#199 The Rewards (& Risks) of Pursuing a Life of Comfort & Luxury

Rachel Denning (00:10.83)
I remember the first time that I realized that humanity's desire for luxury was actually a driving force for improving the world. Previous to that, I had often felt that wanting luxury and comfort was wrong or bad, perhaps from generations of Puritanism passed down through religion and culture. But as I lay in the comfort of a luxurious hotel room, feeling perfectly at home, I finally understood that this desire was a positive thing.

Without a woman's desire for indoor plumbing, a comfy bed, and the ease of flipping a switch to produce light or heat, we probably wouldn't be enjoying all of these luxuries right now as a society. It is our innate drive for comfort, aka luxury, that drives human progress. Yet with every strength, there is an inherent weakness.

there is a downside to pursuing comfort and luxury at the expense of all else. And it results in us becoming soft and squishy and then able to face the challenges ahead of us. Does that mean we give up our lives of comfort? Perhaps for some, but for all of us, it means that we intentionally add pressure to our lives in a way that strengthens our mental, emotional, and physical muscles, allowing us to, quote, keep our edge and to prepare for the hard times which are coming.

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Rachel Denning (02:38.894)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the extraordinary Family Life podcast. I'm so physically sore and exhausted right now. Hopefully you won't fall asleep while we're talking. I'm hanging onto my chair. I'm not sleepy. I'm just like, I just spent the last four days going through what was called a selection training. It was designed by Special Forces guys to test.

our limits to push us so hard that we see what we're made of. Which is a really cool word. It's M -E -T -T -L -E, metal. And it's like, basically, what are you made of, right? What's inside? What kind of metal do you have inside of you? And it's like, great. So you have to push those limits. And it was awesome, but I'm crazy sore. I even went and got a full.

deep tissue massage and our amazing little Chinese masseuse used her elbows and her heels and found every knot in my body. It was painfully magical. But Rachel really wants to talk today about a comment she got on one of her Facebook posts about the earth being flat. Facebook stories. Yeah. Somebody was like, earth is a flat disc.

And we I'm not even sure how to respond to that like I know flat earthers They're out there. No I'd never interacted with one but that's gonna have to be another day because we're gonna have to do some homework about math and physics Greg and I were talking amongst ourselves. I mean we're not smart enough to prove that the earth is round and That the Sun is not revolving around the earth. Although the first comment my kids made was

well, how do people circumnavigate the globe and start in Alaska and end up in Alaska heading east if the earth is not round? And I'm like, exactly. Good point. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk about not only handling pressure, but I would invite you to pursue pressure.

Rachel Denning (05:02.733)
And that might seem counterintuitive. Most of you have a lot going on. Most of the people listening, you guys are high achievers. And the vast majority of you are married, some children, a couple, you know, you got a career or a job. Or a business. Or a business, you're running a business. See, and some of you have lots of employees and multiple businesses and...

large families or lots of hobbies or lots of projects. You've got a lot going on. Yeah, you're in your community. You're in your church. You're you've been invited to be on board. You're in organizations. You've got a lot going on and there's a lot of pressure and I often get asked like how do you how do you handle the pressure? How do you handle the stress? How do you do that? And what's really interesting. In fact, there was a I got a book recommendation again.

Um, it's called the comfort crisis. You heard of that one? So the comfort crisis, I've heard, I put it on my list a while ago and then I got recommended again. It's like that we're in our, in our, in our time. And this has happened periodically throughout history, but in our time again, it's, it's kind of shown up that like, we're just seeking comfort and convenience. It's like this pursuit to make things comfortable and easy.

Well, in some ways I would think that that is a part of our nature. We are comfort -seeking creatures, you know, evolutionarily speaking, because I think that that is what is something that can drive us to improve our lives, improve humanity. Like, I think it's a motivating force for improvement in the world.

because we do seek comfort. In fact, I remember, you know, as you're working through your relationship with money and, you know, abundance versus lack, I remember this realization I had one time about this idea that luxury actually drives the improvement of the world. Like, we have indoor toilets, all of us, most of us, not all of us. Because somebody was sick of walking to the outhouse in winter.

Rachel Denning (07:26.189)
That was a luxury at one point. It was a luxury to have indoor toilets. But then a luxury becomes a standard of living. And then, you know, the majority of the people have that. And that is that driving force right there is what has driven humanity to improve the world and to make it better. And now we have indoor.

You know, we have temperature control, heating and air conditioning. And we have heated toilet seats. Those things are amazing. Of heated toilet seats and all these fancy things. But it comes from this drive we have for comfort, which is directly tied to luxury, I would say. Another thought, you know, I remember early on in our travels, we lived in Costa Rica. In fact, our first international experience, we lived in Costa Rica. And I remember very specifically we had this

really awesome lady that worked for us. And she lived with us in our house. And... Is this Maria? Maria, yeah. She was just a gem. She was awesome. And we went to go visit her family. And her family actually lived an hour away. Hold up, let's frame this up, okay? So we are over... We're literally on top of the mountain. Like from almost anywhere in the Valley of San Jose, you can see these houses, like...

We were renting a place on top of the mountain. It was almost 7 ,000 square feet. It was just massive, fully enclosed, overlooking the whole valley. It was just paradise. It was a huge house. And she had her own made course. Like apartment. It was a little apartment. And in fact, when she lived with us, I remember she asked you to show her how to use the hot water because she'd never taken a shower with hot water.

So that was like her first experience having a hot bar. I forgot about that. Yeah. And we took her with us to like an all -inclusive resort when I do the triathlon. Yeah. We went down there. It was like, oh, you can eat food. All this nice stuff. It was awesome. So anyway, it's back to the story is that we went with her one weekend to visit her family and her family actually lived, I think an hour or two away. It was probably, it was closer to three or four and it was down way down on the Caribbean coast. It was in Limon. On the Caribbean coast. Towards Limonia.

Rachel Denning (09:41.165)
Siqueires is where she lives. So we went to visit her and... Okay, so we're dropping in elevation. We're dropping... The temperature is rising. The temperature is rising massively. Humidity is rising. Because San Jose, the valley, it's very temperate. It's year round. It's very comfortable. And so we're going down and we went to her little house and it was literally very small. Tiny. And it was Lamina, which is the tin.

You know, tin roof and then just wooden slats for the walls. And I think the floor was dirt or maybe it was concrete. And I remember sitting there in her house and we were hanging out and talking to her family. And Aliyah was a little baby and she was asleep and I carried her in and said, is there a bed? Yeah, is there a place to lay her down? And we went in her bedroom and it was very rustic.

And I remember thinking very specifically, because they had a little like a little couch chair thing, but it was ripped up and all, you know, broken and they had a couple other chairs. And I remember thinking there is nowhere in this place to be comfortable according to my definition, right? I had grown up in America. I was used to soft beds and soft couches and like carpet. I was used to comfort.

And I remember being so struck by that, that there was nowhere to be comfortable in her house. Not one place. Nothing. She invited us to sit down on her couch. Yeah. And it was some... It was like sprains and wood. Wooden boxes. Yeah, we went to sit down like, oh, this hurts. Yeah, it was not comfortable. It was hard. It was painful to hear. Which is an indication of our softness. Well, that was the other realization I had. I'm like, wow, we are very soft.

But, you know, when we went into her beds, first of all, there was like three little beds and I don't know how many people are in the family. She has seven children. Oh yeah. Three grandkids. Right. Okay. And there was like three beds. But the beds also, I don't remember exactly what they were. They weren't mattresses. They were just like planks or something. Very hard. And so it was very... And she made us the most amazing lunch over an open fire. Yes.

Rachel Denning (12:07.725)
Because that's how she cooked. She cooked. And they had like three glasses and they made some sort of little juice and we took turns using the glasses. And utensils and plates. We would wash. And again, she had a big family, but we would take turns eating because there was only a few utensils and plates and glasses. Yeah. Which I got to jump ahead so we don't forget this. When we left Costa Rica, we gave her our fridge and we gave her like all of our utensils and plates and we just emptied our kitchen.

I was so awesome. She was amazing. And I'm sad we lost contact with her. But I remember feeling very humbled and like you were saying, also this feeling of, wow, we're really soft and needy for all these comforts, but also obviously very grateful. And then later,

you know, it was probably years later where I had this realization connected with this idea of luxury and comfort and how that is a driving force that it's driving the improvement of the world and ultimately it's bringing people out of poverty, the same force because... It's lifting the whole earth. It's lifting the whole earth, yeah. Because if you read a book like The Rational Optimist, you see that yeah, the world is really way better off and despite all the problems we have and how people like to speak gloom and doom and everything,

Really, it's better. It's safer. We're all wealthier overall and it's more comfortable. It's it's we're healthier. Really the world is a way better place than it has ever been. And then people on entire continents like Africa. I was just having a conversation with this when I was out rucking over the weekend. We were talking about how Africa is doing a leapfrog again with they did that with the cell phone, right? So there was no.

phone lines, there was no internet in Africa. Well, the developing world in general was like that. It just was so disconnected from all the technology we had. Yeah. And so technology leapfrogged because they had no phones and they didn't have electricity or whatever. But then all of a sudden cell phone technology is invented. And now in a very rural area that has no electricity and no phone lines, you can now have.

Rachel Denning (14:27.501)
cell servers. Yep, exactly. So it's this leapfrog. And a smartphone and access to the internet. Exactly. And the whole rest of the gnome world. Like when you were hiking through Nepal. Yeah. You go to monasteries and the monks have smartphones. I mean, you walk in only. We're days and days of just walking in. And I roll up to this monastery in this cloud forest. There's a monk sitting there on a smartphone scrolling. What in the world is happening? It's amazing. But the same thing's happening now with currency. They were bartering.

Like in these remote villages, they were bartering and they didn't have a monetary system. They just totally did a leapfrog into like cryptocurrency and phone charge ups, like phone credit. Now they're exchanging phone credit. So like, Oh, give me a charge. Hey, I'll give you a $10 charge up on your phone. If you'll come fix this for me. And so it has literally become a form of currency. Yeah. And so they just, they leapfrog the whole traditional currency thing. So like countries that we're so far behind now.

can jump ahead 50 years because the new technology or new ideas just bring it right to them. And so they can bypass this long, slow, methodical process that other nations went through. It's like, bloop. So I mean, there's cool stuff happening around the world like that. And I love that you bring out this point of like the pursuit of comfort and luxury is bringing, oh, you and I are sitting here in comfortable office chairs in my...

very comfortable, nice office. I've got this gorgeous desk here and a huge bookshelf with all my fancy leather books on it and the the temperatures controlled in here and I have sound panels on my walls to bring in down the echo and we have these fancy microphones and our smartphones. We have it all right? So all these wonderful things we enjoy are because somebody was pursuing luxury or nice things.

or improvements or comforts. But what's the problem then? What's the actual crisis and what's the downside of comfort and luxury? So with every strength, you love to say this. And I, it's a powerful festival. I'm like, I thought you love to say this. I do. You love to say this. With every strength, there's an inherent weakness. And so we've been pointing out the strength of...

Rachel Denning (16:50.829)
pursuing comfort and improvement, making our lives better. And again, man, it's hard to overemphasize that principle. We say, and again, a lot, I noticed in our podcast, but that's a side note. We'll keep saying it. And again. And again.

with that.

elevating force, not just for us as individuals or communities, but like you were pointing out, the whole world gets lifted and rises with improvements, inventions and those things. But here's the weakness, the inherent weakness in the strength is that if we are not very aware,

very diligent and very deliberate, comfort and convenience can make us weak. And then you slip into pity parties and you literally find yourself complaining about how slow the wifi is on your flight across the ocean, right? And you have to stop and say, wait a minute, I'm flying in this gigantic, well mostly comfortable.

That's debatable. Yeah, that's debatable. Let's complain about airline seats right now. It takes us a few hours to get across an ocean or across the continent. It's amazing. The flight is mind boggling. And we're like, ah, the Wi -Fi is slow. This is terrible. My life's not meant to be this hard. These are things that have happened. Stories that have happened.

Rachel Denning (18:39.757)
Well, and I guess it's worth repeating this story that this guy was the president of Century 21 and he was knee deep in garbage in a landfill in Cambodia. And he receives a call from one of the actresses he was working for and he'd set up a Gulfstream for her. It's a private jet, had it all decked out.

He gets a phone call, so he picks up his cell phone, literally knee deep in garbage, with people who are living in the dump. They live in the garbage dump, and he's over there trying to help, doing philanthropy. And this actress calls him just beside herself, that one little thing was missing inside the plane for her comfort and convenience. And she says literally, my life was never meant to be this hard. And that's when he knew like,

I'm done. I'm out. I'm done working with these people. And so he quit that and then went over there and did some humanitarian stuff over there. But it was a great reminder. It's easy for all of us to lose that kind of perspective. And we find ourselves complaining. We go to a full pantry or full fridge and like, ah, there's nothing to eat in this house. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Give me a break. Or things become, they seem very hard.

And one thing I love to say is like, it only seems hard because you are soft. Right. Comfort and convenience can make you soft, which then makes things seem hard. Yeah. Well, even when COVID hit, like, you know, before we went into quarantine, for me, this is funny. I knew things were getting serious and getting hard and challenging when my Walmart delivery stopped working the way it had been working.

And I'm like, what is going on here? I can't order. There's no open slots. When I do order, it's late. Like what is happening? My Walmart delivery, you know, because you get so used to certain things operating the way they've grown and developed to operate with comfort and ease and convenience. And again, we're striving for, I said it again, we're striving for that because it does make the world a better place. But then.

Rachel Denning (21:05.197)
If you're not careful, it's easy to be like, this is crap. I'm not putting up with this grocery delivery service. It's making my life so hard. Exactly. And so we lose perspective.

Therefore, we enjoy the new systems, the improvements, the progress, because it can make our lives significantly better. And more productive and more fulfilling. That's where I was going to go. OK. No, you're right. Because then we're more productive, we're more fulfilled. But now we have more capacity to do more good, to serve more, to lift more, to build more, to be more, which is awesome.

It's just got this underlying problem of weakness. And it comes out. I get to see this a lot because we're doing a lot of coaching and I love pushing my own limits, whether it's adventure racing or this humanitarian organization I'm now volunteering with. And these guys push hard, really hard. And for me, it's, I was talking to somebody about fitness and I think it was with, I think it was with Kaya, our oldest daughter.

We're talking about fitness. And I was talking about, well, I want to strive for what I call, what's called functional fitness. It's fitness that you can use. It's usable. It actually benefits your life where, I mean, you could build some muscles or something and it looks good and great, but it's not real usable if you had to get in that situation, which again, here's a problem, right? Is our lives are so easy, so comfortable, so convenient right now.

Most of us are like, I don't have any need for functional fitness. Right. What do I need to be able to run a mile for? Or carry someone. To what are you referring, sir? Yes. I have to carry myself to my new Tesla and drive myself to the grocery. I don't even go to the grocery store anymore because somebody delivers my food. Right. Right. So we do. We live in a time where functional fitness seems to be obsolete. Obsolete. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (23:17.677)
It's just not a necessary, like, oh yeah, there could be some catastrophe, but that's not likely to happen. And so, well, I'm not gonna worry about it.

I take a holistic approach, a whole life approach to this idea of functional fitness, meaning it's functional mental fitness, functional spiritual fitness, functional relationship, marriage fitness, parenting fitness. I'm taking those ideas and going the whole spectrum of life. And I want to be functionally fit, so to speak, in every important area of life.

And I operate in a world that I see the necessity for it all the time. All the time. And it's so relevant to me. And I get that some of you live life so you're like, this is completely irrelevant. My concern is that that's just because you and I talk about this all the time. We reference the fourth turning. In the third turning, everything's like this. It's just.

Comfortable, easy, convenient. Yeah, easy, convenient. There's no troubles. What are you talking about? Why would I need to be prepared? Because everything's great. And if it were to continue on in ease and comfort, great. But what if it stops? That's when a crisis hits and people come undone. Well, because as we're talking through this idea, one of the challenges of

the comforts that we have created, and I'm saying we in general, like humanity, that for most people, and again, we're talking about the Western world here, because we do realize that there's still developing countries that have not obtained those same levels of comfort and luxury and convenience. But in the Western world, we have obtained these levels of comfort and,

Rachel Denning (25:24.077)
in order for, I read some comparison, I can't remember exactly what it is, but I'm gonna try and put it out here, that for the average person to enjoy the level of comfort and ease they have now is so comparatively easy to do that it makes us soft and weak. I mean, it used to be that if you were going to enjoy the comfort we have, right?

You've got temperature control, you know, the equivalent of that, you know, back in Roman times or whatever. Running water, essentially servants or slaves to do, cause that's what energy is, you know, in the rational optimist, he talks about that for the average person to enjoy the level of life that they do now, a family of four, to have the electricity that they have, the food that they have, the clothing that they have, they would need to have like,

Was it 400 slaves? Yeah, I think it was 400 slaves. 400 slaves for a family of four. So we're producing a lot of, we're using, let's say we're consuming a lot of energy to enjoy the comforts that we have. But we don't have to do a lot of work to do that. I mean, the average person can get a minimum wage job.

pretty much maintain most of these comforts. You could have electricity and you can have running water and you could have a nice couch to sit on from a Goodwill store and you could have all the clothes you need. Yeah, you could have internet and a smartphone and hot water. And hot water. And a nice bed. With a minimum wage job. So it's really not that difficult compared to what it used to be. That you used to have to have all of these slaves or all of these other people.

doing work for you to produce these luxuries and comforts, you know? So the downside of that is that it seems so easy. We're not gonna starve. We're not gonna freeze to death. We're not gonna die of heat stroke. We're not gonna go naked. All we have to do is work our minimum wage job and then the rest of the time we get to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime. You know, it's so...

Rachel Denning (27:43.533)
easy to not die. Exactly. There it is. It's easy to not die. That we don't have to push ourselves and be challenged in order to survive, let alone thrive. Right. The fact that I could become super fat and lazy and do the bare minimum and not die is astounding to me. Yeah. And it's a...

It's an indicator of just how comfortable, convenient, and easy our lives have become. So the question is, and again, I don't know the future. The question is, will that level of comfort and convenience continue? Or if it's disrupted, will those who become soft and weak just get wrecked? My suspicion is, if I understand history right and that.

The pattern repeats itself. This is just a temporary thing and it will come back again. We'll come back to it. But there's going to be some hard times. Whether it's individual or family or community or nationally or whatever, there's going to be some hard times. When hard times come, soft people suffer.

Rachel Denning (29:07.213)
or to see it visually, your softness will just be dashed to pieces against the hardness of the times. Ooh, I'm thinking through this out loud. Soft people get crushed by hard times. And essentially the point we're making is that our comforts today tend to make us softer rather than strong. It's just the natural byproduct.

the comforts. It's like when you're pursuing obtaining those comforts the actual process of it that strengthens you. It strengthens you to be in the pursuit of obtaining comforts. But when you have comforts and you're comfortable and you don't feel that need to pursue...

well, survival and then some thriving there, you know, more of the comfort and luxury and ease, then you're left stagnating. You're simply existing without a threat of imminent danger. Or death. Yeah. Yeah. And so that, for most of us, that's been removed, this threat. And so the kind of the default response is, well, why should I keep striving?

Why should I be uncomfortable? Why should I push? Why should I try harder? It's not like I'm going to die. And that's it. It's true. It's true. OK, yeah, you're right. And I guess I just want to invite you to think about this differently to pursue the increase of your capacity.

Which kind of brings us back to what the topic is supposed to be that we haven't exactly talked about yet is handling pressure. And even pursuing it. And even pursuing pressure. Because you want to increase. All of that was kind of like this introduction of why this would matter. Why would you? Well, you know, we kind of see the point of handling pressure like, oh, I've got a lot of going on. I need to handle pressure. But this idea of pursuing pressure, why would you want to do that?

Rachel Denning (31:22.861)
And it ties into this idea of.

because we don't have the survival instinct anymore, we're not trying to survive, we have to create or generate this drive that gives us an edge in a way. It's kind of what it is. It's giving us an edge.

for any potential challenges. Because when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed.

And I would say it also... Pressure helps us prepare. I like that. I like that a lot. I would also say that it gives us the power to take advantage of opportunities that we might otherwise miss if we weren't pursuing pressure. I want to...

Pursue pressure. I guess it has to be proactive. I like I really like that word that I did in this context I want to proactively pursue pressure So that I can increase my capacity now in my mind's eye I can I can imagine some of you be like hey look I got enough pressure right I got this I all these kids I got my spouse I got this job all these demands I got too much. Why would I pursue more like I'm just drowning as it is And I love to think

Rachel Denning (32:59.917)
and ask myself, what if I was twice as capable as I am right now? Would this current load be drowning me? Would it be a lot of pressure? And the answer is no. If I were twice as capable, then I would be carrying this load with relative ease. And for me, I guess not everybody operates like this, but for me, I'm like, why wouldn't I do that? Why wouldn't I deliberately increase my capacity so that I can handle more?

I don't necessarily have to fill it, but it's there. I'm building up reserves so I can help other people, so I can take advantage of other opportunities. It's not just like, there's death around the corner, be ready. I mean, that's nice too, right? If there is an emergency. And emergencies come to all of us. I just heard another story this morning. We all go along through life. Nobody's going along and think, that's going to happen, that's going to happen. We all think it's not going to happen.

But man, when it comes knocking at your door, I want to be ready for anything. But whether that's an emergency or a threat or an opportunity, when opportunity comes knocking, I'm like, yeah, I got space because I've been working on it. I've been working on me. And so I'm going to pursue pressure. And I do this with education. Rachel and I, before the recording, we were talking about she and I are reading these books from the beginning.

of literature forward in order. Chronologically. Chronologically with poetry and novels. It's fun. It's enjoyable. We're pursuing this higher level collegiate education, and we're not even in college. And we're in our 40s with raising our whole family. We're pursuing that. I just went and did an excruciatingly physically painful weekend.

So I could be better. For fun. For fun. I was playing with my friends in the woods. And do you know what I love? He came home and was telling our teens last night, you just got back last night, and you're telling our boys and they're saying. I was just describing how grueling it was in all three of them. Man, sounds fun. Yeah. Wish I was there. Gosh, I wish I would have gone, I want to do that. It was awesome. Yeah. And that's another reason to do it. And if that, in fact, were the.

Rachel Denning (35:28.429)
Only reason to do it. It would be to model for your children how to pursue growth and do it with a Phenomenal attitude just to go things do things that are so hard. You are not quite sure you can actually do them and Your kids are like, oh Dad, can I come next time? Right. That is that's thrilling to me. That's exciting. That's a big win when they want to do it

And sometimes it's for some achievement. Sometimes you go do a big race. Sometimes you go after a big project. You write your book, whatever it is. And sometimes it's just for the sake of doing it. Just for the sake of exploring your limitations and seeing where you might expand them so you don't live under your limits. Yeah. So a couple of things. One of them is, well, as an example, you're talking about doing things just to do them. You take cold showers.

pretty much every day, I think. And you do that just because you've read the science behind it and how good it is for you and all the stuff. And so that's just something. And because it's hard to do. And because it's hard to do. And you intentionally do it because it is hard to do. You don't enjoy taking a cold shower. You do it because it's hard. Well, I've already seen that play out so many times where when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. You've...

prepared your body to be able to handle things because you take cold showers. And so even on this last weekend, you had an experience where you needed that ability to be in cold water. And you thrived. I was stoked. And rocked it. Because I was sweating and I was sore. I'm like, jump in the cold water and go? Please, let me in. And others jumped in as well. And they were instantly shivering and couldn't catch their breath. And they're like.

I'm back in the boat because this is miserable. And I was literally in the water like, this is refreshing and awesome. I'm glad I'm in the water. Yeah, you had trained your body to be able to handle that. And so I think that's a perfect example. But I was also thinking that, you know, because we're talking about, oh, pursuing pressure and you were saying, why would I want to do that? I already have all of these things. And what I thought of was maybe it's not even pursuing pressure.

Rachel Denning (37:52.845)
per se, as in taking on something different or more or whatever, but it could also be this idea of opting in to the pressure because Jordan Peterson has this, I don't know, I mean, I've heard it several times in different podcasts, but he talks about, from a clinical psychologist perspective, the power that comes when people opt into their challenges as opposed to feeling like they're imposed.

opposed to them feeling like they're imposed upon them. That's beautiful. That when you feel like your pressure is imposed on you and you have no say, all you do is resist it and resent it. It actually becomes very detrimental to you. It's stressful in a negative, a bad way. It's anxiety producing, like all of these negative things where if you have opted into that pressure,

it changes everything and it actually becomes a positive for you instead of a negative. Because you operate from a place of, I choose this. Exactly. So it could just be that. It could just be switching your mindset. If you already have all of these things, we'll switch your mindset about it and say like, yeah, I choose this. And if there are things that you wouldn't choose, well then find a way to eliminate them if possible. You know what I mean? Or at the very least say, well, I don't choose this, but it needs to be done. So I'm choosing to do it. Yep, exactly.

I wouldn't choose this. I don't like it. But if it needs to be done, if there's value here or there's no way around it, then I choose this. Which is what happens mentally for you with the whole idea of like a cold shower. You know of its benefits and there's, you know, anyone can go study the research behind cold water therapy. You know the benefits. And so even though you don't like doing it, like it's sometimes painful for me how much you don't like doing it because you'll go to get in the cold shower and I'm like, oh.

This is hard. Don't do it, babe. Just take a warm shower. It'll be so much more enjoyable, you know, but you do it because you know, it trains your mind to be able to do those difficult things when you need to do them. And I have seen you be able to handle those situations so many times, saving people's lives, carrying people off mountains, like all of these stories, because you've trained yourself to just do what needs to be done.

Rachel Denning (40:16.525)
You say it needs to be done. That having experienced that first hand and having been in...

Our life is unbelievable. The stories we have are... They are unbelievable. Insane. Like you wouldn't... If I hadn't lived them, I'd be like, no way, man. You're making them up. How can that keep happening again and again and again? But there are so many times where it has paid off. I can't question it. I can't doubt it. I can't dismiss it.

deliberately choosing pressure has prepared us to be a great force for good in the world in so many ways and it actually makes life easier and more enjoyable. So big things get smaller as you and I grow. But if we atrophy, little things become big.

And now life's, oh, life's so hard, oh, this is happening. Where if we're growing and we're tightening up those spiritual, mental, social, financial, physical muscles, yeah, this isn't so bad. Let's work right around this. And do it cheerfully. That's where I, you know, I got to a place in my journey through this, and I can look back now over the last, I don't know, 30 years.

And I can see this process of opting in. Well, first you're like, this sucks. Why me? This whole big pity party, oh, miserable, terrible, I don't want anything to do with this. To opting in saying, okay, this sucks. What are you gonna do about it? Well, I'm gonna do something.

Rachel Denning (42:11.533)
And then progress will be up to, ooh, I'm gonna choose to do something absolutely miserable, and I commit, fully commit to myself to be cheerful the entire time.

Yeah, well as you're talking and thinking about kind of the way we have approached life and we've, we even did a podcast about it talking about choosing your challenges and this concept that a lot of times what happens with people is they go through life kind of, um,

I don't know. They're not actively engaged. Right. They're kind of just sitting around waiting for life to happen to them. Yep. In a way.

instead of actively pursuing life. And when they do that, when they're kind of just living life and letting it happen, it's interesting how we've observed and experienced that things happen to you to cause you to be challenged, right? Maybe it's sickness or disease or an injury or an accident or bad things, these trials, these hardships that come. And...

I think that's part of just how life operates where the other side of that is if you actively pursue challenging things, it's like some of those other things fall away. They don't even happen because you're still being challenged, but it's in a way that you've opted in to do. It's the challenge that comes from pursuing something that you want. And I think about even right now where we are in our life, we're...

Rachel Denning (43:56.269)
in the middle of packing. Like we have a box right here. We're packing actively right now to move to Portugal.

But on the way to Portugal, we're going to go travel for a few months. Not just go travel. I'm driving to Guatemala with my boys. And then we're leading two trips to Norway. And then we're taking a train trip. Well, before that, you're doing a humanitarian trip. Then I'm doing another training in Central America again. Before we go to Norway. And then after our two Norway trips, we're going to travel.

by train to the goals 15 countries. We'll see how many we make before our visa runs out. But across Europe, through Scandinavia, the Baltic, and then into Western Europe. There's a lot of logistics that go into planning all of this. And in the meantime, we're also selling our house and selling all of our vehicles and transporting everything we want to take from here to Portugal. And there's like all of these moving pieces. Like I...

There's a lot of moving pieces. And so part of it is, I'm trying to say that it's not easy. It's challenging. It's really difficult. It's not difficult in a, like, you know, something bad happened to me. I lost someone. It's not difficult in that kind of way, but it is difficult and challenging in that it requires your mind, your heart, your energy, your emotion. All of these things are involved that you have to.

be able to manage and direct and use and keep going. You can't give up, you know, like all of these, all of the things that we think of when we're dealing with a challenge or a trial, all of that's involved, but it's involved in a different way. It's this proactive instead of reactive way. And so it's hard quote unquote, but it's hard in a different way. And then it's interesting how then,

Rachel Denning (45:59.565)
you know, when you might be tempted to complain about like, oh, this is so hard because I've been packing for days and this and that and this went wrong and this happened and this. Your mindset changes about it because you're like, well, I chose this. I opted in to do this. I want to do this thing. And this is what's required to get there. And so, okay, I just have to figure it out and solve the problem. And so back to that whole idea with.

you know what Jordan Peterson is talking about, that when you opt in for those challenges,

It's like it increases your capacity in a way because you are.

active instead of proactive instead of reactive. And it alters your experience. Yeah. Just that one little shift in your mind. Yeah. This is going to sound a little strange, but what if because God and the universe are constantly conspiring in our favor and they know what's best for us, what if there's an equation that we just need to be challenged? Yeah. They need to balance out. Yeah. And either you choose them or they're chosen for you. Yeah.

Exactly. I know that sounds crazy, but just sit with it for a little bit. I've been I've been chewing on that one for decades. I remember somebody saying that to me right after shortly after you and I were married. This guy he was a just a phenomenal teacher, but he was also in the Special Forces. And he said that he said, you know, it's like I've observed that when people really chase challenge.

Rachel Denning (47:41.325)
He says that they seem to have fewer trials. And I remember, we were just in our early 20s and I remember thinking, well, that seems a little weird, bro. That's kind of a weird statement. But I've been chewing on that for literally two decades. And it seems like if there exists an equation that we grow because of difficulty, then why not opt in and even pursue it in a healthy way?

This isn't like you're not a martyr and you're not in an unhealthy balance where you're sacrificing other important things. You're just pursuing your own growth for the right reasons, the right thing for the right reasons that really add value to your life and the people around you. And you're doing it cheerfully.

And some of you might be tempted to think, well, I can't do that. No, no way. To which I say, you could totally do it. You just have to want it and then commit to it.

So I guess the invitation today is, well opt in. Opt into what you're facing. We did that. Well, this came up a lot when we were traveling with little kids. And it was hard. It was hard on me because I was like physically was carrying kids and stuff and things. And sometimes there was just chaos and mayhem and border crossings and airport, all this stuff. And it was like, oh man, this is brutal.

pack mule. But I'm really thinking the same thing. We chose this. Yeah. Like this is what we wanted. And so I switched my mind way back then. Like, no. And this has been a discussion point between the two of us for a long time. Because I was like, oh yeah, well, yeah, all that rough stuff. That's just part of the process so that we can enjoy this amazing experience of traveling together. Because I just flipped my mindset back then. I'm like, OK, yeah, the pressure here of getting all this.

Rachel Denning (49:48.237)
done so that we can have these memories together. Okay, great. And I just switched that in my mind, like, yeah, I chose this pressure. Let's lean into it. And what's happened to us and to our children, which is so exhilarating to me, is you rise with the pressure. And then you seek it out, which amplifies the rising. And so you...

become more capable, more competent, and therefore more confident. And it makes for a really great life. Yeah, it does. And I'm saying that with all sincerity while I'm sitting here in pain. Right. Yeah, it's not a challenge -free life, but it's a different type of challenge. It's hard, but it's a different type of hard. It's not hard like what people are used to.

Like, it's not hard and miserable, it's hard and inspiring or motivating or... Or fun even. Like this weekend, it was hard and fun. Yeah. It was hard and fulfilling. It's definitely more fulfilling. Yeah. While we're talking about this, I kind of want to make a distinction though, because I think sometimes people equate what we're...

talking about with some sort of...

Rachel Denning (51:19.917)
forcing things to happen. They will get some idea or some, you know, they're like, I'm gonna choose this thing. I'm gonna do this. And then they try to make it happen in a way that actually becomes toxic or detrimental or they have to sacrifice the wrong things or I even remember...

Okay, what sticks out for me is this story of when we were newly traveling, you know, this was back in like 2007. And well, this house we talked about on the hill.

the one that was like almost 7 ,000 square feet.

We had been living in another house that was lower down the hill, but it was a comfortable house. It was a nice house. And for some reason, I got obsessed with the idea of living in this bigger house. And it was to the point where I was gonna make this happen no matter what. Right? And we did, but here's the interesting thing. It wasn't supposed to happen.

And within a month or two, the stock market crashed, right? It was almost 2008. The stock market crashed. We lost all of our income. We ended up having to leave Costa Rica and going back. And I think in some ways it might have been, one of the reasons we might have had to leave is because we moved into this house that was a lot more expensive for us at the time. And part of it was because I had forced that to happen. Like I'm like, I...

Rachel Denning (53:06.957)
want this to happen. I need this to happen. It must happen.

Rachel Denning (53:13.645)
That's not the right way to approach it. And I contrast it to now this trip that we're planning, this move that we're planning to Portugal. The way it's come about has been so serendipitous, so inspired, guided, directed, that it's not something we're forcing to happen. Now, that doesn't mean there's not work and challenge involved in making it happen. That's required.

But it's not done in a way that's forcing something to happen that's maybe not in your best interest. It's hard for me to really articulate those ideas that I'm talking about, but it's something I've definitely experienced. You know, for just one example of how this whole train trip idea came about was we'd already been planning a trip to Norway, which that was its own super thing that came about that way. And then when, after the trip was over, we were gonna just spend.

couple weeks in Norway in a cabin and you were when I shared that idea or picked out some places you were like we're gonna be bored to death what are we gonna do for two weeks in a cabin in the woods you know and that's when we're like maybe we should do this and go here and go here and all of us just came alive with excitement like we were all enthused with that thought now it was also terrifying because we're like I don't know if we can do that.

Yeah, is it even possible? Or if it's even possible. But it was a creative like mind storming session. Yeah. Where everyone was like, whoa, what about this? What about that? Right. Let's explore this. Is this possible? Yeah. And so that's kind of the idea behind this idea of pursuing challenge. It's a challenge to make something like that happen. But it was a challenge that was inspiring and enlivening. We were drawn to it. Not that.

kind of low state dark I deserve this suffering beat me. Throughout history there's been those religious zealots. Where you want to whip yourself. Who literally beat themselves or have some other beat them because you know I'm enduring my cross. I need to be challenged and suffer. Or as opposed to like with our house in Costa Rica I know for me there was a lot of it might have been comparison because there were a lot of

Rachel Denning (55:38.029)
expats, you know, in the area and they were living, living the life. And I'm like, I need to be a part of this and I need to show it. It was the wrong reasons, you know, not that living in a big house is wrong or bad, but at the time my reason for wanting that was off. We didn't need a huge house. We only had like four little kids, you know? So it was, it was the motivation behind it that was wrong and off as opposed to.

that inspiring motivation that's directing you towards your potential. There's so many little nuances here too that relate to that. Another one that I've seen recently is like, sometimes you get this fixed idea in your head of, I'll never quit, I'll never quit, I'll never quit, I've finished something. And yet that's not always the case. Sometimes you get going down the wrong road and you're like, bro, you need to quit. And you need to quit now.

The best time to quit was way back when you first realized, now is like, right now is the next best time to realize you have got to quit. And you think, no, but I never quit. I never quit. I'm like, no. Stop. You're just going down the wrong path farther than you should. And so there's things like that where you're like, no, there's definitely a time to quit. There's definitely a time to change directions. There's definitely a time to readjust what you're doing. But the whole idea is here. And the imitation, and just so just you on this.

for the next few days, few weeks, few decades, like really think through like, how am I going to embrace challenge? Where do I want to pursue some pressure? Where would I like to focus some pressure with the intent for growth, preparation and progress? And you might put certain areas of your life through an imaginary stress test, the spiritual side, the financial side.

relationship side, the mental toughness, just go do something. Pick some things, pick some events, throw something on the calendar that, I kept telling Rachel, I'm like, I feel very excited and very nervous for this thing, because I knew how hard it was going to be. I love having things on the calendar like that. I'm looking forward to something that's going to be exciting, and it's going to be hard. I know a little bit what to expect, and on the other side, I have no idea what to expect. That's how I like to have my calendar.

Rachel Denning (58:02.733)
And in, and same thing applies with, you know, this train trip we're planning. It's the same sort of idea. There's a lot of unknowns. We're also going to be trying to work from the road and do just before this podcast, we're discussing the logistics of doing a podcast on the road, right? Like, okay, we're in a hotel in Lithuania. How are we going to do the podcast? What microphones do we need? And what we have to work through all of those details and think about those things and plan ahead so that we can take it with us.

Cause otherwise if we, you know, we can't necessarily buy it there. We don't know. Maybe we could, maybe we can't. So it's all of these unknowns that we're trying to navigate, which can be intimidating. And that's what stops people usually. They just don't know how to figure that out or how to sort through all of that. And yet the only way to really do that is to opt in, to choose it and say, okay, let's, let's go. Let's try and figure this out. Let's move ahead.

and solve the obstacles as they come. That is such a profound imagery in my head right now where somebody walks up and the obstacle standing in front of them is intimidation. So if you picture this in your mind eye, there's a boulder, there's some kind of obstacle. Maybe it's even just a small barrier or a gate that says intimidation and you walk up and turn around and walk away. And the gate says intimidation where somebody else walks up and says, you better open sucker.

I'm gonna break you down. Yeah. And the intimidation literally opens to you. Yes. Because you're like, I won't be intimidated by you. In fact, I'm going to intimidate you back. Intimidation. And you move forward. And as much as we're kind of fumbling around this idea, trying to articulate what we're thinking and feeling, ultimately, you'll sense it and feel it. And life has been so much richer.

and meaningful, gratifying, and exciting, exhilarating, literally, because we have chosen to embrace the pressure.

Rachel Denning (01:00:13.325)
in every aspect of our lives. And so we want to extend that invitation to you. Sorry, and that carries over to our kids because because we've all opted in to taking this journey and we're all excited about that, that makes all the work we have to do easier to do and easier to get the kids on board with doing it because they realize what we're working towards. There's purpose and relevance. We're showing our house because we're selling it and so sometimes we get a message saying,

You wanna see your house in 15 minutes. And so we all run around like crazy cleaning it up and getting it ready, but they're all opting in to do that. And they're not complaining because they realize what it's for. They're like, okay, if we wanna go to Europe, we gotta sell this house. So we're all gonna clean up as fast as we can so we can make that goal happen. Yeah, this is awesome. Okay, get after it. You guys, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do that, leave a review.

If you liked it, ask us a question, reach out, connect with us on social, and share this with friends and family and colleagues. And then get something on your calendar today. Take the next couple of days to think about this and write some ideas down, talk to your spouse and your family, your kids, and draft your calendar. Put something on the calendar. Here's a little invitation. Maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours, put something on your calendar and in your plan, in your mind, all of it. Get it in there.

that's gonna increase, either increase the pressure or just opt into the pressure. Where you just say, I'm flipping the switch here on how I approach this and watch what it starts to do in your life and it'll trickle over and kind of cascade into other areas of your life where you just start pushing and pursuing and man, life gets better and better. Love you guys, thanks for listening.

Rachel Denning (01:02:10.701)