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

Rachel Denning (00:10.542)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning, coming to you from the great city of Washington, DC, which we learned is so fun. Like one of the reasons we love to travel is because we learned so much and wherever we are.

Whatever we're doing, we're constantly asking questions. Exactly. That's what I'm going. And the kids ask questions. They're like, hey, what's this and what's that? And we don't just say, I don't know. Or I'll tell you later. We ask Siri. We start Googling things. And although the internet isn't the source of all accurate information, we can find a lot of stuff. So even this morning on the way to our...

Residency paperwork appointment. We were learning why it was called Washington DC and the District of Columbia and Just cool stuff. So which the reason why is because? Was it simultaneously used to be a poetically called Columbia, which is a female version of this is what Columbus Columbus so it was Washington after Washington District of Columbia So super cool. So we're just we're learning we're having cool experiences

Every time we go to a big city one of our kids they would tell you their all -time favorite thing is to rent scooters and just ride all over the city and so we did it again and had a blast and spent insane amounts of money for all the scooters we get all the time we spend on them way cheaper cheaper to take uber but man they are way more fun on the scooter. They just go crazy and have so much fun and plus you get to see so much of the city.

city up close.

Rachel Denning (01:56.558)
by almost running into things, almost running people over. We just have a blast. It's so fun. So we're doing our residency paperwork to go to Europe and we packed up all of our stuff. Yeah, we've had a very busy two weeks, which if any of you pay attention, which that's the reason we have not done a podcast episode for the past two weeks, because it's been go, go, go, go, go, working on all of these things because we're here during this. We're here in the United States for a period of time to accomplish a bunch of things to help

help us finish the process of getting set up with our home base in Portugal. And, well, I'll just throw this in here. Rachel was so thorough.

so detailed with all the paperwork the guy this morning was like wow. He was impressed. Your wife is very organized. My moment of glory. We had to submit seven applications if you guys have ever applied for anything with the government it's you have to have paperwork. Form fillers. Lots of forms. You have to have a form for the form. To verify it was you following on the form. Oh my goodness and she just nailed it and this guy was so impressed so to submit seven.

Seven applications is a big deal and we were in and out in less than an hour. It was awesome. And he was like, I'm trying to do this fast and just do this quick for you guys. Right. He was he was like sitting there helping trying to be fast because he realized that she had done all the work, all his work and it was dialed in. But I wanted to share that, you guys, that the more we, you and I and all of us are more organized, more detailed, more strategic.

about anything and everything, the easier it is and the better things go. Sometimes we whine and complain and... We sabotage ourselves. ...and we...

Rachel Denning (03:51.47)
how terrible things are, we're so miserable. How hard it was. Yeah, exactly. It was so tough when in reality, a lot of it is a subtle form of self -sabotage. Right. We haven't paid the price. We haven't put in the work. We haven't done the preparation. Done the things that need to be done and done them well.

you always love to say, when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. And that's true with everything we do, whether it's applying for a visa or running a marathon.

The way you make it easier on yourself is by preparing ahead of time. And so I spent plenty of time preparing. I did tons and tons of research and looking up everything, everything I needed to know. So I knew exactly what I needed and I got all of it times seven. So when we arrive to perform, right, to actually apply, it was easy. One hour. There was no like freaking out this morning like, ah, we have all this stuff. And then getting there and having this,

Mountain of papers everywhere and like oh, let me find this let me find that look in fact You can tell you can tell how it probably goes most the time because before we even sat down He's like, okay. Let me hold on a second. Let me see if you've got yeah, do you have this? Do you have this? Do you have this? I was like, yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep for all seven people. Yep. Yep So my point here is like anything you're trying to pursue or get done whether it's for your marriage or How you're raising your children your children's education?

work stuff, scaling your business, your lifestyle, even traveling as a family, the more strategic you are, the more... Now we're not talking about being like obsessive compulsive. We're not talking about going too far and over stressing about all kinds of things. We're talking about focusing on the things that actually matter. The things that are within your control, essentially. And the things that make a difference instead of just random... It's easy. It's easy to get distracted and bogged down in details and over planning.

Rachel Denning (05:53.072)
and overthinking in things that don't really make a difference. And it's interesting, the way I like to say that is like we get really passionate about things that don't matter and really passive about things that do. We kind of miss the mark. But if we'll get really passionate and strategic about the things that do matter, the things that do make a difference, man, life is so much easier. Right. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't still...

hiccups and different things and you know we came this morning fully expecting that there could be some sort of hiccup. Things still, even you can you can prepare all you want and there can still be things that go wrong but it's so much easier.

when you have prepared as much as possible so that at least and that's how I was this morning. Like I came knowing I've done everything I can to prepare. If there's something I've missed, it's not because I didn't prepare it was because you know, it's one of those things that they just throw at you like, oh, you need this. I've never heard of that before, right? So being prepared helps to, you know, smooth that path out so that...

if things do arise that are unexpected, you're more prepared to handle those because you've already done all the other work you need to do for everything else you could control. And it's better in many cases to be over prepared. Like the irony is we were over prepared this morning. We told the kids like buckle up. We could be in here for hours. Well, because bring books and coloring things and snacks and like let's be ready. Because we had applied for second passports in Lisbon and that was a US government office. You know, I also point.

out the difference between because we applied here at a it's an organization that helps people it's VFS they help you apply and they charge a fee of course for that but it's because they simplify the process like they make it way easier than if you go to the government office because the contrast was very huge we were at least five hours at the government office compared to one hour in and out now of course my preparation also helped with that but we were totally prepared for applying for the past

Rachel Denning (08:02.192)
but still it took five hours.

So yeah. So as the adage goes, it'd rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. And I mean, that's where you want to be. And you want to be that, I think for me personally, especially when I am coaching the men I get to work with, that's where I want to be as a man, as a husband and father provider. We want to be warriors ready, living our peaceful, beautiful lives.

full fun life, but if anything, if trouble comes calling, trouble better watch out. Ha ha, trouble to the trouble. All right, so let's dive in. We've had, and this is how we travel too, so little tidbits here, we're giving you little bits and pieces of things. So when we travel...

Obviously we had to fly across the ocean and then drive part way across the country. So we had a lot of travel time. Now we enjoy movies as much as anybody. Probably not as much. We don't spend as much time as the average American. But we also love to listen to audio books and podcasts. And interestingly in the last couple of weeks,

Maybe you guys are I'm sure of experience as well where you're listening something randomly and they just overlap or you read something you have a conversation hear something and you're like what all of that fits together to kind of give you a a it's puzzle pieces and you get to see the You get to see the image and that just worked out perfectly this time. I've had this book downloaded on my phone for

Rachel Denning (09:45.23)
probably over a year. And when I got on this flight, I'm like, you know what? It's time for this one. So I just opened it up. I had no idea what to expect. I remember somebody highly recommending it and I had no idea what it was about. So I started listening. It's called Wild Swans and I highly, highly, highly recommend it. In fact, multiple times I stopped it and told Rachel, I'm like, everyone needs to listen to this. It is so good. Yeah, it's amazing. So we're listening to that. Then you're listening to that. I was listening to it. Then we randomly,

caught some podcasts and some videos of very kind of what people have labeled as very liberal or left -side. I don't like those labels but very liberal side and then very conservative. And over the last couple weeks we've listened to full interviews.

And we don't hear another thing. We never get into politics. But we listen to a full interview from somebody running for the Republican nomination and...

a full interview for somebody running for the Democratic nomination. And they were both so insightful. And both of those interviews. I would vote for either one. Yeah, either one of them. It was amazing. They both they overlapped so much, which I was like, this is a breath of fresh air. It never happens. But they were because they were chasing down.

common sense and intellect and reason. It was very beautiful. And then we listened to a podcast by a very liberal, self -proclaimed very liberal professor from a very liberal university who was actually fired for some of his...

Rachel Denning (11:31.118)
stance, like moral and ethical standards. So anyways, what I'm saying is this wasn't just this one -sided, like far little wing little thing coming in. This, it was all pieced together from kind of both sides of a...

you know, the paradigm or the scale of ideas, whether, you know, political, economic or social, whatever. And it starts to piece together. And plus reading then about history, and we're like, oh, we've got to share some of these ideas. Well, also we've done a coaching session or two while we've been here with the 28 day challenge. And it.

this kind of came up in that coaching session which is another reason like it's this intersection of all these different ideas and we're explaining how we come to this because I think it's relevant. So it came up there specifically about college and if we you know if we would let our kids go to college or where we would let our kids go to college something like that and then the other thing too is we met with some friends last night for dinner who they had come to our Portugal retreat at our house in Portugal and one of the things that came up was

Thank you for watching.

the things that you notice when you, one, return to a place, like, you know, we're returning to the US after we've been out of the US for nine months, 10 months or something while we we've been traveling to 17 countries and then moving to Portugal. So we have not been in the US for a while. And so we also context there from the very, very top of Europe, like all the way Arctic Circle into Turkey and into Africa.

Rachel Denning (13:20.464)
in Egypt. It's a spectrum of... Yeah, a nice spectrum. Scandinavia too. Well, Scandinavia and then... Well, okay, we started in New York City, right? And then Scandinavia, but then the Baltic states would still have quite a bit of leftover communism all the way down to Turkey, which is a totally different world and a different political climate and governmental climate down there. Very, very distinct. And then over to Egypt as well, which is very different.

So it was it was a great, yeah, great spectrum of experience and exposure in a short amount of time to be able to contrast all that. And so then we come back to the US and and so what we were mentioning last night was some of the things that stick out to us about the United States when you come back and they you know they were asking us, oh what is that? And one of the things was one thing I noticed is well you mentioned health how Americans are overly generally

Wow, so unhealthy. Yeah, Americans are unhealthy. There's more obesity, there's more... Just garbage food. Yeah, really trashy food and just, yeah, unhealthy in general. And medications. Well, okay, and that's another thing. But the other thing I noticed was the billboards. Yep. Like there are so many billboards for lawyers in the United States. It's insane and it's pretty much the only place I think I've seen it. The only place I remember seeing billboards...

that were worse than the United States was Thailand. I remember we landed in Thailand and like the entire road is coated covered with these giant billboards that are way bigger than here. But I don't think they were advertising lawyers. You know, they were advertising other things. But in the United States specifically, there are, I swear, and maybe it's Georgia and this side of the country. But no, you see that west too. Most of the billboards seem to be for lawyers. Yeah, litigation and independence.

depends on the area too, like certain, I noticed certain cities, I remember down in Louisiana, you guys, we've driven across this entire country, literally coast to coast, top to bottom, and we've done it multiple times, and there are more and more billboards, more and more billboards, and really promoting litigation. Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel Denning (15:37.838)
But like the other thing you mentioned, the other, one of the other things we've noticed is the insane amounts of advertisements on the television for drugs. On the radio. On the radio. So we took an Uber this morning and he had the radio on and there was all these ads for drugs. And we're saying flat out drugs because that's what it is. They are drugs being pushed by drug dealers. So then one of the things we learned from this interview,

we watched is that in the last 10 years, and this is part of the big message here, we're putting some puzzle pieces together to try and just, we have to see what's happening. We have to see big pictures. And we have to look in the past to understand the future, predict the future, understand what... Understand the present. Understand the present and to know what it actually means. So we learned that in the last 10 years, big pharmaceutical companies have been crime, have been fined. I think all of the major large firms. Criminal charges like that was a...

massive crime and your penalty is a fine. Right. So if it were an individual, the person would go to prison. If it's a big organization, they get massive fines. So that's what you know, that's what's unique. An organization is an entity and yet it's not like a person you can throw in prison and you can't take the company and put it in prison. You just find it and they gladly pay the fine because they're so profitable and they continue doing illegal things. So what we learned was they they've been fined.

$35 billion in criminal charges because of the products they made were criminal.

and they knew about it in some cases, they knew the harm, they did it anyways because it's so profitable, they were brought to court, they were found guilty, and they were charged and sentenced as criminals. And yet those same organizations that are legitimately have been sentenced as criminals, have been fined $35 billion. These are criminal organizations. Combined. They are criminal organizations. There's no...

Rachel Denning (17:45.806)
There's no argument about that. According to the official definition. And they are still promoting.

And selling. And advertising on TV. And advertising like crazy. Well then we found out that they own 75, they buy up 75 % of advertising space around the evening news. Yes, specifically. So 75 % of all ads in the evening news specifically and maybe other evening programs, I'm not sure, are funded by the major pharmaceutical companies. Whoa. Then we found out that no political party

Democrats, Republicans, independents, nobody had had received any funding from pharmaceutical companies until about eight years ago. No, I think that there was some funding on the Republican side.

I'm not 100 % sure on this, but I think I remember that they were saying that there were some funding on the Republican side, but it wasn't large. And then it definitely wasn't on the liberal Democrat side because of the stigma that they had. With Big Pharma. They didn't want anything to do with it. But all of that changed in... It was with Obamacare. It was with Obamacare, right. Because Obamacare, the only way they were going to make Obamacare work...

happen was by basically telling the pharmaceutical companies. Well, and the way he said it, this was a Democrat who said this, he said they had to sign a deal with the devil.

Rachel Denning (19:20.654)
And in this particular case, the devil said, independent of all these other countries, they said, we're going to make a contract. But they said, we will not lower the prices at all. Like you have to pay our prices. And so they said, OK, fine. And they went for it. But since then, there's been massive, massive amount of funding, lobbying and all kinds of money coming from these criminal organizations into politics. So now it's in the media, it's in the politics and it's on the radio. It's all in place. And we've noticed that as well that like this, this

This country consumes more pharmaceutical drugs way way way more. We already knew this part. I mean this part we have known for a long time because we've had personal friends that have worked in other countries, specifically New Zealand where the amount of...

drug use. He said he gave out more drugs in one shift here in the United States in the ER than he did in an entire year in the ER in New Zealand. Exactly. Right. One shift in the ER in the United States, he gave out more drugs than he did for an entire year.

working at an ER in New Zealand. And here it's just expected. And so we already knew that, but we also had learned in all this that Americans take 75 % more drugs than practically any other country in the world. When we're talking about all of these pieces that just start to show up and you put them together in this puzzle and you get a whole picture, this is one of the things. I mean, we were kind of joking with ourselves, but kind of not saying, wow, this country is just like a run by a criminal.

drug organization, you know? It really is. It's a little crazy here. And so this and again this isn't conspiracy theory you guys. This is open information. You can all see this. So it's it's all there but it has an effect. I want you to stop. The point is like again we're coming from having not been in the country for nine months and you come in and you start to pick up on these things that...

Rachel Denning (21:22.126)
before when you're in it, you don't notice it. And same for me. Like when you're there, you just think, oh, that's completely normal. Nothing odd or strange about that. But when you've been out and you come back, it's like your brain starts, whoa, wait a second. That's really strange or odd or what the heck.

And so you really start to pay attention to those things and you begin to form this picture that you didn't have before because it's like new information all of a sudden. Because you haven't been, you know, you're not, let's work, you're not.

Not immune. Whatever. You just get used to it and then it stands out, right? Yeah, exactly. There's some work, but I can't think of it. So when you step back, I just want everyone to just kind of chew on this for a minute. Just step back and take an objective perspective here. The quality of food is horrendous.

the processed foods, the fast foods, the overweight, out of shape, obesity, and then you combine all the drugs. And we've all heard at the end of those pharma commercials on TV or the radio, they have to do a 35 or 40 second blurp about all the horrible things that can happen to you because of this drug as their disclaimer. And they're saying it real fast in a quiet voice. And just listen to that list of horrendous things that can happen. The reason they have to put that on there is because it actually does happen. So they're adding your

all these drugs on top of the poor health, it's just adding to it. This is just one factor. One factor. And if you take a society that is very sick, let this sink in, you guys. You take a society, take this whole society, and 75 % of them, those are pretty accurate numbers for being overweight and obese and really ill.

Rachel Denning (23:12.558)
75 % of your populace is sick. And on drugs. Like, how can that society thrive? How can that civilization continue to thrive or even survive if 75 % of our more are sick? And this sounds crazy even while we're saying it. Like, what? But I think - And yet, with this objective viewpoint, you know -

having been out and coming back and putting these pieces together, I just, I still have to be like, no, that it's accurate. That's true. And the point is it has an effect. Like we can't pretend that it does not. It can't not. Now this wasn't even exactly what we want to talk about today. So we're clear here. Like you guys, we're not anti -American at all.

But even people who've come over to visit us recently or come, we had people meet up with us in Norway, we had people meet up with us in Poland, in Austria, we had people meet up with us in Turkey and in Portugal. Came to our house in Portugal. And they came over and they're like, wow, people are really healthy and happy in all those places. Yeah. So it's not just us, it's obvious. So like, good night. We didn't say something of their own. They mentioned, oh, wow.

outside and they're healthy and this is great. Like you know there's less obesity like it's noticeable. Yeah exactly. It's not that it doesn't exist but it's noticeable that it's less. Yep a lot less.

There was something else I was going to say about your bath. Well, you're saying this wasn't the main topic for today, but I think it's a piece of the puzzle. It's a very important piece. Oh, well, just I was going to add this little side story of like yesterday we went to, we're in DC, we went to the National Museum of Natural History, Museum of Natural History, whatever it's supposed to mean. And we were hungry and, you know,

Rachel Denning (25:14.35)
We don't like paying a lot for food and we especially don't like paying a lot for crappy food, but we were also hungry that we went to the little cafe there to try to find a snack. A delicious bar of dark chocolate was $9 each and we were like, okay, no, we're not gonna do that. And they had these pastry looking things. Then I'm like, oh, let's get one of those. It's kind of got the cream and the fruit on top.

We got one of those to share. And I bought a couple apples. And you got a couple apples at like $2 .50 each. And we shared this pastry and we're used to, first of all, we're used to European pastries, which are amazing, right? They're just great. And we eat this pastry. I don't think you had any, but the kids and I, and we literally, my daughter who's 16 was like, this literally tastes like Play -Doh. It was...

It was like so disgusting. Like you have to put in some serious effort to make things taste that bad. I know. You have to try. Like little kids in the kitchen can make food that doesn't taste that bad. I don't know what's going on. Like you have to put in so much effort to get horrendous food. I think it's really that they're just making it from ingredients that aren't.

real food. That's honestly what it is. I think that they're using these processed ingredients so that it just tastes weird. It tastes weird, especially if you're used to eating whole foods, which we are. I mean, we cook with all whole foods. It's nothing processed, nothing, you know, fake. And for the most part, Europe is like that. Now it's starting, unfortunately, to be more infiltrated with processed foods, but...

If you go to get pastries, the pastries are made from milk and sugar or honey, like basic whole ingredients. I literally feel like they're getting this stuff out of a can, that who knows where it comes from and what it's made out of. It's some factory somewhere. You can tell the difference. That's the point. After traveling for nine months through all these countries, eating real food, you can tell the difference. Then another thing today is...

Rachel Denning (27:33.71)
On the way back from our appointment there was some food trucks of Latin food and we stopped because you know We've spent many years living in Latin America and our kids were like, oh my gosh, they were so excited. This wasn't a fancy food truck It was a couple of run down feeder trucks and then one lady out of her trunk and I was like, oh yes This is gonna be good homemade food and we got some and like our nine -year -old daughter who was born in Costa Rica

Made with Latin food. I was pregnant with her in Guatemala, like consuming Latin food, like it's a part of her DNA, I think. And she was like jumping up and down and dancing and she's like, this is the best food I've ever had.

I want to have this food at my wedding. These were the things she was saying. And all of our kids were like, let's come back to this exact place for lunch tomorrow. Exactly. Because they could tell the difference because it's real food is the point. Like the Latin still cook with real food. So that's our little tangent. Wait, one more thing that I noticed. And I think for some of you, this will stand out and be important. I didn't realize these things early on when I found out it was kind of it was insightful for me. So we go to our little grocery store.

in Europe and I get grass -fed either sirloin or ribeye. I love ribeye. So I buy a grass -fed ribeye steak for $4 .99. Okay. I just looked at one this morning here in a local grocery store. It was $14 .99. And in Tennessee it was $19 .99.

So it was three or four times more expensive. And yet we have this huge...

Rachel Denning (29:20.654)
expanse of grasslands in this country and seemingly endless fields of grazing cattle and what is going on there's some there's oh oh and we we heard that thing about inflation I mean that thing about inflation she said that she went through the numbers just went through the numbers and that inflation now it's the cost of living is worse than 1930 when it was in the Great Depression and the wages

that we're earning are worse. So wages are worse, cost of living is exorbitantly more. And she calculated the inflation and all that stuff. And so the percentages were much, much worse. So again, you guys, we're not, you guys are going to think we're just negative, doomsday, or like that we're just pessimistic. But we have to point out these observations for everybody. Because if we just roll along through life, we're just humdrum, going along, paying the bills, doing our thing, checking the box.

We're going to miss out on what's happening and we're not going to be aware of what's going on and we want to share these things not to be negative, not to bring out the rain cloud every time you listen to one of our episodes, but the opposite, actually the opposite. We want to point out things that are happening and put them in the context of history and governments and societies and go, oh, okay, like this is really interesting. And then we can be prepared and be aware and make adjustments in our own family.

so that we're not blindsided by really detrimental and even destructive patterns in society. Yeah and that's you know that's why we share it in this podcast is because we are going out we're having these experiences we're seeing these things we're making these observations and if we just keep it to ourselves you know it only helps us. So...

But all of that being said, I mean, one of the other things that came up that kind of is why, I don't know, I guess that's what we're going to talk about today in this podcast, was the idea of college. Someone in our coaching session, we do a coaching session every week with my 28 day challenge, and we were asked, I don't remember the exact question, but it was basically like, hey.

Rachel Denning (31:44.462)
Do you want your kids to go to college? And if so, where? Type thing. And it's interesting, because years ago when we first started, well, closer to when we first started traveling, I started blogging. And I remember writing an article saying why I hope my kids never go to college. And at the time, you know, it was obviously meant to be kind of controversial and like...

We were trying to be unconventional and that was part of it. You know, Greg had gone to college. I loved it. I had a great experience. Right, exactly. And I had gone to some college and I really enjoyed it. But we were the first ones in our families to go to college. I didn't get a degree, but you did. You were the first one in your family, I think the first one in my family to get a degree.

But it was, you know, it was a thing. Your kid should go to college and we, for.

Anyways, I wrote this article saying, oh, this is why I hope they don't. And I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was basically like the world is changing. Things are different now. You used to have to go to a university because that's where the books were and that's where the professors were and that's where you were going to interact with people and learn how to think and have debate and get exposed to ideas and all this. But now the world is different where you can access all of that information online. You don't have to even leave your house.

house really to get a college level education, right? That was kind of the approach behind this. And even better now. And in fact, many of the brightest minds, if they were in university, they're leaving because they're seeing the mess and they're writing their books and taking their courses and classes online and making them available privately where that wasn't available before. Now, there's somebody who's brilliant and creates this whole course or class. He's like, I'm going to sell it myself. I don't have to be in some university where they dictate all...

Rachel Denning (33:39.888)
garbage to me? Well I think even you know for this has been true for a while MIT has all of its classes online for free but but point being I wrote that article years ago and that was maybe ten years or more that I wrote that.

But over time, I've actually kind of thought about it a lot and in a way changed my view kind of in that I thought, well, no, it's not that I'm against my kids going to college. I still think that that can be a very valuable experience. There's much to be learned. If you need a degree, obviously, for a certain career, you need to go to college. And then there was this time that maybe starting, I don't know, seven years ago.

where I was like, I want to go back to college. And I started having kind of this conversation with Greg of like, well, I actually want to go back to college. I want to get my degree. And just because... Trying to liberalize degree. I'm this way, I was like, I want to go to Harvard, right? I want to get a degree from Harvard. And probably three, four, five years ago, I don't remember, we were having a conversation about me seriously doing this. And Greg was like, but why? Why do you want to do it? You looked up and you were about to register. Oh yeah, I was about to register because they had this program where, especially if you were

over, I don't know, maybe it was over the age of 30 or 40, I don't remember. You could register for online classes and then it would kind of be this leeway that once you've taken so many classes, like you were into Harvard, it was an easy way to get in. And I was ready to register and start taking these classes and Greg and I had this conversation where he was kind of like, well why do you want to do this, right? And I'm like, oh I just, I do, I love it, I love a formalized way of learning, I love being challenged like that.

I kind of like that prestige of oh, I have a degree from Harvard whoo -hoo and But we I remember talking about it too because I'd also started reading a lot of Jordan Peterson's stuff and listening to a bunch of his podcasts and I kind of I don't know if it was For fun or I was serious where I'm like I could also just listen to all of Jordan Peterson's podcast You know and read his recommended recommended book list that alone you guys would be a world -class education psychology and I don't know if just because

Rachel Denning (35:55.376)
the timing wasn't right to actually start classes at Harvard or maybe you just didn't want to spend the money on it. I don't know, but you're like, why don't you do that? Why don't you devote the next two years to listening to all of his podcasts, reading his recommended reading, and then review it and see where you stand after that if you still want to go to Harvard. And so it's interesting because that was what I did. I actually then wrote about how I'm working on listening to all of Jaren Peterson's podcasts. I've so far listened to almost 250 hours, I think.

But someone found my article on my website and said, this is really fascinating. I would love to hear what you have learned by going through this process. Because I also have my spreadsheet on there where I'm tracking everything I'm listening to. And I haven't read the article yet, but one of the things I've thought of is that actually listening to that many hours of his podcast has convinced me not to go to Harvard.

or to any other major university. And so as people were asking about this in our coaching, you know, they were kind of like, well, why? Why is that? Why? There are very few schools essentially that I would feel comfortable sending my children to. And not because I'm afraid of my kids being exposed to different ideas. We want that. But because I truly feel that the universities have become a dangerous place. And I use that word intentionally dangerous.

because they have become echo chambers of very you how to think no no no no teaching you what to think teaching you what to think instead of teaching you how to think and and as and this is where

my current listening to Wild Swans becomes so relevant right now. And I'll just give a little bit of context here. Please, please, please listen or read, listen to or read that book. It is phenomenal. She walks through, she gives this long history of her family, multiple generations and what her family experiences. Her meaning she's a person that's still alive today, right? I don't know if she's still alive, but this is a autobiography and it's multi -generational. It is a

Rachel Denning (38:08.848)
amazing. I mean, there's so much that you learn about the history of China. But what she walks through, and she's not sitting here like, you know, making some... Pointing fingers. Yeah, political. This isn't a political book. She's just saying, this is what happened. This is our story. And they were deeply, deeply involved believing in the communist movement. And...

You know, obviously she sees it now, but they didn't then they thought it was a great thing and they just totally bought into the working for the party, the indoctrination. What's the other word? It's the propaganda. And so what she walks through is explaining, I'm seeing all this and while we're having these conversations and hearing about our own, the own, you know, the political journey and situation we're in right now in this country and what's happening in our universities, especially across the board is that and.

Well, I'll walk through it and then I'll back up. Is that you see that Mao and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini, they always went to the youth because youth are easy to rile up. They're easy to indoctrinate.

They just take the propaganda and they have boundless energy and they want to be activists. They want to be involved. They want to do something. They're just firing up with all this emotion.

all of those dictators and tyrants and you start setting history like if they wanted tyranny if you wanted anything what would you do well you go to the youth and it's a long game you you go for several years and you you indoctrinate decades or decades even and you use them and you it's subtle and it's man it's very very very strategic and i know you guys are hearing this is starting to sound like conspiracy theory and all of those like

Rachel Denning (40:06.064)
But all you gotta do is study history. Just study history every time. This isn't conspiracy, this is history. Yeah, so you just look at history. Look at history and they're like, oh yeah, they went over and they specifically targeted youth and they started just...

shouting all these wonderful things. This can happen. This can be great and don't do those bad. And they make good things seem bad and they make bad things seem really good. And they're so subtle about it and they'll swing back and forth. And Mao did this. He's like, hey, we want criticism. Everybody, we want you to be critical, especially you intellectuals. We want that. Please criticize the leadership of

our nation so we can all be better." And then, so everyone's criticized for a full year and then after that year was over he said, okay now everyone who's criticized go ahead and kill him or throw him in prison or send him to Gulag. So it was this long game to just weed out anyone who would be critical of the party. But I'm pointing this out, I'm saying this because it appears that there are some very, very strategic...

indoctrinations and propaganda that's being spread over years if not decades and it's really getting deep into high schools and universities. Well it's reaching the high school levels now and and not that it's and we're not saying that this is intentional by one leader like Mao.

that it's happening, but it's also something known as, in a way it's like mass formation, which there's this phenomenon that occurs. There's books about it and podcasts about it called mass formation. And it's essentially where the entire population becomes, they use the word hypnotized by a certain idea or a certain belief or a certain viewpoint that they then become obsessed with. And so it's not that it's happening because one leader is saying, I'm going to do this and I'm being

Rachel Denning (42:04.048)
very strategic about it. It's almost this mass formation that's occurring that's causing the population to behave in ways that can or are becoming self -destructive. They're becoming destructive to the society itself because so many people are taking on these ideologies and beliefs. And even businesses will do it. Like the whole reason we wear diamond rings, like it's not even questioned anymore. Like nobody questions like, wait a minute, why? Why?

the world was a man expected to buy a diamond ring for a woman and that's the symbol of marriage. I just thought like, oh that's just always been the case and everybody does it. It wasn't until we moved to India and they're like, we don't wear rings. What? What do you, what is this? And they have a silver toe ring to indicate that they're married. But then you dig into it and you're like, oh some businessman who went and bought a mind, he started a marketing campaign and now it's just a given. As a perfect example of

mass formation, nobody even thinks about it. Nobody questions it. Nobody bucks the system. It's like, oh, you're getting married, you get a diamond ring. That's a pretty benign example. But it was perpetrated by a businessman. He wanted to sell diamonds. It is an example. I just wanted to mention another thing because one of the podcast episodes I did listen to of Jordan Peterson is with a woman who, her name is Yomi Perk, I think. She escaped from North Korea.

And then she later on wrote a book and I've also read her book or listened to her book and back to this whole idea and topic is that...

She, I remember specifically that she said that after she had escaped North Korea and she was essentially immediately sold into sex slavery. You know, that was how she got out of North Korea because the Chinese took her but sold her as a slave, a sex slave. But over time she was able to get out of that, she was able to educate herself and she said that I remember reading Animal Farm for the first time and I finally understood what had happened to me.

Rachel Denning (44:15.344)
and my parents and my grandparents in North Korea. She's like now I it was clear to me what had been going on. But another thing that she said that I found so fascinating is that later many years later she ended up going to Stanford University in the United States. She got some sort of scholarship or something and she... Was it Stanford? Yeah I'm pretty sure it was Stanford. She...

for the first time, well, okay, maybe not for the first time, but again, since she had left North Korea, started to feel like some of those elements were at play again in the university setting. So that she felt that the same type of controlling and censoring and, you know, you're not allowed to do these things, you're not allowed to say, I mean, it's the whole animal farm thing where the pigs are there in control, but they keep changing.

changing all the rules and like, oh, well now you're not allowed to say this. Now you're not allowed to do that. And this. And they make it sound or seem like a good thing. Exactly. But like has been pointed out, if you look back through history, anyone who was censoring was not the good guy. They were always the bad guys. Always the bad guys that censored. And as you look at it, Mao did this again, please, please, please listen to her read Wild Swans, but Mao did this. He

He wanted to control thinking. He wanted to control...

the minds, the mindsets, the general populace. The reason why he attacked the intellectuals and then killed them or put them in prison is because he did not want people to be free thinking. He said, they think for themselves. We have to eliminate anyone who thinks for themselves. That was literally what he was doing. It's a threat. And that's the point. That should be the very point of university, so that you go to a place where you can learn how to think.

Rachel Denning (46:14.224)
think for yourself and yet what is exactly happening is that you're not what to think you're not allowed to think for yourself you're being told what to think and if you don't you're going to be canceled you you're gonna be fired which is what happened with this other man that we were talking about he's an evolutionary biologist he knows his wife and

I wish I could remember all the specifics of why it happened, but essentially he was cancelled. He was fired from his position because he refused to conform with the way you were supposed to think about things. That is what is happening on a mass scale.

to nearly all colleges in this country and unfortunately it's spreading to Europe as well. Absolutely and in the business world it's happening as well, people are getting fired or sued. What's happening is you're seeing it that they're trying to control the narrative, they're trying to control the meaning of things and they're trying to censor.

And again, I know even as we're saying this, it sounds crazy. But like we're trying to do this as...

as temperately as possible, just saying, hey, this is interesting. Look at this comparison. Read this book. Study this bit of history and then look at our our own thing. It's like, hmm, this seems similar. Yes, it seems to be happening again. And these are things that even.

Rachel Denning (47:48.11)
one, two, three years ago, we would have, could have never imagined saying or believing. And yet the pieces have been coming together so clearly and being put together so completely that at this point, like we're saying, we're being temperate, but this is like, there's no doubt about this at this point. There's no doubt in our mind that this is the state of how things are. So 100%, I got to, I got to jump in right here and plead with you for you, your spouse and your

older children to read or listen to Animal Farm, to read or listen to Wild Swans, to read or listen to 1984, Fahrenheit 451, shoot Hunger Games. I mean just get into those books. Naomi Park's book is In Order to Live, if you're interested in that.

Just look at what happened. Because it starts to bring clarity where you're just like, oh, this is obvious, these similarities. There's no mistake here, this crossover. Another thing I wanted to mention really quick because I think it's relevant. This book, Wild Swans, which was written by, it's 20th century here. This isn't old history.

It's three generational, but was it within that time period? They now estimate that Mao has killed at least. Hold on, no, no, just, just in this one section in the early sixties, he forced 30 million Chinese to death through starvation. That was just, that was the one instance. Well, the wars were even bigger, just just starvation because of his absolutely retarded.

and insanely ignorant. He did not understand economies, he didn't understand anything. He was a madman. Because of that 30 million people started to death just during those couple years of famine. That was it. I mean the numbers are staggering on the other side of the wars and the killing. He just was randomly killing like crazy. In comparison to the Holocaust or the Gulag, in the Gulag how many people were killed?

Rachel Denning (50:05.806)
Same, tens of millions. Was it 30 million? Well, that was just from one area. They estimated, I think it was the east side, that he had murdered 30 million people from just that one region of Russia in the Gulag. Wow.

So, I mean, this is huge and this is happening. And it happened in your parents' lifetime. Right. Right. This was in the 50s and 60s. And the truth is, it's still happening today. We don't have the numbers. You know, we don't have the statistics, but it's still happening. It's happening in China. It's happening in North Korea. One of the things she talked about is she says, people think I'm so brave because I escaped from North Korea as though some act of freedom. She's like, it had nothing to do with that. I think.

I was starving. I was so hungry that the idea of staying in North Korea and not being able to eat was more disturbing than...

going to China and she had, she's like, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn't even know about freedom or what freedom was. They didn't even have words for those things. They had no vocabulary. She said we had no vocabulary to describe love or freedom. Of controlling me. You just remove words or change the meaning. Yeah. You, you change what people think or what they experience by limiting the vocabulary that they're allowed to use, which is why it is such a huge,

deal. For example, the thing with Jordan Peterson, one of the reasons he became well known is because he was standing up against forced speech. This idea that you had to be forced to use certain words or not use certain words, which was actually passed into law into Canada, which if you know anything about history and what that means, that's actually a very dangerous, terrible thing because that's the beginning of it. Like, you know, if you start forcing that you use certain pronouns, well, where does that end? Well, you're not a

Rachel Denning (52:01.776)
allowed to use the word love. You're not, and that's another thing they talk about in Wild Swans, is that your primary devotion was to the state. If you loved your child or you loved your spouse more than you did the party, that was a sin. And so in North Korea they just eliminate those words. The only type of love, and she talked about that, the only type of love she knew was this worship for, I forget the leader's name. They did the same thing for Mel. Yeah, exactly.

The only devotion you have, the only love you felt was for mouth. Right. And so when you start to control the narrative like that and you start to tell people how they're allowed to use language by saying you're not allowed to use these pronouns or whatever, that's where it begins. And where it ends is this ain't no joke is in this type of totalitarianism. And what they did specifically, this is so sick and we've got to be aware of this stuff. The way he got, especially that love me, honor me, everything is about me, do it for me. And they, he,

He really wanted to deify himself so that everyone loved him and adored him. Every good thing that ever happened was because of him. He came up with songs and taught it to elementary kids. Oh, same exact thing in North Korea. Yeah, so it was... And again, you guys, you hear this and you're like, that's so sick, that's horrible. That kind of crap is happening here. It's happening today. Today. And we think, oh no, never happened. That only happened back then. No. It's a repeated pattern throughout history and it's still happening. I saw it when I went to Cuba.

And like that's communism in real time you guys well this kind of craziness is happening

And this is the far end of it, okay? So what we're doing is giving the examples of the far end. But you pick up one stick, one end of the stick, you pick up the other. Like it's directly connected. Same idea in North Korea. Like she talked about one of the things that really started to shake her mother's faith in the whole party was the fact that their leader, I want to say Kim something, he was old, but they thought, they literally believed he was immortal.

Rachel Denning (54:06.766)
and then he died and they were all like, what? How did he die? Like I thought he was supposed to be a mortal. And then his son took over and of course his son was even worse than he was. But it was these types of ideas where they were so limited in education, in vocabulary, in understanding. They had no exposure to the outside world at all that all they knew was this is the leader, he is God. We worship him, we sing to him. And we see this from the outside and think, well, that's dumb. Like, man.

It's so childish, like that's so, you know, how could it get to that? And it could never get to that like that in America. And yet if we allow things to continue to be controlled, if we allow the narrative to continue to be controlled, if we allow ourselves to continue to be told what exactly we are supposed to be thinking and what exactly we're supposed to be doing and how exactly we're supposed to be acting, which this is happening.

Speaking from people who have stepped out and come back, it's happening. And in a lot of subtle ways that we're not fully aware of. Interestingly, Putin, who's the dictator in Russia, and Kim whatever. We should get his name right. From Korea, they just met. And who knows what those guys talk about.

But, okay, here's another one. We'll throw this out there. Well, one of the reasons, sorry, another note, that the dictators, that communism started to fail in North Korea was because they stopped receiving support from Russia. And so they ran out of money. Same in Cuba. Same in Cuba. I mean, the only reason communism works is if they're getting money from somewhere. So then the people don't work and they're just given handouts, like in Cuba, which you saw firsthand when you were there. And, but if they don't have someone supporting them, like,

Russia, they don't have any money and the people aren't making money to support. They don't pay taxes, right? So they're expected to feed all of these people and that's why they were starving because they didn't have any money to feed them. And they're not allowed to start a business to make their own money. And if you did, like her father did, you're thrown in prison. So he went to prison for a long time. It is, oh, it's so messed. But it's real people. And it's happening. And if you understand how it's

Rachel Denning (56:32.24)
starts. This is how it starts. And I know that this sounds crazy, but we're at a point where we cannot deny that it's directly connected. So, so the question always is, so therefore what? Well, one, make sure you are devouring

books across multiple genres. Make sure you're studying history and sharing it with your kids. Make sure you are absolutely responsible and take ownership for your own education and your children's education. Teach yourself and your children how to think, how to think for yourself, how to question things. Well, and how to understand.

the bigger picture and the context because you and I have had a lot of conversations with each other and with other friends in the last few weeks and one of the things that keeps coming up is that part of the reason that these things that we're talking about don't seem that dangerous is because too many of us and I feel that I can include myself in that pool.

we don't fully, we're not educated enough to fully understand the significance.

So when something happens like a bill gets passed or this happens or that happens, we don't fully understand what that means and where it can lead. And until we educate ourselves more about history and government, I just started a book a few days ago that I'm very excited to listen to called The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Unless we're fully educated about these things, you just think, oh, no big deal. Why is that significant?

Rachel Denning (58:20.624)
It's not. But we don't realize that that's going to play itself out in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Who knows? But when you're, by the time you're kids...

are adults, how much is the world gonna have changed because these little things are creeping up on us? Yep, this is one small act in the big drama that's been going on since humans came into existence. It's nothing new. We just for some reason think, oh, it's not gonna happen to us. Which? Because we're different now. We're not. Humans are the same.

And it's always a few generations and they think, oh, what? No, that won't happen. And then it happens. And then the next generation is like, no, we saw it happen. We heard about it. And then a couple of generations later, they think, nah, that'll never happen. That was just back then. So it's happening, happening right under our noses. And it's a full assault. Wherever your belief system lies, evil does exist.

and it is playing a role. And there are unbelievably evil people participating in it from sex slavery to... Well, yeah, this doesn't even bring in the whole topic of human trafficking that's occurring on a global scale, which we did kind of talk about that in our last podcast episode. So physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, financially, get yourself and your family into an awesome position.

to be able to survive and thrive and be ready for whatever is coming. Love you guys, thanks for listening.