How Melissa Smith Saved Her Marriage & Built a Mission-Driven Family Brand

We took some of my husband's business frameworks that he uses to help people build their brands and get clear on who they are and their messaging. We kind of took his frameworks, modified them for our family, and created what we called a family brand. Then people started asking us, well, Chris started talking about it all the time because he thought it was so cool what we had created, and then people started saying, 'Well, how do you do that? We would love to do that.' So it's bringing the same intentionality that people do to their business—mission, vision, values, culture—and bringing it to your family.

Thank you. We loved connecting with you, having you and Sam at the retreat. You guys added so much, and I'm so excited to talk with you deeper today.

I think a lot of times, families can be a little bit lonely sometimes. Raising a family, of course you hopefully have people in your neighborhood that you connect with and moms you connect with, but I think collectively as families, it's been so inspiring to see other families come together in a really intentional way where they're really focused on working on the big vision for their family. Just to be in community with other families who, like at the couples retreat, most of them were entrepreneurial couples who are running businesses but also focused on their relationship and on families. It's just really cool to bring those types of people together and have conversations that you might not be having with your neighbor, or you really have to intentionally create them. So I love creating a space where people can do that.

It has been a journey. I could go into a long story about it, but long story short, it was mostly a vision for our own family of how do we want to show up in the world? What do we want to create for ourselves? My husband Chris and I, we've been married 20 years now, but when we had been married four years, we found ourselves separated and really headed towards divorce. We were talking seriously about why our marriage was not going to continue. We ultimately decided that we were going to stay together, and we weren't going to just do it for the kids. We really wanted to make it work and create a beautiful life together, and felt like that was the right move for us. So this family brand idea was kind of like, okay, how do we create an intentional family, create an intentional life together, because we had kind of just been going through the motions and that had led us to where we were. So we realized we needed to do something different. Then as our kids—we had two little boys at that time—started getting older, we realized we want to hand our boys a different narrative than maybe what had been handed to us. We both have wonderful families, but some challenges had been, like my husband has lost two brothers to addiction and suicide. We realized we want to give our kids a different narrative than, 'This is what it means to be a Smith.' What does it look like to be a Smith? We don't want to just absorb anything that has just happened; we want to really write the narrative for our family. So again, long story short, we took some of my husband's business frameworks that he uses to help people build their brands and get clear on who they are and their messaging. We modified them for our family and created what we called a family brand. Then people started asking us, well, Chris started talking about it all the time because he thought it was so cool what we had created, and then people started saying, 'How do you do that? We would love to do that.' So it's bringing the same intentionality that people do to their business—mission, vision, values, culture—and bringing it to your family, because your family, I believe, is the most important place where you can do this. But often we don't even think that it's an option; it doesn't even cross our minds.

Yeah, that part of the brand. Yeah. That has been the most wild and unexpected journey. I'm going to get emotional about it because it's been so challenging for me personally as a woman to step into this, and confronting, and also just beautiful watching the whole thing unfold. It has just been wild because at the time when we first started talking to people about this, we hosted a workshop to kind of kick it off. At the time, I had stepped out of a career in nursing and I was just stay-at-home momming my five little kids. So to step into this entrepreneurial space where I'm speaking and inspiring and leading was wild. Another interesting part about it: speaking authentically, my husband does that professionally and he has for years, and he is so gifted at speaking and leading. It has just come so naturally to him. It's been so interesting to compare myself to him and how he does it and how he leads. But being able, over the last five years, to step into my own way of doing things and realizing the way I lead and the way I speak is going to be different than him, but it's going to be me and it's going to be authentic to me. Realizing that's how it should be. The world doesn't need a female version of my husband. The world needs me and how I lead in my own unique ways. It's been so beautiful when I look back to see my own growth and my own development over the last few years.

Yes. Let me add something to an earlier question that you asked about family brands. One part of the story that I left out is very early on I had this moment. This is actually interesting because it involves someone that you and I both know. I was listening to a podcast, and I think we had done like one workshop for families and that was all. We kind of decided, 'What do we want to do something with this? Do we not?' So I listened to this podcast, and on the podcast was this man who was a friend of ours, his name was Spence Tagert, who is De's brother-in-law. On the podcast, he talks about how when we're praying, we should ask God, 'How can I build your kingdom?' and how that is such a powerful question. I really took that to heart and realized a lot of times in my life I'm asking only about me, like 'What's good for me and what's good for my family?' which I think is a good question, but hearing that from him and thinking, 'Okay, how can I build God's kingdom? Would me going all in on this idea of family brand—which is what we had started calling it—is that my next move? Is that what you want me to do, God?' So I started praying, 'How can I build your kingdom?' One day I really felt like I had this—I didn't hear a voice or anything like that—but I felt so clearly in that moment that my next move in life was to leave nursing, because that was the question I was pondering: 'Do I keep going with nursing? Do I go all in on this new idea about this family brand thing?' I felt so clearly the answer was, 'Build my kingdom by building families.' I thought it was beautiful too. But then I was like, 'Okay, I can do that. I don't feel equipped. I don't necessarily feel qualified. But if that's my next thing and that's what you want me to do, I'm down. I'll do it.' So going back to your question about building confidence, I feel like so many times in the journey I didn't feel like I had the confidence, but I was like, 'Am I willing to open my mouth? Am I willing to try? Am I willing to be in service to families?' For me, a lot of that has looked like just being in action: launching a podcast and being willing to open my mouth and do the thing even if I don't feel ready. Maybe it's launching the coaching program or putting—I still struggle with this one—putting the reel out on Instagram even if it's not perfectly polished. But I realize the more I do that, and it takes some trial and error and it's not always a home run, the more I do that, the more confidence I feel.

Another journey, my personal expansion if you will, is when we started Family Brand, my husband and I were doing it together. I was so scared. I even remember we were trying to build a website and I wanted him on every single call with the developer. I'm like, 'I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do.' I'm sure other women can relate to that. Basically, I wanted him by my side at all times to help me think through it and make decisions. As time went on, Chris, in a very kind and loving way, was like, 'Melissa, you were meant to lead this. This is not my thing. This is your thing.' I'm so emotional today, sorry, but I'm just going with it. I was so reluctant because I felt like, 'No, this is our thing. This is our thing.' He kept going back and being like, 'Melissa, I never received that prompting, that calling, if you will, from God to build families. This is your thing. You are meant to lead this. You are the face of this. This is your gift and talent.' So it's been interesting, me starting out being like, 'No, I just want to be in the background. I just want you to be the face, you be the voice,' to me realizing, 'Okay, I think that maybe I am meant for this. Maybe this is my thing.' So as it stands today at the day of recording, he has kind of stepped back into his own business, and Family Brand is mine. I get to make the daily decisions. I call him in whenever I want him to be on a podcast episode or host a retreat or whatever. But it's just been so beautiful to trust that I can do this, that I can expand in this way that I did not feel was possible. As I've continued to do it, I've realized a bigger vision for myself than I ever saw at the beginning.

That's a good question. I have a friend who she said she kind of prides herself on being a good friend and she's like, 'I've always had friends.' She was telling me one day, she's like, 'You'd be surprised how many women reach out to me and ask me how do you do that? I don't feel like I have a lot of friends or I don't know how to be a good friend.' I feel like I can totally relate to that. All of us can. Even now, I've moved a lot over the last four or five years. So I think that's been a little bit challenging too, when you're in a new place and making those new in-person connections. But I think it always involves you getting outside of what feels comfortable and putting yourself out there. Maybe that's inviting people over. When I moved—I lived in Gilbert for forever, and at the end of 2020 we moved to Hawaii for a year—I had a friend who told me when I was moving, she had moved a lot and she gave me some great advice. She told me, 'Number one, claw your way in and assume that everyone wants to be your friend.' I thought that was really profound: just claw your way in there, just like 'I'm going to be there,' and assume that everyone wants to be your friend because why wouldn't they? I would repeat those things in my head over and over again when I was in a new place.

To your point, it's just having that belief that they want to be with me and I have something to give. Another thing that I've noticed with connections is just asking open-ended questions: 'Tell me more about your life. Tell me more. Can you share with me an experience that you've been through?' That's really how you cultivate these connections, and they're not just surface level, but you can actually make deeper, longer-lasting friends and connections that way.

Yeah, I love to give just a high level view. So, one thing—kind of what we do for families inside of the Family Brand Academy is we help them, as I mentioned before, develop core values for their family that they can live by, create a vision for their family, talk about culture and creating intentional culture. We help them create their family values. When we initially created our Family Brand programs, we would do a little bit of education with families and then we tell them, 'Okay, go create your family values,' which totally worked. But there were a lot of times people or families would come back a little bit...

Confused like, 'Well, I don't know which values to choose.' And we're kind of arguing about which values are most important. It was just confusing and sometimes discouraging for families. We're like, 'Okay, can we streamline this process a little bit more? Can we create a system to help families develop their core values?' So we found this really cool research that talked about strong families. All the research was done in a 34-year study with 24,000 family members. It was a really big study on strong families. Most of the research around families had been done about why families fall apart or the dysfunctions of family. I love that this study decided to look at the opposite and focus on strong families and what they all have in common. A couple of things I would highlight from the study that we now encourage our families to create family values around: strong families prioritize their family. That probably sounds obvious, but sometimes when we ask a family to really look at this, they say, 'Okay, strong families prioritize family. How are you prioritizing your family?' It's easy to see that we are really busy. When is the last time we had a family meal together or unstructured time together? How are we prioritizing our family? That is one area where we recommend a family starts looking at your calendar and even your bank. If it's a busy entrepreneur, we say look at your bank and your calendar. Where are you spending your money and where are you spending your time?

Totally. A lot of times, again, a busy entrepreneur will say, 'But I'm doing all this for my family. I'm missing the games, the dinners, everything, but I'm doing this for my family.' I always like to challenge that and say, 'But do you think your family would rather have you around more? Is it really for your family?' Really pushing back when that comes up, because it's easy to do that. You do have to have money to survive, but I think at some point it becomes more than just doing it for the family for some people. It's more like this never-ending rat race cycle.

Yes. The other one I would highlight is strong families communicate. They talk about little things and big things. They have this open dialogue and communication. The family value we have around communication is 'Smiths can talk about anything without judgment.' It's a challenge as you're raising kids to keep that open, judgment-free dialogue going sometimes, but that's really important for family culture. Creating a culture where everyone feels like they belong and have a voice. A lot of that comes back to communication and how you're talking with each other.

Yes.

I think for me, it's been important to... because how I tend to naturally react in those settings is I leave and replay the whole conversation over and over. I think, 'Should I have said that? Maybe I shouldn't have said that.' But I always come back to trusting myself. I think a lot of it comes back to trusting myself to know that I know what to say. I trust that I will deliver the words and the message that is meant to be delivered in that moment. I don't nitpick myself and realize that maybe I will say something that wasn't the best thing to say, but I trust myself to know that I will say what I feel called to say. That has been huge for me. It comes down to realizing and speaking your truth.

Yeah. I think it's always in the back of my mind that I can't, or I don't want to, build this business at the expense of my family, because that's the whole point of this family brand business. So it's very top of mind that it has to be done in a balanced way. But it is hard. When I say balance, I don't think it's ever actually balanced. Sometimes I lean too hard towards, 'Wow, it's been three days. I really should check my emails.' Other times it's, 'I have a call. I'm going to have to miss the first 30 minutes of your baseball game.' It's never perfectly balanced, but it's always at the front of my mind that I'm striving to give my best to my family and give the best to my business. Giving the best to my business also looks like developing me. At the end of my life, I want to feel good about both: that I gave everything to my family and also that I really went for it for myself and my business.

Yes. When we moved to Hawaii for a year, it really opened my eyes to a different understanding of consciousness, mindfulness, and spirituality that I had not explored before. That was such a gift that my time in Hawaii gave me. We were there for just a little over a year. When I was living in Hawaii, I happened to be living just up the street from a building called the North Shore Silent Meditation Garden. I was always very curious about it. As I researched it, I realized you can make an appointment for yourself. They only let one person there at a time. It's a beautiful one-acre property overlooking the whole North Shore of Oahu. You make an appointment, they open the gate for you, you're not allowed to ring your phone, you come in, they close the gate behind you, and you're there for an hour. At the top of the hour, they open the gate and you leave. So I started making appointments for myself. I would go for just one hour every week when I could. It was so crazy to watch my own growth during that time, my own spirituality, being able to sit. I would usually bring my journal and maybe a book. I was either sitting in silence, writing in my journal, or reading a high-vibe book called 'The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success.'

Yeah. So good. I realized that in today's busy world, I don't ever allow myself space to just sit and be. What a gift that was to realize that I can do that. What came out of that was that I could hear communication. I was more connected to a higher power or God, or I don't know what it was, but it was just so interesting and beautiful. From there, I realized I want to give my kids the opportunity to have this more often too. I've tried to continue that practice. I haven't done as well coming back, but an example with my kids: a couple of Sundays ago, I was staying at my parents' house for the weekend. Chris was out of town. I took the kids out in their backyard. They have this beautiful backyard in Arizona. The orange trees were blossoming, the birds were singing, and it was just so beautiful. I said, 'Hey, let's sit outside for 10 minutes. Let's just sit outside.' I gave them all a piece of paper and said, 'Let's sit out here and just be still and quiet.' I think I got this from my sister-in-law, asking this question: 'Hey, what's something right now I should know? What's something I should feel? And what's something I can do right now in this moment or in my life right now?' They just sat there and thought. Some of them took notes. Some weren't really feeling it, so they didn't. But I was providing them the opportunity to be still and listen.

Never. It's so filling. I felt like it healed me not just spiritually, but physically, mentally, emotionally. I came back recharged, like, 'Okay, I've got this. Life is great. I'm so blessed. Look at this beautiful world we're in.' You have that moment to refocus and reenter. I think so many people think refocus and reenter means go harder. It's really not. It's take a step back, sit in silence, hear what your soul and consciousness are trying to say, and then take that and apply it.

Thank you for this question. As you so beautifully expressed, we had two days at this resort. It was my vision to do something different for the last dinner, but it felt like a stretch because it was so different from our prior days. My husband Chris team ropes, which is a rodeo event. When we lived in Hawaii, he had the opportunity to rope in this outdoor covered arena on the hill, really close to the resort. I had the thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool to host a dinner there?' I called them up, and they agreed to let us host a dinner there. It's very country, though. I was a little nervous about people coming from this lush resort experience to a dirt arena. But I also thought the North Shore is such a beautiful place with the most beautiful people. I really wanted to bring some of those people to this dinner. I thought it would add so much to the overall experience. The North Shore locals don't actually love the fact that there are resorts there. They kind of frown on additional development. They're tucked away. I thought, 'This resort is beautiful, but this is not authentic North Shore. I want to give these people authentic North Shore.' So I hosted at that arena. Then I thought, 'Who else could I invite to make it really North Shore and magical?' I basically brought all of my favorite things to the dinner. I thought, 'Who's my favorite place to eat on the North Shore?' I had them cater. It's called Wicked High Pizza. They ended up catering. Then my favorite photographer, who does beautiful work and is such a deep and beautiful soul, I wanted her to come take pictures. She's a mom on the North Shore with four cute little boys. She recently lost her mother. It felt like a way to support her. It's sometimes hard to live in paradise financially and logistically. I wanted to support her. Then I wanted leis for everybody. I knew a woman who makes lei po'o, the flower crowns that are traditional Hawaiian. She had made a couple for me for Mother's Day and my birthday. I had taken a class with her. She also lost her mother recently. I wanted her to be able to give leis to everyone. She ended up creating the leis for everyone. Again, it felt like a way to support another super cool local mom. Then I wanted live music. We ended up bringing a local teen who happens to be D's niece. We had no idea she was going to be there. That was her first gig. What a cool opportunity for her to come and sing. She did incredible. We also had a little ice cream shack. Wicked High also does these slushes with local honey. They're just so good. Despite my initial reservations about people thinking, 'I can't believe you brought us to this dirt arena,' it came together in such a beautiful way. It felt authentic and real. I feel like people made deeper connections. That's what inspired me: your ability to bring so many people together to support the community and continue to expand our community. I've been so inspired by the ways you've expanded not only your life and your family's life but reached out to the lives of others and integrated that with what you've built. You're a huge example of a woman expanding and progressing herself in all areas of life. I want to honor you and say thank you. With that, let's leave these listeners with your last golden nugget, your mantra, something they can take with them and say, 'Wow, Melissa Smith told me this, and it has really resonated with me.'

Okay, my last golden nugget. Let me get still for a second. Okay, I'll come back to this. This is actually our family vision statement: 'We believe that you can be who you want to be.' It sounds basic, but I think a lot of times as women, at least for myself, we sometimes get ideas of things we can or can't do, or who we can or can't be. I love the idea that you can be whoever you want to be. Whatever is on your heart, you can achieve it. You have everything you need to be the woman you want to be. Go for it. You can do it.