#130 A Poetic Formula For Greatness

Rachel Denning (00:00.942)
Good morning my friends. Welcome to another episode of the extraordinary family life podcast. I'm actually out on a trip right now. I'm leading a men's trip and it's amazing. Got a group of incredible...

men, great human beings. And we're out having these epic adventures where we can challenge ourselves physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually and socially and where we can connect and talk about ways, right? How we can be our best selves, be men, be better husbands.

fathers and leaders. Oh man I love this stuff. So I'm out it's pretty little noisy. You guys I'm up way before the sun. I'm looking at stars right now as I'm walking around out here. It's amazing. Oh man. So got up early again thinking got up before before the alarm right. Just training the body and mind before the alarm and did.

did a workout and did some reading and some writing and some thinking got a cold shower in and now I'm out just sharing a message with you guys and watching the stars over the desert this is unreal man life is so good but I wanted to share something with you today that is a poetic formula for greatness an opportunity to

just remember some of the things that we can and need to do to just operate at our best levels. And I love, I love coming across, I'm sure as you do as well, like thinkers and thought leaders, writers, poets, philosophers, prophets who, who help us live greatly and

Rachel Denning (02:05.07)
challenge us, challenge us to snap out of this, the kind of thinking, the rote thinking we can get into. You know what I'm talking about? Where if we just kind of...

leave it to ourselves sometimes we can start telling ourselves stories in our heads we start believing our own thoughts when they might not be accurate or even helpful they might not be serving us very well oh you guys catching this stuff this is this is awesome right and it's super powerful how we can we can just learn to think at a different level because everything

everything we do is happening first at a thought level and then our thoughts, you know, change our biochemistry. So at a feeling level and then our lives are driven by these thinking and feeling patterns. Oh man, this stuff's awesome. Okay. So today just a short, powerful message. And this one is from Rudyard Kipling.

And the poem is called If. I'm sure you're familiar with it. You've heard it before. But I want to dive in kind of piece by piece here and just, just hit these principles hard because they're so powerful. Here it goes. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. Whoa. Like, you know, I'm just going to go through, pick it apart. This is such a great poem.

Think about it. Think how many people are losing their heads all the time. You do it. I do it. It happens in families. Oh my goodness, in families, right? There's kind of all the family chaos is going on and it happens at work. It happens in church. It happens in organizations. People are losing their heads and quite honestly, it's mostly just because they don't know how to...

Rachel Denning (04:09.198)
keep it and to keep it they just don't have the training and the exposure the conditioning and so what have we been taught and trained to do well it's easy just to lose it and to not know how I get I get asked almost daily the question how can I strengthen my mindset how can I can control and direct my thoughts?

How can I maintain focus and perspective? How can I overcome these thoughts that are depressing, these thoughts that are, make me feel anxious? How do I, how do I keep my head when, and especially when things are going crazy? And what's interesting here is he's saying, look, you got to keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs. You have to keep your head. That my friends is leadership. That is awesomeness.

Keep your cool. And man, I give that at council in a marriage, like if your spouse is upset, your kids are upset, people are angry, they're flying off to handle, you keep your cool. Even when you have to have the hard conversations and face the tough truths, you keep your cool. Don't lose your head. And he points out here, Kipling points out, they're all losing theirs and they're blaming it on you. You're on the receiving end of this and he says, still keep your cool.

Ah, yeah. Love this stuff. Next line. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. Ooh, that's that. See, that's that beautiful piece of humility and acknowledgement of like, Hey, I might be wrong. I often am.

Maybe there's something I haven't seen or considered before and we're willing to consider all angles. And when somebody comes back and gives us feedback or criticism or whatever they do or their gossip and just say, huh, I wonder if I've done something that has given them cause to believe that or to say that. I wonder if I, maybe I said something, but I didn't say it clearly enough that it was not misunderstood. I wonder if.

Rachel Denning (06:31.661)
If I neglected something that has given them cause, right? That beautiful humility. But this first line is the most important and powerful one, I think. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, you know what the greatest problem is, I think? In my experience of working with people across five continents, I get to work with wonderful people every day. From, I mean, I'm working with...

mega millionaires to, you know, people who are just starting their own business and all walks of life. And it's just amazing. But you know, I found in my own experience working with all these people, the number one thing holding people back is their own limiting beliefs in themselves. Let that sink in.

In all my experience, the number one thing holding people back, and some of these people are already extremely successful, but what's holding us back at all levels, not just financially, but in everything, is our own limiting beliefs in ourselves. So his first thing is if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, that's the first part. Most people, ironically, most people lack trust in themselves even when others trust them.

even when others have that reliance and that belief in them, that happens all the time. I'll be like, oh my goodness, I totally believe in you. I think you can do it. And the people around them are like, yeah, we totally believe you. God, this is amazing. And they look up to him and yet we were so hard on ourselves and we lack that trust in ourselves. And so we've got to get to a point where we can trust ourselves even when all men doubt us.

And that comes from a place of making and keeping commitments, especially to ourselves. I think the number one reason we lose trust in ourselves is we don't even keep commitments that we make to ourselves. Even something as simple as setting your alarm and not hitting the snooze button, because that action is breaking a commitment to yourself to get up. When you say you're gonna do something, do it.

Rachel Denning (08:42.445)
Even in your own head, if you never tell anyone else and you say something, you fall through because if you don't, you're breaking and violating trust with yourself. And how can you trust yourself if you don't do what you say? Especially to yourself and to others. And then if you can't trust yourself, others won't trust you as well. Ooh, that's good. Okay. Third, third line. He says, if you can wait and not be tired of waiting.

or being lied about don't deal in lies. Two great principles.

I'm all about hustle, friends. You know that. I am not a guy to sit around saying, well, things will get better. Just give it time. That is not how I roll. In fact, we were talking about that last night. Because that's kind of the weak advice that people offer us sometimes when they don't have any real answers. When you go to them with your challenges or struggles and say, what can I do? And innocently, not necessarily their fault, they don't know what to tell you. When you go to them with a problem, your financial problem, you go to them with a marriage problem, you go to them with a health problem,

problem and people don't know how to help you they've not been trained or taught in high performance and the coaching that we all need then their response is well just give it time it'll get better and that I think is absolute bogus we've got to get after it and and

I'm you know this about me right you guys I'm all about the philosophy of I will either find a way or I will make one and what George Bernard Shaw said that you know people are always blaming their circumstances I don't believe in circumstances that people who succeed in this life are those who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they cannot find them they make them that's my philosophy but what about this waiting?

Rachel Denning (10:41.261)
You can wait and not get tired by waiting. Well, there are times to wait. There, well, and that's, that comes a lot of wisdom of timing, trying to approach things with timing, the right timing to make a move, the right timing to have that conversation, the right timing to make a change, the right timing of what to say and when to say it and how to say it. So there is, there is some waiting there and there's some strategy.

and some thoughtfulness and we all need patience. And then sometimes it's waiting for the outcome while we're working for it, knowing, hey, this is gonna take time. I think more often than not, it can happen faster than we think. But you can't expect to get in fantastic shape in just a couple of weeks if you've been neglecting yourself for years.

Now, don't you dare sit around thinking, oh, this will take me years to get healthy. No, it won't. Let's go. Turn on the vigor. Turn on the go. If you have neglected your business or are starting a new business and you need to crank it and you're doing the right things, stick to them. I think that's where we drop the ball a lot is we stop.

And we think, gosh, I've been doing this for weeks and months already. When is it going to happen? Or even if you've been in it for years, you've got to turn up the intensity and the consistency. So we stop. We often stop waiting. We get tired of waiting because we want things. We have this impulse and this desire to have things instantaneously. We really have that culture in us. And so there's a lot of wisdom in waiting and not getting.

not getting tired of waiting. Being lied about, don't deal in lies. So whatever other people happen to throw at you, my friends, you do not have to pick it up and throw it back. In fact, it is a mark of greatness to not pick it up and throw it back. So if people lie about you, to you, don't deal in lies. Don't become a dealer.

Rachel Denning (12:56.781)
If they're mud slinging and they're tearing you down and I mean look at look at our situation in politics. It's embarrassing Don't be like that. We have to rise above that next line or being hated Don't give way to hating there. It is again If people hate you don't give way to hating Like let's rise above that let's reach upward above that let's

Let's stay in a place where we don't have to give way to hating, even though people hate us. And the backbiting and the gossiping and the slandering and the bitterness, we don't have to do that. That just creates misery, makes it hard to even live with yourself. Ah, some of this. Next line he says, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. It's maintaining this.

this confident humility and acknowledging that we're often wrong and mistaken. There's more, there will always, always, always be more that we don't know my friends than we do know. There isn't anything you and I can do in this life to know more than we don't know. There's, oh my goodness, there's always, there's so much to know. It's impossible in one lifetime.

to even try to touch the surface on just knowledge that's available. And so there's always more that we don't know. And if we keep that kind of humility and not go around like he says, looking too good or talking too wise, but just keep this, again, the humble confidence. You don't have to tear yourself down. And being meek does not mean you're weak.

It doesn't mean you don't know anything at all. It doesn't mean you go around, you know, tearing yourself down, the self deprecating stuff and, and self loathing. And some people go too far the other way because they don't want to look too good. So they constantly tear themselves down in their minds and outwardly and people don't respect them. So there's a wise balance there. Okay, let's keep going. Rudyard Kipling here. If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

Rachel Denning (15:16.429)
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, keeping that balance and perspective of yes, I have a dream and I'm pursuing my dream and I'm doing the things day in and day out, like the actions that will create those dreams, right? I'm building.

So dreams are not my master, but I use, I use them to lead me and I do dream and I can think, but thoughts are not my aim, right? Results are my aim and clear thinking that leads to great results and action is my aim. Right? I keep moving. He can, he carries on here. If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

Treat those two imposters just the same what why would he call triumph of an imposter? Because I think I don't know I can't guess what he exactly means of course but It's interesting that succeeding Often stops people and of course disaster and failure often stops people we know that It's sometimes when

winning actually gets in the way. It makes it hard to keep going. Some people, they have a success, they have a triumph, and they stop. And they sit back. I've met people, they have this one triumph, and they try to live on that for the rest of their lives. And it just doesn't work.

Yesterday's meal is insufficient for today's needs and we can take that quote that's from somebody else, right? We can take that idea and say yesterday's win is is insufficient for today's battles and Today's dreams even And so we're not gonna let triumph get to our head and we're not gonna let disaster get to our head We're just gonna keep being our best selves. Oh This is good He goes on

Rachel Denning (17:16.717)
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, twisted by knaves, and make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. Isn't this beautiful?

He's saying these words you throw out, somebody takes them and twists them. These things you've built, they get broken and trashed. And yet, what do you do? Do we throw in the towel, my friends, when people take our words and twist them? When the things we give our lives to get broken, do we just quit? Do we give up? Do we acquiesce? Do we settle for a mediocre or miserable existence? Not me. Not me.

I carry on. Right? And yeah, of course it's hard. Of course it's devastating and disheartening and frustrating and painful. But we get back up and we carry on. The best thing we can do when we have enemies is to keep being our best self. To move forward. That's the best thing we can do is to win.

I love this. Okay, he carries on here. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss. Meaning you sometimes we have to get obsessed, we have to give our all, we have to take a risk and go all in to get that reward. And this is a hard one. This is a really hard one. And I

Personally, I try to avoid giving people advice around risk. They just have to divide for themselves. Like, you have to just know.

Rachel Denning (19:22.413)
what calculated risks you're gonna take. Not to be, there's a fine line between reckless and risky. And Rachel and I have taken many risks, crazy risks, risks that I would not recommend to others, but that were right for us. And sometimes you have to take all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss. Woof. And we have to.

I would say many of us are too risk -averse. We're not willing to take risks that we need to take.

man, this stuff is good. Isn't this awesome? And lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. Sometimes you're going to try, especially when you're taking risks, you're going to try and it won't work out. It's going to fail and people will try to rub it in your face. It'll be the, I told you so. Oh, I've heard that many times.

and it's just painful and you lose you take a risk you try and you lose but what do you do you start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss you take note of the things you could have done better and things you did wrong and the lessons learned from your failures and you get back up and you start again and it is never ever too late to start again

Whether you've been through a brutal divorce. Whether you made some horrendous mistakes and poor decisions. Whether you tried and lost it all. Start again. Start again. Next line. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, meaning your whole soul and body, to serve your turn long after they are gone.

Rachel Denning (21:19.501)
It's pretty profound right? You're putting everything you have into a cause that actually outlives you. Beautiful. And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, hold on. Right and so...

Oh, I think there's some depth there. That was kind of my long depth of when they're gone. Like do, do work that matters that lasts, that outlives you. But there's another meaning here that's beautiful to serve their turn after they're gone, meaning they're spent. Like you're, you're all out of heart. You're all out of nerve and send you your, your body and your mind and your heart are just empty and you're just lost and like, Oh, like you've lost heart, right? And your body's giving up because you're just so exhausted. We've done this physically, but it happens to us.

It happens to us emotionally, it happens to us spiritually and socially.

Rachel Denning (22:20.205)
And sometimes, my friends, it gets to that thing where, that point where all you have left is your will, which says, hold on.

on.

That's beautiful. When you feel like giving up hope, hold on. Hold on.

He goes on, if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue.

Man, we're seeing the loss of that in society, aren't we? The crowds are clamoring to take away your virtue. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, we have to, we have to, we have to. I was just doing some reading recently on this whole idea of virtue. It's so profound, so beautiful, so powerful.

Rachel Denning (23:19.053)
We must maintain virtue, even and especially among the crowds. Or walk with kings, he says, or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. And so we can be among the crowds, but not act like the crowds. And we can be among the kings and royalty in high places and not lose the common touch. Remember what it's like among the crowds. I've told you this before, my...

My personal definition of social leadership is to be able to have a meaningful conversation with anyone, anywhere at any time, to be comfortable talking to the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor and extremely educated and the extremely uneducated, to be comfortable and confident to connect with humans at whatever level they are at. He goes on, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

if all men count with you, but none too much. Keeping that balance, that beautiful stoic independence of knowing who you are and what you stand for, having absolute clarity about how you carry yourself, how you treat others, the principles and practices that govern your life among foes and friends. Oh, this is good.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, meaning, isn't that beautiful? You take that minute and you give it a full 60 seconds worth of distance run, of effort. You literally put in the time and effort to get things done, to show up.

Show up, that's in my philosophy journal. I show up every day. That has a lot of meaning to me. If I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna be all in. Show up. And go for it. If you're gonna do something, do it well. And be all in. Give it all you got. Most of us kinda give it a little pittance of an effort. Or we give 30 seconds to our minute.

Rachel Denning (25:42.445)
go all in. Then the last beautiful line says, yours is the earth and everything that's in it. Right? That's we can do these things we can we can go through this poetic formula of greatness and leadership and success. Then then the world opens up every opportunity and way for us and things will happen in our favor that we never could have dreamed of.

The world will literally be ours. And we'll have, quite literally, have endless opportunities if we follow these formulas, if we walk this higher road, if we discipline ourselves to be our best, because awesome is genuinely and truly always an option. And every day we can train and condition ourselves for greatness. We can do these things.

And then his last line says, and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.

Just this beautiful message to a son that this is the poetic formula for real manliness. To be a man, right? Isn't this beautiful? Isn't that awesome? Isn't that a great message? But of course it applies to being an amazing woman as well. You've heard me talk about it and think about it and I just am so passionate and so excited about it.

Each of us has that opportunity and I would say obligation and responsibility to be our best, to be the best man we can be or the best woman you can be. And to lean into it and that my friends is what makes life absolutely extraordinary and worth every effort to strive with all our might to be our best.

Rachel Denning (27:47.469)
and to live greatly. I love this stuff. I love this stuff. Love you guys. And I want to leave you with the hope and the challenge to live, live today, take today and live greatly. Lean into this, take this poetic formula and just work on it. Don't expect perfection. Just work on it, but work on it, man.

Sometimes we, have you ever done this? I know I have. I like, I use the excuse of like, I'm gonna get to that just to avoid getting to it. We don't actually work on it and we don't work on it very hard. So let's work on it. Let's strive with our might to be our very best. I love you guys. Have a fantastic day. Reach upward.