Parenting with Purpose. Faith, Boundaries and Real-World Skills with Mick Wienholt

Today’s episode is one that will stay with you. I’m joined by Mick Wienholt. He’s a devoted husband, homeschool dad of four and host of the When You Look podcast. His life has been shaped by near-death experiences, deep faith, unimaginable loss and a commitment to raising grounded, resilient, emotionally connected kids.

Mick and his wife live by a family philosophy they call “raising adults.” It means teaching kids life skills early, giving them meaningful responsibility and seeing childhood as preparation for adulthood, not an escape from it. This guiding belief influences everything from mealtime routines to communication, discipline and emotional development.

Mick shares how faith transformed his life after the stillbirth of their first son, Luke, and how grief became the doorway to a deeper relationship with God. His story is raw and moving and offers so much hope for families navigating heavy seasons.

We also talk about:

• building resilience through structure and connection

• supporting gut health and behavior through real food

• giving kids responsibility in age-appropriate ways

• raising confident communicators

• simple habits that create grounded, capable kids

• faith as a guiding force in daily parenting

• how grief changed everything about how he shows up as a father

• his miraculous survival of a devastating avalanche

• why parents should prioritize their relationship as the foundation for a stable home

This episode encourages you to slow down, zoom out and remember what truly matters. Whether faith is central in your home or something you’re rediscovering, this conversation will leave you feeling grounded and inspired.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Raising adults means preparing kids for real life through small, daily responsibilities.

• Parenting isn’t helicoptering or laissez-faire. It’s situational guidance based on experience and readiness.

• A calm mealtime routine starts with connection, protein first and consistent boundaries.

• Gut health impacts children’s mood, behavior and resilience more than we realize.

• Faith can completely transform the way we parent and show up in our homes.

• Grief can soften us, deepen gratitude and reshape the entire trajectory of a family.

• Kids thrive when parents are emotionally regulated, connected and aligned.

• God uses unimaginable circumstances to bring us closer to Him and closer to purpose.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Connect with Mick: whenyoulook.com

• Listen to the When You Look Podcast

• Download the Calm Mealtime Toolkit

• Follow Lena on Instagram: @lenalivinsky

• Explore holistic picky eating support at lenalivinsky.com

Grab your SIGNALS shake at 10% off with code Lena10

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making significant dietary changes.

Transcript

Lena Livinsky (00:00)
Mick Weinholt is a devoted husband, homeschooled dad of four, three living, and a man whose life has been profoundly shaped by faith, loss, and resilience. Together with his wife, Mick lives by the family philosophy of raising adults, nurturing their children not only academically, but emotionally, spiritually, and Their holistic approach to parenting emphasizes faith, real-world learning, meaningful connection, and the belief that kids thrive when they're guided, not managed.

After the full term stillbirth of their first son, Luke, and his wife experienced a life-changing spiritual awakening that deepened their faith and transformed how they parent and live. He's also a survivor of a near fatal avalanche, a moment that reinforces purpose and belief in divine timing. Today, Mick speaks openly about grief, gratitude, and intentional living. As a father who shares practical wisdom about simplifying meal time, supporting gut health, and helping kids build resilience to structure,

connection and faith. Mick welcome to the Livin' Sky podcast.

Mick (01:01)
Yeah, Lena, thank you so much. It's great to be here, truly.

Lena Livinsky (01:04)
I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I love that you and your wife, homeschool, first of all, this is something I hope to do in the future if I can. And I love that you live by the philosophy of raising adults. Can you share what that means to your family and how that perspective shapes your daily rhythms?

Mick (01:22)
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to share about that. ⁓ It seems like you could really just capture it on a bumper sticker, right? Raise adults, like, I mean, it's so basic. But for my wife and I, we were really struck by that more than two decades ago when we began dating, because we felt like we knew a lot of people that were raising overgrown children and

Lena Livinsky (01:25)
Yeah.

Mick (01:47)
the distinction of instead of quote unquote raising kids, right, to raising adults, this really began to inform us that the whole purpose of parenthood was to help raise up a child from child status to ultimately adult status. And so it just became this kind of guiding phrase for us.

that really then shaped the decisions that we made. And so an example of what I mean by some of those decisions, right, were about wanting our kids to be effective communicators right out of the gates. Meaning like when they have to apologize, let's say to a sibling, they don't look down at the ground, they look them in the eyes. Because that's just a, that's totally a kid thing that you can do, meaning like they don't need to present on some TEDx stage.

somewhere, you know what mean? To practice this, they can just, they can look their sibling or they can look their parent or they can look their grandparent or their aunt or uncle in the eye and just say, you know, I'm sorry, right? Or when they meet a new person that may be friends with mom or dad, and they have to say hi, right? They don't look down at the ground, they just look at them because that's really a basic kind of life skill. And instead of saying to ourselves,

Lena Livinsky (02:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (03:05)
or maybe not even saying Lena to ourselves, but just sort of thinking, that'll work itself out over time. We're like, let's just be proactive and purposeful with these things. Give them enough space in order to be able to learn and grow and stretch, right? But have it not with the expectation that our kids just continue to remain kids, but that they truly do begin to be shaped into adulthood.

Lena Livinsky (03:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's so powerful. So do you feel like with raising adults, do you think that kind of over parenting and telling them like, no, you have to do it this way, that way? Is that something that you guys like to follow? Or did you give them more of like a free rein, where you just guided them in those situations where they needed the extra guidance? is something that you believe?

essentially, the right thing is I just feel like right now we over parent our kids, or we have this like gentle parenting approach, where there's a lot of debate there whether what's really good when you think about like raising adults, where do you fall within that category?

Mick (04:14)
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about that because it's a really interesting distinction that you're talking about there. And a spectrum that has these kind of two ends of like sort of the helicopter parent and then the laissez faire parent, you know, a big guiding factor for us is something that, you know, we both learn, my wife and I both learn in the professional world. And it's this concept of situational leadership. So meaning has my kid been through this before we kind of look at

their experience set to know, do they know how to brush their teeth? Let's just use that as an example. Well, once we've taught them how to brush their teeth, okay, and then we've kind of overseen and monitored their success with that, they're now at a point where we can just simply tell them, go brush their teeth. And we have enough of a routine that they know after breakfast is over, they go and brush their teeth. But if we rewind to the beginning of that process,

it would not be appropriate for us to say to him just going to make this up. A three year old go brush your teeth when they've had no instruction on that whatsoever. Right. So we're very intentional with the understanding and sort of the examination of okay, what are we asking them to do? And then what degree of experience do they have with that? You know what I'm saying? So a new example of this, we have identical twin six year olds, we have a 12 year old

And we have our six year olds fill up the soap thing in the dishwasher every night. Okay. And we had to teach them how to do it, how much it was supposed to be filled. Sometimes it's powder detergent. Sometimes it's the liquid detergent. You know, I mean, like there's stuff that actually goes into it. And we can as parents just simply say, hey, just go do this, right, because they don't have any experience with that. So

That's what's really kind of helped inform us to the degree to which we are more hands off versus the helicopter parent with certain things. And then, you know, I think frankly, by God's grace, we're really blessed that my wife tends to be a bit more of that caring taker and I'm a bit more of the let them go and experience and we do a nice job of blending and balancing each other out with that.

Lena Livinsky (06:25)
And I like that. I think that's important too. And in my family is the same. I'm actually more of like, let him explore and let him just so you don't have to be on top of because I have a son, you have to be on top of him all the time. And my husband, especially when he was smaller, it was just like, Oh, like, don't do this, don't do that. Do this. And I think it's nice to have a balance where they get to explore and learn on their own terms, but also feel like they're they have this caring person or like, just

the safety net behind them in a way so they can kind of like learn both. I think that's important. Well, but that's so interesting. I love your perspective and I think it's nice to hear what other people are doing too. And something that's been working for you guys because I think there's just so much information online of like what you can kind of get overwhelmed with what is the right thing to do.

Mick (06:57)
Exactly.

Lena Livinsky (07:18)
so to hear real life examples of something that's worked for your family, I think that's important. at what age do you feel like kids are able to learn these types of things or take on more of this responsibility where they can do these things for themselves?

Mick (07:32)
Yeah, that's a great question. think a lot of it comes down to what are we asking them to do? Okay. So for example, our six year olds, they're still early in their reading capability, right? Like they're getting pretty solid with it now. But at five, they didn't have the ability to operate independently on certain things. Whereas our 12 year old, for example, absolutely lots of different things. So it really comes down to for us,

Lena Livinsky (07:37)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mick (07:58)
mostly around what is their capability and what degree of experience do they have, you know, thus far with it. And then and then also, and I want to not make this sound like so clinical, right. But we also factor in their their emotional state, you know, like one of our sons, again, they're identical twins, but one of them is much more outgoing, much more of a confident leader than our other son. And so

one of them quite literally wants to hold our hand more than the other one does. And so we kind of have to right size expectations with a lot of that stuff and then also use different language. Like my one son responds a little bit more to you got this and the other one needs more encouragement of you've done this before. We totally know you can do this buddy. Like go get them, right? You know, yeah, exactly.

Lena Livinsky (08:27)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's so true. I, whenever I, I work with a new, a parent working on picky eating, the main part of my frame or the first part of my framework is connection. Because I think once you like really understand your child and you connect with them and you understand their needs and you understand where they are and you meet them there, you, things just shift.

Right? Things just shift without having this expectation. It's like, he's six So he should be doing this, this, and this. Maybe he's not ready for that yet. Or maybe he's beyond that. Maybe he needs more responsibility. So I love that that he said that because I agree with that. You know, kind of really have to get to know your child and lead from there.

Mick (09:31)
Yeah. And let's be honest, right? Parent to parent. That can be really hard sometimes because of the expectations that we bring into that relationship. And for me, sometimes a big thing that I bring in is how I performed or behaved or whatever at the same age. You know what mean? And of course, I can barely remember being a five year old, but I also remembered how to read or knew that I could read at five, you know.

Lena Livinsky (09:54)
Thank you.

Mick (09:58)
And so there were periods of time where I felt like, well, our kids are behind. But then you got to zoom out and go, wait a second, they're not right there. They're just early stages. And then we've done a bunch of practice in terms of the reading, you know, stuff that I was talking about moments ago. ⁓ And they've gained a lot of ground rapidly, you know, so it's it's it's I think it's important for us as parents to examine ourselves in the process to.

Lena Livinsky (10:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Mick (10:24)
You know what mean?

Lena Livinsky (10:24)
yeah.

Mick (10:24)
And see like, what kind of influence do we have here? Granted that it's it's a huge one, right? And what am I bringing into this that is me and really isn't even them?

Lena Livinsky (10:34)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think the milestones are good kind of threshold or like something for us to kind of be aware of. But I think every child develops so differently. So really paying attention to where they are and what their needs are, because one child might learn how to read within, you know, a few weeks, a few days and another child might need an extra year or so. And that's okay, too. Everybody learns differently. So looking for their learning style and looking

to see if they do really need extra support somewhere is important. So I think I agree with you so much. I love that philosophy.

Mick (11:10)
Yeah, think you're spot on too with the varying

degrees and timelines.

Lena Livinsky (11:14)
Yeah, yeah, I've learned that over the years very much so. And I think it can be so stressful when you look at these lists to see like where my child falls, where these lists are honestly like a suggestion almost to me. That's what they are. Like it's good to know kind of what I'm expecting, like when my child should start eating and when my child should start potty training. Like yes, it's good to have, but you know, the average of where that could be happening, it's so broad.

I don't think it's captured well enough in these milestones. ⁓ Yeah. So you lived through some extraordinary experiences that have deeply shaped your outlook on life and on parenting. So before we get into these stories, can you tell us what inspired your family's kind of holistic lifestyle and this intentional way you parent today?

Mick (11:46)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think it's just a man, a lifetime of really seeing things not exactly work out in our own lives, as we had anticipated, and seeing a lot of individual solutions, just really kind of fix a lot of symptoms. And what I'm like a good example of that would be like, Hey, let's just take a Z pack because we're sick.

You know what mean? And just like all this does just kind of target into fixing a symptom. And what my wife and I kind of realized over the years was there's a lot of like underlying stuff that we just didn't even have awareness of. And the more we began to explore if we ate differently, that could literally change a lot of things like a lot of things.

And then moreover, like inside of those discussions and understanding as it grew about food, it really then became a bit more of like a maturity scenario. And I'll give you a quick example. Okay. For whatever reason, I just kind of had this sense in my mid to late twenties that if I continued to eat the way that I was eating, I was going to end up as a type two diabetic.

Lena Livinsky (13:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (13:20)
And there was nothing that like, no one told me like, hey, your A1C is, you know, I'm just gonna make these numbers up 6.8 or something, you know what mean? In your borderline or depending upon the scales that you're using, you know, that's full blown type two diabetes, right? There was never any of that. But I just kind of had this sense of like, you know, I eat garbage, and I eat like garbage. Okay. A classic example of that would be, I had pulled a tombstone pizza out of the oven.

Lena Livinsky (13:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mick (13:49)
OK, and I was opening up a Red Bull. True story, Lena, and my wife says to me, she goes, you're going to be up all night. OK, because this is no exaggeration pre kids. But this is approximately eight p.m. OK, that I'm having dinner and cracking open a Red Bull. And I said to her, I was like, I bet you I'm asleep on the couch in 15 minutes. And that's exactly what happened because

Lena Livinsky (14:06)
Yeah.

Mick (14:19)
I was so, so continually and consistently a consumer of caffeine, that the caffeine receptors were just completely numb to all of that. So caffeine basically did nothing for me. And then from the carbohydrate related, you know, blood sugar issues that I was creating with the pizza and the sugar Red Bull and all that type of stuff, right? There's just basically like just this collapse of my system. It's like,

Lena Livinsky (14:36)
Yeah.

Mick (14:44)
Hey, you've overloaded us. We need to shut everything down to process and deal with all the junk you just put into us. And so that's why I went into the quote unquote food coma. So as we really began to explore more and more of it, it was like, you know what the decisions that I make really impact my overall health. And we began to understand the distinction between fitness

and health and for a long time, we did not understand those. And I eventually felt like I got this clarity, which was that, and I'm going to paint with some broad brushstrokes here, but they're like, fitness kind of starts and ends with what you do with your feet. And health starts and ends with what you do with your mouth. And I later kind of expanded that to, really be health kind of starts and ends with what you consume, right? Because if you're watching garbage and listening to garbage, then you're still bringing garbage in. Even if you're

Lena Livinsky (15:31)
how.

Mick (15:37)
quote unquote, eating clean, you know what mean? But I began to realize from my own experience that there were times when I was very fit athletically, but I was not healthy because I was consuming a whole bunch of junk during that period of time, even food junk, you know what mean? Lots of processed carbs, which were with the intention of being a really high performing athlete, you know what I mean? Protein bars and that type of stuff, right? To get lean. But it's like, wait a second, I'm fit.

Lena Livinsky (15:39)
Yeah.

Mick (16:06)
but I'm not healthy. And then there've been other times where I've been really healthy, but I don't have a lot of fitness capacity. And it's like, well, frankly, that's a little better, right? Because I can always add the fitness capacity when I'm healthy. So then that played out to answer your question into how we began to raise our kids. And we looked at the food that we were eating, and we wanted to continue that for them without the convenience like exclusively of like, hey, it's just going to be, you know, chicken nuggets tonight, because we're kind of worn out.

Lena Livinsky (16:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. And how lucky are your kids that you had this awakening before you had kids, you kind of like start to instill these values and figure it out as they're growing. Because I think there is this like kind of like silent health revolution going on. It's not so silent actually with like the maha movement and everything else, but

Mick (16:35)
You

Lena Livinsky (17:00)
It's something that is just so needed because of how unhealthy the standard American diet is. And then once you like become this guinea pig and you go through these like health issues or you go through this awakening of how things are affecting your body, you know, you can make these shifts. But I love that because I feel like a lot of us have similar stories and I can relate to that so much.

How your kids now that you have a 12 year old, you have six year olds. So like how does this play out in their real life when they go to like birthday parties and everything else? How do you guys handle these types of situations where you can't really control what they're eating or what they're doing?

Mick (17:37)
Yeah. So it's a great question. And for us, practically speaking, we tend not to worry too much about it because that's on the fringe. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's like not even the 10%. That's like the 5 % or less kind of scenario. And so let's just take, take eating as an example. You don't mean they know just from the pattern. And we think patterns are really important. Routines are really important without rigidity to those things. Right. But like,

what we require of our kids. And I'm using require with like a little R here, okay? It's not like you absolutely can't have any of the french fries that are on your plate, right? Until you've eaten, say the protein that's on your plate. But yet you better not have a third french fry. You know I mean? Like meaning what we expect is that they prioritize protein. And then after that, it's like, okay.

you can have all of these other things. Like you got to eat your protein, you got to eat your veggies. And then it's like sky's the limit for them. And the reality is the belly's like already full. You know what I mean? So like ends up not being that big of a deal. And so when they're generally eating well throughout the course of the week and the month, the birthday party, not as big of a deal, especially because, especially for younger kids, right?

Lena Livinsky (18:42)
Yeah.

That'll be cool. Yeah.

Mick (18:57)
there's a lot of activity happening at the birthday party too, right? And so the reality of birthday cake at 1130 at night is totally different than the reality of birthday cake at two o'clock in the afternoon when people are running around, whether it's adult or a kid, you know what I mean? Just metabolically, it's dealt with totally differently. So we try and like, you know what? Let's make sure we live this life. You know what I mean?

Lena Livinsky (19:23)
Yeah.

Mick (19:24)
and have fun in the process and, you know, not raise kids that are like, man, mom and dad's rules are terrible. We want to rebel against these as hard as we can. Yeah, exactly.

Lena Livinsky (19:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Second, I'm out of the

house. I'm just going to go eat junk every day. and you know what that happens sometimes where kids like grew up in this like healthy household and then they will go out, explore. And then they come to the conclusion of like, no, mom and dad were right. Like this makes me feel terrible. I hear these stories all the time. but I, I agree with you. I have the same kind of philosophy where I don't freak out about every single food just because we have such good baseline at home.

Mick (19:49)
Mm-hmm.

Lena Livinsky (19:59)
I know that's what creates resilience in their body so that they can actually handle the one of cupcake with green dye that's gonna get all over their sweater and everywhere else. It's just the reality of things. So I don't freak out about it. And for my son, for example, that was an example of us going to a birthday party three weeks ago was for his son, had food dyes and it was fine. I didn't freak out, but he didn't even want the whole thing.

Mick (20:12)
Yeah.

Lena Livinsky (20:28)
He literally ate like two, three bites, and then he was satisfied, and he don't want anymore. Because that's what happens when you nourish your body. You do not have these strong cravings where you want two or three of those. You'll have a bite or two, and you'll be satisfied. And you don't have to feel so restricted where food becomes this taboo thing or a reward for something else, which can stir some other emotions. So I agree with you.

Mick (20:53)
Yeah, well said.

Lena Livinsky (20:55)
Yeah, and I love your one menu for dinner approach. I think that's great. So many parents in my audience struggled with mealtime stress and picky eating. So can you share how you handled that in your home and what worked for your kids?

Mick (21:10)
Yeah, we took a really solid stance on this. And it starts with the fact that my wife and I were both aligned on it. But I had no interest. She makes most of the meals, not all of them. But I had no interest in this idea of alternative or alternate, probably a better way to say it, alternate menus for the kids. From a relationship standpoint with my wife, I'm like, I don't want more work.

for you in that. it really kind of came down to like this is where I'm coming at this. Sorry, from like a marriage perspective, first and foremost, and then from a parenting perspective. And it just got framed to the kids very simply and naturally, like it doesn't come up every time. And once it came up, it basically got addressed. But like, you know, you make your food and eventually you run into kids is like, I don't want to eat this. And so

Lena Livinsky (21:43)
Yeah.

Mick (22:01)
It was very kind of firm, not harsh, firm. But it's like if you choose not to eat this, you're just going to be hungry because this is the only food that is available for you this evening. I was like. That's it. And then when we didn't deviate from that, meaning it wasn't like, OK, well, we'll figure out a compromise here, which is like.

That's it. Like the food that we've prepared is good for you. It's good for us. This is the food that's available. They're like, it's a pretty straightforward decision for them if you're not going to back down from it, basically, you know what I mean? And, you know, we didn't back down from it. So I can't speak from experience to to know some of the downsides. But we've seen that in vicariously. We're like, we don't want to go through that. So it was very clear to us.

Lena Livinsky (22:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yep.

Mick (22:56)
this is how this is going to go. So we were just firm and consistent with that without being harsh with the kiddos. And it frankly like, I'm not kidding you, Lena was like, maybe a maximum of two times that that happened because when they get the exact same response like both times and when mom and dad are aligned and the kids have a sense because we all know, right? We're all been kids, right? We all know.

Lena Livinsky (23:16)
WHAAAT WHAAAT WHAAAT

what I love about this approach to, or your philosophy for dinner, I think that it's so relatable to parents. I think it's the goal for so many. And sometimes it's just kind of figure around how do I get there? But.

I agree with you because I think setting boundaries is so healthy for kids. It not only helps them feel safe because it does. It might make them upset at first. Like you said, you had maybe two meals where it was kind of difficult for them, but then they get over it and they know what to expect. They know this is dinner. This is what's going to happen every day. Mom cooked this. This is what I'm going to eat. And having these boundaries can be so liberating.

in so many different ways, not only for the parents, but for the kids as well, because they know what to expect and that's it. There is no other alternative. This is what you're gonna have to deal with. Yeah. So I love that. I agree with that so much. There is nuance to that with different picky eaters and different needs and health needs and stuff, but if you have just mostly typical dinners for your kids who are a little bit picky, I think this is amazing. And this is the goal.

Mick (24:04)
That's it.

Yeah, exactly.

Lena Livinsky (24:25)
for almost every family down the road. If you can't get there yet, that's okay. But I think down the road, this is the goal. And then you also mentioned that still, your kids still have some reluctance around veggies and some other things. So how did you approach that without maybe like too much pressure or while keeping the mealtime environment calm and connected?

Mick (24:46)
Yeah. So we took what we think is a really kind of practical approach to all of this. And it's really one that we kind of call sort of order of operations. And what I mean by that is like, we will usually in most meals have a starchy carbohydrate. Okay. But it ends up being kind of the third group of things that gets consumed. Right. So

The kids though, all three of them, and I mean, let's be honest, same for mom and dad to some degree, right? We all would really like to get to the French fries if you will, right? Even though like I can fully rationalize, it is not the healthiest thing for me, okay? But the way in which we went about it was you need to start with your protein, okay? Whether that's chicken, ground beef, whatever it might be, right? And then you gotta eat your veggies.

And then at that point, it's like, literally, you can have as many fries as you want. And it's shocking how many French fries don't get eaten. Or if they're massively hungry, they end up eating a bunch of them. But I already know that the entire chicken breast that we gave them, right, has literally been consumed. It's sitting in their belly already. Do you know what mean? All of the veggies have already been eaten. And where I'm going with the practical side of things is

Lena Livinsky (25:40)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Mick (26:06)
the kids then are motivated to eat the protein and the veggies because they know order of operations is then I can get to the baked potato. You don't know like not exaggerating. had I was out to lunch with a colleague years ago and I was explaining this I was like yeah whenever we go out to eat with our kids will oftentimes you know because it's there's only a handful of things that are available on most kids menus right.

Lena Livinsky (26:09)
Mm.

Mick (26:31)
And I was like, a lot of times we'll get a hamburger or cheeseburger for them without the bun. And then like, it'll come with fries. And our order of operations for the kids is you eat the cheeseburger without the bun, then you can have all your fries. And it was funny because she was like completely mind blown by that because she was expressing how challenging it was to have her son consume anything other than the French fries. And I was like, yeah, we totally get it. We just said, you can have as many of the fries as you want.

Lena Livinsky (26:36)
Mm-hmm.

No.

Mick (27:00)
after this is done. And then you just kind of got to hold them to that. And that's kind of how it rolls. Like you said, you know, the consistency really matters.

Lena Livinsky (27:02)
Yeah, cool.

Yeah.

It does. It does. So you will have the foods on one plate, right? They'll have access to it, but they just know they can't have it until the protein and the veggie. Okay. Well, I love that. I love that approach. Yeah. It's all within reach. Yeah.

Mick (27:19)
Yeah, or might be sitting in a bowl too, but it's all on the table. You know what mean? Like we're not none of it's Yeah, exactly.

Nothing's getting getting hidden. You know what I mean? It's not a legitimate hoop that they have to jump through. And I was even chatting about it earlier. Like, you know, sometimes they are going to sneak sneak and like we're not like overly concerned sneak a french fry here or there or whatever. But like, they know directionally, I've got to get through, you know, this main piece of protein.

Lena Livinsky (27:27)
Right. Yeah.

Of course.

Mick (27:48)
before I move on to other things.

Lena Livinsky (27:50)
Yeah, yeah. you know biologically, of course you know, biologically that's going to satiate them so much that eventually they just not want the fries anyways. And it's just what the body needs, right? And then it lowers the blood sugar spike and everything else. So it's just a win-win-win all around. Love that. Love that. That's awesome. So to go off of that, you said you monitor your kids' gut health based on their behavior and overall well-being.

Mick (28:07)
You got it, exactly.

Lena Livinsky (28:17)
So that is so biology informed. So what have you noticed over time about the connection between what your kids eat and how they feel or how they behave?

Mick (28:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, so we've noticed a couple different things. Sometimes constipation is driven by the amount of dairy that they eat and more specifically, more so the cheese content. The more cheese, we'll tend to see the potential for slowing down a bowel movements and that type of thing. And so we, the

Lena Livinsky (28:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (28:46)
the monitoring process for us is relatively straightforward because as you described in the outset, right, we are homeschooling our kiddos. So we are around our kiddos a lot or as a result that we just truly have eyeballs on their behavior a lot of times, right, just naturally. But as mentioned, right, we're looking at things like bowel movements in terms of what is the frequency and then we can also

monitor things relative to the foods that they eat. So here's what I mean by that. We have utilized eat right for your blood type, which is a book that was written a couple decades ago and then has had a more recent revision to it by Dr. D. Adamo, no affiliation here. It's just been a book that that we have really found directionally has been helpful for us. And the concept for everybody listening is is that certain foods

Lena Livinsky (29:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (29:34)
tend to interact better or worse with the blood types of the particular human. So whether that's an O blood type, a B blood type, A, AB, those types of things. And our house is split between blood type O's and blood type B's. And so we try to provide as much of a overlapping menu in the things that are in our home, whether that's for snacks or even for an actual meal that

aligns with either foods that are kind of neutral for both blood types are really positive for both blood types. So just as an example of that, we tend to not eat any pork because pork tends to not do really well for any of our particular blood types. And we've even experienced that directly ourselves. You know what mean? So we can then also see some degree of behavior change, you know, naturally, the more sugar that somebody has,

Lena Livinsky (30:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (30:29)
They tend to be a little bit more amped up. But what we have also noticed is we tend to see a higher frequency of kids, our kids getting colds shortly after they have a lot of sugar. Now, can we double blind placebo, you know?

Lena Livinsky (30:40)
Hmm.

Makes sense?

Mick (30:50)
confirm that this is the case no or they're confounding things that go into that yes meaning the birthday party could be just them getting around a bunch of new germs or it could be that they totally had no issues with the germs and it is all the sugar more than likely it's probably both you know what mean so we try not to sweat the whole thing and just sort of know how it's going to go but it also then for us as parents

Lena Livinsky (31:09)
Yeah.

Mick (31:15)
becomes a little less of a stressor when we have a sense that, this is a likely outcome here. And the reason I say that is because I've learned over the years that even my own expectations, whether they're met or not met, can really drive how I respond to things. And just knowing, hey, we might end up having some sick kiddos for a week here after this, even knowing that, whether it does or doesn't happen, can sometimes even just make life a little bit easier.

Lena Livinsky (31:42)
Yeah, of course you can prepare almost not only mentally, but even like stock up on whatever you feel like you need. medicine cabinet. So yeah, I love it. I love how, connected you're, you guys are all together and how you observe everything and, and you draw conclusions from it and you prepare, but you're also very flexible with what happens. think, I think that's, that's quite amazing. I love this philosophy.

Mick (31:49)
Yeah.

Lena Livinsky (32:10)
So you've spoken about your firstborn son, Luke, and I'm so sorry for your loss, and how his short life completely changed your relationship with God and your family's path. So what did that transformation look like for you in those early days?

Mick (32:25)
Yeah, Lena, thanks for going there. I mean that the the short version of that story is despite having a intellectual understanding of God to the degree that one can. So like I grew up in a Christian household. I'm to put Christian in quotes because

Lena Livinsky (32:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

No.

Mick (32:45)
There wasn't a lot of behavior that matched up with Christianity in the household, even though there was discussion about God and Jesus and those types of things. So I kind of like knew about God, spent first grade through 12th grade in Christian based education, but I had absolutely no relationship with God. So I really, truly intentionally kept God as far away from me and actually my wife as I could. Okay. And, and

evidence of that is that one point, this is before having any children, my wife suggests that we go to church and I distinctly told her, I was like, no, we don't need that. You're good. I'm good. We're good. We don't need any of that. So then when we're 31, I'm 31, excuse me. My wife at that point is 32. we're pregnant with our firstborn, our first, first son.

Lena Livinsky (33:36)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Mick (33:38)
and as you said, his name is Luke and we find out on January 4th of 2012, in labor and delivery that he no longer has a heartbeat. So we are one week away from his due date, which means we are 39 weeks gestationally. And so on January 5th, the following day, because my wife ends up being induced on the fourth and then delivers.

Lena Livinsky (33:51)
Hmm.

Mick (34:01)
Luke as a stillborn dead baby on the fifth. She delivers as a result of our first pregnancy, a six pound, eight ounce, 21 inch long dead baby.

And to answer your question more specifically, see, I had been a child that was driven by ego. And while I was six feet tall, I still was a little boy. And what ended up happening on January 4th of 2012 was that

Lena Livinsky (34:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (34:39)
God got my attention and helped me to see that there is life beyond me. Meaning up to that point, my ego and the outcomes that had occurred in my life were literally ones where if I put energy into it, Lena, it usually kind of worked out, right? And maybe not exactly as I wanted it the first time, but like if we kept trying and more energy, you know what I mean? And more tenacity and more grit.

Lena Livinsky (34:58)
Now.

Mick (35:07)
Like eventually we'd figure it out or fix it or whatever it might be, whether that's in the workplace or on the home and life front, you know. And as a result of Luke's death, it became absolutely crystal clear to me that I couldn't fix it. It was beyond me. And so in desperation on my physical knees with my face six inches away from the linoleum floor in the hospital.

I cried out to God for help. I said, I need you. And from that moment forward, we entered into relationship with the God that I knew about, but never had any real relationship with. That was 13 years ago. That relationship has grown daily over those years. And where I intentionally rebelled against him,

Lena Livinsky (35:37)
No.

Mick (36:00)
earlier in my life because I didn't have any relationship. I now intentionally seek to be obedient to him because I have a relationship with him and I want to honor him. And it was Luke's death that brought us to our lowest point. And that moment of desperation is when everything changed. So.

We look at Luke's death and all of the grief associated with it and all of that stuff as actually the single most tangible blessing in our lives. Because it changed my life, it changed my wife's life for eternity, and it has changed our family tree and changed the trajectory of our children's lives. We believe for eternity as well.

Lena Livinsky (36:44)
Yeah, And I personally also believe that with God, all things are possible. And when you connect with him, everything just kind of falls into place. And I'm sorry you had to have this realization at such a hard and horrible moment and such a huge tragedy. But the fact that you look at it as this beautiful moment of connection with God, know, just

That's incredible to me and so many people can learn from that and I think draw some conclusions there. And thank you for sharing that story. you've also have said that you had a Luke shaped hole in your heart, but then you realized it was a God shaped hole. So can you share a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Mick (37:28)
Yeah, absolutely. So of course, you know, Luke dies the next day he's delivered, we spend 24 hours with him. And we are grieving this absolutely incredible loss, you know. And, you know, at this point, like I was joking about it, but it really is the truth. Like I'm I'm a 31 year old, six foot tall, little boy at this point. Okay.

Lena Livinsky (37:43)
Yeah.

Mick (37:56)
because I'm just now entering into a relationship with Jesus that begins to mature me and change my life. And my perspective in those moments was we can replace Luke, you know, because we thought we've really had this Luke-shaped hole in our hearts. And through the grief in the subsequent months and in the prayer, the continually sharing of our grief with God in prayer, like as we cried out,

Lena Livinsky (38:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (38:23)
physically and emotionally, he really began to show us, he's like, you don't have a Luke shaped hole, because you can't replace him anyway. But what you have is a God shaped hole, like you didn't have me in your heart. And so what he up doing is just love this through all of that. And and I mean it in kind of like these these palatable ways as we poured our heart out to him. He was there and he comforted us.

and really began to show us that you can't replace Luke. What you needed was me and I've got you. And it was a wonderful thing for us.

Lena Livinsky (39:01)
No.

grew up in a Catholic household and I think over time, and we went to church every Sunday and everything, but I also think over time I've disconnected so much and over the last year or so, I have felt this huge need.

to go back to church and to reconnect and to understand things and to learn things and to understand what this faith means and what my connection to God is and to just reconnect. And it's been a beautiful journey for me as well. And I wish that on anybody who really needs it and to feel that, to find that connection again, because it's so life-changing. It gives you purpose. It really does. Yeah, so.

Mick (39:46)
Absolutely.

Lena Livinsky (39:48)
How has grief changed the way you show up for your children now? So emotionally, spiritually, and even how you teach them about resilience.

Mick (39:57)
Yeah, wow. mean, it's almost like how hasn't it. ⁓ And what I mean by that is, is, you know, going into our first pregnancy, we like most people, think, assume it's going to end fine. You know I mean? Meaning like we get pregnant, you have a baby, right? And that's what happened. We just didn't get to bring them home.

Lena Livinsky (40:01)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mick (40:24)
You know what mean? Like I remember laying on the couch, my wife and I like fully in the midst of grief, watching sports, we were like, this is so weird. This is never what we planned. Right. So where I'm going with all of that is is that the birth of our daughter 18 months after Luke and his death and delivery was, I believe at a completely different level of

gratitude and appreciation for the fact that we were now truly blessed with a gift, like a gift gift. And again, I only can speak from my life experience, but it is my perception, right, that there are parents that have kids and they're not overly grateful for the kids, okay?

Lena Livinsky (41:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (41:13)
And that's not a knock on them. That's just part of their experience. You know what mean? In fact, sometimes there have been unplanned pregnancies and people are for whatever reason, actually not that grateful for their kid. But, you know, the grieving scenario and realizing that we could never replace Luke gave us so much more appreciation for our daughter when she was born. And then subsequently, you know, four and five and a half years later when our identical twin boys were born. So

Given that then, right, not only are we more appreciative, which is something that is really kind of evident just inside of my wife and I, we then decide, okay, we wanna make this more evident to them, okay? So it's the communication of things about how we see them, how God sees them. Like, hey, you're created, man, or gal, right?

speaking to my daughter, right? Like you are created like on purpose. And guess what God put you in our family. And you're supposed to be here like because he literally lined all of this up. And then one of the things I get so excited about is just telling them about the fact that I'm so grateful that they are our kids. Like I very rarely talk about the fact that like, you're my daughter. And like you're our daughter.

Lena Livinsky (42:27)
Vroom.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mick (42:34)
because like I don't, I'm not interested in another 12 year old girl, cause I'm not interested in having a daughter. I'm interested in having you. And I think that's because it's the truth. You know, like we weren't interested in having a daughter. We were interested in having her specifically.

Lena Livinsky (42:39)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

Mick (43:01)
And the last thing that I kind of say on this particular topic, especially as I'm talking about it with our kiddos is that I explained to them that from the moment we found out about you, we have loved you. And then I'm like, and God's known you even longer than we have, and he's loved you forever.

Lena Livinsky (43:14)
my gosh.

No.

Mick (43:27)
And

that's a concept that like even as adults, it's tough to wrap your head around. But we just continue to layer that in there, layer that in there, both of those elements, which is from the moment I found out about you, the moment we found out about you, we have loved you. And that's never going to change.

Lena Livinsky (43:48)
that is so beautiful.

Mick (43:50)
And it's the truth by God's grace.

Lena Livinsky (43:52)
It is.

It is. It is. That's and I love how conscious you're making your kids about it from the beginning. Giving this beautiful, beautiful foundation of faith. think I think they're so lucky. I know we're running out of time, but I do want to ask you about the avalanche story. So it sounds like something out of a movie. So what was going through your mind during those moments when you realized what was happening and

please tell us about it.

Mick (44:19)
Yeah. Well, we'll certainly do the abbreviated version here. But in short, let's go all the way back to the year 2000. November 7th. It's the day of the hanging chat. It's election day, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and I am Lena, a 19 year old punk kid. I am fueled by ego. I mentioned that at 31. So the ego stuff hadn't changed. Okay.

Lena Livinsky (44:46)
No.

Mick (44:47)
But my fuel of choice was ego and Mountain Dew back then as a broke college kid. And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go climb something. Because I spent a lot of time in the backcountry hiking, climbing, ice climbing, skiing, that kind of thing. I'm to go climb something that's cooler than and better than the way other people do it. So I decided that I was going to go climb Gray's Peak, which is a 14,000 foot peak that's very close to Denver.

Lena Livinsky (45:08)
Hmm

Mick (45:17)
and I wasn't going to hike it like most people do. And like I had previously done, I was going to climb it. So I climbed it in winter conditions, but not really actual winter because there's really not enough snow. And I set up the lost or set out up the lost Rat Kular and about 200 or so feet up this climb. And I want everybody to imagine.

that I'm climbing up a snow chute or a snow gully like what you would see as a double black diamond like the top of a ski resort. Okay, I'm I'm ascending that and I'm a couple hundred feet up it. And because I am climbing, I'm therefore disturbing the snow. And what ends up happening is is I trigger the avalanche. The avalanche sweeps me of course to the bottom.

Lena Livinsky (45:49)
Yeah.

Mick (46:06)
And I immediately looked up as I heard the very distinctive whoompf sound and saw the snow sliding immediately tried to run perpendicular to the direction of the snow sliding right. I got one step in that direction and was swept off my feet. And I remember thinking Lena quote, this is going to suck for my family, especially my mom, end quote.

Lena Livinsky (46:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mick (46:34)
and then the lights went out. So I lost consciousness at that point. I came to at the bottom. I have no idea how long I was unconscious, but I was not buried. I did sort of this systems check and seemed like everything on the whole was kind of like, you're good to go. And so you gotta go. And so that's really what it came down to. had this sense of like, okay,

you need to get out of here. Lots of determination mentally to get back to my pickup truck, which was at the trailhead, and then drive myself to the hospital. And after what is probably an hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes or so I make it back to the trailhead. And 30 seconds before I walked into that trailhead parking lot. Remember, this is a Tuesday.

Nobody's around. It's winter conditions because it's November, but it's a Tuesday in essentially winter like nobody's there. This place would have been packed on a Saturday, but not on a Tuesday. 30 seconds before I walked into the parking lot, a guy by the name of Steve showed up in the parking lot. Steve takes me to the hospital because I was in such a bad condition that I couldn't drive myself to the hospital. I spent six days in the hospital.

Lena Livinsky (47:49)
my goodness.

Mick (47:52)
three of which were intensive care. had broken my skull in three places. My jaw was broken on both sides and my scalp was split open from the top of my right eyebrows, like just over top my right eyebrow, all the way to the back top of my head. right before, imagine right before where your head starts like turn and go down towards your neck. So it was from the eyebrow all the way over.

Lena Livinsky (48:17)
Yeah.

My goodness.

Mick (48:20)
And ⁓

while in the hospital, they had to do emergency brain surgery because of all of the trauma that I had experienced in the slide was actually to my head. I didn't have any other injuries other than kind of a pretty badly bruised hip, which was totally the least of my worries. So three skull fractures, the brain surgery, all of that. And, you know, frankly, all the King's men put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Lena Livinsky (48:37)
Yeah.

Mm.

Mick (48:49)
but for sure, Lena, if Steve does not show up in that parking lot, I die in that parking lot. No question. And Steve and I have had subsequent conversations. in fact, he's been a guest on, on my podcast and shared that he's had, he had absolutely no reason to be where he was when he was there. He had no reason to drive the three miles up that snow covered.

Lena Livinsky (48:59)
Wow.

Mick (49:15)
dirt, fire road to end up in that parking lot. And yet God put him there. God kept me alive and I give him all the glory for it.

Lena Livinsky (49:25)
Yeah, thank God for Steve. my goodness, that's amazing.

Mick (49:29)
100%.

Lena Livinsky (49:30)
Just little chills, really. Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. Wow. I wish we could talk more about it. But of course, with real life, running out of time. But one last thing. This is a question I ask everybody. If you could share one piece of advice with parents who want to raise healthier, resilient kids in today's world, what would it be?

Mick (49:34)
Praise God.

Wow, one piece of advice for healthy and resilient kids. My suggestion would be that what you bring to parenting is a lot of times driven by what you are experiencing in your relationship with your partner. And so I don't think it should be overlooked that

consistency of health of relationship with mom and dad is vital to a experience that's loving for your kids, however that may look.

Lena Livinsky (50:30)
Yeah, I love that advice and I couldn't agree more. So if anybody wanted to connect with you online, where can they find you?

Mick (50:36)
Yeah, when you look.com is a great place to start. As I'm the host of the When You Look show, which is a really neat podcast, super encouraging, where ordinary people talk about crazy, wild, extraordinary events that they've experienced themselves. And then all the listeners get to decide, hey, was that a miracle or was that coincidence? So it's really, really kind of neat and uplifting story. So when you look.com is a great place to start.

Lena Livinsky (51:01)
All right, great. We'll link that in the show notes. Well, Mick, thank you so much for coming on the show. I love this conversation. I'm sure everybody else will take away at least one big thing from what you have said. So thank you for coming.

Mick (51:15)
You rock, Lena. Thanks a bunch for having me on. Cheers.

Lena Livinsky (51:17)
Thank you.