#78 Putting Family First ... For Real

Rachel Denning (00:03.438)
man, I accidentally hit the start button, so we're rolling. Ha ha! That is awesome. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Filming Life podcast.

This one's important and I'm trying to figure out how to make this hit home just as hard as I can with tons of love, of course. I'm doing this with love. But I want this to hit home so hard that we all remember it. Maybe I'll tell some stories here. You don't...

You don't go out and travel as much as I've traveled and have as many experiences as I have had without coming across some tragedy. And it happens, man. It's a part of life. And when it does...

It's a gigantic reality check. So for example, one night years ago I worked on an ambulance and I love medicine, I love helping people, it was just a great fit. So I worked on an ambulance and one night we got a call for a 19 year old boy that had overdosed. And my responsibility that night was chest compressions.

try to keep his heart going. And so the whole way to the hospital I was doing chest compressions on this 19 year old young man who eventually we got him back but he had been without oxygen for too long by the time we got there and so he ended up dying. And again, it's a tragedy right? Hits hard. And here's this 19 year old boy that

Rachel Denning (02:01.422)
could have been in college or in work or on a mission or you know serving making a difference doing something great and he's gone. I went home that night it was a really late night call I didn't get back till two or three in the morning but just just crawled in bed and hugged my wife and the next morning just cherished my kids and held on to them. There are other times when I mean I and I don't want to make this seem like I'm not trying to be morbid or

or too heavy but when life abruptly comes to an end.

I happened to be there when there was a biking accident in Costa Rica and the gentleman was not wearing his helmet and he hit his head on the pavement so hard that he ended up passing away shortly after we treated him and got him to the hospital. And there were other incidents and I'm not trying to be depressing here. I guess what I'm trying to say you guys is that death and tragedy brings a reality check like

nothing else. It's so intense and every time I've been around it when someone has died or when a friend has lost a child or when my father -in -law passed away or my brother -in -law passed away, when we get to the end of our lives or when we're with, we love someone or close to someone and they pass, it brings this sense of questioning what's real, what really matters.

And I want you to think about that. If you were faced with death, let's say if you were faced with death today, what would matter most to you? Like what do you think, when the reality of death sets in, what do you think about? When everything else is stripped away, what really matters most to you?

Rachel Denning (04:01.294)
For most of us, I hope and I think it would be our closest relationship, our family. And that's the point of this podcast. And I'm sorry to start out really heavy like that, but I want to drive this home that when we're faced with the reality of our mortality, we turn to family. There's a great book and articles about the book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

that when people are terminally ill, when they're on their deathbeds, and I've done other episodes about this, so I won't go into that much, but when people are on their deathbed and they're thinking about, they're looking back at their life now, knowing that it's about to end, what do they think about the most? I've never even heard of or met anyone or heard anyone say that people at the end of their life were like, man, I sure wish I'd spent a couple more days at the office. They don't do it.

They think about family, their closest relationships. It's the connections with the people we love that we think about. Very often on the deathbed, there's tremendous amount of remorse or regret, wishing they had done more or done better in those relationships. But it really comes back to family. So I want to focus in today with...

with that kind of long -term perspective, life perspective, getting to the end of your life and looking back perspective, what is it that really matters most? And I want to start that way, you guys. I want to start that heavy and that strong and that intensely. Sorry about that if it shakes you up. But I want to start with that kind of strength and emphasis to say, hey guys, let's have a serious reality check about what we're doing.

doing with ourselves because it's easy to slip into these stories we tell ourselves that we even say to ourselves, I'm doing this for my family. But it's not really what the family needs or especially not really what they want. And we love to say, yeah, family is the most important thing to me. yeah, family first. Family matters most.

Rachel Denning (06:23.374)
but then our actions don't always align with that. There's some incongruence between what we say is most important, particularly in our family, and what we do with our time and effort. Because let's be honest, right? We all can get into work mode and work too much, or play mode and play too much, or distraction mode and just be distracted too much. And when we spend too much time away from our family,

And then when we're together, we're not really together. We're most often, you know, maybe consuming something on our phones or something on the TV, watching movies, playing games, whatever. So we're actually not even really with each other. So we step back and really honestly ask ourselves like, okay, in any given 24 hour period, how much actual time am I spending with them engaged like there? And I know I've done this. I felt this before. I wonder if you have where.

You spend, you know, you take a day and you spend time in the day and even if you're in the same room, but you're each kind of doing your own thing or we all have such big, beautiful houses now, even those with the quote small houses among us, they're big old houses in comparison with the rest of the world. And so, you know, the kids are off in their rooms or playing somewhere. And so we might be inside the same building. We might literally, like I said, be in the same room. But at the end of the day, have you ever...

You're crawling into bed and you're like, did I actually really engage with my kids today? Anything more than just transactional interactions? And the same is true with our spouses. Did I really connect with them?

Was I really fully present in the moment? Did we listen to each other? Did we talk to each other? Did we express our feelings and desires or grab to our love to each other? And so I want this to be kind of a big deal for us because it is a big deal. But it's easy to kind of let that slide when we get super busy with work and errands.

Rachel Denning (08:39.182)
and other people's demands and just the craziness of life. We're so busy. We're such busy people. We got so much going on. And today's episode, I really want to just share this honest, sincere, loving invitation of like, hey, you know what? Let's actually put family first. What does that mean to put family first?

And how do we actually do it and are we doing it? It's interesting, I meet people all the time that they climb the corporate ladder or they climb the career ladder or they build a business, they win all the accolades of the money and the awards and the degrees and certifications and the publishings and on and on, only to find out it's not really all that.

It's not really what they wanted and it's not really what matters and so there's still an emptiness. There's a void that can't be filled. Others, like I meet people all the time who are still in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond are still desperately struggling with the pain and remorse from their own negligent parents.

that their parents weren't there for them. I had multiple conversations just in the last week with clients who, you know, dad was always, he provided well, but he was always gone. We never got to spend time with dad because he was always working. Or, you know, my mom, people say things like my mom was, she was so worried about her social life that, you know, we just got left over as if anything. Others have.

have parents, had parents that were, they were so concerned about social appearances that it was always, they were always apologizing for their children, almost like they were embarrassed of them. And then we can go on and on. And the neglect that happens, and again, I'm not trying to pass judgment here, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad. Like today, I really just wanna, because I'm doing this for myself, and I wanna share it with you and with my clients, I wanna say, let's.

Rachel Denning (11:03.758)
Let's get to this place where we're, we're habitually with our training, our habits, our family culture, our lifestyle. We're, we're actually putting family first for reals. Not, not just saying that, but really, really doing it. And then it's clear to everyone in another episode, I talked about, you know, if your life was a silent film, what would it, what would it reveal about your priorities? And we could do this with family. If your life were a silent film and you remove what you say,

then what are your actions and habits reveal about your family? Would it be plainly obvious to your kids, to your spouse, to anybody watching that you really indeed put family first?

Rachel Denning (11:52.045)
And I want this to be a wake up call and a reminder for all of us that we can do better. We can do way better. And we can kind of buck the social training and social conditioning that has us just constantly going for more and more and more and more and more and live a life that's a family life. Right? Even this whole episode, this whole...

podcast is called the extraordinary family life. It really is family priority. Now I hope, I hope you all become abundantly wealthy. I do. I hope you all have a tremendous influence and impact positive, make a positive difference in the world. I hope you're in fantastic shape. I hope you're well educated. Hope you're doing all these things, but never to the neglect of your family. I hope you're pursuing your passions and your dreams and your goals, but that they're aligned with your family.

and you kind of take your family with you on your successes. Far too often I see people trying to succeed at the sacrifice of their families.

And I don't know of anyone that will be proud of that when it's all over. And that's why I started with the severity and the intensity of death when it's all over, when it's done. Like, what are you gonna wish you'd done differently? And that's gonna give us a unique perspective. A really unique perspective that you might not get at any other time or any other way. So I want you to take a look. We're coming to the end of a year and the end of a decade.

Just take a look at your life. Look at the last decade in the context of your family. How are you doing? How are you doing with your family? And those of you who are single and not married yet or have kids yet, you can think of it in the context of going forward for your future family, but you can also think of it in the context of lessons learned from the family you grew up in. And none of this is to condemn or complain or whine or cry or even blame or judge or whatever.

Rachel Denning (13:58.349)
This is for each of us to say, how can I do a better job? So what are your regrets? What do you regret not doing with your family in the last decade or in the last year even? If you could do the last year over, take the last 12 months, if you could do them over, what would you do differently in the context of your family?

Now here's where, and again, this is why I started with the intensity of death because it's easy to start saying, well, but I really can't. I have to do this kind of work and I have to do these things. I have to take care of those errands and I'm kind of pressured and I got this and it's easy and I get it, you guys, I get it. I get there are so many unbelievable demands put on us. I get that. But what's interesting is when death comes in the picture or something extreme,

All of a sudden the demands that were so demanding aren't so demanding anymore. All of a sudden the things that seemed to matter so much, they don't matter anymore. When we had our car accident, we almost lost our daughter. Everything that seemed like a big deal the day before was nothing the next day. Nothing. It didn't matter at all. I just wanted to make sure my daughter was okay.

And I've seen that, experienced that, and every time I've been around a tragic accident or in some way in our travels and adventures, I always think right immediately think of my family and think of their family.

And so I go with that kind of intensity because it'll shake us up a little bit. It'll make us question the reality of our excuses or our reasons. I'm not saying they're all excuses or our reasons and say, okay, wait a minute. If we really were coming to an end here, like is this, would this excuse or this reason really hold up?

Rachel Denning (15:59.757)
Woo, this is intense. I don't mean, I don't mean to, but I mean to, you know what I'm saying? I want this to be intense. I want, I want this to hit home with so much power. You guys, I'm just kind of speaking from the heart here. I don't, I, I do not want to get to the end of my life. In fact, to the end of the next decade or to the end of this year and regret the way I've treated my family, whether that's, commission or.

omission things I did or things I didn't do it should have done I don't ever want to do that and I've been thinking like that I literally I approach every year like that every year and I try to approach every week like that I fail some weeks but I'm trying always like okay at the end of the day at the end of the year at the end of the decade at the end of my life am I going to be proud of what I've done because family truly does matter most do my actions

Align with that value that I have in my head and in my mind and if if I tell myself stories And I just work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work

of a time period, am I going to be able to hold up with that? Am I going to be okay with that? And we often just will get there and be like,

Rachel Denning (17:41.345)
I really wanted to take that trip with them. I really should have spent the time with them. I should have made the investment with them or in them. I should have given them time and attention. And that my friends even literally comes down to how we spend our evenings. If you're all sitting around looking at screens, are you going to be satisfied at the end of the night with that?

Even the little you know what I'm saying even little things and and and it's it's easy to like man. We're tired We're working so we're all so busy. Let's just Let's just sit around and do nothing Instead of like being intentional about a conversation or being intentional about a little weekend Getaway was a family here, you know taking taking a Saturday or taking a weekday for that matter and going and doing something memorable See Rachel I we've we've become really intense about this

And we did it. We did it. We started doing this over 12 years ago. We're like, you know what? Forget everything else. We are going to be tenacious about creating and gathering memories and experiences. Those are the things that we can take with us. Those are the things that matter. Like our children, this is their childhood. This is what they're going to remember for the rest of their lives.

This is what we're going to remember about the times we had our kids because the years fly by even though they seem like they're dragging by sometimes. They're going to fly by and the kids will be gone and we'll be empty nesters and we'll be all have then all we'll have then is the memory and we'll have the rest of our lives to reflect on how we did. And I want to live as much as possible without regrets. And I want to have tons.

and tons of great memories. I want to gather memories. That's what I want to do as a family for me, for our family. And not every family has to do this, but for us, we want to create and gather memories.

Rachel Denning (19:53.069)
There's just a certain fulfillment and joy that only comes from a good family life. That no other achievement, even if it's quote, for them, for the family, won't fill that need or that space.

And that's where I want to place my priorities. And so you might be right now, you're like, hey, but I can't, I can't because of my career. Okay. Well, could you change careers? Could you start working towards that? Could you prepare, even if it took you a couple of years, could you set up a career? I know I got really intentional about this early on. I loved, I loved the work I was doing, but I was, I was away from my family. I wanted to be with my family all the time. And so Rachel and I worked really hard to create.

a business and a lifestyle where I could work from home most of the time. And so the vast majority of days I work from home and we have three meals together and my work set up where I can have interruptions throughout the day like I'm constantly with my kids. And then even when I go on trips, I set everything up so where I can almost always take a kid or two or three or four or the whole family.

so that we're creating this bond and these memories and these experiences. And I'm trying to practice what I preach. I'm trying to walk the talk.

of if my family really is my priority, then let's prove it with our thoughts and our emotions and our actions and our reactions and our lifestyle and our habits. And we can adjust things. We have a lot more power than we think we do. And so some of you may need to make some drastic changes. Maybe you need to downsize. Maybe you need to upsize. Maybe you need to change careers. Maybe you need to move to another neighborhood. Maybe you need to move to a new state.

Rachel Denning (21:53.133)
Maybe you need to move out of the country. Maybe you need to switch up your friends. Maybe you need to get a new hobby. Maybe you need to ditch an old hobby. Maybe you've got some bad habits that have just got to go. Or maybe you just have some neutral habits and you need to get some really great ones in place.

Maybe some of you have some addictions that are destroying you and your family and it's time to be done with those things.

Rachel Denning (22:30.925)
I want you to think.

that if you're at the end of your life, would it have been enough?

Rachel Denning (22:42.765)
or is it time to step it up? Excuse me? man, now you guys, this is heavy, heavy stuff, serious stuff, and I want it to be serious because, and I'm willing to go serious here, and I'm willing to be kind of intense and heavy on this because with all genuine sincerity, number one, I do not want to regret this when I'm done. I don't want to regret how I've been as a dad. That's one thing that I made a commitment when I was on my own as a 16 year old, that I would step up and be an awesome dad.

and I've tried so hard to do everything I can. I know I need to do better still, but I'm not messing around. And number two, I sincerely do not want you to have that regret. And I'm willing to speak bluntly and forcefully and intensely, do whatever I have to do to help you feel the weight of this. Because look, you want to feel the weight now. You want to feel the strain now and not the pain of regret.

Later.

So even some intensity right now is worth it, right? So we can make some changes so we're not filled with remorse and regret later in life. That's what I'm going after here. So you guys, let's put family first. For reals? For reals! Like put family first! And it is just like blatantly obvious in all of our thoughts and our actions and our words. Like what we do in the morning, what we do during the day, what we do in the evening, every time we interact with our spouse or our kids.

Like the way we've designed our life. And yes, you can design your life. And you can alter your personality. Some of you may not like it, but you can learn to like it. Some of you may not like being around your family right now. So what can you do to change that? Some of you may not like being around your spouse. You may not like being around your kids. How could you alter that? You might not like your family culture where it is right now and it's unpleasant. So you're in this buffering mode. You're avoiding it all the time. What can you do? Let's not blame it on them because you can't change them, but you can change you.

Rachel Denning (24:43.341)
What can you do to alter that? So that you want to be together. So you want to be madly in love with your spouse again. You want to just be caught up in the wonder and the awe and the awesomeness of raising another human being. And if you have some teenagers that are kind of being a little stinkers or toddlers for whatever, like what can you do to alter that? What can you do to help things go right?

And yes, it is 100 % possible. Don't you dare believe the lie that, that's just the way it is. Toddlers are just rotten and teenagers are rotten too. And that's just the way they are. That's not true. I've got some incredible teenagers and I've worked with some incredible teenagers. Awesome is an option with all of them. So what can you do to make that happen? What can you do to make it a priority and alter it so that it is, it's, it's wonderful.

It's joyous. What could be better, my friends, than a really great family life?

And what could be worse than a really rotten family life?

Rachel Denning (26:00.333)
You don't want your kids being the ones who are going to counseling in 20 years from now because you weren't there for them. What you want is kids who remember those blissful, wonderful years and how dedicated you were and that you really did put family first. That's what we all want. So let's promote this.

Let's share this, share this with everybody, share it with your family, share it with each other, share it with your friends and neighbors, coworkers. Let's become evangelists. Join me, you guys, join me in sharing this message. It's important and it's a little intense and we can be joyful and happy about it too, but I want the seriousness of it to sink in. Let's share this message. The world needs to be reminded. You need to be reminded. I need to be reminded. The neighbor needs to be reminded. Our church congregations.

our schools, everyone needs to be reminded, family matters. And let's put them first. Not just with our words, but with all of our actions and our habits and our lifestyle. Let's put family right back up where it belongs. At the center of life and society. And let's make it happen. You guys make your family absolutely extraordinary. If you have questions, doubts, concerns, you don't know how to do it or what to do, tell me how I can help. Shoot me a message. Sign up for a coaching session. Like...

Whatever, I mean we've created programs for parenting and for marriage and for lifestyle and like we're doing everything we can to help you get the finances you need, the lifestyle you need, the techniques, the tools, the strategies, just whatever. Like this is my life's work with my family and this is what's so cool is my family's engaged. Rachael and I do this together and our kids are on board too, they're on it. Like our life's work is as a family to promote family life and just make it awesome. So put your family first.

Give them everything. What are you gonna do to make the rest of this year really special? Not just one day, not just a couple of days. What are you gonna do to make it really special? And then set it up so that every month, every month you're doing things, every week, you're doing things that your kids, you and your kids and your spouse are like, wow, this is great. It's great to be alive. It's great to be a family. it's great to be a family. That's what we wanna do. And we can have that happen. It's totally possible and it's awesome.

Rachel Denning (28:26.03)
We got to be intentional about it and make it happen though, you guys. Love you, you're awesome. Remember, train for greatness. Awesome's always an option, especially in family life. Reach upward.