#113 REMIND yourself to Live a Heroic Life

Rachel Denning (00:00.622)
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you are having an absolutely fantastic day. So today in the United States is Memorial Day when we remember and honor soldiers, people who have died in battles, and just, I think just in general, remembering, remembering our heroes, remembering people who have died, remembering our loved ones. And it's such a wonderful thing to do to remember.

Right? Because boy, we can be forgetful as human beings. Right? How often do we forget important people and important lessons and important things we, we get so forgetful because we get so distracted and we move on and how, what a wonderful time to remember. And as I was thinking about today and thinking about just a great principles that we, you and I, we remember and we honor heroic lives, but to what end? And as I thought about it today, I thought the,

best thing we can do is to remember and honor heroes so that we are reminded to be heroes, to live heroic lives, right? We remember those who have died to remind us to live. My kids like to listen to a song when we're working out and part of one of the line says, he says, I heard that you die twice.

The first time is when they bury you in the grave and the second time is the last time someone speaks your name. I thought it was interesting and impactful. I've heard that that line while we're working out and I thought, man, what a, what a great insight when we can think about the impact we're having that we, you know, we really live while we're alive and we leave a legacy and that, you know, our name is mentioned.

Not again, not we're not after glory or fame, but but impact and real influence to live live a legacy That has a positive impact on others and makes a difference, right? So sometimes in this human journey You know, it's heroic to die for an important cause But it is always heroic to live for an important cause

Rachel Denning (02:23.598)
And I'm sure you're familiar with the hero's journey and I've talked about it some other episodes too and there's some great videos about it and that whole story. But to me, ultimately the hero's journey is living a truly great life story. But what's really interesting, my friends, and we see this all the time and I hear it a lot, because I get to meet with people every day. I love it. Love, love, love it. I love talking to people and having great conversations, meaningful conversations.

you know, whether it's at the grocery store or wherever it is, right? I just love talking to people and having great conversations about life. What I see so often now across all walks of life is that most people are not learning as much as they want. They're not earning as much as they want. Most people are not in a

passionate, loving relationship. Most people are not doing the work they were born to do and giving their gift to the world. They don't feel like they're really tapping into their creative power and living an extraordinary life. And some of you are dying inside because if I can be lovingly honest, because you're living a lame life. Now this isn't...

This isn't to be insulting here. I'm going to kind of, I'm going to kind of rant a little bit about this, but it's with love and encouragement, a reminder for all of us to, to kind of snap out of this hypnosis we're in kind of this walking sleep or coma. And we've kind of just, and I'll talk about why, but we've kind of just slipped into this kind of lifeless existence.

And I want to, I want to invite us today. Some of you maybe are like, no man, I'm awake, energized, live. I feel fantastic. And for you, if you're living that way, fantastic. Man, keep it up. That is wonderful, standardized, but I'm guessing that you know, people, every one of us, we know people who are struggling and kind of dying inside, so to speak, because they're living a lame life. They're not fulfilled.

Rachel Denning (04:47.246)
and some of you are bored because you're living a boring life. And it's not, you guys, it's not because we can't, it's because we don't. Some of us are unfulfilled because we're living an unfulfilling life. Some of us lack meaning because we're not living a meaningful life. Why do we do that? What's going on? Well, we tell ourselves stories, right?

We all tell ourselves stories about why we do things and why we don't do things. And the story that we're telling ourselves sometimes is that we've taken up this burden, right, of, you know, we're carrying this cross, right, and this is why our lives aren't exciting. Well, what's the burden? What's the cross? Well, sometimes we blame our job. And we think, oh, you know, I gotta have this job. And we blame the job.

But I don't think we're victims to our jobs. There are so many opportunities out there. And even if it takes time, you could literally change careers and industries. And I mean, over several years, you could get into an entirely different career path and industry or start a business. So it's not the job, but we tell ourselves the story of like, oh, it's the job. I have to go to work and I have to go to this job.

and it's consuming my life and I don't like it. And so we tell ourselves a story. We tell it to other people that our life just isn't as fulfilling and exciting and meaningful because of the job. Sometimes we even blame our children. Oh yeah, you know, life, life, you know, just got serious and kind of boring and you know, all the, all the fun and freedom and adventure went away when I had kids or we blame our bills. Well, you have all these bills and you see how that's a little bit of victimism where

We're putting so much blame on the kids and the job and the responsibility and the bills. Or just responsibility in itself, right? We blame responsibility. Oh, if I'm gonna be a responsible person, that means I don't get to live the life I've always wanted.

Rachel Denning (07:00.462)
And it's, I want to invite you today to consider if that's really true or not. Is that true? That you have to do those things and that doing those things necessarily means you're not going to live a heroic journey of a life. What do you think about this? Just kind of chew on that for a while. What if the only reason that your life is boring is because you are boring.

because you've stopped being fun and adventurous and daring and creative. You stopped being resourceful, stopped looking for opportunities to bring the magic. What if your life doesn't have magic because you're not creating it? Again, please, please don't take us wrong. I'm not trying to insult anyone. I just, if we were all together, I'd be giving you hugs right now. We'd be laughing and talking and hugging and I'd be asking these questions.

I'm serious. What if your life is only boring because you're being boring.

You with me? For some ridiculous reason, we've been told by, you know, all kinds of voices around society and people, and we keep telling ourselves that we have to live within certain limitations and restrictions, that we have to stay within certain boxes and boundaries, and we keep perpetuating this story of, well, this is just the way things are.

Really? Is it true? Are there no exceptions to that? Is that the way things are and have to be? Interestingly, one of the biggest and most ridiculous stories that gets perpetuated is that you can't travel or do awesome things with kids, which is absurd. I still hear that. Oh, you know, you can't travel with kids. You can't, you can't have a big adventures with kids. And it's a story that gets.

Rachel Denning (09:03.662)
spread around and people just accept it and believe it. Again, what stories are we believing? What stories are we telling ourselves and even passing on to our own children that you can have this epic adventurous life? Because why? Because you have to quote, be responsible and somehow there's no way to be responsible and live a heroic life. There's no way to have kids have a wonderful marriage.

have an incredible income and still live a heroic life. But we know that's not true because there's people doing it and have been doing it for centuries, if not millennia, who've been chasing down huge goals and living truly adventurous and heroic lives, all while still being healthy and balanced and having a great income and great health and spirituality and wonderful marriages and...

parenting raising great kids It's totally possible

But still, this story gets perpetuated that once you get married, oh, there goes all the fun and the freedom. Once you have kids, there goes the adventure. It's all over. What a sad story. And what a sad life. Now you might be thinking, all right, Greg, hold on a minute. I have to get a job to pay the bills, and my kids have to go to school. But do you?

And do they? Are there other alternatives? And I'm being genuine. I'm being sincere. I want, I want like right now I really want us all to be thinking differently and questioning the status quo and saying, wait just a minute. Is if I'm more resourceful, if I'm more creative, are there other options? Are there other things I can choose to live a more heroic life?

Rachel Denning (11:05.07)
And this is exactly my point. It's the story that you've been told that I've been told. It's the story that we've all been told from the beginning of the industrial age is where it really started, particularly in Western society. And it was done very strategically. If you want to read about it, read, there's a great book called Dumbing Us Down. And another great thing is read Seth Godin's Manifesto for Education.

Wow, it's fantastic. Get a hold of both of those. Dumbing us down and Seth Godin's manifesto. And it really talks about why the current model of education, the current school system was set up. See, we were born into it and we just go through school. I did too and you go and we go through and we kind of just follow this thing. And we just think, well, this is how education is done. And we just kind of by default think this is how education has always been done. You know, they gather together and they teach them. But it's not true.

It's not true at all. And the way this was built, it was done very strategically at the beginning of the industrial age for a very specific need. So we go through the system, right? And we by default assume that this is how education is done, but we're wrong. The system is not to educate us, but to school us, to condition us, to make us fit into the system.

And this isn't how a great education has been obtained over the thousands of years of our history. This was designed to create obedient factory workers who will do what they are told. It's for a basic general education, not for a great one. It was specifically designed to make you not think. Okay. Now, again, I'm not, I'm not attacking anybody today. I'm just,

going back and kind of setting up the history of why it was designed this way. And the way it was designed, it literally was designed like a factory to kick out factory workers and kind of fit into a factory type system. But that, man, the world is changing so rapidly. That's really not going to work anymore. And of course, this is not the teacher's fault, right? They're just doing what they're told. And actually, interestingly, they're part of the factory.

Rachel Denning (13:31.31)
In fact, they are often the iconic factory workers in the, in the school factory. Just ask any great teacher who really wants to make a difference, how much freedom they have to make changes. They are bound by strict rules and policies. And so it brings in, and I only share this, I share the history of the school and education in general to, to give us kind of a bigger picture of why we're thinking the way we're thinking, why we're doing what we're doing.

why we feel this need all the time to just kind of fit in and do what we're told and why we keep telling ourselves we're looking around and saying, well, everyone else lives like this and everyone's doing these things. And we have this yearning on days like Memorial Day and other times when we feel like, no, I want to live this heroic life. I want to be fulfilled. I want to feel alive. I want meaning and excitement and adventure. I want impact. I want to make a difference. I want to do work that I love.

I want to earn all the money I can and have the relationships I want and I want to design this epic life and go live it. But the stories all around us are like, no, no, no, you can't do that. I specifically remember a gentleman when we were out traveling as a family, he was very angry. I didn't, I never even knew the guy. I have no idea who he was, but he was, he got on and somehow came across and was very angry that we were doing it. And he's like, you just.

He says, nobody actually likes their life. Nobody gets to do what they want. We all just have to do what we have to do and nobody likes it. Just come back and be a responsible part of society and get a job and do work you hate. And he was dead serious. He just says, in order, in order for society to work, according to his definition, everyone just had to put their head down and grind for 40 or 50 years is something they hated.

That's it doesn't that sound like a factory worker to you. That's the old mentality, but that's gone That's gone that those times are gone now. There's still pieces of it in our society around the world But we don't have to think like that anymore. We don't have to live like that anymore There's so much freedom so much possibility, but many of us are only living a Non -heroic life right we're not living the hero's journey Not because we can't just because we don't

Rachel Denning (15:58.67)
So I want to challenge you, invite you with me, live a heroic life, throw off and throw out the stories that keep you small and boring. You can earn all the money you want in an honest, good way. Think about it. So right there, a lot of you are like, I don't know, is that possible? Ah, and you get hung up on that. And I get it, man. I was for years and years and years, I was hung up on that.

And I look around, you know, in the neighborhoods where I lived or talked to people or family members or friends, people in school with, I'm like, well, you know, I'm looking around and all I see is evidence of my limiting beliefs. And then when you start looking outside of that, you start realizing, wait a minute, there's people doing this and not just a few, not just a few unicorns, right? Lots and lots of people are creating phenomenal incomes and they're often location independent.

They're doing work they love. They're working, you know, 30 or 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week sometimes, just like the rest of us, yet they're earning 10 times or a hundred times or a thousand times more than most people. And it's not dishonest. It's not illegal. They just figured out how to do it really, really well. And you can too. So you can earn all the money you want. You can earn all the education you want.

You can help your children do the same thing, get all the education money they want. You can take on massive responsibilities and you can create unbelievable changes all without, without having to fit in to the system and do what you're told. And definitely without continuing to perpetuate the ridiculous story.

that is responsible or the story that a responsible life is a boring life.

Rachel Denning (18:03.086)
I love this stuff. So my friends, will you honestly examine your own journey, your own story, as we remember the heroic lives of other people, people who've died for a great cause or people who lived for a great cause. As you remember our loved ones, remember that life is short and fragile. And as we think about the importance of life, how precious our life is,

Let's step back and just honestly ask ourselves not to feel bad, not for guilt or shame or to beat ourselves up, but just say, wait a minute. Is my life boring? And if it's boring, is it because I'm boring? If my life lacks some excitement, is that simply because I'm not bringing the excitement? I'm not making it exciting? Honestly, ask yourself if it's missing meaning or fulfillment or purpose.

Is it because you're not bringing it? And again, if your life's not filled with magic and wonder and awesome sauce, it's probably because you're not bringing and creating the magic and the awesome sauce. And I invite you and challenge you to do that because awesome is always an option. Reach upward.