According to iTunes…
”The NonConformist Family Show is about family life and how it can be radically fantastic. NonConformist Pa Josh Gordon, and NonConformist Podcast Host Andy Traub teach you about the mindsets that will transform your family. By rejecting the boring, template lifestyles that culture pushes, your family gets better. Live intentionally, embrace the mess, and be awesome people!”
But you already know that! Let’s just skip the formalities and dig in!
Episode 1: The Backstory
Overview: Andy and I riff on the details that led up to the formation of TheNonConformistFamily.com. A quick overview of the journey Sarah and I have taken ends up ballooning into a discussion centred around the ‘WHY’ question… basically, it gets SUPER awesome!
Show Notes:
Family Update: Vienna crawls for the first time. Piper puts her first sentence together. Sarah makes a butt-load of applesauce. Josh restructures his biz.
NCF Family Spotlight: Dan and Joanne Miller
Random Show References: Kingdom of Heaven , How to Set Yourself Free, The ‘Wildly Hot’ Fiasco…
AAAAND, Your to-do list:
- Listen to Episode 1 (opens in a new window), or right click the link to download.
- Snag the bonus mini-ebook How to NonConformist Your Family (cheekily sub-titled “Stupidly Hard Questions, btw).
- Subscribe to the show!
Episode 2: What Helped Change Our Life:
Show Notes:- Goin’ to Europe with http://www.theherohandbook.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_College,_Calgary - Highlighted Family – Andy & Sara Traub – 10 ways to ruin your relationships – http://www.andytraub.com/tenways/ The Gordons were so “low” they were willing to listen to different voices (Ramsey, Miller etc). They stopped listening to negative friends who were poo-pooing their dreams. They took steps to get out of debt, spend time with awesome people (sojourners) and embrace the free fall.
Episode 3: Our Goals and When We Shifted Life
We Gordons brush together...
Show Notes:
Family Update:
Vienna teething like a monster… affecting our sleep. Piper’s personality emerging… very sensitive, thoughtful kid… sometimes controlling – not sure if that’s personality of just two year old stuff. J+S: Paleo/Scavenger diet… Josh + Sarah have lost a combined 65 lbs. Josh 42 lbs – not that Sar looked like she had much to lose… she’s just now ridiculously toned. Josh is discovering that he DOES have muscles beginning to show… exciting
http://www.thenonconformistfamily.com/2011/10/21/how-to-set-yourself-free/
http://www.thenonconformistfamily.com/2011/11/20/what-will-my-deathbed-regrets-be/
Highlight: Michael and Claudia Good, from Rise365.com – especially their IDC project. Inspiring a new focus this coming year: defining my fears – making plans to face ‘em during 2012.
Main Topic: When did the turn happen? When we moved: January 2011 – Setting goals – Realized the destination and the journey would be/had to be different. Next January what will we wish we had done? Simplified living – fewer possessions, give away. List Goals 1 – re: possessions 2 – re: travel 3 – re: relationships
GOALS SHEETS –http://www.flickr.com/photos/thenonconformistfamily/sets/72157626844564743/
The point of planning… 10 months in, we’re not on track to reach our goals necessarily, but we’re SO far ahead of where we were when we set our goals:Travel. We’ve decided NOT to go to a few destinations due to other priorities. That being said we’ve learned lots about ourselves and our ‘travel personalities’ (esp. through our 30 day trip to Canada’s north). My Biz. undergoing a fundamental shift right now, actually… 10 months in, I’m re examining myself, my interests/passions/etc and discovering that I’ve left a huge percentage of myself OUT of my business… I’m working to reconcile that now. Relationships yes and no. We have higher quality relationships with a smaller group of people. We’ve chosen to go deeper rather than wider.
Episode 4: Deathbed Regrets
So, this is me (Josh), my wife Sarah, Piper (2 yrs), and Vienna (9 mo)... I admit up front - the kids' cuteness is totally the result of my wife.
Show Notes:
Other family:
Nina Nelson – http://www.ShalomMama.com
Alana and Josh Mokma – investing in other couples… reached out to us w/date night (even though they live in another state) – paid for a tres swanky reservation at a tres swanky restaurant here in Guelph. Us? We’re beginning to look at uber practical ways to support other families…
Main Topic: Imagine your deathbed regrets…
I died regretting never trying to start a business. I died regretting not trying to live internationally. I died regretting not trying to live a life centred around the arts or creative stuff. I died regretting my seeming inability to break out of the cycles of poor financial, health, and lifestyle decisions. I died wondering if I could have done more for the world., if I lived my purpose, if I made God proud.
Your To Do List:
- Block out a 1/2 hr and freeze frame your life.
- Imagine nothing changes between now and the day you die.
- Imagine yourself looking back over your life.
- Ask yourself some questions:
- how do you feel about your deathbed?
- what needs to change today?
- are there patterns in your life you see?
- what are you going to do differently?
Episode 5: Love Notes
Show Notes:
Family update Vienna bruises all over her face… learning to walk, and fall. and hit stuff off her head. Piper learning to bite. dealing with that – how we respond to her outbursts, etc… Sar and I talking about ways to deepen our relationship, challenging each other, supporting one another in our pursuit of our calling…etc.
- SMS – Sucky Messaging Substitute vs. LETTERS (hand written)
- Guidelines
- Be thoughtful when you write.
- Be inventive in how you say ‘I Love you.’
- Point out the little things you like about your wife.
- Use poetry for inspiration.
- ‘alpha male’ discussion..
- “They had successful relationships because they were ‘alpha’ – I’m not alpha. I can’t.”
- excuses…
- wife/gf laugh at me behind my back
- (think I’m a wuss)
- LOTS of ppl taking the challenge…
Episode 6: Goals for 2012
Show Notes:
Family update
Vienna: 4 out of the last 6 nights she has only woken up 1 time. Holy joyous awesome… Piper: Got home from a meeting w/a client and she was by herself in the kitchen grinning away, propped up on a stool, talking to herself, and washing dishes. Is that normal? Sar + Josh: office for Josh has been taking up a lot of our focus. Converting the furnace room into our office. We’re spending a lot of time talking about how to improve our home
Another family we worship
Matt and Karen Langdon (from TheHeroCC.com) – pushing us to be purposeful about planning adventure (esp. through travel). We’re doing a 6-8 week Europe trip with them. They make sacrifices during the year in order to fund their yearly trips.
Main topic
- Setting goals for your family: The Weekend of Coolness and Skulduggery
- What are the themes?
- Less is more – Electronics, meetings, weight, cluttered home, trips to the grocery store.
- Create space – Physically at home, physically in the abs, and in the schedule
- Equipping ourselves – Entertain others,
Overview of format. What our weekend looked like (esp. w/an 11 month old)
General Observations: how we’ve grown since 2011… how the types of goals we’re setting today are different than they were 12 months ago… setting goals for our kids… being really honest with ourselves (esp. me… I don’t always like to admit to myself what I’m thinking)
Episode 7: A Child in the Hospital Changes Everything
I love that shirt I'm wearing. Not near as much as I love my fam, though.
Show Notes
Family update; we’re all pretty exhausted. Vienna: spent 5 days in the hospital with RSV that developed into pneumonia. Basically, she could have died. But she didn’t – which is really fantastic. Piper: spent a week being sick, just before ‘Enna got sick. She’s 98% recovered. Sar + Josh: tired, tired, tired. It feels like we’re smack in the middle of a marathon, and it’s super hard.
- 3 week timeline: Piper gets sick, Vienna gets sick, Vienna gets hospitalized, s*** hits the fan:
- 68% blood oxygen (a healthy reading is 98%)
- super lethargic
- difficulty breathing
- high temperature
- not eating/drinking
- on oxygen, iv within 25 minutes of arriving at the hospital
- x rays (2) confirm RSV developed into pneumonia
- money stuff, too…
Other family http://awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com/Bekah Stewart is a single mom (26 yrs old) with two little boys; she’s been through some ridiculous challenges over the past year (including husband who cheated and left her, and the subsequent separation/parenting challenges). Her blog, A Well Traveled Woman, has been super inspiring to us.While our kids were sick, Sarah and I worked through her entire Tumblr feed (about 800 pages). The type of lifestyle she posts about really resonated with us in a new way – and we’re shifting our direction to reflect that.
- - increase focus on outdoors
- - increased focus on simplicity
- - increased focus on family, relationships, and local community.
http://www.facebook.com/NonConformistPa
Main topic – how the Insanity has impacted our life
- impact on our marriage
- No sex for 3 weeks (longest drought of our 4.8 years of marriage) – has led to some challenging, yet awesome conversations… more on that next episode
- expectations
- communication
- lotsa stuff.
- We’ve had a long period of weird tense-relaxation… our kids have been sick (causing stress), but our life’s ground to a halt, so we’re not doing much. Out of that weirdness, a lot of really interesting conversations have sprung up.
- sort of like another weekend of coolness and skulduggery, actually…
- in the midst of our kids’ illness, we’ve realized that we need a course correct. We’re moving forward (which is awesome), but we need a shift in direction:
- more outdoorsy
- more ‘simplicity’
- cooking great food
- much more creative expression
- open schedule
- not too much $$
- more music
- impact on the NCF
- We feel we’ve hit a new chapter in our lives – and the website will shifting to reflect that… we’ll be re-organizing things, rewriting our about page, etc…
- impact on my work:
- Josh recruited a team of people to help with his contract
- writer, photographer
- Josh diversifying his income streams more
- new style of coaching, beginning to focus on getting my next job
Episode 8: Sex, Intimacy, and other Healthy Things
NCM: my wildly hot wife. Oh, wow.
Show Notes:
Family update:
- Vienna: Walking like a monster, developing a new type of crying… It’s called “The Wide Open Mouth”, or (depending on the context) “The Deep Yawn of Despair”.
- Piper: starting to get into make believe… ball of yarn turned into a kitten, then a scary monster, then yarn again. Phew. Informed us of her decision for a life partner (Angus)
- Sarah + Josh: pregnant
- Other family…. is “the other couple(s)”… anyone in your life who is passionate about marriage, and willing to work really hard. We want to especially acknowledge Shawn + Julie, Andrew + Lauren. Andy? Who is it for you?
Main topic – sex and marriage
- importance of sex… Yes, sex is a huge component; but great, satisfying sex for both husband and wife comes from developing intimacy!
- Sexual intimacy-and the physical pleasure
- Emotional intimacy-and the excitement of romance
- Intellectual intimacy—and the sharpening of minds
- Spiritual Intimacy—and the depth of meaning
- Intimacy is like an iceberg – and sexual intimacy is the part that you can see. Sexual intimacy is like the tip of the iceberg: below the surface are intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intimacies. Josh especially, make the mistake of trying to improve sex alone—it doesn’t work in a sustainable way!
- The answer? Focus on developing intimacy, and the sexual experience will improve automatically!
- care and feeding of…
- It’s super easy to allow the little things to slide, and before you know it, the personal expressions of intimacy that we’d normally share are absent from our day to day life:
- private conversations
- laughing together
- cuddling and having sex
- sharing passionate kisses
- Things we’re committing to do:
- Have the right perspective.
- this morning (and every Sunday) was rough. I (Josh) had to force myself to step outside of the situation to assess what was really going on. Bringing that perspective and presenting it to Sarah was really important – and instrumental to us ‘turning the morning around’
- Talk a lot. Work hard to draw out your spouse.
- ‘How are you doing? Really?’
- ‘What are you thinking about?’
- Hows your relationship with God (funny story)
- How did _____________ go for you today?
- Pray together – bring God into the situation. Remind yourself of his involvement.
- multiple times a day… in the middle of a stressful situation… whenever you think about money… when the kids are being butt heads… etcetera etcetera. Use negative feelings as a prayer-trigger.
- The Prayer Experiment – for provision. Define what you need, and ask God for it all the time. (link to sermon audio)
- Be proactive about being healthy. Sleep. Eat well. Exercise
- Stay encouraged. Read, listen to music, pray.
- Be cautious about what you focus on. AVOID SELF PITY. HUGE TRAP. That will sink your relationship like a freaking stone.
- be intentional about physical affection
- give your marriage the best of you
- keep saying I love you!
- Great resources…
- The-Intimate-Couple.com
- http://www.ercf.ca/index.cfm?i=2203&mid=18&g=4141
- 7 Day Sex Challenge ebook
Pingback: 20 Ways to Make Yourself Awesomer
Pingback: NonConformist Family Show 002 : Part 2 of what helped the Gordons change their life | Take Permission Media Network