So Many Dreams, So Little Time: A Parent’s Guide to Choosing Which Goals Matter Most Right Now

Start by cleaning up your life and your habits. You do have to start prioritizing and picking the ones that actually matter the most to you. You end up doing tons of those life-changing cool things on your list. You don't have to see the whole path. You just have to take the first step. Listen to those things because they'll often lead down the road to outcomes way better than you anticipated. Hey there, this is Greg Denning. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations. And we want to keep this podcast ad free forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen, your favorite platform and on YouTube. And leave a quick review and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We're your host Craig and Rachel Denning. Super excited to answer an awesome question today about pursuing your dreams and like big the dumb goals like we talked about demanding, unrealistic, meaningful and bold and how to do it with children, with a family, and specifically how to decide which one to start with because if you have a lot of dreams like in this question we received, it can be challenging to know well wait, where do I start? So, and the question actually came in response to a previous episode we did. It's actually number 244, which was basically titled the size of your dreams must exceed your current capacity to achieve them. So, again, the dumb goal demanding unrealistic, meaningful, and bold like because any meaningful dream is going to require you to grow into the person who can achieve that dream. And so, that was the premise of that podcast. And so we received a question. I'll go ahead and read it right now. She says, "I was listening to this podcast for the third time." Nice. Way to go. Yeah. And I have a couple of questions about some ideas you mentioned. You talked about writing down what you really want in life. Then go find someone who has achieved that thing and read about them. Well, I have a crap ton of things, ideas, and relationships that I want. I love that. Where does one start in the research process? And then what are some good research tactics, things to look for for finding the quote good books on people who have achieved what you want? It sounds easy. Pull up Google and type in blah blah blah. But which one do I start with? Relationships with my family, how to make a million dollars in 5 years so I can build my dream house with rental properties, read books on people who didn't sell their house to RV across the country, or sell their life savings to travel to Europe. I have so many things that I want. I'm just not sure what order to start. So, this is a fantastic question and a totally relevant question because I've also we've been there. Like we have been in that space of like, oh my gosh, there's so many things I want to do. Where do I start? And so that's what we're going to go through today. We have five different parts or five different steps to doing this. And I guess we want to emphasize here at the beginning that yes, it's totally possible. You and I have lived this because we started out as very regular normal people living a regular normal life and using the process that we're going to talk about today. I mean, we've been able to accomplish some pretty incredible things. ultimately traveling with our seven children while homeschooling them and building a business to 60 plus countries on five continents. As a quick summary of everything we've done because everything we have done will end up filling multiple um uh volumes of a memoir series which I'm beginning on when we get I've decided I am beginning on that when we get back from our trip to Nepal this September. Nice. So, and and inside this big overarching dream of traveling the world with our family was lots of other dreams including purchasing properties on on multiple continents, developing and deepening our own relationship, our relationship with our children. Yeah. Well, their skill level, their education, the family dynamics, family culture, family legacy, fitness, like being healthy and fit was all built into that. finances, building businesses, location independent businesses. So, you know, we you say, well, we've taken our seven kids and we've traveled to all these countries and we're still doing that and yet inside of that were lots of other dreams. And so, they're kind of interwoven. And I think that's an important point we talk about here. It wasn't just working on one that in order to achieve the big ones, they require kind of prerequisite goals and targets and aims because they all fit together. You can't you can't achieve some of your biggest ones without achieving some other significant ones as well because they support and strengthen each other. Yes. But at the same time, I want to emphasize that we always were trying to take a holistic approach so that some of the bigger dreams weren't accomplished at the sacrifice of some of the more important things in our life. For example, we didn't sacrifice our our parenting relationship with our children. We didn't sacrifice our own me marriage. We didn't sacrifice our health and fitness in order to achieve financial goals or travel goals or other things like that. Now, there were sacrific crazy crazy important very important. We we have to and so this she even says this. She says in the previous podcast you say write down what you really want. That's what we're talking about. You have to write down what you really truly want. Jumping to the first one here, which is good, but You have to get it in order, prioritized so that if you're like, "Yes, we want to travel the world." That do you want that more than you want a great marriage? Well, no. Okay. So, then as we're traveling the world, the marriage takes priority. The relationship with kids takes priority. So, can I still travel the world and have a phenomenal marriage? Absolutely. Yes. But you do it in a prioritized fashion. Well, and what I was going to say also is that there were things that had to be sacrificed, but we were very careful about paying t paying attention to what we were sacrificing and what we were willing to sacrifice and what we were unwilling to sacrifice. So, we didn't sacrifice the relationships. We didn't sacrifice the health and fitness, but we did sacrifice things like, I don't know, hanging out with friends on the weekend or going to all the social functions or like there's a whole we we sacrificed putting our kids in gymnastics, you know what I mean? Like there were sacri none of our kids played any official team team sports. Well, that's not true. One daughter played volleyball, right? Soccer. But but that was small in comparison to the other things. like we were willing to sacrifice those types of things because to us deepening the relationships and travel and adventure were higher on the priority list. So, as we get into this first one, there will be some contrarian dreams maybe. And you have to be aware of that. Like, it takes really keen awareness to say cuz even if she's like, I got a crap ton of dreams, which is awesome. Be ambitious, be driven, like let your mind go crazy. But then you have to realize, well, I want my child to be a worldclass um I don't know, team team sport and they've got to be there all the time and I want to travel as a family. Yeah, those are incompatible dreams because they won't work. Team I've heard people on Instagram even calling it like belonging to team sports is basically like a religion. The it owns your life, it owns your family. And we always told that to our kids. You know, it's not that they never wanted to play team sports, but we explained to them what would be required and because they were already involved in the other family dream of traveling, they weren't willing and neither were we to make that sacrifice of giving up the adventure and travel for that. So, it's being aware of yes that there are going to be conflicting interests. You can't necessarily do everything, but if you pick, as we were t you hinted at already, number one, write down all of the things, right? Write it all down. If that includes the team sports and everything else, great. Write it all down. But then you do have to start prioritizing and picking the ones that actually matter the most to you. You have to get clarity on those things. Now you can still have you can have relationship goals and in fact you should have a goal for every important relationship in your life. You can have financial goals. You can have physical goals. You can have spiritual goals. You can have emotional mental goals. Like it's good to have goals in each of those areas. So you should and could categorize them. And I say you can achieve goals in each of those areas. But outside of that, that's about probably all you can handle is achieving and doing well in five to six different areas. Well, and those those should be I would say at least for us, this has been our experience. This is how we have achieved what we did. So, it's mental, emotional, spiritual, social, physical, and financial. And those six and we're always working on them all the time, no matter what we're doing. So, and we're always leveling up on them. Yep. So, those are never compromised ever. So, you have all these big epic awesome dreams. I want to own properties. I want to uh you know, she wants rental properties. She wants to buy the dream house. She wants to build a business that makes enough money to build a dream house. She wants to this and that. Great. All that. But none of those core six are ever like dismissed or set aside so that we can do something else. And and that's where people get in trouble. They think, well, I'm going to pursue. The most common way we see this is somebody pursuing like a financial goal. And they think, I'm going to make these sacrifices now so it'll pay off later. And so they sacrifice their relationship, their mental health, their emotional health, their physical health, their spiritual well-being. So like they sacrifice all these things thinking I'll get this thing. And so that all like crumbles and dies and falls apart. and then they have that that target and they look back and like wow look at the wreckage. Yeah. And so at least for us and this is the way we see it and this is the way we've done it. You don't sacrifice those core things. You do them in conjunction with the big goals and dreams. So in one one answer to her question is where do you start? Well in some ways and I don't want this to come across in a way that seems overwhelming but in some ways you start with all of them because of the holistic approach that we take. We believe that's a wheel and all of those are spokes. And if you miss some of them, like you're already talking about, you fall flat in those areas and it ends up creating chaos. It ends up creating a mess down the road. Now, do you have to put the same amount of energy and effort and attention into all of them? No. You could pick a few that are are the bigger goals that you spend more time and energy on, but you should not neglect the other things. It's like you still need to work out, you know, at least five. And I'm even saying something like five minutes, right? You've got to maintain those habits. The five minutes won't get you in shape. You get your targets. But here, if you're using something like the two-minute rule from, you know, Atomic Habits or something that that at least maintains a habit, that makes it that much easier when you have more time to spend on that to just then add more time rather than reestablish a habit. If that makes sense. Yes, it does. And you are right. But in that framework today, that's a feminine framework right there. But today I'm feeling like especially in the context of this, I want to achieve big dreams, then baby steps are for babies. And I want to say this with as much love but as much frankness as possible. If you want to achieve big dreams, you cannot get there with baby steps. You're right as well. But what I want the context and framework I want to have here is that I think for sure in the things you want to make big steps in not baby steps you put that energy into it but on the other things again you're trying to maintain the wheel you might be taking baby steps because at least for me as a woman and maybe it's different from a for a man if I try to do giant steps in all five or six of those things I will burn out. So that's not realistic. It's not sustainable. I would guess that maybe for a lot of men also that's also going to be a problem. So yes, do the major steps on the things that matter most and we'll get into how to identify what that is. But you have to you have to keep up the others. So you can't drop them. So I think let me I wanted to share my morning kind of my framework and I think if you set up a system a routine or a ritual then you're actually making significant progress in all of those core areas and that's literally what keeps you from burning out. Let let me share it. So every morning this is what I teach the men in the formidable family man tribe. The target is to nourish and strengthen mind, body, and spirit every morning. Now, you're not going to be 100%. But you should be 90 95%. So, if every morning I get up and I strengthen and nourish my mind, my body, and my spirit, I've filled myself. I've refilled the well. I've recalibrated. I've reset. I'm ready to go. And so, just by getting up and having a routine and ritual that's it's filling, it's rejuvenating. It's not exhausting. So, doing those three things doesn't wear me down. It's like, I'm feeling overwhelmed. you're like, "No, I feel fantastic because I'm doing the things I want to do." But I think what you're doing is actually what you just explained is illustrating what I'm trying to talk about. Because to me, that's maintenance. That's maintaining those things where if I had a major goal, say I was I wanted to lose 100 pounds. I'm not going to be in maintenance mode for mind, body, and spirit. I'm going to be in go mode. And that's different to me than just maintaining a certain level of wellness, right? Do you see the difference? Yes. But I'm I'm not sure. I I guess I have a different approach to if I had a major spiritual goal like this is a goal, you know, I kind of have that I want to and and this kind of geeks out a lot in the new age stuff like I want to raise my consciousness level, right, from the um David Hawkins map of consciousness. Well, really what that would take is probably at least an hour of meditating every day. Well, I with my lifestyle, I can't do that. I'm not going to do that because I have so many other roles and obligations and goals I'm pursuing. So, to me though, I'm not it's not one or the other. To make it clear, 100% you could do it, but you're choosing to prioritize. Prioritize other things. Exactly. So instead, what I do is I maintain that with a minimum of nine minutes of meditation a day. Right. Right. So, and I guess that's what I'm talking about. To me, that's the baby step where if I have the goal and I actually want to achieve it in a major way, I'm going to go in like you're talking about, forget the baby steps. I'm going all in and that's when I'm like meditating for an hour. Beautiful. Great. Love it. So, you're the difference I'm trying to illustrate here. I'm increasing the intensity. Yeah. And and even in my mind, I was I was going back to your, "Well, I meditated for 1 minute or 2 minutes." I'm like, "That on some days, that's good for me." If I'm like, "Oh, okay. I at least did a minute today cuz it was crazy that all kinds of stuff were going on." That minute counts. Now, ideally, you can't do it every day because it's too many baby steps. But even 9 minutes is getting you there. And and I guess I want I want to make this distinction because people think, "Oh man, you have to work out for like two hours every day." And like, no, you don't. 30 minutes. 30 minutes of really truly moving your body. Like you you're getting a workout in. 30 minutes is fantastic. Yeah. So that's not a baby step. That's great. And it's not even maintenance. Like you can get in fantastic shape. Yes. By doing 30 minutes. You remember because you were married to this person that's like this. 30 minutes of working out. I can do that now. But when we first got married, there was no way I wanted to nor could I do 30 minutes of working out. So the way only because you didn't have the big target to get in shape because if you did you could have done it. No, I I don't think that's entirely true because I feel like I I had the desire but I didn't have the skills, the tools or the understanding. And for me, I had to baby step myself into that by committing to twominute workouts so I could build because that was one of the key principles that I took away from Atomic Habits by James Clear. That if you develop the identity of I'm the type of person who works out, even if you're working out 2 minutes a day to create that identity, that's what then is able to help launch you into another level. At least for me, and again, we're giving both sides here because there's all kinds of people. At least for me, I have to have that sort of framework available to me so that when especially if I'm pursuing with tons of energy, one specific goal, say a financial goal, I'm not going to drop the exercise one. I'm going to at least do a 2 minutes or a 10 minutes or a 15 minutes and, you know, and working up to like a 30 minute workout. Great. But I'm maintaining it with a smaller effort so that it doesn't fall into the wayside and then 30 years later I'm like I guess I should start working out now and now it's so much 3 months, 6 months, 9 months later it can just wreck you. Right. Exactly. But that's what I'm saying. That's what happens to too many people. they go after these big goals to the neglect of all these other things and then it's that much harder to fix to recover to to get into doing this thing they should have been doing all along. So that's why I want this framework here as we start out to understand yeah ultimately you should be pursuing all of them at the same time simultaneously but some of them are going to be smaller efforts and some of them are going to be larger efforts depending on what's most important to you right now which we'll get into in the next right and and while you're improving or changing your circumstance to allow it but I guess again this for me I'm just going to share my perspective hope it's helpful 30 minutes spiritual practice 30 minutes in a great book and 30 minutes working out intensely or you do 20. So 20 30. So anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, man, you got your mind, body, and spirit dialed in. So you can actually show up and get things done. It's so powerful. And that's it's a formula for growth and for maintenance, so to speak. Like you you can make this work. In fact, I would say you have to. If you have really, really big goals, you need the energy and vitality to get it done. And you can't. If you're just limping along saying, "I don't have time. I don't have energy. I can't do that." It's like, "Well, good luck." Well, and so what you're emphasizing here is something we've used throughout our entire married life practically to achieve our goals is this foundational what we call our morning routine that provides the fuel to be able to do the other things and and you have talked about this before. I know you're using now like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but you've talked about it in our coaching where that morning routine can be an accordion. So if you have more time, great. It's you spend an hour or 90 minutes or 2 hours on your morning routine. Awesome. If you have less time, you don't drop the morning routine. You collapse it. You just collapse it. And maybe you're spending five or 10 minutes on each thing now instead. So if it was a crazy crazy day, five minutes in scripture, five minute like turn on two workout songs and go crazy intense and then five minutes in a great book while you're driving to where you need to go. Right. So I still got in mind, body and spirit. So I think in some ways we're actually talking about the same thing but we just wording it in different ways. It it's it's the most importantly it's recognizing the critical importance of maintaining those and not dropping them in the pursuit of some other bigger goal. Telling yourself because it's a lie that you don't have time exactly to maintain those other habits. That's what we want to really heavily emphasize here as we start out which we have done here now. Okay. So number one, in that same vein though, people are always asking like, "Where do I start? Where do I start?" I'm like, for me, I'm like, "Start with your body. Get your body in absolutely fantastic condition because it's the vehicle for pursuing the rest of the goals. It's everything. And it increases your energy levels. Every single thing you do in life is through your body. Everything. Yeah. And so get your body in a great condition. Yeah. Okay. But number one is writing it all down. So, if you have this crap ton of goals you want to pursue, you have to write them all down. And and you and I did this multiple times early on when we were married, we wrote down a hundred goals to achieve in a lifetime, 50 goals I want to achieve before I'm 50 or something like we did that or even by years like by this year I want to achieve this or we did bucket lists and life lists and we over and over and over again. And and part of the the the value of that is just writing it down. We may not even know where some of those lists are, but the point is we wrote it down because we were trying to concretize what was important to us or what we were thinking about. And we didn't hit everything that was on the list. And I think that's important because some people like, well, if I write down 100 things and I have to do those hundred things, right? In some ways, you're just practicing. It's just creating a vision and a goal and a target and you start going and it's amazing what things pop up along your way. How God and the universe conspire in your favor and you end up doing tons of those. seriously life-changing cool things on your list. It's amazing even though you don't hit them all. Some that you realize you actually this process is about clarity and awareness and then sometimes you write it down and you realize actually that's not that important to me. I really don't care about that that much. It's okay to let that go. But the process of writing is what helps to bring the clarity and awareness. So then the second part that we want to address that at least for me has always been very important. Wait, can I before you finish a second because I'm thinking about this part one because you write it all out and you practice writing it out but then really start like I don't know put stars by it, number it like categorize it. Well, I think that goes that leads into the second part here. Okay, but let me let me finish this thought here for a second cuz what I started realizing is like uh I want to get my pilot's license. I still do. And I want to get you know certified skydiver and I still do. So then you start doing it and it's like, okay, that that is so cool and I love it. I really do love it. But then I start measuring and and it's like, okay, it's this many thousands of dollars and this many hours away from my family. And when I have when I have that in front of me, cuz the clarity and awareness, yeah, you're getting more clear. You're like, "Oh, okay. It's this many thousands of dollars and this many hours away. That's cool. I really could pursue that. I could, but actually I'd rather take my family to Nepal. Yeah. I'd rather take that money and go to Nepal and I'd rather take that time and do some woodworking with the kids or some trail running or some project they want to do and and it might end up being this this project. It like it never showed up on my life list, but having this connection, this bond with one of my children or you know with each of them and you're like this is cool, this is special. So, playing volleyball with my daughter, right? Like that, you know, that that never made it on my life list. Play beach volleyball with Aaliyah, right? Because I didn't even know. I didn't know what my kids were like. Well, she loves it. And so me spending hours playing with her is priceless to me. It's taking away from your skydiving goals, but it's more valuable. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So, so that's part of the There's iterations and and it evolves as you come along. And then am I going to look back and be like, "Oh man, I never got my pious license cuz I spent so much time with my kids." Am I going to and this maybe this is part of your exercise. Am I going to regret that? No way. But that's not saying I can go get my pious license. I could do it anytime I want. I I could go get certified skydiving right now, too. But I'm weighing out all the other cool things I'm doing, writing writing a book, which is which is part of this entire writing process, and that's the value of writing it down. Okay. So, but then it also does lead into number two here, which has always been important for me. I'm interested to hear. I think it's been important to you as well, but it's the role of paying attention to your intuition and certain I'm going to call them signs that show up in your life. And for me, this has always played out in very fascinating ways because as I've written down the list of all the things I want to do, which is a lot, I'm trying to think about what do I start with? where do I begin pursuing this? And it's amazing how things will start to show up in my life. Maybe someone gives me a book. Maybe someone starts talking about it. Maybe it shows up on my Instagram feed. Maybe like there's all these different ways that these things come up in my life where I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting. I was kind of I was just thinking about that and now here's this book on this topic or here's this article or somebody brought it up or mentioned it to me." I actually pay big attention to those things because I think that they're very guiding like they're guides into where to begin pursuing this path. Right. For some of you skeptics right now, you're just like, "Oh, that's just your reticular activating system. Bring it to your awareness." Of course it is. And of course it is. And some of that's absolutely true. But I also believe that God and his universe are conspiring in your favor. I really do. And and I believe you send out an energy and you get it back. And as we're pursuing things, yeah, there'll be divine coincidences. Serendipity. Yeah, serendipity for sure. Like the favorite definition of serendipity is like when you're when you're chasing something good and out of nowhere something even better pops up. And that has happened so many times to us as we've been out living and pursuing great things. even better things, usually things we were not aware of, come into our reality and we're like, whoa, we didn't know this was even possible. We didn't know it existed. And because we were out pursuing one thing, this came into our path. Now we're taking that opportunity. And it's part of this process is not like leading you to the next destination per se, but it's giving you these little mile markers or milestones or like here here breadcrumbs on the path, right? And so I pay attention to those and I pursue them like, "Oh." And sometimes it's as simple as like I'm on Amazon looking up something else and this book just somehow jumps out at me like, "Oh, that's interesting." And so I get it and I order it and I I read it, right? It's just little things like that that I pay attention to because when I do, I find that it takes me down the paths I want to go that lead me to even better places than I had originally managed. often offering you knowledge and skills. Yes. That you realize you you didn't know you need, but then you realize, oh, I needed this. I needed this in my journey. Exactly. It's beautiful. Well, when you're talking about this, it just reminds me of when we lived in Guatemala years ago. I like to tell the story because at the time it was something that bothered me. We were living in Guatemala. We were actually broke. We had five kids. No. Yes. Five kids. And Greg was just so fascinated and interested in homesteading. Like we'd been traveling. I could not learn enough. It was We had been traveling. We had been driving in our truck from Alaska. We had driven all the way to Guatemala. We rented a house for a while and he just was like geeking out about permaculture and homesteading and we got rabbits and we were like doing all this stuff and I was just like, "What are we doing? Like why are we doing this? Why are you obsessed with this? Why don't you do something else? Right. And why? Yeah, it was. And legit like you had reason to be just I was spending hours and hours and hours. So much time. So much time on this. Yeah. And and part of it was a humanitarian effort we were doing. And part of like I just want to pray and kind of go off grid and like I just want this. And I was I was it called to me. It spoke to my soul and made my soul sing. Exactly. I loved it. Yeah. So, at the time I I was a little bit annoyed with it, even though I found it that it was interesting and all that, but I just thought there was better ways to spend our time. Well, fast forward actually more than 10 years, right? And we had bought a property in Guatemala. We had set it up as a little homestead. We had some animals and some berry bushes and all these things. And we had returned to remodel it and make it into like an Airbnb. And I remember standing there looking at it now that it was all beautiful and like this great property and I thought this came about because Greg was obsessed with homesteading and permaculture back in those days, right? And so, you know, it seems like maybe a weird little story to tell, but I think it illustrates beautifully how because ultimately I did I I had this dream that one day we would own multiple properties around the world and we'd have like these places we could gather with friends and family. And now we have like that was the first one we bought in Guatemala, but now we have one in Georgia, we have one here in Portugal, you know, like this is coming true. But it started with that first property that came about because you were interested in homesteading and permaculture. So I've learned to pay attention and to respect and allow when you're interested in something and trust that as some sort of breadcrumb on a path that's going to lead us to a place that we want to go, right? Because I really think that that's what it's about. And it was so fascinating because we needed to work on our financial goals and doing this did not seem like a financial investment, but ironically it's turned into a massive financial investment. It's it's worth quite a bit of money and it ended up fulfilling one of my desires was to have properties that are free and clear and producing food and where you could just go and and just get away from everything. Exactly. And there it is. Right. It's just it's just awesome. Yeah. Totally. So, so listen to those things because they'll often lead down the road to outcomes way better than you anticipated because right now as it is way better than I dreamed or I thought it would be like I I I couldn't envision. Oh, totally. Yeah. And in some ways, so the third part here or step is very much connected to the previous one, but I think there is some differentiation here and it's it's following your interest. So, it's following your intuition and paying attention to signs, but then also following your interests, which is definitely what played in with that story I just told, like you somehow were interested in permaculture and so following that interest led to that outcome. But Jordan Peterson likes to talk about how, you know, we all act as and believe and behave as if our future potential is a thing that exists. Like we we discuss it that way. We talk about it like you have potential. We all know that. We all know that we have potential even though it's not a tangible thing per se. But he believes and I believe as well that our interests like you know the interest you had in permaculture is a guidepost or again I guess another breadcrumb to fulfilling our potential or maybe some kind of beacon. Yeah. A beacon. Exactly. No, I like that word. And I like for me I I feel like many of them are divinely implanted. I feel like God gives us desires to lead us to our mission, our purpose, our passion, some kind of contribution or fulfillment that they're not. And again, we have to pay attention. We have to go back to the intuition. You have to be clear because like my desires are to sit around watching sports on TV and eating Oreos and playing video games. That's my desires. Does that mean God that's what God wants me to do? Like, no. you're being a lazy sack and you're like wasting your life like so it's got to be it has to be a noble aim. It has to be something that leads you to better. It makes it contri makes the world a better place and it's it's drawing you upward. That's why we always talk about the upward reach like is this making me better? Is it adding value to my life to my family to the people around me to the world? And that's an important measurement. Although I do find that it's very interesting. This has happened in my life and I I think it probably happens in other people's lives as well that sometimes we are interested in things like a show or a series on Netflix or something that does teach us very important lessons that we can use in our journey, right? Like there's there's it's almost like experiential learning via a series or whatnot that can teach you something that's important. So that that can play a role. It can. Yeah. But it's also so hard because the other times you're just going off soap opera se sequences and and they're playing psychology and you're going for dopamine hits and you're like I feel so drawn to the series. It's like yeah you're just addicted to the the dopamine hits you're getting from what's going to happen next. Oh my goodness. And she did this and he said that and it's like no that's it's not. So it's hard to distinguish that through a genuine interest. Some movies will change your life and some of them will waste your life and some books will change your life and some books will waste your life and some experiences will change your life and some will just are a waste of time. And I think that's where the intuition comes in and the awareness because as you evaluate like okay having watched that show or done this thing that I felt like I was interested in, what value did I get from it? What did it teach me? What lesson did I learn? Because ultimately I think that's that's the part of that's part of the journey that's um required because again achieving a goal that's beyond your current capacity requires you to become more capable. And so if you're not actually growing and improving it's not stretching you that to me is the clue like okay is this stretching me? Is it expanding me or is it just maintaining my current levels? And if it's just maintaining my current levels, then that to me is not true interest as aligned with future potential and growth. Good. Here's a here's a maybe a helpful thought for for people. So I love Rachel. I love like personal development books and business books. U we also love the great classics um because you know expanding your education and those really challenge ideas, but I love fiction books as well. Mhm. And and you might think, well, what can you get from fiction? There's so much fluff. And and there is there's a lot of empty fluff. And you read a fiction book and there's literally no substance. There's no life lessons. There's no like that was empty. So, I love fiction, but for me, my personal standard is it it has to give me something like you were just explaining, like, am I better? Am I expanded? Do do I have a bigger knowledge base, even a skill set? Do I understand uh a demographic, a process, a threat? Do I understand something better? And so, you know, I love going through with my teens especially, we go through these long series of fiction books, but man, they are absolutely packed with knowledge, wisdom, skills, understanding, comprehension, expansion. And so, yes, it's entertaining, but at the end of being entertained, I'm actually better. And that's powerful for And that also ties in directly with your interest because with this series I think you're talking about you know you and our son are are drawn to that you're very interested in it but it also is directly connected with other things you want to pursue on your life path. Absolutely. So, it's fueling the fire, too. Yeah. And yeah, you know, we're warriors. Um and and and our my our teen daughter's doing going through them, too. And and she's a fighter. And so, it's part of this being being a protector and being an operator. And it's powerful and beautiful. Well, because one of the things Peterson talks about that as I've thought about it more, I see that it's true that you can't fake interest. Like you can't make yourself be interested in something you're not, right? Like if you're really not interested in it. There's yeah, you you can ask some questions and you can learn more about it and that can, you know, increase your interest a little bit, but if it's really something you're just not interested in, you're just not going to be interested in it. And that's why to me it's so fascinating. And I to clarify, you could pretend it, you could act like it and fake it like, "Oh yes, I love this." But like the true driving interest, you you can't fake that. That's why I also feel that it is so powerful and so important to pay attention to authentically because it does become like you were saying this beacon to this is a life path I can pursue or this is something I can learn that can help me on my life path or you know whatever like it's a very mile marker or or guide on this path and so I think as we're figuring out okay how do we actually do this how do we actually decide what to pursue like you take that list you've written down and you can even just circle two or three of them that are most interesting to you. That right there is a way to help you decide what to begin pursuing in a big way by paying attention simply to what you're interested in. And that what you'll find at least has been our experience is there'll be time periods there's time periods where man I just cannot get enough of this permaculture and and it lasts for a couple years in that case and then it goes away and I'm super interested in something else for a few years and and so it moves along and there's phases of life and phases of interest. So it's it's really fascinating and and enjoyable as long as we respond to them. Great. Okay. So now the fourth part, fourth step is the researching process and the um you know finding the right sources that help you and again this isn't something you have to overthink. It can be very simple and it can start with something as simple as a Google search or a chat GBT search, right? You're just so AI is going to be extremely helpful. Just in the last what really last year for me um AI AI has become so powerful and such a great resource for research before it was it was very even Google was not near what what AI is. Absolutely. So, if you have something that you're interested in, you're drawn to, it keeps popping up with your reticular activating system, you know, whatever, I'm like, "Okay, pay attention to that." And then I'm going to ask chat or I'm going to Google it and find like, "What's a great book on this?" or "What's a podcast I could listen to?" Like, it doesn't have to be a huge thing. It's just like you want these little crumbs, these little tidbits that are going to move you forward to the next step. like you're just taking small steps on this journey. And I feel like for a lot of us, we think, well, I have to have a whole business plan mapped out. I have to have everything planned perfectly before I can move forward. And for us, we've never taken that approach. In fact, I'm laughing now because just this morning, we have these German friends that come over in the morning to work out with us. And you were still in the gym, but I was inside with them talking. And they were telling me about her parents' farm in Germany. And I was telling them about all the animals we lost when we first started out because we didn't know anything about farming. And he was like, "Well, didn't you like do a bunch of research or figure things out?" I'm like, "No, we never do things that way." I'm like, "Basically, Greg came home with animals." I'm like, "We bought sheep. We didn't even have a fence." And he was like, "What?" I'm like, "Yeah, we had no fence for sheep when we first got them." And as I was thinking about it later, in some ways, especially to a German, it just sounds crazy like h how could you just do that, right? But I realized that in a and let's use this as like a parable when you live that way, which I will credit to you mostly, it forces you to learn things and figure out things that otherwise it would be so easy to put on the back burner. Yep. And you collapse time with intensity. There's intensity there because you're like, "The sheep are running all over. We have to contain them. Let's learn how to build a fence." And so, obviously, there's mistakes. Mistakes that could have been prevented. At least for us, the ready, fire, aim approach has enabled us to do way more than we otherwise would have and then most people will ever experience. I mean, we we feel like we've lived multiple lifetimes because we're willing to do that. So, yeah. Is there a cost to the speed and intensity? 100%. Well, and and mistakes. We make mistakes and and we lose money and like Yeah. But the learning process is crazy fast. It's true, right? Because because it's necessary because it's required. It's like you can't ignore it. You have to learn about it. You have to do something about it. And otherwise, because if we waited to do things the way I think they should be done all the time, like, well, let's wait until we have everything in place. we'd probably still be learning about it and talking about it and planning for and we wouldn't we wouldn't get to it and you're like, "Oh, we're busy." And so like not going to get that fence put up and and so we'd wait like many people do for years. Yeah. They're waiting and waiting and waiting. Always waiting to live and I'm like, "No, I'm going to live now." Right. And is it going to cost me some extra money and some mistakes and Yep. It's But sometimes be annoying because Yeah. And trying to do something and now the sheep are out again. I'm trying to figure it out and Yeah. But but it definitely collapsed this time. It's been it's been awesome. Yeah. So that is one approach is that you literally just start moving forward. You don't have to wait till you have all the answers. You just start taking the next step like okay if I was going to do this what would I do and what would I do next and what would I do next? And you start taking those step steps. But of course you can also do lots of learning about it because sometimes you don't even have the option of taking a step. All you can do is learn about what the steps would be. Right. And so that you watch documentaries, you read books, you listen to podcasts, you ask people. This is where information as possible. Exactly. Biographies, autobiographies, even fictional books. I can I can think of great fictional books right now. I'm like, "Yeah, that character is just the epitome of who I want to be and how I want to live life and do life." And then you, and this one's so so important. So, if you have just kind of been idly listening, like, listen up right now. Pay attention to the big mistakes, the irreparable mistakes that people make and and the poor what I call the poor exchange rate, what they end up sacrificing to get what they want. Because you'll often hear somebody pursuing greatness in one area and and behind the scenes and they may not even talk about it, but it leaves this just trail of tears and sorrow and misery and just yeah, it's just their lives is wrecking lives and relationships. And so you might look at them and think, "Wow, look, they're so rich and so famous." Like, hold up. They're full-on drug addicts, but they're hiding that just to sustain their horrible habits. They destroyed all their relationships. Their family members or spouse and kids hate them, detest them, despise them, and you know, their their only their health is just sustained by medication or substances, right? And she you start putting that all together and you're like, whoa. Okay. Now, when I look at the whole picture and I'm asking you listener, when you see the whole picture, is that what you want? And no, you're like, "No, no, I don't want that at all. I just want this one element." So, like, okay, then do you want to follow that guy's example? Right. So, so that's the I guess warning we give of like, yeah, go out looking for resources. Look for people who've done what you want, but pay attention to those details because they matter. because if you follow them exactly, you're going to end up with the same results. And so, it's great to learn from people like that, but you have to make, and this is something we've always done, we make the adjustments that makes it sustainable holistically so that we're not sacrificing our marriage, we're not sacrificing our kids, we're not sacrificing our health in order to achieve this one outcome. And it's it's aligned. It has to be aligned with what's most important to us, which takes us back to step one is write down what's most important for us. it's marriage and and our children and our family lifestyle and culture that's most important. So that stays intact. So there's there's a lot of um business uh influencers, business coaches out there right now. It's a growing number of them do not have children. Yeah. And so they're, you know, they're out there like, you want to succeed in business, work and your spouse 15 hours a day for the next 10 years and you'll get it. And so people are like, "Yeah, woo. I'm doing it." So I hear that, I'm like, "Nope, I'm out." And I'm out, right? I'm not going to do that because my marriage and my children matter more to me than maybe this gigantic business empire. Yes. And for us, it's always been recognizing that we're not willing to sacrifice those things. And so as a result, in fact, this was a conscious choice Greg and I made a couple times during our early years of parenting, we said, "Our business will grow slower because we're going to be focusing on our family, you know." So yeah, maybe you take this guy's stuff, Alex Ramoszi, and you apply it. Well, it's it's Tom Bill and it's Brenard. But you apply it, but realize, okay, it's going to take me 30 years instead of 15 or 35 or 40. Like, it's going to take me longer. But you know what? That's okay because I'm also going to have great relationships at the end of it. And maybe I'll never get to the same level of earning that he has. All right. But I'll be there with a great marriage and I'll be there with great relationships with my kids and my health intact. And you know what I'm saying? So, it's it's willing to it's recognizing that in order to have that holistic well-being, you're going to have to be slower in some areas. It's important to for you to define success. So, for me, true wealth is to be really truly healthy, like super healthy. And we are to have my mind at peace. Mhm. And and strong and and getting a world-class education. is never a graduation from education. I was always learning to have my spirit like grounded and centered and peaceful. No, I don't have any dark corners. I don't need cobwebs. I got no skeletons. No skeletons in there. Nothing in there that I'm like hiding or tormented by at night. Like I'm I'm great. And then this phenomenal marriage with you and this relationship and the two of us together, amazing relationship with each of our seven children and their spouses and living a life that we love. Like we genuinely wake up like we get to live this life. This is amazing. That right there, that's wealth. That is success. Would I trade that for $10 million? Not a chance. Or $100 million? Not a chance. I wouldn't trade it because like this this is what I want. And even when I think about becoming wealthy, it's like what for? So we can live do all the things we're already doing, right? Be become wealthy. That's great. And we're bu growing our businesses. That's great. Yeah. But we're emphasizing perhaps the wealth achievement will be lessened so that we have the overall the riches specifically the money success will be lessened deliberately less so that we can have the kind of success and wealth that we have right now that really matters right perfect okay the last one five on actually deciding which dream to start with I think there's three main filters urgency energy and then alignment So urgency means like oh well if you have a dream of traveling with your children well you have a limited time period there because your kids will be moving out like they you know they they'll be growing up so you have to I can't tell you how many times people have talked to us and they they let that pass. Yeah. They're like oh we wanted to do that we were busy and we work and they were in school and it's like now he's 17 and graduating and we missed it and like they have so much remorse. they missed the chance to get out and have those global experiences with their kids. But this could also be something like if you have a bill that's coming and due or you have to pay something or do something like that's an urgent urgency. So pay attention and work on that thing and get that taken care of because that's something that then can carry over and help out like you know get out of debt, do whatever that thing is like or put that energy in. Overweight and out of shape and unhealthy that's urgent, right? Get your butt in shape. Yeah. Get healthy. That's urgent. Yeah. But I mean, you can do that 30 minutes a day. Um, and actually, I know this is shocking to a lot of people. It actually takes less time to eat less. It's amazing. So, weight loss programs save you time, right? People say, "I don't have time to lose weight." You're like, "No, no, just eat less. You'll have more time." It's amazing. And then the energy piece ties into interest. like what excites you because anything that excites you is going to obviously be easier to pursue because you're more excited about it. So that's a key piece to that. But also the energy piece comes from like energy levels which is connected to health and well-being. If you're finding like you're chronically undermotivated or lacking energy, a lot of times that's really connected to food, sleep, and exercise. And people don't realize that. But if you get those things right, then you just have more energy and it's easier to do more and to accomplish more because you have you're more energized and motivated. There there's another aspect of energy of like what kind of energy something gives off, what kind of energy something radiates and certain industries radiate certain energies and certain um lifestyles and certain people and and places. So that's another aspect of this energy piece of like like pay attention to that. What what spirit does it have? What energy does it uh generate or radiate? And sometimes you get into um an interest or a path and you're like what's the energy here? It's like it's it's pretty toxic. It's it's or it's blah. You get in you're like a I love doing this thing and you get in you're like man everybody in here is like miserable or going nowhere in life. drugs. Yeah. And they're they're like like this is really off. Well, it's very interesting, too. I want to mention this because at least in my life, this has played a role. Is that some cuz we could follow an interest into a path like that and then be like, man, that was wrong. I guess my interest was wrong. At least for me, sometimes that happens intentionally. So, I know I don't want to follow that path or I don't that's what I don't want. like it still brings more clarity to my life because I'm like I went down that and realized I do not want it. So now I have more clarity to pursue what I do want. So it doesn't mean that your interest was wrong or your intuition was wrong. It just means it was teaching you a very important lesson. Okay. So finally the alignment and that just means like which dream if you achieved it would make the other dreams easier. Now obviously for a lot of people that's often finances sometimes like if I increased my finances that would make it easier for me to achieve other dreams of dream house or this or that or travel which is true but then you step back you're like wait a minute to get the finances I have to yes do this much say work does that align with my family goals well actually no it doesn't okay I would so there's those there's that aspect of it to measure. I was thinking you were going to say, which is also true, that sometimes we're like, okay, if I work on this goal, say it's finances, you begin to realize that, well, I can't do that until I learn this skill or until I get in better health or until I deal with this issue with my wife. You know what I mean? It also helps to clear or bring awareness to some of those other issues, too. And then you realize, well, yeah, first you had a client once and she hired you to help grow her business. And as soon as you began coaching her, you realized she couldn't take off with her business because her runway was literally cluttered and covered with 10,000 things that were standing in the way. And so, but that's also a very valuable part of this journey. Like, I want you to know that that's a part of it. That is what it is. the obstacle is the way. And so when you think I want to pursue this thing and then you're like, "Oh, I can't move forward because I have this problem." Then that's your first step. I have this mess. So that's the first step. That's part of the answer to the question. Where do I start? Well, start pursuing your dreams. And what's the first obstacle you run into? That's where you start. That's where you start. Get rid of that thing, right? Cuz you have to clear the runway if you want to be able to take off. And the only way to do that is to begin moving forward and seeing what's on the runway. and then clearing it step by step. Exactly. Yeah. And and so many good people are just so disorganized and cluttered and chaotic and they've nasty tempers and emotional flatulence and horrible stinking habits, staying up late and sleeping in and spending all this time scrolling mindlessly or whatever, entertaining themselves to death and they're sitting there saying, "Where should I start?" Well, start by cleaning up your life and your habits. Get rid of all the garbage like in media and food and I mean clear out your life until it's just good and clean and organized. Man, watch how capable you become. How much bandwidth that clears up, how much clarity and insight and inspiration and motivation. It's amazing. So that's where you start. Get your life in order. And just as we wrap up here, kind of the takeaway, one quote that really spoke to me early on in our pursuit of dreams was from I think it was from Martin Luther King. You can remind me. It's like you don't have to, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember exactly, but you don't have to see the whole path. You just have to take the first step. And that step is often into the darkness. I'm totally butchering this quote, but that was the gist of it. like you're not going to see everything. You're not going to see every step. You're not going to have everything perfectly lined out for you. And in fact, very often you're going to be taking that first step forward into darkness. But as you take those steps, it's amazing how the light begins to come and shine away and doors begin to open. Pathways that you never even imagined. You could never see them because you're way back here and you can't see what's up ahead. But as you move forward, you're like, "Oh my gosh, there's this whole other path over here that I didn't even know existed. That's exactly what I want." But you only found it because you began moving forward. And so, you don't have to have everything figured out. You just start taking those steps and it's going to reveal to you what's standing in the way, what's blocking your your runway, what's you know, what other opportunities are available to you. But that only happens with forward motion. That was that was hard for us in the beginning, and I know it's hard for a lot of people. And we we wanted to know all the answers. We wanted to know the how, right? And and because we're like, why would I step forward? I don't know how this is going to work out. That's the point we're trying to make. You often don't know how until you take a few steps forward and you can finally see around the corner. But those steps forward are terrifying. I don't even know what I'm doing. And you just start moving towards it. And it's not until you get up there, you're like, "Oh, there's a path right here. Somebody else made a path. I got this. But you can't see the path. You're just looking like I'm lost. Help. Somebody show me the way. And I don't know. I'm just in life there's there's not that many very clear easy paths. You just have to start stepping into it and then you find the path. You find the formula. You find the common denominators. You find the stepping stones. You're like, "Oh, I can do this." I think that that was one of the hardest things for me. I remember is that I wanted to know how like I I needed to know exactly how it was going to work. And it took a lot of faith for me. I feel like I still struggle with it too actually in some ways. I'm way so much better than I used to be. But but I began to realize that you can't. In fact, if you wait for the how, you will never achieve it. You have to move forward first. And then the how is revealed along the way. And sometimes it's even part of the how. Like, okay, yeah, here's this little piece that's going to make that happen. Great. Okay, keep going. Oh, here's the next piece. Right? And so, it's this revelatory process as you're moving forward. That will never come if you just sit still waiting like I need to know how before I can move forward. It doesn't work like that. So, get excited. Write down your dreams. Write down your crap ton of dreams. Fuel those dreams. Think about them. Put up vision boards. Circle one to three of them that spark the most interest to you. And work on the like the first step. If you had to say which one first, like which one will allow the others? Which one will inspire the others? Which one is the most important? It can never be neglected. Just start on those. And then if you start on that and you realize there's a bunch of stuff in your way, okay, now put your attention on getting that stuff out of the way. Now you got your work cut out for you. And always, always, always, this has been one of our secret weapons. We are always learning. Every day we are learning. We are reading, listening to podcasts, like we are just constantly learning and it's expanding our minds every day. And so it feels like we have this unfair advantage and it's it's not it's only it's not unfair because anybody can read but they don't. And so learning gives you that advantage. And especially as we close by emphasizing where we started that in order to achieve those dreams that are beyond your reach, you literally have to become a new person. You have to become the person who's capable of achieving that dream. And that's where the real value lies is who in who you become. Exactly. Love you guys. Chase your dreams and share them with us. Reach upward.