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

Rachel Denning (00:10.99)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. Coming to you from the 6th of October, city in Egypt. Egypt. I was going to say Cairo, but it's not entirely like that. And we just got back from the desert. It was awesome. We went and stayed the night in the Sahara on the sand dunes. And man, it was...

It was really special. It was fantastic. Had a great experience. And we were talking about this, so this is actually fitting because we're answering a question today, but we were talking about this while we were out in the desert because when you go to a place like that, that it's so unique, went into this some national park, I think it's called Eriyan. Wabi, Eriyan. And it's a national park desert and it's just so different.

from most of what we know on this planet even when you go to places like that it has this expanding effect like when I took Kimball to and we circled Iceland there were so many places in Iceland that seemed otherworldly it was hard to

to grasp like this is on the same planet as like when we lived in Costa Rica, like this rainforest and jungles and beaches, wow, man, so amazing. Or, you know, the Rocky Mountains. But then to go experience something like these volcano lava fields.

As far as you can see in any direction just just absolutely barren or in this case in the desert here It's just sand sand as far as you can see mm -hmm just flat it was crazy and in such a different environment and What it does is it just? It expands your reality Exposed you to new things right the way that I

Rachel Denning (02:05.838)
have begun to think of it and I remember feeling this happening to me in my brain when we began traveling in 2007. I mean, you know, this is 15, 16 years ago. But I remembered, and what I got was this image, this visual of this map. Say you have a map of existence or map of the world or whatever. And your current reality is, it's in color.

You know, it's full color and it's detailed, but surrounding it is essentially blackness. It's dark. You don't know what it is. And you don't realize that at the time. When you're living in your life, you think, oh, I've got a map of the world and it's full color and it's useful and helpful and, you know, it's got everything I need. But then you start to travel and it was suddenly like this entire...

area of darkness was being, and I don't know why I picture it with like a watercolor, like this watercolor brush that's like filling it in and filling in the color that was not there. And now you have this new entire area that's filled in that was previously dark.

And that's what I feel like happens. You go out into the world and you go and experience the world and all of these places that were in darkness now are being colored in and it's literally expanding your map of reality. And it's colored in with sights and sounds and smells and experiences and tastes and people.

Right. And places and feelings where you go and you meet somebody really special or you sit down and have a meal that you didn't know existed and you smell things or see things and they're not always glamorous. They're not always beautiful or pleasant. Some of them are very, very unpleasant and that is educational. It's important. It's just as important, if not more so, to have the deeply unpleasant experiences as it is to have the exhilarating ones. Right.

Rachel Denning (04:06.319)
the blissful ones. And I think it's critically important that we are deliberate in expanding that, otherwise we remain in a small cage. And that's a reference to something our daughter told us when we were talking about this topic. We were sitting, so let's paint the picture for a second. We...

We stayed in these, it was called a glamp, right? It's glamorous camping. And it was kind of a glamorous tent we've stayed in that had a bathroom in it. I mean, you know, it is luxury essentially, but it is still kind of a tent in the desert. And behind the tents was a big sand dune.

They had sandboarding there, so we spent lots of time sandboarding. The kids loved that. And the sun was setting. It set behind the dunes. And then, of course, the temperature is perfect because it's blazing hot in the day. And that was part of the misery of it, was being in the heat of the day. It was so hot, we had to take a nap in our glamorous tents. But now the temperature is perfect, and we're sitting on top of the dunes. Watching the sunset. Watching the sunset.

And just talking about... We had a 60 degree view. Yeah, of the desert. Oh man. And just talking about life. I mean, it was fun to just have these conversations with our 17 year old and our 16 year old and our 12 year old is kind of listening in and then our 6 and 9 year old are just running around playing. But as we're sitting there talking, that's when our daughter told us about a reel she saw on Instagram. It was a video she shot and I don't know anything about this but...

Basically it was that there was a snake that had the potential to be very large. It was a pet snake. It had the potential to be huge. Well, let me tell us, let me tell us the story. The story is this woman had a pet snake and she took it to the vet, just, I don't know, check in on it. And they said, oh, the snake's healthy, but why is it so small?

Rachel Denning (06:09.837)
And she's like, well, how big is this snake supposed to get? I don't know why it's small. And they're like, well, it's supposed to get this large, like significantly larger. And they, so basically they said, well, what size container do you have it in? And she told them the size of the container. And they're like, oh, well, that's why it's that small. It has no reason to grow bigger because it's already too big for its container. And so the point of the reel and the point our daughter was making was if you always stay in a small container,

you're never going to reach your potential. Like you could grow larger. You could be bigger. But you won't do that if your container remains small. And the most dangerous part of this is you don't know when you're in a small container. Yes, exactly. It's not until you're exposed to bigger containers that you realize, oh.

That was a small container. As long as you're in it, you're like, I'm good. This is my world. This is my reality. And you think, I get it. And there's actually danger there too, because when you are in a small container, but you're big.

We also refer to this as being the big fish in a small pond. When you're the big fish in a small pond, you think, I am dominating, I am crushing life, right? But what you don't realize is that you're in a small pond.

And if you go out into the big pond or go into the ocean, suddenly you realize, whoa. You're a little guppy. I'm a little teeny fish. And a lot of us don't do that because we hate that feeling. We don't want to be the small fish in a big pond or in the ocean. We want to be the big fish in a small pond, except the problem with that is you limit your growth. Going back to the other metaphor, you can't get any bigger because you're in a small container.

Rachel Denning (08:05.421)
So as for - Hold on, I wanna expand on that a little bit, because this applies across every aspect of your life. If you go out running and you're the fastest one in your running group, it's not gonna push you. If you go to the gym with some buddies and you're the strongest one, and you work out with people that are about where you are or not as strong or stronger than you,

if you are reading books that just, just right at where you're comfortable reading that level instead of really getting into those more difficult books where you try to have intellectual conversations with people who... Know less than you do. Know less than you do, right? And they aren't just absolutely brilliant. If you're not regularly, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, same spiritually, you go out and pursue spiritual things and it's just kind of the same. You do the kind of same old thing with...

you know, people around your area and have the same little conversations and there's nothing challenging. There's nothing like blowing your mind or nothing causing you to doubt, right? Or causing you to doubt or making you struggle and strain to keep up to wrestle with God physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially. You should be regularly exposing yourself and your children to people and places and experiences and books and ideas, podcasts that are

beyond your current capabilities. Beyond your current comfort zone. It is uncomfortable. Yeah. That's the point. Well, and so essentially along the topic of this podcast, that's what we're discussing. That's what we're emphasizing. Like when we're talking about how do you get a world class education yourself, how do you help your children get a world class education?

That I would say is the framework we're operating from. Is that ultimately we're trying to help ourselves and our children grow larger than their current containers. Grow larger than their current pond. To become, to be willing to put themselves out there and be the small fish in a big pond so that they can keep growing. Because as long as we remain in our comfort zones, in those smaller containers,

Rachel Denning (10:23.885)
We're limiting our own potential. So our job as parents is to, and this is what we do on a regular basis, is think, okay, how can we expose ourselves and our children to bigger containers, to bigger ideas so that we are challenged, we're made uncomfortable, so that we can grow, so that we can realize where our deficiencies are, where the gaps are in our...

in our development, in our growth, our understanding, our education. Because really, the process of education, we were kind of talking about it before, it's an ongoing process. It's never finished. We always say there's never a graduation from education. It is ongoing. There's always going to be gaps. There's always going to be things you don't know. And so the process of education is essentially identifying and filling in those gaps. Well, and exposing yourself to new things so you see the gaps. Right. Because it's easy.

It's easy to get thinking like, no, I'm...

I can't see any gaps around here. That's because you're not exposing yourself to outside things. So go out and get some exposure and like you'll come back with like, okay, I'm mostly gaps. Yeah, exactly. You're like, I'm almost all gaps. I know it's so true. And that's, that's why we love travel because every single time we do it, we go out there and I feel like I know nothing about the world. Like I didn't even know that this entire group of people existed and they have a whole history that I know nothing about. And that happens everywhere we go.

go, you know, where you are just introduced to ideas, peoples, cultures, histories, you know nothing of. And suddenly you feel like, yeah, I'm mostly gaps. I know nothing, right? But that's the point. That really is the point, that when you can continually get out there and be exposed to things you didn't know anything about,

Rachel Denning (12:16.301)
to realize, wow, I have so much to learn. That's the state you want to be in. And I'm going to go to a kind of a spiritual perspective here. If your desire is to be more God -like, God knows everything and understands everything.

And as you want to rise and be your very best self, you want to understand as much as you possibly can. You could spend your entire life in one tiny little field of expertise to get all your doctorate level studies in that one thing. And you still wouldn't comprehend that one thing. You'd spend your whole life doing it. So there's more than we could ever learn. But you're attempting on a daily basis.

to learn more, expose more, see more, even from understanding the homeless community and the drug problems and addiction problems to geography and astronomy and...

psychology and I mean all of it the whole thing just a history of mankind and animals and plants and the world you might want to study all of it the biology and chemistry like whatever fascinates you chase those things but we have to keep exposing ourselves both in breadth and in depth and then finding gaps and filling them in.

And you'll go along sometimes and you get learning things and you'll have these, I don't know, these little moments of arrogance where you'll meet somebody and they're like, oh, I've never heard of that. And you're like, and then they say something, you're like, oh, I've never heard of that. Yeah, exactly. It reminds me of what Emerson says, that every single person, every man is my superior in some way. And in that way, I can learn from that person, right? Every person. So they're going to know something you know nothing about.

Rachel Denning (14:10.253)
And so every interaction, every time you go out, every time you go anywhere, if you're cognizant, if you're aware, there's something to learn every single day, easily. Easily. And we're going to walk through this formula. I actually came up with a really great acronym probably 15 years ago. I forgot it now. But I remember some of the elements. It was really great. No, I did a full training for it. It's still in our courses.

I went around, I was speaking at educational conferences and I used this acronym because there's these pieces that incorporate education. Our temptation is to think immediately when we think of getting a world -class education is think intellectual intelligence.

Academic. Academic, right? So if you want to get a great education, it's academic. But there's way more than just academic education. We are 100 % in favor of phenomenal academic education. It's an important part of brain development. But we are grossly short -sighted, all of us, if we think that academic education is education, and that, basically, all education. Right. And so as we're addressing this problem of how to help our kids get a world -class education, and this...

We're talking to a general audience, not just to homeschoolers. We're talking to all people. One of the first things we have to do, one of the first things we did was actually to...

define exactly what that means. Because there are a lot of different definitions. And until you actually get clear about what your definition means of a world -class education, because our default is to think, oh, that means good grades and good schools, and that can be the default thinking in that. Especially if you're like, you want advanced education, the immediate thought is, OK, master's degree, then probably a doctorate degree. I mean, it just means more university is what the general thinking is. Yes. Which it could be that. But it's so much more.

Rachel Denning (16:03.215)
It could definitely be that. And for some people it will be that. But I think... But even that, if you only did that, if you only went through and like, okay, I have a doctorate, I have two doctorates and a master's degree, that's still only in one section. It's only one aspect. So according to my definition, it wouldn't be world class. Yes. Because world class has to be more comprehensive. And unfortunately, from our perspective...

Too many people end up getting those higher degrees, but are underdeveloped in many critical areas. Undereducated. Yeah, that's why they can be highly educated in this one area or this area of study and yet still have terrible relationships or poor mental health or poor physical health. There's still a lot of underdevelopment that they have because of the focus on the academics of this.

of education, right? And so for us, the definition was not purely academic. It includes academic, but for us, the full greatness of world -class education is holistic. It includes kind of all the things we were already talking about. Mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, social. I want to refer to them as...

as an intelligence, as an education. So there is a social intelligence or a social education. There's an emotional intelligence or education. There's a spiritual intelligence or education. There's financial, of course, education. There's physical as in your health. So there's literal health, intelligence, health, education. And then relationships, of course, like you mentioned, there's relationship education. And it's so important to realize that we've even...

I've even been mocked or ridiculed by people with advanced degrees. They're like, I can't even listen to you. Nothing you say can be validated because you don't even have a doctorate. I'm like, wow, okay. As if that's the only education there is. Measure of success. Right. Or anything. But in order to be world class, it has to be pretty comprehensive. As much as possible.

Rachel Denning (18:17.517)
You've got to be working on all of those levels of education and understanding. You've got to understand yourself. You've got to understand the sexes. You've got to understand humanity. You've got to understand relationships and psychology. Your mental and emotional health and loving. Yes. Oh my goodness. That was huge. It's always been relevant, but it's particularly relevant right now because of...

Well, tons of things, including social media and the internet and use of time, all that stuff. But even productivity education. Some people can be super intelligent and completely unable to get anything done because they don't have education and intelligence in productivity. So it's all of these things from almost every aspect of life. Right.

Now of course people are going to be saying, well you can't study everything, you can't learn everything there is to know about everything. And that's true, you can't. And ultimately you do need to be guided by your own passions and interests because that will emphasize your educational journey. But the reality is if more of us spent more time mastering at least, I would say, 80 % of the basics in all of these areas,

our lives would be significantly better. If you could get 80 % of the basics of relationships, like understanding how they work and how to make them healthy and strong, that would change your life. Same with finances, same with mental health, same with physical health, same with, what did I miss? You know? Spirituality and finances. The cool thing is they all have crossover too. Yes. So as I dive deep and I'm trying to understand...

spirituality, it actually has a major positive effect on my relationships and my emotional health, even my physical health. Right. And so there's a crossover. So as you start studying one, it benefits the others and vice versa. But I think what happens for too many people is they dive in deep to whatever it is they want to be their specialty to the neglect of all these other things. And so that's where we see, you know, in the extreme cases of people with doctorates who have

Rachel Denning (20:35.373)
crappy relationships, it's because they've sacrificed everything else for that academic achievement, essentially. And if they would just take the aspect, the principles and practices that brought them success in that thing and apply those to other areas, it would be so transformative. If they would study relationships like they've studied their topic of choice, right?

it would have a major positive effect. And that's the point. This is what we're trying to say here, is you're pursuing a world -class education. Or helping your children to pursue one. Or helping your kids do it. Well, and I'll pause here for a second to say there's no way in the world that you're going to be as effective in helping your kids gain a world -class education if you are not pursuing one vigorously. Yes, actively. You have to be actively earning it right in front of them, alongside of them, and then they'll...

they'll join in and be like, okay, let's get this done. But if you dare say things like, well, I got my education, they're gonna be like, okay, well, I'm done then. It's amazing. I can't wait till I'm done. Yeah, exactly. Getting mine. Don't openly or inadvertently teach a graduation from education. There's just no such thing.

So back to the... Well, I just want to say, you know, so as we're thinking about, okay, how do we help our children on this process? How do we help ourselves? One of the things I know for me personally, I had to do was redefine that definition, which took some of the emphasis off the academics, because I know that that's our temptation. I know that a lot of parents are...

wanting to focus on that the grades are all important the school that they get into is all important but what we see more often than not is as a result parents come to us with kids who are getting good grades or doing well academically but are depressed or considering suicide or don't have any friends or being bullied or all of these other things that their academic pursuits

Rachel Denning (22:47.149)
have become the all -important factor to the neglect of everything else, like we mentioned before. Being under -educated and underdeveloped. Especially the primary one I see is just an utter lack of experience. Yes. They just lack experience. And experience is in itself an education. Exactly. And an intelligence. I would say they lack experience. And I would say the other thing they're hugely lacking is...

positive habits. It's like parents are telling their kids get good grades that's all that matters and so as a result their kids are not sleeping, they're staying up late, they're getting up early, they're not eating, they're living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos.

And the parents are like, well, as long as you're getting good grades, that's what matters. And that's just not true. That is where too many people are failing because they're not recognizing the critical importance of positive life habits that lead to long -term success and happiness. Well, it's easy not to categorize those things as education. Right. So if we're pursuing education, rarely, if ever, do habits come up. Exactly. And that's a major fault. And I would say there is an education.

entirely around habits and that there's habit intelligence. In fact, read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and Atomic Habits by James Clear. Just two simple books.

would transform your whole reality around habits and it's just the lack of education and development in habits create a very underdeveloped and uneducated being. Which are essentially what's leading to depression, suicide, I mean all of the other problems that parents and teens are dealing with.

Rachel Denning (24:35.501)
are ultimately caused by a lack of positive habits. That is the very reason we created our Habits for a Successful Life class that's for our own teenagers and for the other teenagers that join in. But I mean, that was the point. That was the thing we were seeing that was missing so much from the education system, homeschooling included, was there was no talk about positive habits, which ultimately become the foundation for living a happy life. For your entire life, in spite of any other edu -

you might have. Exactly, right. So that's a huge piece when you're talking about a world -class education is you have to put that in place, the habits, the positive habits. Yeah, so we've already covered so much. If you're not feeling overwhelmed right now already, then you're not listening. We never said this was going to be easy. Okay. So this is a lifelong pursuit.

And it is huge. So just buckle up, buttercup. Like, I remember early on going through this journey and Rachel and I together and we were already reading voraciously even before we met each other. And our whole relationship was built on books.

We got our very first date and I was like, hey, what are you reading? Let's discuss it. That's the only reason I got a second date, actually. Because she was reading a very challenging scholarly book, I was like, dang, that's sexy. And so we were talking about that, right? Talking about that. And that literally led to a second date. And then we built our whole relationship on reading. And then, of course, we've traveled all over the globe. And...

the experiential education. We've just been pursuing this for a long time and I remember feeling very overwhelmed by it. And then at one point, I don't know what happened, I just kind of flipped the switch and like, okay, yeah, there's a gigantic list of books.

Rachel Denning (26:30.509)
and a gigantic, in fact never ending, there's a never ending list of books and a never ending list of experiences and places to go and somehow I just have it in my mind, like okay, let's just start checking off the list. Right. Let's go. It's just like okay, that's how we're gonna spend the rest of our life. We know what we're gonna do now for the rest of our life. Our entire moral existence will be...

working on our life list of experiences, places, things, acquisitions, requirements, achievements, like we're just going to go through and a never ending list of books. And so instead of being overwhelmed by it, like sweet, what's next? This is exciting. It becomes exciting and purposeful. It's like you have a purpose. It's a noble aim. Yeah. So we have lists. Rachel created a list. I created a list. You guys can get our book lists. They're both of on our

Instagram pages. So Rachel's Extraordinary Family Life, mine's greg .denning. No, my Instagram is worldschoolfamily. Oh, world school family, sorry, world school family. And they're on our web pages. I mean, you can get the list and lists are free. So here's, here's how I'd recommend as far as books go. And well, let's go with books right now. Let's talk about books. Because obviously part of a world class education includes massive amounts of exposure to literature. And you, you get to be taught.

by some of the most brilliant men and women who have ever lived. Even if you disagree with them, they're still brilliant and have something to teach you. Yes, you should read from the other side and the things you disagree with. You've got to keep reading. OK, that was one of the things early on. I'm like, this guy's full of crap. This chapter is garbage. And I would stop reading. But now, because I guess early on, I ignorantly was reading things.

in the pursuit of things I agreed with. And I didn't know this cognitively, I was just like, oh, I'm going to read this if I agree with it. And then I was like, wait a minute, I don't know. So it was blind, and I was reading for things that I wanted to believe or agree with. That supported your own worldview. My own, which was...

Rachel Denning (28:36.909)
obviously tiny. And so now I've moved way past that and you know, okay, let's let's hear what's being said, especially if it's great class. There's no reason to read garbage. If it's just just trash and it's coming from ignorant place, you don't need to read it. There's too many great books in the world, more than you can read in a whole lifetime. And controversial still garbage. So read the great classics, right? And the great classics are the things that are predominantly timeless. And they teach.

principles of again, I'm gonna use the word timeless timeless principles and practices about humanity, about society. If, if what's being taught, whether it's fiction or nonfiction is true for human beings, whether it was, you know, 2000 years ago, 300 years ago, or tomorrow, that it's a classic. Right.

It's great and it's helping you become a better human and understand your fellow humans better. That's a great classic. Now some people have, I'm only bringing up things that have actually been addressed. People have said things to me like, well, you know, the great classics, they're just written by old white men in the patriarchy. And okay.

Perhaps there's some truth in that, but when we're talking about reading classics, we're not just talking about reading classics from Western society. Classics include all peoples, all cultures. You can read Eastern philosophy, and you should read all of these things. We've personally read from the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran and the Dauda Ching and all of these other books. So those are also classics that you should be reading from. Now the other point is, though, I think it's very ignorant to say something like, oh, this comes from the Patriarch.

without fully understanding history and realizing that the reason something is a classic is not because of some patriarchal power, but that actually works in society. Ultimately... You're reading something from...

Rachel Denning (30:47.917)
the greek or roman empire two thousand well and that's the other thing too they're not white people they are a different race you know it's not uh... yeah anyways there's just a lot there i'm not even go there but but you have to expand your understanding to realize that you know sometimes statements like that are not accurate or and can be ignorant because you don't have enough of a broad understanding of the history of the world and how things played out and why things become

Classics, right? So anyways, classic, it can be very broad, it can be very inclusive, but they need to be read and they need to be understood. Now, listening to audiobooks is another great way. I just like to throw that in there. You don't have to feel like you have to sit down and actually read all of these books. We do a lot of our education through audiobooks. Like yesterday, we were driving two hours back from the desert.

And I was listening to Uncle Tom's Cabin because that's the one on, we're working on a list as a family and that's where I'm on the list is Uncle Tom's Cabin. My kids have already listened to it, you've already listened to it. And then we discuss them together. But you know, that's part of how we're doing it. We're all listening to audiobooks on a list. So it's not just reading from physical books, although that's also awesome. And I would say there's power in doing both, so I'd actually recommend that you do both.

It's interesting to me when I first started listening to audiobooks, it was hard. It's actual skill. You have to develop to be able to focus and be able to listen to a book. And then you can listen to it at faster speeds without losing comprehension. So develop the skill to listen to audiobooks. Because then you get to listen while... Our kids love to listen to audiobooks while they're doing their chores.

while they're coloring or working on crafts or working on other projects, building things. So they're getting, so all of this is part of the key. They are getting their education while they're doing other things that they like to do. So they're actually developing their brains in multiple ways because, you know, like our daughter, she loves to color while she's listening to audiobooks or do cross stitch. Our son loves to build or do woodworking or...

Rachel Denning (33:02.989)
any of them when they're, anytime I ask them to wash the dishes or do anything like that, they get out their audiobook and they listen to audiobooks while they're doing those things. So we've cultivated just a way of being in our family of learning and reading and listening audiobooks. And man, that is powerhouse. So our kids, they are just pounding great books all the time, so fast. Our daughter, our son,

I recommended a World War II book, A True Story, and he was working through it and he was talking about it so our daughter was like, I'm gonna listen to it and she finished it before him. She just knocked it out. And it's hard, it's brutal, it's sad. And we have to get that kind of exposure. We have to listen to the fairy tale books and we have to listen to books that are just heart wrenching, true stories.

devastating so that we learn the principles, learn the lessons of life on both sides. So that we are exposed to those things because I know...

For many parents, and we've had people say to this in the Habits for a Successful Life class because you often are reading books and discussing them as part of the whole process. We've had parents say, well, I don't want my kid reading this. I don't want them reading about rape or this or that or the other thing, these horrible things that make me feel icky. And like I get that. I get where you might feel that or want that for your kids to protect them in that way. But honestly, when we do that, we're actually

actually doing them a disservice. When we try to... When we protect them or shelter them from it. When we try to shelter our children from the world and its atrocities, we're not keeping them safe, we're actually keeping them naive. Which is the greatest danger. Yeah, being naive is more dangerous than...

Rachel Denning (35:00.493)
It's not safe. Being naive is actually the worst situation you could be in. The last thing you want is for your children to be naive. Because that puts them in a position of danger. And we're speaking firsthand experience actually. Because that was kind of an approach we took with our oldest. And it actually led to trouble. I'm not going to go into it because of the privacy of our family. But it led to problems.

because we had this worldview at the time that the world is a safe place and you know we're not going to expose you to the bad things of the world because we're going to believe in the goodness of the world and that actually put them in a position of naivete that led to horrible things horrible atrocities because of their own inexperience and exposure to the world so you are actually

damaging or putting your kids in a position to be damaged by not helping them know about what the world is really like. Now that doesn't mean we can't... It makes them easy prey. It does. It makes them easy prey. That doesn't mean we don't work to make the world a better place. We should, and I believe in that. But the truth is, the reality is that the history of the world has been one of atrocities.

Human beings can do horrible things to each other. And they do today, every day. And the best way for your kids to learn about that is through books. Because it's a safe way to learn about it. It's safe to learn about someone being raped in a concentration camp or, you know, being in a concentration camp and being exposed to the horrible atrocities that happen there. That's a safe way to learn. It's still sad. It's still disturbing. It's still depressing.

doesn't take away any of that, but if you don't learn about it in a way like that, the worst thing is that you end up learning about it by having it happen to you. And that's way worse. And in fact, this is a critical component. You have to learn about these things to try to prevent them from happening to you and your community and your society. Exactly. So it is so important that we go through the discomfort.

Rachel Denning (37:12.589)
And it's ironic. And it has to be done appropriately. We're not talking about doing this with a six -year -old. Right, in the right time. And your kids have to be mature, but this actually helps them mature. It's a very maturing process. We actually did, if you want to know more about it, we did a whole podcast episode on it called Exposing Your Kids to the Dark Side. It goes into more detail on that. So that's enough for right now. Just get a big, beautiful list of books across time and space and cultures.

and just start reading. Get working on your list. Oh, I was going to say, so I have a paper list that I'm working on and then I just go ahead and buy, you know, the next 10 books or in our case, we've got hundreds. Well, not currently with us in Egypt. They're not with us here, but we have we have 700 audiobooks that we've purchased and we have like 2500.

nice books sitting in storage waiting to move to Portugal and and so we have plenty of books that we've read and plenty to read so invest in your library and if you say you can't afford it you get what you pay for in your education and I respond you can't afford not to

And don't let that stop you. Go to the library, but also, you know what? Here's what you need to do. If you genuinely, genuinely can't afford it, go to the library and get books on how to earn more money. Yes. Develop and cultivate your financial intelligence so you have all the money you ever want to buy all the books you ever need. I did want to say one other thing related to Francis Bacon. Because I know for some people,

Not everyone, but for some people one of the reasons that they don't want to expose themselves or their children to ideas or experiences.

Rachel Denning (39:10.605)
or whatever, fill in the blank, is because they're afraid of what that could result in. And I know specifically that this happens with a lot of, a lot of people who are religious, you know, they're strongly religious and they're concerned that if they allow their children to be exposed to ideas outside of their religion, that it's going to result in them...

not believing in the religion, throwing it off, and embracing something against their beliefs. And while I fully recognize that that is a possibility...

I believe that it's actually the only way to have true strength and true faith. Otherwise, you have a very narrow -minded, hollow, weak faith. Exactly. And many people fall away from faith because there's no foundation, there's no substance. It's based on...

Yeah, it's like a straw man argument. And so it's based on something that's not solid because the questions come up and there's no answers. And so as a result, they're like, oh, well, it must not be true then I'm going to go figure out something else. And so what I meant was referring to with Francis Bacon is he has a quote that he says, If you study.

Basically, you start studying philosophy and philosophy ultimately is like one of the most challenging things to study. Because it makes you question reality and you question everything. So he says if you study philosophy halfway, you lose your faith. And if you keep going and go full circle, it brings you back to God. Yeah. So, you know, and we're paraphrasing, we don't have exactly, but basically, you know, if you study a little bit of philosophy, it takes you away from God.

Rachel Denning (41:07.757)
But if you keep studying philosophy, it brings you back. And I think that that's what has to happen. Ultimately, if we're talking about this world -class, holistic type education, you have to be willing to ask the hard questions. You have to be willing to study the challenging, uncomfortable doctrines. You have to be willing to go there. But the problem with too many people is when they avoid it, they don't go there at all. So then their faith

remains weak and unfounded or two they go but they go halfway so then they end up throwing out everything they've had you know everything they thought they did believe in and but they never complete the circle they never keep going they never continue with their journey they just think oh well I believed this but now I believe this so that one's wrong this one's right

when in reality they're both incomplete, they're both not whole. And so you have to continue on your journey of learning and study and growth and faith so that you can come full circle and you can see that, I mean the reason religion exists is not because like some people think that it's just a crutch for weak people. Religion exists because it is founded on truth that are not just,

religious based. They're psychologically sound, they're philosophically sound, they're biologically sound. I mean there's this congruence of truth that exists that religion helps to perpetuate and that's the role religions have.

taken is to say, oh, these are the things that work with humanity. We're going to build a structure around here to support these things because they're a good thing for humanity. It's a positive thing if we don't kill each other. It's a positive thing if we don't lie. All of these things help us out, ultimately, in our interactions as human beings. That's why religions exist, is to help us live in harmony with those principles. But too many people believe that...

Rachel Denning (43:17.165)
those principles only come from religion so if you throw out religion you should throw those out too and then that just leads to misery in their lives. Like in Christianity sometimes they ignorantly get thinking that the entire Bible was written by the finger of God in English. And then it's just because they don't spend enough time in deep education be like wait no it was translated after lots and lots and lots of translations and so much was lost and so it was just compiled.

and thrown in there and some of it's the best guess of what was left. I mean, and I'm not dissing the Bible. The Bible is one of the greatest books ever compiled, ever. And it should be studied again and again and again. But it's not straight from the mouth of God in English. Right. You only think that. And then when somebody hears this, they're like, what? And then they lose their faith.

And that's literally happened. I've met people that thought like, it's like the Bible is the direct word of God. And then they learn the history and like, OK, it's not. I'm out. I have no faith. And then they question everything. You're like, well, ignorance and naivety brought you to this problem. And so you keep searching, keep digging. OK, so keep reading, keep learning, keep listening, do all that stuff. And the point of what all that I just said was don't avoid it just because you're afraid. Right. Because it's still.

you're wanting to remain the big fish in a small pond. And while that may feel safe and comfortable, ultimately, if you want more out of life, you can't do that. You have to jump into the big pond or the ocean. Which leads to kind of the second part I want to hit on is exposure. And let's call it experiential education or experiential intelligence.

I know that the elements of this acronym I mentioned before that I've forgotten. It was books for sure and academic learning and learn as much of that as you can. But it included experiences. And in order to be more well -rounded, more complete, more whole, we have to combine our book learning, our academic learning, classroom learning with experiential learning.

Rachel Denning (45:40.461)
And it's just as important. You've all met people, we've met people that maybe have a fun, they're very, very well read, but just utterly lack experience and exposure. Or the opposite, people who have massive amounts of experience, but very little book learning and that kind of philosophical or...

academic learning and you can see either way they're just not well rounded or well developed. And so combining those two and others makes you more capable, makes you more educated, more of an asset. So along with this massive list of books, create a list of experiences you want to have. And that's anything from being competent at changing a car tire to

perhaps first aid, emergency response to learning another language or multiple languages or going to a foreign land. Yeah. Or cooking foreign food. Yeah. Or like visiting a historical place that maybe you're interested in and you actually go there and see it and touch it and feel the energy of it, you know, kind of feel the history of it. Like all of that is part of that experiential learning. And...

And you really have to find a balance. Well, I would say a balance, but what I mean is you need to kind of alternate these types of learning. At least that's the approach. Or combine them. Well, combine them, but sometimes it isn't an... It's an oscillation maybe? Yeah. I would say sometimes it's that way. And I'm just specifically thinking about the past six months of our life because, well, even the past year. So within the past year...

First of all, we were at our home base in Georgia and our children spent a lot of time doing academic learning. They're taking online classes, so it's at home, you know, but they're doing their online classes and they're...

Rachel Denning (47:43.149)
doing their instrument practice and their language practice and they're doing all that. They were going to gymnastics, crab and gah. And that includes, that is a type of experiential learning like you know in the local area you're doing that. But then we left our house in Georgia, we moved out of it so we could move to Portugal but before we get there which is later this week, we finally get to Portugal, the last six months we've been traveling full -time. Now it did include academic learning because they have online classes so we

were able to take their devices with them and they were able to continue learning. But because of the nature of travel, that sometimes got neglected.

for the sake of experiential learning. So, you know, we would go to, we went to Ephesus, which is the ancient city where Paul lived and wrote letters to. And we went to Pamukkale, which is a big place, you know, Cleopatra went there and it has these big calcium deposits in Turkey. And we went to Viking museums in Norway and we went to Auschwitz in Poland. Like we've been, we've traveled basically from Norway, the top of Norway,

to now we're in Egypt. That's where we've traveled in the past six months. I think, what, 17 countries maybe? And so we've done a lot of things, and I would say specifically, the last month we've been traveling very quickly, and so they've kind of taken a month off from the academic learning, but we've been exploring caves in Cappadocia, and we've been...

exploring the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and of course we went to the pyramids here in Egypt and out to the desert. So there's been tons and tons and tons of experiential learning for at the time.

Rachel Denning (49:35.149)
in exchange, you know, at the neglect of, you could say, the academic learning. But I know that... But in this case, interestingly, just thinking about it, they have not neglected listening to audiobooks. Yes, that's still part of it. So it's been a cool thing where I think Aliyah, in just this year, she's already 40 or 50 books this year while we've been out traveling. So in this case, it's been a beautiful combination of lots of classic books.

and lots of what I would call classic experiences. And so I know that parents can be hesitant to want to do those things because they feel like, oh, my kids are going to be behind, which in some ways is true. If we look just at the curriculum that they're supposed to go through, well, now they're quote unquote behind because they haven't been working on it. But this is where we have to take in the bigger picture into the entire equation and realize that.

you can't trade what they learn through these experiences. It's harder to quantify it, it's harder to say, oh, you completed that lesson and you got this score. We can't really do that. And even sometimes, we might have a hard time, or our kids might have a hard time articulating.

what they are learning or what they're experiencing and how that's affecting them and sometimes it doesn't happen until after, when you after you have the experience like even last night when we were talking in the desert, you know, when you're sitting there and having this conversations and kind of reflecting on everything you've experienced and seen and done and how that fits into the development of your brain and these neural connections you're making and this map of the world that you're filling in and you know making color.

You can't always weigh that, but it does have significance because it helps them to have this fuller, more lifelike picture of the world and what it's like. You know, I mean, they've interacted with people in Turkey, in Turkish, and in Norway, in Norwegian, and in Polish, and now in Arabic, and Egyptian, and Egypt.

Rachel Denning (51:52.525)
And you're noticing and picking up on the way things do, you know, the way they do things in Norway is different than the way they do things in Egypt, you know? And you're starting to recognize... The Oslo to Cairo. Exactly, right. Or Tromsø to Cairo. It's so vastly different. But to experience that and to see it firsthand, that's huge. And you...

You may not know or realize why that's important for your child, but trust me, it all is going to play out and it's all going to have.

a significant impact on simply on the way they view the world and the way they move through the world. And their overall development and they're building a scaffolding some of which they won't use for years to come. True. Exactly. But man when it's time to put it to use they're going to have a foundation and a framework that will just be priceless. Well and I love that you use that word because that's sometimes how I think about it in the brain. When I think about them neural connections being made in their brain if you, you know, here's your

brain and if you fill it in with scaffolding you literally have more opportunities for creating future connections. So basically you're kind of putting all these feelers out there that then can later as they learn more things and are exposed to more things they make these connections that are literally, I know I keep using that word, expanding

the understanding that they have, expanding the capacity of their brain. And so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to give them more scaffolding in their brain so that they have more hooks that you can plug things into or hang things on later.

Rachel Denning (53:45.581)
as they continue to grow and develop. And as you think about, like, for you and me and those of you listening, like, when you really had to get serious about making big life choices and when did the framework, when did you have to really start leaning in and putting weight on the scaffolding in your head? It's when you were in your 20s and making big life decisions.

College and career and marriage and you start having children family like you really leaning in and having to carry the weight of adult life Like I had a puny little scaffolding in there and I had to like get serious and build it all out and as I'm listening to you and thinking about our kids they're building a scaffolding now and And they're not having to use it that much because they still live at home with us. We're still you know, we're providing for them We're out having these experiences. Well, our two oldest are out now. They're out.

And you're starting to see it already apply in their lives very quickly. But the scaffold thing that is being built now, it's all, it's in a sense, a little bit dormant. And it'll be waiting. And I just know, like, all of these experiences and all of these books, when they have to start putting weight on that foundation or on that scaffolding, you start building it out, it's going to make a massive, massive positive difference. It's such a cool thing.

So it's lots and lots and lots of book learning and academic learning. It's lots of experiential learning. And then it's getting mentors and coaches and tutors bringing people in who have spent their lives, sometimes their entire lives, gaining a skill. Bring that in and make it part of the equation. And then make sure it's holistic. It's...

well -rounded like we've talked about. Pursue an education. I guess this is how I like to think about it. Pursue an education in any and every aspect of what makes you a human being. So because I have a body, I study physiology and anatomy. Because I'm married, I study marriage.

Rachel Denning (56:07.117)
Because I have children, I study parenting. Because I have a brain, I study psychology. Because... And mental health. And mental health, yes. Because our economy works on money, I study money. Because... And economics. Yeah, and all economics. Because I want to have a good financial future, I study investing. Because I want to have a long life. I want to live a very long time, I study longevity and health.

And because I interact with others, I study society and social skills because I want to be a leader. And I have to lead. We're all leading. I study leadership because parenting is teaching and I love teaching and speaking. I study pedagogy and teaching. You see what I'm saying? Take every aspect of what it means to you to be a human and study it. Learn about it. Master it. If it's a part of your life, make sure you understand it.

and know how to succeed in that thing. Most of us are going along with kind of a fingers crossed philosophy and it doesn't work. If you're relying on good luck and hope, I mean hope is not a strategy. So world class education is understanding everything of what it means to be human. Right. And or what many parents are doing and they did themselves because that's just how we're raised in the system is that they're putting all of their best...

They're putting all their eggs into the basket of academics. And we're thinking... And handing it to the government schools. Yeah. Say, hey, hope this works. We're thinking and hoping because we've been told that that will solve our problems. That if we get good grades and we go to college and, you know, all of this, we follow that formula, that that's going to solve all of our problems. We'll be able to make money. We'll be able to have happy... We'll be happy and have great relationships because we got good grades. And that's just not true.

It was a marketing scheme by very profitable businesses called colleges. I think so. But the reality is, if we don't study these other things, we're not going to be good at them. It's not going to just follow that all of that stuff works out in our lives because we got good academic rates. Which was really pointed out so effectively in the book called The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley. He's a professor at the university. He did all his research. And he found...

Rachel Denning (58:32.461)
zero correlation, excuse me, zero correlation between good grades and any other form of success or happiness in life. None. So the only place where academic performance applied was if somebody wanted to continue a pursuit, pursue a career in education. That was the only place. So I think if there's one major piece of advice here or takeaway for me, it would be don't...

neglect these other areas because of the academic pursuits. And don't neglect academic pursuits because of those other areas. True, but I feel that where too many people or too many parents err is with that. I think too many people put emphasis on the academic pursuits at the expense of these other things. Agreed. Of experiential learning, of habit development, of whatever else.

We have to remember that we need to keep it in, I don't even want to say balance because I feel that that's... It's not accurate either. It's not accurate. We have to give it equal emphasis and equal time and energy. Throw it in the scales of life. Maybe your kid's really struggling with their pre -calculus or calculus in high school and you're putting all that emphasis, all that work and they're just spending hours and hours and hours working on that.

Rachel Denning (01:00:01.037)
Like throw that into the scale of their social skills and their... Well, their personal habits. Like, can they manage their own time? Can they go to bed and get up and like groom themselves? And their mental health and their physical health and their understanding of history and the world. Like start weighing those things out. The vast majority of people will never use...

Calculus again now. I'm not saying it's irrelevant and shouldn't be studied It's a good exercise of the mind and sometimes some things are good Just because they're hard and they force your mind to to chew on things work on things But be careful how much? energy effort resources Emphasis you put on something that in the general aspect of a life and being a successful happy human being has little or no place

We get very misdirected in that. And we need to have deep intelligence in other aspects of life where those are really the determining factors of happiness and success and a joyful existence. Yeah. And I think about it in relationship with our own children. We've homeschooled all of our children from the beginning, basically, which has also included a little bit.

included a lot of travel. I've now been to 50 countries. You're at 52 or something. Our 17 year old... Every episode you mention that, you mention a different number. I'm so proud. No, I get a different number every time. It's so funny. Well, it changes too. We're in a new country. So that's why I can't keep track. I'm like, I don't know. What am I at? But our 17 year old has been to, I think, 40 something. I don't know. Point being is that...

Throughout our very unique educational journey, there's been different things that have been learned along with the academics, right? We're including all of the experiential learning. We are including a lot of the habit learning, right? I know that we've been very deliberate about helping our children to develop positive habits that will help them over a lifetime.

Rachel Denning (01:02:20.813)
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that none of our children have officially graduated from high school. That wasn't something that we saw as necessary. If they need it when they go to college, we will finalize that process and do what we need to to make that happen. But currently in their journey, they're pursuing things that don't require that at this point. But I know that, especially it's May right now.

On Instagram I see a lot of the graduation, you know, kids are graduating from school and all of that's great. And I, you know, I don't discount that that's important and it's great to recognize achievement and all of that. But as I've thought about it with myself, and I don't feel that this is something I'm trying to justify, I'm not, I'm just thought through it. Like I love to analyze it and think about it. Like why do we have the approach we're taking? And why, you know, why are we not as worried about, not as concerned about?

having a graduation for our kids and I think one of the reasons is this viewpoint we have of course that there's never a graduation from education. Yeah, you can graduate from a stage, you can graduate from the high school level of education and that's great.

But the learning goes on, right? It's gonna continue even after college or whatever you wanna call it. It's going to continue learning. It's a lifelong journey. And then the other part of it, I think, is that...

most graduations are just that, that you're graduating from the completion of an academic curriculum. And while that's great, it's not the only or the most important thing necessarily. It says, it proves almost nothing. Well, right. I mean, it proves that you did those requirements. You checked the boxes. Yeah, you checked those boxes. Even in those boxes, it's hilarious. People are graduating who are functionally illiterate. Right.

Rachel Denning (01:04:13.869)
There's a wide range of what that actually means or what that actually represents. But as I think about it with our own children here. Ooh, and it gets so hard up. Because all it sends is it sends this gigantic message that you're done, which is so dumb. It can send that, yeah. And now what's even worse is they're graduating from every grade. They're throwing third grade graduations and kindergarten graduations and eighth grade graduations. I'm like, this is...

Absurd. It's so stupid. But, I mean, no, I do believe that it's important to celebrate those things because even with our own kids, when they complete, you know, like just two days ago, our daughter, who's nine, she completed her social studies class. I celebrated with her. You know, I was like, yay! Fantastic. Totally different than a graduation. It wasn't like a big graduation, but she had completed that class. She graduated from that class. And that's another thing. All of our children, and this is, I think, more natural to real life.

They're at different levels with every subject. So some of them might be in fourth grade for social studies, but second grade for math, or vice versa. They're at varying levels. And we allow them to progress at their level. And she wanted to complete social studies. So she did that, but while she's still working on math and language arts. And so we have celebrations along the way. We're recognizing those achievements and the completion of something. But then you move on to the next one.

And so kind of what I'm saying is that while we don't have this, and we were talking about it with, I was kind of talking about it with my teenagers who are 17 and 16 that are currently traveling with us. Our 19 year old and our 20 year old are out, they're working, they're serving missions, and they're out living life. But with them, they were kind of joking about, hey mom, just take my photo, this will be my graduation photo, right? Right now.

while we were sitting in front of the pyramids having lunch, you know, and I was like, okay, cool, we'll take your photo. Here's your graduation photo. But we don't, when I say we, I'm talking about us personally, don't have an official formal graduation because I feel that there's always more to be learned. Like even if you had completed all of the coursework for a certain level, well, it's not done. You move on and there's another thing.

Rachel Denning (01:06:35.789)
And besides the fact that, like I was saying, the graduation is emphasizing the academic completion of something, of a curriculum, as opposed to everything else that can be learned. The habit development, the experience to geography and culture and religion and humanity, like none of that really has a place in a lot of school systems. And so,

I feel like we're just putting emphasis on the, not the wrong thing, because it's not that it's wrong, but it's the incomplete thing. It's not whole. And so, I don't know, I'm just analyzing this myself. When I'm thinking about, okay, well, my kids, we're not doing a graduation for my kids, and they haven't completed all of the academic subjects, but they have also, along with that, what they have completed, they've done all of these other things that,

don't really have a box to check off, right? There's no box for traveling to 40 countries, or there's no box for having amazing personal habits where you get yourself up and you do your own morning routine and you can be in charge of your day as a 16 -year -old or a 17 -year -old. You're in charge of your day and you're in charge of your education and you take that personal initiative. We don't have a graduation for that. Nor is there ever a graduation from...

any of those things. That's my point. Well, that too, because that becomes a lifelong process that you do forever. And so this part of it is just this philosophy of like, where is the education system failing? This is where I think it's failing. We're not including these aspects that I feel in many ways are more important, but we don't have a way to recognize those or celebrate them.

Which is something I'm constantly working on personally in our own life, is like, how do I recognize this? How do I celebrate these amazing good things? Even if there's not this official high school graduation from your academic subjects, how do I celebrate all of the other good things that you're doing and that you have achieved? Well, and you're still doing that very thing now with all the women and the moms in your 28 -day challenge group, which is phenomenal. Right. Because it's...

Rachel Denning (01:09:01.325)
It's putting a list now and checking like, what are the habits? What are the practices? What are the things I need to be doing and make sure they get doing so I'm progressing. And then there's levels built into it. And I'm doing that with the minimum master class too. We have badges of the, we have the warrior badge, the philosopher badge and the king badge. And they are hard to earn. And you're tracking all of these things. You're progressing and celebrating along the way. Just making sure like all of the elements of a

whole life are happening on a regular basis. So we're living life as superb human beings. Right. Holistic, well -rounded instead of just you did your academic subjects and you graduated, good job. Because that's not the only thing that matters. And then you go into life and just struggle and suffer and feel stuck and trapped. Exactly. Why does my life suck? And I remember specifically thinking this because our 19 -year -old son, he moved out.

maybe it was three or four months ago now. He'd been traveling with us. We'd gone through 15 countries in Europe or something. And then we were in Austria and he had already planned that he was gonna move on at that time. He was gonna go back and do some work in the stunt industry in Atlanta. So he moved out. And I remember thinking at the time, because it's normal to go through this and think, oh gosh, well, you know, we've been traveling. He didn't actually.

officially finish his high school curriculum. He didn't actually officially graduate. Have I failed as a mother? You know, you do this as a mom. You ask these questions. But then we went out to dinner with him. We took him out to dinner, like kind of a farewell dinner before he took his flight to, he was going to fly to Istanbul and then back to Atlanta by himself. And we had this conversation with him that literally I was in tears.

as we sat there, it was mostly him talking actually and we were listening and I was crying because here was this kid who was, I think he was 18 at the time, it was before he turned 19, or he'd just turned 19, I don't remember, but here was this kid and he was articulating things and talking about concepts and ideas and all of the things he'd learned and all of the books he'd read recently, like I think he'd read 40 books at that point for the year and just on and on and sharing these.

Rachel Denning (01:11:28.781)
complex, mature ideas that I thought, you know what? There's more to life than just the academics. And while there may be gaps, there's gaps in my own education. There's gaps in everyone's education, I think, with academic subjects. But too many people have gaps in more of the things that are more important because our current system.

focuses, including homeschooling, focuses so much on the academic side of things. And while, again, we're not throwing that out, we're not trying to say that that's not important, as I sat there I thought, you know what, I'm fine with some of the gaps in the academic learning because he's learned these other things. Because of the character he has, you know, and the competencies he has in other areas.

that makes me think, okay, it's not just about that one thing. It's the whole picture. That's a really great perspective as though all of you are thinking about your own world -class education and world -class education for your kids. Kind of list out the intelligences, the types of education there are, and see which one you, if you had to choose one to lag, or if you had to choose one to have more gaps, which one would it be? And as you think through that,

you'll know where to put emphasis. Like for me, I definitely would not want any gaps in physical health and mental, emotional health or spiritual health. And if you have to, sorry, go ahead. Again, academic is so important to us. The reading, great books, so incredibly important to us. But if I had to order them and put them in a list of

of priorities, actually academic would come below those. And so I'm willing to give more emphasis, energy, effort to emotional intelligence and mental health intelligence and physical health intelligence and spiritual intelligence and education to academics. So if there's some gaps in academic because we're focused in the others, those gaps can be filled a long way. But if there's gaps in mental, emotional health or spiritual health because of academics,

Rachel Denning (01:13:56.461)
Those gaps can be filled later, but man, they have unbelievable consequences sometimes that are irreparable. Right, exactly. And have a carryover spillover effect into every other part of your life so that it's negatively impacting every other part of your life. And that was the one of the things I remember our son saying when we were sitting there, because I mentioned to him, like, oh, you haven't graduated from high school. And he said something like,

but I've learned the skills of like how to learn. So if I need to say, take chemistry or physics, I can do that. I could easily complete the course in a few weeks or a couple months if I have to, because I know how to learn. I've learned how to learn. And so I think that's the part that's even more important is if we can teach our children how to learn and to have the habits to sustain that, right? So that they have the...

responsibility and the independence to be able to learn what they need to learn, then if they ever need the academic subject that's missing or there's a gap there, they have the skills to be able to do that. And then it's like, okay, I just go and do that. So one of the most important piece of education is learning how to get an education. Right, exactly. You teach them that and then you've empowered them for the rest of their lives. Right. And the other thing you think through is, listen, you talk about this.

You guys were just kind of philosophizing here and tossing out ideas, just wrap our heads around this, is think through each of the intelligences and see which ones are pervasive, which ones have a greater effect on the other aspects of our life. It's something you said there, like, well, will this make a difference? And you can do that with academic subjects, right? You could take something like geography, which is incredibly important, but how pervasive is it in?

the everyday and every week life of an adult. Well, in our life, it's pretty important. Even then. I'm joking about it, but you know, it's kind of funny. And in fact, our kids actually have a pretty good understanding of worldwide geography because of our travel life. But no, I know what the point you're making. Even then, if you're like, they don't know the capitals of this or wherever that is, and they don't know, you know, is that north of us or west of us? Where's this? Vanuatu. Even if they don't know that, we can still show up.

Rachel Denning (01:16:18.765)
and have experiences with people in places and be safe and happy and have a great human experience and have great relationships. Even if their geography is lacking. Yeah, their geography is lacking. But you take something like, I keep using mental health because that one's so prevalent right now. But you take, okay, physical health.

Let's say you don't understand the body, you don't understand how food affects your body or your brain. You don't understand how sleep is just wrecking everything. A lack of sleep. So let's say if you had to choose, I'm breaking it down in very simple comparisons so we know how to prioritize our lives. If you took understanding your body and health education, like really truly understanding your health and how your body functions and how to be optimized and how pervasive that is in every single aspect of your life.

I don't think there's any part of your life that's not affected by your physical condition because your body is your vehicle for everything you do, where your understanding of geography, eh, all right, it's important, it's extremely important, but it's not gonna be your nearest per basis as your understanding of how your body works. And so if you gotta neglect one, man, I know which one I would choose to neglect. It's gonna be, okay, we'll fill in geography later, but you absolutely need to.

must understand how your body recovers at night while you're sleeping and how this food affects your body and all those pieces because it literally is affecting everything else you do. And as I think through the educational journey of our children, I know that consciously and unconsciously we've always defaulted to those basic principles that if the academic pursuits were causing neglect in

personal habits, well we pulled back on the academics to say, hey, you've got to work on this thing. Like you need to get better sleep. You need to be exercising and taking care of your body. You need to be eating better food. Let's focus in on that. Let's re -emphasize those things so that at the very least when you move out, you understand the importance of these things even if you don't complete your math class, right? Like let's use that.

Rachel Denning (01:18:46.061)
We've always defaulted to that because ultimately in the long run, having developed those positive habits in all of those important areas of life is going to be the thing that sustains them when they move out. When they get out on their own, whether they've graduated from math or science or not, if they have those personal habits, that's gonna make the biggest difference in their life. Yes, and you and I, we have the privilege of.

working with people every single day and helping people with their challenges and their struggles and their problems. And when you go out and again, we've traveled across dozens of countries and five continents and thousands and thousands of people over coming up on two decades. We get to see the things people struggle with and they tell us the behind the scenes. What really hurts? What's not working? Where are the struggles?

It's never an academic subject, ever. Right. So all of the suffering in humanity that we've come across and all the troubles, all the problems, they never come back to like, oh dude, you have some gaps in your algebra, bro. Now that's... But you see, I want to emphasize this point. It's always some deficiency in their education. And again, we're calling it education.

your relationship education, your mindset education, emotional education, spiritual education, financial education, you're missing those other pieces. That's what's causing human suffering and struggle and sorrow and why people are stuck and marriages are struggling, families are falling apart, people are experiencing horrendous health issues. It's not because some gap in their academic learning. Now, that being said, that does not discount the

Vital importance of having a basic education because that is one positive thing that public education has done it has universalized Reading and writing and arithmetic, but what if it was yes, but what if I'm just again philosophizing what if that basic global education had more emphasis on habits and health and relationships, yeah, I

Rachel Denning (01:21:11.629)
Well, that would be the next level. That's the dream. That's the next level. Awesome. And it doesn't have to neglect any of the academic learning. Right. But that does play a huge role, that when people have a basic education, it does help them to improve their lives. Absolutely. But we're talking about the lowest levels of society at this point. You take a developing country that's just absolutely struggling and impoverished, the most important thing you could teach them is health and finances.

Teaching how money works. Which includes, of course, reading and writing and math. So it plays a role, but ultimately, at least where we are currently in society, it's insufficient on its own. Just reading and writing and arithmetic and then algebra and calculus and physics and biology, just doing well in those subjects is not enough to help us actually thrive as human beings.

And so as we think about our own families, ourselves, and getting a world -class education, we have to include all of these important and crucial aspects. Sometimes, maybe, to the neglect of academic subjects so that we have the tools to actually thrive as human beings first and foremost. And then if we have the skills to actually learn, we learn how to learn.

than anything we do need to learn at any stage in our journey, we can learn. Like, you know, I never did great in trigonometry. I failed it. I love trigonometry. If I have to though, if I ever needed to use trigonometry, I have the ability to learn things and I could go and learn trigonometry even as a 40, how old am I? Three year old woman. I could do that. Because I have the confidence, I have the ability to learn.

and the belief in myself and that's what matters most and that's what we want for our kids. We want them to have this confidence in the world that any subject they need to learn they can learn and they have the skills and ability to do it. Love it. So ladies and gentlemen, make space in your life for it. Read a little bit in the morning, read in the evening before bed, fit in audio books and magic moments. I always have a book with you or something to write with, a little time here in the car while you're waiting.

Rachel Denning (01:23:35.277)
this place or that place instead of scrolling on Instagram. Yeah, exactly. You have plenty of little gaps in your day, easily. Well, or you... Okay, 15 minutes a day is 97 hours in a year, right? I know, I guarantee there's little 15 minutes here and there. So that's 97 hours of academic time you get to go. Except that nowadays people are filling those gaps with scrolling on their phones. That's what happens. Right.

By default, we're now just picking up our phones and we're checking our Instagram or Facebook. Which is not expanding our overall education. Right. It's keeping us in that small container. So we have to start recognizing some of those things. And with our children, we need to have more controls in place to reduce that amount of time on a screen so that it's filled with boredom, which then leads to seeking out.

learning experiences. So the vast majority of you have 90 minutes in your day that's getting wasted or just misused and 90 minutes a day is 66 eight -hour days in a year. Let that sink in. 66 eight -hour days. How much education could you get in and squeeze in? And it'd be 90 minutes and it's not a straight 90 minutes, it's segments, but if you're intentional you can use those pieces to piece together.

a world -class education and keep working on it for you and for your family. So, thanks you guys, thanks for being here, thanks for listening, you're awesome. Let's get after it and keep earning for the rest of our lives a world -class education. Love you guys, sweet chocolate.