#54 The Philosophy Journal—the best solution for your biggest problems. Part 1

Rachel Denning (00:06.51)
Hey guys, this is Greg Denning and you are in the school of awesome sauce where I share with you amazing stories and strategies to help you live an extraordinary life.

Rachel Denning (00:23.726)
Hey, hey my friends. man, I'm excited to be feeling better. It is so rare when I get sick. So when I get sick and I don't feel well for, man, it's terrible. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But it's a good reminder, a good reminder to be super grateful for our health and to do everything we can to stay healthy and keep our bodies healthy and strong and take care of them. man, it's good. So I'm back. Feeling a little bit better.

and excited and alive. And what I'm gonna share with you today, I've been thinking about for a very long time and I've been wanting to and preparing for this podcast for a while. And this one, I genuinely feel like is one of the biggest solutions, biggest and best solutions to some of the biggest and most difficult challenges in life. And I knew that's a big bold statement right there.

But I really believe that and I hope you'll share this. I hope you'll share it a lot. I hope you'll share it as much as you can with your friends and family on social media. Just share this thing because people need to understand this and this is a real solution to massive problems that most of us face. Because what I'm about to teach, it really is a solution. I think, well let me back up like this. Let me back up like this.

If we don't get clear about who we are,

who we wanna become, how we want to do life. And I mean crystal clear, like not this, we'll throw stuff out all the time. I hear people all the time just throw out these little trite little phrases or whatever. And they say them, they've heard them around, but it doesn't really mean anything to them and they don't have real clarity around it. And so it doesn't give them the power that it could. So if we don't get crystal clear about those things, about who we are,

Rachel Denning (02:27.598)
who we want to become, how we want to do life, our way of being. If we don't define the terms of our lives, what it means to be successful for us, then how in the world can we operate within those terms? It's impossible because we have no terms. And so we literally let life happen to us.

And so we're rolling along like being bystanders in our own life. Or just taking normal action and not getting the results we really want. Or in many situations, people are literally becoming the villains in their own hero stories because they end up doing things that sabotage their lives.

I love this though. When I'm doing coaching and I love this, coaching is so awesome because it's like it's holding up this mirror in front of you and asking hard questions and getting clear and allowing us to see our blind spots and seeing sometimes that we are the villains in our own story. If I were to sit down with each of you and look at your habits, your current habits, within minutes I could tell you where you're going.

Right? Because our habits determine our direction and our destination. And I can point out within moments how you are practicing self -sabotage. Now some of you are already aware of that. You know you're doing it. And some of you are clueless. You don't know. Because you don't know you don't know. It's not your fault, right? But you're wondering why things aren't going the way you want them to. Why your life isn't where you thought it could be or should be or would be. Right?

And so we end up being the villains in our own stories. And so if we don't define the terms of our life, we don't define success and happiness in our way of being, then there's no measurements for our future and for our own happiness and success. And we drift and we float. And we end up harvesting, constantly harvesting,

Rachel Denning (04:47.694)
crops that we don't want. Right? Who are getting those, like, why is this? I didn't want this. I didn't want this part of my life. But we never got really clear about what we do want and what it takes to do it. So I'm going to give you a powerful solution today. So what I'm going to teach you is a solution to the couple of the biggest problems that good people are facing when it comes to personal achievement. And now that's a big promise. But this thing will deliver if it's used correctly.

This problem is a huge stumbling block and a barrier for millions of people all over the world. And I see it all the time. I've struggled with myself. And in fact, I still struggle with it if I don't consistently do what I'm about to share with you. And I think two of the biggest obstacles that even the best performers regularly struggle with are, number one, knowing which tasks and goals are most important, right, and will help us get the results we really want.

In other words, it's basically evaluating and getting clear on our priorities, like all of the good things that we can be working on, which ones will make the biggest difference and lead me to the life I want to live. So that's problem number one. Number two then, is once we get clear about what actions to take and what habits to establish, we struggle to actually do what we know we should be doing. Like many of us, like so many of us.

know that we should be consistently working on good things, and yet we fail to do what we know.

Let that sink in. Is this hitting home a little bit? Do you struggle knowing what tasks to work on, what goals are most important, what things will bring you the results you really want? Or do you struggle actually doing what you know you should be doing?

Rachel Denning (06:43.758)
We go around so busy with life and so distracted by all the stuff and all the things and all the people that are constantly clamoring for our attention. And we neglect what we know we ought to be working on and then we beat ourselves up for not doing it.

So what I'm about to share with you, most people have never done in a serious way. And mostly because they've never been taught that they should do it or how to do it. And they've never really seen it modeled up close. That's the biggest barrier for most things. If you want to become excellent at something, find someone who's done it or doing it and get up close to it and see it modeled, see it working in their lives. Man, that's powerful. So ...

Again, going back to what I was just mentioning, we've got to get up close to it, we have to learn about it, we have to do it properly. But if we fail to define those terms of our lives, of our successes, of our character, even of our failures, what does it mean to fail? How do you know when you've failed? Most of us don't even know that.

Rachel Denning (08:01.486)
Think about that. Like where are the limitations? Where are the boundaries on your behavior?

Where are the boundaries on the quality of your life?

Where's your, I did a video on this years ago called The Hard Deck.

The hard deck is this line that's set by fighter pilots. I don't know what it is. It might be a thousand feet. Basically, it's the hard deck that says you never, ever, ever go below that. That's your hard deck. This is your low. No matter what happens, what's going on, you just don't go below that point. We all have to establish a hard deck.

And what's fascinating is when people don't even get clear about that, like what will it mean when I've reached this point? Where are my points of failure? Where are the lines I will not cross?

Rachel Denning (09:07.95)
And that even comes down to like cleanliness.

I was in some houses recently helping people and I was astounded by the filth.

It was so bad.

Rachel Denning (09:26.734)
How can you live this way? They don't have a hard deck for cleanliness. I meet people all the time who are so unhealthy. They just neglect their bodies so bad they can hardly function because they never established a hard deck of health.

I mean, people who just allow their emotions to run rampant out of control. There's no boundaries. There's no limits. There's no reins on it. It's just emotional explosions all the time. There's no hard deck of like, hey, that is utterly and totally inappropriate. I will never allow myself to act that way. Right? The hard deck. And it's the same for our minds and for our relationships, for our marriage.

for our parenting, for our education. I meet people all the time who they haven't read a book in years. They don't listen to podcasts and read great books or study and learning. They're just entertaining themselves to death.

because there's no hard debt. You see what I'm saying here? And I'm not trying to condemn or criticize. Again, most people don't know. But that's why we have to share this with everybody. Everybody needs to know this so we can establish the terms of our lives. This means failure, and this means success. And these are the boundaries and limitations that I set on myself. There's no police force to go around and give you tickets. There's no way to throw you in prison about this. There's no way to...

to give you consequences or rewards. It's like you do it for yourself. You become your own general, your own boss, the captain of your soul, right?

Rachel Denning (11:14.03)
and establish some boundaries like, hey, I don't allow myself to do that. If I do that, that's failure for me. I don't allow that. And if you ever approach a hard neck and you make a decision or a choice or a reaction, you're like, that's totally inappropriate. Self? And you call yourself out. You set the terms and conditions for your life. Man, I love this stuff. So I'm getting pretty fired up about this. I feel really passionate about it. I hope you'll roll with me here and feel this.

So if we don't set up those terms, then we automatically fail to deliberately create our future. You with me? If we don't define the terms of our lives, our successes, our character, and even our failures, then we automatically fail to deliberately create our future. And I shared a post on Instagram the other day. Basically, it just came down. We have two options. We have commitment or we have condemnation.

because either we commit to greatness or by default, the automatic other choice. If we don't commit, it's one or the other. Either we commit or if we don't commit, then we automatically get condemnation and we condemn ourselves to mediocrity. It's just one or the other.

That's powerful. And so at that point, if we automatically fail, the only thing we could do is to let life happen to us. We become bystanders in our own story, or worse yet, villains like I talked about, because we never got really clear about who we want to be and how we want to do life. Now here's a little warning. May I have your permission to be bold with you and Frank for a minute?

Here's a little warning.

Rachel Denning (13:09.038)
I meet people, sorry guys, I'm still kind of stuffy here. I hope you'll be forgiving of my voice and the noises. I meet people who, they have these little phrases and these little ideas that they've been handed, and so they kind of parrot those things. They just kind of repeat them back, but without feeling, without power or emotion. And even you churchgoers, and I'm a churchgoer,

But even you churchgoers, you've been repeating your little Sunday school answers for years without really getting serious about what that means to you personally and individually. Let that sink in for a minute. And if those answers that we know on a surface level, and we can just spit them out there, if those answers were effective on their own like that,

then everybody who goes to church would have already eliminated all of their personal obstacles and challenges.

But we know they haven't because for the most part, they haven't yet gotten serious about what it means to them and then taken it seriously enough to actually do it.

For a lot of people, it's kind of a, that would be nice type of situation instead of a personal standard that you will not violate. You see the difference? If I approach something like, that would be nice. That would be kind of cool. Yeah, I should do that. Versus, this is my standard. These are the things I hold myself to and I will not.

Rachel Denning (15:03.342)
Compromise. Whoa. You see the difference there? And that's with big things with your own, your moral standings. Right? And it's with small things of like, no, I won't. I will not put soda pop in my body. No. I got stuff that's just liquid poison. It's not going in my body. That's not a goal. It's a standard. I won't drink it. Right? So it goes across the board. It goes every part of your life.

we'll have these things and when we're, see, casualness, I think it was Jim Rohn who said, casualness leads to casualty. When we are casual and take this, that would be nice kind of attitude toward things, then those are the kind of results we get, which is just mediocrity.

Man, I'm feeling pretty intense about this stuff, you guys. I hope you're with me here and I hope you're feeling it. I'm sharing this with so much love. And again, I hope we share this with a lot because most people just don't know. They've never been taught this. They've never been given this kind of frank, clearness of speech of like, look, you need to get clear about who you are and how you're going to do life.

Because if you don't, then anything goes, right? If you don't have any standards, then...

but you can do anything you want. And we all know that doing anything you want will not lead you to the happiness and success that you really want. Whoa, man. So my fear is that too many people don't make the time and effort to plan a great life and then execute that plan.

Rachel Denning (16:56.429)
And most people merely hollow out their own little rut of mediocrity and just stay in that little sucker their whole lives. And then they get to the end of their lives. And like Tolstoy said in his book, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, where Ivan lives his life for the opinions of others and then on his early deathbed screams out in agony, what if my whole life has been wrong?

Rachel Denning (17:27.757)
Right? Or if you spent time with people who were passing away or even read about it, you know, there's that book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, you see that people at the end of their lives get a clarity about what really matters. And most of them realize that they were kind of going along with the flow of social conditioning and it really wasn't what they wanted.

in their hearts and souls. It really wasn't it. Whoa, man.

Rachel Denning (18:07.241)
So, let's not hollow out that little track, that little rut of mediocrity. Let's instead get clear about the plan for our lives. And you and I, we greatly cheat ourselves if we only give a few minutes and a few shallow thoughts to our life plan. We simply have to be more strategic. And what does that mean?

It means being more intentional and more deliberate about what we want to be and how we want to do life. And that's from a, in a general sense, like I can see the path of my life for the next few years and for the longevity of my life and I can see it in the day to day. Very few people think much about that. And if they do, their actions and habits rarely align with those desires. I actually just made a video about that.

how the things we say very often don't line up with the things we do. We get caught in these habits that are not congruent with what we say are our priorities.

Man, can you guys feel the importance of this stuff? This is huge. I'm feeling the weight of it right now. I feel like I'm really attentive to this, and I hope you're feeling it too. It's so important that we know.

Rachel Denning (19:38.221)
the kind of life we want to live.

Because look, if you're not clear about it, then what are you going to be doing? If you don't design your own life, then what life will you be living? Well, the answer to that is the one that's designed by others, designed by social structures and other people handing you scripts. And you end up just kind of going along in reaction mode. You're just reacting. You're reacting to all these outside stimuli. And you're not living. You're just existing.

and you just get in survival mode. And all of a sudden, you just find yourself just trying to cope. And you're coping with life. And what's interesting, I talk to so many people, they're coping with things that they don't even want. They're coping with things that like, I don't want this in my life. And then when they stop, they're like, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Like, one of the things that really, really, truly matter to me, let's do those things.

I love this stuff. I love it. So, being strategic means that we give it the thought and the energy and the effort that it deserves and then we set up systems to reinforce it. Systems in our lives actually make it super easy to live our priorities. What's interesting though is most of us have systems in place that are counterproductive.

to our priorities. Let me reemphasize that statement. Most of us have systems in our lives that are counterproductive to our priorities.

Rachel Denning (21:22.285)
Right? Here's a clear example I see all the time. It's just breaking my heart. Parents, just their kids are really, really, really struggling with video game addictions and screen addictions. And...

There's well my gosh the research is out and and just the common -sense effect We're all seeing and feeling it this whole failure to launch epidemic The struggles that youth are having with screen addiction and video game addictions like it is just it just has so many negative side effects It's it's unbelievable and Yet and yet here it is. They still have video games in their home

That's a system that's totally counterproductive to what we really want. We want our kids to be engaged, we want them to be doing better things, we want them to be engaged with their family, we want them to be having all these other benefits, and yet the video game system is still in the house.

Get rid of that thing Like gone and I say that boldly in front because I I've been working youth for for two decades you guys I I have seen nothing not a single thing positive come out of those and in fact on the other side I've seen so much negativity. I know I know this isn't gonna be popular. I know what I'm saying right now is not gonna be popular But I I am an advocate for video game free homes and families

all of my own personal experience of working with young men over the last couple of decades.

Rachel Denning (22:54.509)
almost without exception.

Those who are struggling with pornography started with a video game addiction. And they tell me that. I saw the connection several years ago and I've asked about it every time. And it's a video game addiction that leads to a porn addiction. It's just a matter of age and adolescence that does that. Boom. So again, if that's causing so much turmoil, why is it in the house? Gone.

If eating and being overweight and unhealthy is a problem, like why do we keep buying junk food? Why are the cupboards in the pantry stacked with crap? Gone. In the garbage, never buy them again. They don't come in the house. You see what I'm saying? We set up systems and we clear the clutter. I mean, if you're spending all your time, not all your time, if you're spending a lot of time watching Netflix, cancel your subscription, my friends. That's easy.

If you and your family have been spending tons of time watching TV, but your priority is really about books and reading and going on walks in nature together and serving together and doing meaningful things together as a family, get rid of your TV. That's easy. That's the simplest solution. I love teaching families that. And the ones who take me up on it, my goodness, I get letters and messages back.

I believe how much it changed my family dynamics just by getting rid of the TV. Boom, gone. It's awesome. I know some of you right now are like, And I'm hitting some sensitive points here, but I'm just gonna share it like I see it. I've been working with people for a long time, and these are the things that people are struggling with, and yet they have these systems in place and these habits that aren't serving them and aren't helping them.

Rachel Denning (24:45.197)
And so we set up those systems. You don't have to get rid of those things. Whatever, you decide. You decide for your family whatever you're gonna do. But set up systems that help you really align with your true priorities. Get absolutely crystal clear about your priorities and then set up systems to do that. So are you ready, my friends? Holy cow, this, okay, I'm gonna break this into two episodes. So this is just part one. Part two's coming. And the solution to all of this, my friends,

is what I call the philosophy journal. And my philosophy journal, I'll explain the whole thing, what it is, how to do it, and why in the next episode. But that was a really heavy intense. If you're still with me, I love you. Thanks for listening. You're amazing for listening and going through this. And I hope you at least consider it. If you didn't like some of those ideas, just at least think through them. Think about them. Consider them.

And think about all the other things, like what's working, what's not working. Get absolutely clear. And then I'm going to teach you next time about the philosophy journal, how to really create your philosophy, your belief, your constitution for your life, and how to use it in a way that helps you solve those big problems that we talked about at the beginning. OK, you guys are awesome. Love you. Awesome is always an option. Reach upward.

Rachel Denning (26:20.045)
Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening to this episode. I hope you got a lot of value out of it and found some things that you can apply to your life right away. Hey, I'm being totally sincere when I say I live to help you live your extraordinary life. So I hope you'll reach out to me if you have any questions or let me know how I can help you in any important area of your life. And in fact, you know, this podcast is brought to you by the School of Awesome Sauce monthly coaching program. Take advantage of that, get in there. It's the -

best way to get a breakthrough to the next level so you can level up your health, your spirituality, your emotions, your mind, your relationships, your finances, business, every part of your life. Just get in there where you have a coach and a mentor, you have a supportive community to make things happen. So jump in there, take advantage of this, try it out, get in there with us and level up your life. See you on the inside. Reach upward.