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

Rachel Denning (00:01.038)
Good morning my friends. It's another fantastic day to be alive and to connect together today. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of this community and for being awesome people. Thanks for being part of a tribe. Thanks for caring. Just the fact that you're listening to this podcast and podcasts like this and listening to audio books and reading books and you care, you care about.

making a difference in making most yourself and care about being alive and being great and living in an extraordinary life right and extraordinary family life. Man that matters so much. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to give you honor and praise for being that kind of person for having some quality and some caliber because we could all just be entertaining ourselves to death or never even giving it a thought and many people do right. They just roll along.

and they don't know better than or some know better than choose not to, but they just don't care, right? But thank you for caring. Thank you for caring. It's awesome. So I have the privilege and blessing and opportunity to receive kind messages all the time about how I have influenced or even changed lives. And I'm not sharing this to toot my own horn here, but just, yeah.

It's just a, it's a wonderful blessing. And because, because I have, and this is what the message is today, right? And I've really been feeling this. I have, I've been deliberate about this for decades of wanting to have a positive impact, deliberately thinking about this. So because when I was young and you guys know my story, when I was struggling and, and especially when I was out on my own and trying to figure out how to do life and it seemed so hard.

and sometimes impossible, the times that people were kind and helpful to me left a huge, huge mark in my life, very significant. And because it happened early on, I wanted this whole idea of paying it forward, right? And man, because people helped me so much in such significant ways, like life -changing ways, I have wanted to do that for others.

Rachel Denning (02:26.83)
And so I've made it an intentional part of my life and way of being. And so then I have the privilege of receiving these kind messages. And I got a couple messages recently and it just made me think about this idea of making a mark. And there were people, like I said, who made a very significant mark in my life. Interestingly, some good and others not good. There were people who made a negative mark in my life and I remember both of them vividly.

And now, as I'm mentioning this, I'm sure you're thinking through the people who've made a mark in your life. I don't want you to think about that. Who has made a positive mark in your life? Who has made a negative mark in your life? You don't have to dwell on that. But just, it's a great lesson, isn't it? I remember this guy, maybe he had good intentions, but he just said these, it was when I was really struggling the most.

I was just, I was missing it and just having a rough go of it. And he was just so critical and so cynical and so mean. And maybe that was his way of trying to help me not be an idiot or something. I don't know, maybe he wasn't, maybe he was just distracted, maybe he was struggling himself. I don't know. But at the same time period, I...

there were people in my life who were just with absolute love and caring concern would overlook, overlook the silly teenage behavior, which those behaviors, ironically, those teenage behaviors, it was me just longing for attention, for love, because I wasn't getting it in my life. I needed it so desperately. And so you act kind of crazy. And this is true of almost everybody, right? If not everybody.

The things we do, we're doing it for, because we want to feel significant, important, we want to have love and connection, we want to have our human needs met, and some people reach out and do very drastic, crazy things, and we're wondering, why would anyone do that? They're doing it because they're craving the love and connection or attention or significance. And so, in that time period of my life, I think I was 16 or 17 at the time, and just really struggling, that's right when I...

Rachel Denning (04:53.742)
ended up leaving home and was wandering, trying to figure out life and to have that contrast there of some people being so mean and harsh and ridiculing and criticizing and ostracizing and then others just with so much love and gentleness putting their arm around me and helping me see clearly and make better choices. Oh man, but you remember them both vividly, right? And I want you to let that be a life lesson for you because

you are making a mark as well. And so I want you to ask, and if you're, if you're in a place where you can jot this down, they throw it in your journal. I hope you have a journal. I hope, please, please have a journal, have a place where you can capture ideas and thoughts and answer, you know, write down questions and answer them. That's that right there is one of the most valuable person of a journal. I think sometimes we get caught up in this. We just, we sit down like a journal. It's like, Oh, what do I do with the journal? I just, I kind of write down.

what happened today and went to the grocery store and boy did dishes again. Right. It's like, well, that's, that's a lame journal entry. But one of the most valuable things we can do their journals is ask and answer questions and share thoughts and ideas. Right. Turn and make your journal, your idea bank where you're capturing your ideas and, and holding them there. It's an investment account.

It becomes so valuable. Make your journal of extreme worth and value to you and then whoever you pass it on to. But here's a question I want you to write down. What kind of mark do you want to make?

Who do you want or need to influence and in what way?

Rachel Denning (06:46.094)
Now what's fascinating to stop and consider is you're already making your mark, whether you're intentional about it or not. And some of you, I mean there's all kinds of marks, right? And there's all kinds of really good marks. There's so many ways, this is what's wonderful, there's billions of people on the earth. There's so many ways to make a good mark, a positive mark. And with that necessarily, there's so many ways to...

make an insignificant or even a negative mark. And we're going out daily, so to speak, making marks. And just because we're people of habit, we tend to continue to make marks in the same spot. And so they get deeper and deeper and deeper. We make these grooves. And we're just always making a mark. I love that idea. It's just so fascinating.

And the way we choose to live and the way we choose to think and act and feel and interact is determining how we're making our mark. Some of you are burrowing out this little hole in which you're hiding from your fears like a little mouse. And the only mark you're making is this hiding, retracting little fear. You're not out there impacting like you could.

because you're living in your little hole afraid. And I've been there. I've been there. And I was terrified and I allowed my life to be dictated by my fears. Spend some time with that thought.

What are you missing because you're hiding in fear? Right? And if we get, there's so much symbolism here and I'm gonna try to share these visual ideas, this concept. Can you see the only mark somebody sees they walk past like there was a little hole there where something, someone hid. They spent their whole life hiding, hiding from their fears. And then the hole just gets blown over, covered over and that's it, it goes on. Some are.

Rachel Denning (08:59.118)
hollowing out, as one author said, their own little pit of mediocrity.

If I have one great fear, so to speak, it's the fear of mediocrity. It's the fear of living a life that was insignificant. Mediocrity for me essentially is just settling. When you know you're capable of doing more and you just settle for less. That's just, that's hollowing out that little pit of mediocrity where you're like, yeah, I could do something more significant. I could make a mark.

but I'll just kind of wallow here in my little pit. And it's like maybe you've seen them, if you travel up through the prairie area, maybe you've seen a buffalo pit, right? Where they just roll in this pit and they keep going back that pit and then they just, they just hollow out this little circle there. And that's just in my mind's eye to see that, I can't remember who the author was but he said they're just hollowing out their own little pit of mediocrity.

If that's the mark, can you think, just picture that for a minute. Is that the mark you want to leave? That when others see that in the present moment or after, they're like, oh, there's, there's where they spent their life in that little pit of mediocrity. You with me? Whoa, man. Others are making a mark of negativity, constantly whining or complaining, being pessimistic all the time, being cynical.

Critical you met people like that where it just seems like every everything that comes out of their mouth is some kind of blaming or excuse or complaint or whining or griping or Criticizing and they just get in a habit and I get it like I've been there. I've gotten into those negative Patterns and cycles right you just kind of it's easy It's easy to get into these patterns where you're just making those marks. It's become these little ruts

Rachel Denning (11:05.486)
We're all susceptible, every one of us. And maybe we've been there, maybe we've had time periods, or maybe you're there now. It's just as a human being, you just kinda, it's so easy to slip in these little spots, and you just keep making your mark there. And it's easy to become jaded and frustrated and bitter. And maybe you're surrounded by people that are like this, and you just think, Jesus, everybody's like this. Maybe you start giving up hope on humanity.

or life. I get it, man, I've been in those spots where you're surrounded by circumstances or people. It's tough.

But when was the last time you saw an inspiring statue built of a negative pessimist? Right?

Where are they making their mark? Others of you are making tiny little insignificant scratches of influence maybe because you're just too distracted.

You're too caught up in the bread and circuses. That's that phrase from Juvenile. I've talked about it in other podcasts. It's worth studying and understanding. Just such a brilliant idea. You're caught up in the bread and circuses, right? And it just means, you know, all you think about is food and entertainment. And maybe you're caught up in an addiction to entertainment. Or maybe you're too content to just...

Rachel Denning (12:46.158)
go through the motions and check the boxes. I know I talk to people all the time in, in, I mean every week because of the coaching I get to do and the interaction with so many people from around the world is constantly talking and engaging, having these beautiful conversations. And this comes up all the time. It's just, it's just so easy to get caught up in going through the motions of thing and checking the boxes. And some people spend months, years, decades, a lifetime just checking the boxes.

I know I've talked to older people and they're just like, yeah, I just, I spent my life checking these boxes I thought I was supposed to do, societal norms, societal expectations. I spent my life checking boxes, going through the motions. Well, unfortunately, if you want to make a mark, that's just a teeny little scratch.

Some are too possessed by social competition of trying to keep up with their neighbors in the, really in the pursuit of trivial things. Man, let that one sink in. And I use the word possessed purposely. It possesses us, this idea of social competition, and to keep up, you know, we use the phrase, you know, keep up with the Joneses, but.

and keep up with your neighbors or even keeping up with images online, social media.

And we're just constantly pursuing trivial things, things that really, if you honestly stopped and made a list of the most important things in your life, none of these things would actually make the list. And yet we give so much time and attention and energy to pursuing them when they really don't even matter to us. Others, their mark is insignificant. It's a little scratch because they're so consumed.

Rachel Denning (14:45.902)
in being ordinary that there's no room in their life for being extra.

Rachel Denning (14:56.334)
on that one for a little bit. Sometimes we can fill our lives so full of the ordinary that we do not leave room in our lives for the extraordinary.

Whoa, right? Are you leaving room? Is there space in your life for the extra?

in your relationship.

in your adventures.

in your business. I see that in business too. I see it in relationships where we get so busy doing just, again, going through the motions, doing the ordinary things, and you see it in business, you see it in life, you see it in societies, cultures, churches, organizations. We get so busy doing just the ordinary stuff, we don't leave any room for extraordinary.

Rachel Denning (16:03.245)
Yowzers. Some of you are just plain too busy. You're so busy. You don't have time to do the thing you were born to do. To sing the song you were born to sing. To really lean into your life's work.

busyness is keeping you from sharing your greatness. And what's fascinating when you stop, and again, I've been there, all of this I'm just sharing, I'm not busting anybody's chops here, I'm just sharing all these ideas, ideas that have worked for me, thoughts I've had about myself and my own journey and the wonderful people I get to work with, wonderful people, right? And we're just like, man, this is, it's just common, it's easy to get stuck in this stuff and to realize, man, I'm not making much of a mark here or,

my mark is kind of in the wrong direction. I'm making a mark where I don't want to make a mark. And busyness is one of them. And when you stop and say, man, what do I have to show for all this busyness? And I want to offer you that question because I've asked myself that question. It's been so valuable for me to just stop and say, Hey man, what do you have to show for all your busyness?

Well, not much, right? You're not making your mark, you're just merely maintaining your existence. And there's no award for that. There's no prize for just staying comfortable. There's no special feeling at the end of your life for busily living in maintenance mode.

And there's no statue for that. Right? Now, of course, we have to we have to maintain ourselves and our families. We have to we have to do some things, right? Well, I guess we don't. There's times when we can take that word and say you don't have to do anything. You literally do not have to do anything. You don't have to eat. You could just die. You don't have to clean up. You could you could live in in a pig. You don't have to. Do we choose all of this? Sometimes we.

Rachel Denning (18:19.469)
We kind of, we use that word have to so much that we feel like we're just bound by all these have to's. Well, like, no, there's, there's consequences. We don't have to, you have to do any of this, but they're not going to, they're not going to make an awesome statue about you just being busy doing stuff. And so we have to carve out. And I know, I know right now I can see some of you like, but how, how do I do that?

I am so busy. I'm just constantly taking care of everything, putting out fires endlessly. I'm just so swamped by the maintenance of life. How could I even possibly consider making my mark? And I guess this is where the beauty of life is. This is next level stuff. I'll get there in a second. But this is, this is the beauty and challenge of life of where, you know, extraordinary people who make a significant mark, they, they have to do all this other stuff too.

and they figure out how to do it and they learn how to prioritize and optimize their lives. I'm gonna get to that in just a second. But you have to, it's a must. Otherwise, you and I, we will spend our lives, our days first, which turn into weeks and then months and years and decades and a lifetime. If we are not super intentional about this, then we literally will spend our lives and our time.

our efforts and our energy and our focus. Just maintaining our existence.

seeking comfort, just busily living in survival mode or maintenance mode. Whew! Some of you might be saying to yourself like, ah, I'm so busy raising my kids, or I'm trying to build this business or my side hustle. And if you are, fantastic! That's amazing. What better work to, than to be raising a family. What a wonder and awe.

Rachel Denning (20:23.053)
we wake up and I mean I need to do this more too just wake up in awe and wonder at the unbelievable privilege and the awesome responsibility of raising another human being. Wow you are making your mark in that. Now I hope that you're making the mark you want to make. Man it it gets indelibly printed in children and they

for the most part, are like their parents. And for the most part, stay in the same socioeconomic situation, the same mindsets, the same behaviors and patterns. It's kind of a repeat mode. They just are hitting the button and kids either become like their parents or in a reaction to their parents become very opposite of their parents. Either way, it's making the mark, right? But what a wonderful thing.

But the reality is that you're actually super busy cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry and the dishes and running errands and doing this part of the business and that part of the bit. Whatever. I mean, take your own scenario here. You're super busy doing all these little things maintenance, which in one sense, like specifically referring to children, you're not actually spending that much time.

Raising them or making an important mark you with me on this I've been there too, right? And I'm again. I'm not busting your chops. I'm doing this with so much love I'm not trying to throw you under the bus. I'm just hugging you here and just saying look We got we got to just wake up and remember like are we here to make a mark? Are we here to just make meals?

And I know we have to make the meals. I get it. I get it. But maybe we can make the meals with a mark or make the mark, like live with the mark as a focus and then, you know, make, you got to make the meals and do it on the side. But I have, I honestly ask myself, like, am I actually spending time raising my kids or if I'm, am I just maintaining them? Am I just keeping them alive?

Rachel Denning (22:49.581)
You with me? Like that just hits home.

Rachel Denning (22:54.989)
Or maybe you're busy doing busy work in your business. So you're not actually growing your business. You're just saying that you're growing it while you just move things back and forth across your office, so to speak. You with me? On this stuff? This is huge, man! And so we might be making these teeny little insignificant scratches because we're so caught up in other things that we're not actually raising our kids. We're just keeping them alive.

And we're not actually growing a business, we're just keeping the business alive.

Rachel Denning (23:31.597)
Man, I hope this is helpful for you. I love asking myself these questions and evaluating my own life, my own actions. Like, am I actually doing that? Or am I just saying I'm doing this? Some of us are so busy telling ourselves we're doing something, we don't actually do it. So my friends, like, this is next level stuff.

This is holistic optimization. It's taking your entire life and optimizing it. This is the big stuff I'm sharing here. Very few people even know about this kind of awesome sauce. And even fewer know how to make it happen.

I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty here.

I just genuinely want to expose us all to another level of life that is possible. Now, you don't have to live like this. You don't have to make a positive impact. You don't have to make your mark.

But then again, maybe you do. Simply because you can. And what else are you going to do with your life? Just entertain yourself for eight decades?

Rachel Denning (24:50.157)
Perhaps you have a moral obligation to live a fully optimized life so that you can make your mark.

You don't have to impact millions, but maybe some of you need to. Maybe that's your calling. Not even tens of thousands, but maybe some of you do. Your circle of influence doesn't have to be big, it just has to be meaningful, purposeful, impactful, influential.

Rachel Denning (25:28.237)
You can have a small circle of influence, that's fine. Or you can have a big one, that's fine too. You get to choose. Isn't that awesome? You get to choose. And I think some of you feel called to certain things. But lean into the calling. Respond to the call.

Rachel Denning (25:51.533)
Again, I think some of us, our influence is a little insignificant scratch or a mark that we're making that's not the mark we would choose to make if we're clearly thinking about it, if we're more intentional.

But, for example, if you're so worried about what other people think of you that you rarely think about impacting others, your influence will be insignificant.

You and I have both been around people who talk too little, maybe because some of them are afraid to be themselves or to share their thoughts. Now, obviously you don't have to be talkative to make your mark in the world, but I think you have to share something to make a mark, right? Now, one of the great, I think it was one of the great reformists. He said, share the gospel at all times and if necessary use words, right? So obviously our life is...

Our actions, our behaviors, our legacy, that what we're doing, that's the most significant. Like, our message has to be backed up by the life of the messenger.

Right? Your message will just die if you suck as a messenger.

Rachel Denning (27:15.597)
So yeah, we've got to model the way. And sometimes I think we have to share something. Maybe you need to write beautiful stories or messages. But you haven't because of the fear of rejection. Maybe you need to build something or create something or reform something. Maybe you feel the call to be a revolutionist.

and bring in some revolutionary thoughts and ideas to your church or to your group or your organization or maybe your family line. Maybe you need to be the one that says, you know what, this stops here. This is not getting perpetuated any more generations. It's gone on long enough.

Rachel Denning (28:01.325)
But isn't that an interesting one where we get so afraid, afraid of rejection, afraid of it not working out, that we don't make our art, we don't create our thing. Others of us, we've been around people who talk too much. Maybe they just talk about themselves endlessly. Or it's an endless stream of frivolous chatter. They just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and you've been around people like that, they just talk.

all the time and at the end of it, was there anything of substance there?

And so it's just creating noise. Again, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to beat anybody up here or be, or be critical or set quiet. I'm just making observations that sometimes we get caught in this, right? Sometimes we don't say anything when we want to. And sometimes we say way too much. We should stop talking and listen, or we should, we're afraid. Have you ever been here? I know I haven't. You, you ever, have you ever been afraid to, to move the conversation to a more meaningful thing, to go deeper?

Or does it seem too risky and so we just keep chitty chat chat chat. Others are constantly posturing, positioning, using disclaimers.

ceaselessly apologizing for themselves.

Rachel Denning (29:28.749)
It's like everything out of their mouth is some kind of excuse or rationalization or justification or disclaimer for why they aren't better than they are. Sometimes we, some people feel this constant need to be posturing and apologizing and they just talk, talk, talk, talk, just try to, it's almost like it's soothing to their insecurities but it doesn't ever change anything. And so the mark they could make,

is wasted away in all this constant posturing. Woo! Man! But let's be more deliberate about how you want people to think about you and remember you. What if you made this your way of being? Everywhere you go, you leave the people and the place better than when you found them.

What if you built a reputation of making things better?

people love and admire you, want to be around you, want to even follow your example and tell others about how you do life.

And I want this to sink into your soul to be a guiding force for your life.

Rachel Denning (30:59.277)
to remember that you are always radiating out to others. You can't not.

And so we have to be responsible for what you radiate. Be responsible for the energy you radiate. Be responsible for the mark you are making. Woo. Man, I love this stuff. And, and how do you, how do you do it? Wow. That's so busy, so hard. There's so much going on. How do I actually do this? And in, in a major part, it's the little things. It's how we do the little things.

And we always have a choice. This is so cool. We always have a choice, always. And we can choose, even if you have to, you know, maybe you're just in the thick of raising little kids, little demanding ones, right? Woo, we had four, our first four were four and under, right? Our oldest was four when our fourth daughter was born. We had four kids at the age of four and under. I get it. Oh my goodness, I get it.

You can be swamped, but it's the way you do it. If I could go back, I would do those years over because obviously I got way better at it. And when I was raising the later three, when they were in their littles, I handled it differently. So it's the way you handle the messes and the diapers and the demands and the behaviors. It's the way you do your parents.

Again, thinking about what mark am I making here? What example am I setting? How am I doing the little things? So it's both the little things and the big things. You need to make room for big things. You need to prioritize big things. And if you think you're too busy that you can't possibly do it, you just come back to like, let's say for example, if you wanted to write, and I stopped like, could you write a paragraph a day? As busy as you are, could you write a paragraph? And yeah, you could.

Rachel Denning (33:03.981)
I know you could and you could actually probably write a page. If you, again, this is holistic optimization. This is a next level of life. This is getting things dialed in, getting systems and strategies in place, getting priorities in place. And it's the little things you guys that we are just operating in perpetual self -sabotage. You just keep staying up too late doing insignificant things. And so it tanks your morning and your morning routine. And then the way you start your day, it's, ah, it doesn't go so well.

And if you don't start it well, it doesn't go well. And then you just keep repeating this day that's not going so well. And that just turns into a life that's not going so well. And so your mark that you want to make, because I know it's in your soul and in your heart and your mind, you want to make a mark. You're not making it. You're just leaving this teeny little scratch. Because of these little things that are thrown off your opportunity and privilege to make a mark.

Man, I love this stuff. This is awesome. I hope you're feeling this. I hope it feels important to you. I hope it's resonating with you. I think it is because I've talked to so many people. You just have these big, beautiful hearts. You wanna have an impact. And you have brilliant minds. And all of you have this genius inside of you. You've got this special gift. This song to sing, so to speak.

and making a huge significant impact is always done a little bit at a time. It often comes out in a moment and people think, wow, wow, how did they do that? It's because they've been working on it for months or years or decades. They've been writing a little here, a little there. They've been building a little here, a little there. You know, the most wonderful painting in the world is done with one brush stroke at a time. You can't...

You're not making 50 brushstrokes at a time. You can't. It's one at a time.

Rachel Denning (35:05.933)
And so you can make a huge impact. You can make this mark that shifts lives or even the world, some of you, and it'll be made one brushstroke at a time, so to speak.

Right? If you want to write music, it's one word at a time for the lyrics, one note at a time for the music. And you can make significant things, but you have to focus in on it. You have to care and you have to prioritize. And you say, I'm going to sit, I'm going to do this. I'm going to work on this right now. And then I'll take care of the maintenance things later. But if you fill your life with the maintenance things, it crowds out the others.

Rachel Denning (35:49.197)
So my friends, thanks for listening to this. Thanks for being here. Again, I circle back. Thanks for being awesome. Thanks for caring. Thanks for wanting to make a mark. Thanks for making the great marks you are making.

And my invitation, my loving invitation today is let's be a little bit more strategic about it, a little more deliberate, a little more intentional about the mark that you're making. And make it be the mark you want to make. And set up the systems and the strategies. Get the training and the coaching.

Get the courses. So it's so cool how if a little bit of training to optimize your bedtime routine, for example, all of a sudden turns into you waking up feeling refreshed and energized and alive and getting up early actually before others so you can set your mind and your heart and your soul and spirit for the day. And then because you do that, the day goes so much better.

You feel fantastic and there's a little spring in your step, a little spark in your romance, a little bit of more effectiveness in the work you do. Like you get better results and you start compounding that in the right direction and your mark becomes more significant, more impactful, more powerful. Man, I love this stuff. So what mark are you making?

What mark do you want to make? And what little tweaks, little shifts do you need to make in your mind and in your life so that you're making your mark? The mark you want to make. Oh, love this stuff, love you guys. Let's get after it. Remember, every day we're training, conditioning ourselves, our family, our kids especially. We're training for greatness.

Rachel Denning (37:52.589)
is what we should be training for, we can be training for. And we can be making those marks again and again and again in the right direction, doing the right thing. It's like with our kids. So my son recently memorized this big long poem. It's If by Rudyard Kipling, such a great poem. I did a whole episode on that. And he just decided on his own, he's like, I'm gonna memorize it. And he quotes it every morning for us now. And yesterday he quoted it.

And we're all saying it with him, right? He's just such a great message. And he's like, it's amazing how easy it is. He says, memorizing was hard for me, but he said, it's so easy to memorize if I just repeat it every day. He said, for me, I don't just sit down and just say it 100 times in an hour or 30 minutes or whatever. He's like, I just do it every day. And he says, so I just got up every morning and every single morning I just repeated it. I reread it, reread it. And then after a while, I had it. It's mine. I got it.

And that's such an incredible thing because now it's his. It's in his head. And I did that same thing decades ago. I loved memorizing poems. When I was in college, I was memorizing poems and quotes all the time. I still have them. They're in there. I made them mine. And it was a process of repetition. And so in the same way, making our mark in many instances is just going to be deliberately saying, this is where I want to mark. This is who.

I want to impact, right? And this is how I want my mark to be. And so you just keep doing it. Like repeating a poem, repeating a message. You just keep saying the message. You keep going through the action. It's a deliberate action. It's not a default action. It's intentional. And you just keep doing it. You just keep saying it. You just keep doing it. And it makes the mark. And again, many of us are doing that repeatedly all the time anyways, but it's not making the mark we want to make.

So let's choose the mark and make that mark. Love you guys, reach out.