#163 The Failure to Launch Epidemic and How to Prevent It In YOUR Children & Teens

Rachel Denning (00:10.734)
In this episode, we're talking about failure to launch syndrome. It's a significant growing phenomenon of young adults who are not successfully making the transition into adulthood. Its symptoms include young adults who continue to live at home or to be supported by their parents, young adults who don't contribute financially to their own life expenses, and who begin to withdraw from the world and responsibilities. Failure to launch, also known as Peter Pan syndrome, it can take the form of unrealistic goals, blaming others for their situation,

narcissism, a lack of motivation to change, low levels of persistence, high expectations without reciprocation, lack of basic adult skills, and no liftoff into adult responsibilities among other things. In the extreme it can even lead to the proverbial 30 year old living in the basement and it can be accompanied by anxiety, depression, and sometimes suicide. In this episode Greg and I discuss the contributing factors to failure to launch.

plus strategies on how to avoid it. Whether you have toddlers or teens, or you are a teen yourself, you need to listen to this episode. After studying personal development for 20 years, Greg and I looked far and wide for a class that would teach our teenagers something more important than academics, namely how to practice self -leadership and to manage their mind, emotions, and habits.

in order to create a happy and fulfilled adult life. We couldn't find what we were looking for, and so we decided to create a class ourselves and to offer it to other amazing families. What we did, we created a class, Habits for a Successful Life, which is a live online class for teenagers and the sponsor of this podcast. Teens absolutely love this class and all of Mr. Danning's stories that he tells from his travels to 48 countries. In fact,

Teenagers often say things like, this class changed my life. I feel like I was given the keys to having a totally epic future. Mr. Jenning is great at pushing us out of our comfort zone while still being encouraging and supportive. Five stars are not enough to sum up how amazing and life -changing this class truly is. So if you have teenagers or know someone who does, please share this class with them. You can go to worldschoolacademy .com or extraordinaryfamilylife .com and a link can also be found.

Rachel Denning (02:32.781)
show.

Rachel Denning (02:39.949)
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast.

I was about to say this one's going to be good and we're excited about it but I say that every time I got to come up with something else. And then I would say you say that every time. Let's just do that. That could be our intro. But this one Rachel and I have been preaching this for 10 years at least and for another 10 years before that I wouldn't have articulated the same way but I was observing it. I really started to see this problem.

when I went to college, I started noticing it right away. Because I had been on my own, you guys know part of my story, I'd already been on my own since I was 16. So, you know, that's a, that's pretty quick responsibility right there. And so you're like, man, I gotta figure out. At 16, I had to start making good decisions because my consequences were immediate. I couldn't be like, dude, I'm gonna stay up late tonight and then sleep in tomorrow, because I just feel like it. I would go hungry a couple days later if I didn't show up to work.

Right? And then I'd lose my job. So I had immediate harsh consequences. So I had to mature quickly. So then by the time I get to college, I'd already been on my own two or three years. And then I start seeing college kids act like complete imbeciles. And I'm like, what, what is wrong with these guys? Right? And I was already thinking like an adult because I had real consequences. You had to be responsible. You had to act like an adult.

And I had no safety net, right? And so even these college kids, they had these safety nets. So if they blew their whole semester and failed all their grades, like, mom and daddy were paying tuition and buying books and paying for their apartment and their car and all this stuff. And they could go back home. Like, I can fail the class, I can miss work. It literally doesn't matter. If things get bad, I'll go back home, whatever. So I started seeing it, like, in my late teens and early 20s, especially, and then I started traveling around the world and working with youth for a couple of decades.

Rachel Denning (04:39.117)
So, I've seen this for two decades, we've been talking about it openly for a decade, and the problem is not getting better. If anything, it's getting worse and getting bigger, meaning more people are engaged. And so, the problem is psychologists are calling it the failure to launch epidemic. Well, and we know it's continuing because even just this past week... And this morning. And this morning.

We've seen multiple touch points in relation to this issue. Meaning we've encountered multiple occasions where we've seen this playing out in things as serious as suicide of young adults. And my own brother. Well, yeah, that wasn't this week, but previously your own brother. Oh, but you're referencing an email you received about a suicide that happened this week. Right.

Yep. And here's how you know when something becomes a bigger and bigger problem and it becomes a societal issue. Sometimes we hear about things and we're like, oh, but it doesn't affect us. You know, we hear about it distant, but we don't we don't actually know somebody personally who's experienced this. But you know, it's becoming a significant societal issue that will have impact on you, whether it's in your happening in your family or not. If you start to know people personally where it's happening and you're starting to hear about it, it's it's first and second person now.

Like, whoa, you know it's a real issue because it's become significant enough that within arm's length, so to speak, it's happening. Then you know like, okay, this has gotten big and it will affect you even if it's not in your own family. The societal and economic impact of this failure to launch epidemic now that's been happening for a good solid 10 years is going to have massive.

consequences in our society and economy. And I think this is my guess here. I'm throwing a shot in the dark here. I think it's already impacting the economy in this lack of employable people and lack of employees. I think it's already playing out because they're not working and if they are trying to work, they're unemployable. Yes. In a big way. So that's where we're diving into. And please.

Rachel Denning (07:05.325)
Hold on, wait, let me say this. Because if you're listening to this and you have small children, you're like, no, this isn't, I don't have time to listen to this podcast. Don't do that. Please keep listening. If you think, oh, that'll never happen to my kids, don't think that ever again and listen to this podcast. In fact, I think one of our safety nets has been for us is to think this could happen to our kids. So what can we do?

vigilantly to prepare and prevent against that. Yes, in fact, because of the nature of the world we're growing up in right now, like the levels of technology, the new inventions, just societal trends right now that are happening, I would say that a failure to launch is the default setting. That if you do not deliberately work intentionally against that, I was even going to say fight it off, right?

And I actually, I like that metaphor of fighting. If you don't fight for your health, then the default is you're just going to roll into poor health. If you don't fight for solid things, like if you're not working on your marriage, then by default you're working on your divorce. And so we are in a situation where the default setting, if you just, and even what used to work a couple of decades ago won't work now. With raising your children. Yeah, raising kids.

So if you just kind of go along and you think, oh no, like it'll be good. My kids will be good. And just being a good person is enough. Yeah, I'll be a good person and I'll even be a good parent. It'll be enough. It won't. Right. It won't. It won't. So you can count on, if you don't deliberately fight against this, you can count on your kids failing to launch. Yes. That's how bold I feel about this. That's a bold statement, but I think it probably is an accurate statement. I feel very strongly about it. Now I can back that up too because I've had my fingers on the pulse, so to speak, with youth for over two decades.

I've been working with youth and young adults and watching them grow up. And I'm right in this environment still. I finished the last class of this year for, I lead a, it's a class for youth and I'm doing it as long as I have kids that are teens, I'll keep doing this class. I do it really for my kids, but for these great youth and it's a stacked class. It's really awesome. It's called Habits for a Successful Life. We did our last one of the year today.

Rachel Denning (09:30.797)
Awesome, just amazing young people, but this, everything we do, every time we meet, we're talking about these actions and habits and attitudes that are critical for a happy and successful life. And how rare, interestingly and tragically, the good actions and habits and attitudes are. Right. Which is basically what we want to talk about this episode. First of all, identifying...

Okay, failure to launch it is a thing. Why is it happening? What are the symptoms? And what can we actually do to prevent it? Because there are very specific things you can do to prevent it. And if you don't do them, like you were saying, if you don't take that action, if you don't fight for that, then the default is failing to launch.

Now I realize that a lot of you listeners are youth or young adults and so you're surrounded by this, you're seeing this. We have family members, nephews and nieces and former mentees and friends who are in the college scene right now. The stories they tell us are just astounding and sad. Like, oh man, like you kidding me? That's how you're trying to start your life as an adult? Like that's not gonna go over well for you.

And these stories are more and more common now. We're hearing them just incessantly. So I guess all of this is just to really emphasize how big of a deal this is. Yesterday, I received a very long email request for help from a parent who desperately wants help for a teenage child who...

has failed to launch and needed to get into one of these recovery programs, which those are popping up all over the place. Well, and they've been around for probably 10 years because we actually looked into starting our own at one point. Right, because it was so needed. Back then. And it's even grown more. And those programs, for those of you who are unaware, they easily charge 10 to $20 ,000 a month. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (11:54.701)
And unfortunately, the real success rate coming out of those isn't great. Which is one of the reasons we decided not to do something like that because we saw that even though they can be great money as a business owner, the success rate of them is not incredible because prevention works better. Yes. At some point, a person can get

I hate to say that it gets too late. I hate to say that. That's where I was going, right? I don't want to say that, but it definitely gets much more difficult. Yes, extremely so. And I feel, even though I'm with you, I'm an optimist, I'm like, I always believe in change and transformation. I believe in that. But statistically, there's irreparable damage done so often. And...

Okay, this isn't a hopeless message. I don't want you to believe in hope. It's not a hopeless message, but we do need to emphasize the hopelessness of it because not everyone sees those serious negative consequences. And as, you know, perhaps providing a warning voice, we need to say this is what we've seen. And at the very least, not with other youth, which you have seen that, but with your own brother.

There, he reached a point of no return that eventually led to him taking his own life this year. But it started long ago. At some point, physiologically, he literally had passed a point of no return where the damage on his brain from drug use altered his state of mind. Completely. Yeah.

So, I think we could say there does sometimes reach a point of no return where it is too late if nothing else for the physiological changes that can take place with drugs, but other things too. I think your brain can get into patterns of thinking and it creates ruts in your mind. The neurological pathways create ruts that are very, very, very hard to change.

Rachel Denning (14:09.933)
after so many years. And we're not saying that, you know, oh, it's hopeless for your 18 year old, but if your 18 year old continues in paths that he's established until he's 28 and 38, then yes, there reaches this point of no return. And so we think that it's not that big of a deal. And that's something I want to emphasize. Like we, as parents, we can see our children starting on paths or doing things that we think, oh, that's not that big of a deal.

But if you look at the long -term consequences of those ongoing choices, you can realize that that is actually a big deal. And it's our job as parents to have that voice of warning, to say, hey, this is where this could lead. And if you continue in these type of actions, behaviors, thought patterns, whatever, this is where it goes.

And that's kind of what this is today, us talking to you as parents of saying, hey, warning voice, this is what we're seeing. You always talk about the train wreck. Like there's certain landmarks along this path that lead to certain outcomes. And here's what some of them are. And I've seen, while I'm sitting here listening, I want to just, with love, but total frankness, I want to say what I'm about to say.

because I have seen the train wreck so many times and I've seen the patterns and the symptoms that now I... Oh, go ahead. Can I interrupt really fast? Not only that, but you've had the people come to you before they got to the train wreck. And after. With the symptoms and you said, hey, this is where it's going. This is what needs to be done about it. And those who do something... Prevent it. Prevent it, but those who are like, ah, I don't know.

Or decide it's too hard or too much work or too expensive. They don't do anything. And then later call or email with the train wreck. And you're like, yeah, that's where it was going. I knew that. That's exactly where I was going to go with this loving frankness. Because I've been in this for so long, it's like that mechanic, right? You pull in and there's this clunking in your car and you pull in and he just walks around the shop and he's like, oh yeah, it sounds like your timing belt's off. And you're like, what?

Rachel Denning (16:30.701)
What's the timing though? He's like, oh, I just heard it. I've heard that so many times. I could, without even opening your hood, I can diagnose like he looked in there. Oh yeah, that's what it is. I'll fix it. You know, that familiarity, right? You're the mechanic of youth. So in a way, yes. And I've had, you know, I've been such content, I've seen it so often that I can meet with families. And in my mind, I'm like, this, this and this. Yeah. And this letting for trouble.

and I'll try to tactfully or adroitly make suggestions, sometimes bluntly say, hey, look, I'm gonna be straight with you. If you don't stop doing what you're doing, it's gonna be a train wreck. Your kids will fail to launch. And some people are open to it, most are not. People are just, oh no, whatever, it's not that big a deal. They're just going through a phase, oh, a teenage this or that or the other, oh, they're just kids, or oh, that's not, you know, you're making a big deal of it, you're a little bit extreme, or no, well, not in today's society, I can't.

I couldn't possibly as a parent, you know, prevent my kids from participating in those things because all their peers are doing it or all this is happening or everyone's doing it. So I couldn't possibly. And so they come up with all kinds of excuses, justification, rationalization. And I just say, well, I feel horrible, but that has very little chance right there. And I got to say that honestly, I really do. And it's a...

real tragedy but there are common denominators there's signs and symptoms and man we have got to acknowledge this and do something about it you cannot not or if you take it lightly I promise your kids will fail the launch. Well and see to me that that's significant what you said right there that there are common denominators and we're talking about there are common denominators to depression.

There are common denominators to suicide. There's common denominators to failure to launch, meaning you go out to college or leave on a mission or move out and can't hack it. You can't stay in the job. You can't stay in a marriage. We're seeing that. They get married and they're like, this is hard, I'm out. Boom. And so there are common denominators. There are signs and symptoms before those things happen that if you learn to be aware of them, to see them,

Rachel Denning (18:53.773)
you can understand where they lead and you can do something as intervention. You can intervene to help prevent. Now, obviously this is a very complex process. It's not black and white, it's not very, it's not a straightforward, simple, like, if this happens, do this, because there's a lot of factors that go into it, depending on your relationship with the child and your own well -being, your own mental health, your own...

X, Y, Z, fill in the blank, like there's a lot that goes into it of course, but we're just here to provide a basic framework of what failure to launch looks like, the symptoms, and how to prevent it as much as possible. So.

Let's dive in. First of all, we've already touched on a few of what these, well, okay, not necessarily the symptoms, but what some of the outcomes are, what failure to launch looks like. And that includes everything from, I think, suicide is the extreme, because that's when someone goes into a really dark place, and the irony, or not irony, but the sad truth is, more youth,

are taking their own lives now than I think we've seen in all of history almost. And that was amplified by COVID measures and things like that. So that's a real problem. There's of course the inability to take on responsibility, like, you know, whether that's going out to college or getting a job or going on a mission or...

down to at a simple level poor time management, poor mental management, poor social skills. Anxiety attacks, panic attacks, which people think just happen without cause, but there's actually common denominators on what leads to those types of... All along the way. In the vast majority of cases, not all of them, but in the vast majority of cases, there is a recipe that has been followed. They are following a formula.

Rachel Denning (21:09.453)
to create these things. So. And then there's things that we hear about and we kind of laugh about it, but it's not laughable because it's true of corporations now, major corporations who actually have entire HR departments and I think colleges dedicated to dealing and working with the parents of their new hires. So they hire new employees and then they get, these are real stories we've heard.

then they get mom calling in to try and negotiate a better salary for her son. And so they have an entire department dedicated to working with the parents of their new hires. Well, and you get parents trying to do everything for the kid, which is both a cause and an effect of this problem. So parents who step in and do too much,

create the child who is incapable of doing it. But then on the other side, it's the kid doesn't want to do it or won't do it or is incapable or doesn't care. And so what does a parent do trying to be a good parent? Step in and do it for them. And every parent has been guilty of that at some point. It's a fine line knowing the difference of being supportive and being... What's the word I want to... Enabling. Enabling.

Which is leading to a major entitlement problem that's also part of this failure to launch is this entitlement where we have this generation that thinks they deserve their rights. Right. That they have certain rights they deserve to have and that's regardless or not of whether they take on responsibility. When the fascinating psychological literature shows that in order to have

real happiness and fulfillment, you actually need more responsibility. They want the results without the responsibility. They want the rights without the responsibility, which is also very interesting because when we're talking about some of the causes, we now want to get into some of these symptoms of why our youth are not able to do these things and take on these challenges.

Rachel Denning (23:28.909)
Part of the reason is because we have fewer responsibilities nowadays. And when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about like real hard, challenging, must -do responsibilities. And we're not encouraged or taught as a society in general about our responsibilities and what it is, you know, I mean the old -fashioned word kind of is duties, like what our duties are and what we need to do to contribute to society. That's not something we talk about a lot.

In fact, there's a lot of talk about our rights and how you should be treating me and how you should be speaking to me and what you need to be saying to make sure I feel safe and not violated or whatever instead of what the psychological research is showing that our real happiness and fulfillment comes when we take on responsibility. So what I hear you saying and what I'm seeing in a society is as a society,

We're actually setting up bigger systems, macro level systems that coddle and weaken and protect these youth instead of strengthening them and fortifying them and empowering them. So with the best of intent, we are disempowering these young adults. Yes, absolutely. And that becomes a big, big problem. So.

Let's dive a little bit deeper into causes. I guess it will kind of, I think we'll kind of bounce back and forth here of like causes and remedies and how to take this. I think at a fundamental level, wow, I was gonna start with do hard things, but maybe we'll come back to that one. Because you can't just do hard things just for the sake of doing hard things. I mean, it seems.

a little empty and most people won't go along with it. I mean, there is some value in that. It's like, just do it just because it's hard. But who wants to do something just because it's hard? That sounds lame. It sounds like meaningless suffering. Right? So let's go back to, I think, start with like having something noble to work for. Well, it ties into, okay.

Rachel Denning (25:54.861)
It ties into one of the reasons that youth are not thriving is because they lack purpose and meaning in their life. Especially when that is connected to this idea that responsibility, and I would say challenge and obstacles, because I think challenge and obstacles are actually a part of responsibility. Without having those things,

in your life, you actually lack a lot of meaning and purpose. And that seems kind of counterintuitive and that seems almost undesirable because like you're saying, who wants to do hard things? Who wants to purposefully take on challenges and obstacles? And yet that is exactly how we grow and develop as human beings. And so we live in a society right now that is very easy.

It's very comfortable. The last major world war we saw was World War II. And that happened in the lifetime of people we might know, but not in our own lifetime, even for us, right? Definitely not in the lifetime of our children. So we're very disconnected from this major world struggle or major...

obstacle and I'm bringing this up because there's actually a lot of interesting literature about the meaning and fulfillment and purpose and happiness that people felt during periods of wartime and you would think that that's ironic because they're in a war why would they feel any of that and the reality is they felt it because they had a sense which you're going to talk about this in a minute they had the sense of connection they had the sense of community

They had this sense of purpose because they were united together against a well, quote unquote, common enemy that gave them something to focus their time, energy and attention on. That's where a sense of meaning and purpose comes from. And it really mattered often down to a life or death situation. Exactly. So there was real meaning there. There was real, it wasn't made up. It wasn't just like, hey, save this because it's important, right?

Rachel Denning (28:18.605)
Right, so if you take that away, and I gotta bring up something right here, a little side note, because there might be some people listening, like, no, no, no, that's not our family. Our kids do hard things. We do chores all day on Saturday. Like, we, no, that's not us. Like, we, everything matters. And it's easy because in our generation, we really haven't been through really, really hard things. It's easy to lose perspective about what,

hard actually is. And we have to bring this up right now I think too as a matter of perspective because I think perspective is a very powerful teacher when you're standing on the top of a mountain your view is very different than when you're standing in the middle of a forest right in front of a tree and we in general

as a society right now, we might feel that we have gone through some hard times with COVID and the pandemic and everything. And there has been things that have happened that are hard. But because, don't laugh, your laughing is gonna be misinterpreted right now, Esther. I have to finish this point. I'm laughing at myself though, because I look back to, we went through, Rachel and I and our family went through a very hard time in 2008. We lost everything. And the thought is, man.

2008 was so hard, but in the big picture, like it was a 2008 was a ripple that wouldn't even show up on a significant chart. And yet if I, the reason I'm laughing, I'm laughing at myself. Cause those were hard years for us. They were, they were really hard and we lost everything you guys. And so we just, we fell flat on our faces and crawled back needing help. We got it all just handed to us and yet.

saying that I have to acknowledge in the big picture of things that wasn't even that hard. It wouldn't show up on the scale of hardness. That's what I'm talking about. Like this perspective of like, yeah, man, I went through this crazy hard time. And then you talk to somebody else who really did. And you're like, okay, I'm not even gonna bring up my story. Yeah. Cause that would feel stupid. That's kind of where I was going with this in comparison, because despite the challenges of 2020,

Rachel Denning (30:40.045)
that I don't want to discount for people in comparison on the societal level that was nothing to being in a concentration camp. Right. I guess, and that's the point. You guys have heard us mention this before. That is the point I'm trying to bring up. Whenever you think you are going through something really hard. Read a World War II book. Just...

I was going to suggest the Gulag Archipelago by Shultz and Eatson. Yes, definitely. That one's a little much. And you can even grab the abridged version because he wrote three volumes. We get the abridged version, it's 22 hours. 22 hours of him describing just the worst depravity of humanity that happened. My mom's still alive. It happened in my mother's lifetime. Okay, we're not far removed from that. And just spend an hour or two. Meaning it didn't happen that long ago. But compared to that type of suffering.

Like what was our 2008? Or 2020. Yeah, or... Okay. Well, I'm just saying in a societal level, I'm not saying that there weren't people that didn't have deep levels of suffering. They did. And lost loved ones and struggled. I get it. Even being in a quarantine type situation, it was not like the Gulag or like a concentration camp. Now this is just a side...

Because we felt like we got locked in, but are you kidding me? We were locked in with all our luxuries and entertainments and all of our good stuff. Again, perspective. We're not trying to diminish. But we're trying to provide this larger viewpoint to understand the societal trends that are going on with our youth today. And one of the reasons they are facing the challenges they are is because of this lack of

of deep significance, meaning, and purpose in their life that sometimes can be created by challenging times, if that makes sense. Absolutely. So in a very real way, comfort and convenience is a danger. It's a threat to our well -being and our strength. And there's been multiple generations now of comfort and convenience which has led to the current generations... Yep.

Rachel Denning (32:58.189)
challenges of failing to launch. So I would I would say right now it's kind of just clicked for me. I would say that one of the problems that's the cause or at least a correlation is if we think small difficulties are extreme difficulties. Yes. That it's a simple statement. But if you or your children think that

something that's a little bit hard is extremely hard, there's, it's kind of this warning flag of like, hey, watch out for that one. Well, and the irony is that the more you think that the small things are challenging, the harder it is for you to deal with challenge in general. Yes.

In fact, well, sorry. No, I know. We just have... Go ahead. Now you go. I was just going to emphasize that in fact, it's so interesting, but I think very important obviously and critical to understanding that when you are avoiding difficult things and challenging things and uncomfortable things, it actually makes you less...

able to deal with challenge. And so we go through our life with it being comfortable and easy and we doing the things we like and want to do and we lose our ability to have grit and to be formidable and capable and that actually weakens us and increases our levels of anxiety, stress, overwhelm. That's the irony. The more you take on and the more you do,

actually the more capable you become and the less you're overwhelmed, the less you stress, the less anxiety you have and we think that it's actually the opposite. And so one of the contributing factors to failure to launch is a society, an environment in which our youth aren't required to do hard things, aren't required to face challenges, aren't required to fail and so they...

Rachel Denning (35:20.685)
spend a lot of time avoiding these things or never coming face to face with them and as a result they have more anxiety, they have more depression, they have more overwhelm, they have, they feel like they have more challenge but in reality it's because they're taking on less challenge. Yes. If that makes sense. Yes. And so it's a great irony that they start to struggle more.

Because of the lack of struggle exactly. Oh wow that is good because in clinical psychology if you have someone who is say afraid of something Whatever it is. It doesn't matter what it is that they're afraid of The way that you help them to overcome their fears, especially if they have a debilitating fear like they can't even function They can't even go out of the house because they're so terrified of the world

or whatever, and this really happens in clinical psychology, the way you help them to overcome their fear is by helping them to willingly and voluntarily face that fear. And when they do that, choose the challenge. Yeah, choose the challenge. And when they do that, that's how they overcome it. And they don't overcome it because they're now no longer afraid of it. They overcome it because they now cultivate courage. They have, because courage,

isn't a lack of fear, but it's just the ability to face the fear despite being afraid. So the same thing happens with anxiety and all of these other problems that we have. Unless we willingly engage and face the things that cause us to be anxious or stressed or overwhelmed, then we don't develop the capability.

to deal with them and not having the capability to deal with these types of things is what causes failure to launch. And many of us avoid those things. We get in, I guess we could call it a perpetual avoidance pattern where we were constantly avoiding anything that's uncomfortable or annoying or inconvenient or I just don't want to go there like having a tough conversation or fixing a problem or apologizing or.

Rachel Denning (37:41.805)
whatever it could be, right? You're in this avoidance patterns and we do it ourselves and then we allow our kids to do it because in the moment we want to avoid the conflict. We want to avoid the reaction. Yeah. So ironically, the parent wants to avoid the discomfort of having a reaction from the kid. And so we give up what we want most pretty tough kids that can handle things for what we want in the moment, which like, I don't want to deal with this. Yeah, exactly.

That's where it starts. That's exactly where it starts. And that starts when the children are young. And so we give in to our kids because we want to avoid conflict. But what that ends up doing is leading to children that don't know how to deal with conflict because that's where it starts. If parents aren't willing to engage in conflict when necessary with their own children, then the children never learn the skills for dealing with conflict because they've never seen it happen. Mom and dad always avoid it. Now, I do want to throw in here, if you do this very...

effectively, adroitly, with diplomacy, it doesn't have to be a source of conflict. So I don't want to share the message that in parenting, the only way to get your kids to do hard things is to be combative. Like, I'm going to make them, there's going to be a fight, I'm up for the fight, let's go kid. It's not like that. If you do this well and you lead out, but that's a whole other topic on parenting strategy. But if you do it well and you're a leader and you're modeling and you have a good relationship,

and you've developed your own levels of diplomacy and interaction and connection, you can gently lead your kids and persuade them right into doing very, very hard things. You're right. It can be done diplomatically. But I do want to say that even if it's done diplomatically, there can still be a sense of discomfort or unease. It doesn't mean the topic is easy to cover. And I think even when you gain those skills to do it better and...

doing it better than saying all out fighting, yelling, screaming, that type of thing. We're not talking about that. When you gain the skills to handle it in a diplomatic way, there still is that level of discomfort that's often easier to avoid than to engage. And that's true for the parent and for the child. And I know like tender parents, those of you who are tender, like you want to not only avoid discomfort yourself, you actually want to help your kids avoid discomfort because it's hard for you. I've seen parents...

Rachel Denning (40:06.285)
In fact, we even felt it. I've watched Rachel do it. She just cringes when her kids are struggling, right? When dad's saying something to them that's making them uncomfortable, I have to be there just kind of softening it a little. I'm like, babe, don't soften this thing. And they're like, well, it's so hard. I'm like, yeah, let it be hard. Feel the hard. And it's not that you're... Because this could be so misinterpreted and misunderstood. These topics are extremely difficult because somebody listening might go, that's it.

There's nothing but hard for my kids or else your life and then they resent you and hate you and then that causes the same problems but from the other side of the coin and then there's others that you know go the other way so this is it's tricky and it requires a lot of tact and skill but but ultimately we have to do hard things hard meaningful things ourselves and we have to get our kids to opt in to doing hard things.

just if for nothing else for the character development that comes with it. But ideally they're working towards some noble aim or objective. So they're doing the hard things because it has meaning and purpose and fulfillment. And so they want to pursue it and they want to finish it because it fills their soul and strengthens their mind and character.

And so then the question is like, well, where do you start? Like, do I have to send my kids out under the cold to hike 10 miles, you know? And I don't think that that's necessarily what we're talking about that can or may be included. But in a lot of ways, this doing hard things is gonna look different for everyone because everyone has a different hard thing. And it's often the things, the way to know what they are is to look at the things you've been avoiding.

Or your child's been avoiding. Or that your child has been avoiding. Very often the things that we are avoiding doing and yet we kind of have this deep inner knowing that we need to do them, those are the very hard things we need to do. I think it's significant that you mentioned it's this deep inner knowing. I see a lot of parents come up with these arbitrary things. It's just totally arbitrary. Like, oh, my kid does hard stuff. You have to do this because we do hard things and so that means you have to...

Rachel Denning (42:30.157)
whatever the thing is the parent picked. That's the most pointless thing. And again, I got to emphasize here, this is just a piece of the puzzle. Cause you might, I've met youth and young adults who have failed to launch who can do hard things and yet they still fail to launch. So it's a piece of the puzzle. And again, more complex than just black and white simplicity of like, if you're able to do hard things, then you'll succeed because it's across multiple planes.

If you can do physically hard things, you might have a son or daughter that, man, they just do crazy hard workouts and jump in ice cold lakes and streams. They can do hard things physically, but then they won't have a conversation. Or they won't interact socially or they won't, whatever it is that they need to do. Like their next step is essentially the thing they're avoiding.

That to me is a sign and a signal and a clue of the path you have to walk. Because ultimately the obstacle is the way. There's a great book by Ryan Holiday and he talks about that. The thing that's standing in your way, the thing that you're avoiding, the thing that makes you uncomfortable is very often the exact thing you need to grow. And until you face that thing and push through it, you actually...

limit your growth. You actually remain undeveloped. You actually are unable to launch. And this is true for grownups and for our children. You're unable to move forward and to level up until you face that thing that's standing right there that you've been avoiding. That's a really cool framework because we'll often get questions like, oh, where do I start? Right. And...

Spend some time chewing on that and think, okay, maybe you start with the very thing you've been avoiding. Yeah. Which could be... Again, you know you needs to be done, but you're like, no, I don't want to do it. Which could just be something simple like cleaning up your space, your environment, you know, taking a class, taking, getting a job, whatever it is. It's like, what is the next thing that will challenge me enough that will help me be more adult? More... That will help me have...

Rachel Denning (44:56.045)
more responsibility. In an ideal situation, again, this is a goal or a dream, something big. You guys have heard my dumb goals, right? It's an acronym I came up with years ago. It's demanding, unrealistic, meaningful, and bold. The ideal way to do this is to chase dumb goals. They're so big, they're so meaningful, they're so intimidating, they require tons of work and effort and a lot of arenas to accomplish them. That's the best thing to be working for because

It's exciting, it's fulfilling, it's adventurous, it makes your life a better story. Because the worst thing you do is live a lame life and it is a boring story. This makes you feel so empty and dull and blah and it makes life pointless. And this is another key piece because you were talking about, you know, the pieces and one of those things is doing hard things. But another piece is connected with this idea that

In challenging times, there's often a lot of meaning and purpose that, like say wartime, but if we're not in a time like that, we can create our own significance, meaning and purpose by something like a dumb goal. It's something that's so huge that it requires all of us, meaning you have to go all in in order to actually accomplish it. Like it's so big that it...

it forces you to become a different person in order to achieve it. That's another reason why youth are failing to launch is because they lack one, a lot of adults. We're seeing this in a lot of adults as well. They're lacking these dumb goals in their life that are so moving, so motivating, so gigantic that they have to give their whole heart, soul, and mind to achieving them. And without that,

Essentially, I think, and this is kind of a blanket statement, but I think it's true, you don't have enough meaning in your life to do the hard work necessary. To bring about the growth and development to get real results. Exactly. So I think we could say one of the biggest problems we're observing is in a generation, young adults and adults, who...

Rachel Denning (47:18.861)
I mean, if we're really honest with ourselves, what they're doing is seeking entertainment and comfort. I mean, adults all the time, like, if you break it down to the essentials, you kind of zoom out and take a look, like, what are you doing? You're like, well, all you're doing is paying the bills. Like, you're working and living to pay the bills. And the bills, the bills are, what are the bills for? Yeah, that's true. Your comfort and entertainment. Yes. Like, what are you working on? What are you going, everybody's chasing.

I'm paying for this comfortable house and this comfortable car and all this comfortable entertainment. And then if we look at our youth and they have all of those things provided, they don't even have to work for that. That's where I was going to go next. So why in the world do they need to go out there and work hard and face challenges and overcome obstacles when they have nothing bigger than that goal to work for and that one's already being provided for them?

in most cases. I've got to say this one boldly because I see it a lot and I saw it again this week.

And this is going to sound interesting and ironic.

almost always the good families who have kids that struggle the most, it's because the parents are providing too much for the kids with the best of intentions. They just want to help their kids out. They want their kids to have nice things and good things. And have an easier time than they did. And have fun. And again, it's all with the best of intentions, but I see it again and again and again and I have for two decades.

Rachel Denning (49:00.941)
When we as parents give our kids too much, it often cripples them. If you're buying the cars and paying the insurance and the gas and the food and you're bending over backwards doing everything for their comfort and ease and progress so they can do all the things that they want to do. I mean, I see parents wearing themselves out.

so that the kids can do what they want to do.

Not always, but very often we see those kids really struggle and fail to launch because they don't have to do the work. They've had everything provided for them by very kind, loving, generous parents and they lack that hunger. Right, and one of the things that you say a lot that you learn from first -hand experience in your own teenage years when you were struggling to eat and had to work to pay the bills as a high schooler is that...

where there's pain, there's power. And the reality is as difficult as it can be to see our children in pain or to see them struggle, that is the very thing they need in order to become the person they need to be who can launch successfully in life. They have to have some of that pain and struggle. Now again, this is not misinterpreted here. This isn't the pain of

of you not being a loving, supporting parent. It's the pain of them having to figure it out. Having to figure things out and struggle through it. And like you're there to support, but not to do it for them. And you're like, well, what if they don't do it? Okay. Let them have the consequences. Yeah. Deal with the consequences. And that means this is another such a powerful voice. Which often means as the parent you have to...

Rachel Denning (50:57.901)
remove the pad they fall on, right? If they're going to fall, don't throw a pillow there. That's often more uncomfortable for the parents. It is. So the parents avoid the discomfort of the kids' consequences. Exactly. That's another reason it happens. Because it's uncomfortable for them as the parent. Yeah, exactly. They're like, I would just, I'd rather not, I'd rather not have, so as a parent, I'd rather not have the experience of having to deal with my kid.

Dealing with consequences. Dealing with my kid having consequences. So you avoid it, you're avoiding the pain and so you're making it easier for your kid just so you don't have to deal with the pain. That right there is a contributing factor. Major. And we see that a lot. That is a common denominator we're seeing all the time. And I don't know about you as much. I know for me, I have to catch myself on that because I also can suffer with that same problem. I don't have that problem. Yeah. I figured. But speaking for myself. And it comes from...

It comes from having been through really hard things and my kids are struggling and and you're like, oh that's nothing I have to check myself on the other side of like, oh, are you kidding me? Little marshmallow boy, let's go That all like come on Because I you know, I went through some hard things but even then Again, I have to be the first one to say the hard things I went through being out on my own at 16 and seeing terrible things

When I started to travel the world and get into deep, deep poverty and suffering, it changed everything I thought and believed about my suffering. And I look back now and all my suffering is Mickey Mouse problems compared to the suffering that's happening around the world every day. It was incredibly hard for me. And while you were a teenager also having those difficult times, you read...

The Hiding Place by Cory Tin Boom where they were in a concentration camp and thought, oh wow, my life is easy compared to those. Exactly. So it's perspective. And that's often, talking about contributing factors, that is another contributing factor to our youth being unable to launch. It's that they lack perspective. They think what they're dealing with is actually really hard because they don't have anything else to contrast it to. They haven't gone...

Rachel Denning (53:14.221)
to India and seeing people living on dirt floors and eating whatever they can find and begging on the side of the streets and missing limbs and I mean all of these other things and this is you know this is something Greg and I have experienced our children were very small and don't necessarily remember those things but we don't fail to remind them when necessary and take them back to places. So you know we have trips planned and scheduled.

even this year, in just a month from now, I'll be taking my daughter into a developing country again. And we're gonna get right in and real and see this and experience it. And we're gonna do hard things together that are fun things together and adventures. And we're gonna connect with people who live a totally different life experience than we do. And I think this is a really great point and time for me to emphasize.

the fact that some people might look at us and think, oh wow, you guys just spoil your kids and this and that, you're so lucky and all that, not realizing that we've spent a lot of time and energy thinking about these things and this type of approach of traveling with our kids is intentional. It is helping us to prevent the things we don't want them, don't want to happen with failure to launch in that kind of a...

To us it's always this compare and contrast between the programs that are... What did you call those programs? The... I can't even... The rehab programs. The... What are they called? Anyways. The recovery programs. Parents will spend tens of thousands of dollars per month when their kid is in serious trouble to try to save them. And yet they'll spend very little, if nothing, on their kid beforehand.

to try to prevent the problems from happening. In fact, they'll actually spend money on things that contribute to the problem. They'll buy them the video games, they'll pay for the internet, they'll buy them the phones, they'll do all of these things. They take family trips to Disney World and Hawaii. Now you're crossing the line. I know, but I gotta say it, because they're like, no, we do family trips and it's like an all -inclusive resort and everything's happening. Which can be fun and great, but if you're talking about any - If that's all you do?

Rachel Denning (55:34.989)
If you're talking about an intentional plan and strategy for preventing failure to launch, that doesn't necessarily contribute to that, is what you're pointing out. It actually can contribute to the problem. Okay, yes, contribute to the problem. So, yeah, we're very intentional on taking the time and spending the money on things like that that provide a larger perspective for our children.

to help them understand their place better in the world because when you understand your place in the world, then you realize that your hard things are actually easier compared to someone else's really hard things. And I think it's worth pointing out, so I love what you're saying, understand your place in the world, but also understanding the world. We often want to expose, quote, expose our children to the real world, right? And I have that same desire, you have that same desire, but it's...

It's a very different thing to you know, you say, well, I want my kids to experience the real world. So you let them go to a party with their friends where there's drugs and alcohol and all kinds of trash going on. And you think, well, you know, they need to be exposed to the real world. That's a very different scenario of letting them go see the kind of the fun side of it versus meeting with a meth addict or a deep alcoholic and seeing the

consequences and the end result. Because what I'm thinking of is we've traveled through many countries where the effects, the consequences of alcohol is apparent in that there are drunk people passed out on the street and you see them vulnerable, disheveled, dirty and you're like right there guys this is the, these are the consequences. This is what drinking

leads to. It leads to a destruction of life. And it's not always that obvious in some countries like this, like our country where it's hidden behind closed doors, but there's definitely a mental and emotional breakdown that is that extreme very often that's just hidden from view. And so that is more of the accurate real world exposure that your kids need to have to fully understand the whole picture. So,

Rachel Denning (58:00.205)
I guess kind of the close maybe, unless you have more to say. I just want to hit some key. Well, I wanted to, and it's probably similar, I just wanted to kind of close off with some of the actual, what we call now, habits of a successful life that are necessary for our kids to learn because one of the things that gets us all the time is parents will spend all this time, money, energy, effort on helping their kids to...

quote, get an education and graduate.

focusing on the academic side of learning, which includes math and science and reading and writing and all those things, while completely neglecting the more important habits for a successful life. The habits that lead to the ability to deal with stress and to deal with anxiety and to...

handle overwhelm and to manage your thoughts and emotions and to manage your time and to be productive and to have goals. All of those things are critical foundational pieces of living a productive, happy, meaningful life and yet they're completely absent from most educational programs and also from most homes. Most families are not teaching these things and so essentially those are the missing pieces that are not

being taught to our youth which are leading to them failing to launch. So what are we going to talk about those? Me seeing that for two decades really is what has driven me to offer that to my own teens and other teens in this class. Exactly. And those youth to get them involved. So they have a couple times a week they've got exposure. We read these amazing books together. And so a couple times a week they have exposure to some of the best thinkers and leaders.

Rachel Denning (59:54.477)
in the world and then we have discussions around them. They get to hear their peers talk about them and they get to practice them and apply them. And you guys, every week I get these emails and messages from parents or youth about, oh, I took your challenge and I did this thing and I'm just watching them grow and develop and transform their lives. And it's like you're watching the growth happen right in front of your eyes and the strength and the capacity and the capability and the grit.

and the character, I get to watch it, it's amazing. And like you said, we created this because we looked around and we saw that it wasn't being taught in other arenas, educational arenas, and so we're like, we've gotta teach these things to our kids because these are things we learned along our own journey. And so yeah, this idea of being intentional when we didn't see what we needed.

for our kids to learn these important lessons, we went out and created it. And so that's why we have this class that you do. But the habits that we teach, that you're teaching them regularly, are the key ingredients, well, some of them, to helping our children to actually launch. And so I want to just cover a few of those. Is that some of what you have here, or is that different?

Well, I was going to touch on the four ingredients of mass formation. Oh, yeah. We're going to do, I think we'll do an entire podcast on that. It's worth it big time, but it overlaps here. So mass formation, I'll just touch on it real quickly. It's kind of like a psychological term. It's group think. Yeah. So it's like mass psychology. It's like, and what it's most often unconscious. And so you're just going along with this crowd. It's kind of a mass hypnosis type thing. You think you're making your own choices. You think you're...

you're honoring your sovereignty, but you're just playing along with the crowd and you don't know it because you've just kind of fit right into this mass psychology, right? It's mass hypnosis. And they found there's, and psychologists have found there's four key ingredients that if these ingredients are all in place, that people just fall right in line and go along right off to destruction. Well, either, either one, they're following along and they're actually hypnotized in a way or two, sorry, one, they're actually hypnotized in a way, two,

Rachel Denning (01:02:17.005)
they're just going along because they don't want to rock the boat. Right, exactly. So they're just following along. That's the majority of people. Or there's a small percentage that are like, no way, I'm not. And they're openly attacked. Well, they're openly opposed to what's happening. So we'll get into that in this other podcast we do. But it was the four psychological pieces that I thought were significant and fitting for the failure to launch. Well, because in a way, what your point is, failure to launch is a type of mass formation. Absolutely. Mass.

Hypnosis like there's this trend that's occurring That's kind of because this whole group in society is in a way quote -unquote hypnotized So it's a group think and so it says you this group this generation of youth and they're they're buying right into it I think sorry because of these psychological elements I just want to add another piece here because we have seen this before that this happens with a lot of not just failure to launch in

general but in a lot of the symptoms of failure to launch we have seen this. We have literally seen suicide become trendy, trendy and I use that word intentionally even though it seems harsh, in certain areas. We have seen it become a thing that youth do because other youth are doing it.

you know, leaders and thinkers and psychologists realize that if it starts to become trendy, so to speak, in a high school or a neighborhood or an area, they know it's going to keep happening unless they really address it and fast and hard because it will spread. Which is a form of this half mass formation of hypnosis. So we'll dive into this later, but I think it's worth mentioning these four things. One is a lack of connection.

And it's interesting in this age of connection, right? And in the fact that we are our our kids and we have so many quote friends online and so many followers, it's actually a superficial connection and it's a substitute. And more and more people are admitting and they're doing all these studies and research and stuff. And people are people are admitting they're like, actually, I don't I don't have any really close friends anymore. I don't I don't have intimate conversations and real connections with friends. And so although we are

Rachel Denning (01:04:30.703)
more connected.

The real connection, the interpersonal connection that matters is actually declining rapidly. So one of those things that happens socially and psychologically is a lack of connection. The second one is lack of meaning. And we've talked a lot about that today already. So if your life lacks a sense of real meaning and purpose, and it has to mean something, it has to be substantial. If it's empty or kind of pseudo meaningful, if it's a poor substitute of the real thing, it doesn't count.

And even young children can tell the difference. When I really need my kids to help out with something, even as young as seven or five, if they know I really need their help...

It's like they get into it more and they understand it more where if I'm just like, hey, why don't you do this? Because this would be meaningful or helpful. They know it's not the same. They can sense the difference between something that really matters. Like for an example, feeding a pet. If you don't feed the pet, that pet's going to die as long as you allow natural consequences to take their place, right? They know that they have to really be responsible for that pet or that pet is going to suffer the consequences. That's a real...

sing to them. So they do know and understand the difference and our teens especially know and so if they don't have anything in their life they lack that meaning and they lack that sense of fulfillment which leads to them floating through life. I don't know how to articulate this but the way you just described that there's a real lack of

Rachel Denning (01:06:15.917)
meaningful responsibilities, meaningful work.

There's a lack of things that actually matter in many people's lives. We live these very affluent, comfortable lives and there's this lack of meaningful work. I think especially for teenagers. We try to come up for adults, but just for teenagers too. We try to come up with these substitutes like get good grades or you'll get bad grades and then if you get bad grades you won't get a job. We try to come up with things and I'm not knocking education. Education is one of the most

important things there is hands down but getting good grades actually has zero nothing to do with long -term success and happiness and there's a lot more on that on the millionaire mind by Thomas Stanley but when you think when grades become your sense of meaning

That's just one substitute like, no, we need to find something that's a little more substantive in that. Anyways, that's significant. So then the other two things are, and they kind of come from the first two. Well, the first two cause the second two. It's what's called a free -floating anxiety. So it's where you're worried, you're tense, you're unsettled.

Maybe you have anxiety attacks or panic attacks. You have this feeling and sense of anxiety and this is happening more and more with our youth, but it's not attached to anything specific. So say you went out to...

Rachel Denning (01:07:57.357)
the African savanna and you came face to face with a lion. You would have a lot of anxiety and worry and stress. But it would be directly attached to that lion. Because there's a real threat. He looks at you and he's hungry and he's like, you look delicious. There's something substantive to worry about. Yes, to worry about. But in our day and age, we don't have anything specific. There's not a lion about to eat us. There's not a threat of...

x, y, z, and we feel like we have a lot of threats and we make up a lot of worries in our mind. It's like Mark Twain says, I've had a lot of...

I've suffered a lot of things in my life, most of which never happened, right? We come up with a lot of mental, imaginative things to worry and stress about, but little of it ever actually happens. And that is what our children are dealing with. These have all these imagined worries and stresses, but nothing that's really concrete and directly in front of them.

Because essentially we need something to fight for and something that's meaningful like in order to be fulfilled and develop in a healthy way, we have to have something to fight for a cause something even to fight against. I know that sounds strange, but that's actually a really healthy thing and like injustice or poverty. Yeah, something's really wrong and substantial. But if you have nothing, then what do you you come up with this case? This is what happens psychologically.

We create either consciously or unconsciously, we create vehicles to try to satisfy what's happening. So if we fail off, I try to satisfy something that's happening. So if I have no meaning in my life, I create this vehicle and I try to do things that give me a sense of importance, like judging, criticizing.

Rachel Denning (01:09:54.061)
worrying about what the neighbor's doing. Worrying about your grades. Worrying about your appearance. Worrying about... Like if you... it appears on an HOA board or...

Some little thing like that you get on a school board and you you your life lacks so much meaning That you try to feel significant or important or powerful by nitpicking at little things That are honestly in in the other day just completely unimportant

And yet you get this, you guys all know people like this. You know people like this that they get on this big power trip and this big kick and they, what they're trying to do is they're using it as a vehicle to try to feel significant and important. But the same with, now with this free floating anxiety, we start, we come up unconsciously with, we're trying to find something to worry about. And so we create these.

in our minds these dangers, these threats of somebody said something mean to me. They called me a name. Or unfollowed me. Or didn't use the right name. Or disliked my photo. Or they said something that is the opposite opinion of my opinion so I feel threatened by them. So essentially we have this sense of anxiety that's occurring.

and we're trying to attach it to something because it's free floating. It's not directly attached to a real danger and it's just existing on its own and so we have to try to attach it to something. That is.

Rachel Denning (01:11:30.893)
One of the causes of mass formation is mass hypnosis where we kind of go along with the crowd and it's directly caused by a lack of connection and a lack of meaning. And we're getting way too far into this because it's going to be the next one. We're geeking out on this. I love this stuff. So the fourth one is it's a free -floating sense of frustration. Same kind of idea, same kind of cause. But think about it, think about somebody who's in this failure to launch. They're lacking real connection, they're lacking real meaning.

and something, you know, a quest, a noble aim. They have a lot of free -floating anxiety and a lot of free -floating frustration. And just kind of, it just overall irritability and irks them, right? And so it essentially makes them more susceptible to going along with...

whatever the crowd is doing. And so if they're seeing their peers, they're seeing in the media, they're seeing society in general doing certain things, worrying about certain things, performing certain behaviors, acts, you know what I'm saying? All of this stuff happens and we think that it's just...

what's normal or what's in vogue right now or what's cool or whatever, but it is a form of mass hypnosis. And that could even lead to something as extreme as suicide, but also every other level from there. And so we're bringing this up and maybe it sounds a little psychologically deep and boring. I don't know, we geek out about this stuff, but maybe you don't. Point being that this is part of the contributing factor to...

failure to launch. This is part of what's leading to our children to not be able to cope with adult life. Where even adults now, I mean I see it where they're like, I can't adult today, right? Or like hashtag adulting. As though taking on responsibility and being a grown up.

Rachel Denning (01:13:35.821)
Something you can opt out of like that you can just choose to not do it when you deserve some badge or honor for like being responsible being responsible exactly and That is the attitude that's leading to Not being able to handle these things so rule number one you as a parent have got to model this absolutely

You have to lead out and you have to be healthy yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially. Which is... You've got to be in a good place. When we were talking about the habits of a successful life, of course doing hard things is on that list, but then it's these healthy habits, mental habits, emotional habits, spiritual habits.

Physical habits even something as simple as having the habit of exercising right? These are the habits getting ready for the day. I'm still going away. How many adults don't get ready? They might go weeks without getting unless they have to leave the house for something but yeah, right they don't have the habit of getting ready. They don't have the habit of reading from something or listening to something inspirational educational every day. They don't have the habit of developing their

spirituality, they don't have the habit of managing their emotions and recovering from negative emotions and intentionally cultivating positive emotions. All of these things are actually habits that don't just happen by default. They're not accidental. You're not just blessed and born with them. You have to develop them as skills. And so that, I think, is the basis.

of the solution to this problem, which we are not gonna delve into more because then we're gonna really be long on this podcast. And maybe we'll cover another time. But although you have covered each of these things individually. So that's another key point. If you want to go into these more.

Rachel Denning (01:15:41.741)
then just look through your past podcast episodes because you have a podcast about mental habits and emotional habits and exercise and all of these different things. So that is essentially what we teach and now this podcast here is understanding why that really matters for our youth in helping them launch into adulthood. And I think...

I just have to emphasize as much as I can. If there was some special way for me to kind of reach through the microphone here and put a hand on your shoulder and just say, look, this matters so much. Please do not discount this, dismiss it, think it won't affect you or your family. Like assume.

that it's the default and it will happen unless you deliberately fight it off. Like lean in all the way and do whatever you have to do for yourself first to get yourself in a great place. And then for your children as a whole, but and your family, but I'd say each of your children individually. I know sometimes like parents are really deliberate with their older children and then they think, oh, the younger kids will just pick it up. And you're like, nope.

You gotta you gotta keep doing it with each kid and and again never underestimate how much power and influence you have and how important this work is to make sure that you're you're doing everything in your power to have a great relationship with your kids and to prepare them to launch into adult life.

successfully and not just survive you guys thrive the the goal isn't just so that you're when they become young adults they can go out and they can get a job and keep it and go to school and maybe go on a mission or do those things and that's it it's well that's the initial goal well

Rachel Denning (01:17:36.333)
that's a stepping stone on the path. Right, but see it on the path. So I want my children to become really phenomenal human beings and deeply successful and happy, not just like, okay, whew, my kid got a job and made it to college. We're good. But since we're talking about failure to launch.

If they, of course, if they can't handle that part, they're not on the path. Right, exactly. So I guess what I'm saying is like, yeah, that's great. They should be able to do that because that's part of being on the path. Right. So that's all I meant. There's there's so much to this and it's so significant and awesome. So lean in people. And if you have questions and and and situations like circumstance like, hey, how do we do this and how we do that? Should them over ask us? Well, we'll answer my love thing about this.

In fact, as I'm building, so I live launched the Be the Man Master class, and I've been thinking about as we've been sitting here talking, each of the pieces, the elements, those crucial parts that have to be cultivated and developed to be real men, and husbands and fathers and leaders and businessmen, those are the pieces.

that we have to pass on to our kids. We've got to learn them and apply them ourselves and then pass them on to our children. And we have full sections and they're about being an amazing father, literally a world class dad. And the fine art of this and the science of it and the technicalities, man, this stuff matters so much. Because you can't teach what you're not. Or in, there's a...

great book, Courage to Teach, where he says essentially you teach what you are. And so when we're trying to pass these things on to our children, we have to be doing and becoming these things ourselves in order to model it and show them the way. So that's number one, to model it, and then number two, you've got to effectively teach it. So it's both those pieces. Okay. Okay. You guys are awesome. Love you. Reach out for it. Let's raise amazing kids that help make this world a better place. Reach out for it.

Rachel Denning (01:19:50.861)
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