal.
**Unknown:** But you should be able to remember them, and you should be able to remember your values because they, they are you. They are who you are at your core. So people, I feel like, do these exercises, and then I'm like, "What are your values?" And I do it on purpose. "Hold on, let me get my paper." No, no, no, you shouldn't have to get your paper.
**Unknown:** You should know at least your top value. Otherwise, keep doing it until it's, like, a no-brainer because you know exactly what your values are because they're you. They're your essence. Start to understand your own, and then be able to get to know your partner's, and then come together.
**Unknown:** What does this look like? What does the fusion of these look like? What are the things that are gonna be the most important for us as we raise a family? You know?
**Unknown:** And if there's two values that are completely unmatched, you do have to figure out what the middle ground is, you know? For a person who's like, "I really value health, wellness, nutrition, and I wanna spend money and time and effort on that," another person who's just like, "I don't... I could care less what I eat," you know, that could create some significant stress. And so it's a matter of, like, you know, how do we meet in the middle with this, and let me get to know a little bit more, what is your idea of health and wellness?
**Unknown:** Here's my idea of health and wellness. What's your idea of health and wellness? And that person might be like, "Oh, well, I think it's all about exercise. I think it's all about physical activity." Okay, great.
**Unknown:** So definitely want to make sure that we're incorporating that, but then also, you're only gonna be able to maximize your physical activity if you're eating foods that nourish your body and fuel your metabolism and also fuel your, you know, muscle recovery. So, you know, are you okay with creating that balance? Are you okay with, you know, making sure that we're going to be bringing things into the house that are creating that benefit so that we can get the most out of our physical activity? And it's like, "Oh, okay, that makes sense.
**Unknown:** I never thought about it that way." So opposed to being, like, my way or the highway, you know, you're able to have an open dialogue to really understand. 'Cause some people will say, like, "I don't care about this," and like, "That's a stupid way to spend money," but it's because maybe n- someone has never really opened their eyes to the value of it or, or that. Like, there are a lot of people that grew up eating complete shit food, but then when you really talk to them, they feel like shit. They have headaches all the time.
**Unknown:** Their gut is a mess. Like, they feel like they're, quote-unquote, "getting old," but they're, like, 30. You know, their, their joints are a mess, and this and that, and they're like, "I had no idea food would cause these problems. I thought this is just genetic, or this is old age." So, you know, sometimes there is an oppor- opportunity to grow together, um, because both people have completely different sets of wisdom and knowledge.
**Unknown:** All right, guys. Lot to digest. I hope this was of extreme value to you. Start with your values.
**Unknown:** Get into your family values. And don't forget that having structure inside of your family and inside of your household, it, it's not that you're, you know, a super stringent type A person. This is actually the key to having a family that has a lot more fun and a lot more freedom because their time and energy is not getting sucked up by chaos and fires and issues that need to be dealt with. So there is a lot of magic in creating this structure and understanding your family.
**Unknown:** We thank you so much for being an avid listener of Integrative U Radio, formerly known as Integrative Wellness Radio. We appreciate all of your support. We love your comments. Please visit us on social media as well as our website to see all of the fun things happening behind the scenes and the new amazing content and courses that is being rolled out on a monthly basis.
**Unknown:** We hope to see you there.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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