#169 How to Make the Mundane Parts of Day-to-Day Life More Meaningful

Rachel Denning (00:10.734)
Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. Today we are diving into a detailed look at what living an extraordinary life looks like on the day to day. The majority of your life and ours is spent in daily activities that can be mundane. Dishes, laundry, errands, even with a travel lifestyle like ours, we spend most of our time sitting in a vehicle on a road trip or waiting in an airport.

How do you make the ordinary routine, boring daily interactions more meaningful and purposeful? We will share specific strategies that we've used for over a decade to turn the transactional into transformational. If you've ever felt that life is like the movie Groundhog Day, which we're watching tonight, then you definitely want to listen to this episode so you can learn how to get unstuck and make the daily interactions that you're already having with your spouse and children,

more special, memorable, and magical. This episode is sponsored by our Be Your Best Self Bundle. The strength of your family begins with the strength of the foundation, and that's you. You are the foundation of your family, and you have to be strong to carry the load of responsibility. The best self bundle will lighten the burden with tools that help you do and be more with less stress and more confidence. Greg loves to teach that a rising tide lifts all boats.

When the tide comes in, it lifts all the boats in the harbor. You can be the tide in your family. Family life gets better when you get better. How you live your life is how you teach your children to live their life. Be someone worth modeling. Go to ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com to get access to the best self bundle.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Today we are going to talk about living an extraordinary family life. This one feels so important, so poignant, so real. I think perhaps it's a safe assumption to say that most people want to live a happy life.

Rachel Denning (02:25.325)
Unfortunately, I also think it's a safe assumption to say that most people ultimately don't end up living the happy fulfilled life. I would venture to say there are more disappointments than fulfillments. And there's this existential thing where we want to be happy, we want to be fulfilled, we want to live a meaningful life, we want to know that we actually really truly lived that what we did mattered.

and that we loved and were loved and that our life was full and fulfilling and meaningful and special and we want to feel good about it. Really that's the entire message today as we dive into this. Like how do you make this, well what is life for one? I know this is kind of an existential question here. What is life?

When we frame this up, I hope it'll be insightful where you're like, oh yeah, some things will click like they did for us. They kind of fit together and then you realize, okay, how do I take that, once I define what life is, how do I take that and make it really good? Well, because I think one of the things you're talking about when you're saying most people end up not living the fulfilling, meaningful life they wanted to is,

We're not just talking about end result, like in the end, oh, it's over, my life was fulfilling. It's ultimately the day to day, and I would say moment to moment.

emotions that you're feeling most of the time. Like that is the, that is where most people are failing when they say they want to live a happy life. And yet they spend most of their time feeling emotions that are not happy, not happy. And honestly, I don't, I personally don't necessarily like having happy as the standard.

Rachel Denning (04:32.013)
Because I think there are things that are even more important than happiness, you know, like fulfillment or a sense of accomplishment even, which may or may not equate with happiness. You know, happiness can be a part of that, but to even live a meaningful life, to feel fulfilled on a regular basis,

That's not happening for a lot of people. They're feeling instead frustrated or annoyed or irritated. And of course that's a part of life. Like it's not wrong to feel that. You know, I was feeling some of that today. But if overall you can feel that what you're doing is providing a sense of fulfillment and overall if you can practice having and generating more positive emotions and processing and releasing.

the negative emotions you do have, that essentially is what then sums up a meaningful, extraordinary life. Yes. You just made me think of two things I want to say right now so I don't forget them. In what you're saying in living the day to day and living life, I think fundamentally it's just kind of built into our, I think, our spiritual DNA and our

Physical DNA we just have the sense of needing to Do things that matter? I mean, it's though It's the whole thing from Viktor Frankl and men search for meaning like he says most of the angst and he kind of pointed this out too is like so many people perhaps most people Lack this meaning and so they they feel this sense of utter meaninglessness of their lives, right? Which is really leaning into what we're talking about. So we have to do things that matter and We have to do them. Well, I

Because somewhere written inside of us is this sense of a need to do things well. Because you might be, so okay, two things, like leaning into like, are we living a good, fulfilling life? And I love what you said. You know, we might use the word happy or joyful, but it can be gratitude. It can be a sense of accomplishment, a sense of usefulness. Right? So if you're living, yes, exactly. A purposeful life.

Rachel Denning (06:53.773)
So we're taking all those good emotions, good feelings around, and I think they're gonna be tied into these two things essentially. Am I doing things that actually matter, and am I doing them well? Because if I'm not doing things that matter, we're gonna talk more about all of this, then there's always gonna be this void. That what I'm doing, like, okay, so what if I do it well? It doesn't really matter. But then the other side is I'm doing things that matter, but man, I suck at this.

Right. And so there's still the void because you're like, I know I'm doing the right things, but man, I am not doing them well. So it just kind of... And that doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good at all. So even you're like, yeah, I'm doing the right things, but man, this is horrible because I'm horrible at it. So then you don't get the fulfilling feeling of doing the right thing. So it just clicked for me when you said that, like it's those two things. So we break down like, what is life and how do we get the good feelings?

Most of the time, I like how you said that, we should and can feel a whole spectrum of emotions. Even negative emotions. Yeah, negative emotions, they're gonna be part of life. And I think part of a full good life is gonna have all that. But I like to think that the majority of the time, it ought to be - At least 80 -20. Okay, let's go 80 -20. It ought to be positive. Yeah. We're gonna like ourselves. And positive doesn't just mean like giddy enthusiasm, it means - Right.

Contentment except in my case except in your case. I I thrive on the giddy enthusiasm It even said that last night I went to help with my daughter's volleyball team and she came out and she's like we were driving home It was quiet for minutes. No talking. She's like dad. I Love you. Thanks. Thanks for being a great dad. And I was like, where's this coming from? She said my teammates came up to me after practice and they were like Your dad's funny

He's like, what do you mean? He seemed so happy and so excited to be coaching us. Like most of our coaches yell at us, they're mad at us, they're just angry when I'm doing things. He looked like he was giddy to teach us how to play volleyball. And I was like, I was. I was like, okay, I can't believe this is the best. That's how I roll. But if we, the bulk of our life should be positive emotions.

Rachel Denning (09:16.845)
which ultimately, and again, not just ultimately, we're not measuring life by the end of life moment. You look at the end, like, okay, I look back and now I take my assessment. The assessment is going on all the time. Today's the first day of a month, a new month. And so I'm like, boom, okay, fresh start. How did I do last month? What am I gonna do this month? And it's this constant revaluation. So how about last month? Was it mostly positive emotions? Do you feel good about yourself? Do you feel good about your life? Do you feel good about...

what you're doing and how well you're doing it. Man, I get excited about this because it feels so meaningful. I want to comment more on what you're talking about with things that matter because I don't remember if it's in 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson or just in some of his podcasts because I've listened to 200 Hours or something. But he talks about that, that the universe is made of matter.

but there's actually more significance to that. It's not just made of matter like as in atoms, but it's also made of what matters because we are like designed, programmed, evolved to focus on things that matter. And so when something matters to us, it's really this clue in life of where we're supposed to be putting our attention and our focus and our time and our energy. It's really...

very fascinating idea that what matters, what matters matters. Right. Well, it's a beautiful play on words, at least in English, that, you know, the world is made of matter, but life is made of what matters. I really like that. So what is life? I know it may sound elementary, but if we pause to just reflect on it and kind of see it from a different angle, life is today.

Well, it's not even today. I mean, honestly, it's right now. It's this moment. This is it. And we get right now. We get the moment and we get the day. Ultimately then, and you've heard us say this before, we've been talking about this for years, that life ultimately is the sum total of your days.

Rachel Denning (11:37.229)
And so if you add up all your days, your day, sorry, and your day is the sum total of your moments. Right. So then what's the building? Okay. Going back to the building blocks of life, right? You have quarks and then atoms and all this stuff matter, right? And so it's, you have these moments that make up your day and then your day added together. That's that sum total. If you can kind of see it with your mind's eye, just, just lumping all of your days together, there's your life.

And if we see it like that, if we see life is this moment, this day.

And if you're, let's just pick frustrated. That's the, when we go out and we ask audiences, you know, what do you feel most of the time? That's one of the most frequent answers we get is I feel frustrated or bothered or kind of irritated. So if you spend today irritated and that becomes a pattern and you spend most of your days irritated, then ultimately aren't you living an irritated life?

Rachel Denning (12:42.189)
And I want the reality of that to sink in because we tell ourselves these stories about our life being like a highlight reel on Instagram or something like, oh, it was this and that and the other. But was that trip to Hawaii or it was that vacation we took or it was these special memorable moments and highlights and highlights. But in reality, those moments are.

a small percentage of your entire life. Right. So if you take your life in a pie chart, for example, it's all the days in there. How many of those, what sliver of that pie chart would be those spectacular highlight moments? It's actually going to be quite small. And for a lot of people we talk to, even their vacations are pretty frustrating because they may have traveled far to go on a trip, but they haven't gone anywhere.

from their problems or irritations or I mean if they fight as a family that doesn't change on family vacation right you still fight and so you're like oh yeah I'm in that time yeah we fought the whole time hey remember this yeah I was still upset about whatever my past or how work was going and I want this to kind of hit home if you hate let's say let's say those of you who are working and you work you know eight to ten some of you work lots and lots of hours.

But let's say, you know, if you work an eight hour day, that's roughly half of your waking hours at work. And if you hate what you do, then at least a good half of your life.

you hate your life. And so day in and day out, month in and month out, years, you're just like, oh, well that was hateful, right? If it's a 10 year or a 40 year career.

Rachel Denning (14:39.501)
lived I lived a life I hated. So we wanted to break this down today and into this really palpable concept of saying well what is life then it's it's how I wake up in the morning because I wake up every day you wake up every day how you wake up you're gonna do that oh this is cool you're gonna do that every single day of your existence you wake up.

Well, that's life right there, is how you wake up because you do it every single day. How do you wake up? And yes, you're in charge of that. Some of you still think you're a victim to how you wake up. Some of you still think your bed has a good side and a bad side. All right, side and a wrong side, right? There's no wrong side of the bed. It's how you wake up. Every morning you have a morning routine, things you do. Whether you're aware of that or not. Exactly. You do have one. Some are deliberate and some are just happening.

And maybe your morning routine sucks. You're rushing through it or you're just wake up grumpy. Whatever. And so that's contributing to a suck at your life. Yeah. Or at least maybe you get up and slam a couple coffees and then your day goes better. But every morning of your life sucks. Right. I'm just trying to play this out.

It's how you do, maybe you do an intentional morning routine, like the quality of the first hour of your day or your breakfast or how you engage. So how I greet Rachel every morning, how I greet our children every morning. And I've been very, very intentional about that since we adopted Kaya, who's our oldest, she's 19 now. Man, the first morning we had her, I was like, I am gonna smile and greet my children with excitement.

first thing they see every morning with me is going to be a big smile. And I think that that's been true. That has been true the whole time. I don't know they've ever missed that. Nope. Every time they've seen me, they wake up and maybe I'm not there immediately wake up, but the first time they see me every single day, they see me with a big smile. Like, it's a new day. And it was amazing. Even as babies, do you remember this? They would squint because I realized, I didn't realize they squinted. I would squint when I smile.

Rachel Denning (17:01.901)
And so then every time they saw me they squinted, I was like, why do our kids squint? It was a big open mouth smile. It's me, this huge open mouth smile squinting. I'm like, because that was the conditioning. Whenever they saw me from the first day we had Kaia, still till now. So that's life. Well, so what I'm thinking in my mind here is instead of these, what you're pointing out, instead of these big moments or these big memorable times of vacations or...

special activities, our life is, the majority of our life on that pie chart is, are those moments that are the no big deal moments. The waking up moments, the interactions with your spouse or kid moments, the getting breakfast moments. I mean, it's moments that are just ordinary. And yet they're in this context, they're a big deal.

They're a huge deal because they are making up, they're the building blocks of light. And this has been a key piece, a key ingredient for us in making our life extraordinary in that we have been very intentional about picking out all of those life moments and doing something to make them extraordinary, more than ordinary.

more loving, more enthusiastic, more exciting, more purposeful, more intentional. That is how you make a great life, is you take the small moments that are happening every single day, day after day, week after week, and you find a way to make them filled with purpose. Yes. Which I think it's important, maybe they're, I'm gonna guess that there are quite a few people listening who,

maybe have never been taught that, they've never been told that we get to choose how we do those moments, how we show them. Like we can take a moment, if you can see it with your mind, you can take a moment, somehow if you could grab it in your hands, you get to mold it and shape it. Like a Rubik's Cube? Yeah, you get a Rubik's Cube and you're like, hey, I can turn this to a different color, I can shift this. It doesn't have to be what you think it is. Whatever's handed to you. Yeah, somebody hands you something, a moment, they hand you a moment, you know, crap.

Rachel Denning (19:29.197)
There goes that moment. No, you like you get to do something with it You get to choose how you respond. So somebody cuts you off in traffic. You don't have to get angry Like they don't have power over you So whatever the moment is and my kids didn't always wake up happy, but I wasn't gonna be like I'm not I'm not the chameleon, right? I'm They're grumpy to see me. I guess I'll be grumpy. Now I can't smile at them and be happy today because they're not happy like no like I

I'm going to choose how I take this moment.

And so we get to choose with each of those building blocks of moments, like you were just saying, how we make those moments count. And so we can make the moments meaningful and we can actually take the mundane and make it magical. And the more moments we do that with, then in that pie chart of life, the more meaningful our life is because we've made more of the moments.

meaningful.

Man, I don't know if you guys can sense or feel this or you're thinking about right now. Just thinking about that, I don't know, it just resonates with me. I want it to be good. I want to feel.

Rachel Denning (20:53.037)
I don't want to have to wait. Well, okay, you know, wait till the weekend. This weekend we'll do something good. And so the week sucks, but the weekend's okay. Or until next month or, man, once we go on that trip, then life will be good. And I've done that before.

totally done that. You just go through the motions and you're kind of this walking zombie or in a walking coma until something fun can happen. That's the way to live because then the bulk of the time is blah with these few little highlights. I'm like no let's not let's not do that let's have the vast majority of it just

feel fantastic. With a few low lights. Right, exactly, yeah. And so instead of having a blah life with a few highlights, let's have an amazing life with a few low moments, which is, I mean, this is life. We're gonna have some low moments. So what can you do to make your moments...

like genuinely feel better, not that we're faking it, faking the emotion, but what are the things, I guess, here's my question, the framework I want you to see is like, just take your day, take a normal day, because that's gonna be the bulk of your days, which means it'll be the bulk of your life, take a normal day. What are the things that you just do day in and day out? Like how are you spending these hours of your life, because that's gonna be the building blocks of your life, what can you do to make those better?

So you have better feelings and better results. So how do you greet each other in the morning? When you leave for the day, what do you do? When you come back, how do you greet each other when you come back? How do you do meals? How do you do your morning routines? What are you eating? Yeah, what are you eating? Because that makes a difference. Exactly. And that affects how you feel. That affects your long -term health. And.

Rachel Denning (22:51.181)
So yeah, you have the food element. What are you doing with your body? How do you move? How do you carry yourself? All of us are like walking billboards. What do you do for your soul?

Right, now you're taking care of mind, body, and spirit. What are your interactions? Like how many, this is a fun one to think through. How many interactions do you have with your family day in and day out? Because for many of us, that's going to be a major part of that life pie chart, so to speak, is going to be interactions. Well, how are those interactions? Are they kind of gruff, or cold, or flat?

loving are they kind are they critical or cynical are they you know is transactional are they transformational you think of think of all the interactions you have do you do you hug do you use words of affection is it is it scolding a lot you know sometimes you you think well you know I want to be this loving and encouraging parent for example

But when I talk to youth, a lot of them are like, yeah, my parents, they're just almost always correcting me. And so many of them feel like...

Like how do you remember your parents? Oh, they just were constantly correcting me. It was endless correction. Every time we had an interaction, it was some kind of correction. One thing that would just kill me is if my kids just remembered their childhood with me or their memories with me was me giving dad lectures, right? Oh, that'd be lame, right? If that's how they remember that and that's how I spent their childhood was giving dad lectures, that's, ugh.

Rachel Denning (24:38.029)
so that the parenting section of my life would feel so off if that was the case. I want to bond, I want the relationship, I want memories and experiences. And again, back to this contrast, the big things are cool, the big activities are great as well, but the memories can also be made in small moments with the quiet conversations, with...

the listening, the acceptance, the sincere love. It doesn't have to be the big things in order to make it special. It's how you do the, it's doing the small things in a big way that makes it special. Right.

Now on that note, I do have to say, I do have to say, and you guys will know this about us, I love big things. Well, obviously. And I want my life to be filled with big things. But I'm not saying this is for everybody, it's unique for us because I'm just wired for this. I love big things, so I want my life to be filled with these big, extraordinary memories and adventures. And so I'd make that a part of my life. It doesn't have to be a part of everyone's life, but it is a part of mine. I want my whole life scattered with epic.

adventures like such memorable things. You know, some people have, you know, a life -changing experience here and there. I want to have several life -changing experiences per year. Right. And we've been intentional about that with our children. We wanted their childhood to look like that. Like there was just their whole childhood because they only get one. We want our kids to look back at their childhood and it is just peppered with life -altering epic experiences. And it has been. Yeah. Even when we were discussing the pie chart,

and talking about the big experiences, you know.

Rachel Denning (26:27.597)
The 80 -20 rule applies a lot, but I would think for most people when it comes to having big memorable experiences, it's probably maybe 10 % of their life. Or less. Or less. Now for us, I think for sure we're pushing the 20, maybe even 30%, but the point is even though we have been super intentional about having big meaningful experiences, the reality of life is still most of the experiences are the ordinary ones.

even if it's sitting in an airport or driving for hours in a vehicle while you're traversing the continent or even with all of our travels, still the majority of the time is spent in ordinary type experiences that we have to be intentional about making.

meaningful or purposeful. Because otherwise we would still suffer from the same problem. Even with all the big things we do, if we didn't focus on making the smaller things count or smaller things matter, our life would still be...

Frustrating, or irritating, or annoying, even with all of that. And in fact, I think that we have seen that a lot in the traveling family community of families who do go out expecting the big things to make up for all the daily small interactions that are negative. And it just doesn't work that way. But if you take the negativity with you, it follows you like a disease. And so they end up having an overall bad experience because the big meaningful...

things aren't enough to make up for the ongoing negative interactions. Yeah, great insight. I like that metaphor of the road trip because even around this road trip you're going to visit just the coolest places. Any of you make regular stops at cool places in between it's just hours of sitting in a car together. Right. I mean we we drove from

Rachel Denning (28:28.077)
Georgia all the way through Mexico to Guatemala and we had many amazing incredible Instagram worthy highlight reel experiences but still the bulk of the time at least maybe 80 % of it was driving, traveling. Sitting in that seat for hours watching the world pass by. Exactly.

So then, I guess circling back to the question, I hope you're thinking about this already. In fact, I would love to invite you to write about it, get out, discuss it with your family and journal about it, write about it. If you take your day to day, you take the things you're doing, so it's meal prep, it's cleanup, it's running a household, it's doing work, take those things that you do most of the time, make up the bulk of your life. How can you make them more...

What, special? Fulfilling, meaningful, pleasant, good? If nothing else, just more deliberate. Deliberate? Just so that it feels good. Well, and I'm using deliberate because sometimes there are things that just have to be done and maybe they're not special or maybe they're not. Right. Like they don't feel good because maybe it's doing the dishes and it hurts your back or something. But you can still be deliberate about it.

you can still find gratitude there. There's a way to find some sort of meaning in what you're doing, I guess. Even if it's painful. Let's offer some ideas of the kind of... What we do? How do we refer to that stuff? Strategies?

the word the grind kind of stuff like okay cleaning up doing chores running errands the things I mean outsource as much as you can if you can when you can but even if you have to do it like I hate doing the dishes I don't do the dishes but if I had to do the dishes you have done the dishes I have now we have an older and they help out they do their part and I do my part and we each have our part but let's say it's something like vacuuming I hate vacuuming too you guys are gonna learn about all the things I hate doing so I don't I don't

Rachel Denning (30:40.783)
that but I'm trying to pick these things I like vacuuming but if it was something that needed to be done I'm like hey there's just there's no way around this it's a good way I got to do it I can I can choose to do it grudgingly fresh I could be frustrated I could be black and sit there and I hate this remember or I I can be like okay what what can I do to make this more valuable or or to find I like the

phrase finding the meaning in it because ultimately I know this is something I've done when I look for the reason why I'm doing it there's meaning there because the reality is you could just choose to not vacuum and nobody vacuums and it never gets vacuumed like that is an option and some people do that that's a disgusting but it's an option and so the reality is you have to find the deeper meaning like why why vacuum?

You're better than I am, babe. This is awesome. No, I love, and you're right. I'm like, okay, we vacuum because we don't want a dirty house, but I still hate vacuuming. So I'm actually going to do something different. I'm going to be like, okay, I don't like vacuum. I see why I need a vacuum. I'm going to vacuum. I don't like to, but instead of just sitting there, I'm doing it because it has to be done. For me, for example, my first thought was like, oh, I'm going to listen to a really awesome podcast or I'm going to listen to audio book. And so yeah, I'm going around and I'm moving this machinery, whatever. I'm going to be into some really cool book. And the more I,

the chore the better book I'm gonna listen to. Right. If I have to do something I'm like okay there's just no way around this like sometimes we make these long drives right and we kind of like yeah so our road trips were like okay you know what let's just knock out 12 hours today it's gonna be a beast. I will purposely search out and purchase the best audiobooks ones that take me into another realm like you just can't stop listening to this thing and I remember on that

road trip we're talking about, or maybe it was the other one, we drove from here to Oklahoma. It was a 12 or 13 hour drive and I listened to the entire book of Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Wow. You guys, I don't even remember the drive because the book was so riveting. And so I took something like sitting in the same seat for 13 hours and I went through a whole book. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (33:05.613)
And it was so special. And it totally transformed the drudgery of the experience. Right.

So essentially we have a couple different strategies here so far. One is try to find meaning in whatever you're doing, if it has to be done. That right there can transform it from being frustrating to being philosophical. Yeah, philosophical or feeling gratitude about it. The other thing is to find something else to do with it that makes it more enjoyable.

And then something else, which I think is still a legitimate option, is to eliminate it from your life. You don't vacuum because you don't like it. And I like it, or I'll have the kids do it who may or may not like it that much, but it's one of their jobs and they do it.

I'd literally rather dig a ditch. So if there's a ditch that needs to be done... I save the ditch digging for you. I will do the vacuuming happily. Let's make a deal, babe. You vacuum. I'll go dig that hole. I'm okay with that. And so, yeah, find things like that. Move your life a little bit. You have more power to structure your life than most people think they do.

And it's about being strategic about it. Like, how can we shift this off? How can we move things around here? And I think you bring up such an important point. Really question everything you're doing and honestly ask, does this need to be done? Yeah. Well, and it's amazing how, because we have been so intentional about this for so long, at least 15 years,

Rachel Denning (34:42.157)
At this point, our life is filled mostly only with the things we want to do. There are very few things in our life now that we have to do that...

we don't like doing. And now let's make sense. Let's be misunderstood here. That doesn't mean we're just like entertaining ourselves to death. Right. I just feel like entertainment. I don't feel like working. I just feel like having fun here. And I think that's one of the points I really want to emphasize. Many of you have brought in. I'm going to be a bit bold here.

you've brought things into your life that are not fulfilling and I'll be bold enough to say will never be fulfilling. If you find yourself doing really trivial meaningless things, there's even not much if anything you can do to try to make something that's completely meaningless more meaningful. Even if at times it's very entertaining.

entertainment does not necessarily equal meaning and fulfillment. Now, sometimes it can. That's like me eating Twinkies and cotton candy all the time. And calling it nutritious. And be like, I'm just going to think nutritious thoughts. I'm going to ask God to bless it so it's good for my body. Yeah, I'm going all in here. Sorry. No, it's just not going to happen.

And in a very real way, if there are meaningless things in your life, there's nothing you can do to make them meaningful. They need to be eliminated or really drastically controlled so they're just a tiny fraction of your day, which is your life. Yeah. So back to...

Rachel Denning (36:24.237)
us not doing things that we don't want to do, what that means is we're not going to a job we hate, we're doing work that we choose to do and that we enjoy doing despite that that also means there are challenging parts that have to be done but it's the work we've chosen to do and we find meaning in it. We're not associating with people that are toxic or draining. We're not committed to activities or try

events that we don't find fulfillment in. There's no amount of social pressure that will get me and Rachel to say yes to something we find completely... Yeah, to some committee or some meeting. Sorry, thanks. We have no problem turning down meetings.

We really have cultivated an anti -meeting life philosophy. And our life is so much better because of it. So true. So look through every part of your life and do this. Really honestly evaluate it. You're not being a selfish little clod and you're not... I mean, you're trying to be your absolute best self. This is built on a best self philosophy. So as your best self, like what's not adding value to your life?

What's shallow and superficial? What's, I love the words frivolous and frothy. It's just like foam. It's the foam on top. There's no real substance there. That I would say was a very first step in living an extraordinary family life. Start eliminating the froth.

and frivolous, the shallow, the superficial, the things that are meaningless that they might be fun. They might be entertaining. They might be, you know, you play this little game or whatever, do your little thing, but is that adding value to your life? Do you feel good doing that or afterwards? You feel like a good person or, or feel a sense of meaning or fulfillment from doing it. Right. And, and, and just have the honesty and the courage to be like, no, that's, it's not adding to my life. So it's out.

Rachel Denning (38:29.453)
So you start cleaning those out and what's really cool is you start finding you have, man, like all these extra, I have more moments, I have more time. And guess what? Time is life. Moments are life. So now you might feel like you have a little bit of a vacuum or a void. You're like, oh, I got, geez, I have an extra 90 minutes every day. What do I do? Well, strategically bring in things that add more value.

the things that for you are filling and fulfilling, but also that across the board with like science, like it's just been proven time and time again through research and science that we feel good about with novelty and growth and contribution and learning like those challenge and challenge. Yes. Thank you. So there's, there are these few things that like we just mentioned, everyone should have those in life because it has been proven time and time again, like unquestionably that those things.

are meaningful and fulfilling for people. Those things matter. Those things matter, yeah. And if you want your life to matter, then you fill those with that kind of matter. So when you have time, like, okay, I need challenge. I need something that's challenging for me. I need novelty.

I need novelty. And that could be anything, trying all kinds of new things. So the cool thing is when you start stacking this, you take something that's new to you, so it's novelty, it's learning and growth, and you combine it, and it's challenging. And maybe if you're lucky, it's actually even contributing. And if you can do something that gets three or four or five of those things in alignment. Like learning an instrument? Or learning a language.

So in our home you will hear the Duolingo chimes all day, every day. Not all day, but throughout the day. I'm approaching, I'm almost 700 consecutive days. Where you at? I'm at about 580. So approaching 600.

Rachel Denning (40:36.461)
And our kids are trickling down from there. Kimball's well over 400, he's close to 500, maybe six. So trickling down, right? They're in it. We kind of set this precedence and we're all learning a language. And then there's music being played all day long, from piano to guitar to ukulele and singing. We're creating this space where those things that...

make for good feelings and a good life. Those things that matter. Yeah, are built into the life and the daily routine. So when you stop and take any kind of cross -section, so to speak, of a week or a month of your life, you're like, okay, let's take this, okay, take the last month. Okay, what's that? Well, man, language learning, gymnastics, and volleyball, and...

I'm for our kids and stunts and new opportunities and new friendships. Horseback riding. Horseback riding. I've finished five books so far this year in the first month. Wow. Right. So I'm like, you take it like, oh, five books. Wow. Every every book is like a meal. It makes me who I am. Right. And I've been writing my book.

almost every day and so I have thousands and thousands of words now into my book. That's feeling, it's good, right? It matters. It matters. I keep using this word because it's good. Because it's good. Because it matters. So I'm sure you guys are getting this, catching this and I wish we were together so we could converse and maybe even you send us messages or text us somehow or connect with us on social media if you haven't or however you can message us. But...

Take stock of your life and really evaluate and dig in. What are the things and jot these down and try to incorporate them. And when you kind of slip back to your default, well, reevaluate and let me get back to these things, set new routines and rituals and habits and patterns to make your life matter to you.

Rachel Denning (42:45.709)
to make it count to you. Now, it's gonna look a little different for everybody, right? You don't have to, like your life counting isn't by following our life pattern, but it does have some common denominators and it does have to be something that, yeah, we're running out of the amount of vocabulary words we can use here. But it's gonna matter. It's gonna be meaningful and fulfilling. Well, and like you were saying, it's going to look different for,

different people because what matters to different people is different. And that's on purpose.

I believe it's beautiful and I think the beautiful thing exactly and where we get into trouble. Thank you for being that where we get into trouble is we often we follow societal shoulds and conditioning and you may just love art that people told you all along there. You can't make money in art. Yeah, art's not a that's not a career. And so you dropped art but all along you're like, I just would love to draw start drawing man. Yeah, or woman if it if art matters to you, then that's what matters.

You need to follow and listen to that in order to live a life that matters. Yeah, get clear about those kind of deep -seated desires. The things you've always dreamt about or thought you might do. Yeah, you have this attraction to certain things. Go for it! Which, tying this back to once you can be more intentional and start eliminating the frothy, frustrating things, you free up space to make...

room for the things that matter to you. Yes. And that's ultimately how you create an extraordinary life that's fulfilling. Yes. So on a day to day, I'm doing things daily that fill me. And I was just thinking about this. I'm doing things that are contributing to bigger things.

Rachel Denning (44:49.325)
An easy example of this is you guys know how much we love to travel. And so I'm going on a trip to Central America with my daughter. And then shortly after that, going to Europe with my sweetheart here. And then after that, have a epic adventure man camp with my guys from the master class and tribe. Then we have a speaking engagement and then a big family adventure. We got all kinds of cool stuff, right? So mentally I'm already like, I'm projecting out and I find a lot of fulfillment thinking about like an expectation, right?

So I get all the dopamine hits and excitement of thinking about the trip and working on the trip and preparing for the trip and doing work to prepare so while I'm gone it's moving forward. Like Rachel and I were just having a discussion about that. So my days are filled with these good things. And so I'm going along enjoying the process. Exactly. So enjoying what's happening today just in and of itself for the sake of the day but also

for the sake of how it's contributing to my growth, my contribution to the world, the work I do, helping other people, earning more money, setting big goals, working on my life list, on and on and on. And so, in all sincerity, I wake up and I love my life. And I go to bed filled with gratitude. Bam, exactly.

And so, and it's not just the bookends, it's not like I wake up excited and then I go to bed grateful and the rest of the day sucks. It's because the whole thing. I wake up excited, I spend the whole day just doing things that matter to me, and then go to bed going, yeah, that was awesome. I can do that again tomorrow. And that, and I know hearing that some of you might be like, oh, you guys are so lucky. You don't have to deal with my problems.

We have definitely had our fair share of problems, most of which were self -inflicted. It's easier afterwards to realize, yeah, that was my fault. And I think a majority of problems are self -inflicted, even though it's hard to take ownership of that. And you say, no, that just happened to me. You're like, well, let's kind of look at how that...

Rachel Denning (47:07.469)
came about and you realize, okay, it was me and I could have done so much. You know, we had these financial problems. We got smacked by the financial downturn in 07 and 08. But looking back now, we're like, yeah, we definitely contributed to the pain we felt individually.

because of the national or international downturn, we wouldn't have had to experience it so much if we knew any better, but we didn't. Good lessons learned, the hard way right there. But are you with me? It's not for lack of problems, and it's not that we've just had this lucky, fortunate life handed to us, that everything's been so easy and good, and that we don't have challenges now. I often find that even when the challenges do come along, I find a lot of

meaning fulfillment in them. Yeah and gratitude sounds weird enough. Gratitude because I guess I've trained myself to think of all the other problems that exist out there and all the other problems people have and grateful that whatever has come my way is what it is and not something different. Not something else. Yeah. Something worse. Okay there's...

You just made a super important point, I think. So a problem comes, kind of lands on your lap, so to speak. How you experience that and deal with it in that moment, ultimately is still up to you. Yeah, and still can add meaning to your life. Yes, and it doesn't necessarily have to be negative or bad. Right. So a challenge lands on your lap.

And again, here you have the choice. It's the same choice you have with every moment. How am I going to respond? Is it possible for me to still be pleasant, even jovial, while approaching a challenge? And the answer is, of course! And...

Rachel Denning (49:06.925)
I'm going to add maybe not jovial because some challenges you shouldn't be jovial about if it's something serious or death related to death or something like that but you can still find purpose and you can still have a sense of security or confidence or strength that again brings meaning to it. Yes, you're right.

rather than just a sense of despair or... You're absolutely right. Certain trials and challenges can be really dark and painful and the circus... Being jovial isn't the correct response. It's not the correct response to it. And you can feel pain and sorrow and mourning.

Rachel Denning (50:03.149)
but you don't have to be miserable or stay miserable necessarily. Yeah, I think staying miserable is optional. Yeah. So you can feel what needs to be felt.

I guess my invitation here is just, and I'm sharing this because I used to be there. I used to think if something quote bad happens, then I have to feel bad. For a long time. Or if I don't feel physically well, then there's no way I can be emotionally well. And I realized that's not true. I can separate those two things. I can be in physical pain and emotionally pleasant. Right? I can be struggling with something financially, but still be...

mentally here, present. Okay. Anyways, I hope you guys are catching all this. Your life has made up your moments and you can make your moments magical and meaningful. And hopefully there's some strategies to make that work, but just kind of go through and be like, and choose. You get to decide, decide what you want to feel, decide what you want your life to be like, and then be that, regardless of what comes along. So if you decide to be a joyful,

enthusiastic person or calm person, whatever it is you want to be. Like, and just write it out. You guys, we get to author our life. So I have chosen, I want to be an enthusiastic, energetic, inspiring person. That's the kind of life I want to live. So then I choose that. I decide to do that. And whatever comes along, that's my response. I've created my framework for response.

like, oh, here's a challenge. There's a chance to practice enthusiasm, joy, and what was the other one? I don't remember. But you, you, yeah, I love how you said that. Here's a chance to practice it. Right. Instead of, oh man, I was going to live that kind of life, but now I have to toss it out and I get to be miserable and live a sad life. Right. It's, that's just not the case. So,

Rachel Denning (52:11.149)
There it is, there's a simple framework.

day -to -day, moment -to -moment way to live an extraordinary family life.

Rachel Denning (52:29.549)
So, dear listener, do that. All of it. Just hit it. Starting right now. Ready, set, go. Now do it. And if you have questions about it, shoot us a question. We'd love to hear from you. So again, connect with us on social.

You can ask questions there as well. You can email us. Craig .denning on Instagram. WorldSchoolFamily on Instagram. And then we have YouTube channels, so you can go and you can ask comments there or questions. You can go to our websites, extraordinaryfamilylife .com and gregdenning .com. You can join our family coaching, extraordinary family life coaching program, or you can join the Be The Man Masterclass and Tribe and come on those epic man camp trips with us.

me. Right there we have we've created all these resources to help you live those extraordinary lives and and if if you've heard something you're like this you can go leave a rating go leave a rating on the podcast take a picture of it share with people pass this around like get be a part of this for us this is a mission you know why it's so important to me it's because I lived on the other side and you did too.

You guys, before we met each other, we had both experienced some pretty miserable moments of existence. In our teens, we both experienced some pretty rotten, do I dare say years? Right? Whereas we're like, oh! And we've been on the other side, and then as we learned to move through this and get on the other side, you're like, whoa, wait a minute.

This is amazing, we have to share it. So that's why we're passionate about this. Well, and not just our teens, but we had some difficult times when we were newly...

Rachel Denning (54:22.829)
I mean, it's not that it's just been uphill since our teens, but there have been challenges along the way where we felt like victims to life and we felt that things were out of control and we couldn't do anything to make it different or better. And we have come a long way and do live an extraordinary life now, but it's not because we're lucky or it just happened by accident. It's been created intentionally. Yes. So now when the challenges came back then we'd be like, oh, this is going to be a lot of work.

This sucks and we like slump into this dark pit. And I remember feeling hopeless and I know you did too. There was this hopelessness. But now challenges come along and it still hits, it still hurts. Yeah, it's still challenging. That's the definition. Some of them will scratch you upside the head. That's the definition of a challenge is that it is challenging. It's not easy. Now we have easy challenges. No, there's no such thing, right? That's an oxymoron like...

But we figured out how to roll with it in a good way. Life is so good. And so having experienced both sides and having traveled so extensively and seeing and working with people, we get to work with people every day. It's so awesome. And seeing all these facets and ways of life, like this is our mission, man.

to say that it's possible. If we can do it, anyone can do it. So join us, join us in this mission of sharing this message and let's all live a genuinely extraordinary family life. Okay, love you guys. Reach out for me.

Rachel Denning (56:14.669)
you

Rachel Denning (56:26.765)
Hey, if you're still there, thank you so much for listening. There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to ours, so thank you for that. If you found value in it, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. If you're ready to take the next step in leveling up your family life, go to ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com where you can find our courses and our coaching in parenting, marriage, and education. And don't forget that Greg has his

Be the man masterclass at gregdenning .com.