#46 Explosive Personal Growth with Parker Denning

Gentlemen, welcome to the bee man podcasts.

I'm your host Greg Denny and have a special guest here today.

The illustrious, the great, the one, the only Parker T, dipping, welcome buddy, so glad to have you with us, glad to be here.

He is our oldest son, he's almost 19 and we are up in the Austrian Alps.

Just absolutely gorgeous.

Those of you who've been over here, you know what I'm talking about.

This stunning Beauty, and he, and I were out on a run yesterday morning and we're philosophizing while we were running and sucking for are at altitude and cold, but had a really great talk.

And man, I was we're going like we we got to share this message with you.

Awesome gentlemen.

But we'll give you a little bit of background.

So, you know, are traveling is our family dream and part.

You've been traveling since you were like You were three or four, three because Kyle was for.

So, yeah, 3, when we started, we drove the Pan-American Highway to Costa Rica.

Yeah, it's crazy.

That's right.

So your whole life essentially, you've been you've been traveling.

And so as part of our family dream, we just love that.

So whatever your family dream is gentlemen.

Well, we encourage you to just chase that and do whatever you have to do because it's worth the cost.

We're gonna talk about today, it's worth the cost.

So he's been we've been traveling ton and we've been traveling last eight weeks.

We've done what ten countries?

I think yeah ten or eleven ten or eleven countries.

And in eight weeks.

Yeah, that's bad.

That's a lot.

And it's a lot in a lot of history, a lot of museums from what helped me walk through this from the Sami is zombie poems, in Norway, very north of Norway.

The Viking culture obviously.

The museums are not a viking, the, you know, we, well, let's just go through the countries.

We did, we did.

Norway.

We did.

Denmark.

Denmark, Sweden.

Island Islands.

Finland down into Estonia and Latvia.

Lithuania, Poland Czech?

Yeah, you're right.

Jack.

Yeah and Austria and in a couple days we're going to dip into Slovenia down into bled Slovenia, which is one of our favorite places in the world, super awesome.

Okay, so all that culture, but we've done WWII stuff.

We've been in museums, who went to the in Vienna went to the military history museum.

Mind-blowing awesomeness.

And so it's been cool.

We went across, you know, Scandinavia and the Baltic states Eastern Europe.

Obviously, we get a lot of history of Communism.

We get history for World War to World War one, but then just just old history being in all these towns from Tallinn to Warsaw in just their hundreds and hundreds of years old.

And so you're learning about the buildings in the history and all the wars.

That have taken place over all this stuff, right?

And so, where is this is Masuk explosion of stimulus, right?

Stimuli all over the place, and all these different places and partners going to chime in here.

All this, what it does, our brains.

But in addition to that my daughter the other day, she's 16 just turned 16 and she's like I finished 12 books in January.

And I was like, dang girl.

Yeah, I'm so proud of her because she read, she's told me.

She read 24 books in the last, like, four or five months of last year, which is amazing, right?

But to do 12 books in one month, you can't, you can't negate the impact of input.

Yeah, that's the essence, right?

You can't negate the impact of input, but it's because we're traveling and how we always new experiences and seeing cities and peoples, and cultures and geography.

I mean, all of and all that in challenging experiences, that happen in travel that are unpredictable.

And the amazing things that happen to travel to our often sometimes unpredictable.

You things happen serendipitously, the you don't expect And you combine that with reading, then I'll send you.

It's like it's like growth and stimulus on steroids.

But then Parker was like, you know, for like, how would you finish anything finished in January?

Well, now counting Counting today.

I've done about 26, 27 books.

Okay.

So, so I you're just hit it hard.

No, for most people, the average American reads one book a year.

Yeah.

Good readers.

Reading 10, 15 20, do you have you?

How do you hit?

I've never read that many.

How do you have 26 books in like roughly five weeks?

Yeah, well last year 2022.

I did disappointing amount of reading and books, I finished maybe around 15 that year, which is still, which is good.

Like yeah, yeah, way above the average, but like, for me for our family standards, it was just Like and for me personally, is just not a standard I wanted to have for that few books and so, having a lot of free time while you travel.

There's a lot of waiting, there's a lot of train tap train, travel airplane, travel driving.

You have a lot of free extra time and I wanted to spend it more wisely instead of turning to Instagram or movies or something like that to fill up that empty space or we traveled.

So I decided to get back into into reading in like December.

A of last of 2022.

I just I download with the Kindle app because when you're traveling, it's really hard to carry books and just started reading every day and just started, small started, simple.

Maybe 10-15 minutes a day.

Just to get that habit.

Well, yes, but you didn't start with fluffy books, but what did you dig into like right up the gates?

I think I started with atomic habits, meditations Marcus Aurelius, and it was challenging.

Yeah, that was so.

That was the challenging but awesome but great I learned so much from that and it really helped develop my mindset how I needed it to be right then and just help me get into the discipline of choosing where I spent my time in my actions.

Which do you think that compounded?

I'd like it starts building on Race.

He where you start, you start with, with Marcus, Aurelius saying, hey, you were not born to lie around on your cushions.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So then tell me how it starts building compounding.

And so you take that momentum and you the momentum of experiences with the momentum of the books.

Hey, you take off, but we keep going.

So you dig into some pretty pretty solid books, but you start with just a few.

I remember this because you were like I'm going to commit to like 10 or 15 minutes a day.

Yeah, because I just sometimes you have to just have to start small when you when you starting from nothing.

That was a lot of my big problem, whenever I started something new that try to do everything at once.

What are we got that philosophy?

Yeah Yeah.

From your dad saying baby steps are for babies.

Yeah it was.

I just like he's just it's this constant pressure of like oh we can just dive in do it all at once.

It's like sometimes it's hard to start from that.

So you just started with 10 15 minutes a day.

And then I just realized how much I I forgot how much I love to read and I got back into it and any spare moment I had I really done nothing else besides travel and read for the last, like two months, which has been great and amazing.

And that's why I've read so many books like, T6 books is just any spare moment.

I had it turned to a book which has been great.

It's really reading is such a beautiful thing.

It really my family's big on audio books, audio books as well, but sometimes I feel like having a constant voice in your head can be chaotic.

And so reading it really helps slow down your brain and really help you focus which can be great to really just Delve into the book, dive into the book and help you understand those principles which can be amazing.

I think that's such a great Point man, but I love the way you articulate that it's, it's almost like it does slow down time in the racing of the mind.

It helps kind of focus things in.

We're usually we're listening to audiobooks, which where again we're both huge fans of listening.

But you're always doing something else while you're listening, which is okay, I mean, you're getting input in, but you're right, when you just have to sit with it and read it, it slows everything down.

Like brings you into that space, and it's a beautiful thing.

It's beautiful relationship with reading.

Yeah, so and again, I don't want, we don't want it to seem like he wasn't engaged with the family either or we LED trips.

We lived three trips during this time as well.

He was engaged with the people who came he's in Aged with a family.

It's tons of beautiful family time and one of the, one of the biggest drivers for this kind of this caliber of an experience with our family is because he's moving out tomorrow.

He's going back and pursuing his dreams and so tomorrow's the big day and we knew this was coming.

So we're like, we got to go out and create these memories as a family.

So we have, we have these shared memories now.

For the rest of our lives.

Where we give me that.

Yeah, remember that time in in Poland, you remember that?

Time in Estonia, dog, sledding in Norway, Mary dogs living in Norway or or polar plunging into the, the see outside of was that little teeny Village in the middle of follower flum.

Go put it is just pitch, black snowing like crazy, we're running through the snow.

Go barefoot and doing backflips off the top of this, the sauna into the ocean.

Oh my gosh.

And then I was amazing, the pain and the controller were just sitting and perverted he did so well, he was just sitting there breathing control his breathing, his heart rate was just staying in the water and and just to have that shared experience and then to go we went to Auschwitz together and saw the concentration camps.

So we have a shared memories and experiences Our whole philosophy always is to help our children become superb, human beings, and be as absolutely ready and prepared as possible for launching.

So he's launching now as an adult And we have always had me since he was born.

We've been talking about helping him Rachel, and I have been talking about helping him and ensuring that he has the mindset and the skill set and the heart set to go into life.

But I want you to share buddy, some some thoughts like of how this massive amount of book input combined with experiential input.

Like what, what was happening in?

It's coming, it's like yeah, in your reality, right?

It's going on your mind, but your whole world is getting transformed.

This is some stuff we're talking about, we're running so that's why I was having a lot.

Yeah.

Well one of the biggest things I've been taken away from all these experiences and reading is the the concept of exposure and how important that is to have to be exposed to things new, new experiences, new countries, new place.

New cultures, and new philosophies and New Concepts from Reading, especially and how much of an effect that has on your mind.

And one of the crazy things I was thinking about is just how simply by being exposed to a new idea from either reading or traveling, or meeting new people.

Your mind literally alters and changes in different ways like can't go back.

Yeah.

It's like, it pushes out this little bubble and Grouping like, oh, that is because it expands and it can't go back.

Yeah, I think a beautiful, girl, I heard it was like a mind expanded by a new idea.

Can't go back to its former Dimensions along those lines, but it's just, like, once your brain gets exposed to a New Concept of Life, a new experience.

You, you understand more of the life that we live in, which is really important to do because so many, so many of us get caught up in our smart, our small world, And we like to think we know everything and we like to think we know everything that's going on around us but really we are very ignorant of our ignorance.

We don't know what we don't know.

And so you have to go out and experience new things and especially uncomfortable, uncomfortable things stressful situations and then beautiful situations as well.

But you have to be exposed to new ideas, new Concepts because it literally changes the way your mind thinks and the the way you act and changes the caliper of your character and the way you interact in the world, In our family.

We we have this little inside joke.

Then we laugh.

So hard about all the time we were reading the world history.

This was like a couple years ago and we came across this dude.

It was some time wasn't it sometime near the Ottoman Empire.

So I can't remember what time period or even look at her.

It was, but he had this little King and it was Tiny.

Yeah, it was like a small state and he declared to everyone.

I am the king of the whole world, right, and he thought he had conquered the world, like it was smaller than one of our, like, small states in the US.

And we all read that one morning and we were just busting up, like, oh my gosh, this guy has his teeny little kingdom.

And he's like, I am the king of the whole world, and it's laughable, but I bring that up because you're talking about.

It's so easy for all of us.

We've seen this, we've traveled to many countries have been to now, 40, 41, 42.

One, almost 42, and that will write for when I fly back, almost 42 and he has a layover in Turkey tomorrow.

Yeah, he's stoked about that.

So, but as you travel on the world, you see this everywhere, it's not, it's not an isolated experience.

It's a pretty pretty Universal experience that it's easy to slip into a limited reality and you become so familiar with it.

That your mind kind of plays these tricks with you makes you think like you got this down.

Do you have life figured out my friend?

You know what, this world is all about?

But the reality is you just know what your teeny, your teeny little world is about and as we get out and get exposed to things, it's forced humility.

And that exposure talking about.

And again, you have to be conscious, you have to be deliberate if you're just clueless and just wandering around.

Like, I mean, you can go out as a tourist and just kind of wander aimlessly, but if you're paying attention, I guess, you know, you guys, I would say, one of the greatest attributes is curiosity, It's beautiful.

If you are genuinely curious, you want to talk to the people and taste their food and and dig in like wait, why do you do that?

Why do you live that way?

What's your history?

What's what's the reasoning?

What's your purpose?

Like what's going on here?

What does this place?

And these people have to teach me Why did they build a city here now?

And then going, I mean, from all the mountains, like, geography, and geology, and astronomy.

I mean, we cover so much on these trips and in your books, so, you're exposed to so much, but it's just expanding your mind again and again and again and make sure your life man.

The more I learned the more, I realize how little I know.

Yeah, but the interesting part is you have to admit that you don't know.

Here's a quote from a book that I just recently finished.

It says the profession of ignorance is crucial to the pursuit of knowledge.

Those who pretend to know, never will which I love it.

Hit me so hard.

It was like, you have to confess to yourself deep down that you don't know everything and there's things that you don't know if you think you know it all you'll never learn.

You can't let you read that.

Quote again the profession of ignorance is Crucial to the pursuit of knowledge.

Those who pretend to know never will.

And the constant flow.

Of new books and the constant exposure.

Two new places, new people new circumstances, new situations.

You can't help.

But like, it feels daily when you're like, dang, I didn't know that.

Yeah, I had no idea that happened.

It's like a huge historical things, like pivotal things, that change the world, I've never even heard of this place.

Yeah, and yeah, so this is constant reminder.

It forced humility.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

It's like you have to be able to Take a mindset of humility to be able to look up to a new place.

A new idea, A New Concept, or a new new teacher, a new master.

If you're pursuing something else, it's like you have to be able to Have humility in order to learn a new idea.

Because if you come in thinking, you're the boss, you're the number one.

You just your mind.

Can't won't take a new ideas because it's tricking yourself into thinking that you already know.

I love it and you get to sit in some of your fears and discomfort And just kind of sit with it.

Like you go to, we went out to rural Lithuania.

And nobody spoke English.

Yeah and it like you're like crap.

What do we do?

And and it's so amazing.

Like you figured out you charades, you try to use like Google translate point and grunt.

Yeah, it's so funny and it's amazing how much you can communicate without words when you need to.

Yeah.

When like you need to when the necessity is great enough, you find a way to make something happen.

Yeah.

I love it.

Do you have a list?

Maybe kept a list of the I have here.

Let's pull up your list here.

So the reason I wanted to do this is just to share that concept and that idea, now obviously taking your whole family out and traveling to multiple countries over a short period of time that takes some planning and strategy, but you can all do it.

Like sometimes we hear things like that, as I will never be able to do that.

Oh, that could never happen.

And and just like we're talking about we Are shutting things down before we even ask.

How could I pull that off?

But would need to be what would need to be true?

What would need to be happened?

What would need to be happening, or need to happen before we could do that?

And if you guys had known me, You know, as a teen or even in my early 20s, I never in my wildest dreams that's how limiting my thinking was never in my wildest dreams could I have even dreamt up?

This kind of trip that were were actually doing right now with six of our seven children.

And sometimes friends we had, we had a friend trouble with us for weeks.

Yeah, right.

So like we're out here doing these unbelievable things that were so far beyond my dreams and so far out so far outside of my current my reality back then and I work through that.

So I want to throw out like big dreams are possible for you and I hope you do include travel in it.

There was a time I was like, okay, maybe He travels not for everyone but I've moved away from that.

I'm like not traveled.

Some form of travel is for everyone because of what we're talking about.

There are certain things you, you can only be exposed to their certain things, you can only experience and Learn and Grow from by being there on the ground touching feeling tasting, smelling experiencing for yourself.

Then we love books and we love great movies and documentaries and we watch those things and that's great.

Eight. but to touch it yourself and we literally put your fingers on these old sacred hallowed places.

And Ed feel it, that's something else entirely and it's magical and so Parker.

And I are here, is an invitation to you, to deliberately set up experiences and a list of books Parker's going to share his list of books.

And it's just those two things have cool experiences start, right?

Where you are and start experiencing new things Spirit, experience your world in a new way I promise.

The things around you.

You have not yet experienced and you can go to different churches.

You can go to different areas.

Do that safely.

If you go into rough neighborhoods of different genres, different kinds of concerts or events or whatever, just start experiencing things differently, and combine that with some Deliberate, reading and studying and watch how you can have this explosive growth in mind, body, and spirit, and reality.

So, okay, share your book lists with us brother, okay?

Atomic habits the way of the superior man.

Meditations Marcus Aurelius, the book of five rings.

The Pilgrims Progress Gulliver's Travels.

The right kind of crazy 100 deadly skills.

Fluent forever, Comstock Lode discipline is Destiny.

Courage is calling Sacketts Land, The Life of Christ Mastery so good.

They can't ignore you.

Make your bed max out your life on the shortness of Life, the insured Ian.

I think that's how you say it by Epictetus.

Has the manual, the meditations and the teacher of Warsaw which was that book that book was incredible.

Yeah, that is a true story.

So that's a, it's a fictional to historical fiction book about a real man and they wrote the wrote.

The bulk of the story was from his diaries that guy.

I've got a file gentlemen of What I call good and great because sometimes there's great men that maybe aren't so good and there's really good men who didn't do anything really great and so it's rare.

You find a good and great and he made the list, man.

That guy.

He was something else, he was.

Okay, that's it.

That's a meaningless man.

There's a lot of, there was a few historical fictions in there and a couple of fictions, but most of them are just real straightforward personal development.

Yeah, so those are a lot of books.

I've had on my list and then I've done a few fantasy books as well.

And then I'm They reading six or seven other books and I've really been diving.

A lot of the books.

I've been diving into a been in the stoicism and a lot of the stoic philosophers, which has been really interesting.

But just again, it's exposing myself to New Concept and ideas, that literally alter the way, my mind thinks, like one of the beautiful principles from meditations and stoic philosophy is one of the things Marcus Aurelius says is he says What, when you wake up in the morning and you think about how hard it is to get out of bed?

Think that think of the purpose?

It is to live.

Like your purpose is to get out and to live and to live a good life.

You weren't meant to sit in your bed and keep yourself warm.

And it literally changed the way I think.

Now, I wake up in the morning and I'm tired, and I'm exhausted, and I literally quote that to myself.

I said, am I meant to sit in here and to stay warm directly?

You can't, you just can't, you can't go back to the way you thought before you think differently.

And so I get out of bed, I roll over.

And I do some push-ups on the floor.

I drink some water, and then I get about my day and I do, Right, back into more books, into meditation and just go out and deliberately choose to live more and expose myself to new ideas because you can't go back once.

You've exposed yourself to something else and two new idea, A New Concept, your brain just grows into a bigger field that bigger area of knowledge, and it can't shrink back now, you know, you know, more and you've grown and you've experienced more.

You just you're not meant to shrink back to ways you were, you're meant to grow in.

You're meant to pursue.

And so if you're stuck like that, you can't just can't stay stuck and stagnant in in your world, you have to grow and you have to experience new things.

And as you as you get an idea, it literally influences your actions that day.

And, and you and I were talking about this, like, you don't, you don't remember all the things we've read, right?

We we read, we read so many things, you can't remember it all, but the regular flow of good input.

It's just, it's just like nutrients.

Yeah, here's nourishing your mind and soul every day is this is regular flow of nutrition.

And the idea that hits Is relevant for the day and tomorrow and they start stacking on each other's their building and sometimes they kind of cross-pollinate so to speak.

And so how do you how do you feel like Parker this is setting you up for now, going into to your goals and dreams and projects that you're jumping into. well, for me, the poor, the important thing is to change what I think about on a daily basis.

Because in The Strangest, Secret, he says we are the sum total of our thoughts.

We are what we think about everyday.

And so why I've been reading like what you're just saying, it's like the delay.

It's the constant source of just good material.

Good books.

It's like some of these books.

I've been reading my call I'm going pretty fast.

I'm not like getting everything I'm missing some Concepts.

I'm not remembering everything but then I'm then it just like clicks for me is like It's a constant flow and a constant source of good material and good things that are influencing my thinking in my thoughts.

Which is way better than wasting my time or and on Instagram, or Tick-Tock or SnapChat, or all these other things like, especially today in this modern world, there's so much at our fingertips and so many distractions that are taking up our time.

But it's all frivolous stuff that doesn't Add value to your thoughts and the way you live.

So it's like for me, the important thing with all this reading.

And what's going to take me and benefit me as I go and pursue the goals.

I'm going after it's a deliberate.

Source of good material.

So my brains now constantly thinking about good things and every day all the things that I'm thinking about that's going to determine what I'm going to be and where I'm going to go.

What do you think about you become and so it has to you always have to be thinking about good things.

I love this idea and each book brings a feeling with it and the feeling drives desire and behavior, but as you were just describing that was really quiet.

Just visualized like it's just this flow, it's a flow of information and it could be just trash could be just garbage music garbage movies, you know, just scrolling mindlessly and social.

If you just the flow through our minds, could be kind of filthy, in the Adamant bits and pieces of it remain, but if you switch that out and it's a steady flow now of good content, good ideas, philosophies instruction, inspiration stories, tons of stories, biographies, or autobiographies history, whatever that flow.

Then there's also sediment from that and the bits and pieces settle in and you're right.

It kind of changes the flow of thought and the feeling that really sets you up for For making better decisions.

And disciplining yourself exercising discipline and like, you know, this is what needs to be done.

I'm going to do it.

And having Matt, clear thinking from great minds, the greatest minds of all time you sharing all these ideas, where you didn't have this framework, give examples right in front of you.

So you bump up against the situation, you're going to, we all of us will handle situations better.

Because of exposure to great ideas and great places of great people.

So it's that combination.

So gentlemen, be let's let's be far, far, far more deliberate and proactive about this.

Get.

What if you don't have my book list already?

Go get it, it's free.

It's got a recommended book lists and I kind of specifically did when I think would help men be men.

So the go grab that book list.

I can grab it off.

It's, it's actually inside the be the man app.

So, go download the app it's in there for free.

There's a link to it.

Also, in my Instagram at Greg dot Denning, you get it on my website.

Just grab that list of books.

And then start dreaming, start daydreaming, allow yourself.

To Dream a Little Bit of places you've heard about or wanted to go and experience.

If or just come join us on a trip.

We're leading trips to Jordan and Jerusalem, and Scotland, and Egypt.

And we're just doing these epic things.

We're out there, doing that, or plan, your own trip, whatever you want to do, just go experience thing.

What do you want you for yourself and your family to experience?

What are they need to experience?

What do you need to see what you need to touch?

What do you need to know?

And start dreaming and then start planning and then get something on the schedule.

Make this stuff apriority become obsessed with living your dreams.

And in growing like this because it's Priceless, absolutely experiences memories.

The way you think, the way you cultivate your mind, it's it's something Priceless that you can't get through outside sources through material things.

It's like you have to make your mind and asset first, and make yourself an asset and to make the most of yourself first before you go out and try to find your purpose and your value in all these other things that eventually are all going to get lost in the sands of time.

So it's like we have to cultivate ourselves and to really make the most of Ourselves, our character our mind and what we think about because that's really all we have control over and what we, what we need and those are the things that nobody can ever take from you.

Like those are the things that are yours.

And yeah, you become the asset.

So your valuable wherever you are and whatever you're facing and we can't we live in a crazy time in the history of the world.

Who knows what's coming?

But we want to be prepared for life and have our our children, as they become young adults prepared to Launch.

And prepared to go out in the world and make a difference and have an impact and live deliberately on purpose, doing good things.

And this this is just a formula to make that happen.

So, get out there and make that happen.

Share this, your share with friends, family colleagues, share with whoever, you know, it needs to hear it.

If you liked this episode, The Others, go ahead and leave a review and dig in.

And if you guys have questions, specific questions for me or Parker's shoot me.

Sue me messages, ask questions, love that and as always an open invitation to join us in the be the man master class and tribe to get in there with this amazing group of men.

Who are striving to be the best, dad's, the best.

Husbands, the best businessman, the best leaders, raising great families, and living life deliberately because it's worth every effort.

Last night, Rachel and I took Parker on a dinner date.

And that was our conversation.

Like, it's a lot man.

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of money.

It's a lot of effort.

Is it worth it?

Absolutely.

The, I think the most important thing is to be constantly pursuing A worthy ideal and a worthy.

Something that is worth and worthy invaluable to you.

So even though there may be suffering and pain, there is going to be suffering exemplary but yeah, correct myself.

There is time for going to suck and it's going to be painful sometimes but if you look past that and it's worthy in the end having suffered through all of that, then it's something worth chasing.

It's something worth pushing through.

Exhaustion on motivation, all these painful situations that you're going to go through.

You're going to go through all that either way, and if you're going to go through all that, why not have it?

Be worthy in the end instead of looking back and regretting that you didn't do anything about it and you just suffered for no reason and yes, exactly.

And the one that's kind of thrust upon you.

And you don't gain much, or become much by it, where the other if you choose to pursue a worthy ideal to have a noble aim to chase greatness.

Yeah, you go through the same.

You're going to get the struggle.

It's there, either way, so get the rewards and one of the greatest rewards is who you become because of it.

So gentlemen, lean in be deliberate by the books plan.

The trips start making things happen and you'll begin reaping.

The rewards of who you become in the journey and the process be the man.

So gentlemen, lean in be deliberate by the books plan.

The trips start making things happen and you'll begin reaping.

The rewards of who you become in the journey and the process be the man.