#185 Helping Children Develop Self-Control (aka The GREATEST Predictor of Future Success)

Rachel Denning (00:11.118)
Hello everybody, this week we have a super important topic that if you are a parent, you want to know about. If you knew as a parent that there was one major characteristic which if developed would drastically increase your child's chances of success and happiness, not only now, but as an adult, wouldn't you want to know what it is? And wouldn't you do everything in your power to help your child?

develop that characteristic or attribute? Personally, as parents of seven children, we give a definite yes. We want to know and we want to help our children develop this attribute as fully as possible. Well, researchers have followed a group of people from childhood into adulthood and they found a common denominator that could predict future success. Children who demonstrated more self -control at age 11 were more likely to be happy, healthy and successful.

at age 32. And the best part is that this attribute, self -control, is a learnable skill. It's a skill that we, as parents, can teach to our children. And it can be done in simple ways during interactions on a daily basis. Listen to this episode to learn simple strategies for helping your children to develop more self -control starting this week. This episode has been sponsored by our own Helping Children to Develop Self -Control Workshop.

If you want even more strategies and ideas on how to help your children develop this very important attribute consistently and well, then visit the link in the show notes to get access to this workshop. You can use the coupon code SELF to save 50%.

Rachel Denning (02:01.998)
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about how to help your children become genuinely happy and successful, not only in childhood, but also in adulthood. And this isn't just for parents, so if you're listening and you're not a parent, don't check out here, it's for you too. So this is the key factor. And we found, the research has found that there's one leading thing above all.

almost all others. Pretty much. Determines one determining factor in children. One leading characteristic. A leading characteristic in children that is a determining factor in adulthood if you're going to be really happy and successful. It's a predictor of future happiness, success, wealth. Ooh. So there you go. OK, so let's let's frame this up then. You want to have.

happiness and success and wealth yourself in the future. You want your children to have those things in the future. And so when research says there's one predictor that's the common denominator, the greatest indicator. Greatest contributor. The greatest contributor. There you go. So think about that, right? You're sitting here and you just inherently want that because you love your kids. You want to live that quality of life and lifestyle.

So he said, what works? What is the greatest contributor? And we're gonna tell you in a second. What do I focus on? Yeah, what's most important because just be, oh man, this one gets me so.

Ladies and gentlemen, do not accept advice from just anyone. Don't take advice. Don't ask for advice from people who do not have the things you want, the qualities and the attributes and the characteristics, the lifestyle you want. If they do not have the happiness and success and wealth that you want, don't go soliciting advice. I mean, people jump online and ask for advice from Facebook, man. And then people respond.

Rachel Denning (04:13.23)
And any random is like, oh, do this. That's what I do. And you're like, oh, that's great. How do you know it's great? Is it working? Is it getting real results? So today we're going to give you. Wait, I just have to interrupt with that because it's so funny. Because I had a reel on Instagram that went viral. And one of the comments someone left was, because I would obviously get some stupid comments on there of like,

You should have done this with your child, you know, by complete strangers after watching a seven second reel. And then someone's, you know, and I would respond saying blah, blah, blah. This is it. And, and then someone said, if you didn't want advice from people, why did you post on Instagram? If you didn't want to take people's advice, why are you posting? And I just think that that is that that's too common today.

people are posting on these social media platforms to get advice from basically strangers. And I responded saying. Which is really funny. We weren't even posting a question. We were sharing something in our life. And she's like, well, really, she felt like her role was as a comment or as a viewer is to give us advice. Is to give me advice, right. Like, why else would I be posting unless I wanted advice? And I responded like, that's the worst idea, to take advice from strangers on.

on a social media platform. You should be seeking advice only from people like you were talking about who you would want to emulate. You have great results with your kids. I'm going to take your advice. But somebody posting on Instagram or Facebook, I have no clue what their kids are actually like or their parenting is actually like or their relationships. Why would I listen to anyone on those platforms unless I knew for sure what it was they were actually like and what kind of results?

they had. So yeah, that's our little detour for a second about take advice from the right sources. Right sources. So we circle back. This is and this isn't what we're going to share today. This is well documented research. Yeah. So it's not like somebody's opinion. Over decades. This is just like, hey, yeah, watching groups of people for decades, they saw, man, when we saw this in kids, this came out later in adults. It predicted their success.

Rachel Denning (06:36.653)
20 years later. So what is that indicator? What is that factor? The thing that was the greatest predictor indicator of happiness and success later in life and it was not. Just kidding. It was not that because that was something else I wanted to bring up that a lot of people, a lot of parents think, oh, if my kids do well in school, they get good grades. They have a high IQ. They're smart. And we spread that message through society. Oh, we absolutely. We as a society.

are like, look, go to school, get good grades, get a good job, you'll be successful. And this indicator we're gonna talk about today may play out a little bit in that, but it's not the grades themselves. It's not getting the grades themselves. In fact - It can contribute to good grades, but it's not. The research actually shows that particularly with wealth, Thomas Stanley, I think it was. I was gonna bring that up. Yeah, the millionaire mind.

Talked about that was a great book man. He talks about how grades there was no there was no correlation between grades in school and Well, I'm becoming a millionaire and I think that was one of the books that kind of switched our mindset about this whole idea from the beginning early on in our homeschooling journey because We were like there's no correlation and you know wealth is not the end all of success, but it's a part of success and there's no correlation at all between good grades and

Wealth. Becoming wealthy. Anyways, I just wanted to interject with that. Yeah, you got to throw that out there. It's not the grades. So we're going to get to this indicator. But most importantly, OK, and we can tell you, and we will tell you. In fact, you and I, we come across things like this all the time where they say, hey, here's a great factor. Here's a common denominator. This is what successful people do. Here's the key to happiness. And we might look at it and go, oh, that's nice. But then we have to.

The next question obviously is, and you guys know that, you're intelligent, thoughtful people, the next question is, well, okay, how do I cultivate that? That's the key. Because you can have the answers. In many instances, people know what they should or should not do, but that doesn't keep them from doing it. That's the human journey. I know I shouldn't eat this, but there it goes. And I know I shouldn't watch that every day, but guess what I'm doing tonight. And so we keep going along.

Rachel Denning (09:03.021)
The key then is we find out first what it is that actually works, not the silly ideas from the herd, but like what is it that actually works? Where's the real research? Then we find the research and step two is how, let's create an actual plan. How do we cultivate this more? And then three is how do we honor the plan? So identify the target, make the plan, honor the plan.

And today we're going to share the research and then our experiences and what we've been able to share and learn with others and from others and how we see this played out in so many instances and how I saw it play out this weekend. Parker and I had this really awesome opportunity to participate with an organization called Aerial Recovery. Just a really solid organization. I think...

This organization, as far as humanitarian work goes, is more aligned with our own personal vision and mission and values than any other organization I've seen. Not only are they saying, look, we're not going to go do helping that hurts, we're going to go do helping that helps, and we're going to address really critical issues. Their focus is mainly on disasters, so hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, or wars, war -torn countries, or wherever. Where there's

great, great need and go in not as, you know, with the savior complex or anything, not going in as we're great, we're here to save you. It's like, let's go in, let's get on the ground when people need help the most and just be a resource and not drain, not take away from the limited resources they have, but go down and be resourceful and help people help themselves and lift and build and encourage and motivate and be there to love and strengthen and rebuild and then not just walk away.

but stay through the next few phases of rebuilding and do it with extreme competence and with high, high standards of refinement and integrity. Oh man, I love it. So we went to this training. It was a four day training. Parker and I slept probably, I think nine hours in the last four days. Yowzes, it was good. We were just going and going and learning about.

Rachel Denning (11:29.069)
medical and logistics and how to you know get in there and keep take care of ourselves and take care of our team and then take care in a disaster situation where everything is chaos and That's something I have wanted to do As long as I own you even before I was thinking about that you guys when I was I was in Peru when I was 20 and

there's this storm phenomenon called El Niño. And it's just these storms that come around every, I don't know, few decades or whatever. And they're just wreak havoc and destruction. And I was there. I was in the jungle when El Niño hit. And I watched rivers swell and swell and swell and then wipe out massive bridges and literally eat homes. The river just couldn't, I was standing there on the road.

I was standing on this dirt road and I could feel the whole ground just rumble. Massive, massive boulders were being pushed down this river like they were pebbles. And I just watched it eat homes that, you know, before had been 20 or 30 feet from the river. Now the river had grown so much and it just consumed the home right in front of our eyes. Everything that family owned in the world was just took it down the river. I mean, I saw that stuff and since that point being down there,

And we were in major earthquakes down there too, when I was there. Where, oh man, remember one morning I woke up and we were on the third story of this rickety old apartment and that sucker was swaying back and forth. I mean, I don't know how far it was moving, but we, the whole building was swaying. It was crazy. I happened to be praying at the very moment. So I'm on my knees and I'm like, whoa baby! It was a movement. So since that time I've wanted to participate in these kinds of things.

And this point of this organization is so great. It's like, hey, look, if we're going to go in there, you got to be able to keep your crap together. You got to be able to face what you're facing. They're from what I've heard third party, because I hear it from you. Their big focus is you need to be an asset. The whole team, but you individually, need to be an asset, not a liability. Exactly. We're not going, so you cause more problems, or we cause more problems, or.

Rachel Denning (13:57.197)
adding to the, you know, having, bringing along your issues. Like you've got to resolve all of that and have control of yourself and your life and your stuff so that you can actually be a force for good instead of someone who needs to be taken care of. Exactly. Oh man. And this has been a message. Which ties in. Yeah. This, this message is something I share a lot in, um, I'd be the man masterclass and that tribe is constantly talking about being an asset. Yeah.

And so, I mean, in a way that's, that's kind of the next level even that that's even beyond like we're there's levels to this. So first of all, it's happiness and fulfillment and success in your life, which creates and contributes to future happy and success, success and fulfillment for your children specifically, which then contributes or leads to being an asset.

So that you can contribute to the improvement of the world, to disaster relief, to helping, really helping other people because you have this firm foundation of having your craft together. Yes. Right? To be a great force for good in the world. Whoa. OK. So what is the thing? It's all relevant. It's relevant. The thing. Are you ready? Drum roll, please. No, the thing is.

Self -control. And or the other word for it actually which I like even better I think is conscientiousness. And so I don't like that word as much because it still seems a little vague. That's true. For some people you're like what does that even mean to be conscientious? Right. And you're like is that mindfulness? Does that mean I meditate more? Like what's going on here? Yeah. So self -control is really simple but...

I think we go with both because it gives a different perspective on the same thing. Conscientiousness seems more inclusive. Self -control seems like one specific quality or attribute where I think conscientiousness can actually expand that a little more to include a few other attributes. But it's in the same vein here. Right. And well, just to make a connection there, as you are more conscientious, you're more conscious, you're more aware.

Rachel Denning (16:18.381)
You're more self -aware, you're more situational aware, and that heightened awareness allows you to think in longer terms, to think from different perspectives or angles, and allows you to think through like what are the outcomes of the decision I'm about to make? And even pause. On a first level, second level, third level. Exactly. Yes, to go beyond the levels. We did an episode on that, of like getting beyond surface level stuff. That requires more conscientiousness and of course leads to greater self -control. Right.

But those who lack self -control are just usually extremely reactive on an immediate basis. Like, oh, there's a stimulus and then a response. Boom, a reaction. Where we're saying there's a stimulus, then there's a thought process, conscientiousness, and then there's a decision of control. Where if I choose to do this because I'm choosing to do it, and I would only choose to do it because I've thought through it. That's beautiful. And so...

They found, and you guys, you've heard about, you've probably heard about the marshmallow thing. This is, I think, really where it kind of came to light, that little marshmallow experiment they did. Was it in the 60s or 70s? They put marshmallows in front of these little kiddos and they said, hey, look, if you eat, there's a marshmallow, one marshmallow plate, just the kid, and they leave them alone with the marshmallow for a few minutes. And they said, you can eat it now if you want. Or if you'll wait, we'll give you another one in a few minutes.

And that was it, it was super simple. And then they followed those people through decades and watched how it played out. So a lot of the basis was started there and then it's been replicated. But it's this idea of like, if you can choose to delay gratification in that instance, and that was just kind of an indicator. If you can delay some gratification, some thoughtfulness, have a little more self control, then that's gonna play out in major ways for the rest of your life. So.

Actually, it would be extremely valuable for each of us to wrap our heads around. And I find that writing is the best way to do that, discussing and writing. So again, you're part of a discussion here. It could be a little bit passive on one side or whatever. Podcast is kind of that format. But you're part of a discussion here is we're going to just kind of think through this out loud. Like, what is self -control and how do we do it? But I want you to spend some time discussing it with your spouse, with your friends.

Rachel Denning (18:45.549)
whatever, just discuss, like, what is it mean? What is it really? And how do you cultivate it? Because you'll come up with other great ideas and it'll help you conceptualize it. And writing will bring up a lot of genius. It's amazing. You can just sit down and start writing. And just maybe take a pen and paper. I'm going to walk through this because some of you are like, I don't know how to write. I don't know how to think on paper. And you might just take a piece of paper and say, self -control is, and then just start writing. Just flow. And to cultivate self -control myself, my kids, dot, dot, dot.

Like it's a writing exercise. And so you just let it flow. What happens as your pen is kind of going all of a sudden, bam, you get inspiration or revelation or insight of like what it is and how to do it. It's really insightful, really powerful. And you can activate and generate genius, like genius ideas. And they might be extremely specific for you or for one of your children even of how to pull this off. But we want to talk through today of what I mentioned earlier.

the thing, the plan, and honoring the plan. Yeah. Well, and just to provide a little bit more framework here, I want to touch quickly on how this fits in with... So the conscientiousness actually comes from the Big Five Personality Test. It's one of the attributes in the Big Five Personality Test. And if they want to dig in deeper to this and learn more about it, there's that...

a great book called The Collapse of Parenting by a psychologist who talks about specifically this test and self control and how it all plays out. But he references the big five personality test. And so this is just fascinating to me because in the big five personality test, every person on the planet has all five of these personality aspects, but just in varying degrees, right? It's a scale.

And the big five are agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, or also it's called emotional stability and then openness to experience. So it's important to understand and realize that of those big five, again, emphasizing this, the one characteristic that contributes the most to happiness, success, wellbeing, health.

Rachel Denning (21:11.149)
wealth is conscientiousness more than anything else, more than compassion, which is a part of agreeableness, more than extraversion, you know, which can be working with people, um, more than your emotional stability, more than your openness to experience or your intellect. All of those things are important characteristics, but the one thing that's the biggest predictor of future success is the conscientiousness. And I just think that that's so powerful to understand that. Right. Because.

then that helps us, because our kids have all of these different characteristics, but it helps us know that, okay, while my child is extremely compassionate, which we have a child that's very compassionate, they need to develop self -control if they want to actually be very successful in life, right? They need to have the compassion, they should have that compassion, but the self -control aspect is even more important than the compassion.

That's what I was going to say next because as you start thinking through this, like, wait a minute, why would self -control be such an indicator or predictor? And if we were together in a room, we could kind of throw out ideas and you start thinking through this, you're like, well, self -control is going to keep you away from distractors or problems, things that can pull you away from your goals and dreams, right? Your objectives. And it's going to help you do what must be done. And that's...

That's huge, even if it was just those two simple things. Like, wait a minute. Why would self -control be such a predictor of happiness and success? Well, because you're actually, when you don't feel like doing it, you're going to do it anyway. Exactly. Or when you feel like doing something you shouldn't, you're going to resist that. And just that, even if you're just a little bit better, maybe you're not even anywhere near perfect, but you're a little bit better. You've just automatically increased your probabilities massively by just saying, you know what?

I know that's not going to help me, so I'm not going to do it. Or, well, wow, as I've been reading or observing, I notice the people who are doing really well in that field, they do that thing. I don't want to do it either, but I'm going to do it. Which it ties in perfectly to the common denominator of success by Albert Gray. He said the one thing that was the greatest difference, he studied success for 21 years. He's like, what was the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people? He says the difference was, the difference was,

Rachel Denning (23:34.989)
successful people were willing to do the things that unsuccessful people were not willing to do. They didn't want to do it. And he says, you know, I found out successful people didn't want to do it either, but they did it anyways, which again, it was exactly, it was another way of saying the same thing, self -control, right? That that Albert Gray came to that same conclusion. So if, and that you guys are going to come up with so many more ideas and you're going to see so many examples of how self -control can.

be that predictor and indicator. But if we go off nothing else for those two things, it'll keep you out of more trouble and lead you to more results, better results, by just doing what must be done, then it just makes perfect sense. Self -control is that factor. So I did want to, maybe I think this could be helpful or interesting to just read a little bit of what conscientiousness is. This is according to,

Jordan Peterson and his Big Five Personality Test. And his colleagues. And his colleagues, not just him, you're right. And this would be something that could be valuable, I think, for parents. And we've done this with our teenagers at understandmyself .com. He has the Big Five Personality Test that you can take this personality test and then it gives you a score. It's very fascinating and helpful to go through that. And then we discussed it with our older teens and that was fun.

educational. But each of the big five also have two subcategories. And so with conscientiousness, the two subcategories are industriousness and orderliness, which again, I think is just kind of expanding on those ideas of self, you know, self control, but also it's about being.

orderly, neat, industrious, doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, you know, those kind of things. I love adding those factors and the way they're described because now you picture what else is self -control. The industrious side is like, I'm going to be productive, I'm going to be effective, I'm going to work, I'm going to take initiative and action. If I'm really advanced, I'm going to be proactive with things. I'm going to be a producer instead of just a consumer. And then on orderliness, environment affects everything.

Rachel Denning (25:55.533)
take care of your body, how to take care of your appearance, how you take care of your space, everything from your bedroom and closet to your car and your garage and your workspace, right? So the orderliness, well, and how you even order your thoughts and your mind and planning and scheduling and logistics, all of that, which all came up this weekend, is we're talking through every element of going into a disaster for humanitarian relief and then putting in the hard work of doing it.

Because this comes up too, it's like, hey, well, this needs to be done and it's exhausting. Or it's extremely hot or extremely cold or there's bugs or you know what? Your favorite meal won't be available for a very long time. Things you like, things you think you need so much of the luxuries and like you, you just got to do it. Something needs to be done. Like do it.

And sometimes that means you go without sleep for a little bit. Sometimes it means you go without food for a little bit. Sometimes it means you go without some of your luxuries for a little bit. And if there's an urgency or an emergency, can you just do what needs to be done? One night as part of a simulation, they just had us lay down and go to sleep. And we felt very, very fortunate because we had one little mat to share, one teeny little sleeping mat. And so Parker and I.

Parker's my 18 year old son. We just cuddled up and shared one teeny little mat for the few precious hours of sleeping out that night. You slept for like three hours or something? Yeah. And so you just, okay, great. This is what it is and that's what it is. So get up and get what you can and then get up and put a smile on your face and go about your business. Instead, unfortunately, most of us going around griping and moaning and whining and complaining, there is a lot.

an extreme amount of complaining and whining in our society. Yeah. Well, and in the collapse of parenting, it's by Leonard Sachs. He talks about that, that that is one of the major plagues of our this time, this generation, where parents in response to probably how they were parented, because that's usually how it works. I mean, they've they're essentially.

Rachel Denning (28:20.685)
losing boundaries, not creating boundaries, I guess. They're not creating boundaries. They're not passing on the culture to their children. They're not having expectations. He talks, his subtitle, which in some ways I don't agree with the subtitle because, well, I'll explain, but like the subtitle is why something about treating your kids like adults and why that's a problem. Well, I don't personally agree with that because I feel like I treat my children.

like adults, but in a different way. The way he talks about it in the book is essentially like, whatever you want, that's what we'll do. You know, you decide if you're going to play video games, you decide if you're going to go try out for the football team or if it's too hard, you're just going to quit. Like you're going to stay up all night and sleep in all day. You decide. And so his thing is you're treating children, children like adults and that's wrong. And in my mind, I have a different approach. We have firm boundaries and rules and standards and expectations, but then we say,

you know, you take charge, you be in charge of you, here's the guidelines. So it's a little different approach than what he's talking about in the book. But the point is, yeah, a lot of society has taken this approach. Maybe it's the opposite from the helicopter parenting that was going on and now it's like hands off parenting of, you know, whatever, you know, I don't wanna upset you.

If you want to do this thing, well, I guess, you know, it even gives an example of, you know, a kid that played video games all the time. And then he went to go try and it was ironic. It was like a football video game and he was, you know, a top winner in the football video game. And his dad was like, well, you should go try out for the team. And he was like, thought he was going to be all tough. And.

went out to try out and the coach was basically like, you're out of shape, dude, you gotta get in shape. So show up at 7 a .m. tomorrow so we can start training. And the kid was like, nah, it's not for me. Going back to my video games. And the parents were just like. Effortless rewards and instant gratification, that's a huge problem in our day. And it totally undermines self control. Right, but the parent was like, well, you know, it's a new day and age. He's really good at this.

Rachel Denning (30:42.989)
video game nowadays kids people can make a living from playing video games. I like this was mentioned in the book a couple of times and you're like, okay, but guess what? You still have to live in the real world. And so there's a lot of this, which is why he calls it the collapse of parenting. There's a lot of this going on and I think parents feel confusion about.

Where do I draw lines? Where do I have boundaries? What do I require of my children? What do I quote unquote make them do, force them to do, right? Like, where do I go with this if this is the case that this is the biggest predictor of success and it is, well, then we talk about the plan part. Like, what do I actually do here? How do I actually make this happen? Because all of my friends have phones and they get to play video games all they want and this and that and the other like.

What do we actually do and how do we do it? And before we go there, I want to do a little a little bit of a pivot on a real big macro level. So kind of zoom out on society and history. We actually live in a time and I mean, you're listening to this. You've lived in this time period of relative ease and comfort and affluence. And well, some of it's not even been relative. It's been.

some of the most affluent times in the history of the world and some of the easiest times. And yet people don't believe that. I very vivid, this is a quick example, I very vividly remember we had been living in Guatemala and at the time we thought we were broke, you know, it was tight. But we lived in a nicer house in Guatemala because a lot of the neighbors had tin roofs and dirt floors.

legitimately and dirt walls and dirt walls Adobe walls and I remember I flew up to the States and I went to stay with Greg's mom and she lives in a nice little farming town in a small community in Utah and I went to church and the church lesson was talking about

Rachel Denning (33:01.453)
Well, first of all, let me give this perspective. I remember driving around thinking all of these houses would be mansions to the Guatemalans, every single one of them. And they're normal size houses in the States. But I remember thinking so vividly, these houses are like mansions to the Guatemalans. Of just absolute luxury. And absolute luxury. They have carpet, they have running water, they have...

like real rooms and lights and electricity. I was like, these are luxury houses. And I went to church and the lesson was talking about dealing with your challenges and trials of poverty and struggling with finances. And I thought, you guys have no idea. And I get it for them. Like, yes, they're having their challenge. It's all relative. But I really thought,

You don't even know. Yeah. And that's kind of where I was going, is that perspective, but on even a bigger macro level. So for decades, most of you have lived in very comfortable situations. For most of our lives, we've had total luxuries that now we think are necessities. Right, like electricity. And we deserve this. Even now, the internet. And we have to have it. And like,

Oh, I'm so mad that the Wi -Fi on the airplane that's flying across the ocean is slow while my thing loads. I mean, it's just amazing. So we've come to expect these things. If the internet goes out at our house, you're like, what? Car says, or electricity goes off. Expediting, you should be able to handle this. Yeah, this has a problem. And so we've gotten to this place where, and even if we've had hard times, so you guys know my story. I've had hard times. I've been out on my own as a teen in rough neighborhoods. What was interesting about that is I

I thought my experience was so hard. There was times I was actually homeless. I did not have a place to stay. And then when I went to Peru in the 90s, it immediately hit me. I'm like, dude, being homeless in the States is way better than being homeless in Peru at that time. It was so, so bad. Or even some of the living conditions. Yeah, they had a place, but it was so bad.

Rachel Denning (35:24.461)
And it's way, way better now. Peru's way better, and so many places have advanced. The whole world has just advanced. We think it's going down the drain, but overall, globally, things have progressed so massively in the last few years, even in developing countries. So we've been in, for years now, been going to Central and South America. And we've been able to watch, because we keep going back. We've been able to watch the total transformation. But my point is that we live in such an affluent, easy time in the history of the world that it has allowed us.

to be, quote, successful, or at least survive and even kind of partially thrive by not exercising self -control. So some people might listen to us and totally disagree. Like, I don't need to exercise much self -control. I make good money and I'm doing this right. And I look around and I'm like, so 70 % of the population in the US, this is both kids and adults, is overweight or obese.

And I'm like, man, if we were in like survival time, where you have to survive and the condition of your body will determine your survival. Like if you have to like run and hunt, if you're in some tribal, and this still exists, you guys, there are still tribal people on the planet that go out and physically run and hunt animals for their living. If you got transplanted to that tribe,

Like you're either going to transform yourself or you'll be dead. And most likely you'll just die. Or not. I say that. You can transform yourself. You can. You can totally transform. But I say this because it's such an interesting time we live in that it's been so affluent, so easy, and so comfortable. It has allowed many of us to be weak and to lack self -control and still be like, pfft.

What are you talking about, man? I don't need that. Everything's good. I watch TV all the time. I scroll all the time. I do whatever I want most of the time. And my life's still good. And so in a macro level, kind of zooming out, you're like, OK, yeah. It's actually, we live in a time period where, OK, it is possible. It is possible to have very little self -control and still exist and still make it happen. Exist in a level of.

Rachel Denning (37:46.701)
comfort and luxury that wasn't available 100 or 200 or 1 ,000 years ago. Exactly. Yeah, so you have all these nice things that weren't even available. And you can take some very little to no effort comparably to maintain them. Amazing. Well, you can be a fat lazy slob and not get fired and still keep your job and still exist. It's like it's unbelievable. But my point is on a macro level, that's changing. And hard times will come back and it'll shake it up. And people who have just allowed themselves.

let themselves go, there's going to be a reckoning. Yes, because there are cycles in history. Well, just real quick, an example I thought of, because a great book to read about some of these ideas is The Rational Optimist, and I remember in there him talking about that for the average four -person family to enjoy the normal level of lifestyle that they have with electricity and food and...

running water, all these things that I can't remember the time period he said, but it was what, 200 or 500 years earlier, it would have required, I think over a thousand slaves to provide that level of energy required to produce all of the food they ate and all the electricity they used and all of the luxuries and conveniences they had for an average four person family. So that, it was really.

shocking to me, I guess, to think of it in that way because, you know, and he also talked about that it was advancement in technology that wasn't, that was one of the things that allowed for the emancipation of slaves because energy was necessary for living at higher standards. And once you had energies, other energy sources, then people were more willing to be like, okay, we'll give up human energy as an option.

This was just a fascinating side note. So living in our time period, I think that actually ties it back in perfectly. Living in our time period, we love technology and all the inventions and the comforts of society. That's actually a really wonderful thing. It's made our lives better. But it's also a two -edged sword in that it allows you, if you're not careful, it allows you to really drop significantly in self -control without...

Rachel Denning (40:10.381)
like deep, deep suffering. The harsh consequences that would come otherwise. Like death. If you let yourself go, you die. There's been times in history it's like that. And there's no guarantees that some of that stuff's not coming back. And so as we've had more comforts and conveniences and things have been freed up, I think by choice in our families, and this is our personal philosophy, the way we see things, by choice we need to choose to exercise more self -discipline voluntarily.

so that we are assets, so that we can be ready for any circumstance and not even just for our own self -maintenance and ownership, but like I've got enough to spare for myself, my family and others. I'll be able to help out in society when things don't always work out. And I think it's an absolute guarantee that things don't always work out. And if you haven't been in a natural disaster or a war, you will be at some point. And then...

You'll be tested. You think it's, ooh, ooh, man, I'm gonna get fired up. You will be put to the test. Because you can, you can rationalize it right now and be like, what? Like, I'm in my neighborhood, I go to my job, I do what I want to do when I feel like doing it. If I don't feel like doing it, I don't. And it works. But that won't work. It works because it's.

It's a miracle that it works though. Like Jordan Peterson has this thing he says where he's like every single day we should walk out of our door or wake up in our house saying, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. The electricity is on, the water works, I have heat. This is amazing. I can't even believe that society functions this well because for most of the history of the world, it has not. I wasn't attacked by a neighboring tribe last night. Exactly. Robbed blind.

family, half the family killed or carried away. And like, that's been, that's been the story of history now. And we think now that this is the new normal and it will always be this way. But there's, this is, it's not meant to go to this gloom and doom part here, but like there's cycles in history and there's no guarantee that what we have now is going to remain as it is forever. Um.

Rachel Denning (42:30.573)
In fact, I would feel comfortable saying at some point in your life, you're going to be tested and tried. At least if not on a societal level, a personal level. It's common. And so are your children. And so the more discipline and self -control and conscientiousness we've cultivated, the better prepared we'll be for the circumstances of life. So is it time to dive in? It is. Let me just really quick.

read some more of these adjectives because I think they can be helpful. So conscientiousness is also associated with attention to detail, hard work, persistence, orderliness, as well as adherence to rules, which can be a good thing. Standards, I have to add that for us rule breakers here. Adherence to rules, standards and processes. Conscientious people are careful, reliable, organized, self -disciplined and persevering. Unconscious people tend to be more laid back.

Less orderly, more inconsistent, less reliable. They're more likely to procrastinate and are less likely to persist when pursuing their goals. Will you read that again? So pay close attention here as she's going through those. That's the place where we get into trouble. So we can call it conscientiousness or lack of self -control. This is where we get into trouble, that last part. More laid back, less orderly, more inconsistent, less reliable, more likely to procrastinate.

less likely to persist in pursuing their goals. Okay, so inconsistent, unreliable, lack persistence or perseverance, right? Procrastination. Even if we only went with those four, like how much trouble and heartache and failure would those four things cause in life, in your life and in your kids life? And when I get to talk to audiences all the time,

and especially in youth and I think across the board youth are consistently have for the last decade or more, they admittedly say procrastination is one of their biggest problems, if not their biggest problem. Like we talk about, hey, why aren't you getting more done? And they're like, oh, it's procrastination. They just put it off, which interestingly, when you think about self -controls, like, hey, this needs to be done. And somebody with self -control sits down and does it. Somebody lacks it says, I'll get through it tomorrow. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (44:53.741)
and then tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and then if they get to it, it's like a rush, rush, rush, rush, put it together and it's not as well prepared, and then we get it out the door, and guess what? It still works, I got it done, and there weren't that many harsh consequences. And so we get into this space where like that, so inconsistent, unreliable, those things will destroy you because they also destroy trust. So this little element of lack of self -control carries over to everything else. So.

What's the plan then? We know that... Well, just a quick side note. If people are fascinated in our actual scores that you and I have on this Big Five Personality Test, they can listen to a previous podcast episode we did on it where we actually went through all of our scores. It was funny and entertaining. And it's insightful. And I think all of you should take it. Now, these scores are not permanent. They don't mean this is who you are, where you are, and that's your life. It just shows you where you are currently and what you need to work on. Exactly.

So we can always increase in conscientiousness and in self -control and self -discipline. Well, that's a good thing to point out here because what the research shows, not only does self -control and conscientiousness contribute most to future success in children, but it is something you can teach. You cannot necessarily change your child's IQ, although there's some discussion about that. You can't obviously change their eye color or height or a lot of those other things.

But you can change their levels of conscientiousness and self -control. And there's very specific ways that you can do that. So that makes it. Yeah. Thanks for pointing out. It's a learnable skill. Exactly. And if you or your children haven't learned it, OK, so be it. Change it. If you've developed negative habits around it, all right, change those. Replace them with good habits. This is something that all of us can do. And we can do better and better and better with practice and persistence.

So I think that's the hopeful message here. Because don't, do not, ooh, this is where I lovingly reach through the microphone and grab your shoulders and get a little close and say, hey, you're not stuck. Do not acquiesce to, well, this is just the way I am, or that's just how my kid is. That's not true. You might say, well, I've tried. Okay, you haven't tried everything. Maybe you haven't tried long enough or hard enough. And try a different method that actually works.

Rachel Denning (47:16.653)
You can do this and I can say that confidently because I did it. I wasn't born like this. I wasn't like this as a young man. I cultivated this stuff. I worked on this stuff and I get stronger and stronger and better and better at it because I work on it. So it's the plan now. We gotta make the plan and then honor the plan. The plan, like how do you start cultivating self -control? And you teach your children self -control. If that truly is the greatest indicator.

Then, well, yeah, as parents, we stop and say, wow, that's huge. Let's teach our kids self -control. How do we do that? Well, this is gonna get a little tricky here, until we're talking about it. Well, let's start with the conventional approach, which is very simple. Because in his book, he kind of just says, well, you make your kids do stuff, which that's the part we want to.

dive into some nuances with. But if we just look at it from that approach, it's very simple things that nowadays some parents aren't doing. It's things like you're not gonna have dessert until you finish your food, you know? You're not gonna play video games until you do your studies. Or you're not gonna play video games at all because, you know. They're a waste of life and brain space. You're going to...

pick up your room before you can do this thing. It's kind of like you have these rules, these expectations, these requirements, and then as the parent, you're making sure that those actually happen instead of just like, oh, it's too much work, it's too much effort, who really cares? It doesn't really matter if their room's a disaster. It doesn't really matter if they spend a lot of time on their video games. It doesn't really matter if they're...

watching a lot of Netflix, it doesn't, you know, it's this kind of doesn't really matter attitude. Or it's not worth the fight. Or it's not worth the fight. Or the kid fights back, I'm out. It's just, okay fine, just go. Right, well that's even, that's a huge indicator that this isn't happening, that this self -control isn't being taught because the kid wants to do their thing, of course they do. And so if they fight back and mom and dad throw up their hands and acquiesce,

Rachel Denning (49:40.109)
Well, they're learning great. I get to do whatever I want and there's no real consequences for it. Exactly. So they're learning the opposite of self -control. They're learning to fight for a lack of self -control because that's honestly what they're fighting for. They're not fighting for the harder path. They're fighting for the easier way and they get it. And so they're not learning self -control because...

Essentially, that's where it does start. It starts with mom and dad requiring that they do certain things and then making sure that those certain things actually get done or happen because they are practicing this self -control in the moment. When they have to make themselves eat the food before they get the dessert or when they have to make themselves clean up the mess before they can, you know, do X, Y, Z, then they are practicing using that.

muscle of self -control because they're like I have to do this thing before I can do this other thing. That's the basis of self -control. And but this has a huge and this where it gets a little little tricky here. There's an art and a science to it. I have seen that backfire so many times or it just doesn't work. And so the parent forces the kid to do something and the kid is just like so resentful.

hates the parent and the way the parent is doing it. So it's like, it could be a correct strategy, but just being implemented poorly. And so the kids are like, fine, I'll just do it. And they pick up this habit of like, when my parents are around, I'll do it. When leaders are around, I'll do it. When teachers are watching, I'll do it. Soon as they're gone, I'm doing whatever I want. And that's where I've seen this backfire numberless times.

as soon as they turn their back. So they haven't learned self -control at all. They've just been controlled. They're like these slaves that like, as soon as the slave master's on around, like, whatever I want, right? You can try and escape. Yeah. It's like, it's the, well, it's a story out of the Old Testament, right? They just thought they had been in slavery for so many generations when they had freedom, there was a lot. It was crazy. So it has to be done effectively. Well, right.

Rachel Denning (52:00.525)
And this is where the art and science of it comes in. It has to be done in such a way that they actually feel like they're the one deciding to do it. Yes, I'm choosing to control myself. Exactly. And this mostly comes down to relevance. As parents, one of our greatest responsibilities is to make sure that what we have our children do is relevant.

They have to understand why. You might have to repeat it 10 ,000 times. But ooh, it better be relevant. This is where I also see a major failure point. Parents just have stupid arbitrary rules. These dumb, dumb standards and things. This is what our family does. Why? Because that's how we do it. What do you do that for? Teaching self control. Like, well, it's dumb. You guys can tell I'm fired up. Because it's so dumb. You come up with this totally arbitrary standard and the kids hate it. And they're like, yeah.

And they actually get this negative association to self -control and self -discipline and this kind of stuff because they're like, that was idiotic. There was no point to that. Which it would be fascinating to see, and I don't know if they could ever do specific research on that because in the long run, maybe that approach would still be better than the parents saying, whatever, do whatever you want. Better than nothing, sure. Because they're at least learning some level of self -control even if they.

hate it or resent it, right? So in the long run, they could be better off than by just saying, I don't care, it doesn't matter. And interestingly, some will be worse off because they'll resent it so much they'll rebel. Maybe. And they'll fight against it. Yeah, maybe. Because they feel controlled. Well, no, there's been many instances where they feel so controlled, so they do the exact opposite. Yeah. Right. I know I did that as a teenager. I rebelled. But ultimately, though, I guess.

I did come back to what I had known before. I returned to it when I finally started thinking on my own instead of thinking in terms of rebellion. I started thinking, well, wait, what do I actually want? And how am I going to get that? And I returned to what my parents had taught me, but it was after a period of rebellion. So that's, that's a likely scenario in that case, but I'm just speaking hypothetically out loud right now. It's like, maybe that still would have been better.

Rachel Denning (54:25.965)
than the approach of some parents nowadays of, it doesn't really matter, do whatever you want. Because in those cases, the children aren't being trained on anything. Like anything goes, whatever you want to do is fine, which is happening in society nowadays with a lot of things. And so there's no boundaries, there's no borders, there's no expectations.

There's no need for control because what are you trying to control yourself to do if there's nothing you are supposed to do or have to do or need to do? But all that aside, there's an even better approach of doing this, a better way, a higher level of...

training them to have control but in a way where they very much feel in charge of it and that they're not being forced or made to do or made to do stupid things that don't make any sense in the name of having self -control. And I think something that has worked really well for us is this approach of, hey, it's your choice. But if you want this certain reward or outcome or...

consequence, positive consequence, this is what you have to do. So they choose to do the action that's developing self -control, you know, finishing their food or cleaning up their room. And then they get the reward for it. But it's, we're, we're setting it up in a way. We're approaching it in such a way that they're literally making the choice. If that makes sense. Like internally, mentally they're choosing, okay, I'm going to do that. Because that's ultimately that's.

That is the only, by definition, self control. When they choose to do something, maybe they'd rather not. Like, oh, I'd rather just sit here and do nothing. Or I'd rather not eat this dinner and still have the dessert. I'd rather not work out because it's hard and sweaty and hot and it strains my muscles and makes me sore. I'd rather not apologize because apologizing feels awkward and tough. I'd rather hold on to my grudges because it feels like I can justify. I mean, all these rathers.

Rachel Denning (56:35.629)
But if you can walk them through that and say, well, it is your choice, but please understand there's consequences both way, good or negative. It's your choice. And depending on the kind of person you want to be in the kind of life you want to live, this is the better choice. This is the higher standard. I kind of like the positive side. Yes, we have to have boundaries. Absolutely. We have to have rules. Like you don't cross this line. Right? Here are the lines. Don't cross that. Here are the boundaries. Don't violate that.

But there's also this other positive side of like, here's a super high standard. Let's pursue that. Let's move towards that. So it's forward facing movement. And if you want these rewards in life, you're going to have to exercise a lot of self control to get to that level. Right. Well, and I, when you were talking right now, I think we do need to emphasize that a little bit because I think people don't necessarily understand or know that side of our parenting.

We do have some hard boundaries. And if some of our kids push close to those boundaries, you and I have those moments when we firmly kick back. I don't know if that's the right way of phrasing it, of saying, no, this is too far. Yeah, absolutely unacceptable. They're rare, rarer in our family because they don't even happen. Well, they sometimes happen with our...

I'll say our 11 year old right now, right? Even then, let's not, I don't want to be misunderstood. It's never, it's not bad. It's right. But I just like attitude and stuff like that where we're like, Hey, we don't know. But I want to, I want to do, I do want to emphasize that. So people understand because, because we've talked about people misunderstand our parenting or approach sometimes because we give our kids a lot of freedom. We make them, we allow them to make a lot of their own choices of autonomy. But.

It can backfire if it's in an environment where there's not clear boundaries and rules and expectations, which in parents will enforce. Yes, man. We've seen that you and I've seen that so many times. We worked with where the parents are like, hey, we don't do this. And then the kid does it and they're like, hey, we don't do this. And the kid keeps pushing. Hey, we don't do it. And they push way beyond it. And there's no.

Rachel Denning (58:51.949)
There's no enforcement. There's no follow through. There's no execution on that. Right. Because this approach of giving them freedom and allowing them to make choices doesn't work if you don't have that framework in place. And we do have that. We will enforce things. Like our kids know that if it gets right down to it, do not miss. Devices are gone. This, that, like they know we have our points where, man, they're going to get it.

they're gonna lose consequences, it's gonna be unpleasant for them. And even in that, the way we implement and follow through with, let's call this disciplining in this instance, if they were to cross a border, the way we handle that, there's still strategy, there's still tact, there's still diplomacy. So there's not even resentment for that consequence, and it's been clear up front, and we do that, we do it well.

I would say, yes. Where some people are screaming and yelling and insulting and it causes a major, major damage to a relationship in the way the boundary is enforced. Yes. Well, and in explaining, expounding on this, that doesn't mean our kids don't get annoyed or bothered with it in the moment, especially. But there's always this full circle resolution of them saying, huh, okay, I love you. Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. You know, like they come back and...

There's closure on that. It doesn't mean in the moment there's not upset or that they're not unhappy with our decision or choice. Because we've messed up their druthers. Exactly. But ultimately, there's this resolution of, OK, we'd like, I still love, we love each other. We want to be parented by you and we're sorry. And, you know, but it's this, I guess I don't know how to explain it, except that there's a resolution. It doesn't go unresolved.

It continues to move forward in a healthy way, if that makes sense. So it's critical then to get clear about what your boundaries will be and how you enforce that because keeping boundaries helps to develop self -control. You can't have self -control without boundaries because otherwise there's nothing to control. Right. And that's, I mean, some of those things are built into siding systems, which is very good. Like if you don't...

Rachel Denning (01:01:15.117)
If you don't show up and do work, you will be fired. If you don't drive on the correct side of the road, you will die. Or if you go too fast, or you drive like crazy, then you'll get a ticket. I mean, so there's some of those things built in where you're like, OK, I got to control myself because I don't want the negative consequences of crossing a boundary. That's the one side. So as parents and as people, I have to set up my own boundaries. I have strict boundaries for me. Obviously, there are boundaries in our marriage. Yeah, absolutely. There has to be.

And if I cross those boundaries, I expect you fully to drop a hammer. Hard. Because you just don't cross the boundary. And we've seen that dynamic in marriages, where there's no clear boundaries. And so one spouse will keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And the other spouse is like, I'm miserable. I hate this. I want this terrible. I'm very sorry for this. And nothing. They never drop the hammer and put their foot down so hard. That spouse is like, yeah, I better control myself more because I've crossed these boundaries.

So there's boundaries with yourself. And you better be hard on yourself in the healthy way. There's boundary in marriage. There's boundary in your family. There's boundary in parenting. There has to be clear boundaries so you stay away from them. On the other side, so write those down. Get clear about those. Discuss them. Practice them. Execute them. On the flip side of that, there has to be standards. There has to be things going toward. Expectations? Noble aims? Yes. Both.

inside a family dynamic, but also inside a personal, in a personal way. So I have objectives. I have noble aims. Let's differentiate those a little bit. So one is dreams and goals, things I want to achieve that's going to require me to exercise a lot of self -control to even get close to getting results. So I want those results. The other side is I set standards for myself. I'm like, this is how I behave.

Period. And when people try to push my buttons or circumstances are difficult, so what? I still have set the standard and that requires me to exercise self -control even though I may not feel like it in the moment. And most of us are like, yeah, but she made me feel this way. He made me do that or I lost my temper. Yeah, but this circumstance, I don't care. Like my standards don't get tossed aside for expediency.

Rachel Denning (01:03:39.437)
Like, oh yeah, I was feeling hungry so I just stopped and ate at that trash hole. Fast food, right? Why? Well, because I was hungry. Yeah, I mean, that one thing, that's something that people probably don't know about us, but you and I have not eaten at a fast food restaurant for at least 17, 18, 20 years. I don't even know. Like we just don't stop at fast food restaurants. You're like, oh, we're so hungry. So? We'll drive and drive and drive and drive hungry.

rather than stop at a fast food restaurant. We'll find something else or go hungry and guess what? Tomorrow you'll feel better. Sleep it off. Yeah. And that's not always easy. I mean, we just finished a road trip where we drove from Utah to Georgia and it's not always easy to find healthy food, but we do that or we don't eat or we go to the grocery store because we're not eating at fast food restaurants. We just don't. And so you might stop at a...

a stop, there's the gas station, you're fueling up, you're all very hungry. We don't buy gas, food, food. Gas station food. Gas station food. But let's say there's a couple, and there have been almost all the places we stopped for gas, there was some fast food place in there and gas station food, and we were all hungry, but none of us going and like, let's load up because we're hungry. I mean, my little kids are like, let's buy something. I'm like, nope. And I told them, I'm like, we don't buy food from the gas station. Like, that's just a part of our family culture. We don't buy food from the gas station.

That's not who we are. That's not how we do life. Or a fast food place. And so, okay, there's a perfect example. So the little ones, they learn more self -control that way because we're teaching them why. And we've been teaching forever. It's not like on a road trip, we tell them we don't do it. Like we're constantly talking about eating healthy and why and taking care of bodies and why and we don't need that in this because. And why we don't buy certain things at the grocery store. There's a lot of things we don't buy there either. And when people give you candy, we pay our kids. If somebody gives them candy and they don't eat it, we pay them.

Or buy them toys. They're learning self -control. That's a perfect example, learning self -control. They're like, man, I really want to eat this sucker. But if I go home and give it to my mom and watch her throw it down the toilet or garbage or whatever. I don't throw suckers in the toilet. No suckers, I'm sorry. In the garbage can, right? Then I get a dollar. There's that perfect example. It's like, if I don't eat the marshmallow, I get a dollar instead. Boom. Right? And so there's little examples of self -control. We're just kind of walking through examples here out loud. So you're setting standards and like, no, I won't do that. And.

Rachel Denning (01:06:06.573)
And you teach it to your kids and say, hey, oh, do you want to have this cool experience or this great thing? You want this benefit? You want this result in your life? That's going to require self -control. And so you have your own boundaries. Teach your kids to set their own boundaries. Whenever I mentor youth, I'm like, stop. Oh, man, I get so fired up about this one. I tell the youth, I'm like, stop waiting around expecting your parents to control you, to set standards for you. And I tell this to everyone. Don't wait around for your church to set your standards.

Don't wait around for your job or your company or your community or your neighborhood, whatever, set your standards. You set your own standards, high standards, and hold yourself to them. And don't let yourself off the hook. Don't sit around and say, well, as long as I don't get caught, as long as the cops don't catch me, as long as my parents don't discipline me, as long as somebody's not there to figuratively discipline or spank my butt for being stupid, like, that's where self -control is born. And that's where, for me personally, my own journey.

That's where it was born for me and really, really strengthened. I have a tremendous amount of self -control. And I'm not saying that in boasting. Like I saw early on, cause you guys, I was out of my 16. No parents, no guardians, no curfew, nobody, not a soul to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Or who even cared what you did. Nobody gave a crap and nobody knew. I didn't have any friends either. No friends, no family.

Nobody gave a crap about me and would have batted an eye and I was in bad neighborhoods so nobody's paying attention. There was not a soul to say, hey, do this, don't do that. And so luckily, fortunately, I had enough consciousness or conscientiousness. I don't know how to say, I don't either, man. It was just a miracle. I give God the credit, I guess. But somehow I could just see like,

Well, don't do that. That's stupid. I guess I could see consequences naturally. I lived in a bad neighborhood. I'm like, well, that idiot thinks drinking's okay. And I get to watch him stumble down the street, fall, bust his head, lose his wallet, get robbed, blind, wreck his car, and then hate his life, and then wake up hungover. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't seem like a very good idea to me to be an alcoholic. And then, you know, beating, you know, domestic violence or whatever. I'm like, that is horrible. I was so lonely. I'm like, I don't want a relationship like that. I want an awesome marriage.

Rachel Denning (01:08:33.645)
I don't know how to do what that idiot is doing. So self -control, right? And I learned how to control my temper. I had a crazy temper. I learned how to control it because I didn't want to destroy my own marriage. I actually wanted friends. I didn't have any. I'm like, if I have a crazy temper, I won't have friends. So I started to control myself. And so I learned, and then I wanted to be healthy and fit. So I stopped eating junk food and garbage and sub -drain and carbonation and caffeine. Just do that. Do that one thing.

Just decide today never to drink carbonation again. Done. That's just absolute poison liquid. So boom. And what happens is your self -control starts to grow. It's like this muscle. And you get stronger, stronger, stronger. The more you give into those things, the weaker you get, the more you resist and the stronger you get. So pick relevant things. Don't just be like, okay, I'm not eating broccoli ever again. I don't know, I take broccoli. Whatever. But.

Don't pick something arbitrary, pick something for real. So, soda's like not good for you. Just stop. Stop drinking alcohol. Okay, here's one. You guys ready? This is gonna be really, really hard for some of you. There's insane amounts of good research out there that you should stop drinking caffeine. So, cut out the coffee. And that is gonna be hard for some of you. I thought you were gonna say there's insane amounts of research about cold showers. Ooh, start taking cold showers.

So then, yeah, I'm just like this. I've been turning my shower cold after I showered. Woo! Are you getting more self -control? Yeah, I am. That's a perfect example, actually. That's an easy way to do it. Because you don't feel like doing it. You don't want to do it. It's uncomfortable. And you turn that sucker cold. Guess what's happening? Every time you do it, you're getting more self -control. Instead, you just take a deep breath and stand there and take it. And what's interesting is our kids have done this. Like, they'll go into freezing, freezing cold water.

That is a, it seems silly to some of you listening. It seems kind of dumb. There's actually a lot of good healthy research around it. There's so much research about it. But besides that, just the ability that you can mentally jump into very, very cold water, just because you want to have the experience, that is self -control. Resisting the donut bar, a church function, because you walk around like, this is trash.

Rachel Denning (01:10:54.221)
And there's no prayer on earth that can make that trash healthy for your body. So sorry. And you don't put it in your body. Good example. There's simple examples. Because you might ask, well, how can we do it? How can we do it? There's a million little ways of like, don't eat that, and do eat that, and don't do this, and do do this. And do your work before you play. And I mean, it's basic stuff. Honestly, it is. But I think.

For a lot of reasons a lot of factors, but one of them being this like you mentioned this affluent society that we live in now It's easy to just be like well. Why like I'd rather just do this easy thing Why not we don't? necessarily see a good reason for not doing it and so we do it and people would say that's stupid on why you

I'm gonna keep eating donuts and drinking soda and taking warm showers. You guys are idiots. I'm gonna enjoy my life and so what? Man, I feel like promising you at some point in your life that will come back to bite you. And we've seen it again and again. Yeah, we've seen it so many times. And when things change or alter or you get to a point where you desperately need to have...

massive amounts of self -control for some situation, you can't just get it in the moment. And you might say to yourself, well, I will. When I really need it, then I'll do it. Bull. That's like saying I'll be able to pick up my kid who gets injured and carrying them five miles out to the hospital because then if you're not in a condition to do that, sorry. It's gonna wreck you. And in fact, we saw that in the simulations and the training we did over the weekend. Like when it's time.

You guys heard me say this. The time to perform has arrived. The time to prepare has passed. Self -control is your time to prepare. You are preparing for some future situation or circumstance when you're going to need it and if you don't have it, it's just going to be too late. Yeah. And as you go along, I mean, you guys know this already, you get it. As you go along and strengthen this, your self -control and your kids do the same thing.

Rachel Denning (01:13:12.429)
it gets stronger and stronger and better and better. And then it leads to the opportunity to take advantage of opportunities that you couldn't have otherwise. And something pops up and say, this needs to be done to get this result. And you're like, I can do that. Because you've been doing other hard things. And you get this mindset and this identity of like, yeah, I do hard things. I control myself. I do what I need to do. I think this training you just went to is a perfect example because one, it's...

kind of an invitation only thing. Like you have to be able to get in with certain qualifications. Well, for example, the second one, like Parker went to the first one. So he qualified to come to the second one. First of all, he was prepared to do that. He was in a healthy condition. He was fit. He had the time and money to be able to go do it. So there's a lot of factors that go into play there where he was actually able to go. Then,

you were able to kind of skip the first one because you had prepared yourself. You had medical training, you had wilderness survival training, you had all of these experiences, all of this, all of these things on your resume, so to say, that they amazingly allowed you to skip and join this next one, which they usually don't do. They made an exception. And then you were both prepared.

to be there, to show up, to fully participate, to lead, to stand out. And that honestly has taken you a lifetime to do, a lifetime of learning and self -discipline and cold showers and all of these things that prepare you to be an asset. And then when the opportunity presented itself, which it just did this year, kind of out of the blue, I feel like you were ready to say,

And you didn't have to say, I've always dreamed of doing something like that. I guess I better get ready now that I know about this organization. You're like, I've always dreamed of doing something like this. Sweet, let's go. I'm ready. So I've been preparing, waiting for an opportunity. I didn't know it would come along. Exactly. I didn't know this existed. And when it popped up, I could jump on it right away. And this, I just know this already. This is going to lead to experiences and opportunities.

Rachel Denning (01:15:35.437)
that I've dreamed of and that I never could have dreamt up. It's gonna lead to things that are awesome. That's true. And like already relationships and connections, friendships, like it's go time. Yeah, but you have literally been preparing for it your whole life. And so much of that preparation is built specifically around this very thing.

conscientiousness and self -control. So in that, I want to go... Do you have something else? Well, I kind of wanted to go back and touch on specifically these strategies for teaching it to kids. Because we have been talking a lot about individual self -control, which is obviously key. All of us as parents, I think, need more self -control in order to teach self -control to our parents or our children. But...

specifically with this idea of the nuance of doing it, whether you're making them or you're doing it in a way so that they're choosing it. Because I think there is a nuance there. But I think in the long run, it makes a difference. While in some ways, at least me personally, I think if you made your kids do the self -control thing, in the long run, I think that could be better than just allowing them to do whatever, potentially. Yes. Maybe there's a spectrum of this where it's

One's just straight up, because I said so. You do this, I'm gonna make you do it. Then you kinda come towards the middle and be like, well look, you really need to do it and I'm gonna make you do it. And then kinda moving over of like, this is why you need to do it and I'm gonna let you choose. There's consequences both ways, but I want you to choose to do the thing you don't necessarily feel like doing. Yeah, I think that even that's part of the nuance there is that.

You could just make them do it and because I said so, but if you are framing it in a way where they realize they need to choose it, it's a good thing to choose it. Here's why it's going to bless you and help you if you choose it. That's even, that's more powerful and empowering because they're understanding why it needs to ultimately fall on them. Why it ultimately comes down to them deciding.

Rachel Denning (01:17:59.629)
And so even while they're young, having that approach of you need to choose this or you get to choose this and this is why. We always do that. No, no, you get to. Why do I have to? You don't have to. You get to. Yeah. Why do I have to do this? You don't have to do it. You get to do it. Which I think that's been huge in our family. We take this approach of we get to do hard things. This is uncomfortable. It really is.

You don't have to, we get to. It's so simple, but it reflects our attitude of like, yeah, this is hard, my legs are burning, or I'm so hungry, I'm so tired, or whatever. No, we don't have to, we get to. We actually get to do hard things. We've had that approach. And then we've also made it part of our culture of the DDHT, Dennings Do Hard Things, that even our little girls get. They're like, yeah, DDHT, they say that all the time, DDHT.

It's almost like this privilege and this identity of like, no, no, no, we do our things. Exactly. Let's go. Right. Instead of, whoa, this is so terrible. That happens around 11. Wining, crying, and complaining. There's still some of that. But even then, they still know. It'll be something challenging that, OK, like I always talk about this because it's a perfect metaphor. You can tell when your kid's ready to transition.

because they'll do something like, we like paintballing. But paintballing hurts. And you're running, you're running through the woods fast as you can and getting shot. So Rachel would never do this. I don't like paintballing. Well, you've never even been. I've never been. I don't want to go. And she doesn't even like it. And she's never been. That's hilarious. But that's not her thing, right? She's like, I don't want to do that. That's not my hard thing. But when you have an 11 -year -old, finally, he's like, I don't want to get shot, so I'm not going. And then finally, he's like, I want to go so bad, but I know I'm going to get shot. And you see him wrestling with this.

And the transsover's like, that was awesome, let's go. It's worth getting a few welts for the game. I'm amazed at our 15 year old daughter that goes and gets huge welts. Oh, she loves this stuff. And I'm like, oh my God. And she's so tough. But she gets it. So the teens, they get it, right? They get to that phase of like, it's worth it to me to pay the price and do the uncomfortable thing to get the reward. Mm -hmm. That's where it's at. It's so powerful.

Rachel Denning (01:20:20.141)
So yeah, how you present it, how you view it, how you talk about it, matters so much. Yeah, the words you use make a big difference, I think. So inside the making of it, we got to... Make... It's the way, okay, the way you make them do it matters. There's tact and strategy to the way you make it. This is why it's hard and it...

I think it's hard for people to grasp this approach that we have. I don't even know if I know how to fully articulate it because we're making them do it, but in a way that we're making it optional. It's like it's optional, but it's not optional type thing. And yet it still is optional. So ultimately they're deciding to do it. And they have voices before they're where they're like, well, you know, I know I have to do it because if I don't like.

I don't even know what they say, but it's like, I know I need to do this, but ultimately they're still deciding to do it, if that makes sense. And so that's, it's challenging.

to...

articulate it to explain it to do that. I'm not even, I mean, we might just be confusing people more at this point. Like what you're making them do it, but not making them do it. Like how are you doing this? We're making it a choice, but like there's also making it kind of an expectation and a standard. And perhaps, perhaps where it comes in is by explaining it. I know that our oldest has said to me,

Rachel Denning (01:22:00.685)
you know, now that she's almost 20, and a couple times she has said to me, like, I love how you guys always explain things to us. Like, you never just expect us to do something just because you said so. You explained it in such a way that I was like, oh, that makes complete sense. And even if I didn't want to do it, I was like, yeah, I need to do that because it makes complete sense. I should do that thing because of how you explained it. And so that's kind of the approach.

And obviously it can be a little more challenging to do this with younger children, but it's still possible. But you make them by in a way, by convincing them, by articulating it and explaining the reason behind why, why do you need to exercise? Why do you need to eat the food on your plate? Why, before you have the dessert, why do you need to clean up your room before you go play? Like,

We're really good, I think, at explaining it in such a way that they're like, yeah, I get it. Okay, Rachel, I love the way you just explained that and gave me this visual of it. The making in our case isn't, I just told you and you better do it. Right. The making includes... Which rarely works that well. No, nor the dad lecture, nor I'll spank you and like, it's not the carrot or the stick.

So part of our philosophy of making our kids. On occasion, I do a little bit of that when I feel it's necessary, especially with certain ages when there's some pushback and they really don't care about effort or anything. I'm like, here's a little bit of it. Or certain ages where they can't cognitively wrap their heads around it. Yeah. You're like, well, you're doing it because I do these things for you. And if you want to eat my food, I expect you to do this.

You simplify it in that way, you know, with something. And make it part of the team effort. Like, helping out around the house is a big piece of that. But I want to come back to this visual image of it. When you and I say, hey, we're going to make our kids do something, it includes this.

Rachel Denning (01:24:10.285)
this unified effort of persuasion, influence, and motivation. So it's not like, you'll do it because I say so. It's this, whoa, big push of like, let's do this, here's why we wanna do this, what we're doing as a family. Which often includes a big discussion. Yeah, and well, and the one thing I've been wanting to get through this whole discussion is modeling.

have to see you doing it. And if they see you exercising self -control, if you are a model, if you're the poster boy or poster girl of self -control and you do it in a healthy way, an appropriate way, and they see the results and they see that you are happy and successful,

and the self -control has led you to that. The self -control works and it's worth it. Yeah, they're like, wow. They have this living example of the benefits of self -control right in front of them. Now, if you exercise a lot of self -control, but you're pretty miserable, they're gonna be like, I don't want any of that. Or you don't exercise self -control and then try to get them to do it, they're gonna look and be like, it's not working for you and you're a hypocrite. So all this will backfire. But if you exercise lots of self -control and you get results that they want that are...

really attractive and appealing, then you're like, hey guys, we've got to exercise self -control to get things we want. And they're like, yeah, cause look. So this actually came out in a really beautiful and kind of special way. This is like, this is sacred for me. Parker went into this training and he was by far the youngest person there. And a lot of, most of the people there were already well into their careers. Some of them actually retired already.

from careers they've had and pretty dynamic, awesome group of humans. Capable and competent. Very capable and competent and like expertise and mastering a lot of things. And almost all of them are like, man, this is so cool, you're here with your son, I can't believe he's here. And so, wow, we were like so impressed by him. Like he's just all in. And I heard a couple of people, in fact multiple people, I would just call them all, what are you doing here? Like you're 18, man.

Rachel Denning (01:26:30.829)
I can't believe you're here, what are you doing here? And I was kind of around the edge and somebody walking like, what are you doing here? And he's like, what? They're like, did your dad make you? Did your dad make you come and see for yourself? No, I wanna be here. They're like, seriously, you wanna be here? And somebody was like, why? Why do you wanna be here? And I was overhearing and part was like, I have watched my dad for years have the coolest, craziest experience.

these unbelievable stories and do things that so few people get to do. He's like, I want that. I want to be able to do what my dad's doing. And so I'm here getting the skills because I know it's the skills, the self -control, and the discipline that's led to the extraordinary things he gets to do. I want that. And I'm going all in, right? It was beautiful. And I'm just like sitting there like, yeah, baby, yeah.

And they were like, wow, my gosh, wow. And so he's been watching and listening all these years. And I've been telling him, I learned this, I learned this, I did all these things, I learned that. And so now it has clicked so powerfully to him. He's like, I want it. And you know what else was really cool? After just the first day of presentations, he walked over to me and he's like, Dad, I realized I've been wasting time. And...

and the time that I spent like on a thing, nothing bad, but he said, I could have used that time to be learning these specific skills. Because in that training, they're like, look, in order to save this person, you need this skill, in order to help this person, you need this skill, in order to do this, you need this skill. He's like, I could have been working on those things. I could have been using that time to learn languages, to practice medical skills, to practice knots, to level up. He's like, I need to be spending all of my free time leveling up.

So I can be an asset. It was beautiful. And that's that's self control, right? That's having free time and choosing to use it to be a better human being. And to be an asset for society. Which is ultimately what this is about and which is why it is a bigger predictor of success because if you choose of your own accord to use your time for those types of activities, you are going to be more successful and happier and wealthier like.

Rachel Denning (01:28:53.869)
It's just so clear and obvious. So then there's a million and one ways and you'll come up with ways to actually strengthen self -control and conscientiousness. To, well on the one side, stop procrastinating, be more reliable, be more consistent. Well, I also think this is a good time to...

talk about one of my favorite books, The Tom and Cabots by James Clear because he also talks, and I think this is an important part to it as well that people don't always think about. We think it's just about practicing discipline, but it's also about creating systems that support your success. Like he mentioned simple things. If you want to work out in the morning, like put your running shoes right next to your bed. Like you make it easy for you to do the good things and harder for you to do the bad habits. Like that's just a simple.

strategy that we definitely employ in helping us be have better habits. We just have good systems that help us do those things. And then well the habit and the system I think I think they're they're twins man. They're twins of success and happiness and and cultivating those and that once you get them in there it's actually easier. In fact some of the things you'll do it'll take it'll require more self -discipline self -control in the beginning and then afterwards it just becomes easy. Yeah. There's no brainer.

altering your identity also helps with that too. Like, you know what? I am a healthy person. I am. And so you're like, oh, I don't want to eat. You're like, no, I don't even eat that stuff. I don't do that. So it's not a temptation anymore. I don't look at a Dr. Pepper and be like, oh. I have to exercise self -control to not drink a Dr. Pepper. I don't give a crap about my body. Where before, when I first stopped, it was like this.

Battle this inner battle of self -discipline and control the whole time like every time I saw it somebody else is drinking it you go to the restaurant like they have a So or the gas station they have like fountain drinks over there Right and now I'm like I wouldn't you couldn't pay me to drink that right well and then part When you are making that transition that's especially when systems come into place because you know if you just Never buy certain things if your system is I go to the grocery store. I don't buy these things

Rachel Denning (01:31:14.765)
Well then it's much easier to practice self -control at home because you don't have all the crap in your pantry or your fridge. Exactly. So you're not constantly battling that. You're just, you have the system that's supporting your healthy habits. Exactly. It's worth mentioning here the concept of motivation. When you're feeling really motivated, it's actually easier to exercise self -control because the motivations are, but the interest, and that's true. And so you should practice.

fueling and nourishing your motivation. Just like you nourish your body with food and you eat throughout the day, and every day you should also fuel and nourish your motivation daily. You should do things that make you motivated. It is easier to follow through when you feel motivated. But you can't always rely on motivation. There will be times you just do not feel motivated to do it. And that's when it's especially important to have a developed self -control muscle, so to speak.

so that you do it anyways. I really don't feel like doing it, but I've made a commitment to myself. Or I've made a commitment to my wife, I've made a commitment to my kids, I've made a commitment to God. Wherever that lands, I fall through, I do what I say. I'm a person of integrity. I don't care. Which is part of conscientiousness. Exactly. And self control. So get motivated, have the systems, build the habits, but on those times when you can't count on those, do it anyways.

and begin, so do it with small wins right now, things you know you can do, so make and keep commitments. That's the first, I guess, first easy step for developing self -control. Not hitting your snooze button. Yeah, so I'm going to get up tomorrow at this time and I'm not gonna hit the snooze button. Bam. That's one way of developing self -control. And you started the day with self -control. You're like, boom, okay, now I'm gonna eat a healthy breakfast. Boom. Now I'm going to send five emails. Boom. Now I'm gonna organize.

one of my desk drawers. Boom. And so you just go through your life and wherever there's holes in the bucket, so to speak, if you're trying to fill the bucket, you gotta look for the holes. Where are the holes in your life that are actually preventing or harming your self -control practices? Right? Is there something getting in the way? Get those things out of the way in your home and family and implement it. So anyways, this.

Rachel Denning (01:33:39.501)
This stuff matters so much. And it literally affects every single part of your life. I mean, it would be valuable for you, for all of us, to think through like, is there any part of our life where self -control wouldn't, better self -control wouldn't help? I can't think of any. It's gonna be powerful. And then, here's the thing about this, if some of you are still on the fence here, like, is it worth it? Like, what can or will it cost you?

if you don't do that.

What could it cost you or your family or your life, especially when things get tough? If you haven't prepared, you haven't practiced this, what will it cost your kids? Yeah, and in the lives of your children. And I personally, we both believe this, that a lot of the problems that we are seeing today in the world with youth, young adults, and adults.

come down to this very issue that there is a major lack of self -control and this includes mental health issues, anxiety, depression, because ultimately mental health is a lack of control of thinking. It's thoughts gone out of control that are spiraling downward into darkness and that's a major contributor to serious depression and anxiety. And so if you learn how to control your life,

in simple ways and learn how to control your thinking in simple ways, you can learn how to avoid things like that even. And so it is very, very critical, I think, like in such a big way, even bigger than we probably imagine. Agreed. Well, and connected to that is this part of our society where we want, we want an easy fix.

Rachel Denning (01:35:37.485)
Like we just want to medicate everything. Yeah. You're like, well, there's got to be some simple, easy way that doesn't require effort for this. That's actually counterproductive to everything we're talking about. And everything that our kids need is we want to give them some stupid, easy solution to just kind of bypass it, some pseudo substitute. Yeah. That absolutely is a thing. And I know we're almost done here, but I want to bring this up because this is something else that.

I just listened to the book on the way back from our road trip and that's one of the things he talks about in this whole collapse of parenting. He brings this up as a psychologist that he has seen this change in parenting approaches and that people, parents have become dependent on the drugs, the diagnoses to solve what he just says are parenting problems.

The kids having behavior, oh, they must have ADD or ADHD. Let's give them a drug instead of you actually need to parent them. You need to create boundaries and expectations and rules and enforce them. And so I think that this has gone to an extreme where any little issue that's happening in parenting, parents are like, oh, they must have some diagnoses that we need to get taken care of and medicated. No.

You need to just parent. And you know what's interesting about this is, so let's just go direct connection here. So let's say there's some lack of self -control in the child because it hasn't been developed. The cause, the underlying cause of that is the parenting. There's poor parenting. The underlying cause of poor parenting is lack of self -control in the parent. Absolutely a contributor for sure. Right? Yeah. So there's a connection there, especially in specific instances.

where if you as a parent have more self -control, it'll help you personally and you'll be a better parent and a better parenting will help your children develop self -control. And it just, it has the opposite effect. So instead of spiraling down, it spirals upwards. And we and our children get what we want with happiness, success and wealth and living great lives. And so if circling back now, research shows it is the greatest.

Rachel Denning (01:38:05.933)
predictor and indicator for those things, well, then let's be super proactive. Because it's learnable, because it's teachable, because it's a skill that anyone can acquire, what's stopping us from giving that tons of time and attention and making it a priority in our families? Because if that's the thing that leads to helping all the other things, then we focus on that thing.

And we do it really proactive, and we get after it, we start it today, and we stay on it as long as you're a parent, which is for the rest of your forever. So get on it, stay on it, make it happen, and build it into your life and your way of being. And I can, you guys, I can wholeheartedly say it has been nothing but good benefits and blessings and rewards.

in my life from exercising self -control. From starting as a teenager, a young teenager, like leaning in hard to self -control.

I couldn't possibly articulate how much good has come into my life because of that. For decades.

And I wake up just the gratitude, the immense gratitude and excitement for the kind of life. And you guys, I'm humbled by this privilege. I know how rare it is that I get to live the life I love.

Rachel Denning (01:39:50.605)
It's extremely rare and all of it can be linked directly back to cultivating self -control. I can't think of anything more powerful or persuasive to say to you about this than that. All the amazing things in my life have a connection back to self -control.

So, my friends, get after it.

build it into your life, your way of being in your family, family legacy. And we have done that. We built a family legacy around self -control. And it's made all the difference. Make it happen. Love you guys. Thank you for listening. Reach out to them.