#179 Travel More? Or Prepare for the Worst? Finding the Middle-Ground Between Risk-Taking and Being Safe & Prepared

Rachel Denning (00:11.47)
To this episode you may have seen or heard that we are planning to move to Portugal and we're hoping to do some traveling while making the transition. We received some questions about this one of them said we would love to travel more even long -term but I'm getting more hesitant because of predictions about downturns in the economy and warfare etc. I see a lot of people encouraging self -reliance and preparation at this point in time i .e. growing and storing your own food. This seems like it would be hard to do while traveling. I want to protect and provide for my family but I also see the

benefits of traveling as a family. What is your take on these predictions and what does your family do to prepare for potential crises? Should these things be taken into consideration when deciding where to travel and when? Things have changed so much in the world in just a couple of years. We also had some Instagram followers and other podcast listeners asking how do you decide where to travel or where to live and how do you go about getting a visa to do that? And didn't you want to live in a chateau in France? What happened to that plan?

In this episode, we're gonna discuss travel, living abroad, making decisions about where and how to live, being safe and preparing for worst case scenarios, and why following your heart is a key piece to this whole puzzle. Life is risk. If you're going to be alive, there is risk in living. You might as well make the most of the risky life you already have. You have to get boots on the ground and touch, feel, and experience your life. Truly live while you are alive.

But we're not just promoting unsafe or stupid behavior. So where is the balance found? How do you find the middle ground between risk taking and being safe and prepared? That's what we discuss in this episode and you don't want to miss it. This episode is sponsored by our trips and adventures. Travel with us to cool destinations like Jordan, Norway, Egypt, or Greece. Past trips include riding dromedaries in the Sahara Desert, hiking to Machu Picchu, or sailing around the Galapagos.

We lead trips and retreats for teens, couples, families, and men. Visit ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com and click the link at the top for adventures to get notified about upcoming trips, retreats, and adventures.

Rachel Denning (02:32.59)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I almost said Be The Man podcast, because that's my other podcast. I was like, yeah, this is not it. Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. And today we are talking about, we got a bunch of questions and Rachel did some cool reels about our plans to move to Portugal and travel.

And because you guys are aware that this is a crazy time in the world. So people are like, hold up, wait a minute. Is it safe to travel? Like, is it wise to travel? And what about moving? How could you just possibly pick some place in the world to move? And what's that all like? So we want to dive in and hit all of it. Talk about the whole thing. Talk about travel and living and why you live where you live and if you could live anywhere.

Where would you go and why? And should you? And how to decide, like how to make the decisions like they were asking. How do you pick Portugal as a place? Plus they were curious because people have heard us talk before about France and that we want to have a chateau in France one day. They're wondering if that's still the plan and we're going to talk about that. And a few logistics for those of you who are like, wait a minute, how do you actually pull this off? And so we'll share some logistical things that I think will be helpful.

for everybody. And I'll just throw this out. If maybe you start listening and you're like, oh, I don't know. I want to challenge and encourage you to consider extensive travel. And some of you might be like, travel isn't for everyone. Yeah, I'm not talking about everyone. I'm talking to you. Travel. Everyone is not listening to this podcast. Exactly. Travel is so significant. There are things that you learn and experience.

and some growth that can only be had that way. There's no other way to get these specific elements of growth and understanding. You, I'm going to be bold and say you must travel. If you're going to be your very best self, you've got to get out and be exposed to other parts of the world. And you're like, yeah, I can see it on YouTube or I watched, you know, this, these documentaries on Netflix and sorry, dude, not.

Rachel Denning (04:48.558)
the same. And you're thinking, well, I listen to your podcast, still not the same. Like you have to go get boots on the ground, touch, smell, feel, experience those things. And I'm going to throw this out here too. Like here's some craziness because some of you are total homebodies. I know it. And you're like, I'm never leaving. I'm a homebody. Oh yeah, we'll come back to that. But you think you have found your little garden and little spot in the world and you're never going anywhere. I want to...

invite you, even challenge you. I know some of you are like, that's a threatening word, Greg. I want to invite you or even challenge you to go live somewhere else for a time. Just do it. Go live in another country for a time. And that might be just - Or even another state. Okay. But start there. Move from Kansas to Nebraska. Crazy. No, but even if it is just a state, you know how -

Vastly different the west coast is from the east coast and the north and the south I mean you you get out of Louisiana and then up in Maine. Whoa, baby It's a different world and if you live in an area that's predominantly One race or one religion or it's pretty monoculture one language if they all just speak Okay, if you live in a place where nobody speaks other languages like You got to move

Rachel Denning (06:44.618)
And I think you should travel extensively and or even go live somewhere for a while or multiple times. Go experience life. Right. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking of a conversation we've had before where, and I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about this, like some people say, oh, well having kids isn't for everyone. And you're like, okay, fine.

But there are things you cannot learn unless you are actually a parent. You just can't. There are just lessons and parts of you that will never be developed unless you are actually a parent. It's just not possible. You just cannot have the same experience of caring for a helpless person who demands your time and energy and money. Like you just don't have that unless you have kids.

And there are things you learn by going through that process that you cannot learn in any other way. And I think this is true as well. It's like, yeah, you can still grow. You can still develop. You can still become an amazing person because there's plenty of amazing people out there that haven't traveled. But there's a part of you that cannot be developed in this certain way unless you do actually go travel. Like it's just, and that's true with anything really, like unless you go do the thing.

you'll never actually develop that part of your potentiality. Yeah, I like that. Developing a certain aspect or part or piece of your potentiality. I like that. I think that's fully accurate. And Rachel and I, we didn't grow up in traveling families. We grew up in a tiny little bubble of a world. I never even had a passport until we had four children. Whoa. Well, I guess I was pregnant with her.

with our fourth, excuse me. Wow, I'm getting choked up about this. So yeah, and there's that example. So you guys, we started traveling as a family after our fourth child was born. So we didn't grow up like this. And in a very real way, we grew up in a very kind of tight little - Monoculture. Corner of the earth, a teeny little corner of the world. And so it was, when we got into our later teens and then twenties,

Rachel Denning (09:10.442)
where we started getting out and it was explosive to the reality that we had. It was awesome. And there's still so much more. There's still so much more to see. You could travel your whole life and not see all that there is to see. It's amazing. Okay, so we want to ask this great question. So part of the question that we received was, because I send out an email to my newsletter every week and in this email I included,

at the bottom that I was considering planning a trip to Norway around Christmas time. Because as a family, that's something we've talked about. And so someone responded saying, hey, we're potentially interested, but I have this question, like, we would, oh, I'll just read parts of it. We would love to travel more, even long -term, but I'm getting more hesitant because of predictions about downturns in the economy.

Rachel Denning (10:12.458)
warfare, etc. Sorry, I got distracted for a second because I had to turn off my notification. I see a lot of people encouraging self -reliance and preparation at this point in time, i .e. growing and storing your own food. Some of those people have been me. I've been encouraging self -reliance. Yes, exactly. So in this instance, I've been a contradiction. We'll get into that. Yes.

This seems like it would be hard to do while traveling. Yes, it is hard to... We jokingly talked about having a garden on top of our truck while we were overlanding. Right. How about we grow some vegetables while we drive? Yes. I want to protect and provide for my family, but I also see the amazing benefits of traveling as a family. What is your take on these predictions and what does your family do to prepare for potential crises? Should these things be taken into consideration when considering where to travel and when?

Things have changed so much in the world in just a couple of years. I got one really great question. Nunchuck skills. So helpful. So I mean, and like you were saying already, yes, we have been also the ones talking about preparing. We've done a podcast about the fourth turning. We've talked about the book I'm writing is all about preparing. Yes, like we we are aware of.

what's happening in the world, we're aware of how it fits into a larger picture of history and cycles in history. We're aware there's potential for an economic downturn and that there's a potential for, who knows, World War III, we don't know. Like there's a lot of potential for a lot of things. We are aware of all that and we've been talking about it. And so it...

We actually talk about it frequently. Oh, we do talk about it. The two of us and our family, we talk about it often. Absolutely. And so it can seem contradictory to then be like, oh, we're planning trips. Let's go travel. And in fact, there was a time, I think when we came home from, we did a seven month road trip last year in 2021. Um, and we came back from that and we kind of were like,

Rachel Denning (12:28.586)
Okay, we're hunkering down. We're not planning any trips, which we didn't do any other trips or anything for the rest of that year. And at the time we're like, we get a backpacking trip. Well, that was just kind of friends. But at the time I was like, I can't foresee planning a trip in the near future. Right. Part of the reason being though, was everything that was going on with COVID.

And flight cancellations in countries that aren't open and things like that. And we planned multiple trips that didn't work out because of that. Yeah, we planned trips for our own family. In fact, two trips got canceled, one to Columbia and one to Costa Rica within our own family. And so we were like, how are we supposed to plan a trip for a group when they're getting canceled? Now, I do feel, at least as one piece of this whole puzzle that we're talking about here, that part is changing. Absolutely.

There are more countries opening up. Many now that have no COVID restrictions or requirements at all. You don't need a test, you don't need a vaccine. So we're seeing more of that because I've got this, it's called joinSherpa .com and they have a travel map where you can see what countries are open. So I've been keeping my eye on that. So that's one thing. You guys should see us look at the map. When a country goes green, we're like, yeah, baby. We get so excited.

So that's one part of it, is that that is changing. Now... Oh, I wanna back up and say, we went on this seven month road trip across three countries where many people were like, don't travel, how are you traveling? You can't travel, don't do that. You should still be quarantining. Buckle down, it's crazy times, it's dangerous. And we went out and had, we had the time of our lives. Oh, it was an incredible experience. It was amazing. And during that, I think we led three...

or four different trips where people flew in and had these experiences. And so I think that's a perfect example of one of the messages I want to share today of when everyone's naysaying and this, I can't be done, whatever, there are risks of, yes, life is risk. If you're going to live, life is risk. And I see that cartoon, The Croods, right? The dad was wanting to be so safe. He's like, we're not going out. We're not changing caves. We're not doing anything because I've got to protect you.

Rachel Denning (14:51.69)
Right, it was fear, fear of being, and there was real risks. He's not wrong. But then his daughter's like, hey, that's dad, that's not really living, it's just not dying. And so if you're going to live, there will be risks. And I think that trip last year is a metaphor for this, because we went anyways, with all the kinds of obstacles and potential obstacles, and it was incredible and so special, countless. Like,

life altering experiences, the things we saw and the people we met and places we got to go where there was nobody else around. Right. We go into these harbors in the Galapagos and we were the only yacht there. Yeah, that was pretty cool. And they were like, man, 250 ,000 people came here last year. Right. And now we're like, it's just us. And we had tons and tons of baby seals because there's been no trouble. Exactly. Oh, man. So.

And we went to this waterfall in Mexico that I didn't even know existed. And we were the only ones there. And we walked out by ourselves and watched the sunset. Oh, it was just priceless experiences that we did in the midst of people saying, don't go, it's too risky. It's crazy. People were afraid to travel. Right. And I still think it's so hilarious that ironically, we'd already had COVID. I was pretty dang sure because...

in February of 2020, we'd gone to Thailand, came home and we all got sick. Excuse me. Must be COVID. Seriously, wow. And then we did the seven month road trip and we came back and got COVID again. Like we didn't get it while we were traveling. It was only when we got back to Georgia that we got COVID twice. So anyways, so yeah, that's, I think that is a good example of...

kind of what we wanna talk about here. This whole balance between.

Rachel Denning (16:48.458)
being safe, because we're not promoting stupidity, right? But also taking risks, because we are promoting risk taking. You have to take risks if you're going to live life. It's just something you have to do.

It's a required element of building a business, raising a family. You think you can just have kids and raise a family without risk? Like, dream on. It is a prerequisite. It's a required element for really living. So now, I like what you said earlier. We're in no way, shape, or form promoting foolishness. Right. Or.

just toss everything, throw it to the wind, like we don't care. It's not that, it's not this indifference, it's not nihilism. We're not like, hey, we're gonna go to Ukraine. That's where we're traveling right now. We're just going because we believe in taking risks. So let's take our family to Ukraine. Nor are we going out unprepared. It's just that preparedness looks different in certain cases. So essentially it's...

we promote calculated risk taking because you need to take risks, but you do need to calculate how risky your risks are because at some point they become stupid. Where if you do your research and your homework and figure out potential worst case scenarios and if you could survive those, that's a calculated risk. And you train and you prepare and you have backups. Like if you're ready, so you're increasing your readiness.

Right? And somebody said resources are important, but resourcefulness is priceless. Exactly. And so one of the things we do as a family is really dial in our familial resourcefulness. Exactly. Down to training our kids in their mindset and their skill sets and all the activities. Like we travel as a little tribe of trained, ready people. Yeah. And so if we get...

Rachel Denning (19:02.922)
really specific on this with what's going on right now in the world and going on with our own decision making. We'll talk a minute, in a minute we'll talk about moving to Portugal and how we decided to do that and why we picked Portugal. But part of this whole moving to Portugal, we decided that, oh, we're going to be moving, we're going to be temporarily homeless again because we're going to give up our house here and we won't have found a house in Portugal yet.

let's travel for a little bit, which is what led to this potential trip to Norway that we're thinking about, among other things. We're thinking of some other places too, but that's one place. And we have... Actually, should we pause there for a second? This is what we do as a family. We sit around like, hey, what countries are open? What would be cool to do? How about Jordan? Jordan's open. Let's go. Yeah, let's all go to Jordan. And like, let's do it. So we plan all these cool things like, okay, now where else?

Well, let's go to Egypt. Egypt's there and it just requires a negative test. Okay, boom, Egypt. We can go this, this, this. We start preparing things. And then Rachel, we're sitting around in our family devotionals in the morning at breakfast. And she's like, where do you want to do Christmas? We're going to Norway. Boo -yah! We're like, yeah, we can do this and this and this. And we walk through opportunities or possibilities. That's how we do this as a family. And so we kind of dialogue the whole thing. Everyone kind of chimes in, this would be cool, this would be cool. And we see what's logistically possible. What most people would be excited about or at least okay with.

and then we start planning in a tentative itinerary. We allow ourselves to dream and we allow the kids to dream. And so we talk about possibilities and get excited about that. And then we narrow down in what we can actually do. So, but along this line, you and I, especially, and we've included some of the older kids in this conversation is we've been talking through, well, wow, is it really smart? Should we go traveling right now? Is that a good idea?

It is the fourth turning, you know, we're in the midst of a fourth training. If you're not familiar with what we're talking about, you gotta listen to that podcast we did about it. Or read the book. It's excellent. Read the book. And so, well, just all these scenarios, like, is there going to be a downturn in the stock market? I want to throw down right here and say, I'm going to go crazy. And again, I'm not a financial advisor and this is not legal advice and yada yada. I, for one, wholeheartedly,

Rachel Denning (21:26.89)
foresee, at least in my own observation, that there is a big downturn coming in the stock market and I think it's already kind of rolled over. I may be wrong, but I think it's going to happen in the next 12 to 18 months. I think there's going to be recession type decline in the overall markets. It's going to happen. I think inflation is inevitable.

It's already happening. It's already happening. I think it's more so with at least the US dollar, if not other things. There are other nations who have already dropped into big recessions and big inflation. I had some coaching clients and had conversations with people in other nations. It's already happening on a pretty big scale. There's fuel prices. Fuel prices are crazy. There's a war going on, obviously, in the Ukraine, but there's other conflict around the world. And

and there's growing conflict and polarization in our own nation. And that's, again, those are symptoms of bigger social patterns. We could get into a big long history lesson, but that's what's going on. And so, yeah, there's a risk of that. So there's, and I'm right there, we are not.

traveling ignorantly. We're not like, oh, everything is awesome. Everything will be fine. Let's go. We're saying, no, all of this stuff is a very real possibility, if not a probability in some instances. And so then we're faced with a question, well, do we still live anyways? Right. And I think this is a good time to define what we mean by living.

And that's kind of hard to do, but I want to expound on this idea that to us, living means following your heart. And pursuing a dream. And pursuing a dream. Because I truly believe that that is the way to fulfilling your potential and to creating a truly extraordinary life. Now, some people don't know how to do this. They really have no idea how to do this.

Rachel Denning (23:41.546)
And I get it, like I totally understand that. We have been there. But I think that we've practiced doing it long enough that we're getting better at it and we're getting better at recognizing what's really our heart calling. That's a good way of putting it. And so it's this idea of paying attention to things that excite you, things that interest you, things that like really just, you know that feeling when you get, when you actually are excited about something or you're just feel alive or lit up.

It's paying attention to those things and then pursuing them. Now, sometimes it'll... It's the big, sometimes scary, meaningful, fulfilling kind of crazy stuff that makes your soul sing. And I'm going to be so bold as to say some of you may never have experienced this yet. Maybe fears or doubts or worries or insecurities or...

or just conditioning. Playing it safe. Playing it safe has kept you from ever doing this. And maybe you've done it in small scales. It's like you take this big risk to build something in the corner of the local sandbox, so to speak, but you've never ventured out of the yard to go build something in the forest, right? So this might be new and might be intimidating or might just be a whole new idea. And we want you to explore that. Allow yourself to dream and think and wonder.

And maybe you've had whisperings, but you've just dismissed them as crazy or silly, like, oh, that's not possible, like, duh. And you just dismiss it. Whereas maybe something's been calling to you. I wholeheartedly believe God and the universe are conspiring in your favor. And there is a special recipe for you. Now, obviously this, it doesn't have to include travel. Travel is part of our family dream. Despite what I said, and I still believe it, you need to go out and travel. I think everyone needs to go out and have travel experiences for growth.

But I'm talking about like living your dream and really living and being alive. That may not necessarily include travel, but it's your dream. Whatever your dream is. As the main driving force. I think you should still do it as part of your own growth and development, but follow your dream. Pursue it. Live while you're alive in spite of all the risks. Now, yes, there are legit risks. There really is. Like things could fall apart. But Rachel and I were talking earlier.

Rachel Denning (26:04.49)
It's like, well, hasn't there always been risk? Of things falling apart? Yeah. Yeah, in some ways there have. And so there's a few things that you were saying here, like you have to learn to pay attention to those things and to follow those, let's call them inspirations, right? Those times when you feel inspired or excited or lit up, you have to learn to follow those because when you do, they lead you on a path.

that's way better and way safer and way more exciting and meaningful than you could have ever planned on your own. And honestly, way more difficult sometimes, or trying or stretching. That's true, that's true. Or unexpected. Right. But that's a part of the journey. Yep. And so if you're trying to live your best life,

If you don't pay attention to those things, I don't think you can actually do it. No, you'll come up short. You will, you'll come up short. And so you'll try to plan for all the best, all the worst case scenarios, you know, and you'll do the best you can, but you often fail or fall short of what's possible because you don't listen to this inner calling. You don't listen to this voice that's trying to lead you on a path to your potential. Now, this comes back.

tying this all together in a way, that path doesn't always make logical sense. And that's kind of where we're at right now with the choices we have made about moving to Portugal, about traveling, is it doesn't make necessary logical sense, but we feel that it's definitely where our higher potential is calling us. And that's because of what we, well, let's lay this out. I mean, we did talk about it in our past pod.

cast about Portugal a little bit, but we had a couple of trips that were canceled. This is how it kind of played out for us. And then we had this trip to Portugal that you and I had planned and we fully expected, Hey, it could get canceled. Like at this point, we don't know. Cause your last trip in February had just gotten canceled. And then we were going in March and we're like, who knows? We may not make it to Portugal. So we fully expected that to happen. We went, we made it, we got there and we had a completely magical time.

Rachel Denning (28:27.562)
We fell in love with the country, which we'll dive into that more in a bit. And we just felt like we'd already been considering it for over a year. We thought, okay, yes, this feels right. This feels good. We're going to move in this direction. And that's how we operate. We go off what feels right. And then we do it, even though at the time we're in Portugal, like paying $10 a gallon for gas, thinking, this isn't smart.

Why are we going to move here? Like it doesn't make logical sense when the Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe and food prices are going up and we're paying $10 a gallon for gas. I could logically, that doesn't make sense, but you can't, despite what we're saying about making calculated risk, you can't always go off of just logic. You have to listen to that inner voice and to pay attention to where it's leading you.

because ultimately that brings you, well, the serendipity and the, like just the magic that happens when you follow that path. That you couldn't have seen or experienced any other way. And it's because we've experienced it before so many times that we're able to talk about it without having actually done it. Like, you know, we're talking with confidence about it happening. Right, that's what I was just saying. Like we're recording this right now and.

Who knows, we may never end up in Portugal. It may not happen, like it might all fall apart and we're like, okay, we didn't make it. We know that's a potentiality. A real possibility, yeah. But we also know that usually what happens if we ended up not moving to Portugal or not traveling, there's things that get put in motion by taking that path. Exactly. Like moving forward on that path, things get put in motion that end up being even way better than you thought. I actually wanted to address that for a minute.

We've experienced this so many times and at first it seemed really frustrating. We thought we were confused. We're like, but we felt so strongly like that was that. But that was just a stepping stone and we would get confused. We kept thinking, we kept assuming that that was the destination. That was the end thing. And then we realized, well, no, we were just being led or drawn or we desired, we wanted to go down this path.

Rachel Denning (30:46.506)
And what it was is it was so we could see something else, something better we hadn't anticipated. Because as we went down the path, then we were able to see other opportunities, meet other people that led to something even better, which we wouldn't have experienced unless we had started down the path. So we both realized that that's also a potential too. We could, who knows, we could say, oh yeah, we're moving to Portugal. We go travel and we end up in Jordan and who knows, we live there for a year. That's a real thing. And so this.

Now this takes us on to the next point of like, okay, we know there's potentials for these economic situations or whatever war. And so we've talked through the scenarios like, well, what are we going to do? What would happen? And it made me think of a time back in 2008, because we were living in Costa Rica at the time. That's a good point. We were actually living abroad when the last thing fell apart. Yeah. And...

At the time, it was extremely painful and devastating. We lost our income. Like it was a really bad experience. I think now that wouldn't be as devastating to us. Like we'd be like, oh, okay, well, what are we going to do? Let's solve this problem now. And we, in fact, now I don't think we would go back at the time we, we left Costa Rica and we went back to the States. Now we'd be, we would just be like, okay, let's figure out what we're going to do.

here. Exactly. So no matter where we were, if we were in Jordan or Norway or wherever and the stock market crashes or something happens or COVID something like that, we would just be like, okay, there's ways to adjust. We've had enough life experience and enough travel experience to know that no matter where we were or are, we would just be able to handle the problem and find a solution. Right. Which is part of the preparation and the resourcefulness and the readiness of like gaining a skill set.

and a perspective and a mindset of being able to figure things out. And so we can go out confidently, not knowing what will happen, but knowing full well that we will figure it out. Exactly. That's where our confidence lies. And maybe just real quick, we'll cover this story, because I know this helped me a lot with my mind shift about preparation, food storage, like all of that kind of stuff.

Rachel Denning (33:12.746)
and switching fully to this like resourcefulness type preparation. And that was the story we heard from some of our good friends, the Sundance family actually. I was gonna, I thought you were gonna tell a story about the guy we met who was scavenging and eating roadkill. Oh. If things get really bad, we can look for roadkill. Right. No, that really happened to us, this guy. Oh my god.

No, our friends the Sundances, they're a German family. Wait a minute, this isn't a comforting story. But it is a reality check. It's not a comforting story, but it was a reality check and a mind shift for me. I think we've told this story before on the podcast. I think we have. I just want to recap it really quickly. Essentially, his grandmother and grandfather were living in, I think probably around East Germany during...

World War II and they had a nice place with a farm. They had animals. They had like they had everything they needed. So in my mind that was the essence of being prepared and prepared and you've done all of your preparation. You've got all your food storage. You've got all your whatever you've got your you're prepared. But then he got he was forced to fight in the war. So he left. She was there. I think she had five children.

or was pregnant with her fifth. She was pregnant anyways. And... Like super pregnant. She was at the farm. The neighbors came up and they said, grab whatever you can. You have five minutes. The Russians are coming. So she grabbed her stuff and her kids and she just left. And they had to walk for, I don't know how long. It was... Or how far.

Far, far, far, far, far. And the baby was born along the way? And the baby was born along the way. They survived on like eating raw potatoes. She almost left the baby because she's like, I just don't think I can feed this child. I need to feed myself and take care of my other kids. But didn't, this baby ended up growing up and being. The vulnerability of that moment of no husband around and a woman who's very pregnant and then has a newborn. Just that.

Rachel Denning (35:29.386)
this like the worst state of vulnerability and exposure and everything they had, all the comforts, all the resources they had were now gone. Yeah. And they never saw it again. They never went back. And that baby ended up being... The baby ended up growing up and being the father of our friend. And so I just remember hearing that story and thinking, yeah, you can get prepared. You can save your...

all your food storage and you can have tons of money in the bank, but you never know what's going to happen. And in all honesty, you could lose it in a minute. And that's not saying you shouldn't do it. Yeah, okay, go ahead and do that. You should, that's great. But it's not your only resource. But it's not your only safety net. Your true safety net comes from your ability to survive difficult situations and challenges. And in fact, that is more valuable than...

the physical supplies you have. Who you are is far more important than what you have. Exactly. So for us, that's always been, I think, our primary form of preparation. Because we travel a lot, I mean, we have food storage right now at our home base here, but we're planning on packing it up and putting it in a crate and shipping it to Portugal. So for a period of time, that does us no good. In that case, we're relying on our resourcefulness.

in our ability to survive and solve problems, which is far more valuable in the long run. Basically, because Rachel is amazing, we can do all this. I don't know how this comes into play, because I'm not the survival person here. Actually, OK, that's worth noting. Yeah. That Rachel loves her comforts.

Oh, absolutely. And her ways and her things. And she likes her office to be just her way. And she likes to have her routines and rituals and systems. And I am a homebody. And she's a homebody and an introvert. So some of you might be like, yeah, that would never happen. My spouse would never go for it. I just couldn't do that. She's your role model here, people. Right. Exactly. It's true. That's awesome. But that's the other thing where our life experiences have been.

Rachel Denning (37:56.266)
played a big part because I've gone without. I've lived in a camper, in a homemade camper on the back of a truck for months. You know, like we've done uncomfortable things, at least according to my definition. You're sitting there laughing at me like. It was awesome. It was awesome. It was a lap of luxury for Greg. No, I understand. I know where my weaknesses lie.

I do know that. And yet it's still doable. I guess that's the message. I still have faith in our ability to solve the problems, ultimately. Absolutely. So we want to, we'll dive into Portugal, but I want to address the French thing. So in case we miss it, I don't want to. We have a big dream of having a chateau near the French Alps. We just love, love, love France. And when we went over there and lived in that area, we thought, man, this is...

Wow, this is heavenly. So that's still the big dream. That's still on the horizon. At one point, France was locked down and we were like, man, maybe the French dream is out. Because they were seriously locked down and still pretty tight now. You can get in with a COVID test now. Oh, awesome. OK. And if you're vaccinated. So there's hope. There's hope for France. That's our big dream. But it's a part of the dream. We also want to have multiple properties around the world, including a beach house.

And that's what kind of led us into Europe again. This actually ties in because part of the people are like, oh, why Portugal? Well, part of the reason we actually started looking at Portugal is because we were looking at getting a visa to France because of that dream. And it was looking, these chairs are so noisy, it was looking kind of challenging, especially for a family of our size. At one point, I think we did some math and we figured,

They wanted us to put $210 ,000 in a French bank account. And just let it sit there. And just let it sit. And we were like, yeah, OK, that's a stretch. And so we started looking at other options. And so this is kind of part of how the decision process works and the narrowing down process works is, first of all, you come up with a dream. You have to have a dream of like, where would you like to live? And we had picked France because we'd done a lot of traveling already. We've done a lot of traveling.

Rachel Denning (40:17.258)
We'd already spent several years in Central America. We have a house in Guatemala. Rachel, I've been studying French for years now. Well, but that only happened because we had a dream to leave Central America and go live in Europe. Because before that was off limits to us. We thought, oh, we could never live in Europe. It's too expensive. And then we figured out that wasn't true. So we went and spent some time in Europe and then ended up having to spend time in Morocco because of the Schengen visa.

And that's when I think we kind of got introduced to French because they spoke French as a second language in Morocco. So we've been studying French since then and then we'd spent some time in France. We loved it and we thought, yeah, we would want to live here. So that's how the dream starts. We would want to live in France. So then we start looking into how, how do you live in France? Because right now as a tourist and an American, we can go into France.

and all of the Schengen countries, which includes 28 countries, for 90 days, and then we have to leave for 90 days. So that's inconvenient if you're trying to set up a home base and like live there with your family. So we've looked into how do we do this? Well, we need to get a residency visa. And...

It looked difficult to get into France, so we looked at other countries. And Portugal was a country that said, oh, we will give you a visa if you can prove a location independent income, basically. Germany actually surprisingly has a simple visa entry. So that was another option on the table because we loved Bavaria, but we don't speak German and we don't want to. But I'm excited about our Portuguese entrance.

In Germany, I think you actually have to be in the country to apply for that country because we did get a visa for them when we had our baby there and that was how we did it. It was awesome. They were very cool. It was great. We loved living in Germany, but it wasn't where we wanted to set up a home base long -term. So we looked into Portugal and they have what's called the D7. They have a lot of different visas, but the one we're applying for is the D7 visa, which means you have an independent income, an income that comes from out of Portugal.

Rachel Denning (42:31.85)
outside of Portugal that you can prove so that basically you can live in their country and spend your money there but you're not earning money in the country. So that's how we started looking at Portugal and then we decided we better we should go take a trip there. We should go. We should go. Since we've never been. We've done that before moving our family to a place sight unseen. Yeah. We've done it.

But if we were going to make this one a little more permanent, which is our plan, we wanted to know what it was like. So we took a trip there in March and fell in love with it. We loved, and people have asked, what do we love about it? We love that it's got a nice international mix of people. There's a lot of different, yeah. All kinds, Indians, Spanish, of course, Scandinavian, African, Germany, French. Middle Eastern comes.

and Russian. Brazilians. Yeah, from all over the world. We went out every day and heard different languages and languages we didn't recognize. It's fun. We love walking around and listening to people talk and then trying to guess what language it is. Italian, of course. Like, what language is that? Why are they speaking? There were so many we couldn't even recognize. I met a lady who spoke Tartar. And we know a lot of language. And I was like, OK, that's awesome. Yeah, a Russian lady. Yeah, so we love that. Great restaurants. We're really restaurant snobs, so that was important.

And a big variety of great restaurants. Not just the same food. Lots of different quality types of food. Lots of outdoor activities. We're looking at the South, the Algarve, and it has tons of surfing, paddle boarding, kite surfing, kayaking, mountain biking, sailing. Scoop diving, snorkeling, horseback riding, ATVs. I mean, there's water parks everywhere. Like this place was...

It's the ultimate outdoor playground. Like every activity that we like. And we're like, um, yes. And then on our anniversary, we told this story already, but we drove over to Sevilla, Spain. And I think it was maybe three hours to get there. Two and a half. And we're like, are you kidding? And we loved Sevilla so much. We're like, wait a minute, two and a half hours away to Spain? Yeah. Like, okay, this.

Rachel Denning (44:55.114)
It's so awesome. And then there was so much to explore in Portugal itself. Yeah. And then we'd be about two and a half hours away from Lisbon as well. Which is a super cool city. And then there's flights and ferries going into Africa or as a hub all over Europe. Yeah. So then there's an airport. Our closest airport would be in Faro, which in the area we're looking at Lagos, which is about 30 minutes or an hour from Faro. It's about an hour.

And from Faro you can fly on Ryanair or EasyJet to pretty much anywhere in Europe and the flights are cheap. I mean, I know that these aren't the typical flights, but sometimes you get on their website and they're like, seven euros to fly to Scotland or something, you know. So they have those occasional deals, but usually you're going to end up paying, I don't know, 50 euros or something for a flight, which is still a great price. So that's another huge benefit. So that's a lot of the reasons that we like Portugal.

but we started looking at it because of the visa options. Because once we have, tying this back into the French Chateau, once we have a residency visa in, say, Portugal, but this would be true of any Schengen country, there's 28 Schengen countries that include Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, I mean, you know. I think all the way to Greece even. Yeah.

If you have residency in any one of those countries, you can travel to the other 28 visa free. You just can go. There's no special requirements to get in and you don't have to leave. You can be there anytime. So us having residency in Portugal gives us the opportunity to also live in France if we want part of the year. Now Greg's giving me the faces because technically on the visa we're getting

You can't, hey, well, wait, I'm explaining it in detail because this is legit. There is a visa you can get in Portugal where you only are required to be in the country eight days. I think that's the golden visa. That's the golden visa. So you only have to be there eight days a year. But I'm talking about our long -term plan here. So we're supposed to be there six months a year, I think. We are supposed to be there six months out of the year, which means six months, the other six months, we can be traveling and or living in France. Now also,

Rachel Denning (47:14.154)
In the long -term plan, after five years, we can apply for citizenship in Portugal. And then once we have citizenship, I think these requirements are gone and we can live anywhere we want. So we could be Portuguese citizens, but have a place in France. And then, of course, like you were saying, the big long -term plan is to have a place in France and have a place on the beach, which would be in Portugal, so that we can travel and just...

We're going to have a home basis where we can continue to travel and see the world and explore and raise and educate our children and ourselves and serve and look for opportunities to make a difference and contribute and grow our business and influence and just really live life on our terms. And again, circling back, you have to know what your terms are. You have to know what it is to you to really be living and really be alive and excited and living your dream, singing your song, whatever that is.

But if you get clear on that, then you start looking for places and people and experiences that facilitate that thing. So we're clear. We're really clear about what it means to us to be really, truly living. So then in our deliberation, we're like, OK, what places facilitate this? At least make it easier, better. Or for this moment in our lives, in our family's life, what experiences do we want? And we are very thoughtful about that and deliberate and intentional. And we talk. We think about it a lot. We talk about it a lot.

with ourselves and with the kids. And so now, like our family's kind of in two segments. We have four teenagers and then three littles. And the teenagers are starting to grow up and move out. So we're like, okay, like our family dynamic is changing. And so if it changes, we too must change in order to grow and expand and keep being better. Like, I mean, I was in a coaching session earlier and I really want to emphasize this. Like what worked for you when you were first married?

may not work when you've been married 15 or 20 years. You gotta evolve, man. You gotta change your strategies. Yeah, you gotta change your strategy. What worked back then, if you were really great as a parent when your kids were toddlers, that won't cut it when they're teens. You gotta be a better parent. You gotta grow and evolve. And now you gotta be a great parent to teens. You can't be like, oh, I was so good at it when they were little. That doesn't work anymore. You gotta keep changing. So.

Rachel Denning (49:37.706)
As the strategies grow, as each child grows and the needs of the family, like, what do you want to experience? What do you want them to become? What do you want to pursue? What's the next chapter? What's the next chapter? And so that's what we're chasing right now. Yeah. The next chapter. And it's exciting. Oh, I love this stuff. So is there risk in pursuing your dream and traveling now? Absolutely.

We've thought through it. We're thinking through it. We're preparing as much as we can. But in many instances, there's not a whole lot you can prepare for. You prepare for everything you can and then be prepared for the unexpected unknown. But then ultimately, is this worth attempting? If it hasn't crossed the line into stupidity, you can look at it and be like, OK, is this, well, actually.

You gotta be careful with that because a lot of people will tell you you're stupid. Right, and I was gonna say that. Some people would look at what we are doing and say, this is stupid. And sometimes we look at what other people are doing and we're like, that's stupid. But we've also done the same thing in the past. We have done things that are stupid. But I want to emphasize - They make epic stories. They do, it's true. And you learn a lot from them. So in some ways it's like, you know what, I needed to be stupid.

I needed to do that because I learned so much from doing it. I mean, it's given me wisdom. But kind of coming back to what you're saying, like ultimately...

You mentioned that we operate on this belief that God and the universe are conspiring in our favor. And I think we fully believe that and we operate by that. And we know that if we're following, for us it comes down to being stupid or not, depending on whether we're following this intuition, this inspiration, or just pushing ahead with our own stubborn ideas.

Rachel Denning (51:39.722)
And there's a fine line between them. Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate if it's your own stupid idea or if it's inspired intuition. And again, we both feel like we've had enough practice with that to kind of differentiate. But if you do that...

Rachel Denning (51:58.634)
It's like you're led and guided and you're put in the right place at the right time. And so you can't prepare for all of the potentialities and come up with all the right plans, but God and the universe can. And I feel like that's happened for us so many times in our lives. I mean, even if we want to use COVID and quarantine as an example, I mean, we had been nomadic and then we'd been, we were living in an RV and then we actually had lived in an apartment for a few months. Um,

kind of on the way to ending up here in this house in Georgia. And, you know, this is where we were for quarantine, but it was perfect. Like we couldn't have planned that. We couldn't have planned for it to be that good. And when, when a lot of people, and I would say even a lot of traveling families were having a hard time being stuck in other countries and...

You know, being stuck in small apartments and squat. And I know a lot of people had very difficult times during quarantine. And we were like, this is great, man. We've got a big house. We've got a big yard. We have a lake. I mean, it was a really great place to spend quarantine. And I feel that all of that still came down to being led and guided by God and the universe to be where we're supposed to be because they know more than we do. Right.

So it's this combination of listening, feeling, preparing, analyzing, training, thinking, considering, studying. So it's this combination of all of it. And having courage, because you still have to have courage to do it. I mean, the courage to actually live. I was afraid. I was afraid to go on our trip last year, you know, thinking, well, it's COVID, it's quarantine. Like, who knows what's going to happen if...

if places are going to be open, if borders are going to be open, there was a lot of uncertainty. And we're not saying that we're never afraid or we're never uncertain. We are. But we've learned that that's also part of it. If you're not a little uncertain about things, then something's wrong. Like you've got a question. You know? Wait a second. That's a key ingredient to it. What I can picture when you're saying that some of us, we...

Rachel Denning (54:17.866)
We want security and safety. Yeah, we want 100 % guarantee. All costs. And so we lock ourselves into a maximum security prison. Right, because we think that's the only place that 100 % safety exists. And so then we become the prisoners. Right. And we're the jailers. And we created the prison. But it's for our own safety. And that's just, that's not how we want to do life. That's no way to live. Right. So I guess the invitation here.

is this isn't about us, it's about you and in your dream and your song and what it is you want to pursue. What are you being led to pursue? Okay, that's another thing. And do you even know? Are you paying attention? Yeah. Have you been so distracted by the things that maybe you haven't even stopped to consider your song and your dream? Well, and I would say probably for a lot of people living in fear of

what could happen. Ah yeah, it's the what if syndrome man. Yeah. You what if yourself to death. And so you're so afraid you never actually live. And you, in fact, a lot of people never even consider the dreams or the things they're being called to because the what if fear is so big and so overpowering in their minds that they're like, I can't even consider that because what if this or what if that? Right. It's just massive.

Well, and it just made me think of, I know on Facebook once I saw a post from this mother who essentially was saying, we haven't gone anywhere for two years. We have been pretty much locked down. Like they locked themselves down for like two years. Didn't go anywhere, didn't interact with anyone, said her son has been depressed, of course her teenage son, and...

They were just so afraid of COVID and what was going to happen to them. And I just felt so sad when I read that because I thought they're afraid to live. They are afraid to live and that's no way to exist.

Rachel Denning (56:36.554)
And so in some ways, this is our message, right? Like don't be afraid to live because if you trust...

in the goodness of God and the universe, you're going to be able to live a life that's amazing no matter what's going on in the world. And I truly believe that. No matter what's happening, no matter what the future holds, you can live an amazing life. Because when you listen to that intuition, you're going to be guided to the places that you need to be in order to...

Experience the fullness that life has to offer Love it. So do some dreaming do some planning do some exploring do some preparing Start thinking of places you have all I bet there's places you've always wanted to go and maybe you've just dismissed that and so stir that back up dust Dust off those dreams and bring them back to the surface and see where you might go travel or go live for a time

Because the process of who you become during, while you're doing that process, is what this is really about anyways. Even more than the place you go or whatever it is you end up doing, who you become along the way, that's what matters most. And ultimately for us, I've come to the conclusion that whatever is happening in the world, whatever is going on, it'll be something different every time. There'll always be some kind of risk, always some kind of threat. Whatever's going on.

I'm still just gonna keep living my life and I'll adjust as needed. I'll prepare as much as I can. I'm gonna seek guidance and direction, but I'm gonna live. I'm gonna live while I'm alive and we hope you will go out and do the same. Love you guys, thanks for listening. Reach out for it.