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

Rachel Denning (00:00.942)
Good morning, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I just had a really unique experience right now. And I was like, yes, that's a perfect example of a principle I've been thinking about for years. Man, years ago. You guys, I first started podcasting like in 2007 or 2008. It was actually super hard to podcast back then because...

They didn't have it dialed in to make it really easy. It took so much work. And so I did maybe 20 episodes, and then I just stopped because we were starting to travel. And really, it was so much work just to even make and then publish a podcast. I made videos back then. I remember talking about this principle and then just setting aside. But what just happened just hit it. So I wanted to share it because I think it.

It illustrates for us something that's super difficult. This is actually really hard to do. So I'm not sure today I have any definitive answers, but I accept that we need to work on it and be aware of it because it's such an important part of life and it's actually quite difficult to do. So what happened was we just got to this new area and my kids ended up meeting some other cool youth.

And they're like, let's hang out. And they're like, oh, we're all going up into the hills to go tubing on this kind of river up there. And they're like, why don't you come with us? Like, fantastic. So then as they're talking to them, this was like two weeks ago, and they're planning this trip. They're like, well, we need someone to drive. We need big vehicles. And they're like, well, yeah, my dad's got our adventure van, right? So I got this big old adventure van. It's 12 -seater, right? I got the big off -road tires. And.

and the safari rack and the ladder and all this, right? And just, I'm like, well, yeah, we can fit 12 people, we'll go up, this will be awesome. So I get up early, roll over there, and it's this church group, right? And a big group of them. And they actually, ironically, they didn't have enough cars. They were short on drivers. A lot of people show up and not enough drivers. So I'm like, sweet, I'm stoked. Well, the church leader comes over and,

Rachel Denning (02:22.222)
You know, he kind of asked my name and I tell him my name and he's like, okay, you know, great to meet you guys. And I can see him like visibly on his face. He's trying to process, right? He's like, okay, where did these guys come from? What's going on, right? And he'd met my kids before, but he hadn't met me. And so then he's trying to put this together. And so then he...

He goes over and talks to somebody else. He comes back and he's like, so like, who are you and what are you doing here? And like, oh, you know, we're we're kind of new back to this area. We've been on this seven month road trip through Mexico and Guatemala. Right. And again, like I could totally read his face. He was just like, oh, like you could just see on his face. He's like, I don't know what to think about you. Right. How do you process that?

Because it just well and here's the this is the point we're gonna talk about today. I Don't fit in his boxes and so he's like I'm not sure what to do, right? And and I'm wearing my adventure gear you guys so they were going we're going river rafting, right? So I'm not dressed up nice. I got my I have these adventure hats I have like two particular hats that I wear whenever I go on adventures and For those of you may not know like I lead I lead trips around the world for youths

And for men, and my wife and I will lead them for couples and we'll do like epic epic adventures into the wilderness and like iconic places or history trips or humanitarian trips all that stuff. So and I love adventure. I love like backpacking. I love canyoneering and mountain biking. I just love big adventure stuff. So I'm wearing my adventure gear. In fact I got my favorite adventure shirt on.

It's got holes in it because it's the shirt I wore when I literally wrestled a bear in Peru. So I'm like, I love this shirt because it's just a great reminder. So I got a couple of holes in it. My adventure hat's a little ratty, you know. I wear a beard. And some people are weird about beards, right? They have this box about beards. And...

Rachel Denning (04:41.006)
I don't know if you guys know this about me. I have this quirky little thing. I hate shoes. Man, I hate shoes. So actually, I love wearing a sandal called a Xero shoe, X -E -R -O, Xero shoes. I've worn those for years, and they're just super minimalist, like running sandals. And so I hop out, right, and I'm barefoot in my adventure gear, and I'm just told some total stranger.

And I just, you know, he's like, who are you? And I tell him, like, we've been wandering around through Mexico and Central America for seven months. That just doesn't fit, right? It doesn't fit the mold. It doesn't fit in the boxes. And some of you might be hearing me like, yeah, that's pretty weird. You're kind of strange. And I guess this is my point. And I want to dive into this, right? So then he goes away, he comes back, he goes away, he comes back.

And I can literally on his face see that he does not know what to think about me. And so then he comes back over and he's like, hey, yeah, I'm not going to let you drive any of the other youth. Like you can drive your own kids, but he's like, don't take offense, but I'm not going to let you drive any of the other youth. You can drive your own youth and join us. Right. And I was like, OK. So.

I ended up not going. I really went. I'm like, I'm going to go to help out, take all the youth and go have this experience. I'm like, okay, whatever. I'll go home. I'll go home and record a podcast about what just happened. Honestly, I don't fault the guy. I genuinely don't. He probably made the right decision. He's like, I don't know this guy. He seems weird to me. I don't feel comfortable.

You know, being responsible for these other youth, I don't feel comfortable having them go to a stranger. Right? Good call. Good call. And as I drove away, I thought, man, if only he knew that good parents pay good money to send their good youth to spend time with me and my kids from literally sending their kids to live with us. That's happened multiple times.

Rachel Denning (06:56.205)
where parents reach out and say, hey, I really want you to have you and your kids have a good influence. Can I pay to have my child come stay with you for weeks or months? And we've done that multiple times. They'll pay good money to send their kids on adventure trips because they're life -changing, right, with me. And I've been doing this for years. And over the course of those years, I've had hundreds of youth come on these adventure trips with me or come stay with us.

I do a class, Habits for a Successful Life class for youth, because I have four teens right now, right? And I mostly do it for them because I want them in on it, but other great youth. So I have this youth class and it's not cheap, right? It's kind of on the higher end of classes and people gladly pay for it and it fills up all the time because they want their good youth to have some mentoring from me, right? And I'm not boasting or bragging here, but I'm like...

What was interesting, he has no idea. He doesn't know any of that. He's just looking at me trying to decide what to think. And he's like, I don't know, this guy seems really weird. He's standing here barefoot and just spent seven months in Mexico. Like, who does that? And I just don't fit in his mold. And so he makes that decision. And so I have to chuckle thinking, you know, anyone who knew... Well, and the other thing is like...

I have a full coaching schedule right now. I'm really not accepting any more coaching clients because I'm too busy working with really successful people, helping them level up their lives even more. And I charge good money for that because it's a tremendous amount of value, but he doesn't know any of that, right? And from the outside, it's like, ah, I don't know if I can trust this guy. I'm just going to be better to be safe than sorry, right? I'm sure is what he's thinking. And not knowing is just, yes, I'm like, there's ...

There's this principle again that we have to, like we all have these boxes, right? Or mold or judgments or rules, whatever you wanna call them, right? There's all kinds of different ways to describe them. It's how we psychologically, it's how we bring order to our life. It's how we don't live in perpetual chaos and mayhem and psychosis.

Rachel Denning (09:17.869)
because we have to have some rules in our head about how things work and what people are, right? And so we create some boundaries and some categories or some labels. We, well, and this is where it gets troublesome is we objectify people, right? We put them into these categories and they become like objects.

And this is where we get in trouble. But we do that to try to, you know, it's almost unconscious, right? You're not deliberately saying, oh, there's Bob. I'm going to put Bob over here in this box. And there goes Sarah. Boy, Sarah, she's got to definitely go over in this box. We're kind of doing it subconsciously or unconsciously, but we're doing it to try to have order in our minds. And this comes up, this came up for me a lot.

I you guys I love to read the Gospels in the New Testament and even if you're not Christian man reading the Gospels and reading about Jesus and his teachings and his parables and his story and the way he interacted with people it is so valuable to understand human nature to Him as a teacher and a leader Just so powerful, but there were instances in there I remember coming across years ago where people you read his story and people turn him away They didn't know who he was

And the things he did were weird and different, right? He was a total disrupter. And so he didn't fit in their boxes. Right? From the regular people, literally from the Jews to the Samaritans, remember the Samaritan woman? He's sitting there talking to her and she's like, ah, you're a little weird. And he's like, look, if you knew who you were talking to, this would be a totally different thing. And when she realized who he was, she went and told everybody, had the whole village come out. But at first she's like, I don't know who you are.

strange. And then other times where he was doing miracles or teaching, he was teaching things that were totally disruptive. Right? He was a he was a revolutionist in society and religion. And people sent him off. They're like, man, get out of here. They like some of the villages literally asked him to leave. And I remember reading that years ago thinking, man, if they had any idea who they were talking to, they were like, well,

Rachel Denning (11:43.565)
We'll deal with any inconvenience, any disruption, any, like, any way, like, whatever. Like, well, because if they knew, really knew who he was, they would have responded totally differently, but as it was, they just, he didn't fit in their boxes.

And so they asked them to leave. So what's interesting is you go through life. You guys know this already, but I want to just articulate it for all of us to revisit because you've had these experiences where you've misjudged people and you've had the experiences where you have judged correctly, right? And that's, you know, ideally want to be heavier on the judging correctly side. And I honestly, I do think it is appropriate to judge in many instances, right? Because if we...

If we don't pass judgments, then we get ourselves into trouble a lot. And sometimes we do pass judges, we get ourselves into trouble a lot. So this is why it's tough. This is a tough subject. But you and here are some examples. I want to give you some examples on both sides. So one, you meet people who seem to fit so nicely into all your boxes, right? From the outside.

You talk to them, you look at their life and their house and their car and their family and their behavior and all this stuff and you have these conversations and they just seem to fit all your box, check all your boxes, right? You're like, yeah, this guy or this lady, like they just fit all the boxes. And then they turn out to be very bad apples, so to speak. Sometimes even evil to the core. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever heard stories like that?

I think I mentioned one early in several podcasts episodes ago where a good friend of ours, he hired a guy and kind of brought him on really almost as his partner in his business. And this guy checked all the boxes to a T. He was the ideal business partner, man. And just everything, everything, he was just this model man. Like almost to, we're now looking back, you're like, well yeah, I should have seen the red flags because.

Rachel Denning (13:58.509)
It was so perfectly orchestrated. And yet, over a period, I think it was like 12 to 18 months, something like that. I don't know, maybe it was even longer. He was just embezzling, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just cooking the books, man, and just stealing and stealing and stealing. And after they found out, after all this stuff, it was a long time passed, and they finally found out. And then they realized,

They always thought it was interesting that he always wore baggy pants. They're like, okay, whatever, it's a little quirky. But he had an ankle detector tracking device because he had done this previously. I mean, the guy was just a total fraud, but he knew how to check all the boxes. So psychologically, you're like, man, this is a super genuine good guy. Like, wow, this is the kind of guy you trust with all your money.

And yet he was totally just robbing them blind, right? Or like so tragically, I have heard this story too many times, you guys, where you have the ideal neighbor, checks all the boxes. You're just like, man, what a great person. I can totally send my kids over to play at their house, no worries. And you find out years later that he was sexually molesting their daughter.

every time she went over. Right? That one just breaks my heart.

Oh, and man, I actually I get angry about that one. They check all the boxes. But then they're sexually molesting children. You with me on this one? And then, of course, the opposite side is well, no, let me stay with this. Let me stay with this on the on the misjudging all the ones they fit in your boxes, right? They fit all the boxes, but they're not who they seem to be. And there's archetypes, right? archetypes are these

Rachel Denning (16:01.645)
these characters in movies and in songs even, or in books and literature, or in history, that they just represent the possibility of things that have happened and continue to happen in just in humanity, right? So the archetypes of this, you see this a lot in literature, like a good example is Shakespeare's Iago, right? One of the most evil characters in literature in the play Othello.

Right? And Iago, it just, he seems to be Mr., you know, deeply concerned for the welfare of the king and his life and, you know, seems to be the most loyal and faithful of counselors and advisors and yet he's just evil, evil, evil. And he's just, you know, Othello trusts him so much that he gives so much weight and value to whatever he says, but...

what he's saying is he's just, he was constantly lying about Othello's wife. And of course that ends in a terrible, terrible tragedy. But here's this guy you thought, man, I can trust him with everything and then he destroys, he destroys everything. Another one is like, and this one's, this is not coincidental that some of the worst villains in literature, in history and in movies are religious leaders.

like the priest in the hunchback of Notre Dame. So Victor Hugo makes the priest the most evil one because he was checking all the boxes, right? The societal rules, the mold, he fit everything and yet was so unbelievably evil. Woo. But then okay, now we flip sides. Let's flip sides. So again, there's a big warning there. We'll come back to it. And then the other side is you see someone who doesn't fit your boxes and

they're off, right? You're like, this person seems weird. And whatever your rules are, like people have all kinds of crazy rules. They have rules about facial hair, no facial hair, how long your hair on your head is, like how you dress, tattoos or piercings, or whether you drive a motorcycle or what kind of car or what kind of neighborhood or house. Like we have all these rules, right? We come up with all these rules and all these categories, all this.

Rachel Denning (18:25.069)
objectifying all these labels. Again, we do this to try to keep some sense of order in our minds, in our life. And for the most part, I think they're helpful in having some kind of structure. In fact, they're probably psychologically necessary.

But sometimes you meet people and in your first impression, you mentally toss them out because man, they do not fit. But only to find out later, they're like amazing. You ever had that experience before? And the symptoms, they can often help, right? But not always. And this is where things get difficult. There are symptoms, there are patterns.

Like people who are drug addicts and alcoholics, there's usually some symptoms and they can often be helpful, but not always. You know, have you ever met people who look rich, but you find out later they're totally broke? Have you ever met people who look really poor, but they have millions or even billions? I wrote of a billionaire. He just wanted to live in a van with his dog.

a billionaire and so he just bought a van, like a camper van in Australia with his dog and just drove around. Like you made a dude living in the van, right? It doesn't fit your rules. You're like, you live in a van? Well, you must be poor, you must be weird, or you must be a societal outcast. And the guy was a billionaire who just walked away, you made all this money, you built this business, just a genius. He's like, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to go live in a van. So you'd be off.

See, there are people who look poor but have millions. In fact, a lot of guys I know that you would never know, man. You'd be like, oh, okay, you know, me must be a good person, hard worker, but probably not real successful. And they've got millions and millions of dollars in their bank account or in land. You meet somebody, you're like, okay, you know. They're driving a simple little car. It's kind of older, a little bit beat up. They're wearing clothes. You always wear them that you see.

Rachel Denning (20:39.661)
I have some friends that are just like this. They wear the same clothes all the time. And they're like, okay, your clothes aren't that great, man. And from the outside, they're driving this dumpy car, it's kind of older and beat up. They're wearing the same clothes all the time and you think, man, they must be, maybe they're struggling. And they actually own thousands of acres of land. They just keep buying more properties and they have huge investment properties, right? Or they're just genius businessmen. I mean, it's awesome.

But you can't do that, right? Some people look nice, but they're actually evil. Some people look really rough. But man, they are as honest as Abraham Lincoln. And they have more integrity and character.

than most people in the world. But they look different.

Right, so you with me on this? This is why this is tough, man. And one interesting thing about that, by the way, a little side note here is when, this is one thing, man, I've sure learned, it's not until you really hear people's story that you begin to understand them. And this goes both ways. Where when you get into leadership positions and coaching positions and counseling positions and opportunities to really work closely with people,

You learn about some of the terrible things that people have done and you can be quick to pass harsh judgment on big mistakes and really bad behaviors.

Rachel Denning (22:19.117)
often until you hear their story and you learn where they came from and why they do what they do. I know that's happened to me many times where I've heard about something, oh my goodness, I cannot, what in the world, and then you hear the story and you're like, okay, now I understand, right, now I understand. And, well, it's also true of like, okay, why do they, again, why do they dress like they dress, behave like, talk like they talk, do what they do?

I can think of a very well -known billionaire right now who just rough around the edges, man. Well, again, it doesn't, but like a super good person, but just rough around the edges, wears rough kind of gothic clothes and rough language and you're just like, wow, we can be so wrong.

We get so wrong in our boxes. So what do we do about it? If you've ever read the Anatomy of Peace, it's an excellent book. If you already have read it, re -read it. That one's worth re -reading often. I try to re -read that one frequently because it's so good. They talk about this in there. They talk about all the boxes we have. And interestingly, they talk about boxes we have for ourselves. We have these boxes and we try to fit ourselves into these boxes. I go, I need to be this way or this way or I have these rules about ...

seeing ourselves in boxes and categories and objectifying and labeling and we do it for other people too. And we try to take everyone so if you can kind of picture it in your mind we try to compartmentalize everything and we try to make all the things in our life kind of fit into a box because we have psychologically we have to like we have to do something with it and this is where it gets so tough because if you don't fit in the box.

Like this morning with that church leader, he did not know what to do with me. And ultimately he just decided to dismiss me because I didn't fit in his boxes. And so he obviously felt like that was a risk. And so he dismissed me. So I guess the whole idea here is again, I don't have any really solid definitive answers here, but I want you to examine your boxes.

Rachel Denning (24:47.821)
and see if they're accurate. And if you're finding inaccuracies ...

Adjust them. Like mentally and consciously, deliberately make adjustments to your rules, to your labels, to the objectifying. And this really comes up with politics, religion, race, sports, like any kind of rivalries.

Because, and again, it's easy to do. When I say Republicans, what do you think? Well, oh, they're this way. Democrats are this way. Libertarians are this way. When you pick Asians, what are Asians like? And if you have these rules, right? And so often, our little rules, our little categories, our little boxes, they're not accurate. And they're based on very, very

very limited experience. Right? And it's amazing. I'll talk to people and they have the strongest opinions about a certain group of people or a certain place. And I just love to gently like, oh really? That's how it is. Have you been there? Like, no, I've never been, but that's the way it is. I'm like, really? You have really strong opinions about a place you've never been to? That's interesting.

or about a certain group of people. All this kind of people, they're always like that. I'm like, oh really? How many do you know personally? I'd love to do that. How many do you know personally? Well, none, because they're all like, blah, blah, blah, right? And it's fascinating how we'll just blindly have these hard opinions or ideas. So will you with me reevaluate the boxes and the labels and the assumptions?

Rachel Denning (26:50.733)
And then I guess I'm not sure how to even articulate this, but leave some open boxes for people like me who don't fit the box.

Right? We have a very successful family. Our family is amazing.

And again, don't misunderstand me, I'm not boasting or bragging. Like, Rachel and I have been so deliberate and so intentional and we've studied and trained in this for so long. Like, and it works. Like, our family's amazing. We have a very successful business. And like, we get to do work that we just absolutely love and make a positive difference in the lives of a lot of people.

And we have an extraordinary lifestyle. Like it's this is we're kind of living our dream life, right? We saw, of course, we saw bigger dreams we're working on and always working towards. But we've been living a dream life for for years doing things we really love to do that that don't definitely do not fit the mold, man, they do not fit in people's boxes. And it's it's really uncomfortable for a lot of people. They just do not know what to think or do with us.

And they dream about like certain things like this that like, you know, that would be pretty awesome, but no, it's not possible because it doesn't fit in what they're familiar with, what they know, what they are comfortable with, what's common, the things they've been exposed to, it just doesn't fit. Like one of my coaching clients, he was able to, he's a successful dentist and he has multiple practices and he was able to take a full year off.

Rachel Denning (28:45.101)
and go live in another country with his family and do like humanitarian dental work and stuff. And that's like unheard of. You talk to other dentists, they're like, no, that's not even possible. Like, no, you can't do that. You can't leave your practice. Like, nah. Right, and it just doesn't fit. And yet, he's doing it. Right, and I mean, I could go on with other coaching clients and examples of like,

people who decide to really live life on their terms, it just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit the common mold. Now, it doesn't necessarily make the mold wrong, some of them. It doesn't make some of the boxes or categories wrong for the most part. It might be accurate a lot of the time. But then again, it might be very inaccurate. And so leave a little space.

Check all your boxes, right? Check all your boxes and adjust as needed. Some of your boxes you need to toss, right? Some of those labels, some of those categories, they are outdated, man. You got some old programming in there you maybe put in there as a kid or something and it just, nope. Uh -uh. That does not work. It is inaccurate. And some of you just need to completely toss. Others you need to adjust or modify.

As you get more information and be open to information, be open to exceptions as you meet people. Be open to the possibility. Okay, I don't want you to be like mistrusting, but on the other side, I don't want you to be too trusting. Be open to the possibility that people who are like checking all the boxes might be rotten to the core. And people who don't fit in any of your boxes might be amazing.

Right. And and then leave some mentally compartmentally right. Leave some some boxes just kind of on the side of it. Those are those are open boxes for the people I meet the situations I get into the experiences the places that that are off or outside of my current categories. And I think it will leave leave that open possibility.

Rachel Denning (31:13.965)
it'll allow us to have a bigger, broader view of life and humanity. I know as we've traveled the world and had the privilege of meeting so many people, like thousands and thousands of people, many of whom did not fit in any of the boxes. In fact, every time we go to a really foreign country, especially one that has a lot of very unique things, you know, traditions, cultures, lifestyle stuff,

that's really different from what we're used to, the more distinct, the better. Like it just totally opens our views because it just shatters all your boxes about what you thought the world was like or what you thought people were like or what you thought that place or those people were like. It just wipes all that out. It just undoes it all. So the more experiences you can have like that, the better, right? Take your family, do it for yourself and do it with your spouse and do it with your kids. Raise kids like that, have this global perspective. That's why I love doing it with our kids.

taking them to all these places and having them meet all these people, you can't come up, and people have tried to, they'll come up and tell my kids, well, you know, this kind of people are like that, and this place is like this, and my kid's like, no, it's not. Like, no, we've been there a lot, and we know a lot of people, and no, what you're saying is not true. You can't tell my kids because they have personal experience on the ground where somebody's boxes are like, no, totally inaccurate on that one.

You know, it's just, you can't tell them that. So get out, explore, have those experiences and make that happen so that like you have more accurate judgment. So again, this is all about judging and misjudging, but leave it open. Leave it open for possibilities both ways and always.

And remember, you might be talking to somebody, you might meet somebody today or this weekend or next month, that if you had any idea who they were or what they've experienced, man, this has happened to me so many times in our travels. Luckily, I'm quick to ask questions and find out and try to see who I'm sitting with.

Rachel Denning (33:32.013)
And I live by, I try to really live by this principle that Emerson taught that every person is my superior in some way and in that way I can learn from them, right? And I've tried to do that really well because if you ask and you're intentional, you can quickly find out like, whoa, okay, this person is amazing and I want to learn so much from them. But I guess that's my point like today or next month or next year, you might meet somebody that if you knew who they were, oh my goodness, you would do anything to glean wisdom.

experience from them. You'd ask them questions. You'd listen to their advice. You might be sitting next to somebody or talking to somebody and if you knew what they knew, if you knew what they had to share, holy guacamole, you would talk less and listen more because they have something really special to share, to offer. They've had experiences or stories or...

they've gained wisdom or skills or insights that you man so it's the irony like some you sit down you're like man I would do anything to talk to this person or that person to learn from this person that person and that you know we don't always know and they don't always fit the box and so you might you might miss out on this unbelievable opportunity because well the categories and the rules and the labels just prevented that right and then on the reverse side

You can prevent some serious disasters by not just blindly letting down your guard because somebody happens to check all the little boxes. It's not always the case. Right? So it goes both ways. Anyways, love you guys. Hope this is helpful. If you like this stuff and you find this insightful, I know you've had conversations about this, talked to people. If you know somebody who needs to, could read this last one as a reminder, go ahead and share it with them. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and to my YouTube channel. I'm cranking out.

videos on the YouTube channel so go over and subscribe to that and yeah just keep living great lives keep loving yourselves loving on your families loving on people learn their stories understand where they come from why they do what they do and let's just keep striving to be our very best selves love you guys reach out