Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:10.51)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Be The Man. Just kidding, it's not. I'm so used to them, sorry. To the extraordinary Family Life podcast. And we'll let that little slip up be a plug to go listen to the Be The Man podcast. I remember distinctly as a young man, so I grew up in a reality of a situation that it was just one crap sandwich after another.

and anything from parents divorce and his absolute poverty and on food stamps and step dads coming and going. And then I moved out at 16 and lived in bad neighborhoods and people who were just struggling with life and my life was really hard. And it just seemed like it was just, life was an unending stream of problems and difficulties, just frustrations. And as I was looking around at that current.

I understand that now looking back, I was in a certain socio -demographic society. I didn't realize that then. I had no idea. I just thought people were people. And all I could hear was, well, that's just life. Life sucks and then you die was the motto I grew up with. And I would hear people talk about their problems, but I never heard them talk about solutions.

And now after having worked across five continents with thousands and thousands of people and read well over a thousand books, I realize that a lot of people, perhaps most people, they simply don't know that there's a solution to their problems. And so they chalk it up as life. And some of it honestly is just life. Yeah, it's bad luck and some of it is bad luck. Trials from God. Yeah. Well, I don't...

they'd be used that but i'm not sure that's what i'm saying that they've talked about that let me they blame it on life happening they blame all these different reasons but i remember thinking and i'm using all those excuses love my boss was this work the weather was better you know if this person was that are i remember thinking if rich people would just share their money somebody would just give me some money i i think everything would be better uh... i i just thought through everything but it's

Rachel Denning (02:28.718)
I remember getting so irritated. And I think this is what led me to change ultimately, being so bothered about problems and having this deep, I don't know, maybe it's a divine enlightenment that things didn't have to be that way. Even though the people around me are like, no, it's just the way things are. That's just the way I am. That's, that's just life.

And that was the message I kept hearing, but I just wasn't satisfied with it. And I'm just sitting here kind of psychoanalyzing myself and, and trying to think through my experience. I would get so irritated and just think, why doesn't it have to be this way? It doesn't have to be this way. And I kept just searching, like there's gotta be a solution. If there's a way to prevent problems, if there's a way to fix problems, I'm not just going to tolerate it.

Perhaps that's it right there.

On the deepest part of my soul, I just refused, absolutely refused to tolerate mediocrity or just the garbage. And eventually I didn't have a mentor or a coach and so I had to take the really long journey. It was years in the making. But eventually I got to the point where I was like, no man, if there's a solution, I'm going to find it and use it.

And now I'm to the point where if there's not a solution, I'm going to create one. And if there's a way to prevent it, we're going to do everything we can to prevent it. And prevention is the best option, right? As somebody once said, it is so much easier to prepare and prevent than to repair and repent. And we've just become...

Rachel Denning (04:27.15)
Converted to the religion of prevention and obsessed with it because we refuse to tolerate the crap. Well, and what that means is like...

We have almost this obsession of optimizing our life in a way that we can prevent as many potential problems as possible. And that's in every area of life. That's in our marriage, that's in our parenting, that's with our health, that's with our finances. Like anything you can think of, worth sitting there and thinking, okay, of all the problems that we know exist, how can we prevent those from happening in our own circle of influence?

in our own life, in our own family. And the truth is, there is a lot you can do, more than most people realize, to actually prevent a lot of problems. And it happens by doing a type of first, second, third, level, fourth level thinking of analyzing and thinking through, like, okay, if I have this habit or I have this, I do these actions, where will those lead down the road, right?

And when you do that, you're like, oh, okay, well, I can actually see where this leads. If I, I think it was Jim Rohn that used to always say, you know, if I eat a Hershey bar a day, where's that going to lead me? Well, obviously that's going to lead you to a different location than if you like, you know, eat the proverbial apple a day. One choice leads one way. The other choice leads the other way. And if you think through those things and you realize, oh, then the choices I make today actually matter.

And so you optimize those choices every single day and then you lead to the outcomes you actually want. And it really is that simple, although it's not always that easy, but it is that simple when you begin to envision and wrap your head around it and then take daily action, you can optimize your life in such a way that it's possible to prevent many, many problems. Most.

Rachel Denning (06:30.702)
Most problems, most difficulties, most suffering even, most misery is preventable. Just like most death. The vast majority of the death worldwide, and it's in the millions and millions every year, is totally preventable. Because it's caused by preventable diseases. Yep. Heart disease, diabetes. It used to be different, you know. Several decades ago, it was, it was, the major causes of death were things that were not preventable. Now,

the top four or five major causes of death worldwide are completely preventable. But the same with the biggest problems in life and biggest frustrations. I think one of the challenges is that most of us don't see the patterns. You have to see the pattern first. So when we give, you know, simple examples of like, Hey, look, if you stop for donuts and coffee every morning, that's going to lead to a result. That's easy to see.

If you say, well, if I exercise and eat well every day, that's going to lead to a different result. It's easy to see. What we don't see so often, and I think merely, and that's why we're doing this. We're doing this podcast, we're doing this episode, and we're talking through this to share these ideas, these philosophies, so you can start chewing on them and start looking for patterns in your own life and say, man, are there chronic problems? The same problem keeps reoccurring, or do I just keep having problems?

in one reason or one way or another, like some of my clients are telling me that they feel like they're just constantly playing whack -a -mole. And you know, there's a board there of 10 or 15 or 20 problems and you're just constantly playing whack -a -mole. But no matter what you do with your best efforts and the most intensity, they still just, it's one problem after another somewhere and they seem to be all over the place. I want to introduce the idea that...

There are preventable things. There are things you can be doing to stop the problem. Right. So instead of continuing to whack at the moles, you get to the root. Well, I'm kind of mixing metaphors here. You get to the root of the problem, you know, and you just eliminate the moles altogether, right? It sounds kind of drastic. Now we're exterminating moles. But, you know, the point is you are getting to the source of the problem.

Rachel Denning (08:54.638)
you're getting to the cause. And so instead of just, let's switch to the branches metaphor, instead of just whacking at the branches, you get down to the root of the problem and you pull out the roots and you've solved the problem for good. It doesn't come back.

It's not an ongoing thing that you have to keep whacking at and keep fixing every time it comes up, because you've actually eliminated the problem because you've gone to the roots. And let's carry that metaphor a little bit more. We're going to give all kinds of visualizations to try to wrap our heads around this. If you're in the garden scenario and the weeds are coming up,

you pull them up as soon as you see them. You just, you know weeds are going to pop up automatically. That is just true for life and every single aspect of life. And you can tell it's a weed even when it's small. Yeah. For the most part. Some of them you can't see coming and you know, that's a real element. Yes. You're right. Practice. Because my grandpa, he was a gardener and he, he was great. He knew exactly what was a weed and exactly what was not a weed even when it was very small. And he wasn't born that way. He trained himself with experience and familiarization.

to notice and so if you know, hey weeds are gonna pop up naturally, let's just be continual weed pullers. Every day I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna pull some weeds. And you pull them when they're small, it's so easy, they haven't taken root, they're not choking out the plants and the fruits you want, so you're pulling weeds. Another one is like, man, let's throw down some weed barrier. Let's go in and throw down weed barrier and prevent most of the weeds that are gonna come up and let's throw down some ground cover.

So you can really start preventing things. Being intentional to prevent the things. Exactly. Proactive. Well, but the other thing is, because if you don't, if you wait and those teeny little weeds that you can pull out with like three fingers, they grow and grow and grow until they become this giant plant. And then especially if the rock gets, the dirt gets dry and hard and crusty, like that thing is not coming out.

Rachel Denning (10:53.453)
It will not come out because it's huge, it has deep roots, the ground is dry, and you're like, why can't I get rid of this problem? And so, you know, if it's really bad, giant bush weed.

It starts to get thick and then you just have to cut it back and then it keeps growing every year. That's what we're talking about. Like that's a lot of people's lives. They have these giant weeds that have taken root that are huge. They keep pruning them back and cutting them back, but then they just come back and they grow. When one, if you had pulled it out when it was tiny and small, you wouldn't have the problem. And two, if you'd prevented it by, you know, weed barrier or whatever else, it wouldn't have grown in the first place. Instead of,

just saying, oh, why is my life so hard? I have these huge, giant, horrible weeds that I can't get rid of. Well, that's because you haven't taken the action steps to do that, to prevent it or to pull them out when they're small. Yep. Now, those of you listening, if you're like, oh yeah, I got some big gnarly weeds with the kind with thorns and as much as I yank on them and pull, it just breaks off and the root stays in there. So it grows back again.

picture in your mind. So what I want to say is there's hope and we'll give you some solutions here. But only picture these two different gardens. The one has these beautiful elevated beds and there's there's weed barrier down then there's ground cover on top or or even like a mulch to prevent it. So if a weed comes up it's very rare, very seldom and you pull it out as soon as you see it.

Then the other one was just kind of left neglected that like Rachel was describing the ground is hard. The weeds are huge, very little, very little good stuff growing in the garden because it's just monopolizing the whole area. And it's just a constant battle. And it is hard. It is exhausting. It is real. We're not saying it's not, that's not a real thing. It's a very real thing. And there's a lot of suffering, but it's totally preventable. And so I think today, as we're talking through this, we're going to give you some strategies.

Rachel Denning (12:59.981)
to be way more proactive, to prevent new weeds from coming up, and to get rid of the old ones, and get rid of them once and for all. And if we'll do that, life is so much better. More peace and tranquility, more serenity and joy, more harmony.

more love. Like everything is better when we're eliminating unnecessary problems. It just becomes so much more fulfilling and enjoyable. Yeah. Life is so good. Now, we were empathetic to what you're going through and the struggles and challenges. We know that some of those things are not your doing.

But I'm going to be a little bit bold here and frank and say, and this was hard for me to get to it took a few years to really wrap my head around this. The majority of our problems are actually self inflicted, even if it's subconscious. And things we aren't aware of, we just we just don't know right. So it's not necessarily your fault. But it is your reality and it

And it is your doing, if you can understand that. So it's not necessarily your fault, but it is your doing. So you're creating it. Or your lack of doing, right? You're creating the problem.

you just might not be aware of it. And partly that happens because, you know, up to a certain age, it's not our fault. We inherit the garden our parents gave us and filled with whatever plants they planted or, you know, our school or community. So we are a product of that environment. But...

Rachel Denning (14:57.901)
But there comes a point in every person's life when you are then responsible for your own garden. And you are the one that has to pull out the weeds that other planted and plant something new and different. Like you have to cultivate and create your own garden. And so I think that's especially, essentially what you're emphasizing here and you're pointing out, you are responsible. Now that you're an adult, you're responsible.

And so you need to take charge of removing the weeds, preventing new weeds from growing and planning the things you want in your life. And take it very, very seriously. If we're casual about this, then the results will be mediocre at best. We have to get serious about cleaning this stuff up. And then it's hard to even. And until you've experienced it, it's hard to even.

conceptualize it to believe that it's a reality. But when we help our coaching clients, you know, Rachel helps the ladies and that are in the 20 day challenge and I'm going to be the man master class and my coaching when we help people kind of get through this barrier and, and get above the fog and the weeds and the trouble and they get up there and they're, they're blown away by how

good life can be and how much easier it is to maintain the garden. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, they're surprised at how much easier it actually is and they're like, wow.

Oh my gosh, like it seemed so hard, it looked so hard and yet now that you've given me these tools, it's actually not that difficult. And everything, and it has this cascading effect is what someone just recently told me. Like it has this cascading effect in the rest of my life. Or wow, everything else, things I didn't even anticipate are going easier because I'm using these tools and I'm implementing and preventing and all of this stuff. It's amazing. It's so awesome. So our invitation today is,

Rachel Denning (17:02.831)
I guess to start looking at looking for patterns and looking at chronic problems if There's if there's a clear problem popping up again and again and again in in one aspect of your life Those are the easiest ones to start with because people are constantly asking where do I start? Well, where do you see the obvious problems? All right, and then go ahead and be strategic about eliminating the problems

and eliminating the cause of the problems, which is even more important. So if you're regularly arguing with your spouse or something, especially if it's over the same issues,

then you're like, okay, that right there, that's a sign that there's a chronic problem that we have. Well, what's the cause of that? What are the habits that you have? What are the actions you're taking? What are the things that you're not doing that would be preventing these problems from happening? You have to be looking at those and analyzing them so that you can get to the actual root of the problem instead of every time this same issue comes up, you keep whacking it like the whack -a -mole.

and thinking that's solving it. It's not. Or thinking, and I, we've had countless conversations around these topics and I get it. It's easy to say, well, isn't that just marriage? Isn't that just parenting? Isn't that just toddlers or teens or well, my spouse is just like that or I'm just like that or well, it's just the area we live in or it's the nature of my work. It's just like that.

And to all of that, I want to boldly say, no, it's not. No, it's not. You can do something about it. So don't please plead with you. Please don't just say, well, that's just the way it is. That's just how life is. That's just how my life is. That's just how my work is. Gosh, I hear that daily from every different aspect of life. Well, you know, this is just the way it is. So I won't be able to do that. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there.

Rachel Denning (19:12.333)
Like, why do you think that? And they'll tell me, like, well, it's because, you know, in my line of work, it's like, so? Like, why don't you figure out how to do that differently? Has no person ever in the history of the earth in your line of work done it differently?

And just because it's common doesn't mean it's the only way to do life. And that's circling back to what I started with. Like I was surrounded by people who thought that's just the way life is and that's how you're going to experience it too. But I refuse to believe that. And that's what. And that's now your reality. Exactly. So now I create a new reality and there's higher realities above the one I'm currently in right now. We keep seeking for a new reality that helps us level up and rise.

Now that's not to say that you have no problems or challenges or issues or anything like that, but the point we're trying to make is that you can reduce the issues you're facing significantly, 80 to 90 percent or more, and then what happens, and this is the nature of life, is that you're given new challenges and opportunities on other levels so that it helps you to continue to rise.

And the new problems, the new barriers, the new obstacles, they're just invitations to rise, to grow, to transcend. And we want those. We want... Ray and I talk about this all the time. We're like, well, we're grateful for these problems. Right. It's a new level. We'd rather have these problems to solve. Because the problems, there's still problems, there's still challenges. You still have to work through things.

But it's things you're like, okay, you know, I'd rather not have this. It's kind of a suck sandwich, but it's way better than what they could be. Or where we were before. Exactly. So we've come a long way. Well, it's the whole...

Rachel Denning (21:12.333)
we refer to as the Mickey Mouse problem thing. And a quick summary of that is, and this, we heard this story years ago back when we were dead broke, we were, I don't remember exactly if we were living out of our truck, you know, traveling through Central America and trying to start a business and trying to, you know, do things. And we thought, oh, our problems are so bad. We have, you know, I don't remember, $15 ,000 in debt maybe.

and we're just like, oh gosh, things are so hard, and we heard this story, it was kind of third party, it had happened to someone's brother that you knew, and it was essentially that they were in a similar situation, more debt, more challenges, foreclosure on the house, losing everything, and they went to their brother, who was financially successful and well off.

And they were trying to explain how bad their problems were and all this and he basically turned to them and said, well, you see that... He said, your problems are Mickey Mouse problems. And this gentleman, he was so struck. He's like, no, my problems are gigantic. They're literally crushing me. And his brother's like, man, your problems are little Mickey Mouse problems. And it...

it impacted them. I think it honestly impacted me more hearing his stories like, whoa. So these, these problems and Rachel and I were, you know, we were broke and we were struggling. I guess, I don't know, looking back, we weren't, it's all relative. Cause then we met people, we met people in Central America. And then shortly after that in India, people of leprosy were living on dirt floors for like, okay, we've, we've never actually been that broke.

So we were living a life of abundance, but it felt huge. It felt crushing. And then to realize, you just totally shift your entire paradigm. This problem that I thought was so big only seems big because I'm so small. Right. And the point his brother was trying to make when he said, you're dealing with Mickey Mouse problems was, I'm dealing with things like this every day, but in the millions of dollars. Right. So your little $20 ,000 in debt is like, I'm running.

Rachel Denning (23:26.221)
constantly running two million or you know, so I have I have clients that are carrying millions of dollars of debt business business debt constantly a Client friend running the business. Yep, just took out, you know five million dollars for expansion and Another client has you know close to 180 employees and has to do payroll every Thursday

Right. Which is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. Every single week you got to come up with all this money and you and I will be like, I had to pay my phone bill and it was a little higher. I needed to pay my rent. We're like, wah! And yes, it's big to us. I'm not discounting that it's big and hard, but the reality is it's because we're small. Right. And it's hard because we're soft. It seems...

such a strong deal because we are weak. That's the point. And as we make shifts and adjustments and changes, it actually puts it in perspective when we realize, man, they really truly are making mouse problems. They're so much smaller and we can eliminate them quickly. And the point I think we're trying to make with this is that ultimately...

People don't like to hear this, but that is the goal of life, is to continually take on larger problems, because as you take on larger problems, you actually become a more capable person. That's the only answer. That's the only path.

And so it seems like what we want to do is avoid problems, avoid challenges, but that is actually the thing we want to do in order to continue growing and rising and doing more and having more and being more. That's how we get there. Now the problem with many people is that...

Rachel Denning (25:22.605)
they're not doing that, they're continually whacking the same problems at the same level that they've always had, which keeps them just in this cycle of non -progression.

essentially they're not progressing they're not growing they're not taking a new bigger problems they're continuing dealing with the same problems again and resolve them yet and you have to resolve them in order to level up and you know it's like a video game whatever it's just it's just a new variety or a new time or the problem pops up in a different way in a different reality but it's the same thing i i love this whole idea if you but you know i have i can't remember last time i saw whack -a -mole i must have known as a when i was a kid but we have this little

those little foam hammer and you're just trying to pop things. And so if we're going to play with this analogy, man, you show up with a sledgehammer and you literally just destroy, just destroy the whole game, just annihilate it or burn it to the ground or whatever. We have to get drastic about eliminating things. If you're, can you imagine trying to build a shed with a foam hammer?

I mean, it would just be ridiculous. But that's what we're doing. And people are struggling. It's not working. I'm trying. It's not working. It's so frustrating. I just swing and swing and swing and I'm sweating. I'm putting in all the effort. But it's just not working. You're not using the right tools. Right. And we're not optimizing. So instead of a foam hammer, you get an actual hammer. But instead of an actual hammer, we walk up and say, this is called a nail gun.

And it's amazing, right? And then you can, using a nail gun. Then you can take on bigger projects. Exactly, you can frame a whole house. That's kind of the point here. We're talking about building your dream life.

Rachel Denning (27:16.685)
And in order to do that, you have to have bigger and better tools. You cannot build your dream house. We're mixing all kinds of metaphors here. You can't build your dream house using a foam hammer. And yet too many of us are trying to do that. We're like, why can't I build my dream with my little clay hammer here? No, you need a nail gun. You need bigger tools. But you can't get those bigger tools until you learn how to prevent and solve the current problems you have. And then it allows you to

level up in the, I'm sorry this video game analogy is working here, it allows you to level up and to get the better tools and you know resources you need so then you can go on to solve new problems, new challenges and build bigger than better things. So where are your current problems and difficulties and what are the patterns, this is going to take some thought work.

What are the patterns that are causing it? And, and I would dare say the reason most people don't address the pattern is because they don't see the pattern. And then most, most of the time they don't see the pattern because they won't slow down enough and force themselves to make the time and effort to notice the pattern.

because they're so busy and they're just constantly putting out fires or whacking a new mole and so they don't stop and say wait a minute I have an existential crisis here my life is just an unending stream of problems this is how mine was but the same problems because this is the challenge here we're trying to explain is that

You want the problems, you want the challenges, but you want them to continue to be new, bigger, better on another level instead of just the same ones over and over and over again on the same level. Right. So is it in your health?

Rachel Denning (29:18.381)
I have clients initially come to me and they're like, I am just so exhausted. I'm literally dragging myself through the day. I just feel like crap. And they just think it's life or I'm just a burnout, I'm tired. They don't see that it's their own doing. And so almost immediately I can...

I can help people get massive amounts of energy and totally transform their physical experience with life. Well, I mean, we've gotten to the point in our life where if we have a day like that, it's rare. And if it happens more than one day, we're like, oh, something's off. And immediately we go to work to fix it, to resolve it. What is off? Why do I have no energy for the past two days? What's happening?

many people will just let it go for years or decades. Days, weeks, months, years, decades. I met with a gentleman recently and it's been decades, two decades of just deep exhaustion. And his answer was, I just keep working harder. I can work. I'll just keep working. I'm like, whoa, put this, this work ethic you have this powerhouse.

to get things done, why don't we tweak it and give you back some energy and health and vitality and then put you to work? You know what you could accomplish? You know what you could achieve with that same amount of effort but optimized? It's spectacular. So, well, and this is a tragedy too. So many people are getting sick, staying sick and dying unnecessarily. People we know and love.

people you know and love, it's not just life. The insane amount of cancer and heart disease and diabetes is not just life. It's self -inflicted and it needs to be addressed. It's all preventable stuff. And like there's a perfect example and it's a slow progression.

Rachel Denning (31:40.205)
But I'll throw this out with like a solid assurity here because the science is there, the research is there. If you keep eating toxic garbage, you're going to end, you know, it may show up in 20 years or 30 years, but it's going to show up and it's going to show up in just horrible illness and death. And.

Like that's just a simple physical example. Like don't keep playing this out. If you want to know what toxic garbage is, then you can listen to our other episodes. We have two on food, one on sugar. That's a good start. But I don't know, man, there's so many examples, endless examples of this. And so I want to teach the principle. I mean, we can try to give some specifics in each area.

But take the principle of it and just start looking. Do you have chronic struggles with your small children? Or your teenagers?

Look and see where why. Why is there a problem? Why do my kids fight? We did an episode on that. Why? Why do they resist me every time? Maybe maybe you're frustrated because they resist what you ask them to do and they don't do it. They're disobedient. You're like, I just want them to listen. Don't don't just stay in that same.

cycle of I asked them to do something, they don't do it, I get mad screaming, yelling, spank, and then they do it. And that becomes the pattern. And you just keep doing that. Stop. And the reason they do that is because like, well, that's just the way it is right now. It's really frustrating. And that's the only way to get done is to do it. So you keep doing instead of backing up and saying, what's the pattern? And how do I change the pattern? Well, same principle for us, you know, if that happens more than a few times in a day,

Rachel Denning (33:37.997)
I'm immediately analyzing what's going on here, what's off? Why is my child not listening to me? Why are they being resistant? And then I go to work at solving the problem, getting to the source, and then we're back to this normal state, which becomes the norm of they're respectful and they respond when I ask them to do things because we have the relationship in place that fosters that type of interaction.

So if you, but if you just ignore it, or if you just think, oh, this is just how it is, or this is just how, or they're going through a phase, or whatever, you make up any other excuse of why they're behaving that way, instead of actually resolving the, because ultimately it's a relationship issue. You have an issue with the relationship between you and that child. And if you resolve that relationship issue, then you actually have the emotional capital to make requests of them.

And when you do that, guess what? Life is so much easier in those ways. Now, of course, there will always be new challenges to solve as they grow older. There will always be other problems to face. But then you have the principle and the foundation in place of this emotional strong relationship that you can use to help you solve those problems. And in all of these instances, if you don't change it, then by default you choose it.

So don't just let it go. We've gotten so good at this now. With lots of practice. We don't, it doesn't go beyond a day. It's usually quicker than that. If something feels off between Rachel and me. Or between us and a child. We just stop and say, okay, what's the underlying cause here? What's going on? How do we fix it immediately? It might be outside factors or outside stressors or...

you know something else is going on but we don't wait to address it. It's like pulling up those baby weeds. We're not going to let it grow any more than it has to. As soon as we identify, oh this is a weed here in our marriage or this is a weed in our parenting, it's coming out. We're not going to just let it keep growing. Be like, oh I hope it goes away one day. It doesn't work like that. Chalk it up to life. That's life.

Rachel Denning (35:55.629)
No, there's another very common example. Obviously, the common examples are around sex, around food, around finances, marriage, parenting, all those things. Another common example that we hear a lot that just came to my mind is about money. Specifically, the one I'm thinking of, there's lots of them around money, obviously, but specifically the one I'm thinking of is...

this kind of knee -jerk reaction of, I can't afford it. I can't afford it. And then what happens, you're like, okay, yeah, I mean, I get it. You know, there's sometimes the money's tight and there's certain circumstances. But if that becomes a pattern, and because we've been in this industry for so long, we'll work with the same people and two years later, I can't afford it. I can't afford it. I can't afford it.

And I'm like, wait a minute, that's, it wasn't an acute problem. It's a chronic problem. That wasn't a one time situation where things were tight. They're constantly tight. Well, why? And I think this is a good one to illustrate the use of this principle in all aspects of life. But why, why are things chronically? Unaffordable. In some instances, it's literally just a scarcity mindset.

It's your relationship with money your view of money in other instances. It's Your expenses. It's how you spend money in other instances. It's how the income comes in Or fails to come in Yes, and on that on on your failure for income or your income your income is your responsibility and If you're not satisfied with your income

meaning that your income is insufficient to fund your dreams, it's on you. And this is true me, it's on me. And too many people will lower their dreams to fit their income.

Rachel Denning (38:12.365)
which is a tragedy. Well, right, because going back to what I was talking about before, in order to grow and develop and improve, when that comes to money, it seems ironic or maybe, well, definitely seems frightening to many people. Or sometimes it seems unwise or risky, but one of the ways to increase and grow your income is to constantly have...

or to constantly be chasing after bigger expenses, if that makes sense, right? And you think, wait, what? It's kind of crazy. You want bigger expenses? And it's kind of true, because if you're constantly working within the budget you have, that actually doesn't provide room for growth, income growth.

But if you have goals and dreams and aspirations that are outside of your current boundaries, that helps you to grow into that income level. And you have to do it, this is what I train my guys in the master class in our tribe, you have to do it without sacrificing health or family or spirituality or anything else. In fact, I think we have...

A moral obligation to continue to increase our income, and the ideal I set for the men in the group, is that our income should increase every quarter, as should our investments. Every quarter, and it's an ideal, I'm holding up.

every quarter for the rest of our life should be an increase. We're adding more value, we're learning more skills, we're becoming more of an asset, and we're doing more investing. Every quarter we should find ourselves getting wealthier and wealthier. If you have settled into this fixed income, okay, circling back to my original story here.

Rachel Denning (40:08.077)
This is one of the reasons that changed everything for us is because I got into a career that I loved, but it didn't matter if I was the very best employee in the company, my pay was fixed. There was literally no incentive to be world -class financially because whether you sucked or you were phenomenal, you got paid the same. And there was a teeny tiny raise.

each year and that was it. Everybody got it. And at some point I was like, this is horrible. I want to rise. I want to be better. I want to make the most of myself and I want to add more value to the marketplace and get paid more for it. That's crazy.

And so that's why capitalism actually works. Yeah, it's awesome. But I'm not going to do it, you know, sacrifice my family like too many do or working too much or too long or too far. I had a really powerful conversation yesterday with a client about this idea that if you're if you're working too much, then essentially what's happening is.

You're living one life, which is kind of your work life, because you spend most of your waking hours working, and your family's living a separate life. They're spending most of their time doing whatever they're doing. It's education or homeschooling or adventures or traveling. And we know so many people like this, that generally it's dad, he's working.

and mom's either at home doing the homeschool or taking the kids and traveling the world and he's at home paying for it. And you end up living two separate lives and you know a decade passes or two and the kids move out and you realize man we lived two different lives and I missed most of it. That's a suck sandwich right there. So figure out what it is, what's the problem? Is it an income problem? Well what are you gonna do to dramatically increase your income?

Rachel Denning (42:13.997)
Or to gradually increase it, even. All right. So Rachel's always offering the step -by -step process. I'm like, you know, ready, fire, aim. Baby steps are for babies process. And you might need to change careers or learn new skills or whatever. But you know, what?

what needs to happen for your chronic problems to go away. Yeah, if you keep having the same story for months, weeks, years of I can't afford it in this example, that's not just life. That's you. And that's an issue you need to resolve. It's not even your employer. And you've probably been tempted to blame the employer or the position. You might say, well, these people in this position only make this much.

or my employee, I've asked for a raise, I've done great work, my employer just won't give me a raise, so it's the employer. That's bogus, because if you truly have done everything you can and you're still confined and you want bigger and better things, then it's your responsibility to move on, to outgrow and transcend those things.

And that's the case with every aspect. So, and we could go through more and more examples here, but just examine your entire life. Have you been struggling spiritually? You felt empty, cold, you lost faith. Or even simple things, like do you struggle sleeping, getting to bed on time? Well, I think that, you know, we've...

We've done this process for a very long time and it's become almost automatic for us now, but I remember back when we began doing this process and it was kind of one of the approaches I took to it was to really just look at every moment of my day. When I woke up I would think about like...

Rachel Denning (44:15.373)
Why am I waking up? How do I feel? Why am I waking up at the time I am? How do I feel when I wake up? How am I being woken up? You know, how is it affecting me? How do I feel when I get out of bed? And it seems...

to people I know it does seem like that's too much how can I do all of that how can I think through all of those things and it doesn't have to be a complicated process in some ways it's just beginning to be aware noticing like observing your life as though you're kind of an outsider and looking at yourself like okay what is this person's life like and why is it that way and what are they doing to make it better or to make it worse and when you start to be that observer of your own life then you start to notice things and then you're like wow.

I notice that I always do this thing which makes me upset which then causes me to yell at my kids. And then you think you're yelling at your kids because it's their fault or they're the problem when really you were the cause. And so this awareness becomes very powerful to help you.

make the changes you actually want to make in your life because you're noticing the patterns, the habits, the actions you're taking that are creating these problems that are keeping you stuck at the level you're stuck at. That's huge. That is huge. And it doesn't have to all happen today. No. So it's just, some of you are like, I'm going to examine my entire life. Like, whoa. I changed it all today. No. It doesn't work that way. And it's so overwhelming, but you just start.

Paying attention. Start observing yourself. And it's so cool. You'll notice what people refer to as the low hanging fruit, like the first and easiest things. You'll start noticing something. Oh, man. I've been scrolling mindlessly on...

Rachel Denning (46:02.413)
on the internet before bed and then I can't sleep. Or I'm staying up too late. No, just put your phone on airplane mode, sit on the other side of the room and turn off the lights, go to bed and watch. You'll wake up the next morning. I have clients that do this. I just had enough so I went to bed. Man, I feel fantastic this morning. Well, yeah, you could do that every day. Well, in the 28 day challenge, it's going on right now.

I've had a couple of moms saying, because one of the habits I had them tracking for this month, this level of the challenge.

is get to bed 15 minutes earlier. Now, of course I explained that means you need to start planning, you know, midday when you're going to have dinner, when you're going to clean up, when you're starting the bed, right, bedtime routine. So you can actually get to bed 15 minutes earlier. And a few moms are saying, this is amazing. I'm actually waking up two to three hours earlier than normal. And then of course having this morning routine and it's having this huge cascading effect on the rest of my day.

just because I'm getting myself to bed 15 minutes earlier.

So that's kind of what we're talking about is when you start to notice and pay attention to these things, you're not realizing how you scrolling in bed, you know, before you go to sleep and you're going to sleep later and you're tired and then you wake up, you know, feel like all of that is having a carry over effect on everything else in your life. And so when you start to pay attention to these things and you start to make these shifts, it shifts everything else. And those little errors.

Rachel Denning (47:39.053)
Ultimately, we could call them errors in judgment. Those little errors in judgment are either causing or allowing problems that are totally preventable. I think you gave the secret sauce there, Rachel. A little bit of a frustration at bedtime has to be thought out.

hours earlier in the day where you're strategic about it and then the whole afternoon and evening goes so much smoother. Again, that ease we were talking about, it was easy, it was enjoyable, fun. Now I get to go to bed, I sleep well, I get up early, I have a morning routine. So man, the next morning goes really well because I'm energizing, alive and ready, let's go. And it can be like that most of the time. Now occasionally in spite of all your best efforts and all your prevention,

things will happen you'll get derailed you'll get knocked over it'll happen and that's because we cannot as humans predict or anticipate every possible problem there's things we just don't consider or things we misjudged or things that we you know didn't notice or pay attention to and all of that is going to play out in having an effect or creating some challenge or problem that we just

couldn't anticipate. And at that moment, this is what I work on this specifically with a lot of my clients, because it's so easy to get derailed. And the secret there is to get right back in the game. So no matter what happens, if you got sick or vacation or some big unexpected thing happened, whatever.

get right back in the game. Now that can be understandably can be difficult because you may not feel like getting back in the game. You may be discouraged or distracted or frustrated or hurt. You might have wounds that need healing and you have all these reasons to not get back in the game. But ultimately you just say you know what I want to live a great life.

Rachel Denning (49:33.837)
and I want to be my best self and I want life to be fulfilling and enjoyable so I'm getting back in the game. I know what makes me feel good, I'm doing it. Whether I feel like it or not, I'm doing it, I'm getting back in the game. And you'd be amazed at how quickly you get back on your stride. And it's awesome. And I think part of that process includes, especially for, you know, bigger things, things that, you know, come at you, maybe they...

make you question things, maybe you feel betrayed, maybe there's, you know, some, it's an existential crisis of sorts. I think with those things you have to take the time to really process and work through and analyze what happened and...

as we've been talking about with this whole episode, you know, looking at it and saying, okay, well, what were the patterns? What are the patterns I missed? What were the things I weren't aware of? What was I not taking into consideration that I should have? How could I have prevented this if I did it again? Right? Those types of things. When you walk, I think there's a lot of power in that. When you are able to mentally walk through what happened in the past to restructure it and reframe it in your brain. Because the thing about the past is in a lot of ways,

of ways it's objective.

Rachel Denning (50:52.685)
Subjective. I was like, wait a second. I know, both of us were having this look, like, wait, I think that's the wrong word. I want you to finish your sentence here so I know which word. It is subjective. It's subjective. Meaning, it has the meaning that you give it. And so when we can take the past and analyze it and say, well, why did that thing happen to me? Maybe you were a victim of abuse or something else. You know, why did that happen to me?

and what meaning can I give to it? How can I use it? How can it be a positive thing in my life? Yes, the takeaways. Yeah, that actually gives you power to create better things in your life instead of being a victim forever. Perpetually. Perpetually to this thing that happened to you that may have legitimately been out of your control. Right. So just a quick note on that. There may not be...

a why you may not be able to answer why it happened in some instances, many of many instances, there will be a way in some there may not be a way. But the important thing here is you can assign it a different meaning and you can get lessons from it, you can glean so many lessons. And what's even cool, the next level of this is you can do that from other people's experiences, you don't have to experience everything yourself, you literally can learn so much from other people's experiences.

and be like, wow, okay, that's how to repair that. That's how to prevent this and just go through life, looking for ways to optimize every aspect of your life. And it does. It makes a huge difference. It's so beautiful. It's so peaceful and enjoyable. And there's still challenges and obstacles, but you can tackle them with joy.

And I think that, you know, not that you ever feel 100 % control because there's things outside of your control always. You can't always control everything in your life. But I do believe, and I personally feel, a significant amount of control in my life by using these practices and these approaches.

Rachel Denning (53:17.197)
because you begin to feel less a victim of your life and more a creator of your life. Same. I went from being kind of a spectator that was just... Watching what happened? Yeah, and thinking, that sucks, why does this keep happening to me? And I gradually became the hero of my own life story. And it is just...

by being proactive, by noticing patterns and stepping in into the drama of life and saying, you know what, this doesn't have to be my reality. That doesn't have to happen. This is the role I want to play and I'm going to play instead of just playing whatever role happens to you. When you start to see, you can see a villain coming.

If you're aware, if you're paying attention, you see the villain coming from the side, like, I'm going to choose not to participate here. I'm out. Or, you know, again, preventative measures to knock those things out of the way so they don't come in and wreck your reality. Or you willingly engage with the villain, but you're prepared to do so in a way that increases your chances of success. Exactly. Love it.

So begin today by examining what you do not like about your life. That's a good place to start. And then notice a pattern and then notice a preventative action. It's that simple. And then just take action on it today. And if you need some help, I mean, that's why this stuff's so unbelievably powerful. The 28 day challenge that Rachel's leading works.

the Be The Man Masterclass and try it. But like we have all these tools. That's why we do this because we figured out how to make life so much easier and better and happier. And there's tools and preventative action for all of us simple strategies. So love you guys take action on this. You'll love it. You owe it to yourself. You deserve to live a joyful, happy, peaceful, wonderful life. Don't sell yourself short. Don't pass it on to your kids, your spouse.

Rachel Denning (55:32.493)
Notice the patterns, fix the problems, and live well. Love you guys, thanks for listening. Reach upward.