#86 Everything you do has a cost!

Rachel Denning (00:01.806)
Hey, my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I am so excited to be back with you. There was a little bit of delay here in between the last episode because I had my, I have this special little microphone. You can probably tell the audio is different here. I had a special microphone that I used to record my podcast and I had it with me in my truck when we went mountain biking and it's gone. I don't know.

It's gone. I don't know. I don't know if somebody took it or it just vanished. It's gone. And so I was got a new one on its way. And I've just been waiting and waiting. And I'm like, I just got to record this. I got to share some thoughts. So I hope hope you guys are having a fantastic day. I hope you're having a great week. And you're just crushing it. I hope you're winning. I hope you're just hitting your goals and going after and stay on top of it. You know, we're getting to the end of January of 2020 and

I made a commitment and I think you joined me to make this your absolute best year ever. Now, statistically, within a week here, most people will have already lost their resolve and commitment for their new year's resolution and many people already have forgotten what they committed to. But we've got to keep up the momentum and keep going and keep pushing and keep leveling up.

And it's not in an exhausting way. It's actually in an exciting way. And I hope you'll see it like that. I hope you'll train your mind to think that way. That leveling up is exciting. Leveling up is exhilarating. It's meaningful. It's fulfilling. It's, it's when you see a challenge at a new height, a new achievement, more growth, becoming something new and better, your upgraded self. That's exciting.

That's crazy exciting. And I hope, I hope you're fired up about it. I hope you're fired up about being your best self. All right. So today I wanted to talk about this principle and idea. I've been teaching it for years and I came across the idea. I think it was originally from Henry David Thoreau and he, he, I know he mentions part of it in his excellent writings on Walden and that those of you don't aren't familiar with that.

Rachel Denning (02:23.022)
or as a refresher, he moved away from society, had this little kind of cabin. I think it was actually Emerson's cabin, if I'm not mistaken, but it was it was a friend's cabin out on a lake by Walden. And he just wanted to disconnect from everything from society and just live very, very, very simply kind of provide for himself, be self reliant and just kind of have an experiment with with life out there. And one of the things he said, he said that our possessions possess us.

And that struck me. And you talked about the idea that everything we have in our life, takes time. It costs us something. Right? So your, your vehicles, your house, your furniture, your belongings, your clothes, whatever, like you have to, it takes time to go get them. It takes time to clean them, to manage them, to move them around, to store them, to organize them, to replace them, to repair them, to ensure them.

Etc, etc, etc. So it takes up it costs us something. And so that's the idea is that that everything we have in our life costs us something and I came up with this idea called the exchange rate is what I called it. It's like what's the exchange rate on everything you have and then we can expand it to everything we do. And on one side everything we don't do. So basically, the exchange rate fills our entire lives.

Or another way of saying that is our entire lives are operating in an exchange rate. It costs us something. So everything you choose to do or choose not to do everything you have in your life, bring into your life, all the people or everything, it all costs you something. And what's interesting, you can kind of flip your mind and so look at, you can look at, I don't know, what do you buy?

What's it costing you? So you could look at like, you go out and you buy a big screen TV and say you pay a couple grand for it. And you might just think, you know, simple math says, yeah, it cost me a couple grand. Well, that depends. Like what did, what did it take for you to earn those $2 ,000? For some of you that's, you know, you worked for an hour or two and that's it. For some of you, you worked for a lot of hours after taxes.

Rachel Denning (04:51.758)
After all the other stuff you worked for a lot of hours, so you exchanged part of your life in order to buy that thing So like like you can break it into hours say it costs you, you know a hundred hours So it costs you a hundred hours of your life to get a big -screen TV now we take it to the next level What is having a TV in your home? actually costing you

Whoa, now this gets real. Because then you sit down, you kind of plop down and you turn it on it. For many people, it becomes your kind of go to. You just turn to it when you're tired, when you don't have something else to do. When you have the druthers, you know, you'd rather be watching TV than working on something right when you know you should be exercising or serving or working or learning or studying or improving yourself or

you know, leveling up and making a difference and going the extra mile. sit down, watch a little TV and, and even for many people, if you sit down and watch a little something, it just sucks you in like, entertainment can hijack your life. And so you get, you get pulled into it, right? And zoop, and then you end up watching hours or even binge watching something. And then you start looking at the cost and what is it costing me?

of time away from my family being disconnected from family being not really truly being present. Then it might cost you if you watch something negative. You watch the news you watch some something that's inappropriate it gets in your head and that scene that image plays again and again and again and it creates fear and it creates lust and it creates comparison. And so you get what I'm saying now. my goodness this whole equation just starts to expand.

big time from wasting time to negative input that now like an image that gets stuck in your head or a thought or an idea or a limiting belief that gets planted there through media. And it stays there sometimes for the rest of your life. And a lot of people I talked to people all the time, they literally operate their thinking system, and their ideas and their philosophy. They got from the TV. And what's it costing?

Rachel Denning (07:20.974)
Whoa, you see, you see how this just got huge. So there's a cost for everything. I call it the exchange rate. Some people call it opportunity costs. That's kind of an economic term that when you take action on something, you're necessarily not taking action on something else. And so there's an opportunity cost. If I take advantage of opportunity, a, I'm missing out on B and C and all the way through Z. What is what is a costing me?

And so I want to, I want to step this out my friends and say, what are your current mindsets costing you? What are your current heart sets costing you? What are your current skill sets costing you? And all of this is lack of two, right? What lack of skills? What are my, what's my lack of skills costing me? That is huge. man, that one's gigantic.

the skills that I lack because maybe I've been watching TV or just taking it easy or maybe I just didn't even know or I didn't put in the extra effort. And I lack some skills. It's costing me like for some of us, I'm not kidding. Your lack of skills is going to cost you millions of dollars over your lifetime.

And not just monetary value, right? It's going to cost you opportunities, privilege, education, skills, experiences, growth. I think we could argue an infinite amount of growth that you're missing out on because you lack skills. Like let that hit home and impact. What difference could you make in the world and the lives of other people if you had

those better skills? What is your lack of skills costing you? man, this one's hitting home hard, isn't it? let's keep going. What are your actions costing you? What are your words costing you and costing others? When you say something? What's the cost? It's your impression to other people.

Rachel Denning (09:34.478)
good or bad. It's words sometimes that other people will hear from you that they will hang on to for the rest of their lives good or bad. What's it costing you? What's it costing them? Is it reputation? Is it legacy? Is it legend? Is it your life's mission and work? What are your habits costing you? What are you trading your life for?

that you might at the end really regret because you could have done life differently. Now this isn't always negative. I mean, I really want you to do a full examination here and really examine what it's costing you, but it isn't always negative. You might look at it and say, yeah, this thing is costing me, you know, this much. I guess my whole my whole point here is I want you to just examine it and realize, yeah, that's worth the cost.

Some of you are going to say, you know, we have this vacation home or we have this boat or I want to drive this nice car or I want to have the best of the clothes, the best of gear, the best computer, the nice furniture. I want to have a big house or I want to live in a tiny house and I don't want to own a car. Like what I want you to do is deliberately choose and the exchange rate is different for every single one of us. So we can't pass judgment because let's say, for example, that I look at my family and my life and my mission and I say, yeah, you know,

Having that thing in my life just isn't worth the exchange rate. So I choose not to, but I shouldn't take that my equation and put it on somebody else and say, well, they should neither because that's a poor exchange rate. Maybe not. Maybe, maybe for them, it's different. I definitely think there are some common denominators for all of us. Like, like the whole entertainment thing. I feel strongly about that just because that's what you have told me what others have told me when I talked to him. I say, what's.

What is holding you back? What is keeping you from your true potential? What's the thing that's draining your energy? What's the thing that's sucking your time that you'd rather be doing something greater? What's the thing that you know you're getting a poor exchange rate? And across the board, people say, yeah, it's entertainment. It's turning to entertainment. When I really would rather do something else that's more valuable. It's costing me a lot. And so that's coming from you and others telling me that.

Rachel Denning (11:48.846)
So there are some common denominators, but for each of us, it's going to be different. For some, we're going to say, yeah, having a huge house worth it. Having the really nice car worth it. Having the nice friend, whatever, whatever it is in your life worth it. You know, a hobby, some kind of recreational thing, whatever it is, but make sure I want you to be super deliberate and intentional and aware. I'm going to do another podcast here soon talking about awareness and just this awake -ness.

being so keenly aware of everything that's influencing and affecting your life. Many of us have no idea what all these things are costing us. We've never even thought about it. This might be the first time you think about it. And I hope you really take it seriously and think through it like everything I'm doing every single thing, what is it costing?

and then start looking through it. So what are your choices costing you? And sometimes we avoid making choices because we think, if I don't act on it, then there's no exchange rate. But that's not true either because no choice is actually a choice. And every choice is choosing out of other things. So we choose one thing, we're necessarily choosing ourselves out of others. So there's an exchange rate in everything. Now I don't want you to be super hypersensitive about this and hesitating all the time.

But I want you to make choices, make lots of choices. Keep choosing. Keep going. Keep experimenting. Life is this great big experiment. Keep going, but keep evaluating. The biggest problem is when we're just operating blindly, unknowingly, we're just making choices without thinking about the cost. So think through the cost. Remember that you've probably seen this object lesson where you have a big stick.

And one side of the stick is choice and the other side is consequence. And however much you move the choice side, it necessarily moves the consequence side. Every choice has a consequence. Or in this case, we could say every choice has a cost. Now a big, big warning here. Many choices have delayed consequences.

Rachel Denning (14:02.894)
Man, that's a big one. So many of us and so many good people get into big trouble because of delayed consequences. They make a choice and they're like, huh, see, it didn't cost me anything. No big deal. Let's roll with this. And they don't realize there's a delayed consequence. Especially true of like addictions. That's an easy example there. You start into that and you're like, man, no big deal. I'm not different here.

or letting off good habits or starting in the negative ones. You might do it a couple of times and realize, Hey, you know, I don't feel any different. I'm not seeing any drastic difference. I don't think this is costing me anything. And there's delayed consequences. So always be aware of those and listen, listen carefully to the wisest people that have ever lived, the greatest teachers and leaders and philosophers and thought leaders and people who are older, like looking back on life.

who've experienced the delayed consequences. Those are the things we need to listen to. And again, like in every moment, once we once we act or choose not to act, we've lost that moment, that moment's gone. And so we've got to we got to say, what is it? What is this costing us in our use of time? So I made a list of kind of comparisons to just evaluate some costs. And so I just want to share some of these just with the with the hope and intent that you'll

Listen to these contrasts and just think through yourself and your own life. What is it costing you? What's the exchange rate? What's the opportunity cost? The first one is faith versus fear.

If you choose to have faith, what does that cost you? If you choose to have fear, what does that cost you?

Rachel Denning (15:50.798)
That this is a big one. So many people are are literally operating from fear. And we tell ourselves and we fool ourselves into thinking that we're being cautious, we're playing it safe. But the reality is at the end of the day, many of us are just hiding behind our fears. And we're not stepping forward and doing the things we know we could do and stepping up to our capabilities and our potentials.

We're living far below our potential because we're afraid. What, what does fear cost you and your family and the world? What, what possibilities have we not yet accessed as, as human beings all together in our big community of humanity because some of us are living in fear.

What does cowardice cost you versus courage? What does courage cost you? It has an exchange rate. If I'm courageous and I take action, some people are going to be threatened by that. They'll be bothered. Some people, if I move forward boldly, I might have to leave others behind. For example, I'm just kind of thinking out loud here. So there is a cost, but what's the cost of cowardice? What's the cost of conformity?

Many people will not end up living their dream life, the life they long for. Even I would say the life that some of them were born to live because of conformity. We just acquiesce. What is conformity costing you?

being hypersensitive to the opinions of others. Making your own life decisions based on what you think others will think of you. What does that cost you? How about scarcity versus abundance? What does that cost you to think in a scarcity mindset? Well, I can't afford that we can't do that. When your kids come to you with an idea like, hey, man, what would be cool to do this? You say we can never afford that. What do you think money grows on trees? Geez, what do you think? You think we're made of money? We can't do that.

Rachel Denning (18:05.518)
Instead of saying, that's a fantastic idea. Wouldn't that be awesome? How could we afford that? That's quite a bit of money. It'll toss this. What do you think if you want to, you want to take that big trip or you want to get that great thing? How could you do that? How could we bring more abundance into our lives? How could we generate? How could, how could we hustle and bring that in? What could we do? Right. That's the abundance mindset. But so many of us live in scarcity. Again, that's the fear. And there's this, we think there's this scarcity of

of goodness, we think if others succeed, that means I fail. If others get praise, that means I'm not as important or valuable. If we're in a group and somebody stands out, that means means I'm below them. You see what I'm saying? The scarcity thing creeps into all of our lives. And there's a gigantic exchange rate on that it costs us to live with a scarcity mindset. What about being closed minded?

versus open minded. What does a closed mind cost us? You know, one of the greatest dangers is when we hold on to an opinion. So somebody one time said, it's not what you don't know that hurts you. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so that hurts you, right? It's believing so stubbornly, pig headedly and something that's actually wrong. And so hold opinions, you guys be bold, but please allow your opinions to be tested and tried.

Let it push it through the fire. See if it holds up. And if it doesn't, let it go. We get into a lot of trouble when we hold on to an opinion, we're really close minded about something. Be open, like, and we do this socially big time. Whatever, whatever opinion we kind of hold as a society, wherever we kind of grew up our way of our way of being raised, we just think that that's the best way for some reason.

I guess because we feel threatened like, well, if it's not the best way, why would we be doing it? Why did I grow up in a society that does this? Anyone else does the opposite. They must be wrong. Even from driving on one side of the road to the other. Do you think, that's the wrong side? Or do you think, that's just another side? You with me? Like we close our minds down just because that's what we're familiar with. That's what we know. And so we just think, anyone who does that differently, be willing to have an open mind. What does a closed mind cost you?

Rachel Denning (20:32.27)
addiction versus action. And I purposely put those together. Addiction many times keeps you from action because it traps you or addiction versus freedom. What are your addictions cost you? That's an easy one to think through. There's an equation there, but I want you to think through it and I want you to be aware of your addictions. I think we all have some kind of addiction. What are your addictions costing you?

even in the context of freedom.

and especially relationships and potential. Wow. What about this? Tearing other people down versus lifting them up. Sometimes we were pretty quick to, and we're almost trained to it socially. We're trained and conditioned to find fault with others, to make fun of them, to tease, to bring humor at the expense of another person. You see it all across the media and we're trained up in our little government schools to treat each other like that and tear each other down.

What is that costing you with derogatory comments to your kids are like, you're so dumb. you're stupid. Why do you do such dumb things? Or well, anyway, even the subtle things, really, really, you're gonna do that. And when we have this kind of snarky thing, or we kind of guilt trip them, you see what I'm saying? Like, what is it? What does it cost us when we use negative words, we tear people down? What does it cost us? What does it cost them? That's huge.

There's an exchange rate there for those words. What does it cost us if we do nothing versus doing something inaction versus action? Many of us lose out because of inaction of doing nothing. man, we lose out. What does it cost you when you do nothing?

Rachel Denning (22:29.806)
How about this taking risk versus taking rest? Now resting can be good. Obviously there's times we need recovery and rest and I think we should have plenty of rest in our lives. So we're energized and alive and rejuvenated. But in this case, you know, many people are constantly seeking rest. That's all they seek after. That's the only thing they want is rest. They just want rest, rest, rest, rest, rest. They just are addicted to rest. And I put it in this contrast of taking risks because

When you take a risk, you have to own up to it and you have to go after it. It becomes a big risk if you take a risk and you do nothing about it. And so when you take a risk, it's action. It requires a lot of action. Sometimes you sacrifice some rest in order to take action on your risks. And what does that cost us if we're just constantly resting or avoiding risk? How about this contrast?

Energize or rationalize. What does it cost us when we rationalize things, when we justify, when we make excuses, when we say, you know, I'm just so tired. I just don't have energy. And so instead of choosing to bring the energy and energize the moment and the relationship and the circumstance, we just rationalize away and, you know, I'm tired. And so I give my leftovers to my kids or to my work or to my mission.

And I rationalize, you know, I can't do it all and I'm tired. And so instead of choosing to bring the energy and bring the excitement, right, because sometimes life loses its excitement merely because we forget or neglect to make it exciting. Woo, how about that? And we rationalize, wow, no, life's tough. it's hard. Life got in the way. And what's that costing us? How about?

confusion versus clarity. What is confusion or the lack of clarity costing you? See people who are confused, they don't take action.

Rachel Denning (24:32.558)
They justify, they rationalize, they hesitate, they procrastinate. They don't move. What is your confusion costing you? And the vast majority of the times people are confused or lack clarity simply because they have not yet put in the work to make things clear, to get out of the fog of confusion. It takes effort. Thinking's the hardest thing we can do. You gotta study, you gotta learn, you gotta really get in your mind palace and dig through it to get clarity.

And it takes some work and we're often afraid of the work or afraid of the answer. And so we may re we remain in confusion. What is confusion? What is ignorance? What is the lack of clarity costing you? Obviously using time versus losing time. man, this whole idea of killing time, who I think it was throw again, who said, as though you could kill time without injuring eternity. Right? Like there's,

And Darwin said this, he said, any man who dares waste an hour of life, or an hour of time does not understand the meaning of life, something like that. And it's so true. We shouldn't dare miss out on losing time. What's that costing us? How about action versus distraction? You know, the word the word action is in the word distraction.

And it's almost like it's beautiful. Like, it's it's pulling us away from action. Distraction pulls us away from action. What is distraction costing you? And my friends, I think we are living in the age of distraction. Holy guacamole look around like it's it's everywhere from alerts and messages and dings and beeps and you know, advertisements and commercials and

Look here. Look there do this do that. my goodness. We live in the age of distraction. What is distraction costing you? Get really clear about that one, please When you're distracted It's costing you so much. What about this our tools or weapons? We have so many things in our lives that we can use as tools or we can use as weapons Your cell phone is is one of those things your cell phone can be a tool or it can be a weapon It can build your life or it can actually destroy it

Rachel Denning (26:55.086)
Think about that. There are a lot of good things in the world that are completely neutral. Money can be a tool or it can be a weapon. Education can be a tool or it can be a weapon.

Right? Skills, some skillsets. So like, what is it costing you when you weaponize your words? We talked about that earlier, right? Your words can be tools or weapons. What does it cost you when you take a tool and make it a weapon? Here's another one. Your net worth or Netflix? You like that one, don't you? What is, this is a funny question. What is Netflix costing you?

And we could even go straight across. What is Netflix costing you in your net worth? Well, it's at least eight bucks a month, but probably more because you spend all these hours when you could be hustling and building your side business or growing your business or whatever, serving or making a difference or whatever, but you with me? What's it costing you? How about excuses versus results? What do your excuses cost you? In fact, even just in that exact context?

What are your excuses costing you in terms of results? Because you can have excuses or results, but you can't have both. And then growth or ease. Growth is uncomfortable. It takes a lot of work and effort. And it is fun and exciting like we've talked about in the very beginning here. Like growth is great. And it's, man, it's fun. Take on a challenge, face your challenges, chase down your dreams, get growing, get uncomfortable, be willing to suck at something until you're...

suck at it long enough to become great at it. Right. The contrast of that is taking it easy. And we want just ease. We want comfort and ease and we don't want to avoid the challenge of growth and discomfort and sometimes the embarrassment of growth and putting ourselves out there. And I just want to take it easy. And we literally spend our lives with this unconscious or totally conscious pursuit of ease. We just want ease.

Rachel Denning (29:01.998)
What does that cost you? I think it costs us, we lose out on a deep life and it ends up being really shallow. Instead of a full life, it ends up being real hollow.

Rachel Denning (29:19.278)
And that's what it costs us. And that's a heavy, heavy price. So my friends, think so much on what everything is costing you. Make sure that you are seeing the right cost on it and the exchange rate and the opportunity costs. Like just go through everything in your life and say, what is this costing me? And if you realize there's something in your life that's really costing you a lot, maybe there's a hobby you have, but man, you realize it's costing.

it's taking a huge toll on your relationships. Gotta go. If you're pursuing work and a career, but it's unfulfilling, it's miserable. Every time you go, you're sick, you hate it, but it's paying the bills and you're like, I don't know, is this costing me too much? Can I change careers? And maybe you've got some friendships or family relationships that are really strange, struggling or even toxic. And you might need to distance yourself a bit in a very tactful, diplomatic way.

change that up. So look through every part of your life, say what is this costing me, evaluate the cost, and if it's just not worth the cost, and make sure it's the right thing. Some of this can get distorted. I've seen people really twist and distort this and say, well, you know, I dumped all of they literally abandoned really good things, because they do some fuzzy math on their equations thinking, no, it's costing me too much. And so they step away. Again, this isn't

This isn't to say, you know, do the equation and if it's costing you a lot, avoid anything that costs you a lot because the great things in life, they will cost you a lot. The most valuable things in life have a high price tag. So I'm not saying, you know, don't, I'm not saying to avoid things that have a high cost. Because if you pursue, pursue greatness, there's a high cost there. I'm saying.

evaluate things that have a negative costs or a loss cost like get clear about what's absolutely most important to you and get clear on that what it costs you so if if having all kinds of fancy nice things and stuff you're constantly away from your family like you can't even be with your family and enjoy life together because you're paying for all this fancy stuff may not be worth the cost or maybe you're just at a job where you need to totally step it up and double or triple your income.

Rachel Denning (31:43.886)
and you can and so maybe maybe that that work or or the level of work you're you're doing when you're at work is costing you see what I'm saying there's so many ways to see this but evaluate every part of your life see what it's costing you run run the equations in your head and choose those things that bring the most value to your life and your mission and purpose and the way you want to do life because awesome is always an option and we can live extraordinary lives my friends.

If you want some, if you want some help, like really combing through this, go to gregdenning .com and sign up for a coaching session and I can send you a full life assessment and we can sit down together and help you get really clear about where you are and where you want to go and what it costs you. And we can talk about this and work through it and help you build out a plan and get all these equations dialed in so that you're so crystal clear in your priorities and you're giving your time and effort and energy and life.

to the things that bring you the most value. Love you guys, go make it happen, reach upward.