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Rachel Denning (00:01.23)
Hey my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I am so excited to tell some amazing life stories today and catch up. I hope you guys are all doing well. I really do. I think about you a lot. Some of you I know really well. Some of you I don't know who are just getting to know me and it seems a little one -sided because you listen to the podcast but I don't know you but I think about you and I think about you and I appreciate you and I'm concerned for your well -being, meaning that I hope...

I hope you're doing fantastic. I hope your family's well. I hope you're setting and achieving awesome goals. And I hope you feel alive. Genuinely, I hope you feel alive that you're just going through life and it just feels fantastic. And if it's not, if life, cause there's, look, there's, there's grind, there are times of grind when life is hard, but even in those, if we have the right mindset, we have the right calibration, we're going the right direction.

Even when there's grind, we can still feel alive and feel good. We start to feel dead inside of my friends. We start to get blah. When we, when we aren't living up to our potential, when we're, when our goals are impotent, they just don't have the power to excite us and drive us and help us feel alive. When our systems and our strategies and our habits and our mindset are off, then.

life feels really blah. And that's no bueno. Nobody wants to feel like that. Nobody wants to feel like that. We all want to feel happy and excited and alive and we should and we can, right? Even when we're facing some hard stuff, we can still feel alive. So let me share some great, great lessons today and some cool things. So our family was on a much needed vacation and adventure.

We had originally planned you guys to spend the summer of 2020, we'd originally planned to spend like a month or six weeks in China studying martial arts there. And then take a train, the Trans -Siberian train over to Mongolia and spend another month there wandering around the step. Well, the COVID pandemic kind of shut that all down. So we rerouted all our plans and we'd gone through a whole plan to spend like six or seven countries in Eastern and Western Europe.

Rachel Denning (02:27.054)
just cool adventures and then that got all shut down and then it just kept closing down until we were stuck at home with many of you. And so once things started to lighten up a little bit, we're like, okay, we're at least doing a road trip. We're going to get out in the wilderness. And so we're out on this adventure right now. We had the awesome opportunity to go play with some family, like four wheelers and just having a blast visiting family in Oklahoma and then went over to Colorado.

And I had never been in Rocky Mountain National Park. And so I was really excited to get in there. And you guys know, you know how much I love hiking and I love big, big hikes that challenge me in particular. In fact, we were supposed to hike Kilimanjaro in October, but that's, that's most likely not going to happen now, but I'm still training. I want to do a big mountain every year. And I love the challenge of the mountain.

There's just something spectacular about a big old mountain that challenges you and for me it makes me dig deep physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, financially just to get there to pull it off to make these things happen. It's just a great, I love it. I love the challenge that a mountain presents to me. I just, I thrive there and plus it's my happy place. I feel so alive when I'm in the mountains and when I'm with my family even better.

So we took our whole family and we planned on doing a 10 mile hike up through these amazing lakes. There's three lakes you hike up past and you hike up a literally hike up this waterfall to get to the second lake and then you hike up again to the third. And so we took the whole family had to start early because of COVID restrictions from the government. We had to start really early to get in before the park actually opened. So we leave around five.

And it's cold because we're up in the mountains and we got little ones, right? Our little, our young, two younger ones are six and three. And so they were tired and, you know, just carrying them out to the car and wrapped up in their blankies. And we hit the trailhead. It was still cold and still kind of dark when we started going. And so I knew ahead of time, I'm going to be carrying kids. You don't do 10 miles on the mountains with that kind of elevation game without carrying some little ones. And I'm like, fantastic, bring it, right? I love this stuff.

Rachel Denning (04:54.67)
And my older boys are tough. They'll gladly carry some kids and some packs. So I had a heavy pack on because I'm packing lots of food and water and supplies for a family of nine. And our friends were there with us. And so I got a heavy pack and a little one. And I'm like, and she weighs 36 pounds, right? So I got my pack plus 36 pounds on my shoulders. I'm like, let's go do this thing. And so it was five miles up, five miles out. We made it up there. Had a great time. Tons of fantastic.

pictures and It was just stunning just fun great conversations and great fun. We got up to the highest Lake and we all decided to jump in and just is a literally a glacial lake It was for raising it was the kind of ones you guys that hurt when you jump in oh, man But we've been practicing as a family we've been practicing the Wim Hof breathing method and he holds the world record for staying in cold water

And we did not get any anywhere close to any kind of record in this water, but I did practice controlling my breathing and staying in longer, not just jumping him out immediately and starting to slow down my breathing, slow down my heart rate and stay in control while, you know, treading water in ice, cold freezing lake. It was awesome. Really cool experience. And a lot of people jumped in. Some of the little ones jumped in. It was just really, it was a great experience. So fun. Um, so we hiked out of there.

And on the way down, Sondriana, who's my three year old, she had this burst of energy. And so we put her down there, a little bare feet, and she ended up, you know, probably doing half a mile, just running from rock to rock and jumping and just having a blast. Just a riot, right? Just so much fun. It was such a great day. And you guys know, if you've been out doing hikes, it's, it's usually the last few miles of a hike that are the hardest because you're going down now.

You're getting up there was all right. You burn up your muscles and then now going down like, okay, your shoulders hurting, your back's hurting, your hips sore, your knees are sore, ankles are sore, feet are sore. You're starting to get some blisters, muscles are burnt out. This is when it starts to get challenging, right? On the way down. And so after, I mean, it was, I had a nice little break there just carrying my pack, which was still quite heavy, but no, no Sanji, right? And we were just watching her skip and jump and.

Rachel Denning (07:21.102)
play and fall and get back up and go and taking more pictures. It was just the most picturesque place where you can see the pines and the quakeys and the lakes and these views, waterfalls, just unreal, just so much beauty. We live in such a beautiful world, my friends. I hope you get out outside often to enjoy it. Even if it's just literally stepping outside and looking at the sky during the day or at night, just to do these kinds of things. It's so like we just have to enjoy nature more.

It's so grounding and so centering, so calming. It gives us so much perspective. Like sometimes we get, we get so worked up and just stepping outside helps us get settled. So I knew Sanji was going to get tired and I was going to have to carry her again. Right. And I was feeling the strain through my whole body, but I made a mental decision. I said, as soon as I pick her up, I'm going all the way out without resting. Now I know for some of you are like, that is crazy.

crazy. Why would you do that? And for me, I love challenging myself in a situation like that where I know it is mental, emotional, and physical and actually pretty spiritual sometimes too. I know I'm not going to injure myself because if I were if it were approaching an injury, I would stop. So I need to share that. So some of you don't think you're crazy. You're gonna hurt yourself. If I feel an injury coming on, I'm done. But if it's just

fatigue and if it's just muscle burn or even a little blister or something like, okay, I'm going to push through this because I love to challenge myself and push my limits. And when we do that, my friends in any, in any realm of life, when we start pushing our limits and we push past our Cumber zone and we set targets and we push until we get there, it, it cultivates this strength. It activates these power sources inside of us that carry over to other areas of life.

That's why they found they've done so many studies where they took this group of people and it was a group of people they had kind of handpicked this big group of people that they were dealing with some addictions and bad habits and they were like smoking and drinking and you know kind of way. They particularly chose this group and it was students as I remember right and they wanted to see if there was just one thing we have them do and measure over months if we just have them do one thing.

Rachel Denning (09:46.67)
which one thing would have a greatest impact across their whole life. So instead of sitting them down and asking them to stop smoking and stop drinking and study more and sleep better and on and on and on, instead of having to do all that, is there one thing, and they did all these different experiments, is there one thing that could have a massive positive impact on the rest of their life? And they found out in the research, it was exercise. And so all they asked this group of people do is like, are you willing to exercise? And I think it was maybe four or five times a week.

And they all committed, yeah, during the time of the study, we will just exercise. So you just got to move your body. And it was like maybe 30, 45 minutes every day, four times a week, something like that. I don't remember the exact numbers. And then they just watched them. And the participants didn't know they were monitoring everything else. They just were evaluating all these things and assessing. And they found that by pushing their limits physically, by exercising physically, it made drastic and dramatic improvements to...

Every area of their life they slept better. They studied better their relationships were better many of them smoked less drank less We're watching TV less. They were just more engaged by life and the one thing it was just one thing that all they asked them to do was Exercise regularly during the time of this study. It was amazing and so that same thing holds true for all of us when we push our limits when we

set and achieve goals and we push past our comfort zone and we push past that point where we're like, I really don't feel like doing this, right? That's the critical point. When you get to the spot where you're like, I just don't feel like doing this, that my friends is where you can change your life. And in fact, that's right along the what.

Albert Gray called the common denominator of success. And if you haven't read or reread that article recently, please do so. It's one of my all time favorites, just several pages long. And you can just search it online. The common denominator of success by Albert Gray. And he just simply said this after studying success for a couple of decades, he found that there was only one thing that really separated people, successful people from unsuccessful people. And he said, in my estimation, that

Rachel Denning (12:02.253)
The common denominator is that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do the things that successful people are willing to do. And he says, what's fascinating is that successful people don't want to do them either. They're just, they're part of what I call the grind, right? Is these things that are just unpleasant and uncomfortable that need to be done. And he says, successful people do them. That's what makes the difference. Whoa. So good.

So anyways, that's kind of a background on why I chose to do this. I love pushing myself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, et cetera. So I decided when I pick her back up, and I think there was about probably about three miles left to the car. And man, we had to park. It was so busy in that morning already by 5 .30. It was so packed. I had to park way down the hill. So when she said, oh, I'm tired, carry me. I was like, okay, it's go time. I'm already tired.

but I will not stop until I get to the car. So I pick her up and I put her on my shoulders and we're trucking along at a good pace and I just mentally I'm like, I'm not taking a break. Now I could have, I could have taken breaks, no big deal. So in total, about 10 miles minus that little part she walked, about 10 miles of carrying this sweet little girl.

And I'm going along and after her little burst of energy, I feel her just like wobbling and bobbing on my shoulders. And I'm like, oh man, she is falling asleep. And I was like, Sandra, you're falling asleep. She's like, yeah. And she was trying to set her head on my head as I was going down the trail, I was just bouncing. She's like, I want to lay down. So then I took her off my shoulders and she wanted to lay flat across. And this is the little girl, you guys, we took her to the Sahara desert in Morocco and rode camels.

with her when she was five weeks old. Like, awesome sauce. And she's always wanted to lay flat. It's been her thing since she was born. She loves just laying flat. So then I had to lay her across my arms, okay? So can you guys picture this? I've got my arms extended and she's laying across my arms. So one arm under her neck and then another one under her knees, right? And she's laying flat across my arms and I'm 36 pounds just right there.

Rachel Denning (14:22.317)
I'm using my arms, my biceps to hold her up. Now, you guys, this is the equivalent of you like getting a 36 pound bag of rice and just holding it out with your arms, right? And she slept for about two miles like that. Oh man, I can't even describe the burn.

in my biceps and my shoulders and my back. But I had made this commitment. I wanted to keep it and I wanted to, I wanted to go all the way. I wanted to push my limits. I know I wasn't going to injure myself. I just was going to get an insane workout and I wanted to push, right? I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to get better. And so I held her like that and it was so hard, but here's the, here's the kicker, right?

I wanted to do this without being miserable. I didn't want to be in there mentally like whining, complaining, throwing a pity party. What's, what's the point of that? If even if I wasn't, you know, even if I was taking breaks and I was out there, what's the point of whining and crying and complaining, Oh, it's too hot. Oh, it's too cold. Oh, I got blisters on my feet. Oh yeah. And I got a really bad blister on the back of my foot. It was just bleeding like a champ all the way down the hill, but

Tell you what, man, after a few minutes of holding her in my arms, I could not feel my blister anymore. All I could feel was my biceps. And so I'm cruising off the mountain and I wanted to be happy and joyful and jovial. And so I was talking to people and greeting people and laughing and smiling. And I was not, I gotta make this clear, I was not lying to myself. I wasn't playing some kind of game. I wasn't putting on a mask or a facade. I was so genuinely.

Grateful and like I felt like it was a privilege and I kept looking at her and telling myself What a privilege what an unbelievable privilege it is to be a dad To have an adorable chubby little three -year -old to carry in my arms as she's just she was out cold you guys she was so asleep people people in the trail would ask like

Rachel Denning (16:39.437)
if she is passed out, if she needed medical attention or something, right? She was just so tired, like, it was awesome. And like, I just kept like, what a privilege. What a privilege, what a joy. I get to go hiking with my family. It's one of my favorite things in the world to take my entire family and go play in nature and do hard things together. What a privilege to be a husband. What a privilege to be a father. What a privilege to be a friend.

leader to be out there with my friends and to enjoy the trees and the flowers and the lakes and the rivers and streams and the wildlife and the stars that that morning and the blue sky and the white puffy clouds. What a privilege to be alive. And I'm genuinely was just thrilled. And yeah, my muscles were burning and I was spent. But mentally, I was fantastic. I felt.

wonderful. And I just cruise down that mountain. I was going as fast as I could because I was burning. I got all the way down the parking lot and then had to walk down further to where the where the excursion was. Oh, and we all we all ran out of water. We packed a lot of water and we all ran out of water. And so getting back down there and she woke up, you know, probably a half mile back before we got to the car. She woke up, put her back on my shoulders. We're cruising along. I actually even made a video while we were walking right before we got to the car.

that I posted on Instagram and Facebook, just teaching those principles and lessons. And you guys, it was fantastic. It was awesome. I loved it. I loved that I had pushed past my own limits because I wanted to stop. I wanted to take a break, but I'd made a commitment to myself and I kept the commitment. Nobody would have cared. Nobody would have said anything. In fact, nobody really knew about my commitment. It was just me.

I had made a commitment to myself to push way past my limits and I kept the commitment. That is so important. It's so important for our integrity. It's so important for the amount of trust we have in ourselves and others have in us. And interestingly that we have in others. And it's so important for how we feel about ourselves. Many people struggle to like themselves because they're constantly breaking commitments to themselves and to others.

Rachel Denning (19:04.173)
And we can't like ourselves when we're doing this. And it just, you guys, it just, it just literally felt absolutely fantastic to do hard things. And you guys know this already. I'm kind of preaching the choir here. You know this when you do hard stuff, you feel amazing afterwards. Cause you're like, I did that. I didn't feel like doing it, but I did it. And that's in every area of life. And it's just a wonderful feeling. So we got down there.

got all hydrated, I was able to drive up and cheer people as they came in. You know, there was a few that had gone in before us and then several that came out and after us and cheer for them and just, just have a wonderful time. It was so fantastic. Little did I know that was on Monday. Little did I know how that was preparing me for what was to come on Saturday. But I get ahead of myself on Tuesday morning. We're like, you know what? We are going to be insanely sore and tired, but.

Since we're here, we got to do another hike. And we decided to wake up really early that morning and do a fast hike with just the older kids and busted up to a waterfall called Bridal Veil Falls. And so we got up really early, headed up this dirt road into this trail and we were cruising up this mountain. It was awesome. And had a huge early morning reward. We walked around this bend and there in some trees was this.

massive bull elk with this gigantic rack of antlers. It was so majestic, so stunning. And he was just munching leaves and he stopped and looked over at us and then looked back and kept munching leaves and we got up. He was right along the trail. So we, I got, I got pictures and video and we're maybe 10 or 15 feet from him. It was, it was just stunning. So majestic. So, so noble. Oh man, it was amazing.

So we booked it up to the waterfall. Got some incredible views as the sun was rising and then literally ran off that mountain. Made fantastic time. It's wonderful. So two days in a row. So then we skip ahead to Saturday, my friends. You ready for this? Oh yeah. And here's, here's the big lesson. Like when life gets crazy, here's the lesson, but I got to tell a story. So we ended up driving to Utah and more time in the Rocky mountains.

Rachel Denning (21:29.357)
And I wanted to go do a hike called Pfeifferhorn. And it's actually a pretty challenging hike. At the top at least, there's two sections that are pretty steep with a lot of loose dirt and loose rock. And it's just a challenging environment itself because you're slipping and sliding. It feels pretty unstable. And you have to go through some pretty major boulder fields and one area, one traverse, it's kind of exposed on both sides and you're just kind of, you know, hands and feet.

just climbing your way around these boulders over and through and around these boulders to get over to the main peak, which is pretty steep and scattered with rock. Like I was saying. So we made good time as a group. We started early. It was cold and we're packing all kinds of stuff. We packed way more water this time because we didn't want to run out. And so I actually, um, I went and bought a new three liter hydration sack, uh, for my sweetheart and put in her bag, but that made it too heavy. So I ended up.

carrying her pack and my pack all the way to the top. So I had two packs, one on front, one on back, which was just fine. I love that kind of stuff. No big deal. And so I'm packing that all the way up. We made great time. Again, pictures, fun, jumping on big boulders and crossing streams. Just gorgeous, gorgeous pictures. Check out my Instagram, my wife's Instagram.

We found, like we even ended up taking some family shots and portraits and stuff in this one area. The setting and the backdrop was unreal. The rocky mountains and the sun rising. It was so special, so beautiful. Alpine lakes and rivers. It was really wonderful. So we get all the way top. We made good time, feeling fantastic. Still early in the morning. And we get across the, the Boulder field. It was kind of sketch, right? And I know some of our group was pretty nervous because...

It's got exposure on both sides, meaning it just drops off both sides. And it's kind of technical, you know, working your way around the boulder fields. And then we get to the main, and we'd already done kind of a rough zigzag climb up a steep part. So we get to the main peak and now it's just, it's covered with loose rock, loose dirt. And everyone's just kind of trying to pick their way up and.

Rachel Denning (23:45.165)
And inevitably there's going to be rock falling and dirt falling. It's going to happen on a field like that. Every one of us is going to kick something loose, right? And you just got to watch out and call for it. So Rachel and I and my brother and his little boy were near the back. And there was, there was actually, I don't know how many people were on that section of the trail. Maybe a total from top to bottom, maybe 40, 30 or 40 people.

kind of spread out over this peak and we're kind of trying to find our way up and we're slipping and you know, everyone's slipping and you're just trying to work your way and you're a little nervous and all of a sudden I look up and this huge rock, huge as in, you know, a little bit bigger than a microwave breaks loose and it's, I don't know, a hundred feet above us and starts crashing down.

and starts bringing all kinds of rocks with it. So really terrifying. So, you know, all my time, you know, with rock climbing and mountaineering, you just, you yell rock. Whenever there's rock, you yell rock. So I start yelling rock, rock, rock, just to warn everyone around me and everyone below us, because there was people below us. I literally just instinctively, I grab Rachel, my wife, around the waist and we jump and I jump across this little ravine.

because I mean, I am getting out of the way. And so she doesn't even remember this because she's like, it felt so weird. Like I picked her up and we, I just had her in my arms and we jumped and I cleared this whole ravine and got her out of the way. I wasn't going to stay around and look and try to dodge anything. I'm like clearing out. So I got her out of the way and I'm still screaming rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. And I'm watching this thing go down. And so it gets, you know, maybe a hundred feet to us. And then it goes another hundred feet or so.

down to the people below us, and everyone's trying to scatter and they're jumping. And remember, you're on a steep mountainside with all kinds of loose rock. And so you're trying to jump around that stuff and trying to be agile and get out of the way. And most people cleared, one guy fell, scratched up his arm really good, but the big rock was just heading towards one young man. And he was trying to move, get out of the way, and it ended up bouncing back and forth. And it was just all over the place. You never know which way it's going. And he jumps right at the last minute.

Rachel Denning (26:10.285)
and I see the rock just take out his feet. And so I go running down the mountain sprinting, because I go, I immediately go into EMT mode, right? I had, um, I'd had the privilege to work on an ambulance before, and I had taken all kinds of training and wilderness training and stuff. So man, I'm booking down the mountain and I calling rocks and people clear and I'm like, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. And I'm just running down there and I get down there. And again, it's, it's,

It's tough. It's a tough environment because it's steep and it's loose. So I'm trying to find my own footing. I throw my pack. I get down to him. He's in shock, right? The general is pumping. His shoe is missing. So it had clipped his left foot and it just shredded his shoe and yanked it off. And then I see some blood in his sock and I do a really quick assessment, um, you know, head to toe.

I'm talking to him, he's awake, he's alert. He's like, oh, I'm okay, okay. And I can tell adrenaline's pumping. I'm like, okay, where'd it hit you? Where'd it hit? And he's like, just my foot. I'm like, anywhere else. And he'd fall and scratch and he had other hits and he breaks anything else. I'm assessing everything. So I quickly discovered it's just his foot. So with his permission, I started talking to him. I take off his sock and he has two pretty bad puncture wounds on the back of his heel. The one's bleeding quite a bit. The other one was gushing.

So, and I'm not trying to be graphic or bother anybody. I know some of this bothers people, but I want to tell the reality of the story here and the intensity of it. And there's some great life lessons. So there was a lot of people around there like, ah, what do we do? Like, and it ended up being maybe there was 10, probably 10 people around and I'm like, okay, I need a four by four gauze bandages. I need tape. I need materials. I need medication. Let's go. So people start bringing over materials to me and it was even hard to try to get it to me because it was so steep and so loose.

And they're trying to calm their own nerves from having seen all that and trying to make sure they're safe, you know, their family members are safe. So they get, you know, a bunch of compresses to me and gauze and starts packing that thing on there. I tied it on real tight with a bandana that he had to try to stop the bleeding. And we gathered up some more materials, gave him, you know, I made sure he wasn't, you know, I was doing a full assessment on him, right? Allergies, medical problems, conditions, whatever.

Rachel Denning (28:32.717)
And he was good, he was awake, his lower was calm, the pain started to increase now that the adrenaline was going down. So, you know, he asked for some ibuprofen, so we got some of that, so it would help with the pain. And then I started to assess and I pulled the bandage away to look again and it was still just gushing a lot.

So we, we bandaged back up really tight, taped it up really tight, got his shoe back on there really tight to try to keep inflammation and bleeding down. And so then we're assessing, right? We're in a really rough condition. The only, the only real other way to get him off of there was like to have him walk out if he could. And we tried that and he couldn't put any pressure on it. We could have called a helicopter and they would have dropped a cable to lift him out. But as we were assessing it, I was talking to him and talking to his buddy that was with him. We realized, you know,

It's not, we knew it wasn't life threatening. We assessed everything else. He was calm. His breathing was relaxed. His heart rate was good. He didn't have any other medical conditions. We assessed everything and I asked him, we were approaching like we can call in a helicopter if you want. We can get, you know, search and rescue up here. We can do all those things. And we decided like, let's try to get it out. Let's try to get him down this steep section across that traverse of bouldering and then

Over the saddle down the other steep section we'd come up right and then get out and then we talked You know here we're gonna come up with a plan. They'd been backpacking up there right so they had two huge backpacks down with the lower lake and We said you know we can call search rescue. It'll take them a couple hours to get up to us and then they can get you out of stretcher like what do you want to do and And like let's let's just carry him out of here and So I put him on my back and kind of piggybacked

And we went. And now again, I train, I train hard, I exercise hard. I've told you the story, if you listen to my podcast, I carried my son. When he weighed 100 pounds, I carried my son for most of three days in Nepal when he wasn't feeling well. I've done stuff like this before. I've spent years and years and years in the mountains doing extreme things. So I...

Rachel Denning (30:54.509)
And this is one of the life lessons. In a lot of ways, I was ready for this. I was ready physically. I'm in phenomenal shape. I was ready mentally. I was ready, prepared to help with the injury and the bandaging. And I was in a place where I could help, right? And most of the people, they just had no idea what to do. And you know, we...

along the whole trail, people were very kind and thoughtful. They offered water and food and, but, but at some point, you know, and here's one of the greatest lessons. We have no idea what's coming. I had no idea this was coming. It's not like, Oh man, I'm going to train really hard for a full year because I'm going to have to help carry a guy off the mountain or, you know, you don't know what's coming. And so you just train and prepare. And this is,

This is my lesson I want to share. This is the big takeaway from this, my friends. We don't know what opportunities are coming our way. And I see this as an opportunity. It literally was an opportunity to help a guy. And so I don't see it as an emergency. I don't see it as a disaster. I don't see it as a horrible thing. I genuinely see this as an opportunity to help a total stranger. And so I banished him up and no one else around really knew what to do.

You know, a few people had simple first aid kits, but nobody knew what to do. And so I was treating him and immediately right away he's like, he just kept, it was so cool. We ended up connecting and talking because we had a long way out. But he was just, and you guys please don't misunderstand me either. I'm not tooting my own horn here. I'm not bragging. But I wanted to, it's an extraordinary story. It really is. And I want to share it because it teaches all of us life lessons. And he just was so grateful. He's just like, thank you. He's like, thank you. Thank you. You came down fast. You were there. You banished me. And now.

Now you're helping him off. You don't have to do this. You have your whole group here, your family, like, you don't have to do this. Why are you doing this? And he just, he was so grateful. And, and he said, I just, I feel so inspired and so grateful. And it was a chance to have an impact, my friends, a chance to make a difference. So I loaded him on my back and grab my poles and just started my working my way slowly off. And I didn't slip. We, he, me and.

Rachel Denning (33:16.909)
his friend or really his friend and I, is the proper grammar there, took turns carrying him off five miles off this mountain. And he weighs 160 pounds. And it was tough. It was really tough. And he would hop through certain parts where we couldn't carry him, where it wasn't safe to carry him. He would kind of hop or scoot and work his way around the boulders, across the boulder field. And then we'd carry him for sections. And then...

He'd try to slide down and I took the steep sections that I could and then we traded off. And I was kind of counting, we ended up, we would each take about 100 meters or 100 yards. So we'd take about 100 steps and then trade off. And to carry on piggyback or sometimes we put them on our shoulders at 160 pounds, that is an insane amount of exertion.

And like I was saying with the hike with, with we did with our family in Colorado and Sondreana, it's those last few miles that are hardest. And when you've got that kind of weight on you, and it was super cool because my boys stepped up, it was fantastic. And they took, they took my pack and they took their big backpacks that had all their camping gear.

My boys just loaded up and they, they joined the party cause they're used to it and they've been training hard too. They're in that kind of condition mentally, emotionally and physically. They're like, yeah, let's do this. And so they kind of headed out and we just, we just traded off down, down, down. And, and even walking while I was resting in between my turn was hard. My feet were burning. You know the strain, right? When you go do really strenuous stuff, it literally puts a strain.

on every part of your body and tendons and ligaments and muscles, some you didn't know you had, because they're really sore the next day and you're like, where was that? And so this the strain on the whole body was so intense. Even on the brakes, it was it was hard, your muscles are burning, your feet are burning your joints, everything. And again, I'm assessing everything the whole way. I'm assessing his condition, making sure he's

Rachel Denning (35:30.605)
He's good and well and he was in a great mental state, had a really great attitude. It was not life threatening. The blood was not coming out visibly. So I want to make sure that so no one's worrying here. We were assessing his all time and we could have called at any time and we were assessing ourselves. Like are we in good enough condition here? You know, we're not leading towards any injury. We was just, it became this real physical challenge to help this young man off the mountain and we pushed.

And again, mentally, I'm stepping up my game. I kept reminding myself, what a privilege. What a privilege. What an opportunity to push past my limits, to do something kind and helpful for another human being. What a privilege to be up here with my, we didn't take the young kids on this hike, to be up here with my older kids and my sweetheart, to be in these gorgeous mountains. What a privilege to.

have a body that works and muscles to develop and a mindset to challenge, right, and push. Like what an opportunity. And I kept reminding myself of that. And so we laughed and cheered each other on and man we sweat gallons of water and we strain our muscles and by the end our quadriceps the front of your legs, your thighs were locking up. And it was a challenge. And we just traded back and forth.

back and forth, back and forth. And mentally, you just had to be fully engaged. There was no like getting out of it. There was no, you know, what, you know, leave him up there. And it just changed everything. I'm like, Hey, we're in this, we're helping this young man off. He cannot put any pressure on it. He tried, can't put any pressure on it. He can hop and skip for a little bit on one leg, but that's exhausting. So we're just doing piggyback rides here the whole way out.

And we actually made phenomenal time. We were keeping up with other hikers who just had their packs. It was, it was awesome. And his friend that helped, well, he did a phenomenal job trying to hold himself on there, keep his cool with the injury. And then his friend was carrying out, did a fantastic job just manning up and, and just the exertion to get down. It was, it was awesome. Overall just ended up being a truly fantastic experience and a great opportunity. And for me, responsibility.

Rachel Denning (37:54.029)
to make a difference, to help out where I can. And I share all of this, you guys, to remind us that we need to constantly be training. You hear me talk about this all the time. Train, train, train. Right? Because none of us rises to the level of our expectations, like our archilogists told us. We fall to the level of our training. We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training. And everything in life comes down to our training.

So the question is, and the big principle is, when life gets just crazy.

and this can happen in any, any area of your life. How do you handle the craziness? What do you do? Well, it all comes down to your training because in those moments of stress or fear or exhaustion or urgency or emergency or whatever it is, whatever comes along in life in those moments, we all fall to the level of our training.

So in a, in a lot of ways I want to raise a warning voice and an encouraging voice to train every day, train, right? Trade your entertaining for training, right? Like I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious about this. And this is, this is financially, this is socially and leadership. This is mentally.

exercising your mind, learning as much as you can. It's in mechanics. It's learning how to fix things, how to understand the working of things. It's literally walking through scenarios where you have opportunities to make a difference. And I've told all kinds of stories in my podcast already about this, where sometimes I need to, you know, I could, I can help out cause I was the only one around that spoke Spanish, right? And now I'm getting really, I'm getting really close on French. You guys, it's so fun. I still study French every single day.

Rachel Denning (40:04.109)
and I'm a French tutor. I'm getting better.

But like it's, it's, it's all those things. It's emotionally. Can you handle the emotions of an emergency? A lot of people can't. They just collapse. They check out. And it doesn't have to be an emergency. It can just be stressful. It can be intense. It can be tough conversation. We've got to cultivate our, that, that emotional strength. It's spiritual. It's of course, physical. It's all of those things. And so,

The real key to handling life when it gets crazy is preparation. Now, I know some of you are thinking right now, oh boy, I haven't been preparing, right? And it might give you a rush of terror going, oh crap, but I'm not prepared. And so I'm raising this voice right now of like, okay, all right, chillax, but start preparing today.

today. Like, and each of you will know, like we can't, we can't master everything, but we ought to be really good at a lot of things. And maybe not even a lot, let's say several things. Important things and just, just start thinking through it. What, what do you need for your family?

What have you had a desire to learn? You've had an inclination towards it. Is it languages? Is it first aid? Is it self -defense? You know, my family and I, we signed up for Krav Maga classes, and we've been training in martial arts and fighting. Is it, you know, yeah, self -defense? Is it finances? Is it food storage or emergency preparedness? Is it just love and kindness?

Rachel Denning (41:51.341)
Is it listening? Right? We need a lot of expert listeners. We need people that can listen. We need people that can lead, that can help you. We need leadership and social skills. What is it for you? Is it counseling, guiding, coaching? Is it being a role model? You with me? You know what I'm saying? Like we've got to prepare and we've got to train. We've got to get ourselves

in this spot because what an unbelievable opportunity it is to serve and help others when things get crazy and keep it together ourselves when things get crazy. You with me? So will you do this please? We take this serious. It's interesting when you and I, when we finally take serious things seriously, we start getting results.

And I want to challenge you to do that. Get serious about preparing yourself and preparing your family. Not in a fearful way. Please don't misunderstand me. Not in a fearful way. Not in a panic way. Not in a the sky is falling kind of way. But just in this, again, I see it as opportunities. There are opportunities to make a difference. There are opportunities to serve and help. There are opportunities.

to step in when somebody really needs you. But my friends, when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed.

That's just the way it is. When the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. So I want to challenge you to prepare. Read the books, get the coaching, invest in yourself, invest in your family. Like get ready, get your kids ready. Be just all around prepared to bring.

Rachel Denning (43:52.941)
Because life is going to throw stuff at us that we cannot see coming. I never saw that coming. But I've been preparing for it for the last year without knowing. Right? And who knows what else is coming? I'm preparing. I'm preparing all the time. And again, it is not a fear -based preparation. This is how I live my life. Every day I'm up and I'm excited to exercise, to read, to learn, to develop my skills, to understand humans, to understand life, to understand the economy, to understand...

Emotions to understand mindset. I'm constantly learning and training and growing so I can help more people and and by default help myself and my family and I'm helping my kids train My wife train right we're doing this. I love this stuff. I love this stuff you guys I'm geeking out about it, you know that but I it's a reminder for all of us. So what is it you need to learn? What is it you need to learn? And we share this we share this episode in this podcast

With others, just take a screenshot of it, share it on Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat or Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever. Just share it because people need this reminder that we all can be preparing ourselves. Think how many situations would be so much better, how we could help each other so much more if more of us were prepared. If we're living in this mindset of preparation and we're just training, training, training, training. We're training every day, we're conditioning ourselves.

all around to where it just brings happiness and great results and maybe you never have to use those skills but you feel fantastic because you're in the best shape of your life, you're mentally sharp, you're emotionally strong, you've been building those emotional muscles, you're spiritually grounded in your values and your connection to God and to yourself and your morals and standards, you're financially sound because you're training, right, and you're conditioning yourself in that way, you're saving and investing. I mean it's all around. Think what that does for the...

for the world, for life, and for generations to come. You feel fantastic because we're living the way we should be living, which is kind of in training mode. And we're enjoying ourselves, and we're all better off because of it. Man, I love this stuff. So get clear about this. Talk to your spouse. Talk to your, if you're younger, your parents or your friends. Just start watching training videos on YouTube. Listen to them.

Rachel Denning (46:17.741)
more of these episodes of this podcast, another podcast, and get the books, get the coaching. We have tons of resources on gregdenning .com and extraordinaryfamilylife .com. Coaching sessions, if you want to figure out how to level up in a certain area of your life, sign up for a coaching session. We'll walk through it, right? We'll create a whole plan for your life of how you're just going to nail it and become your very best self, right? And maximize your potential. Because we have opportunities and for some of us, responsibilities.

and a moral obligation. Like for me, for me personally, I have a moral obligation to make the most of myself. So I have the opportunity to help others. Right? Love this stuff, man. I love it. All right. So what are you going to do? Write it down and then create a plan. So first thing is what are you going to do? What do you need to prepare more on? And I think, um, I think a lot of you will know already, you'll have kind of some intuition and maybe you've already known.

You're like, yeah, I knew I needed to do that. We just need to do it. Pull the trigger. Don't, don't wait anymore. Take action today. Right? Never, never leave a moment like this without taking action. So if you have an insight right now, inspiration and aha, take action. So sign up for the class. I'm going to write it down, schedule it. Cause the things we schedule are the things that get done. So schedule it, make it happen, get clear about it. Talk to people about it. Ask for some accountability, plan for it. If you need some help, resources, contact me or Rachel. Like,

Let us help and let's all create the extraordinary family life we want, prepare ourselves so when life gets crazy, we're ready. We're ready. And we can say, all right, bring it on. Let's go. And it's opportunities to make a difference and live a genuinely extraordinary life. Love you guys. Remember, every day we are training for greatness. Reach upward.