We spend our twenties and thirties knocking down goals like bowling pins. We secure the career, buy the house, and start a family. Checking all those boxes triggers a strange realization. We look up and see the path forward i...
For most of human history, cultures relied on distinct rites of passage to mark the transition from childhood to adolescence. Today, those milestones are largely gone. Instead, our kids are thrust into adulthood at 18 or 25 w...
Nine years ago this month, we found out we were pregnant with our first child. We were thrilled, but we had absolutely no idea how much our lives—and our identities—were about to change. Like a lot of type A couples, we prepa...
We have gotten incredibly good at removing friction from our lives. But in the process, we are realizing we've also thrown out the benefits that friction brings. Today, we are talking about Cognitive Patience : the ability to...
We are in a massive season of transition right now. After shifting our family structure and taking on new responsibilities, we are realizing that our old ways of making decisions just don’t work anymore. We used to strive for...
Independence sounds great until it isn’t. A few weeks ago, our kids walked to a neighbor's house alone for the first time. It felt like a triumph. An hour later, Greg was pulling our 4-year-old out of a stranger’s car. In thi...
Happy 2026! We are back from New York and settling into a new reality in Delray Beach. For the first time in four years, our home is "Neufeld Only". We are currently in what we call the "Storming" phase. The routines aren't s...
Why go through the massive effort of building a custom family culture from scratch? Why not just lean into religion or tradition instead of reinventing the wheel? In our final episode of 2025, we open up the mailbag to answer...
We often blame the phone for stealing childhood. But what if the issue isn't just the presence of the smartphone, but the absence of the landline? When the landline died, we lost a major opportunity for growth. We lost the en...
We did something that sounds crazy: We gave our 8-year-old an iPhone 15 Pro. But there is a strategy behind the screen. In this episode, we are exploring a new frontier: Family AI . We believe this is a pivotal moment where p...
This week on The Most Important Thing , we start with a new family favorite game (Sardines 🐟) and end up somewhere much deeper: authority — what it means to claim it as adults and how to submit to it without losing ourselves....
In this episode of The Most Important Thing , we dive into why mastering “the art of disagreeing” is essential for building a resilient family culture and why the phrase “agree to disagree” is officially off-limits in the Neu...
This week, we’re exploring an unexpected (but so necessary!) aspect of family dynamics: trickster energy —a playful, inventive, and boundary-testing spirit that helps us stay adaptable when life feels too rigid. The episode k...
If we’re serious about building resilient family culture, we have to talk about the emotions that actually show up in real homes — and anger is a big one. For both of us, anger has been tricky. We’ve tried to calm it, redirec...
Envy isn’t a character flaw—it’s human. Shrewdness isn’t cynicism—it’s discernment. In this episode, we explore how to normalize envy and develop the important skill of “reading the room,” so both kids and adults can stay kin...
For the past six months we’ve been deeply studying family culture, and we’re more convicted than ever that it’s The Most Important Thing. Top 4 Takeaways Start from strength, not scarcity Most parenting content starts from a ...
When you meet Cliff Weitzman, founder and CEO of Speechify, his magnetism is immediate. He knows exactly where he’s headed, and he’s willing to think harder and work smarter to get there. It’s the same energy that’s made Spee...
We’re kicking off a side quest called Extraordinary Families — stories of real families whose everyday cultural habits added up to something remarkable. This week, we’re diving into the upbringing of Patrick and John Collison...
In the first part of our Mindset Reset series, we broke down common misconceptions about growth mindset and explored how it plays out in the everyday dynamics of family life. Now in Part 2, we’re taking things further by shif...
Mindset isn’t just “fixed” or “growth.” It’s a spectrum—and once you see that, you’ll understand yourself, your kids, and your family in a whole new way. In this episode of The Most Important Thing , we translate insights fro...
Every couple has to navigate how to divide responsibilities, whether it’s managing groceries, handling finances, or aligning on long-term goals. For us, the breakthrough happened when we shifted away from addressing everythin...
TMIT 27: Parenting Gurus and the Business of Anxiety This week, we explore a topic that hits close to home and raises big questions: the booming industry of parenting advice and how it’s built on the back of your anxiety. But...
🎙️ TMIT 26: Sometimes kids run into conflict with other kids. But sometimes kids run into conflict with grownups—teachers, coaches, camp counselors, even random adults in the community. And when that happens, most of us as pa...
TMIT 25 🎙: This week we’re talking about the difference between parenting and building family culture, using a framework from Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson. Parenting is a lot like management—it creates stability th...