During the chapter of my life when I had three little kids at home - I had friends. Good ones. I had a family I loved. I had my church.

But what I didn't have was my people.

I didn't have a place where I could ask the personal questions I was wrestling with.

Where I could be vulnerable with the things I was quietly asking myself about who I was becoming, what I actually believed, whether I was doing any of this right…

And then, through a series of rabbit holes, I found a little liberal arts program. 

For the first time in my life, I was in a room with people who were actively searching for truth. And they weren’t just talking about it, they were hunting for it. 

Something in me came alive that I hadn't even known was sleeping.

That's what this week's episode is about. 

Here's a little of what you'll hear:

• Why so many of us feel lonely even when we're surrounded by good people
• The difference between knowing things and actually being changed by them
• The story of a group of MDM graduates who found each other
• What it actually looks like when you finally find your people

I think a lot of you are going to feel something shift when you hear this one.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Where the Clapham Team Got Its Name
• The Story Behind the Mission Driven Mom & Where We’re Going Next
• The root of communication, communion, & community
• Free Upcoming Training - Thursday, April 23rd
• Mothers of Creation - September 26th in Provo, Utah

AI Generated Transcript

Community, the Clapham Team, and Finding Your People

Introduction

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission-Driven Life and founder of the Mission-Driven Mom.

You probably remember 2020 and COVID. It was such a terrible, difficult, awful time that we all went through. We didn't see it coming. It came out of nowhere, and before we knew it, we were contained in our homes. We couldn't go places, everything was canceled, and there was nothing we could go out and do.

It was so hard. And during that time, we had launched the MDM Academy and the Mission-Driven Mom just a year or two before. So we had a Facebook group at that time, and I just decided I'm going to get on and go live every morning. So we got on and we went live, we talked every morning, we did our gratitude together, we talked about different things that were going on in our lives, and we supported each other through that time.

The Mothers of Vision Event

That experience helped me know that we really needed to continue doing our MDM celebration, and so we concocted a plan to do it online and it worked great. A lot more women could come and it worked out beautifully.

We were able to get a lot of women online, and we had to do it over two different days because there were so many women that we needed to mentor through it. That year was called Mothers of Vision — that was our theme. And we talked all about what it means to have a vision and why vision matters so much for us and for our families. What vision is, the tools for envisioning, and creating a plan around having a vision for our lives. We did a vision walk, all sorts of wonderful things.

And when that was all over, we were just on the cusp of having our Level Three students come through. And I knew that they were going to finish and they were going to graduate from MDM — and then what? What was going to happen after that?

And if you've been following this podcast very long, you know that we have a vision of changing the culture. That we want to walk with moms all the way through their own transformational journey — as they work on themselves, as they work on their families, and as they come to know the needs in their community. And then the Clapham Team is where they work together to have local impact.

And so I shared a vision of being able to change the culture together through becoming the sorts of women who can see the needs in their community, who can be true servant leaders and make a real difference for good, and doing that with each other.

So at that event — at that Mothers of Vision event — I cast this vision that we would have this community of mothers and that they would make a real difference. And if you listened to a recent podcast I did, I talked about where the Clapham Team name comes from, why we're the Clapham Team, and all of that.

The First Clapham Team Retreat

I announced it at the Mothers of Vision event, and the women were ecstatic. They were so excited. This was definitely something that they wanted to be involved in. And so the following year we had our first retreat and we did it here in Texas, actually at a private home. I don't know, maybe about twenty women were there. It was awesome. We got a house that was on a lake, with a large yard and a large home. We trained, we went through presentations, we ate dinners, we played games, we journaled, we self-evaluated, we made plans for our futures, and we did a service project while we were there. And it was so incredible, so beautiful.

And then — as you know, because I recently talked on the podcast about kind of an update on the state of MDM nowadays, and where we came from and where we're going — you know that we went quiet for a time. Because of a lot of factors about how we were running the company, the structure of things, and internal issues. I set it down for a while, and I was rebuilding it on a new platform so that it could always be available for women who had purchased lifetime access in the past. But I wasn't sure what the future held for MDM. I was just going to continue to make it available and work on my own things.

They Never Stopped Gathering

What happened was that because we went quiet, these women — we had done this retreat two years in a row for the Clapham Team, and we had stayed in contact and done some trainings and things like that — they missed it. They missed each other. They missed the friendships, the relationships that they had forged. They missed having this opportunity to be together, to discuss great books, to share things that they were learning, to be lifted, to do a service project.

And so they started doing it themselves. They still do it. Every year they get together and have this retreat. I think they do different themes each year. And the reason that matters so much is because for the first time in their lives, they had found their people.

Many of them had never had friendships at this level of depth and connection. People that they could share conversations with around so many shared ideas and topics. People who wanted what they wanted — who wanted to learn and grow and develop and make a difference, but bring their families on the journey with them. Who wanted to be better women and better mothers and better wives, or whatever their circumstances were. And it was so nurturing and so beautiful that they are just still doing it today. It's incredible. Even though we don't offer it now, we are relaunching the Clapham Team this fall, and we are making plans for that and are really, really excited about that opportunity for everyone who is interested and invested. But this was so needed. It nurtured something so vital inside them that they just still need it, and so they provide it for themselves and for each other.

Communion, Communication, and Community

Now, if you listened to another recent podcast, you might remember that I talked about communion and communication — that they both come from the same root, which means to unify your identities, to really see each other, to really understand each other, to connect on the deepest levels. And another word that is connected to all of those and comes from that same root word is community.

We all need community. And sometimes we have community at church, or friends from high school or college, or neighbors, or people we work with, or the soccer club our kids go to, or whatever the case might be. And those are all wonderful and they all serve a purpose. But many of us lack intellectual, emotional, and spiritual community. The kinds of people who understand what principles are and want to find and live according to them. The kinds of people who know what it means to be in drama and who strive to be a creator instead. The kinds of women who will call us out when we are lying to ourselves, or who will cheer us on when we use our gifts and talents in meaningful ways. Women that we could say, have you read this awesome book? -- and they would want to read it and talk to us about it and find the truth that it contains. Or share podcast ideas, or get involved in a community project together. We all need those kinds of women in our lives.

Finding My People: Audrey's Story

I've told this story often, and I'll tell pieces of it in the training that's coming up. We're doing an encore training in another couple of weeks. There's a link in the description and we would love to see you there.

But I tell this story about my own past and my own experiences. When I had three children and I had all the mommy fog and the brain drain, I didn't have my people. I had friends and they were lovely. I had family and I loved them. But I didn't have a place where I could talk about ideas, where I could ask meaningful questions and other people would try to help me find the answers. Where I could discuss ideas and principles, but also what they had to do with me personally. A place where I could get really vulnerable about what was going on with me and in my life.

And then I found these college courses. I found this liberal arts school. And even though it didn't have all of those components — it wasn't the same richness that we fortunately get to have in the MDM Academy, because it wasn't a place that was just for women and we weren't quite as able to be vulnerable, and we weren't all sharing so many of the same experiences — but it was definitely the first place in my life where people were actively seeking truth.

Now let me just say a little caveat there. This isn't to say that people at church weren't seeking truth. Of course they were. And I had gone to church my whole life. It wasn't that we didn't have really good, meaningful conversations at church, or that we didn't talk about really meaningful, vulnerable, important things — we did. But this group, in these liberal arts classes, we had a shared canon. We had learned the same things. We had a shared language. We were learning some tools for understanding what truth was. We were actively on the hunt, and we were trying to figure out how to make our lives better, and we were doing it together.

And it really was the first time in my life where I truly felt a sense of community around my own personal growth. Where we were on this journey together to not just learn, but to be better people. We didn't want to just read a book to read a book, or listen to a podcast just to do it. We wanted to glean those nuggets of truth and knowledge and goodness and beauty that would enrich our lives personally.

Real Education Is Adult Education

Mortimer Adler said that the only real education is adult education. And he is absolutely right. Because it is not until we really get out into the world and we have some of those big life experiences -- not that we don't have big life experiences as children or as college students, but when we are really trying to navigate life without all those buffers around us and the people around us to help us -- we need answers in a way that is real and relevant and immediate.

And our colleges -- I don't know why they can't learn the lesson that writing for the professor is just not satisfying. It does not change us. It's a knowledge-based system, and knowledge is important -- information is important -- but information alone and knowledge alone cannot make me a different person. And without those deeper questions, without asking meaningful questions and principle questions and interdisciplinary questions, we cannot get at the heart of what's keeping us stuck and how we can move forward.

And without a community that is pushing us along, that is encouraging us and applauding us, but also pushing back when we really are lying to ourselves, or acting like a victim, or in self-deception, or not following the arguments properly, or unclear about someone's worldview, or don't know how to be a servant leader -- those tools and skills and frameworks and practice that we get in the MDM Academy -- without that richness, we are left to kind of flounder. And there are really good people out there teaching us really good things, but we don't know how to weed through all of that without an understanding of the differentiation between the principles and the applications. And the community is what makes so much of that possible.

Layers of Community

You know, our first little community -- we do have a relationship with ourselves. That's a foundation. Our relationship with God and with ourselves is the foundation of all of our other relationships. But our family is really the first community that we truly belong to, and that belongs to us. And if we can infuse our family community with a common language about principles and truth and goodness, and personal growth and life mission, well then that community can be a support system to us all our lives.

I now have people in my life -- in my immediate family, my husband, my children, my siblings, and friends -- who speak so much of this common language with me. And now we can talk about truth. We can analyze current events and parse through some of those principles. We can navigate life more effectively. We can push back on each other. And I've done this with friends, calling them out when they weren't living up to their potential. And they do the same for me. And it is so vital. And it starts with us. If we want that kind of rich family community, somebody in the family has to start it. Somebody has to get those frameworks and start the conversation and infuse the family with that language.

At the Mission-Driven Mom, there are also other layers of community that we're involved with. There are the women who are in the academy with us -- women who are learning the concepts alongside us, along with an accountability partner or an accountability partner group that is walking with you step by step, day by day, activity after activity, journaling prompt after journaling prompt. And there's such an incredible sounding board. You are never, ever alone.

In fact, I'll share something that Cadie said about this. She said:

I found my people when I joined MDM. It's been a place where I've had people to discuss some deep and meaningful ideas and goals with. We all know what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring virtue back into society. It's wonderful to have a soft place to land after you feel like you've been in battle with negativity and a lot of the ugly things that are in this world. You are able to come back to this group of people who really understand you and can nourish you and help lift you back up after a hard day. It's priceless, honestly, to have like-minded people who are in the pursuit of truth, who share the language of principles with you, and who can walk with you on your path to your own personal transformation.

And we don't just say, oh, it's a community because there's a community platform and you can post if you feel like it. No. It is a million times richer than that. We have an orientation meeting. We invite you to find an accountability partner, and there are tactical ways that we help you do that. We have a directory where you can find people who live near you. We have this annual event that you can sign up for and come to each year and meet people in person.

And then there's the mentoring -- another layer of community. People who are just like you and me, but further ahead on the path. Who have made some of those changes, who have implemented some of those principles, and who are achieving a level of success that we can aspire to. They can become our new heroes, our new aspirational identities, the women we want to become like.

And then there's the community around you -- your neighbors, the functions that you go to. And you can lift them. You can be the voice of reason. You can be the one citing the principles. You can be the one who is helping them to walk a better walk toward a more principled world.

The Clapham Team, like I mentioned, is a space where you can do that upon graduation. You're welcome to join the Clapham Team immediately and to begin to be trained and supported as you strive to gather other like-minded women around you and to lift your own community in meaningful ways.

This Transformation Really Happens

There are so many women who have walked this path. I've been inviting some of them onto the podcast in the last few months. You've heard from some of them. You've seen that this transformation really happens, that it really is possible. There are women just like you and me who make these changes in their lives, and the community is a big part of why that's possible.

We are uniting our identities around the truth. We are the truth seekers who are lifting ourselves, our families, and our communities, and bringing them closer to the truth. That liberation happens one mom at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time.

And I want to invite you to become more a part of that, to learn more about how this can be your people. They're not just my people and Cadie's people. They can be your people too.

Closing: Join Us for the Training

And if you want more of that -- if you want like-minded women in your life who are going to encourage you and inspire you and also push back and motivate you -- then again, I want to invite you to come to the training that we're going to be doing and learn more about what all of this means for you. I'm going to give you some good tools and tactics to get you started, and it's absolutely free.

Bring a friend. Start building your community right now by having a friend or a loved one -- a mother, a sister, a cousin, a neighbor, someone at church -- come to this training with you. Start building this language into your life and building a community around yourself so that it can lift you. And together we can lift each other, and we can lift the world around us.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a wonderful day, and I will see you next time.