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

Rachel Denning (00:11.022)
today's episode when Greg Denning was out on his own as a teenager it wasn't difficult for him to realize that his life sucked.

but he desperately wanted it to be better and different. Nobody wants to live a sucky life and to stay there. But it was surprising and interesting to him to watch people around him live a sucky life and to stay there. They would keep doing the things that brought the same sucky results. As a 16 year old, he was able to miraculously enough look around and say, dude, stop doing what you're doing and you'll get different results. It was just easy for him to see this as a teen, even though he wasn't yet able to articulate.

into something that we now live by. Nothing in my life will get better until I get better. Greg came to realize, then experience, then teach to thousands of people on five continents that when you get better, everything else in your life gets better too. In today's episode, we're discussing how this applies to parenting. Many parents keep doing things that are producing sucky results and unnecessary pain and struggle in the form of bad behavior, rebellion, tantrums, fighting,

yelling and more. None of this is going to get easier or better until you get better as an individual and a parent. The problems you're facing as a parent ultimately stem from your own inabilities or lack of skills and awareness. It's not your fault, but learning to be aware of them is key to changing everything and solving your problems. If you are a parent or know a parent, you don't want to miss this. Today's episode is sponsored by our best self bundle.

This bundle of courses gives you all the tools, resources, and strategies that you need to reach upward and to become your best self so that as you get better, everything else in your life gets better too. Visit ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com and click the link at the top for the best self bundle and start today learning simple strategies you can use right away to create powerful positive transformations in your personality.

Rachel Denning (02:32.942)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being a part of our community. If you're new, welcome. We're glad to have you here. It's so fulfilling, so hopeful, so exciting to be a part of a community of people who genuinely want to be their best selves, who want to be better, who are just good. It gives you hope in humanity and in the future and in life and raising kids and in families. So.

Thanks for being awesome. We are so crazy excited because we're, well, I'm leading a man camp soon. Then shortly after that, we're doing a youth retreat. The first reach upward retreat. I mean, we've led lots of youth camps. We're doing a retreat. As long as I have teens, we're gonna keep doing these things. Which is a long time. Yeah, we still got a long way to go. Our youngest is five. And so we'll keep doing these awesome retreats because people need to get together.

and associate with each other and have community and have this tribe, this group of people who are there to support and cheer and encourage and are seeking to be themselves and step away from the nihilism and the bad attitudes and the frustrations. Just have a great place. And it's true for us as well as adults. So I'm doing the man camp. I gotta get another one on the books because they're filling up so fast and they're so awesome.

And then Rachel and I, you guys have been asking, and so we are going to be doing couples retreats as well. And we were just looking for potential locations and dates. Just rent this luxury center or home, get together, talk about all the goods. All the goods. All the goods of what it takes. And the bags. To have an extraordinary marriage. Yeah, work through all that too, and like figure it out and get the quirks out. And we're gonna talk about that today. But.

We're just so excited to see you in person, to get together. I'm speaking two or three times in the next little bit. So it's just, we're getting together people, we're connecting with you guys, and we're just grateful that you're here and a part of this and that you're a good person. It says a lot about who you are, that you're listening and you care and you even turn this thing on. It says something about you that's awesome. They're waiting for you to get to the point now. Booyah! Here comes the point.

Rachel Denning (04:57.357)
I remember early on, so I was out on my own at a young age, and I remember early on, it wasn't hard to realize my life sucked. My life be like, ugh, it sucked, right? And I wanted it to be better. Of course I wanted it to be better. Nobody wants to live in suckville and stay there. Yet it was interesting when I was living in these really rough neighborhoods and surrounded by people who were stuck there, they didn't...

They didn't change. They kept doing the same things over and over and then bemoaning the results. They would just complain and cry. They were crying literally in fits of anger and depression and discouragement and hopelessness. But then they would go do the same things. And luckily, I don't know, this is just all miraculous to me. As a 16 year old, I'm sitting there looking at them like, dude, stop doing what you're doing and you'll get different results.

It just made sense to me even as a young teen. And then later I was able to formulate this idea which has become a core philosophy in my life. Nothing in my life will get better until I get better. Right. Formulate it and articulate it because I think you perceived those things without fully being able to articulate exactly what you were saying. Yeah, I couldn't have told you that. At 17 or 18 I couldn't have told you what I'm telling you now.

But I sensed it, that wait a minute, if I want to get out of this neighborhood or this circumstance or this kind of life, where it's just chronic problems and struggles and frustrations, if I ever want to break free from the pain and unnecessary pain and suffering and trouble, because I was surrounded by...

It was just broken marriages and domestic violence and problems with kids and problems with health and every kind of problem you could think of. It was all there. And I thought, man, if I ever want to... And then I would meet people, right? It was every once in a while, there's just a glimpse of light and hope. I'd meet someone and be like, man, if they're for real, they look like they have an amazing life. It's possible. And so...

Rachel Denning (07:21.933)
I came to realize and then experience and now I've been able to teach thousands of people across five continents that when you get better, everything in your life gets better as well. Right. And that's part, I guess the underlying principle behind the message today, which a lot of it will apply to parenting, but it's about leadership. It's about in your marriage. It's about.

the influence and impact you have on your own life and the people around you, it has to start with you and stay with you. It's not chronological. Like if I change - Or linear. Yeah, it's not linear. So if I change back there, then everything will keep going. So I have to keep growing, keep getting better. And so, yeah, the emphasis for today is gonna be on parenting, but what we're gonna talk about does apply.

to every other area of life, but it is this idea that the problems you're facing, and today we'll be talking about parenting, the problems you're facing in parenting ultimately stem from your own inabilities or your own incapacities, right? Like you're lacking some sort of skill or some sort of awareness or some sort of...

Rachel Denning (08:46.125)
Give me another word here. Inadequacy. OK, that's good. Some sort of inadequacy. I even like to see it as some. Wait, didn't I say you're lacking, though? You're not lacking in inadequacy. No, you're not lacking. You have an abundance of inadequacies. We're just going to be frank with you today and honest, like we always are. And like we are with ourselves. Yes, exactly. The way I like to see it is we have areas that are underdeveloped. Yes. So it's not like you're broken. You have.

some deficiency, although you do have deficiencies, but it's like, you know, you're just underdeveloped. And so if you address that, if you give that some attention, it starts to change everything. And I want to emphasize - It starts to change everything and starts to solve your problems. Yes. You're like, why am I having this problem with this kid? And you address what you're talking about, that nothing gets better until you get better, you get better as a person and a parent. And now this problem is solved or at least.

mostly are partially solved. So many of your relationships and your interactions with others are automatically improved as you improve. But what I was going to say is I want to emphasize this plays out in the workplace too. I had a coaching session this morning where we're talking about this leadership in the workplace and how the individual and personal underdevelopment in a business place plays out big time for managers and leaders.

And that was one of the frustrations, like, hey, we're working with this leadership team and these guys have personal weaknesses that are just so blatantly affecting professional situations. You're like, well, there it is. You address your own stuff and it's amazing. What starts to happen is you get results in the professional world, in your marriage, in your family parenting, in your community, in your leadership. Every other area of your life starts to get blessed.

massively as you start to make improvements. That came out of another coaching session this morning. He was like, man, I'm already seeing that as I lean into this area where we set some commitments last week, it's like I'm already feeling the impact in other areas. I didn't anticipate it. I didn't expect it. And all of a sudden, I'm going into this other aspect of my life with all this confidence and strength and conviction, like I'm going to crush this. And it was an unexpected byproduct because that's how life is. Everything affects everything.

Rachel Denning (11:10.765)
That's what I was just going to say. Everything affects everything. Everything's connected to everything. And we, I think this is one of the biggest problems that people have without knowing they have is that they don't make, they don't have that realization. They don't know that what they're doing in business or what they're doing privately when they're alone or what they're thinking on a regular basis, they don't realize that it's affecting every other part of their life.

that it's all interconnected. You can't separate it. You can't be someone different at work than you are at home, than you are with your kids, than you are with your friends. You have to live in congruence. You have to be congruent. And when you start having that congruence and being the same person in all those different areas and roles, it does. It begins to fit everything else. And you suddenly have more confidence, more energy, more happiness, because you're like, wow, it's all connected.

And it's ironic and tragic how often people try to separate it. They try to be some kind of public success while simultaneously they're really a private failure. Right. And if we focus in, if we turn away from that outward showing and focus inward on just improving ourselves and finding those inadequacies and cleaning them out.

It's amazing what will happen. While you're talking about that, I thought of, I have this saying I always say to our kids whenever I'm cleaning up the house, because inevitably you find something that's been missing, right? They're like, oh, where's this? Oh, like my screen glass is right here on the ground. Greg just pointed to them. They've been missing. They've been looking for days. But whenever you clean up.

You find something that someone's been like, where's that thing? And you're like, here it is. And I'm always like, it's amazing what you find when you clean up. It's the same kind of principle here. It's amazing. Oh my goodness. That's so true. Yeah. Keep going. You're talking about your mind and your heart and your soul. Your mind and your heart and your soul. It's amazing what you'll be able to do and what you'll be able to solve and how much better you'll feel when you clean up. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yes. It's amazing what you'll find.

Rachel Denning (13:31.213)
You could write a book with that title. It's amazing what you find when you clean up. And you start cleaning up your thinking. You're stinking thinking. And some of the baggage and the refuse that you've been carried in there for years or decades. I had another coaching session this morning. I had a great coaching day today. And this happens quite often. Where you find that there's been some mental blockage. Just some old stuff, some old baggage that was thrown in there.

year, decades ago, in this case it was over 30 years ago, some things got thrown in the tank up there and it stayed and had been affecting decisions ever since. And so so many decisions were built on the basis of some thinking. Oh, dated apps. Yeah, well some trashy thinking that had been implanted by parents. We're going to dive more into that later today, but where that thinking started to affect that. So you start cleaning things up.

Oh man, it frees up some space to think and you create some new neural pathways. You go into your heart or your soul, you start cleaning things up, you start finding things. And like, whoa, I didn't realize that or didn't notice that. And you clear out some blockages and things start to flow. And you start cleaning up your body and cleaning up your space and cleaning up your finances, cleaning up your relationships, the cobwebs in the corner. And wow.

things get so much better. And I think that's what I want to emphasize so much to you right now. And it's hard to even articulate this with words. And you have to experience it to know just how good life can be. How so fulfilling, so rewarding, so peaceful, so exciting, so there's not a good enough word. Life is so good. And you wake up and you're like, oh my goodness, I love my life.

As you're going to bed, you're like, I love my life. And through the day, you're like skipping and dancing. You're like, I love my life. And until you clean that stuff out, you can't experience it. But once you clear it up, once you address the things we're going to talk about today, wow. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. A couple thoughts about that. One of them is, like, I mean, when was this? Yesterday? You and I were like, our life is like a fairy tale. It's just.

Rachel Denning (15:54.669)
So good, right? And we say that to ourselves in private because that's the reality of how we feel about our life. We just feel that our life is so good. And we feel very grateful for that and we feel very blessed, but we do also know part of the reason it's so good is because we've been so intentional about how we go about cleaning up our life. And so that connects it to the other thought I had, which is - That you create your own luck.

You might think it's pretty luck. It's true. Yes, that's true. But so much of luck or good fortune or blessings comes from aligning your life to the laws that operate. The laws of luck. The laws of luck. Exactly. All the laws of life. There's laws of success for every single aspect of your life. And as you align yourself to the laws, you get lucky a lot. Yeah, exactly. Which ties in to this next thought.

which is connected to the cleaning up thing. Like, you know, it's amazing what you find when you clean up, but what I'm thinking about is this deeper, more thorough level of cleaning, which we're going through right now because we're preparing to go on another road trip. We're going to be having people stay in our house while we're gone. So we're getting it, you know, I call it Airbnb ready. And there's a different level of cleaning that you go through to get a house Airbnb ready versus just,

normal regular cleaning like when you're living in the house and On top of that we're also preparing to move to Portugal when we get back from this road trip So that's the next level of like, okay. I'm also getting ready for a moving clean, right? And it's different because you go through every drawer you go through every cupboard you wipe down all the baseboards You wipe down all the walls You just get things so much more so

So thoroughly cleaned, right? And you - And we're touching everything we own and evaluating, is this worth shipping across the ocean? Exactly, yeah, that too, right. Is this worth shipping across the ocean, keeping in my life? If not, you're eliminating it, so you're purging a lot of stuff. And this is a very symbolic process for the way we approach life. So not only do we physically go through this process, I mean, you and I, personally in our life, we've physically gone through this process.

Rachel Denning (18:16.397)
so many times. I would say a hundred times easily, if not more, in our 20 years of marriage. Physically, we've done that. But we're also doing this mentally and emotionally just as often, I would say. Like we're constantly deep cleaning our heart, our soul, our mind. Like it's not something we just leave to chance. And we don't just allow all of this clutter to gather and stay there. So...

That's kind of the process we're talking about. We're talking about being intentional with improving yourself because nothing gets better until you do in this deep level moving type clean. Where you start going through all your stuff internally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You go through all your stuff saying, do I want to keep this? Yeah. Do I want to keep carrying this through my?

move in life through this journey of life. I'm on this adventure called life. Do I want to keep dragging this with me? And I promise you guys are going to find some things. You're like, why am I carrying this crap? And you just need to ditch it and leave it behind. Take it to the Goodwill. I just dropped off some stuff today at the Goodwill. And it feels so good. Well, some of your stuff you don't want to pass along. You'll want to just get rid of it and not give it to anybody else. Just throw it away. You'll throw out some of your problems and some poor sucker will pick them up and keep them.

Don't do that. And what's unfortunate, and this is what we're gonna get into, very, very often, your problems, if not dealt with and destroyed or thrown out, get passed on to your kids. And then to your grandkids. And your problems perpetuate. And if you have not observed that yet, we've seen it so many times. Generational problems. Generational problems where we meet the grandkid and we're like, oh man, they're really struggling. Something's off here. Meet the parents, and they go, oh, there it is.

and then meet the grandparents go, whoa, that's where it started. Or even got carried off from there. Yeah, it likely started before that even. So in a very real way, you cannot help your children or anyone else for that matter, your team members, your employees, your community, whoever in your church or your group or your team, you cannot help others until you help yourself. Now that's not a solid black and white, like there's nothing you can do.

Rachel Denning (20:40.333)
But I think you get this, it just makes sense that if I'm struggling with something, it's quite difficult for me to be as effective in teaching someone else that thing. It just doesn't come across. So if I'm, let's say, let's take an easy example of health and I'm really unhealthy, I'm not gonna be near as effective in helping someone get healthy. Because I'm not modeling it for one. So whether,

And we can do this. We'd love to tell ourselves, no, we don't judge, we look past those things, I'm not gonna do it. But you instant, we all do. And there's some cool science behind this, that we read each other and we measure each other instantly. And it's all subconscious. Jordan Peterson talked about this in 12 Rules for Life. Soon as you see someone, you interact with someone, you're assessing them and putting them in a hierarchy.

and your instant subconscious, in -brained. It's automatic, it's evolutionary, it's survival mechanism. Like this was something we had to do, you know, thousands of years ago because you were trying to survive. You wanted to make sure that this person you're meeting that you don't know is safe and that they're not going to kill you or something. You know what I mean? And that's still true today. Yeah. We don't do it as effectively, but it's still true and there's still threats and we still need to be assessing.

So the point is though, we are doing that automatically, unconsciously all the time. We are reading people and taking in all this information to make a judgment about them. And so others sense that. And so if I'm off in some way, they subconsciously and then eventually consciously realize, well, there's not going to be as much influence. And children are especially good at this.

We think they're not because they don't have the power yet to articulate it. Exactly. But man, they read it. And as they get older, they read it more and more. And so what happens, when your kid's three, they look up to you, but they start sensing stuff. And when they're 13, they're looking over saying, what in the stuff is wrong with you? And they see it. They see the incongruence. They see the hypocrisy. They see the problems.

Rachel Denning (23:01.613)
all the while many parents are talking the talk, but not walking the walk, so to speak, and they're really emphasizing the importance of things to kids, and the kids are looking back, you know, again, subconsciously, this is all happening, because they usually aren't good enough to articulate it. They're like, what are you talking about? You want me to do what? Look at you. Why would I listen to anything you are saying?

I don't want to be like you. I don't want your results. You're telling me all this stuff brings happiness. You're miserable. I get to see your misery day in and day out as you scream and yell at us and rant and rave and all your stuff and your addictions and your problems and your crap. And you guys, I know I'm being intense here and blunt for a reason because I get to work with people every single day and good people. I'm not throwing anybody under the bus.

But if you've got issues you have not addressed, your kids know about them, even as much as you try to hide them and disguise them and sugarcoat them and try to, you know, quote, protect your kids from them. They see it and they sense it. They know it. And so and you can't you can't fault them, right? I guess put yourself in the position of your children and they're looking back at you. They're hearing what you're saying. They're seeing what you're doing.

And it's not matching up. And it doesn't match up. And they're sitting there trying to process it. And trying to figure out the world and how it actually works. They're trying to figure out all that stuff. And they want to be. It's just in us. We want to be happy. We want to be successful. And they're looking at you and listening to you and going, hmm. I'm not so sure this is working. Yeah. I don't want what you're telling me I should want because they're looking at your results. Now, this is going to feel painful.

to some of you. This is hard stuff. This is hard stuff. And it's going to feel overwhelming and maybe even a little discouraging right now. But welcome to parenthood. Welcome to leadership. Parenthood is not for wimps, as my mom always said. Welcome to life. If we are going to be very impactful, influential, if we're going to be great parents. If we're going to be effective at our job as parents. But especially as parents, because you said in another podcast.

Rachel Denning (25:29.997)
We have a moral obligation to be a good parent. You have kids. You have to do a good job at this. You can't. Whether you wanted them or not, if you have kids, you got them. And you can't get out of that responsibility. You have that for the rest of your life. And so if you're going to do any kind of decent job at this, you have to face this. You have to see where you're not living in congruence.

where things are not matching up for you and you've got to fix those. You have to change that. The very first place then is for you to fix your own stuff. And it's a, I'll come back to that phrase because it's so powerful. It is a moral obligation. You've got to do it. And so you - Which I'm laughing a little bit because earlier you were close to swearing when you were talking about it. I get talking on the subject. It makes me want to swear. Cause you got to fix your -

stuff. And how can you... and please please don't misunderstand me. Like I'm saying this with love and understanding empathy. How can you sincerely expect your children to do things and to hear you and like follow your lead or at least do what you say if you haven't fixed your crap. If you're still...

messing around with your issues and your junk.

And I'm being sincere here. I'm being honest. Like how can you expect your kids to level up when you're not leveling up? And in a real way, not... We love to tell ourselves stories. Actually, it's worth throwing in right here. Examine the stories you tell yourself because so many of the stories are lies. And so you pause and say, what are the lies you've been telling yourself about yourself?

Rachel Denning (27:31.053)
What are the lies you've been telling yourself about the people around you? And about the world, about your spouse, about the kids. What are all these little stories, these little lies that you've been saying that kind of keep you safe and put you in the place of a victim, that kind of protect you. It's like your little survival brain saying, well, that's, you know, it's this story somehow. It basically comes back to the point of this is the way things are and this is the way I am. This is why I do stuff or why I don't do stuff. And you have your little stories.

But most of them are little lies. And so you're in this spot telling yourself these little lies, and it doesn't work. And the people around you see through that. Right. Well, I want to bring this up, and I want to be able to address this delicately. Because one of the areas where we see this happens a lot in religion and in church. Right? And this is across, I think,

Many religions. Many religions, ultimately. But it's this idea that if I simply do these certain things, X, Y, Z, or just believe, right, whether that's in God, believe in the church, whatever, that I will be happy and my life will be blessed. When in some ways, like you were saying, I think that's a lie. That's a lie you're telling yourself, hoping it will make you feel better.

Because the reality is, and what we love to teach and try to share, especially in your coaching and stuff, is that there are laws to everything you do in your life. And if you don't live by those laws, you're not going to be happy. You're not going to get the results. You're not going to find fulfillment just because you're a good person or just because you belong to a certain religion or just because you XYZ. And that's...

a major incongruence we see with a lot of people of saying, well, I'm a good person. I do all of these good things. I check all the church boxes. I should just be blessed or I'm going to be blessed because of that. And I think especially now with this generation that's coming up, they're seeing through that. And they're like, you're saying this is how to have a happy life. You're saying that this will bring joy or peace or happiness. And yet you're...

Rachel Denning (29:55.15)
a mess, you're depressed, you're unhappy, you still have all of your issues, you're still broke. We have people believing that if I just go and do religious worship, I'll be blessed financially. No, if you want to be blessed financially, follow the laws of financial success. Do the work, right? If you want to be blessed in your marriage, follow the laws of marital success.

If you want to be blessed in parenting and have good kids that turn out as competent, capable adults, follow the laws of parenting. There are laws for every one of those areas of life. And you have to discover what those laws are and live by them. If you want the outcomes of those things and you can assume or just believe that believing in a certain religion or a certain way of, of, well, certain religion, whatever.

spiritual belief, whatever, believing in that is going to be enough. It's not, it's not enough. Spiritual laws are for spiritual matters, right? And everything is spiritual in a way, but they all have their own universal laws that you have to discover and operate by if you want to reap the rewards. It's just like a garden, right? If you want to get the apples, you got to plant the apples.

And if you want to get the tomatoes, you've got to plant the tomato tree. You can't just plant corn and think, this is enough. I'll just get all the blessings by planting one seed. It doesn't work that way. And to not be misunderstood, we are not discounting or bagging on spiritual laws or practices or religious rituals. Or religion. All that stuff is amazing. They're valuable. They're necessary. Super important, part of life. But where we see a disconnect.

is some think, well, if I do a spiritual thing, it'll turn into all these temporal outcomes. Which like it doesn't line up. And if you really - There's a connection there. There is a connection. There's a spiritual connection to God. But even if you get into spiritual texts and the scriptures and you study deeply in those things, it's all there. It's all spelled out. There's every little part of it is some kind of kingdom and every little kingdom has the laws. And you have to follow those laws. Right. Like -

Rachel Denning (32:19.533)
praying won't compensate for my health. Your poor diet. If I'm just constantly eating trash. As much as I try to bless it, to be nourishing for my body, there's no way, there's no miracle that makes donuts good for me. Right? It just doesn't happen. I mean, you're cooking with canola oil. It's just so toxic. You can pray and bless and bless that thing and call down the powers of heaven.

that canola oil is just poison for your body. It just is. And so we live in this world, like, well, I prayed. Like, yeah, you prayed and then you ate a whole package of Oreos. What are you talking about? And then sadly, we blame God. He didn't hear my prayers. He must have wanted me to be sick. I guess he's giving me this trial. He's doing it like, no. You have this trial because you've been violating the laws of this thing. That's why you have the trial. You should see us. We honestly get so upset. We get so fired up.

Like, you've been eating fast food for decades, and you're praying for good health? Like, come on. So anyways, the point is, how can you inspire your children if you don't feel inspired? How can you help them love learning if you're not loving learning? How can you help them level up if you're not leveling up? How can you help your children until you help yourself? And the answer is, you don't, because you can't.

It's that's just not how it works. You have to put on your own oxygen mask first. You can't give what you don't have, right? You can't draw from an empty well. Exactly. And so too many parents mistakenly believe they can get their children to believe and do things that they themselves as parents do not believe or do. Right. It's just not how it works. And so many people, perhaps most,

struggle with parenting and I want you to just think about this one, listen to this one carefully. Many good people if not most struggle with parenting ultimately because they struggle with themselves. And you can't adequately and effectively help your kids with their problems because you haven't yet figured out how to deal with your own problems or at least not doing it very effectively.

Rachel Denning (34:46.701)
Exactly. Now I get it. This is honest talk. Yeah, it's very straightforward. And your personal issues are keeping you from inspiring and leading your children and other people.

Right. I mean, it makes sense. We get this in other areas of life. Like none of us would go and pretend we're going to coach Michael Phelps in swimming, right? Because how can we coach him in something that we are not proficient at? How could we go teach someone to play the piano if you don't know how to play the piano? That's such a great example because it would be so pompous of me to try to teach anyone the piano. Yeah, exactly. Right.

And that's why you don't coach in piano. You are incompetent in music in general. Okay. So that's not where your strength lies. And yet we try to be, this is why parenting is so challenging, of course. We try to be parents to our children to help them learn how to live good lives. And we're struggling living our own life. Oh, Rachel, this is so profound because we're forced.

It's almost like I would be forced to teach piano. You have a child, you're forced to do parenting. And if you're incompetent at the skills of parenting and all these other life skills, sorry, you don't have a choice. You have a kid. Somehow I'm forced, like, whoa, you have to teach piano. Now I have a choice at that moment. I can really learn how to play the piano very, very well and then teach my piano students.

Or I can just sit there and keep trying. And keep telling them what to do. And they all suck at playing the piano. And then you're like, I'm doing the best I can. No, I think that's a great analogy there because I think that's how many parents approach parenting. They don't actually figure out how to play the piano themselves. They just try to tell their kid how to play the piano when they have no clue. And that's what I love because I know.

Rachel Denning (37:00.013)
That's how you would approach it. If you had to teach piano, you would be spending five hours a day learning how to play the piano yourself first. From the greatest piano players. Which now is easy because you've got YouTube. But that's the approach you would take to it. And I think that's the exact approach we've taken to parenting. Because any time there's been an issue with our kids, and this is legit, I would say any time, every time, this is how we approach it.

We say, what's the issue? And we're going to figure out how we do that thing. Now, this doesn't mean that we literally learn every instrument. Like, neither of us learned the guitar, but our son learned the guitar. But that's because we taught him how to learn, and he went and learned it himself. So we're not talking about things like that, but we're talking about like... Parenting and life, life skills. Yeah, their ability to handle difficult emotions.

or disappointments, or setbacks, or anxiety, or stress, or all of these things that essentially we have to learn how to do as adults to operate successfully in life, our children are learning how to do those things as they grow up in our house. And if they're struggling with it, it's likely because we're struggling with it. Exactly. So we look at our kids and see the problems and we're like, oh, yeah, they're struggling with this. I guess I need to learn how to do that better so I can model for them how to do this thing.

That's what you just described is the right way to process it. Many people don't. They say, oh, my kid's struggling with this. And they try to whatever, like straighten the deck chairs on the Titanic and try all these band -aid fixes and try to get someone else to come in and fix the problem. Which is why parenting hacks are so big and all these parenting books that are like, do this or do this. Whenever your kid does this, do this. No, that doesn't work. It never fixes the problem. Right. Which the right way is like, ooh, how am I part of this problem? How?

How is this a problem that I have not yet settled or corrected in myself that now is manifesting itself in my kid? Often magnified. Because it's you plus your spouse multiplied, now your kids get it all. Exactly. So they're looking at the behaviors, which are essentially just symptoms of the problem. And they're thinking, how do I fix this behavior instead of looking at what's the root cause of this behavior and addressing that?

Rachel Denning (39:26.829)
Ooh, this is so good. Those of you who are still listening, we love you. Thank you for still listening. Many people, most people won't, they won't process through this. They won't work through this. They want the quick fix. That's why, that's why we could jump online and sell a magic weight loss pill and make millions. We could sell a magic parenting trick and make millions.

You can sell this stuff because people want a quick, easy fix that's not, that it needs to be comfortable and quick. And doesn't require effort from them. Right. This, so what we're advocating today, this internal cleansing and correcting and fixing your stuff and your crap. This is the long game solution. That it really works. In a genuinely extraordinary life that brings so much happiness and joy. And when you start fixing these things and.

making them better. When you start developing these areas of life that are underdeveloped, everything else gets better. So we're giving you the whole picture. This is the long game, whole picture to an absolutely wonderful life that you get to the end, look back and think, I can't believe how fortunate, gosh, I'm getting emotional. I can't believe how fortunate we've been to live this life.

how good it's been, how blessed it is, how free of unnecessary problems. Because when you develop yourself and you work on getting rid of the crap and the junk, then the unnecessary problems just melt away. They're not there. And so the problems that come are the normal problems of...

of life and growth and challenges and you're like, great, whatever, bring it on, I'll deal with that. But so many good people are just endlessly chronically dealing with unnecessary problems. And from the outside view, having worked with so many people, I'm sitting here saying that, well, you're the cause of that problem. You're the catalyst of that problem. And that problem keeps happening because you don't fix the issue. And they're telling themselves the story, well, this is life and life is hard, why am I full of so many problems? Well, I'll be honest, because you keep doing it.

Rachel Denning (41:48.205)
Why does your life suck? Because you suck, sir. That's why. But we're not throwing anybody under the bus. We're not making any bad, as a bad person. And we don't want you to feel bad, unnecessarily. But just to stop and say... Some feeling bad is important and necessary. We know from experience. You have to feel like, man, I'm not doing well enough. I'm really sucking at this. If you don't feel that...

painfully enough, you never get motivated to actually change because otherwise it's comfortable to just stay where you're at. You have to have some discomfort to put forth the effort to change. So yeah, in some ways you need to feel bad enough that it motivates you to make the changes because otherwise you will just go through life and you'll keep parenting the way you've been parenting and then you'll wonder why you get the outcomes you do, but it's because...

you didn't feel bad enough to do something about it. That was actually going to create a real solution. Right. And so we avoid the pain and discomfort of change, which has been pointed out by great thinkers, weighs ounces compared to the pain and discomfort of remorse, which weighs tons. So true. And it will be crushing.

leader in life. And we see this with parenting in that parents aren't willing to do these things when their kids are young and when they're growing and when they notice problems starting and so then they're calling you when their child's threatening suicide or has a drug addiction or got someone pregnant or you know on and on and on then now they're dealing with this these tons of regret and

trying to fix these huge problems that could have been solved early on with a little extra effort. And it does. I mean, I know.

Rachel Denning (44:00.941)
I know it sounds harsh. It sounds, I'm sure it sounds prideful sometimes. I'm sure it sounds arrogant, but like, I just feel like we're here as this warning voice saying we've seen the picture. Like we've been to the other side. You know what I mean? Like we're trying to say, we're trying to tell people what we see. I feel like we have an obligation to say this is what we see and this is why, and it's not just us. It's not just.

a few random cases, like these are patterns that we have seen again and again and again and again for over two decades. And it's in everything we studied. It's in psychology, it's in human behavior, it's in all of these things. Like it's, it's just clear to us clear as day that this is how it works. And, and we wouldn't ask you to do this if we hadn't earnestly earned.

what I think we've earned the right to ask you because we've done it ourselves. I've been through, we've been through the painful, uncomfortable, challenging process of change and transformation and development. I addressed all my stuff. I've got my crap together. The bulk of it even before I met Rachel. Because I had enough foresight to see like, I'm not bringing this garbage into.

compounded into my marriage and my kids. And so I addressed those things, I fixed them. And so I wouldn't ask you to do it if I hadn't done it. I wouldn't ask you to do it if we weren't constantly doing it. Right, yeah, I'm glad you add that because it's not like it's a one and done thing either. Issues can come up throughout life. You could have dressed issues, but then something else comes up, maybe something else touches on a past issue. But the thing that we do is we constantly are addressing them. We don't allow them to build up.

or if they do, it's not for long. And we're talking like days or weeks before we address an issue and resolve it and process it so that we can move forward clean, I guess is a good way of describing it. Like we're just pure. And I'm not talking about pure in like a religious sense or a holy sense. It's like, you're uncluttered, I guess. You're uncluttered from.

Rachel Denning (46:27.757)
the stresses, the tragedies, the traumas, the... Because it's not like things don't happen. It's not like we haven't had problems. It's not like we haven't had issues that we've had to address. We have. But we've been able to do so in a way that leaves us uncluttered. And so we can go to the next phase of life, the next level, without carrying all of that with us along the way. So it's a technique, it's a principle, a strategy that we use on an ongoing basis.

And interestingly, as I was listening to you describe that, when you do that regularly, it makes life so much easier. It makes parenting easier. I look at other parents who are just struggling unnecessarily with so many problems, but it's because they didn't address the issue earlier. They didn't prevent the problem. So now they have to deal with it. Exactly. And I mean, an obvious common one is...

teenage rebellion or whatever. Like, ah teens so hard, all the trouble with teens, teen drama, teen emotions, teen, all this stuff. We have four teens and they're, please don't misunderstand me, we're not bragging or boasting, they are just an absolute joy. We have no problems, none. Just love them, love having them, love being with them, love playing with them. They're our friends. Talking to them. They don't fight, they don't.

Like they don't worry us, they don't stress, we have no stress. It's incredible. And we're not bragging or boasting, and we didn't pull the lucky kid card. What we're telling you is like, this is a formula. And we followed it, we've helped others follow it, they get the similar results, so can you. And so that's what we're saying, like work on you harder than you work on anything else. Take care of your crap so you can be a really great parent.

Otherwise, you end up punching holes in your own bucket, right? Or your own boat, lifeboat. You're shooting holes in your own lifeboat and then chronically draining your own power, your own power of influence and change. You're just dumping it out into some kind of stupidity. It's almost like what's happening is... No, I would really say this is exactly what's happening.

Rachel Denning (48:50.829)
All of your energy is being used up. This is metaphysical in a way, but all of your energy is being used up with trying to avoid, buffer, or ignore these issues that have built up. And when you remove those, when you process those, now you have energy that can be directed towards... Results. Results. Exactly. It's that simple, honestly.

I just wanted to mention one other thing that I think is a good example of how we have used this process in our life. It's a very, I would say dramatic example. And that was when we were driving through Mexico last year, 2021, and we were surrounded by a mob in Mexico that was hitting our vehicle with sticks, threatening to burn the vehicle and break windows. This was a very dramatic experience and could have been...

very traumatic. Now, I think this is just partly how things work out in our life. Our three youngest children didn't even know it was happening because they happened to be watching their movies with headphones on and we're totally clueless that this was going on. Which turned out to be a huge blessing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It turned out to be a huge blessing but things like that. They would have been scared out of their lives. They would have been very scared. Things like that work out in our life somehow. They weren't even aware it was going on.

Now our three older kids, three of our older kids were there involved the entire time. Luckily had been trained already in Krav Maga and other martial arts and other skills, obviously trained in psychology and thinking. So they kept their cool. They were not freaking out in any way. No one cried. I cried, but I cried intentionally because I was trying to gain sympathy from the mobbers.

And so I cried hoping that that would help bring sympathy. It didn't so then I stopped but like everyone was pretty much in control. They kept their cool. Yeah, you kept your cool and were able to talk us out of the situation without damage or harm or something horrible happening. And yes, we were all I'm not gonna say we weren't shaken by it. We were and we were angry. We were disturbed. We were questioning the you know, our faith in humanity.

Rachel Denning (51:21.741)
But over time, and I would say within a few, two or three weeks, for the most part, most of it, I think we had processed it that now, I don't think any of us would have any problem driving through Mexico again. We would be totally fine. We still feel totally safe to travel the world. Where I believe that - And even more prepared. If we didn't have, well, yeah, that too, I'd be more prepared mentally.

Right, because we've now thought through a situation we've never thought of before, which is a mob violence. But without the skills that we have, and again, these come back to the same type of skills, the same type of strategies that we use in daily life. If we didn't have those skills, that could have very easily have become a traumatic, life -altering experience that would have...

prevented us from doing more things. That could have put an end to travel and all kinds of things. Oh, absolutely. It could have been so traumatic in the form of some form of PTSD. Absolutely. Traumatic, especially for the kids or for us. Yeah. And we've seen this happen too. I mean, we have seen personally friends or have known of, you know, not too far disconnected from us, people that have experienced traumatic things like this while traveling.

And you know, it disturbs them and it keeps them from traveling or going out into the world or whatever, even other things. They're like, oh, I'm not going to do that because now they have some sort of PTSD or something related to it. And so while that's an extreme example, I think it does illustrate kind of what we're talking about because in a way that's what's happening with parents.

They're carrying the trauma of these things that have happened to them. And we're not discounting that things happen to you. Bad things. There are horrible bad things that happen to people and have likely happened to some of you. We're not discounting that. What we are saying. Nor are we making light of it like it's just some small thing to be dismissed. Just throw it off. No big deal. We realize there's big, big stuff that has happened. Yeah. But what we are saying is that it's...

Rachel Denning (53:46.029)
possible to work through that and to let go of the trauma and the weight and the baggage of it and to Be in cluttered and I guess for some authenticity here I want you to know that there were and I've shared a lot of my story There were some really rotten things that happened to me things that I saw and experienced you went through some some traumatic and very difficult things and then we've had one of our children went through some

very, very, very dark things. We don't share that because we want to keep that private and respect them. That whole thing. But I share that so you know that as parents, we've been through it. And then as individuals before we got married. In fact, even after we were married, we went through some really, really difficult, challenging times. So.

We share that to let you know we've been there. We haven't just lived this silver platter life. We've had wealthy parents taking care of everything in these huge safety nets for every jump we took, somebody was there to catch our fall and break our fall. We have fallen on our face hard. We've been victimized. People have done terrible things to us. So we've been through this. So please don't misunderstand that we're not acknowledging that. Especially because we're talking about our fairy tale life.

That doesn't mean to us a fairy tale includes the challenges. And in fact, they're what make the story inspiring. So while we sincerely believe that our life is so good, it is, that does not mean it's not without challenge. And we've been able to process that. And so we share that as a message of hope. That if we can do it, you can do it. And we get through this and we can address those things. And

make the adjustments, recalibrate, reset, get in a better spot where things are so much better. And so again, I'm circling back, like work harder on yourself than you do on anything else. And it'll carry over to massive results and positivity in your life. And it'll start, the problems, I know you've heard this before and it sounds cliche, but it genuinely is true. The problems begin to take care of themselves. They just melt away.

Rachel Denning (56:13.325)
And I've seen this with so many coaching clients in our lives, when we address the root of the problem, which is often in us, then the other things just kind of go away. They become a non -issue. And it's a beautiful thing. And sometimes it's the big stuff, but most often it's little things. It's little habits that are creating perpetual self -sabotage. These little, simple, it's the simplest things that end up sabotaging your success. But.

Interestingly, it's the simplest things end up supporting your success. Yeah, it's true and we have to like look at each of those elements Maybe it's just chronically staying up too late or wasting time on Devices or social media or shows or entertainment very often. It's just You're entertaining yourself instead of training yourself. You're entertaining your kids instead of training your kids

Maybe you lie around in bed a lot or on the couch, maybe throwing a pity party or feeling sorry for yourself. And honestly, some adults are sitting around acting like babies who need to be babysat or they're playing the helpless victim. And it's just, it's not in a power position or maybe some of you are entertaining your fears or feeding your fears and your worries and your doubt. You're putting all your creative energy into...

playing out these worst case scenarios in your head. That's preventing you from moving forward instead of actually creating real solutions. And you give more attention and effort to your excuses than to solutions. Well, and that's certainly one of, if we're giving, sharing insights from our own life, that's definitely one of the things that we've done consistently and habitually. And that is to examine all of these areas.

our life. Like there was a time period especially I think where we were more intentional about it although I still feel like we're in this habit of looking at every single thing we do and questioning it, examining it, re -doing it if necessary. That includes what time we get up, what time we go to bed, what time we eat, what we eat, how we eat, where we like everything. I mean anything you can think of.

Rachel Denning (58:36.941)
We've analyzed it. Studied it. Studied it. All the science, all the research, all the experiments. Yeah, read the books about it. Shared it with clients. To say... Put it in all of our courses. Yeah. That's why we build the master class. That's why we do the group coaching. That's why we have all this stuff, because we're sharing the things we found that work. The best things that work, right. Because we say, does this work? Does it actually work? Does it actually produce results? Because I... Ooh.

I hate it when people grab on to some idea and then hold on to that for the rest of their life. This worked one time and I'm gonna live by this now for the rest of my life. They never reevaluate that. And that's something as easy as as simple as a parenting philosophy or a way of eating or I don't know a certain book they read and like they just they just hold on to that. Which can I?

Can I expand on that? Because it's a good example. Let's say you come across something that really works with your toddlers. You're like, oh my gosh, this was magic for my toddlers. So you hold onto that thing. You make it a religion, and you keep using it now. And you've got tweens, and then teens, and young adults, and it's not working. It doesn't work anymore. It stopped working when they were toddlers. But because it worked so well when they were toddlers, you hold onto that thing. That's your new religion. And it just totally backfires all for the rest of your life. And you're like, what happened?

produces the results you don't want or it worked with one toddler and you do it with all of them and they're all different and not every Strategy works with all of them. Exactly. Yeah So you take the principles and the practices to get real results But you have to also keep expanding your ideas and I think this is part of our message here that if something starts stops working, right? Maybe things are going well and then suddenly now they're not going great. I

Don't just think, oh, I guess it's this kid. I guess it's their problem. I guess they're just like this. No, there's something else you need to learn. There's some skill you now need to gain that's going to help you solve this problem because where many parents go wrong, and especially in the teenage years when things get off, I think parents do this. They start to sit back on their hunches and say, oh, this is just what it's like, I guess. Teens. All just have to wait it out.

Rachel Denning (01:01:04.141)
because what I worked before is no longer working. So I guess I'll do nothing now and wait until they're adults. That doesn't work. And that often produces disasters. And that's where you often get the greatest problems because we as parents, instead of leveling up, we begin to level off. Exactly. And then our kids look at us sideways and then they look down. We've lost their respect. We've lost our influence and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

And so we're left with the only option is to keep learning and growing. To keep improving ourselves, to keep making the most of ourselves so that we can genuinely live extraordinary lives and have tremendous positive influence on our kids and all the people around us. Boom. Okay, love you guys. Reach upward. And gentlemen, be the man.