A very special guest joins for this episode of Conversations With the Browns. Sophia Grace Brown joins Mister Brown to discuss what it means to ‘Consider Others’, with a few distractions and laughs along the way.

When a tragedy hits like the one that has devastated the community of Uvalde, Texas, it is hard to know how to respond.

We’ve heard all kinds of colorful language being used to describe the 2020 experience. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you look back on the year 2020? Do certain words or themes come to mind? Today, we decided to ask ourselves that same question and see if there was anything positive to look back on.

It is the holiday season of 2020 and gift giving is on everyone’s mind. Today, we take some time to talk about the joy and stress of gift giving. If you are having trouble finding the right gift for the people in your life, listen to this episode.

What comes to mind when you hear the words, “family mission statement”? Do you think of a nice quote up on the wall or a plaque you can buy at the store? You might and that’s okay. Today’s conversation about family mission statements goes a little deeper into the purpose of a mission statement and gives you a 5-step process for developing your own family mission statement.

Today, I caught up with a friend of mine from my youth, Artis Landon. Fitness and nutrition were not always high priorities in our lives. Artis shares his experience of the consequences of poor health and the benefits of fitness, especially as we age.

You probably have some ideas about the differences between introverts and extroverts when it comes to socializing. We tend to believe that being an introvert or an extrovert falls on a continuum rather than fully on one end or the other. Today we talk about one instance where we have found similarities and differences between us. Join today’s conversation between one introvert and one extrovert.

The question, “What is mine to do?” is simple yet can bring clarity and focus to many very nuanced situations. Join us for Part 2 in this conversation about what could be the most important question you can ask yourself.

This podcast episode is a segue from a conversation we had on our last podcast, What is the “Amp Wheel”? In this episode, we wanted to talk more about how the question, “What is mine to do?” can bring clarity to many situations, especially if you feel like you are getting amped up about something.

The term “Amp Wheel” came from one of our first podcast episodes. We were talking about being on the Amp Wheel and someone asked what is the Amp Wheel and how do you get off of it? We decided to explain what we mean by the Amp Wheel and have a conversation about how it affects us when we’re on it.

This is a follow-up episode to our podcast “4 Tips To Help Parents Navigate the 2020/2021 School Year.” In normal circumstances, kids pick up on every juicy tidbit we talk about in front of them. Especially now with the stress and angst of the school year unknowns, it can be easy to express our fears, doubts, and bad feelings out loud and not realize that our kids are hearing every word we say. They are hearing our words and taking on those stresses and attitudes as well. This episode is about how we can best communicate our feelings about the 2020/2021 school year without affecting our kids negatively.  

Whether your kids were attending a traditional school setting or being homeschooled pre-pandemic, you are probably feeling some additional stress this school year. The pandemic is affecting everyone in some way. Were you like us and thought that school would go back to normal this fall? It is obvious that is not going to happen.    

The box is a scary place to be. When we are in the box towards someone we are the one who misbehaves. We make the other person out to be worse than they really are. We look for evidence that backs up the story we are telling ourselves. We must create evidence in order to remain in our self-deception. It’s scary because as hate rises, we know we are not treating people like humans and we do it anyway.

To justify being inside the box, you must continue having your problems with people. It’s drama 101 and if you don’t have the drama, you fabricate it. We easily see this with kids. They don’t want to take responsibility for their behavior, so they will come up with all kinds of excuses for it. Be honest. Do you only see this happen with kids and other people or do you do this as well? Do you need others to behave “badly” so that you can continue to behave badly? 

Self-deception is the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true (dictionary.com). One of the ways this manifests itself is by not doing something we know we should do and then justifying our inaction to ourselves. When this occurs, we start to blame the people around us for the problems we perceive. It’s resisting the possibility that we are part of the problem.

Conversations are rarely ever black and white. There are many shades of meaning and expression that come through when you have conversations. This is called nuance. Understanding the nuance of a conversation will help you to have better and more meaningful conversations.

Social media has made it so easy to stay up-to-date with family, friends, and the latest news. But have you noticed that you keep seeing the same information in your feed over and over again? This episode pulls back the curtain on social media’s closed systems, their purpose, and how to reach outside your echo chambers.

My wife, Andrea, and I stopped our breakfast to have a conversation about the current protests about racism. We are hearing a lot of declarations being made, but not a lot of conversations. In this video, we explain what we mean by that.  

Our favorite conversations often happen at our kitchen table. We started this podcast as a way of inviting more friends to the table. We do not claim to be experts or even to agree on most things, but we would love for you to join the conversation.