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

Rachel Denning (00:10.222)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast where your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. We are currently in Portugal and we're actually going in a couple days to go look at a huge estate here near the beach. Where we can do retreats. A retreat center for families. And we have a new idea that I think is fun of making it like a world schooling kind of hub. Hub, yeah. Where families could come stay, be set up for working and.

for education and connecting and community, which is a fun idea. So we're going to score that. Um, and then we're always having retreats. We're hosting retreats for youth. Now we're going to do them for young adults since we have young adults and of course we do them for couples and men. Maybe you'll do one for women. Yeah, that would be amazing. And then, um, this weekend we're driving up to France to pursue our dream of the Chateau. For those of you.

you who have been listening for a while or following us for a while, you know, we've been dreaming of having a Chateau in France. We have found a Chateau that may be the Chateau and we are going to see it next week. So very exciting. Very, very exciting. Okay. But that's not even all. Besides that, after we get back from France, we're almost immediately flying to Dubai for a quick two day trip and then we're flying to Tanzania.

where you will be hiking leading a group up Kilimanjaro. It started as a father -son thing but it's expanded to a family thing. It's awesome. And then doing an African safari which will be awesome. And then as soon as I get back, we'll be taking our boys. We'll be taking one son and we'll go do the Camino de Santiago. Oh no, before that you were doing Iceland. No, no it's right before. Oh okay. Yeah.

So do the Camino first on motorcycles with my oldest son before he leaves out to do his missionary work in Spain. So rent motorcycles and do the Camino and then right after that we just plan a quick trip with my boys and my nephew to go to Iceland. So it is a wild, busy, awesome time.

Rachel Denning (02:35.182)
So that's our life update. Love it. Okay, but we got an awesome, awesome question email with all kinds of questions and thoughts, which we love that. So please always ask questions, reach out to us on social. Please respond to us when you listen to our episode and if you have any emotions, strong or positive or negative, we want to hear it. Honestly, we do because that to us is part of the conversation that we're

I mean, it's a one -sided conversation, but we're trying to have a conversation here about growth and development, improvement in family life. And so that's one of the best ways. And this email that we got was in response to the last episode we did about, specifically about homeschooling, because we had received some questions about it in coaching and whatnot. But this response is not related to homeschooling. We're actually going to do another episode responding to those specific things.

about the homeschooling, about college, because along with Jordan Peterson, we feel that the education system, especially colleges, are very corrupt, and there are very few, if any, colleges I would send my kids to. Same with Jordan Peterson. Well, his kids are older already, but so we are gonna talk about that. What colleges would we send, or will we send our kids to? But today, oh.

What we are going to respond to was the other part of the email that was something along the lines of when I listen to your episodes, I'm both inspired and depressed at the same time. So we want to talk about, okay, that's normal, but what do we do about that? And it's actually, if I'm understanding the statement right, which I am because it, I think I am because it came attached to a lot of other messages. It's, that's exactly what we want.

That's why we do this podcast. We're trying to depress you. We want to share a message through our own experiences through our own life journey through our adventures, through results, our own personal development, our own personal growth. And, and that

Rachel Denning (04:51.118)
what we're sharing, that message and the example, I want it to be both inspiring and terrifying. Yes. Simultaneously. Because while I would not have always chosen the word depressed, although there are certain times during our journey where that was the case, a feeling of depression. I think that no matter what, when you are pursuing your dreams, if they're big enough,

somewhere along that process, you are going to feel a significant sense of something like overwhelm, insecurity, insufficiency, like basically that you're not good enough to achieve that higher ideal. Hold on, hold on, meaning you're not currently good enough and you need to become better. Not like, oh, you can't do this because that's a fixed mindset of no, you can't do it because you're not good enough. That's not what we're saying ever. We never say that. Right.

It's hey, as you are currently, you're right. You're not good enough. You have to level up. And I would say a different angle of what you're saying is like, we're kind of holding up a mirror to ourselves first and foremost and always, but to others as well say, hey, look, take a look where you're at right now. And some of the depressed or discouraged or freshly feeling is the pain that you need to experience of like, I'm not being who I could be. Right. Exactly.

Well, and I mean, I even want to share a very real personal example of how that's true. Again, talking about the Chateau, you guys have heard us talking about the Chateau for years, maybe a decade or more. And we're getting closer to making that a reality. Like, I don't know when that's going to happen. I don't know exactly what's going to play out. But as we've been specifically this year, January,

It's now January 22nd, so 22 days at least. We've been seriously pursuing it. And in that very process of doing it, I have felt all of these emotions. I have felt the ultimate, I don't know a better word to use than like insufficiency. I am insufficient, like who I currently am, where we currently are with our life, everything that we've achieved, which has been amazing.

Rachel Denning (07:14.797)
is not sufficient enough to get us to the next level, which means in order for that to happen, we have to keep growing and improving and expanding so that we can reach that ideal that we're holding up of this dream we have of the Chateau in France. Now, for us, that's not just, it represents a lot of things. It's not just having some big fancy house in France. That's not what it's about. It's about having this,

of learning, growth, connection, community. It's going to be a place where youth and couples can come and learn and be expanded and transformed and healed. So it represents a lot of things. It's a part of our mission and our purpose. But as we are facing that, literally facing, you know, like we're going to see it in a week from, you know, a week from yesterday.

I'm feeling these feelings. Some of them could be described as a depression, a depression of the weight of the burden that's required for me to live this dream. Because it is a burden. Part of what we've been learning, you know, as we've been, we have this very specific chateau that we're looking at. We were looking up online actually the history of it. It's very old. It was, part of it was originally,

began in like the year 950 or 1000, right? Another part of it, probably the biggest part was built in the 1500s. It has a long history. We looked up all the owners of people who have owned it during World War II. It was a refuge for like over 200 Spanish children who were refugees. And as you're going through this, you kind of get this sense of, wow, this is a big...

responsibility. This is a big opportunity. This is a big burden in a way. And so I guess what I'm trying to say here is that in a way that's hopefully what's happening to you as you listen to our podcast and you're exposed to ideals and dreams and visions, you realize that, wow, who I am now, I'm not sure I'm capable of taking on that burden. I'm not sure I'm capable of taking on that challenge.

Rachel Denning (09:43.725)
And there's two options we can, there's two things we can do at that point. One, we can just say, oh, well, that's unrealistic. Not for me. I'm just gonna go on with my life as it is and just continue to live in my state of mediocrity. Or two. And I'll just bluntly say that is the cop out of cowards. I'm just gonna be blunt. That is very blunt. When I speak to men and men especially,

That's just the truth, brother. Stop playing small. Like, put your stinking spine back in and stand up straight and shoulder the burden. And now I can speak like that because I used to be the coward and I used to be the wimp and I used to be afraid of anything that demanded more of me. And so I would shrink away and hide and come up with all kinds of excuses.

to protect myself and I'd be defensive and play the victim. I go, it's not for everybody and not everyone can do that. And oh, but you know, I had a hard life and things were hard for me and well, I don't have those, you know, I'm not that lucky. I use all these little protective buffers so I could keep being a coward. And the truth is all I was doing was lying to myself. It was just absolute lie.

And that's true for the rest of you. Look at an ideal and shrink back. You're just being a coward and you're lying to yourself. Well, and I think you're using the word coward not in a attacking accusatory way, but in a actual way of being because you're coming face to face with your own potential greatness and choosing to shrink away from it. That's ultimately and this sounds really harsh and that sounds very...

uncomfortable, but it's really uncomfortable. It is really uncomfortable. But, but because we have learned from personal experience and from all the people we've worked with, ultimately on a fundamental basis, that is kind of what's happening because people are afraid of who they could become because of the, the work it takes to get there besides the fact that there's a chance for failure, which of course huge chance failure. We're all terrified of the responsibility to pick up. And so,

Rachel Denning (12:08.685)
And again, I'm not just throwing this out for everybody else. I do it myself. As I look at the massive, massive goals I want to achieve this year, it's terrifying. And if they're not terrifying, they're too small. Most of us are living way, way, way below our potential and our privilege. Let that sink in right there. The vast majority of people are living far below their potential and their privileges, even though.

They feel like they're working super hard, even though they feel like they're maxed out, even though they feel like they're running at full capacity. I couldn't possibly do anymore. Well, the truth of it is you've just reached your current capacity and so you have to increase your capacity and, and I'll be blunt again. Most of you are just a small container and I can say this because I was there. I was this teeny tiny little container. I'm like, I'm doing everything I can.

And that was true because I was small and weak. And when I decided to improve myself, increase my own capacity, and guess what? I can easily handle way more than I could before. Same person, greater capacity. And so I was working on my capacity, expanding it. And so then instead of being fully maxed out, I'm doing five times or 10 times more than I used to. And I'm doing it easily. I'm handling it easily.

because I grew. But if I want to stay the same, I want to protect my weak little boy. And again, that's the difference between being a man and being a boy. And if I'm playing, if I'm being a little boy, I want to protect my little boy self, then I'm not going to chase those huge terrifying goals. But right now I set a goal that's so big, I look at it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I am grossly inadequate and terrified of failure and risk consequences.

Everything that comes with it and what am I gonna do? Am I gonna? Tuck tail and run Or am I gonna draw my sword? Pick up my shield Like let's go sucker. I'm gonna slay this dragon Right. That's what we have to do and that's which is purpose of having my logo in the be the man master class My logo is a sword and shield Which you pick it up to fight you fight dragons?

Rachel Denning (14:33.133)
Right, exactly. Which in going back to the idea of the cowardice, ultimately you're fighting the dragon within. Yep. Whenever we feel terrified, depressed, overwhelmed, feelings of insufficiency, because we face the ideal, it's ultimately the dragons within that we have to slay. We have to slay those inner dragons so that we, instead of being a coward, and again, we're using this word, I hope you understand how we're using this word, we're using this word because we understand our own inner.

cowardice. We have it. We've experienced it. Instead of being that coward who's afraid to pursue that ideal and we're not talking about pursuing our ideals. We need to care about that. We're talking about pursuing your own ideals. We're not asking you to be like us or to do what we do. We don't care. What we're talking about is identify your own ideals and when you see them and when you are terrified by them, don't run away from them.

Be have the courage to pursue them because that's when you then become your very best self And so it's actually being afraid of who we who we can be That keeps us playing small. It's like the quote by Marianne Williamson like it's our lightness not it's not our darkness that frightens us most it's the light of who we could be and who we could become that ultimately terrifies us and so

It comes back to number two, the second action we can take is to, like you said, pick up the sword and shield and head into battle, like move towards it, even though it's terrifying and it's unknown. We don't know what the outcomes are going to be. There's real risk involved because we can fail. All of that is very true and real. And yet.

It's the only option if you really want to ultimately feel fulfilled. If you ultimately want to feel satisfied with the life you are living, that's the only course of action there is. Right. If you want to live life and have meaning and purpose and satisfaction, you have to do it. There's no other option or you will hate yourself and you'll hate your life and you'll regret it. Even though you try to surround yourself with comfort and convenience.

Rachel Denning (16:49.837)
and use all these softeners and you just, you come up with all these reasons why you're different and you can't and I didn't really want those things anyways. That's just not true. And you, you're the only one that actually knows it's true because the real reason you quote, don't want it is actually because you're afraid. You're afraid of what it would cost you or what it would take. And so every single person has a vision or can at least

Cultivate if they just stop and think about it. You can cultivate this vision of your best self like what what are your ideals? What do you know? You're truly deep down in your heart. You know, you're capable of what is it you want most? What does that look like for you? right this this ideal family life and your ideal self and it's your vision in your dream and you know, just like I know that it's gonna require so much of you and and especially like those of you who

believe in God and believe that God put you here for a purpose, that is your divine purpose, to be here, to grow, to learn, to become your very best self. And if you shirk that, if you shy away from that and hide behind your excuses and your fears and your cowardice,

Rachel Denning (18:11.597)
There will be hell to pay. And hell, the best definition I've heard, is when the person you are meets the person you might have been.

Now, we sit here and say, well, yeah, but you know, God is patient and forgiving. Yeah, that's the that's the part of him you want to see. We get this idea. We get this erroneous idea that Jesus is some little Santa Claus figure that's just as fat and nice and sweet and so good. Yeah, I guess nobody sees him fat, but he's this jolly, gentle character. And so we play weak and we play small and we.

hide behind our fears and our insecurities and our laziness and our apathy. And then we think, oh, but he's so patient and forgiving because you want to think that in the parable of the servants, the sower, right? You're like, well, I'm mixing them up here. It's the parable of the talents. You want to think that you're the five talent guy.

Or maybe, no, you cut yourself short. You're like, no, I'm not the five -talent guy. I'm definitely the two -talent guy. Because I'm not five, but two, I got two. And you want to believe you're that guy. And you're like, yeah, but I had a rough childhood. Or my parents were mean. Or I got injured. Or blah, blah, blah, whatever. You just pull out all your excuses, and you think, oh, but at least I'm that guy. Maybe the hard truth is.

You're the one that received the one talent and you went and buried it. Because you're afraid. That guy was an absolute coward. He said, Lord, I knew you're an austere man, so I hid it. I kept it safe. And so here it is, right? And he was like, look, I kept it. I didn't lose it. Here it is back. And Jesus gives him an absolutely scathing rebuke for playing small, for being small, for being a coward. And I know I can't.

Rachel Denning (20:18.861)
I know I'm being fierce right now. Some of you probably like, you're sitting, they're listening like, oh my gosh. This episode is very depressing. My eyebrows are being singed right now. And I realized what I'm saying and I'm doing it on purpose. That's, that is the reality of the God and the Jesus, the savior. And that's no joke. Those parables in there, they're no joke. They're not Santa Claus story. They are not Santa Claus story. And he said,

you're not a you're a slothful and not a wise servant and I'm taking away what you had and giving it to someone else. That's what we're facing. So it's time we we step up and own up and lean into this now. Okay. Well, there's my rant. I got to give the soft part. I know, but I need to I need to preface this a little because I think part of the reason we're even speaking so boldly and

maybe harshly now is because this is literally the pep talk we're giving ourselves right now. Well, and that we have for years and years and years. This is how I started talking to myself in my late teens. I was like, if I'm ever going to make anything of myself, because I was cowardly and weak, I couldn't talk to anyone. I could not look anyone in the eyes. I was so insecure and so afraid. Like I was going nowhere and amounting to nothing. And you had all of the excuses. In fact, I mean, I know I've said this before, but

One of the reasons I was so attracted to you when we first met is because all of the other guys I had dated all had excuses divorce, abuse, drugs. They had all these excuses for why they weren't living up to these higher standards. And so, you know, there's this tendency in society, oh, let's give them some slack. Let's cut them some, give them some grace, you know, because they've had hard lives. And yet I met you.

You had all the same excuses. In fact, you had all of them. You had all the excuses plus more. And yet you weren't allowing that to hold you back or to stop you. That right there was sexy. And I was like, this is the guy I am spending my life with because you weren't allowing it to get in your way. And in fact, you were using it as fuel for the fire of your life. Exactly. No. And at some point, again, you guys, I,

Rachel Denning (22:41.485)
I was the mayor of Victimville, man. I ran that place. I lived and believed in my excuses. And I had lots of them. I had all the, man, I had all excuses. It was always somebody else's fault because, and I wasn't making up, they legitimately had done things that ruined my life. And so I was like, I'm gonna hold onto that one. I'm gonna keep that in my account. I'm gonna keep that in my pocket. I'm holding onto that. I'm gonna justify.

all the reasons why I'm not succeeding. But the truth is, and I had to face this myself, the truth is, your life, my life will be exactly what we make it. And yeah, okay, other people do things and situations and circumstances happen. So what life is only 10 % what happens to us, and 90 % how we react to it. And in order for me to lean into that 90 % and stop being a victim, I had to speak to myself very harshly.

And the way I did that, you guys, was by reading deeply in the scriptures and realizing, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

Rachel Denning (24:09.293)
men and women faced unbelievably difficult things and came out on top. Totally triumphant. Came out healthy and strong and great and changed the world. And I was like, man, if they can go through that, which is a hundred times worse than anything I've experienced, then I can get through this. I'm just being a baby. I'm using it as an excuse. I'm playing small. So I'm done. And so I spoke like this to myself in a healthy way. Again, you guys, we have to learn how to speak.

Frankly and directly and harshly with ourselves, but not mean At first I was mean to myself. I would say you're a loser You can't do this. You're pathetic. You're too dumb You're unlikable. There's no way you're gonna be successful or happy, right? That's mean I don't do that anymore. I don't say anything you mean to myself, but I am very very blunt with myself So what you just did was pathetic and you're better than that. That is unacceptable

Right? That's different. It's straight talk. And so that's why I'm sharing the straight talk right now. And we have to have it. So, but it's a two -sided coin. Here's the other side. If you went out to dinner today and you made a commitment to not drink soda and you skipped, you just had water instead of soda for dinner, and it was your first step, I would be celebrating, jumping up and down, dancing, high fives.

like celebrate the crap out of that and be so proud of you for the first little baby step in the right direction. Like way to go. That is amazing. I'm so proud of you. Yeah. It was just, it was just one time. I'm like, yeah, way to go. You did it. And then the next day you're like, gosh, I went to lunch and it was a moment of weakness. I knew I shouldn't get one, but I ordered a soda. I feel like a worm. I'm like,

Yeah, don't do that again. It had happened. You slipped up. Don't do it again. You're better than that. And you would walk through with it. How could you prevent it so next time it doesn't happen? What went through your head? What what circumstances situation? How could you be better prepared next time? Just like if you're going into battle, how I mean, am I going to be prepared with that sword and shield to not drink that soda? Exactly.

Rachel Denning (26:36.365)
So you're strategic about it. You learn from it instead of just like, oh, I guess I'm just the loser. I did it. I can't keep this. I'm going to keep drinking soda. Right. And we throw in the towel because we make mistakes. Yeah, we're going to make mistakes. We're not going to be at a hundred percent, but that's no excuse to just stop and quit. Yeah. That's no excuse to throw out the ideals. And I think that's one of the things we want to emphasize on this other side of the coin here is you and I completely.

live by ideals and we have high ideals and we hold them up there and we hold them up up on this podcast but on the other side of that coin nobody, us included, can live by those ideals 100 % of the time. Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. But that doesn't mean... Well, in certain things, right? Well, let me cover this first then we can cover the next one. Because I'm never going to be only...

95 % 95 % faithful to you, right? Like it was just 5 % of time that I cheated on you. Like no, absolutely not. No. Okay, there are a few things that are 100%. There's there are some things you're like that is 100 % non -negotiable, no exceptions, period, none, never, ever going to happen. Right. But then you hold up other ideals like I exercise hard, you know, five times a week and you're like, crap, we were traveling all last week.

And I only got three pathetic little workouts in, but when I worked out, I worked out hard and it was maybe on like a horrible week. I'm like, I got, I got in 60 minutes of workouts the entire week, but man, I went hard and I'm actually still sore. Right. Like yesterday I worked out, I had 15 minutes. So I went up, I went so stinking hard in 15 minutes. I am really sore today. And I got 15 minutes. Right. It's not an ideal, not phenomenal, but I did it.

But some things they have to be 100%. So you're right. There are certain things that are 100 % like you don't do it. But then with the other things, these other ideals, the working out, the food, the, I mean, just different habits or whatnot, reading or studying or for us. Time usage and all that stuff. Yeah, using your time, productivity. For me, I live by the 80 -20 rule. You are more the 90, 95, 10.

Rachel Denning (28:57.805)
But the point is, like the example you just gave, it's not 100 % and it's flexible to what's happening in life. But what happens too often, at least we see in our coaching and with the people we work with, is that, I don't know why, I think people think in their head if they don't hit it 100%, then what's the point? I'm not gonna do it at all. It's all or nothing. I only did 8%, so what's the point? I'm done. I give up. And they go back to zero. Yeah.

Because they can't celebrate 80%. Or even 50 % is they're moving in the right direction. They're trending upward. Yeah, exactly. Or in... But, oh, gosh. Man, I'm on one today. You cannot use that as an excuse to go slow and play small. You gotta be like, well, yeah, you know, I'm not, I'm not, you know, 90%. So, and so then you stay at like 30%. And you keep staying at 30%. You're chronically at 30 % saying, I'm doing the best I can. Right. No, you're not.

You're not even close to your best. You haven't ever probably reached your full capacity. Like these people who suffer horrendously and just do Herculean, genuinely incredible, unbelievable things. Afterwards, they're like, well, they're like, that was superhuman. How did you do it? Like, I didn't think I could do it. But what they find as they start setting this is that human beings, as we reach our absolute limits, we're like, I'm done.

You actually have about 40 % left in your capacity. That's why people can suffer in gulags and Chinese torture camps and concentration camps and carry their kid for three days across the desert to survive. How is that even possible? Because when you dig deep, you have way more capacity than you think you do. So all of us are, quote, hitting our limits and think we're done when actually you have way more capacity than you think you do. You just never access it.

You've never touched it because you're hot. I'm gonna come back to this in a second. You're hiding behind your little sacred cows of convenience and comfort and protection. I'll come back to that in a second. I'm sorry. I told you it was good, but still that let's go to the cows. So we set up these sacred cows. Usually they're in the form of some fixed mindset. This is the way I am. This is the way things are.

Rachel Denning (31:23.533)
label some limiting belief or label I have this thing I am this way I am I have a I have to take medication for this I can't basically you'll you'll identify all your limiting beliefs by identifying all the reasons why you can't do something or you know it's you say you can't but really it's why you won't or don't why don't you do things well I it's because of this

Why do you earn how much you earn? Why do you do what you do? Well, it's because I'm stuck in this job. It's because I can't move. It's because, you know, whatever, all you all of your excuses, all the reasons why you don't do stuff, or you say you can't, that's they're almost always attached to some kind of limiting belief. And so that belief, that fixed mindset, excuse, whatever becomes a sacred cow.

And we say, yeah, so the whole idea of a sacred cow, essentially, at least as I understand it, it's like you. You set it up as this thing is sacred to you, it can't be touched, it can't be harmed, it can't be. I think the idea, the phrase and the idea originally, there's a book out there about it, but came from, of course, in India, where literally there are sacred cows.

The cows just wander, like we lived in India for five months, the cows just wander around like cats or dogs in garbage, on the street, on the freeway. Nobody can touch them, nobody can move them, nobody can slaughter them, of course. You can't tie them up and move them around. They're sacred. They're sacred to Indian people. And so they just wander around. And so somebody, I think, wrote a book about it talking about killing sacred cows, where a lot of humans have these ideas.

or these belief systems in their life and mind that are like sacred cows in India, wandering around causing havoc, eating garbage. But they can't be moved, they can't be restrained, they can't be slaughtered. And so that's where Greg is, that's how Greg is referring to this, that we have these ideas that we won't allow anyone to touch and we won't allow anyone to harness or criticize or attack or definitely not kill because they are sacred to us.

Rachel Denning (33:44.077)
And it might be something like, well, I had a hard childhood. My mom was mean to me. Or my dad died when I was young. Or he was abusive. And we're not just talking about...

Simple easy things. We're talking about the real hard things too. The actual trauma. I was raped. I was abused. Like take anything that you're using as a reason why you can't and just ask yourself like have I turned this into a sacred cow? Like I have fervor and this is my protective thing that I have with religious zeal. Like don't you dare touch my sacred cow.

like if you're fat, you know, fat people are like, oh, it's genetics. And that's their sacred cow. Like I inherited this, there's nothing I can do about it. And this is in no way. We are hugging you right now. We're hugging you. We're saying this with love. Discounting the real trauma, the real.

emotional suffering that is, we're not saying it's not real. It is real. 100%. What we are saying is that you're not a victim to that. You have the power to overcome whatever has happened to you. Even though you were a victim, like I was a victim. You were a legit victim. We're not saying you weren't a victim. What we are saying is you don't have to remain a victim to that for the rest of your life. So I was a victim that time.

I am no longer going to be a victim to that experience or time. I'm going to do whatever I need to do to overcome that so I'm no longer the victim. I was a victim in this circumstance, but if I stay a victim years later, that's my choice. It's not happening to me every day. It happened once. And so I'm...

Rachel Denning (35:46.957)
Or maybe it happened more than that. It could have happened for years. Or maybe it's still happening. The point is you have more power than you have believed to change it, to do something about it, to use it as a force for good in your life rather than being a destructive force that's holding you back. Right. So when people come to me and say, well, I would do that, but I can't because X, Y, Z and they...

you know, they give their reason, their excuse, and I can tell it's like a little sacred cow. And I'm like, well, actually, you know, that's not the case. And you I see them get real defensive, real protective. They shut down. They stop listening or they get angry and start attacking back. It happened yesterday. I started talking about something I noticed. I had touched on a sacred cow and I saw several people. I was, you know, coaching a group and I saw several people bristle.

and I could tell there was even people in the background listening that, ooh, I had touched a cow. And when I, you know, this is me because I had to do it for myself and I do it with others. And when you get past it, it like totally transformed your life for the better. So in a very real sense, like I'm gonna shoot your sacred cow. I'm gonna turn that sucker into steaks and hamburger. We're gonna have a barbecue.

with that say your cow so you can let go of it and move on. That's kind of an interesting analogy because in a way when you do that, that that food now becomes nourishment or fueling your the life of your dream. Exactly. So yeah, I'm interested. So the point of one of the points of today's conversation is that we must we have to hold up high ideals.

And they have to be high enough to make us uncomfortable. Which is the point of our podcast. I mean, literally it's called Extraordinary Family Life. It's talking about living an extraordinary life, not an ordinary one, not a mediocre one, not an okay life. It's extraordinary. And so it's going to be an ideal and it's going to be an ideal that's currently beyond where you are. That's the point. That's the hope. Like if it's not, it's not that why are we here? And the

Rachel Denning (38:03.149)
I think one of the biggest challenges is, and I did this, I was this, I was the epitome of this weak, cowardly boy that I'm talking about, is when the ideal gets too high, it is very uncomfortable. And it seems very unrealistic or even attainable, and we get that. And so people, most people will pull back and turn away from that discomfort.

So we're like, hey, here's a really high deal. And they're like, oh my gosh, that's uncomfortable. I'm going to stop associating with that. I'm going to stop listening. I'm going to stop watching. I'm going to stop being around that because it makes me uncomfortable. Let that sink in. This is one of the greatest problems in our society today. We say, oh, that makes me uncomfortable. Well, and then it's even gotten worse. Instead of just going, like, I'm not going to be over here because it makes me uncomfortable. They're now saying, hey, you need to stop doing that because you're making me uncomfortable.

You need to stop saying things that make me uncomfortable. We're literally trying to pass laws Forbidding people from saying things that make us uncomfortable, which is so asinine Because we should lean in to discomfort We should lean into the high Ideals the good things the noble aims that are so far up there They make us really uncomfortable and they expose our weaknesses and insecurities and our faults and our failing

That's where we want to be. Yes. But that being said, bringing it back to the other side of the coin, that doesn't mean that tomorrow you have to start living to that ideal. The way that this actually plays out goes back to the example you gave earlier, is that tomorrow you pick that one thing that you know you need to change, that you will change, like giving up soda or whatever it is, and you just do that. One.

One day at a time. One day at a time. One opportunity at a time. Yep. That's how it starts. And when you do it, you celebrate it and you rejoice that I did that. And then you keep going. And when you mess up, you say, I'm not going to do it again. And you keep going by giving up that one thing. And it's that one little step at a time. And I think going back to the email that we received, you know, that it's. It's the sense of.

Rachel Denning (40:25.901)
wow, you're holding up this ideal, it's inspiring, it's also depressing because I'm not there yet and I feel so far and in fact, I feel like I'm way behind, I'm starting late, I'm never gonna get close to that and again, we totally understand that feeling, we have felt that way many, many times, I can't even tell you how many times I've said we're so behind in life, it's a real feeling. But be.

But if because of that feeling I decide, well, I'm not even going to try, I'm way worse off. Way worse off. I'm in fact worse off than I was before. Because when you don't know and you don't do anything about it, that's one thing. But if you know and you choose not to do something about it, that's worse. And in fact, that will literally hanker your soul. So all you can do is go back to, well, it's essentially what I do in my 20 day challenge. Like that's all it is. And I'm.

personally laying out for you all of the habits you're supposed to do layer by layer. I think I have a total of like 15 layers and say, okay, for this, the next 28 days, you just focus on these six habits and that's it. And not only that, you only have to do them for two minutes for in order for it to count. Baby steps. Yeah, baby steps. Rachel's approach is like super baby steps. And so you can make progress from there and start with baby steps and eventually get up to where your leaps and bounds and sprinting. Exactly.

sprinting marathons. Well, because one of the biggest challenges for many people is overcoming the inertia of going in the wrong direction, so to say. And so it's hard for them to switch and change direction. And so that's why I love the two minute baby step approach is because it helps them change the momentum into the right direction. And I think we complement each other well. I'm kind of hardcore, so to speak. Cold turkey. Although,

many people would think I'm still a wimp. I mean, I know guys that are super hardcore that look at me and be like, you're such a baby. But, you know, for a lot of our listeners, I seem really hardcore. And it's because I've learned what we're capable of, that we are capable of doing so much more than we think we are. And that if we just lean into some discomfort for a while, which is fine, it's like, it's just uncomfortable.

Rachel Denning (42:49.645)
It's not deadly. You know, your life isn't on the line. Sometimes you feel like it is, but it's your, it's the lizard brain. It's the survival brain screaming out like, you're not going to die. You're just slightly uncomfortable. You little baby. Because I think that's what my brain does when I'm starting to sweat. I'm like, Oh no, I'm sweating.

in the slightest variation in temperature up or down. You're like, I'm going to die. But it's it's not that I know what we're capable of. And so I tell people like, no, just lean into this discomfort and do it for a little time. And all of a sudden, it's not uncomfortable anymore. It's actually enjoyable. So I'm like, no, go, go cold turkey. Cut it out of your life for good. Done. Period. And in the first little bit, it's uncomfortable. It's really hard. I've done it many times with many things. But then after usually it's just a few days after a few days, you're like,

Huh, this is actually easy. And then a few days later, you're like, I really enjoyed this. And think about it, a week earlier, like your body was just screaming out, and oh, this, and oh, Tara, oh. And then a week after that, you're like, I like this. I think I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. Yeah. Well, and I think it also can come down to, especially,

going cold turkey on things, it comes down to the right motivation. Once you have the right motivation or the right understanding or the right paradigm about something, it's easy to go cold turkey. I've shared some of my personal story about my past before, but I was into drinking and drugs and sex and all these other things. And when I decided that I no longer wanted that and I had a vision of the ideal in my mind of what I actually wanted, I just went cold turkey. It was everything I was done.

I literally gave up all of my friends. I threw away every CD I owned. I moved back in with my parents. It was like that. I was done. Never happened again because I decided what I actually wanted. And then it was, I'm not going to lie. It wasn't completely easy. There was times of extreme loneliness because I'd given up everyone I knew and I stopped talking to them and I didn't have new friends. And so I felt this loneliness, but.

Rachel Denning (45:05.229)
I was just certain about what I wanted and I wasn't going to go back to that because that wasn't going to help me. So when you have the right understanding, we kind of, we sometimes call that the Tony Robbins approach because Tony Robbins has been known to do things like that. He made a guy pack like, oh, we're smoking. What? Like 12 cigarettes at a time. And he was just screaming at him. He locked him in a room. He locked him in a room and he's screaming like smoke on smoke. And the guy is literally has 12 cigarettes in his mouth just inhaling until he's like sick.

He's puking and he's screaming, you're gonna smoke this whole thing until you die. And the guy, and he never smoked again. He created this traumatic experience like I'm never doing this again. Exactly. And so we could do something like that with ourselves where we traumatize ourselves into saying, I'm never doing that again. And you know, we'll use that. Not, this will sound terrible. I'll use that on my kids sometimes.

not in that extreme way, but I'll talk through the side effects or the causes or how different foods react to your body and cause disease and all this. I don't hold back on the details to explain why I have chosen to eat healthy and live healthy and why they need to choose it too, now that I forced them to do it, but I teach them. We're not manipulative, but we don't sugarcoat anything. You just say, look, this is the end result of poor choices. And we go meet people and see things. We just talk through it and they're like,

Yeah. And our kids come back like, why would anyone ever do that? Like, yeah, exactly. Why would we do that? Because we're not, again, no more sacred cows, no more sugar coating, no softeners. Like we're keeping that distance of buffering to keep everything, you know, keep it comfortable. I think comfort's one of the greatest problems in our world. Agreed. And then also this, you know, this idea of having grace. And I think it's very fascinating.

that there's different approaches to that. For one example, I would say, well, I just want to play this out in real life for us. You know, one side of that is.

Rachel Denning (47:12.013)
as I think I've talked about it before, we have a very high standard for how we eat as a family, what we have in our home, but when we go out and travel the world, which we do a lot, we inevitably come up with foods that we wouldn't choose to make or eat on our own if we're at home. And for me, having that grace means, for an example, we go to a restaurant, we try to order something healthy, which for us is a steak, and then it comes with french fries. Well guess what? If my...

seven -year -old gets some french fries on her plate, she's gonna eat them. In fact, I'm probably gonna eat a couple of them. But in no way, so I'm giving some grace right there. Like you got sort of the french fries, you eat the french fries, I'm not gonna make a huge deal out of it. But I'm not gonna say, yeah, they're not that bad for you. It's okay. I'm gonna say, these are not good, man. How can we avoid ordering french fries in the future, even as she's eating them, right? Well, and we're gonna tell her, hey, remember, those are bad for you. You don't have to eat them all, they're bad for you.

And then Rachel said she'll have a couple. I probably won't have anything. Yeah, you usually don't. I look at a fry and I'm like, that has like 14 ingredients in it. And most of it is seed oil, which is so toxic. Everything in there is toxic. And the only thing that's like okay is the actual potato. Right. It's just horrendous. Right. And there's a big difference there between that grace. What I was going to say earlier is that grace isn't always a virtue.

Patience isn't always a virtue. Forgiveness isn't always a virtue. And tolerance isn't always a virtue. And if we're like, oh, it's graceful. But here's what we see people do all the time. They're like, yeah, we're out traveling and we can't like, we can't hold up our ideals, whether it's working out or eating or whatever it is. We're out traveling. So then they're like, yeah, we'll just have to be graceful with ourselves. They walk around the corner, they buy cotton candy and funnel kegs.

and they're like, they're just, you know, chocolate Oreo sundaes. And I'm like, what the, like we're traveling. Yeah. You know, we have to be graceful with ourselves because we can't live up to our ideals when we're on the road. What are you talking about? And then if you say something, Oh, there's a gigantic sacred cow standing there that like, well, no, we're traveling or, you know, you can't, it's, it's only on special occasions.

Rachel Denning (49:34.605)
You can't be 100 % Greg, you know. Well, no, that is a very good point. Like another recent example, we just led a trip to Morocco. During part of the trip, it was completely managed by a guide we had ordered or hired, a Sahara desert guide. Which we 100 % recommend you guys should all go to. Absolutely, Dar Sahara Tours. Dar Sahara Tours, yeah. But one of the major foods,

products in Morocco is bread. Bread in many different fashions, right? They have Malawi and flatbread and all. So for breakfast often, and pretty much every meal, they serve multiple versions of bread. And for us personally, we don't eat a lot of bread. It's not that we don't eat bread at all, but it's rare. We don't eat it every day for sure. We ate bread. So easily on that trip, there was more bread.

than we would consume in an entire year. Yeah. Easy. And we ate bread, pretty much breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole trip. Now, for me, having Grace meant we're hungry. We're going to eat some bread. You know, I bought my own butter and I traveled with butter and I slathered that bread with butter because that was the healthiest part of that bread. And we dipped it in the sauces, but we ate the bread, right? You included. We all ate the bread. Now,

What I didn't allow that to do, even though I was tempted because after eating that much bread, my body is like wanting more bread. When we got back home or as soon as the trip was over, zero, I didn't buy more bread. Like I allowed it to then stop. I didn't say, well, we've been eating all this bread. We'll just keep eating more bread. I said, no, trips over. I'm back in control of what I'm buying. I'm not buying any more bread. And we were even though I like my body was craving bread. I'm like, I want bread. I'm like, no, I've had enough bread. It's time to.

move on from the bread. We've had enough bread for 2024. Exactly. And it's day five. And well, even at one point we were moving from like hotels or Airbnb, whatever, and all this stuff. At one point I just went and I grabbed some eggs and get the best quality eggs I can get. And I would literally just just drink the egg yolks for breakfast. That's all I do. I just dump out the whites and I would just pound a couple yolks.

Rachel Denning (51:55.693)
Cause I'm like, if bread is all that's available and sometimes it was like the only thing available is bread. I'm like, forget that. I'm just going to hit some egg yolks and call it a breakfast and let's roll. So, and, and you know, that's not, that's not the best, you know, most appetizing meal you can think of to swallow, you know, three or four raw egg yolks, but the nutritional value is amazing and whatever that's.

Right. That's for me. I'm just like, done. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm having four egg yolks, raw egg yolks for breakfast today. Let's go. And I, and you know, just to be clear too, I never did that. I just ate the bread instead because I'm like, I'm not eating egg yolks. But I would, but I guess what I'm saying is I didn't then also say, well, I've been eating all this bread, so I might as well go. Get a donut. Yeah. I might as well get a donut because I've been eating all this bread. It's a lot of people I think tend to equate that. They're like,

Well, I'm already not being perfect in eating, so I might as well have Oreos too. And I guess that's the thing for us. We have been able to create layers of value, I guess, in using food as the example here. And we have a hard stop of like, well, no, you know, and this is another hard stop for us. We've heard you've heard us talk about it before. Like, yeah, we're in Morocco. We eat the bread, but not one.

in all that time when we were hungry, did we ever stop at McDonald's? Or any fast food place. For us, or any fast food place. For us, that's 100%. We never stop at a fast food place. Okay, here's another thing. They serve white sugar cubes with every single breakfast, like without fail. True. Never once did we have white sugar cubes. But, again, we're trying to illustrate how this actually works in the real world.

my daughter, we saw her she did. She put sugar in her tea and was just eating pure sugar cubes. But at one point, she said, I'm going to go feed this to that donkey. There was a little tiny donkey and she she had some sugar cubes over and then we look over and she's over there eating it, licking it. Exactly. Like, nice try. All we did, all I had to do is I nicely just said, oh, yeah, I noticed you've been putting sugar in all your tea and eating the sugar cubes. And I just said it like that. And she's like, yeah, I won't do that anymore. And she didn't. Then she used.

Rachel Denning (54:13.197)
Because we traveled with hunt, we brought our own honey because we knew that that was the case. So we brought our own honey to put in the tea. And then after that, she did the honey as well. So it wasn't, I didn't like get upset at her and be like, what's wrong with you? How could you do that? You know, that's not bad for you. I just said, Oh, I noticed you've been doing that. She already knew. And so then she said, yeah, I'm not going to do that anymore. And strategically, you guys, we traveled with our own grasshead butter and we travel with our pure honey. Um,

Well, and that comes back to being more strategic about things. We're illustrating these as examples of principles of how to make this apply, how to apply it in your actual life, right? Is that because in the past we've come across this, we traveled through Turkey, same problem. And every time they serve us tea with sugar. And so we've now learned like, we're going to travel with honey everywhere we go. And we're going to travel with butter because we love butter in our tea.

But I don't need to clarify here for some people, because we do not drink black tea at all. Well, it's not good for you. So they would serve they would serve black tea with mint in it. And so we asked for just straight mint and they call it what you just want mint water. So we're because they're like TT and like we want just mint. We call it tea, but it's really just mint water. So I always meant winter. And so then from there on, they would serve us mint water. Right. But.

Okay, going back to that we don't drink black tea, but at certain times when it was served We didn't just not drink like we went to we know the sweet woman who worked for us years ago when we lived there We went to her house like to reconnect with her. It was such a special experience We lived that in her teeny little living room that was like barely fit us all and she served us tea and it was black tea and we and it had sugar in it. She treated us like these honored honored guests and like

She was just thrilled out of her mind to have us come visit her. And of course, we drank the black tea with the mint, with the sugar in it because, and I guess that's the thing, like we're not just trying to be these callous, hard, like, I'm not going to drink that because, you know, in the moment, that's the right thing to do. This sweet little aging widow goes out of her way to offer us something like,

Rachel Denning (56:43.597)
gonna drink it. Now if she had offered vodka, I'm not gonna drink it, right? But in this case, you know, anyways, that's what we did. So I want to point out something that I'm observing as we're talking through this, it kind of occurred to me that I see it often. We say things like, well, we can't be 100%. So depending on where you're at in your journey, if you're

doing really well and you're hitting 90%, 95 % of the time and you say, man, I can't be 100%, but I'm good with 90%. That's fantastic. And that's grace. That's grace. Where it's not grace and it's not okay is you're consistently at 10 % or 15 % and you keep saying, well, we can all be 100%. You see the difference? There's two different people there. One's only performing and achieving 10 % of the time. The other one's doing 90 % of the time.

And they both say, well, shoot, I can't be 100 % all the time. See the difference? It's massive. It's a huge discrepancy. And they're both using the same words. So it's what we mean. Like are we using it as a sacred cause and excuse to not seriously level up our lives? Or are we saying, yeah, I'm doing, I genuinely am doing my best, right? And so the point today is here. I hope you will hold up your ideals and.

High, high ideals. I hope they will make you uncomfortable. Well, we hope they are inspiring, but we also are not surprised or shocked when they're depressing and overwhelming because that is the nature of what's happening. The nature of what you're being exposed to is the reality of you're not yet the person who can achieve that ideal. But then you have a choice to make. And that choice is...

to move forward anyways, to have courage, to move forward, to take either the big steps or the baby steps or the big steps, one of them.

Rachel Denning (58:51.469)
in pursuit of that ideal, that right there will be fulfilling in the long run if you commit to that practice, to that journey, because that's what it is. It's an ongoing practice. It's an ongoing journey of pursuit that will ultimately get you to the destination, which then will change once you get there, because there will be a new ideal, a new pursuit. It's an ongoing thing. It never ends, really. And that's...

how it's meant to be. And we want you to know that we're right in it with you. We are making decisions just this month, made big decisions, big moves. We have been overwhelming and discomfort and uncomfortable and right there with you. But you guys, you can you can get the tools and strategies, the tactics, either in the Beat A Man Masterclass for men or in Rachel's 28 Challenge for women. And we give you the tools and strategies so we're all living as our best self and genuinely pursuing and achieving these high ideals.

Love you guys, good job.

Rachel Denning (01:00:06.253)
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Rachel Denning (01:00:16.525)
you